Just returned from "pre-lenten breakfast" at the parish. When I asked the volunteer who cooked the breakfast what sparked this tradition. She simply smiled and shared that maybe this would be the last time folks would enjoy "bacon" before Lent. She was not worried about how much food to make because in the past she always seemed to have enough food to go around. I envy this kind of trust.
Jesus reminds us to stop
"worrying" — worrying about food, worrying about the snow, worrying
about our looks, worrying about our 401K in order to retire. Jesus knew the real needs for sustenance and shelter. They were a
daily challenge for the average day laborer in first-center Palestine — as they
are in twenty-first century America. He knows how hard it is to make ends meet
— then and now. For folks in this faith community in order to make ends meet, you must do more
than farming. Some drive a school bus, others are collecting maple sap in their woods, some work at a grocery store, some do
child care in their homes, a few board horses with lots of mucking, some
sell online products to help pay their household bills. And its a fact, nobody retires
anymore, we all have to go back to work part-time to make ends meet.
Jesus stated, "your heavenly Father knows
what you need." However, he doesn't want to offer us just a daily full
plate. Jesus wants to offer us an eternity of overflowing platters. Not just a
life of sustenance, but a life of abundance. A life overflowing and brimming
over. A life that provides more than bread in our belly and a shirt on our
back. The journey Jesus invites us to join feeds our soul, and clothes our
mind, and fills our heart.
Before every car and every cell phone had its own
GPS device planted in it, we used to plan trips with a series of maps and guidebooks.
I used the Triple A" "trip-tick"
for mapping my camping journeys across the country. The travel agent would plot it with a magic-marker. The
"trip-tic" provided both regional maps, giving you an idea of how
much geography you had to cover, and small, individual maps, focusing on the
next fifty or one hundred miles. Off-ramps, restaurants, gas stations, rest
stops — the AAA trip-tick gave you the "heads up" on everything that
you were heading towards.
When we journey with Jesus we also get our own
personal guidance "system". But God doesn't produce subs
and blankets to see us through our kingdom-of-God journey. God doesn't
send us mere sustenance. God offers us abundance. So God sends us guides to be
with us and provide us with all we need to continue in our kingdom walk.
The guides are part of a divinely programmed guidance systems, that accompany us on our Jesus
journey towards the kingdom of God. If you join Jesus on "The Way,"
you can count on these guides... The Guide Within, The
Guide Beside, and The Guide Above.
God invites us to listen to his words and what do you
hear? “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead
me on a level path.” (Psalm 143:10).
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who struggle to
make ends meet. Help us to listen to our guides within, beside and above that
will feed us overflowing platters.
