{"id":1580,"date":"2020-11-15T17:15:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-15T22:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2020-11-15T17:27:21","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T22:27:21","slug":"11-15-the-24th-sunday-after-pentecost-faith-not-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"11\/15 The 24th Sunday after Pentecost:  Faith &#8211; Not fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. 1 Thess 5.11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Yesterday I watched as a turkey vulture, a seagull, a red hawk and several crows, all sailed and circled over the breezy sunny countryside \u2013 hardly flapping their wings at all, they floated, hovered and turned on the wind upholding them.\u00a0 In our world gone mad and reveling in division, it was a beautiful and inspiring sight to see these very different birds in the same landscape at the same time, being birds \u2013 flying not clinging to a branch \u2013 lifted and soaring on a power beyond themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Speaking to the Thessalonian Christians, Paul ever the encourager \u2013 speaks of faith to a people caught in a time of persecution and division.\u00a0 In a world which feeds on doubt, fear and uncertainty \u2013 to speak of faith might seem na\u00efve.\u00a0 But as the Church \u2013 faith in Jesus and salvation \u2013 is our offering to a world in need of encouragement.\u00a0 Faith is the only counter to the fear that is proclaimed by the world at every opportunity.\u00a0\u00a0 The story of the servants and the talents shows what happens when we live in fear and allow it to overtake our lives.\u00a0\u00a0 The man with only one talent \u2013 certainly understandably was afraid and fearful of losing what little he had.\u00a0 But he never moved beyond the fear and ultimately lost everything.\u00a0\u00a0 In our lives fear may be our initial reaction to what is happening around us \u2013 but it need not be our final reaction.\u00a0 And this is where faith comes in.\u00a0 Fear has the power to paralyze but faith provides a great reserve of power and resource \u2013 the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Guide. \u00a0\u00a0Great is God\u2019s faithfulness and may our own faithfulness rise with the Spirit to share in His.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>God of love, you pour out your Spirit in abundance on all those whom you call to serve you in Christ.\u00a0 Grant us the faith, wisdom, and love to make use of all your gifts, small and great \u2013 to banish fear \u2013 and to serve the coming of your Kingdom, through our Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/?p=1580\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">11\/15 The 24th Sunday after Pentecost:  Faith &#8211; Not fear<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1586,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsharlem.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}