Sermon - 1/9/21

<p>I don’t know about you, but I have been quite challenged by the way COVID-19 is constantly causing us to alter our plans and make changes in our daily lives.  Shifting again to online worship only for this Sunday and next Sunday is just one example of this challenge. Throughout these past two years, I have experienced a constant struggle within myself as we routinely must make new decisions while responding to the latest, unexpected challenges COVID-19 creates before us and around us. And, quite frankly, we will not see an end to this struggle and constant state of uncertainty and change until more people are vaccinated!</p> <p>We all struggle with change in one way or another. Some change is helpful and transformative, and some change can be devastating.  One of the greatest challenges for all of us is the change that ensues when unexpected situations arise, and our very world seems to shift on its axis.  Such change is often abrupt, disruptive, life-threatening and life changing. This is the type of change we experienced when COVID initially broke into our lives. As we experience this kind of change, we tend to find ourselves in a place of languishment and fear, fear about an uncertain future.</p> <p>When talking about such monumental change, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Long, a Presbyterian theologian, shares a story about the historian, Eric Hobsbawm.  Long writes:</p> <p>Hobsbawm remembered when his safe and secure world became a world of terror.  He grew up as a Jewish orphan in Berlin.  On a cold January day in 1933 when he was only 15 years old, he was walking his little sister home from school when he saw at a newsstand a headline bearing frightening news that would change his life, change the life of all Jews, change the life of the whole world.  “Adolph Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany,” the headline read.  Later in his life, Hobsbawm reflected on that moment and said it was as if “we were on the Titanic, and everyone knew it was going to hit the iceberg.”  As Europe hurdled out of control toward World