“The Prophet in the Parking Lot,” by Cecilia Kingman

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An Advent Story I told my congregation on the third Sunday of Advent. Every word really happened.

The Prophet in the Parking Lot

I met Jesus last night at the grocery store.

I was trying to find poinsettias, these poinsettias you see here. I was driving all around my neighborhood in South Seattle, trying to find fifteen perfect red poinsettias for this morning’s service.

I’d been to Lowe’s, where they only had a few scraggly pink ones. Now please, let’s not get started on the pink poinsettia debate. People have strong opinions about the colors of poinsettias. I don’t want to start a fight. It’s enough for you to know that Lowe’s did not have what I needed.

So I went to RiteAid. At RiteAid they had red poinsettias, but their leaves were brown and curling. It’s 8:45 at night, and I am a pastor on a mission, so off I go again.

You might wonder why I waited until Saturday evening to go buy these poinsettias. I asked myself the same thing as I headed through the doors of QFC. In my pajama pants.

At QFC I find what I am looking for. Lush, red, full flowered poinsettias, in all their Christmas glory.

I start filling a cart with these bushy poinsettias. One, two, three...anyone know how many poinsettias they had? Fifteen. Anyone know how many poinsettias fit in a grocery cart? That’s right. Fourteen and a half.

I push my precariously piled poinsettias over to the self checkout line. I pass a group of young people buying beer and chips. They look at me like they’ve seen Santa and his reindeer.

I remember my 20s, when I was just beginning my evening at 8:45. I would have been surprised to see anyone in pajamas at that hour, let alone a woman pushing a cart full of poinsettias through the self check at the South Seattle QFC.

With the manager’s help, I manage to purchase all these red poinsettias and slowly push the cart out the doors. I make a too wide turn and the fifteenth poinsettia rolls off the cart. I stop to shuffle everything, take number fifteen into the crook of my elbow like a baby, and awkwardly start pushing the cart again.

That’s when Jesus showed up.

Actually, it might not have been Jesus.

It might have been John the Baptist.

That’s Jesus’s cousin. John was a prophet before Jesus was, and he was kind of wild and wooly looking. He lived in the wilderness and they say he ate honey a lot.

This guy was more like that. Wild and wooly.

He was also drunk. Very drunk.

That happens sometimes, with prophets. Sometimes it’s lonely being a prophet. Sometimes their hearts are broken by the world around them, so broken that they want to stop feeling all the pain.

John said, “What’re ya doing with all those flowers?”

“It’s for church,” I said.

He gave a big sigh, a sigh like you give when you are finally defeated and just give in to someone’s incessant begging, and then with a giant hand like a bear paw he grabbed the end of my cart and started dragging it forward.

I awkwardly went on with my explanation. “We put up poinsettias in the church so we can remember our loved ones who died. Oh, there’s my car.” I point.

John pulls the overloaded cart to my car and over his shoulder says, “All my people are dead.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

John starts helping me load the poinsettias into my Prius.

“Yeah, all my people out here are dead. I’m from Tennessee. Everyone there is dead too.”

We load the car as John tells me about himself. He was a contractor until he got hurt. He is a vet, a former Marine. “I’ve been around the world three times” he declares proudly. “Not that it matters now.”

I stop and look him straight on. “Where’d you serve?” I ask.

His eyes go dark, and he holds my gaze for the first time. Then tears come to his eyes.

“Bad places, huh?” I say. “I’m sorry we aren’t taking good care of you, friend.” He brushes his eyes, and hands me the last poinsettia.

“Wait, why do you have so many poinsettias,” he asks me again.

“For church. I just finished my sermon and remembered I still needed to buy these poinsettias for tomorrow.”

“You the preacher?!” he exclaims.

“Yep,” I say.

“I know Jesus. I grew up with Jesus. I been a friend of Jesus all my life! I’m coming to your church tomorrow! Where is it?”

I try to imagine John, in his dirty clothes and still smelling of booze, coming into this sanctuary tomorrow. I struggle to picture it.

I tell John about our church. I tell him how far away it is from South Seattle, how hard it is to get to if you don’t have a car. I don’t tell him that I’m not sure how we would welcome him, how I would welcome him, right here in this room. I both want him to come, and it scares me.

I want to belong to that church. You know, the church that actually does welcome everyone. The church where a homeless, broken hearted vet, a man who has seen horror, who has lost everything and everyone, can come in and feel at home.

Boy, would John disrupt our lives! We would have to think about things we don’t usually think about. If we could love John as our own family, right here in this room, we would be transformed, wouldn’t we?

But John says he’ll just go up to First Baptist, where they know him. And I am saved, saved from the possibility of transforming love.

“Are you hungry?” I ask him. “I’ve got some food here.”

I give him some granola bars and juice boxes, you know, the food a mom has in her car. I offer him a bag of Cheez-Its.

“No way.” He says. “You shouldn’t eat those things.” I shrug sheepishly.

“What’s your sermon about tomorrow?” he asks.

“About how Jesus came to overturn everything we know.”

“Oh, I could tell you about Jesus!” He says. “I could teach you all about Jesus.”

“I know you could,” I say, and this time it’s me with tears in my eyes. “Do you need more food?”

“No, I’m good. You know what Jesus said, right? Man cannot live by bread alone.”

“Yes,” I say.

“You know how it ends?”

“But by the word of God” I say.

“Nope!” he says, chortling. “By sex! Man lives by sex!” He bursts out laughing at my expression.

“Friend, have you been drinking tonight?” I try to ask this kindly, the way you might speak to a quiet child or a shy bird in the woods.

“Of course I have been!” He laughs loudly. I laugh too. Right. Of course.

I close the trunk, then put out my hand. “I’m Cecilia. What’s your name, friend?”

“John,” he says.

Of course it is. Of course.

John swings the cart around to take it back. I start to get in my car.

“Hey wait, preacher! Can I have one of the flowers? Just to remember how beautiful they are?”

I get back out of the car and open the trunk. I lean in and try to break off one of the flowers.

“No, I mean, can I have one of those whole flowers.”

It’s 9:00. I have to go home and find a story to tell for this service. I don’t want to look for any more poinsettias in South Seattle.

I look at the poinsettias. I look at John the Baptist.

“John, I say. “Here’s the thing. You know how church ladies are, right? Now, I got fifteen poinsettias here, for fifteen people who ordered them to honor their loved ones. If I give one away, the church ladies are gonna count the poinsettias and then say, ‘Pastor, you’re missing a poinsettia.’ Right? And I’m going to be in trouble.”

He laughs. Hard. I can tell that John the Baptist does indeed know church ladies. He knows that pastors are accountable to the matriarchs, as it has thus ever been so.

“Nope, you can’t be missing one.” He laughs again.

I break off the biggest, prettiest flower I can find. It takes half the poinsettia with it. I tell John, “I’m going to turn this plant around so they can’t see where I broke it.”

He laughs his boisterous laugh again, and I swear that in the back of the dark car the poinsettias tremble and dance at its sound.

I put the big red flower into John’s worn hand. “I hope you are warm tonight.” I say.

I go around front to get back in the car. As I pull away, John shouts at me, “Preach good tomorrow! Tell em about Jesus!”

“I will,” I yell back. And I drive off with fourteen and a half poinsettias in my car, waving good night to the prophet in the parking lot as though we were family.

(John 1:6-8)

Written by the Rev. Cecilia Kingman Minister for Faith and Justice Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Congregation December 16, 2018