Proper 13 (C, E)
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle B
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: 2 Samuel 11:26„12:13a (C)
God, of course, was outraged at DavidÍs conduct with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah. Nathan was sent to inform David that there would be grave consequences for his misdeed. Henceforth he would face armed conflict from his enemies, and tragedy would beset his household. Indeed, a few days later, the baby born to Bathsheba died. David seems to have taken that loss with little distress. He went through the motions of supplication to God to spare the babyÍs life, but when the child died, David resumed his normal routine, apparently ignoring certain expected forms of public grief.
David would face exactly what was predicted „ his son Absalom would die much later. But David continued to be the wondrous king, leading to the conclusion that God finally decided to forgive David. As we read this story, we must remind ourselves that this reflects an ancient Jewish understanding of the nature of God, and the degree of historical accuracy here is suspect. As in most of these stories, we can assume a historical basis with a lot of myth and legend added. In our own culture, we admire men like Washington and Lincoln (see, we donÍt even have to use their first names) and have woven many anecdotes into their histories, stories which we are fairly certain did not happen, but which succinctly characterize the men as we visualize them.
In this passage, what we do find to ring true in light of the teachings of Jesus is the wrath of God in response to wrongdoing, and in the fact that while God does become wrathful at hurtful, unloving conduct, he still maintains a relationship with us. GodÍs ultimate objective with all of us is that we see the wrongs we have done for what they are, repent, make restitution as much as possible, and become lovers of other people. As Professor Morrie said when close to death, as reported by Mitch Albom in his splendid Tuesdays With Morrie: ñLove wins. Love always wins.''
Lesson 1: Exodus 16:2-4, 13-15 (RC); Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 (E)
Lesson 2: Ephesians 4:1-16 (C)
Paul could certainly say a lot in relatively few words. I see at least four distinct sermon possibilities in this passage. First, Paul urges that we act out the spirit of love in our world. He identifies several characteristics of that love: humility, gentleness, patience, and he further urges that we use these qualities in an effort to bring peace to the world.
Second, Paul insists that in Christ our differences fade into unimportance. If we are fellows in Christ, then we are of one body, one baptism, one family. I donÍt think this argues against denominational differences so long as there is respect and mutual acceptance among us. After all, we are different, as Paul observes. Those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory tests will be familiar with the sixteen designations used there. Maybe a bit oversimplified, yet a useful quick study to understand each other. We used them at St. LukeÍs and found them indispensable to successful staff assignments and staff relationships. For example, some people are ñThinking'' people and some are ñFeeling'' people. That doesnÍt mean thinking people donÍt feel, nor that feeling people donÍt think. It means we process our perceptions of reality in one of those two ways. ThatÍs why a Thinking Person and a Feeling Person can go to a sad movie and one is sniffling and wiping away tears, while the other is wondering what youÍre crying about. So we wonÍt all experience worship, and prayer, and music, and study in the same way. But we are One in the Spirit nonetheless.
Third, Paul affirms what we know: people are different. Within the church, some are called to preach, some to counsel, some to teach „ in the larger world, some are equipped to be physicians, some manufacturers, some carpenters, some nurses, and so forth. Again, we wonÍt all perceive our world, nor our religion, in the same way. What we are to do is try to find what it is we are able to do and are equipped by God to do in order to build up the Church and make our world a better place.
Fourth, Paul urges the building up of the Church. I donÍt think he means in the sense of church growth, though IÍm all for that. I think he means we are to contribute to the spirituality, the lovingness, the integrity of the Church. Each of us is to contribute to this process in accord with our gifts. In todayÍs world, this means giving money, praying for the Church, serving it in some way, and making sure we donÍt allow our personality quirks to make the Church less than it would be without us. In sum, we are do to everything which ñpromotes the bodyÍs growth in building itself up in love.''
Lesson 2: Ephesians 4:17, 20-25 (RC); Ephesians 4:17-25 (E)
Gospel: John 6:24-35 (C, RC, E)
John is using ñbread'' as a symbol for the saving Word of God as revealed in the life of Jesus. Here, the people have confused literal bread „ or at least the material things of the world „ for that which Jesus provides. Like some of us today, they hoped to have some of their practical needs met through this new faith. ItÍs not surprising, inasmuch as they either had seen or heard of healing ñmiracles,'' of restoration of life to the dead, and other stories of wonders supposedly done by Jesus.
One must read this in the context of other stories such as the promise Jesus made which we find in, for example, Luke 11:5-13, where Jesus uses an analogy of a man who receives a late-night visitor and beseeches a neighbor for food for the man. He then also uses the analogy of a loving father who, when his son asks for bread, would hardly hand the child a stone. So Jesus doesnÍt seem to me to disdain our worldly needs. What I think is meant here is that the bread from heaven must come first. Only after we have received Christ, according to John, can God then act in our worldly needs as well as in our spiritual lives.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: ñDoes God Get Angry And Punish Us?''
Text: 2 Samuel 11:26„12:13a
Theme: Of course the bottom line answer to this, as far as IÍm concerned, is ñNo!'' We speak of the wrath of God, and by that we surely donÍt mean that God gets mad as I get mad. When IÍm angry, I nearly always say something IÍm sorry for later. My anger is usually composed of equal parts self-righteous outrage, dislike for some wrong I imagine to have been done, and blind frustration. Almost without exception, I then feel like a darn fool and wonder why I act in such an immature way at times. Clearly, if youÍre like me, we canÍt use our experience of anger as a guide to GodÍs anger. Or what theologians call ñwrath.''
GodÍs wrath comes from love. It is not an emotion. It is opposition „ opposition to anything selfish and hurtful and wrong, especially when God knows we understand perfectly well what we have just done, as David must have. His own anger at NathanÍs story about the lambs shows that. It is an unwillingness to cooperate in hurtful attitudes or conduct. In our epistle passage, we have Paul assuring us that GodÍs Spirit is at work within us, empowering us. But GodÍs Spirit is not going to empower us when weÍre doing anything like what David did. Right off the bat we begin to pay a price for wrongdoing „ the price of losing the Holy SpiritÍs work on our behalf. Not totally, because the other factor is loving forgiveness. I suppose we could imagine a loving mother as she witnesses one of her children hurting another of her children. (Her anger will be a little like mine, but the analogy can be helpful.) Mother must decide what action to take. If she jumps in and separates the two children with a scolding for the culprit, take it from me, theyÍll be right back at it when Mom turns her back.
What should Mom do? She will let the children work it out, making sure that no one is severely hurt, because thatÍs the only way they will ever hammer out a relationship which works. Likewise, God doesnÍt jump in and break it up. I notice David and Bathsheba went right on making out. What God did do in the story was warn that there would be consequences. However, I donÍt charge the babyÍs death to God. I canÍt believe God would punish an innocent baby for the sins of the parents. What happened „ and you have to read ahead in the story to learn this „ is that the David who danced before the Lord with all his might, the David who was ecstatic with joy, was never that happy again. ItÍs a natural law of the spirit, as immutable as the laws of gravity or thermodynamics, that we will not be filled with the joy of Jesus as long as we are engaged in wrongdoing. But Jesus wonÍt, therefore, turn from us. He will still walk with us and, as gently as possible, try to lead us back to the right way. Until we die „ and who knows, perhaps beyond that time „ God will work to redeem us.
Title: ñOne''
Text: Ephesians 4:1-16
Theme: The ChurchÍs one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. God has revealed through Jesus certain truths. The preacherÍs job is to make these truths clear, understandable, and relevant.
1. In Christ God makes available to us great powers beyond those inherent within us. Paul said it: ñI can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me.'' Another way to read that is: ñBecause the Spirit of Christ is already at work in me, I can cope with anything.''
2. The source of GodÍs power is love „ divine love. The greatest loves we know on earth are pale imitations of that divine love. Its purpose is to bind us to God and to each other.
3. The locus of that love is to be the Church „ not this church or that church „ The Church, the total gathering of us all who believe in him as Son of God. And if that love truly works in us, we will set aside petty differences and try to work together to bring about GodÍs purposes in the material world in which we currently live.
4. The Church must prosper through the varied contributions of its members, each giving according to what we have and in terms of what we are equipped to do.
Title: ñFirst Things First''
Text: John 6:24-35
Theme: There is always the danger that we try to use our religious faith selfishly. The point in this passage is that first we are to receive the bread that leads to eternal life. Then, when we have done that, and I interpret that to mean we receive Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to gain access to our lives, then we can ask for the bread of the everyday. Certainly, the thrust of the Gospel is a promise of GodÍs constant presence and activity in our lives. I certainly can think of several events in my own life which bear the unmistakable signs of GodÍs activity. I also have discovered that disappointments and occasional bouts of painful suffering continue to be part of life too. The difference, since Christ entered in, is that I find myself better able to face these problems, and I find that almost without fail, they finally issue in something good. Paul assured us that all things work for good for those who love God. This is so trivial, I almost refuse to admit it, and a couple of my dear clergy friends would pooh-pooh what IÍm about to say. But I have wanted to lose some weight for a few years. My doctor told me to lose ten pounds. I sort of tried, but no luck. Then I got sick, was on a required serious diet, had a minor surgery, got well. But in the process, I lost twenty pounds. That was a year ago, and I have kept fifteen of those pounds off. Now the point is this: I prayed throughout my ordeal that something good would result. As I say, thatÍs trivial. But I have become convinced that if we face our trials with some courage, and if we faithfully pray, God will use those trials in a good way. Thus, with this passage, I interpret it to mean that we are not to think to use our faith for selfish purposes. We are to first of all receive the Spirit and his blessings in a way which is faithful. Then we will begin to discover that Paul was right, good things can result from our problems.
1. Jesus Christ is the means by which one can experience eternal life.
2. ñEternal life'' is not merely life after death. It is a quality of life which begins here and now.
3. ñEternal life'' refers to the presence of joy, what one hymn writer called ñjoy which seekest me through pain.''
4. As we face the need for power in everyday life, we discover that in mysterious, unpredictable, marvelous ways, we are empowered. But we also discover that this seems to happen when we are trying to be faithful to what we have come to believe as Christians.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
The distinguished professor of New Testament at Emory University in Atlanta, Fred Craddock, tells of growing up in a home in which his father not only did not believe in the Church, he didnÍt like the church. Ministers would visit, hoping to win the old man, but he was always cynical, assuming that they wanted someone to give money, or to swell the size of the church. CraddockÍs mother would often cry over the failure of her husband to believe in worship, but this never fazed him.
Then Mr. Craddock was stricken with cancer. Fred Craddock tells of the last time he saw his father. It was in a hospital, and the old man was down to well under 100 pounds. His throat had been removed. He was badly burned by radiation. He was filled with tubes which gave a tenuous hold on life. The end was quite near. And as the family looked around the room, they realized it was filled with flowers of every variety. Bouquets on every table and on the floor. Cards were arriving with caring, loving sentiments, signed by people from menÍs Bible fellowship, the local womenÍs society, the youth group, the Sunday school „ the church had showered the poor man with expressions of caring love.
Then, Fred Craddock tells, his father picked up a pencil and a Kleenex box alongside his bed and wrote a couplet from Shakespeare:
In this harsh world, draw your breath
In pain to tell my story.
Craddock asked his father what he meant by what he had written. His father took the box back and wrote this: ñI was wrong. I was wrong.''
____________
Kevin Seitzer is an all-star baseball player with the Milwaukee Brewers, whom he joined in 1993. Writing for Sports Illustrated, Seitzer tells of the dangers of being hit by a pitched ball. He said he watched on television as Mark McGwire was hit by a pitch thrown by TorontoÍs David Cone. He sympathized because he has been hit three times by pitched balls, had been knocked unconscious, had bones broken in his face, and has worried about the dangers since then.
After recovering from his third such injury, Seitzer tells of his first time back, standing in the batterÍs box. He wrote: ñI played two days after (being hit). I remember standing in the on-deck circle before my first at bat after getting hit. I was nervous, but not really out of fear. It was more the anxiety of not knowing how things were going to go when I stepped in. IÍd done a lot of praying, and a lot of my friends and family prayed for me too.'' Then Seitzer wrote this: ñOnce I got in the batterÍs box, an incredible peace came over me. It was GodÍs power. I believe I was fearless. It was the most inexplicable thing that has ever happened to me. I went three for four in the game and had eleven hits in my first nineteen at bats.'' He concluded his article with this line: ñThereÍs no way I could have gotten through this without my faith in Jesus Christ.''
____________
ñTruth from his lips prevailÍd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.''
„ Oliver Goldsmith
____________
ñ... sanctified by prayers, matured in conflict ...''
„ Søren Kierkegaard
ñGod is love. This thought has, for me, a primitive lyrical validity.''
„ S.K.
____________
Many years ago, I worked with a man who told me he did not go to church. He said that years earlier, he and his wife had attended church because she was very ill. They worshiped regularly, and were generous in giving to the budget. And they prayed that the wife would get better. She did not. He said they then left the church, believing its teachings to be a fake.
____________
Glenn McDonald told of a minister who came to this country from England. Shortly after his arrival, he drove to Chicago. Approaching the city, he noticed that his gas supply was low. However, he assumed there would be plenty of filling stations in a city that large, so he continued on. Then, seeing no stations for miles, he ran out of gas on the main highway „ in the passing lane. People trying to get around him shouted a variety of epithets, but no one offered to help. Becoming desperate, he got out of his car. He noticed an old beat-up car slow down, size him up, and then drive on. A few minutes later, the same old car approached again, but this time it pulled in behind him and stopped. A shabbily dressed man got out „ with a can of gas. He opened the English pastorÍs gas tank and poured in a gallon of gas. As he headed back to his car, the pastor called out to him, but the man replied that he spoke very little English. He did, however, manage to convey that he couldnÍt talk much „ he had just arrived from Puerto Rico a week earlier.
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 51:1-12 (C) „ ñHave mercy on me, O God.''
Psalm 77 (RC) „ ñI cry aloud to God.''
Psalm 78:1-25 (E) „ ñThey forgot what he had done.''
Prayer Of The Day
Sometimes, O Lord, we are afraid. At times the road is steep, the night dark. Though we turn a confident face to the world, our hearts at times sink in fear and anxiety. We pray that you will remind us of your presence in those dark hours. Inspire our courage, that we may find in ourselves those qualities which will enable us to meet and triumph over trouble. In JesusÍ name we pray. Amen.
Lesson 1: 2 Samuel 11:26„12:13a (C)
God, of course, was outraged at DavidÍs conduct with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah. Nathan was sent to inform David that there would be grave consequences for his misdeed. Henceforth he would face armed conflict from his enemies, and tragedy would beset his household. Indeed, a few days later, the baby born to Bathsheba died. David seems to have taken that loss with little distress. He went through the motions of supplication to God to spare the babyÍs life, but when the child died, David resumed his normal routine, apparently ignoring certain expected forms of public grief.
David would face exactly what was predicted „ his son Absalom would die much later. But David continued to be the wondrous king, leading to the conclusion that God finally decided to forgive David. As we read this story, we must remind ourselves that this reflects an ancient Jewish understanding of the nature of God, and the degree of historical accuracy here is suspect. As in most of these stories, we can assume a historical basis with a lot of myth and legend added. In our own culture, we admire men like Washington and Lincoln (see, we donÍt even have to use their first names) and have woven many anecdotes into their histories, stories which we are fairly certain did not happen, but which succinctly characterize the men as we visualize them.
In this passage, what we do find to ring true in light of the teachings of Jesus is the wrath of God in response to wrongdoing, and in the fact that while God does become wrathful at hurtful, unloving conduct, he still maintains a relationship with us. GodÍs ultimate objective with all of us is that we see the wrongs we have done for what they are, repent, make restitution as much as possible, and become lovers of other people. As Professor Morrie said when close to death, as reported by Mitch Albom in his splendid Tuesdays With Morrie: ñLove wins. Love always wins.''
Lesson 1: Exodus 16:2-4, 13-15 (RC); Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 (E)
Lesson 2: Ephesians 4:1-16 (C)
Paul could certainly say a lot in relatively few words. I see at least four distinct sermon possibilities in this passage. First, Paul urges that we act out the spirit of love in our world. He identifies several characteristics of that love: humility, gentleness, patience, and he further urges that we use these qualities in an effort to bring peace to the world.
Second, Paul insists that in Christ our differences fade into unimportance. If we are fellows in Christ, then we are of one body, one baptism, one family. I donÍt think this argues against denominational differences so long as there is respect and mutual acceptance among us. After all, we are different, as Paul observes. Those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory tests will be familiar with the sixteen designations used there. Maybe a bit oversimplified, yet a useful quick study to understand each other. We used them at St. LukeÍs and found them indispensable to successful staff assignments and staff relationships. For example, some people are ñThinking'' people and some are ñFeeling'' people. That doesnÍt mean thinking people donÍt feel, nor that feeling people donÍt think. It means we process our perceptions of reality in one of those two ways. ThatÍs why a Thinking Person and a Feeling Person can go to a sad movie and one is sniffling and wiping away tears, while the other is wondering what youÍre crying about. So we wonÍt all experience worship, and prayer, and music, and study in the same way. But we are One in the Spirit nonetheless.
Third, Paul affirms what we know: people are different. Within the church, some are called to preach, some to counsel, some to teach „ in the larger world, some are equipped to be physicians, some manufacturers, some carpenters, some nurses, and so forth. Again, we wonÍt all perceive our world, nor our religion, in the same way. What we are to do is try to find what it is we are able to do and are equipped by God to do in order to build up the Church and make our world a better place.
Fourth, Paul urges the building up of the Church. I donÍt think he means in the sense of church growth, though IÍm all for that. I think he means we are to contribute to the spirituality, the lovingness, the integrity of the Church. Each of us is to contribute to this process in accord with our gifts. In todayÍs world, this means giving money, praying for the Church, serving it in some way, and making sure we donÍt allow our personality quirks to make the Church less than it would be without us. In sum, we are do to everything which ñpromotes the bodyÍs growth in building itself up in love.''
Lesson 2: Ephesians 4:17, 20-25 (RC); Ephesians 4:17-25 (E)
Gospel: John 6:24-35 (C, RC, E)
John is using ñbread'' as a symbol for the saving Word of God as revealed in the life of Jesus. Here, the people have confused literal bread „ or at least the material things of the world „ for that which Jesus provides. Like some of us today, they hoped to have some of their practical needs met through this new faith. ItÍs not surprising, inasmuch as they either had seen or heard of healing ñmiracles,'' of restoration of life to the dead, and other stories of wonders supposedly done by Jesus.
One must read this in the context of other stories such as the promise Jesus made which we find in, for example, Luke 11:5-13, where Jesus uses an analogy of a man who receives a late-night visitor and beseeches a neighbor for food for the man. He then also uses the analogy of a loving father who, when his son asks for bread, would hardly hand the child a stone. So Jesus doesnÍt seem to me to disdain our worldly needs. What I think is meant here is that the bread from heaven must come first. Only after we have received Christ, according to John, can God then act in our worldly needs as well as in our spiritual lives.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: ñDoes God Get Angry And Punish Us?''
Text: 2 Samuel 11:26„12:13a
Theme: Of course the bottom line answer to this, as far as IÍm concerned, is ñNo!'' We speak of the wrath of God, and by that we surely donÍt mean that God gets mad as I get mad. When IÍm angry, I nearly always say something IÍm sorry for later. My anger is usually composed of equal parts self-righteous outrage, dislike for some wrong I imagine to have been done, and blind frustration. Almost without exception, I then feel like a darn fool and wonder why I act in such an immature way at times. Clearly, if youÍre like me, we canÍt use our experience of anger as a guide to GodÍs anger. Or what theologians call ñwrath.''
GodÍs wrath comes from love. It is not an emotion. It is opposition „ opposition to anything selfish and hurtful and wrong, especially when God knows we understand perfectly well what we have just done, as David must have. His own anger at NathanÍs story about the lambs shows that. It is an unwillingness to cooperate in hurtful attitudes or conduct. In our epistle passage, we have Paul assuring us that GodÍs Spirit is at work within us, empowering us. But GodÍs Spirit is not going to empower us when weÍre doing anything like what David did. Right off the bat we begin to pay a price for wrongdoing „ the price of losing the Holy SpiritÍs work on our behalf. Not totally, because the other factor is loving forgiveness. I suppose we could imagine a loving mother as she witnesses one of her children hurting another of her children. (Her anger will be a little like mine, but the analogy can be helpful.) Mother must decide what action to take. If she jumps in and separates the two children with a scolding for the culprit, take it from me, theyÍll be right back at it when Mom turns her back.
What should Mom do? She will let the children work it out, making sure that no one is severely hurt, because thatÍs the only way they will ever hammer out a relationship which works. Likewise, God doesnÍt jump in and break it up. I notice David and Bathsheba went right on making out. What God did do in the story was warn that there would be consequences. However, I donÍt charge the babyÍs death to God. I canÍt believe God would punish an innocent baby for the sins of the parents. What happened „ and you have to read ahead in the story to learn this „ is that the David who danced before the Lord with all his might, the David who was ecstatic with joy, was never that happy again. ItÍs a natural law of the spirit, as immutable as the laws of gravity or thermodynamics, that we will not be filled with the joy of Jesus as long as we are engaged in wrongdoing. But Jesus wonÍt, therefore, turn from us. He will still walk with us and, as gently as possible, try to lead us back to the right way. Until we die „ and who knows, perhaps beyond that time „ God will work to redeem us.
Title: ñOne''
Text: Ephesians 4:1-16
Theme: The ChurchÍs one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. God has revealed through Jesus certain truths. The preacherÍs job is to make these truths clear, understandable, and relevant.
1. In Christ God makes available to us great powers beyond those inherent within us. Paul said it: ñI can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me.'' Another way to read that is: ñBecause the Spirit of Christ is already at work in me, I can cope with anything.''
2. The source of GodÍs power is love „ divine love. The greatest loves we know on earth are pale imitations of that divine love. Its purpose is to bind us to God and to each other.
3. The locus of that love is to be the Church „ not this church or that church „ The Church, the total gathering of us all who believe in him as Son of God. And if that love truly works in us, we will set aside petty differences and try to work together to bring about GodÍs purposes in the material world in which we currently live.
4. The Church must prosper through the varied contributions of its members, each giving according to what we have and in terms of what we are equipped to do.
Title: ñFirst Things First''
Text: John 6:24-35
Theme: There is always the danger that we try to use our religious faith selfishly. The point in this passage is that first we are to receive the bread that leads to eternal life. Then, when we have done that, and I interpret that to mean we receive Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to gain access to our lives, then we can ask for the bread of the everyday. Certainly, the thrust of the Gospel is a promise of GodÍs constant presence and activity in our lives. I certainly can think of several events in my own life which bear the unmistakable signs of GodÍs activity. I also have discovered that disappointments and occasional bouts of painful suffering continue to be part of life too. The difference, since Christ entered in, is that I find myself better able to face these problems, and I find that almost without fail, they finally issue in something good. Paul assured us that all things work for good for those who love God. This is so trivial, I almost refuse to admit it, and a couple of my dear clergy friends would pooh-pooh what IÍm about to say. But I have wanted to lose some weight for a few years. My doctor told me to lose ten pounds. I sort of tried, but no luck. Then I got sick, was on a required serious diet, had a minor surgery, got well. But in the process, I lost twenty pounds. That was a year ago, and I have kept fifteen of those pounds off. Now the point is this: I prayed throughout my ordeal that something good would result. As I say, thatÍs trivial. But I have become convinced that if we face our trials with some courage, and if we faithfully pray, God will use those trials in a good way. Thus, with this passage, I interpret it to mean that we are not to think to use our faith for selfish purposes. We are to first of all receive the Spirit and his blessings in a way which is faithful. Then we will begin to discover that Paul was right, good things can result from our problems.
1. Jesus Christ is the means by which one can experience eternal life.
2. ñEternal life'' is not merely life after death. It is a quality of life which begins here and now.
3. ñEternal life'' refers to the presence of joy, what one hymn writer called ñjoy which seekest me through pain.''
4. As we face the need for power in everyday life, we discover that in mysterious, unpredictable, marvelous ways, we are empowered. But we also discover that this seems to happen when we are trying to be faithful to what we have come to believe as Christians.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
The distinguished professor of New Testament at Emory University in Atlanta, Fred Craddock, tells of growing up in a home in which his father not only did not believe in the Church, he didnÍt like the church. Ministers would visit, hoping to win the old man, but he was always cynical, assuming that they wanted someone to give money, or to swell the size of the church. CraddockÍs mother would often cry over the failure of her husband to believe in worship, but this never fazed him.
Then Mr. Craddock was stricken with cancer. Fred Craddock tells of the last time he saw his father. It was in a hospital, and the old man was down to well under 100 pounds. His throat had been removed. He was badly burned by radiation. He was filled with tubes which gave a tenuous hold on life. The end was quite near. And as the family looked around the room, they realized it was filled with flowers of every variety. Bouquets on every table and on the floor. Cards were arriving with caring, loving sentiments, signed by people from menÍs Bible fellowship, the local womenÍs society, the youth group, the Sunday school „ the church had showered the poor man with expressions of caring love.
Then, Fred Craddock tells, his father picked up a pencil and a Kleenex box alongside his bed and wrote a couplet from Shakespeare:
In this harsh world, draw your breath
In pain to tell my story.
Craddock asked his father what he meant by what he had written. His father took the box back and wrote this: ñI was wrong. I was wrong.''
____________
Kevin Seitzer is an all-star baseball player with the Milwaukee Brewers, whom he joined in 1993. Writing for Sports Illustrated, Seitzer tells of the dangers of being hit by a pitched ball. He said he watched on television as Mark McGwire was hit by a pitch thrown by TorontoÍs David Cone. He sympathized because he has been hit three times by pitched balls, had been knocked unconscious, had bones broken in his face, and has worried about the dangers since then.
After recovering from his third such injury, Seitzer tells of his first time back, standing in the batterÍs box. He wrote: ñI played two days after (being hit). I remember standing in the on-deck circle before my first at bat after getting hit. I was nervous, but not really out of fear. It was more the anxiety of not knowing how things were going to go when I stepped in. IÍd done a lot of praying, and a lot of my friends and family prayed for me too.'' Then Seitzer wrote this: ñOnce I got in the batterÍs box, an incredible peace came over me. It was GodÍs power. I believe I was fearless. It was the most inexplicable thing that has ever happened to me. I went three for four in the game and had eleven hits in my first nineteen at bats.'' He concluded his article with this line: ñThereÍs no way I could have gotten through this without my faith in Jesus Christ.''
____________
ñTruth from his lips prevailÍd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.''
„ Oliver Goldsmith
____________
ñ... sanctified by prayers, matured in conflict ...''
„ Søren Kierkegaard
ñGod is love. This thought has, for me, a primitive lyrical validity.''
„ S.K.
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Many years ago, I worked with a man who told me he did not go to church. He said that years earlier, he and his wife had attended church because she was very ill. They worshiped regularly, and were generous in giving to the budget. And they prayed that the wife would get better. She did not. He said they then left the church, believing its teachings to be a fake.
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Glenn McDonald told of a minister who came to this country from England. Shortly after his arrival, he drove to Chicago. Approaching the city, he noticed that his gas supply was low. However, he assumed there would be plenty of filling stations in a city that large, so he continued on. Then, seeing no stations for miles, he ran out of gas on the main highway „ in the passing lane. People trying to get around him shouted a variety of epithets, but no one offered to help. Becoming desperate, he got out of his car. He noticed an old beat-up car slow down, size him up, and then drive on. A few minutes later, the same old car approached again, but this time it pulled in behind him and stopped. A shabbily dressed man got out „ with a can of gas. He opened the English pastorÍs gas tank and poured in a gallon of gas. As he headed back to his car, the pastor called out to him, but the man replied that he spoke very little English. He did, however, manage to convey that he couldnÍt talk much „ he had just arrived from Puerto Rico a week earlier.
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Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 51:1-12 (C) „ ñHave mercy on me, O God.''
Psalm 77 (RC) „ ñI cry aloud to God.''
Psalm 78:1-25 (E) „ ñThey forgot what he had done.''
Prayer Of The Day
Sometimes, O Lord, we are afraid. At times the road is steep, the night dark. Though we turn a confident face to the world, our hearts at times sink in fear and anxiety. We pray that you will remind us of your presence in those dark hours. Inspire our courage, that we may find in ourselves those qualities which will enable us to meet and triumph over trouble. In JesusÍ name we pray. Amen.
