Sons From Far Away, Daughters In Nurses' Arms
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Sons from Far Away, Daughters in Nurses' Arms" by David O. Bales
"Tenting Among Us" by Frank Ramirez
"God's Resolutions" by Timothy F. Merrill
What's Up This Week
Whether you're celebrating Epiphany Sunday or the Second Sunday after Christmas this week, this edition of StoryShare includes though-provoking material. In our feature story, David Bales illustrates Isaiah's prophecy of the ingathering of the dispersed Hebrews with a pastor's recollection and witness of the ways God puts the puzzle pieces of our lives together and brings together family and friends. Frank Ramirez discusses the place of theater in the church -- and notes that while the church has at times had an ambivalent relationship with it, there is a long history of using drama to depict biblical truth. And while we still are enthusiastic about those New Year's resolutions, Timothy Merrill shares a brief meditation on them. He concludes that while we might struggle to keep our resolutions, if anyone can keep resolutions, God can!
* * * * * * * * *
Sons from Far Away, Daughters in Nurses' Arms
by David O. Bales
Isaiah 60:1-6
"Thank you for the introduction," Pastor Bailey said to Pastor Danning. "That was the least you could say, and I'm glad it was. Two more people here could supply further extraneous, humorous, or embarrassing information about our past relationship."
Pastor Danning spoke over her shoulder as she stepped down from the sanctuary, "I'll just sit down and resist the temptation." She sat in the congregation beside her husband Gary. He was sitting beside Pastor Bailey's wife Jamie, who was laughing more than anyone.
"It's a great joy," Pastor Bailey said, turning to the congregation, "for Jamie and me to visit here in the Anaconda church with Patty and Gary -- no matter what Patty says about my camping ability. Because we two couples have found our lives gently but obviously woven together for over two decades, I've chosen this morning to illustrate our scripture text with the chronicle of when Jamie, I, our three daughters, and our dog moved to Montana 21 years ago.
"Our youngest daughter had been born six weeks before. My dad helped us move by driving our pickup. We shuffled kids and dog back and forth between the two vehicles and tried to keep the two older girls busy for the three-day drive. We hoped to arrive in Miles City the same day as the moving truck, but such things are unpredictable. We were anxious and didn't enjoy the scenery as much as we should have. We were just outside of Anaconda on I-90. Dad was driving behind us in the pickup with one of the girls when he passed us.
" 'What's he doing?' Jamie said.
" 'I don't know,' I said. 'I wonder if the old guy has stripped his threads.'
"We followed him for a few miles. Then, within view of Anaconda, he drove onto the shoulder and stopped. We wondered if he was sick. I stopped and walked to the pickup. He rolled down his window. 'See that chimney over there?' he asked. Well, who can't see that chimney?
" 'At one time that was the highest free-standing chimney in the world.' I nodded, being confused, because Dad hadn't stopped before to provide tourist information.
"He said, 'Just before the First World War my dad was riding the rails out here in the west looking for a job. In Anaconda a railroad detective discovered him in a boxcar and tossed him off the train. In 1934 our family was traveling west looking for jobs in the fruit orchards and my dad stopped our Model T outside Anaconda. He pointed to that smokestack and told us it was the tallest on earth and that he'd been beat up and thrown off the train here. When he stopped to show us the chimney he said, "I never thought I'd be back here with a family and a dog." '
"Then my dad said, 'And I never thought I'd be back here with my kid and his family and a dog!'
"Such is the way that life works. The paths of families and friends over the generations zig-zag, double-back, and criss-cross in surprising ways. Jamie and I here in Montana met your pastor, Patty. Gary was then the pastor in Jordan, Montana. Now, 21 years later, Patty is also a pastor and the four of us parents get to enjoy the relationship that our two daughters have established as they attend college together in Idaho.
"God has a hand in all this. I don't believe that the travels of any of us are a blind stumbling in the dark. For those who trust God, as Isaiah says, 'Darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you.' But I also don't think that we merely follow an invisible map that God has formerly planned for us -- all roads prepared and all future turns marked in red.
"God is often, by God's own choice, in the background, arranging grace to match our freedom and preparing surprises that make us acknowledge heaven's dealings in earth's affairs. I believe God isn't here just to tell us what to do. God loves us and enjoys living with us.
"Most of us, looking back on our lives and the migrations of our families, can discern moments when God's partnership with us is more noticeable. Such times have occurred in the lives of us four over these last 21 years. We've experienced God's presence in our families, sometimes, as Isaiah speaks, of God bringing sons from far away. Once more, as we stop and gaze at a giant smokestack and gather with old friends in worship, we give witness to the love of God who also is carrying our daughters as in nurses' arms.
"God simply won't let us get away. God's grace in Jesus Christ even tracks us down to catch us... and to bless us. Here, again, we realize in our sometimes crossed-up lives that the God of the centuries and of the generations speaks surprising grace even to us: 'Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.' "
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
Tenting Among Us
by Frank Ramirez
John 1:(1-9) 10-18
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
-- John 1:14
Imagine that you are living in a medieval English village. As a special religious holiday approaches you can't help but grow excited -- once again the entire story of the Bible is about to come alive. A cycle of plays, referred to now as Mystery Plays, will be put on by the many guilds of the area. Each one has been assigned a portion of the story, from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment.
Practice has been intense. You may have heard, as you walked by the glovers or the butchers, the masters in the trades along with the apprentices practicing their lines. Costumes have been dug out of trunks, and machinery to simulate heaven and hell have been dusted off and brought back into operation.
Long before dawn on the day of the festival the actors have gathered. These are people you know, who you have grown up with. But they are transformed, wearing crowns or wings or regal robes, carrying spears. Great carts have been readied with backdrops, properties and the special effects that never fail to impress the crowds. As day begins so do the plays, and they will continue long into the night, even perhaps over several days.
The world will be created again, Adam and Eve are driven out of the Garden, Cain kills Abel, Abraham is prevented from sacrificing Isaac, Pharaoh opposes Moses, and the prophets process one by one. The angel comes to Mary, Jesus is born, the Magi arrive with great pomp, and the family flees into Egypt. Jesus is baptized, he carries on his ministry, he arrives in triumph into Jerusalem, is betrayed by Judas, suffers, is crucified, and is buried, then is raised from the dead. The apostles take the gospel into all the world, and at last, at the judgment, the sheep are separated from the goats.
In an era where most people could not read, these plays were like stained-glass windows come to life. Some of the plays stuck pretty close to the biblical story. Others added new characters and human twists on the tales. Some were fairly simple. Others are still considered works of theatrical genius.
In the theater, words are made flesh and come alive in our midst. In some ways theater provides an extraordinary paradigm for the business of church and God's people, yet historically the church, at least the established church, has been uncomfortable and often out-and-out antagonistic towards the theater.
I wonder if that has always been the case. When the Apostle Paul tells us that "Bad company ruins good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33), he is not quoting from Old Testament scripture but from the comic playwright Menander, the founder of the modern situation comedy and a writer so popular that phrases from his comedies were part of ordinary speech.
Paul also uses images from the theater. Although the acoustics in ancient Greek theaters were nothing short of extraordinary, crowds numbering in the tens of thousands meant that many people sat too far away to read facial expressions. Actors wore oversized masks to portray complex emotions. Paul used the word for these masks, known as hupocritese, as an image for those he called hypocrites, people wearing emotions on their face for show.
A document attributed to the second-century Christian writer Justin Martyr consists of little more than quotations from Greek comedy and tragedy, using well-known lines to demonstrate that all along even pagan literature has been pointing to Jesus! Certainly Paul and other early Christians knew their theater well enough to quote.
Part of the central core of the Christian confession is the proclamation in John 1:14: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The Greek word for dwelt, skene, is the word for "tent," and alludes at the least to the tabernacle in the desert, which was not a permanent structure but could be moved around as needed.
Just as the Word is made flesh, so words are made flesh in our lives together as believers. In the sermon words put flesh on biblical concepts to make them come alive. The Word of God is made flesh when in our lives of service the holy command for justice and righteousness comes alive. Certainly the Living Word lives in our midst when we kneel and wash each other's feet as brethren.
That word skene is not only crucial theologically, but theatrically as well. The English word "scene" comes from skene, and thus the latter is the root for theatrical backdrops, which in the Middle Ages were tent-like structures used for the medieval mystery plays that told the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation, and which today might be flats, curtains, or other backdrops.
The theater is the most incarnational of arts, and yet is one of the most mistrusted by the church. Preachers in many ages have railed against the stage as the corrupter of youth, and the despoiler of women's virtues.
The theater is certainly a dangerous art, especially if you are one who treasures the status quo. In most ages clothes defined the person. Eras which believed there was something qualitatively different about noble and commoner insisted that you only wear the clothes of your station. Yet actors wore the clothing of all stations. The same actor (usually male) might be a man or a woman, an elder or a youth, a nobleman or a pauper, and pull the part off well enough to fool anyone. This is frightening to at the upper reaches of society, whose welfare depends on the poor accepting their lot.
Christians gathered -- slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile -- at the same table in a way that scandalized the Roman Empire. Certainly we who don robes to descend into the river to be made a new creation will gladly accept the transformation that comes as actors don costumes and turn our world upside-down.
But we don't. Christians have often wanted a tightly controlled, safe, didactic, and pious theater. The church distrusts the most incarnational of arts.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
God's Resolutions
by Timothy F. Merrill
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Last year, I decided to get in better shape. I hooked up with a fitness trainer, and he developed a program to help me tone the upper and lower body.
In the days after Christmas and the first weeks of January, I often had to wait to get on the weight-training equipment. I tried visiting the gym at different times of day, but it was generally crowded.
After the Super Bowl, however, the population at the rec center thinned out. No trouble getting time on the equipment. The reason was obvious: People's initial enthusiasm for fitness following the Thanksgiving to Christmas orgy had waned. Life had returned to normal, and there wasn't likely to be another spike in fitness activity until -- perhaps -- Lent.
I stayed on with my trainer, but he had to quit in March because of some family difficulties. I kept at it another three weeks, and then I quit, too.
We seldom keep resolutions once we make them, but it does feel good to make them. It feels like we're taking control of our lives and bodies. We're taking action; we've got a plan. Feels good.
Generally, we vow to exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, cut down on alcohol, eat a healthier diet, and make new friends. One study discovered that after two months, about 63 percent of resolution-makers were still keeping their number one resolution. I fell into that group. Three months later it was over for me.
The experts say that the keys to being successful with resolutions are to be committed, to have some coping strategies at the ready, and to keep track of progress.
You're doomed to failure, they say, if your resolutions are planned in a New Year's Eve drunken stupor, if they're made hastily at the last minute, and if they're framed in absolutes: "I'll never eat a double-cheese bacon-mushroom burger again!"
The research also revealed that success was more likely to follow resolutions to start something, than to stop something.
One set of resolutions may not be enough. You have your personal resolutions, but then you need another set of resolutions in your persona as a parent -- that's a whole 'nother list. Then you have your list of spousal resolutions. How long is that list! Perhaps you lay out a program of changed behavior as an employee, or boss, or teacher, or student, or stepparent. You also think prayerfully about your spiritual life because you want to be a better Christian ("I'm going to read my Bible more and I'm going to pray more," etc.).
Frankly, it's all too much for me.
But it's not too much for God. Look at this text. Notice all the "I wills" of this text. Here God makes a few promises -- resolutions -- if you will, and if there is anyone who can keep resolutions, it's God.
Timothy F. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press). He is also the author of the CSS volume Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Series IV, Cycle C), in which this story appears.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply e-mail the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, January 4, 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
"Sons from Far Away, Daughters in Nurses' Arms" by David O. Bales
"Tenting Among Us" by Frank Ramirez
"God's Resolutions" by Timothy F. Merrill
What's Up This Week
Whether you're celebrating Epiphany Sunday or the Second Sunday after Christmas this week, this edition of StoryShare includes though-provoking material. In our feature story, David Bales illustrates Isaiah's prophecy of the ingathering of the dispersed Hebrews with a pastor's recollection and witness of the ways God puts the puzzle pieces of our lives together and brings together family and friends. Frank Ramirez discusses the place of theater in the church -- and notes that while the church has at times had an ambivalent relationship with it, there is a long history of using drama to depict biblical truth. And while we still are enthusiastic about those New Year's resolutions, Timothy Merrill shares a brief meditation on them. He concludes that while we might struggle to keep our resolutions, if anyone can keep resolutions, God can!
* * * * * * * * *
Sons from Far Away, Daughters in Nurses' Arms
by David O. Bales
Isaiah 60:1-6
"Thank you for the introduction," Pastor Bailey said to Pastor Danning. "That was the least you could say, and I'm glad it was. Two more people here could supply further extraneous, humorous, or embarrassing information about our past relationship."
Pastor Danning spoke over her shoulder as she stepped down from the sanctuary, "I'll just sit down and resist the temptation." She sat in the congregation beside her husband Gary. He was sitting beside Pastor Bailey's wife Jamie, who was laughing more than anyone.
"It's a great joy," Pastor Bailey said, turning to the congregation, "for Jamie and me to visit here in the Anaconda church with Patty and Gary -- no matter what Patty says about my camping ability. Because we two couples have found our lives gently but obviously woven together for over two decades, I've chosen this morning to illustrate our scripture text with the chronicle of when Jamie, I, our three daughters, and our dog moved to Montana 21 years ago.
"Our youngest daughter had been born six weeks before. My dad helped us move by driving our pickup. We shuffled kids and dog back and forth between the two vehicles and tried to keep the two older girls busy for the three-day drive. We hoped to arrive in Miles City the same day as the moving truck, but such things are unpredictable. We were anxious and didn't enjoy the scenery as much as we should have. We were just outside of Anaconda on I-90. Dad was driving behind us in the pickup with one of the girls when he passed us.
" 'What's he doing?' Jamie said.
" 'I don't know,' I said. 'I wonder if the old guy has stripped his threads.'
"We followed him for a few miles. Then, within view of Anaconda, he drove onto the shoulder and stopped. We wondered if he was sick. I stopped and walked to the pickup. He rolled down his window. 'See that chimney over there?' he asked. Well, who can't see that chimney?
" 'At one time that was the highest free-standing chimney in the world.' I nodded, being confused, because Dad hadn't stopped before to provide tourist information.
"He said, 'Just before the First World War my dad was riding the rails out here in the west looking for a job. In Anaconda a railroad detective discovered him in a boxcar and tossed him off the train. In 1934 our family was traveling west looking for jobs in the fruit orchards and my dad stopped our Model T outside Anaconda. He pointed to that smokestack and told us it was the tallest on earth and that he'd been beat up and thrown off the train here. When he stopped to show us the chimney he said, "I never thought I'd be back here with a family and a dog." '
"Then my dad said, 'And I never thought I'd be back here with my kid and his family and a dog!'
"Such is the way that life works. The paths of families and friends over the generations zig-zag, double-back, and criss-cross in surprising ways. Jamie and I here in Montana met your pastor, Patty. Gary was then the pastor in Jordan, Montana. Now, 21 years later, Patty is also a pastor and the four of us parents get to enjoy the relationship that our two daughters have established as they attend college together in Idaho.
"God has a hand in all this. I don't believe that the travels of any of us are a blind stumbling in the dark. For those who trust God, as Isaiah says, 'Darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you.' But I also don't think that we merely follow an invisible map that God has formerly planned for us -- all roads prepared and all future turns marked in red.
"God is often, by God's own choice, in the background, arranging grace to match our freedom and preparing surprises that make us acknowledge heaven's dealings in earth's affairs. I believe God isn't here just to tell us what to do. God loves us and enjoys living with us.
"Most of us, looking back on our lives and the migrations of our families, can discern moments when God's partnership with us is more noticeable. Such times have occurred in the lives of us four over these last 21 years. We've experienced God's presence in our families, sometimes, as Isaiah speaks, of God bringing sons from far away. Once more, as we stop and gaze at a giant smokestack and gather with old friends in worship, we give witness to the love of God who also is carrying our daughters as in nurses' arms.
"God simply won't let us get away. God's grace in Jesus Christ even tracks us down to catch us... and to bless us. Here, again, we realize in our sometimes crossed-up lives that the God of the centuries and of the generations speaks surprising grace even to us: 'Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.' "
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
Tenting Among Us
by Frank Ramirez
John 1:(1-9) 10-18
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
-- John 1:14
Imagine that you are living in a medieval English village. As a special religious holiday approaches you can't help but grow excited -- once again the entire story of the Bible is about to come alive. A cycle of plays, referred to now as Mystery Plays, will be put on by the many guilds of the area. Each one has been assigned a portion of the story, from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment.
Practice has been intense. You may have heard, as you walked by the glovers or the butchers, the masters in the trades along with the apprentices practicing their lines. Costumes have been dug out of trunks, and machinery to simulate heaven and hell have been dusted off and brought back into operation.
Long before dawn on the day of the festival the actors have gathered. These are people you know, who you have grown up with. But they are transformed, wearing crowns or wings or regal robes, carrying spears. Great carts have been readied with backdrops, properties and the special effects that never fail to impress the crowds. As day begins so do the plays, and they will continue long into the night, even perhaps over several days.
The world will be created again, Adam and Eve are driven out of the Garden, Cain kills Abel, Abraham is prevented from sacrificing Isaac, Pharaoh opposes Moses, and the prophets process one by one. The angel comes to Mary, Jesus is born, the Magi arrive with great pomp, and the family flees into Egypt. Jesus is baptized, he carries on his ministry, he arrives in triumph into Jerusalem, is betrayed by Judas, suffers, is crucified, and is buried, then is raised from the dead. The apostles take the gospel into all the world, and at last, at the judgment, the sheep are separated from the goats.
In an era where most people could not read, these plays were like stained-glass windows come to life. Some of the plays stuck pretty close to the biblical story. Others added new characters and human twists on the tales. Some were fairly simple. Others are still considered works of theatrical genius.
In the theater, words are made flesh and come alive in our midst. In some ways theater provides an extraordinary paradigm for the business of church and God's people, yet historically the church, at least the established church, has been uncomfortable and often out-and-out antagonistic towards the theater.
I wonder if that has always been the case. When the Apostle Paul tells us that "Bad company ruins good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33), he is not quoting from Old Testament scripture but from the comic playwright Menander, the founder of the modern situation comedy and a writer so popular that phrases from his comedies were part of ordinary speech.
Paul also uses images from the theater. Although the acoustics in ancient Greek theaters were nothing short of extraordinary, crowds numbering in the tens of thousands meant that many people sat too far away to read facial expressions. Actors wore oversized masks to portray complex emotions. Paul used the word for these masks, known as hupocritese, as an image for those he called hypocrites, people wearing emotions on their face for show.
A document attributed to the second-century Christian writer Justin Martyr consists of little more than quotations from Greek comedy and tragedy, using well-known lines to demonstrate that all along even pagan literature has been pointing to Jesus! Certainly Paul and other early Christians knew their theater well enough to quote.
Part of the central core of the Christian confession is the proclamation in John 1:14: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The Greek word for dwelt, skene, is the word for "tent," and alludes at the least to the tabernacle in the desert, which was not a permanent structure but could be moved around as needed.
Just as the Word is made flesh, so words are made flesh in our lives together as believers. In the sermon words put flesh on biblical concepts to make them come alive. The Word of God is made flesh when in our lives of service the holy command for justice and righteousness comes alive. Certainly the Living Word lives in our midst when we kneel and wash each other's feet as brethren.
That word skene is not only crucial theologically, but theatrically as well. The English word "scene" comes from skene, and thus the latter is the root for theatrical backdrops, which in the Middle Ages were tent-like structures used for the medieval mystery plays that told the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation, and which today might be flats, curtains, or other backdrops.
The theater is the most incarnational of arts, and yet is one of the most mistrusted by the church. Preachers in many ages have railed against the stage as the corrupter of youth, and the despoiler of women's virtues.
The theater is certainly a dangerous art, especially if you are one who treasures the status quo. In most ages clothes defined the person. Eras which believed there was something qualitatively different about noble and commoner insisted that you only wear the clothes of your station. Yet actors wore the clothing of all stations. The same actor (usually male) might be a man or a woman, an elder or a youth, a nobleman or a pauper, and pull the part off well enough to fool anyone. This is frightening to at the upper reaches of society, whose welfare depends on the poor accepting their lot.
Christians gathered -- slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile -- at the same table in a way that scandalized the Roman Empire. Certainly we who don robes to descend into the river to be made a new creation will gladly accept the transformation that comes as actors don costumes and turn our world upside-down.
But we don't. Christians have often wanted a tightly controlled, safe, didactic, and pious theater. The church distrusts the most incarnational of arts.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
God's Resolutions
by Timothy F. Merrill
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Last year, I decided to get in better shape. I hooked up with a fitness trainer, and he developed a program to help me tone the upper and lower body.
In the days after Christmas and the first weeks of January, I often had to wait to get on the weight-training equipment. I tried visiting the gym at different times of day, but it was generally crowded.
After the Super Bowl, however, the population at the rec center thinned out. No trouble getting time on the equipment. The reason was obvious: People's initial enthusiasm for fitness following the Thanksgiving to Christmas orgy had waned. Life had returned to normal, and there wasn't likely to be another spike in fitness activity until -- perhaps -- Lent.
I stayed on with my trainer, but he had to quit in March because of some family difficulties. I kept at it another three weeks, and then I quit, too.
We seldom keep resolutions once we make them, but it does feel good to make them. It feels like we're taking control of our lives and bodies. We're taking action; we've got a plan. Feels good.
Generally, we vow to exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, cut down on alcohol, eat a healthier diet, and make new friends. One study discovered that after two months, about 63 percent of resolution-makers were still keeping their number one resolution. I fell into that group. Three months later it was over for me.
The experts say that the keys to being successful with resolutions are to be committed, to have some coping strategies at the ready, and to keep track of progress.
You're doomed to failure, they say, if your resolutions are planned in a New Year's Eve drunken stupor, if they're made hastily at the last minute, and if they're framed in absolutes: "I'll never eat a double-cheese bacon-mushroom burger again!"
The research also revealed that success was more likely to follow resolutions to start something, than to stop something.
One set of resolutions may not be enough. You have your personal resolutions, but then you need another set of resolutions in your persona as a parent -- that's a whole 'nother list. Then you have your list of spousal resolutions. How long is that list! Perhaps you lay out a program of changed behavior as an employee, or boss, or teacher, or student, or stepparent. You also think prayerfully about your spiritual life because you want to be a better Christian ("I'm going to read my Bible more and I'm going to pray more," etc.).
Frankly, it's all too much for me.
But it's not too much for God. Look at this text. Notice all the "I wills" of this text. Here God makes a few promises -- resolutions -- if you will, and if there is anyone who can keep resolutions, it's God.
Timothy F. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press). He is also the author of the CSS volume Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Series IV, Cycle C), in which this story appears.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply e-mail the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, January 4, 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.
