Any Where But There
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Any Where but There" by C. David McKirachan
"Why Me?" by C. David McKirachan
"Hurting Hearts in Wisconsin" by John Sumwalt
* * * * * * * *
Any Where but There
by C. David McKirachan
Genesis 12:1-4a
I was a seminary student in California. I'd gotten into this whole thing at the ripe age of 21. I'm not sure if there's a virus that causes idealism, but I had the bug. I think the susceptibility for the sickness drops as we pile on years. We develop immunities against doing foolish things for no good reason except they need to be done. At the time I wanted to change the world. I wanted to wade, hip deep into the horrors armed with nothing but my righteousness. I think self-righteousness would be more appropriate. But hey, it's idiots like that who see visions and dream dreams.
I'd taken the bus to San Francisco and was waiting in the scenic underground stop for the bus back to Berkeley. There was a drunk, supported by a concrete pillar, vomiting onto the floor. He was in bad shape. Time to comfort the afflicted. I went to him and asked, "Can I help you?" He took a break from his heaves, turned to me with a snarl, and told me to do things that I won't repeat. The words didn't shock me. I'd heard them before. It was his vehemence. Pain pushed his attack. He was an animal in a corner, wounded and barely able to stand, but still desperately trying to defend itself.
I backed off. "Take it easy man. Take it easy." I retreated to another pillar, reeling with a sense of helplessness and shocked by the intensity of his pain. All I could do was feel. His pain had become mine. I leaned against the concrete and prayed through tears, "God, I'll go anywhere. I'll go to the jungles, the desert, wherever. Just don't send me to the city. I can't deal with the pain."
I had come up against a limitation formed of one of my strengths. Empathy that let me share the pain and joy of others had led me into a dark place, full of more pain than I ever knew existed. The darkness of Africa, its poverty and fear hadn't crushed me like that drunk's hell.
About three years later, I had finished seminary, complete with two full-time internships, and a couple of masters' degrees. I'd been unemployed for a year, back on the east coast. I was an idealist. I didn't want to be a youth pastor. I wanted to preach and run a church. Finally I got an invitation, a call to a parish that wanted me as their pastor. Where? Newark, New Jersey. I sat there thinking about the bus station in San Francisco. I thought about the drunk. I wondered if he was a member of the church that wanted me. I prayed again to a god that had called other fools, like Abram, Mary, and Paul. And I realized they were always migrating beyond their comfort zones. In some way that's what ministry is all about. And I thought about another guy, in a garden, leaning on a rock or an olive tree. He didn't want to go where He was called either. But He went. So I followed.
But you have to admit, God has a very strange sense of humor.
Why Me?
by C. David McKirachan
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
My mother was known for a lot of things. One thing she wasn't known for was being a push over. She knew the inner most thoughts of your heart in the first five seconds she laid eyes on you. There was no where to flee from her presence. I always thought the psalmist had her in mind when he wrote that. She was able to bore into a person's motives, excuses, prevarications, and tall tales and without saying a word to maneuver them around to dumping the truth, sometimes with tears. Oh, the stories I could tell...
It was a pain in the neck having her at home. I couldn't get away with anything. My older siblings swore I was a spoiled brat. They said she'd been really tough when they were kids. I think they were speaking in apocryphal terms.
My high school years weren't a cake walk. I saw myself through the eyes of a tortured adolescent (what adolescent isn't tortured?). I was sure that no girl would ever love me. I was sure I would accomplish very little and go virtually no where. I remember coming home from school one day after being blamed for something I didn't do, disciplined by an assistant principal who had the interpersonal skills of cement mixer. He kind of looked like one. Anyway, this guy's message to me consisted of a series of warnings, a series of 'If you's.' "If you don't start living up to your potential... If you don't start paying attention in class... If you don't follow directions..." etc. It was hard to follow. His sentence structure was awkward. He kept contradicting himself. He said things about me that had nothing to do with my behavior or my academic achievement. He had bad breath. He scared the biJesus out of me. I was totally rattled and confused. I was convinced there was no reason for me to breathe.
I missed fencing practice because of my detention. I went down to tell the coach and he yelled at me. My walk home was more like a journey through a couple cycles of Dante's fevered imagination. Arriving at the kitchen door, I was greeted by my mother's busy presence. She was putting our dinner on the table. My father was at one of his meetings. I washed my hands and sat down, knowing she would confirm my condemnation. She sat down and held my hand and said, "Pray David. It always helps." I sat there holding her hand and I blurted, "I didn't do it!" She smiled and said, "I know." "How do you know? Why do you trust me?" "I have faith in you."
She proceeded to give me a floor to stand on. It wasn't built of success or virtue or popularity. It was built of her love. She didn't care what others said or did. And maybe even more important, she forgave my idiocy. She told me that we're not loved because we're good. We're good because we're loved. From that day I held on to that in every darkness I've ever known.
Then she said, "Will you please pray? Supper's getting cold." Thanks Mom.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Hurting Hearts in Wisconsin
by John Sumwalt
John 3:1-17
For God so loved the World that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
-- John 3:16
A retired American Bible Society missionary tells that while serving in a remote region of South America, where his job was to translate the scriptures into the native languages, he came upon a tribe that had no word for love. How could he translate the New Testament into their language if he couldn't find a word for love? One day he came upon a little girl whose mother was away on a long trip over a mountain range caring for a sick relative. He asked the girl how she was doing with her mom being gone for so many days. She said, it was very hard. "then brushing aside a tear, she blurted out, 'My heart hurts for my mommy!' "
"My heart hurts." Here was the word for love. When he translated John 3:16 he wrote, "God's heart so hurt for the world..."
Oh, how the world needs to hear this good news.
I was one of a hundred thousand people marching around the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, in support of nurses, teachers, snow plow drivers, secretaries, and maintenance workers whose hearts are hurting because they are about to lose most of their collective bargaining rights and thousands of dollars in salary that will now go to pay for health insurance and pension benefits.
I marched because there are five teachers in my family and over thirty active and retired teachers in the congregation I serve. Some of them are terrified that they might lose their jobs and perhaps their homes. One family with two teachers and two children in college expects to lose over $10,000 in income and perhaps one of their jobs if the Budget Repair Bill and the governor's budget proposals, which were announced on March 1, are approved.
I marched because many teachers in rural Wisconsin, where I grew up, barely make a living wage. A second year teacher in one rural district wrote:
"My district has never required us to pay anything into the pension or for health care. We took those benefits in exchange for a lower salary. People accuse state workers of having cushy jobs, with exorbitant benefits, job security and fantastic salaries.... My salary as a second-year teacher, with a Bachelor's degree and one class short of a Master's degree, is... $36,000. (Governor) Walker's proposal would cost me about $400 a month. Frankly, I won't be able to survive. Because not only do I have the usual debt -- mortgage, car payments -- I owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans."
I marched because of our long-standing Social Principles in my denomination:
"We support the right of all public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest." (The United Methodist Book of Discipline, ¶ 163 B)
Others in my family, congregation, and among my clergy colleagues, adamantly support the governor's proposals and, in some cases, speak angrily against public employees for insisting on keeping their bargaining rights. One person put it this way:
"There was a time when unions brought value to the working class. But they have outlived themselves and have become nothing more than entities of greed and selfishness."
This deep divide is tearing families and friends apart. Headlines on the front page the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week screamed, "Budget Bill busts up friendships!"
A public school psychologist "... was in tears after reading a cousin's Facebook post calling public employees "whores and a bunch of other nasty things." She wrote back, "Hey remember me, your family member, I am a public employee and I am not a whore..." Her cousin responded, "That is how I feel, you can defriend me if you want."
As I made the last turn around the square in Madison on Saturday, I heard someone speaking from a platform on the hill in front of the capital building, and then, as he began to sing a familiar song, I stopped to listen. A voice near me whispered, "Is that Pete Seeger?" "No," another voice sounded, "That's Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary."
He was singing Pete Seeger's old freedom song, "If I Had A Hammer."
Thousands of voices joined in, singing with all of their hurting hearts:
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land...
Now I've got a hammer, and I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 20, 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.
"Any Where but There" by C. David McKirachan
"Why Me?" by C. David McKirachan
"Hurting Hearts in Wisconsin" by John Sumwalt
* * * * * * * *
Any Where but There
by C. David McKirachan
Genesis 12:1-4a
I was a seminary student in California. I'd gotten into this whole thing at the ripe age of 21. I'm not sure if there's a virus that causes idealism, but I had the bug. I think the susceptibility for the sickness drops as we pile on years. We develop immunities against doing foolish things for no good reason except they need to be done. At the time I wanted to change the world. I wanted to wade, hip deep into the horrors armed with nothing but my righteousness. I think self-righteousness would be more appropriate. But hey, it's idiots like that who see visions and dream dreams.
I'd taken the bus to San Francisco and was waiting in the scenic underground stop for the bus back to Berkeley. There was a drunk, supported by a concrete pillar, vomiting onto the floor. He was in bad shape. Time to comfort the afflicted. I went to him and asked, "Can I help you?" He took a break from his heaves, turned to me with a snarl, and told me to do things that I won't repeat. The words didn't shock me. I'd heard them before. It was his vehemence. Pain pushed his attack. He was an animal in a corner, wounded and barely able to stand, but still desperately trying to defend itself.
I backed off. "Take it easy man. Take it easy." I retreated to another pillar, reeling with a sense of helplessness and shocked by the intensity of his pain. All I could do was feel. His pain had become mine. I leaned against the concrete and prayed through tears, "God, I'll go anywhere. I'll go to the jungles, the desert, wherever. Just don't send me to the city. I can't deal with the pain."
I had come up against a limitation formed of one of my strengths. Empathy that let me share the pain and joy of others had led me into a dark place, full of more pain than I ever knew existed. The darkness of Africa, its poverty and fear hadn't crushed me like that drunk's hell.
About three years later, I had finished seminary, complete with two full-time internships, and a couple of masters' degrees. I'd been unemployed for a year, back on the east coast. I was an idealist. I didn't want to be a youth pastor. I wanted to preach and run a church. Finally I got an invitation, a call to a parish that wanted me as their pastor. Where? Newark, New Jersey. I sat there thinking about the bus station in San Francisco. I thought about the drunk. I wondered if he was a member of the church that wanted me. I prayed again to a god that had called other fools, like Abram, Mary, and Paul. And I realized they were always migrating beyond their comfort zones. In some way that's what ministry is all about. And I thought about another guy, in a garden, leaning on a rock or an olive tree. He didn't want to go where He was called either. But He went. So I followed.
But you have to admit, God has a very strange sense of humor.
Why Me?
by C. David McKirachan
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
My mother was known for a lot of things. One thing she wasn't known for was being a push over. She knew the inner most thoughts of your heart in the first five seconds she laid eyes on you. There was no where to flee from her presence. I always thought the psalmist had her in mind when he wrote that. She was able to bore into a person's motives, excuses, prevarications, and tall tales and without saying a word to maneuver them around to dumping the truth, sometimes with tears. Oh, the stories I could tell...
It was a pain in the neck having her at home. I couldn't get away with anything. My older siblings swore I was a spoiled brat. They said she'd been really tough when they were kids. I think they were speaking in apocryphal terms.
My high school years weren't a cake walk. I saw myself through the eyes of a tortured adolescent (what adolescent isn't tortured?). I was sure that no girl would ever love me. I was sure I would accomplish very little and go virtually no where. I remember coming home from school one day after being blamed for something I didn't do, disciplined by an assistant principal who had the interpersonal skills of cement mixer. He kind of looked like one. Anyway, this guy's message to me consisted of a series of warnings, a series of 'If you's.' "If you don't start living up to your potential... If you don't start paying attention in class... If you don't follow directions..." etc. It was hard to follow. His sentence structure was awkward. He kept contradicting himself. He said things about me that had nothing to do with my behavior or my academic achievement. He had bad breath. He scared the biJesus out of me. I was totally rattled and confused. I was convinced there was no reason for me to breathe.
I missed fencing practice because of my detention. I went down to tell the coach and he yelled at me. My walk home was more like a journey through a couple cycles of Dante's fevered imagination. Arriving at the kitchen door, I was greeted by my mother's busy presence. She was putting our dinner on the table. My father was at one of his meetings. I washed my hands and sat down, knowing she would confirm my condemnation. She sat down and held my hand and said, "Pray David. It always helps." I sat there holding her hand and I blurted, "I didn't do it!" She smiled and said, "I know." "How do you know? Why do you trust me?" "I have faith in you."
She proceeded to give me a floor to stand on. It wasn't built of success or virtue or popularity. It was built of her love. She didn't care what others said or did. And maybe even more important, she forgave my idiocy. She told me that we're not loved because we're good. We're good because we're loved. From that day I held on to that in every darkness I've ever known.
Then she said, "Will you please pray? Supper's getting cold." Thanks Mom.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Hurting Hearts in Wisconsin
by John Sumwalt
John 3:1-17
For God so loved the World that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
-- John 3:16
A retired American Bible Society missionary tells that while serving in a remote region of South America, where his job was to translate the scriptures into the native languages, he came upon a tribe that had no word for love. How could he translate the New Testament into their language if he couldn't find a word for love? One day he came upon a little girl whose mother was away on a long trip over a mountain range caring for a sick relative. He asked the girl how she was doing with her mom being gone for so many days. She said, it was very hard. "then brushing aside a tear, she blurted out, 'My heart hurts for my mommy!' "
"My heart hurts." Here was the word for love. When he translated John 3:16 he wrote, "God's heart so hurt for the world..."
Oh, how the world needs to hear this good news.
I was one of a hundred thousand people marching around the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, in support of nurses, teachers, snow plow drivers, secretaries, and maintenance workers whose hearts are hurting because they are about to lose most of their collective bargaining rights and thousands of dollars in salary that will now go to pay for health insurance and pension benefits.
I marched because there are five teachers in my family and over thirty active and retired teachers in the congregation I serve. Some of them are terrified that they might lose their jobs and perhaps their homes. One family with two teachers and two children in college expects to lose over $10,000 in income and perhaps one of their jobs if the Budget Repair Bill and the governor's budget proposals, which were announced on March 1, are approved.
I marched because many teachers in rural Wisconsin, where I grew up, barely make a living wage. A second year teacher in one rural district wrote:
"My district has never required us to pay anything into the pension or for health care. We took those benefits in exchange for a lower salary. People accuse state workers of having cushy jobs, with exorbitant benefits, job security and fantastic salaries.... My salary as a second-year teacher, with a Bachelor's degree and one class short of a Master's degree, is... $36,000. (Governor) Walker's proposal would cost me about $400 a month. Frankly, I won't be able to survive. Because not only do I have the usual debt -- mortgage, car payments -- I owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans."
I marched because of our long-standing Social Principles in my denomination:
"We support the right of all public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest." (The United Methodist Book of Discipline, ¶ 163 B)
Others in my family, congregation, and among my clergy colleagues, adamantly support the governor's proposals and, in some cases, speak angrily against public employees for insisting on keeping their bargaining rights. One person put it this way:
"There was a time when unions brought value to the working class. But they have outlived themselves and have become nothing more than entities of greed and selfishness."
This deep divide is tearing families and friends apart. Headlines on the front page the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week screamed, "Budget Bill busts up friendships!"
A public school psychologist "... was in tears after reading a cousin's Facebook post calling public employees "whores and a bunch of other nasty things." She wrote back, "Hey remember me, your family member, I am a public employee and I am not a whore..." Her cousin responded, "That is how I feel, you can defriend me if you want."
As I made the last turn around the square in Madison on Saturday, I heard someone speaking from a platform on the hill in front of the capital building, and then, as he began to sing a familiar song, I stopped to listen. A voice near me whispered, "Is that Pete Seeger?" "No," another voice sounded, "That's Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary."
He was singing Pete Seeger's old freedom song, "If I Had A Hammer."
Thousands of voices joined in, singing with all of their hurting hearts:
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land...
Now I've got a hammer, and I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
John Sumwalt is the pastor of Our Lord's United Methodist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a noted storyteller. He is the author of nine books, including the acclaimed Vision Stories series and How to Preach the Miracles: Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It. John and his wife Jo Perry-Sumwalt served for three years as the co-editors of StoryShare. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), Sumwalt received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for parish ministry from UDTS in 1997.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 20, 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.
