[Propertalk] Proper 20 a 2017 - homily - part 2

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's part 2

	 Think about how Jesus felt about yet another debate staged by the
clergy and the BAC of the Temple. “O God,” He may have thought,
“Preserve Me from this tiresome confrontation. I’d rather talk
with a pile of stones.” From somewhere, though, Jesus must have
found the reminder that God was with Him. The time He was baptised by
John; the Spirit in the form of a dove; the way that even dangerous
animals took care of His needs. Perhaps memories of these flashed
through His mind to help Him deal with the trick questions, the
tiresome encounters. Perhaps this enabled Jesus to see how to phrase
His response and come up with a story which the priests and elders
would remember long after He left.

	 Jesus might have said, “There you go again!” But He didn’t. He
sensed God’s inspiration and brought a practical solution, even if
it wasn’t appreciated at the time.

	 I know that I have to learn to lean on past experiences, and gifts,
and good times, so that I can face up to whatever may be confronting
me. I suspect that you find that this is true for you too.

	 I’m NOT saying, “Learn from your mistakes.” I’m saying, as
Moses heard, as Jesus heard, “Learn from your successes.” We NEED
to remember that, even if we are the images of God in this world, we
are NOT God, and we WILL do all sorts of things that would embarrass
the heck out of us today if they showed up on Face Book.

	 Remember what Paul wrote once to a bunch of discouraged folk. “My
friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and
pure, all that is lovable and attractive, whatever is excellent and
admirable – fill your thoughts with these things. Put into practice
the lessons I taught you, the tradition I have passed on, all that you
heard me say or saw me do; and the God of peace will be with you.” 2

	 Think on these things, not as Pollyanna, but as a people who are
blessed constantly by God.

	 Whatever it was that worked in the past, like that staff that Moses
had been given, take it with you, bring it face-to-face with all the
rocks we have in front of us. God will be there and, together with
God, whatever we used in the past to bring things to a joyful and
successful sense of relief, will be able to help us remember that we
WILL overcome all difficulties, strengthened by the positive power of
God.

	 I don’t know if you heard or read that “The small pharmaceutical
company LiFeGen just published findings from its most recent clinical
trials on the Alzheimer drug Educanumab [1]. The results show that the
drug slows the creation of amyloid proteins in the brain that are
thought to cause cognitive deterioration as well as ‘clean up’ the
amyloid proteins that are already present. What no one expected,
however, is that the patients in the clinical trial who responded to
the drug became atheists.” 3

	 This report, which is satirical, just in case you didn’t catch on,
supposedly implied that having rationality, especially memory, drives
faith in God out of people’s minds.

	 In actual fact, there’s no way on earth to prove or disprove this.
But there’s unlimited evidence that memory, especially of how danger
and disasters were avoided or dealt with, CAN not only give us hope
and encouragement, but also regenerates faith in a God who is not a
manipulator, nut is fully present for us every day.

	 So, if any of you find yourselves, if I find myself, edging towards
a big whine, or an angry depression, or simply general malaise, what
the examples of Moses and Jesus point out to us is the blessing of
discovering and rediscovering all those times when things worked out.
What our ancestral exemplars remind us about is that we each have some
special gift which we may bring to bear on all the events and people
who may threaten to drag us down.

	 And, just as we have those great memories and grace-filled gifs, so
we can be sure that we’ll be faced with crises, with temptations,
with depressing thoughts again. But that’s O.K. Next time, we’ll
know how to face them. We need just remember.

	  DO you and I have a God-complex? I hope not. It never seems to take
us too long to get into trouble. But God will help us get through it
or around it. Because God is God, and we are God’s people, God
remains present with us – all the time!

	NOTES:

	[1] _“Why Do Complex Systems Thrive on Trial And Error? [2]”_ by
Tim Harford, who wrote “_Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With
Failure”, _in _“Failure is an Option”_,_ “TED Radio Hour”,
_NPR Friday, July 29, 2016.
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/29/487609615/why-do-complex-systems-thrive-on-trial-and-error
[3] See the whole programme at
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/487606750/failure-is-an-option
[4]

	2 Philippians 4:8-9 Revised English Bible translation. 

	3 _“Religion Destroyed By New Alzheimer’s Drug” by _Andrew Hall
[5] September 25, 2017
http://click1.mail.patheos.com/t.do?id=797244:542403:7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360
[6]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/is-this-satire/
[2]
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/29/487609615/why-do-complex-systems-thrive-on-trial-and-error
[3]
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/29/487609615/why-do-complex-systems-thrive-on-trial-and-error
[4]
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/487606750/failure-is-an-option
[5] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/author/ahall/
[6]
http://click1.mail.patheos.com/t.do?id=797244:542403:7DF2956C-D2F1-40D4-A777-98E450E58360

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20170926/17c0fe9a/attachment.htm>