Pastor’s Message – August 20, 2019

Mixed Fruit Wonder

When I was eating at the Waffle House in West Point recently, I asked them to hold the toast on my “order over medium plate, steamed.” They did, but I did not ask them to hold the jelly, too. Right in the center of the plate was a plastic container of mixed fruit jelly. It was in one of those containers where you peeled back the “lid” to reveal about two teaspoons worth of jello-like sugar. This small packet of sugary goodness brought back wonderful memories of eating at Waffle House on the way to the beach when I was a child. I would get so excited to see what kind of jelly they would give me to go with the toast. Grape was my first choice, but mixed fruit was the one I thought was so cool. I wondered how many “fruits” were in that little plastic rectangle and how they could fit so many into such a small space. I wondered if grape and strawberry, which came in their own containers, were part of the mixed fruit. Unable to read the fine print of ingredients, I had no idea real fruit wasn’t in the list.

This is the kind of wonder we have as children. This is the kind of wonder we adults so often leave to children. As we so often cast aside small packets of jelly, we can easily become dismissive of the small things that are trying to reveal deep truths about God to us.

This Sunday we will conclude a month of celebrating ministry WITH youth and children. I hope you have recaptured some of the joy and awe of younger years in the remembrance that we are all God’s children, working together across generations. Let us continue to keep our eyes open to the “little wonders” through which God longs to speak to us.

all good things to each of you,
Pastor Darian

Lectionary Texts for Sunday, August 25, 2019
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

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