Your ministry needs a break, too.

Proper11B, St. Martin’s Episcopal, Moses Lake, July 21, 2024, by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP When a person is always on the giving side of an equation, that person needs some receiving, re-fueling, some de-stressing to re-balance oneself. Jesus’ solution is to go to the other side of the lake away from the people. We all need the chance to disconnect from the world and its needs to reconnect with God, to re-center our lives where they need to be in right relationship with God. We are no longer effective with others when we are exhausted. We need strength and the re-charging that rest and only rest can give us. Jesus takes those who are excited about where they are now in their lives and yet sometimes tired of the daily grind. He takes us somewhere quiet to reflect on our days. Being with God gives us time to place things in their proper perspective, time to hear God put our days into God’s way of understanding. God understands our day, has been present with it, and hears our doubts and questions, reinvigorates us to get up the next morning and do it all over again! Seems simple, doesn’t it? It’s beautiful when it happens that way, but realistically, most of us will at times cave and have difficulty seeing clearly and objectively and we become tired, burned out, unable to adjust for a while to where things appear to be more in balance. As followers of Jesus, we need a break. But the break we need is not an escape from responsibility. It is time to be with the Lord to be re-energized, re-focused, to be reminded of what we are called to be. This is what any prayer time is about. The problem is there are people out there in the world who need our help. They need resources and healing just like the people who walked the earth at the time of Jesus’ life on earth. We are called to the same ministry. We can almost hear the disciples saying, “Jesus! Energize us, cause the crowds are coming again, and there always seem to be more.” Jesus feels the pressure, too. Jesus gets tired, too. Jesus gets angry and frustrated, too. Who is this God, who in Jesus already understands disease that is just now coming to be realized in the twenty-first century? There is a mind-body connection that the medical community largely ignores, and many psychiatrists do not believe in God. The attitude to prescribe a pill and let people go about their “normal” lives which are anything but normal. Only certain forms of counseling/therapy and Christianity work at forging the mind, feelings, and body together into one cohesive whole. They are not separate entities as many modern-day practitioners would have you believe; they are interrelated aspects of the oneness of our persons. Jesus fought hard to dispel the belief that people become ill or fall into misfortune because somewhere they or their ancestors sinned. How can we teach others to look beyond their skewed notions of what other sources tell them whether it be the people in their social circles, the news, the newspapers, news broadcasts or the internet? Remember this: God is there for you no matter what. The prayer books, the rosaries, the pilgrimages, and the retreats are aimed at one thing: our connection with God. God knows our innermost being and will always be there to walk with us. We are never too far astray to come back to God. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” then get back in the saddle.

Spread the Gospel; Always

Proper9B, July 7, 2024, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Moses Lake by Sr. Annette Fricke, OPA Ever thought about the evolution of occupations? I use the term loosely to indicate what occupies the time of humans. Some things, such as counseling have existed for many years before becoming a paid occupation with titles such as ‘registered, certified, or licensed.’ Sometimes it is a gradation from lesser to more and other times appears to be a random change decided by others. It often subsumes duty, obligation, the job performed for others. A licensed counselor forms relationships. And yet, forming relationships is not just an occupation. It is something to which we are all called and which bids all of us to grow in relationship to each other. God calls us to be cultivators of relationships. A cultivator in the farming or gardening perspective loosens the earth and destroys or removes unwanted, unplanted growth. A grower tends to the plants to improve the plants or crops by way of cultivation. The function of a cultivator is to promote the healthy growth of the plants. However, despite careful cultivating, some crops will fail; some of our relationships will fail. Paul doesn’t give up on the Corinthians. Jesus does not give up on his disciples. The nature of faith is reciprocal. God loves us and is always open and accepting of us. God will not turn away from us. God gives us unconditional love. What is striking here is that when people reject Jesus, he doesn’t back down or retreat, he multiplies his efforts 12-fold by sending out his disciples. The awkward part, of course, is that we are also part of Jesus’ answer to the challenge of rejection. God’s love becomes effectual in us. It does us no good until we accept God’s love. In the absence of that acceptance or awareness of God’s love for us, we can have no relationship with God no with other people that has any meaning or depth. Relationships require reciprocity; otherwise, we are mere robots carrying out stipulations of duty, orders, job descriptions, what is supposed to be accomplished in a transaction in a business-like fashion. Or worse yet, there is total disengagement and disbelief. And Jesus’ message to the disciples is the same. If “they refuse to hear you,” move on to someone who in faith will accept God’s love. Jesus’ ministry and that of the early Church consisted “of preaching, teaching, and healing. When Christians throughout the centuries have been faithful followers of Jesus and the early church, they have continued the same threefold ministry.”1 The answer to rejection is not to simply give up, but to try a different method. Remember when Jesus tells the disciples that they will be able to do greater things than he? We are told that the disciples indeed were able to do what Jesus was not able to do. What Jesus did in his early ministry appears have to been transferred to the disciples. Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirits. “So, they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” Here is succinct and ample evidence of what the early Church of Jesus Christ felt was their mission and ministry in the world. This world was very different from ours. This was a time of poor traveling preachers and poor house churches, united in the meal-hospitality at the center of the Jesus tradition. It is here presented as another outbreak from the weakness of Jesus. While Jesus is unable, the disciples sent by him are able. The mission of the Church, in its simplicity and poverty, in its dependence on hospitable meals and housing, even in whatever success it enjoys, is rooted in the cross of Christ, in the presence of God as little and weak with the little and weak. Many are again living in a poor state like the early Christians. The numbers of homeless people have multiplied in recent years. But none of this type of environment stopped the early Christians. They were on a mission fueled by their passionate belief in God. Not even rejection allowed them to think that they should stop believing, stop preaching, stop teaching, stop healing and curing people. At the very least, Jesus’ ministry included laying on of hands on a few sick and healing them. Even in the weakness of Jesus, power breaks out, even in the situation of unbelief. In the seeming weakness and helplessness of Jesus dying on the cross, resurrection and the promise of eternal life with him occurs. Belief requires us to die to ourselves, to come before God in all humility, to allow God to transform our lives into God-centered lives rather than self-centered lives. Nobody can prevent the inbreaking of the kingdom of God and nobody’s disbelief will stop it. The kingdom is here and God’s power to heal is here, whether we believe it or not. 1. Healing and Christianity, Morton Kelsey, 1973.