“Crisis” is a term that is prone to overuse and I don’t know whether the current gyrations of the market and the economy qualify as a crisis, but my sense is that things are going to get worse before they get better. We’ve had a long run of mainly good economic news. We’ve had rising home values, which has been good news for some (remembering that others have been frozen out of home ownership by these same high prices.) But now the experts are forecasting a deep and painful recession and I’m realizing many of us haven’t lived long enough to see serious economic hard times. Recessions can mean job loss, decreased hours and paychecks, going without luxuries and sometimes going without necessities.

Some of us were talking about hard times and recalling the ways that the church pulls together to help when needed. One person recalled the time that a church member had cancer but no insurance and the church members raised thousands of dollars to help. I thought about how proud I’d be to be part of such a congregation, and then realized that I already was -- many of the people who were part of that congregation now attend Saint Nicholas and I can remember times when we have pulled together to help each other.

We talked about Commitment Sunday coming up. I’m hoping that this year we will think about committing to grow as disciples, to commit to new ways to love God, love others, teach and learn and serve the world.

I’m also hoping that we’ll make commitments to help one another if (or, more likely, “when”) we come into hard times. But making that commitment really has two parts – we need to be willing to give, but also willing to receive. In order for us to be a caring community, we need to be willing to give of our time and our treasure, but we also need to be able to ask for help when help is needed. Certainly we can give help in confidence, but sometimes we are too proud to ask for help at all, when people would be glad to help out if anyone knew that help was needed. So, we need to promise each other that we will support each other financially or emotionally or whatever the need. And we also need to promise each other that we will ask for help when help is needed.

To be sure, we need to give to the world, to people and places that we have never met or will never see and we’ll continue to do that. But we also need to give to each other as members of a community of faith and first fruits of the Kingdom of God. And I really mean “need” – giving to others completes us in a way that nothing else can. But to fulfill that need, we also need to be able to receive, because receiving also completes us in a way that nothing else can.

This month we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, and I give thanks for this congregation on a daily basis. This year we’ll be worshipping with other Calvert County communities of faith in a Thanksgiving Eve service at Trinity United Methodist Church – this is a new ecumenical tradition we want to begin to celebrate with other faith communities. But this month, let’s also commit to each other to support one another, financially and in all ways, to be willing to give and to receive, to ask and to answer, because this is how we truly become the People of God.

Pastor Greg