[media presentation below] GospelThink Wednesday, November 1, All Saints MATTHEW 5:1-12a I give you a summary of the moral life for a follower of mine. Prayerthoughts a. Jesus addresses the words to the crowds and therefore to me. Do I truly listen to all of the words that the Lord gives me? b. Poor in spirit: do I allow material things to dominate my life? c. Mourn: there is pain in my life, but Jesus and what he teaches is the answer to that pain. d. Meek: this is a direct statement against power and the people who want more power. Do I try to be more important than others? e. Righteousness: do I really work at prayer and closeness to the Lord, and desire to be a holy person? f. Mercy: do I reach out to the hurting people around me and help them if I can? g. Clean of heart: am I honest, sincere, chaste, and do I lie to protect myself? h. Peacemakers: do I really try to reconcile the factions that divide us? i. Suffer insult: I should expect criticism for trying to be a good person, but I should be a good person anyway. j. My prayerthoughts…   Today, I will read 1 John, chapter 3, and write an important thought from it. Some Thoughts on the Liturgy  THE MASTER DESIGNER           The Gospel reading is a familiar one to every Christian, namely St. Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes. Why is the reading so important? It introduces the major teachings of Jesus which Matthew gathers together in chapters 5-7 of his Gospel. It becomes a master design of living for the believer with Jesus being the Master Guide, that is, the person who is in charge of the direction of life.            Seen from the perspective of faith, our lives become fine tapestries that God and we prepare together. Each life then becomes a fabric planned and fashioned with God’s care. Part of the mystery in the weaving of a cloth is that we may not always see just how the weavings intertwine, but we must trust the Master Designer, the Master Guide. God can view the cloth that has been woven from the upper side, so to speak, and see a perfect pattern. You and I look at it from below, and from that vantage point, often the pattern is only a mishmash of threads and single strands.            As we look at the design from below, we cannot understand it, especially that part called suffering in whatever form it comes. The Christian—and this can only make sense for a believer—must be able to take that strand of suffering and continue to weave, continue to form the fabric called living. Our Master Designer has told us that this is the way to live and begin to view the cloth that we are weaving called life from God’s point of view, from the upper side, and see a perfectly woven piece of beautiful material.            The plan that God has in mind will only be known once we have weaved our part of it here on earth. It is our faith that the saints have their own plans now, while we are still living the plan, weaving our cloth. As the Saints did, we must continue to take all of the dark strands of thread and weave them with the silver and the gold of life, realizing that all of this life is a pattern that the Master Guide and we are continuing to work out            When one deals with the lives of the saints, we realize that there were always silver and gold threads among the dark strands. They managed to take all of the dark strands of their lives, and work with them to produce positive characteristics that can easily teach us how we should weave the dark strands in our own lives. As we study those characteristics, we realize that there are many things that we can learn.            This idea of a Master Designer is such an important idea. We do not know what God has in mind. We simply do not understand enough. We only know God’s basic plan as outlined today by Jesus in the Beatitudes. God knows that the plan of Jesus as Master Designer is what is necessary to make our lives make sense. We will continue to weave our part of the fabric and God will always weave God’s part and the design will always come out well, no matter what. We celebrate such a fact with the saints that we celebrate today.            No matter who we are or where we are on the pathway of life, we all must begin to view our own lives from the point of view of being guided by God. As we study the lives of all the saints of the Church on their feast day today, we can learn that and perhaps learn to weave our lives together with God a little better. MEDIA PRESENTATION Movie: “All Saints” — final session GOD’S WAY IS A SLOW WAY The Gospel MARK 4:26-29 Jesus said: “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and then rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

Gospelthink: I have made all things to help you as can be seen by the way I work with nature. Do I take the time to thank God for nature?

With the help of Ye Win and the refugees from Burma and even the most reluctant members of All Saints Episcopal Church in the movie “All Saints,” it seemed that God’s Will was about to bring about success. The church members had decided to build a farm around the church to allow the Karen to do what they knew how to do–farm for profit. And it seemed to be what God wanted. But, after ups and downs, successes and failures, the opposite soon became clear. Even though it seemed that God’s Will would be to keep the church open to serve the congregation with all the bills paid, no amount of work or personal sacrifice of Michael Spurlock or Ye Win could save the church. It would take the personal sacrifice of the bishop himself to keep the church open.

We believe that God is always present to us, always bringing good out of the situations in which we find ourselves. In terms of one of Jesus’ stories, the seed is sown–we can count on good coming from it. But often we do not see it work, that is, we wonder whether the presence of God is really bringing about good all the time. But the presence of God is always there–growing, even though, as Jesus says, we know not how. We achieve the harvest, that is, we see that God will always bring about the good that is necessary for our lives. The glory of the movie “All Saints” is the ability to see how God’s Will is working in every circumstance. At first, the church should have closed, then through Fr. Spurlock and his dream, it seems that God’s Will is to keep it open for the refugees to worship and work. With individual miracles, the farm begins to happen, the crop comes, and once again God’s Will seems to be to allow the church to function. But then tragedy happens, the dream is destroyed, and the people accept God’s Will that the church simply could not work out. The congregation even “celebrates” its closing. Then in the last minute, God’s Will again is to keep the church open. It is important to see in every turn that God was present. Just as the seed in Jesus’ story grew without anyone realizing it, so the presence of God was always at work in the ups and downs of life. Sometimes God’s way is a slow way. And being slow, we may not recognize the presence of God that is truly part of life. We want God to work with sudden miracles, and when we do not see them, we conclude that God is not at work for the good. We cannot see how good can come from certain negatives of life. But just as we know with certainty that the seed is growing in the earth, so we have the certainty that God is working for the good of the moment. Our faith is such that we too must slowly see that everything that happens is for the good of the people involved.

PRAYER Good and gracious God, one of the most comforting parts of our belief in You is that everything that happens is for our good. You are at work in every moment of our lives. May we have the grace to truly understand the good that You bring into our lives in every circumstance. Be with us, we pray.

+++++ GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT Theme: God will bring about good in life even when it is not what we wanted. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: (session: approximately 50 minutes) 1. What scene during this session of the movie is most striking? Why? 2. What is your understanding of the “Kingdom of God”? 3. What is your opinion about the way refugees are treated in our country? 4.The movie points out the real difficulty with believing that God brings about good all the time. We do not see it. How do you explain our belief to someone who has suffered a great loss? 5. Where do you see the presence of God at work in our lives right now?     6. What does the movie “All Saints” teach young people?