Matthew 9:1-8 There are very few slow news days anymore. Every day, there are more than enough problems to fill columns of newsprint and hours of newscasts. The question is which story will rise to the top and get a piece of our attention. Recently, stories about mass shootings were among them. Last week in Boulder Colorado. Ten people, as innocent as any of us, dead. And we grieve it, as we have grieved so many other similar incidents. We had barely finished absorbing the details of another event in Atlanta the previous week, which cost eight human lives. When we hear about these violent incidents, one of the first thoughts we have is, why? What reason did this person have for committing such a terrible act? Why? “Why” is a fundamental question of life. We often ask why things happen. When a loved one gets sick, we ask: why? […]
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To Be Blessed
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 6:17-26 Rachel Naomi Remen is a doctor – she was, perhaps, genetically disposed to be a doctor. She comes from a family tree full of doctors and nurses. But in addition to all the medical persons in her orbit there was, she says, one mystic – her grandfather the rabbi. Her grandfather taught her about blessing. For her fourth birthday, her grandfather gave her a story. He said, Rachel, this is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning there was only holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. Then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. But then there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness in the […]
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