A Fresh Perspective

The late Dr. Fred Craddock tells about being called back to Oklahoma for a funeral while he was in Atlanta. The man who died had been a good friend in the little church he served there. It had been years but they were good friends. The voice on the phone said, ‘Ray wanted you to come and have his funeral, if you could?” Fred said, “I’ll come.” So Fred went, and after the funeral and the meal, it was just the family. Kathryn was there. She was the oldest daughter. When Fred served that church, she was thirteen years old. Fred said, “I remembered her when I left, and she was the worst thirteen year old I had ever seen—noisy, in and out, pushing, shoving, breaking things, never stayed in the room, never paid attention. When I left there, I could have said, ‘If there is one person that doesn’t know a thing I’ve said in the time I was here, it would be Kathryn.’” Kathryn was now an executive with the Telephone Company. She and her dad were real close. Fred said to Kathryn, “I’m sorry, it’...

This Jesus story like other stories Jesus tells has a way of shocking us into thoughtful reflection. I love the story of the pastor who called a special meeting to call attention to the run down condition of the church facilities. He began by asking for pledges and he turned first to one of his more prosperous deacons. Brother, ‘so and so,’ would you like to start the pledging.” This deacon responded, “I’ll pledge five dollars.” About that time a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and thumped this deacon right on the head knocking him to the floor. After he picked himself up and dusted himself off he said, “What I meant to say was that I pledge fifty dollars.” At that moment the pastor looked up toward heaven and shouted, “Hit him again, Lord!” This is a story (as so many of the sayings and stories of Jesus) that has the potential to “hit” us, to give us pause to reflect and to be changed by it. One of the beautiful and yet difficult things about Jesus’ parables is the multiple ...

Maybe you heard about the lay preacher that often traveled to little churches around the countryside and preached. He always gave his regular offering to his home church, but it was also his custom to put a little something in the offering plate where he preached. There was no offering taken that morning but he noticed an offering box in the back, so as he and his young son who accompanied him that Sunday left the church after the service he dropped a five dollar bill in the offering box.   As they made their way to the car one of the deacons came running after him.   “Wait a minutes preacher,” he said, “it’s our custom to give the preacher what is received in the offering box” and he handed him a five dollar bill. As they drove off, his young son said, “Dad, if you would have given more, you would have gotten more, wouldn’t you?”   Is that true? If you give more, you will get more? The prosperity preachers who are getting rich off the gifts of their perishioners wou...

Have you read any of the books by Robert Fulghum? If you haven’t you should. Some of his stories are hilarious, but he also makes one think. In his first book, All I Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten, he reflects on an experience at the San Diego Zoo. A little girl was standing beside him, both of them were looking at the giraffe. She asked her mommy, “What’s it for?” Mommy didn’t know. Does a giraffe know what’s its for? Fulghum writes,  “Besides the giraffe, I saw a wombat, a duck-billed platypus, and an orangutan. Unreal. The orangutan looked like my uncle Woody. Uncle Woody is pretty unreal too. He belongs in a zoo. That’s what his wife says. And that makes me wonder what it would be like if samples of people were also in zoos. I was thinking about that last notion while watching the lions. A gentleman lion and six lady lions. Looks like a real nice life being in a zoo. The lions are so prolific that the zoo had to place IUDs in each of the lionesses. S...

I don’t know if there is any truth to it or not, but the story is told that when Britain faced a critical shortage of silver during the days of WWII Winston Churchill launched a search of possible sources of silver. They discovered some sterling silver statutes of saints in some of their churches and cathedrals. When Churchill was made aware of this he said, “Well, it’s time to put the saints into circulation.”  This parable is about saints in circulation. Jesus is addressing his followers. In Matthew’s Gospel there are five major discourses attributed to Jesus, this parable is part of the last teaching block that begins in 24:1. Jesus and his disciples had just come out of the temple. His disciples were admiring the beautiful buildings when Jesus warned of the temple’s coming destruction. Then they walked over to the Mount of Olives and Matthew says that the disciples came to him privately with their questions about the destruction of the temple and end of the age. Tha...