Something New In Old Capernaum
Stories
Contents
“Something New In Old Capernaum” by David O. Bales
“Spiritual Pride Evenly Distributed” by David O. Bales
“The Beginning of Wisdom” by Peter Andrew Smith
Something New In Old Capernaum
by David O. Bales
Mark 1:21-28
Nothing seemed new. The people were older, but all of them recognizable. They all knew him, expected he’d show up a few months after his father died. From the perspective of Capernaum’s citizens, Shama was “home.” But Shama was definitely not home. He’d complete his legal and family functions quickly and depart again for Rome.
“Good morning. Glad to see you again,” his mother’s neighbor spoke to him as Shama and his brother Elkanah exited the alley from their mother’s home. He smiled and acknowledged the greeting and urged Elkanah to continue and not get into a conversation. Shama was looking sideways to the docks and yet turned unerringly onto the path to the synagogue without a glance. Probably, he could walk blindfolded through the village and never stumble because nothing changed.
He’d endured enough conversation this morning, his mother continuing her last night’s pecking questions as soon as he stepped in the door: How was the business in Rome? How much fish did Romans eat each week? What patron and what synagogue had he attached to? Jewish families with marriageable daughters there? It was as though the sabbath eve obligation had become asking questions of back-in-town sons. This morning over breakfast for the third time she brought up that Jewish men were married long before his age. A number of families in Capernaum would be thrilled to have him marry a daughter, the fishing business going well and all.
He felt a tinge of guilt but admitted that his mother too was part of the old world that he, without mentioning it, intended to abandon again as soon as possible.
“There’s Mahli coming from the dock,” Elkanah said, pointing to one of the fishermen who’d joined the partnership since Shama was last home.
“Yes,” Shama said, “I knew who he was when the letter came. He holds up his end of the bargain?”
“Very well,” Elkanah said. “Do you want to go talk with him?”
“No,” Shama said quickly. “Let’s get to the synagogue.”
Elkanah would do whatever Shama wanted. Shama was the eldest son and the founding partner of Capernaum’s fishing partnership. Elkanah unquestionably deferred to him as eldest. That’s what village life was like, with unwritten, unalterable social rules. Any change that came about in Capernaum had been Shama’s doing. Again a tinge of guilt, but Shama was trying not to let himself feel attached again to his family or village. He’d arrived home with the resolution to escape Galilee’s clutches quickly and return to Rome’s opportunities. He’d wedged himself there into the circle of merchants and was finally beginning to be accepted.
Shama had envisioned how Galilee’s fishermen could prosper if they together negotiated fishing rights, port leases, workshop and sales taxes and then bypassed the brokers, selling their own fish products in Rome. His idea. His initiative. His energy convincing others. He’d earned his Roman home and intended to stay there. Although much of the Roman world was still strange to him, he preferred its luxuries.
Yet, oddly, Shama was looking forward to stepping into the synagogue building. Capernaum’s pride. It was the first building of is kind in Galilee: a special place for the community gatherings. He’d watched it built when he was a child. Capernaum would probably consider the building new for twenty generations, but for him it was already the old world.
Neighbor men crowded around, pressing them with greetings as they walked to the synagogue; but the brothers continued inside, conversing little with others. Shama scanned the bare walls and ceiling to view the structure he’d often recalled while gazing upon Rome’s grand architecture. He didn’t know why he’d anticipated viewing the interior of this plain building. Same place. Same people … except now a clump of men entered. He recognized some of the fishermen he’d known. A stranger led them in.
Everyone quieted when the president called attention for prayer and scripture reading, after which the new fellow, the small group’s leader, stepped forward to teach. He proved himself dead serious. His statements offered no room for compromise. He considered his beliefs absolutely correct about scripture and God’s kingdom—how it operated, what it demanded, and who was included. Shama had just admitted that maybe something fresh—other than fish—had actually touched this village, when a man bolted toward the teacher and screamed, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” He resembled a Greek wrestler preparing for a bout, shouting at his opponent and taunting him. At the same time, Shama glimpsed the man’s fear. Arms extended, palms forward, he yelled, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
Shama had observed magicians, tricksters and phonies in Rome staging their outlandish events for gullible audiences. But he’d never been this close or considered that demon possession might be genuine. He wondered if the teacher would leap into bodily combat, the two locked in clinches and blows. Yet the teacher merely rebuked the fellow, “Be silent, and come out of him!” As though the antagonist were actually two beings, the invisible one convulsed the other and, shouting with a loud voice, came out of him.
Everyone crowded forward standing on tip toes to look over those in front to see the man, formerly violent, standing stone still, looking surprised and confused. Loud muttering and gasps swept the gathering. No one had seen such a thing, including Shama. While others exclaimed and mumbled prayers, he realized that this teacher taught something new and did something new.
Outside the synagogue the men milled around with wild gestures and loud voices discussing the exorcism. In the crush someone shouldered next to Shama, “Anything like that in Rome?” It was his uncle, his mother’s brother, who always joined his sister in urging Shama to come back to Capernaum. The years hadn’t changed his frown. Shama was shocked that this was the first thing the man said to him after five years’ absence. Shama didn’t answer, but his uncle wouldn’t leave him alone. “You’re head of the family now. You going to stay home this time?”
This is what family life was like in Galilee. Yet Shama was dizzy with thoughts he’d not spoken to others. Capernaum was stuck in an old world, yet in its way Rome didn’t welcome new things either.
He didn’t have the presence of mind to form a courteous lie. He said, “I planned to be home a couple weeks to conclude all legal details; but, I think I’ll stay a month or so to see what’s new in these parts.”
Preaching point: Jesus’ “new” is graciously disorienting.
* * *
Spiritual Pride Evenly Distributed
by David O. Bales
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
It started in the Corinthian kitchen the week before. Rhoes had served his master’s table and hurried back inside gather the next course. “I’m sure the meat came from the pagan temple again.”
Kajul his fellow slave shrank his forehead into furrows. “Positive?”
“Quite sure.”
“Rhoes, you’re the senior slave, you’ve got to do something.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Rhoes said, “March out, step up to the table, and announce they’re in danger of eating with demons?”
Kajul shook his head, “It’s deadly. We must try to explain—”
“Rhoes!” The master summoned from the eating area.
Rhoes darted out to face a breeze from the Saronic Gulf sweeping over the outdoor eating area. He refilled wine goblets and cleared uneaten food. When he returned to Kajul in the kitchen, he said, “I decided. I’m going to talk to Master this week. I owe it to him not just as a fellow Christian, but as his slave. It will take those responsibilities added together to push me to it.”
“I’ll be praying for you,” Kajul said. He also was called to the table and served there until the master’s guests departed.
That week, having prayed through the night, Rhoes approached his master and explained the spiritual jeopardy of eating meat offered first to idols. “You don’t see the results right away. It’s like a child who recovers from a terrible fever but never grows again.” The master listened and gave a slight smile. He thanked him and released him from the day’s duties. Consequently, when the master held his weekly meal with his aristocratic Christian friends, Rhoes felt lighthearted.
He entered the kitchen after serving the first course and placed the wine jug on the counter with a sense of spiritual satisfaction. The faith of the master and his Christian friends now seemed secure. Kajul rushed in from the side door. His expression destroyed Roes’ joyful mood. “Sorry. Same as last week,” Kajul said, shaking his head.
Rhoes felt struck in his chest. His master had said he’d mention his Christian slaves’ concerns to his rich and educated Christian friends; and, from the first time Rhoes approached the master’s table this afternoon, the men had smiled to him, spoken to him by name, even thanked him when he served them. Their response felt like his reward for risking to warn his master about the perilous habit of eating meat offered first in a pagan temple.
Kajul remained unmoving by the side door, his head bowed in sorrow.
“You sure?” Rhoes asked.
“I was behind the curtain the whole time. I heard you enter and the conversation quieted. All so courteously they spoke to you. Each one. Then you left for the storage room and you became their subject.”
“Me?”
“Well, you as the representative of us Christian slaves. Lamprias. Was he at the table’s far end?”
“Yes, farthest from Master.”
“Thought so. He spoke loudest to Master, saying that a few Sundays ago at Commodius’s Christian gathering he’d tried to explain to us slaves that in Christ there’s no slave or free. He said that his little lecture didn’t seem to do much good because we slaves continue to cause the most problems. Then everyone, or at least it sounded like everyone, chuckled until Master shushed them.”
Rhoes leaned against the table, supporting himself in his grief. “I feel as though Master is a crippled goat circled by a wolf.”
Kajul spoke quietly, as if speaking in an impersonal tone would be less bothersome, “Someone else said, ‘Did you see him eying the meat, like, “Where did that come from?”’”
Rhoes sighed sadly, “Did Master seem at all understanding of what they might be doing to their souls?”
“Not much. Just repeated a couple times ‘We know idols don’t really exist. There’s only one God.’”
“At least he’s nailed that down,” Rhoes said. He’d calmed himself enough to start cutting the bread.
“They kept agreeing with one another, and Quintus—I’m sure it was him—set about explaining your problem. He said it’s because you’ve been accustomed to idols. You can’t detach your mind from the pagan shrine where the food’s bought. He’s sure the problem’s your weak conscience.”
Rhoes dropped his bread knife with an exaggerated shiver. “You know, I can put up with someone disagreeing with me, but it’s downright angering to have someone explaining me. I have to go back out and serve them. My spirit isn’t right about them. I feel defiled. The meat. Their attitude. So puffed up by their supposed knowledge, their superior education. They’re oblivious to how serious this is.” He picked up his knife and swept it in front of him. “They’re like amateur knife jugglers.”
“More like someone’s throwing knives at them and they don’t realize it.”
Rhoes grit his teeth, “Their attitude will slowly destroy them, like rats nibbling at sacks of grain. But we’re slaves and they’re free, no matter how they might use the words ‘slave and free.’ They don’t demonstrate that we’re all family, grafted into God’s people, and they don’t recognize that what they do and why they do it can hurt others.
“Rhoes!” The call came from the dining area. Rhoes scrambled to throw bread on a large platter. Kajul helped him heap fruit on it. Rhoes turned toward the door to the dining area and stopped. “Pray for me, Kajul. This is more difficult than I ever imagined.”
That week the Christian network around Corinth spread the word that the Apostle Paul had written to their gathering. Everyone was urged to attend Aquila and Prisca’s home on Sunday evening where the letter would be read in worship.
Paul’s teaching about meat offered to idols was sadly displeasing to Rhoes and Kajul’s master and his friends. They squirmed when that portion of the letter was read and they left the gathering chastened. They might have exited happier if they’d known that at the same time Rhoes, Kajul and their fellow Christian slaves felt equally convicted by Paul’s words.
Preaching point: The ethics of Christian love takes time and practice (and suffering?) to learn.
* * *
The Beginning of Wisdom
by Peter Andrew Smith
Psalm 111
“I’m not sure.” Alice looked at the two young men standing at the corner waiting for them. “We just met them.”
“Come on, don’t be a baby. We’re going to a public place with them.” Tina rolled her eyes. “It’s early, we’re young, and I think the tall one likes you.”
Alice looked at her phone and then back down the street. “It’s after eleven.”
“So? Do you see anyone else caring?”
Alice scanned the group who had gathered at the coffee house that evening. “Actually yeah, I do. Sue and Paula have already gone back to the residence.”
“Sue and Paula act like a pair of old women.” Tina took her arm. “Come on, the club they’re talking about is just one block over. We walk there with them, we listen to some of the music, and then call it a night.”
Alice bit her lip for a moment. “I get to choose when we go?”
“Promise.”
Alice locked eyes with Tina. “I’ll leave you there alone if I have to.”
“I promise we’ll go when you want to go.” Tina smiled. “You’re going to have so much fun.”
Ten minutes later Alice had to admit that she was enjoying herself. Mark, the taller young man was funny and a good listener and while she paid way too much for the soft drink in front of her, the band was good.
She leaned over to Mark. “You say that you know the bass guitarist?”
“He went to high school with me.” Mark smiled. “I’m glad you and Tina decided to join us. Ollie really likes her.”
Alice watched the two laughing on the dance floor. “I think the feeling must be mutual.”
“Another soft drink?” Mark asked.
Alice shook her head. “Not for me, thanks.”
“Be right back” he disappeared into the crowd.
“Well you seem to be hitting it off.” Tina slid into the booth beside her and downed her soft drink in one gulp.
“He’s nice.”
“Glad you came?”
“Yeah.” Alice looked at her phone. “We need to get going soon.”
“Really?” Tina frowned. “I thought you were having fun.”
“I am but tomorrow is Sunday and I told the chaplain that I would read the lesson from Deuteronomy in chapel.”
“Someone can cover for you.”
Alice shook her head. “Tina, you agreed when I came to this club.”
“Ollie said there is a pizza stand just down the way. We can get a slice and then head back.”
Alice looked at her phone one more time. “One slice and we eat it on the way home.”
Tina gave her a quick hug and dashed off.
“I gather we’re getting something to eat.” Mark said as he rejoined her. They gathered up their things and met Ollie and Tina by the door. As they walked to the pizza joint Mark checked his watch.
“Something wrong?” Alice asked.
“The company is great, but I think I need to call it a night.” Mark looked at his watch again. “I need to be up in the morning for church.”
“Come on, Mark, stop being such a choir boy and enjoy yourself,” Ollie said from in front of them. “A night of carousing will do you some good.”
“Not going to happen, Ollie. You remember what I said about this being the last before home.”
Ollie grumbled something that Alice couldn’t hear but nodded toward Mark.
“Sorry if you think that is square or something.” Mark said to Alice.
“Actually, I was just telling Tina the same thing.” Alice smiled. “What church do you go to?”
“I sing in the choir at First Street,” Mark said.
“So you really are a choir boy.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Alice asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you ever worry about what Ollie and others think about you going to church?”
Mark shook his head. “I worry more about what God thinks about me. Like the psalmist says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I think about what God wants and it keeps me on the straight and narrow.”
“That makes sense to me.” Alice reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m reading in chapel tomorrow morning which is why Tina and I are headed back to the residence after we get pizza.”
“Nice.”
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Sure.”
“Do people even say ‘square anymore’?”
“I run the projector at the campus movie theater and they show a lot of older movies.” Mark looked over at her. “They’re showing the Ten Commandments next Wednesday. Would you like to go?”
Alice smiled widely. “I would.”
“See you then!” Mark collected Ollie and they headed off for their apartment.
“What are you grinning about?” Tina asked as they started walking back toward the residence. “Oh, Mark is cute.”
Alice took a bite of the pizza. “More than that. He’s wise.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 31, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Something New In Old Capernaum” by David O. Bales
“Spiritual Pride Evenly Distributed” by David O. Bales
“The Beginning of Wisdom” by Peter Andrew Smith
Something New In Old Capernaum
by David O. Bales
Mark 1:21-28
Nothing seemed new. The people were older, but all of them recognizable. They all knew him, expected he’d show up a few months after his father died. From the perspective of Capernaum’s citizens, Shama was “home.” But Shama was definitely not home. He’d complete his legal and family functions quickly and depart again for Rome.
“Good morning. Glad to see you again,” his mother’s neighbor spoke to him as Shama and his brother Elkanah exited the alley from their mother’s home. He smiled and acknowledged the greeting and urged Elkanah to continue and not get into a conversation. Shama was looking sideways to the docks and yet turned unerringly onto the path to the synagogue without a glance. Probably, he could walk blindfolded through the village and never stumble because nothing changed.
He’d endured enough conversation this morning, his mother continuing her last night’s pecking questions as soon as he stepped in the door: How was the business in Rome? How much fish did Romans eat each week? What patron and what synagogue had he attached to? Jewish families with marriageable daughters there? It was as though the sabbath eve obligation had become asking questions of back-in-town sons. This morning over breakfast for the third time she brought up that Jewish men were married long before his age. A number of families in Capernaum would be thrilled to have him marry a daughter, the fishing business going well and all.
He felt a tinge of guilt but admitted that his mother too was part of the old world that he, without mentioning it, intended to abandon again as soon as possible.
“There’s Mahli coming from the dock,” Elkanah said, pointing to one of the fishermen who’d joined the partnership since Shama was last home.
“Yes,” Shama said, “I knew who he was when the letter came. He holds up his end of the bargain?”
“Very well,” Elkanah said. “Do you want to go talk with him?”
“No,” Shama said quickly. “Let’s get to the synagogue.”
Elkanah would do whatever Shama wanted. Shama was the eldest son and the founding partner of Capernaum’s fishing partnership. Elkanah unquestionably deferred to him as eldest. That’s what village life was like, with unwritten, unalterable social rules. Any change that came about in Capernaum had been Shama’s doing. Again a tinge of guilt, but Shama was trying not to let himself feel attached again to his family or village. He’d arrived home with the resolution to escape Galilee’s clutches quickly and return to Rome’s opportunities. He’d wedged himself there into the circle of merchants and was finally beginning to be accepted.
Shama had envisioned how Galilee’s fishermen could prosper if they together negotiated fishing rights, port leases, workshop and sales taxes and then bypassed the brokers, selling their own fish products in Rome. His idea. His initiative. His energy convincing others. He’d earned his Roman home and intended to stay there. Although much of the Roman world was still strange to him, he preferred its luxuries.
Yet, oddly, Shama was looking forward to stepping into the synagogue building. Capernaum’s pride. It was the first building of is kind in Galilee: a special place for the community gatherings. He’d watched it built when he was a child. Capernaum would probably consider the building new for twenty generations, but for him it was already the old world.
Neighbor men crowded around, pressing them with greetings as they walked to the synagogue; but the brothers continued inside, conversing little with others. Shama scanned the bare walls and ceiling to view the structure he’d often recalled while gazing upon Rome’s grand architecture. He didn’t know why he’d anticipated viewing the interior of this plain building. Same place. Same people … except now a clump of men entered. He recognized some of the fishermen he’d known. A stranger led them in.
Everyone quieted when the president called attention for prayer and scripture reading, after which the new fellow, the small group’s leader, stepped forward to teach. He proved himself dead serious. His statements offered no room for compromise. He considered his beliefs absolutely correct about scripture and God’s kingdom—how it operated, what it demanded, and who was included. Shama had just admitted that maybe something fresh—other than fish—had actually touched this village, when a man bolted toward the teacher and screamed, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” He resembled a Greek wrestler preparing for a bout, shouting at his opponent and taunting him. At the same time, Shama glimpsed the man’s fear. Arms extended, palms forward, he yelled, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
Shama had observed magicians, tricksters and phonies in Rome staging their outlandish events for gullible audiences. But he’d never been this close or considered that demon possession might be genuine. He wondered if the teacher would leap into bodily combat, the two locked in clinches and blows. Yet the teacher merely rebuked the fellow, “Be silent, and come out of him!” As though the antagonist were actually two beings, the invisible one convulsed the other and, shouting with a loud voice, came out of him.
Everyone crowded forward standing on tip toes to look over those in front to see the man, formerly violent, standing stone still, looking surprised and confused. Loud muttering and gasps swept the gathering. No one had seen such a thing, including Shama. While others exclaimed and mumbled prayers, he realized that this teacher taught something new and did something new.
Outside the synagogue the men milled around with wild gestures and loud voices discussing the exorcism. In the crush someone shouldered next to Shama, “Anything like that in Rome?” It was his uncle, his mother’s brother, who always joined his sister in urging Shama to come back to Capernaum. The years hadn’t changed his frown. Shama was shocked that this was the first thing the man said to him after five years’ absence. Shama didn’t answer, but his uncle wouldn’t leave him alone. “You’re head of the family now. You going to stay home this time?”
This is what family life was like in Galilee. Yet Shama was dizzy with thoughts he’d not spoken to others. Capernaum was stuck in an old world, yet in its way Rome didn’t welcome new things either.
He didn’t have the presence of mind to form a courteous lie. He said, “I planned to be home a couple weeks to conclude all legal details; but, I think I’ll stay a month or so to see what’s new in these parts.”
Preaching point: Jesus’ “new” is graciously disorienting.
* * *
Spiritual Pride Evenly Distributed
by David O. Bales
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
It started in the Corinthian kitchen the week before. Rhoes had served his master’s table and hurried back inside gather the next course. “I’m sure the meat came from the pagan temple again.”
Kajul his fellow slave shrank his forehead into furrows. “Positive?”
“Quite sure.”
“Rhoes, you’re the senior slave, you’ve got to do something.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Rhoes said, “March out, step up to the table, and announce they’re in danger of eating with demons?”
Kajul shook his head, “It’s deadly. We must try to explain—”
“Rhoes!” The master summoned from the eating area.
Rhoes darted out to face a breeze from the Saronic Gulf sweeping over the outdoor eating area. He refilled wine goblets and cleared uneaten food. When he returned to Kajul in the kitchen, he said, “I decided. I’m going to talk to Master this week. I owe it to him not just as a fellow Christian, but as his slave. It will take those responsibilities added together to push me to it.”
“I’ll be praying for you,” Kajul said. He also was called to the table and served there until the master’s guests departed.
That week, having prayed through the night, Rhoes approached his master and explained the spiritual jeopardy of eating meat offered first to idols. “You don’t see the results right away. It’s like a child who recovers from a terrible fever but never grows again.” The master listened and gave a slight smile. He thanked him and released him from the day’s duties. Consequently, when the master held his weekly meal with his aristocratic Christian friends, Rhoes felt lighthearted.
He entered the kitchen after serving the first course and placed the wine jug on the counter with a sense of spiritual satisfaction. The faith of the master and his Christian friends now seemed secure. Kajul rushed in from the side door. His expression destroyed Roes’ joyful mood. “Sorry. Same as last week,” Kajul said, shaking his head.
Rhoes felt struck in his chest. His master had said he’d mention his Christian slaves’ concerns to his rich and educated Christian friends; and, from the first time Rhoes approached the master’s table this afternoon, the men had smiled to him, spoken to him by name, even thanked him when he served them. Their response felt like his reward for risking to warn his master about the perilous habit of eating meat offered first in a pagan temple.
Kajul remained unmoving by the side door, his head bowed in sorrow.
“You sure?” Rhoes asked.
“I was behind the curtain the whole time. I heard you enter and the conversation quieted. All so courteously they spoke to you. Each one. Then you left for the storage room and you became their subject.”
“Me?”
“Well, you as the representative of us Christian slaves. Lamprias. Was he at the table’s far end?”
“Yes, farthest from Master.”
“Thought so. He spoke loudest to Master, saying that a few Sundays ago at Commodius’s Christian gathering he’d tried to explain to us slaves that in Christ there’s no slave or free. He said that his little lecture didn’t seem to do much good because we slaves continue to cause the most problems. Then everyone, or at least it sounded like everyone, chuckled until Master shushed them.”
Rhoes leaned against the table, supporting himself in his grief. “I feel as though Master is a crippled goat circled by a wolf.”
Kajul spoke quietly, as if speaking in an impersonal tone would be less bothersome, “Someone else said, ‘Did you see him eying the meat, like, “Where did that come from?”’”
Rhoes sighed sadly, “Did Master seem at all understanding of what they might be doing to their souls?”
“Not much. Just repeated a couple times ‘We know idols don’t really exist. There’s only one God.’”
“At least he’s nailed that down,” Rhoes said. He’d calmed himself enough to start cutting the bread.
“They kept agreeing with one another, and Quintus—I’m sure it was him—set about explaining your problem. He said it’s because you’ve been accustomed to idols. You can’t detach your mind from the pagan shrine where the food’s bought. He’s sure the problem’s your weak conscience.”
Rhoes dropped his bread knife with an exaggerated shiver. “You know, I can put up with someone disagreeing with me, but it’s downright angering to have someone explaining me. I have to go back out and serve them. My spirit isn’t right about them. I feel defiled. The meat. Their attitude. So puffed up by their supposed knowledge, their superior education. They’re oblivious to how serious this is.” He picked up his knife and swept it in front of him. “They’re like amateur knife jugglers.”
“More like someone’s throwing knives at them and they don’t realize it.”
Rhoes grit his teeth, “Their attitude will slowly destroy them, like rats nibbling at sacks of grain. But we’re slaves and they’re free, no matter how they might use the words ‘slave and free.’ They don’t demonstrate that we’re all family, grafted into God’s people, and they don’t recognize that what they do and why they do it can hurt others.
“Rhoes!” The call came from the dining area. Rhoes scrambled to throw bread on a large platter. Kajul helped him heap fruit on it. Rhoes turned toward the door to the dining area and stopped. “Pray for me, Kajul. This is more difficult than I ever imagined.”
That week the Christian network around Corinth spread the word that the Apostle Paul had written to their gathering. Everyone was urged to attend Aquila and Prisca’s home on Sunday evening where the letter would be read in worship.
Paul’s teaching about meat offered to idols was sadly displeasing to Rhoes and Kajul’s master and his friends. They squirmed when that portion of the letter was read and they left the gathering chastened. They might have exited happier if they’d known that at the same time Rhoes, Kajul and their fellow Christian slaves felt equally convicted by Paul’s words.
Preaching point: The ethics of Christian love takes time and practice (and suffering?) to learn.
* * *
The Beginning of Wisdom
by Peter Andrew Smith
Psalm 111
“I’m not sure.” Alice looked at the two young men standing at the corner waiting for them. “We just met them.”
“Come on, don’t be a baby. We’re going to a public place with them.” Tina rolled her eyes. “It’s early, we’re young, and I think the tall one likes you.”
Alice looked at her phone and then back down the street. “It’s after eleven.”
“So? Do you see anyone else caring?”
Alice scanned the group who had gathered at the coffee house that evening. “Actually yeah, I do. Sue and Paula have already gone back to the residence.”
“Sue and Paula act like a pair of old women.” Tina took her arm. “Come on, the club they’re talking about is just one block over. We walk there with them, we listen to some of the music, and then call it a night.”
Alice bit her lip for a moment. “I get to choose when we go?”
“Promise.”
Alice locked eyes with Tina. “I’ll leave you there alone if I have to.”
“I promise we’ll go when you want to go.” Tina smiled. “You’re going to have so much fun.”
Ten minutes later Alice had to admit that she was enjoying herself. Mark, the taller young man was funny and a good listener and while she paid way too much for the soft drink in front of her, the band was good.
She leaned over to Mark. “You say that you know the bass guitarist?”
“He went to high school with me.” Mark smiled. “I’m glad you and Tina decided to join us. Ollie really likes her.”
Alice watched the two laughing on the dance floor. “I think the feeling must be mutual.”
“Another soft drink?” Mark asked.
Alice shook her head. “Not for me, thanks.”
“Be right back” he disappeared into the crowd.
“Well you seem to be hitting it off.” Tina slid into the booth beside her and downed her soft drink in one gulp.
“He’s nice.”
“Glad you came?”
“Yeah.” Alice looked at her phone. “We need to get going soon.”
“Really?” Tina frowned. “I thought you were having fun.”
“I am but tomorrow is Sunday and I told the chaplain that I would read the lesson from Deuteronomy in chapel.”
“Someone can cover for you.”
Alice shook her head. “Tina, you agreed when I came to this club.”
“Ollie said there is a pizza stand just down the way. We can get a slice and then head back.”
Alice looked at her phone one more time. “One slice and we eat it on the way home.”
Tina gave her a quick hug and dashed off.
“I gather we’re getting something to eat.” Mark said as he rejoined her. They gathered up their things and met Ollie and Tina by the door. As they walked to the pizza joint Mark checked his watch.
“Something wrong?” Alice asked.
“The company is great, but I think I need to call it a night.” Mark looked at his watch again. “I need to be up in the morning for church.”
“Come on, Mark, stop being such a choir boy and enjoy yourself,” Ollie said from in front of them. “A night of carousing will do you some good.”
“Not going to happen, Ollie. You remember what I said about this being the last before home.”
Ollie grumbled something that Alice couldn’t hear but nodded toward Mark.
“Sorry if you think that is square or something.” Mark said to Alice.
“Actually, I was just telling Tina the same thing.” Alice smiled. “What church do you go to?”
“I sing in the choir at First Street,” Mark said.
“So you really are a choir boy.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Alice asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you ever worry about what Ollie and others think about you going to church?”
Mark shook his head. “I worry more about what God thinks about me. Like the psalmist says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I think about what God wants and it keeps me on the straight and narrow.”
“That makes sense to me.” Alice reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m reading in chapel tomorrow morning which is why Tina and I are headed back to the residence after we get pizza.”
“Nice.”
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Sure.”
“Do people even say ‘square anymore’?”
“I run the projector at the campus movie theater and they show a lot of older movies.” Mark looked over at her. “They’re showing the Ten Commandments next Wednesday. Would you like to go?”
Alice smiled widely. “I would.”
“See you then!” Mark collected Ollie and they headed off for their apartment.
“What are you grinning about?” Tina asked as they started walking back toward the residence. “Oh, Mark is cute.”
Alice took a bite of the pizza. “More than that. He’s wise.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 31, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
