Chapter 1: Not Working

David Blake eased the car out of the farm drive and onto the highway. The Gordons, like a lot of Jen’s parishioners, lived in a farmhouse although they both worked for industrial companies.

“So what did you think?” Jen asked.

“Nice folks.”

“What did you think about the sermon?” Jen was always invited to some family’s Sunday dinner after service, and he was included as her husband. Jen paid attention to their hosts while she was there, but she wanted ‘feedback’ on her sermon afterwards. He suspected that what she really wanted was some negative comments to verify her opinion that she was a poor preacher. It was an opinion he didn’t share, but today’s sermon had its faults. The Gospel had told about the Disciples walking through the fields husking and eating grain on the Sabbath. Jen had emphasized that the complaining Pharisees had ignored the worse offense of eating food which didn’t belong to them.

“Let me look something up before I go into this. Do you have a Strong’s?”

“Cruden’s. I’ll get it for you when we get back.” The Cruden’s was a paperback. He made a mental note. She needed a better concordance. A copy of Strong’s would make a good Christmas gift. When Cruden’s didn’t yield the reference he wanted under ‘basket,’ he gave that gift a higher mental priority.

He took a while to find the passage he wanted. He took the Bible to Jen opened to Deuteronomy, Chapter 23, and said, “Read verses 24 and 25.”

“Oh my God!” she said.

“The reason that the Pharisees didn’t raise the issue of the Disciples eating grain they had picked from somebody else’s field is that this was perfectly legal.”

“I don’t mind your knowing more than I do. After all ... But I got this idea from one of those sermon-starter books.”

“That’s a problem I’ve pointed out about myself. We New-Testament types don’t know the Old Testament well enough. Why do you think I read a chapter a night?”

“Because you need to know everything.”

“I’ll never know everything. Some days I suspect I’ll never know much ... Look. This isn’t working.”

“What isn’t?”

“Commenting on your sermons on Sunday afternoon.”

“You just have another agenda for Sundays.”

“Look. I’m not a professor of hermeneutics. I’m a content guy, a professor of New Testament.”

“You know more about preaching than I do.”

“Not a hell of a lot.”

“And I won’t make that mistake again.”

“You also won’t preach on that text for another three years. I really doubt you’d repeat that point, anyway. Why don’t you let me hear your sermon before everybody else does? Thursday night?”

“You want me to prepare earlier.”

“Not just that...” It wouldn’t hurt, though. Jen thought of herself as a poor preacher, so she skimped preparation -- which ended up with some poor sermons. This was mostly circular. Jen kept asking his advice on preaching, but she ignored the advice he thought most important. “But, you know, if you had one-tenth the respect for me as a preacher you claim to have, you’d at least listen to my advice on preparation.”

“I don’t have as much time as you want me to take.”

“But I’m not asking for more time, really. I’m asking for better-distributed time. Try it out for me, will you? A prep time on Tuesday or Wednesday. Three weeks out of four that will take only the extra twenty minutes of running through it once. The fourth week, you’ll be glad you took the time.”

“I’ll try.” Which, from anybody else, would have been a polite dismissal. Jen did try, though.

That meant another night in the week when the newlyweds -- well reasonably newly -- couldn’t make love. Jen didn’t want anything distracting her on Saturday night from her preparation for the service the next morning. Thursdays, Jen would come back from choir practice, gather and read over her sermon notes, and then deliver her sermon to a congregation of one. She was tired when she finished; it was late; more often than not, he would have some improvements to suggest, which -- however much she wanted them -- did not leave her in a romantic mood.

Friday nights, though, were as sweet as ever.

Then came the Thursday when her sermon ran over the half-hour mark. “Well,” she said, “I tightened as much as I could.”

“You tightened too much,” he responded. “You have two ideas there; choose one of them. If you want, preach the other point the next week. You’re married to me; you didn’t swear to love, honor, and obey the Lectionary.”

“I didn’t swear to love, honor, and obey you.”

“Campbell betrayed me. I bribed him to put it in.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “It’s a thought, though,” she said. Sunday, she preached on the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe, ending a little early.

“I’m glad I married you,” she said on the drive back from the Swensons’.

“I am, too. If we’d just shacked up, the Swensons might respect you less as their pastor.”

“Sometimes, I’m glad I married you.” But she was laughing. “I think today’s sermon was well-received. Much better than what I started with.”

“I think today’s sermon was very good,” he said.

“Much better than what I started with,” Jen repeated. “You didn’t say that, but you meant it.”

“I meant that it was very good. Don’t sell yourself short.”

After supper, he read the Gospel for the next week. Then he ended with, “And what struck you for today?”

“Everybody who knew him as a kid couldn’t believe he spoke with authority. What struck you?”

“The people had such little faith that not even Jesus could perform much in the way of miracles.”

They continued their discussion. After they’d finished, they stacked the dishwasher working together. “So,” Jen asked out of the blue, “should I preach on this or go on with Jairus’s daughter?”

“Whichever you feel your congregation needs to hear. And there are two more lessons, as well. You’re the preacher; I’m merely a consultant.”

“That’s not all you are.”

“No. But that can wait ‘til we’re done in the kitchen.”

Jen laughed. “Honeymoon’s over. You didn’t use to wait ‘til we were done in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t?” He grabbed a dishtowel to protect her dress from the grease on his hands. Then he hugged her to him and kissed her, his tongue meeting her welcoming one. He pulled her body against his by her wonderful bottom. Finally, they broke the kiss. “Did I act like that?”

“Something like that.”

“Extremely naughty of me.” he said. “Independence UMC provides this room for the preparation of its pastor’s meals, not for canoodling.”

“I’m sure that nobody on the Trustees intends this for canoodling.” She was laughing. The vocabulary was strange to her; he’d bet it wouldn’t be strange to the trustees.

“That’s why they provide all those bedrooms upstairs.”

She giggled. And, when the dishwasher was running, she headed up the stairs with her bottom waving to him.

His undressing her was less efficient than each doing himself, but they weren’t out for efficiency. They were home; when they were done, they need only turn off the lamp. The long drives after lovemaking were a thing of the past.

As soon as his hands bared a new part of her body, his mouth greeted it. Then she got in bed while he stripped. She turned on the lamp; he turned off the overhead light. When he climbed into bed beside her, they shared a sweet kiss before his mouth traveled down her body. As his mouth visited her ear and throat and shoulder, his hand stroked all that he could reach. When he kissed her nipple, though, her legs spread in silent invitation.

He stroked the insides of her thighs briefly, but soon he reached her mound. Her lips were nice and juicy when he reached them. He kissed across to her other breast and up to that nipple before he allowed himself to touch her nubbin.

As her breathing quickened, he kissed down over her belly. Then he had to break off to get between her legs. She spread them some more and raised her knees. He kissed the insides of her thighs, slowly tracing a path towards her center. He spread her outer lips before licking her inner ones. “Oh, yes, David,” she said.

She tasted sweet, and he concentrated on the lips until she pulled his head against her. Then he held a breast with his left hand and slipped the index finger of his right within her. She quivered when he first licked her nubbin. He alternated between that and her lips until he could feel her tense. Then he stroked the top of her tunnel as he licked her nubbin.

“Oh,” she said as she convulsed.

When she pushed his head away, he moved aside immediately. He came up in the bed to lie beside her and hug her. He brought her near hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Ready?” he asked when she seemed to be recovered.

“Oh, yes.”

They had another kiss with dueling tongues. He gave each breast due attention; he even kissed her thighs again. But, this time, he moved much more rapidly to her center. He avoided her nubbin, which would be much too sensitive right now, for her lips.

“David,” she said and pulled at his shoulders. As he moved up her body, she grasped his phallus. He paused for an instant as she guided him within.

How smooth she felt, and how warm. “Love you,” he said when he was fully ensconced.

“Love you,” she replied, moving her hips slightly up and down. He shifted his weight onto his elbows and his hands onto her breasts. Feeling the nipples tickle his palms, he began long, slow, strokes within her.