"The Inquirer" by Sandra Herrmann
"No Fear Here!" by Frank Ramirez
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The Inquirer
by Sandra Herrmann
John 3:1-17
Nick was a hard child to raise. Even at the age of two, he was asking “Why?” “Why is the sky blue?” of course, but also, “Why do birds fly, but not people?” And worst of all, “Why is that man so dark? Is he dirty?” But on a daily basis he wore out both of his parents with “Why can’t I go to school with James? or “Why do I have to go to bed? Why can’t I sleep on the couch (or floor, or in the playhouse)?” or “Why do I have to do this task this way?”
His mother had punished him, his father had often bellowed at him, “You don’t need to know why ? Just DO IT! BECAUSE I’M YOUR FATHER, AND I SAY SO!” His parents were at their wits’ end, and so they had begun bickering with each other, each blaming the other for their son’s impossible attitude.
They hoped this would change when he went to school, but the teachers were soon asking them to come in to talk about Nick’s stubbornness. “He needs to learn to do what he’s told without all the questions!” his kindergarten teacher said.
“We know, we know,” his father said, shaking his head. “He does the same thing at home, and believe me, we’ve tried everything. Nothing seems to work. We’re at an impasse with him. His mother is worn out and is giving up. He asks why, and she sits down and explains it to him until either he understands and co-operates or she is forced to punish him. If you have any suggestions. . .” But all three shook their heads in exasperation and powerlessness.
It wasn’t until fourth grade that they had any hope at all for their son. This teacher had studied philosophy, and he smiled a little when they had their first parent-teacher meeting. “Nick is a brilliant child,” Mr. Kristos said pleasantly. “A real joy to have in the class, and a challenge to any teacher. He’s always digging into the subject more deeply than anyone would expect from a nine-year-old. You must be very proud of him, Mr. and Mrs. Demus.”
“Are we talking about the same child?” Mr. Demus asked. “Our Nick has been a demon to most of his teachers. He gets decent grades, but he drives his teachers crazy!”
“Well, I must admit, it took me a while to figure out how to handle his questions and accomplish the lesson plan for the day. But I find the Socratic Method to be most effective with him.” He saw them frown at each other and shrug, so he went on: “The Greek philosopher Socrates lived 400 years before Christ. He famously said, ‘I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.’ His method works well with intelligent children like Nick. When he asks me a question, I question him in return.
“For example, he asked ‘Why do we have to build a stupid diorama?’ I asked him what’s stupid about the exercise, and listened to his argument. He pointed out that adults don’t build such useless things, that no one but the kids who build it will ever see it or pay attention to it. I asked if he had ever been to a museum. He said ‘Yeah; it was boring.’ So I asked, ‘What was so boring about it?’ He said, ‘There were all these things you couldn’t touch, and the rooms were dark, and any questions you had the guide just pointed to a sign. Nothing moved, it all just stood there. Like I said, boring.’ When several of the children snickered agreement, I had to stop and think through those objections. Kids of this age grew up with computers, and online, the children have the opportunity to play with pictures, to make things move. And in printed books, there is often surfaces to touch fur or spiky surfaces, or make things pop-up, and so on.
“So I said to the class, ‘O.K. Let’s see how many things you can build that have that appeal ? that have moving parts, or things to touch, whatever lends realism to what you’re building. What do you think you would need to do to make the map of Columbia come alive? Several of the girls had immediate ideas ? to include Columbian fabrics, which are often hand-woven, for the students to feel and play with; and to bring in fruits and vegetables that are grown in Columbia. One of the boys suggested we should fix a meal of Columbian foods. There was some discussion about this. To keep them on track, I asked them how they could find out what Columbians eat, and one of the girls said there must be recipes online. One of the boys is into Caribbean music, and he suggested he could make an I-pod recording for our display. Another said we could set up a laptop to play You Tube recordings of Columbian people and how they live. It was an amazing fifteen minutes, I’ll tell you, and then Nick said, ‘We’ll need committees, because we can’t all work on everything.’ And they were off and running, and Nick was coordinating all the stuff they came up with.”
Mr. Demus held up his hand. “Wait a minute. Nick was coordinating? What were you doing?”
“Going around to all their committees, checking in and being a resource when they had questions. Actually, my hardest job was keeping them on track. Did you know there’s a CIA website where in-depth information is available on any nation you might care to study? Nick went to the CIA website and before I realized it, he was looking at information about the drug trade, which was, for a while, the most productive part of Columbia’s exports. I asked him what might be the result of him reading about drugs on the school computer, and he immediately apologized and wiped the record of his searches. That’s part of the Socratic Method, see? To ask the student what the consequences might be of his actions. And Nick got it immediately!” Mr. Christos sat back with a huge smile on his face.
Nick’s parents turned and stared at each other. “So,” Mrs. Demus said, “you didn’t explain the consequences of what he’d done? You asked him instead?”
Mr. Christos nodded happily.
The Demuses looked at each other again. “But how did he know the answer?” Mr. Demus asked.
“Don’t know for sure. But he’s smart, and reads a lot. And there’s a lot of discussion on TV and the internet about drugs and computer hackers. He evidently put two and two together.” And then, smiling and shrugging, Mr. Christos laughingly said, “It’s not rocket science. It’s just the computer.”
Mrs. Demus laughed. “He does spend hours looking up things on the computer. I worried at first, but then I remembered sitting and reading the encyclopedia. I learned a lot from just picking up a volume at random.”
“Yeah, but there were no predators and drug dealers in that book!” Mr. Demus growled.
“We want to insure that our students can safely ask questions and search out answers,” Mr. Christos said. “That’s why I stroll around the room while they’re working, just checking out what’s on the screen, and asking questions.”
“Well, it’s certainly a new world since I was in school,” Mr. Demus said. “I suppose I was born too soon to ever be able to dig into things the way kids can today.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Mr. Christos said. “Just get on the computer and type in your question, and follow the leads your browser presents to you. Pretty soon you will have followed one website with another, and you will have learned about this brave new world of ours. Just keep an eye on the clock, because you can think you’ve been on for only a few minutes and discover that it’s been hours! But what a ride you can have, with the freedom to ‘travel’ around the world, dipping into different sources, talking to teachers, and gaining knowledge you wouldn’t have known existed a few years ago.”
The Demuses rose to go, extending their hand in thanks to Nick’s very special teacher, thanking him for understanding their child so well.
“Don’t thank me,” Mr. Christos said, “thank Socrates, and all those teachers down through the centuries who encouraged us to ask questions and learn the answers!”
As they reached the door, Mr. Christos jumped up and came after them. “Would you like to see what they’ve come up with so far for their display?”
They did, of course, and what a wonder this ‘diorama’ was: two computers, a 3D map, foods and clothing, scores of pictures of animals, all under the heading “The Most Diverse Country on Earth.” It certainly was an eye-opener, and before they knew it, they’d been admiring it and learning from it for an hour. Imagine that!
Footnote: Many scholars categorize Jesus as a Jewish Sceptic, especially in his teachings as seen in the Gospel of John, who wrote in Greek about a century after Jesus’ death.
Sandra Herrmann is pastor of Memorial United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Wisconsin. In 1980, she was in the first class ordained by Bishop Marjorie Matthews (the first female United Methodist bishop). Herrmann is the author of Ambassadors of Hope (CSS); her articles and sermons have also appeared in Emphasis and The Circuit Rider, and her poetry has been published in Alive Now and So's Your Old Lady. She has trained lay speakers and led workshops and Bible studies throughout Wisconsin, Iowa, and Indiana. Sandra's favorite pastime is reading with her two dogs piled on her.
No Fear Here!
by Frank Ramirez
Romans 8:12-17
The image one sometimes has of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820? - 1908) is of her fearless work for the Underground Railroad. An escaped slave, she returned south many times to help at least seventy more slaves escape into freedom.
During the Civil War she served as a spy, a cook, and as a nurse, but her work as a leader of troops is less well known, especially with regards to a mission she organized and help to lead deep into South Carolina, with the express desire to liberate as many slaves as possible.
Part of the myth of slavery fostered in the South was that slaves were happier and better off in the south than in the north. Supposedly they loved their masters and abolitionists were the ones who deceived them into thinking they would have a better life as freed people.
Harriet Tubman had been beaten and battered brutally from her earliest days as a child, and certainly knew that those who were still in bondage desired freedom as much as her. After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 she advocated for more direct action in freeing slaves. Her skills as a scout were vital to the forces of the North. As one who had led several families to freedom she had learned much practical information about the terrain in Maryland and in neighboring states which she shared with Union forces.
But Tubman wanted more to be done. Some Union officers thought as little of blacks as officers in the South. Tubman believed that slaves, if freed, would have great value to the cause of freedom. That led to her becoming the first woman to lead an armed military assault in American history.
One officer, General David Hunter, shared her passion for Abolitionism and Emancipation. He gave Tubman a pass that allowed her to move freely behind Union lines in South Carolina, where she recruited more scouts from among the camps where escaped slaves were being held, looking for individuals with knowledge about the region. They helped her identify where mines had been laid. She began to formulate a plan targeting the plantations along the Combahee River.
General Hunter decided that a raid was in order with the specific goal of freeing slaves. A flotilla of three gunboats would go ahead of the South Carolina Volunteer Regiment, which consisted of approximately 300 freed slaves, along with the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, and he asked Tubman to help. She agreed, as long as Colonel James Montgomery was put in command.
Montgomery had fought alongside the famed Abolitionist John Brown, whom Tubman had also supported.
On June 2, 1863 Tubman led the way, leading the troops and the boats around the mines. As they approached the plantations along the river's side something happened that disproved the lies of Southern slave owners. Despite all the dangers they faced from those charged to prevent them from seeking their freedom, despite the whips that were used, according to Tubman's own account, to try to drive the slaves back into their quarters, hundreds of slaves rushed to the boats. They had their children in their arms as they rushed to the water's edge. Slave owners looked on in frustration as the boats steamed away.
Meanwhile the troops inflicted great damage on both buildings and farms, striking fear into slaveholders while carrying away as much property as they could.
Nearly eight hundred slaves were freed in the raid. Many of them joined the Union forces. Certainly those who organized and carried out the raid as well as those who chose freedom demonstrated they had, in the words of the Apostle Paul, rejected a spirit of slavery, only to sink back into fear.
(For more information see the standard biographies of Harriet Tubman. There is also a short article in the April 2015 issue of Smithsonian, p 66)
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
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StoryShare, May 31, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 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.
