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Fidgeting in her seat, Karina glanced up to take comfort from the stained glass image of the angel Gabriel as she gripped the envelope with her sermon inside. In less than half an hour she would be up at the front of the church speaking to over six hundred people and her stomach turned with fear that she would make a mistake. The thought of speaking publicly had always made her anxious, yet three weeks ago when the pastor began a new project to allow the members of the congregation to share what they were passionate about; Karina knew she had to let her voice be heard. She felt a light tap on her shoulder and turned around.
“Are you ready?” It was Cheryl, the woman who had spoken the previous week.
“As ready as I will ever be, I guess.”
The first notes of the ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ rang out and Karina once again looked up at the angel. Not many churches were adorned with this beautiful art anymore, but she was glad that her pastor had made the decision to reconstruct the church to make room for the designs that stirred such powerful feelings in ones soul.
When the choir stopped singing, Reverend Monihan stepped to the front, straightened his tie and welcomed everyone to Sunday service. After briefly giving the details of what happened throughout the week, he introduced Karina.
Standing, Karina could feel all eyes on her and her heart fell to the floor. She couldn’t be doing this, she thought, she just couldn’t; but despite her denial, she walked up the steps to the pulpit and placed her sermon down upon it. Tucking her long brown hair behind her ears, she cleared her throat and began to speak.
“Hello everyone, my name is Karina White.” She reached for the microphone and brought it down lower so she wouldn’t have to stretch too far. “I am going to be speaking on something that occurs in churches and in the Christian community way too often and that is instead of being there for one another, we judge.” Karina paused, looked down at her paper and breathed deeply, “There are many commandments in the bible, but there are two that Jesus said are the most important. The first one is to love God with our whole heart and soul and the second is to love our neighbour as oneself. But we disregard these words and do something he told us NOT to do; for example, how often do we talk about our friend’s mistakes or about the woman we know who is sleeping around? Yet we ourselves do things that make us equally imperfect…yes, that’s right…equally. Who gives us this right? It isn’t Jesus.”
Karina looked up towards the back of the church where another stain glass window brought in the sunlight. This one was a depiction of Jesus challenging the people who were gathered to stone the woman caught in adultery; a perfect illustration of her sermon. Filled with a newfound courage, Karina stepped away from the pulpit and her paper and pointed.
“See that window there? How many of us have been that woman? Yet at the same time, how many of us would have screamed out at the chance to throw a stone? Have we forgotten our past so easily? Do we walk a perfect step each day? We believe one thing… yet do another. Jesus had to remind the people of his day and wants to remind us now. We are on a road to the same destination; let’s lay down our stones.”
At the ending of her sermon, the congregation clapped and Karina walked quickly to her seat; her heart pumping so hard it felt as if it would fly out of her chest. It was over, she had done it. As the pastor began to speak, Karina looked up at Gabriel and if she didn’t know better; she thought she had seen him smile.
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