Monday, February 28, 2011

Are God's Priorities My Priorities?

I hate today’s Gospel passage. I hate the choice that Jesus presents to the disciples gathered round him, disciples who have probably left everything to follow him. I hate that they have to make a clear choice about whose servant they will be. I hate Jesus’ implied suggestion that worrying about everything they own undermines their loyalty to God. I hate the clear command Jesus gives the disciples that they are to put God and God’s righteousness first in their lives.

Following Jesus’ command, making the right choice, could not have been easy, either for Jesus’ disciples, or for the Christian community to whom Matthew addressed his Gospel. Ancient Mediterranean culture placed a high value on personal and family honor. For religious leaders, Jews who were serious about maintaining the distinctiveness of the Jewish community, maintaining personal honor involved being scrupulous about what one ate, especially following the minutiae of the dietary laws, wearing distinctive dress, and bearing the cost of numerous required ritual sacrifices. For wealthy Gentiles, maintaining personal and family honor required conspicuous consumption, especially in food and dress, but also in the possession of houses, furniture, and animals. For the poor, of course, ensuring access to the basic necessities of life, to adequate food, sufficient clothing, and adequate shelter, was an ongoing struggle, probably on a daily basis. I would guess that neither Jews nor Gentiles, neither wealthy nor poor, appreciated being confronted by Jesus. None of them wanted to hear Jesus’ suggestion that concern about material things undermined their ability to serve God.

Any more than we do. Any more than I do. It seems as if Matthew always confronts me with a very clear choice. Today, I have no choice but to ask myself what has been the highest priority in my life? As I look back on my own life, I might wonder where my highest priority really has been. Oh, easy, you might say, you gave up a dean’s position at a large university to become a parish priest. True enough. But then I look around at all my stuff. In 1972, when my husband and I moved from Madison, Wisconsin, where I’d been a graduate student, to Tucson, Arizona, where I started as a faculty member at the University of Arizona, everything we owned fit into a Ford Econoline van and the trunk of a ’68 Valiant. In 1990, with three children in tow, it took a moving van to get us to Maine, and another one to get us to Ohio seven years later. Of late Jack and I have been sorting through our “stuff,” including giving away the best of the thirty-two boxes of scholarly books that came out of my Arizona office. We’ve donated a lot of books back to Wisconsin and given a lot of other things to charity, but we still have a lot of stuff, in addition to two cars, three computers, two TVs, two ipods, two smart phones, and now a Kindle – which I like a lot! So what’s been my choice? Whom do I serve? God or stuff? Hopefully, on most days, the answer is, “God.” Because I know deep down that Jesus is right, that God is more important to me than accumulating a lot of stuff, and that worrying about all my stuff really does undermine my loyalty to God.

Dare I say any of this in our American consumerist society? Dare I even question my own loyalties? In order to get the U.S. out of recession, don’t we have to keep buying, buying, buying? Whether it’s the latest in designer jeans or tech toys, we can’t turn on the TV or open a newspaper without being assailed by invitations to buy more, or at least to trade up to the latest version of our favorite gadgets. In this country a whole new industry has sprung up: storage lockers to hold all the stuff that no longer fits in our bursting houses!

At this point, you might be saying, O.K., Mother Leslie, we get it. We have too much stuff. So what’s the good news? Let me begin to answer that question first by suggesting what Jesus does not seem to be telling the disciples here. Jesus is not telling the disciples not to work hard. He is not telling them to become beggars. He is not telling them to give up all their possessions – although you might remember that in Luke he tells the rich young man to sell everything he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him. For some people that might be the right course, but Jesus is not necessarily saying that here. Jesus is also not telling his disciples to be utterly thoughtless about the future, not telling them to be unconcerned about adequately providing for their families. What he is telling them is that they don’t need to be anxious about whether they have enough stuff, or about what the future might hold for them. They are to remember that they have been called into a community with a new and different set of values, a community with values that are more closely aligned with God’s perspective than with the values of the either the religious leaders or the Roman conquerors. As his disciples they are no longer required to worry about ostentatiously displaying their possessions or heaping up produce in their barns against a possible disaster. Through Jesus, the disciples have bound themselves to a God who cares for them and all creation, who loves them even more than a mother loves a child she has nursed, who loves them, the birds, the flowers, the rest of the animals, indeed all creation. Through Jesus they are liberated from concern about possessions and free to love God and their neighbors as Jesus himself loves them.

And so for us. Through our baptisms, through our own inclusion in the Body of Christ, through our deepening commitment to God, we too are called to live our lives by different standards. We too can be liberated from the consumerist culture around us. We too are free from anxiety about the necessities of life. We are not called to be idle or lazy, we are not called to sponge off rich friends, we are not called to forget about adequately providing for our families, churches, and chosen charitable organizations. Most certainly, we are not called to forget about the needs of the poor. Indeed towards the end of Matthew’s Gospel, in chapter 25, we will hear Jesus reminding us that those who fed the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, tended the sick, and visited prisoners will be joyfully blessed by God.

In all this, Jesus is reminding us, as we pursue our vocations, as we use the resources that God has given us, that we must continue to question our life choices and what they show about the object of our loyalty. We must continue think about the standards by which we live. We must ponder whether our life choices have been made with God’s perspective in mind or only to fulfill our own selfish desires. And we need to look at our reasons for acquiring what we have, not once, not annually, but daily. When you review your day, ask yourself whether your checkbook or the possessions with which you have surrounded yourself reflect a commitment to God’s standards, and whether you are truly living into the standards of God’s reign.

Beginning to live up to God’s standards will look different for different people. Some people are called to follow Francis of Assisi into holy poverty. Many of today’s members of religious orders have made that choice. Some have chosen to work in the poorest parts of the world like the sisters of our own Community of the Transfiguration, some of whom work at the Centro Buen Pastor in the Dominican Republic. Some are called to live among the urban poor in what one writer has called “the abandoned places of empire.” Greg Lanham, Jonathan Youngman, and Jonathan Ryder, for example, started the Franklinton Cycle Works in Columbus to provide restored used bicycles to people, especially to the marginalized people of Franklinton, and to train others to repair and maintain bicycles. And some are simply called to vocations that by their very nature provide only a modest standard of living. David Leininger* tells of his father, a minister, who both faithfully tithed and supported other charities. There were few luxuries in his home, but his family always had all the necessities. All six of his children went to college. Never anxious, Milton Leininger was confident that God would provide for his needs. And when he died, the congregation he had so faithfully served commissioned a bronze plaque in his honor. On its base were the words he had lived his life by, “Seek ye first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

As we approach Lent, all of us are called to prayerfully consider our uses of our God-given resources. Perhaps these questions can guide our reflections. Is my relationship with stuff what Jesus would have it be? Am I enabling God to work through me to provide for the poor? Am I participating with God in the healing and nurturing of creation? Are God’s standards guiding my resource decisions? Most importantly, are God’s priorities my priorities?

* In Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima Ohio: CSS Publishing Co, 2007), pp. 49-50.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

You Shall Be Holy

Have any of you read the Bible straight through? Some of you may have read the New Testament through. But I’d guess that even those of you who have read a lot of the Bible have not read Leviticus straight through. In our Sunday lections we now hear significant parts of the Old Testament. We hear Genesis and Exodus, and some from Deuteronomy, and we pray a lot of the Psalter. We hear parts of Job, parts of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and parts of other prophets – just a couple of weeks ago we had a lesson from the prophet Micah. Leviticus is a difficult book, especially after all the wonderful stories of bad boys and family feuds in Genesis, and the deliverance from Egyptian oppression followed by forty years in the wilderness in Exodus. Perhaps that’s why this Sunday is the only Sunday in the entire three-year lectionary that we hear a reading from Leviticus.

Perhaps we should hear Leviticus more often – despite its difficulty. Much of the Old Testament was compiled and edited after the Jews returned to Israel from Exile, i.e., in the years following 539 BC. Because it is a compilation of a lot of different kinds of writings, the Old Testament is really like a library, a library of the ways people have debated, argued about, and experienced God’s interaction with the Jewish people. A central theme of the Old Testament writings has been the working out of God’s covenantal relationship with the Jews.

Leviticus is the middle book of the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. It contains four main sections dealing with how to perform sacrifices, how to ordain priests, a section that is called the Holiness Code, and an appendix. And I don’t recommend reading any of it without a commentary! The Holiness Code, chapters 17 through 26, is where today’s reading comes from. As you might guess from the portion you heard, this section lays out in concrete detail, exactly what it means to choose life, to keep God’s covenant, in a word, to obey God.

When we really listen to what God is telling the people here through Moses, we hear some pretty startling commands. They hear that if they truly want to obey God they are to treat God’s people with justice and integrity. They are to share their wealth with the poor and the alien, and they are to be honest in all testimony and dealings with others. Here’s a shocker: they are to treat their employees fairly! They are to care for the disabled, pursue justice, and practice righteousness within their families and communities. They are to forgo vengeance and love their neighbors as themselves. In a sense, they’ve been given a distillation of the whole law – all the rest really is commentary. And the main thesis is simple: love of God and love of neighbor are integrally related. How are they to show that they love God? By loving their neighbor! And why are they to do this? So that they can be holy, just as God is holy: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

Five centuries later, the disciples gathered around Jesus heard much the same thing from him. Unquestionably, Jesus knew his Leviticus! But to the perspective of Leviticus Jesus adds another element, that of love that goes beyond what is strictly required. Most particularly, Jesus adds the declaration that the disciples were to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them – much as he himself would do on the Cross. And then we discover that the reason for doing all these things is the same for Jesus’ disciples as it was for the people who heard God speaking through Moses: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“You shall be holy.” “Be perfect.” Can these words possibly have any relevance for us? Now we know why we haven’t read Leviticus. Yes, it’s a dense book filled with references to ancient social practices. But the real reason is that we know we can’t live up to God’s standards – any more than the ancient Jews could. Worse yet, we know that in this broken and sinful world, we can’t live up to Jesus’ standards either. “Be perfect?” What were you thinking, Jesus? O.K. maybe a few saintly people have been able to live up to such standards. People like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, like Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese Christian labor reformer, or Mother Teresa. But surely you can’t expect the rest of us to be holy and perfect, can you?

Let’s look a little more closely at what those words really mean. The basic meaning of the word that Jesus uses is “complete, having fully attained its purpose, mature.” Isn’t Jesus calling us to grow from where we are into a more mature faith, a more Christ-like way of living? Isn’t Jesus calling us to be different from the world around us? God was certainly calling the Jews to be a community different from the cultures around them. The word holy, which Leviticus uses, means “set apart.” When the word is applied to things, it means dedicated to God’s use – like our communion vessels, or even this building. When the word is applied to God, it reminds us that God is “other,” different from humanity. A writer in a recent Christian Century magazine suggested that a good synonym for holy would be “odd.” Odd? What if Jesus were really saying, “Be odd, therefore, as your heavenly Father is odd?” What? That’s the last thing some of us want to be. We want to fit in, to be normal. Perhaps God was calling the Israelites and Jesus is calling us to be something new and different.

Let’s hear again those words from Leviticus: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Of course there is an implied command in the words, but couldn’t this also be a declarative sentence? Could God be telling us, that in God’s company we become more like God? Perhaps we’ve not only been created in God’s image, but are also called to be other, apart, a separate community, just as God is other. Even as God fills all things yet is wholly other, so God’s people are part of humanity, yet also set apart. God’s people are called to a way of life that is different from that of rest of the world. Being holy or perfect means swimming against the tide of the ways of the world and straining towards being more like God. We know being more like God is hard work. Yet when we feel tempted to give up, we can hear again God’s promise: “You shall be holy.”

And how can we continue to hear that promise, so that we can grow in holiness and become more mature Christians? You know the importance I place on the sacraments, how important it is for us to allow Jesus to nourish us with his Body and Blood week by week. You know also the importance I place on mission, on service to others, on the importance of showing our love of God in the way we treat others. But hear again God’s promise: “In My company, you become more like Me.” The holiness and maturity to which both these lections call us ultimately grows out of an internal change of heart that then can be seen in a changed life. As we deepen our relationship with God, as we are led further and further into the heart of God, the standards of this world are less and less important to us. The desire to imitate God by loving others becomes more and more important.

And the way to deepen our relationship with God? Seeking God every day of our lives. Finding times and ways to pray every day. If you do nothing else, here’s a simple way to seek God on a daily basis. Open your prayer books to p. 138. Spend a minute or two in silence, then pray the brief Noonday prayer. It takes about two minutes and can be done anywhere. If you want the five-minute version of Noonday prayer, it can be found on p. 103. Lent is coming – Ash Wednesday is on March 9th. Here’s a Lenten discipline to consider: praying Noonday prayer every day in Lent. You could even start it tomorrow, even though it’s still Epiphany tide! I guarantee you that daily Noonday prayer will do more for your souls than giving up chocolate or alcohol! And if noon doesn’t work for you, notice that the prayer book provides brief forms of prayer for the morning, the early evening, and the close of day. In addition to these prayers, find some time in your day for silence with God. You’ll be surprised what the Holy Spirit can do if you listen attentively for just five minutes. And five minutes twice a day? Even better. You may or may not have any high “ecstatic” experiences. That’s not the point. The point is to draw nearer to God, to let God begin to shape and mold you, to let God continue the process of growth into holiness and completeness that began with your baptism. I assure you, that once we place ourselves in God’s company, God will make good God’s promises to us. Out of our silence, God will help us to live with simplicity, pursue social justice, and seek peace. God will help us to grow in holiness and lead us into a deeper faith. Thanks be to God!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

We Are God's Fellow Workers

We’re going to begin with a little homiletic theater this morning. You may remain seated, but you’re also welcome to walk with me. The first time I came into St. Peter’s, I was struck, as are many people who see the sanctuary for the first time, by its beauty. However, it wasn’t long, as I walked around, before I began to feel surrounded by a great community of love committed to this parish and its future. We see the reflections of that committed community of love in all the windows and plaques, don’t we? Let’s just take a brief tour. And if you knew the people we name, take a moment to pray for those whom we name. [ I walk around church, reading the names on windows and plaques.] Don’t you feel that we’re surrounded by at least a small part of the “blessed company of all faithful people?”

How did all these faithful Christians come to commit themselves to a parish in this place? Many of you know the history of St. Peter’s well, having lived some of it yourselves. Some of you may be a little sketchier on that history. The Episcopal Church in Ohio dates from as early as 1804, when those who were given land grants in Ohio in exchange for service in the Revolutionary War, settled in Worthington and established St. John’s, in what was then a wilderness outpost. In 1817, the Diocese of Ohio was created, with Philander Chase, founder of Kenyon College and Bexley Hall seminary, as its first bishop. Growth in this part of the state led to the creation of a separate Diocese of Southern Ohio in 1875. St. Peter’s was part of that growth, having been established in 1841. A Vestry of twelve faithful men called the first rector, the Rev. James B. Goodwin. After meeting for worship in various places, the parish was finally able to erect this sanctuary, which was consecrated by Bishop Charles McIlvaine in April, 1859. The church that we see today, as our windows, plaques, and church records remind us, comes to us as a result of the many gifts of both money and time, and the commitment to the survival of this parish, of preceding generations. One hundred sixty-nine years later, we are now the stewards, both of this building and of this Christian community.

Those who committed their lives and their resources to this community took to heart Paul’s message to the Christian community in Corinth. You remember that the main concern that drove Paul to write to this community was the reports he had received of deep conflicts among them. He began his letter, as we heard a couple of weeks ago, by addressing head on his concern that a significant cause of the conflicts was factionalism, i.e., that people were proclaiming themselves followers of one human leader or another. In the portion of the letter we heard last week, Paul reminded the Corinthians that the Holy Spirit is the agent of the growth of the community. The Spirit’s goal for them was that they would grow up into Christ, into mature Christians ready to do and be Christ in the world. Now Paul has returned to his specific rejection of factionalism. He reminds the Corinthians that God works through all human actors. Whether it be Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, it is God working through human beings called to particular tasks. What is most important, all are part of God’s work together, all are fellow workers with God. No one can take special pride in the productivity of his or her acre in God’s field, since ultimately, all growth, all produce is a result of our cooperation with God’s grace.

Which brings us back to St. Peter’s. The time of our annual meeting is always a good time to take stock. We too are fellow workers with God. All of us who care about the continued life of this parish are in it together. All of us here, I hope, share two purposes: to continue our own formation as Christ-imbued people, to become more faithful disciples, and to see this parish community thrive and last for another 169 years in this place. If we share these purposes, then here is God calling us to do. I believe that God is calling us to continue the commitments made by those who came before us in this place. If we are to continue to grow up into Christ, if we are to continue to mature as Christians, then we need to commit ourselves to Christian education, not only for children, but for ourselves as well. Just as our bodies will starve without physical food, so too will our spirits starve without “soul food.” We have a discussion series on community ministry coming on Wednesday nights in Lent. Commit to participating in that series, regardless of whether you can come for Evening Prayer and potluck supper before the discussion sessions. Join us on Sunday mornings for a closer look at the Gospel of Matthew, which we are hearing all this church year. Or commit to reading something on your own that will stretch you and help you grow into Christ. If you need to, ask me for suggestions!

So our first commitment is to continued personal formation. Our second commitment is to support of this parish with our own resources, our own resources of treasure, time, and talent. Always, we give in gratitude for what God has given us. Always we recognize that whatever we give to God doesn’t begin to match the great gifts that God has given us. Always, we remember that “all things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” Historically, church people have returned to God a tenth of their resources, the tithe. Perhaps that’s where all the windows and other beautiful objects in this church came from. Many of us still do tithe. And those, who for good and valid reasons, cannot tithe, often honor God by at least intentionally committing whatever proportion of their resources they can afford. But notice that it’s not only some portion of our treasure that we are called to commit to God. God also calls us to return to God a portion of our time and talents. Allowing eight hours of sleep per night, all of us have 112 waking hours in a week. Can we commit 11 hours a week to good works? Could some of those 11 hours be used to enhance the life of this parish? And what about all those talents? What part of our talents have we committed to God?

So: first commitment to personal formation, second commitment to support of the church with our treasure, time, and talents. Third, God calls us to partner with God in creating a welcoming community of love in this place. I believe this means engaging in real ministry ourselves and inviting others to share ministry with us. I believe this also means committing ourselves to regular nourishment in the sacraments and inviting others to partake of God’s nourishment with us. We can, and do, put out tracts and pamphlets. We can, and do, send out flyers, place notices in print media, and send out an electronic newsletter. We can, and do, have a web site and a Facebook page. But what counts most in creating a vital and thriving community is personal encounter with others who are growing into mature Christians, personal encounter with those who are become more and more Christ-like.

No one person can do all of this, least of all your priest. We are all needed in this joint venture together. By virtue of our baptisms, we all have a ministry. Truth be told, as I look back on the history of St. Peter’s, I see active lay people who indeed worked hard to see this parish flourish. After the first twelve Vestry men called the first rector, others gave gifts and raised funds for the parish through operettas, suppers, a Pancake festival, a Dairymaid’s Festival, an Oyster supper, and many other events. Most recently, a building fund drive gave St. Peter’s its latest addition, consecrated by Bishop William Black in 1980.

“We are fellow workers with God.” We trust that God will continue to give the growth, that God will continue to allow this parish to flourish. As we trust in God’s providence, it’s our turn to plant the seeds and water them. As we follow those who came before and look toward continuing the ministry here through another year, may God also help us to commit ourselves to continued personal formation, to showing our gratitude for God’s gifts, and to intentionally living out our ministries as baptized Christians.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Let Your Light Shine

This evening will you wish you were in Arlington, Texas? Will you be glued to your TV set at 6:30? Do I need to tell anyone that that’s kickoff time for Super Bowl XLV? As the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers face off against each other on the field, some of you might be more interested in the players than the plays. Did you know that many of the players on both sides are men of faith who are actively partnering with God to bring God’s kingdom a little closer? I’ll just hold up two of them. Wide receiver and Kalamazoo native Greg Jennings is worth millions as a star player for Green Bay. Through the Greg Jennings Foundation, a non-profit Christian organization dedicated to assisting children and families. Greg has been steadily and generously giving back to the community. Supported by donations, volunteers, fund-raising events, and Greg himself, the Foundation makes grants to organizations and people in need in Michigan and Wisconsin. Among other grants, last summer the Foundation supported a Habitat for Humanity house in Kalamazoo, and in November Greg personally helped distribute 500 Thanksgiving turkeys. That same month 2009 Steelers MVP James Harrison founded the James Harrison Family Foundation. James was inspired by both the generous support of his fans and his love of children, and he started this foundation so that he can make a difference in peoples' lives when they need it the most. Dedicated to fostering hope, the foundation provides aid especially to children with disabilities and their families in the greater Pittsburgh area. In mid-December the foundation invited 200 children and their families to enjoy brunch with Santa and take home new clothing and toys.

Most of the Packers and Steelers players have started such foundations. Many have been spurred to do so by their commitment to being Jesus’ disciples. I would guess that today’s Gospel passage has helped to inspire not only today’s players but also the many other athletes who have founded similar organizations. As you remember, Matthew was writing to a beleaguered community of new Christians, a community that included both Jews and Gentiles. With members of different ethnic traditions, this community, like the community in Corinth, and like many other Christian communities, was striving to live fully into the way inaugurated by Jesus. As we will see throughout our readings from the Gospel of Matthew this year, one of Matthew’s major concerns was to offer instruction to this community as to what Jesus’ disciples should be and do. The center of the story is made up of five great sermons of Jesus, all of which contain concrete instructions as to how a Christian community should form itself.

Here we begin to learn about community formation through Jesus’ instructions to his first disciples. You remember that Jesus has just called Peter, Andrew, James, and John away from their nets. Last week we heard the beginning of the first sermon, in which Jesus began by assuring these disciples that they were blessed by God when they depend on God’s grace to help them live in love and peace. Now Jesus begins to lay out the characteristics of a blessed community. Warning them that their righteousness needs to go way beyond the scrupulous law-keeping of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus tells them that they need two things. They don’t need to be captivating preachers (thank heavens!), they don’t need to be canny administrators, and they don’t need to be spell-binding evangelists.

The disciples do need to be who they are, by God’s grace, already becoming: salt to the earth and light for the world, people whose connection with God could be seen in who they were and what they did. Because they were now Jesus’ disciples, they shared in Jesus’ life, and they could show this Jesus-life to the world. Not by engaging in propaganda, not by haranguing people on the roads, but by being fully alive in Christ, by being the kind of people who make other people see the possibility that God might be real after all and at work in them. By living the kind of life that shows forth God’s goodness to others. For Jesus’ disciples, this means more than the personal piety that the scribes and Pharisees modeled so well. Living a life infused with Jesus-ness means engaging in concrete acts of mercy, justice, peace, and liberation – for the people in their own homes, on their own doorsteps, across the street, and across the world. Those who partake of Jesus’ own life are enabled by him to do Jesus in the world, not to win God’s favor, not to buy their way into heaven, but so that others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” So that others may be healed and restored, and so that ultimately all nations may be brought under God’s gracious reign.

Guess what? We are Jesus’ disciples too. We are also salt for the earth, we are also light for the world. Jesus’ challenge to his immediate disciples is addressed to us too. In The Holy Longing, his meditation on spiritual life in our time, Ronald Rolheiser reminds us that there are four “non-negotiable essentials” for a healthy spirituality: personal prayer and morality, mellowness of heart and spirit, communal worship, and pursuit of social justice. We’ve talked a lot about prayer, especially contemplative prayer, and some of us have experienced it here. And certainly we’re all trying to overcome our own personal brokenness and sinfulness. Mellowness of heart and spirit? We might say that that’s about acknowledging your dependence on God, being grateful for all of God’s blessings to you, and trusting the spirit to lead you. Communal worship brings us back together as the Body of Christ, enabling us to support each other as we enter into the sacred mystery of God’s presence among us. Pursuing social justice flows out of the first three practices. As we deepen our relationship with God through prayer, and as we are nourished by Word and Sacrament in worship, our ability to be and do Jesus in the world is strengthened.

Do you see pursuing social justice as essential to your spirituality? “Well, yes,” you might say, “but what can one person, or even one small parish actually do?” Just think of all the areas of our globe that need addressing: poverty, both right here in this county and in the rest of the world; sub-standard housing and homelessness; hunger; Third World debt; environmental justice; access to health care; human trafficking, sweatshop labor; fair trade purchasing; socially responsible investing. The list goes on and on. Do you feel stopped in your tracks, intimidated into total inertia by the enormity and complexity of all the areas of social injustice? Perhaps we can follow the advice of Mother Teresa: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” Be and do Jesus for that one! Here at St. Peter’s, we understand that scale. Today, our youngsters are helping to complete our collection for the Souper Bowl of Caring. Food and dollars are still very much needed. We continue our Loaves and Fishes dinners, and our distribution of diapers with the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry. Where else might our ministries take us? Where else might we be and do Jesus in the world?

I want to challenge us. I know that pursuing social justice isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it’s downright dangerous – as the history we remember in Black History month so poignantly reminds us. Nevertheless, I want to challenge us to be and do more than we think we can. I would like the children to think of something that only they can be and do between now and Easter. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” Can you children think of a way that your light can shine brighter between now and Easter? How about the young adult group that’s forming? Yes, it’s important that you all come together in fellowship and strengthen the ties among you. But is there a way that you can grow in your love of God and of those around you? Yes, all of you are busy with your various obligations. I was a young mother once too, believe it or not. So if you can’t feed a hundred people, can you feed one? Is there one thing you can do between now and Easter? How about the ECW? Is there one thing you can do between now and Easter? How about you men? What can you do? Is there something the whole congregation can do together? Can we put old conflicts behind us and do something, really do something, together? Engage in a letter-writing campaign for Bread for the World maybe? I challenge all of you to come up with some ideas and then to follow through with them. The rest of us pledge to give whatever help we can!

Jesus told us, “You are salt for the earth, you are light for the world.” Confident that God will enable us to continue growing in our ability to be and do Jesus in the world, we are bold to pray, “O God, with endless mercy you receive the prayers of all who call on you. By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do, and give us the grace and power to do them, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.”