Clay Jars

We have been called many things, but... clay jars? That's what Paul calls the members of his congregation in the church at Corinth. It applies to us, too. You'll find out how if you choose to read my sermon!

It was just 13 years ago this summer that I went to live in Israel for 5 weeks. I didn’t go as a tourist. I went as a volunteer on an archaeological dig that was sponsored by Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. My Hebrew professor at United Seminary in Dayton is good friends with the director of that dig; and he encouraged me to join the group even though I didn’t know a soul who would be there. It turned out to be a life-changing experience!

During those 5 weeks, I learned all sorts of things about archaeology. For example, I learned that archaeology in the Middle East is usually done on sites called tels. A tel is an artificial hill containing the remains of ancient cities, each one built on top of the one that came before it. Our tel, Tel Zayit, was a small one; it was only about three stories high.

I learned how Middle East archaeology works. We were working on a trench that had been dug from the very top of the tel all the way down to the bottom. It’s like slicing a pie. When you take out the piece of pie – or the piece of hill, in this case – you get a picture of the city from the most recent remains on the top, all the way down to the earliest remains down at the bottom. At the top of Tel Zayit, we found things from the Iron Age, from about the time of King Solomon. And way down at the bottom, where I was assigned to dig, we found things that we could date as far back as 1500 B.C. That’s long ago in the Bronze Age.

I also learned that what you find on a dig isn’t usually very glamorous. Despite what the Indiana Jones movies say, archaeologists don’t often find gold jewelry, or silver scrolls, or pagan idols with emeralds for eyes. No, most of what we found during our five-week dig was broken pieces of pottery. And that’s what most archaeologists find when they go digging in the Middle East: lots and lots of broken pottery.

There’s a good reason for that. In Bible times, metal cooking pots, cut glass serving dishes, and Corelle dinnerware didn’t exist. Instead, clay pottery was used for almost everything. Water was carried in pottery jugs, food was cooked on pottery bowls, and dinner was eaten on pottery plates. And when grain was set aside at the end of the harvest, it was stored in big pottery containers. Clay pottery was cheap and easy to obtain. Every family had a selection of clay jars for their household use. The only problem with clay pottery is that it was easily broken. Once it was broken, it was pretty much useless. Broken clay jars were tossed outside or thrown into a garbage pit if a family was fortunate enough to have one. A broken jar was just like an old cell phone is today. It’s really not much good except to be thrown away.

So it’s surprising that Paul should call the members of his congregation “clay jars.” (II Corinthians 4:7-12)  Clay jars were destined for the garbage dump after their useful but short life spans. Is that who we are? Are we just clay jars that are going to be broken and then thrown away? Some people might say that we are. After all, we’re a lot like the clay jars of Paul’s time. Human beings are common, just like clay jars. How many of us are there on planet Earth at last count? Something like 7 billion of us! We’re a dime a dozen! We’re very easily broken, too. If any part of us doesn’t work right, our whole body suffers. It’s not just our bodies that break, either. Our minds and our souls break sometimes, too. And we’re never too far from the clay that we came from. Ash Wednesday will remind us of that in just about 10 days. We came from clay and we’ll go back to that clay when our lives are over.

But there’s one big difference between us and those fragile clay jars that the ancient Israelites used for so many things. The Spirit of God fills us up; and that treasure that stays within us no matter how broken we are! Paul says as much: “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (II Corinthians 4:8-9) The treasure that fills us is not food or water or even stored grain – it’s the power of God to keep on keeping on even when it looks like we’re broken beyond repair.

Our model, in death and in life, is Jesus himself. Paul talks about that when he says, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” (II Corinthians 4:11) We are human, just like Jesus. And just like Jesus, we will die one day. Even though we don’t like to talk about it, our bodies are all in the process of moving towards the grave. The older we get, the more obvious that is. Our sight gets dim. Our hearing starts to fail. Arthritis makes us creaky, and our muscles just aren’t as strong as they once were. Beyond physical death, we carry all kind of other problems around with us. Even Jesus’ disciples did. Peter was a blowhard and a hothead. He was the one who boasted that he would never, ever deny Jesus! Remember how that turned out? Thomas didn’t believe that Jesus had risen from the dead until he saw the evidence for himself. What did he say? “Unless I see the wounds in his hands and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe it!” Even Paul himself was so mistaken about Jesus that he began his career by persecuting the early church and hauling Christians off to prison! Arrogant, doubtful, quick to anger, sure that they were always right – those were Jesus’ disciples. Does it sound familiar? It should. We’re just like they were. But despite all that, Paul says, we are filled with life – the life that comes from the mighty power of Jesus’ resurrection. We are like little paper cups holding the power of a nuclear reactor! We may appear to the world to be useless, but we are the channels of resurrection power that Jesus promises to the whole world through the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t matter to Jesus that we’re broken! It matters to Jesus that we let him use us, whatever his purposes are.

About 80 years ago, some pieces of broken pottery were unearthed at a dig in Israel. They had writing on them – writing that turned out to be letters from one Judean commander to another during the time of King Zedekiah. They are windows into a time that we didn’t know much about before. Although they’re just broken pieces of clay jars, they are priceless. Rejoice, fellow clay jars! We’re priceless, too! With the power of Jesus filling us, we offer the grace of God to people who never knew about it before. We may not be able to hold water, but with Jesus filling us, we can do amazing things. We can offer a listening ear and a word of encouragement to the lonely and afraid. We can bind up the wounds of the suffering and show them the compassion that God has shown to us. And we can bring love to the unloved and offer hope to the hopeless. Isn’t that amazing! All that from clay jars! Thanks be to God, who can use even broken clay jars for eternal purposes!

Letters of Recommendation

Church fights, gossip, accusations... We invented them, right? No, not really! Even the apostle Paul had his problems. This sermon considers his solution to opponents that he encountered in his Corinthian congregation. It might even have something to say to us today!

“There is nothing new under the sun.” That well-known proverb is from the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes (1:9b). We’ve heard it many times. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes goes on to ask, “Is there anything new of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’?” “No!” is the answer. “It was here already long ago; it was here before our time.” (1:10) And Ecclesiastes is absolutely right! There are very few things that are really “new.” Even though we may think our experiences are unique, almost everything has happened many times before.

That’s even true where church is concerned. The problems that our churches face today are nothing new. They go all the way back to the days of the earliest Christians. Even Paul, who started many of the first Christian congregations, had to deal with some nasty problems: church fights, splits in his congregations, and even other teachers who claimed that his understanding of the gospel was mistaken! In fact, that’s the background of his second letter to the church at Corinth, the letter that we now call the book of Second Corinthians. After Paul left his newly-founded church at Corinth, other people came to the congregation claiming that Paul wasn’t a very good pastor. They said, in fact, that Paul had given the Corinthians the wrong idea about Jesus and about the gospel message; and they split the congregation in half over what they said. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We hear about this kind of conflict all the time. If people like Paul’s opponents came to our church today, they would probably gossip that people here at Nashville aren’t very good Christians; and that maybe the church in the next town is a much better place to worship. They might even encourage folks looking for a church home to go someplace else.

How do you fight somebody like that? How do you respond to rumors that you really don’t know what he was talking about? What could Paul write to the church at Corinth that would help to heal the split in the congregation that had resulted from this gossip? Paul responded by writing the portion of II Corinthians that we heard this morning (II Corinthians 3:1-6). “Surely I don’t need a letter of recommendation, do I?” he asks. “You yourselves are my letters!” Paul is saying, in other words, “Think back to the time that I spent with you. Think back to the time when I first told you about Jesus. Think back to when you realized that Jesus was the Messiah. Remember how you felt? Remember how happy you were, and how you couldn’t wait to become a Christian? Why, your own experience should convince you that I told you the truth! And if anyone wonders whether I know what I’m talking about, your lives of love and charity will show them the results of my teaching. You are living letters of recommendation to everyone you meet!”

“Living letters of recommendation.” What a great idea! Our very lives, says Paul, are the most powerful arguments for the truth of the gospel. How we treat other people, how we choose to spend our money. even what we do in our spare time show the power of the risen Christ at work in our community of faith and in our lives as individual Christians. Why, we should be ready and rarin’ to tell people who we are and why we behave the way we do. We choose our actions so that they reflect as positively as possible on our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that doesn’t mean that we can’t ever make a mistake. We’re human, after all! But it does mean that maybe we should be a little bit more open about being Christians than we usually are.

Here’s what I mean by that. How often do we talk about our Christian faith outside our church community? Every day? Every week? Or would the roof collapse if we mentioned our faith in the line at Kroger? Think for just a minute: How do you respond when somebody comments, “I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you stay so patient, or so cheerful, or so optimistic.” (You fill in the blank with whatever positive aspect you see in your life.) To comments like that, we usually answer something like, “Oh, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.” That answer may be true; but it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth has is that through the Spirit, Jesus Christ helps us deal with what life throws at us. What might happen if we answered, “I can only do it because of the hope I have in Jesus Christ and the support of my faith community”? I know that’s true, because many people have told me that it is! How do we get through illness, suffering, and grief? We do it because we hang on to the gospel truth that God loves us; and Jesus Christ has prepared an eternal home for us; and the Holy Spirit walks with us every day of our lives until we get there! That’s how I get through it, anyway. And I’ll bet the rest of you do, too.

So… why don’t we say more about that? We may be letters of recommendation, but most of the time we keep our envelopes sealed tight. Although we have lots to say about our faith in Jesus Christ and the difference that he makes in our lives, we hardly ever talk about it! Maybe that’s because we don’t think we’ll do a very good job of it. We think to ourselves, “Oh, that kind of talk is for preachers. Besides, suppose somebody asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer! I’d better not say anything at all.” But did you listen to what Paul wrote to the Corinthians? “Our competence comes from God,” he said. “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, a covenant not of the letter, but of the Spirit.” In other words, don’t worry if you don’t know the answers to all the questions that somebody might ask you. After all, we’re not encyclopedias, we’re letters of recommendation. People don’t start coming to church because they have all their questions answered. They start coming to church because they see that it makes a difference in someone’s life!

Even folks who have never darkened the door of a church might try it if they hear what a difference Jesus makes in our lives. After all, we have the same worries whether we’re longtime churchgoers, or don’t know the difference between the aisle and the altar! All of us are stressed out with too much to do and too little time to do it. All of us are worried about the future. We’re afraid that one day, we won’t be able to get by with the skills we’ve learned. And we’re all secretly terrified that people don’t care about us, regardless of what they might say. Our faith in Jesus Christ is the answer to all those concerns. A real boom in church growth might happen if we became the marketing strategy for God’s glory! Nicely furnished lounges and coffee bars and innovative programs don’t bring people to church. We do!

Maybe it will help to remember the show Sesame Street. Every episode of Sesame Street is “sponsored” by a letter – the letter T, for example. As living letters, we sponsor something, too – but it’s not a children’s TV program. We are sponsors of the Lord Jesus Christ, agents of the Holy Spirit as God works to draw all people into the plan of salvation. Wow! What a privilege! May God help us to be brave and faithful and loving as we work to be persuasive living letters of recommendation of our Lord!

 

The Great Parade

Question: Where can you find a parade in the New Testament? Answer: in 2 Corinthians; and we're all a part of it! In this sermon, I consider this parade and some of the people who are in it. Were you surprised to find yourself there?

I love parades! There is nothing like a good parade to lift your spirits! I love Memorial Day parades, Fourth of July parades, Thanksgiving Day parades, and of course – my all-time favorite – the Tournament of Roses parade on New Year’s Day! It boasts elegantly-decorated floats; the best of the best college and even high school bands; and skillful riders astride beautifully groomed, matched horses. I watch as much as I can on TV as I’m getting lunch ready on that first day of the year; and I always wish that I could watch just a little bit longer.

But the parade in Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth – the “triumphal procession” that he talks about – that parade is nothing like the Tournament of Roses! No, the parade that Paul references is a victory parade sanctioned by the Roman senate to honor a conquering hero. Instead of floats and bands, such a parade would have contained the spoils of victory – slaves bound with chains to present to the emperor, exotic animals from conquered territories, and piles of gold, silver, and jewels. A procession such as this one was intended to fill onlookers with awe at the power of Rome, and with resolve that they would never, ever try to revolt against that power.

And Paul – skillful writer that he is – turns this image of conquering power on its head! He changes the whole parade, substituting Jesus Christ for the war hero, and replacing the smell of fear and sweat with the sweet scent of incense. In less time than it takes to tell about it, the victory procession is changed from one of war to one of worship, with Jesus Christ leading the way. And we are no longer onlookers, suitably impressed with the power of Rome; no, we are participants in that parade, helping to spread the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his power of love like the scent of incense is spread around the alter during a service of worship. Who, then, are the onlookers? Why, they are the ones who have never heard the Christian message and are invited to join in the parade! “We are… the aroma of Christ,” says Paul, “among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. [And] we do not peddle the word of God for profit.” There are no greedy televangelists in this parade who invite onlookers to send in $50 if they want Aunt Mary healed of her cancer. On the contrary, says Paul, “in Christ we speak… with sincerity.” The only purpose of this parade is to invite others to join in the worship of Jesus Christ and praise to God.

It’s a very long parade! Of course, it wasn’t very long in Paul’s day. It was made up only of the apostles and of the very earliest Christian believers. But today, it has grown to immense proportions! It’s like the white-robed multitude described in the book of Revelation that “no man could count.” It contains men and women, rich people and poor people, educated people and those who can’t read a word, saints and sinners and everybody in between. Some of them, like Paul, are great thinkers: men and women who understand their faith in new ways and offer those insights to us. But not all of them are thinkers.

Some of the people in the parade are mystics, people who see visions of a reality that most of us can only imagine. One of those is Hildegard of Bingen, who lived in Germany in the early 12^th century. Hildegard began having visions when she was a middle-aged nun. She tells about it in her own words: “And it happened… that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. ...It kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming… and suddenly, I understood [many things].” She began writing down her visions so that other people could benefit from them too, spreading the insights that had blessed her. And she became convinced that secular rulers needed to be reminded of their responsibility to Jesus Christ, too. She wrote to Henry II of England, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and even to Pope Eugenius himself. Like Paul, she didn’t “peddle the word of God for profit,” but proclaimed the Christian message as she understood it.

Still others are practical men and women who are more ready to pick up a hammer than a book. Father Damien, for example, went to Hawaii as a missionary in 1863 when he was 23. He built churches for 9 years; and then, he volunteered to minister to the lepers on the island of Molokai. In those days, leprosy was seen as God’s punishment, just as some people understand AIDS today. Lepers were sent to die on the tiny island of Molokai where they lived without family, without medical attention, and without hope. Father Damien went to Molokai knowing that he could never leave. He built homes for the lepers, and churches where they prayed and sang together. He personally dug graves for them when they died. He shared their lives; and when he himself contracted leprosy, he wrote to his bishop, “I am calm and resigned, and very happy in the midst of my people.” Damien spread the fragrance of Christ to some of those who needed it most, offering up his own life in the process.

And there are lots of people in the parade whose names we don’t know – and we might be very surprised to find them there. Some of them might not even claim the name “Christian,” although the spirit of Christ shines through them as bright as the sun shines through a stained-glass window. One of these people is Sandy. Let me tell you about Sandy. Sandy was a street kid who had been abused and abandoned by her own mother. As a child, she had been beaten and told that she was worthless. When she finally ran away to escape the abuse, she was suspicious of everyone, and her first response to problems was frequently violence. One morning, years after Sandy had taken to the streets, she told her friend Edwina that it was her mother’s birthday, and that she wanted to visit her and take a gift. Sandy had bought a single red rose in a glass vase. When Edwina protested that her mother had offered her nothing but abuse, Sandy responded, “She’s still my mom.” But when they arrived at the run-down apartment, no one answered the doorbell. A neighbor, roused from a drunken hangover, growled, “She don’t live here no more. Been gone about six months.” Sandy cried like a baby. Over the years, Sandy got a steady job, rented a small apartment, bought a used car, and even acquired a GED. One day Sandy told her friend Edwina, “Now, I’m going to adopt three kids from group homes.” When Edwina protested, that it would be too difficult for her, Sandy replied, “I can do it. It’s what I want to do because if somebody had done that for me – if somebody had given me a home and loved me – I would never have gone to the streets.” Edwina was astounded. “Sandy, who had never been loved or nurtured, drew from a reservoir of compassion deep within herself which left me astounded and awed by the power of God’s grace. Sandy, the runaway, homeless street girl – Sandy, who was never mothered, never loved – gave the homeless a home, and she loved them.”

Sandy is a part of the great parade, too, even though she would probably laugh at the very idea. But I can smell the fragrance of incense around her. She has forgiven her abusive mother and given three children a stable, loving home because she never experienced that herself. Who but Christ can bring about a transformation like that? The Great Parade has all kinds of people in it: thinkers, mystics, poets, builders, writers, teachers, parents… maybe even some pastors! And it is less like the Tournament of Roses parade than it is like the parade of athletes into the Olympic stadium. Those of you who watched the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday evening saw that parade. Into the stadium they came, waving their country’s flag proudly as they proclaimed who they were and whose they were. They may not have met each other until that evening. They come from a variety of places and specialize in a variety of sports. But all of them are proud to represent their country as they perform as best they can. And we do the very same thing for Jesus Christ. From a variety of places, with a variety of gifts and talents, we represent Jesus Christ as we spread his love to everyone we meet and invite them to join in the parade!

I hope that you are proud to be a part of that parade! I hope that you are proud to join a group of saints that stretches back in time over two thousand years! I hope that you are proud to represent the one who lived for us, died for us, and rose again so that we might be transformed into his image! And then, I hope that you are the very best Christian that you can be, so that everyone you meet will want to join the parade, too.

 

Groundhog Day

What does Groundhog Day have to do with our Christian witness? You might be surprised to learn that this silly holiday is all about hope, something that Christians should have in abundance. And "hope" just happens to be the topic of this sermon!

Hasn’t this been a winter?? It has been a real doozy! We have experienced all kinds of winter weather during the past two months. We’ve had more than our share of ice and snow – in fact, we broke the previous snow record for January – not to mention the kind of bitter cold that usually occurs only much farther north. Fifteen below zero with wind chill temperatures even lower than that – yeah, we’ve had winter, all right! Now we’re right in the middle of it. Six weeks down, six weeks to go until spring officially begins on March 21^st. And today is Groundhog Day, our official midwinter holiday. Only Americans could invent such a crazy holiday. What happened this morning in the little town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania? At the crack of dawn, several dignitaries dressed in top hats and tails coaxed a large rodent out of his den, held him up in front of a big crowd who had also gathered at the crack of dawn, and offered a long-term weather forecast based on whether or not that rodent saw his shadow. To add to the silliness, all this was televised and watched by several million people.

And it doesn’t stop there. When I looked up “Punxsutawney Phil” on the internet – in case you didn’t know, that’s the official name of the groundhog – I found a website named “Groundhog Stuff.com.” You can check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me. This site offers all sorts of groundhog souvenirs – mugs, scarves, hats, and tote bags. They even sell envelopes of Phil’s Hot Chocolate Mix and groundhog wine bottle stoppers! (If you’re planning to visit Punxsutawney, by the way, you can stop by Punxsutawney Phil's Official Souvenir Shop located at 102 West Mahoning Street.) A typical American holiday, you might say – another way to rake in money from people who have nothing better to do than to engage in midwinter tomfoolery.

But… let’s take another look. Groundhog Day might be a lot more serious than it appears to be at first glance.  It isn’t really about a rodent making long-term forecasts. We have Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel to do that for us. No, way down deep, Groundhog Day is about hope. It’s about the hope that this year, spring will break out in February! It’s the hope that one morning soon, we’ll wake up to robins singing under a clear, blue sky. It’s the hope that when we go outside to get the mail, warm breezes will caress our faces, and little green buds will dot the tree branches. It’s the hope that winter’s bleak, bitter cold won’t get the last word, after all!

We Christians understand the importance of hope. Hope is what keeps us going. An old proverb says with confidence that “hope springs eternal.” But hope doesn’t spring eternal, not for everyone. Lots of people have no hope at all. They are convinced that love isn’t real, and that miracles are impossible, and that eventually we die and that’s that. Period. The end. But that’s not what we believe! We see hope all around us! We have hope in the power of God to create and to recreate; and we have hope in the power of Jesus Christ to defeat even death; and we have hope in the power of the Holy Spirit to work miracles. If you don’t believe me, ask Beth McAllister about her son, Logan. (You can read the whole story in the February, 2014 issue of Guideposts magazine.) Logan was 7 years old when he became desperately ill from a strep infection that attacked his kidneys – an infection that did not respond to drug therapy. Logan went into kidney failure and was put on dialysis. His condition became so critical that the doctors were afraid that he would go into cardiac arrest. But Logan’s parents had hope. They asked several churches to put Logan on their prayer chains. You might guess the end of the story. When the McAllister family returned to the hospital for Logan’s next session of dialysis, they found that he didn’t need it. Against all odds, his kidneys had begun working again.

Hope is a powerful thing. But let me be clear – hope doesn’t guarantee that we will get what we want. Anybody over the age of 5 knows that life is uncertain. Sometimes things turn out; sometimes they don’t. But that shouldn’t cause us to lose hope! God has our back; and sometimes God answers our prayers in ways that we never even imagined! Just 10 years ago, a charming little movie came out that illustrates this beautifully. That movie, Angels in the Outfield, was about two young boys in the California foster care system who were huge fans of the Angels baseball team. The younger boy, JP, was always upbeat. “It could happen,” he would say, flashing a dazzling smile. The older boy, Roger, had been sent to foster care by his widowed father. He wanted nothing more than to be a part of a family. Early in the movie he asks his father, “When can we be a family again?” “When the Angels win the pennant” was the sarcastic reply. And so, that night, Roger said a prayer. “God… if there is a God… If you’re a man or a woman… if you’re listening, I’d really, really like a family. My dad says that will only happen if the Angels win the pennant. The baseball team, I mean. So, maybe you can help them a little. Amen.” And the Angels – the woeful, can’t hit a ball, can’t catch a ball, can’t steal a base Angels – started to win games. Lots of games. Because heavenly angels – angels with wings and halos – were helping the batters bat, the pitchers pitch, and the fielders field. Sometimes they even helped the runners run! And Roger was the only one who could see them as they helped the team. Midway through the movie, Roger’s father abandons him to the foster care system; and Roger gives up hope of ever being a part of a family. But JP’s irrepressible response is, “It could happen!” In the end, Roger does, indeed, become part of a family. He is adopted by none other than the Angels’ coach who has grown to love him as a son. And did I mention that the coach adopts Roger’s friend JP, too? Roger’s prayer is answered in a way that he could never have imagined. And as the movie ends, the Angels win the pennant.

No, we don’t always get what we hope for. But sometimes we get something even better! After all, what we hope for is only what we can imagine. God can bless us far beyond our own imaginations. But hope doesn’t always come easy. Faithful Christians lose their hold on it now and then. Even in this congregation, I hear comments from folks who just aren’t sure what the future will hold for us here at Nashville. They say that we’re an older congregation; that we don’t have many young people anymore; and that people just aren’t as interested in church as they used to be. And all those things are true. But ages, numbers, and interest have never stopped God! Abraham’s wife Sarah gave birth in the geriatric ward; God took a rag-tag bunch of Egyptian slaves and made them into a nation; and Jesus started with only 12 people following him. I’m not ready to lose hope in our future just yet! Why, just pick up a copy of last year’s annual report and leaf through it. You’ll see just how much ministry we’re doing, both in our own congregation and in the communities around us. Listen to the reports of answered prayer that we hear every Sunday during worship! We hope, and we pray, and God answers those prayers. And then, trust in God to lead us into the future! If this time last year, someone would have told me that we would receive both a generous bequest and a long-term contract with a cell phone company, I would have smiled politely and responded, “Sure, we will.” But you know what? We did receive that request and we did receive that contract; and now we have some breathing room to both make needed repairs on our physical facilities and to begin new ministries.

Don’t give up hope. Don’t ever give up hope! Paul witnesses to that hope in his second letter to the church at Corinth: “On God we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by our prayers.” So on this Groundhog Day, I choose to hope. Not in a prediction of an early spring from a ground-dwelling rodent, but in the power of God to surprise us with blessings that we never even imagined! Revitalize an aging congregation? Begin new mission ministries? Have hope for the future? As JP would say, “It could happen!