“There Is Still Reason to Rejoice”

The news has been hard to deal with lately. It is hard to attend a group dealing with the issues of racism before the case of the death of Trayvon Martin comes up. The local newspaper shares a story about how a mother gradually gives up hope that there will be progress in the investigation of the shooting death of her small child in North Minneapolis. My wife and a friend informed about an event that happened in recently in the Houston area, where a young mother was gunned down and her child stolen from here, as she was leaving a medical clinic. One thinks about the turmoil, and the struggle of people, and realizes that these horrible events just scratch the surface of human sadness, and one finds it hard to find and claim the hope of the church’s message, even in the post-Easter season.

How do we find the good, the hopeful in life? Especially when it seems as though everyplace we turn we are confronted with some new event that worries us about the human condition.

Do you know what happened to me recently? It was in a conversation I had with some colleagues in ministry, and we were speaking generally about these acts of inhumanity, and together we got started talking about some of the good things that were going on in our church communities, and the good people that we meet there regularly, not only on Sundays but at other times as well. These are people who live good lives. Who, when help is needed, respond to the gift of God’s love not only by willingly receiving it, but who make an effort to reveal it in some way to the world around them. Some how, these people muddle through the muck and the mire of the bad news, and still find reason to hope and to serve.

Just the talking about these people started to give me hope. It gave me something else as well, it gave the deep desire to see and be with these people, and I know that I will be on many Sunday mornings. This is one of God’s gifts to me. I am privileged to be a part of the lives of some of the good people of the world, and I learn from them as much as they learn from me, and together we come to realize that God wants and maybe even needs us to strive on together, especially at those times when striving can seem a little hopeless. This becomes a great model for the children as well, to expose them intentionally to the good in life, especially because we know that they will witness the bad, regardless of how much we might try to protect them.

Over 30 years of ministry, I have come to realize that one of the best places I know for this kind of exposure to the good is in church community. Where else can we go together to learn the lessons of choosing good over evil, of the value of service to the poor and the powerless of the world? To the television, to the newspaper, to the schools? While there will be positive, constructive examples of the good in all of these, they do not match up to the celebration of God’s grace and love shared with all that we find in the church.

And you what I can celebrate the most? That we are all invited to come and participate, and to think, and maybe to change a little, and the community that we find there gives us a chance to be a part of each other’s lives, to maybe open ourselves to learn from each other, lessons which are far more important than that we might learn from the bad news that is always around us.

This gives me, and all of us, reason to live!

You are invited to come and celebrate with us. We will do everything we can to make you know and feel that you are welcome here, and maybe you can rejoice as well.

In Peace, Pastor Dick Nichols