In Memory

This morning I learned that one my roommates from college died.

Sarah Jo and I lived together in the dorms for the spring trimester of our junior year and then off campus, with our friend Sarah, our senior year. I remember sophomore year FRELON when she took the time before each performance to meticulously curl my hair for the line dance I was a part of.  I remember the treats that she would bring us when she returned from her long road trips home to Escanaba. I remember Grey's Anatomy nights our senior year.  Sarah Jo, Sarah and I would sit in our living room and spend the evening together.  Sometimes Sarah Jo and I would knit like old ladies, other times we would be working on homework, and still other times we didn't have anything to do but sit and watch tv. I remember our many trips to Q-doba, where she taught me the magic of ordering the nachos with the cheese on the side so the chips wouldn't get soggy.

We lost touch in the years after we graduated and, to be honest, I don't remember the last time we spoke.  I wish I had kept up with her.  Now she's left this life and we entrust her to God's care.  

Sarah Jo was a beautiful soul.  She was passionate about literature and poetry.  She stuck to her guns and her convictions.  She had a great laugh.  She will be missed.

But I know that one day we will meet again.  I don't know where her faith journey has taken her since we last spoke about it 8 years ago, but I trust that God's love is big enough and strong enough that one day I will see her again in the presence of God and all the other saints in heaven.  

Eternal rest grant Sarah Jo, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on her.  Amen.

Boycott

I'm boycotting Black Friday this year

There are multiple reasons for this...here are a couple:
1) Black Friday now interrupts Thanksgiving
2) I would rather support local businesses than the big chains
3) To be honest, being trampled is not on the list of things that I consider fun

For the first two Thanksgivings of our marriage, Chris and I negotiated what it meant to be a part of a family where one of the members works in retail.  This meant adjusting our schedule so that Chris could get enough sleep to make it through Black Friday eve.  Basically, we didn't get much of a Thanksgiving.  And while it was nice that Chris was making a bit extra for working on the holiday, I would have much rather had him home for the whole day.

I don't fault retailers for seizing on an opportunity to increase their profits. I don't fault consumers for wanting to benefit from what can be some pretty awesome deals.

HOWEVER -

I DO fault retailers for pulling their employees away from their families on Thanksgiving for the sake of the almighty dollar.

I DO fault consumers who choose to give in to the lure of the doorbuster deals to end Thanksgiving early.  Before all this opening on Thanksgiving craziness, the deals were just as good at 5am on Black Friday.

Look, I get that we live in an increasingly secular society.  But there is one day out of the year that regardless of your religious affiliation, or lack there of, we can all agree is a sacred day.  And that's Thanksgiving.  You don't need to believe in God to be thankful for what you have.  So why can't we go back a couple years and make a stand for Thanksgiving.  Make a stand for the one day of the year when folks can come together in whatever way makes the day special, whether it's around a turkey, or a ham, whether it's watching football and enjoying a beer or two, or doing your best to keep your cool with the in-laws (hey, I never said the day was perfect).

Go nuts on Black Friday, but leave Thanksgiving alone.

Please and Thank you.

What do we do with King Jesus? - A sermon for Christ the King Sunday

November 24, 2013

Luke 23:33-43

If there was ever a time to prove who he was, this was it.  This was his chance to show them once and for all that he really was the Messiah.  All he needed to do was to meet the challenges of the religious leader and the criminal at his side and come down off of the cross, saving himself from the pain and humiliation of crucifixion.  This was the ultimate and final temptation.  Come down off the cross.  Remove yourself from the pain.  Live out the rest of your life as your wish. 

As we observe the feast of Christ the King, we are taking part in a newer feast day on the church calendar, one that was not celebrated until 1925.  It was instated as a reaction to the increasingly nationalistic and secular trends that came about between World War I and World War II.  And the intent of the day was for the church to claim the rule of Christ, who regardless of kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, is truly the one whose reign trumps all human establishments and political entities. 

But we live in an age where most monarchs are now mostly figureheads.  And we live in a county where we haven’t been subjected to monarchy in a couple hundred years and for many, the terminology having to do with monarchy is a real turn off.  So what do we do when the one we called savior is presented to us as king?  We speak about Jesus so often as our friend, as someone who was just like you and me…and we spend so much time trying to fashion Jesus in our own image to justify how we live day in and day out, we want Jesus to be just like us…to look like us, drive the same brand of car we drive, root for the same football team that we root for…that to think of Jesus as king instead of one of the guys can be difficult.  Sure we love the good old hymns like Crown him with many Crowns, Jesus shall Reign, Rejoice, the Lord is King! And as we gear up for Advent and Christmas, maybe we will hear the Hallelujah Chorus a few times, which is always a delight….but this word King is so political.  It is divisive, even.  I mean, a King has the final say on how things are, so if the king goes one way and you go the other, you’re are out of luck. 

So how can we talk about a King who stands both with me and the person who disagrees with me? How do we deal with a King who would have no problems driving a either GM product or a Ford Product?  What do we do with a King that will root for both Michigan and Michigan State…or worse Ohio State?  Is that even possible? And so we stand mystified about how to proceed with this one that we call Christ the King…this King Jesus, who though he became a fully incorporated part of this world, rules a Kingdom that is not of this world, who stands with us and with those that we would rather he not stand with. 

And the further complication is - what do we do when we are presented with a king that doesn’t fit that stereotypical image of royalty?  What happens when the king that we are looking at would stick out like a sore thumb when placed among the likes of Caesar, The Queen of England, or the King of Jordan? 

It turns out that ours is a very unlikely king.  A very unkingly king in human terms.

Our king only wore the purple robes of a king once, when he was mocked and beaten…and he only wore one crown…one made of thorns.  And he was only called king as a form of mockery, in the sign that hung over him as he was nailed to the cross. 

As Jesus hung on the cross, he didn’t look like a king.  He looked like a criminal.  And yet, this  man, who was the child of the poor young woman Mary, who was born in a place that was anything but royal, who had no home to call his own, who lived among the poor and the outcast…This one we call King, our King.  And our king was an untraditional king.  He was a homeless king, he was a servant king, he was a king who threw out the rule book on what a king looks like and acts like, who a king eats with, who a king talks to, and how a king claims victory over his enemies. 

The truth is that our king is unlike any other king known in history.  Our king is a king who broke all the human rules on what it means to be a king and came up with a list of new list of rules that for us can seem dissonant…and at times even unsettling.  A set of compassionate, loving rules, that set King Jesus apart from the rest of the rulers of his time or any time before or since. 

Our king is a king who shows us the truth about who we are and then shows us a way of living better with one another.  Our king is a king who could have very well come down from the cross and raised up an army to vanquish his enemies for his own fame and power…but instead he chose a different path, gave up his power, and laid down his life so that both his enemies and his followers could know the mercy that is found in Jesus’ kingdom.

In the face of an Empire, who lived by the rule of retaliation and vengeance, Jesus proclaimed mercy, even in a moment where he was shown none.  Jesus could have called down a curse on those who put him on the cross, but instead of crying out in anger, Jesus cried out in mercy, asking forgiveness upon those who crucified him.

And if that wasn’t enough, in the midst of his suffering, Jesus is asked by one of the criminals to remember him in the kingdom.  Jesus could very well have ignored this plea in the midst of his agony.  But instead he promised the criminal a place with him in paradise, where there is freedom from the pain they were enduring in that moment, where there is forgiveness and mercy abundant. 

Jesus could have saved himself.  Jesus could have done what the people yelled at him to do and come down from the cross and proven to them that indeed he was the Messiah.  An earthly king might shout in pain and try to list reasons he didn’t deserve to be up there.  But Jesus doesn’t do that, instead he says “Father, forgive them.”  Instead of coming down from the cross, Jesus died on that cross.  Jesus died an innocent man between two criminals who, according to one of them were “getting what they deserved for their deeds” (Lk 23:41).  And through Jesus’ blood that was spilt on the cross that day, God made peace with humanity, says the writer of Colossians.  Through Jesus’ death and resurrection we have been rescued from darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col 1).  And in that kingdom, we have been placed under the rule of the one that Jeremiah spoke of as the righteous branch that was raised up for David, who reigns as king and deals wisely and executes justice and righteousness (Jer. 23).  For every time that we speak the words of our confession, we are taking the place of the second criminal who pleads “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And Jesus responds “truly I tell you, you will be with me in paradise.”  Jesus could have saved himself and come down from that cross, but instead he gave up his own life so that we might be saved and so that we might be with him in paradise.

Our king is not the traditional king.  He didn’t follow the rules about what kings look like or how kings act, but he wrote new rules. Rules of mercy and forgiveness and a promise of paradise.  

Doomsday Preppers - a Sermon for Pentecost 26

November 17, 2013

Luke 21:5-19

Have you ever seen the show on the Nat Geo Channel entitled Doomsday Preppers?  It’s a show about families who spend much of their time preparing for various end of the world scenarios.  They have multiple years worth of food and water stored up, weapons caches, hidden escape layers, and routinely practice escape drills.  At the end of each episode, their efforts are evaluated by professional preppers to see how long they would last given their current preparations.  Also, the events that they are preparing for are evaluated to see the possibility of them actually happening…most of which are pretty small odds.  The idea behind prepping isn’t unreasonable.  Being able to provide and care for the basic necessities for your family in the event of an unexpected emergency is not a bad thing.  Dave Ramsey teaches financial preparedness is his financial peace university courses, the fire departments tell us to have family escape plans in place in the event of a fire, one of the mottos of the girl and boy scouts is “be prepared.”

I remember in the rush up to the year 2000 when it was thought that computers would not be able to handle the turnover from 1999 to 2000 and would come crashing down.  My mom went out a couple weeks before New Years and bought some extra canned goods and some bottle water, just in case.  We even stayed home for New Years instead of going to my grandparents cottage in Evart, just in case.  Our preparations were modest in comparison to what we saw on the news with folks buying out cases upon cases of food and water, filling up multiple propane tanks and generators in case the power went out.  And, as we all know, Midnight struck and the only thing that happened is that we wound up with extra canned beans and bottled water.   

Far too often, it seems that our motivations to prepare for the unexpected come from fear.  Fear that something absolutely terrible is going to happen.  Fear that more wars are going to break out, fear that someday, someone…in a fit of rage or insanity…really is going to push the big red button and unleash nuclear war upon the world.  Fear that storms like super storm Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan are going to become more common unleashing absolute destruction. 

We find ourselves spending sleepless hours during the night wondering - What if the cancer comes back?  What if our savings runs out before my spouse secures another job? What if I outlive my retirement savings?  What if the economy tanks again and my pension disappears? 

Then what will we do? 

Our world has become a place that is in a constant state of anxiety over one thing or another.

But then we hear from Jesus, who tells us that we are not to fear.  And what’s more, he tells us to not even worry about being prepared.

When we meet up with Jesus this morning, he is still in the temple, where he has been since he entered into Jerusalem back in Chapter 19.  After knocking around the merchants in the temple square and turning over their tables, Jesus has occupied his time in the temple teaching.  Now the temple was a beautiful place.  Herod had used up an abundance of financial resources in order to adorn the temple and make it an architectural wonder.  Openly, the building and beautifying of the temple had been done for the glory of God…but secretly it was also for Herod’s own glory as part of his motivation was to out shine the temples of his pagan rivals in the area.  Never the less, however, it was quite the beautiful place and you can’t blame the folks who were with Jesus for marveling at the stones and other items that adorned the temple. 

Instead of agreeing and saying “yeah, this is pretty cool,” which one might expect since one of the focuses of the Gospel of Luke is on the temple, Jesus predicts the temples destruction…something that those around him may not have expected.  He then goes on to speak of wars and insurrections, natural disasters, arrests and betrayals.  Capping it all with “do not be afraid”…which, if we’re honest, is easier said than done when you’re in the midst of it all.  The world comes crashing down around you and fear is natural reaction…the fight or flight response embedded in our brains kicks in.  We have to do something, we have to be in control, we have to make sure that this is all going to work out somehow…how can you tell me not to be afraid, Jesus?  Because, frankly, I am. 

And frankly, the people who were the first to read Luke’s gospel were afraid, too.  When Luke wrote his Gospel, Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple and of arrests and betrayals and deaths and everything else wasn’t actually a prediction…it was a reality for those early Christians.  About fifteen to twenty years before Luke wrote his gospel, Jerusalem had been attacked and destroyed by Rome…and along with the destruction of the city came the destruction of the temple.  In addition to this, the early Christians, whom Luke was writing the Gospel for, were being persecuted at the hand of the Roman government and the synagogues.  So when Luke’s Jesus speaks about these things, they’re not predictions of things to come, but a reflection on things that had already happened to Luke’s audience…things that caused great fear and inspired folks to come out of the woodwork claiming they knew when the end was coming. 

But the instructions Jesus has for the people around him in the temple are to not be afraid and to not worry about being prepared.  And while that may seem like something outlandish, it really does make sense. 

We can have years worth of food stockpiled in cellars, enough generators to light a city, and a list of alternative escape routes to our secret lairs but in the end, there’s always the possibility that the food is going to spoil, the gas to run the generators could go bad or run out, and the disaster we’ve spent so much time preparing for could very well block even the best laid escape route to the fallout shelter.  Living our lives preparing for the worst doesn’t lead to much of a life. 

Instead we are invited to place our trust in Christ, to look for Christ in every person and every circumstance, and we are invited to not fear because…even in the most unexpected circumstances, Christ is going to give us what we need to get through it.  And that is the best form of preparation.  When we place our trust in Christ, we can resist the words of those who claim to know when the end is coming, We are more able to see God at work in the midst of even the most dire situations, we can live more faithfully using the testimony of scripture to give us the vocabulary to testify to our faith, and we can be assured that our God is never going to abandon or forsake us. 

Sometimes a little preparation is good. It can give us peace of mind that we are going to be ready for unexpected circumstances.  But when our minds get caught up in the fear and anxiety that the world throws at us, it can be easy to become so fixated upon preparations that we forget to live.  Christ is offering us an alternative, one in which we are freed from the fear and anxiety to live fully into the future that God has in store for us.  

Marriage and the Resurrection - A sermon for Pentecost 25

I didn't actually preach this sermon.  I was so unhappy with it that I went off manuscript and preached what was in my heart.  Which followed a *similar* slant to what is printed below, but on the whole was very different.  

Pentecost 25

November 10, 2013

Luke 20:27-38

Sixty years ago today, my dad’s parents were married.  In their wedding ceremony, they exchanged vows and in those vows was a promise to be faithful until death parts them.  Yesterday, we gathered in Kalamazoo to celebrate their faithfulness to each other and God’s faithfulness to them over the past sixty years.   Notice, that wedding vows are not for eternity, but only until death parts the two making the vows.  It is beyond our knowing what relationships will look like in the age to come, if they will be the same or if they will look different.  As those who preside over weddings, we can only speak of what we know and all we know is of for sure is of this world and this life.  We can only imagine what it to come in the next life. And this makes our gospel text for this morning a little tricky.

Part of the difficulty with this text is that there are some things that you need to know when diving in.  These are mostly cultural aspects that make things a lot clearer, and less weird, than they are if you take them in our current cultural context. 

The first has to do with the Sadducees. The Sadducees are a group of religious leaders that we don’t hear very much about in the Gospels.  They were at odds with the Pharisees because of two distinct differences in beliefs.  The first is that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. For them, this life is all there is.   The Pharisees, on the other hand, were believers in the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead at the coming of the Messiah.   The other distinct difference between the two groups was that the Sadducees believed that the sole source of divine authority came from the Torah, the first five books of Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  The Pharisees believed that divine authority could also be found in the other parts of Hebrew Scripture.  It is this second difference of opinion that caused the first difference in opinion.

So there is one area of information that helps us read this text. 

The other piece of information that is helpful in reading this text is in knowing what Levirate Marriage was.  If we were to read this text in our own cultural context, one might think that the Sadducees were referring to a very mixed up family…but the reality of Jesus’ time, and the time before Jesus, is that inheritance laws were so important that if a married man died childless, it was his younger brothers duty to marry the widow and raise up children with her for his brother so that land could continue to pass down through the first man’s line.  This was one of the laws of Moses. 

This law was created with the original intention to do two things.  One, to protect the inheritance rights of the family, and two, to protect the widow from being looked down upon for being childless at the death of her husband.  To be a childless woman in that time was considered to be cursed according to the cultural standards. However, this law from Moses, as well intentioned as it may have been at the time, reveals to a modern day reader the belief held during that time that women were property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands.

So, to recap…Sadducees and Pharisees didn’t get along and it was not unusual for a woman to be married off to her husband’s younger brother if her husband died childless, per the laws of Moses.

This brings us back to our gospel text for this morning.

When the Sadducees approach Jesus, then, they are bringing to him a very extreme case of this levirate marriage.  They were coming to Jesus not because they cared about the wording of the marriage vows, but because they were part of the group of folks that were seeking out a reason to get rid of Jesus.  So they try to trick him with this story - A woman was married to a man and, at the time of the man’s death, the couple had no children, so she was married to the oldest of the man’s six younger brothers.  The woman wound up being married off to all seven brothers after each of brother died childless.  The woman then dies…which begs the question…Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?  Which is really to ask whose property will she be?

When the Sadducees bring this question to Jesus they, who do not believe in the resurrection, are assuming that Jesus and the Pharisees believe that life in the resurrection will be just a continuation of life here and now.  They are also assuming that this barren woman’s place in the resurrection is dependent on one of the brothers…they’re just not sure which one because at one time she was the property of each of them. 

But instead of playing into their hands, Jesus turns the story on its head and reveals to them that the resurrection life if not like life as we know it now.  It’s better.  In this life woman are married off and treated as property.  In the resurrection, the institution of marriage where in a woman is treated as property is not necessary…in fact the ownership of any human being as property is unnecessary because the age of the resurrection is not just a rehashing of the past but a new and different…and better age.  

There is no death in the age of the resurrection.  There is restoration to wholeness and the original intention of God’s good creation, one in which sin does not exist.  One in which everyone is on an equal footing as children of God and there are no victims because God’s ultimate justice is done. In the story Luke tells, this means that in the resurrection, the barren woman has just as much value as the seven brothers she was married off to, even though in this life she was considered to be worthless because of her incapacity to have children.  And while we live in an age where, for the most part, women are not seen as property of their husbands, the ownership of women and men in other forms of property holding still hold people captive.  In the age of the resurrection, God’s justice will be done for them, though in this age we are called to strive for the day when no one will be considered a commodity to be traded, bought or sold.

God made a promise to be our God for all eternity and our God is a God who keeps his promises. When Jesus responded to the inquiry of the Sadducees, he revealed a God of the living, not a God of the dead.  So if God makes good on God’s promises, God will make good on God’s promise to be our God in this life and in the life to come.

The Sadducees did not get the answer they were looking for.  But they didn’t bother Jesus again.  Soon they would see the manifestation of what Jesus spoke about.  Soon he would be put to death by the Romans, only to rise from the dead three days later.  Death would not win this battle, and a resurrected Christ would be revealed for them to see and touch.   For Luke and his audience…the forces of Rome which put Jesus to death and later viciously persecuted the early Christians and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem did not have the last word, Luke was confident that God and God’s good creation does. And we who sit here this morning, we who are children of God, joined to Christ’s death in our baptism, hear the same promise…that our God, a God of the living, will be our God in both this life and in the next.  And though we do not know exactly what the age of the resurrection will look like, but we do know this…it is not merely a continuation of this life, but something better…an age where death will cease to exist, an age where all people are free and loved equally, an age where there are no victims, an age where we are all united under God’s totally and unfailing love.   

Blessed are you...Woe to you - A sermon for All Saints

November 3, 2013

Luke 6:20-31

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.  

This past Friday, five billion dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, took effect.  This means that 47 million Americans, children, and seniors, will have less access to healthy foods as their assistance will drop from $167 per person per month to $158 per person per month.  And more talks are coming in Washington over how to make further cuts to this program, which has provided a lifeline to the working poor, veterans and the disabled, especially in the years following the beginning of the recession in 2008.  All this while it has been publicized that these same Washington politicians are eating extravagant meals during their diplomatic travels.    

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

A couple months ago, McDonalds presented their employees with a sample budget to help them to gain control of their finances while working for McDonalds.  It factored in that their full time employees who earned the minimum wage would have to work a second full time job in order to make ends meet.  They also have resources in place to make sure that these employees have help applying for food stamps, which, according to this sample budget, they would need in order to purchase groceries. While trying to be helpful to their employees, McDonald’s pointed out to the world that the minimum wage is not a living wage, even if you work full time.  Oh, and by the way, while the majority of McDonalds employees make just more than $12,000 a year, the CEO just received a pay raise this year to over $13 million a year in salary.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you and defame you on account of the son of man.  Woe to you when all speak well of you.

My friend Kirsten is a pastor in Cairo, Egypt.  She was asked by the ELCA to delay her arrival there in August because of the violence there…violence that resulted in the burning of several Coptic Christian churches and at least one orphanage.  Kirsten’s congregation has cancelled and changed worship service times to stand in solidarity with the Coptic Christians, who are in danger because of their faith.  And in this country, where folks claim there is a war on Christianity, we worship freely where we want and when we want without threat of harm or death. 

Are you uncomfortable yet?  I know I am.

As a person who has been blessed to never know poverty, who has never wondered where my next meal is coming from, who has more stuff than I need, who qualifies as rich in the eyes of a good majority of the world, and who is free to lead worship just about wherever I please and whenever I please without fear of being arrested or persecuted for it, Jesus’ words sting.  And I wish that this morning that we were hearing Matthew’s Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount instead of Luke’s Jesus in the sermon on the plain. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake…I can get behind that.  I have had my share of faith crises…I have written politicians pleading that they not make cuts to programs that care for the poor and that feed children.  There are blessings abounding in the Sermon on the Mount.

But the sermon on the plain doesn’t carry those modifiers…Jesus cuts straight to the point.  Blessed are you who are poor…blessed are you who are hungry…blessed are you who weep…blessed are you who are hated and excluded on account of my name. And Jesus even throws some warnings in there in the woes…But woe to you who are rich…woe to you who are full…woe to you who laugh…woe to you when people speak well of you. 

If you weren’t uncomfortable before, are you now?

To be told that the poor in spirit are blessed, as are the peacemakers, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake is one thing.

To be told that the poor and the hungry and those who weep and those who are persecuted for their faith are blessed all the while woe to the rich and the full and those who laugh and those who are spoken well of is quite another…and it’s harder to digest.

But let us look at it from another angle.  According to Genesis 1, at the end of each day of creation, God looked at what he created and saw that it was good…and when he completed creation at the end of the 6^th day and was preparing to rest, God looked at all that he created and saw that it was very good.  Meaning that God’s intention was that anyone could look at the world around them and to agree with God that it was very good.  God did not create poverty, sin did.  God did not create people to be hungry, sin did that.  God did not create us to withhold things from one another and to ignore the suffering of our brothers and sisters so that we could get rich, sin did that. 

And God saw what sin had done to our world, how it had hijacked the good creation that he had made and he knew something needed to be done about it.  So, God chose to slip into skin and become a part of the human experience by giving up all luxury and fame and wealth and instead living the life of a poor, homeless peasant.  And as he lived among the poor, he challenged all of us to a better way of living, a way of living in which we are transformed into people who turn away from sin and instead seek the wellbeing of our neighbors so that all people can look at the creation around them and say “yeah, this is good.”  And as uncomfortable as it can make us to hear the blessings and the woes, this is the challenge that Jesus continues to give us…to seek ways of living among one another so that one day the number of children that go hungry in this world will be 0, so that one day the percentage of workers earning a living wage is 100. 

Jesus didn’t come into this world to just be and he wasn’t content to leave things the way they are, instead he sought transformation and justice and he died because he challenged the status quo and made the religious and political leaders around him a little too uncomfortable because they were happy with the way things were and they didn’t want some peasant from the boonies coming into Jerusalem and pointing out the ways that they were abusing the power given to them. 

And so, while it may seem like this is a pretty out there text for the Sunday in which we celebrate the lives of All the Saints, I think it’s pretty appropriate.  Jesus called us to live in community together, a community in which the abundance of God’s creation is enough to meet everyone’s basic needs.  And though we may fall short in this expectation from time to time, we are encouraged to keep on striving for the greater good by the knowledge that in our baptism we were joined to Christ in his death and even though we are sometimes confronted by our short comings, we are comforted by the knowledge that, because of our faith, Jesus wants to bless us anyways so that we will be strengthened to out and follow in the footsteps of our brothers and sisters in the faith who have gone before us and shown us what it means to live as faithful followers of Christ, seeking justice and peace in all the world and spreading the news of God’s love.