Prayer: Not Information & Not Answers

10th Sunday After Pentecost:  Luke 11:1-13

Hollywood has a way of making fun of our culture and ideals.  There was a movie that came out when I was a youth minister that was a big hit with all the high school kids.  It was called, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.   I must preface, I am not all recommending that you all go see this movie or rent it, unless you are fan of Will Ferrell and prefer that Saturday Night Live kind of humor.  There is a scene in the movie where Ricky Bobby and his family are sitting down to eat dinner, and offer grace, and it goes something like this, edited of course:

“Dear Lord Baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you Jesús, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell.  I just want to take time to say thank you for my family, my two beautiful, beautiful, handsome, striking sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, or T.R. as we call him, of course, my red-hot smoking wife, Carley who is a stone-cold fox.  Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife’s father Chip.  We hope that you can use your Baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg. 

Carley responds, “Hey, you know, sweetie, Jesus did grow up.  You don’t always have to call him “baby.”

“Well, I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. 

Carley’s mad, “Gosh Darn it (actually it was a little stronger language). You know what I want?  I want you to do this grace so good so that God will let us win tomorrow and we can win a bunch of money.”  Ricky Bobby is a Nascar Driver. 

Ricky ends the prayer after much more dialogue in one of the most memorable lines of the movie, “Dear 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant and so cuddly, but still omnipotent, we just thank you for all the races I’ve won and the 21.2 million dollars, love that money, and we thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God.  Amen.  

If you haven't seen the clip and are not already offended -    

I think Hollywood really captures our own ineptitude at praying.  As people of faith, we struggle with prayer.  Some of us are newer to the faith, others of us, have been steeped in the faith our entire lives, yet for some reason, prayer can be so confusing.  Why do we pray?  It can be inextricably difficult to claim prayer in light of what I would call harmful theology. Carley’s desire to get the dinner grace right so that they can win lots of money is a result of this theology. Yet this is often what we are taught.  Unfortunately, at some point in our lives, we have been told, maybe we are not praying hard enough…or that regardless of our prayers, it was God’s will to take the life of someone we loved creating the image of a God who sits above the world, with strings as an all knowing puppet master.   

A dear and faithful friend, who has been attending church nearly every Sunday for as long as I have known her said the other day, “John, I don’t really pray right now.  I don’t know why.   Or how. Or the purpose.”  Even as faithful Christians who gather here week after week, we can have moments in our lives where we are completely impoverished in our prayer lives.  

Are we praying rightly?  How should we pray?  This question has been echoed throughout the centuries, just like the disciples who so earnestly said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  We want to learn how to pray, we want to do it right.  We have so many questions,

Is God supposed to answer? Does God already know what I want before I ask?  Why then should I ask?  Is it selfish to pray for myself?  Why would God need me to ask to respond to the needs of others if God is good? 

This Sunday, the Gospel reading in Luke reminds us that Jesus has something to say about prayer.  Jesus offers a commentary on prayer in three ways.  He offers a form of prayer by giving us the Lord’s Prayer.  He also offers a parable on prayer about a man who wakes up his friend in the middle of the night. And he concludes offering some sayings on prayer.  Where we get can get so caught up in form, and the need to get prayer right, Jesus points our prayer to a relationship.   This is what prayer really is about.  Bare with me. 

There is a famous Rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who echoes this sentiment of relationship when he says,  “the purpose of prayer is not information but communion with the Divine.” Heschel is articulating that at the core of prayer, it is not about what we offer, but a relationship.  In both the form of the Lord’s Prayer and the parable, what is understood is an intimate relationship.  The Lord’s Prayer begins with our own addressing of “Our Father,” indicating intimacy.  While human parental relationships can be flawed, calling God as Our Father, reminds us of a relationship which captures a father who knows the child inside and out, in the purest and ideal form.  While the form of the Lord’s Prayer does begin to ask questions, what is established is a relationship. 

In the parable we hear today, Jesus says that there is a friend who is woken in the middle of the night responds to his friends needs because of his persistence.  However, the Greek word is more accurately translated as shamelessness.  Shamelessness is an interesting concept.  We have been talking about hospitality over the last few weeks, and the friend in need here knows that he is asking another friend to help in the middle of the night, and his friend must offer help or else he will be dishonored, his reputation soiled.  Remember the laws around hospitality.  Therefore the man has no shame in asking for help.  He knows his friend is commanded by Jewish law to help, and his reputation is at stake, and therefore will help regardless of any desire to help.

We understand shame as the pain that arises from humiliation, from distress, and from brokenness.  What would a relationship with the Divine look like where there was no humiliation, or no distress?  Do you remember in Genesis when it was shame that caused Adam and Eve to cover up their naked and God-given bodies?  Shame changed their lives forever. What would it look to be able to stand before God knowing and trusting that we are good enough in our own brokenness to present our whole selves forward?   Jesus is saying that prayer demands this kind of relationship.  Prayer begins with us trusting that with all of our flaws, blemishes, and things we try to ‘cover up’, we are good enough to be in a relationship with God.

Next Jesus gives the disciples some statements on prayer.  Ask.  Seek.  Knock.  These are the words of the famous hymn Seek Ye First.  Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. 

I shared in the “Thinking Ahead” this week about how I love the image of the door.  When I first read this passage this week, I imagined the beautiful red door at St. Mary’s Cathedral, where I was ordained.  I think that this door is a powerful image because of the contrast of the depressed area of Poplar Avenue, to the cavernous and mystical space of the nave of the cathedral.   When you enter through the door, you can still hear the traffic, the horns and sirens, but your orientation and relationship with the area has changed.  You have entered into a new relationship with the world.  This is just a metaphor and nothing more. 

Doors elicit this kind of response.  We have the ability to move from one space to another.  We are offered a glimpse of what is present on the other side of a door, and when we begin to move through, our orientation changes.  What if prayer is not about seeking information or results but moving from brokenness to wholeness?  What if prayer is moving from out of relationship to into relationship?  We knock and a door is opened.  And our relationship with Divine Creator of the world is seen in fullness, unhindered, and uncovered, without shame. 

This is what I imagine prayer can be.   We offer our whole selves, our whole bodies, and all that we are, unhindered, unabashed, uncovered, and shameless.  And this way of being opens up a door to a deeper and more full relationship with God.  It is not contingent on information.  It is not contingent on results.  We ask for a relationship “Our Father.”  We ask for God’s will to be the will of the world.  We acknowledge our brokenness, and we forgive the others, and we yearn to be delivered into the fullness of life through an intimate relationship with God.

We might not find the answers that we thought to grief, to anger, to pain.  These are some of the many reasons we initially turn to prayer.  Yet instead of answers, we find a relationship, a door being opened that can offer us so much more.  There are many ways to knock on that door, but today we have been given a great one, and if it is the only prayer we can offer, it will suffice.  So join me in saying together the faithful words given to the disciples by Jesus.  “Our Father…”

Sermon preached at Church of the Annunciation

July 28, 2013

Why Do We Pray: Thinking Ahead

Why Do We Pray?

"Thinking Ahead" - Luke 11:1-13

Come. Sit. Rest. And be.

9th Sunday After Pentecost: Luke 38-42

Our world is hurting.  Life can be so painful.  And we want to respond.   We even feel we need to respond. And sometimes I don’t know how.  This week in a small town in India, 23 children died from eating pesticide lased food in their school lunches.  I also read about how the US finally acknowledged their role in the death of a 16-year-old American citizen by a US drone attack in Yemen.  Much anger, confusion, and even violence has ensued from many on issues over race, power, and justice, after the verdict of the Trayvon Martin Case.  And yesterday, someone was murdered in a quiet apartment neighborhood just north of here in Cordova. 

We know that what we often experience in the world is not what God desires.  Love of neighbor and love of God are not the ultimate commandments that rule the lives of all.  We wish that all children would be protected from such a horrific tragedy especially while under the care and supervision of others.  We wish that our country and other countries wouldn't have to be engaged in acts of violence that can costs the lives of noncombatant civilians, or that hate in the hearts of people would not drive our nations to engage in war.  And as the Bishop of Southeast Florida said this week, we long for a world where George Zimmerman would have offered Trayvon Martin a ride home instead of following him.  

It is easy to feel hopelessly overwhelmed, seeking complex answers to life’s equally complex questions.  Many of us have not figured out how to respond.   And I think that plays a part in our gathering here today.  In our spiritual journeys, we seek and we gather.  The more confusing the world, the more driving our spiritual journeys can become trying to provide us with answers.  

A New Testament scholar at Emory, Luke Timothy Johnson, suggests that we should read the story of Mary and Martha as an extension of the Good Samaritan story we heard last week.  The story of Mary and Martha immediately follows the passage on the Good Samaritan.  If you recall, a certain lawyer asks about eternal life.  His response is to love God with all your heart, and soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus says, do this and you shall live.  While we hear about his commandment from Jesus in both Matthew and Mark, Luke is the only one who writes about the Good Samaritan and Mary and Martha as a way of understanding the great commandment, and therefore we can take the story in its whole as an exposition on hospitality. 

Immediately following the question on eternal life begins a parable about hospitality and compassion from the enemy, established to teach the lawyer, and by extension us, just who is our neighbor.  Luke’s placement of Jesus’ encounter of Mary and Martha, then bookends the exposition of neighbor with what love of God looks like.  Where hospitality laws pertaining to how to love one’s neighbor command care for the stranger, these laws also command Martha to invite Jesus in to her home.  And by this, we are shown what love of God can look like.  Love of God is about intentional presence (I hope you saw the YouTube video this week) and it is intimately connected with love of neighbor.  I believe Luke’s Gospel is suggesting that the two are even inseparable.  And when we attempt to figure this love out, we receive an invitation to sit down and listen to one another. 

This past week, I met with my mentor from the Diocese of West Tennessee.  His job is to journey with me as I begin my ministry with you, to provide me with not only resources, but a perspective.  He has years of practical experience.  So as I sat in his office talking about beginning at Annunciation and all of my hopes and ideas, he sat there and listened and smiled. 

“You know John”, he said.  “A lot of young clergy come right out of seminary and they have all these wonderful ideas about Christian formation, plans for outreach, plans for the church, envisioning all that the church can be and its role in radically transforming the community.”  I sat there, smiled, yet a little nervous where this was going.  “And those clergy are so excited with all their new tools, and well it doesn't take the church long to feel that maybe they’re getting more church then they originally intended.  The relationship ends, both maybe not as grateful for each other as they both should be, sometimes the clergy kicking the congregation on the way out, frustrated from the inability to move where one assumed they all should have moved.”

Even our spiritual journeys can be incredibly taxing and from time to time we need rest.  Have you ever felt like taking one or two Sundays off, or maybe one or two years?  It happens from time to time.  Our journeys are long and there is a need for rest. 

We should find great comfort in Jesus’ words to Martha.  “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled by many things.  But there is need for only one.  Mary chose the good part.  It won’t be taken away from her.”  All we have to do is show up.   How often we can turn to Martha, doing all the tasks that we think are necessary for the church.  We give and we give and we give.  And from time to time, we find ourselves frustrated at our family.   We want to say, “You know, if everyone else would just pitch in a little bit more, imagine what this place could be.” 

But Jesus reminds us, all we have to do is show up.  Love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable.  Come.   And be.  Listen to one another.  Rest.   This is how we can love one another.  Today we are not to worry about the tasks ahead, the busy chores of being church. If all we can do is show up and listen, and be present to each other, we have chosen rightly. 

Arguably, Martha noticed Jesus as a stranger and welcomed Him into her home.   There is little doubt that finally as dinner was served, both Mary and Martha understood that Jesus was not just a stranger.  Martha’s own desire for Jesus to solve a family dispute leads to this.   But as they gathered to listen to one another, over a meal, over the breaking of bread, they began to understand just who this stranger was, Jesus Christ, God among them. 

All we have to do is show up.  And here we are today.  We have a world that is deeply hurting.  And we want to respond.  We feel the pain of Cordova, of the United States, of India, and of the world.  And one faithful response is to have a meal together.  We have a hunger for something deeper, for as Jesus said, ‘we cannot live on bread alone, but the bread of life,’ the meal that we will take in just a few minutes.  It is a start.  It is a response to the world around us.  And it will call us to a deeper relationship with God that will feed us until and when we know how to respond otherwise. 

I hope you know that I am not saying that we stay in here in the place and not worry about changing the world.  But it is in this meal that we have together, that we can see the world being transformed.  It is in this meal that we can learn about love of God and love of neighbor.  If it is all we can muster up, we have chosen rightly.  Come.  Sit.  And be.  Listen to one another.  Rest.  And join together in Holy Food for Holy People.  

Sermon Preached at Church of the Annunciation 

July 21, 2013

Martha, Mary, and the Need to be Intentional

Thinking Ahead:  Luke 10:38-42

Being People of Reconciliation

8th Sunday After Pentecost: Luke 10:25-37

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.  I wonder if there has ever been a question that has remained so constant throughout the course of human existence.  Humanity, is obsessed with prolonging life, in a constant attempt to live forever.  It should not be surprising that these same questions were so common two thousand years ago. 

I should preface, that I am concerned that much of Christian theology has viewed eternal life as a destination, or a place we arrive when we have died, if we are saved.  This assumes that eternal life is equivalent to heaven.  This elicits the desire to do something now with a future result in mind.  It is like buying stock or investing with promises of future gains.   And there might be some truth to this, but it certainly not the extent of the eternal life Jesus spoke about.  And the lawyer in our Gospel story nails this.

The lawyer answers correctly.  He uses of portion of the Shema – the prayer said by faithful Jews every single day which says that we are to love God with all our heart and mind.  And then he attaches love of neighbor.  Simple.  And Jesus’ answer is, do this and you will really live.   Eternal Life is about fully living.  It might be about the future.  It might be about eternity, but it also certainly about the here and now.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?  What must I do to fully live? 

And the response we get from Jesus is the parable of the Good Samaritan.  

There’s a funny joke about heaven.  A couple decides that they want to get married but die tragically right before the wedding.  The couple is sitting outside heaven’s gate waiting on St. Peter to do the paperwork so they can enter. While waiting, they wonder if they could possibly get married in Heaven. St. Peter finally shows up and they ask him. St. Peter says, "I don't know, this is the first time anyone has ever asked. Let me go find out," and he leaves.

The couple sit for a couple of months and begin to wonder if they really should get married in Heaven, what with the eternal aspect of it all. "What if it doesn't work out?" they wonder, "Are we stuck together forever?" St. Peter returns after yet another month, looking somewhat in a mess. "Yes," he informs the couple, "you can get married in Heaven." "Great," says the couple, "but what if things don't work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?"

St. Peter, red-faced, slams his clipboard onto the ground. "What's wrong?" exclaims the frightened couple. "Geez!" St. Peter exclaims, "It took me three months to find a priest up here! And now you want me to go find a lawyer?"

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we encounter a man who is in great need.  He is left for dead on the side of the road.  His life is dependent on grace from someone else.  He first encounters a priest and then a Levite.  Both are religious leaders of the time, and they ignore him.  How often are brought up short by the actions of those who claim authority on behalf of “The Church.”  How often do we turn to church or religious leaders, and realize the truly human nature of all people and feel disappointed, sometimes even disgusted.  I wish I could tell you this was not the case.  And I wish I could tell you that even as your newbie deacon, I will be perfect, or that you as ministers of the church will be perfect and life will be all peachy, but deep down, we know that is not true.

And then we encounter the Samaritan.  The meaning of Samaritan has become lost in context over time.  We view the Samaritan as the good stranger or the outsider.  But a Samaritan was more than a stranger to the Jewish man he met.  Samaritans, also believed in the Hebrew God, but they believed they were the true religion of the Israelites since before the Babylonian exile.  Personally, when someone tells me that my religion is a fraud, and they have the keys to true knowledge, I am not eager to get along, to like, or to accept that person.  In my own defensiveness, I become agitated, possibly angry, and find myself standing in complete opposition. This is the extent of the relationship between the Jewish man and the Samaritan.   Our edition of ‘good’ to how we address the Samaritan reinforces that this is not normative.  Imagine a radical extremist Muslim, coming to the aid of a radical and extremist Christian or vise versa.  

Additionally, both the Jewish leaders and the Samaritan leaders taught that it was wrong to enter each other’s territory.  It was wrong to even speak to each other.  Remember Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women at the well.  “The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)”[1] 

The famous Jewish historian Josephus accounts for many violent encounters during the first century between Jews and Samaritans.  It is deeply saddening to know that our world has not really changed.  Violence between deep people of faith, who should have so much more in common than not, still exists today.  Fighting in Nigeria, India, Myanmar/Burma, and the Philippians is deeply troubling.  I remember a few years ago, driving by a Mosque in Myanmar/Burma that had been burned to the ground by angry Buddhists.  People seeking to transform the world are violently killing each other. 

We are missing something.  The priest and the Levite walked by, crossing the road to avoid the man on the ground.  The people seeking to transform the world have missed the bigger picture and the possibility for transformation.  They have failed to fully comprehend who is a neighbor.  It is not just a person next door, a person who is like-minded.  In our human existence, even the people who we are diametrically opposed to, by our human relationships are neighbors. 

At the conclusion of our worship today, Deacon David will lead us with a dismissal.  This dismissal is often a claim to go into the world, rejoicing in the Spirit, to love and serve the Lord.  It is a reminder that as our corporate worship ends our service to the world begins.  Our challenge for today is to see ourselves as a people of reconciliation, people of reconciliation called to love thy neighbor.  We come to church to be fed, and we go into the world to feed others.  We are to understand that the fullness of life comes when we reach across lines to those with who we are opposed, to be in relationship. 

I believe there are two fundamental truths from this reality that we are called to recognize.  First, We are called to be people of reconciliation to those people who we disagree with, we feel hurt by, abandoned by, and challenged by today.  This means people who stand opposite our worldview, our faith, and our political positions.  Love of neighbor extends to them as well. 

Second, we are called to be a people of reconciliation to not just the people, but the ideals and positions that we stand in opposition with or are challenged by today.  It is not just the people, but their worldviews which we need.  This means theological differences, differences in understandings of human sexuality, understanding of God’s revelation.  It doesn’t mean we have to agree, but it does mean we have to be in relationship. To be a people of reconciliation means we need both the left and the right on all issues because it is the dialogue between two oppositions that allows for reconciliation and love of neighbor. 

Friends as we move from this place today, let us remember that we are called to be people of reconciliation.  We are called to seek across our differences and be in relationship with those who we disagree with.  My hope is that as we begin to explore ways of celebrating our 25 years of being church this fall, we will have some unique opportunities to be people of reconciliation.  Although it is a call in all aspects of our life, my hope is we will be presented with a specific charge as we invite people back to our church to celebrate what Annunciation has been to people over 25 years.  We acknowledge that all journeys in our life, especially our spiritual journeys have moments of great joy and moments of deep sadness. That is the journey of this life.  It is specifically the Christian journey that brings hope and redemption through death and then resurrection. 

With hopeful hearts, we move today to being especially mindful to move to be people of reconciliation, a people of resurrection because that is what it means to fully live.  We know that this difficult journey of seeking across our differences provides a key to what it means to truly live.  And by truly living we can begin to find eternal life. 

Sermon Preached at Church of the Annunciation

July 14, 2013

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[1] John 4:9

The Good Samaritan - Feeling Guilty Yet?

For Freedom Christ has Set us Free

“For Freedom Christ has set us free.” 

This is one of the most powerful statements in all of the New Testament.  It has been shouted, proclaimed, prayed, and declared across time.  It has been the cry of those fighting for inherent human rights, for civil liberties, and for freedom.  In a world which is crying out for justice, in a world where we see freedoms being restored to many, while being taken away from others, we seek to understand on the deepest level what Paul’s message means for us. Many in America have found this week to be one where freedom and justice rang true, a week of finally being set free.  Others are not there, feeling alienated, upset, confused, and worried.  Yet that is not the sermon for this Sunday.

But I can tell you what this freedom is not about. It is not about unlimited choices. So often our culture tells us that freedom is the ability to choose what we want in life.  Freedom does not equates with options. 

And freedom is not about believing that we can act or say anything without restraint.  News articles, and op-ed pieces this week have shown Paula Dean confused, unabashed (until she was dropped by all of her employers) by her blind arrogance and lack of sensitivity around race, stereotypes, and prejudice. Frank Bruni of the New York Times said, “Her manner may be as sugary as her cooking, her smile as big as the hams she hawked for Smithfield. But she doesn't pause when she should. Doesn't question herself when she must.  There’s a dearth of reflection, a deficit of introspection.”[1]  Freedom is not being able to say what one wishes when it strips another person of their dignity and humanity.  Freedom is not unlimited choices, or the driving force of free-will. 

Then what is this kind of freedom that Paul says we receive in Christ.  His words so inviting, offering to change our entire outlook on life. 

Paul’s first step in his exposition on freedom is to link being called into freedom with the law.  This is the first step in our understanding of what freedom can look like.  Freedom is a feature of human relationships which is understood as a result of our relationship with Christ.   We understand liberation through our relationships with one another.  This leads to many possibilities – first and foremost, our care for one another, the relationships we build with each other - this is a deeply spiritual exercise.  (I am going to pause because this is pretty cool.)   The relationships we maintain with each person in this room are intended to be a spiritual discipline. 

The conversation you have with the person sitting next to you has the potential to be a spiritual exercise.  It has the potential of being a deep and faithful prayer.  The way you look into in the eyes of another, the way you care for each person you encounter is a prayer, a spiritual practice, a discipline.  Maybe this is why it is so frustrating and dehumanizing when we have a conversation with someone who is staring at their Iphone.

Next Paul gives us two possibilities.  We have relationships that are rooted in the desires of the flesh and relationships that are fruit of the Spirit.  These are competing possibilities that exist in all relationships.  While we are called into the spiritual exercise of loving our neighbor – this law of love is tricky.  Where we know we are called to love the neighbor, we battle between faithfulness and self-indulgence.  We struggle with impurity, in light of patience. We become tempted with jealously and anger, knowing that we are to respond with gentleness and self-control. We have the capacity for both the flesh and the Spirit.  Both exist in the material and spiritual realm, and both are a reality with in our human capacity. 

What Paul is implying is that it is not wrong to desire, but it is when our desires become disordered that we get into trouble. This spiritual exercise of building relationships with others is dependent on our ability to discern the gifts of the Spirit from the desires of the flesh. Desires of the flesh not only take control of us, but they destroy community.  Anger does not just affect us, it affects our entire corporate body. Strife, jealousy, drunkenness, and envy – all though these are individual attributes, their result is the impact that is felt by the entire community at large.  We are called to desire rightly.  This is why we take our prayer list home each week.  We pray for the members of our community, the family or person of the week, because we desire love.  Or we pray for ourselves, for patience with dealing with those people we find difficult to deal with, because we want to order our desires properly.

I need to make a little theological jump.  Although we haven’t gotten to what this freedom truly means, we do know it exists because is a gift of Christ’s redeeming love.  I know this language is a little tricky.  Yet we use it all the time…even on our own church website, our mission statements, and our vision.  This redeeming love of God in Christ shapes the way we care for another.  God’s gifts to us shapes and leads the way we care for each other.  God’s sacrifice on the cross is contrary to human conceptions of love.  It changes the way that we understand friendship, family love, and discipline.  Love looks different through the lens of God’s love on the cross.

At Annunciation, we talk about loving all of God’s children.  I want you all to look around the room. I want you to look at the person sitting next to you.  I know you all can be friendly, because I have been here the last two weeks, and watched the way we interact during the peace.  It is important for us to understand that God’s action on the cross was individually for each person in this room.  God’s action on the cross was for every single person who has ever lived, whoever will live.  It is in our discernment of God in Christ sacrificial love that enables us to love one another. It is through this love for one another, that we can begin to understand how Christ has set us free.  When we are led by fruit of the Spirit into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we open up the possibility for our neighbor to be set completely free.  We open up the possibility for us to be free. Imagine, the person across from you. We find true freedom in God’s sacrificial love for us through our care, through ordering of our desires for one another, and that changes every relationship in this room. 

To think and believe that God’s love reaches every part of every person, from the jerk down the street, to the apologetic Paul Dean, the difficult boss, to people on death row, to the worst of the worst. And if we acknowledge that to be true, than we can acknowledge that God’s love reaches the depths of own selves that we want no person on earth to see, that only God knows about.  This is a Freedom that is grace from God that we can come to believe through our deep and loving relationships with each other.  And that my friends is true liberation.   

Sermon preached at Church of the Annunciation

June 30, 2013

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[1]Bruni, Frank., “Paula’s Worst Ingredients” The New York Times, June 25, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/opinion/bruni-paulas-worst-ingredients.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

What's Choice Got to Do with It?

A Sermon Primer for Sunday, June 30th.