“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Power being made perfect in weakness is just not something that makes a lot of sense, does it? Power is a loaded word and is often is thought of in terms of strength or might. When we consider how power is used in the world, we likely think of images of what is often called “power over” – power as strength to exert one’s will over others. This is the sort of power we see on the world stage as dictatorial leadership (a strong-man like Bashar Assad in Syria or Gaddafi when he ruled Libya) but we also see it in our communities in the guise of those who exert power to get their way – sometimes we call them bullies. So our image of power tends to be that of brute strength and the ability to assert one’s will, even at the expense of others.

But power in the Christian sense is very different. Instead of being a “power over” kind, it expresses itself as “power with.” In order to understand this, I’d like to perhaps expand your definition of power beyond the image of strength or might. Power, in the Greek sense of the word dunamis, is the ability to accomplish something – the ability to get something done. And if we think of power this way, then we can begin to understand that the image of brute strength or force isn’t the whole picture.

In today’s gospel reading, we hear that Jesus returned to his hometown and once again causes a stir. Last time his family thought he was out of his mind, this time the hometown folk think he’s grown a bit too big for his britches! In our translation today, we have the folks in his hometown asking, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!” This translation has an exclamation point in that last sentence and makes it sound like they are acknowledging the deeds of power he is doing. However, don’t be fooled by that exclamation point. In first century Koine Greek, there was no punctuation and many translations (including King James) have a question mark there which I believe is more consistent with the other statements. What deeds of power are being done by his hands? I think this picks up the mood of unbelief which is evident from the other questions. “Who does this guy think he is?” is the real underlying question being asked. And they took offense at him and he could do no deed of power there – in other words, he could not accomplish much (although he did heal a few sick people).

Some have suggested this is a case of familiarity breeding contempt as Jesus is the hometown boy and his neighbors just can’t see him as a prophet because they know him too well. I think it may be a bit more than this. In first century Palestine, one’s status in life was determined by where you were born and to whom you were born. The hometown crowd’s questions about Jesus’ identity are actually more of a put-down than we realize. As a carpenter, Jesus would have been part of the artisan class – a class of people below the elites and just above those considered degraded or expendable. And their inquiry about him being Mary’s son is also a slight as any man would have been identified not as a mother’s son but as their father’s son – therein lies a hint that Jesus is illegitimate. The offense people tooks was that by teaching in the synagogue, Jesus was rising above his appointed station in life. How dare he! One of the greatest obstacles about Christianity for those in the Greco-Roman world was not that a man could be born of a virgin or that a human could be divine – but it was that this could be true of someone in a lower class. After all, Jesus was just a carpenter.

Mark tells us that Jesus could do no works of power in his hometown – except to heal a few sick people (which for those few sick people constituted works of power for them!). After this, Jesus goes around to other villages teaching, calls the twelve disciples and sends them out two by two with authority over unclean spirits. Mark tells us that these ordinary disciples cast out many demons and healed many who were sick by anointing them with oil. This is the kind of “power with” – power which comes from walking along side as friends and companions which accomplishes great things.

While Jesus was just a carpenter, our reading from 2nd Corinthians today deals with the same class consciousness. Paul was just a tentmaker too – also one of the artisan class. Now we know Paul was literate as he closes his letter to the Galatians with a self-deprecating remark about his poor handwriting; however, one of the things the people of Corinth took offense at with Paul was his insistence of earning his wages as a common tentmaker rather than doing what all good Greco-Roman teachers did and charge his disciples for his teaching. In the larger context of his letters to the Corinthians, he speaks of himself as one who does not boast in direct contrast with a group he calls the “super-apostles” who make grand claims about their superior spiritual gifts and knowledge of God and who may have fallen into the Greco-Roman practice of charging for their teaching about Christ. It is in this context that Paul shares with us what God has revealed to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Often we think that our weaknesses are barriers to serving our Lord. But Scripture tells us that God has a preference for those who are weak and not for those who are powerful in the earthly sense. It’s easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking God can’t work through us … after all, “I’m just a kid” or “I’m just a housewife” or “I’m just a teacher” or “I’m just a layperson.” If anything our readings today tell us is that “just a” does not limit how God’s power can work in and through your life to manifest the gospel. In my ministry, I am always amazed at how transformational moments seem to happen when I have shared the messes of my own life with others. Somehow, some way, God finds a way to bless my mess and use it to bring healing.

Scripture tells us plainly that God recruits the nobodies in this world to serve the Lord and to do great deeds of power – from the shepherd boy David, to Paul, to the disciples, and each of us. God gives each of us the ability to accomplish something for the kingdom just by being ourselves – being authentic and sharing the real stuff of our lives with others. As you take this good news to the world this week, trust that God’s words to Paul are just as equally spoken to you: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

I had a professor in seminary who was Irish Catholic. Dr. Bill Buckley (as he would tell you, “Not William F. Buckley … I’m just Bill Buckley.”) was my Ethics professor and had been part of the team which negotiated the Good Friday Accords which brought about a cease fire in the conflict in Northern Ireland. The conflict in Northern Ireland was between Protestant and Catholic factions; however, it was not about religion so much as it was about who had the money and who had the power. There was a long bloody history of bombings and street battles in Northern Ireland spanning many generations. Dr. Buckley shared his stories with us and I recall during this time seeing a book on the Troubles and the impact of the fighting in Belfast. There were photos in this book depicting the physical destruction caused by the bombings in this war. One picture showed what had once been a building, yet only one wall was left standing, and on that wall was painted in large letters this question: “IS THERE LIFE BEFORE DEATH?” – “Is there life before death?” As a priest, I often have people ask me if I believe in life after death. Instead, this question haunts me from a place of intransigent pain and suffering: “Is there life before death?” Today’s gospel reading is intimately linked to this question.

We actually have two stories from Mark – one which addresses the question of life after physical death in the case of Jairus’ daughter, and one of a woman desperate to find life before death. Our Tuesday Bible study group has been delving into Mark’s gospel and his narrative style. One of the features of Mark is a style called intercalation – which in plain terms means a story sandwiched within another story. We begin with Jairus, a high official in the synagogue, who comes to Jesus to beg him to come and lay hands upon his daughter who is near death “so that she may be made well and live.” In Greek, the word which we translate as “made well” is sozo – which also means salvation, liberation and rescue. So Jairus is begging for his daughter to be rescued from death.

As Jesus begins to make his way to Jairus’ house, he encounters the woman suffering for 12 years with bouts of bleeding. While physically this woman is technically alive, socially she is dead because a woman with a bleeding disorder was considered polluted or unclean and thus barred from most social interaction including temple worship. Was there life before death for her? Yes, she was breathing and taking nourishment, but is that enough? She has no meaningful life within the community – she is utterly outcast. She is surviving but definitely not thriving.

But Mark tells us something about her: she was brave and tenacious! We hear she spent all of her money seeking a cure and had done everything she knew how to do to get better, even if it didn’t work. This woman knew how to advocate for herself! If there’s anything I’ve learned from my pastoral work with people who are ill it’s this: tenacity and bravery are necessary prerequisites for healing! We cannot sit idly by and be passive, hoping that God will just take care of everything for us. No! We must cooperate in the healing process and sometimes not just cooperate but even actively pursue it.

So picture this outcast woman mustering up the courage to take one last shot at healing knowing that for her to approach Jesus was a serious violation of social boundaries. Women were not to touch men who were not either their husbands or their blood relations. Now consider that to touch Jesus while being ritually unclean also, according to the Law, would render Jesus unclean too! For her, it must have been terrifying – and yet she did not let her fear stop her. You see she had tremendous courage. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination to act in spite of it. And why did she do this? Because she ached to have life before death and she would not let anything get in her way. In essence, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She was bound and determined to be the active agent in saving her life trusting the power of Jesus Christ.

I think we often fall into the habit of hearing these stories of healing in ways where we imagine Jesus as the agent of action and those being healed are somewhat passive. In Mark’s gospel, with the exception of one person, all of the people who are healed are anonymous which lends to this image of passivity: the blind man, the paralytic, the deaf man, Jairus’ daughter, and this hemorrhaging woman. Make no mistake – while she may not be named, this woman is no passive agent. She is desperate and ready to do anything to gain her life. She is the active agent, she reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment, and she is “made well” … she is saved, she is liberated, she is set free. Jesus even says so … “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”

St. Iranaeus said, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” When Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd in John’s gospel he said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. To be fully alive is not a solitary action – it is to be in relationship with others in the wider community. We do not exist as isolated entities. One of the greatest spiritual lies of the evil one is to make us think we are alone and isolated – that nobody understands us or can possibly care about us. And when social systems collude to exclude and isolate people, it is definitely not of God.

Jesus promised abundant life but he didn’t promise it would happen without change, he never said the journey would be easy, and it doesn’t happen without our active participation. Abundant life, life before death, is what our Lord came to bring us. We are not called merely to breathe and take nourishment – we are called to more than survival. God calls us to thrive and grow more and more into the likeness of Christ that we may have life before death.

All of us need healing – each and every one of us. Our wounds may be different, but they are there and very real. We share one common condition – we all have a terminal diagnosis … it is called life. And since we live with this terminal condition, what have we got to lose by having the courage and tenacity to seek the healing of our own wounds? As we continue this summer to look for hope and seek signs of it springing up around us, I challenge you also look for tenacity and bravery as well that you too, by the power of the risen Christ, may be liberated, freed, and made well.

I was born and lived my early childhood in San Diego, California and one of my favorite places to go was Disneyland. For you all here on the East Coast, that’s the original Disneyworld. It took about an hour to get there (although it seemed a much longer drive to me) and back then we drove along Interstate 5 until we saw the Matterhorn ride in the distance rising above the orange groves. I remember being about five years old when the Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened up. I know some of you know this ride! You get into a boat, and it’s dark, and you hear this ominous music and the ride initially takes you through an archway and whoosh! down a water slide and everybody screams and if you sit in the front, you get soaked. At five, that water slide scared the daylights out of me! I hid my face in my daddy’s shoulder and would not look until he told me there were no more water slides. I never liked to be startled like that.

There is something about water and darkness. It brings out our primordial fears. Darkness hides what is coming at us and whatever it is, it might be dangerous. Water … well … we can’t breathe under water so there is a danger, a very real danger, of death. Now add a storm into the mix and you have the chaos and fear of today’s Gospel reading. This story is one of two about crossing of the Sea of Galilee in the Gospel of Mark. In this one, Jesus is in the boat with the disciples; in the other, he comes to them walking on the water. Both stories have common elements: water, darkness and a storm.

The images of water and darkness are powerful ones and they occur right at the beginning of our scriptures in Genesis 1:2 where it says, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” The chaos of darkness and water, the unknown and uncontrollable, makes us fearful. We fear what we do not know and what we cannot control. God alone has authority over the chaos, so when Jesus tells the storm to be still and it obeys him, this is clearly something no mere mortal could ever do. He has authority over the unknown and the uncontrollable.

But the chaos facing the disciples isn’t just about the storm or the water. This is most certainly the immediate and present danger; but Jesus has bidden them to go to the “other side” – to Gentile territory … unclean Gentile territory. The disciples are told they need to leave the relative safety of their known and predictable Jewish environment to go where those “other people” are – you know … they aren’t like us! And facing what is over there is emotionally and spiritually chaotic. What will happen? Do we have to go there? Really?? When Jesus tells them they are going across to the other side, the literal translation of the Greek is, “Let us go into the beyond.” Go into the beyond … go into the unknown, the uncontrollable, the chaotic.

In the original context of this story, Mark is telling us about the mission of the early church to the Gentiles. Integrating into his gospel that which had already been written by Paul, Mark tells us the mission of the Church was to bring the Gospel to all people, not just the Jews. As a professor of mine once said, “If you think this Messiah is only coming for the Jews, you’re thinking too small!” In other words, this good news isn’t just for us; it’s also for the people who aren’t like us: for people who don’t know our traditions, don’t understand our liturgy. It is for people who are aching for some good news of a life beyond and bigger than the small stage of mere survival upon which most of us live our lives.

A vision of the Church which expands the gospel message to include others has caused and continues to cause tension and anxiety. There are some pretty stormy arguments in the early church about who could even be a Christian. The Jewish Christians felt that Jesus was “their Messiah” so anyone who wanted to be a Christian first had to convert to Judaism. This was the, “If they want to be one of us, they have to adopt our ways first” mindset. But St. Paul challenged this view by saying the Gentiles could become Christians without adopting Jewish practices. This was the first great controversy of the Church … and it is one with which we still wrestle, albeit with different presenting issues.

The Church today is challenged to live into the authentic Gospel imperative to go into the beyond and make disciples of people who don’t look or act like us. And that means welcoming all people – embracing all people, no exceptions. The challenge for us is: Are we ready to do just that? Are we going to be daring like St. Paul, Jesus and those disciples in the boat risking everything to welcome outsiders into a transformative gospel community, accepting them right where they are and trusting the power of God to bring about conversion? Or will we be more like the early Jerusalem Christians who insisted the outsiders have to conform to what we do and how we do it?

Admittedly, St. Paul’s model provokes some anxiety in us because it will put each of us out of our comfort zone. But it is this model that spread the church through the whole world … it is the model blessed by God. It is the model that has always worked and always will. Our God is not one of placating our need for comfort and our tendency towards a “just us and our way or no way” mentality. Our comfort and our ways, in the final analysis, are largely irrelevant to God. The only thing which matters, the only thing which endures, is the saving love of Christ for all people … no exceptions.

Taking the Gospel into the beyond, to people who are different from us and conversely welcoming the stranger is the mission of the Church. This mission is not something that just happens because we are members of a congregation – it is an intentional act (it is always an intentional act!). I’ve been in plenty of congregations that do a really good job of taking care of their own members, but when it comes to taking the gospel into the beyond, they don’t do it. These churches are little more than social clubs with a cross on the top of the building because you can be a member but only if you adopt our ways, our thoughts, and our behaviors first. Eventually, these churches decay from within and they die.

Going into the beyond entails great risk. When we venture beyond our known, comfortable world like Paul and those disciples, we run the risk of encountering others who might just bring about change in us. Radical hospitality to those who differ from us means we risk changing our own attitudes, prejudices, and biases. We might just come out of the encounter with a new perspective or a challenge to drop an old one that no longer fits. This is risky business, but as I said last week … if you want safety, if you want to avoid risk, then you’d better get out of the Jesus business because Jesus isn’t safe. While that may be unsettling, we are reminded in today’s Gospel story that the risen Christ is always present with us when we risk it all for his sake.

So what kind of Church will we dare to be? Will we grudgingly accept people who are different as long as they become just like us? Or are we willing to drop our preconditions and go into the beyond trusting Christ is present no matter what the risk? As we ponder these questions, I offer a prayer written by Methodist Bishop Ted Loder:

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
When we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess,
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity,
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas, where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes,
And to push us in the future in strength, courage, hope, love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. Amen.

The good news about parables is that they are short, pithy, memorable stories which teach us about the Kingdom of God. The bad news about parables is … they are short, pithy, memorable stories which teach us about the Kingdom of God. The parables of Jesus are so familiar and beloved that we can fall into a malaise and a comfort with them. So it is with our images in these two parables from Mark.

Conventional wisdom could lead me to preach this from the perspective of trust – as in the Sower trusting that the seed would sprout and grow regardless of his involvement and so does God’s kingdom – and that would be well and fine. Conventional wisdom might view the second parable of the mustard seed from the perspective of “from small things, big things come” and liken that to the life of faith. Again … that would be all well and fine … and terribly safe. But if there’s one thing I’ve come to know in my faith journey, it’s this: Jesus isn’t safe. As my friend Cam Overs said to me in a conversation this week, “If you want to play it safe, get out of the Jesus business because it’s never safe!” People who play it safe don’t get crucified. So keeping that in mind, let’s take another more subversive look at the words of Jesus. Let’s not settle for the tame and gentle Jesus today – rather let’s allow him to be the subversive, unpredictable and transformative Son of God, shall we?

In our journey together as priest and people, I found myself drawn towards the second parable in this reading: that of the mustard seed. Mustard is an annual plant which comes up in late April and early May and is visible in fields because of its bright yellow flowers. We have mustard in Maryland … but nothing like we have it in California. I’m a native Californian and growing up I learned about how we got so darned much mustard in our state. It seems Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan priest who founded the missions in California, sowed mustard seeds as he made his way up the coast … and farmers have lamented his actions ever since! The semi-arid landscape of California is very similar to that of Palestine – and mustard grows like wildfire. It spreads everywhere and you cannot get rid of it nor can you contain it. If you clear out a plot of land and leave it empty … the following year you will have a plot of mustard. It’s that pernicious … it’s a noxious weed. This likening the Kingdom of God to mustard would be like saying to us that the Kingdom of God is like bull thistles (and we all know how much fun they are!).

So when Jesus speaks of sowing mustard seed, his Jewish audience must have cringed! “Mustard?? Are you kidding me??! That stuff is out of control, it goes everywhere!! Nobody plants that stuff!” Really? Well, evidently God plants something like it when the Kingdom is sown. The kingdom isn’t something which can be contained, its pernicious, it will grow wild. When Jesus speaks of the birds of the air making nests in its shade, the farmers among us would be suspicious of that too … after all birds are not always welcome and often do much damage to legitimate crops. So we hear the kingdom is growing and spreading like a noxious weed and as it does it invites all kinds of unpredictable and even unwanted elements. Is this really good news? Maybe … maybe not.

When we proclaim this the Gospel of the Lord, we need to remember the good news, might not be good news for everyone. In fact, it might be very bad news. In first century Palestine, Jesus was positing a new Reign of God, one which stood in direct opposition to the Reign of Caesar and the Roman Empire who enforced peace at the tip of a sword. Admittedly, this imagery of dueling authorities does not always translate well to us in the 21st century in America. After all, we elect our leaders and live under different circumstances than the subjects of the Roman Empire. We don’t have a Caesar … or … do we?

In praying with this scripture this week, I’ve come to a belief we do have a Caesar of sorts – a power which controls our minds and wills and draws them away from God. In our 21st century American culture, the Caesar we bow down to is anxious fear. That may sound strange but bear with me. In 1996, Rabbi Edwin Friedman’s last book was published posthumously. It was entitled “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.” In it, he described how our culture has been steeped in anxious fear largely as a result of the barrage of violent and frightening images we receive on a daily basis through the media. Back when I was a kid, we turned on the television at six o’clock to hear that venerable Episcopalian Walter Cronkite report the news. If we were night owls, we might watch the eleven o’clock news before catching Johnny Carson (for you younger folks, he was on the Tonight Show before Jay Leno). But that’s not how it is today. CNN made sure we could get news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And now it isn’t just CNN, it’s Deutche Welle, BBC World News Service, Al Jazeera and others who can tell me what’s happening – and much of it is bad news! Images of war, terrorism, and violence come at us constantly … oh and don’t even get me started on what comes over my smart phone and the internet. We are a frightened people in a world which we perceive to be very, very scary. And one of the things we know about the hard wiring of our brains, is that if we identify with victims of violence and feel they are like us, we take in the anxiety of what happened to them because we think it can, and will, happen to us. And we are terrified.

Now, let’s make this into a perfect storm, shall we? Combine this chronic, anxious fear with a capitalistic, consumerist economic system and you have a system which is out of control. I’ll confess to you that my first degree is in marketing. And one thing you learn in marketing is that fear sells product. If I can make you feel fearful, or at least insecure, about something, I can get you to buy a product or service by positing it as the solution to your anxiety. I can press all kinds of buttons in each and every one of you – and don’t think those ads on TV don’t do it! I can make you feel anxious about your body, your hairline, your age, dying, your performance in the bedroom, your income level, your job … just about anything. Then I’ll tell you how this car, this house, this suit of clothes, these shoes, this drug … will cure your problem (even if you really don’t have a problem). Now we’ve set up a system where frightened people are working crazy hours to make more money because we need those things which we think will relieve our pain and suffering. And we are scared … and we are utterly exhausted. This, my friends, is our Reign of Caesar – it is the Reign of Fear.

Jesus tells us there is an alternative – the Reign of God. It is like a noxious weed and spreads uncontrollably. And the Reign of God is when we hear that still small voice tell us: “You are my beloved child and in you I take great delight. Don’t give in to your fears. Hold on to me. I claimed you in baptism and I will not let you go … EVER!” You see when we trust that voice, the voice of Christ himself, who loves us and gave himself completely for us and who will never let us go, we begin to have hope. And hope is a dangerous thing … because it casts out fear. Hope casts out fear. As our hope increases, our fears and anxieties lessen.

Christian hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism is the expectation that things will get better. Optimism and its related success are preached by the likes of Joel Osteen, Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller, and it is a distorted gospel. Hope is radically different! Hope is the trust that no matter what the outcome, no matter how bad things get God’s promises and Word will prevail. Hope lies outside of our immediate circumstances. I witnessed many of my hospice patients who had great hope in God’s promises even as their optimism for recovery was long gone.

The promise of the mustard seed is that no matter what, the Kingdom is spreading and we are promised abundant life, now and forever. This does not exempt us from “hardship, nakedness, peril or sword” as St. Paul wrote. But it does mean we can endure suffering with patience and perseverance and this is what makes hope dangerous: dangerous because by God’s grace we are able to persevere beyond the immediate circumstances and move into an unknown future because we trust God is already there. You see hope is like that mustard seed too – it cannot be contained and it can spread like wildfire. We saw the results of hope in the Arab Spring last year. Some of us remember watching hope tear down the Berlin Wall. Hope is the final message of Revelation in the imagery of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven and the final result being this earth being completely resurrected and transformed.

This is what Jesus offers us today: the dangerous hope that God’s kingdom is here and in the process of becoming fully realized. And while we certainly cannot control or even summon it we can actively anticipate it by looking for and even aiding and abetting its unexpected growth. How subversive is that?? And so … I am giving you an assignment. Yes, I know it’s a little unorthodox to assign homework but I’m into the whole subversion thing today. The assignment I give you is this: spend some time taking pictures of where you find hope. Take pictures of where you see signs of God’s hope sneaking in and spreading around. Take pictures of where the dangerous hope of Christ is transforming lives. Then print them out and bring them to Grace this summer … or email them to me for posting on the web site too. As we do this, may we see more, hope more, and trust more firmly in the presence of the Kingdom right here and right now.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” These are the words of poet, priest and Anglican divine John Donne in his Meditation XVII. While the meditation itself is on death, it is also conversely about life. We are not islands entire unto ourselves. All of us are part of a larger main: part of larger systems of work, school, church, and community. But our initial and formational experience of being a member of something larger than self happens within our family of origin.

Every one of us has a family from whence we come. Now families are very diverse in their constructs and in how they function. Families range from the ideal family where each member has the freedom to be authentic, transparent and completely loved, supported and accepted to … well … toxic families where anxiety is high, roles are rigid, freedom is absent, and love, if it is expressed, is always conditional. No family really lives at either end of this spectrum: all families live somewhere on this continuum and can move back and forth on it largely in response to stress.

Within each of these family structures, we each have certain roles we play and often those roles are passed down to us over many generations. Largely, these roles develop organically and are we don’t generally reflect upon them critically but they do impact how we see ourselves and how we function in other areas of our lives. You’ve heard about some of these roles. There’s the birth order role: the eldest child (the de facto “standard bearer” of the family), the youngest child (the darling baby of the family who always seems to get away with much more than the eldest child ever did), or the middle child (sandwiched between the eldest and youngest who at times feels lost in the middle). Admittedly, these are broad brush charicatures, but there are some truths within the generalities.

Other family roles are more functional to the emotional system in the family: the peacemaker who brokers the conflicts in the family; the comedian who keeps us laughing; the handy one who can fix anything; the nurturer who heals our skinned knees and broken hearts. Some family roles, though, have a much darker and destructive side: the authoritarian who is to be obeyed without question … or else, the enabler who hides the family’s dark secrets, and the scapegoat upon whom the sins of the family are laid and who always takes the blame – even when the blame belongs elsewhere. Family emotional systems are a complex mixed bag of roles and functions – some of which are life affirming and others which are death dealing.

Today we hear about Jesus’ family of origin and how the family system is reacting against his new identity of spiritual leader as he preaches to the people in his home town. There is very little in the Bible about Jesus’ family of origin – we only get a glimpse of it now and then. Our own image of the Holy Family is shaped by the pictures on Christmas cards showing Mary and Joseph gazing down adoringly at the baby Jesus in the manger. But today we hear that Jesus’ family of origin operated much like our own families full of roles and expectations – and Jesus isn’t doing what the family expects of him!

We know from other gospel accounts that Jesus was the eldest son and as such he had a very particular role to play in the family. He was expected to learn the family’s trade and take over whatever business his own father had built once his father died or could no longer work. He would receive the double portion of inheritance once his parents were not able to work so that he would provide for them in their advancing years – a sort of first century social security program. He would be the elder of the family clan to whom the extended family looked for guidance and support. And he would be the one most responsible for protecting and defending the family's honor. Oh yes … Jesus had family expectations placed upon him and he was not living up to their expectations! So the family decides to restrain him because the word in the street is that Jesus has lost his mind. It seems that Jesus’ own household is divided against itself and the family is poised and ready to pull him back into line!

The pull of the family and its expectations is very, very powerful. Rabbi Edwin Friedman noted in his book Generation to Generation that families have a set of organizing principals or core beliefs about themselves which are often unspoken and unreflected. And the family system will do whatever it takes to defend those organizing principals – whether they are healthy principals or not. Two of the major organizing principals in the families of first century Palestine were the expected role of the eldest son and the importance of protecting the family honor – or in other words, not shaming your family. Stepping away from those organizing principals and doing something different is called self-differentiation. And when someone in the family begins to self-differentiate, it upsets the homeostasis, the balance, of the family. The natural reaction of the family is to bring the one who is self-differentiating back into line – to protect and preserve the family’s organizing principals. This is why we see families who appear to be locked in destructive behaviors repeat this pattern over and over again through multiple generations.

Jesus embodies the self-differentiated person and he is having no part of being dragged back into the roles and expectations of his family system and culture. He knows what his heavenly Father has called him to do and to be and he knows it doesn’t match what his family and culture expect from him. When the crowd tells Jesus his mother, sisters and brothers are asking for him, Jesus turns the tables on the family system: “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”

Jesus redefines and liberates himself and in turn liberates us from the narrow, finite and even destructive expectations of culture and family. In the Kingdom of God, our relationships are not defined by family roles and expectations. Instead they are defined by whether or not we are doing the will of God. This creates a wholly different kind of relational system than what we learn through our families. It is a relational system which St. Paul would ingeniously call the Body of Christ. It is characterized by relationships of mutuality and interdependence among its members instead of enmeshed co-dependence. As members of the Body of Christ we find the freedom to be authentic, transparent, broken and in desperate need of healing, yet loved in spite of it all. It is a new kind of relational system which liberates us from the rigidity of expected roles and instead allows us to be transformed so that our gifts and graces may be given freely for God’s glory and the welfare of all creation.

At our baptism, we are drawn into membership in the mystical Body of Christ. Through it, we are liberated from the roles and expectations of our own culture and family just as Jesus himself was liberated from his. We are not our roles, we are not the expectations heaped upon us by others, and we are not our failures to meet those expectations. We are the Body of Christ – children of God, beloved of God, called to do the will of God – thanks be to God.

Poor old Nicodemus … he just can’t seem to understand Jesus. Bless his heart! Now if you’re from the South, you know about the nuance of that phrase, “Bless his heart,” don’t you? “Bless his heart” or “bless your heart” can have many connotations depending upon the context. It could really mean “bless your heart” as in when something unfortunate befalls someone and it’s an expression of sympathy. But at other times it can be a way of softening the blow of a pointed comment or even a put down. As in, “When the Lord was passing out brains, she was on a coffee break … bless her heart!” or “That boy fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down … bless his heart!”

Today we might say “bless his heart” about Nicodemus. Here is this Pharisee, a teacher of the law, who isn’t one of those ones trying to test Jesus to trip him up but instead he has perceived in Jesus the closeness of his relationship to God and he wants to know more. But to those of us who know the story, he just seems to be confused, doesn’t he? Bless his heart.

But lest we be tempted to judge Nicodemus as particularly clueless, it is a grand irony that today is Trinity Sunday. If there is anything which draws us up short in understanding God, it is the doctrine of the Trinity. The Sunday after Whitsunday (the old name for Pentecost Sunday) was the day Thomas a Becket was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury and he declared the anniversary of his consecration to be a day set aside to honor the Holy Trinity. So this feast day has its roots in our own Anglican heritage. But this concept of the Holy Trinity – a God who is a trinity of persons in unity of being – is something which confounds us as much as being born again confounded Nicodemus.

Yet there are those who have tried to explain the Holy Trinity. If you look in the Book of Common Prayer on page 864, back in the Historical Documents section, you’ll find the Quincunque Vult – or the Creed of Saint Athanasius – which attempts to explicate this doctrine more fully. “And the Catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.” (to which George Bernard Shaw quipped, “the whole thing is incomprehensible!”).

And perhaps this is the best place to begin – God is incomprehensible. God is far beyond the rationality of the human mind. God is the Great Divine Mystery and any mere words or constructs which humans try to use to describe this Mystery will always be paltry and finite. Language is limited and often a poor means of communication … but it is all we have. Bless our hearts!

But lest we throw up our hands and walk away from the incomprehensible Majesty of this Triune God we really can’t understand, our readings today beckon us not to do so. One thing we can say about the nature of a God who is a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Being is that this God is by very nature a relational God. This is not some deistic type of God who created the world and then largely left it all to its own devices. This is not a capricious God who toys with humanity in a detached abstract way. No – we Christians believe in this Triune God who is wholly Other and yet is in intimate relationship with all the created order.

God’s manifestation to Isaiah was an awe inspiring and terrifying vision. The Lord of Hosts enthroned in the temple with the heavenly host of Seraphs calling out, the pivots of the temple shaking at the sound, the place filling with smoke – Isaiah’s response was to name his own unworthiness to be in this Presence. But God did not manifest to Isaiah this way to frighten him or denigrate him – God did it to call Isaiah to go to the people of Israel and declare God’s great love for them in a time of great crisis.

Jesus, likewise, engages Nicodemus in relationship to draw him closer to the Kingdom of God. He gently challenges Nicodemus and tells him about the transformation needed to be a part of the Kingdom. And while this encounter with Nicodemus is the most well-known to us, John’s gospel has Nicodemus appearing two more times. In the 7th chapter Nicodemus makes the case for not judging Jesus without a fair hearing which results in his being put down by his fellow Pharisees. And in the 19th chapter it is Nicodemus who brings 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes to prepare the body of Jesus for burial with Joseph of Arimathea. These accounts point to a continuing, and even incomprehensible, relationship between Jesus and Nicodemus.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent on the pole. This reference is to a story in the Book of Numbers where Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole so that the people of Israel could look upon it and be healed. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he himself is the one by and through whom we will be healed. And this is because the incomprehensible Triune God shows us through Christ the nature of self-sacrificial love that we might be drawn into the same kinds of loving relationship – both with God and with each other.

This is our call – to proclaim the incomprehensible love of God in a world which needs this love now more than ever. We are called in our imperfection, in the midst of the sometimes mess of our lives, just as we are, to show that God has made us worthy through Christ to be called his children. We have been called, we are being healed, and our response can be no less than Isaiah’s: “Here I am. Send me.”

Today is Pentecost – that day when we hear the reading from the second chapter of Acts which strikes fear into the hearts of lectors around the world. “Capp-uh-do-sha?” All of those people from those ancient cities and territories gathered together and hearing the praises of God in their own languages … it must have been quite a sight. Pentecost is often called the birthday of the Church, but I think the story lies in what happened as the disciples were transformed by the Spirit into apostles who were both chosen and sent.

I the spectacular nature of the phenomenon of speaking in tongues can detract from the transformational miracle at work. On that day, the Holy Spirit transformed the disciples’ belief about themselves. Consider the small band of Jesus’ followers was a group of frightened, bewildered people after the crucifixion. Remember, all of them ran away when the hour came and went into hiding. Peter, the “rock”, denied even knowing Jesus. They were all confused by the empty tomb. And even as they began to encounter the risen Lord, they still had very legitimate fears of what the Jewish and Roman authorities would do to them. Guilt by association was good enough to send many people to their own execution in first century Palestine. But on Pentecost, something happened.

Gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavout (the Jewish celebration of first harvest and the giving of the law to Moses), the disciples were transformed from frightened, to fearless – from timid to confident. They no longer considered their own safety and they went out proclaiming the Gospel boldly – even to the point of dying for it. Pentecost was when the disciples understood they were both chosen and sent.

We often think of being chosen as something relegated to the biblical story: like God choosing Moses through the burning bush, Jesus choosing his disciples saying “follow me,” or even Paul’s dramatic conversion on the Damascus Road. Being chosen was very familiar to Jesus and his followers as the Jewish people understood themselves to be chosen by God through the covenant with Abraham. But how does work for us?

Well, let me pose a question to you: Why are you here? Why are you here? Younger members will probably answer, “Because Mom and Dad make me come!” That may be true, but if it is, then ask, “Why do Mom and Dad come?” Why? There is no “church police” out there rounding up non-churchgoers and making them come to church. There is no “church boss” that will fire you from your job for not going to church. So, why are you here?

I’m sure the voice in your head has begun to make a list of reasons why you are here at Grace – and every list would be different. But the mental list you have made of why you come here is not really why you are here. Instead, I submit to you the things you’ve cited are “trigger points” or “leverage points” that the Holy Spirit has used to move you to this place. What you have listed is God’s call to you. The real reason you are here will be the same for all of you – you are here because you were chosen to be here and you said “yes” to that call. Just as Jesus chose his followers 2000 years ago, He chooses them still today. As Christians, we are chosen and the Good News is that in God’s realm, all may be chosen who have ears to hear the message and hearts to respond “yes” to God’s call. As Henri Nouwen stated in his book “Life of the Beloved,” our earthly definition of “chosen” implies that some are chosen, while others are not; however, that is not how God’s kingdom works. In God’s kingdom, all of creation is chosen; but it is up to us to say “yes” to God’s offer of relationship.

This relationship with the Living God through Christ is a gift and it carries an obligation: that we share it with others. This makes us a people who are also sent – just like those first disciples. On Pentecost, the disciples went boldly into the streets of Jerusalem, and from there all of the known Roman world, to tell their story of how they experienced God in the person of Jesus Christ. We are also called to be sent into the world to share our story. Being sent calls us to walk out those doors into a world which is often indifferent to Christians and where it isn’t always easy to tell our story. And if you feel like you don’t know how, that’s ok too. Remember, the disciples didn’t know how either, but they trusted God and each other to help them each find their own way to tell their story. That’s what the Church does for us – it provides a community of support to help us tell our stories.

Now you may think you don’t really have much of a story to tell. That little voice in your head may be saying, “I’m not that special. My story isn’t very interesting.” You may not think it is, but don’t be too quick to judge. You see the gospel isn’t just a book from which I read on Sunday mornings. It isn’t just what we hear from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each of you is a living, breathing, incarnate gospel of Christ. And your stories of how your relationship with Christ matters and makes a difference in your life are frankly far more compelling and accessible to those outside the Church than anything in some 2,000 year old book! You may very well be the first gospel anyone “reads” and you can only be read if you are willing to tell your story.

We tell our stories in both words and actions. It isn’t about preaching on a street corner. When we go the extra mile to help another, when we live our lives as genuine, authentic, “warts and all” Christians, when we offer to pray for a friend, a teacher, or a coworker – all of these are simple examples of telling your story.

Our call as Christians on this day of Pentecost is accept and embrace that we are both chosen and sent because we are “marked as Christ’s own forever” in baptism. My charge to you on this most holy day is to trust the power of the Spirit that you may be a living gospel in a world which longs to hear the good news of what Christ is doing right here, right now.

We are living in an in-between time in the Church year. This in between period is known as Ascensiontide – the ten days between Ascension Day and Pentecost. On Ascension Day this past Thursday, our readings spoke of Jesus’ ascension into heaven and how when he departed this time, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with prayer and rejoicing. They had been promised that they would receive “power from on high” and they waited with joyous expectation. Jesus’ departure in the ascension was a necessary thing because it meant that Christ was no longer bound by space, time, physicality and the particularity of his culture. Because of the ascension, Christ is present at all times and in all places. But at times, it might seem we are disconnected from Christ and the images of the ascension can bring out in us the sense of Jesus’ absence. There is a longing in us to have seen and known Jesus the same way the disciples did. While we have a relationship with Christ, at times we may wonder what that relationship looks like from his perspective.

Today’s Gospel reading gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ longings for us from his perspective. It is part of what is known as the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus: a prayer which he prayed on the night before his crucifixion. In this prayer, he prays specifically for his disciples who “do not belong to this world.” And while Jesus was taken out of this world, first by execution and then by his ascension, his prayer for us was that we would not be taken out of this world.
When Jesus speaks of “this world,” he is talking about the powers of the world in which we live: rulers, governments, wealthy people and economic systems. And those systems often become ones of oppression where a relatively small number benefit while many are exploited. This seems to be our human nature and it hasn’t changed in 2,000 years.

I don’t know about you, but there are days when being taken out of this world appears like a reasonable solution. Just pick up the paper and read all about the violence in our world – systems of oppression and death which kill and destroy people and our environment. There are those who believe strongly in the imminence of the second coming to the extent that they abdicate all responsibility for the environment under the belief that since God won’t let us live on an unsustainable planet, we might be able to force the time and circumstances of the second coming by trashing the earth! These folks are hoping to be taken out of the world … and very soon. But this isn’t what Jesus asks, is it? No … instead, he prays for us to remain in the world and to be protected from the evil one instead of praying for us to receive a celestial evacuation.

Jesus is clear – we are in the world and that is where we need to stay. But he also says the disciples do not “belong to this world.” “Being in the world but not of the world” thematically appears as a contrast in various places in scripture but what does that mean? Jesus gives us a clue about what the sign is of being in the world but not of it means: the world hates his disciples because they do not belong to this world. In essence, the sign of discipleship is being hated by the oppressive people and systems which exploit and destroy what God has created and blessed.

Jesus says his disciples do not belong to those systems. Do we belong to them? Let me ask you this … when was the last time the powers of this world hated you because of your faithfulness to Christ? Have you ever been hated or despised because of your opposition to the some system in this world for Christ’s sake? Has the world ever even been mildly uncomfortable with you for the sake of the Gospel? If the answer is “no,” perhaps it is because we are more “of the world” than we want to admit. Economically and politically, Americans are the consummate “insiders” – those “of the world.” When you consider our political and economic systems, as a country we are in the top 1% as are most of the countries in the G-8 which just met at Camp David. What about those in the 99%?

This should give us pause to think. In light of Jesus’ prayer, it appears that the mark of discipleship is being hated for not going along with the world. The mark of a true disciple is to not fit into our culture and to be hated for it. But what does it mean to be different and out of step with the world in our day and time? Admittedly, this was easier in the early church because Christians were actually barred from specific activities: serving in the government, being in the military, etc. But in this day and time, Christians are not excluded from the culture as they once were. Attempts to come up with ways of being different – such as the Puritanical rules of “no drinking,” “no dancing,” “no smoking,” “no gambling,” “no going to movies” – seem a bit shallow as they are self-imposed by Christians upon themselves. There are Christians who claim we are persecuted in this country – compared to those who lose their lives for their faith in places like Nigeria, Uganda, and Pakistan, this claim seems pretty hollow.

We know that following a set of behavior based “rules” is far too simplistic to be marked as not “of the world.” But when we think about the decisions we make with respect to our baptismal covenant do matter. Things like respecting the dignity of every person, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace do call us into action which names and confronts those powers which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. This covenant calls us to reorient our priorities about the use of the time, talent and treasure which God gives us and those decisions can lead us to question and confront the powers of this world. Often this can lead to personal consequences for us ranging from being fired from your job for being a “whistle-blower” to being arrested for protesting government actions.

As Christians, we are marked as Christ’s own forever in baptism. We are called to be faithful in this world but not to belong to it – not to buy into its false and empty claims for power and wealth which corrupt and destroy. And while this relational covenant calls us into a place where we may be hated because of our relationship to Christ, this prayer of Jesus reminds us that we are not alone and that he continues to intercede for us that we may continue his reconciling work of redemption in our own day and time.

“This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus gives this commandment for a reason: “… so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

Love one another. On the surface this seems pretty simple. Love one another. OK … sure thing Jesus! But then after a while real life sets in. That person I’m supposed to love is … well … kind of getting on my nerves. You know how it is. Even the people we most love, in fact especially the people we most love, know us well enough to know exactly where our last nerve is and how to poke it. So Jesus’ commandment is simple … but it is not easy! It’s not easy with the people with whom we choose to share our lives, let alone having to love people that God chose for us.

That’s the situation confronting Peter in our reading from Acts. Now what we are hearing today is just the very tail end of a longer story about the earliest days of the Church. The very first controversy to confront the early followers of Jesus was the question of who could consider themselves part of this community. After all, Jesus was Jewish and his disciples were all Jewish too. And the Jewish people lived their faith according to the law of Moses which laid out some pretty strict rules about how one should live in relationship with God and what exactly made one Jewish in the first place. Many of the early Jewish followers of Jesus, like Peter, believed that you had to be Jewish to follow this Jewish Messiah. This excluded more people than it included when you consider the span of the Roman Empire.

Paul was likely the earliest follower of Jesus who came around to the idea that Jesus didn’t only come to be the savior of the Jews but also the Gentiles. He had some clashes with Peter over this very issue. He even wrote in his letter to the Galatians that he called out Peter for acting one way when the group consisted of only Gentiles and then refusing to eat with the Gentiles when the representatives of the Jerusalem church (who were Jewish Christians) showed up. Paul called Peter a hypocrite in his letter.

But we need to cut Peter a break. He was formed by his Jewish faith: a tradition with beliefs which warned him not to mix with Gentiles, not to eat certain foods, not to mix the crops in his fields, not to weave his tunic from two different kinds of thread. Judaism had an obsession with staying pure primarily because when the people mixed with others, they forgot about God. So for Peter to eat with Gentiles just went against everything he’d ever been taught.

“Abide in me as I abide in you.” “I am the vine, you are the branches.” “… apart from me, you can do nothing.”

When I was about 8 years old, we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. My great-aunt and great-uncle lived in San Jose and, in a sense, became like surrogate grandparents to me and my sister. Uncle Frank was Italian and he had the greenest thumb of anyone I know. Rumor has it he fed the whole block out of his victory garden during World War II. But one of Frank’s passions was grafting fruit trees. I remember going to visit one day and he took me and my sister out to his backyard, pointed to a tree and asked, “Hey, have you ever seen a tree like that?” We both nodded, thinking it looked like any other tree. But he said, “Noooo you haven’t! Take a closer look.” We walked up under the tree, looked up into the branches and saw … peaches … and plums … and nectarines … and apricots. I know we must have looked pretty confused because Uncle Frank started laughing. He came over and showed us what he did – he’d grafted all those different fruit trees together onto a peach tree root stock. “Anything with pit grafts to anything with a pit. Anything with a seed grafts to anything with a seed … and all the citrus go together.” Sure enough, he had an apple tree that grew several kinds of apples and pears, an orange tree that grew oranges, tangerines and grapefruit, and a lemon tree that had both lemons and limes growing on it. It was the first time I’d seen grafting up close.

Grafting is such an ancient agricultural technique that nobody really knows how far back it goes. Ancient Greek texts which predate the life of Christ give detailed instructions on the art of grafting. And it is the image of grafting Jesus is using in today’s gospel reading. “I am the vine, you are the branches … apart from me you can do nothing.” In our baptism, we are grafted into Christ and apart from Christ and his Body we know as the Church, we can do nothing. But when we are grafted into Christ, we are capable of far greater things than we can imagine.

I have been thinking about what this means in light of the terrible tragedy which occurred last Thursday at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Most of you have heard by now that Douglas Jones, a homeless man, shot and killed Brenda Brewington, the parish administrator, and shot the co-rector, the Rev. Dr. Mary-Marguerite Kohn inside St. Peter’s Church before turning the gun on himself. I did not know about this until just before the opening of our Diocesan Convention on Friday morning and neither did many of our delegates. What does it mean to abide in Christ and have Christ abide in us when such tragic and senseless violence can enter even the places where we should feel safe?

For me, it meant gathering with the people of God in that convention hall. Abiding in Christ meant talking with our sisters and brothers about our feelings of anger, betrayal, fear, grief, loss, numbness, vulnerability and shedding tears in a safe space knowing we were surrounded by friends who care. Christ abiding in us meant reaching out in support to our diocesan staff who ministered to the victims and their families. Christ abiding in us meant praying the litany at the time of death together for Mary-Marguerite+, who was being kept alive on life support so her family could make plans to donate her organs and give life to others in the face of death. Christ abiding in us allowed us to gather for Eucharist and offer thanksgiving for the lives of Brenda and Mary-Marguerite+ and all who minister to the suffering in all of our churches. Christ abiding in us meant we could pray our forgiveness towards Douglas whose reasons for doing this we could not understand and offer up prayers for the repose of his soul just as we did for Brenda and Mary-Marguerite+. Christ abiding in us made it possible for two Episcopal Churches to reach out to Douglas’ family and offer their churches for his burial service.

But Christ abiding in us and we in him also leads us to name and confront the root cause of this violence which has beset us. We live in a culture of violence where guns are too readily accessible and proper mental health care is not. Our culture has raised individualism and autonomy to an idolatrous status and neglects to offer appropriate care for those suffering from mental illness who need support. In May 2005, PBS’s Frontline did a story called “The New Asylum.” They cite the following:

"Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number – nearly 500,000 – mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the unexpected and often ill-equipped caretakers of this burgeoning population, they raise a troubling new concern: Have America’s jails and prisons become its new asylums?"

I’m afraid the answer to that question is “yes.” We have become a society where those with severe mental illness or addiction are deemed disposable: locked in prisons where we don’t have to deal with them, or who, like Douglas Jones, live in the woods under tarps and in tents. You see, the mentally ill and addicted have the right to autonomy – to live their lives as they see fit, even if they do not necessarily have the capacity to make grounded judgments about treatment options which can improve their quality of life and ability to integrate into society. Access to proper mental health care is difficult for those who have supportive families and insurance: it is impossible for those who lack both.

Living as members of the Body of Christ and grafted into him, we are called not only to pray and console but also to act on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our society. Already there are people questioning why St. Peter’s had an outreach to the homeless in the first place and saying the church shouldn’t do this kind of work. Really? Well, if that’s so, who will reach out to the forgotten ones? Who? That’s right … if we as the Church don’t, nobody else will. And Jesus told us plainly: “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” Abiding in Christ and he in us means we must continue to have the courage to carry out the gospel in both our words and actions.

“Abide in me as I abide in you.” Apart from Christ, we can do nothing for we would be paralyzed in our fear. But grafted into Christ, we can do whatever God asks of us – and it is always more than what we can imagine.