Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124
James 5: 13-20
Mark 9: 38-50

Think for a minute of the kind of person you would identify as “the ideal kindergarten teacher.” (Pause) I’m sure that you have someone like our own Mrs. Wood in mind! For many years this perpetually 20 something kindergarten teacher has welcomed a new generation of five year olds, (has compelled them to believe she is 25, every September) and had taught them many of the basics of how to get along in school and in life.

Of course, there are other kindergarten teachers, but for the most part they are all pretty much the same. Good with children. Patient. Kind. Soft spoken but firm. Not easily phased by runny noses or childhood bathroom behaviour. Not easily thrown off gard by the most intimate of revelations about the personal lives of her students parents.

Now think of someone like Arnold Schwartzenagger; yes, the one who is currently governor of the State of California, as a kindergarten teacher. Of course, we know they made a movie with him starring as a kindergarten teacher. In that movie he played a police officer more suited to his usual role as ‘terminator’ , who was forced to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher in order to crack a case. No one, including himself and his partner, thought he was suited to the role; no one, that is, except the students.

At the end of the movie he quit his job as a police officer and decided to stay in kindergarten.

Many of us have ideas about what the ideal person for many professions looks like. However, the times are ‘a changin’. No longer are all police officers and all firefighters big, burly men. No longer are all nurses women. The same can be said of our assumptions about those working in many professions and volunteer roles.

When we hear the word ‘hero’ I am sure we have a certain kind of person in mind. Yet the story of Esther is the story of an unlikely hero In a world of power and political intrigue, controlled by ruthless men, she saved her people and ensured their survival.

In the Harry Potter series, Hermione Granger is not accepted, and in fact greatly resented, by some of the students because both her parents are ‘muggles’, or rather, ‘non-magical’ people. However, she has consistently been ahead of her pure-blood wizard classmates throughout her years at Hogwarts and I suspect that she will graduate at the top of her class when the last novel of the series is published. (That is, of course, unless she is one of those who do not survive the final encounter with Lord Voldemort)

When we hear the phrase “church members” we may also form a certain picture in our minds. By and large they are probably people just like us.

The disciples knew what a disciple of Jesus looked like. There were twelve of them and they were a close little group, privileged to share in their leader’s healing powers. In today’s gospel lesson we discover that they were not at all impressed when they came across total strangers healing in the name of THEIR MASTER.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Jesus wasn’t nearly so upset and what follows in Mark’s gospel is a series of short sayings which are designed to have the reader look at the results of the action, rather than the one performing the action. To stand in the way of the living of the gospel is a grave sin indeed. To allow ANYTHING to prevent us from living the Gospel is unthinkable. To use an extreme example, which has made every succeeding generation of Christians very uncomfortable: ‘even if you have to cut off your hand to be free to live and proclaim the gospel, do that.’

Today, the first Sunday in October, is often referred to as World-Wide Communion Sunday. On this day we gather around the table much more aware than usual of all of those who gather around similar tables in Christ’s name all around the world. We gather with those who celebrate in ornate stone cathedrals with clergy wearing rich vestments, and using silver chalices; with those who gather in simple rural churches of all shapes and sizes, some with stained-glass windows and others able to look through clear glass upon the wonders of creation, with those who use battered equipment in makeshift chapels near the battlefields of the world; with those whose elements are served to them while they are in hospital gravely ill, or while visiting someone gravely ill.

We gather with those who use real wine and who use all kinds of bread imaginable, and with those who use grape juice like us and plain white store bought bread like we do.

We gather with those who speak all languages on the planet including French, Chinese, Arabic, (and we need to remember that there are indeed Arabic Christians who refer to God as Allah), Spanish, German, Dutch, and the many languages and dialects of Africa, to name just a few.

I recall reading a story a number of years ago of a writer for a Christian magazine visiting a church in a foreign country. He and his wife did not understand a word of the service. They did not know what scriptures were being read nor what the sermon was about. However, they were reasonably certain that when the minister held up first the bread and then the chalice that he was speaking the age old words uttered in churches around the world. “This is my body, broken for you” and “This is my blood, the cup of blessing, poured out for you”. As they partook of the elements, they knew that they were part of a world-wide fellowship; part of the company of the saints down through the ages. They knew that even though they were thousand of mines from their home in Canada, they were amongst friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, in one of their many homes away from home. On this ‘World-Wide Communion” Sunday most especially we are called to open ourselves to the Spirit which works in us and in others. We are called to support the work of the people of Christ around the world, no matter how different their rituals, or language or customs.

We need to look less at the differences which divide us and more at what makes us similar and work at the ministry we have in common.

Let us go from here more aware of our unity than we are of our differences. Let us go in the Spirit of the Livign Christ.

Amen.

Joel 2: 21-27
Psalm 126
1 Timothy 2: 1-7
Matthew 6: 25-33

The following story was sent to me by Howard Sallee, from Cowden and Lakewood United Methodist Church in Cowden Illinois. One day a very rich man with a good life in a large city took his son on a trip to the country because he wanted to show his son how poor people lived. He wanted to instill an appreciation for their blessings, I suppose. They spent a couple of days on a small farm with a poor farm family where the days were long, the work was hand and there were no luxuries.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was your weekend?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's next statement left his father speechless. His son concluded: "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we really are."

It IS a funny world. When I was growing up anyway, Kids who lived in the country wanted to live in the city, after all there’s an A&W in the city! (a bit of an ‘in’ joke as the nearby village just got its first hamburger joint about three days ago complete with a drive through) and many countless other stores to shop in and things to do and places to go and the list goes on! But city kids often envy the country kids because they have backyards big enough to play ball or soccer, they don’t have to lock all their stuff up when they aren’t using it and can have dogs and horses and all that good stuff.

Kids who take bought bread to school want homemade and the ones with homemade want the store bought.

On the whole, we are really good at pining after that ‘greener grass’ but not as good at truly thankful living. We have a tendency to look around us and wish for what we don’t have. We have a tendency to look around and say, “If I just had ..............such and such I’d be happy, or happier, .....’ However, in most cases, when we get that desired thing we soon feel that we are in need of something else; that thing doesn’t bring us as much joy as we thought it would. It’s what drives our consumer based economy but it has little to do with living in faithfulness and true thanksgiving.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving; the second Monday in October when we get together with family and eat turkey and all the fixins. Oh yes, we have a food drive for the local food-bank around thanksgiving as well. Then we can stop feeling guilty about the hungry till Christmas-time!

Now, we’ve all been told, no doubt, that the first North American Thanksgiving was in Massachusetts and was celebrated by the ‘pilgrims’. If we were on Jeopardy we’d be wrong though!!!! British North America beat them out, by a number of years. This story came from several people on the Midrash preaching list Without many of the things we take for granted at Thanksgiving, in 1578 Martin Frobisher reported observing Thanksgiving in Canada's eastern Arctic.

In 1578, he returned to Warwick Sound with 15 ships to follow up on a gold discovery made 2 years earlier. Apparently signs of this temporary settlement can still be seen. It was here that this historic Thanksgiving celebration was held. Martin Frobisher's thanksgiving was shared with the First Nations people of the area and an Anglican priest who was living and working in the community. Of course, they had no turkey; turkeys are hard to come by in the Arctic! They celebrated with roast polar bear!

That being said, we make a mistake thought when we equate the being “thankful” ot “thanksgiving” with giving thanks for an abundance of food, possessions, or even less ‘concrete’ things such as health, friendships, peace and security.

We must realize that the biblical story is not about a great nation blessed by God. The biblical story is really about a small, no account nation, called into a relationship with the God of heaven an earth. This small nation made a lot of mistakes. The short version of the history of this nation goes like this: They had been slaves and they cried out to their God and their God raised up a leader named Moses to lead them to freedom. They were duly grateful, for a while. When things got rough and Moses went off to talk to this God, up on a high mountain, (cause that’s how you talked to God back then) the people decided to hedge their bets and start worshipping another god, just in case.

Not a good idea.

The people had to learn to depend on this God who led them to freedom, the God of their ancestors. Then, when they learned that, things got better.

Yet, when things were going good for a while, it was hard to remember the call of this God and when they forgot, well things fell apart. Then they blamed God and got mad at God and this God had to call a prophet to lead them back to faithfulness.

This happened so often it was almost like a broken record, but that’s the way it was, and often, that’s still the way it is. The stories of this people are gathered into what we often call the “Old Testament”, but there’s nothing old about it - it’s a new as the morning paper.

As we look into the background behind today’s biblical text from the Older Testament we learn that the people of God are once gain involved in a kind of yo-yo relationship with the God of their ancestors and they are currently in trouble. They need to discover once again that they are not self-made and that their true success depends not on their own efforts, but on the grace of God.

The question for us is essentially the same question as it was for them: “Is God necessary?” Haven’t we progressed enough that we can do away with this whole idea of God? We know so much more about the world, and about the human body.

To admit that we are powerless and need God and God’s grace is a humbling and frightening thing in many ways. Yet we are called to give up our need to control everything and to give our lives to God and to working in relationship with him.

Some people would agree, but the whole point of thanksgiving in the yearly cycle is to remind human beings that God is still very much alive and God seeks to be in relationship with us. In

many ways the observance of Thanksgiving has become another excuse to eat far too much and forces us to list off the “nice things we have”, just because that’s what we are supposed to do.

However the biblical view of thanksgiving is not so much about “feeling grateful” for things or for particular blessings such as food and love of family, but rather it’s a way of looking at life where God is at the centre of all that we are and can be. It’s about the most essential relationship in our lives. It’s a relationship that changes how we look at everything in life.

Even though the people to whom Joel was preaching y are promised a return to a better time, the more we delve into the biblical story the more we discover that thankfulness in the biblical perspective is a way of relating to and with God, and not an attitude toward material things. True thanksgiving is a relationship with the divine that shows to ourselves and to others that we depend on this God for all that we are and can be. Thanksliving shows that God is not an ‘add on’ in our lives but an essential part of who we are and can be. It’s the relationship which is reflected in the age old verse of promise and call: “I shall be your God and you shall be my people”. It’s a relationship that is not dependant on fair weather and good fortune but one which endures through thick and thin because that’s who God is and who we have become through our relationship with this God of the ages.

So as Jesus says, “Don’t worry, even though some of the things that worry you, like your food and shelter, is essential, but instead, focus your energies on trusting in God and acting in faith.

Despite what our actions sometimes say, we cannot change anything, except perhaps our sleep patters, by worrying. I know. Just tell me now to worry and I’ll be up all night. But in the morning the situation has not changed and I am left with less energy to cope with whatever faces me.

We are a people blessed by the God of heaven and earth. He has called us into a relationship which has given us the promise of life abundant.

So let us focus on the God of the ages, the God of our ancestors, our God and let us seek to live in faithfulness and love.

Amen! ”

Job 23: 1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22: 1-15
Hebrew’s 4: 12-16
Mark 10: 17-31

When Your Hump Gets Caught in the Eye!

Long before there were those pesky telemarketers who called at suppertime and won’t take “NO!” for an answer there were travelling salesmen. They carried trunkloads of patent medicine, juice concentrate, vanilla, cocoa powder and shoe polish, or encyclopaedias or children’s books – all things that, in their minds, the truly conscientious householder just “had to have on hand”.

One day one of these travelling salespeople drove up to a small somewhat unkempt farmhouse. He approached the farmer who was sitting on the verandah in a rocking chair, chewing on a stalk of hay and staring at the horizon.

“Sir, I have a book here in my case that will tell you how to farm TEN TIMES better than you are farming now.”

His offer was met with a long few minutes of silence. Finally the farmer rolled the hay from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “Listen Sonny. I ain’t got no use fer yer book. I already know how to farm ten times better than I am doing now!”

(Pause)

There was once an earnest young man who came to Jesus, addressed him as “good teacher” and then asked him what he had to do to ‘inherit’ life in God’s Kingdom. He wanted a “to do list”, an “action plan”.

First off, Jesus refused to be called “good” , because, as he said, God alone was “good”. Secondly, he knew this man had followed the law, as far as avoiding sin went. Yet, he also knew that this man lacked one thing. After all he was the one who came to Jesus. Anyone with any intuition could tell that this young man who seemed to have everything, on the surface, was not yet at peace with himself and his faith. Like so many before him and since, he chased after the local up and coming guru for an answer. What must I do? Tell me? Sit on a mountaintop and eat nothing for a month? Walk backwards to Jerusalem and back? What? Tell me and I’ll do it! I’ll do anything. .............. Well, almost anything!

Yet Jesus knew that this man’s attitude toward his possessions was the thing that was keeping him from a life-giving relationship with God. Sadly, at the end of the story, it would still be keeping him away.

The man had come to Jesus asking what he had to do in order to inherit eternal life. First off we have to know that when the Gospels speak of “eternal life” they mean much, much more than the so-called “after life”. When the Gospels speak of eternal life, they are speaking about a quality of life that begins with our relationship with God through Christ in the here and now and continues on after this life is over. Make no mistake, for Jesus, eternal life had as much to do with planet earth as it does with what we usually call ‘heaven’. Jesus knew that this man had a misplaced focus, that he was striving after the wrong things, or after the right thing in the wrong way. Jesus knew that this man had to change in order to have the kind of abundant life he offered.

Comedian Jack Benny, who it is said, hated to part with his money, tells about being “held up” one evening. The robber stuck a gun in his ribs and said, “Your money or your life”. After the impatient would be robber jabbed the gun deeper Benny said, “Well, give me a minute, I’m thinking about it.” Saw this story somewhere on the internet, probably the PRCL-L preaching list.

This man whose came to see Jesus was too tied to his money and his possessions. Of course Jesus knew that he needed something to live on. Last week’s passage on not worrying conceded that God knows that all humans need food and clothing. It’s not that these things were not essential for life; it was that for this man, they were too important.

What is clear to me in this passage is that happiness lies not in money or in status, or in “keeping your nose clean” but in a relationship of grace with the God we have met in Jesus the Christ. Perhaps this man felt he could do it on his own. We all must learn to depend on God, even if we have enough saved for retirement and then some; even if we have enough for a whole month of rainy days; even if we have kept all of the commandments and laws. Even then, we truly need God.

I believe that the “thing” that keeps us from fullness of life is different for each one of us. Some of us seek our security in nice things; the nice things we have or the nice things we want to have. Some of us have as our primary goal the saving of enough money for a rainy day; and others of us in cultivating friendships with those powerful and influential people who can better ensure our success and others in their avoidance of sin.

I was looking over my shelf of books the other day and a title struck me, “When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough”. What do you do when you have checked off all of those things on your ‘life list’? What do you do when you have done this and you are left with the feeling that there is something missing, that you need something more?

We all know people who, on the surface, seem to “have it all”. They drive nice cars. They have the perfect body and the perfect clothing that’s always the latest fashion. They have nice houses and they are paid for. They take nice trips and their perfectly behaved and “never in trouble” kids don’t have to worry about student loans because the “bank of daddy and mommy” is footing the bill.

Yet, if we truly get to know some of these folks, we will realize that many are not as happy as we might expect. If we are one of these folks you might have come to the point where you have realized that these things don’t bring you the satisfaction and happiness you thought they would when you were striving for them. (Or you live in fear that the face you show to the outside world will crumble and people will see you as you really are.)

OF COURSE, life is easier when you don’t have to choose which bills to pay or if you don’t have to wonder if you can afford to go to the dentist for that toothache, but simply put, money can’t buy you what you most need. Success can’t get you what you truly need. Popularity won’t get you what you most need. Nothing that we can achieve on our own or with human effort will make us truly happy in our soul.

You see it’s not about us! It’s not about what we can do or what we can achieve. It’s not about how smart we are. Or how hard working. It’s now about our connections through biology or schmoozing with the big wigs! Or about how incompetent or lazy, either. It’s about God and about the unmerited grace of God.

Perhaps Wesley’s maxim would be helpful to remember here: “Work as hard as we can, save as much as we can and give as much as we can.” We do what we can with as much effort as we have, but we do this in the realization that what we can do is limited by our humanity and by our varying commitments. We realize that we can’t do everything and be everything we may want to be, or we may think we want to be. So we might as well stop trying.

We KNOW this, I am sure. We don’t need to buy that book; but do we want to apply the lessons we know are in it. We don’t often have the conviction to act on what it is that we know. We are afraid to trust in God’s grace. We are afraid that if we stop pedalling as hard as we can after those goals we have set for ourselves that we will be left by the side of the road and someone will get ahead of us.

What is it that is keeping us from happiness? Maybe it’s not exactly “what is missing”, but what we have too much of. When I was a kid we were told that a camel’s hump was filled with water. I don’t think that this is true but, for our purposes today we may need to ask ourselves what it is that is filling our hump? What is filling our lives in unhelpful ways; what part of our lives is keeping us from true happiness.

Maybe, like the rich young man we need to turn these things into blessings for others. Maybe we need to give away some of what makes us tired and anxious and looking out for ourselves and our future.

Maybe we need to give up our desire to be important by doing things that don’t get the kind of recognition we crave; things that we don’t or can’t put on a resume to increase our employability or our reputation.

Smell the roses more. Spend more time just being. A friend and colleague of mine says that we are meant to be “human beings”, NOT “human doings”. Do less. Be more. Maybe we need to try less hard to be righteous and take risks for the gospel.

When we do this we spend less time thinking of ourselves and free up more time and energy to think of others. We can focus on the problems of a community and a world that has more than enough food and other resourses to go around; but has a major distribution problem. We in the affluent west have a major attitude problem toward poorer countries. On World Food Day, we need to remind ourselves that Christians are called to live compassionately. We can’t do this if we spend all of our energy on our own success and our own security.

God’s grace and life in the kingdom is free. It isn’t a reward for good behaviour, or a pension for a lifetime of faithfulness; it’s a way of living where we place our trust in God, act in faithfulness and walk in the way of Jesus as we seek fullness of life for everyone. Amen!

Job 38: 1-7, ((34-41)
Psalm 104: 1-9, 24,
Hebrews 5: 1-10
Mark 10: 35-45

The ages old story of Job and his myriad of tragic circumstances still fascinates us. The question of Job still troubles us. Why IS there human suffering? More troubling, why DO the INNOCENT suffer?

For what it’s worth, I was not one of those kids who stopped going to church when I was a teenager. Despite all of that time I spent in church I can say that I remember only a couple of sermons from my high school years. One of the more memorable sermons was on the topic of the ‘suffering of the innocent’. One of the questions that has plagued me since I was young was "Why do the innocent suffer?" Why do bad things happen to good people? How could God allow evil people or natural disasters to harm good people? What I remember most from the sermon was that the question remained unanswered. Instead of answering the question the sermon turned into one on "using your talents for the Lord."

I rolled that sermon and my dissatisfaction with it around in my head for many years. Eventually I realized that this is probably the only sermon that one CAN preach on the topic of human suffering. It certainly seems to me to be the answer Job receives from God. After all of the popular wisdom of his so-called ‘comforters’ , and that is what these men with odd sounding names offered - the popular wisdom of the day, God’s answer comes to an exhausted and depressed Job. Some have said that the answer humiliated Job but I would say that it was humbling, not humiliating and there is a difference. While it may have "put Job in his place", I don’t believe that God’s intention was Job’s humiliation. In this soaring and beautiful story of creation and the mystery of divine power, God’s intention, I think, was to relieve Job of the burden of having to be someone he was not and the impossibility of understanding what he could never hope to understand. Yet, at the same time, when it seems that the powers of the universe have conspired against us and our loved ones, it is a natural thing to engage in a ‘Job like’ struggle. At the end of the day we must make our own peace with it and this book is one attempt at making peace with these ultimate questions of life.

Now this is 2006. As human beings we know a great deal more about the world and the universe and how it works than Job and his contemporaries did almost 3000 years ago. It is clear that the author of this book believed that the earth was flat because the images used in the passage only make sense in that kind of world. The fact that even a very young child can tell you otherwise does not make these words any less powerful nor any less true, provided that we take them for what they are - time bound images seeking to speak of eternal truths.

Yet, even in modern science there is a point where human knowledge ceases and mystery begins. Even as we learn more and more about the human body, the human genome and the world in which we live, there is the also the realization that there is so much more to know and unlocking one mystery often reveals two others.

One of my all-time favourite shows was Dr Quinn-Medicine Woman. One of the things I realized when I watched this show was how fortunate I was to live in the twentieth century and not in the nineteenth, in terms of medical knowledge and abilities.

Yet, we still don’t know everything and can’t cure or correct everything. The same is true for other avenues of human knowledge. Indeed, couples who live together for 50 or 60 years or more find they are still discovering new things about themselves and their partners after such a long time together. How much more is this true when it comes to the whole of creation of which we know only a small part.

It’s not that knowledge is bad, it’s not that asking questions is bad; that’s the nature of being human. It’s that the ultimate questions of life cannot ultimately and satisfactorily be answered by human knowledge alone. We may know how a child grows in the nine months before birth; there are thousands of ultrasounds and a myriad of photographs available. We may be able to do surgery on an unborn child and we may be able to easily save those premature babies who could not have been saved ten or twenty years ago, we still do not know everything about the mysteries of human life and reproduction. We may be able to duplicate reproduction in a laboratory and even clone a human being (ethical or not) but we still cannot create the basic cell or stuff of life. We cannot bring something out of nothing. And we certainly cannot give meaning to life.

We as human beings have to realize that no matter how smart we are, true greatness and true knowledge lies elsewhere. We can strive but in the end we know only a small portion of what there is to know.

As a people of faith we are called to realize that we are to strive, not for true greatness in terms of ultimate power, but greatness in terms of service.

Every day the news is filled with stories of powerful people; people who make a difference in the lives of others. Some of these folks have a negative impact such as the shooter who ravaged Dawson College in Montreal and the children who locked a disabled playmate in a shed and set it on fire. In fact it seems that all they news is bad. Yet, occasionally there are stories of those who make a positive difference, not by doing great things, but by doing small things over and over.

The eradication of world poverty has paralyzed the efforts of individuals and nations for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Famines are responded to by relief efforts and food banks in our own community seek to act in a local way to help friends and neighbours who can’t make ends meet. It seems that the problem is bigger than either our ability to solve it, or perhaps our will.

Since 1901, 766 individual women and men and 19 organizations have been awarded Nobel Prizes for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The prize was founded by inventor and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel whose vast wealth established these prizes. I would suspect that the names of the vast majority of these men and women are known to only a few but that much of their work has become the basis of the lives we enjoy today. Much of what they do in the fields of science and economics can only be understood by those with similar training and expertise but this year’s peace prize is for something so simple, we may wonder why others have not thought of it long ago.

This year’s prize in peace has been awarded to an economist whose work and vision founded a very unique bank. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh were recognized for their unique work of leveraging small loans to impoverished families. In a culture where traditionally women are not allowed to even touch money much less make family decisions about it, the main clients of this bank are impoverished women who can barely afford to feed their families, let along qualify for a loan. For example, they might borrow a few dollars to buy supplies so that they can make something, such as baskets, which they then sell to sell to earn extra money. Eventually they are able to repay the money and provide a better life for their families. One program provided money for cell phones which the women loaned to others, like portable pay phones, and improved their lives in this way. The rate of default is very low and the impact very far reaching.

While that may sound like a nomination for a prize in economics we cannot overestimate the importance of the connections between economic security and peace. "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation released Friday in Oslo. Micro-credit is one such means."

Today’s passages talk about divine greatness and human aspirations to greatness. The answer to Job and to the two disciples is that true greatness can belong only to God and that the willingness to participate in the suffering of the world is the path to the only kind of greatness that really counts.

We are called to seek life and abundance of life for all of creation, not just for our corner of it. I was listening to a special on CBC radio on the Life of Tommy Douglas the other night and in it he parodied a prayer that went something like this, "God bless me and my son John, his wife, my wife, us four, no more."

God’s blessing is not exclusive to us, yet we can often begin to think, like the disciples mentioned in today’s passage that we are more deserving of it than others. What we know from science and from experience is that we will only be truly blessed when all of creation is blessed. While we may seek ultimate answers to difficult questions which may only be answered in eternity, we can participate in the life of the world here and now by being servants of Christ where we find ourselves living and working and being.

We may feel we have been dealt a raw hand by the great card dealer in the sky; we may have a royal flush but we are called to respond to it in a way that seeks benefit and blessing for all and not just for ourselves. There may be no answer to why there is suffering in the world but we can respond in some way, to some suffering, to some need to some one, or two or three. It calls from us giving up our aspirations to greatness, and humbling ourselves to the God who loves us and has given us life in great abundance and calls us to share what we have been given.

Amen!