Eastertide
April 5, 2016

Scripture Reading: Acts 9:7-20

So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. –Acts 9:17-19

Who enabled your faith? My list is long and getting longer. My parents certainly would be toward the top of the list. A multitude of Sunday school teachers and ministers would follow. Authors of books that I love to read. Even the people I have observed from afar like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa. I have to say though, the Jesus I was introduced to as a tiny child would have to top my list. The one these others taught me to sing about and pray to. The one who truly was my friend in every sense of the word and still is to this day.

Whose faith are we enabling? youth Sunday at my church this week was led by some of the most gifted young people you would every want to meet. They designed and wrote the whole service. Dubbed it the first Oscars for Parables. At the end when they accepted the Oscar after declaring a tie among the four parables they presented, they shared their list of enablers in their thank you speeches for the “Oscars” they received. It sounded much like mine.

Who is enabling the faith of all those people out there whose faith has never been enabled? What is happening to those who have been scarred by the church, told they were not worthy? Who is loving them like Jesus loved us once we met him?

Prayer: Lord, you call some to be preachers, some to be teachers, some to be healers, but you call us all to be enablers of the faith. Grant us each our own vision like Ananias had of who you are calling us to enable. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.