Learning Humility
Stories
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Contents
"Learning Humility" by Sandra Herrmann
"The Cup of Salvation" by Sandra Herrmann
* * * * * * *
Learning Humility
by Sandra Herrmann
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
I had a wonderful New Testament teacher in seminary, whose job, as he said, it was to get us to feel what the people of the first century felt when they were confronted by the words and actions of Jesus. What I learned from him was that Jesus had a way of being offbeat, to say the least -- and not always in a charming way!
I had wanted to try foot washing in my Maundy Thursday services for a long time before I got up the nerve to discuss it with the board of my third church. In the United Methodist churches in the northland foot washing hadn't been done much. For one thing, we often have snow for Easter and taking off boots, shoes, and socks -- and making sure people's feet were dry as they put their socks, shoes, and boots back on -- is a little daunting, and not just for this pastor. My parishioners weren't too sure this would go over well either.
Even so, we decided to try out what was for the congregation a new event. We announced it ahead of time, and a good thing, because I'd forgotten that some of the women would be coming to the service without time to change clothes, and if they had no warning, they would still have on panty hose. This could be a disaster. So we made a point of announcing this service and what we would be doing for the three Sundays before.
Actually, the ceremony went very well. We had a table set up in the front of the church with twelve chairs grouped around it. The congregation came up in groups as they were used to doing for Communion. There was a lot of shyness and some giggling (and some nasty hisses from wives whose husbands were the ones giggling). I put on an apron and went from person to person, washing their feet and drying them on a bath towel. People praised the service, even those who had come in panty hose because they'd forgotten (the latter didn't come up for the foot washing, but said just watching had really uplifted them). The next year, many people asked if we would be doing this again, because they had told others about our celebration, and those folks wanted to come too. That second year, the sanctuary was full!
As happens in the United Methodist church, the following year I moved to a new congregation. Easter came around, but I didn't mention the foot washing. I felt that the first celebration of the season ought to be exactly what the people were used to. But the next year, I asked around the leadership, "Do you think we might do this?" They didn't think so. I was a bit disappointed. I'd gotten a lot out of washing people's feet and had found that doing this brought the previous congregation an intimacy they hadn't had. But I let it go.
Shortly before holy week, a couple of women came to me and asked about this ceremony. The neighboring Evangelical Free Church always had done this ceremony, and they had wondered about it. Could I explain? Yes -- I'm the great explainer, and I could and did. By the time I finished, the women were nodding and smiling. They wanted to try it. However, we didn't have much room in the church. Maybe I could do this with just the officers? Truthfully, it was a small enough congregation that there were few people in the church who didn't hold some office or other, and after some conversation about the potential of hurt feelings if we limited who could come, we decided to go ahead and try it out.
Again, people found this to be a very meaningful way to conduct Maundy Thursday services. So we planned on doing it again the next year.
That next Maundy Thursday, I had not quite finished washing feet when our organist, a young woman who arrived weekly on her very sporty motorcycle, came over to me.
"Sit," she said.
"No, I can't, I'm not quite done here."
She had no smile on her face, just an earnest expression. "Sit!"
So I sat. She took off my shoes, slid down my knee-highs, and placed my feet in the basin. Very carefully, she ran her hands over my feet. I was embarrassed. I hadn't expected to have my feet washed. I hoped my feet didn't smell. No one had washed me since I was a small child. But as I watched her, I finally began to relax. She smiled up at me and said, "Good, you're relaxing." Then she took the towel and lifted my feet, one at a time, and dried them in just the way I had dried the feet of the others at the table.
Our organist stood up, smiled at me, and went back to the organ. I finished washing the feet of those at the table. We went on with the rest of the worship service.
I learned a lot that evening. I learned that I was okay with being the humble servant as long as I was emulating Christ. I was not so okay with it when I was the disciple Peter, having his Lord kneel down like a servant to wash the disciple's feet. I wondered at first if she were mocking me a bit: "Here, humble servant. Let me teach you how this feels." But after all, this may have been exactly how the disciples felt -- embarrassed, uneasy. What did Jesus mean by this? What did he think he was doing? Do I dare to ask him what he's about this time? No, better to ask no questions and just let him do his thing. Don't stand out from the crowd, admitting I have no idea how to respond to this.
I also learned that there was a bit of arrogance in me around this action. I was the one who should do the washing. After all, I was the pastor, emulating Christ. Who did this organist think she was, washing my feet? How silly could I be? She was taking Christ up on his challenge -- "If I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, how much more should you wash one another's feet?" Oh, Lord.
The Cup of Salvation
by Sandra Herrmann
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, esp. v. 13
Every Communion Sunday I've heard that phrase: "This is the blood of Christ. This is the cup of salvation." I loved it. It comforted me. I would go forward and kneel at the communion rail and receive the Body and Blood of Christ. "This is His Body. This is His Blood." It marked the beginning of the month for our congregation. It was a benchmark for me, one of those places where I came when I was in pain or grief or pure frustration, and I went home healed. I trusted in those promises.
As I grew older, there were so many thing impinging on my life and time -- first college, where I swigged coffee and downed Bugles and M&Ms while cramming for exams; then out to work, surrounded by people making demands, yelling at me for policies that were not of my making, my boss telling me that I had to do the work of the other two people who had just been "let go" from my department (a useful phrase that takes all the pain out of cutting people off from decent money and health insurance with no safety net). Then I met the woman of my dreams and after asking her to marry me three different times, she finally consented, and we got married quickly, before she could change her mind. And then came the pregnancies. No babies, just pregnancies that at first ended at the exact time she was sure she was pregnant; each one lasted a little longer, but that was even harder, and then she went to the doctor and got birth control pills. No more false hopes, thank you.
At first, I prayed. I prayed for wisdom to know how to help others, how to anticipate their needs and desires so I could do a good job. Then I prayed that my boss would lighten up. Then I prayed that I could have the strength to get through the day. I prayed for my wife, our unborn babies, some hope for the future. I prayed in the car on the way to work, I prayed as I read my book over the lunch hour, I prayed at my desk! And at night, my wife and I would pray together, holding hands in a prayer knot as we spoke both from our hearts and then from a prayer book she kept on a bedside table, along with a small candle and a picture of Jesus looking out earnestly from a frame, his hands held in teaching mode. Then I stopped praying. So did my wife. We would get ready for bed, kiss each other, and turn out the light. We would each roll over, backs toward each other, and fall asleep alone.
I don't remember when I started feeling sick. It was just that I realized that I hadn't been sleeping well. I would wake up so tired most mornings, turn off the alarm clock, and stagger into the bathroom, where I could fall asleep again if I didn't watch myself. After a while, my wife started nagging at me to see a doctor. But trying to pick out a doctor -- that's more than a little scary (not that I would admit that) and time consuming (and I didn't have the time). So I promised as soon as things let up at work, I'd start the search for a primary physician.
Then one day I went to the bathroom and there was blood in the toilet when I stood up. I sat right back down and started probing a bit, and sure enough there was more blood. I called around the next day, asked a few friends for recommendations, and saw a doctor about three weeks later.
By that time, the bleeding had stopped, and I nearly canceled the appointment. What could I say, "I thought I was sick, but then the blood stopped?" Of course, as my wife pointed out, I was having some constipation -- until I didn't and was in the bathroom four times a day.
My boss was noticing that I was away from my desk more that he thought I should be, so I told him I already had an appointment with a doctor. He wasn't pleased that I would miss work, but it is company policy to give "reasonable time off" for doctor appointments, so I felt safe there.
The doctor was not comforting. His bedside manner could use a tune-up, I told my wife. He sent me home with a prescription for a gallon of laxative and an appointment for a colonoscopy. Joy. I thought I was going to die from the preparation! And I dreaded the procedure, though it turned out to be the least of the whole experience. I was asleep in seconds and woke up without pain, though I was groggy for a couple of hours after. It was the phone call the next day that screwed up my whole week.
The most dreaded words in the English language have to be "You have a tumor." Or even worse, "We have to operate right away." Or the real kicker, "We had to take out most of your colon and six feet of intestines." And a quick follow-up, "You will be living with a stoma." That last one made me turn my face to the wall, as they say. Learning to keep that clean would be a lot of fun, I could tell right away. And then there was the added fun of chemotherapy. I was so sick and in so much pain, I was beginning to lose my fear of death!
I'm sure God was pleased to hear from me again.
I hate those people who say they're your friends, but who never come around until they need something. And that's kind of the way I had treated God. And I knew it. So I felt like I was coming back to God with my tail tucked between my legs. I always hated to see a dog do that. It's a sure sign the poor thing has been beaten by somebody. My dog will sort of tuck his tail if I yell at him, but -- well, you know what I mean. There are degrees of tail-tucking.
And mine was really tucked. I wondered if God had given me the Big C in order to get my attention. My pastor tells me God doesn't work that way. But I was pretty sure that either God wanted me back and this was the easiest way to get me, or it was pure and simple punishment. You know, like Dad warning me about that belt he had hanging in the bathroom. So I wasn't sure how to talk to God about this one. I figured groveling might be good.
I'm not going to tell you that as soon as I started talking to God everything got easier. The surgery was terrible to recover from. The stoma was disgusting as far as I was concerned. I was sick from the chemo for months. There were times when I thought it would be easier to just go ahead and die. But I hung in there. My wife cried. A lot. Though she pretended not to and wrote off the red blotches on her face as "allergies." We held on to each other more than we had in five years. I'd throw up and she'd come to clean me up, and I would cry like a baby, because that's how it felt. I couldn't take care of myself, I needed her in ways I'd never needed her before.
I needed God too. Funny, I hadn't taken communion in a long time, but the fact that I couldn't take communion while I was on chemo bothered me more than I could explain. The week my doctor told me I could take communion again was a real milestone. I was grinning like a kid. I stood up at prayer time and thanked everyone who had remembered me in their prayers: "You know who you are, though I don't." The pastor smiled and several others laughed softly.
I came back a new man. And though I suspect Pastor Bob is right -- God doesn't make us sick because we've wandered off the path -- God sure does know how to use whatever happens for our own good. So I'm happy to be back in church, especially since I have so little time to waste, too much to do to fit much in, and still kind of slow in moving around. Like the psalmist, I praise God for my new life.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 17, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 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.
"Learning Humility" by Sandra Herrmann
"The Cup of Salvation" by Sandra Herrmann
* * * * * * *
Learning Humility
by Sandra Herrmann
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
I had a wonderful New Testament teacher in seminary, whose job, as he said, it was to get us to feel what the people of the first century felt when they were confronted by the words and actions of Jesus. What I learned from him was that Jesus had a way of being offbeat, to say the least -- and not always in a charming way!
I had wanted to try foot washing in my Maundy Thursday services for a long time before I got up the nerve to discuss it with the board of my third church. In the United Methodist churches in the northland foot washing hadn't been done much. For one thing, we often have snow for Easter and taking off boots, shoes, and socks -- and making sure people's feet were dry as they put their socks, shoes, and boots back on -- is a little daunting, and not just for this pastor. My parishioners weren't too sure this would go over well either.
Even so, we decided to try out what was for the congregation a new event. We announced it ahead of time, and a good thing, because I'd forgotten that some of the women would be coming to the service without time to change clothes, and if they had no warning, they would still have on panty hose. This could be a disaster. So we made a point of announcing this service and what we would be doing for the three Sundays before.
Actually, the ceremony went very well. We had a table set up in the front of the church with twelve chairs grouped around it. The congregation came up in groups as they were used to doing for Communion. There was a lot of shyness and some giggling (and some nasty hisses from wives whose husbands were the ones giggling). I put on an apron and went from person to person, washing their feet and drying them on a bath towel. People praised the service, even those who had come in panty hose because they'd forgotten (the latter didn't come up for the foot washing, but said just watching had really uplifted them). The next year, many people asked if we would be doing this again, because they had told others about our celebration, and those folks wanted to come too. That second year, the sanctuary was full!
As happens in the United Methodist church, the following year I moved to a new congregation. Easter came around, but I didn't mention the foot washing. I felt that the first celebration of the season ought to be exactly what the people were used to. But the next year, I asked around the leadership, "Do you think we might do this?" They didn't think so. I was a bit disappointed. I'd gotten a lot out of washing people's feet and had found that doing this brought the previous congregation an intimacy they hadn't had. But I let it go.
Shortly before holy week, a couple of women came to me and asked about this ceremony. The neighboring Evangelical Free Church always had done this ceremony, and they had wondered about it. Could I explain? Yes -- I'm the great explainer, and I could and did. By the time I finished, the women were nodding and smiling. They wanted to try it. However, we didn't have much room in the church. Maybe I could do this with just the officers? Truthfully, it was a small enough congregation that there were few people in the church who didn't hold some office or other, and after some conversation about the potential of hurt feelings if we limited who could come, we decided to go ahead and try it out.
Again, people found this to be a very meaningful way to conduct Maundy Thursday services. So we planned on doing it again the next year.
That next Maundy Thursday, I had not quite finished washing feet when our organist, a young woman who arrived weekly on her very sporty motorcycle, came over to me.
"Sit," she said.
"No, I can't, I'm not quite done here."
She had no smile on her face, just an earnest expression. "Sit!"
So I sat. She took off my shoes, slid down my knee-highs, and placed my feet in the basin. Very carefully, she ran her hands over my feet. I was embarrassed. I hadn't expected to have my feet washed. I hoped my feet didn't smell. No one had washed me since I was a small child. But as I watched her, I finally began to relax. She smiled up at me and said, "Good, you're relaxing." Then she took the towel and lifted my feet, one at a time, and dried them in just the way I had dried the feet of the others at the table.
Our organist stood up, smiled at me, and went back to the organ. I finished washing the feet of those at the table. We went on with the rest of the worship service.
I learned a lot that evening. I learned that I was okay with being the humble servant as long as I was emulating Christ. I was not so okay with it when I was the disciple Peter, having his Lord kneel down like a servant to wash the disciple's feet. I wondered at first if she were mocking me a bit: "Here, humble servant. Let me teach you how this feels." But after all, this may have been exactly how the disciples felt -- embarrassed, uneasy. What did Jesus mean by this? What did he think he was doing? Do I dare to ask him what he's about this time? No, better to ask no questions and just let him do his thing. Don't stand out from the crowd, admitting I have no idea how to respond to this.
I also learned that there was a bit of arrogance in me around this action. I was the one who should do the washing. After all, I was the pastor, emulating Christ. Who did this organist think she was, washing my feet? How silly could I be? She was taking Christ up on his challenge -- "If I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, how much more should you wash one another's feet?" Oh, Lord.
The Cup of Salvation
by Sandra Herrmann
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, esp. v. 13
Every Communion Sunday I've heard that phrase: "This is the blood of Christ. This is the cup of salvation." I loved it. It comforted me. I would go forward and kneel at the communion rail and receive the Body and Blood of Christ. "This is His Body. This is His Blood." It marked the beginning of the month for our congregation. It was a benchmark for me, one of those places where I came when I was in pain or grief or pure frustration, and I went home healed. I trusted in those promises.
As I grew older, there were so many thing impinging on my life and time -- first college, where I swigged coffee and downed Bugles and M&Ms while cramming for exams; then out to work, surrounded by people making demands, yelling at me for policies that were not of my making, my boss telling me that I had to do the work of the other two people who had just been "let go" from my department (a useful phrase that takes all the pain out of cutting people off from decent money and health insurance with no safety net). Then I met the woman of my dreams and after asking her to marry me three different times, she finally consented, and we got married quickly, before she could change her mind. And then came the pregnancies. No babies, just pregnancies that at first ended at the exact time she was sure she was pregnant; each one lasted a little longer, but that was even harder, and then she went to the doctor and got birth control pills. No more false hopes, thank you.
At first, I prayed. I prayed for wisdom to know how to help others, how to anticipate their needs and desires so I could do a good job. Then I prayed that my boss would lighten up. Then I prayed that I could have the strength to get through the day. I prayed for my wife, our unborn babies, some hope for the future. I prayed in the car on the way to work, I prayed as I read my book over the lunch hour, I prayed at my desk! And at night, my wife and I would pray together, holding hands in a prayer knot as we spoke both from our hearts and then from a prayer book she kept on a bedside table, along with a small candle and a picture of Jesus looking out earnestly from a frame, his hands held in teaching mode. Then I stopped praying. So did my wife. We would get ready for bed, kiss each other, and turn out the light. We would each roll over, backs toward each other, and fall asleep alone.
I don't remember when I started feeling sick. It was just that I realized that I hadn't been sleeping well. I would wake up so tired most mornings, turn off the alarm clock, and stagger into the bathroom, where I could fall asleep again if I didn't watch myself. After a while, my wife started nagging at me to see a doctor. But trying to pick out a doctor -- that's more than a little scary (not that I would admit that) and time consuming (and I didn't have the time). So I promised as soon as things let up at work, I'd start the search for a primary physician.
Then one day I went to the bathroom and there was blood in the toilet when I stood up. I sat right back down and started probing a bit, and sure enough there was more blood. I called around the next day, asked a few friends for recommendations, and saw a doctor about three weeks later.
By that time, the bleeding had stopped, and I nearly canceled the appointment. What could I say, "I thought I was sick, but then the blood stopped?" Of course, as my wife pointed out, I was having some constipation -- until I didn't and was in the bathroom four times a day.
My boss was noticing that I was away from my desk more that he thought I should be, so I told him I already had an appointment with a doctor. He wasn't pleased that I would miss work, but it is company policy to give "reasonable time off" for doctor appointments, so I felt safe there.
The doctor was not comforting. His bedside manner could use a tune-up, I told my wife. He sent me home with a prescription for a gallon of laxative and an appointment for a colonoscopy. Joy. I thought I was going to die from the preparation! And I dreaded the procedure, though it turned out to be the least of the whole experience. I was asleep in seconds and woke up without pain, though I was groggy for a couple of hours after. It was the phone call the next day that screwed up my whole week.
The most dreaded words in the English language have to be "You have a tumor." Or even worse, "We have to operate right away." Or the real kicker, "We had to take out most of your colon and six feet of intestines." And a quick follow-up, "You will be living with a stoma." That last one made me turn my face to the wall, as they say. Learning to keep that clean would be a lot of fun, I could tell right away. And then there was the added fun of chemotherapy. I was so sick and in so much pain, I was beginning to lose my fear of death!
I'm sure God was pleased to hear from me again.
I hate those people who say they're your friends, but who never come around until they need something. And that's kind of the way I had treated God. And I knew it. So I felt like I was coming back to God with my tail tucked between my legs. I always hated to see a dog do that. It's a sure sign the poor thing has been beaten by somebody. My dog will sort of tuck his tail if I yell at him, but -- well, you know what I mean. There are degrees of tail-tucking.
And mine was really tucked. I wondered if God had given me the Big C in order to get my attention. My pastor tells me God doesn't work that way. But I was pretty sure that either God wanted me back and this was the easiest way to get me, or it was pure and simple punishment. You know, like Dad warning me about that belt he had hanging in the bathroom. So I wasn't sure how to talk to God about this one. I figured groveling might be good.
I'm not going to tell you that as soon as I started talking to God everything got easier. The surgery was terrible to recover from. The stoma was disgusting as far as I was concerned. I was sick from the chemo for months. There were times when I thought it would be easier to just go ahead and die. But I hung in there. My wife cried. A lot. Though she pretended not to and wrote off the red blotches on her face as "allergies." We held on to each other more than we had in five years. I'd throw up and she'd come to clean me up, and I would cry like a baby, because that's how it felt. I couldn't take care of myself, I needed her in ways I'd never needed her before.
I needed God too. Funny, I hadn't taken communion in a long time, but the fact that I couldn't take communion while I was on chemo bothered me more than I could explain. The week my doctor told me I could take communion again was a real milestone. I was grinning like a kid. I stood up at prayer time and thanked everyone who had remembered me in their prayers: "You know who you are, though I don't." The pastor smiled and several others laughed softly.
I came back a new man. And though I suspect Pastor Bob is right -- God doesn't make us sick because we've wandered off the path -- God sure does know how to use whatever happens for our own good. So I'm happy to be back in church, especially since I have so little time to waste, too much to do to fit much in, and still kind of slow in moving around. Like the psalmist, I praise God for my new life.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 17, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 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.
