DAY FOUR
“Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where He sat down. His disciples gathered around him and He began to teach them . . .”5
“Two sentences? That’s it?” Stone groused, after opening the booklet first thing the next morning – just as planned. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
It was an excellent question. And the answer was more obvious than he realized.
“Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where He sat down.”6
“Okay. Doesn’t seem like much there.” Stone smirked and rolled his eyes. “He saw a bunch of people and He climbed a hill. Why do I need to know that? Why did He climb the hill? Why did He sit down? Does any of it make a difference? “I could guess,” he thought, “but it doesn’t say.”
“His disciples gathered around him and He began to teach them.”7
“Yeah,” Stone shrugged. “He was a teacher. That’s what He did. I knew that. But these two sentences don’t say a blasted thing about what He taught, so, . . . Aw, forget it!” he barked. “How am I supposed to get anything out of this? It’s ridiculous.”
He stood up, threw the booklet down on the metal chair beside his bed, and tramped off to the bathroom, wearing a tight, hard frown.
“What does that lunatic think I’m going to get out of this?” Stone whispered.
He was frustrated. But he didn’t realize what that frustration meant. He wanted to get something out of the passage. And that meant his hope had gone beyond the bare flicker that got him to doubtfully agree to give Ezra’s program a ‘what-have-I-got-to-lose’ chance in the first place.
“One meaningless sentence,” Stone thought, “and another that didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know . . . What’s the use? I did what I said I would do. I read it. I thought about it. And I’ll do it again this afternoon.”
He went to breakfast and chewed the scripture out of his mind. But his mind – or something – wouldn’t let it go. Back there, somewhere, his brain – or something – kept working on it.
“Jesus saw the crowds and He went up a hill and sat down and taught them.”8
“Yeah, so? . . . What? What did He teach them?”
Stone knew – or believed or, maybe, imagined– that Ezra wasn’t going to waste those two sentences. He’d have something – even if he had to make it up. And it nagged Stone. Some part of his brain or soul or spirit – or something – wanted to get it before he talked with Loleko. And that something kept bringing the seemingly meaningless scripture back to his mind . . . But something else kept saying, “You know this is useless, Livingstone . . . There ain’t no getting out of here . . . There ain’t no rest for the wicked.” And, today, that second voice was in the lead.
“He-l-l-l-o-o-o-h! Hallel-u-u-u-jah Livingst-o-o-o-ne!” Ezra sang, and bellowed, and smiled; eyes flashing, looking happier than any man locked on a psych ward should have had any reason to choose to be. “What’s happening this fine afternoon, my friend?”
Ezra was obviously in less of a hurry to get down to business than Stone.
“Two sentences,” Stone smirked, not quite playfully.
“Ah, yes. Jesus went up a hill and taught his disciples.”
“Ah, yes, Stone mimicked,” a little more playfully. “What am I supposed to get out of that?” he halfway snapped and halfway grinned.
“An excellent question.” Ezra soared, playing along. “Indeed, that is the question.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Stone flashed, without anger. “It doesn’t say anything about what He taught. So how am I supposed to get anything out of it?”
“You know,” Ezra paused, winked, grinned goofily, and raised his brow, “The full question is ‘What are you supposed to get out of what God is telling you in those sentences?’”
“Not much,” Stone declared with haste.
“A-a-h-h-h . . . a-a-a-l-l scripture is Spirit-breathed and useful . . .” Ezra crooned.
“You’re in a singing mood, today, aren’t you Mr. Loleko?”
“Why not? . . . I can’t feel bad when I’m singing . . . Even when I’m moanin’ the blues.”
Stone just shook his head.
“Read those two sentences for me, Mr. Livingstone.”
And Stone obliged – almost willingly.
“Jesus saw the crowds and he went up a hill and sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and He began to teach them.”9
“You know that God is saying something in there, right?” Ezra asked and declared at the same time.
“I’m hoping.”
“Wonderful!” Ezra exclaimed. “We could stop right there. You’re getting more and more of that, aren’t you, Mr. Livingstone?”
“More of what?” Stone bristled.
“Hope.”
Stone hadn’t realized and it didn’t quite seem to apply here. “I hadn’t noticed,” he panned.
“Do you know how dreadfully miserable you were when we met?”
“Still, pretty much, am.”
“Pretty much?! That’s a phrase people use when they are trying to bamboozle themselves – and/or somebody else.”
“You said I was dreadfully miserable, when we first met,” Stone protested at the notion that he wasn’t being fully truthful, “And I still – pretty much – am.”
“Yes! Yes. Pretty much. That’s it! . . .You’ve dropped the dreadful . . . Now, you’re just miserable.
Stone laughed, which, he realized, proved Loleko’s point.
“Tell me what God is saying in those two sentences,” Ezra pushed.
“I don’t know.
“That’s okay,” Ezra nodded and grinned, “Tell me what you would say if you did know.”
Stone bristled, again. “I’d say Jesus climbed a blasted hill, sat down, and taught his disciples something about which I don’t have a clue.”
“All true,” Ezra smiled.
“Well, there you go. I’ll write that down on the index card and we can be done for the day. Climb. Sit. Teach. Without knowing what in the blazes you’re teaching.” Stone was now miffed and Loleko knew it.
“Okay,” Ezra said gently, “Enough of my messing around. You’re focused on what Jesus said and did and — ”
“Yes!” Stone barked, cutting him short. “I’m focused on Jesus. Isn’t that where I’m supposed to be?”
“Yes . . . and that is just what the disciples did in those two sentences.”
Stone looked again and saw what he had missed.
“His disciples gathered around him . . .”10 Stone said softly.
“There ya go,” said Ezra.
“Okay. But isn’t that pretty much what the first day’s reading said – pray, spend time with God?”
“Pretty much?” Ezra grinned, his eyes twinkling madly.
“Yeah . . . ‘Pretty much,’” Stone laughed, “But not exactly, huh?”
“What did Jesus do before the disciples gathered around him,” Ezra asked, still twinkling.
“I already said,” Stone shot, “He climbed a blasted hill.”
“Yes! Yes!” Ezra enthused as if he had come upon some great revelation.
“Yes! Yes!” Stone mimicked. “Big deal . . . He climbed a hill.”
“Yes! . . . And what did the disciples do after Jesus climbed that hill?”
“They gathered around him,” Stone exasperatedly sighed.
“No-No,”Ezra quickly corrected. “Read between the lines. Before they gathered around him . . .”
“Before they gathered around him, they might have been playing tiddly-winks, for all I know,” Stone laughed. “The reading doesn’t say.”
“Before they gathered around him – genius,” Ezra teased encouragingly, “they had to climb the hill after him.”
“I suppose they did,” Stone said rolling his eyes, “And, again – big deal!”
“I know,” Ezra said gently, “This doesn’t sound like anything much at all . . . But you’re wanting Jesus to do something big. You want Him to get you out of hell . . . And He will . . . But you don’t just get out of hell . . . You gotta have somewhere to go when you get out – and you can’t go back to where you used to be . . . There’s someplace else you gotta go.”
“Oh, yeah,” Stone objected, “Where’s that?”
“Wherever Jesus leads.”
“And . . . I suppose,” Stone groaned, almost playfully, “He wants me to go follow along without having any clue where’s He’s leading . . . right?”
Ezra shrugged. “It’s gotta be someplace better than hell . . . right?”
Stone paused . . . “I can’t really argue with that,” he curiously smiled . . . stared, and shook his head. “But I still want to know what he taught them at the top of that hill,” Stone demanded.
“Good!” Ezra firmly, gleefully – and goofily – nodded, reaching into his pocket. “Lucky for you, I’ve got it right here.”
And Stone read the words that Ezra handed him.
“Happy the man who . . .” 11
Hallelujah dropped his head. He had not been happy in a long time.
“If I want to get out of this hell,” Stone wrote on his index card, “I’m going to have to follow Jesus wherever he leads.”
“You know this passage you read today, Mr. Livingstone,” Ezra paused. “That wasn’t the only hill that Jesus climbed.”
Stone stared and re-opened his index cards.
“This ain’t gonna be easy,” he wrote.
“Where did you come from?” Hallelujah asked Ezra when they met that afternoon.
“The womb. Just like everybody else,” Ezra cackled, getting a kick out of himself.
Stone shook his head, smirked, and laughed – just a little. “No kidding, idiot.” he snapped playfully. “Where were you born and raised?”
“Cincinnati. Land of the Gambling-Banned Hit King.”
“Pete Rose.”
“Yeah. Cincinnati. Part North. Part South. All Midwest . . . Just across the Ohio from Honest Abe’s home state. Everything to love and hate about ‘fly-over country’ – all in one place . . . But what difference does it make?”
“You don’t like the city?” Stone asked.
“I don’t dislike it. But I don’t have any special affinity for the place just because I happened to be born there . . . I never understood that kind of thing . . . I could live anywhere else and be just as happy. Leave anywhere, too.”
SABERBUCS 