How Can Things Be Better?
Stories
Object:
Contents
"How Can Things Be Better?" by Lamar Massingill
"What Happens in Church" by John Sumwalt
* * * * * * * *
How Can Things Be Better?
by Lamar Massingill
John 2:1-11
Jesus challenges reality. He always seems to question the answers, some of which are tired and need to be put to bed. He doesn't challenge the status quo in the sense of being a revolutionary, but as someone who is asking the honest question, "Can things be better?" A wedding in the day of Jesus was one of the few celebrations that happened in the poor villages of Jerusalem and surrounding areas. People in his day, especially poor villagers, had little to celebrate. So Jesus is doing what would seem to us, especially in the Bible Belt, something really outrageous. We don't know how many guests were there. But we read that the wine jars numbered six, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. That's anywhere from 120 to 180 gallons of wine, not counting the original amount customarily provided by the groom. In other words, there was a lot of wine being consumed at that wedding.
I think one of the things this entire story could reflect is that Jesus had a healthy disrespect for respectability. It is on this particular occasion that he wanted the guests -- as he always wanted the Pharisees -- to loosen up for just a moment their tenacious grip on their sense of virtue. These guests weren't drinking alone -- that's a dangerous pastime; nor were they drinking to forget their many problems -- that's a futile pastime. They were drinking together, and drinking to celebrate. When Jesus turns water into wine it is surely blasphemous for us to try to futilely turn the succulent wine of life back into water. Life is to be celebrated and enjoyed. Jesus was trying to make their celebration better. He is seeking to improve an awkward situation in which his friends find themselves by challenging the accepted truth that things must stay as they are.
Imagine yourself as one of those at the wedding feast. Suddenly, the better wine is brought in, when the custom is to serve the better wine first and then, after everyone is a little tipsy, bring out the cheaper vintages. You might indeed wonder, "What is going on here?" The challenge to reality comes out clear: Jesus is going to do the best with what he has right then and there: ordinary water transformed into something better. After all, it's not every day that water is changed to wine. In other words, things do not have to stay as they are; there could be a better way. If there ever was a more direct challenge to reality, I don't know what it is!
Whether we challenge reality enough to do what needs to be done using what we have presently, I sometimes wonder. People of skill in psychology have said that we don't use but 10% of the brain power that has been created in us. We fail to see the creativity that came with us at the dawn of our creation. We refuse to access it because it is a risky proposition -- risky because we have to be vulnerable and open-ended in our vision of living.
Jack London, in his book The Call of the Wild, put it well when he said, "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather have my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom and molecule of me aglow, than a sleepy perseverant planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist." Mere existence moves to living when we get inquisitive about living; challenging our lives daily and asking the continual question, "How can things be better?" That is risky, but the payoffs are eternal. Let's face it, getting as real as life is real is always risky and always should contain the question: "How can things be better?"
So Jesus works with the ordinary water supply, transforms it into something better, and then does something else worth chatting about. He expands it. Notice how quietly this transformation takes place. There is no dramatic appearance of brand-new wine jars; no sudden manifestation of bursting wineskins. Instead, Jesus quietly transforms something ordinary into something extraordinary, and in so doing, reveals himself and begins expanding people's reality in order that things for them may be better.
I think that is often how the real Jesus, anchored in the reality of our lives, works miracles. It is often how the shepherd works, the one who leads us beside still waters and comforts: He does so quietly, but no less miraculously. He expands our reality; grows us up and on and that's how progress happens. We work with what we have and then expand it into a creative vision. We dream. And more times than not, the expansion is right in front of us.
The French writer Exupery said it best: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes." If we are not expanding, then we are just marking time. Whether you want to call it this or not, all of us are invited to be expanded every day and taste new wine. And with expanding comes expecting a celebration of growth.
I wonder if this could be a model story for us? We are constantly invited by the Holy One to always be asking how things can be better. How are we going to answer? With visions that dream, could we dare to expand our reality into something better out of the raw materials Jesus has given us? Can we risk, like Jesus, making our own life celebration better? I hope so. I hope so.
The Rev. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, and also long time minister at the historic United Methodist Church in Port Gibson, Mississippi (1988-1999), is now Religion Editor for the Magnolia Gazette (magnoliagazette.com), for which he writes a weekly column. Massingill has traveled nationally and internationally and has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He recently retired from the parish church after thirty years of pastoral ministry.
What Happens in Church
John Sumwalt
Psalm 36:5-10
How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
-- Psalm 36:7-9
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or so they say. What happens in church can change a person's life forever. What happens in church doesn't stay in church.
There was once a man who never went to church. He was not an atheist. He believed in God and read the Bible on occasion. He was a good man who loved his family and was kind to his neighbors; he just never went to church. If you asked him why he would say, "I don't know, I suppose I should." Maybe it was that he always had something else to do -- or that he never got into the habit.
The man enjoyed puttering in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. Lunch was on the table when his wife got home around noon. When they sat down at the table to eat they would join hands and say grace. Then after they had been eating for a while he would always look at her and say, "What happened in church today?" And she would tell him about the worship service, maybe what the choir sang and how touching it was, or what the pastor said in the sermon. She would tell who was there, who wasn't there, who was sick or in the hospital, what so and so had said about so and so, the latest news from some of their closest friends, and maybe how excited she was about some event that was coming up on the church calendar.
The man always listened carefully and sometimes asked questions when he wanted to know more. It was a comfortable routine. It made him feel like he was a part of it all, though he would never have said that to anyone or have admitted it to himself. The man didn't know how important these conversations over Sunday lunch were to him until the day came when his wife died suddenly of a heart attack. They were standing at the sink together doing dishes when she collapsed. He caught her in his arms and held her as she slipped away.
After that the man didn't know what to do with himself on Sunday mornings. Puttering in the kitchen had no meaning when he had no one to putter for. He felt empty sitting at the table by himself. One day a thought came into his mind, "I wonder what happened in church today?" The next Sunday the man got up early, put on a clean shirt, got in the car, and drove himself to church. He had been there a few times with his wife on special occasions so he knew where she sat -- at the end of the fifth pew on the right near the stained-glass window that had been given in memory of her grandfather.
So the man took his place in the family pew. As the organist started to play a feeling came over him like he had never known before. He told one of his good friends at the coffee hour several months later that it was a deep peacefulness, a kind of knowing, like a light had lit up inside of him. He knew how deeply he was loved, but it was more than that. Something in him had changed forever. "Maybe the best way to put it," he said, "is that now when I go home for lunch and look across the table where my dear wife used to sit, I know what she must have known all those years when she was trying to tell me what happened in church.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 20, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
"How Can Things Be Better?" by Lamar Massingill
"What Happens in Church" by John Sumwalt
* * * * * * * *
How Can Things Be Better?
by Lamar Massingill
John 2:1-11
Jesus challenges reality. He always seems to question the answers, some of which are tired and need to be put to bed. He doesn't challenge the status quo in the sense of being a revolutionary, but as someone who is asking the honest question, "Can things be better?" A wedding in the day of Jesus was one of the few celebrations that happened in the poor villages of Jerusalem and surrounding areas. People in his day, especially poor villagers, had little to celebrate. So Jesus is doing what would seem to us, especially in the Bible Belt, something really outrageous. We don't know how many guests were there. But we read that the wine jars numbered six, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. That's anywhere from 120 to 180 gallons of wine, not counting the original amount customarily provided by the groom. In other words, there was a lot of wine being consumed at that wedding.
I think one of the things this entire story could reflect is that Jesus had a healthy disrespect for respectability. It is on this particular occasion that he wanted the guests -- as he always wanted the Pharisees -- to loosen up for just a moment their tenacious grip on their sense of virtue. These guests weren't drinking alone -- that's a dangerous pastime; nor were they drinking to forget their many problems -- that's a futile pastime. They were drinking together, and drinking to celebrate. When Jesus turns water into wine it is surely blasphemous for us to try to futilely turn the succulent wine of life back into water. Life is to be celebrated and enjoyed. Jesus was trying to make their celebration better. He is seeking to improve an awkward situation in which his friends find themselves by challenging the accepted truth that things must stay as they are.
Imagine yourself as one of those at the wedding feast. Suddenly, the better wine is brought in, when the custom is to serve the better wine first and then, after everyone is a little tipsy, bring out the cheaper vintages. You might indeed wonder, "What is going on here?" The challenge to reality comes out clear: Jesus is going to do the best with what he has right then and there: ordinary water transformed into something better. After all, it's not every day that water is changed to wine. In other words, things do not have to stay as they are; there could be a better way. If there ever was a more direct challenge to reality, I don't know what it is!
Whether we challenge reality enough to do what needs to be done using what we have presently, I sometimes wonder. People of skill in psychology have said that we don't use but 10% of the brain power that has been created in us. We fail to see the creativity that came with us at the dawn of our creation. We refuse to access it because it is a risky proposition -- risky because we have to be vulnerable and open-ended in our vision of living.
Jack London, in his book The Call of the Wild, put it well when he said, "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather have my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom and molecule of me aglow, than a sleepy perseverant planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist." Mere existence moves to living when we get inquisitive about living; challenging our lives daily and asking the continual question, "How can things be better?" That is risky, but the payoffs are eternal. Let's face it, getting as real as life is real is always risky and always should contain the question: "How can things be better?"
So Jesus works with the ordinary water supply, transforms it into something better, and then does something else worth chatting about. He expands it. Notice how quietly this transformation takes place. There is no dramatic appearance of brand-new wine jars; no sudden manifestation of bursting wineskins. Instead, Jesus quietly transforms something ordinary into something extraordinary, and in so doing, reveals himself and begins expanding people's reality in order that things for them may be better.
I think that is often how the real Jesus, anchored in the reality of our lives, works miracles. It is often how the shepherd works, the one who leads us beside still waters and comforts: He does so quietly, but no less miraculously. He expands our reality; grows us up and on and that's how progress happens. We work with what we have and then expand it into a creative vision. We dream. And more times than not, the expansion is right in front of us.
The French writer Exupery said it best: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes." If we are not expanding, then we are just marking time. Whether you want to call it this or not, all of us are invited to be expanded every day and taste new wine. And with expanding comes expecting a celebration of growth.
I wonder if this could be a model story for us? We are constantly invited by the Holy One to always be asking how things can be better. How are we going to answer? With visions that dream, could we dare to expand our reality into something better out of the raw materials Jesus has given us? Can we risk, like Jesus, making our own life celebration better? I hope so. I hope so.
The Rev. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, and also long time minister at the historic United Methodist Church in Port Gibson, Mississippi (1988-1999), is now Religion Editor for the Magnolia Gazette (magnoliagazette.com), for which he writes a weekly column. Massingill has traveled nationally and internationally and has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He recently retired from the parish church after thirty years of pastoral ministry.
What Happens in Church
John Sumwalt
Psalm 36:5-10
How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
-- Psalm 36:7-9
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or so they say. What happens in church can change a person's life forever. What happens in church doesn't stay in church.
There was once a man who never went to church. He was not an atheist. He believed in God and read the Bible on occasion. He was a good man who loved his family and was kind to his neighbors; he just never went to church. If you asked him why he would say, "I don't know, I suppose I should." Maybe it was that he always had something else to do -- or that he never got into the habit.
The man enjoyed puttering in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. Lunch was on the table when his wife got home around noon. When they sat down at the table to eat they would join hands and say grace. Then after they had been eating for a while he would always look at her and say, "What happened in church today?" And she would tell him about the worship service, maybe what the choir sang and how touching it was, or what the pastor said in the sermon. She would tell who was there, who wasn't there, who was sick or in the hospital, what so and so had said about so and so, the latest news from some of their closest friends, and maybe how excited she was about some event that was coming up on the church calendar.
The man always listened carefully and sometimes asked questions when he wanted to know more. It was a comfortable routine. It made him feel like he was a part of it all, though he would never have said that to anyone or have admitted it to himself. The man didn't know how important these conversations over Sunday lunch were to him until the day came when his wife died suddenly of a heart attack. They were standing at the sink together doing dishes when she collapsed. He caught her in his arms and held her as she slipped away.
After that the man didn't know what to do with himself on Sunday mornings. Puttering in the kitchen had no meaning when he had no one to putter for. He felt empty sitting at the table by himself. One day a thought came into his mind, "I wonder what happened in church today?" The next Sunday the man got up early, put on a clean shirt, got in the car, and drove himself to church. He had been there a few times with his wife on special occasions so he knew where she sat -- at the end of the fifth pew on the right near the stained-glass window that had been given in memory of her grandfather.
So the man took his place in the family pew. As the organist started to play a feeling came over him like he had never known before. He told one of his good friends at the coffee hour several months later that it was a deep peacefulness, a kind of knowing, like a light had lit up inside of him. He knew how deeply he was loved, but it was more than that. Something in him had changed forever. "Maybe the best way to put it," he said, "is that now when I go home for lunch and look across the table where my dear wife used to sit, I know what she must have known all those years when she was trying to tell me what happened in church.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 20, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
