A Waste of Time
Stories
Contents
“A Waste of Time” by Keith Hewitt
“Lord, Where Are You Going? / Domine, Quo Vadis?” by David O. Bales
“Remembering Jesus In Corinth” by David O. Bales
A Waste of Time
by Keith Hewitt
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
The moon cast a bright light on the world, a counterpoint to the gloom that lay heavy in Samuel’s heart. He leaned against the doorpost of his home and looked up and down the narrow, twisting path between houses — it was not wide or paved, so could hardly be called a street. As far as the eye could see, the homes shared a common feature: blood streaked across the lintel and down the posts of each door.
Some was bright red, still drying; other doorposts were caked with darker stains, done much earlier.
Samuel snorted and shook his head: the animals whose blood was being shed were not the only sheep, he thought.
“Did you need some blood, Samuel?”
He turned to see who had spoken; his neighbor, Jacob, stood close by with a bowl and a stalk of hyssop reed. When Samuel didn’t answer immediately, Jacob held out the bowl and reed. “Do you need this, Samuel? I see you haven’t marked your home, yet. We are supposed to use the blood of our own lamb, but I think it would work for you to use mine.”
Samuel chuckled, waved his hand slightly. “No, no — thank you, Jacob, but no. I will not be joining the rest of the sheep tonight.”
His neighbor looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what I said — I will not be joining this headlong dash to mindless conformity.” He pushed back against the door frame with his shoulder, until he straightened up, and gestured down the path. “Look at you — all of you — Moses says ‘do this,’ and you do it, never stopping to question why, or what effect it could have on you and your families.”
“I don’t understand. Moses has been right every time.”
“He’s been right about the Pharaoh’s heart being hardened, that’s for sure. Of course, that’s because Moses has been behind it, with his slick tricks and provocations.”
“Moses is the messenger, Samuel — it’s God who’s behind it.”
“I prefer my God being helpful, Jacob — not getting me into more trouble. So no, no thank you.” He paused. “Did it ever occur to you that all you’re doing, with this hocus pocus lamb’s blood ritual, is putting out a sign to the world that you’re a Hebrew? You are literally drawing a target on the back of you and your family, telling the Pharaoh’s army where you live.”
Jacob frowned. “Well…no.”
Samuel nodded, his expression smug. “Think about it. What, in everything you’re doing tonight, will actually help you? And what is just mumbo jumbo, or even actively putting you and your kids at risk?”
“Moses said by marking the doors, we are telling the Destroyer to pass over our homes. We are affirming our allegiance to God.”
“And if this ‘Destroyer’ actually does pass over your home, and go on to kill thousands of our Egyptian overlords…what do you think their reaction is going to be? Will they just say we can leave, now that we’ve destroyed so many of them — or will they be looking for revenge, seeking out the homes of their tormentors?” He tapped the side of his head slowly with one finger. “You’ve got to think about these things, Jacob — and not depend on someone else to do it for you.”
“But —” His neighbor hesitated, groping for words. “— this is God we’re talking about. The God of Abraham and Isaac.”
“Did God appear personally to you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Me either. You may not have noticed it, Jacob, but God has been noticeably absent from his people for generations. We’ve been left here to suffer — and to what end?” He shrugged. “I think, if God ever was really interested in us, that time is past. God no longer cares. Our suffering for generations has proven that.”
“But the miracles — the plagues —”
“We live in a pest hole, Jacob — you know that. Moses, the sharp talker, comes along and convinces us that each of these plagues is his doing — or God’s doing — it’s a sham. And even if they were supernatural, what have they gotten us? Pharaoh has become even more brutal. They haven’t helped us. Far from it.”
“I think God has just been waiting for the right time — and the right people. People of faith.” Jacob, too, waved a hand toward the other houses. “I think God was waiting until a time when all his children would be willing to stand up and declare who they were, so that he could lead them out of Egypt as a unified people. And you’re right, maybe marking our homes is part of that. Not to tell Pharaoh’s soldiers who we are, but to tell the world who we are — children of Abraham, followers of God.”
There was a silence, then, before Samuel asked, “Just say you’re right — where do we go when we are ‘freed’? We have no home. We have no way of living other than as slaves. What will we do?”
Jacob shrugged. “We have faith.”
“Faith has been a very empty vessel for the last four hundred years, Jacob.”
“And yet, it’s what we’re left with. We have faith in the stories of our ancestors. We have faith in the words of God as they’ve been told to us for generations. We even have faith that Moses is the leader who’s been sent to bring us out of slavery.” He raised the bowl and reed again. “Faith leads us to this—not because it’s reasonable, or even understandable, but because we trust the God of our ancestors.”
Samuel frowned. “You can trust him — I’m trusting my instincts, and my instincts say it’s a waste of time.” He opened the door to his home, paused and looked at Jacob. “Good night, Jacob. See you at the brick works tomorrow.” Without waiting for a response, he went inside and closed the door; Jacob heard it latch.
Jacob looked after him for a moment or two, then shrugged. “Faith is never a waste of time,” he murmured, and dipped the reed into the bowl, began dabbing blood onto his neighbor’s doorway.
* * *
Remembering Jesus In Corinth
by David O. Bales
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Lamprias wandered the same quarter of Corinth for nearly an hour. He was certain that he knew where Timon’s sidewalk snack bar was; but, these streets wound back on themselves and he had to ask directions twice. Consequently, he didn’t arrive until the snack bar had a row of customers lined up on the noon sidewalk. From behind the counter Timon saw him and nudged aside the two other workers to take Lamprias’s order; however, he lowered his eyes as he did so. Lamprias assumed he would.
“Morning,” Lamprias said, “pork.”
Timon turned to the table behind him and grabbed a serving of pork. When he handed it over the counter he had his excuse ready, “I just haven’t been able to come for a while. It’s the way the master schedules our few hours off.”
Lamprias also had prepared what he would say, “If I wait around until after the rush, can we talk?”
Timon turned to the two working with him and obviously they could do well enough without him. “Sure,” he said, but Lamprias felt his reluctance.
Half an hour later when the two stood next door in front of the furniture maker’s shop, Timon said, “I can’t be gone long.” He looked back nervously to the snack bar.
Lamprias said, “We’ve missed you at the gathering.”
Timon quickly said, “Haven’t been able to make it,” but he knew he didn’t sound convincing.
Lamprias said nothing. A couple rowdy Roman soldiers passed by laughing. Lamprias remained silent, which unnerved Timon. He waved his hand between them and blurted out, “I just don’t belong there.” He knew what Lamprias would say next.
“Why?” Lamprias always spoke straight to the problem; and — doubly disturbing — Timon always felt that Lamprias had his best interests at heart. At this point Timon admitted to himself that no matter how long they talked together, Lamprias’s concern for him would result in Timon’s returning to the Christian gathering. Since the first Sunday evening that Timon had met Lamprias with the other Christians, Lamprias had been a spiritual father to him. Neither had said it, but both knew it. Timon had never experienced someone demonstrating selfless concern for him. Lamprias didn’t try to get something from him, not even gratitude. It had been this way for the nine months since he declared himself a Christian.
Timon breathed deeply and attempted to look Lamprias in the eye, “I don’t fit at Phaedrus’s home.”
Lamprias waited, looked at him kindly, … and waited. The street outside the furniture maker’s smelled of sawdust.
“All right,” Timon said. “The last time I was there, I sat beside Phaedrus. His house, yet he’s inviting all Christians to our worship meal. Sounds real good. But he’s my master’s patron. Once a week the master trots over with the mob of Phaedrus’s clients to solicit favors. Phaedrus and I live in different worlds. Last time I was there, coming in later than usual, only place anybody could point to was near the fountain and side by side with Phaedrus. He looked at me blankly. What was I supposed to do? I knew the courtesy I’d show him if we met in the street, but at a Christian gathering?”
Lamprias said, “I know some of the richer members don’t yet realize the equality of everyone in Christ.”
Timon said, “It’s not just their problem.” He craned his neck to see if he was needed at the snack bar. “And it’s not the first time. I don’t mean with Phaedrus, but most everybody. A few slaves, that’s no problem. Besides, they get there even later than I do. There’s usually a few scraps of food left for them. But how am I supposed to relate to Corinth’s elite when one hands me a cup of wine? I spend my days handing them a cup of wine.”
“Is that all?” Lamprias asked.
Timon puffed out his breath quickly, “that’s a lot!”
“Then,” Lamprias spoke calmly, “let’s start not from you or Phaedrus, but think about what we’re doing around the Lord’s Table. The Apostle reminded us. You’ve memorized the words?” It wasn’t a question.
“Sure.”
“Run it over in your mind. Jesus said we repeat what he started as a reminder, a means of remembering him. So we do. We remember he died for us; but, we also recall his entire life. When we sit at his meal, we join not only with one another but with all who shared his many meals. And this meal is ‘on the night when he was betrayed.’ We remember his students went out after that meal to betray him, flee from him, and deny him. In his meal we’re united with Jesus and also all believers — starting with his students who failed him. When we take his bread and eat it and when we receive his cup and drink it, we recall that for their sake, and thus for ours, he went to the cross.”
Timon kept his head tipped down, but he wasn’t missing a word.
“At our meal we call to mind that we abandon Jesus and he dies for us anyway to bring us back to God. He doesn’t punish us for falling away. He forgives us.”
Lamprias looked over Timon’s head and gazed across Corinth’s skyline. He gave a sorrowful sigh. “I know our Christian group isn’t as faithful as it should be. At least we know what we should be and pray that our behavior rise to our belief. Our sharing the meal announces that we have no other hope than that Jesus forgives us.”
He placed his hand on Timon’s shoulder. “At the meal God is saying, ‘Come back to Jesus and his resurrected life here on earth.’”
Timon peered at his feet as Lamprias asked, “Will you come back to Christ’s meal?”
People were pushing past the two on the sidewalk. An older fellow and his wife led a slave out of the furniture shop carrying a chair. Lamprias waited for Timon to answer.
Preaching point: All are united in Christ’s meal.
* * *
Lord, Where Are You Going?
Domine, Quo Vadis?
by David O. Bales
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Within two hundred years after Christ, the message of his resurrection spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Also, legends grew about Christ and his disciples. As time went on the legends included wilder fantasies. Christians had to decide what stories to believe. This caused confusion especially for children, as was experienced one morning in a fish market in early fourth century Rome.
11-year-old Claudia smelled her parents’ pickled fish market four shops away. She ran into their market and brushed the elbow of an old man throwing dice on a table with another old man. “Watch it!” he said and scowled at her. The other man laughed, “It’s all right, Claudia, he just lost three denarii.”
She rushed around the counter to her mother. “Mother,” she said excitedly; but, her mother held her hand toward her and frowned, “Wait until I give this woman her fish.” The woman dumped the fish into her basket and left with a wave to Claudia. Her mother turned to Claudia who was breathing hard from having run. She’d been to Sylvia’s home to help prepare their courtyard for the Thursday night worship before Resurrection Sunday. She knew she had to wait for her mother to dry her hands on the towel and turn to her, which she did. Claudia was finally able to blurt out, “While we were sweeping, Sylvia told me what the Apostle Peter did here in Rome.”
Her mother rolled her eyes, “Oh, really?”
“Yes, all kinds of things I’d never heard in the Christian gathering. The apostle solved crimes, made a dog speak, brought a dead fish back to life, and — of all wonders — by prayer he made a flying magician fall from the sky.”
“Hmm,” her mother said. She stared down at Claudia’s eager face, her mind swirling with how to explain that not all stories floating around about Christ and the apostles were true. “I’ve heard those also,” she said, rubbing her cloth on the counter. She bought more time to think by pushing aside a wooden crate. Another customer came and she quickly sold her twenty sardines. The two old dice players at the table by the door yelled at one another about whether it had been a three or a four. She motioned to a stool and Claudia sat.
“Every Lord’s Day we listen to the gospels read, and we hear stories of his apostles and what they taught and wrote.” Claudia nodded and brushed from her eyes the hair that still dangled in her face after her dash from Sylvia’s house.
“But for whatever reason, people keep adding to those stories. Maybe they get bored with what they already know or maybe they don’t even believe in Christ and want to make Christianity seem silly; but most things they make up are flatly unbelievable.”
Claudia listened intently with her mouth open. “Close your mouth,” her mother said, “before you catch a fish fly.” She shut it with a pop and knew her mother would get around to telling her what she wanted to know.
“About those stories of Peter in Rome,” her mother said. “I’ve heard them. Usually I laugh at them. But even though I think somebody made it up just for entertainment, there’s one episode that, even if it didn’t happen, makes us think about Christ’s truth.”
A die flew onto the floor and the players blamed each other, as they did everyday. Her mother raised her voice to them, “The die is cast,” but the two looked confused. She said, “You don’t know the history of your own empire.” They gave her no account. She sat down opposite Claudia. “The only part that strikes me as likely in those Peter stories,” she said, “is where Peter’s in danger and friends convince him to leave Rome to escape being murdered. He gets out of the city and meets the Lord Christ who’s entering. Peter asks, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Christ answers, ‘I go to Rome to be crucified.’ And Peter says, ‘Lord, are you going to be crucified again?’ To which Christ answers, ‘Yes, Peter, I shall be crucified again.’ Peter understands that he himself must return to Rome and be crucified for his faith and Christ ascends again to heaven.
“Peter, like us, is part of Christ’s very body on earth. So when Peter was crucified, we could say that Christ, in Peter’s martyrdom, was crucified again. I also think that if Peter wouldn’t return to Rome and be crucified, Christ would have gone to Rome and been crucified again for him — as he would again for each of us.”
Claudia’s eyes were wide and she said, “But, but…”
“Just someone’s idea of what could have happened, knowing what Christ and Peter were like. But a powerful one. Christ did surprisingly sacrificial things for us. He surprised us with the way he died for us, but he also surprised his disciples on that last Thursday, serving them by washing their feet. Those strange stories about Peter in Rome are surprising; but, if one’s going to create an extra story about Christ, it should surprise us again with how he served us with his life and death.”
That seemed to satisfy Claudia. She nodded and was about to thank her mother when, instead, she reached quickly to the floor to pick up the die before either old man could blame the other for dropping it.
Preaching point: Christ in surprising ways sacrificed himself for his followers (John 13:36 and the non-canonical Acts Of Peter, chapter 35).
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 9, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
“A Waste of Time” by Keith Hewitt
“Lord, Where Are You Going? / Domine, Quo Vadis?” by David O. Bales
“Remembering Jesus In Corinth” by David O. Bales
A Waste of Time
by Keith Hewitt
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
The moon cast a bright light on the world, a counterpoint to the gloom that lay heavy in Samuel’s heart. He leaned against the doorpost of his home and looked up and down the narrow, twisting path between houses — it was not wide or paved, so could hardly be called a street. As far as the eye could see, the homes shared a common feature: blood streaked across the lintel and down the posts of each door.
Some was bright red, still drying; other doorposts were caked with darker stains, done much earlier.
Samuel snorted and shook his head: the animals whose blood was being shed were not the only sheep, he thought.
“Did you need some blood, Samuel?”
He turned to see who had spoken; his neighbor, Jacob, stood close by with a bowl and a stalk of hyssop reed. When Samuel didn’t answer immediately, Jacob held out the bowl and reed. “Do you need this, Samuel? I see you haven’t marked your home, yet. We are supposed to use the blood of our own lamb, but I think it would work for you to use mine.”
Samuel chuckled, waved his hand slightly. “No, no — thank you, Jacob, but no. I will not be joining the rest of the sheep tonight.”
His neighbor looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what I said — I will not be joining this headlong dash to mindless conformity.” He pushed back against the door frame with his shoulder, until he straightened up, and gestured down the path. “Look at you — all of you — Moses says ‘do this,’ and you do it, never stopping to question why, or what effect it could have on you and your families.”
“I don’t understand. Moses has been right every time.”
“He’s been right about the Pharaoh’s heart being hardened, that’s for sure. Of course, that’s because Moses has been behind it, with his slick tricks and provocations.”
“Moses is the messenger, Samuel — it’s God who’s behind it.”
“I prefer my God being helpful, Jacob — not getting me into more trouble. So no, no thank you.” He paused. “Did it ever occur to you that all you’re doing, with this hocus pocus lamb’s blood ritual, is putting out a sign to the world that you’re a Hebrew? You are literally drawing a target on the back of you and your family, telling the Pharaoh’s army where you live.”
Jacob frowned. “Well…no.”
Samuel nodded, his expression smug. “Think about it. What, in everything you’re doing tonight, will actually help you? And what is just mumbo jumbo, or even actively putting you and your kids at risk?”
“Moses said by marking the doors, we are telling the Destroyer to pass over our homes. We are affirming our allegiance to God.”
“And if this ‘Destroyer’ actually does pass over your home, and go on to kill thousands of our Egyptian overlords…what do you think their reaction is going to be? Will they just say we can leave, now that we’ve destroyed so many of them — or will they be looking for revenge, seeking out the homes of their tormentors?” He tapped the side of his head slowly with one finger. “You’ve got to think about these things, Jacob — and not depend on someone else to do it for you.”
“But —” His neighbor hesitated, groping for words. “— this is God we’re talking about. The God of Abraham and Isaac.”
“Did God appear personally to you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Me either. You may not have noticed it, Jacob, but God has been noticeably absent from his people for generations. We’ve been left here to suffer — and to what end?” He shrugged. “I think, if God ever was really interested in us, that time is past. God no longer cares. Our suffering for generations has proven that.”
“But the miracles — the plagues —”
“We live in a pest hole, Jacob — you know that. Moses, the sharp talker, comes along and convinces us that each of these plagues is his doing — or God’s doing — it’s a sham. And even if they were supernatural, what have they gotten us? Pharaoh has become even more brutal. They haven’t helped us. Far from it.”
“I think God has just been waiting for the right time — and the right people. People of faith.” Jacob, too, waved a hand toward the other houses. “I think God was waiting until a time when all his children would be willing to stand up and declare who they were, so that he could lead them out of Egypt as a unified people. And you’re right, maybe marking our homes is part of that. Not to tell Pharaoh’s soldiers who we are, but to tell the world who we are — children of Abraham, followers of God.”
There was a silence, then, before Samuel asked, “Just say you’re right — where do we go when we are ‘freed’? We have no home. We have no way of living other than as slaves. What will we do?”
Jacob shrugged. “We have faith.”
“Faith has been a very empty vessel for the last four hundred years, Jacob.”
“And yet, it’s what we’re left with. We have faith in the stories of our ancestors. We have faith in the words of God as they’ve been told to us for generations. We even have faith that Moses is the leader who’s been sent to bring us out of slavery.” He raised the bowl and reed again. “Faith leads us to this—not because it’s reasonable, or even understandable, but because we trust the God of our ancestors.”
Samuel frowned. “You can trust him — I’m trusting my instincts, and my instincts say it’s a waste of time.” He opened the door to his home, paused and looked at Jacob. “Good night, Jacob. See you at the brick works tomorrow.” Without waiting for a response, he went inside and closed the door; Jacob heard it latch.
Jacob looked after him for a moment or two, then shrugged. “Faith is never a waste of time,” he murmured, and dipped the reed into the bowl, began dabbing blood onto his neighbor’s doorway.
* * *
Remembering Jesus In Corinth
by David O. Bales
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Lamprias wandered the same quarter of Corinth for nearly an hour. He was certain that he knew where Timon’s sidewalk snack bar was; but, these streets wound back on themselves and he had to ask directions twice. Consequently, he didn’t arrive until the snack bar had a row of customers lined up on the noon sidewalk. From behind the counter Timon saw him and nudged aside the two other workers to take Lamprias’s order; however, he lowered his eyes as he did so. Lamprias assumed he would.
“Morning,” Lamprias said, “pork.”
Timon turned to the table behind him and grabbed a serving of pork. When he handed it over the counter he had his excuse ready, “I just haven’t been able to come for a while. It’s the way the master schedules our few hours off.”
Lamprias also had prepared what he would say, “If I wait around until after the rush, can we talk?”
Timon turned to the two working with him and obviously they could do well enough without him. “Sure,” he said, but Lamprias felt his reluctance.
Half an hour later when the two stood next door in front of the furniture maker’s shop, Timon said, “I can’t be gone long.” He looked back nervously to the snack bar.
Lamprias said, “We’ve missed you at the gathering.”
Timon quickly said, “Haven’t been able to make it,” but he knew he didn’t sound convincing.
Lamprias said nothing. A couple rowdy Roman soldiers passed by laughing. Lamprias remained silent, which unnerved Timon. He waved his hand between them and blurted out, “I just don’t belong there.” He knew what Lamprias would say next.
“Why?” Lamprias always spoke straight to the problem; and — doubly disturbing — Timon always felt that Lamprias had his best interests at heart. At this point Timon admitted to himself that no matter how long they talked together, Lamprias’s concern for him would result in Timon’s returning to the Christian gathering. Since the first Sunday evening that Timon had met Lamprias with the other Christians, Lamprias had been a spiritual father to him. Neither had said it, but both knew it. Timon had never experienced someone demonstrating selfless concern for him. Lamprias didn’t try to get something from him, not even gratitude. It had been this way for the nine months since he declared himself a Christian.
Timon breathed deeply and attempted to look Lamprias in the eye, “I don’t fit at Phaedrus’s home.”
Lamprias waited, looked at him kindly, … and waited. The street outside the furniture maker’s smelled of sawdust.
“All right,” Timon said. “The last time I was there, I sat beside Phaedrus. His house, yet he’s inviting all Christians to our worship meal. Sounds real good. But he’s my master’s patron. Once a week the master trots over with the mob of Phaedrus’s clients to solicit favors. Phaedrus and I live in different worlds. Last time I was there, coming in later than usual, only place anybody could point to was near the fountain and side by side with Phaedrus. He looked at me blankly. What was I supposed to do? I knew the courtesy I’d show him if we met in the street, but at a Christian gathering?”
Lamprias said, “I know some of the richer members don’t yet realize the equality of everyone in Christ.”
Timon said, “It’s not just their problem.” He craned his neck to see if he was needed at the snack bar. “And it’s not the first time. I don’t mean with Phaedrus, but most everybody. A few slaves, that’s no problem. Besides, they get there even later than I do. There’s usually a few scraps of food left for them. But how am I supposed to relate to Corinth’s elite when one hands me a cup of wine? I spend my days handing them a cup of wine.”
“Is that all?” Lamprias asked.
Timon puffed out his breath quickly, “that’s a lot!”
“Then,” Lamprias spoke calmly, “let’s start not from you or Phaedrus, but think about what we’re doing around the Lord’s Table. The Apostle reminded us. You’ve memorized the words?” It wasn’t a question.
“Sure.”
“Run it over in your mind. Jesus said we repeat what he started as a reminder, a means of remembering him. So we do. We remember he died for us; but, we also recall his entire life. When we sit at his meal, we join not only with one another but with all who shared his many meals. And this meal is ‘on the night when he was betrayed.’ We remember his students went out after that meal to betray him, flee from him, and deny him. In his meal we’re united with Jesus and also all believers — starting with his students who failed him. When we take his bread and eat it and when we receive his cup and drink it, we recall that for their sake, and thus for ours, he went to the cross.”
Timon kept his head tipped down, but he wasn’t missing a word.
“At our meal we call to mind that we abandon Jesus and he dies for us anyway to bring us back to God. He doesn’t punish us for falling away. He forgives us.”
Lamprias looked over Timon’s head and gazed across Corinth’s skyline. He gave a sorrowful sigh. “I know our Christian group isn’t as faithful as it should be. At least we know what we should be and pray that our behavior rise to our belief. Our sharing the meal announces that we have no other hope than that Jesus forgives us.”
He placed his hand on Timon’s shoulder. “At the meal God is saying, ‘Come back to Jesus and his resurrected life here on earth.’”
Timon peered at his feet as Lamprias asked, “Will you come back to Christ’s meal?”
People were pushing past the two on the sidewalk. An older fellow and his wife led a slave out of the furniture shop carrying a chair. Lamprias waited for Timon to answer.
Preaching point: All are united in Christ’s meal.
* * *
Lord, Where Are You Going?
Domine, Quo Vadis?
by David O. Bales
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Within two hundred years after Christ, the message of his resurrection spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Also, legends grew about Christ and his disciples. As time went on the legends included wilder fantasies. Christians had to decide what stories to believe. This caused confusion especially for children, as was experienced one morning in a fish market in early fourth century Rome.
11-year-old Claudia smelled her parents’ pickled fish market four shops away. She ran into their market and brushed the elbow of an old man throwing dice on a table with another old man. “Watch it!” he said and scowled at her. The other man laughed, “It’s all right, Claudia, he just lost three denarii.”
She rushed around the counter to her mother. “Mother,” she said excitedly; but, her mother held her hand toward her and frowned, “Wait until I give this woman her fish.” The woman dumped the fish into her basket and left with a wave to Claudia. Her mother turned to Claudia who was breathing hard from having run. She’d been to Sylvia’s home to help prepare their courtyard for the Thursday night worship before Resurrection Sunday. She knew she had to wait for her mother to dry her hands on the towel and turn to her, which she did. Claudia was finally able to blurt out, “While we were sweeping, Sylvia told me what the Apostle Peter did here in Rome.”
Her mother rolled her eyes, “Oh, really?”
“Yes, all kinds of things I’d never heard in the Christian gathering. The apostle solved crimes, made a dog speak, brought a dead fish back to life, and — of all wonders — by prayer he made a flying magician fall from the sky.”
“Hmm,” her mother said. She stared down at Claudia’s eager face, her mind swirling with how to explain that not all stories floating around about Christ and the apostles were true. “I’ve heard those also,” she said, rubbing her cloth on the counter. She bought more time to think by pushing aside a wooden crate. Another customer came and she quickly sold her twenty sardines. The two old dice players at the table by the door yelled at one another about whether it had been a three or a four. She motioned to a stool and Claudia sat.
“Every Lord’s Day we listen to the gospels read, and we hear stories of his apostles and what they taught and wrote.” Claudia nodded and brushed from her eyes the hair that still dangled in her face after her dash from Sylvia’s house.
“But for whatever reason, people keep adding to those stories. Maybe they get bored with what they already know or maybe they don’t even believe in Christ and want to make Christianity seem silly; but most things they make up are flatly unbelievable.”
Claudia listened intently with her mouth open. “Close your mouth,” her mother said, “before you catch a fish fly.” She shut it with a pop and knew her mother would get around to telling her what she wanted to know.
“About those stories of Peter in Rome,” her mother said. “I’ve heard them. Usually I laugh at them. But even though I think somebody made it up just for entertainment, there’s one episode that, even if it didn’t happen, makes us think about Christ’s truth.”
A die flew onto the floor and the players blamed each other, as they did everyday. Her mother raised her voice to them, “The die is cast,” but the two looked confused. She said, “You don’t know the history of your own empire.” They gave her no account. She sat down opposite Claudia. “The only part that strikes me as likely in those Peter stories,” she said, “is where Peter’s in danger and friends convince him to leave Rome to escape being murdered. He gets out of the city and meets the Lord Christ who’s entering. Peter asks, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Christ answers, ‘I go to Rome to be crucified.’ And Peter says, ‘Lord, are you going to be crucified again?’ To which Christ answers, ‘Yes, Peter, I shall be crucified again.’ Peter understands that he himself must return to Rome and be crucified for his faith and Christ ascends again to heaven.
“Peter, like us, is part of Christ’s very body on earth. So when Peter was crucified, we could say that Christ, in Peter’s martyrdom, was crucified again. I also think that if Peter wouldn’t return to Rome and be crucified, Christ would have gone to Rome and been crucified again for him — as he would again for each of us.”
Claudia’s eyes were wide and she said, “But, but…”
“Just someone’s idea of what could have happened, knowing what Christ and Peter were like. But a powerful one. Christ did surprisingly sacrificial things for us. He surprised us with the way he died for us, but he also surprised his disciples on that last Thursday, serving them by washing their feet. Those strange stories about Peter in Rome are surprising; but, if one’s going to create an extra story about Christ, it should surprise us again with how he served us with his life and death.”
That seemed to satisfy Claudia. She nodded and was about to thank her mother when, instead, she reached quickly to the floor to pick up the die before either old man could blame the other for dropping it.
Preaching point: Christ in surprising ways sacrificed himself for his followers (John 13:36 and the non-canonical Acts Of Peter, chapter 35).
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StoryShare, April 9, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
