"The Pessimistic Parachutist"

 

Today's Sermon in a Nutshell:

"The Pessimistic Parachutist"

There once was a man about to make his first parachute jump. The instructor said, “First, you pull the big cord. If it doesn’t work, you pull the little cord of your emergency chute. Then…there will be a red pickup truck waiting for you when you land.”

When it was time, the man jumped out of the plane. When he pulled the big cord, nothing happened, so she pulled the little cord. Still nothing happened. “That’s great,” he muttered. “Now I suppose the red pickup truck won’t be there either.”

When we go through life allowing pessimism to override optimism, it’s easy to lose sight of all the positives for the negatives…and there truly are a lot of negatives. All one needs to do is watch the evening news to figure that out. Yet if we adhere to today’s epistle lesson and “cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9) and adopt the persona to “Be of good cheer” (Matt. 9:2) which Christ spoke of in today’s gospel, we can change our negative attitude and outlook to focus on the goodness that will ultimately bring us back into the grace of God. Thus, it doesn’t matter if the chalice is half empty or half full, because either way, just like life, God is always in it!

Fr. John