President Mueller preached at St. Paul's yesterday and did a marvelous job. The historic lectionary's Gospel text was just perfect for this week: Matt 6 - Consider the lilies, consider the birds, are you not worth much more than they, your heavenly Father knows you need all these things, seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, sufficient to teh day is its own trouble.
As I looked at the horrific images this week from New Orleans I felt so ashamed and so helpless. This is America? It's no good parcelling out the blame to this or that one, but we all have to face up to the fact that we are part of a society that left the elderly in wheelchairs to die, the poor to die, the helpless to die. It was so disheartening, but maybe some real good will come out of this mess.
I kept thinking about how good it is to know that our God hates death and its attendent misery more than we ever could. He sends His Son to be with us in this misery and death so that he might sanctify our sufferings and open a way right through them and through death to life itself. "When Thou didst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers!" So the Church sings in her Te Deums, even amid the ruin and the rubble, the chaos and the confusion.
May the Lord who is a great Lover of Mankind use us to bring His love and compassion to all the victims of the storm - both the storm of nature and the storm that results from our sin and rebellions!
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