"Puttin' On The Hawg"

I had the opportunity to perform my niece’s wedding several years back.  I always remind couples that the wedding is a magnificent moment for them and their families.  It is a new journey on the road of life.  It is a time of worship, a time of new beginnings, and a time of celebration.

For the Hopper family is a time of “Puttin’on the Hawg.”   You might say “Putting on the Dog.”  We do not do weddings in the tradition of most folks.  Yes, we have all the dainty foods of most weddings, but we take it just a step further.

Here is how we do it.  Once the date is set, I, the preacher of the family do the marital counseling and offer my cache of wedding ceremonies.  I have the spiritual responsibilities of Hopper weddings.  In fact, I had another Hopper wedding in November of same year as the one above for a nephew at the same church. 

My sister, mother of the niece and nephew, usually decorates the church and a fellowship hall and cooks most of the food and the wedding cake.  She sure had a delicious wedding cake this time.  My sister also hired a DJ (disk jockey) to play music.  No, the DJ was not at the church, but at the Jefferson State Performing Arts Hall.

One of my brothers, and his father-in-law grilled one hundred chicken halves and pulled the meat.  He marinates the chicken in a secret sauce.  You do not need any barbeque sauce to moisten the chicken when cooked in this family secret sauce.  As with any true Southern barbeque, the secret is in the sauce. 

If you are wondering about “Puttin’ on the Hawg” and I am writing about chickens, my other brother cooked a 150-pound pig.  Yes, he slow cooked a whole hog.  In the dining hall, there was a whole hog, with an apple in its mouth, on the serving table.  Can you tell it was not a Jewish wedding?  His wife cooked potato salad, baked beans, and slaw.  All other family members help serve and do cleanup.

We have always shared God’s blessings with anyone who attends one of our gatherings.  That’s the way it is when the Hoppers have a wedding or any other kind of get together we invite everyone and anyone.

When I entered my nephew’s wedding celebration that night, I saw an old friend.  We call him “The Comiss” because he is one of Chilton County’s Commissioners.  As I passed him on the way to the DJ to make a special announcement, he called out to me saying, “Hey Hopper, you sure have made a fancy preacher.”  I mingled with the guests.  After a while, I asked “The Comiss” and his wife if I might sit with them and reminisced. 

Heedy, “The Comiss,” was the first person that invited the Hopper family to church.  I will never forget that night.  Heedy had only been a Christian for a short time, but he immediately started sharing his faith.  Looking back, he was very young, less than twenty-five years old.

I was ten or eleven years old when he visited our house.  I was lying on a ragged couch in our old shack of a house.  I remember that I had on an old jacket without having on a shirt.  My brothers, sister, and I always took off our school clothes and put on our ragged clothes when at home. 

What amazed us about his visit was that he was inviting us down to the place all the rich and well-to-do people were going.  We could not understand why he would do something like that.  We were poor, lived in a shack.  Church had better sheds and barns than our shack. I felt embarrassed that night.  I remember looking up at the deteriorating sheetrock ceiling, the worn tar exposing linoleum, and the old propane gas space heater and wondering why he wanted us to come to church and hear more about Jesus.

We did start going and Heedy would become my RA leader.  After I married, he and I would decorate the church for special events.  We would take swimming pool filtering equipment and clean the dirty creek water that we pumped out of the fire truck into the baptism pool.

He and I were elected deacons at the same ordination.  We fished, hunted, worked, played, and most of all, worshiped together.  We sang in the choir, took the RA boys deep-sea fishing and all night camping, and went on church visitation together.

I cannot help but think about all the push on evangelism today.  I am glad folks like Heedy share their faith.  I am leery of more emphasis on evangelism without discipleship.  I thank God for a church and a friend that did more than invite to come to church, they were mentors who discipled me.

During the wedding ceremony I reminded everyone that we in a worship service.  In fact, When Heedy invited the Hopper kids to church; he was introducing us to Jesus, the groom, in anticipation that we would become part of the church, the bride of Christ.

The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.  Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage (Matthew 22:8-9 KJV).