Preparing The Way
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Preparing the Way" by Frank Fisher
"Repenting in the Friendly Skies" by David Bales
What's Up This Week
Christianity is all about relationships -- our relationship with God, and our relationships with each other. The fact that these relationships can be and have been broken is one of the great tragedies of the human condition. How can these connections be restored? Jesus reestablished the link between humanity and God on the cross. Is there a "cross" for our broken relationships with each other? In "Preparing the Way," Frank Fisher shows us that open arms and loving hearts can bring restoration and wholeness, just as Christ brought restoration to humanity's connection with God. In "Repenting in the Friendly Skies," David Bales demonstrates that repentance and resigning our "right" can bring healing, restoring broken bonds. What broken relationships do we need to mend in our own lives?
* * * * * * * * *
Preparing the Way
By Frank R. Fisher
Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
"What in the world am I doing here? They're never gonna let me get through the door!"
Those words burst from your lips as you stand before the front stairway of Expensive Presbyterian Church: the church whose congregation is so wealthy that all the neighborhood calls it, "our lady of the golden Cadillac."
You'd always admired this building. You'd never even dreamt of trying to enter it. For your name is Tamika. You know prostitutes like you, especially black prostitutes who've come down with AIDS, would never be welcomed into such a very white and very exclusive place.
But about a week ago, things began to change for you. Christmas was coming, and you started listening to that preacher: the one who hangs around on the corner of 57th. He was talking about a guy named Isaiah. A guy who'd written about a time when no one would be hurt and no one would be destroyed and how we all needed to turn around our lives to get ready for that time. After everything you'd been through, what he talked about sounded pretty good. So when Sunday morning came, off you went to church to check this out.
As you stand here at the foot of the steps, while you look upward at those golden doors, you start to think that this wasn't such a good idea. Suddenly you're sure it wasn't a good idea. For the minister's voice thunders out through those doors. He's yelling, "You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?"
Your legs start to tremble. You want to run, but something seemed to be pulling you up those stairs and through the door. As you step inside, you instinctively gasp. There isn't a seat open in the whole church. Every seat is filled with people who look and dress a lot differently than you.
Seeing no where else to sit down, you hesitantly make your way down the center aisle and sit down on the floor right in front of the first row of seats. For a moment you think everything's gonna be okay. Then you see a woman walking up the aisle toward you. She's wearing what looks like a formal gown. And she's got to be the oldest, and probably from her manner, the richest lady in this place.
Just as she reaches you, you start to get up: deciding it would be easier to run out than to wait for this woman to throw you out. Instead of grabbing your arm to drag you back down the aisle, the woman slowly, and carefully, sits herself down right beside you on the floor. She smiles at you as she hands you a hymn book: a book you hadn't noticed she was carrying in her hands.
You realize your expression is giving away your sense of shock at this strange development. For the woman smiles, reaches out a hand to shake yours, and says, "Welcome to God's house. I hope you don't mind me joining you. It's not right for one of God's children to sit alone in worship."
"But... but," you gasp. "There's no one else like me here. I thought you were going to toss me out."
"We might have done that a few years ago," the woman whispered back. "But then we learned again how Jesus welcomed people. We learned how wrong we were when we turned people away. We learned part of preparing the way for God's kingdom is for us to live in the way of Jesus. Now all are welcome here just as Jesus welcomes us."
"What in the world am I doing here? They're never gonna let me get through the door!"
Those words burst from your lips, like a cry of anguish, as you stand before the doorway of the congregation the neighbors call Demanding Presbyterian Church: the congregation famous throughout the city for requiring an immediate conversion from any stranger who wandered into their midst.
Your name is Adam. Once, nothing in the world would have made you walk through the door of this church. In fact, you'd never dreamed of entering any place of worship. After all organized religion had never been a part of your family's life. You knew what you believed in was something private: something you sought by walks through the natural world.
All that changed on the day your wife died. Her final illness, and her death, caused you incredible pain. You'd tried to hold the pain inside, but you knew you had to reach out to someone or something before your despair overwhelmed you.
You have tried self-help books, yoga, and all kinds of popular faiths. None of them touched your emptiness. Then you wander by this building on this Sunday morning. The singing from inside seems to draw you toward the door. "I won't stay here long," you think to yourself. "I'll get out before they start demanding anything of me."
So you stay for a bit of the service and then you leave. To your surprise, no one demands anything of you. Even more surprising is the way you find yourself drawn back here week after week. After a month, you're staying for the entire service.
There's still no one who's demanding anything. Instead, to your shock, they're going out of their way to make you truly welcome. You find people not only saying hello but coming over to sit beside you in worship, and explaining what's going on when you seem lost. Some of them have even taken you out for lunch after the service.
It isn't long before you discover you've found the family you lost when your spouse died. While it takes a bit longer you find in Jesus' path the path you feel you were born to travel. Finally there comes a day when you ask your new family about the congregation's demanding reputation.
"We used to be that way a few years ago," they answered you. "But then we learned again how Jesus welcomed all people. We learned part of preparing the way for God's kingdom is for us to welcome all those who come. Now we simply welcome all who come here: just as Jesus welcomes us."
"What in the world are we doing here? They're never gonna let us get through the door!"
Those words burst from the lips of the members of the congregations once known as Exclusive and Demanding. The doorway they face is the shining gate leading from death to eternal life, and on the other side of the gate, they know, they'll see Jesus face to face.
That idea has suddenly become terrifying. For all present know how very far they've strayed from God's path. Suddenly a voice booms out welcoming them, and inviting them into the Kingdom of God.
"Why, Lord?" They gasp back in wonder, "Why are you welcoming people like us?"
"As my children you've always been welcome here," comes back the joyous reply.
"But it's a special delight to welcome you. For just as John prepared the way for my life on earth, you've prepared the way for the coming of my kingdom. Every time you gave hospitality to someone very different from you, you were preparing my way. Each moment your un-judging, and non-demanding hospitality offered my love to a stranger was a moment spent building my kingdom. Every time you welcomed the stranger or reached out to those who were different, you were really offering hospitality to me."
The members of Expensive and Demanding Presbyterian churches, whose names had been changed to Welcoming and Loving Presbyterian, suddenly found themselves linked arm in arm with all those they'd welcomed. With their sisters and brothers, they entered with joy into Christ's kingdom of light: the kingdom where wolves and lambs frolic together, the kingdom where nothing hurts or destroys, the kingdom where they will live in joy in God's very presence.
They now with their voices and we by welcoming all as Jesus welcomed us, offer all glory and honor to God.
Frank R. Fisher is a second-career interim/transitional pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He currently serves as the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Bushnell, Illinois. A former paramedic and administrator for the Chicago Fire Department, Fisher is an Oblate of the ecumenical Abbey of John the Baptist and Saint Benedict in Bartonville, Illinois.
Repenting in the Friendly Skies
By David O. Bales
Matthew 3:1-12
It wasn't how Clarence dressed. He long ago stopped wearing his clergy collar when traveling by air. He wore a simple suit and tie. To his wife's surprise, he even removed his cross necklace before entering the boarding area. Still, no matter if he needed the sleep or the time to arrange notes for a seminar, nearly every flight was filled with listening to his seatmate. While flying, he seemed the center of a magnetic field attracting people to him with their problems. He said, "I wonder if it's my aftershave?"
Last week Clarence had preached about his uncanny experiences on airplanes. "Often across half a continent I've heard about crimes, divorces, mean parents, faithless spouses, and rebellious children. I've shared tears and offered prayer. I always give my card and ask the person to report how life works out. However, more than fifty times in thirty years and never a response. For whatever spiritual gift God has granted me and for whatever purpose I'm supposed to employ it, when it comes to seatmates on airplanes, I become just a free ear."
This week Clarence flew to Denver. When he admitted to the woman beside him that he'd been a counselor in private practice for eleven years and was a pastor, she began to talk. "For twenty years I've been estranged from my brother." She pushed her fingers through her auburn hair and pressed on her head as though it hurt. "Right after my mom died he and his wife backed up a truck to her house and took everything. To this day my mom's china sits in my sister-in-law's cupboard and I know she doesn't use it."
"What have you done to be reconciled?"
"I was too stunned at the funeral. As soon as I got home I sent a letter saying how cruel they'd been to me."
"That's all?"
"I stopped sending Christmas and birthday cards."
"You haven't talked to them since the incident?"
"No. But my cousin tells me what they're saying about me."
"And you want my advice?"
"Sure do."
"If it's your style to send letters instead of speaking in person, write another. Be very specific. Write that you're sorry for the decades of silence between you. He's your brother and you're sorry that you cut off the relationship and you want to be reconciled."
She yanked her head back in surprise, her eyes enlarged. The plane bumped and she gulped. "And then?"
"Then you wait for his reply. If you don't get one in a month, write the same letter but add that you beg him to be reconciled."
"No," she said, shaking her head, "I mean then don't I put something in the letter about his returning what he stole from me?"
"Nothing more."
Her jaw muscles bulged. A baby cried and they both looked up. Then she lifted her book and read. Soon, with a grumpy look on her face, she slept. An hour later she woke. She turned to Clarence as though picking up the conversation mid-sentence, "You mean I let my brother go free. Just let him have mom's stuff?"
Clarence leaned toward her, "Have you talked to other counselors about this?"
"Yes."
"How many and for how many years?"
"You mean how many total years did I meet with a counselor?"
"How many years from when you started with the first one and finished with the last one?"
"Thirteen or fourteen years, I think."
"Have you settled the problem?"
"Not too well."
"Did any counselor suggest you seek reconciliation or to begin by confessing your own sin?"
"You don't even know me," she blinked with a wince, "and you're suggesting I confess my sins."
"You don't even know me and you're telling me your problems."
She opened her mouth but Clarence spoke, "Every problem has two sides. That's obvious, but God wants us to be reconciled. All the families Jesus told about were dysfunctional. Even if your brother is 95 percent wrong, you need to set out, without your being 100 percent right, to become reconciled."
"But, but --"
"No buts," Clarence said. "The only time Jesus was approached to settle an inheritance between family members he warned about greed, instead. I think it's because we humans blame others and excuse ourselves. Certainly some people are emotionally beaten. They think too little of themselves. But mostly we blame others." He raised his voice, "Brothers and sisters blame each other. Children blame parents. Parents," his voice caught, but he continued, "blame children. We all need to clean up our relationships with one another and with God by confessing our part in the problem."
She listened, but didn't respond.
"You asked my advice," he said, "and that's it."
An hour later as she stood to deplane she nodded to Clarence. He said, "I wish the best for you and your brother."
When Clarence reached the baggage area he spotted Bradley: Auburn hair about the same length as his seatmate's, T-shirt, holes in the knees of his jeans, and wearing flip-flops. Clarence suddenly felt the weight of his suit.
"Hello son," Clarence said and held out his hand.
Bradley looked surprised and held out his, "Hello Father."
"Thanks for agreeing to ferry me to the seminar."
"I usually can break free in the middle of the day." He turned away from his father toward the baggage carousel as he spoke, "How many suitcases you got?"
"Two. One's clothes. The other's super-heavy -- the projector, books, and handouts. But I'm not concerned about those right now. Is there a coffee shop or something near?"
"Right off the freeway, about a mile, Red's."
"If you've got time, let's go there. I'll buy you coffee. I've had an interesting flight. Thought about you and me. There's something I want to talk to you about."
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years. He is retired and is a full-time writer living in Ontario, Oregon. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, Interpretation, and other magazines. He is author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace (CSS) and Toward Easter and Beyond (CSS). David is currently in his third year writing for Emphasis (CSS). Bales is a graduate of the University of Portland and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
**********************************************
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 email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, December 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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
"Preparing the Way" by Frank Fisher
"Repenting in the Friendly Skies" by David Bales
What's Up This Week
Christianity is all about relationships -- our relationship with God, and our relationships with each other. The fact that these relationships can be and have been broken is one of the great tragedies of the human condition. How can these connections be restored? Jesus reestablished the link between humanity and God on the cross. Is there a "cross" for our broken relationships with each other? In "Preparing the Way," Frank Fisher shows us that open arms and loving hearts can bring restoration and wholeness, just as Christ brought restoration to humanity's connection with God. In "Repenting in the Friendly Skies," David Bales demonstrates that repentance and resigning our "right" can bring healing, restoring broken bonds. What broken relationships do we need to mend in our own lives?
* * * * * * * * *
Preparing the Way
By Frank R. Fisher
Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
"What in the world am I doing here? They're never gonna let me get through the door!"
Those words burst from your lips as you stand before the front stairway of Expensive Presbyterian Church: the church whose congregation is so wealthy that all the neighborhood calls it, "our lady of the golden Cadillac."
You'd always admired this building. You'd never even dreamt of trying to enter it. For your name is Tamika. You know prostitutes like you, especially black prostitutes who've come down with AIDS, would never be welcomed into such a very white and very exclusive place.
But about a week ago, things began to change for you. Christmas was coming, and you started listening to that preacher: the one who hangs around on the corner of 57th. He was talking about a guy named Isaiah. A guy who'd written about a time when no one would be hurt and no one would be destroyed and how we all needed to turn around our lives to get ready for that time. After everything you'd been through, what he talked about sounded pretty good. So when Sunday morning came, off you went to church to check this out.
As you stand here at the foot of the steps, while you look upward at those golden doors, you start to think that this wasn't such a good idea. Suddenly you're sure it wasn't a good idea. For the minister's voice thunders out through those doors. He's yelling, "You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?"
Your legs start to tremble. You want to run, but something seemed to be pulling you up those stairs and through the door. As you step inside, you instinctively gasp. There isn't a seat open in the whole church. Every seat is filled with people who look and dress a lot differently than you.
Seeing no where else to sit down, you hesitantly make your way down the center aisle and sit down on the floor right in front of the first row of seats. For a moment you think everything's gonna be okay. Then you see a woman walking up the aisle toward you. She's wearing what looks like a formal gown. And she's got to be the oldest, and probably from her manner, the richest lady in this place.
Just as she reaches you, you start to get up: deciding it would be easier to run out than to wait for this woman to throw you out. Instead of grabbing your arm to drag you back down the aisle, the woman slowly, and carefully, sits herself down right beside you on the floor. She smiles at you as she hands you a hymn book: a book you hadn't noticed she was carrying in her hands.
You realize your expression is giving away your sense of shock at this strange development. For the woman smiles, reaches out a hand to shake yours, and says, "Welcome to God's house. I hope you don't mind me joining you. It's not right for one of God's children to sit alone in worship."
"But... but," you gasp. "There's no one else like me here. I thought you were going to toss me out."
"We might have done that a few years ago," the woman whispered back. "But then we learned again how Jesus welcomed people. We learned how wrong we were when we turned people away. We learned part of preparing the way for God's kingdom is for us to live in the way of Jesus. Now all are welcome here just as Jesus welcomes us."
"What in the world am I doing here? They're never gonna let me get through the door!"
Those words burst from your lips, like a cry of anguish, as you stand before the doorway of the congregation the neighbors call Demanding Presbyterian Church: the congregation famous throughout the city for requiring an immediate conversion from any stranger who wandered into their midst.
Your name is Adam. Once, nothing in the world would have made you walk through the door of this church. In fact, you'd never dreamed of entering any place of worship. After all organized religion had never been a part of your family's life. You knew what you believed in was something private: something you sought by walks through the natural world.
All that changed on the day your wife died. Her final illness, and her death, caused you incredible pain. You'd tried to hold the pain inside, but you knew you had to reach out to someone or something before your despair overwhelmed you.
You have tried self-help books, yoga, and all kinds of popular faiths. None of them touched your emptiness. Then you wander by this building on this Sunday morning. The singing from inside seems to draw you toward the door. "I won't stay here long," you think to yourself. "I'll get out before they start demanding anything of me."
So you stay for a bit of the service and then you leave. To your surprise, no one demands anything of you. Even more surprising is the way you find yourself drawn back here week after week. After a month, you're staying for the entire service.
There's still no one who's demanding anything. Instead, to your shock, they're going out of their way to make you truly welcome. You find people not only saying hello but coming over to sit beside you in worship, and explaining what's going on when you seem lost. Some of them have even taken you out for lunch after the service.
It isn't long before you discover you've found the family you lost when your spouse died. While it takes a bit longer you find in Jesus' path the path you feel you were born to travel. Finally there comes a day when you ask your new family about the congregation's demanding reputation.
"We used to be that way a few years ago," they answered you. "But then we learned again how Jesus welcomed all people. We learned part of preparing the way for God's kingdom is for us to welcome all those who come. Now we simply welcome all who come here: just as Jesus welcomes us."
"What in the world are we doing here? They're never gonna let us get through the door!"
Those words burst from the lips of the members of the congregations once known as Exclusive and Demanding. The doorway they face is the shining gate leading from death to eternal life, and on the other side of the gate, they know, they'll see Jesus face to face.
That idea has suddenly become terrifying. For all present know how very far they've strayed from God's path. Suddenly a voice booms out welcoming them, and inviting them into the Kingdom of God.
"Why, Lord?" They gasp back in wonder, "Why are you welcoming people like us?"
"As my children you've always been welcome here," comes back the joyous reply.
"But it's a special delight to welcome you. For just as John prepared the way for my life on earth, you've prepared the way for the coming of my kingdom. Every time you gave hospitality to someone very different from you, you were preparing my way. Each moment your un-judging, and non-demanding hospitality offered my love to a stranger was a moment spent building my kingdom. Every time you welcomed the stranger or reached out to those who were different, you were really offering hospitality to me."
The members of Expensive and Demanding Presbyterian churches, whose names had been changed to Welcoming and Loving Presbyterian, suddenly found themselves linked arm in arm with all those they'd welcomed. With their sisters and brothers, they entered with joy into Christ's kingdom of light: the kingdom where wolves and lambs frolic together, the kingdom where nothing hurts or destroys, the kingdom where they will live in joy in God's very presence.
They now with their voices and we by welcoming all as Jesus welcomed us, offer all glory and honor to God.
Frank R. Fisher is a second-career interim/transitional pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He currently serves as the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Bushnell, Illinois. A former paramedic and administrator for the Chicago Fire Department, Fisher is an Oblate of the ecumenical Abbey of John the Baptist and Saint Benedict in Bartonville, Illinois.
Repenting in the Friendly Skies
By David O. Bales
Matthew 3:1-12
It wasn't how Clarence dressed. He long ago stopped wearing his clergy collar when traveling by air. He wore a simple suit and tie. To his wife's surprise, he even removed his cross necklace before entering the boarding area. Still, no matter if he needed the sleep or the time to arrange notes for a seminar, nearly every flight was filled with listening to his seatmate. While flying, he seemed the center of a magnetic field attracting people to him with their problems. He said, "I wonder if it's my aftershave?"
Last week Clarence had preached about his uncanny experiences on airplanes. "Often across half a continent I've heard about crimes, divorces, mean parents, faithless spouses, and rebellious children. I've shared tears and offered prayer. I always give my card and ask the person to report how life works out. However, more than fifty times in thirty years and never a response. For whatever spiritual gift God has granted me and for whatever purpose I'm supposed to employ it, when it comes to seatmates on airplanes, I become just a free ear."
This week Clarence flew to Denver. When he admitted to the woman beside him that he'd been a counselor in private practice for eleven years and was a pastor, she began to talk. "For twenty years I've been estranged from my brother." She pushed her fingers through her auburn hair and pressed on her head as though it hurt. "Right after my mom died he and his wife backed up a truck to her house and took everything. To this day my mom's china sits in my sister-in-law's cupboard and I know she doesn't use it."
"What have you done to be reconciled?"
"I was too stunned at the funeral. As soon as I got home I sent a letter saying how cruel they'd been to me."
"That's all?"
"I stopped sending Christmas and birthday cards."
"You haven't talked to them since the incident?"
"No. But my cousin tells me what they're saying about me."
"And you want my advice?"
"Sure do."
"If it's your style to send letters instead of speaking in person, write another. Be very specific. Write that you're sorry for the decades of silence between you. He's your brother and you're sorry that you cut off the relationship and you want to be reconciled."
She yanked her head back in surprise, her eyes enlarged. The plane bumped and she gulped. "And then?"
"Then you wait for his reply. If you don't get one in a month, write the same letter but add that you beg him to be reconciled."
"No," she said, shaking her head, "I mean then don't I put something in the letter about his returning what he stole from me?"
"Nothing more."
Her jaw muscles bulged. A baby cried and they both looked up. Then she lifted her book and read. Soon, with a grumpy look on her face, she slept. An hour later she woke. She turned to Clarence as though picking up the conversation mid-sentence, "You mean I let my brother go free. Just let him have mom's stuff?"
Clarence leaned toward her, "Have you talked to other counselors about this?"
"Yes."
"How many and for how many years?"
"You mean how many total years did I meet with a counselor?"
"How many years from when you started with the first one and finished with the last one?"
"Thirteen or fourteen years, I think."
"Have you settled the problem?"
"Not too well."
"Did any counselor suggest you seek reconciliation or to begin by confessing your own sin?"
"You don't even know me," she blinked with a wince, "and you're suggesting I confess my sins."
"You don't even know me and you're telling me your problems."
She opened her mouth but Clarence spoke, "Every problem has two sides. That's obvious, but God wants us to be reconciled. All the families Jesus told about were dysfunctional. Even if your brother is 95 percent wrong, you need to set out, without your being 100 percent right, to become reconciled."
"But, but --"
"No buts," Clarence said. "The only time Jesus was approached to settle an inheritance between family members he warned about greed, instead. I think it's because we humans blame others and excuse ourselves. Certainly some people are emotionally beaten. They think too little of themselves. But mostly we blame others." He raised his voice, "Brothers and sisters blame each other. Children blame parents. Parents," his voice caught, but he continued, "blame children. We all need to clean up our relationships with one another and with God by confessing our part in the problem."
She listened, but didn't respond.
"You asked my advice," he said, "and that's it."
An hour later as she stood to deplane she nodded to Clarence. He said, "I wish the best for you and your brother."
When Clarence reached the baggage area he spotted Bradley: Auburn hair about the same length as his seatmate's, T-shirt, holes in the knees of his jeans, and wearing flip-flops. Clarence suddenly felt the weight of his suit.
"Hello son," Clarence said and held out his hand.
Bradley looked surprised and held out his, "Hello Father."
"Thanks for agreeing to ferry me to the seminar."
"I usually can break free in the middle of the day." He turned away from his father toward the baggage carousel as he spoke, "How many suitcases you got?"
"Two. One's clothes. The other's super-heavy -- the projector, books, and handouts. But I'm not concerned about those right now. Is there a coffee shop or something near?"
"Right off the freeway, about a mile, Red's."
"If you've got time, let's go there. I'll buy you coffee. I've had an interesting flight. Thought about you and me. There's something I want to talk to you about."
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years. He is retired and is a full-time writer living in Ontario, Oregon. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, Interpretation, and other magazines. He is author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace (CSS) and Toward Easter and Beyond (CSS). David is currently in his third year writing for Emphasis (CSS). Bales is a graduate of the University of Portland and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
**********************************************
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 email the story to us at storyshare@sermonsuite.com.
**************
StoryShare, December 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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.
