God’s only way is to draw you into the cross, to become that sacrificial, self-giving, non-violent, peacemaking, world changing love. And things will be healed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Feast of the Holy Cross
Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17; Numbers 21:4b-9

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

Easter really did a number on us.

Because of Easter we’ve created a serious misunderstanding of the cross.

We know the women and men who followed Jesus were stunned, dismayed, almost broken by the cross. But then he rose from the dead and it seems clear they thought it was back to business as usual. As if the cross was just an unpleasantness best put in the rear-view mirror.

Because before the Ascension they asked: “now will you restore Israel?” It’s as if they admit they made a mistake not expecting the cross, but now that he’s alive, “back to plan A, right? Destroy Rome, make us number one?”

We’re the same, though. We’ve made the cross into a logo to put all over our things and we think of it as a past event. For centuries the Church taught that in the cross of Christ we are forgiven and given life after we die, and that’s the end of it. As if Good Friday is a one-off thing, that if you believe in it you’ve got your ticket to salvation. Many think that’s exactly what Jesus is saying today in John 3.

Paul begs to differ. For Paul, the cross is still real and active. Good Friday is every day for those joined to Christ.

Paul’s words today make no sense in the way we usually think of the cross.

Paul believes it’s the current stumbling block and scandal of the cross that’s the threat. The current foolishness of the cross that drives people away. Not what Jesus did long ago, but what God is still doing today and what we’re called to do today.

For Paul the cross is still the main thing. The only thing. The point of it all. The cross is God’s love, period. The cross is the love you are asked to love, period. It’s risky, self-giving, vulnerable, sacrificial. It makes no sense to people who want to protect themselves at all costs, it’s foolish. It’s offensive, a scandal, to people who want to believe God dominates with power, and so should they.

For you, then, is the cross a symbol of a past event, a logo you carry and wear? Or is it your reminder, your job description, your mystery, your calling? The current and only word on God’s love? Whether you wear it, bow to it in worship, make its shape on your body or not, the only thing that matters is if the cross is still real to you. Still active. Still the only thing worth knowing about the Triune God, and the only way God works even now.

That is, is the cross is your idol, or your marching orders?

If we weren’t celebrating Holy Cross today, we’d have heard the story of the golden calf as our first reading. Israel wanted less of a relationship with God and more of something controllable. Less of a God who scared them and gave out commandments and more of a beautiful gold thing they could hold and pray to, but didn’t ask a lot of them.

And Moses’ bronze serpent that Jesus also mentions? Six or seven hundred years later King Hezekiah of Judah, reforming after a number of evil kings, had to destroy it. Israel had kept it all those years. But instead of seeing it as a reminder of God’s grace, they came to worship it as an idol.

Yet Jesus still links himself to that story. Maybe he’s giving another chance to focus on the God who comes to heal and save, so that no one will perish, instead of on a symbol or a statue.

If we make the cross our idol instead of seeing a constant reminder of the love of God that is broken for the world, the love of God that draws all people and all things into God’s heart, the love of God that you and I are called to bear and live and be in the world, we’re just playing the same old game. We’d be better off tearing down our crosses and destroying them.

Find the foolishness and you’ll see. Trip on the stumbling block and you’ll see.

Please do trust that at the cross God’s love is for you and brings you healing and salvation in this world and after you die. That’s absolutely your promise and the promise for all God’s children.

But if that’s the end of it, you’re no better off than before you heard that promise. You’re like those who paint the cross on shields and armor and warplanes, who wear it visibly while doling out violence and oppression and hatred. Who use Christ’s cross as their own personal talisman which, they believe, makes them strong and leads them to disdain the weak.

But you can hold the cross as sign of your salvation and also focus on the cross as your guide, your calling, your only job. Then you’ll see. You’ll see how foolish it feels to let go of things you cling to for the sake of loving others. You’ll see how quickly you’re scandalized that God loses in order to win, and asks you to do the same. How easy it is to trip over your fears, your anxieties, your need for security, your prejudices, and not love as God loves.

But when you find that foolishness, that scandal, rejoice. It means you’re on the right path. You’re finally hearing the cross, seeing the cross, embracing the cross. The cross that shows God forgives all your stumbling and rejection, and then constantly carries you forward to more foolishness and scandal.

But what’s the good of all this? How does this help this world?

Will it stop the bloody proliferation of guns and violence in this country? The hatred spilling from our leaders for the weak and vulnerable? The terror of so many on the margins here that their lives are in danger? All the pain and suffering we see? Not immediately. But all the pain and suffering we’re experiencing comes from a world in love with violence and power and domination. That seeks self-interest above all things. A country increasingly devoted to might makes right. That’s how we got into this mess.

And God says the only way out is to draw you into the cross. Draw me into the cross. Draw God’s children, one by one, into the cross. So that we become that vulnerable, self-giving, non-violent, peacemaking, world changing love. And things will be healed, eventually.

Starting with those closest to you. Begin with what’s foolish about this love, scandalous about this love when you’re asked to love those closest to you, or at work, or next door. You’ll see how hard that love will be. But you’ll also be amazed at the healing it brings when you just do it.

There’s nothing wrong with Easter, by the way.

Easter is the promise that when you risk the cross, live the cross, embrace the cross as the shape of your love and life, nothing can stop that love. Not even pain and death. Easter says the path of cross-shaped love always ends in life, even if most of the time it feels like losing. Christ’s resurrection is the gift of life in the Spirit that empowers you to go back to Good Friday every day and learn what you can learn there from God. See what you can see. Find the path to that hill that is your path.

And don’t be afraid. Look to the shape of God’s love and be drawn into it for your life and the life of the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Jesus’ shocking command to “hate father and mother, spouse and children, siblings, yes, and even life itself,” stops us in our tracks. Christ’s words lead us to step back and reconsider our allegiances.

Vicar Erik Nelson
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 23 C
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon; Luke 14:25-33

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

What in the world is Jesus doing here? “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, spouse and children, siblings, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” What?

What is Jesus doing here? This is a question that surely every generation of Christians have asked when they got to this part of the Bible.

This seems to fly directly in the face of the Fourth Commandment. Remember from Confirmation, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” How do you square that with “hate your family”?

Remember, Jesus is the same God who taught us that commandment originally. I think he’s making this bombastic statement to stop us in our tracks and make us say, “What in the world is Jesus doing here?”

I think with this statement, by saying that we need to hate our parents and families and our very lives, He’s not really talking about our families. He’s not really talking about our lives. He’s speaking against idolatry. He’s speaking against all of the ways, big and small, that we hold onto our identities and relationships not as gifts from God but instead as dividing lines and the basis for structures that separate us.

In our time, and in his, I think these words especially speak against the sin of nationalism, which is a form of idolatry, which Pastor Crippen has spoken against in the last few weeks. 

When Jesus says, “hate your family,” he is saying something radical about society that we might not really pick up on. American society values the family but overall we are quite an individualist culture. Family is important to us, yes, but it doesn’t really define every aspect of our lives, as it would for the biblical audience.

When Jesus’ listeners heard him say this, they would have thought about much more than just their nuclear family. In that society, which was much more communal, more collective, your family was the key to your whole identity. Your family was all wrapped up in your nationality, your religion, your eternal legacy … your relationship to your family, and therefore to your nation, your religion, your everything, was an existential thing. And so for Jesus to say this was even more radical in his context than it is in ours.

Earlier in this Gospel of Luke, the Evangelist includes an extensive genealogy of Jesus, showing how even he was tied up in his culture’s idea that family = nation = identity = purpose. It was so important to the authors of the Gospels to show Jesus’ connection to legendary King David that two different gospels offer two different genealogies that converge on David. We have numerous Scriptures that describe a king who will restore the throne of David.

Our reading this week starts out by telling us that large crowds were following Jesus. Maybe some were following because they knew he offered free food and healing. Maybe some were following out of genuine love for this humble rabbi.

But I’d bet that there was a substantial portion of the crowd who were following him because they hoped he would be the one who would restore the throne of David, cast out the Romans, and usher in a new kingdom. There are some today who follow Jesus because they hope he will build a kingdom that casts out their enemies.

But that is not the Christ who we know in the gospels. The Christ of the Scriptures is the one who tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. The Christ of the Scriptures is gentle and kind but ferocious in standing up for people who are being cast away. The Christ of the Scriptures is one who could use Godly power at any time, and yet took up his cross for our sake. 

The Christ we know in Scripture is a king, the Son of David, but he’s not a king who ruled like David, taking what he wanted, conquering neighbors, or casting out undesirables. He’s a king whose reign sees tyrants pulled down and the lowly lifted up.

When Jesus tells us here to take up our cross and follow him, he’s reminding us of where our allegiance really should lie. We should love our given families, of course, but our first allegiance is to God and to the chosen family that God has given us, the kingdom that Christ has brought us into. The reign of Christ is a family of outsiders who have been brought inside.

In our other reading, the letter to Philemon, we see an example of what that looks like lived out. Paul, the author of the letter, is a Roman citizen. In his day, that was the ultimate insider designation. With that title came special privileges and rights and gave him a high position in the Roman hierarchy. And he’s writing to Philemon about Onesimus, a person who the text describes as a slave. In Paul’s context, slaves were considered to be property, not even people. And yet, because of the way that the reign of Christ reshapes our relationships, Paul describes Onesimus as a “beloved brother.” (v. 16) He even refers to Onesimus as his “own heart.” (v. 12)

The relationship between Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon is totally changed by the reign of Christ. Paul tells Philemon and Onesimus that they are no longer slaver and enslaved. They’re brothers. Paul’s place in the Roman hierarchy fades away in his encounter with Christ. His high achievements are worthless compared to his place in the family of God. His allegiance is not to any political or religious structure, but to Christ, first and foremost.

When our primary allegiance is to Christ and his kingdom, our family includes all of Christ’s family. Christ’s allegiances become our allegiances.

And so, our allegiance is to our unhoused neighbors, who we ignore on the street corners. To children who die to gun violence, because of the inaction of our communities and legislators. To families ripped apart by government raids, which our country voted for in massive, historic numbers. To people dying in Gaza, who live at the other end of American weapons.

Our love for Christ should look like our love for these people who Christ loves, which is all people, but particularly the people on the margins and the outside.

And while we might start feeling self-righteous or holier-than-thou because of our advocacy or our good works or who we voted for or not, we need to be reminded that our place in the family is not because of any of our own deserving. In fact, I’d bet most of us can think of times when our own self-interest or our own allegiances separated us from others or put other people down or left other people out. I know I can think of plenty of times that my own need to be right has triumphed over the need for me to be kind.

And yet, God doesn’t leave us in our separation. God has chosen each and every one of us, before and beyond anything we do or don’t do. God’s infinite grace has been poured out on each of us, and has brought us together into one family.

And like any family, there are going to be ones we disagree with. I’m sure we all have people we feel like we just can’t understand why they believe what they believe or do what they do.

But also as family, I don’t think we can just shake the dust off our feet and walk away. I fear we have a call to listen to them, seek to understand them, maybe let ourselves be changed by them, and tell them our truths, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

It’s easy for us, who are in this room together, who are about to share the Lord’s Supper, to say that we are in relationship and in communion … it’s harder to acknowledge that we are in relationship and we have a responsibility to the people outside this room who make us ashamed to say that we’re Christians.

And even as I say all these things, we know that we won’t be able to do everything right … We’ll mess up and say the wrong things … We’ll hurt each other’s feelings and get into messes but at the end of the day … We come back to grace and faith.

In the readings this week, Christ tells us to count the cost and take up our cross. But in reality there’s no way we can count the cost. None of us knows what’s coming. We can’t know what will be asked of us.

All we know is that God is faithful. God has not left us alone. God has given us each other for companionship and solidarity. God has given us the Word to show us the Way.  And God has given us this meal we’re about to receive to build us into one body, broken for the world.

May it be so.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Jesus’ admonition to humble ourselves is not only advice for gracious living. It encapsulates the entire gospel.

The Rev. Beth Gaede, guest preacher
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 22 C
Text: Luke 14:1, 7-14

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

Pride has long been thought of as the worst of the seven deadly sins. It’s the root of all evil, the basis for Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden. “Pride goeth before a fall,” we read in the book of Proverbs. C. S. Lewis calls pride “the complete anti-God state of mind.”

To overcome this deep sin, pastors and theologians have taught, we must become completely self-giving, taking no thought for our own interests but seeking only the good of the other. We must always strive to practice pride’s opposite, the virtue of humility.

Except. Except maybe that’s not the complete story. Back in 1960, a theologian named Valerie Saiving challenged this understanding of sin. Too much selflessness, too much self-giving, can be dangerous, she said. Far from producing an ideal, virtuous person, this view of sin is a temptation to be less than God created us to be—a temptation, she said, to which women are especially vulnerable.

I suspect that if Saiving were writing today, she would also explore the danger of selflessness for people of color, queers, people who are poor or disabled in some way, and other folks who have historically had less power in their societies.[1]

So which is it? Is pride a force for destruction? Or is selflessness, humility, an equal or even greater danger for some people?

The parable we hear in today’s gospel reading is different from most. Usually a parable begins, “The kingdom of God is like …” or “God is like.…” Today, Jesus tells a parable about how we ought to live.

The setting is ordinary: a meal, a common scene for Luke. The storyline is also ordinary: guests are deciding where to sit at the table. In Jesus’ culture, guests of honor were seated close to the host, and those who were not so important sat farther away. The arrangements were all about status. Of course, we practice versions of this today. Picture the carefully planned seating chart for a wedding or other big celebration.

In the parable, though, Jesus challenges the people of higher status. Sit at the foot of the table, he tells them. Don’t commit the sin of pride. Practice a little humility.

Now this is the point in a sermon when I often stop to ask, sometimes literally and sometimes only for my own reflection, So what does this passage, this story, this teaching mean for us—for you, my listeners? What is the good news?

On Monday, I thought I knew what I was going to say today. The point of the parable, I was going to tell you, depends on what message you need to hear. It speaks to each of us where we are, whether one of the proud who needs to be humbled or one of the hungry and selfless who needs to be raised up. By God’s grace, having nothing, whatever the reason, means having everything.

And then. And then Wednesday happened. Mount Olive is seven blocks from George Floyd Square, the scene of a public murder, walking distance from some of our homes and from places where many of us shop, eat, and travel. Mount Olive is less than a block from Lake Street, from the businesses and homes still recovering from riots and fires four years ago.

And now, four miles from our corner, another tragedy occurs. The Annunciation School community gathers for mass during the first week of classes, and two children are killed, twenty others are wounded, and the shooter dies by their own hand.

It seems everyone I’ve talked with about Annunciation these past few days has had a story to tell. Some of you heard the shots or wondered where the police cars and emergency vehicles were racing to. One of you texted me, “The eight-year-old that was killed lives a block from me. An eighth grader on the same block was shot in the arm. A daughter of a neighbor’s friend was shot in the head.”

What does a parable about the seating arrangements at a dinner have to say to us at a time like this? Jesus tells this parable as he travels toward Jerusalem, toward his death. As Luke’s gospel is structured, the parable falls about halfway between Jesus’ birth and his crucifixion.

Luke’s stories around Jesus’ birth ring with promise. When Mary learns that she will give birth to the Son of God, she proclaims that in the reign of God, the powerful, the proud, are brought low, and the hungry, the selfless, are filled with good things. Her son, the newborn savior, will bring God’s healing to all people, even the lowliest shepherd.

Luke’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion assures us that his suffering and death are for all people—Jew and Gentile, men and women, even his evil executioners.

Jesus’ birth; his preaching, teaching, and healing; his suffering and death are the fulfillment of God’s love for humanity.

The parable we hear today isn’t just a lesson about good etiquette or even a teaching about how to love our neighbor. It’s an illustration of the way God’s healing changes us, changes the whole world. And in a week like this one, that’s a truth we need to cling to and a promise we can claim.

God is at work now reconciling relationships among individuals and restoring all creation to God’s own self. Because of that healing, we can sing, even in times of deep grief, “I come with joy, a child of God, forgiven, loved, and free.”

Our daily lives won’t change in an instant. Living into God’s grace and learning to live as God’s beloved children takes time. Whether the word we need to hear is “Sit down lower” or “Come up higher,” we’re a journey. But it’s a journey we take together—as a community, with God—even in difficult, frightening times. In the end, God’s love makes us one.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Valerie Saiving, “The Human Situation: A Feminine View,” in Womanspirit Rising [Harper & Row, 1979]

We can’t defend Christianity or Christians, or even God, with words; only by lives transformed by the Holy Spirit into Christly, self-giving love.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
St. Bartholomew, Apostle
Texts: John 1:43-51; Psalm 12; 1 Corinthians 12:27-31a (adding 31b and 13:1-3)

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

Nathanael Bartholomew asks a skeptical question.

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Maybe it’s as simple as the common prejudice we often see between two small towns, where everyone in Bethsaida knows nothing good comes from Nazareth. Whatever it is, Nathanael is skeptical of Philip’s hope in this rabbi only because Jesus is from Nazareth.

But here’s another version of the question: “Can anything good come from a Christian?” There are lots of Nathanaels in our world who ask this. So once again: what does it mean to call ourselves “Christian” in a world where so many Christians do and say and promote horrible things, where they’re the loudest Christian voices anyone hears? Last week we focused on listening carefully to these fellow Christians whose beliefs and actions offend us and don’t seem to be of Christ. But now we have to consider those outside the Christian community who look at us with disdain and distrust, paint us with the same brush as the others.

The worst thing we can do is say, “We’re not like those other Christians.” It’s tempting; I’ve said it myself. But I no longer think we can do that, not with integrity and honesty. First, because sometimes we are like them. But also because words ultimately mean nothing. If people can’t tell by who we are who the Christ we belong to truly is, any protests we make have no value.

But look at how Jesus handled Nathanael’s critique.

Jesus answers his skeptical attitude with admiration.

He says, “This is nice – here’s someone who doesn’t lie.” Jesus doesn’t try to convince Nathanael he’s wrong about Nazareth. Jesus simply is himself. He values honesty, so he praises Nathanael for not holding back on his views.

And then Jesus invites Nathanael to know him as he really is, letting Jesus’ own actions be what Nathanael learns to see and trust. “You will see greater things than these,” Jesus says, and it’s true. Nathanael will see in Jesus’ life and actions the hope of the world.

Jesus knows that actions are the only truth we can offer the world.

We can only earn respect and trust by how we embody Christ. As we sang in the psalm today, lots of people lie about who they are, while the needy go hungry and the poor cry out in misery. In last week’s psalm God called us to act, to “save the weak and orphan, defend the humble and needy, rescue the weak and the poor and deliver them from the power of the wicked.” That’s God’s way. When we live that way we reveal a truth about us worth knowing by others.

Paul believes this deeply. He has a long twelfth chapter in First Corinthians about varied spiritual gifts, about the differing members of the Body of Christ, ending in today’s reading. But if you keep reading into chapter 13, as we did today with a few added verses, Paul says no gifts are as important as Christly love. You can speak like angels, he says, but without love it sounds like a banging garbage can lid. Without love, no wisdom, no vision, no faith even is worth anything, Paul says. Love that embodies Christ in the world, which Paul describes in detail in the following verses, is the only true witness. Without our living in that love, nothing we say about who we think we are matters at all.

So how can we become what believe we are?

Well, Paul calls love the greatest spiritual gift. So we need the Holy Spirit to help us embody Christ in every moment of our days. To transform us into people whose lives are deeply rooted in love and bearing Christ’s love, not just in this building, but in our neighborhood, and the neighborhoods we all live in.

We’ve done much good over the years, together and individually. But we’re always called to continually deepen our lives in Christ, especially in these times that are so terrible for so many.

This is our only answer to any Nathanael Bartholomews who doubt us.

We have no right to tell others to trust us. They have legitimate reasons not to. All we can do is ask the Spirit to make us trustworthy.

And we know that’s what the Spirit does. The teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ began the overturning of this world, began God’s new resurrection life poured into believers. For all the evil spoken by Christians, the hateful actions done, the countless reasons the world has not to trust us, there have also always been faithful followers of Jesus who, transformed by the Spirit, embodied Christ in the world, lived sacrificial lives of love, quietly offered a witness of the One who broke death and brought God’s love to the whole creation.

This, then, with the Spirit’s power, will also be your answer: your life lived as Christ, bearing the love of God in the world. It will be my answer, too, and the answer of any who claim Christ. It’s the only true witness we can make.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Following Christ is our path, trusting in God’s undying love, serving as Jesus taught, no matter what others bearing the name might say or do.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 20 C
Texts: Luke 12:49-56; Psalm 82

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

We are experiencing exactly what Jesus said we would.

It’s deeply distressing to people who call ourselves Christian, who seek to bear Christ in the world, to see other people bearing that same name spew evil and hatred in that name. It’s almost embarrassing to be known as a Christian because of what other Christians are saying and doing. Many of us feel this every day.

I will cause division, Jesus says today. A household will be divided, two against three. Parents will be against children. Christ’s family will be divided on account of Christ. Jesus doesn’t want this. But he sees that this will happen.

For many of us, this isn’t abstract. We know and sometimes are related to people whose Christianity seems to support a kind of Christian nationalism where a particular morality would be mandated for all, but it’s a morality that seems to abandon anyone who is different, or vulnerable, or struggling in any way.

So do we hide our Christian identity under a bushel so people don’t assume we’re the same as the loudest ones in this country? What about our family members, our friends? Do we separate from those relationships? Keep them and say nothing that will inspire conflict or argument?

We should be grateful to Jesus for these words.

A naïve view of being Christian, that once you’re in, it’s all rainbows and light, everyone singing around a campfire holding hands, won’t survive in this world.

But how can the Prince of Peace, the one angels at his birth proclaimed would bring peace on earth, say his coming will not bring peace but conflict?

Christ is still that peace maker. But he knows the path to that peace will divide those who follow him. The path to that peace leads to the cross first. That’s the baptism Jesus is so anxious about today he says he wishes it was all over and done with.

But that path is also the one all who claim Christ are called to follow. The path of self-giving, sacrificial love. Of loving enemies, of caring for those in need. Of losing ourselves to find our true life in Christ. That’s the path that leads to true peace.

And that’s where the division starts. Between those who claim Christ without the path of Christ and those who claim Christ and seek to follow.

When we truly listen to Jesus, we see this is exactly where the path divides.

There are Christians who listen to everything Jesus taught and seek to live that way. For them, that’s being Christ. And there are Christians who seem to ignore what Jesus taught and understand faith in Christ as a possession, something that’s supposed to bless them, prosper them. A way to power.

The division we’re seeing in our country between Christians today isn’t a denominational one, and there aren’t finer points of theology being argued. The right wing of Christianity in this country is a faith that believes Christians should have political power, should force everyone else to do what they want, should impose their suspect moral views on the whole country, views you can’t easily find in Jesus’ teaching. These Christians believe anyone who isn’t of their group isn’t worthy of help or any consideration. You’re either in or you’re out.

We reject that kind of Christianity because we can’t ignore four Gospels worth of teaching, calling, invitation, direction. For us, following Jesus means following Jesus – everything he said about the path he calls us to follow. For us, belonging to the Triune God in Christ is belonging to God’s passion for justice, mercy, healing, and wholeness for the whole creation, as Scriptures say again and again and again.

So we prayed in our Prayer of the Day today to share God’s zeal.

We asked the Triune God to “give us courage to take our stand with all victims of bloodshed and greed,” looking to the pioneer ahead of us on the path, Christ Jesus.

That’s what being Christian is to us. Hearing God’s cry in today’s psalm and following it, that we “save the weak and orphan, defend the humble and needy, rescue the weak and the poor and deliver them from the power of the wicked.” That’s God’s way. The only way we want to go.

As Christians, there’s no option for us to ignore that Christ asks us to care for those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, or strangers. There’s nothing we’re called to do but to serve Christ in our neighbors in need. And we have no option with our enemies except to love them and see God’s face in them. To pray for those who harm and persecute and do evil.

To be Christian for us is to know we are so deeply and irrevocably loved by God in Christ that we serve as Christ without fear, knowing who we’re called to love as we have been loved by God. It’s that simple.

So don’t be embarrassed to carry Christ’s name.

You know Christ’s heart, and you’ve tried to live that heart. You know you’re always beloved of God and have tried to be that love to others. That’s enough.

But since you belong to the Christ who calls you to love all God’s children, you can’t reject Christians who are divided from us in this faithfulness, either. But maybe confrontation isn’t necessary.

Maybe, since the path diverges at the teachings of Jesus, you and I could look for chances to gently engage our loved ones and ask them, “can you help me understand how Jesus’ words and teachings connect to your views?” And then just listen. In that conversation the Spirit might lead you to words that help. Maybe just by asking in kindness and listening, a door might be opened.

Because it was Jesus’ teachings that inspired you and me in the first place. That pulled our hearts and challenged our habits, that led us out of self-centeredness into self-giving. And the fact that you fail sometimes, I fail sometimes, and we always fall back on the death-breaking love of God that forgives you, forgives me, and raises us up to try again, can that grace we know also inform our love for these ones?

It’s good to have open eyes to the challenges of following Christ.

It’s good Jesus warned us ahead of time, so our despair in these days is lessened. If the Son of God knew this would happen, we can also trust Christ has a plan to bring healing and wholeness to this division.

In the meantime, you know what to be and do. Trust in God’s forgiving and blessing love, and ask God’s grace to walk the path of Christ in this world. No matter who rails against that. And with the Spirit’s help, you and I will be a part of the peace God’s Son came to bring.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen