"Some Repetitive ALS Reflections"
Some friends want me to blog more often about what it's like on a daily basis to deal with the challenge of ALS (not more sermons!). Quite honestly, it's becoming easier to rewrite sermons than to think about my health realities. But, I'm going to give it a try.
If you've not heard any of us PALS (People with ALS) mention it before, please hear it this time: ALS has a way of randomly moving through our bodies. I am so amazed at how differently it impacts each of us. Some of us have no difficulty speaking after several years of ALS randomly choosing neurons to destroy. Others of us can speak but we often have to face that people believe we're drunk. Others of us have had to go to the adaptive assistive communication devices within a year or two of the disease starting through our bodies. Some never reach that point because ALS takes their lives within a year of diagnosis.
Then there are some who first notice it when they have difficulty gripping or lifting things. I first noticed it in my legs - not painful, but exhaustion was the word I most commonly used after short walks or stints of work. I also began to notice having difficulty catching my breath while trying to sing during worship services. I found myself choosing to sit down during most of the service and having other folks lead everything in the worship service except for the sermon. This was all developing nearly a year before diagnosis.
(Right now, I'm in need of pausing for awhile because my fingers and hands are shaking uncontrollably - so, more about that later.)
You get my point so far? We're all dealing with different stuff at different times. I no longer wonder so much about why the researchers are having so much difficulty coming up with a way to treat. They're certainly closer with what's happening to cause the deterioration of our bodies, just not the why it's happening nor any cures or treatments.
So, for those of you who are into my personal physical realities, I'll now launch into a recounting of a few of the things with which this PALS is dealing. The most notable cause of my no longer trusting my ability to stand in order to transfer from my power wheelchair to the bed, toilet, or shower chair appears to be the weakening of my right quad muscle area. I am having difficulty lifting my right leg up from a sitting or laying down position - a sort of marching exercise the physical therapists have recommended I try. The interesting aspect of that is the toes on my LEFT foot are curling under and the ones on my right foot are still fairly normal. This is not painful, but it bothers me and I ask every time someone is helping me for them to wiggle those toes. There are times when I can get to them myself, but most of the time it takes too much out of me to contort the way I have to in order to reach them.
I know most of you know that the functionless diaphragm and apparently area compensating muscles are the culprits for further changes in my ability to carry on conversations and the quantity of food I can eat at one sitting. I'm still, luckily, able to eat almost anything I want, but I get full even faster than a few months ago. I'm allowed and encouraged to snack and keep Dorothy busy with extra feedings. Weight loss is one of the big concerns for PALS. I lost several pounds before my June ALS clinic appointment (which we now believe was the result of a drug interaction) but gained a couple back for my September clinic appointment. I now am on an A-vap machine called a trilogy about 16 - 20 hours a day, depending on how much I've tried to talk or when I've had a shower. FYI - a trilogy is described as sort of a non-invasive respirator. I had asked the pulmonary doctor and respiratory therapist if there was something I could use that would allow me to remain mobile without resorting to a tracheotomy. The trilogy was recommended. It has a 6-hour battery life which allows us to continue to go.
Another continuing to worsen situation which influences what I order when we go out to eat are my wrists, fingers, and arm muscles. When I am able, I choose food I can eat with my fingers because silverware use is both awkward and energy depleting - I'm enjoying more potato skins and boneless wings as well as ribs instead of sandwiches, hardly a negative since these are some of my favorite foods anyway! Stromboli and pizzas as well as nachos have also found their way to my personalized menu ordering choices.
Another frustrating aspect of the weakening hand area muscles is that my ability to type is becoming more and more compromised. While I'm learning to use an eye-gaze system which will allow me to continue writing and using the internet, my communicating will be greatly slowed - believe me, it's impressive technology to blink one's eyes and thus have a computer type and speak for me, but it will be at a drastically reduced speed. For the single male who had the privilege of learning to type with about 20 female classmates during a summer early in high school and who was prideful enough to try and type as fast and accurate as them (I wasn't successful - they were all faster and more accurate than me), the thought of not being able to type with my fingers anymore is more than a little disheartening.
Let me move toward closing this health and life update by sharing a couple of things that create negative emotions in me. When I see people jogging or riding a bike with the obvious intention of staying in shape whether it is an act of labor or pure enjoyment of being active, I must admit some jealousy and self-pity. I miss pushing my body - testing its limits - enjoying the interaction of nature and the physical interaction with my body - and yes, competing.
What bothers me the most though, is not being able to be intimate with Dorothy conversationally or physically. Oh, I can whisper or have an app on my iPad speak for me, and I can hold her hand and give her a short kiss, but anything more is too exhausting. We miss talking about the things going on in our lives and the lives of our family and friends. We miss planning things together, being with other people for conversation or cards or meals out. Don't get me wrong, we appreciate the time we have together, feel very fortunate to have been able to do the things we've been able to do the last few years, and very blessed to have lived the lives together we have over the years. One of the mantras we've used these last three years is: "Thank goodness we like each other!"
Blessings on you all for your continued support and encouragement!
(By the way, I had trouble getting back at this because - wait for it - THE BROWNS WON!!! My stomach was all knotted up just like I used to get before a game when in high school and college! Sheesh, I don't need that, Browns! Oh, and the Indians had a good weekend as well, and the Buckeyes? Well, was that really a game?)
Monday, September 23, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Sermon: "Fountains of Tears"
"Fountain of Tears"
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Numerous speeches are given after national and/or international tragedies - 911, the Virginia Tech shooting, hurricanes Katrina & Sandy, the Japan earthquake and resultant tsunami, the shooting of Gabby Gifford, the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, and most recently the D. C. Naval Yard shooting, as well as others not as massive but more personal or closer to home. The speeches are usually full of words meant to inspire, motivate, and strengthen our resolve. For the most part they are good words - powerful words - patriotic words - inspirational words - comforting words - hopeful words. And, they do the job they are intended to do.
Such events usually are followed with appropriate sermons in places of worship. I have read several on the internet as well as created a few myself. Many of them are full of words meant to comfort - meant to heal - meant to spark a sense of hope in hearers - full of words about God's grace and love - full of good words - powerful words - insightful words - inspiring words - eternal words. And, they also did the job they were intended to.
But, we all know that words alone have not been, nor will they be in the future, enough. There used to be several books on my shelves full of short, pithy, thought-provoking sayings. Now, there aren't so many. A few years ago I looked up "words" in a number of those books and almost all of the quips had a note of warning in them about the danger of using words alone. Some of my favorites are: "Actions speak louder than words - and speak fewer lies." "People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do." "Kind words can never die, but without kind deeds they sound mighty sick." "The Christian's walk and talk must go together." "Beware of using sharp words. You may have to eat them later on down the line." "Works, not words, are the proof of love." "Superior to a kind thought is a kind word; better than both is a kind deed." "It is vain to use words when deeds are expected." "Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action."
Mind if I confess something to you? There were many times in my ministry and life when words didn't come. Sometimes when I was with people who were hurt deeply and appropriate words wouldn't come into my mind and out of my mouth, I cried. I cried, not because I couldn't think of anything to say, but because I hurt for and with them.
Words alone never bear the grief following the tragedies of life - they didn't after Columbine and they don't after the Navy Base Shootings or the deaths of faithful friends and family members and they never will. Besides words, it takes masses of people standing in line to donate blood - candlelight vigils and parades to honor those who've given their lives to help others. It takes fundraisers and raising money. It takes people putting their arms around one another and crying together. Yes, sharing words is helpful and important, but words are made more effective when the gathered people cry for and with the grieving as well as for one another.
In Urban T. Holmes' book The Priest in the Community he writes about a fellow Episcopalian priest who received a call to go to a parishioner's home. It was a summer afternoon and the father of the household had accidentally run over his only child - a child he and his wife had tried for years to have. The boy now lay dead in his own front yard.
When the priest entered the house he saw the parents clinging to one another - some of the little boy's blood was visible on the father's pants. The priest lost it. Before he could utter a word of sympathy he broke down and cried and cried and cried.
Holmes wrote: "I know of no pastoral counseling manual that says: 'First week uncontrollably when called upon for comfort.' Some would say that my friend had 'blown it.' I would agree with the couple, however, who told (my priest friend) some weeks later that there could be no more effective ministry than what he had done. He had entered with them into the mystery of death, fought the demons and found the angels." (1)
While after each national or international tragedy words and telethons have helped - while flying flags declaring our patriotism and pride and burning candles and wearing t-shirts have helped - it's the knowing that what motivates our words and actions - that the source of our words and actions are the tears of our brothers and sisters here and around the world. Fountains of tears were shared after the Boston Marathon act of terrorism, as we viewed the flooding in Colorado, the use of chemicals in Syria, and as another tormented soul emptied his weapons on the innocent in the D.C. Naval Yard. Willing shoulders have been offered - authentic empathizing hugs have been given -unbelievable acts of compassion have been expressed and those most in need of comfort and thus the whole world has been made aware of just how much we believe in community - how deep our caring for one another really goes despite the notable times when we fail to live up to our ideals.
There was once a prophet by the name of Jeremiah. He wasn't very well-liked by his people - prophets often aren't. He was constantly preaching AT his friends about their sinfulness. He told them that their beloved Judah was going to lose its place in the world and that their temple was going to be destroyed and that they were going to be exiled despite their favored sons and daughters status with God. Jeremiah said what he said because he believed that that's what God wanted him to say and because he cared as deeply about his nation and its people as God did. Jeremiah has often been seen as a prophet that not only came from the community of faith, but he was also a prophet who was a fan of his community, a prophet both for and against his own people.
As a result Jeremiah didn't just point out the sins of his people - even while he was warning them about what was going to happen if they didn't straighten - even though they deserved what was happening to them - Jeremiah aligned himself with them emotionally. He shared their pain. He wept with his people and thus earned the title of the "Weeping Prophet." When Jeremiah said, "Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn,and my horror grips me" and when he said, "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people." When Jeremiah said those things he was identifying with, sharing with his people and their grieving.
Want to know what the Bible scholars think it is we should glean from this passage? It's not that the people got what they deserved. It's not that God weeps when we sin. Rather, it is that Jeremiah reflects what goes on in God when God's people - all of humanity! - suffer, are in pain, hurt, or weep. It is that God weeps along with those who weep - that God grieves when God's creation grieves. God cares about us so much that God weeps when we weep! God experiences what we experience in this life. The whole point of God's coming to live among us as one of us - in Jesus Christ - was so that we would know that God understands our pain and our grief, what we go through in this life - that God identifies with us and shares the pain and the grief we experience. God cries with us and thus is one with us. That, my friends, is the Good News we have to share and not the sick interpretation that some so-called religious types/leaders march out whenever tragedy strikes. God is with us - God grieves with us. We witness about this Good News when we get alongside those who grieve and are hurting and grieve with them.
While there's some disagreement about whether this ever really happened or not, there's an oft repeated story about the Prince of Wales being invited to visit a military hospital after WWI. The most popular story claims there were thirty-six injured soldiers in the hospital and the prince willingly accepted the invitation. The first ward the prince visited had twenty-nine injured soldiers in it and the prince visited each one of them, thanking them for their sacrifices on behalf of Great Britain and the British Empire.
When the prince inquired about the other seven, he was informed that their condition was far worse and would never be able to leave the hospital because of the severity of their wounds and it would be best to leave them alone. The prince demanded to be taken to see them as well. Upon entering this second ward he greeted each one of the severely wounded soldiers and thanked them the same way he had the men in the first ward.
Again when he left the ward he commented to his guide that he only counted six and inquired about the missing soldier. His host stammered as he shared: "Uh, sir, your majesty, that soldier is in a dark little room by himself because he is blind, dumb, and deaf. He's completely paralyzed and his only relief will come when he dies."
The prince asked to be taken to him as well. When they arrived at the man's room the prince quietly opened the door and entered the darkened room. He gazed with a heavy heart at the poor man lying helpless on his bed. He wanted to offer him a sympathetic word, a word of gratitude, but he knew it was impossible because of the man's deafness. He wanted to shake the man's hand but knew it too would be a waste of time because of the man's paralysis. He wasn't even able to offer the man visible signs of how he felt because of the man's blindness. Then it came to him.
He went slowly over to the bed, bent over the wounded man and kissed him on the forehead. The moistness of his lips mixed with the mixture from his eyes as he cried for him and with him.
Compassion, my friends, in whatever form it might be expressed is the balm - the ointment - the medicine - people need from one another. Just as Jeremiah in his day revealed to his people God's grief through expressing his own grief, so we do the same when we grieve with those who grieve in our day.
Fountains of tears have indeed been shed these last few years as we've faced tragedy after tragedy as a people and as individuals. My take is those tears have been a mirror of God's mourning with those most in need. God suffers with us - God is with us as we mourn in our hour of need. The Prince of Peace, God's son, Jesus Christ, much like the Prince of Wales, reaches out to minister to every one of us in our hour of need. It's a life-redeeming identifying with our suffering that he shares with us. Out of his suffering was born new life and hope and through him the same can happen within/to us.
Jesus Christ on the cross is the message many of us need to hear this day - that God in Jesus the Christ suffers with us. Jesus Christ off the cross- Jesus Christ resurrected - the possibility of new life for those of us who mourn - hope - is the message many of us need to hear as well. And they need to be expressed together - together they are the balm that comforts us. Jesus Christ suffers with us and through him new life is possible.
Crying for and with those who weep - shedding fountains of tears for and with those who suffer - that is the call of God on our lives this day - that is the ministry in which we are called to be involved as people of God.
"There is a balm to make the wounded whole" indeed, and that balm is, Jesus Christ, Lord, and Savior of our lives, Son of God, friend and master. We offer that balm when we share both with our words and our deeds of compassion - when we weep fountains of tears with those who weep - when we suffer with those who suffer. I know that it has been the knowledge that many have been crying for/with me thus reminding me that God is crying with/for me on this trying health journey that has provided me strength to continue the battle, hope, even joy that I am still able to share and grieve with others.
Thanks, friends and family!
1. Urban T. Holmes, The Priest in Community: Exploring the Roots of Ministry (Seabury Press, 1979).
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Numerous speeches are given after national and/or international tragedies - 911, the Virginia Tech shooting, hurricanes Katrina & Sandy, the Japan earthquake and resultant tsunami, the shooting of Gabby Gifford, the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, and most recently the D. C. Naval Yard shooting, as well as others not as massive but more personal or closer to home. The speeches are usually full of words meant to inspire, motivate, and strengthen our resolve. For the most part they are good words - powerful words - patriotic words - inspirational words - comforting words - hopeful words. And, they do the job they are intended to do.
Such events usually are followed with appropriate sermons in places of worship. I have read several on the internet as well as created a few myself. Many of them are full of words meant to comfort - meant to heal - meant to spark a sense of hope in hearers - full of words about God's grace and love - full of good words - powerful words - insightful words - inspiring words - eternal words. And, they also did the job they were intended to.
But, we all know that words alone have not been, nor will they be in the future, enough. There used to be several books on my shelves full of short, pithy, thought-provoking sayings. Now, there aren't so many. A few years ago I looked up "words" in a number of those books and almost all of the quips had a note of warning in them about the danger of using words alone. Some of my favorites are: "Actions speak louder than words - and speak fewer lies." "People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do." "Kind words can never die, but without kind deeds they sound mighty sick." "The Christian's walk and talk must go together." "Beware of using sharp words. You may have to eat them later on down the line." "Works, not words, are the proof of love." "Superior to a kind thought is a kind word; better than both is a kind deed." "It is vain to use words when deeds are expected." "Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action."
Mind if I confess something to you? There were many times in my ministry and life when words didn't come. Sometimes when I was with people who were hurt deeply and appropriate words wouldn't come into my mind and out of my mouth, I cried. I cried, not because I couldn't think of anything to say, but because I hurt for and with them.
Words alone never bear the grief following the tragedies of life - they didn't after Columbine and they don't after the Navy Base Shootings or the deaths of faithful friends and family members and they never will. Besides words, it takes masses of people standing in line to donate blood - candlelight vigils and parades to honor those who've given their lives to help others. It takes fundraisers and raising money. It takes people putting their arms around one another and crying together. Yes, sharing words is helpful and important, but words are made more effective when the gathered people cry for and with the grieving as well as for one another.
In Urban T. Holmes' book The Priest in the Community he writes about a fellow Episcopalian priest who received a call to go to a parishioner's home. It was a summer afternoon and the father of the household had accidentally run over his only child - a child he and his wife had tried for years to have. The boy now lay dead in his own front yard.
When the priest entered the house he saw the parents clinging to one another - some of the little boy's blood was visible on the father's pants. The priest lost it. Before he could utter a word of sympathy he broke down and cried and cried and cried.
Holmes wrote: "I know of no pastoral counseling manual that says: 'First week uncontrollably when called upon for comfort.' Some would say that my friend had 'blown it.' I would agree with the couple, however, who told (my priest friend) some weeks later that there could be no more effective ministry than what he had done. He had entered with them into the mystery of death, fought the demons and found the angels." (1)
While after each national or international tragedy words and telethons have helped - while flying flags declaring our patriotism and pride and burning candles and wearing t-shirts have helped - it's the knowing that what motivates our words and actions - that the source of our words and actions are the tears of our brothers and sisters here and around the world. Fountains of tears were shared after the Boston Marathon act of terrorism, as we viewed the flooding in Colorado, the use of chemicals in Syria, and as another tormented soul emptied his weapons on the innocent in the D.C. Naval Yard. Willing shoulders have been offered - authentic empathizing hugs have been given -unbelievable acts of compassion have been expressed and those most in need of comfort and thus the whole world has been made aware of just how much we believe in community - how deep our caring for one another really goes despite the notable times when we fail to live up to our ideals.
There was once a prophet by the name of Jeremiah. He wasn't very well-liked by his people - prophets often aren't. He was constantly preaching AT his friends about their sinfulness. He told them that their beloved Judah was going to lose its place in the world and that their temple was going to be destroyed and that they were going to be exiled despite their favored sons and daughters status with God. Jeremiah said what he said because he believed that that's what God wanted him to say and because he cared as deeply about his nation and its people as God did. Jeremiah has often been seen as a prophet that not only came from the community of faith, but he was also a prophet who was a fan of his community, a prophet both for and against his own people.
As a result Jeremiah didn't just point out the sins of his people - even while he was warning them about what was going to happen if they didn't straighten - even though they deserved what was happening to them - Jeremiah aligned himself with them emotionally. He shared their pain. He wept with his people and thus earned the title of the "Weeping Prophet." When Jeremiah said, "Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn,and my horror grips me" and when he said, "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people." When Jeremiah said those things he was identifying with, sharing with his people and their grieving.
Want to know what the Bible scholars think it is we should glean from this passage? It's not that the people got what they deserved. It's not that God weeps when we sin. Rather, it is that Jeremiah reflects what goes on in God when God's people - all of humanity! - suffer, are in pain, hurt, or weep. It is that God weeps along with those who weep - that God grieves when God's creation grieves. God cares about us so much that God weeps when we weep! God experiences what we experience in this life. The whole point of God's coming to live among us as one of us - in Jesus Christ - was so that we would know that God understands our pain and our grief, what we go through in this life - that God identifies with us and shares the pain and the grief we experience. God cries with us and thus is one with us. That, my friends, is the Good News we have to share and not the sick interpretation that some so-called religious types/leaders march out whenever tragedy strikes. God is with us - God grieves with us. We witness about this Good News when we get alongside those who grieve and are hurting and grieve with them.
While there's some disagreement about whether this ever really happened or not, there's an oft repeated story about the Prince of Wales being invited to visit a military hospital after WWI. The most popular story claims there were thirty-six injured soldiers in the hospital and the prince willingly accepted the invitation. The first ward the prince visited had twenty-nine injured soldiers in it and the prince visited each one of them, thanking them for their sacrifices on behalf of Great Britain and the British Empire.
When the prince inquired about the other seven, he was informed that their condition was far worse and would never be able to leave the hospital because of the severity of their wounds and it would be best to leave them alone. The prince demanded to be taken to see them as well. Upon entering this second ward he greeted each one of the severely wounded soldiers and thanked them the same way he had the men in the first ward.
Again when he left the ward he commented to his guide that he only counted six and inquired about the missing soldier. His host stammered as he shared: "Uh, sir, your majesty, that soldier is in a dark little room by himself because he is blind, dumb, and deaf. He's completely paralyzed and his only relief will come when he dies."
The prince asked to be taken to him as well. When they arrived at the man's room the prince quietly opened the door and entered the darkened room. He gazed with a heavy heart at the poor man lying helpless on his bed. He wanted to offer him a sympathetic word, a word of gratitude, but he knew it was impossible because of the man's deafness. He wanted to shake the man's hand but knew it too would be a waste of time because of the man's paralysis. He wasn't even able to offer the man visible signs of how he felt because of the man's blindness. Then it came to him.
He went slowly over to the bed, bent over the wounded man and kissed him on the forehead. The moistness of his lips mixed with the mixture from his eyes as he cried for him and with him.
Compassion, my friends, in whatever form it might be expressed is the balm - the ointment - the medicine - people need from one another. Just as Jeremiah in his day revealed to his people God's grief through expressing his own grief, so we do the same when we grieve with those who grieve in our day.
Fountains of tears have indeed been shed these last few years as we've faced tragedy after tragedy as a people and as individuals. My take is those tears have been a mirror of God's mourning with those most in need. God suffers with us - God is with us as we mourn in our hour of need. The Prince of Peace, God's son, Jesus Christ, much like the Prince of Wales, reaches out to minister to every one of us in our hour of need. It's a life-redeeming identifying with our suffering that he shares with us. Out of his suffering was born new life and hope and through him the same can happen within/to us.
Jesus Christ on the cross is the message many of us need to hear this day - that God in Jesus the Christ suffers with us. Jesus Christ off the cross- Jesus Christ resurrected - the possibility of new life for those of us who mourn - hope - is the message many of us need to hear as well. And they need to be expressed together - together they are the balm that comforts us. Jesus Christ suffers with us and through him new life is possible.
Crying for and with those who weep - shedding fountains of tears for and with those who suffer - that is the call of God on our lives this day - that is the ministry in which we are called to be involved as people of God.
"There is a balm to make the wounded whole" indeed, and that balm is, Jesus Christ, Lord, and Savior of our lives, Son of God, friend and master. We offer that balm when we share both with our words and our deeds of compassion - when we weep fountains of tears with those who weep - when we suffer with those who suffer. I know that it has been the knowledge that many have been crying for/with me thus reminding me that God is crying with/for me on this trying health journey that has provided me strength to continue the battle, hope, even joy that I am still able to share and grieve with others.
Thanks, friends and family!
1. Urban T. Holmes, The Priest in Community: Exploring the Roots of Ministry (Seabury Press, 1979).
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Sermon: "Wheeling and Dealing With Jesus"
WHEELING AND DEALING WITH JESUS
Luke 16:1-13
A rancher had a horse that sometimes walked around with a limp and at other times walked normally. He contacted a local vet and asked him what he thought he should do.
The vet thought for a moment and then said, “Well, the next time he walks normally sell him.”
Dennis the Menace caught his friend, Joey, trying to get a paper out of a newspaper machine without putting in any money. He said, “Hey, Joey, wait! First, you hav ta put in the money. . . and then you can have as many papers as you want.”
A young boy asked his dad about the meaning of the word “ethics.”
The dad was a fairly well-off businessman. After thinking for a few minutes about what he might say, he finally said, “Well, son, you know your uncle and I are in business together. Well, suppose that a customer comes in and pays for something that only costs ten dollars with a twenty and then leaves before the cashier can make change.”
Then he paused, took a deep breath, and added: “Ethics is whether I split the extra ten dollars with your uncle.”
Now, we could continue down this path for a very long time – this path of making light of dishonesty. There are plenty of humorous illustrations with punch lines making light of dishonesty. The truth of the matter is though: we really don’t regard dishonesty as a humorous matter. Dishonesty, especially the dishonesty of others, we view as, well, wrong – something to be avoided.
I think that's one of the reasons the parable Luke records Jesus telling about a man praised by his boss for doing something dishonest so shocks. I don't know about you, but I scratch my head every time I read it and wonder to myself: “What on earth could Jesus possibly have been thinking when he told this parable? What was he trying to say? What was his point?”
In 1919 one of the most notorious events in the history of sports took place when the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds met in the World Series (there have certainly been others more recently, such as Lance Armstrong's doping and the current Major League baseball drug fiasco!). The “war to end all wars” (wrong!) had just ended and the excitement about the series grew to the point that the series expanded into a best-of-nine event instead of the normal best-of-seven.
It was the Cincinnati Reds first World Series appearance and they were considered the overwhelming underdogs. One of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, led the Chicago team. The atmosphere was electrifying. Some thought it was the hype that caused the first pitch by the Chicago pitcher to be wild and hit the Reds’ batter.
The truth of the matter was, the errant pitch was actually a prearranged signal to the gamblers that the fix was on. Eight members of that “Chicago Black Sox” team, which is what they became known as, including the famous “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, were arrested for conspiring to throw the series.
It’s possibly just a legend, but one of the stories repeated over the years has Jackson leaving the courthouse after his arrangement and being confronted by a little boy who looked up at “Shoeless” Joe and begged, “Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so.” It’s a cliché that has become a part of our popular American culture. It’s a familiar response we offer one another when something worse than we want to believe is happening. “Say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.” (1)
It’s certainly one of the things we’re tempted to say after reading or hearing this parable attributed to Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. It’s just incomprehensible that Jesus could possibly mean here that we should “wheel and deal,” or, “cook the books” – that we should resort to being dishonest, do anything necessary to get by in this world.
We’re not the only ones uncomfortable with this passage. Bible students and preachers alike through the centuries have struggled with this parable. Some have suggested that the parable was mistranslated some time down through the years. Some have suggested that Jesus was just trying to overstate his point so that his disciples would pay closer attention. Still others have suggested that the total amount owed to the landowner included some interest and that it was this amount that was forgiven. It’s also been suggested that the manager was on a commission and that the amount he cut was his slice of the pie. (2)
The truth of the matter is that while they are clever explanations, there’s nothing in the text to suggest any such things were the underlying cause for the manager being dishonest and being praised for it by the master thus explaining away Jesus’ questionable affirmation at the outcome of the story. For those interested, here’s my take on it.
I choose to believe this is a story about grace – God's grace - about God’s totally over-the-top, beyond human reason, undefinable, radical concept of grace. God does not give up on us. One preacher referred to it in one of his sermons as “bonus points for a little ingenuity.” (3) His point was that despite the reality that we sometimes do bad stuff, that God allows bonus points for those times when we’re a little creative in how we try to undo our wrongdoing. There are simply times in our lives when we mess up – do bad – but then we attempt to make amends for our wrongdoing, which may in and of themselves not be all that great, but they get God’s attention because they say to God that we’re trying.
James Howell went on in his sermon to say, “I don’t know what to make of this story except that it must apply to many of us in terms of our Christianity. There are a few of you whom I know are really holy and noble, and you always do God’s will, so this sermon is not for you. This sermon is for the rest of (us) who are like this servant.” (4)
Yep, this sermon is for those of us who know we’re called to be concerned for God’s world and know that our lives are God’s, but who live at times as if we don’t know it. We long to be paid attention to by community leaders or celebrities and we love our money and the material things it helps us surround ourselves with. We enjoy eating, drinking and having fun. We enjoy lounging around - we can’t wait to get back at those who’ve wronged us and we long to obtain something else that someone else has that we don’t. The church used to refer to these things as the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth and anger. And the above illustrations cause us to admit to ourselves that at times we’re guilty of several of them. “Prayer? Reflecting on God’s word? Serving the poor? (We’re geniuses) at leaving these things undone.” (5) As stewards we have squandered what our master has given us.
We all can remember a time or two when something got to us in a sermon and we thought to ourselves, “Man, when I get home today, I’m going to really be different. I’m going to strive to be more like Mother Teresa. I’m going to cut back on my shopping, start praying at every meal and when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. Yes, ma’am, I’m going to be different when I leave this sanctuary today.” (6)
And what often happens is we barely make it to lunch or to the middle of the afternoon, before we mess up – before we forget about it – before we lose our inspiration. I believe that God understands, that God is merciful and just wants to see a little creative imagination – a little attempt made – a little belated ingenuity.
Again, in the James Howell sermon I’ve been referencing, he puts it this way: “An alcoholic has lied, connived, ruined his marriage, dumped garbage in his children’s souls, corroded his own liver. But he walks into AA and begins the hard work of recovery – no pretension to sainthood, no turning back the clock – apologies, pleas of forgiveness, a hint of life.
“You lose your job – just as this steward lost his job, although you were probably more diligent. How can this bad situation, over time, become God’s calling to you to move into something new that God is calling you to for the rest of your life? You may bring in less money, but in the world of Jesus’ parables, prices are being marked down.
“Belated ingenuity. We have polluted rivers and spattered clear skies. The Christian businessman cannot tear down his factory, but he settles for a little less profit and applies environmental standards that are actually superior to the governmental minimum. The rich, the stockholders, get less money back.
“A terrorist strikes. War breaks out. Flawed foreign policy, an inability to negotiate peace. Violence seems necessary to restore peace, a peace which is no more than a policed kind of security where we forever look over our shoulders. But somebody seizes the opportunity and builds a bridge, a hospital, marking down debts owed by other countries in a too-late but yet earnest effort to rebuild relationships frayed for far too long.” (7)
No, we’re not likely to give everything we have to the poor, but, perhaps we can do a little more than we’re doing. Maybe we could share what we have a little better. Perhaps God is a bit angry about how we’ve been living our lives. And perhaps God sees some of our lame attempts at changing or being better and notes them as enough to keep us among the chosen and blessed ones.
Throughout history there have been scoundrels, persons who have made grave mistakes only to have ended up doing some pretty wonderful things despite the “sin” hanging over their head. No, we’re not saints in the never do anything wrong sense that most understand it to mean, and we never will be. But, we are forgiven stewards who have often been unfaithful and who will often be in the future. Wheeling and dealing with Jesus involves doing the very best we can with whatever situations we find ourselves in – recognizing when we’ve messed up and trying to do something about it because we trust that we serve a gracious, an understanding and a loving God. The point of the parable is that God is gracious and that the door is always open for us to come around. Isn’t that good news to hear – to believe – to share – to live?
Consider offering this prayer as your own today: "Lord, Jesus, creator of all, judge of all, we don’t enjoy taking an honest look at ourselves. We avoid the truth about our lives. We escape from reality and into fantasy. We say we want to be near you, but then when you come in all your fierce and wonderful truth, we flee. Yet you have made us and named us and are determined to have us grow up to be the creatures you intended us to be. Go ahead, Lord Jesus. Keep at us, despite us. Amen."
1. Timothy B. Cargal, “Say It Ain’t So!,” Emphasis, September/October, 2004, p. 22.
2. Ibid., p. 23.
3. James Howell, “Belated Ingenuity,” Pulpit Resource, July, August, September 2004, p. 50.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 51.
Luke 16:1-13
A rancher had a horse that sometimes walked around with a limp and at other times walked normally. He contacted a local vet and asked him what he thought he should do.
The vet thought for a moment and then said, “Well, the next time he walks normally sell him.”
Dennis the Menace caught his friend, Joey, trying to get a paper out of a newspaper machine without putting in any money. He said, “Hey, Joey, wait! First, you hav ta put in the money. . . and then you can have as many papers as you want.”
A young boy asked his dad about the meaning of the word “ethics.”
The dad was a fairly well-off businessman. After thinking for a few minutes about what he might say, he finally said, “Well, son, you know your uncle and I are in business together. Well, suppose that a customer comes in and pays for something that only costs ten dollars with a twenty and then leaves before the cashier can make change.”
Then he paused, took a deep breath, and added: “Ethics is whether I split the extra ten dollars with your uncle.”
Now, we could continue down this path for a very long time – this path of making light of dishonesty. There are plenty of humorous illustrations with punch lines making light of dishonesty. The truth of the matter is though: we really don’t regard dishonesty as a humorous matter. Dishonesty, especially the dishonesty of others, we view as, well, wrong – something to be avoided.
I think that's one of the reasons the parable Luke records Jesus telling about a man praised by his boss for doing something dishonest so shocks. I don't know about you, but I scratch my head every time I read it and wonder to myself: “What on earth could Jesus possibly have been thinking when he told this parable? What was he trying to say? What was his point?”
In 1919 one of the most notorious events in the history of sports took place when the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds met in the World Series (there have certainly been others more recently, such as Lance Armstrong's doping and the current Major League baseball drug fiasco!). The “war to end all wars” (wrong!) had just ended and the excitement about the series grew to the point that the series expanded into a best-of-nine event instead of the normal best-of-seven.
It was the Cincinnati Reds first World Series appearance and they were considered the overwhelming underdogs. One of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, led the Chicago team. The atmosphere was electrifying. Some thought it was the hype that caused the first pitch by the Chicago pitcher to be wild and hit the Reds’ batter.
The truth of the matter was, the errant pitch was actually a prearranged signal to the gamblers that the fix was on. Eight members of that “Chicago Black Sox” team, which is what they became known as, including the famous “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, were arrested for conspiring to throw the series.
It’s possibly just a legend, but one of the stories repeated over the years has Jackson leaving the courthouse after his arrangement and being confronted by a little boy who looked up at “Shoeless” Joe and begged, “Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so.” It’s a cliché that has become a part of our popular American culture. It’s a familiar response we offer one another when something worse than we want to believe is happening. “Say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.” (1)
It’s certainly one of the things we’re tempted to say after reading or hearing this parable attributed to Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. It’s just incomprehensible that Jesus could possibly mean here that we should “wheel and deal,” or, “cook the books” – that we should resort to being dishonest, do anything necessary to get by in this world.
We’re not the only ones uncomfortable with this passage. Bible students and preachers alike through the centuries have struggled with this parable. Some have suggested that the parable was mistranslated some time down through the years. Some have suggested that Jesus was just trying to overstate his point so that his disciples would pay closer attention. Still others have suggested that the total amount owed to the landowner included some interest and that it was this amount that was forgiven. It’s also been suggested that the manager was on a commission and that the amount he cut was his slice of the pie. (2)
The truth of the matter is that while they are clever explanations, there’s nothing in the text to suggest any such things were the underlying cause for the manager being dishonest and being praised for it by the master thus explaining away Jesus’ questionable affirmation at the outcome of the story. For those interested, here’s my take on it.
I choose to believe this is a story about grace – God's grace - about God’s totally over-the-top, beyond human reason, undefinable, radical concept of grace. God does not give up on us. One preacher referred to it in one of his sermons as “bonus points for a little ingenuity.” (3) His point was that despite the reality that we sometimes do bad stuff, that God allows bonus points for those times when we’re a little creative in how we try to undo our wrongdoing. There are simply times in our lives when we mess up – do bad – but then we attempt to make amends for our wrongdoing, which may in and of themselves not be all that great, but they get God’s attention because they say to God that we’re trying.
James Howell went on in his sermon to say, “I don’t know what to make of this story except that it must apply to many of us in terms of our Christianity. There are a few of you whom I know are really holy and noble, and you always do God’s will, so this sermon is not for you. This sermon is for the rest of (us) who are like this servant.” (4)
Yep, this sermon is for those of us who know we’re called to be concerned for God’s world and know that our lives are God’s, but who live at times as if we don’t know it. We long to be paid attention to by community leaders or celebrities and we love our money and the material things it helps us surround ourselves with. We enjoy eating, drinking and having fun. We enjoy lounging around - we can’t wait to get back at those who’ve wronged us and we long to obtain something else that someone else has that we don’t. The church used to refer to these things as the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth and anger. And the above illustrations cause us to admit to ourselves that at times we’re guilty of several of them. “Prayer? Reflecting on God’s word? Serving the poor? (We’re geniuses) at leaving these things undone.” (5) As stewards we have squandered what our master has given us.
We all can remember a time or two when something got to us in a sermon and we thought to ourselves, “Man, when I get home today, I’m going to really be different. I’m going to strive to be more like Mother Teresa. I’m going to cut back on my shopping, start praying at every meal and when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. Yes, ma’am, I’m going to be different when I leave this sanctuary today.” (6)
And what often happens is we barely make it to lunch or to the middle of the afternoon, before we mess up – before we forget about it – before we lose our inspiration. I believe that God understands, that God is merciful and just wants to see a little creative imagination – a little attempt made – a little belated ingenuity.
Again, in the James Howell sermon I’ve been referencing, he puts it this way: “An alcoholic has lied, connived, ruined his marriage, dumped garbage in his children’s souls, corroded his own liver. But he walks into AA and begins the hard work of recovery – no pretension to sainthood, no turning back the clock – apologies, pleas of forgiveness, a hint of life.
“You lose your job – just as this steward lost his job, although you were probably more diligent. How can this bad situation, over time, become God’s calling to you to move into something new that God is calling you to for the rest of your life? You may bring in less money, but in the world of Jesus’ parables, prices are being marked down.
“Belated ingenuity. We have polluted rivers and spattered clear skies. The Christian businessman cannot tear down his factory, but he settles for a little less profit and applies environmental standards that are actually superior to the governmental minimum. The rich, the stockholders, get less money back.
“A terrorist strikes. War breaks out. Flawed foreign policy, an inability to negotiate peace. Violence seems necessary to restore peace, a peace which is no more than a policed kind of security where we forever look over our shoulders. But somebody seizes the opportunity and builds a bridge, a hospital, marking down debts owed by other countries in a too-late but yet earnest effort to rebuild relationships frayed for far too long.” (7)
No, we’re not likely to give everything we have to the poor, but, perhaps we can do a little more than we’re doing. Maybe we could share what we have a little better. Perhaps God is a bit angry about how we’ve been living our lives. And perhaps God sees some of our lame attempts at changing or being better and notes them as enough to keep us among the chosen and blessed ones.
Throughout history there have been scoundrels, persons who have made grave mistakes only to have ended up doing some pretty wonderful things despite the “sin” hanging over their head. No, we’re not saints in the never do anything wrong sense that most understand it to mean, and we never will be. But, we are forgiven stewards who have often been unfaithful and who will often be in the future. Wheeling and dealing with Jesus involves doing the very best we can with whatever situations we find ourselves in – recognizing when we’ve messed up and trying to do something about it because we trust that we serve a gracious, an understanding and a loving God. The point of the parable is that God is gracious and that the door is always open for us to come around. Isn’t that good news to hear – to believe – to share – to live?
Consider offering this prayer as your own today: "Lord, Jesus, creator of all, judge of all, we don’t enjoy taking an honest look at ourselves. We avoid the truth about our lives. We escape from reality and into fantasy. We say we want to be near you, but then when you come in all your fierce and wonderful truth, we flee. Yet you have made us and named us and are determined to have us grow up to be the creatures you intended us to be. Go ahead, Lord Jesus. Keep at us, despite us. Amen."
1. Timothy B. Cargal, “Say It Ain’t So!,” Emphasis, September/October, 2004, p. 22.
2. Ibid., p. 23.
3. James Howell, “Belated Ingenuity,” Pulpit Resource, July, August, September 2004, p. 50.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 51.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
"Lake Hope Dinner"
"Lake Hope Dinner"
We had a lovely drive yesterday afternoon to the Lake Hope Lodge in the beautiful Hocking Hills. I was again fascinated that this wonderful area exists in Ohio. Being from the flatlands of northwestern Ohio, which has its own beauty, I marvel every time we visit the Hocking Hills area - it's winding roads and modest hills offer some very fantastic vistas!
But, I digress from my purpose in writing this post. The reason for our trip to the Lake Hope Lodge was because Dorothy's Valentine's Day gift to me this past February was a drive to and dinner at the Lake Hope Lodge. When she gave me the gift, I teared up - OK, I cried! That may seem a little overly emotional to those of you who don't know the significance of this gift for us, so, let me explain.
You see, our honeymoon was spent in the Hocking Hills! We stayed in one of the cabins on the Lake Hope State Park grounds near the old Lake Hope Lodge. I say old because the original one burnt down a few years ago. The state finally rightfully replaced the insurance money they received for the total loss after spending the original money for other needs in the state. While I loved that old lodge, the replacement is very nice. The view out the lodge windows of Lake Hope is almost the exact same as it was 43 years ago. The meals were still very tasty. There are numerous pictures of the old lodge and some of other areas of historical significance. Oh, I forgot to mention the lodge was where we enjoyed several meals during our stay there. So, you see, this wasn't just the fulfillment of a Valentine's Day gift but another celebration of our 43rd anniversary!
Yes, it took us awhile to get there, (only 7 months!) but we made it and did some reminiscing. First, let me share with you what we had to eat last night. I ordered Lake Erie perch and fries. Dorothy ordered a grilled vegetable plate of zucchini, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, spinach, and au gratin potatoes - It was delicious! (The vegetable plate, the perch not so much.) What Dorothy remembers about the meals we enjoyed there 43 years ago was the chocolate covered pecan rolled ice cream. I vaguely remember pulled pork (still on the menu!) and I believe prime rib and fried chicken.
After our early meal, Dorothy walked the trail to the cabin area while I rode my power wheelchair on the road that ran in front of the cabins. We pointed and commented but the truth of the matter is we couldn't remember which cabin it was. Until a few years ago we still had the receipts from our honeymoon. Seemed like it was time to get rid of them - now we wish we had them to help our recollection.
Just seeing the cabins though brought to the surface long-held memories - mostly fond memories of the days we spent together there solidifying what was already a very close, open, and intimate relationship. But then, there are other memories: like, opening Dorothy's suitcase our first night in the Lake Hope cabin when we were getting ready for bed only to discover that her college roommate, Nini, had tied everything in knots and dumped enough rice in it to provide us several meals; like, my feeling nauseous much of the time either from driving the roads in the Hocking Hills or the higher elevation (?) or a slight touch of the flu; like, after just two weeks of marriage, my having to report for two-a-days at ONU and move into the dorm with the rest of the team (7 seniors got married that summer before and our coach thought marriage frivolities might cause us to use too much energy and take away from our workouts (!); like, our not wanting to drive too far the first night and thus making reservations at the Holiday Inn in Findlay, only to have to cancel them and stay in the Riverview Inn in Tiffin instead (more later about that); like, arriving at the motel that first night quite late and hungry and having to drive into downtown Tiffin to find a Dairy Queen still open so we could each have a shredded chicken sandwich; like, my best man, Jerry Agner, hiding our get-a-way car in one of dad's sheds and really not letting anyone know where it was despite much pressure from Dorothy's brother and others; like, now for some specificity.
The summer of 1970 was the second year I served on the YMCA Camp Y-Noah staff. It was near Akron, closer actually to Canal Fulton. The first summer there I didn't know anyone else on the staff when I arrived. That second summer five other OG products joined me: Dan Sager, Tom Maidlow, Greg Krouse, Greg McComis, and Steve Weis. We had a great summer. About once a week we would have a basketball game between the OG boys and the rest of the staff. What fun! I'm pretty sure we won most of the time!
Now, I shared that side note in preparation for sharing why we had to change motels. We had 24 hours off each week. One of those weeks I decided to drive home maybe for some last minute wedding planning, but for sure to see Dorothy and my family. Well, a couple of the other OG guys hitched a ride with me. For some still unknown reason I decided to stop at the Findlay Holiday Inn to make sure the reservation was there and commented to the others in the car about what I was doing. All the rest of the way to Ottawa I had this uneasy feeling - things seemed to be quieter in the back seat, knowing glances being shared between my passengers. When I shared with Dorothy what I had done, she confirmed that I had made a mistake and that I had best make some other arrangements. It wasn't necessarily those guys we were concerned about but word getting out and our ending up having visitors all night long! You know, brothers and sisters, so-called friends, in-laws, etc.
Dorothy loves to jokingly tease me about leaving her side after everyone was through the receiving line to go and talk to the Y-Noah staff who drove all the way from Akron for the wedding (she assures me everyone was NOT through the receiving line). We both will never forget taking that first bite of our wedding cake and my about spitting it out! It was coconut! I hate coconut! To be fair, she didn't know it in advance. But, you should have been around when we were supposed to celebrate our first anniversary with another piece of that cake!
So, we had dinner last night at the Lake Hope Lodge and I took a picture of Dorothy. She is just as beautiful and nice today as she was the day I married her!
I love you, Dorothy!
Bill
We had a lovely drive yesterday afternoon to the Lake Hope Lodge in the beautiful Hocking Hills. I was again fascinated that this wonderful area exists in Ohio. Being from the flatlands of northwestern Ohio, which has its own beauty, I marvel every time we visit the Hocking Hills area - it's winding roads and modest hills offer some very fantastic vistas!
But, I digress from my purpose in writing this post. The reason for our trip to the Lake Hope Lodge was because Dorothy's Valentine's Day gift to me this past February was a drive to and dinner at the Lake Hope Lodge. When she gave me the gift, I teared up - OK, I cried! That may seem a little overly emotional to those of you who don't know the significance of this gift for us, so, let me explain.
You see, our honeymoon was spent in the Hocking Hills! We stayed in one of the cabins on the Lake Hope State Park grounds near the old Lake Hope Lodge. I say old because the original one burnt down a few years ago. The state finally rightfully replaced the insurance money they received for the total loss after spending the original money for other needs in the state. While I loved that old lodge, the replacement is very nice. The view out the lodge windows of Lake Hope is almost the exact same as it was 43 years ago. The meals were still very tasty. There are numerous pictures of the old lodge and some of other areas of historical significance. Oh, I forgot to mention the lodge was where we enjoyed several meals during our stay there. So, you see, this wasn't just the fulfillment of a Valentine's Day gift but another celebration of our 43rd anniversary!
Yes, it took us awhile to get there, (only 7 months!) but we made it and did some reminiscing. First, let me share with you what we had to eat last night. I ordered Lake Erie perch and fries. Dorothy ordered a grilled vegetable plate of zucchini, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, spinach, and au gratin potatoes - It was delicious! (The vegetable plate, the perch not so much.) What Dorothy remembers about the meals we enjoyed there 43 years ago was the chocolate covered pecan rolled ice cream. I vaguely remember pulled pork (still on the menu!) and I believe prime rib and fried chicken.
After our early meal, Dorothy walked the trail to the cabin area while I rode my power wheelchair on the road that ran in front of the cabins. We pointed and commented but the truth of the matter is we couldn't remember which cabin it was. Until a few years ago we still had the receipts from our honeymoon. Seemed like it was time to get rid of them - now we wish we had them to help our recollection.
Just seeing the cabins though brought to the surface long-held memories - mostly fond memories of the days we spent together there solidifying what was already a very close, open, and intimate relationship. But then, there are other memories: like, opening Dorothy's suitcase our first night in the Lake Hope cabin when we were getting ready for bed only to discover that her college roommate, Nini, had tied everything in knots and dumped enough rice in it to provide us several meals; like, my feeling nauseous much of the time either from driving the roads in the Hocking Hills or the higher elevation (?) or a slight touch of the flu; like, after just two weeks of marriage, my having to report for two-a-days at ONU and move into the dorm with the rest of the team (7 seniors got married that summer before and our coach thought marriage frivolities might cause us to use too much energy and take away from our workouts (!); like, our not wanting to drive too far the first night and thus making reservations at the Holiday Inn in Findlay, only to have to cancel them and stay in the Riverview Inn in Tiffin instead (more later about that); like, arriving at the motel that first night quite late and hungry and having to drive into downtown Tiffin to find a Dairy Queen still open so we could each have a shredded chicken sandwich; like, my best man, Jerry Agner, hiding our get-a-way car in one of dad's sheds and really not letting anyone know where it was despite much pressure from Dorothy's brother and others; like, now for some specificity.
The summer of 1970 was the second year I served on the YMCA Camp Y-Noah staff. It was near Akron, closer actually to Canal Fulton. The first summer there I didn't know anyone else on the staff when I arrived. That second summer five other OG products joined me: Dan Sager, Tom Maidlow, Greg Krouse, Greg McComis, and Steve Weis. We had a great summer. About once a week we would have a basketball game between the OG boys and the rest of the staff. What fun! I'm pretty sure we won most of the time!
Now, I shared that side note in preparation for sharing why we had to change motels. We had 24 hours off each week. One of those weeks I decided to drive home maybe for some last minute wedding planning, but for sure to see Dorothy and my family. Well, a couple of the other OG guys hitched a ride with me. For some still unknown reason I decided to stop at the Findlay Holiday Inn to make sure the reservation was there and commented to the others in the car about what I was doing. All the rest of the way to Ottawa I had this uneasy feeling - things seemed to be quieter in the back seat, knowing glances being shared between my passengers. When I shared with Dorothy what I had done, she confirmed that I had made a mistake and that I had best make some other arrangements. It wasn't necessarily those guys we were concerned about but word getting out and our ending up having visitors all night long! You know, brothers and sisters, so-called friends, in-laws, etc.
Dorothy loves to jokingly tease me about leaving her side after everyone was through the receiving line to go and talk to the Y-Noah staff who drove all the way from Akron for the wedding (she assures me everyone was NOT through the receiving line). We both will never forget taking that first bite of our wedding cake and my about spitting it out! It was coconut! I hate coconut! To be fair, she didn't know it in advance. But, you should have been around when we were supposed to celebrate our first anniversary with another piece of that cake!
So, we had dinner last night at the Lake Hope Lodge and I took a picture of Dorothy. She is just as beautiful and nice today as she was the day I married her!
I love you, Dorothy!
Bill
Friday, September 6, 2013
Sermon: "Wow! What a Cost!"
Wow! What a Cost!
Luke 14:25-33
I've been accused more than once of claiming certain texts are my favorites. Well, let me assure you, this one is not! This one makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I mean, reading words attributed to Jesus claiming that we should "hate" our parents, spouses, children, and siblings? This one doesn't sit too well with me. The thought of Jesus saying that I can only be a disciple if I “hate” those I love creates in me this awful sense on the one hand of feeling unworthy and on the other this sense that Jesus is being impractical. This text creates a tension in me between my really wanting to be a follower of Jesus Christ’s – my really wanting to be among those he can count on – my really wanting to be true and loyal and obedient to him; and my really loving my loved ones. Surely someone has messed up - surely some translator along the way mistranslated.
Well, something like that happened. Bible scholars offer us some helpful thoughts about some of the not-so-obvious reasons Jesus may have put what he said the way he did. One thought is that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem – on his way to the cross. And, the crowds that began to crowd around him did so because they believed he was on his way to Jerusalem to overthrow the hated Roman government. The crowds wanted to be on the winning side so that they could share in the establishment of the new kingdom they believed would be the result. Jesus had become a sort of “traveling side-show” – a “tourist attraction” - with his healings and radical teachings that were out of sync with the legalisms of the religiously self-righteous. As a result, Jesus was concerned about the crowd’s lack of understanding of what his real mission was.
You see, Jesus refused to give into the temptation to confuse large numbers with success. He refused to succumb to the temptation to let numbers determine what he said or what he did. He’d had conversations with his closest followers, his disciples, about what following him was going to mean and he perceived that it was time to share the same message with the general public in case they had missed it in their enthusiasm for what they sensed he could do for them – about their place in society – about their health.
No watering down the message to keep the good times going, the masses around him, for Jesus. No sirree. If for no other reason than to rid the ranks of his followers of discipleship wannabees, of would-be disciples who were primarily attracted by his teaching and healing and who thought that following him would mean a free ride, Jesus figuratively stepped onto the podium and shocked the crowd with these words about the necessity of hating our loved ones. It probably worked. The crowd probably did get smaller – quit shoving each other to get closer to him. It probably also got a little quieter.
Another thing the bible scholars suggest is that we not take the words of Jesus here quite as literally as they come out in English. They point out that Jesus was most likely using a favorite figure of speech – hyperbole, exaggeration – to draw attention to the point he wanted to make – that discipleship costs – that it costs a whole lot sometimes.
They further note that the Greek word translated in English as hate doesn’t quite mean the same thing we mean when we use the emotionally charged phrase I hate you. “Hate is not primarily a feeling word in the Aramaic language, the language Jesus spoke. It is primarily a priority word. It means to abandon or to leave aside; the way a sailor needs to abandon a sinking ship or the way a general needs to leave aside distracting things to win his battle.” (1)
And so you see, the meaning of the Greek word here means something more like being free to be a Christian without there being any conflict between our following Christ and any other loyalty we might have. It’s being free from undue pressure from the other relationships and responsibilities we have in our lives. What Jesus likely meant here was that while we have many important relationships in this life, none dare be more important than our relationship with him.
So, perhaps we can let out a little sigh of relief because we don’t have to actually hate our loved ones. We need to be careful though not to miss the really challenging point Jesus was trying to make: DISCIPLESHIP IS COSTLY! Perhaps more costly than we can afford or want to expend. Jesus turned to the crowd and said in effect, count the cost. Loyalty to me can and will create tensions within you and between you and those whom you love. You cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to put me before your family and your friends when push comes to shove. He added two other ways to count the cost: you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to take up your cross and follow me – unless you are willing to give up being concerned about whether you live or die. And, you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to give up being owned by your possessions – unless you are willing not to be possessed by your possessions.
Jesus doesn’t want people who just want to hang around on the fringes of the crowd, people who are looking for an axe to grind against established religion, or people who want to see miracles. Jesus wants people to come to him and be his disciples knowing that it really might cost them their families, their lives, and their possessions.
Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, complained in one of his writings that some of the preachers in his day were more interested in the artisticness of their sermons than challenging people to commit themselves to Jesus Christ and as a result Jesus obtained admirers rather than followers. Crowds admire Jesus because that’s the nature of a crowd – they want to be entertained – they are stimulated by excitement. Groupie Christians are those who jump from church to church looking for the most interesting and/or entertaining sermon and worship service. They are fascinated by Jesus’ teaching – they think the world of the way he lived his life – by the way the preacher packages the message. But, friends, there’s a great deal of distance between admiring Jesus Christ and admiring the program of a local church that is built on an entertainment model, that seeks to entice, with numbers being the primary goal. And the distance between the two can only be bridged by a heart-felt, spirit-produced commitment to Jesus Christ himself – a commitment that enables us to be able to walk away from every other worthy commitment we have in life if it stands in the way of fulfilling our commitment to following Jesus Christ.
When the Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, was being led into a federal prison to begin his sentence for his resistance to the Vietnam War, he was reported to have smiled at reporters and said, If you follow Jesus, you’d better look good on wood.
William Barclay shared a story in his The Daily Study Bible commentary on this text. He began it with “It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple.” And then he wrote: “Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a young man. He said, ‘So and so tells me that he was one of your students.’ The teacher answered devastatingly, ‘He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.’ There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the church that in the church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.” (2)
Martin Luther once was reported to have said: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
There’s a story about a time centuries ago when a wealthy nobleman in a mountain village in Europe decided that he wanted to leave a legacy to the people of his community. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was completely built. At the grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece.
And then someone noticed and commented, “Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls. Then he gave each family a lamp and told them they were to bring it with them each time they came to worship.
Then he said: “Each time you are here the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark.” (3)
Rather poignant story, don’t you think? The poet Edward Everett Hale put it like this: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” (4)
James Moore used these two illustrations in one of his sermons and then made this comment: “What if every member of your church supported the church just as you do? What kind of church would you have? What if every single member served the church, attended the church, loved the church, shared the church, and gave to the church exactly as you do? What kind of church would you be?” (5)
One of my favorite stories is one Will Willimon, former chapel dean at Duke and now a retired United Methodist bishop, tells of a time when he received a call from an irate parent. The parent began: “I hold you personally responsible for this.”
“Me?” Will asked.
What the father was upset about was that his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she wasn’t going to graduate school but was going to do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian Church. The father described her decision as “throwing it all away.” “Isn’t that absurd!” shouted the father. “A BS degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she’s going to dig ditches in Haiti.”
Willimon responded: “Well, I doubt that she’s received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she’s probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months.”
The father was not amused. “Look, this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible for this.”
As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, “You’re the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me.”
The father rather meekly replied: “But all we ever wanted her to be was Presbyterian.” (6)
Hmmmmmm.!?
I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard the story before of Millard and Linda Fuller’s journey to founding Habitat for Humanity. It’s such an appropriate illustration of the kind of discipleship we’re talking about this morning that I want to share it with you again. This particular version is from Tony Campolo’s book Wake Up America!
Millard was a millionaire by the age of twenty-nine. He could buy his wife everything he thought she could possibly want. But one day when he came home he discovered that she had left him.
He went after her and caught up with her on a Saturday night in New York City. They stayed up very late as she shared from the depths of her heart until she got him to see that she wasn’t interested in the things he was buying her. She told him that her heart was empty and her spirit burned out. She told him that she was dead inside and wanted to live again. In the wee hours of the morning the two of them knelt at the side of their hotel room bed and made a radical decision – to sell everything they had and dedicate themselves to serving poor people and to work for justice for the oppressed.
Since the next day was Sunday they found a church and they went to worship God and to thank God for their new beginning. They got to church early and they looked up the minister to share with him what had happened to them and the decision they had made.
To their surprise, the minister told them that such a radical decision was not really necessary. “He told us that it was not necessary for us to give up everything,” Millard said. “He just didn’t understand that we weren’t giving up money and the things that money could buy. We were giving up a whole way of life that was killing us.” (7) Wow! What a cost!
Brothers and sisters, discipleship is costly – it may cost us our most intimate relationships – it may cost us our lives – it may cost us our possessions. And, we need to count the cost. But, I challenge you – I invite you – to consider committing yourself to journeying with Jesus in a new way – in a way that will make a difference in your life – in the lives of others – and for all eternity.
How about praying the following:
Lord Jesus, you call us to be your disciples, to follow you down the narrow way of faithful discipleship. Lord, give us the grace we need to risk discipleship, to discipline our lives to your will, to love you enough to serve you in all that we do or say. Teach us to listen to you more than we listen to the voices of the world. Keep us close to you in all the times of our lives. In short, help us to count the cost and to be able to pay the price. Amen.
John G. Lynch, Troubled Journey (Lima: CSS Publishing Company).
William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: Luke (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 196.
James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True (Nashville: Dimensions, 1994), pp. 117-118.
Ibid.
Ibid.
David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, Adapted from William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, September 10, 1995, p. 45.
Tony Campolo, Wake Up America!
Luke 14:25-33
I've been accused more than once of claiming certain texts are my favorites. Well, let me assure you, this one is not! This one makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I mean, reading words attributed to Jesus claiming that we should "hate" our parents, spouses, children, and siblings? This one doesn't sit too well with me. The thought of Jesus saying that I can only be a disciple if I “hate” those I love creates in me this awful sense on the one hand of feeling unworthy and on the other this sense that Jesus is being impractical. This text creates a tension in me between my really wanting to be a follower of Jesus Christ’s – my really wanting to be among those he can count on – my really wanting to be true and loyal and obedient to him; and my really loving my loved ones. Surely someone has messed up - surely some translator along the way mistranslated.
Well, something like that happened. Bible scholars offer us some helpful thoughts about some of the not-so-obvious reasons Jesus may have put what he said the way he did. One thought is that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem – on his way to the cross. And, the crowds that began to crowd around him did so because they believed he was on his way to Jerusalem to overthrow the hated Roman government. The crowds wanted to be on the winning side so that they could share in the establishment of the new kingdom they believed would be the result. Jesus had become a sort of “traveling side-show” – a “tourist attraction” - with his healings and radical teachings that were out of sync with the legalisms of the religiously self-righteous. As a result, Jesus was concerned about the crowd’s lack of understanding of what his real mission was.
You see, Jesus refused to give into the temptation to confuse large numbers with success. He refused to succumb to the temptation to let numbers determine what he said or what he did. He’d had conversations with his closest followers, his disciples, about what following him was going to mean and he perceived that it was time to share the same message with the general public in case they had missed it in their enthusiasm for what they sensed he could do for them – about their place in society – about their health.
No watering down the message to keep the good times going, the masses around him, for Jesus. No sirree. If for no other reason than to rid the ranks of his followers of discipleship wannabees, of would-be disciples who were primarily attracted by his teaching and healing and who thought that following him would mean a free ride, Jesus figuratively stepped onto the podium and shocked the crowd with these words about the necessity of hating our loved ones. It probably worked. The crowd probably did get smaller – quit shoving each other to get closer to him. It probably also got a little quieter.
Another thing the bible scholars suggest is that we not take the words of Jesus here quite as literally as they come out in English. They point out that Jesus was most likely using a favorite figure of speech – hyperbole, exaggeration – to draw attention to the point he wanted to make – that discipleship costs – that it costs a whole lot sometimes.
They further note that the Greek word translated in English as hate doesn’t quite mean the same thing we mean when we use the emotionally charged phrase I hate you. “Hate is not primarily a feeling word in the Aramaic language, the language Jesus spoke. It is primarily a priority word. It means to abandon or to leave aside; the way a sailor needs to abandon a sinking ship or the way a general needs to leave aside distracting things to win his battle.” (1)
And so you see, the meaning of the Greek word here means something more like being free to be a Christian without there being any conflict between our following Christ and any other loyalty we might have. It’s being free from undue pressure from the other relationships and responsibilities we have in our lives. What Jesus likely meant here was that while we have many important relationships in this life, none dare be more important than our relationship with him.
So, perhaps we can let out a little sigh of relief because we don’t have to actually hate our loved ones. We need to be careful though not to miss the really challenging point Jesus was trying to make: DISCIPLESHIP IS COSTLY! Perhaps more costly than we can afford or want to expend. Jesus turned to the crowd and said in effect, count the cost. Loyalty to me can and will create tensions within you and between you and those whom you love. You cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to put me before your family and your friends when push comes to shove. He added two other ways to count the cost: you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to take up your cross and follow me – unless you are willing to give up being concerned about whether you live or die. And, you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to give up being owned by your possessions – unless you are willing not to be possessed by your possessions.
Jesus doesn’t want people who just want to hang around on the fringes of the crowd, people who are looking for an axe to grind against established religion, or people who want to see miracles. Jesus wants people to come to him and be his disciples knowing that it really might cost them their families, their lives, and their possessions.
Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, complained in one of his writings that some of the preachers in his day were more interested in the artisticness of their sermons than challenging people to commit themselves to Jesus Christ and as a result Jesus obtained admirers rather than followers. Crowds admire Jesus because that’s the nature of a crowd – they want to be entertained – they are stimulated by excitement. Groupie Christians are those who jump from church to church looking for the most interesting and/or entertaining sermon and worship service. They are fascinated by Jesus’ teaching – they think the world of the way he lived his life – by the way the preacher packages the message. But, friends, there’s a great deal of distance between admiring Jesus Christ and admiring the program of a local church that is built on an entertainment model, that seeks to entice, with numbers being the primary goal. And the distance between the two can only be bridged by a heart-felt, spirit-produced commitment to Jesus Christ himself – a commitment that enables us to be able to walk away from every other worthy commitment we have in life if it stands in the way of fulfilling our commitment to following Jesus Christ.
When the Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, was being led into a federal prison to begin his sentence for his resistance to the Vietnam War, he was reported to have smiled at reporters and said, If you follow Jesus, you’d better look good on wood.
William Barclay shared a story in his The Daily Study Bible commentary on this text. He began it with “It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple.” And then he wrote: “Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a young man. He said, ‘So and so tells me that he was one of your students.’ The teacher answered devastatingly, ‘He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.’ There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the church that in the church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.” (2)
Martin Luther once was reported to have said: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
There’s a story about a time centuries ago when a wealthy nobleman in a mountain village in Europe decided that he wanted to leave a legacy to the people of his community. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was completely built. At the grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece.
And then someone noticed and commented, “Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls. Then he gave each family a lamp and told them they were to bring it with them each time they came to worship.
Then he said: “Each time you are here the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark.” (3)
Rather poignant story, don’t you think? The poet Edward Everett Hale put it like this: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” (4)
James Moore used these two illustrations in one of his sermons and then made this comment: “What if every member of your church supported the church just as you do? What kind of church would you have? What if every single member served the church, attended the church, loved the church, shared the church, and gave to the church exactly as you do? What kind of church would you be?” (5)
One of my favorite stories is one Will Willimon, former chapel dean at Duke and now a retired United Methodist bishop, tells of a time when he received a call from an irate parent. The parent began: “I hold you personally responsible for this.”
“Me?” Will asked.
What the father was upset about was that his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she wasn’t going to graduate school but was going to do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian Church. The father described her decision as “throwing it all away.” “Isn’t that absurd!” shouted the father. “A BS degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she’s going to dig ditches in Haiti.”
Willimon responded: “Well, I doubt that she’s received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she’s probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months.”
The father was not amused. “Look, this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible for this.”
As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, “You’re the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me.”
The father rather meekly replied: “But all we ever wanted her to be was Presbyterian.” (6)
Hmmmmmm.!?
I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard the story before of Millard and Linda Fuller’s journey to founding Habitat for Humanity. It’s such an appropriate illustration of the kind of discipleship we’re talking about this morning that I want to share it with you again. This particular version is from Tony Campolo’s book Wake Up America!
Millard was a millionaire by the age of twenty-nine. He could buy his wife everything he thought she could possibly want. But one day when he came home he discovered that she had left him.
He went after her and caught up with her on a Saturday night in New York City. They stayed up very late as she shared from the depths of her heart until she got him to see that she wasn’t interested in the things he was buying her. She told him that her heart was empty and her spirit burned out. She told him that she was dead inside and wanted to live again. In the wee hours of the morning the two of them knelt at the side of their hotel room bed and made a radical decision – to sell everything they had and dedicate themselves to serving poor people and to work for justice for the oppressed.
Since the next day was Sunday they found a church and they went to worship God and to thank God for their new beginning. They got to church early and they looked up the minister to share with him what had happened to them and the decision they had made.
To their surprise, the minister told them that such a radical decision was not really necessary. “He told us that it was not necessary for us to give up everything,” Millard said. “He just didn’t understand that we weren’t giving up money and the things that money could buy. We were giving up a whole way of life that was killing us.” (7) Wow! What a cost!
Brothers and sisters, discipleship is costly – it may cost us our most intimate relationships – it may cost us our lives – it may cost us our possessions. And, we need to count the cost. But, I challenge you – I invite you – to consider committing yourself to journeying with Jesus in a new way – in a way that will make a difference in your life – in the lives of others – and for all eternity.
How about praying the following:
Lord Jesus, you call us to be your disciples, to follow you down the narrow way of faithful discipleship. Lord, give us the grace we need to risk discipleship, to discipline our lives to your will, to love you enough to serve you in all that we do or say. Teach us to listen to you more than we listen to the voices of the world. Keep us close to you in all the times of our lives. In short, help us to count the cost and to be able to pay the price. Amen.
John G. Lynch, Troubled Journey (Lima: CSS Publishing Company).
William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: Luke (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 196.
James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True (Nashville: Dimensions, 1994), pp. 117-118.
Ibid.
Ibid.
David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, Adapted from William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, September 10, 1995, p. 45.
Tony Campolo, Wake Up America!
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Christmas, 2009
Dear Friends and Family,
Blessings on all of you during this wonderful Christmas season. It is hard to believe that time flies so quickly but we are grateful “for being able to be busy!”
.
Summer provided many traveling opportunities. We went on a mission trip to South Dakota to work on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in June. Thirty two adults from Maple Grove boarded a bus and spent 10 days together. The Indian Reservation provided various options for the volunteers to choose from—renovation of houses, setting up a food pantry and clothing center, gardening and even a group of ladies spent the week on sewing projects. It was a lot of hard work but very inspirational. We also had talks each night which gave us more insight as to the problems that Native Americans face.
Our family went to Oak Island, North Carolina for a vacation in July. It brought back many memories of vacationing there when Jeremy and Megan were growing up. It was so nice to have Evan and Corinne there to enjoy the surf and sand. They loved it just as much as their parents! Bill and I took off a week earlier and spent time visiting with friends in Tennessee and the Carolinas.
Dorothy continues to enjoy her teaching at the Grove City Christian School. Bill loves working with the people of Maple Grove United Methodist Church. We are fortunate to be just one mile from Megan and Evan. Megan is an associate pastor at North Broadway UMC. She was ordained as an elder in the UMC at annual conference in June. This was a very special day for all of us. Many members of the family and friends made the trip to Lakeside for the beautiful service.
We don’t get to see Jeremy and his family as often. He is now Assistant Athletic Director at Tiffin University along with his track and cross-country coaching responsibilities. His wife, Meladie, keeps busy with her tax service and trying to keep tabs on Corinne who turned 4 in November.
We were able to spend many enjoyable days at Indian Lake this summer. We will again be looking for another place because we sold our cottage to the son of our next door neighbor. It was a difficult decision but we knew that we would need a larger place for retirement and felt that it would be wonderful for our neighbors to have two cottages next door to each other.
As you can see, we have been blessed with many wonderful times with church and family. May this Christmas season provide a sense of peace to all of you as you celebrate the birth of the Christ Child!
Dear Friends and Family,
Blessings on all of you during this wonderful Christmas season. It is hard to believe that time flies so quickly but we are grateful “for being able to be busy!”
.
Summer provided many traveling opportunities. We went on a mission trip to South Dakota to work on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in June. Thirty two adults from Maple Grove boarded a bus and spent 10 days together. The Indian Reservation provided various options for the volunteers to choose from—renovation of houses, setting up a food pantry and clothing center, gardening and even a group of ladies spent the week on sewing projects. It was a lot of hard work but very inspirational. We also had talks each night which gave us more insight as to the problems that Native Americans face.
Our family went to Oak Island, North Carolina for a vacation in July. It brought back many memories of vacationing there when Jeremy and Megan were growing up. It was so nice to have Evan and Corinne there to enjoy the surf and sand. They loved it just as much as their parents! Bill and I took off a week earlier and spent time visiting with friends in Tennessee and the Carolinas.
Dorothy continues to enjoy her teaching at the Grove City Christian School. Bill loves working with the people of Maple Grove United Methodist Church. We are fortunate to be just one mile from Megan and Evan. Megan is an associate pastor at North Broadway UMC. She was ordained as an elder in the UMC at annual conference in June. This was a very special day for all of us. Many members of the family and friends made the trip to Lakeside for the beautiful service.
We don’t get to see Jeremy and his family as often. He is now Assistant Athletic Director at Tiffin University along with his track and cross-country coaching responsibilities. His wife, Meladie, keeps busy with her tax service and trying to keep tabs on Corinne who turned 4 in November.
We were able to spend many enjoyable days at Indian Lake this summer. We will again be looking for another place because we sold our cottage to the son of our next door neighbor. It was a difficult decision but we knew that we would need a larger place for retirement and felt that it would be wonderful for our neighbors to have two cottages next door to each other.
As you can see, we have been blessed with many wonderful times with church and family. May this Christmas season provide a sense of peace to all of you as you celebrate the birth of the Christ Child!
THE CHURCH: A PLACE FOR RUNAWAYS
PHILEMON 1:1-25
PICTURE FOR A MOMENT IN YOU RMIND THE FACE OF A PERSON WHO ENCOURAGED YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY OF FAITH. PICTURE SOMEONE WHO FIRST INTRODUCED YOU TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH - SOMEONE WHO TOLD YOU THE STORIES OF JESUS AND LIVED THEM OUT FOR YOU. OR, PICTURE SOMEONE WHO NURTURED YOU ALONG IN THE FAITH - SOMEONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS - TO LISTEN TO YOUR DOUBTS - WHO ENCOURAGED YOU TO KEEP THE FAITH.
THERE'S LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO COME INTO MY MIND - MY PARENTS CERTAINLY LEAD THE PARADE - A NUMBER OF MINISTERS FOLLOW CLOSE BEHIND - SOME SERVED THE CHURCH I GREW UP IN - OTHERS GAVE OF THEIR TIME TO BE A COUNSELOR AT CHURCH CAMP. AND THEN THERE'S MY WIFE, DORT, AND ALL OUR RELIGIOUS DISCUSSIONS LEADING UP TO OUR MARRIAGE AND THE EXPERIENCES WE HAVE CONTINUED TO SHARE IN - AND THEN THERE'S MY COLLEGE ROOMMATE, LARRY, AND HIS REASSURING WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO THINK ABOUT THE MINISTRY AND THOSE EARLY CHURCHES AND ALL THE TEENAGERS WH'VE PUT UP WITH MY ANTICS AND ASKED THE CHALLENGING QUESTIONS TO FORCE MY FAITH TO BE REAL AND NOT CANNED. AND THERE HAVE BEEN AUTHORS AND THEIR WRITINGS RABBI HAROLD KUSHNER AND HIS WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE - JUAN ARIES AND HIS THE GOD I DON'T BELIEVE IN AND J.B. PHILLIPS AND HIS BOOK YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL - ALL HAVE HAD A ROLE.
BUT PERHAPS THE ONE I'M THE MOST INDEBTED TO - THE ONE WHO MOST CHALLENGED ME - MOST ENCOURAGED ME - MOST SHARED HER IDEAS AND GAVE ME THE SPACE TO SHARE MINE - THE ONE WHO MOST FORCED ME TO LAY MY RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS ALONGSIDE MY LIFE EXPE5RIENCES AND EXAMINE THEM AND REFLECT UPNO THEM - THE ONE MOST LIKE PAUL - IT WOULD HAVE TO BE BETH GLICK/RIEMAN. SOME OF YOU KNOW HER - SHE LED A COUPLE OF RETREATS FOR US WHEN I WAS HERE BEFORE. DESPITE THE FACT WE DON'T CORRESPOND AS MUCH AS WE ONCE DID, I KNOW I OWE HER A GREAT DEAL. I SHALL FOREVER BE INDEBTED TO HER FOR WHO I AM AS A SPIRITUAL PERSON - A CHRISTIAN JOURNIER.
NOW - SOMEPLACE ELSE IN YOUR MULTI-SCREEN BRAIN I WANT YOU TO FORMULATE A PICTURE OF ANOTHER PERSON - THE PERSON I WANT YOU TO IMAGINE THIS TIME SHOULD BE SOMEONE WHO HAS REALLY WRONGED YOU - SOMEONE WHO HAS CHEATED YOU OUT OF SOMETHING - SOMEONE WHO MAYBE WORKED ALONGSIDE YOU BUT WHO FOR SOME REASON JUST UP AND LEFT YOU - CREATE IN YOUR MIND A MENTAL IMAGE OF A PERSON FOR WHOM YOU ONLY FEEL CONTEMPT, ANGER - A PERSON WHO LEFT YOU IN A TIME OF NEED.
I HAVE TO ADMIT TO YOU THAT MY SHARING THE NAMES OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF SOME OF THE POTENTIAL LEADING CHARACTERS ON MY MENTAL DISK DOESN'T DARE BE MADE PUBLIC - BUT REST ASSURED THERE ARE SOME WHICH COME INTO FOCUS ON THE MONITOR INSIDE MY BRAIN.
O.K. - HAVE THE TWO PEOPLE CLEARLY IN YOUR MIND. IN THE THIRD AND FINAL SCENE OF OUR LITTLE IMAGINARY SOAP OPERA I WANT YOU TO PICTURE THAT CHURCH IS OVER AND YOU'RE WALKING ACROSS THE STREET OR ACROSS THE PARKING LOT AND YOU ARE NEARING YOUR CAR - WHEN OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE YOU CATCH A GLIMPSE OF A FIGURE SEEMINGLY WALKING TOWARD YOU AND AS YOU TURN TO GET A BETTER LOOK, YOU REALIZE IT IS THE UNNAMEABLE IN PUBLIC PERSON - IT IS THE PERSON WHO HAS WRONGED YOU. WHAT DO YOU DO? - TURN AND RUN? REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE PERSON WITH A CLOSED FIST? WHAT DO YOU DO?
WHILE YOU'RE PONDERING WHAT WILL BE YOUR RESPONSE - YOUR ENEMY HOLDS OUT HER HAND, CLASPING WHAT APPEARS TO BE A PIECE OF PAPER. AND THEN, SEEMINGLY SENSING YOUR TEMPTED RESPONSES - NERVOUSLY, BOLDLY, EXCLAIMS: "WAIT, BILL! BEFORE YOU SAY OR DO ANYTHING, THIS NOTE IS FROM BETH. SHE ASKED ME TO GIVE IT TO YOU. PLEASE READ IT!"
YOU HESITATE - BUT INTO YOUR MIND CROWD THOSE FEELINGS - THOSE MEMORIES OF YOUR FRIEND IN THE FAITH - AND SO WITHOUT SAYING A WORD TO THIS ONE YOU'D RATHER NOT SEE, YOU TAKE THE LETTER FROM THE PERSON WHO NURTURED YOU IN THE FAITH AND YOU BEGIN TO READ. "DEAR FRIEND, I KNOW THAT JIM HAS HURT YOU DEEPLY. I'M SORRY ABOUT THAT. BUT HE'S BEEN A REAL HELP TO ME IN THESE LAST FEW MONTHS. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE CHRISTIAN HE'S BECOME - LIKE YOU AND ME. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU TO ACCEPT HIM BACK INTO YOUR LIFE AS A BROTHER OR SISTER IN CHRIST. IT WOULD MEAN A GREAT DEAL TO ME IF YOU WOULD. HE'S SUCH A FINE PERSON. YOUR FRIEND, BETH."
NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? THE SAME PERSON WHO NURTURED YOU IN THE FAITH, WHO LEAD YOU, WHO ENCOURAGED YOU IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST HAS DONE THE SAME THING FOR YOUR ENEMY, THIS OUTCAST, THIS ONE YOU DISLIKE, MAYBE EVEN HATE. HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?
LET'S LEAVE OUR IMAGINATIONS FOR AWHILE AND TAKE A LOOK AT ONE OF OUR SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR THE MORNING. TUCKED AWAY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AMONG ALL THE LETTERS OF PAUL IS THIS SHORT LITTLE NOTE FROM PAUL TO HIS FRIEND PHILEMON. IT'S DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER LETTERS BECAUSE IT'S SO PERSONAL. BUT THE STORY BEHIND THE LETTER IS WHAT REALLY MAKES THE LETTER IMPORTANT TO US. IT'S A STORY NOT UNLIKE THE ONE WE HAVE JUST PLAYED OUT IN OUR IMAGINATIONS.
OLE' PAUL WAS SERVING ANOTHER ONE OF HIS PERIODIC JAIL TERMS WHEN HE MET THIS GUY BY THE NAME OF ONESIMUS. NOW, ONESIMUS WAS A SLAVE WHO BELONGED TO PHILEMON, A FRIEND OF PAUL'S AND A CHRISTIAN. IN FACT, PAUL HAS HAD A HAND IN HIS FAITH DEVELOPMENT - SORT OF LIKE THE BETH'S IN OUR FIRST SCENES. NOBODY IS REALLY SURE WHY ONESIMUS WAS IN JAIL, BUT IT IS BELIEVED THAT NOT ONLY DID HE RUNAWAY FROM PHILEMON BUT THAT HE STOLE FROM HIM AS WELL AND HE'D BEEN CAUGHT AND CHARGED WITH THEFT. ANYWAY, HE BECOMES A FRIEND OF PAUL'S AND A VERY USEFUL ONE AT THAT. SO, WHEN ONESIMUS HAD DONE HIS TIME AND WAS ABOUT TO BE SPRUNG, PAUL WRITES THIS SHORT LETTER FOR HIM TO GIVE TO HIS MASTER, PHILEMON.
NOW, THERE'S SEVERAL THINGS WE NEED TO NOTE HERE. THE ONE IS THE REALLY RADICAL NATURE OF PAUL'S REQUEST OF THESE TWO BROTHERS IN CHRIST. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT SLAVES WERE NOT PERSONS; THEY WERE TOOLS. THIS WAS NOT JUST A CHALLENGE TO PHILEMON - ONESIMUS ACCEPTED A REAL RISK IN GOING BACK AS WELL. A RUNAWAY SLAVE UPON HIS RETURN COULD BE BRANDED WITH A RED-HOT BRANDING IRON ON HIS FOREHEAD LABELING HIM AS A FUGITIVE FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE - A SLAVE COULD BE MAIMED SO THAT HE OR SHE WOULD NOT RUN AWAY AGAIN - A MASTER COULD SMASH THEM IN THE SIDE OF THE HEAD WITH A FIST OR COULD CONDEMN THEM TO HARD LABOR. HE COULD MAKE THEM WORK IN CHAINS. HE COULD BEAT THEM WITH STICKS. STORY AFTER STORY IS WRITTEN ABOUT MASTERS WHO DELIGHTED IN THE SOUND OF A CRUEL BEATING, CONSIDERING IT SWEETER EVEN THAN THE SONG OF A BIRD. SLAVES WERE MERE PROPERTY, LIKE A WHEELBARROW OR A HORSE OR A MOP. PAUL WELL KNEW ALL THIS, AND HE KNEW THAT SLAVERY WAS SO INGRAINED INTO THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT EVEN TO SEND A FELLOW CHRISTIAN SLAVE TO ANOTHER CHRISTIAN MASTER WAS RISKING THE RUNAWAY SLAVE'S LIFE. AND YET, HE SENT HIM - BUT WITH A LETTER.
THE SECOND THING WE NEED TO NOTE IS WHAT PAUL MIGHT BE TRYING TO TEACH US ABOUT HOW WRONGDOING SHOULD BE HANDLED BY CHRISTIANS. EVEN THOUGH PAUL WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KEEP ONESIMUS FOR HIMSELF BECAUSE OF HIS USEFULNESS - AND WE WOULD LIKE TO THINK RECOGNIZED THE SINFULNESS OF SLAVERY AND THUS WOULD HAVE STOOD AGAINST THE LAWS OF THE DAY - STILL HE BELIEVED HE COULD NOT DO IT WITHOUT PHILEMON'S CONSENT. AND I HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT THAT HAS TO DO WITH MORE THAN OBEYING THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL OBLIGATIONS OF THE TIMES. I WOULD OFFER YOU THIS MORNING THAT PERHAPS PAUL WAS ALSO SAYING THAT CHRISTIANITY ISN'T OUT TO HELP US ESCAPE OUR PAST OR TO RUN AWAY FROM IT - RATHER, IT IS OUT TO ENABLE US TO FACE OUR PAST AND TO RISE ABOVE IT.
SO, PICTURE THE SCENE - SIMILAR TO OUR THIRD SCENE. THE RUNAWAY SLAVE KNOCKS ON THE DOOR. PHILEMON COMES TO THE DOOR. ALL HE KNOWS, WHEN HE SEES ONESIMUS, IS THAT THIS HEATHEN PIECE OF PROPERTY ROBBED HIM BLIND WHEN HE RAN AWAY. PHILEMON IS ABOUT TO ORDER HIM CHAINED AND THROWN IN THE DUNGEON - WHEN ONESIMUS HANDS HIM THE LETTER, TELLING HIM THAT IT IS FROM PAUL. WITH EVERY LINE OF READING, PHILEMON'S EYES GROW BIGGER.
MAKE NO MISTAKE - PAUL KNOWS HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE - HE MAKES HIS REQUEST OF PHILEMON IN WAYS THAT PHILEMON CAN'T HELP BUT HONOR. PAUL BEGINS BY REMINDING HIS FRIEND OF HIS IMPRISONMENT BECAUSE OF HIS STANCE ABOUT JESUS CHRIST - "SEE THE SACRIFICE I AM MAKING" - TALK ABOUT SUBTLE PRESSURE. AND THEN THERE'S THIS PERSONAL PLEA TO PHILEMON BUT WITH THE LETTER BEING ADDRESSED TO THE WHOLE CONGREGATION WITH THE OBVIOUS INTENT THAT IT BE READ IN THE PRESENCE OF THE WHOLE CONGREGATION - DO YOU THINK PHILEMON'S ON THE SPOT? AND THEN THERE'S THE SENTENCES OF PRAISE FOR THE STORIES PAUL HAS HEARD ABOUT PHILEMON'S LOVE AND FAITH AND THE REMINDER OF HIS OWN INFLUENCE OF THAT FAITH. AND HOW ABOUT THIS SENTENCE: "ACCORDINGLY, THOUGH I AM BOLD ENOUGH IN CHRIST TO COMMAND YOU TO DO WHAT IS REQUIRED." "MY PERSONALITY WOULD NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME TELLING YOU WHAT I EXPECT - WHAT IS REQUIRED IN THE SITUATION I AM ASKING YOU TO DEAL WITH." "YET", HE QUICKLY ADDS, "FOR LOVE'S SAKE I PREFER TO APPEAL TO YOU". PAUL STATES HIS AFFECTION FOR PHILEMON AND DECLARES HIS CONFIDENCE IN HIM TO DO THE RIGHT THING. CAN'T YOU JUST SEE THE HEADS IN THE CONGREGATION TURNING TOWARD PHILEMON WITH APPROVING LOOKS? PAUL ENDS HIS COUCHED INVITATION FOR PHILEMON TO DO AS HE WISHES BY PROMISING HIM THAT HE WILL ABSORB ONESIMUS' DEBTS - WILL REPAY PHILEMON ANYTHING ONESIMUS OWES HIM IF HE WILL ACCEPT HIM BACK AS A BROTHER - AND ANNOUNCES THAT HE WILL BE BY FOR A VISIT AS SOON AS HE IS OUT OF JAIL - "AND OH, BY THE WAY, SOME OF OUR OTHER BROTHERS IN CHRIST - EPAPHRAS, ARISTARCHUS, MARK, DEMAS, AND LUKE ARE READING THIS LITTLE LETTER AND SEND THEIR GREETINGS AS WELL." SO THIS NO-GOOD SLAVE IS NOW A BELOVED CHRISTIAN BROTHER, EVEN A COLLEAGUE OF THE GREAT APOSTLE. WHAT SHALL PHILEMON DO?
THERE'S NO RECORD OF WHAT PHILEMON DID. MOST BIBLICAL SCHOLARS MAKE NOTE THAT THERE WAS A LITTLE LATER IN CHURCH HISTORY A VERY FAMOUS BISHOP IN THE CHURCH BY THE NAME OF ONESIMUS WHICH MIGHT SUGGEST THAT PHILEMON GAVE HIM HIS FREDOM AND WHY SUCH A SHORT AND INSIGNIFICANT LETTER WOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE BIBLE. THE SCHOLARS GO ON TO INFER THAT RECEIVING HIS FREEDOM FROM HIS MASTER WAS THE MOTIVATION BEHIND ONESIMUS' RISE TO LEADERSHIP. HE, BETTER THAN MOST, UNDERSTOOD FIRSTHAND THE POWER, THE RELIEF, WHICH COMES FROM BEING FORGIVEN, FROM BEING ACCEPTED.
I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU THIS MORNING THAT WHAT PAUL EXPECTED OUT OF PHILEMON AND HIS HOUSE AND HIS PEOPLE, HE EXPECTS OUT OF THE CHURCH, HIS HOUSE AND HIS PEOPLE. THAT WE ARE A PLACE AND A PEOPLE FOR RUNAWAYS - FOR THE BROKENHEARTED, THE SINNER, THE LEFT OUT, THE SEARCHING, THE QUESTIONING, THE STRUGGLING. ALL OF US CAN RELATE TO THE CHARACTER OF ONESIMUS IN THIS STORY. WE ALL KNOW OURSELVES TO BE THE ONE WHO HAS RUN AWAY - WHO HAS LEFT OUR RESPONSIBILITIES - WHO HAS HURT SOMEONE THAT CARED FOR US - WHO HAS SEPARATED OURSELVES FROM GOD AND OTHERS. WE KNOW OURSELVES AS THE ONES IN NEED OF FORGIVENESS, IN NEED OF BEING RECONCILED. SOME OF US ARE SLAVES TO MODERN DAY MASTERS - MONEY, FOOD, ATHLETICS, JOBS, ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, TRAVEL, AND WE'RE RELUCTANT TO GIVE UP THE COMFORT AND THE SECURITY WHICH WE BELIEVE EXISTS IN OUR MASTERS. OUR SLAVERY HAS BECOME A SOURCE OF SEPARATION FROM GOD, WE USE THEM AS EXCUSES TO KEEP GOD AWAY, TO RUNAWAY FROM GOD'S PRESENCE. TO AVOID THE FELLOWSHIP. AND WE NEED TO ASK OURSELVES WHERE WE WOULD BE IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE GRACE-FILLED FORGIVENESS OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST? WHERE WOULD WE BE IF CHRIST AND THOSE WE ENCOUNTER AS BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST WERE NOT AROUND TO REASSURE US OF THEIR FORGIVENESS AND OF GOD'S? WE DON'T DESERVE THE MERCY WE HAVE BEEN SHOWN ANYMORE THAN ONESIMUS DESERVED PHILEMON'S FORGIVENESS ACCORDING TO THE SOCIAL LAWS OF THEIR DAY. WE DESERVE TO BE CAST OUT, TO BE IGNORED, TO BE GIVEN UP ON, IF WE ARE ONLY TO BE EXAMINED ACCORDING TO THE LAW AND THE ACCEPTED STANDARDS OF THE DAY. BUT OUR EXPERIENCE IN JESUS CHRIST AND IN THE CHURCH IS THAT GOD LOVES US - GOD ACCEPTS US IN SPITE OF OUR CONDITION.
THE CHURCH EXISTS TO MAKE THAT MESSAGE HEARD. WE ARE A PEOPLE WHOSE VERY EXISTENCE IS TO LIVE OUT WHAT WE SAY - WHAT WE OURSELVES HAVE EXPERIENCED. WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT FORGIVENESS, BUT WE ARE TO FORGIVE - WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF CARING FOR ONE ANOTHER, BUT WE ARE TO CARE - WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT GOD'S ACCEPTANCE, BUT ARE TO ACCEPT.
IN ONE OF THE "PEANUTS" CARTOON STRIPS, LUCY IS SEEN SHAKING HER LITTLE FIST IN DEFIANCE, PROCLAIMING: "I KNOW EVERYBODY IN THIS FAMILY HATES ME. I'M GONNA GO WHERE I'M APPRECIATED."
SHE TURNS TO LEAVE, THEN STOPS AND SHEEPISHLY SAYS, "GIVE ME A HINT WHERE THAT IS."
AND PAUL SAYS, "HEY, LUCY, LOOK IN THE CHURCH." THE CHURCH IS THE PLACE - THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE, WHERE AND BY WHOM WE CAN AND SHOULD EXPERIENCE LOVE AND APPRECIATION." TO BE SURE MANY TIMES WE FAIL - BUT IT'S THE IDEAL WE MUST HOLD UP FOR OURSELVES - IT'S WHAT WE MUST COME TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT OURSELVES - IT'S WHAT WE MUST SHOOT FOR.
AS THE LIGHTS IN THE MOVIE THEATRE DIMMED, A YOUNG MAN LOADED DOWN WITH POPCORN PACED UP AND DOWN THE AISLE, SCANNING THE DARKENED ROWS. FINALLY HE STOPPED AND ASKED LOUDLY, "DOES ANYBODY RECOGNIZE ME?"
THAT'S WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD BE - A PLACE, A PEOPLE, WHERE PEOPLE CAN BE KNOWN AND KNOW THAT OTHERS CARE ABOUT THEM.
THE CHURCH EXISTS TO CRY WITH AND FOR PEOPLE. TO IDENTIFY WITH THE PROBLEMS OF THOSE WHO WOULD COME. OUR RALLYING CRY IS NOT "WHERE CHRIST IS THERE IS NO MISERY", BUT "WHERE THERE IS MISERY, CHRIST IS." AND IN ORDER FOR CHRIST TO BE THERE THEN WE, HIS BODY, MUST BE THERE.
ONE VERY SPECIAL DAY, LITTLE AMY UNWRAPPED A BEAUTIFUL GOLDEN-HAIRED DOLL GIVEN TO HER BY HER GRANDMOTHER. "IT'S SUCH A PRETTY DOLLY," AMY SQUEALED EXCITEDLY, HUGGING HER NEW DOLL. "OH, THANK YOU, GRANDMA!"
AMY PLAYED WITH HER NEW DOLL MOST OF THE DAY, BUT TOWARD THE END OF THE DAY, SHE PUT DOWN HER GOLDEN-HAIRED DOLL AND SOUGHT OUT ONE OF HER OLD DOLLS. AMY CRADLED THE TATTERED AND DILAPIDATED OLD DOLL IN HER ARMS. ITS HAIR HAD COME OFF; ITS NOSE WAS BROKEN; ONE EYE WAS GONE, AND AN ARM AND A LEG WERE MISSING.
"WELL, WELL," SMILED GRANDMA. "IT LOOKS AS THOUGH YOU LIKE THAT DOLLY BEST."
"I LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL DOLL YOU GAVE ME, GRANDMA," SAID LITTLE AMY. "BUT I LOVE THIS OLD DOLL THE MOST, BECAUSE IF I DIDN'T LOVE HER, NO ONE WOULD."
IF THE CHURCH DOESN'T HAVE A BUNCH OF AMYS IN IT WHERE ELSE WILL THEY BE FOUND? LET'S GET ON WITH BEING AMYS AND BEING A PEOPLE - A CHURCH - FOR RUNAWAYS.
LET US PRAY: AND NOW, O GOD, WHILE OUR HEARTS ARE OPEN TO YOUR SPIRIT, FILL US WITH LIFE ANEW. PREPARE US TO HEAR THE HURTS OF OTHERS, LOOSE OUR TONGUES THAT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS, BIND US TOGETHER IN THESE FEW MOMENTS THAT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN OUR LIVES MIGHT BRING US CLOSER TO YOU. IN CHRIST'S NAME. AMEN.
PHILEMON 1:1-25
PICTURE FOR A MOMENT IN YOU RMIND THE FACE OF A PERSON WHO ENCOURAGED YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY OF FAITH. PICTURE SOMEONE WHO FIRST INTRODUCED YOU TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH - SOMEONE WHO TOLD YOU THE STORIES OF JESUS AND LIVED THEM OUT FOR YOU. OR, PICTURE SOMEONE WHO NURTURED YOU ALONG IN THE FAITH - SOMEONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS - TO LISTEN TO YOUR DOUBTS - WHO ENCOURAGED YOU TO KEEP THE FAITH.
THERE'S LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO COME INTO MY MIND - MY PARENTS CERTAINLY LEAD THE PARADE - A NUMBER OF MINISTERS FOLLOW CLOSE BEHIND - SOME SERVED THE CHURCH I GREW UP IN - OTHERS GAVE OF THEIR TIME TO BE A COUNSELOR AT CHURCH CAMP. AND THEN THERE'S MY WIFE, DORT, AND ALL OUR RELIGIOUS DISCUSSIONS LEADING UP TO OUR MARRIAGE AND THE EXPERIENCES WE HAVE CONTINUED TO SHARE IN - AND THEN THERE'S MY COLLEGE ROOMMATE, LARRY, AND HIS REASSURING WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO THINK ABOUT THE MINISTRY AND THOSE EARLY CHURCHES AND ALL THE TEENAGERS WH'VE PUT UP WITH MY ANTICS AND ASKED THE CHALLENGING QUESTIONS TO FORCE MY FAITH TO BE REAL AND NOT CANNED. AND THERE HAVE BEEN AUTHORS AND THEIR WRITINGS RABBI HAROLD KUSHNER AND HIS WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE - JUAN ARIES AND HIS THE GOD I DON'T BELIEVE IN AND J.B. PHILLIPS AND HIS BOOK YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL - ALL HAVE HAD A ROLE.
BUT PERHAPS THE ONE I'M THE MOST INDEBTED TO - THE ONE WHO MOST CHALLENGED ME - MOST ENCOURAGED ME - MOST SHARED HER IDEAS AND GAVE ME THE SPACE TO SHARE MINE - THE ONE WHO MOST FORCED ME TO LAY MY RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS ALONGSIDE MY LIFE EXPE5RIENCES AND EXAMINE THEM AND REFLECT UPNO THEM - THE ONE MOST LIKE PAUL - IT WOULD HAVE TO BE BETH GLICK/RIEMAN. SOME OF YOU KNOW HER - SHE LED A COUPLE OF RETREATS FOR US WHEN I WAS HERE BEFORE. DESPITE THE FACT WE DON'T CORRESPOND AS MUCH AS WE ONCE DID, I KNOW I OWE HER A GREAT DEAL. I SHALL FOREVER BE INDEBTED TO HER FOR WHO I AM AS A SPIRITUAL PERSON - A CHRISTIAN JOURNIER.
NOW - SOMEPLACE ELSE IN YOUR MULTI-SCREEN BRAIN I WANT YOU TO FORMULATE A PICTURE OF ANOTHER PERSON - THE PERSON I WANT YOU TO IMAGINE THIS TIME SHOULD BE SOMEONE WHO HAS REALLY WRONGED YOU - SOMEONE WHO HAS CHEATED YOU OUT OF SOMETHING - SOMEONE WHO MAYBE WORKED ALONGSIDE YOU BUT WHO FOR SOME REASON JUST UP AND LEFT YOU - CREATE IN YOUR MIND A MENTAL IMAGE OF A PERSON FOR WHOM YOU ONLY FEEL CONTEMPT, ANGER - A PERSON WHO LEFT YOU IN A TIME OF NEED.
I HAVE TO ADMIT TO YOU THAT MY SHARING THE NAMES OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF SOME OF THE POTENTIAL LEADING CHARACTERS ON MY MENTAL DISK DOESN'T DARE BE MADE PUBLIC - BUT REST ASSURED THERE ARE SOME WHICH COME INTO FOCUS ON THE MONITOR INSIDE MY BRAIN.
O.K. - HAVE THE TWO PEOPLE CLEARLY IN YOUR MIND. IN THE THIRD AND FINAL SCENE OF OUR LITTLE IMAGINARY SOAP OPERA I WANT YOU TO PICTURE THAT CHURCH IS OVER AND YOU'RE WALKING ACROSS THE STREET OR ACROSS THE PARKING LOT AND YOU ARE NEARING YOUR CAR - WHEN OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE YOU CATCH A GLIMPSE OF A FIGURE SEEMINGLY WALKING TOWARD YOU AND AS YOU TURN TO GET A BETTER LOOK, YOU REALIZE IT IS THE UNNAMEABLE IN PUBLIC PERSON - IT IS THE PERSON WHO HAS WRONGED YOU. WHAT DO YOU DO? - TURN AND RUN? REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE PERSON WITH A CLOSED FIST? WHAT DO YOU DO?
WHILE YOU'RE PONDERING WHAT WILL BE YOUR RESPONSE - YOUR ENEMY HOLDS OUT HER HAND, CLASPING WHAT APPEARS TO BE A PIECE OF PAPER. AND THEN, SEEMINGLY SENSING YOUR TEMPTED RESPONSES - NERVOUSLY, BOLDLY, EXCLAIMS: "WAIT, BILL! BEFORE YOU SAY OR DO ANYTHING, THIS NOTE IS FROM BETH. SHE ASKED ME TO GIVE IT TO YOU. PLEASE READ IT!"
YOU HESITATE - BUT INTO YOUR MIND CROWD THOSE FEELINGS - THOSE MEMORIES OF YOUR FRIEND IN THE FAITH - AND SO WITHOUT SAYING A WORD TO THIS ONE YOU'D RATHER NOT SEE, YOU TAKE THE LETTER FROM THE PERSON WHO NURTURED YOU IN THE FAITH AND YOU BEGIN TO READ. "DEAR FRIEND, I KNOW THAT JIM HAS HURT YOU DEEPLY. I'M SORRY ABOUT THAT. BUT HE'S BEEN A REAL HELP TO ME IN THESE LAST FEW MONTHS. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE CHRISTIAN HE'S BECOME - LIKE YOU AND ME. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU TO ACCEPT HIM BACK INTO YOUR LIFE AS A BROTHER OR SISTER IN CHRIST. IT WOULD MEAN A GREAT DEAL TO ME IF YOU WOULD. HE'S SUCH A FINE PERSON. YOUR FRIEND, BETH."
NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? THE SAME PERSON WHO NURTURED YOU IN THE FAITH, WHO LEAD YOU, WHO ENCOURAGED YOU IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST HAS DONE THE SAME THING FOR YOUR ENEMY, THIS OUTCAST, THIS ONE YOU DISLIKE, MAYBE EVEN HATE. HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?
LET'S LEAVE OUR IMAGINATIONS FOR AWHILE AND TAKE A LOOK AT ONE OF OUR SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR THE MORNING. TUCKED AWAY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AMONG ALL THE LETTERS OF PAUL IS THIS SHORT LITTLE NOTE FROM PAUL TO HIS FRIEND PHILEMON. IT'S DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER LETTERS BECAUSE IT'S SO PERSONAL. BUT THE STORY BEHIND THE LETTER IS WHAT REALLY MAKES THE LETTER IMPORTANT TO US. IT'S A STORY NOT UNLIKE THE ONE WE HAVE JUST PLAYED OUT IN OUR IMAGINATIONS.
OLE' PAUL WAS SERVING ANOTHER ONE OF HIS PERIODIC JAIL TERMS WHEN HE MET THIS GUY BY THE NAME OF ONESIMUS. NOW, ONESIMUS WAS A SLAVE WHO BELONGED TO PHILEMON, A FRIEND OF PAUL'S AND A CHRISTIAN. IN FACT, PAUL HAS HAD A HAND IN HIS FAITH DEVELOPMENT - SORT OF LIKE THE BETH'S IN OUR FIRST SCENES. NOBODY IS REALLY SURE WHY ONESIMUS WAS IN JAIL, BUT IT IS BELIEVED THAT NOT ONLY DID HE RUNAWAY FROM PHILEMON BUT THAT HE STOLE FROM HIM AS WELL AND HE'D BEEN CAUGHT AND CHARGED WITH THEFT. ANYWAY, HE BECOMES A FRIEND OF PAUL'S AND A VERY USEFUL ONE AT THAT. SO, WHEN ONESIMUS HAD DONE HIS TIME AND WAS ABOUT TO BE SPRUNG, PAUL WRITES THIS SHORT LETTER FOR HIM TO GIVE TO HIS MASTER, PHILEMON.
NOW, THERE'S SEVERAL THINGS WE NEED TO NOTE HERE. THE ONE IS THE REALLY RADICAL NATURE OF PAUL'S REQUEST OF THESE TWO BROTHERS IN CHRIST. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT SLAVES WERE NOT PERSONS; THEY WERE TOOLS. THIS WAS NOT JUST A CHALLENGE TO PHILEMON - ONESIMUS ACCEPTED A REAL RISK IN GOING BACK AS WELL. A RUNAWAY SLAVE UPON HIS RETURN COULD BE BRANDED WITH A RED-HOT BRANDING IRON ON HIS FOREHEAD LABELING HIM AS A FUGITIVE FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE - A SLAVE COULD BE MAIMED SO THAT HE OR SHE WOULD NOT RUN AWAY AGAIN - A MASTER COULD SMASH THEM IN THE SIDE OF THE HEAD WITH A FIST OR COULD CONDEMN THEM TO HARD LABOR. HE COULD MAKE THEM WORK IN CHAINS. HE COULD BEAT THEM WITH STICKS. STORY AFTER STORY IS WRITTEN ABOUT MASTERS WHO DELIGHTED IN THE SOUND OF A CRUEL BEATING, CONSIDERING IT SWEETER EVEN THAN THE SONG OF A BIRD. SLAVES WERE MERE PROPERTY, LIKE A WHEELBARROW OR A HORSE OR A MOP. PAUL WELL KNEW ALL THIS, AND HE KNEW THAT SLAVERY WAS SO INGRAINED INTO THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT EVEN TO SEND A FELLOW CHRISTIAN SLAVE TO ANOTHER CHRISTIAN MASTER WAS RISKING THE RUNAWAY SLAVE'S LIFE. AND YET, HE SENT HIM - BUT WITH A LETTER.
THE SECOND THING WE NEED TO NOTE IS WHAT PAUL MIGHT BE TRYING TO TEACH US ABOUT HOW WRONGDOING SHOULD BE HANDLED BY CHRISTIANS. EVEN THOUGH PAUL WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KEEP ONESIMUS FOR HIMSELF BECAUSE OF HIS USEFULNESS - AND WE WOULD LIKE TO THINK RECOGNIZED THE SINFULNESS OF SLAVERY AND THUS WOULD HAVE STOOD AGAINST THE LAWS OF THE DAY - STILL HE BELIEVED HE COULD NOT DO IT WITHOUT PHILEMON'S CONSENT. AND I HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT THAT HAS TO DO WITH MORE THAN OBEYING THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL OBLIGATIONS OF THE TIMES. I WOULD OFFER YOU THIS MORNING THAT PERHAPS PAUL WAS ALSO SAYING THAT CHRISTIANITY ISN'T OUT TO HELP US ESCAPE OUR PAST OR TO RUN AWAY FROM IT - RATHER, IT IS OUT TO ENABLE US TO FACE OUR PAST AND TO RISE ABOVE IT.
SO, PICTURE THE SCENE - SIMILAR TO OUR THIRD SCENE. THE RUNAWAY SLAVE KNOCKS ON THE DOOR. PHILEMON COMES TO THE DOOR. ALL HE KNOWS, WHEN HE SEES ONESIMUS, IS THAT THIS HEATHEN PIECE OF PROPERTY ROBBED HIM BLIND WHEN HE RAN AWAY. PHILEMON IS ABOUT TO ORDER HIM CHAINED AND THROWN IN THE DUNGEON - WHEN ONESIMUS HANDS HIM THE LETTER, TELLING HIM THAT IT IS FROM PAUL. WITH EVERY LINE OF READING, PHILEMON'S EYES GROW BIGGER.
MAKE NO MISTAKE - PAUL KNOWS HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE - HE MAKES HIS REQUEST OF PHILEMON IN WAYS THAT PHILEMON CAN'T HELP BUT HONOR. PAUL BEGINS BY REMINDING HIS FRIEND OF HIS IMPRISONMENT BECAUSE OF HIS STANCE ABOUT JESUS CHRIST - "SEE THE SACRIFICE I AM MAKING" - TALK ABOUT SUBTLE PRESSURE. AND THEN THERE'S THIS PERSONAL PLEA TO PHILEMON BUT WITH THE LETTER BEING ADDRESSED TO THE WHOLE CONGREGATION WITH THE OBVIOUS INTENT THAT IT BE READ IN THE PRESENCE OF THE WHOLE CONGREGATION - DO YOU THINK PHILEMON'S ON THE SPOT? AND THEN THERE'S THE SENTENCES OF PRAISE FOR THE STORIES PAUL HAS HEARD ABOUT PHILEMON'S LOVE AND FAITH AND THE REMINDER OF HIS OWN INFLUENCE OF THAT FAITH. AND HOW ABOUT THIS SENTENCE: "ACCORDINGLY, THOUGH I AM BOLD ENOUGH IN CHRIST TO COMMAND YOU TO DO WHAT IS REQUIRED." "MY PERSONALITY WOULD NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME TELLING YOU WHAT I EXPECT - WHAT IS REQUIRED IN THE SITUATION I AM ASKING YOU TO DEAL WITH." "YET", HE QUICKLY ADDS, "FOR LOVE'S SAKE I PREFER TO APPEAL TO YOU". PAUL STATES HIS AFFECTION FOR PHILEMON AND DECLARES HIS CONFIDENCE IN HIM TO DO THE RIGHT THING. CAN'T YOU JUST SEE THE HEADS IN THE CONGREGATION TURNING TOWARD PHILEMON WITH APPROVING LOOKS? PAUL ENDS HIS COUCHED INVITATION FOR PHILEMON TO DO AS HE WISHES BY PROMISING HIM THAT HE WILL ABSORB ONESIMUS' DEBTS - WILL REPAY PHILEMON ANYTHING ONESIMUS OWES HIM IF HE WILL ACCEPT HIM BACK AS A BROTHER - AND ANNOUNCES THAT HE WILL BE BY FOR A VISIT AS SOON AS HE IS OUT OF JAIL - "AND OH, BY THE WAY, SOME OF OUR OTHER BROTHERS IN CHRIST - EPAPHRAS, ARISTARCHUS, MARK, DEMAS, AND LUKE ARE READING THIS LITTLE LETTER AND SEND THEIR GREETINGS AS WELL." SO THIS NO-GOOD SLAVE IS NOW A BELOVED CHRISTIAN BROTHER, EVEN A COLLEAGUE OF THE GREAT APOSTLE. WHAT SHALL PHILEMON DO?
THERE'S NO RECORD OF WHAT PHILEMON DID. MOST BIBLICAL SCHOLARS MAKE NOTE THAT THERE WAS A LITTLE LATER IN CHURCH HISTORY A VERY FAMOUS BISHOP IN THE CHURCH BY THE NAME OF ONESIMUS WHICH MIGHT SUGGEST THAT PHILEMON GAVE HIM HIS FREDOM AND WHY SUCH A SHORT AND INSIGNIFICANT LETTER WOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE BIBLE. THE SCHOLARS GO ON TO INFER THAT RECEIVING HIS FREEDOM FROM HIS MASTER WAS THE MOTIVATION BEHIND ONESIMUS' RISE TO LEADERSHIP. HE, BETTER THAN MOST, UNDERSTOOD FIRSTHAND THE POWER, THE RELIEF, WHICH COMES FROM BEING FORGIVEN, FROM BEING ACCEPTED.
I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU THIS MORNING THAT WHAT PAUL EXPECTED OUT OF PHILEMON AND HIS HOUSE AND HIS PEOPLE, HE EXPECTS OUT OF THE CHURCH, HIS HOUSE AND HIS PEOPLE. THAT WE ARE A PLACE AND A PEOPLE FOR RUNAWAYS - FOR THE BROKENHEARTED, THE SINNER, THE LEFT OUT, THE SEARCHING, THE QUESTIONING, THE STRUGGLING. ALL OF US CAN RELATE TO THE CHARACTER OF ONESIMUS IN THIS STORY. WE ALL KNOW OURSELVES TO BE THE ONE WHO HAS RUN AWAY - WHO HAS LEFT OUR RESPONSIBILITIES - WHO HAS HURT SOMEONE THAT CARED FOR US - WHO HAS SEPARATED OURSELVES FROM GOD AND OTHERS. WE KNOW OURSELVES AS THE ONES IN NEED OF FORGIVENESS, IN NEED OF BEING RECONCILED. SOME OF US ARE SLAVES TO MODERN DAY MASTERS - MONEY, FOOD, ATHLETICS, JOBS, ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, TRAVEL, AND WE'RE RELUCTANT TO GIVE UP THE COMFORT AND THE SECURITY WHICH WE BELIEVE EXISTS IN OUR MASTERS. OUR SLAVERY HAS BECOME A SOURCE OF SEPARATION FROM GOD, WE USE THEM AS EXCUSES TO KEEP GOD AWAY, TO RUNAWAY FROM GOD'S PRESENCE. TO AVOID THE FELLOWSHIP. AND WE NEED TO ASK OURSELVES WHERE WE WOULD BE IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE GRACE-FILLED FORGIVENESS OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST? WHERE WOULD WE BE IF CHRIST AND THOSE WE ENCOUNTER AS BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST WERE NOT AROUND TO REASSURE US OF THEIR FORGIVENESS AND OF GOD'S? WE DON'T DESERVE THE MERCY WE HAVE BEEN SHOWN ANYMORE THAN ONESIMUS DESERVED PHILEMON'S FORGIVENESS ACCORDING TO THE SOCIAL LAWS OF THEIR DAY. WE DESERVE TO BE CAST OUT, TO BE IGNORED, TO BE GIVEN UP ON, IF WE ARE ONLY TO BE EXAMINED ACCORDING TO THE LAW AND THE ACCEPTED STANDARDS OF THE DAY. BUT OUR EXPERIENCE IN JESUS CHRIST AND IN THE CHURCH IS THAT GOD LOVES US - GOD ACCEPTS US IN SPITE OF OUR CONDITION.
THE CHURCH EXISTS TO MAKE THAT MESSAGE HEARD. WE ARE A PEOPLE WHOSE VERY EXISTENCE IS TO LIVE OUT WHAT WE SAY - WHAT WE OURSELVES HAVE EXPERIENCED. WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT FORGIVENESS, BUT WE ARE TO FORGIVE - WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF CARING FOR ONE ANOTHER, BUT WE ARE TO CARE - WE ARE NOT JUST TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT GOD'S ACCEPTANCE, BUT ARE TO ACCEPT.
IN ONE OF THE "PEANUTS" CARTOON STRIPS, LUCY IS SEEN SHAKING HER LITTLE FIST IN DEFIANCE, PROCLAIMING: "I KNOW EVERYBODY IN THIS FAMILY HATES ME. I'M GONNA GO WHERE I'M APPRECIATED."
SHE TURNS TO LEAVE, THEN STOPS AND SHEEPISHLY SAYS, "GIVE ME A HINT WHERE THAT IS."
AND PAUL SAYS, "HEY, LUCY, LOOK IN THE CHURCH." THE CHURCH IS THE PLACE - THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE, WHERE AND BY WHOM WE CAN AND SHOULD EXPERIENCE LOVE AND APPRECIATION." TO BE SURE MANY TIMES WE FAIL - BUT IT'S THE IDEAL WE MUST HOLD UP FOR OURSELVES - IT'S WHAT WE MUST COME TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT OURSELVES - IT'S WHAT WE MUST SHOOT FOR.
AS THE LIGHTS IN THE MOVIE THEATRE DIMMED, A YOUNG MAN LOADED DOWN WITH POPCORN PACED UP AND DOWN THE AISLE, SCANNING THE DARKENED ROWS. FINALLY HE STOPPED AND ASKED LOUDLY, "DOES ANYBODY RECOGNIZE ME?"
THAT'S WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD BE - A PLACE, A PEOPLE, WHERE PEOPLE CAN BE KNOWN AND KNOW THAT OTHERS CARE ABOUT THEM.
THE CHURCH EXISTS TO CRY WITH AND FOR PEOPLE. TO IDENTIFY WITH THE PROBLEMS OF THOSE WHO WOULD COME. OUR RALLYING CRY IS NOT "WHERE CHRIST IS THERE IS NO MISERY", BUT "WHERE THERE IS MISERY, CHRIST IS." AND IN ORDER FOR CHRIST TO BE THERE THEN WE, HIS BODY, MUST BE THERE.
ONE VERY SPECIAL DAY, LITTLE AMY UNWRAPPED A BEAUTIFUL GOLDEN-HAIRED DOLL GIVEN TO HER BY HER GRANDMOTHER. "IT'S SUCH A PRETTY DOLLY," AMY SQUEALED EXCITEDLY, HUGGING HER NEW DOLL. "OH, THANK YOU, GRANDMA!"
AMY PLAYED WITH HER NEW DOLL MOST OF THE DAY, BUT TOWARD THE END OF THE DAY, SHE PUT DOWN HER GOLDEN-HAIRED DOLL AND SOUGHT OUT ONE OF HER OLD DOLLS. AMY CRADLED THE TATTERED AND DILAPIDATED OLD DOLL IN HER ARMS. ITS HAIR HAD COME OFF; ITS NOSE WAS BROKEN; ONE EYE WAS GONE, AND AN ARM AND A LEG WERE MISSING.
"WELL, WELL," SMILED GRANDMA. "IT LOOKS AS THOUGH YOU LIKE THAT DOLLY BEST."
"I LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL DOLL YOU GAVE ME, GRANDMA," SAID LITTLE AMY. "BUT I LOVE THIS OLD DOLL THE MOST, BECAUSE IF I DIDN'T LOVE HER, NO ONE WOULD."
IF THE CHURCH DOESN'T HAVE A BUNCH OF AMYS IN IT WHERE ELSE WILL THEY BE FOUND? LET'S GET ON WITH BEING AMYS AND BEING A PEOPLE - A CHURCH - FOR RUNAWAYS.
LET US PRAY: AND NOW, O GOD, WHILE OUR HEARTS ARE OPEN TO YOUR SPIRIT, FILL US WITH LIFE ANEW. PREPARE US TO HEAR THE HURTS OF OTHERS, LOOSE OUR TONGUES THAT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS, BIND US TOGETHER IN THESE FEW MOMENTS THAT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN OUR LIVES MIGHT BRING US CLOSER TO YOU. IN CHRIST'S NAME. AMEN.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Sermon: "Is That You, God?"
"Is That You, God?"
Jeremiah 1:4-10
I have probably preached on this Jeremiah text more than any other scripture passage. "Christians: Builders and Destroyers" was the first one, although I never actually preached it. I wrote it for a preaching class while in seminary. The title of the paper itself was: "Prophets: Builders and Destroyers." It had to do with the necessary but unpopular role of prophets as religious gurus of situations in life that need to be changed and the sometimes necessary task of destruction in order to bring about the perceived change. It was a product of the times - full of protest language and the challenge of that day - the early 70's.
Another one I shared while I was on the staff in Urbana. I titled that one: "The Call to All and the Gall of the Call." I've always been quite proud of that catchy title! But, I also liked the thoughts the text invited me to explore back then. It dealt with the nerve of God to call people who don't want to be called and the reality that we are all called people - everyone of us.
I couldn't find this sermon on my jump drive. That usually means I prepared it prior to it being possible to save sermons digitally. Recently I've been having people retrieve these early sermons from the file cabinet where I have stored every sermon I ever preached. So, I had my cousin go on a scavenger hunt for me last week.
Do you know what we discovered? It was handwritten! You younger folks probably aren't aware of this, but there was a day when cutting and pasting was actually done with a pair of scissors and real paste or sometimes staples! Presenting those sermons sometimes involved me having to read notes in parenthesis that told me where I was to go to find the next paragraph! Creating techniques aside, I had great hopes for that sermon - but the most creative and helpful part of it, I have to admit, was in the title. (I've typed it up so I don't ever have to look it up again. However, I didn't throw away the handwritten hardcopy! It's a keepsake of my terrible handwriting and BC sermons - oh, before computers!)
Then there's the one I recently posted on my blog: "God's Cure of an Inferiority Complex" comparing my own call and response to that of Jeremiah's. That's probably the subject this passage has most often activated in my heart and mind.
That's the wonder of working with the scriptures - the variety of messages we are able to glean from the same passage depending on what's going on in our own lives and/or around us. A few years back I was reading this passage and I couldn't help but reflect on the numerous conversations I had heard over the years in the lives of people wanting to understand this religious concept of call. People have openly and comfortably reflected on the personal calls they were experiencing and their pondering what it all had to do with the call of the congregation - the corporate call. Frankly, I often didn't sense the question was really any longer, "Is that you, God?" - but rather, "What do you want us to do, God?" "What do you want us to be, God?" "We know you are calling us to a new thing/place - we know we are yours - we just want to get going."
I remember in one of those churches an interesting aspect of that phenomena was that the church found itself at that place in history at the same time the community at large needed people and institutions to step forward and sound a message of hope - it needed to believe that new life could be breathed into dry bones - old buildings - old turf wars - old issues. It needed to hear or experience or sense a vision of what the positive possibilities were. Could it be that God might want to use the church? Could God be calling the church to be the embodiment of that prophecy? I thought at the time it was an interesting thought and the church was in a position to embark on a wonderful journey of exploration with the larger community.
"Is that you, God?" wasn't actually Jeremiah's question either. He knew it was God creating the tension he was experiencing in his soul. He knew it was God providing the thoughts that were coming into his mind about the situations his people were facing. As Jeremiah thought back to when it all began he described his encounter with God as a conversation in which God announced to him that his lot had been cast even before he had been born. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." What Jeremiah came to understand was that there was no mistake who had issued the call on his life and that it was not something he had desired for himself. His call was both unmistakable and unsolicited.
What we need to understand is that this is not just an explanation about Jeremiah's reality. It is our reality also. All of us are known by God before we are born - God is the initiator of all of life. We are formed - we are known - we are consecrated - we are appointed before we are even conceived. We are a people of the call - all of us. St. Augustine phrased it in a prayer this way: "Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee." The question is not is God knocking on the door of our lives, but how and when in our freedom will we hear the call and respond.
No, Jeremiah's question was not, "Is it you, God?" - he just didn't want the role. He didn't think he was the right one for the task - "Come on, God - surely you jest - you must not know what you are doing - you must have me confused with someone else." And he made some excuses: "Remember, Lord, I'm only a kid. I'm no public speaker. No one's going to listen to me, Lord."
In his book Anguished English, Richard Lederer has a chapter listing excuses parents have written to schools explaining their children's absences:
"Teacher, please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot. Mary's mom."
"My son is under doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him."
"Please excuse my son's tardiness. I forgot to wake him up and did not find him until I started making the beds."
"Please excuse Ray from school. He has very loose vowels."
"Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault." (1)
Excuses, excuses.
Many years ago I read the little book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" In the book the author tries to capture some of the humor that might have been part of this encounter between God and Jeremiah - especially Jeremiah's reluctance:
"God, there must be some mistake.
I can't do work like that.
After all,
I'm only in my teens
Sporting jeans
And lounging on the rooftops.
I've had no training
In diplomacy or politics,
In how to speak,
Or how to pray in public.
You'll soon be sorry, God,
If you pick someone like me.
Well, God?
Well, can't you see?" (2)
William Quick, former senior pastor of Metropolitan Church in Detroit, wrote that the three worst words in the english language are "I am only..." "I am only a teen - I am only 5' 2" - I am only a resident of ... - I am only a graduate of the eighth grade - I am only a Croy - I am only ...."
It seems to be one of the characteristics of those God calls into service. Moses said: "I'm not smart enough." Saul said about David: "He's not strong enough." Isaiah said: "I'm not holy enough." And Jeremiah claimed: "I'm not old enough."
And we, well, we claim busyness: "I just don't have the time." We claim lack of discernment: "If God would just tell me what He wants me to do - if God would just be a little clearer, I'd do it." We claim lack of skills: "I just can't stand in front of people - I don't know my Bible well enough - I don't know how to hold a saw." We claim other priorities: "I have to work - my kids are in so much - I serve on so many other committees in the community."
Now, to be fair to Jeremiah, prophets did have a difficult role in life. Jeremiah knew enough about prophets to know what was coming. He had reason to be afraid - to be reluctant. And maybe that's our situation as well. We know what God is calling us to is not going to be easy for the most part - that we are going to have to make some sacrifices - that there will be changes in our family life. And we really want the question to be: "Is that you, God?" We hope God has made a mistake - will ask someone else. We hope those urgings in our heart and mind are really signs of an upset stomach and not God-nudgings.
But lo and behold, Jeremiah does prophecy. The reluctant, ill-equipped one does it anyway. In Frederick Buechner's book "Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who" he describes Jeremiah's activity like this: "There was nothing in need of denunciation that Jeremiah didn't denounce. He denounced the king and the clergy. He denounced recreational sex and extramarital jamborees. He denounced the rich for exploiting the poor, and he denounced the poor for deserving no better. He denounced the way every new god that came sniffing around had them all (falling all over one another to follow); and right at the very gates of the temple he told them that if they thought God was impressed by all the mumbo-jumbo that went on in there, they ought to have their heads examined.
"When some of them took to indulging in a little human sacrifice on the side, he appeared with a clay pot which he smashed into smithereens to show them what God planned to do to them as soon as He got around to it. He even denounced God Himself for saddling him with the job of trying to reform such a pack of hyenas, degenerates, ninnies." (3)
And wow, did Jeremiah pay for saying what God wanted him to: He was beaten - thrown in jail - thrown in an open cistern with, well, stuff up to his armpits - and tradition has it that his own people finally stoned him to death. Knowing that this was what he was in for, why did he do it? Why did he keep seeking God's will for his life? What happened to cause this teenager who suffered from an inferiority complex to be willing to put up with public ridicule time and time again?
Again from the book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" we hear God answer Jeremiah's plea:
"Keep quiet son,
Don't answer me like that.
Don't say you're only in your teens,
For you will go wherever I decide,
And you will say
The words which I supply.
Don't be afraid
Of anyone at all,
For they are just as scared as you
If you could see inside
Their hardening hearts
And hardening arteries.
And more than that,
Don't be afraid to fail,
As most people seem to be,
For I am with you
Even when you do.
Yes, I am,
I am." (4)
You see, God didn't just call Jeremiah to the role of prophet - God equipped him - provided him the resources to carry out the work. Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God let Jeremiah know S/He had confidence in him - S/He had his back. S/He reassured Jeremiah that he truly was who S/He wanted and that S/He knew he could do the job. If God is calling us, God has confidence in us and we will be able to do the job.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God promised to be with him. God practices "presence ministry." God doesn't just call us to go out and take on the world alone - God promises that with the summons comes assurance - strength -encouragement - rescuing presence. Oh, people, if God is calling us, God will be with us wherever we minister.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because he realized that he was no more inept than anyone else. Everyone in life is among the walking wounded. Everyone has self-doubts. What you feel is no different than what others feel. People of God, the world is in need of the wounded healers to walk among them that they might sense they are O.K. just the way they are. If God is calling us, then God can use our walking woundedness to make us be the wounded healers the world needs.
And then, I think Jeremiah became a prophet because God acknowledged that He expected failure. At no point does God promise Jeremiah success in his work. God only calls him to obedience - no promise of popularity - only a promise of being with us. Faithfulness is the call - not success - process, not results. Yes, friends, we will often fail in our attempts to follow the call of God - others surely will make fun - some will turn away. We may not feel rewarded for our efforts - but, that's not what obedience and faithfulness is all about.
So, what about this thing we refer to as call - what is it?
In the Servant Leadership effort that helped form many of my more recent attitudes about life in the church and the community at large, one of the several books that I found exceptionally helpful was the book Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community. The authors note several things about call that I think help:
"People call us to get our attention, to make contact with us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God. A call may come as a gradual dawning of God's purpose for our lives. It can involve an accelerating sense of inner direction. It can emerge through a gnawing feeling that we need to do a specific thing. On occasion, it can burst forth as a sudden awareness of a path that God would have us take." (5)
"God calls each of us. There are a variety of calls, and no one call is inherently better or higher than any other. The call of a priest, monk, or nun, however sacred, is, in and of itself, not superior to the call of an architect designing a house, a mechanic repairing a car, or a nurse caring for the sick. It is our faithfulness to God and not our station in life that honors call." (6)
"God speaks to us through the language of everyday events. Each new moment of life, each new situation, the present condition of a person or community, of events, time, place, people, and circumstances - all hold clues to God's call. Thus, we often find our calls in the facts, circumstances, and concrete experiences of daily life." (7)
"Not only is every call unique, but the hearing of every call is unique also. One sign that God may be calling is a certain restlessness, a certain dissatisfaction with things as they are. Other signs of God's call may be a sense of longing, yearning, or wondering; a feeling of being at a crossroads; a sense that something is happening in one's life, that one is wrestling with an issue or decision; a sense of being in a time of transition; or a series of circumstances that draw one into a specific issue." (8)
"While role models are helpful, we are not called to copy other people. Rather, we are to become fully the people God created us to be, living our own lives in response to our own calls - as Jesus lived out his life faithful to God's cal for him. So it is that hearing one's call is akin to discovering one's self." (9)
"Call usually involves service or benefit to others. In fact, a sense of call may be suspect if it does not involve service." (10)
Finally, through the journey of faith venture the authors of this little book came to define it as "the experience of being led by God into ministry that would meet a need in the lives of others." (11)
The question is not: "Is that you, God?" The question is: "will we be obedient - will we follow - will we fulfill God's call on our lives - as individuals and as the corporate/institutionalized church?"
Peace, friends, as we all continue to live in tension call and our lives!
1. Richard Lederer, Anguished English (Layton, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher, ebook, 2006), pp. 29-34.
2. Norman Habel, Are You Joking, Jeremiah? (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing Co., 1967).
3. Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), 66-68.
4. Habel.
5. Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, Susan M. Ward, Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community (New York: Morehouse Publishing, ebook, 1991), 177/1905.
6. Ibid., 186/1905.
7. Ibid., 186/1905.
8. Ibid., 211/1905.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 224/1905.
11. Ibid.,
Jeremiah 1:4-10
I have probably preached on this Jeremiah text more than any other scripture passage. "Christians: Builders and Destroyers" was the first one, although I never actually preached it. I wrote it for a preaching class while in seminary. The title of the paper itself was: "Prophets: Builders and Destroyers." It had to do with the necessary but unpopular role of prophets as religious gurus of situations in life that need to be changed and the sometimes necessary task of destruction in order to bring about the perceived change. It was a product of the times - full of protest language and the challenge of that day - the early 70's.
Another one I shared while I was on the staff in Urbana. I titled that one: "The Call to All and the Gall of the Call." I've always been quite proud of that catchy title! But, I also liked the thoughts the text invited me to explore back then. It dealt with the nerve of God to call people who don't want to be called and the reality that we are all called people - everyone of us.
I couldn't find this sermon on my jump drive. That usually means I prepared it prior to it being possible to save sermons digitally. Recently I've been having people retrieve these early sermons from the file cabinet where I have stored every sermon I ever preached. So, I had my cousin go on a scavenger hunt for me last week.
Do you know what we discovered? It was handwritten! You younger folks probably aren't aware of this, but there was a day when cutting and pasting was actually done with a pair of scissors and real paste or sometimes staples! Presenting those sermons sometimes involved me having to read notes in parenthesis that told me where I was to go to find the next paragraph! Creating techniques aside, I had great hopes for that sermon - but the most creative and helpful part of it, I have to admit, was in the title. (I've typed it up so I don't ever have to look it up again. However, I didn't throw away the handwritten hardcopy! It's a keepsake of my terrible handwriting and BC sermons - oh, before computers!)
Then there's the one I recently posted on my blog: "God's Cure of an Inferiority Complex" comparing my own call and response to that of Jeremiah's. That's probably the subject this passage has most often activated in my heart and mind.
That's the wonder of working with the scriptures - the variety of messages we are able to glean from the same passage depending on what's going on in our own lives and/or around us. A few years back I was reading this passage and I couldn't help but reflect on the numerous conversations I had heard over the years in the lives of people wanting to understand this religious concept of call. People have openly and comfortably reflected on the personal calls they were experiencing and their pondering what it all had to do with the call of the congregation - the corporate call. Frankly, I often didn't sense the question was really any longer, "Is that you, God?" - but rather, "What do you want us to do, God?" "What do you want us to be, God?" "We know you are calling us to a new thing/place - we know we are yours - we just want to get going."
I remember in one of those churches an interesting aspect of that phenomena was that the church found itself at that place in history at the same time the community at large needed people and institutions to step forward and sound a message of hope - it needed to believe that new life could be breathed into dry bones - old buildings - old turf wars - old issues. It needed to hear or experience or sense a vision of what the positive possibilities were. Could it be that God might want to use the church? Could God be calling the church to be the embodiment of that prophecy? I thought at the time it was an interesting thought and the church was in a position to embark on a wonderful journey of exploration with the larger community.
"Is that you, God?" wasn't actually Jeremiah's question either. He knew it was God creating the tension he was experiencing in his soul. He knew it was God providing the thoughts that were coming into his mind about the situations his people were facing. As Jeremiah thought back to when it all began he described his encounter with God as a conversation in which God announced to him that his lot had been cast even before he had been born. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." What Jeremiah came to understand was that there was no mistake who had issued the call on his life and that it was not something he had desired for himself. His call was both unmistakable and unsolicited.
What we need to understand is that this is not just an explanation about Jeremiah's reality. It is our reality also. All of us are known by God before we are born - God is the initiator of all of life. We are formed - we are known - we are consecrated - we are appointed before we are even conceived. We are a people of the call - all of us. St. Augustine phrased it in a prayer this way: "Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee." The question is not is God knocking on the door of our lives, but how and when in our freedom will we hear the call and respond.
No, Jeremiah's question was not, "Is it you, God?" - he just didn't want the role. He didn't think he was the right one for the task - "Come on, God - surely you jest - you must not know what you are doing - you must have me confused with someone else." And he made some excuses: "Remember, Lord, I'm only a kid. I'm no public speaker. No one's going to listen to me, Lord."
In his book Anguished English, Richard Lederer has a chapter listing excuses parents have written to schools explaining their children's absences:
"Teacher, please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot. Mary's mom."
"My son is under doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him."
"Please excuse my son's tardiness. I forgot to wake him up and did not find him until I started making the beds."
"Please excuse Ray from school. He has very loose vowels."
"Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault." (1)
Excuses, excuses.
Many years ago I read the little book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" In the book the author tries to capture some of the humor that might have been part of this encounter between God and Jeremiah - especially Jeremiah's reluctance:
"God, there must be some mistake.
I can't do work like that.
After all,
I'm only in my teens
Sporting jeans
And lounging on the rooftops.
I've had no training
In diplomacy or politics,
In how to speak,
Or how to pray in public.
You'll soon be sorry, God,
If you pick someone like me.
Well, God?
Well, can't you see?" (2)
William Quick, former senior pastor of Metropolitan Church in Detroit, wrote that the three worst words in the english language are "I am only..." "I am only a teen - I am only 5' 2" - I am only a resident of ... - I am only a graduate of the eighth grade - I am only a Croy - I am only ...."
It seems to be one of the characteristics of those God calls into service. Moses said: "I'm not smart enough." Saul said about David: "He's not strong enough." Isaiah said: "I'm not holy enough." And Jeremiah claimed: "I'm not old enough."
And we, well, we claim busyness: "I just don't have the time." We claim lack of discernment: "If God would just tell me what He wants me to do - if God would just be a little clearer, I'd do it." We claim lack of skills: "I just can't stand in front of people - I don't know my Bible well enough - I don't know how to hold a saw." We claim other priorities: "I have to work - my kids are in so much - I serve on so many other committees in the community."
Now, to be fair to Jeremiah, prophets did have a difficult role in life. Jeremiah knew enough about prophets to know what was coming. He had reason to be afraid - to be reluctant. And maybe that's our situation as well. We know what God is calling us to is not going to be easy for the most part - that we are going to have to make some sacrifices - that there will be changes in our family life. And we really want the question to be: "Is that you, God?" We hope God has made a mistake - will ask someone else. We hope those urgings in our heart and mind are really signs of an upset stomach and not God-nudgings.
But lo and behold, Jeremiah does prophecy. The reluctant, ill-equipped one does it anyway. In Frederick Buechner's book "Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who" he describes Jeremiah's activity like this: "There was nothing in need of denunciation that Jeremiah didn't denounce. He denounced the king and the clergy. He denounced recreational sex and extramarital jamborees. He denounced the rich for exploiting the poor, and he denounced the poor for deserving no better. He denounced the way every new god that came sniffing around had them all (falling all over one another to follow); and right at the very gates of the temple he told them that if they thought God was impressed by all the mumbo-jumbo that went on in there, they ought to have their heads examined.
"When some of them took to indulging in a little human sacrifice on the side, he appeared with a clay pot which he smashed into smithereens to show them what God planned to do to them as soon as He got around to it. He even denounced God Himself for saddling him with the job of trying to reform such a pack of hyenas, degenerates, ninnies." (3)
And wow, did Jeremiah pay for saying what God wanted him to: He was beaten - thrown in jail - thrown in an open cistern with, well, stuff up to his armpits - and tradition has it that his own people finally stoned him to death. Knowing that this was what he was in for, why did he do it? Why did he keep seeking God's will for his life? What happened to cause this teenager who suffered from an inferiority complex to be willing to put up with public ridicule time and time again?
Again from the book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" we hear God answer Jeremiah's plea:
"Keep quiet son,
Don't answer me like that.
Don't say you're only in your teens,
For you will go wherever I decide,
And you will say
The words which I supply.
Don't be afraid
Of anyone at all,
For they are just as scared as you
If you could see inside
Their hardening hearts
And hardening arteries.
And more than that,
Don't be afraid to fail,
As most people seem to be,
For I am with you
Even when you do.
Yes, I am,
I am." (4)
You see, God didn't just call Jeremiah to the role of prophet - God equipped him - provided him the resources to carry out the work. Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God let Jeremiah know S/He had confidence in him - S/He had his back. S/He reassured Jeremiah that he truly was who S/He wanted and that S/He knew he could do the job. If God is calling us, God has confidence in us and we will be able to do the job.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God promised to be with him. God practices "presence ministry." God doesn't just call us to go out and take on the world alone - God promises that with the summons comes assurance - strength -encouragement - rescuing presence. Oh, people, if God is calling us, God will be with us wherever we minister.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because he realized that he was no more inept than anyone else. Everyone in life is among the walking wounded. Everyone has self-doubts. What you feel is no different than what others feel. People of God, the world is in need of the wounded healers to walk among them that they might sense they are O.K. just the way they are. If God is calling us, then God can use our walking woundedness to make us be the wounded healers the world needs.
And then, I think Jeremiah became a prophet because God acknowledged that He expected failure. At no point does God promise Jeremiah success in his work. God only calls him to obedience - no promise of popularity - only a promise of being with us. Faithfulness is the call - not success - process, not results. Yes, friends, we will often fail in our attempts to follow the call of God - others surely will make fun - some will turn away. We may not feel rewarded for our efforts - but, that's not what obedience and faithfulness is all about.
So, what about this thing we refer to as call - what is it?
In the Servant Leadership effort that helped form many of my more recent attitudes about life in the church and the community at large, one of the several books that I found exceptionally helpful was the book Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community. The authors note several things about call that I think help:
"People call us to get our attention, to make contact with us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God. A call may come as a gradual dawning of God's purpose for our lives. It can involve an accelerating sense of inner direction. It can emerge through a gnawing feeling that we need to do a specific thing. On occasion, it can burst forth as a sudden awareness of a path that God would have us take." (5)
"God calls each of us. There are a variety of calls, and no one call is inherently better or higher than any other. The call of a priest, monk, or nun, however sacred, is, in and of itself, not superior to the call of an architect designing a house, a mechanic repairing a car, or a nurse caring for the sick. It is our faithfulness to God and not our station in life that honors call." (6)
"God speaks to us through the language of everyday events. Each new moment of life, each new situation, the present condition of a person or community, of events, time, place, people, and circumstances - all hold clues to God's call. Thus, we often find our calls in the facts, circumstances, and concrete experiences of daily life." (7)
"Not only is every call unique, but the hearing of every call is unique also. One sign that God may be calling is a certain restlessness, a certain dissatisfaction with things as they are. Other signs of God's call may be a sense of longing, yearning, or wondering; a feeling of being at a crossroads; a sense that something is happening in one's life, that one is wrestling with an issue or decision; a sense of being in a time of transition; or a series of circumstances that draw one into a specific issue." (8)
"While role models are helpful, we are not called to copy other people. Rather, we are to become fully the people God created us to be, living our own lives in response to our own calls - as Jesus lived out his life faithful to God's cal for him. So it is that hearing one's call is akin to discovering one's self." (9)
"Call usually involves service or benefit to others. In fact, a sense of call may be suspect if it does not involve service." (10)
Finally, through the journey of faith venture the authors of this little book came to define it as "the experience of being led by God into ministry that would meet a need in the lives of others." (11)
The question is not: "Is that you, God?" The question is: "will we be obedient - will we follow - will we fulfill God's call on our lives - as individuals and as the corporate/institutionalized church?"
Peace, friends, as we all continue to live in tension call and our lives!
1. Richard Lederer, Anguished English (Layton, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher, ebook, 2006), pp. 29-34.
2. Norman Habel, Are You Joking, Jeremiah? (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing Co., 1967).
3. Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), 66-68.
4. Habel.
5. Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, Susan M. Ward, Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community (New York: Morehouse Publishing, ebook, 1991), 177/1905.
6. Ibid., 186/1905.
7. Ibid., 186/1905.
8. Ibid., 211/1905.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 224/1905.
11. Ibid.,
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