Prepare The Way
Stories
Contents
What's Up This Week
Good Stories: "The Finding of Geoffrey Ward" by Sandra Herrmann
"Tradition" by Chuck Cammarata
"Prepare the Way" by Sil Galvan
"Never Too Late" by Pamela Tinnin
"I Thank my God Every Time I Remember You" by Stan Duncan
"Prepare the Way of the Lord" by Stan Duncan
"Really?" by David O. Bales
What's Up This Week
This week you will find many good stories for the Advent 2 lessons. Several prolific writers have supplied their version of stories for this week. Enjoy the season!
Good Stories
The Finding Of Geoffrey Ward
By Sandra Herrmann
Luke 1:68-79 and Malachi 3:1-4
Geoffrey Ward was old, a shell of a man, skin drooping, hair on end, bruises on the backs of his hands. He picked relentlessly at the bumps that formed wherever he still had hair on his face, and sometimes lapsed into dreamy moments of reverie, rocking silently back and forth.
He hated just sitting, but his legs would not support him well, and he tottered, so he sat. He, who had been quite the ladies' man, if he did say so himself, couldn't seem to keep his mind on the toothbrush, was unsure if he had brushed all of his teeth, or just the ones where the angle was easier on his arthritic hands. He sighed.
Gone were the days when he would slick his hair with Brylcreem, brush his pencil-thin mustache and adjust his fedora just so, winking at himself in the mirror, practicing for the chicks down at the Avalon. Gone the fashionably tailored suits, the white handkerchief in his breast pocket to offer to any girl who had need of it. He patted his pants pockets, but gone, too, were the Sen-Sens he always kept to be certain his breath was "kissably fresh."
Geoffrey sighed, rolled his wheelchair over to the long windows of the dayroom and watched as the wind sculpted the snow around the old white pines into waves, elegant and cold. He could see a chickadee in the scruff around the bottom of the trees, fluffed against the cold, feet and neck invisible.
The woman walked up behind him softly, but not so softly as to startle him. "It's nice to be inside, warm and dry, and watch the blizzard, isn't it?" She walked up to the glass, and he could see her reflection in it. Her long, lovely face was wrapped in a white veil with a blue stripe, and she wore a dress like he'd seen on women in India. A sari, they called it. Odd to see her dressed like that here.
"Are you from India?" he asked awkwardly. He hadn't spoken for far too long, and his throat was dry, his voice raspy. He coughed a little, heard it rattle in his chest, got a little moisture in his throat so he could try again. "I worked there a long time ago."
A long, long time ago. In his Peace Corp days, building outhouses and digging latrines, work the people thought was fit only for outcasts. Teaching mothers the importance of keeping their children from playing in the ditch water. He was appalled by the living conditions, by the oppressive heat, by the dead they found in the gutters, slain by the heat and humidity. But he was charmed by the people, their gracious smiles, the fire in their hearts, the laughter that rose at any small thing that amused. Even when they laughed at him, his accent, his willingness to do dirty work, he loved them.
But that was then. Now he was here, old and tired. Now others cared for him, and never asked for his help at all. That saddened him more than anything.
The young woman turned from the window. "No," she smiled, "I am not from India. But I am a member of the Sisters of Charity." At his blank stare she explained, "We started in India, the order that Mother Teresa founded. Have you heard of her?"
"Yes," he nodded. "A good woman. Saint. She gave her all for the poor." Like me, he thought, ruefully. He had never saved much, never owned much, and now was in this home on charity. He'd never thought to plan much, had hoped that God would return what he had given -- "pressed down and overflowing" as the scripture said. But here he sat, cared for but not about, unable to do much of anything.
"Yes, she did. And she inspired people like me to take up where she left off. That's why I serve here, and care for you."
"Serve me! You don't even know who I am, who I was. You know nothing about me, not even my name." He didn't mean to be bitter, but his sadness welled up, and tears pooled in his eyes.
She leaned over, put her hand on his. "But I do know you, sir. You are Jesus, in one of his disguises."
Tradition
By Chuck Cammarata
Philippians 1:3-11
A woman named Judith, whose husband Mike passed away last year just before Christmas, writes, "It is just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years. It all began because my husband Mike hated the commercialism of Christmas; the overspending -- the frantic running around -- the gifts given in desperation because you can't think of anything else. He just said, "All I want is for my boys and us to be together and to be Christian."
Knowing that he felt this way I decided one year not to buy him the usual. I reached for something special, just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, took up the sport of wrestling at school. In December there was a match against a team sponsored by an inner city church. The boys on the team were mostly black and came from poor families. These boys, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms.
As the match began I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear designed to protect the wrestlers' ears. It was a luxury the rag tag team could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. As each of the losing boys got up from the mat he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado; a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of those boys could have won. They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them."
When Christmas came that year the idea for his present came. I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner city church. On Christmas Eve I placed the envelope on the tree with a note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. He was thrilled with this gift like none other he had ever received.
In succeeding years I followed the tradition. One year I sent a group of mentally disabled youngsters to a football game. Another year it was a check to two elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground a few weeks before Christmas. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened Christmas morning and our boys, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as dad opened the envelope revealing the contents.
As the children grew the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. As you know, we lost Mike last year due to cancer. When Christmas rolled around I was still so wrapped in my grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree. It was my gift for Mike. I was sending, in his name, a group of underprivileged kids to church camp.
In the morning, as we all gathered around the tree in our pajamas, I was amazed to find three more envelopes stuck in the tree. Each of our sons, unknown to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree telling what they had done for others.
The family continues that tradition today.
Maybe it is one some of us should consider.
Prepare the Way
By Sil Galvan
In 663 a controversy erupted in the Church over the election of the Archbishop of York in England. St. Wilfrid, who had been appointed to the vacant position, went to France to be consecrated. But he stayed away so long that the king grew impatient and pushed through the election of another candidate as bishop of York instead. This person was duly consecrated by two British bishops, and began his work by visiting the faithful on foot, and serving the diocese in a cordial apostolic spirit. However, he had not been consecrated to his new duties by the Archbishop of Canterbury because this position was also vacant at the time. When Theodore, the newly consecrated archbishop, arrived at Canterbury, he announced that this appointee must give up the diocese to St. Wilfrid, who had now returned.
When he further suggested that the episcopal consecration had not been properly performed, the appointee replied, "If you decide that I have not rightly received the episcopal character, I willingly lay down the office; for I have never thought myself worthy of it, but under obedience, I, though unworthy, consented to undertake it." He was soon appointed to a lesser position, and continued to conduct himself with remarkable grace. The deep humility of the defeated Bishop made a profound impression on those who knew him, and after his death several years later, he was designated as a saint. Specifically, he became known as "the saint of gracious losers."
We would all do well to learn from this outstanding Christian, who showed that Christ-like witness bears greater fruit than self-serving gain. The good Bishop's name was none other than -- and I kid you not -- Saint Chad.
I think this story is a very appropriate lead in to today's scriptures that introduce us to John the Baptist, who is the epitome of self-effacing humility. As we will hear in next week's gospel passage, it is he who said "one who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." And in today's gospel, we heard the words from the prophet Isaiah which have come to be identified with John the Baptist and his role in history: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth."
I repeat these words because when Isaiah wrote them, there were actually engineer soldiers called "sappers" who would go ahead of a traveling king to smooth out the road for the monarch's chariot. Sappers leveled hills, filled in ditches and removed all obstacles in the king's way. So Isaiah knew what he was talking about when he wrote those words that are so often associated with John the Baptist and his mission. So who is John and where did he come from? Well, we're all familiar with the circumstances surrounding his birth from the first chapter of Luke's gospel. However, Luke makes no further reference to him until today's gospel passage. Although Luke does not give as many details about John's lifestyle as do some of the other evangelists, Luke does make enough observations to suggest that the Baptist had ties with the ascetical community of Qumran.
This is suggested by the fact that the locale designated "around the Jordan" is where this community was situated. In addition, John and his message are introduced with words from Isaiah that we just heard, a text that was very important to the Qumran community. The water ritual "baptism of repentance" mirrored aspects of the Qumran community's own ablution rites. And finally John's apparent conviction that God's judgment upon Israel was imminent -- except for those who would repent -- all suggest that the Baptist and Qumran had some connections.
But it is also clear at this point that John is on his own, undertaking his own ministry with its own unique agenda. John has received a special call, which Luke reinforces by using the traditional prophetic "call" formula: "the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah." What John is called to proclaim is a message of repentance. Both Luke and Mark identify John's rite as a baptism of "repentance" (from the Greek word metanoia, which means a "change of mind"). So what does this "repentance" or metanoia entail? I think an incident from the years when Americans were held hostage in Lebanon dramatically illustrates its meaning.
Perhaps the best known of the hostages was Terry Anderson, the Associated Press journalist. He was kidnapped in 1985 and imprisoned for 2,454 days, or almost seven years. At first, he was blindfolded most of the time and kept in chains. He was losing his capacity to think, so he asked for a Bible. Although he had been raised as a Catholic, he had not been practicing his faith for many years. But that Bible was like a gift from heaven. He started at the beginning with Genesis and read and read. He had lots of time to think about his life. He realized that he had made many mistakes along the way. He had hurt his first wife and daughter because of his arrogance. He wasn't sure that people liked him and he certainly didn't like himself very much.
Later, in the first year of his captivity, he became aware that there were other hostages living next door. One was a priest, Father Lawrence Jenco. Anderson asked the guards if he could see the priest. "I am a Catholic and want to make a confession," he said. His captors agreed and allowed Fr. Jenco to come to his room. Both men took off their blindfolds. It had been 25 years since he had made a confession. Fr. Jenco gently encouraged him. Anderson began telling the priest of his sins. There was much to confess: a bad marriage, chasing other women, drinking. It was a tremendously emotional experience. When he had finished, both men were in tears. Fr. Jenco then laid his right hand upon Anderson's head and proclaimed, "In the name of a gentle, loving God, your sins are forgiven you." This was a turning point in Terry Anderson's life. His faith deepened. He had begun the process of turning around, leaving the darkness of sin and facing the light. This is what repentance is like.
Terry Anderson experienced a metanoia in his life and was never the same again. But what does this metanoia mean for us? Just like the ancient "sappers" removed obstacles in the pathway of the king, I believe we are called to get rid of all obstacles in our lives that hinder us from welcoming the Lord Jesus into our hearts, as we heard in our opening prayer. John's message was "The king is coming. Mend, not your roads, but your lives." Thus, the duty is laid on everyone of us during this Advent season to make our lives fit for a King. Like the Baptist, and St. Chad, we are called to minister to and serve others. As Christ's disciples, I believe that we are called to do three things: first of all, we are called to a metanoia in which we strive to eliminate sin from our lives and to allow Jesus and his law of love to dwell in our hearts. Once that happens, we must proceed to see Jesus in the others with whom we interact on a daily basis and treat them accordingly. And lastly, by our actions, we allow others to see Jesus in us, a Jesus who believes in them and loves them.
I would like to conclude with a poem that I believe sums this up very well:
Do you know, do you understand that you represent Jesus to me?
Do you know, do you understand that when you treat me with gentleness, it raises the question in my mind that maybe Jesus is gentle, too?...
Do you know, do you understand that when you listen to my questions and you don't laugh I think, "Maybe Jesus is interested in me, too."
Do you know, do you understand that when I hear you talk about arguments and conflict and scars from your past that I think, "Maybe I am just a regular person instead of a bad, no-good person who deserves abuse?" If you care, I think perhaps Jesus cares -- and then there's this flame of hope that burns inside of me, and for a while, I am afraid to breathe because it might go out.
Do you know, do you understand that your words are his words?
Your face, his face to someone like me?
Please be who you say you are.
Please, God, don't let this be another trick.
Please let this be real.
Please.
Do you know, do you understand that you represent Jesus to me?
Never Too Late
By Pamela J. Tinnin
Matthew 3:1-12
When your years grow long, a thing of great mystery happens -- in your dreams and memories, every day becomes like yesterday. That is the way of it when I think back long ago, back to the time of the crazy one. People said he lived in a cave down by the Jordan, but we heard tell that he traveled all over that region. He talked like a prophet of old -- there were many who said he was possessed, that he was in the grip of a demon.
I was just a girl then -- a pretty one, too, even if it is me who says it. Ah... beauty comes and goes, but back then it seemed like I would be young forever. My sister Anna and I spent our days helping our mother, but we found enough time to go down to the well, to smile at the boys as they passed by, each of us waiting for that one who would come to our father to ask for us in marriage.
We knew husbands would not be easy to find. Our father was a fierce trader, known for driving a hard bargain. He was also wise and knew the Torah like a rabbi -- the men of the village would seek him out for conversation over a cup of wine -- debating this law or that one -- long into the night.
I remember the morning that it all began, Anna and I beating the rugs out against the east wall, the morning sun warm on our backs. Our mother was inside gathering up the laundry. I looked up the street, shading my eyes against the sun. Papa was coming. He had been to the rabbi's house to talk about the crazy one, the one they called John the Baptizer. I watched my papa make his way down the street. He carried his walking stick and his face looked troubled. When Anwar, the sandalmaker, called out to him, he didn't even look up. He walked past us without saying anything and went inside. We could hear his voice, my mother's soft answer, but we could not make out the words.
My mother came out and told us to bring the rugs inside, that we were going on a journey. The rabbi had chosen my father to go to the camp of the Baptizer. The rabbi had dreamed that this son of Zechariah and Elizabeth would bring word of the messiah -- that somehow, crazy or not, God would speak through him. Of course, the rabbi could not go -- the elders would think he had lost his own mind. But he trusted my father to see the truth -- or the lie of it. And Papa wanted us to see for ourselves.
It would be a day and a half walking so we packed up bread and dried fish, the last of the dates, and a few figs. My father took two skins and filled them with water, and slung them over his shoulder. We carried blankets and wore our winter cloaks. The days had grown colder, and we could hear the wind crying in the leaves.
We walked all that day, stopping only when the sun was at its highest for a bite to eat. My feet grew sore as we set out again, but Papa would not let us stop, not until it was almost dark. Just at dusk we saw the flames of a fire against a small hill -- my father stopped us and called out, his hand on the handle of the knife he had hidden in his belt, "I am Martin, merchant from the village of Mizrah, with my wife and daughters."
A voice came back from beyond the fire. "I am Simeon, son of old Simeon. My brother Asher travels with me, going home to Naphtal. You are welcome to share our camp." We were glad for the company and opened our bags and spread our food on a kidskin. The two strangers -- not much more than boys -- offered dried olives, bitter and salty, and some cakes that had grown hard and a little musty, but still tasted of spice.
As we ate, we listened to the brothers speak of how they had taken a flock of sheep to sell in Jerusalem, and of the wonders of the city. They told of the market where a poor man could buy a ragged dove for sacrificing, or a rich man a slave to do his bidding. They said beggars and magicians and acrobats crowded around, yelling for attention; that there was a man who swallowed flames and another who could pull gold coins from your hair. Anna and I laughed at the thought of it.
The hour grew late and we went off to our beds. I remember looking up at the stars and wondering how such things could be. The last thing I heard was the sizzle of burning pitch, and my mother's high, sweet voice singing an old song.
We women slept until the sun woke us. We were not far from the Jordan. Simeon told us that he and Asher would go with us -- they wanted to see what went on when the Baptizer preached.
The land was nothing but sand and dry grass, rocky hills with a few withered trees. Ahead we could see the dusty green of the bushes along the river. As we made our way down to the shore, I remember we could hear something in the distance. At first, I thought it was nothing but the hum of locusts, but when we got closer, I could tell it was the voice of a man, and the sound of people singing and chanting.
When we got nearer, we saw many gathered there. There were tents and little huts; you could smell the smoke of the cooking fires. Some people went on about their work, women cooking, men gathering up thin sticks of wood, children running and playing. Hundreds stood near the edge of the river, some up to their ankles in the brown water. Some on the shore danced; others fell to their knees offering prayers to the heavens; but mostly people watched the man who stood farther out, the waves rippling around his middle, his hands raised to the sky. He was not old, but as withered as the trees, thin and browned by the sun, his hair a tangled mass around his face.
"Repent in the name of the Lord" he cried, over and over. "Make your ways straight." I saw a boy younger than me step into the water and stumble toward him. The Baptizer spoke words we could not hear, and then pushed the boy backwards into the water, calling out the words of a prayer. First one, and then another came, rushing out of the muddy swirl, choking and gasping, but praising God and crying out their thanks.
He turned our direction, and I could hear his raspy whisper above all the other voices. "Do not wait," he said, "Now is the time to choose, to prepare yourself. I baptize you with water, but there is one who will come after me who will baptize you with fire." Then he raised his finger, pointed, and spoke again. "But do not choose lightly -- for if you choose to follow him, you must change your life." Perhaps it was just the sun shining off the water, but when he looked up, there was such light in his face. I knew then he spoke the truth, that the one he proclaimed was the Messiah.
I wish I had listened that day. I wish I had stepped into the water and felt his heavy hands on my head, pushing me under. I wish I had spread my blankets there on the banks of the Jordan and waited for the one who was to come.
But in that moment when I moved toward the water, my papa's voice rang out, echoing all along the river, just one word, over and over, "Blasphemy... blasphemy..." We left then, and the brothers with us. We walked away from the river, across the wilderness, and back to our lives. Anna and I did not know it yet, but we had found our husbands. Not long after, on a Sabbath afternoon, Simeon and Asher came with their father and an agreement was made. Before my next birthday my sister and I were brides. We went to live in Naphtal, neighbors and a comfort to each other all our days.
Through all the years, we lived by the rules, followed the rabbis; we paid our tithes, made sacrifices on the holy days. We did well -- look around you. But some nights when I cannot sleep I feel an ache -- an emptiness that nothing seems to fill; a feeling that all this wealth and comfort stands for nothing. Certainly it did not protect us -- the plague that took our parents; Anna, a widow most of her days; me with three babies dead before one lived, and of the two who survived, the youngest gone to fight with the rebels and lost to me as surely as if he, too, were dead.
John the Baptist told of a different way to live, a way of living for others, a way where death would not matter. He said that the one who came after him would teach us. But I was afraid. One time I heard the man Jesus was preaching in the next village -- I stayed home and kept the shutters locked. No use asking for trouble.
Oh... I haven't been a bad person -- I give alms to the beggars who pull at my cloak; I have never been cruel. But each of us knows in our hearts what kind of life we have lived... me most of all, an old woman whose years are as worn down as a candle on its last burning.
There are some who say Jesus will come again. That it could be any day, this very night. There are some who say we will find him if we keep looking. That there is nothing beyond his forgiving. But I cannot put that day out of my mind -- the air filled with a hundred voices singing and praying, a man waist deep in dirty water, telling me to choose. I remember wanting to speak, to step into the river -- and all I did was walk away -- just walk away.
Do you ever wish you could turn back the years? That you could do it all over? Do you ever wish you could go back and find the courage to change things? But we cannot begin again... can we? Can we?
(from Bit Players In The Big Play, by Pamela Tinnin, CSS Publishing Co., Inc. [Lima, Ohio: 2004], pp. 53-57)
I thank my God Every Time I Remember You
By Stan Duncan
Philippians 1:3
When my mother grew old, and crippled up and eventually blind, I worried about her. She lived hundreds of miles away and I seldom got a chance to see her. We moved her into an assisted living center, so her basic needs were taken care of, but we knew she was terribly lonely. With her husband -- my step-father -- gone she had no one to share her stories or life with. And with her difficulty in walking and seeing, she didn't get out into the rest of the center as much as she should and met few people.
One time when I called her she wasn't there and I was surprised to hear the long, rambling phone message recorded by my step-dad years earlier still on her machine. He was an entertainer, a musician, and greeted the caller with great drama and vitality. It was funny and a bit bitter sweet to have him come back to life again for a moment.
Later when I did manage to catch my mom I asked her about it. Why, I said, did she still have his voice on the machine, when he had been gone now for about seven years. She thought for a moment then said, "I guess I just never could bring myself to do it. I guess it was just a little bit of keeping him around a while longer." She went on to say that sometimes in the darkness that continued to surround her, she would press the button on the phone machine and listen to the ten to twenty seconds of the recording of his voice and remember him all over again. How wonderful a husband he was and how much she loved him. The memories kept her alive. She thanked God for his love and for his memories. Every time she heard my step-dad's recording, he would be back home again for a few beautiful moments. "I think it kept me alive," she said. "When I heard his voice I wasn't lonely."
Prepare the way of the Lord
By Stan Duncan
Luke 3:1-6
There used to be an old guy named Benson McLean, out in Oklahoma years ago, down by Heavener in the Kiamichi Mountains, who made it his life's work to finally connect the two towns of Gilmore and Monroe. They were only about five miles apart as the crow flies, but to get from one to the other you had to either hike over Sugarloaf Mountain (and none of us were hikers back in those days), or drive north for five miles, west for ten miles, then south for about twenty miles and then east for another fifteen miles. It was a godawful tack, so nobody ever did it.
Everybody complained about it, but there wasn't much that anyone could do. The state never saw any need to link together these two small towns out in the woods. So, when he finally retired from the Kansas City Southern Railroad, Ben set out to finally build a road down there that would connect them up. He started doing this when he was 65, so there wasn't anybody alive who thought he could have finished it, including Ben himself. But that wasn't important. What was important was that those two towns needed a road and he had the time to work on it, so he was just going to do it. So, little by little he'd take down a tree or haul off a boulder, and slowly something that roughly, sort of, kind of, looked like a road began to emerge.
After a while Ben's health began to fail and he started slowing down. That's when Henry Wickerson, the lay pastor of the little Methodist church out by Hodgens said, well, if Ben would try to do it, so would he. So the two of them worked on it together. Henry had a flat bed truck, so they used it to fill up and haul out brush and rock and that helped make the road start to look level. Together they shaved off the tops of the hills and filled in the low spots to lift up the land and make it smooth. Then they'd pour in some gravel behind them, so that as far into the woods as they were working, they could always get in and out on a straight path.
But, still, the work was just too much for them. Nobody thought they could finish it. They were just two old men who wanted to bring people together. It was a silly dream that could never really come to pass.
At the end of that year Ben's son, who had just gotten a divorce and needed a place to stay, moved home and Ben put him to work out there on the road with them. About that time the Men's group at the church started organizing work parties on Saturdays. Then the Baptists, not to be out done, had a fundraiser to help defray the costs. Then the ladies would show up with hot meals for the crews.
All tolled, over the next five years close to a hundred people pitched in, in one way or another. After a while Ben got to where he could no longer work on the road himself, but he loved to drive out there on the gravel that he himself had poured and sit in his car and watch these teams of people working away on his project. It became something that was still impossible, that no one believed in, but that everyone wanted to take their turn working on.
And one day, one guy, leaning, sweating, on the end of his shovel, looked out through the woods ahead of them and said, "Hey boys, look there." They all stopped and squinted through the trees. "Ain't that Monroe over there? I think we done it."
Really?
By David O. Bales
Luke 3:1-6
Whoever heard of a Christmas costume party? No matter. Derek grabbed any excuse for a party and entered fully into the spirit. Costume party for Christmas? Sure, and Derek had a reserve, all-purpose costume he'd been wanting to wear. He'd go as Satan: Shiny red suit, pointed ears, sharp tail, pitchfork in hand.
A costume wasn't a problem for the party. Directions were a problem and the storm. Derek thought for sure he'd understood that the party was about twelve miles in the country on Old Bakery Road, third right after the burned house whose lonely chimney was black for any season.
Party was at eight and he'd now backtracked half a dozen times, always returning to the burned house to try a different direction or to take a different numbered road away from that house. More and more rain. Thunder and lightning now and no sight of the orange silo Ted said marked the party's location.
Derek kept his wipers on high, but still he missed a corner and slid irreversibly into the ditch. He roared the engine in reverse, then forward, reverse again. Mud sprayed around the car. Blue smoke wafted away in the wind. Finally he gave up, stepped out, and leaned despairingly upon his pitchfork in the downpour.
Two things happened at once: He became completely drenched and he heard Christmas carols. He looked up and saw lights of a small country church perched in the middle of a huge field on a hill. Derek lit out across the pasture, dragging his pitchfork and his no-longer-starchy tail.
He was freezing cold, muddy to the knees, and exhausted when he'd finally trekked the 100 yards upwind and uphill. As he opened the door into the small sanctuary, a gigantic lightning bolt struck the tree next to the church and the thunder was so immediate that together they knocked him through the door.
The small congregation turned to see the door fling open and to be struck by the thunder's shock. Plus, they saw Satan stumbling toward them with glazed eyes, saying nothing. Some people rushed out through the chancel's front door. Others, seeing the bottleneck there, leaped from windows. Still, Satan staggered numbly forward.
Only one small, old lady remained at the center on the chancel's first step. She watched with wide eyes as the embodiment of evil tottered toward her. When he approached within three paces, she held up her shaky hand to halt him and said in a quavering voice, "Now wait a minute Mr. Satan. I want you to know I've been a member of this church for 46 years. But really, I've been on your side all along."
* * *
The crowds amass, surging forward toward Christmas, Jesus' big birthday party. They've been preparing for months, Xing off days on the calendar. They await Jesus' birth with the orchestra in the background lightly offering "I'll Be Home for Christmas." They hear bells jingling on a sleigh at dusk as it glides across the countryside to a house with a welcoming wreath on the door.
They arrive at a church building that awaits them with familiar sights, smells, and songs. With a lighthearted banter they move forward like the tide toward Bethlehem's party. Some come with light hearts. They could as well be singing, "We're Off to See the Wizard." They trek to the church through rain and sleet (as long as there's not a good football game on television). They come ready to see children in bathrobes recite ancient words of a story that doesn't really have much to do with modern life. But it's a party -- on to the party. And they'll throw in a smidgen of charity for the less fortunate while they're at it.
Some shuffle along with the mass aiming merely to survive the party. Come on. Let's get this over with so we can return to a quieter life with only a few more debts from our Christmas over-spending.
As the crowd presses forward to Christmas, Jesus' wild, desert cousin steps onto the parade route; he spreads his feet, squares his shoulders, and yells, "Prepare yourselves for God."
They're embarrassed. Who planned this party? This isn't what they're coming for. Some try to edge around him to the right. John scurries in front of them and speaks the same, relentless announcement. His entire demeanor is inappropriate to the event. But he won't let anyone pass through Advent to Christmas until they deal with his message, which is always slightly different and always basically the same, "Who are you really under that costume, and whose side are you on, really?"
Some shuffle along with the mass aiming merely to survive the party. Come on. Let's get this over with so we can return to a quieter life with only a few more debts from our Christmas over-spending.
As the crowd presses forward to Christmas, Jesus' wild, desert cousin steps onto the parade route. He spreads his feet, squares his shoulders, and yells, "Prepare yourselves for God."
They're embarrassed. Who planned this party? This isn't what they're coming for. Some try to edge around him to the right. John scurries in front of them and speaks the same, relentless announcement. His entire demeanor is inappropriate to the event. But he won't let anyone pass through Advent to Christmas until they deal with his message, which is always slightly different and always basically the same, "Who are you really under that costume, and whose side are you on, really?"
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How to Share Stories
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StoryShare, December 10, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
Good Stories: "The Finding of Geoffrey Ward" by Sandra Herrmann
"Tradition" by Chuck Cammarata
"Prepare the Way" by Sil Galvan
"Never Too Late" by Pamela Tinnin
"I Thank my God Every Time I Remember You" by Stan Duncan
"Prepare the Way of the Lord" by Stan Duncan
"Really?" by David O. Bales
What's Up This Week
This week you will find many good stories for the Advent 2 lessons. Several prolific writers have supplied their version of stories for this week. Enjoy the season!
Good Stories
The Finding Of Geoffrey Ward
By Sandra Herrmann
Luke 1:68-79 and Malachi 3:1-4
Geoffrey Ward was old, a shell of a man, skin drooping, hair on end, bruises on the backs of his hands. He picked relentlessly at the bumps that formed wherever he still had hair on his face, and sometimes lapsed into dreamy moments of reverie, rocking silently back and forth.
He hated just sitting, but his legs would not support him well, and he tottered, so he sat. He, who had been quite the ladies' man, if he did say so himself, couldn't seem to keep his mind on the toothbrush, was unsure if he had brushed all of his teeth, or just the ones where the angle was easier on his arthritic hands. He sighed.
Gone were the days when he would slick his hair with Brylcreem, brush his pencil-thin mustache and adjust his fedora just so, winking at himself in the mirror, practicing for the chicks down at the Avalon. Gone the fashionably tailored suits, the white handkerchief in his breast pocket to offer to any girl who had need of it. He patted his pants pockets, but gone, too, were the Sen-Sens he always kept to be certain his breath was "kissably fresh."
Geoffrey sighed, rolled his wheelchair over to the long windows of the dayroom and watched as the wind sculpted the snow around the old white pines into waves, elegant and cold. He could see a chickadee in the scruff around the bottom of the trees, fluffed against the cold, feet and neck invisible.
The woman walked up behind him softly, but not so softly as to startle him. "It's nice to be inside, warm and dry, and watch the blizzard, isn't it?" She walked up to the glass, and he could see her reflection in it. Her long, lovely face was wrapped in a white veil with a blue stripe, and she wore a dress like he'd seen on women in India. A sari, they called it. Odd to see her dressed like that here.
"Are you from India?" he asked awkwardly. He hadn't spoken for far too long, and his throat was dry, his voice raspy. He coughed a little, heard it rattle in his chest, got a little moisture in his throat so he could try again. "I worked there a long time ago."
A long, long time ago. In his Peace Corp days, building outhouses and digging latrines, work the people thought was fit only for outcasts. Teaching mothers the importance of keeping their children from playing in the ditch water. He was appalled by the living conditions, by the oppressive heat, by the dead they found in the gutters, slain by the heat and humidity. But he was charmed by the people, their gracious smiles, the fire in their hearts, the laughter that rose at any small thing that amused. Even when they laughed at him, his accent, his willingness to do dirty work, he loved them.
But that was then. Now he was here, old and tired. Now others cared for him, and never asked for his help at all. That saddened him more than anything.
The young woman turned from the window. "No," she smiled, "I am not from India. But I am a member of the Sisters of Charity." At his blank stare she explained, "We started in India, the order that Mother Teresa founded. Have you heard of her?"
"Yes," he nodded. "A good woman. Saint. She gave her all for the poor." Like me, he thought, ruefully. He had never saved much, never owned much, and now was in this home on charity. He'd never thought to plan much, had hoped that God would return what he had given -- "pressed down and overflowing" as the scripture said. But here he sat, cared for but not about, unable to do much of anything.
"Yes, she did. And she inspired people like me to take up where she left off. That's why I serve here, and care for you."
"Serve me! You don't even know who I am, who I was. You know nothing about me, not even my name." He didn't mean to be bitter, but his sadness welled up, and tears pooled in his eyes.
She leaned over, put her hand on his. "But I do know you, sir. You are Jesus, in one of his disguises."
Tradition
By Chuck Cammarata
Philippians 1:3-11
A woman named Judith, whose husband Mike passed away last year just before Christmas, writes, "It is just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years. It all began because my husband Mike hated the commercialism of Christmas; the overspending -- the frantic running around -- the gifts given in desperation because you can't think of anything else. He just said, "All I want is for my boys and us to be together and to be Christian."
Knowing that he felt this way I decided one year not to buy him the usual. I reached for something special, just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, took up the sport of wrestling at school. In December there was a match against a team sponsored by an inner city church. The boys on the team were mostly black and came from poor families. These boys, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms.
As the match began I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear designed to protect the wrestlers' ears. It was a luxury the rag tag team could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. As each of the losing boys got up from the mat he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado; a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of those boys could have won. They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them."
When Christmas came that year the idea for his present came. I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner city church. On Christmas Eve I placed the envelope on the tree with a note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. He was thrilled with this gift like none other he had ever received.
In succeeding years I followed the tradition. One year I sent a group of mentally disabled youngsters to a football game. Another year it was a check to two elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground a few weeks before Christmas. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened Christmas morning and our boys, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as dad opened the envelope revealing the contents.
As the children grew the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. As you know, we lost Mike last year due to cancer. When Christmas rolled around I was still so wrapped in my grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree. It was my gift for Mike. I was sending, in his name, a group of underprivileged kids to church camp.
In the morning, as we all gathered around the tree in our pajamas, I was amazed to find three more envelopes stuck in the tree. Each of our sons, unknown to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree telling what they had done for others.
The family continues that tradition today.
Maybe it is one some of us should consider.
Prepare the Way
By Sil Galvan
In 663 a controversy erupted in the Church over the election of the Archbishop of York in England. St. Wilfrid, who had been appointed to the vacant position, went to France to be consecrated. But he stayed away so long that the king grew impatient and pushed through the election of another candidate as bishop of York instead. This person was duly consecrated by two British bishops, and began his work by visiting the faithful on foot, and serving the diocese in a cordial apostolic spirit. However, he had not been consecrated to his new duties by the Archbishop of Canterbury because this position was also vacant at the time. When Theodore, the newly consecrated archbishop, arrived at Canterbury, he announced that this appointee must give up the diocese to St. Wilfrid, who had now returned.
When he further suggested that the episcopal consecration had not been properly performed, the appointee replied, "If you decide that I have not rightly received the episcopal character, I willingly lay down the office; for I have never thought myself worthy of it, but under obedience, I, though unworthy, consented to undertake it." He was soon appointed to a lesser position, and continued to conduct himself with remarkable grace. The deep humility of the defeated Bishop made a profound impression on those who knew him, and after his death several years later, he was designated as a saint. Specifically, he became known as "the saint of gracious losers."
We would all do well to learn from this outstanding Christian, who showed that Christ-like witness bears greater fruit than self-serving gain. The good Bishop's name was none other than -- and I kid you not -- Saint Chad.
I think this story is a very appropriate lead in to today's scriptures that introduce us to John the Baptist, who is the epitome of self-effacing humility. As we will hear in next week's gospel passage, it is he who said "one who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." And in today's gospel, we heard the words from the prophet Isaiah which have come to be identified with John the Baptist and his role in history: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth."
I repeat these words because when Isaiah wrote them, there were actually engineer soldiers called "sappers" who would go ahead of a traveling king to smooth out the road for the monarch's chariot. Sappers leveled hills, filled in ditches and removed all obstacles in the king's way. So Isaiah knew what he was talking about when he wrote those words that are so often associated with John the Baptist and his mission. So who is John and where did he come from? Well, we're all familiar with the circumstances surrounding his birth from the first chapter of Luke's gospel. However, Luke makes no further reference to him until today's gospel passage. Although Luke does not give as many details about John's lifestyle as do some of the other evangelists, Luke does make enough observations to suggest that the Baptist had ties with the ascetical community of Qumran.
This is suggested by the fact that the locale designated "around the Jordan" is where this community was situated. In addition, John and his message are introduced with words from Isaiah that we just heard, a text that was very important to the Qumran community. The water ritual "baptism of repentance" mirrored aspects of the Qumran community's own ablution rites. And finally John's apparent conviction that God's judgment upon Israel was imminent -- except for those who would repent -- all suggest that the Baptist and Qumran had some connections.
But it is also clear at this point that John is on his own, undertaking his own ministry with its own unique agenda. John has received a special call, which Luke reinforces by using the traditional prophetic "call" formula: "the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah." What John is called to proclaim is a message of repentance. Both Luke and Mark identify John's rite as a baptism of "repentance" (from the Greek word metanoia, which means a "change of mind"). So what does this "repentance" or metanoia entail? I think an incident from the years when Americans were held hostage in Lebanon dramatically illustrates its meaning.
Perhaps the best known of the hostages was Terry Anderson, the Associated Press journalist. He was kidnapped in 1985 and imprisoned for 2,454 days, or almost seven years. At first, he was blindfolded most of the time and kept in chains. He was losing his capacity to think, so he asked for a Bible. Although he had been raised as a Catholic, he had not been practicing his faith for many years. But that Bible was like a gift from heaven. He started at the beginning with Genesis and read and read. He had lots of time to think about his life. He realized that he had made many mistakes along the way. He had hurt his first wife and daughter because of his arrogance. He wasn't sure that people liked him and he certainly didn't like himself very much.
Later, in the first year of his captivity, he became aware that there were other hostages living next door. One was a priest, Father Lawrence Jenco. Anderson asked the guards if he could see the priest. "I am a Catholic and want to make a confession," he said. His captors agreed and allowed Fr. Jenco to come to his room. Both men took off their blindfolds. It had been 25 years since he had made a confession. Fr. Jenco gently encouraged him. Anderson began telling the priest of his sins. There was much to confess: a bad marriage, chasing other women, drinking. It was a tremendously emotional experience. When he had finished, both men were in tears. Fr. Jenco then laid his right hand upon Anderson's head and proclaimed, "In the name of a gentle, loving God, your sins are forgiven you." This was a turning point in Terry Anderson's life. His faith deepened. He had begun the process of turning around, leaving the darkness of sin and facing the light. This is what repentance is like.
Terry Anderson experienced a metanoia in his life and was never the same again. But what does this metanoia mean for us? Just like the ancient "sappers" removed obstacles in the pathway of the king, I believe we are called to get rid of all obstacles in our lives that hinder us from welcoming the Lord Jesus into our hearts, as we heard in our opening prayer. John's message was "The king is coming. Mend, not your roads, but your lives." Thus, the duty is laid on everyone of us during this Advent season to make our lives fit for a King. Like the Baptist, and St. Chad, we are called to minister to and serve others. As Christ's disciples, I believe that we are called to do three things: first of all, we are called to a metanoia in which we strive to eliminate sin from our lives and to allow Jesus and his law of love to dwell in our hearts. Once that happens, we must proceed to see Jesus in the others with whom we interact on a daily basis and treat them accordingly. And lastly, by our actions, we allow others to see Jesus in us, a Jesus who believes in them and loves them.
I would like to conclude with a poem that I believe sums this up very well:
Do you know, do you understand that you represent Jesus to me?
Do you know, do you understand that when you treat me with gentleness, it raises the question in my mind that maybe Jesus is gentle, too?...
Do you know, do you understand that when you listen to my questions and you don't laugh I think, "Maybe Jesus is interested in me, too."
Do you know, do you understand that when I hear you talk about arguments and conflict and scars from your past that I think, "Maybe I am just a regular person instead of a bad, no-good person who deserves abuse?" If you care, I think perhaps Jesus cares -- and then there's this flame of hope that burns inside of me, and for a while, I am afraid to breathe because it might go out.
Do you know, do you understand that your words are his words?
Your face, his face to someone like me?
Please be who you say you are.
Please, God, don't let this be another trick.
Please let this be real.
Please.
Do you know, do you understand that you represent Jesus to me?
Never Too Late
By Pamela J. Tinnin
Matthew 3:1-12
When your years grow long, a thing of great mystery happens -- in your dreams and memories, every day becomes like yesterday. That is the way of it when I think back long ago, back to the time of the crazy one. People said he lived in a cave down by the Jordan, but we heard tell that he traveled all over that region. He talked like a prophet of old -- there were many who said he was possessed, that he was in the grip of a demon.
I was just a girl then -- a pretty one, too, even if it is me who says it. Ah... beauty comes and goes, but back then it seemed like I would be young forever. My sister Anna and I spent our days helping our mother, but we found enough time to go down to the well, to smile at the boys as they passed by, each of us waiting for that one who would come to our father to ask for us in marriage.
We knew husbands would not be easy to find. Our father was a fierce trader, known for driving a hard bargain. He was also wise and knew the Torah like a rabbi -- the men of the village would seek him out for conversation over a cup of wine -- debating this law or that one -- long into the night.
I remember the morning that it all began, Anna and I beating the rugs out against the east wall, the morning sun warm on our backs. Our mother was inside gathering up the laundry. I looked up the street, shading my eyes against the sun. Papa was coming. He had been to the rabbi's house to talk about the crazy one, the one they called John the Baptizer. I watched my papa make his way down the street. He carried his walking stick and his face looked troubled. When Anwar, the sandalmaker, called out to him, he didn't even look up. He walked past us without saying anything and went inside. We could hear his voice, my mother's soft answer, but we could not make out the words.
My mother came out and told us to bring the rugs inside, that we were going on a journey. The rabbi had chosen my father to go to the camp of the Baptizer. The rabbi had dreamed that this son of Zechariah and Elizabeth would bring word of the messiah -- that somehow, crazy or not, God would speak through him. Of course, the rabbi could not go -- the elders would think he had lost his own mind. But he trusted my father to see the truth -- or the lie of it. And Papa wanted us to see for ourselves.
It would be a day and a half walking so we packed up bread and dried fish, the last of the dates, and a few figs. My father took two skins and filled them with water, and slung them over his shoulder. We carried blankets and wore our winter cloaks. The days had grown colder, and we could hear the wind crying in the leaves.
We walked all that day, stopping only when the sun was at its highest for a bite to eat. My feet grew sore as we set out again, but Papa would not let us stop, not until it was almost dark. Just at dusk we saw the flames of a fire against a small hill -- my father stopped us and called out, his hand on the handle of the knife he had hidden in his belt, "I am Martin, merchant from the village of Mizrah, with my wife and daughters."
A voice came back from beyond the fire. "I am Simeon, son of old Simeon. My brother Asher travels with me, going home to Naphtal. You are welcome to share our camp." We were glad for the company and opened our bags and spread our food on a kidskin. The two strangers -- not much more than boys -- offered dried olives, bitter and salty, and some cakes that had grown hard and a little musty, but still tasted of spice.
As we ate, we listened to the brothers speak of how they had taken a flock of sheep to sell in Jerusalem, and of the wonders of the city. They told of the market where a poor man could buy a ragged dove for sacrificing, or a rich man a slave to do his bidding. They said beggars and magicians and acrobats crowded around, yelling for attention; that there was a man who swallowed flames and another who could pull gold coins from your hair. Anna and I laughed at the thought of it.
The hour grew late and we went off to our beds. I remember looking up at the stars and wondering how such things could be. The last thing I heard was the sizzle of burning pitch, and my mother's high, sweet voice singing an old song.
We women slept until the sun woke us. We were not far from the Jordan. Simeon told us that he and Asher would go with us -- they wanted to see what went on when the Baptizer preached.
The land was nothing but sand and dry grass, rocky hills with a few withered trees. Ahead we could see the dusty green of the bushes along the river. As we made our way down to the shore, I remember we could hear something in the distance. At first, I thought it was nothing but the hum of locusts, but when we got closer, I could tell it was the voice of a man, and the sound of people singing and chanting.
When we got nearer, we saw many gathered there. There were tents and little huts; you could smell the smoke of the cooking fires. Some people went on about their work, women cooking, men gathering up thin sticks of wood, children running and playing. Hundreds stood near the edge of the river, some up to their ankles in the brown water. Some on the shore danced; others fell to their knees offering prayers to the heavens; but mostly people watched the man who stood farther out, the waves rippling around his middle, his hands raised to the sky. He was not old, but as withered as the trees, thin and browned by the sun, his hair a tangled mass around his face.
"Repent in the name of the Lord" he cried, over and over. "Make your ways straight." I saw a boy younger than me step into the water and stumble toward him. The Baptizer spoke words we could not hear, and then pushed the boy backwards into the water, calling out the words of a prayer. First one, and then another came, rushing out of the muddy swirl, choking and gasping, but praising God and crying out their thanks.
He turned our direction, and I could hear his raspy whisper above all the other voices. "Do not wait," he said, "Now is the time to choose, to prepare yourself. I baptize you with water, but there is one who will come after me who will baptize you with fire." Then he raised his finger, pointed, and spoke again. "But do not choose lightly -- for if you choose to follow him, you must change your life." Perhaps it was just the sun shining off the water, but when he looked up, there was such light in his face. I knew then he spoke the truth, that the one he proclaimed was the Messiah.
I wish I had listened that day. I wish I had stepped into the water and felt his heavy hands on my head, pushing me under. I wish I had spread my blankets there on the banks of the Jordan and waited for the one who was to come.
But in that moment when I moved toward the water, my papa's voice rang out, echoing all along the river, just one word, over and over, "Blasphemy... blasphemy..." We left then, and the brothers with us. We walked away from the river, across the wilderness, and back to our lives. Anna and I did not know it yet, but we had found our husbands. Not long after, on a Sabbath afternoon, Simeon and Asher came with their father and an agreement was made. Before my next birthday my sister and I were brides. We went to live in Naphtal, neighbors and a comfort to each other all our days.
Through all the years, we lived by the rules, followed the rabbis; we paid our tithes, made sacrifices on the holy days. We did well -- look around you. But some nights when I cannot sleep I feel an ache -- an emptiness that nothing seems to fill; a feeling that all this wealth and comfort stands for nothing. Certainly it did not protect us -- the plague that took our parents; Anna, a widow most of her days; me with three babies dead before one lived, and of the two who survived, the youngest gone to fight with the rebels and lost to me as surely as if he, too, were dead.
John the Baptist told of a different way to live, a way of living for others, a way where death would not matter. He said that the one who came after him would teach us. But I was afraid. One time I heard the man Jesus was preaching in the next village -- I stayed home and kept the shutters locked. No use asking for trouble.
Oh... I haven't been a bad person -- I give alms to the beggars who pull at my cloak; I have never been cruel. But each of us knows in our hearts what kind of life we have lived... me most of all, an old woman whose years are as worn down as a candle on its last burning.
There are some who say Jesus will come again. That it could be any day, this very night. There are some who say we will find him if we keep looking. That there is nothing beyond his forgiving. But I cannot put that day out of my mind -- the air filled with a hundred voices singing and praying, a man waist deep in dirty water, telling me to choose. I remember wanting to speak, to step into the river -- and all I did was walk away -- just walk away.
Do you ever wish you could turn back the years? That you could do it all over? Do you ever wish you could go back and find the courage to change things? But we cannot begin again... can we? Can we?
(from Bit Players In The Big Play, by Pamela Tinnin, CSS Publishing Co., Inc. [Lima, Ohio: 2004], pp. 53-57)
I thank my God Every Time I Remember You
By Stan Duncan
Philippians 1:3
When my mother grew old, and crippled up and eventually blind, I worried about her. She lived hundreds of miles away and I seldom got a chance to see her. We moved her into an assisted living center, so her basic needs were taken care of, but we knew she was terribly lonely. With her husband -- my step-father -- gone she had no one to share her stories or life with. And with her difficulty in walking and seeing, she didn't get out into the rest of the center as much as she should and met few people.
One time when I called her she wasn't there and I was surprised to hear the long, rambling phone message recorded by my step-dad years earlier still on her machine. He was an entertainer, a musician, and greeted the caller with great drama and vitality. It was funny and a bit bitter sweet to have him come back to life again for a moment.
Later when I did manage to catch my mom I asked her about it. Why, I said, did she still have his voice on the machine, when he had been gone now for about seven years. She thought for a moment then said, "I guess I just never could bring myself to do it. I guess it was just a little bit of keeping him around a while longer." She went on to say that sometimes in the darkness that continued to surround her, she would press the button on the phone machine and listen to the ten to twenty seconds of the recording of his voice and remember him all over again. How wonderful a husband he was and how much she loved him. The memories kept her alive. She thanked God for his love and for his memories. Every time she heard my step-dad's recording, he would be back home again for a few beautiful moments. "I think it kept me alive," she said. "When I heard his voice I wasn't lonely."
Prepare the way of the Lord
By Stan Duncan
Luke 3:1-6
There used to be an old guy named Benson McLean, out in Oklahoma years ago, down by Heavener in the Kiamichi Mountains, who made it his life's work to finally connect the two towns of Gilmore and Monroe. They were only about five miles apart as the crow flies, but to get from one to the other you had to either hike over Sugarloaf Mountain (and none of us were hikers back in those days), or drive north for five miles, west for ten miles, then south for about twenty miles and then east for another fifteen miles. It was a godawful tack, so nobody ever did it.
Everybody complained about it, but there wasn't much that anyone could do. The state never saw any need to link together these two small towns out in the woods. So, when he finally retired from the Kansas City Southern Railroad, Ben set out to finally build a road down there that would connect them up. He started doing this when he was 65, so there wasn't anybody alive who thought he could have finished it, including Ben himself. But that wasn't important. What was important was that those two towns needed a road and he had the time to work on it, so he was just going to do it. So, little by little he'd take down a tree or haul off a boulder, and slowly something that roughly, sort of, kind of, looked like a road began to emerge.
After a while Ben's health began to fail and he started slowing down. That's when Henry Wickerson, the lay pastor of the little Methodist church out by Hodgens said, well, if Ben would try to do it, so would he. So the two of them worked on it together. Henry had a flat bed truck, so they used it to fill up and haul out brush and rock and that helped make the road start to look level. Together they shaved off the tops of the hills and filled in the low spots to lift up the land and make it smooth. Then they'd pour in some gravel behind them, so that as far into the woods as they were working, they could always get in and out on a straight path.
But, still, the work was just too much for them. Nobody thought they could finish it. They were just two old men who wanted to bring people together. It was a silly dream that could never really come to pass.
At the end of that year Ben's son, who had just gotten a divorce and needed a place to stay, moved home and Ben put him to work out there on the road with them. About that time the Men's group at the church started organizing work parties on Saturdays. Then the Baptists, not to be out done, had a fundraiser to help defray the costs. Then the ladies would show up with hot meals for the crews.
All tolled, over the next five years close to a hundred people pitched in, in one way or another. After a while Ben got to where he could no longer work on the road himself, but he loved to drive out there on the gravel that he himself had poured and sit in his car and watch these teams of people working away on his project. It became something that was still impossible, that no one believed in, but that everyone wanted to take their turn working on.
And one day, one guy, leaning, sweating, on the end of his shovel, looked out through the woods ahead of them and said, "Hey boys, look there." They all stopped and squinted through the trees. "Ain't that Monroe over there? I think we done it."
Really?
By David O. Bales
Luke 3:1-6
Whoever heard of a Christmas costume party? No matter. Derek grabbed any excuse for a party and entered fully into the spirit. Costume party for Christmas? Sure, and Derek had a reserve, all-purpose costume he'd been wanting to wear. He'd go as Satan: Shiny red suit, pointed ears, sharp tail, pitchfork in hand.
A costume wasn't a problem for the party. Directions were a problem and the storm. Derek thought for sure he'd understood that the party was about twelve miles in the country on Old Bakery Road, third right after the burned house whose lonely chimney was black for any season.
Party was at eight and he'd now backtracked half a dozen times, always returning to the burned house to try a different direction or to take a different numbered road away from that house. More and more rain. Thunder and lightning now and no sight of the orange silo Ted said marked the party's location.
Derek kept his wipers on high, but still he missed a corner and slid irreversibly into the ditch. He roared the engine in reverse, then forward, reverse again. Mud sprayed around the car. Blue smoke wafted away in the wind. Finally he gave up, stepped out, and leaned despairingly upon his pitchfork in the downpour.
Two things happened at once: He became completely drenched and he heard Christmas carols. He looked up and saw lights of a small country church perched in the middle of a huge field on a hill. Derek lit out across the pasture, dragging his pitchfork and his no-longer-starchy tail.
He was freezing cold, muddy to the knees, and exhausted when he'd finally trekked the 100 yards upwind and uphill. As he opened the door into the small sanctuary, a gigantic lightning bolt struck the tree next to the church and the thunder was so immediate that together they knocked him through the door.
The small congregation turned to see the door fling open and to be struck by the thunder's shock. Plus, they saw Satan stumbling toward them with glazed eyes, saying nothing. Some people rushed out through the chancel's front door. Others, seeing the bottleneck there, leaped from windows. Still, Satan staggered numbly forward.
Only one small, old lady remained at the center on the chancel's first step. She watched with wide eyes as the embodiment of evil tottered toward her. When he approached within three paces, she held up her shaky hand to halt him and said in a quavering voice, "Now wait a minute Mr. Satan. I want you to know I've been a member of this church for 46 years. But really, I've been on your side all along."
* * *
The crowds amass, surging forward toward Christmas, Jesus' big birthday party. They've been preparing for months, Xing off days on the calendar. They await Jesus' birth with the orchestra in the background lightly offering "I'll Be Home for Christmas." They hear bells jingling on a sleigh at dusk as it glides across the countryside to a house with a welcoming wreath on the door.
They arrive at a church building that awaits them with familiar sights, smells, and songs. With a lighthearted banter they move forward like the tide toward Bethlehem's party. Some come with light hearts. They could as well be singing, "We're Off to See the Wizard." They trek to the church through rain and sleet (as long as there's not a good football game on television). They come ready to see children in bathrobes recite ancient words of a story that doesn't really have much to do with modern life. But it's a party -- on to the party. And they'll throw in a smidgen of charity for the less fortunate while they're at it.
Some shuffle along with the mass aiming merely to survive the party. Come on. Let's get this over with so we can return to a quieter life with only a few more debts from our Christmas over-spending.
As the crowd presses forward to Christmas, Jesus' wild, desert cousin steps onto the parade route; he spreads his feet, squares his shoulders, and yells, "Prepare yourselves for God."
They're embarrassed. Who planned this party? This isn't what they're coming for. Some try to edge around him to the right. John scurries in front of them and speaks the same, relentless announcement. His entire demeanor is inappropriate to the event. But he won't let anyone pass through Advent to Christmas until they deal with his message, which is always slightly different and always basically the same, "Who are you really under that costume, and whose side are you on, really?"
Some shuffle along with the mass aiming merely to survive the party. Come on. Let's get this over with so we can return to a quieter life with only a few more debts from our Christmas over-spending.
As the crowd presses forward to Christmas, Jesus' wild, desert cousin steps onto the parade route. He spreads his feet, squares his shoulders, and yells, "Prepare yourselves for God."
They're embarrassed. Who planned this party? This isn't what they're coming for. Some try to edge around him to the right. John scurries in front of them and speaks the same, relentless announcement. His entire demeanor is inappropriate to the event. But he won't let anyone pass through Advent to Christmas until they deal with his message, which is always slightly different and always basically the same, "Who are you really under that costume, and whose side are you on, really?"
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StoryShare, December 10, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
