Five Days Old
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Five Days Old" by John Smylie
"Household Chores" by Frank Ramirez
"Do You Have to Be Smart to Be a Christian?" by Terry Cain
What's Up This Week
What is the true nature of God -- and how do we understand what we ought to do to be good Christians? There are many ways to approach answering those age-old questions... and theologians and philosophers have spent lifetimes trying to intellectually analyze them. But often, as the pieces in this week's edition of StoryShare remind us, we can intuitively grasp the answers if we are open to seeing the signs in the most simple of everyday locations -- from the gift of a five-day-old child, to the allocation of household work, to the folksy wisdom offered by a kindly grandmother.
* * * * * * * * *
Five Days Old
by John Smylie
Mark 9:30-37
She was only five days old the first time she came to church. She was absolutely tiny -- her mom looked incredibly tired and her dad was very, very proud. There were arguments throughout the congregation -- some thought the new minister was not traditional enough, others felt the old minister was somewhat of a fuddy-duddy; people argued over the music, they argued over the use of the building. It seemed as if everyone wanted to be in control. The building committee wasn't pleased with the stewardship committee, the stewardship committee was frustrated with the vestry, the vestry was frustrated with the finance committee, the finance committee was frustrated with the congregation and with the stock market... on and on it went. The faith community was clearly frustrated by its own humanness -- they were forgetting the glory of God upon which they were founded and upon which their life was based... until a five-day-old little girl came into the church.
Her mother and father had been married for several years and were unable to conceive a child until they came and asked for prayers. They received private prayers and counsel -- they were encouraged to let go of their anxieties while enjoying the gifts found in their marriage. And not long after the prayers and counsel, new prayers were offered that the mother who was now pregnant would carry the child to full term. The prayers were heard and the progress was noted as the mother grew and the evidence of their blessing became visible to all. The time came for the child to be born. Mom and Dad kept appearing in church. A few days late... more than a week late... more than two weeks late... and anxiety was rising within some who were particularly close to the couple. Folks were becoming worried about the health of mother and child.
The decision was made that labor would be induced on the Tuesday before that Sunday -- and a large and healthy little girl was born, the little girl who would remind us of whom we are and whom we are called to be. She came to church cradled in her father's arms, wrapped in a soft white blanket and barely able to move, and she was the center of everyone's attention. As we looked at her and saw the importance of who she was -- the gift of a new life, the miracle of a little girl -- we saw hope found within her, and it felt foolish to worry about the things that we were usually worried about. How could we be concerned if the music was traditional or contemporary? We had something to sing about, for joy was in our hearts as we shared in the joy of this young couple and their newborn child. What was so important that we couldn't put our differences aside: the differences between the building committee and the stewardship committee; the differences between the stewardship committee and the vestry; the differences between the vestry and the finance committee; the differences between the finance committee and the congregation? Nothing was more important to us than the sweetness of the little girl who was brought to us on the fifth day of her life.
Babies have a way of bringing healing. Little babies have a way of ministering to us. They don't need to do anything, and most of us will realize the grace and ministry of a little child when we feel the warmth of their tiny bodies held against our chests. We are not looking for their opinions; we are not measuring them on their creativity or on their giving of their time or their talents. We don't expect them to do anything but be... be who they are -- and even that is met without any expectations. We simply want them to be and to stay warm; we want them to feed and grow. It was the little five-day-old girl who brought us healing and grace and an example of how to be with one another, because on the day she arrived in the congregation we heard the gospel -- we really heard the gospel, not just with our ears but with our hearts and with our lives. It was as if Jesus himself was able to penetrate our community with his Word made flesh in the little five-day-old girl as his words were read from the gospel: "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
The gospel -- the good news -- is around us, within us, and among us.
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. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. Smylie recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric.
Household Chores
by Frank Ramirez
Proverbs 31:10-31
She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
-- Proverbs 31:27
How does your household run? How does mine? Depending on the size and how well we're functioning, each person may well have a particular gift and a particular job. The key is to link those two together.
The first Christians in the Roman Empire generally lived in a very complex household. The social assumptions of the Roman household -- the presence of slaves, subservient wives, autocratic husbands and masters -- seems to be at odds with our egalitarian society. One reason for the contrast is that we live in a society where we can work for change while the first-century Christians could not change the fundamental platform of their society.
The Roman household was a complex economy that included hierarchies of relatives -- children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, various wards, as well as servants and slaves and attendant trades and craft experts. Everyone -- the large extended family, slaves, artisans -- lived together. The household had public areas where business could be transacted, work areas where the family craft took place, areas for women only, and levels of responsibility.
The household was headed by a paterfamilias, an autocratic male who was the absolute authority in all things. He arranged -- and unarranged -- marriages, settled all disputes, and held the power of life and death over everyone.
Though a male was the head of a family, the wife was in charge of the household, including the management of finances and family. Here we meet someone like the woman mentioned in the last chapter of Proverbs. Knowing what we do about the early Roman household, one suspects she was not as rare as one might think. She was the administrator. And since churches met in houses, and indeed might have been linked with households, many historians are coming to realize that women must have run the first-century churches as well. Artwork shows women administering the Love Feast and Eucharist meals. It is apparent from all that was written, including documents such as the first-century Didache, that unlike society at large everyone -- women, men, slaves, free -- ate at the same table. It is also clear from the New Testament documents, including letters of Paul, that women such as Lydia, Mary the mother of Mark (who owned the Upper Room), Priscilla, the apostle Junia, and others were leaders of house churches.
Paul and the first-century Christians were attempting to transform the Household of Rome into a Household of God in which there was accountability in both directions, recognition of the worth of all people, and the acknowledgement that Jesus is the overarching Lord over all, and not a human being.
More important, Paul was establishing that the paterfamilias was not the be-all and end-all as in Roman society. There was a greater Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who took priority over all other commitments. If society could not be reformed, then the church should be transformed.
In the end everyone and everything in the household, master and slave, utensils made of gold and wood, must be dedicated to the true "owner of the house, ready for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
Do You Have to Be Smart to Be a Christian?
by Terry Cain
James 3:13--4:3, 7-8a
This scripture passage discusses the contrast between God's wisdom (in us) and the world's wisdom -- and what that means.
* * *
Jody, a 15-year-old, was very close to his grandmother, and he always sought her out when he had a serious question to ask or a problem that needed solving. One beautiful summer day they were sitting together on the front porch of his grandmother's old farmhouse because Jody had come with a specific concern on his mind. He didn't only come to visit when he needed her advice; he also enjoyed just being together with her, talking idly or listening to her reminisce. Today, he had a particular question he wanted to ask. After a while, he popped the question: "Grandma, does a person have to be smart to be a Christian?"
"That is quite a question, Jody," she answered. "What makes you ask?"
He explained how he and his friends had stopped in the park on the way home from school earlier in the week, and how they had been talking about various things when the discussion turned to religion. Jody shared how the kids brought up several ideas about God, Jesus, the church, and other religious beliefs. He told her that two of the kids, Tom and Laurie, attended Locust Avenue Church and seemed to know a lot more than any of the other kids and had an answer for most questions or topics they discussed. "We talked about heaven and how we can get to heaven," Jody said. "Tom and Laurie said there was only one way -- we had to be saved and believe in Jesus. Grandma, I believe in Jesus, I guess. What does it really mean to believe in Jesus? They said it just means to believe in Jesus with our whole heart. It seems like there must be more to it than that. Then we talked about how God takes care of us. They said if we follow Jesus, God will just take care of us. Grandma, Uncle Troy was a Christian and believed in Jesus. He was a very good person, so why did he get cancer and die? Tom said he must not have really believed. Laurie said God had his reasons and we just couldn't understand everything. They say we only need to believe, but it seems like there are so many difficult questions to consider, like which church is the right one, or are they all the same? How can they all be the same if they teach different ideas that seem exact opposites?" Jody looked at his grandmother and waited for her to answer.
"Jody, you have asked good questions," she began. "The Bible is a very deep book with difficult passages to understand. And different churches have a wide variety of beliefs. Your first question is very perceptive, and should be on everyone's mind at some time or other. Do we have to be smart to be a Christian? I don't have all the answers, but I have some ideas that might give us something to discuss and think about. Why don't we begin with that first question, and talk about other questions such as knowing right from wrong and the other ideas you have raised on other occasions as your interest dictates?"
"Sure, Grandma," replied Jody.
"Jody, there may be different kinds of wisdom or knowledge. For instance, there is the accumulation of facts such as memorizing mathematics tables or remembering certain dates in history. But of all the many kinds of knowledge there may be -- and I have no idea how many that may be -- the most important kind, as far as I am concerned, is the wisdom or smarts that comes from God. By that I mean if we love God and get close to God as Jesus has revealed God to us, we will know God well enough that we will be able to instinctively feel or sense many answers to questions. The answer to your question is yes, a Christian needs to be smart. But it's not book smarts -- it's the wisdom of understanding what God and God's love is like that leads us in the right paths. It will not be perfect, and if it was perfect we could not be saints all the time and always follow that wisdom perfectly. However, we would be pretty darn good Christians and getting better all the time."
"But Grandma, how do we get that wisdom or get that close to God?"
"By reading and rereading Jesus over and over and praying, then trying our best to live what we learn and feel. Jody, the fact that you have asked such an important question indicates you are already on the right path!"
Terry Cain is a retired United Methodist pastor who served his entire ministry in eastern Nebraska, including 25 years in Lincoln. He is the author of the CSS titles Shaking Wolves Out of Cherry Trees and Lions and Cows Dining Together. Cain is a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University (B.A.), St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City (M.Div.), and San Francisco Theological Seminary (D.Min.).
**************
StoryShare, September 20, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
"Five Days Old" by John Smylie
"Household Chores" by Frank Ramirez
"Do You Have to Be Smart to Be a Christian?" by Terry Cain
What's Up This Week
What is the true nature of God -- and how do we understand what we ought to do to be good Christians? There are many ways to approach answering those age-old questions... and theologians and philosophers have spent lifetimes trying to intellectually analyze them. But often, as the pieces in this week's edition of StoryShare remind us, we can intuitively grasp the answers if we are open to seeing the signs in the most simple of everyday locations -- from the gift of a five-day-old child, to the allocation of household work, to the folksy wisdom offered by a kindly grandmother.
* * * * * * * * *
Five Days Old
by John Smylie
Mark 9:30-37
She was only five days old the first time she came to church. She was absolutely tiny -- her mom looked incredibly tired and her dad was very, very proud. There were arguments throughout the congregation -- some thought the new minister was not traditional enough, others felt the old minister was somewhat of a fuddy-duddy; people argued over the music, they argued over the use of the building. It seemed as if everyone wanted to be in control. The building committee wasn't pleased with the stewardship committee, the stewardship committee was frustrated with the vestry, the vestry was frustrated with the finance committee, the finance committee was frustrated with the congregation and with the stock market... on and on it went. The faith community was clearly frustrated by its own humanness -- they were forgetting the glory of God upon which they were founded and upon which their life was based... until a five-day-old little girl came into the church.
Her mother and father had been married for several years and were unable to conceive a child until they came and asked for prayers. They received private prayers and counsel -- they were encouraged to let go of their anxieties while enjoying the gifts found in their marriage. And not long after the prayers and counsel, new prayers were offered that the mother who was now pregnant would carry the child to full term. The prayers were heard and the progress was noted as the mother grew and the evidence of their blessing became visible to all. The time came for the child to be born. Mom and Dad kept appearing in church. A few days late... more than a week late... more than two weeks late... and anxiety was rising within some who were particularly close to the couple. Folks were becoming worried about the health of mother and child.
The decision was made that labor would be induced on the Tuesday before that Sunday -- and a large and healthy little girl was born, the little girl who would remind us of whom we are and whom we are called to be. She came to church cradled in her father's arms, wrapped in a soft white blanket and barely able to move, and she was the center of everyone's attention. As we looked at her and saw the importance of who she was -- the gift of a new life, the miracle of a little girl -- we saw hope found within her, and it felt foolish to worry about the things that we were usually worried about. How could we be concerned if the music was traditional or contemporary? We had something to sing about, for joy was in our hearts as we shared in the joy of this young couple and their newborn child. What was so important that we couldn't put our differences aside: the differences between the building committee and the stewardship committee; the differences between the stewardship committee and the vestry; the differences between the vestry and the finance committee; the differences between the finance committee and the congregation? Nothing was more important to us than the sweetness of the little girl who was brought to us on the fifth day of her life.
Babies have a way of bringing healing. Little babies have a way of ministering to us. They don't need to do anything, and most of us will realize the grace and ministry of a little child when we feel the warmth of their tiny bodies held against our chests. We are not looking for their opinions; we are not measuring them on their creativity or on their giving of their time or their talents. We don't expect them to do anything but be... be who they are -- and even that is met without any expectations. We simply want them to be and to stay warm; we want them to feed and grow. It was the little five-day-old girl who brought us healing and grace and an example of how to be with one another, because on the day she arrived in the congregation we heard the gospel -- we really heard the gospel, not just with our ears but with our hearts and with our lives. It was as if Jesus himself was able to penetrate our community with his Word made flesh in the little five-day-old girl as his words were read from the gospel: "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
The gospel -- the good news -- is around us, within us, and among us.
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. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. Smylie recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric.
Household Chores
by Frank Ramirez
Proverbs 31:10-31
She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
-- Proverbs 31:27
How does your household run? How does mine? Depending on the size and how well we're functioning, each person may well have a particular gift and a particular job. The key is to link those two together.
The first Christians in the Roman Empire generally lived in a very complex household. The social assumptions of the Roman household -- the presence of slaves, subservient wives, autocratic husbands and masters -- seems to be at odds with our egalitarian society. One reason for the contrast is that we live in a society where we can work for change while the first-century Christians could not change the fundamental platform of their society.
The Roman household was a complex economy that included hierarchies of relatives -- children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, various wards, as well as servants and slaves and attendant trades and craft experts. Everyone -- the large extended family, slaves, artisans -- lived together. The household had public areas where business could be transacted, work areas where the family craft took place, areas for women only, and levels of responsibility.
The household was headed by a paterfamilias, an autocratic male who was the absolute authority in all things. He arranged -- and unarranged -- marriages, settled all disputes, and held the power of life and death over everyone.
Though a male was the head of a family, the wife was in charge of the household, including the management of finances and family. Here we meet someone like the woman mentioned in the last chapter of Proverbs. Knowing what we do about the early Roman household, one suspects she was not as rare as one might think. She was the administrator. And since churches met in houses, and indeed might have been linked with households, many historians are coming to realize that women must have run the first-century churches as well. Artwork shows women administering the Love Feast and Eucharist meals. It is apparent from all that was written, including documents such as the first-century Didache, that unlike society at large everyone -- women, men, slaves, free -- ate at the same table. It is also clear from the New Testament documents, including letters of Paul, that women such as Lydia, Mary the mother of Mark (who owned the Upper Room), Priscilla, the apostle Junia, and others were leaders of house churches.
Paul and the first-century Christians were attempting to transform the Household of Rome into a Household of God in which there was accountability in both directions, recognition of the worth of all people, and the acknowledgement that Jesus is the overarching Lord over all, and not a human being.
More important, Paul was establishing that the paterfamilias was not the be-all and end-all as in Roman society. There was a greater Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who took priority over all other commitments. If society could not be reformed, then the church should be transformed.
In the end everyone and everything in the household, master and slave, utensils made of gold and wood, must be dedicated to the true "owner of the house, ready for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
Do You Have to Be Smart to Be a Christian?
by Terry Cain
James 3:13--4:3, 7-8a
This scripture passage discusses the contrast between God's wisdom (in us) and the world's wisdom -- and what that means.
* * *
Jody, a 15-year-old, was very close to his grandmother, and he always sought her out when he had a serious question to ask or a problem that needed solving. One beautiful summer day they were sitting together on the front porch of his grandmother's old farmhouse because Jody had come with a specific concern on his mind. He didn't only come to visit when he needed her advice; he also enjoyed just being together with her, talking idly or listening to her reminisce. Today, he had a particular question he wanted to ask. After a while, he popped the question: "Grandma, does a person have to be smart to be a Christian?"
"That is quite a question, Jody," she answered. "What makes you ask?"
He explained how he and his friends had stopped in the park on the way home from school earlier in the week, and how they had been talking about various things when the discussion turned to religion. Jody shared how the kids brought up several ideas about God, Jesus, the church, and other religious beliefs. He told her that two of the kids, Tom and Laurie, attended Locust Avenue Church and seemed to know a lot more than any of the other kids and had an answer for most questions or topics they discussed. "We talked about heaven and how we can get to heaven," Jody said. "Tom and Laurie said there was only one way -- we had to be saved and believe in Jesus. Grandma, I believe in Jesus, I guess. What does it really mean to believe in Jesus? They said it just means to believe in Jesus with our whole heart. It seems like there must be more to it than that. Then we talked about how God takes care of us. They said if we follow Jesus, God will just take care of us. Grandma, Uncle Troy was a Christian and believed in Jesus. He was a very good person, so why did he get cancer and die? Tom said he must not have really believed. Laurie said God had his reasons and we just couldn't understand everything. They say we only need to believe, but it seems like there are so many difficult questions to consider, like which church is the right one, or are they all the same? How can they all be the same if they teach different ideas that seem exact opposites?" Jody looked at his grandmother and waited for her to answer.
"Jody, you have asked good questions," she began. "The Bible is a very deep book with difficult passages to understand. And different churches have a wide variety of beliefs. Your first question is very perceptive, and should be on everyone's mind at some time or other. Do we have to be smart to be a Christian? I don't have all the answers, but I have some ideas that might give us something to discuss and think about. Why don't we begin with that first question, and talk about other questions such as knowing right from wrong and the other ideas you have raised on other occasions as your interest dictates?"
"Sure, Grandma," replied Jody.
"Jody, there may be different kinds of wisdom or knowledge. For instance, there is the accumulation of facts such as memorizing mathematics tables or remembering certain dates in history. But of all the many kinds of knowledge there may be -- and I have no idea how many that may be -- the most important kind, as far as I am concerned, is the wisdom or smarts that comes from God. By that I mean if we love God and get close to God as Jesus has revealed God to us, we will know God well enough that we will be able to instinctively feel or sense many answers to questions. The answer to your question is yes, a Christian needs to be smart. But it's not book smarts -- it's the wisdom of understanding what God and God's love is like that leads us in the right paths. It will not be perfect, and if it was perfect we could not be saints all the time and always follow that wisdom perfectly. However, we would be pretty darn good Christians and getting better all the time."
"But Grandma, how do we get that wisdom or get that close to God?"
"By reading and rereading Jesus over and over and praying, then trying our best to live what we learn and feel. Jody, the fact that you have asked such an important question indicates you are already on the right path!"
Terry Cain is a retired United Methodist pastor who served his entire ministry in eastern Nebraska, including 25 years in Lincoln. He is the author of the CSS titles Shaking Wolves Out of Cherry Trees and Lions and Cows Dining Together. Cain is a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University (B.A.), St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City (M.Div.), and San Francisco Theological Seminary (D.Min.).
**************
StoryShare, September 20, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
