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A Story to Live By



Let the Redeemed Say So



O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

Psalm 107:1-3

Paul Wesley Chilcote tells about the holiness experiences of women in the Methodist movement in his recent book Her Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women:

"It is not surprising that Wesley should find some of the most profound examples of this theology of religious experience among women... the women seem to have been more open to writing about and discussing these 'matters of the heart.' "

Sarah Ryan, a correspondent of John Wesley, had a vision one day, and seized on it as the directing principle of her life. "[On Sunday] in Spitalfields Church, I saw the Lord Jesus standing and a little child all in white before him; and he shewed me, he had made me as that child; but that I should grow up to the measure of his full stature. I came come full of light, joy, love, and holiness; and God confirmed what he had done for my soul. And, blessed be his name! I now know where my strength lieth, and my soul is continually sinking more and more into God."

(Paul Wesley Chilcote, Her Own Story:Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, Kingswood Books, 2001, pp. 24, 26)

Shining Moments



The Taste of Music

by Jeanne Jones

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

The whole thing began when I was asked to be the song leader for a Walk to Emmaus retreat in 1988. I was a kindergarten teacher and sang in the choir, but no one had ever asked me to lead singing for adults, and I was amazed at having been chosen. I felt comfortable with the task. It didn't require a really good voice, as the singing was mostly used to gather people together after break time and as a time-filler if needed. I had a back-up guitarist who had a good voice, and I knew the leadership team could all sing, so I attended the training sessions and felt really happy and excited about the weekend. But when I arrived in Phoenix, I got sick. I had a stomachache, and it wouldn't go away. I ate Tums, I ate crackers, I sipped water... I felt lousy. If I had been stressed, I could have blamed that, but I knew I wasn't stressed. At times I felt that there were two of me, one going through the motions of enthusiastically leading the singing, and the other watching me and wondering what I was doing since I was so sick. The retreat started Thursday night. By Saturday, I decided that if I wasn't better by Sunday, I would go to the hospital and see if I had an ulcer, instead of starting for home 100 miles away.

Saturday night we had a Healing Service and I asked for forgiveness. The thought popped into my head that I needed to forgive my mother for not loving me. This was strange, because intellectually, I suppose I knew that my mother really did love me in her own way, although she was not demonstrative. Apparently I carried those feelings inside and needed to let go of them, because the minute I said that I needed to forgive her, I was healed.

I know that God was working in my life that weekend. I think I could say that I had an "infilling" of the Holy Spirit, although I didn't know what that phrase meant before that time. I do know that when we were ready to leave, those who were the participants in the Walk were asked to stand up at the last gathering and tell what the weekend had meant to them and what they were going to do about it. Though the leaders were not expected to say anything, I got up and said that my life had changed. Not only was my pastor there, so were my husband and 18 members of my home church, too. Most were enroute to Mexico for a mission trip. My husband could see such a change in me that he wondered if I was okay to go home while he went to Mexico. I was. I had Jesus with me.

For several months afterwards, every time I closed my eyes, Jesus with his arms outstretched was imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I also experienced great joy and odd sensations, such as being able to taste music. I could suddenly "play by ear" instead of just reading music. It was as though the barrier between the left side and the right side of my brain was broken down and the two sides were integrated somehow. I went from being a very organized left-brained person to being a person who couldn't remember what day it was! Fortunately that didn't last for too long, and I feel a greater sense of wholeness now than was ever possible before. Another joy was that the scriptures were "opened" to me, so that what I read earlier as words became full of life and meaning. I truly love to read scripture now and feel God's presence in new ways each time.

As I said, it was a strange weekend. After a year of Spiritual Direction, I felt that I was to leave teaching and go into ordained ministry. God had indeed blessed me in many ways.

Jeanne Jones is pastor of Ash Creek and Willow Valley United Methodist Churches near Richland Center, Wisconsin. This story appeared in Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels and Holy Coincidences (CSS Publishing Company, 2003). Another of her stories appeared in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles, also from CSS Publishing Company.

Good Stories



Dreams of Heaven

by John Sumwalt

And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

Luke 12:15

I kept a journal for almost twenty years: a record of my thoughts and ideas, events in my life and in our family life, funny things the kids said and did when they were small. One whole shelf in our study at home is lined with these journals. And, like many of you, we also have a whole stack of photo albums and a large plastic bag full of photos which we have yet to put into albums. When I die it is going to take a large U-Haul just to carry all this stuff away. And when I get to the pearly gates, do you think St. Peter is going to ask to see my journals and my photo albums? St. Pete will say (looking down at a form on his desk):

St. Peter: Let's see, who have we got here? Sumwalt, John Eugene, social security number 390-58-1551. I see you were a preacher, you did a little storytelling and writing, two children, pretty good father and husband except for that one year when you were playing softball.

John: They needed me to pitch. We were in a tournament.

St. Peter: I see. Everything else seems to be in order. Let me see your bank statements.

John: You want to see my bank statements?

St. Peter: Well, yes, we want to know what you valued in life. Money represents power on Earth. We want to see how you used your power. Let's see here, Brewer tickets, Green Bay Packer sweatshirts. What's this about a cheesehead?

John: I was going to use that for a children's moment.

St. Peter: I see you have done a little traveling, Mr. Sumwalt. You and your wife went to the Middle East one year.

John: Yes, we went to the Holy Land; we walked where Jesus walked... great for spiritual renewal.

St. Peter: And tax-deductible, too, I see. You have had some pretty nice vacations, Mr. Sumwalt; Boston, New Jersey, New York, Nashville, Door County, Wisconsin Dells, House on the Rock, Mackinac Island, Mount Rushmore.

John: We wanted to do some things with the kids while they were still at home. You understand?

St. Peter: Oh yes, I understand. Now, let's see here, how much did you spend on God's work? Mmm-hmm... pretty good, better than most. Not bad for a preacher, actually, but it doesn't quite balance out, does it? All those Brewer tickets and vacations, that new car last year? I'm sorry, Mr. Sumwalt, you seem like a very nice guy and everything, but... Whoops, wait a minute. It says here that Jesus has made up the difference. Come on in, Mr. Sumwalt. You won't need those journals and photo albums, though. Your whole life is on video here. Just go to any computer terminal, type in your name, and press "SL" for slow learner.

Scrap Pile



Rich Toward God

by John Sumwalt

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

Luke 12:20-21

This parable is meant to be a warning to all of us who are tempted to make bigger barns the goal of our lives. Jesus says, "Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist of abundance of possessions."

If Jesus were telling this story today, he might follow it with the story about a wealthy man who died and took two very large and obviously very heavy suitcases of gold with him up to the pearly gates. When St. Peter informed him that he could not bring anything with him into heaven, the man pleaded with him to make an exception. "I don't think that's possible," St. Peter said, "but let's see what you've got." The man opened the suitcases. St. Peter took one look and exclaimed, "You want to bring pavement into heaven?" (Get it? Streets of gold...)

"You can't take it with you!" How many times have you heard that expression?

Ann Landers received a letter from a woman in Bismarck, North Dakota, who wrote about her Aunt Emma, a beautifully warm-hearted woman who was married to a tightwad (who was also a little strange). He made a good salary, but they lived frugally because he insisted on putting 20 percent of his paycheck under the mattress. (The man didn't trust banks.) The money, he said, was going to come in handy in their old age.

When Uncle Ollie was sixty, he was stricken with cancer. Toward the end, he made Aunt Em promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would put the money he had stashed away in his coffin so he could buy his way into heaven if he had to. They all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. Aunt Em did promise, however, and assured Uncle Ollie's brothers that she was a woman of her word and would do as he asked. The following morning she took the money (about $26,000) to the bank and deposited it. She then wrote a check and put it in her husband's casket four days later.



We all laugh at this man's foolishness, but if we are honest with ourselves we must admit that there is something in us that sympathizes with him. We might never consider anything so silly as having someone put money in our caskets, but we might spend $26,000 on a leak-proof coffin and a nice lot under a shady oak tree on a hill with a view of a lake. It amounts to the same thing.

We understand the rich man who said, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years... relax, eat, drink, and be merry." It just makes sense to work hard while you are young, to get yourself a nice piece of the rock, to invest well so you can be secure in your old age. Would Jesus deny us a comfortable, well-earned retirement?

Certainly not. But Jesus knows that real comfort, real long-term security cannot be earned, cannot be saved, cannot be stored in a bigger barn, cannot be bought at the mall or found in a condominium. He says, "...one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

This is a truism that we all know and affirm, even those of us who have an abundance of possessions -- and that includes most of us here. Have you seen the cars with the bumper sticker "The One Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins"?

Most of us Americans have more stuff, more clothes, more properties, more automobiles, trucks, SUVs, boats, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, jet skis, planes, hang-gliders, campers, RVs, scuba gear, motorcycles... (did I leave anything out?) ...more grown-up toys than we know what to do with. In fact, sometimes all of this stuff we own can become a burden. It takes time and energy to take care of it all. After a while, you begin to feel like your stuff owns you.

I have a little Homelite chainsaw, a John Deere lawn tractor, and a top-of-the-line Black & Decker weed whacker at our home in Richland County. These are the things I play with when we are on vacation. When they are all working I have a great time. But there have been some vacations when I have spent all of my money in the repair shop and all of my time in the garage trying to get them to work!

"Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." That which is most valuable in our lives is eternal. It cannot be bought or sold, worn, consumed, or taken for a joy ride. Ask someone whose house just burned down. Almost always you will hear "I'm just glad everyone got out alive. That's all that matters."

These kind of experiences put the "eat, drink, and be merry" times of our lives into perspective and prepare us for the life to come, where, as Jesus says, what matters is not the treasures we have stored up for ourselves on earth but being "rich toward God."

This is what the rich fool, the builder of barns in our story, did not have. He was rich. Business was good; he had had an exceptionally good year. But he was not rich toward God.

Oseola McCarty was rich toward God. Oseola McCarty was a retired washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who made the national news in 1995 when she donated all of her life savings to the University of Southern Mississippi (that's where Brett Favre played college football).

Oseola McCarty spent a lifetime making other people look nice. Day after day, for most of her 87 years, she took in bundles of dirty clothes and made them clean and neat for parties she never attended, weddings to which she was never invited, graduations she never saw.

She had quit school in the sixth grade to go to work, never married, never had children, and never learned to drive because there was never any place in particular she wanted to go. All she ever had was the work, which she saw as a blessing. Too many other black people in rural Mississippi did not have even that.

She spent almost nothing, living in her old family home, cutting the toes out of shoes if they did not fit right, and binding her ragged Bible with scotch tape to keep Corinthians from falling out. Over the decades, her pay -- mostly dollar bills and change -- grew to more than $150,000. "More than I could ever use," Miss McCarty said the other day without a trace of self-pity. So she is giving her money away, to finance scholarships for black students at the University of Southern Mississippi here in her hometown, where tuition is $2,400 a year.

(Click on http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/feature-writing/works/oseola.html to read the rest of this touching account of Oseola McCarty's remarkable story, which originally appeared in the New York Times on August 13, 1995. To learn more about Miss McCarty's amazing gift, see http://www.usm.edu/pr/oolamain.htm.)

When Oseola McCarty died last month, God did not say to her, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you." God said (although I don't know this for a fact, I believe God said), "Welcome home, Oseola! Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Oseola McCarty was rich toward God.

Excerpts from a sermon preached at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee on October 31, 1999.

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New Book

The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), will be released this month by CSS Publishing Company. Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Jodie Felton, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music.

Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt

Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences

Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles

Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making

Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C

Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A

Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B

Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B

You can order any of our books on the CSS website (http://www.csspub.com); they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)

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StoryShare, August 1, 2004, issue.

Copyright 2004 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.