Senior Vicar Christian Willick - The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost - Sunday, October 23, 2022
Text: Luke 18:18-30
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear fellow children of God, “What is it that you need?” Some years ago I set out on a quest to ask this question to my close friends, to find out how to be a better friend to them and meet their needs. Perhaps what comes to mind first when you hear this question are the basic “needs” of life, like food, water, clothing, shelter. And while those answer the question I suppose, what I was getting at with my question for them was a bit deeper. “What is it that makes your life whole, that fills that missing piece?” As a result, the answers I got back were all quite deep too. One friend said satisfaction, the feeling that what he did mattered and made a difference to people. Another friend said her close relationships, the ability to share things about her life with certain people in a way she wouldn’t with just anybody. But there was one other friend, no matter how hard I pushed her, who kept coming back with this same answer: “I lack nothing.” She was in effect quoting the words of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” that is, “I lack nothing.” I told her yes, I guess that’s true from a spiritual perspective, but what about physically, emotionally, interpersonally—there has to be something you need? But she would not change her answer.
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