Readings:
Isaiah 49, 3, 5 &6, I will make you a light to the nations.
Psalm 40, Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.
1 Corinthians 1, 1- 3, Grace to you and peace.
John 1, 29-34, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him.
Hi, Everybody, Welcome in.
Isaiah reminders—
Author: This is Isaiah #2, the composer of chapters 40-55.
Date: Ca. 555 before Christ. The Jewish people of Jerusalem are in the Babylonian Captivity.
Today’s Message: Hope and promise of a better time with emphasis on 1. being a Servant of the Lord, and 2. being a Light to the Nations.
"Come on in, Folks," sez Zoe.
A Light to the Nations
So, Rosemary says to me, “Hey, we are getting tired of hearing you talk about the Jewish Community Center. I was running past her my ideas about a homily for this morning. Therefore, I request your tolerance. One more time.
I went to this Center initially just to work out a bit, and especially to see how I liked spin classes. Four houses down from our house lives a youngish Jewish couple who have two kids now in college and a white dog, named Patty. Guess with whom Aviana likes to visit.
The excellent Candle Man of The Week, Ben.
The couple, Bud and Barbra, knew I did a lot of biking and kept encouraging me to visit the J, which is 10 minutes from our house. When I discovered I could get in free with my United Health card, Silver Sneakers, I started going.
For the first six months I found the exercise good but there was little camaraderie among the riders. People came and went without as much as a word. The next six months I began to learn names and started greeting everyone and talking. Today there is a lot of camaraderie.
What a treat, Folks, Buddy is still awake.
So it happened one morning while walking to the room where the bikes are that I began to talk with a guy I knew and liked named Mike, a guy in his early 50’s, very personable, smiling all the time, and Jewish.
I had been reading some fictional works on the Holocaust. So I feel comfortable enough to ask Mike about himself. “Where is your family from, Mike?” “From Poland,” he responds. “Wow,” I think, “the Holocaust was horrible in Poland. Like Auschwitz is near Warsaw and Warsaw was the scene of the Warsaw Uprising.”
I see you Ben, and I cannot say that a little mouse did not swipe your cupcake last week. Be nice to me and we'll see what might happen. Even Carol is watching you from behind you..
So I ask, “Mike, how was your family effected by the Holocaust?” “We lost over 80 members of our extended family.” I cannot believe what I am hearing. I am struck dumb. I am choked up. I feel like I am walking on holy ground, next to a Jewish saint. A bright light.
There is also a little lady named Haya in our group. I found out her birthday, got the class to sing to her one morning, and gave her one of those little Belvita cookie packages. I asked the lady who rides next to me how old she though Haya is. She says in her 80’s. So I ask her.
We are exactly the same age, 76.
Offertory team: Sir Charlie (who released him from time out!) & Jan, Bernadette & Gil.
I am stunned and really curious. How different was her life than mine? She speaks with an obvious European accent. So I invite her to lunch with me and Rosemary. I am betting that her first 18 years were a lot different than mine spent growing up in University Park .
We go to the Corner Bakery at Preston-Forest. She says she was born in a small Polish town in 1940, the year after the Nazis had invaded and occupied Poland. Her father and his two brothers had a business. Her father, however, must have had a premonition about how bad it might get.
Here they come, Folks, let's start the celebration, Olivia and Shonda.
He took the family first to the Russian zone of Poland, and then managed to escape to Marseilles, France, on the Mediterranean. From there they went to Israel when it was still a British holding. Finally, they escaped to New York, where she grew up. Her two uncles and all the extended family disappeared.
Again I am stunned and humbled to be in the presence of this person.
Our Best Man, Cowboy Cole.
I think all of us here and certainly myself, we hope to be light to others, like Isaiah promises. Often it is the light of others that touches me. Mike and Haya humble me, sensitize me, and focus a whole new light on my own life, how blessed I am and have been.
Who is a light for you?
And for whom are you a light?
Cowboy Cole, Take these Pagans out into the wilderness from whence they come and leave them. No more love for you two.