Spiritual Hiccups - Do As I Say

One of the buzzwords among those who talk about congregational vitality and renewal is integrity.  In other words, make sure people who visit your congregation see you living out what you say you believe.  The charge that religious people are hypocrites has been around as long as I can remember, but in an age when religious participation is no longer expected of people, this notion that Christians are hypocrites becomes more of a burden for congregations.  Integrity casts off this burden by working diligently to have our actions match our words.

Jesus speaks of this in today's gospel. A father tells his two sons to go and work in the vineyard.  One says "Yes," but does not go, while the other says, "No," but later does go.  Jesus is addressing religious leaders, and he clearly casts them as those who get the words right but fail to do what they should.

It strikes me that pastors are often judged more on our words than on our actions.  In many congregations, members "know" the pastor primarily from her or his presence in worship.  And traditionally, much of seminary training is focused on getting the words right.  Do we know how to carefully study a passage of Scripture, including studying its words in their original Hebrew or Greek?  Do we know our theology and doctrines?  Can we piece together a compelling sermon?

Without minimizing the importance of any of these, it is entirely possible to talk the talk without walking the walk.  I recently read an article about a support group for atheist pastors.  These pastors at one point felt a call to ordained ministry, but somewhere along the way they lost their faith.  Yet not having other marketable skills, they have remained pastors out of "financial necessity."  That they are able to continue serving congregations with no one being the wiser says something about what those congregations expect of their pastors.

I've never felt a pull to become an atheist, but I do know how to encourage people to be more faithful without necessarily listening to that message myself.  I know how to call people to trust their lives to God, all the while while acting like the congregation's successes or failures are purely a matter of my leadership and competence. 

I feel that I have grown deeper spiritually in recent years, yet I can still neglect the walk.  Those moments when things are going poorly, when I have way too much to do, or when I'm unsure what I should do, are often the very moments when I pray less (too busy) and rely on my own insights rather than seeking God's will.

I think that is why I am fond of Advent. (Advent understood as a waiting attentiveness to God's presence rather than a warmup for Christmas.)  The waiting, watchful, attentive pose of Advent helps me refocus and become open to the transforming work of the Spirit that shapes me more and more for a life of integrity that matches the words.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition

I hope it isn't simply a "liberal bias" that makes me scratch my head in bewildered puzzlement when people who say that America's troubles arise from our failing to be a Christian nation also consider military spending to be something sacred.  Which is it, we trust in God to secure us, or we trust in military might?

Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,
     the people whom he has chosen as his heritage...
A king is not saved by his great army; 
     a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.  
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
          and by its great might it cannot save.

These words from Psalm 33 are echoed in other biblical passages that insist military might cannot save.  And when the prophet Amos speaks against Israel in today's Old Testament reading, it is clear that no amount of military power or might will be able to stave off the forces that will soon surround them.  "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: An adversary shall surround the land, and strip you of your defense; and your strongholds shall be plundered."  No amount of human power will thwart God's will.

But the sort of faith that proclaims trust in God while insisting that spectacular military might is necessary to protect us is hardly restricted to one side of the political spectrum.  How easy it is to proclaim faith in Jesus, to speak of following the good shepherd, all the while anxiously seeking to secure happiness and fulfillment through the very things Jesus shuns.  Jesus says to us, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or your body, what you will wear... Instead, strive for God's kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."  Yet I can worry with the best of them: about money, about success, about what people think of me, or what could go wrong.  

I suppose that I and many other people of faith are not too different from those first disciples of Jesus.  We are drawn to him.  We recognize something in him that we cannot find anywhere else.  But when following Jesus gets difficult, we often scatter, just as those disciples did when Jesus was arrested.  In our own ways, we deny him, just as Peter once did.

Of course the colossal failures of those first disciples did not stop Jesus from sending them out in his name after the Resurrection.  Those fearful, timid disciples were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Jesus, in this season of Advent, come to us in the power of the Spirit.  Transform and empower us to live as the body of Christ in the world.

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Spiritual Hiccups - I Am Not a Number!

In today's Old Testament reading, the prophet Amos speaks God's word of judgment against Israel saying, "I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals — they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way."  That line, "the needy for a pair of sandals," appears again later in Amos.  Amos is perhaps best know for his words that speak of God's hating Israel's festivals and worship, a condemnation that ends with the calls to "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."  But for me, one of the more memorable lines in the Bible has always been, "the needy for a pair of sandals."

Amos clearly has little use for the wealthy and powerful who see the poor and needy as nothing more than assets to be used, items by which they can further enrich themselves.  But of course economics often wants to reduce individuals to assets, to view them not as human beings but as resources.  Whether it is the use of sweatshop labor or large scale corporate layoffs driven by short term profits, people often become simply numbers on a spreadsheet.  Even the use of the term "human resources" as a substitute for "personnel" locates people on a balance sheet along with other raw materials used in production.  

When I was growing up, there was a very strange TV show called "The Prisoner" which enjoyed a very brief run but attracted a loyal following.  In the show the lead character had somehow been captured and held in a secluded community where everyone had a number.  The plot line of the show consisted of his refusal to be absorbed into this culture and his continual efforts to escape.  I was only 10 or so when it was on, but I still remember a line this prisoner spoke.  "I am not a number!"

"Thus says the LORD, for three transgressions and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and see the needy as nothing more than a number."  Over and over the prophets of the Bible, along with that New Testament prophet named Jesus, insist that God does not see people as numbers, and that God has a special concern for the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, and the needy.  Jesus does not speak of bringing good news to the rich or powerful, but of good news to the poor and release to the captive.

The Church sometimes plays the numbers game, speaking of salvation as though it were another form of economics, with balance sheets where divine accounting takes place.  But Jesus views people as people, as those he reaches out to touch, heal, and make whole.  And like the prophets before him, he saves his ire for those who do not see others as the beloved of God, who do not extend a loving hand to those who are hurting, are broken, or have lost their way.

Jesus, thank you for not seeing me as a number, for loving me and calling me to a new and better life.  Help me to see others as you see me.

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Sermon text - Wide Awake

Mark 13:24-37

Wide Awake

James Sledge                                  November 27, 2011 – Advent 1

When I was a young boy, I’m not sure if there was anything more exciting to me than the arrival of Christmas.  Way back then, Sears still mailed out a big Christmas catalogue.  And when it arrived at our house, my brother Ron and I grabbed it and began going through it, looking for items that we might want for Christmas.  I think that for us, the arrival of that catalogue signaled the real beginning of the Christmas season, a more important marker than decorations in the stores, Christmas music and so on.

We went through that Sears catalogue over and over, dreaming of all the wonderful gifts we might get.  Then we eventually settled on what seemed reasonable actually to ask for.  Then we had to wait.  But finally, after what seemed like forever, the house was decorated and presents were wrapped and put under the tree, and Christmas Eve would arrive.

My household was one of those “Nothing gets opened until Christmas morning” homes.  And so the evening of Christmas Eve was filled with more anticipation than any other time of year.  Before bedtime my Father would read The Night Before Christmas, along with the nativity story from Luke’s gospel.  And then we would go to bed.

We would go to bed, but we didn’t go to sleep.  Ron was just a year younger than me, and the two of us shared a bedroom.  And how could we possibly go to sleep knowing what was about to happen.  Somehow the living room was miraculously going to fill with many of those toys we had asked for.  And since we shared a room, each of us reinforced and amplified the other’s excitement and anticipation.  We thought every creak or sound might be reindeer on the roof or Santa coming down the chimney.  And our parents would have to stick their heads in the door repeatedly, urging us to be quiet and go to sleep if we wanted Santa to show up.  But it was so hard to settle down, so hard to fall asleep.

I still enjoy Christmas Eve, though it doesn’t hold quite the same level of excitement or anticipation that it did all those years ago.  And so I usually go to sleep without much trouble.  But other times when I am really excited about something, really anxious or worried, or really anticipating some big event, I can still find it very difficult to get to sleep.

“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”  So Jesus says to us this morning.  Quite the opposite of my parents’ words to Ron and me, “Go to sleep!” Jesus urges his followers to stay awake.  If my parents had told us, “Keep awake,” we probably never would have gone to sleep.  Jesus clearly was dealing with a very different problem.

Modern day Christians don’t have much appreciation for this, but in Jesus’ day, most Jews assumed that the arrival of God’s Messiah would usher in a new age, something so wonderful it would be like Christmas morning every day.  The prophets had spoken of it, a day when people would beat their swords into plowshares… the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

But that had not happened quite as people expected.  Jesus had come, died, and been raised, but the world still looked the same.  The very first Christians assumed that this was a very short delay, a brief window where they could share the good news with the world.  But the window would close when Jesus returned.  And if you read the letters of Paul, it is clear he thought that would happen within his lifetime.

In our gospel today, Jesus warns against such assumptions.  The final closing of this age and the coming of a new one are known only to the Father.  And so we should not listen to those who claim to have figured it out.  When God’s day begins to arrive in full, no one will be able to miss it.  It will be as clear as the arrival of Spring.  Until then, we must simply stay alert and keep awake.

But while staying awake when you are giddy with excitement is easy, it is less so when you don’t know when the moment you are awaiting will arrive.  When one day looks a lot like the next, it can become more and more difficult. 

I suppose that is why some Christians are forever ignoring what Jesus says and trying to figure out the timing of his return.  Harold Camping’s rather spectacular failure earlier this year was only the latest in a long history of such failed predictions.  Camping’s prediction – at least the one back in May of this year – generated the sort of anticipation and excitement among his followers that my brother and I felt at Christmas.  People quit jobs, sold or gave away property and homes in expectation of the rapture Camping promised was coming.  But just as Jesus said, such predictions are inevitably wrong, for no one knows the day or hour.

Today, another season of Advent opens, and the anticipation of another Christmas begins.  As with Harold Camping’s predictions, we know exactly the date and time for Christmas.  We have a lot of stuff to do to get ready, and we may struggle to get it all done, but Christmas will not catch us off guard.  We will be ready when it arrives.  Perhaps that is why Advent had become almost entirely about getting ready for Christmas.  After all, how do we get ready for something we do not fully understand, that comes at an unknown day and hour?

I actually think that this question grapples with some fundamental issue about the nature of faith.  Think about that for a moment.  What is faith?  What does it mean when we say that we have faith? 

The fact that Protestant Christianity grew up alongside the Enlightenment and the Scientific Age probably contributed to the notion of faith as largely about information.  And our focus on faith rather than works seemed create a new sort of work, believing the right things, knowing the correct information. 

But as worked up as people can get about right beliefs; as hard as some may work to convince others of them, a growing number of people seem to have become disenchanted with such notions of faith.  Rather than wanting to know the right beliefs, they want to know, “What difference does faith make in how I live?  What difference does it make in how I experience life?”  And while an Advent that only gets ready for another Christmas may believe the right things what once happened long ago, I’m not sure it knows what to say to those who wonder what difference any of this is supposed to make.

Most all of us are familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  But where did that dream come from?  For King it emerged from a deep life of faith and prayer.  His faith was not simply information he believed correct.  Rather it was a deep connection to God and the promises of God that looked forward to something new and wonderful.  You can have all the right information, and not dream the dream.  The dream is a transforming hope that is known and felt despite evidences to the contrary.  It drives people to live and act in ways that anticipate the dream’s fulfillment, to be wide awake with anticipation even though the day and the hour are unknown.

In his last speech, just one day before he was assassinated, King said, “I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.  So I'm happy tonight.  I'm not worried about anything.  I'm not fearing any man.” 

That’s Advent faith.  That’s wide-awake faith that lives expectantly for a day with no announced arrival.  You could memorize the Bible and know every theological doctrine Presbyterians hold dear, and be no nearer to such a faith.  Such faith comes only when Jesus abides in us, when the Holy Spirit transforms us, when we become so connected to God that God’s hopes and dreams for a new day begin to become ours.

It’s Advent once more.  We light Advent candles and get ready for Christmas like we do every year.  Some of us have done it so many times we could do it in our sleep.  But Jesus says, “Keep awake.” 

Jesus, come and dwell with us.  Let us see the promised land of your new day, that we may get ready for it, work for it, and anticipate its coming like excited children on Christmas Eve.  Come, Lord Jesus.

Spiritual Hiccups - Gratitude and Praise

O sing to the LORD a new song;
     sing to the LORD, all the earth. 
Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
     tell of his salvation from day to day.  
Declare his glory among the nations,
     his marvelous works among all the peoples.  
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
     he is to be revered above all gods. 
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
     but the LORD made the heavens. 

There was an interesting article in The New York Times yesterday on gratitude.  It referenced research on gratitude that demonstrates how practicing gratitude actually has health benefits that are scientifically measurable.  People who made weekly entries in a "gratitude journal," listing five things they were grateful for, reported being happier and more optimistic than a control group who kept no such journal.  They also reported less physical ailments and exercised more.  In addition, the fell asleep easier, slept longer, and awoke more refreshed.


Gratitude and praise are closely related.  Genuinely praising God comes out of a gratitude for the goodness and blessing of God.  Gratitude and praise are not about getting something from God.  They are responses to what God has already done.  Very often, religious practice gets this mixed up.  It becomes something done to get a benefit, whether it be salvation, blessings, answered prayer, or some other desire.  This sort of religion worships one of the "gods of the peoples" noted in the psalm, idols that can be managed for out benefit.

But true praise and gratitude have no such utilitarian purposes.  Rather they acknowledge the reality of God's goodness and providence.  And as the research in that NY Times article pointed out, gratitude is a practice that can be picked up and learned.  When we take time to look around at all the gifts we have received, we can become more grateful people and, it turns out, much happier people.

Tomorrow many of us will pause between the food, football, and start of Christmas shopping to give thanks.  But perhaps we should also begin a more regular practice of giving thanks.  What are you thankful for?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Fully Alive

When I read and savor Scripture, not planning to write a sermon or teach a class, I frequently find myself drawn to something that I had not noticed before.  That happened today with the reading from Matthew.  A rich young man asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  I already knew how Jesus would answer, but for some reason it had never occurred to me how this answer seems at odds with some basic Christian assumptions.  "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”Nothing about believing in Jesus.  Nothing about faith.  Simply, "keep the commandments." 

Of course the story doesn't end there.  The young man says that he has kept the commandments, and considering that Jesus doesn't dispute this, I'm inclined to take it as a statement of fact.  (It is worth noting that keeping the commandments doesn't necessarily mean never making a mistake or slipping up.  It means being committed to keeping them, confessing when you fail, and continually striving to follow them.  It's likely this understanding that allows the Apostle Paul to say of himself, "as to the law, blameless.")

And so it seems this young man has kept the commandments Jesus says will let him "enter into life," but for some reason he feels this is insufficient.  "What do I still lack?"  Despite his initial question being about eternal life, he is unsatisfied with being told he is doing what is required.  For some reason, he feels there must be something more.

"If you wish to be perfect..."  I'm not sure the translators do us any favors with the word perfect.  The word conjures up notions of impossible flawlessness, complete purity without defect.  We all know that "No one is perfect."  But the Greek word translated perfect has to do with attaining an end or purpose.  The word could be translated complete, whole, or even mature.  In essence, Jesus seems to being saying to this fellow, "If you truly wish to be fully human, to become what you were created to be, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

A lot of us who are religious strike me as being a bit like this young man.  We meet our religious obligations and presume we are included on the heavenly guest list.  But quite often, we get the feeling that we are missing something.  We are not quite complete, fulfilled, and whole.  We are looking for something more, but like this rich young man, we struggle to trust that Jesus knows the way.  We simply cannot imagine that loving our enemy, losing our lives for the sake of the kingdom, or giving up very much of what we have will make us fully alive.  Our culture has done too good a job of teaching us that to be complete and fully alive, we need more, lots more.

Our world is full of spiritually hungry people who realize they are missing something.  But conditioned by our consumerist culture, they presume this longing they feel can only be satisfied with something more.  Thus they imagine religion to be just another consumer item.  And all too often, we in the Church present faith to them as such. 

On the week of Thanksgiving, when many of us will revel in an unbelievable abundance of food, then head for the malls in a consumerist frenzy, it is perhaps a counter-cultural act of faith to contemplate what we need to give up in order to be whole and complete.  Lord, what do I still lack?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Anxious and Busy

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
     from God comes my salvation.
God alone is my rock and my salvation,
     my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

For better or worse, pastors in Protestant Churches are often viewed as the CEO of the congregation.  People look to the pastor for direction and leadership.  And while pastors do have a critical leadership role to play, the CEO model sometimes builds congregations too much in the pastor's image and undermines the notion that Christ alone is Head of the Church.

Pastors seeing themselves as corporate CEOs can also be a great anxiety producer.  If the congregation rises or falls on my skills as a CEO, then it all depends on me.  I had better do the right things, say the right things, give the correct instructions, run the institution efficiently and effectively, organize the structures for optimum performance, and so on, or things could go badly.  And I suspect that this sort of thinking is one of the reasons that pastors report significantly higher levels of stress in their work than they did a generation ago.

One of the things I have learned as a pastor is that stress and anxiety make me a much worse leader.  When I am anxious, I tend to be more reactive.  Under the right (wrong?) conditions, anxiety can morph into upset and even anger.  Anxiety also leads to a kind of frantic busyness.  There is never enough time to get it all done; never enough hours in the day.  A common lament among pastors is how this busyness squeezes out time for prayer, time for quietness and silence, time for stillness and Sabbath. 

Congregations sometimes encourage pastoral busyness.  I recently heard a story about a church member who came to see the pastor during the week and was told that the pastor was in time of prayer not to be disturbed unless it was a dire emergency.  The member insisted on seeing the pastor, and informed him that he should pray on his own time.

Of course such pastoral busyness cuts us off from God and makes leadership more about us and less about Jesus.  If prayer is not part of a pastor's work, how on earth will that work be attuned to Christ's call?  And how will our leadership call others to a deeper, fuller relationship with Jesus?  How will congregations be places people come to learn a deep faith and spirituality, if the pastors are too busy to wait silently for God?

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Sermon text - Vision Problems

Matthew 25:31-46

Vision Problems

James Sledge                             November 20, 2011 – Christ the King

There are a number of fairy tales and fables where a king, a wizard, or someone of great wealth travels about incognito in order to mingle among the common people.  In many of these the clothing of a beggar is the disguise of choice.  So dressed, the king asks some subject, “Could you spare a morsel of food for a poor beggar?” 

The hero of such fables is invariably a good and kind-hearted peasant who has almost nothing, but who willingly shares what little he has with this person he thinks to be a destitute beggar.  Only later does the peasant discover the truth when he is richly rewarded for his kindness.

Such tales sometimes include another person who treats the supposed beggar badly.  When the beggar’s true identity is later revealed, it is too late.  Any kindness now shown is clearly motivated by the possibility of reward.

There is an old Jewish folk tale where a young rabbi wanted more than anything else to meet Elijah the prophet.  (Elijah, unlike other people in the Old Testament, had not died but had been taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.)  The father of this young rabbi told him that if he diligently studied the Torah with his whole heart, he would indeed meet Elijah.

The young rabbi studied diligently for a month, but did not meet Elijah.  He complained to his father, but the father only scolded his impatience and told him to keep studying.  One evening as the rabbi was hard at his studies, a tramp came to his door. 

The fellow was disgusting to look at; the young rabbi had never seen an uglier man in all his life.  Annoyed at having been interrupted by such an unsavory character, the rabbi shooed the man away and returned to his studying.

The next day his father came and asked if he had seem Elijah yet.  “No,” replied the son. 

“Did no one come here last night,” asked  the father. 

“Yes,” replied the rabbi.  “An old tramp.” 

“Did you wish him ‘shalom aleikhem’?” asked the father, referring to the traditional greeting meaning “Peace be upon you.”

“No,” said the rabbi.

“You fool,” cried his father.  “Didn’t you know that that was Elijah the Prophet? But now it’s too late.”  The tale goes on to say that for the rest of his life, the rabbi always greeted strangers with “Shalom aleikhem,” and treated them with great kindness.[1]

The parable of final judgment that Jesus tells us this morning is a bit like such folk tales, and like such tales, Jesus’ parable has long been used to encourage people to act with kindness and charity to those in need, to “the least of these.”  Used this way, the parable is a powerful reminder of how we should live and act, a reminder of Jesus’ call to love our neighbor as ourselves.

But I wonder if there is not more than moral encouragement here, more than a Christian ethic.  For starters, those judged in the parable are “the nations,” the ethnos in Greek.  Most other places in Matthew’s gospel this word refers to Gentiles, and at the very end of Matthew, Jesus will command his disciples and the Church to make disciples of all these nations or Gentiles.  And so one way to read this parable is that it speaks of the judgment of outsiders, non-believers who unwittingly minister to Jesus.  If this is so, then it makes sense that these Gentiles would be surprised to be counted among those who inherit the kingdom. 

But we Christians should not be caught off guard by this.  After all, Jesus lets us in on the secret right here.  And indeed as followers of Jesus we are privy to much information that outsiders may not know.  After all, we are joined to Christ.  We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We have been transformed so that we can see things from a different point of view, a spiritual point of view.  When the Spirit dwells in us we become something new.  We are made new in Christ as we experience the incarnation within us, as we live in and through Christ.

Last week we kicked off our annual food and toy drive as part of the Deacons’ Community Christmas Packages that will deliver food and gift certificates and presents for children’s to hundreds of needy families in our area.  This effort will be supported by many who are not part of this congregation, who see a need and want to help.  Perhaps some of them are among those Jesus will say to, “I was hungry, and you gave me food.”

But we need not wait until then to see Jesus face to face, to minister to Jesus and be ministered to by Jesus.  That face that you see at the apartment door when you deliver one of the Deacons’ baskets is the face of Jesus.  For that matter, the face next to you right now is the face of Jesus, as is the person next to you at work or at school, the person you see on the street or meet at the store.

“Whoa,” someone is no doubt thinking.  “Jesus is telling a parable.  It’s a metaphor, for goodness sake.”  But I don’t think so.  At the very core of our faith is God in the flesh.  We know God most fully as a human being, as a person who ate and drank and slept and sweated and burped and had body odor.  And when we say that we can’t possibly meet God in a single mom on food stamps, it seems to me we have the exact same vision problem that many religious folks in Jesus’ day had.  They couldn’t see God in Jesus because of who he was and how he acted.  He came from that God forsaken town of Nazareth, for heaven’s sake.  He went to parties and drank with riff raff and sinners.  No way he was the face of God.

I’m not sure we can actually see God’s face in unless the Holy Spirit gives us eyes that can see such things.  And I don’t think we can really see Jesus in the face of others unless the Spirit heals our vision problems. 

I suspect that most of us have known someone whose spiritual vision is better than ours.  We tend to think that such folk are just kinder than us, more sensitive and caring than us, and I guess there is some truth to that.  But I’m pretty sure that the folks like this that I know see better than I do.  They see someone hurting or in need, and they really see Jesus.  And in the strange ways of God, those people can actually meet Jesus in them.

In just a few minutes, we will ordain and install ruling elders and deacons to help guide us in living as the body of Christ.  The nominating committee, in identifying these people, carefully considered the gifts and abilities that  God would surely give to those called to such ministry.  As these elders and deacons answer Christ’s call today, I hope you will join me in holding them in prayer, asking the Spirit to equip and strengthen them for that calling.  But I think that most of all, my prayer will be that the Spirit gives them the eyes they need to see Jesus.

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[1] From “The Tramp” in Ellen Frankel, The Classic Tales: 4000 Years of Jewish Lore (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc. 1993) pp. 604-605.