Community of Caring

May 29^th, 2016    “Community of Caring”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 7:1-10

          This morning’s scripture reading is an interesting healing story in Luke’s gospel.  While some readers may be tripped up by issues of slavery or confusion around the discussion of authority; the message of healing and grace that is presented in the text certainly applies to all of us.  This is a scripture reading about breaking down barriers and about the role that the community plays in healing.

          This story is told in a few different forms throughout the synoptic gospels.  Sometimes the centurion is asking for healing for his daughter, but in this morning’s reading he is asking for healing for a slave.  Some modern readers may be so bothered by the concept of slavery that they get tripped up in this part of the story.  While it is true that slavery is not part of our modern understanding of a just society, it was a reality in the world in which Jesus lived.  The fact that this centurion is asking for healing for a slave whose relationship he valued, shows that he treats the person with a fair amount of respect.  Actually, the centurion is speaking on behalf of one who has no voice in society; so we could read this story as an act of justice, rather than injustice.

          The centurion is a Roman military authority.  While not being himself Jewish, he seems to know and support the Jewish culture.  In fact, the Jewish elders say that he has helped them in the building and supporting of the synagogues.  While he is a Roman outsider to the faith, he is clearly a supporter and sympathizer with the Jewish cause.

          The centurion has heard of Jesus and so when Jesus enters his territory in Capernaum he sends word requesting that Jesus visit his home to come and heal his slave.  Jesus is on the way to his house when the centurion sends word again declaring that he does not feel worthy to have Jesus enter his home.  He then goes on with his discussion of authority.

          The centurion is a man of great authority in the Roman Empire.  As he says, he can direct the actions of servants and soldiers and he can get things done.  It is because he himself knows authority, that he recognizes the authority that Jesus has.  He points out that Jesus’ authority is greater than his own.  The centurion’s power derives from human authority, but Jesus’ power derives from God.  The centurion knows that if Jesus will only say the word, his servant will be healed.

          When Jesus hears this the writer of Luke’s gospel declares that Jesus was amazed.  He was surprised and astounded, turning to the crowd to say “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  It is then reported that the centurion’s slave is in good health back at the house, the requested healing miracle has occurred.

          This is one of those interesting gospel stories that have several layers of meaning and significance.  In the time that the text was written, I think that the writer wanted readers to consider the authority of Jesus, as well as the extending of the boundaries of the faith community.

          The issue of authority is pretty clear and is central to the text.  At the time that this was written, the people of Israel were subject to the harsh ways of the Roman Empire.  They were folks living at home but living in occupied territory.  While the centurion in the story was kind and sympathetic to their cause, that would not be the case with most centurions that they met.  The fact that this military commander recognizes that Jesus’ authority is greater than his own, would be a significant message to any reader in the time that the gospel was written.  The writer of Luke’s gospel wants readers to know that the power of God represented in Jesus Christ, is greater than the power of the Roman Empire.  It is a profound message of hope for an oppressed people.

          The other point of significance for the historical reader is that Jesus is transgressing boundaries with healing.  Not only does he heal the slave of a Roman centurion, an outsider to the faith, but he also lifts up the man’s faith as an example for all.  “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  The writer of this gospel wants us to notice Jesus crossing traditional lines and boundaries.  He consents to heal those outside the faith community and he points out that even outsiders can come to great faith.  This story is showing readers that God’s favor extends to all, crossing social and cultural boundaries.

          These are both great points and make fine sermons but what really attracted my attention this week was the role of community.  I have read this story a lot but this was the first time I realized that Jesus never actually talks to the slave or to the centurion.  Jesus never actually meets these people at all.  The whole story occurs in the voice and relationships of community.

          When he hears that Jesus is in town, the centurion sends word to him via the Jewish elders.  And later when he changes his mind about Jesus’ need to visit his home, the centurion sends word via his friends.  Never once does the centurion talk directly to Jesus, rather he consents to have all of his messages carried by others.

          As a person who often likes to speak for herself, I found this really compelling.  What would it look like to trust others to speak on our behalf to God?  And how does the slave feel about the whole affair?  I can imagine that some folks would be very embarrassed to have all of this fuss occurring on their behalf, even if they were seeking healing.  I know quite a few people who are not even comfortable having their name on a prayer list, let alone a long drawn out public affair like is happening in this story.  It is hard to let others know how vulnerable we are, and it is hard to ask others to appeal to God on our behalf.  In the American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” culture, this kind of community of caring is easily looked down upon.

          In the time this gospel was written, the role the community plays in this story is natural and practically insignificant.  In our own time, it is a blatant example of how the Christian culture differs from the world at large.  We live in a culture that teaches us to go it alone, to make our own way.  From anti-establishment political candidates, to heroes who make their own paths on the big screen, to admiring those who are self-made millionaires, we live in a culture that emphasizes the power of one.  We are taught to strengthen our resolve, to never show weakness, and to make our own way through the world as hard working individuals.  This story goes against all of those norms.

          In our gospel reading, the slave does nothing whatsoever to secure his own healing.  He doesn’t even ask for it.  The centurion, who is working on his behalf, doesn’t go directly to Jesus to seek help but sends other community members in his stead.  From the synagogue leaders to the friends of a Roman centurion, the whole community is banding together to ask for healing on the slave’s behalf.

          We do the same thing here every Sunday.  Every week we gather here to lift up in prayer those that are in need of healing.  More often than not, those people are not among us.  In fact, oftentimes we are praying for people that we don’t even know.  We pray for those that are beloved by someone here, even if we have never met the person.  This is the role of the caring community; to lift each other up in prayer and to petition God on each other’s behalf.     

          I know that you have heard me say it before, but you cannot live a life of faith alone.  You cannot have a solitary faith.  You cannot be practicing faith and not attending church, because faith is nothing apart from community.  It is in the community that we come to know God, it is in the community that we experience healing, and it is in the community that we learn to allow others to speak on our behalf.  It is in the community that we offer our best prayers and it is in the community that our prayers are answered.  Followers of Christ are the community of caring.     

          We can’t be the community of caring if we aren’t honest with each other.  We can’t do it if we don’t recognize and allow vulnerability in this place.  I need to be honest about the part of me that’s hurt, if you are going to help me pray for healing.  I need to be open about what causes me pain, if we are going to petition God together.  I need to be brave enough to admit that I am in need, if we are going to be the caring community of faith.  It takes courage and strength to admit your weaknesses.

          Our call today is to be a caring community of faith.  We are called to petition God on each other’s behalf, to ask for healing and wholeness.  We are called to let others speak for us, to trust those we know and love to stand between us and the world.  And we are called to embrace healing as it comes to us, like the slave who only receives in this story and doesn’t have the chance to give.  We are called to be the community of caring together, and to recognize and celebrate healing in our midst.  Amen.

Wisdom

May 22^nd, 2016       “Wisdom”              Rev. Heather Jepsen

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

          Today is Trinity Sunday, one of the few Sundays of the year that is devoted to a theological idea, rather than a particular story.  Today is all about lifting up and celebrating the doctrine of the Trinity, or that idea that God exists as three persons in one being; commonly thought of as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

          Rather than making this morning’s sermon a complicated theological lecture, I thought I would narrow our focus a bit.  We are going to talk about the Holy Spirit this morning, since I didn’t get a chance to last week for Pentecost.  Then we will zoom the camera lens out a bit and talk about the Trinity in general.

          This morning’s scripture reading is a little known section from the book of Proverbs.  This is not a book that modern Christians spend very much time with.  We are much more familiar with the gospels then we are with the Old Testament Wisdom literature.

          The book of Proverbs is a collection of folk wisdom and wisdom from the sages, or wise men, of the time.  This is wisdom from around the cook fires in small villages to wise sayings of nearby Egyptian religious leaders.  While it has been traditionally attributed to Solomon, the book is actually a collection of the sayings of many writers and is therefore anonymous.  Scholars believe that the book gained its current form after the Israelites returned from exile around 540 BCE.  So these are really old sayings of the Israelite culture, designed to be read by a young male on the cusp of adulthood.  This is basically advice on how to live a good life.

          In the section we are looking at, the young person is encouraged to seek Wisdom.  In the Hebrew tradition, Wisdom is seen as a feminine aspect of the divine.  Wisdom is of God, connected to God, but also has her own individual identity.  The writers of Proverbs contrast this woman Wisdom, with Folly, also portrayed as female.  In chapter 7, Folly calls to young men with a tempting mix of sexuality and rule bending.  Folly is seductive and the writer says that young men will fall for her “like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost them their life.”

          In chapter 8, we meet Wisdom who calls to all from the heights and beside the way.  Unlike secret societies, where wisdom and knowledge are held by a limited few or a select inner circle, the book of Proverbs portrays Wisdom calling to all out in public.  Wisdom is available to everyone in the world and she calls to us from everywhere in life.

          This idea of Wisdom is what Christians will later come to call the Holy Spirit.  Wisdom is part of the Trinity, along with the Creator and the Christ.  The book of Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was there in the beginning, a part of creation.  We see that in the famous image from the Sistine chapel, Wisdom in the crook of God’s arm at creation.  As the writer of Proverbs says, Wisdom was beside God like a master worker, the architect of creation. 

          Just like we can talk about the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, we can talk about the spirit of Wisdom that is found within our lives.  This is our call to learning, to education, to intelligence.  This is the human desire to study and know the world around us.  This is the integration of science and faith.  Wisdom is the created order and our desire to understand and know the creation.  Wisdom is the truth that we find in the natural sciences.  Wisdom calls to us to continue to study, to continue to strive to discover, to continue to seek a deeper understanding of the wonderful world that has been created and of our place within that creation.

          When I was younger, one of the problems I had with the Christian religion was that I felt people were encouraged not to think.  My experiences at an early age, led me to believe that people of faith were not to question things.  I thought that people of faith were supposed to just believe everything that they are taught, about the created world and about God, and to not ask questions.  To ask questions about evolution, the role of women, or the true history of the scriptures was to demonstrate one’s lack of faith.  Not only were people supposed to follow the shepherd like sheep, they were supposed to be as dumb as sheep to do it.

          When I finally realized that I could use my brain to engage my faith was when I finally fell in love with God.  I didn’t want easy answers, I wanted more questions.  I could hear Wisdom calling to me in the world and in my own life experience, and I wanted to respond with seeking intelligence, with questions, and with knowledge.  For many of us faith starts in the brain, and only then is planted in the heart.  Just like tongues of fire or the rush of the wind, Wisdom of faith is the working of the Holy Spirit and it has the power to transform lives.

          In our culture, we often hear the name of God being used to justify all sorts of things.  From arguments about the bathroom to justification for violence and war, the image and language of God is often used as a hammer to club one’s way through the world.  Wisdom does not lend herself to be used in such a way.  Wisdom is about a posture of truthfulness, about seeing things clearly, and about the ability to see through the facades folks may be using to try to trick us.  Wisdom is about seeing what is truly there, and knowing what the truth really is.

          When we examine the Trinity, we can see that it is simply about relationship.  God has tried many ways to reach us, and God is continually trying to reach out to us in love.  If you are like many folks who struggle with this strange idea of God being three-in-one, then I invite you to hold on to the idea of God simply trying to reach out to us.  God created us in love, Jesus came to help us see God, and the Holy Spirit helps us see Jesus; that’s the Trinity right there.

          All around us the world invites us to see the deep love of our creator.  We are always in the presence of God, what is absent is our awareness.  Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, is always calling us to look and see God in our own intuition and in the world around us. 

          I want to close with a re-imagining of this woman Wisdom that Pastor Jeff Paschal shares in Feasting on the Word.  He writes:

“I was out shopping yesterday, and whom did I run into?  Wisdom.  Yeah, there she was.  She called me over and we began talking, Wisdom and I.  Then, I went down to the courthouse, and there she was again, making a plea for justice in some dingy courtroom where somebody and been unjustly accused.  After that, I dropped by the school, and she had gotten there before me, calling for students and teachers alike to always seek truth.  Then I went for a walk in the woods, moving along the trail in quiet meditation.  Wisdom snuck up on me and said, “Now that we are alone, I have something I want to share with you, a present I want you to enjoy.  You know, I have been around a long time, really before the beginning of time.  I have been whirling and dancing with God all along.  I am God’s delight, laughing and playing.  I want you to know the lightness of spirit and gladness that come when you welcome me.  Will you set aside those thoughts, words, and deeds that make life heavy and sad for you and others?  Will you come and laugh and play with me?  Will you come and dance with me?  Will you?”

Amen.

         

One-ness

May 8^th, 2016            “One-ness”             Rev. Heather Jepsen

John 17:20-26

          This Sunday, we find ourselves once again in the murky writing of the gospel of John.  I know that the writer of John was going for a certain language and a certain message but I have to admit that sometimes when I read this gospel, and especially when I am muddling around in the final discourse of Jesus, I really just think John needed a good editor.  Writing like this is one of the reasons I hesitate to tell people who are looking for answers to “read the Bible”.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a wonderful theological message here which certainly applies to our Christian experience.  It is just teasing that message out that is the difficulty.

          Just like last week, we need to engage in some Bible study to figure out this text.  Like a puzzle, this text is not simply going to reveal its meaning to us on a first reading.  Last week we did some looking at the story in the gospel itself and the story behind the gospel.  Those that were here will remember that the story in the gospel is that Jesus is preparing for his death.  He is about to go to the garden of Gethsemane to meet his fate and he is saying goodbye to the disciples.  He is offering them final words of comfort and encouragement.

          We remember too, the history behind the text.  The writer of the gospel of John is part of a community of believers that have been expelled from the synagogues because of their faith in Christ.  Theirs too, is a community that is going through difficult hardships and is in need of comfort and encouragement.

          All these things continue to be in play this morning as we look at the text for our reading this week.  Today, I think we will look at the reading verse by verse to try to tease out some meaning for our own lives.  You may want to open up that pew Bible to follow along.  We start with verse 20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word that they may all be one.”  We have to look back a few verses to find out that Jesus is asking God to protect the disciples.  He is asking on behalf of those who are there (the disciples in the story itself) and those who will believe (the community that John is writing for).  He is hoping that they will form one continuous community of faith and that they will be protected by God.  This makes a lot of sense as times of stress have a tendency to splinter groups of people and the disciples in the story, and the early community of John, are certainly in times of great stress.

          If we keep going we read “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  This is the kind of writing that makes me dizzy!  Basically you could say, “let’s be united in faith so that others will hear the good news of the gospel.”  The people in the gospel and the people the gospel is written for, will be tempted to succumb to stress and fracture as a community.  Jesus doesn’t want that, as the united community is the best way to show the love of God to the world.  That same message keeps repeating line after line, although the style of writing does not get any clearer.

          “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  Again, united community of faith.  “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  Once more, united community of faith shares the good news and shows God’s love.  And it just keeps going “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”  I think we are getting the picture, believers united in Christ show God’s love.

          These last two lines are the end of Jesus’ final discourse and are some of the final words Jesus offers before his death in the gospel of John.  This is the summation of his teaching in this gospel, and unfortunately it too is a maddening muddle of words.  “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.  I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”  What a mouthful!  We get the idea though; Jesus is the revelation of God the Father, Jesus comes to make God known, and Jesus wants us to share the love of God by being united in community.

          If we slow down and read the text line by line then the picture becomes clear.  Jesus is encouraging the disciples to be a community united in love.  It is through this that they will be able to share the good news (that Jesus is the revelation of God) with the whole world.  Now that’s a good sermon and it applies just as much to our lives today as it did to the lives of folks back then.

          The call for the modern Christian is the same as for the first disciples, we need to be a community united in love.  So much of our culture is driven by division and not unity.  I hardly need to mention the political discourse of our day as I am sure most of you have already jumped to that conclusion in your minds.  But besides the national dialogue, we have many other isolating factors in our culture.  Many of us spend our days alone at desks, and alone at home.  We work all day staring at computer screens and talk to others only as necessary.  We come home and shut our garage doors and pull down our shades, signaling to our neighbors that we don’t want to visit.  We watch TV alone and often avoid discussions with even our own family members.  We spend lots of time “connecting” online, which only serves to isolate us from the people who we are actually sharing physical space with.  We are living in an isolated, divided culture.

          Jesus encourages another way.  The call to the life of faith is a call to community.  It is in the community that this indwelling love of God that Jesus is so busy talking about in the gospel of John can be known.  It is here in the community that the love of God is shared and becomes a reality in our lives. 

          You can’t share this love home alone with yourself.  If you are going to experience God, you have to experience community.  You cannot live a life of faith in a bubble.  You MUST be part of community, be it here at church or somewhere else in your life, to experience this love that Jesus is talking about.  Jesus is challenging us to take this idea of one-ness in God literally, and not simply as a metaphor.  We MUST all be together, to all be ONE in God.

          Today we are gathering at the communion table and this is a wonderful opportunity to be part of that one-ness of God.  Here at the table, we remember that Jesus is the revelation of God, and that in love, Jesus came to live among us as one of us.  We remember that in love, Jesus consented to experience the depth of human suffering, even death on a cross.  We connect with the love that Jesus and God share, by connecting with God and with each other at the table.  Just like the writing in the gospel of John, there are a lot of layers of meaning when we gather here to celebrate communion as the community of faith.

          In a culture that encourages us to divide ourselves along lines of race, gender, class, and belief; the unity of the church can be a challenging message.  Jesus doesn’t tell us to get together with other people that are just like us, or to isolate ourselves from people who make us comfortable.  Rather, Jesus tells us that in order to experience the love of God, we need to be united in community.  It is through the uniting of diverse people into a community of faith that we will reveal the good news of the gospel.  We show God’s love when we live God’s love together. 

          We can sum up all that that messy circular writing in John’s gospel in one simple sentence: Let us strive this day to live as a united community of faith, so that the love of God, which is revealed in Jesus Christ, may also be revealed in us.  Amen.

           

         

 

True Peace

May 1^st, 2016         “True Peace”             Rev. Heather Jepsen

John 14:22-29

          This Sunday we continue our readings from the gospel of John.  Like our reading about love last week, this morning’s text is part of what scholars have come to think of as Jesus’ final discourse.  Typical of the writing in the gospel of John, this text can be difficult to dig through.

          When I read the gospel of John, I often end up feeling dizzy.  Like someone spinning me around over and over, the sentence structure in this gospel often sends my head reeling.  I feel like I meet myself coming and going in these speeches of Jesus, and it can be hard to discern the meaning of the text, let alone apply it to our own lives today.  There’s a reason I’ve been in the pulpit for ten years, yet have never preached this text before.

          In these situations it is often helpful to look at the setting of the text to begin to tease out some meaning.  First, we can look at the level of the text itself.  In the story that the writer of John is telling, Jesus is sharing his last night with his disciples.  He knows that the time of his death is imminent and he is willingly headed in that direction.  It is interesting to note that in the gospel of John, there is no agony in the garden of Gethsemane.  Rather, Jesus simply goes to the garden to meet Judas and his fate.

          Jesus knows he is leaving and he is seeking to comfort the disciples.  He tells them that his time to leave will be coming soon.  He knows that they will feel abandoned and afraid.  He tells them that he will send the Holy Spirit to comfort them.  The Spirit will stand in as his presence while he is gone, and the Spirit will bring the gift of his peace.  The Spirit will act as a teacher for the disciples, and will remind them of the things Jesus said and did even after he is gone.  Like Jesus, the disciples are facing a period of imminent suffering and sadness, but the Spirit of God will be present to comfort them and give them hope.

          When we read the Scriptures, another place to look for meaning is the history behind the text.  We know that the Johannine community, the community that the writer of this gospel was writing it for, were also in a period of suffering and sadness.  Of the gospels in our Bible, this is the last one written.  Scholars think it was composed over 50 years after Jesus’ death.  By this time the early church community had experienced much suffering and hardship.  In particular the community of John had been in great conflict with the synagogues.  Basically, they had been kicked out of their churches and out of their communities for their beliefs about Jesus.  Just like the disciples in the story itself, they are in a period of suffering, and are looking to the Spirit of God for hope, comfort, and peace.

          When we look at the text in this fashion, we begin to find a way in for ourselves.  None of us will experience a life without suffering.  None of us will avoid hardship and pain.  All of us will live through periods of grief, anxiety, and fear.  Like the disciples in the text itself, like the people of the early Johannine community, we are a people in need of comfort.

          Jesus’ speech in this text, is given in reply to the question Judas asks; “How is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”  We could rephrase this any number of ways: How is it that we are different?  How is it that we know Jesus and others do not?  How is it that Christians uniquely survive the trials and tribulations of this life?  The answer for us is the same as it was for Judas, the Holy Spirit.

          The work of the Spirit is the invisible force in our lives.  It draws us closer to God and it gives us help and comfort in times of suffering.  Jesus says that the Spirit is a teacher, it is one that reminds us of things Jesus has taught.  I see this work being twofold.

          First, it is the practice of daily discipline.  While some may see faith as a gift that is given, I see it as something that a person has to nurture over time.  Just like any other practice in life, faith is something you have to work at.  If you play an instrument or practice a craft, then you know that the more you practice, the easier it becomes.  Faith is like that.  The more you practice it the more it grows in your heart.  This is the Holy Spirit as teacher.  The work of the Spirit draws you deeper into faith.  The deeper you are drawn into faith, the stronger you are in times of trial.

          Jesus says that the Spirit is also a reminder.  I see this as the habit that faith can become.  If you are a person who regularly brushes your teeth, (and I certainly hope that you are) then you might have an idea of what I am talking about.  I have certain points in my day every day when I brush my teeth.  I don’t think about it, I just do it.  It is such a habit that it becomes its own reminder.  Faith can be practiced in this way as well.  I have certain times of day when I turn to God in prayer.  I don’t think about it, I just do it.  The Holy Spirit calls me to prayer as a reminder.  Faith has become a habit for me.

          The work that the Holy Spirit does in these situations is to give us the gift of peace.  This is the peace of Jesus Christ, which is different from the peace that the world offers us.  As I mentioned before, we will all experience periods of suffering and sadness.  We will all experience times of fear and anxiety.  We will all find ourselves seeking peace at some point in our lives.

          The peace that the world offers us can be found in numbing behaviors.  We have been talking about this in Brown Bag with our book by Brené Brown.  Brené points out that when we don’t want to feel vulnerable, when we don’t want to feel pain, then we numb ourselves.  We do this through the use and abuse of things like drugs and alcohol.  We also do it in more seemingly innocent ways through television and the internet.  Another way we numb ourselves is to make ourselves so busy that we don’t have time to think about anything or to be vulnerable.  Sound familiar?

          Brené points out that we can’t engage in numbing behaviors and selectively numb.  If I am stressed about my marriage or about my job, or if I am sad because one of my friends has cancer, or if I am worried about how to help my children, then I may be tempted to numb myself using one of these behaviors.  But I can’t just numb the bad stuff, I also end up numbing the good.  I may seek to numb fear, anxiety, and grief and I also end up numbing joy, hope, and love in the process. 

          The peace that the world gives us is not true peace, it is simply numbing all our emotions.  It is avoidance behavior and not the path to a true and productive life.  The peace that Jesus Christ offers is different from this.  It is a peace that comes from the Holy Spirit, a peace that the world cannot give.

          Jesus doesn’t promise us that we won’t feel pain, sorrow, or fear.  He doesn’t promise the disciples that they will not feel vulnerable, or that they will not suffer.  Rather, he promises that the presence of God will be with them in their suffering.  In the midst of their suffering, they will know the peace and comfort of the Holy Spirit.          

 This connects to those roles of the Spirit as teacher and reminder.  If we have practiced our faith, if we have let the Spirit teach us and lead us deeper into relationship with God, then when suffering comes we can rely on that practice.  We have the faith skills needed to move through it.  If the Spirit has served as a reminder for us, if prayer has become a habit, then the habit of faith will continue when the road is rocky.  The foundation will be there when we need it.

          Like the disciples in the gospel of John, and like the people of the early Johannine community that this gospel was written for, we are a people who suffer.  Although our daily struggles look different, and the threats to us have changed over time, the emotions we feel are the same emotions they felt.  Fear, anxiety, worry, despair, and grief are an inevitable part of human existence. 

          The gift of faith, what makes us different as Christians, is that the Holy Spirit is with us in our times of need.  We have the peace that only faith in Jesus Christ can bestow.  When the world around us calls us to avoid suffering at all cost and to numb ourselves until we can feel nothing, Jesus calls us to another path.  Jesus tells us to face suffering head on, to move through it with honesty and integrity, and to know that God is with us.

          The Holy Spirit is our teacher and our guide.  The practice of faith will lead us through this life.  And we will know the peace of Jesus Christ, a true peace that the world cannot give.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.