St. Andrew Presbyterian Church
  • Home
  • New Here?
    • Belonging Here
    • Contact Us
    • Directions
  • Who We Are
    • Stories
    • About Our Ministries
    • Leadership
    • Staff
    • Manantial de Vida Congregation
  • Worship
    • Worship in Absentia
    • Sermons
    • Audio excerpts
    • Aftertalk
    • News >
      • News
    • Newsletter
  • Give
  • Get Involved
    • Choirs and Music
    • Social Groups
    • Community Service
    • Missions >
      • NICHE
      • Gulfport Mississippi 2008
      • Honduras 2012
      • Honduras 2015
      • Honduras 2018 >
        • NPH 2018 photos
    • Christian Formation
    • Sustainable Living
    • Worship
    • Youth Group
  • Calendar
  • File Cabinet
    • Donations - Electronic
    • Clerks Drawer
    • Elder/Deacon Resources
    • Policies and Procedures
    • Personnel and Budget Drawer
    • Media
    • Members & Metrics
    • Our Discernment Process
    • SHALOM
    • Directory & Deacons' Lists
  • Coronavirus Updates
  • Bridge Ministries Sunday

A VERY GOOD YEAR

4/1/2009

0 Comments

 
I keep hearing this refrain going around that things are going to get harder before they get better. We hear it at the national level of course - the economy is in the dumps; retirement investments have been decimated by a plummeting Stock Market; we're funding two wars we can't afford, but we can't afford to end them carelessly either. Unemployment is on the rise and many of us are holding our breath that our job isn't next.

I'm hearing it elsewhere too. Non-profits are getting hit pretty hard in these times. Many have gone under. Churches that have set their budgets on the calendar year have found deficits looming - spending up but giving not following suit. I've heard it quite a bit lately around St. Andrew as the Session is in the process of setting our budget for the new fiscal year beginning in July - reconciling our calling for mission and ministry with our financial expectations. 

There is certainly reason for concern. We don't have any reason to expect that the financial realities will be any different for St. Andrew. So let me invite you to a little perspective. Let me invite you to remember our story. Isn't it in precisely those times that we don't see a way out, that God shows up? Don't take my word for it; listen to just a few examples from our own story:

We already know about the promise of a son and a future to Abraham and Sarah, but we might argue that Hagar and Ishmael got the short end of that deal there and yet, in the desert, out of water, just as she turns away from her dying son for a final time, God hears and she becomes the grandmother of a great world religion (Genesis 21).

The Pharaoh who had locked up in his basement a dreaming convict named Joseph with a plan to prepare for the coming years of drought is able to save all of Egypt and provide aid to the surrounding nations, including Joseph's own family with whom he is reunited (Genesis 45). 

A nation with 100% unemployment and no permanent housing wandered in a wilderness, but ate manna and quail and did alright (Exodus).

Ruth faced starvation but somehow continued the line to Jesus (Ruth).

The people of Ninevah are hours away from extinction and all they have going for them is a cranky and reluctant, water-logged prophet who would love nothing more than to see the great city disappear, yet the whole city repents and is saved (Jonah 3).

A widow without resources whose sons are taken into slavery to satisfy her debts is told to keep pouring the last of her oil into any jar she can find, and it just keeps coming until she has enough to buy her children back (2 Kings 4).

Elizabeth has a son in her old age (Luke 1) and Simeon and Anna get to see salvation's dawn (Luke 2).

At least two starving crowds in the middle of nowhere and without an arguably incompetent event planning committee are fed by a few loaves and a few fish (Matthew 14, 15, Mark 6, 8, Luke 9, John 6)

The widow at Nain gets her son back (Luke 7).

The Samaritan woman at the well never thirsts again (John 4).

Enough from me. Let me turn it over to a section from one of my favorite prayers of thanks that we pray around a table with only a little bread and juice, and yet, even there when we share it, a world is fed:
'When we turned from you, you did not turn from us...when everything was in chaos, you formed beauty and order (Genesis 1, 2) When Abraham and Sarah were childless, you birthed them a son (Genesis 21) When the Israelites were enslaved, you led them to freedom (Exodus) David faced Goliath and the widow of Zarephath drought (1 Samuel 17, 1 Kings 17) Naaman faced leprosy and Esther the slaughter of her people (2 Kings 5, Esther 8), and the stories proclaim that you granted them all your life.

Maybe it is just me, but I get the sense that this story of ours teaches us that God is to be found precisely in these trying times. And given some of the stories you have told me, it seems pretty clear that God has continued to write this story in our lives. It's not that we welcome tough times; it's just that our God is a God of tough times, and tough times are when miracles happen. Yep, I think this could just be a very good year!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2022
    March 2022
    September 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    July 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    September 2015
    July 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2013
    October 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    November 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    July 2011
    October 2010
    September 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    April 2009
    January 2009
    March 2007

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Andrea Shirey
    Annual Reports
    Ash Wednesday
    Baptism
    Center Of Hope
    Christian Formation
    Communion
    Confirmation
    Covenant
    Derona Burkholder
    Fall
    Family Ministries
    Fear
    Geti
    Giving
    Grace
    Holy Week
    Julie Kae Sigars
    Korea
    Lent
    Maggie Breen
    Marie West Johnson
    Mentors
    Mission
    Mystery
    NPH
    Ordination
    Policies
    Rafa Llamoga
    REACH
    Religious Traditions
    Sabbatical
    Sacraments
    Scott Anderson
    Session
    Spirituality
    Struggle
    Susan Patterson
    The Church
    The Media
    The Soul
    World Concil Of Churches
    Worship And The Arts
    Youth


    RSS Feed



​WORSHIP

Sunday 10am

PHONE:
425-272-5836


​OFFICE HOURS
Wednesday and Thursday
10AM-12PM 
                                        

  • Home
  • New Here?
    • Belonging Here
    • Contact Us
    • Directions
  • Who We Are
    • Stories
    • About Our Ministries
    • Leadership
    • Staff
    • Manantial de Vida Congregation
  • Worship
    • Worship in Absentia
    • Sermons
    • Audio excerpts
    • Aftertalk
    • News >
      • News
    • Newsletter
  • Give
  • Get Involved
    • Choirs and Music
    • Social Groups
    • Community Service
    • Missions >
      • NICHE
      • Gulfport Mississippi 2008
      • Honduras 2012
      • Honduras 2015
      • Honduras 2018 >
        • NPH 2018 photos
    • Christian Formation
    • Sustainable Living
    • Worship
    • Youth Group
  • Calendar
  • File Cabinet
    • Donations - Electronic
    • Clerks Drawer
    • Elder/Deacon Resources
    • Policies and Procedures
    • Personnel and Budget Drawer
    • Media
    • Members & Metrics
    • Our Discernment Process
    • SHALOM
    • Directory & Deacons' Lists
  • Coronavirus Updates
  • Bridge Ministries Sunday