The Measure of the Universe
Stories
Contents
“The Measure of the Universe” by Frank Ramirez
“Dream for a Divided Nation” by John Sumwalt
The Measure of the Universe
by Frank Ramirez
Ephesians 3:14-21
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth…. (Ephesians 3:18)
The apostle Paul prays that we might have the power to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s amazing love and wonderful plan for them, and indeed, for all of us. Breadth, length, height, and depth — these are terms we use for measurement.
The New Testament uses various terms for measurement. There’s the pechus, for instance, often translated as cubit, which around a foot and a half. We read about stadia, which amount to around 606 feet, and the milian, from which we derive our word for mile, which is a little over 4800 feet.
Cubit is a Latin word that means elbow, and as a unit of measurement refers to the distance from the elbow to the fingertips. But whose? The yard is supposedly the distance from one’s fingertips to the nose, or the measure of the waistline. But again, whose?
Supposedly the yard was standardized in the twelfth century by the measure of the nose and fingertips of King Henry I (1068-1135), while the foot of Charlemagne (748-814) became the standard foot, but these are hardly convenient forms of measurement.
The American colonies inherited a whole system of odd measurements from their British homeland. Did you know that when it comes to liquid volume eight gallons of ale make a firkin, but when it comes to beer nine gallons make a London Firkin? Outside of London, it’s only eight and a half gallons. Two firkins equaled a kilderkin, and two of those add up to a barrel. A barrel and a half equal a hogshead, but two full barrels made one puncheon. For a butt, you needed three barrels.
It was worse when it came to money. Four farthings made a penny, a shilling was twelve pennies, with twenty shillings to a pound. A guinea, however, was worth a pound and a shilling. There were also florins and half-crowns, thruppences, ha’pennies, and all sorts of confusing denominations.
When the revolution of the United States occurred, decimal reforms were instituted when it came to cash.. Anti-British feeling was high, so why not get rid of British measurements? In 1786, the dollar was chosen as the monetary unit. Ten dimes to a dollar, ten cents to a dime, and ten mills to the cent. Ten dollars made an eagle. We don’t use mills or eagles anymore, but otherwise the system works pretty well. You can do math in your head, thanks to the decimal system with its handy zero.
But what about breadth and length and height and depth? Alas, just as our decimal monetary was based on the politics of anti-British sentiment, it wasn’t long before the politics of the day led to anti-French feeling. France had undergone its own revolution. The Republican government that was instituted called for the eradication of superstition. Among its reforms was the institution of metric measurement also based on the decimal system. Liters, meters, and grams that could be divided and multiplied by tens and hundreds and thousands created in the end a standard that all nations could adopt. This would greatly facilitate trade, among other things since every system of measurement, weight, and volume around the world would be the same. And indeed, over time all nations adopted this system.
Except the United States. In 1799, when the French Republic adopted the metric system, fear of the mob-rule by guillotine created a wave of anti-French feeling in the United States that led us to reject the metric system. We still use twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard, 1,760 yards to the mile, and so on, along with the English measure for ounces, pounds, pints and gallons.
Scientists in the United States use the metric system, but in our homes, we use English measure. In various times in our history there have been efforts to encourage us to adopt the metric system, but they failed. Kind of. Our soft drinks come in two-liter bottles. Our weekend runners tackle 5K and 10K races.
There’s one piece of insanity shared by both the United States and the rest of the world — the marathon race. When it was instituted during the first modern Olympics in 1896, it was set at around 40 kilometers, or around twenty-five miles. It was standardized at 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 kilometers) at the 1908 Olympics in London because the royal family wanted the race to begin at Windsor Castle so the royal children could witness the start from their nursery and to end in front of the Royal Box at the Olympic Stadium.
That’s all pretty confusing, but now let’s put our heads together and try to figure out what units of measurement we could possibly use to accurately describe the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love!
(Some of the measurements and ideas were taken from the article “Forget It!”, by Isaac Asimov, that appeared in the March 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and reprinted in “Asimov on Numbers,” published by Doubleday in 1977.)
* * *
Dream for a Divided Nation
John Sumwalt
Psalm 14
The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God. (v. 2)
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love." Ephesians 3:14-21
Have you ever been called on the carpet? Let's say, you are on the job, and you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a decision about serving the best interests of your customer, which will mean breaking a company rule, or keeping the rule and leaving your customer out in the cold. You opt to meet the needs of your customer and break the rule. When your boss finds out she calls you into her office and says, "You crossed the line! What were you thinking? As Ricky used to say to Lucy, "You got some “splaining” to do."
This is the kind of dilemma the apostle Peter faced in Jerusalem after one of his road trips. The word had gotten around that he had been consorting with Gentiles (ie. people who were not Jews). Remember what a big deal it was when Jesus had a drink with a Samaritan woman. This was not done.
Jews had no dealings with Samaritans or anyone else who was not a Jew. They didn't talk to them. They didn't go into their homes. They didn't eat with them. To do so they believed would have made them unclean. This was a very strong taboo comparable to the way many white folks in the USA felt about black folks before the civil rights movement. I am old enough to remember the days when there were separate drinking fountains for whites and blacks in some parts of our country, when blacks sat in the balconies in theaters, and in the back of the buses, and couldn't eat in the same restaurants.
If you had been at County Stadium in September of 1957 when Hank Aaron hit that walk-off two run homer against St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Billy Muffet to clinch the Brave’s first pennant in Milwaukee, you would have seen Hank’s teammates carry him off the field. If that game had been played in St. Louis, Hank could not have stayed in the same hotel that night as his white teammates. We were a nation divided over race.
This was the kind of tension that was in the air in Jerusalem when "the apostles and the brothers," as it is written in Acts, called Peter to account: "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them." "Yes, I did," Peter said, "but let me explain."
Here is where you may not want to do what Peter does when you find yourself in this kind of situation with your boss. Pete tells them about his vision of a large sheet and several kinds of animals, reptiles and birds that Jews were not allowed to eat — and the voice from heaven telling him to go ahead and eat.
How far do you think you would get with your boss if you told a story like this? "You heard a voice from heaven? Yeah, right? Do you have any sick leave left?"
Then Peter tells about the three men who came to the house to take him to Caesarea, and how the Spirit told him "to have no hesitation about going with them." (The ancient city of Joppa, one of the oldest ports in the world, is surrounded by modern Tel Aviv today. It is about thirty miles south of Caesarea which is in northern Israel. It was the headquarters of Roman governors like Pontius Pilate and had a population, half Jewish and half Gentile, frequently at odds.) Now comes the part that you must remember if you ever feel called to cross the line. Pete tells the faithful in Jerusalem, "But it was alright to go into the home of a Gentile and to eat with him, I took six brothers with me." Always take witnesses!
The story has an almost unbelievable conclusion. Peter and his entourage of circumcised witnesses go into the Gentile house. Their host, Cornelius, a high-ranking Roman soldier, tells about the angel who told him to invite Peter to his house and that he would bring a message through which he and his household would be saved. As this distinguished uncircumcised Gentile man talked, Pete and the six circumcised guys with him saw the Holy Spirit come upon him in the same way it had come upon them at Pentecost. Peter looked into the eyes of his brothers and sisters in Christ who had been criticizing him as he came to the end of his explanation and said: "...I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"
And then miracle of miracles, when the followers of Jesus who had been angry at Peter "heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, 'Then God has given to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.' "
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the painful differences we have in our nation could be resolved like this?
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 25, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
“The Measure of the Universe” by Frank Ramirez
“Dream for a Divided Nation” by John Sumwalt
The Measure of the Universe
by Frank Ramirez
Ephesians 3:14-21
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth…. (Ephesians 3:18)
The apostle Paul prays that we might have the power to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s amazing love and wonderful plan for them, and indeed, for all of us. Breadth, length, height, and depth — these are terms we use for measurement.
The New Testament uses various terms for measurement. There’s the pechus, for instance, often translated as cubit, which around a foot and a half. We read about stadia, which amount to around 606 feet, and the milian, from which we derive our word for mile, which is a little over 4800 feet.
Cubit is a Latin word that means elbow, and as a unit of measurement refers to the distance from the elbow to the fingertips. But whose? The yard is supposedly the distance from one’s fingertips to the nose, or the measure of the waistline. But again, whose?
Supposedly the yard was standardized in the twelfth century by the measure of the nose and fingertips of King Henry I (1068-1135), while the foot of Charlemagne (748-814) became the standard foot, but these are hardly convenient forms of measurement.
The American colonies inherited a whole system of odd measurements from their British homeland. Did you know that when it comes to liquid volume eight gallons of ale make a firkin, but when it comes to beer nine gallons make a London Firkin? Outside of London, it’s only eight and a half gallons. Two firkins equaled a kilderkin, and two of those add up to a barrel. A barrel and a half equal a hogshead, but two full barrels made one puncheon. For a butt, you needed three barrels.
It was worse when it came to money. Four farthings made a penny, a shilling was twelve pennies, with twenty shillings to a pound. A guinea, however, was worth a pound and a shilling. There were also florins and half-crowns, thruppences, ha’pennies, and all sorts of confusing denominations.
When the revolution of the United States occurred, decimal reforms were instituted when it came to cash.. Anti-British feeling was high, so why not get rid of British measurements? In 1786, the dollar was chosen as the monetary unit. Ten dimes to a dollar, ten cents to a dime, and ten mills to the cent. Ten dollars made an eagle. We don’t use mills or eagles anymore, but otherwise the system works pretty well. You can do math in your head, thanks to the decimal system with its handy zero.
But what about breadth and length and height and depth? Alas, just as our decimal monetary was based on the politics of anti-British sentiment, it wasn’t long before the politics of the day led to anti-French feeling. France had undergone its own revolution. The Republican government that was instituted called for the eradication of superstition. Among its reforms was the institution of metric measurement also based on the decimal system. Liters, meters, and grams that could be divided and multiplied by tens and hundreds and thousands created in the end a standard that all nations could adopt. This would greatly facilitate trade, among other things since every system of measurement, weight, and volume around the world would be the same. And indeed, over time all nations adopted this system.
Except the United States. In 1799, when the French Republic adopted the metric system, fear of the mob-rule by guillotine created a wave of anti-French feeling in the United States that led us to reject the metric system. We still use twelve inches to the foot, three feet to the yard, 1,760 yards to the mile, and so on, along with the English measure for ounces, pounds, pints and gallons.
Scientists in the United States use the metric system, but in our homes, we use English measure. In various times in our history there have been efforts to encourage us to adopt the metric system, but they failed. Kind of. Our soft drinks come in two-liter bottles. Our weekend runners tackle 5K and 10K races.
There’s one piece of insanity shared by both the United States and the rest of the world — the marathon race. When it was instituted during the first modern Olympics in 1896, it was set at around 40 kilometers, or around twenty-five miles. It was standardized at 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 kilometers) at the 1908 Olympics in London because the royal family wanted the race to begin at Windsor Castle so the royal children could witness the start from their nursery and to end in front of the Royal Box at the Olympic Stadium.
That’s all pretty confusing, but now let’s put our heads together and try to figure out what units of measurement we could possibly use to accurately describe the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love!
(Some of the measurements and ideas were taken from the article “Forget It!”, by Isaac Asimov, that appeared in the March 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and reprinted in “Asimov on Numbers,” published by Doubleday in 1977.)
* * *
Dream for a Divided Nation
John Sumwalt
Psalm 14
The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God. (v. 2)
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love." Ephesians 3:14-21
Have you ever been called on the carpet? Let's say, you are on the job, and you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a decision about serving the best interests of your customer, which will mean breaking a company rule, or keeping the rule and leaving your customer out in the cold. You opt to meet the needs of your customer and break the rule. When your boss finds out she calls you into her office and says, "You crossed the line! What were you thinking? As Ricky used to say to Lucy, "You got some “splaining” to do."
This is the kind of dilemma the apostle Peter faced in Jerusalem after one of his road trips. The word had gotten around that he had been consorting with Gentiles (ie. people who were not Jews). Remember what a big deal it was when Jesus had a drink with a Samaritan woman. This was not done.
Jews had no dealings with Samaritans or anyone else who was not a Jew. They didn't talk to them. They didn't go into their homes. They didn't eat with them. To do so they believed would have made them unclean. This was a very strong taboo comparable to the way many white folks in the USA felt about black folks before the civil rights movement. I am old enough to remember the days when there were separate drinking fountains for whites and blacks in some parts of our country, when blacks sat in the balconies in theaters, and in the back of the buses, and couldn't eat in the same restaurants.
If you had been at County Stadium in September of 1957 when Hank Aaron hit that walk-off two run homer against St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Billy Muffet to clinch the Brave’s first pennant in Milwaukee, you would have seen Hank’s teammates carry him off the field. If that game had been played in St. Louis, Hank could not have stayed in the same hotel that night as his white teammates. We were a nation divided over race.
This was the kind of tension that was in the air in Jerusalem when "the apostles and the brothers," as it is written in Acts, called Peter to account: "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them." "Yes, I did," Peter said, "but let me explain."
Here is where you may not want to do what Peter does when you find yourself in this kind of situation with your boss. Pete tells them about his vision of a large sheet and several kinds of animals, reptiles and birds that Jews were not allowed to eat — and the voice from heaven telling him to go ahead and eat.
How far do you think you would get with your boss if you told a story like this? "You heard a voice from heaven? Yeah, right? Do you have any sick leave left?"
Then Peter tells about the three men who came to the house to take him to Caesarea, and how the Spirit told him "to have no hesitation about going with them." (The ancient city of Joppa, one of the oldest ports in the world, is surrounded by modern Tel Aviv today. It is about thirty miles south of Caesarea which is in northern Israel. It was the headquarters of Roman governors like Pontius Pilate and had a population, half Jewish and half Gentile, frequently at odds.) Now comes the part that you must remember if you ever feel called to cross the line. Pete tells the faithful in Jerusalem, "But it was alright to go into the home of a Gentile and to eat with him, I took six brothers with me." Always take witnesses!
The story has an almost unbelievable conclusion. Peter and his entourage of circumcised witnesses go into the Gentile house. Their host, Cornelius, a high-ranking Roman soldier, tells about the angel who told him to invite Peter to his house and that he would bring a message through which he and his household would be saved. As this distinguished uncircumcised Gentile man talked, Pete and the six circumcised guys with him saw the Holy Spirit come upon him in the same way it had come upon them at Pentecost. Peter looked into the eyes of his brothers and sisters in Christ who had been criticizing him as he came to the end of his explanation and said: "...I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"
And then miracle of miracles, when the followers of Jesus who had been angry at Peter "heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, 'Then God has given to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.' "
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the painful differences we have in our nation could be resolved like this?
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 25, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
