Preaching Enhancing Drugs
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Preaching Enhancing Drugs" by John Sumwalt
"One Big Rock" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
Preaching Enhancing Drugs
by John Sumwalt
Luke 12:32-40
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks… You also must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.
-- Luke 12:35-36, 40
Preacher Dan, as he had been called from the time he had preached his first sermon in a youth service when he was eleven years old, had never had any doubt about what he was called to do in his life. Preaching was in his blood. His grandfather, his aunt, an uncle, and two cousins were preachers. It was expected in the Brenner family that there would be at least one preacher in every generation. It was a matter of family pride. They produced preachers, and not just ordinary preachers, but gifted pulpiteers who were renowned for their oratorical skills.
Preacher Dan was passionate about preaching, about every aspect of it, from the exegesis of the text and the crafting of the message to meeting congregational needs, to the prayerful rehearsal of the delivery. Dan adhered to the old homiletic rule of thumb: one hour of preparation for every minute of preaching. He had joked with his friends in seminary that he was never going to be caught unprepared to preach. He said, "If Jesus comes at an unexpected hour, and needs someone to preach a good sermon, I am going to be ready."
Dan was more conscientious about this than the average preacher, spending hours in his study late into the night, because this was expected of preachers in the Brenner family. The family and everyone else assumed that they would always be among the best preachers in their denomination.
This legacy of excellence, and the pressure that went with it, may have been the beginning of Dan's skid down the homiletic slippery slope. He was often invited to preach or to lecture about preaching at national conferences. He had a reputation as a great preacher throughout his denomination and beyond. It was said that he was the best of the lauded Brenner preachers. Members of his congregation bragged on him to their church neighbors and friends, "The best preacher we've had since Dr. Cleary back in the seventies, and that's saying something," the old-timers said.
Then gradually over a period of several months that assessment began to change and not for the worse: "Don't know what's got into Preacher Dan," they said. "His sermons are just getting better and better. It seems like he hits a home run every Sunday. Don't know how he does it? It's almost super human."
Some began to express concern about the preacher's health. "He's going to burn himself out," they worried, as they noticed the lights in his study burning ever later each night. Worry turned to deep concern when Preacher Dan collapsed one Sunday halfway through a pulpit banger based on Revelation 13. He came around quickly, insisted on finishing the sermon, again one of his best despite the little interruption, and refused all attempts to get him to go to urgent care.
A rumor began to circulate in the congregation that there was something seriously wrong with their preacher. An informal committee of concerned members was formed in the parking lot after choir practice the following Wednesday night. One long-time member asserted that they had a duty to find out what was going on. He said he had heard on CNN that some pastors were using preaching enhancing drugs that they had shipped from a clinic down in Honduras. Speculation was that this had led to a spike in the quality of preaching all over North America.
The problem was that the drugs were believed to have serious side effects that took a toll on the preacher's long-term health -- and it caused congregations to question the integrity of their preachers. How could they trust any "Word of God" that came from a preacher hopped up on preaching enhancing drugs?
It was determined that for the good of the church there ought to be an immediate investigation. Everyone knew the pastor was out of town on Wednesday nights. The custodian, who happened to be a member of the choir, said he had a key to the pastor's study and agreed to open the door so that they could take a quick look to see if there was any sign of preaching enhancing drugs.
The informal investigating committee crept quietly in through the backdoor of the church. Stumbling up the backstairs through the dark they came to the side door of the pastor's study. The custodian opened the door and the whole committee went in.
"How are we going to see anything?" someone whispered.
And just as he said it the lights came on. They discovered later that the lights were on a timer and that this was why it appeared that the pastor was burning the midnight oil every night. But this didn't occur to them at the time, as they were trying to recover from the startling onset of light. They were about get out as quickly as they could when someone noticed a large red canister next to the pastor's PourOmatic coffeemaker.
"Maybe that's where he keeps the drugs?"
Someone lifted the lid off the canister and the informal investigating committee peered in. Immediately they noticed a rich pungent odor that smelled vaguely familiar emanating from a plastic bag of something that looked like big seeds.
One of the men, for the investigating committee was an all-male endeavor, began to read aloud from the label: "Café Celestial, Fair Trade Coffee beans from Tegucigalpa, Honduras."
Not one member of the informal investigative committee said a word as they tip-toed out of the pastor's study, and down the backstairs, and into the night.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
One Big Rock
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
The mighty one, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
-- Psalm 50:1
The piece of rock known as 2012 DA 14, a body that is only around 45 feet across, less than half the length of a football field (and that's not even counting the end zones!) is insignificantly small. It traces its lonely path around the sun every year or so. The length of the orbit is changeable because of the influence of other celestial bodies. There was no reason to think there is anything special about it.
Yet it has been given an awful lot of attention since its discovery on February 23, 2012. Once its orbit was worked out it became apparent that it is one of those bodies whose orbit crosses the Earth's. That means that there is always a slight, indeed an insignificant yet real chance, that it might someday find itself at some point during its journey through the incredible emptiness of space, in the same place at the same time as our planet.
It didn't take long for scientists to figure out that less than a year after its discovery it just might strike us, and if it did, it was large enough to do serious damage. Fortunately there is far more ocean than land on our Earth, so even if 2012 DA 14 collided with the planet it might well do no harm.
As it was, on February 15, 2013, it just missed us, passing within 17,200 miles of the Earth, closer than the geosynchronous orbits of the satellites that service our cell phones and televisions. But by that time it was also known that we were perfectly safe, that it would miss the Earth, and that into the foreseeable future it would continue to miss the Earth.
However, it was still a striking event. In the southern hemisphere it would actually be visible through binoculars as it passed overhead. Parties were planned. Symposiums were scheduled. Reporters were dispatched to cover the event. It seemed like a great occasion to educate the public about meteors.
But then an even more striking event -- literally -- upstaged the big day! In a coincidence that beggars belief and which was nevertheless totally unrelated to 2012 DA 14, a relatively small meteor, about seventeen meters square, plunged into the atmosphere and exploded over the small town of Yekaterinburg in the Chelyabinsk area of the isolated region of the Ural Mountains. The blast, equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT, or twenty times more powerful than the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima, injured over a 1,500 people as windows were shattered and doors blown away.
Scientists at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, quickly calculated where it had come from, how fast it had been traveling, and what direction it was heading when it exploded before striking the earth. They were aided in their research by dramatic videos, recorded by cameras mounted on cars, which were immediately posted on the internet and went viral.
(Some later asked why all those cameras were operating so conveniently at just the right time. The answer was that police corruption and insurance scams force many to operate dashboard cameras that are always recording.)
There were many who asked why no one had predicted this second meteorite, which actually hit the planet, instead of the one that barely missed. The answer was simple: It's not possible to see everything in the sky. At best a warning of a few seconds could have been given even if it had been spotted.
Psalm 50 reminds us that "The mighty one, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting." God speaks and summons everything else in the solar system, and while we struggle to keep track of all the debris floating around in our neighborhood, while we guess, God knows!
(Want to know more? There are plenty of videos posted to YouTube. The report from the university in Colombia, "A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid," is available for download, also on the internet).
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 11, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
"Preaching Enhancing Drugs" by John Sumwalt
"One Big Rock" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
Preaching Enhancing Drugs
by John Sumwalt
Luke 12:32-40
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks… You also must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.
-- Luke 12:35-36, 40
Preacher Dan, as he had been called from the time he had preached his first sermon in a youth service when he was eleven years old, had never had any doubt about what he was called to do in his life. Preaching was in his blood. His grandfather, his aunt, an uncle, and two cousins were preachers. It was expected in the Brenner family that there would be at least one preacher in every generation. It was a matter of family pride. They produced preachers, and not just ordinary preachers, but gifted pulpiteers who were renowned for their oratorical skills.
Preacher Dan was passionate about preaching, about every aspect of it, from the exegesis of the text and the crafting of the message to meeting congregational needs, to the prayerful rehearsal of the delivery. Dan adhered to the old homiletic rule of thumb: one hour of preparation for every minute of preaching. He had joked with his friends in seminary that he was never going to be caught unprepared to preach. He said, "If Jesus comes at an unexpected hour, and needs someone to preach a good sermon, I am going to be ready."
Dan was more conscientious about this than the average preacher, spending hours in his study late into the night, because this was expected of preachers in the Brenner family. The family and everyone else assumed that they would always be among the best preachers in their denomination.
This legacy of excellence, and the pressure that went with it, may have been the beginning of Dan's skid down the homiletic slippery slope. He was often invited to preach or to lecture about preaching at national conferences. He had a reputation as a great preacher throughout his denomination and beyond. It was said that he was the best of the lauded Brenner preachers. Members of his congregation bragged on him to their church neighbors and friends, "The best preacher we've had since Dr. Cleary back in the seventies, and that's saying something," the old-timers said.
Then gradually over a period of several months that assessment began to change and not for the worse: "Don't know what's got into Preacher Dan," they said. "His sermons are just getting better and better. It seems like he hits a home run every Sunday. Don't know how he does it? It's almost super human."
Some began to express concern about the preacher's health. "He's going to burn himself out," they worried, as they noticed the lights in his study burning ever later each night. Worry turned to deep concern when Preacher Dan collapsed one Sunday halfway through a pulpit banger based on Revelation 13. He came around quickly, insisted on finishing the sermon, again one of his best despite the little interruption, and refused all attempts to get him to go to urgent care.
A rumor began to circulate in the congregation that there was something seriously wrong with their preacher. An informal committee of concerned members was formed in the parking lot after choir practice the following Wednesday night. One long-time member asserted that they had a duty to find out what was going on. He said he had heard on CNN that some pastors were using preaching enhancing drugs that they had shipped from a clinic down in Honduras. Speculation was that this had led to a spike in the quality of preaching all over North America.
The problem was that the drugs were believed to have serious side effects that took a toll on the preacher's long-term health -- and it caused congregations to question the integrity of their preachers. How could they trust any "Word of God" that came from a preacher hopped up on preaching enhancing drugs?
It was determined that for the good of the church there ought to be an immediate investigation. Everyone knew the pastor was out of town on Wednesday nights. The custodian, who happened to be a member of the choir, said he had a key to the pastor's study and agreed to open the door so that they could take a quick look to see if there was any sign of preaching enhancing drugs.
The informal investigating committee crept quietly in through the backdoor of the church. Stumbling up the backstairs through the dark they came to the side door of the pastor's study. The custodian opened the door and the whole committee went in.
"How are we going to see anything?" someone whispered.
And just as he said it the lights came on. They discovered later that the lights were on a timer and that this was why it appeared that the pastor was burning the midnight oil every night. But this didn't occur to them at the time, as they were trying to recover from the startling onset of light. They were about get out as quickly as they could when someone noticed a large red canister next to the pastor's PourOmatic coffeemaker.
"Maybe that's where he keeps the drugs?"
Someone lifted the lid off the canister and the informal investigating committee peered in. Immediately they noticed a rich pungent odor that smelled vaguely familiar emanating from a plastic bag of something that looked like big seeds.
One of the men, for the investigating committee was an all-male endeavor, began to read aloud from the label: "Café Celestial, Fair Trade Coffee beans from Tegucigalpa, Honduras."
Not one member of the informal investigative committee said a word as they tip-toed out of the pastor's study, and down the backstairs, and into the night.
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller in the Milwaukee area. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
One Big Rock
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
The mighty one, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
-- Psalm 50:1
The piece of rock known as 2012 DA 14, a body that is only around 45 feet across, less than half the length of a football field (and that's not even counting the end zones!) is insignificantly small. It traces its lonely path around the sun every year or so. The length of the orbit is changeable because of the influence of other celestial bodies. There was no reason to think there is anything special about it.
Yet it has been given an awful lot of attention since its discovery on February 23, 2012. Once its orbit was worked out it became apparent that it is one of those bodies whose orbit crosses the Earth's. That means that there is always a slight, indeed an insignificant yet real chance, that it might someday find itself at some point during its journey through the incredible emptiness of space, in the same place at the same time as our planet.
It didn't take long for scientists to figure out that less than a year after its discovery it just might strike us, and if it did, it was large enough to do serious damage. Fortunately there is far more ocean than land on our Earth, so even if 2012 DA 14 collided with the planet it might well do no harm.
As it was, on February 15, 2013, it just missed us, passing within 17,200 miles of the Earth, closer than the geosynchronous orbits of the satellites that service our cell phones and televisions. But by that time it was also known that we were perfectly safe, that it would miss the Earth, and that into the foreseeable future it would continue to miss the Earth.
However, it was still a striking event. In the southern hemisphere it would actually be visible through binoculars as it passed overhead. Parties were planned. Symposiums were scheduled. Reporters were dispatched to cover the event. It seemed like a great occasion to educate the public about meteors.
But then an even more striking event -- literally -- upstaged the big day! In a coincidence that beggars belief and which was nevertheless totally unrelated to 2012 DA 14, a relatively small meteor, about seventeen meters square, plunged into the atmosphere and exploded over the small town of Yekaterinburg in the Chelyabinsk area of the isolated region of the Ural Mountains. The blast, equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT, or twenty times more powerful than the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima, injured over a 1,500 people as windows were shattered and doors blown away.
Scientists at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, quickly calculated where it had come from, how fast it had been traveling, and what direction it was heading when it exploded before striking the earth. They were aided in their research by dramatic videos, recorded by cameras mounted on cars, which were immediately posted on the internet and went viral.
(Some later asked why all those cameras were operating so conveniently at just the right time. The answer was that police corruption and insurance scams force many to operate dashboard cameras that are always recording.)
There were many who asked why no one had predicted this second meteorite, which actually hit the planet, instead of the one that barely missed. The answer was simple: It's not possible to see everything in the sky. At best a warning of a few seconds could have been given even if it had been spotted.
Psalm 50 reminds us that "The mighty one, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting." God speaks and summons everything else in the solar system, and while we struggle to keep track of all the debris floating around in our neighborhood, while we guess, God knows!
(Want to know more? There are plenty of videos posted to YouTube. The report from the university in Colombia, "A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk meteoroid," is available for download, also on the internet).
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 11, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
