Scripture: Amos 8:1-12

It is not just you and it is not your imagination.  Everyone really is angrier today than they used to be.  A 2019 survey found that 84% of people believe that everyone is angrier than they used to be.  This same survey also showed that 42% reported feeling angrier than they used to.   A Gallup poll has been tracking this for years and starting in 2016 they noticed that the anger level of the average American has been rising.  In 2024 their findings show that 23% of people report being angry pretty much every day.  There are a ton of theories as to why anger is increasing.   One of the leading and sensible theories is that fear and feelings of uncertainty tend to lead to anger, and we seem trapped in a cycle of unprecedented times.   That tends to lead to a lot of fear and uncertainty.  

 On one level anger is an emotion, and like a lot of emotions we do not have a lot of conscious control over feeling the emotion.  However, an emotional feeling, the part we do not have control over, tends to last only about ninety seconds.   How we choose to react to that emotion is something we do have more control over, but anger is a hard emotion for us to react to rationally.  Anger is a very base emotion.  Anger tends to activate the fight or flight response in us.   This leads to all kinds of angry outbursts.  It leads to simple driving mistakes becoming full blown road rage incidents.  It leads to poor customer service workers getting yelled for things beyond their control.  It leads to people posting the most hateful and cruel comments possible online.  It’s not your imagination; people today are angrier than they used to be and the way that a lot of people are acting on their anger is down right ugly. 

It does not have to be that way though.  Sometimes we get angry over the silliest of things, and the best response is to just let that feeling go.  Sometimes though, our anger is warranted.  Sometimes anger is the right response because something is wrong.   In those instances, how we respond to our anger can actually be a positive.  In their book The Upside to your Dark Side, psychologists Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener that our anger when acted on appropriately can actually lead to higher creativity and more effective performance as we can throw ourselves into fixing what we are angry about.   They point out that research shows, when acted on appropriately anger can actually increase optimism because we begin to believe that something can be done about what we are angry about. 

 In this morning’s scripture God is angry, like really angry.  This scripture makes it really evident that we do not want to be on God’s bad side, but this scripture also points out what makes God angry in the first place. If something makes God angry, perhaps it should upset us as well.   Then we can use those feelings to fuel us in making this world a better place. 

There are sixteen books in the Old Testament named after prophets.  Chronologically, Amos is the first of those prophets.   Biblical scholars can place the time of Amos’ activity as a prophet between 760-750 BCE.  While Jonah and Hosea were contemporaries of Amos, Amos likely started his prophetic career earlier.  Amos was not the first prophet.   The biblical history books like 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and the Kings have prophets.   However, Amos started a trend that many of the other named prophets that came after him also followed.  The earlier prophets like Samuel or Elijah the almost exclusively focused on calling out idolatry and not being faithful to following God.  Amos and the others that came after him also did that.  However, Amos and those that came after him also spent a lot of time calling out injustice, calling out oppression, and calling out taking advantage of the poor.  It is this injustice that has God so hot under the collar in this morning’s scripture. 

In this morning’s scripture God’s anger is burning at the unfair and unjust commerce practices that were happening in the Northern kingdom of Israel.  The wealthy were cheating the poor to get more money for themselves, specifically in how grain was being sold.  They were using containers that contained less grain than they were supposed to and they were using scales that were weighted so that they could overcharge for less.  They also were mixing in chaff with the grain so that they could sell a greater quantity of inferior quality. 

Perhaps the most sinister injustice being practiced is described in verse 6: “buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.”  Over the years there has been some debate as to what exactly this verse means.  One of the leading thoughts is that wealthy people were lending money to the poor and needy to buy food.  As a symbolic collateral, the person borrowing the money surrendered their sandals to the lender.  When these loans could not be repaid, the borrower then entered a form of debt slavery to pay back what was owed.  The wealthy were lending money for food that they knew could not be paid, in order to get free labor-instead of paying a fair wage in the first place.  If that is the practice this morning’s scripture is describing, then it is absolutely evil.  It is a practice that had God furious. 

 One of the attributes of God that we see named and repeated throughout the scripture is that God is a God of justice.  We find this stated all over the bible. For instance, we find this idea in Deuteronomy 32:4: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.  A faithful God, who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”  We find it in the Psalms, such as Psalm 97:  The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad . . .righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne.”   We also find this idea expressed in the New Testament.  In 2 Thessalonians 1:6 Paul simply stated, “God is just.”  The prophets, like Amos, tell us time and time again that the type of injustice that seems to anger God the most is when the rich and powerful take advantage or exploit the poor and vulnerable. 

This scripture can cause us to ask the question, if God hates injustice so much then why does God allow so much injustice?   There is an old story that speaks to this.  The story goes that there was once a man who deeply troubled by the evil and the suffering in the world, so he decided to ask God.  He prayed and asked God to answer him one question.  He prayed this prayer, constantly, non-stop day after day.   Finally, a voice from the sky spoke to this man, and said “I will answer your one question, if you then answer one question for me.”   The man agreed and he asked his question, he asked, “Why do you allow things like hate, famine, war, suffering, homelessness, crime, and despair to exist in the world.?”   God responded, “That’s funny, I was going to ask you the exact same question!”

  Injustice and oppression is not some sort of natural disaster.  It is the result of human choice.  It all persists because collectively we do not work hard enough to stop it.  While human nature may be fallen and disposed to sin, through the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we can rise above that nature and we can resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.  God is a God of justice, who is angered by the mistreatment of the poor and vulnerable.  God is a God of justice, which means that the fully realized kingdom of God is a place absent of all injustice.  When take a stand against injustice, when we seek to address the wrongs of exploitation, and when we care for those that, others are taking advantage of then we are joining in with God’s redemptive work to bring about God’s kingdom. 

 I think there is one final detail from this morning’s scripture that is worth paying attention to.  Verses 11 and 12 state, “I will send a famine through the land- not a famine of food or a thirst of water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.”   When injustice reigns on the national or societal level then God feels distant on the national or societal level.  For most of my life, I have seen this push to “bring America back to God” or to make God more present in American life.   Perhaps we have been doing it wrong.  Perhaps we do not make God feel less distant by banning certain books or putting the ten commandments in court houses.  The way that we make God less distant, the way that we make God celebrated all across our society is by working to end injustice, taking a stand against oppression, and siding with the must vulnerable. 

There was a time when this is exactly what the followers of Jesus did.  In the first couple of centuries of its existence, Christianity had explosive growth.   Before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost there were around 150 Christians, a number so small that it was a statistical zero in terms of percentage of the Roman Empire that was Christian.   About three hundred years later there were over 33 million Christians and the Christians accounted for 56% of the empire’s population.   One of the pagan emperors of this time period, Julian, wrote about Christians and gave a hint as to what might have driven this growth.  Julian wrote “[Christians] support not only their poor but our as well.”   The Roman world of these early Christians was one that was broken, fallen, and unjust.  It was one characterized by economic disparity, corruption, and violence.  Amid this culture those followers of Jesus chose to stand against the injustice and oppression.  They did this by sharing their resources to care for the poor, they risked their own lives to minister to the sick, and when persecution struck they gambled their own freedom to provide for those who were imprisoned.  Christianity exploded in popularity, God did not feel distant, because the people of God pushed back against the injustice of their culture.   

In the time of Amos God was angered because the rich too advantage of the poor, they profited from the suffering of the needy.  In the time of the early church, this was still true in the Roman world.  Unfortunately, it is still true today.   Today, food assistance for the most in need and vulnerable members of our society is cut in the name of efficiency, while at the same time the wealthiest people seem to never be held accountable and only get more and more given to them.  We do not have to look far to find injustice all around us.   Many of these broken systems that support and create these injustices seem too big for us to do anything about.  It can be overwhelming, but we do not have to single handily do it alone.   We can pull on the thread in front of us.  We can seek to meet the needs in our community, the more we pull on the thread.  If enough followers of God pull on enough threads, then God-willing there will be a day when the whole system of injustice and oppression comes unraveled. 

 This morning’s scripture from Amos makes it clear that injustice angers God.   May we also get a little riled up by injustice.  May we use that righteous anger for good.  May it enable us to find creative solutions to meet the needs around us, may it drive us and focus to help those who are vulnerable and needy.   May it empower us to be used by God to transform this world into a more just place.   May God use us and may justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.   By the grace of God, may it be so.   

Scripture: Amos 7:7-17

  For the most part the elite athletes who win Olympic medals do so because they have spent most of the time in their lives dedicated to their sport.  They trained constantly to be the best in the world, and they achieved that goal when their hard work paid off and they made the Olympic podium.  While that is usually the way it works there are some notable exceptions such as Emil Zatopek.  Emil was not a runner.  In his home country of what was then Czechoslovakia he worked in a shoe factory at the age of 16.   There was a local athletics competition, and the factory was to enter some participants, so a manager picked him and a couple of other boys at more or less random.  Emil initially protested saying he was not athletic and not a good runner, but he was not given much choice.   Out of one hundred runners he placed second.  This made him interested in running, and he pursued it without any real training or direction.  He found success in running, especially at distance running.   He competed in the 1948 Olympics and did well.  In the 1952 Olympics he made the last second decision to compete in the marathon.  He had never ran a marathon and did not know the rules of the race.  For instance, he did not take any water from the water stations, because he thought they would have to pay money at the end of the race for the water he took.  In a feat that would be unheard of today, Emil Zatopek won the first marathon he ever ran, and he did so setting a world record for the fastest marathon time. 

While Emil Zatopek’s record time did not last very long, to this day he is the only athlete to ever win a gold medal in three different long-distance running events at the same Olympic games.  Cleary, he had some natural ability and even though his training regiment was considered highly unorthodox he did put in the work.   However, he only ever got into running in the first place because he was picked at random to run an inconsequential race. For an Olympic gold medalist, it is an amazing origins story.  This morning’s scripture contains a different origins story of sorts.   We learn that the prophet Amos was not meant to be a prophet.  Unlike the custom of the day, he was not following in his father’s footsteps. Just like Emil Zatopek was picked by a manager to run a race, Amos was picked by God to proclaim the word of the LORD.  Just like Emil Zatopek went from factory worker to Olympic gold medalist, Amos went from tending animals to confronting kings.  When we consider this morning’s scripture and how God called Amos, then we can see that God still calls unlikely people to be prophetic voices today. 

This morning’s scripture from Amos comes from the part of the bible classified as the minor prophets.  It is probably fair to say that for a lot of people, this is the part of the bible that gets skipped over the most.  Like this morning’s scripture it has a lot of hard to pronounce names and reference to places we are not familiar with.  So, to best understand scriptures like this morning’s we need a little context.

 During the time of Amos, the Israelites had split the promise land into two kingdoms.   The kingdom of Judah in the South had Jerusalem, but the kingdom of Israel in the North had more territory.  When this split happened after the death of King Solomon, the leader of the northern kingdom was concerned that because God’s temple was in Jerusalem his people would stay connected to the southern kingdom and his power would be threatened.  To address this, he set up two golden idols for the people to worship.  One of those places was in Bethel which is why it is mentioned in this morning’s scripture.  For generations, the kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, led the people into idolatry and as the kings did evil in the sight of God the people got further and further from following God in their daily lives. 

In response, God called and sent prophets like Amos.  The prophets spoke on behalf of God, but often I think we have the wrong idea of prophecy.  Biblical prophecy was not just a foretelling of future events.   It was not cryptic riddles that had to be figured out or force people to watch for certain developments that kind of sort of fit as a portent that the ancient prophecy was about to be fulfilled.   Rather most biblical prophecies are like the ones we find in this morning’s scripture.  The words of the prophets were meant to be a warning, and that is what we see here in Amos. 

For instance, a plumb line was a type of level to test the straightness of a structure.  It measured if a building was in the parameters it was supposed to be in.  God had given the Israelites the law.  It served as the plumb line, the measure of how to live in right relationship with God and with each other.   It also specified clear consequences for not following the law.   Through the vision of the plumb line, God is communicating that if the people do not straighten up, if they do not abandon their idolatrous worship, then their actions will have consequences.  When prophets like Amos spoke pronouncements of judgement such as we see in verse 17 of this morning’s scripture the intention is not just to pronounce doom and gloom.   The point is to convict hearts, change minds, and lead to repentance. 

The Old Testament prophets were not fortune tellers or mysterious figures predicting the future.  They were truth tellers.  They were people called by God to cut through the noise, the spin, the propaganda, and the alternative facts.  They pointed out uncomfortable truths, and they urged people to do something about it.  The prophets sought to capture people’s attention and turn them back towards God. 
 
 While there are not Old Testament style prophets today, there is still a great need for prophetic truth telling.  There is still a great need for attention to be called to what is wrong and against God’s ways.   There is still need for the hearts of many to turn back to God.  There is still a need for prophetic voices today.  Through the empowerment, of the Holy Spirit it is still possible for God to raise up people to be these voices today.  In their book Find Your Place Rob Wegner and Brian Phipps, write about a modern-day prophet might look like.  The wrote, “Prophets question and reform. . .they have a love for what is true and right, and they know what needs to be emphasized when it comes time to challenge and confront.”

We need prophetic voices today.   We need voices willing to proclaim what is true and right.  Truth needs to be spoken to power.  Evil, injustice, and oppression need to be resisted.  Sometimes even the best of us need to be reminded that we failed to be an obedient church and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  Someone needs to speak up, someone need to say the things that need to be said, and someone needs to take a stand.  A stand for what is Godly.  A stand for what is truth.  A stand for what is right.  While many of us probably believe that is exactly what is needed, we also tend to be a little slow to stand.  We tend not to want to raise our voice too loud, and we tend not to want to call much attention to ourselves.  But I think this morning’s scripture and the way that Amos answered the call to be a prophet should challenge us.  If we truly believe someone should stand up and speak out, then this scripture challenges us to ask, “Why not us?  Why not me?”

 It was not anywhere on Amos’ bingo card to be a prophet of God.  He did not travel to Bethel and start prophesying because he was trying to build a following, gain fame, or make money.   In fact, before God called him, it seemed Amos was content with his life.  The English translation says he was a shepherd, but that is not quite right.  The word here translated as shepherd only appears in this one place in all of the Old Testament.  It is a word that seems to be related to the word for cattle.  It is likely that Amos did not tend a flock of sheep but a herd of cattle.  So, he wasn’t a shepherd, he was a cowboy.   We get the impression that he would have been happy minding his own business out on the range, but God had other plans.   Amos was not from or familiar with the ways of the Northern Kingdom, but God used him anyway.   Amos did not have any training or background in being a prophet.  But God used him anyway.   Amos probably would have been content with his fig trees and livestock, but God used him anyway.   What made Amos most qualified to be a prophet, was his willingness to follow God.  He spoke up and he stood up because he was being obedient to the leading of God. 

 In the same way, as followers of Jesus we should not stay seated and we should not stay silent, because we should have a willingness to follow our Lord and Savior.  Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves.   He urged us to care for the least of these, and told us that when we feed the hungry, when we provide for the impoverished, when we show kindness to the marginalized and the oppressed then it is as if we are doing those actions for him.  We can not love the people that Jesus has asked us to love quietly. Our love should be loud.   We can not love the people that Jesus has asked us to love  while blending into the crowd.  Our love should be bold.   Amos was a prophet because he was following God, and we should speak up and stand up because we are following Christ. 

There is a story from Christian history that I think illustrates what it looks like to follow the example of Amos and use our prophetic voice.  Much like how God called Amos out of obscurity to be a prophet, God did something similar for Amy Carmichael in the 19th century.  She was an Irish woman born in 1867.  She felt called by God at the age of 20 to be a missionary.   She initially met resistance due to her gender and some health concerns.  However, Amy felt called by God and she was insistent.   Her persistence paid off and she found herself with a missionary organization stationed in India.   Like all missionaries, Amy’s life calling was to share the good news of Jesus Christ, but she did not take the standard approach of that era.  To better reach the local population she took on their diet, dress, and way of life.  Instead of preaching about how the people of India should change their ways, she instead sought to show them God’s love through her actions. She specifically reached out to the poorest, youngest, and most oppressed population. In India during this time, it was common practice to give unwanted children over to Hindu temples, where they essentially had to serve a lifetime of forced servitude, of slavery.   Amy spoke out against this practice, but she also stood up against it.  She would find these children and bring them safety.  Despite threat of death, she built a home to protect these children that became known as the Dohnavur Fellowship.  Those who benefited from these enslavement practices tried to tear her down.  They tried to give her a tarnished reputation and call her the “white woman who steals children.”   Despite that, Amy stayed faithful to follow Christ.  She would often travel for days just to rescue a single child.   Every day she sought to live with purpose by following God’s will and loving the least of these.   She sought to save and care for children for fifty-five straight years.   She never took a break, she never went home.   Amy’s lifetime resulted in over 1,000 abused, abandoned, and enslaved children being freed, provided for, and loved.

Amy Carmichael used a prophetic voice to call out a practice that was wrong and evil.  She put that into action and stood against oppression.   She did this because she was following Jesus and God’s leading.   There is so much that is wrong in the world today.  Someone needs to stand for what is right.  There are things that need to be said, there is evil that needs to be called out, and there is much need for prophetic voices today.   Friends, perhaps it is your voice that is needed.   Like God called Amos, like God called Amy Carcmichael, perhaps God is calling you.   If we take following Jesus seriously.  If we truly want to love like Jesus, then being silent is not an option.   Speaking up and standing up for others is love in action, and that is what we must do. 

So may you find your voice.   May you speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.  As this morning’s scripture remind us, the most important quality to being used by God, the number attribute needed to be a prophet, is to be wiling to follow God.  So may we be willing to saddle up and use our prophetic voice so that disciples of Jesus Christ are made for the transformation of the world. 
              
 

Scripture:  Galatians 6:1-10

The story goes that a fiery preacher once chose for a sermon topic, “forgive your enemies.”  He read the scripture, he preached passionately, and he tugged at heart strings.  At the end, the preacher asked, “How many of you are willing to forgive your enemies today.”  Now several people were genuinely convicted and ready to forgive.  A little over half the hands went up.  For this preacher, that was not good enough.  So, he launched into another story and gave an even more impassioned plea.   Twenty minutes later he asked again, “How many of you are willing to forgive your enemies today?”   This time about 3/4ths of the congregation raised their hands.   For the preacher though, this still was not good enough.  So, he continued on for another twenty minutes.   By this time people were more concerned about eating lunch than they were about forgiving their enemies, so when the preacher asked a third time nearly all of the hands went up.  All but one belonging to a little old lady.   The preacher asked the woman directly, “Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?”   With a thin voice, the woman replied, “I don’t have any.”  

Surprised by the response, the preacher asked, “and how old are you?”  

She replied, “ninety-three.”

The preacher then instructed, “Then please, come down front and tell us all how someone can live to ninety-three and not have any enemies.”

Very slowly, the woman made her way to the front of the sanctuary, she turned around and said, “Well it’s simple really.   I outlived them all.”

This story, along with this morning’s scripture, reveals a simple truth.   Living our lives while following Jesus, seeking to live in a faith community with one another, can sometimes get messy.   Every clergy colleague I know has a painful story of when they learned that church people are not always nice people.  There will be times when someone, through their selfish actions or careless words, hurts us.  There will be times when these people are people who should have known better because they are our sibling in Christ.   On the flip side, there will be times through our own poor choices or impulsive actions do harm to someone else.   Because none of us are perfect, even with our best-efforts things can get messy.  When that happens, I suppose one strategy is to just outlive everyone else, but in this morning’s scripture Paul gives us another option.  When things get messy our best way forward is to not become weary in doing good.  

This morning’s scripture was written to several churches in the Roman Province of Galatia.  These churches were all in some turmoil and conflict, which is why Paul wrote this epistle in the first place.   Throughout Galatians, Paul assured these congregations that they were all saved by faith in Christ Jesus.  He encouraged them to view themselves as the family of God and have that connection be what binds them in unity.  Despite that, this morning’s scripture reading is an acknowledgement that things can get messy. 

 Last week we read the scripture that came right before this morning’s reading.  So last week we read how Paul encouraged the Galatians to righteousness, to holy living, by following the leading of the Spirit.  In doing so, Paul listed the acts of the flesh, or the sinful nature, and these actions were opposed to the fruit of the Spirit.  In this morning’s scripture, Paul seeks to answer the potential question, “What happens when a believer does one of the things on the sinful nature list?”  The answer that Paul gives to this question is not exactly straightforward, and on the surface is somewhat contradictory. 

The apparent contradiction is found in verses 2 and 5.   Verse 2 states, “Carry each other’s burden and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ”, but then in verse 5 Paul wrote, “Each one should carry their own load.”  While it can seem something of a contradiction, this is one of those instances where it is not an “either/or” but rather a both.   Verse five is a reminder of personal responsibility but verse 2 is a call to communal accountability.   The reminder of personal responsibility is a reminder that our ability to stay in step with the leading of the Holy Spirit or not, falls solely on us.   We have responsibility for our own actions.  If someone is unkind to us, that does not give us permission to respond in the same way.  Treating others the way they treat us is not a virtue.  While we are responsible for our own actions, when we veer off course, we do not have to rely solely on ourselves to right the ship.   This is why Paul wrote to the Galatians that they are too “carry each other’s burdens.”  They were to hold each other accountable and help each other in following the Spirit’s leading.  

Accountability though is a loaded word and concept.  People tend to like the idea of holding others accountable for their actions, but most people do not like being held accountable.   For this reason, accountability is often weaponized.  Some have used it as a club to beat others for stepping out of line.  That is not accountability.  That is just being a bully.   However, even when used correctly accountability can be a hard balance to find.  As Paul wrote about in this morning’s scripture: “if someone is caught n a sin, you who live by the sprit should restore that person gently.  But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”   The struggle is to treat a person gently but not be so gentle that we end up excusing or even justifying the behavior that was sinful or harmful in the first place.  

 In our Methodist history, we have an example of how to best walk this balance.  When the Methodist movement first started in England, the methodists were organized into societies, and each society comprised of various classes and bands.  These classes and bands would meet weekly with one another, and when they did, they would ask each other the question, “How is it with your soul.”   Now ideally, the answer was “It is well with my soul”.  However, if they could not say that, then they would confess their sins to one another, they would pray for each other, they would encourage one another.   If someone said, “it is well”, but another person knew it was not.  If they knew the person had acted in a way that did harm or had chosen not to do good, then they would challenge their answer.  They would call it the behavior and hold each other accountable.   This was not to wield power over another or to put someone in their place, but rather it was a way to carry one another’s load. 

The reason why this worked is because the members of the class and bands trusted one another.  They all sought on their own to hold themselves to a standard of personal holiness where they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit, and they knew that when they fell short their friends would gently but firmly help them make it right and get back on track.  I realize this level of transparency and vulnerability is not easy for most of us.  I also realize that the level of trust needed to get to that point does not come overnight.   It is something that must be worked towards.  To best follow Christ we are to carry each other’s burdens, but we can only do that when we make the intentional choice to begin trusting at least one of our siblings in Christ to share our load.  While we get to that point, this morning’s scripture gives us an additional option of what to do when things get messy. 

In verse 9, Paul wrote, “Let us not become weary in doing good.”  When things get messy, when someone causes us harm, then we can respond by doing good.  We do not allow the cruelness or unkindness of someone else to harden our hearts.  When someone else chooses harm, we choose good.   While we cannot control the actions of someone else, we can choose and we are responsible for our actions.   Choosing to do good and make the world a better place, one small action at a time always keeps in step with the sprit and follows the way of Christ. 

There is a story that illustrates what choosing to do good in the face of harm looks like.   The story goes, that Ethel had passed away.   She was a dear old saint of the church.  She had done it all taught Sunday school, led VBS, directed the choir, visited the shut-ins, and anything else in the church that needed doing.   She had also served as a mentor for a young man answered the call to ministry from his local church.  It seemed so appropriate to have this young man conducting the funeral.  But, for reasons untold, when the time came for the funeral to begin the young preacher was nowhere to be found, nor had word been sent to explain his tardiness.  The crowd grew somewhat restless as the moments became minutes and threatened to become an hour.
 
As the restlessness grew, a middle-aged man in the congregation stood and addressed the crowd.  “It seems the preacher is late.  Until he arrives, I feel as if I should share a special memory of Ethel.  My greatest memory is the time that she brought me a cake, and it wasn’t even my birthday.  I still do not know the reason that she chose to bring me the cake.  But I will remember her for this.”
 
As he sat down, everyone turned their attention to a lady that rose to speak.   This woman had a reputation as the church gossip.  Whenever she spoke people tended to hold their collective breath, because they were never quite sure what she would say.  “Funny that you should remember a cake, because I too received a cake from Ethel.  In fact, I received several over the last few years.”
 
Amazingly, yet another man stood, claiming that he too had received a cake.   However, the cake he was given a sour cream pound cake.  This caused a murmur to rise around the room.  Ethel’s sour cream pound cake was legendary.    Whenever the church had a pitch-in the attendance that Sunday would be among the highest for the year as people came to jockey in line just to get a piece of sour cream pound cake.   The man concluded, “Ethel and I did not often see eye to eye, but she certainly did right by me.”
 
A few more people rose to give testimony to the cakes that this woman had baked and delivered over the years of her life.  Some had gotten one.  Others had received several.  A couple of more people even stated, with some level of pride, that they had been fortunate enough to receive a sour cream pound cake. 
 
Seated on the front row, out of the attention of the crowd, was Martha.   Since childhood Martha and Ethel had been best friends.  As people spoke of the cakes they had received, Martha sat strangely quiet.  You see, Martha had never once received a cake from Ethel. As the testimonies continued, Martha began to feel hurt in ways she could not explain.
 
About this time the door opened and in rushed a winded preacher.  The frustration of delay showed clearly on his face.  Going to the pulpit, he addressed the congregation, apologizing for his delay.  The first speaker rose again and said, “It’s OK pastor.  We have been passing times by sharing our memories of Ethel.”
 
The young preacher spoke again: “Since you have shared your memories, permit me to share mine.  When I first answered the call to the ministry I spent many hours talking with Ethel about a wide variety of matters.  Once, we were discussing the way people, even good church people, cut and hurt one another with words and action.  I asked her how she handled it when evil or meanness was spoken of her or directed towards her.  The answer she gave has stuck in my mind to this day: ‘When people have spoken evil of me, I try not to respond in kind, but in kindness.  When I learned who had spoken so cruelly, I would go to my kitchen and bake them a cake.  I would deliver it to them and never mention their unkind words.  Sometimes I had to bake several cakes.  And if they were especially cruel, I would go and prepare my specialty, a sour cream pound cake.  I learned that repaying this evil with kindness made the evil so much more bearable for me, and I hoped that every bite of the cake would tell them that I love them, despite their actions.”
 
A stunned crowd left the funeral home that day, with one exception, a quiet lady who rose from the front row and left with a smile on her face remembering the cakes she never received from her dear friend.
 
 As Christians we are a bunch of imperfect people, seeking to follow a perfect savior.  This means that there will be times that we fall short, that we miss the mark, and that we do not follow Jesus as closely as we might like.   May we be willing to be open with our most trusted siblings in Christ, so that we can ask each other “How is it with your soul” and we can answer honestly.  More importantly though, may we not grow weary of doing good.  When someone does us wrong, may we not respond in kind by may we respond in kindness. May we not seek to just outlive those who have wronged us, but may we do good- even if that means using cake.   As we have opportunity to do so, may we do good to all people.