Making The Choice
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"Making the Choice" by Sandra Herrmann
Making the Choice
by Sandra Herrmann
Sol and his wife, Eugenie, were in church most Sundays. They sat about halfway back, on the aisle. Eugenie was a beautiful woman. Sol was always quick to point that out to people they met. In fact, his usual introduction of his wife, “And this is the beautiful woman who decided a schmuck like me was a good catch!” Then he would laugh and give her a light squeeze, a big smile on his face.
When he introduced the new pastor to his wife, he said, “I’m a lucky man, don’t you think?”
The pastor was a bit embarrassed. No matter what she said, she’d be putting Eugenie on the spot, and she hadn’t a clue how she felt about that introduction. But what can you say?
“If she’s as smart as she is lovely, you are a lucky man!” slipped out of her mouth as she was still thinking. Happily, both Sol and Eugenie burst out laughing.
“You got him, Pastor Kris!” Eugenie chortled. Turning to Sol, she grinned. “This one shoots from the hip! You’ll have to be on your guard.” Sol agreed, nodding vigorously, his shoulders shaking with laughter all the way to the street.
Pastor Kris was laughing herself. Every once in a while, things slipped out of her mouth before she had censored them. In this case, it worked.
As time went on, she found she liked Sol and Jeannie (as she learned Eugenie preferred). They went out for dinner after church a few times, and she appreciated their thoughtfulness and intelligence. They had good discussions, sometimes on current events, sometimes on the Bible. Sol impressed her particularly with his thorough knowledge of the Bible. He could quote chapter and verse, a skill Kris wished she had developed in seminary. She did find that once she had preached on a text, it stuck with her, so she had hope she’d eventually be able to do this as easily as Sol did. Jeannie wasn’t as Bible-oriented as Sol, but she knew local politics and she was firmly outspoken on Women’s issues. She and Kris occasionally “ganged up” on Sol, he said, which was unfair. “I’m surrounded by females,” he said. (They had one daughter, a lovely young woman with an unfortunate penchant for ‘bad boys’ that confused both of her doting parents.)
Besides which, whenever there was a quarrel in the congregation, Sol and Jeannie would report this to Pastor Kris so she wouldn’t be ‘blindsided’ as Sol put it. And when the discussion of the Pastor’s salary came up yearly, Sol was firmly on the Pastor’s side. “You don’t pay a woman less than a man for the same work,” he had said on one occasion. The next year, he said, “Did you know that our Pastor has a Master’s degree? That’s seven years of schooling before she could be our leader. She should be paid accordingly.” Kris was grateful to him for these pronouncements on her behalf, and even more to Jeannie, who stood up for her in the church kitchen. They were an unbeatable pair of friends to have.
The church they belonged to celebrated communion once a quarter, so it took more than a year for Kris to notice that Sol never took communion. “That’s odd,” she thought, watching him usher folks forward for the sacrament pew by pew. “He ushers, he comes to every event, he’s in church most Sundays. Why doesn’t he take communion?” She figured this might be a touchy subject, so she thought about how to bring it up.
The opportunity presented itself two weeks later. Jeannie approached her after church. “We heard about a new restaurant that offers a fantastic buffet on Sundays. Want to come along and try it? Our treat. That way if you don’t like it, you haven’t paid for it.”
Kris laughed. “I’ve never met a food I didn’t like! You know that.”
While they were eating, Kris asked, in as casual a voice as she could muster, “I noticed this past Communion Sunday that you didn’t take the sacrament, Sol. Is there any particular reason?”
Sol nodded, his mouth full of smoked salmon. Swallowing, he said, “Yeah. I’m not a Christian.”
Pastor Kris blinked. “Really? Then what are you doing in our church? Oh, I didn’t mean to say that at all. I mean, you’re there every Sunday, you participate in our activities, you know your Bible so well. . . What are you, if not a Christian?”
“I’m a Jew,” he said, and put down his fork.
“Oh, how interesting,” Pastor Kris said. “I went to a high school where about half the kids were Jewish! A lot of them had grandparents who came here during or just before World War 2. From Eastern Europe, mostly. Where are your people from?” She put another bite in her mouth and waited.
Sol sat and stared at her. She had no idea what he was thinking. He barely moved, ignored his food. Finally, he looked back down at his plate and picked up his fork. “They escaped Germany the day after Kristallnacht in 1938. I was still a baby, which made their situation more precarious. My older sister was five. I don’t know why they were permitted to bring us out. They would never talk about it.”
Pastor Kris was stunned. “I’m so sorry! Are your parents still alive?”
Sol shook his head. “My father died two years ago. My mother got cancer in 1960, and died three years later.”
The three of them continued to eat, but there was no conversation for about five minutes. Pastor Kris felt terrible that she had asked; bad enough to bring up horrible memories, but at such a pleasant place to eat! She wondered if he would ever want to come back here. She looked out the window, watched birds eating at a large feeder sheltered by some pines. At last, Sol broke the silence.
“Don’t feel badly, Pastor. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt, but I’ve lived with this for many years. It’s not spoiling our lunch, I promise.” His smile was warm and comforting, and Kris returned it. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about some of this. I want to be baptized. If you’re willing.”
Pastor Kris was so relieved, she blurted out, “Oh, it would be my pleasure!” Then she ducked her head and said, “I think we maybe need to have a couple of conversations before we do that, though. Some of the things our church teaches, for example, and the meaning of what we do when we baptize and take communion. I know you know your Bible, and you’ve been active in mission work and other activities, so you don’t need education about those things. We don’t need to do a confirmation-class thing, you know, maybe just answering questions you have about Christianity, like that?” She stopped talking because she could see he was smiling a bit. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?” she finished.
“A little. But it’s O.K. I’m not sure what I expect in the way of education. I like the Bible studies you’ve had at church. As a child, I made my Bar Mitzvah, and that entailed Bible study, but that’s Old Testament, as you would say. I’ve been reading the Gospels daily, and I’m impressed with how well you include daily life alongside the Bible teachings in your preaching. But it would be good to talk about the meaning of baptism for an adult.”
Their conversation veered from how adults were baptized to Jesus’ baptism to the meaning of baptism in their congregation. By the time they were finishing their Napoleons, they had set a date, answered some of Sol and Jeannie’s questions and concerns, and gone on to the question of whether his baptism had to be part of a church service, or if he could be quietly baptized, with a few dear friends and family. Oddly, it turned out that the best day for Sol’s baptism was November 10th, the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Pastor Kris wondered if Sol would notice. She needn’t have worried. He not only noticed, he pointed it out to those who came to witness the ceremony and celebrate and with them.
“The Nazis made their intentions clear enough that night for my father to see the writing on the wall. We left Germany the next day, when my father discovered that he at last had enough money to get us a passport and a steamship ticket to the United States. Who knows what might have happened to all of us if he had hesitated? So this is a day of celebration for us. I want to mark it with my baptism, acknowledging the acceptance we have found in this country and this church. And the great gift that God has given us in Jesus the Messiah. You have shown me the love of God in Christ, Pastor. Thank you.”
And with that, he knelt down next to the baptismal fount, and Kris had the great privilege of baptizing her very first convert to Christianity. Afterward, the whole company that had stayed after church for the baptism went to a nearby restaurant that had a party room, where the table was piled high with food. Some of it was traditional Jewish food: kreplach, latkes and cholent, then the traditional salads for church suppers: coleslaw, macaroni-and-ham-and-cheese, and a five-bean salad. And of course there were desserts. After Pastor Kris offered the grace, Sol told them all, “It’s a traditional Jewish thing: ‘The enemy tried to kill us all. They failed. So, let’s eat!’” And so they did.
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.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 6, 2016, 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.
"Making the Choice" by Sandra Herrmann
Making the Choice
by Sandra Herrmann
Sol and his wife, Eugenie, were in church most Sundays. They sat about halfway back, on the aisle. Eugenie was a beautiful woman. Sol was always quick to point that out to people they met. In fact, his usual introduction of his wife, “And this is the beautiful woman who decided a schmuck like me was a good catch!” Then he would laugh and give her a light squeeze, a big smile on his face.
When he introduced the new pastor to his wife, he said, “I’m a lucky man, don’t you think?”
The pastor was a bit embarrassed. No matter what she said, she’d be putting Eugenie on the spot, and she hadn’t a clue how she felt about that introduction. But what can you say?
“If she’s as smart as she is lovely, you are a lucky man!” slipped out of her mouth as she was still thinking. Happily, both Sol and Eugenie burst out laughing.
“You got him, Pastor Kris!” Eugenie chortled. Turning to Sol, she grinned. “This one shoots from the hip! You’ll have to be on your guard.” Sol agreed, nodding vigorously, his shoulders shaking with laughter all the way to the street.
Pastor Kris was laughing herself. Every once in a while, things slipped out of her mouth before she had censored them. In this case, it worked.
As time went on, she found she liked Sol and Jeannie (as she learned Eugenie preferred). They went out for dinner after church a few times, and she appreciated their thoughtfulness and intelligence. They had good discussions, sometimes on current events, sometimes on the Bible. Sol impressed her particularly with his thorough knowledge of the Bible. He could quote chapter and verse, a skill Kris wished she had developed in seminary. She did find that once she had preached on a text, it stuck with her, so she had hope she’d eventually be able to do this as easily as Sol did. Jeannie wasn’t as Bible-oriented as Sol, but she knew local politics and she was firmly outspoken on Women’s issues. She and Kris occasionally “ganged up” on Sol, he said, which was unfair. “I’m surrounded by females,” he said. (They had one daughter, a lovely young woman with an unfortunate penchant for ‘bad boys’ that confused both of her doting parents.)
Besides which, whenever there was a quarrel in the congregation, Sol and Jeannie would report this to Pastor Kris so she wouldn’t be ‘blindsided’ as Sol put it. And when the discussion of the Pastor’s salary came up yearly, Sol was firmly on the Pastor’s side. “You don’t pay a woman less than a man for the same work,” he had said on one occasion. The next year, he said, “Did you know that our Pastor has a Master’s degree? That’s seven years of schooling before she could be our leader. She should be paid accordingly.” Kris was grateful to him for these pronouncements on her behalf, and even more to Jeannie, who stood up for her in the church kitchen. They were an unbeatable pair of friends to have.
The church they belonged to celebrated communion once a quarter, so it took more than a year for Kris to notice that Sol never took communion. “That’s odd,” she thought, watching him usher folks forward for the sacrament pew by pew. “He ushers, he comes to every event, he’s in church most Sundays. Why doesn’t he take communion?” She figured this might be a touchy subject, so she thought about how to bring it up.
The opportunity presented itself two weeks later. Jeannie approached her after church. “We heard about a new restaurant that offers a fantastic buffet on Sundays. Want to come along and try it? Our treat. That way if you don’t like it, you haven’t paid for it.”
Kris laughed. “I’ve never met a food I didn’t like! You know that.”
While they were eating, Kris asked, in as casual a voice as she could muster, “I noticed this past Communion Sunday that you didn’t take the sacrament, Sol. Is there any particular reason?”
Sol nodded, his mouth full of smoked salmon. Swallowing, he said, “Yeah. I’m not a Christian.”
Pastor Kris blinked. “Really? Then what are you doing in our church? Oh, I didn’t mean to say that at all. I mean, you’re there every Sunday, you participate in our activities, you know your Bible so well. . . What are you, if not a Christian?”
“I’m a Jew,” he said, and put down his fork.
“Oh, how interesting,” Pastor Kris said. “I went to a high school where about half the kids were Jewish! A lot of them had grandparents who came here during or just before World War 2. From Eastern Europe, mostly. Where are your people from?” She put another bite in her mouth and waited.
Sol sat and stared at her. She had no idea what he was thinking. He barely moved, ignored his food. Finally, he looked back down at his plate and picked up his fork. “They escaped Germany the day after Kristallnacht in 1938. I was still a baby, which made their situation more precarious. My older sister was five. I don’t know why they were permitted to bring us out. They would never talk about it.”
Pastor Kris was stunned. “I’m so sorry! Are your parents still alive?”
Sol shook his head. “My father died two years ago. My mother got cancer in 1960, and died three years later.”
The three of them continued to eat, but there was no conversation for about five minutes. Pastor Kris felt terrible that she had asked; bad enough to bring up horrible memories, but at such a pleasant place to eat! She wondered if he would ever want to come back here. She looked out the window, watched birds eating at a large feeder sheltered by some pines. At last, Sol broke the silence.
“Don’t feel badly, Pastor. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt, but I’ve lived with this for many years. It’s not spoiling our lunch, I promise.” His smile was warm and comforting, and Kris returned it. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about some of this. I want to be baptized. If you’re willing.”
Pastor Kris was so relieved, she blurted out, “Oh, it would be my pleasure!” Then she ducked her head and said, “I think we maybe need to have a couple of conversations before we do that, though. Some of the things our church teaches, for example, and the meaning of what we do when we baptize and take communion. I know you know your Bible, and you’ve been active in mission work and other activities, so you don’t need education about those things. We don’t need to do a confirmation-class thing, you know, maybe just answering questions you have about Christianity, like that?” She stopped talking because she could see he was smiling a bit. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?” she finished.
“A little. But it’s O.K. I’m not sure what I expect in the way of education. I like the Bible studies you’ve had at church. As a child, I made my Bar Mitzvah, and that entailed Bible study, but that’s Old Testament, as you would say. I’ve been reading the Gospels daily, and I’m impressed with how well you include daily life alongside the Bible teachings in your preaching. But it would be good to talk about the meaning of baptism for an adult.”
Their conversation veered from how adults were baptized to Jesus’ baptism to the meaning of baptism in their congregation. By the time they were finishing their Napoleons, they had set a date, answered some of Sol and Jeannie’s questions and concerns, and gone on to the question of whether his baptism had to be part of a church service, or if he could be quietly baptized, with a few dear friends and family. Oddly, it turned out that the best day for Sol’s baptism was November 10th, the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Pastor Kris wondered if Sol would notice. She needn’t have worried. He not only noticed, he pointed it out to those who came to witness the ceremony and celebrate and with them.
“The Nazis made their intentions clear enough that night for my father to see the writing on the wall. We left Germany the next day, when my father discovered that he at last had enough money to get us a passport and a steamship ticket to the United States. Who knows what might have happened to all of us if he had hesitated? So this is a day of celebration for us. I want to mark it with my baptism, acknowledging the acceptance we have found in this country and this church. And the great gift that God has given us in Jesus the Messiah. You have shown me the love of God in Christ, Pastor. Thank you.”
And with that, he knelt down next to the baptismal fount, and Kris had the great privilege of baptizing her very first convert to Christianity. Afterward, the whole company that had stayed after church for the baptism went to a nearby restaurant that had a party room, where the table was piled high with food. Some of it was traditional Jewish food: kreplach, latkes and cholent, then the traditional salads for church suppers: coleslaw, macaroni-and-ham-and-cheese, and a five-bean salad. And of course there were desserts. After Pastor Kris offered the grace, Sol told them all, “It’s a traditional Jewish thing: ‘The enemy tried to kill us all. They failed. So, let’s eat!’” And so they did.
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.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 6, 2016, 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.
