37 in attendance today on a cold day with temperatures in the 30’s, some snow still on the ground from a dusting yesterday.
The Gospel continued in the book of Mark with another story on healing – this one self initiated with a leper as compared with Simon Peter’s mother- in- law last week. The common denominator in all passages was self-discipline. Paul’s letter to the Corinthaians encouraged self-discipline to be able to achieve "the prize", an eternal rewards by faithfully serving God and living a purposeful life.
Neither the leper in Mark nor the Naaman in the Old Testament story had that quality. The leper told everyone about Jesus healing and Naaman who also had leprosy did not have the faith to follow a simple instruction of washing sevem times in the River Jordan. The leper in Mark was probably the first known evangelist in the New Testament, however.
The sermon depicted two characters that did have self-discipline. Roger Boisjoly worked with the firm Morton Thiokol which made rocket boosters. It’s his analysis that made the point that NASA should not have launchd the space shuttle in 1986 when it was too cold due to the possible failure in the O-ring seal. They launched anyway with disastrous results. He suffered personally after the incident but found purpose by travelling to engineering schools all over the world, and spoke about ethical decision making and the importance of sticking to the data.
Lincoln’s birthday was today and is the second choice in demonstrating self discipline. In 1862, in his second annual address to Congress, Lincoln laid out the race he meant to run. He made the ethical decision that must be made—the slaves must be freed. This represented a progression in his thought since he has previously said the main goal of the war was simply to restore the union. In the Gettysburg address, he linked the decision to 1776 and the founding of this country -"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." He lived into that decision with the consequence that it probably cost him his life.
We recognized today the birthdays and Howard and Clarence who will be both be 82 this week.
