I was four years old. Four years and a few months. This was a new development then. We were one of the first families to live on this block. This is what it looked like…  

…That’s me, my grandfather and my older brother on the front porch in June of 1954, a month or so before the house was finished.

But the story I’m about to tell didn’t happen in the house, it happened behind it. Or better, it happened in the backyard and sorta more in the backyard of my neighbor, Jimmy.

Sort of, here…

…partly on my side, mostly on his.

Like I said, this was a new development. Not all the roads were finished, not all the houses were finished. There were construction equipment, bulldozers and diggers and stuff everywhere and none of the lawns were done. There was just dirt.

Right here in the back, between these two houses but more to Jimmy’s side was a hugh pile of topsoil. I mean big. Soil scraped up by the bulldozers from all the lots they cleared for new houses and piled up as big as a mountain. Well, maybe a mountain if you are four years old, and a few months. It was at least a pretty good size hill, probably six or seven feet high, and it was, while it lasted, a great place for adventure. It was the neighborhood attraction. I do not remember how long it was there or all the stuff we did on it but you can be sure we rolled and tumbled on it, raced to the top, threw dirt bombs and dug holes. From the top we could see the edges of our world, or at least the part of it we could play in.

The main thing we did was dig a huge hole. Right straight down from the top, from the middle of the top, we dug a really deep hole. It wasn’t very wide, but it went down so far the top of it was over our heads and we had to put steps in the wall to climb out.

Looking back, I realize it was pretty hard-packed for topsoil, not at all fluffy, and not all full of peat moss and organic matter. It was dirt. Deep dark dirt. And it wasn’t full of rocks, either, so the digging was easy. We borrowed our dads’ garden shovels, the ones we could handle, and dug.

When the hole was done it was this neat, private space we alone had made. It was safer than a fort. It was a great hiding place. We kids owned the mountain and we owned the hole. When you looked up you could see the sky.

* * *

That night, it rained. I wasn’t the first one up the next morning. When I got outside and over to the hill a bunch the neighborhood kids were already there. I climbed up top and sat down up there with them, looking down into the hole.

“Can’t go in the hole.”

“Why not?”

“It’s all muddy and slippery. You can’t get back out.”

I looked down in the hole. It was the same hole we had such a great time with yesterday. It looked the same to me.

“I can do it,” I said.

“No, you can’t. It’s too slippery. You can’t get back out.”

I looked again. I know in my heart today I really didn’t see the problem. The hole looked just as cool as ever and they were just acting weird.

“Yes, I can.” I was sure I could dig my shoes into the walls and make new steps to get out.

“No, you can’t. Nobody can do it.”

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember all the other things they said or who said what. I had already made up my mind. I know we had kind of an argument but to me it was just like being dared. Actually, they were trying to warn me, they had been there first. But I had already decided. I was going to do it. I was going to show them they were wrong and that I could do it even if they couldn’t. I really believed I could do it. What they were saying was crazy.

So into the hole I went.

Now, in those days, we didn’t wear sneakers all the time. We had shoes, leather shoes with a good stiff toe and an even stiffer leather sole. All I had to do was stick my foot right here and…. But it slipped out. No problem, I’ll just kick a bit with my shoe, the leather shoe with the good stiff toe and and even stiffer leather sole, and… but it didn’t work. The soil was packed harder than I remembered it from the day before and I couldn’t dig my foot into it. Every place my foot landed it just bounced off or slid down.

Imagine my surprise.

Same thing with my hands. I couldn’t get a grip.

Did I mention that they were all still up there watching me?

You know – sometimes when your brain suddenly figures something out, you feel it in your whole body. It’s physical. It’s a sickening feeling. You feel it in the pit of your stomach. Your head feels weird, your heart pounds, your face gets hot.

“Uh-oh. This isn’t working.”

In fact, nothing I tried was working and with every excruciating second that went by I felt worse. Actually, I was shocked. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I knew I could get out, it was simple. I was in and out of it a dozen times or more the day before but this day…. A little water, a little rain and suddenly nothing works.

They were right and even worse, I was wrong.

Not only that, but I was stuck. I really was stuck in a hole so deep and with walls so slippery I really couldn’t get out. I knew I wasn’t going to be stuck in this hole forever—I was in Jimmy’s backyard, for heaven’s sake, but I wasn’t going to get out of this hole without some help and they were still sitting up there, just watching. Or maybe they were saying things too, like, “See, we told you!” and stuff like that but, honestly, I don’t remember. Whatever they said, whatever I heard, my mind was saying something else: you were wrong; you can’t get out; what you thought didn’t work. You are stuck.

“I can’t do it.”

They tried to pull me out but I was too big for them and the hole was too deep.

“Do you want us to get your father?”

I didn’t like that idea and tried some more and they tried and now I was crying and finally…

“Go get my Dad.”

I remember seeing my Dad’s face coming over the rim of the hole. I remember his big hand coming over the rim too and reaching all the way down to where I was. Maybe he said, “Give me your hand,” but I don’t know. He wouldn’t have had to. I remember him taking hold of my arm and pulling me up.

Years later, and to this day, in fact, I can remember thinking my dad is the strongest person I ever knew.

He picked me up out of that hole. And I was saved.

* * *

Mercifully, I am sure I needed a bath. I don’t remember much else about that day or that hill or how much longer it lasted before it was spread out across our lawns and dirt bombs and bulldozers gave way to grass and fences and gardens and picnic tables. But I will always remember that day and how wrong I was. I remember the shock when my leather shoe with the good stiff toe and even stiffer leather sole wouldn’t dig into the sides, the walls of the hole. I remember my adventure and my moment of thinking I’d be the hero of the neighborhood, the kid who could do nearly anything, even climb out of a hole when others were afraid to try, (or smarter). I remember my adventure turning into my biggest defeat and humiliation to date in my short life.

But most of all, I remember my dad. I remember him looking down and seeing me and I remember seeing his big strong arm reaching down, all the way down from where I couldn’t get to, to where I was, and pulling me out.

* * *

Today when I think of being stuck in that hole I can think of Joseph, the guy with the coat of many colors, the kid who so ticked off his brothers that they threw him down in a hole. What was it like for him?

One moment, like me, he is sort of bragging. It’s not an evil sort of bragging; a wicked, obnoxious, narcissistic boasting but a sort of innocent, “Hey brothers, guess what I was dreaming! All of you were bowing down to me, let me tell you about it,” and thinking they would be as fascinated as he was.

My bragging was sort of innocent, too. For one, I was only four years old at the time for heaven’s sake. Four years and a few months. And I really thought I could do it. I saw an opportunity to distinguish myself a little bit, set myself apart, and yeah, maybe a little above the others in a way. It was arrogant, but innocent, too. If I had done it, I would have been the first and for awhile the only one. I would tell them how I did it, show them how it was done. I would have been a leader. Isn’t that sort of what leaders do?

As a kid, a little kid at that, it was about the hole and believing I was right. Then it was about being rescued. But from where I am today and who I have become, looking back at that kid in the hole, I can see a lot more. And being pulled out of a hole or situation I get myself stuck in has all new meaning too. It is biblical, it is spiritual.

So there is Joseph, sitting in a deep well, stuck, and no one to help him. He came out on an errand for his father and now he can’t get back. His father will be worried. Joseph wouldn’t have known it at first, but it would be a long time before he would see his father again. No, he was stuck, trapped, in a hole and helpless to get out.

[Genesis 37:12-24 NRSV] Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him,” --that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to their father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Little did he know – another father was watching him and getting ready to fulfill a promise he had made to Joseph’s ancestors. And along the way, that dream of his, the one that got him into trouble with his brothers, would come true as well.

Two of us, Joseph and me, stuck in a hole, trapped. Our heads pounding with the sudden turn of events. Our good intentions gone bad. My little story, a blip on the neighborhood grapevine. Probably no one but me even remembers it. But it happened and in those rare moments when I go back and think about it, I always find something else in it. Something I can use today.

Joseph’s story happened too. They grabbed him and took his coat and threw him in a pit and pulled the cover over. We don’t know how long. I was in the hole 10 minutes, maybe five. It felt like hours. Joseph was there probably for several hours. Several hours of being hurt and confused, angry and scared. First believing he would tell his father what they’d done and believing Dad would make them pay, then wondering if he would even live.

We’ll learn more about Joseph next week. He wasn’t the only one in the Bible trapped in a hole. We learn of Daniel, thrown into a lions’ den. Picked up and dropped over the side. Landing on the hard ground below. Landing on his feet? We don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe just picked up and dropped sideways as if it was a swimming pool except, of course, that it had no water in it. It had lions. It wasn’t an empty swimming pool.

[Daniel 6:16-23, NRSV] (After trying unsuccessfully to save Daniel from the sentence of execution…) Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!” A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him, and sleep fled from him.

Then, at the break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?” Daniel then said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.” Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

The big difference between Daniel and Joseph and me was that Daniel was okay about it. He knew God would protect him. He had faith. Daniel and Joseph went into their holes as prisoners of a sort, captives of people who wanted to see them come to harm. Daniel knew God would protect him, Joseph didn’t know what was happening, and me, I was just a little kid who thought he could get himself out when everybody tried to stop him in the first place. We’re all stuck in a hole with people looking in over the top to see what happens. Two are part of God’s plan. These are moments of truly biblical proportions, and then, me, a blip on the neighborhood grapevine.

Meshach, Shaddrach and Abedniggo – you can read their story in the book of Daniel, too – thrown into the fiery furnace. Senteniels watching to see them go up in flames but they, like Daniel, have faith that God would save them.

Mine is a story about being saved too, about really being saved by a power bigger than myself, the strongest man I would ever come to know, and a metaphor for a lot of holes into which I would get myself in the years to come, but it didn’t start out that way. It started with a big pile of dirt and a kid who was four years old. Four years and a few months, actually.

# # #

David C. Lehmkuhl

This story-sermon was presented at the

First United Methodist Church of Somerville

January 3, 2010

Special thanks to Jean and Jimmy Bender, who still live next door.