I LOVE TO HEAR (AND TELL) THE STORY

“Tell me a story,” says the child to her parent at bedtime.  “Well, once upon a time….”

 

Today, at bedtime, I like nothing better than a good novel or biography.  I want a story.  Enough already of those church books and magazines.  Tonight, I just want to fall asleep with a good book that might keep me up late.

 

Some of us live a story that others might like to tell or to hear.  If we become a celebrity, our story will be told, despite ourselves.  Some of us are weary of our own stories.  One friend put it this way: “I’m sick and tired of my little drama.”  Whose story would you like to hear?  Which story would you like me to tell?

 

In yesterday’s gospel account (Matthew 21:23-32) we hear Jesus tell another story, a parable of two brothers, working in a vineyard.  Jesus is the author of many stories.  He tells this story after the religious authorities question him about his authority.  Someone with authority is, simply put, an author.  Jesus, we say, is the author of our salvation.  Jesus creates and tells us the best bedtime story of all – the story of how God loves us and saves us and heals us.

 

There was a Newsweek article recently called “Heard any Good Stories Lately?” (9/22/08).  Here’s the summary: “A (presidential) candidate’s personal narrative might sway more voters than (their) experience, positions on issues and policy proposals.  Blame the power of emotions.”  Actually, there is nothing and no one to blame.  It’s not about blame.  It’s about the power of story.  We human beings love a good story.  People of faith love, as the old hymn puts it, to tell the story.  We Christians love to hear “the old, old story of Jesus and his love” – love even for the likes of us! 

 

Music can be powerful, as one wise woman once put it, because music releases the feelings,  and feelings release the healing.  That’s why so many of us come to church.  To tell and to hear the story.  To sing.  To pray.  To share communion.  To be strengthened.  To be renewed.  To be saved.  To be healed.  We come because we long for the healing power of the greatest story ever told.  Blame?  Blame the power of the story on God, on that storyteller Jesus.

 

That Newsweek article’s last sentence? “Sit back and get ready for seven more weeks of storytelling” (p. 42).  Yes, get ready.  We have three straight weeks of Jesus’ vineyard stories, then one more week with a wedding story.  Sit back and get ready for stories, those old, old Bible stories we’ve heard time and again.  Won’t you come to church and hear the stories of Jesus and his love?

Peace, fathermom

Seven years later

Where were you? 

I was in a classroom, watching someone’s videotaped sermon as part of my residency in Clinical Pastoral Education.  Suddenly Jessie, our overall supervisor, gently entered the room.  He told us to turn off the tape and turn on the TV coverage. 

Emotions flowed freely as we student clergy watched.  Today, seven years later, we have learned to live in the afterworld of that day.  No one can fly anywhere without experiencing all the changes of seven years, now simply routine: longer airport lines, no more liquids or gels without bagging them,  removing shoes, constant recordings about orange alerts, additional anxieties.

Barbara Crafton, an Episcopal priest whow has a great gift with words, communicates through her e-mailed blog called The Almost Daily eMo from Geranium Farm.  Today, she sends the wonderful reflection below of her sense of September 11th, seven years out. 

LIVING MEMORY

It’s darker and quieter at 6:00 in the morning here in Florence than it is in New York, for a few more minutes, anyway, before the buses begin their runs. Hotter, too: we have another few weeks of summer heat, it seems, before the air turns cooler. At home, though, this is the glory season: bright sun, blue sky, temperatures that don’t wilt your spirits or your shirt even before the day begins. I can see them now, hurrying to the trains, stopping at the newsstands, waiting for the bus.

No one here remembers what day it is. And why should they? It’s been seven years since the World Trade Center collapse, and it didn’t happen here. The disaster of Florence’s living memory is the flooding of the Arno, 42 years ago. You can see markers, here and there throughout the city, that show how high the water got. You can see the washed-away bottoms of the outdoor frescoes on the corners of buildings. Our older parishioners remember it well, and all have a story they will tell you if you ask: where they were, what they did, what was lost. Cars, trees, mattresses, pieces of wood were swept along in the powerful current until they reached the low-lying Ponte Vecchio, where they stopped, lodging there and forming a dam. The river surged up over its banks and through the narrow streets. The world, immediately aware of what was lost, came to help: scientists, students, everyone — it was surely the largest art restoration effort the world has ever seen.

Living memory — it comes to an end. The last passenger on the Titanic died last year, I think, and the next-to-last veteran of World War I this year. The veterans of the Second World War are all in their 80s now — maybe there are a few in their late 70s, men who lied about their age back then. But not for long. Everything takes its place in the past. We can’t hold onto any of it.

We should tell people what we saw. What we thought. Where we were and what we did. Last night was the first of St James’ Wednesday night dinners for college students; over dessert, Q talked about elections he remembered, going back to 1940. He was a child then: he had been given a little printing press, and turned out flyers for Wendell Wilkie’s presidential campaign: WENDELL WILKIE WON’T LET US DOWN! HE HAS A HATRED OF PERSECUTION INHERITED FROM HIS ANCESTORS!

That’s so cute, I tell him. How big was the printing press?

He shows me with his hands. It was about the size of a laptop computer. That was the beginning of my journalistic career, he says.

People forget. People change — I have a feeling that Q would not be a Wilkie man if that election were held today. But history has happened, and its events were real. Only human beings record them; the animals don’t bother. It doesn’t matter much to the natural world of which they are a part, not over time. But it matters to us.

Seven years later: sometimes I still cannot believe that 9/11 happened. That all those people went off to work, on a day like today, and never returned. I still cannot believe that they felt the terror I know they felt. I still can’t believe we did the things we did in the weeks and months that followed. Sometimes I still think that the towers will be there when I return.

Now, what happened to that book? an old lady here in Florence asks herself, scanning her bookshelf for a volume given her by her father. Oh, of course. She lost it in the flood.

Silly me, she thinks.

Readers, you can subscribe to Barbara’s “almost daily” reflections by sending an e-mail to bccrafton@geraniumfarm.org.  Her website is www.geraniumfarm.org

Peace, fathermom

More than a sermon

So, I am stepping out in faith, into the wild, blue yonder of the blogosphere. My first entry is little more than some reflections from Richard Donovan, a pastor who helps clergy with ideas and commentary on Sunday scriptures. Dick’s work, to which one must subscribe, often helps me get focused as I prepare my sermons.

Here is part of what he had to say about the lessons from this past Sunday, September 7th, and that very hard teaching of Jesus about resolving conflict in the church. (My sermon on this passage can be found on the “Sermons” link of our website at www.allsaintsmd.org).

See you in (real or virtual) church,
Father Mom (Tom Momberg)

“If another member of the church…” We are brothers and sisters –– not just members of the same organization. People value family relationships more highly than relationships with school classmates or members of the Rotary club –– and Jesus calls us to value relationships with Christian brothers and sisters as highly as blood kin –– even if our Christian brothers and sisters are guilty of an offense. A well-known father whose daughter was arrested for drug-possession commented that the family was saddened by the daughter’s choices, but they loved her and would pray for her recovery. That is exactly that kind of love and loyalty to which Jesus calls us when he speaks of Christians as brothers and sisters.

“…sins against you…” If we become aware of sin, whether or not directed against us, we have a responsibility to initiate action and, if possible, to effect a remedy. We are not to gossip or sulk, but to confront.

“…go and point out the fault…” The goal is to regain the offender –– to help the sinner in his/her struggle against sin. That implies a confrontation designed to win the offender back instead of driving him/her farther away. As Paul says, “If anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness” (Greek: praiotes –– gentleness, meekness, humility) (Galatians 6:1). Unless done in a spirit of praiotes, the confrontation is likely to do more harm than good –– to become another occasion for sin. It is not easy to love an offensive person, so this is a situation where we must pray for grace before beginning the intervention. We cannot expect to deal effectively with the offender until we have first invited God to deal with us. Just as we would expect a surgeon to study X-rays in preparation for a difficult surgery, so we have a responsibility to plan this intervention carefully and to invite the Spirit’s help. It will not do to go off half-cocked.

“…when the two of you are alone.” This is the most discreet and least threatening possible intervention. It protects the offender against unnecessary embarrassment, permitting correction before the offense becomes general knowledge. Even if the remedy requires that the offense become more widely known, the offender can be seen as taking corrective action rather than as suffering public exposure. If there is any hope for the offender to retain his/her dignity, this first step makes it possible.

- Dick Donovan, www.sermonwriter.com