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Your Own Journey

June 29, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

The saints remind you that your path is your path, that Christ’s call to you is yours and no one else’s, and that you are called to follow Christ and care for God’s sheep in your way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles
Text: John 21:15-19 (adding in 20-22)

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

It’s hard to know what to do with the saints.

The Church – with some differences between East and West – has a long list of faithful followers of Christ who are called saints. We remember those who have gone before us who modeled the Christian walk, witnessed to God by their lives, acted as Christ’s love. Today we celebrate St. Paul and St. Peter on the day tradition says they both were martyred for their faith.

It’s hard to know what to do with saints, though. Their stories are often moving and inspiring. Most did amazing things. Of today’s two, Peter was the passionate leader of Jesus’ disciples. Paul was the greatest preacher of Christ the Church ever knew.

But it’s hard to know what to do with saints because it’s hard to know what they can tell us about our life, our journey, our walk in Christ’s Way. Sure, Peter and Paul both had flaws, like us. All saints do. But we’re not going to be celebrated for our discipleship 2,000 years from now. Do we celebrate saints as examples of a faithfulness and Christly walk that we can never aspire to?

The answer lies in Jesus’ last words with Peter here.

After Jesus and Peter have a powerful and poignant triple exchange of questions, answers, and commissions, Jesus gives Peter a vision of his future.

Jesus says that while Peter makes his own decisions now, a time is coming when he’ll have his hands and body tied, and be led where he doesn’t wish to go. Peter’s Christly path will end in his death. Then Jesus repeats what he said when he first met Peter: “Follow me.” Regardless of his future, this is his call, to follow.

But Peter looks at the beloved disciple, at John, and asks, “What about him?” Peter wants to know how John’s path will look. Will John suffer and die? What will be his story?

And Jesus says “What difference is that to you? Follow me.”

Jesus will only tell you your story, only give you your call.

What others are called to be and do isn’t your business. And this isn’t just the official saints. It’s also those we call saints who were gifts of God to us in our lives. Their stories are their stories. Their path was their path. We remember them, celebrate them, honor them. But we do not compare ourselves to them.

You might know others that don’t seem to struggle as you do. You might see others do things you wish you had the ability to do. You might be awed by the faith that someone else seems to have so easily.

But Jesus says, “what difference is that to you? Follow me.”

This is what we truly celebrate about Peter and Paul: they followed Jesus.

That’s all. They both struggled sometimes, and while they’re remembered 2,000 years later as saints, note that their failures are also remembered 2,000 years later and written in Scripture. Being an anonymous saint in Christ’s Way is not necessarily a bad thing.

But these two loved Christ and tried their best to tend and feed Christ’s sheep. Both proclaimed that the flock included all people, not just the Jewish people, and Paul gave clear directions to us about God’s inclusive love embracing all cultures, genders, races, and nations.

But both ultimately trusted it was God’s love in Christ that mattered, not their successes or failures. They kept at it, knowing they were held in God’s love. Even if they were killed.

When Jesus asks Peter, “do you love me?” he asks you, too.

And if you say you do love Jesus, then he will say, “feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Follow me.”

It’s as simple as that. If the love of God in Christ that you know has reached your heart, please inform your face, your hands, your feet, your voice. Your choices. Your path. It doesn’t matter if you’re 13 years old, or 43, or 83, if you love the God who loves you, love the ones God loves. Take care of the ones Jesus cares about.

Follow Christ.

What will that look like for you? That’s the fun part. Start by committing to this way of Christ every day and asking the Spirit to guide you, give you strength and courage, and change your heart. Maybe you have a strong desire to stand with others at protests and make your voice heard. You might feel more gifted to help people one at a time. Or get involved in a local food shelf as a volunteer or regular donor. You might listen to how here at Mount Olive we’re engaged with our neighbors and decide you’ll try one of those ways. Maybe you’ve got time for phone calls or e-mails and you can constantly urge our leaders to take care of all God’s sheep. Or use your phone or email to organize others.

There are so many ways to tend Christ’s sheep, even if others seem to be better at it. That doesn’t matter to Jesus, and he doesn’t think it should matter to you, either. Your call to follow is your call, and no one else’s. Your journey is your journey, and no one else’s.

The saints aren’t ideals to put on pedestals. They’re companions on your path.

They walk alongside you, a great cloud of witnesses encouraging you to find your own journey, your own call. And they remind you the most important thing of all: if you follow Christ, you’re following Christ.

That is, Jesus is with you on your journey, holding your hand, guiding your choices at crossroads, filling you with the Spirit to be able to do this. Your biggest cheerleader and your constant companion in your following.

Peter and Paul understood that. So have so many saints before us. Now it’s up to you, because all Jesus has to say to you is, “if you love me, feed my lambs. Follow me.” What you do with that, well, that’s when it gets interesting.

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

Filed Under: sermon

Love Gets Involved

June 22, 2025 By Vicar at Mount Olive

Love doesn’t care about the ways we feel divided from our neighbors. Love goes to the hardest places and holds out a hand, and gets involved.

Vicar Natalie Summerville
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 12 C
Text: Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

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

Don’t let the pigs and the demons distract you. Yes the pigs and the demons are important parts of the story, but when we hyper-fixate on the spectacle of this story, we miss the very human parts. And we forget to ask:

Who is this man?
Where were the people that loved him?
How long had he been suffering? How long had he been alone?
Who put him in the tombs?

Because 
Someone chained him, someone saw him as more of a problem than a person. Someone washed their hands of him. And the whole community looked away from him.

If this was a story about Jesus and demons and pigs, then we’re off the hook. We can bask in the miracle and the awe-inspiring power of Jesus and sit back to consider who this Jesus guy actually is, like the disciples did when Jesus calmed the storm a few verses prior. And if it’s just a story of divine intervention, what does that require of us?

But if this story is about a man who has been abandoned by his community, if this story is about someone that’s been so forgotten that he, too, forgets himself, whose suffering was seen as “too much”, who’s been considered as good as dead, then we’re involved. If this is a story about a broken community, then we’re on the hook.

Because this world looks a lot like that Gerasene community, and the powers that be thrive on us not getting involved and looking away from each others’ suffering. Our world is built on systems and structures designed to oppress and punish and push away what we don’t want to see. It’s a world that leaves people on the margins and blames people for their wounds And the world is really good at keeping us separate–drawing lines between “us” and “them”, that hands us categories like “normal” and “abnormal”, “worthy” and “unworthy,” and it tells us to stay on our side in our silos and our echo chambers. It’s a world that wants us to forget our neighbor’s belovedness, that meets conflict with violence, and difference with fear.

But then Jesus shows up, in a foreign land and in a Gentile community–
He doesn’t add to this man’s oppression, he restores in
He doesn’t avoid, he meets him with love and curiosity

He asks the man his name, and he finds out that this man identifies as “Legion.” He’s had no one to remind him who he is. His identity is completely wrapped up in his pain

But Jesus sees him. Jesus reaches deep into this man’s soul, reminds him he still has one. When no one else would come close, Jesus, an outsider in this community, does. And when no one else would come close and he’s saying to this man, “I see you, your problems and your pain matter to me.” He gets involved. And he sees someone worth loving and worth saving, worth welcoming home. and the man experiences true healing and he’s freed from pain and fear—his chains are finally broken because love got involved. 

And in our own ways, we’ve all been this man–overwhelmed, believing the labels this world puts on us, feeling unworthy and broken, too hard to love. We’ve lived seasons in tombs, and forgotten who we are, but Jesus comes for us too.

Jesus sees through every label, every fear, and every lie we’ve believed about ourselves, calls us beloved, child, worthy, capable. And the send us out to be the same love that changes our lives everyday.

And this love doesn’t fit into the categories and silos, it doesn’t pay attention to labels. Love goes out of its way to go to the margins and to go into the places it’s told not to go into–just like what Paul is saying to us today: there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female–for all are one in Christ Jesus. 

We don’t erase differences, In Christ, the old divisions and hierarchies don’t separate us anymore. In Christ, all are valuable, all are beloved. 

 In Christ, we belong to each other and we show up for each other. In Christ, if someone is hurting, we’re already involved, no matter who is suffering. In Christ, we have a love for each other that says, “No matter where you are, if you’re hurting, I’m here for you.” Because in Christ, we can’t decide whose pain and suffering matters. And when we act in this love, healing happens.

But this kind of love is costly. It asks us to show up and cross boundaries. To go to the margins and risk being rejected, like Jesus was. And everyday, we see more and more that the world resists this kind of love, because it threatens the way things are. This kind of love exposes the town’s apathy toward this man, and maybe that’s why they ask Jesus to leave. The world thrives on fear, on separation, on silence, but the Gospel calls us to something different. It asks us to get our hands dirty in the work of healing. 

Because the story doesn’t end with this man’s healing. Even after the man begs to stay with Jesus, Jesus sends him back into his town. Why? Because the real work is just beginning.

Because the community needs to face what it’s done.
Accountability needs to happen.
Reconciliation needs to happen. 

And this now-healed man is sent to tell his story, to speak truth and to witness to the power of the love that got involved. No matter how long it takes.

And we, too, are sent out.

We’re called into the same day-in, day-out work of healing and witness. The kind of love that gets involved that changes both people and communities.
The love that breaks cycles of violence and apathy.
The love that rebuilds what fear tore down.
The love that whispers to us and people throughout the world and throughout time: You are not alone.
The love that brings abundant life for all people
The love that gets involved, and now, more than ever, requires us to get involved too.

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

Filed Under: sermon

In Our Image

June 15, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

God has created us in the divine image, and that’s the truth about God we really want to focus on and know and live on this feast of the Holy Trinity.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Texts: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

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

What if the Triune God is not at all interested in our concept of the Trinity?

That is to say, when we celebrate the Holy Trinity we’d do better to focus on what the Triune God actually cares about: who and what we are, not who and what God is.

Our Hebrew forebears tell us that in the midst of creation, God said, “let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness.” And Scripture from there forward is the story of God calling humanity into that divine image. There’s very little about how God is put together. God’s personality and God’s love, desire, and concern for humanity and the creation are clear, but not God’s make-up.

And the Triune God’s concern throughout Scripture is how we live and love with each other. In short, how we live as that image of God.

Which brings us to Lady Wisdom.

We like to try and figure out who she is. Today she’s called Wisdom and Understanding, which reminds us of Isaiah’s declaration that the Spirit of God is, in part, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” So maybe Lady Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. Many have noticed here her participation in the creation and think of John chapter 1, and conclude Lady Wisdom is actually Christ. Both are beautiful possibilities.

But what Wisdom actually cares about and calls out is that we seek her, ask for divine wisdom in our lives, that we abandon foolishness and all the things that lead us to harm each other and the creation. Her voice speaks as God to us. But what she offers is what we want to seek.

And so Wisdom’s gift molds us into God’s image.

Which was God’s intent from the beginning. Instead of trying to figure out the divine math of a Triune God far beyond our comprehension, this day is better spent seeking divine wisdom. Asking that she shape us into a new way of understanding in the world. More than increased knowledge, we seek a way of God that grows in understanding the world and each other.

Today Jesus promises that as we’re ready, the Spirit will tell us more. The joy of that is that if we don’t understand some things now, one day we might. Humanity can grow more and more ready to hear more and more from Lady Wisdom.

Because the more we see her as God, the more we learn God’s patience and foresight, God’s ability to hold more than one thought or idea in tension, God’s grace in seeing good even where we can’t imagine finding any.

And today we hear other aspects of the image of God that are offered as gift to us.

Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. All the talk of love we hear from Jesus, all the focus on love of God and love of neighbor, all the attributes of divine love – self-giving, vulnerable, sacrificial – all this is the center of the image of God. So when someone purporting to have a Christian agenda does these horrifying things among us, we know they are not of Christ. These evil killings are not God’s will, are not God’s love.

The love that holds the Trinity together, the love that went to a cross and broke the power of evil and death, the love that still is willing to lose everything to draw you and all people into God’s heart, that’s the image of God God desperately needs you and me to live in the world.

And, like wisdom, love is a gift of God, poured into your heart and mine. You don’t have to strain to produce it. If you’re lacking in divine love, ask for it. Pray for it. And expect to have the Spirit fill you up and re-shape you into the love of God.

Today Paul says we have access to God’s grace through Christ, too.

So we can be grace people in the world, living as God’s image in our forgiveness, our willingness to look for good in others, our mercy for those who may not deserve it but get it because they, too, are beloved of God.

Paul also says we have peace with God through Christ’s love for us. When we become peacemakers, we embody God’s image in the world. As people who don’t return hate for hate or violence for violence. Sometimes offering a strong resistant peace that stands calmly, lovingly in the face of hatred, refusing to participate. Sometimes being a quiet peace with others that perhaps leads them to consider whether that’s a way they might want to walk.

In the wake of the devastating violence of the assassinations and attempted assassinations in our city this weekend, on top of this week’s escalation of war in the Middle East, and the abuse of military power in Los Angeles and the disgusting spectacle of a Soviet-style military parade in Washington, our living into this image of God’s peace is more important than ever. And it’s the only thing that can turn this world away from the hatred and violence that are now threatening to consume us.

Our worship today re-focuses us from thinking about God to doing as God.

So on this Holy Trinity Sunday, let’s spend our energy and time seeking God’s Wisdom, that she make us wise; asking for the Holy Spirit to re-shape our hearts into God’s love; seeking from Christ the peace and grace that will make us God’s agents of healing and change in this world.

Maybe we’ll understand the full truth about the Trinity in the life to come. Maybe we won’t. But right now, right here, we know the image of that Triune God and we can be shaped by God to live in it, God’s most fervent wish.

Let that be our focus and hope and prayer today. That as God’s image spreads through this world, God’s grace and healing and love go with it and it brings hope for a new day of peace and wholeness.

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

Filed Under: sermon

Out of Control

June 8, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

The Holy Spirit is out of our control, and that’s the best news ever, because that means God’s love could actually bring about healing and hope for all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year C
Texts: Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, 25-27

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

This was a day of chaos.

The sound of rushing wind – think tornado noise – filled the air, something that looked like flames danced on a hundred and twenty heads, and a hundred and twenty voices spoke in multiple languages about what God is doing. Think of the confusing sound of just seven or eight languages saying the same thing at once that we just heard in our Acts reading, and multiply that by fifteen, and you get a sense of it.

We did not hear a doctrine of sanctification this morning. We heard a chaotic, brilliant, probably frightening, awe-inspiring, confusing, exciting scene in the middle of Jerusalem where the Holy Spirit of God was acting.

That’s where we need to stay. With the story. With what happened. And is happening. And this story proclaims the Spirit of the Triune God working in the world cannot be controlled. We aren’t in charge.

But rarely are we willing to let it sit there.

Since this moment in Jerusalem, theologians have formulated doctrines about the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about what this means. But when we take Scripture and build doctrines on top, those doctrines become what we try to trust. The more it’s codified, the further you get from God’s actual activity.

Virtually all our theology of the Spirit in the Western church was formulated by white men of European ethnicity. People like me. This doesn’t mean it’s wrong or bad. But when those white European-descent men say that how they understand God’s Spirit is the only way, we’re in trouble. I’ve personally heard a Lutheran theologian say to a student that you can’t bring your own experience or your sense of revelation into theology. As if our accepted theology is revelation handed down without change. That’s just ignorant. All theology is deeply shaped by the experience of the theologian.

Now, if you’re afraid the Spirit could do just anything anywhere, it’s convenient to pretend you’ve got the clean, non-experiential truth about her work. So you can control the message.

But if we see anything at Pentecost, it’s that the Spirit is out of control.

So let’s go back to the story. What actually happened that day?

Apart from the beautiful chaos and noise and preaching, ultimately a lot of people decided they wanted to join the believers that day. Luke says 3,000, which is a lot. But even if you think Luke might exaggerate, if he exaggerated by a full 1,000 percent that still leaves 300. That’s pretty amazing.

But what drew them to want this? Not a doctrine on the nature of the Triune God, or the Holy Spirit. Something in the whole amazing chaos of that day, in what the believers proclaimed about what God is doing, and the joy in their faces, drew them in. As with last week and our jailer, these people saw what the believers had and said, “Can we have that, too?”

And after this, this enlarged community shared everything with each other so no one went without, they worshipped and lived together. And they had the goodwill of everyone, Luke says. They were changed and others noticed. They were transformed by the Spirit of God and made a difference in the world. Stay with that story instead of making a doctrine about it and you’ll see God.

Staying with the story means giving up any hope that we can control the Spirit.

And that can frighten people, as we’ve seen throughout Christian history. What if someone says the Spirit is leading them to something that we don’t like? Like a theology that challenges us or a direction we haven’t thought of? Church history is littered with stories of hatred and ostracism and heresy trials and destruction because some Christians followed the Spirit in a way other Christians didn’t like.

And discerning where the Spirit is working is hard. Even on this Day of Pentecost some saw all of this and decided these one hundred and twenty women and men were drunk. If you can’t tell the difference between inebriation and the coming of the Spirit, shouldn’t someone be controlling this?

But if you want to believe and trust in the living Triune God whose Spirit blows wherever she wills, the answer is no. The Spirit of God is out of our control, according to all these stories.

But it’s not all wide open. We can reliably know if something is of the Spirit.

Look at what Jesus says today, in verses we also heard a couple weeks ago. The Spirit, the Paraclete (Advocate) is called alongside you and me and all God’s people, to remind us of all Jesus said.

That’s how you can discern. Just as you go back to Pentecost to see the truth of the uncontrollable Spirit, Jesus says the Spirit alongside you will send you back to what God’s Son said and did. You can know if something is of the Spirit when it’s consistent with Jesus.

And notice that Jesus didn’t teach a doctrine of justification, either. Jesus, God-with-us, is our justification. Jesus revealed the face of the Triune God for the creation, and it was and is a face of love and benevolence, of grace and forgiveness, of welcome and challenge.

If the Spirit truly works within the boundaries of what Jesus said and did, then if we see love of God and love of neighbor, love of enemies and prayer for persecutors, love for all those struggling and in need, love willing to lose itself for the sake of another, if we see anything of this heart of what Jesus said and did, we can trust that the Spirit is there. Even if we’re challenged or threatened by that movement.

And if someone claims the Spirit’s influence to do evil, to hate, hurt, oppress, to do violence of any kind, we know they’re not of the Spirit. The work and purpose of God is love, Jesus taught and showed, and the Spirit reminds us of that.

It’s good that we’re not in control.

We can’t imagine every way God’s love can change things, heal things, make a difference, and we don’t have to. That’s the Spirit’s job. And we can’t control where the Spirit moves and works because of our limited imagination. We might be standing in the way of God’s love and that we never want to do.

Pentecost shows that God is out of our control but bringing life to the creation, and that’s great news. Because if we really want this world to be healed, if we want all the pain and suffering in our country and world to be eased, all the hatred and destruction from even our highest elected leaders to be stopped, it’s wonderful that God’s got better ideas than we do and can’t control them. But we can get on board.

And do listen for the Spirit in your life, where she’s speaking to you, or calling you to new ways of healing and hope. They might be ways you hadn’t considered. But they will certainly bring life.

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

Filed Under: sermon

Can I Have That, Too?

June 1, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Our oneness with the Triune God is known and seen in the love of the Triune God that we bear in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: Acts 16:16-34 (also including Acts 16:11-15 from last week); John 17:20-26

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

The Roman jailer in Philippi asks a critical question: “What must I do to be saved?”

Paul and Silas have been stirring up Philippi for a bit now, as we heard last week and now today. Meeting people at the river and baptizing them, casting out a spirit from a slave that ended up causing financial stress for her owner and got them beaten and put in jail. And now singing hymns and praying in their prison cell.

That’s where the jailer enters. Ready to end his life because he’s sure everyone’s escaped in the earthquake, he finds these two prisoners who kept all the rest together. And whose first words are care for his well being: “Don’t harm yourself, we’re all here.” And the jailer asks, “Can I have what you have?”

But what did Paul and Silas have? What did the jailer see?

They were illegally beaten and jailed without a trial, against their rights as Roman citizens. But Paul and Silas don’t protest or complain. They sit in their cell, bloodied, and pray. They sing hymns to God, and the other prisoners start to listen. These disciples embody the love of God. Their peaceful worship in an unjust and painful situation, their concern for the jailer’s well-being proves that.

Paul and Silas aren’t preaching to the prisoners or the jailer. The prisoners see them for who they are and don’t try to escape. The jailer sees who they are, how they are, how they handle this terrible situation, and wants that. He wants salvation the way Paul and Silas live it, not how they preach it. A peace of mind and heart in any circumstance, a love for others that flows from them. They saved his life with their love. And so he’s baptized, along with his entire family.

And this opens up the story of Lydia from last week.

We heard that Paul and Silas and the others went to the riverside to a group of women who gathered there to pray, including non-Jewish women who believed in the God of Israel. Like Lydia. Luke says God opened Lydia’s heart to listen to them. And then Luke says Lydia and her household were baptized.

Maybe their preaching was just so good it drew in Lydia and the others. But these are the two who will soon be singing hymns and praying in their prison cell, who will love a Roman jailer into God’s reign. The Spirit used their words to open up the love of God to these riverside women. Enough that Lydia returned their love and invited them to stay in her home.

What we see in Philippi is exactly what Jesus is hoping for when he prays.

This so-called “high priestly prayer” of Jesus on the night of his betrayal is hard to track by listening. Lots of twisting phrases about Jesus being one with the Father, and we’re one with the Father and the Son. It’s beautiful, but it’s complicated grammar.

Here’s the simple heart of the prayer:

Jesus claims he, as God’s Son, is one with the one he calls Father, and that the Spirit is also one with them. His prayer is that all who learn to trust in God’s love in Christ might also share that oneness that the Trinity knows within their own life together.

And that oneness has just one center, one focus: love. As Jesus says today, the point of the Trinity making us and all humanity one with God is so that the love that is the life-blood of the tender heart of the Trinity may be in us, too.

In other words, our oneness with the Triune God will be known to the world when we love as the Triune God. When God’s vulnerable love shapes us and flows from us and is unmistakeable in us.

And look at what the love of God in Paul and Silas created.

It’s clear from Acts 16 that this is the birth of the Philippian congregation. It’s highly likely that they worshipped in Lydia’s house, that she hosted and led the Christian congregation that also included a Roman jailer and his family.

And Paul’s letters suggest this Philippian church was the community most beloved to Paul, whose support he always felt, whose love held him in his imprisonment. This amazing community of faith started with the love of God Paul and Silas bore among them.

Maybe you and I won’t found any Christian communities when we’re one in the Triune God’s love, when we bear it. But that’s not the point. That was their job. Who knows how God’s love in us will make a difference? The point is that when we are one with God in God’s love, are shaped and live by that self-giving, sacrificial love that we first knew from God, it will bless the world.

And maybe this is how the two different commissions Jesus gives are the same.

In Matthew and Luke, Jesus commissions the disciples as witnesses to the ends of the earth, as we heard last Thursday when we celebrated the Ascension. To make disciples. But in John it’s different. Three times the risen Christ says to Peter if you love me, care for my sheep. That’s the commission: if you love Jesus, care for the ones Jesus cares for.

But maybe it’s the same commission. Paul and Silas, bearing God’s love, caring for the ones the Triune God cares for, was the witness. Love drew people toward the reign of God, toward Christ.

It’s not our carefully articulated doctrines, our points of argument, that witness. It’s the vulnerable love of God we bear. A love that just might lead someone to ask you the jailer’s question: “Can I have that, too?”

And when you answer that question with love, you’ll change the world. Just as Jesus hoped and prayed.

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

 

Filed Under: sermon

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MOUNT OLIVE LUTHERAN CHURCH
3045 Chicago Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55407

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612-827-5919
welcome@mountolivechurch.org


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Copyright © 2025 ·Mount Olive Church ·

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