Backdraft
Stories
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Fake Fire" by Timothy Merrill
Good Stories: "Backdraft" by Frank R. Fisher
"With Sighs Too Deep" by Richard Jensen
"The Town Pray-er" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "The Big Picture" by Sil Galvan
What's Up This Week
On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, so vividly described in our Acts passage as a mighty wind with tongues of fire -- and this week's Story to Live By and Frank Fisher's "Backdraft" in Good Stories use that startling imagery to make the point that being touched by the fire of the Spirit is potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, our other Good Stories offer two different takes on the familiar phrase "the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words" from this week's Romans reading. And in the Scrap Pile, Sil Galvan reflects on whether we see beyond the minutiae of our daily lives and grasp the big picture of the Spirit at work, as described in our Gospel lesson.
A Story to Live By
Fake Fire
by Timothy Merrill
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of them.
Acts 2:3 (NIV)
Colorado is a beautiful place to live. But many summers there lately have been hot and dry, and the national forests are vulnerable to wildfires.
The summer of 2002 was particularly difficult. Fires began burning as early as April. In June, the Hayman fire destroyed over 100,000 acres of forest and consumed hundreds of buildings, including homes. When the wind was right, the smoke hung like an apocalyptic cloud over the city of Denver, dropping ash and smoke particles, and posing a serious health hazard, especially to those with asthma or lung disease. The cost to fight this fire alone exceeded $25 million.
Then, incredibly, it was learned this inferno had been set by a forest service employee. Another forest service employee was arrested for starting the Show Low fire, which consumed over 300,000 acres in Arizona.
We're fascinated with fire. We've even developed myths to explain how fire came to mortals. It was Prometheus, we learn, who carried fire from the gods of Olympus to the mortals on earth, and paid dearly for his trouble.
Fire can heat us or hurt us, warm us or waste us. We enjoy its glow in a fireplace, its comforting presence at a campfire, and its flame on a candle. We're intrigued by its mystery when we strike a match and watch the phosphorus tip explode into flame.
Hollywood even needs fire for its action scenes. What Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, or Terminator movie could hit the screen without flashy pyrotechnics, exploding buildings that turn into a ball of flame, cars that fly into the air and hit the ground in a maelstrom of roiling fire, or houses that become raging infernos?
Creating such effects is not only difficult but very dangerous. That's why PDI/DreamWorks visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg is trying to create the first photo-realistic, completely computer-generated flames. To do this, he's already spent hours in the studio parking lot lighting fires; he studies flame footage in the studio. When the animated movie Shrek hit the theatres in 2001, his work was prominently featured. The breath of the dragon and the burning bridge all emerged from his pixilated work. There was so much detail in these frames of fire that just one of the 1,400 processors used to create the fire took 30 hours to render just one frame.
Fake fire. Hollywood can do it. The church can't. Pentecost is about fire, flames of fire. It's about power. It's about the Holy Spirit energizing what would otherwise be a powerless church.
Some churches have gone so high-tech they think they're the religious counterpart to PDI/DreamWorks. Fiddle with your pixels if you want, but you can't computer-generate the Holy Spirit. The fire's got to be real.
Timothy Merrill is the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press) and a volume in the CSS series Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister who has served churches in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Good Stories
Backdraft
by Frank R. Fisher
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:2-4
**Bang Bang Bang Bang** [a knocking sound effect]
From the door directly to your right, the banging sound reverberates through the smoking wood and echoes down the long, steaming hallway. The sound increases in urgency and then tapers weakly off. It's the weakness that catches your attention as your mind flashes back through the day's events.
For a change your day began quietly. As usual, you arrived at your firehouse and put your bunker gear on the hook and ladder. Then you sat down for a cup of coffee as you awaited your officer and the department's plans for your day.
By the time your coffee was finished you'd learned your company was due at the academy for training. That time of learning occupied most of the day. Much of the material was quite old to you, and often it was very dry. But you paid attention, for you knew your life might depend on it some day. You paid particular attention to a discussion of backdrafts; the explosive reaction of a smoldering fire when it's suddenly gifted with a new source of oxygen.
Now, as you crouch below the smoke in the sweltering hallway, the discussion of backdrafts comes quickly to your mind -- for you reach out to the door where you heard the knocking sound. And you find that it almost burns you through your protective glove. Instinctively you know that means there's fire on the other side of the door; fire that could explode outward if the door is opened; fire that could cause a backdraft, consuming everything in its path.
Quickly you radio for help. But you find help can't arrive for several minutes. And a quick survey shows you there's no other entrance to the apparently occupied room. You've just about decided to wait until an officer and other firefighters arrive, when the knocking sound comes again. This time it's combined with a weak cry. "My baby! Help! My baby!" gasps a voice from directly behind the door.
The time for hesitation's over. You stand upright into the smoke and haze, brace yourself on the left-hand wall and lift your feet to smash down the door. Your feet tear into the wood. The hinges start to give way. And you know your life may be about to end in an instant.
But you are a firefighter, sworn to protect the people on the other side of the now-splintering door. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From the windows of the room the banging sound reverberates and echoes throughout the hidden upper room, the room in which you and your friends are hiding. The sound constantly increases in urgency, and it brings your mind back to the events of the last few weeks and months. All in all, you still feel a bit dizzy as you think of all that's happened in your life. In your mind it felt just like yesterday when the Master rode into Jerusalem at the head of a triumphal procession. It was a wonderful day. But all too quickly it was followed by the trial and then by the crucifixion.
All of you had stayed limp and numb for three days until Mary burst into the room, shouting the wonderful news of the resurrection. Your whipsawed emotions had barely had time to recover when the Lord was off again. This time, as you'd watched the ascension into the clouds, you had a feeling the Light of the world had gone away for good.
Of course there had been a promise; a promise of God's continuing presence with you; a promise of power allowing you to tell the whole world the wonderful good news. But now, as you hide here from the Romans and from their collaborators, a promise seems an empty replacement for the physical presence of the Living God.
So all of you continue to huddle about the table while you talk and wonder aloud about that promise. "When," you all ask each other, "will this promise be fulfilled?" But your talk and questions are interrupted once again by the knocking sound reverberating from the windows.
"Could it be the Romans?" you gasp out. "Could this be...?"
A vast booming noise catches your words in your throat. The windows all blast open together as something like a wind rushes into the room and sends anything lying loose flying into the air.
Your hair stands on end as you look up into the face of the gale and see the ceiling covered in something like flame. Then the flame swoops downward, and something like tongues of living fire reach out to touch your head and the heads of each person in the room.
The gift the Master had promised has arrived. All around you your friends rush to the doors and burst through them without bothering to throw open the latches. They're shouting and speaking in languages you never heard. All of them you somehow know are joyfully bellowing the still living story of Jesus the Christ.
But somehow the gift has touched you differently. For to you it brings not new language but the courage to rise from your hiding place and bravely explain to the bemused crowd outside just what was going on in their midst.
You hesitate just for a moment. You know to go outside the door and tell of the Lord's life, death, and resurrection will one day bring about your own death. It will be like opening a door to a fire that will burst out and consume your body in a devouring flame.
Your hesitation, however, lasts only for an instant. Then you race through the door and you hear your voice shouting, "People of Jerusalem, these are not drunk as you suppose..."
The fire will consume you. This you know, and this you accept, for you are a follower of Jesus the Christ. You live and breathe through the wind and flame of the Spirit of God; Christ's blazing gift to Christ's people. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From all around you the knocking sound reverberates. It echoes down the hallways of your memories and rebounds through the pathways and hallways of your life.
You began to hear it when you first moved in your mother's womb. You heard it sing at the moment of your birth and felt it dance when the baptismal waters washed over your head. Through all your life it's been there, though you may manage to ignore it for a time.
"Follow me," it knocks and calls to you! "Tell the good news! Speak it and live it in a way that all may hear and see!"
The knocking is Christ's gift to you: the same gift that burst into the room at Pentecost; the same gift that changed a group of frightened women and men into the transforming church of Jesus the Christ; the same gift that can transform churches and turn about lives today.
You may hesitate to answer the knocking when it comes calling deep within your soul. And hesitate you should -- for when you open the door the gift will burst through as a devouring fire, a fire that will drive you to go where the Spirit bids you go and to speak as the Spirit bids you speak.
Do you dare to open that door?
Do you dare to take this part of your life so seriously that it will define who you are and who you will be?
It is your choice to make -- for the Spirit will push hard but does not often compel. But in your choice, remember, you've declared yourself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And for you to be the person you are called to be, there is a moment when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
Frank R. Fisher currently serves as the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Fairbury, Illinois. During the final years of his first career as a paramedic and administrator for the Chicago Fire Department, Fisher graduated from McCormick Theological Seminary and was ordained. He is an Oblate of the ecumenical Abbey of John the Baptist and Saint Benedict in Bartonville, Illinois.
With Sighs Too Deep
by Richard Jensen
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.... Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
Romans 8:22-23, 26
Over at last. That's the only thought she could think about just now. Over at last. The funeral finished. The committal service completed. She was home now and weary; bone-weary. Her husband Carl was safely tucked into the grave. How had she ever endured the year of his agony?
Carl and Melissa Gregory were in their early 60s. Carl had worked for the railroad most of his life. It was blue-collar work, but he got paid well. Melissa worked outside of the home on occasion. She had secretarial skills. Occasionally she helped out at her church. Sometimes she would get work as a "temp" filling in at the secretary level. The Gregorys had two grown children. They had lived too far away to make it back for the funeral. That was all right with Melissa. They had come so often during the year of Carl's dying. She thought their presence during the waning days of his life was more important than their presence at the funeral, though she did miss them terribly that day. It was tough after the funeral and all to come home to an empty house.
Carl's cancer was diagnosed just about exactly one year ago. His doctor caught it at one of Carl's regular check-ups. "You've got a growth in your prostrate gland," Dr. Bean had told Carl. "We'd better do a biopsy." When the results of the biopsy came back Dr. Bean was a bit upset. The growth was malignant. The cancer was there and spreading fast. Dr. Bean was fond of Carl Gregory. And Carl had been faithful in getting his annual physical. Still, here he found cancer in an advanced state. Dr. Bean called Carl Gregory with the bad news. "You'd better get in here as soon as you can, Carl," Dr. Bean had said. "We've got to go to work on that cancer right away."
Melissa remembered that phone call from Dr. Bean like it was yesterday. Could it really be a year ago already? And what a year! Carl was so sick. Nothing the doctors tried seemed to work on the cancerous growth. Carl was in and out of hospitals and treatment centers all year. Wherever Carl was sent, Melissa followed. They were a lonely pair, trudging off to ever new venues of healing -- healing that never came. Melissa could only think of that year as a kind of hell. And now hell was over. Carl had died at last. The funeral was over, too. And she was home alone. What new kind of hell awaited her now?
As Melissa wandered aimlessly around the Gregory home the night of the funeral, she didn't know what to do. It was as if she was lost in the caverns of her own home. Several times she tried to pray. It was the same thing each time. She could find no words to pray. She didn't know what to say to God. She didn't know how to pray in this dire moment. She could only sigh and groan. Words wouldn't come. But groans came. And sighs came. Groans and sighs poured forth from the innermost depth of her being -- gut-wrenching groans, bone-shaking sighs. She could only hope that God could make something out of her groanings. That's all she had for God now. It was as if she had forgotten how to pray.
At the end of her murmuring lament she trudged off to bed. She would be alone there, too. As she cast herself down on her pillow she heard a familiar sound. The first fresh breath of spring blew gently through the bedroom window, kissing her aching body with a hint of new life.
Richard Jensen is professor emeritus of homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and he also served as the dean of the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching program for the Association of Chicago Theological Seminaries. He is also renowned for his decade-long stint as the speaker for Lutheran Vespers, a weekly national radio ministry of the Lutheran Church. Jensen is the author of several acclaimed books on the art of preaching, including the CSS titles Thinking in Story, Preaching Matthew's Gospel, Preaching Mark's Gospel, and Preaching Luke's Gospel.
The Town Pray-er
by John Sumwalt
Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27
There was once a woman in our town who was known as the praying lady. Every community has persons who serve unofficially in certain positions, like the town fix-it man who can fix anything from sump pumps to screen doors, or the community singer who is called upon to solo at every wedding and funeral. The nature of these positions will vary according to the available talent. Esther Langford was our town pray-er. Nobody could pray like Esther. She had a way of putting into words what everyone was thinking and feeling. And not just ordinary words, but beautiful poetic phrases so lovely that God could not help but be moved to attend to whatever person or concern was the subject of Esther's petition. So whenever there was going to be a special celebration, whether a wedding anniversary, a class reunion, or the annual election day dinner, Esther was called upon to give the prayer.
This was a source of more than a little irritation to the various itinerant preachers who came to serve our little Protestant church. Preachers, as a rule, have a monopoly on the praying business. They are accustomed to having first refusal rights to the prayers at every public gathering. Some of them count on it. It's a way of getting free meals, one of the small perks of the preaching profession. Consequently, most preachers can offer up a prayer at a moment's notice, although younger preachers are not usually as quick on their feet as older preachers. They tend to start slow and finish fast. If you are real hungry and if you have a choice, you would be best advised to choose a young preacher to say the grace. You can be sure that you will get to eat a lot sooner. Old preachers tend to go on and on. One certain way of telling the age of preachers is by the length of their prayers.
We had one old preacher who came to our church near the end of his ministry who gave the longest prayers anyone had ever heard. His pastoral prayers were almost as long as his sermons, and his sermons were way too long. This may have been because he didn't get to do much praying outside the Sunday service. Esther did most of that. I think those interminable pastoral prayers may have been his way of getting even.
It is written in scripture that God listens to the prayers of a righteous person. This certainly seemed to be true in Esther's case. She was a genuinely good person -- thoughtful, kind, generous, willing to share whatever she had with anyone who was in need. Everybody knew that if God listened to anyone, God surely listened to Esther.
One summer during a long drought she was asked to pray for rain. That was the year of the great flood. The very next day after Esther prayed the heavens opened and precipitation came down in buckets. Ten inches of rain fell in three hours. We almost lost the town bridge. No one ever forgot it, and no one ever asked Esther to pray for rain again.
There was a period of time when Esther didn't do any public praying. When people approached her she would say, "Thank you for asking, but I'm just not able to do it anymore." Years later, before she died, Esther told us that she went through a time of doubt. She said she didn't know what happened, but for a while she wasn't able to pray either publicly or privately. Esther said this was very unusual, because throughout her life she had prayed daily first thing every morning and last thing every night.
What's more, she said she wasn't sleeping well. Every night she had the same disturbing dream. At the end of the dream she would wake up, usually at about three o'clock in the morning, and then, try as she might, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
Esther said this went on for weeks and weeks. She was absolutely miserable and afraid to tell anyone for fear of what they might think. Town pray-er, indeed! What a laugh. She wondered if she ever really had known how to pray.
What was she going to do? The lack of sleep began to take a toll on her health. She decided that she had to do something. She thought of going to the preacher, but what would he think? Maybe he would think she had been a fraud all of these years. She tried sleeping pills, but they left her feeling "doped up" and more miserable than before. She had to talk to someone, but who? Who could she trust with the secret of her terrible misery?
Then it came to her. She would go to confession. She had only been inside the Catholic church for weddings and funerals, but she knew where the confessional booths were and she knew that Father Lempke heard confessions every Thursday night.
The next Thursday night Esther parked her car across the street from St. Killian's and waited until the last Catholic had left the building. She was shaking as she made her way to the confessional. She wasn't sure what she was going to say. Everything seemed strange: the high cathedral ceiling, the lighted candles in front of the statue of the Virgin, and the crucifix on the wall behind the altar; the smell of incense and warm wax was different from the musty smell of the little Protestant churches she was used to. All of it seemed to be saying, "You don't belong here. This is a holy place." But she forced herself to go on.
When she got into the confessional Esther knelt down and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." That much she knew from the movies. But she didn't know what to say after that, so she finally blurted out, "I'm a Protestant. I don't really know how to do this. I didn't know where else to go, so I came here hoping you would help me with my problem. I hope that's all right."
Father Lempke must have thought, "The Protestants are beginning to see the light, they are starting to come to me for confession." But if he was surprised, he didn't let on. He told Esther it was perfectly all right, he would be glad to listen. Esther then poured out her whole story, town pray-er and all.
The priest listened, and when she had finished he said, "My dear woman, do you know the story of Samuel in the Old Testament?" Esther said that she did. There wasn't anyone in our community who knew the Bible better than Esther did.
The priest said, "Do you remember how God spoke to Samuel when he was a young boy?"
"Yes," Esther said, "I remember."
"Did it ever occur to you," the priest asked, "that God might be trying to tell you something? The next time you wake up in the middle of the night, do what Samuel did."
Esther hadn't known what to expect in a Catholic confessional, but she certainly hadn't expected this. As soon as she got home she looked up the story in 1 Samuel to refresh her memory as to what it was exactly that Samuel had done. It was just as she remembered.
That night she had the same dream she had been having for several weeks. In the dream everyone in town was chasing her through the woods and crying out, "Pray for us, pray for us!" To escape her pursuers she ran into a dark cave, where she found herself being drawn along a winding tunnel. The tunnel came out in a large cavern as big as a cathedral and filled with a host of statue-like formations which glimmered and shimmered in the darkness. They were covered with sparkling crystals and appeared to be reaching out to her, bidding her to stop and take in all of their beauty. But the voices of the prayer-seekers were still ringing in her ears. She ran on down through another tunnel to a cavern that was bigger and more lovely than the one before. She wanted desperately to stop and allow herself to be filled with its beauty, but the voices persisted, growing louder and louder, their echoes resounding from wall to wall: "Pray for us, pray for us!" And so she ran on through cavern after cavern, each one grander and more glorious than the one before, until at last she was pulled by some mysterious and irresistible force over a ledge into a great abyss. She felt herself falling and falling, and it was at this point that she always woke up.
And that night when she woke up, she did what Samuel did. She said, "Speak, for thy servant hears."
And then it came to her, a verse out of her memory: ":..the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit... intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."
"What a relief!" Esther thought, and she wondered why she hadn't remembered it before. "The spirit has been praying for me all of this time."
Esther felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. People didn't need her to do their praying for them. They just needed to know what Paul had revealed long ago, and what the saints of every age have discovered in their "dark nights of the soul" -- we are never utterly alone. Even when we cannot bring ourselves to pray, when no words come to describe what we are thinking and feeling, the Spirit prays for us.
At last Esther's heart was filled with peace. For the first time in many weeks she was able to go back to sleep and to sleep soundly until morning. This time when she dreamed, she walked into the cave and wandered from room to room, lingering in some longer than others, allowing herself to come in touch with all of the beauty that God had placed within her soul. She awoke refreshed and full of the Spirit.
The following Sunday in worship Esther stood during the time for sharing joys and prayer concerns. She told us about her dream and the peace that came to her when she listened to what God was telling her in the dream. She said, "I will no longer be your 'town-pray-er' -- but," she added, "I will be very glad to take my turn whenever there is a need for someone to lead in prayer."
It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard the pastor heave a great sigh of relief.
John Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is the author of eight books for CSS, most recently three books of vision stories (one for each lectionary cycle). John leads conferences, seminars, and retreats on "Visions in the Bible and Today." He and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, served for three years as co-editors of StoryShare.
Scrap Pile
The Big Picture
by Sil Galvan
There's a story about a woman and her parakeet Chippie. It seems that the woman was cleaning Chippie's birdcage with the long hose of a canister vacuum cleaner when the phone rang. She reached over to get the phone, and as she did, she heard the unmistakable sound of Chippie being sucked up into the vacuum. Immediately she rushed over to the vacuum, pulled out the vacuum bag, and ripped it opened. There she found Chippie, totally stunned but still alive. Since the bird was now covered with soot and dirt, she grabbed him and ran into the bathroom, held him under the faucet and washed him in freezing cold water to get all the soot and dirt off. When she finished she saw the hair dryer sitting on the sink. She turned it on and held Chippie up in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, she was talking to a neighbor about the incident and the neighbor asked how the bird was doing. "Well," she said, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore. He just sort of sits on his perch and stares."
I think Chippie's reaction to those events was about the same as the reaction of the disciples in the weeks that followed our Lord's crucifixion: they were probably stunned. He had appeared to them several times, and had now ascended into heaven. But what next? Where do they go from here?
Well, based on Luke's account in the book of Acts, we can be sure of one thing that happened that first Pentecost day: the Spirit bestowed his gift of fortitude on the apostles, and changed a group of men who were huddled together in that upper room into fearless evangelizers of the gospel who converted thousands of people on that one day alone.
But fortitude is only one of the seven gifts of the Spirit. These gifts were first spoken of by Isaiah in describing the qualities of the Messiah who was to come: "But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of piety, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord" (Isaiah 11:1-3).
Just as the Spirit rested upon Christ himself and later on the disciples, so too has he sent his Spirit upon all of us. As Paul states: "There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in every one" (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Thus it is that the Spirit works through all of us, each in his own way. The seven gifts can be separated into four intellectual gifts (wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge) and three "active" gifts (fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord). With respect to the active gifts, the gift of courage is the ability to spread the faith in the most adverse of conditions. The gift of piety leads some to dedicate their lives to God in a special way, especially through the religious life. Fear of the Lord enables some to seek to avoid sin in all circumstances.
With respect to the intellectual gifts, the gift of counsel enables some to see and choose correctly what will bring about their own salvation and that of others. The gift of knowledge enables others to know universal and timeless truths pertaining to the natural world and the order of things. Understanding has been granted to some to see the things of life in relation to God and for achieving deeper insight into the truths of faith. And to some has been given the gift of wisdom (or sophia in Greek) which assists them in seeing and evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and God's kingdom, according to the ultimate principles of faith and aided by the judgment of love. I read the following story and thought it related well to this discussion of the gifts of the Spirit. The author says:
Is it morning already? I rub my eyes and get up to ready myself for just another day.
It's just another day... I look out my window to see the sun beaming down, caressing the earth with its golden rays. Above, white clouds float in the brilliant blue sky. I hear a cardinal singing to his mate as he perches upon my back fence. And a bed of crocus open their purple heads to the heavens in joyful thankfulness.
It's just another day. My small daughter bursts into the room, her giggle ringing through the house as she hugs my neck tightly. Her small hand fits into mine as she pulls me to the kitchen to show me the card she has made. A stick figure with curly brown hair waves from the paper, and beneath it, written in purple crayon, are the words, "I love you, Mommy."
It's just another day as I stand quietly and watch my handicapped child. He struggles to get his special walker over the curb, but it won't budge. A well-meaning teacher offers assistance, but he brushes her away. With determination, he conquers the curb and is off to laugh and play with his friends. I weep inside for his handicap, but I am inspired by his courage. And I smile as I watch the children play, totally accepting their friend for who he is, not judging him for what he lacks.
It's just another day. My son proudly presents the report he did for school. He shares with me the hopes and dreams he holds for his future. His curiosity and excitement are contagious as we unfold the limitless possibilities that lay before him. I am encouraged that no dream is beyond our reach if we want it bad enough.
It's just another day. My beloved wraps his arms around me and surrounds me in love. I turn to look in the eyes that share innermost feelings. What a special friend I have. Someone who loves me for who I am. Someone to lean on when I feel down. Someone to share my happiness. Someone to love.
Yes, it is just another day. A day to enjoy God's gracious beauty upon this earth. A day to kiss the cherub cheeks of my children, and share in their hopes and dreams. A day to learn the value of determination and hard work. A day to learn the value of judging mankind for the quality he has, not what he has not. A day to learn the value of love.
Yes, it's just another day, I sigh. The stars dance in the velvet sky as a full yellow moon smiles cheerfully down. The house is quiet and still. The only sound is the soft, even breathing of my spouse. I recall the scripture: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24). And as I lay at the side of my soul mate I pray that God will let me see "just another day"! ("Just Another Day" by Charlotte "Charlie" Volnek. Reprinted with permission from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, pp. 112-113. Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communications, Inc.)
To some have been given the gift of knowledge, others understanding, and still others wisdom. We all pretty much see around us the same things that the author of this story saw: the sun, the sky, the clouds, the birds, the flowers, our families. Knowledge enables us to realize that all of these, as well as the gift of life itself, are gifts from God. Through faith, we then can come to understand the deeper meaning of these gifts.
But most of all, I believe this story exemplifies the gift of wisdom, which is the gift of evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and aided by the judgment of love. Although we all see the same things, do we really "see" them? Do we know the true source of those things we see? Do we understand the true meaning behind those things, namely, the great love that God has for us? And most of all, do we have the wisdom to be grateful for the gifts that we have been given and to use them to the best of our ability out of a love for God? Or do we get bogged down in the limits of our circumstances or wish that things could be better? Although the author regretted the handicaps which afflicted her son, she chose to see the best in his human nature as he struggled to overcome those obstacles.
Do we see minutiae, or do we see the big picture? That is the challenge we each face every day of our lives. Hopefully, as Harrison Ford did in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you will have the wisdom to choose rightly.
Silverius "Sil" Galvan is a deacon at the Catholic Community of Saint Mary of the Lake in Lakewood, New Jersey. He has been involved in music ministry as an organist, guitarist, and sometime cantor for more than four decades. Galvan also operates www.deaconsil.com, a website offering extensive homiletic resources.
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How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
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StoryShare, June 4, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Fake Fire" by Timothy Merrill
Good Stories: "Backdraft" by Frank R. Fisher
"With Sighs Too Deep" by Richard Jensen
"The Town Pray-er" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "The Big Picture" by Sil Galvan
What's Up This Week
On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, so vividly described in our Acts passage as a mighty wind with tongues of fire -- and this week's Story to Live By and Frank Fisher's "Backdraft" in Good Stories use that startling imagery to make the point that being touched by the fire of the Spirit is potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, our other Good Stories offer two different takes on the familiar phrase "the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words" from this week's Romans reading. And in the Scrap Pile, Sil Galvan reflects on whether we see beyond the minutiae of our daily lives and grasp the big picture of the Spirit at work, as described in our Gospel lesson.
A Story to Live By
Fake Fire
by Timothy Merrill
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of them.
Acts 2:3 (NIV)
Colorado is a beautiful place to live. But many summers there lately have been hot and dry, and the national forests are vulnerable to wildfires.
The summer of 2002 was particularly difficult. Fires began burning as early as April. In June, the Hayman fire destroyed over 100,000 acres of forest and consumed hundreds of buildings, including homes. When the wind was right, the smoke hung like an apocalyptic cloud over the city of Denver, dropping ash and smoke particles, and posing a serious health hazard, especially to those with asthma or lung disease. The cost to fight this fire alone exceeded $25 million.
Then, incredibly, it was learned this inferno had been set by a forest service employee. Another forest service employee was arrested for starting the Show Low fire, which consumed over 300,000 acres in Arizona.
We're fascinated with fire. We've even developed myths to explain how fire came to mortals. It was Prometheus, we learn, who carried fire from the gods of Olympus to the mortals on earth, and paid dearly for his trouble.
Fire can heat us or hurt us, warm us or waste us. We enjoy its glow in a fireplace, its comforting presence at a campfire, and its flame on a candle. We're intrigued by its mystery when we strike a match and watch the phosphorus tip explode into flame.
Hollywood even needs fire for its action scenes. What Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, or Terminator movie could hit the screen without flashy pyrotechnics, exploding buildings that turn into a ball of flame, cars that fly into the air and hit the ground in a maelstrom of roiling fire, or houses that become raging infernos?
Creating such effects is not only difficult but very dangerous. That's why PDI/DreamWorks visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg is trying to create the first photo-realistic, completely computer-generated flames. To do this, he's already spent hours in the studio parking lot lighting fires; he studies flame footage in the studio. When the animated movie Shrek hit the theatres in 2001, his work was prominently featured. The breath of the dragon and the burning bridge all emerged from his pixilated work. There was so much detail in these frames of fire that just one of the 1,400 processors used to create the fire took 30 hours to render just one frame.
Fake fire. Hollywood can do it. The church can't. Pentecost is about fire, flames of fire. It's about power. It's about the Holy Spirit energizing what would otherwise be a powerless church.
Some churches have gone so high-tech they think they're the religious counterpart to PDI/DreamWorks. Fiddle with your pixels if you want, but you can't computer-generate the Holy Spirit. The fire's got to be real.
Timothy Merrill is the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press) and a volume in the CSS series Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister who has served churches in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Good Stories
Backdraft
by Frank R. Fisher
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:2-4
**Bang Bang Bang Bang** [a knocking sound effect]
From the door directly to your right, the banging sound reverberates through the smoking wood and echoes down the long, steaming hallway. The sound increases in urgency and then tapers weakly off. It's the weakness that catches your attention as your mind flashes back through the day's events.
For a change your day began quietly. As usual, you arrived at your firehouse and put your bunker gear on the hook and ladder. Then you sat down for a cup of coffee as you awaited your officer and the department's plans for your day.
By the time your coffee was finished you'd learned your company was due at the academy for training. That time of learning occupied most of the day. Much of the material was quite old to you, and often it was very dry. But you paid attention, for you knew your life might depend on it some day. You paid particular attention to a discussion of backdrafts; the explosive reaction of a smoldering fire when it's suddenly gifted with a new source of oxygen.
Now, as you crouch below the smoke in the sweltering hallway, the discussion of backdrafts comes quickly to your mind -- for you reach out to the door where you heard the knocking sound. And you find that it almost burns you through your protective glove. Instinctively you know that means there's fire on the other side of the door; fire that could explode outward if the door is opened; fire that could cause a backdraft, consuming everything in its path.
Quickly you radio for help. But you find help can't arrive for several minutes. And a quick survey shows you there's no other entrance to the apparently occupied room. You've just about decided to wait until an officer and other firefighters arrive, when the knocking sound comes again. This time it's combined with a weak cry. "My baby! Help! My baby!" gasps a voice from directly behind the door.
The time for hesitation's over. You stand upright into the smoke and haze, brace yourself on the left-hand wall and lift your feet to smash down the door. Your feet tear into the wood. The hinges start to give way. And you know your life may be about to end in an instant.
But you are a firefighter, sworn to protect the people on the other side of the now-splintering door. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From the windows of the room the banging sound reverberates and echoes throughout the hidden upper room, the room in which you and your friends are hiding. The sound constantly increases in urgency, and it brings your mind back to the events of the last few weeks and months. All in all, you still feel a bit dizzy as you think of all that's happened in your life. In your mind it felt just like yesterday when the Master rode into Jerusalem at the head of a triumphal procession. It was a wonderful day. But all too quickly it was followed by the trial and then by the crucifixion.
All of you had stayed limp and numb for three days until Mary burst into the room, shouting the wonderful news of the resurrection. Your whipsawed emotions had barely had time to recover when the Lord was off again. This time, as you'd watched the ascension into the clouds, you had a feeling the Light of the world had gone away for good.
Of course there had been a promise; a promise of God's continuing presence with you; a promise of power allowing you to tell the whole world the wonderful good news. But now, as you hide here from the Romans and from their collaborators, a promise seems an empty replacement for the physical presence of the Living God.
So all of you continue to huddle about the table while you talk and wonder aloud about that promise. "When," you all ask each other, "will this promise be fulfilled?" But your talk and questions are interrupted once again by the knocking sound reverberating from the windows.
"Could it be the Romans?" you gasp out. "Could this be...?"
A vast booming noise catches your words in your throat. The windows all blast open together as something like a wind rushes into the room and sends anything lying loose flying into the air.
Your hair stands on end as you look up into the face of the gale and see the ceiling covered in something like flame. Then the flame swoops downward, and something like tongues of living fire reach out to touch your head and the heads of each person in the room.
The gift the Master had promised has arrived. All around you your friends rush to the doors and burst through them without bothering to throw open the latches. They're shouting and speaking in languages you never heard. All of them you somehow know are joyfully bellowing the still living story of Jesus the Christ.
But somehow the gift has touched you differently. For to you it brings not new language but the courage to rise from your hiding place and bravely explain to the bemused crowd outside just what was going on in their midst.
You hesitate just for a moment. You know to go outside the door and tell of the Lord's life, death, and resurrection will one day bring about your own death. It will be like opening a door to a fire that will burst out and consume your body in a devouring flame.
Your hesitation, however, lasts only for an instant. Then you race through the door and you hear your voice shouting, "People of Jerusalem, these are not drunk as you suppose..."
The fire will consume you. This you know, and this you accept, for you are a follower of Jesus the Christ. You live and breathe through the wind and flame of the Spirit of God; Christ's blazing gift to Christ's people. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From all around you the knocking sound reverberates. It echoes down the hallways of your memories and rebounds through the pathways and hallways of your life.
You began to hear it when you first moved in your mother's womb. You heard it sing at the moment of your birth and felt it dance when the baptismal waters washed over your head. Through all your life it's been there, though you may manage to ignore it for a time.
"Follow me," it knocks and calls to you! "Tell the good news! Speak it and live it in a way that all may hear and see!"
The knocking is Christ's gift to you: the same gift that burst into the room at Pentecost; the same gift that changed a group of frightened women and men into the transforming church of Jesus the Christ; the same gift that can transform churches and turn about lives today.
You may hesitate to answer the knocking when it comes calling deep within your soul. And hesitate you should -- for when you open the door the gift will burst through as a devouring fire, a fire that will drive you to go where the Spirit bids you go and to speak as the Spirit bids you speak.
Do you dare to open that door?
Do you dare to take this part of your life so seriously that it will define who you are and who you will be?
It is your choice to make -- for the Spirit will push hard but does not often compel. But in your choice, remember, you've declared yourself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And for you to be the person you are called to be, there is a moment when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
Frank R. Fisher currently serves as the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Fairbury, Illinois. During the final years of his first career as a paramedic and administrator for the Chicago Fire Department, Fisher graduated from McCormick Theological Seminary and was ordained. He is an Oblate of the ecumenical Abbey of John the Baptist and Saint Benedict in Bartonville, Illinois.
With Sighs Too Deep
by Richard Jensen
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.... Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
Romans 8:22-23, 26
Over at last. That's the only thought she could think about just now. Over at last. The funeral finished. The committal service completed. She was home now and weary; bone-weary. Her husband Carl was safely tucked into the grave. How had she ever endured the year of his agony?
Carl and Melissa Gregory were in their early 60s. Carl had worked for the railroad most of his life. It was blue-collar work, but he got paid well. Melissa worked outside of the home on occasion. She had secretarial skills. Occasionally she helped out at her church. Sometimes she would get work as a "temp" filling in at the secretary level. The Gregorys had two grown children. They had lived too far away to make it back for the funeral. That was all right with Melissa. They had come so often during the year of Carl's dying. She thought their presence during the waning days of his life was more important than their presence at the funeral, though she did miss them terribly that day. It was tough after the funeral and all to come home to an empty house.
Carl's cancer was diagnosed just about exactly one year ago. His doctor caught it at one of Carl's regular check-ups. "You've got a growth in your prostrate gland," Dr. Bean had told Carl. "We'd better do a biopsy." When the results of the biopsy came back Dr. Bean was a bit upset. The growth was malignant. The cancer was there and spreading fast. Dr. Bean was fond of Carl Gregory. And Carl had been faithful in getting his annual physical. Still, here he found cancer in an advanced state. Dr. Bean called Carl Gregory with the bad news. "You'd better get in here as soon as you can, Carl," Dr. Bean had said. "We've got to go to work on that cancer right away."
Melissa remembered that phone call from Dr. Bean like it was yesterday. Could it really be a year ago already? And what a year! Carl was so sick. Nothing the doctors tried seemed to work on the cancerous growth. Carl was in and out of hospitals and treatment centers all year. Wherever Carl was sent, Melissa followed. They were a lonely pair, trudging off to ever new venues of healing -- healing that never came. Melissa could only think of that year as a kind of hell. And now hell was over. Carl had died at last. The funeral was over, too. And she was home alone. What new kind of hell awaited her now?
As Melissa wandered aimlessly around the Gregory home the night of the funeral, she didn't know what to do. It was as if she was lost in the caverns of her own home. Several times she tried to pray. It was the same thing each time. She could find no words to pray. She didn't know what to say to God. She didn't know how to pray in this dire moment. She could only sigh and groan. Words wouldn't come. But groans came. And sighs came. Groans and sighs poured forth from the innermost depth of her being -- gut-wrenching groans, bone-shaking sighs. She could only hope that God could make something out of her groanings. That's all she had for God now. It was as if she had forgotten how to pray.
At the end of her murmuring lament she trudged off to bed. She would be alone there, too. As she cast herself down on her pillow she heard a familiar sound. The first fresh breath of spring blew gently through the bedroom window, kissing her aching body with a hint of new life.
Richard Jensen is professor emeritus of homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and he also served as the dean of the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching program for the Association of Chicago Theological Seminaries. He is also renowned for his decade-long stint as the speaker for Lutheran Vespers, a weekly national radio ministry of the Lutheran Church. Jensen is the author of several acclaimed books on the art of preaching, including the CSS titles Thinking in Story, Preaching Matthew's Gospel, Preaching Mark's Gospel, and Preaching Luke's Gospel.
The Town Pray-er
by John Sumwalt
Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27
There was once a woman in our town who was known as the praying lady. Every community has persons who serve unofficially in certain positions, like the town fix-it man who can fix anything from sump pumps to screen doors, or the community singer who is called upon to solo at every wedding and funeral. The nature of these positions will vary according to the available talent. Esther Langford was our town pray-er. Nobody could pray like Esther. She had a way of putting into words what everyone was thinking and feeling. And not just ordinary words, but beautiful poetic phrases so lovely that God could not help but be moved to attend to whatever person or concern was the subject of Esther's petition. So whenever there was going to be a special celebration, whether a wedding anniversary, a class reunion, or the annual election day dinner, Esther was called upon to give the prayer.
This was a source of more than a little irritation to the various itinerant preachers who came to serve our little Protestant church. Preachers, as a rule, have a monopoly on the praying business. They are accustomed to having first refusal rights to the prayers at every public gathering. Some of them count on it. It's a way of getting free meals, one of the small perks of the preaching profession. Consequently, most preachers can offer up a prayer at a moment's notice, although younger preachers are not usually as quick on their feet as older preachers. They tend to start slow and finish fast. If you are real hungry and if you have a choice, you would be best advised to choose a young preacher to say the grace. You can be sure that you will get to eat a lot sooner. Old preachers tend to go on and on. One certain way of telling the age of preachers is by the length of their prayers.
We had one old preacher who came to our church near the end of his ministry who gave the longest prayers anyone had ever heard. His pastoral prayers were almost as long as his sermons, and his sermons were way too long. This may have been because he didn't get to do much praying outside the Sunday service. Esther did most of that. I think those interminable pastoral prayers may have been his way of getting even.
It is written in scripture that God listens to the prayers of a righteous person. This certainly seemed to be true in Esther's case. She was a genuinely good person -- thoughtful, kind, generous, willing to share whatever she had with anyone who was in need. Everybody knew that if God listened to anyone, God surely listened to Esther.
One summer during a long drought she was asked to pray for rain. That was the year of the great flood. The very next day after Esther prayed the heavens opened and precipitation came down in buckets. Ten inches of rain fell in three hours. We almost lost the town bridge. No one ever forgot it, and no one ever asked Esther to pray for rain again.
There was a period of time when Esther didn't do any public praying. When people approached her she would say, "Thank you for asking, but I'm just not able to do it anymore." Years later, before she died, Esther told us that she went through a time of doubt. She said she didn't know what happened, but for a while she wasn't able to pray either publicly or privately. Esther said this was very unusual, because throughout her life she had prayed daily first thing every morning and last thing every night.
What's more, she said she wasn't sleeping well. Every night she had the same disturbing dream. At the end of the dream she would wake up, usually at about three o'clock in the morning, and then, try as she might, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
Esther said this went on for weeks and weeks. She was absolutely miserable and afraid to tell anyone for fear of what they might think. Town pray-er, indeed! What a laugh. She wondered if she ever really had known how to pray.
What was she going to do? The lack of sleep began to take a toll on her health. She decided that she had to do something. She thought of going to the preacher, but what would he think? Maybe he would think she had been a fraud all of these years. She tried sleeping pills, but they left her feeling "doped up" and more miserable than before. She had to talk to someone, but who? Who could she trust with the secret of her terrible misery?
Then it came to her. She would go to confession. She had only been inside the Catholic church for weddings and funerals, but she knew where the confessional booths were and she knew that Father Lempke heard confessions every Thursday night.
The next Thursday night Esther parked her car across the street from St. Killian's and waited until the last Catholic had left the building. She was shaking as she made her way to the confessional. She wasn't sure what she was going to say. Everything seemed strange: the high cathedral ceiling, the lighted candles in front of the statue of the Virgin, and the crucifix on the wall behind the altar; the smell of incense and warm wax was different from the musty smell of the little Protestant churches she was used to. All of it seemed to be saying, "You don't belong here. This is a holy place." But she forced herself to go on.
When she got into the confessional Esther knelt down and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." That much she knew from the movies. But she didn't know what to say after that, so she finally blurted out, "I'm a Protestant. I don't really know how to do this. I didn't know where else to go, so I came here hoping you would help me with my problem. I hope that's all right."
Father Lempke must have thought, "The Protestants are beginning to see the light, they are starting to come to me for confession." But if he was surprised, he didn't let on. He told Esther it was perfectly all right, he would be glad to listen. Esther then poured out her whole story, town pray-er and all.
The priest listened, and when she had finished he said, "My dear woman, do you know the story of Samuel in the Old Testament?" Esther said that she did. There wasn't anyone in our community who knew the Bible better than Esther did.
The priest said, "Do you remember how God spoke to Samuel when he was a young boy?"
"Yes," Esther said, "I remember."
"Did it ever occur to you," the priest asked, "that God might be trying to tell you something? The next time you wake up in the middle of the night, do what Samuel did."
Esther hadn't known what to expect in a Catholic confessional, but she certainly hadn't expected this. As soon as she got home she looked up the story in 1 Samuel to refresh her memory as to what it was exactly that Samuel had done. It was just as she remembered.
That night she had the same dream she had been having for several weeks. In the dream everyone in town was chasing her through the woods and crying out, "Pray for us, pray for us!" To escape her pursuers she ran into a dark cave, where she found herself being drawn along a winding tunnel. The tunnel came out in a large cavern as big as a cathedral and filled with a host of statue-like formations which glimmered and shimmered in the darkness. They were covered with sparkling crystals and appeared to be reaching out to her, bidding her to stop and take in all of their beauty. But the voices of the prayer-seekers were still ringing in her ears. She ran on down through another tunnel to a cavern that was bigger and more lovely than the one before. She wanted desperately to stop and allow herself to be filled with its beauty, but the voices persisted, growing louder and louder, their echoes resounding from wall to wall: "Pray for us, pray for us!" And so she ran on through cavern after cavern, each one grander and more glorious than the one before, until at last she was pulled by some mysterious and irresistible force over a ledge into a great abyss. She felt herself falling and falling, and it was at this point that she always woke up.
And that night when she woke up, she did what Samuel did. She said, "Speak, for thy servant hears."
And then it came to her, a verse out of her memory: ":..the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit... intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."
"What a relief!" Esther thought, and she wondered why she hadn't remembered it before. "The spirit has been praying for me all of this time."
Esther felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. People didn't need her to do their praying for them. They just needed to know what Paul had revealed long ago, and what the saints of every age have discovered in their "dark nights of the soul" -- we are never utterly alone. Even when we cannot bring ourselves to pray, when no words come to describe what we are thinking and feeling, the Spirit prays for us.
At last Esther's heart was filled with peace. For the first time in many weeks she was able to go back to sleep and to sleep soundly until morning. This time when she dreamed, she walked into the cave and wandered from room to room, lingering in some longer than others, allowing herself to come in touch with all of the beauty that God had placed within her soul. She awoke refreshed and full of the Spirit.
The following Sunday in worship Esther stood during the time for sharing joys and prayer concerns. She told us about her dream and the peace that came to her when she listened to what God was telling her in the dream. She said, "I will no longer be your 'town-pray-er' -- but," she added, "I will be very glad to take my turn whenever there is a need for someone to lead in prayer."
It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard the pastor heave a great sigh of relief.
John Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is the author of eight books for CSS, most recently three books of vision stories (one for each lectionary cycle). John leads conferences, seminars, and retreats on "Visions in the Bible and Today." He and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, served for three years as co-editors of StoryShare.
Scrap Pile
The Big Picture
by Sil Galvan
There's a story about a woman and her parakeet Chippie. It seems that the woman was cleaning Chippie's birdcage with the long hose of a canister vacuum cleaner when the phone rang. She reached over to get the phone, and as she did, she heard the unmistakable sound of Chippie being sucked up into the vacuum. Immediately she rushed over to the vacuum, pulled out the vacuum bag, and ripped it opened. There she found Chippie, totally stunned but still alive. Since the bird was now covered with soot and dirt, she grabbed him and ran into the bathroom, held him under the faucet and washed him in freezing cold water to get all the soot and dirt off. When she finished she saw the hair dryer sitting on the sink. She turned it on and held Chippie up in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, she was talking to a neighbor about the incident and the neighbor asked how the bird was doing. "Well," she said, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore. He just sort of sits on his perch and stares."
I think Chippie's reaction to those events was about the same as the reaction of the disciples in the weeks that followed our Lord's crucifixion: they were probably stunned. He had appeared to them several times, and had now ascended into heaven. But what next? Where do they go from here?
Well, based on Luke's account in the book of Acts, we can be sure of one thing that happened that first Pentecost day: the Spirit bestowed his gift of fortitude on the apostles, and changed a group of men who were huddled together in that upper room into fearless evangelizers of the gospel who converted thousands of people on that one day alone.
But fortitude is only one of the seven gifts of the Spirit. These gifts were first spoken of by Isaiah in describing the qualities of the Messiah who was to come: "But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of piety, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord" (Isaiah 11:1-3).
Just as the Spirit rested upon Christ himself and later on the disciples, so too has he sent his Spirit upon all of us. As Paul states: "There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in every one" (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Thus it is that the Spirit works through all of us, each in his own way. The seven gifts can be separated into four intellectual gifts (wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge) and three "active" gifts (fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord). With respect to the active gifts, the gift of courage is the ability to spread the faith in the most adverse of conditions. The gift of piety leads some to dedicate their lives to God in a special way, especially through the religious life. Fear of the Lord enables some to seek to avoid sin in all circumstances.
With respect to the intellectual gifts, the gift of counsel enables some to see and choose correctly what will bring about their own salvation and that of others. The gift of knowledge enables others to know universal and timeless truths pertaining to the natural world and the order of things. Understanding has been granted to some to see the things of life in relation to God and for achieving deeper insight into the truths of faith. And to some has been given the gift of wisdom (or sophia in Greek) which assists them in seeing and evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and God's kingdom, according to the ultimate principles of faith and aided by the judgment of love. I read the following story and thought it related well to this discussion of the gifts of the Spirit. The author says:
Is it morning already? I rub my eyes and get up to ready myself for just another day.
It's just another day... I look out my window to see the sun beaming down, caressing the earth with its golden rays. Above, white clouds float in the brilliant blue sky. I hear a cardinal singing to his mate as he perches upon my back fence. And a bed of crocus open their purple heads to the heavens in joyful thankfulness.
It's just another day. My small daughter bursts into the room, her giggle ringing through the house as she hugs my neck tightly. Her small hand fits into mine as she pulls me to the kitchen to show me the card she has made. A stick figure with curly brown hair waves from the paper, and beneath it, written in purple crayon, are the words, "I love you, Mommy."
It's just another day as I stand quietly and watch my handicapped child. He struggles to get his special walker over the curb, but it won't budge. A well-meaning teacher offers assistance, but he brushes her away. With determination, he conquers the curb and is off to laugh and play with his friends. I weep inside for his handicap, but I am inspired by his courage. And I smile as I watch the children play, totally accepting their friend for who he is, not judging him for what he lacks.
It's just another day. My son proudly presents the report he did for school. He shares with me the hopes and dreams he holds for his future. His curiosity and excitement are contagious as we unfold the limitless possibilities that lay before him. I am encouraged that no dream is beyond our reach if we want it bad enough.
It's just another day. My beloved wraps his arms around me and surrounds me in love. I turn to look in the eyes that share innermost feelings. What a special friend I have. Someone who loves me for who I am. Someone to lean on when I feel down. Someone to share my happiness. Someone to love.
Yes, it is just another day. A day to enjoy God's gracious beauty upon this earth. A day to kiss the cherub cheeks of my children, and share in their hopes and dreams. A day to learn the value of determination and hard work. A day to learn the value of judging mankind for the quality he has, not what he has not. A day to learn the value of love.
Yes, it's just another day, I sigh. The stars dance in the velvet sky as a full yellow moon smiles cheerfully down. The house is quiet and still. The only sound is the soft, even breathing of my spouse. I recall the scripture: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24). And as I lay at the side of my soul mate I pray that God will let me see "just another day"! ("Just Another Day" by Charlotte "Charlie" Volnek. Reprinted with permission from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, pp. 112-113. Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communications, Inc.)
To some have been given the gift of knowledge, others understanding, and still others wisdom. We all pretty much see around us the same things that the author of this story saw: the sun, the sky, the clouds, the birds, the flowers, our families. Knowledge enables us to realize that all of these, as well as the gift of life itself, are gifts from God. Through faith, we then can come to understand the deeper meaning of these gifts.
But most of all, I believe this story exemplifies the gift of wisdom, which is the gift of evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and aided by the judgment of love. Although we all see the same things, do we really "see" them? Do we know the true source of those things we see? Do we understand the true meaning behind those things, namely, the great love that God has for us? And most of all, do we have the wisdom to be grateful for the gifts that we have been given and to use them to the best of our ability out of a love for God? Or do we get bogged down in the limits of our circumstances or wish that things could be better? Although the author regretted the handicaps which afflicted her son, she chose to see the best in his human nature as he struggled to overcome those obstacles.
Do we see minutiae, or do we see the big picture? That is the challenge we each face every day of our lives. Hopefully, as Harrison Ford did in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you will have the wisdom to choose rightly.
Silverius "Sil" Galvan is a deacon at the Catholic Community of Saint Mary of the Lake in Lakewood, New Jersey. He has been involved in music ministry as an organist, guitarist, and sometime cantor for more than four decades. Galvan also operates www.deaconsil.com, a website offering extensive homiletic resources.
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How to Share Stories
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StoryShare, June 4, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
