Beyond Comparison
Stories
Contents
“Beyond Comparison” by David O. Bales
“A Change of Heart” by David O. Bales
Beyond Comparison
by David O. Bales
Isaiah 50:4-9a
On Wednesday night, eleven-fifteen, Pastor Balken halted outside his front door, lifted his chin and put a deliberate smile on his face. His wife Aileen heard him enter and met him as he took of his coat. “Does the Lutheran Pastor need a hug?” She said.
He swung toward her with an even broader smile, “What do you mean?”
“How many church members came?”
His chin and shoulders dropped. “None.”
Aileen hugged him. She’d acknowledged it was worth a try: “Bible and Beer” at the local tavern. Outside the church, he’d asked, where’s Luther’s heritage as appropriate as in a pub, considering his saying the gospel ran its course as he drank his glass of Wittenberg beer?
“And I only drank one beer,” he said. “At least it was a St. Pauli Girl.” He drew Aileen near for another hug.
He’d advertised his newest pastoral experiment in the weekly bulletin, monthly newsletter, and local newspaper. “An informal time to talk about the Christian faith.” He’d gone prepared with a handful of Today’s Readings, the coming Sunday’s Bible texts printed on the handy scripture sheets so church members who’d join him could at least glance at the coming Sunday’s Bible texts. He pulled the stack from his pocket and slapped them onto the kitchen table, pulled the tab from his clergy shirt, and slumped onto a chair.
“Some coffee to sober up?” Aileen asked, giving him a chuckle. She sat next to him, patted his knee, “So tell me. Wild women? Bar fights? Wild women?”
“Hah,” Pastor Balken said. “The closest table to me was a married couple discussing their divorce -- rather amiably, I will say -- and how to distribute their debts.” He shook his head. “Basically others steered clear when they saw my collar. A couple Catholics, who don’t know their local priest, said, ‘Hi Father.’ ”
“Well, you are a father,” Aileen said with another pat.
He grinned. “Just bothers me that people clamored to see Jesus when he entered Jerusalem, not to mention his impact on all western civilization, yet the church has spun down to mediocrity until agnosticism is the default spiritual position.”
“What did you do besides drink German beer?”
“After a while I heard two at the bar debating the physical assets and skills of Russel Wilson and Tom Brady.” He paused. “They’re football players.”
“Oh,” she said.
“So I said a prayer and took a stool next to them. They welcomed me and asked my opinion about the two football stars. I figured the safest was to say Wilson was better. That got me in. Nice fellas. Seems they spend a lot of time at the bar in front of the TV. They asked me why I chose Wilson. I admitted it was because of glances at the Seattle Times sports section.
“That’s when I thought I’d move toward things spiritual. So okay, I didn’t spend much time comparing football players. I didn’t tell them I never watch football. I said that on Sundays I was in worship and I spent my time comparing people like Martin Luther with the apostle Paul. They listened politely enough to let me go on. I quickly stated that Paul on a road from Jerusalem to Damascus had his religious turn around from Judaism to Jesus and fifteen centuries later in Germany Luther was released from a frightening legalism into a free and joyful faith.
“They nodded their heads a little and looked up to the TV a few times. ‘It’s about Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘He started it. Easter’ll be here in a week or so. That’s when it began, with his resurrection.’ I pulled out the scripture pages and gave them each one. I pointed to the Isaiah text. After Jesus’ resurrection the New Testament church made their comparisons too. Hundreds of years before Christ Isaiah talked about what it’s like to be God’s person with a special and overwhelming message of God’s loving activity. After Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection, they looked at this Isaiah passage and saw how much it was like Jesus’ ministry. The similarities were so startling that God was obviously linking those ancient words with Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Aileen waited. He puffed out his cheeks. She asked, “And…?”
“They made their excuses and left.”
“Think you’ll see them in worship Sunday?”
“Don’t expect them. If I want to see them again, I suppose I’ll have to go to the pub with all those bar fights and wild women.”
“Going to mention this in worship on Palm Sunday?”
Pastor Balken rubbed his knuckles on his cheek. “Don’t know right now; but, I was sure thinking about it on the way home. I seemed to come from an alien world; and, when I felt such anxiety just mentioning a few things about the faith, how does that compare with the opposition to Isaiah’s ministry, not to mention Jesus’s? I wouldn’t call my evening -- and remember, it’s just the first time -- I wouldn’t call it a failure. Yet my gratitude for Isaiah and Jesus has grown hugely. Compared to the weight of their difficult ministries and their suffering I experienced about an ounce and a half.”
Preaching Point: Isaiah’s life and message predicted Jesus’ suffering in dogged obedience to God.
* * *
In Your Hand My Times
by David O. Bales
Psalm 31:9-16
Only one person has expressed to me my own long-held but never spoken conviction: David A. Paap, Program Director Emeritus of Stephen Ministries. He mentioned that often people ask him what’s his favorite text in the Bible. His answer has always been mine: The text I am currently reading/studying/praying/preaching.
It’s not that I don’t like some things in the Bible better than others. Some things I positively detest -- consider David’s systematic, genocidal mass murder in 1 Samuel 27. Yet I, as my friend David Paap, believe God speaks through the Bible and we’ve each experienced, emotionally or intellectually, the Bible speaking to us and to others in ways we’d never expected or even hoped for. Such is evidence of how the Bible is “holy”: It’s useful to God. We might like parts or shun parts (note the way people’s Bibles are worn -- gospels in the New Testament, psalms in the Old Testament); yet, the book proves to be God’s communication with us, time and time again.
The Bible talks about some of the “times” God reaches us in Psalm 31:15a. It states, “My times are in your hand.” Just two words in Hebrew, and the word order is different: “In your hand my times.” This is why I read Hebrew: the Hebrew word here for “time” is for a specific or right time, an opportunity. It’s the word for “time” in people’s favorite Ecclesiastes text: “a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 9:11 reveals the word’s broad use where it talks of “time” and chance that overtake us all. This Hebrew word for time is so often used for God’s intervening for good that The Jewish Publication Society of America translates Psalm 31:15a as “My fate is in Your hand.”
The “times” in Psalm 31 occur in a lamentation. In David’s collection of Psalms someone is sick and despised. Yet he gains courage by trusting that every occurrence in his life is wrapped in Yahweh-God’s active presence. My encounter with God through this text didn’t begin in such a perilous situation. My time was typical for many folk in twentieth century America. We’d just moved from Eastern Montana where there are so many deer and antelope they do more than play. My wife’s mother had died, necessitating our moving to Oregon to care for her father. Our three daughters were each starting a new school, plus I was pastor of a different and dynamic congregation, which let me know quickly they needed leadership. In those circumstances the image that came from Psalm 31:15a of my times in God’s hand was that of a handful of beads. No order, just a jumble of feelings, thoughts, relationships, and responsibilities, yet in God’s hand. Not the tidiness people craft when they wrap life into a theological or philosophical system with no strings left hanging.
This fragment of a verse led me to trust that my times -- my fate -- rested in God’s hand no matter how chaotic the heap. It was a sense of God’s presence and love that would be with me as I trudged forward in a new place with new people and more difficult tasks. It wasn’t the promise that everything would turn out all right. Such “cockeyed optimism” serves well in musicals and plaques in tourist shops, but not in the Bible or in real life. Did everything turn out well for Jesus after Palm Sunday? At that moment by those two Hebrew words God’s presence became real to me as never before. This might sound ho hum, but it’s where God met my need through the Bible and strengthened me to serve my family and congregation.
22 years later -- in the twenty-first century -- my wife’s blood test indicated a disorder which almost always leads to leukemia (and it did). Those times in God’s hand seemed rattling onto the floor like a broken necklace.
We communicated her diagnosis to our family and closest friends and they shared their concern. A buddy sent me an email asking how we were weathering this and asking if there was anything he could do. Well, as those who’ve been in this situation know, there’s nothing to do but pray and listen if and when the cancer patient (or caregiver) feels like talking. In such a situation for the sake of all that’s holy please don’t say, “We know you’ll be all right.”
What could I respond to my buddy? He and I had been through a lot together. I owed him an answer. How could I express in as few words as possible -- I wasn’t up to writing reams -- the awareness of God’s love and care no matter what? I finally replied, thanked him, and told him, “deep, deep down we are okay.” I wished, however, that I could have put it in those two Hebrew words that keep meaning more and more to me: “In your hand my times.”
Preaching Point: No matter the circumstances, God’s loving presence encompasses us all the time.
“Beyond Comparison” by David O. Bales
“A Change of Heart” by David O. Bales
Beyond Comparison
by David O. Bales
Isaiah 50:4-9a
On Wednesday night, eleven-fifteen, Pastor Balken halted outside his front door, lifted his chin and put a deliberate smile on his face. His wife Aileen heard him enter and met him as he took of his coat. “Does the Lutheran Pastor need a hug?” She said.
He swung toward her with an even broader smile, “What do you mean?”
“How many church members came?”
His chin and shoulders dropped. “None.”
Aileen hugged him. She’d acknowledged it was worth a try: “Bible and Beer” at the local tavern. Outside the church, he’d asked, where’s Luther’s heritage as appropriate as in a pub, considering his saying the gospel ran its course as he drank his glass of Wittenberg beer?
“And I only drank one beer,” he said. “At least it was a St. Pauli Girl.” He drew Aileen near for another hug.
He’d advertised his newest pastoral experiment in the weekly bulletin, monthly newsletter, and local newspaper. “An informal time to talk about the Christian faith.” He’d gone prepared with a handful of Today’s Readings, the coming Sunday’s Bible texts printed on the handy scripture sheets so church members who’d join him could at least glance at the coming Sunday’s Bible texts. He pulled the stack from his pocket and slapped them onto the kitchen table, pulled the tab from his clergy shirt, and slumped onto a chair.
“Some coffee to sober up?” Aileen asked, giving him a chuckle. She sat next to him, patted his knee, “So tell me. Wild women? Bar fights? Wild women?”
“Hah,” Pastor Balken said. “The closest table to me was a married couple discussing their divorce -- rather amiably, I will say -- and how to distribute their debts.” He shook his head. “Basically others steered clear when they saw my collar. A couple Catholics, who don’t know their local priest, said, ‘Hi Father.’ ”
“Well, you are a father,” Aileen said with another pat.
He grinned. “Just bothers me that people clamored to see Jesus when he entered Jerusalem, not to mention his impact on all western civilization, yet the church has spun down to mediocrity until agnosticism is the default spiritual position.”
“What did you do besides drink German beer?”
“After a while I heard two at the bar debating the physical assets and skills of Russel Wilson and Tom Brady.” He paused. “They’re football players.”
“Oh,” she said.
“So I said a prayer and took a stool next to them. They welcomed me and asked my opinion about the two football stars. I figured the safest was to say Wilson was better. That got me in. Nice fellas. Seems they spend a lot of time at the bar in front of the TV. They asked me why I chose Wilson. I admitted it was because of glances at the Seattle Times sports section.
“That’s when I thought I’d move toward things spiritual. So okay, I didn’t spend much time comparing football players. I didn’t tell them I never watch football. I said that on Sundays I was in worship and I spent my time comparing people like Martin Luther with the apostle Paul. They listened politely enough to let me go on. I quickly stated that Paul on a road from Jerusalem to Damascus had his religious turn around from Judaism to Jesus and fifteen centuries later in Germany Luther was released from a frightening legalism into a free and joyful faith.
“They nodded their heads a little and looked up to the TV a few times. ‘It’s about Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘He started it. Easter’ll be here in a week or so. That’s when it began, with his resurrection.’ I pulled out the scripture pages and gave them each one. I pointed to the Isaiah text. After Jesus’ resurrection the New Testament church made their comparisons too. Hundreds of years before Christ Isaiah talked about what it’s like to be God’s person with a special and overwhelming message of God’s loving activity. After Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection, they looked at this Isaiah passage and saw how much it was like Jesus’ ministry. The similarities were so startling that God was obviously linking those ancient words with Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Aileen waited. He puffed out his cheeks. She asked, “And…?”
“They made their excuses and left.”
“Think you’ll see them in worship Sunday?”
“Don’t expect them. If I want to see them again, I suppose I’ll have to go to the pub with all those bar fights and wild women.”
“Going to mention this in worship on Palm Sunday?”
Pastor Balken rubbed his knuckles on his cheek. “Don’t know right now; but, I was sure thinking about it on the way home. I seemed to come from an alien world; and, when I felt such anxiety just mentioning a few things about the faith, how does that compare with the opposition to Isaiah’s ministry, not to mention Jesus’s? I wouldn’t call my evening -- and remember, it’s just the first time -- I wouldn’t call it a failure. Yet my gratitude for Isaiah and Jesus has grown hugely. Compared to the weight of their difficult ministries and their suffering I experienced about an ounce and a half.”
Preaching Point: Isaiah’s life and message predicted Jesus’ suffering in dogged obedience to God.
* * *
In Your Hand My Times
by David O. Bales
Psalm 31:9-16
Only one person has expressed to me my own long-held but never spoken conviction: David A. Paap, Program Director Emeritus of Stephen Ministries. He mentioned that often people ask him what’s his favorite text in the Bible. His answer has always been mine: The text I am currently reading/studying/praying/preaching.
It’s not that I don’t like some things in the Bible better than others. Some things I positively detest -- consider David’s systematic, genocidal mass murder in 1 Samuel 27. Yet I, as my friend David Paap, believe God speaks through the Bible and we’ve each experienced, emotionally or intellectually, the Bible speaking to us and to others in ways we’d never expected or even hoped for. Such is evidence of how the Bible is “holy”: It’s useful to God. We might like parts or shun parts (note the way people’s Bibles are worn -- gospels in the New Testament, psalms in the Old Testament); yet, the book proves to be God’s communication with us, time and time again.
The Bible talks about some of the “times” God reaches us in Psalm 31:15a. It states, “My times are in your hand.” Just two words in Hebrew, and the word order is different: “In your hand my times.” This is why I read Hebrew: the Hebrew word here for “time” is for a specific or right time, an opportunity. It’s the word for “time” in people’s favorite Ecclesiastes text: “a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 9:11 reveals the word’s broad use where it talks of “time” and chance that overtake us all. This Hebrew word for time is so often used for God’s intervening for good that The Jewish Publication Society of America translates Psalm 31:15a as “My fate is in Your hand.”
The “times” in Psalm 31 occur in a lamentation. In David’s collection of Psalms someone is sick and despised. Yet he gains courage by trusting that every occurrence in his life is wrapped in Yahweh-God’s active presence. My encounter with God through this text didn’t begin in such a perilous situation. My time was typical for many folk in twentieth century America. We’d just moved from Eastern Montana where there are so many deer and antelope they do more than play. My wife’s mother had died, necessitating our moving to Oregon to care for her father. Our three daughters were each starting a new school, plus I was pastor of a different and dynamic congregation, which let me know quickly they needed leadership. In those circumstances the image that came from Psalm 31:15a of my times in God’s hand was that of a handful of beads. No order, just a jumble of feelings, thoughts, relationships, and responsibilities, yet in God’s hand. Not the tidiness people craft when they wrap life into a theological or philosophical system with no strings left hanging.
This fragment of a verse led me to trust that my times -- my fate -- rested in God’s hand no matter how chaotic the heap. It was a sense of God’s presence and love that would be with me as I trudged forward in a new place with new people and more difficult tasks. It wasn’t the promise that everything would turn out all right. Such “cockeyed optimism” serves well in musicals and plaques in tourist shops, but not in the Bible or in real life. Did everything turn out well for Jesus after Palm Sunday? At that moment by those two Hebrew words God’s presence became real to me as never before. This might sound ho hum, but it’s where God met my need through the Bible and strengthened me to serve my family and congregation.
22 years later -- in the twenty-first century -- my wife’s blood test indicated a disorder which almost always leads to leukemia (and it did). Those times in God’s hand seemed rattling onto the floor like a broken necklace.
We communicated her diagnosis to our family and closest friends and they shared their concern. A buddy sent me an email asking how we were weathering this and asking if there was anything he could do. Well, as those who’ve been in this situation know, there’s nothing to do but pray and listen if and when the cancer patient (or caregiver) feels like talking. In such a situation for the sake of all that’s holy please don’t say, “We know you’ll be all right.”
What could I respond to my buddy? He and I had been through a lot together. I owed him an answer. How could I express in as few words as possible -- I wasn’t up to writing reams -- the awareness of God’s love and care no matter what? I finally replied, thanked him, and told him, “deep, deep down we are okay.” I wished, however, that I could have put it in those two Hebrew words that keep meaning more and more to me: “In your hand my times.”
Preaching Point: No matter the circumstances, God’s loving presence encompasses us all the time.
