Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley Page B

up and Jesus ain’t wichya, then it truly is
a bad day. Not only for you but for every one of us in the
congregation!’
    ‘Amen,’
a few voices said.
    ‘Because
Jesus loves ya! He loves ya and he wants you to do right. An’
what is right? To have Jesus in your heart. That’s all. Because
if you got Jesus with ya you ain’t never gonna do bad. Jesus
won’t let ya do bad if you let him in. He won’t let you
go astray. No he won’t. The Lord is gonna stick by you just as
long as you stick by him. He’s gonna be a extra pair of eyes to
see wrong…’
    ‘Amen,
brother, show me them eyes,’ the shrimpy man in the baggy pants
said from the piano bench.
    ‘I
don’t need to show you, Brother Decker. I don’t need to
show ya because the Lord will show you. He will show you out from
temptation and you won’t even feel bad because the love of the
Lord is greater than money! It’s greater than love of a woman
or a man! It’s greater than freedom!’
    I could
feel the congregation tense up at those last words.
    ‘Yes,
chirren, the love of the Lord is greater than anything you can have
or desire. The love of the Lord is greater than anything.’ He
stopped and ran his eyes across the congregation. ‘Anything
that you can have or desire. Anything. If you see a new dress,
sister, and you think that that dress is gonna make you as beautiful
as Sheba, as beautiful as Cleopatra…’ He stopped, looking
around again, and then smiled a knowing smile… ‘But we all
know that beauty passes, don’t we?’
    He opened
his eyes wide, and a few laughs broke in the audience.
    ‘You
look in the mirror from one day to the next and you’ll see what
I mean.’ I glanced back at Reese.
    The
minister went on, ‘You young ones might not know it today, but
don’t worry, the Lord is gonna forgive ya. You give him a
chance, a half a chance, just a glimmer, a bare sliver of a chance,
and the Lord is gonna forgive ya. He will. I know it because he has
saved me.’
    We were
with him then, every soul in that church. And God was with us.
    ‘I
was a sinner. Oh yes, Lord, I was a big sinner. I lied and cheated
and you know the Lord don’t hold with no liar. I hated it but I
couldn’t help myself because if the Lord ain’t wichya
then you know that the devil is.’
    ‘If
the Lord ain’t wichya, you know the devil is.’
    ‘And
the devil was with me and I did his handiwork. You do it too. Oh yes
you do! Don’t sit back there and tell me that the Lord don’t
slip away from you sometimes when you see another woman wearin’
that pretty dress an’ you cain’t afford it. Don’t
tell me that ‘cause that’s a lie and lyin’ is sin.
Men and women is born to sin and the only way out is lettin’
Jesus in your heart. You cain’t help it, no you cain’t.
You men see a pretty girl an’ you know what you feelin’
is wrong but you cain’t help it, you cain’t. You not
gonna do it by yo’self! You need the Lord to help you do
right.’
    He paused
and took a glass of water from the piano. Somehow he made drinking a
part of the sermon. You could tell that his sermon had just come to
him as if God had flown down into him as he took the podium. No one
was talking, no one was looking around, no one shifted in their
chair. God was in the room with us in the shape of a fat minister
about the color of coffee with three spoons of cream stirred in.
    Perspiration
had broken out over the minister’s forehead. He took a fine
white handkerchief from his pocket and ran it across his brow, then
wiped his hands. By the time he was finished with his hands his head
was beaded up again.
    ‘I’m
sorry, brothers and sisters,’ he said with his head bowed. ‘I
have another sermon to give and you know I don’t believe in a
long sermon but today something got in me. That happens sometimes.
When you let the Lord in there’s no tellin’ what might
happen. The Lord might pick you up and throw you across the world.
You could be a young girl on the farm