Glenda's Surprise
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Glenda's Surprise" by Argile Smith
"It Was Just My Imagination" by Keith Hewitt
"The Terrible Dark Day" by Peter Andrew Smith
"In Secret" by David Bales
What's Up This Week
One of the most fascinating things about the liturgical calendar is the fact that the Sunday of the Transfiguration is immediately followed by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. The Sunday in which we celebrate the awesome revelation of the radiant glory of God through his Son is followed by a solemn period of self-reflection, repentance, and self-denial. The glorious mountaintop experience is swiftly followed by a quiet journey through the valley.
The contributions to this week's StoryShare guide us from Epiphany to Lent with stories of revelation, stories of testing and trials, and stories of self-evaluation. In "Glenda's Surprise" Argile Smith offers an example in the natural of the lesson the disciples learned on the Mount: Things aren't always how they first appear. "It Was Just My Imagination" is a call to examine ourselves and our nature. As humans with our capacity to imagine and create, we can have the potential for great good or great evil. Where will we take that potential? "The Terrible Dark Day" illustrates a truth critical to Lent: In times of suffering, when we are battered and broken, that is when we can grow the most. "In Secret" tells the poignant tale of a woman, angrily grieving over the lost chance to reconcile with her mother, who learns a secret that changes her entire perspective on the mother she lost.
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Glenda's Surprise
By Argile Smith
Glenda made her way down the aisle in search of her seat. She wished that she could have afforded a first-class seat, but her budget only allowed her to buy an economy-class ticket. The airplane already appeared to her to be full of people with many more passengers walking behind her, waiting their turn to squeeze themselves into the few tight-fitting seats available, and situating themselves in preparation for the flight from Cincinnati to Denver.
Once Glenda found her seat, she joined everyone around her in the tedious process of settling in for the flight. As she sat down in her aisle seat, she noticed the lady sitting next to her in the window seat. Immediately she sized up the lady as the personification of simple elegance. Her attire, her hair, and her manner reflected it. When she spoke, gentleness emanated from her heart.
In the lady's hands rested a copy of a best-selling book on self-esteem. Glenda wanted to get a copy of it herself, but the rush of getting her business off to a good start prevented her from carving out any time for reading it.
Glenda introduced herself to the lady in the next seat, and soon they found themselves chatting about their lives and their families. The lady said that people called her Helen, and she talked freely and proudly about her three grown sons, their wives, and her grandchildren. She went on to tell Glenda about losing her husband to cancer four years ago and her struggle to find a new identity for herself as a single-again person.
Then the conversation turned to the book Helen held in her hands. Glenda brought up the fact that sales of the book had been doing well. Yet, she wondered if the book really could make a difference in a person's life. After all, Glenda argued, a person's self-esteem can't be improved by reading a book alone.
Helen sat quietly and listened, gently offering observations now and then and graciously agreeing with Glenda about the weak points of self-help books. Glenda confessed that she hadn't read the book, but her lack of information didn't prevent her from registering her opinions about it.
The subject shifted, and the conversation continued without a pause. Before they knew it, Glenda and Helen found themselves near the end of the flight. They wrapped up their conversation as they landed, and they said their good-byes to each other as they stepped into the airport terminal. Just before Helen turned to leave, she handed her copy of the book to Glenda. "Take it," she said. "I'd like for you to have my copy. You've made my flight a rewarding experience."
Glenda tried to refuse, but Helen insisted. Then they went their separate ways.
Riding in a cab from the airport to her hotel, Glenda took a look at the gift that Helen had given her. She opened it and discovered an autograph on the title page. That's when she noticed something curious at first and then shocking the more she pondered it. Helen had written the book!
The author's first name gave the secret away. Glenda remembered from her conversation that Helen chose to travel economy instead of first class because she preferred anonymity. Also, she recalled that Helen put the book away not long after the conversation about it commenced. Glenda had been talking with the author of that best-selling book all along and didn't know it.
Jesus personified the king in Psalm 2, but his disciples didn't really see him that way until the worship experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. Even today we find ourselves astonished at Jesus. His intimacy with us can allow us to underestimate His glory.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
It Was Just My Imagination...
By Keith Hewitt
Psalm 2
At a symposium on the history of warfare, participants were given homework on the first night. After a day of lectures and discussions about pivotal battles, prominent commanders, and important wars throughout recorded history, they were instructed to take the night to consider what the most devastating weapon in history was, and then present their findings at the next day's meeting.
The next day, a somewhat weary-looking collection of academics sat around the long mahogany conference table. The leader of the symposium called for a show of hands, of those who were ready with their answers. Around the table, every hand went up, save one. Picking one at random, the leader said, "We'll start with you, then work our way around the table."
The scientist, a man with a distinguished mane of gray hair, wearing jeans and a khaki vest, reached into a backpack on his lap and pulled out a fist-sized rock. It clunked solidly as he set it in the middle of the table. "This is probably the first weapon Man ever used, other than our bodies," he explained. "It represents the first time we realized we could use a tool to impose our will on another person, and led to all other weapons after it."
There were murmurs around the table, then the leader nodded to the next person. He was a young, athletic-looking man with a bushy beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He took a long, grooved stick out of a sack, and set it on the table. "This is an atlatl, a throwing stick, and it was used to provide extra leverage for throwing a spear. It represents the first time we discovered a way to project a weapon farther and harder than we could do by using our arms, alone."
The next person, a young woman, reached into her pocket and pulled out a test tube. Holding it up, she said, "This is empty, but if it was filled with the right genetically engineered virus, it would be enough to wipe out every man, woman, and child on the planet."
More murmurs, and the people on either side of her leaned away, unconsciously, before the leader nodded to the next person. One by one, around the table, each person presented their choice for the most devastating weapon. Opinions ranged up and down the time line of history, from the rock to the rifle, from the arrow to the atom bomb, each suggestion carefully reasoned, each one convincing in its own right.
Finally, they came to the person who had not raised her hand. She had sat quietly, hands in her lap, nodding slightly at each suggestion. The moderator looked at her, raised an eyebrow when she didn't respond after a moment or two. "Well, Professor? What do you think is the most devastating weapon in human history?"
She opened the portfolio in her lap, took out a single sheet of paper, and laid it on the table, pushed it toward the center so all could see the blank white page. She said nothing, just looked at the eyes of the others around her, to see if any would understand. After a short silence, the moderator's eyebrows inched together and he said, "What is this, Professor?"
"It's a blank page," she answered slowly, carefully. "It represents the unbounded human imagination, and the human will. We are capable of imagining and designing anything, and then bringing it into being, to serve our will. Left to itself, nothing is too monstrous to contemplate, nothing is too horrible for our imagination to conceive. We have contemplated it all... and somewhere, some time, we have built it all, so we could use it as an instrument to feed our lust for power."
There was a long silence, and then the conversation turned to discussing the other weapons that had been proposed. The debate was lively, but no minds were changed -- and every so often, one or the other of them would steal a glance at the blank piece of paper in the center of the table, and shiver...
From the beginning, humanity was given two gifts to separate us from the rest of God's creatures. The first was boundless imagination -- the ability to imagine anything, with its twin facets of curiosity and the creativity. What is curiosity, if not the ability to imagine a land not yet seen, or a fact not yet known? In one form or another, to some degree or another, it lures us all.
The drive to create, to build that which matches our imagination, is also universal. Who can imagine that once we know how to do something, once we learn some new fact that someone, somewhere, is not going to try to take that abstract knowledge and turn it into something real? We are rooted to the physical world, and for most of us, at least, something is not "real" unless it can be seen, or touched, so there is no point in knowing something without doing something.
It is imagination that has extended our reach from the tree branch above us to the plains of the Moon, and even (for our robotic emissaries) to the dark, lonely depths of interstellar space. It is also imagination that can take us to the darkest corners of the human heart and the foulest places in the human soul. Imagination is potential energy -- what we choose to do with that potential will be either good or bad, in service to God or ourselves.
The other gift was free will, the ability to choose one course of action or another. In some ways, it is almost another facet of imagination, because it allows us to imagine choosing to live a life that ignores the boundaries set by God. Yet, it also allows us to acknowledge the Creator for what he is, to travel the road that brings us closer to him.
Imagination and free will give us the kings of the earth -- those who would rail against the "slavery" of service to God, chafe against the "chains" of responsibility, and seek power by taking it from others, rather than letting the power of God flow through them. They also give us the pastors and teachers who spend their lives trying to reach others with the Good News of Jesus Christ; the servants who go out among the poor and sick to make their lives a little more tolerable; and the ability to understand what it is God wants us to do with the life we've been given -- and then do it.
King or servant? It's up to our imagination.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
The Terrible Dark Day
By Peter Andrew Smith
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Carried by the wind, a small pod covered with spikes fell onto a field. The precious seeds within spilled into the ground and after the rains fell, one of them sprouted and took root. A tiny shoot pushed up through the ground and reached toward the light. The shoot grew into a sapling, which grew into a small tree.
As the tree's branches spread out, a bird flying past landed and took rest among its leaves. The bird flew on but soon other birds used the branches of the young tree as a resting place. One bird took shelter there from the elements and returned time and time again to the tree. As the tree grew larger the bird built a nest, attracted a mate, and soon the nest was filled with eggs. The eggs hatched and the baby birds used the branches of the tree as places to sing their songs and build their own nests.
As the seasons passed, the tree kept reaching toward the sun. The branches grew thicker and the trunk grew sturdy and strong. In the middle of the field, the tree stood tall and proud anchored firmly by deep roots that tightly gripped the earth.
When the time came, tiny pods covered with spikes containing precious seeds appeared on the branches of the tree. They started small, then grew, and when it was their time, they fell upon the ground. Each one of those pods landed under the shadow of the mighty tree with its full branches and towering height. Without the light of the sun and the kiss of the rain, the seeds never took root and simply rotted where they fell.
One season the tree stopped reaching for the sun. The branches did not extend any further and the roots did not seek any deeper. The birds that were there remained but no new ones came to the tree or near the field where the lone tree stood tall and full. The leaves still came each spring and fell each autumn. When it was time, the pods full of precious seeds developed and dropped from the tree but the seeds never went beyond the shadow of the tree and none of them ever sprouted.
The insects came seeking to eat away at the vitality of the tree as did the various diseases that sought to overcome its health. Each time the great branches, sturdy trunk, and the deep roots allowed the tree to resist. Yet, each time the tree took longer to heal itself following the assault of the forces looking to consume its life.
One season when the spiky pods had again sprouted on the tree, the sky grew dark during the day. As the light died, the birds stopped their songs, and huddled close to the trunk of the tree as an eerie silence covered the field. The calm was broken by the gentle rustle of the leaves. The gentle rustle grew to a roar as a persistent wind began to blow. The leaves shook and the birds hung on in the shelter of the many branches of the great tall tree. The persistent wind became a raging gale. Nests were pulled apart and scattered to the wind as eggs smashed into the ground and the birds were driven from their refuge.
The wind tore and bit into the tree pulling and tearing at it. Leaves were ripped in pieces and torn from the branches. The branches themselves strained under the fury of the wind. The smallest ones were twisted back and forth until they snapped off. The larger ones bent and strained under the relentless pressure.
The wind crashed and pounded against the tree with such a terrible fury that the mighty trunk itself began to sway from side to side. The roots struggled to hold the tree in place as the wind slammed into the tree again and again. Then all at once the wind stopped.
The once-mighty tree stood broken and battered among the shattered nests and debris. The roots had only a fragile hold on the earth and sap dripped from cracks in the trunk. The branches hung twisted and warped, stripped bare of all but a leaf here and there. Only the memory of the tree's former majesty remained as the light returned and a gentle rain began to fall.
As the days passed, the tree began to grow new leaves and the branches spread out in the embrace of the light. The roots tightened their grip on the earth and then dug deeper into the ground. New branches grew in place of those which had been lost and the tree reached upward once again. The birds slowly returned to the branches. Nests and songs of life returned to the tree.
Beyond where the branches stretched, pods covered in spikes broke open and the seeds within fell into the embrace of the earth. The seeds took root and grew into saplings. The saplings pushed toward the light and as their branches reached out they grew strong and tall outside the shadow of the tree that had stood for so long by itself in the field. After the terrible dark day, the tree was no longer alone in the field. It stood in the middle of a new forest.
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
In Secret
By David O. Bales
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ann kicked the chair and, after it flew across the room, was glad it was a flimsy plastic patio chair. Another piece of a life's flotsam. She clenched her fists and pumped her arms up and down with a grimace. She tried by anger to stop crying. No matter her effort, her whines and moans bounced around the empty house.
"Not this way. Not when I can't fix it. Can't take back what I said. Can't, can't..."
She whirled again in anger and slapped the wall of her mother's main room. It was empty of most furniture and now held only the debris of her mother's life that awaited Ann's cleaning before the house could be listed for sale.
Across her life time, she and her mother quarreled twice as much as they made up. The last argument was about giving to the church. Ann had just gotten the Power of Attorney paperwork completed for her elderly mother's meager assets. She'd arranged to stop by at 10 a.m. on Monday to go through her mother's financial records, learn what she needed to manage her mother's financial affairs, and start writing the checks for her mother's bills.
That's when she realized that her mother tithed. "Mom, you can hardly survive on twelve hundred a month and you're giving a hundred and twenty away. No wonder you're always out of money."
"Everyone can find reasons not to give to God's work," her mother said, "No excuses. No lapses." She smashed her lips together and scowled at Ann. Ann scowled back, the two of them like older and younger statues facing one another in an art exhibit. Everyone said they looked alike. Jimmie had said they didn't get along because they were so similar. A couple years before Jimmie died, he was home during one of Ann and her mother's more bitter arguments. "Other people can only lick envelopes with their tongues," he said. "You two can open envelopes with your tongues."
"You can't just be scattering money around, especially to the church," Ann had said two weeks days ago.
"I've pledged it. I'll pay it." Her mother reached across the table, pulled the checkbook from Ann and began to write the check herself. Her hands shook and the check was nearly illegible. If Ann had known that her mother would live only another week, if she'd tried to apologize, if she'd just said she didn't agree but she'd write the checks anyway... Ifs brimmed over her mind and flowed out through sobs.
And over religion at that. Ann didn't remember her father attending church much. After she'd left home Ann didn't attend either; but, her mother never missed.
"My pledge to the church isn't your concern," her mother said as she scrawled the check.
"Mom, it is. You spend all your money and then you need food and we buy it for you."
"This is for God."
"God!" Ann threw her head back. "You're paying God? Or are you paying God back? Well, how about Jimmie? Or Dad dead before he could walk me down the aisle. What's God done for you?"
Her mother sucked in her lips and took a deep breath. This was it. Here was the last move in the argument before her mother sliced straight to the heart with some final, cruel word. Ann knew it well. She'd learned to use that large gesture herself. Though her mother opened her mouth, she suddenly clamped her lips shut and said nothing. She struggled to get up from the table. Ann thought she might be sick. Her mother never gave up an argument. Just slowly walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Ann yelled through the door, "I'll be back next Monday and we'll write checks." She considered saying more, but turned and left the house.
If Jimmie were there, he'd step between them or make some crack to rock them on their heels or double them in laughter. He never took sides, even when Ann said, "Come on Jimmie. You know Mom's just being stubborn."
"And you're not?" he said.
No one left to help Ann with Mom now. Not Dad. Not Jimmie. Five hours of furious work calmed her and she gained some order in her emotions by putting her mother's few possessions into boxes. By evening, she'd worked through the kitchen, bathroom, and main room. Keep this. This to Goodwill. Toss this in the garbage. She could finish this worst step of sorting before she quit for the day. One final room.
She hesitated, looking at the bedroom door, then pushed through to get on with this job and finish. She almost ran to the chest of drawers, pulled out the top drawer, and dumped it over onto the bed. She saw the envelope first thing -- from some Presbyterian church. Ann didn't know how a church handled finances, but she'd need to phone to cancel any financial promises her mother had made.
The letter in the envelope surprised her as much by its being handwritten as by what it said.
Dear Veneta,
You would not know this, because it is secret. Once a year our session meets in executive session. No one will ever mention what we talk about or whom we discuss. Each year we choose a member to thank; but, in order to be obedient to our Lord, we thank that person as secretly as we can -- thus this letter to you.
We recognize and appreciate your years of service to the congregation and your continuing financial giving to the ministry. We thank you and remind you joyfully of our Lord's words, "When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Sincerely in Christ Joseph Gunther,
Clerk of Session
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years. He is retired and is a full-time writer living in Ontario, Oregon. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, Interpretation, and other magazines. He is author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace (CSS) and Toward Easter and Beyond (CSS). David is currently in his third year writing for Emphasis (CSS). Bales is a graduate of the University of Portland and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
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StoryShare, February 3 and 6, 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
"Glenda's Surprise" by Argile Smith
"It Was Just My Imagination" by Keith Hewitt
"The Terrible Dark Day" by Peter Andrew Smith
"In Secret" by David Bales
What's Up This Week
One of the most fascinating things about the liturgical calendar is the fact that the Sunday of the Transfiguration is immediately followed by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. The Sunday in which we celebrate the awesome revelation of the radiant glory of God through his Son is followed by a solemn period of self-reflection, repentance, and self-denial. The glorious mountaintop experience is swiftly followed by a quiet journey through the valley.
The contributions to this week's StoryShare guide us from Epiphany to Lent with stories of revelation, stories of testing and trials, and stories of self-evaluation. In "Glenda's Surprise" Argile Smith offers an example in the natural of the lesson the disciples learned on the Mount: Things aren't always how they first appear. "It Was Just My Imagination" is a call to examine ourselves and our nature. As humans with our capacity to imagine and create, we can have the potential for great good or great evil. Where will we take that potential? "The Terrible Dark Day" illustrates a truth critical to Lent: In times of suffering, when we are battered and broken, that is when we can grow the most. "In Secret" tells the poignant tale of a woman, angrily grieving over the lost chance to reconcile with her mother, who learns a secret that changes her entire perspective on the mother she lost.
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Glenda's Surprise
By Argile Smith
Glenda made her way down the aisle in search of her seat. She wished that she could have afforded a first-class seat, but her budget only allowed her to buy an economy-class ticket. The airplane already appeared to her to be full of people with many more passengers walking behind her, waiting their turn to squeeze themselves into the few tight-fitting seats available, and situating themselves in preparation for the flight from Cincinnati to Denver.
Once Glenda found her seat, she joined everyone around her in the tedious process of settling in for the flight. As she sat down in her aisle seat, she noticed the lady sitting next to her in the window seat. Immediately she sized up the lady as the personification of simple elegance. Her attire, her hair, and her manner reflected it. When she spoke, gentleness emanated from her heart.
In the lady's hands rested a copy of a best-selling book on self-esteem. Glenda wanted to get a copy of it herself, but the rush of getting her business off to a good start prevented her from carving out any time for reading it.
Glenda introduced herself to the lady in the next seat, and soon they found themselves chatting about their lives and their families. The lady said that people called her Helen, and she talked freely and proudly about her three grown sons, their wives, and her grandchildren. She went on to tell Glenda about losing her husband to cancer four years ago and her struggle to find a new identity for herself as a single-again person.
Then the conversation turned to the book Helen held in her hands. Glenda brought up the fact that sales of the book had been doing well. Yet, she wondered if the book really could make a difference in a person's life. After all, Glenda argued, a person's self-esteem can't be improved by reading a book alone.
Helen sat quietly and listened, gently offering observations now and then and graciously agreeing with Glenda about the weak points of self-help books. Glenda confessed that she hadn't read the book, but her lack of information didn't prevent her from registering her opinions about it.
The subject shifted, and the conversation continued without a pause. Before they knew it, Glenda and Helen found themselves near the end of the flight. They wrapped up their conversation as they landed, and they said their good-byes to each other as they stepped into the airport terminal. Just before Helen turned to leave, she handed her copy of the book to Glenda. "Take it," she said. "I'd like for you to have my copy. You've made my flight a rewarding experience."
Glenda tried to refuse, but Helen insisted. Then they went their separate ways.
Riding in a cab from the airport to her hotel, Glenda took a look at the gift that Helen had given her. She opened it and discovered an autograph on the title page. That's when she noticed something curious at first and then shocking the more she pondered it. Helen had written the book!
The author's first name gave the secret away. Glenda remembered from her conversation that Helen chose to travel economy instead of first class because she preferred anonymity. Also, she recalled that Helen put the book away not long after the conversation about it commenced. Glenda had been talking with the author of that best-selling book all along and didn't know it.
Jesus personified the king in Psalm 2, but his disciples didn't really see him that way until the worship experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. Even today we find ourselves astonished at Jesus. His intimacy with us can allow us to underestimate His glory.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
It Was Just My Imagination...
By Keith Hewitt
Psalm 2
At a symposium on the history of warfare, participants were given homework on the first night. After a day of lectures and discussions about pivotal battles, prominent commanders, and important wars throughout recorded history, they were instructed to take the night to consider what the most devastating weapon in history was, and then present their findings at the next day's meeting.
The next day, a somewhat weary-looking collection of academics sat around the long mahogany conference table. The leader of the symposium called for a show of hands, of those who were ready with their answers. Around the table, every hand went up, save one. Picking one at random, the leader said, "We'll start with you, then work our way around the table."
The scientist, a man with a distinguished mane of gray hair, wearing jeans and a khaki vest, reached into a backpack on his lap and pulled out a fist-sized rock. It clunked solidly as he set it in the middle of the table. "This is probably the first weapon Man ever used, other than our bodies," he explained. "It represents the first time we realized we could use a tool to impose our will on another person, and led to all other weapons after it."
There were murmurs around the table, then the leader nodded to the next person. He was a young, athletic-looking man with a bushy beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He took a long, grooved stick out of a sack, and set it on the table. "This is an atlatl, a throwing stick, and it was used to provide extra leverage for throwing a spear. It represents the first time we discovered a way to project a weapon farther and harder than we could do by using our arms, alone."
The next person, a young woman, reached into her pocket and pulled out a test tube. Holding it up, she said, "This is empty, but if it was filled with the right genetically engineered virus, it would be enough to wipe out every man, woman, and child on the planet."
More murmurs, and the people on either side of her leaned away, unconsciously, before the leader nodded to the next person. One by one, around the table, each person presented their choice for the most devastating weapon. Opinions ranged up and down the time line of history, from the rock to the rifle, from the arrow to the atom bomb, each suggestion carefully reasoned, each one convincing in its own right.
Finally, they came to the person who had not raised her hand. She had sat quietly, hands in her lap, nodding slightly at each suggestion. The moderator looked at her, raised an eyebrow when she didn't respond after a moment or two. "Well, Professor? What do you think is the most devastating weapon in human history?"
She opened the portfolio in her lap, took out a single sheet of paper, and laid it on the table, pushed it toward the center so all could see the blank white page. She said nothing, just looked at the eyes of the others around her, to see if any would understand. After a short silence, the moderator's eyebrows inched together and he said, "What is this, Professor?"
"It's a blank page," she answered slowly, carefully. "It represents the unbounded human imagination, and the human will. We are capable of imagining and designing anything, and then bringing it into being, to serve our will. Left to itself, nothing is too monstrous to contemplate, nothing is too horrible for our imagination to conceive. We have contemplated it all... and somewhere, some time, we have built it all, so we could use it as an instrument to feed our lust for power."
There was a long silence, and then the conversation turned to discussing the other weapons that had been proposed. The debate was lively, but no minds were changed -- and every so often, one or the other of them would steal a glance at the blank piece of paper in the center of the table, and shiver...
From the beginning, humanity was given two gifts to separate us from the rest of God's creatures. The first was boundless imagination -- the ability to imagine anything, with its twin facets of curiosity and the creativity. What is curiosity, if not the ability to imagine a land not yet seen, or a fact not yet known? In one form or another, to some degree or another, it lures us all.
The drive to create, to build that which matches our imagination, is also universal. Who can imagine that once we know how to do something, once we learn some new fact that someone, somewhere, is not going to try to take that abstract knowledge and turn it into something real? We are rooted to the physical world, and for most of us, at least, something is not "real" unless it can be seen, or touched, so there is no point in knowing something without doing something.
It is imagination that has extended our reach from the tree branch above us to the plains of the Moon, and even (for our robotic emissaries) to the dark, lonely depths of interstellar space. It is also imagination that can take us to the darkest corners of the human heart and the foulest places in the human soul. Imagination is potential energy -- what we choose to do with that potential will be either good or bad, in service to God or ourselves.
The other gift was free will, the ability to choose one course of action or another. In some ways, it is almost another facet of imagination, because it allows us to imagine choosing to live a life that ignores the boundaries set by God. Yet, it also allows us to acknowledge the Creator for what he is, to travel the road that brings us closer to him.
Imagination and free will give us the kings of the earth -- those who would rail against the "slavery" of service to God, chafe against the "chains" of responsibility, and seek power by taking it from others, rather than letting the power of God flow through them. They also give us the pastors and teachers who spend their lives trying to reach others with the Good News of Jesus Christ; the servants who go out among the poor and sick to make their lives a little more tolerable; and the ability to understand what it is God wants us to do with the life we've been given -- and then do it.
King or servant? It's up to our imagination.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
The Terrible Dark Day
By Peter Andrew Smith
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Carried by the wind, a small pod covered with spikes fell onto a field. The precious seeds within spilled into the ground and after the rains fell, one of them sprouted and took root. A tiny shoot pushed up through the ground and reached toward the light. The shoot grew into a sapling, which grew into a small tree.
As the tree's branches spread out, a bird flying past landed and took rest among its leaves. The bird flew on but soon other birds used the branches of the young tree as a resting place. One bird took shelter there from the elements and returned time and time again to the tree. As the tree grew larger the bird built a nest, attracted a mate, and soon the nest was filled with eggs. The eggs hatched and the baby birds used the branches of the tree as places to sing their songs and build their own nests.
As the seasons passed, the tree kept reaching toward the sun. The branches grew thicker and the trunk grew sturdy and strong. In the middle of the field, the tree stood tall and proud anchored firmly by deep roots that tightly gripped the earth.
When the time came, tiny pods covered with spikes containing precious seeds appeared on the branches of the tree. They started small, then grew, and when it was their time, they fell upon the ground. Each one of those pods landed under the shadow of the mighty tree with its full branches and towering height. Without the light of the sun and the kiss of the rain, the seeds never took root and simply rotted where they fell.
One season the tree stopped reaching for the sun. The branches did not extend any further and the roots did not seek any deeper. The birds that were there remained but no new ones came to the tree or near the field where the lone tree stood tall and full. The leaves still came each spring and fell each autumn. When it was time, the pods full of precious seeds developed and dropped from the tree but the seeds never went beyond the shadow of the tree and none of them ever sprouted.
The insects came seeking to eat away at the vitality of the tree as did the various diseases that sought to overcome its health. Each time the great branches, sturdy trunk, and the deep roots allowed the tree to resist. Yet, each time the tree took longer to heal itself following the assault of the forces looking to consume its life.
One season when the spiky pods had again sprouted on the tree, the sky grew dark during the day. As the light died, the birds stopped their songs, and huddled close to the trunk of the tree as an eerie silence covered the field. The calm was broken by the gentle rustle of the leaves. The gentle rustle grew to a roar as a persistent wind began to blow. The leaves shook and the birds hung on in the shelter of the many branches of the great tall tree. The persistent wind became a raging gale. Nests were pulled apart and scattered to the wind as eggs smashed into the ground and the birds were driven from their refuge.
The wind tore and bit into the tree pulling and tearing at it. Leaves were ripped in pieces and torn from the branches. The branches themselves strained under the fury of the wind. The smallest ones were twisted back and forth until they snapped off. The larger ones bent and strained under the relentless pressure.
The wind crashed and pounded against the tree with such a terrible fury that the mighty trunk itself began to sway from side to side. The roots struggled to hold the tree in place as the wind slammed into the tree again and again. Then all at once the wind stopped.
The once-mighty tree stood broken and battered among the shattered nests and debris. The roots had only a fragile hold on the earth and sap dripped from cracks in the trunk. The branches hung twisted and warped, stripped bare of all but a leaf here and there. Only the memory of the tree's former majesty remained as the light returned and a gentle rain began to fall.
As the days passed, the tree began to grow new leaves and the branches spread out in the embrace of the light. The roots tightened their grip on the earth and then dug deeper into the ground. New branches grew in place of those which had been lost and the tree reached upward once again. The birds slowly returned to the branches. Nests and songs of life returned to the tree.
Beyond where the branches stretched, pods covered in spikes broke open and the seeds within fell into the embrace of the earth. The seeds took root and grew into saplings. The saplings pushed toward the light and as their branches reached out they grew strong and tall outside the shadow of the tree that had stood for so long by itself in the field. After the terrible dark day, the tree was no longer alone in the field. It stood in the middle of a new forest.
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
In Secret
By David O. Bales
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ann kicked the chair and, after it flew across the room, was glad it was a flimsy plastic patio chair. Another piece of a life's flotsam. She clenched her fists and pumped her arms up and down with a grimace. She tried by anger to stop crying. No matter her effort, her whines and moans bounced around the empty house.
"Not this way. Not when I can't fix it. Can't take back what I said. Can't, can't..."
She whirled again in anger and slapped the wall of her mother's main room. It was empty of most furniture and now held only the debris of her mother's life that awaited Ann's cleaning before the house could be listed for sale.
Across her life time, she and her mother quarreled twice as much as they made up. The last argument was about giving to the church. Ann had just gotten the Power of Attorney paperwork completed for her elderly mother's meager assets. She'd arranged to stop by at 10 a.m. on Monday to go through her mother's financial records, learn what she needed to manage her mother's financial affairs, and start writing the checks for her mother's bills.
That's when she realized that her mother tithed. "Mom, you can hardly survive on twelve hundred a month and you're giving a hundred and twenty away. No wonder you're always out of money."
"Everyone can find reasons not to give to God's work," her mother said, "No excuses. No lapses." She smashed her lips together and scowled at Ann. Ann scowled back, the two of them like older and younger statues facing one another in an art exhibit. Everyone said they looked alike. Jimmie had said they didn't get along because they were so similar. A couple years before Jimmie died, he was home during one of Ann and her mother's more bitter arguments. "Other people can only lick envelopes with their tongues," he said. "You two can open envelopes with your tongues."
"You can't just be scattering money around, especially to the church," Ann had said two weeks days ago.
"I've pledged it. I'll pay it." Her mother reached across the table, pulled the checkbook from Ann and began to write the check herself. Her hands shook and the check was nearly illegible. If Ann had known that her mother would live only another week, if she'd tried to apologize, if she'd just said she didn't agree but she'd write the checks anyway... Ifs brimmed over her mind and flowed out through sobs.
And over religion at that. Ann didn't remember her father attending church much. After she'd left home Ann didn't attend either; but, her mother never missed.
"My pledge to the church isn't your concern," her mother said as she scrawled the check.
"Mom, it is. You spend all your money and then you need food and we buy it for you."
"This is for God."
"God!" Ann threw her head back. "You're paying God? Or are you paying God back? Well, how about Jimmie? Or Dad dead before he could walk me down the aisle. What's God done for you?"
Her mother sucked in her lips and took a deep breath. This was it. Here was the last move in the argument before her mother sliced straight to the heart with some final, cruel word. Ann knew it well. She'd learned to use that large gesture herself. Though her mother opened her mouth, she suddenly clamped her lips shut and said nothing. She struggled to get up from the table. Ann thought she might be sick. Her mother never gave up an argument. Just slowly walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Ann yelled through the door, "I'll be back next Monday and we'll write checks." She considered saying more, but turned and left the house.
If Jimmie were there, he'd step between them or make some crack to rock them on their heels or double them in laughter. He never took sides, even when Ann said, "Come on Jimmie. You know Mom's just being stubborn."
"And you're not?" he said.
No one left to help Ann with Mom now. Not Dad. Not Jimmie. Five hours of furious work calmed her and she gained some order in her emotions by putting her mother's few possessions into boxes. By evening, she'd worked through the kitchen, bathroom, and main room. Keep this. This to Goodwill. Toss this in the garbage. She could finish this worst step of sorting before she quit for the day. One final room.
She hesitated, looking at the bedroom door, then pushed through to get on with this job and finish. She almost ran to the chest of drawers, pulled out the top drawer, and dumped it over onto the bed. She saw the envelope first thing -- from some Presbyterian church. Ann didn't know how a church handled finances, but she'd need to phone to cancel any financial promises her mother had made.
The letter in the envelope surprised her as much by its being handwritten as by what it said.
Dear Veneta,
You would not know this, because it is secret. Once a year our session meets in executive session. No one will ever mention what we talk about or whom we discuss. Each year we choose a member to thank; but, in order to be obedient to our Lord, we thank that person as secretly as we can -- thus this letter to you.
We recognize and appreciate your years of service to the congregation and your continuing financial giving to the ministry. We thank you and remind you joyfully of our Lord's words, "When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Sincerely in Christ Joseph Gunther,
Clerk of Session
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years. He is retired and is a full-time writer living in Ontario, Oregon. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, Interpretation, and other magazines. He is author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace (CSS) and Toward Easter and Beyond (CSS). David is currently in his third year writing for Emphasis (CSS). Bales is a graduate of the University of Portland and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
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StoryShare, February 3 and 6, 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.
