Who Is In Favor Of Child Sacrifice?
Stories
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Contents
What's Up This Week
Stories to Live By: "Who Is In Favor of Child Sacrifice?" by John Sumwalt
Shining Moments: "A Cup of Coffee" by Thomas Kadel
Sermon Starters: "A Prophet's Reward" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
All of the stories in the Abraham saga are rich in homiletic themes -- and none more than the account of God's call for Abraham to sacrifice his son. This story challenges the preacher to be bold. I plan to reflect with my congregation about child sacrifice, the theme explored in this week's Stories to Live By (and indirectly in the Sermon Starters). I will quote from an article which appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on July 17, 2005 about the 1,700 U.S. soldiers who have died and the 12,000 who have been wounded in the Iraq war. Please send your thoughts and sermons about this important issue. We will be glad to include them in the next StoryShare.
(See the complete Journal-Sentinel article at http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/jun05/334375.asp)
Stories to Live By
Who Is In Favor of Child Sacrifice?
by John Sumwalt
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you."
Genesis 22:1-2
Child sacrifice was a common practice in the ancient world. Archeologists have often found the bones of small children under the doorways of prehistoric and some historic homes. The oldest child was sometimes sacrificed as a way of seeking protection for the family.
In 800 B.C., in the time of the prophet Elisha, when the king of Moab was losing a great battle to the Israelite army and knew that there was no hope for victory, he "took his eldest son who would have succeeded him and offered him as a whole offering upon the city wall. The Israelites were filled with such consternation at this sight that they struck camp and returned to their land" (2 Kings 3:27).
During the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s, the government of Iran drafted hundreds of thousands of teenage boys, as young as 13 years old, and with very little training sent them in human waves against Iraqi machine guns, mortars, rockets, and poison gas.
God said to Abraham, "Take your only son, the one whom you love, and sacrifice him..."
For what would you sacrifice your child?
Some of you fathers who fought in World War II, in Korea, or in Vietnam know the horrors of war, and you know something of Abraham's anguish in this moment. Some of you have sent sons and daughters off to Iraq and Afghanistan. Which was more difficult -- to go off to war yourself, or to send that child that you loved? There goes the promise of future generations in your family. There goes your hope for grandchildren. There goes your pride and joy, the one you love with all of your heart. Will he/she come back? Will there be a future for your family?
My good friend Ken Anderson, now a retired United Methodist preacher, tells about the time his oldest son, Curt, was sent to Vietnam in 1968. Ken says, "I remember feeling fear in a way that I had never experienced it before. It was different from the fear I had known as a fighter pilot in World War II. I had been shot at, seen friends shot down and killed, been frightened almost out of my wits more times than I cared to remember, but this was far worse. I felt a deep, abiding, terrible dread. Curt was my oldest son. I didn't want to let him go.... When I looked out the window that day and saw the major coming up the walk, I knew why he had come before I opened the door. He told us Curt's helicopter had been shot down, that it had crashed and burned, and that Curt was missing. Two days later he came back to tell us Curt's body had been found."
There was Abraham. God said, "Take your only son whom you love... and offer his as a sacrifice." And Abraham set out to do it. How could he have done that, we say? Why didn't he say to God, "Take me instead; I'm an old man, let my son live"? That's what we all would like to think we would do.
But think about it for a moment, lest we judge old Abe too harshly. We are all of us quite willing to sacrifice our children in many different ways. Phyllis Trible, professor of sacred literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York, was one of the panelists on Bill Moyers' discussion of this story on a PBS documentary a few years ago. Phyllis said, "That's one reason this story is so terrifying to all of us -- because at some level, we all suspect that we have been sacrificed by our parents. And if we're parents, we fear that we'll do the same thing to our children. Parents are always sacrificing their children... to their ambitions, to success, to their pride, to whatever. That's one reason people hate this story." (Genesis: A Living Conversation, Doubleday, 1996)
"Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven... And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns."
Had the ram been there all along? Did it take an act of God for Abraham to see it?
James Sanders, in his book God Has a Story Too, writes of this text:
"...in Abraham we see our human tendency to believe that existence depends on God's gifts rather than on God the giver of these gifts.... Whenever we are seduced, as indeed we constantly are, to think that our existence depends on creation or that the church depends on the church, we must face the divine question, the judgment of God on our very life, 'Have we mistaken God's gift for God the giver? Have we come to think that the guarantee of existence resides in ourselves?' "
Sanders adds: "He who gives life the first time can also give it again. The marvel in the Bible is not Resurrection or re-Creation but Creation. For belief in the first is already belief in the second."
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 28, 1998.
Shining Moments
A Cup of Coffee
by Thomas Kadel
"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.... Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
Matthew 10:40, 42
I want to tell you about something that happened while I was in Ohio in July of 2003, just after my mother's death. It is a story that involves a cup of coffee, a duck, and a toothless old man.
On the Tuesday following my mother's death, there was the usual flurry of activity -- people to call, arrangements with the funeral director, planning the service with the pastor, time with family just remembering. Things went well, by the grace of God.
I was staying in a motel in Troy, Ohio, only minutes from the hospital Mom had been in. I had been to Troy, but hadn't ever really seen this beautiful little city. So after all was done and I had said goodbye to my sisters and the families, I decided that rather than go back and sit in the motel alone while awaiting my family's arrival the next day, I would just drive around and look at Troy.
But there was something I had to have first -- a cup of coffee to take with me. Right next door to the motel was a little restaurant called Crazy H's. To put the best light on it, we could call it "unassuming." It is the kind of restaurant where you always check your silverware and plates to make sure that they've been washed -- you know the kind I mean.
Well, I walked in and went up to the counter, where I was waited on by a smallish woman with rather sunken features. "Hard Life" was written in the deep lines that etched her face. She was probably in her forties, but could easily have passed for sixty. "May I have a cup of coffee to go, please?" I asked. "Sure," she replied. After hunting for a cup and lid, she poured the coffee and handed it to me as I handed her my money. "Ah," she said, "forget about it. Just do something nice for someone."
She said that with a warm smile that overcame the deep lines in her face. I thanked her and left. As I drove away, I sipped the coffee. And I want to tell you, it was the best cup of coffee I've ever had. It wasn't because of the taste. It wasn't because I got a freebie. It was because the coffee had the flavor of grace in it.
Maybe if this had happened on any day other than one so filled with emotion and meaning for me, I might not have tasted the grace. But that day, I did. I was truly moved and I savored that coffee, sip by sip, as I rode around Troy viewing the city and thinking about Mom. I really wanted to find someone to be nice to, but since I didn't know anyone in Troy, I had no idea how that would happen. So, all by myself, I savored this cup of coffee, flavored with grace.
Grace is always undeserved. Grace is always a surprise. Grace is always one other thing, too. It is always something that has the power to transform us into persons we could not otherwise be. When that waitress said, "Just do something nice for someone," she transformed me into a person who truly wanted to touch someone else's life with an undeserved and unexpected measure of grace. But alas, I saw no one else that night.
The next day, there was practically nothing to do but wait for Thursday's funeral service. My family had left Harleysville and was on its way to Ohio. I decided that this was a good time to drive to my hometown, Urbana, and immerse myself in memories of Mom and Dad and friends and experiences that had shaped me. I was still thinking about the kindness of that waitress as I drove the 45 minutes from Troy to Urbana.
My first stop was the city park -- a place I just love. There is a big pond there with a tree-filled island in the middle and dozens of waterfowl -- three or four swans, many Canadian geese, and dozens of mallard ducks -- all swimming peacefully. It was a good place to begin my memory tour.
As I watched all those birds float gracefully on the pond, I suddenly became aware of a flurry of activity about a quarter of the way around the pond. I couldn't see clearly what was happening, except that about a dozen ducks seemed to keep flying hard into another duck. I noticed that duck wasn't moving -- it was just flapping its wings frantically. What could this be?
I began to walk over to that place, and as I drew closer I noticed that the unmoving duck had its beak straight up in the air. Closer in, I could tell it was hooked on something. Closer still, and I could see that it was hooked on a fishing hook and that the line was snagged in a tree. The duck was truly stuck, and the others, with all their bashing and bumping, were trying to free it. But the duck was caught.
I looked around, realized I was the only person in the park, and wondered what to do. I didn't have a knife, and I didn't have a clue how to free the duck. It was awful to see. I bent near the spot where the captive and its friends were, and I tried to speak comfortingly to the terrified duck. I wanted so much to free it, but I couldn't. All I could do was try to soothe it.
"She's in a fix, eh?" The words from behind me startled me. I was sure I was alone, but suddenly there was this toothless old man in a kind of golf cart. I have no idea how I could have not heard him approach.
"Well," he said, "let's see if we can help." He had a knife and, remarkably, a small pair of wire cutters on his belt. Together we tenderly pulled the duck from the water, and he cut the line and then removed the hook from the duck's bill. Even more tenderly, he placed her back in the water and she swam off, surrounded by the other ducks, to the far side of the pond.
"Hey," said the toothless man, "that felt good, didn't it?" He laughed a bit as he watched the duck swim away. Then he called off to that duck, "Hey, Mrs. Duck, you go on and do something nice for another duck, okay?" My breath stuck in my throat.
As he started to drive off I thanked him, and he replied, "Oh, it's what I do. I work here."
I suddenly caught on. My experiences Tuesday night in Crazy H's and Wednesday morning at the park pond were not two events, but one -- a story to comfort me and to teach me.
I had been approached by God in a hard-life-faced waitress and in a toothless old man.
I was as helpless against my mother's death as was the little duck against the fish hook. But that is when God provides. In our weakness, God's power shows through. In our weakness we are met unexpectedly by God, who carries us through and saves us from our own powerlessness.
A cup of coffee, a duck, and a toothless man. God was there. And now there is a certain duck and a certain man who know better than before that we cannot save ourselves, but that we don't need to. "Oh, it's what I do," says God. "I work here."
Thomas Kadel is senior pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Kulpsville, Pennsylvania. He is also a family therapist with a small private practice. Tom lives in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Lois, and his family, including grown children Bob, Liz, and Chris. Over his career, he has been a frequent contributor to church-related publications and has authored several catechetical courses for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In the early '80s he edited the book Growth In Ministry, which explored how clergy can be more effective in pastoring congregations.
Sermon Starters
A Prophet's Reward
by John Sumwalt
Jesus said, "Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."
Matthew 10:41a
What is a prophet's reward? And would you want one if you could get it? Prophets are usually not welcomed warmly. On the contrary, if they are any good at doing the basic work of prophets, calling attention to injustice and inviting those who are doing injustice to stop it and start making amends for the damage they have caused, they are apt to be reviled, shunned, perhaps jailed, tortured, or killed. Few prophets are treated as heroes, given medals, honorary degrees, or parades, at least not until they are very old or long dead.
Rosa Parks couldn't get a seat in the front of the bus in 1955; now she is honored all over the world. But what do you think would happen if she were to try to take a seat in the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives today based on a platform of racial equality? Do you suppose all those folks lining up to honor her would vote for her?
James Meredith, who helped to integrate the University of Mississippi in the 1960s with the aid of civil rights marchers, police dogs, and the National Guard, was invited back a few years ago to receive some honor. He was greeted with a standing ovation. Midway through his speech he began to point out the many ways that racism is still causing pain and suffering in our nation and in that university, and people got up and walked out. We prefer retired prophets, tame prophets who are no longer a threat to the status quo.
Jesus knew this. He's the one who said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it" (Matthew 23:37). Jesus is the one who was driven out of his hometown and almost thrown off a cliff. At one point his own family tried to restrain him from doing his prophetic work because people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind" (Mark 3:21).
Jesus was also fully aware of what had happened to his prophet cousin, John the Baptist, who was doing very well out in the wilderness, drawing huge crowds with his camel's hair and locusts routine. Everybody loved him when he was breathing fire about the wrath to come and berating the Pharisees for their many hypocrisies. Then he went and lost his head when he dared to tell King Herod that Herod was in an adulterous relationship with his brother's wife. Prophets who want to keep their heads are well advised not to be too specific when they talk about the evil deeds of people who have power over them.
Rev. Grace Imathieu from Kenya has been interim pastor of First United Methodist Church in Green Bay the past two years. Our bishop, Sharon Rader, invited her to lead the morning Bible study for a bunch of us Pharisees who gathered over in Madison a few weeks ago for the Wisconsin annual conference of the United Methodist Church. She told us funny African stories that made us laugh until we cried, and then she told us something that left all of us white people squirming in our seats. Grace said, "Our very souls are in danger. The sin of racism can send you to hell, and does, and will. Why don't white people talk about what it means to white persons? How do you speak nicely about something so terribly evil? Racism is essentially a white problem. What will it take for you to be angry about racism, to be angry about sin?" Grace said all of this sweetly, with the warmest smile you ever saw, with no anger in her voice. We knew we were in the presence of a woman of God.
Will she get a prophet's reward?
My friend Patricia Marchant has been interviewed several times by newspaper, radio, and television reporters during the recent clergy sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic church. She is a family therapist, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and an activist in survivor's groups. Speaking to the authorities in her church who have the audacity to speak of these unspeakable evils in measured, reassuring, pastoral tones, she said, "Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage?" Do you think the new archbishop will invite Patricia over to the Cousins Center for dinner? "Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward"?
Was Jesus being sarcastic or was he just being realistic? He had already warned the twelve that he was sending them "out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so [they should] be wise as servants and innocent as doves." He said to them, "Beware... for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me" (Matthew 10:16-18a).
Is this the prophet's reward? Is this the best we can hope for?
If you have ever raised an ethical question in your office, when everyone else was willing to close an eye to a business deal that was less than honest, you know why Jesus was trying to prepare his disciples for the worst. Whistleblowers are not welcome, and certainly not rewarded, in most organizations, even in the church. Perhaps in light of recent events we should say especially in the church. There is often little or no thanks for doing what is right and just and good. Most of the Erin Brockovichs of this world are never going to have Julia Roberts portray them in a feature-length movie.
First of all, you can expect that someone will raise questions about your legitimacy. By whose authority are you doing this? What right do you have to come in here and say these things? Who do you think you are?
The chief priests and scribes and the elders put this question to Jesus as he was teaching in the temple. "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus simply said, "I will ask you one question... Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" They were afraid to answer the question either way. "If we say 'from heaven,' he will say to us, 'why then did you not believe him?' But if we say 'of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they got their publicist, the guy who was in charge of spin control, to say, "we do not know." And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things" (Matthew 21:23-27). It is best to have a snappy comeback like this prepared, just in case somebody wants to know what right you have raising questions about something that is obviously evil.
If they don't question your authority you may be sure they will question your timing, or both. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter from the Birmingham city jail: "I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of 'outsiders coming in.' ...I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." When they suggested that his action was not well timed, he wrote, "Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has always meant 'never.' "
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Richland Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin, is my hometown and is known for the number of churches and its many active Christians):
"It's 80 or 90 degrees out. Now put yourself in a 9 x 12 concrete cell -- no shade, no windows, no ventilations, and a bad, bad smell, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In summer it bakes, in winter it's cold. How hot do you think it is in there today? No fans, no windows, no outside. There is a remedy -- by court order, the Boscobel Supermax is to put in a ventilation system and provide an outdoor recreation area. They are also supposed to provide conditions at least as good as those in isolation units of other prisons. All this and more (like a name change) was to be started by April. So far only one mandated reform has been done -- voltage on the 24-hour lights has been reduced. It's time for caring citizens to write to the powers that be to tell them we want to see the court-mandated Boscobel Supermax changes put in place now. Remember: When you lock a man up, you are responsible for his care. -- Peggy Swan" (Richland Observer, June 27, 2002)
Will Peggy receive a prophet's reward? Do you think she will be invited to speak about this issue at any of the women's luncheons or men's groups in any of the 30+ churches in Richland Center?
If you think living a prophetic lifestyle might make a saving difference in the world, you may be right, but you may not live to see it. Although Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted 50 years to the women's suffrage movement in the United States, neither lived to see women gain the right to vote. A good many of our great-great-grandmothers who marched with them didn't live to see the ultimate passage of the 19th amendment in 1920.
Thomas Merton wrote about this in a letter to James Forest in 1966: "Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truths of the work itself." In this way, Merton says, "you can be more open to the power that will work through you without you knowing it."
Still, it is difficult to give one's all to any holy prophetic work and not be discouraged by apparent failure.
In her recent book The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Dorothee Soelle describes how deeply moved she was when she discovered that Dorothy Day, the great Roman Catholic prophet and mystic of the 20th century, often "experienced phases of utter exhaustion, sadness, and grief. The word 'despair' seems inappropriate, but it cannot be far removed from what she went through. In such times, I was told she would withdraw and cry. For long hours, days at a time, she would not eat but just sit and weep. She never withdrew from the active, struggling life for the poorest of the poor and never ceased to look upon war and preparation for war as a crime against the poor. But she wept. When I heard this, I understood a bit better what prayer can mean in the midst of defeat, how the Spirit consoles humans and leads them into truth, how one thing is not at the expense of another, and where consolation is purchased with the renunciation of truth. That Dorothy Day cried for days means both consolations and inconsolability at one and the same time. She knew why she liked to repeat Teresa of Avila's words, 'The whole way to heaven is heaven itself' " (p. 252).
Is this the prophet's reward?
Larry Winebrenner tells this story about a member of a church he served in Wisconsin:
The names and places in the following account have been changed to protect the guilty. Sadie was a schoolteacher in Smalltown, Wisconsin about fifty years ago. She taught in Smalltown and attended Smalltown Methodist Church. Her home sat just outside the town limits. In the county were a dozen or so one-room schools, and several more that had multiple classes meeting together.
It was Sadie's dream to consolidate the schools in the county to provide better resources for the educational process. Most of her neighbors, however, loved their little local one-room schools and were not very helpful in her drive to consolidate. Sadie was indefatigable, and she worked with county school boards and anyone who would listen to her dream. Eventually she was successful.
A nice, large, well-equipped consolidated school was built in Smalltown, much to the chagrin of those who opposed it. One night Sadie's house caught fire. She tried to douse the flames, but the fire got out of control. The Smalltown fire department responded to the call made by one of Sadie's neighbors. The fire truck drove right up to the Smalltown limits and stopped some 20 feet away from the house. Instead of going to work extinguishing the fire, these good volunteer fire department churchpeople sat on the hood of their truck and watched the house burn.
Sadie went from person to person in the crowd, pleading, "Everything I own is in that house. Please help me save it. At least help me get some of my things out of the house."
The good churchpeople watching the fire said things like, "Why don't you ask the school board to help you?" and "Neighbors help neighbors, but you didn't think about that when you were bent and determined on consolidating our schools." They watched her house burn to the ground, then left her standing beside the smoking ruins in her nightgown as they returned to their homes.
But there is more to the story. Sadie did not move away. She was in church the following Sunday in her regular place. She continued to attend church there and taught school in Smalltown. She retired from teaching when she was 70 years old, and the school had a great celebration honoring her as the founder of their school. When she was 75 years old, the church gave her a testimonial as one of the church pillars. She was still active at the age of 86, when I served the church there. She told me this story (confirmed by several church members) and said, "You don't depend on people in life. You simply seek God's help, and God will provide."
Is this a prophet's reward?
This is the text of a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 14, 2002.
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New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. (Click on the title for information about how to order.) Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Anne Sunday, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
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About the Editors
John E. Sumwalt is the pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, and is the author of eight books for CSS. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), John received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for Parish Ministry from UDTS in 1997. John is known in the Milwaukee area for his one-minute radio spots which always include a brief story. He concludes each spot by saying, "I'm John Sumwalt with 'A Story to Live By' from Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church."
John has done numerous storytelling events for civic, school, and church groups, as well as on radio and television. He has performed at a number of fundraisers for the homeless, the hungry, Habitat for Humanity, and women's shelters. Since the fall of 1999, when he began working on the Vision Stories series, he has led seminars and retreats around the themes "A Safe Place to Tell Visions," "Vision Stories in the Bible and Today," and coming this spring: "Soul Growth: Discovering Lost Spiritual Dimensions." To schedule a seminar or a retreat, write to jsumwalt@naspa.net or phone 414-257-1228.
Joanne Perry-Sumwalt is director of Christian Education at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. Jo is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, with a degree in English and writing. She has co-authored two books with John, Life Stories: A Study In Christian Decision Making and Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit: 62 Stories For Cycle B. Jo writes original curriculum for church classes. She also serves as the secretary of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship (CEF), and is a member of the National CEF.
Jo and John have been married since 1975. They have two grown children, Kathryn and Orrin. They both love reading, movies, long walks with Chloe (their West Highland Terrier), and working on their old farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, June 26, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
What's Up This Week
Stories to Live By: "Who Is In Favor of Child Sacrifice?" by John Sumwalt
Shining Moments: "A Cup of Coffee" by Thomas Kadel
Sermon Starters: "A Prophet's Reward" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
All of the stories in the Abraham saga are rich in homiletic themes -- and none more than the account of God's call for Abraham to sacrifice his son. This story challenges the preacher to be bold. I plan to reflect with my congregation about child sacrifice, the theme explored in this week's Stories to Live By (and indirectly in the Sermon Starters). I will quote from an article which appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on July 17, 2005 about the 1,700 U.S. soldiers who have died and the 12,000 who have been wounded in the Iraq war. Please send your thoughts and sermons about this important issue. We will be glad to include them in the next StoryShare.
(See the complete Journal-Sentinel article at http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/jun05/334375.asp)
Stories to Live By
Who Is In Favor of Child Sacrifice?
by John Sumwalt
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you."
Genesis 22:1-2
Child sacrifice was a common practice in the ancient world. Archeologists have often found the bones of small children under the doorways of prehistoric and some historic homes. The oldest child was sometimes sacrificed as a way of seeking protection for the family.
In 800 B.C., in the time of the prophet Elisha, when the king of Moab was losing a great battle to the Israelite army and knew that there was no hope for victory, he "took his eldest son who would have succeeded him and offered him as a whole offering upon the city wall. The Israelites were filled with such consternation at this sight that they struck camp and returned to their land" (2 Kings 3:27).
During the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s, the government of Iran drafted hundreds of thousands of teenage boys, as young as 13 years old, and with very little training sent them in human waves against Iraqi machine guns, mortars, rockets, and poison gas.
God said to Abraham, "Take your only son, the one whom you love, and sacrifice him..."
For what would you sacrifice your child?
Some of you fathers who fought in World War II, in Korea, or in Vietnam know the horrors of war, and you know something of Abraham's anguish in this moment. Some of you have sent sons and daughters off to Iraq and Afghanistan. Which was more difficult -- to go off to war yourself, or to send that child that you loved? There goes the promise of future generations in your family. There goes your hope for grandchildren. There goes your pride and joy, the one you love with all of your heart. Will he/she come back? Will there be a future for your family?
My good friend Ken Anderson, now a retired United Methodist preacher, tells about the time his oldest son, Curt, was sent to Vietnam in 1968. Ken says, "I remember feeling fear in a way that I had never experienced it before. It was different from the fear I had known as a fighter pilot in World War II. I had been shot at, seen friends shot down and killed, been frightened almost out of my wits more times than I cared to remember, but this was far worse. I felt a deep, abiding, terrible dread. Curt was my oldest son. I didn't want to let him go.... When I looked out the window that day and saw the major coming up the walk, I knew why he had come before I opened the door. He told us Curt's helicopter had been shot down, that it had crashed and burned, and that Curt was missing. Two days later he came back to tell us Curt's body had been found."
There was Abraham. God said, "Take your only son whom you love... and offer his as a sacrifice." And Abraham set out to do it. How could he have done that, we say? Why didn't he say to God, "Take me instead; I'm an old man, let my son live"? That's what we all would like to think we would do.
But think about it for a moment, lest we judge old Abe too harshly. We are all of us quite willing to sacrifice our children in many different ways. Phyllis Trible, professor of sacred literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York, was one of the panelists on Bill Moyers' discussion of this story on a PBS documentary a few years ago. Phyllis said, "That's one reason this story is so terrifying to all of us -- because at some level, we all suspect that we have been sacrificed by our parents. And if we're parents, we fear that we'll do the same thing to our children. Parents are always sacrificing their children... to their ambitions, to success, to their pride, to whatever. That's one reason people hate this story." (Genesis: A Living Conversation, Doubleday, 1996)
"Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven... And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns."
Had the ram been there all along? Did it take an act of God for Abraham to see it?
James Sanders, in his book God Has a Story Too, writes of this text:
"...in Abraham we see our human tendency to believe that existence depends on God's gifts rather than on God the giver of these gifts.... Whenever we are seduced, as indeed we constantly are, to think that our existence depends on creation or that the church depends on the church, we must face the divine question, the judgment of God on our very life, 'Have we mistaken God's gift for God the giver? Have we come to think that the guarantee of existence resides in ourselves?' "
Sanders adds: "He who gives life the first time can also give it again. The marvel in the Bible is not Resurrection or re-Creation but Creation. For belief in the first is already belief in the second."
Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 28, 1998.
Shining Moments
A Cup of Coffee
by Thomas Kadel
"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.... Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
Matthew 10:40, 42
I want to tell you about something that happened while I was in Ohio in July of 2003, just after my mother's death. It is a story that involves a cup of coffee, a duck, and a toothless old man.
On the Tuesday following my mother's death, there was the usual flurry of activity -- people to call, arrangements with the funeral director, planning the service with the pastor, time with family just remembering. Things went well, by the grace of God.
I was staying in a motel in Troy, Ohio, only minutes from the hospital Mom had been in. I had been to Troy, but hadn't ever really seen this beautiful little city. So after all was done and I had said goodbye to my sisters and the families, I decided that rather than go back and sit in the motel alone while awaiting my family's arrival the next day, I would just drive around and look at Troy.
But there was something I had to have first -- a cup of coffee to take with me. Right next door to the motel was a little restaurant called Crazy H's. To put the best light on it, we could call it "unassuming." It is the kind of restaurant where you always check your silverware and plates to make sure that they've been washed -- you know the kind I mean.
Well, I walked in and went up to the counter, where I was waited on by a smallish woman with rather sunken features. "Hard Life" was written in the deep lines that etched her face. She was probably in her forties, but could easily have passed for sixty. "May I have a cup of coffee to go, please?" I asked. "Sure," she replied. After hunting for a cup and lid, she poured the coffee and handed it to me as I handed her my money. "Ah," she said, "forget about it. Just do something nice for someone."
She said that with a warm smile that overcame the deep lines in her face. I thanked her and left. As I drove away, I sipped the coffee. And I want to tell you, it was the best cup of coffee I've ever had. It wasn't because of the taste. It wasn't because I got a freebie. It was because the coffee had the flavor of grace in it.
Maybe if this had happened on any day other than one so filled with emotion and meaning for me, I might not have tasted the grace. But that day, I did. I was truly moved and I savored that coffee, sip by sip, as I rode around Troy viewing the city and thinking about Mom. I really wanted to find someone to be nice to, but since I didn't know anyone in Troy, I had no idea how that would happen. So, all by myself, I savored this cup of coffee, flavored with grace.
Grace is always undeserved. Grace is always a surprise. Grace is always one other thing, too. It is always something that has the power to transform us into persons we could not otherwise be. When that waitress said, "Just do something nice for someone," she transformed me into a person who truly wanted to touch someone else's life with an undeserved and unexpected measure of grace. But alas, I saw no one else that night.
The next day, there was practically nothing to do but wait for Thursday's funeral service. My family had left Harleysville and was on its way to Ohio. I decided that this was a good time to drive to my hometown, Urbana, and immerse myself in memories of Mom and Dad and friends and experiences that had shaped me. I was still thinking about the kindness of that waitress as I drove the 45 minutes from Troy to Urbana.
My first stop was the city park -- a place I just love. There is a big pond there with a tree-filled island in the middle and dozens of waterfowl -- three or four swans, many Canadian geese, and dozens of mallard ducks -- all swimming peacefully. It was a good place to begin my memory tour.
As I watched all those birds float gracefully on the pond, I suddenly became aware of a flurry of activity about a quarter of the way around the pond. I couldn't see clearly what was happening, except that about a dozen ducks seemed to keep flying hard into another duck. I noticed that duck wasn't moving -- it was just flapping its wings frantically. What could this be?
I began to walk over to that place, and as I drew closer I noticed that the unmoving duck had its beak straight up in the air. Closer in, I could tell it was hooked on something. Closer still, and I could see that it was hooked on a fishing hook and that the line was snagged in a tree. The duck was truly stuck, and the others, with all their bashing and bumping, were trying to free it. But the duck was caught.
I looked around, realized I was the only person in the park, and wondered what to do. I didn't have a knife, and I didn't have a clue how to free the duck. It was awful to see. I bent near the spot where the captive and its friends were, and I tried to speak comfortingly to the terrified duck. I wanted so much to free it, but I couldn't. All I could do was try to soothe it.
"She's in a fix, eh?" The words from behind me startled me. I was sure I was alone, but suddenly there was this toothless old man in a kind of golf cart. I have no idea how I could have not heard him approach.
"Well," he said, "let's see if we can help." He had a knife and, remarkably, a small pair of wire cutters on his belt. Together we tenderly pulled the duck from the water, and he cut the line and then removed the hook from the duck's bill. Even more tenderly, he placed her back in the water and she swam off, surrounded by the other ducks, to the far side of the pond.
"Hey," said the toothless man, "that felt good, didn't it?" He laughed a bit as he watched the duck swim away. Then he called off to that duck, "Hey, Mrs. Duck, you go on and do something nice for another duck, okay?" My breath stuck in my throat.
As he started to drive off I thanked him, and he replied, "Oh, it's what I do. I work here."
I suddenly caught on. My experiences Tuesday night in Crazy H's and Wednesday morning at the park pond were not two events, but one -- a story to comfort me and to teach me.
I had been approached by God in a hard-life-faced waitress and in a toothless old man.
I was as helpless against my mother's death as was the little duck against the fish hook. But that is when God provides. In our weakness, God's power shows through. In our weakness we are met unexpectedly by God, who carries us through and saves us from our own powerlessness.
A cup of coffee, a duck, and a toothless man. God was there. And now there is a certain duck and a certain man who know better than before that we cannot save ourselves, but that we don't need to. "Oh, it's what I do," says God. "I work here."
Thomas Kadel is senior pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Kulpsville, Pennsylvania. He is also a family therapist with a small private practice. Tom lives in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Lois, and his family, including grown children Bob, Liz, and Chris. Over his career, he has been a frequent contributor to church-related publications and has authored several catechetical courses for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In the early '80s he edited the book Growth In Ministry, which explored how clergy can be more effective in pastoring congregations.
Sermon Starters
A Prophet's Reward
by John Sumwalt
Jesus said, "Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."
Matthew 10:41a
What is a prophet's reward? And would you want one if you could get it? Prophets are usually not welcomed warmly. On the contrary, if they are any good at doing the basic work of prophets, calling attention to injustice and inviting those who are doing injustice to stop it and start making amends for the damage they have caused, they are apt to be reviled, shunned, perhaps jailed, tortured, or killed. Few prophets are treated as heroes, given medals, honorary degrees, or parades, at least not until they are very old or long dead.
Rosa Parks couldn't get a seat in the front of the bus in 1955; now she is honored all over the world. But what do you think would happen if she were to try to take a seat in the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives today based on a platform of racial equality? Do you suppose all those folks lining up to honor her would vote for her?
James Meredith, who helped to integrate the University of Mississippi in the 1960s with the aid of civil rights marchers, police dogs, and the National Guard, was invited back a few years ago to receive some honor. He was greeted with a standing ovation. Midway through his speech he began to point out the many ways that racism is still causing pain and suffering in our nation and in that university, and people got up and walked out. We prefer retired prophets, tame prophets who are no longer a threat to the status quo.
Jesus knew this. He's the one who said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it" (Matthew 23:37). Jesus is the one who was driven out of his hometown and almost thrown off a cliff. At one point his own family tried to restrain him from doing his prophetic work because people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind" (Mark 3:21).
Jesus was also fully aware of what had happened to his prophet cousin, John the Baptist, who was doing very well out in the wilderness, drawing huge crowds with his camel's hair and locusts routine. Everybody loved him when he was breathing fire about the wrath to come and berating the Pharisees for their many hypocrisies. Then he went and lost his head when he dared to tell King Herod that Herod was in an adulterous relationship with his brother's wife. Prophets who want to keep their heads are well advised not to be too specific when they talk about the evil deeds of people who have power over them.
Rev. Grace Imathieu from Kenya has been interim pastor of First United Methodist Church in Green Bay the past two years. Our bishop, Sharon Rader, invited her to lead the morning Bible study for a bunch of us Pharisees who gathered over in Madison a few weeks ago for the Wisconsin annual conference of the United Methodist Church. She told us funny African stories that made us laugh until we cried, and then she told us something that left all of us white people squirming in our seats. Grace said, "Our very souls are in danger. The sin of racism can send you to hell, and does, and will. Why don't white people talk about what it means to white persons? How do you speak nicely about something so terribly evil? Racism is essentially a white problem. What will it take for you to be angry about racism, to be angry about sin?" Grace said all of this sweetly, with the warmest smile you ever saw, with no anger in her voice. We knew we were in the presence of a woman of God.
Will she get a prophet's reward?
My friend Patricia Marchant has been interviewed several times by newspaper, radio, and television reporters during the recent clergy sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic church. She is a family therapist, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and an activist in survivor's groups. Speaking to the authorities in her church who have the audacity to speak of these unspeakable evils in measured, reassuring, pastoral tones, she said, "Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage?" Do you think the new archbishop will invite Patricia over to the Cousins Center for dinner? "Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward"?
Was Jesus being sarcastic or was he just being realistic? He had already warned the twelve that he was sending them "out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so [they should] be wise as servants and innocent as doves." He said to them, "Beware... for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me" (Matthew 10:16-18a).
Is this the prophet's reward? Is this the best we can hope for?
If you have ever raised an ethical question in your office, when everyone else was willing to close an eye to a business deal that was less than honest, you know why Jesus was trying to prepare his disciples for the worst. Whistleblowers are not welcome, and certainly not rewarded, in most organizations, even in the church. Perhaps in light of recent events we should say especially in the church. There is often little or no thanks for doing what is right and just and good. Most of the Erin Brockovichs of this world are never going to have Julia Roberts portray them in a feature-length movie.
First of all, you can expect that someone will raise questions about your legitimacy. By whose authority are you doing this? What right do you have to come in here and say these things? Who do you think you are?
The chief priests and scribes and the elders put this question to Jesus as he was teaching in the temple. "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus simply said, "I will ask you one question... Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" They were afraid to answer the question either way. "If we say 'from heaven,' he will say to us, 'why then did you not believe him?' But if we say 'of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they got their publicist, the guy who was in charge of spin control, to say, "we do not know." And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things" (Matthew 21:23-27). It is best to have a snappy comeback like this prepared, just in case somebody wants to know what right you have raising questions about something that is obviously evil.
If they don't question your authority you may be sure they will question your timing, or both. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter from the Birmingham city jail: "I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of 'outsiders coming in.' ...I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." When they suggested that his action was not well timed, he wrote, "Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has always meant 'never.' "
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Richland Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin, is my hometown and is known for the number of churches and its many active Christians):
"It's 80 or 90 degrees out. Now put yourself in a 9 x 12 concrete cell -- no shade, no windows, no ventilations, and a bad, bad smell, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In summer it bakes, in winter it's cold. How hot do you think it is in there today? No fans, no windows, no outside. There is a remedy -- by court order, the Boscobel Supermax is to put in a ventilation system and provide an outdoor recreation area. They are also supposed to provide conditions at least as good as those in isolation units of other prisons. All this and more (like a name change) was to be started by April. So far only one mandated reform has been done -- voltage on the 24-hour lights has been reduced. It's time for caring citizens to write to the powers that be to tell them we want to see the court-mandated Boscobel Supermax changes put in place now. Remember: When you lock a man up, you are responsible for his care. -- Peggy Swan" (Richland Observer, June 27, 2002)
Will Peggy receive a prophet's reward? Do you think she will be invited to speak about this issue at any of the women's luncheons or men's groups in any of the 30+ churches in Richland Center?
If you think living a prophetic lifestyle might make a saving difference in the world, you may be right, but you may not live to see it. Although Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted 50 years to the women's suffrage movement in the United States, neither lived to see women gain the right to vote. A good many of our great-great-grandmothers who marched with them didn't live to see the ultimate passage of the 19th amendment in 1920.
Thomas Merton wrote about this in a letter to James Forest in 1966: "Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truths of the work itself." In this way, Merton says, "you can be more open to the power that will work through you without you knowing it."
Still, it is difficult to give one's all to any holy prophetic work and not be discouraged by apparent failure.
In her recent book The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Dorothee Soelle describes how deeply moved she was when she discovered that Dorothy Day, the great Roman Catholic prophet and mystic of the 20th century, often "experienced phases of utter exhaustion, sadness, and grief. The word 'despair' seems inappropriate, but it cannot be far removed from what she went through. In such times, I was told she would withdraw and cry. For long hours, days at a time, she would not eat but just sit and weep. She never withdrew from the active, struggling life for the poorest of the poor and never ceased to look upon war and preparation for war as a crime against the poor. But she wept. When I heard this, I understood a bit better what prayer can mean in the midst of defeat, how the Spirit consoles humans and leads them into truth, how one thing is not at the expense of another, and where consolation is purchased with the renunciation of truth. That Dorothy Day cried for days means both consolations and inconsolability at one and the same time. She knew why she liked to repeat Teresa of Avila's words, 'The whole way to heaven is heaven itself' " (p. 252).
Is this the prophet's reward?
Larry Winebrenner tells this story about a member of a church he served in Wisconsin:
The names and places in the following account have been changed to protect the guilty. Sadie was a schoolteacher in Smalltown, Wisconsin about fifty years ago. She taught in Smalltown and attended Smalltown Methodist Church. Her home sat just outside the town limits. In the county were a dozen or so one-room schools, and several more that had multiple classes meeting together.
It was Sadie's dream to consolidate the schools in the county to provide better resources for the educational process. Most of her neighbors, however, loved their little local one-room schools and were not very helpful in her drive to consolidate. Sadie was indefatigable, and she worked with county school boards and anyone who would listen to her dream. Eventually she was successful.
A nice, large, well-equipped consolidated school was built in Smalltown, much to the chagrin of those who opposed it. One night Sadie's house caught fire. She tried to douse the flames, but the fire got out of control. The Smalltown fire department responded to the call made by one of Sadie's neighbors. The fire truck drove right up to the Smalltown limits and stopped some 20 feet away from the house. Instead of going to work extinguishing the fire, these good volunteer fire department churchpeople sat on the hood of their truck and watched the house burn.
Sadie went from person to person in the crowd, pleading, "Everything I own is in that house. Please help me save it. At least help me get some of my things out of the house."
The good churchpeople watching the fire said things like, "Why don't you ask the school board to help you?" and "Neighbors help neighbors, but you didn't think about that when you were bent and determined on consolidating our schools." They watched her house burn to the ground, then left her standing beside the smoking ruins in her nightgown as they returned to their homes.
But there is more to the story. Sadie did not move away. She was in church the following Sunday in her regular place. She continued to attend church there and taught school in Smalltown. She retired from teaching when she was 70 years old, and the school had a great celebration honoring her as the founder of their school. When she was 75 years old, the church gave her a testimonial as one of the church pillars. She was still active at the age of 86, when I served the church there. She told me this story (confirmed by several church members) and said, "You don't depend on people in life. You simply seek God's help, and God will provide."
Is this a prophet's reward?
This is the text of a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, June 14, 2002.
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New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. (Click on the title for information about how to order.) Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Anne Sunday, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
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About the Editors
John E. Sumwalt is the pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, and is the author of eight books for CSS. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), John received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for Parish Ministry from UDTS in 1997. John is known in the Milwaukee area for his one-minute radio spots which always include a brief story. He concludes each spot by saying, "I'm John Sumwalt with 'A Story to Live By' from Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church."
John has done numerous storytelling events for civic, school, and church groups, as well as on radio and television. He has performed at a number of fundraisers for the homeless, the hungry, Habitat for Humanity, and women's shelters. Since the fall of 1999, when he began working on the Vision Stories series, he has led seminars and retreats around the themes "A Safe Place to Tell Visions," "Vision Stories in the Bible and Today," and coming this spring: "Soul Growth: Discovering Lost Spiritual Dimensions." To schedule a seminar or a retreat, write to jsumwalt@naspa.net or phone 414-257-1228.
Joanne Perry-Sumwalt is director of Christian Education at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. Jo is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, with a degree in English and writing. She has co-authored two books with John, Life Stories: A Study In Christian Decision Making and Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit: 62 Stories For Cycle B. Jo writes original curriculum for church classes. She also serves as the secretary of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship (CEF), and is a member of the National CEF.
Jo and John have been married since 1975. They have two grown children, Kathryn and Orrin. They both love reading, movies, long walks with Chloe (their West Highland Terrier), and working on their old farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, June 26, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
