Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 18, 2020 (today’s lectionary)
Afternoon honey
We head to Urbana later today … traveling has become nearly extinct as a species this year, but this month we are taking two more short trips after this one. Our pots and pans are in Urbana, but home is where the heart is.
I feel at home when I click the link to our lectionary. I feel more intimate with the heart of God. Home is where the heart of God is.
I call you by your name and open doors before you.
Toward the rising and the setting of the sun, people may know that there is none besides me.
I am the Lord and there is no other.
The words of Isaiah and Psalms were written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Then after he died and the new-called Christians wanted to record as much as they could remember, Matthew went back to the journals he kept on his travels with Jesus and interviewed his friends whenever he could. At just the right time the Gospel of Matthew, the Good News of Jesus According to His Friend and Disciple Matthew was born.
Sing to the Lord a new song, all you lands, and tell his glory among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
Paul’s vision of and revelation from Jesus continued to unfold throughout his life. He prayed, he slept and dreamed, and then he wrote letters back to his congregations. God speaks straight to me so often through words he must have spoken first to Paul.
Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers. Our gospel has not come to you in word alone, but also in power and by the Holy Spirit, with much conviction.
When he went to bed Friday night, Miles told his dad he was sad because we didn’t talk to him as much as he wanted us to when they got back from the Dinosaur Park. He hurt his lip when he fell from a stool, and Tylenol set his whole body back, but even then he noticed and named a disappointment he felt. I was really proud of him.
Yesterday we were in a long, wide, nearly empty echoing room. Lots of room to run and shout. Miles and Jasper took advantage and as our friend said, “They made her day.” But the sparks burned out pretty quick in the afternoon, and everyone slept and slept.
All around our watchtower, the world turns. It’s the weekend, right, and no one wants to do work. So let us settle into play and move into Sabbath.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.
As we awaken in the afternoon, stretch our muscles, crack our joints and flush out our bones, we can listen to the shofar train deep in the distance, go and play in the park, find some dinner and wait for night.
In our own particular time ordained by God, life on earth drips down on us like honey, sweet and strong, rich and good.
(Isaiah 45, Psalm 96, 1 Thessalonians 1, Philippians 2, Matthew 22)
