Are you a part of something bigger than yourself? Something that calls your name and asks you to participate?

To me, there is a difference between ‘inheriting’ something and being caught up in a ‘legacy.’ An inheritance is up to you on how you spend it. Use it now, sell it, keep it locked away – it can end with you. A legacy however started before you were around and expects to go on after you are gone. You inherit an old house and you sell it. You’re done.

A legacy, however, is more like an effort your family has been a part of for years (generations?) and now it’s your turn to carry the work forward. If you ‘drop the ball,’ something important is lost forever.

Can you think of some examples of a legacy? A business, a political movement, a protected woodland, a new kind of music (or an old kind revived)? What other legacies can you think of?

Is Christianity an inheritance or a legacy? I there no obligation for you to do anything to carry the effort forward, just enjoy or not? Or is your name called for this day, for this effort?

In one of Sunday’s readings [Acts 28:16-22], Paul gathers Jewish leaders together when he arrives in Rome in chains. He wants to explain/defend himself and his gospel message against slanders. Turns out, they hadn’t heard any reports about him at all! So, he is freer to share how the word about Christ is not a disruption of what the Lord had given to the Jewish people but an expansion of their legacy.

Paul anticipates that Rome will kill him and this is an urgent time for his last effort – his last will and testament.

In the second reading [Ephesians 4:11-16], lays out the call of the Christian legacy for all to participate as a part of the Body of Christ. We’re not just attenders or admirers or believers. We are to be equipped for the work of serving and building up the Body of Christ. To do so, we must grow up, speak the truth in love, and stay connected to one another.

If you recognize yourself to be a part of the Body, what is your role in continuing the legacy? Are you fulfilling your call?

By the way, Sunday is Mother’s Day, of course. The American version was begun in a Methodist Church (in West Virginia) in part to honor mothers who had died. The founder of our remembrance day eventually came to greatly regret the commercialism that had smothered the day. She urged children to go visit their moms – if they were still living – rather than merely sending them flowers. Just saying…