Spilled Milk
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Spilled Milk" by Frank Ramirez
"God's Silent Witness" by John Fitzgerald
* * * * * * *
Spilled Milk
by Frank Ramirez
Philippians 3:4b-14
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…
-- Philippians 3:8, KJV
Perhaps you remember the old saying: "It's no use crying over spilled milk." But did you know it's possible to use spilled milk to faithfully guide you on your way?
Our word galaxy comes from the Greek word galaktos, which means milk. What we in the Northern Hemisphere call the Milky Way is of course our own spiral galaxy as it looks to us on earth as we spin around a rather ordinary star circling on the edge of this island of stars. We know the Milky Way is composed of millions of stars, but the ancient Greeks thought it looked like spilled milk splashed across the night sky, and so they called it galaktos.
It is now known that certain animals use lights in the night sky to navigate on their great journeys. Birds, butterflies, and animals like seals use the stars to guide them in their migrations.
One of the most interesting examples of using the night sky to navigate involves the large bug known as the dung beetle. These African insects fashion balls of animal manure from large animals such as elephants. These serve as food and as nesting places.
After building a big ball out of the waste material, they roll it away from the original pile of dung for safekeeping so other dung beetles don't steal the product of their hard work.
It is crucial they roll in a straight line. If they roll in a circle, they'll end up back where they started and might perhaps lose the dung ball. What do they use for a guide so they travel in a straight line?
Marie Dacke, a vision scientist from Lund University in Sweden, noticed that on cloudy nights dung beetles go astray. However, on nights when the sky is clear and the Milky Way is visible, she discovered dung beetles use the Milky Way as their guide so that they role away their treasure in a straight line. They use the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy as a means of navigation to help them roll on top of their big ball of dung in a straight line.
Experiments in the lab that recreated the conditions of the skies produced the same result. Scientists took the dung beetles to a planetarium, where images of the night sky are projected on the ceiling to give the illusion that people are outdoors. The beetles traveled in a straight line when the picture of the Milky Way shone overhead. They traveled in a wobbly fashion when it was not.
Believe it or not, dung and one's guiding star come together in today's scripture from Philippians. The New Revised Standard Version translates the Greek word skubalos as "rubbish" in Philippians 3:4b-14 when the apostle Paul, having listed his good qualities, notes: "I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." But it's really a rather rude word, a vulgarity, and the King James is closer to the truth when it translates the word as "dung." It means all that and more. The earthiness of the passage is an attempt to remove the veil of politeness from the urgency, the raw aim of the good news, which is the importance of keeping one's eyes on the prize, to ignore the distractions of those who want to complicate the faith with unnecessary practices, so we might achieve the goal of knowing Christ, sharing in his sufferings, as well as in the resurrection.
For Paul, Jesus is the guiding star, the way (if not milky) to life eternal. Everything else is, well, you know.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
God's Silent Witness
by John Fitzgerald
Psalm 19
Teddy Roosevelt is credited as one of our nation's great presidents. Besides affairs of state, Roosevelt possessed a keen interest in the natural world. A friend of Mr. Roosevelt who shared a passion for scientific inquiry visited with the former president one night. His recounting of their time together included an interchange where the two men went outside of Roosevelt's Sagamore Home to do some star gazing. Both men were trained in astronomy and a contest developed to see who would be first in detecting celestial arrangements. When the friendly game concluded, Roosevelt recited from one of his books: The Milky Way is one of a hundred million galaxies. It is 750,000 light-years away. It consists of one billion suns, each larger than our sun. After an interval, Roosevelt turned to his guest and said, "Now I think we are small enough. It's time for bed."
We cannot help but feel very small when contemplating the starry sky at night. Each star is a reminder of the infinite expanse of our universe created and fashioned by God. The eternal purposes of our Lord are stretched before us on a canopy of space. The wonder, glory, and mystery of divine being unfold in silent witness when we look upward.
The opening verses of our scripture lesson from Psalm 19 capture this sense of God's silent witness discovered in skies above: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
A few minutes spent thinking upon stars, sun, and moon spares us from mortal conceit. We are like flowers of a field that shine brightly for brief days and then return to the ground from which they sprang forth. Such is our fleeting existence when compared with the permanence of heavenly fixtures.
This attitude is important to take on in our celebrity-obsessed culture. We worship at the altar of rude and crude with a perverse fascination for anything that speaks to tabloid and gossip. There is a vanity and pride permeating our mind set and behavior. America in the twenty-first century is filled with an obnoxious sense of self-importance.
The salvation of our country depends upon returning to a God who has created all things. Psalm 19 turns our attention to the silent witness of a Lord who rules and reigns in heaven and earth.
Not only is the starry expanse articulated in this Psalm but a second silent witness to divine authority emerges. Verses 7-8 read: The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statures of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. God's law is eternal and meant for people of all generations to live by. Just as stars shine at night since the dawn of time, so too has the perfect law of our Lord been in effect.
God has given us his teachings to spare his creation from the ravages of sin. We know what is right and yet choose to continue in willful disobedience. Divine law helps us to keep on the straight and narrow. Much as modern society is infatuated with the self, so too we argue there is no such thing as divine law.
Our current understanding is that ethics and morals are confined to individual situations and cultures. The contemporary mind suggests that universal law imposed by a holy God has nothing to do with our world.
Psalm 19 emphatically takes issue with this thinking. The Bible states that God has given us laws to live by that are true irregardless of time or place. It is to this standard by which we will be judged as a nation and people.
After stating the silent witness to God present in stars and law, Psalm 19 summarizes with a beautiful prayer. This prayer stands as a testimony and challenge for daily living. It is a fitting model of faith to go along with stars and divine teaching. Each new day our prayer should be: May these words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
John Fitzgerald lives in Leesburg, Ohio, with his wife Carolyn and has served as pastor at the Leesburg Friends Meeting for the past 27 years. Cornfield Cathedral (Fairway Press, 2013) is the second book authored by Pastor Fitzgerald. John has earned a Master's of Ministry Degree from the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
*****************************************
StoryShare, October 5, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Spilled Milk" by Frank Ramirez
"God's Silent Witness" by John Fitzgerald
* * * * * * *
Spilled Milk
by Frank Ramirez
Philippians 3:4b-14
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…
-- Philippians 3:8, KJV
Perhaps you remember the old saying: "It's no use crying over spilled milk." But did you know it's possible to use spilled milk to faithfully guide you on your way?
Our word galaxy comes from the Greek word galaktos, which means milk. What we in the Northern Hemisphere call the Milky Way is of course our own spiral galaxy as it looks to us on earth as we spin around a rather ordinary star circling on the edge of this island of stars. We know the Milky Way is composed of millions of stars, but the ancient Greeks thought it looked like spilled milk splashed across the night sky, and so they called it galaktos.
It is now known that certain animals use lights in the night sky to navigate on their great journeys. Birds, butterflies, and animals like seals use the stars to guide them in their migrations.
One of the most interesting examples of using the night sky to navigate involves the large bug known as the dung beetle. These African insects fashion balls of animal manure from large animals such as elephants. These serve as food and as nesting places.
After building a big ball out of the waste material, they roll it away from the original pile of dung for safekeeping so other dung beetles don't steal the product of their hard work.
It is crucial they roll in a straight line. If they roll in a circle, they'll end up back where they started and might perhaps lose the dung ball. What do they use for a guide so they travel in a straight line?
Marie Dacke, a vision scientist from Lund University in Sweden, noticed that on cloudy nights dung beetles go astray. However, on nights when the sky is clear and the Milky Way is visible, she discovered dung beetles use the Milky Way as their guide so that they role away their treasure in a straight line. They use the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy as a means of navigation to help them roll on top of their big ball of dung in a straight line.
Experiments in the lab that recreated the conditions of the skies produced the same result. Scientists took the dung beetles to a planetarium, where images of the night sky are projected on the ceiling to give the illusion that people are outdoors. The beetles traveled in a straight line when the picture of the Milky Way shone overhead. They traveled in a wobbly fashion when it was not.
Believe it or not, dung and one's guiding star come together in today's scripture from Philippians. The New Revised Standard Version translates the Greek word skubalos as "rubbish" in Philippians 3:4b-14 when the apostle Paul, having listed his good qualities, notes: "I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." But it's really a rather rude word, a vulgarity, and the King James is closer to the truth when it translates the word as "dung." It means all that and more. The earthiness of the passage is an attempt to remove the veil of politeness from the urgency, the raw aim of the good news, which is the importance of keeping one's eyes on the prize, to ignore the distractions of those who want to complicate the faith with unnecessary practices, so we might achieve the goal of knowing Christ, sharing in his sufferings, as well as in the resurrection.
For Paul, Jesus is the guiding star, the way (if not milky) to life eternal. Everything else is, well, you know.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
God's Silent Witness
by John Fitzgerald
Psalm 19
Teddy Roosevelt is credited as one of our nation's great presidents. Besides affairs of state, Roosevelt possessed a keen interest in the natural world. A friend of Mr. Roosevelt who shared a passion for scientific inquiry visited with the former president one night. His recounting of their time together included an interchange where the two men went outside of Roosevelt's Sagamore Home to do some star gazing. Both men were trained in astronomy and a contest developed to see who would be first in detecting celestial arrangements. When the friendly game concluded, Roosevelt recited from one of his books: The Milky Way is one of a hundred million galaxies. It is 750,000 light-years away. It consists of one billion suns, each larger than our sun. After an interval, Roosevelt turned to his guest and said, "Now I think we are small enough. It's time for bed."
We cannot help but feel very small when contemplating the starry sky at night. Each star is a reminder of the infinite expanse of our universe created and fashioned by God. The eternal purposes of our Lord are stretched before us on a canopy of space. The wonder, glory, and mystery of divine being unfold in silent witness when we look upward.
The opening verses of our scripture lesson from Psalm 19 capture this sense of God's silent witness discovered in skies above: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
A few minutes spent thinking upon stars, sun, and moon spares us from mortal conceit. We are like flowers of a field that shine brightly for brief days and then return to the ground from which they sprang forth. Such is our fleeting existence when compared with the permanence of heavenly fixtures.
This attitude is important to take on in our celebrity-obsessed culture. We worship at the altar of rude and crude with a perverse fascination for anything that speaks to tabloid and gossip. There is a vanity and pride permeating our mind set and behavior. America in the twenty-first century is filled with an obnoxious sense of self-importance.
The salvation of our country depends upon returning to a God who has created all things. Psalm 19 turns our attention to the silent witness of a Lord who rules and reigns in heaven and earth.
Not only is the starry expanse articulated in this Psalm but a second silent witness to divine authority emerges. Verses 7-8 read: The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statures of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. God's law is eternal and meant for people of all generations to live by. Just as stars shine at night since the dawn of time, so too has the perfect law of our Lord been in effect.
God has given us his teachings to spare his creation from the ravages of sin. We know what is right and yet choose to continue in willful disobedience. Divine law helps us to keep on the straight and narrow. Much as modern society is infatuated with the self, so too we argue there is no such thing as divine law.
Our current understanding is that ethics and morals are confined to individual situations and cultures. The contemporary mind suggests that universal law imposed by a holy God has nothing to do with our world.
Psalm 19 emphatically takes issue with this thinking. The Bible states that God has given us laws to live by that are true irregardless of time or place. It is to this standard by which we will be judged as a nation and people.
After stating the silent witness to God present in stars and law, Psalm 19 summarizes with a beautiful prayer. This prayer stands as a testimony and challenge for daily living. It is a fitting model of faith to go along with stars and divine teaching. Each new day our prayer should be: May these words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
John Fitzgerald lives in Leesburg, Ohio, with his wife Carolyn and has served as pastor at the Leesburg Friends Meeting for the past 27 years. Cornfield Cathedral (Fairway Press, 2013) is the second book authored by Pastor Fitzgerald. John has earned a Master's of Ministry Degree from the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
*****************************************
StoryShare, October 5, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
