FROM THE RECTOR – June 5, 2020

This coming Sunday, Trinity Sunday, we will hear Paul’s words to the saints in Corinth, “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Putting things in order is a high calling. So much in our lives and in our community seems out of order, physical distancing, face masks, record unemployment, social unrest. Some things we control, others we do not. How we react, how we respond can help to bring into order the un-ordered places in our lives.

Much to Paul’s dismay we will never all agree, but we can work together and work toward that peace that passes all understanding. We can wear a mask because it can help someone else. We can wash our hands so that we don’t spread disease. We can give to help those have lost their jobs. We can see in ourselves and in our communities that there is need for honest reflection and change.

Again Saint Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians says to them, “As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

May we as God’s people, chosen and beloved, remove the obstacles that separate us and help us to know that now is the acceptable time to begin living into the salvation that is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ. It will not be easy, Paul reminds us, but it is possible in the power of the Spirit.

Let us pray:

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.