With Malice Towards None and Kindness Towards Your Enemy
Stories
Contents
“With Malice Towards None and Kindness Towards Your Enemy” by Frank Ramirez
“Waiting for the Diagnosis” by C. David McKirachan
“Simple Things” by C. David McKirachan
With Malice Towards None and Kindness Towards Your Enemy
by Frank Ramirez
Ephesians 4:25--5:2
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Few now remember that Herbert Hoover made a name for himself prior to his election as President in 1928 for his work coordinating famine relief in Europe during and after the World War I. Having made his fortune in the mining industry, he used his administrative skills in public service, first helping to evacuate Americans from the war-torn continent, and then overseeing the distribution of millions of tons of food as well as clothing to those suffering from the ongoing war. He continued to combat hunger when the war ended, which led to increasing public service as he was appointed Secretary of Commerce under a Republican administration. He was nominated by that party for the office of President in 1928, an election which he won handily.
Less than a year into his presidency the stock market crashed. Opinions differ on the effectiveness of the actions he took during the economic disaster that followed, but with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 Hoover retired to California and largely stayed out of the public eye.
However, despite Hoover’s criticism of the economic policies of the Democrats, when Harry Truman became president following Roosevelt’s death in 1945 he asked Hoover to meet with him in the White House. “I would be most happy to talk over the European food situation with you,” Truman wrote.
So the president of one party asked a former president of another party to work with him. Hoover was no longer sidelined. He was appointed honorary chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee. He was soon traveling everywhere to oversee famine relief for those suffering from the newly ended war.
But there was more than a simple recognition of talent. The two became good friends through the kindness extended from to another.
The same proved to be true for another two Presidents from different political parties. Having become the first president to resign from office, Richard M. Nixon was shunned by members of his own party, and had little contact with either Presidents Reagan and Bush, who did not want to be associated with the disgraced Nixon.
Which makes the association between President Clinton and Nixon all the more surprising. In his early years Clinton had protested against the policies of Nixon during his presidency. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a lawyer who served the House Judiciary Committee as it first considered and then drafted articles of impeachment. After the 1992 election, however, Nixon reached out to Clinton, and expressed admiration for the new president. He in turn, took advantage of Nixon’s kindness and phoned him regularly, using him as a resource when it came to making decisions on foreign policy. Like Nixon, Clinton recognized the importance of relationships not only with friends, but with enemies abroad. Nixon had been the president to open up relationships with the Soviet Union and China. After Nixon’s death Clinton spoke movingly about his political contributions. Here was not only a political relationship, but also a kind one.
In the ancient Roman Empire, Ephesus was a cosmopolitan city with people from many different economic, religious, and philosophical values. In his letter to the Ephesians the apostle calls upon his fellow believers to put aside whatever malice they had for each other and to be kind to each other.
* * *
Waiting for the Diagnosis
by C. David McKirachan
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 and Psalm 130
We had just moved to a new church, in a new town, with a new toddler, who had a new doctor. It was my first son. I still felt like a new father. The pediatrician happened to be one of my former school mates. He ran a clinic at the hospital and it made sense to take this bundle of energy, irrepressible curiosity, and joy that God had given to introduce us to confusion, exhaustion, and humility to someone that I knew.
My school mate was good. My kid enjoyed playing with all the equipment and anything he could reach, including the doctor. Halfway through the physical the doctor was palpating my boy’s middle and got a strange look on his face. He told the nurse to continue playing with my toddler and he took us out into the hall.
He told us he wanted to run a few tests, right then. My bouncing, crawling, singing, crowing baby boy had an enlarged spleen. It could be a minor thing or it could be something more serious. I told this guy whom I had known before he put on his white coat to tell us what he was worried about. What could it be? The word he said introduced a new level of fear and pain into my world. Leukemia.
The next couple hours were an experience of the suburbs of Hell. I had held the hands of people waiting for news, unable to accomplish anything. I had prayed with them and learned from them the depths the psalmist spoke from. But this was an entirely new dimension of struggle. This was my son. My only son. This was the struggle of Abraham climbing the mountain. Opening my hands in acceptance of something as ugly as cancer for my boy was unthinkable. I would take it on myself. I wanted to. I wanted to run through the closed doors and scream to the people doing the tests, “Give it to me. I’ll take it.”
There is no hell like waiting. Waiting to hear truth that is necessary for life to go on past this limbo. Truth that is an ugly monster. A monster with no mercy or compassion come to take his energy, his brightness, his life.
Why do we so value truth? What good is it? All it does is leave us with how we must deal with something. It rarely gives us any sort of choice except to have courage as we face a seamless wall of darkness.
I did a lot of listening that morning that seemed like a month. I remembered the lessons of faith I had learned from all those people I’d respected and loved as they faced that wall. I remembered bits and pieces of what we’d shared. And I remembered a quote about Christ being the clear window in the wall of mortality through which shines the clear light of God.
I did a lot of listening that day, a lot of wrestling, a lot of realizing how vulnerable our children make us, and a lot of realizing how much God loves me. It helped to have a support group right there in the waiting room. Abraham, David, God, and me. They’d all been through it. Now it was my turn. I guess that’s what it means to be a parent.
When the doctor came back through the doors, he lifted the burden from us and gave us our boy back. But I realized there, that the time I’d spent up against that wall was important. It helped me understand that we don’t own our kids or our loved ones or even our own selves. None of our childish arrogance has an effect on the boundaries of life and death. There is no magic formula to take away our humanity. Though in that humanity there is a glory that transcends any darkness.
It also helped me understand that the gift of life and the love that goes with it shows us how precious we are even when we face the dark parts of our beings. I don’t pretend to understand life or death or love, but I do know that they are mine. And I do know that the Lord has given all of them to me. And for all of them, I am incredibly grateful.
It also helped me appreciate the kid when he acted like Absalom. All kids do. It’s another one of those truths.
* * *
Simple Things
by C. David McKirachan
1 Kings 19:4-8 and Psalm 34:1-8
How do we find the way when we are lost? How do we discover our strength when we’re submerged in fear?
I had graduated from seminary, survived two internships, interviewed for jobs that would have left me frustrated and alone, and now, was tangled in a jungle of red tape sprouted from a committee’s desire to shut down a church that wanted to call me. Sleep was like the Holy Grail, an appetite was a dim memory, a sense of direction had left on the last train, with my self-worth.
I had a call to ministry. But it wasn’t a contract, it was a fire in my belly that was sputtering. The two jobs that brought in gas money and paid a few bills were a slippery slope. Besides, I was beginning to taste petroleum even after I washed. Why is it so hard to get grease out from under your fingernails?
My parents were suffering more deeply than I was. I didn’t know that until I had adult children of my own. Children get frustrated. Parents suffer. It’s an equation as ancient as our race. My father once told me that his job was to be a launching pad for me. He’d been on his journey, now it was his turn to set things up so that I could go on my own. Well, here I sat, the countdown running into delays. My sense of destination was lost in my desire to get off the ground.
Under all the frustration was a terrible fear, unspoken in my constant push to get going, a fear of failure. Maybe this fire in my belly was a minor case of indigestion. Maybe my sense of God’s purpose in my life was a desire to be something that I was never meant to be. I didn’t doubt the presence or reality of the one who made me. Though even that began to be a burden that was hard to carry. But like it or not, the Dude, or Dudette was there. But maybe I’d missed the boat, or gotten on the wrong one. Maybe I really was a second rate mechanic, destined to have dirty fingernails for the rest of my life. And even worse, I wasn’t that good at tune ups. I didn’t have a feel for them. I was terrified that I’d be stuck in something that meant little to me or to anybody else. I wanted to make a difference, at something.
My mother made an appointment with me. At the moment, I was living with them, so that shouldn’t have been difficult. But I was slippery. I really didn’t want to have a sit down with the parental unit. Finally, she pinned me down. We sat at the kitchen table and she, all business, told me that there were a few things that I needed to get under my belt before I went off into the cold cruel world all by myself. She was going to teach me to cook a pork chop, sew on a button, and unstop a drain. Any other details were to be gained by specific questions at the time they were needed. We were going to start with the pork chop.
It was the simplest thing, choosing good meat, what to look out for, defrosting if necessary, seasoning, preparing the frying pan, getting it done to an acceptable ‘doneness.’ It disarmed me, put my anxieties in the back seat and left me with a skill that was undeniably worthwhile.
She was five feet tall, in shoes. I was six foot four in bare feet. But she could push Kodiak bears around at will. I was putty in her capable hands. There were no hidden messages of trust or capability or hope. It was a pork chop, a frying pan, and a job to get done that would allow me to feed myself. We were having pork chops for dinner, so my newly acquired skill would be useful in a general way.
It felt like an intermission. For a bit of time all the difficulty and doubt was suspended and put away. Conversation at dinner was mostly about the pork chops. We even laughed. My dreams that night were not crammed with Committee on Ministry forms or judgements, or forgetting to tighten a spark plug. I think I had a dream about parsley potatoes.
Somewhere in the tangle of my life I had found a center. It wasn’t where I thought it would be. It was about simple things. Taste and see that the Lord is good. It was a communion of souls who loved each other and the center of living that is a home.
Life’s struggles aren’t solved with pork chops. But neither are they solved with worry and anxiety. Life’s pleasures are very simple things and sometimes they allow us to run, a long, long way.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 12, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 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.
“With Malice Towards None and Kindness Towards Your Enemy” by Frank Ramirez
“Waiting for the Diagnosis” by C. David McKirachan
“Simple Things” by C. David McKirachan
With Malice Towards None and Kindness Towards Your Enemy
by Frank Ramirez
Ephesians 4:25--5:2
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Few now remember that Herbert Hoover made a name for himself prior to his election as President in 1928 for his work coordinating famine relief in Europe during and after the World War I. Having made his fortune in the mining industry, he used his administrative skills in public service, first helping to evacuate Americans from the war-torn continent, and then overseeing the distribution of millions of tons of food as well as clothing to those suffering from the ongoing war. He continued to combat hunger when the war ended, which led to increasing public service as he was appointed Secretary of Commerce under a Republican administration. He was nominated by that party for the office of President in 1928, an election which he won handily.
Less than a year into his presidency the stock market crashed. Opinions differ on the effectiveness of the actions he took during the economic disaster that followed, but with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 Hoover retired to California and largely stayed out of the public eye.
However, despite Hoover’s criticism of the economic policies of the Democrats, when Harry Truman became president following Roosevelt’s death in 1945 he asked Hoover to meet with him in the White House. “I would be most happy to talk over the European food situation with you,” Truman wrote.
So the president of one party asked a former president of another party to work with him. Hoover was no longer sidelined. He was appointed honorary chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee. He was soon traveling everywhere to oversee famine relief for those suffering from the newly ended war.
But there was more than a simple recognition of talent. The two became good friends through the kindness extended from to another.
The same proved to be true for another two Presidents from different political parties. Having become the first president to resign from office, Richard M. Nixon was shunned by members of his own party, and had little contact with either Presidents Reagan and Bush, who did not want to be associated with the disgraced Nixon.
Which makes the association between President Clinton and Nixon all the more surprising. In his early years Clinton had protested against the policies of Nixon during his presidency. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a lawyer who served the House Judiciary Committee as it first considered and then drafted articles of impeachment. After the 1992 election, however, Nixon reached out to Clinton, and expressed admiration for the new president. He in turn, took advantage of Nixon’s kindness and phoned him regularly, using him as a resource when it came to making decisions on foreign policy. Like Nixon, Clinton recognized the importance of relationships not only with friends, but with enemies abroad. Nixon had been the president to open up relationships with the Soviet Union and China. After Nixon’s death Clinton spoke movingly about his political contributions. Here was not only a political relationship, but also a kind one.
In the ancient Roman Empire, Ephesus was a cosmopolitan city with people from many different economic, religious, and philosophical values. In his letter to the Ephesians the apostle calls upon his fellow believers to put aside whatever malice they had for each other and to be kind to each other.
* * *
Waiting for the Diagnosis
by C. David McKirachan
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 and Psalm 130
We had just moved to a new church, in a new town, with a new toddler, who had a new doctor. It was my first son. I still felt like a new father. The pediatrician happened to be one of my former school mates. He ran a clinic at the hospital and it made sense to take this bundle of energy, irrepressible curiosity, and joy that God had given to introduce us to confusion, exhaustion, and humility to someone that I knew.
My school mate was good. My kid enjoyed playing with all the equipment and anything he could reach, including the doctor. Halfway through the physical the doctor was palpating my boy’s middle and got a strange look on his face. He told the nurse to continue playing with my toddler and he took us out into the hall.
He told us he wanted to run a few tests, right then. My bouncing, crawling, singing, crowing baby boy had an enlarged spleen. It could be a minor thing or it could be something more serious. I told this guy whom I had known before he put on his white coat to tell us what he was worried about. What could it be? The word he said introduced a new level of fear and pain into my world. Leukemia.
The next couple hours were an experience of the suburbs of Hell. I had held the hands of people waiting for news, unable to accomplish anything. I had prayed with them and learned from them the depths the psalmist spoke from. But this was an entirely new dimension of struggle. This was my son. My only son. This was the struggle of Abraham climbing the mountain. Opening my hands in acceptance of something as ugly as cancer for my boy was unthinkable. I would take it on myself. I wanted to. I wanted to run through the closed doors and scream to the people doing the tests, “Give it to me. I’ll take it.”
There is no hell like waiting. Waiting to hear truth that is necessary for life to go on past this limbo. Truth that is an ugly monster. A monster with no mercy or compassion come to take his energy, his brightness, his life.
Why do we so value truth? What good is it? All it does is leave us with how we must deal with something. It rarely gives us any sort of choice except to have courage as we face a seamless wall of darkness.
I did a lot of listening that morning that seemed like a month. I remembered the lessons of faith I had learned from all those people I’d respected and loved as they faced that wall. I remembered bits and pieces of what we’d shared. And I remembered a quote about Christ being the clear window in the wall of mortality through which shines the clear light of God.
I did a lot of listening that day, a lot of wrestling, a lot of realizing how vulnerable our children make us, and a lot of realizing how much God loves me. It helped to have a support group right there in the waiting room. Abraham, David, God, and me. They’d all been through it. Now it was my turn. I guess that’s what it means to be a parent.
When the doctor came back through the doors, he lifted the burden from us and gave us our boy back. But I realized there, that the time I’d spent up against that wall was important. It helped me understand that we don’t own our kids or our loved ones or even our own selves. None of our childish arrogance has an effect on the boundaries of life and death. There is no magic formula to take away our humanity. Though in that humanity there is a glory that transcends any darkness.
It also helped me understand that the gift of life and the love that goes with it shows us how precious we are even when we face the dark parts of our beings. I don’t pretend to understand life or death or love, but I do know that they are mine. And I do know that the Lord has given all of them to me. And for all of them, I am incredibly grateful.
It also helped me appreciate the kid when he acted like Absalom. All kids do. It’s another one of those truths.
* * *
Simple Things
by C. David McKirachan
1 Kings 19:4-8 and Psalm 34:1-8
How do we find the way when we are lost? How do we discover our strength when we’re submerged in fear?
I had graduated from seminary, survived two internships, interviewed for jobs that would have left me frustrated and alone, and now, was tangled in a jungle of red tape sprouted from a committee’s desire to shut down a church that wanted to call me. Sleep was like the Holy Grail, an appetite was a dim memory, a sense of direction had left on the last train, with my self-worth.
I had a call to ministry. But it wasn’t a contract, it was a fire in my belly that was sputtering. The two jobs that brought in gas money and paid a few bills were a slippery slope. Besides, I was beginning to taste petroleum even after I washed. Why is it so hard to get grease out from under your fingernails?
My parents were suffering more deeply than I was. I didn’t know that until I had adult children of my own. Children get frustrated. Parents suffer. It’s an equation as ancient as our race. My father once told me that his job was to be a launching pad for me. He’d been on his journey, now it was his turn to set things up so that I could go on my own. Well, here I sat, the countdown running into delays. My sense of destination was lost in my desire to get off the ground.
Under all the frustration was a terrible fear, unspoken in my constant push to get going, a fear of failure. Maybe this fire in my belly was a minor case of indigestion. Maybe my sense of God’s purpose in my life was a desire to be something that I was never meant to be. I didn’t doubt the presence or reality of the one who made me. Though even that began to be a burden that was hard to carry. But like it or not, the Dude, or Dudette was there. But maybe I’d missed the boat, or gotten on the wrong one. Maybe I really was a second rate mechanic, destined to have dirty fingernails for the rest of my life. And even worse, I wasn’t that good at tune ups. I didn’t have a feel for them. I was terrified that I’d be stuck in something that meant little to me or to anybody else. I wanted to make a difference, at something.
My mother made an appointment with me. At the moment, I was living with them, so that shouldn’t have been difficult. But I was slippery. I really didn’t want to have a sit down with the parental unit. Finally, she pinned me down. We sat at the kitchen table and she, all business, told me that there were a few things that I needed to get under my belt before I went off into the cold cruel world all by myself. She was going to teach me to cook a pork chop, sew on a button, and unstop a drain. Any other details were to be gained by specific questions at the time they were needed. We were going to start with the pork chop.
It was the simplest thing, choosing good meat, what to look out for, defrosting if necessary, seasoning, preparing the frying pan, getting it done to an acceptable ‘doneness.’ It disarmed me, put my anxieties in the back seat and left me with a skill that was undeniably worthwhile.
She was five feet tall, in shoes. I was six foot four in bare feet. But she could push Kodiak bears around at will. I was putty in her capable hands. There were no hidden messages of trust or capability or hope. It was a pork chop, a frying pan, and a job to get done that would allow me to feed myself. We were having pork chops for dinner, so my newly acquired skill would be useful in a general way.
It felt like an intermission. For a bit of time all the difficulty and doubt was suspended and put away. Conversation at dinner was mostly about the pork chops. We even laughed. My dreams that night were not crammed with Committee on Ministry forms or judgements, or forgetting to tighten a spark plug. I think I had a dream about parsley potatoes.
Somewhere in the tangle of my life I had found a center. It wasn’t where I thought it would be. It was about simple things. Taste and see that the Lord is good. It was a communion of souls who loved each other and the center of living that is a home.
Life’s struggles aren’t solved with pork chops. But neither are they solved with worry and anxiety. Life’s pleasures are very simple things and sometimes they allow us to run, a long, long way.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 12, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 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.
