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| Four Fold Action, 2008, jfd+ |
We can so easily become stuck...comfortable. And when that happens to us, we become resistant to any and all kind of change. The longer we stay in that comfortable state...in the familiar...the more intransigent we get when alterations are suggested...when our faults are pointed out...when we are told that what we are doing may seem fine for us at present, but is really no good for tomorrow, for the next day. Anything that stays stagnant, unchanging, withers, dies and is forgotten.
We see this "comfort" argument in our government right now...on both sides of "the aisle". We can experience it in our homes, in particular around holiday times...We always "do" Christmas this way...the Christmas tree has to go there, it has always been there!...And we can experience that desire, need, and demand for comfort and familiarity in in our worship and church-land life...Jesus warns against that in today's parable of the absent vineyard owner and the sending of reminders of right-action, which reminders are ignored and abused.
We are called as followers of Jesus to be always morphing and changing and challenging expectations of comfort. In particular in this short Season of Advent we have just entered, we need to be aware of those actions in which we participate...those expectations of seasonal/holiday traditions...that can so blind us to our true calling.
Instead of falling into the trap of familiar customs and traditions, where in our community, in our neighborhood, can we help someone in need, a family perhaps, to experience the joy of God's love given to us so freely? How do we break the molds of traditions and comfort that bind us, and blind us to the message of Christ's birth?
Creating new traditions...re-creating what familiarity and comfort means by changing the lives of others, by opening our own...is part of what we are called to by today's passage from Luke.
jfd+
Copyright 2012, The Rev. John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
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