Engineering My Faith

Preached February 9, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based primarily on Luke 5:1-11, with references to Isaiah 6:1-8.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a press release in August 2022 stating that there had been a substantial surge in demand after the pandemic. There were lots of reasons. One was that people had money to spend on luxuries that they hadn’t spent on vacations due to travel restrictions. But to me, this quote points to the primary reason: “We’re seeing ourselves on a computer screen a lot more regularly and are much more aware of our appearance. And for a lot of people, that makes them recognize that they may want to look a little younger or to appear less tired, which has led to an increase in facial and neck procedures as well. I think there’s something that’s happened in terms of the cultural values on aesthetics and wellness in this country that we haven’t seen before. And I think people are recognizing that it’s OK to do something for themselves.”

I don’t know about everyone in our congregation, but I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer. During the pandemic shutdowns, much of that time was spent on Zoom. The harsh light in my basement office and the close-up view from my webcam revealed all of my flaws. Fortunately I’m not vain, except maybe about my beard. But many people had this experience of staring at themselves on the computer and seeing every little flaw. They saw themselves as others see them, and didn’t like it.

Today’s readings have two call stories. First, Isaiah is in the Temple and he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, surrounded by seraphim who called out, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The building shook and filled with smoke, and Isaiah was overcome with awe at God’s mighty presence. The bright light of God’s glory revealed to him all of his flaws. He said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah realized his own brokenness and that of his community and nation. He realized that they had all fallen far short of God’s glory.

Then we have Simon, who will soon be called Peter. He’s in his fishing boat on a normal day, giving Jesus a ride while he preaches. Jesus tells him to go out to deep water and throw out his nets. Simon basically says, “Sure, whatever, we’re not going to catch anything, but I’ll humor you.” When God’s abundant kingdom breaks through, Simon is overcome. Like Isaiah, he sees all of his sinfulness in the bright light of Jesus’s glory. He suddenly sees himself the way God sees him and knows his every failing. He tries to get Jesus to take his bright light away, to let him go back to his normal life.

The thing is, though, once you have encountered God, everything changes. Isaiah couldn’t go back to his mundane duties, but instead needed to become God’s prophet. Simon couldn’t go back to fishing, but instead was compelled to follow Jesus as his disciple.

God has a way of calling some of the most unlikely people, many of whom protest that they are not worthy. Moses tried one argument after another to get God to leave him alone. Last week, we heard Jeremiah protest that he was only a boy who didn’t know what to say. Isaiah protested that he had unclean lips. Simon, now called Peter, declared himself a sinful man. But God sees us differently. Just like when the LORD sent Samuel to anoint David to be king over Israel, the LORD does not see as mortals see, but looks on the heart. Jesus saw something special in Simon, something that would enable him to transform into the rock on which his church would be built.

Keeping track of the sequence of events in the Gospels is sometimes tricky, but let’s give it a try. In Luke’s Gospel, first, Jesus was baptized, then tempted in the wilderness. When he returns, he proclaims the year of the Jubilee in the synagogue in Nazareth. Next, he heals Simon’s mother-in-law, and then we have this story. So Jesus is already becoming known in the area. He has already begun to preach and he attracted a big enough crowd that he needed to preach from a boat. Jesus and Simon know each other well enough that Simon would let him use his boat to preach from, and Simon also trusts him enough to humor Jesus and take his fishing advice. But at this point, people don’t really know who Jesus is exactly.

Then the abundant kingdom of God breaks through, and Simon sees it: Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God! And yet Simon is thinking, Me? Why did you choose me? I’m not worthy! I’m just a fisherman! I’m not learnèd like the scribes or Pharisees. I’m an uneducated peasant from a dinky little backwater town. And you know what? I’m not even that great a fisherman. I worked ALL NIGHT and didn’t catch anything, and then this Jesus guy comes along and suddenly I catch all these fish. I AM NOT WORTHY.

Yet Jesus saw something in Simon and pushed on. Somehow, Jesus always calls the right person. Ultimately, Simon said yes. That’s all that Jesus asks of us, that when he calls us, we say yes. Not a half-hearted yes, not a “yes but,” but a 100% YES to whatever he asks us to do. Jesus doesn’t promise an easy path, but he does promise to be with us wherever we go, and to give us the courage and wisdom we need to participate in his transformation of the world.

Simon said yes. He left everything behind—his family, his boat, his business, everything. But he gained something along the way. He became part of something bigger than himself. Indeed, he became part of a movement that would transform the world. He felt compelled to follow Jesus. He didn’t know what the future would hold, but he intuitively knew that as long as he was with Jesus, everything would work out for the best.

This is a classic call story. First comes the theophany: God did something amazing in the world, and Simon had a front-row seat. Next comes the assurance: Fear not, your sins are not disqualifying, you will see God and not perish. Then the commission: Follow me and fish for people. Then finally, the response: Simon left everything behind. Simon was assured, Simon heard the call, and Simon gave a 100% YES.

This is also an excellent model of discipleship for us all. Most of us haven’t had such a dramatic theophany as Isaiah or Simon had, but perhaps we had some experience that made us understand that God is real and present with us. I had an experience like that listening to Rabbi Randy at an interfaith service held during Pride STL ten years ago. I had another experience like that sitting next to Mary on my couch twelve years ago while Rhonda was suffering with her face pain. In both cases, I didn’t hear a specific call or have a dramatic vision, but I did have a very real sense of God’s presence.

Those experiences, and other less tangible experiences of God’s presence mediated by other people in my life, led me to a sense of assurance, a sense that God is with me. Not that “God is on my side,” as some might say, but that God is accompanying me on my walk of faith. An assurance that there is no need to fear what’s coming my way.

Here’s where it gets difficult, though. Without Jesus sitting in the boat with me, or the hem of God’s robe filling the temple while seraphim fly around, I don’t have as much clarity around my calling. I have a sense of it, but I am continually seeking feedback to know that I’m on the path God intends for me. When I feel that I’m going the right way, I become more committed to responding YES.

That’s discipleship. Continually watching and listening for the signs that God gives you so that you know you are on the right path. We can’t force God to speak to us plainly. God’s work and signs are subtle.

An interesting quirk of our brains is that we find what we are looking for. Let me explain. Suppose something important is going on in your life, or there’s some problem you’re trying to solve. The classic example is when you or someone close to you is pregnant. Suddenly, you’ll find that you see pregnant women EVERYWHERE. When your mind is attuned to certain clues, they pop up as if by magic.

So if you are dedicated to seeking God’s guidance, you will find it. We can better attune ourselves to the clues that God is giving us if we are diligent in seeking God’s guidance through prayer. That’s why I have encouraged people to develop spiritual practices, and that’s why I have encouraged people to find prayer partners. By praying individually, we each start to see God’s plans for ourselves. By praying in pairs, or as a congregation, we start to see what God has in store for us all collectively.

Let me be clear: I am not just talking about us as individual church members or collectively as First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Each one of us is called to serve God in particular ways, and we work together in groups that are called together by God to further God’s kingdom. I have a lot on my plate: professor, department chair, lay pastor, treasurer of a nonprofit, volunteer at the Mission, father, husband, friend. Yet I see my work in every role as furthering the same goal: universal human flourishing. That is what I believe is the essence of God’s realm, and that is what I seek in all that I do. The challenge is to discern, in each role and in each situation in life, just what God’s desire is for me. How can I best serve God when I’m confronted with a student, staff, or faculty member who is having some difficulty? How can I best serve God when my nonprofit is in conflict with the city?

Each of you have similar challenges. Each of you fills many roles in your life. The primary criticism of Christians or of the church is hypocrisy: we say that we are seeking God’s will, but when we have to choose between God’s will and our finances, we do what’s best for our finances. We say that God loves everybody, but then we try to decide who is actually worthy of that love. The cure for hypocrisy is to see your whole life as being of one piece: one call, one mission, all dedicated to God’s kingdom.

I’ve been thinking lately about the Theological Declaration of Barmen, the confession that came out of Germany in 1934. Its second point is this: “We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.” Christ does not call us to serve him on Sunday mornings. Christ does not call us to serve him within the church’s dealings only. Christ calls us to follow him all the days of our lives. There is nothing that we do where Christ says, “Yeah, I understand, it would be unreasonable for me to expect you to follow my guidance in this situation.” Christ doesn’t say, “It’s OK to lie, cheat, and steal in business as long as you tithe your ill-gotten gains.” Christ doesn’t say, “Love your neighbor as yourself, but only the neighbors that you like.” Christ doesn’t say, “Follow the government’s laws, not God’s law of love, so you stay out of trouble.” No, Christ expects our 100% YES. Christ expects us to love and serve only Him. Not our stock portfolio, not our government, only God.

Simon encountered God in the flesh. He realized how inadequate he was, and yet Jesus chose him and assured him of his continual presence, guiding him each step of the way. So Simon gave his whole life to serving God, and in return, he was renamed Peter, the rock on which Christ’s church was built. In the same way, each of us has been chosen, each of us has been assured of God’s continual guiding, comforting, strengthening presence. So give God your YES, give your whole life, all that you have and all that you are, to fostering human flourishing, to reconciling all people, to serving the people that God loves here in Rolla and around the nation and world. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 12, 2025, Baptism of the Lord. Based on Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22.

Many times over the past decade or two, I’ve wished that we knew more about John the Baptist. Here’s what I think we know. John was the son of a priest, and so he could also have been a priest. He chose a prophetic path instead. He spoke truth to power, and in the end, ran afoul of Herod Antipas and was beheaded. But before we get there, we read that he led a major movement in the wilderness centered on baptism and repentance. He explicitly rejected the title of Messiah, saying instead that he was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah to come.

How big was John’s movement? We don’t really know. I’ve been told that if John’s movement survived his death and produced any writings, they have been intentionally lost so that he wouldn’t be seen as overshadowing Jesus’s movement.

Here’s something else we know: Jesus was part of John’s movement, at least peripherally. In verse 21, Luke writes, “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” Jesus was part of the crowd. He came to be part of this radical Jewish community that was exploring a new way to be God’s people.

John had prepared the way for Jesus indeed. He had created a movement full of people who were eagerly anticipating something new. He had reminded them that they had failed to live up to God’s expectations of them and that it was time to turn back towards God.

Into this highly-charged atmosphere comes Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, which is to say, a nobody from nowhere. He wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a warrior, he wasn’t from Bethlehem, he wasn’t anything that people expected the Messiah to be. And yet when he immersed himself in John’s community and then immersed himself in the waters of baptism, he was ready to take center stage. The heavens opened and the crowd got a peek behind the curtain that separates us from the True Reality of God’s realm. Something like a dove came as an emissary from God’s realm, anointing Jesus with the Holy Spirit as God declared Him to be God’s beloved Son.

Jesus became a part of John’s community, and then grew his own ministry. Jesus was the inheritor of a tradition that stretched back a thousand years, mediated by a charismatic leader and prophet who helped the people interpret that tradition.

We Presbyterians subscribe to Reformed theology, a movement that started with Calvin. Both Lutheran and Reformed theology hold to sola scriptura, that is, only scripture is the ultimate authority. I have a pretty hard time with that, in part because I know how the Bible we have today evolved over the centuries and in part because I do not read Hebrew or Greek. I think also my difficulty stems from my upbringing in the United Methodist Church. Besides Lutheranism and Reformed theology, another major branch of Protestant theology is Anglican. Instead of sola scriptura, the Anglicans have the three-legged stool: scripture, reason, and tradition. The Wesleyan quadrilateral took this three-legged stool and added experience. Basically, the Wesleyan tradition says that yes, scripture is essential, but God gave us rational minds to learn with and put us in this world to experience God anew each generation.

And also, tradition. If all I had was the Bible, in English but without notes, I would quickly get lost. Add in my reason and experience and I might be able to understand some of it. But tradition is essential to bring it all together. When we read passages like this one, we remember all of the theology that has grown around baptism. What actually happens in baptism? I’m not certain, but the Presbyterian tradition teaches that it is an outward sign of an inward grace. Our tradition also says that it is the sign and seal of our incorporation into Jesus Christ. Reformed tradition understands baptism to be a sign of God’s covenant, linked with the waters of creation, the flood, and the exodus. Without the centuries of great thinkers who have pondered the mysteries of the sacraments, I would have no understanding of the riches of God’s grace as demonstrated through the waters of baptism.

Indeed, most people only learn about the Bible through our traditions. Until fairly recently, most Catholics didn’t read the Bible. Even among those traditions who interpret the Bible literally and believe it to be inerrant, Biblical literacy is pretty poor among modern Christians. And as I’ve said before, the Bible is a thick book that has almost everything in it. Through our traditions, we learn what’s important and what’s not, how to interpret these ancient writings in a modern context, and how to apply the Bible to our lives.

Traditions are the product of a religious community. “Religion” gets a bad rap these days. Many people claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” whatever that might mean. They reject formal religious structures, essentially rejecting tradition, accepting some scripture but not all of it, and elevating reason and experience. Organized religion has done a lot of things that are wrong or even evil, so I understand why some people would reject it. We have collectively done much to lose trust.

Yet let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Religion has a place in the modern world, just as it did in the ancient world. The root of the word is ligare, which means to bind. It’s the same root as for “ligament.” Religion binds us to one another and to God. I think of it like tomato cages or plant stakes. Religion supports us when we’re weak and guides our growth. Not just religion, but a religious community. The community lifts you up when you’ve fallen, challenges you when you’ve become complacent, and comforts you when you’re hurting. The community enables you to do more than you could on your own, as everyone’s efforts add together. The community enables you to understand more than you could on your own, as everyone’s perspectives enrich the conversation.

Even Jesus needed to be a part of a community. When he was ready to start his ministry, he immersed himself in a religion that connected back many generations, through the exile, through the monarchy, through the exodus, to the time when one man and his family walked with God. He immersed himself in a community that was a part of this great tradition but was reimagining it in a radical way, to rediscover a way to be God’s people and participate in God’s transformation of the world. Jesus was the Word made flesh, the Son of God, the Messiah, and yet he needed a community to support him. Man does not live by bread alone, but bread is a necessity, and it was provided to him by the community he surrounded himself with.

Not only that, but Jesus was a finite human being, just like all of us, so he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Sure, he did some miraculous things, from turning water into wine to feeding the 5000, but he could only work one miracle at a time and preach to one crowd at a time. Twice in the Gospels we read of him sending his disciples out in pairs to help spread the good news throughout Galilee and Judea. At the end of Matthew, he charges his disciples to go even to the ends of the earth, because he couldn’t go himself as a finite human being. Indeed, we would not be Christians today if Jesus didn’t lead a community that carried on his movement.

One of the many things we find in a community is our identity. It’s paradoxical, I know. You would think that because your identity is so core to your individuality, you would find it best through self-reflection and isolation. I used to think that. But in a community, other people bring out aspects of your identity that you never would realize yourself. I’m up here today because Lou Ellen saw something in me that I didn’t see. I bet all of you see yourselves differently because of something you learned through this community.

I also often say that I most readily experience God through other people. God is everywhere, but invisible. As human beings, we can just barely perceive the actor behind the action. It’s easier for me, though, to see God acting through other people.

This need to make the invisible visible is the essence of the sacraments. Through bread and juice, we encounter the body and blood of Christ. Through the waters of baptism, we experience the outflow of God’s grace and our anointing by the Holy Spirit.

At Jesus’s baptism, the invisible was made quite visible. The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form, like a dove. Through this encounter, he knew, and the whole crowd knew, just who he was in God’s realm. Jesus was anointed, designated for his role in God’s mission to transform the world—on earth as it is in heaven. Once his identity was established, Jesus was empowered to embrace his role and proclaim the year of God’s favor.

We too are designated for a special role in God’s transformative work. Today, Steve and Cheryl were designated to serve as a ruling elder and a deacon, respectively. Back in August, I was designated to serve as a commissioned lay pastor. Most of you have been similarly designated for church offices now or in the past. But more than our place in the church’s polity, we all have a part to play in the body of Christ. We are eyes or ears or hands or mouths or feet. All of us have a job to do to transform the world, starting in Rolla. All of us are here today and each Sunday to receive this commission and to be empowered by both the Holy Spirit and this community of believers. We are here to encounter God, through worship and through each other, and then to carry that encounter out into the community.

I want to return briefly to verse 21. Luke wrote, “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” A recurring theme in Luke is the centrality of prayer in Jesus’s life and ministry. Again, if the Son of God, the Word made flesh, needed prayer, how much more do the rest of us! So, who here watched my recorded sermon last week? And don’t lie just to make me feel better. OK, in my sermon last week, I laid out a plan for us to have prayer partners. I want everyone to have at least one and no more than three partners. They need to be from this congregation and not in your family. They shouldn’t be holding the same office as you hold right now, so if you’re on session, don’t pick another installed elder and if you’re a deacon, don’t pick another deacon.

What I want you to do is to get together, in person, once a week. Could be five minutes, could be an hour. You can follow up by email or phone or text, but spend at least a little time together in person. Talk about whatever is true and on your heart, then pray together and pray for one another.

The point of this spiritual exercise is to reveal your identity to yourself and to one another. Who are you in Christ’s body? What is weighing you down? What lifts you up? What are your hopes and fears? How do they define you, or how can you transcend them to live out your truth in Christ?

I don’t expect the heavens to open and the Holy Spirit to descend in bodily form upon you, but if she does, I want to hear about it. What I do expect is that as you talk to each other and pray for each other, you will be progressively more open and more able to hear God’s voice. Perhaps you will encounter God through one another. You will better know where you fit in God’s plan. And then together, we all can live out our calling to be Christ’s body, doing God’s work in the world. Amen.

Merry Christmas! A homily preached at First Presbyterian Church on December 24, 2024. Loosely based on Luke 2 and John 1.

I recently listened to an audiobook called The Happiness Hypothesis. In it, Jonathan Haidt examines various theories about what produces human happiness.

To set the stage, he explores the nature of our mind. We are only partially in control of our own minds. The analogy he uses is a rider on an elephant. The rider is our conscious mind. It’s our reasoning, our logic, our explicit beliefs, that sort of thing. But the far larger part of our mind is unconscious. It’s the elephant. Sure, the rider can guide the elephant, but it’s not like driving a car. Our subconscious or unconscious mind is the seat of our emotions. It quickly evaluates our experiences and responds far quicker than our conscious mind ever could. We feel emotions, or we make decisions, and then afterwards, we come up with an explanation for why. Basically, the elephant goes where it will, and then the rider decides that’s what they wanted to do anyway.

So in order to be happy, we need to train the elephant. We can guide and nudge it, but we cannot just say to ourselves, “Be happy!” We are not computers to be fixed, but more like a plant that needs the right environment to thrive.

In one section of the book, he talks about the theory that virtues produce happiness. Ancient Greeks talked a lot about virtue. They held that the goal of each citizen is to attain the highest possible virtue, and in so doing, they would serve their community as well as becoming their best self.

Until the modern age, great thinkers realized that there are many virtues that support one another. Starting in the 18^th century, philosophers sought instead to reduce everything to a single principle. Kind of like applying the scientific method. Two schools of thought emerged. One started from the categorical imperative, which basically says that if you wouldn’t want a certain rule to apply universally, then you shouldn’t follow it. The other was utilitarianism, which is the principle that actions should pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

The problem with these two principles is that they are logical and rational. I guess that’s good for philosophers who are trying to write books and articles, but not terribly useful in daily life. I mean, I can’t sit around trying to decide whether each action I take will achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. I usually don’t have enough information to even try. Instead, like everyone else, I make decisions based on my gut instinct, then try to rationalize the decision I’ve already made. No amount of logic can help with those gut instincts.

I believe that the philosophers were right to pursue a single, unifying principle, but they found the wrong ones. They found logical ones that in our analogy would help the rider, but do nothing for the elephant. We need something that can affect us deep down, that can change the way we react to the circumstances around us.

So, what universal principle can we pursue? Some of the ancient virtues are personal, like humility. Some are communal, like justice. Ah, justice—let’s pull on that thread.

True justice is about reconciliation and restoration. Putting a thief in jail does nothing for the person who was robbed. It is only by restoring what was stolen that the thief can re-enter society and be reconciled to their victim.

Reconciliation is about healing relationships. And what is the root of every relationship? LOVE. That is the grand unifying principle. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. Love of all things. Love is what guides us towards restoration and reconciliation. Love is what enables us to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of our family, our friends, our community, or our world. Love empowers us and brings us hope when all seems lost.

In a few minutes, I will read a few verses from the opening of the Gospel of John. He wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word, or Logos, refers to the divine ordering principle of the universe. And just what is that principle? LOVE. The universe is created from love and for love. We are created to love. Jesus was born this night so many years ago to demonstrate just what it means to love one another, because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

So tonight, let us all commit to living a life of LOVE. Let us celebrate love made flesh in the child of Jesus. And let us always remember the essential power of love to conquer evil in ourselves and in our world. Amen.

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on December 22, 2024, the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Based on Luke 1:39-55.

The reading this morning starts with Mary getting up and taking a trip. I want to back up a few verses, though, to talk about why she’s doing that. Our reading today is called “the Visitation,” but it was preceded by “the Annunciation.” In the sixth month, Adar, which on our calendar is February or March, the angel Gabriel visits Mary in Nazareth. We read that Mary was a virgin engaged to Joseph. Gabriel says, “Greetings, favored one!” Or, as it reads in an old translation of the Bible, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” You might recognize that as the start of the Hail Mary prayer. Anyway, after greeting her, Gabriel tells Mary that she has found favor with God and will conceive a son, Jesus, Son of the Most High and inheritor of the throne of David.

Mary was probably a teenager. Probably not twelve, like some sources say. More like high school age, old enough for her body to handle pregnancy. This proposal from Gabriel must have seemed ridiculous. She would become pregnant? Of course her response is, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Gabriel basically says, God will take care of it.

So here she is, engaged to be married, and an angel asks her to do this ridiculous thing that will totally disrupt her life. She doesn’t know how Joseph will respond. She doesn’t know how her parents will respond. She probably will need to endure a lifetime of people giving a wink and a chuckle when they say she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit when still a virgin. Or worse, a lifetime of being shunned.

What would you do? How would you respond if Gabriel showed up and offered you the option of throwing away the life you were expecting in exchange for the uncertainty of birthing the Messiah? Well, what Mary did was say, “Sure. Let it be with me according to your word.” What? I couldn’t do that. I bet most people here today wouldn’t be able to do that.

In Catholic circles, Mary is treated as this supreme person, just one step removed from God. She is the theotokos, the God-bearer. One of her titles is Queen of Heaven, with a corresponding feast day. Mary is held up as this impossible standard for women, the perfect mother and yet forever a virgin. Many people pray the rosary every day, which includes praying the Hail Mary fifty times. Mary has appeared in many places around the world, and virtually every Catholic church has a Lady chapel. Catholics take Mary seriously.

In reaction against this glorification, Protestants tend to treat Mary like any other character in the Bible. Sure, she’s important, but probably less important than Peter or Paul. Yeah, yeah, miraculous birth, whatever. She was just a convenient womb to incubate our Lord.

The truth is somewhere in-between. Since Jesus had brothers, I reject the doctrine of perpetual virginity out of hand. But still, Mary was special. She did what almost nobody else would have done: she allowed God to take complete control of her life. As we sang in our cantata last week, “No one but she true homage paid, none was like her for lowlihead.” Mary was willing to endure the snide comments about her supposed virginity, the pain and suffering of childbirth, the burden of raising the Messiah, and the knowledge that messianic movements almost always end the same way: bloodshed. When she presented Jesus at the Temple, Simeon confirmed what she must have already known. He said to her, “A sword will pierce your own soul, too.” She agreed to bear the Son of the Most High knowing that she would have to witness both the glory of his movement and his death at the hands of the Romans.

But she was willing. Why? Because God asked her. She said yes, and then she got to work. She knew that it would be hard. Motherhood is hard under the best circumstances, let alone as an oppressed and impoverished peasant in the rural village of Nazareth. What could she do to help overcome this challenge? Gabriel gave her a hint when he mentioned that she had a cousin who just got pregnant miraculously as well. Putting two and two together, Mary gets up and travels a hundred miles to visit Elizabeth. She went in search of comfort, companionship, wisdom, and mutual support.

So let’s talk a little bit about Elizabeth. We met her earlier in the book of Luke. Her husband, Zechariah, was a priest who was also visited by Gabriel. Zechariah and Elizabeth were “getting on in years” and were childless. Gabriel promised that Elizabeth would conceive a son who would be filled with the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord. Zechariah didn’t believe him and was punished by being made mute until the birth of his son, John the Baptist. So he was no help.

Elizabeth, though, was a wise, older woman. She was childless so she couldn’t speak to Mary about childbirth, but she was several months pregnant when Mary conceived and could guide her through the morning sickness and whatnot. She could also make sure that Mary knew all of the rituals and traditions surrounding pregnancy and motherhood and help to connect her with the long line of Jewish mothers.

When Zechariah heard the promise of the Lord, he doubted that it could be fulfilled. So when Elizabeth greeted Mary, she was overjoyed that Mary believed in the message from God. Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent, which is the Love candle, but I feel like this lesson should have been last week with the Joy candle. The whole episode of the Visitation is filled with JOY. Elizabeth is joyful, her baby is joyful in her womb, and Mary’s song is joyful.

A prophet is someone who is empowered to speak on behalf of God. The Old Testament prophets speak a lot of wrath. I’ve been reading through the twelve Minor Prophets lately, and geez, there’s some wrathful stuff in there. John the Baptist, as the last of the pre-Christian prophets, preached against the scribes and the Pharisees, calling them, “You brood of vipers! Who taught you to flee from the coming wrath?”

Mary and Elizabeth were prophets, too. Yet their message was not one of wrath, but one of JOY. Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and speaks a word of hope, a word of love, and a word of joy to Mary. Mary is filled with the Spirit and sings her glorious Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …” Mary finds herself in a challenging situation, but she rises to the challenge with joy. She goes on to rehearse all the great things that God has done, as a way of reminding herself, and us, that God will do them all again. God has done great things for Mary—and will do great things for us. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly—and will do so again. God has come to the aid of his child Israel—and will do so again and again.

In the time since Christ’s death and resurrection, Christ has come to many people throughout the ages. We hear the most about mystics who had dramatic encounters with God through Christ. People like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and more recently Thomas Merton. Every mystic who has had a deep encounter with Christ has spoken of Christ’s deep love. They speak of a union of their soul with God and the overwhelming power of God’s love filling them. And they speak of a hope that transcends everything they know in this world. Julian of Norwich is most famous for writing, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Mary and Elizabeth experienced some of this love and joy and hope. They experienced the power of the Holy Spirit filling them and showing them the glorious future that would come, first through John the Baptist and then through Jesus the Messiah. They had what is sometimes called a “mountaintop experience,” a transcendent encounter with the fullness of God.

The thing about mountaintop experiences, though, is that they are not enough on their own. Take Julian of Norwich, for example. She had a mystical encounter when she was thirty years old, and then spent the entire remainder of her life ruminating over it. She wrote a short book that had just the facts of the encounter, and then worked and reworked and expanded on it to create a long text titled Revelations of Divine Love. She voluntarily sealed herself off from normal life so that she could focus on this contemplation. Yet she was not truly isolated. She lived in a cell that was attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, whose members, staff, and clergy cared for her. She was visited by many who were seeking enlightenment, including the mystic Margery Kempe.

In the same way, throughout the Gospel of Luke, we read that Mary “treasured these things in her heart.” She contemplated all of the events of her life that related to her miraculous son. But she remained in community with others who could guide her. She realized that birthing and raising the Son of the Most High was a task too hard for any one person to undertake. She needed a village, a community. We call this koinonia, a communion and fellowship of God’s people united in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Mary needed koinonia, and so do we all. Mystical experiences can profoundly impact your life, but they truly flourish when they are shared with a community of believers. We support one another in both practical and spiritual ways so that we can draw closer to God and more faithfully follow God’s calling to us.

Because remember, Mary had a mystical encounter, but also had a job to do. Gabriel said, Something wonderful is going to happen to you! Mary said, OK, let it be as you say. But she wasn’t just an empty vessel to be filled. She was a living, breathing human being, who gave birth to a living, breathing human being who was totally helpless and totally dependent on her for sustenance, for protection, and for teaching. As Jesus leaned on Mary, so Mary leaned on her extended family and her community. Without Mary, there would be no Jesus, but without Elizabeth, Mary may not have been able to go through with her promise to God through Gabriel.

Mary took a risk. She knew that what Gabriel asked of her was a huge challenge, one that might break her body and her spirit. She stepped out in faith to give her “yes” to God, and then did what it took to make that “yes” a reality.

What is God asking you to do? What risk do you feel called to take? How is Christ asking you to participate in the blossoming of his kingdom? I believe we all have a part to play in Christ’s coming kingdom. Some of us are called to preach or lead in other public ways, while others are called to care for people who are suffering in mind, body, or spirit. Ask yourself, what is God calling you to do, and what support will you need from your community, this church, to do it?

Sometimes I wish an angel would come and announce to me just what God has in store. That hasn’t happened yet. God comes to me in subtle nudges, feelings of comfort and discomfort, and times of joy that transcend happiness. May we all have the awareness and discernment to hear God’s voice speaking quietly through the experiences of our lives, the courage to follow where God is leading us, and a supportive community that enables us to take big risks for God’s glory. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on December 1, 2024, First Sunday of Advent. Based on Luke 21:25-36.

Each year, Advent begins with some variation on today’s lesson. We read the same story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus proclaiming that the Temple will be destroyed and then giving an apocalyptic vision of how it will be. So this is our annual reminder that Christianity was born in the stream of thought called apocalyptic messianic eschatology.

Those are some big words, so let’s break it down. Eschatology relates to the eschaton, which is the end of the age or, more broadly, the end times. Just how will history come to an end? There are lots of possible answers, which are all forms of eschatology. “Apocalyptic” means the same as a “revelation.” It refers to a revealing of the hidden plans of God. It reflects a belief that God knows how the age will end and reveals parts of the plan to chosen individuals. “Messianic” is a particular eschatology that believes an anointed son of David will usher in the new age. Jesus of Nazareth was not the only man who claimed to be the Messiah—which in Greek is the Christ. There were many messianic figures in the century before and the century after Jesus lived, and indeed there have been a couple of messianic figures in later Judaism, most recently Menachem Mendel Schneerson who died in 1994. Jesus was not the only man who claimed to be or was called the Messiah, but he was the only one whose movement survived long after his death.

Jesus lived during a particularly active period of apocalyptic literature. Much of the New Testament shows signs of apocalyptic thought. It’s most obvious in the book of Revelation but also pops up in letters like Jude and Thessalonians. The early Christians were immersed in this stream of thought and recognized that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for.

There were three main eras when apocalyptic prophecy emerged. The first era, often called proto-apocalyptic because it wasn’t fully developed, came during the time period around the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the exile to Babylon. The ancient Israelites believed that God lived in the Temple, so its destruction truly felt like the end of the world, or at least the end of the age. Prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel reassured the people that yes, the destruction of the Temple is bad, but no worries—it will be rebuilt.

They were right; the exile ended, and a new Temple was built. But Israel never attained its former glory. Judah was a province within the Persian empire, and then was governed by Greeks. They had a short period of independence that came to an end when Rome conquered them. Thus began the second major period of apocalyptic literature, a time when it really flourished and developed. From the second century BC through Jesus’s lifetime, several messianic movements grew and flamed out and many apocalyptic books were written. Rome was the evil empire that stood for everything the Jews were against. They could not reconcile Roman rule with divine sovereignty.

Then the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and the third major era of apocalyptic writing began, much of it ending up in our New Testament. Jews thought they had witnessed the end of the age and were trying to make sense of the new world they were living in. Eventually, some of them, our progenitors, realized that the destruction of the Temple freed God from its confines and that God was now present everywhere, through the body of Christ, which is the Church.

I don’t take any of the apocalyptic writings literally. I’m not a fire and brimstone preacher threatening you all with a lake of fire or anything like that. But I do take it all seriously, and try to understand how it applies to today. Once in a while, I get discouraged and start to wonder if we are in the end times now. I wonder, when historians reflect on the 21^st century, when will they say that World War III began? Will they say it began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel? Will they say it began on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine? I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that we are going through a great realignment and a great revolution in the world order.

Recently, I listened to a Freakonomics podcast with Fareed Zakaria, a political commentator who was trying to explain what happened in the presidential election and what has been happening around the world. He argued that we are going through a realignment where the two main schools of thought are “open” versus “closed.” The old notions of political right and left are no longer relevant, and are being replaced with different perspectives on how open each nation should be to trade, immigration, technological and cultural change, etc. One of the early examples was Brexit, when the UK decided that they wanted less openness with the rest of Europe. Another podcaster said that really, the story of global politics in 2024 has been one of turning out the incumbents—a vote for change. Among those who are voting for change, some want to reform institutions and some want to “burn it all down,” replace the failing institutions with something better. I can’t say that either “open” or “closed” is the right answer, and I can’t say what needs to change and what needs to remain the same, but I can say that new coalitions are forming and new understandings of how the world works are developing. I expect that the transition will be very painful for many people, for whom this will indeed feel like the end of an age.

But I think that really, these end time prophecies speak to each person, each institution, each community, and each nation, all the time. Every day, the things we thought would last forever are fading away, dying, changing, transforming into something new. A metaphor used elsewhere for the end of one age and the start of the next is “birth pangs.” Something good comes after the turning of the age, but the process sure is painful. Relationships are broken and re-made. People face poverty, violence, sickness, and death. Institutions and nations go through cycles of growth and decline, sometimes ending in collapse before something else is built on their rubble.

This is the reality that Jesus witnessed, and that so many other prophets have witnessed as well. They all saw that the world was on the wrong path, a path that leads to destruction. Maybe soon, maybe later, but eventually. John the Baptist came proclaiming, “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near!” Repent! Turn from your ways! Turn towards the plan that God has in mind for you and your community. If you choose not to follow God’s plan, you can expect awful results. But if you choose to follow where Christ leads, you may experience those birth pangs from the creation of a new era, but Christ will be with you the whole time, and the destination is worth the journey.

Because in the end, God wins. That is the persistent message of the whole Bible, and especially the apocalyptic literature. Things may look bad now. The wicked may profit while the righteous suffer. Bad things may happen to good people. Organizations who seek to improve the world may be stymied at every turn. But eventually, righteousness and lovingkindness will win. Eventually, God’s justice will prevail and the righteous will be rewarded with God’s eternal presence. And eventually, God’s mercy will prevail and reconcile all things. God will purge the wicked of their wickedness and the sinners of their sinfulness, and God’s love will conquer hatred and anger. Eventually.

We are on a winning team. I know that sometimes you can’t tell. If you read any studies about the state of mainline Protestant churches, it seems like we’re losing badly. The membership of PC(USA) declined by nearly 62% from 1983 when it was formed as a merger of two denominations to 2021. I would guess that it has declined more since then, especially due to the aftermath of the pandemic. That sure feels like losing. But you know what? Jesus didn’t say to his disciples, “Go therefore and build a bunch of church buildings with organs and pews and worship me on Sunday mornings.” He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Not that what we’re doing here today is wrong, but that it is far from the only way to participate in God’s work in the world.

We are on a winning team. The forces of evil and death are hard at work. They are at work in the Middle East, in Europe, and in places like Myanmar and South Sudan. They are at work everywhere desperate people give in to their worst instincts. They are working through the meth dealers and the fentanyl makers. And yet, God is also hard at work. God is present and empowering the work of the Rolla Mission, GRACE, Russell House, and many other organizations in Rolla. God is at work in a million homes that are filled with love, homes where families were able to reconnect and reconcile this Thanksgiving. Bad news sells more and travels faster than good news, but I know that God is working hard to counteract the forces of evil in the world.

We are on a winning team. We may not have the flashiest worship services, though we do have the best choir director in town. We may not have the newest or fanciest building. We may not have the resources that we once did. But we have something more important and more valuable and more powerful: love. We have God’s love flowing through us and connecting us to each other and the community. We just have to tap into that flow and ride with it to experience God’s transformative work in the world.

We are on a winning team. So act like it! So many churchgoers are functional atheists. They say they believe that God is powerful and can change lives, but then they act like God is irrelevant. They—we—act like we need marketing slogans and advertising and glitz and glamour, when all we need is to let God work through us.

To continue the sports metaphor, you can imagine the church as a football team. Perhaps I’m the quarterback, but I’m not the coach. God is the coach, and God has a game plan that will be successful if we all buy into it. God as the coach speaks to all of us to help us become the best we can be, the best contributors to the plan. God speaks to all of us, if we will only listen and follow.

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, we lit the Hope candle. We have been entrusted with the message of hope that Jesus brought to Judea some 2000 years ago. Jesus said that the Temple would be destroyed, but everything would be OK. He said that people would faint from fear and foreboding, but that we should instead stand tall and raise our heads because our redemption is drawing near. He said that when you see the forces of evil and death seemingly victorious, that’s actually the dark before the dawn of God’s grace.

So keep alert. Don’t worry about tomorrow, but do work for a better tomorrow. Watch for opportunities to share God’s love, ways that you can participate in God’s work, ways that you can be a part of God’s winning team. Listen for God’s coaching as God transforms you into the person God knows you can be. Like the prophets before us, speak truth in a world full of lies, the truth that love will conquer all. And be confident that Christ will walk with you each day, strengthening you, encouraging you, and shining light on the path that you must walk to serve his kingdom. Amen.

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Preached on November 10, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Mark 12:38-44.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. As we saw earlier, there are many people in our congregation who are veterans or their close family members. Thank you all for your service.

In the history of our nation, going back to 1775 when the Revolutionary War began, there have been roughly 1.2 million US military fatalities. Nearly half occurred in the Civil War, 620,000. The next largest was World War II, when we lost 405,399. These were people—mostly men—who gave their lives for something bigger than themselves. Sure, some were there voluntarily and some were drafted, but in the end, nobody dies in battle just because someone told them to go. They give their lives for love: love of country, love of an ideal, love of the people left behind that they’re trying to protect, or maybe love of the soldier fighting next to them.

In the 20^th century, wars became more politicized and more criticized by the civilians back home. There are many legitimate criticisms of the policies, objectives, and practices of the US leadership in Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. But that doesn’t negate the honor of all the men and women who served our country. That doesn’t negate the honor of their self-sacrificial love.

We are all soldiers in Christ’s army. I remember when my church growing up had a “Crusade for Christ.” There are several hymns with that theme, and a whole denomination that calls itself the Salvation Army, whose clergy have military titles. Military imagery abounds in some segments of Christianity. But the thing is, the only weapon that Christ allows is love.

In certain corners of Christianity, people do “sword drills,” in which they search through the Bible for verses. This is based on verses like Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” But listen to what it really says: the word of God is like a sword. Not the Bible. We believe that Jesus Christ was the Word made flesh. It is his love that exposes the hatred that lies in every human heart, and his love that we should emulate. Whenever Jesus cited scripture, it was to expose the hypocrisy of the self-righteous, not to chastise so-called “sinners” who were on the margins of society. More often, instead of citing scripture, Jesus spoke with authority about his vision of a society built on love and mutual service.

Then when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane, one disciple used a sword, but Jesus chastised him. Jesus could have called down 12 legions of angels, but he chose to go willingly with his captors. His so-called triumphant entry, riding a donkey on Palm Sunday, could have actually been triumphant in worldly terms, destroying the Roman garrison and establishing Christ’s kingdom through force. But that’s not what happened. Jesus chose humility. Jesus chose service. Jesus chose love.

The early Christians followed in his footsteps. They gained a reputation for welcoming everyone, regardless of ethnicity or slave status. They gained a reputation for serving everyone, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Little by little, their love for their neighbors, powered by their love of God, grew the church from a minor sect of a minor religion into a major movement.

Then Constantine converted, the Christian church made a deal with the Roman Empire, and things have been all downhill since then. Throughout history, whenever Christians have chosen the love of power over the power of love, they ended up serving neither God nor neighbor and ended up far from the kingdom of God.

We see that still today. About a year ago, I wrote a column for the Phelps County Focus that went somewhat viral, by Rolla standards, called, “The World’s Most Dangerous Person.” In it, I wrote, “There is no one more dangerous than someone who believes they have exclusive knowledge of the Truth and the duty to impose it on others. If you hold your beliefs with absolute certainty, there is no limit to the evil you can commit in service to them. Each action can be justified by an appeal to the higher good of serving God, no matter how it may hurt other people.”

Too many Christians fall into this trap. They start out with good intentions, but their self-righteousness convinces them that their only choice is to force their beliefs on others. But the only person in all of history who actually did know the Truth, who actually did have the authority to demand obedience, chose instead to lay down his life as a model of the way to God’s kingdom.

As part of my effort to revitalize the church, I received a report from MissionInsite. Altogether, it’s about 60 pages and includes demographic information, both current and projected, and opinion survey data. One section asked people who do not attend church why they don’t. The top reason is that they think it’s boring, old-fashioned, uninteresting, or irrelevant. Then the next several reasons are interrelated. People are disillusioned with religion. People don’t trust organized religion—perhaps related to a general distrust of all institutions. They don’t trust religious leaders. They think religion is too focused on money, and that religious people have strict and inflexible beliefs and are too judgmental in applying them.

These are all attributes that we see Jesus apply to the priests and scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees throughout the Gospels. In today’s passage, Jesus is specifically criticizing the scribes for desiring places of honor and for stealing money from the vulnerable.

I know you’re thinking something like what I think: I’m trustworthy. I’m flexible. I’m not judgmental. But I’m here to tell you: that doesn’t matter. Jim Drewniak used to tell me that it takes ten attaboys to overcome one “oh shoot.” That is, gaining trust is ten times harder, maybe a hundred times harder, than losing it. The reality is that we are a Christian church, and so we inherit all of the positive and negative attitudes that people have towards Christians. PC(USA) hasn’t had a major scandal around child abuse, but there have been a few cases, and regardless, we’re tarred with the same brush as those institutions that have done truly evil things to cover up abuse.

Another thing we’ve seen over the past few decades is an increasing willingness of pastors to stray into the political arena. Now, I know you can all guess how I voted, but I won’t tell you how to vote because as Martin Luther King said, the church is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. Many of my colleagues in churches across the country don’t feel that way. As a result, people outside the church just assume that all pastors are like the ones they see on TV. Or like the ones I’ve seen at city council meetings. The problem is that when you go down that road, the messiness of politics will inevitably force you to choose between your faith and your party. And every time the church chooses power, we always compromise the Gospel.

So even though I trust me, and you trust me, and I trust you, and we all trust one another, what have we done, as an institution, to earn the trust of those outside the church? Why would the average Rolla resident think we are any different from any other church?

And it’s not sufficient to just tell them. I frequently remind the students in my class that I am kind and generous and brilliant and inspiring. Oh, humble, too. I say it all tongue-in-cheek, because I know I’m no more brilliant and inspiring than any other instructor, and although I like to think that I’m kind, they may not see it that way. Anyway, just telling them that I care about their personal and academic success doesn’t matter. I can tell them all sorts of things about myself, but until I show them that I care, none of it matters.

And you know, I sometimes find myself acting like the scribes in this story. I have titles: professor and department chair. Those titles come with a certain level of respect, especially from people raised in certain cultures. If I spend too much time around students from India, I can start thinking that I really do deserve special treatment. But in the end, I have to remind myself that they aren’t respecting me, Jonathan Kimball, but the title, professor and chair. It’s just surface stuff, and in the end, I am no better than anyone else. I am better at a few things than other people are, but worse at many things. In the end, I am just a beloved child of God, like you are, like they are. The only honor that I should seek is the reflection of Christ’s glory.

Speaking of honor, one of the Ten Commandments is to honor your parents. In a patriarchal society, this rule was foundational to maintaining basic order and property rights. Being a parent is a simple act of biology. But parenting a child is hard. Parenting takes many forms. For example, my secretary is a foster parent who has adopted some of the kids that have been placed with her while others just pass through as their biological families get their act together. I overhear her dealing with a lot of really unpleasant things. That’s parenting, even if she is only the temporary mom. More broadly, many of us have people in our lives we might consider to have guided us like a parent would, and many of us have people in our lives that we consider to be our bonus children.

I’d like you to think of this as analogous to our place in God’s kingdom. Being a Christian is easy. All you have to do is say that you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Done. But being Christian, that is, behaving the way Christ commanded, following Christ’s guidance, and emulating Christ’s example, is supremely difficult. Not always enjoyable, either, but rewarding.

Last weekend, I was at a workshop in Wichita, so I missed the presbytery meeting in Iola. I decided to stop and worship at First Presbyterian Church of Iola on my way back—it was a good way to break up the trip and foster a little bit of connection with my larger Presbyterian family. A visitor from the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Rev. Lemuel Garcia-Arroyo, preached on the story in Mark 10 about the rich man who asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus reminded him of the Ten Commandments, which he claimed to have kept since his youth. So Jesus loved him and said, “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

This is Jesus’s recurring command: give up everything you have for the sake of His kingdom. If you want to enter God’s kingdom in the here and now, you must be willing to forego all of the riches and honors of the present age. If you wish to be first, you must instead be last and servant of all.

Which brings us to the widow. While the scribes liked the honors that came with their social status, the widow truly gave her whole self. Widows at that time were on the very margins of society. Usually, they had no means of supporting themselves, no social status, nothing. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures there are instructions to care for the widows and orphans, as stand-ins for all those who are in need. So here’s a person who has almost nothing and yet chooses to give the little she has for the glory of God. Now, the fact that she gave it to a corrupt Temple that would be destroyed a few decades later by the Romans does not negate the value of her gift of self. Giving to the church is a spiritual practice, a way to more nearly approach God’s kingdom by loosening your grip on the possessions that get in your way.

In the same way, we are called to give our whole selves for God’s glory. No matter who you are, you have a gift to offer for the glory of God’s kingdom. You are a beloved child of God, a perfect vessel for God’s love. You may not be able to change the world, but you can change one person’s world.

We have been given a task: to proclaim the good news of God’s coming kingdom of love. We are not called to glorify ourselves or to enjoy riches and honor that lead to pride. We are called to reflect God’s glory, to empty ourselves and give our whole selves as servants of all. Let us go now and be Christian, be Christ-like, in our community, demonstrating the power of love to heal, to reconcile, and to transform. Amen.

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