Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Bob Reichman.
Some years ago, one of my wife Marilyn’s relatives gave us as a gift a piece of plywood shaped like a cow and painted to look like a Holstein to be used as a lawn ornament. As much as we appreciated the thought, we’re not lawn ornament aficionados, so we weren’t really sure what to do with it and just kept it lying around the house, where it gazed at us accusingly.
We finally came up with an answer when we were teaching a 7th-grade Sunday School class. Now, if you’re at all familiar with 7th-graders, you know it can be a challenge to keep them focused on what you are trying to teach them. I won’t speak for Marilyn, but I’ve never been the kind of gifted educator you might find on “Room 222,” “Abbott Elementary” or even “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Getting and keeping the attention of a collection of squirmy 7th-graders was a bit of a stretch for me.
So, I jumped at the chance when Marilyn suggested we do something different for an upcoming lesson on the golden calf. We would paint the plywood Holstein gold and drape jewelry over it. On the day of the lesson, we kept it hidden under the table until revealing it for maximum effect. The students were kind of fascinated by it, at least for a minute, but we had no idea whether any of them would care about it past the end of the class period.
About a decade later, Marilyn ran into the least-attentive, most disruptive student in the class and the first thing she said after exchanging greetings was, “I’ll never forget the golden calf. I can’t believe you did that.” Marilyn wasn’t sure if that was praise, but at least the calf had found a place to nestle in one student’s memory.
My brother once said to me he’s always remembered that I told him that when you get something new you should get rid of something old so you don’t just keep accumulating things and that he’s practiced that ever since. I don’t remember ever having said that, and to be honest, it doesn’t even sound like something I would say. Nevertheless, it had a lasting impact on him, if not me.
I got a letter once from a former pastor, asking if he could use in a sermon something that I had said. For whatever reason, he didn’t say what it was and I didn’t ask. I just wrote back and said sure. Marilyn said it must have been something profound. Or, I said, he could be using it as an example of stupid things that people say. I’ll never know. But whatever it was, he remembered it.
Sometimes, the opposite occurs. It’s not what’s remembered, but what’s forgotten. In the Exodus story, Aaron was left in charge of the Israelites when Moses went up Mount Sinai to get instructions from God. Although the Israelites had escaped the pharaoh and been provided with food for their journey and God clearly had their backs, somehow they managed to forget or ignore all that, and with Aaron’s complicity, they decided to make a god for themselves in the form of a golden calf when Moses didn’t return right away. In other words, what have you done for us lately?
Even something seemingly indelible can be forgotten or brushed aside for the sake of convenience or as a result of impatience. I think we can overestimate how likely the big things are to stick with people while underestimating how much the little things we say and do every day can matter in ways that we can’t imagine. Think about the things that teachers, friends and family members have said to you or done that you’ve always remembered. I bet they would be surprised to learn that’s what has stuck with you.
God of all, we can sometimes feel that everything that we say and do disappears into the ether. Help us to realize that we can make a difference in the lives of those around us, and though it may be through something big, it might also be through making a little extra effort or trying to impart a tiny speck of wisdom that we didn’t suspect would sink in. Amen