Everything is really quiet today. It's unseasonably cold outside. I hear some birds but not as many as usual. It's a quiet day in churches that keep the liturgical year. It's "Holy Saturday."
On this day there is no celebration of the Holy Eucharist until after sundown. It's the day to commemorate Jesus' time spent dead in a stone-cold tomb. This is a day to enter into the desolation the first disciples of Jesus must have felt. Jesus was really, truly dead. If there was anything the Roman government knew well how to do, it was to execute trouble makers. And to them Jesus was a trouble maker. He had a following because he gave people hope. We especially remember that time he fed five thousand people at once.
When we get this quiet, we get alone with our own thoughts. Things that went flying past us last week come back to mind. In the silence, important issues of life and death bubble to the surface of our consciousness. We could contemplate world hunger, or global warming and its effects on the poor and underprivileged who have no defenders. I've been thinking more about an incident that happened closer to home.
A couple of days ago in Orlando, Florida, Eric Montanez of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was arrested for feeding homeless people. Montanez violated a law that "allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit." They can obtain two permits a year. The last time I checked, no one can live six months without food. I don't live in Orlando and I don't have an answer to their civic problems, but I can spot trouble even this far away. Why am I thinking that Eric Montanez reminds me of Jesus.
Pastor Linda
The Rev. Linda McCloud
Founding Pastor
The Episcopal Church of Our Savior at Honey Creek
www.oursaviorhoneycreek.org
When we get this quiet, we get alone with our own thoughts. Things that went flying past us last week come back to mind. In the silence, important issues of life and death bubble to the surface of our consciousness. We could contemplate world hunger, or global warming and its effects on the poor and underprivileged who have no defenders. I've been thinking more about an incident that happened closer to home.
A couple of days ago in Orlando, Florida, Eric Montanez of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was arrested for feeding homeless people. Montanez violated a law that "allows charities to feed more than 25 people at a time within two miles of Orlando city hall only if they have a special permit." They can obtain two permits a year. The last time I checked, no one can live six months without food. I don't live in Orlando and I don't have an answer to their civic problems, but I can spot trouble even this far away. Why am I thinking that Eric Montanez reminds me of Jesus.
Pastor Linda
The Rev. Linda McCloud
Founding Pastor
The Episcopal Church of Our Savior at Honey Creek
www.oursaviorhoneycreek.org
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