The Fifth Gospel
Stories
Contents
What's Up This Week
"The Fifth Gospel" by John Smylie
"The Burden" by Keith Hewitt
"Up Stream" by Bryan Meadows
"A Magical Little Poem" by Frank Ramirez
What's Up This Week
What is a saint? What does a saint look like? How does one act? For All Saints' Day, this week's StoryShare features John Smylie relating his experiences in the Holy Land to the words of Revelation, pondering how we can be saints to others by allowing God to work through us to bless them. In "The Burden," Keith Hewitt paints a picture of a different kind of saint, one who keeps the light of hope and love in his heart in the darkest of times.
For Proper 26, Bryan Meadows and Frank Ramirez comment on the need for perspective during adversity. In "Up Stream," Meadows reminds us that even when things seem bleak and we are laden with disappointments, God is up ahead of us, working in ways that we cannot see at the moment. "A Magical Little Poem" reminds us that God is a God of deliverance, and that while things may seem bad today, there is always tomorrow.
* * * * * * * * *
The Fifth Gospel
By John Smylie
Revelation 7:9-17
If you ever have an opportunity to visit the Holy Land, you will probably discover the Jerusalem cross. The Jerusalem cross consists of five crosses; there is one large cross in the center and on each of the four corners there are four small crosses. Some interpret the meaning of the five crosses as representing the four corners of the world -- east, west, north, and south with Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the center, symbolizing the entire world coming to Christ. An interpretation that I like to place on the Jerusalem cross is this: The four crosses represent the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The cross in the center represents the land -- the Holy Land -- the fifth gospel.
The Holy Land is a land of contrasts. To the east, it is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. To the north, it is bordered by Lebanon and Syria. The western border includes Syria and Jordan and to the south, we find Egypt. The northern part of the country is more fertile as there are three primary sources of water that feed the Jordan River that then flows into the Sea of Galilee and out of the Sea of Galilee ending in the Dead Sea. South of the Dead Sea and around the Dead Sea, the land is extremely barren. It's what we know as the Judean wilderness, and wilderness it is. Water is perhaps the most precious commodity in all of the Holy Land. Wars continue to be fought over water -- negotiations often center around water -- and in the imagery of Revelation where we discover the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life because this is exactly what the people of the land need and long for.
At times, it may be difficult for us in this country to recognize the value of water. Most of us have indoor plumbing connected to city reservoirs or wells. We turn on the tap and out flows your drinkable water. We step into the shower and are bathed in the sweet and relaxing flow and blessing of hot streams pulsing upon our bodies. Some of us may be blessed with large bathtubs with jets in the sides of them that circulate the water massaging our bodies. Others may be blessed with swimming pools and hot tubs and a few may even have water coolers where fresh, clean, and purified water is delivered directly on an as needed basis. The luxury that we have with water was virtually unknown to the people of the Bible except for kings like King Herod with his thousands of slaves. We are extremely blessed and our blessings may have made us dull to the blessings of water and to the abundance of the life that we now enjoy in this country even in the midst of financial crises, rising inflation, lowering housing values, and all the other transitory challenges that come our way -- we remain a very, very blessed people.
There was a certain professor whose class on the New Testament I took at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary just north of Boston. (Gordon Conwell was a part of the Boston theological Institute a consortium of schools, which provided an opportunity for students from each seminary to be cross fertilized and exposed to other traditions.) Gordon Conwell was a more evangelical seminary than the seminary that I attended and I desired to be exposed to the evangelical teaching and biblical perspective that was taught in that place. But when it came to the book of Revelation the professor had come to the conclusion that the whole book ought to be viewed as a kind of motion picture. He advised the class not to read it literally but to allow the images that make up the book of Revelation to work upon our consciousness. He was not interested in breaking it down with a view toward figuring it out in a way that it described and predicted the future. Rather he invited the students in his class to be washed by the images and to allow the images to impact us, to go with them, and discover where they would lead us. As I consider his teaching method for the book of Revelation, my conclusion is this -- he didn't understand it and rather than trying to explain something that was beyond his comprehension he was inviting us to simply receive the word while opening ourselves to it.
Over the years, I've had four opportunities to spend time in the Holy Land. My first visit was in 1976 -- my last visit was in September of this year. Perhaps it's because I'm getting older but it seems to me each visit becomes a bit more distressing than the last.
On three of the four visits including the one just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to view the plains of Armageddon. The plains of Armageddon are part of a trade route connecting north and south as well as a route to connect to the east and west. On the plains of Armageddon, battle after battle has been fought to control the commerce that passed through the land. When one visits the place, one visits a hill upon which ruins have been discovered that date back thousands of years. Strongholds were built so that the trade routes could be fortified, but in those days when battles were fought, one of the ways that communities would be overcome was through cutting them off from their well -- their source of water. In this community, which is now operated by a kibbutz, there is a tunnel from the city dug to the well. The well was outside of the city but there was a way of covering up the outer entrance to the well to make it invisible to whatever soldiers were coming at that time. There are 183 steps leading down to the well and to the tunnel, which itself is quite long and cut out of stone. Generally, it was the women who would carry the jugs of water down the stairs and through the tunnel filling their jugs and then carrying them back to their homes, not only to care for their families, but also to water the animals. They would tie lanterns to their feet because their hands were consumed with holding the water jars above their heads. Here is another example of why water was so valuable, imagine what a blessing it would be to the women to understand, to hear, and to hope that the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and that he would guide them to springs of water and life -- springs that would not be down 183 stairs and through a dark tunnel. Imagine the joy they felt at the vision and hope that the lamb at the center of the throne who will be their shepherd who will not only guide them to the springs of water of life but to God who will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There would be no more tears brought upon all the people because of the hardship of their lives -- no more tears brought to them because of the constant battles with their enemies and the death of loved ones. Tears at seeing their labors destroyed would be gone, as would the tears shed because they lacked the necessary sustenance needed to keep their children alive.
There remains great suffering in the land of Israel. There is so much fear still present in the land -- fear of the enemies that are on the borders. The Jews fear the Palestinians and the Palestinians remain in an occupied country in their own land. Israel today is one land, two nations, and three religions.
The words of Revelation that we read today are words of hope for the people of old, and they can be words of hope to us as well. Yet when I consider the hardship that I face compared to the hardship that was faced in the generations before me, I must confess that I live in a nation and in a time of abundance and in many ways the vision of the kingdom is already present right here in today -- in this moment -- in my life. So I suppose my challenge is to find and be open to ways where God's grace, which is so present in my life, can be channeled through me to others. Please join me in blessing others as we seek to wear within our souls and hearts, minds and spirit, a life of thanksgiving for the abundance that is ours -- not only physical abundance but a spiritual abundance because we know the lamb who is at the center of the throne -- the Lamb who is the good shepherd, Jesus Christ.
John Smylie is the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyoming. Previously he served as the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington. Smylie has a broad range of experience in parish ministry, having served in rural, suburban, and urban settings. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. John recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric. He is also engaged in writing playful songs for the child in us all as well as melodic, accessible, and prayerful music for worship. Smylie's presentations weave several gifts into a cohesive and creative encounter with the Holy. He says, "A relationship with the living God is like a dance; as the music changes, new steps must be learned."
The Burden
By Keith Hewitt
Matthew 5:1-12
July
The flies were thick -- they always were -- as though to give substance to the hot, foul air that hung heavily in the barrack. He sat, perched on the corner of one of the stacks of sleeping shelves -- there was no other word for them, they were rough wood shelves barely wide enough for a man to lie on, four high and just far enough apart to allow a man to slide in. The top shelf in each set was the prize, for there a man had the most room; but they were also the hardest to get to after a day's labor, and nobody usually occupied one for very long.
He licked his cup clean, tongue darting about the inside, pressing against the tin, absorbing the last free molecules of weak broth and rye bread. Across the room, beyond the small cast iron stove that nearly heated the place in winter, an older man with cracked wire rim spectacles knelt on the floor, next to the bottom sleeping shelf. As he watched, the man carefully tore his ration of bread in half, set one piece aside and soaked the other in broth, pushing it down with his finger to immerse it as far as it would go in the battered tin cup. Hands trembling slightly, he added the contents of a second cup to that one, until the bread was submerged, then stirred it with his finger.
After the bread was saturated with the watery broth, he tore off a small piece and touched it to the lips of the man lying on the shelf. "Here," he said gently. "You need to eat." The man's eyes fluttered, and turned toward him; they were vacant, windows on a bombed-out building. "You must eat," he urged again, and pushed his other hand under the man's shoulders, forcing him up and slightly on his side.
The eyes blinked again, and this time his lips moved slightly. "Yes," the older man said softly, "That's it. You must eat." He pushed the bread against his lips, forced a space and held it there until the man took it in and chewed listlessly, finally swallowing. The effort seemed to exhaust him, but the man holding his head would have none of that. "One more," he insisted, and tore off another piece of bread, went through the same routine until it, too, was gone. Between bites, he would dab sweat from the man's forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.
After fifteen or twenty minutes -- it might have been an hour, for there were no clocks or watches here -- the man finished. Gently, the older man let him lie back against the shelf and stood up. He wiped his fingers on the gritty, stained sleeve of his threadbare striped shirt and nodded with some slight satisfaction. "Rest, now," he said, commanding that which was already happening, and turned away.
As he turned, he made eye contact with the man who had been watching. No one else in the room had bothered to watch, too consumed with their own grinding fatigue, or the heat, or the hunger in their bellies to care. They eyed each other silently for a heartbeat or two, then the watcher said, "It's no good, you know. That man is going to die."
"So am I," the man answered with a gentle smile, an expression that seemed almost hauntingly out of place on his grimy, creased face. "So are you. So are we all."
"Then he is going to die sooner than the rest of us," the man said, curious at his own lack of anger at the bald declaration of doom.
"I know." The smile remained, but the eyes above it changed. "I know," he repeated, and crossed the wooden barrack floor, moving slowly. "But knowing the truth," he said quietly, once he was nearer the man, "knowing that evil will prevail -- at least for the moment in this time and place -- does that lessen my charge to do good?" In the silence that followed, he tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in the broth, and offered it to the man.
The man dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "I ought to take that from you, just to teach you a lesson. Who do you think you are?"
The man with the bread shrugged, put it in his mouth and chewed slowly, drawing every bit of sustenance from that bit before swallowing. He tore off another piece, soaked it. "I am my brother's keeper," he said simply, after a moment's thought. "Who are you?"
The watcher held up his arm and pulled back the sleeve, exposed the numbers tattooed there. "This is me," he grunted, "for almost a year, now. Some days, it seems like all I ever was."
The keeper frowned for the first time. "No, my friend -- that's all they want you to be. But you are more than that, even here." He finished his portion of bread, drank the last drops of broth from his cup, after first offering it to the watcher, who scowled angrily at the offer. "They want us to forget," the keeper said softly. "They want us to forget that we are men. They want to separate us from our self-respect, from our honor, even from our faith."
The watcher laughed harshly. "Honor? Faith? You have been here long enough to know better."
The keeper's eyes sparked, behind cracked lenses. "Listen to me: They can take your house, they can take your job, your friends, your family, everything you own -- even your life. They can strip you bare and force you to crawl through excrement, but they can't take your honor, your dignity -- that's the spark we hold inside of us, the knowledge that we are more than this shell of flesh and bone, and that whatever happens to us here stays here -- we don't carry it with us through eternity."
He found that he had grasped the watcher's sleeve as he spoke intensely -- he released it, embarrassed, seemed to deflate a little as he smoothed the fabric and brushed away imaginary lint with his fingertips. He continued softly, "We must understand that, if we are to remain men. They hope that we will give away our honor and dignity, or trade it away, because they know they cannot take it, no matter how hard they try. And it angers them, because it mocks their power."
"Just wait a little longer," the watcher said simply, shaking down the sleeve of his other arm, once more covering that tattoo that named him. "You will understand sooner or later."
"As long as you believe you are only a number -- their number -- and as long as you believe that God has forgotten you in this place, they have won," the keeper answered. "My God tells me that he is with me always and everywhere -- and he expects me to act with honor and kindness. If he is with me, then I can do little else."
He smiled crookedly, touched the man's arm briefly. "We all make our choices, my friend. I believe God hopes that we choose wisely."
"I can tell you for certain," the watcher growled, "God -- if there is one -- is not here. He is not even watching."
The keeper turned away, as though weary of the argument, and his shoulders slumped as he crossed the barrack once more, to push himself onto the shelf just above the man he had fed. But he paused, there, and turned to the watcher. "Whether he is here or not," he said with a ghost of a smile, "we know for sure that you are here, and I am here... so we are called to share that spark of God that burns in us."
And then, as though assuming the argument was settled, he crawled onto his own shelf and closed his eyes.
The man on the bottom shelf died during the night.
* * *
November
"Stehen Sie auf! Stehen Sie, Sie Schweine auf!" The shouts cut into fitful sleep, punctuated by the drumbeat of rifle butts pounding on the walls of the barrack, rattling the windows and making dirt fall from the rafters like dirty snow. "Jeder heraus!" the voices barked, "Everybody out!" Overhead, the light bulbs flickered to life, casting pale shadows on the floor.
Men slid off the shelves on which they were stacked, dropped to the floor and shuffled toward the door, half asleep as they bumped against one another, not wanting to be awake but unwilling to be seen as slacking. Vapor wreathed them, the collective breaths of dozens of men. Feet wrapped in rags left trails in the dirt as they shuffled. Here and there the floor was marked where men, suddenly awakened and ordered into formation, had lost control of bowel or bladder before they even knew to try to make it to the slop bucket in the corner -- whether from fear or infection was unimportant, the result was the same, and every man knew it could happen to him next.
"You still haven't told me your name," said the man with cracked spectacles, the keeper, without turning to look at the man he addressed. The watcher was immediately behind and to his right as they approached the door. The press of men slowed, nearly stopped as the stream narrowed to let two men out the door at almost the same time. The thunder of rifle butts and shouted orders continued, now joined by the growling of dogs, Schutzhunde, just this side of wolves -- or maybe something beyond, because wolves only killed to eat.
"Leave it alone," the man said, one hand rubbing unconsciously across the half dozen numbers tattooed on his other arm. "You know what I am."
"You're more than that," the older man reminded him, and found a break in the press of men going out the door, slipped through it into the glare of spotlights. The watcher followed on his rag-wrapped heels, let himself be shoved after him as he crossed the threshold, by a prisoner with an armband and a truncheon. Keeper and watcher wound up next to one another, in the front rank, shivering.
"Stop trying to make me believe," he growled softly, eyes straight ahead. "Seek comfort where you can, but leave me out of it. I know what I know."
His flinty eyes avoided the man in glasses; instead, he took in the barbed wire fences, the guard towers, the buildings just beyond, where it happened... that which proved there was no God. He closed his eyes and saw the lines, the endless lines of women and children, urged along by husbands and fathers who knew better but thought it was a last act of kindness to pretend as though they really were walking into showers... with airtight doors, and the smell of death hanging in the air. Show me a God who can allow a place like this to exist, and I'll show you a God I can hate, he thought.
"For God to end suffering, he would first have to end free choice," the man behind the cracked lenses murmured, trying not to be seen talking in ranks, though each word, each sentence sent out puffs of breath that condensed in the air. "And without free choice, we are no longer humans. The burden is on us, my friend. To bring God to the godless place, to bring what measure of comfort we can to people who suffer." He chanced a look at the man beside him. "The antithesis of evil is not good -- it's love."
"You're mad. Try eating all of your ration, instead of giving it away. Maybe you'll stop hallucinating." He stared straight ahead, now, eyes narrowed. Something was happening.... There were more guards than usual.
"We are called to be servants," the man at his side answered. "We are not numbers, we are men."
"Shut up."
The rows of prisoners, all turned out of their barracks, grew silent beneath the steady glare of spotlights. Minutes dragged by, marked only by their shallow breaths and the beating of their hearts as they stood still, eyes forward, frozen like rows of corpses caught in a glacier. Finally, as dawn started to break over the camp, a knot of black-uniformed men strode onto the assembly ground, stopped, and a single man stepped out of the midst of them.
He was tall and thin, and the creases of his uniform trousers were sharp and straight as folded paper where his legs stuck out from beneath a black overcoat. His cap, with its lightning bolts and death's head, was set at a slightly jaunty angle, and when he walked it was with graceful confidence, his boots crunching out footsteps in the dirt with the regularity of a metronome. Between thin lips, a short, black cigarette holder was pinched, bearing a long, smoldering cigarette. He took it out to talk.
"I am Colonel Jahnig," he began, his voice loud and crisp. "And you are dogs -- the worthless slime that has collected on the boots of the Reich. The very sight of you makes me want to vomit. It is a travesty that good and honorable men must waste their time with the likes of garbage like you...."
It was a harangue they had heard before, and if the words were a little different, the tune was still the same. Periodically, one of the officers would get all worked up about something, and would assemble the prisoners so he could tell them how worthless they were, and how much more he'd rather be on the Eastern Front, fighting the Russian Communist Jews, or the Western Front, fighting the American Communist Jews.
As the colonel droned on, the man who was a number tuned out the words, focused instead on the sight of the cigarette as it surrendered its lovely white skin, millimeter by millimeter, letting it wisp away in fragrant smoke. Like a lonely man staring at a naked woman in a brothel window, he studied the cigarette, watched it move and sway, imagined what it would be like to be near it, to touch it, to smell it, to....
Suddenly, he was listening again: something had changed. "Last night," the colonel shouted, "three of you dogs tried to escape. Fortunately, they did not get far." The watcher's eyes swiveled, picked out the gallows at the far end of the yard; yes, three new bodies hung there. The birds were already starting to pick at them -- no doubt where wounds had been inflicted before death. Fools.
The colonel paced back and forth as he spoke. "In Caesar's day, when a Roman legion disgraced itself, the entire legion would be punished. It was called decimation: every tenth man would pay the price for what his brothers in arms had done -- or failed to do." He stopped for a moment, stared at the assembled prisoners. "You are certainly not legionnaires, but even dogs must have some self-respect. And if you cannot feel that respect for yourself, it must be imposed upon you. You will pay the price for the dogs who tried to escape, and perhaps you will remember your place next time."
He caught the eye of another black-clad officer, nodded, and that man marched down to the far end of the formation, executed a parade-ground left turn, then another, and began to strut between the first and second rank, tapping each man on the shoulder with the end of a riding crop, counting as he marched. "Eine! Zwei! Drei!" And when he reached "Zehn!" a soldier would grab that prisoner out of line and shove him toward a group forming on the other side of the yard.
Fear formed like a puddle of slush in the watcher's belly, and in the back of his mind, he was surprised -- he would have sworn that fear had been pressed out of him over the months, like so many other emotions had. His eyes strained in their sockets, going left, trying to look down the rank of shivering men without moving his head, trying to gauge.
"Eine! Zwei! Drei!" Death marched toward him.
He thought he could hear the thwack! of the riding crop as it struck each shoulder, punctuating the words. "Vier! Funf! Sechs!" He chanced turning his head, just a millimeter or two, to give himself a better vantage as he tried to reverse the count, counting down from himself toward the end of the line, which was rapidly rolling toward him. He didn't like the answer he got, started counting again. The counting officer drew nearer, the slap of leather against skin now loud in the morning air. He counted frantically, ticking off each prisoner in line to his left.
He had just twitched his tenth finger, to count a prisoner just a few meters away, when that man was grabbed and hauled away; his face was a blank, eyes vacant in the way of someone who was no longer even in his own body. The counting continued, seemed to speed up, now. "Eine! Zwei! Drei!" The watcher folded fingers, counting toward death.
He felt a touch on his arm, realized he was trembling beneath the thin fabric of his uniform. His eyes flickered down, saw that the man in glasses was touching him, fingers pressed on the tattoo that he had become.
"Vier! Funf! Sechs!"
"You are not this," the man hissed urgently. Then he chanced a look, directly at him, and added, "You are better than this!"
"Sieben! Acht!" The riding crop cracked down on the shoulder of the man next to the keeper.
And the keeper stripped off his broken glasses and ran.
Head down, arms pumping, he ran toward the colonel with the cigarette holder. The officer looked at him expressionlessly, never flinched as one of the guards casually swung around the muzzle of his rifle and snapped off a single shot. The copper jacketed slug passed through the keeper's chest, deflected down by a rib, and buried itself in the ground behind the prisoners, beneath a plume of dust.
Momentum carried him on for another step or two before his nervous system caught up with what had happened, and he sprawled at the feet of the guards, where he lay nearly still, one hand flexing and clenching as his life drained away. The nearest guard looked down at him, realized that he was not dead yet, and smashed the butt of his rifle down on his throat, grunted in satisfaction at the wet crack.
Back in formation, the counting officer barely hesitated, struck the watcher on the shoulder with his riding crop and snapped, "Neun!" Slapped the prisoner next to him and pronounced, "Zehn!" then started over as that one was hauled out of line.
The man whom death had passed over stood motionless, frozen, eyes leaking tears like some miraculous icon. He was still standing that way when the wail of the train whistle announced the arrival of the morning train.
That night, the walk back to the barrack was a nightmare scene -- beneath the yard lights and searchlights, the gallows sagged against the weight of too many bodies; more hung from lamp posts and whipping posts, where they had danced away their lives with toes touching the ground. The lights cast weird shapes, like a grotesque shadow puppet theater spilled across ground and walls.
Wordlessly, he got in line for their ration of broth and bread. Next to him was a middle-aged man, an accountant, maybe -- a mouse with a gray crewcut and eyes that were veiled, no longer able to take in all that they saw. One of the new arrivals, a selectee -- he had seen that expression many times, had probably had it himself, once. He lowered his head, trying not to think.
There was a tug on his sleeve -- a faint plea for attention. He shrugged it off, then took a deep breath and turned toward the source -- the mouse. "Excuse me," the man asked timidly, "is this where we get our food?"
"Yes," he answered, and turned away. Took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned back to the man. "Yes, it is. You're new here, aren't you? What is your name?"
"Yes, I am," the man answered. "I'm Jan."
"Very well, then. My name is August," the man who was not a number replied, and held out his hand.
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.
Up Stream
By Bryan Meadows
Joshua 3:7-17
It's a glorious time of year! The fall harvest is on, or in some areas, finished. The leaves have displayed their vibrant colors. In the aftermath of their descent to the ground, the kids have a new type of playground. Our neighbor's tree provides more than enough leaves for the kids in the neighborhood to frolic around in. Hunting seasons are in full swing, and the harvest of game adorns many family's dining room tables. Yeah, what a sentimental time of year.
There's something else that makes this time of year special... well, maybe not special but at least fun for a select population of individuals. It's called "football season." It too is in full swing. It's the small town buzz on Friday nights for the local high school teams. It's the "never-say-die" attitudes of college football on Saturdays. And it's the "kick-back-in-your-recliner on Sunday" for professional football. As a former football coach, I can't help myself. I just love to watch the sport.
But herein is a problem. I'm a Cincinnati Bengals fan. At the time of this writing, they are 0-3 on the season. At certain points in their games, they've looked good. At other times, they've looked horrible. It's hard to make sense of it all.
If you too are a Bengals fan, you know where this is going. The Bengals have historically been one of the most losing organizations in the NFL (it's not anything to be proud of). Our fears, and I do speak collectively for all Bengals fans, is that once again we're going to spend another season in the basement.
Sure, we might etch out a win or two along the way. And who knows, we might even turn a corner and win 4 or 5 games as the season draws to an end. We like to think that it gives us hope for next year. It's like a CD that has a skip in it. The same thing happens over and over again.
That said, I can only hope that between now and the end of the season we'll turn a corner, come on really strong, and prevail as Super Bowl Champions! It never hurts to dream, and it never hurts to have a little faith.
However, up to this point, I have a term that I use when I watch my team lose yet another game. It's called, "Bummer!" Bummer, in my translation, stands for "disappointing."
Let me ask the million-dollar question: Have you ever had to use the word, "Bummer?" Ever been disappointed by the outcome of an event in your life? I dare say so. Fact is, "bummer" has a way of raising its head in ways that can wreck us, if we're not careful.
It's not always a stretch for us to speak about disappointments in our life. Examples of disappointments include... a blind date. One of your friends thought it would be a great idea and so you took a shot at it, only to be disappointed by the outcome. You had a great idea for a startup business. It tanked and everyone was left feeling disappointed. You had hoped to get into the school of your choice, but the letter in the mail told you otherwise. The results -- disappointing.
We can go deeper when talking about disappointment. It's real easy. Sometimes disappointment becomes like a ball and chain that follows you everywhere you go. People say a few hurtful things, and you take it to heart. You hear comments such as, "You don't make enough money in your line of work...." "I wish my daughter/son had married someone better than you...." "Why can't you produce the results like your co-worker over there?"
You get it, don't you?
What do you do when you're feeling disappointed? What do you do with your own emotional baggage of disappointment in yourself or someone you deeply care for?
Those are excellent questions, and I want to ask you to put a bookmark here. In the meantime, I want us to look at the text for this particular Sunday. It's a fascinating story about how faith can prevail in some pretty desperate situations.
As it was, Moses and the Israelites had wandered the desert for 40 years. They fled Egypt and the slavery they lived in. It was great to break free from Pharaoh's grip, but the downside is that Moses would lead them around in what seemed like a big wondering circle for 40 years.
They were told they would enter the promised land. Only thing though -- they would have to go through the desert to get there. The people believed Moses was up to the challenge, but shortly therein, and then for the next 40 years, they let Moses know their feelings with harsh words.
And if that were not enough, they finally reached the shores of the Jordan, across from Jericho: The said promised land. Now, of all the times to be relieved of your duties after 40 hard, dedicated years, God tells Moses, "You're done. I'm taking you out of the game and bringing in a reliever."
One word here: Bummer! That's a lot of disappointment to carry around.
So Joshua takes over for Moses and they are to cross the Jordan and enter into the promised land. Forty long and agonizing years have come down this moment in time when close to a million Israelites would walk across the river. Can you imagine the anxiety? The excitement? The joy?
There's another "bummer" in here. The Israelites stand on the banks of the Jordan during the harvest season. Translated: The river is flowing at full strength. Crossing it now would be a very dangerous thing. The current is strong and there are feeble men and women with unstable footing, and mothers carrying their children who don't stand a chance in these waters.
Joshua does what a good leader ought to do at this point: He appeals to a higher power. "God, what's up with this? You want us to cross the Jordan now, after 40 years of wandering?" They could have waited another month and the river would have gone back down to a level that was much safer. But God was up to something....
God gave Joshua this powerful message: "When the soles of the feet of the priest who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap" (3:13).
In the midst of a lot of bummers, they do as instructed. Amazingly, when the feet of the priests hit the water, the water stopped flowing. The scriptures tell us that they were put on hold as far back as the town of Adam. On a map, that would be about 16 miles back upstream. Before the Israelites now was an empty river basin, ready for them to cross over.
It seems like something out of a strange movie, except for the fact that this story is real. This really did happen! The people crossed over. Everyone was safe. The promised land was entered. Everything that God said was going to happen did happen! In one final act of faith and obedience, the Israelites trusted God at his word. Wow!
You would have thought that after 40 years of a whole bunch of bummers, these folks might walk away from God. But they didn't. They stayed the course and the return on that investment was what was called, "The promised land." How amazing is that?
Let's go back to those bookmarks I asked you to use concerning your own "bummers" in life. There are times in our lives when things get so difficult and hard that we'd like to throw our arms up and say, "Forget about it! I've had it!"
But this I leave you with: We serve a God who is continually at work "up stream." You may not always sense God's presence. You may go a good while without hearing a word from God. You may find yourself in the desert, being tempted to turn to foreign idols.
But if there's one thing that Joshua and God can teach us, it's this: God is at work up stream. You don't have to see God to know that he's there. This life we live is supposed to be lived in faith. Our primary tasks include obedience and trust, even when the waters are raging and fear and disappointment are our menus.
I think of the words of Isaiah who said, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you..." (43:1-2).
So often our lives get filled with bummers. But let us declare this day that whatever bummers... or disappointments that we face, and that stand in our way, they merely become objects that will show just how great and how amazing this God is we serve. For never should we doubt that we serve the God is at work... up stream in our lives. Eventually, God's work will reveal itself. And when it does, let us be found faithful. Let us be found as those who serve the God who is at work up stream. Shalom.
Bryan Meadows has served as pastor of The Huntsville United Methodist Church since 1998, following his graduation from The Methodist Theological School. He and his wife, Alice, are the parents of three children: Caleb, Josie, and Hannah. Bryan enjoys photography, playing guitar, and bird hunting with his dogs.
A Magical Little Poem
By Frank Ramirez
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress....
-- Psalm 107:6
My grandmother, my father's mother, was born Maria Galvan. She was born in Mexico. But in 1910, when she was ten years old, she moved with her family to the little town of Fierro in New Mexico, high in the mountains. Her father, Jesus Malgosa de Galvan, had heard of the thriving Hanover Mining Company and figured the people there would need a little store.
Her life was so different than mine. She was thirteen years old when she married Antonio Ramirez in 1913, and she went on to have thirteen children. Unfortunately, infant mortality was high in that region, and only seven survived to adulthood. Her husband died young, so for the last forty years of her life she wore black.
Grandma Mary did not speak much English, and toward the end of her life she chose not to speak any at all. However, when I was a child we'd struggle to communicate. My Spanish wasn't very good and her English, though better, was halting. During my childhood, she'd come over to help when my mother was off having a baby, which in those days was all the time. I'm the second oldest of eight.
Though we had trouble communicating, she taught us by example. Grandma Mary was a great reader, for instance. She'd had very little formal schooling, but she read voraciously. We observed that and were great readers ourselves. (When she died, I was given her copy of Don Quixote -- in Spanish, of course.)
The greatest lesson she gave us was when we'd incur one of those inevitable childhood injuries, like a scraped knee or elbow. When we ran indoors crying she'd give us a "sana, sana."
Grandma would lean over the cut or scrape, wave her hand over the wound, and recite:
Sana, sana,
Colita de rana.
Si no sanas hoy
Sanarás Mañana.
And that was usually good enough. We'd take off running for more play -- and more scraps. Sana, sana.
I've learned over the years that the poem wasn't just something Grandma knew. It's known over the whole Hispanic world. Folks from other countries brighten when I recite the poem. Their grandmothers used it, too. You can find it in children's books, on posters, and postcards.
But what did the poem mean?
It meant something like "wellness, wellness, gas from a frog. If you don't get well today, you'll get well tomorrow."
The second line was pure nonsense, but the rest of it made sense! If you don't get well today, you'll get well tomorrow.
Maybe that poem didn't actually cure us, but it healed us. Our little scrapes were still wide open. The most we might get was a bandage. But that didn't matter. We were healed. Most dings are not as bad as we first think.
That poem brought the magic gift of perspective. Just wait. It will get better. Most everything does.
That's one gift we can give to each other in times of distress -- the gift of perspective. We know what's important and what can wait. We know that, like a car, when we first hear a rattle or a thump, you just ignore it. It'll either go away or it'll get worse, and then you'll know what to do about it.
Perspective. This is not the end of the world. Those of us who are a little older have seen the end of the world. We've stood at the edge of the abyss and looked over the edge. We've seen. And life goes on.
Perspective teaches us that life is short. Eat dessert first. It's why we know how important it is to embrace joy right now.
The psalmist celebrates that when the people called aloud in their distress, God provided deliverance! Sometimes we think that deliverance means removal of our problems, curing our sicknesses, restoring everything the way it was. Sometimes healing, deliverance, renewal means learning to live with our cross for today and to triumph! It helps if we've been through this sort of thing before, because we know God delivers!
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, November 1 and 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.
What's Up This Week
"The Fifth Gospel" by John Smylie
"The Burden" by Keith Hewitt
"Up Stream" by Bryan Meadows
"A Magical Little Poem" by Frank Ramirez
What's Up This Week
What is a saint? What does a saint look like? How does one act? For All Saints' Day, this week's StoryShare features John Smylie relating his experiences in the Holy Land to the words of Revelation, pondering how we can be saints to others by allowing God to work through us to bless them. In "The Burden," Keith Hewitt paints a picture of a different kind of saint, one who keeps the light of hope and love in his heart in the darkest of times.
For Proper 26, Bryan Meadows and Frank Ramirez comment on the need for perspective during adversity. In "Up Stream," Meadows reminds us that even when things seem bleak and we are laden with disappointments, God is up ahead of us, working in ways that we cannot see at the moment. "A Magical Little Poem" reminds us that God is a God of deliverance, and that while things may seem bad today, there is always tomorrow.
* * * * * * * * *
The Fifth Gospel
By John Smylie
Revelation 7:9-17
If you ever have an opportunity to visit the Holy Land, you will probably discover the Jerusalem cross. The Jerusalem cross consists of five crosses; there is one large cross in the center and on each of the four corners there are four small crosses. Some interpret the meaning of the five crosses as representing the four corners of the world -- east, west, north, and south with Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the center, symbolizing the entire world coming to Christ. An interpretation that I like to place on the Jerusalem cross is this: The four crosses represent the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The cross in the center represents the land -- the Holy Land -- the fifth gospel.
The Holy Land is a land of contrasts. To the east, it is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. To the north, it is bordered by Lebanon and Syria. The western border includes Syria and Jordan and to the south, we find Egypt. The northern part of the country is more fertile as there are three primary sources of water that feed the Jordan River that then flows into the Sea of Galilee and out of the Sea of Galilee ending in the Dead Sea. South of the Dead Sea and around the Dead Sea, the land is extremely barren. It's what we know as the Judean wilderness, and wilderness it is. Water is perhaps the most precious commodity in all of the Holy Land. Wars continue to be fought over water -- negotiations often center around water -- and in the imagery of Revelation where we discover the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life because this is exactly what the people of the land need and long for.
At times, it may be difficult for us in this country to recognize the value of water. Most of us have indoor plumbing connected to city reservoirs or wells. We turn on the tap and out flows your drinkable water. We step into the shower and are bathed in the sweet and relaxing flow and blessing of hot streams pulsing upon our bodies. Some of us may be blessed with large bathtubs with jets in the sides of them that circulate the water massaging our bodies. Others may be blessed with swimming pools and hot tubs and a few may even have water coolers where fresh, clean, and purified water is delivered directly on an as needed basis. The luxury that we have with water was virtually unknown to the people of the Bible except for kings like King Herod with his thousands of slaves. We are extremely blessed and our blessings may have made us dull to the blessings of water and to the abundance of the life that we now enjoy in this country even in the midst of financial crises, rising inflation, lowering housing values, and all the other transitory challenges that come our way -- we remain a very, very blessed people.
There was a certain professor whose class on the New Testament I took at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary just north of Boston. (Gordon Conwell was a part of the Boston theological Institute a consortium of schools, which provided an opportunity for students from each seminary to be cross fertilized and exposed to other traditions.) Gordon Conwell was a more evangelical seminary than the seminary that I attended and I desired to be exposed to the evangelical teaching and biblical perspective that was taught in that place. But when it came to the book of Revelation the professor had come to the conclusion that the whole book ought to be viewed as a kind of motion picture. He advised the class not to read it literally but to allow the images that make up the book of Revelation to work upon our consciousness. He was not interested in breaking it down with a view toward figuring it out in a way that it described and predicted the future. Rather he invited the students in his class to be washed by the images and to allow the images to impact us, to go with them, and discover where they would lead us. As I consider his teaching method for the book of Revelation, my conclusion is this -- he didn't understand it and rather than trying to explain something that was beyond his comprehension he was inviting us to simply receive the word while opening ourselves to it.
Over the years, I've had four opportunities to spend time in the Holy Land. My first visit was in 1976 -- my last visit was in September of this year. Perhaps it's because I'm getting older but it seems to me each visit becomes a bit more distressing than the last.
On three of the four visits including the one just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to view the plains of Armageddon. The plains of Armageddon are part of a trade route connecting north and south as well as a route to connect to the east and west. On the plains of Armageddon, battle after battle has been fought to control the commerce that passed through the land. When one visits the place, one visits a hill upon which ruins have been discovered that date back thousands of years. Strongholds were built so that the trade routes could be fortified, but in those days when battles were fought, one of the ways that communities would be overcome was through cutting them off from their well -- their source of water. In this community, which is now operated by a kibbutz, there is a tunnel from the city dug to the well. The well was outside of the city but there was a way of covering up the outer entrance to the well to make it invisible to whatever soldiers were coming at that time. There are 183 steps leading down to the well and to the tunnel, which itself is quite long and cut out of stone. Generally, it was the women who would carry the jugs of water down the stairs and through the tunnel filling their jugs and then carrying them back to their homes, not only to care for their families, but also to water the animals. They would tie lanterns to their feet because their hands were consumed with holding the water jars above their heads. Here is another example of why water was so valuable, imagine what a blessing it would be to the women to understand, to hear, and to hope that the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and that he would guide them to springs of water and life -- springs that would not be down 183 stairs and through a dark tunnel. Imagine the joy they felt at the vision and hope that the lamb at the center of the throne who will be their shepherd who will not only guide them to the springs of water of life but to God who will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There would be no more tears brought upon all the people because of the hardship of their lives -- no more tears brought to them because of the constant battles with their enemies and the death of loved ones. Tears at seeing their labors destroyed would be gone, as would the tears shed because they lacked the necessary sustenance needed to keep their children alive.
There remains great suffering in the land of Israel. There is so much fear still present in the land -- fear of the enemies that are on the borders. The Jews fear the Palestinians and the Palestinians remain in an occupied country in their own land. Israel today is one land, two nations, and three religions.
The words of Revelation that we read today are words of hope for the people of old, and they can be words of hope to us as well. Yet when I consider the hardship that I face compared to the hardship that was faced in the generations before me, I must confess that I live in a nation and in a time of abundance and in many ways the vision of the kingdom is already present right here in today -- in this moment -- in my life. So I suppose my challenge is to find and be open to ways where God's grace, which is so present in my life, can be channeled through me to others. Please join me in blessing others as we seek to wear within our souls and hearts, minds and spirit, a life of thanksgiving for the abundance that is ours -- not only physical abundance but a spiritual abundance because we know the lamb who is at the center of the throne -- the Lamb who is the good shepherd, Jesus Christ.
John Smylie is the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyoming. Previously he served as the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington. Smylie has a broad range of experience in parish ministry, having served in rural, suburban, and urban settings. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. John recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric. He is also engaged in writing playful songs for the child in us all as well as melodic, accessible, and prayerful music for worship. Smylie's presentations weave several gifts into a cohesive and creative encounter with the Holy. He says, "A relationship with the living God is like a dance; as the music changes, new steps must be learned."
The Burden
By Keith Hewitt
Matthew 5:1-12
July
The flies were thick -- they always were -- as though to give substance to the hot, foul air that hung heavily in the barrack. He sat, perched on the corner of one of the stacks of sleeping shelves -- there was no other word for them, they were rough wood shelves barely wide enough for a man to lie on, four high and just far enough apart to allow a man to slide in. The top shelf in each set was the prize, for there a man had the most room; but they were also the hardest to get to after a day's labor, and nobody usually occupied one for very long.
He licked his cup clean, tongue darting about the inside, pressing against the tin, absorbing the last free molecules of weak broth and rye bread. Across the room, beyond the small cast iron stove that nearly heated the place in winter, an older man with cracked wire rim spectacles knelt on the floor, next to the bottom sleeping shelf. As he watched, the man carefully tore his ration of bread in half, set one piece aside and soaked the other in broth, pushing it down with his finger to immerse it as far as it would go in the battered tin cup. Hands trembling slightly, he added the contents of a second cup to that one, until the bread was submerged, then stirred it with his finger.
After the bread was saturated with the watery broth, he tore off a small piece and touched it to the lips of the man lying on the shelf. "Here," he said gently. "You need to eat." The man's eyes fluttered, and turned toward him; they were vacant, windows on a bombed-out building. "You must eat," he urged again, and pushed his other hand under the man's shoulders, forcing him up and slightly on his side.
The eyes blinked again, and this time his lips moved slightly. "Yes," the older man said softly, "That's it. You must eat." He pushed the bread against his lips, forced a space and held it there until the man took it in and chewed listlessly, finally swallowing. The effort seemed to exhaust him, but the man holding his head would have none of that. "One more," he insisted, and tore off another piece of bread, went through the same routine until it, too, was gone. Between bites, he would dab sweat from the man's forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.
After fifteen or twenty minutes -- it might have been an hour, for there were no clocks or watches here -- the man finished. Gently, the older man let him lie back against the shelf and stood up. He wiped his fingers on the gritty, stained sleeve of his threadbare striped shirt and nodded with some slight satisfaction. "Rest, now," he said, commanding that which was already happening, and turned away.
As he turned, he made eye contact with the man who had been watching. No one else in the room had bothered to watch, too consumed with their own grinding fatigue, or the heat, or the hunger in their bellies to care. They eyed each other silently for a heartbeat or two, then the watcher said, "It's no good, you know. That man is going to die."
"So am I," the man answered with a gentle smile, an expression that seemed almost hauntingly out of place on his grimy, creased face. "So are you. So are we all."
"Then he is going to die sooner than the rest of us," the man said, curious at his own lack of anger at the bald declaration of doom.
"I know." The smile remained, but the eyes above it changed. "I know," he repeated, and crossed the wooden barrack floor, moving slowly. "But knowing the truth," he said quietly, once he was nearer the man, "knowing that evil will prevail -- at least for the moment in this time and place -- does that lessen my charge to do good?" In the silence that followed, he tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in the broth, and offered it to the man.
The man dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "I ought to take that from you, just to teach you a lesson. Who do you think you are?"
The man with the bread shrugged, put it in his mouth and chewed slowly, drawing every bit of sustenance from that bit before swallowing. He tore off another piece, soaked it. "I am my brother's keeper," he said simply, after a moment's thought. "Who are you?"
The watcher held up his arm and pulled back the sleeve, exposed the numbers tattooed there. "This is me," he grunted, "for almost a year, now. Some days, it seems like all I ever was."
The keeper frowned for the first time. "No, my friend -- that's all they want you to be. But you are more than that, even here." He finished his portion of bread, drank the last drops of broth from his cup, after first offering it to the watcher, who scowled angrily at the offer. "They want us to forget," the keeper said softly. "They want us to forget that we are men. They want to separate us from our self-respect, from our honor, even from our faith."
The watcher laughed harshly. "Honor? Faith? You have been here long enough to know better."
The keeper's eyes sparked, behind cracked lenses. "Listen to me: They can take your house, they can take your job, your friends, your family, everything you own -- even your life. They can strip you bare and force you to crawl through excrement, but they can't take your honor, your dignity -- that's the spark we hold inside of us, the knowledge that we are more than this shell of flesh and bone, and that whatever happens to us here stays here -- we don't carry it with us through eternity."
He found that he had grasped the watcher's sleeve as he spoke intensely -- he released it, embarrassed, seemed to deflate a little as he smoothed the fabric and brushed away imaginary lint with his fingertips. He continued softly, "We must understand that, if we are to remain men. They hope that we will give away our honor and dignity, or trade it away, because they know they cannot take it, no matter how hard they try. And it angers them, because it mocks their power."
"Just wait a little longer," the watcher said simply, shaking down the sleeve of his other arm, once more covering that tattoo that named him. "You will understand sooner or later."
"As long as you believe you are only a number -- their number -- and as long as you believe that God has forgotten you in this place, they have won," the keeper answered. "My God tells me that he is with me always and everywhere -- and he expects me to act with honor and kindness. If he is with me, then I can do little else."
He smiled crookedly, touched the man's arm briefly. "We all make our choices, my friend. I believe God hopes that we choose wisely."
"I can tell you for certain," the watcher growled, "God -- if there is one -- is not here. He is not even watching."
The keeper turned away, as though weary of the argument, and his shoulders slumped as he crossed the barrack once more, to push himself onto the shelf just above the man he had fed. But he paused, there, and turned to the watcher. "Whether he is here or not," he said with a ghost of a smile, "we know for sure that you are here, and I am here... so we are called to share that spark of God that burns in us."
And then, as though assuming the argument was settled, he crawled onto his own shelf and closed his eyes.
The man on the bottom shelf died during the night.
* * *
November
"Stehen Sie auf! Stehen Sie, Sie Schweine auf!" The shouts cut into fitful sleep, punctuated by the drumbeat of rifle butts pounding on the walls of the barrack, rattling the windows and making dirt fall from the rafters like dirty snow. "Jeder heraus!" the voices barked, "Everybody out!" Overhead, the light bulbs flickered to life, casting pale shadows on the floor.
Men slid off the shelves on which they were stacked, dropped to the floor and shuffled toward the door, half asleep as they bumped against one another, not wanting to be awake but unwilling to be seen as slacking. Vapor wreathed them, the collective breaths of dozens of men. Feet wrapped in rags left trails in the dirt as they shuffled. Here and there the floor was marked where men, suddenly awakened and ordered into formation, had lost control of bowel or bladder before they even knew to try to make it to the slop bucket in the corner -- whether from fear or infection was unimportant, the result was the same, and every man knew it could happen to him next.
"You still haven't told me your name," said the man with cracked spectacles, the keeper, without turning to look at the man he addressed. The watcher was immediately behind and to his right as they approached the door. The press of men slowed, nearly stopped as the stream narrowed to let two men out the door at almost the same time. The thunder of rifle butts and shouted orders continued, now joined by the growling of dogs, Schutzhunde, just this side of wolves -- or maybe something beyond, because wolves only killed to eat.
"Leave it alone," the man said, one hand rubbing unconsciously across the half dozen numbers tattooed on his other arm. "You know what I am."
"You're more than that," the older man reminded him, and found a break in the press of men going out the door, slipped through it into the glare of spotlights. The watcher followed on his rag-wrapped heels, let himself be shoved after him as he crossed the threshold, by a prisoner with an armband and a truncheon. Keeper and watcher wound up next to one another, in the front rank, shivering.
"Stop trying to make me believe," he growled softly, eyes straight ahead. "Seek comfort where you can, but leave me out of it. I know what I know."
His flinty eyes avoided the man in glasses; instead, he took in the barbed wire fences, the guard towers, the buildings just beyond, where it happened... that which proved there was no God. He closed his eyes and saw the lines, the endless lines of women and children, urged along by husbands and fathers who knew better but thought it was a last act of kindness to pretend as though they really were walking into showers... with airtight doors, and the smell of death hanging in the air. Show me a God who can allow a place like this to exist, and I'll show you a God I can hate, he thought.
"For God to end suffering, he would first have to end free choice," the man behind the cracked lenses murmured, trying not to be seen talking in ranks, though each word, each sentence sent out puffs of breath that condensed in the air. "And without free choice, we are no longer humans. The burden is on us, my friend. To bring God to the godless place, to bring what measure of comfort we can to people who suffer." He chanced a look at the man beside him. "The antithesis of evil is not good -- it's love."
"You're mad. Try eating all of your ration, instead of giving it away. Maybe you'll stop hallucinating." He stared straight ahead, now, eyes narrowed. Something was happening.... There were more guards than usual.
"We are called to be servants," the man at his side answered. "We are not numbers, we are men."
"Shut up."
The rows of prisoners, all turned out of their barracks, grew silent beneath the steady glare of spotlights. Minutes dragged by, marked only by their shallow breaths and the beating of their hearts as they stood still, eyes forward, frozen like rows of corpses caught in a glacier. Finally, as dawn started to break over the camp, a knot of black-uniformed men strode onto the assembly ground, stopped, and a single man stepped out of the midst of them.
He was tall and thin, and the creases of his uniform trousers were sharp and straight as folded paper where his legs stuck out from beneath a black overcoat. His cap, with its lightning bolts and death's head, was set at a slightly jaunty angle, and when he walked it was with graceful confidence, his boots crunching out footsteps in the dirt with the regularity of a metronome. Between thin lips, a short, black cigarette holder was pinched, bearing a long, smoldering cigarette. He took it out to talk.
"I am Colonel Jahnig," he began, his voice loud and crisp. "And you are dogs -- the worthless slime that has collected on the boots of the Reich. The very sight of you makes me want to vomit. It is a travesty that good and honorable men must waste their time with the likes of garbage like you...."
It was a harangue they had heard before, and if the words were a little different, the tune was still the same. Periodically, one of the officers would get all worked up about something, and would assemble the prisoners so he could tell them how worthless they were, and how much more he'd rather be on the Eastern Front, fighting the Russian Communist Jews, or the Western Front, fighting the American Communist Jews.
As the colonel droned on, the man who was a number tuned out the words, focused instead on the sight of the cigarette as it surrendered its lovely white skin, millimeter by millimeter, letting it wisp away in fragrant smoke. Like a lonely man staring at a naked woman in a brothel window, he studied the cigarette, watched it move and sway, imagined what it would be like to be near it, to touch it, to smell it, to....
Suddenly, he was listening again: something had changed. "Last night," the colonel shouted, "three of you dogs tried to escape. Fortunately, they did not get far." The watcher's eyes swiveled, picked out the gallows at the far end of the yard; yes, three new bodies hung there. The birds were already starting to pick at them -- no doubt where wounds had been inflicted before death. Fools.
The colonel paced back and forth as he spoke. "In Caesar's day, when a Roman legion disgraced itself, the entire legion would be punished. It was called decimation: every tenth man would pay the price for what his brothers in arms had done -- or failed to do." He stopped for a moment, stared at the assembled prisoners. "You are certainly not legionnaires, but even dogs must have some self-respect. And if you cannot feel that respect for yourself, it must be imposed upon you. You will pay the price for the dogs who tried to escape, and perhaps you will remember your place next time."
He caught the eye of another black-clad officer, nodded, and that man marched down to the far end of the formation, executed a parade-ground left turn, then another, and began to strut between the first and second rank, tapping each man on the shoulder with the end of a riding crop, counting as he marched. "Eine! Zwei! Drei!" And when he reached "Zehn!" a soldier would grab that prisoner out of line and shove him toward a group forming on the other side of the yard.
Fear formed like a puddle of slush in the watcher's belly, and in the back of his mind, he was surprised -- he would have sworn that fear had been pressed out of him over the months, like so many other emotions had. His eyes strained in their sockets, going left, trying to look down the rank of shivering men without moving his head, trying to gauge.
"Eine! Zwei! Drei!" Death marched toward him.
He thought he could hear the thwack! of the riding crop as it struck each shoulder, punctuating the words. "Vier! Funf! Sechs!" He chanced turning his head, just a millimeter or two, to give himself a better vantage as he tried to reverse the count, counting down from himself toward the end of the line, which was rapidly rolling toward him. He didn't like the answer he got, started counting again. The counting officer drew nearer, the slap of leather against skin now loud in the morning air. He counted frantically, ticking off each prisoner in line to his left.
He had just twitched his tenth finger, to count a prisoner just a few meters away, when that man was grabbed and hauled away; his face was a blank, eyes vacant in the way of someone who was no longer even in his own body. The counting continued, seemed to speed up, now. "Eine! Zwei! Drei!" The watcher folded fingers, counting toward death.
He felt a touch on his arm, realized he was trembling beneath the thin fabric of his uniform. His eyes flickered down, saw that the man in glasses was touching him, fingers pressed on the tattoo that he had become.
"Vier! Funf! Sechs!"
"You are not this," the man hissed urgently. Then he chanced a look, directly at him, and added, "You are better than this!"
"Sieben! Acht!" The riding crop cracked down on the shoulder of the man next to the keeper.
And the keeper stripped off his broken glasses and ran.
Head down, arms pumping, he ran toward the colonel with the cigarette holder. The officer looked at him expressionlessly, never flinched as one of the guards casually swung around the muzzle of his rifle and snapped off a single shot. The copper jacketed slug passed through the keeper's chest, deflected down by a rib, and buried itself in the ground behind the prisoners, beneath a plume of dust.
Momentum carried him on for another step or two before his nervous system caught up with what had happened, and he sprawled at the feet of the guards, where he lay nearly still, one hand flexing and clenching as his life drained away. The nearest guard looked down at him, realized that he was not dead yet, and smashed the butt of his rifle down on his throat, grunted in satisfaction at the wet crack.
Back in formation, the counting officer barely hesitated, struck the watcher on the shoulder with his riding crop and snapped, "Neun!" Slapped the prisoner next to him and pronounced, "Zehn!" then started over as that one was hauled out of line.
The man whom death had passed over stood motionless, frozen, eyes leaking tears like some miraculous icon. He was still standing that way when the wail of the train whistle announced the arrival of the morning train.
That night, the walk back to the barrack was a nightmare scene -- beneath the yard lights and searchlights, the gallows sagged against the weight of too many bodies; more hung from lamp posts and whipping posts, where they had danced away their lives with toes touching the ground. The lights cast weird shapes, like a grotesque shadow puppet theater spilled across ground and walls.
Wordlessly, he got in line for their ration of broth and bread. Next to him was a middle-aged man, an accountant, maybe -- a mouse with a gray crewcut and eyes that were veiled, no longer able to take in all that they saw. One of the new arrivals, a selectee -- he had seen that expression many times, had probably had it himself, once. He lowered his head, trying not to think.
There was a tug on his sleeve -- a faint plea for attention. He shrugged it off, then took a deep breath and turned toward the source -- the mouse. "Excuse me," the man asked timidly, "is this where we get our food?"
"Yes," he answered, and turned away. Took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned back to the man. "Yes, it is. You're new here, aren't you? What is your name?"
"Yes, I am," the man answered. "I'm Jan."
"Very well, then. My name is August," the man who was not a number replied, and held out his hand.
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.
Up Stream
By Bryan Meadows
Joshua 3:7-17
It's a glorious time of year! The fall harvest is on, or in some areas, finished. The leaves have displayed their vibrant colors. In the aftermath of their descent to the ground, the kids have a new type of playground. Our neighbor's tree provides more than enough leaves for the kids in the neighborhood to frolic around in. Hunting seasons are in full swing, and the harvest of game adorns many family's dining room tables. Yeah, what a sentimental time of year.
There's something else that makes this time of year special... well, maybe not special but at least fun for a select population of individuals. It's called "football season." It too is in full swing. It's the small town buzz on Friday nights for the local high school teams. It's the "never-say-die" attitudes of college football on Saturdays. And it's the "kick-back-in-your-recliner on Sunday" for professional football. As a former football coach, I can't help myself. I just love to watch the sport.
But herein is a problem. I'm a Cincinnati Bengals fan. At the time of this writing, they are 0-3 on the season. At certain points in their games, they've looked good. At other times, they've looked horrible. It's hard to make sense of it all.
If you too are a Bengals fan, you know where this is going. The Bengals have historically been one of the most losing organizations in the NFL (it's not anything to be proud of). Our fears, and I do speak collectively for all Bengals fans, is that once again we're going to spend another season in the basement.
Sure, we might etch out a win or two along the way. And who knows, we might even turn a corner and win 4 or 5 games as the season draws to an end. We like to think that it gives us hope for next year. It's like a CD that has a skip in it. The same thing happens over and over again.
That said, I can only hope that between now and the end of the season we'll turn a corner, come on really strong, and prevail as Super Bowl Champions! It never hurts to dream, and it never hurts to have a little faith.
However, up to this point, I have a term that I use when I watch my team lose yet another game. It's called, "Bummer!" Bummer, in my translation, stands for "disappointing."
Let me ask the million-dollar question: Have you ever had to use the word, "Bummer?" Ever been disappointed by the outcome of an event in your life? I dare say so. Fact is, "bummer" has a way of raising its head in ways that can wreck us, if we're not careful.
It's not always a stretch for us to speak about disappointments in our life. Examples of disappointments include... a blind date. One of your friends thought it would be a great idea and so you took a shot at it, only to be disappointed by the outcome. You had a great idea for a startup business. It tanked and everyone was left feeling disappointed. You had hoped to get into the school of your choice, but the letter in the mail told you otherwise. The results -- disappointing.
We can go deeper when talking about disappointment. It's real easy. Sometimes disappointment becomes like a ball and chain that follows you everywhere you go. People say a few hurtful things, and you take it to heart. You hear comments such as, "You don't make enough money in your line of work...." "I wish my daughter/son had married someone better than you...." "Why can't you produce the results like your co-worker over there?"
You get it, don't you?
What do you do when you're feeling disappointed? What do you do with your own emotional baggage of disappointment in yourself or someone you deeply care for?
Those are excellent questions, and I want to ask you to put a bookmark here. In the meantime, I want us to look at the text for this particular Sunday. It's a fascinating story about how faith can prevail in some pretty desperate situations.
As it was, Moses and the Israelites had wandered the desert for 40 years. They fled Egypt and the slavery they lived in. It was great to break free from Pharaoh's grip, but the downside is that Moses would lead them around in what seemed like a big wondering circle for 40 years.
They were told they would enter the promised land. Only thing though -- they would have to go through the desert to get there. The people believed Moses was up to the challenge, but shortly therein, and then for the next 40 years, they let Moses know their feelings with harsh words.
And if that were not enough, they finally reached the shores of the Jordan, across from Jericho: The said promised land. Now, of all the times to be relieved of your duties after 40 hard, dedicated years, God tells Moses, "You're done. I'm taking you out of the game and bringing in a reliever."
One word here: Bummer! That's a lot of disappointment to carry around.
So Joshua takes over for Moses and they are to cross the Jordan and enter into the promised land. Forty long and agonizing years have come down this moment in time when close to a million Israelites would walk across the river. Can you imagine the anxiety? The excitement? The joy?
There's another "bummer" in here. The Israelites stand on the banks of the Jordan during the harvest season. Translated: The river is flowing at full strength. Crossing it now would be a very dangerous thing. The current is strong and there are feeble men and women with unstable footing, and mothers carrying their children who don't stand a chance in these waters.
Joshua does what a good leader ought to do at this point: He appeals to a higher power. "God, what's up with this? You want us to cross the Jordan now, after 40 years of wandering?" They could have waited another month and the river would have gone back down to a level that was much safer. But God was up to something....
God gave Joshua this powerful message: "When the soles of the feet of the priest who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap" (3:13).
In the midst of a lot of bummers, they do as instructed. Amazingly, when the feet of the priests hit the water, the water stopped flowing. The scriptures tell us that they were put on hold as far back as the town of Adam. On a map, that would be about 16 miles back upstream. Before the Israelites now was an empty river basin, ready for them to cross over.
It seems like something out of a strange movie, except for the fact that this story is real. This really did happen! The people crossed over. Everyone was safe. The promised land was entered. Everything that God said was going to happen did happen! In one final act of faith and obedience, the Israelites trusted God at his word. Wow!
You would have thought that after 40 years of a whole bunch of bummers, these folks might walk away from God. But they didn't. They stayed the course and the return on that investment was what was called, "The promised land." How amazing is that?
Let's go back to those bookmarks I asked you to use concerning your own "bummers" in life. There are times in our lives when things get so difficult and hard that we'd like to throw our arms up and say, "Forget about it! I've had it!"
But this I leave you with: We serve a God who is continually at work "up stream." You may not always sense God's presence. You may go a good while without hearing a word from God. You may find yourself in the desert, being tempted to turn to foreign idols.
But if there's one thing that Joshua and God can teach us, it's this: God is at work up stream. You don't have to see God to know that he's there. This life we live is supposed to be lived in faith. Our primary tasks include obedience and trust, even when the waters are raging and fear and disappointment are our menus.
I think of the words of Isaiah who said, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you..." (43:1-2).
So often our lives get filled with bummers. But let us declare this day that whatever bummers... or disappointments that we face, and that stand in our way, they merely become objects that will show just how great and how amazing this God is we serve. For never should we doubt that we serve the God is at work... up stream in our lives. Eventually, God's work will reveal itself. And when it does, let us be found faithful. Let us be found as those who serve the God who is at work up stream. Shalom.
Bryan Meadows has served as pastor of The Huntsville United Methodist Church since 1998, following his graduation from The Methodist Theological School. He and his wife, Alice, are the parents of three children: Caleb, Josie, and Hannah. Bryan enjoys photography, playing guitar, and bird hunting with his dogs.
A Magical Little Poem
By Frank Ramirez
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress....
-- Psalm 107:6
My grandmother, my father's mother, was born Maria Galvan. She was born in Mexico. But in 1910, when she was ten years old, she moved with her family to the little town of Fierro in New Mexico, high in the mountains. Her father, Jesus Malgosa de Galvan, had heard of the thriving Hanover Mining Company and figured the people there would need a little store.
Her life was so different than mine. She was thirteen years old when she married Antonio Ramirez in 1913, and she went on to have thirteen children. Unfortunately, infant mortality was high in that region, and only seven survived to adulthood. Her husband died young, so for the last forty years of her life she wore black.
Grandma Mary did not speak much English, and toward the end of her life she chose not to speak any at all. However, when I was a child we'd struggle to communicate. My Spanish wasn't very good and her English, though better, was halting. During my childhood, she'd come over to help when my mother was off having a baby, which in those days was all the time. I'm the second oldest of eight.
Though we had trouble communicating, she taught us by example. Grandma Mary was a great reader, for instance. She'd had very little formal schooling, but she read voraciously. We observed that and were great readers ourselves. (When she died, I was given her copy of Don Quixote -- in Spanish, of course.)
The greatest lesson she gave us was when we'd incur one of those inevitable childhood injuries, like a scraped knee or elbow. When we ran indoors crying she'd give us a "sana, sana."
Grandma would lean over the cut or scrape, wave her hand over the wound, and recite:
Sana, sana,
Colita de rana.
Si no sanas hoy
Sanarás Mañana.
And that was usually good enough. We'd take off running for more play -- and more scraps. Sana, sana.
I've learned over the years that the poem wasn't just something Grandma knew. It's known over the whole Hispanic world. Folks from other countries brighten when I recite the poem. Their grandmothers used it, too. You can find it in children's books, on posters, and postcards.
But what did the poem mean?
It meant something like "wellness, wellness, gas from a frog. If you don't get well today, you'll get well tomorrow."
The second line was pure nonsense, but the rest of it made sense! If you don't get well today, you'll get well tomorrow.
Maybe that poem didn't actually cure us, but it healed us. Our little scrapes were still wide open. The most we might get was a bandage. But that didn't matter. We were healed. Most dings are not as bad as we first think.
That poem brought the magic gift of perspective. Just wait. It will get better. Most everything does.
That's one gift we can give to each other in times of distress -- the gift of perspective. We know what's important and what can wait. We know that, like a car, when we first hear a rattle or a thump, you just ignore it. It'll either go away or it'll get worse, and then you'll know what to do about it.
Perspective. This is not the end of the world. Those of us who are a little older have seen the end of the world. We've stood at the edge of the abyss and looked over the edge. We've seen. And life goes on.
Perspective teaches us that life is short. Eat dessert first. It's why we know how important it is to embrace joy right now.
The psalmist celebrates that when the people called aloud in their distress, God provided deliverance! Sometimes we think that deliverance means removal of our problems, curing our sicknesses, restoring everything the way it was. Sometimes healing, deliverance, renewal means learning to live with our cross for today and to triumph! It helps if we've been through this sort of thing before, because we know God delivers!
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, November 1 and 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.
