The Vine
Stories
Contents
“The Vine” by Keith Hewitt
“Fertile Ground” by C. David McKirachan
“Part of Another’s Witness” by C. David McKirachan
The Vine
by Keith Hewitt
John 15:1-8
He was, by all appearances, normal.
Ambassador Rios was not sure what she had expected — horns, perhaps, or a vestigial head on one shoulder — but the man who opened the padded office door and ushered her in, directed her to sit in a leather chair that somehow navigated the line between a desk chair and the sort of luxuriously overstuffed piece of furniture that would have been at home in a British gentleman’s club a thousand years ago, was unremarkable.
If anything, he was remarkable in his unremarkability — average height for his people, meaning he had the slightly squat build of a native that was genetically adapted to the 1.24 G surface gravity of Kepler 452 - III, otherwise known as Vishnu. Average masculine features. Brown eyes. She was not entirely sure she would be able to describe him usefully to a sketch artist, nor even identify him if she were to see him out of context.
It was vaguely unsettling.
He waited a beat after she sat down, then sat opposite her in a similar chair. Without preamble he said, “Ambassador Rios, your communique was a surprise — and a little cryptic. We didn’t know what to make of it when our ambassador to the Congress of Peoples told us that you were seeking an audience and requested passage to Vishnu. Of course, we were happy to grant it,” he added with the slightest of smiles.
She bowed her head stiffly, reflected his smile. “Your hospitality is appreciated, Chancellor.”
“I trust you are well — that our world’s grip on you is not too…difficult?”
A shallower nod, this time. “I am, thank you. Between the medicines and the fact that I worked out very rigorously on the journey here, I find it not too taxing.” But I can’t wait to get back on my ship and into a normal gravitational field, she added silently. She had decided that going back and forth from ship’s gravity to Vishnu surface gravity would be too hard to adapt to and opted to remain on Vishnu’s soil for the duration of her visit.
“Excellent,” he answered, and seemed to mean it. “So, now, if I may inquire as to the purpose of your visit — ?”
Rios took a deep breath. “I see your culture’s reputation for directness is not overstated. We are here because — ” She hesitated, momentarily at a loss even though she’d rehearsed the conversation a thousand times during her journey. “We are here because the Congress of Peoples has certain concerns about your planet, your culture. You, to be honest. Certain facts…rumors…have come to light that concern us.”
The chancellor’s unremarkable eyebrows arched — but only slightly. “Go on.”
“You know, of course, that the underlying principle of the Congress of Peoples is twofold: to celebrate the diversity of life, but also to maintain the essence of humanity throughout all peoples, everywhere. This latter is most important, the farther out we go. The founders envisioned that it would be all too possible for outlying cultures to start drifting, due to distance and lack of contact, lack of regular intercourse between worlds. Given the right — or wrong — circumstances, outlying planets might start to lose their humanity, for want of a better term.”
He blinked, his eyes blank, expression neutral. “And you think that applies to us here on Vishnu?”
She took another deep breath, nodded. “In celebration of your bluntness, yes, Chancellor — that’s exactly what we think.” She raised one arm with some effort, waved it toward the world beyond the windows of the office. “We have become aware of certain…practices. Ideas. Rumors. All of them rather disturbing.”
The chancellor leaned back into his chair, held his hands out in an open gesture. “Our culture is an open book, Ambassador Rios. I assume you are referencing the Normative Regulations?”
She nodded. “Among others.” She paused, waited for him to say something; when he didn’t, she continued. “Over the last eleven years, we’ve had several groups come here to study Vishnu’s culture, and there is much to be celebrated. But they also keep coming back to what one of the researchers called a ‘slavish obsession with maintaining the norm.’”
Another eyebrow lift. “Maintaining normalcy. What a hideous idea.”
Rios licked her lips, decided to skip the niceties. “Reportedly, this obsession includes something known as ‘mandatory physical norming,’ which includes mandatory reporting of certain physical and intellectual measurements of children at birth and ages one, five, and twelve.”
“Go on.”
“Reportedly — and I say that because details are hidden behind the Planetary Security Act — but reportedly any child who is outside the norms is sent away to a facility where they are kept from reproducing or taking any part in social activities.”
Nothing.
“Also reportedly, children who are more than two standard deviations from the norm in any measurement simply disappear.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There are other concerns, similar to that. Grave concerns.”
Nothing. Then, “It is my understanding that the Congress of Peoples holds the ability of planetary governments to govern themselves as sacrosanct.”
“It does.”
“Then how we choose to conduct ourselves is clearly none of your business. How we choose to optimize Vishnu’s inhabitants is none of your business. How we choose to supplement our limited agricultural resources is none of your business. But let me ask you this — did your investigators tell you about our rates of disease, or genetic illnesses? Less than one fourth of any other world in the Congress. Poverty is almost non-existent, as is crime. We have not had an incident of civil disorder in — ” He hesitated, “ — over a hundred and thirty years. And that was due to outside agitators. In short, Ambassador Rios, we have taken the human breed and improved it. Unquestionably. From my perspective, the only reason the Congress should be asking questions is to find out how they could do the same. But until that happens, we are quite content to live our own lives, separate but equal.”
The ambassador looked at him steadily, refusing to break eye contact though her blood had suddenly run cold at his words. “But what about love, Chancellor? What about compassion? What about humanity?”
He shrugged. “Abstractions. What we have achieved on Vishnu is something concrete, separate from abstractions that dull the mind. Far from the evil picture you are trying to paint, we have wrested something positive from this difficult world. We have achieved something for humanity’s common good.”
She sighed. “Do you even know what humanity is, Chancellor? Humanity is a chain — a vine of human beliefs and values that a thousand generations of us have come to cherish and cling to. Out here, among the stars where no human beings had tread before, we have depended on that vine to nurture each world, because that is the only way each of the worlds could ever flourish and assure that they were still human beings at the end of it all…that we were all human beings, together. But you, here on Vishnu — you’ve abandoned those beliefs. You have chosen to nourish yourselves, rather than be fed by the common vine of humanity.”
The chancellor’s mouth twisted in a sardonic expression. “I thought you were an ambassador — but I find the Congress of Peoples has sent us a poet. Or a preacher.”
“Call me what you will — but I’m the last ambassador you will ever see.” Rios stood up, took a small cube out of her pocket and handed it to the Chancellor. “The Congress of Peoples is pruning the planet of Vishnu, Chancellor. Effective immediately, you will no longer receive nourishment from the vine of humanity — all trade, all travel, all communication is severed. Today. Any citizens of Vishnu on other worlds of the Congress will have the opportunity to be repatriated if they so wish. Otherwise, there will be no further contact.”
“We have contracts,” the chancellor said coldly. “Trade agreements.”
“You had them. And now you don’t. We cannot allow you to diverge from what humanity means, to disrespect our norms, and still enjoy the benefits of our shared culture. It’s not pretty, Chancellor, but sometimes we just have to do this.”
She looked down at the chancellor for a moment or two, then said with a cold smile, “But tell you what — you do you, Chancellor, and we’ll check back with you in a hundred years or so, to see how you’re getting along on your own.”
She didn’t wait for a response.
* * *
Fertile Ground
C. David McKirachan
Acts 8:26-40
At this point in the chronicle, Phillip is something of a stranger. Here, he becomes a star. The Acts of the Apostles could more likely be named, the Acts of the Holy Spirit as it bounces around, spotlighting various individuals in this motley crew of the people of the way. The author picks and chooses various scenarios to share. Who knows what Phillip had been doing, until the messenger sent him out on that desert road?
When I was a senior in high school, I was chosen to join three other seniors from northern New Jersey to journey to Ethiopia as part of an ecumenical encounter. We were in training for six months to represent the United Presbyterian Church in the USA. We were sent to live in an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery in Addis Ababa, the capital of that nation, to live and work with ten Ethiopian young men building a school. We slept in a dormitory with them, ate with them, did Bible study with them, worked with them. It was a mind-boggling experience.
One of the priests led study on the book of Acts every morning. We spent quite a bit of time on this passage. After all, it laid out the founding of their church.
We went back to the biblical journey of King Solomon to Abyssinia, the ancient name for Ethiopia. While there, he was intimate with the Queen of Sheba, evidently quite a babe, and they begat (I always hated that word) a kid, the first Jewish king of Ethiopia. One of the titles of the Emperor of Ethiopia, right into modern times, was lion of Judah. The eunuch in this passage from Acts has fiduciary authority for the royal house. An educated, powerful person who knew how to read the scriptures in Hebrew and had been raised according to the Torah.
The Holy Spirit was at work here, putting Phillip on that road at that time. It just so happened that the passage the eunuch was reading was one of the passages describing the suffering servant, passages that were near and dear to the Lord. As many have said, “Coincidences are God’s way of being subtle.” In this case, not so subtle.
The priest in our monastery delighted in speaking of Phillip’s energy, running next to the chariot. Why didn’t the eunuch’s guards prevent him? After all this was an officer of the royal house. God had prepared this man to receive the word. God prepared fertile ground. It didn’t take much to persuade him, did it? God wanted the faith to find a firm footing here. He was to be the carrier of the gospel to Africa. He was to convert the royal family. He was to found Christ’s church in a new world before Europe or America ever heard of Jesus. Oh yes, the Holy Spirit was at work here.
It stunned me, a card-carrying white kid from New Jersey, naturally a Giants and Yankees fan, with Scottish ancestors, Presbyterian to the core and this kid was having his world order challenged. I thought Columbus discovered America and in so doing, made it possible for us to bring the good news of civilization and apple pie and with it the gospel to the heathen world. Right? Well, put that one in the trash. The world does not revolve around the red, white, and blue. And the gospel does not belong to us. It’s God’s gift to the world. I found out I had a lot to learn.
I learned about drums in worship. I learned about dancing in worship. I learned about food. I learned about the courage and wisdom of people from a culture I couldn’t even imagine. And I learned about fertile ground and the strong church that has grown in this not so dark continent. And I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit to get through even the thick-headed skull of a teenager from New Jersey.
Now that’s a miracle! Not real subtle. But it works.
* * *
Part of Another’s Witness
C. David McKirachan
Psalm 22:25-31
In Acts 8, Phillip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. I worked in that country and heard how through him the faith came to the nation and the continent. The young men who told me were suitably proud of their status as the first Christian nation, before Europe or America. I was an arrogant adolescent, so, being brought down a peg was good medicine.
There was a caucasian missionary working with us as we built a school together. He had been a volunteer in mission and morphed into a career worker for the church in Africa. With a mustache and a Stetson style straw hat, I thought of him as a cowboy.
Ten years later, I was using the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, and there stood the cowboy in line with me, in the cafeteria. He didn’t seem to have changed, even carrying the hat. Somehow, he recognized me. I guess it’s hard to forget a pain in the neck. He was attending the seminary, working toward ordination. He wanted to work in the inner city.
His story was devastating and uplifting. He told me that his experience with our young people and the Ethiopian young men had led him to work on further ecumenical projects that included those young men who’d worked with us. Then came the revolution. He told me he’d been worried about the systematic poverty that kept people in poverty, while others were defended in their wealth. Desperation is a seed of revolution. The government became vulnerable, reactive as the people became angry and violent. He’d been working with a few of the young men I remembered. Their job was in a village, building a clinic and a school and teaching literacy and hygiene and agricultural techniques. The revolutionaries came with guns. Give guns to desperate people, they tend to use them.
Missionaries were seen as representatives of the government’s hold on the people. His bunch was arrested, taken out to a field, given shovels, and told to dig a trench. One of his co-workers came to him and told him to rub dirt on his face and hands, he had a plan. They were lined up in front of the trench and his friend told him to stand behind him and lay still when they fell.
The cowboy told me he was confused and terrified, and when the machine guns mowed down the whole line, all he could remember was what his friend had told him. It all seemed surreal. He couldn’t believe it was happening. He couldn’t believe he was still alive. The Ethiopian had stood in front of him and taken the bullets meant for the missionary. As he lay in the trench, the young man bleeding on him, all the cowboy could hear was a dying whisper from one of the victims, he couldn’t tell which one, “In life and death, we belong to God.”
He told me that an amazing calm came over him. He realized that that young man had given his life for him. And he made up his mind, there in that ditch, to live through this nightmare, to come back to the United States and to become a pastor who worked with the poor, so he could tell the story of those Christians who’d lived and died in faith, as their Lord had.
Few are called to do what they want to do. They are called to witness to the love of God. It’s interesting that the word “witness” in scripture is also translated “martyr.” They are called to remind others that Christ came into the midst of the violence and ugliness of our world, not to beat it into submission but to remind us that we have options, God’s options. And that the Lord was willing to witness to those options with his life and his death.
The 22nd Psalm reminds us that it’s rarely fun to witness to the good news. But by the time we get to its conclusion we are reminded that those who answer God’s call are not forgotten. We can make them part of our witness to the world. And perhaps our witness to the good news will be part of another’s witness. Be they in church, at a mission project, or in a trench.
Thanks be to God.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 2, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
“The Vine” by Keith Hewitt
“Fertile Ground” by C. David McKirachan
“Part of Another’s Witness” by C. David McKirachan
The Vine
by Keith Hewitt
John 15:1-8
He was, by all appearances, normal.
Ambassador Rios was not sure what she had expected — horns, perhaps, or a vestigial head on one shoulder — but the man who opened the padded office door and ushered her in, directed her to sit in a leather chair that somehow navigated the line between a desk chair and the sort of luxuriously overstuffed piece of furniture that would have been at home in a British gentleman’s club a thousand years ago, was unremarkable.
If anything, he was remarkable in his unremarkability — average height for his people, meaning he had the slightly squat build of a native that was genetically adapted to the 1.24 G surface gravity of Kepler 452 - III, otherwise known as Vishnu. Average masculine features. Brown eyes. She was not entirely sure she would be able to describe him usefully to a sketch artist, nor even identify him if she were to see him out of context.
It was vaguely unsettling.
He waited a beat after she sat down, then sat opposite her in a similar chair. Without preamble he said, “Ambassador Rios, your communique was a surprise — and a little cryptic. We didn’t know what to make of it when our ambassador to the Congress of Peoples told us that you were seeking an audience and requested passage to Vishnu. Of course, we were happy to grant it,” he added with the slightest of smiles.
She bowed her head stiffly, reflected his smile. “Your hospitality is appreciated, Chancellor.”
“I trust you are well — that our world’s grip on you is not too…difficult?”
A shallower nod, this time. “I am, thank you. Between the medicines and the fact that I worked out very rigorously on the journey here, I find it not too taxing.” But I can’t wait to get back on my ship and into a normal gravitational field, she added silently. She had decided that going back and forth from ship’s gravity to Vishnu surface gravity would be too hard to adapt to and opted to remain on Vishnu’s soil for the duration of her visit.
“Excellent,” he answered, and seemed to mean it. “So, now, if I may inquire as to the purpose of your visit — ?”
Rios took a deep breath. “I see your culture’s reputation for directness is not overstated. We are here because — ” She hesitated, momentarily at a loss even though she’d rehearsed the conversation a thousand times during her journey. “We are here because the Congress of Peoples has certain concerns about your planet, your culture. You, to be honest. Certain facts…rumors…have come to light that concern us.”
The chancellor’s unremarkable eyebrows arched — but only slightly. “Go on.”
“You know, of course, that the underlying principle of the Congress of Peoples is twofold: to celebrate the diversity of life, but also to maintain the essence of humanity throughout all peoples, everywhere. This latter is most important, the farther out we go. The founders envisioned that it would be all too possible for outlying cultures to start drifting, due to distance and lack of contact, lack of regular intercourse between worlds. Given the right — or wrong — circumstances, outlying planets might start to lose their humanity, for want of a better term.”
He blinked, his eyes blank, expression neutral. “And you think that applies to us here on Vishnu?”
She took another deep breath, nodded. “In celebration of your bluntness, yes, Chancellor — that’s exactly what we think.” She raised one arm with some effort, waved it toward the world beyond the windows of the office. “We have become aware of certain…practices. Ideas. Rumors. All of them rather disturbing.”
The chancellor leaned back into his chair, held his hands out in an open gesture. “Our culture is an open book, Ambassador Rios. I assume you are referencing the Normative Regulations?”
She nodded. “Among others.” She paused, waited for him to say something; when he didn’t, she continued. “Over the last eleven years, we’ve had several groups come here to study Vishnu’s culture, and there is much to be celebrated. But they also keep coming back to what one of the researchers called a ‘slavish obsession with maintaining the norm.’”
Another eyebrow lift. “Maintaining normalcy. What a hideous idea.”
Rios licked her lips, decided to skip the niceties. “Reportedly, this obsession includes something known as ‘mandatory physical norming,’ which includes mandatory reporting of certain physical and intellectual measurements of children at birth and ages one, five, and twelve.”
“Go on.”
“Reportedly — and I say that because details are hidden behind the Planetary Security Act — but reportedly any child who is outside the norms is sent away to a facility where they are kept from reproducing or taking any part in social activities.”
Nothing.
“Also reportedly, children who are more than two standard deviations from the norm in any measurement simply disappear.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There are other concerns, similar to that. Grave concerns.”
Nothing. Then, “It is my understanding that the Congress of Peoples holds the ability of planetary governments to govern themselves as sacrosanct.”
“It does.”
“Then how we choose to conduct ourselves is clearly none of your business. How we choose to optimize Vishnu’s inhabitants is none of your business. How we choose to supplement our limited agricultural resources is none of your business. But let me ask you this — did your investigators tell you about our rates of disease, or genetic illnesses? Less than one fourth of any other world in the Congress. Poverty is almost non-existent, as is crime. We have not had an incident of civil disorder in — ” He hesitated, “ — over a hundred and thirty years. And that was due to outside agitators. In short, Ambassador Rios, we have taken the human breed and improved it. Unquestionably. From my perspective, the only reason the Congress should be asking questions is to find out how they could do the same. But until that happens, we are quite content to live our own lives, separate but equal.”
The ambassador looked at him steadily, refusing to break eye contact though her blood had suddenly run cold at his words. “But what about love, Chancellor? What about compassion? What about humanity?”
He shrugged. “Abstractions. What we have achieved on Vishnu is something concrete, separate from abstractions that dull the mind. Far from the evil picture you are trying to paint, we have wrested something positive from this difficult world. We have achieved something for humanity’s common good.”
She sighed. “Do you even know what humanity is, Chancellor? Humanity is a chain — a vine of human beliefs and values that a thousand generations of us have come to cherish and cling to. Out here, among the stars where no human beings had tread before, we have depended on that vine to nurture each world, because that is the only way each of the worlds could ever flourish and assure that they were still human beings at the end of it all…that we were all human beings, together. But you, here on Vishnu — you’ve abandoned those beliefs. You have chosen to nourish yourselves, rather than be fed by the common vine of humanity.”
The chancellor’s mouth twisted in a sardonic expression. “I thought you were an ambassador — but I find the Congress of Peoples has sent us a poet. Or a preacher.”
“Call me what you will — but I’m the last ambassador you will ever see.” Rios stood up, took a small cube out of her pocket and handed it to the Chancellor. “The Congress of Peoples is pruning the planet of Vishnu, Chancellor. Effective immediately, you will no longer receive nourishment from the vine of humanity — all trade, all travel, all communication is severed. Today. Any citizens of Vishnu on other worlds of the Congress will have the opportunity to be repatriated if they so wish. Otherwise, there will be no further contact.”
“We have contracts,” the chancellor said coldly. “Trade agreements.”
“You had them. And now you don’t. We cannot allow you to diverge from what humanity means, to disrespect our norms, and still enjoy the benefits of our shared culture. It’s not pretty, Chancellor, but sometimes we just have to do this.”
She looked down at the chancellor for a moment or two, then said with a cold smile, “But tell you what — you do you, Chancellor, and we’ll check back with you in a hundred years or so, to see how you’re getting along on your own.”
She didn’t wait for a response.
* * *
Fertile Ground
C. David McKirachan
Acts 8:26-40
At this point in the chronicle, Phillip is something of a stranger. Here, he becomes a star. The Acts of the Apostles could more likely be named, the Acts of the Holy Spirit as it bounces around, spotlighting various individuals in this motley crew of the people of the way. The author picks and chooses various scenarios to share. Who knows what Phillip had been doing, until the messenger sent him out on that desert road?
When I was a senior in high school, I was chosen to join three other seniors from northern New Jersey to journey to Ethiopia as part of an ecumenical encounter. We were in training for six months to represent the United Presbyterian Church in the USA. We were sent to live in an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery in Addis Ababa, the capital of that nation, to live and work with ten Ethiopian young men building a school. We slept in a dormitory with them, ate with them, did Bible study with them, worked with them. It was a mind-boggling experience.
One of the priests led study on the book of Acts every morning. We spent quite a bit of time on this passage. After all, it laid out the founding of their church.
We went back to the biblical journey of King Solomon to Abyssinia, the ancient name for Ethiopia. While there, he was intimate with the Queen of Sheba, evidently quite a babe, and they begat (I always hated that word) a kid, the first Jewish king of Ethiopia. One of the titles of the Emperor of Ethiopia, right into modern times, was lion of Judah. The eunuch in this passage from Acts has fiduciary authority for the royal house. An educated, powerful person who knew how to read the scriptures in Hebrew and had been raised according to the Torah.
The Holy Spirit was at work here, putting Phillip on that road at that time. It just so happened that the passage the eunuch was reading was one of the passages describing the suffering servant, passages that were near and dear to the Lord. As many have said, “Coincidences are God’s way of being subtle.” In this case, not so subtle.
The priest in our monastery delighted in speaking of Phillip’s energy, running next to the chariot. Why didn’t the eunuch’s guards prevent him? After all this was an officer of the royal house. God had prepared this man to receive the word. God prepared fertile ground. It didn’t take much to persuade him, did it? God wanted the faith to find a firm footing here. He was to be the carrier of the gospel to Africa. He was to convert the royal family. He was to found Christ’s church in a new world before Europe or America ever heard of Jesus. Oh yes, the Holy Spirit was at work here.
It stunned me, a card-carrying white kid from New Jersey, naturally a Giants and Yankees fan, with Scottish ancestors, Presbyterian to the core and this kid was having his world order challenged. I thought Columbus discovered America and in so doing, made it possible for us to bring the good news of civilization and apple pie and with it the gospel to the heathen world. Right? Well, put that one in the trash. The world does not revolve around the red, white, and blue. And the gospel does not belong to us. It’s God’s gift to the world. I found out I had a lot to learn.
I learned about drums in worship. I learned about dancing in worship. I learned about food. I learned about the courage and wisdom of people from a culture I couldn’t even imagine. And I learned about fertile ground and the strong church that has grown in this not so dark continent. And I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit to get through even the thick-headed skull of a teenager from New Jersey.
Now that’s a miracle! Not real subtle. But it works.
* * *
Part of Another’s Witness
C. David McKirachan
Psalm 22:25-31
In Acts 8, Phillip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. I worked in that country and heard how through him the faith came to the nation and the continent. The young men who told me were suitably proud of their status as the first Christian nation, before Europe or America. I was an arrogant adolescent, so, being brought down a peg was good medicine.
There was a caucasian missionary working with us as we built a school together. He had been a volunteer in mission and morphed into a career worker for the church in Africa. With a mustache and a Stetson style straw hat, I thought of him as a cowboy.
Ten years later, I was using the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, and there stood the cowboy in line with me, in the cafeteria. He didn’t seem to have changed, even carrying the hat. Somehow, he recognized me. I guess it’s hard to forget a pain in the neck. He was attending the seminary, working toward ordination. He wanted to work in the inner city.
His story was devastating and uplifting. He told me that his experience with our young people and the Ethiopian young men had led him to work on further ecumenical projects that included those young men who’d worked with us. Then came the revolution. He told me he’d been worried about the systematic poverty that kept people in poverty, while others were defended in their wealth. Desperation is a seed of revolution. The government became vulnerable, reactive as the people became angry and violent. He’d been working with a few of the young men I remembered. Their job was in a village, building a clinic and a school and teaching literacy and hygiene and agricultural techniques. The revolutionaries came with guns. Give guns to desperate people, they tend to use them.
Missionaries were seen as representatives of the government’s hold on the people. His bunch was arrested, taken out to a field, given shovels, and told to dig a trench. One of his co-workers came to him and told him to rub dirt on his face and hands, he had a plan. They were lined up in front of the trench and his friend told him to stand behind him and lay still when they fell.
The cowboy told me he was confused and terrified, and when the machine guns mowed down the whole line, all he could remember was what his friend had told him. It all seemed surreal. He couldn’t believe it was happening. He couldn’t believe he was still alive. The Ethiopian had stood in front of him and taken the bullets meant for the missionary. As he lay in the trench, the young man bleeding on him, all the cowboy could hear was a dying whisper from one of the victims, he couldn’t tell which one, “In life and death, we belong to God.”
He told me that an amazing calm came over him. He realized that that young man had given his life for him. And he made up his mind, there in that ditch, to live through this nightmare, to come back to the United States and to become a pastor who worked with the poor, so he could tell the story of those Christians who’d lived and died in faith, as their Lord had.
Few are called to do what they want to do. They are called to witness to the love of God. It’s interesting that the word “witness” in scripture is also translated “martyr.” They are called to remind others that Christ came into the midst of the violence and ugliness of our world, not to beat it into submission but to remind us that we have options, God’s options. And that the Lord was willing to witness to those options with his life and his death.
The 22nd Psalm reminds us that it’s rarely fun to witness to the good news. But by the time we get to its conclusion we are reminded that those who answer God’s call are not forgotten. We can make them part of our witness to the world. And perhaps our witness to the good news will be part of another’s witness. Be they in church, at a mission project, or in a trench.
Thanks be to God.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 2, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
