Uncertain Times

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."  So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,  where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."  --Matthew 2:13-15

And Joseph said to Mary, “Should we borrow against our 401K or take out a mortgage on the house?  Or maybe we should dip into Jesus’ college fund.

Sounds silly doesn’t it.  And yet we talk about these times as uncertain times.  What we often don’t realize when we say those words is that we are fortunate if we have even a small part of our lives in which we can be certain that we will have enough.

Times have always been uncertain for most of the people of the world most of the time.  The lives of the people of God are no exception.  Mary and Joseph didn’t count on the stock market or mutual funds.  They counted on the fact that God was with them.  When the first angel came to Joseph he said that the child would be called Immanuel -- God with us.  That is what they counted on.  They knew God was using them to be a part of this great message that God’s place is here among us.

I am no one to give advice on money or investments.  But I have learned, by what I have owned and what I have lost over the years, that there is nothing in this created world we can count on. It all may be taken from us.  Yes, we should be good stewards of what we have been given.  Sometimes that means growing and building on what we have.  Sometimes it means giving it all away.

We who have been called to be a part of the great work of sharing the good news of God’s love in Christ Jesus have something far more precious than the things of this world.  We have a relationship with the One who created it all.

This should determine our decisions about everything, including our time and our money and our lives.

 

We hold Mary and Joseph up as great examples of the faith.  They were poor their whole lives except in the riches of God’s grace.

Lord, Give us the faith of Mary and Joseph that we may be examples for others to show forth your love.  Amen

 

Copyright (c) 2009, The Rev. Dana Reardon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Email her at mspastor@aol.com.
 

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI.  A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care.  She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander.  She is still trying to understand the accent.  While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team.  That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.