Something is missing.  Something continues to go awry in spite of all our progress.  Our friends, neighbors, and colleagues know something has gone wrong but don’t know exactly what to do about it.  Various remedies, (more wealth, more kindness, new political  solutions) are proposed and pursued with vigorous energy only to be found wanting in the end.

We know what is missing.  We know what brings peace to the troubled friend and to the troubled world.  Our friends continue to search.  They continue to pursue happiness in all manner of ways while we, through God’s grace, have what they are looking for.

In 1 Corinthians 1:23-25, Paul says, “…we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

The solution seems like foolishness until we help them realize that God has called them to himself.  The often inarticulate yearnings for goodness, truth and beauty give us a means to offer help.  Of course, the people in our lives won’t share their most heartfelt desires unless they know that we can be trusted so we must patiently and often repeatedly suffer with them as each failed solution comes and goes.  In this effort we look to Jesus who worked tirelessly to save the lost and who finally gave his life for the cause.

Lord, give us wisdom to recognize the longing for you that drives people to seek all kinds of bad solutions and give us the boldness to continually offer your love as the piece that is missing.

In 1979 Bob Dylan said it with his song title, “Gotta Serve Somebody.”  In Galatians Paul’s observation is that before we knew God we served those who were by nature not gods.  

We are all tempted by the world, the flesh and the devil to serve something other than God.  Keeping the Lord on the throne of our life as our highest priority requires a conscious effort.  The lure of all that pleases the eye and all that glitters in the world is strong but we overcome it through the faith of Christ in us.

Paul calls it slavery–a strong term but fitting.  I think Dylan is driving at the same notion–that we are created to praise, honor and serve God but we can veer off course by misplacing that God-given desire to serve by aiming our praise, honor and service toward another end.  All that the world offers, all the pleasure of the flesh and every purpose of our enemy encourage us to serve ourselves and not our creator. 

When we think about those who live as though God didn’t exist, we can become critical and judgmental.  “Why don’t these people get it?”  The spirit of pride seeks to divide us from those our Father has sent us to love and to save.  It’s certainly true that we may face the scorn and rejection of those in the grip of their slavery.  Life-long chains of slavery and fear don’t simply fall off but they can be broken through our love. 

We’ve been freed in Christ and we can free others in Christ and as Christ.  Someone told us that there was another way to live–praising, honoring and serving our King–and we can offer the same gift to those around us.  Lord, be our strength!

–  The woman was a stranger to Jesus

–  The woman was a socially and culturally different from Jesus

– Jesus initiated the conversation

– Jesus got right to the point of the gospel

– The woman didn’t just agree with him – she challenged him

– Jesus made a bold and startling claim about the gospel

– Jesus had a word of knowledge – just when he needed it

– The disciples couldn’t understand why Jesus would talk to the woman.  She did not fit their view of one who would hear Jesus’ message.

– The woman spreads the message – she becomes the one who leads others to Jesus.

–  Jesus tells them that “to do the will of the One who sent me” is his food, his life.

–  Many people come to know Jesus through the woman’s story.

Is there something for our Challenge Groups in this reading?  I think so.

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This season many of us will spend a lot of time with friends and family.  Let’s offer everyone we encounter the peace of Christ through our very presence.  In Christ and as Christ we embody the peace that passes all understanding.

Many families and work places are plagued by poor relationships.  We can bring peace and reconciliation if we act in Christ and as Christ.  Imagine how Jesus absorbed the sin of the world and let it go no further.  We can absorb gossip, malice, and ill will and let it go no further.  

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with us.  God is with us.  Christ is in us.  We have the whole Spirit of God.  Let’s pray that the peace of God is made evident to all those in our midst.  Let’s cooperate with the Prince of Peace and let his “kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” this Christmas.

Good News:  Our Father loved us so much and he wanted things set right so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to save us.  Jesus has completed his saving work.  We, his disciples, continue in our day and time to offer the people around us his salvation.

How do we respond when the conversation comes around to bad news?  We can certainly agree that the news is bad.  We can agree that the world is not the paradise it once was or that it could be.  It’s just plain true, the world is a mess.  

After we agree, we can offer the solution – Jesus.  In Isaiah 40:9-11 we are told not to be afraid but to shout from the mountain top that our God wants to care for us as a shepherd tends his flock, that he wants to lead us to life.  Our Father’s heart breaks at our suffering and he has given us the solution – if we will, in our freedom, come to him.

Bad news?  Sure, there’s plenty to go around.  

Good news?  We have the word of life.  We have the word for which the world yearns.  

This season let’s offer Jesus as the solution to the world’s problems and not just wring our hands in agreement when someone points out that the world is a mess.  

The challenge:  the next time bad news is the topic offer the good news

Just beyond Thanksgiving we’ll all get into Christmas mode.  Is there something we can do to make this coming Christmas season a time to bring peace and reconciliation to our world?   Things will no doubt go as they have always gone (for good or bad) if we don’t implement some change. 

We can begin with prayer.  Lord, speak to us and give us the insight and grace to be your presence to everyone we encounter in this busy season.

The deepening financial difficulties will make this Christmas a real challenge for many people.  We can be hope to others, we can be a help to others, we can put the emphasis on Jesus, the redeemer, and take it off the incredible, drive for the worldly and the material.

Lord, let us be your peace and reconciliation during this Christmas season.

Preach the good news.  Jesus says tell them the kingdom of God is at hand.  What’s the good news?   The short answer is that to anyone who observes it, the world is in a terrible state.  Scan the news headlines any day on the internet.  Talk with people about the brokenness of their lives.  It doesn’t take a genius to see we’re a long way from Eden when humanity and God lived in peaceful unity!  The good new is that our Father has a plan to set the world right and he sent Jesus to make it happen.  Jesus then left us, as his people, the responsibility to work with him to continue his work.  The good news is that the world can be set right and that others can join in working alongside our Father to restore the earth.

Heal the sick.  Jesus gave his disciples power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper and cast out demons.  He must have known that they would need that power to accomplish his will so he gave it to them.  In fact, he said, freely you have been given so freely give.  It is a generous response to the need of his disciples to work in power and a generous response to those to whom the disciples would preach.  Healing combines the elements of setting things right in the world (healing illness) and participating with Christ in saving the world (we are given the power to heal and so we can work along with Jesus to effect the change that the world so desperately needs).

What to do?  Talk to others about how their lives and the world can be set right in Christ.  Reach out boldly and in love to pray with the sick and those in distress.  Yes, we can.

It’s not that we have all lost the idea of the day being set aside to thank God for all the blessings we enjoy in this country but for many thanking God has lost some emphasis.  I’m thinking here about the lavish dinner prepared by loving hands that often has to be eaten during half-time of a football game and not savored for its goodness.  For me this holiday brings to mind the story of Jesus in Luke 4.

In Luke 4 Jesus has returned from being baptized in the Jordan by John.  His life has been radically altered by that moment when he hears the Father say, “You are my son, beloved and chosen.”  He returns to his hometown of Nazareth and in the synagogue he reads from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, 
      because he has anointed me 
      to preach good news to the poor. 
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners 
      and recovery of sight for the blind, 
   to release the oppressed, 
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then remarkably he says to those in the synagogue,“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus declares himself the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah and he does it in his hometown–the place where he grew up in the midst of the people who knew him as Joseph’s son, a boy of the village.  At first those in the synagogue were impressed with his words but after a time they asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  How could he be the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah?  Jesus was saying in effect, “I’m here and it’s a good thing because I bring life, I bring hope, I bring everything you’ll ever need to live now and forever in the favor of God.”

We will be among our families at Thanksgiving and we, when we act in Christ and as Christ, can say also that we’re here and it’s a good thing.  We can bring life, hope, joy, peace and everything that people around that table will ever need to live now and forever in the favor of God.

It’s a bold move and some around the table are likely to mistake you for the “old man” that you were before you met Jesus but don’t be afraid–you can bring Jesus to those in your life, even those who knew you when…

“…thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

If the kingdom is to come “on earth as it is in heaven” then we must act to make it happen.

We pray together that the Lord would guide our nation and continue to bless us.  Go out and vote tomorrow!

Hope is the grounds for expecting things to be better in the future.  Do the people around you expect things to get better?  Or do they despair of things getting better?  Is their future looking bright and glorious?  For many around us hope has been lost in the effort to live life while estranged from our life – Jesus.

Even when lives look good, hopelessness isn’t far away when we live apart from God.  The evil one uses hopelessness to devastate us.  “What’s the use?”  “Why try?”  “Nothing will ever go right.”  These are not messages from the hope of the world, Jesus.  They are the messages from the sworn enemy of our King and of our world.

As disciples of Christ, we exhibit an unmistakable hope.  We know that not even death, the ultimate villain, can rob us of hope in the future.  How could martyrs face death if not for hope?  It doesn’t make sense to anyone apart from the hope we share in Christ.

Hope is a gift we can give to others.  We can share the hope that allows us to face uncertainty and even death without fear.  Our hope is Jesus.  Nothing in this world, not wealth, not health, no political party, nothing can give us the hope we have in Jesus.

Ask around.  Ask people about their hope for the future.  If they can’t find a reason to hope–give them yours.  Explain why you have hope as it says in 1 Peter 3:15,  “…Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”  Go ahead ask around and give away what we have been freely given.