Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10, 9: 20-22
Psalm 124
James 5: 13-20
Mark 9: 38-50

In the first year I was here I encountered a great many surprised people, especially when I wore my collar in public. On my way to a funeral in Kouchibouguac I stopped into the Home Hardware, and the guy who waited on me didn’t quite know what to do with me. I wasn’t a priest, and while he was probably used to Protestant ministers, he had never seen a female one! I guess I did ok because, after he found what I was looking for in the store’s bin of “lost, surplus, miscellaneous and unclaimed screws, nuts, bolts and washers”, he refused to charge me, and asked for a prayer instead!

A few years ago,. I was in the Ste. Anne hospital late one Sunday afternoon, and was greeted by an elderly priest (of course, I could tell he was a priest by his collar) but he wasn’t sure what I was, because of my collar. In his surprise ,and in the best English he could come up with, (I live in an very French, Catholic, area of NB) he asked, without any derision whatsoever, “What kind of minister are you? Understanding the intention of the question, I introduced myself as the United Church minister from Rexton.

A colleague of mine was visiting a family and the gruff gentleman of the house came in from he barn and said, “You sure don’t look like a minister to me.”

Raising herself to her height of five feet nothing she said, “Oh, I guess you’ve never had a minister so short.” This reply took the man totally off gard and he became one of her staunchest supporters.

David, an elderly man living in a big city, was waiting for the bus one day when he became dizzy and disoriented. He did not know that he was suffering a stroke, and even if he had known, he could not speak to ask for help or to tell passers-by that he was not drunk. Staggering around the bus shelter, the bus driver refused to let him board the bus. As he was staggered around, trying to ask for help, a taxi pulled up to the curb. The driver took David’s arm and helped him into his cab, took him to the hospital emergency room and stayed there until he was seen by a doctor and his family contacted. Thinking later about his Good Samaritan, David commented on how surprised he had been. In fact, he was doubly surprised; surprised to have been ignored by the people on the street and also surprised to have been helped by a middle eastern taxi driver wearing the turban of a Sikh. He also wondered how many other people he had dismissed or harboured prejudices against because of their skin colour, their dress, their religion or some other matter.

An esteemed rabbi once asked his students, "How can you tell when night has ended and the day is about to begin?"

The students argued for a while and finally one of them said, "Rabbi, could it be when you look off in the distance and see two trees you are able to tell that one is a fig tree and the other is a palm tree?"

The Rabbi answered, "No."

So the students argued a bit longer until another brave pupil offered another answer. "Rabbi, could it be when you look of in the distance, and seeing two animals, are able to distinguish that one is a sheep and the other is a dog?"

Again the Rabbi answered, "No."

Finally, exasperated the students asked, "Rabbi, tell us then, how do you know when the night has ended and the day is about to begin?"

The Rabbi looked towards each of them and said, "It is when you can look upon the face of any man, woman or child and see there; a brother or a sister. If you cannot do that, no mater what time of day it is, it is still night." A story from this week’s Midrash list, but is, as faras= I know, widely known and available!

As World War II began, the German Oscar Schindler, card- carrying Nazi, a brash, womanizing, and hard drinking entrepreneur was profiting handsomely from the unrest in his country as the businesses previously owned by Jewish people were seized and given to friends of the Nazi party. However, by 1945 he had spent over 4 million deutschmarks to buy the survival of over 1200 Jewish men, women and children.

Hardly a paragon of virtue, the enigmatic Oscar Schindler had exactly what it took to bribe and bamboozle his way to the saving of the lives of so many. A nice person would not have been able to do it! The question of why he did it remains. Why did he spend his fortune and his future and risk his life to save the people no one else in Germany seemed to care about! He could have taken his money and sat out the war in the relative safety of Switzerland once he saw the fullness of what the Nazi’s “Final Solution” really meant - but he did not. Raised in a devout Catholic home he played with Jewish children who lived on his street and who remained his friends well into adulthood. When asked why, long after the war, he said, “I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn’t stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That’s all there is to it, really, nothing more.” from an Auschwitz site Later in his life he was declared a ‘righteous gentile’ by the sate of Israel. His life was immortalized and made internationally recognized by the Steven Spielberg adaptation of a book of the same name, Schindler’s List.

In today’s gospel we hear Jesus saying to his disciples, “Who is not against us is for us.” We don’t hear that very often these days. In politics and in the social sphere there seems to have developed the idea that there are only two sides: us and them. After September 11, the US President, George W. Bush is pushing that attitude in his fight against terrorism.

Sometimes, even being ‘one of us’ is not enough for everybody. Adapted from a sermon by Sharla Hulsey who adaptedn it from a recent issue of the journal, Homiletics! A few months ago, Bono, who is the lead singer of the Irish band U2, was in the news quite a lot. He was travelling around the world, talking to world leaders about the twin crises of AIDS and crushing national debt in many of the countries in Africa. He made a special point of calling on American and European Christians to work hard to find solutions to these crises.

Bono is a Christian, and I am told that this activism is a ministry he believes God has called him to do. He know that he has the time, and the money, and that his fame means people will listen to him where others might not be heard.

However, some Christians in the United States, at least, are critical of Bono and his message. They have dismissed him because he doesn't attend church regularly. Some have said, “He doesn't show enough respect for our churches, our leaders; and he's politically liberal, which we don't think is appropriate for Christians. So how dare he judge us, judge how we live our faith, tell us that we have responsibilities to all those people in Africa who may or may not even be Christians!”

As we see in the gospel lesson for today, this kind of thing has been going on for as long as the church has existed. Jesus was on the receiving end of this kind of thinking. He warned his disciples against it! We are called to ask ourselves, “What is more important, our corner on the market, our exact way of doing things, our getting the credit, or the work itself, the work of helping people and alleviating suffering around the world. In this, and other passages, we are challenged not to discount the grace filled work of others because they don’t fit the mould of our preconceived ideas and notions.

Queen Esther was a most unlikely person to save her people. She was an Israelite in hiding, in the King’s Palace as one of his wives, and she risks her life to save her people. Esther’s dilemma was: keep quiet and die when she is found out to be Jewish, or take the risk of speaking out and incur the king’s wrath, because she had violated the clear protocol of the Persian king’s court. She may have wondered why she had been chosen as a wife of the king. She may have wondered what she as a mere woman could do to help her own people. The biblical text preaches a strong belief in God’s providence: it could well be that this is exactly why she was there. It also proclaims a belief in a God who will certainly save his people, and of deliverance does not come from one person or group it will certainly come from another. This is not an excuse for not acting though. On the contrary, it is a call to act, because the call to this action is a call from God himself. God’s call is not lightly ignored!

Like Esther we face a world full of problems. Some of these problems have been created by the actions of people bound on causing chaos, mayhem and death. Some of the problems are a result of people not responding, not caring, not seeing a call from God to do something to help. Like the disciples we may discount the efforts of others as offensive but if we can take one thing from Jesus’ response it is that we must avoid criticism of other’s actions, particularly when they are parallelled only by our inaction. It is this very inaction which may make up the strongest case against us.

The call of the gospel is not a call to sit back and let the world happen around us. It is a call to engagement. It is a call to radical caring. It is a call to open our eyes and our hearts to the needs of the world and to the voice of God. This voice of God could be coming from the needy themselves, or from those who are doing the work that we should be sharing, whether those folks have a faith base or not. It is a call to do what we can to exorcise the demons of hatred and racism and elitism and indifference toward need. It is not to place ourselves in unnecessary risk but to take a risk at least equal to the peril we are fighting. It is to put our needs in perspective with the needs of the wider world. When one part of the body suffers, the entire body suffers, even if we don’t realize it. If one part of the body dies the rest is surely doomed.

We do not walk this path of risky faithfulness alone though. We walk every step of the way with the God who was with Esther and the disciples and the early church and all of those in the past who took those risks to answer the call. It’s about acting out of the image of God that was placed on and in each one of us. It’s about being truly who we are and living our whose we are. If we do not we are like salt which has lost its taste and purpose in existing.

Come you salty ones, answer the call! Amen!!!

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1: 1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10: 2-16

Every time I turn on the tv there is a commercial advertising something new, and usually something disposable. Not that long ago it was disposable cutting boards. They were lined with an absorbent material so that the meat juice would not run onto your permanent cutting board and cause your family to be poisoned or otherwise maimed for life. Ordinary soap and water are to be eschewed for all manner of disposable products. Where would we be without disposable diapers, disposable mini-propane tanks, disposable cutlery and dishes, paper towels, and Saran Wrap . They make life easier, but in the long run, do they make it better? As a society we will have to continue to evaluate and re-evaluate the products we bring into our houses just so that they can be thrown away!

In certain sectors of society people have become disposable. The trial that has just been concluded Moncton, in which a lawyer was charged with obstruction of justice, brought to light all sorts of activities related to the ‘underbelly of gang-related crime’, in which people themselves are disposable. The press reported the testimony of one man who had been sent to dispose of a nightclub but who did not realize that he was supposed to die in the fire. The problem was, he survived. The charge against the lawyer came about when it was discovered that he tried to pay a witness not to testify. Sometimes we get the idea that those things can’t happen here, or not in Moncton, only 70 or so kilometres away!

I was reading a news story yesterday which reported the discovery of a mass grave containing the skeletal remains of more than 600 people, many of whom were women and children. These people were killed just because they were Muslims. In such wars life is very cheap and people are disposable.

You have all heard of the trial which has just concluded in BC over the man who killed all of his children and then set the house on fire and after showing this to his estranged wife, he tried to kill himself. He had done this as a way of punishing his wife for leaving him. His children had become pawns in a twisted attempt to punish his former wife.

Today’s scripture passages present us with a very different vision. The background to the book of Job does indeed present a very distressing scenario. According to the story, Job’s troubles come about as the result of a game similar to ‘truth or dare’ in which Job is the pawn. Job is the victim of God’s boast that this man is righteous and upright. Satan, the accuser, asserts that Job is only righteous because he is successful and healthy. God disagrees. And the bet is on!

It seems that Job is being treated as a disposable person in the great card game of heaven. His family certainly seems to have been. Job will not succumb to this game and think of himself as a non-person. Despite his circumstances Job knows that he must live up to God’s will and image of him. Job refuses to let the prevailing wisdom of the ages define his life for him and he persists in living by the image that God has of him, as a righteous and upright person.

In the passage from the book of Hebrews, Paul struggles to explain the unexplainable - as he tries to proclaim the nature and identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Who was this Jesus? This was no ordinary human, and his life and death was no ordinary sacrifice; rather he was the very image of God and his life and death a unique experience. In this passage Paul also speaks of human beings and of God’s mindfulness for them. Amazing as it may seem, Jesus called us his brothers and sisters. In the passage from the gospels we read of an encounter between Jesus and some Pharisees, who, again, seem intent on trapping Jesus. They have no need to ask about the law, for they know it well. Jesus’ reply to them, shows this very clearly. The intent of the Pharisees is much more sinister. John the Baptizer literally lost his head over the issue of divorce. King Herod had divorced his wife to marry his brother Philip’s wife who had divorced her husband so that this second marriage could take place. John’s open criticism of this caused his death. We will likely remember the story of the party at which the daughter of this previous marriage danced so beautifully that king Herod promised her anything she wanted. Guided by her mother she requested John the Baptist’s head on a platter and it was done! Those gathered in the crowd that day would know this and would see this as a trap.

So, we see Jesus, on the one hand, adopting an even stricter version of the Law than the Pharisees in siding with the earlier traditions which prohibit divorce and remarriage, and on the other hand, dangerously siding with the late John the Baptizer in prohibiting divorce and remarriage. Jesus has no intention of creating new legislation here, but as was usual for him, calls people back to the spirit of the original law. Like John, Jesus refuses to let the law become a matter of personal convenience; the Kingdom of God of which he speaks often does not belong to the hard hearted and faithless generation with whom Jesus had to contend on a regular basis.

In the midst of this trap where he was forced to criticize the common practice of the royal court, Jesus calls people to return to the original concept of marriage that was outlined in the creation narratives. Even though it was a legal contract and did not assume an equal relationship, Jesus called on people to fulfill the intentions of love and commitment for the protection of those most vulnerable, that is, women and children. When we look at the high rates of divorce these days we must keep in mind the original intentions of marriage and work together, as individual couples, and as a community, to preserve those. While all marriages should be entered into with the intention of permanence, things change, and not all marriages can, or should be saved. A marriage in which there is physical abuse, adultery, contempt and disrespect has already broken the bond and the abused partner and the children must leave for their own emotional and physical protection.

As a community which gathers together for worship and fellowship we are called to support one anther so that God’s intention for us is strengthened and supported. When that does not happen we support with the knowledge that God’s love also forgives, heals and renews. Prohibiting divorce will not do anything to really and truly strengthen marriage but providing an atmosphere where problems may be addressed and supports may be accessed will go a long way toward building those healthy marriages we all seek.

This is World-Wide communion Sunday; traditionally the day when we gather around the table and remember that we are a part of a larger and world-wide body of those who follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth. WE gather and celebrate in English, in the traditions of the United Church of Canada. Others just down the road or across the bridge celebrated in the Catholic tradition and many are doing so in French. In our own denomination in some of our larger cities we have Korean and Chinese and Japanese congregations and some who gather using various native languages and traditions. I have a list of greetings from clergy from around the world who have sent greetings on this day. As we gather at the table on this day, or on any day, we celebrate the same love of God which has come to all of us in Jesus of Nazareth. When we partake of the bread and the cup, we become one with Christ and one with one another. We gather to celebrate the Unity toward which we are called to journey. It is quite true that we are not all perfect Christians; that’s now what we celebrate. We do not get along with all Christians; but we celebrate God’s intention for the Christian community and commit ourselves to work toward a unity of mind and spirit. We know that people have been gathering to celebrate this meal since the disciples first gathered in that upper room long ago. Since the disciples encountered the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus the presence of the risen Christ and the never failing presence of God was proclaimed in that meal of bread and wine.

The incarnation affirmed the value of each and every human life and the lengths to which God would go to bring them (us) into relationship with one another and with God.

We come as brothers and sisters. We come as a people seeking to live out God’s vision for us. We do not let the world tell us who we are or what is expected of us. We are created in God’s image, we are called to recognize this and live this our despite the circumstances of our lives.

So as we gather, we do not do so as an isolated community, but in unity with all those around the world and throughout the ages who have follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth and who have found life in the elements of bread and wine. Amen

Joel 2: 21-27
Psalm 126
Timothy 2: 1-7
Matthew 6: 25-33

How many of us will get up from the dinner table sometime this weekend, hardly being able to move and say, “I’m so stuffed!” Or we may be one of those folks that spends the whole weekend going from feast to feast as we visit friends, parents, in-laws, and friends to feast on turkey with all of the trimmings. If there’s one things we know how to do on Thanksgiving, in the Maritimes, its eat! And of course, on Thanksgiving, it’s not an abundance of normal fare; for most of us, it’s an overabundance of the special.

At home it was always turkey, with bread and potatoes dressing, which was always made in the same way with the same ingredients; cold potatoes, bread, onions simmered in chicken fat, salt and pepper and of course, summer savoury. It was a great deal of work and at the end of the day, my mother was usually exhausted and wondering where her feelings of thankfulness had gone.

Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for these blessings. In my house, it was one of the few days when my mother MADE us pause before eating, to say grace. Now that I’m professionally trained, and if I am home, it’s my job!!!

Thanksgiving is seen by some others as something we are supposed to do from time to time, on special occasions, or on a regular basis. Such people look around them and count their blessings, naming them one by one: family, food, friends, peace, health, medicare, paved roads, central heating, and so on.

It’s easy to count and name our blessings when things are going well or when tragedy has been averted. For example, it was easy for my family to give thanks when Katherine, my niece, was hit by a van and came through with only scrapes and a minor concussion. It’s easy when the trees fall only on your lawn and not on your house. Its easy when a son or daughter comes home from their recent deployment with the Canadian Armed Forces.

But we know that this is not always the case. We know that people sit down to meagre meals feeling forgotten by the rest of the well-fed community. We know that people sit down to bounty eaten off fine china and crisp linen, but are crying inside from sorrows too deep to mention. We know that some die or are seriously injured in car accidents. We know that some people’s children, fathers, mothers, sisters, do not return alive from the battlefield or the peace keeping mission. We know the devastation caused by cancer and AIDS. We know that some people lose jobs and then can’t pay their bills and lose houses and cars. We know that young families have to move away to find work. We know that old age removes independence, ability and then even dignity from many.

We may ask how we could give thanks if we were in one of those situations. Some of us may be in one of those situations and may be asking that question, this year.

As Christians, thanksgiving is to be a way of life; we are called to thanks-living! It’s not just gathering to eat and have fellowship on special occasions. It’s not just counting and naming blessings. It’s not just being thankful when things are going well. It’s about bing thankful even when things are tough; thanks-living is a way of looking at life.

We teach children to say please and thank-you early in life. But, I think, for many of us it is just something we do or say to be polite, it’s connected to getting what we want, it’s not a way of being.

In the passage from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the people not to worry about their lives. Now most of Jesus followers were not people with bank accounts, credit cards, steady jobs, a paid off house and RRSPs. They were day labourers who had to work every day in order to eat every day. There was no such thing as a paid sick day or an old age pension. Yet Jesus tells them not to worry. He tells them to rely on God. God will look after them!

That is not the same thing as telling them not to plan and to work hard! He is talking about perspective. He is talking about priorities. The first priority of the Christian is to focus his or her life on the Kingdom of God. He tells them to focus on God’s love. He tells us. He tells them to focus on sharing that love. He tells us. He tells them to focus on how they can use those abilities and blessings we have received for the good of the whole. He tells us to do these things. If they do this, then everything else will fall into place. If we do this then we will know God’s love and blessings and care.

It’s one of the mysteries of faith. It makes little, if any intellectual sense. It makes all the sense in the world to people of faith. As I go about my pastoral duties I marvel at the thankfulness I witness as people struggle with some of the most terrible things imaginable.

We may wonder what would happen if we did not have a cupboard full of food or a grocery store with well stocked shelves just down the street or a crop that has jst been put away in a barn. Those who have worked in the developing world have marvelled at the generosity of people with very little. Those who have extra, even a little extra, share it. Those with just enough share that as well .

As a people of faith we are called to face the world with open hands , not clenched fists. We give of what we have instead of lamenting what we do not. We give thanks for the years and experiences lived even as we mourn those taken from us.

We are called to trust that God will care for us. It does not mean that we will not have to work. It does not meant that we will not have suffering and tragedy; these things happen for various reasons. It does meant that God will be with us. This presence of God does not remove pain and suffering, but rather, it enables us to get through it, to survive, to put one foot in front of the other, to see joy in the midst of the rain, to be generous in the midst of want, to receive of other’s generosity. It means that the community of God’s people will care for one another in the example of Jesus’s love for those who followed him so long ago. And that community is US.

It makes sense when we realize that God is caring for us in the midst of pain and want and sorrow as well as times of plenty. It makes sense when we realize that God’s people are given the strength to care for one another in the midst of pain and suffering and want as well as times of plenty. It makes sense when we are able to take part in the giving and receiving pf this care, through the work of the Spirit directly or through others.

Do not worry, for worry paralyzes; instead, trust in God and go forward in faith. God is with us. When we have that we have everything and need nothing.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Job 38: 1-7, 34-41
Psalm 104: 1-9, 24, 35c
Hebrews 5: 1-10
Mark 10: 35-45

Do you know what you’re really asking?

The children begged and begged. They said that they’d be responsible. They said that they would do the extra work. They said that they were prepared. Yet a few weeks after the new aquarium had been stocked with fish the filter went uncleaned and the water unchanged. Sometimes the fish were fed too much and sometimes, not at all. Eventually all of the fish died. The children had not realized what they were getting into.

The young couple had stars in their eyes as they drove away from the hospital with their new baby. After a few weeks of no sleep, no time to themselves, and less peace and quiet, they said to each other, “I wish we had listened when we were told that it would be like this. This is a lot of work!”

In today’s gospel lesson James and John, the sons of Zebedee have come to Jesus requesting a favour. You may have noticed that they want an affirmative answer before they tell him what they want. If they were trying to trap Jesus, he didn’t take the bait! Now almost anyone when asked for a favour will say, at least to themselves, “Sure, but it really depends on what it is?” We will remember the episode in which King Herod foolishly offered his daughter anything she wanted. On the advice of her mother, she requested the ‘head of John the Baptizer on a platter’. As we find out, this is not a favour such as, “When you go to town can you pick up my Sears parcel, or a litre of milk or can you pick up my kid when you pick your kid up at soccer practice. They are not asking him to go and heal a friend or explain a sermon. This favour is actually beyond Jesus’ power to grant and besides, it is against the principles of the gospel. They asked for places at his right and his left when he had achieved his glory! The language of right and left hands would be easily understood as a metaphor for the two positions of greatest power and highest honour. Even today we have the expression, “right hand man” as a symbol of that kind of power or “right to be one’s representative”. In the House of Commons those who sit closest to the Prime Minister are those with the power and the prestige. For an MP with the ambition to do more than represent his or her own riding, the goal is to work up from the backbenches to the places of power near the Prime Minister or the leader of their party. The goal in almost every walk of life is to advance - to the more prestigious companies, to the bigger cities, to eligibility for membership in the best golf courses or most exclusive yacht clubs!

So the disciples want to be in the cabinet! But, you may be saying, “I thought Jesus was against that kind of stuff!” You may ask, “Have those guys been sleeping through all those sermons?” Where were those two when Jesus talked about being like a child and welcoming children. Where were they when he talked about the great reversals of the Kingdom. Where were they when he encountered the rich young man whose greatest need was to get rid of his attachment to his ambition and his stuff! Were they deaf to Jesus’ teachings? At least in Matthew’s version of the story it is their mother who makes this request on behalf of her boys! Huuuuuuuuummmmmmm?

It is, therefore, a passage tinged with irony. This passage is part of a larger section of Jesus’ teachings in which Jesus is trying to prepare the disciples for his eventually crucifixion and , in addition, this particular event, as recorded by Mark, is sandwiched between two episodes in which Jesus heals people who were blind. So ironically, we have Jesus restoring sight to strangers, while his own disciples remain blind to the truth of the gospel. It would be outrageously funny if it were a comedy act on TV, but its not; its very, very serious.

The disciples had reversed the whole idea of servant-hood. It seems that they wanted Jesus to serve them instead of the other way around.

As always though, the gospels are just as much about us as they are about the folks whose names are recorded on those pages. This leads us to ask the question, “Are we here for what Jesus can do for us, or because of a call to help Jesus advance the cause of the gospel?” Many years ago the American President, John F. Kennedy, said something like, “Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country”. It became a catch phrase, not just of his country, but of many in the western world.

What was Jesus’ response? Grow up! Weren’t you listening? NO! Interestingly, Jesus does not rebuke these foolish and thick headed disciples; Jesus tries to show them what it is that they are really asking. He tells them, once again, what they should have already known; that any positions of ‘honour’ go to those who are willing to suffer. We know that two of these positions will go to those who suffer the humiliation of crucifixion; the thieves crucified on the right and the left. Death by execution is hardly most people’s idea of honour and privilege.

Yet, as Jesus presses them, they insist that they too can drink the cup of suffering. They likely had already endured their share of ridicule and taunts from scoffers and from the hostile people that are always in any crowd. How much worse could it get? No doubt it was a sincere pledge. No doubt they believe that they can take whatever comes their way. As the final events of Jesus’ life are unfolding, however, all of the disciples desert him, including these ones professing loyalty.

Before we are too critical of the disciples who were fair weather friends, we must remember that they all came back, except for Judas, of course! Church traditions hold that almost all of the regaining 11 met a violent end because of their preaching of the gospel. Clearly they had been listening. Clearly they had accepted the cross. It just took a little longer than Jesus would have liked.

This passage tells us that literally and metaphorically, in order to get to glory, in order to arrive at the empty tomb on Easter morning, one cannot bypass Good Friday and suffering and rejection and all of that!

Every time to gather around the table or the font we are reminded of the dangers of following. We are reminded that following the gospel call is often one which will place us in danger or as an object of ridicule.

Now, the reaction of the others. Perhaps the anger of the other disciples is hiding a not so small amount of jealousy. Perhaps they are thinking that James and John are going to get what they secretly want. Or perhaps they were dumfounded that one of their goup could be so thick-headed as to ask for something completely contrary to their reason for being. But Jesus will have none of this. He attempts to teach them once again that the kingdom is to be about more than seeking power and jockeying for power, it is about servant-hood and service. Those who would seek to be leaders must first, and foremost, be servants. Christians are called to be servants of one another and obedient to Christ!

Yet there could be a more basic need at work in the disciples’ psyches. They are probably afraid. Afraid that they will be left alone, bereft of the one person who has become so very important to them; left to fend for themselves in a hostile world. They know, somehow, that life will not be easy. It would be so much better if Jesus would just stick around, if this kingdom would come right away. However, that does not happen. As we know the disciples had good reason to be afraid. Yet, as we know, they found that the God of Jesus of Nazareth was with them every step of the way.

The gospels are like an episode of Murder She Wrote or CSI or Law and Order where it all only makes sense at the end. As the gospel story opens we have these two disciples jockeying for power positions. But the story is not yet over. We have the crucifixion and the subsequent desertion, albeit temporary, by the 11 and the suicide of Judas.

But the story is not yet over.

We have the resurrection and the resurrection appearances to the confused and still fearful disciples.

But the story is not yet over.

We then have Pentecost but the story is not complete.

The story is never complete .

It is made more complete as each and every generation of disciples follows and is strengthened through the fear and the loneliness and the decisions and the journeying.

We may have a hard time bing servants but we are not judged on our success but rather by our faithfulness.

A professor gave a pop quiz to his students. Some of the bright students went quickly through the first 24 or 25, while it took others longer. The last question stumped almost everyone though. It was, “What is the name of the woman who cleans this building?” Most of them had seen her. Some had said hello but none had bothered to learn her name. The professor returned the quiz with this pep talk, “In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care even if all you do is say hello. From Aha! A Preachers magazine published by Wood Lake Books, BC Canada

A bread line in Washington was opened one day with this prayer: “Jesus we know that you are coming here to ear today. Help us to treat you right! “ Also from Aha! We need to ask ourselves the question, “What if Jesus was the one in need.” Does it make a difference. Should it?

On a recent episode of er, that doctor show I watch on Thursdays, Dr Luka Kovac, the Croatian doctor trying to find peace, is serving as a jungle doctor in the Congo and had been captured by rebels. He is given a cross by someone he has helped. Knowing that it was her father’s, Kovac is unwilling to accept it, claiming that he is not ‘a very good Christian’.. The woman insists saying that what he does proves that is a follower of Jesus.

In the poetry of Emily Dickinson are these words:

“If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin I shall not live in Vain.

No 919 (1864)

May we go forward as servants of the one who has called us and made us whole.

Amen.