Message from Augie

 “If you bring your offering to the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you-leave your gift there.  Go be reconciled first.”  That word first matters.

 Jesus does not say, make your peace when you can.  He does not say, pray about it.  He does not say, come back later to do it.  He stops the act of worship itself and places something else ahead of it.  RECONCILLATION.

That is hard work, because it rearranges our priorities.   It tells us that faithfulness is not measured only by what we offer to God, but what we are willing to face with one another.  It refuses to let us separate devotion from relationship.

In other word, Jesus is not raising the bar on religious behavior.  He is moving obedience closer to home.

That command sounds simple until we try to live with it.  Most of us do not resist reconciliation because we are cruel or indifferent.  We resist it because we are practiced.  We learn how to avoid what is uncomfortable.  We learn how to live with distance, how to delay, and how to become passive-aggressive rather than direct.  Over time, those patterns feel normal.  Familiar, even.  And what Jesus asks us to interrupt is not just a single moment of conflict, but the habits we have built around not addressing it.

We are after all, creatures of habit.

 SO THE QUESTION:    AS CREATURES OF HABIT, CAN WE FIND ROOM FOR CHANGE AND FORGIVENESS?

PRAYER TO ST. JUDE:  St. Jude, apostle of Christ, the church honors and prays to you universally as the patron of hopeless and difficult cases.   Pray for us in our needs.   Make use, we implore you of this powerful privilege given to you to bring visible and speedy help where help is needed.  Pray that we humbly accept the trials and disappointments and mistakes which are a part of our human nature.   Help us to see the reflection of the suffering of Christ in the trials and tribulations of our lives.   Let us see in a spirit of great faith and hop the part we even now share in the joy of Christ’s resurrection and which we long to share fully in heaven.   Intercede that we may again experience this joy in answer to our present needs.   If it is God’s dire for us (here make your request)  we know our prayers will be heard through your intercession.  AMEN