{"id":144,"date":"2019-02-17T12:39:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T12:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=144"},"modified":"2019-02-18T00:43:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:43:19","slug":"sixth-sunday-after-epiphany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/02\/17\/sixth-sunday-after-epiphany\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixth Sunday after Epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust\nis a hard thing, but we all find it in ourselves to trust someone or something.\nFor many people today, it is technology that we trust. Not me! For many others\nit is money. For some, trust is limited to trust of their selves. Most of us\ntrust our family members, some of us trust our friends and some of us trust those\nin authority, people like the police, pastors, teachers and government\nofficials. Truth be told though, because of the information that has bombarded\nus about many of these authorities and other things that we trust in, we today\nhave a difficult time with trust. Think about it! It used to be that we could\ntrust, or at least we thought we could trust those in authority, but today we\nare not so sure. Some police have been accused of an overzealous use of\nviolence and we\u2019ve seen the videos; some pastors (clergy, priests) have been\nrevealed as pedophiles and for playing a little loose with church finances;\nsome teachers have been revealed as having had inappropriate relationships with\nstudents and some government officials have been found to be on the take, abuse\ntheir power, involve themselves in extra-marital affairs and contribute to\npolitical unrest. So, who, what can we really trust? And things aren\u2019t any easier\nto trust in, than people; technology often fails and confounds us, medicines\noften carry unwanted side effects, wealth makes us defensive and often pulls us\naway from the love of others that could truly make us happy. And, not a thing,\nbut who really can trust even their own selves? Paul went through that long\ndescription of human nature in one of his letters where he talked about doing\nthe things that he didn\u2019t want to do and not doing the things that he really\nwanted to do. It seems, to be human nature, that we can\u2019t seem to be able to\ntrust even ourselves. Yet church, religion, Christianity, our faith is all\nbuilt upon, as much as anything, trust, trust in Jesus, trust in God, trust in\nthe Holy Spirit, trust in the promise found in Scripture, and trust in God\u2019s\nLaw also found in Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\na terribly gruesome and nasty story found in 3 Maccabees (a book accepted by\nthe Roman Catholic Church and some of the Eastern Rite Churches as a part of\ntheir Old Testament, part of our Apocrypha), a mother and her seven sons are\ntortured and killed by the king for refusing to eat a piece of pork and so break\ntheir God-given dietary laws. The one thing that is made very clear (in the\nstory) is that they trusted in the Law of God and in God\u2019s promise of eternal\nlife with God, and they demonstrated this faith as each son, beginning with the\noldest to the youngest submitted to torture and death rather than eat the pork,\nand the mother after watching such, died also by torture. That\u2019s trust in God,\nin God\u2019s promise! In our reading from 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks\nabout trust in a specific promise of God and Jesus, the promise of the\nresurrection of the dead and the promise of eternal life with God for those who\n(and here is that word again) trust in Jesus. What sense would it make, in\nPaul\u2019s day, for a person to face torture and death for refusing to worship\nCaesar, if in fact the person did not trust in Jesus\u2019 promise of eternal life? Without\nsuch trust it would make perfect sense to simply worship Caesar, belief or no\nbelief that Caesar was a god and avoid the torture and terrible executions? No\ndoubt about it! Paul makes it very clear, to those of faith, that we make no\nmistake by believing and so trusting in the resurrection. Everything Paul argues\nhinges upon Jesus\u2019s life, Jesus\u2019 death, Jesus\u2019 resurrection and Jesus\u2019 promise\nof a resurrection of the dead and eternal life for those who trust in his\npromise. Each part, builds upon the other, and none of it can stand without\nbelief in each part. For example, if I do not believe that Jesus lived, I\ncannot believe in his promised resurrection. Paul argues that we cannot\npossibly believe or expect to receive a resurrection for ourselves, no matter\nhow faithful or good we are, if we cannot believe that Jesus was himself raised\nfrom the dead. There is just one thing wrong with this, no amount of arguing\ncan convince another person to believe, to have faith and trust in Jesus. While\nthe gift of faith comes to all by way of the Holy Spirit, everybody does not\naccept the Spirit\u2019s gift and some people take a while before they open their\nhearts to the Spirit\u2019s gift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis something else about trust; trust more often than not needs to be earned. We\ntrust technology when it works; we trust in money when it helps us to get what\nwe need; we trust in ourselves when our confidence is up; we trust our families\nand friends when they show to us loyalty and trustworthiness; we trust\nauthority figures when they serve the community honorably; but how to we learn\nto trust God? This may sound impious, but we come to trust God in very similar\nways, when God earns our trust. By feeling the presence of God in times of\ntrouble, maybe in a spiritual way absent of other people or maybe through the\ncaring, or the guidance, or the help of another of God\u2019s children. Or maybe we\nfeel our prayers answered or just know that God has had a hand in helping us. Or\nmaybe we\u2019ve seen the hand of God helping a friend, a neighbor or a family\nmember. I\u2019ve had my experiences and I\u2019ve been blessed to hear from some of you\nabout your experiences of God\u2019s help and care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust!\nCan you, can we really trust in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, in Jesus\u2019\npromise of forgiveness and salvation? Maybe that is not the right question. Maybe\nthe question should be, will we trust in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, when our\nexperiences or when we see the Holy Spirit at work. Will we trust in the\nTrinity when we read of the promises offered us? Trust, church, religion, and faith\nare all about trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Trust is a hard thing, but we all find it in ourselves to trust someone or something. For many people today, it is technology that we trust. Not me! For many others it Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}