Showing Them Jesus
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Showing Them Jesus" by Peter Andrew Smith
"Getting a Life" by Larry Winebrenner
"Having Been Made Perfect" by John Sumwalt
"Melchizedek" by Larry Winebrenner
"Written on the Heart" by Larry Winebrenner
"Becoming an Actress" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
How do we learn the important things in life? Parents and teachers know that no matter how often they impart their accumulated wisdom, young people truly learn those lessons only through personal experience -- so the most powerful teaching usually involves pointing someone in the right direction and letting them discover it for themselves. This edition of StoryShare features several accounts of that dynamic in action. Peter Andrew Smith tells of a young man who comes to a pastor looking for Jesus -- and rather than giving him theology, the pastor wisely puts him to work in a soup kitchen... where he discovers the work of Jesus in the world. Larry Winebrenner shares the experience of a niece in desperate straits; rather than offering financial assistance, he suggests that she see a pastor... and that leads to her finding something of great consequence. John Sumwalt details his striving for "perfection" -- and how his reaction one night to the accumulated stress gave him a new appreciation of God's grace. Larry Winebrenner closes this installment with a description of a young woman who, despite a number of opportunities, is sure of her own way and doesn't learn those important lessons -- reminding us that it is up to us to take advantage of the signs that God gives to us for following in Jesus' footsteps.
* * * * * * * * *
Showing Them Jesus
by Peter Andrew Smith
John 12:20-33
"Show me Jesus," the young man said to the pastor. "Someone told me that you talk about his life and miracles on Sunday. Show me this Messiah who came to save the world."
The pastor took the young man into the church hall. The hall was filled with tables, chairs, and the smell of hot food. There was a line of people waiting.
"Help serve this meal," the pastor said to the young man.
The young man was confused but made his way to the kitchen. An elderly woman motioned him inside and handed him a potato and a small knife. They worked in silence peeling a large bag of potatoes. When the bag was empty the young man looked around.
"I'm not sure what to do," he said.
"Why did you come here today?" the elderly woman asked.
"I want to see Jesus," the young man replied.
"Then why don't you go up front and help dish out the food?"
The young man moved up front and took a place in the line spooning soup into bowls for people as they passed by. An old man smiled and thanked the young man as he grasped his bowl of soup.
"Why are you thanking me?" he asked the old man.
"Because I am cold and hungry and this is a hot meal."
"But all I did was peel potatoes," the young man said. "I didn't even come here to serve a meal today."
"Then why did you come here?"
"I came here because I want to find Jesus," the young man said.
"He is certainly in this place. God bless you for helping me."
The young man blushed and went back to giving food to the other people in line. He was surprised because he expected them to be old and dirty. Yet people old and young passed before him. Some had grubby clothes while others were freshly scrubbed. There were people by themselves, and others who brought their families. As he handed a bowl to a young woman he realized he knew her from school.
"Hi," he said awkwardly.
She smiled and thanked him like everyone else. He turned to give soup to the next person when a man put a bowl into his hands.
"You've been working hard. Have something to eat," the man said.
"But I didn't come here to eat."
"Why did you come here?" the man asked.
"I came here to know Jesus."
"Then go and sit with the people he loves," the man said, gesturing at the crowd eating at the tables before turning back to serve the next person soup.
The young man took his bowl and started forward toward the tables, unsure and uncertain. The young woman who knew him from school pointed at a seat next to her.
"Come sit with me," she said. "There is always room for another person here."
The young man sat and ate his soup quietly. He expected everyone to just sit in silence and eat. Yet he found himself surrounded by the buzz of conversation punctuated with laughter, and even in one corner some singing. As the young man sipped at his soup he listened as the people talked and chatted with each other. Soon others joined them at the table and he found himself being drawn into the conversation and laughter.
"Everyone seems so happy," he said.
"The soup is hot and the day is cold," the young woman said. "This is a good place if you are hungry and lost. I've not seen you here before; what brings you here today?"
"I asked the pastor to show me Jesus," the young man said.
"And have you seen him?"
"I've seen people working together to help other people and I've seen hungry people fed," the young man said. "But I'm not sure I've seen Jesus."
"Maybe you need to know why the people are doing those things," the young woman said.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"Because I was hungry and I know that when I come here I am fed with more than just food," she said as she took her empty bowl to the kitchen to be washed.
The young man went to the man serving soup to those waiting in line. "Why do you give food to these people?"
"Jesus asks me to feed the hungry," the man said.
The young man went into the kitchen and asked, "Why do you prepare the food for people you do not know?"
"Because Jesus tells me to love my neighbor," the elderly woman replied.
The young man went back to the hall and saw the pastor eating soup at a table. He sat next to him.
"I asked you to show me Jesus," the young man said.
"Did you see him?" the pastor asked. "Did you see his love and concern for others, the generosity of his heart, and the change he brings into people's lives?"
The young man thought for a moment and nodded. "I think I'll come back and help tomorrow, and come to church on Sunday, too."
The pastor smiled. "Then you have done something more than simply see Jesus. You have begun to follow him."
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada who currently serves at St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things Are Ready (CSS), a book of lectionary-based communion prayers, as well as many stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
Getting a Life
by Larry Winebrenner
John 12:20-33
"Uncle Larry," she said, "I've lost my job. My rent is due. My car has been repossessed, so I can't even live out of my car. I don't know what to do."
She wasn't asking for money. She was asking for direction, for meaning. So often, when a person loses their job, when they don't have employment, they feel not just helpless -- they feel useless.
I know. I've been there.
Just because I've been there didn't mean I had any wisdom to share. All I could do was commiserate. I didn't even live in the same city. In desperation more than anything else I suggested she talk to her pastor. He might know of something, some job opening.
"I never joined the church," she said.
"Well, go join a church and talk to a pastor," I said in desperation.
Her response made me feel lower than a gopher's hole. "Thanks, Uncle Larry," she said -- and hung up.
Juliana worked as a cleaning lady in commercial buildings. It didn't pay a lot, but it generally was pretty stable. And it did pay the bills.
Two weeks later I received another call from Juliana. "Hi, Uncle Larry," she greeted me with enthusiasm.
"Hey, Juliana!" I responded. "How's it going?"
"Great!" she said. "Just great. I did what you suggested."
"Really?" I responded, trying to remember what I suggested.
"Yeah. And I'm so busy I don't have time to turn around."
"Got the apartment paid for?" I said.
"Nope. I moved. I'm staying with a lady that really needs my help."
"Pay much?"
I was still stuck on that old materialistic binge.
"Uncle Larry!" she scolded.
"Maybe you better tell me the whole story," I said as I licked my wounds.
"Well, I found a church not far from my apartment." Aha! I had suggested she join a church. "I was up front with the preacher," she continued. "I told him I'd join his church if he'd find me a job. 'I've got lotsa jobs available,' he told me. 'But they don't pay anything.' Hah! I replied. He told me they needed doing. I told him I was sorry and explained my situation. He apologized and said the church had no funds to help folks with my problem. 'I don't want a handout. I want a job!' I told him."
It's the same old story, I thought. We preachers are the ones that are supposed to be spiritual, but as soon as someone asks for help, we think money.
She continued, "He said that there was an elderly widow in his congregation who had fallen and broken her hip. He said she was having a hard time of it and might rent me a room cheap. Maybe I could get some temp work and make enough to pay the rent. It would give me breathing room to work something out."
"So... getting along?" I asked hopefully.
"She said we could probably work something out, but would I mind driving her to the store to do some shopping. She hadn't been able to drive since breaking her hip. And cabs were so expensive. I put her wheelchair in the car and at the store pushed her around in her wheelchair. She kept asking things like, 'Do you like pork chops?' 'What kind of cereal do you like?' I told her I couldn't afford room and board, but she said nobody living in her house was going to die of starvation. Me, die of starvation!" she laughed. She's a bit on the husky side.
The final outcome, as Juliana explained to me, was she got room and board and use of the car for a bit of cleaning and helping around the house. Her landlady began calling friends and Juliana found herself doing everything from changing light bulbs to painting a back porch banister and railing.
"Uncle Larry," she said, "I still don't have a job. But I have a life!"
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Having Been Made Perfect
by John Sumwalt
Hebrews 5:5-10
Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
-- Hebrews 5:8-9
United Methodists, who trace their lineage back to John Wesley, are all about perfection. According to our Book of Discipline, "Sanctifying grace draws us toward the gift of Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart 'habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor' and as having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked."
Candidates for ordination in our denomination are asked, "Are you going on to perfection?" And if they answer yes, they go on to ordination and what used to be a pretty good pension plan until the recent stock market plunges. I don't know what would happen if someone were to answer, "No, I am not going on to perfection." As far as I know no one ever has, though most of us knew when we declared we were that we were far from it and probably always would be.
Striving for perfection has darned near killed me on more than one occasion. Yet I have come to understand that the grace that came to me in those painful learning experiences is what makes the very idea of going onto perfection possible.
One of those grace-filled moments occurred when I was a 28-year-old, just-graduated-from-seminary, newly appointed pastor serving a little church in central Wisconsin. I had been a student pastor for several years and was eager to put all of my learning to good use in my first full-time position as quickly as possible. I tried to visit every member in the first month, started a Bible study, met with every committee, and sweated over every sermon into the wee hours of every Saturday night. I was going to be the perfect pastor.
All went well for a few months until one night, as my wife Jo and I were going to bed, my heart began to flutter and my fingers started to turn blue. I feared I might be having a heart attack or a stroke. What a waste of four and a half years of college (I dropped a lot of classes) and three years of graduate school!
Jo called the paramedics, who made their way with a stretcher up the twisted stairs of the little parsonage behind the little church with great difficulty. They checked my vitals and strapped me onto the stretcher, which they told me, as they lowered it over the banister with ropes, was especially designed for twisted staircases in little houses. After this torturous descent they rolled the aforementioned stretcher and me onto the ambulance and whisked me off to the emergency room in a small-town hospital about 30 miles up the road. On the way I got in touch with my mortality, which is another way of saying I was scared to death.
After a thorough examination that included several applications of a cold stethoscope to the chest and an electrocardiogram, the emergency room doc announced a diagnosis. He said I had hyperventilated. He suggested I slow down, and he prescribed a paper bag and a small dose of valium, the drug of choice for every anxiety-related illness in the late '70s and early '80s.
On the way home, I told Jo about the terrors of my ambulance ride and of the decision I had made as I peered over my specially designed stretcher into the abyss. Near-death experiences have a way of helping one to focus on what one values. I told her I didn't want to die before we had a child. Jo nearly drove into the ditch, but she was smiling as she swerved back onto the roadway. She had been planning to go back to college that fall but was very glad to postpone college and work with me on the baby plan. Our first child was born about nine months later. She was perfect, and her daughter, our darling grandbaby born 28 years later, is a study in perfection.
I have learned to strive for perfection at a slower pace, as the doctor prescribed, though I still carry a paper bag just in case. I don't know if this is the kind of striving after perfection that John Wesley had in mind. I can say that the hard lesson I learned in the days before and since that fear-filled ambulance ride can be summed up in one perfect little five-letter word: grace. By the grace of God I strive every day to be faithful to the one "who learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him."
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt are the former co-editors of StoryShare, and John is the author of nine books.
Melchizedek
by Larry Winebrenner
Hebrews 5:5-10
By the time the book of Hebrews was written, a well-founded institution of temple priesthood had been established. The rules, regulations, and procedures had long been established. The roots likely reached back almost 2,000 years to temple practices in the great city of Ur.
Abram carried knowledge from Ur to Canaan, built altars, and prepared to sacrifice his own son upon an altar using these very same practices. But this man, his name eventually changed by God to Abraham, was to discover, even before that event, another priesthood serving God Most High. It happened like this.
Chedorlaomer, a king in northern Mesopotamia, formed an alliance with three other kings and took control of territories in Canaan. Among those he conquered were the city-states in the valley containing the Dead Sea, including Sodom and Gomorrah. He received tribute during that time for 12 years.
During those years, Abraham's herdsmen got into an argument with his nephew Lot's herdsmen over water rights at a well. Abraham sought pacification and achieved a peaceful settlement by giving Lot his choice of grazing lands and associated wells. Lot chose the area in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He eventually moved into Sodom.
After this, in the 13th year of tribute, the "kings" (that is, the ruling authorities) in five cities in the plain rebelled. They declared that paying tribute to a king some nine months travel away was too onerous to bear.
Chedorlaomer led his army and allies into the region and put down the rebellion. They took the food stores of the cities, plundered their possessions, and led their citizens into captivity. Lot was among those captured.
When Abraham heard of this, he raised his own army and went in pursuit to save his nephew Lot. He eventually caught Chedorlaomer’s forces, defeated them, and took back the captives and booty to the rulers of the five cities.
When he returned, he was met by the king of Salem (later Jerusalem). Salem was not one of the cities of the plain. So far as we know, he was left unharmed by Chedorlaomer, possibly because Salem was a city on a high mountain and would be difficult to easily and quickly capture. At the same time, the king of Salem knew a threat to his safety was removed.
He blessed Abraham in the name of God Most High. We can picture the scene something like this:
"Chieftain Abraham," said the king of Salem, "I thank you for your victory over Chedorlaomer. You have saved not only the five cities of the plain, you have also removed a threat to my own city, Salem. I bless you in the name of God Most High."
"God Most High?" inquires Abraham. "I was called to this land by the creator of the universe. My Lord is God Most High."
"Indeed, it can only be the same God. I was called to be a priest of God Most High."
"Then in thanksgiving for my victory," replied Abraham, "I make a gift through you to God Most High."
And so Abraham found there was an order of priesthood established by the very Person of God, and a priest in God's service -- a priest who was the king of Salem, a priest by the name of Melchizedek.
Eighteen hundred years later, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews would recognize that Jesus, too, was called to that order, the order of God's calling, the order of Melchizedek.
Written on the Heart
by Larry Winebrenner
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Little six-year-old Eddie was worried. He wanted to go. He was afraid to go. He tried to find reasons not to start to school.
"How will I know what to do, Mommy?" he whined.
His mother hugged him and swept his hair for the twentieth time with a comb. She was nervous, too. This was the first time she would be without Eddie day after day after day. So much of her time was taken up by caring for him. His words echoed in her own head: "How will I know what to do?"
"The teacher will tell you what to do," she told Eddie. But who would tell her what to do?
"But what if the teacher isn't there?" he asked.
"There will be rules."
"How will I know the rules?"
If there were anything Eddie was good at, it was asking questions.
"You will memorize them," his mother said, not knowing if they taught first-graders rules.
"What's 'memorize'?" he asked.
"It means to learn by heart."
"You mean like learning Bible verses?" he asked.
It was time to leave and take Eddie to school. He would be asking her questions as she left the classroom. That, or crying his eyes out.
"Yes, dear, like learning Bible verses by heart," she said as she took his hand and led him to the car.
"What do I do if there's no rule and the teacher isn't there?"
She started the car and backed it out of the driveway. She turned toward the school. In just a few minutes she was going to be alone all day. At first she had seen the situation as freedom. But you're not really free when your heart is tied to another heart.
"What do I do if there's no rule and the teacher isn't there?" insisted Eddie.
"Let your conscience be your guide."
"Huh? What's a con- uh- con...."
"Conscience," she enunciated carefully for him. "Those are the rules God writes on your heart," she explained.
He thought about that a while. Finally he asked, "Does God write stuff on your heart?"
"Yes," she answered distractedly. She was looking for a place to park.
"What?"
"What... what?" she asked. Ah, there was a car leaving. She had a parking place.
"What does God write on your heart?"
"God writes, 'You are my child,' and 'I love you,' " she said thoughtfully. She took his hand as she got out of the car. She was thinking she would not be alone while Eddie was in class.
"Does God write that on my heart?" he asked.
Then Eddie saw his cousin across the room. He jumped up on a desk and stood there waving and yelling, "Hey Gloria!"
"Yes, God does," she said, and kissed his cheek. But he never heard her.
Yes, and everything's going to be all right, she thought. Everything's going to be all right.
Becoming an Actress
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 119:9-16
For as long as she could remember, Anita wanted to become a movie star. She read all the magazines. She went to every movie she could. She listened on radio and television to how stars were born.
One day an actress came to the small town where she lived. She visited Anita's school and told the first graders that to become an actress, it was important to learn how to memorize long passages. She advised the children to practice by memorizing poetry and Bible verses.
Later, Anita said about the visit, "I don't want to memorize. I want to become an actress."
When Anita was in the sixth grade, the teacher had a surprise during rehearsal for a play. "The principal's brother-in-law is a Broadway director," she said. "He's visiting the principal. He has agreed to visit us today and tell us about acting."
The director emphasized the importance of speech. "You must enunciate words carefully. You need to learn how to project your voice without yelling and screaming," he counseled them.
Afterward, Anita told her friends, "I don't want to learn how to talk. I want to become an actress."
Anita's twelfth-grade class visited a charm school. The headmistress of the school emphasized the importance of poise and grace. She pointed out the qualities exhibited by actresses to illustrate the point.
Back in school, Anita said, "When I'm an actress, charm schools will point at me as an example of poise and grace."
She never practiced the principles of poise and grace.
When Anita was at her retirement party, given by her fellow grocery store checkout clerks, she said, "I always wanted to be an actress, but every time I went to an audition, I was not chosen. Sometimes you never get a chance to show how good you are."
Henry could remember that as a child, he wanted to be one of the "good" people in the community. His Sunday school teacher told the class, "Good people learn what it means to be good by reading the Bible."
"I don't want to read the Bible," Henry said, "I want to be one of the good people."
His path was not so very different from the path Anita had taken.
Larry Winebrenner is a retired pastor and college teacher who lives in Miami Gardens, Florida.
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StoryShare, March 29, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
"Showing Them Jesus" by Peter Andrew Smith
"Getting a Life" by Larry Winebrenner
"Having Been Made Perfect" by John Sumwalt
"Melchizedek" by Larry Winebrenner
"Written on the Heart" by Larry Winebrenner
"Becoming an Actress" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
How do we learn the important things in life? Parents and teachers know that no matter how often they impart their accumulated wisdom, young people truly learn those lessons only through personal experience -- so the most powerful teaching usually involves pointing someone in the right direction and letting them discover it for themselves. This edition of StoryShare features several accounts of that dynamic in action. Peter Andrew Smith tells of a young man who comes to a pastor looking for Jesus -- and rather than giving him theology, the pastor wisely puts him to work in a soup kitchen... where he discovers the work of Jesus in the world. Larry Winebrenner shares the experience of a niece in desperate straits; rather than offering financial assistance, he suggests that she see a pastor... and that leads to her finding something of great consequence. John Sumwalt details his striving for "perfection" -- and how his reaction one night to the accumulated stress gave him a new appreciation of God's grace. Larry Winebrenner closes this installment with a description of a young woman who, despite a number of opportunities, is sure of her own way and doesn't learn those important lessons -- reminding us that it is up to us to take advantage of the signs that God gives to us for following in Jesus' footsteps.
* * * * * * * * *
Showing Them Jesus
by Peter Andrew Smith
John 12:20-33
"Show me Jesus," the young man said to the pastor. "Someone told me that you talk about his life and miracles on Sunday. Show me this Messiah who came to save the world."
The pastor took the young man into the church hall. The hall was filled with tables, chairs, and the smell of hot food. There was a line of people waiting.
"Help serve this meal," the pastor said to the young man.
The young man was confused but made his way to the kitchen. An elderly woman motioned him inside and handed him a potato and a small knife. They worked in silence peeling a large bag of potatoes. When the bag was empty the young man looked around.
"I'm not sure what to do," he said.
"Why did you come here today?" the elderly woman asked.
"I want to see Jesus," the young man replied.
"Then why don't you go up front and help dish out the food?"
The young man moved up front and took a place in the line spooning soup into bowls for people as they passed by. An old man smiled and thanked the young man as he grasped his bowl of soup.
"Why are you thanking me?" he asked the old man.
"Because I am cold and hungry and this is a hot meal."
"But all I did was peel potatoes," the young man said. "I didn't even come here to serve a meal today."
"Then why did you come here?"
"I came here because I want to find Jesus," the young man said.
"He is certainly in this place. God bless you for helping me."
The young man blushed and went back to giving food to the other people in line. He was surprised because he expected them to be old and dirty. Yet people old and young passed before him. Some had grubby clothes while others were freshly scrubbed. There were people by themselves, and others who brought their families. As he handed a bowl to a young woman he realized he knew her from school.
"Hi," he said awkwardly.
She smiled and thanked him like everyone else. He turned to give soup to the next person when a man put a bowl into his hands.
"You've been working hard. Have something to eat," the man said.
"But I didn't come here to eat."
"Why did you come here?" the man asked.
"I came here to know Jesus."
"Then go and sit with the people he loves," the man said, gesturing at the crowd eating at the tables before turning back to serve the next person soup.
The young man took his bowl and started forward toward the tables, unsure and uncertain. The young woman who knew him from school pointed at a seat next to her.
"Come sit with me," she said. "There is always room for another person here."
The young man sat and ate his soup quietly. He expected everyone to just sit in silence and eat. Yet he found himself surrounded by the buzz of conversation punctuated with laughter, and even in one corner some singing. As the young man sipped at his soup he listened as the people talked and chatted with each other. Soon others joined them at the table and he found himself being drawn into the conversation and laughter.
"Everyone seems so happy," he said.
"The soup is hot and the day is cold," the young woman said. "This is a good place if you are hungry and lost. I've not seen you here before; what brings you here today?"
"I asked the pastor to show me Jesus," the young man said.
"And have you seen him?"
"I've seen people working together to help other people and I've seen hungry people fed," the young man said. "But I'm not sure I've seen Jesus."
"Maybe you need to know why the people are doing those things," the young woman said.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"Because I was hungry and I know that when I come here I am fed with more than just food," she said as she took her empty bowl to the kitchen to be washed.
The young man went to the man serving soup to those waiting in line. "Why do you give food to these people?"
"Jesus asks me to feed the hungry," the man said.
The young man went into the kitchen and asked, "Why do you prepare the food for people you do not know?"
"Because Jesus tells me to love my neighbor," the elderly woman replied.
The young man went back to the hall and saw the pastor eating soup at a table. He sat next to him.
"I asked you to show me Jesus," the young man said.
"Did you see him?" the pastor asked. "Did you see his love and concern for others, the generosity of his heart, and the change he brings into people's lives?"
The young man thought for a moment and nodded. "I think I'll come back and help tomorrow, and come to church on Sunday, too."
The pastor smiled. "Then you have done something more than simply see Jesus. You have begun to follow him."
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada who currently serves at St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things Are Ready (CSS), a book of lectionary-based communion prayers, as well as many stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
Getting a Life
by Larry Winebrenner
John 12:20-33
"Uncle Larry," she said, "I've lost my job. My rent is due. My car has been repossessed, so I can't even live out of my car. I don't know what to do."
She wasn't asking for money. She was asking for direction, for meaning. So often, when a person loses their job, when they don't have employment, they feel not just helpless -- they feel useless.
I know. I've been there.
Just because I've been there didn't mean I had any wisdom to share. All I could do was commiserate. I didn't even live in the same city. In desperation more than anything else I suggested she talk to her pastor. He might know of something, some job opening.
"I never joined the church," she said.
"Well, go join a church and talk to a pastor," I said in desperation.
Her response made me feel lower than a gopher's hole. "Thanks, Uncle Larry," she said -- and hung up.
Juliana worked as a cleaning lady in commercial buildings. It didn't pay a lot, but it generally was pretty stable. And it did pay the bills.
Two weeks later I received another call from Juliana. "Hi, Uncle Larry," she greeted me with enthusiasm.
"Hey, Juliana!" I responded. "How's it going?"
"Great!" she said. "Just great. I did what you suggested."
"Really?" I responded, trying to remember what I suggested.
"Yeah. And I'm so busy I don't have time to turn around."
"Got the apartment paid for?" I said.
"Nope. I moved. I'm staying with a lady that really needs my help."
"Pay much?"
I was still stuck on that old materialistic binge.
"Uncle Larry!" she scolded.
"Maybe you better tell me the whole story," I said as I licked my wounds.
"Well, I found a church not far from my apartment." Aha! I had suggested she join a church. "I was up front with the preacher," she continued. "I told him I'd join his church if he'd find me a job. 'I've got lotsa jobs available,' he told me. 'But they don't pay anything.' Hah! I replied. He told me they needed doing. I told him I was sorry and explained my situation. He apologized and said the church had no funds to help folks with my problem. 'I don't want a handout. I want a job!' I told him."
It's the same old story, I thought. We preachers are the ones that are supposed to be spiritual, but as soon as someone asks for help, we think money.
She continued, "He said that there was an elderly widow in his congregation who had fallen and broken her hip. He said she was having a hard time of it and might rent me a room cheap. Maybe I could get some temp work and make enough to pay the rent. It would give me breathing room to work something out."
"So... getting along?" I asked hopefully.
"She said we could probably work something out, but would I mind driving her to the store to do some shopping. She hadn't been able to drive since breaking her hip. And cabs were so expensive. I put her wheelchair in the car and at the store pushed her around in her wheelchair. She kept asking things like, 'Do you like pork chops?' 'What kind of cereal do you like?' I told her I couldn't afford room and board, but she said nobody living in her house was going to die of starvation. Me, die of starvation!" she laughed. She's a bit on the husky side.
The final outcome, as Juliana explained to me, was she got room and board and use of the car for a bit of cleaning and helping around the house. Her landlady began calling friends and Juliana found herself doing everything from changing light bulbs to painting a back porch banister and railing.
"Uncle Larry," she said, "I still don't have a job. But I have a life!"
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Having Been Made Perfect
by John Sumwalt
Hebrews 5:5-10
Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
-- Hebrews 5:8-9
United Methodists, who trace their lineage back to John Wesley, are all about perfection. According to our Book of Discipline, "Sanctifying grace draws us toward the gift of Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart 'habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor' and as having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked."
Candidates for ordination in our denomination are asked, "Are you going on to perfection?" And if they answer yes, they go on to ordination and what used to be a pretty good pension plan until the recent stock market plunges. I don't know what would happen if someone were to answer, "No, I am not going on to perfection." As far as I know no one ever has, though most of us knew when we declared we were that we were far from it and probably always would be.
Striving for perfection has darned near killed me on more than one occasion. Yet I have come to understand that the grace that came to me in those painful learning experiences is what makes the very idea of going onto perfection possible.
One of those grace-filled moments occurred when I was a 28-year-old, just-graduated-from-seminary, newly appointed pastor serving a little church in central Wisconsin. I had been a student pastor for several years and was eager to put all of my learning to good use in my first full-time position as quickly as possible. I tried to visit every member in the first month, started a Bible study, met with every committee, and sweated over every sermon into the wee hours of every Saturday night. I was going to be the perfect pastor.
All went well for a few months until one night, as my wife Jo and I were going to bed, my heart began to flutter and my fingers started to turn blue. I feared I might be having a heart attack or a stroke. What a waste of four and a half years of college (I dropped a lot of classes) and three years of graduate school!
Jo called the paramedics, who made their way with a stretcher up the twisted stairs of the little parsonage behind the little church with great difficulty. They checked my vitals and strapped me onto the stretcher, which they told me, as they lowered it over the banister with ropes, was especially designed for twisted staircases in little houses. After this torturous descent they rolled the aforementioned stretcher and me onto the ambulance and whisked me off to the emergency room in a small-town hospital about 30 miles up the road. On the way I got in touch with my mortality, which is another way of saying I was scared to death.
After a thorough examination that included several applications of a cold stethoscope to the chest and an electrocardiogram, the emergency room doc announced a diagnosis. He said I had hyperventilated. He suggested I slow down, and he prescribed a paper bag and a small dose of valium, the drug of choice for every anxiety-related illness in the late '70s and early '80s.
On the way home, I told Jo about the terrors of my ambulance ride and of the decision I had made as I peered over my specially designed stretcher into the abyss. Near-death experiences have a way of helping one to focus on what one values. I told her I didn't want to die before we had a child. Jo nearly drove into the ditch, but she was smiling as she swerved back onto the roadway. She had been planning to go back to college that fall but was very glad to postpone college and work with me on the baby plan. Our first child was born about nine months later. She was perfect, and her daughter, our darling grandbaby born 28 years later, is a study in perfection.
I have learned to strive for perfection at a slower pace, as the doctor prescribed, though I still carry a paper bag just in case. I don't know if this is the kind of striving after perfection that John Wesley had in mind. I can say that the hard lesson I learned in the days before and since that fear-filled ambulance ride can be summed up in one perfect little five-letter word: grace. By the grace of God I strive every day to be faithful to the one "who learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him."
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt are the former co-editors of StoryShare, and John is the author of nine books.
Melchizedek
by Larry Winebrenner
Hebrews 5:5-10
By the time the book of Hebrews was written, a well-founded institution of temple priesthood had been established. The rules, regulations, and procedures had long been established. The roots likely reached back almost 2,000 years to temple practices in the great city of Ur.
Abram carried knowledge from Ur to Canaan, built altars, and prepared to sacrifice his own son upon an altar using these very same practices. But this man, his name eventually changed by God to Abraham, was to discover, even before that event, another priesthood serving God Most High. It happened like this.
Chedorlaomer, a king in northern Mesopotamia, formed an alliance with three other kings and took control of territories in Canaan. Among those he conquered were the city-states in the valley containing the Dead Sea, including Sodom and Gomorrah. He received tribute during that time for 12 years.
During those years, Abraham's herdsmen got into an argument with his nephew Lot's herdsmen over water rights at a well. Abraham sought pacification and achieved a peaceful settlement by giving Lot his choice of grazing lands and associated wells. Lot chose the area in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He eventually moved into Sodom.
After this, in the 13th year of tribute, the "kings" (that is, the ruling authorities) in five cities in the plain rebelled. They declared that paying tribute to a king some nine months travel away was too onerous to bear.
Chedorlaomer led his army and allies into the region and put down the rebellion. They took the food stores of the cities, plundered their possessions, and led their citizens into captivity. Lot was among those captured.
When Abraham heard of this, he raised his own army and went in pursuit to save his nephew Lot. He eventually caught Chedorlaomer’s forces, defeated them, and took back the captives and booty to the rulers of the five cities.
When he returned, he was met by the king of Salem (later Jerusalem). Salem was not one of the cities of the plain. So far as we know, he was left unharmed by Chedorlaomer, possibly because Salem was a city on a high mountain and would be difficult to easily and quickly capture. At the same time, the king of Salem knew a threat to his safety was removed.
He blessed Abraham in the name of God Most High. We can picture the scene something like this:
"Chieftain Abraham," said the king of Salem, "I thank you for your victory over Chedorlaomer. You have saved not only the five cities of the plain, you have also removed a threat to my own city, Salem. I bless you in the name of God Most High."
"God Most High?" inquires Abraham. "I was called to this land by the creator of the universe. My Lord is God Most High."
"Indeed, it can only be the same God. I was called to be a priest of God Most High."
"Then in thanksgiving for my victory," replied Abraham, "I make a gift through you to God Most High."
And so Abraham found there was an order of priesthood established by the very Person of God, and a priest in God's service -- a priest who was the king of Salem, a priest by the name of Melchizedek.
Eighteen hundred years later, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews would recognize that Jesus, too, was called to that order, the order of God's calling, the order of Melchizedek.
Written on the Heart
by Larry Winebrenner
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Little six-year-old Eddie was worried. He wanted to go. He was afraid to go. He tried to find reasons not to start to school.
"How will I know what to do, Mommy?" he whined.
His mother hugged him and swept his hair for the twentieth time with a comb. She was nervous, too. This was the first time she would be without Eddie day after day after day. So much of her time was taken up by caring for him. His words echoed in her own head: "How will I know what to do?"
"The teacher will tell you what to do," she told Eddie. But who would tell her what to do?
"But what if the teacher isn't there?" he asked.
"There will be rules."
"How will I know the rules?"
If there were anything Eddie was good at, it was asking questions.
"You will memorize them," his mother said, not knowing if they taught first-graders rules.
"What's 'memorize'?" he asked.
"It means to learn by heart."
"You mean like learning Bible verses?" he asked.
It was time to leave and take Eddie to school. He would be asking her questions as she left the classroom. That, or crying his eyes out.
"Yes, dear, like learning Bible verses by heart," she said as she took his hand and led him to the car.
"What do I do if there's no rule and the teacher isn't there?"
She started the car and backed it out of the driveway. She turned toward the school. In just a few minutes she was going to be alone all day. At first she had seen the situation as freedom. But you're not really free when your heart is tied to another heart.
"What do I do if there's no rule and the teacher isn't there?" insisted Eddie.
"Let your conscience be your guide."
"Huh? What's a con- uh- con...."
"Conscience," she enunciated carefully for him. "Those are the rules God writes on your heart," she explained.
He thought about that a while. Finally he asked, "Does God write stuff on your heart?"
"Yes," she answered distractedly. She was looking for a place to park.
"What?"
"What... what?" she asked. Ah, there was a car leaving. She had a parking place.
"What does God write on your heart?"
"God writes, 'You are my child,' and 'I love you,' " she said thoughtfully. She took his hand as she got out of the car. She was thinking she would not be alone while Eddie was in class.
"Does God write that on my heart?" he asked.
Then Eddie saw his cousin across the room. He jumped up on a desk and stood there waving and yelling, "Hey Gloria!"
"Yes, God does," she said, and kissed his cheek. But he never heard her.
Yes, and everything's going to be all right, she thought. Everything's going to be all right.
Becoming an Actress
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 119:9-16
For as long as she could remember, Anita wanted to become a movie star. She read all the magazines. She went to every movie she could. She listened on radio and television to how stars were born.
One day an actress came to the small town where she lived. She visited Anita's school and told the first graders that to become an actress, it was important to learn how to memorize long passages. She advised the children to practice by memorizing poetry and Bible verses.
Later, Anita said about the visit, "I don't want to memorize. I want to become an actress."
When Anita was in the sixth grade, the teacher had a surprise during rehearsal for a play. "The principal's brother-in-law is a Broadway director," she said. "He's visiting the principal. He has agreed to visit us today and tell us about acting."
The director emphasized the importance of speech. "You must enunciate words carefully. You need to learn how to project your voice without yelling and screaming," he counseled them.
Afterward, Anita told her friends, "I don't want to learn how to talk. I want to become an actress."
Anita's twelfth-grade class visited a charm school. The headmistress of the school emphasized the importance of poise and grace. She pointed out the qualities exhibited by actresses to illustrate the point.
Back in school, Anita said, "When I'm an actress, charm schools will point at me as an example of poise and grace."
She never practiced the principles of poise and grace.
When Anita was at her retirement party, given by her fellow grocery store checkout clerks, she said, "I always wanted to be an actress, but every time I went to an audition, I was not chosen. Sometimes you never get a chance to show how good you are."
Henry could remember that as a child, he wanted to be one of the "good" people in the community. His Sunday school teacher told the class, "Good people learn what it means to be good by reading the Bible."
"I don't want to read the Bible," Henry said, "I want to be one of the good people."
His path was not so very different from the path Anita had taken.
Larry Winebrenner is a retired pastor and college teacher who lives in Miami Gardens, Florida.
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StoryShare, March 29, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
