What does it take

Returning to work after some time away is always overwhelming. Whether one has been away because of vacation, illness or other matters the re-entry process can be tough! Really, I think that is why some people avoid vacation, don’t take off work when they should or drag themselves into their office sick and contagious. Having come back from a month of vacation I can sympathize with the temptation. But now a week back into the reentry it is all coming back to me.

This morning I was reading the gospel for the day (John 6: 60-71) I was interested in a phrase: But among you there are some who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. I was remembering the night before when the Democratic National Committee was having its opening night in Denver. A lot of talk about ‘loyalty to the party’ is big at these things. Is the opposite of loyalty – betrayal? Is there something in-between or not? It seems a little scary to me, but, I think I really understand what Judas was up to and what he was thinking during this time with Jesus. Judas didn’t think Jesus knew how to manage his own campaign. Judas was unable to hear of a new image of the Messiah of God and thought that if he pushed the envelope a little Jesus would come through and the political savior of Israel. I ask you – is that really betrayal? It certainly turned out that way – but was it really intended that way. Judas had become tired of waiting for something to happen and thought he could make it happen. Been there and bought the T-Shirt on that one.

Human relationships are complicated and most of the time I am mystified by them. There is nothing as stressful as a broken relationship and there is nothing as beautiful as a relationship reconciled. Breaking a relationship can be as unintentional as tripping over a stick on the sidewalk or as intentional as planning and carrying out an act of vengeance. We break our relationship with God in much the same way. Intentionally, such as blaming God for our life, not saying our prayers or acting ugly or unintentionally, such as getting out of the habit of going to church, forgetting to pray or ignoring our Christian responsibility we slowly begin to crack the relationship of trust between God and us. Like our human relationships we are given opportunities to repair the relationship or not. Sometimes we think the relationship is beyond repair or other times we think we will wait for a better time or a better day.

We had a horrible event happen at All Saints last week. One of our parishioners was driving home and within a block of his house a tree suddenly fell on his truck, killing him. It occurred to that night that often times we don’t have better day or a better time than the time we have right now. Of course we can’t go around fearing some freak accident, but, it does serve as a notice that we need to take care of our business of relationships as they are presented. From neighbors to marriages last week and this it seemed I heard stories of people struggling with relationships. Why is it so difficult to say I’m sorry or You’re forgiven? We shouldn’t have to wait until someone is terminally ill or on the brink of disaster to finally want to repair a relationship, but, sometimes it takes that severe.