There is a passage in Steve Covey’s book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” that hit home for me. 

Covey wrote, “I value my children. I love them, I want to help them. I value my role as their father. But I don’t always see those values. I get caught up in the ‘thick of thin things.’ What matters most gets buried under layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors. I become reactive. And the way I interact with my children every day often bears little resemblance to the way I deeply feel about them.”

Today I invite you to think again about the people you love in your own life. Reflect on how you feel about them. How can you keep from getting caught up in the “thick of thin things?” How might you interact with them in a way that bears a deep resemblance to the way you feel about them? That is a real challenge for me. Perhaps it is also a challenge for you – a challenge for today, and for a lifetime.

Let us pray: Loving and Gracious God, we want to live in light of your love and grace, and we want to live in light of our deepest values. Show us concrete ways that we can demonstrate our love to those closest to us. Help us make time for them. Grant us patience and forgiveness and listening ears. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Christian author and educator, Lawrence O. Richards makes an interesting connection between sponge diving, which is a major business in his area of the country, and the spiritual life. Divers are attached to an oxygen line in a boat, then they dive deep into the water to search for sponges. The only thing that keeps the diver alive is his or her connection to the boat above them. “In the same way,” he writes, “…our life is being sustained by power from above. No matter how difficult life may seem ‘down here’ on earth, we are connected to the Source, and that connection keeps us going.” 

I hope you find ways to stay connected to that Source of Life. For many people prayer is the sustaining connection. For others, it is found in solitude or meditation. For others still, it is time spent in creation or in worship. Today, I invite you to reflect on your own spiritual life. Where do you find strength, renewal, and hope? May you make those practices a priority.

Let us pray: Loving and Gracious God, thank you for sustaining us with your power from above. We thank you for times and places and disciplines that give our lives meaning and hope. Fill us again with your Spirit this day – that your courage, strength, and peace would be ours – and ours to share. Amen.

I remember years ago, I had a friend who said he did not like going to church because, for him, worship was kind of boring… He said, “You know you just sit there, and the music is often reflective and quiet.”

On the other side of this, Annie Dillard has this great quote. She wrote: “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?… It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.” 

What’s happening in worship?

The Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue put it this way: “When one enters the sanctuary, one does not simply enter a building; rather one enters unknowingly the gathered memory. This house is a living archive of transcendence. People have come into this (space) with burdens of heart that could find healing nowhere else in the world. They have come in here for shelter when storms have unraveled every stitch of meaning from their lives. And they have come in too to give thanks for blessings and gifts they could never have earned…” 

“Somewhere in this (space) the affection that created us, waits to bless and heal us.”

What’s really happening when we come into worship?

I think about how, sometimes without thinking about it, we come forward to the table side-by-side with others who see the world completely different from us. We sit side by side with those who don’t share our politics or world views, side by side with those who may have stepped on our toes, or rubbed us the wrong way or even hurt us. Every week we hear of God’s forgiveness, grace and mercy. We tell stories that shape our lives in the ways of serving, and giving, and gratitude. 

What happens when we set aside our lives to worship God?

Let us pray: We love you. We praise you. We worship you, O God. We thank you for healing, shaping and challenging us to grow; through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

In the first century, in the Roman Empire, the early Christians had a really interesting custom. They would take laurel wreaths out into their graveyards and place them on the graves. These were the same wreaths that had been used in Greek and Roman culture to crown the victors of athletic contests. For these first Christians, the ritual symbolized their belief that in Christ we have received victory, even over the power of death.

Charles Kingsley, a gifted and beloved Anglican pastor of the 19th century, was also a well-known historian and author. Near the end of his life, both he and his wife lay terminally ill in different rooms of the same hospital. They communicated by writing notes. One day his wife sent him a message that read: “My darling, is it cowardly of me to tremble before the unseen reality of death.” He wrote back, “Do not be afraid! It will not be dark, because God is light. There will be no loneliness, for Christ will be there.” 

That is our resurrection hope.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote: When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Let us pray: Eternal God, before whom generations rise and pass away, we thank you that through the resurrection of Jesus, you have overcome the powers even of sin and death. Help us to live fully – here and now – trusting that in life and in death we belong to you. Amen.

Friend of Dial Hope, I have a confession to make. Are you ready for this? I am an in- curable hoper and I want you to follow suit. I have a bias that no problem on earth is ever truly insoluble; problems are opportunities filled with possibilities. I do everything in my power to solve problems rather than create them. And I firmly believe that hope is our sustaining friend. It keeps us going through the good times and the restless nights of our souls. 

To be sure, you will be sorely tempted to despair at times. Some of you listening to or reading this message are terminally ill, some of you are lonely and depressed, some of  you are learning how to live with physical and emotional pain. I advise you: ward off cynicism and cultivate hopefulness. It is a choice you will be called to make daily. 

The cynic says, “Blessed are they who believe in nothing, for they shall not be disappointed”. The hopeful person says, “Despite all of life’s ills, pains, and problems, it is still a beautiful world.” Such an attitude will make all the difference in your world. For the hoper, unlike the wishful thinker, is willing to work his or her head off that it might just come to be. We live as we hope. Good friends Kathy and Harry Dodge reminded me that Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” 

Let us pray: Loving God, it’s morning again…another day knocks. The tide of light rises, slides down the walls, across the ceiling, into my eyes, purging the darkness, slowly smoothing the crinkles of sleep. A particle of light has pierced our hearts reminding us to begin again, to get up and go. You promise to bless us so we may be a blessing to others. You give us contagious enthusiasm, so we can go on limping, hoping on every step a testament of gratitude. We scratch the ears of dogs, laugh at the ballet of cats and Pelicans, and dolphins. Help us this day to hear the cry and gurgle of the newborn, to learn from hundreds of teachers, some of them homeless, poor, and uneducated. 

Awaken us to the beauty of the mockingbirds, the Milky Way. For You alone, O Lord, are our hope. You alone are our safety, our strength. May we – even with our fears and anxieties, our insecurities and uncertainties – trust, totally trust in your loving care and plan for our lives. Thank you for hearing this prayer. In Jesus’ name. Amen.