FOCUS on TODAY, WHICH LEADS to OUR TOMORROW
PSALM 103: 8-13
MATTHEW 18: 21-35
SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 – RALLY DAY
When I woke up this morning there was an alert on my I-Pad … there’s an update available but first I have to clear some memory. For someone in my current circumstances … someone who is dealing with some real challenges … someone who is not quite myself that was an interesting way for me to start this rally day but perhaps not. Are you ready … ready to update your faith so that it can take you to new places to serve God and Jesus Christ. Or are you saying the past is enough … so shut the windows to the light of Christ so that you can rest on your laurels and memories of days past?
Friends, today is a new day … we each have an opportunity to determine our tomorrow’s but we can not change what has gone before us. The good and the bad of what has occurred up until this moment is beyond our control.
I frequently offer up a reference to breakfast meals because after all in Winnie the Pooh, Piglet asks Pooh, “When you wake up in the morning Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” Pooh answers “What’s for breakfast” and than asks Piglet, “What do you say, Piglet?” Piglet responds, “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” And, Winnie the Pooh nods and replies, “It’s the same thing.”
My reference that many of you have heard me say is that if you really wanted to have bacon for breakfast but you had sausage in the morning … you can’t change what you ate because you actually ate that bacon but you can make plans for your next breakfast.
So, today church … on this RALLY DAY … on this day when we will be sharing in the Lord’s Table … “I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today because of God’s Holy Spirit?” Exciting for this church family … exciting for me … exciting for each of you. Are you excited about the possibilities of how God can use you … not how God can use me or Bela or one of your other friends here in church … but when was the last time you really were excited about your faith walk or your faith run with God? Are you calling on the Holy Spirit to offer you direction and new visions? Ready for a new day not the past?
COME SPIRIT COME … fill this place with your energy!! Bring us the energy of Pentecost once more … today and tomorrow … energized in mission, in possibilities of dreams, and in faith accepting the Holy Spirit’s joyful nudges into the light of Christ.
It would be easy to make statements like “when I was young … churches were filled with families and children” somehow magically thinking that in our remorse or in our refusal to actively invite families with children or friends or even neighbors whose names we don’t know to worship with us that suddenly churches like St. Paul’s would again be full of children and families without any of us taking a single step to make it happen.
We can still get energized by the Prophet Joel … who shares that the Lord’s word came to him, “Has anything like this ever happened in your days? Tell it to your children, and have your children tell their children, and their children tell their children. I will pour out my Spirit upon everyone; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old people will dream dreams and your young people will see visions!” YES … Joel’s message from the Lord was to RALLY TOGETHER … get energized in faith!!! Be activists … for God and Christ!
RALLY DAY … I had a conversation with the pastor of Galilee Church in Virginia Beach about Rally Day. Actually, over the last few weeks after Sunday worship and Communion Wednesday’s I had some real good faith-focused conversations with both pastors of that beach front Episcopal Church. I don’t remember whether it was Andy or perhaps myself when referencing our church’s RALLY DAYS, his church’s Rally Day is next Sunday, that one of us said … shouldn’t every day of the year be a Rally Day for Jesus Christ … interesting huh? Are we excited when we wake up for Jesus Christ?
What do you think? I am not suggesting that you give up your moments of rest because I truly believe … not that I follow my advice … I truly believe that God gifted us the words of the Twenty Third Psalm that I repeat often here at St. Paul’s … “The LORD is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He lets me rest in grassy meadows; he leads me to restful waters; he keeps me alive. He guides me in proper paths for the sake of his good name.” God suggests rest so we can rediscover God. My suggestion and reflection is that I believe that far too many people who attend church and especially those who defer from attending church but still use the name of our Lord is saying that they are Christians … far too many people fail to honor the Lord God. We can’t find our Bibles not even on a Sunday morning; we make alliances with humans whose every word and action contradicts that teaching of Jesus Christ, and to fit in with the world we make it oh so easy to let our faith rest in the past.
The close of today’s Psalm after we read how sins are removed has a key phrase … a phrase for us to “rally around.” It is an active verb not a passive nor retired bit of the language … using our Common English Translation of the Psalms we hear, “Like a parent feels compassion for their children that’s how the LORD feels compassion for …” ok, drum roll please … “for THOSE WHO HONOR HIM.” A rather simple addition but a key one just like James writes that faith without actions is D-E-A-D.
So, how many times do we forgive others … Our Father who art in heaven … forgive my trespasses AS we FORGIVE … thy kingdom come thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven … FAITH ACTIVISTS … allow God to excite you today so that tomorrow you are living for Christ and for God with the Holy Spirit directing you … building up God’s church on earth and finding new ways built upon the old to grow this church, find new missions for God here in West Deptford … RALLY together in faith and love for all of our neighbors but also finding green pastures and still waters.
There was a meme that struck me hard yesterday … it was about 9-11, that terrible day we all will always remember. It said, THE BEST WAY TO HONOR THOSE LOST ON 9-11 is TO BE THE PEOPLE WE WERE on 9-12. I remember how President Bush pulled us together as a nation showing love for all of our neighbors … going to mosques with imams, going to synagogues with rabbi’s, and to churches with priests and pastors; our President a church attending United Methodist presented to us his commitment to a unified nation where neighbors cared for one another regardless of our differences.
We know how to love … we know what Jesus teaches … now it’s your choice and mine what me make of our today’s and how we go into our tomorrow’s. As much as I would like to change the past … especially my recent past … all I can do is to go forward. I pray we all go forward with the Holy Spirit rallying us in faith to do amazing things for God. It’s RALLY DAY … let’s come to the Table of the Lord with a new sense of reverence, faith and commitment. AMEN