Looking Ahead to October 27, 2024-- Proper 25B, 23rd Sunday After Pentecost

The Scripture Readings this week as we close Thanktober are:

• Jeremiah 31:7-9
• Psalm 126
• Mark 10:46-52

ChatGPT's image for healing and renewal

The Sermon title is Thanks for Renewal

Early Thoughts: When have you felt healed and renewed? Is there a difference between healing and renewal? If so what do you think it is?

This week we have two passages that talk about the renewal or restoration of the nation of Israel (meaning the scriptural nation of several thousand years ago, not the modern nation-state) alongside a healing story where Jesus gives sight to Bartimaeus -- we are not told if Bartimaeus has been blind since birth or came to be blind later in life, though the last verse does suggest that he once had sight but lost it through accident or sickness.

I asked ChatGPT to add Jesus

Over and over again in Scripture God is revealed as one who bring wholeness, healing, restoration and renewal to the world. I believe God continues to do this. 

So when have you felt healed or restored or renewed? When has God brought wholeness back into your life?

Conversely, when have you felt in need of healing, renewal or restoration? When have you felt a broken-ness that you wished could be made whole again? Did the healing/restoration/renewal or return to wholeness match what you thought you wanted or needed? [Sometimes it doesn't.]

I suggest that sometimes, maybe even often, we miss the acts of God to bring healing or renewal because they seem so small. Or we think that there is some other reason, like some choice we made. Or we might even miss the healing/restoration/renewal because it was not what we expected.

A year ago this congregation was, to a degree, in a state of panic. For three consecutive years we had 5 figure deficits, with 2022 being around $30 000. We knew that this put as in danger of running out of resources but we were really unsure what the solution might be. We were sure we had to either sell the building, cut staffing time, or both. The concern was palpable. But God had already been working -- we just hadn't quite caught on yet.

Then I asked to add a sense of community

Starting in the first half of 2023 God had obviously been at work in the hearts of the members of this faith community and revenue started to improve. So much so that we finished 2023 with essentially a balanced budget, without major cuts to expenditures. There was still a bit of wondering of "was this a one-off event" but many started to feel that we had a bit more time to breathe and ask who God was calling us to be as a community of faith in the space and time. Then halfway through this year we got a surprise -- someone wanted to lease out half of our basement. All these things happened because people made choices but it is my belief that God was at work in hearts and minds and souls as those choices were made.

God brought a measure of healing and renewal into our midst. Even when some had started to lose hope God was at work.

This is one example. Many of us, in our personal lives, can think of other examples. Maybe we need to stop and look at the events again, to have our eyes opened and see with new sight, to see where God was at work. Still God has been at work in our lives, healing our hurts, renewing our world, restoring our hope, making whole that which was broken.

Thanks be to God.
--Gord