Martha Dalton Ward - Holy Moments: When Life and Faith Intersect

Holy
MOMENTS

WHEN LIFE AND FAITH INTERSECT

MARTHA DALTON WARD

Copyright 2018 Martha Dalton Ward.

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Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-3281-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3282-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3280-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018907911

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/06/2018

Contents

For thirty-four years, I led weekly worship in United Methodist churches in Iowa. Co-pastoring for thirty-one of those years with my husband, Bob, I preached about half the Sundays. I regarded preaching as one of the most important, most challenging, and most humbling tasks of my ministry. My practice was to study the Scripture and to pray for insights that would speak to the faith journeys of those in our congregations.

When sermon ideas came, I asked myself, Is this insight something I know about from my own history? In searching my memories of family stories and of personal experiences, I often found a connection with the sermon theme of the week. Not all those memories put me or my family members in a positive light, but I preached the stories anyway and found that my honest confessions, foolish adventures, real-life struggles, and even mundane moments often spoke to the worshippers in a helpful way, encouraging them to grow in their relationship with God.

While studying Christian writers and theologians, Ive noted how often biography is theology. For example, much of the church father Augustines theology flowed from early experiences of his own sin; the faith and the beliefs of Methodisms founder, John Wesley, were energized in 1738 following a terrible failure in the American colonies. In The Alphabet of Grace , theologian Frederick Buechner put it like this: Most theology, like most fiction, is essentially autobiography. Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, Tillich, worked out their systems in their own ways and lived them in their lives. And if you press them far enough, even at the most cerebral and forbidding, you will find an experience of flesh and blood, a human face smiling or frowning or weeping or covering its eyes before something that happened once maybe no more than a child falling sick, a thunderstorm, or a dream, and yet it made a difference which no theology can ever convey or entirely conceal.

Our life stories greatly influence how each of us understands God. In this book, I have used personal and family stories from my sermons, along with Scripture verses, as a way of reflecting on my life and on what God has taught me.

Most of my life stories have been shared by my co-partner in marriage and ministry, Bob Ward. I dedicate this book to him with deep gratitude. I am also grateful to our son, David, who often allowed us to use experiences from his life as sermon examples. And I offer thanks to members of our extended family, who lived many of these stories, and to our friends and mentors along lifes journey.

My hope is that these holy moments from my life might lead those who read about them to reflect on what God wants to teach them through their life stories.

CHAPTER 1

Our Everywhere God

But Moses said to God, If I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? what shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. He said further, Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you. (Ex. 3:1314)

God has many names. In that way God reminds me a little of my maternal grandmother. Now, mind you, Im not saying my grandmother was like God, although she was a wonderful person. She reminds me of God because she had a lot of names. Her parents named her Myrtle Vesta Maxwell. But my grandmother was not content with just those names. Somehow, they did not describe everything she was or might become.

And so, at various stages of her life, my grandmother took on new namesones that fit who she was at those times: Myrtle, Vesta, Elizabeth, Jane, Psyche (how I would like to have known her when she was going by that name!), Nelson, Maxine, Maxwell, and Krehbiel (her last name when she married my grandfather, B. F. Krehbiel). She kept all those names as parts of her formal name. They described some of the diversity of who she was. But of course, to us grandkids, she was always just plain Mamoa name of endearment, of relationship, much like Jesus called God Abbapapa, or daddy. Thats who she was to me, but I knew that in many ways she was much more; her character was multifaceted.

God is like that, only much, much more. Most of us have a special name we use for Godone that speaks to us of our relationship to God. Maybe the title we use is loving Creator, or heavenly Father, or merciful Lord, or blessed Savior. Whatever the name may be, we must always understand that God is much more than just that one special name. And if we limit ourselves to only one or two titles for God, we may be limiting the ways we experience our multifaceted God.

In the Bible, there are dozens of names for God. Heres what is important to remember: God will be for us what is best for us. We dont always recognize Gods presence because we want to decide what is best for us rather than to let God show us. We want God on our own terms and dont want to accept the God who says, I am who I am; I will be who I will be. But if we open ourselves up to this greatness and diversity of God, we will experience a power and a richness in our lives that is beyond naming.

Mechthild of Magdeburg, a thirteenth-century German mystic, wrote a beautiful prayer in that spirit:

O burning Mountain, O Chosen Sun,

O perfect Moon, O fathomless Well,

O unattainable Height, O Clearness beyond measure,

O Wisdom without end, O Mercy without limit,

O Strength beyond resistance, O Crown beyond all majesty,

The humblest thing you created sings your praise. Amen.

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. (Isa. 44:2122)

Remember who you are. Thats a phrase parents sometimes say as they send their teenagers out into the world. Think of the high values and morals in your lineage, and live up to them.

As a young person, I didnt like it when my grandfather Orville Dalton (Gramps to me), would tell us how we were related to the notorious Dalton Gang, a band of bank robbers and thieves who met their demise in an 1892 shootout on Main Street in Coffeeville, Kansas. In fact, when I later received an official genealogy of our Dalton family, I was somewhat relieved to find the gang was not in my family tree. The proposed connection had simply been teasing by my fun-loving grandfather. But even if we had been related, that would not have established who we were. Isaiah proclaims instead that we are to remember we are beloved children of God, who redeems us no matter what our sins or those of our ancestors.