When Gunnar Hegland was sixteen, his father said to him, "I have to leave for a couple of days; my sister needs advice and comfort. No time even to pack. You're in charge."

Gunnar panicked: "But what will I do? I'm not old enough!"

"You can do it," his father said. "Don't worry, I'll be with you. Everything will be okay." And he was out the door.

This brief exchange was in a butcher shop on Main Street an hour or so before it opened for the day's business. Gunnar had grown up in this shop sweeping floors, clearing display counters, and slowly, gradually, entrusted with knives as he learned the meat-cutting craft. He loved the company of his father and the three other meat cutters, Jesse and Pat and Herb. This grownup world, this workplace, (it seemed to him) centered all the action of the town. When he was little, his mother sewed him a butcher apron out of flour sacks, and every year she sewed a new one to accommodate his growth.

Bible stories were told in his family, so Gunnar knew about the boy Samuel who served the old priest Eli; he knew all about the freshly fitted priestly robe that his mother sewed for him on her yearly visits. His imagination filled in the rest: he knew what it was like to be around the slaughter of animals; the worship shrine at Shiloh couldn't have been much different from his Dad's butcher shop. Customers assumed that his Dad was a butcher, but Gunnar knew that he was priest of the shop (and town), and that Gunnar was his assistant.

Still, the abrupt "You're in charge" took him off guard. Physically he was grown, true. He could throw a hindquarter of beef on the butcher block and turn it into steaks and roasts. But a lot here was more than physical work. There were customers to take care of, with all their quirks and preferences. There was money to count and deposit in the bank at the end of the day's work. There were the newspaper ads to adjust to weekend sales. He had never done any of these things—his father's meat cutters knew the behind-the-scenes intricacies far better.

"Why me? Why Gunnar?" But his father was gone and the questions hung unanswered.

Then came back his father's reassuring words, "You're in charge: you can do it; don't worry, I'll be with you; everything will be okay." And, as it turned out, it was okay.

Thirty years later Gunnar was the meat market owner. Reading his Bible one morning before work, this old scene recreated itself in his imagination. The passage he read was from John's Gospel as the risen Jesus Christ prepared to leave his disciples. He said to them: "'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:21).

What Gunnar heard from the text this time was, "It's going to be okay" (peace be with you); "You're in charge" (as the Father sent me, even so I send you); "Don't worry, I'll be with you" (receive the Holy Spirit).

An hour later, Gunnar entered the Main Street Market as a priest, sent by the Father.