Reverend Michael McManus

You know when
you first meet someone who is a friendly person and you walk away and say to
yourself, "He's a good guy." That comfortable feeling is what I
experienced when I met Reicko Jones.  Over the year that I knew Reicko as
a teacher and coach at St. George's Episcopal Church and Center, I never
changed my mind.  In fact, as I got to know Reicko, I liked him even more. 

Reicko
always greeted me with, "you 'ight?" which meant "Are you
alright?" - Reicko's way of saying hello.  I would mess with him and
say "How ye gettin' along" - in my best Southern accent – another way
of saying hello that I picked up at law school in Macon, Georgia.  But a
what I particularly liked when Reicko greeted me with "you ight?' was that
he was always smiling.  Even if you were not alright, Reicko's smile made
you FEEL alright.

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Luke 12:34

I had a dream last night that twin girls that I know had come to my parish and asked me if I wanted to take a bike ride to Stuart.  People that know me know that I love to take bike rides, both for the exercise and mental get a away vacation.  Even in the dream, we didn't actually go on the bike ride because it started to rain in my dream.  But we make plans to go at another time.  Yet I was happy in the dream that I had been their invitation.  I was thankful that they had thought of me and invited me.  It was uplifting to me and made me happy to be invited.

I woke up today with this feeling of happiness. and assurance.

Today we come together, friends of Glenn "Chico", Hall to celebrate his life.

I know Glenn as "Chico" apparently a nick-name given to him here at St. George's because Chico looked Hispanic, but he wasn't.  In fact, Glenn was an All-American from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is a town of blue-collar workers and that hard worker status fit Chico to a T.

I got to know Chico as a volunteer at St. George's.  I would come in the kitchen at lunchtime and  there was a man washing the pots and pans. And his name was Chico. 

The story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42 really is about living a balanced spiritual life.  

Jesus chastises Martha for being "worried and distracted by many things." You can almost hear Martha's reply, "Yeah, well if I don't get the cooking and cleaning done, then nobody's going to eat and the place will be a mess!" 

Jesus' point was that Mary has "chosen the better part" - to just sit quietly and listen to Jesus.

To live a balanced life, we must both act and reflect, act and reflect.

"The
harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."  Luke 10:1-2

This is one of my favorite Scripture verses since I was in my late teens. I always found it fascinating that the Lord would create such a great harvest, but have few laborers.  Of course, the Lord is talking about people who are laborers who will go into his fields to find the lost souls and bring them to him.  The Jesus' solution to lack of laborers is to ask "the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

So, we see even in Jesus' day, he did not preach and work on his own.  Jesus appointed seventy and sent them out ahead of him in pairs.  The pairs were to go into towns ahead to prepare the way of the Lord.

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all the truth." John 16:12

All relationships between two people are like triangles. They may have a good spirit between them or they may have a bad spirit between them.  Or they may have a combination of both. 

A great illustration of having good and bad is the story of Adam and Eve.  All starts out as good as they live in paradise created by a gracious God.  But both Adam and Eve change.  Eve listens to a serpent and Adam is tempted to have as much knowledge as God, and thus to become like God. That good spirit between Adam and God and Eve and God becomes triangles of mistrust.  The good spirit between Adam and Eve becomes a triangle of bad spirit and they are thrown out of paradise and live a tough life of toil and labor.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in
Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many
invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been
ill for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that
he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made
well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the
pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way,
someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take
your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his
mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.   John 5:1-9

Continue reading "Was blind, but now I see!" »