May 31, 2009
Contents
What's Up This Week
"God's Spirit Changes Us" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Hope and Optimism" by W. Lamar Massingill
"Dump Ducks" by C. David McKirachan
What's Up This Week
The power of the Holy Spirit to change lives is truly amazing -- today every bit as much as back on that first Pentecost. In this edition of StoryShare, Lamar Massingill meditates on how God's Spirit breathing on us daily gives us strength and power that we aren't always aware of. But Frank Fisher (a former firefighter) reminds us that the Spirit also appears as tongues of fire -- and he uses this imagery to point out that the Spirit can be potent threat to our comfortable lives. Are we willing to open the door, to respond to the call of the Spirit, and rush into the heart of the fire? Lamar Massingill closes with a brief examination of the difference between optimism (which can be disappointed) and hope in the Lord (which can never be crushed). And David McKirachan concludes this week’s installment with a wry commentary about sea gulls and what they might teach us about play.
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God's Spirit Changes Us
by W. Lamar Massingill
Acts 2:1-21
They are the worst words I have ever seen, and the biggest marketing lie ever: "easy to assemble." After reading the instructions I know that unless I have a degree in architectural engineering I'm in for a rough evening.
Joyce and I almost separated (well, not really, but it felt like it!) in 1994 over an "easy to assemble" Christmas tree, as after hours of trying, I finally said in defeat, "I ain't doing this no more."
Then by 2001 things had changed. We purchased an "easy to assemble" crystal cabinet and paid our son $200 to come and put the darn thing together! I guess we realized that things are easy to assemble for those with a strong left brain for nuts and bolts, but not so easy when you don't have your certification in nuts and bolts architecture.
Human beings aren't that easy to assemble, either. In fact, without the breath of God we cannot grow into full humanness, the kind that Jesus modeled. And what exactly is the breath of God? Whether it is the Hebrew word ruachbi or the Greek word pneuma, both are translated as "spirit" or "breath."
What happened at the high festival time in Jerusalem recorded in Acts 2 was genuinely dramatic, as the Holy Spirit or the Holy "breath" of God came upon them. This was what Jesus had promised his people before he was crucified -- that there would be a "comforter" to be within them on the journey, the last thing his people would need to be "spiritually assembled" and ready for the journey of a lifetime. We human beings can no more live fully without spirit than we can without breath. It's no wonder these two words are simultaneously translated from the Greek pneuma. Sadly, many do not recognize their own breath or spirit as a gift from The Holy One that has the power to change them into the fullest of human beings.
This brings me to one of the effects of this dramatic occasion that means more to me than any other: the change that had happened in the disciple whose name was Peter.
His story is among the most dramatic in Holy scripture. Peter was literally the one who set the interpretive word, not only around the event of Pentecost but also around the early church. He was so brave and courageous in the words he spoke. He was the one who emerged as the true leader of the Jerusalem church.
Peter was not always the tower of strength you see and hear in these passages about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the consequent formation of the early church. It is sometimes assumed -- and I think wrongly so -- that impressive characters are born rather than made. One way of evading our responsibility is to come to the simple conclusion that "some people got it and some don't." Therefore, we think there is nothing one can do about one's self. However, such fatalism finds no support in the life story of this man who was called Peter.
When we first encounter Simon Peter, he is anything but strong and stable. In fact, he was one who could oscillate between poles of good and bad faster than any of the disciples. This is pretty much the kind of person Jesus first encountered in Peter. He was emotional, impulsive, and erratic. No figure in all of scripture was given to more violence, betrayal, and fatalism than Simon Peter. He could rise higher more rapidly and then fall lower just as rapidly as anyone you could imagine. He could at one moment be uttering words that were nothing short of revelations from God, then the very next minute be sounding like Satan himself.
The old Simon Peter was an incarnation of Saint Paul's statement that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Something obviously happened between the time of Peter's broken beginnings with Jesus and the emergence of the tower of faith and strength we see in the Acts of the Apostles.
I believe that as we grow and experience pain, emptiness, and hopelessness, and feel as cut off as Peter did after he had betrayed Jesus, God starts breathing. God starts "Spiriting," if you will. The result of that is that Peter received all the things he needed to make a difference in the lives of others.
I once had a professor in divinity school who used to say, "Only life can change life." That is, when another life touches us in spiritual ways, we are inspired, in-breathed, or inspirited; the very word that is literally translated "breath."
God breathes on us daily. God gives of his life and spirit to us daily. And like Peter and the multitude there on that dramatic day in Jerusalem, we find that when the Spirit of truth comes to us we discover, to our surprise (God's other name), a new life and boldness, and we stand up, a vast multitude who are called the church.
W. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is now the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi. He also serves as religion editor for the Magnolia Gazette and as a guest columnist for the United Methodist Advocate and the Richton Dispatch. Massengill is the author of two books, New Eyes: A Spirituality of Identity Formation and Soul Places, and he has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He is a graduate of William Carey University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Hope and Optimism
by W. Lamar Massingill
Romans 8:22-27
I confess that I used to be an unapologetic optimist, but I've been cured of that now. Still, optimism is not the same as hope. Now I would say that I am a hopeful realist.
A case in point is what upset us all last fall when AIG executives spent government bailout money, or more specifically our money meant to help the ailing corporation out of debt, on resort luxuries, drugs, prostitutes, alcohol, golf, and who knows what other abuses. Do you think for a minute that if for some reason or another someone at those resorts started saying the pledge of allegiance that these powerful people would not raise their hands to their hearts and start saying it as well? Then, while walking away to play more games at our expense, say under their breath, "Ain't America great?"
The government bailout was optimism, not hope. The problem with optimism is that the definitions change. People who benefited obviously defined optimism in direct contradiction to how the government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" defined it. Injustice is always comfortable when it falls your way. Said Saint Ambrose, "The world is given to all, and not only to the rich."
As I was thinking about this sad and disappointing injustice last fall, I saw a car that was smashed into a telephone pole in Petal, Mississippi, close to where I live. I found myself recalling these hard-to-forget words of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski: "And now, as they say, the incident is closed / Love's boat has smashed against the daily grind."
Yes, I can be optimistic about these things that smash us daily; I can desire that they get better -- but I can't be hopeful they will disappear, because these things have been happening since the beginning of time. Moreover, optimism needs a reality on which it projects its desires. Hope, however, is as eternal as God. Hope says that, in the midst of the worst kinds of crises, Jesus comes to us in the best kinds of forms.
Optimism, then, is human; but hope is a divine, eternal gift from God. It is not tangible and therefore cannot be explained; it is only known in the daily journey of experience. As Saint Paul says in our epistle: "Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." When we are cured of optimism then we are ready for hope, because hope is what's left when all the optimism of the world has failed. We wait for an eternal hope, not a temporary optimism. Thank God. Thank God.
W. Lamar Massingill is an author, columnist, and the minister at Richton United Methodist Church in Richton, Mississippi.
Dump Ducks
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
I'm one of those people who need to be near the ocean. The deep calls me like a magnet draws iron. Long Beach Island, a large sand bar off the Jersey coast, was my center of operations as a kid. No matter where the minister's family moved, we always went back to the house on 16th Street in Surf City. Besides, down there, in the sun and wet and sand, I wasn't the preacher's kid. I was David.
The main purpose of the shore is play. Fisher folk work there, so do the people who serve the food, clean the pipes, sell the groceries, patch the roads, and clean up after the drunks. Believe me, I was a local. The shore is a different place from their point of view. But even they, the ones who live there instead of spend their vacations there, have a bit of the grit and blow and openness of the beach stirred into the stew of their lives.
There are few symbols of the shore more appropriate than the ubiquitous sea gull. Black backs, herring gulls, terns, and the raucous laughing gull are omnipresent in the sky and on the sand. No boat that resembles a fishing boat can move without an escort. No picnic can get started without commentary and visits from the uninvited guests. No post of dock or sea wall is long without a topper, turned into the wind. No dumpster or dump or carelessly dropped Big Mac will long be without a clamoring, wheeling, swooping cloud of scavengers. Thus the name "Dump Duck."
But what always amazed me was how they sail. These animals, whose sole purposes in life are to eat, mate, and make noise, spend an awful lot of time hanging on the breeze, gliding up on thermals and then with a small correction riding them down. Are they sighting lunch? Nope, they're playing. Somebody studied them. The gulls probably laughed at the scientists a lot. The study focused on how they spent their time. When the gulls heard the subject matter of the study they probably laughed more. A good 80% percent of any gull's time is spent flying around for no apparent reason. That's a scientist's way of saying "playing with the wind."
Being a sailor, I understand playing with the wind. It's not where you're going that matters. The wind is a fairly lousy way to get anywhere specific. What matters is the feel of the wind on your sail — read "wings." What matters is the thrill of being hooked up to something you can't see that could squash you like a bug, but has become a partner with you in this glorious moment of communion. That's probably a little high and mighty for gulls, especially laughing gulls, but you get my drift.
I'm a Calvinist. In other words, playing is always suspect. But after reading the 104th Psalm, I feel a bit better about God's sense of stewardship. If God could waste all that energy on making mammoth beings like leviathans that play in the deep, I guess maybe it's not such a waste to body surf all afternoon. Maybe we ought to work on a revised Calvinist theology of play. Hey, if the gulls do it… Well, maybe that's not the best recommendation.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. He is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
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StoryShare, May 31, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
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June 4, 2006
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Fake Fire" by Timothy Merrill
Good Stories: "Backdraft" by Frank R. Fisher
"With Sighs Too Deep" by Richard Jensen
"The Town Pray-er" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "The Big Picture" by Sil Galvan
What's Up This Week
On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, so vividly described in our Acts passage as a mighty wind with tongues of fire -- and this week's Story to Live By and Frank Fisher's "Backdraft" in Good Stories use that startling imagery to make the point that being touched by the fire of the Spirit is potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, our other Good Stories offer two different takes on the familiar phrase "the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words" from this week's Romans reading. And in the Scrap Pile, Sil Galvan reflects on whether we see beyond the minutiae of our daily lives and grasp the big picture of the Spirit at work, as described in our Gospel lesson.
A Story to Live By
Fake Fire
by Timothy Merrill
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of them.
Acts 2:3 (NIV)
Colorado is a beautiful place to live. But many summers there lately have been hot and dry, and the national forests are vulnerable to wildfires.
The summer of 2002 was particularly difficult. Fires began burning as early as April. In June, the Hayman fire destroyed over 100,000 acres of forest and consumed hundreds of buildings, including homes. When the wind was right, the smoke hung like an apocalyptic cloud over the city of Denver, dropping ash and smoke particles, and posing a serious health hazard, especially to those with asthma or lung disease. The cost to fight this fire alone exceeded $25 million.
Then, incredibly, it was learned this inferno had been set by a forest service employee. Another forest service employee was arrested for starting the Show Low fire, which consumed over 300,000 acres in Arizona.
We're fascinated with fire. We've even developed myths to explain how fire came to mortals. It was Prometheus, we learn, who carried fire from the gods of Olympus to the mortals on earth, and paid dearly for his trouble.
Fire can heat us or hurt us, warm us or waste us. We enjoy its glow in a fireplace, its comforting presence at a campfire, and its flame on a candle. We're intrigued by its mystery when we strike a match and watch the phosphorus tip explode into flame.
Hollywood even needs fire for its action scenes. What Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, or Terminator movie could hit the screen without flashy pyrotechnics, exploding buildings that turn into a ball of flame, cars that fly into the air and hit the ground in a maelstrom of roiling fire, or houses that become raging infernos?
Creating such effects is not only difficult but very dangerous. That's why PDI/DreamWorks visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg is trying to create the first photo-realistic, completely computer-generated flames. To do this, he's already spent hours in the studio parking lot lighting fires; he studies flame footage in the studio. When the animated movie Shrek hit the theatres in 2001, his work was prominently featured. The breath of the dragon and the burning bridge all emerged from his pixilated work. There was so much detail in these frames of fire that just one of the 1,400 processors used to create the fire took 30 hours to render just one frame.
Fake fire. Hollywood can do it. The church can't. Pentecost is about fire, flames of fire. It's about power. It's about the Holy Spirit energizing what would otherwise be a powerless church.
Some churches have gone so high-tech they think they're the religious counterpart to PDI/DreamWorks. Fiddle with your pixels if you want, but you can't computer-generate the Holy Spirit. The fire's got to be real.
Timothy Merrill is the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press) and a volume in the CSS series Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister who has served churches in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Good Stories
Backdraft
by Frank R. Fisher
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:2-4
**Bang Bang Bang Bang** [a knocking sound effect]
From the door directly to your right, the banging sound reverberates through the smoking wood and echoes down the long, steaming hallway. The sound increases in urgency and then tapers weakly off. It's the weakness that catches your attention as your mind flashes back through the day's events.
For a change your day began quietly. As usual, you arrived at your firehouse and put your bunker gear on the hook and ladder. Then you sat down for a cup of coffee as you awaited your officer and the department's plans for your day.
By the time your coffee was finished you'd learned your company was due at the academy for training. That time of learning occupied most of the day. Much of the material was quite old to you, and often it was very dry. But you paid attention, for you knew your life might depend on it some day. You paid particular attention to a discussion of backdrafts; the explosive reaction of a smoldering fire when it's suddenly gifted with a new source of oxygen.
Now, as you crouch below the smoke in the sweltering hallway, the discussion of backdrafts comes quickly to your mind -- for you reach out to the door where you heard the knocking sound. And you find that it almost burns you through your protective glove. Instinctively you know that means there's fire on the other side of the door; fire that could explode outward if the door is opened; fire that could cause a backdraft, consuming everything in its path.
Quickly you radio for help. But you find help can't arrive for several minutes. And a quick survey shows you there's no other entrance to the apparently occupied room. You've just about decided to wait until an officer and other firefighters arrive, when the knocking sound comes again. This time it's combined with a weak cry. "My baby! Help! My baby!" gasps a voice from directly behind the door.
The time for hesitation's over. You stand upright into the smoke and haze, brace yourself on the left-hand wall and lift your feet to smash down the door. Your feet tear into the wood. The hinges start to give way. And you know your life may be about to end in an instant.
But you are a firefighter, sworn to protect the people on the other side of the now-splintering door. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From the windows of the room the banging sound reverberates and echoes throughout the hidden upper room, the room in which you and your friends are hiding. The sound constantly increases in urgency, and it brings your mind back to the events of the last few weeks and months. All in all, you still feel a bit dizzy as you think of all that's happened in your life. In your mind it felt just like yesterday when the Master rode into Jerusalem at the head of a triumphal procession. It was a wonderful day. But all too quickly it was followed by the trial and then by the crucifixion.
All of you had stayed limp and numb for three days until Mary burst into the room, shouting the wonderful news of the resurrection. Your whipsawed emotions had barely had time to recover when the Lord was off again. This time, as you'd watched the ascension into the clouds, you had a feeling the Light of the world had gone away for good.
Of course there had been a promise; a promise of God's continuing presence with you; a promise of power allowing you to tell the whole world the wonderful good news. But now, as you hide here from the Romans and from their collaborators, a promise seems an empty replacement for the physical presence of the Living God.
So all of you continue to huddle about the table while you talk and wonder aloud about that promise. "When," you all ask each other, "will this promise be fulfilled?" But your talk and questions are interrupted once again by the knocking sound reverberating from the windows.
"Could it be the Romans?" you gasp out. "Could this be...?"
A vast booming noise catches your words in your throat. The windows all blast open together as something like a wind rushes into the room and sends anything lying loose flying into the air.
Your hair stands on end as you look up into the face of the gale and see the ceiling covered in something like flame. Then the flame swoops downward, and something like tongues of living fire reach out to touch your head and the heads of each person in the room.
The gift the Master had promised has arrived. All around you your friends rush to the doors and burst through them without bothering to throw open the latches. They're shouting and speaking in languages you never heard. All of them you somehow know are joyfully bellowing the still living story of Jesus the Christ.
But somehow the gift has touched you differently. For to you it brings not new language but the courage to rise from your hiding place and bravely explain to the bemused crowd outside just what was going on in their midst.
You hesitate just for a moment. You know to go outside the door and tell of the Lord's life, death, and resurrection will one day bring about your own death. It will be like opening a door to a fire that will burst out and consume your body in a devouring flame.
Your hesitation, however, lasts only for an instant. Then you race through the door and you hear your voice shouting, "People of Jerusalem, these are not drunk as you suppose..."
The fire will consume you. This you know, and this you accept, for you are a follower of Jesus the Christ. You live and breathe through the wind and flame of the Spirit of God; Christ's blazing gift to Christ's people. And for you to be the person you are called to be there are moments when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
From all around you the knocking sound reverberates. It echoes down the hallways of your memories and rebounds through the pathways and hallways of your life.
You began to hear it when you first moved in your mother's womb. You heard it sing at the moment of your birth and felt it dance when the baptismal waters washed over your head. Through all your life it's been there, though you may manage to ignore it for a time.
"Follow me," it knocks and calls to you! "Tell the good news! Speak it and live it in a way that all may hear and see!"
The knocking is Christ's gift to you: the same gift that burst into the room at Pentecost; the same gift that changed a group of frightened women and men into the transforming church of Jesus the Christ; the same gift that can transform churches and turn about lives today.
You may hesitate to answer the knocking when it comes calling deep within your soul. And hesitate you should -- for when you open the door the gift will burst through as a devouring fire, a fire that will drive you to go where the Spirit bids you go and to speak as the Spirit bids you speak.
Do you dare to open that door?
Do you dare to take this part of your life so seriously that it will define who you are and who you will be?
It is your choice to make -- for the Spirit will push hard but does not often compel. But in your choice, remember, you've declared yourself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And for you to be the person you are called to be, there is a moment when you must dare to rush into the heart of the fire.
**Bang Bang Bang Bang**
Frank R. Fisher currently serves as the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Fairbury, Illinois. During the final years of his first career as a paramedic and administrator for the Chicago Fire Department, Fisher graduated from McCormick Theological Seminary and was ordained. He is an Oblate of the ecumenical Abbey of John the Baptist and Saint Benedict in Bartonville, Illinois.
With Sighs Too Deep
by Richard Jensen
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.... Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
Romans 8:22-23, 26
Over at last. That's the only thought she could think about just now. Over at last. The funeral finished. The committal service completed. She was home now and weary; bone-weary. Her husband Carl was safely tucked into the grave. How had she ever endured the year of his agony?
Carl and Melissa Gregory were in their early 60s. Carl had worked for the railroad most of his life. It was blue-collar work, but he got paid well. Melissa worked outside of the home on occasion. She had secretarial skills. Occasionally she helped out at her church. Sometimes she would get work as a "temp" filling in at the secretary level. The Gregorys had two grown children. They had lived too far away to make it back for the funeral. That was all right with Melissa. They had come so often during the year of Carl's dying. She thought their presence during the waning days of his life was more important than their presence at the funeral, though she did miss them terribly that day. It was tough after the funeral and all to come home to an empty house.
Carl's cancer was diagnosed just about exactly one year ago. His doctor caught it at one of Carl's regular check-ups. "You've got a growth in your prostrate gland," Dr. Bean had told Carl. "We'd better do a biopsy." When the results of the biopsy came back Dr. Bean was a bit upset. The growth was malignant. The cancer was there and spreading fast. Dr. Bean was fond of Carl Gregory. And Carl had been faithful in getting his annual physical. Still, here he found cancer in an advanced state. Dr. Bean called Carl Gregory with the bad news. "You'd better get in here as soon as you can, Carl," Dr. Bean had said. "We've got to go to work on that cancer right away."
Melissa remembered that phone call from Dr. Bean like it was yesterday. Could it really be a year ago already? And what a year! Carl was so sick. Nothing the doctors tried seemed to work on the cancerous growth. Carl was in and out of hospitals and treatment centers all year. Wherever Carl was sent, Melissa followed. They were a lonely pair, trudging off to ever new venues of healing -- healing that never came. Melissa could only think of that year as a kind of hell. And now hell was over. Carl had died at last. The funeral was over, too. And she was home alone. What new kind of hell awaited her now?
As Melissa wandered aimlessly around the Gregory home the night of the funeral, she didn't know what to do. It was as if she was lost in the caverns of her own home. Several times she tried to pray. It was the same thing each time. She could find no words to pray. She didn't know what to say to God. She didn't know how to pray in this dire moment. She could only sigh and groan. Words wouldn't come. But groans came. And sighs came. Groans and sighs poured forth from the innermost depth of her being -- gut-wrenching groans, bone-shaking sighs. She could only hope that God could make something out of her groanings. That's all she had for God now. It was as if she had forgotten how to pray.
At the end of her murmuring lament she trudged off to bed. She would be alone there, too. As she cast herself down on her pillow she heard a familiar sound. The first fresh breath of spring blew gently through the bedroom window, kissing her aching body with a hint of new life.
Richard Jensen is professor emeritus of homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and he also served as the dean of the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching program for the Association of Chicago Theological Seminaries. He is also renowned for his decade-long stint as the speaker for Lutheran Vespers, a weekly national radio ministry of the Lutheran Church. Jensen is the author of several acclaimed books on the art of preaching, including the CSS titles Thinking in Story, Preaching Matthew's Gospel, Preaching Mark's Gospel, and Preaching Luke's Gospel.
The Town Pray-er
by John Sumwalt
Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27
There was once a woman in our town who was known as the praying lady. Every community has persons who serve unofficially in certain positions, like the town fix-it man who can fix anything from sump pumps to screen doors, or the community singer who is called upon to solo at every wedding and funeral. The nature of these positions will vary according to the available talent. Esther Langford was our town pray-er. Nobody could pray like Esther. She had a way of putting into words what everyone was thinking and feeling. And not just ordinary words, but beautiful poetic phrases so lovely that God could not help but be moved to attend to whatever person or concern was the subject of Esther's petition. So whenever there was going to be a special celebration, whether a wedding anniversary, a class reunion, or the annual election day dinner, Esther was called upon to give the prayer.
This was a source of more than a little irritation to the various itinerant preachers who came to serve our little Protestant church. Preachers, as a rule, have a monopoly on the praying business. They are accustomed to having first refusal rights to the prayers at every public gathering. Some of them count on it. It's a way of getting free meals, one of the small perks of the preaching profession. Consequently, most preachers can offer up a prayer at a moment's notice, although younger preachers are not usually as quick on their feet as older preachers. They tend to start slow and finish fast. If you are real hungry and if you have a choice, you would be best advised to choose a young preacher to say the grace. You can be sure that you will get to eat a lot sooner. Old preachers tend to go on and on. One certain way of telling the age of preachers is by the length of their prayers.
We had one old preacher who came to our church near the end of his ministry who gave the longest prayers anyone had ever heard. His pastoral prayers were almost as long as his sermons, and his sermons were way too long. This may have been because he didn't get to do much praying outside the Sunday service. Esther did most of that. I think those interminable pastoral prayers may have been his way of getting even.
It is written in scripture that God listens to the prayers of a righteous person. This certainly seemed to be true in Esther's case. She was a genuinely good person -- thoughtful, kind, generous, willing to share whatever she had with anyone who was in need. Everybody knew that if God listened to anyone, God surely listened to Esther.
One summer during a long drought she was asked to pray for rain. That was the year of the great flood. The very next day after Esther prayed the heavens opened and precipitation came down in buckets. Ten inches of rain fell in three hours. We almost lost the town bridge. No one ever forgot it, and no one ever asked Esther to pray for rain again.
There was a period of time when Esther didn't do any public praying. When people approached her she would say, "Thank you for asking, but I'm just not able to do it anymore." Years later, before she died, Esther told us that she went through a time of doubt. She said she didn't know what happened, but for a while she wasn't able to pray either publicly or privately. Esther said this was very unusual, because throughout her life she had prayed daily first thing every morning and last thing every night.
What's more, she said she wasn't sleeping well. Every night she had the same disturbing dream. At the end of the dream she would wake up, usually at about three o'clock in the morning, and then, try as she might, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
Esther said this went on for weeks and weeks. She was absolutely miserable and afraid to tell anyone for fear of what they might think. Town pray-er, indeed! What a laugh. She wondered if she ever really had known how to pray.
What was she going to do? The lack of sleep began to take a toll on her health. She decided that she had to do something. She thought of going to the preacher, but what would he think? Maybe he would think she had been a fraud all of these years. She tried sleeping pills, but they left her feeling "doped up" and more miserable than before. She had to talk to someone, but who? Who could she trust with the secret of her terrible misery?
Then it came to her. She would go to confession. She had only been inside the Catholic church for weddings and funerals, but she knew where the confessional booths were and she knew that Father Lempke heard confessions every Thursday night.
The next Thursday night Esther parked her car across the street from St. Killian's and waited until the last Catholic had left the building. She was shaking as she made her way to the confessional. She wasn't sure what she was going to say. Everything seemed strange: the high cathedral ceiling, the lighted candles in front of the statue of the Virgin, and the crucifix on the wall behind the altar; the smell of incense and warm wax was different from the musty smell of the little Protestant churches she was used to. All of it seemed to be saying, "You don't belong here. This is a holy place." But she forced herself to go on.
When she got into the confessional Esther knelt down and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." That much she knew from the movies. But she didn't know what to say after that, so she finally blurted out, "I'm a Protestant. I don't really know how to do this. I didn't know where else to go, so I came here hoping you would help me with my problem. I hope that's all right."
Father Lempke must have thought, "The Protestants are beginning to see the light, they are starting to come to me for confession." But if he was surprised, he didn't let on. He told Esther it was perfectly all right, he would be glad to listen. Esther then poured out her whole story, town pray-er and all.
The priest listened, and when she had finished he said, "My dear woman, do you know the story of Samuel in the Old Testament?" Esther said that she did. There wasn't anyone in our community who knew the Bible better than Esther did.
The priest said, "Do you remember how God spoke to Samuel when he was a young boy?"
"Yes," Esther said, "I remember."
"Did it ever occur to you," the priest asked, "that God might be trying to tell you something? The next time you wake up in the middle of the night, do what Samuel did."
Esther hadn't known what to expect in a Catholic confessional, but she certainly hadn't expected this. As soon as she got home she looked up the story in 1 Samuel to refresh her memory as to what it was exactly that Samuel had done. It was just as she remembered.
That night she had the same dream she had been having for several weeks. In the dream everyone in town was chasing her through the woods and crying out, "Pray for us, pray for us!" To escape her pursuers she ran into a dark cave, where she found herself being drawn along a winding tunnel. The tunnel came out in a large cavern as big as a cathedral and filled with a host of statue-like formations which glimmered and shimmered in the darkness. They were covered with sparkling crystals and appeared to be reaching out to her, bidding her to stop and take in all of their beauty. But the voices of the prayer-seekers were still ringing in her ears. She ran on down through another tunnel to a cavern that was bigger and more lovely than the one before. She wanted desperately to stop and allow herself to be filled with its beauty, but the voices persisted, growing louder and louder, their echoes resounding from wall to wall: "Pray for us, pray for us!" And so she ran on through cavern after cavern, each one grander and more glorious than the one before, until at last she was pulled by some mysterious and irresistible force over a ledge into a great abyss. She felt herself falling and falling, and it was at this point that she always woke up.
And that night when she woke up, she did what Samuel did. She said, "Speak, for thy servant hears."
And then it came to her, a verse out of her memory: ":..the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit... intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."
"What a relief!" Esther thought, and she wondered why she hadn't remembered it before. "The spirit has been praying for me all of this time."
Esther felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. People didn't need her to do their praying for them. They just needed to know what Paul had revealed long ago, and what the saints of every age have discovered in their "dark nights of the soul" -- we are never utterly alone. Even when we cannot bring ourselves to pray, when no words come to describe what we are thinking and feeling, the Spirit prays for us.
At last Esther's heart was filled with peace. For the first time in many weeks she was able to go back to sleep and to sleep soundly until morning. This time when she dreamed, she walked into the cave and wandered from room to room, lingering in some longer than others, allowing herself to come in touch with all of the beauty that God had placed within her soul. She awoke refreshed and full of the Spirit.
The following Sunday in worship Esther stood during the time for sharing joys and prayer concerns. She told us about her dream and the peace that came to her when she listened to what God was telling her in the dream. She said, "I will no longer be your 'town-pray-er' -- but," she added, "I will be very glad to take my turn whenever there is a need for someone to lead in prayer."
It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard the pastor heave a great sigh of relief.
John Sumwalt is the lead pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in suburban Milwaukee. He is the author of eight books for CSS, most recently three books of vision stories (one for each lectionary cycle). John leads conferences, seminars, and retreats on "Visions in the Bible and Today." He and his wife, Jo Perry-Sumwalt, served for three years as co-editors of StoryShare.
Scrap Pile
The Big Picture
by Sil Galvan
There's a story about a woman and her parakeet Chippie. It seems that the woman was cleaning Chippie's birdcage with the long hose of a canister vacuum cleaner when the phone rang. She reached over to get the phone, and as she did, she heard the unmistakable sound of Chippie being sucked up into the vacuum. Immediately she rushed over to the vacuum, pulled out the vacuum bag, and ripped it opened. There she found Chippie, totally stunned but still alive. Since the bird was now covered with soot and dirt, she grabbed him and ran into the bathroom, held him under the faucet and washed him in freezing cold water to get all the soot and dirt off. When she finished she saw the hair dryer sitting on the sink. She turned it on and held Chippie up in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, she was talking to a neighbor about the incident and the neighbor asked how the bird was doing. "Well," she said, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore. He just sort of sits on his perch and stares."
I think Chippie's reaction to those events was about the same as the reaction of the disciples in the weeks that followed our Lord's crucifixion: they were probably stunned. He had appeared to them several times, and had now ascended into heaven. But what next? Where do they go from here?
Well, based on Luke's account in the book of Acts, we can be sure of one thing that happened that first Pentecost day: the Spirit bestowed his gift of fortitude on the apostles, and changed a group of men who were huddled together in that upper room into fearless evangelizers of the gospel who converted thousands of people on that one day alone.
But fortitude is only one of the seven gifts of the Spirit. These gifts were first spoken of by Isaiah in describing the qualities of the Messiah who was to come: "But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of piety, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord" (Isaiah 11:1-3).
Just as the Spirit rested upon Christ himself and later on the disciples, so too has he sent his Spirit upon all of us. As Paul states: "There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in every one" (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Thus it is that the Spirit works through all of us, each in his own way. The seven gifts can be separated into four intellectual gifts (wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge) and three "active" gifts (fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord). With respect to the active gifts, the gift of courage is the ability to spread the faith in the most adverse of conditions. The gift of piety leads some to dedicate their lives to God in a special way, especially through the religious life. Fear of the Lord enables some to seek to avoid sin in all circumstances.
With respect to the intellectual gifts, the gift of counsel enables some to see and choose correctly what will bring about their own salvation and that of others. The gift of knowledge enables others to know universal and timeless truths pertaining to the natural world and the order of things. Understanding has been granted to some to see the things of life in relation to God and for achieving deeper insight into the truths of faith. And to some has been given the gift of wisdom (or sophia in Greek) which assists them in seeing and evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and God's kingdom, according to the ultimate principles of faith and aided by the judgment of love. I read the following story and thought it related well to this discussion of the gifts of the Spirit. The author says:
Is it morning already? I rub my eyes and get up to ready myself for just another day.
It's just another day... I look out my window to see the sun beaming down, caressing the earth with its golden rays. Above, white clouds float in the brilliant blue sky. I hear a cardinal singing to his mate as he perches upon my back fence. And a bed of crocus open their purple heads to the heavens in joyful thankfulness.
It's just another day. My small daughter bursts into the room, her giggle ringing through the house as she hugs my neck tightly. Her small hand fits into mine as she pulls me to the kitchen to show me the card she has made. A stick figure with curly brown hair waves from the paper, and beneath it, written in purple crayon, are the words, "I love you, Mommy."
It's just another day as I stand quietly and watch my handicapped child. He struggles to get his special walker over the curb, but it won't budge. A well-meaning teacher offers assistance, but he brushes her away. With determination, he conquers the curb and is off to laugh and play with his friends. I weep inside for his handicap, but I am inspired by his courage. And I smile as I watch the children play, totally accepting their friend for who he is, not judging him for what he lacks.
It's just another day. My son proudly presents the report he did for school. He shares with me the hopes and dreams he holds for his future. His curiosity and excitement are contagious as we unfold the limitless possibilities that lay before him. I am encouraged that no dream is beyond our reach if we want it bad enough.
It's just another day. My beloved wraps his arms around me and surrounds me in love. I turn to look in the eyes that share innermost feelings. What a special friend I have. Someone who loves me for who I am. Someone to lean on when I feel down. Someone to share my happiness. Someone to love.
Yes, it is just another day. A day to enjoy God's gracious beauty upon this earth. A day to kiss the cherub cheeks of my children, and share in their hopes and dreams. A day to learn the value of determination and hard work. A day to learn the value of judging mankind for the quality he has, not what he has not. A day to learn the value of love.
Yes, it's just another day, I sigh. The stars dance in the velvet sky as a full yellow moon smiles cheerfully down. The house is quiet and still. The only sound is the soft, even breathing of my spouse. I recall the scripture: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24). And as I lay at the side of my soul mate I pray that God will let me see "just another day"! ("Just Another Day" by Charlotte "Charlie" Volnek. Reprinted with permission from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, pp. 112-113. Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communications, Inc.)
To some have been given the gift of knowledge, others understanding, and still others wisdom. We all pretty much see around us the same things that the author of this story saw: the sun, the sky, the clouds, the birds, the flowers, our families. Knowledge enables us to realize that all of these, as well as the gift of life itself, are gifts from God. Through faith, we then can come to understand the deeper meaning of these gifts.
But most of all, I believe this story exemplifies the gift of wisdom, which is the gift of evaluating aspects of everyday living in relation to God and aided by the judgment of love. Although we all see the same things, do we really "see" them? Do we know the true source of those things we see? Do we understand the true meaning behind those things, namely, the great love that God has for us? And most of all, do we have the wisdom to be grateful for the gifts that we have been given and to use them to the best of our ability out of a love for God? Or do we get bogged down in the limits of our circumstances or wish that things could be better? Although the author regretted the handicaps which afflicted her son, she chose to see the best in his human nature as he struggled to overcome those obstacles.
Do we see minutiae, or do we see the big picture? That is the challenge we each face every day of our lives. Hopefully, as Harrison Ford did in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you will have the wisdom to choose rightly.
Silverius "Sil" Galvan is a deacon at the Catholic Community of Saint Mary of the Lake in Lakewood, New Jersey. He has been involved in music ministry as an organist, guitarist, and sometime cantor for more than four decades. Galvan also operates www.deaconsil.com, a website offering extensive homiletic resources.
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How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
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StoryShare, June 4, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
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June 8, 2003
Contents
A Story to Live By: "Whirlwind"
Sharing Visions: "My Encounter with God" by Robert Gossett
Good Stories: "Pentecost Reflection" by Robyn Allen Goudge
Scrap Pile: "Pinwheels" by Kathy Donley
"Cut to the Heart" by John Sumwalt
We couldn't find any Parthian, Mede, or Elamite writers for the Pentecost edition of StoryShare, but we do have a New Zealander, a Baptist from Edinburg (OK, it's the Edinburg in Illinois), and a couple of reedy-voiced Wisconsin preachers. Robyn Allen Goudge, from that other beautiful land down under, shares a touching Pentecost reflection. Robert Gossett writes from the shores of Lake Michigan about his struggle with speaking in tongues and a powerful encounter with God that changed his life. Kathy Donley, the aforementioned Baptist of Edinburg, tells about the mighty wind that can be created if you give each child a pinwheel during the children's moment.
A Story to Live By
Whirlwind
In The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People (New York: Viking Press, 1975), Ben Logan tells of the life he knew as a child in the hill country of southwest Wisconsin in the 1920s and '30s. He describes a fierce argument that took place between the Protestant and Roman Catholic children one day at recess outside their one-room schoolhouse. A boy named Tom Withers, who was rarely in school because he couldn't stand to be indoors, bid them all meet him on the hillside after school. They all met at the appointed place, and when the teacher was out of sight, Tom "... climbed onto a rock, raised his arms above his head, and looked straight up.... A sound began in Tom's throat. He stretched his arms higher. His mouth opened and the sound roared out: 'THEY AIN'T NO GOD!' went the echo. 'STRIKE ME DOWN DEAD IF THEY'S A GOD!' Tom yelled ...
"We waited. Then a little whirlwind came along the hillside, rattling the dead oak leaves, seeming to attack one tree at a time. It took hold of the tree where we stood, thrashed with it, filling the woods with sound. Then it moved on. Tom lowered his arms. He looked at us, baring his teeth in a smile, jumped from the rock, and ran along the hillside out of sight. We waited a little longer, and then without a word to one another, went our different ways. We didn't talk much about religion in school after that."
The psalmist sang, "The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; ... The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say glory!" (Psalm 29)
Sharing Visions
My Encounter with God
by Robert Gossett
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:4
A United Methodist pastor lying on a Lutheran gymnasium floor, struggling with God about speaking in tongues, is not something you would expect to see very often, but that is a part of my story. That incident took place in about 1974, and it is still an important part of my spiritual life. A little background might be helpful in understanding it.
I grew up in the Evangelical United Brethren Church, which merged in 1968 with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church. Sunday school, Youth Fellowship, and other church activities were always an important part of my life. Five years after I graduated from high school, I entered college with the intention of becoming a pastor. There was no dramatic call from God at that time; just awareness on my part and that of others that this seemed to be a place where I could serve.
My search for a deeper experience of God may have been present for some time, but I became more aware of it as I saw in some lay people an awareness and experience of God that I knew I didn't have. They talked about a personal relationship with Jesus, and being filled or baptized with the Holy Spirit, which made their faith alive and vital. They sometimes offered books, tapes, and invitations to prayer groups or special speakers, which answered some of my questions and further heightened my interest. My biggest question was about speaking in tongues. I had heard it at a youth prayer meeting once, and I had done a lot of reading about it, but I wasn't sure I wanted anything to do with it.
My interest in these topics culminated one night following a Bible study at church. I asked several of the lay people to pray for me concerning my questions and desire for a deeper relationship with Jesus and experience of the Holy Spirit. I knelt at the altar while they placed their hands on my head and shoulders and prayed for me. There were no flashing lights, visions, speaking in tongues, or anything like that, but I could tell I was changed. The Bible came to life in ways that it hadn't before; my preaching became more positive and Christ-centered; prayer became more exciting; and the desire to share my faith became more intense. It was a major turning point in my faith, but God wasn't done with me yet.
Several months later, my wife and I went to St. Louis to visit former members of our church who had moved there. An evangelist with a healing ministry was speaking, so we all decided to go. Following her sermon, the evangelist invited people to come forward to accept Jesus and receive prayer for healing or any other need. Many people went forward for prayer. As some received prayer, they fell to the floor. We had never experienced that before and thought it was a little strange, but it happened to a United Methodist pastor and a young boy, among many others, so we didn't question its validity. We learned later that it was called "being Slain in the Spirit," as people came under the power of the Spirit. My own encounter with the Spirit was drawing closer.
Later that summer, my wife and I went to a Lutheran gymnasium to hear a couple who had become Christians later in life and wondered why everyone wasn't as excited about the Christian faith as they were. They had written a number of books, which I had read, so I wanted to hear them in person. Following their presentation, they invited people to come forward for prayer to receive Jesus, be filled with the Holy Spirit, receive prayer for healing or other special needs. Two long lines formed, one for the husband and one for the wife, and Jeri and I got into the line to see the wife. When we got to her, I told her that I was a United Methodist pastor, and that I wanted more of the power she had been talking about. She asked me if I had received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and I said that I believed I had. She asked if I spoke in tongues, and I said that I had a lot of questions about it and problems with it. She placed her hand on my shoulder in prayer, and the next thing I knew, I was down on the gym floor. Jeri didn't know what to do, and the evangelist said, "Don't help him, he's under the power of God."
I'm not exactly sure what I was experiencing and feeling on that gym floor, but I'm sure I was struggling with God. I have no concept of the amount of time I was there, but when I got up, Jeri and I talked to the speaker again. She asked me if I had spoken in tongues; I said not and that I still had a lot of questions and problems with it. She said, "Just try it." I told her I had, but nothing came out. She said, "You know what's going to happen if you don't?" And then I was on the floor again, struggling with God and my questions and fears about speaking in tongues. Again, I don't know how long I was there. Jeri went to the bleachers to sit with some friends. They told me later that they had been praying, "Knock him silly, Lord." I think their prayers were answered.
As I lay on the floor, a word or phrase came to mind which I didn't understand. I don't know if I thought it or said it, but it was the beginning of a new prayer language, which has become part of my new prayer life. It is something I use regularly as an expression of praise to an awesome God or when I pray for a situation in which I'm not sure what the specific need is. I use it often throughout the day in my private expressions of praise and prayer, and use it only rarely with another person or group.
When I share this experience, I always say that this does not make me better than anyone who has not experienced it. I can only say that it has made my personal awareness of God much deeper and my desire to serve God greater. The power of God is awesome. Your experience may take you down a different path, but don't be afraid of seeking and accepting all God has for you.
Robert L. Gossett is pastor of Grand Avenue United Methodist Church in Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife Jeri. Bob has had several articles published in Marriage magazine. Bob's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles edited by John E. Sumwalt (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 2002). Vision Storiesis available from CSS through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. Vision Stories is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, and many local Christian bookstores.
Good Stories
Pentecost Reflection
by Robyn Allen Goudge
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:1-2
Lord Jesus, on the night before you died you shared a meal with your friends. You told them you were going away, but they did not want to believe you. You told them you would suffer and be betrayed, but who wants to hear that? You promised them, "But I will not leave you all alone, like orphans or abandoned children. I will ask the Father to send you another Helper, who will be with you forever." But the promise did not sink in. No one recognized its significance. Well, not until some time later - after your death and resurrection - after you had ascended into heaven and your physical body was no longer present upon the earth. That's when your promise was fulfilled. And who would have predicted how it happened, Lord?
When you began your ministry and were baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit came upon you, and the gospel writers described it as being in the image of a dove. A dove we associate with peace and innocence, with soft feathers, billing and cooing, and everything being lovey-dovey. But that wasn't how the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost; not as a soft, snow-white dove, tame and predictable, but as a roaring hurricane, as a rushing and a whooshing, and a stirring upside-down, and no one knew what was going on or what would happen next. And then there was the indescribable fire, like the fire that Moses saw at the burning bush. A fire that burnt but did not consume. A Holy Fire - ablaze and very bright. A fire of glory and of power.
And the fire spread. Tongues of flame jumped from person to person to person, like a raging bush fire. Soon another and then another caught the joy of your Holy Spirit. It could not be stopped, could not be contained. They say three thousand people were added to your followers that day.
I wish I had been there, Lord. What an amazing experience! Why don't you do that for me now? Though perhaps I might have resisted, been a mocker and a scoffer. Or worse still, not even noticed. Too busy hurrying to my next appointment.
Yet if I am honest, there was once, Lord, when you picked me up by the scruff of my neck and shook me around. I'd nearly forgotten about that. And there was another time when I just knew that you loved me. It was like being in a bath of liquid love. Was that your Holy Spirit? I didn't notice any wind blowing.
And that other time when I was so terribly depressed, I thought that I was having a breakdown, and someone unexpectedly arrived with flowers. Was that your Holy Spirit, too?
I used to think that your Holy Spirit was like a special reward that you reserved for extra special saints. You know, those really "Holy Christians" who pray for hours each day, fast twice a week, and never get fed up with their kids.
But Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem that your Holy Spirit is not a religious snob. "God says: I will pour out my Spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters will proclaim my message" - no discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender - "Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams" - no discrimination on the grounds of age, either.
"Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour our my Spirit." It seems that you make no distinction on the grounds of social class or income either, Lord.
And wasn't it true that people of many different ethnic groups heard and understood your message in their own language? I don't know if the miracle was in the listeners' ears or in the speakers' tongues, but your Holy Spirit sure knows how to overcome the language and culture barrier, Jesus.
We need more of your Holy Spirit in our world, Lord Jesus. Your Holy Spirit is a force for good that has no dark side.
Would you grow deeper and stronger within me?
And within my friends, who are gathered here as well?
At the beginning of the service we lit seven candles to represent seven gifts your Spirit brings. Joy, Truth, Life, Hope, Love, Wisdom, and Peace.
Lord Jesus Christ, we need these things and so we pray to you: O Christ, our dearest Savior, kindle the flames of our hearts, that we may evermore shine with your Spirit and receive unquenchable light from you that will lighten our darkness and lessen the darkness of the world. Come, Holy Spirit, come!
(Prayer adapted from St. Columba)
Robyn Allen Goudge is pastor of Devonport Methodist Church, on a beautiful seaside, suburban peninsula in Auckland, New Zealand. After studying for degrees in psychology and theology, Robyn has worked full- and part-time in parish ministry in various parts of New Zealand over the last 17 years (including three years off having children). She is married to Geoff, step-mum to Rowyn (17), mother of Beren (11), Morgan (8), and Aidan (4 months). She is interested in theatre, music (classical and folk), and Celtic Christian spirituality. As a singer, composer, and harpist, she often performs at church and community functions. In 1998, she produced a CD of original songs titled The Love I'm In Write to Robyn at: robyn-g@clear.net.nz.
Scrap Pile
Pinwheels
by Kathy Donley
Last year on Pentecost Sunday during the children's time, I taught them the Greek and Hebrew words for "spirit/wind." I talked about how the Holy Spirit is like the wind - moving freely, unseen but causing visible effects, etc. Then I passed out one pinwheel to each child and we practiced blowing on them to make them move. I told the children that in a few minutes, during the sermon, I wanted them to listen for the words "wind" and "Spirit," and every time they heard me say one of those words, they were to blow on the pinwheels. It was fun to see who was listening by seeing which pinwheels were moving. The most fun were two 5-year-old boys who were sitting together. They were not listening quite as intently as some others, so when the others would blow on their pinwheels there would be a delay, and then one of the 5-year-olds would say quite audibly, "She said 'Spirit!'" and then blow quite loudly on his pinwheel.
Kathy Donley is the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Edinburg, Illinois. Bethel is an American Baptist congregation in central Illinois with a vision for ministry with children and their families. Kathy is currently planning a child-led Pentecost worship service for 2003 that involves kites as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Kathy may be contacted at jimkathy1987@earthlink.net.
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Cut to the Heart
by John Sumwalt
Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?"
Acts 2:37
This is the rest of the Pentecost story beyond the lectionary text, the response to Peter's sermon.
Have you ever been cut to the heart? Has anyone ever told you something that cut through you like a sharp knife? Will anyone be cut to the heart by anything that is said in your church on Pentecost Sunday?
In the fall of 1987, James Meredith was invited back to the University of Mississippi to speak on the 25th anniversary of his admission as the first African-American student in the history of that institution. "Meredith enrolled at Ole Miss in the fall of 1962 amidst the rising civil rights movement, instigating the desegregation of the 114-year-old institution. More than 30,000 federal troops and Mississippi National Guardsmen were called to Oxford by then-President John Kennedy to assist in the resulting historical riots in front of the Lyceum." (http://dm.olemiss.edu/archives/97/9703/970321/970321N5meredith.HTML) The troops led him past hundreds of screaming hecklers, but he was admitted.
When he stood up to speak 25 years later they gave him a standing ovation. One would think that might have given Meredith a great deal of satisfaction, even some sense of personal triumph, but it did not. In the speech that followed he reminded them that in a state where over 50% of the population is black, only 9% of the Ole Miss student body is African-American - and that the university hired only enough minority faculty members to meet federal regulations. When he was finished speaking only the African-American members of the audience and a few whites rose to applaud. Most of the audience sat silently in their seats. They were cut to the heart. Meredith told them the truth about themselves, and they knew it. Some of them must have wondered, "How could he do this to us after we were nice enough to invite him back and greeted him so warmly?"
"This Jesus whom you crucified," Peter said. And he said it to the believers as well as to the unbelievers, to the faithful as well as the mockers and the taunters.
Can you imagine the hurt and anger this must have caused, especially among the faithful?
They were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?"
John Sumwalt is the editor of Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles.
We are pleased to announce that the second volume in the vision series, titled Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences has now been released. It is available from CSS Publishing Company through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056.
The 85 contributing authors include the Canadian writer Ralph Milton, author of Julian's Cell; singers Kerri Sherwood, Cheryl Kirking, and Lee Domann; professor Linda J. Vogel of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary; and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the movie The Sound of Music. Rosmarie also has a wonderful story in Vision Stories, which you will find in the bookstore when you visit the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, as we hope to do next summer.
John and Jo are collecting personal stories for a third collection to be released in 2004. The working title is Holy Moments: Life-Changing Visions And Other Signs of God's Presence. They are broadening the scope a bit to include any experience of the holy. Send stories to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
StoryShare, June 8, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
