Would That All Were Prophets
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Would That All Were Prophets" by Frank Ramirez
"A Ducky Miracle" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world. No longer would humanity be separated from God, having to pass through a veil to enter his presence. Now, God is present in the hearts of every believer through the Holy Spirit. Frank Ramirez offers an illustration of how the Spirit is for everyone and not a privileged few in "Would That All Were Prophets." Along with the presence of the Spirit came the gifts of the Spirit. John Sumwalt offers a humorous example of one of those gifts in "A Ducky Miracle."
* * * * * * * * *
Would That All Were Prophets
Frank Ramirez
Numbers 11:24-30
And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!"
-- Numbers 11:27-29
Simon Winchester is a science writer beyond compare, able to take the most difficult subjects and make them not only understandable but fascinating and compelling. He does this by telling stories, and taking the larger story apart and finding other stories inside.
In his book, The Professor and the Madman, Winchester told the story of the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary, a massive feat that took decades to publish, in part by focusing on the contributions made by an American who was in a British prison for the criminally insane for having murdered an Irishman after suffering what we would call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while serving as a physician during the Civil War.
In Krakatoa, he made the unimaginable catastrophe imaginable by telling the story through the eyes of witnesses, both those who barely survived as well as those who saw its effects months later and thousands of miles away.
But the story I want to talk about is in his book The Map That Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. It tells the story of a special map, eight by six feet, which single-handedly created a brand new science. Most scientific advances are the work of many people, perhaps thousands working together on a project, and these advances often require immense resources. The map that changed the world by creating the brand new science of geology was made by a single person who worked alone: a canal digger named William Smith. In 1793, Smith noticed that no matter where he went in England, the same layers of rock appeared in the same order.
In Smith's day, science was something that was dabbled in by the rich and the nobility. They were the ones who were allowed to form scientific societies and publish papers. Their discoveries were the ones that mattered.
Smith was neither rich nor a member of the nobility. He had neither leisure nor the money to pursue his studies the way others did. However, as a ditch digger, canal planner, and drainage expert, he traveled the length and breadth of Great Britain, and wherever he went he took copious notes on the rock strata he observed.
In 1815, Smith made his map and published copies at his own expense, hoping to make not only his fortune, but also his reputation on the great work. His observations and theories about the makeup of the planet proved over time to be wonderfully accurate.
However, his biggest problem was -- in the eyes of the people who mattered at the time -- that he was neither rich nor of noble birth. Therefore, in the eyes of the scientists of his era, he could not be a scientist. They considered him a glorified ditch digger.
That did not stop them from stealing his ideas. Some of the scientists of the age, while denying him membership and discounting his work, also brazenly plagiarized his work and published it as their own, putting out a competing map that cost a little less and therefore sold more.
In his book, Simon Winchester actually begins the story at this point -- with his hero penniless and in disgrace, still working hard on his scientific discoveries, but on the verge of being arrested as a debtor and thrown into the one of the infamous debtors' prisons of London, there to wait until he could pay his debts. The story describes in sharp detail what the arrest was like, and what one would have seen while being led to one of these prisons, and what day-to-day life was like for the prisoners.
Smith was in disgrace -- but that's not how the story ends. Following his eventual release, his property confiscated, his life in disarray, Smith left London to work in the north of England, homeless for more than a decade, living hand to mouth, his work utterly forgotten. But at last in 1831 a sympathetic member of the nobility learned his story and did not rest until William Smith received the honor he deserved, including membership in the same London Geological Society, recognition of the originality of his work, and finally a pension to support him in his old age.
William Smith, born to a humble blacksmith, was not at first recognized as a genius because he did not fit the idea the people of his era had for scientists. As mentioned earlier, the upper classes of that stratified society of Great Britain looked down their noses at those of what they considered ordinary birth, and assumed that only nobility could make scientific advances. Yet there is no telling where genius will strike. In our society, we are more familiar with rags-to-riches stories, in which someone of humble beginnings is recognized for their skill, intelligence, courage, and achievements, not for who their parents were or how much money they had in their wallets.
In today's biblical story, the Spirit comes to rest on two unlikely people, and there are those who refuse to recognize this because they did not share the same training and experiences. After the people rebel in the desert (again) Moses takes the elders out for training sessions. But Eldad and Medad, out of the loop, begin to do great things in the camp. Those who shared certain training experiences want them to be stopped. Fortunately, Moses, despite the fact he was raised in Pharaoh's household, recognizes the Spirit when he sees it.
All Eldad and Medad have going for them is God's Spirit, but Moses recognizes that it is enough. This Spirit goes where it wills and is not controlled by caste or scruple.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
A Ducky Miracle
John Sumwalt
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit... To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gift of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of Miracles...
-- 1 Corinthians 12:4a, 8-10a
We had a large flock of white Muscovy ducks on the farm where I grew up in southwest Wisconsin. Duck watching was one of our favorite pastimes, especially during nesting season. Hatching time was eagerly anticipated, almost as much as Christmas and the first day of trout season.
We would check each nest daily to keep track of the number of eggs. Then came the hard part: waiting and waiting. We were not nearly as patient as the hens who did the real hard work of sitting on the nests day after day. Always just when our patience was nearly exhausted, the miracle happened. The eggs would crack one by one as the eager ducklings pecked and pushed their way out into the new world and awkwardly crawled beneath their mama's protective wings to dry and prepare themselves for the grand entrance.
There is nothing prettier than a mother duck leading her parade of yellow ducklings out into the sunlight for the first time. It is one of the miracles of God's creation. I remember that each hen seemed to beam with joy as she introduced her brood to the rest of the barnyard fowl. Some mothers had as many as twenty-five or thirty ducklings. Counting the fledglings in each little flock to see which mother had the most was part of the fun of duck watching.
It was also fun to watch when the mothers took them down to the creek for their first swim. The fuzzy hatchlings took to water, well, "like a duck takes to water." There was no need for special instructions, nor did the mothers have to prod them to take the plunge. Each one came gifted with the ability to glide over the surface with ease, propelled by the perpetual pumping action of their tiny webbed feet.
We had one old hen who never got to participate in these joys of motherhood. She was a different kind of duck, black and white of an unknown species, who came to us as a gift one day when the farmer up the road could no longer care for her. Penny, as we named her, would build a nest every spring and lay eggs like all of the other hens. Then she would sit on them for hours every day, for several weeks, waiting for them to hatch. But Penny's eggs never hatched. Because there were no papa ducks of her kind in our flock, Penny's eggs were infertile. Year after year, she made her nests, laid her eggs, and sat and sat on them with no result.
Eventually, Penny would give up and wait to try again the following spring. It made all of us very sad and a little angry at the injustice of it all. It didn't seem right that Penny would work so hard and be so hopeful only to be disappointed again and again. It may have been my imagination, but Penny's head seemed to droop lower and lower each year. I prayed for a miracle, as did all of the other duck watchers in our family.
Then one year it happened. To everyone's great amazement, Penny came out of the silo room, where she always had her nest, leading a dozen yellow ducklings. How happy and proud she looked. What a testament to the power of prayer.
Some months later, we learned that God had some earthly help with this ducky miracle. Mom, who was the worker of all kinds of miracles in our lives, finally confessed one day that she had carefully removed all of Penny's infertile eggs and replaced them with fertile eggs from the Muscovy hens, one from each nest. None of them seemed to notice, but all of us duck watchers couldn't help but notice the great change in Penny. She held her head high and her eyes sparkled like never before. A happier, more contented mother could not be found anywhere on the face of the earth. It didn't seem to bother Penny that none of her offspring grew up to look like her.
John E. Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is the author of ten books, including How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It, now available from CSS Publishing. John and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, were the editors of StoryShare from 2004-2006.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, May 11, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
"Would That All Were Prophets" by Frank Ramirez
"A Ducky Miracle" by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world. No longer would humanity be separated from God, having to pass through a veil to enter his presence. Now, God is present in the hearts of every believer through the Holy Spirit. Frank Ramirez offers an illustration of how the Spirit is for everyone and not a privileged few in "Would That All Were Prophets." Along with the presence of the Spirit came the gifts of the Spirit. John Sumwalt offers a humorous example of one of those gifts in "A Ducky Miracle."
* * * * * * * * *
Would That All Were Prophets
Frank Ramirez
Numbers 11:24-30
And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!"
-- Numbers 11:27-29
Simon Winchester is a science writer beyond compare, able to take the most difficult subjects and make them not only understandable but fascinating and compelling. He does this by telling stories, and taking the larger story apart and finding other stories inside.
In his book, The Professor and the Madman, Winchester told the story of the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary, a massive feat that took decades to publish, in part by focusing on the contributions made by an American who was in a British prison for the criminally insane for having murdered an Irishman after suffering what we would call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while serving as a physician during the Civil War.
In Krakatoa, he made the unimaginable catastrophe imaginable by telling the story through the eyes of witnesses, both those who barely survived as well as those who saw its effects months later and thousands of miles away.
But the story I want to talk about is in his book The Map That Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. It tells the story of a special map, eight by six feet, which single-handedly created a brand new science. Most scientific advances are the work of many people, perhaps thousands working together on a project, and these advances often require immense resources. The map that changed the world by creating the brand new science of geology was made by a single person who worked alone: a canal digger named William Smith. In 1793, Smith noticed that no matter where he went in England, the same layers of rock appeared in the same order.
In Smith's day, science was something that was dabbled in by the rich and the nobility. They were the ones who were allowed to form scientific societies and publish papers. Their discoveries were the ones that mattered.
Smith was neither rich nor a member of the nobility. He had neither leisure nor the money to pursue his studies the way others did. However, as a ditch digger, canal planner, and drainage expert, he traveled the length and breadth of Great Britain, and wherever he went he took copious notes on the rock strata he observed.
In 1815, Smith made his map and published copies at his own expense, hoping to make not only his fortune, but also his reputation on the great work. His observations and theories about the makeup of the planet proved over time to be wonderfully accurate.
However, his biggest problem was -- in the eyes of the people who mattered at the time -- that he was neither rich nor of noble birth. Therefore, in the eyes of the scientists of his era, he could not be a scientist. They considered him a glorified ditch digger.
That did not stop them from stealing his ideas. Some of the scientists of the age, while denying him membership and discounting his work, also brazenly plagiarized his work and published it as their own, putting out a competing map that cost a little less and therefore sold more.
In his book, Simon Winchester actually begins the story at this point -- with his hero penniless and in disgrace, still working hard on his scientific discoveries, but on the verge of being arrested as a debtor and thrown into the one of the infamous debtors' prisons of London, there to wait until he could pay his debts. The story describes in sharp detail what the arrest was like, and what one would have seen while being led to one of these prisons, and what day-to-day life was like for the prisoners.
Smith was in disgrace -- but that's not how the story ends. Following his eventual release, his property confiscated, his life in disarray, Smith left London to work in the north of England, homeless for more than a decade, living hand to mouth, his work utterly forgotten. But at last in 1831 a sympathetic member of the nobility learned his story and did not rest until William Smith received the honor he deserved, including membership in the same London Geological Society, recognition of the originality of his work, and finally a pension to support him in his old age.
William Smith, born to a humble blacksmith, was not at first recognized as a genius because he did not fit the idea the people of his era had for scientists. As mentioned earlier, the upper classes of that stratified society of Great Britain looked down their noses at those of what they considered ordinary birth, and assumed that only nobility could make scientific advances. Yet there is no telling where genius will strike. In our society, we are more familiar with rags-to-riches stories, in which someone of humble beginnings is recognized for their skill, intelligence, courage, and achievements, not for who their parents were or how much money they had in their wallets.
In today's biblical story, the Spirit comes to rest on two unlikely people, and there are those who refuse to recognize this because they did not share the same training and experiences. After the people rebel in the desert (again) Moses takes the elders out for training sessions. But Eldad and Medad, out of the loop, begin to do great things in the camp. Those who shared certain training experiences want them to be stopped. Fortunately, Moses, despite the fact he was raised in Pharaoh's household, recognizes the Spirit when he sees it.
All Eldad and Medad have going for them is God's Spirit, but Moses recognizes that it is enough. This Spirit goes where it wills and is not controlled by caste or scruple.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
A Ducky Miracle
John Sumwalt
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit... To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gift of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of Miracles...
-- 1 Corinthians 12:4a, 8-10a
We had a large flock of white Muscovy ducks on the farm where I grew up in southwest Wisconsin. Duck watching was one of our favorite pastimes, especially during nesting season. Hatching time was eagerly anticipated, almost as much as Christmas and the first day of trout season.
We would check each nest daily to keep track of the number of eggs. Then came the hard part: waiting and waiting. We were not nearly as patient as the hens who did the real hard work of sitting on the nests day after day. Always just when our patience was nearly exhausted, the miracle happened. The eggs would crack one by one as the eager ducklings pecked and pushed their way out into the new world and awkwardly crawled beneath their mama's protective wings to dry and prepare themselves for the grand entrance.
There is nothing prettier than a mother duck leading her parade of yellow ducklings out into the sunlight for the first time. It is one of the miracles of God's creation. I remember that each hen seemed to beam with joy as she introduced her brood to the rest of the barnyard fowl. Some mothers had as many as twenty-five or thirty ducklings. Counting the fledglings in each little flock to see which mother had the most was part of the fun of duck watching.
It was also fun to watch when the mothers took them down to the creek for their first swim. The fuzzy hatchlings took to water, well, "like a duck takes to water." There was no need for special instructions, nor did the mothers have to prod them to take the plunge. Each one came gifted with the ability to glide over the surface with ease, propelled by the perpetual pumping action of their tiny webbed feet.
We had one old hen who never got to participate in these joys of motherhood. She was a different kind of duck, black and white of an unknown species, who came to us as a gift one day when the farmer up the road could no longer care for her. Penny, as we named her, would build a nest every spring and lay eggs like all of the other hens. Then she would sit on them for hours every day, for several weeks, waiting for them to hatch. But Penny's eggs never hatched. Because there were no papa ducks of her kind in our flock, Penny's eggs were infertile. Year after year, she made her nests, laid her eggs, and sat and sat on them with no result.
Eventually, Penny would give up and wait to try again the following spring. It made all of us very sad and a little angry at the injustice of it all. It didn't seem right that Penny would work so hard and be so hopeful only to be disappointed again and again. It may have been my imagination, but Penny's head seemed to droop lower and lower each year. I prayed for a miracle, as did all of the other duck watchers in our family.
Then one year it happened. To everyone's great amazement, Penny came out of the silo room, where she always had her nest, leading a dozen yellow ducklings. How happy and proud she looked. What a testament to the power of prayer.
Some months later, we learned that God had some earthly help with this ducky miracle. Mom, who was the worker of all kinds of miracles in our lives, finally confessed one day that she had carefully removed all of Penny's infertile eggs and replaced them with fertile eggs from the Muscovy hens, one from each nest. None of them seemed to notice, but all of us duck watchers couldn't help but notice the great change in Penny. She held her head high and her eyes sparkled like never before. A happier, more contented mother could not be found anywhere on the face of the earth. It didn't seem to bother Penny that none of her offspring grew up to look like her.
John E. Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is the author of ten books, including How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It, now available from CSS Publishing. John and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, were the editors of StoryShare from 2004-2006.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, May 11, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
