The Limits of Control

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 64:1-9, Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 and Mark 13:24-37.

Remember Y2K? Electronic computers were a creation of the 20^th century and so the programs that were written were made for the years that began with 19. In most cases, the programmers omitted the 19 and the year was designated by its last 2 digits. As the millennium approached, people in the computing industry realized that many programs were not equipped to recognize what to do with the year 2000 and beyond. They feared the programs would read the year as 1900 and may stop working. There were articles and even books written about how, in a world largely run by computers, the electrical grid, our utilities and many of the basic technologies we rely on would cease to be functional, plunging the civilized world into a literal Dark Ages.

When January 1, 2000 came and went and we were not living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, many people thought the furor was over nothing at all. But the people in the industry did not. They knew that the warnings were true and that they had caused them to work to fix the problem in all the software programs and avert the predicted catastrophe. And I knew it, too.

It was either 1996 or 97, when, as the production director for our local radio station, I noticed something disturbing. It was the evening before Thanksgiving and I was checking that the commercials which restaurants were running for the holiday would automatically stop after that day and their new ads begin playing. Few of them would. For some weird reason what we in radio called the “kill date,” the day to stop playing a commercial, for all of the new ads had reverted to the same day in 1983! This was not something that the computer would let you do manually. You had to enter a date in the future. Ads that would go through Christmas would play but generic ads scheduled to go for a year into the future wouldn't. Playing around I found that I could get them to play for a few more months before they hit some kind of invisible brick wall and would bounce back to '83, the date I presume the software was first created. Worse than that most of our music would not play either! So I spent hours changing the kill dates to the furthest date I could so that we wouldn't go silent the day after Thanksgiving. I did that for every single element playing through the morning show and left a note for our morning man and engineer to do the same and to call the software company for a patch to fix the system. And he did. The patch arrived in a few days and he installed it and no one outside the radio station was ever the wiser. So when the panic arose over Y2K, I knew the threat was real.

We've known about global warming for decades but we didn't do much to avert it because there were no immediate dire effects, and it would cost fossil fuel businesses and our economy lots of money. And quite frankly it would necessitate changing the way we used energy and the sources we would have to develop to replace gas and oil. Now climate change is undeniable with each year getting hotter than the year before, our winters getting shorter and our hurricane seasons getting longer. Some experts think it may be too late to avert the worst, while others say we are not quite at the point of no return. But time is running out for us to change. Whether we do so remains to be seen.

I don't mean to sound gloomy but the truth is that people don't respond to slow moving or incremental dangers, even when warned, the way they do to rapid or instantly terrible or fatal ones. If smoking or abusing drugs killed everyone who tried them immediately and 100% of the time, people would treat them like live grenades. The most insidious dangers are the gradual ones with consequences due somewhere in the seemingly distant future. But the “kill date” might be upon us earlier than we reckoned.

That's what today's Old Testament readings are about. The prophet and the psalmist are dealing with days of reckoning that God's people find themselves in the midst of. What I find interesting is that God is not depicted as actively punishing his people but just hiding or turning his face from them. When people don't want any part of God, the worst thing he can do is grant them their desire. Isaiah says, “...for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” Not into the hands of an angry God but into the hand of our own wrongdoing. In other words you have let us do what we wished, left us to our own devices and the resulting sin has become its own punishment. For instance, the person who puts the pursuit of money or power or passing pleasures ahead of God, family and friendships often finds his life empty of the love that would give it real meaning and lasting pleasure. A society that puts the prosperity of a few ahead of the well-being of all its citizens suffers instability, insurrections and eventual collapse, as we've seen over and over in history. And civilizations that exhaust their resources go into decline and disappear. Easter Island was a thriving culture until deforestation and civil war led to famine, homelessness and lawlessness. That's what happen when those with the biggest heads are made of rock.

If God is the source of justice and peace, life without him is chaos. Sure, you can try to impose law and order, but that is just trying to deal with the problems of people who can't govern themselves and aren't following God's law by outsourcing them to the other big G: government. The Nazis were big on law and order, just not morality or love for one's neighbor, key elements of God's law. Jesus had a big problem with those who substituted a rigid adherence to the rules over holiness and compassion.

So what are we to do? First we need to distinguish between what we can control and what we can't.

As infants we are totally helpless. About the only thing we can do is cry and hope that it motivates our parents to do for us what we cannot: change our diapers, feed us, show us affection, help us calm down and sleep, or get us out of this crib and stimulate us by talking or singing or just holding us. As we grow we gradually learn to control our bodies and reach for a toy or turn ourselves over or crawl. We gain some mastery over our environment. We learn to rearrange a room, though Mom may see this as making a mess. We learn to feed ourselves. Our communication gets better, more articulate and precise. We learn we can pretty much bring things to a halt by saying “No!” Which, like our crying, gives us a measure of control over others. And most of us learn the limits of what we can control.

Smart people maximize their skills over what they can control: their bodies, their knowledge, their thinking, their emotions. They recognize what they are good at and what they aren't. They learn how to navigate the parts of life over which they have limited control, such as in dealing with other people. Then there are the things we can't control. Foolish people think they can use their brains or brawn or words or wealth to control anything. Wise people learn how to deal with the things in life over which we have no control. We can, as I've said before, improve our odds. It's like the way a sailor learns how to travel on the sea. He has control of his boat, provided it's properly maintained; he doesn't have control of the tides or winds or weather. He uses his knowledge, training and skills to sail in such a way to take advantage of the wind and tides and minimize the risks. Of course, a really big storm can sink the best sailor. In those cases, he needs to do what Jesus tells us in our gospel for today: keep awake and keep alert.

A wise sailor watches for patterns that signal a change in the elements over which he has no control. Today a sailor has access to sources of knowledge, like weather reports, and technology, like GPS, that Peter, James and John didn't have 2000 years ago. They had to rely on training and experience alone. But they knew that, as Jesus said, “When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.'” (Matthew 16:2-3) Even so, we need to be able to interpret the signs of the times, as Jesus laments his contemporaries failed to do.

In the part of Mark that comes before our lectionary reading, Jesus gives us signs of the end times to watch for, like false messiahs and saviors, figures demanding the loyalty and worship reserved for God alone. We are not to fall for them. But Jesus tells us not to put much stock in the usual stuff people interpret as signs of the end: wars, earthquakes and famines. Such disasters are, he says, but the beginning of birth pangs. Labor usually takes hours and the contractions get stronger and stronger and closer together. Jesus doesn't want us getting alarmed too early and panicking, like Dick Van Dyke's Rob Petrie in the episode in which Laura gives birth.

But you should be ready. In Exodus, God tells the people to get ready to leave Egypt at a moment's notice. They know the plague is coming but the precise time they must leave is unknown. Jesus tells us his coming again will be sudden and no one knows the exact day or date.

It's kind of like hurricane season was before the technology that gives us useful estimates of when and where the hurricane will hit. In his book Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson looks at the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900. The meteorologists in Cuba were very skilled at reading hurricanes and predicted it would hit Texas. The US Weather Bureau arrogantly ignored them and said it would make landfall in Florida. Galveston's chief meteorologist Isaac Cline thought that it was crazy to believe a hurricane could do significant damage to the city and his views dissuaded Galveston from building a proposed seawall. When Cline did issue a hurricane warning it was too late for people to evacuate the island and thousands were killed by flying slate roof tiles and the flood, including Cline's pregnant wife Cora.

Even without the advance warning system we have today, there were things people could have done to prepare. Today we shutter our houses, take inside things like outdoor furniture that might become airborne, and fill up the car in case of evacuation. You can go online and find suggestions for hurricane kits to prepare beforehand. We do not know when a hurricane might pop up but we go through the season alert and prepared. And that's what Jesus is saying about his coming.

And in addition, he says here, when the master is away, the servants are to do the work assigned them. The Spirit of God gives each of us gifts and we are to use them for the good of all, to build up each other and the kingdom. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11) Our basic work is to trust in Jesus (John 6:29), spread the good news (Matthew 28:19-20) and to follow the 2 great commandments. (Mark 12:28-31) The rest of the commandments are basically examples of how to show our love for God and for our fellow human beings in various circumstances. (Matthew 22:40) And God gives us his Spirit to guide us in situations where there is no specific rule. (John 20:22-23)

Our jail has general orders and procedures for handing every kind of emergency, including hurricanes and even epidemics. In no case do they decide to abandon or not feed and care for the inmates. In fact, leave is canceled and every officer has a duty. But every year everyone who works there, including chaplains, has to read and refresh their knowledge of all the procedures and all the signs to look for that something is wrong. Awake and alert is the basic state in which we operate.

Y2K was man-made and reasonably easy to fix. Some of the messes we have made, like with the world God gave us, are more difficult to undo. Some things are beyond our control. Fortunately we have a loving and powerful God who will ultimately take control of things when they go completely off the rails and clean up our messes, especially those we have made of our lives. As Paul says, “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful....” And when we face the thing we can never control, death, when all we can do is cry out for God, we can trust him to be there and to take us in his arms and wipe away our tears and bring us into his home to live with him forever.

Abuse and Neglect

The scriptures referred to are Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, Ephesians 1:15-23 and Matthew 25:31-46.

A few years ago I came across a bit of medical research which has really changed the way I have thought about people. Some doctors were looking into the life histories of patients with chronic illnesses and they discovered some startling commonalities. For some diseases, you look for genetic links. Diseases like breast cancer, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease tend to run in families. But what these doctors discovered was that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), like abuse, neglect and household dysfunction, could be predictive of people having chronic mental and physical diseases in adulthood. They also correlated with self-destructive behaviors as an adult. Now everyone has some ACEs in their life, like divorce or a relative who has mental illness or an addiction or who has been incarcerated. Using the 10 question tool they came up, it is not unusual for the average person to have a score of between 1 and 3. But what researchers found was that above that level the more ACEs one has, the higher the person's risk of having serious problems later in life, including heart disease, cancer, and severe obesity, as well as behavior problems such as substance abuse, missing work or trouble with the law. A very high ACE score carries the risk of a much lower life expectancy. And as bad as suffering abuse is, it turns out neglect has an even greater negative affect on a child and his or her development.

Of course the more common abuse and neglect are, the greater their effect on society as a whole. It is estimated that at least 1 in 7 children in the US has experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year. That's more than 1 million children under the age of 18. And neglect is the most common, followed by physical abuse, sexual abuse and psychological abuse. 76% of the abusers were a parent to the victim. Given the effect on their future lives, the sins of the fathers and mothers are indeed visited upon the children.

And we see this pattern of bullying and neglect even between adults. We see it not only in marriages and domestic partnerships but also in workplaces, in social groups and even in those with positions of power. The astonishing high incidence of people using their power to sexually assault those under them has been uncovered in churches, in the Boy Scouts, in Hollywood, in corporations and in government. Anyone who has ever worked for a terrible boss has seen how he can use his power to deny promotions, show favoritism and stick employees whom he doesn't like with demeaning tasks. There was an eye-opening episode of This American Life which chronicled how the head of maintenance for a school district abused his power to the extent that he was eventually convicted of racketeering!

In today's readings from Ezekiel and Matthew, God pronounces his judgment on those who abuse or neglect others. In Ezekiel God speaks of himself as a shepherd of his people Israel. He tells of how he will find them even though they are scattered among the nations. He says, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” Why will he do that? “Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.” More powerful animals will use their strength to get their way and even harm others of their kind. But we are more than animals and God will not tolerate abuses of power or bullying in those created in his image. That is not how the kingdom of the God who is love will operate.

The parable that Jesus tells in today's gospel looks at the other more common problem we have: neglect. Essentially that is the deciding factor in the last judgment between the sheep and the goats. Some people have helped of the less powerful members of society, whom Jesus identifies as his siblings, and some have neglected them. Jesus mentions no sins of commission in this parable, only sins of omission. It's not that God doesn't care about the bad things people do; we see that he does in Ezekiel and innumerable other places in the Bible. But Jesus is highlighting something we often forget: that not doing the right thing is also a sin. Nor is this the only place Jesus shows this. In the first part of the parable of the good Samaritan Jesus makes a point of the fact that the priest and the Levite, people you would expect to be the good guys, do nothing for the man beaten and left for dead. The man most of his audience would think of as a heretic half-breed is the real hero because he actually rescues and nurses the victim. (Luke 10:30-37)

Believe it or not, some people, including Christians, have problems with Jesus' teachings on this matter. They are all for charity “in principle,” but they feel some of the people Jesus lists, like those in prison, caused or contributed to the state they find themselves in. They even suspect that a lot of the poor and homeless could have prevented their situation if they had made better choices. Now I could point out all the research that shows that abuse and neglect and poverty have a powerful effect on a child's developing brain which negatively affects decision making, among other things, but Jesus doesn't go into that. Nor does he ever use the word “deserving.” That is irrelevant to our Lord. The only criteria he gives is that the person is in need. It's the same way with doctors and nurses. I have treated people who were injured because a drug deal went bad, or because they tried committing suicide when their wife found out they were having sex with their foster daughter, or because they were driving drunk, or because their lungs were damaged from smoking. But health professionals treat every sick and injured person in their care, regardless of the moral tenor of their life. And in the same way, God does not save only those who are deserving, because in fact nobody is. He does so because he is gracious.

Which brings up something that has been debated on a clergy Facebook page about this week's gospel. A Lutheran colleague wanted to know “Where is grace in this parable?” It looks like what saves the sheep is what they did, their works. Doesn't Paul say, “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast”? (Ephesians 2:8-9) Indeed, he does. And he continues, “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand that we may do them.” (Ephesians 2:10, emphasis mine)

Some people have tried to argue that Jesus did not preach grace; he taught you must obey the moral laws in the Torah, as any good rabbi would. Grace was Paul's idea. But that is not true. When Jesus says that the rich would have a harder time entering the kingdom of God than a camel would squeezing through the eye of a sewing needle, the disciples were amazed—because in their culture, it was thought that God must like the rich because he blesses them with so many material goods. It follows that people were poor because they didn't have enough faith or didn't please God. It's kind of like the prosperity gospel that certain TV evangelists preach. Believing in this false moral meritocracy, the disciples exclaimed, “Who then can be saved?” To which Jesus replies, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:23-26) Rich or poor, we cannot save ourselves. We must rely upon God's grace.

But didn't Jesus say of people, “By their fruit you will recognize them”? (Matthew 7:20) Again, yes. But just because we are not saved by good works, it doesn't mean they are irrelevant to the Christian life. We were created in the image of God, who does good. Our sins have marred that image, including our capacity to do good. Jesus, who is the very image of God, came to restore that image in us. And the Holy Spirit, which we receive when we put our trust in Christ, gets to work sanctifying us, repairing the image of God in us and enabling us to live a godly and Christlike life, which includes, among other things, doing good. So good works don't save us; they are signs and symptoms that we have been saved, are being saved and will be saved. Like a normal temperature and good appetite are signs of good physical health, doing good works is a sign of good spiritual health. In the parable Jesus is not judging people because of their good works; he recognizes they are saved because they are impelled by the Spirit to show love for others, even the powerless who cannot pay them back.

This parable is not saying “do good works to save yourself” but “if you really are letting God's Spirit work in you, you will see it in your life and the works you do.” In the same way, I can't make myself have more energy by doing things; I happen to realize I have energy by the fact that I am just naturally doing things without thinking or hesitation. It often takes me a few hours of doing things as easily as I used to do them before I realize that I am having a good day or a good few hours. In the same way, good works don't precede being saved; they proceed from being saved by God's grace.

And just as a sudden pain or inability to do something, like breathe easily, should trouble a physically healthy person, and make them do something about it, seeing someone being bullied or neglected should trouble a spiritually healthy person and make them do something about it. God is love and “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

And it turns out that we can impede the Spirit's work in us. Paul writes, “Do not extinguish the Holy Spirit.” (1 Thessalonians 5:19) J.B. Phillips translates this “Never damp the fire of the Spirit.” This is similar to when Jesus says, “People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:15-16) The most extreme example of resisting the Spirit is what Jesus calls the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said this because his critics were saying his healings were done in league with the devil. When someone says that undeniably good deeds done through the power of God are actually evil, they are so spiritually blind to the truth that there is no helping them. Seeing good as evil, they would reject help anyway, the way some patients reject medical treatment because they think the doctors are trying to kill them. By rejecting the source of God's forgiveness, such people render themselves unforgivable. (Mark 3:22, 28-30)

Jeremiah predicted that God would make a new covenant with his people. God says, “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and mind.” (Jeremiah 31:33) In Ezekiel he says, “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) And we still say that people without empathy or compassion have a heart of stone. And anyone who bullies the weak or neglects the needy does not have the Spirit of the God who is love in their hearts.

As we've said before, parables usually have one point and are not exhaustive treatments of an issue. We are not literally sheep or goats, belonging to different species. The good news is we can be changed from what we are by putting our trust in Jesus, God Incarnate, who came to save us from our fallen natures. When we do we become a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and we are given God's Spirit who lives in us. (Romans 8:9-10, 1 Corinthians 6:19) He produces results which manifest themselves in our life, qualities like love and kindness and gentleness. (Galatians 5:22-23) A loving, kind and gentle person cannot bully others or neglect those who need help.

Our heroes generally are fighters who punish bad guys. Jesus did not come as a holy warrior but as a healer. He knew that people who do destructive and self-destructive things often need healing from the adverse experiences that shaped them. He showed compassion for those often rejected by society, like tax collectors and prostitutes, as well as those cut off from others by chronic illness, such as lepers and a woman with a continuous bleed that made her unclean. He forgave sinners, including the murderer dying on the cross next to him.

Today our heroes usually get rid of evil by killing bad guys. Jesus got rid of evil by turning bad guys into good guys. Some people have pointed out that if there really was a Bruce Wayne he would do more good in Gotham City by using his fortune to help the mentally ill rather than making weapons to fight them as Batman. Jesus is not the hero we want or the one we deserve. He is the hero we need, sent by a gracious God to help and heal the bullied and neglected. And if we have his Spirit within us, we will do the same. And at the last day, Jesus will not condemn us (John 5:24) but by our fruit recognize us as his own, his body on earth, filled with the fullness of his Spirit, and he will welcome us into the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. 

Risky Business

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 25:14-30.

I had a friend who died because of her fear of needles. She had this silver dollar sized black scab on her upper arm that made anyone aware of melanoma ask her if she was having that looked at by a doctor. She said she was. But she wasn't. She later said she was afraid of the needles that a doctor might use. Then one day I heard that she had a stroke and was in a hospital on the mainland. A bunch of us, her friends, went up to see her. It turns out the melanoma had metastasized to her brain. There was nothing doctors could do at this point. She was sent home and as a nurse I helped arrange for her to get home health care visits. A month later I got a call from her distraught husband. She appeared to have had a seizure and died. I went over and sat with him as we waited for the funeral director to come and get her body. A week later I conducted the burial of her ashes at sea. The worst happened because she was afraid of something less awful.

Fear can be a good thing. It can keep us from doing needlessly dangerous things. And it can help us when confronted with a real threat. In an episode of Doctor Who, the Doctor tells a frightened little boy, “Let me tell you about scared. Your heart is beating so hard I can feel it through your hands. There's so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain it's like rocket fuel. Right now you could run faster and you could fight harder, you could jump higher than ever in your life. And you are so alert it's like you can slow down time. What's wrong with scared? Scared is a superpower.” There is a reason why God gave us the gift of fear. It gives us power to deal with danger.

But like any thing powerful, like anger, like sex, like fire, it can do both great good and great evil. Of anger Aristotle said, “Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way—that is not easy.” Fear works much the same way. There are certain things it makes sense to be afraid of. Fear of a protective mother cougar you encounter while hiking is healthy. And then how you react to that fear is important. Should you flee, fight or freeze? The viral video of such an encounter is instructive. The hiker walked away although the cougar followed him for good 2 minutes, until he threw a rock at her and she returned to its cubs. A fear of needles, at least when wielded by a nurse or doctor and not a drug addict, is not as reasonable. Recently a lot of people have become unreasonably afraid of vaccines, though they are the single largest reason that a third to a half of all children do not die before the age of 5, as was true throughout history before the mid-twentieth century. Are vaccines 100% harmless 100% of the time to 100% of all people? No. But then nothing is.

Fear is helpful but if you react with too great a fear to things with a very low risk, you will never attempt anything. A frog was found in one of the toilets at church and thereafter my granddaughter had a fear of them when using the ladies room. I tried to explain to her that it happening again was unlikely. There was always a possibility of a frog somehow coming up out of a toilet, but the probability of that happening again was low. In 1954 a woman in Alabama was hit by a meteorite. Ann Hodges is the only person in history that has happened to. And she lived another 18 years afterwards. So it is always a possibility that you could be hit by a meteorite. But I wouldn't worry about it.

In anything you do there is some risk. Before this COVID-19 crisis, most of us did something very risky every day: we drove a car. Your odds of dying in a motor vehicle crash are 1 in 103. In comparison your odds of being killed by an assault with a gun are 1 in 285. Yet for some reason we are often more worried about the latter than the former. But most of us get into a car without thinking, “This is more likely to kill me than a gun.” Partly because most of us don't know this but partly because we judge the risk worth it compared to, say, not going to work or not seeing a doctor. Of course, the pandemic has changed things. COVID-19 has increased the risk of death for the average American by 10% and for those over the age of 70, getting infected increases their baseline fatality risk by 140%. And weirdly, though traffic on roads is definitely down, motor vehicles fatalities are up by 12.7%. Are the few who are on the road more reckless?

Weighing risks and then taking action when the benefit is a lot greater than the downside can make sense. Sometimes the value of doing something rather than nothing makes sense, despite the odds, such as when your child is attacked by a mountain lion or a coyote. In one case the father threw his backpack at the lion, which distracted it so he could rescue his bitten son. In the other case, the father leaped upon the coyote who attacked his toddler and suffocated the animal with his bare hands. Both of these incidents happened this year on the very same day, because, well, it's 2020, so why not?

But because we are social animals, sometimes what we fear is looking bad in the eyes of others. A lot of people will not do anything risky because they fear public failure or looking foolish or being ridiculed or being yelled at by others. That is the case in today's parable from Jesus. You've read this passage before. The man entrusts his property to his slaves during his absence. What he gives each is measured in a unit of weight called a talent, but what the actual substance is we are not told. It could be gold or silver. One slave is given 5 talents, one two and the last slave one talent. And since a talent could be worth about what a day laborer would make in 20 years, even one talent is a huge amount of money to work with. Jesus says the amounts were determined by the ability of each individual. And evidently the master expects them to trade or invest with them. When he returns the servants with 5 and with 2 talents have doubled their money. But the guy given one talent, fearful of failing his master, just buried his talent in the ground. He doesn't even take the most conservative course of action, which is to put it in the bank so it can make interest. The master is not pleased.

Interpreting this parable is not hard, due mainly to the fact that the word “talent” has evolved from meaning a amount of value to an ability of value. Jesus is telling us that God gives us our talents in order that we use them for him and for his kingdom. Don't bury your talent; put it to work.

But there is another message Jesus is giving us here. It's that to serve God properly, we have to take risks. When he comes back, Jesus doesn't want us to say, “We preserved everything just as you left it.” He wants us to do all we can with what we have. And that means risking failure. The guy with 5 talents had the equivalent of 100 years of wages. If anything, he should have been more afraid of losing that amount of money than the guy with just one talent. He had a chance to make more but also a possibility to lose more. Having a lot to lose tends to make people more conservative in their actions. The 5 talent guy should have been more risk adverse. But he knew that the master wanted him to make more money and so he took the risks necessary. How the master would have reacted to a big loss is unknown, though based on his reaction to the guy who simply saved everything he was given, I think the master would have understood any setbacks. He is more interested in seeing courageous actions by his servants than cowardice.

And Jesus also seems to be saying, “Use it or lose it.” If you don't use a talent, it gets rusty and you could lose the ability to do some things well. Practice and experience are necessary to hone talents. Pavarotti didn't start off with the breath control and range to sing whole operas. Whatever raw talent he possessed had to be trained and shaped by tens of thousands of hours of work and practice. The same goes for a doctor or a writer or an engineer or an athlete or anyone else who is successful. Many a child prodigy has to come to the realization that the head start their natural talent gave them as a child disappears when they are an adult competing with other adults unless they put in the work to maintain their talent. You may not get thrown into the outer darkness for neglecting your talent but you will find it has deteriorated and started to decay from the years it spent buried.

Jesus' call is also a call to adventure. It is a call to step out of our comfort zone and take risks. It is the reason we are told “Do not be afraid” so often in scripture. Fear makes sense in some contexts, like when you are tempted to do something foolhardy and unnecessarily dangerous, but not when God calls us. Abraham left the cradle of civilization to come to the land of Canaan where God promised him land and a nation of descendants. Moses left a pastoral existence to lead a nation of slaves out of an evil empire and into the wilderness. Nehemiah left a comfortable position as the cupbearer of the Persian king to go to Judea and direct the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and work with Ezra who was both rebuilding the temple and the commitment of the Jews to God's law. The apostles left their jobs and homes to travel with Jesus around their homeland and then to go to the ends of the known world preaching the gospel. It would have surprised them that in 250 years the word “church” would evolve from meaning a group of people who follow Jesus to a building specially constructed to worship him.

And perhaps that when Christians stopped being so adventuresome. Now they had earthly property, possessions—and power, a stake in the status quo, a reason to stop thinking of themselves as pilgrims in a foreign land, passing through on the way to a better, heavenly country. (Hebrews 11:13-16) Some did become missionaries to the barbarian tribes outside the empire but for many, Christianity devolved to simply going to church on designated days, saying prayers and doing rituals. Few thought that following Jesus meant showing radical love for your neighbor and your enemy. Few dared to speak truth to power and uphold the rights of the destitute, the diseased, the despised and the disadvantaged. It literally took nearly two millennia before Christians tried to realize a world where, as Paul says in Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And we still are not at the point where all people are treated equally as persons created in the image of God and objects of his love.

To change that scares people. It means the world would have to change. It means really having to trust God, as the Israelites had to when leaving the familiarity of Egypt for the a nomadic existence in the wilderness on the way to the promised land. Or as the disciples had to rely on God when Jesus sent them out two by two to heal and spread the good news without bread, money, spare clothing and, significantly, without baggage. (Mark 6:7-9) It means truly treating everyone the way we would like to be treated. (Matthew 7:12) It means truly loving others without asking if they deserve it in same the way God loves us even when we don't deserve it. (1 John 4:10-11) It means seeing everything we are and have, all our money, possessions, and talents, not to mention our time, as being on loan from God to use in serving him and not ourselves.

And it means to take risks. Not foolish or unnecessary ones but we must not let possible losses or failures keep from doing what God wants us to do. No investor can be sure of the results. But the results are in God's hands. What he wants is faithful servants, boldly investing the talents he's given them into the growth of the kingdom of God.

A parable usually has one main point. It isn't an exhaustive treatise on any subject. One thing not mentioned in this parable is that as Christians we don't operate in isolation. We can and are supposed to help each other discover and develop our talents and gifts. In Hebrews we are told, “And let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24) So we are to encourage people not to bury their talents but use them to serve God.

And we should not discourage people from doing God's work because there might be risks. God wants us to be courageous and not rest on our laurels from the past. As someone once said, “Success is not final and failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” In attempting any achievement, things will go wrong. You rethink it; make adjustments and try again.

Edison tried more than 100 different materials before he found one that made a good filament for his light bulb. He didn't give it up as impossible. And we have an advantage Edison didn't. We have a loving and powerful God on our side. When facing odds that seem insurmountable, remember what Jesus our Lord said, “What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God.” (Luke 18:27) And when we are merely facing ridicule or opposition, as it says in Hebrews, “So we may say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?'” (Hebrews 13:6)

Waiting

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 25:1-13.

My grandson really wants a Spy Ninjas New Recruit Mission Kit. He has been literally calling us every day to see if my wife has ordered it for him. And everyday we tell him the same 2 things. First, because it is past his birthday, it will be a Christmas gift. So he must wait. But, secondly, even if we did want to give it to him earlier, we can't because it is not yet available from the online site where he saw it. The date it will be available is right there on the website. So he must wait.

Waiting is hard, especially for kids. It was hard for me when I was a kid, waiting for birthdays and Christmas or the release of the new James Bond film. And I think it is particularly hard these days when you can just buy something with one click and receive it in the mail a few days later. Or wonder about something and find the information on your phone in seconds. Hungry? Pop a prepackaged meal in the microwave and you can be eating by the time the commercial break ends. It's like our technology is training us to be impatient.

But I wonder if waiting was ever easy for human beings. I have been doing my daily readings of the Bible on Facebook Live for more than 7 months and I have been struck by how often we are told to endure and to persevere. Many of the books of the Bible were written to people in painful circumstances, usually beyond their control. The Hebrews were oppressed slaves in Egypt, awaiting liberation. Israel was a small nation, oppressed by hostile neighbors and often waiting to see which of the empires surrounding it would be the next to try to conquer it. The Jews in Babylon were captives of war, living as foreigners in a strange land, waiting to be released from exile. Judah and Galilee were occupied territories, oppressed by the brutal Roman empire and waiting for the Messiah. For the first 300 years Christians were a persecuted minority, awaiting the return of Jesus. So we shouldn't be surprised to find the Bible full of advice and reassurance for those who living through extended periods of suffering and injustice.

One of the things the Bible tells us is appropriate at such a time is honestly expressing our pain and asking God for deliverance. A lament is one of the world's oldest literary forms and we see it in scripture. Several psalms are laments, written on behalf of an individual or the nation. Typically they begin by addressing God, then give a description of the things causing distress. Then they look back at how God has helped his people in the past and ask him for relief and rescue. They declare the person's innocence or else how he has repented. They express confidence that God will intercede, make a vow to praise God for what he will do, and they end with thanksgiving.

There are sections of the prophet's writings that are laments, and of course, the book of Lamentations is composed entirely of laments for God's judgment on Jerusalem and the temple when both were destroyed by the Babylonians. What strikes me about the laments, especially in the psalms, is how raw and honest they are. In Psalm 44, which is a lament over a devastating defeat, the psalmist says to God, “You handed us over like sheep to be eaten; you scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a pittance; you did not ask a high price for them. You made us an object of disdain to our neighbors; those who live on our borders taunt and insult us. You made us an object of ridicule among the nations; foreigners treat us with contempt. All day long I feel humiliated and am overwhelmed with shame, before the vindictive enemy who ridicules and insults me.” (Psalm 44:11-16) The psalmist protests that the people didn't disobey or break their covenant with God. It concludes, “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up! Do not reject us forever! Why do you look the other way, and ignore the way we are oppressed and mistreated? For we lie in the dirt, with our bellies pressed to the ground. Rise up and help us! Rescue us because of your loyal love!” (Psalm 44:23-26) Wow! You don't hear prayers like that very often, especially in church. The good news is that we can be honest with God about how we feel. It's not like he doesn't know our thoughts.

Another thing the laments teach us is to remember the times in the past God has come through for us. Too often we get so focused on today's troubles we forget yesterday's help and assistance. We may not recall how harrowing things got the last time before God came to our rescue. Or our attitude towards God is “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?” But trust is built on the history of a relationship. Remembering the times when God pulled our bacon out of the fire will help us be patient this time.

Patience is a forgotten virtue these days. In the past, not having the benefit of our technology, things happened at a much slower pace. In the 1800s, a wagon train could only go about 2 miles an hour. The trip from the "Gateway to the West," St. Louis, to California took 5 months. Today to go from St. Louis to Los Angeles it would take just 4 hours and 14 minutes by plane. 175 years ago patience was not just a virtue, it was a necessity. In the King James translation, patience is often rendered "longsuffering," which actually reflects the Greek word quite accurately. Again nobody likes waiting, especially when circumstances are unpleasant. But sometimes it is all one can do.

Uncertainty can add to the suffering, or even be its main component in the form of anxiety. I have seen inmates finally relax when they get a verdict, even if it is a sentence for more time, because at least the uncertainty is over. Now they know what they must face. Uncertainty opens up a range of possibilities, not all of them desirable. And sometimes all we can think of is how the situation can go wrong or get worse. So along with patience, we need hope.

Someone has called hope the future tense of faith. Faith is trusting God now; hope is trusting God for a better future. And faith should fuel hope. What God has done for us in the past should assure us that he will continue to help us into the future. That is reflected in the laments of the Bible. Recalling God's mighty acts turns into the confidence that he will act again.

Of course, if we caused our own misfortune, we may have to repent, as David does in Psalm 51, which we read on Ash Wednesday. He is writing after the prophet Nathan confronts the king about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband on the battlefield. After asking God for mercy, and asking that he be cleansed from his sin, David writes, “For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. And so you are justified when you speak and upright in your judgment.” (Psalm 51:3-5) He makes no excuses. He does not justify himself. He accepts God's spiritual diagnosis and asks to be healed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.” (Psalm 51:11-13) If we have caused our own suffering, we must admit it and ask God for forgiveness and healing.

But not all misfortune is caused by our sins. The whole book of Job refutes the idea that all suffering is our fault. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. And that can make it hard to be patient. Yet Abraham Lincoln, depressed over the loss of his son and the progress of the Civil War, found comfort in the book of Job. And while we don't know exactly what it was that helped Lincoln, one takeaway from the book is that God knows infinitely more than we do. Just because we do not see a reason for our sufferings does not mean there is no reason. We have to trust God in such matters and persevere.

Part of the problem of waiting through a painful period of time is having no control over the major features of it. But that doesn't mean we have no control over anything. Doing something with the things we can control can alleviate the feeling of helplessness that overwhelms us. You should be patient but you don't have to be passive. Keeping busy is good but keeping busy doing something that is beneficial is better, especially if it is useful to someone else. It can help you remember that you have value.

And it starts with just that: assessing what you have or do that can be of value. Inventory your assets. What resources you do have? What skills and talents do you possess? What you do enjoy doing that you are also good at?

Then look at needs that are going unmet, especially in your community. Can you tutor people with knowledge you possess: how to cook or do taxes or read or draw or do crafts? Can you drive handicapped or elderly people to doctor's appointments? Can you deliver meals to the needy? Can you answer a helpline? There are many nonprofits that can use volunteers. Find an area of concern that interests you, study it and find a ministry or charity that addresses it. Or maybe you can create a service no one has thought of or that no one provides in your community.

And this is not merely an activity that distracts you while waiting. Remember how in a lament the person makes a vow. Often it is to praise God and worship him. But it also can be to serve God in other ways. In Psalm 51 David says, “I shall teach your ways to the wicked and sinners shall return to you.” (Psalm 51:14) And indeed that is the essence of what Jesus tells his disciples to do until he returns. “...Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

But that is not all that Jesus told us to do in the interim. In speaking to his disciples about his return, Jesus tells them not to worry about the time and hour. No one knows when that will be. Instead he says, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other servants their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom the master finds at work when he comes.” (Matthew 24:45-46) So we are to be taking care of one another. Jesus said our love for one another would be the way the world would know we are his disciples. (John 13:35) Nor should we restrict the display of our love to other Christians. We are also to seek and serve Jesus by serving the destitute, the disabled, the despised and the disadvantaged, whom he called his brothers and sisters. (Matthew 25:34-40) What we do to them we do to him.

And this is reinforced by today's gospel passage, the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids. They are waiting for the arrival of the groom. He and his entourage would usually process through all the streets of the town so all the neighbors could see and congratulate him. There would be music and dancing along the way. Knowing this could take awhile both the prudent and foolish bridesmaids brought lamps, little clay vessels that would hold about 15 minutes worth of oil to burn. But when the groom's procession to pick up his bride and take her back to his house finally comes into view, the foolish bridesmaids didn't have enough oil for the trip. The wise ones had enough to replenish their lamps. While the foolish ones go off to buy more, they get locked out of the wedding. The wise bridesmaids enjoy the celebration and the feast, usually the highlight of village life that season.

What does the oil represent? The Jewish Annotated New Testament points out lamp oil is a metaphor for righteousness or good deeds. (Proverbs 13:9) As Jesus said, “People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they may see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:15-16) Like the parable where the servant uses the master's delay to slack off, get drunk and abuse the other servants (Matthew 24:48-51), this parable is saying, “Don't coast on your righteousness. Keep doing the acts of love Jesus commanded. Keep your light burning.”

And keep alert, Jesus says. Like a kid waiting for Christmas, we are to live in anticipation of the bridegroom's approach. He is coming for us. Let that fuel your patience. Vent your feelings if you must, but remember what he's done for you in the past and let that charge up your hope. Let God be in control of what you can't help but use what you can control to help others and by doing so help yourself. Seek and serve Jesus, even in unlikely persons and places. Spread the good news. And don't let your fire go out. Let your light shine. After all that waiting you don't want to miss the celebration Jesus is planning for us, literally the greatest party of all time. 

Saints All

 The scriptures referred to are 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12.

I had an aunt who put plastic covers on her sofa. The cushions were enclosed in plastic rectangular zippered covers to keep the white sofa clean. This was before Scotchgard. But even so we kids were not allowed to sit on the couch. Nor were we allowed in the living room unless it was time to watch “Bonanza.” She had a lot of rules which did not make sense to us but I now realize were just to keep her things looking nice. When she babysat us, which was frequently, we had to observe her peculiar rules. Mind you, we loved Aunt Bee and she loved us. But she never had kids of her own and were you to visit her home, you would never realize kids were ever inside her house.

A lot of people look at God that way. He has peculiar rules that are just to keep things clean and neat but which are not human-friendly. They think the rules are more about him than about his creatures, whom he loves. And, yeah, you can pick out some odd rules in the Old Testament that don't make sense to us. Why weren't the Israelites allowed to make fabrics that mixed cotton and wool? Why couldn't they eat certain things? There are whole books discussing the possible reasons. The Talmud is basically a commentary on a commentary on the Torah, the core of the Jewish Law.

Yet even rabbis recognize that there is a hierarchy of values. Some rules are much more important than others. Most rabbis agree that, in order to save a life, a Jew is allowed to break any rule in the Torah except murder or idolatry. In Jesus' day, teachers asked him what was the most important commandment. He gave them two: to love God with all they are and all they had and to love their neighbor as they did themselves. All the other commandments were derived from these two and no other commandments were more important. (Mark 12:28-31; Matthew 22:34-40) And if you look at the Ten Commandments, they break down into these two categories. The first 4 are about how we show love for God (not making idols, not worshiping other gods, not misusing his name, observing the Sabbath) and the last 6 are about how we show love to other people (honoring our parents, not murdering, not cheating on our spouse, not stealing, not lying about people, not wanting what belongs to our neighbor). They make good ethical sense and if people observed them the world would be a lot more peaceful.

The problem is that not only do people not obey the most important commandments, they forget that they are about love. And some people, including some so-called Christians, try to game the system. How close can they get to violating the commandments without actually breaking them? Similarly, industries don't set out to kill their employees but they will cut corners on safety features to the point that their employees frequently get injured or breathe in noxious fumes or get exposed to toxic chemicals. A married person may not physically commit adultery but indulges in cybersex. Companies don't literally take money out of their employees' bank accounts; they just don't pay them for the overtime they worked. They accomplish the same things but maintain their plausible deniability.

Some people think the only way to get people to obey rules is to enforce them in a draconian fashion, the way a cult or an authoritarian government does. In one of the documentaries on NXIVM Catherine Oxenberg said she noticed that a friend was sleeping on the floor rather than in bed with her husband. The wife explained that it was a penance suggested by their leader. Oxenberg rightly suspected that something was wrong and it was her first clue that this self-help group might be a cult.

Singapore is notably clean. You won't find chewing gum stuck under tables or chairs. Because it is a banned substance and if you have too much on you or dispose of it improperly you can get fined up to $1000. Not flushing a toilet is also breaking the law. And any form of vandalism is punishable by not only fines, but jail and being caned, whipped with a bamboo cane from 3 to 8 times per count. Also Singapore police can do random drug tests on anyone, including tourists, and do not care if the drugs detected were not taken while in the country. Homosexuality gets you imprisoned. As does not maintaining social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fun place.

In comparison God is not that picky. And while he has given us laws and laws can accomplish a lot, they cannot make people obey them. Otherwise laws against, say, speeding would stop all speeding. Laws can present standards to follow but people have to accept them. And most people accept most rules...until they become inconvenient or stop them from doing what they want. Most healthy people will not park in a handicapped spot. Unless there are no other parking places and they are late. Or they're just going to buy one item. Or they notice there are other open handicapped spots so who's it going to hurt? People's compliance with the law is conditional. They will obey laws on the condition they don't get in the way of what they want.

Laws cannot change people. Only God's Spirit can. And that is why Paul contrasts the law that operates in our sinful nature with the law of the Spirit. (Romans 8:2) And God changes us not into mindless robots but into people free to follow the Spirit in directions not already mapped out. (John 20:22-23; Matthew 16:19) The world changes. We no longer need to regulate buggy whips but we are behind on regulating what people can do on the internet. And by the same token people are facing ethical issues that did not exist 100 years ago. There were precious few decisions to be made regarding care at the end of life because, unlike today, doctors could not keep the body going indefinitely if things like the heart or the lungs or the brain were failing. That is a moral dilemma unique to our time.

That's why Jesus' commands to love are more general than the 613 rather specific laws set down in the Torah to act as the law code of the nation of Israel. Love's intent stays the same even if its expression changes to suit the circumstances. A loving parent disciplines a child who hit his sibling and is unrepentant but comforts one who is genuinely upset over what he did wrong. A loving parent teaches restraint to a child who is reckless but encourages the child who is full of self-doubt to be bolder. Love means wanting the best for the beloved and encouraging them to be their best self. And that is what the Holy Spirit does in us.

We call those who best display the spiritual and moral qualities God desires saints. They tend to embody the traits Jesus commends in the beatitudes. Let's look at them.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” This translation is traditional but inadequate. The Greek word given as “poor” really means “destitute” or “helpless as a beggar.” In fact it literally means to “cower or crouch” like a beggar. So it refers to those who are so spiritually impoverished that they have no illusions about it. Why does Jesus consider them blessed? Because they have hit bottom spiritually and, like a beggar, have nowhere else to turn except to God. And God will hear their cry. They are like the tax collector in the parable, who, unlike the Pharisee, could not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus said the tax collector, not the Pharisee who bragged about himself, left the temple justified. (Luke 18:9-14) The self-satisfied do not seek God.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” A more accurate translation would be “those grieving.” It means those so distraught over a loss that they can't hide it. It can also mean feeling guilty, as we often do even if we could have done nothing to prevent the loss. Again why would Jesus call them blessed? Because he who is the resurrection and the life will comfort us. In the new creation, we are told, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.” (Revelation 21:4)

Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The Greek word for “meek” doesn't imply weakness but gentleness. The strong can afford to be gentle. Indeed it is often the weak person, seeking to show he is not weak, who is harsh. Gentleness is one of the fruit of the Spirit. So Jesus is saying that not only are those who require gentleness, the spiritual beggars and the grieving, blessed but so are those who show gentleness to others.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” A better translation is “Blessed are those who are hungering and thirsting for justice, for they will be satisfied.” The verbs are active and ongoing. The word translated “righteousness” means a judicial verdict. The state of the world leaves them starving and parched for things to be made right by God. Why does Jesus call them blessed? Because he, the Son of God, will judge the world justly and give the right verdict in every case so that they will be satisfied.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Again in a world of harsh people, the ones who show compassion for those who are spiritually at rock bottom, those who grieve, and those who ache for justice, will in turn be shown compassion. Those who are pitiless will turn out to be pitiful. In his parable of the last judgment those who show compassion on the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned and the foreigner will hear Jesus say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34) Those who did not show mercy to the unfortunate will not receive mercy. (Matthew 25:45-46) Bullies and the neglectful have no place in God's kingdom.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, nothing stopped manufacturers from putting borax or formaldehyde or anything else in the food Americans bought. And indeed they did put such chemicals in there to disguise spoilage or even add things like sawdust to stretch the appearance of how much food you were getting. This law means you know what is in the food and medicine you buy and are assured it isn't adulterated with things that are harmful. Spiritual purity is God's truth in labeling. It means you are clean from sin. Of course none of us are naturally. The only way to be purified is to go to God. If you realize your spiritual poverty, you will do that. That's why Jesus says the pure in heart are blessed. To be that way, they had to have been aware of their impurity and gone to God to be cleansed from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” This is a unique word, appearing only once in the Bible. Peace itself appears 429 times in the Bible. We read of kings making peace with each other and priests making peace offerings for people, but here Jesus is telling his followers to be peacemakers as well. We can do this by telling people about how Jesus has already made peace with God for us and by making peace with other people through acting gently and being merciful. Paul writes to a group of Jewish and Gentile Christians, “For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one, and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed.” (Ephesians 2:14-16) Not only did Jesus make peace with God on the cross, he provides peace between people. All hostility was to end at the cross. And we are to preach the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6:15) And peace or shalom means not merely absence of conflict but total well-being. We are to work to make people better.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Sometimes the reason why people demur from doing good is that they will get all kinds of flack about it. Doing the right thing shows up those who don't do it. Or it reveals the gap between people's words and their deeds. And they may retaliate, if not physically then by spreading lies about you. That's a good way to deflect from their flaws. But the truly good do the right thing anyway, despite persecution. They are called blessed by Jesus because they are brave and they persevere.

In our passage from 1 John, it says, “Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” This echoes two of the Beatitudes: peacemakers are called children of God and the pure in heart will see God. Because our hope is not that we will get better at following the rules but that through the work of the Holy Spirit within us, we won't need to follow rules. We will become Christlike and the qualities Jesus says are blessings will be second nature to us.

In the New Testament all followers of Jesus are referred to as saints. Because nobody can make themselves holy. God sanctifies us and makes us holy. The length of time it takes each of us is different. Our journey and the gifts that are given each of us are different. But just as a fruit tree first puts forth buds and then flowers and then the immature fruit which generally gets less green and sweeter and softer as it ripens, we should see the nascent fruit of the Spirit developing in us if we let him work in us. Jesus said that you can recognize people by their fruits, by what their life produces. (Matthew 7:20) He said, “My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show you are my disciples.” (John 15:8) And he said we can only bear fruit if we, like branches on a vine, stay connected to Jesus. (John 15:4)

Today we honor those we recognize as saints, people in whom it is easy to see Christlike qualities and the fruit of the Spirit. But we also need to realize we are part of the company of saints. And if we stay connected to Jesus, we should also realize our spiritual poverty and our utter reliance on him, that we shall be comforted in our grieving, that we are becoming not weak but gentle, that our hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied, that we are becoming merciful and compassionate, that our hearts are being purified by him, that we are to act as peacemakers and restore total wellbeing, and that opposition should not dissuade us from doing good.

And we need to realize that though it may at times be hard to believe, if we continue to follow and love Jesus, when we at last see him, we will be like him. That is our hope and our joy.