“Leaving on a Jet Plain, Racing Through Tegucigalpa”

Honduras Good Works: Day 2, July 19, 2012

“Leaving on a Jet Plain, Racing Through Tegucigalpa”

After a wonderful day at the Houston Passport Office and environs, Becky, Reign and I journeyed back to the Houston International Airport to secure our boarding passes and make sure our other two stragglers were accounted for and would be with us at 6:30 the following morning.  Boarding passes accomplished, and 50% of our companions accounted for, the final member of the team made it down on the 20^th of July.

The next morning we passed through security again with our newly minted passports.  The TSA officer noted that the shirt in my passport photo was the same shirt I was (still) wearing.  I guess he figured that one out.  Getting on the plane with a passport good for ten years (until July of 2022) was a piece of cake.  Anyone who has ever flown to Tegucigalpa, Honduras knows that the approach and landing is a life changing experience.  As the 737 comes across the last hill approaching the airport, one can see the smiles on the faces looking out of the windows of the homes (which appear to be at wing level), and then the plane almost skims the surface as it heads for the airport.  If one was not religious when the mission began, I promise you will find yourself praying to God or to anyone else who might listen.  According to the flight attendant, this airport is the second most dangerous in the world.  Wherever the most dangerous one is, I do not want to go there.

The four of us met Randall, the coordinator of our mission at the airport as well as three young Honduran women who were to be translators for some of the medical practitioners.  The women had heard of our mission the day before, via cell calls from a friend of a friend of a friend.  They turned out to be wonderful, caring young people and an asset to our group.

We then loaded into three Nissan four wheel drive trucks and began “The Amazing Race, Tegucigalpa Style.”  Randall knew where he was going and Becky and I stayed right on his tail lights, not letting little things like traffic lights, stop signs and other vehicles get in our way.  After driving round and round and round, we finally ended up on the road to Zamorano and the Kellogg Agriculture Institute.  Not only does the institute provide an excellent agricultural education for students from this region, but they also boast of a very good hotel and cafeteria.  This would become our home for the next week.

As our colleagues began to arrive from the villages we shared stories of our own particular adventures during the twenty-four hours we were apart.  It seemed much longer because of all we accomplished during that time.  After Dinner our worship time included a commissioning as missionaries lead by Dr. Don Hopkins, founder of the Mission, The Rev. Paul Moore, board member, Mr. Randall Hollihan, coordinator of the mission,  and The Rev. Deacon Pat Ritchie, coordinator our teams church building and Bible School efforts.  What a powerful reminder of the reason we were there and the presence of God and others in this mission.  It was an excellent message that we are never alone, that a mission such as this must have a group of people with a diversity of gifts and talents and personalities.  I guess what I am trying to say is that if any one of us had been missing, that the image of God would have been incomplete.  We were presented a multicolored cross as a symbol of this mission, which I will treasure forever.

Tomorrow we take a look at life in the village of Zarzal.

“The Houston Passport Office”

Honduras Good Works: Day One

“The Houston Passport Office”

I was invited to go with wonderful friends from Beaumont, Texas on a mission trip to Honduras.  Having served as Rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Beaumont, I was excited to join Pat Ritchie, Kathy Doane and Elizabeth Miller and new friend, Tracy Donaie as we became part of a fifteen year old mission, Honduras Good Works.  HGW Mission is primarily a medical mission based out of the Kellogg Agricultural Center in Zamorano, Honduras and St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas.  Our team of five a different perspective to the larger group, as we were to help build a building for “La Iglesia Episcopal de la Epifania,” in Zarzal, a small community located about 40 Kilometers from Zamorano.

All went well as we met the team at the Houston International Airport at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning.  We received our boarding passes, had our passports checked three times and all was well. . . .UNTIL WE TRIED TO BOARD THE PLANE.  Passports were checked one more time and two of us found that two months remaining on our passports was not sufficient for us to leave and re-enter the USA, even for a one week trip.

Thus began our adventure: “Spending the day at the Houston Passport Center in order to obtain an expedited passport.”  As inconvenient and time consuming and humbling as it was, I found the experience to be a “learning opportunity,” and a time to build friendships and “share our pain and our gain.”

The mother of my “partner in crime,” a 19 year old by the name of Reign,” was a Captain with Southwest Airlines, who, wearing her full dress uniform drove us to Houston and stayed with us through the entire ordeal (except when she had to leave to feed the parking meter).

Just about the time we began to feel “put upon and mistreated,” a mother from San Antonio arrived, having driven three hours with her four children who ranged in age from 7 years old to four months.  At the end of the day she would drive the three hours back to San Antonio.  Needless to say, we decided our lives were pretty good. 

After standing in two lines we finally received confirmation that our passports would be ready that day and were told to report back at 2:30 p.m. (As it turns out, 100 other people were told to report back at 2:30 p.m. as well.  The three of us in our party walked over to a small Thai Restaurant where I had, arguably, the best Thai food I have ever eaten.  We also got to know each other better as we shared our stories and our lives.

Returning at 2:30 p.m. we spent the next two, yes, two hours making more friends, sharing more stories and waiting patiently  for our names to be called out of the 100 of us who reported for our 2:30 appointment.

I learned and reflected on many things.  First that “what is, is” as my former associate, Susan Kennard used to say.  Secondly, don’t panic, take a deep breath, slow down, talk to the airline representatives, and develop a plan and stick with it.  I learned that if you are going to need a one day turn around passport, Houston is a really, really good place to need one.  I was also reminded that no time is wasted and that everything that happens to us helps to make us who we are, reminds us that none of us is perfect and that we all can and will make mistakes and that maybe, just maybe this will help us to be less judgmental and more understanding of others.

It reminds me of the maxim, “If you want to  hear God laugh, just tell God your plans.”

Unplanned, well spent time can truly be a gift from God.

This Is My Commandment: Love One Another As I Have Loved You

“This Is My Commandment:

That You Love One Another As I Have Loved You”

AS I preached this as a sermon on “Mother’s Day,” It occurred to me, as it almost always does, that Mother’s Day is NOT an official church occasion, but that the love most of our mothers had or have for us may help us understand Jesus’ command to love one another as he loves us, as God loves us.  So let’s reflect a little bit on our mothers’ love for us.  First, our mothers loved us before we loved them, in fact before we even knew what mothers were or what love was.  Secondly, a mother’s love is unconditional.  Mothers love us no matter what we do.  They may be disappointed by some of our actions, they may even be heartbroken when we do things they never dreamed we could do.  The good news about this is, among other good news, is that when we did really dumb, even stupid things in high school, they did not abandon us or throw us out on the street. 

This is the kind of love Jesus is talking about in the Gospel of John 15:9-17 when he proclaims, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love. . . I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and so that your joy may be complete. . .This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,”

Jesus then says something very interesting, very motherly, if you will: “you did not choose me, but I chose you.”  This to me is one of the greatest assurances that God loves all of us, regardless of race, religion or lack of religion, political belief or our sins.  What a blessing that the God who created us, all of us, loves us just as our mothers love us: without reservation, second guessing or favoritism.

As I reflect on Jesus’ new commandment, I am reminded of Psalm 98 where the psalmist begins by proclaiming, “Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord has done marvelous things.”  Truly, God has given us a New Song, A New Commandment, and, to quote my Lutheran Pastor Friend and Civil Rights activist, Robert Graetz, “God has given us a New Word for a new day.”

God has given us the scriptures as a “family story,” and as a guide, but Scripture is not the end of the conversation, it is simply a part of the ongoing conversation between God and God’s people.  God continuously goes beyond what we believe to be the limits of God’s Kingdom to include others.  In The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 10, we hear that “the Spirit fell upon all who heard the word, even on the Gentiles.”  Peter then proclaims, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  The Spirit has gone beyond the confines of the church and bestowed its blessings on outsiders.

What I believe this means for us as Christians is that we first become friends of Jesus, and only then can we become friends with each other.  I believe this means we face the world with open scriptures and open hearts, with, as H. Richard Niebuhr proclaimed in the 1950’s and 1960’s, we face the world with the Bible in one hand and the Newspaper in the other.

As the people of God, our world becomes more complicated.  Once we have become friends with the Jesus who chose us first and loved us first, then we are called “to love one another as Jesus loved us.”  This is true, even when we disagree with other Christians over so many things: immigration, same sex marriage and relationships, war and peace, who God saves and who God does not save, and. . .you fill in the blank!  If our faith does not deal with these issues and in this way, it is not a faith worth having.

Whatever our disagreements, we stand at the same altar and receive the same “body and blood of Jesus Christ.”  This can lead us to share our differing beliefs respectfully and to work together to reduce the rhetoric, anger and hate in our society as a whole.

So, Jesus says, “this is my commandment, that you agree, that you be conservative, that you be liberal, that you be perfect, that you be correct all the time, that you defend God.” NO! 

 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you, PERIOD!” 

That you love one another just as your mothers love you! PERIOD!

The Law Written on Their Hearts

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.  Not like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, which they broke.  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people.  I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah, 31:31-34)

We, like the early Jews know the law as it is written.  We have read it, we have recited it and we have memorized it (sort of), and we, like the Jews, have broken it.  This law written on the heart is given to us by the presence of God, the Spirit.  The God who moved over the waters at creation, the Spirit who filled Jesus at his baptism and led him into the wilderness and protected him.

This same God will protect us in our own personal wildernesses.  The wildernesses of divorce, division, anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, jobs, and money.  This God will be with us when we are angry and frustrated and envious of those who have more than we have.  This God will be with us in our prejudice and contempt of those who are different from us or have less than we have.

This law comes from the God we experience.  It is not a law written on stone or paper, it is written within our lives and on our hearts.  It is the law of God, the Spirit, which moved over the waters at our baptisms.  It is the law of the God who allows us to be buried with Christ in His death and raised with Him in His resurrection.  This is the law that we learn through our experience of the living God.

Several years ago, when I was the Rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans, we welcomed a new family into the church.  The couple had moved from Florida to New Orleans for better medical care for the young wife who had had breast cancer for seven years.  When I visited them for the first time, I asked the woman if she would like to be anointed for healing.  She responded that yes she would and that when she was in Florida, the priest had anointed her during worship.  My first thought, was, why didn’t I think of that?  I then responded that I liked the idea and that I believed we could make that happen.  The first time we included this sacrament of healing in our worship, seventy-five percent of the congregation came forward for the sacrament of healing.  This continued for the remaining eight years I served this congregation.  The presence of the Holy Spirit was tangible.  God’s presence was real and life changing.  The experience of God, the law written on our hearts!

We also see God writing the law of life and salvation on our hearts through the life and ministry of Jesus.  Jesus says, “and now my soul is troubled.  What should I say—Father, save me from this hour?  No, it is for this reason that I came to this hour. . . .and I, when I am lifted up from the Earth will draw all people to myself.” (John 12: 20-33)

I want to go out on a limb and suggest the possibility that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was designed to draw all people to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or to God as Spirit and Truth.  Lent is a wonderful time for Christians to reflect on this possibility.  I believe that God is bigger than we are.  I truly believe that God loves all of creation and that Jesus’ life is a sacrament, an action of God that requires no action from us.  If God truly loves God’s creation, then it makes sense that God loves all people. 

Our baptismal covenant affirms what we read in scripture.  In it we are asked, “will you seek and serve Christ in All persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”  Next we are asked, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”  We answer both of these questions, “I will with God’s help!” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 305)

As God spoke through the prophet, Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; I will be there God and they will be my people.  I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”  (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

Lent, A Time for Thanksgiving

Seeing ourselves Through God’s Eyes

Lent, A Time for Thanksgiving

I know that the idea of Lent as a time of thanksgiving may sound strange to some who understand this season of the Christian Year as a time for repentance and of giving up something that you really like with the belief that the sacrifice will make us better people or better Christians or at least stronger people.  So first, some of my history and then a look at The Litany of Penitence from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, page 267, the Ash Wednesday Liturgy.  This is a powerful exercise in prayer and reflection, which every year changes me for the better and forces/allows me to see the world and myself in a different way.

First, my history!  I lived for sixteen years in New Orleans, “the Big Easy,” “The City that Care Forgot,” home of everything from strippers to shrimp, from Mafia, to Mardi Gras, the largest two-week street party in the country.  As an Episcopal Priest and a person who enjoys “blooming where I am planted,” I participated in Mardi Gras “to the fullest:” parties and parades, crawfish and cocktails, Boudin and Bloody Marys, music and dancing, music and marching, music and…well, MUSIC!

So, by the time the clock struck midnight on Fat Tuesday and the police herded the last of the revelers off Bourbon Street, I was so ready for Ash Wednesday, for rest and reflection, and (as the prayer book says) “amendment of life,” that I was overjoyed with feelings of thanksgiving, not to mention the need to sleep just a little.  Simply put, Mardi Gras, at its best, prepares us not only for repentance, but also for the time and space for reflection and an awareness of the beauty of life and all of the people and events and opportunities in our lives for which we are thankful.

The other reason I have for giving thanks on Ash Wednesday is the opportunity to pray the Litany of Penitence.  I find that, through praying this prayer, I can focus on my relationships to God and to other people as well as my relationship with myself.  Before I share the entire Litany with you (thanks to the Book of Common Prayer) I want to reflect on my two favorite petitions from this prayer and leave them with you for your own reflection and thanksgivings.

These two petitions ask me to look at myself, at how I live my life and at how I treat others.

We confess to you, Lord, our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.

These two petitions are so important to me because they reflect the way (at my worst) I deal with other people, all of whom are Children of God.  I either believe I am better than they are because they have more and, therefore, either do not share appropriately, gained it dishonestly, or simply believe they are better than I am because they do have more.  Or, I believe I am better than they are because I have more or am better educated (or certainly understand the world better) or, I believe that if they would just work harder, they would not be so different and we just might get along better (once they were more like me than different from me).

I leave you with these brief reflections and the entire Litany for your prayer and reflection.  I pray that it will lead you to live into Lent as a time of Thanksgiving as well as a time of Penitence.

Litany of Penitence

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

The Celebrant continues

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and
strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We
have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved
your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the
pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation
of other people,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those
more fortunate than ourselves,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and
our dishonesty in daily life and work,
We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to
commend the faith that is in us,
We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our
indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our
neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those
who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of
concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

The Bishop, if present, or the Priest, stands and, facing the people, says

Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn
from their wickedness and live, has given power and
commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to
his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of
their sins. He pardons and absolves all those who truly
repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.

Therefore we beseech him to grant us true repentance and his
Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do on
this day, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure
and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Have a Blessed and Thankful Lent!

Ben

Epiphany--Making Visible

For many of us who call ourselves Christians, the season of Epiphany, which falls between Christmas Season and Lent is one of the most important seasons of the year.  The reason the season is so important for Christians and the Christian faith is the meaning of the word Epiphany itself.  Epiphany means to make manifest or to make known or perhaps even, to make visible.  The Gospel readings for the Sunday’s of Epiphany are selected to demonstrate to today’s Christians’ the ways in which Jesus showed himself to the people of his day and time.

We easily remember the most obvious: the Wise Men at the House bringing gifts to the baby and good news to his parents of God’s favor.  The baptism of Jesus which we celebrate on the second Sunday of the Epiphany and the declaration to the Samaritan woman at the well that he is, in fact, the Messiah for whom she and her people are waiting.

There are many other manifestations of Jesus as Christ and Messiah and I want to share just a few of them with you from the first Chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

Beginning with the verse of chapter one, Jesus and his disciples enter the synagogue in Capernaum in order for Jesus to teach.  The scripture doesn’t tell us what he taught, I wish it did, but it does tell us that the people were astounded because, Jesus taught as one with authority, and not as a scribe.  I have to assume that whatever he taught and however he said it was so powerful that the people knew they were in the presence of a person very different from any they had ever encountered in worship.  As if this wasn’t enough, a man with an unclean spirit recognized Jesus when the others there did not.  He said, “what have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  Jesus ordered the demon to leave the man, which he did and the people were even more impressed.  The people saw Jesus’ authority and power and knew that something was different about him.  His presence and his actions in the synagogue had been an Epiphany, a manifestation of the presence of God in the world and in their lives.

This passage is situated between two other passages in Mark which show the way God acts in the world through Jesus: The first is Jesus’ calling of the first four disciples and telling them that they will no longer catch fish but that they will become fishers of people.  Jesus will teach them, how to bring about the kingdom of God in this world.  The lesson which follows our passage is Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, after which she gets up and feeds Jesus and the disciples giving them the energy and strength and power to heal all the sick and all those possessed of demons.  Surely Jesus’ presence changes us, surely his presence changes the world.

How wonderful that the Gospel shows us many epiphanies of Jesus to the people of his day.  I believe this prepares us to receive the epiphanies God gives to us in our own day.   Jesus has shown himself to the world in these manifestations.  After healing Peter’s mother-in-law Jesus goes out to “heal all the sick and those possessed with demons.”  If we reflect on the portion of  the Gospel of Mark we have talked about today, it seems to me that Jesus is particularly present in the actions of teaching, healing and freeing.  Now, as then, Jesus heals us and frees us from the chains that bind us:  physical, mental, emotional and spiritual and then teaches us how to live a new life of freedom and trust.

Jesus heals us in many ways: the power of the holy spirit directly, the wisdom and knowledge given to physicians, therapists, and other health care professionals, medication developed for physical, mental and emotional diseases and disorders, and the love and prayers of friends and family as well as our own faith communities.   I share with you two stories of healing which changed my life and my faith.

Many years ago, when I was serving as a priest in New Orleans, I was in the hospital to be with an 80 year old, dying man and his wife.  These were two wonderful people whom I had come to love, and who had been married for well over fifty years.  The husband, who had been a Roman Catholic (this is important) was in a coma, dying of kidney failure.  I cautiously asked the wife if I could anoint him for healing, explaining that healing sometimes meant leaving your pain behind and going to be in the “nearer presence of God.”  She agreed, and she held her husband’s hand as I anointed him and prayed that God would heal him, even if that healing was his earthly death.  Before being anointed he was agitated and anxious and not at peace at all.  After I anointed him he squeezed his wife’s had, relaxed his entire body and simply died.  Later, out in the hall, the wife looked at me and asked if I had seen what happened. I said that I had and she told me that she truly felt God’s presence in their lives in that moment.  I too felt God’s presence in all of our lives, God’s manifestation, God’s showing, God’s Epiphany.

The next incident was the first “healing service” we held at St. George’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans In the late nineties.   Believing that God desires our healing and having a liturgy in our prayer book for healing, the worship team decided to add a healing service once a month during our regular worship time on Sunday.  The genesis for this was the presence of a young woman in our congregation with breast cancer.  I had asked her if she would like to be anointed for healing during worship.  She replied that she had been anointed in her former church in Florida and would like for St. George’s to do this as well.  If you know the history of this sacrament in the Episcopal Church, you know that it is usually done on a weekday at an inconvenient time and that less than a handful of people participate.  When I introduced the sacrament, I explained that people were invited to come up to be anointed for healing:  for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing.  The wording of the invitation changed the whole perception of this wonderful and powerful sacrament.  From a practical standpoint, we were also blessed to have two priests and a deacon to assist with the anointing.  To my surprise, three-quarters of the congregation come for healing.  After the anointing for healing, when I moved back to the altar to begin the Eucharistic prayer, I was so spiritually and physically drained that It was very difficult to complete our worship.  What happened that day was best described by a member of the congregation who told me afterward that it felt as if a “bucket of Peace” had been poured on her head and had run down her body to her toes.

That may well have been the most powerful experience of the presence of the risen Christ I have ever had in my life.  This continued to be a monthly epiphany that changed the congregation and brought us all into the presence of God.

These are just two examples of how Jesus the Christ manifested himself in us in ways that changed us and then sent us out into the world “rejoicing in the power and the presence of the Holy spirit.”

The Holy Family, Our Holy Families

The Holy Family, Our Holy Families

So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. . . . After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:15-21)

Jesus was raised in a family because it is the only way any of us can grow to be fully human, much less, perfectly human.  Even as “Son of God, Son of Man," Jesus did not come into the world with the full knowledge and wisdom of a full grown adult, much less with the full knowledge of God.  He had to develop physically, morally, emotionally and spiritually at each stage of his life.  So when we hear the words from the beloved second verse of Away in a Manger:  “The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.”  We should probably assume that we are looking at art and not child rearing. 

Jesus’ growth to maturity took place in the context of a human family.  The author, Ann Rice, after her re-conversion to Roman Catholicism wrote a very interesting and thoughtful novel, The Christ, Out of Egypt.  The book is a modern day midrash, an imaginative expansion, of the Biblical story of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and their extended family moving from Egypt back to Nazareth after the death of King Herod.  Along the way Jesus hears stories from his mother and father, aunts and uncles about his birth and the stories tied to that birth about shepherds and wise men and blessings in the Temple.  In this book, Ms. Rice helps us to think about Jesus’ budding understanding of God’s purpose for him in this life and of what this means for him and for the people in his life.

Jesus and his family suggest a pattern for us and our children and grandchildren.  The Christian family can also be the context in which we grow to physical, mental , emotional and spiritual maturity.  This is true in our personal families as well as in that entity which we at times refer to as “our church family.”  Though at times comparing a church or a congregation to a family can open us up to some of the same pathologies that other families have, it can, in fact, give us a useful way to see ourselves in relation to God and to other people.  St. Paul in his letter to the church at Galatia says that “Christians are adopted as full sons and daughters of God.” (Galatians 4:4-7).  This would make us all God’s children and brothers and sisters with one another and with Jesus, suggesting that God has no grandchildren, but only children.  This is actually a very healthy way to look at what it means to be in right relationship with God and with each other.  We are all brothers and sisters and therefore all members of the same family.  I believe that this applies not only to those of us who consider ourselves to be Christians, but to all who see themselves as children of God and related to the rest of God’s children on this planet of over seven billion souls.

Paul goes on to state that “we are heirs and family members in the Kingdom of God.”  As members of the Kingdom there are opportunities open to all of us.  We invite others to hear the good news of God’s love to us; we share with them about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and our part in that mystery.  We hope and pray for the restoration of peace and justice in the world and between people and nations who are estranged.  We have the opportunity to assist those in need of food, clothing and shelter, whether they are or ever become members of our or any other Christian community in the world.  We do this without regard to race, creed, color, national origin or legal status in this or any other nation.  The fact is, Jesus’ Mission was NOT to make Christians of all people, BUT to feed, cloth, shelter, liberate all people, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

So, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people.  This new year, this time of new beginnings may well provide a wonderful opportunity for your family, your congregation,  to grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and all people.

As we begin this journey together, "May the Lord bless us and keep us, may the lord make his face to shine upon on us and be gracious to us, may God lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace.” (Numbers 6:22-27)