The Back Row Part

Harold Cox

Have you ever looked under the hood of a car? At one time that may have been a relatively simple matter, but not any more. There’s a lot of parts that are needed to make a car run, and if you’ve ever been involved in any mechanic work with Papaw Key, then you already know that for every part you have to replace, there’s at least three more that you have to take off to get to it, and there’s always at least one extra screw or bolt that you can’t get to. It takes a lot of parts to make a car run, and sometimes they’re not always obvious or in plain sight.

It takes a lot of parts to make a church run, and sometimes they’re not always obvious or in plain sight. You look at a car and think: tires, motor, battery, gas, steering wheel, brakes. That much is obvious. I’ve seen cars lacking some of the above, and they don’t run very well. The church is like that. Preacher, Bible, choir, hymns, piano and organ; that much is obvious. But there’s a lot of hidden parts that can stop your car, and there’s more to the church than what is obvious.

Harold Cox always sat on the back row of the church. He wouldn’t sing in the choir; he didn’t sing along with the hymns; he didn’t pray out loud; he never taught a Sunday School class. He sat on the back row of the church. Until he got sick, he saw there every Sunday. When you had a special event at church he sat there for that. He was there for revival; he was there for singings; he was there for lunches; he was there for parties. If it happened, the odds are pretty good that Harold would be there. Hidden in the back row, but he would be there. He said that people had gone to a lot of trouble to make those events happen, and he thought he should be there to show his support. There’s more to church than what is obvious and it takes a lot of parts to make a church run.

Everyone knew Harold Cox and everybody liked Harold Cox. He never had a harsh or unkind word for anybody. He seldom had a serious word for them, either. He enjoyed teasing and joking and aggravating. His eyes lit up when he saw you coming because he knew that he’d have something clever to say in response to whatever he was told or asked. Everyone enjoyed his company because he enjoyed theirs. It always made you feel better when you visited Harold, whether he was in good health or not. He had something special, and he was glad to share it. There’s more to church than what is obvious.

When a part in your car goes bad, it’s simply, hopefully, a matter of just replacing it with a new part, and hopefully you had a lifetime warranty on it. Harold could do that for you. You’d have to listen to him tell you how you didn’t take very good care of your vehicle and how you should replace it with one that he just happened to know about and then he’d make up three other things that he’d tell you were wrong just to see the look on your face as you felt your pocketbook shrinking, but he could replace the part. It’s not that easy with people. There’s an empty spot on the back row; there’s an empty spot on the couch; there’s an empty spot in front of the TV whenever there’s a race on; there’s an extra plate at our church dinners.

You can’t see the spark plugs in our van, but it didn’t run very well when one went bad. I couldn’t see the fuel line in the little blue car, but the car knew when it wasn’t working. There’s a part missing from our church. It’s not so obvious just to look us over. The steeple’s still there; the altar and pulpit are still there; the candles are lit; the piano’s in tune; the overhead’s working again. But it takes a lot of parts to make a church run, and sometimes they’re not always obvious or in plain sight.

Our motor isn’t running very well right now, our idling is a little rough and hesitant; we’ve lost an important, if hidden part; a part that was always there for support, a part that was always there for a smile and laughter, a part that was always there for an encouraging and bright word, a part that looked like it was just sitting there when it was actually keeping the motor running smoothly. You’d think that a part sitting quietly on the back row wouldn’t affect that much, but it did.