The Company of Judas

Copyright (c) 2026, David Albert Farmer

Dedication

For all the clergy, in the next world now, who chose suicide to end soul-piercing pain; and for their grieving family members and friends left in this world to mourn both the losses of their loved ones and the churches who, falsely claiming Jesus’ leadership and power, did what the eleven did when Judas pronounced himself an irredeemable and lost cause, a well-tied noose around his neck—nothing.

Prologue

“…incivility and abuse directed toward pastors is tantamount to ‘killing the prophets.’”

—G. Lloyd Rediger, Clergy Killers

Chapter One Destination Clarified

“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him” (Matthew 3:16 New Revised Standard translation of the Bible)

Sow and Reap Fellowship had a fine reputation in the community as had been the case from its founding a decade or so before Turner Dennington III was born in nearby Jasper. The church had made great strides in its efforts to eradicate racism, especially under the leadership of its kindly love-God/love-all pastor for twenty-two of its thirty-five years, the Reverend Alton Andrews, whom the locals in Blue Ridge called Brother Alt.

Turner’s grandfather, T. Dennington Sr., had been the first preacher of color invited to step into the Sow and Reap pulpit; the initially all-white congregation loved Rev. Dennington from that first sermon on. Regular invitations to return became the norm. He and Brother Alt originally met when both marched with Dr. King toward Selma.

Hiring a King-loving preacher and, soon thereafter, welcoming a guest Black preacher into their pulpit were clear signs to them that the racist leanings of their parents and the unholy traces remaining in them were being washed away in the blood of the Lamb, leaving their garments, in the language of a rousing old hymn, spotless—as white as snow. Those spiritual garments were unmistakably white on the outside, as white as a KKK hood, and eventually, praise God!, spotless on the inside too; they imagined, communally at least.

“Have you been to Jesus,” so many of them loved to sing at the monthly Sunday evening Supper’n’Song, “for his cleansing power?”

“Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in God’s grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

And then the chorus. The volume on the chorus shook the building. Even those who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket belted out the chorus.

“Are you washed…” (sopranos, tenors, and those who were just making some kind of joyful noise).

“In the blood…” (chimed in the legitimate altos and basses along with women who’d nicotined away their upper vocal registers and men who were scared to death in a non-homophobic way that singing too high a note might make them gay).

“In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb” (everybody together now for the rest of the song).

“Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

There was often conversation about whether a church trying to be rid of all traces of Caucasian superiority should be singing enthusiastically about an all-white anything, even symbolically. As Black members came along who also loved rousing old hymns including this one, nothing was ever done about it, which didn’t keep sensitive souls from being concerned.

Most members of Sow and Reap Fellowship were down-home good folks like their beloved Brother Alt who was celebrating his sixtieth birthday and simultaneously the fortieth anniversary of his marriage to his cherished Bobbie Jean Southland with a long-planned cruise to Alaska. He was delighted Turner III was following in his now-retired grandfather’s ministerial footsteps and in the area from time to time when he was home from seminary in Boston, at Dr. King’s Alma Mater. Alton would invite him to preach at Sow and Reap whenever all the puzzle pieces were fitting together as they needed to.

Turner was not such an experienced preacher yet that he failed to appreciate the benefits of a trial run of his nearly-completed Sunday morning sermon preached to empty pews on the Saturday night before. Preacher, prepared sermon, and pews were enough for a first effort; people would be added in the morning.

Everyone in Blue Ridge knew a spare key to the church’s front door was kept in a fake rock that looked nothing at all like the real rocks placed in the stunning rock garden, part of a generous landscaping bequeathal to the congregation, and specified for that project only, by the one-time matriarch of the church, the now-late Miss Cecil (no, not Cecelia; but named after her father, Cecil, realizing he was never going to father a son) Peabley. Wealth found Cecil because she’d bought stock in the Coca-Cola company when her cousin over in Atlanta told her now and then that the time was right to buy. A visiting missionary speaker had taught the congregation in a Bible study years earlier that the Apostle Peter’s name in Greek meant “rock.” Cecil just loved that! Thus, the Peabley Memorial Rock Garden with its one sore-thumb fake rock.

Turner drove over from Jasper, found the key as everyone who’d ever looked for it did, and unlocked the front door. It was dark inside the Sow and Reap worship space, but a little night light that never went out shone over the breaker box close to the door so he could flip on the lights and get on with his practice preaching. T-3 was always happy to preach there, and he was especially pleased to be able to preach the next two Sundays so Rev. Alt and Bobbie Jean could enjoy their vacation. By the time Turner began his sermon the next morning, pastor and wife would be on a plane to Seattle where they’d board their cruise ship.

The young pastor-to-be felt a preacher’s rush turning on just enough lights in the elegantly functional non-traditional sanctuary. The lighting in and around the baptistry behind the pulpit was especially striking.

That night when the switches were flipped he would witness the most horrifying display he, at the age of 25, had ever seen—maybe the most terrifying scene he’d ever come upon. The surreal display would start his heart to racing before suffocating him, with a fear and sadness he’d never shake, and setting the course for his future.