Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 19, 2012

“Pontius Pilate” arrived this morning by email after five days with Steve Shoemaker and other former seminary classmates. Each of us is increasingly aware of our mortality. We know that position is not the most important thing. We know that power is not ours. We’ve learned to listen to our spouses. Some of what we’ve done comes back to haunt us.  There are no “clean hands” among us. How we will be remembered is not for us to decide.  Following the man who was mocked as “King of the Jews” leads us down a different road…of thanks for all that has been and for all that we have yet to become.

Acrostic Verse: “Pontius Pilate”

Position is the most important thing,

Of course..   You say your reign is not in this

Nasty world, but here you are suffering…

Total power is mine.  If this grim choice

I make (and ignore my wife’s dream), nothing

Untoward will come back to haunt me!  I wash

Sand and dirt from my hands as I wash you…

Prefects are not required to be perfect.

If I send tax money to Rome, a few

Lies told against me soon will die.  A sect,

An uprising I stamp out now will do

The most to make my name remembered.  Fact:

Even if I call you “King,” you die a Jew…