Rev. Valerie's Reveille

In the era of “Reality TV,” where bad behavior gets one elevated to celebrity status, even a modicum of self-control is ridiculed.   It has no sense of drama or angst associated with it, and so it fades into the background with other traits like honesty, wisdom and responsibility. The last mentioned fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:23, self-control usually gets relegated to diet-related aspects of our behavior, “If I had more self-control, I wouldn’t eat this donut.”   But this is a superficial way of engaging in a crucial part of our spiritual lives. As St. Paul writes to the Romans, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:18b-19) It seems to be part of human nature to work against our better selves, to work against God’s will in our lives, even when we know better.  Relying on the ideal of self-control as a something initiated from within the individual sets us up f...

As I have mentioned before, I am a recovering English teacher.  I have a fascination with words and their roots - their etymology - because it defines the core of a word, where it came from and its original meaning.  Usually such archaeology is helpful in understand a words meaning in a modern context, such as passion really means “suffering” and the prefix pur- of the word purpose means “fire.”  Uncovering origins is also helpful in other areas of our lives, as we seek to understand the causes of things in our lives, whether that is stress, fear, gratitude or hope.  We are blessed that our Gospel lesson for this week from John 9 also seeks to understand the cause of a man’s blindness; and (as luck would have it!) we will have our Lenten Healing Service on this Sunday as well.  A great confluence of events! The characters in the Gospel seek to know why a man is blind and offer the interpretation that it is a manifestation of God’s disfavor due to sin, eit...

In Charles Dicken’s classic tale Oliver Twist , the protagonist asks, “May I have some more, sir?” The responds is less than cordial, informing Oliver that he will need to earn his keep and he should be grateful for what he gets.  Unfortunately, many of us have this or similar experiences in life, when everything seems to be in short supply, especially money, time and energy.  It can greatly affect the way we look at life and live it – starting from a place of scarcity and needing to stockpile things in order to feel any sense of security. It may be helpful to think of the spiritual fruit of generosity as a balm for this approach to life.  We need to be healed from the fear and anger that comes with the disease of scarcity in order to acknowledge and feel the reality of God’s abundance.  There is always more from God, more than we can ask or imagine – and I know we have great imaginations.  It might not be what we think we need, like more money or security,...

Kindness – it can be a banal description of a person when someone doesn't know what else to say.  It is not a negative trait, but it lacks the punch of “vivacity” or “spunk”.  And yet kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, and as such, it deserves to be rescued from being thought of as trite and elevated as a virtue to which we should aspire. Our popular culture would have us believe that kindness should be relegated to “Sunday School”, with “reality shows” glutted with people acting terribly toward each other for the sake of entertainment.   Any kind act is held in suspicion of “what’s in it for her,” rather than a sincere expression of goodness and offering of self.  Wouldn't it be something if our society would rather teach our children (and adults as well!) the value of treating each other humanely with kindness? There are times, in fact, when being kind is difficult or seemingly impossible.   We've had a bad day, when nothing seems to have gone r...

The PEACE of the Lord be always with you. And also with you. This week’s fruit of the Spirit is peace.  Each week during our Sunday morning worship, we offer the words above as the invitation to share the peace with each other before we share Communion.  These words and actions can become very rote, done without thought of what it really means to be at peace with one another.  When I was a child, I hated this part of the service because I had to look adults in the eye and constantly be asked if my sister and I were twins.  The passing of the peace was something to be endured, not enjoyed. At St. Barnabas, the sharing of the peace can be a bit intimidating to the “un-initiated” as most people get out of their pews and walk around to greet each other.  I sometimes feel like a schoolmarm having to call the students back to order after recess in order to continue the worship.  While I would much rather have this circumstance than a congregation full of t...