This post comes as a much delayed thoughts on this past weeks lectionary. I am guilty of having not posted in a while and really want to get in the habit of transitioning into regular writing as I start to prepare for seminary.
This week JoAnna has arrived. Which marks yet another step towards seminary. I am caught in the excitement of going to school, moving to a “big city”, and starting what I believe is the most worthwhile calling in my life. But it scares me, a little because I know how hard a call to word and sacrament really is, but also because it means that i am complicating ties that i have in my life.
I was conversing with my dad earlier in the week and realized how truly difficult this weeks scripture was going to be to preach. The story of pitting father against son and Jesus wielding a sword like Braveheart is not really the image of Christ I readily choose as my favorite image. Faith is extremely divisive though, it pushes us to the edge of where we are comfortable and causes us to look at our life and really examine what is important to us.
I think that Jesus in these verses though was probably preparing us for how far the love of Christ really does push us. The message and hope that Christ brings to us in our lives is one of pure love. Love that compels us to be called to go find those who are the un-wanted, un-loved, and un-clean. It pushes us outside of our status quo to go out into the world and be the arms that comfort, the ear that hears, the love of God manifest on earth.
While that sounds good and simple how easy is it really? Homeless people smell, same sex couples challenge our conception of marriage, drug addicts can’t be trusted, illegal aliens don’t belong in this country…. I mean right? So maybe we should just stick to our status quo and let other people do it, after all we are saved by grace and not by actions. BY NO MEANS “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised form the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.” Paul’s letter to the Roman’s tells us exactly how we are supposed to act. We are compelled by grace through faith to go out into the world and be a part of building up the body of Christ.
It is in this process of being devoted to building up the body of Christ that we get lost sometimes and need help. Just like Hagar in Old Testament reading this week we hear how Hagar, one of Abraham’s slaves, bore him a son, is sent out into the wilderness away from the community. She leaves her son to die and God hears her desperate cries in the wilderness and has her lift up her son in the midst of the dessert and says that He will make a great nation out of him. God gives strength to Hagar even in the midst of seemingly overwhelming odds.
God gives us the tools for his ministry we just need to trust that he will bestow them on us. Just like i need to trust that God will provide in my life as i begin to surmount this incredibly expensive school with no salary to receive income from (can you tell i am freaking out just a little bit). I also need to trust that God will provide for my family. I also need to trust that God does love me even more then the sparrows in the field (or the one that apparently has made a nest in the potted plants in my deck). God’s message is important and if i want to be an instrument for him I need to be ready, so it’s off to blacksmith my sword, are you ready?
