Lectionary Reflections October 2, 2011

Lectionary Reflections October 2, 2011

Exodus 20:1-20, Psalm 19, Philippians 3:4-14, Matthew 21:33-46
I spent yesterday afternoon with members of Living Hope Fellowship ripping out the wet wallboards of a stranger’s house in Owego, New York.  A month ago Hurricane Lee had caused the streets of Owego to be submerged in six feet of water.  Entire neighborhoods were flooded and hundreds of families are living in shelters or with relatives.  Those with flood insurance and resources have cleared out their basements and first floors and are getting the repairs done and moving back in.  Those without insurance (the floodwaters were so high that many did not have it) and were just barely making their monthly bills have had to wait for volunteer efforts to get organized.  The waters rose so quickly that most people were not able to move furniture upstairs and have lost almost everything.  As we approached the neighborhood where we would work, I saw what used to be insulation and kids toys and sofas and crushed wallboards in piles of rubbish along the streets.
The small house we were working on is owned by an elderly woman who is now living with her sister several miles away. As I yanked the end of my crowbar to twist out more plaster wall in what used to be her living room, I wondered how she was dealing with this loss.  It is not at all certain that her house will be rebuilt. I wondered how I would respond to “losing everything”.

⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…

This witness of the Paul in the letter to Philippians begs the same question and gives Paul’s answer  --Christ. The Lindisfarne Community’s first understanding is that we seek above all else to be Christlike, as our prayer “to be as Christ to those we meet; to find Christ within them.”  “We seek these understandings in the life of Jesus; shining, precious gems, winsome, lovely, drawing us out of ourselves and towards Christ”.   In the midst of losses, great and small, we are called to encourage each other so that as a community, together we experience the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus”.

Blessings,

John+