<html><body>Here's the first draft. It may change before Sunday, of course.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, THE TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">JEREMIAH 29:1, 4-7 PROPER 23<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2 TIMOTHY 2:8-15 9<sup>th</sup> OCTOBER, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">LUKE 17:11-19 PSALM 66:1-11<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“This is a sideways ladder” wrote Brian Andreas, “because she likes to feel she’s making progress but is afraid of heights.” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s nice to know that most of the time in life, there’s a back-up plan!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> What a difference a week makes – at least, a week in our lives. We don’t know about how much time had passed for the people of Judah. But time <b><u>HAD </u></b>passed. And what a change had come about!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Last week, you’ll remember, the people of Judah were being consumed with bitterness about absolutely everything, from being in exile, which can’t have been too pleasant, to their housing in Babylon, to the fact that the people of Babylon were living normal lives, and had jobs, marriages, children – normal things. They were <b><u>SO</u></b> consumed with bitterness that they let loose their venom in their conversations with God, wishing that everything would go wrong on the average Babylonian family, absolutely everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Then came a letter from home. I was taken a bit aback by the fact that the leaders of Judah were able to get messages back and forth. It only goes to show that the people of Judah were not as isolated as they might first have surmised. neither isolated from any who remained in Jerusalem, <b><u>OR</u></b> from God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> The prophet, the self-same one who’d been condemning all the leaders prior to the exile, the prophet Jeremiah wrote them both a strong and a practical letter, interpreting to them who God is and what God wishes for everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s hard for me to imagine what life must have been like in the months after the arrival in Babylon. I remember the feelings I had in the first twenty-four hours after I arrived in New Jersey on a one-way plane ticket. Maybe you’ve had something similar – I know none of you did it, but just think of those on the wagons on The Oregon Trail!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s easy to over-simplify the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness that the people of Judah must had gone through. “Get a life,” we might say today. “Suck it up. OK, so it’s not Jerusalem, but it could be worse. It might be – “ well, you supply your own place – like Detroit, maybe. But, really, Detroit’s not that bad. It’s all a matter of perspective, of how we view things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Jeremiah said something we all need to hear at least once in our lives. He wasn’t so tacky as to say, “Get a life.” But he <b><u>DID</u></b> say, “Settle down. Look around you. Find a nice lot. Build a house. Raise a few vegetables. It <b><u>IS</u></b> possible to be happy again.” Then Jeremiah said the unthinkable. “Don’t be afraid to get married to someone from Babylon. Don’t worry if your daughter or son starts dating a local teenager.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> What really fits in with our worries, though, is that wherever we are, however we may view our Babylons, we’re told as a word straight from God that we <b><u>MUST</u></b> work for the well-being of the city and the citizens of those around us, because our health depends on the health of everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> For some time now, we’ve been moving further and further into the mode of thinking of ourselves, certainly before others, sometimes to the complete exclusion of others. Certainly, it may sound easier to do this. We have our own budget. We have our own home and neighbourhood. We have our own this and that. So, naturally, we spend our money, we spend our time, we spend our energy on those things that benefit us, then our family members, and, perhaps, if we have a little left over, we think about those next door or down the street.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Of course, this is a gross oversimplification; at least, I hope it is. But we can become so focused on our home, or street, or city, that whatever lies beyond them seems to become so insignificant. Let them take care of their own business, we might think. It’s not our problem if the only industry in town shuts down; it’s not our problem if that community is located on a geological fault line; it’s not our problem if military forces surround a city and nothing can get in or out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But isn’t that where the people of Judah were last week? Isn’t that what Jeremiah addressed in his letter. Of course there will be problems. It doesn’t matter whether you happen to be in Jerusalem, or Babylon, or Albany, God is present, all the time, and wants you and me to make the best of it that we possibly can, while remembering how we <b><u>ARE</u></b> related. If we leave anyone out, then we diminish the possibilities and increase the potential of fear to take over our lives. Love – the very nature of God – goes out the window.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “The more we love,” suggested Brother Mark Brown, “the less we fear; the less we fear, the more we love. Sometimes we can address our fears head on and simply dismiss them—or at least manage them. Sometimes love can overwhelm our fear. Sometimes doing some completely gratuitous act of loving-kindness will break through the sclerotic accretions of fear and the fountain begins to flow again.”<sup> 2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Behind most of the emotions we may feel – anger, frustration, and so on – most often lies fear, fear of the unknown, fear of how others may treat us, even our own family and friends. This is what Jeremiah tried to get across to the people of Judah. God, the prophet said, doesn’t abandon people, even when they mess up. No matter what happens, we can always count on God’s Love, God’s Presence. This means that there’s one less thing to worry about.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Of course, I felt a bit unsure of myself when I arrived in New Jersey. Of course you and I feel on edge when things change, whether it be retirement or relocation, family or friend’s relationships. This is natural. If we didn’t, we’d probably get ourselves in worse scrapes that we have. But we have to search for where we see and discover the Love of God in our lives, centre ourselves on that, and then move on to make things better for everyone around us – so that we can find comfort and meaning for ourselves. If we don’t; if we live and act out of fear, out of envy, out of disdain, out of anything but love, and respect, and dignity, then we set ourselves up for stress and pain. Wherever we are in our lives right now, then, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">we have to take stock in what’s going on, what’s motivating us. If we find that the Love personified by Jesus is not at the centre of our lives, then we may be in for a rough ride, possibly some sort of an exile of our own.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p></div></body></html>