What Words to Use
Stories
Contents
“What Words to Use?” by C. David McKirachan
“Remembering Our Limitations” by C. David McKirachan
“With the Sword of God’s Own Word” by Frank Ramirez
What Words to Use?
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 66:8-20
My next-door neighbor is a nice guy. They just bought the house and are working hard on the yard. He asks a lot of questions about grass seed, fertilizer, what kind of flowers to plant where. His wife likes our bonsai and our fountain. I gave him a straw hat to keep his pate from getting broiled. He lent me his edger. We’re neighbors.
One day he threw a different question in. “We don’t have a church. Is there a good one around here? Things are going well, we’re happy. I’d like to know who to thank.” I asked him if he knew that one of the reasons he was happy was because he was grateful and was reaching beyond his stuff and his achievements with that gratitude. He told me that in AA he was learning about a higher power, something beyond himself and his stuff. It had never occurred to him before.
In our push and struggle to make our way through, there are few who stumble onto such wisdom. Many of the people in the pew, good church folk, never discover the simple glory that my neighbor found. Gratitude is a gift of the Spirit, but we’ve been so conditioned to labor and accumulate and count and seek success, personal and general that simple gratitude for the moment is an epiphany left to newlyweds. The general response to such gratitude is usually, ‘Isn’t that cute, they’ll get over it soon.’ As if it was a summer cold, that is not very contagious.
But what do we have to be thankful for? How about being alive? “[God] has kept us among the living…] v. 9. Another of my neighbors is a curmudgeon. He’s in his nineties and works harder than any of us. The other day he surprised me with a testimony. “When I wake up, all I can think of is Wow!... I’m still alive!” (And I don’t think he’s quoting Pearl Jam).
It’s a shame, when we gather in our houses of worship and share joys and concerns, that we rarely lift up prayers of simple gratitude. We’re pretty good and centering in on the surgeries, the divorces, the sick kids, and the world’s woes. Rarely does anybody express gratitude for grass and trees and birds and relationships and you name it. Maybe that’s why we have a hard time convincing people to share their hard-won money. They don’t appreciate the simple stuff and we don’t sound like we do either.
Ancient religions spent a lot of time trying to appease angry or potentially angry gods. Places of worship were sites of sacrifice that would hopefully make the ultimately tough powers think better of the worshiper. Jesus kind of set a new bar. He told us that God cares about us. So why are we still stuck?
I told my neighbor, the one who asked me about a church to start shopping around, to take notes. What did you like? What didn’t you like? I gave him a bible and a list of passages to read. (I marked them with slips of paper. That’s critical.) I offered to talk to him any time if he had questions or concerns. And I gave him a needle point thing (what do you call needle point things?) that I got in a rummage sale.
“Peace is seeing a sunrise or a sunset and knowing whom to thank.”
I told him that he was hearing the whispers of God. Some people call it the Holy Spirit. I told him that his gratitude is a spiritual gift and is precious.
And I told him to talk to God, whatever that higher power seemed to be. Have conversations, tell that god the truth. And pay attention. Listen. You never know when something’s going to come back.
He asked me what words to use.
“God is your loving parent. Talk to God like you’d talk to a parent that knows and loves you, who cares about you.”
I wish I could have had that conversation with more people. But that’s another story.
* * *
Remembering Our Limitations
C. David McKirachan
Acts 17:22-31
On my father’s desk was a small piece of marble. Carved onto it was ‘Acropolis’ in Greek. It was a souvenir given to him by a parishioner. As we all are, he was given lots of bits and pieces from the biblical lands. He kept none of them on his desk, but that one. I asked him about it. He told me it was a reminder of Paul’s sermon on the Acropolis. “We all need to remember who God is, and our own limitations.”
Athens was known as the birthplace of philosophy and its child, logic. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle took the art of argumentation above discussion and verbal brawling to a place where it became possible to build positions that not only win and convince, but are consistent, valid, clear thinking built not only on opinion, but a structure that holds together even under the scrutiny of criticism. Using these tools of logic, inconsistencies and weak points were revealed by checking the logic of the argument. The thinkers of Athens prided themselves on their ability to speak and listen, to understand and analyze what they heard and what they said.
They were wise enough to know that they probably didn’t have a leash on the gods. So, they hedged their bets, by building a temple, all be it a small one, to the unknown god.
Paul had been brought up as a Roman citizen, a patrician. A classical education was what such children received. So, he had studied the philosophers and their logic. He had been taught argumentation. He knew the reputation of Athens and its gods. So, when he got to Athens, he knew he would have to wear his big boy pants and bring his best stuff if he wanted them to listen to him.
Personally, I think he made a good go of it. Sermons that are grounded in the life of the people to whom we preach have a better chance of hooking them. It speaks in their language and it has to do with their environment. You can see him pointing to the Acropolis, to the small temple to the unknown god, using it as a place to start. ‘You folks were wise enough to build this temple, now, I’ll tell you the name of the one you were reaching toward.’ That’s good stuff.
It went fine until he got to the part where this god became a human being and died and rose from the dead. Paul hit what is known as a rock. They laughed him out of town. Gods were known to be powerful, perfect. Why would such a being pollute itself by becoming human, let alone die? The whole resurrection thing is right off the scale. Makes no sense. It’s not logical.
In my years of teaching at universities, I discovered that few if any students had been exposed to the disciplines of logic. It became clear to me that science has replaced logic as our discipline of analysis. It makes sense, because our culture is founded on materialism. Its child technology infests every room and corner of our lives. ‘Google it’ is our method and means for checking things out. As a result, argumentation has become a lost art, validity an unknown quality. We’re back to the brawling style of discourse. Who’s right? Who yells the loudest?
And just as the pride of Athens blinded those wise people from seeing the inconsistency of their own assumption that gods would act like human beings, the same inconsistency runs like a garbage dump through our modern sophistication and cynicism. We look for proofs of God and struggle with the physical suffering of the world. How could a good God allow such a thing?
Theological systems that seek to either explain what’s happening by referring to a clear plan revealed to the system builder invariably hit the same rocks that the logicians of Athens hit. Whether we like it or not, logic and science are incapable of encompassing, explaining, or analyzing God or God’s behavior.
Paul’s experience in Athens taught him something. He wrote, “I will not preach a reasonable gospel. I will preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block… and a folly…” As uncomfortable as that may be, it deals honestly with Paul’s experience, including his encounter with Christ. That slammed into his upbringing, his education, his religious practice, tearing down the carefully constructed structures that had made him who he was.
When we offer the good news to people who have been marinated in this culture, we cannot lie to them. We cannot offer them a reasonable gospel. They will nod and smile and go on with business as usual, leaving worship unchanged. If we wish to speak the truth about this Jesus, we must be willing, ourselves, to bow before a God that is other, different. We must tell a story of love that transcends any sensible boundary, that offers little in return but an opportunity to bow and to serve. If we try to make this gospel sensible, we will hit the same rock Paul did on the Acropolis.
That small piece of marble from my father’s desk is on my desk now.
* * *
With the Sword of God’s Own Word
by Frank Ramirez
1 Peter 3:13-22
(Jesus) was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison…. (1 Peter 3:18-19)
The Great War, 1914-1918, was responsible for the death of over twenty million people. Though the populace on both sides believed the war would last only a matter of weeks, in fact, the conflict soon bogged down into a brutal meatgrinder.
Soldiers weren’t the only ones to die. It’s sometimes forgotten that prior to America’s entry into the war there was a substantial anti-war movement, as many in the United States insisted that their country had no place in this European war. That movement was typified by songs like “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.”
Once war was declared, Americans of German background were persecuted. The German language ceased to be spoken in Lutheran churches as well as other denominations with a large Germanic population.
It was even worse for those churches of German background that were part of what are known as the historic peace churches — denominations like the Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren. Before the war, they believed they received assurances that they would be allowed to serve as noncombatants, but in many cases they were drafted, then persecuted and even killed for their refusal to take up arms.
Now when it comes to today’s scripture, there are different opinions about what the apostle meant by spirits in prison. Just who did Jesus preach to? Were these, as some think, the giants described in chapter 6 of Genesis, who would have died in the flood? Or are they, as others insist, the souls of the righteous born before Christ, waiting patiently for the salvation they saw from far off, and released at last to join their Savior in heaven?
There is no agreement, but it is known that here, on this earth poised between hell and heaven, there are imprisoned souls, spirits in prison, if you will, who were willing to suffer bonds because of their Christian convictions.
One of those imprisoned for his faith was John M. Wolfe, a member of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren. Wolfe died December 6, 1918, while imprisoned at Fort Riley, Kansas, for his pacifist beliefs. The February 1919 issue of The Vindicator, the journal of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren, printed “A Notable Epitaph” that ran in six columns of text. The article, written by his father, noted that Wolfe “as a prisoner for his faith in gospel principles and because of his religious integrity. Aged 22 years, 9 mo. And 2 days.”
The same article lauds his pacifist stance. “As for his work he chose a farm furlough, because when he became a follower of Christ he beat his sword into a plowshare and his spear into a pruning hook that he might be a life saver and preserver, in imitation of his Lord. It insists rather pointedly:
Through the publication of the facts the veil of the temple of justice is rent from top to bottom that all the world may see and know what has been transpiring through the violation of the orders of the war department and contrary to the constitution of the United States. Therefore the opposers of the church and the persecutors of the faith are now on trial at the bar of public opinion where God holds courts.
As to the manner of Wolfe's death there is a reference to “his long illness at base hospital,” and that he “was seriously ill with dilation of the heart.”
But neither the article nor the accompanying poem by his cousin, Sherda Warrenfeltz, gives a clue to the true cause of death. The poem, filled with martial images baptized for the cause of peace, begins:
He hath been a valiant soldier
In the service of our Lord.
Fighting battles for the Master,
With the sword of God’s own word.
And concludes:
When our fighting here is o’er
And we lay our armor down,
Christ will be to us a Savior,
When the trump on high shall sound.
For the actual cause of death, one must turn to a short paragraph published a month early in the January 1919 issue of The Vindicator, which read simply:
We have been informed that Bro. John M. Wolfe, son of Bro. M.K. Wolfe, of Smithsburg, Md., died in the military hospital at Fr. Riley, Kans. Of pneumonia, the after effect of influenza. At the time of his death Bro. Wolfe was awaiting trial by court-martial for refusing to perform military service which his religious belief would not permit him to perform without violation of conscience.
John M. Wolfe died from the flu. Known in that era as the Spanish Influenza, the illness was one of the great killers of all time. Some estimate the Pandemic of 1918-1919 may have killed up to 675,000 in the United States and up to one hundred million people worldwide. In other words, it may have killed five times as many people as the world war.
Death was dramatic and sudden, beginning with a dull headache that gave way to shivering, delirium, and semi-consciousness. The feet turned black, the face turned purple, with death caused by drowning as the patient’s lungs filled with blood.
By the time it abated, all the major population centers had been stricken and, it is believed, whole indigenous populations had been wiped out.
But interestingly, the great writers of the lost generation, individuals like Fitzgerald and Hemingway, agonized about the trauma of the First World War, but were silent about the devastation of the flu. In many ways it was wiped from the memories of writers and historians, while only scientists continued to search for its origins and work for its prevention.
(Want to know more? This StoryShare was based on my article, “Brethren in the Age of Pandemic,” Brethren Life and Thought, Winter 2007, pp. 39-64.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 17, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
“What Words to Use?” by C. David McKirachan
“Remembering Our Limitations” by C. David McKirachan
“With the Sword of God’s Own Word” by Frank Ramirez
What Words to Use?
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 66:8-20
My next-door neighbor is a nice guy. They just bought the house and are working hard on the yard. He asks a lot of questions about grass seed, fertilizer, what kind of flowers to plant where. His wife likes our bonsai and our fountain. I gave him a straw hat to keep his pate from getting broiled. He lent me his edger. We’re neighbors.
One day he threw a different question in. “We don’t have a church. Is there a good one around here? Things are going well, we’re happy. I’d like to know who to thank.” I asked him if he knew that one of the reasons he was happy was because he was grateful and was reaching beyond his stuff and his achievements with that gratitude. He told me that in AA he was learning about a higher power, something beyond himself and his stuff. It had never occurred to him before.
In our push and struggle to make our way through, there are few who stumble onto such wisdom. Many of the people in the pew, good church folk, never discover the simple glory that my neighbor found. Gratitude is a gift of the Spirit, but we’ve been so conditioned to labor and accumulate and count and seek success, personal and general that simple gratitude for the moment is an epiphany left to newlyweds. The general response to such gratitude is usually, ‘Isn’t that cute, they’ll get over it soon.’ As if it was a summer cold, that is not very contagious.
But what do we have to be thankful for? How about being alive? “[God] has kept us among the living…] v. 9. Another of my neighbors is a curmudgeon. He’s in his nineties and works harder than any of us. The other day he surprised me with a testimony. “When I wake up, all I can think of is Wow!... I’m still alive!” (And I don’t think he’s quoting Pearl Jam).
It’s a shame, when we gather in our houses of worship and share joys and concerns, that we rarely lift up prayers of simple gratitude. We’re pretty good and centering in on the surgeries, the divorces, the sick kids, and the world’s woes. Rarely does anybody express gratitude for grass and trees and birds and relationships and you name it. Maybe that’s why we have a hard time convincing people to share their hard-won money. They don’t appreciate the simple stuff and we don’t sound like we do either.
Ancient religions spent a lot of time trying to appease angry or potentially angry gods. Places of worship were sites of sacrifice that would hopefully make the ultimately tough powers think better of the worshiper. Jesus kind of set a new bar. He told us that God cares about us. So why are we still stuck?
I told my neighbor, the one who asked me about a church to start shopping around, to take notes. What did you like? What didn’t you like? I gave him a bible and a list of passages to read. (I marked them with slips of paper. That’s critical.) I offered to talk to him any time if he had questions or concerns. And I gave him a needle point thing (what do you call needle point things?) that I got in a rummage sale.
“Peace is seeing a sunrise or a sunset and knowing whom to thank.”
I told him that he was hearing the whispers of God. Some people call it the Holy Spirit. I told him that his gratitude is a spiritual gift and is precious.
And I told him to talk to God, whatever that higher power seemed to be. Have conversations, tell that god the truth. And pay attention. Listen. You never know when something’s going to come back.
He asked me what words to use.
“God is your loving parent. Talk to God like you’d talk to a parent that knows and loves you, who cares about you.”
I wish I could have had that conversation with more people. But that’s another story.
* * *
Remembering Our Limitations
C. David McKirachan
Acts 17:22-31
On my father’s desk was a small piece of marble. Carved onto it was ‘Acropolis’ in Greek. It was a souvenir given to him by a parishioner. As we all are, he was given lots of bits and pieces from the biblical lands. He kept none of them on his desk, but that one. I asked him about it. He told me it was a reminder of Paul’s sermon on the Acropolis. “We all need to remember who God is, and our own limitations.”
Athens was known as the birthplace of philosophy and its child, logic. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle took the art of argumentation above discussion and verbal brawling to a place where it became possible to build positions that not only win and convince, but are consistent, valid, clear thinking built not only on opinion, but a structure that holds together even under the scrutiny of criticism. Using these tools of logic, inconsistencies and weak points were revealed by checking the logic of the argument. The thinkers of Athens prided themselves on their ability to speak and listen, to understand and analyze what they heard and what they said.
They were wise enough to know that they probably didn’t have a leash on the gods. So, they hedged their bets, by building a temple, all be it a small one, to the unknown god.
Paul had been brought up as a Roman citizen, a patrician. A classical education was what such children received. So, he had studied the philosophers and their logic. He had been taught argumentation. He knew the reputation of Athens and its gods. So, when he got to Athens, he knew he would have to wear his big boy pants and bring his best stuff if he wanted them to listen to him.
Personally, I think he made a good go of it. Sermons that are grounded in the life of the people to whom we preach have a better chance of hooking them. It speaks in their language and it has to do with their environment. You can see him pointing to the Acropolis, to the small temple to the unknown god, using it as a place to start. ‘You folks were wise enough to build this temple, now, I’ll tell you the name of the one you were reaching toward.’ That’s good stuff.
It went fine until he got to the part where this god became a human being and died and rose from the dead. Paul hit what is known as a rock. They laughed him out of town. Gods were known to be powerful, perfect. Why would such a being pollute itself by becoming human, let alone die? The whole resurrection thing is right off the scale. Makes no sense. It’s not logical.
In my years of teaching at universities, I discovered that few if any students had been exposed to the disciplines of logic. It became clear to me that science has replaced logic as our discipline of analysis. It makes sense, because our culture is founded on materialism. Its child technology infests every room and corner of our lives. ‘Google it’ is our method and means for checking things out. As a result, argumentation has become a lost art, validity an unknown quality. We’re back to the brawling style of discourse. Who’s right? Who yells the loudest?
And just as the pride of Athens blinded those wise people from seeing the inconsistency of their own assumption that gods would act like human beings, the same inconsistency runs like a garbage dump through our modern sophistication and cynicism. We look for proofs of God and struggle with the physical suffering of the world. How could a good God allow such a thing?
Theological systems that seek to either explain what’s happening by referring to a clear plan revealed to the system builder invariably hit the same rocks that the logicians of Athens hit. Whether we like it or not, logic and science are incapable of encompassing, explaining, or analyzing God or God’s behavior.
Paul’s experience in Athens taught him something. He wrote, “I will not preach a reasonable gospel. I will preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block… and a folly…” As uncomfortable as that may be, it deals honestly with Paul’s experience, including his encounter with Christ. That slammed into his upbringing, his education, his religious practice, tearing down the carefully constructed structures that had made him who he was.
When we offer the good news to people who have been marinated in this culture, we cannot lie to them. We cannot offer them a reasonable gospel. They will nod and smile and go on with business as usual, leaving worship unchanged. If we wish to speak the truth about this Jesus, we must be willing, ourselves, to bow before a God that is other, different. We must tell a story of love that transcends any sensible boundary, that offers little in return but an opportunity to bow and to serve. If we try to make this gospel sensible, we will hit the same rock Paul did on the Acropolis.
That small piece of marble from my father’s desk is on my desk now.
* * *
With the Sword of God’s Own Word
by Frank Ramirez
1 Peter 3:13-22
(Jesus) was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison…. (1 Peter 3:18-19)
The Great War, 1914-1918, was responsible for the death of over twenty million people. Though the populace on both sides believed the war would last only a matter of weeks, in fact, the conflict soon bogged down into a brutal meatgrinder.
Soldiers weren’t the only ones to die. It’s sometimes forgotten that prior to America’s entry into the war there was a substantial anti-war movement, as many in the United States insisted that their country had no place in this European war. That movement was typified by songs like “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.”
Once war was declared, Americans of German background were persecuted. The German language ceased to be spoken in Lutheran churches as well as other denominations with a large Germanic population.
It was even worse for those churches of German background that were part of what are known as the historic peace churches — denominations like the Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren. Before the war, they believed they received assurances that they would be allowed to serve as noncombatants, but in many cases they were drafted, then persecuted and even killed for their refusal to take up arms.
Now when it comes to today’s scripture, there are different opinions about what the apostle meant by spirits in prison. Just who did Jesus preach to? Were these, as some think, the giants described in chapter 6 of Genesis, who would have died in the flood? Or are they, as others insist, the souls of the righteous born before Christ, waiting patiently for the salvation they saw from far off, and released at last to join their Savior in heaven?
There is no agreement, but it is known that here, on this earth poised between hell and heaven, there are imprisoned souls, spirits in prison, if you will, who were willing to suffer bonds because of their Christian convictions.
One of those imprisoned for his faith was John M. Wolfe, a member of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren. Wolfe died December 6, 1918, while imprisoned at Fort Riley, Kansas, for his pacifist beliefs. The February 1919 issue of The Vindicator, the journal of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren, printed “A Notable Epitaph” that ran in six columns of text. The article, written by his father, noted that Wolfe “as a prisoner for his faith in gospel principles and because of his religious integrity. Aged 22 years, 9 mo. And 2 days.”
The same article lauds his pacifist stance. “As for his work he chose a farm furlough, because when he became a follower of Christ he beat his sword into a plowshare and his spear into a pruning hook that he might be a life saver and preserver, in imitation of his Lord. It insists rather pointedly:
Through the publication of the facts the veil of the temple of justice is rent from top to bottom that all the world may see and know what has been transpiring through the violation of the orders of the war department and contrary to the constitution of the United States. Therefore the opposers of the church and the persecutors of the faith are now on trial at the bar of public opinion where God holds courts.
As to the manner of Wolfe's death there is a reference to “his long illness at base hospital,” and that he “was seriously ill with dilation of the heart.”
But neither the article nor the accompanying poem by his cousin, Sherda Warrenfeltz, gives a clue to the true cause of death. The poem, filled with martial images baptized for the cause of peace, begins:
He hath been a valiant soldier
In the service of our Lord.
Fighting battles for the Master,
With the sword of God’s own word.
And concludes:
When our fighting here is o’er
And we lay our armor down,
Christ will be to us a Savior,
When the trump on high shall sound.
For the actual cause of death, one must turn to a short paragraph published a month early in the January 1919 issue of The Vindicator, which read simply:
We have been informed that Bro. John M. Wolfe, son of Bro. M.K. Wolfe, of Smithsburg, Md., died in the military hospital at Fr. Riley, Kans. Of pneumonia, the after effect of influenza. At the time of his death Bro. Wolfe was awaiting trial by court-martial for refusing to perform military service which his religious belief would not permit him to perform without violation of conscience.
John M. Wolfe died from the flu. Known in that era as the Spanish Influenza, the illness was one of the great killers of all time. Some estimate the Pandemic of 1918-1919 may have killed up to 675,000 in the United States and up to one hundred million people worldwide. In other words, it may have killed five times as many people as the world war.
Death was dramatic and sudden, beginning with a dull headache that gave way to shivering, delirium, and semi-consciousness. The feet turned black, the face turned purple, with death caused by drowning as the patient’s lungs filled with blood.
By the time it abated, all the major population centers had been stricken and, it is believed, whole indigenous populations had been wiped out.
But interestingly, the great writers of the lost generation, individuals like Fitzgerald and Hemingway, agonized about the trauma of the First World War, but were silent about the devastation of the flu. In many ways it was wiped from the memories of writers and historians, while only scientists continued to search for its origins and work for its prevention.
(Want to know more? This StoryShare was based on my article, “Brethren in the Age of Pandemic,” Brethren Life and Thought, Winter 2007, pp. 39-64.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 17, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 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.
