Second Sunday in Lent Yr B Feb 28 2021

 

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Second Sunday in Lent Yr B Feb 28 2021

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38, Psalm 22:22-30

 

Jesus says, follow me. But if you do, there will be consequences. You will lose your life. Not much of a party invitation is it? What would that look like on a save the date card. That card for me would read, Kathleen Ann Monson, on August 21^st, 1957, you are invited to lose your life. Details to follow. You see, that’s the day I was baptized. How do I even know that you ask? I have my baptismal certificate framed on my wall, my ordination certificate is there as well, but the baptismal certificate is the most important to me, to us. That is the day I lost my life, to be reborn into the life of Jesus. And it is with this identity, a follower of Jesus in the way of love, that I live my life. All the rest is the details. 

 

In this story from Mark, there are some very important questions that are part of the details, that inform the way of love. Who do you say I am? Can you turn from all that demands your attention and follow me? Can you put aside your own selfish ambition? Can you lay down your life? As we wonder about the answers to these questions, we may find that Jesus calls us to some uncomfortable places, some borders and barriers that must be broken. 

 

We begin, as we began last time in Mark, with location. Location, location, location. We need to look at the physical location of the story, and where the story is in the larger narrative, it makes a difference. So Jesus and the disciples are in Caesarea Philippi, and that is way far away from Jerusalem, about 110 miles away, and remember, anyplace they go they go on foot. Jesus and the disciples were walking all over the place and they were nowhere near home. In this place, so far from home, Jesus asks, who do you say I am. Peter declares, you are the Messiah. Peter says, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God. 

 

This declaration of who Jesus is, is made way out in the villages, a beautiful area and a center of Pagan activity.  Caesarea Philippi is home to the Temple of Pan. This is not a judgement about good and bad, only an illustration about how the location of this declaration that Peter, the Rock, makes, about who Jesus is, becomes an important part of the story. They are way out of their territory, deep in pagan lands, in the places they are not comfortable. What does it mean to confess Jesus as the messiah in this wilderness, in foreign lands? Jesus and his followers are the aliens here. Talk about losing your life! In this setting Peter affirms Jesus’ identity, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God. 

 

So what does this all mean for us, in our setting, in our lives? Who do we say Jesus is when we are in the wilderness, when we are in front of the temple of pan? Who do we say Jesus is when we are with those who claim a Jesus who takes power rather than the one we know, the Jesus who empowers us in the way of Love. And, how do we respond to the demand to deny ourselves and take up our cross. You see, these two claims have everything to do with each other. 

 

I’ll tell you why. Peter’s claim that Jesus is the one for whom they have been waiting, becomes our reality that Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is God in the midst of humanity. Jesus, the one who travels to the wilderness, Jesus, the one who feeds thousands of people in the wilderness, Jesus the one who gives sight to the blind, this is the Jesus we follow in the way of love. Not a god who demands power and glory, but Jesus, who goes to the edges of the earth to bring those who are on the margins into the community of the beloved. Not a god who demands the sacrifice of a son, but God in Jesus, who asks the sacrifice of self. 

 

That is what Jesus is asking of us here. Jesus says, put aside your selfish ambition, give up your busy is better life, give up your need to be successful, your need to be liked, your need to please, your need to be perfect, put aside all that is killing you for the sake of love. Because love changes everything. 

 

And it is so hard. It is hard because it demands that we love ourselves. It is hard because once we love ourselves, and put aside all that is killing us, our eyes and hearts are opened to our own brokenness and vulnerability, and our eyes and hearts are opened to the brokenness we see around us. It is hard because it is scary. Fear is at the root of most of our inability to love. It is hard because we also must say, like Peter says, Jesus, you are the Love of God, and we must say it in difficult places, in uncomfortable places and conversations. We too must go to the margins, and break down the barriers that keep people from the love of God. We also must speak out loud, on behalf of ourselves and those whose voices are silenced, Jesus is the Love that wins.

 

What are the wild places that you go to speak the love of God? For some of us that may be hard family conversations. For me it’s when one of the people I love says something, or posts something on facebook that supports or defends an attitude that is not loving, but judging, racist, or misogynistic; it’s a wild place that I need to enter, not to take sides or to judge, but to have conversation about why that comment or that piece they post is not loving. 

 

Just remember, in the waters of baptism you have been set free to bear God’s love into all the wild places of your life. By your baptism you have been marked with oil and retraced with ashes as Christ’s own forever. You carry the light of Christ to illuminate all of the dark and wild places. You carry the cross of love in your pocket. You are created in God’s image. You are equipped, by your baptism in the community of saints and the cloud of witnesses, with Peter and all the others, to proclaim the love that wins. Thanks be to God. 

1 Lent Yr B Feb 21 2021

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1 Lent Yr B Feb 21 2021

Genesis 9:8-17, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15, Psalm 25:1-9

 

And the walls come a tumblin down. That’s what’s happening here, God’s tumblin the walls. God’s removing any barriers between God and creation, God and humanity, God and us. This is Good News isn’t it? It also means that God is loose in our world. That may be a bit stickier. Because if God is loose in our world, it means that something is afoot, and that something may very well call us into something new, something wild, something not quite as orderly as we are used to.

 

How do we know God is loose in the world? Let’s take a look at what Mark has to say. When Jesus, who is God in our midst, was coming up out of the water after being baptized by John, the heavens were torn apart – that is something to pay attention to, and the Spirit descended into him, and a voice from the heavens said, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

 

There’s a lot going on here, but in this short piece we get the point. God is on the move. Once the heavens are torn apart, you can’t undo that. God is loose. There’s another place that we hear the heavens are torn apart. Can you remember when? I’ll help you. At the crucifixion, in Mark that is chapter 15 verse 38 “and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” This is not just dramatic staging or an opportunity for wondrous computer generated imagery. This means that God is loose. And this is a huge change for those who always understood that God was contained in the ark of the covenant and later in the holy of holies. When history gets to the story of Jesus, it had been a long, long time that anyone had heard from God.  The Jewish people believed that prophecy had ceased with the last prophets but that it would be restored at the end-times (Malachi 4:5-6). The heavens had “closed,” as it were, and there was no direct communication from God to humankind anymore. That Mark says that the heavens were torn apart is a daring affirmation. That the Spirit descended and entered into Jesus is even more so. Here we have an absolutely revolutionary claim: the God of Israel is speaking again and has chosen to do it through a humble peasant from Galilee! So God showing up changes everything. God descending into Jesus changes everything. God is on the loose. You and I may not be hearing God’s voice, but rest assured, something is afoot, God is moving about, and there is no putting God back in the box.

 

For whom is God on the move? For whom is God loosed? That question can be answered with location, location, location. This is the beginning of Mark’s gospel, John is not in the power center, in the city or even in the village, John is out in the countryside, in the wilderness, on the margins, baptizing people. And after a long time of no God sightings, God is present. This is remarkable. It is remarkable that God shows up, and that God shows up outside of the city center, outside of the seat of power. You see, the messiah for whom the Hebrew people wait was a messiah who would sit on the throne and make everything right. But that’s not the messiah this story shows us. Jesus is out in the wilderness with John. John who eats locusts and wild honey, John who is an oddly likable character. Jesus doesn’t show up to solidify power, Jesus shows up to enfranchise those who have been tossed out, to restore those, women particularly, who have been tossed to the side because they are unattached to a man, and to heal those who have been tossed out like trash. 

 

Jesus goes from being baptized in the river to being tempted in the wilderness. 

 

Why is all this curtain tearing, Spirit entering, wilderness living, so important for us? God is tearing down walls, boundaries are being breached, borders are being crossed. That is who God is. It challenges our want and desire to define God, to determine what God can and cannot do, who God can and cannot love. God is the God of outrageous, uncontainable love. 

 

But this God who bursts into our lives, this God who is on the loose, this God who breaks boundaries and borders, calls us to see the rupture and hear the voice that is in our midst, maybe even calls us to wonder about the rupture we have experienced in our own lives. And God invites us to see the world from the margins of society. God invites us to see the world through and around the barriers we have built and that must come a tumblin down. 

 

Dear friends, God is still at work, still proclaiming the good news. God is still calling us to follow Jesus. Are we willing to drop so much of what passes for normal and expected in order to follow in the way of Jesus? God sees us as God saw Jesus on his baptismal day, beloved. 

 

Lent is a season of intention. This Lenten season is not the same ol lent. This Lenten season comes to us as we continue to persevere in this time of pandemic. This Lenten season comes to us as the racial and socio-economic disparities in our country have been so clearly revealed. God sees us as worthy of God’s attention, as capable of great things, as called and equipped to be Jesus’ followers in this new and challenging year of our Lord, 2021.

 

We cannot go back, we cannot put God back in the box. We must follow Jesus to outrageous faith and possibility. We cannot put back together that which cannot be mended. We must meet Jesus on the margins, in the wilderness, and turn in a new direction, believing and trusting that, indeed, God is with us and for us. 

 

And let us be blessed by the angels, the angels that cared for Jesus in the wilderness, the angels that care for the lonely of our church and our community, the angels that tirelessly care for the sick, the angels that deliver food and water to those whose homes are torn apart in the cold, the angels that care nothing for boundaries and barriers but who carry the love that wins to the margins.

 

Amen. 

Last Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 14 2021

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 14 2021

2 Kings 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9, Psalm 50:1-6

 

What happened on that mountaintop was amazing. Imagine being Peter up on that mountaintop with Jesus; excitable, headstrong Peter, sometimes foolish, swearing his love for Jesus, and then denying he even knew who Jesus was. Or James, or John, all of them fishermen. Elijah and Moses show up, and Jesus is dazzling, the holy trinity. Peter is awestruck and wants to erect three tents to contain this amazing mountaintop experience, keep it forever. I would love to be there, wouldn’t you? The wisdom of Elijah, and Moses, and Jesus, all there for the taking. Peter, James and John have heard the stories of Moses and of Elijah their entire lives. We just heard part of the story of Elijah from the book of Kings. Moses and Elijah are the prophets, the heroes, the rock stars. Their stories live in the realm of legend, it’d be like coming face to face with Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, and Madeleine L’engle. Or Yoda, ObiWan, and Anakin Skywalker. Who wouldn’t wish for them to stay, to bask in the glory of their greatness, their wisdom?

 

I think this is a story that shows forth the presence of God, it shows us God's inbreaking kingdom. It gives us a glimpse of incarnation, a glimpse of glory. And this story shows us an interruption in life as we know it. Peter, James and John are witnesses to inbreaking, incarnation, interruption. And we, as we overhear get a glimpse into the story, we too are witnesses to inbreaking, to incarnation, to interruption.

 

This story shows us that God has everything to do with us. God's glory, and God's kingdom, and God's love breaks into our lives, in surprising times and places, we get glimpses, and sometimes we recognize those times as God's presence, like Peter did. And like Peter, when that happens, we want to make it permanent, we want to build a building to contain it, and we want to keep God in that place. But it doesn't seem like that is the way God would have it.

 

This is truly a glimpse of glory. A mountaintop experience. Peter, James and John are witnesses and participants in this amazing time out of time. You may have had an experience that you may describe similarly, a particularly meaningful experience of worship, with music and people who helped you to transcend time. But this story also says, Jesus came down the mountain.

 

We get glimpses of glory, but we also come down off the mountaintop and deal with life in our world of ordinariness. You may say as Peter says, let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. You may want as Peter wants to hold on to that experience, to be able to revisit it whenever you want, to come back to it whenever you need a shot in the arm, or even to escape to it when the world just seems too hard to handle. But the experience won’t be put into a box. And yet that doesn’t stop you from striving to replicate it and measuring every subsequent religious experience by it. But that can’t be done, not only can’t it be done, but it also prevents us from experiencing God in the moment, God in the mundane, God in the ordinary, which is where each of us live most of the time.

 

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration is ultimate glory. It is wonderful, it is exquisite, and it is not where we live or where we are to stay. In the transfiguration we see that what we think about time and how God acts in time are different. Peter, James and John, and you and I as we look in, see time all at once, like God sees it. If we were to construct a timeline, the story of Moses takes place somewhere around 1500 years before Christ, Elijah about 850 years before Christ. And yet, at this event they are all there together. God shows forth God’s glory, God shows that life with God is without limits. It is like the Eucharistic moment, it may be comfortable and calm, it may be nourishing and refreshing, it may be inspiring and illuminating. It is filled with the people we love and who love us. We really want to stay, but we can’t stay in it, and we can’t repeat the exact moment. But it will give us the ability to persevere, from it we are sent out into the world to do the work we are given to do. We are sent out into the world to live our lives and to bring peace and reconciliation and healing to a broken and fragmented world.

 

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration is a touchstone. We may return to it, but we can’t control it, and that can be rather disquieting, actually terrifying as reported in this story. We come to worship and sing God’s praises; we come to find stability in an unstable world. We come to hear the story of our faith that has not changed over time. And yet God’s word and our worship are not comfortable, they are not static. God’s word and our worship are growing and changing, becoming the creation that God has intended for it. The glory that is shone forth should cause us to be terrified, to go down the mountain and confront the comfortable and disrupt the status quo. The glory that is shone forth results in the casting out of demons, the reordering of social status and kinship, the arrest and torture of the one who bears the Good News, the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth with Jesus Christ God’s son.

 

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration promises to accompany us into our mundane and ordinary lives. We carry that glory into our work and our school and our play. It becomes the spirit that inspires and creates us; it becomes the life that gives us life. It is that which is in the eyes and souls of those whose paths we cross, it is in the respect and dignity with which we treat everyone we meet. It is why we stand with those who have been discriminated against.

 

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration pushes us out into the world so that we may get going with God’s mission in this world. God’s mission is of healing and reconciliation. God’s mission is about putting fractured souls back together in this broken and fragmented world. God’s mission is about loving and serving your neighbor, especially when we don’t feel like it, especially when it is uncomfortable, even when it seems impossible and downright scary.

 

Following Jesus is not about being on the mountaintop, but being in the mundane and ordinary, and looking and listening for God’s presence in all of the ordinary parts of our lives. This week, after we eat our pancakes, and consider all of the ingredients for a Holy Lent, we begin our journey of Lent in this most mundane way, back in the parking lot. I encourage you to take the time out of your routine, to take the time out of your work and your play, to be present to God's movement in your life, to experience God's amazing love for you. Amen.  

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 7 2021

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Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 7 2021

Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39, Psalm 147:1-12, 21c

 

My mother-in-law, Rick’s mom, is an amazing woman. She has enough love in her heart for the whole world. She’s worked hard her entire adult life, often working overnights in restaurants as a waitress or a manager. She has been a caterer, and has been known to bake Christmas cookies and cakes for the people in her building. Food has not only been her bread and butter, but food is also the means by which she shows her love and finds her worth. And we love her dearly. We never expect her to prepare a meal for us, but, well you know, she does anyway. She’s made garlic toast and roast beef hash, and a dish only a son could like, Cedric’s casserole. Butterfinger bars, pink squirrels, Russian teacakes…. And finally she has compiled all her recipes and gave them to each of us for Christmas. You try to say, no, you know you really don’t have to, and it rings hollow, because really, she has to, it’s who she is. She is whole and complete; she is whom she truly was created to be when she is in her kitchen. 

 

Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law. And the first thing she does is to get up and serve them. This is a story that has always made me mad. No rest, no recovery, no getting back at things slowly, the fever left her, and she began to serve them. On the surface it seems like this is just perpetuating a stereotype, the woman’s role. And then I am reminded of my mother-in-law, and I remember that what they share is that their wholeness, their health, their being fully who they are, is tied directly to their love of serving. When my mother in law is sick and cannot putz around her kitchen baking this and that, she is not herself. She is aging, and she cannot move about in her home and her kitchen as she would wish. She is losing herself. 

 

What Jesus did here was more than just heal Simon’s mother in law, as if that isn’t enough, he put things right, he restores the order of things, he makes whole what is broken, he brings her to herself, he gives her a new life. The radical nature of this story is not necessarily that Simon’s mother-in-law was healed, and not necessarily that she served, the radical nature of this story is Jesus’ capacity to restore her wholeness, to restore her value and worth, to actually give her new life. And in so doing, purpose and meaning.

 

That’s what casting out demons and healing is about with Jesus. Jesus heals a leper, Jesus heals a paralytic, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. Jesus heals a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years, and a child who has died. It is not just removing disease, as if that isn’t enough, but these are stories about Jesus’ power to bring people into a new relationship, to bring people into right relationship with himself and with others. These are stories about making whole what is broken, these are stories about bringing healing into a fragmented world, these are stories about this absolutely new thing that God is up to. These are stories about making the dead alive.

 

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. That is not to say that the life you live will be perfect, whole and perfect are nothing alike. Perfect is what we see set before us as a standard by those who can sell us something to make us seem perfect. Perfect is what we will be if we buy the right skin lotion, perfect is what we will be if we buy the right house, perfect is what we will be if we marry the right person, or play the right game or have the right bank account or life insurance or whatever. The harder we work for perfect, the more frustrated, depressed, angry, and resentful we become.

 

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. When Rick and I were married, we were given the chalice that was used for Holy Communion that day. On our 10th anniversary, we brought the chalice to church with us to use at communion in celebration of our anniversary. As I was getting out of the car that day, I dropped the chalice. We picked up the pieces, and I set about putting the cup back together. It is whole, but surely not perfect. It is now filled with 36 years of growth, of such pain, happiness, heartache, joy and of sorrow. We lived together through pain and suffering, death and resurrection. We were never a perfect couple, perfect parents, perfects siblings, not perfect, but in Jesus’ love he is whole, I am whole, we are whole. 

 

It is this Good News that we must proclaim to the world. Perfect people have no time for church, broken and hurting people, you and I, come to be made whole, come to be restored to fullness of life, come to be made new in the waters of baptism, we have been born again. God already knows us; we are wonderfully and fearfully made. In baptism we are perfection and beauty and potential and existence. When we are dropped into the water there is a new creation. The water takes the calluses, the armor, the prison around our lives, and sets us free. Very shortly this is also the journey of Lent, from baptism to new life

 

Jesus is a good Jew, he goes to synagogue on the Sabbath, but then he goes and breaks the law by healing on the Sabbath. What Mark is trying to show us is that the Word of God, God in the flesh, is active and healing. Jesus knows that there is a danger in people knowing that he is the Word of God, God in the flesh. Jesus knows that it is also dangerous for him to neglect his own relationship with the one who gives him life, so he goes to pray. Wholeness and healing involve prayer, into our brokenness comes the Word, alive and active, quiet and contemplative. 

 

Jesus was fully who he was created to be as he went about healing, casting out demons, turning over tables in the temple, eating with sinners, welcoming the children. It was all in a day’s work for him, albeit hard work. And he too needed to regain his balance, find his center, kneel before his creator, and pray. 

 

I don’t think the 1st century world in which Jesus lived is much different than the world in which we live. People are broken, disheartened, there is greed and there is idolatry. Through Jesus, God offers us healing and wholeness, through Jesus, God offers us the opportunity to be ourselves. Putting ourselves, like Jesus did, in the posture of prayer brings us to a place where we can hear the call to be ourselves, to be whole, to be healed. Prayer is a place in which we find our relationship with God, prayer is a place in which we find ourselves. 

 

Come and be healed, come and be who you are called to be, come, and find yourself.  Amen

 

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Yr B Jan 31 2021

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Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Yr B Jan 31 2021

Deuteronomy 18:15-20, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28, Psalm 111

 

Mark’s gospel begins with the expectation that you already know what this story is about, so there is no preliminaries, not like in Luke, not like Matthew, and definitely not like in John. When we enter Mark’s gospel we are off and running. No time to process any of this. After Jesus’ first words in Mark’s gospel, that we heard last week, Jesus is healing and casting out unclean spirits. Even though Mark doesn’t mince words, we know what is really important. The first thing Jesus does is free this man from the hold of his unclean spirit and restore him to himself, his loved ones, and his community. The very first thing.

 

Mark doesn't mince words. We’re very comfortable with words, the other gospels are full of words. They try to explain the parables, the healings, the miracles. But not Mark. Mark shows us who Jesus is through healings, through presence, through action. In Mark, Jesus teaches by what he does.

 

We know that Mark's gospel begins with “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark immediately goes on to show us what this Son of God looks like. The Son of God is baptized in the Jordan, and a voice comes from heaven and says, “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” The Son of God is cast out into the wilderness and battles Satan. The Son of God calls Simon and Andrew, James and John, who left everything to follow him. The Son of God was in the habit of going to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He was also in the habit of breaking many of the rules of the Sabbath. The Son of God teaches with authority, and heals with authority. According to Mark, this is what we need to know about the Son of God. 

 

Can you remember the best teachers you ever had? Everett Anderson was one of the best teachers ever. We affectionately called him Ev, probably never in his hearing. Mr. Anderson was of diminutive stature, and powerful presence. He taught, you may guess, English and American Literature. As great teachers do, he invited us into the story, he didn’t tell us what the story was about, but brought it to life in the classroom. We had Elizabethan feasts and we learned history, and story, and truth. And no matter Ev’s physical presence in the classroom, his authority was immense, not because we were frightened of him, or that he held power over us, but because he told the truth, he listened to us lowly students, and he cared. Mr. Anderson was not authoritarian, but authoritative. He exuded knowledge, and care, and compassion. 

 

In this gospel story, Jesus’ authority creates something that no one had ever experienced before Jesus. Jesus’ authority creates healing. It’s hard for us to imagine, because today I think we experience authority as power. Power to tell others what to do, what to believe. Power to buy and consume and have. The scribes, who were the educated and literate people, had never before experienced the kind of authority that is shown to us in Jesus; we only encounter this kind of authority when we encounter Jesus.

 

What does this authority look like? Authority is who Jesus is, it is not something that Jesus possesses, or something that Jesus owns, not even what Jesus says. True authority, authentic authority, is not derived from power but from trust and respect and relationship. True authority does not control, it authors. Authority comes from the same word as author. It is a word that indicates something or someone that creates, something or someone that causes an increase, something or someone that causes growth.

 

This authority is quite different from power. Power, in the Mediterranean world, as well as in our own world, is understood as a limited quantity. If one person has more power, then the other has less. In the Mediterranean world, honor was also a limited quantity. The honoring of one resulted in the shaming of another. Power and honor are linked in the Mediterranean world of Jesus’ time, and whether or not we are fully aware of it, that’s how power and honor operate in our culture as well, or at least that’s the perception.

 

What the scribes noticed immediately in this story is that Jesus speaks with an as-yet-unheard-of level of authority. Suddenly the years of compounded knowledge, confined logic and entrenched tradition offered by the scribes begins to pale in comparison to the message that Jesus brings, Love. When Jesus was around, something was created, something was increased, growth was happening, the story was being rewritten. Scribes were “because it has always been that way” theologians, that is to say the kind of theology that is built on its past and nothing new really comes about. But things were definitely not the same any more.

 

It is in this new reality that people began to see that this must be God’s work, because it is only God who can author this new story. There is only one God, one Lord, and neither you nor I are it, or anyone who has earthly power. What this passage says to us is that this new thing that Jesus does, as God in our midst, is to signal that Jesus has come to oppose all the forces that keep the children of God, and that is all of us, from the abundant life God desires for all of us. And that message matters. God wants the most for us from this life and stands in opposition to anything that robs us of the joy and community and purpose for which we were created.

 

And what is the purpose for which we are created? To love God with all our heart and mind and soul, and to love our neighbor. This is the abundant life that God promises. The release of this unclean spirit by Jesus’ authority shows us that. And as the very first thing Jesus does in Mark’s telling of this story, it shows us that God’s love for us, through Jesus’ authority, releases us , and creates in us love for neighbor, love for the unlovable, love for the least of these. 

 

This is good news indeed. God’s love releases us from all that holds us captive. What is that for you? What holds you captive? In these rocky days there’s a list of stuff that holds us captive. Fear maybe at the top of the list. Fear of being unlovable. Fear of not being enough. Or even fear that you can’t measure up to the claim that Jesus makes on us, the claim to our very hearts. Let Jesus open wide the doors of your heart and your brokenness will be made whole. And from that newness and softness of heart flows the love that creates a new reality, a reality of love and compassion, kindness, mercy, justice. 

 

And that, my friends, is when love really does win.