Happy Birthday
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Happy Birthday"
Shining Moments: "Wrapped in Pentecost" by Kate Jones
Sermon Starter: "Do You Have Charisma?" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "What the World Needs Now..." by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
Last week we had the joy of being with our son Orrin to celebrate his 21st birthday. It was a milestone for him and for us as well. We shared lots of fond memories over Mexican food in a favorite restaurant. This Sunday we will celebrate the birthday of the Church. We will share fond memories through the reading of scripture and the singing of familiar hymns. Like family birthday parties, Pentecost celebrations help us in the church to remember who and whose we are. The birthday story in A Story to Live By will be a good jumping-off point for those preaching on this theme. "Wrapped in Pentecost," Kate Jones' touching personal story in Shining Moments, is a reminder of the way the Spirit is continually renewing the flame in all of us.
A Story to Live By
Happy Birthday
Turning 21, a boy from Duluth, Minnesota, named Lars had heard stories of an amazing family tradition. It seems that on their 21st birthdays, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been able to walk on water to the boat club across the lake for their first legal drink.
So when Lars' 21st came around, he and his pal Sven took a boat out to the middle of the lake. Lars stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned. Sven managed to pull him to safety.
Furious and confused, Lars went to see his grandmother. "Grandma," he asked, "it's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like my father, his father, and his father before him?"
Granny looked into Lars' eyes and said, "Because your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were born in January; you were born in July!"
Shining Moments
Wrapped in Pentecost
by Kate Jones
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:7
When my grandmother Virginia died, I wore a red dress to the funeral. It is not my habit to wear red dresses to funerals, but this dress is special. Grandmother Virginia and I bought it two years ago when I was visiting her in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We felt very naughty out shopping for the dress. My Auntie Dumpling left strict instructions: "Don't baby your grandmother." I didn't. It wasn't babyish to me to take her to the mall -- a place she hadn't been in years. Auntie Dumpling didn't think my grandmother was up to such adventures. But Auntie Dumpling was out of town! I tried on every red dress in the mall. Miss Virginia told me the story of how she eloped in a red dress while we rested on the brocade loveseat at a high-end department store. We watched mothers of brides in dress-buying rituals try on all manner of pastel dresses and suits while very young-looking women scowled at their mothers' selections. We found the perfect dress on the clearance rack: a tailored wraparound in United Methodist flame red, with a black and white polka-dotted lining.
I packed that red dress for a visit with Grandmother Virginia last March. I put it on for church, and when she saw what I was wearing she went back to the bedroom and put on her red dress. My ever-perfectly coiffed, impeccably dressed grandmother insisted that I put on red lipstick -- a very different look from my usually naked face -- and we were off to stir up some trouble at the retirement center Sunday worship. We sang at the top of our voices in our outrageous red dresses. Early the next afternoon, I held Grandmother in my arms for the last time and said good-bye.
When I saw my dad's number on the caller ID at 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I knew. The lovely Miss Virginia, as her aids called her, had been called home. Again I packed the red dress. I looked through the black things hanging in my closet, clerical collars, clergy suits, and my basic black dress. "No," I thought, "this is my grandmother's funeral. My red dress would somehow fit into her 'all things decently and in order' Presbyterian rubric." Since she had been a prominent member of the largest Presbyterian church in Tulsa for more than 50 years, I was certain that her pastor would officiate. At most, I would read the passage from Ecclesiastes about how for everything there is a season or maybe tell a story about Miss Virginia. "Yes," I thought, "I'll wear red."
We arrived in Tulsa late on Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening, Uncle Danny, Aunt Cocoa, Auntie Dumpling, assorted cousins, and my three children and I were having supper in the non-descript hotel restaurant. Auntie Dumpling said she had talked to Grandma's pastor. She told him that our full-service funeral family of storytellers, musicians, clergy, and other bards would plan the service. All he needed to do, she said, was the homily.
We sat at a large corner table, waiting for the patriarch; Miss Virginia's firstborn, my father the Reverend Dr. Bob, with his large frame, a mane of silver hair, and an imposing presence. We traded stories and laughed and cried as families do when they prepare to bury their dead. The patriarch finally appeared, almost as a ghost, hunched over a cane, praying, "O Jesus, O-O-O- Jesus" with every step. It jolted my grieving heart. I couldn't tell if it was my heart or his body breaking as he sat down next to me. Dad was in a lot of pain. "Katie, you plan and lead the service," he said.
The cadence of my heart hit double-time as I contemplated the reality. My father just asked me to plan his mother's funeral. Here I was in the Bible Belt. Most of the worshipers would undoubtedly be high-church, elderly Presbyterian ladies. I had no Book of Common Prayer, no robe, no clerical collar, no cross, and no stole. I had the small Bible I carry in my purse, my scrappy Yankee Methodist style, and a wraparound red dress, which would require a safety pin under the lapel if it were to be worn with modesty. Whether or not to select blood hymns was the least of my worries.
Uncle Danny picked up the tab and we dispersed. I retired to my room to make the collegial call to Miss Virginia's pastor. I got into one of those mazes of telephonic technology. After a series of numerical choices, I finally left a message for Dr. Johnson. I sketched out a service as best I could and then looked for sleep in the room I was sharing with my three children.
Funeral day came with the oppressive heat expected of any summer morning in Oklahoma. I once again tested my skills in the telephonic maze of the Presbyterian church, this time with more success. Dr. Johnson's assistant informed me that the good doctor could not participate in the funeral as his father had died during the night and he needed to be on an airplane for Nashville.
I hung up the phone and sat for a moment in the hotel version of silence. There was a knock on my door. I opened the door to find my brother Rick holding two packages. "Andrea made these for you," he said. "I was going to wait until your birthday, but she said to bring them now." I invited Rick in. I tore through the first package, which contained a large, soft blue-green prayer shawl. As I opened the shawl, out fell a slip of white paper. Its words were immediately familiar:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you. O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me -- those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139)
I wrapped myself in God's knitted womb and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding those sacred words of God's profound and pursuing love. Rick handed me another package. "Andrea just took up weaving," he explained. "She made this for you, too. Isn't it perfect?"
The stole was purple on one side -- the color of penitence and preparation, the color of Advent and Lent. On the reverse, it was white -- the color of death and resurrection. "Rick," I said, "it IS perfect. I can't think of a more perfect gift. Tell Andrea I love it. Thank you."
Rick excused himself to get ready for the funeral. I laid the prayer shawl and the stole on the bed. I wrapped myself in the red dress, put on some red lipstick, picked up the stole and my Bible, and went to gather the children.
Like most families, we entered the service after the other mourners had been seated. "The Old Rugged Cross" played on the old, bad synthesized funeral home organ. Unlike most families, my dad and I took the officiants' seats in the front of the room.
Wrapped in my red dress and the stole, white toward the congregation and purple toward my heart, I got up and proclaimed: "Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live...' "
As the witnessing continued, my dad leaned forward with characteristic impatience and uncharacteristic anxiety. This time, I laid my hand on top of his very large, square, spotted hand. He turned his hand over and we sat together, palm to palm, wrapped in Pentecost.
Kate Jones is an attorney and a United Methodist clergywoman serving in extension ministry as Chaplain and Director of Prevention Services at Women's and Children's Horizons in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Her ministry includes work with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence and survivors of sexual assault. Kate lives in Kenosha with her husband Robert and their three children.
Sermon Starter
Do You Have Charisma?
by John Sumwalt
Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
Do you have charisma? The apostle Paul suggests in this letter to Corinthian Christians that we all have it. We usually think of charisma as a special appeal or attractiveness which certain public figures have:
John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan had it.
Pope John II and Mother Teresa had it.
Elvis Presley and the Beatles had it.
Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil have it.
Martha Stewart and Donald Trump have it.
Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts have it.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have it.
It is that special something in their personalities (in their spirits, perhaps) and the way they present themselves in public which draws people to them.
Paul uses the word "charisma" in a little broader way than it is popularly understood today. In New Testament Greek, charisma means gift, and it refers to any gift given to a person by God. A charisma is a gift given to a person by God which the person could not have acquired or attained by himself or herself.
I played a cornet in high school -- first chair third. If I had practiced more, I might have made first chair second section. But no amount of practice would have enabled me to play like Al Hirt or Doc Severinsen. I didn't have the gift.
I could take piano lessons and practice playing twelve hours a day for the rest of my life, and even if I lived to be a hundred I would never be able to play like Liberace. He had more than training and practice, he had something plus: the charisma -- the gift of God. I have short fingers and a poor sense of rhythm!
I could go to technical school and study auto mechanics for the next fifty years and I would never be able to repair an engine like my father-in-law, Lester Perry, could. Even if I learned the basics, which is most unlikely since I can barely tell a carburetor from a hubcap, I would never have that something extra -- that gift from God. Lester not only understood how engines work, he had an inventive mind. He found ways to make them work better. If no parts were available to fix something, he would design and build one. He had that something plus which is a gift from God.
But even though I can't play a piano or repair a carburetor, I have other gifts. I can whistle with my fingers. I can bake the best sourdough coffee cake you ever tasted, and sometimes I can tell a pretty good story. I am a child of God and I am gifted, as we all are gifted. Say that with me: "I am a child of God, and I am gifted!" Say it like you believe it! Each of us has charisma.
Now, I know some of you are sitting there saying, no, I am not gifted. I'm not musical, I'm not artistic, I can't sew, I can't dance, I can't paint, I'm not mechanical, I can't cook. I don't do anything well.
We all know people like that, who are not able to celebrate the great gifts God has given them. We have all had moments when we have said or thought this of ourselves: "I'm not gifted. I don't do anything well."
I know a woman who would tell you that she is not gifted, that she has no exceptional abilities. Yet I have seen her sit down with little children and join them in a tea party or read a book to them or play with them in the sandbox, giving them all of her attention, her full self. It is no small thing to make a child happy. She is gifted, as we all are gifted.
Say it with me again: "I am a child of God, and I am gifted!" Say it like you believe it. Say it over and over again until you know it's true.
(This sermon starter originally appeared in the Epiphany 3 edition of StoryShare for January 24, 2004.)
Scrap Pile
What the World Needs Now...
by John Sumwalt
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:2
"What the world needs now is..." These words have been on our lighted church sign for the past ten days. They are meant to evoke the old Burt Bacharach tune that was a hit in 1965 for Jackie DeShannon and in 1970 for Dionne Warwick.
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of..."
It's one of those songs that, once it gets into your head, you can't get it out. That's the idea. What better song to be singing or prayer to be praying as the news from Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine explodes over the airways all around us?
In a few moments we will read the names of the 17 Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq in the past year. We will light a candle in the memory of each one. Then we will light candles for those who gave their lives in the Persian Gulf, in Vietnam, in Korea, and in World War II.
We will do this mindful that this is the birthday of the church, the anniversary of the tongues of fire and the mighty wind that marked the beginning of a Spirit movement that blew over the world and is still blowing through our lives today.
In Washington, D.C., this week, World War II vets have been breathing great sighs of relief and shedding tears too long coming as they walk through a memorial to friends who died beside them in Europe, Africa, and the South Pacific sixty years ago. My late father, who spent four years (as he often reminded us when we complained about some small hardship) digging foxholes in North Africa and Italy, would have loved to see this day.
Frederick Buechner tells about watching a scene in the Ken Burns documentary film series The Civil War: "It was the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, and veterans from North and South gathered at the battleground to reminisce. At one point the veterans decided to re-enact Pickett's Charge. All the participants took their positions, and then one side began to charge the other. Instead of swords and rifles, this time the vets carried canes and crutches. As both sides converged, the old men did not fight. Instead they embraced and began to weep. More than the glory, these men remembered the pain. More than the enemy, these men remembered the brothers who died on both sides, human beings like themselves with the same dreams, needs, hopes, and the same wives and children waiting for them to come home. What they saw was that we were, all of us, created not to do battle with each other, but to love each other."
"What the world needs now..."
Pentecost was a day like this, when everyone heard one another for the first time -- people from all nations who spoke different languages, came from very different cultures: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappodocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Lybia, Rome, Cretans, Arabs, Iranians, Iraqis, Saudis, Palestinians, Israelis, Chinese, Russians, Filipinos, Indians -- the eastern kind and our own first nations kind, Japanese, Germans, French, British, Australians, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Mexicans, Brazilians, Spanish, Danes and Swedes, Irish Catholics and Protestants, Scots, even people from Illinois, all speaking about God's words of power and hearing each other, understanding each other for the first time. They were amazed and perplexed. "What does this mean? Will it last?" they must have wondered.
What an amazing thing it would be if we could experience a Pentecost in all those places in our world where we have a failure to communicate, where misunderstandings and fears have led to violent conflict, countless deaths, and untold suffering -- to hear, to actually hear and understand, those with whom we are at war.
Can you imagine Shiites talking to Christians and hearing each other, Jews talking to Islamic Palestinians and understanding each other's language, each other's experience, for the first time?
Survivors of 9/11 recall "a remarkable act of love that occurred as panic-stricken people were running down the stairs in one of the World Trade Towers. As an Islamic Arab from Palestine was running for his life in the surging crowd, he stumbled and fell. Paralyzed with fear and unable to get up, he was trampled within seconds by hundreds of feet rushing past him. Then the man felt an arm on his shoulder and heard a voice speaking to him. 'Get up, brother! We have to get out of here.' Unable to stand because of his injuries, he felt himself being picked up. Again he heard the voice: 'Brother, we have to get out of here!' Half dragged, half carried down many stories, the man finally emerged from the building leaning heavily on his rescuer. As the injured Palestinian turned to thank the person who had carried him to safety, his eyes widened, for the person who had called him 'brother,' the man who had saved his life, was a Hasidic Jew." (Tilda Norberg, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma, Upper Room Books, 2002, pp. 54-55)
"What the world needs now is love sweet love..." (Last line is sung if the preacher is in good voice)
From a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee on May 30, 2004.
(For more information about the song "What the World Needs Now," and its composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David, see http://www.bacharachonline.com. For more information about Dionne Warwick, the vocal artist associated with many of the Bacharach/David hits from the late '60s and early '70s, see click here.)
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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, May 15, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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.
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Happy Birthday"
Shining Moments: "Wrapped in Pentecost" by Kate Jones
Sermon Starter: "Do You Have Charisma?" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "What the World Needs Now..." by John Sumwalt
What's Up This Week
Last week we had the joy of being with our son Orrin to celebrate his 21st birthday. It was a milestone for him and for us as well. We shared lots of fond memories over Mexican food in a favorite restaurant. This Sunday we will celebrate the birthday of the Church. We will share fond memories through the reading of scripture and the singing of familiar hymns. Like family birthday parties, Pentecost celebrations help us in the church to remember who and whose we are. The birthday story in A Story to Live By will be a good jumping-off point for those preaching on this theme. "Wrapped in Pentecost," Kate Jones' touching personal story in Shining Moments, is a reminder of the way the Spirit is continually renewing the flame in all of us.
A Story to Live By
Happy Birthday
Turning 21, a boy from Duluth, Minnesota, named Lars had heard stories of an amazing family tradition. It seems that on their 21st birthdays, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been able to walk on water to the boat club across the lake for their first legal drink.
So when Lars' 21st came around, he and his pal Sven took a boat out to the middle of the lake. Lars stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned. Sven managed to pull him to safety.
Furious and confused, Lars went to see his grandmother. "Grandma," he asked, "it's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like my father, his father, and his father before him?"
Granny looked into Lars' eyes and said, "Because your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were born in January; you were born in July!"
Shining Moments
Wrapped in Pentecost
by Kate Jones
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:7
When my grandmother Virginia died, I wore a red dress to the funeral. It is not my habit to wear red dresses to funerals, but this dress is special. Grandmother Virginia and I bought it two years ago when I was visiting her in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We felt very naughty out shopping for the dress. My Auntie Dumpling left strict instructions: "Don't baby your grandmother." I didn't. It wasn't babyish to me to take her to the mall -- a place she hadn't been in years. Auntie Dumpling didn't think my grandmother was up to such adventures. But Auntie Dumpling was out of town! I tried on every red dress in the mall. Miss Virginia told me the story of how she eloped in a red dress while we rested on the brocade loveseat at a high-end department store. We watched mothers of brides in dress-buying rituals try on all manner of pastel dresses and suits while very young-looking women scowled at their mothers' selections. We found the perfect dress on the clearance rack: a tailored wraparound in United Methodist flame red, with a black and white polka-dotted lining.
I packed that red dress for a visit with Grandmother Virginia last March. I put it on for church, and when she saw what I was wearing she went back to the bedroom and put on her red dress. My ever-perfectly coiffed, impeccably dressed grandmother insisted that I put on red lipstick -- a very different look from my usually naked face -- and we were off to stir up some trouble at the retirement center Sunday worship. We sang at the top of our voices in our outrageous red dresses. Early the next afternoon, I held Grandmother in my arms for the last time and said good-bye.
When I saw my dad's number on the caller ID at 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I knew. The lovely Miss Virginia, as her aids called her, had been called home. Again I packed the red dress. I looked through the black things hanging in my closet, clerical collars, clergy suits, and my basic black dress. "No," I thought, "this is my grandmother's funeral. My red dress would somehow fit into her 'all things decently and in order' Presbyterian rubric." Since she had been a prominent member of the largest Presbyterian church in Tulsa for more than 50 years, I was certain that her pastor would officiate. At most, I would read the passage from Ecclesiastes about how for everything there is a season or maybe tell a story about Miss Virginia. "Yes," I thought, "I'll wear red."
We arrived in Tulsa late on Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening, Uncle Danny, Aunt Cocoa, Auntie Dumpling, assorted cousins, and my three children and I were having supper in the non-descript hotel restaurant. Auntie Dumpling said she had talked to Grandma's pastor. She told him that our full-service funeral family of storytellers, musicians, clergy, and other bards would plan the service. All he needed to do, she said, was the homily.
We sat at a large corner table, waiting for the patriarch; Miss Virginia's firstborn, my father the Reverend Dr. Bob, with his large frame, a mane of silver hair, and an imposing presence. We traded stories and laughed and cried as families do when they prepare to bury their dead. The patriarch finally appeared, almost as a ghost, hunched over a cane, praying, "O Jesus, O-O-O- Jesus" with every step. It jolted my grieving heart. I couldn't tell if it was my heart or his body breaking as he sat down next to me. Dad was in a lot of pain. "Katie, you plan and lead the service," he said.
The cadence of my heart hit double-time as I contemplated the reality. My father just asked me to plan his mother's funeral. Here I was in the Bible Belt. Most of the worshipers would undoubtedly be high-church, elderly Presbyterian ladies. I had no Book of Common Prayer, no robe, no clerical collar, no cross, and no stole. I had the small Bible I carry in my purse, my scrappy Yankee Methodist style, and a wraparound red dress, which would require a safety pin under the lapel if it were to be worn with modesty. Whether or not to select blood hymns was the least of my worries.
Uncle Danny picked up the tab and we dispersed. I retired to my room to make the collegial call to Miss Virginia's pastor. I got into one of those mazes of telephonic technology. After a series of numerical choices, I finally left a message for Dr. Johnson. I sketched out a service as best I could and then looked for sleep in the room I was sharing with my three children.
Funeral day came with the oppressive heat expected of any summer morning in Oklahoma. I once again tested my skills in the telephonic maze of the Presbyterian church, this time with more success. Dr. Johnson's assistant informed me that the good doctor could not participate in the funeral as his father had died during the night and he needed to be on an airplane for Nashville.
I hung up the phone and sat for a moment in the hotel version of silence. There was a knock on my door. I opened the door to find my brother Rick holding two packages. "Andrea made these for you," he said. "I was going to wait until your birthday, but she said to bring them now." I invited Rick in. I tore through the first package, which contained a large, soft blue-green prayer shawl. As I opened the shawl, out fell a slip of white paper. Its words were immediately familiar:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you. O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me -- those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139)
I wrapped myself in God's knitted womb and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding those sacred words of God's profound and pursuing love. Rick handed me another package. "Andrea just took up weaving," he explained. "She made this for you, too. Isn't it perfect?"
The stole was purple on one side -- the color of penitence and preparation, the color of Advent and Lent. On the reverse, it was white -- the color of death and resurrection. "Rick," I said, "it IS perfect. I can't think of a more perfect gift. Tell Andrea I love it. Thank you."
Rick excused himself to get ready for the funeral. I laid the prayer shawl and the stole on the bed. I wrapped myself in the red dress, put on some red lipstick, picked up the stole and my Bible, and went to gather the children.
Like most families, we entered the service after the other mourners had been seated. "The Old Rugged Cross" played on the old, bad synthesized funeral home organ. Unlike most families, my dad and I took the officiants' seats in the front of the room.
Wrapped in my red dress and the stole, white toward the congregation and purple toward my heart, I got up and proclaimed: "Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live...' "
As the witnessing continued, my dad leaned forward with characteristic impatience and uncharacteristic anxiety. This time, I laid my hand on top of his very large, square, spotted hand. He turned his hand over and we sat together, palm to palm, wrapped in Pentecost.
Kate Jones is an attorney and a United Methodist clergywoman serving in extension ministry as Chaplain and Director of Prevention Services at Women's and Children's Horizons in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Her ministry includes work with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence and survivors of sexual assault. Kate lives in Kenosha with her husband Robert and their three children.
Sermon Starter
Do You Have Charisma?
by John Sumwalt
Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
Do you have charisma? The apostle Paul suggests in this letter to Corinthian Christians that we all have it. We usually think of charisma as a special appeal or attractiveness which certain public figures have:
John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan had it.
Pope John II and Mother Teresa had it.
Elvis Presley and the Beatles had it.
Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil have it.
Martha Stewart and Donald Trump have it.
Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts have it.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have it.
It is that special something in their personalities (in their spirits, perhaps) and the way they present themselves in public which draws people to them.
Paul uses the word "charisma" in a little broader way than it is popularly understood today. In New Testament Greek, charisma means gift, and it refers to any gift given to a person by God. A charisma is a gift given to a person by God which the person could not have acquired or attained by himself or herself.
I played a cornet in high school -- first chair third. If I had practiced more, I might have made first chair second section. But no amount of practice would have enabled me to play like Al Hirt or Doc Severinsen. I didn't have the gift.
I could take piano lessons and practice playing twelve hours a day for the rest of my life, and even if I lived to be a hundred I would never be able to play like Liberace. He had more than training and practice, he had something plus: the charisma -- the gift of God. I have short fingers and a poor sense of rhythm!
I could go to technical school and study auto mechanics for the next fifty years and I would never be able to repair an engine like my father-in-law, Lester Perry, could. Even if I learned the basics, which is most unlikely since I can barely tell a carburetor from a hubcap, I would never have that something extra -- that gift from God. Lester not only understood how engines work, he had an inventive mind. He found ways to make them work better. If no parts were available to fix something, he would design and build one. He had that something plus which is a gift from God.
But even though I can't play a piano or repair a carburetor, I have other gifts. I can whistle with my fingers. I can bake the best sourdough coffee cake you ever tasted, and sometimes I can tell a pretty good story. I am a child of God and I am gifted, as we all are gifted. Say that with me: "I am a child of God, and I am gifted!" Say it like you believe it! Each of us has charisma.
Now, I know some of you are sitting there saying, no, I am not gifted. I'm not musical, I'm not artistic, I can't sew, I can't dance, I can't paint, I'm not mechanical, I can't cook. I don't do anything well.
We all know people like that, who are not able to celebrate the great gifts God has given them. We have all had moments when we have said or thought this of ourselves: "I'm not gifted. I don't do anything well."
I know a woman who would tell you that she is not gifted, that she has no exceptional abilities. Yet I have seen her sit down with little children and join them in a tea party or read a book to them or play with them in the sandbox, giving them all of her attention, her full self. It is no small thing to make a child happy. She is gifted, as we all are gifted.
Say it with me again: "I am a child of God, and I am gifted!" Say it like you believe it. Say it over and over again until you know it's true.
(This sermon starter originally appeared in the Epiphany 3 edition of StoryShare for January 24, 2004.)
Scrap Pile
What the World Needs Now...
by John Sumwalt
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:2
"What the world needs now is..." These words have been on our lighted church sign for the past ten days. They are meant to evoke the old Burt Bacharach tune that was a hit in 1965 for Jackie DeShannon and in 1970 for Dionne Warwick.
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of..."
It's one of those songs that, once it gets into your head, you can't get it out. That's the idea. What better song to be singing or prayer to be praying as the news from Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine explodes over the airways all around us?
In a few moments we will read the names of the 17 Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq in the past year. We will light a candle in the memory of each one. Then we will light candles for those who gave their lives in the Persian Gulf, in Vietnam, in Korea, and in World War II.
We will do this mindful that this is the birthday of the church, the anniversary of the tongues of fire and the mighty wind that marked the beginning of a Spirit movement that blew over the world and is still blowing through our lives today.
In Washington, D.C., this week, World War II vets have been breathing great sighs of relief and shedding tears too long coming as they walk through a memorial to friends who died beside them in Europe, Africa, and the South Pacific sixty years ago. My late father, who spent four years (as he often reminded us when we complained about some small hardship) digging foxholes in North Africa and Italy, would have loved to see this day.
Frederick Buechner tells about watching a scene in the Ken Burns documentary film series The Civil War: "It was the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, and veterans from North and South gathered at the battleground to reminisce. At one point the veterans decided to re-enact Pickett's Charge. All the participants took their positions, and then one side began to charge the other. Instead of swords and rifles, this time the vets carried canes and crutches. As both sides converged, the old men did not fight. Instead they embraced and began to weep. More than the glory, these men remembered the pain. More than the enemy, these men remembered the brothers who died on both sides, human beings like themselves with the same dreams, needs, hopes, and the same wives and children waiting for them to come home. What they saw was that we were, all of us, created not to do battle with each other, but to love each other."
"What the world needs now..."
Pentecost was a day like this, when everyone heard one another for the first time -- people from all nations who spoke different languages, came from very different cultures: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappodocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Lybia, Rome, Cretans, Arabs, Iranians, Iraqis, Saudis, Palestinians, Israelis, Chinese, Russians, Filipinos, Indians -- the eastern kind and our own first nations kind, Japanese, Germans, French, British, Australians, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Mexicans, Brazilians, Spanish, Danes and Swedes, Irish Catholics and Protestants, Scots, even people from Illinois, all speaking about God's words of power and hearing each other, understanding each other for the first time. They were amazed and perplexed. "What does this mean? Will it last?" they must have wondered.
What an amazing thing it would be if we could experience a Pentecost in all those places in our world where we have a failure to communicate, where misunderstandings and fears have led to violent conflict, countless deaths, and untold suffering -- to hear, to actually hear and understand, those with whom we are at war.
Can you imagine Shiites talking to Christians and hearing each other, Jews talking to Islamic Palestinians and understanding each other's language, each other's experience, for the first time?
Survivors of 9/11 recall "a remarkable act of love that occurred as panic-stricken people were running down the stairs in one of the World Trade Towers. As an Islamic Arab from Palestine was running for his life in the surging crowd, he stumbled and fell. Paralyzed with fear and unable to get up, he was trampled within seconds by hundreds of feet rushing past him. Then the man felt an arm on his shoulder and heard a voice speaking to him. 'Get up, brother! We have to get out of here.' Unable to stand because of his injuries, he felt himself being picked up. Again he heard the voice: 'Brother, we have to get out of here!' Half dragged, half carried down many stories, the man finally emerged from the building leaning heavily on his rescuer. As the injured Palestinian turned to thank the person who had carried him to safety, his eyes widened, for the person who had called him 'brother,' the man who had saved his life, was a Hasidic Jew." (Tilda Norberg, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma, Upper Room Books, 2002, pp. 54-55)
"What the world needs now is love sweet love..." (Last line is sung if the preacher is in good voice)
From a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee on May 30, 2004.
(For more information about the song "What the World Needs Now," and its composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David, see http://www.bacharachonline.com. For more information about Dionne Warwick, the vocal artist associated with many of the Bacharach/David hits from the late '60s and early '70s, see click here.)
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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, May 15, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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.
