How Beautiful the Feet

 

Text: John 12:1-8

Focus: Jesus death

Function: to be drawn into the mystery of Mary’s nurture

12:¹Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ²There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. ³Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ⁶(He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) ⁷Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Good morning to the beloved of God!

This is the fifth Sunday in Lent and today we are looking at the preparation the God provided for Jesus before his death and resurrection.

Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus appear to be three people outside of the group of apostles whose function is to perform as Jesus’ friends.

At least, this was a home that he came to hang out in, perhaps to find respite and community.

And this anointing of Jesus’ feet is one of two,or three accounts in the gospels.

It is a little bit confusing.

In the first instance, the emphasis is on the fact that there is this sinful woman who is touching Jesus and the purity crowd was indignant that he would have a relationship with a sinner.

In the second account of anointing, our text for today, it is Mary, Jesus friend, and perhaps a prophetess, who does this highly symbolic act to prepare Jesus for what lies ahead of him.

There are a lot of Mary’s in the NT. There is Mary of Magdalene who was probably this sinful woman who anointed Jesus. All we know is that the text says Jesus cast seven demons out of her. She is a very devoted disciple.

And there of course is Mary the mother of Jesus, but she isn’t in this story.

And there is this Mary the sister of Martha.

We know a little bit more about her from an earlier account in Luke 10. As I mentioned, it was Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ house that Jesus hung out in. And one day Jesus was there doing his teaching as usual while Martha is busy serving all the guests.

And serving the guests is a Spiritual practice in Mideastern cultures, it always has been. Even Lot in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah proved his righteousness by offering hospitality. The proof of the sin of Sodom was them denying hospitality to strangers and God condemned them with fire and brimstone.

So here is Martha, doing what a righteous person would do and suddenly she complains to Jesus that Mary is doing nothing but listening to and interacting with Jesus’ teaching. I love the fact that Jesus didn’t exclude the women.

And Jesus lovingly answers Martha that Mary has chosen the greater portion to sit at Jesus feet.

That was an earlier account about them that frames the story of who they were and what they meant to Jesus.

I believe that Mary was a prophetess, because she was deeply spiritual.

Jesus is getting ready for his ordeal at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus and all of this is just a few days after Lazarus has been risen from the dead.

There is some excitement in the air.

Jesus is nearing Jerusalem where there is a plot to have him killed well underway and he knows it.

When you read about those last days and that last week, you hear Jesus telling them plainly that he is going to die and they simply cannot grasp how the Messiah can possibly die when he is coming to make everything right.

Everyone misses what Jesus says except Mary.

And Mary, knowing what is about to happen interrupts the dinner proceeding and breaks open an extravagant gift worth a years wages and anoints Jesus feet with the perfume.

I believe she anoints his feet in accordance with the Isaiah 52:6 prophecy “How beautiful the feet of the one who brings us good news.”

And people are offended.

Some wonder how Jesus can preach about the poor so much and then allow such a waste.

And Jesus reminds them of the scripture that states: “The poor you will always have with you…” But Jesus leaves out the rest of that scripture that states that since we will always have the poor, they are our responsibility to take care of.

Sadly, some people have taken that to mean that we can forget about the poor, but that just doesn’t sit square with all the rest of Jesus’ teaching.

We are indeed commanded to care for the poor, that is why a significant Christian movement enacted the Social Safety net in the 30’s that became our Social Security and welfare system.

So, here is Jesus with this passion for the poor allowing this extravagance while obviously knowing the value of the symbolism accorded him by Mary.

I believe it is because she got it. Not only did she get it. She got Jesus purpose to be an offering that will show us the way to overcome evil by faith in God.

It was God through the Holy Spirit leading her that lead her to that point.

She was listening to God speak to her heart and she responded with a great risk as to whether or not he gift would be appreciated.

She was a prophetess.

And God sent this prophet to Jesus to prepare Jesus for his ordeal.

God nurtured Jesus through this ordeal.

We believe that Jesus was divine. And yet, Jesus went away time after time again to be alone to pray.

Some have questioned why Jesus would need to pray.

I see it as the human side of Jesus taking the time to center himself in God.

In prayer, we can center ourselves in love.

I say in love the because love seems more real to me that God.

I feel like I can reach out in prayer and touch love, or at least touch the idea of love: the power that love has to transform a heart.

So, Jesus has a regular practice of prayer to strengthen him, and God does just a little bit more with this symbolic gesture from his friend.

God takes the time to comfort Jesus and I believe that Jesus is emboldened by this act.

And it is necessary when we examine Jesus last prayer time in the Garden where he wrestles with the ordeal that he is about to face.

I believe that God gave him the strength to endure.

And I see that as the promise for God to give us strength to endure as well because God is love.

Open Arms

 

Text: Luke 15:11-32

Focus: Mercy

Function: to celebrate mercy

¹¹Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. ¹³A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. ¹⁴When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. ¹⁷But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ ²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²²But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

²⁵“Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. ²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ ³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

Good morning to the beloved of God.

I love this story.

And it is important that while we see a tremendous picture of mercy given by the father to the wayward son, and we focus on forgiveness, we can’t forget that the main point of the story has to do with the elder brother’s poor attitude. And we’ll focus on that during this sermon, but let us first look at the amazing story of grace and mercy presented here by Christ.

I did a tour of England back in 2006 where we tried to learn how churches were adapting to a post-Christian society since Europe went through it long before us.

And while we were there, we attended this Mega-Church and I was really impressed with the architecture and symbols. It was Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Brompton and it was this huge, ornate, alabaster cathedral with all the Medieval stone carvings and statues.

But what impressed me the most was this robust wooden statue carved out of the base of a large tree. It was a statue of the father embracing the prodigal son.

I thought to myself, of the myriad of images they could have portrayed up there from the scriptures, they chose this iconic symbol of mercy to depict the the central theme to their purpose. Their purpose is to promote God’s mercy.

In my experience, God’s mercy is universal.

But there is a dynamic to this story that is important and that is the way the prodigal son changed his mind.

He refused to be stubborn. He let his mind be changed. He gave up his error and returned to his community and to his people.

We use this story the first night of Kairos to ask the men to examine where they have gone and if they are willing to come back.

In theological circles, we call this choice to come back repentance. It means to allow our minds to be changed. And that is part of the function of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Not only does she empower us to succeed, but the Spirit’s baptism is also with a cleansing fire that draws us away from destructive behaviors and attitudes toward those that bring God’s peace.

There is a key aspect to allowing our minds to be changed. It can be a stumbling block that many are not willing to get over: Humility.

It takes humility to walk with God. It takes a willingness to be open to the Spirit’s leading and direction which has a completely different set of values than the values of the world around us.

We are set apart as believers to a different way of living. It takes humility to for go our pride.

The text says the prodigal son “came to his senses” and realized that a slave in his father’s house was better off than him, so he decided to return and take his rightful place as just a servant since he squandered his inheritance.

He owned up to his mistake and admitted it.

That takes humility. Remember, there are three things required of us, Do justice, Love Mercy and walk Humbly with God. Micah 6:8

Humility helps us to listen to and hear from God. On the other hand, pride makes us stubborn. Pride is what took Satan down.

I find beauty of the story in the father watching the road and longing for the return of his child. At this point, his child was dead to him, or at least the child had cut off the parent.

The father embraces the child. The child admits his error and accepts his punishment.

But the father will have none of that. None of the punishment, I mean. The father has his child back and this is all that matters. Reconciliation is the primary purpose of this story.

And that moves us to the elder brother who refused to participate. He refused to call him his own brother and he condemns his actions.

Notice something: the father places the child back in his position as child, but all that the father has still goes to the elder brother. The father is fair to the elder brother but doesn't get the credit. The elder brother’s pride destroys another relationship.

The parable, as I mentioned, is about reconciliation. We are first reconciled to God and then to others.

Pride caused the elder brother to resent mercy. Jesus, I believe, want us to stop being resentful of mercy. God wants us to celebrate mercy when it’s given.

So, let us finish by looking again at the father. At first, he validates the elder brother’s frustration, but then he reminds him of what is important:

He was lost and is found, we was dead to me and is now alive again.

The father sees restoration as the primary goal.

May we be restored as well.

God's Grooming

 

Text: Luke 13:1-9

Focus: repentance

Function: to help people see how God enables us to be faithful.

13:¹At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ²He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?³No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. ⁴Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? ⁵No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”

⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Good morning the beloved of God.

We are in Lent still and again, our passage speaks to us about God’s judgment.

It is heavy. However, I believe it is important to understand the purpose of what we call God’s judgment. God is Love and God loves us because we are God’s offspring. And just as parents are entrusted with the raising of their own children and teaching them values, respect, faith, honor and encouragement so that they can succeed in life, God is a loving parent who wants the same for us.

When we hear the word judgment, we cringe a little because we have falsely equated judgment with revenge. God does not take revenge on us and God, if God ever was, is no longer concerned with revenge since the judgment for sin was carried out on God’s own self through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus on the cross.

God is concerned with our well being and development. God has given us the Spirit so that we can thrive in God’s love. We thrive by faith, trusting and resting in God’s love for us.

By faith, we thrive in God’s love.

That is another reason why it is important for me to preach God’s love and our responsibility to respond with love toward others.

God believes in us and wants us to thrive.

So, the passage has Jesus talking about tragedies that have happened and the fact that God permitted them to happen. One was an accident, a tower collapsed, the other was oppression, Pilate, the Roman Governor over them, polluted their worship with an act of terror designed to suppress the crowd. Only, it isn’t called terror when it is State sponsored.

I surmise the question to Jesus was why this was permitted to happen.

And Jesus responds with the implication that God could have stopped it and he reminds them that death and tragedy reminds us to focus on God and our own well being.

Tragedies like this serve as reminders to be drawn close to God. We shudder when we think of what happened to Juanita Maloon, and again in the shuddering our focus is brought back to God.

That is what is happening here in this story, and the Jesus’ response is not the promise that bad stuff will not happen, but that through it all, we are restored by God.

Then he uses another word that has sometimes been given a negative connotation. He tells them that they need to repent.

But don’t worry, it literally means to change direction, or more specifically, to allow your mind to be changed by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Believers are open minded to the leading of the Spirit. They give up this system of retribution and revenge and embrace love and forgiveness.

Jesus is telling them to make the decision to follow in his way of living and loving others. He is telling us to follow after his teachings when they contradict the values given to us by the evil influences in the world around us.

So let me put this in the context of how I would have interpreted it had I heard it right then back in the first century of this common era. I would have interpreted it like this: Follow this new way of life, it flows from God’s Spirit and it will heal and restore you to the path of a life lived to the fullest of what God intended for you.

Now I appreciate how the designers of the Lectionary text included the metaphor about the fig tree in context with this passage that mentions judgment and restoration.

He speaks of a tree that is not doing well and the commitment of the gardener to make it thrive.

God’s commitment to us is to help us thrive through the leading of the Spirit in our lives.

And because it is Lent, we are going to let it stand that at the end, there is the possibility that after the extra care is done and the tree fails that it will be discarded as the parable implies.

But I can’t see God discarding any of God’s children. Jesus lets the tension stand here in this passage so that we can sort out the necessity of this concept that we make the decision to let the Spirit lead in our lives.

We choose whether or not to let the Spirit lead us.

And just as we pray and recommit our trust to God every week when we repeat the Lord’s prayer for God to give us what we need each day, Our Daily Bread, this choosing to follow is a daily exercise.

I suggest that we wake up in the morning and sometime during those wee hours of waking we recommit ourselves to walking in the grace and love and mercy of God that day.

It is a day by day process. Just as Alcoholics Anonymous does, we are refreshed and reminded by this text to choose for ourselves to let God lead us throughout the day.

God wants us to thrive and sends the Spirit to encourage and empower us.

Although the possibility of failure exists, we can succeed because God is faithful and committed to our success.

Trusting in God to help us, to nurture our own fig trees of life, is living by faith in the power of God. God leads us to that place where our minds decide to love like Christ did in our reaction to the evil that is around us.

So, this is about trials and it reminds us to keep our eyes focused on the love of God during these trials. God is committed to aiding us through the Spirit inside of us.

Love, Working Through Faith

 

Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1

Focus: Endurance

Function: to help people see the power of the Spirit to keep them focused

¹⁷Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. ¹⁸(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: ¹⁹whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) ²⁰For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: ²¹who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

4:¹Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.

Good morning beloved of God. I love the way Paul calls them the beloved of God and then his own beloved. He has what is called a Pastor’s heart. In other words, he is in touch with that side of him that is empathetic and intuitive to people’s suffering. I believe he was in touch with his nurturing, feminine side.

Generally, when I am picking my passage from the possible lectionary texts, I try to avoid the passages that appear to be judgmental or negative.

But, this is Lent and it’s a season for us to re-focus our hearts toward how we live this Christian life in a world that tries to distract us by telling us it is okay to be selfish, greedy and refuse to share our blessings from God because its the American way.

Not really the American way, but the way of the world.

In contrast, John implies that if we have the means and we see someone in need and do nothing to help, we are not walking in the love of Christ.

The way of Christ revolutionized and upset the social order of the first 3 centuries. It was a radical shift from class oppression by wealthy to the collective empowering of the poor when they learned to share and to help each other survive.

It was so radical that the Roman authorities tried to stop them by executing them in the arenas as public spectacles.

In order to bring about a system whereby everyone was included, some of our early fore-fathers and fore-mothers gave their lives.

So, our Lenten sacrifice, or our Lenten focus on the suffering of Christ, which leads us to the celebration of his resurrection on Easter Sunday, is a reminder of the suffering of generations of believers who have born witness to our faith with their lives.

Our sacrifice remembers the sacrifices of others.

Christ himself, in faith and the hope of the resurrection, suffered the agony of his murder for us in order to deliver us from the fear of death and restore us to God through our own living by faith.

We cannot adequately do that except for the resurrection which for us means that when we die, we die in faith that the Lord himself will redeem our lives from the grave into our reward.

Lent looks forward to the resurrection and there can be no resurrection without a death. In Lent, we symbolically die to ourselves.

I’m not sure what to do with the phrase from our passage in verse 21 when he says he will change our vile body.

When I read Genesis 1, I read that God created both male and female and God called both male and female: “good.” When I read Romans 1, I read that God created different genders as well.

God calls Creation Good.

And yet, in this passage, Paul calls what God created as vile.

The scriptures do say that when God created us, we were good and then we became corrupt.

And it is true that there are people who have cut off their conscience, or have had their consciences severed by abuse or neglect as is the case with many of the residents I get to know during a Kairos weekend.

And in order to keep society safe and to protect the weak from the strong, we are forced to incarcerate those who violate the rights of others.

And although I believe that non violent offenders need a better solution for rehabilitation than our prison system, I agree that societies need to ensure justice. Some people aren’t safe to be around others.

I get the fact that there are evildoers in this world and God desires that we protect the weak from those who would exploit them.

But I don’t see prison resident, or the Uber passenger, or the Wal-Mart clerk and especially any of you as vile. I see humans whom God loves. I see us as created in the image of God and I know from scripture that God is seeking to redeem us by faith working through through love.

It takes faith, or trust, in God to be able to make a sacrifice because we believe in God’s reward for obedience.

But again, it is Lent and we take this time to acknowledge that corruption has crept into humanity and we direct our focus on what God wants from us as we live the rest of our earthly lives for God’s glory and purpose.

So let us focus on the rest of verse 21.

Or, let us focus on the fact that God knows that there is brokenness in this world.

We take comfort in the fact that not only does God’s all-knowing isn’t just from God’s throne in heaven, but also by the fact that God became human and experienced human suffering.

God can relate to our pain.

So, the Love of God works through faith to help comfort and restore us in our pain.

And again, Easter Sunday proves the power of God over the evil that is present in this world.

In verse 23, Paul focuses on the fact that God is all powerful and will indeed transform and redeem us from this corruption through the power of the Spirit.

Through God’s Spirit we find a better way of living and responding to evil. By faith in the resurrection, we feel the power of God’s love.

We feel the power of the Spirit giving our spirits understanding and mercy towards others because we are experiencing God’s love and mercy ourselves.

I love the way those who choose the lectionary text included verse 1 of Chapter 4.

It is the conclusion to Paul’s point about us living by faith for the Love of God toward others.

He recognizes the distractions, as we have seen in the text, and he reminds us to be steadfast.

I suppose the Lenten sacrifice symbolically reminds us of our devotion to God.

And I see the faith giving us the power to continue to love. So be it.

Everyone

Text: Romans 10:8-13

Focus: Sodzo

Function: to help people see that salvation is holistic

⁸But what does it say?

“The word is near you,

    in your mouth and in your heart”

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), ⁹because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. ¹¹The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Good morning beloved of God!

Oftentimes, when I am choosing my text for a sermon , like we saw last week with Lectio Davina, I look for a word or a phrase that sticks out to me and focus on that. Hence , the word I chose to focus on is “Everyone” from the phrase “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” When Paul writes those words he is quoting the Old Testament, The same quote that Peter used when the Holy Spirit fell in the book of Acts, it's from Joel 2:32.

I find it an interesting turn of phrase. Let me break it down to simple terms. Everyone who prays to God will be saved.

I think in order for us to understand this, we need to go back to our understanding of what it means for us to be saved.

There is what I call a salvation formula in this passage that speaks to the condition of the heart of a person and they way they respond with from their heart with an outward sign of their commitment to Christ Jesus.

I’m not into formulas as if they were magic enchantments that will automatically secure a persons salvation.

Throughout the scriptures, God looks at the heart and looks for a heart that responds willingly to the leading of the Holy Spirit to thrive in their love for God by loving others.

But the formula that is written here is believe and confess. Specifically, it is believe with the heart -resulting in Right living, and confess with the mouth -resulting in restoration..

It is one of the main reasons why we do baptism here. Baptism is our confession of our trust in Christ.

To me, salvation comes from resting in Christ and letting the Spirit of God lead me in my life. It touches every aspect of our lives.

That, I believe is why he says we believe resulting in righteousness. The phrase means the result is right living, by applying the standard to love others as much as ourselves,

And prayer leads us to God and to listen to the Holy Spirit. That is why I did the Lectio Divina exercise last week, to help us get in touch with the Holy Spirit.

So, theologically, we need to get past the concept of salvation where we simply make it to heaven when we die.

That is not at all what Jesus talked about when Jesus talked of salvation. You know, because I have taught you that eternal life literally means a life without boundaries, unlimited by the possibilities of the Spirit’s power inside of us.

Salvation -being saved- is restoration, or being restored by God.

Praying people get restored to God.

Everyone who prays to God gets help from God. And he means everyone because he mentions that there is no distinction between races.

And that help is transformational as the Spirit of Christ dwells in us in a more and more intimate and personal way.

That is why in the passage containing John 3:16, he introduces it with the mystical concept of being born from above.

We may have heard it as born again.

And baptism symbolizes it as we are put under the water, we symbolize a death to the old way of being selfish and as the water washes that life away we become alive to the new way of letting the Spirit lead us more and more to love one another as we prosper in God’s grace. It symbolizes a form of death to selfishness and becoming alive to this new way of living. We are alive to loving others like Christ did.

God dwells inside of us and restores us to the place of oneness with God and others. And the goal goes beyond personal transformation into a society that truly cares for the least of these.

Christ prayed “Our Father,” not “My Father,” signifying that his redemption was inclusive of everyone.

People say that Jesus wasn’t political since he said that his kingdom is not of this earth.

But he came to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth instead of just in heaven.

Salvation is restoration to God and to others and it is our mission according to 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Listen:

^17-20...Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

I can’t emphasize it enough, this is the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us as she is striving to reconcile the whole world to God.

Let me speak a minute, then, about Christian Nationalism, well, I can’t call it Christian anymore, so I call it Nationalism. It is bound up in White Supremacy. I is afraid that white people are being replaced by brown people. It is powered by racism which is a sin.

Jesus in his teachings, and then Paul as he gives his version of them both agree that the transformation God desires is not by coercion, but by the power of Love softening and changing the hearts of hard hearted individuals. Nationalism wants to use laws to get people to conform to what they believe to be Christ’s teachings instead of the power of the Spirit.

My prayer for the Politicians in power who are placing some sort if misplaced patriotic fervor over compassion for immigrants who will most likely suffer death or slavery to gangs or political persecution is the same as Bishop Budde who called on those in power to have compassion and mercy instead of maligning refugees. She lovingly fulfilled the mandate given to her as a shepherd of to the whole flock of America that we see in the 2 Corinthians passage. And I love the way she did it. It was gentle and loving. I might have thrown in the rest of Matthew 25:41-46 where Jesus sends those who refuse to care for strangers to judgment. But intead, she focused on the reality that the Spirit of God could touch them and make them merciful as well.

Sadly, the response to her was not loving. And she didn’t change or get bitter as she was pressed about it in further engagements. It was obvious that she was working in the love of the Spirit.

The power of change inside of us and the culture is Love fueled by faith. Remember, faith, or belief changes us to follow the new commandment: Love everyone.

Sadly again, another Nationalist politician responded to Bishop Budde by trying to claim that it is a Christian virtue to care for our own to the exclusion of others. That, beloved, is a direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus. Love everyone because everyone who prays to God belongs to God. That is a lot of people!

This insurgence of Nationalism that calls itself Christian is spiritual warfare for between the historic teachings of love and mercy that Jesus taught and the domination of the empire version of Christianity that started in the 3^rd century.

Here is how we tell the difference: Nationalism is coercive, the Spirit is a gentle shepherd inside of us leading us to have mercy, love and compassion. That is the new way of living, the restoration, the salvation that Jesus brings to us and us to Jesus.

Let us live in the power of the Spirit. Amen.