Jesus asks us to give all of ourselves to God and neighbor.  Yet, our gifts often do not live up to this call because often we give out of inspiration or guilt.  Only by receiving faith through the Holy Spirit can we give as the Triune God calls us to give.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 32, year B; text: I Kings, 17:8-16, Mark 12:38-44, Psalm 146

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Our readings today are about two widows.  One widow gave her last two coins to the church and one who gave her last bit of bread to Elijah.  Our lessons are about two incredible women, who gave everything they had to God.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article in the Olive Branch about how these sorts of lessons make us aware of our own guiltiness and sin.  They drive us to fall on our knees before God and seek the grace and forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers on the cross.  To respond with grace is the right instinct to have and true to the Gospel.  But after writing this article a question lingered in my mind:  Does Jesus really ask us to give everything like the two widows in our readings?

I have to answer yes because Jesus is clear in Gospel.  Our call is to give everything to God.

Just before our story today, Jesus proclaims the two greatest commandments are to love the LORD your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  This is tantamount to Jesus saying love God and your neighbor fully.

In the gospel today, Jesus addresses wealthy people who are making a big show of giving large sums of money in church.  And even though their gifts are large, their only giving a small portion of their earnings.  So Jesus lifts up the example of a widow who gives two small copper coins, practically nothing in comparison, and says the widow has given more than the rest of them combined.

Now, just to be clear, through Jesus, we are given grace and forgiveness whether we give 1%, 10%, or 99% of money, and time, and gifts to God.  So our generosity is not a matter of salvation.  But still, it’s clear that the scriptures are always calling us to fully give our hearts to the Triune God and to our neighbor.

And I wonder if we can actually do it.

Sometimes as wealthy Christians in a wealthy nation we give out of guilt.  We give because we feel bad about having more than others.  But that never causes us to give what Jesus is asking us to give.  It causes us to give just enough to feel better about ourselves afterwards.

For example, have you ever walked past a homeless person and then felt guilty about it?  Think about how much that really inspired you to give, and how long that feeling lasted.  If you’re like me, you feel guilty for awhile, and that might inspire you to do something, but not much and afterwards nothing has really changed in your life.  So often we tell ourselves that giving everything we have like the two widows in our stories is impossible.

Yet, we know that all throughout history people have given up everything to follow Jesus.  A few weeks ago we remembered St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis was once a rich young man, who is not altogether unlike the rich young man in the gospel.  The main difference between the two was when St. Francis encountered the gospel, he gave away everything he had to the poor and followed Jesus.

Mother Theresa is another who believed that we could give all of ourselves to God.  She once famously said, “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun.  As to my calling, I belong to the world.  As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.”

One of my heroes of faith is a man named Shane Claiborne who wrote the book Irresistible Revolution.  Shane is a person who gave up everything to follow God.

One day I heard Shane was going to be in Minnesota, so I went to see him speak.  He had a really great presentation, so afterwards I went to talk to him and I was really excited and said, “Hey Shane, my name is Neal, thanks so much for that talk.  It was really great.”  Shane smiled politely and said the usual courtesy, “thanks for coming.”

And I stood there for a second, and after an awkward pause I said, “Your book really changed my life.”

I thought about this afterward and I realized, “well, that’s not true… my life wasn’t changed.”  I was inspired to write a small check to the Simple Way and then go hear him speak, but my life wasn’t really changed.

Inspiration, like guilt, is only a passing feeling.  And just like guilt, giving out of inspiration doesn’t move us towards giving in the way that Jesus calls us to give.

These heroes of the faith inspire us, but there is a disconnect in our lives where we’re inspired by our heroes, but we really don’t think we can be like them.  And whenever we pause to consider giving all of ourselves to God and neighbor like our heroes of faith, what we end up experiencing is either inspiration or guilt, and ultimately we say that we can’t do it.

Giving is not difficult because we don’t care; I believe we care immensely for our neighbors.  We feel guilty because we do care.  So when I look at our gospel today and reading from I Kings, I wonder what keeps us from being the people we want to be and how the Gospel drives us towards great acts of love?

In I Kings Elijah has just proclaimed that a drought will come over the land because the Israelites are worshipping other gods.  And so the drought comes, and Elijah is affected by this drought along with the people.  In order to survive, God tells Elijah to go to a widow in Zarephath of Sidon and she will give him bread and water.  Now, Sidon is an area in the Middle East that worshipped other gods. This is important because it tells us that the widow is not an Israelite.

So God commands Elijah to go to the widow.  He does but there are two problems. First, the widow doesn’t seem to recognize she’s been called by God to feed Elijah, and second, the widow and her family are dying from the drought.

You can hear the anguish of the woman’s voice when she speaks. “As the LORD your God (notice how she says your God, not my God) lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

Her pain and fear and anger are palpable.  It’s like she’s asking “Who are Elijah and his God to ask me to give everything when I have nothing?”  Because she knows that if she gives up her last bits of food she will be staring into pure emptiness and death.

Still, Elijah persists in asking for bread, telling the woman that she will not go hungry.  To me this is shocking and incredibly bold because I would be ashamed to ask someone in this situation for food.  But Elijah trusts God, so he persists saying that God has said the meal and oil used to make the bread would not go empty until it rains again.

Then two incredible things happen that I want to lift up.  First, is that it works.  The meal and oil multiply.  But the second amazing thing that happens in this story is that the widow says yes.  She looks at her meager portions, contemplates having nothing, contemplates death for her and her family, and says yes to Elijah and thereby yes to the God of Israel.  She gives everything to him.

What makes this incredible is that we know the widow doesn’t do it out of guilt, because she is the one who is starving.  If anything, Elijah should feel guilty for asking her for bread.  What’s more, we know that this pagan widow had no faith in the God of Israel to begin with, yet by a miracle she was given faith in God’s word, and God’s word did not come back empty.

True, it is a miracle that her rations increased but to me the greater miracle is that this pagan woman in a terrible situation said yes to God.

I think what helps me understand both miracles better is a phrase I learned in seminary, creatio ex nihilo.  This is a Latin phrase and what this means is that God is constantly creating (creatio) something out of nothing (ex nihilo).  There are tons of examples of this all over the Bible.  In Genesis the story of Sarah and Abraham teaches us that God gives Sarah a child in barren womb.  In Exodus, God gives manna and water and quail to his people in the desert.  And in the Gospel, Jesus is raised from death to life.  In all these stories God takes something that looks like nothing and through faith and trust creates something incredible.

And this idea of creatio ex nihilo helps us understand how the saints are able to give everything they have to God.  These people were given faith by God so much that when they face poverty and death and destruction they see emptiness, but they believe, and hope, and trust that God is at work – that God is doing something in empty places.

To have this kind of faith is difficult in America because we are a consumerist culture and we’re told every day to have faith in things, not in God.

In college I was a business communications major, and one of the things we learned is that businesses don’t sell you products anymore.  They try to sell you love and community and freedom because these are things the human heart actually desires.  Next time you turn on the TV during commercials hit the mute button and try to guess what they are actually selling you, or what they are actually wanting you to believe.

For example Best Buy’s logo awhile back (maybe still?) was, “You Happier.”  Think about what that’s telling us.  It’s promising the emptiness in our lives can be filled by cool electronics.  I’m not picking on Best Buy because nearly every company does this these days.  And this message is so pervasive that sometimes without knowing it we believe the message that things do make us happier.

And when we start trusting in things, there is not a lot of room to trust in God.

And its not just things that we trust in, sometimes we trust ideas and politicians and a number of other things.  But as often as not, they let us down.  I don’t know if this past week’s election was good or bad for you, but at the end of the day as Christians we have to claim that the government is not where we put our trust.  Politicians make endless promises, but I think we know that whether they are well intentioned or not, they can’t fulfill them all.

As our Psalm tells us today, “put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no help.”

The world makes lots of promises, but the Triune God tells us they are empty promises.

This week Mount Olive is sending out pledge cards in the mail to all its members.  And I hope when we are called to give to Mount Olive, or to the poor, or to the widow, or whatever ways we are called to give, that it is not out of guilt, but out of trust that when God calls us to give of ourselves we trust that the Triune God is at work doing incredible things like turning our emptiness into community and love and freedom and grace and forgiveness.

And I pray that like the widow of Zarephath, the Holy Spirit comes to each of us, so that we may receive this faith and say yes to God and then believe that God is at work in our lives calling us even now to do things that we don’t expect.  Let us say yes to God’s word and respond, not out of inspiration or guilt, but out of the faith we are given by the Holy Spirit.  Let us give our whole heart to Jesus.

Amen.

The Incarnate Son of God is with us now, offering life on this side of the grave, promising to be our life and joy in the bleak ugliness of a world of death, and giving us our song of Alleluia.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, All Saints Sunday, year B; texts: John 11:(17-31) 32-44; Revelation 21:1-6; Isaiah 25:6-9

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

This is a day when we speak of death like no other except perhaps Easter Day itself.  We gather to worship, as we always do, with those who have died and are at rest in this nave, at the side of our gathering space.  We gather to worship, as we always do, with those saints who have gone before us and surround the throne of God, sharing our praise and our worship.  We gather to worship, and on this day we sing of those saints of times past and of our past, icons of the faith and loved ones who taught us the faith, and we remember that they even now live in the presence of the God whom we have gathered once more to worship this day.  And in this space it’s a beautiful thing: beautiful sights, beautiful music, beautiful words, beautiful smells, beautiful people whose embrace of peace gives us life.  Our celebration of all the saints who from their labors rest is one of the more beautiful liturgies we do every year.

But this is a day when we speak of death like no other except perhaps Easter Day itself.  And on this day we hear Martha of Bethany speak a truth that is not beautiful, it is ugly.  On this day we encounter two sisters who see nothing but grief and sadness, anger and disappointment, not beauty and joy.  Martha’s truth is the reason: “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”  Nothing can sugarcoat her reality, no words, no song, no beauty.  Her brother sickened, suffered, struggled, and died.  And now he rots, and he smells.  And if the Lord Jesus doesn’t understand that, Martha thinks, well, someone ought to remind him.

This is a day when we speak of death like no other except perhaps Easter Day itself.  So let us not forget what dear Martha said, the truth about this death we all face.  It is ugly.  It smells.  It terrifies us.  It is absence, not presence.  Helplessness, not strength.  There are tears.  It disrupts our lives, causes us to wake at night in a sweat.  Whether it’s the sudden death of a dear brother in Christ from our midst, or the unspeakable tragedy of hundreds dying at the waves of an incomprehensible storm, or the lingering, painful dying of someone we love, or the catastrophe of children lacking enough food to see their fifth birthday or even their first, there is little beautiful about death for us.  We cannot live a day without the presence of death, and to be honest, the fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead 2,000 years ago really has no meaning for us today.  Good for him.  Good for Lazarus.  But we stand at gravesides in so many ways in our lives, the people we connect with in this story are these two sisters.  Because they, like us, are on this side of the grave.  They, like us, have faced the ugliness of death.  They, like us, have questions of Jesus, the Son of God.

These two beautiful sisters help us.  And they help us in the way they are different from each other.

Martha, the bold one, the one who is unafraid to speak up about her sister when she’s not helping with the dinner for their guest, Martha reaches the depths of her anger and disappointment in her pain.  She comes out on the road to confront Jesus, her Lord and master, the one in whom she hoped.  She is so angry that her brother died, as we all can be, but she is the more angry because she believes Jesus has caused this death by his indifference.

Her disappointment and wrath are palpable as she goes to meet him, not waiting for him to arrive at their house: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Death faced them, their beloved brother suffered, and they had sent word to the only One whom they knew could help.  They’d seen him heal others, this would be easy for him.  But he blew it.  He didn’t care.  He didn’t come.  And now my brother lies dead, and he stinks.  And all this stinks, Jesus.

Mary, the quiet one, the one who sat at Jesus’ feet to listen while her sister banged pots in the kitchen in annoyance with her, Mary reaches the depths of her sadness and disappointment in her pain.  She does not come out to meet Jesus at first.  She remains in the house, overcome by grief.  She weeps in her loss and pain, unable to speak, unable to do anything.  And only when he calls for her does she come out to see him.

Then her sadness spills out, her disappointment: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Death faced them, their beloved brother suffered, and they had sent word to the only One whom they knew could help.  They’d seen him heal others, this would be easy for him.  But he didn’t come.  And Lazarus died.  And Mary can only weep.

And for us, our grief and fear at death moves between the anger and sadness of these sisters.  But mostly, we share their disappointment: if Jesus is who we say he is, if he is the Son of God, if he truly loves us and can heal, then how can all this happen?  If the Triune God has created a beautiful world, and given us all we need, and loves us enough to become one of us, then how can any of this be allowed?  Why all this ugliness, this stench, this desolation that seems to pervade the world?

Isaiah says it well, it’s as if there’s a great death-shroud spread over the entire world, and if we sometimes get glimpses of sunshine and light, it’s only when there’s a brief tear in the fabric.

What is so powerful about Martha is her clarity of what she thinks she needs at this point.

Jesus doesn’t defend himself.  He says, “Your brother will rise again.”  And isn’t this the promise we always remember?  There will be a resurrection.  There is life in the world to come.  It’s the promise of Isaiah, and of Revelation today.  It’s the promise of Easter Day, the resurrection of Jesus himself, which promises life for us all after death.  That in the days to come, on the mountain of the Lord, in the new creation, the Lord will make all things new, will wipe away every tear, and death will be no more.  This is the salvation we have waited for, says Isaiah, says us.

Martha wants to hear none of this.  Not now.  She is still on this side of the grave, and has no interest in a future promise, at least not right now.  She says to Jesus, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  But she seems to suggest that doesn’t do anything for her problem with Jesus.

And perhaps that’s an honesty we would admit if we could.  As much as we believe and hope in the resurrection of the dead on the last day, and so we do, there are times when that hope doesn’t seem sufficient to counter the ugliness of today.  When we, like Martha, aren’t terribly helped by promises such as Isaiah and the Revelation give today.

It’s not that we don’t believe that we will be together in eternal life after we die.  Certainly we do.  Certainly Martha does.  It’s just that right now we’re not there.  We’re grieving, or angry, or disappointed with God.  We’re struggling with senseless tragedies and painful losses of loved ones.  And hope for the future sometimes doesn’t seem like enough.

Yes, yes, that’s beautiful, we say with Martha.  But we’re in the midst of the ugly right now.  What will you do about that, Lord?

And since we’re standing with the sisters, let’s look where they are looking.  Let’s look into the face of Jesus when we ask that question, and see, and open our ears and hear.

Because Jesus’ most important acts in this story happen before he ever gets them to roll the stone from Lazarus’ tomb.  Here are the really important things he does for them and for us:

He stands unafraid of Martha’s anger and disappointment and meets her where she needs to be met.  You have theological questions, Martha?  Let me give you one, he says.  What if you understood that I AM the resurrection and the life, and that you have life in me now and always, even if you die, and if you believe in me you will never die?

He isn’t just talking about resurrection at the end time, because Martha wants more than that.  And he gives her more.  He promises that trusting in him regardless of apparent circumstances, regardless of how ugly things seem, will mean life, even on this side of the grave.  And he asks Martha if she believes this.

But he also stands unafraid of Mary’s paralyzing sadness and disappointment and meets her where she needs to be met.  He doesn’t offer her theological argument, because Mary doesn’t want that.  He stands with her, loves her.  And weeps with her.

And in so doing he puts into action what he was telling Martha: that he will never leave us alone on this side of the grave, and he will grieve with us, and weep at the ugliness and stench of this broken world alongside us.  And that he will bless us and our grief by being present with us in it.  By being resurrection and life in the midst of an ugly, dead world.

And you know what?  As we stand with these sisters, then the question put to Martha in words and to Mary in presence is now put to us: is this enough?  Do you believe?

Do you believe, says the Lord, that I love you enough not to abandon you here in this ugliness?  That not only do I hold your loved ones and all the dead in my arms and raise them to everlasting life, but I come to be with you now, and will never leave you?

Do you believe that I am here in this place as you worship, blessing you with beautiful words, beautiful music, beautiful smells, beautiful sights, beautiful people to embrace you with peace, because that gift of beauty can help you through the ugliness?

Do you believe, says the Lord, that I actually come to you in that bit of bread and wine, that it’s me, your Resurrection and your Life, and that through that meal together you are fed by my life and sustenance and you are sharing that meal even with all those who have gone before you?  That my Word is alive and active in this place and in your lives and will lead and guide you into all truth, truth that frees and gives you life?

Do you believe this? Jesus says to us.  Is it enough? he asks.

John the seer heard these words in his vision, a voice coming from the throne of God himself, words he shares with us today: “See, the home of God is among mortals.  “He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.”  And the Son of God says to us today, Do you realize that this vision is not just of the future but of the present?  That I am with you always, now, on this side of the grave?  That the home of the Triune God is among you, and God is living with you now?

This is Jesus’ answer to the sisters, and to us: I was here when Lazarus was sick, and died.  And I am here now, with you.  And in every way that matters I will always be with you, because this is where I am home, with you.  And I will hold you and bless you in the midst of all suffering and pain that this ugly world has, until you can see its beauty as I do.

This is a day when we speak of death like no other except perhaps Easter Day itself.  

And we speak truthfully of the ugliness of death, but it does not overwhelm us or destroy us, because of Easter Day itself.  Because this Jesus, our Lord, the Son of God, has destroyed death’s power and is able to keep the promise he made to those sisters and to us, to be with us here, on this side of the grave, until it is our time to go to our own rest.

Because the home of God is among mortals, and it is here we need our tears wiped and our questions answered, here we need the gift of trust and faith in the One who did not stay away but has come to be with us always.  So that it is more true than anything we know that we say, “even at the grave we sing our song: Alleluia.  Alleluia.”  And it is beautiful.  More beautiful than we ever could have imagined.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God’s truth for us, that we are loved and forgiven and called to new life is freedom for us.  We are free in God’s love to reject it, to make no room in our hearts, but there is always room in God’s heart for us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Reformation Sunday; texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 8:31-36

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We’re all powerfully tired of the election by now, I’m sure.  And one of the things I’m tired of is the abuse and misuse of the concept of freedom.  Americans have a convenient way of trumpeting the words of our founders and shaping the tune to mean whatever they want it to mean.  So we find ourselves each election year struggling with this peculiar American sin of people wanting freedom to do what they want, but who don’t want others to have the same freedoms.  Or people who want to be free of the government’s influence and control, but who wish the government to control others.  People who fail to realize that denying freedom to others always restricts and abridges their own freedom.  Freedom is a wonderful thing.  But we’ve become so used to having it that we barely recognize when we misuse it, or deny it to others.

Which makes Jesus’ words so compelling as they arrive in our lives near the end of this election cycle.  Jesus promises freedom to those who live in his word.  It’s a good thing, we think, to be free.  But if that means we have responsibility for our own lives, and for the lives of others, that’s also a very frightening thing if you think about it.  So when Jesus tells us today that when we live, abide, dwell in his word we find the truth that frees us, we need to be careful to ask ourselves if we know what that means, and once we know, if we want that freedom after all.

In one sense, we’ve never lived without this promise of freedom, for most of us have lived most of our lives hearing the promise of God’s forgiveness.

Jesus brings up the idea of slavery versus freedom, concepts easily understood in his day, but perhaps less clear to us who live in a relatively free society.  Those who do not face the reality of their sin, who simply act and live without thought, who continue trapped in their broken human nature without recognizing it, live as slaves to sin, Jesus says, even though they might think they are free.

Those who always know it’s someone else’s fault when they do wrong, live as slaves to sin.  Those who judge others while justifying their own wrong, live as slaves to sin.  Those who don’t resist their own tendencies to do wrong, but go with “it’s the way I’ve always been,” live as slaves to sin.

And it’s attractive, that’s why we do it.  You never have to face the hard questions, make the hard decisions.  Just act as you want, and justify it on that basis.  Go with the flow, and you don’t have to work to be different.

And so God’s love for us in Jesus is a word of life: we can be free from that bondage.  We need not be controlled by our instincts, unable to choose.  Forgiven and loved by God in Jesus, we are free.

We’re free to make decisions about our lives, to do what we choose to do.  To take responsibility for our lives and for the world.  And that’s God’s real problem.  Once we’re free, we can still choose wrongly as easily as well as when we were unaware of our enslavement.  And that we certainly do.

God takes a great risk in freeing us: what if we don’t choose well with the responsibility we’re given?

We don’t often think of God’s faith in us, but that’s the reality of our lives.  Think of a parent’s faith in a child.  At each stage of a child’s life there are things a parent needs to learn to trust the child to do.

And for that child, the trust is the key: When I think of times my children have wanted to know if I trusted them, the worst thing I could do was voice my doubts.  I needed simply to give them the message, the concrete sense, that I did trust them.

And of course parents have doubts.  They don’t know at any of the stages of their child’s life if they can handle that new level of trust.  And children often have very high opinions of their own ability to be worthy of that trust.  But at some point if any are going to be effective and good parents, they take a leap of faith and trust their children.  They are there if they fall; they pray that they can fix things if they go seriously wrong; but they must learn to trust.

And this is God’s reality: freeing us from slavery to sin, giving us freedom to choose right from wrong, to choose to love God and neighbor or choose not to, all lead God to a leap of faith.

There is no guarantee that we will live in love with God and each other.  In fact, human history suggests that it’s a good bet we won’t.  Yet Jesus reveals to us that the Triune God has decided to take that risk.  To risk faith in us.

And the image our readings today use to show this is the image of our hearts.  God makes a new covenant, a new promise, in Jeremiah.  Where God’s law, the way of God for us in the world, is written on our hearts, so we know it intimately.  And God promises to forgive our failings, even to forget them.

But the risk is that we won’t allow this to be written on our hearts, to change our hearts and lives.  And powerfully, that’s just what Jesus says in today’s Gospel has happened.

“You look for an opportunity to kill me,” he says, “because there is no place in you for my word.”  That’s incredibly chilling, hearing these two words from God together.  “I will write this on your heart – but there is no place in you for my word.”

Our freedom means this: we can make room for God in our hearts.  Or we can close them.

We can open our hearts to see all we have is gift from God, entrusted to us, and give back joyously and generously.  Or we can close our hearts and see all that we have is ours to keep.

We can open our hearts to look at others and see Jesus, and so reach out to them in love, offer them grace and forgiveness, be God’s love for them.  Or we can close our hearts and judge others and treat them as less than we are, unworthy of our love and attention.

We can open our hearts and see our brokenness and sin, and confess it to God, trusting in God’s love and forgiveness.  Or we can close our hearts and pretend we are righteous, needing no forgiveness or correction or grace from God because we know what is right even more than God.

“You look for an opportunity to kill me,” Jesus says, “because there is no place in you for my word.”  Is there room in our hearts for God’s love, God’s direction, God’s guidance?  Or in our freedom are we keeping it closed, lest by coming in God might change us, redirect us, make each of us into a different person?

We’ve been hearing this from the Scriptures now for most of the summer and fall, that God wishes to change us from within, make us new people, free us that we might become like the children of God we were meant to be.  But are we still seeking to kill Jesus’ influence in our lives, in our hearts, if it means we’re going to be someone different, as if we have no room for him in our hearts?

This is a hard word to think on.  But as we do, we remember this: no matter whether or not we have room for God in our hearts, what we know absolutely is that there is always room in God’s heart for us.

“If you continue in my Word,” says Jesus, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  And this promise is never taken back.  This gift is never withdrawn due to rejection.  Even after the disciples’ betrayal and failure on Thursday and Friday, the risen Jesus returns to them in love Sunday, and after.  Offering them forgiveness, even breakfast, and loving them.  That love is not withdrawn.  There is always room in God’s heart for you.  And that is our hope.

And the miracle is, no matter how often we’ve closed our hearts to God, not only is there always room in God’s heart for us, God always takes the chance that this next time, this once, we’ll make room in our hearts, too.  Again, the risen Jesus comes to the disciples and not only forgives and loves them.  He calls them to love, invites them to follow once again, charges them with a commission to spread God’s love to the world.

Jesus takes the leap of faith once more.  And so Jesus continues to do with us each day.

Freedom is a frightening thing.  It’s easier to be a slave to sin, to shun responsibility for our actions and our lives.

But freedom as God gives us is life.  Freedom in the love of God is life.  Freedom to be the love of God is life.

Do we have any room for this in our hearts?  Our good news is that God’s heart has room for us, for you, and always will.  God has taken a leap of faith in you, in all of us, hoping we’ll respond with our love for God and for the world.  This is the truth that is Jesus.  Once we know it, then we’ll really know what it is to be free.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen