Sharing God's Love and Grace

Meditation on Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Sunday School Appreciation and Recognition Day

Pastor Karen Crawford

June 11, 2023

It is good to be back, leading worship and sharing a message with my flock! I missed you! How have you been?  This past week, I traveled to Austin, TX, for my 4th class in my Doctor of Ministry program. I have two more classes to go before my final project.

What I have learned so far, from this program, is the importance of hospitality, kindness, and mercy to all people. That doesn’t mean we don’t compare ourselves with other students, at least in the beginning. We have introverts and extroverts! People with different learning styles, strengths and needs. People ranging in age from 30 ish to 60 something, varying in gender and sexual preference or orientation– married, divorced, or single; with and without pets, children or grandchildren. Some serve as spiritual directors, counselors and teachers or work for presbyteries to train lay pastors or as EP’s and GP’s. Others are camp directors, chaplains, associate pastors, co-pastors, heads of staff, solo pastors, church planters and mission workers. Then, there are those with ministries serving children and families or young adults; and those ministering to veterans with PTSD.

We are Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, former Catholic priests, Unitarian Universalists, and pastors serving in the United Church of Christ and United Church of Canada. The miracle is that we all get along with each other and care for one another through this challenging and creative program.

I’ll be honest. Sometimes there is tension because of our differences. But we are determined to not let our differences divide us—because of our faith that the Body is ONE. That we share the same Spirit. Inside our classes or dorms and especially when we eat together, in the dining hall or in local restaurants. No one is an outsider.

And this is how it is with Jesus—who shares meals with everyone—rich and poor, old and young, powerful and weak, those who like him, and those who don’t. Jesus eats with EVERYONE. So much so, that the Pharisees, who are faithful in their adherence to their beliefs, are annoyed.

They ask his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” One of the tax collectors, Matthew, who has just answered the call to follow Jesus and become one of his closest friends.

Eating is an intimate act, isn’t it? We both give and receive, when we share a meal. The meal, itself, means nourishment to the body, but also nourishment for relationships for those who are eating. The table is the great social equalizer, too, especially if you are all eating the same food. We are all human beings, who need to eat. And we need the social nourishment, too, of friendship. What better way to grow in friendship than by sharing a meal?

So, one day, while eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus is interrupted in his eating and teaching about our need for mercy, of all things—and how mercy is even more important in living out our faith than sacrifice. A leader has come to ask Jesus to heal his loved one. “My daughter has just died,” he says, “but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” The man has run out of options. There isn’t anything more that can be done for her! She has been pronounced dead. He isn’t ready to give up on her. Not if there’s a chance for her healing.

Matthew doesn’t tell us how old she is or give any details about the leader, but in Mark and Luke, the man is a leader of the synagogue called Jairus and his daughter is 12 years old. The man has seen Jesus heal. He makes his heartfelt request and Jesus responds immediately to his cry for help, though it means rising from the table and ending the dinner party, a celebration to welcome Matthew into the fold.

He’s on his way there—when there’s another who needs healing. Isn’t it funny how ministry happens when we are on our way to do ministry somewhere else? God has plans! Jesus is in just the right place at the right time. The woman who needs healing is an outsider because of her chronic health condition. She has been bleeding for 12 years. The medical profession has let her down—found no cure. She must be exhausted! But she sees Jesus, and she thinks to herself, “If only I can touch the fringe of his cloak, I will be healed.” That’s faith!

The fringe is the Hebew tzitzit, worn by Jewish men and some women to remind them of the commandments. This is a sacred cloth and not just the bottom threads of any garment. Jesus knows why she has touched his fringe, and says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” The Greek word, sozo translated made you well could also be translated, “saved you.” This is healing of body and soul!

Finally, Jesus arrives at the leader’s home—and the flutes are playing, and the crowd is making a commotion—and Jesus tells them all to go away. They are beginning some kind of ritual done at the time of death, maybe like a funeral, when Jesus says, “Stop the music! She isn’t dead!” He takes her by the hand, and she gets up.

This makes me wonder why we always talk about the raising of Lazarus, but we hardly ever say anything about the raising of this 12-year-old unnamed girl, which is just as miraculous and wonderful! The bodies of young girls and women are as important to Jesus as adult men. And the healing of strangers is as important to him as the healing of friends and family.

I don’t want you to miss something here. It all starts with the meal, a kind of celebration of Matthew’s saying yes to following Jesus. At the meal, no one is an outsider. Everyone is welcome to the table and into a loving relationship with Jesus and all who follow him.

And the meal—where people draw closer to the Lord and one another—as they are nourished, body and soul–strengthens them to go and do acts of mercy and love, for Jesus’s sake. The meal of thanksgiving is very much like our Communion that we will celebrate today, in a few moments, the meal that unites and strengthens us to go and serve God and neighbor, in Christ’s name.

There’s one more special, spiritual thing we have planned for today. We are having a Sunday School picnic at the manse. We are celebrating another beautiful, joyful program year. And we want to say thank you to all the students, teachers, and families. Amazing things happen in Sunday School. Don’t you agree? Raise your hand if you ever went to Sunday School. I can tell! Look how amazing YOU are!

Sunday School is where children are nourished by sacred story, testimony and prayers, arts and crafts, music and games, and, of course, snacks, and, best of all, friendship. One cool thing about Sunday School is that the children become friends with other children they might not otherwise know and befriend—if it weren’t for the church! In our Sunday School, no one is an outsider. Ever.

There’s one requirement. You do have to be willing to receive hospitality, kindness and mercy and offer them to others. Hospitality, kindness, and mercy–that’s what Sunday School is all about. This is where we learn to be Christ’s disciples—not only with minds and words, but with actions and feelings. This is a place and time where our faith is formed and shaped—where our love for the Lord and one another is fed and grown.

This is my hope for our picnic today—the first Sunday School picnic in more than a few years and my first Sunday School picnic with you. Like the meal with Jesus before he goes and heals and like the Lord’s Supper we will share in a few moments, may our picnic bind us together in love, so that no one is an outsider, ever. May the gathering strengthen us—body, mind, and soul—to go and do more acts of hospitality, kindness, and mercy—and truly be Christ’s Body for the world!

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your loving kindness, mercy, and hospitality, shown through the heart, words, and actions of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you that he was willing to eat with strangers and friends alike, sinners and tax collectors, rich and poor, insiders and outsiders—and that he continues to share our meals with us, bless us, heal us, and grant us his peace for everlasting life. Thank you for the gift of faith of the man whose daughter had died and the woman who struggled with bleeding and for Christ’s compassion and power to heal. May we also have a strong faith, so that we might go and do acts of compassion and kindness, healing, and mercy that you lead us to do. May we always be a witness, within this congregation and out in the world, that no one is an outsider. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Guest Speaker/Worship Leader: Dulcie Stoepker McLeod

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

June 4, 2023

I want to talk today about a set of triplets.  No, it’s not 3 children!  And it’s not the Trinity, although this is Trinity Sunday.  It’s the trio found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, verse 13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  This is probably one of the best-known passages from the New Testament, and it’s easy to see why.

 Everyone knows that faith is important in the life of a Christian.  We refer to our brand of religion as our faith, we talk about our faith journeys, and we encourage one another to believe in the triune God and to live lives that will be guided by and pleasing to that triune God.  Likewise, to live that sort of life will surely involve spreading the good news of God’s love and being Christ’s loving hands in this world.  Faith and love are essential components of Christian life, and love (the greatest of the three) sort of drives the good things that we try to do in God’s name.

But hope?  In my experience, and maybe in yours as well, hope is the least mentioned of these triplets.  It feels as if hope is kind of…well, it’s kind of what we do when we aren’t sure what to do, or what comes next.   Is hope really as important as Paul makes it out to be?  What is it, and how does it work in the Christian life?

Well, I’ve done a little bit of research, and for starters, apparently there are 3 kinds of hope:  false hope, static hope, and active hope.

People want to have hope.  We even say that people are “holding out hope” for a miracle.  And we certainly don’t want to trash talk miracles, because they probably occur more often in our lives than we even realize.  But false hope is sold by charlatans, and that sort of hope does no one any good except those charlatans.  We might think of the peddlers of “cure-all” tonics back in the 1920’s—some elixir that is “guaranteed to cure everything from indigestion to arthritis—and it’ll give you sex appeal, to boot.”  {Side note:  they’re still out there—but now they’re on the internet.] And when we tell ourselves that nothing is wrong when something is definitely wrong—well, we’re selling that kind of false hope to ourselves.

Now, the second kind of hope–Static hope–isn’t so bad.  But it’s just sort of a placeholder to tamp down our worries.  “I hope she makes her flight.”  “I hope the test doesn’t ask me about Chapter 7; I didn’t actually study that one.”  We say we hope, but we can really only wait to see what happens.  Saying “I hope it doesn’t rain on Saturday” doesn’t move the future one way or the other—not one inch.

But then there’s active hope.  This is hope where we look around to see what we can do to improve the chances of a positive outcome.  We look around to see what we can do.  So, what can we do?  What actions can we take?

Well, prayer, of course.  We have to have hope that God will take up for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  But that’s just it.  God never said, “Don’t try anything tricky, now.  Just stay home and pray and see what happens.”  If that were the case, then the apostles would have stayed in that upper room, praying that the rest of humanity would somehow magically turn to God and believe in the saving love of Jesus Christ.  We know that that is not what happened.  The apostles knew that hope was part of the mission, part of the job description.  Spreading hope for redemption and new life was what they did as they traveled the world.  And having hope was square one.  I do not think that they could ever have done what they did if they weren’t moved by faith and love, while leaning into hope. 

Now, you know what they say—that once we learn some new word or fact, we begin to see it all around us.  Maybe it was always there but now we’re beginning to notice it.  I don’t typically read Psychology Today, but the cover story of the June issue—which I spotted at the grocery checkout line—was about HOPE (all caps).  And here’s a very relevant tidbit from a book I finished reading on Friday afternoon.  The book is Why the Greeks Matter, by Thomas Cahill, and the point he makes as he closes his final chapter is that hope was one of the defining traits of—not the Greeks—but Jews and Christians.  

Here’s a quote.  He states that the worldview of the New Testament stressed “the adventure of a personal journey with God, a lifetime journey in which  [human beings were] invited to unite [themselves] to God by imitating God’s justice and mercy…Time is real…[I]t does not repeat itself but proceeds inexorably, which makes each moment—and the decisions I make each moment—precious.  I am not merely an instance of [a human], I am this particular, unrepeatable human being, who never existed before and will never exist again.  I create a real future in the present by what I do now.  Whereas fate was central to Greeks and Romans, hope is central to Jews and Christians.  Anyone who doubts the great gulf between these two worldviews has only to reread the speeches Hector makes [in The Iliad] to realize the impossibility of putting such speeches on the lips of any believing Jew or Christian: [and here’s the snippet]

            ‘And fate?  No one alive has ever escaped it,

            neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—

            it’s born with us the day that we are born.’ “

We can easily recognize that this idea is in complete opposition to the triplets of 1 Corinthians. So hope, it turns out, is recognized as a central and essential part of the Christian worldview.

Now, here’s another perspective.

An article in the Washington Post a few months back looked at hope from the point of view of journalism.  But I think that some of the author’s points were just as applicable to everyday people.  With so many terrible things happening in the world, talking about hope or hopefulness sounds almost delusional.  And, frankly, being cynical feels like a protective shield against having our hearts broken.  But apparently it’s just the opposite.  Scientists have been studying hope for over 30 years and they have begun to see it as a skill that can be taught and strengthened.  More than 2,000 studies have shown that those who practice hope do better in sports, school, and work.  “They manage illness, pain, and injury better and score higher on assessments of happiness, purpose, and self-esteem.”  People who know how to tap into hope are better able to bounce back from traumas like domestic violence, child abuse, and other terrible situations.  I’m thinking of those who lives are shattered by war, poverty, or natural disasters. 

So hope is actually good for us.  Active hope means taking up a challenge to see the future in brighter terms and believing that we “actually have a role to play in making it better.”  “If [hope] were an equation, it would look something like: hope = goals + roadmap + willpower.”

Here’s where I have to include an example from my own life experience.  My mother was the one to call when I felt that there was no hope and I just didn’t know what to do.  So, if I called home from college, let’s say, in a panic because “I have 2 exams tomorrow, plus I need to get more research done for a huge paper due on Wednesday, but I’m already drooping with exhaustion from a late night studying last night and I just don’t know what to do.”  Now, here’s Mom:  “Okay.  Okay.”  This was always the starter, followed by “Let’s think.”  And she would ask some questions about relative importance of factors, and then she’d make some recommendations like “What if you—fill in the blank with actions that could be arranged to get the most bang for the buck.”  And voilá!  Suddenly there are goals plus a roadmap.  And my mother fed me willpower with a steam shovel.  I always channel her when my own children have felt helpless and unable to muster hope.  Giving someone hope when hope is gone—active hope, not the false, pie-in-the-sky kind but active hope—is really God’s work.  I believe that.

You remember the saying “Faith without works is dead”?  Many works are driven by love, but maybe some start out driven by hope. 

If we believe that there is a chance and that we can help to drive up the success rate of that chance, then we are exercising our active hope.  In fact, the anticipation of what tomorrow may bring—when looked at as a challenge that we are ready to meet with a combination of positivity and realism—makes each day glow with expectation.  Planning for upcoming events and activities (like the kind we enjoy through our Christian fellowship) keeps each present day hopeful and keeps us from dwelling on the past or on times when things didn’t go our way.  Hope helps us to live life fully—the life that God wants for us, not a shadow existence where we give up our lives to fear and doubt and regret. There’s an old Mexican proverb:  “I never ask God to give me anything.  I just ask God to put me where things are.  I can do the rest.”  That’s living with active hope!  Think about the difference between saying, “I wish” and “I hope.”  If you say that you wish our congregation could do or be something in the next year—well, that may just be wishful thinking.  But if you say that you hope that we will—now you’re ready to put yourself and the church on the path to action and potential success.

I actually got into this examination of hope by reading the obituary of a man called Brother Andrew.  He died last October, at the age of 94.  (If you are on Session, you may recall my speaking about this man.)  He had grown up in the Netherlands, during the Nazi occupation.  His family made it their calling to share what little they had with the hungry and homeless.  As an adult, he made it his mission to bring Bibles (ultimately millions of Bibles over his lifetime) to Christians behind the Iron Curtain who had none.  You may recall how difficult, even risky, it was to practice the Christian faith during those Cold War days.  In the former Czechoslovakia, pastors had to have their sermons approved by the government before they could preach them.  Think about that for a moment.  People in Macedonia could only attend church after dark.  To be seen going to a worship service was just too dangerous. 

And many of these faithful Christians (because who could doubt their commitment to the faith when they were willing to worship under threat)—many of these Christians had no Bibles.  They were starting to lose hope that those in the West even thought about them and their struggles to practice the most basic forms of Christian worship.  But Brother Andrew traveled back and forth many times, ostensibly as a teacher but most importantly as a smuggler of Bibles.  And wherever he went, he brought hope. 

Once, when he was traveling to the former Yugoslavia, his car already weighed down with hidden Bibles, his traveling companion hopped into the front seat with a carton of Ukrainian Bibles on his lap.  His thinking was “If we’re going to be arrested for carrying in Bibles, we might as well be arrested for carrying in a lot of them.”

So Brother Andrew’s mission was to embrace a challenge—much as the apostles did.  They traveled the world teaching faith, preaching love, and spreading hope to people who had lost sight of it. 

So here’s today’s message, in a nutshell:

1.  Remember that hope is really important.  Paul said that love was the most important of the three, but if he didn’t think that hope was important, he wouldn’t have included it in that trio of mindsets in 1 Corinthians.  Hope is important to our Christian life.

2. The best way to keep hope going is with prayer and action.  Hope means that we haven’t given up.  And sometimes hope primes the pump of action. 

Remember: 

Hope = Goal + Roadmap + Willpower.  That doesn’t mean that we should waste effort on those things that we cannot change!   Remember that the serenity prayer concludes with “and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Sometimes we need to pray for strength to endure what cannot be changed or doesn’t go our way.  But we shouldn’t throw in the towel on living.  Leaning into hope keeps us focused on what we CAN do, even when we can’t fix everything.  And why shouldn’t we have hope?  We walk each day with Jesus—our savior and our friend.

And, lastly, we can encourage others to have hope.  People need to know that others care about them.  They’re not forgotten.  Nothing can lead a person to lose hope faster than feeling entirely unseen or forgotten.  We don’t have to cross international borders, like Brother Andrew, to bring hope.  There are so many ways that we can be smugglers of hope right in our own neighborhoods and families wherever we see people—Christian or not—who feel forgotten, lonely, or afraid.  The world is full of these people, isn’t it? Lifting people up and giving them a reason for hope is part of our mission as Christ’s hands in the world.  After all, it’s linked forever between faith and love.

Will you pray with me?

Heavenly and Triune God,

Keep us ever mindful of our many blessings.  Alongside faith and love, help us to lean into hope—for ourselves and for the world.  And may we always be bringers of hope—even smugglers of hope–to those who need to know that they are seen and that they are loved.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen

Meditation on Acts 2:1-21 for Pentecost

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

May 28, 2023

My son left on a plane for Denver yesterday. He and I cleaned out his bedroom and packed three big suitcases and a couple of smaller ones. When we were done, all the suitcases were too heavy for me to lift. His dresser drawers are empty. His closets are MOSTLY empty. There’s still a few important things left that he will retrieve when he comes back, hopefully, in October, when his younger brother gets married here. But there’s no knowing what the future will hold. He graduated college this month, and is interviewing for jobs in Colorado, a place he chose to live for a number of personal reasons. 

One by one, our children have moved away to find their destinies, live out their dreams, and become the people God has planned for them to be.  One lives in Minnesota; one lives in Massachusetts with his wife and daughters. One lives in California; and now, one will be living in Colorado. After Jacob moved out yesterday, taking his three huge suitcases and two smaller bags with him, the house already felt too big for Jim and me, a dog and a cat. I am not sure how I will do with this new season of life.  I don’t feel comfortable with this “empty nest” thing. Mostly, I am just missing my son.

Friends, the Power of Love is this—it doesn’t just let go of us, even if we might want it to. Love connects us to God and people with a power so strong that even when we aren’t together, Love is still there. Don’t you still love people who are no longer with you?

The only thing left to do, through all these seasons of our lives, is trust the Spirit.

The Spirit lives in all of us. The Spirit is doing its transforming work in us, right now, as I share this message. The Spirit of the Living God that came on Pentecost is with us still—transforming our hearts and lives in sometimes imperceptible ways – and then suddenly, we realize there’s been a big change! And we feel shaken to the core.

That’s how we know, dear friends, how we are reminded, that the Holy Spirit has come!

On Pentecost, the first group of Christ’s followers encounter LOVE with a capital L! Love sets them on fire with a gift of tongues that surprises everyone—including the disciples who are speaking in previously unknown languages. They are able to communicate with strangers from many nations gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Shavuot, a Hebrew word that means “Weeks.” “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word that means “50,” for it is 50 days after the second night of Passover. Shavuot is a time of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest and for the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

These Galileans—uneducated, unsophisticated—can’t possibly know these languages on their own, without God’s help. They are also beginning to live into their spiritual gifts, such as Peter’s sudden ability to proclaim the Word—and use humor to engage his audience—some who are taken by the wonder of the wind, fire, and speaking in tongues, and some who sneer with disgust, “They are filled with new wine!” They’re just drunk!!

Don’t forget! This is the Peter who had denied Jesus 3 times before the cock crowed! He had let Jesus down and all the disciples down! But now, Christ’s promise to Peter that he would be the rock on which he would build his church comes true. Now he breaks down the barriers between people when he opens his mouth and proclaims, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.”

In other words, wait till later—and yes, these will be drunk—just like you!!

His beautiful sermon connects the coming of the Spirit to its foreshadowing by the prophet Joel in Holy Scripture, beginning at verse 17…

¹⁷ ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
        and they shall prophesy.

Peter’s preaching cuts to the heart. People are convicted of their sin and their need for a Savior. Thousands of people call on the name of the Lord. The Church of Jesus Christ is “born” and will grow and move, from person to person, testimony to testimony, place to place. The move of the Spirit is entirely unpredictable. As Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3:8, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

At times, the Church stumbles a bit—and becomes divided. Does this happen today? Of course.  One memorable time is in Acts 15:36-41, just before Paul leaves on his second missionary journey. While he and Barnabas plan out the details of the trip, they get into an argument about whether John “Mark” should go with them. Paul, who had had a dramatic conversion experience on the Road to Damascus to persecute Christians, now doesn’t think Mark should be given a second chance. Here’s the passage….

³⁶ And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” ³⁷ Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. ³⁸ But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. ³⁹ And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.”

Barnabas was the first to believe in Paul, when the other followers of Christ still saw him as Saul, the persecutor of Christians. Barnabas was one of his closest friends and you could even say his mentor. How was Paul able to continue in ministry, though his heart must have been breaking? And yet we see that Paul and Silas’s ministry WAS made fruitful by the Spirit when we read in verse 41, “And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.”

So, I got to thinking… What we perceive as painful divisions or simply long separations are only temporary in the eternal scheme of things. Today, we grieve loved ones, some who have gone home to be with the Lord, already. But one day, we will all be gathered for the heavenly banquet, when worshipers will come from east and west and north and south to sit at table in in the Kingdom of God. Nothing will separate us from God or one another—not then! We will experience the fullness of the Power of LOVE; now, we only experience it in part.

I told my son that I wasn’t going to call and bother him. That lasted a few hours. I did call him last night, when he had waited about 6 hours at JFK for his flight. I had something important to ask him. I had just washed his quilt. Did he want me to mail it to him? He paused and said, “I guess you could do that.” The conversation lasted about 2 minutes. The loudspeaker booming at the gate kept interrupting. But it was nice to hear his voice—and to tell him, once again, that I love him. And to hear him say, “I love you” back.

I don’t know how I will get through this new season of my life. Right now, I feel shaken to the core. But my faith tells me to trust the Spirit that is already in the place where my son is going. Psalm 139 tells us that there’s nowhere we can go on earth to escape the Lord! God is already there! All that’s left is trust in the good plan that our Loving Lord has for him and for all of us.

And that feeling of being shaken to the core—that’s how we are reminded that the Holy Spirit is doing its work in and with us. It doesn’t always feel comfortable! Think of Pentecost—that wasn’t comfortable—with a rush of violent wind and tongues of fire! Sometimes, the Spirit’s work in us is, well, scary! That’s how we are reminded, dear friends, that the Holy Spirit has come!

Will you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Holy Spirit on Pentecost to give birth to and empower the Church. Thank you that your Spirit is still with us, working in our hearts and lives, in ways that are sometimes imperceptible, and other times, we are shaken to the core. Thank you for having a plan for every one of us and reminding us, with every sunrise and sunset, of your love and faithfulness. Be with our loved ones, Lord, from whom we are separated. Comfort our grieving hearts. By your Spirit, fill up any empty spaces in us, left by personal losses. Let us be filled to overflowing with the Power of Your Love to do your will. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Meditation on Acts 1:6-14

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

May 21, 2023

Her name was Wilma. She was a member of my flock in Coshocton. And she was my friend.

We became close during the pandemic in 2020. But our friendship started before then. We sang in the choir together, and we shared a love for church history and orange cats. Hers was named Eddie. Mine was Melvyn. She was smart and outspoken. Though she didn’t have the opportunity to attend college, she had worked for the historical society and museum and as a genealogist, tending the collection in the historical room at the library. She had co-written two local history books.

Our dream was to work on a local history project together. I was going to help her sort through a large collection of 19^th century letters and write the story of her husband’s great grandfather, the Rev. William Ellis Hunt. He served as the pastor of the Presbyterian church in the 1800s for 42 years.

Her husband, Paul, struggled with health and mobility problems. We visited him in a personal care center, celebrated Communion there, and shared stories about the good old days. But when the pandemic led to closures and the virus swept through the town, we were not able to see him. Wilma continued to call and sometimes visit him by standing in the yard outside his window.

When Paul tested positive for COVID, he was put into isolation at the hospital. The nurses finally allowed the family to visit. They were dressed in special coverings from head to toe and could only see Paul through the glass in the ICU. He died on June 29, 2020.

I presided over the funeral at our small chapel. Only 10 people were allowed to attend. I still remember how Wilma looked under the tent at the graveside, with her twin sister, Wanda. The strong, smart, no-nonsense woman with a quirky sense of humor was overcome by emotion. She wiped away tears and apologized for crying. I told her it was OK.  It was more than OK.

We had prayed and prayed for Paul.  And God’s answer was that the Lord took him home.

Wilma, with her characteristic strength and good humor, became more involved in the church than ever! She attended Thursday night Zoom book studies with me, wrote articles and member spotlights for our newsletter. She wrote and shared scripturally based devotions for our prayer fellowship group.

And we still talked on the phone regularly and shared memories of Paul. About a year after his passing, she underwent back surgery. There were complications. And we prayed, and we prayed, and we prayed. The energetic, spry little woman that I knew was now in a wheelchair.

She continued to hold onto hope that she would be able to walk, again. But she couldn’t go back to her home or to her big, orange cat Eddie. She couldn’t live independently anymore. And we would never work together on William Ellis Hunt’s story.

Her new home was an assisted living facility—a nice one that served ice cream in the middle of the night if you wanted it, she said. But it was 45 minutes from the town where she had lived nearly all her life—away from friends, family, church, and me. And it was still the pandemic; visitation was limited. Her friends continued to call her, leaving messages on her unanswered cell phone. They wondered why she wasn’t calling back.

All we could do was pray.

The disciples praying together in the Upper Room—being constantly devoted to prayer—stirs me to wonder…. What are they praying for? And were their prayers answered in the way they expected?

Jesus was continually surprising them. And it seemed like they weren’t on the same page with him. When the risen Christ was with his disciples and was teaching them, they still didn’t understand what his death and resurrection meant. The disciples asked him at the beginning of our passage in Acts chapter 1, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

Jesus replies, oh so patiently, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” But you are going to receive power from on high, he goes on. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. And you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.

And just like that—he’s gone!! Lifted into the air, as they watch down below. “A cloud took him out of their sight.”

Yes, I’m pretty sure they weren’t expecting that!  They continue to stand there, watching the sky, until finally two men in white startle them by asking why they are still standing there, looking up? Here’s the promise. “He’s coming back.” This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

He’s coming on a cloud! He’s coming, again!

So, they return to Jerusalem in haste and gather in the Upper Room. They have a calling and a purpose, but no direction or power to move forward in ministry. These are not just the original 12 disciples, minus Judas Iscariot, but others, even “certain” women, including his mother, Mary, and his brothers—half siblings.  Locked in the Upper Room, they have nothing to do but pray and wait…..For the promise of the angels to come true—that Jesus will come again, just as he left. And that the Spirit would come, and each would have Christ’s power to not just be his disciple, but his apostle, from the Greek apostolos, meaning “one being sent.”

This passage read alongside Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John—just after he tells them that his hour has come—reveals how Christ’s request that they become One is coming true—through prayer!

 ^“I am asking on their behalf,” Jesus says in John 17:10, near the end of this beautiful prayer. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

The arrival of the Spirit will draw them ever nearer to God and one another and empower them to be his witnesses, as he has said. Still, we are waiting for that ultimate promise, made by the two men in white—that Jesus will come again, just as he left. We pray, as Andrae’ Crouch sang in that wonderful gospel song, that it will be, “Soon and Very Soon,” when we’re going to see the king.

And we continue to hold each other in our powerful prayers. We never give up hope, though the prayers may not be answered in the way that we expect. We trust in the things we don’t know or understand, yet, because we are still tightly enmeshed in this world, just as the first disciples were who asked Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

We pray, as the Lord continues to pray with and for us—that we would be One—with each other, in the Lord, in God’s love.

I traveled to visit Wilma a couple of times in her new home at the assisted living center. We talked a few times on the phone, with her daughter’s help. The last time was right before I left Coshocton to come and shepherd my new flock.

She excitedly told me about how she was leading a Bible study for the residents—and they were asking good questions and one fella, with a salty tongue and a flirty manner, was making her laugh. She was leading a current events discussion group, reading the paper aloud each day. She was organizing games of wheelchair beach ball, encouraging others to keep moving and have fun. She was beginning to see the surgical complications that left her in a wheelchair as the thing that set her free to do what God had ordained. She had found her purpose, a ministry—an answer to her prayer. While she still missed Coshocton and her church, she was content that God was using her. She was at peace.

It was my turn to be overcome by emotion. She gave me her blessing to go on to my new ministry—wherever God was calling me. At that moment, I only felt grief, knowing that I would probably never see Wilma again—not in this world, anyway.

Surprisingly, I heard from Wilma’s daughter, Christy, yesterday! Christy responded to my text from a New York phone number, “Mom is doing great.” She directed me to the FB page of her assisted living center where there are pictures of her and “all the things she’s been doing.” “She’s found her groove,” her daughter said, “and enjoying herself! Thank goodness!”

She gave me her mother’s mailing address and phone number but warned that she still never answers her cell phone or returns calls—because she is too busy! I saw her on Facebook—smiling with her friends—poised to eat lemon cake in one photo, painting a large sign in another that says, “Believe.”

 I look again at the photo because I don’t see it right away. Yes, she is still in a wheelchair, but she sits easily and naturally, as if it is, well, just another chair. All of this is an answer to prayer, but not the answer we expected.  We wanted her to walk again.

And by her faith and the grace of God, she is learning to soar.

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, who prayed for his disciples and continues to pray for us today. Help us, Lord, to be One in You, One in Your Love. May we feel the safety of your grace and embrace. Stir us to hold one another in our powerful prayers and be constantly devoted to prayer, as your disciples were in the Upper Room. Teach us how to pray. Guide us in your will. Give us patience when the answer is “Wait for my answer,” and when your answer is not what we expect—or what we want. Thank you for showing your purpose to Wilma, using her for a special ministry, and entrusting all of us to be your witnesses to the ends of the earth. And dear Lord, please hold Wilma and all of the vulnerable senior citizens in our flock in your tender care.  Bless and protect them from harm. In the name of Your Son we pray. Amen.

Meditation on Genesis 24, selected verses

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

Mother’s Day

May 14, 2023

I was juggling a journalism career and caring for three boys, the youngest of whom was in elementary school, when Jim and I met. He was a local pastor, and I had covered a Celtic worship service at his church as a feature story.

I didn’t have time or energy to date. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to allow another man into my life. I needed to care for my children. He told me he would wait until I did have time for him – and wanted a friend. No matter long it might take.

When I talk to young families today, I remember those exhausting years, when they had their activities with school and friends and homework. They got sick and needed to go to doctors and be cared for at home. And there was only me to care for them, and I was working full time.

Looking back to those years, I know that we survived by the love and grace of God.

I wanted to share the story of Rebekah for my Mother’s Day message this year because her story never comes up in the lectionary cycle. We hear a little about her sons and their stories, but nothing about the mother of two nations—Israel (Jacob) and Edom (Esau). And compared to my story of wife and motherhood, she had many more challenges, although she did have help. She married into a wealthy family that had servants.

But let’s talk about how she didn’t have a choice about marriage or her future. She couldn’t have a “career.” Or, I should say her career was getting married and having children. She wouldn’t have any choice about the man she would marry or where she would end up living when she became his wife.

When Abraham’s servant was sent to her community to get a wife, the word we translate “get” is literally “to take, seize or possess,” terms that define marriage in their Near Eastern context from the perspective of the groom. Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna says,“The narrative also reflects the custom of the parent initiating the marriage transaction.”

That they meet at a well was natural, for a newly arrived stranger, coming on camels in a hot, arid climate would need to find water. It was the place to find valuable information and gossip from the townsfolk and shepherds. Moses did the same thing and met his wife to be at a well. And Rebekah’s son, Jacob, fleeing the wrath of his brother, Esau, would also meet his wife, Rachel, a shepherdess, at a well.

Rebekah never met her husband before she agreed to marry him. Did she know he was a man in his 40s of few words, who had never dated or left home? Probably not. Did she know he was the only child of an aging mother who before his birth in her 90s had been unable to conceive? She probably did not know Isaac’s story at all.

Many scholars point out the passivity of Isaac’s character and the fact that he is rarely caught in dialogue with other people, and when he speaks, he seems young for his age.  For example, in the story of the binding of Isaac, he is a teenager, and yet he is trusting like a small boy when he accompanies his father up the mountain to his almost sacrifice. Scholars today believe Isaac had some special needs and this was the reason that he was closely watched, protected, and cared for by his mother, Sarah, until she died—and this was the impetus for Abraham, his aging father, to send out his servant to find a wife from his own kin for Isaac.  

The servant who shares Abraham’s fervent faith is a praying man, seeking God to guide him. He is sent to the hometown of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. This place, Aram-naharaim, isn’t mentioned in any other passage in the Bible. So where exactly it was, we aren’t sure. The name “naharaim” means “the land along the river.” But through divine intervention, the one who meets the faithful man at the well and offers him water and waters his camels is the one for whom the servant has prayed from the heart. This is Rebekah, a beautiful young girl, much younger than Isaac. She is the granddaughter of Nahor and his wife Milcah. She is Abraham’s great niece, which today in our culture would make her ineligible for marriage to her cousin. But in Abraham’s day, the relationship is perfect, a match made in heaven.

The servant, upon discovering her identity, impresses her with his expensive presents– a gold nose ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels. The servant bears more lavish gifts: “jewelry of silver and of gold and garments (for) Rebekah; he also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments.”

After the servant shares his story with Rebekah’s brother and father, they agree that this “thing comes from the Lord; we cannot speak to you anything bad or good.  Look, Rebekah is before you, take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken.”

Rebekah is obedient. The family sends her away with a blessing. She has no idea what her husband will look like. She sees him walking in a field and asks the servant who he is. The servant says, “It is my master.” So she takes her veil and covers herself. Near Eastern women were usually unveiled, like us, but brides were veiled in the marriage ceremony, as some choose to be today. Rachel veiling herself upon meeting Isaac is her “unspoken signal to (him) that she is his bride.”

After the servant explains to Isaac who Rebekah is, Isaac brings her into his mother Sarah’s tent. By this act, she formally becomes the successor to the matriarch, and the continuity of the generations is assured.

And here’s the most important detail. Isaac loves her. Arranged marriages didn’t mean there wasn’t love.

 And Isaac is comforted after his mother’s death. So it isn’t just that he needs his mother or another woman to care for him. It is that her death brings so much grief and loss, that he cannot bear to go on without her.

It will be 20 years before Rebekah will conceive. The Hebrew Bible calls her “barren,” with the ancient assumption that the problem is with Rebekah’s body—and not Isaac’s. She gives birth to twin boys after a hard pregnancy, so much so that she prays to God, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” The Lord speaks to her, saying, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”

Isaac, who is 60 when his sons are born, loves Esau, the strong hunter who provides meat for him to eat, while Rebekah loves Jacob, a mild man who enjoys staying at the camp, at home with his mother, helping with the cooking. But her favorite son will be forced to leave her as a young man, before he is married—as a result of her trying to help him become the person God wants him to be. She leads him to steal the blessing of Isaac, meant for the firstborn. It is very likely that she never sees him again, when he flees for his life!

I can imagine how her heart must have been broken to be separated from him and wonder, for the rest of her days, how his life turned out. I know she would want him to be happy—to marry, have children, and be loved. I am sure a day doesn’t go without her missing him and wondering if she made the right choices.

Jacob lives a complicated life, filled with sadness and pain in giving up his home and family, but also joy, love, and goodness. Rebekah’s grandson, Joseph, will be responsible for saving the lives of many people, including Jacob and his family, when Joseph rises from slavery to become second in command to Pharoah in Egypt. If only she had lived to know the wonderful things that would happen because of her faithfulness to God—marrying the man whom God had chosen for her and accepting the life God had ordained for her and her sons, though it wasn’t easy.

Today, on Mother’s Day, I want to encourage all the mothers who haven’t had easy lives. Who have made choices and sometimes questioned their choices. Or felt that things were so out of their control—and there weren’t enough choices. I want to encourage all the mothers and grandmothers who have spent sleepless nights worrying about their husbands and children and grandchildren and themselves. And all the mothers who are exhausted from their busy lives, juggling jobs and caring for loved ones and not always having time or energy for selfcare.

I want to tell you that God is with you and hears you when you cry out in prayer. And everything will be OK, though nothing will ever be perfect. You know that the plans you have for yourself and your family may not be God’s plans. But you can trust in God’s love. Hold onto your hopes and dreams for the future.

I want to say thank you to my own mother for bringing me into this world and giving me life, and for doing all the exhausting things for me that I have tried to do for my children. I can’t imagine that being my mother has ever been easy. I know my mom always wanted me to be happy and well—and still wants this for me. And I want this for her, too, especially since my dad died in 2019 and I know it’s hard to have an empty house, with no one to care for after decades of caring for loved ones.

I want to say thank you to my husband, Jim, who waited for me and helped me and loved me when I struggled to love myself in those early, exhausting days and years, and still loves me, and waits for me, and has helped me be a better mother and better human being and faithful child of God, because of his love and faith and patience.

And I want to say thank you to the Lord, whose love is poured into my heart for my family and my church family, a God who continually provides for us, and whose grace is always sufficient for me.

Will you pray with me? Let us pray.

Holy One, you are Divine Parent, both Father and Mother to us all. Thank you for our families, especially our mothers, who have helped to make us who we are today. Thank you for your love and grace, for always being there to listen and answer our prayers for our spouses, children, and grandchildren—and for ourselves. Thank you for always being with our loved ones and embracing them with YOUR perfect love. Help us to trust in you, that even in the face of difficulties, loneliness, failed efforts, and broken dreams, such as in the example of Rebekah, that you will bring all things to work together for good for those who love you and live according to your word. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Meditation on John 14:1-14

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

May 7, 2023

Link to the full service with the baptism and message:

https://fb.watch/koRrYaAnf-/

After so many days of cool, rainy weather, we enjoyed beautiful spring weather yesterday! Did anybody get to spend some time outside?

When I came home yesterday from the memorial service, the first thing I wanted to do was take a walk. I changed my clothes, put on my sneakers, and held up the leash and halter for our toy poodle pup, Minnie.

“Do you want to go for walkies?” I asked. Does any one else have to talk baby talk with their small dogs?

She started hopping around on her hind legs and holding up her front paws, wanting to be picked up. I put on her tiny halter and leash.

I find myself watching Minnie as much as watching the scenery when we are walking. Her face is so expressive. She is startled by sights and sounds. Delivery trucks. The mailman. Lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Children laughing and riding bikes. A man digging a hole in his front yard.  

Yesterday, we walked by a house on the corner of Great Oak and Red Oak, and a flock of chickens were making noise. Buck buck buck!

She stopped and dropped her curly tail and tried to make herself as small as possible.

“Come on, Minnie!” I said, giving her leash a little tug. “It’s OK. They’re just chickens.”

She slowly responded, moving forward, and glancing back to make sure that none of the chickens were following us. Soon the chickens were forgotten, and she was trotting alongside me more confidently—even venturing out in front.

I love it when she runs ahead of me, then stops to look back and see if I am still there on the end of the leash!

As she grows accustomed to walks in the big, wide world, I think of what it’s been like for us learning to walk with Jesus over the years. Some days, the road is familiar, and the walk is smooth and easy. We move along confidently, knowing and doing our calling, sensing the Lord with us. Maybe we have some hills and bumps and curves, but we manage to adjust to the terrain. Other times, we are startled by new sights and sounds, things that make us stop and want to turn around and go back. We are afraid to take a wrong step! But then we look for Jesus, find the Lord still with us, reassuring us that we DO know the right path, the right road to take. The Way.

And what is The Way? Knowing Christ and seeking to follow in his loving, merciful, and gracious example.

The disciples in John 14 want to see the Father, as one says to Jesus, to be “satisfied.”  They want to know more about this final destination—the Father’s house, with many dwelling places. But they also want to know what life will be like in this world, when Christ has gone home to be with the Father and left them behind, as he tells them, “Where I am going, you cannot go.”

When they ask to see the Father, the problem is ultimately a problem of faith, Jesus says.  “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” he asks. If they have seen Jesus and know him, then they have seen the Father and know God, for the works he has done are the works God has done through him.

And then Christ makes an astonishing claim. His followers will do even greater works—he’s talking about acts of love, kindness, peace, justice, healing, serving, and giving—when he is with the Father and no longer with them in the flesh. Just ask for my help, he says, and you will have it, to the glory of God. In the next passage, he will urge them to keep his commandments, if they love him, and that he will ask the Father to give them an Advocate—the Spirit of truth, who will abide in and with them, always, helping them to do God’s will.

When I think about the promise of Christ’s followers doing even greater works, it occurs to me that the Lord is speaking of the Church of every age—not just the first disciples. God is speaking to us. We have nothing to fear, not with the Spirit abiding in and with us, teaching us what we need to know, helping us walk as the Lord wants us to go.

And we are back to Minnie, again.

Walking our toy poodle pup yesterday, I thought about the image of her leash—and the Spirit tethering us to the Lord in a way that both provides freedom of movement and choice for us, but always within God’s gaze and protection. Just like I am never going to let go of Minnie’s leash when we are walking in the road, we are never out of God’s sight or God’s grasp. As Isaiah 49:16 says, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

And if something truly dangerous comes along, I am going to reach down and pick her up and hold her until the danger has passed, and it is safe to let her go, again. Wouldn’t our Lord do that for us and more, as well?

The best part of the walk with Minnie? When we reach as far as we are going to go that day, and we turn back.

Minnie nearly breaks into a gallop on her 4-inch legs as we retrace our steps. This tiny dog, not yet a year old, knows the way home! As much as she loves “walkies,” you should see her enthusiasm, how she confidently pulls on the leash when we turn back onto Oakfield Road—and she sees our driveway up ahead.

Today, we welcomed Malia Marie Chow into the Kingdom of God through Baptism. Christ has claimed her as his own and will continue to fill her and equip her with spiritual gifts to strengthen her in her life of faith. We have promised to encourage Malia and share our hope in Christ and God’s love with her. We have vowed to walk beside her family in this journey—to pray for her and for them as they seek to follow Christ in their own lives.

And I leave you with one of the beautiful promises that the Lord makes in John chapter 14.

I want you to think about the place that has been prepared for each of us through Christ’s saving work on the cross.

There’s a place for Malia. A place for her family.

A place for you and your families.

A place for me and my family.

There’s room for every family on the earth,

in the place that Christ has prepared!

A place of peace and healing. Grace and love.  

A place to call home– in this world and the world to come.

Let us pray.

Holy One, we can hardly imagine the beauty of the place that Christ has prepared for each of us. We thank you for this promise. We scarce can take it in—this precious gift of life eternal and how Your Son accomplished our salvation through suffering and dying on a cross. Like the first disciples, we have questions, and we never feel like we have sufficient information. We aren’t always satisfied with not knowing everything. But as the apostle Paul assures us, now we see only in part, but one day, when you come again to take us to yourself, we will see you face to face, and we won’t have questions, anymore. Help us to live by faith, confidently, helping one another walk this way, and trusting in the leading of your Spirit, abiding with us always. In the name of our Risen Savior, we pray. Amen.

Meditation on John 14:18-27

In Memory of Ora June Renesse’

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

May 6, 2023

Ora June met Jean Renesse’ when she was 7 and in first grade at PS 197 in Brooklyn.

Jean had terrible asthma and was held back a year. That’s how they ended up in the same grade, though he was a year older.

He always said he would marry her. She was too busy being a tomboy to entertain such ideas as a child. She was strong and athletic. Played stickball and could throw a baseball like a guy. She had auburn hair and warm brown eyes and a good sense of humor.

Ora June Seals was born on May 18, 1921 in the home of her grandparents in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. She was the youngest of two girls; her older sister was Emmy. “Ora” June was named for ancestors who have used the name “Ora” since the late 1600s. She was baptized in a Congregational Church in Brooklyn.

Her parents soon got their own place in Flatbush. Ora’s father became an auctioneer. There was always laughter in the home. Moments of sadness were gotten through on faith.

Ora began to notice her childhood friend, Jean, more when they were in 10^th grade at James Madison High.   He was slim and muscular, with eyes of sky blue and dreams of piloting large ships, like his grandfather on his mother’s side. He didn’t see himself following in the footsteps of his father—an executive with Shell Oil.

They married on Oct. 31, 1940 at the same Congregational Church where she was baptized. Their anniversary would forever after be on Halloween. But it wasn’t a Trick-or-Treating holiday back then. That didn’t happen until after WWII.

Jean, with his keen sense of humor, would tell anyone who asked about their wedding date, “Yeah, I got treated and she got tricked.”

He was apprenticing to be a NJ harbor pilot when they got married. He would be gone sometimes a week at a time. They were constantly writing letters to each other. When he served in the U.S. Coast Guard in WWII, he was still piloting ships and writing letters to his wife, whom he had loved since childhood.

Ora and Jean were married 10 years when their daughter was born—a miracle baby after Ora June had nearly given up hope that she would be a mother. They named her “Ora Jean,” after both of them, and they went to live with her parents for five years. She gave birth to their son, John, four years later, but lost another girl between them.

Ora June worked as a secretary for banks and an insurance company for about 11-12 years, only until Ora Jean came along and her husband was earning enough money that she could stay home and focus her energies on being a wife and mother. It was what she wanted.

Ora June and Jean moved their family to Massapequa on Long Island in the 1950s—when Ora Jean was 6. They had their own home in the “country,” as it was back then. They attended a Methodist church. Life was simple. Family was always important. Kindness and manners mattered. Members of extended family soon moved out to Massapequa to join them so their children could grow up around people they called aunt, uncle or cousin. And they could be together with the ones they loved.

Ora June never really stopped being a “tomboy.” Not really. She was always tough––could have her teeth drilled without Novocain tough.  She remained physically strong way into her 80s, when she was still playing catch with the grandkids.

They couldn’t believe how she threw a baseball like a guy!

The promise of our Savior to not leave his disciples “orphaned” reminds us of the close, familial relationship he felt with them—and indeed we have we our Lord, even after our earthly parents pass away. We are never left orphaned!

 The disciples were more than just workers for the Kingdom and the King. They were his friends. They were his new family, whereas his biological kin were not as close. Much like the closeness he felt with his heavenly parent, whom he called “Father,” he took on the role of loving parent for those who had left their former lives behind to take up their crosses and follow him.

On his death and resurrection, the closeness that he felt with God the Father would become an intimacy that could only be described as becoming one with Him. And we would have the promise of life eternal in and with him—when he would come again and take us to himself.

“Because I live,” Christ says, “you also will live.”

The question of how we should live as we await Christ’s return and our reunion with Him and our loved ones is a natural one. We ask ourselves this every day—what is God’s will for me now? Scripture provides some good answers. But first, it is important to know how we shouldn’t live—not anxiously. Not fearfully. No matter what.

 “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says more than one time. “And do not let them be afraid.”

Jesus shows and tells us how we should live in peace and unity—and how we will be able to see him, here and now in this world, and experience God’s love. The Father has sent Christ’s Spirit to live within us and help us live according to God’s will. The Spirit reminds us of Christ’s teachings and example, his love and gift of peace, and strengthens and leads us, day by day.

“Those who love me will keep my word,” Jesus says to Judas (not Iscariot) and to us, “and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

We are always at home when Christ’s Spirit lives within us, no matter where we physically abide. We are always spiritually at home when we dwell with the Lord.

The woman who threw a baseball like a guy and married her high school sweetheart would have turned 102 years old on the 18^th of this month. She died peacefully on Christmas Eve at home in Southhold, where she had moved in with her daughter and son-in-law Bruce after her husband, Jean, went home to be with the Lord on Feb. 16, 2018. He was 97. They had celebrated their 75^th wedding anniversary. On Halloween, of course.

Stored away safely in boxes are the many love letters they wrote to one another, beginning in their early years together and apart, when he was training to be a harbor pilot and was away from her, sometimes, for a week at a time. And when he was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard in WWII.

Ora June’s life was not free of suffering, grief, and pain. In addition to losing a daughter to miscarriage, she lost her only son, John, in 2002—when he was just 46. While she was physically strong and mentally sharp for much of her life, she struggled with Parkinson’s near the end.

As it was in her childhood, moments of sadness were gotten through on faith.

Dear friends, do you have faith?

Christ has given us all that we need to travel our life’s journey with and without our loved ones beside us. Our lives will have suffering and grief when we choose to love others and have to say goodbye—but we will also be filled with joy to overflowing. Our hope in the Resurrection means that we will live again beyond the grave, with our Resurrected and Glorified Lord.

Our hope in the Resurrection, though, means more than life after death; It means that we are blessed with the potential to live new, resurrected lives in this world today, with the Spirit’s help.

Christ offers us His peace, as he did his first followers.  We don’t have peace naturally in this world. Not when we live in such anxious times. The world threatens to steal our peace and joy all the time, but Jesus has overcome the world. With our faith comes a peace that surpasses all human understanding; faith and peace are not contingent on the actual circumstances of our life!

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” Christ says to us now, lovingly. “I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled. And do not let them be afraid.”

Amen.

Meditation on John 10:1-10

April 30, 2023

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

I wanted to know more about the life of a shepherd. I wanted to better understand Jesus, our Good Shepherd, and his love for us—His sheep. So, on Friday, I watched “Heart Valley,” Christian Cargill’s documentary on a Welsh shepherd named Wilf Davies.

The 19-minute film won the award for Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released online by The New Yorker in December.

Wilf has lived in the Teifi (TI’-vee) Valley in the parish of Cellan (Keshawn’) in West Wales all his 73 years. He speaks a mix of English and Welsh. His boyhood was spent helping out on the farm that has been in his family for generations—and dreaming of working the farm when he was grown. He has never wanted to live anywhere else or do anything else for a living.

Most people work 8 to 5 or so and are always looking at their watch, he says. “I never look at my watch…The word shepherd means you’ve got to look after the flock, no matter what the weather,” he says. “The sheep have to have their feed on Christmas Day.”

He has never gone away on vacation. He doesn’t want to. His works makes him happy. The farthest he travels is when he takes a bus to go grocery shopping on Fridays at Lidl (LEE’-dal), a few hours away.

“The sheep,” he says, “are MY holiday.”

Wilf has 70 sheep—50 of them lambs, less than a year old. The breed is white with black noses and other bits of black on their faces and legs. “All the sheep have different characters,” he says. He goes up to have a look at them every day, making sure they have food and water and leading them safely to pasture. He checks to see that nothing has happened to them—that they are all on their feet.

The documentary follows a typical day in the life of the Welsh shepherd, beginning with porridge with oats, butter, egg, and milk, eaten right out of a saucepan at sunrise. For lunch, he has four sandwiches with salmon paste and a few “biscuits.” For 10 years, he has had his favorite dinner of fish, onions, beans, and an egg.

He rides to pasture on an old tractor. What he likes the most is when the sheep give birth or “bring lambs,” as he says, laughing. “They are a part of the family.”

When he reaches the sheep, “They are always there waiting for me at the gate,” he says. “The sheep really like me. Especially when I have brought feed for them.”

They recognize his voice. “Come on! Come on! Come on!” he calls. “Come. Come. Come. Ho! Ho! Ho!” And they come, he says, “guaranteed.”

The image of his sheep, waiting at the gate for him, stays with me when the film ends. I think of Jesus saying to his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Jesus says this parable immediately after a different sheep/shepherd parable that the disciples didn’t understand. Shepherds were common in their day and age on the hillsides of the Sea of Galilee. The life of shepherds and sheep was something Jesus knew, even as a carpenter’s son! This was something everyone knew, including the disciples who had been fishermen when Jesus said, “Follow me!”

“I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus says now. “Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” This gateway to salvation is open to all people! It’s not exclusive. It’s not works-related. It doesn’t depend on where we were born or what we do for a living. Everyone is invited to come by the gate. “Whoever enters will be saved,” he says. No one will be barred from the way—in and out and to find pasture, where there is food and water to be nourished to abundant and everlasting life.

Many shepherds in Jesus’ time “grazed their flocks in nearby pastures and brought them to a common pen for protection overnight.” (Sara Lewis in These Days, April 28, 2023) “The folds were often four walls exposed to the sky with one entrance. Some gatekeepers slept across the threshold to guard the sheep, thus becoming the gate. Only through this portal could the sheep enter and exit.”

In the earlier parable, Jesus said, “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

Like the sheep in the Good Shepherd’s flock, the sheep in Wilf Davies’s flock know his voice. And he knows them well, having known them since their birth on his farm, and calling them by name.

He brings them nourishment with buckets of feed and cares for them when they are sick. He regularly checks their teeth to see if they are rotted or broken. When they lose their teeth, they can no longer graze. They will starve. In the film, he marks the head of one of the sheep with green paint after he discovers that her teeth are rotting away. Sheep marked with green are sold to the slaughterhouse for meat—meat that Wilf does not eat!

 He hates the thought of losing any of his sheep. “I’m always sorry to see the sheep going,” he says, as he gently strokes the one with the green marking on her head.

A year ago, Wilf thought his shepherding days were over. He suffered a stroke and was unable to move for weeks. “It was real agony,” he recalls. “I didn’t believe I’d ever be well, again.” He starts to cry. “I wanted to go back to the sheep.”

Every evening, before he goes to bed at 9, he takes a long walk to the top of the hill and looks down on the sheep in the valley as the sun sets. While he walks, he thinks how the world is changing, how the farms and shepherds are disappearing. He thinks about the sheep and the shepherd’s life, which is lonelier than it used to be. “We used to do everything together,” he says. Earlier that day, he had waved and called out to each of his neighbors as they passed him on the road in their old tractors.

As I watch Wilf on his walk, I think about how the Lord, our Good Shepherd, also calls us to be a community of good shepherds, caring for the sheep whom God loves. For the risen Christ told Simon Peter, “Feed my sheep,” and “Tend my lambs,” when they ate breakfast on the beach. This was after Jesus asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me?” Peter remembered, then, with sorrow, how he had denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed.

This love is a love that forgives and is merciful. This love moves forward and doesn’t get stuck in past regrets or mistakes. This love is shared with others in grateful response to our receiving the everlasting, unconditional love of our Risen Lord.

We are called to be like the new faith community in Acts chapter 2, after the Spirit came on Pentecost. The growing community “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…” They shared so that no one went without. It was as the psalmist cries in 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” or as some translations say, “I shall lack nothing.”

Maybe we can learn from Wilf Davies’ way of loving his neighbor—to “be present, polite, and always helping somebody,” he says. He is never looking at his watch when he is with the sheep or talking with someone, just as our eternal God is fully present with us, no matter what time we are waiting at the gate, calling on the Lord. We will find nourishment and rest for body, mind, and soul.

Another image that stays with me from this short film is Wilf smiling and saying that he never takes a vacation. He never wants to. The sheep make him happy, he says! They are his holiday.

This is true for the Lord, as well. God doesn’t desire or need a vacation from God’s work—caring for us. God is available 24/7. Dear friends, we make the Lord happy, when we allow Christ to be Lord of our lives and rely on God for everything. We who are Christ’s sheep are God’s holiday. What a beautiful thought!

Wilf calls his sheep by name and goes ahead of them to bring them to green pastures, beside still waters.  Just as the Lord will always guide us, calling our names.

May we always seek to be obedient to the Good Shepherd, as the 70 sheep—50 of them lambs—are obedient to the one who loves them and feeds and waters them daily—Wilf Davies.

 “Come on! Come on! Come on!” he says. “Come. Come. Come.”

And they come, “guaranteed.”

Let us pray.

Good Shepherd, thank you for being the gate for us and all the sheep—for making a way for all people to be saved—to come in and go out and find pasture—nourishment for body, mind, and soul. Help us, Lord, to experience your peaceful presence with us and your loving provision when we are in need. By your Spirit, build us into a community of good shepherds, serving in Christ’s name, caring for one another, sharing with those in need. Help us to hear your voice, know your will, and trust you with our cares and prayers. Thank you that you never take a day off from nourishing us to eternal life—and that we are your holiday! In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Meditation on Luke 24:13–35

Third Sunday of Easter

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 23, 2023

We honored the life of Karl Kraft on Thursday and witnessed to the Resurrection. Thank you to those who helped with that wonderful worship service – and the beautiful reception afterward.

So many things were good that day, but what touched my heart was watching as longtime friends of Karl and Ethel approached her wheelchair before she passed through the Narthex. She was shedding tears of sorrow, grieving her husband of nearly 70 years, and tears of joy at the emotional reunion with friends.

When we are together in Christ’s name, we sense the presence of the Lord with us. Our faith leads us to see Christ in each other. We remember God’s love for us and our belonging not just to this congregation, but to the Body of Christ.

We need reminders of God’s love and presence with us because it is a part of our faith journey that we don’t always sense God’s presence. We may know with our minds that God loves us, and, at the same time, the Lord may seem far away from us. When we are going through something hard. When we are disappointed in God. Has that happened to you? Or we can’t understand what God is doing in our lives. Or when we just don’t know what the Lord wants us to do.

This is all part of our journey of faith.

These two otherwise unknown followers of Jesus are on the road from Jerusalem to their home in the village of Emmaus. It is still the day of the empty tomb. They are overcome by grief, struggling to make sense of the things that have happened. They call Jesus, who was crucified, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” Notice they don’t call him “Messiah.” They don’t call him, “Lord.”

They are experiencing doubts. They had hoped that Jesus “was the one to redeem Israel,” they say. They are experiencing disappointment. These followers have a different idea of what redemption or liberation looks like—and it isn’t suffering and death on a cross! Or an empty tomb.

And it isn’t militaristic, says Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, though others have said this. “Some Jews were looking for the end of Roman rule,” she says. “Others were looking for the return of the exiles to the homeland, a general resurrection of the dead along with final judgment and an end to war.” The Greek word translated here “redeem” actually means “ransom.” It only appears in Luke and in two other places in the New Testament, both of which the word doesn’t have political or militaristic connotations. In Titus 2:4, Jesus redeems “from all iniquity” and in 1 Peter 1:18, Jesus ransoms “from futile ways.”  (660)

So, why are these two on the road to Emmaus? Really? Why have they left the other disciples? Luke doesn’t say. I think they are going home to return to the lives they led before they met Jesus. But they aren’t going to be able to do that, are they? Because when we meet Christ, we and our lives are forever changed. We may not realize it right away, but the understanding of the new resurrected life that Christ offers us by faith comes to us gradually, as we grow to spiritual maturity.

And what about these two unknown followers? Who are they?

 One is Cleopas—a name found nowhere else in the Bible. Cleopas is a Hebrew boy’s name that means, “Glory to the Father!” The other follower isn’t named. We will come back to that detail! I have heard the other person could be female—perhaps the wife of Cleopas, as they live together and Cleopas does all the talking, as husbands sometimes do for their wives… in ancient times. But I don’t think so. You know why? They talk about “the women.” Somehow, I think a woman would remember the women’s names and not just lump them into a category of “the women.” The one with Cleopas could also be a son or daughter, slave or friend, says Amy-Jill. But “the masculine plural form of the verb would mask the presence of a woman” because it can refer to just men or both men and women. The Church Fathers of long ago thought Cleopas was really Clopas, from John 19:25, “standing near the cross was his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (657)

But there’s no way to know for sure.

So, if you think about it, this story is a case of mistaken or unknown identity for us and for them. Amy-Jill Levine sees comedy in this. We don’t know who the two people are walking to Emmaus. And they don’t know the stranger with them is Jesus.

We can smile through this passage because we know there’s a happy ending—for the two unknown followers on their walk to Emmaus and for us on our journeys of faith.

At the beginning of the story, though it is clear to us—and to Jesus—that these two are mired in doubt. They are in the dark. They don’t believe the women or the vision of angels or that Jesus was raised from the tomb. Luke says their eyes were “held back” or “seized.” Some ask, “Has God prevented them from recognizing Jesus?” I agree with Amy-Jill that it is more likely a case of “not believing what one sees. The two are convinced that Jesus is dead; therefore, the man walking next to them cannot be Jesus.” (656)

I find surprises in this familiar story. Why do they sound so hostile towards the stranger that joins them on the road? Or maybe, that’s part of the comedy. This is the first time I have seen this that way. When Cleopas and the other follower are standing there looking “sad,” that same adjective could be “mad,” Amy-Jill says. They could be both! Cleopas answers Jesus’ initial question of, “What are you talking about?”  with, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”  

I find myself relieved when Jesus finally sets them straight, after listening to their tale of woe. It’s like an I Love Lucy gag that has gone on too long. Turn off the chocolate candy conveyer belt! Enough already! There’s no more room in her hat. And, does it sound like they are feeling sorry for themselves? “Oh, how foolish you are,” Jesus scolds, “and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared….”  To Jesus, one believes not just with the mind—but with the heart.

We are all waiting to get to the good part: when the two followers are able to see and know what we have seen and known all along. When does it happen? When they urge him to come and stay in his home—and they are about to share a meal. This is important! The Lord wants to be invited into our hearts and homes—and to our meal tables. The breaking of the bread evokes the memory of the Last Supper and the feeding of the multitude. The miracle happens when the bread is blessed, broken, and given.  At the meal table, Christ has not spoken. They have not eaten a bite. Neither was necessary for the Lord to be revealed. Just as Jesus disappears from their “sight,” they are able to “see” the Risen Savior!

Friends, let’s go back to the unnamed follower with Cleopas. Who do you think that person is? I think we are that person on the journey to Emmaus. Luke wants to make sure we know this is our story. But it doesn’t end at Emmaus, does it? We have the hope of return to our faith, no matter how many times we stumble and fall and feel disappointed with or abandoned by God. Our faith doesn’t depend on us! It depends on the author and source of our faith—Jesus Christ. We can trust in Him! We always have the hope of Christ’s forgiveness and restoration, redirecting and regathering us. Once we have met the Lord, we are changed. We might still sin, but we can’t go back to be the people we used to be. Our home is the Lord, who keeps drawing us deeper into the fold and transforming us, little by little.

I want to make sure that you remember one important thing: Christ is with the disciples for this journey. He is with them when they don’t believe. He is with them physically until they come to believe. And he will be with them again, forever, after he sends his Spirit.

My favorite line of the whole passage? “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road…?”  Faith isn’t just an intellectual assent to a body of knowledge. Presbyterians can be so intellectual! And faith isn’t just doing good things for God, though faith and love will lead us to do good things for the Lord and God’s people.

Christ is the one who sets our hearts on fire!

Look at the passion and excitement of the two followers as they rush back to Jerusalem that night! Seven miles in the dark to share the good news with the other disciples, who share their good news.  Alleluia!

“The Lord has risen, indeed!”

Let us pray.

Holy One, set our hearts on fire for you. Let our hope and passion for you burn brightly—and never be just an intellectual thing. Give us patience and perseverance. Grant us joy for our journeys of faith. Lift us up when we feel down, disappointed, or weary. Open our eyes to your loving presence with us always—when we are weak and when we are strong. Remind us that we are not who we were yesterday. We can’t go back to Emmaus. Draw us ever deeper into your fold. Stir us to do good things for you and your Church, in response to your love, mercy, and grace. Amen.

Meditation on Romans 8:31-39

In Memory of Karl Kraft

Oct. 25, 1929-April 7, 2023

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 20, 2023

Karl and Ethel’s first date was a double date with her friend Betty Taylor going with a friend of Karl’s. They met at Jimmy Mullaly’s ice cream place for ice cream sundaes. Chocolate was Karl’s favorite flavor.

At the Lutheran church in Archbald, PA, where they sang in the choir, Betty had shown Karl a photo of Ethel. Ethel attended the Methodist church in Jermyn, PA.

Karl saw the photo of Ethel. He wanted to meet her.

She was 16. He was 18.

After their double date, Ethel’s mother had a long talk with her daughter, warned her against dating an older man. “Ethel May,” she said, “You are only in high school. You should go out with other young men. You should go to your dances.”

To make matters more complicated, he was also preparing to leave town to serve in the U.S. Air Force.

“I just met him,” Ethel says, “and now he was going.”

They wrote letters, and he visited her about twice a year, when he was home on furlough. She finished high school, worked as a buyer for children’s wear for Mr. Edelstein’s Globe Store, and she waited for Karl.

 He signed up for three, but served four years when the country needed him. He learned and then taught radar, rising to the rank of Technical Sergeant. On his way home after being discharged from the Air Force, he interviewed with G.E. and I.B.M. and bought a diamond ring for Ethel.

He took the position with I.B.M., bought a Chevrolet, and married the woman of his dreams on June 20, 1953 at her Methodist church.

She was 21. He was 23, but looked much younger.

He was a man determined to do the right thing, a man who made plans and lived intentionally. Though he was a quiet man, he wasn’t afraid to speak up when he disagreed. For Karl, things were black and white. Right and wrong. Once he had made up his mind, he had made up his mind. He wasn’t going to change it.

He had learned to work hard from his parents, who grew their own fruit and vegetables in a large garden and raised chickens and turkeys to sell. It was Karl’s job to weed the garden after school and deliver chickens in a basket on the front of his bicycle. He worked other jobs, too. He pumped gas at a local station, and the boss liked him. He was bright and reliable. And didn’t talk too much.

After Ethel and Karl married, they moved 7 times in 6 years because of his job with I.B.M. He enjoyed his work as a salesman, but he treasured family time. Ethel and Karl had two children, 5 grandchildren, and 9 great grandchildren. Karl was curious and interested in whatever his children and grandchildren were interested in. He cheered on grandchildren playing sports and took them fishing and boating. Once he went horseback riding with his daughter, Debbie, and nearly fell off a cliff. Like his father, Karl planted a large garden to share with family and friends; he never forgot the importance of planting seeds, pulling weeds, and tending the garden of life. He had an artistic eye and a desire to make the world a more beautiful place. He had a workshop for woodworking and made stained glass lamps and angels. He could and would fix anything that was broken. He played golf and racquetball. He and Ethel took dancing lessons.

He enjoyed life’s simple pleasures, never turning down cookies or Carvel ice cream.

Every place he and Ethel moved, the first thing they did was find a church. They joined the First Presbyterian Church in Smithtown on June 4, 1959. I believe Reverend Case was the pastor at the time. Karl quickly became involved in many aspects of church life, serving with all his gifts and talents. He was always at the church, Ethel says. He never missed a meeting.

He was ordained and installed as a Deacon on March 10, 1961. He was ordained and installed as an Elder on 1/24/1965 and again on 6/25/1972, 1/14/1973, 6/1978, and 5/21/2000. He served on the Trustees beginning on 6/19/1995 and was the group’s president. He served on the building committee for the new Christian Education wing, dedicated in 1963. He served as treasurer of our congregation and taught Sunday School with Ethel. They served together as ushers—and his tie always matched Ethel’s outfits.

The language of separation in Romans 8 speaks to me, because we go through painful separations from our loved ones in this world, and they are especially difficult for couples who have been married a long time—and their love for one another has sustained them through their daily life.

I thought about the apostle Paul’s situation—of how for 10 years before writing this letter, he had traveled extensively sharing his hope in the Risen Savior, seeking to plant and build up faith communities. He experienced painful separations, including imprisonment, and said many goodbyes, not knowing if he would see his loved ones again. The overall message of Romans emphasizes the righteousness of God and our salvation in Christ, based on faith alone. This is the New Testament book that brought a moment of “awakening” to Martin Luther, in particular Romans 1:17, “the righteous shall live by faith.”

This was an “Aha!” moment for the apostle Paul—that no matter what he had accomplished in his work for God, and no matter his failures before his conversion on the road to Damascus—all that mattered, ALL that mattered was God’s love for him.

What do we do now, dear friends who are grieving the loss of a loved one and those who are seeking to comfort and help those who are grieving? The faithful hold onto love and give their burdens to the Lord, acknowledging our need for God’s help. This is the One who, in that beautiful poem, Footprints in the Sand, has carried us through hard times, when we didn’t have the strength to walk on our own. The faithful cling to the love of God, which never ends. The very foundation of our lives is built on the love and grace of God, who IS our forever home.

I saw the grace of God at work in Karl and his family when I visited, especially on one occasion. A deacon named Joyce and I brought the elements of Communion to serve him and Ethel around their dining room table. This was a beautiful moment, when he experienced clarity and incredible lightness, instead of the horrible confusion and distress brought on by dementia that I saw on other occasions since then. That day, he remembered the Lord’s Prayer, with “trespasses,” from his childhood in Archbald, PA. He even joked around with Ethel, as if he were the 18-year-old man going off to serve in the Air Force and learn and teach radar, leaving the 16-year-old girl behind to wait for her love to come home.

The faithful honor our loved ones by doing good works that our gracious God has ordained for us—seeking to fix what is broken, tending the gardens of our lives, knowing the importance of planting seeds and pulling weeds, loving and serving God and neighbor, making the world a more beautiful place. And yes, enjoying life’s simple pleasures, never turning down cookies and Carvel ice cream.

Through all the separations we endure in this world—through the many painful goodbyes and seasons of grief when we feel that our heart is breaking—we cling to the love of a God willing to suffer so that nothing would ever come between us.

^“ And I am convinced,” says the apostle Paul, “that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Amen.