Sunday, May 26, 2019

Easter 6 - Christian Decision-Making

Acts 16:9-15; John 14:23-29

If you were born any time before the 90s, you are probably familiar with the acronym WWJD. What Would Jesus Do? It was big amongst youth groups, and now that those youth are adults, it’s enjoying something of a resurgence. Christian activists of all stripes have started putting it on signs as they protest in the States and abroad, using WWJD to protect pro-life legislation, to protect pro-choice legislation, to argue against unrestricted immigration, to argue against deportation of illegal immigrants. Christians along the political and moral spectrum genuinely want to know what Jesus would do, and each believes they have the answer. Each of us struggles to figure out what Jesus would have us do in our lives, and we are often afraid of making the wrong decision and letting Jesus down.

And there are so many decisions we have to make. Genuine decisions, across all aspects of our lives. Should I give cash to a homeless person who asks for some? When is a good age for my child to have a cell phone? Should I let them get an Instagram account? Should I have my dear pet who is painfully aging put down? You might be struggling with a decision about when to retire, or whether its time to sell the house and move into an assisted living facility. Maybe you wonder, when I die, do I want to be buried or cremated? As November approaches, the question will become, who should I vote for in the federal election? Throughout our lives, we are faced with a range of real decisions that have genuine impact on ourselves and on those we love, and even on the community at large. And, as Christians, we really do want to know what God would have us do. How can we follow Jesus in our lives? What would Jesus do?

I wish it were easy to know. We live in a very different age than Jesus did, and, honestly, we face different decisions than he did. Jesus didn’t have cell phones, or social media. Jesus didn’t even have electricity. Jesus also didn’t have children. Jesus didn’t live long enough to have to make decisions about aging, and voting for the government was absolutely inconceivable. We can kind of guess at what Jesus might do in certain situations, but they’re just guesses. We have no way of knowing what Jesus would do when it comes to the best way to reduce one’s carbon footprint, or whether to stay in a job that pays the bills but cuts into time with your family and friends, or whether or not to take medication for depression.

Last week in our Gospel reading, we heard Jesus say to the disciples, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving them and that they should love one another. And as they looked concerned and asked questions, he said, “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

It would seem in this passage that Jesus is redirecting us from the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” to the question, “What is the Holy Spirit saying to us right now?” It makes for an awkward acronym and doesn’t fit on a friendship bracelet, but it really is the guiding question for Christians faced with a big decision. What is the Holy Spirit saying right now?

You see, our New Testament scriptures tell us very clearly that it was the Spirit of God who guided the disciples and the early church after Jesus left. All four Gospels tell us that the Spirit of God descended on Jesus during his baptism and guided him in the way he should go. The Book of Acts recounts many stories when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and upon Paul, and guided their way. The letters of Paul make frequent reference to the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit, which include kindness, goodness, and self-control––all things that we need to make good decisions.
Above all, the Holy Spirit brings peace. And this is how I think the Holy Spirit helps us in our decision-making, no matter what that decision is. By bringing peace both as we make our decisions, and after we’ve made them. 

The right decision, the decision that God would have us make, no matter what it is, is the decision that we make out of a sense of peace, not anxiety or fear. The worst mind-set for making a decision is one where we are in a state of anxiety. When we are afraid of what might come next, when we are worried about trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past, when we are seized by panic, then we do not have the space in our heads or our hearts to consider what God wants. The First Commandment says, You are to love the Lord your God, which Luther interprets as, “We are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” When we make decisions out of fear or anxiety or worry, we are putting what we fear above God, and I don’t know that that’s ever turned out well.

Likewise, the decisions that God would have us make bring peace. The phrase, “the peace that passes all understanding,” is not some poetic phrase. It really means that. Sometimes the “right” decision makes no logical sense, and yet it feels right. It brings peace. We make it and all of a sudden we can breathe. The worries and anxieties that were hanging over our head disappear. A peace that makes no sense but that is very real comes to rest on us.

So how do we get to that place of peace or recognize it when we have it? Well, I’m going to offer a few suggestions, and take them as you will. I find they work for me, but everybody has their own discernment process, as we call it in the church, and I’m not trying to tell anybody how to make decisions, just hoping that something I say might be helpful.

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” I used to have that on my old cell phone, especially because when it rang “in the old days,” it was always an emergency. But I recommend that every day, you spend some time being still, letting the world pass you by, even if all you can manage at first is five minutes. Hide the phone, and spend five minutes in listening prayer (not asking prayer), in mindfulness, in meditation, in anything that lets you and God just be. Now I’ll tell you, nothing magical will happen that first day, or even that first month. But over time, you will begin to realize that letting the world go for five or ten minutes a day does not result in the walls crashing down around you. And you will begin to experience actual peace. Peace in your spirit, peace in your body, peace in your mind. You will become more able to make decisions from that state of peace, and to recognize the peace that the right decision brings. It is when we are at peace, freed from anxieties and fears and worries, that we can finally hear the Holy Spirit sharing the words of God with us.

Another important part of discernment or Christian decision-making is to check with others. Luther used to get quite concerned about people mistaking their own delusions for the word of God, and so he always recommended that Christians check with one another when they think have received a revelation from God. This is why, in the Lutheran church, people can’t just say, “Oh, God says I’m supposed to be a pastor, therefore make me one!” There are committees upon committees, along with bishops, seminary professors, and congregations who must affirm that person’s call in order for that person to be ordained, and to find work as a pastor. In a sense, the Holy Spirit is very democratic––if God wants a particular community decision to be made, the Holy Spirit will share that with more than just one person. In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit came upon the group of disciples at Pentecost, not just upon one. When Paul travelled to Macedonia, he travelled with Timothy and Silas, after receiving the approval of the elders in Jerusalem and Antioch. When Lydia was baptized, and wanted Paul to stay at her house, she said, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” She asked for Paul’s input. As Christians, we make decisions trusting that the Holy Spirit is working within each believer in the community. We check in with people who are in the same situations as us, and with those who are different. With young and old. With women and men. With experienced Christians and with those new to the faith. We explore the different options available, and we talk with others about what might bring peace, and where God might be working.

And then, after I’ve done that, I like to check in with God again, which means checking in with myself. I ask, Am I making this decision out of worry or out of hope? Am I trying to run away or escape from something, or I am moving towards and embracing something? Since I have experienced the peace that passes all understanding, I ask myself, do I have misgivings about this decision, or does it feel right? I ask myself, does this decision give me a feeling of righteousness or does it give me a feeling of illogical peace? And I sit, and I listen.

Now I’ll be honest, sometimes even though I’ve done all these things, God doesn’t give me an answer. And I don’t know if that means I’m trying to rush things or if God really doesn’t care. It’s entirely possible that there are certain decisions God leaves entirely up to us. We cannot make God give us answers. And I know that even when I do all these things, my decision might still be wrong. I might still be misunderstanding what the Holy Spirit wants me to do right now. No matter how long we sit in prayer, no matter how many people we talk with, no matter how pure our intentions, we might still make the wrong decisions. We are not God, after all. We are only human. The Holy Spirit does not provide us with a magic 8-ball.


That being said, the Holy Spirit does provide us with grace. Whether your decisions bring about good or ill, whether they are God’s will or only your own, whether they are what Jesus would do or never do in a million years, you can be confident that the Holy Spirit remains with you, blessing you with forgiveness and love, offering you peace again and again, as many times as necessary. And so, whatever decision you may be struggling with this week, or this month, “do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.” The Spirit of God––the Advocate, the Helper––is with you. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Easter 5 - Love One Another

Acts 11:1-18; Rev 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

As is often the case, we need some context for this morning’s Gospel reading in order to understand the depth and challenge of what Jesus is saying to his disciples. If we take “love one another” just as it stands, it becomes a superficial platitude, a Hallmark greeting card. It looks great as a slogan, but it won’t actually mean anything or change anything, and it certainly won’t help us get through the truly challenging times in our lives.

So the context for Jesus’ commandment to his disciples is that these words are spoken on Maundy Thursday (if you were thinking that we had heard them not so long ago) and that the disciples are in for a huge shock. Their lives are about to be radically changed because Jesus is going to die. Actually, he is going to die because one of their own community is going to betray him. He is going to die because this is the path that God has set before him since the moment he was born––before that, even.

And even though his disciples have been told this over and over and over again, Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday comes as a tremendous shock to them. They were warned that this change was coming, that they were not heading to some grand and glorious triumph over the power of darkness that was the Roman Empire. Jesus told them that their time together was not going to result in the military or political triumph of Israel. He warned them that not only was he going to die, but that they were going to suffer hatred and persecution and their own death.

And so this is the context of Jesus saying, “as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Jesus was preparing them for the change that was coming by telling them that a) things were about to get very, very bad and that b) they would get through the coming death by loving one another. Jesus was telling them that it would be solidarity with one another––loving one another, supporting one another––that would get them through the life-altering change that was upon them. If they tried to struggle through on their own, they would run away in fear, they would deny the reality of the situation, they would become overwhelmed. But together, they would be able to face the reality of Jesus’ death, to accept it as a necessity, even, and to see it for the beginning of a change that was even more radical than they first understood. But to get to that point, they would have to support and love one another.

We are facing a radical change. I mean, throughout history, humans have always faced change––both good and bad––but this change is particular to our time and our place. And I’m not talking about climate change, although that is one that we definitely need to face up to the reality of, and I’m not talking about social change, even though that’s a reality for us, too. I’m not talking about the changes that occur in our individual lives as we and our families grow older, as elders die and new babies are born, or the changes that happen when people move into or out of our lives. Today I’m talking specifically about change in the church, a change that we are not prepared for and that we would stop if we could.

I am talking about the demographic change in the ELCIC, and the ELCA, our corresponding Lutheran body in the States. Two weeks ago, I was in Toronto serving as one of eight theological consultants for the ELCIC and the ELCA, as well as the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the United States. Altogether, there were twenty of us, including four National Bishops, and we talked about the future of these four denominations. We heard statistics, we heard general trends, about where the churches are now, and where it might be going.

We heard from the Anglican Church in Canada that their numbers of members and of church attendees have been declining since World War I. We heard from the ELCA that if the current decline of members and attendance continues as it has been, there will be no more ELCA congregations in 35 years, give or take 10 years. We heard, contrary to the impression that I had, that there are 1,000 congregations in the ELCA with no pastors, with that number expecting to rise to 2,000 in the next couple of years.

Now I don’t know what the numbers are for the ELCIC––as far as I know, those numbers aren’t being officially tracked. But given that we are a smaller denomination, more thinly spread, and given that we have only two seminaries who together graduated fewer than ten candidates for ordination in the last two years, and given that we are on the cusp of a wave of pastors retiring, I think that we are in worse shape. In my opinion––my unsubstantiated opinion, to be clear––we are dying. Although I have a hard time imagining it, there is a distinct possibility that when my children are my age, there won’t be any ELCIC congregations for them to attend.

Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die. He tried to tell them that the life they had had until that point, their community of faithful followers banded together around him, was going to be seriously disrupted by death. He tried to tell them that Good Friday was coming, but they were still stuck thinking about Palm Sunday. To them, their meal together on Maundy Thursday was a celebration of what had just happened. To Jesus, it was preparation for what was to come. It was a radical reorientation of their mission from gathering followers to preparing for death. He told them that he was going to die, and that to get through it, they were going to have to love one another and stick together. But the disciples would not, or could not, hear that. And so when it happened, they freaked out. They ran away, they issued denials, they locked themselves in a room. Yes, they eventually came around, but in the beginning it wasn’t pretty.

We are not the same as the disciples, mostly because hindsight is 20/20. What I mean is, we know that after Good Friday came Easter Sunday. We know that yes, death came, but after death was new life. We know that death is not the end, because we have seen it in Jesus Christ. We know that God has victory over death, and gives us new life after. We believe that God makes “all things new, that death will be no more; that mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” We are an Easter people, here this morning in this Easter season. We might be frightened in the face of death, we might be alarmed at the prospect of it, but we have more to go on than the disciples did.

But we will die. And this is the truth we must face. It might not be in 35 years, it might not be in 350 years, but we will one day die. The ELCIC will one day die. There is no resurrection without death. There is no new life without an end to the old. The first things must pass away. Jesus, Emmanuel God-with-us, died. We cannot get around that. We cannot get around that, as Paul says in the letter to the Romans, “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.” Yes, we know that we are walking the road from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, but the only way to do that is through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

So what does that mean for us today? The honest truth is that I don’t really know. I know that it doesn’t mean that we rush towards our death, or stop accepting new members, or close the doors and everyone sleeps in next Sunday morning. But I also know that we need to stop looking back to the past as something we can reclaim or that God will restore. I have no doubt that God has new life planned, but I also know that the new heaven and the new earth will not look like anything we have seen before. When Jesus appeared to Mary after the resurrection, she didn’t recognize him at first. New life means new. Jesus was resurrected, not reanimated. The apostle Paul says clearly in 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrection “body” is completely different from the body we have before. The new life that God gives does not look anything like the old life that we had. For the church, putting it bluntly, we need to accept that there is no going back to the way things were. 

Like the disciples, we are being called to accept the reality of the death that comes before new life. It is an uncomfortable place to be, to put it mildly. We are in a challenging time, in the midst of a radical change. You may feel, like I do, that the ground is shifting underneath us and we don’t know what to grab on to.

Jesus tells us what to hold on to, though, in the words that he gave to the disciples. “Love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” God’s love for us, and our love for one another is what we hold onto. It was when the disciples came back together, even though they were in a locked room, that Jesus came to be amongst them in his resurrection. It was when the disciples came together that the Holy Spirit came amongst them on the Day of Pentecost and created new life in the church in the book of Acts. It was through Christians coming together that the ELCIC was formed, it was through Lutherans coming together that this congregation was born. It is when we come together to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ at the table that God gives us the strength to carry on in our grief. God works new life through our support and love of one another.


This is how everyone will know that we are followers of Christ: because as we die, we continue to love, and through that love, are able to walk the path through death to new life. This is, actually, what it means to be Easter people. This is the Good News that we proclaim. That God is with us through death and God gives us new life. It’s not easy, to be sure. Grief coexists with our anticipation, there are more questions than answers. The change that comes because of death is as much a struggle as that of being born. But God will bring us through it, and we will be transformed. We are an Easter people together. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Easter 4 - God-Mother-Tongue

Psalm 23; John 10:22-30

I read a study once that said that children who are exposed to a language while they’re in the womb will recognize that language for several years after they’re born, even if it’s never spoken to them after they’re born. So if a fetus hears its mother and those around it speaking in Cantonese, for example, even if they’re spoken to only in English from the moment of their birth, as toddlers they will still respond and turn their heads towards the speaker when they hear Cantonese. They’ll completely ignore Spanish or German or Norwegian, but they will show marked signs of attention when something is said in Cantonese. During their formation in the womb, their brain is shaped by the voices they hear, particularly the voice of their mother. It turns out that there really is such a thing as a mother tongue. Isn’t that neat?

I read another study once that said that families with small children should have smoke detectors in their house that can be programmed with voice recordings rather than with those annoyingly loud beeps. Those of you who have cared for small kids will know that once they’re asleep, they are completely out. You can pick them up, move them from one place to another, almost drop them when you’re moving them, and they. will. not. wake. up. Naturally, this is a concern if there’s ever a fire, because they’ll sleep right through the fire alarm. But what this study showed is that there is one thing that will wake a child up, and that’s the voice of their mother calling their name. In this study, these small children would wake up from the middle of a deep sleep if the smoke detector was programmed with their mother saying their name and they could then find their way to safety.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.” The voice of Jesus is God’s voice, come to us in human form, what we might rightly call our very first mother tongue. As Psalm 139 says, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed.”

When you were in your mother’s womb, amidst all of the voices and sounds you heard, there was also the voice of God, speaking to you words of life and love, calling you into being and welcoming you to join God’s community and Creation. With the voice of a mother who is preparing for the birth of a long-awaited and already beloved child, God spoke to you the words spoken at Creation, words that cause life to form out of darkness, words that bring order out of chaos. God said to you, even before you were born, “I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” (Isaiah 43) God said, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66) Some of the First Nations Peoples believe that God speaks to us in the womb and that the babbling of babies after they are born is divine language.

This is why Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Jesus himself knew the voice of God, more intimately than anyone else, and so he calls to us with the same voice we heard in the womb, and we turn towards it. Jesus speaks to us with the voice of care and love, with the voice of welcoming and belonging, and this is why we lift our heads and respond to this words. We follow him because he speaks the God-mother-tongue that we heard in the womb. We know that his words mean safety and well-being and welcome and love.

Interestingly, Jesus is not the only one to speak with this voice.  Anyone who speaks with the voice of care and love, who speaks words that welcome us, anyone who calls to us by name and tells us where we can find safety, any one of these people are speaking with the voice of God. We don’t usually describe it that way, but that’s what they’re doing. Each one of us knows the language spoken to us in the womb by God. It’s our mother tongue, even though we may know it in different dialects. You know when you’re hearing genuine words of love––we all do––because you’ve heard them spoken to you in the womb. 

And each one of us can speak those words, because each one of us was exposed to it in the womb. We might have forgotten the specific vocabulary, but the patterns of those words are hard-wired into us and they come out in subconscious ways. Whenever we speak words of welcome or compassion or forgiveness or love, we are speaking with the voice of God. It might sound like a bold claim, but the voice of love is the voice of God, and when we speak in love, people recognize and respond to it, because they, too, heard that voice in the womb. Individuals can speak with this voice, and so can communities. Churches, especially, are expected to speak with the voice of God, we are expected to speak words of welcome and compassion and forgiveness and love. When we do, people respond. When we don’t, they wander away.


When we hear the voice of Jesus––the voice of God––we follow, like sheep following the shepherd, like children following their mother’s voice. We follow because the voice of God leads us to places of safety and belonging. God brings us to green pastures - to places where we are fed and nurtured; to still waters - to places where we can rest and ease our thirstiness. God brings us to places where our souls are restored - to communities where people gather specifically to speak the words of God to one another, to speak words of love and life. God calls us, like a shepherd, like a mother, and we are so glad to follow. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Wednesday, May 9 - Service of Healing

Ezekiel 37:1-10; Psalm 27; Romans 8:18-39

We begin life connected. From the moment of conception, when the egg implants into the uterine lining, we are connected. Our bodies, our brains, our hearts form and develop entwined with the body of another. After we are born, after our physical connection with our mother is severed, we continue to live connected to one another through bonds of love. Without love, we cannot live. Perhaps you’ve heard of the terrible experiment conducted in the US in 1944, where twenty newborns were physically cared for but never cuddled, looked at, rocked, or hugged. After four months, more than ten of them had died, despite being physically healthy up to that point. They died because they were not loved, because they were disconnected.

We rely on this connectedness with others to affirm our own sense of worth. Babies whose parents smile at them a lot grow up with more self-confidence than babies whose parents don’t. Connectedness assures us that we have worth, that we are worthy to be in the company of others, that we are worthy of care. Our closest relationships are the ones in which we are seen and heard, where our very existence is a joy to the other, and theirs to us. 

Which explains why hurt and separation go hand in hand. When others reject any connection with us, when they treat us as unworthy of love or respect or kindness, we are hurt. God created us to be connected, and when those bonds are broken, we are deeply wounded. We might put on a brave front, we might shrug and say it’s no big deal, but inside, where no one can see but God, we question our worthiness to be loved and we begin to wither and die. 

Ironically, we respond to this hurt with, sadly, further separation. Too often, in order to protect ourselves from further rejection, we separate ourselves from others before they do the same to us, and when we do that, when we cut off ties of affection or vulnerability, then we hurt them. We may think it doesn’t matter to them, but it does. God created us to be in community, God created them to be in community, too. Separation hurts them the same way it hurts us. 

And so I’m guessing you can imagine how this can become a vicious cycle, if you haven’t experienced it personally already. When we are hurt, we separate ourselves from those around us, causing them to hurt, which causes them to continue the separation from us, which causes more hurt. The painful gap between us tears wider and wider, disrupting not only individual relationships but entire families, church communities, even countries.

We might call this cycle sin, and we talk about original sin as a way to begin to grasp how it might have all happened, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. However it all started, we continue to do it. We are hurt, we hurt others, we separate from others, they separate from us. Friends become strangers, stranger become enemies, and at some point we look around and realize we are all a pile of dry bones in the valley, the victims and the perpetrators of physical and emotional wars, in the church and in the world. We yearn for life, and for some way to connect again, and we don’t know how to make that happen.

~~~~~~~~~

“Thus says the Lord God … I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

In the valley of dry bones, where hurt has become deadly and our separation from one another is so complete that we are just a jumble of bones, the breath of God appears. The ruach in Hebrew, the pneuma in Greek, what in English we call the Spirit, intercedes in our cycle of hurt and separation and gives us new life. The same Spirit of God that moved over the waters at Creation and breathed life into the figures of clay so that they became human, this same spirit, this same breath moves into the valley of dry bones and gives life once again. God does not give life only once, but over and over again.

In our moments of deepest pain and alienation, when we feel most separated from those around us, even when we are the ones to have caused that separation, the Holy Spirit brings us into the house of the Lord, into his shelter, under the cover of his tent, into his own heart. And in God’s heart we find that we are not alone. In God’s heart, our connection is restored.

This is new life: reconnection. “Suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. … and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” Through the power of our God-who-is-life, we are reconnected to God and, through God, to one another. We discover that we were not only created to be in community, we are worthy of being in community. We are worthy of connection because God’s breath is in us. Our hurts begin to heal, our inner selves become whole because we share the breath of God, because we are brought into connection with one another, because God puts us all back together. God restores not only each of us individually, but the multitude, so that each of us might be healed. 

~~~~~~

“I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” 

This is not a new life that comes only after our death. I have seen this healing take place in this place, in your midst. I have seen what were once dry bones receive new life. I have seen strangers become friends, and I have seen you turn towards one another when you are hurt, not away from each other. I have heard responsibility taken for hurts committed, I have heard desire for reconciliation. I have seen God piece together your broken edges and form a new community that is compassionate and forgiving. And I know that this has happened because in your pain, you have turned to God. God, present to you in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit, has been the source of your resilience and your healing. There are scars, to be sure, and some hurts have yet to be fully healed, but God has begun this work in you and God will complete it. This is the glory of the Easter season that we experience now, the goodness of the Lord in this land of the living.

Now we live still in this world. The cycle of sin, of hurt and separation and hurt, is not yet entirely disrupted. There will be times in the future when we will be hurt, when we will hurt others, there will be times when separation will be more prevalent than connectedness. There will again be “hardship or distress.” But there will again be healing, and connectedness, and new life. God will again draw you into God’s heart through the power of the Holy Spirit, and will again connect with you and connect you. God’s breath will come into you not just once but as many times as necessary, for as long as we live in the world, until all has been worked together for good. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”


God is here. God is with you, working amongst each of you and through all of you to bring healing and connection and new life––yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Thanks be to God, Amen.