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From the Desktop of the Pastor – Week of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

Hi everyone,

I’ve been having a busy week (surprise, surprise) and I found myself doing some work yesterday (I normally try to take Saturdays off). As I was on my computer at home, my son came looking for me with some exciting news. Apparently, Minecraft Earth was available for download and he was super excited to play it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Minecraft Earth is a new addition to the Minecraft game, but uses augmented reality technology to bring the game alive (through your phone of course) by placing items and tasks around the real world to find and interact with as you walk around the neighborhood and beyond. Anyway, he was really excited and I suggested that we go for a walk after I am done to play the game.

This got me a little excited too. I never really liked the Minecraft games because the graphics are literally horrible and I question why the game was as popular as it was because of it. But, I thought maybe playing this game with my son will give us some quality time together and perhaps even a new shared interest. We used to do that with the Pokemon Go, but he got bored of that game pretty quickly.

Anyway, we went for our walk and the rain put a damper on the whole thing. So we jumped into the car and drove around the neighbourhood stopping at various locations and trying to figure this new game out.

Well, let me tell you, this game is awful. Not the concept game itself, per se, but it had so many bugs that it was almost unplayable. And to be honest, I still don’t really know what I am doing. Perhaps I need a bit more Minecraft knowledge to play this game, but in the end I was really disappointed that it wasn’t a super fun time with my son as I had envisioned.

It was just time with my son. No fun. Which I guess I should appreciate as well, but I was just disappointed that the game didn’t deliver what I was expecting. I probably shouldn’t have put my eggs in that very unreliable and unstable basket.

Anyway, here are the readings for next week:
Malachi 4:1-2a
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

These readings speak to me about the disappointment we have when some objects of our faith don’t deliver. Be it the physical temple, the ways of the world, or just our traditions that we’ve held on to for our identity and perhaps comfort. We find that eventually those things let us down, perhaps they are proven ineffective, or they end up being less fulfilling than we had hoped, or maybe it was burned down to the ground by invaders. Whatever the case, we are left disappointed, disillusioned, and feeling a bit deflated.

And this isn’t really the fault of the object themselves if you think about it. The fault lies more within us, for putting our faith in that object to begin with. Putting all of our eggs in baskets that probably cannot deliver probably isn’t the smartest thing we could do.

Yet we do it anyway.

Probably because it’s there and tangible. We see it and want to believe it. Its lure might be so beautiful and attractive that it’s hard for us not to trust it and believe and put our hope in its promises.

And they might be able to deliver for a bit. They might bring us happiness and joy for the time being. They might seem to hold those eggs quite nicely for now.

But as the Psalmist describes it, only God is worthy of that praise. Only God can provide the lasting peace and joy that we are all yearning for. Only God can deliver.

And deliver, God shall.

It is in God that we can reliably put our faith, our trust, and our hope. For while all things fade, God and God’s promises will never fade, never change, and never let us down.

Thanks be to God! Have a great week, everyone!

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