World's End
Stories
Contents
"World's End" by Keith Hewitt
"The Wrong Lens" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * * *
Note: This installment was originally published in 2010.
World's End
Keith Hewitt
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Lake Michigan was a vast sea of India ink, with little white-topped ripples that marked the distance to the horizon. The moon had long since climbed out of the dark sea and shook itself off, to ascend once more to its place in the sky — the queen of the night, accompanied by the usual court of stars and planets. Bats patrolled the darkness in swooping, silent curves, tracking insects; now and then an owl would pass over with a stately whoosh and a curious look at the man who sat on the bluff below.
Part of the bluff had collapsed into the lake long ago, its underpinnings nibbled away by centuries of gentle, patient waves. Hiram Oldendorf sat on wiry grass near the top of the bluff, on the lake side — which also happened to be near the edge. Thirty or forty feet below, the low waves broke on the shore with a rhythmic shushing sound that could lull a man to sleep if he wasn't careful.
Not that Hiram was in any danger of falling asleep…
He was staring at the horizon — which lay stretched across his field of vision, unchanged in the hours that he had studied it — when a voice asked, "Have you thought about what you're going to do if the world doesn't end tonight?"
He shook his head, a movement all but invisible in the moonlight. "Not really, Reverend."
"Yeah, that's what I figured." Jamison Lee sat down on the ground next to him and looked toward the horizon. He was silent for a few moments, still trying to think about what he should say — a struggle he had wrestled with most of the night, since Mollie Oldendorf had come to him. Finally, he sighed, asked quietly, "Do you remember the big Indian scare of 1862?"
Hesitation. "No, sir. I would have been two, then."
Jamison sighed again. "Right. Well, I wasn't here for it. I would have been down in —" he hesitated, trying to remember another lifetime, on another planet. "We were down along the Kentucky-Tennessee border, then, I believe. But I got a letter from my brother a couple of months later, and he told me all about it. There was word that a bunch of Indians were on the war path, headed this way. My brother and a couple of other families got together in what they thought was the strongest, safest house, out toward Moulash Creek, and they fortified it — extra food and water in the larder, boards nailed over doors and windows… the whole works. And then they waited for the Indians to come."
"How long did they wait?"
"Well, after about three days they realized that the Indians weren't coming. There they sat, behind barricades, guns loaded, bandages rolled, kids cryin' and wanting to know what was happening… they were ready for hell to come, and it didn't."
He shrugged. "Eventually, they sent a messenger down into town to make sure, and then everybody just kind of went home and took up their lives again."
It was Hiram's turn to be silent, then. After a time he said, "I know what you're getting' at, Reverend — but it ain't the same. I got proof. I read it in a book. This minister, or something, back East — he studied the Bible, and he looked at all sorts of codes and hidden messages, and he studied their calendar, and he discovered that the world was going to end tonight." Hiram peered stolidly out toward the horizon. "And I'm okay with that, Reverend. It don't scare me — I just want to see it happen."
Jamison patted Hiram on the shoulder. "I never figured you were scared, son. But I do think you got a hunger to be part of something special — to know about it when most other people don't, and to be a part, even if it's just to sit and watch it happen."
"I don't know about all that, Reverend. I just know what I know — and it's ending tonight."
"It may," Jamison admitted. "Fact is, the part of the gospel that I remember says that nobody except God himself knows when that day's going to come. But if that happens to be tonight — well, I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be." He paused and then circled back to the question. "But what if it doesn't?"
Hiram stared at the horizon, shrugged silently. Jamison heard it rather than saw it — the rustle of cloth on cloth, a subtle thing in the night.
"Let me tell you something, Hiram," he said after a moment. "I came to the whole pastor thing late in life — after I came home from the war, it was about the only thing that made sense to me, so I did it. I studied to be a minister, but I'm not a big, high falutin' theologian. There're a lot of folks out there who are a lot smarter than I am, and some of them like to look at this stuff and try to figure out when it's all going to end. And you know what? If that's their calling in life, if that's what they're supposed to be doing, then God bless 'em. I know I'm not going to be the one that finds holes in their reasoning. I'm content to know what I know."
He turned, then, looked at Hiram in the moonlight — the young man was still facing out across the lake, his expression stolid… but his eyes flickered toward Jamison when he stopped speaking. Jamison nodded slightly and went on. "I don't know much about the end of the world, but I know this: I used to live in a world where I was separated from God by the things that I had done, and down inside it made me miserable. And then I found Jesus — or maybe he found me — and I reached out to him, and I let him lift me up out of all that muck and mire. And the day that happened, my old world ended, and I started living in a new one — a world where God and I can actually connect. A world where I can be healed."
Hiram's eyes turned toward him, then, held on him. "What are you trying to tell me, Reverend?"
"I'm telling you that maybe the sun will rise — and maybe it won't. But if you've got the love of Jesus in your heart, it really doesn't matter, because you're already living in a better world."
Hiram turned to face him, then. "But this world — it's such a mess, Reverend. It makes sense that it would end."
Jamison smiled gently. "When you experience the world from the outside in, it's going to seem pretty dark and miserable. That's why you want to trust in God, and experience it from the inside out — don't let the world color your faith; let your faith color the world." He turned toward the lake, but kept looking at Hiram out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know about you, but I'm a might hungry. What say we head back to town — I'll bet we can find some breakfast."
There was a long silence, then Hiram drew a single deep breath, let it out slowly. "Would that breakfast be in the new world, or the old?"
Jamison smiled in the moonlight. "You tell me, son."
Hiram said nothing, but stood up and offered his hand to Reverend Lee. Together, the two men went over the top of the bluff and walked down the far side, toward town.
And behind them, the first streaks of dawn began to shimmer above the horizon.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children.
The Wrong Lens
Frank Ramirez
Luke 20:27-3
Four years and two years before he began kindergarten our youngest son Jacob accompanied his older brother and sister to that special classroom. He was fascinated, may intrigued, by the playground — especially the elephant slide. It was an ordinary enough slide, but on the sides were painted elephants. Time and again he would ask if he could play on the elephant slide, but I always said no; that would come when it was his turn to go to school.
That made the approaching first day all the more exciting. As it grew nearer and nearer his excitement grew. Finally it came. He was dressed in a brand new outfit, with his equipment under his arm, but all of that was forgotten as he ran past the gate and into the play yard. Finally, finally he would get a chance to play on the elephant slide. It was his turn.
As I parked he ran from the car into the playground, right up to the slide, and stopped short. I caught up. He had a stunned look on his face.
"What's wrong, Jacob?" I asked.
"Who shortened the slide?" he replied in alarm.
Nothing had changed. I took a look to make sure. Then it hit me. I was the same height then as I was the first day I brought his older brother to his first day. The slide looked the same to me.
But Jacob was four years older. And four years taller. The slide looked smaller to him!
I assured him that nothing had changed, and the moment's suspicion gave way to a shrug and then a good ten minutes of fun on the slide before he was called in for the start of class.
* * *
The prophet Haggai did his best to inspire the people to rebuild the temple. The First Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and many of the people had been taken away into exile. Now the Babylonians themselves had been conquered, and God's people had been sent home by the Persians, who encouraged their subject nations to retain their national identities, religions, and cultural practices — as long as they paid their taxes on time.
Sixteen years had passed since the return of the people, and there'd been problems with inertia, building permits, cooperation with the locals, and simply the great difficulties that went with getting resettled in a distant land. But finally building had begun.
Now those who had been children when the First Temple was destroyed didn't think much of the Second Temple, and they said so, loudly. Haggai echoes their complaints when he asks, "Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?" (Haggai 2:3)
But the reason it looked as nothing in their sight was they had seen the First Temple as children — and it had looked huge. They had grown — not only in height, but in life experiences. They had endured two major disjunctures, the anguish that went with deportation and the joy of returning.
The present reality of the Temple could not match their childhood memories. They were looking at the Temple through the wrong lens, seeing the present reality but not perceiving it for what it was — and complaining loudly!
Haggai promised future prosperity and that "The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former…" (v. 9) but that promise could probably only come true when the naysayers and the complainers stepped aside. Just as Jacob had to accept the fact that the slide hadn't shrunk, he had grown, so those in Haggai's day had to recognize they were quite as capable of matching the feat of building a magnificent temple, with God's help, as their ancestors. Indeed, though it took hundreds of years, the Great Temple of Jerusalem was, in Jesus' day, one of the great wonders of the world.
Looking through the wrong lens changes everything. When the Sadducees asked Jesus a question about a woman who married seven brothers, one after the other as she was widowed time and time again, they asked not as an academic exercise, nor as an honest debate about the meaning of scripture. They asked using the lens of skepticism — skepticism about the resurrection, skepticism about the scriptures, and especially skepticism about Jesus. They were incapable of recognizing that the Lord of Life, who would embody the resurrection, was in their midst.
We too must look at what God can accomplish in our midst not through a lens that so glorifies the past that we discount the miracles of the present. It will do no good to adopt a pose of skepticism or despair. Trust and faith in God, and God's goodness will teach us that the present is good, despite what others tell us they see, and that the future will be glorious.
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, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
**************
StoryShare, November 7, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 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's End" by Keith Hewitt
"The Wrong Lens" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * * *
Note: This installment was originally published in 2010.
World's End
Keith Hewitt
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Lake Michigan was a vast sea of India ink, with little white-topped ripples that marked the distance to the horizon. The moon had long since climbed out of the dark sea and shook itself off, to ascend once more to its place in the sky — the queen of the night, accompanied by the usual court of stars and planets. Bats patrolled the darkness in swooping, silent curves, tracking insects; now and then an owl would pass over with a stately whoosh and a curious look at the man who sat on the bluff below.
Part of the bluff had collapsed into the lake long ago, its underpinnings nibbled away by centuries of gentle, patient waves. Hiram Oldendorf sat on wiry grass near the top of the bluff, on the lake side — which also happened to be near the edge. Thirty or forty feet below, the low waves broke on the shore with a rhythmic shushing sound that could lull a man to sleep if he wasn't careful.
Not that Hiram was in any danger of falling asleep…
He was staring at the horizon — which lay stretched across his field of vision, unchanged in the hours that he had studied it — when a voice asked, "Have you thought about what you're going to do if the world doesn't end tonight?"
He shook his head, a movement all but invisible in the moonlight. "Not really, Reverend."
"Yeah, that's what I figured." Jamison Lee sat down on the ground next to him and looked toward the horizon. He was silent for a few moments, still trying to think about what he should say — a struggle he had wrestled with most of the night, since Mollie Oldendorf had come to him. Finally, he sighed, asked quietly, "Do you remember the big Indian scare of 1862?"
Hesitation. "No, sir. I would have been two, then."
Jamison sighed again. "Right. Well, I wasn't here for it. I would have been down in —" he hesitated, trying to remember another lifetime, on another planet. "We were down along the Kentucky-Tennessee border, then, I believe. But I got a letter from my brother a couple of months later, and he told me all about it. There was word that a bunch of Indians were on the war path, headed this way. My brother and a couple of other families got together in what they thought was the strongest, safest house, out toward Moulash Creek, and they fortified it — extra food and water in the larder, boards nailed over doors and windows… the whole works. And then they waited for the Indians to come."
"How long did they wait?"
"Well, after about three days they realized that the Indians weren't coming. There they sat, behind barricades, guns loaded, bandages rolled, kids cryin' and wanting to know what was happening… they were ready for hell to come, and it didn't."
He shrugged. "Eventually, they sent a messenger down into town to make sure, and then everybody just kind of went home and took up their lives again."
It was Hiram's turn to be silent, then. After a time he said, "I know what you're getting' at, Reverend — but it ain't the same. I got proof. I read it in a book. This minister, or something, back East — he studied the Bible, and he looked at all sorts of codes and hidden messages, and he studied their calendar, and he discovered that the world was going to end tonight." Hiram peered stolidly out toward the horizon. "And I'm okay with that, Reverend. It don't scare me — I just want to see it happen."
Jamison patted Hiram on the shoulder. "I never figured you were scared, son. But I do think you got a hunger to be part of something special — to know about it when most other people don't, and to be a part, even if it's just to sit and watch it happen."
"I don't know about all that, Reverend. I just know what I know — and it's ending tonight."
"It may," Jamison admitted. "Fact is, the part of the gospel that I remember says that nobody except God himself knows when that day's going to come. But if that happens to be tonight — well, I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be." He paused and then circled back to the question. "But what if it doesn't?"
Hiram stared at the horizon, shrugged silently. Jamison heard it rather than saw it — the rustle of cloth on cloth, a subtle thing in the night.
"Let me tell you something, Hiram," he said after a moment. "I came to the whole pastor thing late in life — after I came home from the war, it was about the only thing that made sense to me, so I did it. I studied to be a minister, but I'm not a big, high falutin' theologian. There're a lot of folks out there who are a lot smarter than I am, and some of them like to look at this stuff and try to figure out when it's all going to end. And you know what? If that's their calling in life, if that's what they're supposed to be doing, then God bless 'em. I know I'm not going to be the one that finds holes in their reasoning. I'm content to know what I know."
He turned, then, looked at Hiram in the moonlight — the young man was still facing out across the lake, his expression stolid… but his eyes flickered toward Jamison when he stopped speaking. Jamison nodded slightly and went on. "I don't know much about the end of the world, but I know this: I used to live in a world where I was separated from God by the things that I had done, and down inside it made me miserable. And then I found Jesus — or maybe he found me — and I reached out to him, and I let him lift me up out of all that muck and mire. And the day that happened, my old world ended, and I started living in a new one — a world where God and I can actually connect. A world where I can be healed."
Hiram's eyes turned toward him, then, held on him. "What are you trying to tell me, Reverend?"
"I'm telling you that maybe the sun will rise — and maybe it won't. But if you've got the love of Jesus in your heart, it really doesn't matter, because you're already living in a better world."
Hiram turned to face him, then. "But this world — it's such a mess, Reverend. It makes sense that it would end."
Jamison smiled gently. "When you experience the world from the outside in, it's going to seem pretty dark and miserable. That's why you want to trust in God, and experience it from the inside out — don't let the world color your faith; let your faith color the world." He turned toward the lake, but kept looking at Hiram out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know about you, but I'm a might hungry. What say we head back to town — I'll bet we can find some breakfast."
There was a long silence, then Hiram drew a single deep breath, let it out slowly. "Would that breakfast be in the new world, or the old?"
Jamison smiled in the moonlight. "You tell me, son."
Hiram said nothing, but stood up and offered his hand to Reverend Lee. Together, the two men went over the top of the bluff and walked down the far side, toward town.
And behind them, the first streaks of dawn began to shimmer above the horizon.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a lay speaker, co-youth leader, and former Sunday school teacher at Wilmot United Methodist Church in Wilmot, Wisconsin. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife and two children.
The Wrong Lens
Frank Ramirez
Luke 20:27-3
Four years and two years before he began kindergarten our youngest son Jacob accompanied his older brother and sister to that special classroom. He was fascinated, may intrigued, by the playground — especially the elephant slide. It was an ordinary enough slide, but on the sides were painted elephants. Time and again he would ask if he could play on the elephant slide, but I always said no; that would come when it was his turn to go to school.
That made the approaching first day all the more exciting. As it grew nearer and nearer his excitement grew. Finally it came. He was dressed in a brand new outfit, with his equipment under his arm, but all of that was forgotten as he ran past the gate and into the play yard. Finally, finally he would get a chance to play on the elephant slide. It was his turn.
As I parked he ran from the car into the playground, right up to the slide, and stopped short. I caught up. He had a stunned look on his face.
"What's wrong, Jacob?" I asked.
"Who shortened the slide?" he replied in alarm.
Nothing had changed. I took a look to make sure. Then it hit me. I was the same height then as I was the first day I brought his older brother to his first day. The slide looked the same to me.
But Jacob was four years older. And four years taller. The slide looked smaller to him!
I assured him that nothing had changed, and the moment's suspicion gave way to a shrug and then a good ten minutes of fun on the slide before he was called in for the start of class.
* * *
The prophet Haggai did his best to inspire the people to rebuild the temple. The First Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and many of the people had been taken away into exile. Now the Babylonians themselves had been conquered, and God's people had been sent home by the Persians, who encouraged their subject nations to retain their national identities, religions, and cultural practices — as long as they paid their taxes on time.
Sixteen years had passed since the return of the people, and there'd been problems with inertia, building permits, cooperation with the locals, and simply the great difficulties that went with getting resettled in a distant land. But finally building had begun.
Now those who had been children when the First Temple was destroyed didn't think much of the Second Temple, and they said so, loudly. Haggai echoes their complaints when he asks, "Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?" (Haggai 2:3)
But the reason it looked as nothing in their sight was they had seen the First Temple as children — and it had looked huge. They had grown — not only in height, but in life experiences. They had endured two major disjunctures, the anguish that went with deportation and the joy of returning.
The present reality of the Temple could not match their childhood memories. They were looking at the Temple through the wrong lens, seeing the present reality but not perceiving it for what it was — and complaining loudly!
Haggai promised future prosperity and that "The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former…" (v. 9) but that promise could probably only come true when the naysayers and the complainers stepped aside. Just as Jacob had to accept the fact that the slide hadn't shrunk, he had grown, so those in Haggai's day had to recognize they were quite as capable of matching the feat of building a magnificent temple, with God's help, as their ancestors. Indeed, though it took hundreds of years, the Great Temple of Jerusalem was, in Jesus' day, one of the great wonders of the world.
Looking through the wrong lens changes everything. When the Sadducees asked Jesus a question about a woman who married seven brothers, one after the other as she was widowed time and time again, they asked not as an academic exercise, nor as an honest debate about the meaning of scripture. They asked using the lens of skepticism — skepticism about the resurrection, skepticism about the scriptures, and especially skepticism about Jesus. They were incapable of recognizing that the Lord of Life, who would embody the resurrection, was in their midst.
We too must look at what God can accomplish in our midst not through a lens that so glorifies the past that we discount the miracles of the present. It will do no good to adopt a pose of skepticism or despair. Trust and faith in God, and God's goodness will teach us that the present is good, despite what others tell us they see, and that the future will be glorious.
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, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
**************
StoryShare, November 7, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 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.
