Lessons from a Pandemic

Ten months after our viral invasion and incarceration, it feels like we have been in semi-lockdown perpetually. Tala Schlossberg, a writer in the Editorial Dept. of The New York Times, wrote an essay about how the good old days now seem like the bad old days when we had to do things we didn’t want to do but we were at least free to do them (12/12/20). She called her piece An Ode to the Before Times, which had as its subtitle, Also, I think I’m losing my mind.

Two Advent Women: Ruth and Mary: 4) – The Grace of God

In the Bible, women did not have nearly as prominent a place as men. That is true in both the Old and New Testaments. This is the fourth of a four-part series of sermons about two women in the Bible. The first is Ruth, who has a four-chapter book about her in the Hebrew Bible. She was the great-great grandmother of David, the greatest of the Israelite kings. The second woman is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary does not have a book about her in the Greek Bible, the New Testament. In fact, we are told surprisingly little about Mary in any and all of the four Gospels. Mary became the most revered woman in the Bible with the least journalistic copy in her reported story.

Two Advent Women: Ruth and Mary - 3) A Sad Story

She was probably fourteen or fifteen years old. That was the age at which most girls in first-century Judea were married. I say “girls” rather than “women,” because though peasant females of that age were capable of bearing children, they were still quite young by any standards, even if they might have been very mature for their age, and our culture is different from their culture.

Two Advent Women: Ruth and Mary – 1) A Sad Story

One day over three thousand years ago, a kind and wealthy man saw what looked like a poor immigrant woman gleaning grain in one his many fields. Taking pity on her, he told her to come to his fields anytime she wanted, and he strictly ordered his farm workers not to harm her in any way. We also are called upon to do things like that, but do we do it? Later he learned that she was the daughter-in-law of one of his relatives by marriage.

Speaking Truth to Relatives

Sometimes it is harder “to get down to brass tacks” (as we say) with family members than with almost everyone else. Saying what we really think or expressing how we really feel can be much more difficult with an adult child or grandchild or sister or brother or nephew or niece or cousin than with a best friend, a neighbor, or a mere acquaintance. We acquire friends and neighbors as we go along, but from the day we are born we always have our relatives, and somehow that puts them into a different category when we really want to talk about the most important issues facing us - - - and them.

We Did NOT Dodge a Bullet

As you know, I always list sermon titles for a few weeks ahead. Several weeks ago I chose the title for today, We Did NOT Dodge a Bullet. In advance, I figured I could come up with a sermon to correlate to that title no matter what happened in the election, because the American political malaise is far more widespread than the problems and potentialities of the past four years.

Be of Good Cheer!

Two days before our national election, I need to hear “fear not.” I need to hear Jesus, whom I believe may well have thought that the world was about to end, say to his disciples, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Maybe you need to hear that too. Fear not. Be of good cheer. Whatever happens on Tuesday and beyond, we must not abandon hope, and we must keep it firmly in mind that God will not abandon us --- ever.