Seeing Your Sin
Stories
Contents
“Seeing Your Sin” by Peter Andrew Smith
“Finally Home” by David O. Bales
“It’s How You Speak the Truth” by David O. Bales
Seeing Your Sins
by Peter Andrew Smith
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
Sally watched Joe make his way toward the group of other preschoolers playing in the church hall. She started forward when he stumbled and looked like he was going to fall but stopped when he stayed upright. She stepped back as he laughed upon reaching his friends.
“You just want to dress them in bubble wrap at that age, don’t you?”
Sally turned to see Marge holding two cups of coffee. She accepted one of them with a nod. “You sure do. I worry that he is going to fall and hurt himself.”
“Well, let me put your mind at ease.” Marge paused. “He’s going to fall and sometimes he is going to hurt himself.”
Sally shook her head. “You’re not helping.”
Marge laughed and sat down on the bench at the side of the hall. “You should have seen Tina at his age. ‘Two steps and then a tumble Tina’ we used to call her.”
Sally sat beside her. “The same Tina who is now so graceful a dancer?”
Marge nodded. “Absolutely. They have to fall when they learn to walk. Doesn’t mean we don’t watch and fret but that is simply the only way for them to learn.”
“I guess.” Sally took a sip from her coffee. “It’s just so hard to stand back and do nothing.”
“I know. I raised three of them and letting them make mistakes and watching them learn something new is probably the hardest thing you can do as a parent.” She took a deep breath. “As hard as it is, though, it is better than being there all the time and not letting them fail.”
“Why?”
“Because learning to pick yourself up is probably the most important lesson we can teach our children. They know we are here; we will help them when it is more than they can handle but giving them space means they learn that they can handle the normal ups and downs of life and that failing is sometimes a part of learning.”
“Huh.” Sally took a sip from her coffee again. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Took my mother-in-law to teach me that lesson.” Marge paused. “I miss Florence.”
Sally smiled. “She was an incredible woman.”
“She sure was.” Marge put her coffee on the bench next to her. “I couldn’t have raised my three kids without her helping me.”
The two of them watched the kids in the hall playing for a time. Sally cleared her throat. “So did Florence give you any other advice which would help me as a new parent?”
“She did.” Marge picked up her coffee. “Pay close attention when they show you your sins.”
Sally furrowed her bow. “Pardon?”
Marge pointed at the young woman playing with a collection of toddlers. “Kim taught me that I get angry too quickly. It was a real shock when she let me know.”
“Teenagers can be trying I hear.”
“They can be.” Marge nodded her head. “Truth is though that she was about three when she pointed it out to me.”
“Really?”
“Really. Kim was the quietest and most agreeable child you could ever imagine. One day I overheard her yelling at her dolls to hurry up because they were too slow, and she had somewhere to be.”
“Oh.” Sally waited for a moment and when Marge didn’t say anything else she asked. “So, what did you do?”
“My heart broke when I heard my words coming from her mouth.” Marge sighed. “I realized what I was doing and knew I had to change. That wasn’t the worst of it though.”
“What could be harder than that?”
“I realized that she thought that was what a loving mother should be like to her child.” Marge took a drink. “That is what really hit me.”
“Kind of like when Nathan told David he was that man in this morning’s lesson from Samuel.”
“Very much the same thing and like David I had a good cry and realized that I needed to change and be a better person.” Marge paused. “I haven’t always succeeded but I have learned my lessons at the same time I taught my children what I could.”
Sally watched Joe playing with the other kids. “We don’t just teach them as parents, do we?”
Marge smiled. “There are times, my friend, when I think God gives us children to help us grow in ways we never could by ourselves. Because children force us to look past ourselves, to love more, and to make changes to our lives we never would otherwise.”
Sally looked at all the children playing in the hall. “My, but God is good.”
Marge looked at her daughter with the group of toddlers and smiled. “God is very good and wise indeed.”
* * *
Finally Home
by David O. Bales
John 6:24-35
“Plan on my return before winter. I’ll dive into Galilee like a bird to a morsel on the cobblestones,” Shama told Dasius with a laugh. “Then rise and flee back to Rome. Two, three weeks and I’ll be out of there.” Dasius was surprised at the statement. His Judean manager had never spoken in even a slightly personal way. Shama was leaving Rome with Dasius in charge of his current contracts to deliver Galilee’s fish products.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” Dasius said. “You’ve told me three times, sir.”
Why, Shama asked himself, was he repeating his instructions to Dasius? Dasius was an excellent worker. Shama had trained him for seven years and had no reason to doubt his work while Shama was absent. Was it to bolster his resolve to return to Rome? Yet, he tried to brush from his mind his dread of returning to Galilee. He was the oldest son and after news of his father’s death, he must travel to Capernaum to settle legal matters. As a child, he’d felt confined by Lake Galilee’s shoreline, a lake that locals actually called a “sea.” Shama had literally worked himself out of Capernaum, organizing Galilee’s fish cooperative that caught, processed, shipped, and sold its own wares in Rome. He’d aimed for it. He’d achieved it. He must endure a quick, business-like visit to his ancestral lakeside and then back to Rome. But, moments flitted through his mind (like a bird diving to a morsel on the cobblestones?) when he nearly acknowledged that life in Rome wasn’t all he’d hoped.
He stepped back to survey contracts on the counter where he’d spread them for Dasius in order of their needing to be filled. To cover his anxiety he lied, “I just … I just am going to miss Rome.”
Dasius looked at him curiously and Shama felt he should say more but without mentioning what was most important. “To be here joining ten thousand people screaming at the gladiators’ contests, the all-night feasts,” he said, smiling to direct Dasius away from what really bothered him. “The conversations while soaking in the warm baths, not to mention running water right outside the house and toilets always at hand.”
Dasius laughed dutifully and continued making notes about which fishmongers to supply where and when. Shama was glad he’d directed Dasius from his personal life. He’d viewed Rome’s gladiators splattering each other with bruises if not blood and sat in Rome’s baths because they were open to all, but he’d only once enjoyed an extravagant all night banquet. Afterwards he realized he’d been invited by mistake.
Rome. As a child, he’d heard how horrible it was. Even if the tales were only half true, he was still attracted by them. Yet, after eight years in Rome, he’d learned much he hadn’t expected: Life with Romans wasn’t greatly different than with Galileans. Social networks were as tight as the cages imprisoning the wild animals to be slaughtered in their theaters. His wealth made little difference in social circles. Once he’d attended a synagogue gathering but it was too much like Galilee. With a handful of merchants, he’d visited a pagan shrine. The ritual was repulsive, a good meal though, for the price.
He prepared his excuses for his family in Capernaum, “I have to be in Rome to eliminate the middle merchants. Competition’s vicious. If I’m not in Rome, the entire enterprise will collapse and destroy the livelihood of all these fisher families.”
After his long sea journey, he arrived in Capernaum on the Sabbath’s eve. He stepped into his mother’s house after dark to meet her questions. “The people you mention all sound like Latin speakers. Any Judeans to speak Aramean with or to form a minyan for a synagogue gathering? The Romans do chaperone their unmarried daughters, don’t they?” Her questioning him was one reason he’d wanted to leave Galilee.
The next morning his brother Elkanah was at the door ready to walk Shama like the village’s triumphant son to the synagogue, his first worship since success in Rome, a success that benefited every fisher in the northern half of Galilee Lake. “Let’s make this quick,” Shama said, pushing Elkanah by the elbow. As oldest brother he directed the family. Neighbors greeted them. Shama said abruptly, “To the synagogue and let’s get this over with.”
Yet, he was interested in the synagogue building. He’d watched it built as a child, and even then, he’d compared the structure with those he fancied filled Rome’s metropolis. He’d always felt himself on the way to Rome. This morning’s trip to the synagogue would fulfill what his family believed necessary, then he’d feverishly tie up legal niceties and escape Capernaum.
In the synagogue that morning, Jesus entered and taught. This fellow offered a new and clear-cut slant. Brief, bright, authoritative. Shama listened about God’s new way of ruling in their midst and repentance as the means of entering God’s new reality.
A demon-possessed man barged in, challenging Jesus. Jesus merely rebuked him, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And he did. He did! The place erupted. Men jumped up and down, flinging their arms and shouting. Praising God. Thanking Jesus. Pointing to the man healed. Shama was as flabbergasted as the rest. If anyone spoke to him, he didn’t remember what they said. It was like being in a Roman amphitheater packed with the excitement of sparring gladiators. By the time Shama and Elkanah exited, Shama had calmed himself. Elkanah said, “That was amazing. Nothing like it.” He turned to Shama who cooly said, “Very strange,” but he was thinking.
Truth was, that day seeing Jesus knocked him off his schedule. He’d never witnessed anything like Jesus in Rome. However, when his mother said, “Jesus has a house here in Capernaum, you can meet him if you want,” he did as he’d done most of his life. He protected himself with silence.
Six months later he wrote Dasius. “I do not know how much longer I will need to haggle with these fisher families. Romans keep showing up offering special terms—for a while, of course, until the fishers are committed and cannot change the contract without financial ruin. The fishers do not realize the benefit they have with our company. Keep sending reports. Check with the southside fishmongers and find out who is supplying them. See if you can undercut the bids by two percent. I expect the processing here this spring to increase by three to four percent.”
Although Shama busied himself with Capernaum’s fishers, the fish processing vats, contracting for special pottery shipping containers, and scheduling donkey-trains, when anyone mentioned his being “home,” he immediately stated, “I’m visiting.” Twice he saw Jesus in Capernaum. Jesus seemed to converse with anyone. And everyone wanted to speak with him. Once Shama edged into the crowd near Jesus. This was his chance. He was about to speak up to invite him and his students to a dinner in his honor. Jesus at that moment was summoned away to heal a little boy. Late one evening a fisher pointed across the lake to a boat, “There’s Jesus and his students.” He wondered what it was like to be close to Jesus, to hear more of his teaching and to ask him questions, even if he didn’t know what he’d ask.
Week by week for a year he continued to find reasons to remain monitoring the work of the fishers and processors. One noon, a runner arrived breathless to report to Capernaum that Jesus had been murdered in Jerusalem. By evening, Shama had argued violently with Elkanah. He yelled at his mother, “I’ve stayed too long. I must get back to Rome.” The next morning with his gear wrapped and roped, he joined a string of donkeys delivering Galilee’s fish products to the coast. He didn’t look back.
He resented the long, boring voyage to Rome. In Ephesus he accosted the ship’s captain, “I paid good money for a fast trip, and you stop at every port on the way.” The sailors found him everywhere scowling in their way as he paced the decks. He became so critical of their slow work that, when they finally arrived in Italy, the sailors threw his gear from the ship onto the dock and stood with their hands on their hips daring him to come back aboard and do something about it.
He surprised Dasius when he entered the warehouse. “Welcome back, sir,” Dasius said, “Glad you’re home.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Shama said. “Have a full accounting of this last year prepared within two days.”
Dasius faithfully delivered the report in which Shama could find no fault. For a month Dasius put up with his snipping, blaming, accusing and his constant mumbling which Dasius always had to ask him to repeat, earning the response, “I wasn’t talking to you.” Then Dasius quit. He stated that Shama had become too difficult to work for. “What do you mean?” Shama yelled at him. “You’ve been using my time away to get a better position. Get out now,” he said, taking a swat at Dasius that missed. Dasius didn’t give Shama a chance to land a solid blow. He fled the warehouse. This meant more work for Shama, but what did he care? He sat at the cabinet brooding over the orders spread before him. He had a glimmer of guilt for how he treated Dasius, but he flicked it away.
Shama now worked feverishly. Not just anyone could perform Dasius’s job. He spent the days dashing from the city’s fishmongers and then to the docks to haggle with ships’ captains, carters and donkey-train drivers. At night he struggled to balance what stock he had, guess when shipments of his fish products would arrive and calculate how much he could promise to customers. On his return voyage to Rome, he’d expected that his mood would recover when he worked again in Rome. Now he worked to quash his bitterness, hustling through Rome’s crowded streets and jockeying to beat competitors. Constant activity didn’t calm, but at least quieted, whatever it was that had spun loose within him. His dreams for a Roman life didn’t satisfy him; but he pushed aside his disquieting thoughts and returned to work into the nights until early mornings.
He maintained his pace for a year, then two. Then the years slipped by as he labored only by himself. No time for anything else, because nothing else could sooth the problem he didn’t understand. One dawn on his way to the wharf he met Dasius walking toward him. Dasius smiled and stopped in his path, “I was coming to see you, sir.”
“Need your job back?” Shama asked with a sarcastic twist to his voice.
“No. Just that I remembered you mumbled about Jesus.”
Shama stepped back.
“What do you mean, ‘Jesus’?”
“You spoke his name a few times. I decided I must come tell you he’s alive,” Dasius said, a smile broadening his face.
Shama stood motionless, except for his breathing, which sped up. “He’s dead,” he said crisply. “Murdered by crucifixion a decade ago.”
“He rose from the dead,” Dasius said. “God vindicated him. Shama, he’s Christ the Lord.” Dasius had never addressed Shama by name. Shama stared at him. “He’s alive and his Spirit dwells in believers.”
Dasius told about Jesus’ resurrection, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and the spread of the church to distant lands. He invited Shama to the Christian gathering that night and Shama with halting steps attended.
At the gathering they spoke of Jesus and his resurrection. They witnessed to his presence in their midst. They centered their meeting around his meal. Dasius himself brought the bread and cup to Shama. He said, “Shama, I welcome you to Jesus’ family.” He repeated to him what Jesus had stated years before a few miles from Capernaum. “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Shama ate and drank. He was finally home.
Preaching point: Eternally home at Jesus’ table.
* * *
It’s How You Speak The Truth
by David O. Bales
Ephesians 4:1-16
Dear Pastor Connor,
I have been unable to work this out alone. No matter how many times I have tried, success illudes me. It only takes a few words between us, words which, if I write them and look at them on paper, do not appear threatening at all. However, Cicely lets slip matters about the years she was married to Bart, and it stirs a tornado in me. I would pronounce someone else insane who did the things I have been doing. Thus, our marriage is falling between two stools. We cannot seem to stabilize before one of us kicks off the other one. This is not my last gasp. I am committed. I promised in the wedding service before God and you. But I am gasping. I need to solve this on paper in black and white instead of getting caught in a moment when all the emotional colors flash between us.
I love Cicely, truly do. It seemed natural and right for us finally to date, get to know one another better, and to marry. But we have each brought along our former spouses: Bart, whom I knew really well, and Dorine, whom Cicely met a couple of times. Both of us with successful first marriages, both with the tragedies of our spouse dying. Maybe if we’d grieved longer. Maybe if our first marriages had not been so good.
I am embarrassed to crest 45 and react like a fragile teenager. It is hard to admit that I get emotionally harpooned. Face to face with Cicely it is like I am not only responding to her, but to her and Bart, great guy that he was.
I drag myself here to the beginning of the problem, at least the last beginning that is worth splattering on paper. It started when she walked by me at the bathroom mirror. I was shaving. cheapest Braun electric razor, but quite good. I smiled to her into the mirror. She had seen me shave almost every day for eight and a half months. Nothing wrong … yet. She stood for a long moment gazing back at me from the mirror. I said, “What?” She said, “Bart always used those little blue disposable razors.”
I held my composure pretty well, but I was struck, struck deeply. She strode away as casually as if she had mentioned there was a fly on the wall. If there were a fly on the wall, it would have seen me shaving my left cheek raw.
No big thing, really? I pushed it aside, pressed it down, got ready faster than usual and out of the house, having eaten half my breakfast. I mulled it over driving to work and slowly decompressed. I told myself I was an idiot. I thought I had squeezed the poison from my emotional boil by the time I drove home. Cicely had arrived before me and was at the kitchen sink peeling potatoes. It was a completely unconscious act, but I said, “Early supper tonight?” She flinched. She had corrected me before on proper terminology of the evening meal. She and Bart and their families called the evening meal “dinner.” Can you imagine someone bristling over saying “supper” instead of dinner?” She went back to what she was doing. But I had seen that she resisted “supper,” a word Dorine and I always used. I had gotten to her. Now it was conscious. It was as though I saw the quicksand before me, knew it was quicksand, and could not stop myself from stepping into it. I said, “Interesting how people are different. Dorine always used a potato peeler.” Cicely uses a knife. My statement was obviously a kind of knife. Yet, I could not restrain myself from saying it. Then this morning at breakfast she smiled and shook her head when I stirred sugar into what I call “mush.” That was her attempt to get back at me. Her family always carefully sprinkled sugar onto the top of their Cream of Wheat.
We chuckled about it; yet, as we continued eating, she almost had a sneer on her face, just slightly, of course, but I saw it.
That is my report of how perilously our second marriage stands, or sits, or falls. It is like there are four of us here in this house: both dead former spouses, and the two living ones who are having a hard time acting like adults.
So, Pastor Connor, I give you this and ask your guidance. I will do my best to follow your advice.
Thanks,
Quinn
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dear Quinn,
You have described your situation well. I hope you do not mind that I laughed more than once when reading it.
First, the good news. At least you have not argued over whether to roll the toilet paper off the top or the bottom. Now the better news: If such things transpired with a different married couple, one or both would flee and pout. Sounds like you two have your subtle ways of remaining connected, if dysfunctionally so. Thus, you two are starting from strength.
Second, this is about basic life in Christ. You would not submit this comedy routine to me if you did not know most of the solution. You both have your sneaky ways of speaking the truth. Keep telling the truth, but more fully. Because you love one another, speak the whole truth. Confess your thoughts and feelings (your emotional baggage) that get kicked into high gear. Maybe set a time to tell some things, planned and safe, about your former spouses, not to compare your former spouses to one another but to understand, to build some trust and appreciation. As I am sure you know, you must do so in love and not in an attack. Let me know how you are doing.
Grace and peace along with my prayers,
Connor
P.S. I have employed a razor similar to yours. You might say that with it I have worn many useless patches on my life.
Preaching point: Truth without love can be an attack.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 1, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Seeing Your Sin” by Peter Andrew Smith
“Finally Home” by David O. Bales
“It’s How You Speak the Truth” by David O. Bales
Seeing Your Sins
by Peter Andrew Smith
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
Sally watched Joe make his way toward the group of other preschoolers playing in the church hall. She started forward when he stumbled and looked like he was going to fall but stopped when he stayed upright. She stepped back as he laughed upon reaching his friends.
“You just want to dress them in bubble wrap at that age, don’t you?”
Sally turned to see Marge holding two cups of coffee. She accepted one of them with a nod. “You sure do. I worry that he is going to fall and hurt himself.”
“Well, let me put your mind at ease.” Marge paused. “He’s going to fall and sometimes he is going to hurt himself.”
Sally shook her head. “You’re not helping.”
Marge laughed and sat down on the bench at the side of the hall. “You should have seen Tina at his age. ‘Two steps and then a tumble Tina’ we used to call her.”
Sally sat beside her. “The same Tina who is now so graceful a dancer?”
Marge nodded. “Absolutely. They have to fall when they learn to walk. Doesn’t mean we don’t watch and fret but that is simply the only way for them to learn.”
“I guess.” Sally took a sip from her coffee. “It’s just so hard to stand back and do nothing.”
“I know. I raised three of them and letting them make mistakes and watching them learn something new is probably the hardest thing you can do as a parent.” She took a deep breath. “As hard as it is, though, it is better than being there all the time and not letting them fail.”
“Why?”
“Because learning to pick yourself up is probably the most important lesson we can teach our children. They know we are here; we will help them when it is more than they can handle but giving them space means they learn that they can handle the normal ups and downs of life and that failing is sometimes a part of learning.”
“Huh.” Sally took a sip from her coffee again. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Took my mother-in-law to teach me that lesson.” Marge paused. “I miss Florence.”
Sally smiled. “She was an incredible woman.”
“She sure was.” Marge put her coffee on the bench next to her. “I couldn’t have raised my three kids without her helping me.”
The two of them watched the kids in the hall playing for a time. Sally cleared her throat. “So did Florence give you any other advice which would help me as a new parent?”
“She did.” Marge picked up her coffee. “Pay close attention when they show you your sins.”
Sally furrowed her bow. “Pardon?”
Marge pointed at the young woman playing with a collection of toddlers. “Kim taught me that I get angry too quickly. It was a real shock when she let me know.”
“Teenagers can be trying I hear.”
“They can be.” Marge nodded her head. “Truth is though that she was about three when she pointed it out to me.”
“Really?”
“Really. Kim was the quietest and most agreeable child you could ever imagine. One day I overheard her yelling at her dolls to hurry up because they were too slow, and she had somewhere to be.”
“Oh.” Sally waited for a moment and when Marge didn’t say anything else she asked. “So, what did you do?”
“My heart broke when I heard my words coming from her mouth.” Marge sighed. “I realized what I was doing and knew I had to change. That wasn’t the worst of it though.”
“What could be harder than that?”
“I realized that she thought that was what a loving mother should be like to her child.” Marge took a drink. “That is what really hit me.”
“Kind of like when Nathan told David he was that man in this morning’s lesson from Samuel.”
“Very much the same thing and like David I had a good cry and realized that I needed to change and be a better person.” Marge paused. “I haven’t always succeeded but I have learned my lessons at the same time I taught my children what I could.”
Sally watched Joe playing with the other kids. “We don’t just teach them as parents, do we?”
Marge smiled. “There are times, my friend, when I think God gives us children to help us grow in ways we never could by ourselves. Because children force us to look past ourselves, to love more, and to make changes to our lives we never would otherwise.”
Sally looked at all the children playing in the hall. “My, but God is good.”
Marge looked at her daughter with the group of toddlers and smiled. “God is very good and wise indeed.”
* * *
Finally Home
by David O. Bales
John 6:24-35
“Plan on my return before winter. I’ll dive into Galilee like a bird to a morsel on the cobblestones,” Shama told Dasius with a laugh. “Then rise and flee back to Rome. Two, three weeks and I’ll be out of there.” Dasius was surprised at the statement. His Judean manager had never spoken in even a slightly personal way. Shama was leaving Rome with Dasius in charge of his current contracts to deliver Galilee’s fish products.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” Dasius said. “You’ve told me three times, sir.”
Why, Shama asked himself, was he repeating his instructions to Dasius? Dasius was an excellent worker. Shama had trained him for seven years and had no reason to doubt his work while Shama was absent. Was it to bolster his resolve to return to Rome? Yet, he tried to brush from his mind his dread of returning to Galilee. He was the oldest son and after news of his father’s death, he must travel to Capernaum to settle legal matters. As a child, he’d felt confined by Lake Galilee’s shoreline, a lake that locals actually called a “sea.” Shama had literally worked himself out of Capernaum, organizing Galilee’s fish cooperative that caught, processed, shipped, and sold its own wares in Rome. He’d aimed for it. He’d achieved it. He must endure a quick, business-like visit to his ancestral lakeside and then back to Rome. But, moments flitted through his mind (like a bird diving to a morsel on the cobblestones?) when he nearly acknowledged that life in Rome wasn’t all he’d hoped.
He stepped back to survey contracts on the counter where he’d spread them for Dasius in order of their needing to be filled. To cover his anxiety he lied, “I just … I just am going to miss Rome.”
Dasius looked at him curiously and Shama felt he should say more but without mentioning what was most important. “To be here joining ten thousand people screaming at the gladiators’ contests, the all-night feasts,” he said, smiling to direct Dasius away from what really bothered him. “The conversations while soaking in the warm baths, not to mention running water right outside the house and toilets always at hand.”
Dasius laughed dutifully and continued making notes about which fishmongers to supply where and when. Shama was glad he’d directed Dasius from his personal life. He’d viewed Rome’s gladiators splattering each other with bruises if not blood and sat in Rome’s baths because they were open to all, but he’d only once enjoyed an extravagant all night banquet. Afterwards he realized he’d been invited by mistake.
Rome. As a child, he’d heard how horrible it was. Even if the tales were only half true, he was still attracted by them. Yet, after eight years in Rome, he’d learned much he hadn’t expected: Life with Romans wasn’t greatly different than with Galileans. Social networks were as tight as the cages imprisoning the wild animals to be slaughtered in their theaters. His wealth made little difference in social circles. Once he’d attended a synagogue gathering but it was too much like Galilee. With a handful of merchants, he’d visited a pagan shrine. The ritual was repulsive, a good meal though, for the price.
He prepared his excuses for his family in Capernaum, “I have to be in Rome to eliminate the middle merchants. Competition’s vicious. If I’m not in Rome, the entire enterprise will collapse and destroy the livelihood of all these fisher families.”
After his long sea journey, he arrived in Capernaum on the Sabbath’s eve. He stepped into his mother’s house after dark to meet her questions. “The people you mention all sound like Latin speakers. Any Judeans to speak Aramean with or to form a minyan for a synagogue gathering? The Romans do chaperone their unmarried daughters, don’t they?” Her questioning him was one reason he’d wanted to leave Galilee.
The next morning his brother Elkanah was at the door ready to walk Shama like the village’s triumphant son to the synagogue, his first worship since success in Rome, a success that benefited every fisher in the northern half of Galilee Lake. “Let’s make this quick,” Shama said, pushing Elkanah by the elbow. As oldest brother he directed the family. Neighbors greeted them. Shama said abruptly, “To the synagogue and let’s get this over with.”
Yet, he was interested in the synagogue building. He’d watched it built as a child, and even then, he’d compared the structure with those he fancied filled Rome’s metropolis. He’d always felt himself on the way to Rome. This morning’s trip to the synagogue would fulfill what his family believed necessary, then he’d feverishly tie up legal niceties and escape Capernaum.
In the synagogue that morning, Jesus entered and taught. This fellow offered a new and clear-cut slant. Brief, bright, authoritative. Shama listened about God’s new way of ruling in their midst and repentance as the means of entering God’s new reality.
A demon-possessed man barged in, challenging Jesus. Jesus merely rebuked him, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And he did. He did! The place erupted. Men jumped up and down, flinging their arms and shouting. Praising God. Thanking Jesus. Pointing to the man healed. Shama was as flabbergasted as the rest. If anyone spoke to him, he didn’t remember what they said. It was like being in a Roman amphitheater packed with the excitement of sparring gladiators. By the time Shama and Elkanah exited, Shama had calmed himself. Elkanah said, “That was amazing. Nothing like it.” He turned to Shama who cooly said, “Very strange,” but he was thinking.
Truth was, that day seeing Jesus knocked him off his schedule. He’d never witnessed anything like Jesus in Rome. However, when his mother said, “Jesus has a house here in Capernaum, you can meet him if you want,” he did as he’d done most of his life. He protected himself with silence.
Six months later he wrote Dasius. “I do not know how much longer I will need to haggle with these fisher families. Romans keep showing up offering special terms—for a while, of course, until the fishers are committed and cannot change the contract without financial ruin. The fishers do not realize the benefit they have with our company. Keep sending reports. Check with the southside fishmongers and find out who is supplying them. See if you can undercut the bids by two percent. I expect the processing here this spring to increase by three to four percent.”
Although Shama busied himself with Capernaum’s fishers, the fish processing vats, contracting for special pottery shipping containers, and scheduling donkey-trains, when anyone mentioned his being “home,” he immediately stated, “I’m visiting.” Twice he saw Jesus in Capernaum. Jesus seemed to converse with anyone. And everyone wanted to speak with him. Once Shama edged into the crowd near Jesus. This was his chance. He was about to speak up to invite him and his students to a dinner in his honor. Jesus at that moment was summoned away to heal a little boy. Late one evening a fisher pointed across the lake to a boat, “There’s Jesus and his students.” He wondered what it was like to be close to Jesus, to hear more of his teaching and to ask him questions, even if he didn’t know what he’d ask.
Week by week for a year he continued to find reasons to remain monitoring the work of the fishers and processors. One noon, a runner arrived breathless to report to Capernaum that Jesus had been murdered in Jerusalem. By evening, Shama had argued violently with Elkanah. He yelled at his mother, “I’ve stayed too long. I must get back to Rome.” The next morning with his gear wrapped and roped, he joined a string of donkeys delivering Galilee’s fish products to the coast. He didn’t look back.
He resented the long, boring voyage to Rome. In Ephesus he accosted the ship’s captain, “I paid good money for a fast trip, and you stop at every port on the way.” The sailors found him everywhere scowling in their way as he paced the decks. He became so critical of their slow work that, when they finally arrived in Italy, the sailors threw his gear from the ship onto the dock and stood with their hands on their hips daring him to come back aboard and do something about it.
He surprised Dasius when he entered the warehouse. “Welcome back, sir,” Dasius said, “Glad you’re home.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Shama said. “Have a full accounting of this last year prepared within two days.”
Dasius faithfully delivered the report in which Shama could find no fault. For a month Dasius put up with his snipping, blaming, accusing and his constant mumbling which Dasius always had to ask him to repeat, earning the response, “I wasn’t talking to you.” Then Dasius quit. He stated that Shama had become too difficult to work for. “What do you mean?” Shama yelled at him. “You’ve been using my time away to get a better position. Get out now,” he said, taking a swat at Dasius that missed. Dasius didn’t give Shama a chance to land a solid blow. He fled the warehouse. This meant more work for Shama, but what did he care? He sat at the cabinet brooding over the orders spread before him. He had a glimmer of guilt for how he treated Dasius, but he flicked it away.
Shama now worked feverishly. Not just anyone could perform Dasius’s job. He spent the days dashing from the city’s fishmongers and then to the docks to haggle with ships’ captains, carters and donkey-train drivers. At night he struggled to balance what stock he had, guess when shipments of his fish products would arrive and calculate how much he could promise to customers. On his return voyage to Rome, he’d expected that his mood would recover when he worked again in Rome. Now he worked to quash his bitterness, hustling through Rome’s crowded streets and jockeying to beat competitors. Constant activity didn’t calm, but at least quieted, whatever it was that had spun loose within him. His dreams for a Roman life didn’t satisfy him; but he pushed aside his disquieting thoughts and returned to work into the nights until early mornings.
He maintained his pace for a year, then two. Then the years slipped by as he labored only by himself. No time for anything else, because nothing else could sooth the problem he didn’t understand. One dawn on his way to the wharf he met Dasius walking toward him. Dasius smiled and stopped in his path, “I was coming to see you, sir.”
“Need your job back?” Shama asked with a sarcastic twist to his voice.
“No. Just that I remembered you mumbled about Jesus.”
Shama stepped back.
“What do you mean, ‘Jesus’?”
“You spoke his name a few times. I decided I must come tell you he’s alive,” Dasius said, a smile broadening his face.
Shama stood motionless, except for his breathing, which sped up. “He’s dead,” he said crisply. “Murdered by crucifixion a decade ago.”
“He rose from the dead,” Dasius said. “God vindicated him. Shama, he’s Christ the Lord.” Dasius had never addressed Shama by name. Shama stared at him. “He’s alive and his Spirit dwells in believers.”
Dasius told about Jesus’ resurrection, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and the spread of the church to distant lands. He invited Shama to the Christian gathering that night and Shama with halting steps attended.
At the gathering they spoke of Jesus and his resurrection. They witnessed to his presence in their midst. They centered their meeting around his meal. Dasius himself brought the bread and cup to Shama. He said, “Shama, I welcome you to Jesus’ family.” He repeated to him what Jesus had stated years before a few miles from Capernaum. “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Shama ate and drank. He was finally home.
Preaching point: Eternally home at Jesus’ table.
* * *
It’s How You Speak The Truth
by David O. Bales
Ephesians 4:1-16
Dear Pastor Connor,
I have been unable to work this out alone. No matter how many times I have tried, success illudes me. It only takes a few words between us, words which, if I write them and look at them on paper, do not appear threatening at all. However, Cicely lets slip matters about the years she was married to Bart, and it stirs a tornado in me. I would pronounce someone else insane who did the things I have been doing. Thus, our marriage is falling between two stools. We cannot seem to stabilize before one of us kicks off the other one. This is not my last gasp. I am committed. I promised in the wedding service before God and you. But I am gasping. I need to solve this on paper in black and white instead of getting caught in a moment when all the emotional colors flash between us.
I love Cicely, truly do. It seemed natural and right for us finally to date, get to know one another better, and to marry. But we have each brought along our former spouses: Bart, whom I knew really well, and Dorine, whom Cicely met a couple of times. Both of us with successful first marriages, both with the tragedies of our spouse dying. Maybe if we’d grieved longer. Maybe if our first marriages had not been so good.
I am embarrassed to crest 45 and react like a fragile teenager. It is hard to admit that I get emotionally harpooned. Face to face with Cicely it is like I am not only responding to her, but to her and Bart, great guy that he was.
I drag myself here to the beginning of the problem, at least the last beginning that is worth splattering on paper. It started when she walked by me at the bathroom mirror. I was shaving. cheapest Braun electric razor, but quite good. I smiled to her into the mirror. She had seen me shave almost every day for eight and a half months. Nothing wrong … yet. She stood for a long moment gazing back at me from the mirror. I said, “What?” She said, “Bart always used those little blue disposable razors.”
I held my composure pretty well, but I was struck, struck deeply. She strode away as casually as if she had mentioned there was a fly on the wall. If there were a fly on the wall, it would have seen me shaving my left cheek raw.
No big thing, really? I pushed it aside, pressed it down, got ready faster than usual and out of the house, having eaten half my breakfast. I mulled it over driving to work and slowly decompressed. I told myself I was an idiot. I thought I had squeezed the poison from my emotional boil by the time I drove home. Cicely had arrived before me and was at the kitchen sink peeling potatoes. It was a completely unconscious act, but I said, “Early supper tonight?” She flinched. She had corrected me before on proper terminology of the evening meal. She and Bart and their families called the evening meal “dinner.” Can you imagine someone bristling over saying “supper” instead of dinner?” She went back to what she was doing. But I had seen that she resisted “supper,” a word Dorine and I always used. I had gotten to her. Now it was conscious. It was as though I saw the quicksand before me, knew it was quicksand, and could not stop myself from stepping into it. I said, “Interesting how people are different. Dorine always used a potato peeler.” Cicely uses a knife. My statement was obviously a kind of knife. Yet, I could not restrain myself from saying it. Then this morning at breakfast she smiled and shook her head when I stirred sugar into what I call “mush.” That was her attempt to get back at me. Her family always carefully sprinkled sugar onto the top of their Cream of Wheat.
We chuckled about it; yet, as we continued eating, she almost had a sneer on her face, just slightly, of course, but I saw it.
That is my report of how perilously our second marriage stands, or sits, or falls. It is like there are four of us here in this house: both dead former spouses, and the two living ones who are having a hard time acting like adults.
So, Pastor Connor, I give you this and ask your guidance. I will do my best to follow your advice.
Thanks,
Quinn
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dear Quinn,
You have described your situation well. I hope you do not mind that I laughed more than once when reading it.
First, the good news. At least you have not argued over whether to roll the toilet paper off the top or the bottom. Now the better news: If such things transpired with a different married couple, one or both would flee and pout. Sounds like you two have your subtle ways of remaining connected, if dysfunctionally so. Thus, you two are starting from strength.
Second, this is about basic life in Christ. You would not submit this comedy routine to me if you did not know most of the solution. You both have your sneaky ways of speaking the truth. Keep telling the truth, but more fully. Because you love one another, speak the whole truth. Confess your thoughts and feelings (your emotional baggage) that get kicked into high gear. Maybe set a time to tell some things, planned and safe, about your former spouses, not to compare your former spouses to one another but to understand, to build some trust and appreciation. As I am sure you know, you must do so in love and not in an attack. Let me know how you are doing.
Grace and peace along with my prayers,
Connor
P.S. I have employed a razor similar to yours. You might say that with it I have worn many useless patches on my life.
Preaching point: Truth without love can be an attack.
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StoryShare, August 1, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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