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While Pastor Kubke was going to university in Calgary, he worked in the hardware department at Woodwards, a department store that is long since gone.  One day an elderly man came in looking for a new low-end lawnmower that had been advertized on sale.   They were out of stock, but the man made such a case for needing one to finish mowing his lawn that very day that Pastor went into the stockroom and looked to see if one of those lawnmowers had not been overlooked.  Eventually he found a box with the right model number hidden among the top-of-the-line models that do everything but brush your teeth.  The man bought the mower, but came back after the weekend with the empty box, a cheque for a mower twice the price, and an interesting story. 

When he came home with the mower, his wife took one look at the box and became very angry with him.  She did not want him to be pushing a standard gas lawnmower up their steep lawn at his age and told him only a self-propelled machine would do.  While they argued, he opened the box and took out the mower, determined to stick to his own choice.  It annoyed him to find that it was the very top-of-the-line, self-propelled model that his wife had wanted.  She convinced him to try mowing his lawn with that mower and in no time at all he realized that his wife had been right. 

Sometimes we have our minds set on something and get very upset when things are not the way that we expect them to be.  But then we discover that the surprise was actually the better way.

That is what our Gospel lesson brings before us today.    Our Gospel lesson sounds so different from what you are used to expecting from out of God's Word that it might really disturb you to hear it.  If that is where you are this morning, then there is something you need to consider: When God's Word is not quite what you expected, you may know for certain that God's surprises will always be the better way!

One day when Pastor Kubke was doing his routine hospital visits in a former parish, he was surprised to find the name of his next door neighbour on the admissions list that was kept in the clergy office of that hospital.   He went to her hospital room to visit her and found that she was very seriously ill indeed and also quite depressed.  Her dark mood was understandable enough, considering her illness, but it wasn’t the illness that had her the most upset.  It turned out that her husband absolutely refused to come into the hospital with her when he left her there.   As ill as she had been, he had simply dropped her off in front of the emergency ward door.   After that, when she was admitted, he refused to go in to see her.   He sent friends in to see her and even sent gifts along with those friends, but he could not be persuaded to walk through the hospital doors himself.  

Why was that?  He was terrified of hospitals.   He was a strongly built, aggressive military man.  He was the kind of man who fit nicely into most people’s idea of what a motorcycle gang member would be like, but he simply did not have the ability to face his fear and overcome it.    His problem with hospitals meant that he left his wife feeling very unloved indeed, but even at the risk of his own marriage, he would not go to see her.

What are you afraid of?   We have our fears, some of which are quite understandable and normal, and others that truly hinder us and rob us of a sense of satisfaction and joy in life.  We have our fears, fears that can protect us in some ways, and fears that can cause us to lose some of the people or some of things in our lives that we cherish the most.  

In our lessons today, we see that God recognizes our fears and gives us the gift by which we can cope with them.  Thank God that He gives us that faith that trusts in Him especially when we are filled with fear!

Consider the domestic camel.  When used as a beast of burden, there is only one way to load it up.  It has to get down onto its knees so that its master can place its burden upon it.   A camel has to get down onto its knees before it can begin its work for the day.  Then, when the day is done, it has to get down onto its knees to have the load taken off of it.  A camel has to kneel when its work day begins and when its work day ends; That is the only posture a camel can handle.  It can't roll onto its side.  It can't just stay standing to receive its load.  It has to kneel.  That is part of being a camel.

Consider the average Christian.   The average Christian begins each day like everyone else, receiving the load of burdens that has to be carried through the day.  The Christian lives through the day much like everyone else, living with the problems, the responsibilities and the cares that each of us have to face.  Yet, the Christian is different from everybody else.  The Christian is offered a wonderful privilege by God.  The Christian is offered the privilege of praying in Jesus' name.  The Christian can get down onto his or her knees as the day begins to get ready for the burdens of the day.  The Christian can get down onto those knees again as the day ends to have those burdens lifted again.  The Christian prays.   Prayer is a part of being a child of God.  Our Gospel lesson this morning tells us that we should pray, and we should pray boldly.  As children of God, Jesus helps us to pray boldly!

In some ways, one of the easiest things in the world to do is to love.  It can be easy to love the person who flatters you, or at least to love that person’s flattery.  It can be easy to love the person who is nice to you and good to you and watches out for you.  It can be easy to love the person who showers you with gifts and makes you feel worthwhile just because of the attention you are getting.  It doesn't matter:  If you stand to gain a whole lot of personal points out of a relationship, love is not a hard thing at all.  But that is not love.  That is selfishness.  Real Christian love is something altogether different.

In our Gospel lesson this morning, a certain expert on the Law heard what it means to have the right kind of love.  He learned about a real and a meaningful kind of love in answer to his question,  "What must I do to inherit eternal life?".  Real love is only something that shows itself when you share it unselfishly with others.  That is what Jesus tells us in our parable this morning: Real love shows itself in service.  Real love shows itself when we serve God!