Genesis 21:8-21 Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18 Romans 6:1b-11 Matthew 10:24-39 I recently had the joy of visiting with one of our WWII veterans about his upcoming trip to Washington DC. As this friend with a ready smile and twinkle in his eye shared, I could see the years rolling back. His voice softened as he mourned that fact that young men still go to war. I felt like he was watching thousands pass before his eyes. His final duty station was at an internment camp being liberated. Polish families held for as many as 4 years crowded into small cubicles, emerging at dinner time to hold out old tin cups and cans for dinner to be poured in. "As though they were pigs," he said. He and other soldiers found themselves unable to eat their own heartier dinners. So they began to share the real food on their plates. He said this with no pride, only a deep sense of decency. Our Jewish brothers and sisters talk in terms of Shever –breaking, and Tikkun-repairing. The work of humanity is repairing the brokeness we cause by incident and accident. Our stories from the bible this today look like win/lose situations. First we heard about the the conflict within Abraham's household. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." Now remember, it was Sarah's idea to "give" Hagar to Abraham in the first place in hopes of the son that she herself had not been able to give him. But now the gift that Hagar had given looked more like a liability, competition for carrying the household's legacy, and a painful reminder that another woman shared what she wanted for herself. Sarah wants to get rid of what hurts her. The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son My inner feminist whispers, Hey Abraham, did you forget someone? Are you not distressed on account of Hagar too? But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; [and in perhaps the first bit of biblical marraige councseling] whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. In that time and culture a family’s legacy was its priority. Personal relationships and preferences took a back seat to the families' identity and survival. But the relationshipo that Abraham and Sarah minimized with dismissive labels, "this slave woman," God remembered as part of the family, "YOUR slave woman." As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring." Justice was beyond Abraham’s control, he lacked what it would take to hold his household together. But justice was not beyond the power of the God who knows even the count of every single hair on each person's head. As the stories branched off, Ishmael would be incorporated into tradition of Islam, providing more sons of Abraham. So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. So Hagar and Ishmael are exiled. Their experience is so different from the exodus of community following Moses into the wilderness together generations later. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Do not let me look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. It doesn't sound as though it had occured to Abraham to share with her what he’d heard from God. But, while Sarah only heard God's voice through her husband, Hagar now hears straight from heaven. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. Come. An invitation offered to exiles. A promise extended. A way from brokeness to wholeness. This is how bad news becomes good news. Come. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Caution, this story is not a rationalization for absentee fatherhood. Its a story about God repairing brokeness. Its about God taking on the role of a father figure, present. Its about an alternative legacy hat lives on when at one point it had looked like nothing but death up ahead. In our second story, we hear Jesus illustrating the point that, as Rebekah Simon Peters writes, Jesus was a prophet. Prophets say hard things: he called out hypocrisy; he ruffled feathers; he distrubed the status quo. he wasn't cozy and cuddly. As things got more tense toward the end of his life, he called his students to 'take up their cross.' How's that for an end of life decision?.....Those who followed him before his death paid a price. families were spilt by the decision of whether to follow Jesus: James and John followered Jesus. So did their mother.....But Zebedee, the brother's father, stayed with the boats. Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's stward, followed Jesus....But there's no word that Chuza ever did/ In light of this, I think Jesus' puzzling words begin to make sense. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace, but a sword...." ("The Jew Named Jesus," p. 49). Jesus is not prescribing conflict. He is describing the inevitable result of responding to the prophetic utterance, "God's kingdom has drawn near." I'll tell you a more recent story. Sherri Mandell heard about the bad news at her daughter’s engagement party, south of Jerusalem, the celebration stopped. But when she searched on line for “Israeli teenagers kidnapped”, it was not information on the 3 teens kidnapped last week in the West Bank that popped up but her own son’s name and face. Koby would have been 27 the next day, but he was 13 when he was killed in a cave not far from their home. The grief within her broke open all over again as she prays for the three teens now. After Koby died, Mrs. Mandell trained as a pastoral counselor, published a memoir of spiritual healing, began programs for other grieving parents: Jazz classes, psychodrama sessions, craft workshops, she and her husband began camp Koby for grieving children. They live in a land where resilient people have built up barren land and yet life is broken on broken. I sopke with a cousin yesterday and learned that 2 weeks ago, 1,200 fruit trees torn down on the farm of one of their Palestinian friends, to make way for a new settlement. What do we do with the pain that comes with trying to figure out how to live in this world? Shever –breaking Tikkun-repairing Do you remember when Lazarus came out of his tomb at the sound of his friend Jesus’ voice? Even as his friends rejoiced that he was returned to them, he still had to be unbound, unwound from the burial wrappings. …said Ms. Mandell, “There’s before and after, it’s a shattering and its also rebirth. Your whole world is destroyed. Its like Noah, the flood, something that is cataclysmic, almost like you have to go into some other mode in order to survive it, and then you come a different person. Imagining they could speak to the mother’s of the missing teens, women in the healing circles she has created say, “Be strong….Its OK to cry….we went through the worst, losing a child, but what you’re going through is even harder, the uncertainty. A person is known by how they respond to their pain. (NYTimes 6-21-14 “The Saturday Profile” by Jodi Rudoren) I was once given a refrigerator magnet with quote by 4 year old Nathanial Parizek, “You know it was a good day when you didn’t hit or bite anyone.’ Its still on my refirgerator. But I wonder, Is that what we’re willing to settle for, children of God? How do we fix the brokenness? Its not be surface “niceness” Sweden has the highest rate of domestic abuse in Europe, its suicide rate is among the highest in the world, and it has an alcohol problem. {But because the emphasis in churches is on “being nice,” it is people in the arts and theatre who are tackling Sweden’s dark side, not the church. –Giles Fraser, cited in Guardian, May 30, 2014. David Brooks, in NYTimes, 6-20-2014, reflects on the profound changes in Rwanda since death had that country in its grip in the mid 1990s. Rwanda’s per capita income has almost tripled since the 1994 genocide. Child mortality is down by two thirds, Malaria related deaths are down 85%. Most amazingly, people who 20 years ago were literally murdering each other’s family members are now living together in the same villages. Rwanda is far from paradise. Chaos was replaced by Paul Kagame’s strong man regime that “abuses human rights and rules by fear.” But here are some things that observer says have gone right and create the possibility of an increasingly open society: *The civil service is closely monitored for corruption. In Rwanda today, …local leaders following a tradition of “imihigo” in which they publically vow to meet certain concrete performance goals within, say, three years: building a certain number of schools, staffing a certain number of health centers….emphasizing local accountability[ and decentralizing power..] *People have learned to take pride in their commuity and care for the earth again. Plastic bags, for example are illegal. Kigali received the U.N. Habitat Scroll of Honor Award for innovations in developing a modern model city symbolized by improved garbage collection, upgraded public transport, zero tolerance to plastics, slum upgrading and beautification of streets and pavements. *“Umuganda refers to community work that is mandatory for every Rwandan between 18 and 65 years old, with the ability to work. If a person is above sixty 65 years of age and is willing to work they are able to participate as well,” Rose told The Delicious Day, a travel site. “Expatriates residing in Rwanda are also encouraged to participate in community works. It takes place every last Saturday of every month. -Frank Mutulu, The Atlantic Post, 10-2-2013 Women have been placed in the judiciary and in Parliament. Perhaps more important than anything else has been the ability to live side by side again becuase truth has been told and atrocities acknowledged. This is how bad news becomes good news. Many Maya Angelou stories are being shared after her passing. She’s best known for overcoming personal adversity and for her gift with words. But also a passionate social activist who, not long before her death, persuaded her senator to change her vote on marriage equality. –Think Progress, May 28, 2014, cited in CC 6-25-14 In her early life, Maya Angelou had a theological problem. As a child, she was afraid she had been responsible for her abuser’s death, because she “told.” If she spoke, someone else might die. So she held her voice for many years of her childhood, until an understanding neighbor drew her out. This is how bad news becomes good news. The “builder generation” is called that because, after surviving the great depression and WWII, they rolled up their sleeves and built the institutions that created the world most of us know and often take for granted. “It’s always been that way” for most of us: hospitals, schools, churches, roads, civic organizations….. This is how bad news becomes good news, how brokeness is repaired. There’s a lot of looking over our shoulders to see who at the top will revive the church. But the truth is that revival comes from a meeting of hearts set ablaze by the Holy Spirit, not a re-organization plan. What’s your first impulse when you’ve been hurt? Do you want to be healed? Or has your hurt become your most cherished companion? I come to bring a sword, Jesus said, that cuts through anything separating death from life. The longer brokenness lingers, the more letting it go feels like a surgical procedure. It’s not a matter of “getting over it.” It’s a matter of getting on with it, with life. Because the alternative deadens the soul and kills communities. Grief and loss endure, but we have a choice of whether they spread like a cancer within us, or compost into something that feeds flourishing life. There comes a time in everyone’s life when we have to ask ourselves, “How long am I prepared to be defined by my hurt?” Do I want to be healed? The great Physician is right hear, ready and waiting when we say the word. Paul wrote: 6:11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And Christ himself said, Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Lose yourself a little this summer, break out, reach across, laugh and cry together in Christ’s healing presence. This is how bad news becomes good news. This is how broken is made whole. Meditation: Shatter Me by Lindsey Sterling
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Pentecost John 7:37-39, Acts 2:1-21, Numbers 11:24-30, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 That day, On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" Fire and Water, the two great life giving forces. MELT ME, MOLD ME, FILL ME, USE ME, Water forming the cloud out of which God spoke to Moses. Fire catching his eye as God spoke through a burning bush years before. .....and [God] took some of the spirit that was on [Moses] and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." (oh no!!!!!) And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!" That Day, Joshua learned an important lesson, God’s Spirit will work where God’s Spirit will work. With the lesson learned, Joshua would be the one to pick up Moses’ mantle, leading the people into the promised land. MELT ME, MOLD ME, FILL ME, USE ME, All [God’s gifts] are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. That day, the churchbuiding Paul poured the fire of God’s driving purpose and the water of God’s sustaining presence on an early church splintered into factions and personal preferences. This, Paul declared, this is what it means to be the body of Christ- To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. MELT ME, MOLD ME, FILL ME, USE ME, This Day. The global village is experiencing something that looks suspiciously like Pentecost. *We find ourselves speaking to one another in other languages as easily and confusingly as activating translation software on our computers. *We find ourselves crossing linguistic lines with shared images. *We are newly aware of this one fragile, yet resilient earth home. *We are swept by winds of change, invigorating and unnerving. *We are relearning how to see the holy in each human being touched by the sacred finger flame of their Creator. *And we are relearning how to see the holy in all of God’s purposeful creation, animal, vegetable, mineral. *We are seeking God’s desire in places broken by human incident and accident. *There is less talk of building institutional religion and much more talk of the “Spirit’s” work…. of “spiritual” human experience. *There is an ingathering and an outpouring of those who follow Christ, a new Pentecost, a new reformation underway. Christianity has never been static, but has had, in changing times, to re-invent itself. From Jewish reformers to Constantine’s rule to monasticism to medieval “practice makes perfect” to reformation “back to basics,” We don’t completely leave the old forms behind. When television became popular some declared it would be the death of radio. Handwritten notes are newly appreciated after being inundated by emails. Old religious wineskins remain while new ones flourish. But there is a very sense in which the old wineskins cannot bear to hold all the new that God pours into the world. This day, we are not just being re-arranged, we are being changed. If we listen beyond our walls and beyond our fears, there is no doubt that a spiritual revolution is sweeping across humanity, carried by newly empowered voices across newly constructed lines of communication. The most joyous Christian communities in the world are in the global south, where people have the least control over their lives, and the least to lose. One of my seminary professors tells of climbing a mountatin in South Africa to sit all night with thousands of other so that they could greet the sun with songs of praise to Jesus. In Seoul and in Korean villages millions of Christians pray for several hours each morning, beginning at 3:00 am. We catch glimpses from our place on the western edge. This day, churches all around us are struggling to keep old wineskins intact: buildings, doctrines, ways of “doing” worship or Sunday School or administration. This day, Denominations that birthed hospitals, colleges, schools, social agencies, the safety nets of our society are being told by independent boards that they are not needed any more. What are we when our children grow up? But people all around us in our communities, inside and outside church walls, are feeling the Spirit’s wings brush by. Is there a word from Christ to his followers in the midst of disorienting change or are we to be left spinning in spiritual vertigo until it all settles down to a predictable pattern again? On that day, 2,000 years ago, Peter found his voice in the midst of the chaos that birthed the church. (Mind you, birthing the church was not the goal. Church birth was the tool created to step toward the coming Kin-dom of God. ) As Peter found his voice, he raised it up-offered it as a sacrifice in union with Christ’s sacrifice for him. Peter spoke to the people, the Christ followers, and the not-yet Christ followers. He pointed to what God had promised through long ago prophets and through their friend Jesus. What Peter might say to us? 1. Past leaders are gone. Honor their memory, pick up their legacy, and stop trying to do exactly what they did. 2. The future that drew them is wide open, walk toward it. 3. Jesus’ Spirit makes us all lead with the gifts God gives. Get to it. 4. Stop wondering if.... what... when...... God offers Christ now. God invites you. RSVP is required. However we hear it, when Christ’s call pierces the think armor of old expectations and habits, we cannot help but respond. “So now what do we do?!” Simple answer: “Change your life.” In other words, see the source, the Spirit, and ask Christ to fit you to the course of where it is flowing. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, the Prophet Joel said that your young men and your old men would be in this together. It doesn’t matter what gender you are, sons and daughters, Joel said. The promise is targeted, sent to the heart, of you and your children, and also, by the way to those far away who are so much closer now than ever. Everyone was simply in awe. They threw in their lots together, every meal became a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. That day, Church was born. This day, church is born. Faith was and will be nurtured. Lives were and will be changed. Christ has and will come. We are invited to join him. MELT ME, MOLD ME, FILL ME, USE ME, (repeat) Life in the Balance John 14:15–21 It is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. It is also Heritage Sunday in the United Methodist Church, Aldersgate Sunday in the Wesleyan tradition, and Memorial Day in the United States of America. The modern impulse to organize and label that has fueled science, business, technology is evident in our labeling of days. Are they specimens for examination or the ministry of memory, dynamic evidence for learning? Methodist remember Aldersgate, May 24, 1738. It was that evening in England when our founder, John Wesley, was dragged reluctantlly to church, after an already chock-a-block day of challenging ministry, by his insistent brother. In the midst of the urgent work of that day and that time in the Methodist Movment, when Wesley was going full tilt, that evening's worship experience opened a space for grace in his soul that he called being "Strangely warmed. You remember don't you? But how? None of were there on May 24, 1738, were we? We remember because we mark the day, we tell the story, we hear the invitation that our hearts might also be strangely warmed. Its Memorial Day Weekend: a time for remembering and honoring those who gave their lives in battle, for tending the graves of the dead. We are always balancing between memory and vision, between past satisfactions and sorrows and the enduring kernel of joy full new life in each and every moment. Ernest remembers starting out in the US Army as a freshfaced kid learning to make a bed, scrub fixtures, do KP, and march with perfect discipline. One morning got called out at inspection for the three hairs on his chin. He hadn't shaved. Ernie’d NEVER shaved in his life. Two years, 385 combat days, and two purple hearts later, Ernie headed home looking for love, for a rebalancing point. He found it in the love of his life, Muriel, a love that over 60 years later still sparks the air between them. It is a love that carries God's healing grace and supplies the fulcrum between memory and vision. In scripture, remembering is not only recollection of the past. Again and again people are called on to remember the present, remember the future, remember God who holds past, present, future in God’s own life. For God’s people, memory is identity. And what we remember determines how we act. Failure to remember God’s actions is apostasy, unfaithfulness. God remembers too. It’s the things we wish God would forget that pin us down; things we've done and wish we hadn't, things we wish we had done and didn't. Things that we too often carry to the grave rather than letting them go so that we can live the life of grace. God’s action is guided by what God “remembers.” The new covenant declaration of Jeremiah 31: 31-34 says that “God will remember their sin no more.” God remains fully aware of the past, but not defined by it. But who are we without our sin when that has become the balance of our life? Doesn’t our past define us? Or at least, our memories of others' past actions define their idenity as far as we're concerned. We tend to mistake the status quo for balance, but have you ever tried to stand still on a balance beam? God is not the God of death but of life. Worship is remembering the living God, remembering who we are, that our balance is created by the living Christ’s presence. John 14: Jesus speaks to us today from the precarious balance point when his followers are beginning to realize life is never going to be the same, and not necessarily in the way they hoped for when they first joined him. Jesus offers to help them, and us, stay in balance, stay in God’s sweet spot. “The paraclete,” is a name that holds a multitude of meaning: encourage, teach, comfort, befriend..... Writer Bill O’Hanlon obeserves that- The difference between a wound that festers and diminishes us and one that leads to growth is whether or not we use the wound to energize us to change something in the world or to make a contribution. In the early 1820, before there was a Methodist society in Brunswick, but in the same years that Melville Cox began riding a preaching circuit here, Zenas and Merritt Caldwell were two of the first Methodist students at Bowdoin College. They would go on to lay the foundations of Methodist education in New England. (Cox went on to be the first Methodist Missionary to Africa, where he continued the emphasis on literacy education). Merritt and Zenas’ mother, Nancy Caldwell suffered both from fragile health and from the spiritual turmoil that was typical in those frontier days. When the boys were toddlers Nancy recorded in her journal that: “In the evening my husband came home, having been absent during the week. I soon began to tell him what God had done for my poor soul. He was very glad to find me so happy, as I had suffered much, both in body and mind, especially the last year. The more I talked of the wonderful works of God, the more I was blessed, til I could say me joys were full, my cup ran over, and I praised God with all my ransomed powers. I shall never find language here to describe my joys, but to listening angels, I expect to tell the story with an immortal tongue. ….I felt as perfectly free as an infant….death was disarmed of its terror.” Walking with God p. 34-35. She’d found her sweet spot. For God’s people, memory is identity. And what we remember shapes how we act. Prayer in the words of Ruth Duck: Book Of Worship #464 O God, in mystery and silence you are present in our lives, Bringing new life out of destruction, Hope out of despair, growth out of difficulty. We thank you that you do not leave us alone but labor to make us whole. Help us to perceive your unseen hand in the unfolding of our lives, and to attend to the gentle guidance of your Spirit, That we may know the joy you give your people. AMEN. BENEDICTION by Jan Richardson, In Wisdom's Path For those who walked with us this is a prayer. For those who have gone ahead, this is a blessing. For those who touched and tended us, who lingered with us while they lived, this is a thanksgiving. For those who journey still with us in the shadows of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams, this is a benediction. We feel small and weak, but we are gathered together to signify the power of God who transforms death into life. That is our hope, that God is doing the impossible: changing death to life inside of each of us, and that perhaps, through our community, each one of us can be agents in the world of this transformation of brokenness into wholeness, and of death into life. -Jean Vanier NOTE: The retreat plan for this half day event is available on the Words for Worship: Liturgy page of this website. Call to Worship based on 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11 by KLMunson Leader: Come and learn, God’s gifts await. ALL: We come, ready to receive. Leader: Turn away from “false gods,” silent and demanding. ALL: We turn toward God, from whom all blessings flow. Leader: Come, celebrate the many gifts of the one Spirit. ALL: We come rejoicing in many ministries and one Lord. Leader: Come, learn and celebrate the Spirit’s activity in our midst. ALL: We come to see each other’s gifts, to celebrate each other’s ministries. Leader: Come to the connection Christ is creating ALL: We come to hear wisdom, to seek knowledge, to share faith, to witness miracles in the making. Leader, Come, bless the one LORD, from whom all gifts and grace flow. ALL: We come. THE DAFFODIL PRINCIPLE By Jaroleen Edwards Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they're over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I'll come next Tuesday," I promised, a little reluctantly on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I'd promised, so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road was invisible in the clouds and fog, and there's nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. "I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!" "We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils." "Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You'll never forgive yourself if you miss this experience." After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read, "Daffodil Garden." We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A- frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was a simple one: "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958." There it was, The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun-one bulb at a time-to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goal and desires one step at a time-often just one baby-step at a time-and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world. Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10 Every mother has the breath-taking privilege of sharing with God in the creation of new-life. She helps bring into existence a soul that will endure for all eternity.” -James Keller I'm struck by the many home making images in this week’s scripture, images that evoke the work of our mothers. Acts 2:42-47: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ….., they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. You know, some one was baking that bread they were breaking. And Jesus himself began as a bun in the oven. Psalm 23 He makes me lie down in green pastures; Who was it that made you take a nap time when you were little? You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Preparing the table for guests was a wife’s responsibility and her contribution to the household’s honor. 1 Peter 2:19-25 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. Think of what mothers suffer on behalf of their children. One of the most anceient symbols for Christ is the pelican, a bird that pierces its own breast to feed its young when survival demands it. John 10:1-10 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. We've all heard the stories of those pretending to be the shepherd, the caregivers, the leaders, of those who abuse the little ones in their care. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. The first voice most of us recognize is our mother’s. The one who tucks us in at night is recalled by the standing shepherd's "gate," his legs spread open as he brings the sheep into the fold each night, examining each one as it passes for cuts or bruises. e We are each in the care of one who knows every hair on our head. What we hear, and what we listen to are, of course, not always the same thing. A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin (5) and Ryan (3). The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, “Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.” Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus.” (contributed by Bill Heaphy.) What might we hear if we listened to our mother's voices? Mother deafness strikes early as we gain mobility and independence. One mother talks about her experience in "I'm Invisible," a story traveling the internet. …. the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone,or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.' … the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - … disappeared into the peanut butter… One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there…my unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' [It turns out that] no one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. …. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' …. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. …No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.' Now, as anonymous as this author is, and as much as she becomes comfortable with the limits of her visibility, we only hear the wisdom of this story because she tells it. We can hear her voice. What do you remember your mother, or mothers, or one who mothered you saying? What do you hear our Biblical mothers saying? Eve, the first mother Sarah, mother of Israel Hagar, the mother sent out to raise her son alone in the desert. Rebekah, mother of two nations Dinah, raised by the 4 mothers who were Jacob’s wives, among a tribe of brothers. Jochebed, who make a small ark in which her son Moses could be saved. Deborah, whose family saw her use her wisdom, her leadership skills as a judge of the people. Elizabeth, whose child came in old age And Mary, mother of Jesus, whose first child came in an unexpected way. For every woman whose name and story we remember there are a myriad who remain silent and anonymous. In the Protestant canon, there are 205 named women. The most popular name in the Hebrew Bible is “Maacah,”(7) and in the Christian Testament, “Mary” (6). There are at least 600 unnamed women. Some voices we can still hear, others are silent. When we do hear their stories they are filtered through translation and tradition. The garden of Eden’s “forbidden fruit” became an apple when Milton’s “Paradise Lost” became the book of the century (and also provided our images of hell). The Rev. Wil(da) Gafney,[1] Ph.D., associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia reminds her students how crucial it is that we listen to all the voices of scripture, working to discern what message God is giving us through them. We must tell the truth that the bible says that fathers can sell their daughters into sexual slavery (Ex 21:7)—….. We must tell the truth that the bible says soldiers can take virgin girls home with them as the spoils of war (Num 31:17). We must tell the truth that the bible says cut the nails off the woman you take home as your war prize (Deut 21:11)—making the rape easier on the rapist. Yes, we must tell the truth about what the Bible says. Taken just by themselves, without modern eyes, biblical passages do affirm slavery, ethnic conflict, sexism, and many other attitudes that we find unacceptable today. [paraphrased] But God does not affirm anything that detracts from the Imago Dei implanted upon humankind. The scripture he heard in today’s passages is rich with God’s intent, sometimes loud and clear, at other times whispering between the lines, always part of a larger unfolding story of our life with God. Just as the Bible is full of sometimes wonderful, sometimes challenging stories of mothers, today we hear a cacophony created by our media rich world. If we don’t like what we hear from out own mothers, there are plenty of others we can choose to listen to on screen. Here’s the thing, the voices we choose to listen to, and the way we hear what they are saying in the contexts of their actual lives, shape the words that we read and the lives that we live. The adventures of the tabloid cover mothers, the sit-com moms, the reality show divas has nothing on the drama of the biblical mothers. Where do we hear God’s words of grace in these biblical women’s stories and in our own mother’s lives? It takes careful listening. As you spend time in the word of God, listen. As you spend time with your families, listen. God is pouring grace into the world through our mothers. Listen past your pre-conceptions. Ask for the stories you haven’t heard yet. Keep memories alive, not only for yourself, but for those who listen to you. Go and listen for authentic voices, voices full of lived wisdom. Prayer for mothers: Lord, we pray for the mothers of the world, the strong ones and the vulnerable ones, the resourceful and the impoverished, those who celebrate their children's acheivements and those who fear for their safety. Bless them, Lord. As standards of living continue to rise, expecially in the nations of Africa, bless the grandmothers who carried water and the mothers who put in wells so that their daighters have time to go to school. As women find ways to add their voices where they were once silenced, lead your people into collaborative communities where every gift is honored. We pray for the people who resist progress fiercely, damaging others, communites, and their own souls. Bring blessing where we find only curses. God, like a midwife, skilled and wise and strong, you are always bringing us to birth. You nourish and sustain us in the labor of becoming. [2] Amen [1] http://um-insight.net/the-biblical-basis-for-the-rape-marriage-#sthash.L7CYisUR.dpuf [2] Dumbarton UMC, Washington DC Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:19-31 Easter People believe in God’s promised possibilities because they have heard of or witnessed what once seemed impossible. Thomas wasn’t there. He’d heard of the possibility that Jesus was alive again. The women running from the grave had born witness to them, carrying word of this new life with joy and wonder like carrying a just born infant. But Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus joined his fearful friends locked in the upper room. Thomas had overcome his fear, fear of neighbors roused by insurgent emotions, fear of what might happen next. He’d gone out, gotten his back up. So its not surprising that his defense mechanisms were still on alert when he returned. "I can’t believe it," he says, when he returns to the awestruck company. "Unless I can touch his wounds for myself, I can’t believe he is alive. " And so we know what’s on Thomas’ mind. He’s fixed on the horrible wounds that took Jesus down, the places the blood drained form Jesus’ body and the tendons tore under the strain of a strung up body’s weight. Believing what someone else told him, even if it was the second set of “someones,” was too much, or maybe not enough. "It’s not a risk I’m willing to take," says Thomas. But in reality, he’s more ready than he knows. Because when Jesus shows up again, Thomas is overcome with wonder-full love and gratitude. “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus says those words that seal Thomas’ reputation in our imaginations. Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." What is it Jesus wants US to believe, ready or not? When we choose the Lord “as our chosen portion and cup” as Psalm 16 sings, The boundary lines fall for us in pleasant places because we have chosen to live within God’s possibility. We choose to leave the fearful tomb. The extraordinary becomes ordinary, not an ordinary that is taken for granted, but an everyday way of inspired, Spirit breathed, living. The reality that hunger can be eliminated in our world is not overcome by fear that our standard of living will be diminished. Underestimated Churches become hope full and overestimated churches shed all expectations but God's. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. God has more than we know and is ready for us to believe, or not. Easter People believe in God’s promised possibilities because they have heard of or witnessed what once seemed impossible. Psalm 16 (8:30 Celebration) UMH page 748 with response Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you." As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble, in whom is all my delight. Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The community of persons closest to us has the power to keep us in the tomb of fear or to call us into the daybreak of hope. Do those around us call us to huddle more closely together and bolt the doors of our upper room? Or do they help us throw the doors open because we have experienced together the freeing call to action which is the Spirit of Jesus in our midst? Sr. Lauretta Mather For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory For ever. It was supposed to be forever. What went wrong? From the cross it looks like theirs (whoever can manhandle or finesse the most power) is the kingdom and the power and the gory results thereof; for as far as the eye can see and the ear can hear. From the cross it looks like we’re still caught in this shell of a story, unhatched, like chicks beating our wings against a brittle wall that will not give way to human wishes or dreams. The history of sin seems to be the human story and we can’t break out. Eve and Adam didn’t want to look stupid, They heard, “your eyes shall be opened and you shall know as God knows” so they ate the fruit. Their first born son, Cain, kills his only brother, Abel, in an impulsively jealous rage. Jesus’ friend, Judas, turns him in after losing his will to hope for what he cannot see. Better to settle for the reality you know than the dream that will break your heart. Sin and death are our shell. We are well trained to stay within its limits. And so it goes, except. Except for this one strange character. Jesus; Jesus, who resists all indoctrination to the shell game; Jesus, who won’t even follow the rules of self-defense, if it means accepting the limits of human power defined by sin and death. Jesus, in whose life it becomes impossibly clear, That God cannot be contained with in this shell we have created since day one. That where we choose to be defined by sin and death, God chooses to be defined by grace and life. In our time we human beings are reasonably comfortable_ dealing in probabilities. In God’s time we encounter possibilities so apparently extraordinary, that we find it virtually impossible to believe. So why not keep assuming the worst? If we assume the worst we won’t be disappointed, or caught off guard. We’ll make sure the dream is kept locked safely down, guards posted at the tomb, just in case. Unless, we are willing to suspend disbelief Just long enough to glimpse the eternal now that is God’s life. We have so much practice at imagining death stars. “Last days” get our money at the box office. We invest heavily in the battle against death itself, as though it were indeed the last word. What if for one day What if for this moment we allowed our enthusiasm, our spirit, to walk across the line where we are sure the wall must be. What if we let God’s grace soar under our unfolding wings and bear us up as the psalmist promised? Colossians 3:1-4 So if you have been raised with Christ,[wrote Paul, who was once the death breathing Saul of Tarsus] seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Sisters and Brothers, with a little practice, we can see forever. Even as news of cataclysm and chaos flashes before our eyes, The stone is rolled away. After earthquakes devastated the entire city center of conservative Christchurch, New Zealand; artists came out of the tomb first. *Collaborative groups drew people out with a miniature golf course spread across vacant lots, an open air performance space made out of shipping pallets, and a sound garden of chimes and rain sticks made of salvaged materials.[1] Colorful murals appeared. Into the rain ponds created in the foundations of demolished buildings, artists flung duck decoys. Restaurants popped up in shipping containers. An occupational therapist designs adaptive furniture from rubble. They filled vacant spaces with moveable gardens that travel the city. As the lot it is in is restored, each garden moves to another barren corner. Tongue in cheek emergency boxes appeared on walls around town with items stored like crocs and a Titanic inside, just in case. Memorials of simple white plastic chairs, empty, remember each one lost. And while the badly damaged cathedral remains caught in the death throes of litigation between preservationists and those who would build anew, architect Shigura Ban quietly set up a soaring “A” frame cathedral framed in cardboard tubes. And we see beyond the bounds of death. In Northern Ireland the Good Friday peace agreement has now held for 15 years; what writer Colum McCann calls “the astonishment of the impossible.” “George Mitchell learned to embrace silence [and] allowed them to talk through their vitriol….a giant dictionary of grief.” [He gave them each other’s stories to invent a new language. Gone are the young girls tarred and feathered for falling in love with the wrong boy. Gone are the security mirrors being slid under cars. And gone are the people stumbling out of shopping centers with bomb blast blood trickling from their ears.” It’s far from perfect yet, but “at its heart, Northern Ireland is a country made new.” [2] The 118th Boston marathon will be run tomorrow. Says former mayor Thomas Menino, “ I have to tell you honestly, Boston is a better city now than it was before…..People learned how to deal with each other, they had to deal with a tragedy. ” As one resident put it, “We are unified, not terrified.” For survivors who lost a limb, or a sense of security, everything has changed. And yet they are the same people they were before, walking out into life, healing in different ways and at different rates. The last survivor to leave the hospital will never be able to return to roofing. He is now determined to become a motivational speaker. “It’s been mind-blowing,” he says, “all these good people who stepped out, who helped us…..All the victims I know feel the same way. Complete strangers who give when they don’t have.”[3] The marathon will run to its conclusion this year and the finish line will be the sign of a new beginning. In hearts and homes quietly pierced by the most profound pain, eternity’s light leaks through the holes. Earlier this week, two members of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, a grandfather and grandson, were killed by a gunman outside a Jewish Community Center. Daughter of one, mother of the other said. “I have a peace about me. Literally, when I saw my father lying there I heard God say ‘He is in heaven.’” Hamilton called her [14 year old] son, Reat, “a remarkable young man, full of life, gifted in so many ways.” [Their pastor] Adam] Hamilton added. “The family has a deep faith, and remarkable strength and courage. They don’t believe this tragedy was God’s will, but they do believe that Reat and Bill are safe in God’s arms…”[4] "Easter suddenly seems so much more important to me and for our church and community this year as we remember on that day that neither evil, nor hate, nor even death has the final word in our lives. " – The Rev. Adam Hamilton Yesterday a young mother who pastors two UMCs in the Midwest shared this poem for her one year old son: Saturday Mother, Sunday Son (for Carl) you were born on a Monday early and eager full of life and your first Sunday was Easter Sunday (new life springs forth indeed) we said goodbye on a Friday and it wasn’t Good Friday but for us it may as well have been as we held vigil that last impossibly long night as you wept and we wept and the cup did not pass and we loved you on Friday as you struggled with the pain as you fought for each breath and if we could have saved you we would have (you know that, right? if love could have saved you, you would have never been sick a day in your life) we watched and we sang and we prayed and we loved you until at last you won the only victory that was left and you took that last breath and found mercy in knowing it is finished I know that there have been many Sundays since you’ve been gone but I feel like we are stuck in Saturday waiting in darkness with tears powerless feeling like we’ve failed with nothing to say living every day with the weight of your absence and the sound of your silence where laughter used to be and I try so hard to hold on to hope that Sunday is coming I try so hard to hold on to hope until I can hold you again here where I wait it’s Saturday still but you my son belong to Sunday and I will meet you there If today, we just go home, have a nice meal, take some photos of family and friends to capture the moment if the afternoon is made complete by a nap, or the story about how that lady tried to sit in my seat (imagine!), If today we leave hugging the walls of the shell we know, even when it has been utterly destroyed by God’s grace, If we remain hemmed in if we choose to treat death as more real than the grace that births us, the grace that sustains us, the grace that enfolds us in more life than we can imagine, then we choose an illusion that has caused more suffering than the world can bear. The one who can bear it is the one, who steps out of the tomb, who reveals that the shell we thought was our limit, if only for now, is an illusion built from Adam through every generation until we too picked up the story of death and accepted being defined by it. Which is more real, human sin or God’s grace?? Which is our beginning and our end? Is it death or is it life? So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." [1] Justin Bergman, “After Earthquakes, a Creative Rebirth” NY Times 4-6-2014 [2] Colum McCann, Opinion piece, NY Times, April 2014. [3] “In Focus: Strong in Boston, by Denise Lavoire and Paige Sutherland, Associated press, April 2014. Portland Press Herald [4] http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/mothers-faith-offers-comfort-after-kansas-city-shootings Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." -Matthew 1:18-25 “Do not be afraid” says the messenger. Joseph, like his ancient namesake, has been up all night wrestling. Anyone in their right mind would be terrified at this unfiltered encounter with God’s word and will. So any time an angel of the LORD shows up in the bible, they work these words into the conversation, “Do not be afraid.” In this case, Joseph is not to be afraid of changing his mind. (All of us probably know of at least one guy who’s afraid changing his mind might be seen as a sign of weakness. Can you say “political gridlock”?) I’m not sure I ever noticed before that Joseph never says a word. God is the only active agent in this passage. Joseph never speaks; he listens, even though he’s already made up his mind. That’s why the angel’s here, to change Joseph’s mind. He doesn’t even lay out the plan for him. Instead it seems a perfect example of what Erwin Schrödinger called the ability to, “abide by ignorance for an indefinite amount of time, ” Can Joseph trust God to lead him beyond the facts that he is able to see at this moment in time? Engaged in those days was the same as married in ours, in the legal sense. The timeline of setting up household could be different from what we’re used to. But a married man had set obligations, to his wife, and to his community. With Mary pregnant (surprise!) and not by him (surprise!), those obligations came into conflict. A righteous man clearly would set her aside. A loving man would struggle with that choice. But Joseph had wrestled a decision out of his confusion. A man had to do what a man had to do. By this time in Jewish history, the Rabbis had softened ancient legal mandates for a dishonored man expose the woman to death by stoning. But it was still expected that an honorable man would “put aside” (divorce) the woman to maintain the integrity of his family. He could “keep her,” but it would bring shame to his family. Not because she was pregnant before they lived together, but because he was not the father. In other words, either she would be exposed to disgrace or he would be exposed to dishonor. What’s a man to do? Listening to God seems to be a very good start. Joseph “covers” Mary and Jesus not out of moral obligation (quite the contrary) or biological self-interest (to live on through his descendents), but because God places them in his life and invites him to love them. The point of this couple holding off on sex is not purity (nothing in scripture says that Mary stayed a life long virgin or that there was any value at all in her doing so). The point is that Joseph is not this baby’s biological father. Becoming Jesus’ father is his choice, just as God’s decision to enter the world in the vulnerable form of an infant born to parents living in a dangerous world is God’s choice. Isaiah says, “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” If we read ahead in the story, we see Joseph’s role as protector leads him on three journeys, to Bethlehem with a very pregnant wife; to Egypt with an infant under a death sentence, and finally back to Galilee, though far from his hometown. He will raise Jesus in Nazareth, where the authorities are less likely to be alerted to their unusual story, just another new family in town. And that’s the last we’ll see of Joseph in Matthew’s gospel. (There is one more story of Joseph with 12-year-old Jesus in Luke’s account, but that’s another story.) What kind of man was this Joseph? What kind of father did Joseph choose to be that Jesus would teach his followers to call God, “Daddy?” Just this brief glimpse of his life shows us that he was: a Listener, open to God's word and will Response-able, a man of action a provider for those in need and protector of the vulnerable. A lot like Jesus. I’ll never forget one long night struggling in prayer with a woman who desperately wanted to be open to a God called father but whose own father and uncle had abused her sexually from ages 6-14. Stop and think for a moment about what qualities of your father adhere to your image of God. Growing in faith means learning to listen openly to the father images that others carry consciously and unconsciously, postivie and negative. Figuring out how to be a man in that world was as hard as figuring it out today. This video illustrates the struggle: “Men, let’s talk” Godly men can face terrible dilemmas on behalf of their families and on behalf of the human race. I think of Nelson Mandela whose work at the end of his life was to reconcile with children and grandchildren he neglected in the struggle to free millions of people from apartheid. On the way to one of his first speeches after being freed from prison, Mandela’s driver became lost. He stopped in an affluent suburb, not a safe place for them at that time, to ask directions form a young white woman pushing a pram. Mandela got out of the car and approached the woman. It had been more than three decades since he’d been able to touch a child. Could he hold her baby for just a moment? This week we saw his own proud grandchildren speaking at his memorial. CNN reporter Raphael Warnock, observing the outpouring of response to Mandela’s death, said “We must move from awe to action” That’s Joseph’s story too. Holiday Ads would lead us believe that today, a fathers responsibility is to make their children happy. They promise you can achieve it with luxury vacations, wonderful toys. Those are delightful highlights in anyone’s’ life. They are not, however, the staples that create a truly happy life.. The fathers I talk with on a weekly basis struggle with: mental health epidemic. Affordable housing Paying for dental care- diabetic crisis- new glasses. With how to make a living wage, With the price of milk, of gas, of sports equipment. They struggle with, “will my child be able to make their way through the narrowing economic bottleneck and be able to provide for a family themselves?” “We must move from awe, at these precious lives entrusted to us, to action on their behalf” I think of the grandfather who stepped in to help raise a fatherless boy who would become our current president. I think of men who volunteer as Big Brothers, stepping in to the gap, not knowing what they’re getting into. I think of Sandy Hook parents creating legacies And Church fathers (and mothers) creating legacies, So that children born today may inherit a better world. I think of that line in James that could be words straight out of Joseph’s mouth, “Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.” Awe and action, Hope begins with quieting our fears long enough to listen for God’s guidance. Love acts out of the fathering mothering love that is an image of God’s own self. Prayer of the Day by Thom Shuman Come, Justice-keeper: so we can see you cradling the most vulnerable in our world Come, Hunger-ender, calling us to work at your side to feed all who are in need. Come, Faith-keeper: so we might bear witness to your trust which draws us closer to God. Come, Power-shaker: to get us moving on behalf of all who have lost their way. Come, Sight-restorer: so we might see you in the barren places of life. Come, Holy Way Builder: putting the finishing touches on a new manger. Come, God in Community, Holy in One, come. |
Karen L MunsonUnited Methodist Pastor & Liturgical Artist Archives
September 2015
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