<html><body>Part 2.<div><br></div><div>Happy weekend worshipping!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “Then, one afternoon during my
parents’ semi-annual visit from Detroit, my father showed up in the dining room
with a hammer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “‘What’s that for?’ I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “‘I was going to break that
chandelier you’re always complaining about,’ he said. ‘I figured if somebody
didn’t break it, you’d never get around to getting yourself a new one.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “That’s the lesson he taught me:
Some things you just have to break or they’ll stay there forever. …</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “This may explain why God had to put on such a
big show with all those miracles and plagues </span><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> (to get the Hebrew people out of Egypt). … The
slaves themselves had to <i>want</i> to go
free…. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> <span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> </span>“What
had to be broken was not Pharaoh’s will, but the dullness of their own routine,
the comfortable reliability of outing up with things the way they were.” <sup>3</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Sometimes it takes something
stressful, something radical, to shake us out of not the dullness of our
routines, but the sameness, the familiarity of them, no matter how much we may
sense that change is not only inevitable, it’s desirable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Take that short Letter to Philemon,
written by Paul from Rome. It’s the only private letter from the apostle that remains
to us, and it describes a situation in which there’s not just property, but
human life at stake. Boiled down to its basic ingredients, Paul said that
Christianity introduced a completely new relationship between human beings. No
matter who people had been, no matter what they’d done, the old format, the old
manner of inter-relating, had been smashed wide open. Paul left it up to his
friend, but he laid out to Philemon that slavery and treating anyone as less
than human was not how God saw things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Of course, this takes courage. But
it takes the will to do it also, no matter how long something has been in place,
no matter what it may cost to people or material. Some things <b><u>HAVE</u></b> to change. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> It’s serendipitous that the Epistle
reading should be assigned for this Sunday right after the courageous stand
taken by Georgetown University. No matter that it is a Church institution which
<b><u>DID</u></b> have active
slave-holdings from very early in its life. No matter that there was some
disquietude even back in the early nineteenth century about this, at that point,
money over-rode any other consideration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Yet here, two hundred years after Georgetown’s
trafficking in human beings, despite the fact that University endowments and
budgets aren’t the rosiest by a long shot; despite what some may say as
practical problems, the Board has decided to try to make public recompense,
starting with apologies and continuing with the intent to affect the educational
hopes of those who might never consider going to any University, far less
Georgetown. In essence, the University is saying, “What will <b><u>YOU</u></b> be when you grow up?” And every
other school is being challenged to address the historical practices of each,
to discover what it means to be a Christian in the twenty-first century.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> And if Georgetown, why not every
other University? Why not every Government institution? Why not every civic
group? Why not every individual? And while we’re in the midst of asking
questions, why not the Church?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Is it difficult to acknowledge the
humanity of everyone? Is it difficult to acknowledge how we have hurt, and
continue to hurt one another? Whatever differences there may be, they are as nothing
compared to the Common Clay that we share in being Children of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> No one has any right or responsibility
to do anything to diminish the capabilities of another. In fact, exactly the
opposite is what we’re required to be. So if we see something happening,
something which prevents development, prevents babies, children, teen-agers,
adults from being able to minister as full Children of God, then we have to
remedy the situation. Even if it means bringing in a carefully controlled
hammer. Even if it involves money. It may take a while, but the point of all
three lessons; the point of the stories we’ve heard today, is that we have to
begin <b><u>NOW.</u></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> “What <b><u>WILL</u></b> you be when you grow up?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">NOTES:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><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 class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> All Saints Church of England Infant
School </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
color:#006621"><a href="http://www.allsaintsschoolcroydon.co.uk/contact-us/">www.<b>allsaintsschool</b>croydon.co.<b>uk</b>/contact-us/</a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> <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:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:gray"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">2</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Ann
Fontaine 2<sup>nd</sup> September, 2016 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/seashellseller?fref=ufi">https://www.facebook.com/seashellseller?fref=ufi</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">3</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> <i>“Breaking Chandeliers” </i>in <i>“Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred
Stories of the Ordinary”</i> by Lawrence Kushner. Jewish Lights Publishing,
Woodstock, Vermont. © 1996. Pages 85-6<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>