Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper26 Yr B Oct 31 2021

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper26 Yr B Oct 31 2021

Ruth 1:1-18, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:11-14, Mark 12:28-34

 

Jesus may have been asked the hardest final exam question ever. Which is the greatest commandment, and why, give examples, show your work, and cite your sources. 

 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And we spend our entire lives trying to work this out. 

 

So today I want to tell you a story about how we got to this great commandment, consider this me showing my work and citing my sources. 

 

The Ten Best Ways story follows.

 

Desert Box

People of God

heart-shaped box with commandments

Mount Sinai

 

This is the desert. It is a dangerous place. People do not go into the desert unless they have to. There is no water there, and without water we die. There is no food there. Without food, we die.

 

When the wind blows, it changes the shape of the desert. People get lost. Some never come back.

 

In the daytime, the sun is so hot that people must wear lots of clothes to protect themselves from the sun and the blowing sand. The sand stings when it hits your skin. The sun scorches you by day. At night it is cold. You need many clothes to keep warm The desert is a dangerous place. People only go there if they have to.

 

(Put some of the People of God in the far-right corner. Arrange them in a circle. Also, place Mt. Sinai in the left hand corner of the Desert Box, the corner nearest you.)

 

The People of God went through the water into freedom. They were free! So Miriam led the dancing! 

 

Now that the people are free, they can go anywhere they want to go and do anything they want to do. So where should they go now? What should they do? Where will they go now? What is the best way?

 

God loved the People so much that God gave them the Ten Best Ways to Live. Sometimes these ways are called the Ten Commandments. 

 

(Show the heart-shaped box as you say this, but don’t open it yet.)

 

As the people traveled across the desert, they followed fire by night and smoke by day. They began to complain. Some even wanted to go back to Egypt. There was not enough food. There was not enough water. God helped Moses find food and water. Finally they came to the great mountain.

 

(Begin to move the people to your left. Mt. Sinai is in the lower left corner of the Desert Box, closest to you, so that most of the children can see what happens. Move the people carefully until they are all at the foot of the mountain.)

 

The people came close to the mountain, but they were afraid to touch it. Mt. Sinai was covered with fire and smoke. Moses was the only one who had the courage to climb up into the fire and smoke to meet God. 

 

(Move Moses up to the top of the rock. AS he moves up the mountain, hide the figure in your hand to show his disappearing in the smoke.)

 

When Moses was on top of the mountain, he came so close to God, and God came so close to him that he knew what God wanted him to do. 

 

God wanted him to write the Ten Best Ways to Live on stones and bring them down the mountain to the people.

 

God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. Moses gave them to the people and they gave them to us. 

 

(Present the heart-shaped box, and then open it. Begin with the summary. One tablet says, “Love God.” The other one says, “Love People.” A third triangular piece completers the shape of a heart and says, “God loves Us.” As you lay these pieces flat in the sand, read them aloud.) 

 

Here are the Ten Best Ways. when we put the Ten Best Ways all together, this is what they tell us: Love God. Love People. God Loves Us. when we say “us,” we mean God’s love for each one of us as well as all of us together. 

 

(Place the tablets in a line behind “Love God”) 

1)    Don’t serve other gods.

2)    Make no idols to worship.

3)    Be serious when you say my name

(Place the fourth tablet in the middle because it tells us how to love both God and people)

4)    Keep the Sabbath holy.

(Read the next tablets slowly and place them behind “Love People.”)

5)    Honor your parents.

6)    Don’t kill.

7)    Don’t break your marriage. You know, when people get married they think they will be married forever. Sometimes that just doesn’t work out. 

8)    Don’t steal.

9)    Don’t lie.

10) Don’t even want what others have.

 

These are all hard. God did not say that these are the “ten easy things to do.” They are the Ten Best Ways. They are hard, perhaps even impossible, but we are supposed to try. They mark the best way – like stones marking a path. 

(End of story)

 

These ten best ways get translated into the Shema that Jesus repeats when questioned by the scribe, and it is extraordinary. This was not a new thing with Jesus. This love ethic is built into the law and the Ten Best Ways. 

What Jesus does is to restate the commandment. 

 

So now we wonder. This is where you participate. I wonder what it means for you, that the greatest commandment is, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And that the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

 

We have been hearing from Mark for weeks now these stories of following Jesus. Following Jesus is about being healed from blindness, it's about seeing with new eyes. Following Jesus is about being baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Following Jesus is to walk with the poor. Following Jesus is to be in relationship with all of God's creation, and to protect the most vulnerable of God's creation. Following Jesus is to cast off the idol, to lay down that which is killing you. Following Jesus is to live one's life as if God matters. Amen.

 

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost Proper 25 Oct 24 2021

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost Proper 25 Oct 24 2021

Job 42:1-6, 10-17, Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22), Hebrews 7:23-28, Mark 10:46-52

 

We take up with the gospel of Mark again in the shadow of Jerusalem, on the way to the cross. We've been on this road for a while now, partners with those in the story who are also on the way. Before the followers of Jesus were called Christians, they were, as we are, people of the way. This story of the blind Bartimaeus is the last story of Jesus’ ministry before the cross, the passion, and resurrection. I think this story of Bartimaeus is in stark contrast to the story that we heard last week, the story about James and John. James and John ask Jesus for power and status, Bartimaeus asks Jesus for healing. God lavishes love on them all, Jesus calls them as followers, and yet each of them must let go of something they’ve been holding on to live fully free, fully alive.

 

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks Bartimaeus, it’s the same question that Jesus asked James and John only a moment ago in the story, and that we talked about last Sunday. But the gulf between the request that James and John make, and the request Bartimaeus makes is cavernous. James and John were somewhat confused, remember, they ask Jesus for power, they think the kingdom is about a seating chart at a party. But Bartimaeus, Bartimaeus asks to see. Nothing like the power and status, the place at the table that James and John were all about, and what’s more is that Bartimaeus wasn’t even officially a disciple.

 

Imagine Bartimaeus, sitting in the road, probably at the main gate of Jericho, day after day, all day, in the hot sun, begging. But Bartimaeus knows who Jesus is, he’s listened to the talk, he calls out to Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Let me see.

 

Two things here that are so unlike the James and John story, or the story of the earnest young man, which we also heard a couple weeks ago. First, the request, have mercy on me, heal me. Second, the ramifications of that healing, what it means to follow Jesus.

 

Have mercy on me, Bartimaeus asked, mercy. You know what mercy means? A heart for other people’s troubles. Bartimaeus was asking Jesus to have a heart for his troubles. That’s all, hear me, see me, and if you’ve got it in you, heal me. And that’s what Jesus did, Jesus heard him, Jesus saw him, and having a heart for his trouble, Jesus healed Bartimaeus.

 

So once Bartimaeus is healed, what does he do? Bartimaeus’ profession is begging. Once he is healed, his life is changed, he can’t go on begging anymore, so he follows Jesus. Just like the others, he gets up and follows. Bartimaeus exchanges a life of begging, a life of blindness, a life of being on the margins, for this life of following Jesus. And you and I know where that’s going, straight to the cross.

 

No matter how much we think we have, no matter our wealth, our status, our power; or no matter what we think we don’t have, our lack of health, our lack of wealth, our lack of support, we leave it all behind when we follow Jesus, none of that matters. We get so wrapped up in our own shortcomings, or we spend so much time valuing our worth by what others think is important, that we forget that we are God’s beloveds, and we forget to have mercy, a heart for other people’s troubles.

 

Jesus calls us to follow, Jesus calls us to surrender things that poison us, or things that keep us from seeing what is around us, Jesus calls us to be merciful, to have a heart for other people’s troubles. Jesus' call to us, the call to be followers, is to open ourselves up, to surrender the stuff that insulates us from our neighbors, to let Love win. Being healed isn't easy for us. Anne Lamott, in her book, Almost Everything, Notes on hope, writes, ”Being healed is finally recognizing your loveliness in Jesus’ eyes and finally letting yourself be loved, and finally letting go whatever it is you’re sick and tired of, because you can’t control it anyway.”

 

That is the risk in being healed. We can’t control it. That is the risk in letting Jesus change you, you can’t control it. Life will never, can never be the same. But out of what seems like death, and letting go is a death of something, comes resurrection. 

 

We cling so desperately to that which we believe is our identity, no matter how healthy or unhealthy; it's nearly impossible to give that up to an identity as beloved of God. Letting go of what we believe defines us to take on our true identity as God’s beloved, is hard. But unless and until we let die what is killing us, we can never be healed, we will never be transformed into the new person in Christ. The Good News is that when we make room for Love to interrupt our precisely organized patterns, we make room for Love to change our path; we make room to go home by a different way. And there will be new life in ways we can hardly begin to imagine.

 

As we listen to this story of Bartimaeus, there is another hard truth to listen to. Healing doesn’t look like what we expect it to look like. In the pages we hold between our hands, we read of the ones whose diseases were cured, because what fun is it to write about the ones who were not. But the truth is healing cannot be controlled. Not all are healed of their obvious or maybe not so obvious disease. Most of us are in that group, most of us cannot tell a story about a personal miraculous healing, some of you can, but not most of us. Most of us tell stories about the pain and difficulty of disease that is our own or our loved ones. Most of us live with chronic pain and addiction. Most of us live with broken bodies and broken hearts. This is what it means to be human. So the hard truth is that we are God’s beloveds. 

 

You see, I believe the healing in Bartimaeus’ story is not so much regaining sight, but in being restored to the community. In every one of the healing stories, that is the point. Jesus calls us from the margins back into the community. Bartimaeus is called, and healed, and follows Jesus. We are called, healed in obvious ways and not so obvious ways, and we follow Jesus. Not in a transactional sense, but in a deepening sense. The journey to the cross is as difficult as it is exhilarating; following Jesus is not for the faint of heart. But the good news is that we are all in this life together. When we are in this life together, the burden of a broken heart and a broken body becomes a bit lighter. Hope is born in and among us, Jesus is born in and among us. 

 

And that is where mercy and love grow. Mercy and love and compassion grow out of the broken places. It’s like when you are hiking on the granite rocks of Lake Superior, and in the middle of all that hard rock, there is a fissure, a crack, and out of the crack there is a tree. The good news is seeing, seeing, the grace, the joy, the wonder, in all that life throws at us. And unlike Bartimaeus and the others, we know the end of the story. We know that resurrection happens. We know that life always wins over death. We know that we are part of resurrection. There is hope.

 

Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 24 Yr B Oct 17 2021

Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 24 Yr B Oct 17 2021

Job 38:1-7, Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b, Hebrews 5:1-10, Mark 10:33-45

 

Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us, James and John ask Jesus. Arrange it, they say, so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory - one of us at your right, the other at your left. James and John ask Jesus for something Jesus has shown no desire to give, placing some above others. Or giving some more or better attention. But James and John are not ill-informed or ignorant. They’ve witnessed Jesus’ miracles and listened to his teachings. James and John are doing what humans do best, hoping and praying that the world has not and will not change as much as it already has and as much as they know it will. But there is no return for James and John to what once was after the heavens were ripped apart. There is no going back to life before the storm. 

 

This misunderstanding follows the third time in Mark’s story Jesus tells the disciples the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes and will be condemned to death. The disciples, even though this is the third time they’ve heard Jesus say this, find this news astounding, alarming, and frightening. And equally as astounding, I think it causes James and John especially, and the others as well, to be confused about their own calling, and who Jesus is. James and John seem to think this is about seating order at a party, not life in God's kingdom. They don’t seem to remember that Jesus has just taught them about laying down their life, or about what greatness looks like, or the words about being last of all and servant of all. And so Jesus has to tell them again. Jesus says, this is hard, are you willing to accept that? Are you willing to drink the cup I will drink? Are you willing to be in this all the way to the end? Are you willing to participate in this earth shaking change? Are you willing to receive my love, my gift, for your freedom? Because, Jesus’ love for us, God’s beloveds, washes over all of us no matter what.

 

For James and John and the other disciples, and for us, there is no going back to life before the storm. But we try. And we have been trying. Hoping and praying that the last twenty months are a mere blip in our shared life. That everything will return to normal when this is all over. Even a bump along this road of declining church attendance. We are more like James and John than we care to admit. We fall back on what we know—what’s comfortable; how the world always worked. The “used to be’s”. For James and John, that meant glory as hierarchy and power as prestige. For the 21^st-century church, it’s no different, with a bushel of denial of the truth and a doubling down on a kind of privilege our culture never should have exercised in the first place.

 

But the world changed for James and John. Jesus went to the cross. The world has changed for us. What once was, is not working anymore. We know that. Deep in our hearts and souls. And we don’t know how to fix it. There is no going back to life before the storm.

 

So we remember, Jesus’ love for us, God’s beloveds, washes over all of us no matter what.

 

Aren’t we a lot like James and John though? If Jesus were anything like me, and thank goodness he’s not, Jesus would say to James and John, since when did you think this was about you? Since when did you think this is about your power, your prestige, your privilege? It’s about Jesus’ love for us, and we are God’s beloveds. It’s about Jesus’ call to us to love our neighbor. Have we lost our way? We get frightened or confused about our calling as citizens of God’s kingdom, and we forget who Jesus is.

 

Jesus’ love for us, God’s beloveds, washes over all of us no matter what. The call that James and John seem to be missing is right there in front of them, and is really good news, whoever wants to be great must become a servant. In the household of God, no one can claim privilege of place; we are all adopted children by our baptism. Jesus asks James and John if they are willing to dive into the water with him. "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized." Jesus’ journey in the gospel of Mark began in the waters of the Jordan, in baptism, and that journey will be to the cross and resurrection. The grace in this story is that Jesus is the one who comes and shows the way of love, Jesus shows the way of vulnerability all the way to the cross. You see, speaking and acting in terms of who deserves what, who deserves health care or housing or hospitality, who deserves eternal life, who deserves to be on Jesus’ right hand, are so beside the point. The grace in this story is that Jesus, with his very life, death, and resurrection, puts himself in our place, in your place, and in my place, and says, everyone of you is worth my love.

Jesus’ love for us, God’s beloveds, washes over all of us no matter what.

 

You are God’s beloved. You are baptized into Jesus' life, suffering, death, and resurrection. Taking Jesus' cup is about diving into the waters of our own baptism, waters that bring the dead to life, waters that fill an empty soul, waters that give a heart the only thing worth living, and worth dying for. We get completely wet in these holy waters. There is grace in diving into the waters of baptism, and receiving the unconditional, undeserved, underrated love that is God’s love. When we take the cup that Jesus drinks, when we are washed with the waters of baptism, we, God’s beloveds, are called to respond to Jesus’ love, with love. We are called not to the seat of power, but to the posture of service. And our lives are made new, our lives are transformed, our lives become the wave of change. The wave of change, the wave of love, the wave of mercy, the wave of kindness. 

 

The world has changed forever, there is no going back to life before the storm. But remember that when the heavens were ripped apart, the Spirit was let loose into the world, descending from firmament’s fissure and into Jesus.

It would be that same Spirit who would be present with Jesus in the wilderness, on the cross, and in that cold, dark, and seemingly hopeless tomb.

It would be that same Spirit who would stir the hearts of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome to go back to that grave and look death in the eye once again.

And it is that same Spirit who is in and among us, with us and beside us, calling us to change our perspective, to see what can be, to trust that the kingdom of God has come near and still is.

It is that same Spirit who is inspiring God’s church once again to lead from and preach the gospel we know to be true: our God is here. Believe in the good news.

 

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 23 Yr B Oct 10 2021

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 23 Yr B Oct 10 2021

Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31

 

Of all the come to Jesus meetings throughout the last two thousand and twenty-one years, this one was probably the first and maybe the most difficult. This earnest man wants to hear from Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Wouldn't you like to know that too? Wouldn't you like to sit down with Jesus and find out just exactly what you must do to have eternal life? No more guessing, no more praying that you do the right thing, no more "if I do this God, I'd like you to do that," but a clear and concise list that you can check off. Absolute certainty about what it takes to have life after death. And then when you hear it, you hide in the bushes and hope Jesus won’t notice you’re not capable of giving everything. 

 

Jesus' first response to this young man is to tell him to follow the law. And this earnest man reminds Jesus that he is a good Jewish boy and has been following the law since his youth. At this point I imagine Jesus taking a deep breath and gathering his spirit together. Jesus looks at him and loves him and thinks this is not a bad guy. It is really important that we hear Jesus loves him, Jesus doesn’t humiliate him, or drive him to despair, this is an act of love on Jesus’ part. Jesus says, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me" because Jesus loves him. Jesus loves us. 

 

The truth is that each one of us gathered here today is that earnest human, and there is no loophole. If we have a roof over our heads, if we have a car to drive no matter what shape it's in, if we have shoes for our feet, if we have food to eat for lunch, we are this earnest human, and this is really hard. Jesus says, use your wealth and security to empower others, and that causes shock and even sadness for the earnest man. 

 

God’s economy is so much different than our economy. This isn’t to make us feel bad, but it is to say that all of us stumble, sometimes hide from God because this is so very hard. God calls us to a different way; a way of following with a different kind of economy and trying to live out a different kind of vision for what the future can hold. A vision that includes kindness, compassion, mercy, giving. 

 

And then the disciples quickly ask, "who can be saved?" And Jesus answers, it isn't about you at all, it isn't about your wealth or even your poverty, your influence, or your social capital, it’s not about what you look like, it's not about who you're related to, it's not even about how much you give to or help others. Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God, for God all things are possible." What Jesus is saying is that rich or poor, old, or young, gay or straight, democrat or republican, and all of the places in between, we are all on this rock together, and none of us get out of this life alive. We can do absolutely nothing to earn, deserve, or in any way change the fact of God's amazing and abundant love. There is no checklist for salvation. Love wins. This is an invitation to not look for salvation in your stuff or your position. It is an invitation to be loved, and because we are loved we give, and we divest ourselves of the hold that our position has over us. 

 

So in scripture, when we hear "give all you have to the poor," when we hear "clothe the naked, feed the hungry," we realize that that is how we respond to God's amazing grace, we pour out our love for all those whom God loves, we empower those who have no power. This is at the core of being a follower of Jesus, this is discipleship, and it is hard. The promise is that when you give it all away, whatever it is, you will not be bereft, you will not be left with nothing. The promise is that when you give it all away, whatever it is, Love fills the holes. When you give it all away, you are filled with that which only Jesus has. You will be soaked in God's love, you will be filled with the spirit, you will be re-membered in the body of Christ, you will be transformed. This is the good news. Stop trying to win God's love, stop trying to earn God's love, it can't be done, it is impossible for us. But all things are possible for God. The invitation is to live as God's beloved. 

 

 

So what keeps us from giving it all away, what keeps us from empowering others? What causes us to ignore our history of using our wealth or our power to keep others disempowered? I think it is fear. We are afraid to risk, we are afraid of losing control, we are afraid to live our lives fully alive in the love of Christ. We protect what we have, rather than live as citizens of the kingdom in God’s economy. It’s not just us, it’s all of Jesus’ disciples that have gone before us, those who we read about in our bibles, those of us that sit in these seats, and those who are outside these walls and have yet to hear of God’s amazing and abundant love. But how can we be blamed? We live in a chaotic world, with a blustery, fractured political life, global pandemic, social changes, church attendance in a tailspin. 

 

Even we are afraid that God somehow will not keep God’s promises. 

 

We forget that we are already God's beloveds. Lay down your fear, your need to control, and live your live, fully alive, fully immersed in God's love. Many of you give and give and give. Jesus isn’t telling us to give more. Jesus is telling us earnest humans that we have all we need; we have God’s love. Find ways to respond to God's abundant and amazing love with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength. Give God all that you are. For nothing is impossible in God. Amen.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22, Yr B, Oct 3 2021

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22, Yr B, Oct 3 2021

Job 1:1; 2:1-10, Psalm 26, Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, Mark 10:2-16

 

The gospel of Mark just keeps getting tougher. Here we have words that fall on our ears in all sorts of ways, depending on where we have been in life. But I want to remind you again; Mark is very concerned about what it means to follow Jesus. Mark is showing us what that looks like, and we have already heard that following Jesus is not necessarily easy.

 

In showing the disciples and us about following Jesus, Mark has Jesus announcing the coming of God's kingdom, and shows us that Jesus is the embodiment of the kingdom. This passage tells us much more about God than it tells us about ourselves. It tells us about who God is and how we are to relate to God and to one another. Again, Jesus is saying and doing something radical and boundary breaking. Here Jesus shows us that relationship matters. Jesus is saying that relationship with God, and with others, matters. Indeed, not only do relationships matter, but relationships can also be where our brokenness may be made whole. 

 

Mark shows us about God. Mark shows us that God is wholeness, and in a world of brokenness, in a world of disintegration, it is God who makes us whole. The truth is that God as creator is the most powerful integrating force in existence.

 

This is how we experience God in the stories of creation; God calls order from chaos; God creates wholeness out of nothing. God’s Kingdom is about wholeness and health, God's kingdom is about compassion and mercy. God's kingdom is about being related to God and to one another. And relationships matter to God.

 

So relationship is how Jesus responds to the questions of law that the Pharisees ask. The Pharisees are concerned with laws in these questions, they are not concerned with love. You and I approach marriage from the standpoint of love and romance. The Pharisees approach marriage from a legal standpoint. But Jesus says, this is not about law, it is about love. There is a place for law, for protection of the most vulnerable in our society. A very important place. But that is not what this is about. In the 1st century, marriage is a contract by which the man takes possession of the woman from the woman's father. And Jesus responds to the Pharisees, not by upholding or disparaging the law, but by describing God's heart's desire for humanity to live in relationship, relationship that honors and respects the beloved. This kind of relationship is the way God relates to us, and this kind of relationship is God's desire for us in relationship with one another.

 

God yearns for humanity to be committed to loving one another, God wants humanity to put the beloved before self, God wants humanity to live together with dignity, respect, love. This is what the kingdom looks like. Jesus knows what happens when relationships are torn asunder. That's what Jesus describes in this passage. Humans are torn apart. Hearts are broken. Children are hurt.

 

We live in a world of contingency. Contingency and casualness are a message that is splayed across our screens. The themes of some of many of our favorite television programs are that if you are not satisfied with the partner you have, you can leave them for another. And that having things and stuff like the big house, the nice car, a beautiful spouse, successful and beautiful children is way more important than living a life of service.

 

In the world of 1st century Mediterranean culture, the highest value was honor and status, not unlike our culture today. It is into all this that Jesus invokes relationship and community. In God's kingdom, the highest good is commitment to one another. And promises are made about always being there for the other.

 

We live in this human world. You and me in all our wonder and in all the messiness of life live here, in this place. God yearns for us to be together, to put the other first, and yet God knows how we fall short of that. God knows the pain of broken relationships. God knows the pain of love. Isn't that where we are going with Jesus, on this path of discipleship? Straight to the cross, that's the road we are on with Jesus. Right through that pain and suffering of brokenness. Being human is being broken. And some might say, it ends badly with death on a cross. But you and I know differently. We know it doesn't end there. We know that God loves us so absolutely and completely that something amazing happens, that Love wins. That a new thing happens, resurrection. That's the hope in God's relationship with us, and in our relationship with others. We fail. We hurt. We are broken. But because God shares God's very self with us, and because we share our lives with others, we share the very fiber of our being, we are forgiven. We have a second chance. We live through the pain we cause; we live through the pain others cause in our lives. And God's love seeps into our brokenness, God's love seeps into the fissures of our hearts and the fissures of the fibers of our skin and bones and muscles and organs, and somehow we are healed. Somehow we can live again. Somehow, Love wins.

 

As followers of Jesus, we live in God's kingdom. We live in the place where relationships matter, where relationships are sacred. Where every person has dignity, where every person belongs. The Gospel of Mark starts in the lonely places and Jesus will end up on the cross. But being alone is not what God wants for us. God says, "I am here, in my Son, to be in relationship with you. Nothing can separate us any longer." That's why we do what we do. That's why we ask for forgiveness every time we come to the table to eat. That's why we eat the bread and drink the wine. That's why we share our prayers and deposit them in this holy place, together. And that's why we go out into the world bearing God's yearning for relationship to all who we meet. We are Jesus' disciples, we live as kingdom people, and for us, Love wins.

 

In these times in which hate and disintegration seems to rule the day, sometimes the brokenness seems so vast, the chasm between us so huge, that we cannot even imagine God re-integrating, healing, calling us back together, calling us to wholeness, dying to set us free. But I believe with all my heart and my mind and my soul, that we can be healed. But I also believe we need to act on God's love, we need to be God's hands and God's feet and God's heart and insist that no one is left out. We need to be the change we want to see, wherever we find ourselves. We are the ones we are waiting for. Find the ways to bring peace. Find the ways to build bridges. Find the ways we may be friends and neighbors again.

Amen.