Sun. Jan. 27, 2008 (Janet Boldt)

Janet Boldt spoke on the general theme of “Suffering and Worship”. Even though suffering is common for Christians in Africa, this Sunday they are focusing on worship through serving—health, orphanages, food, unemployment, depleted land, refugees. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9) refers to people changing their point of view. We tend to think that suffering, death and dying are unacceptable themes unless fictionalized in literature and movies. Even though we know of suffering everywhere, we have no tears. Instead, we often feel numbness and helplessness. This means that we, like the people mentioned by Isaiah, need to change our point of view. North Americans are terrified of terrorists, shootings in public places, and unwanted immigrants, so we live in gated communities and create walls of fear as we seek security. Yet our fellow Christians in Africa—who have more to fear than we—call us to worship, not fear, to change our point of view, to repent and believe. The lectionary gospel reading from Matthew 4 told of the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness. For each temptation (fear of suffering hunger, loss of face, loss of power or control), Jesus rejected the obvious ‘earthly’ solution. Her refused to take shortcuts which would help him to bypass his life of ministry and service, or bypass the suffering of others and his own suffering. [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday Jan. 27th, 2008 using your browser's preferred media player.