prelude to valentine

James 1:1-11; ps 119 BE kind to ne Lord an dI shall live; Mark 8:11-13

James speaks these words, "consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; and let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."


Now, read it again.

Consider it all joy, when you encounter various trials, for you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance and let perseverance be perfect so that you may be lacking in nothing.


Now think about your life. When have you encounter trials. How have you handled them?
Do you treat trials as a obstacle, a nuisance, getting frustrated and bent out of shape or do you see them as a moment to reach perfection?

Look to 2 Samuel 16:10-14

Are you still lacking, then perhaps the trials are gift that are meant to purify and perfect you along this journey of faithfulness.

Our great nemesis is that we think we are better than we are or we think we deserve more than we get; perhaps, we deserve what we get for it is by the hand of God who seeks to push along the path of perfection brought on by perseverance.

Jesus in the gospel tells us this, "why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, i say to you, no sign will be given to this generation."

The sign we seek is already wrapped up int he life of faith we lead.

I love the way the gospel ends today. "Then JEsus left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other side."

Jesus is not afraid to leave us hanging; Like a good guide he does not give us all the answers ready at hand but rather he invites us to dig deep and to wrestle with question with one eye on him.


A poem
by Jennifer Maier

And what if the passage out of this life
is like a flight from Seattle to St. Louis—

the long taxi out of the body, the brief
and terrible acceleration, the improbable

buoyancy, and then the moment when,
godlike, you see the way things fit

together: the grave and earnest roads
with their little cars, stitching their desires

with invisible thread; the tiny pushpin houses
and backyard swimming pools, dreaming

the same blue dream. And who but the dead
may look down with impunity on these white

birds, strewn like dice above the river whose name
you have forgotten, though you know,

having crossed the Divide, that it flows
east now, toward the vast, still heartland,

its pinstriped remnants of wheat and corn
laid out like burial clothes. And how

you would like to close your eyes, if only
you could stop thinking about that small scratch

on the window, more of a pinprick, really,
and about yourself sucked out! anatomized!—

part of you now (the best part) a molecule
of pure oxygen, breathed in by the farmer

on his tractor; by the frightened rabbit
in the ditch; by a child riding a bike

in Topeka; by the sad wife of a Mexican
diplomat; by a dog, digging up a bone

a hundred years in the future, that foreign city
where you don't know a soul, but where you think

you could start over, could make a whole
new life for yourself, and will.