“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

 Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

We hear the Gospel, that we might know more completely how to love, and when we fail – because we do fail – we are given the key to God’s heart, the key to the vast treasure of God’s mercy that stands ready for us to take. God offers each of us the key to a heart filled with true pleasure, true love. I have recently been counselling several marriage couples through a previous divorce. I spend a good deal of time with folks looking at God’s love and mercy and how to live in a loving relationship with your spouse. Today’s Gospel was not written to make people feel pain, but it can bring a former hurt to the surface again. God’s intention for us is to have companions and to share mutual love. When our baptized children stop going to church, when marriages fall apart, when priests use their office for their own selfish needs, or when family members and friends become estranged, we feel the pain of brokenness. Jesus wants us to see that in this broken world there is a life, a truth and a way that brings us to God’s Kingdom and to bring us the feeling of wholeness and the love that we all desire. Let’s keep that vision of God’s creation where even the least of us is loved and cared for. Jesus died that we might know that God forgives us for our past mistakes, but rose again that we might follow him to wholeness.

There is a lot of brokenness in the world today. My heart breaks for the young mother of three that died last week of Covid. Her children and friends cried with a sorrow that echoed throughout our church. Gabby captured the hearts of most of us because of a senseless loss of a beautiful young girl’s life. Most of us will feel the sting of the death of a loved one and the heart ache of a broken relationship. God sent Jesus to the temporal world where pain and sorrow are felt by all of us. Jesus walks with us through our pain and eventually back to wholeness. We pray every day for those who are hurting among us and it is by walking with each other at the most difficult of times when we feel the love and mercy of God.

The Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus came to this broken world, died, and showed us the path to resurrection. If you have been broken by the senseless acts of others or by your own mistakes, God wants to hold you in his arms and love you back to wholeness. In fact, God has a host of angels in heaven and a multitude of companions right here that want to nurse you back to the Kingdom of God. In this Kingdom, we love one another as we want to be loved. In Sacred Ground we say that we are working towards beloved community where we see all people through God’s eyes and not through any bias or hatred. Join us every weekday at 9:00 in the morning and you will join a beloved community. By praying for one another and worshiping God, we become whole by the mercy and grace of God. Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 KJV).

In Christ's love,

Fr. Duncan

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