Knowing Where You Are Going
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "A Healing Story"
Shining Moments: "High and Lifted Up" by Laurie Woodard
Sermon Starter: "Knowing Where You Are Going" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "Chosen" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
We never know where God is going to call us to go or what God may ask us to do. In Shining Moments, Laurie Woodard tells about giving birth to five babies in six years (including a set of triplets) and then finding herself expecting again. In the Sermon Starter, based on the story of Abraham's decision to go to a faraway place where God is calling him to go, John writes about the possibility that this may happen in our family one day:
"It is my fervent wish to be near my children and (if I am blessed) grandchildren in my old age -- to be able to have occasional Sunday dinners together and to be able to call them on the phone on short notice and say, 'Why don't you come over for supper?' But I know that God may take them to some far-off place to live out the purpose of their lives. I will have to forgive God and give them my blessing."
We are both grateful for the comforting notes we have received from our StoryShare friends after the tragic death of Jo's sister last week. One dear woman in our congregation who is known for her handcrafted cards wrote: "Friends are like shock absorbers helping us to take the lumps and bumps of losing a loved one."
A Story to Live By
A Healing Story
Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, "If only I touch his cloak, I will be made well."
Matthew 9:20-21
I heard a story recently about a woman in her seventies who had planned to go on a trip to Europe with her grown son. They were going to visit certain sites so that the son could study and make architectural drawings. Two weeks before the trip, the mother was diagnosed with bone cancer and was told she had only a few weeks to live. Her doctors ordered her to cancel her trip.
Refusing to change her plans, she and her son went on the trip. They went to all the places on their itinerary, although her health steadily deteriorated and walking became increasingly difficult. One day, the two of them went to a church in Italy where the son sketched for several hours while the woman sat inside on a pew, resting comfortably while he worked. Afterward, as she walked out to the car, they realized that she was walking without a limp. Three weeks later, back home, the woman appeared to be in excellent health. Her doctors could find no sign of the cancer. It turned out that the church in which she sat was well-known for its healing energies, although she and her son had absolutely no knowledge of this while there. Only later had they found out this information. In this case, the woman was healed with no conscious belief in the healing properties of the church, but she, no doubt, carried within her psyche the possibility that life was more mysterious than it might appear.
(Carol Adrienne, The Purpose of Your Life, Eagle Brook, 1998, p. 74)
Shining Moments
High and Lifted Up
by Laurie Woodard
No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Romans 4:20-21
The story I am about to tell didn't seem to lend itself to words, due to the profundity of its content, and for many years it stayed in my treasure box of memories as an ethereal moment in my journey.
The Lord has shown great favor upon my husband and me. After two years of infertility procedures, we were able to conceive our first child. Our healthy little daughter didn't come into this world without a struggle. We never ceased to be grateful throughout prolonged efforts to lull her to sleep. As amazing as her life was, three years later she was joined by a sister who arrived without excessive waiting or complications of any kind. Number two daughter came with an even sleep pattern, which helped to restore my faith in motherhood.
About two years later, my husband announced that our family of four seemed incomplete, and that we should consider a third addition. I resisted that proposal for months because I really thought we had our hands full. But the Lord had other plans. He revealed them to me one summer day as I was riding my bicycle home from a Bible study entitled "The Challenge of Being a Woman." The lesson of that day focused on the husband and his leadership role in the family. It suddenly became clear that God was asking me to yield to my husband's desire to expand our family.
My willingness had brought us to a place of bounteous blessing, threefold! Not only did God send us a son, but two daughters to accompany him. In just six years I had delivered five babies: two daughters born in separate births, followed by a triplet birth -- two more daughters and a son! As a monumental number of feedings and diaper changes went by, and the purchase of a bigger residence came to pass, the rigors of parenting multiples continued, but not without God's constant provision and guidance.
However, nothing could have prepared me for the next event, a fourth pregnancy to top things off. I constantly asked, how could I ever carry another baby with my daily duties of tending to a kindergartener, a three-year-old, and three eighteen-month-old toddlers?
Every day was a physical and mental challenge. I continually battled feelings of anger, doubt, blame, desperation, and fatigue. How could I possibly complete this pregnancy and accommodate another baby? After about six weeks of sheer mental torment, I finally surrendered to God's will and agreed to accept my sixth child and trust God to make a way where there seemed to be none.
Shortly after my relinquishment, I was put on bed rest due to some moderate bleeding. After a weekend of lying in the horizontal position, I really expected everything to be fine, but the ultrasound told otherwise. The doctor announced that I had miscarried. While his condolences were sincerely extended to my husband and I, a sense of relief consumed me and I felt a flood of God's divine deliverance take over my entire body. Perhaps I had passed a test? Maybe God had no intention of continuing the burden of a pregnancy?
Although I cried no tears of sorrow, I had been given a temporary gift of a new life that I look forward to meeting in heaven. The ultimate reward was the incredible manifestation of God's love that entwined itself around me in a vision of being literally lifted up out of my bed. It seemed as if I was viewing myself, floating above the space where I actually was. Great torrents of God's merciful love swept over my body until I was overcome with a sense of being "high and lifted up." I can now truly say, "How great is the steadfast love of my heavenly father!"
Laurie Woodard calls herself a disciple of Christ skillfully disguised as a wife, mother of five, and a substitute teacher. She recently completed a three-year program of Spiritual Formation sponsored by the United Methodist Church. Her favorite pastimes are hiking, biking, and reading spiritual classics. She is a member of First United Methodist Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Sermon Starter
Knowing Where You Are Going
by John Sumwalt
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him...
Genesis 12:4a
The author of Hebrews refers to this story of Abraham when he writes: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8).
He set out not knowing where he was going.
Do you know where you are going in your life?
There was once a preacher who rode the bus every day so he could preach and evangelize. One day an old drunk got on. The preacher pointed the Bible at him and said, "You're going straight to hell." The drunk stood up and said, "Oh no! I'm on the wrong bus!"
When Abraham Lincoln was running for Congress against a preacher, he attended one of the preacher's tent meetings one day. His opponent was preaching up a storm. Lincoln sat in the back row and listened. At one point the preacher/candidate called out: "All those who are going to heaven, stand up and praise the Lord." Everyone stood up except Lincoln. The preacher looked at Lincoln and asked, "Where are you going?" Lincoln said, "I'm going to Congress." And he did.
Abraham Lincoln knew where he was going.
And so it is with all of us. There are times in our lives when we have a clear sense of purpose. We know exactly who we are and where we are going. And there are other times when our lives seem to be in chaos -- when we are uncertain about who we are and where we are going.
For the first 75 years of his life, Abram (as he was known in those days) led the traditional tribal life in the land of his birth, near his parents and relatives. His life was much like that of a 67-year-old man from Kyrgyzstan whose story was in the New York Times recently:
"Kyrgyzstan is a very small mountain nation on the northwest border of China, formerly a part of the Soviet Union.... In this now independent and remote nation, where people's lives are shaped by breathtaking mountains, swift horses, and forbidding glaciers, a hunter and yak herder named Jakshylyk Osmonakunov perfectly embodies the collective spirit.... Nearly two miles above sea level and far from the nearest village, Mr. Osmonakunov lives with his extended family amid some of the world's most spectacular alpine scenery.... 'Sure, my sons and their sons will want to go to town a little more often than I do,' he said. 'They'll like hitting the saloons and listening to music. But this will always be Kyrgyzstan. That means that people will always live in the mountains, always have horses, and always take care of animals. It's who we are. It's what we do.' " (Stephen Kinzer, "The Unfenced Life, Under the Celestial Mountains," New York Times, October 5, 1999)
Jakshylyk Osmonakunov is a man who knows where he is going. And he may be right: there may always be a Kyrgyzstan, and their wonderful way of life may continue for many generations. But it is more likely that one day God will say to Jakshylyk or to one of his children, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," and Jakshylyk, like Abraham, will set out not knowing where he is going... only knowing that to be true to himself and true to God, he has to go. This is how most of us are led into our life's work -- into friendship, into marriage -- to the land or city where we will settle and live out our lives.
Caroline Myss writes in her book Why People Don't Heal and How They Can:
"Our choice to proceed on this journey must be made in faith and cannot be dependent on who chooses to come along with us. As psychologist and theologian Sam Keen is fond of saying, two of the most important questions for your life journey are 'Where am I going?' and 'Who will go with me?' And it is very important to ask them of yourself in that order."
Myss adds:
"It helps to keep in mind that the instinct of the tribe is to discourage its members from venturing too far from the familiar. More often than not, when you are on the journey toward self-discovery you will be met with opposition. You would be making a mistake to take this response personally; it should be viewed as an act of tribal love, or at least tribal loyalty, because tribes, by design, strive to keep their numbers together." (Caroline Myss, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Three Rivers Press, 1997, pp. 97-98)
It is my fervent wish to be near my children and (if I am blessed) grandchildren in my old age -- to be able to have occasional Sunday dinners together and to be able to call them on the phone on short notice and say, "Why don't you come over for supper?" But I know that God may take them to some far-off place to live out the purpose of their lives. I will have to forgive God and give them my blessing.
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, October 10, 1999. For more about tribal power and culture, see chapter one in Caroline Myss's first book, Anatomy of The Spirit (Three Rivers Press, 1996).
Scrap Pile
Chosen
by John Sumwalt
Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9
Do you know what it is like to be chosen...
...for jury duty?
...for a tax audit?
...for the military draft?
...to be hired for a job?
...to be on the starting team?
...to be on the cheerleading squad?
...to give the speech at graduation?
...to receive a scholarship or award?
Remember choosing up sides in grade school? If you were good at whatever the game was that you were choosing up sides for, you were apt to be one of the first chosen. If you were not so good at this particular game you might be chosen last, or not at all.
A woman once wrote to Ann Landers:
"Dear Ann: Several days ago, my 12-year-old came home from school red-eyed and dejected. 'What's wrong?' I asked. Well, it seems that once again she was the last person chosen by her so-called friend, the captain of the volleyball team. She said, between sobs, 'Mom, you don't know how awful it is to be left standing there alone, knowing nobody wants you.' The next day there was a letter about this very thing in your column. It's incredible that physical education teachers are still doing this cruel thing to children. Please speak against it."
-- London, Ontario, Mom
Being chosen, or not chosen, can be a very big deal. A friend applied for job of professor of theology at Marquette University. He was one of 100 applicants, and he was chosen number 2. If the number 1 choice had declined, he would have been offered the job. He didn't get the job, and eventually he was chosen for a position at another university.
In the Vietnam era, my lottery number was 215. I was not chosen. A classmate who was chosen died in Vietnam. Being chosen or not chosen can have life-changing consequences.
Jesus chose Matthew, the tax collector, to be one of his disciples. Matthew was an unlikely choice. Tax collectors were considered to be among the worst of sinners in Israel, traitors to their country because they collected taxes for Rome. Most of them were wealthy because they cheated and kept a generous portion of the tax money for themselves.
In spite of this, Jesus wanted Matthew. He came upon him sitting at his tax booth, invited him to follow him, and, the Gospel writer said, Matthew got up and followed him. How different his life must have been after that decision.
Abraham responded in the same way when he was chosen by God. In the scripture that was read a few moments ago, God appears suddenly to Abraham and tells him: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).
Abraham is asked to give up three things that are very dear to all of us: country, clan, and home. Those of you who have left family and home behind to serve your country, to pursue a career, or to go with your spouse in pursuit of his or her career know how Abraham and Sarah must have felt when God chose them. Much of our identities comes from our homeland, our culture, from the family and community in which we have been nurtured. To leave all of that behind is no small thing. It requires faith in the one who is the ultiimate source or our being.
God said to Abraham: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3).
Such a deal!
"So Abram, as he was called then, went," the scripture says, in those concise words. And Sarah went with him. Abraham was 75 years old, and he and Sarah were childless. They were chosen when they were empty, and seemingly without promise. They had no son. They were unlikely candidates to form a great nation.
What do you suppose happened when Abe went into the tent that day and said, "Aah, Sarah, we're going to be moving tomorrow"?
"What do you mean, we're going to move? Why do we have to move? I like it here. All my family and friends are here."
"God says we have to go, so we're going to go."
"Where are we going?"
"God didn't say where, just that he would show us when we get there."
How would this go over in your house? If Abraham and Sarah had doubts or misgivings, they are not recorded. The scripture simply reads that God chose and they went.
How do you respond when God chooses you?
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 9, 1996.
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How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
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StoryShare, June 5, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "A Healing Story"
Shining Moments: "High and Lifted Up" by Laurie Woodard
Sermon Starter: "Knowing Where You Are Going" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "Chosen" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
We never know where God is going to call us to go or what God may ask us to do. In Shining Moments, Laurie Woodard tells about giving birth to five babies in six years (including a set of triplets) and then finding herself expecting again. In the Sermon Starter, based on the story of Abraham's decision to go to a faraway place where God is calling him to go, John writes about the possibility that this may happen in our family one day:
"It is my fervent wish to be near my children and (if I am blessed) grandchildren in my old age -- to be able to have occasional Sunday dinners together and to be able to call them on the phone on short notice and say, 'Why don't you come over for supper?' But I know that God may take them to some far-off place to live out the purpose of their lives. I will have to forgive God and give them my blessing."
We are both grateful for the comforting notes we have received from our StoryShare friends after the tragic death of Jo's sister last week. One dear woman in our congregation who is known for her handcrafted cards wrote: "Friends are like shock absorbers helping us to take the lumps and bumps of losing a loved one."
A Story to Live By
A Healing Story
Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, "If only I touch his cloak, I will be made well."
Matthew 9:20-21
I heard a story recently about a woman in her seventies who had planned to go on a trip to Europe with her grown son. They were going to visit certain sites so that the son could study and make architectural drawings. Two weeks before the trip, the mother was diagnosed with bone cancer and was told she had only a few weeks to live. Her doctors ordered her to cancel her trip.
Refusing to change her plans, she and her son went on the trip. They went to all the places on their itinerary, although her health steadily deteriorated and walking became increasingly difficult. One day, the two of them went to a church in Italy where the son sketched for several hours while the woman sat inside on a pew, resting comfortably while he worked. Afterward, as she walked out to the car, they realized that she was walking without a limp. Three weeks later, back home, the woman appeared to be in excellent health. Her doctors could find no sign of the cancer. It turned out that the church in which she sat was well-known for its healing energies, although she and her son had absolutely no knowledge of this while there. Only later had they found out this information. In this case, the woman was healed with no conscious belief in the healing properties of the church, but she, no doubt, carried within her psyche the possibility that life was more mysterious than it might appear.
(Carol Adrienne, The Purpose of Your Life, Eagle Brook, 1998, p. 74)
Shining Moments
High and Lifted Up
by Laurie Woodard
No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Romans 4:20-21
The story I am about to tell didn't seem to lend itself to words, due to the profundity of its content, and for many years it stayed in my treasure box of memories as an ethereal moment in my journey.
The Lord has shown great favor upon my husband and me. After two years of infertility procedures, we were able to conceive our first child. Our healthy little daughter didn't come into this world without a struggle. We never ceased to be grateful throughout prolonged efforts to lull her to sleep. As amazing as her life was, three years later she was joined by a sister who arrived without excessive waiting or complications of any kind. Number two daughter came with an even sleep pattern, which helped to restore my faith in motherhood.
About two years later, my husband announced that our family of four seemed incomplete, and that we should consider a third addition. I resisted that proposal for months because I really thought we had our hands full. But the Lord had other plans. He revealed them to me one summer day as I was riding my bicycle home from a Bible study entitled "The Challenge of Being a Woman." The lesson of that day focused on the husband and his leadership role in the family. It suddenly became clear that God was asking me to yield to my husband's desire to expand our family.
My willingness had brought us to a place of bounteous blessing, threefold! Not only did God send us a son, but two daughters to accompany him. In just six years I had delivered five babies: two daughters born in separate births, followed by a triplet birth -- two more daughters and a son! As a monumental number of feedings and diaper changes went by, and the purchase of a bigger residence came to pass, the rigors of parenting multiples continued, but not without God's constant provision and guidance.
However, nothing could have prepared me for the next event, a fourth pregnancy to top things off. I constantly asked, how could I ever carry another baby with my daily duties of tending to a kindergartener, a three-year-old, and three eighteen-month-old toddlers?
Every day was a physical and mental challenge. I continually battled feelings of anger, doubt, blame, desperation, and fatigue. How could I possibly complete this pregnancy and accommodate another baby? After about six weeks of sheer mental torment, I finally surrendered to God's will and agreed to accept my sixth child and trust God to make a way where there seemed to be none.
Shortly after my relinquishment, I was put on bed rest due to some moderate bleeding. After a weekend of lying in the horizontal position, I really expected everything to be fine, but the ultrasound told otherwise. The doctor announced that I had miscarried. While his condolences were sincerely extended to my husband and I, a sense of relief consumed me and I felt a flood of God's divine deliverance take over my entire body. Perhaps I had passed a test? Maybe God had no intention of continuing the burden of a pregnancy?
Although I cried no tears of sorrow, I had been given a temporary gift of a new life that I look forward to meeting in heaven. The ultimate reward was the incredible manifestation of God's love that entwined itself around me in a vision of being literally lifted up out of my bed. It seemed as if I was viewing myself, floating above the space where I actually was. Great torrents of God's merciful love swept over my body until I was overcome with a sense of being "high and lifted up." I can now truly say, "How great is the steadfast love of my heavenly father!"
Laurie Woodard calls herself a disciple of Christ skillfully disguised as a wife, mother of five, and a substitute teacher. She recently completed a three-year program of Spiritual Formation sponsored by the United Methodist Church. Her favorite pastimes are hiking, biking, and reading spiritual classics. She is a member of First United Methodist Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Sermon Starter
Knowing Where You Are Going
by John Sumwalt
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him...
Genesis 12:4a
The author of Hebrews refers to this story of Abraham when he writes: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8).
He set out not knowing where he was going.
Do you know where you are going in your life?
There was once a preacher who rode the bus every day so he could preach and evangelize. One day an old drunk got on. The preacher pointed the Bible at him and said, "You're going straight to hell." The drunk stood up and said, "Oh no! I'm on the wrong bus!"
When Abraham Lincoln was running for Congress against a preacher, he attended one of the preacher's tent meetings one day. His opponent was preaching up a storm. Lincoln sat in the back row and listened. At one point the preacher/candidate called out: "All those who are going to heaven, stand up and praise the Lord." Everyone stood up except Lincoln. The preacher looked at Lincoln and asked, "Where are you going?" Lincoln said, "I'm going to Congress." And he did.
Abraham Lincoln knew where he was going.
And so it is with all of us. There are times in our lives when we have a clear sense of purpose. We know exactly who we are and where we are going. And there are other times when our lives seem to be in chaos -- when we are uncertain about who we are and where we are going.
For the first 75 years of his life, Abram (as he was known in those days) led the traditional tribal life in the land of his birth, near his parents and relatives. His life was much like that of a 67-year-old man from Kyrgyzstan whose story was in the New York Times recently:
"Kyrgyzstan is a very small mountain nation on the northwest border of China, formerly a part of the Soviet Union.... In this now independent and remote nation, where people's lives are shaped by breathtaking mountains, swift horses, and forbidding glaciers, a hunter and yak herder named Jakshylyk Osmonakunov perfectly embodies the collective spirit.... Nearly two miles above sea level and far from the nearest village, Mr. Osmonakunov lives with his extended family amid some of the world's most spectacular alpine scenery.... 'Sure, my sons and their sons will want to go to town a little more often than I do,' he said. 'They'll like hitting the saloons and listening to music. But this will always be Kyrgyzstan. That means that people will always live in the mountains, always have horses, and always take care of animals. It's who we are. It's what we do.' " (Stephen Kinzer, "The Unfenced Life, Under the Celestial Mountains," New York Times, October 5, 1999)
Jakshylyk Osmonakunov is a man who knows where he is going. And he may be right: there may always be a Kyrgyzstan, and their wonderful way of life may continue for many generations. But it is more likely that one day God will say to Jakshylyk or to one of his children, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," and Jakshylyk, like Abraham, will set out not knowing where he is going... only knowing that to be true to himself and true to God, he has to go. This is how most of us are led into our life's work -- into friendship, into marriage -- to the land or city where we will settle and live out our lives.
Caroline Myss writes in her book Why People Don't Heal and How They Can:
"Our choice to proceed on this journey must be made in faith and cannot be dependent on who chooses to come along with us. As psychologist and theologian Sam Keen is fond of saying, two of the most important questions for your life journey are 'Where am I going?' and 'Who will go with me?' And it is very important to ask them of yourself in that order."
Myss adds:
"It helps to keep in mind that the instinct of the tribe is to discourage its members from venturing too far from the familiar. More often than not, when you are on the journey toward self-discovery you will be met with opposition. You would be making a mistake to take this response personally; it should be viewed as an act of tribal love, or at least tribal loyalty, because tribes, by design, strive to keep their numbers together." (Caroline Myss, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Three Rivers Press, 1997, pp. 97-98)
It is my fervent wish to be near my children and (if I am blessed) grandchildren in my old age -- to be able to have occasional Sunday dinners together and to be able to call them on the phone on short notice and say, "Why don't you come over for supper?" But I know that God may take them to some far-off place to live out the purpose of their lives. I will have to forgive God and give them my blessing.
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, October 10, 1999. For more about tribal power and culture, see chapter one in Caroline Myss's first book, Anatomy of The Spirit (Three Rivers Press, 1996).
Scrap Pile
Chosen
by John Sumwalt
Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9
Do you know what it is like to be chosen...
...for jury duty?
...for a tax audit?
...for the military draft?
...to be hired for a job?
...to be on the starting team?
...to be on the cheerleading squad?
...to give the speech at graduation?
...to receive a scholarship or award?
Remember choosing up sides in grade school? If you were good at whatever the game was that you were choosing up sides for, you were apt to be one of the first chosen. If you were not so good at this particular game you might be chosen last, or not at all.
A woman once wrote to Ann Landers:
"Dear Ann: Several days ago, my 12-year-old came home from school red-eyed and dejected. 'What's wrong?' I asked. Well, it seems that once again she was the last person chosen by her so-called friend, the captain of the volleyball team. She said, between sobs, 'Mom, you don't know how awful it is to be left standing there alone, knowing nobody wants you.' The next day there was a letter about this very thing in your column. It's incredible that physical education teachers are still doing this cruel thing to children. Please speak against it."
-- London, Ontario, Mom
Being chosen, or not chosen, can be a very big deal. A friend applied for job of professor of theology at Marquette University. He was one of 100 applicants, and he was chosen number 2. If the number 1 choice had declined, he would have been offered the job. He didn't get the job, and eventually he was chosen for a position at another university.
In the Vietnam era, my lottery number was 215. I was not chosen. A classmate who was chosen died in Vietnam. Being chosen or not chosen can have life-changing consequences.
Jesus chose Matthew, the tax collector, to be one of his disciples. Matthew was an unlikely choice. Tax collectors were considered to be among the worst of sinners in Israel, traitors to their country because they collected taxes for Rome. Most of them were wealthy because they cheated and kept a generous portion of the tax money for themselves.
In spite of this, Jesus wanted Matthew. He came upon him sitting at his tax booth, invited him to follow him, and, the Gospel writer said, Matthew got up and followed him. How different his life must have been after that decision.
Abraham responded in the same way when he was chosen by God. In the scripture that was read a few moments ago, God appears suddenly to Abraham and tells him: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).
Abraham is asked to give up three things that are very dear to all of us: country, clan, and home. Those of you who have left family and home behind to serve your country, to pursue a career, or to go with your spouse in pursuit of his or her career know how Abraham and Sarah must have felt when God chose them. Much of our identities comes from our homeland, our culture, from the family and community in which we have been nurtured. To leave all of that behind is no small thing. It requires faith in the one who is the ultiimate source or our being.
God said to Abraham: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3).
Such a deal!
"So Abram, as he was called then, went," the scripture says, in those concise words. And Sarah went with him. Abraham was 75 years old, and he and Sarah were childless. They were chosen when they were empty, and seemingly without promise. They had no son. They were unlikely candidates to form a great nation.
What do you suppose happened when Abe went into the tent that day and said, "Aah, Sarah, we're going to be moving tomorrow"?
"What do you mean, we're going to move? Why do we have to move? I like it here. All my family and friends are here."
"God says we have to go, so we're going to go."
"Where are we going?"
"God didn't say where, just that he would show us when we get there."
How would this go over in your house? If Abraham and Sarah had doubts or misgivings, they are not recorded. The scripture simply reads that God chose and they went.
How do you respond when God chooses you?
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 9, 1996.
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How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
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StoryShare, June 5, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
