A Balm In Gilead
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"A Balm in Gilead" by Sandra Herrmann
"The Bones of the City" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * *
A Balm in Gilead
by Sandra Herrmann
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
Sarah sighed as she laid down the newspaper. "So much trouble in the world. So many people suffering!"
Her husband grunted from behind his section of the paper. Sarah stared at the ads on her side of his section -- an antique show coming up, the latest bands performing somewhere in the city -- and let her mind drift. Mel let the paper fold in the middle and looked at her.
"Where are you right now?" he asked.
Sarah sighed again, picked up her coffee cup, and noticed that it was cold between her hands. She needed a warm-up. But she didn't push back from the table. She cocked her head and looked at her husband. His beautiful blond hair had become platinum over the last several months, and the laugh lines around his eyes were deeper. She wondered how he managed to look so good, even with the lines of old age making their way along the planes of his face. Then she smiled. "I was in the Vanguard ballroom, being swept along in the arms of the man I loved."
Mel snorted. "Soft words will get you everywhere with me, young woman." And then he grinned. "If you can't stand to read the news, why do you do it every day? All you do is punish yourself."
"One should keep in touch with world events, shouldn't one?" she asked lightly.
"Why should 'one' keep in touch with anything that causes so much pain?" he asked. "After all, what can you do about it?"
"About what?"
"About the state of the world. After all, all that violence in the Middle East has been going on for millennia now. Ever since Esau and Jacob, brother wars against brother. In fact, it occurs to me that ever since Abraham sent Hagar into the desert with her son Ishmael, the Jews and the Arabs have been at war. We can't change it now." He nodded that little nod that made Sarah grind her teeth, because it meant that the subject was closed. Mel knew what Mel knew, subject closed.
"I don't think I can change 3,000 years of history, Mel. But how can you turn away from these pictures of children, gassed by their own government, dead in the streets? I know there's nothing to be done about it -- by us, anyway -- but it's so awful! How can anyone give the order to do something so awful?
"And then there's all those children in Africa living without parents because of AIDS. Children are raising other children! When I look at our grandchildren and know that children their exact age are being brutalized, trained as soldiers, turned into prostitutes.... It's just too awful to contemplate."
Mel shook the newspaper back into its upright position and said, "So don't contemplate it."
Sarah shook her head. "Honestly, Mel," she snapped, "sometimes you can be such a jerk!" Mel's response was a roar of laughter. "What? It's not funny, honey."
That was their little signal, a little prompt to tell the other that they were not communicating well. Mel folded the paper and laid it down.
"Seriously, Sarah, there really isn't much you can do about what happens on the other side of the world. It's just too far away and the problems are too huge... and too ancient. What we consider common decency isn't even thought of in most places of the world. If even the President of the United States can't effect change, what do you honestly think you can do? Pray?"
Sarah's eyes suddenly unfocused. "That's it!" she shouted. "Mel, you're a genius!"
Mel was definitely confused as Sarah ran for her cell phone and started dialing a number. "What? You calling the president?"
"No, silly, I'm calling my prayer circle," she smiled, a look of awe in her eyes. "And I never would have thought of it without you!"
Mel shook his head. "Your prayer circle?"
Sarah was already talking to her best church friend. "Addy, I need to launch a prayer chain." She shook her head, then went on, "No, we're just fine. And really, that's the problem. We're too fine, too comfortable, while half the world is subject to pain and suffering. All these times we've called because we had a sick child or grandchild, a husband out of a job, all kinds of personal problems, we've never yet started a prayer chain for world problems. But we could be making a huge difference in our world, if we just prayed about it the way we pray for each other. I'm convinced of it. I want to get the prayer chain going about the situation in Syria: all those children, dead of chemical weapons! It's been on the news, in the paper, in the news magazines, but we've never thought to pray for that government, that they should stop doing these awful things."
"But Sarah, honey, that's not what the prayer chain is about," Addy said. "We pray for the things that we can actually change."
"But Addy, we never change anything by prayer. We aren't doctors or nurses, we can't rescue an addicted young person, or fix a marriage. But think of all the times we've prayed for someone and they've gotten well. We didn't do that -- God did! Through our prayers.
I know that the problems I'm talking about are bigger, maybe bigger than we can even contemplate. But they're not too big for God."
Addy was silent for several seconds, thinking. "You know, Sarah, this morning's reading in our devotional guide was from Jeremiah. He was begging God to heal his nation. It had the words of an old hymn in it. 'Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?' My girl, I think you have just become a prophet. I'll get the prayer chain going for the government and people of Syria."
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Bones of the City
by Keith Hewitt
Psalm 79:1-9
It wasn't the sight, it was the smell.
He had heard enough before coming up to see the corpse of his city, to be able to steel himself against the sight. Between what he had heard and what his own imagination had shown him in dreadful visions, his first sight of that charred and broken landscape had been less of a shock and more of a confirmation of his worst fears, a grim acknowledgment that, yes, it was exactly as bad as he'd thought it would be, as it had been made out to be by everything he's been told.
But the smell...
He struggled to define it, as though putting a name to it might make it less noxious or at least might take away the taste that it left behind in his mouth with each hesitant breath. It was a blend of acrid smoke and blood, overlaid by the smell of decay... the death perfume of uncounted bodies that lay beneath the rubble or perhaps just beyond the jagged horizon. That, and the pall of smoke that hung over the ruined city, were the only reminders that he was not looking upon the scene of some ancient tragedy, but a body freshly dead, torn open for him to view.
He gagged, put the back of his hand to his mouth and leaned over, but didn't quite throw up. It was godawful, there was no other word for it. He took deep, shuddering breaths to hold his breakfast down, sucking in more and more death with each breath, until he felt a gentle hand on his back. That touch broke the spell, and he looked up and to his left.
Jacob.
"Are you all right?" the old man asked with no trace of disdain for his weakness.
He nodded, straightened up and nodded again. "I think so."
"Then try this." Jacob held out a nondescript phial. "Put a little of this under your nose. It will help."
He accepted the container, held it under his nose before tapping out a dab of the contents onto one finger. It was some type of cosmetic, he realized -- an expensive one -- and as he rubbed the oil onto his upper lip the strong scent began to fill his nostrils. It didn't quite eliminate the smell of death, but held it down to something more tolerable. He nodded in satisfaction, handed it back to his companion. "Thank you, Jacob. That does help."
"This is not my first time," the older man acknowledged, tucking it away, "and the woman who had it no longer has need for it." He made a slight gesture with his head, back toward a pile of rubble that had once been a house, or maybe apartments. It was hard to know.
It was hard to recognize anything in this total devastation. If he looked up the hill, he thought he could make out what was left of the building that had stood there so proudly for generations -- the symbol of this city, the one place everyone went when they came here, whether foreigner or citizen on pilgrimage... a beacon, a jewel.
And now what was it... a glint of uncharred marble, glimpsed here and there, and the stubs of columns, some leaning in place, some pulled over deliberately.
"What happened here?" he breathed softly.
There was a grunt beside him, and Jacob answered almost as softly. "You know what happened, Daniel."
Daniel looked down at Jacob, standing beside him, and was about to answer sharply when he saw the look -- the pain -- in the man's eyes and softened his answer. "Of course I do. I guess my real question is what brought us to this? How did we end up here, two old men walking across the bones of a dead city?"
Jacob was silent for a long time -- long enough that Daniel could begin to sort out the sounds they heard, so low that they were almost across the threshold of hearing... the sizzle and pop of fires that still burned improbably in the ruins; birds calling to one another as they arrived to pick through the ruins for food, scuffling with rats and other creatures who had crawled out of their burrows for the same meal; and somehow over and between it all, the sighing of the wind.
He was about to say that his was not a rhetorical question, when Jacob stirred and said, "I think you know that, too, Daniel."
"I do?"
"I think we have been headed this way for a while, don't you? In your heart of hearts, haven't you been afraid that something like this was going to happen?" He leaned down, picked up a bit of shiny something, held it up close so he could study it -- a bit of glass, melted in the intense heat of the fire that had swept through the city. He held it in one hand, testing the weight, then leaned back and threw it with a whip like motion of his arm. It pinged against a stone, somewhere, and shattered.
"We were special," he said, staring out toward where he had thrown the chunk of glass. "We were chosen, we were called to be something special, to do something special in this world. Out of all the nations in the world, God tapped us, tapped our ancestors on the shoulder and said, 'Here's what I want you to do.' And for a while, we listened -- and that set us apart. Then we forgot why we were here... we forgot what we were about."
"And when did that happen, Jacob?" Daniel asked seriously. "Do you think it was in our time? My time?"
His companion shook his head. "No. You and I, we were at the bottom of the cliff, watching the landslide happen. By then, it was already too late. We had turned our backs on what we could have been, and instead strove to be what we wanted to be. Other gods caught our eye, and we chased after them... and sometimes we even caught our own reflection in the mirror and saw God there. What was right, was replaced by what was easier. We mistook apathy for tolerance and even as some of us noted that God seemed further and further away, we were able to convince ourselves that it was because our understanding of God was changing... and not that we were turning away."
There was another long silence and then the pitch of the wind's lament seemed to sink even lower, until it became almost human... a woman keening over the death of a child. Daniel had to listen closely with bated breath to be sure it wasn't that. Finally he breathed once more and said, "So you think that God did this to punish us?"
Jacob's head shook slowly, as his eyes narrowed. "No... no, I don't think so. You know the world as well as I do, Daniel. Destruction and death, devastation and ruin are always there, always waiting -- it's the way of a sinful world. I don't think God sent this to us... but when we started caring more about ourselves than about him... when we turned away and said we didn't really need him... I think he stepped aside and let this happen to us. If not as punishment, then as a reminder that it's God that stands between us and evil."
Daniel looked at the ruins on the hill and frowned at the ache in his heart. "Do you think we can ever find our way back?"
Jacob nodded and smiled for the first time in days, but it was a bittersweet smile. "I don't think that way is ever closed -- if we decide we really want to. If we really want to be God's people, again, we can find our way."
"Well, then I suppose we know what we need to do."
He was about to say more when there was a noise behind them, and he turned; a woman was close to them, but still at a respectful distance; a squad of soldiers stood behind her. She started to speak -- hesitated, then saluted awkwardly before continuing. "Mister President, Mister Secretary -- the surgeon says you have to come back to the Emergency Operations Center now. The wind is shifting back to Ground Zero, and the radiation levels are going up."
"As you say, Lieutenant," Daniel answered agreeably -- instant obedience had been the price they'd agreed to, to come out of the shelter after only a week, and they kept their bargain by following her back toward what had been the White House without argument or discussion... but it was just the first step on the long journey home.
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 22, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
"A Balm in Gilead" by Sandra Herrmann
"The Bones of the City" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * *
A Balm in Gilead
by Sandra Herrmann
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
Sarah sighed as she laid down the newspaper. "So much trouble in the world. So many people suffering!"
Her husband grunted from behind his section of the paper. Sarah stared at the ads on her side of his section -- an antique show coming up, the latest bands performing somewhere in the city -- and let her mind drift. Mel let the paper fold in the middle and looked at her.
"Where are you right now?" he asked.
Sarah sighed again, picked up her coffee cup, and noticed that it was cold between her hands. She needed a warm-up. But she didn't push back from the table. She cocked her head and looked at her husband. His beautiful blond hair had become platinum over the last several months, and the laugh lines around his eyes were deeper. She wondered how he managed to look so good, even with the lines of old age making their way along the planes of his face. Then she smiled. "I was in the Vanguard ballroom, being swept along in the arms of the man I loved."
Mel snorted. "Soft words will get you everywhere with me, young woman." And then he grinned. "If you can't stand to read the news, why do you do it every day? All you do is punish yourself."
"One should keep in touch with world events, shouldn't one?" she asked lightly.
"Why should 'one' keep in touch with anything that causes so much pain?" he asked. "After all, what can you do about it?"
"About what?"
"About the state of the world. After all, all that violence in the Middle East has been going on for millennia now. Ever since Esau and Jacob, brother wars against brother. In fact, it occurs to me that ever since Abraham sent Hagar into the desert with her son Ishmael, the Jews and the Arabs have been at war. We can't change it now." He nodded that little nod that made Sarah grind her teeth, because it meant that the subject was closed. Mel knew what Mel knew, subject closed.
"I don't think I can change 3,000 years of history, Mel. But how can you turn away from these pictures of children, gassed by their own government, dead in the streets? I know there's nothing to be done about it -- by us, anyway -- but it's so awful! How can anyone give the order to do something so awful?
"And then there's all those children in Africa living without parents because of AIDS. Children are raising other children! When I look at our grandchildren and know that children their exact age are being brutalized, trained as soldiers, turned into prostitutes.... It's just too awful to contemplate."
Mel shook the newspaper back into its upright position and said, "So don't contemplate it."
Sarah shook her head. "Honestly, Mel," she snapped, "sometimes you can be such a jerk!" Mel's response was a roar of laughter. "What? It's not funny, honey."
That was their little signal, a little prompt to tell the other that they were not communicating well. Mel folded the paper and laid it down.
"Seriously, Sarah, there really isn't much you can do about what happens on the other side of the world. It's just too far away and the problems are too huge... and too ancient. What we consider common decency isn't even thought of in most places of the world. If even the President of the United States can't effect change, what do you honestly think you can do? Pray?"
Sarah's eyes suddenly unfocused. "That's it!" she shouted. "Mel, you're a genius!"
Mel was definitely confused as Sarah ran for her cell phone and started dialing a number. "What? You calling the president?"
"No, silly, I'm calling my prayer circle," she smiled, a look of awe in her eyes. "And I never would have thought of it without you!"
Mel shook his head. "Your prayer circle?"
Sarah was already talking to her best church friend. "Addy, I need to launch a prayer chain." She shook her head, then went on, "No, we're just fine. And really, that's the problem. We're too fine, too comfortable, while half the world is subject to pain and suffering. All these times we've called because we had a sick child or grandchild, a husband out of a job, all kinds of personal problems, we've never yet started a prayer chain for world problems. But we could be making a huge difference in our world, if we just prayed about it the way we pray for each other. I'm convinced of it. I want to get the prayer chain going about the situation in Syria: all those children, dead of chemical weapons! It's been on the news, in the paper, in the news magazines, but we've never thought to pray for that government, that they should stop doing these awful things."
"But Sarah, honey, that's not what the prayer chain is about," Addy said. "We pray for the things that we can actually change."
"But Addy, we never change anything by prayer. We aren't doctors or nurses, we can't rescue an addicted young person, or fix a marriage. But think of all the times we've prayed for someone and they've gotten well. We didn't do that -- God did! Through our prayers.
I know that the problems I'm talking about are bigger, maybe bigger than we can even contemplate. But they're not too big for God."
Addy was silent for several seconds, thinking. "You know, Sarah, this morning's reading in our devotional guide was from Jeremiah. He was begging God to heal his nation. It had the words of an old hymn in it. 'Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?' My girl, I think you have just become a prophet. I'll get the prayer chain going for the government and people of Syria."
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Bones of the City
by Keith Hewitt
Psalm 79:1-9
It wasn't the sight, it was the smell.
He had heard enough before coming up to see the corpse of his city, to be able to steel himself against the sight. Between what he had heard and what his own imagination had shown him in dreadful visions, his first sight of that charred and broken landscape had been less of a shock and more of a confirmation of his worst fears, a grim acknowledgment that, yes, it was exactly as bad as he'd thought it would be, as it had been made out to be by everything he's been told.
But the smell...
He struggled to define it, as though putting a name to it might make it less noxious or at least might take away the taste that it left behind in his mouth with each hesitant breath. It was a blend of acrid smoke and blood, overlaid by the smell of decay... the death perfume of uncounted bodies that lay beneath the rubble or perhaps just beyond the jagged horizon. That, and the pall of smoke that hung over the ruined city, were the only reminders that he was not looking upon the scene of some ancient tragedy, but a body freshly dead, torn open for him to view.
He gagged, put the back of his hand to his mouth and leaned over, but didn't quite throw up. It was godawful, there was no other word for it. He took deep, shuddering breaths to hold his breakfast down, sucking in more and more death with each breath, until he felt a gentle hand on his back. That touch broke the spell, and he looked up and to his left.
Jacob.
"Are you all right?" the old man asked with no trace of disdain for his weakness.
He nodded, straightened up and nodded again. "I think so."
"Then try this." Jacob held out a nondescript phial. "Put a little of this under your nose. It will help."
He accepted the container, held it under his nose before tapping out a dab of the contents onto one finger. It was some type of cosmetic, he realized -- an expensive one -- and as he rubbed the oil onto his upper lip the strong scent began to fill his nostrils. It didn't quite eliminate the smell of death, but held it down to something more tolerable. He nodded in satisfaction, handed it back to his companion. "Thank you, Jacob. That does help."
"This is not my first time," the older man acknowledged, tucking it away, "and the woman who had it no longer has need for it." He made a slight gesture with his head, back toward a pile of rubble that had once been a house, or maybe apartments. It was hard to know.
It was hard to recognize anything in this total devastation. If he looked up the hill, he thought he could make out what was left of the building that had stood there so proudly for generations -- the symbol of this city, the one place everyone went when they came here, whether foreigner or citizen on pilgrimage... a beacon, a jewel.
And now what was it... a glint of uncharred marble, glimpsed here and there, and the stubs of columns, some leaning in place, some pulled over deliberately.
"What happened here?" he breathed softly.
There was a grunt beside him, and Jacob answered almost as softly. "You know what happened, Daniel."
Daniel looked down at Jacob, standing beside him, and was about to answer sharply when he saw the look -- the pain -- in the man's eyes and softened his answer. "Of course I do. I guess my real question is what brought us to this? How did we end up here, two old men walking across the bones of a dead city?"
Jacob was silent for a long time -- long enough that Daniel could begin to sort out the sounds they heard, so low that they were almost across the threshold of hearing... the sizzle and pop of fires that still burned improbably in the ruins; birds calling to one another as they arrived to pick through the ruins for food, scuffling with rats and other creatures who had crawled out of their burrows for the same meal; and somehow over and between it all, the sighing of the wind.
He was about to say that his was not a rhetorical question, when Jacob stirred and said, "I think you know that, too, Daniel."
"I do?"
"I think we have been headed this way for a while, don't you? In your heart of hearts, haven't you been afraid that something like this was going to happen?" He leaned down, picked up a bit of shiny something, held it up close so he could study it -- a bit of glass, melted in the intense heat of the fire that had swept through the city. He held it in one hand, testing the weight, then leaned back and threw it with a whip like motion of his arm. It pinged against a stone, somewhere, and shattered.
"We were special," he said, staring out toward where he had thrown the chunk of glass. "We were chosen, we were called to be something special, to do something special in this world. Out of all the nations in the world, God tapped us, tapped our ancestors on the shoulder and said, 'Here's what I want you to do.' And for a while, we listened -- and that set us apart. Then we forgot why we were here... we forgot what we were about."
"And when did that happen, Jacob?" Daniel asked seriously. "Do you think it was in our time? My time?"
His companion shook his head. "No. You and I, we were at the bottom of the cliff, watching the landslide happen. By then, it was already too late. We had turned our backs on what we could have been, and instead strove to be what we wanted to be. Other gods caught our eye, and we chased after them... and sometimes we even caught our own reflection in the mirror and saw God there. What was right, was replaced by what was easier. We mistook apathy for tolerance and even as some of us noted that God seemed further and further away, we were able to convince ourselves that it was because our understanding of God was changing... and not that we were turning away."
There was another long silence and then the pitch of the wind's lament seemed to sink even lower, until it became almost human... a woman keening over the death of a child. Daniel had to listen closely with bated breath to be sure it wasn't that. Finally he breathed once more and said, "So you think that God did this to punish us?"
Jacob's head shook slowly, as his eyes narrowed. "No... no, I don't think so. You know the world as well as I do, Daniel. Destruction and death, devastation and ruin are always there, always waiting -- it's the way of a sinful world. I don't think God sent this to us... but when we started caring more about ourselves than about him... when we turned away and said we didn't really need him... I think he stepped aside and let this happen to us. If not as punishment, then as a reminder that it's God that stands between us and evil."
Daniel looked at the ruins on the hill and frowned at the ache in his heart. "Do you think we can ever find our way back?"
Jacob nodded and smiled for the first time in days, but it was a bittersweet smile. "I don't think that way is ever closed -- if we decide we really want to. If we really want to be God's people, again, we can find our way."
"Well, then I suppose we know what we need to do."
He was about to say more when there was a noise behind them, and he turned; a woman was close to them, but still at a respectful distance; a squad of soldiers stood behind her. She started to speak -- hesitated, then saluted awkwardly before continuing. "Mister President, Mister Secretary -- the surgeon says you have to come back to the Emergency Operations Center now. The wind is shifting back to Ground Zero, and the radiation levels are going up."
"As you say, Lieutenant," Daniel answered agreeably -- instant obedience had been the price they'd agreed to, to come out of the shelter after only a week, and they kept their bargain by following her back toward what had been the White House without argument or discussion... but it was just the first step on the long journey home.
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 22, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
