So, James tells us, “But be doers of the word and not just hearers who deceive themselves...”
As soon as I read this, a memory came flooding back.
When my granddaddy was alive down in Red Bank (just outside Chattanooga), he and I were part of a secret club. Actually, we were the only two members of the club, and now it's just me, so I reckon it's ok to let you in on the secret. It really wasn't much of a secret to begin with (I'm pretty sure my Grandma and Mom knew) – it's just we never talked about it. My granddaddy said it wouldn't be as much fun doin' it if we told everyone, and as a kid that seemed to make perfect sense.
The secret is this: the day before Christmas Eve, we would go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of stuff. All sorts of canned goods, staples, canned ham, candy, whatever we could lay our hands on while the women of the community fought over the last of the canned cranberry jelly and pumpkin pie filling. We'd store our treasures in the trunk, and then on Christmas Eve, he'd announce to everyone that he and I were going to go out for one last look at the lights. But we really didn't look at any lights. Instead we'd just drive. This way and that way. Just driving around until he'd slow down the car and say, “This is the one.”
And we'd park out on the street, open the trunk, then grab those groceries and run as fast as we could up to this perfect stranger's porch, and leave them there. Then we'd high-tail it back to the car and back home for the rest of the night.
And we never talked about what we did.
Eventually I asked why we had to keep it a secret. It seemed to me that if more people got involved, we could hit more houses. Do more good. Maybe even have a newspaper story written up about it. Maybe even get on TV. Granddaddy would always shake his head and say, “Naw, it's better if it's just us. Better to be like Santy Claus.” But each passing year, as I got older, I thought I had the right of this issue – we should get more people involved.
So, I asked over and over. And one night, we pulled into the driveway after our Christmas Caper, and we sat there in the car while I tried to reason with him again. Then he just looked out the window and told me a story.
Back when I was little, back when he and my Grandma had their general store and farm in deeply rural Red Bank, there was a grizzled, bearded old man named AJ Sykes. I remembered this old guy. He was a crank and a holy roller prophet, and the meanest dude I'd ever met. AJ said his name stood for “Avenging Justice,” and to me that was about right. But from the way my granddaddy would laugh, I don't think it was true. But he did act like a fiery angel come down to separate the wheat from the chaff. He lived back in Falling Water, right off the creek, in a ramshackle home, a perfect fit for all those hollers and hills in rural Appalachia.
It was the only place I knew that had an outhouse that was actually still in use. He had mean old dogs and mean old cats and even mean old chickens that would join their furry brethren in the attack when you went up to the house. In fact you DIDN'T go up to the house. If you needed to see AJ, you parked on the street and honked your horn until he came out on the porch and sized you up.
I can remember that, when I was a boy, AJ would still come to the store in a horse and buggy because he was always working on his car, a car that he never seemed to get to run. I loved when he'd amble up to pay a visit with my granddaddy and pay his respects to my Grandma. I'd take a bucket of water out to the horse, and my Grandma would give me an apple to feed him. He grunted and growled when he talked, sounding like he was born with a plug of tobacco in his mouth. His beard was stained and as often as not he stank to high heaven because he hadn't done his laundry in ages.
But then, out there in the driveway, on that Christmas Eve, my granddaddy told me something wondrous. Our secret club – it was started by AJ. See, AJ didn't have any family. He just had his animals. He had fought in the war and had worked for the railroad, so he had some pensions and managed to put a little away each year. And each year, he'd clean his clothes, comb his hair, and take the horse and buggy down to the Red Food Store and buy groceries. And each Christmas Eve, late at night, he'd ride out onto the lonely backroads until he found just the right house. And he'd leave the groceries on the porch.
I wondered about that, how it must be to be in your house and hear a buggy clatter down the road and stop. How maybe you might start thinking that Santy Claus really was out there. My granddaddy laughed at that and said I might be right.
Now the time came when AJ decided he needed to pass this tradition on. So he roped my granddaddy into the Christmas Caper. And they did it together for years before AJ died. And then I got roped into the Caper, too.
But my question still was unanswered. Why not get others involved? And Granddaddy got kinda quiet and he started to explain. “People were afraid of AJ. If not afraid, they certainly didn't care much for him. That's a rough man with a rough life, and it's hard to get past that. And he knew it.” “Then why you?” I asked.
He looked at me and said, “I grew up with AJ. We played in his creek when we were little boys. As bad as he could be all grown up, I always saw that little boy. So, maybe, when he and I were sneaking around on nights like this, we were being little kids again.”
Maybe they were. Maybe they were reliving those days. Days before the Great Depression, days before the War. Days before the tears brought on from losing children to measles, before losing a home to fire, before having to start over again and again, before looking back was a lot farther than looking forward.
But now I think maybe they were living the Gospel. Maybe they weren't doing this thing to call attention to themselves. Maybe they weren't acting like Pharisees, paying lip service to loving God and loving their neighbor. Maybe they weren't putting on their Sunday best to be seen by others in their Sunday best. Maybe they WERE their Sunday best on each of those cold December nights when everyone else was snuggled in at home.
Today, I'm standing up here today in my Sunday best. And I'm thinking that since my granddaddy died, I tried to keep the Christmas Caper going for a few years. But it just wasn't the same. But I'm also thinking that it doesn't have to be the same. That's not really the point of what we did. It's not the point of what THEY did. And it's not the point of AJ's life, the man who more than anybody I ever knew was a “doer of the word and not just a hearer.”
For “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” I hope that maybe, just maybe, I'll hear this reading today in a new light and maybe, just maybe, remember AJ as I go about my life. And maybe, just maybe, someday, I'll rope somebody new into a different Christmas Caper.