Come Away With Me
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Come Away With Me" by Sandra Herrmann
"Are You Where You Are?" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Curing Defilement" by Larry Winebrenner
"Clean Living: What Pharisees and Raccoons Have in Common" by John Sumwalt
"Called to Be a King" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
The Song of Solomon is a notorious collection of love poetry -- but in this week's edition of StoryShare, Sandra Herrmann offers a moving and unconventional version with a young man who offers a date to an old woman in a nursing home. Then we offer three different angles on Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees over "clean living," as well as a brief meditation from Larry Winebrenner on what it means to be a member of a royal family.
* * * * * * * * *
Come Away With Me
by Sandra Herrmann
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Addie had been dying for some time. Exactly how long, she wasn't certain. The days had begun to flow into each other. It used to be that she set an alarm clock. Then she could keep track of time.
Now, Addie mostly laid in bed, watching the shadows move over the walls. No reason for an alarm. An aide would come and wake her and help her dress. Just another task she had to assign to others. Just a little more of her former independence slipping away.
Though, truth to tell, since she had retired 20 years ago, Addie had only set the alarm clock for special occasions: Sunday mornings, early enough to go to the adult class before worship; Wednesday mornings, because she had to be ready for the van to take her to her card club; and the occasional outing with her daughter, maybe shopping or to a movie.
Addie sighed. It had been a long time since she had sat in the dark, eating popcorn and drinking a soda, watching Tom Hanks or Russell Crowe tower over desperate people in dangerous situations. Oh, they had movies here. But they left the lights on and rationed the popcorn. And there was no hand to hold, cradling the popcorn between them as an excuse.
Addie smiled. They were good memories, those young men who carried her books, carried a torch, and two of them even carried her over the threshold of new homes. She cradled herself gently and rocked slightly. Not too hard, that hurt too much. But she hummed a little tune from her girlhood and remembered.
She came to with a start. Where was she? Not at the movies. Not loving her husbands. Not braiding Marlys' long blonde hair. It was hard to tell what were dreams and what memories… or reality. Had Marlys come to visit? She grabbed the bedrail to pull herself to the edge, bracing herself with her other hand. She and the physical therapist had practiced this maneuver so she could sit up on her own.
Looking around the room, Addie saw nothing different. Marlys always brought her fresh flowers when she came -- fresh flowers every week, in a cut glass vase that had belonged to Addie's grandmother. But the flowers in the vase were a bit droopy, so Marlys hadn't been there today.
Addie was a bit confused. She could have sworn there was someone in the room a moment before. She pushed the button for a nurse, and got an instant response.
"What can I do for you, Addie?" came from the speaker.
"I would like a soda, please."
"Are you sure, Addie? It's almost dinnertime."
"Yes, please. I fell asleep, and my mouth is dry."
"I'll be right there." The nurse clicked off.
Addie pulled up the rolling table and opened the mirror. She brushed her hair as best she could. Her left arm was bad again today; she could barely make it touch her head. Then she put on some lipstick. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, then sighed.
"Why are you sighing, Addie?"
She jumped. She hadn't seen the young man come in. She was irritated with herself. It seemed she was so easily startled lately.
"Do I know you?" Addie asked. He looked familiar somehow, but her memory hadn't been good lately. It was so embarrassing to always be uncertain. She felt as though she was losing pieces of herself every day.
"No, we haven't met before," the young man replied.
He was certainly good looking, Addie thought. She had always loved the Celtic look -- black hair and blue eyes, with a rounded look to the face. She felt herself blush a little. He would think she was an idiot, looking at him this way. She smoothed her sleeves, giving herself a minute to continue to not look directly at him, to give herself a minute to stop blushing.
When she raised her eyes, he was smiling. Not laughing at her, just being friendly. "My name is Gabe. Gabriel, actually, but my friends call me Gabe. How are you feeling, Addie?"
"Tired. Like most days. Not so much pain today as yesterday, so that's better." She faltered for a minute. She had answered him as though he were a doctor, because of the white coat he was wearing. But he hadn't said he was a doctor, had he? She shook her head, feeling foolish again.
"You don't need to feel foolish, Addie. I really do want to know how you're feeling. I have a personal interest in seeing to it that you feel good." He gave her a flirtatious grin.
Addie couldn't help but grin back at him. Such a nice young man! She wished she were 50 years younger and attractive again. She would have enjoyed going dancing with Gabe. He was about the height of her first husband, and they fit together very well when they went dancing.
"Tell you what, Addie. Let's get out of here, go get a good meal, and then if you want, we could go dancing. What do you say?"
Addie gasped. "Oh, I'm way too old for all that! Not that I didn't love dancing when I was your age. My first husband was quite a dancer. We would stay until the band quit playing, and then look for some all-night place to eat a little something before he took me home." She smiled, her head tilted to one side, remembering. "But I haven't been able to dance in years. Arthritis. Bad knees, bad back, bad shoulders."
Gabe leaned over and offered her his hand. "Just take my hand, Addie, and all that will be gone. See! The winter of your life is past; the season of singing has come."
Addie gave him her hand, but she was puzzled. He was quoting a poem, she was quite sure. Where had she heard those words before? And then, as though she had just learned them yesterday, all the lines came to her in a rush: "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me."
With a laugh, knowing perfectly well who he was and why he was there, Addie placed both of her hands in his, and went with him.
When the nurse came in with the soda, she was sad to see Addie's small, frail body so still in the bed. But her heart was lightened by the smile that was on Addie's face.
Sandra Herrmann is pastor of Memorial United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Wisconsin. She is the author of Ambassadors of Hope (CSS); her articles and sermons have also appeared in Emphasis and The Circuit Rider, and her poetry has been published in Alive Now and So's Your Old Lady. She has trained lay speakers and led workshops and Bible studies throughout Wisconsin, Iowa, and Indiana.
Are You Where You Are?
by W. Lamar Massingill
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
All of you read the cartoon Ziggy, don't you? On one occasion, Ziggy walks up to an information sign in a mall. On one side there is an "x," followed by the words "you are here." On the other side of the sign is another "x," followed by the words "but everybody who's anybody is over here."
It's really not so humorous when you recognize the truth of it. The advertising industry spends billions of dollars a year trying to convince us that real living is where we're not; that "everybody who's anybody" wears this type of clothing or wears that kind of aftershave, or uses this type of shampoo or drinks that kind of drink. This is exactly what advertising wants us to believe: "You are here... but everybody who's anybody is over here."
The tragedy of it is that much of America swallows it. We turn to the billboards and the television, and now we can't put a computer curser anywhere on the internet where there is not another advertisement that promises to tell us that we are not okay unless we use this or that product and find out what and where real living is. In other words, culture is more than happy to make us over in its image. It teaches us in a thousand different ways that real living is going on elsewhere.
So, we begin the journey to Elsewhere, which is really Nowhere in disguise. We set out for those proverbial "greener pastures" we never seem to find. Our lives become wandering absurdities looking for love in all the wrong places. We become Marlboro men and Clairol women in search of the night that belongs to Michelob. We never find it, and worse, with eyes and ears intent on finding someplace else, and being someone else, we're never where we are. We, like Ziggy, don't trust that our own experience -- where we are -- is not only acceptable, but valid. We are a people and culture who worship the exteriors of life, but never probe the interior, where the real fulfillment is. Why do you think we're at the malls and stores, for goodness sakes? Anything to do with Jesus? Doubtful. Our obsession with the material means nothing if it doesn't point to a deeper reality than raw capitalism.
On one occasion, Jesus and his disciples were seen eating by the Pharisees. A meal was normal enough, but one thing really angered the Pharisees: The disciples of Jesus forgot to wash their hands, which had nothing to do with what kind of person one was but had to do with Jewish tradition of that day. The Pharisees were incensed so much that they went to Jesus and asked, "Why didn't your disciples undergo the ceremonial washing before they sat down to eat? Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the Elders?" In other words, "Don't you know that everybody who's anybody is over here, and goes through the ceremonial ritual washing? It's the in thing!" The Jews worshiped the exteriors of life, and believed that it was the exterior which would eventually change them. It constantly angered Jesus, and he proceeded to tell them that if you only knew where to look, namely right under your nose, you would find the missing piece which would connect you to God: your heart.
Where are we? If we could have the courage to metaphorically walk up to such a mall sign, read the words "you are here," and respond, "Yes, I'm here, and it's good," we would be one step closer to gratitude to God for the gift of our lives. And gratitude always comes from the heart. It's the interior that matters the most. We won't find that in a mall.
W. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is now the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi. He also serves as religion editor for the Magnolia Gazette and as a guest columnist for the United Methodist Advocate and the Richton Dispatch. Massengill is the author of two books, New Eyes: A Spirituality of Identity Formation and Soul Places, and he has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He is a graduate of William Carey University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Curing Defilement
by Larry Winebrenner
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
When the Pharisees washed before eating, they were not trying to destroy germs. The cause of disease had not yet been discovered. It was generally believed that devils caused just about every kind of illness -- physical and emotional. Thus, the cleansing was not a physical cleansing, but a spiritual one.
I sometimes suspected my grandmother of being a closet Pharisee. You'd better never come to the table with unwashed hands. And among her favorite sayings was "Cleanliness is next to godliness."
Of course, we wash our hands these days for physical cleansing, and rightly so. You would think that the human race would have discovered the importance of clean hands before the middle of the nineteenth century. Not so.
As late as 1870, about half of the people operated on died from infection. It wasn't simply disease filtering in from some other sick person. The infections were caused by the medical staffs themselves. Not only did doctors not wear rubber gloves (they weren't invented yet). They didn't even wash their hands between operations. Doctors wore no smocks or covering, no masks, no protective clothing at all. They did not sterilize instruments. They did not operate in a sterile environment. And when Dr. Joseph Lister proposed these sterile procedures, the medical profession scorned him. They rejected his advice. Only Louis Pasteur was sympathetic.
One of the major reasons for surgery were compound fractures -- breaks in which the broken bone penetrates the skin. Infections from compound fractures were so common that doctors would amputate a limb rather than trying to repair the break. Even so, the death rate from amputation infections was 40 percent. Because of Dr. Lister's work, by 1910 deaths had dropped to 3 percent.
Dr. Lister revealed great information about the health of our physical bodies. Many modern psychologists believe they have done the same thing for behavior problems. The great physician was way ahead of them. Freudians, for example, track emotional problems to the id -- a primitive inner self over which we exercise little control. Jesus called it "the heart." All that bad stuff that pops out of you -- fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly -- comes from the heart.
Jesus' point, though, was that you do have control of your heart. Just as one might wash hands, so must one cleanse the heart. Tradition is just fine, but obedience is really the important thing.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Clean Living: What Pharisees and Raccoons Have in Common
by John Sumwalt
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all of the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it....) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
-- Mark 7:1-5
What do Pharisees and raccoons have in common? Pharisees, according to our text, lived by strict hand-washing rules handed down by generations of Jewish elders, and they refused to eat anything from the local Pick 'n Save that had not been well washed. Raccoons, a nocturnal mammal found in North and Central America, are legendary for washing their food before they eat it. It is not known if this behavior is instinctual or if it has been handed down by generations of pious raccoon elders. Likely it is the latter, but who knows what some future Quran-like raccoon text might reveal.
I had an opportunity to observe some members of the raccoon species up close in a most unexpected way during our recent vacation. Every year in mid-July, we go to our farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin the minute that Vacation Bible School is over. This year we were awakened at 5:00 a.m. on the eighth night of our precious two weeks in the country by the insistent barking of our little West Highland Terrier. She was bouncing up and down beside the bed in a determined way that left no doubt that something was seriously amiss. I jumped out of bed, threw on my robe, opened the bedroom door, and Chloe was off like a shot. Halfway down the stairs I smelled a familiar pungent aroma and was immediately filled with a deep visceral dread. Something was in the house and Chloe was headed straight for it.
I knew it was a raccoon because we had seen them hanging around the garbage can all week. They had been able to get the lid off the can one night, a lid that takes me great effort and a hammer to remove, and had scattered refuse all over the driveway. Chloe had been spending each evening at the window on raccoon watch, coming often to interrupt our movie watching with excited yip-yip reports of her sightings. The distinct animal odor of these night bandits hung heavy in the air each morning outside the front door.
The dread I felt was not only that this wild creature was loose in our home; I feared that Chloe would be seriously hurt because I knew that she would attack and that the coon would respond viciously. Terriers are bred to give no quarter and raccoons are fierce fighters.
I heard snarling as I slid around the landing. I ran past the island in the kitchen and stopped sharply. Chloe had the female coon cornered under the fern in the dining room. There was an open window with the screen pushed in just above the fern, the point of entry. I yelled for Chloe to back off, and miraculously she did. I had never been able to get her to give up the chase when she was onto a rabbit or a woodchuck. Somehow, in this instance, she knew that discretion was the better part of valor. Jo came running down the stairs, grabbed Chloe, took her back up to the bedroom, locked the door, then returned quickly to help me figure out how to get the coon out of the house. By this time I had grabbed a broom and taken Chloe's place in the standoff. We stood there in this primal stare down, homo sapien vs. mammal, for several minutes. It was the mammal that blinked. She slipped up around the fern onto the window sill, gave one last look around, and then was gone through the curtains, over the deck into the cornfield.
Jo quickly locked the window and we breathed a sigh of relief.
We were just beginning to survey the damage when four baby raccoons appeared, scampering around the island on a beeline to the point of entry where mama had disappeared. Three of them made it to the window and huddled together in a ball of fur and tails on the sill above the fern. They were half-grown, about the size of house cats. The fourth ran out onto the enclosed porch. We barricaded the door and turned first to deal with the other three terrified adolescents hovering by the now-locked window. How to get them out?
I moved slowly to the patio doors that led out to the deck, propped one open, and waited. As soon as the babies smelled the fresh air they ran for freedom and mama's waiting arms (make that paws). We then opened a window on the porch and closed the door again, confident that the fourth delinquent would make his escape in his own good time.
We spent the next hour, fueled by varmint-induced adrenalin, cleaning up after the masked raiders. There was a spilled drink mix with numerous lick spots on the laundry room floor. Sticky tracks marked a trail of destruction down the hallway, across the kitchen floor, and up the walls in several places. Five hot dog buns were missing from the breadbox. The fruit on the island was untouched, but just to the right of the sink there was a single piece of a rhubarb pie with one bite out of the center. I'd had a double date planned with that piece of pie and a large dollop of whipped cream.
We will never know for sure why the ravenous coons did not devour the entire piece. My theory is that the mama coon had just dipped into the pie and was about to turn on the faucet to wash it when the ever-vigilant watchdog appeared to drive her away. Like the hypocritical Pharisees who the ever-vigilant Jesus ridicules for their strict adherence to cleanliness traditions, this hungry raccoon could have had her pie and eaten it too had she not been hampered by the rigid, instinctual behaviors of her species.
John Sumwalt is a noted storyteller and the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
Called to Be a King
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
Where does Psalm 45 come from? Who wrote it? Why is it included among the other psalms?
Actually, it is one of many "royal psalms" found in that collection. These were written (sung?) to honor the king. Some of them were written by David himself while he was king. The king was not so much an individual as a role, a position, a calling. No individual could take credit for being King of Israel.
But picture this. The king is about to get married. What can be said about him? What can be said to him to remind him of the king's calling to be king?
First, the individual is recognized for special qualities of refinement and beauty ("most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips" - v. 2). Then, before the praise even has time to sink in, the king is told it comes from God ("God has blessed you... God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness.").
Yet, the record of kings of Israel is very spotty. The first king, Saul, stood head and shoulders over others, but failed in obedience at a crucial moment. Even David, Israel's greatest king, was caught in a trap of passion and had an innocent man killed so that he might have the man's wife.
What, then, does this have to say to us mere commoners of no royal blood? Think again. We are sisters and brothers of the King of kings. We, too, are called to be faithful members of the royal household.
What does it mean to be in the royal household?
As we examine earthly royalty, we get a notion. First of all, being royal means respect. Nothing upsets the head of a royal family more than behavior by family members that brings disrespect to the royal family. Queens may rail against the media for reporting behavior of royal household members that brings shame on the royal family. Yet they know it is not the media that is at fault. If there were no bad behavior to begin with, there would be no disrespectful news to report.
So the first element of being a member of the royal family is to maintain respectful behavior.
A second element of membership in the royal family is recognition. Royal family members are recognized because of their attitude and demeanor.
I once visited The Treetops, the original tree lodge, a world-famous vacation site in the Aberdares National Park in Kenya. In February of 1952, a young English girl climbed the tree as a Princess one afternoon. The following morning she descended as Queen Elizabeth II. King George VI, her father, had died during the night. Several of the employees from that fateful day were still there when I visited. They all agreed that there was no doubt that Elizabeth was a princess. There also was no doubt the next day that she was a queen. There was no visible change, simply a different presence.
The second element of being a member of the royal family is attitude and demeanor. Be royal in bearing.
A third element of royalty is responsibility. The Duke of York was once told what a great privilege it was to be in his position. "Privilege!" he said. "Privilege? Would that it were. Rather it is a great burden of responsibility. I carry the welfare of every Englishman on my back."
Is anyone hungry? Is anyone sick? Is anyone naked? If so, our task as royalty is clear. We have a great burden of responsibility.
Respect, recognition, and responsibility -- that's what it means to be in the royal family.
Larry Winebrenner is a retired pastor and college teacher who lives in Miami Gardens, Florida.
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StoryShare, August 30, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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
"Come Away With Me" by Sandra Herrmann
"Are You Where You Are?" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Curing Defilement" by Larry Winebrenner
"Clean Living: What Pharisees and Raccoons Have in Common" by John Sumwalt
"Called to Be a King" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
The Song of Solomon is a notorious collection of love poetry -- but in this week's edition of StoryShare, Sandra Herrmann offers a moving and unconventional version with a young man who offers a date to an old woman in a nursing home. Then we offer three different angles on Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees over "clean living," as well as a brief meditation from Larry Winebrenner on what it means to be a member of a royal family.
* * * * * * * * *
Come Away With Me
by Sandra Herrmann
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Addie had been dying for some time. Exactly how long, she wasn't certain. The days had begun to flow into each other. It used to be that she set an alarm clock. Then she could keep track of time.
Now, Addie mostly laid in bed, watching the shadows move over the walls. No reason for an alarm. An aide would come and wake her and help her dress. Just another task she had to assign to others. Just a little more of her former independence slipping away.
Though, truth to tell, since she had retired 20 years ago, Addie had only set the alarm clock for special occasions: Sunday mornings, early enough to go to the adult class before worship; Wednesday mornings, because she had to be ready for the van to take her to her card club; and the occasional outing with her daughter, maybe shopping or to a movie.
Addie sighed. It had been a long time since she had sat in the dark, eating popcorn and drinking a soda, watching Tom Hanks or Russell Crowe tower over desperate people in dangerous situations. Oh, they had movies here. But they left the lights on and rationed the popcorn. And there was no hand to hold, cradling the popcorn between them as an excuse.
Addie smiled. They were good memories, those young men who carried her books, carried a torch, and two of them even carried her over the threshold of new homes. She cradled herself gently and rocked slightly. Not too hard, that hurt too much. But she hummed a little tune from her girlhood and remembered.
She came to with a start. Where was she? Not at the movies. Not loving her husbands. Not braiding Marlys' long blonde hair. It was hard to tell what were dreams and what memories… or reality. Had Marlys come to visit? She grabbed the bedrail to pull herself to the edge, bracing herself with her other hand. She and the physical therapist had practiced this maneuver so she could sit up on her own.
Looking around the room, Addie saw nothing different. Marlys always brought her fresh flowers when she came -- fresh flowers every week, in a cut glass vase that had belonged to Addie's grandmother. But the flowers in the vase were a bit droopy, so Marlys hadn't been there today.
Addie was a bit confused. She could have sworn there was someone in the room a moment before. She pushed the button for a nurse, and got an instant response.
"What can I do for you, Addie?" came from the speaker.
"I would like a soda, please."
"Are you sure, Addie? It's almost dinnertime."
"Yes, please. I fell asleep, and my mouth is dry."
"I'll be right there." The nurse clicked off.
Addie pulled up the rolling table and opened the mirror. She brushed her hair as best she could. Her left arm was bad again today; she could barely make it touch her head. Then she put on some lipstick. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, then sighed.
"Why are you sighing, Addie?"
She jumped. She hadn't seen the young man come in. She was irritated with herself. It seemed she was so easily startled lately.
"Do I know you?" Addie asked. He looked familiar somehow, but her memory hadn't been good lately. It was so embarrassing to always be uncertain. She felt as though she was losing pieces of herself every day.
"No, we haven't met before," the young man replied.
He was certainly good looking, Addie thought. She had always loved the Celtic look -- black hair and blue eyes, with a rounded look to the face. She felt herself blush a little. He would think she was an idiot, looking at him this way. She smoothed her sleeves, giving herself a minute to continue to not look directly at him, to give herself a minute to stop blushing.
When she raised her eyes, he was smiling. Not laughing at her, just being friendly. "My name is Gabe. Gabriel, actually, but my friends call me Gabe. How are you feeling, Addie?"
"Tired. Like most days. Not so much pain today as yesterday, so that's better." She faltered for a minute. She had answered him as though he were a doctor, because of the white coat he was wearing. But he hadn't said he was a doctor, had he? She shook her head, feeling foolish again.
"You don't need to feel foolish, Addie. I really do want to know how you're feeling. I have a personal interest in seeing to it that you feel good." He gave her a flirtatious grin.
Addie couldn't help but grin back at him. Such a nice young man! She wished she were 50 years younger and attractive again. She would have enjoyed going dancing with Gabe. He was about the height of her first husband, and they fit together very well when they went dancing.
"Tell you what, Addie. Let's get out of here, go get a good meal, and then if you want, we could go dancing. What do you say?"
Addie gasped. "Oh, I'm way too old for all that! Not that I didn't love dancing when I was your age. My first husband was quite a dancer. We would stay until the band quit playing, and then look for some all-night place to eat a little something before he took me home." She smiled, her head tilted to one side, remembering. "But I haven't been able to dance in years. Arthritis. Bad knees, bad back, bad shoulders."
Gabe leaned over and offered her his hand. "Just take my hand, Addie, and all that will be gone. See! The winter of your life is past; the season of singing has come."
Addie gave him her hand, but she was puzzled. He was quoting a poem, she was quite sure. Where had she heard those words before? And then, as though she had just learned them yesterday, all the lines came to her in a rush: "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me."
With a laugh, knowing perfectly well who he was and why he was there, Addie placed both of her hands in his, and went with him.
When the nurse came in with the soda, she was sad to see Addie's small, frail body so still in the bed. But her heart was lightened by the smile that was on Addie's face.
Sandra Herrmann is pastor of Memorial United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Wisconsin. She is the author of Ambassadors of Hope (CSS); her articles and sermons have also appeared in Emphasis and The Circuit Rider, and her poetry has been published in Alive Now and So's Your Old Lady. She has trained lay speakers and led workshops and Bible studies throughout Wisconsin, Iowa, and Indiana.
Are You Where You Are?
by W. Lamar Massingill
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
All of you read the cartoon Ziggy, don't you? On one occasion, Ziggy walks up to an information sign in a mall. On one side there is an "x," followed by the words "you are here." On the other side of the sign is another "x," followed by the words "but everybody who's anybody is over here."
It's really not so humorous when you recognize the truth of it. The advertising industry spends billions of dollars a year trying to convince us that real living is where we're not; that "everybody who's anybody" wears this type of clothing or wears that kind of aftershave, or uses this type of shampoo or drinks that kind of drink. This is exactly what advertising wants us to believe: "You are here... but everybody who's anybody is over here."
The tragedy of it is that much of America swallows it. We turn to the billboards and the television, and now we can't put a computer curser anywhere on the internet where there is not another advertisement that promises to tell us that we are not okay unless we use this or that product and find out what and where real living is. In other words, culture is more than happy to make us over in its image. It teaches us in a thousand different ways that real living is going on elsewhere.
So, we begin the journey to Elsewhere, which is really Nowhere in disguise. We set out for those proverbial "greener pastures" we never seem to find. Our lives become wandering absurdities looking for love in all the wrong places. We become Marlboro men and Clairol women in search of the night that belongs to Michelob. We never find it, and worse, with eyes and ears intent on finding someplace else, and being someone else, we're never where we are. We, like Ziggy, don't trust that our own experience -- where we are -- is not only acceptable, but valid. We are a people and culture who worship the exteriors of life, but never probe the interior, where the real fulfillment is. Why do you think we're at the malls and stores, for goodness sakes? Anything to do with Jesus? Doubtful. Our obsession with the material means nothing if it doesn't point to a deeper reality than raw capitalism.
On one occasion, Jesus and his disciples were seen eating by the Pharisees. A meal was normal enough, but one thing really angered the Pharisees: The disciples of Jesus forgot to wash their hands, which had nothing to do with what kind of person one was but had to do with Jewish tradition of that day. The Pharisees were incensed so much that they went to Jesus and asked, "Why didn't your disciples undergo the ceremonial washing before they sat down to eat? Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the Elders?" In other words, "Don't you know that everybody who's anybody is over here, and goes through the ceremonial ritual washing? It's the in thing!" The Jews worshiped the exteriors of life, and believed that it was the exterior which would eventually change them. It constantly angered Jesus, and he proceeded to tell them that if you only knew where to look, namely right under your nose, you would find the missing piece which would connect you to God: your heart.
Where are we? If we could have the courage to metaphorically walk up to such a mall sign, read the words "you are here," and respond, "Yes, I'm here, and it's good," we would be one step closer to gratitude to God for the gift of our lives. And gratitude always comes from the heart. It's the interior that matters the most. We won't find that in a mall.
W. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is now the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi. He also serves as religion editor for the Magnolia Gazette and as a guest columnist for the United Methodist Advocate and the Richton Dispatch. Massengill is the author of two books, New Eyes: A Spirituality of Identity Formation and Soul Places, and he has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He is a graduate of William Carey University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Curing Defilement
by Larry Winebrenner
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
When the Pharisees washed before eating, they were not trying to destroy germs. The cause of disease had not yet been discovered. It was generally believed that devils caused just about every kind of illness -- physical and emotional. Thus, the cleansing was not a physical cleansing, but a spiritual one.
I sometimes suspected my grandmother of being a closet Pharisee. You'd better never come to the table with unwashed hands. And among her favorite sayings was "Cleanliness is next to godliness."
Of course, we wash our hands these days for physical cleansing, and rightly so. You would think that the human race would have discovered the importance of clean hands before the middle of the nineteenth century. Not so.
As late as 1870, about half of the people operated on died from infection. It wasn't simply disease filtering in from some other sick person. The infections were caused by the medical staffs themselves. Not only did doctors not wear rubber gloves (they weren't invented yet). They didn't even wash their hands between operations. Doctors wore no smocks or covering, no masks, no protective clothing at all. They did not sterilize instruments. They did not operate in a sterile environment. And when Dr. Joseph Lister proposed these sterile procedures, the medical profession scorned him. They rejected his advice. Only Louis Pasteur was sympathetic.
One of the major reasons for surgery were compound fractures -- breaks in which the broken bone penetrates the skin. Infections from compound fractures were so common that doctors would amputate a limb rather than trying to repair the break. Even so, the death rate from amputation infections was 40 percent. Because of Dr. Lister's work, by 1910 deaths had dropped to 3 percent.
Dr. Lister revealed great information about the health of our physical bodies. Many modern psychologists believe they have done the same thing for behavior problems. The great physician was way ahead of them. Freudians, for example, track emotional problems to the id -- a primitive inner self over which we exercise little control. Jesus called it "the heart." All that bad stuff that pops out of you -- fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly -- comes from the heart.
Jesus' point, though, was that you do have control of your heart. Just as one might wash hands, so must one cleanse the heart. Tradition is just fine, but obedience is really the important thing.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Clean Living: What Pharisees and Raccoons Have in Common
by John Sumwalt
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all of the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it....) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
-- Mark 7:1-5
What do Pharisees and raccoons have in common? Pharisees, according to our text, lived by strict hand-washing rules handed down by generations of Jewish elders, and they refused to eat anything from the local Pick 'n Save that had not been well washed. Raccoons, a nocturnal mammal found in North and Central America, are legendary for washing their food before they eat it. It is not known if this behavior is instinctual or if it has been handed down by generations of pious raccoon elders. Likely it is the latter, but who knows what some future Quran-like raccoon text might reveal.
I had an opportunity to observe some members of the raccoon species up close in a most unexpected way during our recent vacation. Every year in mid-July, we go to our farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin the minute that Vacation Bible School is over. This year we were awakened at 5:00 a.m. on the eighth night of our precious two weeks in the country by the insistent barking of our little West Highland Terrier. She was bouncing up and down beside the bed in a determined way that left no doubt that something was seriously amiss. I jumped out of bed, threw on my robe, opened the bedroom door, and Chloe was off like a shot. Halfway down the stairs I smelled a familiar pungent aroma and was immediately filled with a deep visceral dread. Something was in the house and Chloe was headed straight for it.
I knew it was a raccoon because we had seen them hanging around the garbage can all week. They had been able to get the lid off the can one night, a lid that takes me great effort and a hammer to remove, and had scattered refuse all over the driveway. Chloe had been spending each evening at the window on raccoon watch, coming often to interrupt our movie watching with excited yip-yip reports of her sightings. The distinct animal odor of these night bandits hung heavy in the air each morning outside the front door.
The dread I felt was not only that this wild creature was loose in our home; I feared that Chloe would be seriously hurt because I knew that she would attack and that the coon would respond viciously. Terriers are bred to give no quarter and raccoons are fierce fighters.
I heard snarling as I slid around the landing. I ran past the island in the kitchen and stopped sharply. Chloe had the female coon cornered under the fern in the dining room. There was an open window with the screen pushed in just above the fern, the point of entry. I yelled for Chloe to back off, and miraculously she did. I had never been able to get her to give up the chase when she was onto a rabbit or a woodchuck. Somehow, in this instance, she knew that discretion was the better part of valor. Jo came running down the stairs, grabbed Chloe, took her back up to the bedroom, locked the door, then returned quickly to help me figure out how to get the coon out of the house. By this time I had grabbed a broom and taken Chloe's place in the standoff. We stood there in this primal stare down, homo sapien vs. mammal, for several minutes. It was the mammal that blinked. She slipped up around the fern onto the window sill, gave one last look around, and then was gone through the curtains, over the deck into the cornfield.
Jo quickly locked the window and we breathed a sigh of relief.
We were just beginning to survey the damage when four baby raccoons appeared, scampering around the island on a beeline to the point of entry where mama had disappeared. Three of them made it to the window and huddled together in a ball of fur and tails on the sill above the fern. They were half-grown, about the size of house cats. The fourth ran out onto the enclosed porch. We barricaded the door and turned first to deal with the other three terrified adolescents hovering by the now-locked window. How to get them out?
I moved slowly to the patio doors that led out to the deck, propped one open, and waited. As soon as the babies smelled the fresh air they ran for freedom and mama's waiting arms (make that paws). We then opened a window on the porch and closed the door again, confident that the fourth delinquent would make his escape in his own good time.
We spent the next hour, fueled by varmint-induced adrenalin, cleaning up after the masked raiders. There was a spilled drink mix with numerous lick spots on the laundry room floor. Sticky tracks marked a trail of destruction down the hallway, across the kitchen floor, and up the walls in several places. Five hot dog buns were missing from the breadbox. The fruit on the island was untouched, but just to the right of the sink there was a single piece of a rhubarb pie with one bite out of the center. I'd had a double date planned with that piece of pie and a large dollop of whipped cream.
We will never know for sure why the ravenous coons did not devour the entire piece. My theory is that the mama coon had just dipped into the pie and was about to turn on the faucet to wash it when the ever-vigilant watchdog appeared to drive her away. Like the hypocritical Pharisees who the ever-vigilant Jesus ridicules for their strict adherence to cleanliness traditions, this hungry raccoon could have had her pie and eaten it too had she not been hampered by the rigid, instinctual behaviors of her species.
John Sumwalt is a noted storyteller and the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
Called to Be a King
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
Where does Psalm 45 come from? Who wrote it? Why is it included among the other psalms?
Actually, it is one of many "royal psalms" found in that collection. These were written (sung?) to honor the king. Some of them were written by David himself while he was king. The king was not so much an individual as a role, a position, a calling. No individual could take credit for being King of Israel.
But picture this. The king is about to get married. What can be said about him? What can be said to him to remind him of the king's calling to be king?
First, the individual is recognized for special qualities of refinement and beauty ("most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips" - v. 2). Then, before the praise even has time to sink in, the king is told it comes from God ("God has blessed you... God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness.").
Yet, the record of kings of Israel is very spotty. The first king, Saul, stood head and shoulders over others, but failed in obedience at a crucial moment. Even David, Israel's greatest king, was caught in a trap of passion and had an innocent man killed so that he might have the man's wife.
What, then, does this have to say to us mere commoners of no royal blood? Think again. We are sisters and brothers of the King of kings. We, too, are called to be faithful members of the royal household.
What does it mean to be in the royal household?
As we examine earthly royalty, we get a notion. First of all, being royal means respect. Nothing upsets the head of a royal family more than behavior by family members that brings disrespect to the royal family. Queens may rail against the media for reporting behavior of royal household members that brings shame on the royal family. Yet they know it is not the media that is at fault. If there were no bad behavior to begin with, there would be no disrespectful news to report.
So the first element of being a member of the royal family is to maintain respectful behavior.
A second element of membership in the royal family is recognition. Royal family members are recognized because of their attitude and demeanor.
I once visited The Treetops, the original tree lodge, a world-famous vacation site in the Aberdares National Park in Kenya. In February of 1952, a young English girl climbed the tree as a Princess one afternoon. The following morning she descended as Queen Elizabeth II. King George VI, her father, had died during the night. Several of the employees from that fateful day were still there when I visited. They all agreed that there was no doubt that Elizabeth was a princess. There also was no doubt the next day that she was a queen. There was no visible change, simply a different presence.
The second element of being a member of the royal family is attitude and demeanor. Be royal in bearing.
A third element of royalty is responsibility. The Duke of York was once told what a great privilege it was to be in his position. "Privilege!" he said. "Privilege? Would that it were. Rather it is a great burden of responsibility. I carry the welfare of every Englishman on my back."
Is anyone hungry? Is anyone sick? Is anyone naked? If so, our task as royalty is clear. We have a great burden of responsibility.
Respect, recognition, and responsibility -- that's what it means to be in the royal family.
Larry Winebrenner is a retired pastor and college teacher who lives in Miami Gardens, Florida.
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StoryShare, August 30, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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.
