<html><body>Here the first part of my draft for Sunday.<div><br></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1 KINGS 17:8-24 PROPER 5 c<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">GALATIANS 1:11-24 5<sup>th</sup> JUNE, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">LUKE 7:11-17 PSALM 146<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: red;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I think there’s more to this morning’s Scripture readings that may usually hit our eye, or our heart.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some wit wrote, “My kids wanted to know what it’s like to be a Mum, so I woke them up at 2 am to let them know my sock come off.” Very funny, and probably not too far off the mark. But I know of many Mums – too many Mums – who’d love to have their child wake them at 2 am, for any reason whatsoever, except they know that this will never happen to them again. Their child has died.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s a terrible thought, too difficult for many to process, yet it happens. For some, this is, and always will be, reality. Nothing can change it, and it can be very awkward, even heart-breaking, for those not directly involved as well. We don’t know what to say, especially if we walk into the situation unexpectedly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> One day last week, I went home for lunch a little later than I intended. On the way, I glanced up and saw not one, but two heliocentric haloes, sometimes referred to as Sun Dogs, those rainbow-like features encircling the sun. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> They weren’t there long, maybe five or ten minutes. Timing, as they say, is everything. In my case, I looked at precisely the right time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Elijah and Jesus weren’t quite so lucky. They walked into terrible situations. Neither of them caused the sons’ deaths. Neither of them, for that matter, knew the mothers. Both were, apparently, widows, now all alone in the world, with friends, possibly, but no one who’d be close, to whom one could confide personal stories and secrets, who’d carry on the family name and traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Were I the one who arrived on the doorstep to find that pain and grief, it would be tremendously difficult. It’s bad enough seeing this in a film or on TV. I know people who won’t watch these programmes. If it’s a drama, that’s one thing. But if it’s a documentary, if it’s the news, we may wonder where to look. Are we being voyeuristic if we have our eyes glued to a screen? Or does one really need to watch to admit tht this happens? If we turn away, if we withdraw, what’s our emotion then? Are we trying to deny that it happened? Are we trying to say that, thank God, it’s not a member of our family, so we <b><u>CAN</u></b> turn away, or shut it out of our minds? But, as I mentioned last week, once we’ve seen something, once we’ve heard something, we can’t ever unsee or unhear it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> No matter where pain is felt, no matter what goes on, it <b><u>DOES</u></b> affect us. It touches human beings, and all the people of the world are our sisters and brothers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We know, from having heard these Scripture passages before, that, in both instances, there was some sort of intervention. Both young men were restored to their mothers. I can hardly imagine what the emotional carousel must have been like. One minute, the mother and son could have been talking, laughing, arguing, the next minute, the young man would have been struck down, silenced for ever. Then the Prophet and the Messiah of God stepped into the picture and, in God’s Name, restored them to life again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I’m tempted to ask, though, as Jesus brought up to the leaders on another occasion, how many other young men died and nothing was done, no one was there, only grief-stricken mothers? Why these two? Were they really special? What was it that enabled the timing of the visits to coincide with the deaths?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And why did they die? Was there an epidemic in the village? The young man whose home Elijah visited apparently became ill. What of the one in Nain? Had he been in a fight? Was he picked on? Was he sickly? We don’t know. Jesus and the twelve met him as he was being carried out for burial.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But does it matter whether or not these men had been chronically ill or had met with some tragic end? Surely not. Both were dead. Both mothers were heart-broken, were angry, were confused, were frustrated. Neither of them knew where to turn. The joy of their lives had been ripped out of their hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> You and I know how easy it can be to read these two scriptural accounts and to gloss over to the point where there is a glimmer of hope presented and, finally, a miraculous intervention. This is how we want everything to be. And if we can’t have our sons and daughters, or other loved ones, brought back to life, then we gather at a funeral and we talk of everlasting life. We talk of hope of the resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Don’t get me wrong. We <b><u>NEED</u></b> to hear that, and Jesus insists that we remember that so that we won’t think that everything is pointless and vacuous.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <b><u>BUT</u></b>, but we can and should never gloss over the pain and the heartache that goes along with so much in life. To skip that diminishes everything we know about the Prophets and the Messiah. To say that, “It’s O.K. Your loved one is safe with God.” doesn’t answer the huge hole we feel in our lives, especially if it’s something unexpected, something emotional, like separation from someone so young as a child or a teenager.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> These lessons this morning speak to us about the sort of thing we’d rather not face, not remember. The lessons say that terrible things <b><u>DO</u></b> happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p></div></div></body></html>