Pentecost

Proper 8A: Choosing God

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Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634
Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634

OLD TESTAMENT:  Genesis 22: 1-14

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

Remember that Genesis is a book about not only the beginning of the world but also the beginnings of God’s interaction with that world.  It is a patchwork of traditions that is begin retold in light of a specific context and how the image of God is seen through that context.

This story is one of the best-known and one of the hardest to understand.  In fact, taken at face value, it is disconcerting, disenchanting, and downright shocking.  But we need to understand the context from which this story probably came.  While it was probably from a pre-Israelite setting, suggesting that it originated from within the circle and intimacy of a family, the story was handed down for generations upon generations before it was even written down. But think about those who lived during the time of the exile hearing this story.  What they heard in this story was a God who put them to the test, called them forth from their continuing faith, and delivered them with renewed promises.  What they saw was their own life and, in it, a God who provides.  Because, you see, during the exile, it would have been very easy to assume that God was no longer available.  They had lost everything that they knew.  Where was God?  But this story says, “here is God!…the God of new possibilities and renewed life.”  From that standpoint, it is an important story in that tradition.

The Hebrew term for it is Aqedah, “the binding”.  The Arabic term for it is Dhabih.  Arabic?  You see, this story is also in the writings of Islam.  But in that case, the story is often told of the Binding of Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, rather than Isaac.  So, the whole point is that it is a story set in the context of the whole story of Abraham.  And, it is apparently important enough to be told in multiple traditions.

The narrator states that God “tested” Abraham.  If Abraham were to carry out God’s instructions to sacrifice his son, then the promises that God gave would be nullified.  The heir upon whom the future depended would be gone.  Abraham obeyed—binding the boy and raising the knife.  And just at the right moment, God stops him.  God provides.

Now, we need to realize that this is not merely a story of filicide or, even worse, a God gone wrong.  Sacrifices were a normal part of that society.  In fact, human sacrifices of the firstborn were not only acceptable, but an honored tradition.  So, for its first hearers, this story makes all the sense in the world.  And then, God steps in and stops it—against all odds, against all culture, against the norm. But does just looking at this as evidence that God provides sort of oversimplify it?  I mean, it appears to be the point.  After all, Abraham makes this pretty explicit at the end by naming the place of this encounter “The Lord will provide.”   But is that the only point?

Throughout the Scriptures, there is a rhythm of calling, responding, and testing. Why the test?  There are two words for test in Hebrew.  One denotes testing to see whether or not standards are being maintained, much like our tests in schools.  The other is used for experimenting–pushing an entity beyond its present limits to see how much it can bear. We might compare this to a chemical test where you combine elements into something else.  A person who undergoes a test like this might succeed or fail.  That’s not really the point.  But one thing is certain—he or she emerges changed, either shattered or risen to new heights.  Either way, one will not be the same as before.  This is the word for testing that is used in this Scripture.  Testing, here, has nothing to do with right or wrong.  It has to do with Lech- lecha, the Hebrew for “to go”, “to move”, as in to a different place in one’s life. The test, you see, had little to do with whether or not Abraham would sacrifice Isaac, but, rather, whether or not he had moved to the point where he could truly trust God.

I don’t think God deliberately creates difficult circumstances in our lives.  And God has never implied that we have to earn God’s love or get it right for it to happen.  Contrary to the way many interpret this story, God does not call us to blind obedience.  God simply calls us to grow into who we are called to be.

But I think many of us spend our lives as if we’re preparing for a test.  We try very hard to learn right from wrong, to know the right answers, to prove that we’re right, and to do the correct things.  And we miss the opportunities God gives us for lech-lecha, to move beyond where we are into the place we are meant to be.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow claims that the best contemporary midrash to the Aqedah comes from Esther Ticktin.  She says that the “strongest imperatives of Torah are to rear children and to break idols.  What happens when we turn our children into idols?  We must break our idolization of them—kill the image of of them we have erected…This is what God asked of Abraham:  Lift him up to me:  But Abraham had so totally made Isaac into his idol that he couldn’t fathom how to do it without killing him.  The lifted knife was the breaking of the idol.”  That was all God wanted—for Abraham to break the cast of any idols that he might have set between himself and God.  God wanted Abraham to realize once and for all his own faith to trust in what God was doing in his life.  The question is, then, do each of us have enough faith in ourselves to have that level of faith in God? (From “Is This Going to Be on the Test”, sermon by S. Williams, 06/29/2008)   

  • What meaning does this passage provide for you?
  • What do you think this says about Abraham? Does Abraham obey because he is told to do so or because he trusts God? What is the difference?
  • What do you think this says about Isaac?
  • What does this say about God?
  • What do you think about the whole concept of the “test”? 

 

NEW TESTAMENT: Romans 6: 12-23

To read the Lectionary Epistle passage, click here

The first couple of verses provide a bridge from the previous verses to what follows. It sounds like a logic argument:  IF the reign of sin has been broken in Christ, and IF the Christian truly live in Christ, THEN sin has no business continuing to rule.  In other words, if one is in Christ, sin is not an issue.

Remember that the emphasis of Romans has much to do with God’s righteousness.  Here, God’s righteousness is revealed apart from the law.  It is instead justified by faith.  Beginning in verse 15, Paul lays out a choice between two obediences, between two loyalties—a slave to Christ or a slave to the world.  The difference is in the slavemasters—one perpetuates slavery, one initiates freedom.  The Greek word for “slave” is doulos.  It can mean “slave”; it can also mean “servant”, perhaps the distinction between enslavement and service.

The point is that we have changed masters—from sin to obedience to God.  Obedience here is not, as we often assume, merely following rules.  God is much more nuanced than that, I supposed!  Obedience is not following rules; it is living within God’s will, God’s vision of what we are created to be.  Obedience is the freedom to become who you are.  This is true liberation.  This is transformation.

And yet, we still allow ourselves to become enslaved—to things, to security, to nice houses and nice cars, to too many clothes and too many pairs of shoes (Really, can you ever have too many shoes?  No, I’m [sort of] just kidding!!!)  The point is, we have sacrificed the freedom that God gives us not to just what we want, not to fall into step with everyone else, but to truly listen and follow God’s will for our lives.

 

  • What meaning does this passage provide for you?
  • What does “freedom” mean for you in this passage? (Think about this concept of “freedom” as it relates to the Genesis passage. What “freedom” did Abraham have? Or, for that matter, Isaac? Or, for that matter, God?
  • How does the whole idea of “competing slaveries” set for you?
  • How does this idea of transformation speak to the idea that “God accepts us as we are”?

 

 

GOSPEL:  Matthew 10: 37-42

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

This is a conclusion of a speech that authorizes and empowers the disciples as representatives of Christ.  There is an implicit claim that Christ represents God and this passage, then, deals not with specific “12” disciples, but with the nature of discipleship. The whole idea of persecution is inherently unfamiliar to us in our society.  After all, for good or bad, many see us as a “Christian nation”.  (I use the term loosely.)  But in this context, they WERE, on some level, being persecuted for their beliefs.

Keep in mind that in the writer of Matthew’s Gospel’s theology, God is the faithful creator and redeemer of all of Creation.  Creation and eschatology are not alternatives, but complement the God who embraces all.  These rules, which for us seem rigorous and unforgiving, were set out to distinguish true missioners from what we would call “entrepreneurs”, who were set out to make money for their preaching and their good works.  It is a matter of discerning true disciples from the false prophets of the day.  For us, it’s a matter of living as true disciples, not holding anything back, and only giving God the time and the part of ourselves that we can spare.

I don’t think Jesus was “anti-family”, so to speak.  I think I would assume that loving and caring for our relatives and having a good relationship with them was the expectation.  But, it’s back to the Genesis passage.  Was God trying to make Abraham realize that even those relationships do not come “before God”?  The truth is that they are God’s wonderful gift to us and part of our relationship with God.  They are part of who we are called to be—not to idolize or put ahead of who we are before God but to take it into us and figure out what it is about that person or persons that God is using for our lives.

Next week my 22-year-old son, Matthew, and I are going on a mission trip to Casa Esperanza, a children’s dental clinic and medical center in Puerto Lempira on the Mosquito Coast of eastern Honduras. Getting there involves three plane flights, a cab ride, and a bus trip. Reading through the “Instructions for Volunteers,” handout, I learned about all kinds of details Jesus doesn’t go into in his “Instructions for Volunteers” in Matthew 10:5-15.  Jesus doesn’t go into airport taxes, the expected tips for people who handle your luggage, safety, appropriate attire, passports (your passport can’t expire less than six months after you plan to leave Honduras), where and how to exchange money, immunizations, luggage weight limits, malaria pills, insurance, and liability forms. Jesus’ “Instructions for Volunteers” simply says “Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”  He just tells the Twelve where to go and what to do.

My Honduran mission trip handout also includes a “what to pack for Honduras” list. It includes all kinds of items Jesus doesn’t mention in his packing list in Matthew 10:9-10: ear plugs, hat, motion sickness pills, flash light, small battery operated fan, rain poncho, water bottle, camera, water shoes, sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or above, mosquito repellent, antiseptic hand wipes, an extra pair of shoes in case one gets muddy, snack food, and several other items I won’t bore you with. But if you were going you’d want to know about them.

I am very grateful for the detailed “what to pack” list for Honduras. But I can’t help but compare it to Jesus’ “what not to pack” list in Matthew 10:9-10. No money. No bag for the journey, no extra tunic or pair of sandals, not even a staff.

I don’t know that I would want to go on a mission trip whose team leader was Jesus. I picture Jesus as the airline employee who, just as you are dragging your roller board onto the plane stops you and says, “I’m sorry you’re going to have to check that.” But what he really means is, “You’ll never see this roller board again. Now get on the plane.” Without the preventive medications and small comforts of daily life, I am afraid a Jesus-led mission team would all come back home sunburned, dehydrated, and with blisters on our feet.

There is one more sheet in my mission trip handout packet. It’s called the “Mission Trip Participant Pledge.”

To go on the trip I need to agree to do the following:

I promise to . . .

  • Lift up Jesus Christ with my thoughts, words, and actions.
  • Maintain a servant attitude toward the people our team serve and toward team members.
  • Refrain from negativism and complaining. Travel and ministry in Honduras may present unexpected and even undesired circumstances. Your cooperation and flexibility will make the challenges less stressful.
  • Remember that I am a servant of Jesus Christ called to be in ministry. I will serve as best I can so that both the spiritual purpose and the task of the mission will be accomplished.

 

At the bottom of the “Mission Trip Participant Pledge” is a place for me to sign and date the document.

Wouldn’t those four promises be good to make every day of discipleship wherever in the world we are? Because even armed with a battery-operated fan, a bag of Planters salted peanuts, and some antiseptic hand wipes, we will experience “unexpected and even undesired circumstances” in our journey with Jesus. When we do, can we count on others to welcome and receive us? Can they count on us to welcome and receive them?

I saw an interview with actor Michael Douglas recently on Oprah. He spoke of his relationship with his father, Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas, and told the following story.

Dad called me the other night. He said, “Michael, I was watching myself in an old movie earlier tonight and I didn’t remember making it.”  “Well, Dad, you made 75 movies and you are 94. Don’t be so rough on yourself.” “No, Michael, you didn’t let me finish. I realized halfway through that I was watching one of your movies.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if certain aspects of our lives and ways of relating to others were all but indistinguishable from Jesus? If they reminded others of Jesus, just a little bit? We seek, every day, in every place, on this mission trip of life, to be emissaries of Jesus: representatives of Jesus who welcome others as if they were Jesus and who relate to others in the spirit of Jesus?

Who is the representative of Jesus? New Testament scholar Craig Keener, reflecting on 10:39-39 in relation to 10:40-42, concludes that “The one who relinquishes control of his or her own life (10:38-39) becomes a representative of Jesus.” (Keener, 211) Easier said than done, but we do so with confidence in our leader and the goal that, when we encounter others on our trip, we’ll welcome the Christ in them and they’ll welcome the Christ they see in us.

But first we have to get off the website and get on the plane. We have to get off the shore and into the boat. (From “Mission Trip Guidelines from Jesus”, by Alyce McKenzie, available at http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Mission-Trip-Guidelines-from-Jesus-Alyce-McKenzie-06-20-2011, accessed 22 June 2011).

 

  • What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  • How do you view this considering that fact that their being persecuted for their beliefs was a normal occurrence.
  • What does this say about the idea of “true missioners” as opposed to “entrepreneurs” of our faith?
  • What images of righteousness and following the will of God does this bring about for you?

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

The most important thing in this world is not where we stand but in what direction we move. (Johann von Goethe, 1749-1832) 

Humanly speaking, we could interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways.  Jesus knows only one possibility:  simple surrender and obedience.  He does not want it to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it.  (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945) 

Whatever is honored will be cultivated.  (Plato, 424-348, BCE)

 

Closing

 

That there is a planet circling the sun, which we call earth, our first, wonderful home.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That the earth is full of loving gifts, beautiful scenes, and complex creatures.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That from earliest days God spoke to people and called them into faith and service.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That God’s people are called to be friends of the earth and stewards of its bounty.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That God came uniquely to us in Christ Jesus, bearing our sins and healing our diseases.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That we belong to a community called the church, where Christ lives on in love.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That no evil can finally win out against God, and that complete reconciliation is assured.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That through Christ’s ministry even death has lost its sting and the grave its victory.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever.

 

That we are surrounded by a crowd of heavenly friends, whose lives are hid with Christ.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good, whose mercies last forever. 

 

(Bruce Prewer, Uniting Church in Australia, available at http://www.bruceprewer.com/DocA/42Sun13.htm, accessed 22 June, 2011)

Proper 7A: Being Light in the Darkness

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Light in the darknessOLD TESTAMENT:  Genesis 21: 8-21

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

We are familiar with the birth of Isaac.  His birth brings the Abraham story to  climax.  The verses stress that God has made good on the promises and that Abraham has been obedient in naming and circumcising Isaac.  It is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham (and to Abraham’s descendants).  The foundation of something great has begun as the child grew.

But in verse 9, the story abruptly changes.  The reappearance of Hagar and Ishmael makes it impossible to dismiss them as simple diversions in the grand Abraham saga.  They receive almost as much attention as Isaac.  Isaac and Ishmael are both children of promise.  The Judeo-Christian tradition sees that God has made clear that the redemptive purposes on behalf of the world (the whole world, including Ishmael) will manifest themselves through Isaac.  But Ishmael does have claims.  The “other son” (and those that will come after him) are not to be dismissed from the family or from God’s realm.  God will remember both children and their descendants.

The relationship between Sarah and Hagar was either not resolved amicably or has deteriorated in the three years since Isaac’s birth.  Sarah’s depiction of Hagar as a “slave woman” probably drives home her concerns over inheritance rights.  She demands that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.  She does this during the festival associate with the weaning of Isaac, a time of rejoicing because he has survived the difficult first years that most children do not.  (Perhaps she has waited until now to insure that there WAS an offspring.)  She only speaks “about” Hagar, never talking directly to her and again making her appear “beneath” her. Sarah gives Abraham an ultimatum, insisting that he choose between his two sons.  Modern readers probably side with Hagar, feeling sorry for her and with Abraham at the position in which he finds himself.  And, yet, some move must occur if BOTH of the sons are going to follow the shape of their futures that God holds for them.

Both children are recognized as belonging to Abraham but also to a particular future that will be worked out in the future.  God announces that it is through Isaac that descendants will be named for Abraham, probably referring to the covenantal line.  But Abraham can be assured that God will care for the future of Ishmael as well, making of him a great nation.

In this story, the people of God should recognize and rejoice that God’s saving acts are not confined to their own community or their own depiction of who God is.  God’s acts of deliverance occur out and about in the seemingly godforsaken corners of the world, even among those who may be explicitly excluded from the so-called “people of God”.  This story reminds the “chosen” that their God is the God of the world, the God of all Creation, the God who we can only fathom in our small, particular way.

The story of Hagar Hagar is often looked upon as one in which she becomes many things to many people.  In Texts of Terror, Phyllis Trible writes about Hagar’s story in this way:  “Most especially, all sorts of rejected women find their stories in her.  She is the faithful maid exploited, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeing from affliction, the pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in service to others.”

This text does affirm that God chooses the line of Isaac (even with more intention than if the treatment of the two offspring had been “even-handed”)  But Abraham was chosen so that all families might be blessed through him.  What one does with the Ishmaels of the world in the face of claims for Isaac comes front and center.  God is God; we are not.  God has the power to make all things new.  We are reminded by this text that the world is filled with both physical and spiritual (in the way that Christians relate to Abraham) descendants of Ishmael.  There are 2.8 billion Muslims in the world and close to half live outside of the continent of Africa.  These, too, are the children of Abraham.

For Hagar, while she focuses on her past, God focuses on her future.  In the sixteenth chapter of Genesis, God actually draws her into the conversation.  Hagar is the first person in Genesis to encounter an angel of God and the first woman to be given promises.  She becomes the only person in the Old Testament to actually name God.  Where some would assume that this is a sort of “split-off” of the actual story of God, this narrative tells us that it is, rather, another way of telling the story itself.

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. How does our tradition usually read this passage?
  3. How does our society treat the “Hagars” of the world?
  4. How does this story call us to relate to the descendants of Ishmael?
  5. How does this text call us to see God?

 

NEW TESTAMENT:   Romans 6: 1b-11

To read the Lectionary Epistle passage, click here

The letter of Romans is essentially Paul’s “manual” for life.  It teaches how to wrestle with the world and wrestle with our faith in the process.  This journey through baptism is a journey of life.  More than just washing away sins, it brings us into unity and participation with the living Christ.  We become not just “sinless”, but Resurrection people, with new lives and new outlooks.  Baptism doesn’t MAKE us children of God but instead puts us on the pathway to living our calling as God’s children.

The passage tells us that “we were buried”; in other words, our old way of living is one that we have let go.  We have buried it and find ourselves raised anew alive in God.  Being alive in God, though, is not a static way of being.  It is a journey, a journey that assures us of life and yet one that does not lay out every detail of that life along the way.  Being alive in God means being alive in the glorious mystery that surrounds us.

In the preceding chapter, Paul depicted God’s grace as the answer to human sin.  No matter our sin, God’s grace is bigger.  But then it is up to us.  This abounding grace is ours for the taking.  It not only forgives; it also reminds us who and Whose we are.  It reminds us that we are God’s children and that life always holds something more.  We move from being the “walking dead”, so to speak, to being alive in Christ.  But, Paul claims, first we have to let go of that death, to let go of the life that is killing us either physically or spiritually.  We have to let go of who we think we are and begin to live as the one that God created us to be.

What the believer does with the facts, says Paul, is to embrace them with a curious kind of realism. When we were baptized, the church was quite candid about the transitoriness of it all. Knowing how we could easily spend our whole lives lying about death, the church got all that over with right at the beginning by holding us under the waters of baptism. Early, back on Ash Wednesday, we were told, “You are dirt and to dirt you shall return” (Gen. 3:19) At the beginning, we were assured that our things, our kings, our empires and our projects don’t last. The church pried our fingers loose, one by one, from these alleged securities and pushed us into dark waters, waters that (surprise!) turned out to be our womb rather than our tomb. Rather than falling back into nothingness, we fell back upon everlasting arms. Death? How can we fear what we’ve already gone through?

We find that, quite surprisingly, we began really to live because we did not have to. All the really interesting people were those who had somehow learned to let go.  Is Paul’s talk of baptismal dying too mystical? I posed that question to a group of ordinary, everyday laypeople in an ordinary Mississippi church. “Has anyone here had to die in order to be a Christian?”  Silence. Then they began to testify.

“I thought that I couldn’t live in a world where black people were the same as white people. When segregation ended, I thought I would die. But I didn’t. I was reborn. My next-door neighbor, my best friend, is black. Something old had to die in me for something new to be born.”

Another said: “I used to be terribly frightened to be alone by myself. When my husband went out of town on business, I either went with him or took the children and stayed with a neighbor. But the night that my eight-year-old child died of leukemia, I stopped being afraid.”

“Forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t get the connection.

“You see,” she explained, “once you’ve died, there is nothing left to fear, is there? When she died, I did too.”

When he spoke of what happened to him on the Damascus Road, Paul never knew whether to call it being born or being killed. In a way, it felt like both at the same time. Whatever it was, it had something to do with letting go. (Excerpted from “Letting Go Down Here”, by William Willimon, in “The Christian Century”, March 5, 1986, available at http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1002, accessed 16 June 2014.)

So, let go…and become alive.

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What life is it that you feel you need to “die to”?
  3. What does being alive in Christ mean for you?
  4. Does this give you any new meanings for your own baptism?

 

GOSPEL:  Matthew 10: 26-33

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

This passage is not one of the most comforting from the Gospels.  Everything will be known—all our secrets, all those things that we are trying to conceal.  Darkness and whispers will become easily seen and easily heard.  But you are a child of God.  God knows you and loves you.  So do not be afraid.  Just have courage.  Because walking from darkness to light is hard.  But you are not alone.

The truth is, this passage is not one of those feel-good healing stories.  It tells of disruption.  After all, Jesus did not come to walk the pathways of this earth to tell us what a stupendous job we were doing in the Kingdom-building department.  Jesus came to show us a new vision, the vision of God. And when new visions come to be, the others are often cut to pieces, curtains torn and storm clouds gather, and that is indeed uncomfortable.  Jesus came to expose the darkness of the world, to show us a different way.

For those of us who have never faced persecution for our faith, never lived in a darkness that we could not imagine, this is hard to grasp.  For most of us, we are born, exist, and will die in at least a dimly lit version of what our faith is.  But what if the world went dark?  What if all that you knew was hidden?  Do not be afraid.  That is what we are told.  You are not alone.

And for us, those who exist in a “peaceful and civilized” society, how should we read this?  Where are our darknesses?  Where are those things that the Way of Christ is exposing?  The truth is, Jesus calls us not to walk with the majority culture, but to align ourselves with the marginalized, to walk straight into the darkness and start shining light everywhere.  We are no longer called to be people of the Empire; we are called to be children of God.  The empires will do their best to crucify Jesus over and over again but, do not be afraid.  Nothing is too great for God.  Being one with Christ, in unity with who God calls us to be, will indeed show us life.

The season of Easter is behind us.  The work of the Resurrection now begins.  Where are you on the road?  Are you existing in darkness or shining light into it?  Be who you are called to be; be Light.

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. What darkness do you see in your world?
  3. What does it mean to shine light into it?
  4. How would this passage speak to our world?  Our society?  Our denomination? Our church?

 

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

 

No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. (John Donne)

 

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. (Simone Weil)

 

Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. (Howard Thurman)

 

 

Closing

 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

(St. Francis of Assisi)