“By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

If your life has taken you away from the places of your childhood, a visit to your old home town can be quite startling.

Come to think of it, a trip through Matawan can be startling even if you’ve always lived here!

I made such an excursion to Jersey City some years ago. I took a typical tour down memory lane, first visiting the neighborhood that I had known as a teen, the last place I’d lived with my family. What happened to Mr. & Mrs. Schneider’s candy store that used to be on the corner? And the empty lot where we used to burn all the neighbors’ Christmas trees? Why were those condos there? I continued my drive down to Storms Ave, the street where my family had lived when I was a young child. I was pointing out the 2-family house, whose downstairs we rented from Mrs. Thompson. She lived upstairs. As I was pulling into the convenient space in front of #121, Mrs.Thompson’s name still on my lips, an elderly, no, an old woman was opening the gate. Oh yes, it was still the same gate. She continued walking toward my car, looked at me, and said, “Teresa?” to the 5-year old girl she saw in my then 50-year old body. How did she know me?

And how could she still be there? In that same old house with the same, though maybe a few generations of replacement, gate?

Endurance

The lessons today speak about endurance.

The word itself has a negative ring, like the Eyeore Theology of the pessimistic blue mule in Winnie the Pooh.

He loves to say “Oh bother!”

To him everything is a bother.

Eyeore endures. Painfully, humorously, he endures.

We usually endure what we cannot change.

Like the serenity prayer says: Change what we can, endure what we can’t change.

The people in Malachi’s time felt that way about their religion.

What was in it for them, to keep the law.

It was really quite a bother.

Other people around them didn’t, and look at them.

The arrogant were happy; the evil prospered;they got away with murder!

They’re tired of good living. It seems pointless.

Malachi tells them that it isn’t pointless.

It’s a bother that’s worth it.

That the Lord takes note and listens.

He even writes it all in his book.

I heard a story about some kids going through the lunch line in the cafeteria at Catholic school. On top of the counter was a large bowl of apples with a note “Take only one; God is watching.” At the other end of the counter was a bowl of chocolate chip cookies. On it was also a note, this one left by a kid going through the line. The kid’s note said: “Take all you want; God is watching the apples.”

So Malachi writes that the Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name.

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts,my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

By your endurance you will gain your souls. Maybe you’d like to cross-stitch and hang over your bed. A good saying to look at on a Sunday when it just seems like too much to get out of bed and get yourself to church. Or do any of the countless tiresome things your life requires you to do for the good of your family.

There’s a lot that changes. We move. We change jobs. We buy new clothes that suit us or fit us better. We make new friends, and sometimes lose touch with old ones.

Big changes. Health problems. Family difficulties. Wars; church factions. Nothing new.

Jesus today is telling the Jews that they will lose their Temple, the center of their life and identity as God’s people.

And there are things that don’t seem to change much. We come to church on All Saints’ Sunday and we sing that old hymn about wanting to be one too, a saint. And we smile again as we sing with gusto.

And Thanksgiving rolls around, and you’d better not even think of changing the stuffing recipe. What were you thinking?

There are times when endurance, faithfulness, showing up with the same people in the same place to do the same thing, is just so right.

Endurance, faithfulness, they say a lot about God. Because God just always is.

And to get your name written in God’s book,well that’s just a book we’d want to be in.

It won’t go out of print or get thrown out with the garage sale pile or be replaced by a new one. God’s faithfulness and endurance is what we all count on.

“Help, God, help!” we cry, when the chips are down,when the water is closing around our neck.

We know God is there. Always. Faithful. Enduring. Waiting perhaps?

For the same from us.

For us to get it that things just don’t give happiness that lasts. My fence and gate will need repair and eventual replacement; my new car will become my old car and my used-to-be car. My life, my relationships will end.

But far from being pessimistic, this is tails of the coin whose heads says “In God we Trust”. Only in faith, in relationship with God,

in love for God and our neighbor will we find true meaning for life, and for what lasts forever. That will get our names written in the book of life.

We can get weary. Paul spoke to the first-generation Christians about that as Malachi spoke to the chosen ones, generations before.

It is the same for us.

Faithfulness, endurance, for the long haul. What do we throw out; what do we keep; how do we handle the losses; in what do we stay faithful in a world where we live in constant change?

In my mind, Mrs. Thompson has always lived in that old house on Storms Ave.

How comforting it was to find out that it is true. Mrs. Thompson’s faithfulness
may not have been a deliberate choice; perhaps it was just how her life played out.

But God’s faithfulness is God’s very essence. And we, lucky us, are God’s chosen focus, at the receiving end of the faithful love and care that God wants to pour on us.

At the end, what will be written in God’s book about ours?

“By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

AMEN,
Rev. Teresa Suruda










KIDS



Show family album

Pictures grandmother, parents, family parties

Show parish picture

Show Bible- family story from the time God made the world

Important that we know our story

Thanksgiving is soon, time for families

Time to tell the old stories

Give thanks that we’re all part of the story of Jesus,

One big family together.







This week I was at Holy Cross Monastery for a program.

My friend Colleen was also there. Colleen is learning to walk again. A virus attacked her spine and left her paralyzed. After much treatment, and in constant pain, she is returning to a life very different from before. She told us how she was sitting in the dark, quiet chapel, with just the light from the sacristy on the huge black cross hanging over the visitors’ seats. She was complaining to Jesus, she said, as she was watching him, as she said, just hanging out there. And she heard a voice, clear as a bell, say “If I can do this, you can do that.”

All she could do was laugh.

Big change; big faithfulness required.

Big grace given to be faithful.