Last week, we talked about being the spark. This week, I would like to take that thought a little further.

In today's Gospel, Matthew 22:15–22, Jesus tells us, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.”

It raises an interesting question. What do we give to God? And how do we give it?

Perhaps one answer is through acts of service to others.

Maybe it is because I am Southern. Maybe it is because I am the firstborn daughter and firstborn granddaughter. But I have always found a particular sense of peace in caring for others, whether they are people, animals, or the communities around us.

In the South, taking soup to someone who is sick or arriving at someone's door with a pound cake is practically a way of life.

Of course, the soup isn't going to cure the illness, and the pound cake isn't going to make someone's troubles disappear.

But that isn't really the point, is it?

The point is to remind someone that they haven't been forgotten. That someone is thinking of them, that they are loved, and perhaps, through that small gesture, that they are loved by God, too.

And something rather wonderful happens when we give freely of ourselves, without expecting anything in return.

We often find that we receive something as well. A warmth in our hearts, a sense of peace, and perhaps a feeling of being a little closer to God.

I don't believe acts of service need to be grand gestures. Sometimes the smallest things can mean the most.

Perhaps that is one way we give to God what belongs to God: through the love, compassion, and care we offer one another.

So this week, let's take being the spark a little further. Look for an opportunity to be of service, not because you have to, but simply because you can.

And perhaps, in doing something for someone else, you will find a little more peace within yourself.

Amen.

I usually look to the Episcopal Gospel each week for inspiration, but this week’s Gospel was a head-scratcher for me…and I spent a lot of time digesting it, which I guess is the purpose of a parable. But my thinking went in a different direction than perhaps the usual teaching, and this is what I wanted to share with you.

What I kept coming back to was the importance of pausing, noticing, and then, most importantly, sharing a word of praise with another person.

In my eyes, this should start at home. The days can get busy and blend one into another, but we should train ourselves to pause, admire, and share a compliment with those in our home—a partner, a child, a parent, a sibling, a roommate. Notice a gift that is unique to that person and tell them…a small, sincere word to show you notice and love them.

You are not doing this for a return compliment, but to give this person what might end up being the one nice thing in their day.

Then, as we move through the day, notice. Thank someone for holding a door…literally stop and say thank you. Tell a manager how well one of their employees did. Yes, it may take an extra sixty seconds from your routine, but what if the ripple effect helps someone receive a bonus, or makes someone smile who had received bad news earlier?

We have no idea what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes. But what if we bring them a small moment to pause and feel appreciated?

You are not doing this for yourself, but start doing it and see the warmth it brings back to you. See how acts of kindness to others actually bring kindness and joy to you, too.

We all tend to talk about the news and events in the world that are dark and not to our liking. But this world is still filled with beauty and love, and so much of this starts in our own community.

Bring your partner a cup of coffee, tell your child how much you love them, tell the grocery store cashier that you love her nail polish color…

Be the spark that lights the world.

There is something I have told my children for most of their lives:

Changing direction does not necessarily mean you made a mistake.

We make decisions with the information we have at the time. We weigh what we know, choose a direction, and move forward.

Then life gives us more information.

Circumstances change. We learn something we couldn’t have known before. Sometimes we simply begin to see things differently.

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus tells of a father who asks his two sons to work in his vineyard. The first says no, but later changes his mind and goes.

He doesn’t remain committed to his first answer simply because it was his first answer.

There is something wonderfully human about that.

Pride can convince us that changing course means admitting we were wrong. So we stay on roads we might otherwise leave simply because we chose them once.

But there is no particular virtue in stubbornness.

Sometimes the healthiest and most honest thing we can say is:

I know something now that I did not know then.

And then we pivot.

We should give ourselves grace for decisions made with the information we had at the time. We cannot judge our former selves using knowledge we only gained later.

The first son’s first answer did not have to become his permanent answer.

Neither does ours.

Sometimes changing direction isn’t a mistake.

Sometimes it means we were paying attention.

“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
— Matthew 20:15

Over the past few months, I have been rocked by the news that several businesses much like mine are no longer here.

Businesses I knew. Businesses I admired. Businesses that, from where I stood, appeared to be doing extraordinarily well.

It has made me think about how very little we actually know about one another's lives.

Running a small business can be overwhelming. There are days when I look at someone else's social media account and think, They are doing so much better than I am.

Look at their followers.

Their beautiful photographs.

Their new products. Their press. Their growth.

And then I look back at my own business, with all the things I know about it that no one else can see—the difficult months, the bills, the mistakes, the worries—and think:   Mine is struggling.

But lately I have begun asking myself a different question....

Is it really?

Or have I simply compared everything I know about my own life with the tiny portion of someone else's life that I am allowed to see?

This week's Gospel tells the story of workers in a vineyard. Some have worked all day. Others arrive much later. At the end of the day, the landowner pays them the same, and those who came first are angry.

What strikes me is that nothing was taken from them.

They received exactly what they had agreed to receive.

Their circumstances did not change.

Their contentment did.

They looked sideways.

I wonder how often we do the same.

We look at another person's marriage, children, career, home, body, bank account, friendships, success—and inevitably we see only what is visible from the outside.

But the paths that brought each of us to where we stand cannot be seen by anyone else.

Only we know the roads we have traveled.

Only we know the thousand experiences that have shaped why we think the way we think, why we make the choices we make, what we value, what frightens us, what we have survived, and what we are still carrying.

We each arrive at this moment carrying the accumulation of an entire life.

How could we possibly measure that against someone else's?

Perhaps what I need—and what I find myself praying for lately—is the grace to keep my eyes forward.

Not blinders.

I don't want to stop seeing other people.

Quite the opposite.

I want to celebrate them. Encourage them. Learn from them. Reach out a hand when they need one and accept theirs when I do.

But I don't want to use their lives as the measuring stick for mine.

Because comparison has a peculiar way of making us question things we were perfectly content with five minutes earlier.

It can convince us that something isn't enough simply because someone else appears to have more.

And perhaps that is one of the quieter lessons in the vineyard.

Someone else's blessing does not diminish mine.

Someone else's success does not make me a failure.

Someone else's path does not mean I have taken a wrong turn.

Their story is theirs.

Mine is mine.

And God can see the entirety of both.

So this week, perhaps the prayer is simply for grace.

The grace to embrace one another without measuring ourselves against one another.

The grace to celebrate someone else's good fortune without allowing it to diminish our own.

The grace to remember how little we can see of the road another person has traveled.

And the grace to keep our eyes forward on the life we have actually been given.

Because perhaps comparison doesn't merely steal our joy.

Sometimes it prevents us from recognizing how much we already have to be joyful about.

Peace be with you until we meet again in the Chapel.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
— Psalm 118:24

Every fall, I find myself wishing I could slow time down.

Perhaps because I know how quickly these particular months disappear.

September arrives and we begin making plans for October. October fills with thoughts of Thanksgiving. Then comes Christmas, and suddenly I am taking down the tree after Epiphany wondering how we arrived at another January.

This year, I want to do it differently.

I want to linger.

I want to notice the hummingbirds before they leave.

I want to hear the crows becoming more talkative and watch the birds beginning to gather. I want to feel the almost imperceptible change in the temperature of the breeze.

I want to notice the loose dogwood berries dropping to the ground.

I've been sitting in the Chicken Haven just a little longer each day. And each evening, I find myself closing the coop door a little earlier as the sun slips away one minute sooner.

None of this is remarkable.

And yet, somehow, all of it is.

We spend so much of our lives waiting for what comes next.

If I can just get through this...

Once that happens...

When this is finished, then...

We make plans, fill calendars and look ahead. There is work to be done. There are places to go and things that genuinely require our attention.

Those things will continue.

But I am beginning to wonder how much of our contentment we accidentally give away to the future.

Perhaps we cannot slow time.

But we can stop helping it hurry.

We can leave a little room in the calendar. Sit outside ten minutes longer. Notice that the breeze feels different today than it did last week.

We can allow September to simply be September without asking it to become October.

There is a verse I have known for years: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

I've always heard the word rejoice.

This year, I find myself hearing something else.

This is the day.

Not the day we're waiting for.

Not the day when everything is settled.

Not the day after the work is finished or the problem is solved.

This one.

Perhaps that is the invitation.

Not to abandon our plans or stop looking forward to what is coming, but to slip a little more deeply into the moments while they are actually ours.

I know these hummingbirds will leave.

The dogwood berries will fall.

Soon enough I will be closing the coop door before dinner, and the trees beyond it will be bare.

And before we blink, another year will begin.

I cannot stop any of that.

But this year, I want to know where the time went.

I want to remember that I was there for it.

So for now, I am going to sit here just a little longer.

And linger.

Peace be with you until we meet again in the Chapel.