September is that scrumptious season that is ripe with possibilities. The gardens and the fields are giving us the fruits of our labors: squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and beans. The grape vines are starting to put on their fruit. Of course, it’s also been a great year for Creeping Charlie, purslane, crab grass and lambs quarter, but that’s a whole other story.
September is also the time of year when school gets going in earnest, and worship and Sunday School times return to “normal”. There’s a lot to be said for normal. It’s comfortable when life gets stressful; it’s predictable when there’s so much going on that is chaotic. I like normal.
But “normal” can also blind us to seeing those possibilities that God has for us: different ways of learning, better ways of being in relationship with each other and with our neighbors. Normal is comfortable, but it is not always right.
It has become normal for us to experience mass shootings. Normal today is language that incites fear of the “other”, promotes hatred and violence, and I believe leads to the disruption of God’s intent for humanity.
God holds out for us possibilities, not just in this season, but each day. The prophets in our older Testament often spoke of the normal religious practices as not being enough. God doesn’t just want your sacrifices, your words and your songs, but wants your heart, your just actions, and your care for one another. Specifically the call is repeated over and over, “Care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger among you.” Jesus echoes that call when he sums up the law as “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
As we come into the cycle of learning and teaching, I invite us to find ways in our Sunday School, in our worship, in our lives, to seek God’s possibilities for our children, for ourselves and for our neighbors. Let’s make hope a new normal. Let’s make the practice of love a new normal. Let’s make the kingdom of God, with all of its possibilities for this world, a normal part of who we are and how we live.
