A Fork In the Road
Stories
Contents
“A Fork In the Road” by C. David McKirachan
“Transformation Creates Miracles of Grace” by C. David McKirachan
“Sooner or Later the Truth Will Emerge” by Frank Ramirez
A Fork In the Road
by C. David McKirachan
Genesis 21:8-21, Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
The story of Abraham sending his slave and her child into the wilderness has been one of those I’ve avoided, which probably means there’s something in there that needs to be confronted.
I think it’s the blasé attitude of Abraham and even of God. I know it was a different culture and slaves were slaves, but compassion is so central to my understanding of how God loves us and of its centrality to the community of faith, it’s hard to get past this. Hagar’s expulsion from the community, indeed into the desert to die with her child is rough, to say the least.
When I run into something like this, I try to take it on two levels. To quote one of the great sages of our time, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi has something to teach all of us.
First, and most uncomfortable is the abuse of the marginalized by those who can. In our world, those without authority or power are likely to fall prey to those who have it. This is nothing new, but it is a horror.
My first parish was on the border of Newark, New Jersey, an inner-city parish. People in that church shared food with each other, because none of them had much and some of them lived on the edge of starvation. In five years, at least ten people in the church starved to death, because they’d rather pay their rent than buy food. I got a reputation for breaking into apartments. They were good stubborn Presbyterians. It would embarrass them less to have their pastor breaking a door, than having the authorities do it. The slum lord who owned 80% of the rental property in town was ruthless, and to quote him, “I’ve got more lawyers than you have people in your tenants’ organization.” We organized a rent strike. We busted him. He sold half his properties to his son-in-law. I think the son-in-law was worse.
Covid-19 has ravaged the urban poor, mostly black and brown communities because of their lack of access to medical care. They are harder hit by businesses closings, because they live paycheck to paycheck.
Why did Abraham shove his child and the mother into the desert? Well…
Jesus told us to stop using excuses and to consider the poor with compassion. We’ve got some work to do, in social justice, in our churches, and personally.
Aren’t you glad I’m done with the first?
Secondly, I don’t think we’ve got much of a clear focus on the nature of God. We want a god that is on our side, supports our endeavors. When we have time for prayer concerns in worship, prayers for our own, for healing of spouses, children, mothers, fathers, grand folk, and friends dominate. God is more of a Santa Claus that a foundational spirit, a ground of being.
We forget that God is different. That’s why we worship her/him/it. The only reason we have any idea about the nature of God is because God has given us revelations of himself. And even with them we’re woefully lost when it comes to grasping the nature of this multi-dimensional being. So, to get angry that God wasn’t better at caring for Hagar and Ishmael, is like being angry at a hurricane for eroding the beach at our vacation spot.
Jesus has told us that God is our loving parent. But the compassion of God is different than our human concept of compassion. Our expectations of God demonstrate the behavior of spoiled children.
We have been given the gift of life, not just existence, but consciousness. And we have been offered the opportunity to know that this higher being has something more in mind for us than birth, reproduction, and death. The Good News is not that life will be easy or fun or fair. The good news is that the one and only God has been among us and offered us a way to go through now, living the way the Creator God has told us is the best for us, has shown us how it works, died as proof that we matter that much, and risen to show us that this journey is not all there is.
I’d say that’s pretty good news. But it still leaves Abraham being a shmuck and Hagar and Ishmael under a bush.
So, preach on this if you want to. Personally, I’d run a class on it.
* * *
Transformation Creates Miracles of Grace
by C. David McKirachan
Jeremiah 20:7-13, Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18
Preaching is a strange calling. Especially preaching to the same congregation week after week. The foundation of the message is the good news. Christ’s life, teaching, the cross, and the empty tomb. This drama itself is founded on the love of God. The Lord knows we need good news. The gift of life is not an easy gift, to say the least. This journey is filled with disappointment and pain. To climb into the pulpit (though most of us do not climb) with the assumption that our job is to offer a message of analgesic for the pain is to assume the role of a drug dealer, offering a temporary escape that does little for the people and in my mind denies the root of the good news that Jesus brought. Such a gospel puts a coat of paint over rotten boards, no way to maintain a dwelling. Such a gospel denies our calling to get off our buns and move along down the road, following our Lord.
So, if we are to preach the good news, the real, honest good news, we’ve got to face the people as they are with honesty. To do so, we have to speak of the systematic abuse of God’s creation. Not only by big corporations, but by the habits and laziness and unconsciousness of most of the people we are preaching to. One-use plastic containers rarely make it into our sermons. (Composting is not popular.)
To do so, we have to speak of our systematic abuse of our fellow human beings. We have to face racism, sexism, and etc. We have to speak of laws and attitudes, of behaviors and what we teach our kids. We have to speak of violence that we consume and feed each other like high class baby food that is without nourishment and encourages fear. To do so, not only takes us off the way that our Lord leads, but directs us to a hell of tooth and claw.
To do so, we have to speak of our systematic abuse of ourselves as children of the Most High God. We follow other gods, small gods of money, power, security, property, … the list is long. We protect ourselves with all kinds of drugs, anxieties, responsibilities, habits, technologies, all the while neglecting sabbath, worship, prayer, fasting, forgiveness, tolerance, generosity, ministry, love … the list is long. It’s no wonder we treat each other so badly, we push ourselves away from God and come up with good excuses on a constant basis.
To do so we have to face ourselves. Michael Jackson said it well: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change.” How willing are we to take a look at ourselves, stripped bare of all our excuses? It’s enough to instill terror. But if we won’t do that, how can we ask others to engage in similar behavior?
Every week?
Like Jeremiah, we get sick of it. It becomes a virus, eating our self-worth and confidence. Ministers are the most approval-oriented professionals. Mix that little tid-bit with the above formula and it’s no wonder we’d rather do praise services and hold hands.
But at the core of this good news is not our corrupt nature. It is the love and grace of God. The formula of corruption leaves out one specific ingredient: the Holy Spirit. We may be a mess, ‘tis true, ‘tis true, but when the wind and fire start blowing and burning, transformation creates miracles of grace. Miracles that seem impossible. Miracles that are made of dust and the Spirit. My friends, that’s what we are made of.
And that’s the good news we bring. So, just like Jeremiah, let us wrestle with the monsters, monsters in ourselves and in our people and in our society. Jacob wrestled so and limping he became different, still a pain in the neck but full of promise.
Transformation, preach it. Let the Holy Spirit do his job and things do change. They do. (Composters are available at most local hardware stores.)
* * *
Sooner or Later the Truth Will Emerge
by Frank Ramirez
Matthew 10:24-39
...for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. (Matthew 10:26)
Chaco Culture National Historic Site is located in the northwest corner of New Mexico. All that is left across miles of imposing cliffs, stark hills, and the desert landscape are the ruins of what was once a thousand years ago a thriving, living civilization. Chaco’s economic web stretched out across thousands of miles. Her roads connected the Native American outposts hundreds and thousands of miles away.
Their knowledge of architecture, astronomy, and construction was immense. These ancestral Puebloans, as they are sometimes referred to, grew corn despite the desperately arid climate.
Buildings were aligned with the motions of the sun, moon, and the heavens, celebrating not only the annual coming of winter, spring, summer, and fall, but also the 19 1/2 year track along which the moon rose and set, an enormous stretch of time for a people whose average life span could be brutally short. Truly one might have said in those days, as it was once said of Rome, that all roads lead to Chaco Canyon, and that is where all roads end.
Pueblo Bonito, or “Beautiful House,” is the name given by the Spaniards who came upon this place centuries later. It is not the name given to it by those who lived there. We don’t know what they called it. But it remains the most magnificent of all the ruins. At one time it stood six stories high, with over six hundred rooms, surrounded by numerous kivas, circular rooms sunk into the earth where worship took place.
Sometime around 800 years ago the climate and crops could no longer sustain this lifestyle. These buildings were abandoned in what seemed a mysterious manner to many of the early archaeologists who visited this place. There is still much debate about who lived there, and how many, and why? For many years there was much speculation about what was known as the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito.
Much of that speculation centered on a tree trunk discovered alone, lying on its side, in the courtyard or plaza at Pueblo Bonita.
In 1924 Wayne Judd, one of the earliest excavators came upon this tree trunk over six yards tall in the western part of the central plaza. He later wrote this evocative passage:
At the south end of the West Court we unexpectedly discovered the remains of a large pin that had stood there, alive and green, when Pueblo Bonita was inhabited. Its decayed trunk lay on the last utilized pavement, and its great, snag-like roots preclude the possibility of its ever having been moved.”
Much speculation was centered about this Ponderosa Pine. It has been referred to as a “world tree,” or a “tree of life.” It was thought to have stood as a lone sentinel in this place where all else is stone, brick, and mortar.
Because this lone tree stood by itself stories began to arise regarding its significance. The tree might have been planted there near Pueblo Bonita around the year 850, when construction was getting underway, and that it remained there for centuries. In that way it encompassed both the birth and death of the Chaco Culture.
Perhaps it was the last remnant of a dying culture. Perhaps its death was a sign to the Puebloans that their time in Chaco Canyon was ending.
Some referred to it as the “world tree,” that in some way it was meant to symbolize the overarching world and even cosmic community woven into the relationship between the people, the stones, the fragile ecosystem that provided their food, and the universe.
In many cases the theories said more about the person who invented them than perhaps the actual customs of the people who lived in what seemed to be a very mysterious place.
The science of dating the archaeological record through the evidence of tree rings is called dendrochronology. Basically, trees grow another distinct ring each year, and the thickness or thinness of that ring tells a lot about that year’s weather. The ring for that year is very distinctive. When one knows exactly when a tree was felled, or fell over, it’s possible to figure out how old that tree was. It can be compared to even older trees, and where the rings overlap and match it’s possible to extend the record even further back into the past.
When it comes to Chaco Canyon, the tree record helped archaeologists to date roughly when a particular room in a building might have been constructed, based on the trunks of trees that supported that part of the structure.
But decades later, when scientists sought the original records, they discovered there was a disconnect between the what the discoverer said and what the record of the tree rings told. The tree seems to have come from a grove more than thirty miles away, and had been harvested between 1120 and 1140. It may have been intended to be used in further construction which never took place, and was left there when the people left.
That’s the thing about truth. Even when something makes a great story, if it’s not true, it’s not true, and sooner or later someone will sift the actual facts to find out what really happened.
In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus assures his listeners that despite the intentions of some religious and political leaders to create another reality, all their misdeeds will eventually be discovered and sooner or later the truth will emerge.
Dating artifacts and events through the tree rings, is much more exact that many suppose.
(Want to know more? Read “Convergence of Evidence Supports a Chuska Mountains Origin for the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonita, Chaco Canyon,” in American Antiquity, available online.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 21, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“A Fork In the Road” by C. David McKirachan
“Transformation Creates Miracles of Grace” by C. David McKirachan
“Sooner or Later the Truth Will Emerge” by Frank Ramirez
A Fork In the Road
by C. David McKirachan
Genesis 21:8-21, Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
The story of Abraham sending his slave and her child into the wilderness has been one of those I’ve avoided, which probably means there’s something in there that needs to be confronted.
I think it’s the blasé attitude of Abraham and even of God. I know it was a different culture and slaves were slaves, but compassion is so central to my understanding of how God loves us and of its centrality to the community of faith, it’s hard to get past this. Hagar’s expulsion from the community, indeed into the desert to die with her child is rough, to say the least.
When I run into something like this, I try to take it on two levels. To quote one of the great sages of our time, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi has something to teach all of us.
First, and most uncomfortable is the abuse of the marginalized by those who can. In our world, those without authority or power are likely to fall prey to those who have it. This is nothing new, but it is a horror.
My first parish was on the border of Newark, New Jersey, an inner-city parish. People in that church shared food with each other, because none of them had much and some of them lived on the edge of starvation. In five years, at least ten people in the church starved to death, because they’d rather pay their rent than buy food. I got a reputation for breaking into apartments. They were good stubborn Presbyterians. It would embarrass them less to have their pastor breaking a door, than having the authorities do it. The slum lord who owned 80% of the rental property in town was ruthless, and to quote him, “I’ve got more lawyers than you have people in your tenants’ organization.” We organized a rent strike. We busted him. He sold half his properties to his son-in-law. I think the son-in-law was worse.
Covid-19 has ravaged the urban poor, mostly black and brown communities because of their lack of access to medical care. They are harder hit by businesses closings, because they live paycheck to paycheck.
Why did Abraham shove his child and the mother into the desert? Well…
Jesus told us to stop using excuses and to consider the poor with compassion. We’ve got some work to do, in social justice, in our churches, and personally.
Aren’t you glad I’m done with the first?
Secondly, I don’t think we’ve got much of a clear focus on the nature of God. We want a god that is on our side, supports our endeavors. When we have time for prayer concerns in worship, prayers for our own, for healing of spouses, children, mothers, fathers, grand folk, and friends dominate. God is more of a Santa Claus that a foundational spirit, a ground of being.
We forget that God is different. That’s why we worship her/him/it. The only reason we have any idea about the nature of God is because God has given us revelations of himself. And even with them we’re woefully lost when it comes to grasping the nature of this multi-dimensional being. So, to get angry that God wasn’t better at caring for Hagar and Ishmael, is like being angry at a hurricane for eroding the beach at our vacation spot.
Jesus has told us that God is our loving parent. But the compassion of God is different than our human concept of compassion. Our expectations of God demonstrate the behavior of spoiled children.
We have been given the gift of life, not just existence, but consciousness. And we have been offered the opportunity to know that this higher being has something more in mind for us than birth, reproduction, and death. The Good News is not that life will be easy or fun or fair. The good news is that the one and only God has been among us and offered us a way to go through now, living the way the Creator God has told us is the best for us, has shown us how it works, died as proof that we matter that much, and risen to show us that this journey is not all there is.
I’d say that’s pretty good news. But it still leaves Abraham being a shmuck and Hagar and Ishmael under a bush.
So, preach on this if you want to. Personally, I’d run a class on it.
* * *
Transformation Creates Miracles of Grace
by C. David McKirachan
Jeremiah 20:7-13, Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18
Preaching is a strange calling. Especially preaching to the same congregation week after week. The foundation of the message is the good news. Christ’s life, teaching, the cross, and the empty tomb. This drama itself is founded on the love of God. The Lord knows we need good news. The gift of life is not an easy gift, to say the least. This journey is filled with disappointment and pain. To climb into the pulpit (though most of us do not climb) with the assumption that our job is to offer a message of analgesic for the pain is to assume the role of a drug dealer, offering a temporary escape that does little for the people and in my mind denies the root of the good news that Jesus brought. Such a gospel puts a coat of paint over rotten boards, no way to maintain a dwelling. Such a gospel denies our calling to get off our buns and move along down the road, following our Lord.
So, if we are to preach the good news, the real, honest good news, we’ve got to face the people as they are with honesty. To do so, we have to speak of the systematic abuse of God’s creation. Not only by big corporations, but by the habits and laziness and unconsciousness of most of the people we are preaching to. One-use plastic containers rarely make it into our sermons. (Composting is not popular.)
To do so, we have to speak of our systematic abuse of our fellow human beings. We have to face racism, sexism, and etc. We have to speak of laws and attitudes, of behaviors and what we teach our kids. We have to speak of violence that we consume and feed each other like high class baby food that is without nourishment and encourages fear. To do so, not only takes us off the way that our Lord leads, but directs us to a hell of tooth and claw.
To do so, we have to speak of our systematic abuse of ourselves as children of the Most High God. We follow other gods, small gods of money, power, security, property, … the list is long. We protect ourselves with all kinds of drugs, anxieties, responsibilities, habits, technologies, all the while neglecting sabbath, worship, prayer, fasting, forgiveness, tolerance, generosity, ministry, love … the list is long. It’s no wonder we treat each other so badly, we push ourselves away from God and come up with good excuses on a constant basis.
To do so we have to face ourselves. Michael Jackson said it well: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change.” How willing are we to take a look at ourselves, stripped bare of all our excuses? It’s enough to instill terror. But if we won’t do that, how can we ask others to engage in similar behavior?
Every week?
Like Jeremiah, we get sick of it. It becomes a virus, eating our self-worth and confidence. Ministers are the most approval-oriented professionals. Mix that little tid-bit with the above formula and it’s no wonder we’d rather do praise services and hold hands.
But at the core of this good news is not our corrupt nature. It is the love and grace of God. The formula of corruption leaves out one specific ingredient: the Holy Spirit. We may be a mess, ‘tis true, ‘tis true, but when the wind and fire start blowing and burning, transformation creates miracles of grace. Miracles that seem impossible. Miracles that are made of dust and the Spirit. My friends, that’s what we are made of.
And that’s the good news we bring. So, just like Jeremiah, let us wrestle with the monsters, monsters in ourselves and in our people and in our society. Jacob wrestled so and limping he became different, still a pain in the neck but full of promise.
Transformation, preach it. Let the Holy Spirit do his job and things do change. They do. (Composters are available at most local hardware stores.)
* * *
Sooner or Later the Truth Will Emerge
by Frank Ramirez
Matthew 10:24-39
...for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. (Matthew 10:26)
Chaco Culture National Historic Site is located in the northwest corner of New Mexico. All that is left across miles of imposing cliffs, stark hills, and the desert landscape are the ruins of what was once a thousand years ago a thriving, living civilization. Chaco’s economic web stretched out across thousands of miles. Her roads connected the Native American outposts hundreds and thousands of miles away.
Their knowledge of architecture, astronomy, and construction was immense. These ancestral Puebloans, as they are sometimes referred to, grew corn despite the desperately arid climate.
Buildings were aligned with the motions of the sun, moon, and the heavens, celebrating not only the annual coming of winter, spring, summer, and fall, but also the 19 1/2 year track along which the moon rose and set, an enormous stretch of time for a people whose average life span could be brutally short. Truly one might have said in those days, as it was once said of Rome, that all roads lead to Chaco Canyon, and that is where all roads end.
Pueblo Bonito, or “Beautiful House,” is the name given by the Spaniards who came upon this place centuries later. It is not the name given to it by those who lived there. We don’t know what they called it. But it remains the most magnificent of all the ruins. At one time it stood six stories high, with over six hundred rooms, surrounded by numerous kivas, circular rooms sunk into the earth where worship took place.
Sometime around 800 years ago the climate and crops could no longer sustain this lifestyle. These buildings were abandoned in what seemed a mysterious manner to many of the early archaeologists who visited this place. There is still much debate about who lived there, and how many, and why? For many years there was much speculation about what was known as the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito.
Much of that speculation centered on a tree trunk discovered alone, lying on its side, in the courtyard or plaza at Pueblo Bonita.
In 1924 Wayne Judd, one of the earliest excavators came upon this tree trunk over six yards tall in the western part of the central plaza. He later wrote this evocative passage:
At the south end of the West Court we unexpectedly discovered the remains of a large pin that had stood there, alive and green, when Pueblo Bonita was inhabited. Its decayed trunk lay on the last utilized pavement, and its great, snag-like roots preclude the possibility of its ever having been moved.”
Much speculation was centered about this Ponderosa Pine. It has been referred to as a “world tree,” or a “tree of life.” It was thought to have stood as a lone sentinel in this place where all else is stone, brick, and mortar.
Because this lone tree stood by itself stories began to arise regarding its significance. The tree might have been planted there near Pueblo Bonita around the year 850, when construction was getting underway, and that it remained there for centuries. In that way it encompassed both the birth and death of the Chaco Culture.
Perhaps it was the last remnant of a dying culture. Perhaps its death was a sign to the Puebloans that their time in Chaco Canyon was ending.
Some referred to it as the “world tree,” that in some way it was meant to symbolize the overarching world and even cosmic community woven into the relationship between the people, the stones, the fragile ecosystem that provided their food, and the universe.
In many cases the theories said more about the person who invented them than perhaps the actual customs of the people who lived in what seemed to be a very mysterious place.
The science of dating the archaeological record through the evidence of tree rings is called dendrochronology. Basically, trees grow another distinct ring each year, and the thickness or thinness of that ring tells a lot about that year’s weather. The ring for that year is very distinctive. When one knows exactly when a tree was felled, or fell over, it’s possible to figure out how old that tree was. It can be compared to even older trees, and where the rings overlap and match it’s possible to extend the record even further back into the past.
When it comes to Chaco Canyon, the tree record helped archaeologists to date roughly when a particular room in a building might have been constructed, based on the trunks of trees that supported that part of the structure.
But decades later, when scientists sought the original records, they discovered there was a disconnect between the what the discoverer said and what the record of the tree rings told. The tree seems to have come from a grove more than thirty miles away, and had been harvested between 1120 and 1140. It may have been intended to be used in further construction which never took place, and was left there when the people left.
That’s the thing about truth. Even when something makes a great story, if it’s not true, it’s not true, and sooner or later someone will sift the actual facts to find out what really happened.
In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus assures his listeners that despite the intentions of some religious and political leaders to create another reality, all their misdeeds will eventually be discovered and sooner or later the truth will emerge.
Dating artifacts and events through the tree rings, is much more exact that many suppose.
(Want to know more? Read “Convergence of Evidence Supports a Chuska Mountains Origin for the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonita, Chaco Canyon,” in American Antiquity, available online.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 21, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
