Never Give Up

 "Never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up."

(Winston Churchill)

Sometimes I get discouraged

at the things I haven't accomplished yet;

at the to-do list that hardly seems to budge;

at all the writing projects yet to be published;

the music compositions yet to be polished;

the artwork I can't quite find time

to get back to the studio to finish;

the state of my house on any given day;

the never-ending dishes and laundry;

the clothes in need of mending;

the car repairs beyond my budget;

the stack of bills needing to be paid;

the long search for a full-time call

that will allow me to use my gifts,

feed my family, and also

to spend time with them;

the dreams and aspirations

on the back burner

for now.

It would be easy to look at my life and say,

'I am not a success.'

And yet,

Everything I've accomplished,

especially these last eight years:

Everything I've written,

Every community project I've done,

Every bit of progress I have made,

I did without an office of my own;

I did without even a laptop to myself;

I did without a secretary;

I did as a solo parent of 4;

I did living in or near poverty;

I did juggling multiple jobs;

I did living in low-income housing;

I did working overnights on call;

I did during a damn pandemic.

Given all that,

On the whole,

All things considered,

Things could be better;

But,

Perhaps I'm not

doing all that badly.

I know I'm doing

the best I can for now,

and yet

I look forward

to the day

when I am not held back

by so many obstacles

that shouldn't need

to be there at all.

Other Countries Figure It Out, So Why Can't We?

Other countries can figure this out, and I can see no good reason other than our own American classism and xenophobia why we can't:

+ One year of paid parental leave for the caregiving parent as a universal program, not tied to a specific employer.

+ A public option/ universal early childhood learning center and childcare during the toddler and preschool years, similar to having a public school system. (Yes, parents could choose to stay home with their kids. Yes, parents could choose a private or faith-based school. Yes, parents could choose where to live and therefore which public childcare). It takes 9-10 months to make a baby. That's more than enough time to list them and prepare for a place in a childcare center if needed, really.

+ Before- and After-School clubs and care for children whose parents work shifts and don't have the flexibility to work only during school hours, that are sliding-scale based on income, up until youth are of working/ driving age.

+ Universal public healthcare and universal public higher education are also two more things that other countries have figured out are a solid investment in their people and their country. It is a *good* thing if we have more people who have not only the talent, but the training and support to go and work as healthcare practitioners. Or as scientists. Or as teachers. Or as social service workers. Or as mental health practitioners. Or as engineers. Or as any number of things--but our country instead chooses to waste its time stigmatizing lower-income workers and anyone who would like to attain an education and put it to use to help people but who isn't themselves independently wealthy.

It's so frustrating. We're just shooting ourselves in the foot as a nation, over and over again, and for what? To have someone do less well than us, to watch others suffer in life, in order to make ourselves feel better? I'd rather see all of us do okay, and we should want to ensure all people at least have their basic human needs met.

The longer I live, the more I see that most of our problems in this country and in this world are the results of our own policy choices--and our lack of awareness for how other places have done things better, or our lack of willpower to choose leaders who will work together to make things more equitable, healthy, and safe for everyone, is why things are the way they are.

Rugged Individualism, Systemic Injustice, and Sharing Resources for a Better World

A thought for this morning: our nation has an almost cult-like devotion to 'rugged individualism,' in which we have learned to reject systemic understandings of doing good and doing harm.

This ripples out in many painful ways. We denigrate ideas of forming systems to ensure that all people in our nation have access to adequate food, shelter, healthcare, education, meaningful, constructive vocation, and caregiving support. If a person lacks any of these, then we assume it must be a personal moral failing. If there is racism or sexism, then it is a matter of individual personal choices or 'bad apples,' rather than systems designed to discriminate. If we have relatively few struggles for survival in our personal lives, we attribute it to our personal merit.

In these pandemic times, rather than creating systems to ensure the largest umber of people survive, we leave those who already carry the greatest burdens in our society to wrestle with more impossible choices. The countries which have come through this time most successfully were the ones who ensured their people could afford life's basic needs even if they couldn't work.  In this country, we heaped shame on people who were already suffering.

I often think of the enormous human potential we waste because we are so certain our neighbor does not deserve what we have; and that fulfilling our own wants are more important than ensuring everyone's basic needs are met. We could do so much better; we could be so much more, if we weren't constantly tearing others down for trying to survive in a system that is so fragmented and broken. Our systems are designed for a few to benefit, and for most to struggle until their dying breath.

For All The Saints (Even The Rascally Ones)...

Luke 19:1-10
look this up on bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com

On the occasion of All Saints’ Sunday, and the dedication of our new hymnals

In between our All Saint’s day liturgy and dedicating our new hymnals and celebrating communion and everything else we do this day, lies the Gospel story of a man named Zaccheus.

Now, Zaccheus is described as a tax collector--and in those days one might just as well have added, a corrupt tax collector.  It was understood that they all were.  In fact the Gospel says he was the chief tax collector, and he was rich, which meant that he was really corrupt--because they didn’t pay tax collectors all that great; they earned their money by extorting extra off the peasants of the land.

Zaccheus was hardly righteous, a most unlikely saint.

And yet somehow he is a beloved little villain in the Bible--maybe because he was so short, or maybe because he was up in that tree, or perhaps because of that famous children’s song.  Sing with me if you know it:

Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way He looked up in the tree, and said:

Zaccheus, come down, for I’m going to your house today.

I’m going to your house today.

(That’s probably the second song I learned in Sunday School when I was about three years old, right after ‘Jesus Loves Me.’)

So you might even say he’s the character not that you love to hate, but that you almost hate to love.

Ah, but there’s the problem.  The crowd gathered there knows all about Zaccheus, and they don’t love him.  He’s done them wrong.  They’ve got his number, and he’s making Jesus look either naive or incredulous, hanging out with him.  Maybe they’re even trying to warn him: Look out Jesus, you’re about to get scammed here.  He’s no good.

Then, in front of the crowd, Zaccheus says he’ll give half his possessions to the poor and pay back four times as much of whatever he’s defrauded anyone.  This means Zaccheus in on the hook for a lot of dough, and he’s about to become a very poor man.

And that is perhaps a better definition of the saints, those all-too-human and fallible, maybe even rascally, folks we know and love.  People that aren’t perfect, but have known love and shown love.  People who have not matched every footstep as Jesus’ disciple, but who still try to follow as best they can, knowing that it is not their perfection that is counted, but God’s grace.

On this All Saints’ Day, we remember those whom we have loved who have died and gone to their heavenly home before us.  Sometimes we might wonder, particularly if our loved one had his or her troubles, will we see them in heaven?  Yet I believe God’s grace is sufficient, and finds even the most rascally ones to transform.  By that day, we will all see with new eyes, and all that blurs our vision now will fall away, and all we will see is love for one another.  That task has been completed, because we are reconciled to God in the resurrection.  And knowing God’s grace for us, grace while we were still sinners and hadn’t done one thing to deserve it, can transform our lives right now, causing us to do the most generous and amazing things for others, even if nobody else thinks we ever would.

Jesus says, the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.  Not the perfect, not the self-righteous, but the lost.  Zaccheus had it all, but he was so very, very, lost.  Whether we are half as lost, or even if we’re twice as lost, there is hope in this life.  In the most unlikely times and to the most unlikely people, Jesus shows up.  Jesus might even say, “I simply must stay at your home today.”  And in the hosting, we will find joy.  It may not make us rich, at least not as the world counts it, but we will find joy.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this week:

Those struggling this week with a reduction of food stamps

For those transitioning to long-term care facilities, or to Hospice

For those providing care for a loved one with a long-term or terminal illness

Seriously: Be Annoying for Jesus! (A Children’s Sabbath Sermon)

Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

(look these up at bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com)

Friends, today in the life of the church, we observe the Children’s Sabbath, a time to lift up the needs of children in our churches, communities, and world.  This year, the organizers want us especially to raise awareness of the fact that every half-hour in our country, a child is injured by gun violence.

Click here to see a video on the work of the Children's Defense Fund.

I find that an especially difficult reality--as a pastor, as a parent, just even as a decent human being who wants decent, peaceable childhoods for all children everywhere.

We know how most of it happens, we hear about it in the news, whether it happens at school, on the streets, or in their own homes, whether it’s accidental or intentional.  It is very, very hard news to hear.

And I think when we hear difficult realities like this, it can be really hard to see any hope for things to be any different.  It all seems so overwhelming, doesn’t it?  What can be done to really put a dent in a statistic like this?  Is it all hopeless?

Ah.  And while we’re at it, let’s talk about all these special-themed Sundays we’ve been having as good Presbyterians, to raise our social consciousness, in these past several weeks surrounding the Peacemaking Offering.  It all does get a bit overwhelming, doesn’t it, to hear about domestic violence, human trafficking, global warfare, massive poverty, natural disasters, and so forth.  What are we to do with all of that?  Perhaps also as good Presbyterians, we can call on that first “T” in TULIP, that yes indeed, the world seems totally depraved, and I dunno, does it seem like we really can’t begin to do anything to change a whole wide world gone wrong?

I know, I hear ya.  I feel the same way often enough.  I find myself asking in all of this, sometimes even just getting bogged down in the preaching of it all, wondering, “Where is the hope?  Where’s the joy?  Where’s the peace?  Where’s the love?  And, Where’s the good news?”

And then I go home to my kids.  That’s what I do, when I can’t take another minute of bad news.  

My kids, they’re little.  They don’t know a big bad world out there full of danger, like we too-often do.  They’re joyful.  They are hopeful.  They are loving.  Sometimes they’re even peaceful!  But seeing my kids and spending time with them, is always, good news.

Now, I’ll admit as a parent, sometimes my kids are annoying!  Sometimes they’re hanging off my arm saying mommy, mommy, mommy...But it’s generally for good reasons--like they need food or want to cuddle, or just to know something more about this world we live in, because they are imbued with a spirit of wonder.  Sometimes we’re in the car and they’re pointing out the stars or the cows or the beautiful fall leaves, and I remember, God has created a good and glorious world.

And I think when we do spend time with children, even with their persistent questions, we do ourselves recapture a sense of that wonder in the world--we are encouraged, and see everything around us with new eyes again. I find a great deal of hope and joy in those moments.  These moments are reminders of God’s irresistable grace: grace that has the power to overcome all sin, to work in every heart, to bring healing and wholeness even in the midst of pain and brokenness.

And those moments give me the courage to be persistent in this big world, persistent in seeking justice and peace, persistence in showing love in places love is needed, persistence in doing even just the little bits that I can to make a better world for my kids and the kids around me.  I can’t do it all, but I can do something to make the world a better place, that at least in the spaces around me, people might be able to see hope, joy, peace, love and goodness in this world.

In the Gospel today, the widow doesn’t get justice because the corrupt judge finally becomes un-corrupt and sees the light.  She gets justice because she is persistent.  She annoys the judge into doing justice.  Sure, it’s a partial victory of good over evil, but it still counts!  In the Psalm we hear how persistent study of the Scriptures brings sweetness and wisdom into our lives.  In the letter to Timothy we hear Paul telling to be persistent in everything he learned from childhood, not to let go of it in the midst of so many complicated adult realities in this world.  And in Jeremiah we hear that even in the worst of circumstances, God is still persistent with us, still sowing seeds of peace, love, hope, joy, and goodness.  God will be our God, and we will be God’s people.

So, Presbyterians, I realized here I just did preach a sermon on TULIP, and in case you forgot your confirmation classes, let me put it this way:  Yes, there’s some really bad stuff in the world, and to an extent, some of it’s always going to be bad.  And we can’t fix it all.  But God’s grace and goodness, wherever we might find reminders of it--in spending time with children, or seeing it in each other’s faces, or even in the wonder of creation around us--that gives us what we need to persevere as the saints of God, spreading a message of hope, joy, peace, and love, in a world that so often needs it.  Thanks be to God for the children in our lives, in our churches, in our communities, and in our world.  Let us not give up but persevere, that they may know peace and love, and we might know hope and joy.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

And this next hymn, is full of just such childlike wonder about our world.  I think you’ll enjoy it, it’s called God, the Sculptor of the Mountains.

Prayer Requests:

For children everywhere, that they may live in peace, surrounded by love, filled with hope and joy, and that we may find ways to help them to do so.
For all who work with children, be they parents and grandparents, teachers or childcare providers, that they may have passion and patience in all they do.

Giving Grace

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

Friends,

These past few weeks we’ve been working through some tough scriptures in the Bible--we’ve had the prophetic book of Jeremiah, speaking to the situation of a people unaware they were about to be overrun and exiled from their country; and we’ve had some difficult teachings of Jesus which have at least on the surface sounded rather harsh.  And we get a little bit more of that this week, as we come to the parable of the shrewd manager.

The Anti-Hero

At first glance, you might wonder why this is even in the Bible.  You have a dishonest manager who’s been skimming off his boss, and when he gets caught and is about to get fired, he apparently skims even more off his boss by cutting in half all the debts of the people who owe stuff to the boss--and then he gets rewarded for costing his boss money!  Does this make any sense at all?

Well, first off, we have to know the world in which this parable is told:  Often, the wealthy owned land and the poor became tenant farmers: they paid to work the land and make a (meager) living.  These landowners hired managers to keep everyone in line--and often, those managers were crooked.  They exploited the tenants and filled their own pockets.   Now, you might even argue that while the manager isn’t a saint, the boss is also cheating everyone, at the top of the system; and while we’re discussing all of this, do you recall all the stuff going on about the 1% and the 99%?

Now you should also know, in this crowd gathered around Jesus, they probably were the 99%.  They are the tenant farmers, they’ve been cheated by these managers, they know they’ll work their tails off and never get ahead.  These parables, then, are enormously subversive speech, and the crowd around Jesus knows it.

It was a system of savage inequalities, in a world where there was no social safety net, and no mercy.  And this shrewd manager was crooked but not stupid; he knew he’d likely die as soon as he lost his comfortable position.  So, on his way out the door, maybe he’s putting it to his boss, or maybe he’s making friends where he once had enemies.  After all, in having their debts even half-forgiven, the tenant farmers who have been exploited and mistreated by this dishonest manager, are more likely to be in a forgiving mood.  They are much less likely to attack this man with the revenge they must surely desire.

Deliver Us From What?

In our Brewing Questions group this week, we talked a bit about how so much of our faith tradition seems to assume a life that is nasty, brutish, and short, with lots of emphasis on deliverance from the world--not only in the Bible, but also so many of the religious writers that have come in the centuries since. It may not resonate so well today because at least in the past few decades, things have been relatively stable for us.  When was the last time, here in rural Wisconsin, that the teeming hordes swept through and burned the village and slaughtered the masses?  When was the last plague around here that wiped out entire families?  Fortunately, we’ve got antibiotics and we can listen to Dr. Zorba on NPR and we’re going to probably all be okay.  But not so long ago, daily life could be overwhelmingly, inexplicably tragic.

Perhaps the only folks around here fairly recently who would have known this quite so well, were the Native Americans, as the early settlers came through.  They knew diseases brought by pioneers that wiped out entire tribes; they knew slaughter and the burning of homes.  They knew exile and the destruction of their entire way of life.  In fact, our theology of Manifest Destiny, we know, became their Trail of Tears.  We haven’t been able to talk about these realities of our how our country was founded, and who was harmed in the process, very often.  It was often kept out of schoolbooks and the media of the day.  Talk about such things was also considered rather subversive speech.  We know there are still tensions and prejudices between Native American communities and several of our own towns and villages even here in Wisconsin.  We know that even today, Native American communities continue to suffer and often live in deep poverty.  

In light of this context, we can begin to understand the anger in the Psalm, asking for God’s jealous wrath to burn like fire against their enemies, since they themselves have been slaughtered and humiliated.  And yet the Psalmist also asks for forgiveness for themselves, for whatever harm they themselves have caused.  And you can really hear the overwhelming grief in Jeremiah, who asks for eyes to be a fountain of tears to weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

Which Master?

Jesus says we cannot serve God and wealth.   Now, wealth can serve us; it’s not wrong to earn an honest living and invest faithfully, and even to be wealthy as a result.  However, when we earn our wealth dishonestly, through exploiting others, or investing in things which cause harm, then we are serving wealth, where the wealth matters more than the people who are harmed while we’re creating it.  Since God’s concern is for the health, dignity, and wellbeing of all God’s children, wealth earned in these ways would put us directly in conflict with God.

There are ways to be conscious, which even our own PCUSA programs of Compassion, Peace, and Justice help us to learn, in order to be good stewards of our wealth--how to shop and invest more ethically, how to even give our money in ways that cause good and not further harm.

Praying For the 1%

If we are the ones on the bottom, the tenant farmers, the exiled, those in the lowest positions, and it is someone else’s boot that is on our neck, it might be very hard to forgive.  It would be hard just to control our anger!  And yet, we have Paul’s teaching that we ought to pray for everyone, including kings and others in high places, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.  Let me reiterate: we pray even for our enemies, even for those who treat us unjustly, that we may lead lives that are quiet and peaceable, and that we might also live lives that are Godly and with dignity.  It is hard to live with dignity when we see ourselves as a victim.  By praying for others, we act to restore our own dignity--not by force or violence, but through peaceable means.  This robs us of nothing, relieves us of revenge, and fills us with hope and renewed purpose. And when we have discovered our dignity, we are able to work with others to address injustice and inequality in our world.  The path towards such a systematic reconciliation may be difficult, but it very well may be our balm in Gilead, that makes our woundedness whole and heals our sin-sick souls.

Go Ahead, Be Shrewd

There’s one phrase in there that I thought quite interesting, which struck me anew in this reading:  “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.  What does this mean?

Sometimes we may also be like that manager:  We too are caught up in systems that we know to be unjust, where we see vulnerable people being harmed.  It can be at school or work or even in our social circles.  it can be in our government and on our streets, or anywhere in our world.  We may not be sure that we can take the risk to change anything about it, until like that manager, we realize we’ve got nothing left to lose by doing so.  

We who would call ourselves children of the light, can't pretend we don't see suffering, can't close our eyes and refuse to get our hands dirty. We need to be a little shrewd, a little streetwise.  To get a little involved and stir up trouble, lest we be accused of squandering our too-comfortable lives.

And yet the good news is, we who have received such abundant grace, grace to cover all our sins and bring us to new life, are now free to extend such grace to others--those above us and below us, in high places and low, next door and across the street.  In doing so, we can truly be children of light, reflecting the true Light, which outshines all darkness. Amen.

++

Prayers This Week:

For our Native American sisters and brothers

For all who are nearing the end of their earthly lives

For all who are caregivers

For all who struggle with chemical dependency

For all peoples who are displaced from their homes

For all who have suffered from violence

Does God Get Angry?

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14:1-7; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Friends, last week we talked about how some of the Scriptures we’re reading right now don’t really sound like a gentle, loving kind of God we probably prefer to think of, and we continue to get some of that this week.  So I’d like us to continue to explore what it is that actually might make God angry, as well as perhaps some things which don’t, and what happens afterwards.

When does God get angry?

Jeremiah tells us that God gets angry when people seem to be too good at doing evil and don’t seem to know how to do good.  When God talks about what it’s like when God’s angry--we hear about how the world grows silent and trembles with fear.  After all, the rest of creation knows God and what God is capable of doing.  When I read the description there of just how angry God is--no light, birds fleeing, land waste and void--I’ll admit:I kind of hear that western music that they always play right before the shootout.  God is sort of fantasizing about some really dramatic stuff here, because God is angry.

But even though God is angry, God hasn’t cut God’s people off.  They’re still God’s children, whom God calls, “my people.”  And so to help us understand a little better, let’s talk about parentalisms:  those things which parents say when they are really fed up with their kids.  Such as, “oh, you think this is angry?  You haven’t even seen angry…”  The Jeremiah passage reminds me a lot of that.  Or, can you imagine God, the parent, with the whole world in the back seat, bickering and squabbling and picking on each other and whining, and finally God saying, “Don’t make me pull this car over and come back there!”  

Have you ever asked yourself, as a parent or as a child, what exactly was going to happen if the car did get pulled over?  Did you try to find out?  Or did you just get the picture that it was time to knock it off?

Maybe God isn’t literally going to pull the car over.  However, like any parent knows, there are times when you have got to step in and get the kids’ attention before they really get hurt.  And God knows that if they keep going down the road they are going, they are indeed going to get seriously hurt.

Seriously: Don’t Eat People

So, what exactly makes God angry?  Well, the Psalm tells us God is angry when people become corrupt, that the evildoers are the ones who “eat up my people like they eat bread,” who exploit the poor and vulnerable.  If you’re going to get where you’re going by making life more miserable for those below you, then you should know that God is providing refuge for them, and your plans are in trouble.

I wonder if you’ve heard it said that if you took a knife and literally cut out everything the Bible had to say about something like healthy sexuality, or gay people, you wouldn’t notice the difference.  But if you tried to cut out everything the Bible had to say about our responsibility to care for the poor and vulnerable, the whole thing would fall apart.  Treating those who have less power and material wealth than ourselves with respect and dignity is at the very core of our faith.  So often, the world entices us to do otherwise, and to treat them like a nuisance, or simply forget them.

And wouldn’t that seem easier?  Even with the Gospel story:  If you had 100 sheep, and lost one, a 99% retention rate is still pretty good, like an A+, right?  Even losing just one coin out of ten, that’s still 90%, like an A-, right?  Ah, if only it were so easy, and the stakes weren’t so high.

More Joy In Heaven

The Gospel goes on to say that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, rather than 99 righteous ones who need no repentance.  There’s a little bit of a sarcastic undercurrent there, since Jesus is responding to people criticizing him for eating with tax collectors and sinners, when a “good” religious person would know how awful they were and wouldn’t associate with them.  In criticizing, they’re demonstrating how very self-righteous they are.  Surely, they themselves don’t need to repent for anything.  But God isn’t that excited about such self-righteous people.  Besides, they’re really rather boring.

Re-calculating...

It’s hard for many of us to admit when we’re lost--literally or figuratively.  Literally speaking, how many of you have a GPS?  How many of you disagree with the GPS and then get irritated when it sits there and says, ‘reCALCulating, reCALCulating….’  How many of you just turn it off?  My mom is one of those people, who has no idea where the thing is taking her and everytime she comes out to visit, she gets within five miles of the house, gets frustrated, and turns it off.  Has no idea where she is or how to describe where she is, and I get to go out in the middle of the night (and it always is, by that point) go find her, and get her back to the house, where the grandkids are eagerly waiting.

When we get lost, when we miss the right turn, God re-calculates.

It’s hard to admit we’re lost in other ways too.  As you may have seen, the local chapter of Al-Anon which met in our building recently disbanded.  In the weeks since, I’ve had so many conversations with families who feel very lost, even helpless and hopeless, as they try to find resources to help their loved one struggling with an addiction.  And certainly part of the difficulty for many of the families as they try to find help, is not wanting anyone else to know--they’re worried what their friends will think, or maybe even worried about their insurance.  I admit I wasn’t equipped with a lot of knowledge about what resources were around and where to direct folks when they started coming to ask for direction.  But I’m learning, along with our other local clergy, and hopefully we can figure out how to offer folks more than a seeming dead-end.

God Understands Loss

There is so much pain in these families that I’ve met over the past few weeks.  And yet it helps to remember, God knows pain.  God even knows losing a child due to all the violence and evil in this world.  When God sees us hurting, or even our children hurting, even if it’s because of our own wrong turns, God hurts with us.  And God does not abandon us to our own devices, even when we are sure we can trust only ourselves.  God’s depth of love and mercy and grace surpasses anything we can imagine.  Indeed, God’s anger lasts for a night, but God’s steadfast love is forever.  [Now that is some pretty Amazing Grace].

A Real Rascal

Some people do get lost, and don’t realize it, until they are found--and that’s what’s going on in the letter to Timothy.  Paul, who is instructing Timothy in Christian life and leadership, admits that he once was a real rascal--a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.  We might forget that Paul was formerly Saul, a man who was actually lauded for his harsh persecution of the early Christians, including holding everyone’s cloaks as they attacked and stoned Stephen to death.  This is a man with some real blood on his hands.  He is willing to admit he is the foremost of sinners, since he was working so hard to squelch the followers of Jesus--until he had his Damascus Road incident, literally knocked off his donkey by a vision of Jesus speaking to him, became blinded, and repented, and then was given a new role in life, as Paul, who would go on through his letters and teachings to build and support the new Christian movement and take it much further than any other person had before.  

Cause for Celebration

God got angry enough with Paul to stop him in his tracks, but God also didn’t get rid of Paul.  God had a purpose for Paul, and the rest is history.  That is cause for celebration.  When people we’d rather write off as total losers are found, that is cause for celebration.  When we cease our self-righteousness and join the celebration, that is cause for rejoicing.  And when we are found, over and over again, whether we realize when we’ve been lost or not, that too, is cause for rejoicing.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers This Week:

For all who are recovering from surgery

For all who are in hospice care

For all wrestling with chemical dependency, and those who love them

For all affected by flooding

For our Presbytery during this visioning process, grant wisdom and clarity of purpose

For a true peace in Syria

For all who wrestle with hunger and homelessness, that they not be forgotten