SAINT Bartholomew Anglican Parish

Have you ever tried to imagine the new heavens and new earth? I know that I have. I see myself surrounded by all my friends and relatives including the ones who died when I was a small child or before I was born, listening to their stories and sharing mine. I picture a peaceful atmosphere full of the smell of flowers and the glow of the sun, and all around me the feeling of being loved. Of course, there's a catch in this passage – being found without defect and blameless in the sight of God. None of us is without defect or blameless under our own power. Therefore, we need God's help to achieve this, and even with God's help, we have a lot of work to do! Peter believed, as did all the early Christians, that Jesus would be coming back soon. They would have been surprised to know that two thousand years later, we would still be waiting. But the challenge is still the same. We need to do our best to live our lives following the way that Jesus showed us just as they did. I once heard someone say that it is easier to die once for Christ than to live each day for Christ. The first is a decision made once; the second is the decision to live for Christ every day. Every day we need to make choices to love, to forgive, to be truthful, and to be faithful, in our dealings with ourselves and with all those we meet. The older I get, the closer to that "new heavens and new earth" I get. Although my children might like me to live forever, I know that that is unrealistic! Because of my faith in the promise of Jesus, death holds no fear. May you be able to say the same.

Jesus warned the people that false prophets would arise and now Paul is doing the same thing. It is important for us to heed this warning as well. The devil works in ways that always seem reasonable. Lies are made to look like truth, and division weakens the whole. Paul goes on to warn that some of those false prophets will come from within the group. One would think that it is easy to distinguish truth from fiction, but it's more difficult than we think. Usually, these lies are hidden in some truth. We think that if part of what we are told is true, then the rest of it must be as well. Media is a perfect example of how this works whether the lie is hidden in a picture, music or written message. Sometimes the message is subliminal. In the old western movies, all the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black. The message? White is good, black is bad. Left-handedness was considered an evil sign at one time. Jesus was portrayed in art as blond and light-skinned even though as a Jewish man from the Middle East, he most likely would have had dark hair and dark skin. Hi**er used false information, lies repeated over and over in the news media of the time to convince people that the Jews were the "murderers of Jesus and should be annihilated." The Bible was misquoted to convince people that slavery was the will of God. Today, justice and morality are victims of the media. According to the media, there is no more sin, the commandments are old-fashioned and we are free to indulge every desire for pleasure whenever and wherever we find it. We spoke of freedom yesterday. Freedom is given so that we can love; it is not a license to do whatever we please. Let us be careful to stay close to Jesus and not follow false prophets who want to tear Christianity apart.

How well are we doing loving one another? I'm going to start with the family! If your family is anything like mine, you will have at least one person who doesn't speak to another person. Sometimes that one person wants YOU to choose sides. What do you do? Then there's the neighborhood. Feuds happen. What is your response? Moving on to the workplace, do you treat all your fellow workers with equal kindness and generosity? Your family, neighbors and maybe co-workers know that you are Christian. For them, you are an example of the faith that you – that I – profess and there are expectations. We are all God's beloved children. He doesn't play favorites and doesn't expect us to as well. Jesus gave us one command: love one another. I didn't hear any exceptions in this Gospel passage. Sometimes a simple smile can change a person's day. We are usually good when there is a crisis. We send sympathy cards or a meal to someone who experiences a loss. We might help babysit for someone who has a family emergency. But in the everyday, it's how we show respect, courtesy, kindness – love – that lets others know that we care. There's an old story about a monastery where the monks are told that Jesus is one of them. They began to treat each one as if he were Jesus and before long, people flocked to the monastery because of the love they witnessed among the monks. Well, Jesus is among us. He lives in each of us. If we begin to treat everyone as we would treat Jesus, what wonders we might see in our families, our neighborhoods, our workplaces and our churches.

The "law," or "principle," that reigns in the natural man is that of sin, which leads to death. A principal of life works in the believer, however, and this is the work of the Spirit. And the life that He gives sets us free from the dominion of sin and death, for greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.