April 2014
The Pastor’s Ponderings Pastor David’s cell phone—765-330-4170 and email address —fleeneda@gmail.com When snow fell again this week (I am writing this the last week of March), Sarah told me that many of her co-workers were angry. It’s an understandable reaction. This has been one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent memory, and for winter to encroach past the first day of spring seems “cruel and unusual”! Some days, it seems like the snow and cold will never end – like we’re all bit players in the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. Likewise, our lives can seem like an endless winter. Each day, we awake and live out our lives according to the script we’ve chosen, or that we feel has been handed to us. Most days come and go and nothing extraordinary happens. We can become frustrated with life. It’s perhaps little wonder that folks often go through a midlife crisis, with the primary question, “Is this all there is to life?” underlying their behaviors. If life is
an endless winter, we reason, it’s up to us to make our own spring. Scripture has a number of stories where people take God’s promises into their own hands and try to speed up the timeline of their fulfillment. One of the most notable is the story of Abraham and Sarah, who, after years of failing to conceive a child, decide to take matters into their own hands. Sarah gives her slave Hagar to Abraham as a wife, to have a child by her. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. Now, while God is able to turn the birth of Ishmael into a great good, there is a great deal of suffering because of Sarah and Abraham’s actions. Sarah grows jealous of Hagar, and tells Abraham to throw her and her child out. Hagar and Ishmael nearly die in the desert before God intervenes to save them. Family rifts occur. There is discord between Abraham and Sarah; Sarah and Hagar; God and his chosen family. Nonetheless, the promise of a great nation remains intact. Ishmael will be part of the fulfillment of that promise; Isaac will be another part. Over and over again, the actions of
the patriarchs and matriarchs threaten the promise that God has given, and time and time again, God restores all things to balance. Spring is coming, both the season; and the eternal spring, when our lives meet their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. All things have already been accomplished; now all we are called to do is wait and witness to the signs of God among us. Signs like the peeking of daffodils through the snow. Signs like the openness to reconciliation among estranged family members. Signs like folks of different faiths coming together for a greater purpose. The signs of spring are out there. And God gives us the eyes to see them. The resurrection is coming. See you in church! Pr. David