A Dishonest Painter
Stories
Contents
Post-9/11 Comfort
A Story to Live By: "A Dishonest Painter"
Sharing Visions: "Wisdom from Above" by Martinus Cawley
Good Stories: "Help Me Get Home" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "Showing Hospitality to Little Ones" by John Sumwalt
An Invitation to Send Stories
Post-9/11 Comfort
The last verse of Psalm 1 offers comfort to all of us who are still feeling the post-traumatic effects of 9/11 24 months later: "... the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."
Katy Soulas tells in People magazine that her husband Tim always kept in touch whether he was traveling in Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, or Singapore:
"He would be homesick ... so we'd focus on one point in the sky, like the Big Dipper, and talk to each other, knowing that at least we were looking at the same point."
On the night of September 11, when Tim, 35, who worked on the 105th floor of Tower One, didn't make it home, Katy, 36, who was then three months pregnant, gathered her five children in her king-size bed and lulled them to sleep by saying the rosary. Then she recalls, as she looked out her window to a bright starry sky, "a glow took over my room, and I knew he was with me. It was peaceful and beautiful. I said, 'Honey, where are you? I hope you are OK.' And he said, 'I am OK. I'm with God. And I don't want you to think about what it was like for me today.'" (People magazine, 9/16/02, pg. 50)
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A Story to Live By
A Dishonest Painter
For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
James 3:16
There was a painter by the name of Bob who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often would thin his paint to make it go further.
As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Church decided to do a big restoration job that involved the painting of one of its biggest churches. Bob put in a bid, and because his price was so low, he got the job.
He went about erecting the trestles and setting up the planks and buying the paint, and, yes, thinning it down with the turpentine.
Bob was painting away up on the scaffolding, with the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was an horrendous clap of thunder and the sky opened.
The torrential rain washed the thinned paint off the church and knocked Bob off the scaffold and on to the lawn, among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.
Bob was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: "Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?"
And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke ...
"Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"
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Sharing Visions
Wisdom from Above
by Martinus Cawley
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits ...
James 3:17a
About 15 years ago, as I prepared for a big cider-pressing, I had to move the top-heavy hydraulic unit, and I foolishly failed to secure it to the forklift; it toppled over and a key pipe was broken. No one was on hand who knew anything about plumbing, and I foresaw that my own efforts to repair it would take all day. Then I recalled that the man who had helped me the previous year (and who had since died) had been an expert machinist, and had done some plumbing on that machine. With him in mind, I went about the task. It was extremely delicate, but soon I was hearing his voice over my shoulder, "This wrench on that pipe ... a little firmer ... easy does it ... a little more...." Within fifteen minutes, the whole thing was back in working order.
Another time, in the late 1980s, I heard from a nun I had dealt with back in the wild 1960s, when many who, like she and I, had entered religion as teenagers, were discovering how exciting it was to speak freely to members of the opposite sex. She had once again come west for the summer, and wanted to come up and visit. Part of me thought, "To hell with the nonsense of the sixties," while another part felt a frank discussion would be profitable to both of us. The quandary kept coming up in my mind for days, but one day, as I was walking down the road to the farm, I distinctly heard the voice of a saintly and elderly local nun, who for years had given me apples for cider, and who recently had died. Her voice simply said, "I wouldn't if I were you." That settled it. And then, early this year, by a happy Providence, that original nun from the sixties met up with me briefly at a bus station, and we had a delightful little exchange and reconciliation.
Martinus Cawley left Australia at seventeen to become a Trappist. He studied in Rome and Jerusalem. His monastic day includes bookbinding, harvest-gleaning, recycling, translating, writing, and printing biographical and descriptive texts from the abbey's multiple heritage. Write to him at Guadalupe Abbey, Lafayette, OR 97127 or e-mail to martinus@trappistabbey.org
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Good Stories
Help Me Get Home
by John Sumwalt
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Mark 9:36-37
There was once a little boy about ten years old who lived in a grand old house on the edge of the business district in a small city. The house had a big front yard and an even bigger back yard which ran all the way down to the river. It was a setting which promised endless opportunities for little boys.
But, alas, not for this one, because he was never at home. Home didn't mean anything special to him. It was only a big empty house and a big vacant yard. There was no one there who cared if he was there. In fact, he had a feeling down deep inside, so deep that he rarely noticed it, and so deep that if you had asked him about it he would have denied it, a feeling that no one cared about him at all. So he was never at home. He was always uptown looking for something.
He had a daily routine. First he would check the pay phones for change, then he hit the laundromat and all the pop machines and newspaper stands in front of the stores on Main Street. He always picked up a quarter or two. Then it was off to the bars. He could usually find a drunk who would give him a dime toward a candy bar or a bag of potato chips. Sometimes, not every day lest he wear out his welcome, he would run into the stores and cause such a commotion that the storekeepers would give him a pack of gum or a roll of Life Savers just so he would go away. And so he would go hang around on the street corners, and hang over the railing on the bridge, and sit down in the doorways and watch people go by.
Long after the stores were closed and most people had gone home for supper, he would still be there, barefoot, shirtless, in the same frayed cutoffs he wore every day, peering around corners, peeking into windows, looking -- for what he didn't know. He only knew it was something he didn't have. And he had a vague suspicion it was something he had a right to have, because it seemed like everyone else had it.
One Sunday morning, while everyone was in church singing the glories of God out of the hymnal, and the little boy was looking and watching in his usual places, he was suddenly overwhelmed by an impulse which he couldn't deny. He reached down into the gutter and picked up a stone. And in utter frustration, in the anger and the hurt and the longing which had welled up for so long in the deep recesses of his heart, he threw it -- through the stained-glass window of the church.
The congregation stopped singing in mid-verse; the organist stopped playing; the minister looked up from his notes; one of the ushers went to get a broom; the chairman of the trustees calculated (in his head) how much it would cost to replace the window, and somewhere in the back of the church one of the little babies began to cry. Everyone else sat in stunned silence. Who would do such a thing? On a Sunday morning? During church?
Through the shards of broken glass some of those sitting near the window could see who had thrown the stone. "It's a little kid. It's that Burlson kid. Ohhh!" Ripples of "ohs" went up and down the pews. Now everybody knew.
The minister didn't know what to do, so he did what he always did when he didn't know what to do. He asked the congregation, "What shall we do?"
Some wanted to call the police. Others said, "Call his parents."
"No," someone said, "you know they're never home."
One man suggested writing a letter to the city council. He said, "There should be an ordinance to keep kids like that off the streets."
Another man stood up and said, "Well, we've got to do something. We can't have kids throwing rocks through our stained-glass windows. It won't be safe to come to church. For all we know he may throw another one in here at any moment."
Everyone ducked their heads and sank down a little lower in their pews.
"I vote we go catch him right now and tan his little hide!" There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.
"Yeah, that's what we should do. Let's go get him."
"Why don't we just go talk to him?" It was old Mrs. Aikers from the retirement apartment building up the street. "Why don't we just go talk to him and see what he wants?"
Suddenly it became very quiet in the church. All eyes were on Mrs. Aikers as she climbed slowly to her feet, hanging tightly onto her cane. "Maybe he just needs someone to talk to," she said. "I'll go talk to him."
Everyone watched in silence as the old woman made her way with some difficulty to the back of the church. They were more stunned than when the stone came through the window. Mrs. Aikers was the last person anyone expected to don anything about anything! No one even helped her out the door.
They heard her, though, through the hole in the broken window. "Jerry," she said, "come here. I want you to help me get home."
The very next morning the chairman of the trustees got a call. It was old Mrs. Aikers. "Frank," she said, "I want you to get that window fixed. Can you do it by Sunday?"
"We'll do our best," he told her.
"And by the way," she said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd send me the bill."
The next Sunday they were back in church together -- old Mrs. Aikers and Jerry Burlson, sitting side by side in the very spot where the stone came through the window.
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Scrap Pile
(The excerpts below are from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, September 10, 2000. Some of the illustrations and statistics quoted are dated.)
Showing Hospitality To Little Ones
by John Sumwalt
Text: Mark 9:30-37
Jesus heard the disciples arguing one day as they walked along the road. And when they all got into the house he said to them, "Boys, what were you fighting about back there?"
The silence was deafening.
"We weren't fighting."
Another one piped up and said, "He started it, he thinks he's better than all of the rest of us."
"Did not." "Did too!" "Did not!" "Did too!"
Isn't that how it goes? And I'm not talking about children. This is about all of us.
Jesus didn't enter into their argument. He sat down. Rabbis in those days sat down when they had something important to say. The 12 all gathered around him and watched as he took a little child in his arms and said, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me."
What a beautiful image that is, but lest we are tempted to revel in this lovely thought, remember that just a few verses later Mark quotes Jesus as saying, "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."
Jesus is serious about hospitality to little ones. There are severe consequences for those who cause hurt to little ones. And I'm not just talking about children.
The key word in both of these passages is "great." True, greatness is found in humble service, in caring for little ones, all of those among us who are without power or influence.
Who are the greatest in Milwaukee? Those who do what Jesus says, whatever their calling; those mothers and fathers, babysitters, daycare workers, doctors, nurses, nurses' aides, social workers, crossing guards, police officers, firemen, paramedics, teachers, librarians, television and radio producers, politicians, writers, editors, CEOs of industry, preachers and poets, grandpas and grandmas -- whoever welcomes little ones, cares for them, loves them, protects them, keeps them safe. It's not necessarily those who make the greatest salaries, but whoever looks out for the well-being of children and the elderly, the sick, the poor, the dying, the handicapped and the oppressed -- all of the little ones among us.
In daycare centers they are the ones that the children run to and hang on to. Children know who loves them.
There is a crossing guard over at the intersection of North Avenue and Ludington, an African-American woman in her sixties. She greets Jo and I warmly when we pass that corner on our morning walk, and she always is glad to see us, always has something to say, asks where we've been if she hasn't seen us for a while. But let one little one appear and she is all business. She is out in the middle of the street with her sign until they are safely across. And if someone doesn't stop or slow down soon enough, she is fierce! You can hear her at Mayfair Mall. You hear what I'm saying? You don't want to mess with this woman -- and if you do anything to threaten a child while she is around, she is going to get you! You would rather have a millstone hung around your neck and be cast into the Menomonee River. She is one of Jesus' own. She takes care of little ones.
I have been enjoying the view of the apple tree in our church courtyard. It is the first thing I see when I look out my office window. It is hanging full of ripe red apples, many of which are so ripe they are starting to fall. The apples are exceptionally fine this year, bigger than I have ever seen in my six seasons here, and mostly without spots or worms. One year we picked the apples and some of you made apple pies for the All Church Dinner. But most years the apples fall off and go to waste. The kids throw them at each other on the way home from school, or toss them out into the street.
It occurred to me as I was reading the paper yesterday morning that there are some neighborhoods in our country where those apples would be eaten well before they were ripe enough to fall off the tree. The headline of the article I was reading was "Number of Hungry Families Drops 24%." That is indeed something to celebrate. But that is not all the article said:
"All together there were 27 million people, including nearly 11 million children, who were hungry or at least food insecure in 1999 (meaning that they did not have assured access at all times to adequate food), down from 30 million four years earlier.... Among the working poor, the number of families going hungry was dramatically down between 1995 and 1999, but more than one in four households was still considered food insecure." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, September 9, 2000, p. 2A)
Who will feed all of these little ones? In a country where baseball and football players earn millions and the biggest thing on most people's minds is whether we can afford to build new stadiums, who will feed the little ones?
George W. Bush says, "No child will be left behind." Al Gore agrees with him -- all the while both of them spend millions on commercials arguing about who is the greatest, and cozying up to the wealthy corporate sponsors who provide millions in soft money to fund their arguing.
Jesus would hold up a little child and remind them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me."
Who will feed the children? Who will take care of the little ones?
When my father was dying in the nursing home in Richland Center, we were amazed at how well the staff took care of him. The doctors and nurses, social workers and physical therapists, everyone went out of their way to make him comfortable, to talk to him when he was low. But the ones who loved him most were the ones who were paid the least; the nurses' aides. Some of them came back to see him on their days off. They were the ones who came to the funeral home and put their arms around us and wept with us. They know how to take care of little ones.
Jesus said, "Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name welcomes me." As Tony the Tiger says, "They're grrrreat!" And then Jesus says something even more profound:
"... and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me...."
Those who welcome children, those who teach, those who mentor, those who give time and energy to care for the least in the world are the closest to God ... and are most ready to meet God when their time comes.
A friend sent me this story last week of a little one who received Jesus' warmest welcome:
A man's daughter had asked the local pastor to come and pray with her father. When the pastor arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows and an empty chair beside his bed. The pastor assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me," he said.
"No, who are you?"
"I'm the new associate at your local church," the pastor replied. "When I saw the empty chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"
Puzzled, the pastor shut the door.
"I've never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man, "but all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it always went right over my head. I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, 'Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here's what I suggest: Sit down on a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, "I will be with you always." Then just speak to him and listen in the same way you're doing with me right now.' So I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful, though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."
The pastor was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him and returned to the church.
Two nights later, the daughter called to tell the pastor that her daddy had died that afternoon. "Did he seem to die in peace?" the pastor asked.
"Yes, when I left the house around two o'clock he called me over to his bedside, told me one of his corny jokes, and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange, in fact, beyond strange, more weird. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on a chair beside the bed."
(source of story unknown)
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An Invitation to Send Stories
We are collecting personal stories for a third volume in the vision series, to be released in 2004. The new working title is Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives. If you have any stories to share of your personal experience of the holy, please send them to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
New Book Released
We are happy to report that the second volume in the vision series, Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences, is now available from CSS Publishing Company. For more information about the book click here.
Special Pricing for StoryShare Subscribers
Sharing Visions retails for $19.95. CSS has graciously agreed to make the book available to StoryShare subscribers for just $11.97 (plus shipping & handling). To take advantage of this special pricing, you must use the special code SS40SV. Simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.
Praise for Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions. What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
StoryShare, September 21, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
Post-9/11 Comfort
A Story to Live By: "A Dishonest Painter"
Sharing Visions: "Wisdom from Above" by Martinus Cawley
Good Stories: "Help Me Get Home" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "Showing Hospitality to Little Ones" by John Sumwalt
An Invitation to Send Stories
Post-9/11 Comfort
The last verse of Psalm 1 offers comfort to all of us who are still feeling the post-traumatic effects of 9/11 24 months later: "... the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."
Katy Soulas tells in People magazine that her husband Tim always kept in touch whether he was traveling in Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, or Singapore:
"He would be homesick ... so we'd focus on one point in the sky, like the Big Dipper, and talk to each other, knowing that at least we were looking at the same point."
On the night of September 11, when Tim, 35, who worked on the 105th floor of Tower One, didn't make it home, Katy, 36, who was then three months pregnant, gathered her five children in her king-size bed and lulled them to sleep by saying the rosary. Then she recalls, as she looked out her window to a bright starry sky, "a glow took over my room, and I knew he was with me. It was peaceful and beautiful. I said, 'Honey, where are you? I hope you are OK.' And he said, 'I am OK. I'm with God. And I don't want you to think about what it was like for me today.'" (People magazine, 9/16/02, pg. 50)
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A Story to Live By
A Dishonest Painter
For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
James 3:16
There was a painter by the name of Bob who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often would thin his paint to make it go further.
As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Church decided to do a big restoration job that involved the painting of one of its biggest churches. Bob put in a bid, and because his price was so low, he got the job.
He went about erecting the trestles and setting up the planks and buying the paint, and, yes, thinning it down with the turpentine.
Bob was painting away up on the scaffolding, with the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was an horrendous clap of thunder and the sky opened.
The torrential rain washed the thinned paint off the church and knocked Bob off the scaffold and on to the lawn, among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.
Bob was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: "Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?"
And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke ...
"Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"
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Sharing Visions
Wisdom from Above
by Martinus Cawley
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits ...
James 3:17a
About 15 years ago, as I prepared for a big cider-pressing, I had to move the top-heavy hydraulic unit, and I foolishly failed to secure it to the forklift; it toppled over and a key pipe was broken. No one was on hand who knew anything about plumbing, and I foresaw that my own efforts to repair it would take all day. Then I recalled that the man who had helped me the previous year (and who had since died) had been an expert machinist, and had done some plumbing on that machine. With him in mind, I went about the task. It was extremely delicate, but soon I was hearing his voice over my shoulder, "This wrench on that pipe ... a little firmer ... easy does it ... a little more...." Within fifteen minutes, the whole thing was back in working order.
Another time, in the late 1980s, I heard from a nun I had dealt with back in the wild 1960s, when many who, like she and I, had entered religion as teenagers, were discovering how exciting it was to speak freely to members of the opposite sex. She had once again come west for the summer, and wanted to come up and visit. Part of me thought, "To hell with the nonsense of the sixties," while another part felt a frank discussion would be profitable to both of us. The quandary kept coming up in my mind for days, but one day, as I was walking down the road to the farm, I distinctly heard the voice of a saintly and elderly local nun, who for years had given me apples for cider, and who recently had died. Her voice simply said, "I wouldn't if I were you." That settled it. And then, early this year, by a happy Providence, that original nun from the sixties met up with me briefly at a bus station, and we had a delightful little exchange and reconciliation.
Martinus Cawley left Australia at seventeen to become a Trappist. He studied in Rome and Jerusalem. His monastic day includes bookbinding, harvest-gleaning, recycling, translating, writing, and printing biographical and descriptive texts from the abbey's multiple heritage. Write to him at Guadalupe Abbey, Lafayette, OR 97127 or e-mail to martinus@trappistabbey.org
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Good Stories
Help Me Get Home
by John Sumwalt
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Mark 9:36-37
There was once a little boy about ten years old who lived in a grand old house on the edge of the business district in a small city. The house had a big front yard and an even bigger back yard which ran all the way down to the river. It was a setting which promised endless opportunities for little boys.
But, alas, not for this one, because he was never at home. Home didn't mean anything special to him. It was only a big empty house and a big vacant yard. There was no one there who cared if he was there. In fact, he had a feeling down deep inside, so deep that he rarely noticed it, and so deep that if you had asked him about it he would have denied it, a feeling that no one cared about him at all. So he was never at home. He was always uptown looking for something.
He had a daily routine. First he would check the pay phones for change, then he hit the laundromat and all the pop machines and newspaper stands in front of the stores on Main Street. He always picked up a quarter or two. Then it was off to the bars. He could usually find a drunk who would give him a dime toward a candy bar or a bag of potato chips. Sometimes, not every day lest he wear out his welcome, he would run into the stores and cause such a commotion that the storekeepers would give him a pack of gum or a roll of Life Savers just so he would go away. And so he would go hang around on the street corners, and hang over the railing on the bridge, and sit down in the doorways and watch people go by.
Long after the stores were closed and most people had gone home for supper, he would still be there, barefoot, shirtless, in the same frayed cutoffs he wore every day, peering around corners, peeking into windows, looking -- for what he didn't know. He only knew it was something he didn't have. And he had a vague suspicion it was something he had a right to have, because it seemed like everyone else had it.
One Sunday morning, while everyone was in church singing the glories of God out of the hymnal, and the little boy was looking and watching in his usual places, he was suddenly overwhelmed by an impulse which he couldn't deny. He reached down into the gutter and picked up a stone. And in utter frustration, in the anger and the hurt and the longing which had welled up for so long in the deep recesses of his heart, he threw it -- through the stained-glass window of the church.
The congregation stopped singing in mid-verse; the organist stopped playing; the minister looked up from his notes; one of the ushers went to get a broom; the chairman of the trustees calculated (in his head) how much it would cost to replace the window, and somewhere in the back of the church one of the little babies began to cry. Everyone else sat in stunned silence. Who would do such a thing? On a Sunday morning? During church?
Through the shards of broken glass some of those sitting near the window could see who had thrown the stone. "It's a little kid. It's that Burlson kid. Ohhh!" Ripples of "ohs" went up and down the pews. Now everybody knew.
The minister didn't know what to do, so he did what he always did when he didn't know what to do. He asked the congregation, "What shall we do?"
Some wanted to call the police. Others said, "Call his parents."
"No," someone said, "you know they're never home."
One man suggested writing a letter to the city council. He said, "There should be an ordinance to keep kids like that off the streets."
Another man stood up and said, "Well, we've got to do something. We can't have kids throwing rocks through our stained-glass windows. It won't be safe to come to church. For all we know he may throw another one in here at any moment."
Everyone ducked their heads and sank down a little lower in their pews.
"I vote we go catch him right now and tan his little hide!" There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.
"Yeah, that's what we should do. Let's go get him."
"Why don't we just go talk to him?" It was old Mrs. Aikers from the retirement apartment building up the street. "Why don't we just go talk to him and see what he wants?"
Suddenly it became very quiet in the church. All eyes were on Mrs. Aikers as she climbed slowly to her feet, hanging tightly onto her cane. "Maybe he just needs someone to talk to," she said. "I'll go talk to him."
Everyone watched in silence as the old woman made her way with some difficulty to the back of the church. They were more stunned than when the stone came through the window. Mrs. Aikers was the last person anyone expected to don anything about anything! No one even helped her out the door.
They heard her, though, through the hole in the broken window. "Jerry," she said, "come here. I want you to help me get home."
The very next morning the chairman of the trustees got a call. It was old Mrs. Aikers. "Frank," she said, "I want you to get that window fixed. Can you do it by Sunday?"
"We'll do our best," he told her.
"And by the way," she said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd send me the bill."
The next Sunday they were back in church together -- old Mrs. Aikers and Jerry Burlson, sitting side by side in the very spot where the stone came through the window.
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Scrap Pile
(The excerpts below are from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, September 10, 2000. Some of the illustrations and statistics quoted are dated.)
Showing Hospitality To Little Ones
by John Sumwalt
Text: Mark 9:30-37
Jesus heard the disciples arguing one day as they walked along the road. And when they all got into the house he said to them, "Boys, what were you fighting about back there?"
The silence was deafening.
"We weren't fighting."
Another one piped up and said, "He started it, he thinks he's better than all of the rest of us."
"Did not." "Did too!" "Did not!" "Did too!"
Isn't that how it goes? And I'm not talking about children. This is about all of us.
Jesus didn't enter into their argument. He sat down. Rabbis in those days sat down when they had something important to say. The 12 all gathered around him and watched as he took a little child in his arms and said, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me."
What a beautiful image that is, but lest we are tempted to revel in this lovely thought, remember that just a few verses later Mark quotes Jesus as saying, "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."
Jesus is serious about hospitality to little ones. There are severe consequences for those who cause hurt to little ones. And I'm not just talking about children.
The key word in both of these passages is "great." True, greatness is found in humble service, in caring for little ones, all of those among us who are without power or influence.
Who are the greatest in Milwaukee? Those who do what Jesus says, whatever their calling; those mothers and fathers, babysitters, daycare workers, doctors, nurses, nurses' aides, social workers, crossing guards, police officers, firemen, paramedics, teachers, librarians, television and radio producers, politicians, writers, editors, CEOs of industry, preachers and poets, grandpas and grandmas -- whoever welcomes little ones, cares for them, loves them, protects them, keeps them safe. It's not necessarily those who make the greatest salaries, but whoever looks out for the well-being of children and the elderly, the sick, the poor, the dying, the handicapped and the oppressed -- all of the little ones among us.
In daycare centers they are the ones that the children run to and hang on to. Children know who loves them.
There is a crossing guard over at the intersection of North Avenue and Ludington, an African-American woman in her sixties. She greets Jo and I warmly when we pass that corner on our morning walk, and she always is glad to see us, always has something to say, asks where we've been if she hasn't seen us for a while. But let one little one appear and she is all business. She is out in the middle of the street with her sign until they are safely across. And if someone doesn't stop or slow down soon enough, she is fierce! You can hear her at Mayfair Mall. You hear what I'm saying? You don't want to mess with this woman -- and if you do anything to threaten a child while she is around, she is going to get you! You would rather have a millstone hung around your neck and be cast into the Menomonee River. She is one of Jesus' own. She takes care of little ones.
I have been enjoying the view of the apple tree in our church courtyard. It is the first thing I see when I look out my office window. It is hanging full of ripe red apples, many of which are so ripe they are starting to fall. The apples are exceptionally fine this year, bigger than I have ever seen in my six seasons here, and mostly without spots or worms. One year we picked the apples and some of you made apple pies for the All Church Dinner. But most years the apples fall off and go to waste. The kids throw them at each other on the way home from school, or toss them out into the street.
It occurred to me as I was reading the paper yesterday morning that there are some neighborhoods in our country where those apples would be eaten well before they were ripe enough to fall off the tree. The headline of the article I was reading was "Number of Hungry Families Drops 24%." That is indeed something to celebrate. But that is not all the article said:
"All together there were 27 million people, including nearly 11 million children, who were hungry or at least food insecure in 1999 (meaning that they did not have assured access at all times to adequate food), down from 30 million four years earlier.... Among the working poor, the number of families going hungry was dramatically down between 1995 and 1999, but more than one in four households was still considered food insecure." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, September 9, 2000, p. 2A)
Who will feed all of these little ones? In a country where baseball and football players earn millions and the biggest thing on most people's minds is whether we can afford to build new stadiums, who will feed the little ones?
George W. Bush says, "No child will be left behind." Al Gore agrees with him -- all the while both of them spend millions on commercials arguing about who is the greatest, and cozying up to the wealthy corporate sponsors who provide millions in soft money to fund their arguing.
Jesus would hold up a little child and remind them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me."
Who will feed the children? Who will take care of the little ones?
When my father was dying in the nursing home in Richland Center, we were amazed at how well the staff took care of him. The doctors and nurses, social workers and physical therapists, everyone went out of their way to make him comfortable, to talk to him when he was low. But the ones who loved him most were the ones who were paid the least; the nurses' aides. Some of them came back to see him on their days off. They were the ones who came to the funeral home and put their arms around us and wept with us. They know how to take care of little ones.
Jesus said, "Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name welcomes me." As Tony the Tiger says, "They're grrrreat!" And then Jesus says something even more profound:
"... and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me...."
Those who welcome children, those who teach, those who mentor, those who give time and energy to care for the least in the world are the closest to God ... and are most ready to meet God when their time comes.
A friend sent me this story last week of a little one who received Jesus' warmest welcome:
A man's daughter had asked the local pastor to come and pray with her father. When the pastor arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows and an empty chair beside his bed. The pastor assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me," he said.
"No, who are you?"
"I'm the new associate at your local church," the pastor replied. "When I saw the empty chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"
Puzzled, the pastor shut the door.
"I've never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man, "but all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it always went right over my head. I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, 'Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here's what I suggest: Sit down on a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, "I will be with you always." Then just speak to him and listen in the same way you're doing with me right now.' So I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful, though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."
The pastor was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him and returned to the church.
Two nights later, the daughter called to tell the pastor that her daddy had died that afternoon. "Did he seem to die in peace?" the pastor asked.
"Yes, when I left the house around two o'clock he called me over to his bedside, told me one of his corny jokes, and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange, in fact, beyond strange, more weird. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on a chair beside the bed."
(source of story unknown)
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An Invitation to Send Stories
We are collecting personal stories for a third volume in the vision series, to be released in 2004. The new working title is Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives. If you have any stories to share of your personal experience of the holy, please send them to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
New Book Released
We are happy to report that the second volume in the vision series, Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences, is now available from CSS Publishing Company. For more information about the book click here.
Special Pricing for StoryShare Subscribers
Sharing Visions retails for $19.95. CSS has graciously agreed to make the book available to StoryShare subscribers for just $11.97 (plus shipping & handling). To take advantage of this special pricing, you must use the special code SS40SV. Simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.
Praise for Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions. What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
StoryShare, September 21, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
