<html><body><div>It's been a busy week, but I have a draft for Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE 6<sup>th</sup> SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY a</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>DEUTERONOMY 31:15-20 <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>12<sup>th</sup> FEBRUARY, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-9<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 119:1-8</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>MATTHEW 5:21-37</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s the small things!</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Have you ever faced and wrestled with near catastrophe, something which looms over life like a huge, explosive cloud? Have you had that experience and managed to survive, albeit with several more silver hairs and shorter finger nails? Somehow, when we come up against all the big events – and I’m not trying to belittle them in any way; they <b><u>CAN</u></b> be dangerous – somehow, when we come up against all the big events, we seem to be more or less ready, and can begin to deal with them, even although we may not have been totally prepared for them. Somehow, we find the resources to manage to get back on with our lives.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the small things – the person who doesn’t pay attention to anyone in traffic; the toilet paper placed on then roller in the way we don’t like; the line at the pass-through between the kitchen and the parish hall which may mean that the tea or coffee runs out before we get to it – it’s the small things which can trigger terrible reactions, even if, normally, we’re as placid as-all-get-out.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We may joke about it, if we’re lucky, but the joke often has a barn in it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s the small things, Jesus seemed to suggest, that can kill us spiritually and prevent us from progressing on our faith journey.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The problem is, there’s so much in our lives – or, at least, there are so many things I experience – which can be shrugged off as if they’re no big deal. But then there are those other things which really absorb all my attention and divert me from doing what I can and should accomplish, even although they’re of no greater significance that much of the rest of the stuff.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; page-break-after: avoid;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Suzanne Guthrie, whose weekly meditations I find helpful, wrote that “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Jesus brushes past the surface stuff (murder, adultery) to get to the tendrils of evil rooting within the heart. It isn't enough just to refrain from killing or from infidelity but to uncover the anger and lustful impulses that form into thoughts, desires, and then deeds. Purity of heart is called for.”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> <sup>1</sup></b><br><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Suzanne concluded her opening remarks by quoting the monk Thich Nhat Hanh (</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Tik · N'yat · Harn</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>), who wrote, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight....I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From a purely physical standpoint, this makes excellent sense. If we don’t address anger, if we ignore conflict, if we allow it to consume all of our lives, then we’ll develop adverse physical symptoms, just as we’ll develop adverse emotional and spiritual ones as well.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Neither the Buddhist monk, nor Suzanne, are suggesting that we forget about what it is that makes us angry, or frustrated, or irrational. Far from it. Nor is their suggestion that murder and so on are passé. The point is to examine ourselves, our lives, our thoughts, our reactions with minute care, each day, in order to see if what we did and how we reacted shows care, and love, and tenderness, and did not suck us into violence in any form.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Of the many negative consequences of social media, especially just now, is the way in which we feel drawn in to make instant, insensitive, often self-serving remarks which seem to end up being more like pouring gasoline on any number of fires than anything else.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, summarised what Jesus was talking about when he told a congregation at a three-day mission in Pittsburgh last week, </span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“Don’t be afraid to be people of love. Don’t be afraid to stand up for the name of Jesus. Don’t be afraid to reclaim this faith again. And don’t you be ashamed to be an Episcopalian.” <sup><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>2</sup></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bishop Curry wasn’t talking about instant reaction or instant gratification in a negative way. He wasn’t, to deal with some of the issues mentioned in this morning’s Gospel passage, he wasn’t looking for people to lash out. “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>The emphasis was on both sparking individuals’ faith lives and a commitment to show the love of Jesus beyond the four walls of their churches. Anchoring Episcopal revivals in the needs of the world was a constant theme of the weekend.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“‘Episcopal Church,’ (Bishop Curry called out,) ‘we need you to follow Jesus. We need you to be the countercultural people of God who would love one another, who would care when others could care less, who would give, not take, …</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“To do that, a revival must channel the emotions of the moment toward something bigger and lasting, Curry said during a news conference. ‘It is about claiming new and authentic and genuine life. That’s true for our nation, true for our world. We must find better ways to live together, to care for each other, to care for our society and to care for our global communities,’ he said.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“We who are followers of Jesus believe that the way of love and the way of Jesus is the key to doing that. But, we join hands with people of other faiths and people of goodwill – anyone who wants to help us end what so often is a nightmare of poverty and injustice and bigotry and wrong and violence, and realize God’s dream of true harmony and peace and justice for everybody.”</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p></div></body></html>