Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Reading — Haggai I: 15b-2: 9; Psalm 145: 1-5, 18-22; II Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17; Luke 20: 27-38
Chapter 20 of the Gospel of St. Luke begins with:
One day, Jesus was teaching the people in the temple,
proclaiming the Good News. The high priests, religious
scholars, and leaders confronted him and demanded,
Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak
and act like this?
And then they asked him about the marriage of a woman to seven brothers, one at a time who then die, and who would be her spouse in the resurrection. What silliness. This was all to distract the crowds from the good news of the life of love that Jesus was leading and proclaiming.
Last Sunday, as on every first Sunday, the Laying on of Hands and Anointing for Health and Healing was offered. Hands are laid upon you in the name of our Lord and Savior, beseeching him to uphold you and fill you with his grace, that you may know the healing power of his love.
To know the healing power, to receive the healing power, is to be, to live, the healing power in our own lives. And it is to be a healer, a reconciler, a uniter, in our day to day living. And that ministry in every age takes courage.
The Old Testament reading shares with us the words of the prophet Haggai in the days of King Darius the Great of Iran in the 5th c. B.C.E. The people of Israel were a conquered people; the temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed. It was a time of oppression and depression. The prophet declared:
Take courage. [God declared] I am with you.
My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
I am convinced that we are in troubled times ourselves. So, my words to you are the same words as the 5th-century prophet Haggai.
Take courage. [God declares] I am with you.
My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
Today as you entered each one received the traditional poppy as we commemorate Veterans Day on Tuesday, the 11th. Take that poppy in your hand.
In 1915, in the midst of the terrifying violence of World War I, when artillery blasts and trenches tore up the good earth, long dormant red poppies pushed heavenward and bloomed. In the midst of the terrifying ugliness and meanness of our current day, when the tranquility of life in these United States is being ripped apart, we pray that we may be the red poppies of our day, reaching, stretching, toward the heavens, beautifully blooming and proclaiming the Prince of Peace in words and in deed with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength and with all our soul.
Listen to the words of Lt. Col. John McCrea.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved, and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold high if we break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel… to you we throw the torch.
Take courage. I am with you. My spirit abides with you; do not fear.
Amen
