A Simple Thing
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"A Simple Thing" by Keith Hewitt
"Questions, Answers, and the Difficulties of True Goodness" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Is It Possible to Wonder Again?" by W. Lamar Massingill
What's Up This Week
Truth can be a difficult pill to swallow. As Keith Hewitt and Lamar Massingill illustrate in this week's edition of StoryShare, we think the answer is simple, only to discover that it is much more complex and sets us off on a path of questions and answers that is sometimes perilous -- as Peter and the other disciple found out only too well. Though it can be difficult, knowing the truth can also be beautiful -- especially if we can retain a child-like wonder at all the ordinary everyday delights in God's creation.
* * * * * * * * *
A Simple Thing
by Keith Hewitt
James 3:1-12
The study looked sunny and smelled comfortable -- fresh coffee and an open tin of Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco, with a subtle undertone of old books. Randall stood uncertainly on the threshold, hesitant to disturb the atmosphere, and almost turned away -- but then the old man sitting at the desk realized that someone was there and looked up. "Oh, Mister Randall. I'm glad you stopped by." He looked around on his desktop, found a slip of paper and put it in his Bible, closed the book, and pushed back from the desk. "Come, in, come in." He stood up and waved a hand toward two overstuffed chairs that sat at an angle to one another in the corner of the study.
Randall started to apologize, to find a reason to leave -- but set that aside and entered the study, standing by one of the chairs until his host was standing by the other. "Have a seat, have a seat," the old man invited, and he accepted his own invitation with an audible sigh as he sank into the well-worn seat of his own chair. He smiled, lines crinkling at the corners of lively brown eyes. "Thank you for coming along -- I needed an excuse to get away from that desk for a few minutes."
Randall nodded as he sat down, fighting against being swallowed up by his chair as he sat up straight and propped his elbows on either armrest. "I'm sorry I didn't make an appointment, Reverend Hoffman. I don't want to interrupt you."
Hoffman waved off the apology, fumbled in his pocket with his other hand, and came out with a slightly battered pipe. "No need to apologize, Mister Randall," he assured him as he picked up a leather tobacco pouch from the table next to his chair and zipped it open, shaking a little of the fragrant contents into the bowl of his pipe. "I'm just working on next week's sermon -- putting a few finishing touches on it. They say getting started and finishing a sermon are the hardest parts, and I'd have to say they're right. Once I get past the beginning, I usually find that I have more than enough to say." He set the pouch down, picked up a lighter and struck it over the bowl of the pipe, continuing as it sparked. "Probably more than most of you want to hear," he added with a wink and a soft chuckle.
The lighter sparked a couple of times, but never lit. He held it up to his ear, shook it, and frowned. "And here I am fresh out of Ronson's," he sighed as he started to set the pipe next to the pouch.
"Here you go," Randall said, sliding forward in his chair and reaching forward with a silver Zippo lighter in his hand. Hoffman looked surprised, then put the pipe back in his mouth and leaned forward while Randall flicked open the lighter and struck a flame, holding the lighter tilted toward the bowl of tobacco. A few wet-sounding puffs and the tobacco began to glow; Hoffman nodded and Randall closed the lighter with a solid metallic click.
Hoffman sank back into his chair. "Thanks." He studied his visitor for a few moments -- the way he sat, the way he held himself, the way he acted -- and finally said, "You were Airborne, son?"
Randall hesitated, then looked at the insignia on his lighter and understood. "Yes, sir." He frowned; the conversation was not taking the path he had planned.
"Did you like it?"
"Well enough, until we jumped into Holland. Broke my ankle there, never got back to jumping." His ankle twinged in sympathy with the sudden memory of sitting in a field, staring at the bones sticking out of his leg like splintered dowels shoved through ground meat, just above his boot. He shut the door on that memory and the days that followed; he had lived them once, relived them many times after, and they had served their purpose. "I'm here now, and I don't plan to jump again."
"Still, it took a lot of guts, son. We appreciate all that you and the rest of your comrades did for us. We appreciate your service."
"Thank you, sir, but I was just doing my duty." He hesitated, licked his lips, and tried to choose the next words -- he had been thinking about this moment for the last four days and still had not come to a satisfactory way to start. Unconsciously, his hand found its way to his coat pocket and felt the hard shape there; it urged him on. "Listen, Reverend Hoffman, I appreciate your sentiments, but I wonder if I could talk to you about something?"
"Of course, of course." Hoffman puffed on his pipe once or twice and settled back in his chair. "I saw that you indicated you were interested in joining the church in the attendance signup a couple of weeks ago. I'm planning on putting together a class some time in the next month or so…"
"Thanks, but that's not it -- or not exactly, anyway. Last Sunday, during your sermon, you mentioned something about servicemen who are letting their enlistments run out or resigning their commissions because of President Truman's order."
Hoffman nodded, puffing on his pipe. "Right, the executive order to allow race mixing in the armed services. I imagine you've seen quite a bit of that, Mister Randall. And you, yourself, of course. I just thought it was important to let you -- all of you -- know that I understand." He smiled ironically. "It may not be a popular position to take in public, but we have to stand up for what's right, and what God sets forth for us."
Randall shook his head forcefully. "No sir, I don't think you understand. President Truman's executive order is not why I left the Army."
Hoffman lowered his face slightly and peered at Randall over the top of his glasses. "Please, Mister Randall, no need to be ashamed. The president's order was issued in July, and you mustered out when? Just a few months later, if I remember correctly. That's when you started coming here, anyway." He leaned forward and touched Randall's knee briefly with his hand. "You have a home here, son. I understand your feelings."
Randall stared at him. "So you don't have a problem with keeping the services segregated?"
Hoffman shrugged. "It's not really my call, is it? Acts 17:26 tells that segregation is ordained by God: 'From a single man God created all the nations… He decided when they should rise and fall, and determined their boundaries.' "
He shrugged again, gesturing with his pipe. "So we know that all races have their boundaries, set by God. We have to respect those boundaries -- and not encourage mixing. And it goes all the way back to Genesis, of course, with the cursing of the descendants of Noah's son, Ham -- the Negroes. You and I, we don't wish them any ill will, of course, but it's obvious that we are not meant to mix with them -- or why would God have made it so easy for us to tell ourselves apart from them?"
Randall nodded stiffly, fingers drumming softly on the object in his pocket. "I see," he said quietly. "I wasn't exactly sure how you felt -- or how strongly you felt."
Hoffman puffed. "So you understand where I'm coming from, then? Did I clear it up for you?"
"Yes, you did." Randall's fingers drummed while his heart pulsed; he could feel it, hear the blood rushing in his ears.
"So if we start the class next month, would the 5th or the 12th work better for you? It's an hour a week, for four weeks, usually right after the second service."
Randall slid forward in his seat and put his hand in his pocket. "Listen, Reverend Hoffman, before we talk about that I just want to make sure that we're both clear on this."
The old man looked puzzled. "Okay. I don't understand, but certainly, go ahead."
"After I got out of the hospital, I was attached to the Judge Advocate General's office. I spent the next three and a half years or so looking at places like this." He pulled a small manila envelope out of his pocket as he spoke and slid out a sheaf of black and white photos. As he continued to speak, he began taking pictures out of the stack, one by one, handing them to the pastor.
"This was the first place I was assigned to -- a labor camp attached to a death camp by the name of Todeswald. When Todeswald was at its peak, they could process about 40 boxcars of people a day." Hoffman looked at the first few pictures, his face growing more puzzled with each one, and finally he stopped looking and just accepted the pictures wordlessly as Randall handed them to him and continued to speak. "When they were running at peak, the crematoria couldn't keep up, so they buried the dead in open pits like that. In the labor camp, at least a hundred or so inmates died every week -- their bodies would be sent over to the death camp for disposal."
"Look, son, this is…"
"I worked for the Judge Advocate General's War Crimes Office, Reverend Hoffman, and I interviewed survivors of Todeswald and about a dozen places like it. I heard things I won't even bother repeating, because you wouldn't believe it -- the only reason I believe it is because I've been there -- I've walked next to pits of bodies, mountains of hair and eyeglasses, I've smelled it, so strong you can taste it in your mouth and it makes you want to vomit. When I finally left Todeswald I burned my uniform because I couldn't get the stench to go away."
"I see this had…"
"And when I was done interviewing the survivors of places like this, I got to talk to the guards, the officers, the creatures who ran these places. And after I got past the dates and places, the facts and figures, the lies and evasions, I always asked them one thing: How could you do this?" He handed Hoffman the last picture. "And do you know what they told me? Do you know what they always told me, Reverend?"
Hoffman glanced at the last picture and looked away. "I'm sure I have no idea."
Randall took a deep breath -- it felt like the first one he'd drawn since he started talking. "I'm sure you don't, so I'll tell you. They told me it was simple. To get there" -- he gestured toward the pictures -- "all you have to do is convince yourself that they aren't the same as you -- that they're something less. After that, the rest is easy."
He stood up then and looked down at the old man in the chair. "Keep the pictures, Reverend. I think you need them more than I do."
Hoffman was still sitting, pictures in hand, as Randall left.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
Questions, Answers, and the Difficulties of True Goodness
by W. Lamar Massingill
Mark 8:27-38
Questions and answers are always a part of life. Questions begin quests, regardless of whether we find the answers or not. Some questions we just have to, as the German writer Rilke suggests, "continue to live," or live into the answers over a lifetime, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to quest after a question, not to mention answering it.
Here in our journey this week, we have two questions asked by Jesus: one quite simple, the other simple and simultaneously difficult. Sometimes in a discussion group we have to ask the questioner, "Is that a personal question or an academic one?" Actually, both questions Jesus asked were pretty academic.
All this is to say that some things are right under our noses. So that's why I say both questions were academic and the ones to whom he was asking these was his disciples; people who knew the answers to those questions. It was, however, the way the questions were asked which is the center of our story. The first was certainly academic, and the answer would not at all put the disciples in a bind: "Who do people say that I am?" I'm assuming the disciples all jumped on this: well, there are several people we have heard others say you are -- John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Elijah, or one of the prophets.
But the second question was the hardest: "Who do you say that I am?" It was a hard question because it demanded a commitment on the part of whoever answered the question. It was a hard quest because it demanded that whoever answered it would begin a journey without the knowledge of where that journey would lead them, and the only one that answered it was Peter.
Several years ago, so I'm told, Arthur Miller came to Yale University to give a seminar for college seniors studying his works. The first, of course, was Death of a Salesman. "What critics should we read?" the students asked. To which Miller responded, "None. I know what they write. I am interested in what you feel." Must have been scary!
An academic question may be demanding but a personal one on the part of Jesus is consuming and many times dangerous because it pushes one to live the question, always in search of the truth of what it means to follow Jesus: "Who do you say that I am?"
So Peter answered the question. And in doing so, Peter had the simultaneous responsibility of having to own and commit himself to this confession. We, too, will have to take responsibility for our beliefs in time and history. We will have to take the risk of saying "I think," regardless of what others think. We will have to suffer the losses that will accompany our beliefs, and also the celebrations that accompany our beliefs. All of this was a part of the question. Jesus forced the issue, not only with Peter but also with all of the disciples. They were not expected simply to listen to the questions and give academic answers. They were expected to live the questions always in search of the way to follow Jesus. Questions begin quests, remember, and Jesus, through his question, put Peter on a quest that sacred day.
Imagine if Peter had not taken responsibility for his beliefs in Christ. I'm grateful we only have to imagine it. Peter, because he took personal responsibility, gathered the early church into its beginning. And I would be willing to guess that it was this very episode with Jesus that changed him from a spiritual adolescent to a spiritual adult. "Who do you say that I am?" It's an important question for us too -- in fact, the question of a lifetime.
No sooner, however, does Peter take the confessional plunge than he finds himself in over his head with his foot in his mouth. His confession wound up -- from the text it seems almost immediately -- creating a confrontation between Jesus and Peter. It's easy to answer a question, but quite another thing to live both the question and the answers it reveals. That involves pure goodness, and we may think it incomprehensible, but there is nothing so feared and less confronted than the good in every one of us, because goodness is so demanding yet necessary to follow Jesus in a world such as ours.
"Get thee behind me Satan!" Jesus says. Well, it's not the friendliest of statements, but it is loving. Stop to think about it. It is a deeply loving thing on the part of Jesus not to withhold the hard, plain truth of how Peter was to serve, when that very truth is the only thing that will serve the moment. I say this because I am very suspect of love without confrontation. That's to say, watch out for the sweetness of character that backs off from the pain of confrontation. That's a mushy sentimentality. Love never justifies attitudes which evade reality. So, in my vision of this episode, Peter got a good dose of reality. And perhaps in the face and feelings of Peter we would too. Could Jesus be saying the same to us -- "Get thee behind me, Satan!" -- because of our evasiveness of the difficulties of true goodness?
As if the rebuke of Jesus was not enough, Jesus turns to his disciples to explain the difficulties that the real goodness of discipleship involved: Take up your cross and follow me, deny yourself, whoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? All of these describe the difficulty of pure goodness. All of it describes the challenge of a follower of Jesus. And most of these words of Jesus have overtones of withholding from others for ourselves. Clearly Jesus did not believe that better jobs and bigger houses and expensive cars at the expense of generosity to others add up to the abundant life. Peter eventually understood this, and along with that lost his evasive repression of reality and put the extra into the ordinary. How did he do it? Because Jesus never ceased to believe in him, and He never ceases to believe in us, regardless of who we are or aren't.
In this context, I suppose a good closing question to take with us on this week's quest is this: To what extent am I willing to risk the courage and responsibility that goes with owning my own images, beliefs, and views about God? Am I willing to liberate my own created goodness? And in doing so, what difference will I make? Think about it.
Is It Possible to Wonder Again?
by W. Lamar Massingill
Psalm 19
When I was a young boy, I was absolutely amazed by the creation around me. That's probably why I'm a golfer -- I love to be in the middle of God's miracle. I was always one to ask questions, according to my mother. One ordinary Sunday during those childhood times, my mother was my Sunday school teacher. The lesson was on Moses as he saw the bush that was burning but not consumed, and the words of God that Moses was to take his shoes off, as he was on holy ground. My questions were legion. My mother said that it was holy ground because God created it. Then she used the first verse of this psalm: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork." The psalmist was obviously filled with wonder! I asked, "If God created the ground, then why don't we all take our shoes off?" My mother had no answer for that one.
I frequently remember that young boy always caught up with wide-eyed wonder, literally filled with awe. Such expression on the face of the youngster I was, wishing I could always keep whatever it was he had during those days. Sometimes now, as an adult, I am able to at least touch it again. During the times I think of the boy I remember myself being, I wonder why I (we?) cannot view life with such wonder anymore. It seems the older we get, the less we are able to view God's handiwork with such a face. Instead, many times I seem to view it with a face I have spent years arranging and rearranging; eyes which have seen so much bitterness and injustice that it would be difficult at best to capture the kind of wonder I remember seeing in my early youth, with my face plastered to the window asking why we don't all take our shoes off.
I thought of the boy Massingill again a few weeks ago flying home from Atlanta, Georgia, near midnight. I wondered at such majesty, such beauty: all the lights illumining the good earth that is God's handiwork, as if they cared to protect it in some way. I was reminded of G.K. Chesterton's words: "The world does not lack for wonder, only a sense of wonder." I spent moments just gazing and remembering, with my own face plastered against an airline window somewhere between Atlanta and Jackson, Mississippi, feeling strangely like a kid again, and wondering why I didn't "see" in the same way more often.
Noticeably, any sense of the beauty of God's handiwork was absent in the faces and eyes sitting around me, as it had been in mine more times than I cared to admit. As I grieved our common loss, I settled back in my seat, knocked on the door of my reflective property, and for the remainder of the flight, slipped into the solitude of the inquisitive.
My questions were of grace and disgrace and ease and dis/ease. I asked them with an acute sense that somewhere along the way, we've exchanged human eyes for glass eyes; the real for the superficial. They were also penetrating: Living my life in a technological wonderland where nearly anything seems possible, is there any reality in my commonness which is capable of surprising and inviting me into the wonder/full, without having to be intensely sensational? If so, am I responsible for the view? What enables me to feel God's breath in the cool of a fall wind? Or God's body in the texture of the sweet earth? What enables me to hear the mysterious way the waves roll on and off the coast, sounding like the whole creation is inhaling and exhaling, and not have to ask how it is, but simply that it is? What expectations are formed as a result of living in a society which is, at bottom, informed by the technological myth? How powerful are these expectations as they shape my experience? How is it I sit so bored riding a machine 30,000 feet in the air, reading a book and having a drink, for goodness sakes? Have I lost the ability to wonder? To see things beyond the tangible? Can the creation once again become a source of grace? Can it become a sacrament?
We landed in Jackson, but I landed on no answers to these questions, and the discomfort of them has accompanied me to this day. I have definitely come to one conclusion: technology will not allow me to be personable (able to be a person) unless I use it as a means to an end, and not the end itself. We all came out of the womb of God's wonder, mystery, generosity, and handiwork -- all those things for which there is no speech or language to describe (v. 3).
One thing I have learned and recovered to some extent from the boy Massingill: If we view God's creation with bland neutrality, we will not know God's abundance, and we will allow technology to rob us of what it cannot provide: love, touch, relationships, feeling, peace, and joy.
When we are able to see sacred drama in the ordinary delights of daily color, form, and human contact, when we can hear eternity in a mockingbird's song, or even in the reckless laughter of a child, when we can feel God's Body in something as simple as a handful of sand or the way a rose feels soft against our hand as well as the wonderful scent that fills our nostrils, then we will touch the wonder of the Great Generosity whose creation we enjoy. There is generous growth in wonder. We are tidbits of the cosmic happening; children of God created with the senses necessary to enjoy the beautiful gifts of His world. Why not slow down and begin now?
W. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is now the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi. He also serves as religion editor for the Magnolia Gazette and as a guest columnist for the United Methodist Advocate and the Richton Dispatch. Massengill is the author of two books, New Eyes: A Spirituality of Identity Formation and Soul Places, and he has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He is a graduate of William Carey University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
**************
StoryShare, September 13, 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
"A Simple Thing" by Keith Hewitt
"Questions, Answers, and the Difficulties of True Goodness" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Is It Possible to Wonder Again?" by W. Lamar Massingill
What's Up This Week
Truth can be a difficult pill to swallow. As Keith Hewitt and Lamar Massingill illustrate in this week's edition of StoryShare, we think the answer is simple, only to discover that it is much more complex and sets us off on a path of questions and answers that is sometimes perilous -- as Peter and the other disciple found out only too well. Though it can be difficult, knowing the truth can also be beautiful -- especially if we can retain a child-like wonder at all the ordinary everyday delights in God's creation.
* * * * * * * * *
A Simple Thing
by Keith Hewitt
James 3:1-12
The study looked sunny and smelled comfortable -- fresh coffee and an open tin of Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco, with a subtle undertone of old books. Randall stood uncertainly on the threshold, hesitant to disturb the atmosphere, and almost turned away -- but then the old man sitting at the desk realized that someone was there and looked up. "Oh, Mister Randall. I'm glad you stopped by." He looked around on his desktop, found a slip of paper and put it in his Bible, closed the book, and pushed back from the desk. "Come, in, come in." He stood up and waved a hand toward two overstuffed chairs that sat at an angle to one another in the corner of the study.
Randall started to apologize, to find a reason to leave -- but set that aside and entered the study, standing by one of the chairs until his host was standing by the other. "Have a seat, have a seat," the old man invited, and he accepted his own invitation with an audible sigh as he sank into the well-worn seat of his own chair. He smiled, lines crinkling at the corners of lively brown eyes. "Thank you for coming along -- I needed an excuse to get away from that desk for a few minutes."
Randall nodded as he sat down, fighting against being swallowed up by his chair as he sat up straight and propped his elbows on either armrest. "I'm sorry I didn't make an appointment, Reverend Hoffman. I don't want to interrupt you."
Hoffman waved off the apology, fumbled in his pocket with his other hand, and came out with a slightly battered pipe. "No need to apologize, Mister Randall," he assured him as he picked up a leather tobacco pouch from the table next to his chair and zipped it open, shaking a little of the fragrant contents into the bowl of his pipe. "I'm just working on next week's sermon -- putting a few finishing touches on it. They say getting started and finishing a sermon are the hardest parts, and I'd have to say they're right. Once I get past the beginning, I usually find that I have more than enough to say." He set the pouch down, picked up a lighter and struck it over the bowl of the pipe, continuing as it sparked. "Probably more than most of you want to hear," he added with a wink and a soft chuckle.
The lighter sparked a couple of times, but never lit. He held it up to his ear, shook it, and frowned. "And here I am fresh out of Ronson's," he sighed as he started to set the pipe next to the pouch.
"Here you go," Randall said, sliding forward in his chair and reaching forward with a silver Zippo lighter in his hand. Hoffman looked surprised, then put the pipe back in his mouth and leaned forward while Randall flicked open the lighter and struck a flame, holding the lighter tilted toward the bowl of tobacco. A few wet-sounding puffs and the tobacco began to glow; Hoffman nodded and Randall closed the lighter with a solid metallic click.
Hoffman sank back into his chair. "Thanks." He studied his visitor for a few moments -- the way he sat, the way he held himself, the way he acted -- and finally said, "You were Airborne, son?"
Randall hesitated, then looked at the insignia on his lighter and understood. "Yes, sir." He frowned; the conversation was not taking the path he had planned.
"Did you like it?"
"Well enough, until we jumped into Holland. Broke my ankle there, never got back to jumping." His ankle twinged in sympathy with the sudden memory of sitting in a field, staring at the bones sticking out of his leg like splintered dowels shoved through ground meat, just above his boot. He shut the door on that memory and the days that followed; he had lived them once, relived them many times after, and they had served their purpose. "I'm here now, and I don't plan to jump again."
"Still, it took a lot of guts, son. We appreciate all that you and the rest of your comrades did for us. We appreciate your service."
"Thank you, sir, but I was just doing my duty." He hesitated, licked his lips, and tried to choose the next words -- he had been thinking about this moment for the last four days and still had not come to a satisfactory way to start. Unconsciously, his hand found its way to his coat pocket and felt the hard shape there; it urged him on. "Listen, Reverend Hoffman, I appreciate your sentiments, but I wonder if I could talk to you about something?"
"Of course, of course." Hoffman puffed on his pipe once or twice and settled back in his chair. "I saw that you indicated you were interested in joining the church in the attendance signup a couple of weeks ago. I'm planning on putting together a class some time in the next month or so…"
"Thanks, but that's not it -- or not exactly, anyway. Last Sunday, during your sermon, you mentioned something about servicemen who are letting their enlistments run out or resigning their commissions because of President Truman's order."
Hoffman nodded, puffing on his pipe. "Right, the executive order to allow race mixing in the armed services. I imagine you've seen quite a bit of that, Mister Randall. And you, yourself, of course. I just thought it was important to let you -- all of you -- know that I understand." He smiled ironically. "It may not be a popular position to take in public, but we have to stand up for what's right, and what God sets forth for us."
Randall shook his head forcefully. "No sir, I don't think you understand. President Truman's executive order is not why I left the Army."
Hoffman lowered his face slightly and peered at Randall over the top of his glasses. "Please, Mister Randall, no need to be ashamed. The president's order was issued in July, and you mustered out when? Just a few months later, if I remember correctly. That's when you started coming here, anyway." He leaned forward and touched Randall's knee briefly with his hand. "You have a home here, son. I understand your feelings."
Randall stared at him. "So you don't have a problem with keeping the services segregated?"
Hoffman shrugged. "It's not really my call, is it? Acts 17:26 tells that segregation is ordained by God: 'From a single man God created all the nations… He decided when they should rise and fall, and determined their boundaries.' "
He shrugged again, gesturing with his pipe. "So we know that all races have their boundaries, set by God. We have to respect those boundaries -- and not encourage mixing. And it goes all the way back to Genesis, of course, with the cursing of the descendants of Noah's son, Ham -- the Negroes. You and I, we don't wish them any ill will, of course, but it's obvious that we are not meant to mix with them -- or why would God have made it so easy for us to tell ourselves apart from them?"
Randall nodded stiffly, fingers drumming softly on the object in his pocket. "I see," he said quietly. "I wasn't exactly sure how you felt -- or how strongly you felt."
Hoffman puffed. "So you understand where I'm coming from, then? Did I clear it up for you?"
"Yes, you did." Randall's fingers drummed while his heart pulsed; he could feel it, hear the blood rushing in his ears.
"So if we start the class next month, would the 5th or the 12th work better for you? It's an hour a week, for four weeks, usually right after the second service."
Randall slid forward in his seat and put his hand in his pocket. "Listen, Reverend Hoffman, before we talk about that I just want to make sure that we're both clear on this."
The old man looked puzzled. "Okay. I don't understand, but certainly, go ahead."
"After I got out of the hospital, I was attached to the Judge Advocate General's office. I spent the next three and a half years or so looking at places like this." He pulled a small manila envelope out of his pocket as he spoke and slid out a sheaf of black and white photos. As he continued to speak, he began taking pictures out of the stack, one by one, handing them to the pastor.
"This was the first place I was assigned to -- a labor camp attached to a death camp by the name of Todeswald. When Todeswald was at its peak, they could process about 40 boxcars of people a day." Hoffman looked at the first few pictures, his face growing more puzzled with each one, and finally he stopped looking and just accepted the pictures wordlessly as Randall handed them to him and continued to speak. "When they were running at peak, the crematoria couldn't keep up, so they buried the dead in open pits like that. In the labor camp, at least a hundred or so inmates died every week -- their bodies would be sent over to the death camp for disposal."
"Look, son, this is…"
"I worked for the Judge Advocate General's War Crimes Office, Reverend Hoffman, and I interviewed survivors of Todeswald and about a dozen places like it. I heard things I won't even bother repeating, because you wouldn't believe it -- the only reason I believe it is because I've been there -- I've walked next to pits of bodies, mountains of hair and eyeglasses, I've smelled it, so strong you can taste it in your mouth and it makes you want to vomit. When I finally left Todeswald I burned my uniform because I couldn't get the stench to go away."
"I see this had…"
"And when I was done interviewing the survivors of places like this, I got to talk to the guards, the officers, the creatures who ran these places. And after I got past the dates and places, the facts and figures, the lies and evasions, I always asked them one thing: How could you do this?" He handed Hoffman the last picture. "And do you know what they told me? Do you know what they always told me, Reverend?"
Hoffman glanced at the last picture and looked away. "I'm sure I have no idea."
Randall took a deep breath -- it felt like the first one he'd drawn since he started talking. "I'm sure you don't, so I'll tell you. They told me it was simple. To get there" -- he gestured toward the pictures -- "all you have to do is convince yourself that they aren't the same as you -- that they're something less. After that, the rest is easy."
He stood up then and looked down at the old man in the chair. "Keep the pictures, Reverend. I think you need them more than I do."
Hoffman was still sitting, pictures in hand, as Randall left.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT department at a major public safety testing organization.
Questions, Answers, and the Difficulties of True Goodness
by W. Lamar Massingill
Mark 8:27-38
Questions and answers are always a part of life. Questions begin quests, regardless of whether we find the answers or not. Some questions we just have to, as the German writer Rilke suggests, "continue to live," or live into the answers over a lifetime, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to quest after a question, not to mention answering it.
Here in our journey this week, we have two questions asked by Jesus: one quite simple, the other simple and simultaneously difficult. Sometimes in a discussion group we have to ask the questioner, "Is that a personal question or an academic one?" Actually, both questions Jesus asked were pretty academic.
All this is to say that some things are right under our noses. So that's why I say both questions were academic and the ones to whom he was asking these was his disciples; people who knew the answers to those questions. It was, however, the way the questions were asked which is the center of our story. The first was certainly academic, and the answer would not at all put the disciples in a bind: "Who do people say that I am?" I'm assuming the disciples all jumped on this: well, there are several people we have heard others say you are -- John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Elijah, or one of the prophets.
But the second question was the hardest: "Who do you say that I am?" It was a hard question because it demanded a commitment on the part of whoever answered the question. It was a hard quest because it demanded that whoever answered it would begin a journey without the knowledge of where that journey would lead them, and the only one that answered it was Peter.
Several years ago, so I'm told, Arthur Miller came to Yale University to give a seminar for college seniors studying his works. The first, of course, was Death of a Salesman. "What critics should we read?" the students asked. To which Miller responded, "None. I know what they write. I am interested in what you feel." Must have been scary!
An academic question may be demanding but a personal one on the part of Jesus is consuming and many times dangerous because it pushes one to live the question, always in search of the truth of what it means to follow Jesus: "Who do you say that I am?"
So Peter answered the question. And in doing so, Peter had the simultaneous responsibility of having to own and commit himself to this confession. We, too, will have to take responsibility for our beliefs in time and history. We will have to take the risk of saying "I think," regardless of what others think. We will have to suffer the losses that will accompany our beliefs, and also the celebrations that accompany our beliefs. All of this was a part of the question. Jesus forced the issue, not only with Peter but also with all of the disciples. They were not expected simply to listen to the questions and give academic answers. They were expected to live the questions always in search of the way to follow Jesus. Questions begin quests, remember, and Jesus, through his question, put Peter on a quest that sacred day.
Imagine if Peter had not taken responsibility for his beliefs in Christ. I'm grateful we only have to imagine it. Peter, because he took personal responsibility, gathered the early church into its beginning. And I would be willing to guess that it was this very episode with Jesus that changed him from a spiritual adolescent to a spiritual adult. "Who do you say that I am?" It's an important question for us too -- in fact, the question of a lifetime.
No sooner, however, does Peter take the confessional plunge than he finds himself in over his head with his foot in his mouth. His confession wound up -- from the text it seems almost immediately -- creating a confrontation between Jesus and Peter. It's easy to answer a question, but quite another thing to live both the question and the answers it reveals. That involves pure goodness, and we may think it incomprehensible, but there is nothing so feared and less confronted than the good in every one of us, because goodness is so demanding yet necessary to follow Jesus in a world such as ours.
"Get thee behind me Satan!" Jesus says. Well, it's not the friendliest of statements, but it is loving. Stop to think about it. It is a deeply loving thing on the part of Jesus not to withhold the hard, plain truth of how Peter was to serve, when that very truth is the only thing that will serve the moment. I say this because I am very suspect of love without confrontation. That's to say, watch out for the sweetness of character that backs off from the pain of confrontation. That's a mushy sentimentality. Love never justifies attitudes which evade reality. So, in my vision of this episode, Peter got a good dose of reality. And perhaps in the face and feelings of Peter we would too. Could Jesus be saying the same to us -- "Get thee behind me, Satan!" -- because of our evasiveness of the difficulties of true goodness?
As if the rebuke of Jesus was not enough, Jesus turns to his disciples to explain the difficulties that the real goodness of discipleship involved: Take up your cross and follow me, deny yourself, whoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? All of these describe the difficulty of pure goodness. All of it describes the challenge of a follower of Jesus. And most of these words of Jesus have overtones of withholding from others for ourselves. Clearly Jesus did not believe that better jobs and bigger houses and expensive cars at the expense of generosity to others add up to the abundant life. Peter eventually understood this, and along with that lost his evasive repression of reality and put the extra into the ordinary. How did he do it? Because Jesus never ceased to believe in him, and He never ceases to believe in us, regardless of who we are or aren't.
In this context, I suppose a good closing question to take with us on this week's quest is this: To what extent am I willing to risk the courage and responsibility that goes with owning my own images, beliefs, and views about God? Am I willing to liberate my own created goodness? And in doing so, what difference will I make? Think about it.
Is It Possible to Wonder Again?
by W. Lamar Massingill
Psalm 19
When I was a young boy, I was absolutely amazed by the creation around me. That's probably why I'm a golfer -- I love to be in the middle of God's miracle. I was always one to ask questions, according to my mother. One ordinary Sunday during those childhood times, my mother was my Sunday school teacher. The lesson was on Moses as he saw the bush that was burning but not consumed, and the words of God that Moses was to take his shoes off, as he was on holy ground. My questions were legion. My mother said that it was holy ground because God created it. Then she used the first verse of this psalm: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork." The psalmist was obviously filled with wonder! I asked, "If God created the ground, then why don't we all take our shoes off?" My mother had no answer for that one.
I frequently remember that young boy always caught up with wide-eyed wonder, literally filled with awe. Such expression on the face of the youngster I was, wishing I could always keep whatever it was he had during those days. Sometimes now, as an adult, I am able to at least touch it again. During the times I think of the boy I remember myself being, I wonder why I (we?) cannot view life with such wonder anymore. It seems the older we get, the less we are able to view God's handiwork with such a face. Instead, many times I seem to view it with a face I have spent years arranging and rearranging; eyes which have seen so much bitterness and injustice that it would be difficult at best to capture the kind of wonder I remember seeing in my early youth, with my face plastered to the window asking why we don't all take our shoes off.
I thought of the boy Massingill again a few weeks ago flying home from Atlanta, Georgia, near midnight. I wondered at such majesty, such beauty: all the lights illumining the good earth that is God's handiwork, as if they cared to protect it in some way. I was reminded of G.K. Chesterton's words: "The world does not lack for wonder, only a sense of wonder." I spent moments just gazing and remembering, with my own face plastered against an airline window somewhere between Atlanta and Jackson, Mississippi, feeling strangely like a kid again, and wondering why I didn't "see" in the same way more often.
Noticeably, any sense of the beauty of God's handiwork was absent in the faces and eyes sitting around me, as it had been in mine more times than I cared to admit. As I grieved our common loss, I settled back in my seat, knocked on the door of my reflective property, and for the remainder of the flight, slipped into the solitude of the inquisitive.
My questions were of grace and disgrace and ease and dis/ease. I asked them with an acute sense that somewhere along the way, we've exchanged human eyes for glass eyes; the real for the superficial. They were also penetrating: Living my life in a technological wonderland where nearly anything seems possible, is there any reality in my commonness which is capable of surprising and inviting me into the wonder/full, without having to be intensely sensational? If so, am I responsible for the view? What enables me to feel God's breath in the cool of a fall wind? Or God's body in the texture of the sweet earth? What enables me to hear the mysterious way the waves roll on and off the coast, sounding like the whole creation is inhaling and exhaling, and not have to ask how it is, but simply that it is? What expectations are formed as a result of living in a society which is, at bottom, informed by the technological myth? How powerful are these expectations as they shape my experience? How is it I sit so bored riding a machine 30,000 feet in the air, reading a book and having a drink, for goodness sakes? Have I lost the ability to wonder? To see things beyond the tangible? Can the creation once again become a source of grace? Can it become a sacrament?
We landed in Jackson, but I landed on no answers to these questions, and the discomfort of them has accompanied me to this day. I have definitely come to one conclusion: technology will not allow me to be personable (able to be a person) unless I use it as a means to an end, and not the end itself. We all came out of the womb of God's wonder, mystery, generosity, and handiwork -- all those things for which there is no speech or language to describe (v. 3).
One thing I have learned and recovered to some extent from the boy Massingill: If we view God's creation with bland neutrality, we will not know God's abundance, and we will allow technology to rob us of what it cannot provide: love, touch, relationships, feeling, peace, and joy.
When we are able to see sacred drama in the ordinary delights of daily color, form, and human contact, when we can hear eternity in a mockingbird's song, or even in the reckless laughter of a child, when we can feel God's Body in something as simple as a handful of sand or the way a rose feels soft against our hand as well as the wonderful scent that fills our nostrils, then we will touch the wonder of the Great Generosity whose creation we enjoy. There is generous growth in wonder. We are tidbits of the cosmic happening; children of God created with the senses necessary to enjoy the beautiful gifts of His world. Why not slow down and begin now?
W. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is now the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi. He also serves as religion editor for the Magnolia Gazette and as a guest columnist for the United Methodist Advocate and the Richton Dispatch. Massengill is the author of two books, New Eyes: A Spirituality of Identity Formation and Soul Places, and he has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He is a graduate of William Carey University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
**************
StoryShare, September 13, 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.
