[Propertalk] Proper 22 c RCL

[Robert P Morrison]

I can't remember whether I posted earlier what I'd written  for tomorrow. I began it quite some ago.

Anyway, I've revised it, and will continue to refine it.

Also I heard this benediction on the radio just now, liked it and will probably use it tomorrow.


May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to Himself; may the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us in His service; may the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our souls; and may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you, always. Amen.

>From Chichester Cathedral, Britain: Evensong for the Southern Cathedrals' Festival, July 2010.


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY      THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
LAMENTATIONS 1:1-6		 				        PROPER 22 C RCL
2 TIMOTHY 1:1-14			       				        3rd OCTOBER, 2010  
LUKE 17:5-10				  				        LAMENTATIONS 3:19-26

	Coventry – Dresden – Hiroshima – Nagasaki. I’m not old enough to have direct memories of these. I DO remember being struck dumb at the pictures, though. I remember also standing high up in a building in Amsterdam and being quite silent at the sight. As far as my eye could see, almost twenty years after the end of the Second World War, I could touch the new buildings, walk through the uneven, open spaces – I was in the center of what had been nothing but rubble and devastating loss.
	Maybe some of you have had the same sort of experience, either as one in such a site or as an observer – physical loneliness; mental loneliness; spiritual loneliness, they’re all part of the picture. Even if we’ve been lucky enough NOT to have been exposed to this, we MUST be aware of the way in which individuals and groups within society try to eradicate one another – “wipe them off the map” is one way of putting it. It’s one of the blacker sides of our corporate personalities. If someone or something is different, especially if we think it threatens our economic stability and our ability to control others somewhere, even we who call ourselves Christians can feel intense emotional upheaval.
	All of this and more is wrapped up and spilling over from the verses of our first reading.
	In a work appropriately entitled “Lamentations”, the writer talks of the beloved city, Jerusalem, indeed of the whole nation of Judah. All that made the inhabitants feel proud – the wonderfully designed and constructed buildings; the refined legal system and courts; the mercantile organisation; but, above all, the human relationships – the hand-holding, the laughing, the consolation and compassion offered in times of pain or sickness – ALL that made Jerusalem the apple of God’s eye, or COULD have done so – all that was now gone.
	A similar image is the opening scene of a movie of a Western ghost town. Only tumbleweed blowing down the dust-filled streets seems to remain.
	It’s hard to think of being that lonely; we’re so surrounded by sound and motion. But that’s what the prophet saw as a consequence of the breakdown of society. The wonderful buildings; the highly systematised legal processes; the well-established trade routes that allowed all sorts of merchandise to flow in and out of Jerusalem; even the human relationships – they’d become so infected with human greed and selfishness and self-importance that they’d lost their beauty. Instead, they’d led to emptiness, to violence, to the perversion of life as God intended.
	Yet there WERE some who were able to remain positive. There WERE some who trusted that, somehow, God could and would be constant, be faithful, be loving – even in the face of society’s unfaithfulness, and immoral behaviour towards God and humans, there WERE those who trusted that God would still be compassionately present; and that God’s grace would sustain them.
	You and I, no matter who we are, how small like Grace Sophia, no matter what we may feel we have done, you and I are reminded that nothing will ever come between God and God’s love for us. 
	I think that’s the message that was presented to young Bishop Timothy and to the discipleship group of Jesus. The letter writer needed help. The author wanted Timothy to assist with ministry, to encourage, to be engaged in backing up the Gospel message. Jesus wanted to group who’d gathered around Him to see that they had incredible power. All they nee4ded to do was to ask for it, and to accept it. They could accomplish wonderfully amazing things if they’d let God work through them.
	Note that nothing was ever said about the job being easier if there were more people – only that more people can offer comfort and support to one another. In other words, we NEED one another. God needs every one of us and wants us to come together as community – not to think or even act alike; God simply wants us to be willing to work with one another, to wrestle together when we have questions. God wants us to try to find a way to bring comfort to all whose lives seem to be so devastated and disrupted.
	My mind turns to those five gay teens who’ve killed themselves in the past month because they were led to believe themselves unacceptable – whether to God or anyone else.
	God wants each of us to be agents of God’s thoughtful and healing grace for those whose life-avenues seem have little in them to bring respite and hope from life’s tumbleweed and rubble.
	 Of course, this involves change – change on our part and change on everyone else’s. It involves a willingness to accept that there are different ways of doing things than the ones to which we’ve become accustomed.
	It’s when we can find the nerve to look at what other people are needing and doing; it’s when we can see what our neighbours and friends need, that we begin to understand some of the points that Old and New Testament prophecies were about.
	It’s important to understand, though, that any criticism found in the Bible is NOT intended to put people down, to belittle them, to score points off them. In fact, the opposite is true. When bad news, or strong words, are offered to the listeners of God’s messengers the purpose is to bring about repentance, and reorientation, and resolution of personal crises which may be holding us back as individuals.
	“Somebody once made the remark, ‘Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families.’” 1
	This may sound like an extraordinarily grouchy comment, but sometimes there’s at least a hint of truth in it. And it may be worth our thinking about it – and about what our relationships mean. If nothing else, we may find ourselves able to rethink exactly who family are. AND what a friend is.
	A school nurse ensured that Onelio Mencho-Aguilar had groceries, and gifts to open on his birthday.
	“Onelio (…) entered high school in Northern Virginia at 14 with a sixth-grade education and a grown man's burdens.
	“He had survived homelessness, hunger and depression in a torturous journey from the Guatemalan highlands, sneaking across the border in Arizona, roaming the streets of Los Angeles and landing in the Washington suburbs. There, he reunited with his father, whom he had not heard from in a decade -- only to be abandoned by him two years later, left to survive on his own.”
	What IS family? What are Grace’s parents thinking of in terms of life? How do we find that hope which God promises? How do we tell of Onelio’s life? 
	Somehow we have to say to everyone, of whatever ethnic background and sexual orientation in Albany – at South or at West High Schools – we have to say to everyone, “Even if you feel you don’t have anyone to whom you can turn, you have family and friends here”?
	Really, none of us needs to look far at all to see people for whom friendship is one of the principle things that remind us all what being human is all about. Take the rest of the story of Onelio as an example.
	“Many students,” wrote the journalist, “many students who face smaller troubles drop out of school.
	“But Mencho-Aguilar graduated in June from T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria with a 3.6 grade-point average and a faculty award for his fortitude and ‘strong desire to achieve.’ Now he is a full-time student with a $3,000 scholarship at Northern Virginia Community College.
	“‘I compare him to Oliver Twist. He has been through some incredible obstacles,’ said Patricia Gordon, an English teacher for nonnative speakers at T.C. Williams. ‘He is the kind of student every teacher wishes they had a room full of.’
	“Many teenagers struggle to feel motivated at school. For those who trail academically or don't speak fluent English, the challenges can be overwhelming. And for immigrants who are focused on survival, school seems like a luxury. 	“Many are reluctant to ask for help.
	“Mencho-Aguilar, who came to the United States alone, was especially vulnerable. But rather than checking out, he knitted together a surrogate family of teachers, social workers and counselors.
	“‘Maybe it was because I felt safe there,’ said Mencho-Aguilar, a lanky 18-year-old with a soft voice. School offered things he did not have ‘in real life,’ he said, including meals he did not have to pay for and adults he could count on. ‘I felt school was my home.’” 2
	I know some would see all sorts of red flags in that story. There’s the immigration issue; there’s the fact that helping one boy may make little or no difference; there’s – well, you and I can bring our own fears and concerns to bear on this. We need to ask and to centre ourselves on Jesus and His love, and His power, always available for us.
	What if the disciples had thrown up their hands that day, and told Jesus they’d had enough – that they were going to drift off, maybe to hold up the liquor store behind the Temple? What if they’d said that no one cared about them, that no one listened to them? And what if those who had some degree of power and control felt that they had to hang on to it desperately in case someone else tried to wrest what they had from them?
	But Jesus said that they ALL had power – power beyond their imagination. They could change the world – even if it was one student at a time.
	What if even one of you, a couple of weeks ago, decided NOT to give a pair of socks so that Fish could pass them out?
	The congregation here has the power to bring hope, and to bring comfort, and to lift up spirits. That’s the power given to each of us at Baptism. We CAN make this such a place that people throughout the city can say, “There is no desolation there. There is hope there. There is HOME there. There are friends there, as far as the eye can see.” And they and we together will see Jesus smiling here!
	Even Grace, at nine days old, even she can remind us of our power to minister. She can let her parents and extended family know she’s here. And if she doesn’t need food right at this instant, then she probably needs changing, or burping.
	But, of course, it doesn’t stop there.
	Grace grows!
	And Jesus keeps smiling!

NOTES:

1 	Quoted by The Rev. David Somerville September 5, 2010 – Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 18 Year C http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_124106_ENG_HTM.htm  
2	“Guatemalan 'Oliver Twist' thrives academically in Virginia”. By Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post Staff Writer. Monday, September 20, 2010; B01
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/SFBD1U/IYID5N/PFFIIE/U7KB26/LBBRB/OS/h
 --
Robert P. Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban,
P.O. Box 1556,
Albany, Oregon, 97321

541-921-1076 (cell)
541-967-7051 (church)