Ecclesiastes reminds us that we shouldn’t be so confident in our

understandings. The best we can do is remember that we were created for a

season, for a time, and that our creature-ness will eventually come to an

end. Seeing life from this angle brings with it certain wisdom that helps

us see beyond vanity.

At the end of the book, Job and God mend their divisive and frustrating

relationships with humanity and each other. Job wants God to show up and

right the illegitimate wrongs. God wants everyone to understand their place

within God’s realm. Seeing how these relationships come to an agreeable end

is the things from which wisdom is made.

Despite our best attempts at living with proverbial wisdom, some of the

most hallowed assumptions are proven false by experience. We often think

wisdom supersedes experience . . . but not in Job. Experience re-authors

our understanding of wisdom. It reminds us that real-time and real-emotions

shape and color our understanding of God. Job learns this in difficult

ways. How he processes this pain is for us to understand too.

A proper understanding of the fear of the Lord helps us grow in our

relationship with God and, therefore, better deal with life’s issues. If

we’re to understand how to know the difference between what we can change

and what we need to accept, then Proverbs 1 is a must-read.

The Book of Proverbs is a positive, hollowed assumption about the goodness

of life and the justice of God. Almost every section of scripture reminds

us to live positively and with fidelity and hope. Proverbs has a way of

using real-life applications to paint a picture of the past and ultimately

our future. Out of the hundreds of proverbs available, these two sections

for the sermon offer a way in which we can live with the anxiety of our day

but not be overcome by it.

And Larry . . . this is how I’ll remember you and appreciate you. You made

the music of First Baptist mend us. You equipped the choir and the

congregation to go and mend others. This is your legacy of 44 years of

full-time Christian ministry. Your quality of the music will live on here .

. . and we’ll use it as you did . . . to mend the saints for the work of

ministry. Thank you, my friend, for the music. Thank you for using your

gifts to mend our souls.

The story of Cornelius and Peter is a truly liminal space. What happens

before this story and what happens after is game-changing for the entire

narrative of scripture. We can never go back to the world before this

story, for it rises to point us towards God’s new future that we are still

stepping into together.

The disciples leave the feeding of the 5000 by boat. A storm comes. Jesus

walks through the storm and calms it. This story is unbelievable yet also

poignant for where we find ourselves today. Even in the midst of the storm,

Jesus walks to us.

Thousands meet Jesus on the countryside. As the day goes forward people get hungry. They should have been sent away, but Jesus decides to feed them. How this story unfolds is liminal ground for us all. How everyone gets fed is a true matter of faith that still applies today.

Another archetypal scene in scripture is the well. There are several

stories of significant change that happens at them. The most famous is when

the Samaritan woman meets Jesus. Who she is before meeting Jesus and who

she is after is something we all need to see.