Bread From Heaven
Illustration
Stories
Contents
“Bread From Heaven” by John Sumwalt
“Hello Out There” by Frank Ramirez
Bread From Heaven
by John Sumwalt
John 6:51-58
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (v. 51)
I will never forget my first experience serving as a volunteer in a homeless shelter. After I was trained, I was assigned a three-hour shift on a Sunday night at a church not far from the church where I served as pastor. My shift was to be from 8:00 till 11:00 P.M. I helped to register the homeless persons as they arrived. Each one received a foam pad for a mattress, a small pillow, a sheet and a blanket. After they received their gear, we took them into the fellowship hall where they were to sleep on the floor.
There was a row of tables and chairs dividing the room. Men slept on one side and women and children on the other. No children registered that evening, but one young woman was in the late stages of pregnancy. Before my shift was through, her labor pains had started, and an ambulance had been called to take her to the hospital.
In all, about twenty-five persons came to the shelter on that cold November evening. Most of them were young men in their twenties and thirties. It was evident that they all knew each other, probably because they had sheltered together before on the street and in the churches after the shelter program began. A few of the men were quiet and kept to themselves, but several of them gathered around a large African American man named Bill, who seemed to be a kind of leader in the group. They shared a warm camaraderie that was a joy to behold. They did not have homes and, in most cases jobs, but they had each other, and clearly, they enjoyed one another’s company.
At about ten o’clock, I went into the kitchen to make popcorn and to distribute snacks that had been provided by members of all the churches participating in the program. Almost everyone came to get a cookie and a cup of coffee and then went back to the table where some of the men were engaged in a game of cards. Bill brought out an apple pie which he said he had purchased from among some of the day-old items at one of the bakeries. He sliced the pie and began to distribute pieces to all of his friends.
I watched hungrily, hoping he might offer me a piece, too. I felt guilty about my feelings because I knew I would be going home in an hour and could have anything I wanted to eat out of our family’s well stocked pantry.
I stood there looking on, envious of their fellowship as I wallowed in my middle-class angst. Bill must have sensed my hunger, because just then he looked up and asked if I would like to have a piece of pie. I eagerly said yes, and quickly joined him and the others at the table. It felt good to be included in their group. As I ate the pie and joined in the conversation, I became aware that we were sharing what our Jesus called “bread from heaven,” and I knew I was in his presence.
* * *
Hello Out There
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 111
Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them. (v. 2)
The UFO craze was hot and heavy in the fifties as Americans shared the fear of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Maybe it’s because everyone was looking for a savior, and instead of looking in their Bibles -- they looked to the sky.
Judging from the books published at the time the earth must have been a major crossroads in the universe. It seemed like flying saucers piloted by little green men and bBug-eyed monsters were zooming here and there. They were evidently so dumb they could be spotted by anyone driving a truck on a hazy night, but too smart to be caught by a film crew.
In my mind there’s no question that somewhere out there, other civilizations are orbiting distant suns, looking out with one sensory organ or another at the big old universe and wondering if we’re out there too.
At the same time, it turns out that in almost all cases UFOs are just that: unidentified flying objects. With a little rational investigation, they almost always turn out to be something perfectly explainable. Enthusiasm has to be balanced by realism.
Even so, there have been at least three instances where, at least for a moment, it looked like there’s something out there.
On August 15, 1977, the “Big Ear” radio telescope at Ohio State University, was scanning the sky in the direction of Sagittarius, picking up the usual background noises from the universe, when suddenly a powerful signal blared forth out of nowhere. The radio burst lasted the full 72 seconds the instruments were pointed that direction. When a scientist looked over the printed readout later he circled it and wrote WOW! in giant letters beside it. It’s been known as The WOW Signal ever since.
Innumerable efforts to explain it away have failed. Frustratingly, the signal never repeated itself. Then, in 2020, astronomer Alberto Caballero conducted a search for the source of the WOW Signal and concluded one possible lead is a sun-like star. The kind that could support intelligent life.
Then there’s Tabby’s Star, cataloged as KIC 8462852, located in the constellation Cyngus, and informally named after Dr. Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University, who grew fascinated by the data that its light grows brighter and dimmer in an irregular fashion. It’s a normal star and it shouldn’t act in this abnormal fashion. This led others to look into all the past photographs. This star has been behaving badly since at least 1890.
Dr. Boyajian kept coming up with theories about why the star would act this way, but the only one that fit was the most outlandish. Decades ago, Hugo Dyson suggested that a sufficiently advanced civilization species could conceivably convert all the matter in its solar system into some sort of mega-structure that would shield and catch a substantial portion of the star’s energy for their own use. Science fiction writers have been writing about Dyson Belts and Dyson Spheres ever since. Some scientists suggested that perhaps an incomplete Dyson Sphere, constructed out of the matter orbiting that sun, was regularly blocking the starshine from reaching us.
And finally, in April and May of 2020, the Parkes telescope in Australia picked up narrow beams of radio waves, its shifts in frequency suggesting it is coming from a planet circling a star. It’s coming from the star closest to our star, Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away which has a planet, called Proxima Centauri B, which circles its star in what is known as the “habitable zone,” where life like ours is theoretically possible.
There are all sorts of reasons why this planet might not support life. But it’s intriguing enough for people to spend their lives searching for the answers. Delight and wonder accompany us when we look into the depths of space.
That same delight and wonder is expressed in Psalm 111, as the psalmist praises God for being the author of all we see around us.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 15, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
“Bread From Heaven” by John Sumwalt
“Hello Out There” by Frank Ramirez
Bread From Heaven
by John Sumwalt
John 6:51-58
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (v. 51)
I will never forget my first experience serving as a volunteer in a homeless shelter. After I was trained, I was assigned a three-hour shift on a Sunday night at a church not far from the church where I served as pastor. My shift was to be from 8:00 till 11:00 P.M. I helped to register the homeless persons as they arrived. Each one received a foam pad for a mattress, a small pillow, a sheet and a blanket. After they received their gear, we took them into the fellowship hall where they were to sleep on the floor.
There was a row of tables and chairs dividing the room. Men slept on one side and women and children on the other. No children registered that evening, but one young woman was in the late stages of pregnancy. Before my shift was through, her labor pains had started, and an ambulance had been called to take her to the hospital.
In all, about twenty-five persons came to the shelter on that cold November evening. Most of them were young men in their twenties and thirties. It was evident that they all knew each other, probably because they had sheltered together before on the street and in the churches after the shelter program began. A few of the men were quiet and kept to themselves, but several of them gathered around a large African American man named Bill, who seemed to be a kind of leader in the group. They shared a warm camaraderie that was a joy to behold. They did not have homes and, in most cases jobs, but they had each other, and clearly, they enjoyed one another’s company.
At about ten o’clock, I went into the kitchen to make popcorn and to distribute snacks that had been provided by members of all the churches participating in the program. Almost everyone came to get a cookie and a cup of coffee and then went back to the table where some of the men were engaged in a game of cards. Bill brought out an apple pie which he said he had purchased from among some of the day-old items at one of the bakeries. He sliced the pie and began to distribute pieces to all of his friends.
I watched hungrily, hoping he might offer me a piece, too. I felt guilty about my feelings because I knew I would be going home in an hour and could have anything I wanted to eat out of our family’s well stocked pantry.
I stood there looking on, envious of their fellowship as I wallowed in my middle-class angst. Bill must have sensed my hunger, because just then he looked up and asked if I would like to have a piece of pie. I eagerly said yes, and quickly joined him and the others at the table. It felt good to be included in their group. As I ate the pie and joined in the conversation, I became aware that we were sharing what our Jesus called “bread from heaven,” and I knew I was in his presence.
* * *
Hello Out There
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 111
Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them. (v. 2)
The UFO craze was hot and heavy in the fifties as Americans shared the fear of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Maybe it’s because everyone was looking for a savior, and instead of looking in their Bibles -- they looked to the sky.
Judging from the books published at the time the earth must have been a major crossroads in the universe. It seemed like flying saucers piloted by little green men and bBug-eyed monsters were zooming here and there. They were evidently so dumb they could be spotted by anyone driving a truck on a hazy night, but too smart to be caught by a film crew.
In my mind there’s no question that somewhere out there, other civilizations are orbiting distant suns, looking out with one sensory organ or another at the big old universe and wondering if we’re out there too.
At the same time, it turns out that in almost all cases UFOs are just that: unidentified flying objects. With a little rational investigation, they almost always turn out to be something perfectly explainable. Enthusiasm has to be balanced by realism.
Even so, there have been at least three instances where, at least for a moment, it looked like there’s something out there.
On August 15, 1977, the “Big Ear” radio telescope at Ohio State University, was scanning the sky in the direction of Sagittarius, picking up the usual background noises from the universe, when suddenly a powerful signal blared forth out of nowhere. The radio burst lasted the full 72 seconds the instruments were pointed that direction. When a scientist looked over the printed readout later he circled it and wrote WOW! in giant letters beside it. It’s been known as The WOW Signal ever since.
Innumerable efforts to explain it away have failed. Frustratingly, the signal never repeated itself. Then, in 2020, astronomer Alberto Caballero conducted a search for the source of the WOW Signal and concluded one possible lead is a sun-like star. The kind that could support intelligent life.
Then there’s Tabby’s Star, cataloged as KIC 8462852, located in the constellation Cyngus, and informally named after Dr. Tabetha Boyajian of Yale University, who grew fascinated by the data that its light grows brighter and dimmer in an irregular fashion. It’s a normal star and it shouldn’t act in this abnormal fashion. This led others to look into all the past photographs. This star has been behaving badly since at least 1890.
Dr. Boyajian kept coming up with theories about why the star would act this way, but the only one that fit was the most outlandish. Decades ago, Hugo Dyson suggested that a sufficiently advanced civilization species could conceivably convert all the matter in its solar system into some sort of mega-structure that would shield and catch a substantial portion of the star’s energy for their own use. Science fiction writers have been writing about Dyson Belts and Dyson Spheres ever since. Some scientists suggested that perhaps an incomplete Dyson Sphere, constructed out of the matter orbiting that sun, was regularly blocking the starshine from reaching us.
And finally, in April and May of 2020, the Parkes telescope in Australia picked up narrow beams of radio waves, its shifts in frequency suggesting it is coming from a planet circling a star. It’s coming from the star closest to our star, Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away which has a planet, called Proxima Centauri B, which circles its star in what is known as the “habitable zone,” where life like ours is theoretically possible.
There are all sorts of reasons why this planet might not support life. But it’s intriguing enough for people to spend their lives searching for the answers. Delight and wonder accompany us when we look into the depths of space.
That same delight and wonder is expressed in Psalm 111, as the psalmist praises God for being the author of all we see around us.
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 15, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 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.
