Visiting Asaph
Illustration
Stories
Contents
"Visiting Asaph" by David O. Bales
"Sequence of Service" by David O. Bales
"A Conversation Around the Fire" by Keith Hewitt
Visiting Asaph
by David O. Bales
Psalm 50:1-6
The chief baker’s helper, called merely “Helper,” was an Assyrian slave like Rekub. He said he didn’t mind that Rekub had been freed yet he was still a slave. “Long ago, even before I had a beard,” Helper said, “I gave up ideas of escape. I’ve been here so long, I’m hardly Assyrian anymore.”
“And you’re convinced the Hebrews’ Yahweh-God is real,” Rekub said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not, but what else do I have to do now but wonder what our Assyrian or Hebrew gods are up to.”
Helper walked along silently. He led. Rekub followed. Rekub’s mind was tipping from one thought to another. Rekub was captured a year ago in a border skirmish with Assyria. Then Judah’s king had granted him as a slave to the chief baker for his loyalty. Now the chief baker had set him free -- thrust him out the door yesterday and told him to go away. Helper said he should be grateful. “The chief baker was merciful. He could’ve sold you for 30 shekels.”
Although they had now walked together all the way across Jerusalem without speaking, Rekub began as though continuing the conversation, “The master isn’t all that merciful. He keeps you, tosses me a flour-dusted blanket and shoves me away because I can’t do much with one and a half hands.”
“Could be,” Helper said as they exited the city gate. He pointed west. “We need to climb up there,” Helper pointed. Rekub followed. In the last months his bitterness and loneliness had slowly, but not completely, drained from his spirit; yet, being freed far from his homeland with nothing to his name, he was now as hopeless as when captured. He thought he’d outrun the nightly dreams of the slaughter. Then his first night of freedom surrounded and assailed him again with the nightmares. His detachment was abandoned and, before they were able to surrender, his brother was pierced through the stomach. As Rekub tried to defend him, a Hebrew’s sword chopped the hilt of his own sword, slicing off his thumb and first finger. He was taken prisoner and his hand bound tightly. He’d nearly bled to death.
Trying to move his lost digits he could still feel, the daily indignities of a slave’s life, and dreams of the commander promising to give his detachment support led to screaming nightmares of his brother gasping his name. Yet he also lived within the continual round of a seventh day rest -- as strange as a slave’s life. To be allowed, even forced, to rest every seventh day dislocated his thinking. He’d known nothing like this. And the festivals. A slave forcibly included in their praise of Yahweh, not as a human sacrifice, but as another person in the community of Yahweh’s people. Nothing fit.
That’s why he and Helper were going to see Asaph. Last week as worshippers gathered around the temple they heard the Levites chanting one of Asaph’s psalms. Nothing strange about religious chants. Helper remembered such as a child in Assyrian Gozan. For Rekub he’d heard them in an Assyrian shrine only a year before. But he was bothered when the chant quoted Yahweh, “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
When he got Helper alone he’d asked, “Who’s this speaking for God?”
“He’s the chief of chants for the temple. Haven’t you seen him? Haven’t you listened?”
Rekub had cocked his head to the side, “No. I’ve thought of Assyria’s gods and temples. But how does this fellow lip-off as though talking for Yahweh-God?”
“It’s singing the faith of Israel.”
“We sing our faith too, but it’s about the past. The stories of long ago. It’s not anybody we know. It doesn’t assume someone right here can speak word-for-word for a god.”
Helper said he didn’t know a lot about such things, but he knew where Asaph lived and he’d offered to lead Rekub there. At the time Rekub had refused, but after a night of rolling in his painful dreams, he found Helper as soon as he’d finished work and they set out together. On their way up the hill the smoke of the Jerusalem temple wafted over them and Rekub was imagining what Asaph must be like. For someone to speak for a god, he must be a giant, someone he’d not want to face in battle, fast and crafty, someone --
“There’s his house,” Helper said. “Look, there he is.”
“Where?”
“Right of the house, beside the Myrtle tree.”
Rekub was thunderstruck. Asaph was shorter by a head than Rekub and resembled a shriveled citron. “Wait,” he said, thrusting his three-fingered hand in front of Helper. “Forget it. Don’t bother him. Let’s go back. I should spend my time finding a job so I don’t starve.”
“I won’t let you starve. Come on.” He nudged Rekub forward. Asaph met them politely. Helper told him they were slaves of the same master and explained what he courteously referred to as “their” difficulty with Asaph’s chant that spoke in Yahweh’s very words.
While Helper spoke to him, Asaph looked at his feet, concentrating on his tiny toe rubbing a pebble. Then he smiled up at them. “I can help you slightly, a couple statements, examples, or we can spend all day.”
Rekub hadn’t spoken and wished he’d never brought up the subject to Helper. He said quickly, “A short answer is fine, sir.”
“All right,” Asaph said as he peered toward Jerusalem. “You’re both slaves.” He paused, turned to Rekub and waited until Rekub responded, “I, well … was a slave. I was freed yesterday.”
Asaph continued. “If your master tells you to do something, you do it.”
Both men nodded.
“If your master commands you to deliver a message, you make sure you repeat it word for word.”
Both men nodded.
“And if your master’s behind a curtain and you can’t see him when he speaks, do you still then go repeat his message word for word?”
Both men nodded.
Asaph held out his arms in a gesture as though the explanation was sufficient. He turned and walked to his house, his steps hardly longer than his feet. Rekub stood with his mouth open for quite a while. Finally Helper said, “You want to ask him more?”
“No,” Rekub said quickly, shaking his head in wonder. “No, that’s enough.”
Preaching Point: As strange as the human process might seem, God gives direct and disturbing directions through real people: the writers of the Psalms as well as the writers of the Prophets.
* * *
Sequence of Service
by David O. Bales
2 Kings 2:1-12
1916 was not a good year for Giustina. Beppe became more violent by the day. He came home every evening to beat her because she’d lost her wedding ring down the sink. He’d punched her before, but now it was as if he’d gained a license for cruelty. Giustina took the blows while she crouched between him and the three children. The old woman in the next apartment heard the screams. She stationed herself to meet Giustina in the hall and offered sympathy but told her the law seldom prosecuted men for violence against wives. Giustina’s relief came when Beppe was arrested and held without bail for attempted murder of a fellow worker at the slaughter house.
She’d been totally, desperately dependent upon him for the few dollars he brought home after he’d spent most of his weekly pay at the tavern. Now at 20 Giustina held thirty-four cents to her name and her rent paid for nineteen more days in her crime and disease-ridden Chicago tenement. She’d immigrated with Beppe from Italy early in 1915 in order to escape the war in Europe. She didn’t know how Beppe arranged it, but she feared it wasn’t done legally.
She balanced her infant on her hip and with her free hand tried to herd her two and a half year old twins. She walked Halsted Street door to door asking for work or at least for help from people with the olive colored skin she’d grown up with in Italy. The best she could secure was a few hours in the evening scrubbing floors in a theater while keeping her children with her. It didn’t work. In a week she was on the street again, but this time someone directed her to Hull House.
The staff of Hull House settlement house -- creation of Jane Addams and Ellen Starr -- took her in. No one in America had treated her with such kindness. Minnie Steadman, a single woman in her 30s with an adequate grasp of Italian, became her mentor. Minnie was also a nurse. She immediately placed the children into Hull House child care and got Giustina a job in a garment factory with the promise that she’d find better work for her.
After a year of staggering labor, with Minnie’s tireless help and Hull House resources, Giustina could see that she and her children had a future. She spent a few minutes every evening after work learning English there and garnering skills to survive in America. In May, 1917 after she dragged herself to Hull House to get her children -- long after dark -- Minnie met her. Minnie looked more overworked than usual. She said, “I wanted to talk with you before I leave.”
Giustina was so exhausted she didn’t at first comprehend what Minnie said.
“I’ll depart for France on Thursday morning,” her voice trailed off tiredly, “the next ship.”
“France?”
“I’ve volunteered as a nurse.”
“But you’re against the war.”
“I’m not going to help the war but to help the wounded.”
“People are being killed there,” Giustina said, “by millions.” She grabbed Minnie’s wrist, “It’s not safe for you. No Americans there. Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t want to talk about why. I simply must go and help.”
In less than a minute Minnie told her the terms she would serve under and what she expected to do whether for civilian or military, French or English, German or Turk. Giustina wasn’t listening. She’d only survived the year with Minnie’s help. For her Minnie was Hull House. What would Giustina do?
Minnie sighed as she looked into Giustina’s sorrowful eyes and said, “Now, about you.”
Giustina managed, “What about me?”
“You’ll take my place at Hull House.”
Giustina coughed and gulped at the same time, “Me? Me? But I’m not a … a nurse. I’m not anything.”
Minnie looked confidently at her, “You’re a great learner. The staff will train you in some things, but they can’t give you the compassion you’ve already got. And people who’ve just learned can often teach others best. When I show you something or tell you something, you grab it and keep it and use it. That’s what you’ll do for others. People taught me. I taught you. You’ll do what I did for you but in new and different and probably better ways.”
“I can hardly speak the English,” she said.
“There’s plenty of Italians for you to help and you’ve learned English as fast as anyone.” She chuckled as she said, “your twins will perfect your English.” Minnie turned and said, “Come right now. It’s set. Let me explain a few duties. Be here tomorrow morning at seven. Someone will introduce you to the other workers.” Late that evening Minnie hugged Giustina, and left.
On a morning a month later as Giustina arrived, a large poster appeared on Hull House door. Minnie’s photograph was in the middle. People gathered to it weeping. A person translated it for Giustina. It reported that Minnie’s ship was torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic. There were no survivors. A service in Minnie’s memory was scheduled for July fourth at noon. The final lines stated: “You are now Minnie’s heritage. Carry on her work of compassion.”
One of the twins tugged on her dress, “Mommy, Mommy.” Giustina stood stone still.
Preaching Point: The decision has already been made for us: We are to serve as we have been served.
* * *
A Conversation Around the Fire
by Keith Hewitt
Mark 9:2-9
“So, when are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
Peter raised his head, shook it slightly and looked around, finally twisting his shoulders and turning his head as far as it would go, to look behind. His brother stood a few paces away, half hidden in shadow, but the silhouette -- tall, broad, with square shoulders -- was unmistakable, even if the face was too gloomy to see. Identification made, Peter grunted and turned back to stare at the glowing embers of the fire before him. “Who says anything is wrong?” he asked after a beat or two.
“You do,” his brother answered and stepped closer, until he was standing next to him.
Peter scowled. “I have said nothing of the sort.”
“Nonsense,” his brother said dismissively, and sat down next to him, on a flat stone. “Everything you’ve said since the four of you got back from your field trip tells me that there is definitely something wrong. What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ve said nothing, and nothing is wrong.” Peter cast a sideways glance at his brother. “You’re wrong, Andrew.”
It was Andrew’s turn to snort. “I’m pretty sure our rabbi would tell you that lying is a sin.” When Peter started to speak, his brother cut him off. “Hear me out. The four of you left this morning, and you were as bubbly as a girl going to her first wedding. You came back for dinner, and you could barely carry on a polite conversation. And as soon as we were done eating, you left -- snuck away from the others and came out here.”
Peter looked straight forward. “I wanted to pray. Our rabbi goes off to pray by himself all the time, and you don’t say a word.”
“Because that’s normal for him. For you, not so much. Something is obviously wrong, and I’m not going to leave you alone until you tell me what it is.” When there was no immediate answer, Andrew leaned a little closer, raised one hand and extended his index finger. Slowly, carefully, he reached toward Peter and gently poked him in the shoulder. “What’s wrong, brother?” he asked. When the silence continued, he poked Peter again -- a little harder -- and repeated, “What’s wrong?” Poke. “What’s wrong?” Poke…
Finally, Peter growled, “Poke me again and I will stick that finger up your nose and break it off…brother.”
Andrew smiled slightly. “And who says there’s nothing wrong?”
Peter looked at him directly, then. “You are such a child.”
“That may be -- but I’m a child who knows his brother. So tell me what the problem is.”
“I was told not to say anything.”
“That doesn’t apply to me. There are no secrets between brothers. You know that. Take that time you and David’s daughter -- ”
Peter held up a hand. “Please. If not secret, there are still things that are better left unsaid. But you weary me.” He paused, choosing his words as though he were paying for each one uttered. “Something happened this afternoon. On the mountain.”
“I gathered that much. What? What happened?”
“I don’t exactly know,” Peter said in a moment of utter honesty. He hesitated, licked his lips, and went on in a lower voice. “Look, do you remember how Moses’ face would glow, any time he was in the presence of God?”
“Of course,” Andrew answered, his eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement. “When he first came down from Sinai, they say that his face was shining. After that he wore a veil, and then any time he went back to speak to God, it would shine again. What does that have to do with…” He trailed off, suddenly uncomfortably sure that he knew what his brother was about to say.
“We were together…and then Jesus went off a little ways to pray, he said -- and when James and John and I looked, his face was shining, almost too bright to look at -- and his clothes, as well.” He hesitated, about to say more, and shook his head. “And that’s not all. There were two others standing with him, talking as though they knew one another well.”
“Others?”
Peter nodded, bit his lip for a moment, then burst out, “I’m pretty sure they were Elijah and Moses, himself. From the conversation they were having, what I heard -- and what I understood in my own heart -- I can’t explain it, but I’m certain that’s who Jesus was talking to. And then they disappeared, leaving only our rabbi behind.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Of course it is. But it happened. Tell me, brother, what do you do when the impossible becomes possible, right before your eyes?”
Andrew started to speak, stopped, started again -- and finally shrugged.
“Exactly. I said something about putting up a tabernacle for each of them, but I wasn’t in my right mind -- I just had to say something, but I was still trying to understand what I had just seen. And when it was done, there was this voice -- it seemed to come from everywhere, and it said -- ”
“‘You are my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased,’” Andrew murmured, interrupting. His voice was soft and his eyes were fixed on something that wasn’t visible to Peter. Then he shook his head abruptly and looked at his brother.
“Very nearly -- it was ‘This is my son, the beloved -- listen to him!’ How did you know?”
“It’s -- remember, I told you about the voice that came from the sky when Jesus was baptized. That’s what it said.”
“And it was very close to what the voice said, this time. And now I don’t know what to think. The voice calls our rabbi the son of God. Can you imagine such a thing? How would the son of God get involved with us? As a human -- let alone a human from Galilee?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really make any sense, does it?” Andrew put his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands for a few moments. When he spoke, it was without lifting his head. “We’ve seen the signs, though -- the miracles. The healings. The casting out of unclean spirits. We’ve seen those.”
“They establish that he is a prophet of the Lord, Andrew -- not that he’s the son of God.”
“And we’ve heard him teach -- he teaches with authority. Like someone who knows these things firsthand. Maybe this would explain it.” He raised his head, then, turned to look at Peter. “Do you think it could possibly be true?”
Peter smiled without mirth. “I spent hours contemplating what trouble we could be in, if this were untrue -- would we be heretics for following him? what kind of megalomaniac could we be dealing with? -- the questions chased one another around and around in my head. But since dinner I’ve been contemplating what trouble lies ahead if it’s true. If he is the son of God -- for real -- then he’s not what anyone was expecting. And if he isn’t, then he’s a fraud who’s angered some very powerful people -- and who knows how that could end?”
Andrew sighed. “I can tell you that it wouldn’t be good…either way, it’s going to be trouble.”
“And now you know what I know,” Peter said quietly. “Not long ago, I confessed that our rabbi was the Christ -- the Messiah, the leader and redeemer we were waiting for. But I never dreamed that he might be the son of God. And after what we saw up there, I don’t know of any other explanation that makes sense.”
“So what now?” Andrew asked.
“Jesus asked us to keep what happened up there quiet, for now. I think he’s afraid of what might happen if it gets out -- and you know, I am too. But I’m still struggling to take it all in.” Peter leaned forward to pick up a bit of dry wood and chucked it into the fire, watched as it burst into flame and was rapidly consumed. “I know this, though,” he said quietly, and looked at his brother. “Things are about to get way more intense -- and our leaders, the priests and the scribes…I’m pretty sure this doesn’t fit their plans. This could be very bad -- for all of us.”
And the two brothers sat together before the dying fire.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 11, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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"Visiting Asaph" by David O. Bales
"Sequence of Service" by David O. Bales
"A Conversation Around the Fire" by Keith Hewitt
Visiting Asaph
by David O. Bales
Psalm 50:1-6
The chief baker’s helper, called merely “Helper,” was an Assyrian slave like Rekub. He said he didn’t mind that Rekub had been freed yet he was still a slave. “Long ago, even before I had a beard,” Helper said, “I gave up ideas of escape. I’ve been here so long, I’m hardly Assyrian anymore.”
“And you’re convinced the Hebrews’ Yahweh-God is real,” Rekub said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not, but what else do I have to do now but wonder what our Assyrian or Hebrew gods are up to.”
Helper walked along silently. He led. Rekub followed. Rekub’s mind was tipping from one thought to another. Rekub was captured a year ago in a border skirmish with Assyria. Then Judah’s king had granted him as a slave to the chief baker for his loyalty. Now the chief baker had set him free -- thrust him out the door yesterday and told him to go away. Helper said he should be grateful. “The chief baker was merciful. He could’ve sold you for 30 shekels.”
Although they had now walked together all the way across Jerusalem without speaking, Rekub began as though continuing the conversation, “The master isn’t all that merciful. He keeps you, tosses me a flour-dusted blanket and shoves me away because I can’t do much with one and a half hands.”
“Could be,” Helper said as they exited the city gate. He pointed west. “We need to climb up there,” Helper pointed. Rekub followed. In the last months his bitterness and loneliness had slowly, but not completely, drained from his spirit; yet, being freed far from his homeland with nothing to his name, he was now as hopeless as when captured. He thought he’d outrun the nightly dreams of the slaughter. Then his first night of freedom surrounded and assailed him again with the nightmares. His detachment was abandoned and, before they were able to surrender, his brother was pierced through the stomach. As Rekub tried to defend him, a Hebrew’s sword chopped the hilt of his own sword, slicing off his thumb and first finger. He was taken prisoner and his hand bound tightly. He’d nearly bled to death.
Trying to move his lost digits he could still feel, the daily indignities of a slave’s life, and dreams of the commander promising to give his detachment support led to screaming nightmares of his brother gasping his name. Yet he also lived within the continual round of a seventh day rest -- as strange as a slave’s life. To be allowed, even forced, to rest every seventh day dislocated his thinking. He’d known nothing like this. And the festivals. A slave forcibly included in their praise of Yahweh, not as a human sacrifice, but as another person in the community of Yahweh’s people. Nothing fit.
That’s why he and Helper were going to see Asaph. Last week as worshippers gathered around the temple they heard the Levites chanting one of Asaph’s psalms. Nothing strange about religious chants. Helper remembered such as a child in Assyrian Gozan. For Rekub he’d heard them in an Assyrian shrine only a year before. But he was bothered when the chant quoted Yahweh, “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
When he got Helper alone he’d asked, “Who’s this speaking for God?”
“He’s the chief of chants for the temple. Haven’t you seen him? Haven’t you listened?”
Rekub had cocked his head to the side, “No. I’ve thought of Assyria’s gods and temples. But how does this fellow lip-off as though talking for Yahweh-God?”
“It’s singing the faith of Israel.”
“We sing our faith too, but it’s about the past. The stories of long ago. It’s not anybody we know. It doesn’t assume someone right here can speak word-for-word for a god.”
Helper said he didn’t know a lot about such things, but he knew where Asaph lived and he’d offered to lead Rekub there. At the time Rekub had refused, but after a night of rolling in his painful dreams, he found Helper as soon as he’d finished work and they set out together. On their way up the hill the smoke of the Jerusalem temple wafted over them and Rekub was imagining what Asaph must be like. For someone to speak for a god, he must be a giant, someone he’d not want to face in battle, fast and crafty, someone --
“There’s his house,” Helper said. “Look, there he is.”
“Where?”
“Right of the house, beside the Myrtle tree.”
Rekub was thunderstruck. Asaph was shorter by a head than Rekub and resembled a shriveled citron. “Wait,” he said, thrusting his three-fingered hand in front of Helper. “Forget it. Don’t bother him. Let’s go back. I should spend my time finding a job so I don’t starve.”
“I won’t let you starve. Come on.” He nudged Rekub forward. Asaph met them politely. Helper told him they were slaves of the same master and explained what he courteously referred to as “their” difficulty with Asaph’s chant that spoke in Yahweh’s very words.
While Helper spoke to him, Asaph looked at his feet, concentrating on his tiny toe rubbing a pebble. Then he smiled up at them. “I can help you slightly, a couple statements, examples, or we can spend all day.”
Rekub hadn’t spoken and wished he’d never brought up the subject to Helper. He said quickly, “A short answer is fine, sir.”
“All right,” Asaph said as he peered toward Jerusalem. “You’re both slaves.” He paused, turned to Rekub and waited until Rekub responded, “I, well … was a slave. I was freed yesterday.”
Asaph continued. “If your master tells you to do something, you do it.”
Both men nodded.
“If your master commands you to deliver a message, you make sure you repeat it word for word.”
Both men nodded.
“And if your master’s behind a curtain and you can’t see him when he speaks, do you still then go repeat his message word for word?”
Both men nodded.
Asaph held out his arms in a gesture as though the explanation was sufficient. He turned and walked to his house, his steps hardly longer than his feet. Rekub stood with his mouth open for quite a while. Finally Helper said, “You want to ask him more?”
“No,” Rekub said quickly, shaking his head in wonder. “No, that’s enough.”
Preaching Point: As strange as the human process might seem, God gives direct and disturbing directions through real people: the writers of the Psalms as well as the writers of the Prophets.
* * *
Sequence of Service
by David O. Bales
2 Kings 2:1-12
1916 was not a good year for Giustina. Beppe became more violent by the day. He came home every evening to beat her because she’d lost her wedding ring down the sink. He’d punched her before, but now it was as if he’d gained a license for cruelty. Giustina took the blows while she crouched between him and the three children. The old woman in the next apartment heard the screams. She stationed herself to meet Giustina in the hall and offered sympathy but told her the law seldom prosecuted men for violence against wives. Giustina’s relief came when Beppe was arrested and held without bail for attempted murder of a fellow worker at the slaughter house.
She’d been totally, desperately dependent upon him for the few dollars he brought home after he’d spent most of his weekly pay at the tavern. Now at 20 Giustina held thirty-four cents to her name and her rent paid for nineteen more days in her crime and disease-ridden Chicago tenement. She’d immigrated with Beppe from Italy early in 1915 in order to escape the war in Europe. She didn’t know how Beppe arranged it, but she feared it wasn’t done legally.
She balanced her infant on her hip and with her free hand tried to herd her two and a half year old twins. She walked Halsted Street door to door asking for work or at least for help from people with the olive colored skin she’d grown up with in Italy. The best she could secure was a few hours in the evening scrubbing floors in a theater while keeping her children with her. It didn’t work. In a week she was on the street again, but this time someone directed her to Hull House.
The staff of Hull House settlement house -- creation of Jane Addams and Ellen Starr -- took her in. No one in America had treated her with such kindness. Minnie Steadman, a single woman in her 30s with an adequate grasp of Italian, became her mentor. Minnie was also a nurse. She immediately placed the children into Hull House child care and got Giustina a job in a garment factory with the promise that she’d find better work for her.
After a year of staggering labor, with Minnie’s tireless help and Hull House resources, Giustina could see that she and her children had a future. She spent a few minutes every evening after work learning English there and garnering skills to survive in America. In May, 1917 after she dragged herself to Hull House to get her children -- long after dark -- Minnie met her. Minnie looked more overworked than usual. She said, “I wanted to talk with you before I leave.”
Giustina was so exhausted she didn’t at first comprehend what Minnie said.
“I’ll depart for France on Thursday morning,” her voice trailed off tiredly, “the next ship.”
“France?”
“I’ve volunteered as a nurse.”
“But you’re against the war.”
“I’m not going to help the war but to help the wounded.”
“People are being killed there,” Giustina said, “by millions.” She grabbed Minnie’s wrist, “It’s not safe for you. No Americans there. Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t want to talk about why. I simply must go and help.”
In less than a minute Minnie told her the terms she would serve under and what she expected to do whether for civilian or military, French or English, German or Turk. Giustina wasn’t listening. She’d only survived the year with Minnie’s help. For her Minnie was Hull House. What would Giustina do?
Minnie sighed as she looked into Giustina’s sorrowful eyes and said, “Now, about you.”
Giustina managed, “What about me?”
“You’ll take my place at Hull House.”
Giustina coughed and gulped at the same time, “Me? Me? But I’m not a … a nurse. I’m not anything.”
Minnie looked confidently at her, “You’re a great learner. The staff will train you in some things, but they can’t give you the compassion you’ve already got. And people who’ve just learned can often teach others best. When I show you something or tell you something, you grab it and keep it and use it. That’s what you’ll do for others. People taught me. I taught you. You’ll do what I did for you but in new and different and probably better ways.”
“I can hardly speak the English,” she said.
“There’s plenty of Italians for you to help and you’ve learned English as fast as anyone.” She chuckled as she said, “your twins will perfect your English.” Minnie turned and said, “Come right now. It’s set. Let me explain a few duties. Be here tomorrow morning at seven. Someone will introduce you to the other workers.” Late that evening Minnie hugged Giustina, and left.
On a morning a month later as Giustina arrived, a large poster appeared on Hull House door. Minnie’s photograph was in the middle. People gathered to it weeping. A person translated it for Giustina. It reported that Minnie’s ship was torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic. There were no survivors. A service in Minnie’s memory was scheduled for July fourth at noon. The final lines stated: “You are now Minnie’s heritage. Carry on her work of compassion.”
One of the twins tugged on her dress, “Mommy, Mommy.” Giustina stood stone still.
Preaching Point: The decision has already been made for us: We are to serve as we have been served.
* * *
A Conversation Around the Fire
by Keith Hewitt
Mark 9:2-9
“So, when are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
Peter raised his head, shook it slightly and looked around, finally twisting his shoulders and turning his head as far as it would go, to look behind. His brother stood a few paces away, half hidden in shadow, but the silhouette -- tall, broad, with square shoulders -- was unmistakable, even if the face was too gloomy to see. Identification made, Peter grunted and turned back to stare at the glowing embers of the fire before him. “Who says anything is wrong?” he asked after a beat or two.
“You do,” his brother answered and stepped closer, until he was standing next to him.
Peter scowled. “I have said nothing of the sort.”
“Nonsense,” his brother said dismissively, and sat down next to him, on a flat stone. “Everything you’ve said since the four of you got back from your field trip tells me that there is definitely something wrong. What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ve said nothing, and nothing is wrong.” Peter cast a sideways glance at his brother. “You’re wrong, Andrew.”
It was Andrew’s turn to snort. “I’m pretty sure our rabbi would tell you that lying is a sin.” When Peter started to speak, his brother cut him off. “Hear me out. The four of you left this morning, and you were as bubbly as a girl going to her first wedding. You came back for dinner, and you could barely carry on a polite conversation. And as soon as we were done eating, you left -- snuck away from the others and came out here.”
Peter looked straight forward. “I wanted to pray. Our rabbi goes off to pray by himself all the time, and you don’t say a word.”
“Because that’s normal for him. For you, not so much. Something is obviously wrong, and I’m not going to leave you alone until you tell me what it is.” When there was no immediate answer, Andrew leaned a little closer, raised one hand and extended his index finger. Slowly, carefully, he reached toward Peter and gently poked him in the shoulder. “What’s wrong, brother?” he asked. When the silence continued, he poked Peter again -- a little harder -- and repeated, “What’s wrong?” Poke. “What’s wrong?” Poke…
Finally, Peter growled, “Poke me again and I will stick that finger up your nose and break it off…brother.”
Andrew smiled slightly. “And who says there’s nothing wrong?”
Peter looked at him directly, then. “You are such a child.”
“That may be -- but I’m a child who knows his brother. So tell me what the problem is.”
“I was told not to say anything.”
“That doesn’t apply to me. There are no secrets between brothers. You know that. Take that time you and David’s daughter -- ”
Peter held up a hand. “Please. If not secret, there are still things that are better left unsaid. But you weary me.” He paused, choosing his words as though he were paying for each one uttered. “Something happened this afternoon. On the mountain.”
“I gathered that much. What? What happened?”
“I don’t exactly know,” Peter said in a moment of utter honesty. He hesitated, licked his lips, and went on in a lower voice. “Look, do you remember how Moses’ face would glow, any time he was in the presence of God?”
“Of course,” Andrew answered, his eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement. “When he first came down from Sinai, they say that his face was shining. After that he wore a veil, and then any time he went back to speak to God, it would shine again. What does that have to do with…” He trailed off, suddenly uncomfortably sure that he knew what his brother was about to say.
“We were together…and then Jesus went off a little ways to pray, he said -- and when James and John and I looked, his face was shining, almost too bright to look at -- and his clothes, as well.” He hesitated, about to say more, and shook his head. “And that’s not all. There were two others standing with him, talking as though they knew one another well.”
“Others?”
Peter nodded, bit his lip for a moment, then burst out, “I’m pretty sure they were Elijah and Moses, himself. From the conversation they were having, what I heard -- and what I understood in my own heart -- I can’t explain it, but I’m certain that’s who Jesus was talking to. And then they disappeared, leaving only our rabbi behind.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Of course it is. But it happened. Tell me, brother, what do you do when the impossible becomes possible, right before your eyes?”
Andrew started to speak, stopped, started again -- and finally shrugged.
“Exactly. I said something about putting up a tabernacle for each of them, but I wasn’t in my right mind -- I just had to say something, but I was still trying to understand what I had just seen. And when it was done, there was this voice -- it seemed to come from everywhere, and it said -- ”
“‘You are my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased,’” Andrew murmured, interrupting. His voice was soft and his eyes were fixed on something that wasn’t visible to Peter. Then he shook his head abruptly and looked at his brother.
“Very nearly -- it was ‘This is my son, the beloved -- listen to him!’ How did you know?”
“It’s -- remember, I told you about the voice that came from the sky when Jesus was baptized. That’s what it said.”
“And it was very close to what the voice said, this time. And now I don’t know what to think. The voice calls our rabbi the son of God. Can you imagine such a thing? How would the son of God get involved with us? As a human -- let alone a human from Galilee?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really make any sense, does it?” Andrew put his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands for a few moments. When he spoke, it was without lifting his head. “We’ve seen the signs, though -- the miracles. The healings. The casting out of unclean spirits. We’ve seen those.”
“They establish that he is a prophet of the Lord, Andrew -- not that he’s the son of God.”
“And we’ve heard him teach -- he teaches with authority. Like someone who knows these things firsthand. Maybe this would explain it.” He raised his head, then, turned to look at Peter. “Do you think it could possibly be true?”
Peter smiled without mirth. “I spent hours contemplating what trouble we could be in, if this were untrue -- would we be heretics for following him? what kind of megalomaniac could we be dealing with? -- the questions chased one another around and around in my head. But since dinner I’ve been contemplating what trouble lies ahead if it’s true. If he is the son of God -- for real -- then he’s not what anyone was expecting. And if he isn’t, then he’s a fraud who’s angered some very powerful people -- and who knows how that could end?”
Andrew sighed. “I can tell you that it wouldn’t be good…either way, it’s going to be trouble.”
“And now you know what I know,” Peter said quietly. “Not long ago, I confessed that our rabbi was the Christ -- the Messiah, the leader and redeemer we were waiting for. But I never dreamed that he might be the son of God. And after what we saw up there, I don’t know of any other explanation that makes sense.”
“So what now?” Andrew asked.
“Jesus asked us to keep what happened up there quiet, for now. I think he’s afraid of what might happen if it gets out -- and you know, I am too. But I’m still struggling to take it all in.” Peter leaned forward to pick up a bit of dry wood and chucked it into the fire, watched as it burst into flame and was rapidly consumed. “I know this, though,” he said quietly, and looked at his brother. “Things are about to get way more intense -- and our leaders, the priests and the scribes…I’m pretty sure this doesn’t fit their plans. This could be very bad -- for all of us.”
And the two brothers sat together before the dying fire.
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StoryShare, February 11, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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