The Land That God Promised
Stories
Object:
Contents
"The Land That God Promised" by Frank Ramirez
"The Nine" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
The Land That God Promised
by Frank Ramirez
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing....
-- Deuteronomy 8:7-9
In ancient times God promised the people a land flowing with milk and honey. Certainly many of those who emigrated to our shores thought God's promises were also coming true in their lives. The rewards were great but the journey was very hard.
Two of those who came to America were the German immigrants John George Käsebier and Christopher Sauer, in the year 1724. They described the difficulties of their voyage, true, but they enthused about the wonders of their new home in letters they wrote back to Europe after their arrival.
Käsebier wrote that "Food is cheap compared to Germany." He also said, "As far as this country is concerned, it is a precious land with the finest wheat, as well as unusual corn, fine broom corn, maize, and white beets of such a quality as I never saw in Germany, not to speak of that which I have not seen yet. There are apples in great quantities from trees that grow up wild without being grafted, so delicate to look at that I have not seen the like in Germany."
Not only that, "Deer, rabbits, pheasants, wild partridge, and pigeons are plentiful, and all can be shot without limit." Most important, "It is possible... to earn enough, if one just has a will to work."
Sauer was just as effusive. "Now we are here in a well-blessed land. There are neither guilds nor burdens from the authorities. My host has a well-built house and is a cooper by trade. He has fifty acres of fields and forest..." Sauer settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia. "It is handsomely built," he enthused. "The straight streets are laid out at right angles."
Having come from the Old World, where people were always conscious of class and limitation, Sauer was happy to report, "The spirit of this world promises her admirers a great fortune weekly. When a day laborer or artisan arrives here without debts, he can then buy property in two or three years of 100 acres of fields and forests with wheat, trees, and other gardens, as well as a soundly built stone house. This is more independent than a nobleman's estate in Germany."
Sauer could not believe the manner in which he, an immigrant, could live in his new country. "I live in a house where I have a large room... a kitchen, attic, garden, cellar, stable, a cow and two pigs, as well as a large orchard with 36 apple trees, many peaches and cherries. When the cow and the pigs are fattened from the peaches and apples, I hope to have fifty measures of apples left to shake down. I also have free split firewood on the farm."
Käsebier soon died from an illness, but Sauer set himself to work to advance himself in this new land. He had been a tailor in the Old World but soon demonstrated his mechanical genius as an inventor by teaching himself 26 trades, including joiner, pharmacist, botanist, apothecary, surgeon, clockmaker, lathe operator, glazier, lampblack manufacturer, and most of all printing. He taught himself the skills of bookbinding, editing, along with the drawing of lead and wire. He made all his own printing tools, ink, and even operated his own paper mill. Soon things were going so good that, as he noted, "My wife is getting very fat."
His started his own press. Sauer printed hymnals, books, and pamphlets for people of all faiths as well as German language newspapers and almanacs.
But it was his work on his German language Bible on which his fame rests. It was the first Bible printed in a European language in America. The work was daunting. He could only print one sheet at a time, each sheet consisting of four pages. He would then have to reset the type for the next sheet. It was issued in 1743. Two other editions followed in 1763 and 1776. His Bible was far more inexpensive than those printed outside of the colonies, which were subject to heavy tariffs.
He was a philanthropist who gave freely to many charitable causes and personally met incoming immigrants, going so far as to take the sick and needy into his own house. Sauer stood foursquare against slavery and for the rights of the Native Americans.
He did not join any particular church but supported the work of Christianity, especially German speaking Christians. He died on September 25, 1758.
Sauer took seriously the words of today's scripture, where God warns: "Do not say to yourself, 'My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.' "
But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). He and his family regularly offered up thanksgiving and praise to the God who had led them to a land where they could prosper, thanks to their industry and faith.
Source: "Two Early Letters from Germantown," by Donald F. Durnbaugh, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74 (April 1960): 219-233.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
The Nine
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 17:11-19
I don't know whose idea it was.
I could lie and say it was mine -- but the truth is, by the time it happened we had all heard about this miracle man from Galilee, walking through the countryside preaching and healing. We knew the stories of how he had healed the blind and the lame, cast out demons, and done all sorts of miraculous deeds... there was even wild talk that he had raised someone from the dead.
I guess maybe that's what did it for me, anyway. Truth is, once you've been cursed by leprosy you may as well be dead.
You've never had it or you wouldn't be sitting there, giving me that odd look. I mean, you know what the law is, you know what reality is -- but unless you've looked down at your hand and seen that first spot, unless you've felt that all-hollowed-out feeling that sucks your soul away when you realize what's happened, you don't really know what it's like. You don't understand the agony of losing your family, losing your life, losing everything that means anything to you, even though you're still breathing.
You don't know what it's like to become unclean, unwanted, in a single stroke.
That's what happens, you know. If someone you know gets leprosy, they go away. You might think about them, at first, you might miss them but to all intents and purposes, they are dead to you. Life goes on... for you.
For us? We've been declared unclean, unfit for human society, cut off from mingling with the world we knew. We live in the hillsides, away from people and if we should happen to come anywhere near them, the law tells us we must shout warnings, let them know that someone unclean -- unhuman -- is in their presence.
If you should be close enough to be seen, it's always the same -- children cry and hide their faces in their mothers' skirts, women avert their eyes, men pretend not to see you. Even if the law didn't force you to live away from people you would want to, just so you didn't have to deal with the reactions of your former friends and neighbors, see the revulsion on their faces, and feel the thousand prickly knife-points of their stares on the back of your neck as you walk away.
If you're lucky, you find a cave, so at least you're out of the cold. If you're very lucky you will meet other lepers, so you will have company, at least. Eventually, though, you come to resent them almost as much as you rely on them for help, because they are a constant reminder of your affliction... even as you feel your own pain, feel your own body rotting away around you, you can also watch it happen to someone else. You can watch and know that you are trapped together in that long, slow, inevitable spiral to a lonely, painful death.
Do you wonder, then, that we were ready to trust ourselves to the ministrations of this Galilean? True prophet or mad messiah, it didn't matter one whit so long as he could really heal the death within us, restore us to wholeness with our family and friends... give us our lives back.
Whoever had the idea, once spoken aloud in hushed tones it blossomed and burned through us outcasts like a grass fire swept along by the wind. Immediately, we began plotting how this could be done, how a meeting could be arranged. Like Joshua's spies, one by one, we went out to skirt the villages, listening, shouting to anyone who would at least hear us and were not afraid that a conversation at a distance would make them unclean.
Eventually, word came that he was going to be nearby, traveling through on his way to Jerusalem.
Jubilation! Anticipation! I nearly leapt for joy at the news. There were ten of us, by then, and we camped out along the road to Jerusalem, the one that wound its way along the border between Galilee and Samaria. Just a day later he arrived -- and with him, an entourage of men and a few women. They paused outside this little village, and he preached to the people who gathered there. I don't recall what he said because I was too busy thinking about the moments to come.
Eventually, when he had finished talking and answering questions, they made as if to leave -- and we showed ourselves. Ten of us, disfigured wraiths in dirty white rags rising up from the hills. Some of his people drew closer to Jesus, as though to protect him, but he just looked up at us curiously. We all stood there for a time, then, a tableau along the road to Jerusalem, staring at one another across a narrow creek bed that may as well have been a gulf a mile wide and deep as Gehenna.
I cleared my throat, called out to him. "Jesus! Have mercy upon us." I took a step closer and waved toward the other lepers with one hand. "We are unclean and must be healed if we are to rejoin the world."
There was another long pause, and he looked at us -- looked right at me -- and then he said quietly (almost too quietly to hear), "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
I strained to hear him as he started to speak, cupped one hand to my ear and then his words touched my heart, and I understood. I looked at my fellow lepers and they understood too -- I could see it in their eyes. And I could see more -- I could see clean, healed skin replacing diseased skin. I saw faces re-form and hands and feet mend. My heart pounded like a great drum and there was the sound of wind in my ears as I took my hand from my ear and stared at it -- clean and healed.
I felt that my heart might explode as we turned and ran -- no, danced -- toward Jerusalem and the priests who could declare us healed. I remember almost nothing except wordless joy, and laughter -- excited, giddy laughter as we traveled the road that would lead back to our lives.
We had gone a long way when I realized that one of us was missing -- a Samaritan fellow who had been suffering with leprosy for many years. I thought about turning back to look for him -- it crossed my mind that, perhaps, he had not been healed, being a Samaritan and all. But if that was the case, I did not want to face him and his disease, him and his crushed hopes and broken heart.
I am not proud.
I was even less so when I heard, days later, that the Samaritan had been healed and that he had gone back to thank Jesus. When I heard that, I wondered... not why he had gone back, but why I had not. Maybe it was because he, especially, knew what it meant to be on the margins of society. Maybe it was because the rest of us -- even in our own group of outcasts -- considered ourselves separate from him.
But the truth was, we were all unclean. We were all imperfect. We had all been cut off from where we were meant to be. And then the miracle happened -- Jesus came to us, and we were healed. Along with the others, I was given a new life, in a new body, a gift I had only dreamt of for years... So why was I one of the nine?
I don't know whose idea it was. I only know that I was saved that day. And now, all this time later, I wonder...
Why didn't I take a moment -- just the barest instant -- out of my new life to say thank you?
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 27, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 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 Land That God Promised" by Frank Ramirez
"The Nine" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
The Land That God Promised
by Frank Ramirez
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing....
-- Deuteronomy 8:7-9
In ancient times God promised the people a land flowing with milk and honey. Certainly many of those who emigrated to our shores thought God's promises were also coming true in their lives. The rewards were great but the journey was very hard.
Two of those who came to America were the German immigrants John George Käsebier and Christopher Sauer, in the year 1724. They described the difficulties of their voyage, true, but they enthused about the wonders of their new home in letters they wrote back to Europe after their arrival.
Käsebier wrote that "Food is cheap compared to Germany." He also said, "As far as this country is concerned, it is a precious land with the finest wheat, as well as unusual corn, fine broom corn, maize, and white beets of such a quality as I never saw in Germany, not to speak of that which I have not seen yet. There are apples in great quantities from trees that grow up wild without being grafted, so delicate to look at that I have not seen the like in Germany."
Not only that, "Deer, rabbits, pheasants, wild partridge, and pigeons are plentiful, and all can be shot without limit." Most important, "It is possible... to earn enough, if one just has a will to work."
Sauer was just as effusive. "Now we are here in a well-blessed land. There are neither guilds nor burdens from the authorities. My host has a well-built house and is a cooper by trade. He has fifty acres of fields and forest..." Sauer settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia. "It is handsomely built," he enthused. "The straight streets are laid out at right angles."
Having come from the Old World, where people were always conscious of class and limitation, Sauer was happy to report, "The spirit of this world promises her admirers a great fortune weekly. When a day laborer or artisan arrives here without debts, he can then buy property in two or three years of 100 acres of fields and forests with wheat, trees, and other gardens, as well as a soundly built stone house. This is more independent than a nobleman's estate in Germany."
Sauer could not believe the manner in which he, an immigrant, could live in his new country. "I live in a house where I have a large room... a kitchen, attic, garden, cellar, stable, a cow and two pigs, as well as a large orchard with 36 apple trees, many peaches and cherries. When the cow and the pigs are fattened from the peaches and apples, I hope to have fifty measures of apples left to shake down. I also have free split firewood on the farm."
Käsebier soon died from an illness, but Sauer set himself to work to advance himself in this new land. He had been a tailor in the Old World but soon demonstrated his mechanical genius as an inventor by teaching himself 26 trades, including joiner, pharmacist, botanist, apothecary, surgeon, clockmaker, lathe operator, glazier, lampblack manufacturer, and most of all printing. He taught himself the skills of bookbinding, editing, along with the drawing of lead and wire. He made all his own printing tools, ink, and even operated his own paper mill. Soon things were going so good that, as he noted, "My wife is getting very fat."
His started his own press. Sauer printed hymnals, books, and pamphlets for people of all faiths as well as German language newspapers and almanacs.
But it was his work on his German language Bible on which his fame rests. It was the first Bible printed in a European language in America. The work was daunting. He could only print one sheet at a time, each sheet consisting of four pages. He would then have to reset the type for the next sheet. It was issued in 1743. Two other editions followed in 1763 and 1776. His Bible was far more inexpensive than those printed outside of the colonies, which were subject to heavy tariffs.
He was a philanthropist who gave freely to many charitable causes and personally met incoming immigrants, going so far as to take the sick and needy into his own house. Sauer stood foursquare against slavery and for the rights of the Native Americans.
He did not join any particular church but supported the work of Christianity, especially German speaking Christians. He died on September 25, 1758.
Sauer took seriously the words of today's scripture, where God warns: "Do not say to yourself, 'My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.' "
But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). He and his family regularly offered up thanksgiving and praise to the God who had led them to a land where they could prosper, thanks to their industry and faith.
Source: "Two Early Letters from Germantown," by Donald F. Durnbaugh, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74 (April 1960): 219-233.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
The Nine
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 17:11-19
I don't know whose idea it was.
I could lie and say it was mine -- but the truth is, by the time it happened we had all heard about this miracle man from Galilee, walking through the countryside preaching and healing. We knew the stories of how he had healed the blind and the lame, cast out demons, and done all sorts of miraculous deeds... there was even wild talk that he had raised someone from the dead.
I guess maybe that's what did it for me, anyway. Truth is, once you've been cursed by leprosy you may as well be dead.
You've never had it or you wouldn't be sitting there, giving me that odd look. I mean, you know what the law is, you know what reality is -- but unless you've looked down at your hand and seen that first spot, unless you've felt that all-hollowed-out feeling that sucks your soul away when you realize what's happened, you don't really know what it's like. You don't understand the agony of losing your family, losing your life, losing everything that means anything to you, even though you're still breathing.
You don't know what it's like to become unclean, unwanted, in a single stroke.
That's what happens, you know. If someone you know gets leprosy, they go away. You might think about them, at first, you might miss them but to all intents and purposes, they are dead to you. Life goes on... for you.
For us? We've been declared unclean, unfit for human society, cut off from mingling with the world we knew. We live in the hillsides, away from people and if we should happen to come anywhere near them, the law tells us we must shout warnings, let them know that someone unclean -- unhuman -- is in their presence.
If you should be close enough to be seen, it's always the same -- children cry and hide their faces in their mothers' skirts, women avert their eyes, men pretend not to see you. Even if the law didn't force you to live away from people you would want to, just so you didn't have to deal with the reactions of your former friends and neighbors, see the revulsion on their faces, and feel the thousand prickly knife-points of their stares on the back of your neck as you walk away.
If you're lucky, you find a cave, so at least you're out of the cold. If you're very lucky you will meet other lepers, so you will have company, at least. Eventually, though, you come to resent them almost as much as you rely on them for help, because they are a constant reminder of your affliction... even as you feel your own pain, feel your own body rotting away around you, you can also watch it happen to someone else. You can watch and know that you are trapped together in that long, slow, inevitable spiral to a lonely, painful death.
Do you wonder, then, that we were ready to trust ourselves to the ministrations of this Galilean? True prophet or mad messiah, it didn't matter one whit so long as he could really heal the death within us, restore us to wholeness with our family and friends... give us our lives back.
Whoever had the idea, once spoken aloud in hushed tones it blossomed and burned through us outcasts like a grass fire swept along by the wind. Immediately, we began plotting how this could be done, how a meeting could be arranged. Like Joshua's spies, one by one, we went out to skirt the villages, listening, shouting to anyone who would at least hear us and were not afraid that a conversation at a distance would make them unclean.
Eventually, word came that he was going to be nearby, traveling through on his way to Jerusalem.
Jubilation! Anticipation! I nearly leapt for joy at the news. There were ten of us, by then, and we camped out along the road to Jerusalem, the one that wound its way along the border between Galilee and Samaria. Just a day later he arrived -- and with him, an entourage of men and a few women. They paused outside this little village, and he preached to the people who gathered there. I don't recall what he said because I was too busy thinking about the moments to come.
Eventually, when he had finished talking and answering questions, they made as if to leave -- and we showed ourselves. Ten of us, disfigured wraiths in dirty white rags rising up from the hills. Some of his people drew closer to Jesus, as though to protect him, but he just looked up at us curiously. We all stood there for a time, then, a tableau along the road to Jerusalem, staring at one another across a narrow creek bed that may as well have been a gulf a mile wide and deep as Gehenna.
I cleared my throat, called out to him. "Jesus! Have mercy upon us." I took a step closer and waved toward the other lepers with one hand. "We are unclean and must be healed if we are to rejoin the world."
There was another long pause, and he looked at us -- looked right at me -- and then he said quietly (almost too quietly to hear), "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
I strained to hear him as he started to speak, cupped one hand to my ear and then his words touched my heart, and I understood. I looked at my fellow lepers and they understood too -- I could see it in their eyes. And I could see more -- I could see clean, healed skin replacing diseased skin. I saw faces re-form and hands and feet mend. My heart pounded like a great drum and there was the sound of wind in my ears as I took my hand from my ear and stared at it -- clean and healed.
I felt that my heart might explode as we turned and ran -- no, danced -- toward Jerusalem and the priests who could declare us healed. I remember almost nothing except wordless joy, and laughter -- excited, giddy laughter as we traveled the road that would lead back to our lives.
We had gone a long way when I realized that one of us was missing -- a Samaritan fellow who had been suffering with leprosy for many years. I thought about turning back to look for him -- it crossed my mind that, perhaps, he had not been healed, being a Samaritan and all. But if that was the case, I did not want to face him and his disease, him and his crushed hopes and broken heart.
I am not proud.
I was even less so when I heard, days later, that the Samaritan had been healed and that he had gone back to thank Jesus. When I heard that, I wondered... not why he had gone back, but why I had not. Maybe it was because he, especially, knew what it meant to be on the margins of society. Maybe it was because the rest of us -- even in our own group of outcasts -- considered ourselves separate from him.
But the truth was, we were all unclean. We were all imperfect. We had all been cut off from where we were meant to be. And then the miracle happened -- Jesus came to us, and we were healed. Along with the others, I was given a new life, in a new body, a gift I had only dreamt of for years... So why was I one of the nine?
I don't know whose idea it was. I only know that I was saved that day. And now, all this time later, I wonder...
Why didn't I take a moment -- just the barest instant -- out of my new life to say thank you?
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 27, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 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.
