Called and Freed To Serve
Stories
Contents
“Called and Freed To Serve” by David O. Bales
“Patternless Suffering With God” by David O. Bales
Called and Freed To Serve
by David O. Bales
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
The new Stephen ministers sat in the front row smiling, nervous about the vows they would take and anxious about the service that awaited them as Christian caregivers. The pastor, white hair hanging in his eyes and leaning on a cane, read the Gospel of Matthew and nodded his first sentence to them: “After months of training, our first class of Stephen ministers awaits its commissioning. Why all the hubbub? Why don’t they sneak off and do what they’re trained to do? Stephen ministers are bound by confidentiality and that’s almost like secrecy. But before that, we need to ask: Why train the laity at all for Christian ministry? The congregation already has two pastors.
“One reason, not often considered, is to free them to exercise their Christian gifts, gifts they didn’t always know they had. The laity is what I call the ‘real Christians’ because they aren’t paid to serve Christ. I can say that because you pay me. But the laity, the real Christians, are often blocked from genuine Christian service because of tradition.
“Now, we live within the Christian tradition. Everything the church does is guided by the past. The disruptive aspect of ‘tradition’ as I view it this morning, is the conviction that only pastors are supposed to do ‘real’ religious work. Where do such ideas come from—extreme reverence, superstition? Whatever, it’s a tradition that creeps into the church generation by generation like mice into the garage every winter.
“Maybe no one in this congregation has the slightest thought that these new Stephen ministers are somehow spiritually inferior in caregiving to a pastor with seven, eight years of college. If you have that thought, I want to share an event that happened long enough ago and far enough away to be safe to tell. In a Presbyterian church. Some of you know I served Presbyterian congregations for the first 20 years of my ministry.
“There are all manner of Presbyterian denominations, but always a clerk of session, somewhat like our secretary of the church council but with more clout, in charge of all records. Every T crossed, every I dotted. Every record of baptisms, weddings, funerals, congregational and session meetings signed, while maintaining the congregation’s decency and order. The oldest joke in Presbyterian circles is that in a conflict between decency and order, decency disappears first.
“This clerk of session, we’ll call him ‘Bradford,’ believed that the pastor was supposed to perform all important religious functions in the congregation. I know that sounds medieval, but such things can occur in almost any church. When Jesus spoke of sending more ‘laborers into his harvest,’ it’s interpreted as meaning more seminary-trained pastors. Bradford would regularly read the prayer for the beginning and end of the session meeting; but, by the force of his personality that was the laity’s closest touch to purely religious ministry—other than singing in the choir, teaching church school, caring for the building, and raising money, of course.
“Bradford considered himself progressive in that he didn’t object, as some Presbyterian churches do, to the use of musical instruments in worship. However, in his odd way he made sure that the congregation used the oldest hymnal, out of print for 40 years, although they’d become a handful of beaten rags, constantly mended. If the subject of encouraging the ministry of the laity came up, his constant response was, ‘Why, soon they’d be wanting to baptize and serve the Lord’s Supper like some of those Baptists.’ As I said, there are all kinds of Presbyterians.
“As contrary as Bradford seemed to be, the new pastor, we’ll call him ‘Pastor Ansel,’ straight from seminary, realized that the man was truly dedicated to Christ’s church. Wherever he believed that the laity could do something for the church, he did: pulling weeds, cleaning toilets, patching the roof. He leaned his shoulder into everything he considered allowable, and also gave a bundle of his income. Pastor Ansel, although disagreeing with his clerk on the ministry of the laity, came to know the man’s devotion to Christ and was genuinely fond of him. He assumed that Bradford had simply made a wrong turn in his thinking way back in his life and had continued where that road led him.
“Pastor Ansel had served the congregation for three years when he was found in his office one Tuesday morning, slumped on his desk, barely breathing. After two days in the hospital the diagnosis was a stroke and the prognosis wasn’t good. Bradford did his clerk’s duty, telephoning to the nearest Presbyterian congregation for their pastor to minister to Pastor Ansel. We’ll call him ‘Pastor Carlson.’ Pastor Carlson had already visited him and reported that Pastor Ansel’s condition had improved, and he appeared well on the way to recovery.
“The news encouraged Bradford to call at the hospital in order to complete a clerkly detail. The Presbytery was meeting within the week where all records of congregations were read and reviewed. These records must be signed by the clerk and the pastor; yet, the clerk had only just typed up the minutes of the last session meetings, thus needing the pastor’s signature. The Presbytery’s pack of clerks that met to read minutes had never dinged him for mistakes or omissions. Because Pastor Ansel was recovering, Bradford felt it allowable to visit and have him sign the eight-pound minutes book.
“He entered the hospital room to find a middle school girl fussing with the pastor’s many tubes. He was stunned. What was she doing? For a moment he stood at the foot of the pastor’s bed holding the giant book to his chest. Then the little girl turned, and he saw her badge, ‘L. Kelly, R.N.’ She did seem a little shaky. In fact, it was her first week on the floor without a supervisor. Just then the pastor said something to her, and she turned to him and he appeared to shrug. The room then sounded like a dozen church bells ringing for all the clanging that broke loose. Bradford stepped closer. He could see the pastor’s tense face, and Nurse Kelly’s tenser face.
“Pastor Ansel grabbed her hand and said, ‘Pray for me.’ Her eyebrows shot up like a broken window shade and she froze. ‘Pray for me,’ he choked out. She swished her hair back and forth for an answer and turned to Bradford. ‘I … I … I can’t.’ Bradford stepped forward and Pastor Ansel saw him, reached, and grabbed his wrist like Jacob wrestling with the angel. Nurse Kelly dashed out for help and there was Bradford, clutched by the person whom he believed should do all the religious things … like praying for the dying.
“Bradford took three seconds to obey the summons from Pastor Ansel and the Holy Spirit. ‘Almighty God,’ he prayed, ‘creator above all, holy, exalted …’ Pastor Ansel squeezed his wrist harder. He looked into the pastor’s eyes, gulped, and said, ‘Lord Jesus, come here now. To your servant now. Upon pastor I pray, in his desperate need. You are his Lord, and his only hope in life and death. Touch him. Heal him. Restore him. He’s your servant, grant him mercy. Mercy, Lord.’
“Nurse Kelly returned with half the hospital staff clattering behind her and Bradford was hustled out. He stood outside the room, back to the wall, eyes shut for three hours and prayed … and prayed …. and prayed.
“Have you heard of the Christian writer C.S. Lewis? Wrote a couple dozen wonderful books, many for people who didn’t believe or who’d like to believe. The movie Shadowlands was about him and his wife Joy. He was a professor in England and she was a US citizen visiting in the UK and working with him. She became ill and was dying of cancer. Suddenly the UK government, without giving reasons, refused to renew her resident permit. As an act of friendship, Lewis married her in her hospital room, allowing her and her two sons to remain in England at least until she died.
“Then, of all the tricky things God does, she recovered. The two of them, now married, fell in love. Well, Pastor Ansel also recovered from the edge of death. He walked with a limp after that, but mentally he returned to at least 90 percent of his former faculties. And Bradford? He had found by the Holy Spirit’s piercing him that Christ had given him the gift of compassion and care for others in prayer.
“Within a few years the Presbytery trained and commissioned Bradford as a minister to pastors. Who else knew the inner workings of the church? Who else had more concern for pastors? What he didn’t know about those Christians who served as pastors he learned every day by listening to them, every one of them, calling on each of them regularly and praying with them. And soon pastor Ansel’s congregation set about to train the laity to express Christian care for others. As far as I know, they still are.”
The pastor turned again to those in the front row waiting to be commissioned as Stephen ministers and said, “Traditions come and go. Some good, some harmful. You now take your place in the tradition of Jesus who gifts you, calls you and frees you to have compassion on those who are harassed and helpless. Please come forward for your commissioning.”
Preaching point: God’s people called, equipped, and freed to serve Christ.
* * *
Patternless Suffering With God
by David O. Bales
Romans 5:1-8
Lacey kept her eyes low, trying to remain out of the discussion as long as possible. Finally, to her relief after everyone had passed twice, Buddy responded to Eleanore’s question, “I’m here because the pastor wanted me to come.” Lacey glanced at the others, and they all seemed to agree. The looks on others’ faces confirmed Lacey in her opinion of what was occurring with this unfortunate gathering of people. Her thoughts were a litany of distress, “if anyone told us what such a group would be like … if anyone had sought a competent leader …..” Her mind swirled with ifs and possible stratagems for how to flee from this mournful group.
They sat in a small circle. Eleanore had set up the room before they arrived. No table between them to emotionally hide behind. Across from Lacey Eleanore sat, maintaining her beatific smile no matter what anyone said or, in this case, didn’t say. Eleanore’s suggestion that “everyone share a little about how you got here,” had fallen flatter than Lacey’s energy level. Besides acknowledging that a loved one had died recently, Lacey and the four others managed to choke out the unanimous information that the pastor encouraged them to attend the congregation’s new grief group. The operative term was “new,” started only because Eleanore reported that other congregations “ran” such groups and—as they all knew—the pastor went along with anything Eleanore proposed.
Lacey was the only teenager, a senior in high school. Her mother died 11 months before. The group included Buddy who sat across from her. He managed to squeeze out the information that his wife died a year, two months, and 12 days ago. Beside him Tammie took her fist out of her mouth to say, “Oliver, my husband, passed a year ago November.” Sharon was on Lacey’s right. Her eight-year-old daughter died of a slow cancer two years before. Her eyes were dripping tears when she walked in the room and they hadn’t stopped yet. On Lacey’s left, Barbara acknowledged with clipped speech that she’d been a widow for a year. And, of course, Eleanore perched next to Buddy, leaning forward eagerly into the group: Eleanore, Lacey’s neighbor who had been her mother’s lifelong annoyance, always wanting to fix people; Eleanore, whose incompetence as a group leader was blazingly obvious even to a teenager. Lacey thought, “One of these adults should take over and get us out of here. Eleanore doesn’t know what she’s doing to us, no matter what psychology magazine she says she reads cover to cover.”
She almost brought herself to say something—although she didn’t know what—when her chest constricted. It had happened before. She concentrated on looking normal while struggling for each breath. All she could consider was how to escape. She’d thought that her mother’s death was the worst that could happen to her, instantly deleting two thirds of her days’ energy, at times nearly preventing her from uttering a word. Now this—trapped with a handful of people drowning in grief and a numbskull in charge.
Buddy squirreled around in his chair, cleared his throat, and said, “How we doing so far?” Everyone laughed nervously. Eleanore chuckled longest and said, “Just being here with others is a great start. Don’t you think? Any more feelings to share?”
“Pretty painful,” Barbara said, to which others nodded. Sharon was looking at her lap. Eleanore peered around the group, face by face, to coax further responses. In the street outside a horn honked, reminding Lacey that a world existed beyond this horribly confined feeling that pressed in on her. She looked above Eleanore’s head, acting as though she were genuinely involved. She gazed at two or three cobwebs on the hospital-white wall of the church’s conference room.
Eleanore tried three more invitations to share feelings or experiences, didn’t wait long for answers, and then said, “Pastor tells me his favorite scripture concerning grief is Paul’s fifth chapter to the Romans: ‘we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’”
Most of them nodded politely, obvious to Lacey that they weren’t agreeing so much as acknowledging the scripture was from the pastor. No one spoke for a few moments until Barbara, sitting rigidly, said in a thin, hopeless voice, “Hasn’t worked that way for me.”
Eleanore’s eyes opened wide. She looked around quickly, gathering her thoughts, but before she could respond, Buddy said, “Me neither.”
Eleanore said, “Well, I’m sure—.”
“Not much for me, either,” Tammie said.
Sharon reached over and placed her hand on Tammie’s. “I sympathize. Nothing’s happened in my grief that was like lock-step to healing. If anything, I’ve gone back and forth leapfrog. Think life’s smoothing out, then I see a commercial for Cabela’s and cry. Oliver loved Cabela’s. Kept the catalog in the bathroom.” She was able to laugh when she said that, although her tears were flowing.
Buddy said, “Still bothers me to drive by Jo-Ann Fabrics,” and he shook his head to stop himself from crying.
Sharon spoke while she looked at Buddy, “It’s a back and forth. I’ve had longest here to push through grief and mourning. I’ve heard Paul’s words more than once, as well as some ridiculous advice about God wanting Mitzy in heaven with him … there’s a reason for everything … and ….” She stopped and everyone thought she would burst into sobs, but she clicked her teeth together and spoke quickly. “I prayed for her. I guess,” she said as she looked at the four other bereaved facing her, “that we all prayed for our loved ones. And I keep praying. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. I’d decided what I’m going through was different from other people’s,” she said as she glanced around at her fellow mourners. Everyone stared at her and a couple nodded towards her.
“My suffering hasn’t worked the way Paul’s did. It’s taken a while for me to not feel guilty because of that. A person threw that scripture at me a few months ago, like if I was a true Christian, my suffering would follow those steps. Only lately I’ve figured out that Paul was talking about himself and others then who were suffering for their faith. I’m sure God helped them; but, that doesn’t mean God commands us to follow Paul’s pattern. It comforts me at least to know that others have survived suffering and that God was with them.”
She looked at Eleanore as though her statement was a question. Lacey noticed that everyone had turned to Sharon. At that moment Lacey didn’t think about what the pastor or Paul said. If she were to stay in this group for another minute, it would only be because of Sharon’s statement. She’d have time to make it up to Eleanore later, as well as to think about Paul’s writing. For now, she spoke up for the first time, “We done for today?”
Preaching point: Paul’s experience of suffering isn’t a lock-step pattern for everyone’s suffering.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 14, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
“Called and Freed To Serve” by David O. Bales
“Patternless Suffering With God” by David O. Bales
Called and Freed To Serve
by David O. Bales
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
The new Stephen ministers sat in the front row smiling, nervous about the vows they would take and anxious about the service that awaited them as Christian caregivers. The pastor, white hair hanging in his eyes and leaning on a cane, read the Gospel of Matthew and nodded his first sentence to them: “After months of training, our first class of Stephen ministers awaits its commissioning. Why all the hubbub? Why don’t they sneak off and do what they’re trained to do? Stephen ministers are bound by confidentiality and that’s almost like secrecy. But before that, we need to ask: Why train the laity at all for Christian ministry? The congregation already has two pastors.
“One reason, not often considered, is to free them to exercise their Christian gifts, gifts they didn’t always know they had. The laity is what I call the ‘real Christians’ because they aren’t paid to serve Christ. I can say that because you pay me. But the laity, the real Christians, are often blocked from genuine Christian service because of tradition.
“Now, we live within the Christian tradition. Everything the church does is guided by the past. The disruptive aspect of ‘tradition’ as I view it this morning, is the conviction that only pastors are supposed to do ‘real’ religious work. Where do such ideas come from—extreme reverence, superstition? Whatever, it’s a tradition that creeps into the church generation by generation like mice into the garage every winter.
“Maybe no one in this congregation has the slightest thought that these new Stephen ministers are somehow spiritually inferior in caregiving to a pastor with seven, eight years of college. If you have that thought, I want to share an event that happened long enough ago and far enough away to be safe to tell. In a Presbyterian church. Some of you know I served Presbyterian congregations for the first 20 years of my ministry.
“There are all manner of Presbyterian denominations, but always a clerk of session, somewhat like our secretary of the church council but with more clout, in charge of all records. Every T crossed, every I dotted. Every record of baptisms, weddings, funerals, congregational and session meetings signed, while maintaining the congregation’s decency and order. The oldest joke in Presbyterian circles is that in a conflict between decency and order, decency disappears first.
“This clerk of session, we’ll call him ‘Bradford,’ believed that the pastor was supposed to perform all important religious functions in the congregation. I know that sounds medieval, but such things can occur in almost any church. When Jesus spoke of sending more ‘laborers into his harvest,’ it’s interpreted as meaning more seminary-trained pastors. Bradford would regularly read the prayer for the beginning and end of the session meeting; but, by the force of his personality that was the laity’s closest touch to purely religious ministry—other than singing in the choir, teaching church school, caring for the building, and raising money, of course.
“Bradford considered himself progressive in that he didn’t object, as some Presbyterian churches do, to the use of musical instruments in worship. However, in his odd way he made sure that the congregation used the oldest hymnal, out of print for 40 years, although they’d become a handful of beaten rags, constantly mended. If the subject of encouraging the ministry of the laity came up, his constant response was, ‘Why, soon they’d be wanting to baptize and serve the Lord’s Supper like some of those Baptists.’ As I said, there are all kinds of Presbyterians.
“As contrary as Bradford seemed to be, the new pastor, we’ll call him ‘Pastor Ansel,’ straight from seminary, realized that the man was truly dedicated to Christ’s church. Wherever he believed that the laity could do something for the church, he did: pulling weeds, cleaning toilets, patching the roof. He leaned his shoulder into everything he considered allowable, and also gave a bundle of his income. Pastor Ansel, although disagreeing with his clerk on the ministry of the laity, came to know the man’s devotion to Christ and was genuinely fond of him. He assumed that Bradford had simply made a wrong turn in his thinking way back in his life and had continued where that road led him.
“Pastor Ansel had served the congregation for three years when he was found in his office one Tuesday morning, slumped on his desk, barely breathing. After two days in the hospital the diagnosis was a stroke and the prognosis wasn’t good. Bradford did his clerk’s duty, telephoning to the nearest Presbyterian congregation for their pastor to minister to Pastor Ansel. We’ll call him ‘Pastor Carlson.’ Pastor Carlson had already visited him and reported that Pastor Ansel’s condition had improved, and he appeared well on the way to recovery.
“The news encouraged Bradford to call at the hospital in order to complete a clerkly detail. The Presbytery was meeting within the week where all records of congregations were read and reviewed. These records must be signed by the clerk and the pastor; yet, the clerk had only just typed up the minutes of the last session meetings, thus needing the pastor’s signature. The Presbytery’s pack of clerks that met to read minutes had never dinged him for mistakes or omissions. Because Pastor Ansel was recovering, Bradford felt it allowable to visit and have him sign the eight-pound minutes book.
“He entered the hospital room to find a middle school girl fussing with the pastor’s many tubes. He was stunned. What was she doing? For a moment he stood at the foot of the pastor’s bed holding the giant book to his chest. Then the little girl turned, and he saw her badge, ‘L. Kelly, R.N.’ She did seem a little shaky. In fact, it was her first week on the floor without a supervisor. Just then the pastor said something to her, and she turned to him and he appeared to shrug. The room then sounded like a dozen church bells ringing for all the clanging that broke loose. Bradford stepped closer. He could see the pastor’s tense face, and Nurse Kelly’s tenser face.
“Pastor Ansel grabbed her hand and said, ‘Pray for me.’ Her eyebrows shot up like a broken window shade and she froze. ‘Pray for me,’ he choked out. She swished her hair back and forth for an answer and turned to Bradford. ‘I … I … I can’t.’ Bradford stepped forward and Pastor Ansel saw him, reached, and grabbed his wrist like Jacob wrestling with the angel. Nurse Kelly dashed out for help and there was Bradford, clutched by the person whom he believed should do all the religious things … like praying for the dying.
“Bradford took three seconds to obey the summons from Pastor Ansel and the Holy Spirit. ‘Almighty God,’ he prayed, ‘creator above all, holy, exalted …’ Pastor Ansel squeezed his wrist harder. He looked into the pastor’s eyes, gulped, and said, ‘Lord Jesus, come here now. To your servant now. Upon pastor I pray, in his desperate need. You are his Lord, and his only hope in life and death. Touch him. Heal him. Restore him. He’s your servant, grant him mercy. Mercy, Lord.’
“Nurse Kelly returned with half the hospital staff clattering behind her and Bradford was hustled out. He stood outside the room, back to the wall, eyes shut for three hours and prayed … and prayed …. and prayed.
“Have you heard of the Christian writer C.S. Lewis? Wrote a couple dozen wonderful books, many for people who didn’t believe or who’d like to believe. The movie Shadowlands was about him and his wife Joy. He was a professor in England and she was a US citizen visiting in the UK and working with him. She became ill and was dying of cancer. Suddenly the UK government, without giving reasons, refused to renew her resident permit. As an act of friendship, Lewis married her in her hospital room, allowing her and her two sons to remain in England at least until she died.
“Then, of all the tricky things God does, she recovered. The two of them, now married, fell in love. Well, Pastor Ansel also recovered from the edge of death. He walked with a limp after that, but mentally he returned to at least 90 percent of his former faculties. And Bradford? He had found by the Holy Spirit’s piercing him that Christ had given him the gift of compassion and care for others in prayer.
“Within a few years the Presbytery trained and commissioned Bradford as a minister to pastors. Who else knew the inner workings of the church? Who else had more concern for pastors? What he didn’t know about those Christians who served as pastors he learned every day by listening to them, every one of them, calling on each of them regularly and praying with them. And soon pastor Ansel’s congregation set about to train the laity to express Christian care for others. As far as I know, they still are.”
The pastor turned again to those in the front row waiting to be commissioned as Stephen ministers and said, “Traditions come and go. Some good, some harmful. You now take your place in the tradition of Jesus who gifts you, calls you and frees you to have compassion on those who are harassed and helpless. Please come forward for your commissioning.”
Preaching point: God’s people called, equipped, and freed to serve Christ.
* * *
Patternless Suffering With God
by David O. Bales
Romans 5:1-8
Lacey kept her eyes low, trying to remain out of the discussion as long as possible. Finally, to her relief after everyone had passed twice, Buddy responded to Eleanore’s question, “I’m here because the pastor wanted me to come.” Lacey glanced at the others, and they all seemed to agree. The looks on others’ faces confirmed Lacey in her opinion of what was occurring with this unfortunate gathering of people. Her thoughts were a litany of distress, “if anyone told us what such a group would be like … if anyone had sought a competent leader …..” Her mind swirled with ifs and possible stratagems for how to flee from this mournful group.
They sat in a small circle. Eleanore had set up the room before they arrived. No table between them to emotionally hide behind. Across from Lacey Eleanore sat, maintaining her beatific smile no matter what anyone said or, in this case, didn’t say. Eleanore’s suggestion that “everyone share a little about how you got here,” had fallen flatter than Lacey’s energy level. Besides acknowledging that a loved one had died recently, Lacey and the four others managed to choke out the unanimous information that the pastor encouraged them to attend the congregation’s new grief group. The operative term was “new,” started only because Eleanore reported that other congregations “ran” such groups and—as they all knew—the pastor went along with anything Eleanore proposed.
Lacey was the only teenager, a senior in high school. Her mother died 11 months before. The group included Buddy who sat across from her. He managed to squeeze out the information that his wife died a year, two months, and 12 days ago. Beside him Tammie took her fist out of her mouth to say, “Oliver, my husband, passed a year ago November.” Sharon was on Lacey’s right. Her eight-year-old daughter died of a slow cancer two years before. Her eyes were dripping tears when she walked in the room and they hadn’t stopped yet. On Lacey’s left, Barbara acknowledged with clipped speech that she’d been a widow for a year. And, of course, Eleanore perched next to Buddy, leaning forward eagerly into the group: Eleanore, Lacey’s neighbor who had been her mother’s lifelong annoyance, always wanting to fix people; Eleanore, whose incompetence as a group leader was blazingly obvious even to a teenager. Lacey thought, “One of these adults should take over and get us out of here. Eleanore doesn’t know what she’s doing to us, no matter what psychology magazine she says she reads cover to cover.”
She almost brought herself to say something—although she didn’t know what—when her chest constricted. It had happened before. She concentrated on looking normal while struggling for each breath. All she could consider was how to escape. She’d thought that her mother’s death was the worst that could happen to her, instantly deleting two thirds of her days’ energy, at times nearly preventing her from uttering a word. Now this—trapped with a handful of people drowning in grief and a numbskull in charge.
Buddy squirreled around in his chair, cleared his throat, and said, “How we doing so far?” Everyone laughed nervously. Eleanore chuckled longest and said, “Just being here with others is a great start. Don’t you think? Any more feelings to share?”
“Pretty painful,” Barbara said, to which others nodded. Sharon was looking at her lap. Eleanore peered around the group, face by face, to coax further responses. In the street outside a horn honked, reminding Lacey that a world existed beyond this horribly confined feeling that pressed in on her. She looked above Eleanore’s head, acting as though she were genuinely involved. She gazed at two or three cobwebs on the hospital-white wall of the church’s conference room.
Eleanore tried three more invitations to share feelings or experiences, didn’t wait long for answers, and then said, “Pastor tells me his favorite scripture concerning grief is Paul’s fifth chapter to the Romans: ‘we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’”
Most of them nodded politely, obvious to Lacey that they weren’t agreeing so much as acknowledging the scripture was from the pastor. No one spoke for a few moments until Barbara, sitting rigidly, said in a thin, hopeless voice, “Hasn’t worked that way for me.”
Eleanore’s eyes opened wide. She looked around quickly, gathering her thoughts, but before she could respond, Buddy said, “Me neither.”
Eleanore said, “Well, I’m sure—.”
“Not much for me, either,” Tammie said.
Sharon reached over and placed her hand on Tammie’s. “I sympathize. Nothing’s happened in my grief that was like lock-step to healing. If anything, I’ve gone back and forth leapfrog. Think life’s smoothing out, then I see a commercial for Cabela’s and cry. Oliver loved Cabela’s. Kept the catalog in the bathroom.” She was able to laugh when she said that, although her tears were flowing.
Buddy said, “Still bothers me to drive by Jo-Ann Fabrics,” and he shook his head to stop himself from crying.
Sharon spoke while she looked at Buddy, “It’s a back and forth. I’ve had longest here to push through grief and mourning. I’ve heard Paul’s words more than once, as well as some ridiculous advice about God wanting Mitzy in heaven with him … there’s a reason for everything … and ….” She stopped and everyone thought she would burst into sobs, but she clicked her teeth together and spoke quickly. “I prayed for her. I guess,” she said as she looked at the four other bereaved facing her, “that we all prayed for our loved ones. And I keep praying. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. I’d decided what I’m going through was different from other people’s,” she said as she glanced around at her fellow mourners. Everyone stared at her and a couple nodded towards her.
“My suffering hasn’t worked the way Paul’s did. It’s taken a while for me to not feel guilty because of that. A person threw that scripture at me a few months ago, like if I was a true Christian, my suffering would follow those steps. Only lately I’ve figured out that Paul was talking about himself and others then who were suffering for their faith. I’m sure God helped them; but, that doesn’t mean God commands us to follow Paul’s pattern. It comforts me at least to know that others have survived suffering and that God was with them.”
She looked at Eleanore as though her statement was a question. Lacey noticed that everyone had turned to Sharon. At that moment Lacey didn’t think about what the pastor or Paul said. If she were to stay in this group for another minute, it would only be because of Sharon’s statement. She’d have time to make it up to Eleanore later, as well as to think about Paul’s writing. For now, she spoke up for the first time, “We done for today?”
Preaching point: Paul’s experience of suffering isn’t a lock-step pattern for everyone’s suffering.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 14, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
