Reunion
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Reunion" by David O. Bales
"Vision Quest" by Larry Winebrenner
"Justified by Faith" by Larry Winebrenner
"Donkey Cross" by Frank Ramirez
"Preparation for the Journey" by Larry Winebrenner
"Gaining the Whole World" by Larry Winebrenner
"Transfiguration" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
What must have gone through an elderly Abraham's mind when the Lord appeared to him and informed him that he would be the patriarch of "a multitude of nations"? It's a sign of Abraham's faith that he trusted the Lord -- even if it seemed like a very strange turn of events. In the feature story of this edition of StoryShare, David Bales spins a tale of a similarly unlikely covenant between a 90-year-old woman and an ex-con... and the lawyer whose faith in humanity was restored in part because of it. We also have several brief vignettes from Larry Winebrenner, including an account of a young Native American man and his "vision quest" experience, and a portrayal of a grandmother with a homely way of explaining righteousness to her granddaughter. In addition, Frank Ramirez shares a meditation in which he reminds us of the raw power of the cross -- after all, it is a symbol of unspeakable torture.
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Reunion
by David O. Bales
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
"It was a goat," Janice said with a big smile, putting hands to her head to form horns. "Ate my client's three rose bushes, a hammock, and a basketball." The other two laughed.
"Some case. Who won?" Sil asked.
"We did," Janice said. "Lucky for us. Found out later the judge hated animals."
The three friends shared their fun exactly as years ago: Janice flapping her hands, Carlin snorting, and Sil laughing from the side of his mouth.
"Okay, Sil," Carlin said, "you've got to have something better than that! Twenty years practice."
"Well," Sil spoke slowly and sneered, "I could generalize and say that divorces were the most interesting, but it would lean away from interesting to fascinating, the way vivisection is fascinating but horrifying. Boy, does divorce expose life's underside."
At Sil's statement, Janice and Carlin looked down at the college yearbook, which Sil had brought to the reunion. Across the room a group at one table broke into laughter and raised glasses in a toast.
"Last chance for you, Carlin," Janice said. "Most interesting case in two decades?"
"Actually," Carlin said, "I knew as soon as you mentioned it what my most interesting case was. It didn't include a crime or even an appearance in court."
The two other attorneys leaned forward in their chairs. When they'd been in law school together, no one could tell a story like Carlin, and they'd waited a long time for this.
"It was a 90-year-old woman and an ex-con."
"I thought you said no crime?" Janice said.
"No crime." Carlin waved his hand toward his old friend and smiled. "Just listen."
"I got into it through Allan, a friend who's administrator at an assisted living facility. He called and told me who he planned to hire and wanted my advice on liability. To start with, Allan's a soft touch. If anybody's going to give an ex-con a job, he is. He's not dumb, though. He made sure that everyone in the building knew Ike's background. He didn't say it to others, but he told me that if a resident or family protested, he'd keep Ike off their wing. Fortunately, and I think it's because Allan's been there a long time and proven his good judgment, no one complained.
"Ike wasn't a hard case. He'd done 26 months for bad checks, third offense. Wife divorced him while he was in, second wife. He was no longer a criminal. You couldn't call him happy either.
"He'd been latched onto by a Christian group in prison, and they'd supported him well enough so he'd hold onto life and keep trying. No joy, however. At the assisted living he did his job and went home. Showed up the next morning on time. Two years dragged by like that.
"Then, as happens nearly every month, a new resident moved in. Gracie was 90 and what proved to be most important, without family. Nothing extraordinary about her, and Ike was certainly less than ordinary. They just clicked. Who knows who spoke first as he cleaned the hall. Who remembers who drew the first smile from the other. They just liked one another. Didn't spend all their time together or anything; but he found out her birthday and gave her a card. She had one of the cooks find out what station he always listened to on his radio earphones as he worked. The cook phoned in and got a song dedicated to Ike from Gracie.
"Eight months after Gracie moved in Allan got hold of me. I came and he introduced me to Gracie. She told me what she wanted to do, asked me to consider all the options and consequences both for her and Ike, and also for his continued employment at the assisted living.
"Allan and I were in Gracie's room waiting. Allan had summoned Ike. Gracie introduced me and explained why I was there. 'I want to adopt you, Ike.' "
"Ike could hardly respond, opened and closed his mouth a couple times. Allan pointed to me, 'Carlin says it's legal.'
"I didn't hurry the process. Purposefully went slowly. I stopped by a couple times with paperwork so I could size up Ike. But Gracie had already well sized up Ike as her son and that's what he became."
Carlin paused and scanned the room of his fellow law school alumni banqueters. "Of all the legal turf wars we have to ride our horses through... that winter was my most difficult, dealing with a shyster representing a professional accident. Made me wonder if I'd have done better in accounting. The store I represented and their insurance company settled for half a million. Well," Carlin flinched as though pulling himself away from that subject, "I'm here to testify that for three years Ike was as good a son as one could expect. Spent an hour a day with Gracie. Not many people knew it. That's my most interesting case because at that point I was running pretty low on faith in humanity. I, uh, kind of figured out that Grace's adopting Ike wasn't just for him. It benefited me greatly."
Sil gazed blankly across the room. Janice blushed, then slowly reached for her wine glass and took another drink.
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
Vision Quest
by Larry Winebrenner
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Little Foot should have been excited. He had been in his fourteenth summer as his Dakota grandfather explained the Vision Quest principles.
"You will wait for your totem to appear," Grandfather had told him. "It will not come the first day, nor the second, nor the third, sometimes. You have to have patience. You have to wait. If you return to the village before your totem appears, you are not yet ready for manhood."
Little Foot understood. He remembered when his uncle, six summers older than he, had gone on his Vision Quest. His uncle had been gone four days. He staggered back into the village, dehydrated, hungry, eyes glazed over.
"Grandfather," he had told his elder, "a great serpent that rattles his tail appeared to me. He stood higher than a tall man's head. He spoke to me in serpent language, but I understood what he said."
Six summers later, Grandfather had sung the song of preparation: "Hay-yuh-hay-yuh-yuh-hay-yuh." He sang it several minutes, and he sent Little Foot up the mountain to wait alone day and night, in the heat and cold, for his own totem to appear.
That was two summers ago. This was his third summer. He just wasn't ready the two previous Vision Quests. Would he be ready this time? Or would he return once again in shame, disgrace, and failure?
The second night he decided he was once more faced with failure. At sunup he would make his way down the mountain and back to the village.
But at sunup Little Foot awoke to a blood-curdling sound. The growl of a grizzly, a giant grizzly bear, sounded just above where he had dozed off in his vigil. Then, an amazing occurrence took place. He understood the bear-language!
"Get up!" ordered the bear.
Little Foot scrambled to his feet.
"A great warrior like you must not sleep while keeping watch. What if you were guarding your camp, and the enemy came upon you -- and you were asleep?"
Little Foot had no answer.
"No longer shall you be called Little Foot. From now on, you shall be known as Eagle Eye. You will lead your hungry people from the desolate valley to a valley abundant with game. I will show you the way."
The vision disappeared. Little Foot -- no longer Little Foot, but now Eagle Eye -- descended the mountain... this time not in shame.
And did he ever have a story to tell to Grandfather.
Justified by Faith
by Larry Winebrenner
Romans 4:13-25
"Grandma," said Betsy, "the Bible sure is hard to understand."
Grandma sifted a little more flour into her mixing bowl. "It sure can be sometimes," she replied. "Strong men pulling down buildings, shepherd lads slaying giants, men in hot furnaces not...."
"Oh, Grandma," interrupted Betsy impatiently, "not stories. Complicated stuff like 'faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.' "
Grandma stopped kneading the biscuit dough and looked intently at her 12-year-old granddaughter.
"Well now," she stated, "when did you start studying theology?"
"Grandma," laughed Betsy, "I'm not studying theology. I read that in my Bible."
Grandma went back to biscuit-making. She pinched off a nut-sized piece of dough and rolled it into a ball. Then se placed it in a pie tin and mashed it a bit to flatten it. "You know what 'reckon' means?" she asked.
Betsy frowned and answered, "When I ask you or Grandpa if I can do something, you'll say 'I reckon" if it's okay. Does it mean 'okay'?"
Grandma made another biscuit. "Well, sorta," she said. "But here it means something more."
"More?"
"Yeah." Another biscuit went into the pan. "Kinda like, 'agrees that it is so.' You see, that part of the Bible you were reading referred to a time God hadn't yet given the Law to Moses."
"What's that got to do with righteousness?" asked the 12-year-old.
"How do you know something is right or wrong?" asked Grandma.
"Well, if you break the law, it's wrong."
Grandma placed the last biscuit in the pan and slipped them into the oven. "That's right, honey. But what if there isn't a law to tell you what's right or wrong?"
Betsy puzzled over this a bit. That wasn't a fair question. You had to have rules to tell you whether you had broken a rule or not. "There ain't no way to tell," pouted Betsy.
"Don't say 'ain't,' " kidded Grandma. " 'Ain't' ain't in the Bible." Betsy giggled. Grandma continued. "Consider the biscuits I'm baking. A cooking teacher could watch me and see if I followed the recipe correctly."
The smell of the biscuits baking made Betsy hungry. She glanced over at a shelf where Grandma kept her honey pot. It was really a jar, but Grandma called it a honey pot. Grandma followed her eyes and took down the honey. She set it on the table and got out the butter.
"You don't need a recipe," assured Betsy.
"Yes, Betsy, I need a recipe, and I have to follow it or the biscuits won't come out right. When I was a little girl, I tried to bake biscuits. I thought the teaspoon of baking powder was a tablespoon. The biscuits were as tall as a soup can." They laughed together about that. "But suppose the recipe were not written down," she said, getting back to the original point. "And suppose the teacher didn't know the recipe. How would she know whether I had done it right?"
"By tasting the biscuits," said Betsy, clearly suggesting they should do the same.
Grandma took the hint and lifted the brown biscuits from the pan and separated them on a plate. Betsy picked up one and juggled it from hand to hand until she could butter it. She put a little honey on a saucer and dipped the edge of the biscuit into it.
"Might you say that by the taste it was reckoned to me that I used the right recipe?"
"I get it, Grandma," said Betsy.
But for the moment she was more interested in the honey and biscuits than in Bible study.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active in First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Donkey Cross
by Frank Ramirez
Mark 8:31-38; Psalm 22:23-31
Then (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
-- Mark 8:31
The cross is the central symbol of our faith. We can be very casual about wearing the cross around the neck or on the lapel. We sometimes forget, however, that the cross is a symbol of terror, despair, horror, degradation, agony, and humiliation. It was a form of execution reserved for the lowest of the low, for those outside the pale of humanity, whose bodies would be dumped in the garbage heaps afterward to be torn apart by wild dogs. Indeed, whenever a portion of the New Testament was read aloud, first-century listeners must have cringed every time they heard the word "cross." It was that obscene.
So shameful was the image of the cross to our ancestors in the faith, so obscene the method of execution, that for over four centuries the church chose not to use that symbol in its art.
Well, there is one example of the cross used in a drawing from early Christian history, but it was drawn by an opponent of the faith. This piece of graffiti in the slave quarters of the Imperial Palace in Rome shows a crude drawing of a crucifixion. On the cross hung a man with the head of a donkey. At the feet of the victim is an individual engaged in adoration. There's a single line written beneath it: "Alexamenos worships his god." (Click here to see this depiction of the cross. It appears in Ante Pacem by Graydon F. Snyder [Mercer University Press], p. 60. The photo appears here by permission of Dr. Snyder.)
This anti-Christian drawing makes it clear how shameful the cross could be. Even so, this Alexamenos was not ashamed to claim Jesus as Lord, even though it led to ridicule. It helps us realize why Christians did not wear the cross as a symbol for over four centuries.
More important than whether we wear the cross is whether we bear the cross. Anna Mow was a missionary, mother, writer, and teacher, an active speaker and much-loved disciple of Jesus Christ. She seemed willing to endure anything for the sake of her Savior. Perhaps that's why it seemed so ironic that one who was such a great communicator should suffer a debilitating stroke late in life that made it nearly impossible for her to communicate.
Despite a stroke that limited her ability to write and speak, she dictated a final book to demonstrate her determination to bear the cross. Anna's book is sparkling bright as a running brook in spring, yet filled with the same brooding depth of a pond deep from the melting snows. In a helpless condition she describes as "a world of suffering," Anna writes, "I can't even choose what kind of suffering I'll have. But I can choose what my attitude is going to be toward suffering."
Calling upon the example of Job, Anna differentiates between a God who sends suffering and one who permits it. "No matter what happens to us, we are within his loving care. Our Lord suffered. Paul's thorn in the flesh was never taken away. We may suffer. If we trust him, the suffering will never be useless."
And then there's this: "No one is ever useless to God. No one who can pray is ever useless. There are many people to perform the needed activities, but too few to take the time for prayer." (From Two or Ninety-Two by Anna Mow [Brethren Press].)
The cross as an instrument of torture also represents the intersection of two roads. It is the place where heaven and earth come together. It is the spot where we meet Jesus.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
Preparation for the Journey
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 22:23-28
The ship had been loaded. Good seamen had been signed aboard. Weather was fair. Tide was right. There was one more preparation for the journey.
Jason went to see the oracle. One didn't venture on a great journey without the predictions of the oracle. Jason asked, "O great oracle, what can you tell me of this journey?"
"Tell me, my son," said the oracle, "what do you fear?"
"Sea monsters of the deep," Jason answered immediately. "I hear they are ten times larger than the largest, that they can swallow the ship whole."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such frightening monsters. Is there anything you fear more than the monsters?"
Jason danced nervously from foot to foot. He hadn't expected this response to his question. He wiped the perspiration from his upper lip with his wrist.
"Well, what do you fear more than monsters?" asked the oracle once more.
"The ships of the seafaring nations," said the seaman. "I'm told they actually capture the sea monsters alive."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such powerful seamen. Is there anything you fear more than these seafarers?"
This was getting to be too much for the ship's captain. He wanted advice, not an indictment of cowardice.
"Storms!" blurted out the man. "Storms sink even the ships of the seafarers."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such dreadful storms. Is there anything you fear more than the storms?"
"The god who made the storms," whispered Jason, as if the admission would cause the very wrath of that god to descend.
"Then here is my advice for your journey," said the oracle. "Fear God, and you need not fear anything else."
Gaining the Whole World
by Larry Winebrenner
Mark 8.31-38
Bron was no hero. He was simply an ordinary caveman who returned to the valley.
Two summers previously, he had unwisely criticized the clan leader for a bit of cruelty. The clan leader had banished him to the mountains "where trees don't grow," until the following summer. It was a death sentence.
No one seemed to care. After all, it meant one less mouth to feed in this valley of diminishing resources. Less game. Fewer roots and berries and fruit. More hunger.
Bron returned after two summers. He told of another valley across the mountain "where trees don't grow." A valley alive with game. A valley where a river teemed with fish. A garden spot of abundant fruit, berries, and edible plants.
So Bron, who was no hero, led a band across the mountain to the new land, a land flowing with a fish-filled river and filled with fruit-bearing trees. A land of abundant game.
He now was seen as a great man by his community. He had food, acceptance, and the love of a devoted mate. What more could he desire?
But one day, Bron fell into the river. He could not swim. His body caught on a sand bar and his wife dragged it ashore. She determined that he was dead.
"He had fame," she said. "He had abundance. He had family. But what good is it if he has no breath in his body? If he has no life left?"
Transfiguration
By Larry Winebrenner
Mark 9:2-9
It was built in 1832. Some referred to it as "a ramshackle bunch of wormy boards held together by rusty nails." As a matter of fact, it did look like it was about ready to fall down. One corner of the tin roof flopped up and down when a strong wind blew. The once pristine columns were blistered with peeling paint. And the last whitewash job seemed more than a century old.
"What can you do with it, Dutchie?" asked Dr. Black.
The old carpenter gave the structure a long, searching gaze. He walked around the building, examining it from a distance. He had walked past the house many times but had only considered it an eyesore. Now he examined it as a possible contract. Finally, he spoke. "How much you want to spend?"
"You tell me, Dutchie. I want it to look like it did the day it was built."
"Dr. Black," said Dutchie, "I won't lie to you. You can tear this old wreck down and build one twice as nice for what it would cost to fix up this one."
Dr. Black fixed him with a withering glare. "If I wanted a new house, I'd 've hired a contractor. But a contractor can't do what I know you can do. That's why I brought you out here."
"I'll do it as cheap as I can," said Dutchie. "But I can't even give you a ball-park figure. If you want to hire me on that basis, I'll do the job. You won't be sorry for what you get."
Dutchie went to work. Folks would walk by and just shake their heads. Two different friends and his daughter told the doctor he was foolish to spend the money. One warned him that Dutchie would run up the bill on him.
The day came when folks would stop and look at the transformation taking place. They'd nod their heads and point to some new improvement. Finally, Dutchie stopped by the doctor's house.
"She's all done but the whitewash," he told his employer.
"Whitewash? Aren't you going to paint it?"
"Not if you want it like the original," Dutchie told him.
And that's how Dr. Black ended up with the state's historic structure of the year.
"It's been a real transfiguration," declared one of the judges. "A real transfiguration."
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, March 8, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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
"Reunion" by David O. Bales
"Vision Quest" by Larry Winebrenner
"Justified by Faith" by Larry Winebrenner
"Donkey Cross" by Frank Ramirez
"Preparation for the Journey" by Larry Winebrenner
"Gaining the Whole World" by Larry Winebrenner
"Transfiguration" by Larry Winebrenner
What's Up This Week
What must have gone through an elderly Abraham's mind when the Lord appeared to him and informed him that he would be the patriarch of "a multitude of nations"? It's a sign of Abraham's faith that he trusted the Lord -- even if it seemed like a very strange turn of events. In the feature story of this edition of StoryShare, David Bales spins a tale of a similarly unlikely covenant between a 90-year-old woman and an ex-con... and the lawyer whose faith in humanity was restored in part because of it. We also have several brief vignettes from Larry Winebrenner, including an account of a young Native American man and his "vision quest" experience, and a portrayal of a grandmother with a homely way of explaining righteousness to her granddaughter. In addition, Frank Ramirez shares a meditation in which he reminds us of the raw power of the cross -- after all, it is a symbol of unspeakable torture.
* * * * * * * * *
Reunion
by David O. Bales
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
"It was a goat," Janice said with a big smile, putting hands to her head to form horns. "Ate my client's three rose bushes, a hammock, and a basketball." The other two laughed.
"Some case. Who won?" Sil asked.
"We did," Janice said. "Lucky for us. Found out later the judge hated animals."
The three friends shared their fun exactly as years ago: Janice flapping her hands, Carlin snorting, and Sil laughing from the side of his mouth.
"Okay, Sil," Carlin said, "you've got to have something better than that! Twenty years practice."
"Well," Sil spoke slowly and sneered, "I could generalize and say that divorces were the most interesting, but it would lean away from interesting to fascinating, the way vivisection is fascinating but horrifying. Boy, does divorce expose life's underside."
At Sil's statement, Janice and Carlin looked down at the college yearbook, which Sil had brought to the reunion. Across the room a group at one table broke into laughter and raised glasses in a toast.
"Last chance for you, Carlin," Janice said. "Most interesting case in two decades?"
"Actually," Carlin said, "I knew as soon as you mentioned it what my most interesting case was. It didn't include a crime or even an appearance in court."
The two other attorneys leaned forward in their chairs. When they'd been in law school together, no one could tell a story like Carlin, and they'd waited a long time for this.
"It was a 90-year-old woman and an ex-con."
"I thought you said no crime?" Janice said.
"No crime." Carlin waved his hand toward his old friend and smiled. "Just listen."
"I got into it through Allan, a friend who's administrator at an assisted living facility. He called and told me who he planned to hire and wanted my advice on liability. To start with, Allan's a soft touch. If anybody's going to give an ex-con a job, he is. He's not dumb, though. He made sure that everyone in the building knew Ike's background. He didn't say it to others, but he told me that if a resident or family protested, he'd keep Ike off their wing. Fortunately, and I think it's because Allan's been there a long time and proven his good judgment, no one complained.
"Ike wasn't a hard case. He'd done 26 months for bad checks, third offense. Wife divorced him while he was in, second wife. He was no longer a criminal. You couldn't call him happy either.
"He'd been latched onto by a Christian group in prison, and they'd supported him well enough so he'd hold onto life and keep trying. No joy, however. At the assisted living he did his job and went home. Showed up the next morning on time. Two years dragged by like that.
"Then, as happens nearly every month, a new resident moved in. Gracie was 90 and what proved to be most important, without family. Nothing extraordinary about her, and Ike was certainly less than ordinary. They just clicked. Who knows who spoke first as he cleaned the hall. Who remembers who drew the first smile from the other. They just liked one another. Didn't spend all their time together or anything; but he found out her birthday and gave her a card. She had one of the cooks find out what station he always listened to on his radio earphones as he worked. The cook phoned in and got a song dedicated to Ike from Gracie.
"Eight months after Gracie moved in Allan got hold of me. I came and he introduced me to Gracie. She told me what she wanted to do, asked me to consider all the options and consequences both for her and Ike, and also for his continued employment at the assisted living.
"Allan and I were in Gracie's room waiting. Allan had summoned Ike. Gracie introduced me and explained why I was there. 'I want to adopt you, Ike.' "
"Ike could hardly respond, opened and closed his mouth a couple times. Allan pointed to me, 'Carlin says it's legal.'
"I didn't hurry the process. Purposefully went slowly. I stopped by a couple times with paperwork so I could size up Ike. But Gracie had already well sized up Ike as her son and that's what he became."
Carlin paused and scanned the room of his fellow law school alumni banqueters. "Of all the legal turf wars we have to ride our horses through... that winter was my most difficult, dealing with a shyster representing a professional accident. Made me wonder if I'd have done better in accounting. The store I represented and their insurance company settled for half a million. Well," Carlin flinched as though pulling himself away from that subject, "I'm here to testify that for three years Ike was as good a son as one could expect. Spent an hour a day with Gracie. Not many people knew it. That's my most interesting case because at that point I was running pretty low on faith in humanity. I, uh, kind of figured out that Grace's adopting Ike wasn't just for him. It benefited me greatly."
Sil gazed blankly across the room. Janice blushed, then slowly reached for her wine glass and took another drink.
David O. Bales was a Presbyterian minister for 33 years. Recently retired as the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching Great Texts, and Interpretation, and he is the author of the CSS titles Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story and Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace.
Vision Quest
by Larry Winebrenner
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Little Foot should have been excited. He had been in his fourteenth summer as his Dakota grandfather explained the Vision Quest principles.
"You will wait for your totem to appear," Grandfather had told him. "It will not come the first day, nor the second, nor the third, sometimes. You have to have patience. You have to wait. If you return to the village before your totem appears, you are not yet ready for manhood."
Little Foot understood. He remembered when his uncle, six summers older than he, had gone on his Vision Quest. His uncle had been gone four days. He staggered back into the village, dehydrated, hungry, eyes glazed over.
"Grandfather," he had told his elder, "a great serpent that rattles his tail appeared to me. He stood higher than a tall man's head. He spoke to me in serpent language, but I understood what he said."
Six summers later, Grandfather had sung the song of preparation: "Hay-yuh-hay-yuh-yuh-hay-yuh." He sang it several minutes, and he sent Little Foot up the mountain to wait alone day and night, in the heat and cold, for his own totem to appear.
That was two summers ago. This was his third summer. He just wasn't ready the two previous Vision Quests. Would he be ready this time? Or would he return once again in shame, disgrace, and failure?
The second night he decided he was once more faced with failure. At sunup he would make his way down the mountain and back to the village.
But at sunup Little Foot awoke to a blood-curdling sound. The growl of a grizzly, a giant grizzly bear, sounded just above where he had dozed off in his vigil. Then, an amazing occurrence took place. He understood the bear-language!
"Get up!" ordered the bear.
Little Foot scrambled to his feet.
"A great warrior like you must not sleep while keeping watch. What if you were guarding your camp, and the enemy came upon you -- and you were asleep?"
Little Foot had no answer.
"No longer shall you be called Little Foot. From now on, you shall be known as Eagle Eye. You will lead your hungry people from the desolate valley to a valley abundant with game. I will show you the way."
The vision disappeared. Little Foot -- no longer Little Foot, but now Eagle Eye -- descended the mountain... this time not in shame.
And did he ever have a story to tell to Grandfather.
Justified by Faith
by Larry Winebrenner
Romans 4:13-25
"Grandma," said Betsy, "the Bible sure is hard to understand."
Grandma sifted a little more flour into her mixing bowl. "It sure can be sometimes," she replied. "Strong men pulling down buildings, shepherd lads slaying giants, men in hot furnaces not...."
"Oh, Grandma," interrupted Betsy impatiently, "not stories. Complicated stuff like 'faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.' "
Grandma stopped kneading the biscuit dough and looked intently at her 12-year-old granddaughter.
"Well now," she stated, "when did you start studying theology?"
"Grandma," laughed Betsy, "I'm not studying theology. I read that in my Bible."
Grandma went back to biscuit-making. She pinched off a nut-sized piece of dough and rolled it into a ball. Then se placed it in a pie tin and mashed it a bit to flatten it. "You know what 'reckon' means?" she asked.
Betsy frowned and answered, "When I ask you or Grandpa if I can do something, you'll say 'I reckon" if it's okay. Does it mean 'okay'?"
Grandma made another biscuit. "Well, sorta," she said. "But here it means something more."
"More?"
"Yeah." Another biscuit went into the pan. "Kinda like, 'agrees that it is so.' You see, that part of the Bible you were reading referred to a time God hadn't yet given the Law to Moses."
"What's that got to do with righteousness?" asked the 12-year-old.
"How do you know something is right or wrong?" asked Grandma.
"Well, if you break the law, it's wrong."
Grandma placed the last biscuit in the pan and slipped them into the oven. "That's right, honey. But what if there isn't a law to tell you what's right or wrong?"
Betsy puzzled over this a bit. That wasn't a fair question. You had to have rules to tell you whether you had broken a rule or not. "There ain't no way to tell," pouted Betsy.
"Don't say 'ain't,' " kidded Grandma. " 'Ain't' ain't in the Bible." Betsy giggled. Grandma continued. "Consider the biscuits I'm baking. A cooking teacher could watch me and see if I followed the recipe correctly."
The smell of the biscuits baking made Betsy hungry. She glanced over at a shelf where Grandma kept her honey pot. It was really a jar, but Grandma called it a honey pot. Grandma followed her eyes and took down the honey. She set it on the table and got out the butter.
"You don't need a recipe," assured Betsy.
"Yes, Betsy, I need a recipe, and I have to follow it or the biscuits won't come out right. When I was a little girl, I tried to bake biscuits. I thought the teaspoon of baking powder was a tablespoon. The biscuits were as tall as a soup can." They laughed together about that. "But suppose the recipe were not written down," she said, getting back to the original point. "And suppose the teacher didn't know the recipe. How would she know whether I had done it right?"
"By tasting the biscuits," said Betsy, clearly suggesting they should do the same.
Grandma took the hint and lifted the brown biscuits from the pan and separated them on a plate. Betsy picked up one and juggled it from hand to hand until she could butter it. She put a little honey on a saucer and dipped the edge of the biscuit into it.
"Might you say that by the taste it was reckoned to me that I used the right recipe?"
"I get it, Grandma," said Betsy.
But for the moment she was more interested in the honey and biscuits than in Bible study.
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Larry is currently active in First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami, where he leads discussion in an adult fellowship group on Sunday mornings and preaches occasionally. He has authored two college textbooks, written four novels, served as an editor for three newspapers and an academic journal, and contributed articles to several magazines.
Donkey Cross
by Frank Ramirez
Mark 8:31-38; Psalm 22:23-31
Then (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
-- Mark 8:31
The cross is the central symbol of our faith. We can be very casual about wearing the cross around the neck or on the lapel. We sometimes forget, however, that the cross is a symbol of terror, despair, horror, degradation, agony, and humiliation. It was a form of execution reserved for the lowest of the low, for those outside the pale of humanity, whose bodies would be dumped in the garbage heaps afterward to be torn apart by wild dogs. Indeed, whenever a portion of the New Testament was read aloud, first-century listeners must have cringed every time they heard the word "cross." It was that obscene.
So shameful was the image of the cross to our ancestors in the faith, so obscene the method of execution, that for over four centuries the church chose not to use that symbol in its art.
Well, there is one example of the cross used in a drawing from early Christian history, but it was drawn by an opponent of the faith. This piece of graffiti in the slave quarters of the Imperial Palace in Rome shows a crude drawing of a crucifixion. On the cross hung a man with the head of a donkey. At the feet of the victim is an individual engaged in adoration. There's a single line written beneath it: "Alexamenos worships his god." (Click here to see this depiction of the cross. It appears in Ante Pacem by Graydon F. Snyder [Mercer University Press], p. 60. The photo appears here by permission of Dr. Snyder.)
This anti-Christian drawing makes it clear how shameful the cross could be. Even so, this Alexamenos was not ashamed to claim Jesus as Lord, even though it led to ridicule. It helps us realize why Christians did not wear the cross as a symbol for over four centuries.
More important than whether we wear the cross is whether we bear the cross. Anna Mow was a missionary, mother, writer, and teacher, an active speaker and much-loved disciple of Jesus Christ. She seemed willing to endure anything for the sake of her Savior. Perhaps that's why it seemed so ironic that one who was such a great communicator should suffer a debilitating stroke late in life that made it nearly impossible for her to communicate.
Despite a stroke that limited her ability to write and speak, she dictated a final book to demonstrate her determination to bear the cross. Anna's book is sparkling bright as a running brook in spring, yet filled with the same brooding depth of a pond deep from the melting snows. In a helpless condition she describes as "a world of suffering," Anna writes, "I can't even choose what kind of suffering I'll have. But I can choose what my attitude is going to be toward suffering."
Calling upon the example of Job, Anna differentiates between a God who sends suffering and one who permits it. "No matter what happens to us, we are within his loving care. Our Lord suffered. Paul's thorn in the flesh was never taken away. We may suffer. If we trust him, the suffering will never be useless."
And then there's this: "No one is ever useless to God. No one who can pray is ever useless. There are many people to perform the needed activities, but too few to take the time for prayer." (From Two or Ninety-Two by Anna Mow [Brethren Press].)
The cross as an instrument of torture also represents the intersection of two roads. It is the place where heaven and earth come together. It is the spot where we meet Jesus.
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and has served as a pastor for nearly thirty years in Church of the Brethren congregations. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
Preparation for the Journey
by Larry Winebrenner
Psalm 22:23-28
The ship had been loaded. Good seamen had been signed aboard. Weather was fair. Tide was right. There was one more preparation for the journey.
Jason went to see the oracle. One didn't venture on a great journey without the predictions of the oracle. Jason asked, "O great oracle, what can you tell me of this journey?"
"Tell me, my son," said the oracle, "what do you fear?"
"Sea monsters of the deep," Jason answered immediately. "I hear they are ten times larger than the largest, that they can swallow the ship whole."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such frightening monsters. Is there anything you fear more than the monsters?"
Jason danced nervously from foot to foot. He hadn't expected this response to his question. He wiped the perspiration from his upper lip with his wrist.
"Well, what do you fear more than monsters?" asked the oracle once more.
"The ships of the seafaring nations," said the seaman. "I'm told they actually capture the sea monsters alive."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such powerful seamen. Is there anything you fear more than these seafarers?"
This was getting to be too much for the ship's captain. He wanted advice, not an indictment of cowardice.
"Storms!" blurted out the man. "Storms sink even the ships of the seafarers."
"Yes," said the oracle. "It is wise to fear such dreadful storms. Is there anything you fear more than the storms?"
"The god who made the storms," whispered Jason, as if the admission would cause the very wrath of that god to descend.
"Then here is my advice for your journey," said the oracle. "Fear God, and you need not fear anything else."
Gaining the Whole World
by Larry Winebrenner
Mark 8.31-38
Bron was no hero. He was simply an ordinary caveman who returned to the valley.
Two summers previously, he had unwisely criticized the clan leader for a bit of cruelty. The clan leader had banished him to the mountains "where trees don't grow," until the following summer. It was a death sentence.
No one seemed to care. After all, it meant one less mouth to feed in this valley of diminishing resources. Less game. Fewer roots and berries and fruit. More hunger.
Bron returned after two summers. He told of another valley across the mountain "where trees don't grow." A valley alive with game. A valley where a river teemed with fish. A garden spot of abundant fruit, berries, and edible plants.
So Bron, who was no hero, led a band across the mountain to the new land, a land flowing with a fish-filled river and filled with fruit-bearing trees. A land of abundant game.
He now was seen as a great man by his community. He had food, acceptance, and the love of a devoted mate. What more could he desire?
But one day, Bron fell into the river. He could not swim. His body caught on a sand bar and his wife dragged it ashore. She determined that he was dead.
"He had fame," she said. "He had abundance. He had family. But what good is it if he has no breath in his body? If he has no life left?"
Transfiguration
By Larry Winebrenner
Mark 9:2-9
It was built in 1832. Some referred to it as "a ramshackle bunch of wormy boards held together by rusty nails." As a matter of fact, it did look like it was about ready to fall down. One corner of the tin roof flopped up and down when a strong wind blew. The once pristine columns were blistered with peeling paint. And the last whitewash job seemed more than a century old.
"What can you do with it, Dutchie?" asked Dr. Black.
The old carpenter gave the structure a long, searching gaze. He walked around the building, examining it from a distance. He had walked past the house many times but had only considered it an eyesore. Now he examined it as a possible contract. Finally, he spoke. "How much you want to spend?"
"You tell me, Dutchie. I want it to look like it did the day it was built."
"Dr. Black," said Dutchie, "I won't lie to you. You can tear this old wreck down and build one twice as nice for what it would cost to fix up this one."
Dr. Black fixed him with a withering glare. "If I wanted a new house, I'd 've hired a contractor. But a contractor can't do what I know you can do. That's why I brought you out here."
"I'll do it as cheap as I can," said Dutchie. "But I can't even give you a ball-park figure. If you want to hire me on that basis, I'll do the job. You won't be sorry for what you get."
Dutchie went to work. Folks would walk by and just shake their heads. Two different friends and his daughter told the doctor he was foolish to spend the money. One warned him that Dutchie would run up the bill on him.
The day came when folks would stop and look at the transformation taking place. They'd nod their heads and point to some new improvement. Finally, Dutchie stopped by the doctor's house.
"She's all done but the whitewash," he told his employer.
"Whitewash? Aren't you going to paint it?"
"Not if you want it like the original," Dutchie told him.
And that's how Dr. Black ended up with the state's historic structure of the year.
"It's been a real transfiguration," declared one of the judges. "A real transfiguration."
Larry Winebrenner is now retired and living in Miami Gardens, Florida. He taught for 33 years at Miami-Dade Community College, and served as pastor of churches in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
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StoryShare, March 8, 2009, issue.
Copyright 2009 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.
