Your Staff Comforts Me
Stories
Contents
"Your Staff Comforts Me" by C. David McKirachan
"In the Lord's House" by Keith Wagner
"Judged by the Heart" by Keith Wagner
Your Staff Comforts Me
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 23
There were four of us, American teen aged boys, living in an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery near Addis Ababa. We were there for three months helping to build a school for the local children. There were a dozen or so Ethiopian young men, around our age living with us. It was called an ecumenical encounter.
Being there, imbedded in their culture sharing our meals, our work, our conversations was mind boggling. I’d seen a lot of the U.S. I’d been to church camp and moved around as part of a minister’s family, but this was Mars. For instance, we had to be inside the compound by sunset, because the packs of hyenas were dangerous. OK. For a seventeen year old it was wonderful.
The school building had been constructed out of cinder blocks on a poured concrete foundation. Pretty straight forward. The problem was that the foundation and the first two courses of block had been put down in the dry season on the flattest land around. It was no longer the dry season. All the water that has made Egypt the culture that it is, the water that over flows the Nile every year, falls on Ethiopia in a few months. When I say falls, I mean dumps. Every day for hours, the faucets turned on from the sky. I had to wear a hat to be able to see and breathe. Thank God I was representing the NY Giants in this foreign land. I brought a hat to show off and needed it to function.
The nice flat land that they had started the build on, became a river, with great regularity. The parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount suddenly became grounded in reality. A reality that we had to do something about with some speed, unless we wanted to start the job all over again, after we found a proverbial rock to build on.
The plan was to build a retaining wall, up the wadi, upstream if you will. Sandbags went in to protect our building site and rocks were gathered. We were putting in the rocks when one of the daily water dumps occurred. There we were, muscling these veritable boulders into place, shoulder to shoulder with the African kids when the sand bag dam gave way. The flood hit us like a tidal wave. The rocks had enough mass to hold, but we had to try to get more of them in if we wanted to save the foundation. The water pushed us around and in the process tore off one of the Ethiopian’s shirt.
He had scars, six, two foot ridges making a large triple X across his back. After we’d gotten the job done, with the heedless abandon of youth I wanted to know what that was. “It was my first lion.” OK. Tell us the story.
He’d been 10 or 11. His job was to keep the village flock. He drove them out to a canyon that had some grass, equipped with a walking stick. The female lion came, looking for lunch. He put himself between the lion and the flock, armed with a stick. That would usually end it, as lions don’t mess with people. But perhaps she was rogue or desperate, no way of knowing.
So she came after him. He planted the back end of the stick in the ground and she impaled herself on it, tearing up his back as she died.
At this point he rolled her off, gathered the flock together and drove them back to the village, told the story and fainted from blood loss. His father went out and got the lion for him. They had a feast while he was feverish. He got the claws and the scars.
I didn’t ask about the second lion.
OK, I’m God’s sheep. I’m real happy there’s a guy between me and the beasties. A guy who’s willing to lay down his life to offer me life.
I sat there with my mouth open. Here sat a parable on the hoof, carrying the scars of self-sacrifice. The simplicity and the profundity hit me like that wall of water coming down the hill. He was a sermon, a living and breathing sermon.
We became good friends. He thought we were crazy. I agreed with him. When we left I gave him my Giant’s hat.
I got news he was shot dead, executed with other Christians in the revolution that came a year later. I hope at that moment, he remembered his shepherd was with him. When I see him again, I’ll want to see his new scars.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
* * *
In the Lord's House
by Keith Wagner
Psalm 23
My wife was reading a copy of Coastal Living magazine lately and she showed me a picture of a cottage on the East Coast. This particular cottage was someone’s summer home away from home. It got my wife’s attention because this wasn’t your average every-day place on the lake or ocean. This cottage has 6,000 square feet. I said to her, “Cottage? With all that room it is more like a mansion!”
We live in an age where no matter how good we have it, it isn’t good enough. We are never satisfied. Perhaps we have been conditioned to believe that bigger is better or that everyone deserves more than what they already have. Consequently there is a trend to join the ranks of the upward mobility types who constantly want bigger and better things.
Then we hear this psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I believe the 23rd psalm could be interpreted that we shouldn’t want stuff. But it could also mean there is nothing that we lack since all we need, can be provided by God.
We will be led, like the shepherd who leads his flock, with “a rod and staff.” The way forward may be unclear since darkness has overcome our lives and we are scared or perhaps we are lost and confused about which way to turn. What the Lord will provide for us is direction.
About twenty years ago, before GPS on cell phones, my wife and I visited the Museum of Art in the heart of Cincinnati. We knew it was in the Eden Park area but we were uncertain as to the exact location. We traveled upwards around a narrow and winding road. There were several places where the road separated and we didn’t know which way to go. After making several passes we found ourselves in a neighborhood looking over the city. “We must be close,” I said, complaining about the lack of clear directions. We saw a sign but it seemed to point to a road that went nowhere. There were several large buildings in the area, but none was labeled the “Museum of Art.” Finally, we followed the sign which pointed in an obscure direction that seemed futile. We rounded several more curves and the road led us to the Museum. Incidentally, we were seriously considering going to the Cincinnati Home and Garden Show, but opted instead for the Museum of Art.
The ways of God are not always logical or clear. You have to trust in the signals and signs God gives you along the way. The God who takes us by “green pastures and still waters” is the same God who takes us through “the valley of the shadow of death.”
Besides giving us directions, God provides respite along the way. Shepherds, at the time this psalm was written, were basically outcasts. But when travelers would come by the shepherds would open their tents and offer them hospitality.
One time I was asked by one of our local funeral directors to officiate at a funeral service for a man in the community. He had no church but he felt that I could readily serve his surviving family. I agreed although I did not know the man. He had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Florida. There were few details and the family was basically in shock.
Two days before the funeral I received a phone call from a colleague in Michigan. He is a Lutheran pastor who had previously served where I was serving. He told me that he was vacationing in Florida the past week. While driving to Ft. Myers he came upon an accident where a man had been thrown off his motorcycle. Since he was also an EMT he did what he could to save his life but to no avail. He was holding the man’s hand when his pulse quit beating. When a sheriff arrived he found the man’s identification and noted he was from Sidney, Ohio, where we lived at the time. My friend gave the officer a report then continued on his journey to Ft. Myers to catch his flight back to Michigan.
After a few days passed my friend looked up the Sidney Daily News on the Internet and found an article about the man’s accident. He noticed that I had been assigned the funeral and then proceeded to call me and tell me his story. I passed on the story to his family and they agreed that it would be appropriate to use it in my message. Afterwards there were several people who commented that that story gave them comfort. It was comforting because in the last moment of the man’s life he was being attended to by a pastor. More importantly the man didn’t have to be alone.
I couldn’t think of a greater message to share that day than to say to the congregation that we are never alone. God is always with us. God doesn’t cease to be like a shepherd who watches over us.
* * *
Judged by the Heart
by Keith Wagner
1 Samuel 16, 1-13
We live in a time where there is much prejudice. If someone is different than what we deem to be normal we look the other way. Over the centuries we question God’s ways, especially his selections of those who will be our leaders. Here in First Samuel, the Lord told Samuel to pick David instead of Eliab. He said “The Lord does not see as a man sees.”
There is a story by Peter Marshall, entitled, The Keeper of the Springs. For me it illustrates our prejudice toward those who don’t fit our norm. Peter Marshall was a Presbyterian minister who was the U.S. Senate Chaplain from 1946-48 during the presidency of Harry Truman. He was born in Scotland and was known for his passionate preaching and deep convictions.
Marshall’s sermon has been used over the decades as a message which speaks to the acceptance of everyone. “Once upon a time, a certain town grew up at the foot of a mountain range. It was sheltered in the lee of the protecting heights, so that the wind that shuddered at the doors and flung handfuls of sleet against the window panes was a wind whose fury was spent.
High up in the hills, a strange and quiet forest dweller took it upon himself to be the keeper of the springs. He patrolled the hills and wherever he found a spring, he cleaned its brown pool of silt and fallen leaves, of mud and mold and took away from the spring all foreign matter, so that the water which bubbled up through the sand ran down clean and cold and pure. It leaped sparkling over rocks and dropped joyously in crystal cascades until, swollen by other streams, it became a river of life to the busy town.
Millwheels were whirled by its rush. Gardens were refreshed by its waters. Fountains threw it like diamonds into the air. Swans sailed on its limpid surface, and children laughed as they played on its banks in the sunshine.
But the city council was a group of hard-headed, hard-boiled businessmen. They scanned the civic budget and found in it the salary of a keeper of the springs. The keeper of the purse said, ‘Why should we pay this romance ranger? We never see him; he is not necessary to our town’s work life. If we build a reservoir just above the town, we can dispense with his services and save his salary.’ Therefore, the city council voted to dispense with the unnecessary cost of a keeper of the springs, and build a cement reservoir.
So the keeper of the springs no longer visited the brown pools but watched from the heights while they built the reservoir. When it was finished, it soon filled up with water, to be sure, but the water did not seem to be the same. It did not seem to be as clean, and a green scum soon befouled its stagnant surface.
There were constant troubles with the delicate machinery of the mills, for it was often clogged with slime, and the swans found another home above the town. At last, an epidemic raged, and the clammy, yellow fingers of sickness reached into every home in every street and lane.
The city council met again. Sorrowfully, it faced the city’s plight, and it frankly acknowledged the mistake of the dismissal of the keeper of the springs. They sought him out of his hermit hut high in the hills, and begged him to return to his former joyous labor. Gladly he agreed, and began once more to make his rounds.
It was not long until pure water came lilting down under tunnels of ferns and mosses and to sparkle in the cleansed reservoir. Millwheels turned again as of old. Stenches disappeared. Sickness waned and convalescent children playing in the sun laughed again because the swans had come back.”
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He has served churches in Southwest Ohio for over three decades. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and has an M.Div. from Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio, and a D.Min. from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He has also been an adjunct professor at Edison Community College, Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 26, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 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.
"Your Staff Comforts Me" by C. David McKirachan
"In the Lord's House" by Keith Wagner
"Judged by the Heart" by Keith Wagner
Your Staff Comforts Me
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 23
There were four of us, American teen aged boys, living in an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery near Addis Ababa. We were there for three months helping to build a school for the local children. There were a dozen or so Ethiopian young men, around our age living with us. It was called an ecumenical encounter.
Being there, imbedded in their culture sharing our meals, our work, our conversations was mind boggling. I’d seen a lot of the U.S. I’d been to church camp and moved around as part of a minister’s family, but this was Mars. For instance, we had to be inside the compound by sunset, because the packs of hyenas were dangerous. OK. For a seventeen year old it was wonderful.
The school building had been constructed out of cinder blocks on a poured concrete foundation. Pretty straight forward. The problem was that the foundation and the first two courses of block had been put down in the dry season on the flattest land around. It was no longer the dry season. All the water that has made Egypt the culture that it is, the water that over flows the Nile every year, falls on Ethiopia in a few months. When I say falls, I mean dumps. Every day for hours, the faucets turned on from the sky. I had to wear a hat to be able to see and breathe. Thank God I was representing the NY Giants in this foreign land. I brought a hat to show off and needed it to function.
The nice flat land that they had started the build on, became a river, with great regularity. The parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount suddenly became grounded in reality. A reality that we had to do something about with some speed, unless we wanted to start the job all over again, after we found a proverbial rock to build on.
The plan was to build a retaining wall, up the wadi, upstream if you will. Sandbags went in to protect our building site and rocks were gathered. We were putting in the rocks when one of the daily water dumps occurred. There we were, muscling these veritable boulders into place, shoulder to shoulder with the African kids when the sand bag dam gave way. The flood hit us like a tidal wave. The rocks had enough mass to hold, but we had to try to get more of them in if we wanted to save the foundation. The water pushed us around and in the process tore off one of the Ethiopian’s shirt.
He had scars, six, two foot ridges making a large triple X across his back. After we’d gotten the job done, with the heedless abandon of youth I wanted to know what that was. “It was my first lion.” OK. Tell us the story.
He’d been 10 or 11. His job was to keep the village flock. He drove them out to a canyon that had some grass, equipped with a walking stick. The female lion came, looking for lunch. He put himself between the lion and the flock, armed with a stick. That would usually end it, as lions don’t mess with people. But perhaps she was rogue or desperate, no way of knowing.
So she came after him. He planted the back end of the stick in the ground and she impaled herself on it, tearing up his back as she died.
At this point he rolled her off, gathered the flock together and drove them back to the village, told the story and fainted from blood loss. His father went out and got the lion for him. They had a feast while he was feverish. He got the claws and the scars.
I didn’t ask about the second lion.
OK, I’m God’s sheep. I’m real happy there’s a guy between me and the beasties. A guy who’s willing to lay down his life to offer me life.
I sat there with my mouth open. Here sat a parable on the hoof, carrying the scars of self-sacrifice. The simplicity and the profundity hit me like that wall of water coming down the hill. He was a sermon, a living and breathing sermon.
We became good friends. He thought we were crazy. I agreed with him. When we left I gave him my Giant’s hat.
I got news he was shot dead, executed with other Christians in the revolution that came a year later. I hope at that moment, he remembered his shepherd was with him. When I see him again, I’ll want to see his new scars.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
* * *
In the Lord's House
by Keith Wagner
Psalm 23
My wife was reading a copy of Coastal Living magazine lately and she showed me a picture of a cottage on the East Coast. This particular cottage was someone’s summer home away from home. It got my wife’s attention because this wasn’t your average every-day place on the lake or ocean. This cottage has 6,000 square feet. I said to her, “Cottage? With all that room it is more like a mansion!”
We live in an age where no matter how good we have it, it isn’t good enough. We are never satisfied. Perhaps we have been conditioned to believe that bigger is better or that everyone deserves more than what they already have. Consequently there is a trend to join the ranks of the upward mobility types who constantly want bigger and better things.
Then we hear this psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I believe the 23rd psalm could be interpreted that we shouldn’t want stuff. But it could also mean there is nothing that we lack since all we need, can be provided by God.
We will be led, like the shepherd who leads his flock, with “a rod and staff.” The way forward may be unclear since darkness has overcome our lives and we are scared or perhaps we are lost and confused about which way to turn. What the Lord will provide for us is direction.
About twenty years ago, before GPS on cell phones, my wife and I visited the Museum of Art in the heart of Cincinnati. We knew it was in the Eden Park area but we were uncertain as to the exact location. We traveled upwards around a narrow and winding road. There were several places where the road separated and we didn’t know which way to go. After making several passes we found ourselves in a neighborhood looking over the city. “We must be close,” I said, complaining about the lack of clear directions. We saw a sign but it seemed to point to a road that went nowhere. There were several large buildings in the area, but none was labeled the “Museum of Art.” Finally, we followed the sign which pointed in an obscure direction that seemed futile. We rounded several more curves and the road led us to the Museum. Incidentally, we were seriously considering going to the Cincinnati Home and Garden Show, but opted instead for the Museum of Art.
The ways of God are not always logical or clear. You have to trust in the signals and signs God gives you along the way. The God who takes us by “green pastures and still waters” is the same God who takes us through “the valley of the shadow of death.”
Besides giving us directions, God provides respite along the way. Shepherds, at the time this psalm was written, were basically outcasts. But when travelers would come by the shepherds would open their tents and offer them hospitality.
One time I was asked by one of our local funeral directors to officiate at a funeral service for a man in the community. He had no church but he felt that I could readily serve his surviving family. I agreed although I did not know the man. He had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Florida. There were few details and the family was basically in shock.
Two days before the funeral I received a phone call from a colleague in Michigan. He is a Lutheran pastor who had previously served where I was serving. He told me that he was vacationing in Florida the past week. While driving to Ft. Myers he came upon an accident where a man had been thrown off his motorcycle. Since he was also an EMT he did what he could to save his life but to no avail. He was holding the man’s hand when his pulse quit beating. When a sheriff arrived he found the man’s identification and noted he was from Sidney, Ohio, where we lived at the time. My friend gave the officer a report then continued on his journey to Ft. Myers to catch his flight back to Michigan.
After a few days passed my friend looked up the Sidney Daily News on the Internet and found an article about the man’s accident. He noticed that I had been assigned the funeral and then proceeded to call me and tell me his story. I passed on the story to his family and they agreed that it would be appropriate to use it in my message. Afterwards there were several people who commented that that story gave them comfort. It was comforting because in the last moment of the man’s life he was being attended to by a pastor. More importantly the man didn’t have to be alone.
I couldn’t think of a greater message to share that day than to say to the congregation that we are never alone. God is always with us. God doesn’t cease to be like a shepherd who watches over us.
* * *
Judged by the Heart
by Keith Wagner
1 Samuel 16, 1-13
We live in a time where there is much prejudice. If someone is different than what we deem to be normal we look the other way. Over the centuries we question God’s ways, especially his selections of those who will be our leaders. Here in First Samuel, the Lord told Samuel to pick David instead of Eliab. He said “The Lord does not see as a man sees.”
There is a story by Peter Marshall, entitled, The Keeper of the Springs. For me it illustrates our prejudice toward those who don’t fit our norm. Peter Marshall was a Presbyterian minister who was the U.S. Senate Chaplain from 1946-48 during the presidency of Harry Truman. He was born in Scotland and was known for his passionate preaching and deep convictions.
Marshall’s sermon has been used over the decades as a message which speaks to the acceptance of everyone. “Once upon a time, a certain town grew up at the foot of a mountain range. It was sheltered in the lee of the protecting heights, so that the wind that shuddered at the doors and flung handfuls of sleet against the window panes was a wind whose fury was spent.
High up in the hills, a strange and quiet forest dweller took it upon himself to be the keeper of the springs. He patrolled the hills and wherever he found a spring, he cleaned its brown pool of silt and fallen leaves, of mud and mold and took away from the spring all foreign matter, so that the water which bubbled up through the sand ran down clean and cold and pure. It leaped sparkling over rocks and dropped joyously in crystal cascades until, swollen by other streams, it became a river of life to the busy town.
Millwheels were whirled by its rush. Gardens were refreshed by its waters. Fountains threw it like diamonds into the air. Swans sailed on its limpid surface, and children laughed as they played on its banks in the sunshine.
But the city council was a group of hard-headed, hard-boiled businessmen. They scanned the civic budget and found in it the salary of a keeper of the springs. The keeper of the purse said, ‘Why should we pay this romance ranger? We never see him; he is not necessary to our town’s work life. If we build a reservoir just above the town, we can dispense with his services and save his salary.’ Therefore, the city council voted to dispense with the unnecessary cost of a keeper of the springs, and build a cement reservoir.
So the keeper of the springs no longer visited the brown pools but watched from the heights while they built the reservoir. When it was finished, it soon filled up with water, to be sure, but the water did not seem to be the same. It did not seem to be as clean, and a green scum soon befouled its stagnant surface.
There were constant troubles with the delicate machinery of the mills, for it was often clogged with slime, and the swans found another home above the town. At last, an epidemic raged, and the clammy, yellow fingers of sickness reached into every home in every street and lane.
The city council met again. Sorrowfully, it faced the city’s plight, and it frankly acknowledged the mistake of the dismissal of the keeper of the springs. They sought him out of his hermit hut high in the hills, and begged him to return to his former joyous labor. Gladly he agreed, and began once more to make his rounds.
It was not long until pure water came lilting down under tunnels of ferns and mosses and to sparkle in the cleansed reservoir. Millwheels turned again as of old. Stenches disappeared. Sickness waned and convalescent children playing in the sun laughed again because the swans had come back.”
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He has served churches in Southwest Ohio for over three decades. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and has an M.Div. from Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio, and a D.Min. from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He has also been an adjunct professor at Edison Community College, Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 26, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 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.
