A Cloud of Witnesses
Stories
Contents
“A Cloud of Witnesses” by Peter Andrew Smith
“A Mind of Their Own” by Frank Ramirez
A Cloud of Witnesses
by Peter Andrew Smith
Hebrews 11:29--12:2
Pastor Will stormed out of the board room.
“Is everything okay, Pastor?” Linda called from the office. “Are you finished already?”
“We’re just taking a break,” he said. “We all need a few minutes”
Will walked into the sanctuary, sat in a pew, and closed his eyes.
“Lord,” he prayed softly. “I’m at the end of my rope. This church is fighting me every step of the way and the worst is that we’re only doing what they decided to do. Maybe I’m the wrong person to be their pastor. Maybe I should be somewhere else. Send me a sign, send me something to know what to do because I think I am failing you and them miserably. Amen.”
He sat in the silence for a long time and waited. He looked around at the same church that had been there when he arrived moments ago. Will sighed.
Paul appeared at the entrance. “Oh, sorry Pastor Will, I didn’t know you were in here. I’ll come back and do my cleaning later.”
“No, that’s okay.” Will smiled at the old man. “I was just sitting here praying.”
Paul narrowed his eyes. “You having a meeting on the outreach project?”
Will nodded.
“Are the board members trying to backtrack and change their minds about what we decided?”
“How did you know?”
Paul chuckled and sat down beside him. “I’ve been here a long time.”
Will sighed. “I wonder if I’m supposed to be here.”
“Did anyone raise their voices in anger at the meeting you just left?”
Will shook his head.
“Then we need you to be here because the last time we decided to do something that helped us grow as a church there were more than a few shouting matches at the board meetings before it happened,” Paul said.
“There may be shouting at our next meeting given what’s being said this morning.”
Paul rubbed his chin. “Do you know the story of the senior’s apartments we built?”
“I heard there was a generous bequest that enabled us to start the project.”
Paul nodded. “The money arrived, a committee was struck, and then everything ground to a halt.”
Will turned to Paul. “Why?”
“The people of the congregation got scared. Some worried we would overextend ourselves. Others thought we should be doing something else. Mostly people weren’t sure we could do it.”
“But the apartments have been a great blessing to both the community and the congregation.”
“Now they are,” Paul said. “At the time though people were afraid and uncertain. There were more reasons to not go ahead than to go ahead.”
“So if there were so many doubts and fears how did they get built?”
“Pastor Hans was here at the time and just kept reminding us to have faith. He refused to let the nay sayers have the final word.” Paul chuckled. “I can remember sitting here in a meeting and speaker after speaker went on about how this wasn’t the right time and how we might fail to raise the rest of the money and build the apartments.”
“Sounds like the meeting I just left.”
“Then Pastor Hans got up and asked if there would ever be a time when we knew for certain we could raise the money. No one had an answer to that so Pastor Hans asked us to pray about it and choose to act based not on our fears but our faith. We all voted at that meeting to move forward.”
“Wow. That’s incredible.”
“Yeah. That’s what I said when I went home and told Ma. She laughed and told me about the fight to have the Christian Education program started back when she was young. People worried about the cost and whether there would be any children in the area in a decade.”
Will frowned. “We’ve got a tremendous reputation for our children’s program. I know some families drive in from outside the town to attend because of them.”
“I know but this was when the boom from the war was fading and people were having smaller families.” Paul said. “Ma explained that the pastor at the time told the people of the church they had a choice — they could start something to enrich the discipleship of the young people or they could explain why they didn’t to God on Judgement Day.”
“I’m not sure I would ever say something like that.”
Paul laughed. “Well you had to know Pastor Lucas. He was a rather blunt man. But the problem isn’t that people don’t want to do what needs to be done or think it is unnecessary. No, the problem is that we worry and fret and fear.”
Will nodded. “Which means we need to be reminded of the fact God has been with us when we’ve been faithful and will continue to be with us when we listen and act in faith. There are a cloud of witness around us in this church to prove that to us.”
Paul got up and went over to the vacuum cleaner. “Sounds like the start to a good sermon.”
Will stood up and headed back to the meeting.
“Everything alright?” Linda asked as he passed the offices.
“Everything is going to be just fine,” Will said as he opened the door to the board room. “As long as we remember to have faith.”
* * *
A Mind of Their Own
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 5:1-7
Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes. (Isaiah 5:1-2)
We don't know much of anything about one of the greatest writers of all time — Aesop. He lived in Thrace in the Sixth Century BC. He was a slave at one time but was freed by his master Iadmon, and he told logopoios — that's Greek for "word maker." This meant that he told stories in prose, not in poetry.
He wrote what we call "fables," which are generally stories featuring animals, each with a little moral. Whether he wrote these stories or told them is unclear. The fables weren’t gathered together in his lifetime, for they weren't considered literature. They are scattered in plenty of ancient collections.
I said that fables generally feature animals, but some feature a plant, like a vineyard, which is at the center of the fable told by Isaiah in this Old Testament passage.
Take the fable of the “Hedge and the Vineyard.” A foolish young man inherited his father's lands, but he was not as wise as his father. He was interested in his father's vineyard because it grew grapes and he could make wine from the grapes, but the vineyard was surrounded by hedges, which didn't produce any fruit. The foolish young man had the hedges torn down, but this exposed his vineyard to the animals in the wild, who soon ate all the grapes and left him with nothing. He learned that in order to possess his vineyard he would also have to protect it.
Then there's the fable of "The Goat and the Vineyard." A goat eats the grapes from a vineyard despite the vine's protests. The vine says, at last, that there are still enough grapes left over to make wine to pour over the altar when the goat is captured and sacrificed.
In a variation on this one, a goat needs a place to hide and works his way inside a vineyard. While he's hiding he begins to eat the grapes. The vine is outraged, but the noise of the goat eating the grapes gets the attention of the hunters who kill him.
According to the fable titled “The Farmer's Bequest To His Sons,” a farmer who has lazy sons tells the boys on his deathbed that there is a great treasure hidden in the vineyard. After he dies they dig up the field and find nothing, but because of this act of cultivation the vineyard produces a great treasure — a bumper crop of grapes!
And let's not forget the classic, “The Fox and the Grapes.” There were especially delicious looking grapes hanging from vines strong on trestles on a hillside. A fox came along and saw the tempting fruit. He leapt high, but they were just out of his reach. Again and again he leapt until he was exhausted. Finally, he tried to comfort himself with these words as he walked away — “Ah well. Those were probably sour grapes.”
One doesn't think of the Bible as having fables, but there's a living fable involving a plant at the end of the book of Jonah. The prophet, angry that God hasn't destroyed Nineveh, takes shelter under a vine that grows in a day and when it dies, complains bitterly that he is so uncomfortable he wished he were dead also, to which God replies, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:10)
And Jesus tells a story involving a fig tree in the midst of a vineyard (see Luke 13:6-9), whose owner demands it be destroyed since it has not produced figs, but whose gardener pleads for one more year to manure and tend it.
This story from Isaiah seems to be a fable about a vineyard that doesn't produce good grapes, and like the vines in the fable involving the goat, these vines seem to have a mind of their own.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 18, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 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 Cloud of Witnesses” by Peter Andrew Smith
“A Mind of Their Own” by Frank Ramirez
A Cloud of Witnesses
by Peter Andrew Smith
Hebrews 11:29--12:2
Pastor Will stormed out of the board room.
“Is everything okay, Pastor?” Linda called from the office. “Are you finished already?”
“We’re just taking a break,” he said. “We all need a few minutes”
Will walked into the sanctuary, sat in a pew, and closed his eyes.
“Lord,” he prayed softly. “I’m at the end of my rope. This church is fighting me every step of the way and the worst is that we’re only doing what they decided to do. Maybe I’m the wrong person to be their pastor. Maybe I should be somewhere else. Send me a sign, send me something to know what to do because I think I am failing you and them miserably. Amen.”
He sat in the silence for a long time and waited. He looked around at the same church that had been there when he arrived moments ago. Will sighed.
Paul appeared at the entrance. “Oh, sorry Pastor Will, I didn’t know you were in here. I’ll come back and do my cleaning later.”
“No, that’s okay.” Will smiled at the old man. “I was just sitting here praying.”
Paul narrowed his eyes. “You having a meeting on the outreach project?”
Will nodded.
“Are the board members trying to backtrack and change their minds about what we decided?”
“How did you know?”
Paul chuckled and sat down beside him. “I’ve been here a long time.”
Will sighed. “I wonder if I’m supposed to be here.”
“Did anyone raise their voices in anger at the meeting you just left?”
Will shook his head.
“Then we need you to be here because the last time we decided to do something that helped us grow as a church there were more than a few shouting matches at the board meetings before it happened,” Paul said.
“There may be shouting at our next meeting given what’s being said this morning.”
Paul rubbed his chin. “Do you know the story of the senior’s apartments we built?”
“I heard there was a generous bequest that enabled us to start the project.”
Paul nodded. “The money arrived, a committee was struck, and then everything ground to a halt.”
Will turned to Paul. “Why?”
“The people of the congregation got scared. Some worried we would overextend ourselves. Others thought we should be doing something else. Mostly people weren’t sure we could do it.”
“But the apartments have been a great blessing to both the community and the congregation.”
“Now they are,” Paul said. “At the time though people were afraid and uncertain. There were more reasons to not go ahead than to go ahead.”
“So if there were so many doubts and fears how did they get built?”
“Pastor Hans was here at the time and just kept reminding us to have faith. He refused to let the nay sayers have the final word.” Paul chuckled. “I can remember sitting here in a meeting and speaker after speaker went on about how this wasn’t the right time and how we might fail to raise the rest of the money and build the apartments.”
“Sounds like the meeting I just left.”
“Then Pastor Hans got up and asked if there would ever be a time when we knew for certain we could raise the money. No one had an answer to that so Pastor Hans asked us to pray about it and choose to act based not on our fears but our faith. We all voted at that meeting to move forward.”
“Wow. That’s incredible.”
“Yeah. That’s what I said when I went home and told Ma. She laughed and told me about the fight to have the Christian Education program started back when she was young. People worried about the cost and whether there would be any children in the area in a decade.”
Will frowned. “We’ve got a tremendous reputation for our children’s program. I know some families drive in from outside the town to attend because of them.”
“I know but this was when the boom from the war was fading and people were having smaller families.” Paul said. “Ma explained that the pastor at the time told the people of the church they had a choice — they could start something to enrich the discipleship of the young people or they could explain why they didn’t to God on Judgement Day.”
“I’m not sure I would ever say something like that.”
Paul laughed. “Well you had to know Pastor Lucas. He was a rather blunt man. But the problem isn’t that people don’t want to do what needs to be done or think it is unnecessary. No, the problem is that we worry and fret and fear.”
Will nodded. “Which means we need to be reminded of the fact God has been with us when we’ve been faithful and will continue to be with us when we listen and act in faith. There are a cloud of witness around us in this church to prove that to us.”
Paul got up and went over to the vacuum cleaner. “Sounds like the start to a good sermon.”
Will stood up and headed back to the meeting.
“Everything alright?” Linda asked as he passed the offices.
“Everything is going to be just fine,” Will said as he opened the door to the board room. “As long as we remember to have faith.”
* * *
A Mind of Their Own
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 5:1-7
Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes. (Isaiah 5:1-2)
We don't know much of anything about one of the greatest writers of all time — Aesop. He lived in Thrace in the Sixth Century BC. He was a slave at one time but was freed by his master Iadmon, and he told logopoios — that's Greek for "word maker." This meant that he told stories in prose, not in poetry.
He wrote what we call "fables," which are generally stories featuring animals, each with a little moral. Whether he wrote these stories or told them is unclear. The fables weren’t gathered together in his lifetime, for they weren't considered literature. They are scattered in plenty of ancient collections.
I said that fables generally feature animals, but some feature a plant, like a vineyard, which is at the center of the fable told by Isaiah in this Old Testament passage.
Take the fable of the “Hedge and the Vineyard.” A foolish young man inherited his father's lands, but he was not as wise as his father. He was interested in his father's vineyard because it grew grapes and he could make wine from the grapes, but the vineyard was surrounded by hedges, which didn't produce any fruit. The foolish young man had the hedges torn down, but this exposed his vineyard to the animals in the wild, who soon ate all the grapes and left him with nothing. He learned that in order to possess his vineyard he would also have to protect it.
Then there's the fable of "The Goat and the Vineyard." A goat eats the grapes from a vineyard despite the vine's protests. The vine says, at last, that there are still enough grapes left over to make wine to pour over the altar when the goat is captured and sacrificed.
In a variation on this one, a goat needs a place to hide and works his way inside a vineyard. While he's hiding he begins to eat the grapes. The vine is outraged, but the noise of the goat eating the grapes gets the attention of the hunters who kill him.
According to the fable titled “The Farmer's Bequest To His Sons,” a farmer who has lazy sons tells the boys on his deathbed that there is a great treasure hidden in the vineyard. After he dies they dig up the field and find nothing, but because of this act of cultivation the vineyard produces a great treasure — a bumper crop of grapes!
And let's not forget the classic, “The Fox and the Grapes.” There were especially delicious looking grapes hanging from vines strong on trestles on a hillside. A fox came along and saw the tempting fruit. He leapt high, but they were just out of his reach. Again and again he leapt until he was exhausted. Finally, he tried to comfort himself with these words as he walked away — “Ah well. Those were probably sour grapes.”
One doesn't think of the Bible as having fables, but there's a living fable involving a plant at the end of the book of Jonah. The prophet, angry that God hasn't destroyed Nineveh, takes shelter under a vine that grows in a day and when it dies, complains bitterly that he is so uncomfortable he wished he were dead also, to which God replies, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:10)
And Jesus tells a story involving a fig tree in the midst of a vineyard (see Luke 13:6-9), whose owner demands it be destroyed since it has not produced figs, but whose gardener pleads for one more year to manure and tend it.
This story from Isaiah seems to be a fable about a vineyard that doesn't produce good grapes, and like the vines in the fable involving the goat, these vines seem to have a mind of their own.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 18, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 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.
