Claimed, gathered and sent

Here are some thoughts on Sunday's second reading that I shared with the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church . What are your thoughts? Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:17-23 17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.   22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. 23 You have been born anew, ...

This is the message I preached on Sunday, 5/26/19 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5.   When I lived in Rochester, I had a part-time job at Harris Interactive, which had a call center. It was from there that we conducted the Harris Poll and other surveys. I liked the people I worked with and enjoyed working there far more than at my full-time job. One of my co-workers, Jerry, always had a joke or something funny to say. One of his sayings reflected the way we often feel, “Change is bad!” Change is not easy, even when the change is one which we have been looking forward to. The liturgical season of Easter begins and ends with the change of absence: in the beginning, there is the absence of Jesus’ body from the tomb. At the end, we mark the absence of Jesus’ body from the earth after his ascension. These are two bookends to the Easter season. It is not a matter of a missing object, but rather the kind of absence, that missing element that cau...