World Saver
Stories
Object:
Contents
"World Saver" by Keith Hewitt
"Maybe" by Sandra Herrmann
"...Remembering Me" by C. David McKirachan
"Never Finished" by Frank Ramirez
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World Saver
by Keith Hewitt
Philippians 2:5-11
"How are you feeling?" Dolan asked, scanning the subject's chart as he spoke, so he wouldn't have a chance to stare.
"Feeling great," Alden Trevor answered, just a little too quickly.
Dolan stole a glance at the vitals, reading out on a small screen above the subject's head... they didn't tell him much, which told him a lot. Pulse normal, blood pressure normal, respiration normal, galvanic resistance normal... the man's body was like a well oiled, well regulated machine. Dolan made a gesture toward his head. "Any discomfort?"
"No, sir." Trevor reached up to his own head, ran his fingers along the bony ridge which started at the base of his skull and ran forward, bisecting his skull and forehead before it ended at a transverse ridge that ran above both eyes. It was no longer pink, or swollen, and the skin grafts had been colored to match the rest of his body--an understated cerise, something on the order of baked cherries. "I think the surgeons did a pretty smooth job. If I didn't know me, I'd swear it had always been there."
Dolan smiled, a flicker of emotion. "That's the idea, Sergeant. And your hands? Fingers?" He raised one hand and wiggled his fingers, as if saying good-bye to a child.
Trevor raised his, in return -- they were narrower than a human hand, as they only needed to accommodate a thumb and three fingers. The fingers, themselves, were slightly longer and thinner than one would expect on a human hand; they ended in thick, curved, black nails. Trevor flexed both hands, wiggled the fingers. "I've got full dexterity. I could tie a shoe -- if they wore shoes. I'm learning to use their keyboard, and what they use for a mouse."
"Excellent." Dolan nodded, and looked away from the hands. In their own way, they were almost worse than the man's skull -- maybe because they were so close to normal.
"The feet are the only thing that really bother me, sir. I can't get used to these... well, hooves, I guess. They just don't feel right, and I don't think they ever will. I've kinda gotten used to shoes, I guess," he added, with a lopsided smile -- an expression that looked peculiar, beneath his flattened, three-nostriled nose.
"Well, a million or so years of evolution is hard to overcome in just a few months," Dolan said in consolation. "You've made remarkable progress. I truly don't think I could tell you apart from one of the IPs without seeing your internal organs."
Trevor's answering smile was a little strained. "Hopefully it won't come to that, sir. I plan to keep those on the inside and out of sight." The indigenous people of Tau Ceti IV were not necessarily prone to violence, but then again nobody had ever done something like this before.
"We will hope that your wish comes to pass," Dolan answered -- not in English, but in a collection of clicks, whistles, and gutturals.
"Your hope is mine," Trevor answered in the same language, then added, "Your accent is most strange, though. Come you here from far away?"
"What do you expect? I learned it from a computer," Dolan responded, shifting back to English. "But you speak very well, very naturally."
Trevor raised one palm, pressed it to his forehead for just a moment -- the IP equivalent of a shrug. "Over two years of travel time, and eight months in surgery and recovery. I had a lot of time to study, listening to recordings from their media. My accent most closely matches that of their largest land mass -- so the plan is to land me on their southern continent, where the IPs will just think I sound funny because of the accent... not because I'm an alien."
Dolan eyed the man silently for a time, then said simply, "Are you ready?"
Trevor eyed him shrewdly. "I figure that's what you're here to tell me, sir. Operation Messiah is all set, and ready to launch -- the doctors tell me they've gone as far as they can with me, and I think that's pretty darn good. I've gone through years of language training, simulated cultural immersion, and every test you scientific types can come up with. So you tell me."
Dolan sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Operation Messiah. I hate that name."
Trevor smiled. "I can see why."
"I'm not sure you can. Look, we found Tau Ceti IV almost twenty years ago, and we were smart enough not to just go blundering in when we did. Instead, we studied the planet, studied the culture, tried to figure out what made these people tick -- before we made the mistake of just kicking in the door and saying 'Honey, we're home!' "
"I remember -- I was in grade school then, but I remember our teacher telling us we didn't want to repeat the mistakes that were made when Europe made contact with the New World."
"That's right -- in either direction. It took us about five years to be sure that our culture wasn't the lower technology, more vulnerable one. It was just a few years after that -- after we had a chance to catch up on their history and technology, and then run some simulations -- that we realized these people were going to kill themselves. They have developed some really superior weapons technologies, but they don't have the political and social structure to manage these things. One of the political scientists compared it to all of the belligerent nations at the outbreak of World War I having access to nuclear weapons..."
"Bad," Trevor agreed, remembering the summaries he'd read. The scientists believed that nuclear war was virtually certain within the next fifteen years... at the outside. Earth had been fortunate in any number of ways, to survive the discovery of nuclear weapons there... had they not come on the heels of a devastating world war, had there not been breathing space to develop structures that made it possible to have the weapons without using them...
"Bad," Dolan repeated. "Barring something remarkable happening, they are going to find themselves in an all out nuclear war in a decade... maybe two. They're dead, they just don't realize it yet. And then some genius got the idea for Operation Messiah."
It really was an ingenious idea. Simulations had shown that any contact by an alien race, at this point in their development, was highly likely to set off the very war they were hoping to prevent; just landing and telling them to knock it off, in other words, would not only fail... it would provoke.
Some military strategists reluctantly suggested targeting the various nations' nuclear facilities in a strike from space -- present the IPs with a fait accompli... but this approach had both ethical and practical deficiencies.
But Operation Messiah -- now that was something all together different. It had gone through several iterations, but the gist was this: to plant somebody, to send someone to Tau Ceti IV on a mission -- a mission to promote nuclear disarmament, to promote peace as a native... to prevent war, from within.
To save the people of Tau Ceti IV from themselves.
"It's going to be dangerous," Dolan reminded Trevor. "There's never been a movement like this, and people aren't going to know what to make of it. Even though you're going to pass as an IP, you're going to be viewed with suspicion once you start pushing the agenda. There may be people who try to kill you."
Trevor put palm to forehead again, and smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time, sir... now would it? And from what I remember of the mission brief, you scientists agree that the only way we're going to be able to pull this off, the only way to reach these people, is to do it as one of them. Right?"
Dolan flickered a smile. "Right. And on paper, you're as trained and polished as you can be. There's a very good chance that you will be able to pass as one of them, for as long as you need to. But I still want you to know -- it's my responsibility to let you know -- that almost all of the simulations show you dying down there... one way or the other. You're going to be upsetting a lot of apple carts, Trevor, ticking off a lot of people. They're not going to like it."
"Just tell me this, sir... those simulations... the ones where I die... " He paused and seemed to lose the words for a moment.
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"Well -- do they show the plan working? Do they show these people surviving?"
It was Dolan's turn to hesitate, then. Finally, he nodded. "Many of them do, yes. Under the best circumstances, you should be able to start a movement that will... live on, even if you do not. We can help you do that."
Trevor nodded, and a smile lit up his inhuman face. "Then what's the question, sir? I think we've got a planet to save. We can't let a little thing like dying hold us back, now can we?"
Dolan smiled, a real smile, and nodded -- but three years later, he would remember those words...
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
Maybe
by Sandra Herrmann
Luke 22:14--23:56
So now we come to the central event of Jesus' life on earth. It isn't all the healings he has done, not even the healing of the madman in the desert burial caves. It isn't any of the miracles that have been reported about him, not even the night he walked on the troubled waters of the Sea of Galilee -- not the added miracle of him calling Peter to join him. It isn't his reported raising of the dead -- the young man in Nain, the daughter of the lay leader of the synagogue, nor Lazarus of Bethany. No, the central event is one that even Jesus has no control over: his own death. Like the rest of us, Jesus has no power over his own death.
Today we still ask the same questions as the leaders of the temple: Could Jesus have come down from the cross, saved himself? Or was he compelled to this end?
There is a moment in the garden, after all, in which he begs "let this cup pass from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done." He was so terrified (can we handle this human emotion in our Savior?) that he "sweated bloodlike drops." Men who have been in battle say there are moments when they "sweated bullets."
Maybe the greatest miracle at this point in the story is that Judas and the temple guards arrive almost immediately after Jesus surrenders his power to God. Jesus doesn't have to suffer the agony of waiting for hours or days alone. The mob arrives, and Judas makes his betrayal visible to all as he greets Jesus with a kiss.
Could Jesus have stopped it all at this point? Denied his identity? One of the disciples pulls a sword and attempts to stave off the inevitable by slicing off the ear of one of the guards. Could Jesus have slipped away in the melee? Jesus had just told them, at dinner, that now they must provide for their journeys, including a sword. So the disciple is justified in being confused when Jesus stops him and heals the guard's ear. Isn't this the very time Jesus could have escaped?
Maybe.
But he has pledged, just moments ago, that no matter what, he would do what God had sent him to do. To repair the gap between us and God, he must allow himself to be taken and not resist, following God to his own death. A horrible, painful, public death without dignity, open to the scorn of all who pass by. Then there is the possibility that in escaping he would sentence his own followers to death.
So maybe not.
Jesus is taken to the high priest -- to a secret, illegal tribunal, where paid witnesses give false testimony. Well, at least part of it is false. Part of it is true: he did say that they could tear down the temple and he would rebuild it in three days. But is that treason? The disciples would tell us he had been talking about his own body, but that's not the way it sounds to the Sanhedrin. If only he would speak up, he might be let go. If he would promise not to say such things, to not stir up the crowds with his little magic tricks. Then he could go free. Maybe.
Satisfied that their case will hold up in Roman court, the priests hustle Jesus off to Pilate. It galls them to do so, but there is no other way to be rid of Jesus. Only the Romans can perform legal death sentences. After all, if he were the Messiah, wouldn't he have revealed himself to the high priest when he was questioned? Here was his chance, before the entire Sanhedrin, to reveal his power. If he were Messiah, now would be his chance to call all Judeans to rise up, wouldn't it?
Maybe.
When Pilate sends Jesus over to Herod's court, Herod is delighted. He's heard so much about Jesus and now is his chance to see him perform some of his magic. Maybe just turn a little water into wine. Multiply some bread or fish. What a banquet that would make! But Jesus won't play. Herod has the right to set him free. Can't Jesus see that this is the moment to perform?
Maybe. (Herod, after all, was as unstable as a man can be. To him, a promise is a promise until it isn't comfortable to carry through.)
So uncooperative. So staid. So silent. Well, we'll just send him back to Pilate. See if that Roman can fare any better with this stubborn Galilean. And then Herod can get back to bed. Maybe.
This would be a good time to slip away. So many criminals take advantage of these treks from one venue to another. If he called out, his disciples, now armed and ready, could help him make a break for it. But no, Jesus continues on this path of death, as though he had no power to change a thing. But doesn't he have the power to change everything?
Maybe.
So it's back to Pilate and Pilate's fear of the Judeans. If this man is their Messiah and he sets him free, there will surely be an uprising. After all, there have been two dozen or more Messiahs while Pilate has been governor in this godforsaken place, and every one of them have raised money and weapons and those willing to die to drive out the Romans. If he sets him free, this Jesus will surely do the same.
Maybe.
From here on out, Jesus has nothing to do but endure. Endure the beatings, the mockery, the torture, the roar of the crowd, the sneering Roman guards. Endure the disappearance of his disciples, Peter's denial, and the wailing of the women when they see him carrying his cross through the streets. Endure the nakedness of the cross, the nails pounded through tendon and bone, the thirst that is not slaked by vinegar (indeed, is made worse). Endure the fight for air, the tearing of his muscles as he tries to lift himself a little so his lungs can expand. Still, couldn't he call out to God for help?
Yes. He cries out! "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Will God forgive this? The nails, the blood, the mocking? The soldiers have divided up the spoils. Everything he owned in life is laid out and the soldiers gamble for the right to carry off even the shirt that was on his back, as though he were already dead. Even the criminals who are crucified with him mock him. Surely God will not tolerate this. Yet, Jesus tells this bandit that he will surely be with Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. Does this mean that even all this horror can be forgiven?
Yes.
"Cry out to your God!" the rulers sneer. "If you are Messiah, come down from the cross and save yourself -- and us!" So they pushed this far to make him prove himself? Are they hoping against hope that he really is Messiah? If he does, will they bow down and worship the God who would come to this degraded end?
Maybe.
But in the end, Jesus cries out one last time: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
Will God come now? Will we see angels rescuing him?
No. With that cry, Jesus dies.
Joseph of Arimathea, one of the council members, comes to Pilate to claim the body. If he touches this dead flesh, he will be ritually unclean for a week, and so will need to miss Passover this year. Will he risk his freedom, his faith, and his status for this?
Yes.
He takes down the body, wraps it for burial and puts it into his own tomb. He rolls the stone in front of the cave opening, sealing it against thieves. Saddened, he goes home. Is this the end of the story?
Maybe.
Only time will tell if Jesus can rebuild this temple in three days.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
...Remembering Me
by C. David McKirachan
John 13:1-17
My son graduated from Rutgers University last spring. I remember what seems years ago when he came home from school and asked me if I'd ever heard of this guy named "Cant." I paused a moment and responded, "Do you mean Emmanuel Kant?" He went on to sing the praises of this German philosopher. I was stunned. His grandfather had written his doctoral dissertation on Kant. I informed my son that philosophy was a congenital disorder in our family, running on to graduate degrees ad nauseum. Four years later he graduated with honors in Philosophy and Italian.
I remember my father nudging me toward critical thinking and logic when I was six and wanted to posit some outlandish position at the dining room table. And now I teach critical thinking at a university. But it never occurred to me that I was planting similar seeds in my son's fields as he grew.
On this holy day, a day of heartbreak and love beyond counting, Jesus continued to teach his disciples, offering them ways to address the depths of life's meaning. When we think of teaching, too often we think of ideas and words, or demonstrations of skills. But probably the most important lessons are taught by spending time, rubbing up against each other, and having the audacity to offer ourselves as the lesson. Oft times we have no evidence of the effectiveness of our teaching, because there is no immediate proof. Many times we are surprised that perhaps unintentionally we have passed along something of value.
It was just a few years these people had spent with Jesus. And on this night he knew the lessons were over. Had they learned? This is the frightening litmus for a teacher, and there are no guarantees. But our Lord was nothing if not audacious. So again he set the bar, serving them and calling their attention to it.
Through the years that followed, every time someone served them, his words and actions stood there for them and called them again into the midst of serving the world he loved.
That's what this evening is for us, an opportunity to help people learn again the lessons of our Lord. In the midst of the ugliness of expectations, betrayal, and desertion, he continued to care about these he loved, wanting them to be more than survivors or even winners. He wanted them to be what he was, a child of God. The only way to do that was to keep doing it himself. And so we do this remembering Him.
Hopefully, we will begin to display the congenital disorder he did. It seems to run in the family.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Never Finished
by Frank Ramirez
John 18:1--19:42
When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished."
-- John 19:30
James Murray had gathered around himself a talented group of disciples set about on a task that would take most of his lifetime, and even then could not be said to have been finished until he was long gone. Even so, his legacy continues to this day, in every place the English language is spoken.
It all began in 1857. In a speech to the London Philological Society, Richard Chenevix Trench delivered a talk with the unassuming title "On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries." Trench, who would later become the Archbishop of Dublin, and who like many educated people of his day was interested in a wide variety of subjects, thought there ought to be a dictionary that would define every single word in the English language, all the words in use, all the words that had ever been in use, along with historical examples of how all those words were used in each century.
His idea inspired the project that would first be known as A New Dictionary on Historical Principles and would eventually become the Oxford English Dictionary. It was thought that every word in the English language could be defined, and the history of those words charted, within the space of a few years, and possibly filling two or three volumes. The planners couldn't have been more wrong.
An eccentric scholar named Frederick Furnival as well as Herbert Coleridge, a grandson of the famous poet, were first selected to head up the project. Books were sent out to volunteer readers, who would have the task of helping find the earliest usages of each words, as well as representative examples from various centuries. But the task proved so enormous that things hit a standstill. Nearly a quarter of a century would go by before any significant work would be done. Then it would take the hiring of someone who seemed the least likely candidate. James Murray, a Scots who was an enthusiast for languages, but whose formal education ended at the age of fourteen because he could not afford to continue his schooling, and who therefore had no formal training. As he would say toward the end of his life, "I am a nobody."
Murray's love of languages led him nowhere and to support a wife who had taken ill he took a position as a bank clerk in London. However, after he endured the tragedy of a marriage that ended with the death of his wife, circumstances led him into a second marriage and from there gradually into the circles of the Philological Society. In 1879, 22 years after the dictionary was first planned, James Murray, with his army of volunteers including eccentrics such as Fitzedward Hall, a recluse who could not abide the company of other humans, and William Chester Minor, a murderer who lived in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Minor organized an advanced filing system, built a long shed specifically for the task, and set about publishing short pieces of the dictionary that were gradually combined into the massive folio-sized volumes. Volume 1, A-B, was published in 1888. Work never ceased until its completion on December 31, 1927.
But Doctor Murray (he was eventually awarded an honorary degree) was never himself able to say, "It is finished." Throughout the rest of his life the work proceeded in an orderly fashion, but he realized he himself was not likely to survive to see its completion, though he cheerfully accepted the fact. He died in the summer of 1915.
Once completed the Oxford English Dictionary encompassed twelve huge volumes with 414,825 definitions, 1,827,306 quotations, and using 178 miles of type. With the addition of five additional supplemental volumes it came to run 21,730 pages! And the Third Edition, released not long ago, may never be printed. It is so much bigger that it is unlikely that it will ever be made available except on the internet. In a way, the life work of Doctor Murray is still not finished but continues today.
Though the task of salvation and redemption accepted by Jesus was completed on the cross, in a certain sense his work is not done, not yet, but continues in the work of the church, and of the faithful believers.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
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StoryShare, March 24, 28-19, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
"World Saver" by Keith Hewitt
"Maybe" by Sandra Herrmann
"...Remembering Me" by C. David McKirachan
"Never Finished" by Frank Ramirez
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World Saver
by Keith Hewitt
Philippians 2:5-11
"How are you feeling?" Dolan asked, scanning the subject's chart as he spoke, so he wouldn't have a chance to stare.
"Feeling great," Alden Trevor answered, just a little too quickly.
Dolan stole a glance at the vitals, reading out on a small screen above the subject's head... they didn't tell him much, which told him a lot. Pulse normal, blood pressure normal, respiration normal, galvanic resistance normal... the man's body was like a well oiled, well regulated machine. Dolan made a gesture toward his head. "Any discomfort?"
"No, sir." Trevor reached up to his own head, ran his fingers along the bony ridge which started at the base of his skull and ran forward, bisecting his skull and forehead before it ended at a transverse ridge that ran above both eyes. It was no longer pink, or swollen, and the skin grafts had been colored to match the rest of his body--an understated cerise, something on the order of baked cherries. "I think the surgeons did a pretty smooth job. If I didn't know me, I'd swear it had always been there."
Dolan smiled, a flicker of emotion. "That's the idea, Sergeant. And your hands? Fingers?" He raised one hand and wiggled his fingers, as if saying good-bye to a child.
Trevor raised his, in return -- they were narrower than a human hand, as they only needed to accommodate a thumb and three fingers. The fingers, themselves, were slightly longer and thinner than one would expect on a human hand; they ended in thick, curved, black nails. Trevor flexed both hands, wiggled the fingers. "I've got full dexterity. I could tie a shoe -- if they wore shoes. I'm learning to use their keyboard, and what they use for a mouse."
"Excellent." Dolan nodded, and looked away from the hands. In their own way, they were almost worse than the man's skull -- maybe because they were so close to normal.
"The feet are the only thing that really bother me, sir. I can't get used to these... well, hooves, I guess. They just don't feel right, and I don't think they ever will. I've kinda gotten used to shoes, I guess," he added, with a lopsided smile -- an expression that looked peculiar, beneath his flattened, three-nostriled nose.
"Well, a million or so years of evolution is hard to overcome in just a few months," Dolan said in consolation. "You've made remarkable progress. I truly don't think I could tell you apart from one of the IPs without seeing your internal organs."
Trevor's answering smile was a little strained. "Hopefully it won't come to that, sir. I plan to keep those on the inside and out of sight." The indigenous people of Tau Ceti IV were not necessarily prone to violence, but then again nobody had ever done something like this before.
"We will hope that your wish comes to pass," Dolan answered -- not in English, but in a collection of clicks, whistles, and gutturals.
"Your hope is mine," Trevor answered in the same language, then added, "Your accent is most strange, though. Come you here from far away?"
"What do you expect? I learned it from a computer," Dolan responded, shifting back to English. "But you speak very well, very naturally."
Trevor raised one palm, pressed it to his forehead for just a moment -- the IP equivalent of a shrug. "Over two years of travel time, and eight months in surgery and recovery. I had a lot of time to study, listening to recordings from their media. My accent most closely matches that of their largest land mass -- so the plan is to land me on their southern continent, where the IPs will just think I sound funny because of the accent... not because I'm an alien."
Dolan eyed the man silently for a time, then said simply, "Are you ready?"
Trevor eyed him shrewdly. "I figure that's what you're here to tell me, sir. Operation Messiah is all set, and ready to launch -- the doctors tell me they've gone as far as they can with me, and I think that's pretty darn good. I've gone through years of language training, simulated cultural immersion, and every test you scientific types can come up with. So you tell me."
Dolan sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Operation Messiah. I hate that name."
Trevor smiled. "I can see why."
"I'm not sure you can. Look, we found Tau Ceti IV almost twenty years ago, and we were smart enough not to just go blundering in when we did. Instead, we studied the planet, studied the culture, tried to figure out what made these people tick -- before we made the mistake of just kicking in the door and saying 'Honey, we're home!' "
"I remember -- I was in grade school then, but I remember our teacher telling us we didn't want to repeat the mistakes that were made when Europe made contact with the New World."
"That's right -- in either direction. It took us about five years to be sure that our culture wasn't the lower technology, more vulnerable one. It was just a few years after that -- after we had a chance to catch up on their history and technology, and then run some simulations -- that we realized these people were going to kill themselves. They have developed some really superior weapons technologies, but they don't have the political and social structure to manage these things. One of the political scientists compared it to all of the belligerent nations at the outbreak of World War I having access to nuclear weapons..."
"Bad," Trevor agreed, remembering the summaries he'd read. The scientists believed that nuclear war was virtually certain within the next fifteen years... at the outside. Earth had been fortunate in any number of ways, to survive the discovery of nuclear weapons there... had they not come on the heels of a devastating world war, had there not been breathing space to develop structures that made it possible to have the weapons without using them...
"Bad," Dolan repeated. "Barring something remarkable happening, they are going to find themselves in an all out nuclear war in a decade... maybe two. They're dead, they just don't realize it yet. And then some genius got the idea for Operation Messiah."
It really was an ingenious idea. Simulations had shown that any contact by an alien race, at this point in their development, was highly likely to set off the very war they were hoping to prevent; just landing and telling them to knock it off, in other words, would not only fail... it would provoke.
Some military strategists reluctantly suggested targeting the various nations' nuclear facilities in a strike from space -- present the IPs with a fait accompli... but this approach had both ethical and practical deficiencies.
But Operation Messiah -- now that was something all together different. It had gone through several iterations, but the gist was this: to plant somebody, to send someone to Tau Ceti IV on a mission -- a mission to promote nuclear disarmament, to promote peace as a native... to prevent war, from within.
To save the people of Tau Ceti IV from themselves.
"It's going to be dangerous," Dolan reminded Trevor. "There's never been a movement like this, and people aren't going to know what to make of it. Even though you're going to pass as an IP, you're going to be viewed with suspicion once you start pushing the agenda. There may be people who try to kill you."
Trevor put palm to forehead again, and smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time, sir... now would it? And from what I remember of the mission brief, you scientists agree that the only way we're going to be able to pull this off, the only way to reach these people, is to do it as one of them. Right?"
Dolan flickered a smile. "Right. And on paper, you're as trained and polished as you can be. There's a very good chance that you will be able to pass as one of them, for as long as you need to. But I still want you to know -- it's my responsibility to let you know -- that almost all of the simulations show you dying down there... one way or the other. You're going to be upsetting a lot of apple carts, Trevor, ticking off a lot of people. They're not going to like it."
"Just tell me this, sir... those simulations... the ones where I die... " He paused and seemed to lose the words for a moment.
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"Well -- do they show the plan working? Do they show these people surviving?"
It was Dolan's turn to hesitate, then. Finally, he nodded. "Many of them do, yes. Under the best circumstances, you should be able to start a movement that will... live on, even if you do not. We can help you do that."
Trevor nodded, and a smile lit up his inhuman face. "Then what's the question, sir? I think we've got a planet to save. We can't let a little thing like dying hold us back, now can we?"
Dolan smiled, a real smile, and nodded -- but three years later, he would remember those words...
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
Maybe
by Sandra Herrmann
Luke 22:14--23:56
So now we come to the central event of Jesus' life on earth. It isn't all the healings he has done, not even the healing of the madman in the desert burial caves. It isn't any of the miracles that have been reported about him, not even the night he walked on the troubled waters of the Sea of Galilee -- not the added miracle of him calling Peter to join him. It isn't his reported raising of the dead -- the young man in Nain, the daughter of the lay leader of the synagogue, nor Lazarus of Bethany. No, the central event is one that even Jesus has no control over: his own death. Like the rest of us, Jesus has no power over his own death.
Today we still ask the same questions as the leaders of the temple: Could Jesus have come down from the cross, saved himself? Or was he compelled to this end?
There is a moment in the garden, after all, in which he begs "let this cup pass from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done." He was so terrified (can we handle this human emotion in our Savior?) that he "sweated bloodlike drops." Men who have been in battle say there are moments when they "sweated bullets."
Maybe the greatest miracle at this point in the story is that Judas and the temple guards arrive almost immediately after Jesus surrenders his power to God. Jesus doesn't have to suffer the agony of waiting for hours or days alone. The mob arrives, and Judas makes his betrayal visible to all as he greets Jesus with a kiss.
Could Jesus have stopped it all at this point? Denied his identity? One of the disciples pulls a sword and attempts to stave off the inevitable by slicing off the ear of one of the guards. Could Jesus have slipped away in the melee? Jesus had just told them, at dinner, that now they must provide for their journeys, including a sword. So the disciple is justified in being confused when Jesus stops him and heals the guard's ear. Isn't this the very time Jesus could have escaped?
Maybe.
But he has pledged, just moments ago, that no matter what, he would do what God had sent him to do. To repair the gap between us and God, he must allow himself to be taken and not resist, following God to his own death. A horrible, painful, public death without dignity, open to the scorn of all who pass by. Then there is the possibility that in escaping he would sentence his own followers to death.
So maybe not.
Jesus is taken to the high priest -- to a secret, illegal tribunal, where paid witnesses give false testimony. Well, at least part of it is false. Part of it is true: he did say that they could tear down the temple and he would rebuild it in three days. But is that treason? The disciples would tell us he had been talking about his own body, but that's not the way it sounds to the Sanhedrin. If only he would speak up, he might be let go. If he would promise not to say such things, to not stir up the crowds with his little magic tricks. Then he could go free. Maybe.
Satisfied that their case will hold up in Roman court, the priests hustle Jesus off to Pilate. It galls them to do so, but there is no other way to be rid of Jesus. Only the Romans can perform legal death sentences. After all, if he were the Messiah, wouldn't he have revealed himself to the high priest when he was questioned? Here was his chance, before the entire Sanhedrin, to reveal his power. If he were Messiah, now would be his chance to call all Judeans to rise up, wouldn't it?
Maybe.
When Pilate sends Jesus over to Herod's court, Herod is delighted. He's heard so much about Jesus and now is his chance to see him perform some of his magic. Maybe just turn a little water into wine. Multiply some bread or fish. What a banquet that would make! But Jesus won't play. Herod has the right to set him free. Can't Jesus see that this is the moment to perform?
Maybe. (Herod, after all, was as unstable as a man can be. To him, a promise is a promise until it isn't comfortable to carry through.)
So uncooperative. So staid. So silent. Well, we'll just send him back to Pilate. See if that Roman can fare any better with this stubborn Galilean. And then Herod can get back to bed. Maybe.
This would be a good time to slip away. So many criminals take advantage of these treks from one venue to another. If he called out, his disciples, now armed and ready, could help him make a break for it. But no, Jesus continues on this path of death, as though he had no power to change a thing. But doesn't he have the power to change everything?
Maybe.
So it's back to Pilate and Pilate's fear of the Judeans. If this man is their Messiah and he sets him free, there will surely be an uprising. After all, there have been two dozen or more Messiahs while Pilate has been governor in this godforsaken place, and every one of them have raised money and weapons and those willing to die to drive out the Romans. If he sets him free, this Jesus will surely do the same.
Maybe.
From here on out, Jesus has nothing to do but endure. Endure the beatings, the mockery, the torture, the roar of the crowd, the sneering Roman guards. Endure the disappearance of his disciples, Peter's denial, and the wailing of the women when they see him carrying his cross through the streets. Endure the nakedness of the cross, the nails pounded through tendon and bone, the thirst that is not slaked by vinegar (indeed, is made worse). Endure the fight for air, the tearing of his muscles as he tries to lift himself a little so his lungs can expand. Still, couldn't he call out to God for help?
Yes. He cries out! "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Will God forgive this? The nails, the blood, the mocking? The soldiers have divided up the spoils. Everything he owned in life is laid out and the soldiers gamble for the right to carry off even the shirt that was on his back, as though he were already dead. Even the criminals who are crucified with him mock him. Surely God will not tolerate this. Yet, Jesus tells this bandit that he will surely be with Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. Does this mean that even all this horror can be forgiven?
Yes.
"Cry out to your God!" the rulers sneer. "If you are Messiah, come down from the cross and save yourself -- and us!" So they pushed this far to make him prove himself? Are they hoping against hope that he really is Messiah? If he does, will they bow down and worship the God who would come to this degraded end?
Maybe.
But in the end, Jesus cries out one last time: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
Will God come now? Will we see angels rescuing him?
No. With that cry, Jesus dies.
Joseph of Arimathea, one of the council members, comes to Pilate to claim the body. If he touches this dead flesh, he will be ritually unclean for a week, and so will need to miss Passover this year. Will he risk his freedom, his faith, and his status for this?
Yes.
He takes down the body, wraps it for burial and puts it into his own tomb. He rolls the stone in front of the cave opening, sealing it against thieves. Saddened, he goes home. Is this the end of the story?
Maybe.
Only time will tell if Jesus can rebuild this temple in three days.
Sandra Herrmann is a retired United Methodist pastor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
...Remembering Me
by C. David McKirachan
John 13:1-17
My son graduated from Rutgers University last spring. I remember what seems years ago when he came home from school and asked me if I'd ever heard of this guy named "Cant." I paused a moment and responded, "Do you mean Emmanuel Kant?" He went on to sing the praises of this German philosopher. I was stunned. His grandfather had written his doctoral dissertation on Kant. I informed my son that philosophy was a congenital disorder in our family, running on to graduate degrees ad nauseum. Four years later he graduated with honors in Philosophy and Italian.
I remember my father nudging me toward critical thinking and logic when I was six and wanted to posit some outlandish position at the dining room table. And now I teach critical thinking at a university. But it never occurred to me that I was planting similar seeds in my son's fields as he grew.
On this holy day, a day of heartbreak and love beyond counting, Jesus continued to teach his disciples, offering them ways to address the depths of life's meaning. When we think of teaching, too often we think of ideas and words, or demonstrations of skills. But probably the most important lessons are taught by spending time, rubbing up against each other, and having the audacity to offer ourselves as the lesson. Oft times we have no evidence of the effectiveness of our teaching, because there is no immediate proof. Many times we are surprised that perhaps unintentionally we have passed along something of value.
It was just a few years these people had spent with Jesus. And on this night he knew the lessons were over. Had they learned? This is the frightening litmus for a teacher, and there are no guarantees. But our Lord was nothing if not audacious. So again he set the bar, serving them and calling their attention to it.
Through the years that followed, every time someone served them, his words and actions stood there for them and called them again into the midst of serving the world he loved.
That's what this evening is for us, an opportunity to help people learn again the lessons of our Lord. In the midst of the ugliness of expectations, betrayal, and desertion, he continued to care about these he loved, wanting them to be more than survivors or even winners. He wanted them to be what he was, a child of God. The only way to do that was to keep doing it himself. And so we do this remembering Him.
Hopefully, we will begin to display the congenital disorder he did. It seems to run in the family.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Never Finished
by Frank Ramirez
John 18:1--19:42
When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished."
-- John 19:30
James Murray had gathered around himself a talented group of disciples set about on a task that would take most of his lifetime, and even then could not be said to have been finished until he was long gone. Even so, his legacy continues to this day, in every place the English language is spoken.
It all began in 1857. In a speech to the London Philological Society, Richard Chenevix Trench delivered a talk with the unassuming title "On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries." Trench, who would later become the Archbishop of Dublin, and who like many educated people of his day was interested in a wide variety of subjects, thought there ought to be a dictionary that would define every single word in the English language, all the words in use, all the words that had ever been in use, along with historical examples of how all those words were used in each century.
His idea inspired the project that would first be known as A New Dictionary on Historical Principles and would eventually become the Oxford English Dictionary. It was thought that every word in the English language could be defined, and the history of those words charted, within the space of a few years, and possibly filling two or three volumes. The planners couldn't have been more wrong.
An eccentric scholar named Frederick Furnival as well as Herbert Coleridge, a grandson of the famous poet, were first selected to head up the project. Books were sent out to volunteer readers, who would have the task of helping find the earliest usages of each words, as well as representative examples from various centuries. But the task proved so enormous that things hit a standstill. Nearly a quarter of a century would go by before any significant work would be done. Then it would take the hiring of someone who seemed the least likely candidate. James Murray, a Scots who was an enthusiast for languages, but whose formal education ended at the age of fourteen because he could not afford to continue his schooling, and who therefore had no formal training. As he would say toward the end of his life, "I am a nobody."
Murray's love of languages led him nowhere and to support a wife who had taken ill he took a position as a bank clerk in London. However, after he endured the tragedy of a marriage that ended with the death of his wife, circumstances led him into a second marriage and from there gradually into the circles of the Philological Society. In 1879, 22 years after the dictionary was first planned, James Murray, with his army of volunteers including eccentrics such as Fitzedward Hall, a recluse who could not abide the company of other humans, and William Chester Minor, a murderer who lived in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Minor organized an advanced filing system, built a long shed specifically for the task, and set about publishing short pieces of the dictionary that were gradually combined into the massive folio-sized volumes. Volume 1, A-B, was published in 1888. Work never ceased until its completion on December 31, 1927.
But Doctor Murray (he was eventually awarded an honorary degree) was never himself able to say, "It is finished." Throughout the rest of his life the work proceeded in an orderly fashion, but he realized he himself was not likely to survive to see its completion, though he cheerfully accepted the fact. He died in the summer of 1915.
Once completed the Oxford English Dictionary encompassed twelve huge volumes with 414,825 definitions, 1,827,306 quotations, and using 178 miles of type. With the addition of five additional supplemental volumes it came to run 21,730 pages! And the Third Edition, released not long ago, may never be printed. It is so much bigger that it is unlikely that it will ever be made available except on the internet. In a way, the life work of Doctor Murray is still not finished but continues today.
Though the task of salvation and redemption accepted by Jesus was completed on the cross, in a certain sense his work is not done, not yet, but continues in the work of the church, and of the faithful believers.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
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StoryShare, March 24, 28-19, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
