I need to tell you a story.

In her World War Two novel, “His Majesty’s Hope,” Susan Elia MacNeal tells of a German nurse, Elise, who learns that a Downs Syndrome child in her care was abruptly discharged and bused to some distant hospital where she was later reported to have died of pneumonia. Elise decided to look further into this suspicious matter.

Donning her nurse’s uniform, Elise boarded the next bus carting children to the hospital in question. All the children on board, she noticed, were blind, deaf, epileptic, retarded, and similarly handicapped. The nurse in charge seemed callous and uncaring, and administered a sedative to “help the children rest.”

At its destination, the bus was met by authorities who instructed the children to disrobe for a shower. Doctors examined the children, marking those with gold fillings in their mouths with a large X on their bodies. As they entered the shower room, a large metal door slammed behind them and latches were thrown. That’s when Elise realized what was happening.

The children were being gassed. Exterminated.

“You’ll get used to it,” said an orderly to the stunned Elise.

She ran outside the building and vomited on the grass.

Later, on the bus ride back into Berlin, Elisa asked the other nurse, the hardened one, “But what about the fifth commandment? ‘Thou shalt not kill’?”

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“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices….” (Colossians 3:9)

Got time for a lawyer story?

The lawyer told it at an early morning coffee time some of us were enjoying. Without permission to use his name, the story will remain anonymous for the time being. He said it happened in his office.

They sat in the lawyer’s office–the accused thief, his mama and his grandmama.  The lawyer said, “The police say you burglarized that store.”

“I didn’t do it! I wasn’t even there! I was someplace else!” the accused shouted.  At that, the mama and grandmama turned to each other and echoed softly but firmly, “He didn’t do it. He wasn’t even there. He was someplace else.”

The lawyer said, “The police have two fellows in custody who say you were their accomplice. They can identify you.”

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On the kitchen wall of our family farmhouse is an old white-board, put there years ago to hold messages for mom and dad, both of whom have now left us. This week I read the final notes on the board, basically untouched since a few days after mom went to Heaven in June of 2012.

One of my siblings had written: “We have lost the best friend anyone could ever have–our mother.” Under that, another had written: “She’s not lost. We know where she is.” And under that was this: “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

All of those statements are true, I suppose. Even though both our parents nearly made the century mark, my two brothers and two sisters (and I) miss them so much.

But the note on the board does raise an interesting question, one worth our consideration.

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“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things I tell you” (Luke 6:46).

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).

I apologize for the title. There are wonderful churches filled with faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who are getting these things right; I don’t mean to imply otherwise. But that does not negate the fact that untold thousands of churches still exist primarily for themselves, have no vision outside their doors and no compassion for anyone knocking on those doors.

If none of this fits you or your congregation, give thanks. If it does, you are hereby assigned to take the lead in reversing matters. However, do not miss our notes at the conclusion.

1) We keep forgetting the second commandment is a command.

We want our religion to be private, just “me and the Lord.”

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It happened again this morning. In the pre-dawn hours I lay awake, unable to sleep. Anxieties were filling the room like ghosts in the night, trying to frighten and alarm me with varying degrees of success, but successfully robbing me of sleep. As always, I lay there sending up little prayers to the Father.

“Forgive me of my sin, Father. Help me. You are my Rock. You are my strength.”

Lying there, I thought of all the reasons the Lord has for not hearing me. I’m such a poor Christian. My prayer life is so shallow. I read the Bible in the mornings and rarely give it another thought in the day. He takes care of my financial needs and still I worry. What kind of Christian am I. Why should He forgive me. What if the people I work with knew what a poor Christian I am.

And then this morning, He sent an answer.

I heard the garbage truck outside, running its usual early Saturday morning route. The motor revved as workers compacted the trash. Someone hollered. A can hit the pavement. The engine purred as the truck softly moved forward to the next house. The noises were oddly comforting, and then the Holy Spirit told me why.

The workers are taking away our garbage. The sanitation system has ways of dealing with it, places to dump it, methods for disposing of it. It will be gone; we will never see that trash again. Their system works–our streets are clean and our homes are free from the continual buildup of accumulated garbage and the unhealthy conditions that would produce. We owe a great debt to workers whom we rarely ever see.

In the same way, God removes the sin we have confessed. It is gone. We will walk outside later this morning and retrieve the garbage cans we set out last night. They will be empty. We will set them back in place inside the fence, ready to receive today’s and tomorrow’s garbage. That’s the process; we believe in it and rarely question it.

Shouldn’t we believe God just as strongly and surely? Shouldn’t we take as fact that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)

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We only had 35 post-season college bowl games last year. That was far too few, don’t you think?

In the January 7, 2013 issue of The New Yorker, Jay Martel (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) identifies some additional bowl games which we should be supporting in the post-season season. (Let’s hear it for redundant redundancy!)

Jay wants us to know about The Zykonex Painkiller Orange Bowl pitting the Nebraska State Destroyers against the Massachusetts Polytechnic Blue Jays. The Destroyers exploit their 100-pound per player advantage with the kind of hard hitting which has resulted in a record-setting 3,047 yards of penalties last year. The Blue Jays have all signed organ donor cards.

Then, there is the Away-Pain Anesthetic Swabs Sugar Bowl game. This matches the Western Ohio Debilitators against the Biloxi University Human Traffickers. The game is made all the more special by the backstory of the Debilitators’ star linebacker Nick Jordanson. With his volunteer work, Nick is a wonderful role model to his colleagues and fans, particularly when you consider that only last year he was convicted of genocide and other war crimes at The Hague. Now, having turned his life around, he’s the most feared tackler on the team.

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When I was 8 years old, using the new Bible my dad had given me for Christmas, I began reading a chapter each night before going to bed. And, I stayed with the program for several years.(I bogged down in the major prophets. Just too heavy going for a kid.)

When I was about 12 or 13, under the influence of older cousin Billy Chadwick who seemed to know a great many things the rest of the world was clueless about, I quit using a pillow at night. For years, I slept without a pillow because Billy said using one produced poor posture.

Several times in recent years, I have started on January 1 and read the Bible through, marking up the Scriptures in order to present to one of our eight grands.  One year, in order to present Bibles to twins Abby and Erin, I alternated with two Bibles, but made sure to mark them both alike.

So, I’m not at all against making resolutions and keeping them.

It’s just that a lot of people shy away from making commitments for a full 365 days. It’s so intimidating. So, rather than begin something they cannot complete, they do nothing.

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