Think And Let Think
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Think and Let Think" by John Sumwalt
"God’s Right Way" by Frank Ramirez
Think and Let Think
by John Sumwalt
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. -- Isaiah 1:16-17
The blessed tie that binds those of us who follow Jesus is being tested these days as we approach the election in November. The incendiary rhetoric of many of the candidates has made it nearly impossible to have a civil conversation with Christian friends. Most of us have strong opinions on all the hot issues, do we not? I certainly do -- and I will be glad to share my opinions with anyone who is willing to listen. And of course I think I'm right about everything. Just ask my wife.
What I am not willing to do is to suggest that anyone who disagrees with me is not Christian. Whenever I am tempted to think otherwise, which is often these days, I remind myself of what John Wesley had to say about this:
"We believe Christ to be the eternal, supreme God... But as to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think."
The same might be said about any hasty judgments one might be tempted to make about a neighbor's patriotism. The country needs patriots of many different stripes.
The late Sydney Harris used to insist in his syndicated columns that a nation needed differences of opinions in order to stay strong.
"Liberals and conservatives alike are equally convinced that if every citizen thought their way, most of our problems would be solved. After all what we really mean by 'right thinking person' is a person who thinks like us... We would not be better off, we would be worse off if any single viewpoint dominated our national life, whether it be the viewpoint I happen to favor or the one I dislike. Disagreement or dissensions are not impediments to national welfare, but indispensable adjuncts to every bone and muscle and nerve in the body politic."
Former New Jersey governor and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator in the Bush Administration, Christine Todd Whitman, spoke of differences of opinions in her party:
"The party is big enough for people to have diverse opinions on certain issues, and it's OK to be pro-choice and pro-life and still be a Republican. It doesn't mean you're evil or bad or anything else, you just are in a different place on those issues... People are fed up with nastiness in politics, the extremism. We're not a nasty, hard-edged, mean-spirited country, and if you looked at our politics you'd think we were."
Our Buddhists friends tell a story about their founder that might help us Christians negotiate the more than usual nastiness of the current political season:
"One day Buddha was walking through a village. An angry and rude man came toward him and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others!" he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."
Buddha was not upset by these insults. He just smiled. The man insulted him over and over but the only reaction he could get back from the Buddha was a smile and silence. Finally, the rude man left.
The disciples were feeling angry and one of them asked the Buddha, "Why didn't you reply to the rude man?"
The Buddha replied, "If someone offers you a gift, and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?" The disciple was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to the person who brought the gift."
The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct."
(It is the same with anger) we do not have to accept."
John E. Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee and the author of nine books, to be released by CSS in 2007. John and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, served for three years as co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
* * *
God’s Right Way
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God. -- Psalm 50:23.
Few individuals have had such a long and distinguished career of service to their country as the sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), and the son of the second President, John Adams. In his case it began with overseas service as a diplomat when he was a teenager, before his country really existed! During his long career of service to his country he was the living link between the Revolutionary era and the era of the Civil War. He chronicled those times, in which he played a great part, through the diary he began in 1779, which he continued writing up till his death in 1848, producing fifty volumes that provide an unparalleled and invaluable look into the history of this nation.
But it was in the service he gave to the "right way" when his political career was seemingly over and in ruins, that Adams served God and country memorably and courageously.
In an era when voyages across the Atlantic could take months, depending on the prevailing winds, and were always dangerous, Adams accompanied his father on his diplomatic mission to Europe during the Revolutionary War. His linguistic skills were one of the reasons he was invaluable as his father’s secretary. He was only fourteen when his father agreed he should serve as the secretary of the delegation to Russia because he spoke Russian fluently. The end result was that he was gone for seven years before returning home to his mother and the rest of his family.
Adams went on to serve as a senator, Minister to Russia, Secretary of State and President. Among his greatest accomplishments were as a diplomat and as Secretary of State, as he helped negotiate crucial treaties as well as to formulate what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine.
His own election to the Presidency came about because of a highly controversial and unique four-way race that was ultimately contested in Congress. Although Adams proposed ambitious infrastructure programs to knit the counter closer together, championed the cause of sciences such as astronomy, and urged humane policies be adopted with regards to native Americans, his single term as President was considered by some to have been rather ordinary, or even something of a failure. Andrew Jackson, who had expected to become President in 1824, personally saw to it that Adams' reputation was dragged through the mud during the next election cycle, determined to destroy his political career. Many thought with Jackson's victory in 1828 he had succeeded.
But then something unprecedented happened. Although at first he retired from public life, as presidents were expected to do, John Quincy Adams returned to Washington, D.C. when his district elected him as a member of Congress. He served seventeen years until his death in 1848. At that time the Southern states had a stranglehold on Congress, thanks to the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths of a human being for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives, but denied African-Americans their basic human rights. Those states made it impossible to even raise the subject of slavery in Congress. However, Adams refused to be silent about slavery.
He devoted his years in Congress to championing the rights of the marginalized, and especially the enslaved. That included his successful efforts to ensure the freedom of the slaves who had taken over the Spanish slave ship Amistad. He refused to let the slave masters in Congress rest easy, nor would he condone the central hypocrisy of a nation whose Declaration of Independence stated that all were created equal, yet denied humanity to millions of humans!
Adams worked virtually to the day of his death, collapsing in Congress on February 21, 1848, while voting on a resolution. He died in the Speaker's Room of the Capitol building two days later.
The Psalmist states that while those who may conduct proper worship honor God, what God really desires is that we demonstrate what God’s salvation looks like by living the “right way!”
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 7, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
"Think and Let Think" by John Sumwalt
"God’s Right Way" by Frank Ramirez
Think and Let Think
by John Sumwalt
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. -- Isaiah 1:16-17
The blessed tie that binds those of us who follow Jesus is being tested these days as we approach the election in November. The incendiary rhetoric of many of the candidates has made it nearly impossible to have a civil conversation with Christian friends. Most of us have strong opinions on all the hot issues, do we not? I certainly do -- and I will be glad to share my opinions with anyone who is willing to listen. And of course I think I'm right about everything. Just ask my wife.
What I am not willing to do is to suggest that anyone who disagrees with me is not Christian. Whenever I am tempted to think otherwise, which is often these days, I remind myself of what John Wesley had to say about this:
"We believe Christ to be the eternal, supreme God... But as to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think."
The same might be said about any hasty judgments one might be tempted to make about a neighbor's patriotism. The country needs patriots of many different stripes.
The late Sydney Harris used to insist in his syndicated columns that a nation needed differences of opinions in order to stay strong.
"Liberals and conservatives alike are equally convinced that if every citizen thought their way, most of our problems would be solved. After all what we really mean by 'right thinking person' is a person who thinks like us... We would not be better off, we would be worse off if any single viewpoint dominated our national life, whether it be the viewpoint I happen to favor or the one I dislike. Disagreement or dissensions are not impediments to national welfare, but indispensable adjuncts to every bone and muscle and nerve in the body politic."
Former New Jersey governor and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator in the Bush Administration, Christine Todd Whitman, spoke of differences of opinions in her party:
"The party is big enough for people to have diverse opinions on certain issues, and it's OK to be pro-choice and pro-life and still be a Republican. It doesn't mean you're evil or bad or anything else, you just are in a different place on those issues... People are fed up with nastiness in politics, the extremism. We're not a nasty, hard-edged, mean-spirited country, and if you looked at our politics you'd think we were."
Our Buddhists friends tell a story about their founder that might help us Christians negotiate the more than usual nastiness of the current political season:
"One day Buddha was walking through a village. An angry and rude man came toward him and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others!" he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."
Buddha was not upset by these insults. He just smiled. The man insulted him over and over but the only reaction he could get back from the Buddha was a smile and silence. Finally, the rude man left.
The disciples were feeling angry and one of them asked the Buddha, "Why didn't you reply to the rude man?"
The Buddha replied, "If someone offers you a gift, and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?" The disciple was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to the person who brought the gift."
The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct."
(It is the same with anger) we do not have to accept."
John E. Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee and the author of nine books, to be released by CSS in 2007. John and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, served for three years as co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
* * *
God’s Right Way
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God. -- Psalm 50:23.
Few individuals have had such a long and distinguished career of service to their country as the sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), and the son of the second President, John Adams. In his case it began with overseas service as a diplomat when he was a teenager, before his country really existed! During his long career of service to his country he was the living link between the Revolutionary era and the era of the Civil War. He chronicled those times, in which he played a great part, through the diary he began in 1779, which he continued writing up till his death in 1848, producing fifty volumes that provide an unparalleled and invaluable look into the history of this nation.
But it was in the service he gave to the "right way" when his political career was seemingly over and in ruins, that Adams served God and country memorably and courageously.
In an era when voyages across the Atlantic could take months, depending on the prevailing winds, and were always dangerous, Adams accompanied his father on his diplomatic mission to Europe during the Revolutionary War. His linguistic skills were one of the reasons he was invaluable as his father’s secretary. He was only fourteen when his father agreed he should serve as the secretary of the delegation to Russia because he spoke Russian fluently. The end result was that he was gone for seven years before returning home to his mother and the rest of his family.
Adams went on to serve as a senator, Minister to Russia, Secretary of State and President. Among his greatest accomplishments were as a diplomat and as Secretary of State, as he helped negotiate crucial treaties as well as to formulate what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine.
His own election to the Presidency came about because of a highly controversial and unique four-way race that was ultimately contested in Congress. Although Adams proposed ambitious infrastructure programs to knit the counter closer together, championed the cause of sciences such as astronomy, and urged humane policies be adopted with regards to native Americans, his single term as President was considered by some to have been rather ordinary, or even something of a failure. Andrew Jackson, who had expected to become President in 1824, personally saw to it that Adams' reputation was dragged through the mud during the next election cycle, determined to destroy his political career. Many thought with Jackson's victory in 1828 he had succeeded.
But then something unprecedented happened. Although at first he retired from public life, as presidents were expected to do, John Quincy Adams returned to Washington, D.C. when his district elected him as a member of Congress. He served seventeen years until his death in 1848. At that time the Southern states had a stranglehold on Congress, thanks to the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths of a human being for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives, but denied African-Americans their basic human rights. Those states made it impossible to even raise the subject of slavery in Congress. However, Adams refused to be silent about slavery.
He devoted his years in Congress to championing the rights of the marginalized, and especially the enslaved. That included his successful efforts to ensure the freedom of the slaves who had taken over the Spanish slave ship Amistad. He refused to let the slave masters in Congress rest easy, nor would he condone the central hypocrisy of a nation whose Declaration of Independence stated that all were created equal, yet denied humanity to millions of humans!
Adams worked virtually to the day of his death, collapsing in Congress on February 21, 1848, while voting on a resolution. He died in the Speaker's Room of the Capitol building two days later.
The Psalmist states that while those who may conduct proper worship honor God, what God really desires is that we demonstrate what God’s salvation looks like by living the “right way!”
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 7, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
