August

During Pastor Jim’s sermon on the good Samaritan, he talked about the many layered teachings within Jesus’s parable. His Sermon included many reasons, why the Priest and the Levi might not have stopped to help the man beaten and robbed. Most, if not all the reasons were because of inconvenience or cost to the Priest and the Levi, they did not want to become entangled. We know in the parable that the good Samaritan ignores the inconvenience and willingly gives of his time, possessions, and money to help the person in need, he fully entangles himself.

Entanglement is usually used as a negative, to become entangled sounds like a bad experience. We think entanglement is a good word and to become “entangled” with our community will bring many positive results for the people we serve, the volunteers and all of us in the First Lutheran family.

Will there be costs? Yes, we’ll need ongoing funds to sustain the ministry. Something in the kitchen may break or wear out and need to be replaced. We will need ongoing volunteers to sustain the ministry. We will have “strangers” in our Church. We’ll have the inconvenience of some of the parking lot tied up on Tuesdays’. As the ministry grows, we’ll need more space to store things. The list of inconveniences we can come up with is endless. The inconveniences we can list are much like the Priest and Levi for reasons not to get involved, no entanglement means we don’t have to give of our time, money, and possessions. Why did Jesus tell the story of the good Samaritan? What is the lesson we are to take to heart? The lawyer asked Jesus who is his neighbor that he is to love. Who are our neighbors that we are to love? Is it only our family? Our Church family? Is it people we’ve become friends with? As the church lady from Saturday Night Live used to say, “Isn’t that conveeeenient.” Please consider inconveniencing yourself, become entangled in Loaves & Fishes.