Fear about "Truth and Action": Aren't We Doing Enough?

We are Easter people, filled with the Good News of hope and salvation to share precisely with a hurting world.  In these 50 days of Easter, I have been reflecting on our congregation’s vision: “Extending God’s welcome to all we meet along the way” (adopted February 2009).    

What were we thinking?!  What kind of welcome do you think God offers?  What about the unforgivable, God?  What about those who have committed crimes?  What about those of a different political persuasion and lifestyle choice than my own?  What about those of another religion, skin color or ethnic group?  Does God welcome all of them, too?  And are we really called to do the same?  Really?  What were we thinking in 2009?!  Give us a break!

Our reading from 1 John on the 4^th Sunday of Easter, said this (and it rather terrifies me):  “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” 

Truth be told, in February 2009, when we adopted our vision statement, we were thinking exactly like Easter people.

And this May, I am sensing (albeit fearfully) a renewed invitation from God…to reach out and share this radical welcome all the more!  Extending welcome is about more than just inviting people to church (while that is important); it is about how we live in the world, basking — and taking action — in the joy of Christ’s resurrection.  “Alleluia! Christ is risen,” and so we extend God’s welcome!  These two must be linked: Easter & welcoming “the other”.  In Christ, we too burst out of our tombs!  We can never fully extend God’s divine welcome…but we can always be extending our arms even wider, as the Spirit takes over and flings open our hearts beyond our own zones of comfort, safety and stability.  Let us welcome until it hurts!  That’s loving in “truth and action” – laying down our lives for one another.  Losing our lives, to find them in Christ.  Yes, unfortunately God calls us to welcome them all:  the unforgivable, those who have committed crimes, those of a different political persuasion or lifestyle, those of another religion, skin color or ethnicity.  Yes, God’s love involves serious risk.    

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the sound of that.  The idea of risk fills me with fear and hesitation (I’m sweating just typing it).  I want to say things like, “Aren’t we doing enough already?”  “What if I happen to like my life?”  “Can’t we stop talking about these reckless reach-out-and-welcome sermons from the Bible, especially in these tough economic and political times?”  “We’re doing the best we can, God!  Can’t you see that?”

But Christ’s resurrection is love and welcome beyond boundaries, even our boundaries of death and fear.  And while we might experience at times “welcome fatigue”, Christ just keeps moving on down the road to embrace the stranger, the outcast and the alien.  Sisters and brothers, let’s follow Jesus!  Let’s love also, not in word and speech, but in truth and action…even if it’s scary.

And God – the same God who goes ahead of us – will be right next to us.

April 6 -- Good Friday

Yesterday, we received a bold command from Jesus to love one another, with Christ-like love. Today we come face to face with the fact that we can’t. That we fall so short, even when we try our best. Today we come face to face with our brokenness, our sinfulness, our betrayal and denial of Christ… (Yesterday, our service ended a little chaotically and confusingly…) “We have failed you God. We have denied you, just as your disciples did long ago. We have hurt those you called us to love. We’ve even hurt our own selves, the earth which you entrusted to us and which is part of us, and our own human bodies that you give us as your temple.” Today we come face to face with the cross…[pause] the cross of [vertical] God’s divine will for us and [horizontal] our wanting to go our own way.

Yesterday we received a bold command from Jesus to love one another; today we come face to face with fact that we all fall short. And so that leaves us totally dependent on grace. Totally lost on this rocky way, without the crucified One going before us. Today is good, because in the cross and death of Jesus we have hope. We have a Christ who hangs…on our brokenness. Who lifts our sin and death onto himself. We have a God who looks down from that holy cross of brokenness and sin…and declares—exactly what no one would ever expect – a triumph: “It is finished.”

Those are not words of defeat; those are the words of a victor! God has “finished” the sin and the brokenness of this world, even death itself.

God has finished, washed away, your shortcomings and denials and wrongful words and hurtful actions. According to the Gospel of John, this is Jesus’ finest hour, the hour of his glorification by God. (Martin Luther was not shy to say that John was his favorite Gospel, particularly because of this climactic account.) Here Jesus soars. “It is finished!”

In this cross is triumph. In this tree, this ugly tree of DEATH, is—exactly what no one would ever expect—LIFE! Life for all the world, life for all the sinners, life for all the nations, life for you, LIFE FOR ALL.

Good Friday is good…because on this day Christ takes the whole sin of the world onto himself, lifting it from us, so that we might stand up straight and live anew…that we might be free of death to live and serve and dance and sing, always, always glorying in the cross. [sing it: “In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, ‘til my ransomed soul shall find rest beyond the river.” This Friday is good.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up imagining this day, Good Friday, as a funeral for Jesus, as if he had died all over again. But I’ve learned that that kind of thinking, that kind treatment of Good Friday only developed in the late 20^th century. Thanks be to God for some recent discoveries and reclamations of how the earliest Christians saw and honored this day:

It’s not a funeral!

This is a day to adore the cross, albeit a serious and contemplative time. We can only sit in joyful silence and adore the cross, as though the cross is Christ himself. So I invite you: be in the midst of the cross this night, bask, linger, sisters and brothers in Christ! Come to its foot, as you’re able (in a little bit). Kiss the cross, bow down before the cross of Christ, ponder the final 3 words of Christ in the Gospel of John: IT IS FINISHED. Sin is finished, death is finished, all the powers that draw us from God are finished. AMEN?

From the cross on which Christ is lifted up, Jesus draws all things to himself, and in so doing solidifies the new law of love, where there are no boundaries to God’s compassion, no limits to God’s grace, even death itself cannot hold back this love divine. On this day, on this cross, is the hope of this entire world. May we glory in this cross of Christ forever. AMEN. Thanks be to God. AMEN.

April 5 -- Maundy Thursday

A couple weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus upsetting the tables in the temple. But tonight also, perhaps even more so, Jesus upsets tables:

Jesus takes a centuries-old tradition and gives it completely new meaning. The Passover ritual is re-interpreted and Jesus becomes the new lamb. Our Old Testament lesson gave the very detailed instructions for how the Passover meal was to be kept, what each part of the meal was to mean. And for centuries and centuries the Jewish descendants gathered in homes with families and celebrated the Passover. And our Jewish brothers and sisters are still celebrating the festival! (This year it falls this Saturday night.) Still gathering and telling that ancient story over a meal, remembering the mighty acts of God and God’s liberating activity for the people of Israel from slavery and oppression in Egypt.

I was reading up on contemporary Passover celebrations today and two groups of people caught my attention: The old and the young. The elderly apparently get particularly excited in preparation for this great event—because they love to instruct the young on what it all means, what each article of food means, and the songs, the Hebrew words even a dance. And the young, much like young Christian children, you can imagine do a little bit of eye-rolling, as their parents get them all dressed up for the Passover event.

“Ughh, not agai-ain! We do this every year!” you can almost hear little Jewish boys and girls whine a little, as mother buttons up their starched shirts or tightens their belts, or untangles the knots in their hair as they get ready.

But children are an essential part of a Passover celebration. And the whole ritual actually meal begins with a question that comes from the youngest person in the room, who is able to talke: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

Ancient, ancient rituals and customs. Think about what are the oldest rituals and customs in your own family… [pause] Any from 1200 BC? That’s 1200 years before Christ! So that means that for 1200 years+ already Jesus’ people had been celebrating the Passover meal in these ways.

I wonder if there were some disgruntled Jewish children on this night long ago…in Jerusalem homes the night Jesus broke the bread…“Ugh, not again!” And I wonder if there were some excited elderly family members, getting revved up for maybe their last Passover celebration, their last chance to pass this story along to their beloved children and grandchildren…

And then there’s Jesus and his entourage—not too old, not too young. They had just gotten to town a few days ago: a group of Galileans, like Northern Californians just arriving in San Diego on Sunday. A small group of men and women probably most of them in their 20’s and early 30’s, from all walks of life, the disciples: fishers, artisans, financiers, a few with big plans and a few with no direction at all, some who supported the current governing system and some who did not, some rich, some poor, some of them hopeful and some of them clueless. But they were all Jews, and they had come like everyone else…to celebrate the Passover.

I wonder who was the youngest in the room with Jesus, who asked the kick-off question that night. Little did they know how different this night was about to become. Things probably seemed to going pretty much as usual for a Passover meal – eating and telling the stories the same way they had all those years, all those 20 or 30 or 40 years growing up back in Galilee. Must have been nice and comforting after all they had been through, so far from home…

But then toward the end of the meal, Jesus takes the bread –the unleavened bread that they were used to someone taking and saying some words over—but Jesus goes and takes that flat bread and says something totally new. He says, “Take this bread. It is my body.”

Can you imagine their shock? They knew these words by heart, just like many of our children could recite the Lord’s Prayer. But Jesus just changed all the meaning. Can you imagine their reactions?

Perhaps some there was some fear, some looking over their shoulder hoping one of the Jewish authorities didn’t just hear that. Or perhaps it was a confirmation of what the disciples were already starting to feel as they had watched Jesus the last couple days in the temple: challenging the authorities, murmurings among the chief priests and scribes in the corner; Judas creeping around in the shadows. Perhaps this radical new thing Jesus was doing was confirmation of what the disciples were already afraid of: THAT EVERYTHING IS CHANGING. Now, even the ancient rituals and traditions of the Jews was being changed right before their eyes—the rituals to which they had always clung, even while in their lifetimes they had watched Rome seize their holy land, even while threats from various Jewish break-off groups had created instability for their party and persuasion. Even with all that insecurity, at least they had always the assurance of the Passover rituals to come home to, year after year. But now Jesus was changing even that, calling the unleavened bread his body!

And then he takes a cup of wine. He blesses it and says, “This is my blood. The blood of the new covenant.” The new covenant?! What’s going on here? Jesus goes on, “It is shed for you and for all people…for the forgiveness of sin.” Can you imagine? Jesus was opening up the covenant for more than just Jews!! Jesus was upsetting their table. There was still that promise of God’s liberation from oppression. They didn’t have to doubt that.

But this new covenant of which Jesus was now speaking had a more service-oriented edge to it. That was difference. He wasn’t just talking about escape from oppressive forces; no, this new covenant had a motif of compassion, an theme of self-sacrifice, a universal word of love and grace for everyone. And that was new to the disciples’ ears. Their understanding was being stretched…

Yes God frees us from oppression, and God calls us to keep reaching out to others who are oppressed: the hungry, the dying, the immigrant, the orphan, the widow, and all who are enslaved and alone. Yes was something Jesus had to say about oppression, BUT Jesus was now also showing mercy even to the oppressor, he talked of turning and love the oppressor! This was new! And wildly upsetting! Jesus’ heart was breaking and bleeding out, and his disciples are being asked to drink that blood of compassion and forgiveness.

And just in case their ears might be deceiving them, he preached to their the rest of their bodies too! He did something, unheard of: he got down on the floor! (No one ever got down on the floor, except for the servants.) But there he was, their great rabbi Jesus, down on his knees, and then he begins to wash their feet. (No one ever did that, except servants.)

And then he tells us to wash one another’s feet.

So we’re going to it again tonight. Not as a re-enactment of what happened long ago, not as a play or a performance, but as an actual embodying of what Jesus mandated on this Thursday, Mandate Thursday. “Wash one another’s feet.” For in this footwashing is forgiveness. In this footwashing is life and light despite darkness all around – In the f, f and f is the hope of the nations, the end of the wars, the salvation of the world, the life of all people. In these upsetting rituals – and frankly, uncomfortable rituals – Christ breaks up and breaks in and breaks us out of our brokenness. And we are made clean.

Last words and last actions tell us everything in the Gospel of John: And Jesus’ last words this night that we remember the Last Supper are these: “LOVE and FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER, serve one another…for I have loved and forgiven you, as I kneel at your feet.”

April 1 -- Palm/Passion Sunday

March 25 -- Fifth Sunday of Lent

Grace to you and peace, from God who always makes the first move and reaches out to us, in peace. AMEN.

If one takes Lent seriously, if one takes church seriously, then Lent can be a very active time, a very reflective time. But it’s really up to that individual. I’ve said a few times here this Lenten season, that to the rest of the world, these are just more busy spring weeks. The practice, the discipline of Lent has gone out the window for many in our world and our culture. But to those in the church, it is an opportunity to mark the 40 days before Christ’s passion and death, to set aside disciplines and practices – as benign as wearing purple or trying not to say Alleluia (Micah yesterday); or as profound as connecting with the estranged, getting out of your comfort zone, completely changing your exercise and eating habits, or coming to terms with an hard truth about your life and emerging in a new way albeit painfully. Being reflective, and contemplative during this church season, is actually quite involved activity. It’s tiring. And then we’ve talked and seen resources these 40 days about the Laws of God – some challenging topics: the 10 commandments, money and faith, about serving in the world, about tough issues, like the trafficking of young girls. Maybe some of us have had a meaningful and involved Lent; maybe some of us have not. My point is…you’ve got to make Lent happen for yourself; you’ve got to take Lent seriously; you’ve got to grab it by the horns; it doesn’t just happen to us.

Today is the last Sunday of Lent. Next Sunday, we remember the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem with the palms, and we read aloud together the entire story of Jesus’ passion and death. And so today is, in a sense, a transition Sunday…from Lent to Holy Week. It’s still Lent, there’s still time to take it by the horns, but something is shifting as the days pass.

And the move and the mood from Lent to Holy Week might be characterized as simply “letting go”. That might be a good word whether you’re a Lent practice or not. Letting go. Letting go of the charge we’ve been taking. Rather than making it happen, rather than taking it by the horns, we are shifting now into the high holy days, where all we can do is sit back and let God happen to us. Sit back or stand up, in awe, as a cross comes sharply into view.

Let Christ happen to you, among you as we transition together as a body of faithful followers. (Do you see the difference?)

“Catch a little neutral.” (Jimmy Buffett)

From this [clenched fists/fast at prayer] to this [open hands/receiving].

We have this beautiful image today from Jeremiah, of God, “writing the law on our hearts.” No longer will it be a matter of gaining and teaching and “insert-your-action-verb-here” the knowledge of God’s forgiveness. “No,” God says in Jeremiah, “Now it will simply be written on our hearts.” I was trying to find an image of that for the cover of our bulletins, but I couldn’t. And then I saw this image of the cross being made on our forehead. It’s an Ash Wednesday graphic, so that’s nice and reminiscent of where we’ve been.

But I also realized that to the ancients the heart was understood as the place of our thoughts. “I will write my law on their hearts” then could mean “I will write my law on their minds” today.

Sit back, “catch a little neutral”, not in a lazy, hedonistic way (as fun as that might sound)… but in a worshipful way. We are shifting from a posture of action to a posture of wonderment. We are coming in from the garden, from the world as Holy Week draws closer. We are about to marvel and revel and take in the powerful images and stories of God, being lifted up on that glorious tree…

The cross is being written on our hearts. We no longer take it by the horns, force ourselves to observe it; it simply is. God is. Present and now.

[Micah and the licking his thumb before he puts the cross on my forehead at bedtime.]

Why do you do that, Micah? “Because no one can ever take that away, and you can feel it and remember.”

Ah, "catching a little neutral". God’s got you. The law and the gospel is written on our hearts [crossing my forehead]. Deep within. The seed that gives life, this day and always. Amen.

March 18 -- Fourth Sunday of Lent

Deep into Lent are we, and it’s clear that something is coming, as we gather around the images and stories and lessons for today. Something is being forecasted with our readings for today…particularly this strange OT reading about the Israelites in the wilderness. There is a cross coming into view, albeit perhaps fuzzy right now: From our reflections these past weeks on the covenant and the rainbow of Noah, the promise to Sarah and Abraham, the 10 commandments, now we’re still in the wilderness of our Lenten journey, it might be foggy, rainy, but a cross is starting to come into view. We’re not there yet – today it’s this strange, gruesome image of a serpent on a pole…

This OT is worth recounting because it is a snapshot of the entire Old Testament pattern… in Confirmation: “God blesses, people mess up, God gets angry, people repent…” See that here?

· they’re in the wilderness – free at last (God blesses)

· and complaining and tired, they want to go back

· Moses reminds them of the food and how far God has brought them

· “we hate the food”, we would rather be back there!

· God gets angry, sends serpents to bite them

· People cry out for help

· Moses petitions for the people

· God give them the snake on a pole

· Those who look to it are healed

It is a curious story. And I’m convinced that it’s in our lectionary by virtue of our Gospel reading. Because Jesus in the Gospel of John makes a reference to it. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up. Same effect: Those who look to him are healed. There is a cross coming into view.

But let’s stay with the OT in the wilderness. The snake on a pole. God getting angry. I think this story is amazing. It’s entertaining on one level, in its strangeness. But I laugh at it mostly because I can totally relate to complaining in the wilderness. “We hate the food.” (NRSV: “We detest this miserable food.”) They of course are referring to manna, the holiest of holy bible food next to the body and blood of Christ.

Do you ever feel like the Israelites in the wilderness, wanting to go back to the way things used to be? Sure it wasn’t perfect back then, but at least it was better than this?

You might not believe this from me, with all the newer music that we’ve been do—and that most of the time I very much like to do, here—but I just wrote a letter this week to the planners of our Synod Assembly worship: “Can we please sing some of the old songs this year?” My reasoning was that I think we’re scared and hurting as a synod, and we need some comfort, something familiar. And I know that that feeling exists at least among some of us here at SVLC too. And not just at church, right, if I had a nickel for every time I hear (or think) if only we could go back to the way it used to be. “We hate the new food. Why, when I was growing up...” Seriously, I’d be rich.

I laugh when I read this text mostly, I’m afraid, out of discomfort, because it so aptly hits the nail on the head. “God, why did you bring us to this point?! We hate it.”

“God why did you bring us to this point in our lives? WE hate it. We detest this misery.”

And then all of a sudden…snakes!!! Read recent poll of “Things We’re Afraid Of”, 36% of Americans list snakes as #1.

Any chance those snakes are a gift? Like a sharp tone in your mother or father’s voice – a sharpness you never heard before, and frankly it hurts. There’s a bite to it. Any chance those snakes are a gift? When we’re longing for the past, we’re not fully in the present. But as soon as you’ve got a snake slithering toward you, boy, you’re right in the moment! Your head is pulled right out of the clouds of the past, and all your senses are in tact – adrenaline, reflexes all as sharp as your body is possibly able. You are alive—that’s what adrenaline junkies are all about. “Never felt more alive, man!” [Meekest participant on our retreat in January. Has MS. And loves to skydive.]

Any chance those snakes were a gift? God snaps us out of our natural default position to complain (which we often do from the easy chair), to long for something more (especially when we’re relatively safe and wondering “well, how can we get safer”), our natural default position to get nostalgic about the past, to burrow in to what we know…

God snaps us out of that with a bite, a sting, a harsh tone. A then through our tears, with adrenaline pumping and sticking us right smack in the present moment…

…mercy. Grace. Healing comes. Salvation (salvus).

Sometimes we need that jolt to remind us that God is the one who brought us here, God is the one who has never left us. And God is the one who will bring us to the promised land. Sometimes we need that jolt, because we forget. Ever seem like we say the same thing in church, week after week? Because we forget (people mess up) that God has brought us here, that God is the one who has never left us, that God will bring us to the promised land at last.

But there’s a cross coming into view. For Christians, gotta go past the cross to get to the empty tomb.

Anyone who’s gone through surgery knows the pain comes before the healing. (By the way, serpent on the pole, of course is the medical symbol, Vicki painted it.) Those who look to the serpent will be healed. It’s not an idol. If the people think that the snake itself (or the cross itself, for that matter) is the cause of the cure, then it becomes an idol. But if they look to it as a reminder of the mercy and providence and presence of God, then it becomes a holy symbol. If they look through the bronze serpent, just as we look through the cross of Christ, then it is healing. In even and especially the most gruesome and strange symbols—a snake on a pole, a bloody cross—God’s love is poured out, and not just for us, but for all, as John 3 tells us: “God so loved the cosmos.”

The cross is coming into view! It gets harder before it gets easier. In that truth there is grace, there is relief, there is healing. There is salvation.

And even here in the wilderness, Jesus is our rock. AMEN.

March 11 -- Third Sunday of Lent

Today, as we’ve been doing throughout this season of Lent, we focus on the Old Testament reading, the Ten Commandments. How many of you once memorized the 10 Commandments in Sunday School or Confirmation? (p.1160 ELW)

Why spend so much time today thinking about the 10 Commandments? Aren’t they a little outdated? Popular imagination has them etched on tablets of stone. I mean isn’t that a little archaic? I think that Exodus according to Charlton Heston is a little archaic, so the real thing is way older than that old movie is. Why did we even have to learn about them back in Confirmation? I thought Jesus gives the real commandments.

These are some good questions.

I’d like to reflect on the 10 Commandments this morning, as essential Christian material for our 40-day Lenten wilderness journey. Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years, and got the commandments, right in the middle of that time. And here we are in the middle of Lent, being offered that same list of rules.

I don’t have to tell a congregation, many of whom are members or related to members of the armed forces, about the importance and goodness of rules and structure. And yet the 10 commandments are perhaps some rules, some structure for our lives that have been forgotten…reduced only to a faint reference to a few popular movies, like Charlton Heston’s or Mel Brooks’.

These rules, these 10 commandments, if they haven’t been abandoned all together or laughed into irrelevance, if they have been maintained in framed needlepoints by our front doors in our homes or thumbtacked up as Sunday School classroom poster art, I’m afraid they have really just been individualized in our culture. Something to be swallowed during childhood or adolescence…that hopefully it sticks. Like a tetanus shot. But they’re really just rules between me and God. Just privatized Christian citizen rules.

The 10 Commandments for the ancient Israelites, for Martin Luther in his Small Catechism, and for us today – the 10 C’s are about community life. (“privatized Christian”, btw, is an oxymoron)

Archaeologists have shown us that throughout ancient Near Eastern societies, commandments resembling these existed. Most cultures had morality codes etched in stone and written on papyrus, rules by which communities lived. The difference with the biblical version –the 10 C’s here—is that they connected community life to God. In other words, a violation of one’s community obligations—coveting, stealing, dishonoring the elderly, breaking Sabbath—these offenses to one’s community are offenses to God.

(That’s worth reflecting back on these archaic tablets…)

Offense to your community is an offense to God. You dishonor the poor, the immigrant, the stranger—for they are part of our community—you dishonor me, God says. And Jesus crystalized that one, but it was already in the OT! (“gotta be reading with blindfold” Woe to you who do not show hospitality to the alien and the stranger. Still part of Middle Eastern culture…) Offense to your community is an offense to God. So keep the rules, God says, Jesus says.

So where’s the gift in being told the rules?

[Community Garden rules – we’ve been laughing this week…]

Where’s the gift in stern and harsh commands?

Great illustration: yesterday, drumming that makes community workshop...

The space, the pause, the rest, gives shape. Rules give us a structure. They make room. There’s certainly a value to children, blending fingerpaints together together into a sludge of bluhh, but there’s no value of space, no definition. No boundaries or lines. Compare that to a Picasso, or a Gauguin, or an O’Keefe. What great artists do, is that define the space. Our Lutheran tradition talks about the law of God as a “curb” – the 10 C’s, summed up by the Greatest Commandment – love God – these are a “curb”. You can drive off the road in the desert, but thanks be to God for the curb that gives us direction. It gives us a road. And the road leads us back to the community, back to the villages and the cities, back to the poor, back to God, back to caring for our own bodies in healthier ways and back to caring for the earth, back to caring for one another. That’s what it looks like to love God: rooted.

And this is what’s got Jesus so upset today in our Gospel lesson. Why’s he gotta disturb the peace like that? Why’s he have to get all political? Just be quiet Jesus! This is what we do in church: we loose focus on community-directly-linked-to-God. That’s what we do. We start to think about how best we can profit ourselves—whether it’s making money or looking the holiest. That’s what we do, Jesus. So how dare you come in here and upend the tables of my successes.

[pause] If Jesus walked into your life what tables would he upend?

Well the question’s not “if”…this Lenten season. You have chosen to take on the discipline of Lent. Jesus DOES walk into our lives and upend the tables of our sin! The question’s not “if”.

God’s love is so good that it upends the tables of our selfishness, our brokenness, our distractedness, our laziness. Jesus comes in and crashes that party! And thanks be to God for that! That news is so good that we can’t help but say Halleluiah during Lent…did anybody catch that? We broke a great rule. God’s grace is so good that we bounced off of the Lenten road for a second. But that’s OK…we’ll just bump back on. If Jesus has an outburst, why can’t we, right?

The rules – not the halleluia rule, but the rules of the 10 C’s – the rules are an essential part of God’s love. They give definition to God’s grace.

Like any good parent. We make rules and enforce them out of deep, deep love, not vengeance. Rules give shape (like in drumming, or Lent, or gardening, or painting) to our families and our communities. Study those rules this week, honor those rules, endeavor to keep those rules. For in them, Christ offers us this incredible gift of definition to God’s grace.

Thanks be to God for the rules. Thanks be to Christ, who abides with us as we work to honor and keep them. AMEN.