When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." John 20:19-23

You may have seen the new movie Pearl Harbor in the theaters this weekend. There is a specific comparison we can make between this movie and today's gospel story. The movie ends with the allies' raid on Tokyo, and this bombing is a moment of retrenchment. The bombing could almost have been considered to be a suicide mission. As the movie closes, the point of the narrator is that with the sacrifice of those men, the tide was turned and the allies were able to move forward. Compare this story with that of Pentecost. Back on Good Friday, we saw Jesus die, and it looked like all was lost and evil had won. The disciples surely felt fear and confusion. Then Jesus rose, and 40 days later he ascended, and he told the disciples to wait for the Spirit. They were surely wondering what might happen next. And then when the power of the Spirit came upon them, a dramatic change occurred in the lives of the believers. They were no longer afraid. It was a time of spiritual retrenchment. Jesus says, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Jesus gave a command for the disciples to go forth. What does this look like for us? First, it means involvement. Jesus says, if we believe, then we have to go forth in the world. God knows what we need. If our greatest need was money, he would have sent us a banker. If our greatest need was political savvy, he would have sent us a politician. If our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us an actor. But God knew what our greatest need is: it is forgiveness, so he sent us a Savior. We are called to be involved in one another's lives. As we participate in the baptisms today, we are saying that we are committed to one another. As Christians, we never come to the place where we simply tell each other that we are not good enough or that we are not trying hard enough. None of us can ever be perfect. But we must remind each other that we need the Savior. We have been sent into the world to overcome the darkness and be triumphant together with Christ.  God has forgiven us, and we are called to forgive one another. Forgiveness makes us into new people. The word "Christians" actually means "little Christs". What was Jesus' job description? We could describe him as a prophet, priest and king. He was a prophet in that he was a teacher who taught the law. As a priest, he offers a sacrifice on the cross, that we might be forgiven. And as a king, he ascends to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. How do we, as Christians, follow this job description? As prophets, we are to forgive. We are priests in that we are a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). We are a chosen people, belonging to God, and we all have the ministry as believers to offer the sacrifice of our lives, and to give ourselves to God. We are kings in that God calls us to rule over our families, our children, and our own lives in the power of the Spirit. We all must choose whether we are to move with God in the power of his Spirit, or in our own strength. From time to time, we find ourselves in a time of spiritual retrenchment. Today we celebrate anew the essence of our being. In the power of the Spirit, we can overcome the darkness and step into the light. There is no turning back from God's love and power.

But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, "Where are you going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16:5-15

On most of the feast days and holy days of the year, we focus on some act or event. On Christmas, Easter or Pentecost we are focusing on the mighty acts of God by which we are saved. But on Trinity Sunday, we are not celebrating an act; rather, we are celebrating a theological doctrine: three in one, and one in three. God is above us, is transcendent in our midst, and is with us. Your life and mine become vehicles of the Spirit in us. I would suspect that for most of us, when asked to tell about God or our relationship with God, would feel uncomfortable simply reciting a creed or describing an abstract philosophical doctrine. Think back on John the Baptist. While John was languishing in prison, his disciples reported to him all the things that Jesus was doing. He sent them to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Luke 7) In other words, they were in effect asking him, "Are you the Messiah, or are you just another fake?" Notice how Jesus replied to their question. He doesn't say to tell John that he is the second person of the trinity. Instead he says, "The blind are receiving sight, the cripples are dancing, the deaf are hearing, and the poor are hearing the Good News." When the Greek philosophers in the 3rd and 4th centuries sought to answer "Who is Christ," they could have answered with a description of the actions that were performed, instead of an abstraction. Or, they could have answered in the way that Isaiah did -- they could have told a story. "I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.' At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.' Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.' "(Is 6:1-7)  When my sin was blotted out, I was liberated. There is no more talk of unclean lips. I am free to be who I am, which is a child of God. I am made in the image and likeness of God, and no one can take this from me. God always has and always will want us to know and believe this. Three thousand years ago he wanted Isaiah to proclaim this; two thousand years ago he wanted the disciples to understand this; and today, he wants us to believe this. Our ever-loving God, our creator and redeemer, wants to set us free. God does not want his people carrying guilt. He does not want us to carry a burden of sin. Our God says to you and to me, "Today I touch your lips with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. Your sins are blotted out." You are worthy to stand tall before the Most High. You are God's chosen, and are precious in his sight -- more precious than you can ever imagine. You are important in God's plan for this world. Why? Because God has a plan for us and for all of humankind. One day we will all be free of oppression, hunger and need. One day God's glory will not just fill the temple, but will fill the whole earth, and all of us will be singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty." All of us are essential to God's plan. Without each of us, the divine plan is incomplete. Now, the Lord says, who will go? Who will be sent? "Here I am; I am worthy, send me." Children of God, what will you say?

Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' "Then the one inside answers, `Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:5-13

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:14-16

This passage from James starts quite matter-of-factly and rather simply. A prayer offered in faith will bring healing. Confess your sins to each other and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. We don't often hear this message anymore. A substantial portion of all four gospels deals with Jesus' healing ministry. Many people think that this is not a message for our time. But Jesus told his disciples that they would not only do the things that he had done, but they would do even greater things during their ministry. "Whatever you ask, it will be given you," Jesus said. There are many examples of Jesus giving bold statements such as this. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." But the passage doesn't end there. Jesus goes on: "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." How can we understand this for our lives today? What exactly is the "prayer of faith" that James is referring to? What did the Lord Jesus teach us about the prayer of faith? First of all, it is believing that God hears you and believing that he will answer you. It is also believing that you already have whatever it is that you have asked. This is a difficult thing to understand. It would be far easier to think, "God will do it for me," in the future tense. Why does the Lord ask us to believe that we already have that for which we have asked? One way to look at it is that God does not exist in time as we know and understand it. Everything to him is the present moment, or the eternal now. Many psychologists also argue that the unconscious mind interprets everything that happened in the past as being in the present moment, and that the mind does not distinguish between the past, present and future. If our conscious mind is saying, "I will be healed," then it interprets this as an event that is only in the future. If we say instead, "I am healed," then the Spirit of God can use that to transform our minds. Why wouldn't we take the Lord's word for it, then? He says, "Believe that you have already received it, and it will be yours." What reasons do people give for not believing that they have already received? Some people might want to "protect" God, in case their prayers are not answered in the "right" way, or the way in which they wish to have their prayers answered. Sometimes fear keeps us from believing, or a lack of faith. We need to be a church community in which we encourage one another to believe that we have already received. This is the kind of church that James is talking about: we know God, and know that he loves us, and we confess our sins and shortcomings to one another, we know that we are forgiven, and we know that God uses everyone in the church as an agent of forgiveness, healing, love and compassion. This is the vision for you to go home with today. This is what the church is about; let's make it that way.

Before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:23-29

Today Paul is talking to us about the role of the law in our lives, and what it can and cannot accomplish for us. Paul begins by saying, "Before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law." That is to say, the rules and regulations of the Old Testament have a role to play, but with this caveat: the law ultimately doesn't make us better people. Paul tells us this again and again in the book of Galatians. There was a great struggle with this issue amongst the Galatians. Paul had come through on a missionary journey, and had shared the gospel and the love of Christ. But after he had left, other teachers came along and taught that the people needed to become Jewish and follow all of the Jewish laws and regulations, since Jesus was a Jew. In order to follow Jesus, they taught, you have to follow the same rules and regulations that were laid out during Old Testament times. Because of these false teachings, Paul emphasized that following the law in such a way was contrary to the foundation of love that Jesus has for us. In effect, Paul is saying that all of the rules and regulations will never bring you and I to the place God wants us be. We can never on our own become "good enough" or exactly what God wants us to be. Paul says that the law was our disciplinarian -- it helps us to see our shortcomings. But when we grow up in Christ, it is not that we quit following the law; the law has a new place in our lives because it is put in our hearts by the Spirit. Change takes place in our hearts from the inside out as we allow God to grow us into the son or daughter in Christ that he has called us to be.  Paul says to us in Galatians, all our life long we must choose whether we will follow the law, which will forever imprison us, or will we choose to allow God's grace to lead us to a new place? If you believe, then you are God's heir. You are an heir with Christ, and everything is now different. Will you live your life in a prison of rules, that you will never be able to perfectly follow, which will never free you and will never bring you to God? Or will you come to that place of accepting the gift of His Son in your life that gives you perfect freedom, in the sure foundation of love?

No summary available.

Rev. Dr. Mark Tusken

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith. See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Gal 6:1-18

Two weeks ago, we talked about the goal of the law in our lives, which is that the law is to be our teacher or our tutor to lead us in the way we ought to live. We eventually grow up in Christ to that place where we no longer need that tutor teaching us, and we move past the law. As we come to the end of Galatians, Paul wants to summarize that and show the role of the law. In today's passage, Paul reminds us that the role we all have is to support one another. "Friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." In the Greek, the word "if" may also mean "and". In other words, Paul might be saying, "Whenever anyone is detected in a transgression." Paul is saying that along life's way, we are all going to fall on our faces and we will need one another to encourage us and carry us through. Essentially he is saying that there is a spiritual war that is being waged, and we need to help one another when those times come that we fail. And then he says this: "Bear one another's burdens". That means to be there for one another, especially when you see a brother or sister stumbling. When you do this, Paul says, you will fulfill the law of Christ. We must understand the differences between the law of Christ and the law of the old covenant. The law of the old covenant says that when you or I transgress or commit some offense against God, or someone we love, or against ourselves, we have the responsibility to atone, or make up, for that offense. In the old covenant way of thinking, you made up for that offense by making an appropriate sacrifice. You actually went out and paid for some animal, and that animal was sacrificed to make up for your sin. This was the law of the old covenant. The writer of Hebrews says it this way: Again and again, the priest of the old covenant made sacrifices; but those sacrifices could never completely bring about a restoration of the offender. (see Hebrews 10:10-14) But that's the law of the old covenant. What is the law of Christ? Instead of you on your own making a sacrifice for yourself under the old covenant, the law of Christ says, Jesus has already performed the sacrifice. Jesus has already healed you and I of our transgressions. Therefore, bear one another's burdens, and you will fulfill that law of his. What does that mean for us? That means that when, not if, you see someone sinning, you have a responsibility now to help them get beyond that place where they are stuck in sin. The challenge is, instead of finger-pointing and casting blame towards the sinner, it is our responsibility with gentleness to bring them back into the fold. Bear one another's burdens. It's not our job to point out the shortcomings of other believers, but to walk through life in the power of the Spirit defeating our enemy Satan, so that others know the love of Christ. It is not easy to see people falling into sin, and to not fall into the trap of saying "you're a sinner." We must instead help them with gentleness to bring them back to Christ. Paul says in the letter to the Galatians, be a hero to one another. Love one another fiercely. Be there for each other, so that when the standard is falling, someone is there to pick it up and carry it on. And our standard is the cross of Christ. "May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." We become one another's heroes when we bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.

Rev. Dr. Mark Tusken

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Col 1:1-14

In today's reading, Paul gives this address to the people living in Colossae: "To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae". There are two phrases we can talk about here: What it means to be in Christ, and what it means to be in Colossae. There is a wonderful balance there that can encourage all of our hearts and minds. First, to be in Christ is to be in that place where we know that our hearts and our very lives belong to our heavenly Father. Do you know that, and do you have that sense of assurance about yourself? The people in Colossae did, and it turned their lives upside down. Paul actually did not know this church; he had only heard about it. But he had heard about them because these people, forever changed by Christ, had made a difference. Unless we are connected to Christ we will never be what He wants us to be in our lives. The believers in Colossae were in Christ, because they were connected to their life source. Is that true for you and me? Our culture today tends to be very disconnected from our Creator, our true life source. If you ask the average person today to describe a "spiritual" or a "religious" person, they would respond with descriptions such as: they go to church, they are other-worldly, they are pious and they are rigid. If you ask the same people to describe someone who is truly human, they would say they are warm, caring, understanding, and they are helpful. This helps to explain Jesus' parable about the Good Samaritan. Those people who should have been most human actually stepped around the person in need, and became churchy, pious, rigid and other-worldly, instead of warm, caring, understanding and helpful. The challenge that Paul gives all of us is to make sure that we stay in Christ. Paul is telling us not to fall into the trap of being disconnected, but remain deeply rooted in Christ, and your life will be sustained. The second phrase Paul uses is in Colossae. This phrase is important too, because we all know people who have come to that place where they are so deeply in Christ that they have lost touch with the world around them. For instance, how many of us these days actually know our neighbors who live next to us? Could you name the people who live in the next several houses down from you? There is less socialization, less involvement in other people's lives in our culture today. We are busier with work, we have long commutes, we are busy with our computers and our televisions and we rarely take the time to have a cup of coffee and chat with our neighbors. It is a dangerous place to be, just like the Priest and the Levite who stepped away from the person in need. Many of us who are in Christ are no longer in Colossae, or involved in the lives of the people around us. This can be a real challenge for all of us. If you will be in Christ, and in Colossae, then Jesus in you can change the world. Let us be rooted deeper in Christ, so that He can give us a freshness and a joy to our lives and to the world.

Rev. Dr. Mark Tusken

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.'  Luke 10:38-42

Sometimes in families, siblings have certain "boundaries" between them which we call "sibling rivalry". Martha and Mary, even as adults, seemed to have something like this going on as well. Part of this was dictated by culture. When people visited, it was expected that the women would be the hostesses, and they were to literally wait hand and foot on the guests of honor. It was also a social faux pas of Jesus' day to in any way take the attention off of the guest of honor, and direct it towards yourself. In our story today, Martha and Mary have guests visiting their home, including Jesus. The story tells us that somehow the invisible boundary line between the sisters had been crossed. Martha was distracted, and she went to Jesus to try to resolve the problem. Martha was doing all the work; but Mary was being a disciple, and she was sitting at Jesus' feet and learning. Somehow Mary gave up her expected role, and was simply listening and learning. Here we have two types of Christians that we can all relate to. The first type, like Martha, is the active Christian. They really like to be busy with many things and get their strength and energy from working in the world. The other type, like Mary, is the passive Christian. These people are more introspective and withdrawn. They want to be in prayer, meditation and Bible Study. They get their strength from solitude. By the way, this not only applies to women, but to men and children as well. And the church needs both types of people. If we only had Marys, we would only focus on being in Christ, and in prayer, and in worship, and our service to needy people in the world might tend to get overlooked. If we only had Marthas, we would only focus on ministries and activities, and our spiritual growth and relationships would be neglected. Ask yourself, what type of person do you tend to be? Sometimes we can get occupied serving God, and forget to know God better. This is what happened to Martha in the story. She had her friend Jesus there, and she had the opportunity to sit at his feet; but she was too busy. Mary was the one who stopped to listen. Do we make ourselves available to listen to God? Are we willing to go to that place of centering prayer, where Jesus can speak to our hearts? This can be a difficult challenge in our lives, where we are willing to take the time to stop and listen to what Jesus has to say to us. We must make certain that our lives don't become so busy and so filled with the extraneous that we can't hear what God wants to share with us. No matter if we tend to be a more active or a more passive Christian, we all still need to be able to be still and listen to God. Mary chose what was best. 

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial." And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, "Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:1-13

An easy way to learn what Jesus is teaching in this passage is to consider each letter of the word CHRIST. The letters can represent what Jesus is teaching here. C stands for Concentrate. Concentrate on God, the One to whom you are praying. Jesus says you can call God "Abba" or Daddy. Jesus is using a metaphor to indicate that God is a loving parent and you are in an intimate, family relationship with the One who is all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful. Concentrate on God who is Love: universal Love, unconditional Love. Concentrate on God who is present to you here and now, loving you always, with a love that never ends, whether you deserve it or not. Concentrate on God in whom we live and move and find our being and for whom "deserving is not an issue." If you concentrate on this all-loving, all-powerful God, you can pray easy because you know that you are, simply by your trust and awareness, tapping into the power of Divine Love... and that power, working in you, can do more than you can ever ask or imagine. H is for Hallelujah! Jesus says, "Hallowed be your Name". Sometimes that is translated, "May your Name be held holy". Hallowed or holy describes the character of God. And we might very well respond, "Hallelujah". It is appropriate to respond to the presence of God with joyful praise. Jesus taught that we should thank God in advance for answering our prayer. That is a wonderful way to express this hallelujah factor. If you want to grow in prayer and joy in the Lord, I urge you to develop your own ways to respond to God with praise and joy. Many doctors affirm that expression in the Old Testament that "a merry heart is good medicine". The more we praise God and thank God and seek to give glory to God, the better we feel - physically and emotionally. R is for Ruler. Jesus simply says, "Your kingdom come". When we pray those words, we are saying that his will for our life and for the world is also our will. We intend to align our life and our resources with his will and purpose. To be a disciple of Jesus means that we are committed to extending the kingship of God. We advance the kingdom of God by our prayer, our work, a proper use of our resources. How can we make this abstraction practical and real? One example would be, that the earth is capable of producing enough food for every man, woman and child now alive. In fact, we now are producing enough food for every person on earth. Is it the will of our loving God that every person should have access to daily bread, to essential nutrition? It would seem that our answer would be yes. Well then, we are challenged to do something about it, aren't we? We obviously have a faulty distribution system, because even in the richest nation on this planet, one of four children goes to bed hungry. It seems that in order to pray the Lord's prayer with integrity, we need to be praying and working and giving and voting for food justice. Lastly, on this concept of praying to the Ruler of the universe, I want to point out what Jesus taught in many ways: with God everything is possible -- especially when you follow the process which Jesus offers so forcefully in today's gospel. Ask and you shall receive. Seek or search and you will find. Knock and it will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. And everyone who searches, finds. And everyone who knocks has the door opened. This process, this combination, of asking, searching and knocking is unbeatable, according to Jesus. Can you believe this today? I stands for I need. Jesus says, "Give us this day our daily bread". We are praying, "God, give us what we need. Give us bread. Give us employment that will develop our talents to make our contribution to the human family." Whatever we need is important to God. We need healing. We need the church to teach us how to pray the prayer of faith that heals. We need strength in the times of temptation and trial. We need love to empower us to love others as Christ loves us. We can achieve this through the sacraments of confession, partaking in the Eucharist, and reconciliation. We need a non-judgmental community, if we are to judge not, lest we be judged. S stands for Savior. When we pray, we affirm that God is our Savior in Christ Jesus. Jesus teaches us that God will forgive us our sins. Every day we sin by what we have done, and by what we leave undone. We confess those as specifically as we are able, and ask for forgiveness and strength to repent. The ultimate sin is to refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us. In Mark, Jesus teaches, "When you stand praying, forgive anyone with whom you have an issue." Lack of forgiveness blocks the flow of the Spirit. It blocks healing. T is for Triumph over evil. Jesus taught us to pray, "Do not bring us to the time of trial..." We can thank God for forgiveness, and pray that we can avoid the temptation. Sometimes, the best way to conquer evil is to avoid it. Paul wrote , "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide a way out." 1 Cor 10:13   Christ taught us also that we can triumph over disease and illness. He said to his original disciples, "As you proclaim the Kingdom of God, heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons." Mt 10:7,8  At other times he said, "Greater things than I do, you will do, because I go to the Father".  In the gospel according to Matthew, two blind men called to Jesus. "Son of David, have mercy on us." Jesus asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said, "Yes, Lord." Then Jesus touched their eyes saying, "According to your faith, let it be to you." And their eyes were opened. Mt 9:27  In another passage, a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years kept telling herself, "If only I can touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed." When she touched his robe, the fountain of blood dried up. Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace." Mark 5:25  James wrote to the first century church, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed." James 5:15  At the end of Mark's gospel, Jesus says that those who believe in him can lay their hands on the sick, in his name, and the sick will get well.  The acronym CHRIST reminds us to live up to our calling. We need guidance if we are to walk the way of the cross. We need the whole gospel, if we are to live out our calling as co-creators with the Creator, as co-redeemers with Christ, and as collaborators with the Holy Spirit, to renew the face of the earth. Everything is possible -- but we must be willing to do it with God.

Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.’ Luke 12:13-21

This story takes place because people have come to Jesus and ask him to decide how the family inheritance should be divided. This is in effect a story that we all are writing all our lives long. The man in the story did not produce his own wealth; the land produced abundantly for him. But he did not realize the gift of the land that he had received. Instead, his focus was on himself. He repeatedly uses the pronouns "I," "my," "mine". He was satisfied with himself. But God has the last word in this story. He says, "You fool! Tonight it is over. All these things that you have stored up, whose will they be now?" All of us through our lives are writing the answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? The rich fool had decided that the meaning of life was in possessions. Is that your answer? There are two incredible lessons we can learn from this story. First, in the search for the meaning of life, it is not about how much you have. How are you building your life? What are your priorities? The search for the meaning of life has got to be bigger than our possessions. Do you own your possessions, or do your possessions own you? You can either learn to let go, or you will end up holding on so tightly that it destroys your life and your loved ones' lives. Jesus says again and again, it is not about what possessions you have or what kind of salary you make; it is about your attitude towards what you have. The second lesson we can learn today is, in the search for the meaning of life, what matters is  what you do with what you have. It was not wrong for the rich fool to have a barn and a silo in which to store his crops; what was wrong was that he thought he had to have a bigger silo. He could have learned how to give away his surplus and to share with others. We can think of three aspects of the meaning of life. The first is to have love of God. The second element is love for others. The third is to have a sense of purpose bigger than yourself. This was the problem with the farmer in today's story. All he could think about was, "My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods." He never realized that the real meaning of life is to do something good for others out of love for God and our neighbor.  We are all writing our own answer to the question, what is the meaning of life. We must have the right perspective in life. The farmer didn't get it, but you and I can. With the Holy Spirit in our lives we can walk that dangerous trail of life, and we won't slip.

Jesus said, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." Luke 12:32-40

It is important sometimes to be at the right place in the right time. Jesus says in our passage today, "You must be ready." "Blessed are those who are alert when the master comes." This summer we are in the midst of the teaching portion of the gospel of Luke. Last week, we learned that we must examine our priorities and determine what the meaning of our life is. This week we learn that we must be ready, and that preparation is important in our lives. The question we ask ourselves tonight is: Are we ready for the spiritual opportunities that God has for us? Are you ready? First of all, spiritual timing has to be learned. It is not something that comes to us naturally. We must admit our own weaknesses about our perceptions of God's timing. We must learn about spiritual timing. Scripture tells us that time is brief. Time is "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," it says in Job (Job 7:6). Our lives are like grass that withers (Is 40:6,7). "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14). In light of the brevity of time, Jesus says we must be ready and be prepared for action. Use your time wisely. Know that God has spiritual opportunities for you that you must be ready to take on. The book of Psalms tells us, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Ps 90:12). "Be careful, then, how you live -- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity." (Eph 5:15-16) And that's what Jesus is saying to us today. He asks us to look at the preparation and timing of our lives, and to be dressed for action. Blessed are those whom the master finds alert and ready, he says. Timing is everything, and we must be ready. The master is going to come at an unknown hour. Last week, when Jesus reminded us to not focus on building bigger barns, he really was asking us, "What are your priorities?" This week, Jesus challenges us by asking, "What are you preparing for?" What time is it in your life? Is it time to consider the mission field? Is it time for a new job? Is it time to make a change in some way? What spiritual time is it in your life? Now is the acceptable time. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. Are you ready for the spiritual opportunity that God has for you? Jesus challenges us: Be ready. Be dressed for action. Be alert. You will then be in the right place, at the right time.

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
...
Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.

         --"Ithaca," by Constantine P. Cavafy

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" Luke 12:49-56

In the early church, the image of baptism was one taken from agriculture. It was the image of a farmer grafting a twig onto a sturdy vine. The idea was that baptism is grafting an individual person onto the vine of Christ. Each Christian was believed to become, over time, such an integral part of the vine, that it was impossible to tell where the vine began and the graft ended. Each branch grafted into the vine becomes the vine. The essence of the vine flows into the branch so that the branch can produce the same fruit as the rest of the vine. That image of the branch grafting into the vine is a profound metaphor for baptism and Christian life. Imagine, the essence of Christ, flowing into us, and flowing through us into others. We become Christ; we don't just believe in him -- we become Christ. In today's gospel lesson, Jesus gives us another perspective on baptism and life in Christ. Jesus says, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!" What on earth is he teaching here? Jesus is saying, as his disciples, we are not to settle for false peace at any price. The fire that he brought to the earth is a radical, unconditional love. Before he even knew us, he paid the price for our transgressions. That was the baptism that he had to endure. As a consequence of that baptism of blood, the baptism that we are baptized with is pure, unearned grace. Not cheap grace, for he paid the price. And yet we may have to pay the price at some time in our lives, and we should be ready for that and know that. What does the baptism of unconditional love mean for us? The promise is, that if we persist in the baptismal covenant, then the Lord will be able to do his work, and we will be transformed. If we persist in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and the prayers; and if we persevere in resisting evil; and when we fall into sin (notice it says when we fall into sin, not if), if we repent and turn to the Lord; if we seek and serve Christ and all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; if we strive for justice and peace among all peoples, and respect the dignity of every person on the face of the earth; if we do these things, then some of that fire of unconditional love will take hold of us. Then the holy spirit of love will be able to make us a new people in Christ Jesus. That's the prize we are after. Not just an individual changed here and there, but a whole people transformed and becoming new in Christ. Jesus said, "I have come to bring fire to the earth." Consider for a moment that fire does two things. Fire destroys, and fire refines. Fire destroys the temporary; but refines the durable. Our lives seem to be so often devoted to the temporary, to those things that the fire will destroy. But the fire of unconditional love can become our identity. The new covenant is about that fire of unconditional love, that fire that Jesus wanted to kindle on the earth.

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:18-19,22-29

Across the span of our life, we encounter new challenges every year. The theme in Hebrews that we see again and again is "Don't go back." Don't go back to the old way. We see the comparison over and over in Hebrews between the Old Covenant and what happened in the old times, such as the blazing fire, darkness and gloom mentioned in today's passage, and the new Mount Zion and city of the living God. There was a temptation for the priests to go back to the old ways that they had learned. And we face the same temptation during our Christian lives. There's a temptation to say, maybe what God has done for me wasn't real. Maybe what I experienced wasn't really God. This type of questioning happens at different times in our lives. Sometimes we ask these questions as a teenager or during college, when we are deciding whether or not our parents' faith is valid for us. Sometimes it happens at the birth of our children. Whenever it might happen, we are all faced with the temptation to convince ourselves that it wasn't the work of God. The writer of Hebrews today tells us: Don't exchange the fire of God and the passion in your heart for something that ultimately is so much less. Don't go back. Hebrews tells us in effect to have a passion for your passion. We should not have a purpose driven church; we should have a passion driven church. The writer of Hebrews reminds the priests that if they go back to old ways and old sacrifices, they will get caught up in old habits and identities in a way that would never bring them back fully to God. The challenge in all our lives is that once we turn that corner and give our lives and hearts to the passion of following Christ, there will be temptations along the way to think that maybe the old way was the better way. Don't go back, the writer of Hebrews says. We have a choice between living life with a passion for the passion, one sacrifice offered once for all of us; or we can do it on our own, the old way -- whatever that might be for you. The writer of Hebrews told the priests, and he tells us today, Don't go back. I want to be a part of a passionate place, a church that lives and moves and has its being in the love of God, says the writer of Hebrews. The passage says, "You have not come to something that can be touched," or something external that you can walk away from. You have come to the living God, who by the power of the living Spirit puts the fire of God in us. Don't go back. Don't settle for less. What is your passion? "For indeed our God is a consuming fire." Is there a fire in your soul? Don't go back. You are not approaching a touchable mountain. Ours is a consuming fire.

"When I left for Jamaica this summer, I knew that it was so much more than the clear waters and bright colors that you see on t.v, but I really didn't know what I would find. As I look back now, I realize that what I found was the many people that I will remember forever. Every afternoon, we did a different ministry after our v.b.s. in the morning. One afternoon, our ministry was to go to a hospital. We were there to talk to the people and to read them the Bible, and to just be smiling faces for the many people who didn't get visitors. Right away, I met a woman named Mary, whom I talked with for quite a while. Later, I was walking into the women's ward, and my sister called me over to where she was playing with a little girl. Renee is very small, and I'm sure that she is older than she looked. She was standing up in a white metal crib, with white sheets, and nothing at all to play with or to stimulate her. I stayed with her, and held her and sang to her. She was so thin, and she made a squeaky singing noise the whole time. As I was holding her, I wondered if I should go and talk to people whom I could really share God's Word with, but I couldn't put her down. So I held her until we had to go. As I started to pull her away, she tensed up and started crying. I cried too. It broke my heart, and I just started praying that God would give her peace and comfort and people to love her. The next couple of days, other churches who visited the hospital only mentioned one child, a baby boy. I worried about Renee for the rest of the week, and prayed for her. On Friday we were told to go to the ministry site that we felt the Lord leading us to. I went back to the hospital, but I didn't really know why. I went looking for Renee, but as the others had said, she wasn't there. I asked the nurses about her, and they said, 'She went home; she was sick, but she's a lot better now, and her parents came and took her home.' As I listened to them, a rush of relief and thankfulness and reassurance came over me. I thought I knew then exactly why God had led me back to the hospital, but he had even more to show me. When I walked in the gate of the hospital Friday, Mary was sitting there -- the woman whom I talked with so long on Tuesday. Her face lit up when she saw me and she gave me a huge hug. 'I asked for you on Wednesday; and I asked for you on Thursday; and now on Friday, you came,' she said. So throughout my visit I talked with her, and really without knowing it, was a friend and encourager to her. After that visit to the hospital, I had no doubt in my mind that God had wanted me there. For Renee, for Mary, and for my own faith." - Lathie, sophomore

"It was our first night in Jamaica, and we were taken to a roadside revival. There are people all over who come out to listen to the praise music on Friday nights. It was our first real chance to meet the people and share a little of our faith with them. We were all a little bit nervous; we had practiced sharing our faith here with each other, but it is quite different in another country with strangers. I was hanging back away from the crowd, just enjoying the music. I noticed a Jamaican standing back from the crowd as well. I didn't quite know what to do, but I could just feel God leading me over to him. I didn't know what to say, but eventually I headed over next to him. He had a warm smile, which made me feel a little bit better. I introduced myself, and said I was from Chicago, and that we were ministering to the people there, and could I talk to him about God? He just smiled and nodded. I was about to share my testimony, when he put his arm around my shoulder and said, 'Mon, my name is Wayne.' Evidently God has a sense of humor, because it turned out that Wayne was the logistics consultant in charge of our project! By the time we had both stopped laughing at each other, I realized that God actually had something to do with that. Wayne was just the person I needed to meet at that time, because it reminded me that I wasn't in control of the situation. I was embarrassed then, but there was no real point to being embarrassed, because there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn't in my hands. So to the casual observer, our trip was a comedy of errors. It rained every single day we were there -- including the day we were moving gravel. We went through our snacks for the children three times as fast as we had thought. It also didn't occur to us until we got there that tuna fish doesn't keep well in 100-degree weather! But all our careful planning -- our schedules, our crafts, everything we had planned -- meant nothing there. It meant nothing until I let go, and let God take over our trip. It wasn't until I did that until I was ready to participate. I want to talk to you today about a man named Wesley. I met him at a hospital we were visiting. First of all, this was nothing like an American hospital -- it wouldn't have even been allowed to exist in America. The first thing you notice when you get there is the smell. It was horrible. It was all one room, with two bathrooms. The diseases these people were suffering from were horrific. One man was covered from head to toe with boils. A few of us stayed with him and prayed with him, but after a while it became too much for me, so I began walking down the aisle to look for someone else. I noticed Wesley sitting on his cot with a grin on his face. I pulled up a chair next to him. Whenever I think of Jamaicans now, I think of Wesley. He had a heavy accent, so I could only understand about half of his words, but that was okay. He was in there for a bad heart and high blood pressure. When I told him I was a Christian, his eyes seemed to light up. He proceeded to explain the better part of Exodus to me, beginning to end. I read him a few Psalms, and told him the story of Pentecost from Acts. He had no money. He lived like all the other Jamaicans -- in houses made of scrap metal and bamboo. He hadn't seen his family in a long time; they hadn't come to visit him. But it just didn't matter to him. All the suffering and poverty that he had to endure were just overshadowed by his love for God and his love for the people around him. He was so glad to have people like us there to talk to. One thing I noticed is that we Americans see ourselves as rich. We have money, possessions, jobs, nice clothes, and we (myself included) see the Jamaicans as poor. They have no money, no jobs, they live in shacks that we wouldn't store our lawnmowers in. Some of them don't have any food save for what falls off of the mango tree in their yard. But what I noticed is that they're the rich ones, and we are the poor ones. When we walked through the streets doing prayer walks, mothers would come out with their families. They would let us hold their babies. And to be honest with myself, if we saw a bunch of black people walking down the street, would our first reaction be to run out and give them our babies? It's a completely different culture. We lead lives of quiet desperation, trying to accumulate possessions, while these Jamaicans have so little that they have to trust in God for everything. And their lives are filled with peace and joy because of it. Every time I go on a mission trip, I come back feeling like it was those people who ministered to me. I just hope I made a difference in their lives, because they made a difference in mine." - Andy, senior

"Something I realized a while ago in my walk with Christ is that I'm never on this earth going to fully understand Him or fully be close to Him. I'm always growing and learning new things about Him. So on the plane ride on the way to Jamaica, I'm thinking, 'Okay God, what are you going to show me on this trip?' Well, needless to say, God absolutely blew me away with His response. He showed me so much more than I could have ever possibly imagined. I'm blessed to be able to share a little of that with you today. On the trip, one of the things we did was lead vacation Bible school for a week at a local church. Those kids were so amazing. They were friendly, welcoming, and they showed us so much love. Our afternoon ministry was split between two things: going door-to-door just talking to people about God, and prayer walks, which consisted of walking and praying for anything that you felt led to pray for. We were split into three groups of 5 or 6 people each. After v.b.s., we headed out of the church in three different directions, and my group hadn't even come to the first house down the road when we were bombarded by kids. At any point in our walk, we had about a dozen of our v.b.s kids right at our heels. Now, I loved those kids, but honestly the first thing that crossed my mind wasn't that I was glad to see them. It was just that they were going to get in the way. I was thinking, how are we supposed to minister when we are surrounded by all these kids? To my surprise, we ministered just fine. But even more surprising was that the kids ministered to us. The main thing that happened was when we were supposed to be switching over from our evangelism to our prayer time. We were heading back to the church, when a few of the young boys took off racing. They didn't get too far when one of them, Omar, fell. When we caught up to him, he was sitting on the ground holding his knee which was bleeding very badly. Immediately we all reached for our water bottles to cleanse the wound and band-aids to cover it. But it wasn't until another boy, Ravan, spoke up and interrupted our actions by saying, 'Should we pray?' In our hurry to patch up Omar's knee, we neglected the thing we should have done right from the start. At the time, I was very impressed by Ravan's faith. But it wasn't until I looked back that I saw something. There is a song by Jars of Clay called "Like a Child" that talks about being able to move mountains and walk on water and basically do anything if we have faith like a child. I'd read about that in the Bible before, but I wasn't ever really sure what it meant until I reflected back on the trip. Right away what came to mind is a child's dependence. As a teenager, I know there are so many things that I try to do on my own. But those kids depended on their parents to take care of them, on us as representatives from the church to teach them about the gospel, and God to be Lord of their lives. Ravan wasn't concerned about trying to do things on his own by taking care of Omar's knee; he just wanted to give it all up to God. He appeared very calm to me, not hurried or worried like we were. And he was happy. What a great way to live. Those kids don't have so many of the things that we all take for granted. Yet, they were happier than just about any teen or adult that I have ever seen. He was just one of the unbelievable kids who all were such examples to me throughout the week. Through them, God showed me that that is how he wants me to live my life today." - Gabby, junior

"What a great experience being able to travel to Jamaica was for me. It was my first missions trip. I'd never done anything like this before, although I felt like I had a heart for it. My wife and my oldest son Brian had done this before in Mexico and came back changed forever. This group could literally fill up hours and hours of your time sharing with you bits and pieces and stories that would impress you, bring you to tears, and make you laugh, and it would be a wonderful time of recollection for all of us. But what I really wanted to bring back to the folks at St. Mark's was a reflection on the ten youths that went with the six adults. Not only did the people of Jamaica and the countryside of Jamaica and a deeper relationship with God affect me forever, but being able to prepare for five months and spend ten days in the trenches with these ten young adults left an impact on me that will never go away. While in Jamaica, we looked for the Lord in all that we did. And as you've heard through these stories, and the others stories told at the other services, you'll see a common thread: we were challenged to expand our faith and to lean on God and say, 'Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? Let me trust enough in you to just go where you are leading me.' We spent a lot of our time, in a very full week, listening to the Lord and trying to discern where we were supposed to be and how were were supposed to handle each situation. I saw Jesus in the beautiful countryside of Jamaica. I saw Jesus in the beautiful people of Jamaica -- not rich in material things, as Andy said; but rich in so many things that we should all strive for. I saw Jesus in fellow missionaries not only from our church but from the three other churches that we ministered with in a team that comprised a total of about 78 people. I saw Jesus in all of these things packaged together. But I'd like to share with you how I saw Jesus in the ten youth that traveled to Jamaica with us. I saw Jesus in John, and his willingness to listen to God and take God's direction in confidence and trust. John walked very confidently, not knowing where his next step was going to take him. I saw Jesus in Gabby, and her ability to throw herself with so much energy into anything we were doing, and we were doing many things one after the other. Gabby brought back with her to our debriefing sessions a very eloquent way of articulating to the group of all 78 missionaries exactly what we had just been through. That was very comforting to me to have it articulated in that way. I saw Jesus in Andy, and his endless energy in contributing to all of our ministries. Andy had a way of being able to encourage each of us by saying just the right words of encouragement to us at the right time, not only with me but with others, and I was very pleased to have Andy when we were challenged on a gravel road to take on a few kids in basketball, since my height is not one of my advantages! I saw Jesus in Lorie, and her love for life and the Lord, which just exudes from her. Her boundless energy in contributing to the efforts on the house. We built a house for a 91-year-old man who was living in a 10x10 shack that had a leaky roof and holey walls. Lorie was there every step of the way doing everything, and she just was out of her seat and ready to go to the mission effort at all times. I saw Jesus in Brian, and his pied-piper ministry on the streets of Jamaica. There were several kids on the first day of our v.b.s. that were just not able to take that step to come in to the church. They were hanging around the church, and peering in the windows, and we ended up across the street on the gravel and cement steps, and Brian was drawing vacation Bible school covers for them. Eventually you saw a lot of those kids able to take that step the next day into the church and to start participating. I saw Jesus in Julie, and her love for the Lord which flowed from her music and her interactions with the Jamaicans, especially the children. To see Julie at the v.b.s. up their with Gabby leading us in praise and worship and then to see her interact with the kids was a blessing for all of us. I saw Jesus in Stephen, and his seasoned approach to ministry. He's been on several of these trips and he brought that demeanor with him. Stephen has a calm presence, but balancing that off, he has a comforting wit. If you know his little smirk, when you need it, it's there for you, and it was very often comforting for us. I saw Jesus in Robin, and her quiet yet steadfast and visible love for all of God's people. Just to watch her interact, especially at our debriefing sessions when we were supporting each other, to see her know right where to float to be with another youth or wherever she was needed. One of the visions I'll have of her that will never go away is when we built the house for the 91-year-old man. Robin would ride on the shoulders of Marco to be able to hammer nails in those unreachable places without a ladder. That was a great experience to see that. I saw Jesus in Kevin. Kevin has a direct but welcoming boldness that he expressed during our street ministries. Kevin was very adept and comfortable walking up to the locals, many of whom were unchurched, sharing his faith with them and making them feel comfortable discussing their beliefs or searching for what we were carrying with us while we were there on the streets. That was a blessing to me. I saw Jesus in Lathie and her pervasive presence in all of our works. Lathie was kind of the thread that kept us all together. She became the fingertip of the Lord on my shoulder and our fellow missionary's shoulders and the people in the areas we visited. Our society seems to me to be becoming much more self-centered. Spending five months preparing and ten days with this group of young leaders has given me strength for today and hope for tomorrow, and this group has done the same for the Jamaicans and probably some of the other missionaries we were with. I want to say to all of the parents: you and God and this church have produced a group of well-grounded, faithful young adults. They're each special in their own way, and their faith sets them apart from many adults that I know, and I am happy to have served with them." - John Meade, parent 

"Reminiscing over my many memories in Jamaica, I found it rather difficult to choose just one certain moment or specific story that I could share with you all today that would give you a glimpse of what our mission was all about. Being a senior this year, I've had the opportunity to serve on two mission trips prior to Jamaica. However, I can honestly say that the trip to Jamaica was the most spiritually rewarding. If I were to sum up the theme of this trip in only five words, those words would be the simple phrase, well known by Christians: 'Be still and know God.' This resounding theme was at work from the moment stepped off the sweltering bus and proceeded to carry our oversized mission bags to the crown of the hill where J.J.'s Guest House stood. God's plan for us all that week was already in full swing and He was going to rock our worlds whether we liked it our not. After all, it was His will, right? I'll be honest: Personally I felt like a veteran going on this trip. Obviously, with two mission trips to Mexico under my belt, I was sure to be a top dog in Jamaica. God was quick to set me straight on that one, no doubt about it. As I said, I felt pretty comfortable going on this trip, but my security seemed to leave my side the moment our leader Clint gave us our challenge for the week. The challenge that Clint set before us was to take a walk with Jesus; to listen and commune with Him. Sure it sounded easy; but in actuality, it wasn't such a piece of cake. Oddly, for some reason I wasn't really feeling the Lord speaking to me in the way that I thought I was supposed to. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded as to why this was happening at such an inopportune time. Here I was in the middle of Jamaica on a mission trip, and I wasn't sure I was hearing the Lord's voice. Again, I felt discouraged, and for the first few days I found myself hanging back from the activities, whether it was vacation Bible school, evening outreach, or afternoon ministry. I wasn't quite sure why this was happening, and just when I thought I couldn't doubt anymore, I saw God. My group was assigned door-to-door evangelism for afternoon ministry that day. God led my group and I to the house of a woman named Miss Alice. Miss Alice was the grandmother of one of the girls that had been attending our vacation Bible school in the mornings. As soon as I set foot inside Miss Alice's house, God, a.k.a. Miss Alice, was quick to put me in my place. I was a bit nervous going inside to talk to her, and Miss Alice sensed my nervousness the moment we exchanged a handshake. Apparently, my handshake wasn't firm enough for this fiery 90-year-old. 'What kind of a handshake was that?' Miss Alice questioned. She went on to assure me that her hands were clean because she had recently washed them, and I had no excuse for such a poor handshake. It was at that moment, while embarrassed, I saw God. He was speaking to me in a way that I don't think I have ever experienced before. He was speaking through Miss Alice, telling me how silly I was to be holding back during our ministry times. God assured me that He was with me, and all I had to do was be still and to listen and commune with Him. I needed to be still and to trust that He is God, and by doing this He would reveal Himself to me and lead me so that I might be able to take that walk with Him, just like Clint was talking about the first day we arrived. Miss Alice gave me a brief lesson on how a proper handshake should feel, and gave me a second chance to redeem myself from the first one. I was thankful for that. We proceeded to have a time of worship, in which I read Scripture to Miss Alice. Afterwards, she led us in a rousing chorus of 'When the Saints Go Marching In.' That song never sounded so full of love and excitement as it did that afternoon with Miss Alice. Miss Alice has a burning passion for the Lord, and as I keep her in my prayers, I only hope that when I am near her age, I will be as encouraging to others in my faith as she was to me on that day." - Lorie, senior

"I also have a lot of stories that I could share from this trip. This was my first mission trip, so I wasn't really sure what to expect, and that was a recurring theme throughout the week. I never really knew what to expect, and I don't think anybody did. One of the afternoon ministries that we had an opportunity to do was to visit an infirmary. Now, I was told that this wasn't going to be like an infirmary that we have at home, and I had pretty much figured that anyways because overall the conditions in Jamaica aren't what they are here. But I still had no idea what we were about to encounter. I was also told that we had the opportunity to either go inside and minister or to help paint the outside of the infirmary. I knew that I wasn't going to be comfortable with going inside the infirmary and ministering to these people, so I decided to paint. I was so sure that I was going to paint that I didn't even bother to ask God for guidance because I knew that was what I was supposed to do. So I dressed in my painting clothes instead of my ministry clothes and got on the bus to go to the infirmary. I brought my guitar anyway, because I thought one of the other worship leaders might want to play. I would have no use for a guitar because I was going to be painting and not ministering. Now I should explain that I don't have a lot of moments where I hear God's voice clearly. I generally think that I know what He wants me to do, but I don't always. When I got off the bus, I had one of those rare moments where I heard God's voice, and He told me that I was not going to be painting that day, and that I had to go inside and minister to these people. So, I very reluctantly walked past the painting site into the building. When I got in, I almost turned right back around. I did not know if I could do it. The conditions were so poor. There were flies in open wounds on the people, and the smell of human waste was so overpowering I thought I would be sick. I stood in the middle of the infirmary for at least a few minutes just praying to God, 'Are you sure this is what you want me to do? You don't want me to paint?', hoping that He would let me go back outside and paint with the other team members, but I got no such response. So I began to pray for strength and patience with my surroundings, because this was so different than anything that I have ever experienced. I sat down next to one of the beds of a man named Isaiah, who I believe was blind, but he still listened to me play my guitar. He eventually started singing with us. Some other team members came over and started singing. I felt so much more at peace after just a few moments, and the idea of painting completely slipped from my mind. We read them Bible verses; I walked around to the different beds and I played my guitar and we read Bible verses to some of the other patients. Sometimes they surprised us, when they recited verses to us that we had never even heard before. After a while, we visited the women's portion of the infirmary, and I was already so much more positive, because God was in the hearts of so many of these people already that they were actually ministering to us because they knew so much more than we did. It was actually a renewing experience for us. I met some of the most interesting people there -- people who seemingly had very little reason for getting through the day. But they were so full of love and joy for Christ. This was definitely an example of the missionaries being ministered to. Once we got back on the bus, I took some time to reflect on what had happened, and that God took me completely out of my comfort zone and put me in a totally new and unfamiliar experience and it was so much better than anything that I could have come up with by myself. He just completely messed up my plans. By following His plans, I had one of the most rewarding experiences of my life." - Julie, junior

"This was my second mission trip, not to Jamaica but altogether through AIM and through St. Mark's as a youth member. I went down to Jamaica thinking that I would be one of the senior youths, since I had lots of experience. I learned otherwise, though, that I wouldn't be the leader, but that I would be led by others and taught by God through others. We did a lot of ministry in Clifton, Jamaica which is up in the mountains and hills. The first Sunday there we went to a service that was very long and different than this service. But we got to meet everybody, because during the Peace you stand up and sing and dance and shake everyone's hand. I got the opportunity to meet a young man named Ravon whom I got to know more about later in the week, because the rest of the week we did v.b.s every morning in Clifton. There were about 30-50 kids every day, ranging in age from very little to high school or older. The first few days of v.b.s. I just walked around. I didn't really know anyone yet. There were so many new people to get to know. Tuesday or Wednesday I met Ravon again. He was in the back of the church with a couple of kids his age, about 13 or 14. We were doing a craft and I just walked back there to make sure that everyone knew what they were doing. I noticed that he was drawing. Anybody who knows me knows that I also have a passion for drawing. I sat down and started talking to him. I felt there was a connection between the two of us. I asked him if he had paper to draw with, and he told me that he liked paper. I asked him if he had a sketch book where he kept his drawings, and he said he didn't. I think it was the next day that we did missionary work on the streets of Jamaica. I had a group of five of us from St. Mark's, and we were bombarded by kids. About 20 kids kept following us around and holding our hands and hugging us while we were walking around and praying for everyone. It was a great experience walking around with these kids and getting to know more about them. They showed us their houses, and their brothers and sisters, and parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. It was a great experience. We did that for some time. As we headed back, we met up with Ravon again. He was going to take us to the watering hole where they went swimming, but I explained that we had to get back to where we were staying. As we rushed back to the bus, some of the boys took off racing down the street, and the streets aren't paved but are bumpy and filled with rocks. One boy fell and cut his knee open very badly, and we began to take care of the cut. But Ravon said, 'Shouldn't we pray?' And I felt at that moment that he was being a leader to me because I jumped at the situation and wanted to do the healing, but Ravon called God first and asked for God's help and God's guidance. I felt very different from then on that week. Ravon was there the rest of the week, smiling and leading the kids. I learned he was a leader to his people. No matter how young he was, he was a role model for kids that he had with him. I learned from that as I came back to the United States, that I should be a role model for people here and my friends and people I know. It really made a difference in my life to know that I could be a role model, and also how to look for God's work in my life through other people." - Brian, senior

"You'll notice that almost every one of these stories is a story of prayer and answered prayer. The first day when we got to Jamaica, we got into a group with 4 other teams. The first day I saw this girl. My initial response was that I needed to pray for her. I didn't know her name or who she was, and I decided that she would think I was a lunatic, so I'm not going to go pray for her, because she didn't know who I was. She was just another teenager from another group. The next day, however, Clint challenged us to be very prayerful on this trip. On Sunday afternoon, he asked us to gather as a group of 80, and when we finished praying, he asked us to walk over to who we needed to be praying for. This was my opportunity to pray for that girl. So we started to pray, and when he gave us permission to pray for those people, I immediately broke from the crowd and went looking for this girl. I searched each face, and I couldn't find her. I didn't know her name, so I didn't know who I was supposed to be asking for. I quickly remembered that the day before I had seen her laying in her bed directly across from my room., and that was one of the two times that I felt I needed to go over and pray for her. I thought that she must be in her room. I also thought that I must be crazy! I headed to her room, knowing that no one else in the group had started to move much yet, but I decided to get up and go. I walked, and as I walked I felt like there was a cloud around me, and I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going. As I walked to the door, the door was shut to her room. I thought to myself, I've got to be crazy to think that this girl is on the other side of the door. I quietly and timidly knocked on the door, and I heard a very faint, 'Yes?' My heart began to pound and I thought, 'Now what do I do!' So I opened the door and I said, 'Can I pray for you?' It was her in the room. She looked at me and said yes. I prayed over her, and I was expecting her to say something profound, like, 'I'm so glad you came in here and found me and prayed for me,' but nothing of the sort happened. She just looked at me like I was insane. I asked her her name, and then I stood up and left the room. And I began to doubt at that moment that God had called me to go in to that room. As I walked back to the group, we were all gathering up and were starting to have dinner, and we sat down. One of our team members said to me, 'Can I talk to you for a second?' I said, 'Sure,' so we pulled down to the end of one table, and she said, 'I don't think I can hear God's voice.' Knowing who this person was, I knew that she could hear God's voice because I had seen her do it before. So I thought to myself, how do we hear God's voice? How did I just hear God's voice? I said to her, 'You've known God for a long time. You know your sister, right? You can tell me what kind of ice cream she likes? That is much like God. You know him, just like me yesterday, and I related the story about my experience with the girl. Her eyes lit up, and she said, 'There was a guy that I saw yesterday that I was supposed to pray for, but I couldn't find him today.' I was dumbfounded as I told her that I had to go find my girl, and she was excited to hear this. Then she said, 'I have one more thing to say. I don't feel like I pray out loud very well.' But at that point Clint was directing us to get back on the bus, so we decided to continue talking on the bus. Once we got all of our things together and got on the bus, I noticed that she was sitting right in front of me, which I thought was a great arrangement to continue our conversation. There was another kid sitting next to me who I had met the first day. He was kind of a lonely soul and didn't have many friends, so we were kind of hanging out and talking. As the engine on the bus started up, I was all set to have this great profound conversation with one of our team members. Just as I was about to do that, Clint asked us to pray again. I thought to myself, 'Clint, I have a conversation that I need to have!' So I reluctantly put my hand on my team member and told her to turn around, and at the same time I turned to the kid next to me and asked if he was willing to pray with us. As she turned, he said, I don't pray very well out loud. I said, 'I have one thing to say. I have a little nephew who is only 1 year old. But there is something that he has done that has meant the world to me. He said my name. Most people don't understand it, but I do. And that's how God is. He just wants to hear our voice. He wants to hear us try to say His name and to talk to Him. And He doesn't care what it sounds like; He just wants to hear from us.' At that moment, we bowed in prayer, and I believe I heard the most beautiful and wonderful prayers that I have ever heard. And I don't know if God allowed me to hear them as He hears them, or if they truly were eloquent prayers. There is where I thought the story ended. I thought that that was the amazing work that God had done through forcing me to find this girl. But as we stepped off the bus, my team member turned to me and said, 'Do you know who that guy was that we were praying with? That was who I was supposed to pray for.' God is working. He is always working. He wants us to listen to His voice. He wants us to hear Him and obey. We just have to be willing to do so." - Diana Temple, Director of Youth Ministries

Rev. Dr. Mark Tusken

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 1 Tim 1:12-17

In light of the terrorist actions this week, we have been asking ourselves and those around us many questions. We connect with each other by asking where people were when they heard the news, and what they did afterwards.  But we ask the question, "Where were you?" or "What were you doing?" for all sorts of reasons. One of them is because we know that after Tuesday, the world is forever changed. But there is more to it than that. We make the story personal and ask those kinds of questions because after Tuesday, it's not just the world that has changed; it is our world that has changed. And so we share very personal truths with each other at a time like this because it is a very personal moment in each of our lives. So I want to share something with you this morning about myself. Over time, we all have that chance to share personal stories with each other. I realized this week that since I was 17, nearly every day of my life I have been reading the words of a terrorist. Nearly every day I have opened to the words of one who, in the name of God, was filled with hate. I've read the words of one who was described as breathing murderous threats against those who believed differently from him. And like a terrorist, he rounded up innocent people, made sure they were dead, incited crowds against the innocent. He, like most terrorists, ended up changing his name so that he had an alias; the old name carried far too much baggage. In our reading today, Paul writes to his young friend Timothy, whom he had been mentoring: "I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence." He, like most terrorists, believed he had authority from those greater them himself. In fact, religious authorities had given him papers and permission to persecute to the point of death anyone who wanted to acknowledge that a rabbi from Nazareth had raised from the dead. And for the last 28 years of my life, I'd been reading the words of a terrorist who had been filled with murderous hate in the name of God. But I also realized something else this week about how Paul could have been at that place and what happens to all of us from time to time, or where most of us live, and that is in the house of fear. That's what had happened to Paul. He had seen this new movement. He heard that the law was no longer important. Everything that his life had been built upon was challenged by the truth that Jesus was not dead but was alive. He began to live in the house of fear. It can happen to anybody. It happened to me this week, and it probably happened to you. Our world was crumbling literally before us. And whether we were fearful for others that we knew in Manhattan or the Pentagon; whether we were fearful because we wondered where it would end or what would be next; or maybe we just had mundane fears, such as wondering what the market would do on Monday, or whether we would be able to make that pleasure trip that was planned. The world was different after Tuesday -- not just the world, but my world and yours. At that point we are faced with a great dilemma: Will we live in the house of fear, like Paul? That's why he became a man of persecution, and a man of violence. But in effect, the Bible again and again shows us that that is what happens to all of us. We end up in the house of fear. You can see it in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve start in a different place; they start in the house of love. Everything they needed was provided for them. It was a place of great beauty and refreshment. The house of love means that every day they had a community and connectedness with one another and with God that's described as them walking together in the cool of the garden in the evening. Do you have a picture of the house of love, from those first pages of the Bible? But then, they make the decision, and evil is invited in. They end up living in the house of fear. Evil is not created by God; it is a decision. With that first bad decision, the dominoes begin to topple, and Adam and Eve move from the house of love to the house of fear, so that God calls out to them, "Why are you hiding?" And they say, "Because we were afraid and hid ourselves." This Tuesday, all of us were invited to live in the house of fear -- for ourselves, for our families, for our friends -- and the circle grows wider: for our country, for our world, for life as we know it. The house of fear is a very dangerous place, because you lose all perspective. Some people are subjective; some people are objective. You will never be objective when you are living in the house of fear. There are many examples from the pages of scripture. It happened in the history of Israel when tens of thousands of Israelis are out to march against the Philistines, and they are living in the house of fear. They are afraid of one man named Goliath. The Israelis at that point were living in the house of fear, and that army said there was nothing they could do. But there was one young shepherd boy who was assigned to bring the care packages from home to the front lines. David was his name. David didn't live in the house of fear. Our children should never have to live in the house of fear. David comes to the front lines, and asks his brothers how things were going. They reply that it is not going well at all. David says, "Why?" and they respond, "The Philistines have this one terrorist who has us at bay. His name is Goliath." David won't live with his family and the Israelites in the house of fear. He's been raised in the house of love. He says, "Wait a minute... are you telling me that we're not going to do anything against that one individual? Those who would stand for evil against God's kingdom -- we're going to stand by and do nothing?" That's not the house of love, to do nothing. David says, me plus God is always a majority. On that fourth airplane, I believe there must have been men who knew that they plus God is always a majority, and they made the ultimate sacrifice as they said, "We will live in the house of love and stand against evil, and not cower in the house of fear." That's what David says on that day, when he says to his brothers: I don't have much, but I'm pretty good with a slingshot. I'm not going to live in the house of fear. And he goes forward and defeats the enemy, and wins the victory, and good triumphs. Good will win out. We don't have to live in the house of fear. So we go back to this terrorist Paul for a minute. In his life, there is a picture of how you move from the house of fear to the house of love. Even though he was all of those things -- a persecutor, a blasphemer, in the service of darkness itself, a man of violence -- he says, "The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." Do you know how you move from the house of fear to the house of love? The way Paul did... by faith. Faith is trusting that our God can meet every need. Faith is that sense that in the midst of the mountains themselves falling into the sea... you and I, as we believe, are safe forever in God's hands. And Paul when confronted with the love of God, moved from the house of fear to the house of love. That's why we are here today. For decades, in that chapel, our ancestors had days of fear. But by faith, they moved forward. That building was built after the most horrendous scarring of this landscape, both in terms of physical property and in human souls that this nation has ever known. In 1868, the people of God said, "We're not living in the house of fear. We're going to live in the house of love." And they built that place. At the time of the first World War, when people didn't know what would happen next, the saints gathered faithfully there, and offered prayers, knowing that they could live in the house of fear, or thrive in the house of love. I've seen the bulletin from Christmas Eves during World War II. I want you to know that there was nobody in those bulletins wringing their hands and offering anything but thanksgiving that they had decided that rather than being alone in the house of fear, they would stand together in God's house, the house of love. That's what we tell our children from the youngest creepers and toddlers, to the teens who play music and drums in the youth room, that's our choice. It was our choice Monday morning, and it was our choice Tuesday morning, and it is our choice today, and it is our choice tomorrow. I will stand with Paul, whom I've read now all these years, and has changed me -- not he, but God's spirit living in me, from someone living in the house of fear to someone who dwells secure in the house of the Lord forever.

Heavenly Father,
We give to you our fears, that sense of hopelessness
And we want to ask you to move us by faith
from that house of fear to the house of love.
Help us, gracious God, to know your peace
That passes all understanding.
And let your peace reign in our homes, in our schools
In this village, in the tallest towers of Chicago
And beyond the borders of this land
Let your peace reign in our world.
This we pray under the banner of the Prince of Peace,
In whose kingdom no sword is drawn
Save the sword of righteousness
Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior
Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer, Prayers for National Life:
19. For the President of the United States and all in Civil Authority

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to your merciful care, that, being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with your and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

---

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all —this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.
1 Tim 2:1-8

The prayer for the president begins with a description of who our God is. He is our ultimate Governor; he is in control of our lives. We want to pray that he will take care of our country, and guide and protect us with his providence. Providence is God's hand, guiding and directing the affairs of his people. We pray that in his providence he will keep us safe. And then we pray for wisdom for those in leadership and authority. As we pray that prayer, God's power is released for good and righteousness and justice. The prayer also speaks of serving in the fear of God. It's important to note that we don't have to be afraid of God; it means that we can be in awe of him, and exchange our fear for our enemies for awe for our God. George Bush, our president, doesn't need to be afraid at this hard time. There's one other thing we need to understand, which is a little more difficult: When Paul said to pray for the king and everyone in authority, those were people who were actually his enemy. Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies. During this month, when we pray for George Bush, it's also important to pray for our enemies. Jesus would say, when you pray for your enemies, something wondrous happens to them and to you. The call today is to pray for everyone in authority, not just the people who are those we know and love. That's our challenge in the month ahead. If we want to live in a house of love, and not in a house of fear, then we need to follow Paul's directions here.

Lord, you told us a story today
About people in the world who are shrewd, and lie
But you also told us that we are to be more wise than them.
You have taught us that genuine wisdom
Means praying both for those who lead us, whom we respect
And our enemies.
Help us to pray for George our President
That he might bring your peace into the world
And we pray for the hearts of our enemies
That they might be changed.
in Jesus, name
Amen.

But as for you, man of God, shun