Truth And Lies
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Truth and Lies" by Keith Hewitt
"A Lesson from Lauren" by Argile Smith
What's Up This Week
Faith, as they say, can move mountains. It can carry us through circumstances that we never could have overcome in our own strength. Unfortunately, too many of us try to take matters into our own hands rather than trust by faith that God will remember us. "Truth and Lies" shows how one man's faith carried him through the darkest of times. "A Lesson from Lauren" illustrates how we need to recapture the kind of faith we knew as a child to take us through the challenges we face as adults.
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Truths and Lies
By Keith Hewitt
Isaiah 49:8-16
"The first thing you see here is a lie," the man said. He shifted in the chair and tried to cross his legs, but the pressure of his right leg on top of his left was too much to bear, so he put both feet flat on the floor again. "Of course, there have been so many lies, that one more should not be a surprise. Do you want to hear some truth?"
The young man across from him took a long draw on a Camel cigarette; the smoke was pungent, and stung his nostrils as he exhaled slowly... it seemed to help. A bit. "Sure," he said, tapped his pen absently with his other hand, marking time on the thick curl of yellow paper already filled with scrawls he only half-believed (or wanted to believe) and flipped behind the stiff cardboard back of the pad.
The man watched him hungrily for a moment or two, then reached up with one hand and gestured simply -- long, thin fingers with black nails, wiggling slowly. "Do you suppose I..." he trailed off, as though reluctant to admit a weakness. Or ashamed.
The young man just looked at him curiously for a moment, then realized his eyes were fixed on the cigarette in his hand. "Sure," he said automatically, and reached into his pocket, pulled out the half-empty pack, and tapped out a single cigarette. He reached across the field desk, hesitated with the pack extended in his hand, and pulled back slightly. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
The man snorted and raised his arms, gestured at his rail-thin body with bony hands. "What is it going to do to me?" he croaked, with a cynical half-smile sketched on his face. The young man hesitated another moment or two, studying that face, trying to read what was really going on behind those eyes, but whatever it was lay hidden, trapped beneath skin so pale it was almost translucent, stretched tightly across his skull like cellophane on a fresh pack of cigarettes.
Another heartbeat or so, and he shrugged, leaned forward and extended the pack to the man. He nodded a wordless thanks and pulled out a single paper tube, studied it, held it beneath his nostrils with a trembling hand while he drew a deep breath, closed his eyes as he put in his mouth, then opened them and leaned forward, toward the flame dancing from the Zippo lighter in the young man's hand. He drew deep, choked back a cough, drew again, then coughed convulsively, taking the cigarette out and holding it protectively to the side while his body shoved the smoke back out, adding flecks of blood and colored sputum.
"That's the first one I've had in four... no, five years. Almost five years," he amended. "What day is it?"
"May First."
"Not quite five years, then. So do you want to hear some truth?"
"Go ahead."
"A man who hates is dangerous, but no more so than any other common thug. He can be defended against, he can be cowed, he might even learn, and change his ways. But a man who feels nothing, and who does what he does out of a sense of duty, or -- God help us -- a sense of right... that man is capable of anything and cannot be stopped so easily. They are glaciers of destruction, ready to grind down everything in their path in order to achieve a greater good." He bit off the last two words; spit them out like something sour.
The young man jotted down a couple of notes, looked up when the man stopped talking. "And?"
"And nothing. Those are truths. My grandfather was killed many years ago, by the first kind of creature; my father was killed thirty years later, by an army of the latter. Tell me, what manner of duty is it that would pump gas into trenches to burn the lungs of everyone in them, and then bayonet those who didn't die fast enough? What greater good is served?"
The young man shrugged. "It's war, I suppose. Soldiers die."
"I see your airplanes pass over almost every day, it seems. Tell me, are they only dropping leaflets on the cities?"
The young man pulled out another cigarette, lit it, and puffed it into glowing life before he answered. "I'm not in the Air Corps. I wouldn't know."
"I see. Just like the good citizens in town knew nothing, despite the stench that hung like a cloud you could taste, and the ash that fell from the sky." The man stubbed out the cigarette on the arm of his chair, flicked it to the floor, and ground it in with his bare foot. "Here is another truth. My brother and his wife, and their two children... my cousins and their children -- if you sifted that ash, you might just find them there. But if the ash is fine enough, if the clouds rose high enough, they might get pushed along by the upper winds to a place where they mingle with other ashes -- other people's brothers and cousins and neighbors, from the cities that die beneath your bombers."
"How can you --" the young man began, then stopped, lay his pen down. "I think we're done, here."
"How can I? Another truth, then: inhumanity met with inhumanity can only lead to suffering. But inhumanity met with faith -- now that's something else entirely. That can lead to grace."
"I don't understand."
"Every day here, every day for almost five years, I looked death in the eye. Every day, I saw men and women die like so many cattle being slaughtered -- no, not even with that much dignity. I saw men and women die with utter capriciousness, for no better reason than someone didn't like the way they spoke, or someone had a fight with their wife and settled the score by beating a person to death with a truncheon. In the midst of the madness, only one thing kept me sane, kept me grounded: I believed, I knew with every fiber of my being that God would not forget me here."
"How could you be so sure God would pick you to live, out of so many?"
The man smiled crookedly. "You misunderstand. I did not know whether I would live or die, but I came to understand that it was not important -- because God had not forgotten me. Whatever might happen to me, in the end God was still there, still holding me in his arms. Sometimes a father cannot keep his child from hurting, but he can still hold him and love him, let him know that he is not alone." He shrugged. "We do not live in our time, but in God's."
"It must have been very difficult."
"Do you read your Bible, Captain? Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: At just the right time, I will respond to you. On the day of salvation I will help you... I will say to the prisoners, 'Come out in freedom,' and to those in darkness, 'Come into the light.' I knew that one way or another, the time would come for me to come out in freedom, to come out of the darkness. I knew my name was written on God's hand. I just had to keep believing -- to hold onto the humanity that God gave me. As long as I had that, they could not defeat me."
"I see." On the pad in front of him, the young man wrote, simply, Isaiah. "I'll have to look it up, some time."
"Chapter Forty-nine. Start there." He stood up, wavered slightly and reached down with one hand to the flimsy field desk, to steady himself. "I suppose I should leave you, now. I know you have others to interview."
"Thank you. Just send the next person in." He flipped the page back, so he could start the next witness statement on a blank sheet. "Thank you for your time," he said impulsively. "I -- I hope something good comes of all this, although I can't imagine what it might be."
The man turned to him and half-smiled. "God can -- and that's what matters." He turned to leave, then turned back again, pointed out the door, to the fence beyond. "I said the first thing you see here is a lie. You've seen the sign -- the one over the gate: Arbeit Macht Frei?"
"Work will make you free," the Captain translated. "Yes, I've seen it."
"Well, it's a lie. Work won't set you free, but faith -- now that's something else entirely. Faith will set you free. Faith frees you to believe in grace... and grace frees you to be the person you were meant to be. And that's the last truth I have for you," he finished strongly and straightened up as best he could to walk back toward the barracks of Dachau.
The place still stank, but the guards and kapos were gone, the gates were not locked, and he knew that he would not be there much longer. God had not forgotten him.
He had faith in that.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
A Lesson from Lauren
By Argile Smith
Matthew 6:24-34; Psalm 131
Marty thought she had a good reason to worry. A sixty-year-old woman who had just lost her husband; she didn't know anything about the financial state of affairs in her house.
Her husband, George, had taken care of everything that had to do with money, property, and other resources. He always wanted to make her life as easy as possible. After all, she had stood by him when he took the risky step of starting his own business. They had two small kids in tow then, and she devoted herself to making a home for their son and daughter while George worked like a slave to get the business off the ground. Those days seemed to be little more than distant memories as Marty fumbled through the filing cabinet in George's study one day searching for documents that would give her some clues regarding what he would want her to do now.
After he sold the business, he and Marty retired so they could enjoy the grandchildren who had graced their family. One of them, Lauren, was coming for a visit later that day, and Marty looked forward to it. Loving on a grandchild had a way of settling her, perhaps distracting her from her worry.
She didn't have much money in her checking account, and the funeral expenses had been enormous. She tried to console herself in the knowledge that at least she didn't have to worry about extensive medical bills. George's massive heart attack took his life instantly. But that fact didn't keep her from worrying about the other question marks that kept popping up as she looked toward the future.
Lauren showed up at the front door right on time with an eager smile on her face. She looked forward to her afternoon with her nana. She had the entire afternoon mapped out for the two of them. They would play together, talk and laugh together, bake cookies together, and do lots of other things, and they would do them all together.
As you would imagine, Marty welcomed the contentment that her angel of a granddaughter brought her. She turned her attention to the plan set for her, and the two of them indulged in each other for the time that had together.
As they talked about things important to Lauren, the subject of food came into the conversation. "What would you like to have for dinner?" asked Marty.
"Pizza! I love pizza!" said Lauren with a certain glee in her voice.
"Then pizza it will be!"
In just a little while, Lauren and her nana found themselves sitting at the kitchen table munching cheese pizza. Lauren gobbled down one slice after another while Marty watched in satisfaction.
That's when Marty began to notice something that she had overlooked before that afternoon. Lauren couldn't have gotten the pizza by herself. She didn't bring any money with her, and neither did she bring along a lunchbox just in case. Of course, she gave no thought to whether or not she would have something to eat, even though she was helpless to get her own food. She didn't think twice about it because she knew that Nana would make sure that she got something to eat. Nana could also be counted on to supply everything else she would need on her visit. Lauren was as helpless as any other child her age, but she trusted the people who cared for her to supply her with what she couldn't get for herself. That's why she didn't worry about it.
That night when Marty prayed, she asked God to help her to trust him like Lauren trusted her. In a way, she felt helpless, too. Instead of worrying, she wanted to face her future with a childlike trust in God.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
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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 email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, May 25, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 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
"Truth and Lies" by Keith Hewitt
"A Lesson from Lauren" by Argile Smith
What's Up This Week
Faith, as they say, can move mountains. It can carry us through circumstances that we never could have overcome in our own strength. Unfortunately, too many of us try to take matters into our own hands rather than trust by faith that God will remember us. "Truth and Lies" shows how one man's faith carried him through the darkest of times. "A Lesson from Lauren" illustrates how we need to recapture the kind of faith we knew as a child to take us through the challenges we face as adults.
* * * * * * * * *
Truths and Lies
By Keith Hewitt
Isaiah 49:8-16
"The first thing you see here is a lie," the man said. He shifted in the chair and tried to cross his legs, but the pressure of his right leg on top of his left was too much to bear, so he put both feet flat on the floor again. "Of course, there have been so many lies, that one more should not be a surprise. Do you want to hear some truth?"
The young man across from him took a long draw on a Camel cigarette; the smoke was pungent, and stung his nostrils as he exhaled slowly... it seemed to help. A bit. "Sure," he said, tapped his pen absently with his other hand, marking time on the thick curl of yellow paper already filled with scrawls he only half-believed (or wanted to believe) and flipped behind the stiff cardboard back of the pad.
The man watched him hungrily for a moment or two, then reached up with one hand and gestured simply -- long, thin fingers with black nails, wiggling slowly. "Do you suppose I..." he trailed off, as though reluctant to admit a weakness. Or ashamed.
The young man just looked at him curiously for a moment, then realized his eyes were fixed on the cigarette in his hand. "Sure," he said automatically, and reached into his pocket, pulled out the half-empty pack, and tapped out a single cigarette. He reached across the field desk, hesitated with the pack extended in his hand, and pulled back slightly. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
The man snorted and raised his arms, gestured at his rail-thin body with bony hands. "What is it going to do to me?" he croaked, with a cynical half-smile sketched on his face. The young man hesitated another moment or two, studying that face, trying to read what was really going on behind those eyes, but whatever it was lay hidden, trapped beneath skin so pale it was almost translucent, stretched tightly across his skull like cellophane on a fresh pack of cigarettes.
Another heartbeat or so, and he shrugged, leaned forward and extended the pack to the man. He nodded a wordless thanks and pulled out a single paper tube, studied it, held it beneath his nostrils with a trembling hand while he drew a deep breath, closed his eyes as he put in his mouth, then opened them and leaned forward, toward the flame dancing from the Zippo lighter in the young man's hand. He drew deep, choked back a cough, drew again, then coughed convulsively, taking the cigarette out and holding it protectively to the side while his body shoved the smoke back out, adding flecks of blood and colored sputum.
"That's the first one I've had in four... no, five years. Almost five years," he amended. "What day is it?"
"May First."
"Not quite five years, then. So do you want to hear some truth?"
"Go ahead."
"A man who hates is dangerous, but no more so than any other common thug. He can be defended against, he can be cowed, he might even learn, and change his ways. But a man who feels nothing, and who does what he does out of a sense of duty, or -- God help us -- a sense of right... that man is capable of anything and cannot be stopped so easily. They are glaciers of destruction, ready to grind down everything in their path in order to achieve a greater good." He bit off the last two words; spit them out like something sour.
The young man jotted down a couple of notes, looked up when the man stopped talking. "And?"
"And nothing. Those are truths. My grandfather was killed many years ago, by the first kind of creature; my father was killed thirty years later, by an army of the latter. Tell me, what manner of duty is it that would pump gas into trenches to burn the lungs of everyone in them, and then bayonet those who didn't die fast enough? What greater good is served?"
The young man shrugged. "It's war, I suppose. Soldiers die."
"I see your airplanes pass over almost every day, it seems. Tell me, are they only dropping leaflets on the cities?"
The young man pulled out another cigarette, lit it, and puffed it into glowing life before he answered. "I'm not in the Air Corps. I wouldn't know."
"I see. Just like the good citizens in town knew nothing, despite the stench that hung like a cloud you could taste, and the ash that fell from the sky." The man stubbed out the cigarette on the arm of his chair, flicked it to the floor, and ground it in with his bare foot. "Here is another truth. My brother and his wife, and their two children... my cousins and their children -- if you sifted that ash, you might just find them there. But if the ash is fine enough, if the clouds rose high enough, they might get pushed along by the upper winds to a place where they mingle with other ashes -- other people's brothers and cousins and neighbors, from the cities that die beneath your bombers."
"How can you --" the young man began, then stopped, lay his pen down. "I think we're done, here."
"How can I? Another truth, then: inhumanity met with inhumanity can only lead to suffering. But inhumanity met with faith -- now that's something else entirely. That can lead to grace."
"I don't understand."
"Every day here, every day for almost five years, I looked death in the eye. Every day, I saw men and women die like so many cattle being slaughtered -- no, not even with that much dignity. I saw men and women die with utter capriciousness, for no better reason than someone didn't like the way they spoke, or someone had a fight with their wife and settled the score by beating a person to death with a truncheon. In the midst of the madness, only one thing kept me sane, kept me grounded: I believed, I knew with every fiber of my being that God would not forget me here."
"How could you be so sure God would pick you to live, out of so many?"
The man smiled crookedly. "You misunderstand. I did not know whether I would live or die, but I came to understand that it was not important -- because God had not forgotten me. Whatever might happen to me, in the end God was still there, still holding me in his arms. Sometimes a father cannot keep his child from hurting, but he can still hold him and love him, let him know that he is not alone." He shrugged. "We do not live in our time, but in God's."
"It must have been very difficult."
"Do you read your Bible, Captain? Isaiah said it thousands of years ago: At just the right time, I will respond to you. On the day of salvation I will help you... I will say to the prisoners, 'Come out in freedom,' and to those in darkness, 'Come into the light.' I knew that one way or another, the time would come for me to come out in freedom, to come out of the darkness. I knew my name was written on God's hand. I just had to keep believing -- to hold onto the humanity that God gave me. As long as I had that, they could not defeat me."
"I see." On the pad in front of him, the young man wrote, simply, Isaiah. "I'll have to look it up, some time."
"Chapter Forty-nine. Start there." He stood up, wavered slightly and reached down with one hand to the flimsy field desk, to steady himself. "I suppose I should leave you, now. I know you have others to interview."
"Thank you. Just send the next person in." He flipped the page back, so he could start the next witness statement on a blank sheet. "Thank you for your time," he said impulsively. "I -- I hope something good comes of all this, although I can't imagine what it might be."
The man turned to him and half-smiled. "God can -- and that's what matters." He turned to leave, then turned back again, pointed out the door, to the fence beyond. "I said the first thing you see here is a lie. You've seen the sign -- the one over the gate: Arbeit Macht Frei?"
"Work will make you free," the Captain translated. "Yes, I've seen it."
"Well, it's a lie. Work won't set you free, but faith -- now that's something else entirely. Faith will set you free. Faith frees you to believe in grace... and grace frees you to be the person you were meant to be. And that's the last truth I have for you," he finished strongly and straightened up as best he could to walk back toward the barracks of Dachau.
The place still stank, but the guards and kapos were gone, the gates were not locked, and he knew that he would not be there much longer. God had not forgotten him.
He had faith in that.
Keith Hewitt is the author of NaTiVity Dramas: Four Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages. He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children, and works in the IT Department at a major public safety testing organization.
A Lesson from Lauren
By Argile Smith
Matthew 6:24-34; Psalm 131
Marty thought she had a good reason to worry. A sixty-year-old woman who had just lost her husband; she didn't know anything about the financial state of affairs in her house.
Her husband, George, had taken care of everything that had to do with money, property, and other resources. He always wanted to make her life as easy as possible. After all, she had stood by him when he took the risky step of starting his own business. They had two small kids in tow then, and she devoted herself to making a home for their son and daughter while George worked like a slave to get the business off the ground. Those days seemed to be little more than distant memories as Marty fumbled through the filing cabinet in George's study one day searching for documents that would give her some clues regarding what he would want her to do now.
After he sold the business, he and Marty retired so they could enjoy the grandchildren who had graced their family. One of them, Lauren, was coming for a visit later that day, and Marty looked forward to it. Loving on a grandchild had a way of settling her, perhaps distracting her from her worry.
She didn't have much money in her checking account, and the funeral expenses had been enormous. She tried to console herself in the knowledge that at least she didn't have to worry about extensive medical bills. George's massive heart attack took his life instantly. But that fact didn't keep her from worrying about the other question marks that kept popping up as she looked toward the future.
Lauren showed up at the front door right on time with an eager smile on her face. She looked forward to her afternoon with her nana. She had the entire afternoon mapped out for the two of them. They would play together, talk and laugh together, bake cookies together, and do lots of other things, and they would do them all together.
As you would imagine, Marty welcomed the contentment that her angel of a granddaughter brought her. She turned her attention to the plan set for her, and the two of them indulged in each other for the time that had together.
As they talked about things important to Lauren, the subject of food came into the conversation. "What would you like to have for dinner?" asked Marty.
"Pizza! I love pizza!" said Lauren with a certain glee in her voice.
"Then pizza it will be!"
In just a little while, Lauren and her nana found themselves sitting at the kitchen table munching cheese pizza. Lauren gobbled down one slice after another while Marty watched in satisfaction.
That's when Marty began to notice something that she had overlooked before that afternoon. Lauren couldn't have gotten the pizza by herself. She didn't bring any money with her, and neither did she bring along a lunchbox just in case. Of course, she gave no thought to whether or not she would have something to eat, even though she was helpless to get her own food. She didn't think twice about it because she knew that Nana would make sure that she got something to eat. Nana could also be counted on to supply everything else she would need on her visit. Lauren was as helpless as any other child her age, but she trusted the people who cared for her to supply her with what she couldn't get for herself. That's why she didn't worry about it.
That night when Marty prayed, she asked God to help her to trust him like Lauren trusted her. In a way, she felt helpless, too. Instead of worrying, she wanted to face her future with a childlike trust in God.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
**********************************************
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 email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, May 25, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 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.
