🦁 Easter 2-1

Readings: Psalm 133; Daniel 1:1-21; Acts 2:42-47. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim. Trouble coming to you from Sacramento, California. Today's readings are Psalm 133 versus one, two, three. Daniel Chapter one verses 1 to 21. And Acts of the Apostles, Chapter two. Verses 42 to 47. 

Our Psalm today is entitled One Brothers Dwell in Unity. And this is something we veterans of understand. Very much so. Right. Always worked well in your unit. Worked well together when you got along. When people knew each other, knew your cadences, knew how we did what? Who? Who were whose strengths and his weaknesses. And when we were able to present a unified front. You know, I remember very distinctly a passing inspection in basic training because we went through and my job and my it was I went through and made sure that we had that fold on the blanket. Was that $1 length we all went through. We everybody did everything. And each one of us did a specific task on everybody's bunk and Wall locker. And we passed the inspection because we worked together. So when we're in beauty, when we dwell in unity, when we work together, things can we can accomplish things that that just people don't don't see and don't think that we can accomplish. 

And ah, reading to Daniel today, we get introduced to Daniel, we get introduced to the Assyrian and the Babylonians and what's been going on in that they've been taken over again. So Judah, they wind up taking them. We came. And so he decides he wants consuls, so he has them educated, but he wasn't going to have them follow their traditions and any understanding about kosher law, then you understand there are only certain things that they can eat and things you know, cloven hooves. So nothing from pigs or any animal. The clothing of milk has to be a certain way. There's all there's all kinds of rules that go with it to make something kosher. And. Daniel Hania, Michele and Zoriah said, no, we're not going to defile ourselves. So they asked to be fed a different diet. Well, that's a big offense to the king. You know, kings eat the best of cases. There's no difference. Nothing's changed over the years. You know, people in charge get the best food. 

So what are we going to do? Because they're now worried the head eunuch is sitting there going, you know, you guys don't look good to the king. He's going to cut my head off. Daniel says, Give us ten days. Feed us what we ask to be fed the vegetables and take a look at us and the other people eating the food and see how we're doing. And they were they were better. 

And they continued finish. Their three years of training and education went in God because they stayed true to God's word and God's commandments. God bless them. Especially Daniel, with great understanding. And they went in and the King tested them and he blew them away. Absolutely blew them away. Astounded the king and even the most powerful kings in the world. In the commentary in the new movie Cultural Background Study Bible. So even the most prominent and powerful kings of the world knew the power of Yahweh are reading and acts. So a couple of things about acts that people don't understand. Acts was originally part of Luke, and it's written by Luke. Remember, Luke was a physician. He was an educated man, and this was originally a part of the Book of Luke. And then when they came up with the, you know, did the thing and they see and all that, they split it. So you have the idea of the Gospel of Luke, which goes up until the death and resurrection, then the Acts of the Apostles is the actual full name of the Book of Acts of the Apostles. This is where they're this is when they see acts. They're talking about actions while they acted. 

This is the apostles. So we're getting going here. We're in the second chapter. And today they're talking about how they devoted themselves to the teaching and fellowship breaking of bread and prayer. And this is something, again, community. I can't emphasize that enough. Community, community, community. This is something that we're doing here. First formation, as Brother Logan and I have talked about this to some extent, that we want to create a community. This is open to any veteran family, anybody involved in the military that's a Christian you can come here do for you. Listen, the first formation, we'd like you to be involved. I'm sure people get tired of hearing my voice every morning. We want people to be involved. We want to create a community of Christians that have served in the military or were related to those who served in the military and create this community of voices so that people can see and understand what it is, who we are, what it is that we do, how we feel, how we operate, and that we as Christians, people who believe can be in the military successfully and how we stand for what is right, what we what we believe and our faith tells us. This is this is the right and true thing to do. So here we have an act there training. So there was the 12 and there was a 70, and they kept converting people. Now, at this point in time, this is right after this is in the first few years, like less than a decade, like probably less than five years. I don't have an exact timeline, but this was right after Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended. 

And they had Pentecost and we had the Holy Spirit came down. So now they're out doing their thing. This is very early on, and they were praying and breaking of bread. They were eating together, they were in community, they were looking out for each other. They were teaching, they were listening, they were learning, They were going out and they were doing what they were supposed to do. And they says, you know, verse 44 and all who believed worked together and had all things in common. That's community. Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself, period. 

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as they had need. So this is something else Jesus talked about. We taking, you know, you will always have the poor with you. We know that we do that. So part of what we do now, part of our job as Christians, is to take care of those less fortunate than us. That's scriptural. That's the way it's supposed to be. And it takes many, many forms in how you do it. So I'm with Saint Matthew's mission here in Sacramento. We are the St Matthew's Episcopal Mission in Sacramento. And one of the things that we do, we have a very large outreach ministry. We host the food bank on the on the center property and all this other stuff. But our our little band of misfits that we have, we get together on the third Saturday of the month in the morning and we make 40 sandwiches and we put together 40 bags and this is food, it's got sandwiches and all kinds of non-perishable stuff that doesn't need to be refrigerated and all that. So we give them the lot of the I call it the disaster milk, the stuff that comes little cartons that, you know, you don't have to refrigerate anything, any types of food, beef jerky, all those, all those different things, peanut butter, whatever, things that don't have to be refrigerated, that can be carried and consumed. And then we have four routes that we take and we go out and we feed the homeless that is taking action that is doing what God wants us to do. Amen.