The Disturbing Witness Of Grace
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Tarawa" by Keith Hewitt
"The Disturbing Witness of Grace" by Peter Andrew Smith
"The Sight of Goodness and Mercy" by Peter Andrew Smith
What's Up This Week
As part of the body of Christ, each Christian is called to be Jesus to the world, to spread his message of love and mercy wherever we go. While the first image of spreading the gospel that comes to mind may be a minister in a pulpit, that is not the predominant method. Most of the time, it is in the small, everyday things that we do -- the conversations we make, the attitudes we have, the actions we choose -- that radiate Christ the most. When the times come to show Christ's love, what will we do? In "Tarawa," a young, scrawny soldier becomes Christ to his fellow soldiers in the heat of battle. "The Disturbing Witness of Grace" speaks of how we must be Jesus to those who may even claim to know him already. "The Sight of Goodness and Mercy" shows us how we can spread the peace of Christ in a tumultuous world without saying a word.
* * * * * * * * *
Tarawa
Keith Hewitt
1 Samuel 16:1-13
If you looked up "geek" in the dictionary, his picture would be there. He was a tall kid, almost six feet, and wouldn't have weighed 140 pounds soaking wet; he had big ears that sat like bookends on either side of a bristle of blond hair, and GI glasses that never quite fit right -- he was always squinting and scrunching his nose to try to inch them back into position. When he did PT, out on the deck with the rest of us, he was all elbows and knees, like a skeleton dancing on the end of a string.
He was right out of corpsman training when he landed on our troopship, and so fresh from the farm that Joe Blakely used to say you could still smell cow manure when he walked by -- only he didn't say "manure." Don't remember where, exactly, he was from: Wisconsin, or Minnesota, some place like that. Maybe somewhere down South, he might have been a Baptist. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and he didn't know how to play poker -- there were enough guys in our squad that had a piece of his pay to make that pretty obvious. It got so he stopped trying after awhile; poker can be an expensive game to learn. We thought he had a girl -- he showed us her picture a couple of times before one of the guys recognized her as the picture that came with his wallet, too. After that, the picture disappeared.
Some of the guys used to give him a hard time about how young he was, and all, and the fact that he didn't seem to have any vices. Others rode him pretty hard about how scrawny he was, and the fact that he couldn't hardly do a dozen pushups without resting, or never managed to do more than five or six pull-ups before he slipped off the bar. He was the "before" guy in the Charles Atlas magazine ads. Most of the time, he just ignored it, lowered his head and plowed back into whatever he was supposed to be doing.
As we got closer to D-Day, though, it got worse. I watched it happen for a while, then one morning after PT, I caught him by the arm while the others were going back below deck. "Listen," I said as he tried to shrug off my hand, "don't mind them, they're just all keyed up. Time comes they need you, they'll be glad to have a corpsman around, whether or not he can do pushups." I watched him for a moment, watched those glasses slide up his nose "Thanks," he said, looking away. I let him go, and he stood there, eyes on the horizon as it pitched slowly up and down. "Is that it?" he asked, nodding toward a smudge on the horizon.
"It is," I agreed, watching it bob slowly. The wind was light, and blowing out from the island; I imagined I could smell trees and dirt. After weeks of smelling oil, sweat, and overused latrines, it smelled like heaven. "That's Tarawa." I looked at him again. "You'll do great. You've just got to be strong in here," I said, tapping his narrow chest. "Just do that, and the rest will come along."
They landed us the next day -- or tried to, anyway. The landing craft spent a couple of hours forming up, riding up and down in long, rolling waves while the big guns from our escorts pounded the island. We waited, clenched up and twitching in the bottom of the boat, drenched in the smell of vomit and gunpowder, trying not to flinch every time one of the battlewagons whistled a couple tons of steel over our heads, on its way to soften up the Japanese defenses. "It's gonna be a cakewalk," someone yelled, once, over the thunder and scream of a volley. One of the other guys growled, "Shut up," adding something unprintable as punctuation.
Then the landing craft were moving in.
About a quarter of a mile from Red Beach, the landing craft ran aground on a coral reef with a jolt that knocked most of us off our feet, and a long, grinding crash that slammed against the soles of our feet. We picked ourselves up, wiping hands on pants to get off the salt water and last night's chow, looking at each other with wide eyes and an infinite variety of "What now?" expressions. We were still trying to figure out what to do when the shore batteries opened up. The boat on our left was lifted out of the water and slammed back down as it burst into flames and just sort of came apart; the one behind us caught fire as the bosun's mate driving it pulled it off the reef; it drifted off, a Viking funeral pyre with live Vikings, screaming out their last moments on earth.
Our driver dropped the ramp and ordered us out. We scrambled out, stumbled across a couple yards of coral, then plunged into the warm, salty sea. The water was up to my neck, and slogging through it, holding my rifle overhead, was almost impossible. If you don't understand, try strapping a pair of typewriters over your shoulders, front and back, and then jumping into the deep end of a pool and walking for five or six hundred yards -- and keep in mind that the bottom of the pool is an even surface, not sand and coral shifting under your feet, and you don't have anyone in front of you skimming machinegun bullets across the surface of the water.
A guy in front of me stepped into a hole or something, and went under -- he was a little guy, scared to death. He didn't come back up; I angled around where it looked like he'd gone down, conscious every moment of the lead whizzing by like a swarm of the angriest bees in the world. An eternity or two later, I could feel that the bottom of the lagoon was sloping up -- and as my chest rose out of the water I realized how terribly exposed I was. I started to run.
When I was close enough that it wouldn't put my face in the water, I got down and crawled. Up on the beach, behind a fallen palm tree, I tried to make myself invisible -- or at least small. Sand spit up from the beach in front of me, and I heard the thwok! thwok! thwok! of slugs tearing into one end of the trunk. Trying to raise my eyes without actually lifting my head, I peered over the top of the tree trunk, gauging where I could go next. Directly ahead, there was a log wall I might be able to make.
And then I saw it.
Saw him, rather. About thirty yards ahead and to my left, the kid was bent over a Marine, sprawled in the sand. Lead sizzled by, and it was like watching an accident you can't prevent as I saw him rip open a bandage, strap it around the man's chest, then rip open a syrette of morphine and jab it in the man's neck. He leaned over and said something to him, patted him on the shoulder, then managed to crouch and sprint at the same time as he ran to another Marine, this one lying behind the body of another, screaming. He slid into the sand next to him, like he was stealing home, then rolled over and started talking to his patient.
His hands flew as he talked; he ripped open a pouch of sulfa powder, poured it into a wound in the man's thigh, ripped open a bandage with his teeth and other hand, pressed it against the pulsing mass until the blood stopped. He had a free hand, then, and he patted the man's forehead as he talked to him. More morphine, and then he was gone again, sprinting down the beach. Again, and again, zigzagging back and forth as more Marines came ashore, and more were hit. I took my eyes off him long enough to move to another spot -- a thicker tree, with a little depression behind it where a mortar had tried to take a chunk out of the beach. As I dove into it, a bullet creased the air next to my head.
I saw him digging into his kit at the last Marine, and coming up empty. He improvised a bandage, took off his belt to cinch it tight around the man's shoulder, looked angry and frustrated that he could do no more. He spotted me, then -- he was no more than ten yards away -- and he sprinted across that space, slid into the low spot next to me. "Give me your first aid kit," he said impatiently.
Wordlessly, I handed him the single bandage I carried.
"Thanks." He started to gather his legs under him for another run.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "One of these times you're not going to make it!"
"That guy," he said, nodding toward a Marine who had almost made it to the log wall that marked the edge of the beach. "He's in a bad way."
I chanced a longer look, frowned. "Bad enough he's not going to make it," I growled. "Did you see him? He's already dead, his brain just hasn't caught up. What can you do?"
He shrugged, squinted and wrinkled his nose to push back his glasses. "I guess I'm just going to be there, then. Nobody should die alone."
Then he was gone. I raised myself enough to push my rifle forward and over the log, pumped eight rounds into the jungle behind the wall. Don't know if anyone was there or not; I just hoped it would do some good. The kid was almost there when one leg was jerked out from under him. He sprawled forward, lay still for a moment, then dragged himself forward on both elbows 'til he was next to the Marine, leaving a dark trail in the sand.
I reloaded without looking, one hand stripping the cartridges down into the magazine while I watched. He leaned his head close to the man, and I could see his mouth moving as he spoke. The guy answered, and I watched as they talked back and forth, bullets whizzing around them, sand geysering here and there as slugs burrowed into sand. He unwrapped the bandage, pressed it against the wounded man with one hand, used his other to take the man's hand in his and hold it while they talked.
After a while, the man's mouth stopped moving. The kid waited for a moment or two, then raised himself on his elbows so he could lean forward and put an ear to the man's chest. That's when another bullet caught him; he dropped like a rag doll across the man he'd been comforting, and died. Alone. He never knew that most of the guys he helped that day eventually made it off the beach.
If you looked up "hero" in the dictionary, his picture would be there, too.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. More often than not, the packaging is not at all what we expect. Like David, we never know when we are going to be anointed, chosen to do God's work here on Earth. Sooner or later, though, God calls all of us to be heroes for him, each according to the gifts we've been given and the circumstances we find ourselves in. Whether it's preaching from the pulpit or teaching by example, talking to strangers or chatting with friends, we can all share the love of God and the power of salvation. We just need to recognize our gifts, and have the will and the heart to use them.
The rest will come along.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
The Disturbing Witness of Grace
Peter Andrew Smith
John 9:1-41
"Why?" Susan asked.
Everyone tensed around the table and no one met her gaze. People shifted uncomfortably in their seats as her question echoed in the room.
"We are not going to reconsider our decision," the chairperson said as he adjusted his glasses.
"I'm aware of that," Susan said. "I simply want to know why you do not want to hire me, since I have the degree, experience, and am willing to accept what you are able to pay."
"You are not a suitable person to be our youth minister," the chairperson said. "Our decision is final."
"Yes," she said trying to keep her voice calm. "I understand that. I even grudgingly accept that. But what I do not understand is why you think I am unacceptable to teach young people?"
"We do not have to give you an explanation," he repeated.
"Since you called me to come to this second interview I think you owe me an explanation," she said.
The shifting of the committee members in their chairs increased and they continued to look away from her.
"We discovered after you were invited to this meeting that you do not have suitable character," the chairperson said. "Let us leave it at that."
"That isn't good enough. My references are impeccable, my previous work experience is..."
The chairperson slammed his pen onto the desk. "You made those movies. There is no way that we are going to let someone who did such degenerate things teach about Jesus and his love to our young people."
Susan looked down. "I did some things that I am not proud of when I was younger." She looked up. "That was before I came to know Jesus in my life."
"That doesn't matter," he said. "A youth minister is supposed to be a role model, the children are going to look up to you. You have to have impeccable character."
Everyone around the room murmured in agreement.
"I agree completely," Susan said. "Any minister of the church should live the message of Jesus in their life. I did not know about God's love for me when I did those things. I thank God that one night I wandered into a church during a service and heard the preacher tell about forgiveness and grace. I cried that whole night when I realized that I didn't have to live the way I was living. I changed that day. By God's love and through God's grace I left the life I had been in. And I have never looked back."
She took a deep breath. " Eventually I realized that God was calling me to work with young people as a minister and I studied, worked and served the church in that way. As you can see I have been in a number of churches setting up successful youth programs and Sunday schools --"
"None of that matters," the chairperson said waving his hands. "We are not hiring you. You do not have suitable character to work with children. If they ever learned that you had made those movies..."
"Or actually saw clips from one of them," one of the women piped in.
"Exactly!" the chairperson said. "We would lose all credibility as a church."
"I don't advertise my past indiscretions. But in the internet age no sin like mine stays hidden long." Susan looked the chairperson in the eyes. "It came up at the last church I worked at as a youth minister. Some teenage girls asked me. I was honest about what I did and told the teens the truth about how it demeans and diminishes what God intends for us and our bodies. I was firm that the path I was on at their age is filled with lies, hurt, and harm both physical and spiritual. I also told them that I know God can forgive anything and everything through Jesus and offers us a fresh chance to live differently."
"And is that why you are looking for a new church? Because people found out?"
Susan shook her head. "I spoke to the church board the day after I spoke to the teens. With the blessing of the church board, I worked another five years at that church. I'm here because my husband took a transfer to this city."
The chairperson scowled. "I cannot comment about the irresponsible actions of the churches you were at before. But hearing your story means nothing to me. All I know is that we have no place for a sinner like you among us."
A murmur of agreement echoed in the room from the other committee members.
"I'm sorry that my story doesn't make a difference to you," Susan said as she picked up her papers to leave. "I'll pray that one day it will matter to you because I don't know how you can be a church without knowing grace and the one who gives it."
The Sight of Goodness and Mercy
Peter Andrew Smith
Psalm 23
Al handed the bag from the overhead bin to Jim as they got in line to get off the plane.
"Thanks!" Jim said.
Al shook his head. "I have no idea how you can be so cheery after that series of meetings."
Jim shrugged. "Bad things happen."
"Bad? I can't imagine worse news than we just got."
"It would be hard," Jim agreed as they walked into the corridor toward their waiting luggage.
"So why so cheerful? You know something I don't know about the company?"
Jim shook his head. "No, I just remember I'm not alone no matter what happens. I believe that there is a good shepherd who leads me in life."
Al sighed. "I'm not going to get a sermon am I?"
Jim laughed. "Only if you want one."
Al rolled his eyes. "Just what I need."
Jim patted him on the shoulder. "Seriously, Al. Don't worry about work so much. There are some things we can't control. What happened was one of them. "
"Thanks."
"What are friends for?"
Al was about to answer when Jim's little girl came screaming around the corner and launched herself into Jim's arms. Al watched the hugs and excited conversations go on for a bit and then said his good-byes.
As he got into a cab, he couldn't help but remember the joy on Jim's face when he saw his little girl. He also couldn't help but think about the peace that was there even after the discouraging meeting at the corporate office. Part of him wished that he had asked for that sermon after all.
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
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StoryShare, March 2, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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What's Up This Week
"Tarawa" by Keith Hewitt
"The Disturbing Witness of Grace" by Peter Andrew Smith
"The Sight of Goodness and Mercy" by Peter Andrew Smith
What's Up This Week
As part of the body of Christ, each Christian is called to be Jesus to the world, to spread his message of love and mercy wherever we go. While the first image of spreading the gospel that comes to mind may be a minister in a pulpit, that is not the predominant method. Most of the time, it is in the small, everyday things that we do -- the conversations we make, the attitudes we have, the actions we choose -- that radiate Christ the most. When the times come to show Christ's love, what will we do? In "Tarawa," a young, scrawny soldier becomes Christ to his fellow soldiers in the heat of battle. "The Disturbing Witness of Grace" speaks of how we must be Jesus to those who may even claim to know him already. "The Sight of Goodness and Mercy" shows us how we can spread the peace of Christ in a tumultuous world without saying a word.
* * * * * * * * *
Tarawa
Keith Hewitt
1 Samuel 16:1-13
If you looked up "geek" in the dictionary, his picture would be there. He was a tall kid, almost six feet, and wouldn't have weighed 140 pounds soaking wet; he had big ears that sat like bookends on either side of a bristle of blond hair, and GI glasses that never quite fit right -- he was always squinting and scrunching his nose to try to inch them back into position. When he did PT, out on the deck with the rest of us, he was all elbows and knees, like a skeleton dancing on the end of a string.
He was right out of corpsman training when he landed on our troopship, and so fresh from the farm that Joe Blakely used to say you could still smell cow manure when he walked by -- only he didn't say "manure." Don't remember where, exactly, he was from: Wisconsin, or Minnesota, some place like that. Maybe somewhere down South, he might have been a Baptist. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and he didn't know how to play poker -- there were enough guys in our squad that had a piece of his pay to make that pretty obvious. It got so he stopped trying after awhile; poker can be an expensive game to learn. We thought he had a girl -- he showed us her picture a couple of times before one of the guys recognized her as the picture that came with his wallet, too. After that, the picture disappeared.
Some of the guys used to give him a hard time about how young he was, and all, and the fact that he didn't seem to have any vices. Others rode him pretty hard about how scrawny he was, and the fact that he couldn't hardly do a dozen pushups without resting, or never managed to do more than five or six pull-ups before he slipped off the bar. He was the "before" guy in the Charles Atlas magazine ads. Most of the time, he just ignored it, lowered his head and plowed back into whatever he was supposed to be doing.
As we got closer to D-Day, though, it got worse. I watched it happen for a while, then one morning after PT, I caught him by the arm while the others were going back below deck. "Listen," I said as he tried to shrug off my hand, "don't mind them, they're just all keyed up. Time comes they need you, they'll be glad to have a corpsman around, whether or not he can do pushups." I watched him for a moment, watched those glasses slide up his nose "Thanks," he said, looking away. I let him go, and he stood there, eyes on the horizon as it pitched slowly up and down. "Is that it?" he asked, nodding toward a smudge on the horizon.
"It is," I agreed, watching it bob slowly. The wind was light, and blowing out from the island; I imagined I could smell trees and dirt. After weeks of smelling oil, sweat, and overused latrines, it smelled like heaven. "That's Tarawa." I looked at him again. "You'll do great. You've just got to be strong in here," I said, tapping his narrow chest. "Just do that, and the rest will come along."
They landed us the next day -- or tried to, anyway. The landing craft spent a couple of hours forming up, riding up and down in long, rolling waves while the big guns from our escorts pounded the island. We waited, clenched up and twitching in the bottom of the boat, drenched in the smell of vomit and gunpowder, trying not to flinch every time one of the battlewagons whistled a couple tons of steel over our heads, on its way to soften up the Japanese defenses. "It's gonna be a cakewalk," someone yelled, once, over the thunder and scream of a volley. One of the other guys growled, "Shut up," adding something unprintable as punctuation.
Then the landing craft were moving in.
About a quarter of a mile from Red Beach, the landing craft ran aground on a coral reef with a jolt that knocked most of us off our feet, and a long, grinding crash that slammed against the soles of our feet. We picked ourselves up, wiping hands on pants to get off the salt water and last night's chow, looking at each other with wide eyes and an infinite variety of "What now?" expressions. We were still trying to figure out what to do when the shore batteries opened up. The boat on our left was lifted out of the water and slammed back down as it burst into flames and just sort of came apart; the one behind us caught fire as the bosun's mate driving it pulled it off the reef; it drifted off, a Viking funeral pyre with live Vikings, screaming out their last moments on earth.
Our driver dropped the ramp and ordered us out. We scrambled out, stumbled across a couple yards of coral, then plunged into the warm, salty sea. The water was up to my neck, and slogging through it, holding my rifle overhead, was almost impossible. If you don't understand, try strapping a pair of typewriters over your shoulders, front and back, and then jumping into the deep end of a pool and walking for five or six hundred yards -- and keep in mind that the bottom of the pool is an even surface, not sand and coral shifting under your feet, and you don't have anyone in front of you skimming machinegun bullets across the surface of the water.
A guy in front of me stepped into a hole or something, and went under -- he was a little guy, scared to death. He didn't come back up; I angled around where it looked like he'd gone down, conscious every moment of the lead whizzing by like a swarm of the angriest bees in the world. An eternity or two later, I could feel that the bottom of the lagoon was sloping up -- and as my chest rose out of the water I realized how terribly exposed I was. I started to run.
When I was close enough that it wouldn't put my face in the water, I got down and crawled. Up on the beach, behind a fallen palm tree, I tried to make myself invisible -- or at least small. Sand spit up from the beach in front of me, and I heard the thwok! thwok! thwok! of slugs tearing into one end of the trunk. Trying to raise my eyes without actually lifting my head, I peered over the top of the tree trunk, gauging where I could go next. Directly ahead, there was a log wall I might be able to make.
And then I saw it.
Saw him, rather. About thirty yards ahead and to my left, the kid was bent over a Marine, sprawled in the sand. Lead sizzled by, and it was like watching an accident you can't prevent as I saw him rip open a bandage, strap it around the man's chest, then rip open a syrette of morphine and jab it in the man's neck. He leaned over and said something to him, patted him on the shoulder, then managed to crouch and sprint at the same time as he ran to another Marine, this one lying behind the body of another, screaming. He slid into the sand next to him, like he was stealing home, then rolled over and started talking to his patient.
His hands flew as he talked; he ripped open a pouch of sulfa powder, poured it into a wound in the man's thigh, ripped open a bandage with his teeth and other hand, pressed it against the pulsing mass until the blood stopped. He had a free hand, then, and he patted the man's forehead as he talked to him. More morphine, and then he was gone again, sprinting down the beach. Again, and again, zigzagging back and forth as more Marines came ashore, and more were hit. I took my eyes off him long enough to move to another spot -- a thicker tree, with a little depression behind it where a mortar had tried to take a chunk out of the beach. As I dove into it, a bullet creased the air next to my head.
I saw him digging into his kit at the last Marine, and coming up empty. He improvised a bandage, took off his belt to cinch it tight around the man's shoulder, looked angry and frustrated that he could do no more. He spotted me, then -- he was no more than ten yards away -- and he sprinted across that space, slid into the low spot next to me. "Give me your first aid kit," he said impatiently.
Wordlessly, I handed him the single bandage I carried.
"Thanks." He started to gather his legs under him for another run.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "One of these times you're not going to make it!"
"That guy," he said, nodding toward a Marine who had almost made it to the log wall that marked the edge of the beach. "He's in a bad way."
I chanced a longer look, frowned. "Bad enough he's not going to make it," I growled. "Did you see him? He's already dead, his brain just hasn't caught up. What can you do?"
He shrugged, squinted and wrinkled his nose to push back his glasses. "I guess I'm just going to be there, then. Nobody should die alone."
Then he was gone. I raised myself enough to push my rifle forward and over the log, pumped eight rounds into the jungle behind the wall. Don't know if anyone was there or not; I just hoped it would do some good. The kid was almost there when one leg was jerked out from under him. He sprawled forward, lay still for a moment, then dragged himself forward on both elbows 'til he was next to the Marine, leaving a dark trail in the sand.
I reloaded without looking, one hand stripping the cartridges down into the magazine while I watched. He leaned his head close to the man, and I could see his mouth moving as he spoke. The guy answered, and I watched as they talked back and forth, bullets whizzing around them, sand geysering here and there as slugs burrowed into sand. He unwrapped the bandage, pressed it against the wounded man with one hand, used his other to take the man's hand in his and hold it while they talked.
After a while, the man's mouth stopped moving. The kid waited for a moment or two, then raised himself on his elbows so he could lean forward and put an ear to the man's chest. That's when another bullet caught him; he dropped like a rag doll across the man he'd been comforting, and died. Alone. He never knew that most of the guys he helped that day eventually made it off the beach.
If you looked up "hero" in the dictionary, his picture would be there, too.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. More often than not, the packaging is not at all what we expect. Like David, we never know when we are going to be anointed, chosen to do God's work here on Earth. Sooner or later, though, God calls all of us to be heroes for him, each according to the gifts we've been given and the circumstances we find ourselves in. Whether it's preaching from the pulpit or teaching by example, talking to strangers or chatting with friends, we can all share the love of God and the power of salvation. We just need to recognize our gifts, and have the will and the heart to use them.
The rest will come along.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
The Disturbing Witness of Grace
Peter Andrew Smith
John 9:1-41
"Why?" Susan asked.
Everyone tensed around the table and no one met her gaze. People shifted uncomfortably in their seats as her question echoed in the room.
"We are not going to reconsider our decision," the chairperson said as he adjusted his glasses.
"I'm aware of that," Susan said. "I simply want to know why you do not want to hire me, since I have the degree, experience, and am willing to accept what you are able to pay."
"You are not a suitable person to be our youth minister," the chairperson said. "Our decision is final."
"Yes," she said trying to keep her voice calm. "I understand that. I even grudgingly accept that. But what I do not understand is why you think I am unacceptable to teach young people?"
"We do not have to give you an explanation," he repeated.
"Since you called me to come to this second interview I think you owe me an explanation," she said.
The shifting of the committee members in their chairs increased and they continued to look away from her.
"We discovered after you were invited to this meeting that you do not have suitable character," the chairperson said. "Let us leave it at that."
"That isn't good enough. My references are impeccable, my previous work experience is..."
The chairperson slammed his pen onto the desk. "You made those movies. There is no way that we are going to let someone who did such degenerate things teach about Jesus and his love to our young people."
Susan looked down. "I did some things that I am not proud of when I was younger." She looked up. "That was before I came to know Jesus in my life."
"That doesn't matter," he said. "A youth minister is supposed to be a role model, the children are going to look up to you. You have to have impeccable character."
Everyone around the room murmured in agreement.
"I agree completely," Susan said. "Any minister of the church should live the message of Jesus in their life. I did not know about God's love for me when I did those things. I thank God that one night I wandered into a church during a service and heard the preacher tell about forgiveness and grace. I cried that whole night when I realized that I didn't have to live the way I was living. I changed that day. By God's love and through God's grace I left the life I had been in. And I have never looked back."
She took a deep breath. " Eventually I realized that God was calling me to work with young people as a minister and I studied, worked and served the church in that way. As you can see I have been in a number of churches setting up successful youth programs and Sunday schools --"
"None of that matters," the chairperson said waving his hands. "We are not hiring you. You do not have suitable character to work with children. If they ever learned that you had made those movies..."
"Or actually saw clips from one of them," one of the women piped in.
"Exactly!" the chairperson said. "We would lose all credibility as a church."
"I don't advertise my past indiscretions. But in the internet age no sin like mine stays hidden long." Susan looked the chairperson in the eyes. "It came up at the last church I worked at as a youth minister. Some teenage girls asked me. I was honest about what I did and told the teens the truth about how it demeans and diminishes what God intends for us and our bodies. I was firm that the path I was on at their age is filled with lies, hurt, and harm both physical and spiritual. I also told them that I know God can forgive anything and everything through Jesus and offers us a fresh chance to live differently."
"And is that why you are looking for a new church? Because people found out?"
Susan shook her head. "I spoke to the church board the day after I spoke to the teens. With the blessing of the church board, I worked another five years at that church. I'm here because my husband took a transfer to this city."
The chairperson scowled. "I cannot comment about the irresponsible actions of the churches you were at before. But hearing your story means nothing to me. All I know is that we have no place for a sinner like you among us."
A murmur of agreement echoed in the room from the other committee members.
"I'm sorry that my story doesn't make a difference to you," Susan said as she picked up her papers to leave. "I'll pray that one day it will matter to you because I don't know how you can be a church without knowing grace and the one who gives it."
The Sight of Goodness and Mercy
Peter Andrew Smith
Psalm 23
Al handed the bag from the overhead bin to Jim as they got in line to get off the plane.
"Thanks!" Jim said.
Al shook his head. "I have no idea how you can be so cheery after that series of meetings."
Jim shrugged. "Bad things happen."
"Bad? I can't imagine worse news than we just got."
"It would be hard," Jim agreed as they walked into the corridor toward their waiting luggage.
"So why so cheerful? You know something I don't know about the company?"
Jim shook his head. "No, I just remember I'm not alone no matter what happens. I believe that there is a good shepherd who leads me in life."
Al sighed. "I'm not going to get a sermon am I?"
Jim laughed. "Only if you want one."
Al rolled his eyes. "Just what I need."
Jim patted him on the shoulder. "Seriously, Al. Don't worry about work so much. There are some things we can't control. What happened was one of them. "
"Thanks."
"What are friends for?"
Al was about to answer when Jim's little girl came screaming around the corner and launched herself into Jim's arms. Al watched the hugs and excited conversations go on for a bit and then said his good-byes.
As he got into a cab, he couldn't help but remember the joy on Jim's face when he saw his little girl. He also couldn't help but think about the peace that was there even after the discouraging meeting at the corporate office. Part of him wished that he had asked for that sermon after all.
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
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How to Share Stories
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StoryShare, March 2, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 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.
