Season After Pentecost - Year C -- 2016
Indexed by Date. Sermons for the Season After Pentecost Year C
Jeremiah 31: 27-34
Psalm 119: 97-104
Luke 18: 1-8
We’ve all been there! It’s the middle of the night and you wake up. Somewhere in the house is a dripping tap and with each drip the sound seems to become louder and louder. Drip. Drip. Drip. Much worse than a loud clock ticking away the sleepless hours, the tap reminds us of each second we are awake. Drip. Drip. Drip. We turn over. Drip. Drip. Drip. We cover our head. Drip. Drip. Drip. If we are fortunate, the cat will leap up on the sink and turn it off (don’t laugh - I remember waing up to the sound of her flushing the toilet to get fresh water!) -but if we don’t have a brilliant kitty - we have to get up and do it ourselves. Then blessed silence reigns and go to sleep once again! The phrase “Chineese Water Torture” involves slowly dripping water (but in that case, its on the prisoner’s head!)
I wonder if I asked the Sunday school children how they know right from wrong, what they would say? Well, how did WE learn? When you were growing up did you start with the ten commandments, your mother’s list of right and wrong, and then the ones your teacher imposed. Then you had to figure the rest out on your own. I wonder if this form of discernment is something that is innate in humans or do we have to be intentionally taught?
Of course, we all learn from both positive and negative experiences! Virtually all children have been on the wrong end of a negative experience and some find it easier than others to translate this experience into an ethical code for themselves - for example, After being deliberately hurt the child thinks, “I don’t like being treated this way; so I should not treat others like that!”
We teach children all sorts of things such as “don’t steal”, “don’t lie”, “don’t say bad words”, and “look both ways before you cross the street,” and “don’t smoke or take illgeal drugs”. At some point though, the specifics of “don’t take a chocolate bar from a store” or “if Mom asks if you have done something wrong, tell the truth”, have to be translatable into seeing all forms of stealing and dishonesty as damaging of human community, and as wrong.
Once again, last week, the Presidential debates and election rhetoric in the United States has brought to mind, the ways in which some men feel entitled to treat women. If the behaviour is wrong for the average Joe, it’s wrong for a star teenage athlete, or a brilliant student, and it’s wrong for a candidate for the most powerful job in the world. He should get no “free pass”. Though we hear similar “excuses” all the time, I think it’s a bit like good ole Archie Bunker’s pronouncements. When what we hear Archie say sounds so “wrong” we are forced to re-evaluate what we hear others say, or we think ourselves.
When I was a student in Halifax I took a hospital based course and I would frequently encounter medical students in the hallways. I had gone to high school with a few of them! When they were doing their rounds, the doctors, went around in little trains - with the fully qualified specialist leading the pack, followed by residents, then interns then, lastly by the clerks, those still in med-school - the lowest of the low, almost like a caboose. THEY had the pockets of their lab coats jammed full of handbooks and cheat sheets - so that they could refer to them at a moment’s notice. By the time they got to be a “specialist” they would be able to know what test results meant, what symptoms of many conditions were and so on, without consulting a manual or looking it up in a book. Today, they may all carry smart phones!
Along the way the nurses were on the front-line and the pharmacists in the background (and sometimes even the chaplains) of teaching them how to be good doctors; how to write that knowledge on their hearts.
No one tells your heart to beat - or your lungs to breathe or your stomach to signal that you are hungry, it’s just part of being human.
Another part of being human, of being a spiritual person in community is to have the ways of God written on your heart; it is to know, without having to think about it what God is asking of us.
That does not always happen overnight. Sometimes though we see something so slearly[ something that others do not see that we have to become the dripping tap, the persistent voice of justice and of reason and of right.
I think that this was part of what Jesus was saying when he spoke of the persistent widow. We don’t know what her issue was but leaving it “open-ended” would give his listeners permission to fill in the blanks. In Jesus’ day widows were very vulnerable and were, in most cases, at the mercy of their sons or their late husband’s male relatives. Anyone in the audience would know of such a person, or even be one herself!
This command to be persistent does not apply to a teenager, or an adult, persistently asking for a luxury item such as a big screen tv, or to a child persistently nagging a parent for the latest and best-est toy! It’s not giving permission for selfish nagging. “Gimmie, Gimme never gets” - remember that rhyme?
I think it was Pope Francis a few months ago who tweeted, “First we pray for the poor, then we feed the poor - that’s how prayer works!” We sometimes think of prayer as nagging God until God acts, but persitence has other connotations.
Many years ago I read of a persistent prayer method. It is basically this - write your prayer down and make sure you have it worded right. Pray it every day. If, after a few days, it does not sound right, edit it. Pray the new one and if it needs some fine tuning after a few days, go ahead and edit again. After a while, you may very well discover that you have your answer when bit by bit you felt the urge to change the wording.
The more we pray for the poor, for example, the more we see the things that can be done to help the poor. The more we are persistent in our prayer the more we can shift our focus from us to others, the more we can be persistent in our own generosity, in advocating for better social assistance, for better wages, for a more just economic system and the more clearly we can see the path to achieve this result.
Though I havent heard much about them for a while now, the letter writing campaigns of Amnesty International, for example, used to be one of the ways people have persisted against “unjust judges” to free prisoners. The online petitions which have become common as we work for change to being justice to others, or, more broadly, to the planet are another, more modern, example of persistence.
In the USA in the 1960s it was the Civil Rights movement which advocated for equal rights under the law -from voting and the right to use public rest-rooms and restaurants and busses on the same basis as whites.
A more resent example is the movement to protest the reality that 99% of the world’s wealth is owned or controlled by 1% of the people - or the relatively new “Black Lives Matter” protests. Clearly the new laws that came about as a result of the civil rights movement were not written on enough hearts!
Justice seeking and peace making are not something that one does and then is done with; it is something that one has to persist at! It can become a life’s work.
The prophet envisions a time when God’s law and will is written on the heart and Jesus speaks of a time when people of faith persist in seeking this to become a reality in the world.
May it be so.
Amen,
2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18
Psalm 65
Luke 18: 9-14
Did you hear the story about the guy who won a medal for humility - he didn’t have it very long though - they took it away from him - because he wore it with pride!
In 1784 Ben Franklin, American politician, penned these words for his autobiography:
“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”
On the surface, today’s gospel passage is about prayer, but it is primarily about grace, humility and our utter dependance on God! It is about the very real danger of the kind of excessive pride that looks down on others.
Quite a few years ago a research firm rated all the high schools in the province in which I was living. Many people were quite upset to find out that the high school in “my” community was almost at the bottom of the heap. I spoke with a teacher in the school and she was very upset; not at the school but at the criteria of the evaluation. Apparently, for example, the people doing the rating thought it a sign of a good school that students would take only three years to finish three grades! It soulds good on paper, but she knew enough about her students to know that while many did not pass every course the first time the number who graduated was average if the survey had allowed them to take an extra year or two. Many of these students were coping with higher than average rate of socio-economic factors that meant students could not devote as much of their energy to schooling as their counterparts in other parts of the province. She thought the school did a very good job at meeting the needs of the students and giving them a good education.
I remember a young man in one community in which I lived. He was, how shall we say it, “different”. While he was well-liked, I know some people looked down on him. He came up in conversation one day and I was told that he had come from a very dysfunctional home, had lived on his own in a cabin in the woods since he was a young teenager and had finished high school without any family support whatsoever. Many people either did not know this or chose to forget it. When you know someone’s “story”, it can make a great deal of difference!
Today’s passage concerns stereotyped representatives of two groups of people. Of course, this story and the people in it are made up! The story is not designed to point fingers but so that people will see themselves in the story.
One of the people in this parable is a Pharisee. He is all of the negative characteristics of a “typical” Pharisee all rolled into one. He is very religious. He keeps the ten commandments and other laws. He is not corrupt. BUT, he is self-righteous. Arrogant. He was proud he had earned God’s favour.
The tax-collector was humble to a fault. He believed he was so bad he could do nothing to redeem himself, but cast himself upon God’s mercy.
The Pharisee in the parable thinks he’s pretty good stuff - he follows all the rules and he goes over and above all of the standards - all this is true - he IS a good man. But, his prayer is that of a braggart - it is like he is running for office - looking for God’s vote and as if God can only vote once he’d better leave a good impression.
Like the recent political attack ads that were even common in the last Canadian federal election, he wants to make sure God knows that the tax collector over there is to be lumped in with thieves, rogues and adulterers. The Pharisee reminds God that “that man” over there does not deserve ANY votes!
It’s easy to see why thieves, rogues and adulterers were used as examples of “sinners” but what’s this about the tax collector? What we need to know is that tax collectors were not, as they are here and now, civil servants. Some of you may remember the Corner Gas episode in which an auditor from the Canada Revenue Agency went to Dog River to talk to Oscar!
My mom was once a tax collector! Back in the days before school board amalgamation there were hundreds of people like her in PEI who collected “school taxes” from her small district and who then remitted the money to the school system. In Jesus day the tax collectors were self-employd and as long as Rome received what it wanted the tax collector could charge as much of a commission as he wanted - and kept it as his salary. Some, if mot many, lived very well at the expense of their neighbours and family. IN ADDITION what goes without saying is that they collected taxes for the hated occupying force of the Roman Empire.
We don’t know much else about this tax collector - except that he was not at the temple to pray for God’s vote, he was there to pray for God’s mercy.
At the end of the day, all parables are about us - not about other people! They are like a baiteed fish hook, it all tastes good until we hit the barb! Like the parable of the prodigal son, this parable challenges us to look at the attitudes we “good church people” hold toward the “other.”
I’m sure you all know the song sung by a fella called Mac Davis, “O Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble when you are perfect in every way.”
As this particular story is introduced in the scripture, we are told that there is a specific context and audience. There were certain people in mind - this is not a “listen up everyone” type of address. It was spoken to those who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt”
One of the problems in Jesus’ day was this enormous divide between the rich and the poor; between social classes. The working poor were often looke down on by the religious elites. They had barely enought for basic survival. In other passages Jesus criticized the Pharisees for placing heavy burdens on the people without being willing to do any of the heavy lifting. This Pharisee does not even have a hint of acknowledgement that his privilege comes at the expense of others. He can keep all of those rules because he employs others to do his “dirty work”.
I spend a day this past week serving as chaplain of Conference Interview Board and was reflecting on that yesterday. We want ministers who are confident and articulate but not arrogant or excessively proud.
Yesterday I met Caribou Legs, aka Brad Firth, who is running across Canada (about 6,521km) to raise awareness about the plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. He was in Hantsport yesterday running the Pumpkin Pacer, then ran to Wolfville and left a hour long presentation on the run as well. This “cause” is important to him. Too many indigenous women and girls have just disappeared and until very recently no one is looking at the disappearances and murders as a whole. I suspect that one of the reasons this has been allowed to go on so long is much the same as one of the reasons why Robert Pickton was not caught for so long long - the people he preyed upon were largely invisible, under-valued, ignored by middle-class white society and blamed, in many ways, for their own plight. I maintain that if it were middle-class soccer moms, for example, the investigation would have begun and long ago been wrapped up! I guess the message is: if you want to get away with murder - kill someone no one important will miss! Well, ITS TIME FOR AN END TO THAT ATTITUDE!
When he spoke to us yesterday at Acadia University, Caribou Legs spent a lot of time telling us that we needed to raise our children differently so that both boys and girls learn and internalize better attitudes toward girls. Family violence and street justice are not just private matters between those directly involved, they are everyone’s business!
We cannot make ourselves feel better by negative thoughts and feelings toward the faith and practice of others. Thinking of others as heathen savages has led, time and agan to all sorts of atrocities, We are called to look at the other and see a child of God, loved by God for the same reason we are - God’s own grace!
Its part of our journey - working hard, trying our best, trying to be better than we were and then leaving the rest to God.
I think that’s what Paul was trying to get at in today’s other passage: he has run the race and fought the good fight - but in the end it comes down to God’s grace. Amen.
Amen! ct30"> October 30, 2016 -- Season of Pentecost 2016
Haggai 1: 15b-2:9
Psalm 145
Luke 20: 27-38
It was in an episode of “Family Ties”. Alex P Keaton had gone to England for the summer on a scholarship of some kind. The lecturer, an older professor, was speaking of the 1776 “Rebellion in the Colonies” and Keaton attempted to correct him by telling him that he was actually referring to the “American Revolution”. Keaton found out that most, if not all, events in history have at least two, usually different, perspectives- to the British it was a rebellion. Those we refer to as “Loyalists” had their assets confiscated and were sent packing, as traitors!
When I was young I learned about the event widely referred to as the “Expulsion of the Acadians.” Much later I learned that the Acadians prefer to call the events “Le Grande Derangement”! That’s two different perspectives. I learned about the European settlement of Canada. For the past number of years I have been learning about the Residential Schools and other attempts to solve the “Indian Problem” as the governments called it but I have been learning about those events and policies from the native communities who want us to take seriously the efects on today’s indigenous peoples. History has always told the other side. It is hoped that this realization will open a new era of justice and right relations between all of us who are immigrants and the first peoples!
When I was in high school, one morning after an election, I found out that a question teachers were not supposed to answer was, “What did you think of the election”? However that did not always stop us from asking!
At least they could answer when we asked them about the Stanley Cup or the World Series. Some of them took this just as seriously and would even watch a game instead of marking exams! We could not get away wuth a similar excuse with regard to homework!
I’m not sure if it will be safe to ask anyone the election question on Wednesday considering the decidedly strange and very divisive campaign that has been going on for months and months in the country to our South. Then there will be all that figuring by the “electoral college”. What I am truly waiting for, on that front, is for there to be something else on the news.
As a minister I get asked a lot of faith oriented questions and occasionally I get the sense that there is an ulterior motive behind the inquiry.
My grandmother, who knew her Bible very well, used to have me ask our minister, “what was the name of Lot’s wife?” I’m not sure if she was trying to trick him or if she expected him to know of some obscure verse where it was mentioned!
There are all sorts of questions, in faith and in life, that can be conjured up that have no real answer. They can be good philosophy questions but don’t really have much to do with practical, day to day life. Some of them are imagined by Sunday school students who like to be argumentative.
If, for example, we feel it important to teach that God is all powerful, some young person is bound to say, “Well could God make a rock so big that God would not be able to lift it?” Before you laugh - think about it - it’s a no win question!
One of the discussions that comes up in my ministry from time to time is where someone is going to be buried. Normally, a couple are buried side by side, but what if one of them has been married previously? Sounds a bit like the question asked of Jesus in today’s gospel! I have planned funerals where the deceased was of the belief that one should be buried next to the one you were marred to last and I’ve done funerals where the deceased believed one should be buried next to the first spouse. Then, I did one funeral where the living partner purchased three plots; one for the recently deceased spouse; one for personal use; the third, I suspect was for a future mate!
The question asked of Jesus stretched the limits of possibility well beyond their breaking point!
FIRST, you have to know several things anyone in the crowd that day would know.
RIGHT UP FRONT we are told the Sadducees did not believe in the afterlife, or “the resurrection” about which they were quizzing Jesus. Theirs was obviously not a subject of honest inquiry. Perhaps they wanted to win a victory by showing how silly the idea of an afterlife was!
THE NEXT THING you have to know is a little bit about the tradition of Levirate Marriage. It worked this way: if a man died before he had any children, it was his brother’s obligation to marry his widow and have children in his brother’s name. In this way his property and name would continue on intact.
So the Sadducees push this practice to the extreme and ask about a widow forced to marry a whole family of brothers, each of whom attempted to father a child with his dead brother’s widow before they themselves DIED!
Jesus sees the obvious trap! Jesus asks then to change their perspective. Marriage and family are part of earthly life because life on earth is, by definition, finite. Jesus challenges them to think of life in the resurrection as operating by an entirely different set of assumptions. Since life is n longer finite there is no need to have children!
He gives an example from his scriptures. The reference might seem a little obscure but basically he argues that in the biblical story God speaks of their ancestors in the PRESENT tense - God does NOT say “I WAS” the God of your ancestors, but rather, I AM, the God of your ancestors. Ipso facto , to God they are still alive. In that sense then, we live in God even after we have died in this life.
While this life may need to be concerned about property, family name and inheritance, that does not need to be part of God’s larger picture. The Sadducees attempted to show how silly the belief in the resurrection was by manufacturing a totally and completely incredulous example but Jesus put the question in a different perspective.
In a recent repeat episode of Murdoch Mysteries, set in Victorian era Toronto, Constables Crabtree and Higgins are marvelling at how convenient the recently installed police call boxes are to the efficient performance of their duties. Crabtree mused that phones would some day be small enough to carry in one’s pocket - but Higgins berates him saying something along the lines of, “that’s not very practical George, we’d be tripping over all those wires!” Wireless telephones needed a number of other technological advances before they were not a contradiction in terms,
Each of us has a relatively limited life of 100 years, more or less; which in the span of time is not all that much! Time and again, the biblical story asks us to look at the broader picture. Human beings have the tendency to be very self-centred both in terms of time and space and we are becoming more so. We are accustomed to a rapidly changing world where nothing is designed to last and long term planning is difficult.
Global warming has been on the radar for a while now but we have historically had difficulty making costly changes for a time in a vague “future” but we are told that we are so close to the tipping point that some argue we have passed the point of no return. We may wonder how we got ourselves in this fix. Perhaps we need a new perspective - for example, “We do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children!”
Similarly we tend to see problems in Nova Scotia as being more relevant than those elsewhere in Canada or in other places around the world. Perhaps we need a world family perspective.
If it does not affect us or our generation we think it does not matter. The people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness for an entire generation but that did not mean they did not have an overall destination AS A PEOPLE .
We know that many immigrants come to a new land and endure a great amount of hardship so their children can have the opportunities they would not have enjoyed in their previous country. The fact that the first generation never achieve the prosperity they seek, seems to just be “part of the picture” and part of their expectations.
Jesus’ words in this passage challenge us, in many aspects of life, to have a broader perspective, and take a longer view. In a similar fashion the phophet Haggai, in speaking to a people discouraged in the rebuild of their temple and their city, tries to get the people to focus on God and God’s relationship with them, rather than the stories of the how much better the “good old days” were supposed to have been! We can’t live up to legends and memories, especially if they aren’t ours to begin with.
Jesus tells the people listening to him that we are called into a relationship with the God of our ancestors who seeks to be just as much our God as in previous generations. We don’t need to see results today or tomorrow; we just need to know we are on the right path; the path of faithful living.
Amen!
Isaiah 65: 17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13
Wouldn’t it be great? Wouldn’t it be great if life were perfect and no one was affected by crime, illness, job loss, sorrow, or calamity. Wouldn’t it be great if all children grew up and became productive members of society? Wouldn’t it be great if people enjoyed the fruits of their own labours and they were not undervalued, confiscated or destroyed by others? Wouldn’t it be great if all jobs were safe and workers could count on returning home to their families after getting paid a living wage for their work?
As Nova Scotians we know about the tragic events in other parts of this province - of explosions and “bumps” in coal mines and loss of life in both the inshore and offshore fisheries and in farming. I believe the first essay my nephew wrote, at about age 7 was on all the don’ts of farm safety - and there were many!
It’s not just those folks whose lives are dangerous. Everyone that has to drive to work encounters daily dangers. Flip down the sun visor of your car on the way home today and see warnings about seat belts, air bags and car seats for children.
Occasionally, and thankfully ONLY occasionally, I have had to offer pastoral care to a family facing the death of a child or the parent of a young child. Whether it be by accident or illness those deaths are truly tragic.
We could all think of other examples of how life is sometimes filled with sorrow and tragedy. It’s much more than the sentiment expressed in the Erma Bombeck book, “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?” It’s more than spilled milk or burned dinner; it’s serious stuff; its truly life and death stuff.
In these circumstances it is often the support of community, family and friends, that gets people “through” it and gives life meaning, even in the midst of despair. It is also often faith that gives people perspective and a sense of support.
The biblical perspective begins by proclaiming creation as “good” but spending the rest of the books dealing with the fact that it often does not end up that way!
The prophecy of this part of the book of Isaiah, is about much more than, “There will be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover”. In this vision of Isaiah there will be no reason for the Vera Lynns of that time to sing the songs of hope. There will be no need for songs wishing for a better day and time because it will be a lived reality - Peace marches will have achieved the world for which they sang songs such as, “We Shall Overcome.” The land and all of its people shall know true peace.
It was precisely because the people did not enjoy these things that the prophet proclaimed this word of hope; this vision!
It’s a Wonderful Life will, no doubt, be shown again this season. First produced in 1946 it is the story of suicidal “Building and Loan” manager George Bailey being given a second chance at life after his guardian angel shows him what life in the community of Bedford Falls would have been like if it wasn’t for him and his dreams; if he had never been born!
This vision of Isaiah is not just an utopian ideal for which we do not have to extend no effort - it is seen as something in which the faithful are called to actively participate, not as a way of bringing it in, but as a way of witnessing to its ultimate victory. One day there will be peace and we, as the faithful, live that way to show its importance. It is the vision we proclaim. It is how we already live. One day, all will have enough to eat and so we feed the poor, as much as we can , to show that such things are so important to us that we will live that way anyway!
What if this reality was actually just around the corner? One of the characteristics of the early church was the belief that Jesus was coming back, VERY SOON, and this second coming would usher in a great age of the kind that Isaiah wrote so many years before!
In the summer of 1988, when I was new to ministry I received, several months apart, two copies of a little booklet titled “88 Reasons the Rapture Could be in 88". (While theology experts would argue, it is easiest to say that the rapture and the second coming are much the same thing. Both would mean the end of life, as knew it!) The booklet predicted the second coming was going to happen on a specific date in October 1988.
I recall that I took a brief look at the first booklet and then tossed it in the fireplace. When a second copy came I tossed it in the cold fireplace as well and then forgot about them entirely.
One night in October on the ATV news the newscaster was holding a copy of that very booklet in his hand. I turned around and fished my now somewhat damp copy off of the grate and odd bits of kindling. Most people interviewed on the program dismissed the predictions completely while one minister said, “Well, I am telling my congregation that it ‘could’ be true.”
The last minute of the news the next evening said something like this: “Last night we said that a conservative group had predicted the end of world was going to take place last night - we’re still here folks!”
A number of times since, there have been predictions of the end of the world and not always from Christian ultra-evangelicals. About 4 years ago one had to do with the fact that a “Mayan calendar” did not go past a certain date!”
As I see it, such predictions discredit Christianity and give the false notion to others that the church is not concerned about this life and the earthly problems of real people. I suspect that it was that kind of Christianity that Karl Marx dubbed “the opiate of the people”.
The early church had to struggle with this delayed return and kept hoping it would happen; any day now and had a hard time with the uncertainty.
I suppose that it could be something like being told you would have surgery and spend a month in hospital so you eat up all your food and unplug your fridge, farm out your cat, and then have your surgery bumped - for a day- and then another day - and then another. You eat at the restaurant one day and the next day you get take out, and then you go from restaurant to restaurant one day after another, again and again and again all the while the hospital promising you that your surgery will happen tomorrow!
Apparently, some of the people in the church in Thessalonika had been counting on this event so much that they had stopped working and were depending upon their friends and neighbours for their bread and butter. It will only be a few days or weeks; why work? Why take any personal responsibility for anything.
When we apply these verses to modern life we can easily take them out of context. I have heard people use these verses to “proof text” their opposition to welfare or food banks or any kind of helping the less fortunate. I will say this: It has nothing to do with those on Social Assistance.
We are always, in some way or another, living between a promise and its fulfilment.
Some people live in the past - but others have put everything on hold until something good happens in the future.
Students do it - looking forward to a long semester they plan for the day when there are no more essays and deadlines and professor’s red pens. They can hardly wait for the day when they will graduate and be fully qualified for whatever it is they are training to be,
Of course some students live for the weekend- every weekend and its parties! - but that’s another story!
One year at Atlantic School of Theology the student in the room at the head of the staircase on the third floor of the residence posted a calendar at the beginning of January with enough weeks to last till the end of classes in April. Every so often there was a square marked “holiday” or “party”. At the end of classes each day she would mark an X through that day’s square. In this way we saw our long semester disappearing - one day at a time. The party days gave us a break to look forward to in what seemed like an unending cycle of readings and papers and dry lectures.
Of course, now that the schedule of lectures, essays and deadlines has been replaced with over 25 years of writing sermons, attending meetings, visiting sick and shut-ins, supporting community organizations and doing the work of Presbytery as well as fitting in a personal or family life, we realize that we would never truly be free of the “educational cycle” of study and exam and break, study and exam and break - that the cycle, by differing names, was simply part of living. We learned to appreciate our colleagues and to use our student skills in daily life.
Every so often there is an event that changes the way we look at the future. Every so often there is an event that sucks us dry of hope because we have put all of our “hope eggs” in one basket.
We can take a page from the early church’s experience and prepare for the log haul. We can resolve to live the life of faith with all of our strength and soul and heart and live God’s love for the world with all of our being.
As a people of faith we have been given a vision of God’s future - the goals are unreasonable if we see them as something we have to do on our own - but with community, national and international effort, prompted by God’s sprit it is possible to get much closer to them than we are now - MUCH CLOSER.
We are not going to bring it in on our own, but we are called to live in such a way as our lives show that it is of greatest important for us.
So we are people of generosity and peace. We are people who support relief for the poor and the social change of living wages, of improvements in medical research, of peace and international cooperation over discord and war.
We are called to believe that one day God and God’s people shall overcome and God will look at all of creation and proclaim it GOOD.