Is There Hope?
Stories
Contents
“Is There Hope?” by C. David McKirachan
“Loopholes” by C. David McKirachan
“Appealing for Pardon” by Frank Ramirez
Is There Hope?
by C. David McKirachan
Jeremiah 18:1-8
A friend of mine grew up with a truck driver father, who though he was very attentive and loving in his own way had a rough and tumble manner of communicating his care for his children. When two of his sons, including my friend got into a fight he lifted them both off the ground and very calmly told them, “I can take you two fools out and make other ones who just might act like human beings.”
My friend had grown to have two barbarians of his own. He told me he probably couldn’t lift them off the ground and having taken courses in child development was unlikely to repeat his father’s style of parenting. But he remembered the incident when he was making plans or voting or praying.
Jeremiah’s vision of the potter’s wheel did little to reorient the nation God was trying to save. In verse 12 of the same chapter the people tell the prophet that there is no hope, that they will follow their own devices rather than repent.
Our nation seems as stiff necked as Israel. We have been warned by the tragedies of history, the wreckage of our economic foolishness, the scientific doom laid before us, and the carnage from our guns. The potter can get tired of our arrogance and our unwillingness to develop into a useful pot. How long will he wait before he throws us down?
We confuse rigid law with God’s way of life. It is another implement of control for us to judge others and have a sense of self-righteousness, while the hard and dirty work of justice for the poor and the victims of our fear and greed goes undone. We build our churches and effectively bar the doors. We seek to purify the very environment in which we pray while we pollute that same atmosphere with our unwillingness to apply the Lord’s commandment to love one another sacrificially.
We are children, assuming we are in control of our lives. Phrases like “thoughts and prayers” are smoke screens for our unwillingness to act in God’s name. And we rejoice when our leaders make or abolish laws that take us off the hook for the protection of the planet or our fellow human beings’ rights.
The sad thing is we hear the prophets’ warnings. Prophets from the pages of scripture and from our pulpits and our public discourse. We hear them. And we edit them, deny them, categorize them, laugh at them, and change the channel to watch others repeat our behavior. “There is no hope…”
Yet the prophets offer us more than a warning. They insist that the same God that can smash us and make others better able to love one another, that same God lays out a hope for us that is more than thoughts and prayers. That hope speaks of God’s law carved into our hearts, our will. It speaks of us being a light to the nations, not another example of ‘we do it because we can.’
And the great mystery is that the choice is ours. Why would God create such an unruly creature so able to destroy and hate and abuse, and put in the hands and soul of that same creature the spirit of healing and caring and love? I have two masters’ degrees in Philosophy and Theology and I am stunned by that mystery.
Perhaps there is the lesson. Perhaps we need to be stunned by the grace of this God that has such unlimited power to create and destroy. Perhaps the good news is that we have little to rely on except that grace. Grace that faces unruly children with something other than rage.
Perhaps there is the hope.
I remember arguing with my father. I was an unreasonable teenager who had nothing to prove but my power to be unreasonable. The words that I hurled at him that day, I don’t remember, but I remember him standing in the garage weeping.
It stopped me. It stopped my unreasonable rant. I didn’t understand my own lack of sanity, but I was able to be enfolded by his pain and the love that allowed it to be more than a reflection of my stupidity. I was stunned.
He stood there crying and said through his tears, “All that’s important right now is that I love you.” And there next to the work bench, I took another step into adulthood as we embraced.
There is hope for us.
We need to act like God’s children growing into God’s love. That’s all that’s important.
* * *
Loopholes
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 1
I was five or so. My mother offered me the opportunity to learn to tie my own shoes. All I had to do was memorize the first Psalm. The opportunity was one of boundless possibility, freedom, growing into independence. I was five. What do you want?
But I don’t remember the accomplishment of being able to tie my shoes. I remember the sessions with my mother as she’d say a line, then repeat it, then answer the invariable questions that followed. “How can a river plant a tree?” “Why was this guy so delighted in the law?” “Which laws was he delighted in?” You get the drift. She’d answer the questions and then get back to the business of repeating the line in question again, getting me to repeat it, apply any corrections, put it together with the last line, and repeat, over and over.
I learned a lot more than the Psalm. Her patience offered me a model for learning. Her acceptance of my questions taught me the value of questions. Her knowledge of the scripture, not only the words but the concepts behind them taught me the depth of scripture that could only be reached by going far beneath the surface. Her appreciation of the cadence and the syntax of the Psalm showed me the power of poetry, even if it didn’t rhyme.
But looking back, I learned that I was loved. I learned that I was worth the time and the energy and the hassle to teach me scripture. Her love of me and of the scripture offered me a model for the rest of my life.
I took a course on the Psalms in seminary. The professor started with the first Psalm. He labeled it a didactic Psalm. He said that it set a teaching justification for the Torah. So, our first assignment was to memorize the first Psalm. I put up my hand and asked if the King James translation was acceptable. He smiled. “Mr. McKirachan, it sounds like you’ve got a jump on your first assignment. Who was your teacher?”
Surprised at his insight, I blurted, “My mother.”
The smile never left his face. “Then you’ll do your mother proud when you give a two-minute speech on the Psalm, that time not including your recitation of said Psalm.”
After a few days of trying to learn everything written about it, trying to put together an erudite presentation and loosing sleep about some sort of an approach that would demonstrate my knowledge and my humility before the profound wisdom of my teacher, I looked at the assignment again. He’d said a two-minute presentation on the Psalm. That was it. The dawn broke.
So, I talked about my mother sneaking up on me with the bait of learning to tie my shoes. It seemed to me, that’s what the Psalm was doing. ‘Meditate on the Word, day and night and you will have a nice life, like a tree planted by rivers of water…’ I included the Socratic method of questions and answers, which may not have been the preferred teaching technique of the psalmist’s day (thus showing that I did have something of a clue that I had a lot to learn).
But the center of the speech was my mother’s faith in God’s Word to make a difference in one’s life. “So, here I am in seminary.”
I recited the Psalm, adding at the end, “And I learned to tie my shoes.”
The teacher reminded me that this was not a class in homiletics, but considering his lack of specificity in the assignment, he’d give me credit for said assignment. After class he told me his father had done something similar. And he told me he’d watch me more closely, now that he knew I was likely to find loopholes.
Without thinking I asked him wasn’t that important when one studies the law. He didn’t think that was funny.
* * *
Appealing for Pardon
by Frank Ramirez
Philemon 1:1-21
I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus...(Philemon 1:10).
Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD) wrote hundreds of letters to the famous and near famous in the Roman Empire. One of his most famous letters, for instance, written in 115 AD and addressed to Emperor Trajan during his reign as governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, is one in which he discusses the problem of discovering and punishing Christians.
But another letter, written to a friend of his named Sabinianus, is particularly interesting in the light of Paul's letter to Philemon. Slaves, as well as freedmen who might be indentured servants with no legal rights, faced uncertain punishment if they ran away. Just as Paul admits he has no legal right to demand that Philemon act with forgiveness toward the runaway slave Onesimus, so too Pliny can only advise his friend, because according to the law Sabinianus has every legal right to act out of his anger and do whatever he wishes.
Here are two letters by Pliny. We don't have the answer from Sabinianus, but we can guess its contents from the second letter.
To Sabinianus. Your freedman, whom you mentioned as having displeased you, has been with me; he threw himself at my feet and clung there with as much submission as he could have done at yours. He earnestly requested me with many tears, and even with the eloquence of silent sorrow, to intercede for him; in short, he convinced me by his whole behaviour, that he sincerely repents of his fault. And I am persuaded he is thoroughly reformed, because he seems entirely sensible of his delinquency. I know you are angry with him, and I know too, it is not without reason; but clemency can never exert itself with more applause, than when there is the justest cause for resentment. You once had an affection for this man, and, I hope, will have again: in the meanwhile, let me only prevail with you to pardon him. If he should incur your displeasure hereafter, you will have so much the stronger plea in excuse for your anger, as you shew yourself more exorable to him now. Allow something to his youth, to his tears, and to your own natural mildness of temper: do not make him uneasy any longer, and I will add too, do not make yourself so; for a man of your benevolence of heart cannot be angry without feeling great uneasiness, I am afraid, were I to join my entreaties with his, I should seem rather to compel, than request you to forgive him. Yet I will not scruple to do it; and so much the more fully and freely as I have very sharply and severely reproved him, positively threatening never to interpose again in his behalf. But though it was proper to say this to him, in order to make him more fearful of offending, I do not say it to you. I may, perhaps, again have occasion to entreat you upon his account, and again obtain your forgiveness; supposing, I mean, his error should be such as may become me to intercede for, and to pardon. Farewell.
Notice that Pliny, like Paul, technically avoids the appearance of commanding his friend to do something, but the very fact that both state that they could command if they wished suggests they are exerting some moral authority in the matter.
The second letter from Pliny follows:
To Sabinianus. I greatly approve of your having, under conduct of my letter, received again into your family and favour, a freedman, whom you once admitted into a share of your affection. It will afford you, I doubt not, great satisfaction. It certainly, at least, has me, both as it is a proof that you are capable of being governed in your anger, and as it is an instance of your paying so much regard to me, as either to obey my authority or to yield to my entreaty. You will accept therefore, at once, both of my applause and my thanks. At the same time I must advise you for the future to be placable towards erring servants, though there should be none to interpose in their behalf. Farewell.
(These letters appear in Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon by Eduard Lohse, Hermeneia Commentary Series, Fortress Press, 1971, pp 196-197, footnotes 2 & 3.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 8, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 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.
“Is There Hope?” by C. David McKirachan
“Loopholes” by C. David McKirachan
“Appealing for Pardon” by Frank Ramirez
Is There Hope?
by C. David McKirachan
Jeremiah 18:1-8
A friend of mine grew up with a truck driver father, who though he was very attentive and loving in his own way had a rough and tumble manner of communicating his care for his children. When two of his sons, including my friend got into a fight he lifted them both off the ground and very calmly told them, “I can take you two fools out and make other ones who just might act like human beings.”
My friend had grown to have two barbarians of his own. He told me he probably couldn’t lift them off the ground and having taken courses in child development was unlikely to repeat his father’s style of parenting. But he remembered the incident when he was making plans or voting or praying.
Jeremiah’s vision of the potter’s wheel did little to reorient the nation God was trying to save. In verse 12 of the same chapter the people tell the prophet that there is no hope, that they will follow their own devices rather than repent.
Our nation seems as stiff necked as Israel. We have been warned by the tragedies of history, the wreckage of our economic foolishness, the scientific doom laid before us, and the carnage from our guns. The potter can get tired of our arrogance and our unwillingness to develop into a useful pot. How long will he wait before he throws us down?
We confuse rigid law with God’s way of life. It is another implement of control for us to judge others and have a sense of self-righteousness, while the hard and dirty work of justice for the poor and the victims of our fear and greed goes undone. We build our churches and effectively bar the doors. We seek to purify the very environment in which we pray while we pollute that same atmosphere with our unwillingness to apply the Lord’s commandment to love one another sacrificially.
We are children, assuming we are in control of our lives. Phrases like “thoughts and prayers” are smoke screens for our unwillingness to act in God’s name. And we rejoice when our leaders make or abolish laws that take us off the hook for the protection of the planet or our fellow human beings’ rights.
The sad thing is we hear the prophets’ warnings. Prophets from the pages of scripture and from our pulpits and our public discourse. We hear them. And we edit them, deny them, categorize them, laugh at them, and change the channel to watch others repeat our behavior. “There is no hope…”
Yet the prophets offer us more than a warning. They insist that the same God that can smash us and make others better able to love one another, that same God lays out a hope for us that is more than thoughts and prayers. That hope speaks of God’s law carved into our hearts, our will. It speaks of us being a light to the nations, not another example of ‘we do it because we can.’
And the great mystery is that the choice is ours. Why would God create such an unruly creature so able to destroy and hate and abuse, and put in the hands and soul of that same creature the spirit of healing and caring and love? I have two masters’ degrees in Philosophy and Theology and I am stunned by that mystery.
Perhaps there is the lesson. Perhaps we need to be stunned by the grace of this God that has such unlimited power to create and destroy. Perhaps the good news is that we have little to rely on except that grace. Grace that faces unruly children with something other than rage.
Perhaps there is the hope.
I remember arguing with my father. I was an unreasonable teenager who had nothing to prove but my power to be unreasonable. The words that I hurled at him that day, I don’t remember, but I remember him standing in the garage weeping.
It stopped me. It stopped my unreasonable rant. I didn’t understand my own lack of sanity, but I was able to be enfolded by his pain and the love that allowed it to be more than a reflection of my stupidity. I was stunned.
He stood there crying and said through his tears, “All that’s important right now is that I love you.” And there next to the work bench, I took another step into adulthood as we embraced.
There is hope for us.
We need to act like God’s children growing into God’s love. That’s all that’s important.
* * *
Loopholes
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 1
I was five or so. My mother offered me the opportunity to learn to tie my own shoes. All I had to do was memorize the first Psalm. The opportunity was one of boundless possibility, freedom, growing into independence. I was five. What do you want?
But I don’t remember the accomplishment of being able to tie my shoes. I remember the sessions with my mother as she’d say a line, then repeat it, then answer the invariable questions that followed. “How can a river plant a tree?” “Why was this guy so delighted in the law?” “Which laws was he delighted in?” You get the drift. She’d answer the questions and then get back to the business of repeating the line in question again, getting me to repeat it, apply any corrections, put it together with the last line, and repeat, over and over.
I learned a lot more than the Psalm. Her patience offered me a model for learning. Her acceptance of my questions taught me the value of questions. Her knowledge of the scripture, not only the words but the concepts behind them taught me the depth of scripture that could only be reached by going far beneath the surface. Her appreciation of the cadence and the syntax of the Psalm showed me the power of poetry, even if it didn’t rhyme.
But looking back, I learned that I was loved. I learned that I was worth the time and the energy and the hassle to teach me scripture. Her love of me and of the scripture offered me a model for the rest of my life.
I took a course on the Psalms in seminary. The professor started with the first Psalm. He labeled it a didactic Psalm. He said that it set a teaching justification for the Torah. So, our first assignment was to memorize the first Psalm. I put up my hand and asked if the King James translation was acceptable. He smiled. “Mr. McKirachan, it sounds like you’ve got a jump on your first assignment. Who was your teacher?”
Surprised at his insight, I blurted, “My mother.”
The smile never left his face. “Then you’ll do your mother proud when you give a two-minute speech on the Psalm, that time not including your recitation of said Psalm.”
After a few days of trying to learn everything written about it, trying to put together an erudite presentation and loosing sleep about some sort of an approach that would demonstrate my knowledge and my humility before the profound wisdom of my teacher, I looked at the assignment again. He’d said a two-minute presentation on the Psalm. That was it. The dawn broke.
So, I talked about my mother sneaking up on me with the bait of learning to tie my shoes. It seemed to me, that’s what the Psalm was doing. ‘Meditate on the Word, day and night and you will have a nice life, like a tree planted by rivers of water…’ I included the Socratic method of questions and answers, which may not have been the preferred teaching technique of the psalmist’s day (thus showing that I did have something of a clue that I had a lot to learn).
But the center of the speech was my mother’s faith in God’s Word to make a difference in one’s life. “So, here I am in seminary.”
I recited the Psalm, adding at the end, “And I learned to tie my shoes.”
The teacher reminded me that this was not a class in homiletics, but considering his lack of specificity in the assignment, he’d give me credit for said assignment. After class he told me his father had done something similar. And he told me he’d watch me more closely, now that he knew I was likely to find loopholes.
Without thinking I asked him wasn’t that important when one studies the law. He didn’t think that was funny.
* * *
Appealing for Pardon
by Frank Ramirez
Philemon 1:1-21
I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus...(Philemon 1:10).
Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD) wrote hundreds of letters to the famous and near famous in the Roman Empire. One of his most famous letters, for instance, written in 115 AD and addressed to Emperor Trajan during his reign as governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, is one in which he discusses the problem of discovering and punishing Christians.
But another letter, written to a friend of his named Sabinianus, is particularly interesting in the light of Paul's letter to Philemon. Slaves, as well as freedmen who might be indentured servants with no legal rights, faced uncertain punishment if they ran away. Just as Paul admits he has no legal right to demand that Philemon act with forgiveness toward the runaway slave Onesimus, so too Pliny can only advise his friend, because according to the law Sabinianus has every legal right to act out of his anger and do whatever he wishes.
Here are two letters by Pliny. We don't have the answer from Sabinianus, but we can guess its contents from the second letter.
To Sabinianus. Your freedman, whom you mentioned as having displeased you, has been with me; he threw himself at my feet and clung there with as much submission as he could have done at yours. He earnestly requested me with many tears, and even with the eloquence of silent sorrow, to intercede for him; in short, he convinced me by his whole behaviour, that he sincerely repents of his fault. And I am persuaded he is thoroughly reformed, because he seems entirely sensible of his delinquency. I know you are angry with him, and I know too, it is not without reason; but clemency can never exert itself with more applause, than when there is the justest cause for resentment. You once had an affection for this man, and, I hope, will have again: in the meanwhile, let me only prevail with you to pardon him. If he should incur your displeasure hereafter, you will have so much the stronger plea in excuse for your anger, as you shew yourself more exorable to him now. Allow something to his youth, to his tears, and to your own natural mildness of temper: do not make him uneasy any longer, and I will add too, do not make yourself so; for a man of your benevolence of heart cannot be angry without feeling great uneasiness, I am afraid, were I to join my entreaties with his, I should seem rather to compel, than request you to forgive him. Yet I will not scruple to do it; and so much the more fully and freely as I have very sharply and severely reproved him, positively threatening never to interpose again in his behalf. But though it was proper to say this to him, in order to make him more fearful of offending, I do not say it to you. I may, perhaps, again have occasion to entreat you upon his account, and again obtain your forgiveness; supposing, I mean, his error should be such as may become me to intercede for, and to pardon. Farewell.
Notice that Pliny, like Paul, technically avoids the appearance of commanding his friend to do something, but the very fact that both state that they could command if they wished suggests they are exerting some moral authority in the matter.
The second letter from Pliny follows:
To Sabinianus. I greatly approve of your having, under conduct of my letter, received again into your family and favour, a freedman, whom you once admitted into a share of your affection. It will afford you, I doubt not, great satisfaction. It certainly, at least, has me, both as it is a proof that you are capable of being governed in your anger, and as it is an instance of your paying so much regard to me, as either to obey my authority or to yield to my entreaty. You will accept therefore, at once, both of my applause and my thanks. At the same time I must advise you for the future to be placable towards erring servants, though there should be none to interpose in their behalf. Farewell.
(These letters appear in Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon by Eduard Lohse, Hermeneia Commentary Series, Fortress Press, 1971, pp 196-197, footnotes 2 & 3.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 8, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 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.
