This picture is a postcard I got a while ago while I was pastor at a previous congregation I served. It was an advertisement for a book from Spark House. I was not interested in the book, but I was interested enough in the saying to keep the card on my bulletin board.
Change is something we try to avoid, because change is hard even if it is good change. It is hard to do things different, to not do it the same old way.
But the problem with that sometimes leads us to hope things will be different even when we do the same things! Albert Einstein is attributed with saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” If we always do things the way we have, nothing will ever change, no matter how hard we wish it would!
I say all of this, because there are changes happening. Some of them you will notice, and others may go without even causing a ripple. Some of them will affect some of you greatly, and others of you may or may not even see a difference. But if it affects one of us, it affects us all!
And my hope is the changes will affect us all. I hope and pray that we will learn how to talk with each other about our faith. Thus helping us to better understand our faith and better be able to share it in the world around us. I hope and pray we will all be disciples of Jesus, helping each other grow in our faith and deeper in relationship with Jesus.
You see we are all learners and teachers. We are helpers and leaders. We are all a part of the body of Christ and we need each other!
So if something has changed and you need to talk about it, my door is open, please come and have a chat! All of us are in this together and we need everyone to be a part of God’s mission so that we can change the world!
Because the change God has for the world is better than any change it will get from the vending machine!
When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. (Matthew 21:23-32, NRSV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. (Ephesians 1:3-8, NRSV)
