Abundant life is about who you treasure, not what. Because God treasures you, and all God’s children, and will help you do the same.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 18 C
Text: Luke 12:13-21

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 is a familiar pain.

A beloved parent dies, and the children become hyenas, fighting each other over the carcass, wanting all the scraps they believe they deserve. It’s ugly and heartbreaking to witness or experience, especially when such a fight would break the parent’s heart. That’s what’s happening here. Our friend thinks Jesus should arbitrate this family dispute, force the brother to share the inheritance.

The tragedy in these situations is that the family ceases to be a family. Siblings become opponents, enemies. People don’t speak for years, decades, sometimes never reconciling.

What this brother treasures is the inheritance. What he needs more than anything is to treasure his brother, treasure the relationship, treasure the family. No inheritance is worth that.

Until our friend understands that life abundant and worth living is about who you treasure, not what, Jesus can’t help him.

Treasuring the whats gets us into trouble every time.

Jesus speaks today about the desire for money, because it’s money our friend treasures. But what causes all the pain and suffering in this world, and even in your life, is when people treasure the what, not the who. Sometimes it is money. Sometimes something else.

If you treasure being right, then when you disagree with loved ones someone will be a winner and someone a loser. Someone you love is hurt because you treasured the what, not the who.

If you treasure safety and comfort, then when you make buying decisions, when you vote, when you live in the world, you will support systems that provide you what you want at the cost of your neighbors. Someone suffers because you treasured the what more than the who.

When our society treasures ideas and opinions more than people, laws trample over people, crush them, kill them. Polarized political fighting happens when people forget the who – that is, the people who are deeply affected – and treasure the what – being right, getting their way, not having their privilege challenged, denying their own prejudice and bias.

Everything that ails our society, our culture, our personal lives, can be traced to treasuring a thing rather than a person. No thing is more valuable than a child of God. No inheritance, no perceived right, no need to win, no stubborn refusal to learn and grow, no principle, no doctrine. That’s what Jesus keeps saying.

The last time this summer someone tried to get Jesus to give him what he wanted, Jesus focused on love of God and love of neighbor.

He taught that eternal life isn’t a thing to be received, it can only be lived, right now, in love of God and love of neighbor. Because love of God and neighbor also isn’t a what, a thing to be believed. It’s a way of life that, when lived, focuses you and me on what really is valuable, what treasure really matters to us.

We start with love of God because God is the first Who we can truly treasure.

God is not a what to pontificate about or to define or to fight about.

The holy and Triune God who made all things is a Who, who loves you and the whole creation enough to die for you and the whole creation. Who came in person, in Christ Jesus, to show you, and me, and all people, the face of God, the heart of God’s love. To give tangible proof that you, and I, and all people, and the whole creation, are beloved.

That’s the Who you want to treasure first: the God who loves you beyond death itself, who will always be with you and give you life. Treasure God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength, because God treasures you with all God’s heart and soul and mind and strength.

Treasure that. Lean into that: you are God’s beloved.

And when you treasure the God who treasures you, you are changed.

The Word of God’s love for you and the creation wraps in and around your heart, and you are transformed into someone who loves in the same way, who treasures the who, not the what.

This Meal Christ gives works its way into your cells, your bones, your breath, and transforms you into someone who treasures your neighbor as you are treasured.

This Spirit God fills you with stirs in you and shapes your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength and creates a new person who loves and treasures all God’s children.

If our friend today really wanted Jesus’ help, he could have asked, “Teacher, could you help me and my brother reconcile? I really miss him.” Jesus would have loved to help with that.

And when this value system, this treasuring, spreads throughout the family of God on this earth, no oppression or suffering or systems or laws will be able to withstand it.

We can help each other a lot in this.

If our conversation and lives – whether personal or communal – start focusing on things, protecting institutions, defending points of view, being right, or whatever, we can say to each other or to ourselves, “who is it we’re not treasuring right now?”

If our life together starts veering into abstract things we think and argue, even about God, we can say to each other, “where is God in all of this and how can we treasure God’s presence here? How is God’s love shaping us and our lives?”

Abundant life is lived with whos not whats. And God deeply desires you to know abundant life. And me, too. And all God’s children.

That’s something worth treasuring, for the rest of your life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God is here – in your life, in this world – and will help you let go of your anxiety and distractions so you can see God’s grace and find the blessing God brings.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 16 C
Texts: Luke 10:38-42; Genesis 18:1-10a

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

Abraham and Martha honored a sacred obligation in their culture.

Abraham would have been shamed if he’d let these three strangers walk by without offering hospitality. Martha did the only thing acceptable when a guest appears, welcomed them into her home.

And in both households two critical roles of hospitality were done well. Food and refreshment is central to hospitality, and Sarah and the servant prepared that for their guests, while Martha did that for Jesus.

But someone also needs to attend to the guests. You can’t just leave them alone in your entryway, or standing outside. So Abraham was with his three guests, found them shade under the tree. Mary sat with Jesus, made him welcome as the meal was prepared, attended to his needs.

We’re not going to pit these two sisters against each other. Jesus never did. The important thing in both these stories is not who had to do what role. All offered faithful, welcoming hospitality, gave blessing and gift. So if the problem isn’t that Martha cooked while Mary lounged, a completely unfair assessment, what is it?

It’s simple: Martha was “worried and distracted by many things,” Jesus says.

Maybe by whether the meal was coming together. Maybe Jesus was a surprise guest, and she worried whether she had enough in the house. Maybe she’d just had a hard week. Maybe Lazarus was looking tired and Martha was starting to worry he might be sick with something. Who knows?

Regardless of source, her anxiety and worry distracted her from enjoying Jesus’ visit.

I get that. There’ve been times when I was the main one preparing the meal for guests and I was anxious and distracted. Not about being the one making the meal – I enjoy that. It could have been anything. And then I’d feel, after the guests had left, that my state of mind cost me the pleasure of having them there.

Maybe you remember a celebration where you just weren’t fully present because your mind or spirit were roiled up, and afterward it felt like you missed all the fun. Or something you long expected ended up a disappointment because of your state when it actually happened. Maybe even here, in this place, you’ve missed out on the grace of the beautiful music, or God’s Word, or the Meal, because of your distraction.

But what made it worse for Martha was that God was visiting her house.

Like Abraham and Sarah. This wasn’t an ordinary guest, this was God-with-us, in our human flesh. And that was a huge loss for Martha. Because her problem really wasn’t her sister Mary, or cooking the meal. You know what it’s like to blurt out something in your worry or anxiety that’s only masking your deeper concerns, or to say something you regret. If she really wanted Mary to help, she’d have found a way to ask. They loved each other.

But she spoke to Jesus. And her question is deeply revealing of her anxiety: “Lord, do you not care?” She’s worried about her place in Jesus’ love.

And sadly, because of her anxiety and distraction, even if Jesus acted in love toward her, she probably missed it. We know that feeling, being our own worst enemies and missing what we dearly want because we’re in a state where we can’t see it. And so Martha misses the very presence of God in her house.

And that’s how you know what the “better part” is that Jesus hopes Martha can find.

And you, too. It has nothing to do with what roles you and I are playing in our lives, whether we’re like Martha, or Mary, or Sarah and the servant, or Abraham. The better part is learning to recognize God’s presence in your life, in this world, for healing and hope. And if you’re worried and distracted by many things, it’s going to be hard.

Do you feel despair and fear over the condition of our world, like so many of us do? It’s legitimate. But if that takes you over, you’ll lose the ability to see where God is moving and acting in this world.

Are you anxious about threatening, uncontrollable things in your life, or that of those you love? Most of us have felt that. But if you and I lean into that anxiety, we might lose the eyes to see where God’s love is moving and touching and bringing life.

And if you feel guilt or suffer from fear that you’re not enough, that you’ve done things you’re ashamed of, again, we’ve all felt that. But if that distracts and dominates your heart, how will you see when God looks at you with the deepest love and says, “you are my precious one, always?”

This is why you and I come here every week: to learn to see God’s presence in our lives and the world.

Sure, sometimes our distractions win the day, even here. But here we can find quiet for our spirit to breathe and rest. God’s gift of music pulls us out of ourselves and draws us into the presence of God. God’s Word speaks into our hearts of God’s hope for justice in this world, and calls us beloved. God feeds us with goodness and love. Here we learn what it is to be on holy ground, to see and sense God’s presence.

Here you also learn that all ground is holy, there’s no such distinction as sacred and secular. Your eyes are opened so when you step out into your life, into your world, you can see God’s presence everywhere. When you’ve learned here how to drop your anxiety and distraction and find joy in God with you, you’ll be able to do that better out there, in the holy, sacred ground that is all of God’s creation.

This is the better part that will never be taken from you or this world: God is with you, and in this whole creation.

And when God is present, God blesses you with faith and trust to see God even more clearly.

Martha’s trust in Jesus became so deep that, even as her brother was lying in his tomb, she made the Gospels’ greatest declaration of Jesus as God’s Christ, as God’s Son who’s come into the world. Mary’s devotion to Jesus became so profound that, she, and only she, sensed the coming tragedy as Holy Week began, and she poured out her love with costly perfume and her hair over Jesus’ feet. And Abraham and Sarah, each nearly a century old, received the blessing of a child, but more, the blessing of courage and trust that this God they risked everything to follow would always be with them.

That’s the blessing, the better part God wants for you and the whole creation. With the Spirit’s help, even you will be able to see and trust ever more deeply that God is with you and in the world, and rejoice in that.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Life in God, abundant life as Christ offers, is a lived reality, not a thing to have or hold; living in love of God and neighbor is living in God’s new life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 15 C
Text: Luke 10:25-37

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

You can’t inherit eternal life. It’s not a thing to be possessed.

You can’t receive it or hold it. You can’t get it with a ticket, or own it. Eternal life, the abundant life Christ Jesus wants for you and me and the whole creation, isn’t a thing, a noun. It is only lived, experienced. It’s a verb.

So our friend today is mistaken at the start. He wants to know how to obtain something he thinks Jesus can give. But look at Jesus’ answer.

Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Do, this, Jesus says, and you will live. Do this, live this, and you will be living in this life from God you want.

Our friend, and so many like him, including you and me sometimes, believe you do what God wants so you’re rewarded with something.

No, Jesus says. This life isn’t a thing to be won or given. Do this – this love of God and love of neighbor – and you have it, right now, here. In that doing, you will know God’s abundant, eternal, new life.

We recognize our friend’s confusion from other things.

Take physical fitness. That’s not a reward, a present, something you can inherit or buy. No magic pills or tickets will give it to you. Exercise and eat healthily, and you’ll get there. Breaking free of addiction is the same. You can’t order it online or ask someone for it. You find support and guidance, and learn new ways of being, and you live into sobriety, and health.

But both of those things mean big changes in your life, one day at a time. And our friend is smart, like us. He knows that love of God and neighbor will mean changes in his life. Profound changes at times. And that’s not easy. So, rather than focus on the broad, complete love of God and neighbor and all that might mean for his actions, he tries one more time to make a noun the important thing, not the verb, not the doing. Even though doing it will give him exactly what he wants, he decides to limit the category of neighbor instead of focusing on his love.

Let’s talk about who you mean, Jesus. Who is my neighbor? Let’s describe that noun. Then maybe I can find a way to do this.

Well, you can’t trick Jesus.

Jesus sees clearly what he’s doing. Since our friend didn’t respond well to direct teaching, Jesus tries another way. “Let me tell you a story.” A story of someone beaten and left for dead in a ditch, a story of some who walked by and one who didn’t, who helped, who loved.

And Jesus refuses to classify neighbor. The categories mean nothing – priest, Levite, Samaritan, unknown guy in the ditch. What he asks at the end is, who acted as neighbor? Who loved someone here? The only question that matters this moment, this afternoon, tomorrow, next month, next year, is: am I acting in love or not?

Caring about the nouns, the categories we make, instead of the verbs, what we do, has nearly destroyed our world.

For almost half a millennium, racism has existed here because people who looked a certain way ordered their world by defining who was their neighbor, the person they cared about. They decided those of different skin color and culture were not neighbor, not even human, therefore could be enslaved, abused, killed. They were a noun, a thing. Property.

The legal system of this country and our social norms and customs and our cultural understanding have been shaped for hundreds of years on that ordering. We shouldn’t be surprised that we find embedded biases and prejudices in our own hearts and minds. We’ve been cooked in it for centuries.

And for millennia in the Western world, those who identify as male have been in charge. And they ordered their world by defining who was their neighbor, the person they cared about. They decided that everyone who wasn’t male was not neighbor, not fully human. They said that women weren’t capable, weren’t worthy of respect. Didn’t deserve equal pay or rights. Often they were property. A noun, a thing to be controlled. As the highest court in our land just reinforced.

Horrors are done for centuries because no one – especially, tragically, no one who’s been running everything all these years – ever stops and says, “the only thing that matters here is are we loving. Do we love all others as we love ourselves?

But when you focus on the verbs, on what you’re doing, everything changes.

Four decades ago, when Mount Olive began to be a safe, welcoming place for those who were LGBTQ, this community quit playing with nouns. All of the anguish and hatred and fighting over sexual orientation always focused on the nouns – who’s doing what with who, what physical parts belonged with what other ones, who gets to be with whom? Defining people and declaring what that means for the life they can live.

But this community – and thankfully many others – realized the only question was: is loving visible here? Can you see living in faithful, committed ways? Is there forgiving? All verbs. No definitions of the partners needed. The verb is everything, truth is seen in the doing.

What we learned here could change the world. When the only question in voting, in public policy, how you treat people at home, at work, out in the community, when the only question in thinking and acting on what’s wrong with our society and culture is: is this loving?, everything can change. Am I living in the love I know from God? Is our society acting in love? Is this policy a loving thing or not? Are we still objectifying people so that we don’t have to ask the love question?

The verbs are everything, Jesus says. Love God, love neighbor. Do this, and you’ll live. Right now. And so will this world.

Do you want God’s eternal life, God’s abundant life? It’s yours in your living in love of God and neighbor. And when you and I start living this abundant life, and others do, and others do, then this world actually becomes what God has always dreamed. This world will live, right now. Things will change, right now. Joy and hope and healing will begin, right now.

Start with loving your God with everything you are and have. Because when you dive fully into love of God you will find to your joy that you are beloved to God. You will know in your heart and soul and mind and strength how precious you are, how important you are, how much God will risk to live in love with you. That’s eternal life, right there.

And then, filled to the brim with that love in and from God, love of neighbor’s the only natural action. It pours out from you and me, and changes the world. That’s abundant life, right there.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. Do this, and you will live.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God is reaching out to free all God’s children, declare them clean, and clothe them in mercy and love. When you see this, experience this – tell someone!

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 12 C
Texts: Luke 8:26-39; Galatians 3:23-29

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 the first time they’d seen him clothed in years.

That’s how his friends and neighbors knew he was better. He wasn’t naked anymore. They chained him up for his own safety – he’d throw himself against the rocks to injure himself – but he broke the chains. He took shelter in the tombs outside the city, naked, frightening, destructive.

But not anymore. Now he was clothed and in his right mind. And because of a truly unlikely person.

Jesus went everywhere a respectable Jewish rabbi shouldn’t go: into the territory of unclean foreigners, among unclean tombs, with an unclean possessed person, around unclean pigs. He crossed all those boundaries, broke this man free of the inner chains that bound him, and washed and clothed him.

Paul understands the power of what Jesus did here.

Paul proclaims to his Galatian congregations – made of Jewish and Gentile Christians – that they have been freed and washed in baptism and clothed in Christ and that makes them one people, beloved children of God. No boundaries exist between them anymore. No barriers of culture, of ethnicity or wealth or gender or social class, all are one in Christ.

Imagine if Paul’s right. What if God in Christ really is capable of breaking the chains that bind you, and me, and this world, and making clean what was unclean, and clothing you, and me, and all people with garments that make us one with each other, all offspring and heirs of God’s love and mercy?

Now, it might be hard to see your need for this, if you’re not in the dire straits of this man.

This man was obviously troubled, so troubled that it’s possible his friends and neighbors in the city thought he was the only one who had need of freeing. But all do. God came in Christ to break all God’s children free of whatever binds them, whether it’s obvious to outsiders or not.

God wants to break the chains that are those ways of thinking that lead us into repeating the same harmful behaviors, or hamper every attempt to make things right with another person. The chains that are those prejudices and biases we wish we could sweep away but keep cropping up and harming.

God wants to break the chains that bind our whole world with systemic evil that grips our culture now, an evil that goes beyond bad individual choices and simple answers, and is ingrained in the very bones of our society.

God wants to break the chains of our inability to see every human being as a beloved sibling and as divinely blessed.

And God wants to break the same chains as this man had, mental illness that binds so many today who deal with anxiety, depression, and other mental diseases that just seem to embed ever deeper.

You don’t have to be naked and living in caves to need the healing grace of God in Christ breaking you free. Everyone has chains to be broken, freedom and new life to find.

But Christ doesn’t seem to act as immediately anymore.

This man suffered for a long time, but the moment he met Christ, he found healing and wholeness.

That doesn’t happen in our day, not that rapidly, not that noticeably. Our inner chains can bind us for years. Our society seems to be taking five steps back for every one forward. Those celebrating the emancipation of Juneteenth today see ever stronger chains of racism and oppression binding God’s children and our society. All these chains that bind seem to be stronger than God can handle.

But look from a different perspective. Look back on your life. Can you see a thread of God’s healing hand over time? Where were you a year ago, or ten? Can you see that God has been at work breaking some of those chains already?

And in this world, we can look at the pain and suffering we see repeatedly and despair that anything is happening. But we can also look for signs that chains are being broken and life from God is emerging. There are signs of hope today, if only we can look for them, and tell each other when we see them.

And Paul’s witness is that, while we’re being freed, we’re already clean and clothed.

Paul’s Galatians were in a lot of difficulty. Deep division between Jewish and Gentile Christians caused a lot of stress and emotional anguish, even to Paul.

But Paul didn’t say “one day you’ll be one in Christ.” He said, “all of you are one in Christ Jesus. These things that seem to divide you, ethnicity, gender, class, privilege, these are not your deepest truth. You are one.”

Jesus crossed the sea and clothed a foreigner, a non-Jew, with the same healing he offered Jewish people. Paul created communities of multiple cultures and backgrounds, proclaiming their oneness in Christ. That’s the clothing that you already have. You, and I, and all the baptized, and Oren today, are already clean and clothed as God’s beloved children, our true identity, even while we are being freed. And God’s reign in Christ is for all God’s children, regardless of what they do or don’t believe. God sees no boundaries of any kind to reaching people and freeing them. God’s love in Christ declares all clean, clothed with love and mercy and wholeness.

If you do start to see this, experience this, what can you do?

This man, freed, washed, clothed, wants to go along with Jesus on the road and be with the one who saved his life. But Jesus says not everyone is sent away to serve God. He’s told to go home, free, and clean, and clothed, and do one thing: declare how much God has done for him.

For most of us, most of you, that’s our call, too. Return to your home, your life, and tell someone how much God has done for you and the world. So they can hope. So they themselves can start seeing chains breaking. And so all can live in the joy of being clothed in God’s mercy, and one with each other as beloved children of God.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The Triune God, who lives in a relationship of love within God’s life, invites you and the whole creation into that relationship, promising to keep teaching and guiding and opening up new paths for a life of love and healing of all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Text: 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

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus told his followers that he “still had many things to say” to them, but they weren’t ready.

He promised that the Holy Spirit would continue to be with them and guide them into whatever truth they would need whenever they would need it. Or be ready for it.

Instead of expecting these new things, starting nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus’ followers began a pattern of trying to lock down for all time things they knew about the Christian faith. They developed the canon of the New Testament, choosing books and letters that were achieving nearly universal use among the congregations of Christians. That was and is a blessing. But it also created a line between “official” Scripture and writings that didn’t make the cut. If Christ was still trying to say new things to the Church, those new things weren’t going to make it into the Bible.

And in the first few centuries, they developed creeds, statements of faith.

These definitively stated Church teaching, mostly about the nature of the Triune God and the death and resurrection of Christ. These creeds are still a blessing to us, truths the Church has cherished and passed on for millennia.

But they also can inhibit believers from hearing new things Christ might want to teach the Church through the guidance of the Spirit. In the first place, they say nothing concerning the teachings of Jesus, the heart of his ministry. Never mind future new things, they don’t affirm what Christ says in Scripture. Jesus didn’t seem to care much that we understand his divine and human natures, but he definitely wanted us to be filled with the Spirit and love our neighbors, our enemies, and to offer our lives to God. Our creeds ignore that completely.

And worse, if you were among those who didn’t get your views in the creeds, suddenly you were a heretic, when before you simply had a disagreement with others about God’s nature. The Church could now say anyone who doesn’t agree with everything here is outside, not inside.

Where, in such statements of faith, is there room for Christ to teach us new things, things that perhaps the Church wasn’t ready for in the 4th century but might be ready now? Are there even openings for the Spirit to guide and lead us, if we proclaim we know everything we need to know?

On this feast day celebrating the Holy Trinity, let’s seriously ask those questions.

This day, on the calendar since the 15th century, began much earlier as an attempt to reinforce the insider/outsider boundary once again. Believe these things about the Triune God, this day said, or you’re not a true Christian. Now, not a single Christian in history ever has understood a fraction of the truth about the Triune God’s nature. Even those at Nicaea couldn’t know for certain they were right, they just won the votes. Using this day as a way to weed out the false Christians is a pretty bad idea.

Thank God for Scripture. Just when you think you’ve got the truth about God in a box and you can see who’s in and who’s out by whether they like your box, the Scriptures happily take a hammer to the box and say, “Well, it’s more complicated than you think.”

Whatever you and I say about the Triune God’s nature, whatever our beloved, ancient creeds say, we all stand down at the words of our risen Lord and Savior: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

Christ Jesus says the box is open, the book is never closed, and the understanding of faith will continue to grow and expand. That’s the joy to celebrate on this feast of the Holy Trinity.

We understand that God is Triune from the teachings of Jesus.

How God is Trinity, how it all works, Jesus couldn’t care less if we understand that. But that you and I can connect with the Triune God in all three Persons, Jesus deeply wants you to trust that and rejoice in that.

Jesus taught us that we have complete access to God in all three Persons of the Trinity. We can pray to the One Jesus called Father with complete confidence and joy, trusting we are heard and loved. And we have access to the Trinity through our brother Christ Jesus who leads and guides us on our path of life and promises to always be with us. And Jesus taught us that the Holy Spirit is our deepest access to the Trinity, living in you and me, giving birth to faith, filling us with fire and love, guiding, teaching, comforting, reminding.

Jesus also invites us to live, abide in the mystery of a Triune God, not to understand it.

Jesus said repeatedly that he and the Father were one, abided in and with each other, and that the Spirit also abided with both of them. God exists as loving, abiding relationship, a dance of love within God’s own life.

And the Son of God proclaims this dance of God’s life is an open dance, a relationship of love and grace the Triune God wants to welcome you and all creation into, to live in God’s life, live in God’s love, abide in God’s loving, changing, alive, active, growing relationship.

That’s why we can’t put God in a box. The Triune God still has many things to say to you and me and the Church and the world. And that teaching will happen as we live within God’s life together, in relationship with God and each other, blessed by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all truth.”

This is one of Christ’s greatest gifts to the Church, to be able to expect new communication from the Triune God through the Spirit’s guidance, to be able to hope for new clarity, new direction, new love we need to bear, new paths as we continue to live in a challenging and suffering world.

What if you and I and the Church lived our lives expecting this? To have the joy that when we’re confused, or lost, or threatened, or afraid, or mistaken, or sinful, we can expect the Triune God to give us clarity, direction, hope, answers?

The box is open, the book is never closed, and our understanding of faith will continue to grow and expand. That’s a promise from the God who lives in a Triune relationship of love within God’s life and who today invites you and me and all creation to live in that same relationship within God and with each other, for the healing of this creation and the life of all God’s children.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen