Dumb Woolies
Stories
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Dumb Woolies" by C. David McKirachan
"Who Do You Trust?" by C. David McKirachan
"Freed by the Word" by Stan Purdum
"Saints in White Satin" by Gregory L. Tolle
What's Up This Week
The fourth Sunday of Easter is known in some quarters as "Good Shepherd Sunday," and in this edition of StoryShare David McKirachan helps us comprehend what it really means to be a shepherd. Though sheep may not be the most intelligent animals in God's creation, the metaphor of God as a protective shepherd amidst the dangers of life is a particularly apt one -- as the powerful experience of one Ethiopian shepherd makes clear. We also have a moving story from Stan Purdum about the paralyzing effects of fear and judgmentalism... and about how a clear understanding of God's Word can free us; plus a meditation from Greg Tolle on the lineage of the Christian faith.
* * * * * * * * *
Dumb Woolies
C. David McKirachan
Psalm 23
Everybody loves the 23rd psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd" almost always invokes a sense of grounded identity. It reminds us of our roots and the traditions that allow us to know what we are.
Personally, I consider it rather demeaning to be identified with one of the stupidest animals on the face of the planet. The whole idea of "making me to lie down in green pastures" has to do with the dumb woolies' extraordinary capability to reduce a pasture to wasteland because they don't crop grass like cows and horses, they pull it out by the roots and leave trampled dirt behind. "Leads me beside still waters" speaks of the idiots' tendency to put their curly heads into cataracts. Wet wool sinks. Baaas turn to blubs -- except for the care of the shepherd. And "the rod and staff" keep the dummies moving with well-placed knocks on the noggin and the butt.
But the Psalm isn't designed to flatter. Actually, the portrayal is rather accurate when it comes to us. Stubborn and dumb cover me rather effectively. The Psalm is about the shepherd -- it's about the sheep's confidence in the care of the shepherd.
I've only known one -- shepherd, that is. He was an Ethiopian youth I met near Addis Ababa. He had left his village and gone to school, thus his presence with us as part of the "encounter" between youth of two continents. One day, through an incident that is another story, he had his shirt torn off and I saw six scars criss-crossing his back. After a question, he told me the scars were from his first lion. OK, tell the story. He did.
He was twelve and his chores included keeping the village flock. One day he'd taken them out to some "green pastures" armed with a stick, better known as "rod and staff." He was alone with the woolies. A female lion had come to do some grocery shopping -- she wanted to serve lamb for dinner. He drove the flock and stayed between the lion and them. He got them into the cul de sac of a box canyon. The lady lion would have to come through him to get to them. He said they bunched tight when threatened, tight behind the shepherd. They depended on him.
The lion must have been real hungry to mess with a human. She finally came at him. He planted his stick in the ground and she impaled herself, tearing up his back as she died. He drove the sheep home and survived. He showed me the claws his father gave him when he regained consciousness. His first lion. (I didn't ask about the second.)
The sheep may be dumb, but the shepherd isn't -- unless you count being willing to lay down his life for his sheep. That's why they trust him. Even in the valley of the shadow.
Who Do You Trust?
C. David McKirachan
John 10:22-30
Jesus wasn't a shepherd... and neither am I -- but I'm pretty clear on this business of people who aren't part of the bunch not getting it. It's difficult at best to communicate the firm realities of salvation and hope to people who live in the darkness of a universe built on the hard realities of power and privilege, or measurable and attainable, or practical and profitable, or America and family, or any of the other normalities of our culture's mythological structure. "Tell us clearly whether or not you are the Christ." Such a demand is so weird that it boggles the mind. What did He have to do? What did they want? What proof would create the gravity that could break the hold of their expectation and judgment?
When I was 10, my older sister and I journeyed with my parents to the country estate of Miss Anne, one of the pillars of my father's church. "Rose Garden" (as it was known) was a working farm, animals and all. We were gussied up, so we had to be careful where we stepped and what we did. A pasture stretched out from a gate with stone posts. Out under trees on its far side, a small flock of sheep grazed. I was fascinated with them, and so my indulgent sister helped me over the gate and watched me journey toward the sheep, a bunch of green grass clutched in my hand as a peace offering and an incentive for them to trust me.
They bunched together, one of them (larger than the rest) making noises that sounded anxious. I kept on. Finally the big guy came toward me. I was encouraged and held out the offering. I remember wondering what one should say to a sheep. "Nice sheep" seemed lame, so I kept my silence and let the grass do the talking.
To make a long story short, the ram (which I'm sure he was) came close, reared up on his hind legs, and butted me in the middle. The only reason I didn't fall in the mud was because he stepped on my foot and I grabbed his head. At that point I took off running, with him in hot pursuit. My sister had climbed over the fence, laughing so hard she couldn't speak. So much for gentle sheep.
The basic problem was that I wasn't on the ram's list -- I was a stranger. It wouldn't have mattered if I had some sheep candy and a bribe for the big guy. It wouldn't have mattered if I knew what to say. He was having none of it and none of me.
So maybe what they thought of Jesus' teaching and what they subsequently did to Him is understandable. But we aren't sheep! We have choices to make that can bring us to new worlds of hope and abundant life. You'd think we'd learn. Maybe we're not hungry enough. Like those fat woolies on Miss Anne's farm, we're too well fed. We're not desperate enough to listen to a new voice. We want more proof. Oh well, missed the Lord again.
I wonder what was going through the ram's head when he chased me across the pasture. I wonder if he thought he won. My sister never told anybody about that day. She's cool.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. He is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Freed by the Word
Stan Purdum
"I was afraid," the old man said. It was the fourth time in three minutes that Vern had made the statement. He was old enough -- 83 -- to be excused for repeating himself, and he did it again.
"I know it sounds silly to you, Reverend," Vern said, "but I was afraid."
I had first seen the old man two weeks earlier sitting with Ann Mills in the Sunday worship service. Afterward, Ann introduced the visitor to me as "my Uncle Vern," and added, "He'll be staying with us from now on." Later, I learned that Vern was a bachelor. With his health beginning to fail, Ann and her family had opened their home to him.
The next Sunday Vern was in the pew with Ann again. During the preaching, he leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded hands, which were cupped over his cane. He appeared to be listening intently.
On Monday morning, Ann phoned. "Uncle Vern has something on his mind. He won't tell me what it is, but said he'd like to talk to you alone. Would it be possible for you to visit him sometime?" I agreed to come that afternoon, which was why I was now listening to the sad-faced old man talk about the fear that had blighted his teenage years and cemented him into decades of loneliness.
Vern had just told me about growing up as a member of a strict church, peopled by a stern group of "bluenoses" (Vern's word). "They were sin-chasers," Vern said. "They thought it was their job to root out sin. I was afraid of them."
He looked off into space and then back at me. "I lived in a small town. No matter where I went, there were people from the church. When I was 17, this pretty girl moved in down the street from my family. We went to the same school. One day, I noticed her walking home a little way ahead of me. We were going the same route, and I thought maybe I could catch up and walk with her.
"But then I thought, 'Suppose some of those bluenoses look out their windows and see me. What will they think?' So I turned at the next corner and went home another way."
I was fascinated, and asked, "Did you think those bluenoses, as you call them, were against normal courting between young people?"
"Yes, at the time I did."
"Had those people said things to you about such behavior before?" I asked.
"No. But I thought they would. When I was 18, I started working at the mill. I had a car. Sometimes I would see this woman from the mill office walking home. I thought of offering her a ride, but I was afraid of what those sin-chasers would say. I'd heard of some cases where men were criticized for offering rides to women."
"Didn't you ever date?" I asked.
"Once. There was this girl who worked in the store where I shopped for groceries. I kind of liked her. I finally worked up the courage to ask her to a band concert in the park one Sunday afternoon. She agreed to go, and said she'd bring a picnic lunch."
Vern shook his head. "I should have known that it wouldn't work out. Some of the church people were at the concert, and I could see them looking at us. After a while, the girl reached over and took my hand. I knew those bluenoses would not approve, and I started to sweat."
"What happened?"
"I got up and ran away. I never shopped in that store again."
Tears were running down the old man's cheeks as he added, "I stopped going to church and never went near any women after that. Just worked and kept to myself."
His words struck me with a sense of tragedy. His was an unfulfilled life. I wondered why he wanted me to know his story. I doubted that his impression of his childhood church as one filled with only joyless, judgmental people was accurate. In every age, there are those who take a legalistic approach to Christianity and reduce it to a somber list of don'ts, assuming that anything pleasurable is automatically sinful. Yet, in most Christian circles, the majority hear the gospel message as one of kingdom joy, and embrace the faith as an enriching and redeeming experience. Sadly, Vern had apparently assumed the attitudes of the former group characterized the entire membership of his childhood congregation.
And even if the old man was right about the puritanical bent of that lot, he apparently had not grown beyond it. Most people who grow up in such environments still manage a reasonable social life and are able to court and find a mate. Vern had obviously been socially backward -- painfully so, probably neurotically so -- and had been terrorized as much by the imagined opinions of others as by anything they'd actually said or done to him.
"How did you feel about keeping to yourself like that?" I asked.
Vern pulled a red bandanna handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. "Not very good. It's been a lonely life. But, you know, being alone gives a man a lot of time to fill. I've read hundreds of books since then. Last year, I decided to read the Bible. I hadn't had anything to do with the Bible since I stopped going to church way back then. But I finally decided that I ought to read it."
As he continued, his facial expression grew less grim. "I started at the beginning, right at Genesis, chapter one. It was pretty tough going for a while, but I finally finished the Old Testament.
"After I got into the Gospels, it struck me that Jesus was no sin-chaser. There was nothing bluenose about him. It was a great compliment the Pharisees paid Jesus when they criticized him for eating with sinners!" Vern chuckled.
"In John, I read about a woman who'd been caught in adultery by some Pharisees. I bet she was just as afraid of those Pharisees as I was of those bluenoses. But Jesus didn't condemn her. He told her to sin no more, but he didn't condemn her."
The man became increasingly animated as he spoke. "I wish I'd read the Bible years ago. I've learned something from reading about Jesus. He didn't come to make us miserable, but to save us from destroying ourselves."
"That's very insightful," I said. "You're right."
"Anyway, that's why I wanted to talk to you," Vern said. "I'd like to join your church." He was absolutely beaming.
"I'd be very happy to receive you into the church," I said, "but in light of what you've told me, I think I should warn you that while we've got a great bunch of Christian people in the congregation, you might occasionally run into one or two who are kind of like those bluenoses."
"That's okay, Reverend," the old man said with a smile. "I'm not afraid anymore."
Stan Purdum is the pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Waynesburg, Ohio. He has served as the editor for the preaching journals Emphasis and Homiletics, and he has written extensively for both the religious and secular press. Purdum is the author of He Walked in Galilee (Abingdon Press) and two accounts of his long-distance bicycle journeys, Roll Around Heaven All Day and Playing in Traffic, as well as New Mercies I See (CSS), from which this story is taken.
Saints in White Satin
Gregory L. Tolle
In their biography of missionary/physician/theologian Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall and David Poling tell about a man who gave his life to serve the needs of those who lived in the African jungle. Schweitzer was to the first half of the 20th century what Mother Teresa was to the second half.
Treating the Africans medically was a gruesome task. However, Schweitzer received great joy in serving, and he particularly enjoyed delivering babies. Early on, he discovered that the natives had a practice of immediately painting a new baby white. Sometimes they painted the mother as well.
Schweitzer asked, "Is it because they wish they were white?"
The natives howled with laughter and said, "No, it is to frighten off the evil spirits. Evil spirits fear white and will not harm the baby or the mother."
Schweitzer was amused that white was a dreaded color to evil spirits. Eventually, though, he would admonish the parents as he delivered a baby and slapped its backside, "Don't forget to paint it white."
The color white hoarding off evil spirits -- sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Maybe not so much. After all, we believe much the same thing. Symbolically, we believe that one can be washed in the blood of the Lamb and be made white. It's an oxymoron -- a blood that bleaches instead of staining. White symbolizes purity for us.
John of Patmos shares this as a part of his vision in today's scripture from Revelation. He wrote:
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.... Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9, 13-14)
Who are those strangers in white robes? In a play on words from the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin," they are "Saints in White Satin." They are Christ's followers -- those who believe on his name -- those who have committed themselves to his service. In short, these in white robes are Christ's church, Christ's body, Christ's bride.
These are the saints who have gone before us. It is a reminder that you and I did not come to faith on our own. The reason we have faith today is because of a line of believers reaching back more than 2,000 years.
In an explanation of the Seder meal, a Jewish speaker repeatedly referred to Abraham, Moses, and other ancient Jews with the phrase "my ancestors." We have lost that in modern Christianity. We often forget that we have a faith lineage that goes back to the original disciples.
These saints weren't perfect -- just faithful. In the midst of persecution, they found their strength in God and reflected the light of Christ.
A young boy allegedly visited Europe with his parents and saw some of the great cathedrals. After returning, his Sunday school teacher asked if he learned what a saint was. He remembered seeing several saints depicted in stain glass windows, so he said, "A saint is a person who the light shines through."
Not a bad definition. May we all one day be a part of the great multitude of saints in white satin -- those that remain faithful in times of trial, those who worship passionately, those who let the light of the Lamb shine through.
Gregory L. Tolle is the senior minister at First United Methodist Church in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of three volumes of the CSS series Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit.
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StoryShare, April 29, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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What's Up This Week
"Dumb Woolies" by C. David McKirachan
"Who Do You Trust?" by C. David McKirachan
"Freed by the Word" by Stan Purdum
"Saints in White Satin" by Gregory L. Tolle
What's Up This Week
The fourth Sunday of Easter is known in some quarters as "Good Shepherd Sunday," and in this edition of StoryShare David McKirachan helps us comprehend what it really means to be a shepherd. Though sheep may not be the most intelligent animals in God's creation, the metaphor of God as a protective shepherd amidst the dangers of life is a particularly apt one -- as the powerful experience of one Ethiopian shepherd makes clear. We also have a moving story from Stan Purdum about the paralyzing effects of fear and judgmentalism... and about how a clear understanding of God's Word can free us; plus a meditation from Greg Tolle on the lineage of the Christian faith.
* * * * * * * * *
Dumb Woolies
C. David McKirachan
Psalm 23
Everybody loves the 23rd psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd" almost always invokes a sense of grounded identity. It reminds us of our roots and the traditions that allow us to know what we are.
Personally, I consider it rather demeaning to be identified with one of the stupidest animals on the face of the planet. The whole idea of "making me to lie down in green pastures" has to do with the dumb woolies' extraordinary capability to reduce a pasture to wasteland because they don't crop grass like cows and horses, they pull it out by the roots and leave trampled dirt behind. "Leads me beside still waters" speaks of the idiots' tendency to put their curly heads into cataracts. Wet wool sinks. Baaas turn to blubs -- except for the care of the shepherd. And "the rod and staff" keep the dummies moving with well-placed knocks on the noggin and the butt.
But the Psalm isn't designed to flatter. Actually, the portrayal is rather accurate when it comes to us. Stubborn and dumb cover me rather effectively. The Psalm is about the shepherd -- it's about the sheep's confidence in the care of the shepherd.
I've only known one -- shepherd, that is. He was an Ethiopian youth I met near Addis Ababa. He had left his village and gone to school, thus his presence with us as part of the "encounter" between youth of two continents. One day, through an incident that is another story, he had his shirt torn off and I saw six scars criss-crossing his back. After a question, he told me the scars were from his first lion. OK, tell the story. He did.
He was twelve and his chores included keeping the village flock. One day he'd taken them out to some "green pastures" armed with a stick, better known as "rod and staff." He was alone with the woolies. A female lion had come to do some grocery shopping -- she wanted to serve lamb for dinner. He drove the flock and stayed between the lion and them. He got them into the cul de sac of a box canyon. The lady lion would have to come through him to get to them. He said they bunched tight when threatened, tight behind the shepherd. They depended on him.
The lion must have been real hungry to mess with a human. She finally came at him. He planted his stick in the ground and she impaled herself, tearing up his back as she died. He drove the sheep home and survived. He showed me the claws his father gave him when he regained consciousness. His first lion. (I didn't ask about the second.)
The sheep may be dumb, but the shepherd isn't -- unless you count being willing to lay down his life for his sheep. That's why they trust him. Even in the valley of the shadow.
Who Do You Trust?
C. David McKirachan
John 10:22-30
Jesus wasn't a shepherd... and neither am I -- but I'm pretty clear on this business of people who aren't part of the bunch not getting it. It's difficult at best to communicate the firm realities of salvation and hope to people who live in the darkness of a universe built on the hard realities of power and privilege, or measurable and attainable, or practical and profitable, or America and family, or any of the other normalities of our culture's mythological structure. "Tell us clearly whether or not you are the Christ." Such a demand is so weird that it boggles the mind. What did He have to do? What did they want? What proof would create the gravity that could break the hold of their expectation and judgment?
When I was 10, my older sister and I journeyed with my parents to the country estate of Miss Anne, one of the pillars of my father's church. "Rose Garden" (as it was known) was a working farm, animals and all. We were gussied up, so we had to be careful where we stepped and what we did. A pasture stretched out from a gate with stone posts. Out under trees on its far side, a small flock of sheep grazed. I was fascinated with them, and so my indulgent sister helped me over the gate and watched me journey toward the sheep, a bunch of green grass clutched in my hand as a peace offering and an incentive for them to trust me.
They bunched together, one of them (larger than the rest) making noises that sounded anxious. I kept on. Finally the big guy came toward me. I was encouraged and held out the offering. I remember wondering what one should say to a sheep. "Nice sheep" seemed lame, so I kept my silence and let the grass do the talking.
To make a long story short, the ram (which I'm sure he was) came close, reared up on his hind legs, and butted me in the middle. The only reason I didn't fall in the mud was because he stepped on my foot and I grabbed his head. At that point I took off running, with him in hot pursuit. My sister had climbed over the fence, laughing so hard she couldn't speak. So much for gentle sheep.
The basic problem was that I wasn't on the ram's list -- I was a stranger. It wouldn't have mattered if I had some sheep candy and a bribe for the big guy. It wouldn't have mattered if I knew what to say. He was having none of it and none of me.
So maybe what they thought of Jesus' teaching and what they subsequently did to Him is understandable. But we aren't sheep! We have choices to make that can bring us to new worlds of hope and abundant life. You'd think we'd learn. Maybe we're not hungry enough. Like those fat woolies on Miss Anne's farm, we're too well fed. We're not desperate enough to listen to a new voice. We want more proof. Oh well, missed the Lord again.
I wonder what was going through the ram's head when he chased me across the pasture. I wonder if he thought he won. My sister never told anybody about that day. She's cool.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. He is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Freed by the Word
Stan Purdum
"I was afraid," the old man said. It was the fourth time in three minutes that Vern had made the statement. He was old enough -- 83 -- to be excused for repeating himself, and he did it again.
"I know it sounds silly to you, Reverend," Vern said, "but I was afraid."
I had first seen the old man two weeks earlier sitting with Ann Mills in the Sunday worship service. Afterward, Ann introduced the visitor to me as "my Uncle Vern," and added, "He'll be staying with us from now on." Later, I learned that Vern was a bachelor. With his health beginning to fail, Ann and her family had opened their home to him.
The next Sunday Vern was in the pew with Ann again. During the preaching, he leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded hands, which were cupped over his cane. He appeared to be listening intently.
On Monday morning, Ann phoned. "Uncle Vern has something on his mind. He won't tell me what it is, but said he'd like to talk to you alone. Would it be possible for you to visit him sometime?" I agreed to come that afternoon, which was why I was now listening to the sad-faced old man talk about the fear that had blighted his teenage years and cemented him into decades of loneliness.
Vern had just told me about growing up as a member of a strict church, peopled by a stern group of "bluenoses" (Vern's word). "They were sin-chasers," Vern said. "They thought it was their job to root out sin. I was afraid of them."
He looked off into space and then back at me. "I lived in a small town. No matter where I went, there were people from the church. When I was 17, this pretty girl moved in down the street from my family. We went to the same school. One day, I noticed her walking home a little way ahead of me. We were going the same route, and I thought maybe I could catch up and walk with her.
"But then I thought, 'Suppose some of those bluenoses look out their windows and see me. What will they think?' So I turned at the next corner and went home another way."
I was fascinated, and asked, "Did you think those bluenoses, as you call them, were against normal courting between young people?"
"Yes, at the time I did."
"Had those people said things to you about such behavior before?" I asked.
"No. But I thought they would. When I was 18, I started working at the mill. I had a car. Sometimes I would see this woman from the mill office walking home. I thought of offering her a ride, but I was afraid of what those sin-chasers would say. I'd heard of some cases where men were criticized for offering rides to women."
"Didn't you ever date?" I asked.
"Once. There was this girl who worked in the store where I shopped for groceries. I kind of liked her. I finally worked up the courage to ask her to a band concert in the park one Sunday afternoon. She agreed to go, and said she'd bring a picnic lunch."
Vern shook his head. "I should have known that it wouldn't work out. Some of the church people were at the concert, and I could see them looking at us. After a while, the girl reached over and took my hand. I knew those bluenoses would not approve, and I started to sweat."
"What happened?"
"I got up and ran away. I never shopped in that store again."
Tears were running down the old man's cheeks as he added, "I stopped going to church and never went near any women after that. Just worked and kept to myself."
His words struck me with a sense of tragedy. His was an unfulfilled life. I wondered why he wanted me to know his story. I doubted that his impression of his childhood church as one filled with only joyless, judgmental people was accurate. In every age, there are those who take a legalistic approach to Christianity and reduce it to a somber list of don'ts, assuming that anything pleasurable is automatically sinful. Yet, in most Christian circles, the majority hear the gospel message as one of kingdom joy, and embrace the faith as an enriching and redeeming experience. Sadly, Vern had apparently assumed the attitudes of the former group characterized the entire membership of his childhood congregation.
And even if the old man was right about the puritanical bent of that lot, he apparently had not grown beyond it. Most people who grow up in such environments still manage a reasonable social life and are able to court and find a mate. Vern had obviously been socially backward -- painfully so, probably neurotically so -- and had been terrorized as much by the imagined opinions of others as by anything they'd actually said or done to him.
"How did you feel about keeping to yourself like that?" I asked.
Vern pulled a red bandanna handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. "Not very good. It's been a lonely life. But, you know, being alone gives a man a lot of time to fill. I've read hundreds of books since then. Last year, I decided to read the Bible. I hadn't had anything to do with the Bible since I stopped going to church way back then. But I finally decided that I ought to read it."
As he continued, his facial expression grew less grim. "I started at the beginning, right at Genesis, chapter one. It was pretty tough going for a while, but I finally finished the Old Testament.
"After I got into the Gospels, it struck me that Jesus was no sin-chaser. There was nothing bluenose about him. It was a great compliment the Pharisees paid Jesus when they criticized him for eating with sinners!" Vern chuckled.
"In John, I read about a woman who'd been caught in adultery by some Pharisees. I bet she was just as afraid of those Pharisees as I was of those bluenoses. But Jesus didn't condemn her. He told her to sin no more, but he didn't condemn her."
The man became increasingly animated as he spoke. "I wish I'd read the Bible years ago. I've learned something from reading about Jesus. He didn't come to make us miserable, but to save us from destroying ourselves."
"That's very insightful," I said. "You're right."
"Anyway, that's why I wanted to talk to you," Vern said. "I'd like to join your church." He was absolutely beaming.
"I'd be very happy to receive you into the church," I said, "but in light of what you've told me, I think I should warn you that while we've got a great bunch of Christian people in the congregation, you might occasionally run into one or two who are kind of like those bluenoses."
"That's okay, Reverend," the old man said with a smile. "I'm not afraid anymore."
Stan Purdum is the pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Waynesburg, Ohio. He has served as the editor for the preaching journals Emphasis and Homiletics, and he has written extensively for both the religious and secular press. Purdum is the author of He Walked in Galilee (Abingdon Press) and two accounts of his long-distance bicycle journeys, Roll Around Heaven All Day and Playing in Traffic, as well as New Mercies I See (CSS), from which this story is taken.
Saints in White Satin
Gregory L. Tolle
In their biography of missionary/physician/theologian Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall and David Poling tell about a man who gave his life to serve the needs of those who lived in the African jungle. Schweitzer was to the first half of the 20th century what Mother Teresa was to the second half.
Treating the Africans medically was a gruesome task. However, Schweitzer received great joy in serving, and he particularly enjoyed delivering babies. Early on, he discovered that the natives had a practice of immediately painting a new baby white. Sometimes they painted the mother as well.
Schweitzer asked, "Is it because they wish they were white?"
The natives howled with laughter and said, "No, it is to frighten off the evil spirits. Evil spirits fear white and will not harm the baby or the mother."
Schweitzer was amused that white was a dreaded color to evil spirits. Eventually, though, he would admonish the parents as he delivered a baby and slapped its backside, "Don't forget to paint it white."
The color white hoarding off evil spirits -- sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Maybe not so much. After all, we believe much the same thing. Symbolically, we believe that one can be washed in the blood of the Lamb and be made white. It's an oxymoron -- a blood that bleaches instead of staining. White symbolizes purity for us.
John of Patmos shares this as a part of his vision in today's scripture from Revelation. He wrote:
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.... Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9, 13-14)
Who are those strangers in white robes? In a play on words from the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin," they are "Saints in White Satin." They are Christ's followers -- those who believe on his name -- those who have committed themselves to his service. In short, these in white robes are Christ's church, Christ's body, Christ's bride.
These are the saints who have gone before us. It is a reminder that you and I did not come to faith on our own. The reason we have faith today is because of a line of believers reaching back more than 2,000 years.
In an explanation of the Seder meal, a Jewish speaker repeatedly referred to Abraham, Moses, and other ancient Jews with the phrase "my ancestors." We have lost that in modern Christianity. We often forget that we have a faith lineage that goes back to the original disciples.
These saints weren't perfect -- just faithful. In the midst of persecution, they found their strength in God and reflected the light of Christ.
A young boy allegedly visited Europe with his parents and saw some of the great cathedrals. After returning, his Sunday school teacher asked if he learned what a saint was. He remembered seeing several saints depicted in stain glass windows, so he said, "A saint is a person who the light shines through."
Not a bad definition. May we all one day be a part of the great multitude of saints in white satin -- those that remain faithful in times of trial, those who worship passionately, those who let the light of the Lamb shine through.
Gregory L. Tolle is the senior minister at First United Methodist Church in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of three volumes of the CSS series Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit.
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StoryShare, April 29, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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.
