Readings for the 2nd Sunday in Lent, February 25, 2018

• Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 
• Psalm 22:23-31 
• Romans 4:13-25 
• Mark 8:31-38

Covenant with Abraham and Sarah, Pastor Kinsey
A lake baptism is only possible in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for a few short weeks, or, maybe a month or two if you have a really warm summer.  The ice stays on the lake until mid-April, sometimes even early May, and so swimming is always on the cool side, even in June.  Maybe by the 4th of July it’s getting good, but by August 15, the first leaves of Autumn appear, and the cool nights make the lakes less-than-inviting, pretty quickly! 
 
But for a 7 year old, who doesn’t keep track of all that, it’s different!  And the joy of going all in – total immersion – is almost, irresistible.  It was our first baptism in Lake Ottawa, and along with Eric, we were probably a little bit nervous too, now that there were so many people on shore watching. 
 
We waded in.  Eric in his swimsuit, and Kim and I in our clergy shirts and shorts.  We had chosen the last Sunday of July, but it was 11 in the morning, and with a breeze off the lake, it was not exactly hot out yet!  The assembled congregation looked on as witnesses.  ‘Eric, is baptized in the name of the Father,’ Kim said – and what happened next, we hadn’t planned for.  What we had practiced was holding and supporting Eric, as he held his nose, and we’d dunk him in backwards – but, now that the moment had arrived, Eric was so excited, he wanted to dive-in head first, which, after a slight hesitation, he did, a quick in and out… ‘Eric is baptized in the name of the Son’ – this time he dove in a little more eagerly… ‘and in the name of the Holy Spirit,’ and Eric dove in a third time.  And this time he stayed under, and we wondered for a second, if he was coming back up!  But finally he did, gasping for breath, he had stayed under as long as possible, as if to show us that he was thoroughly made clean, and was ready for his new life! 
 
This is the season of preparing for Baptism, the season of Lent.  In the very early church, candidates for baptism prayed, and fasted, and offered acts of love and charity, for 40 days, before descending into the stone baptisteries of the time, at the Great Easter Vigil.  And so this year, we’re taking a closer look at the Baptismal theme of ‘Covenant’ as it’s expressed in our First Readings, these 5 Sundays of Lent. 
 
Last Sunday we heard about the covenant God made with Noah, his family, and all humanity: I will never again destroy the earth and all its people like I did in the Flood, God promised.  When I see the rainbow it will be a sign of this covenant, and I will remember my promise, said God to Noah.  God actually changes God’s mind about retribution, and now covenants with humanity, to suffer with them, reach out from God’s heart, and show us the way of love and grace. 
 
Today, we hear the story of Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother -the parents- of all peoples-of-faith.  Earlier, when God first calls Abraham and Sarah, they are living in Chaldea, or what is modern day Iraq, where they are doing just fine, at least financially.  For they have a large family and are very prosperous in keeping their flocks and herds, their slaves and tents.  There is no worldly reason for them to move.  But God calls them out of the blue one day, to go to a new land, a place God will show them – they don’t even know where it is yet – but they go! 
 
The original promise is that God will make a great nation of them, and God will bless them.  But why do that?  Why go?  What’s in it for them?  All the promises are future oriented, and may not even happen in their lifetimes.  Why pick up and go somewhere else?  No doubt, the subtext for Abraham and Sarah was, I’m too tired for this!  I’m too old!  And I’m comfortable just where I am, thanks! 
 
And, isn’t this the story of our lives too?  Until God calls us, and we feel the urge to follow, the itch to seek something deeper and more meaningful for our lives – we might not listen all that carefully to God, we may not even hear it as a call! 
 
What is it that pushes us out the door to answer the call, to try something new?  To come to church, or try Food for the Soul?  To join an organization working for equality and justice?  To speak out against gun violence, and say ‘never again?’  For women to say, ‘times up?!’  Or, to just, settle down and have a family, even in the midst of economic uncertainties and a global climate crisis?! 
 
The great Soren Kierkegaard called it a ‘leap of faith,’ a decision that is not always the most logical, sensible, choice, but is deeply heartfelt, and, in the end, not possible to avoid.  It’s the call of the divine that won’t let go, and challenges your gut to step up and be more than you thought you could – a call that seems as if your life depends on it! 
 
So, Abraham and Sarah went.  They were elated to find the land of Canaan, and to show their appreciation, they built altars to God, in the north at Shechem, in the hills at Bethel, and in Hebron to the south. 
 
But the journey was long, and the promise to be the father and mother of many peoples and nations was not yet confirmed by a child to Sarah – who in biblical language was “considered barren.”  Abraham and Sarah were losing hope when God came to them in our Reading today, once again promising a son.  ‘I will make you exceedingly fruitful, I will make nations of you,’ God tells them, and ‘kings shall come from you!’ 
 
And yes, King David will be an ancestor in the faith, but right then and there, Abraham is a little bit tired, of hearing this broken record.  It’s been 24 years since they left Chaldea, and he’s 99 now.  And, Abraham falls to the ground, and laughs!  Can a child be born to a 100 year old man, whose wife is 90?! 
 
And, guess what, they’ve already figured out Plan B!  Sarah gave her maid, Hagar, to Abraham, according to the custom of the times, who bore a son, Ishmael.  So Abraham wonders aloud to God, why Ishmael can’t be good enough for God, as the son of God’s promise?! 
 
But God insists all the more strongly, that Sarah will have a son of her own, going so far this time, as to name this yet to be born one.  He will be called, Isaac, a name that means, “he laughs” – you know, after Abraham’s little outburst! 
 
So Abraham and Sarah manage to pick themselves up off the ground, continue to follow and obey God, and, well, you know the rest of the story, right.  The next year God finally gives them a son, and they call him Isaac, and the generations of peoples and nations to come, is born at last. 
 
But the journeying, following part, was not smooth, not always easy.  Abraham and Sarah were not perfect, not even close.  But, God stays true to them – which was, somewhat new for God too.  But God kept God’s promise about the rainbow, the covenant God made with Noah, that God would not destroy them when they did wrong, but walk gracefully with them on their journey, no matter what. 
 
The disciples, we know, have a difficult time following Jesus too.  They don’t understand the Passion Prediction, that Jesus ‘must suffer, be rejected, and be killed, and after 3 days rise again.’  This is not the normal tradition for the Messiah, the anointed one of God!  And Peter goes so far as to rebuke Jesus.  To which Jesus immediately rebukes Peter, and tells him he acting like Satan, ‘setting his mind not on divine things but on human things.’ 
 
But this doesn’t preclude the disciples from continuing on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus, either.  The journey is not smooth or straight for them, but filled with difficult learning, twists and turns, mistakes and new insight, along the way. 
 
Taking the plunge of baptism, into the journey of faith, can be as tense, as it is joyful.  We can only hope we have the fortitude of little 7 year old Eric, to give it our all.  To test the very limits of the breath of life – which after all, comes from God as a gift!  The journey of baptism, is a leap of faith, by God’s grace alone. 
 
As we make this Lenten journey, remembering our baptism’s, we trust in God’s promise, and the ‘Covenant’ God makes with us! 

Readings for Transfiguration of Our Lord, February 11, 2018

• 2 Kings 2:1-12  
• Psalm 50:1-6  
• 2 Corinthians 4:3-6  
• Mark 9:2-9

"Be Silent," Pastor Fred Kinsey
“Yes,” says Elisha, “I know that today the LORD will take my master away from me – be silent!” 
 
It’s hard enough for Elisha to follow his mentor Elijah – to stick close by him, to hear the old man insist he can do it alone, go down to Bethel, then to Jericho, then the River Jordan – without him – even if he knows it’s just a test of his faithfulness, even if he’s staying strong and standing up for himself!  But they won’t stop, prophets in every location they went to, kept coming out to warn him that God was about to beam Elijah up to the clouds – that is, the heavens – in a kind of water spout, or controlled tornado-of-a-whirlwind. 
 
Somewhere inside of himself, though, Elisha, the young protégé, is convicted, that following in the footsteps of Elijah, this great prophet of Israel, is what he’s been called to do.  But how can he really be sure?  Why would he really want to?  What on earth does it mean to be a true prophet, for the one true God? 
 
The doubts he has, seem just as strong as the belief!  Was he just continuing to follow, because he had already given up so much at ‘his calling,’ that day that Elijah had come by, and sort of casually tossed his mantle on his shoulders? 
 
It felt like a tremendous honor at the time!  Elijah had been coming by, more and more.  They had had some incredible discussions, had argued and challenged each other, but mostly had really bonded.  So when Elijah had anointed him with his mantle, called and designated him, as his next in line, Elisha felt as if he had, quite possibly ‘earned it’ too – and he was so caught up in the moment, that he immediately liquidated his assets, by burning up his plow, slaughtering and cooking his oxen on the fire, and actually, put-on his own going away party with his family and friends.  He was, that excited, that sure, that ready! 
 
But following Elijah now, down the hillsides of Judea, down to the holy places, like where Moses had first entered the Promised Land, and knowing that this was the moment of his greatest transition, and Elijah’s grandest transformation, it was absolutely the scariest thing he’d ever done.  As much as the voices inside his head were telling him to run the other way, to go back to farming, anything familiar – he was able to somehow channel his anxiety, and focus his response, on ‘following,’ not giving-in to the temptation to leave the side of Elijah, but to go down to the River Jordan and accept his master’s blessing, walk into the unknown, fulfill his calling. 
 
‘Then the Prophet Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water.’  And like Moses of old, at the Red Sea, ‘the water parted to the one side and to the other,’ and Elijah and Elisha crossed over, ‘dry-shod’. 
 
By themselves, then, with the company of 50 prophets at a distance, Elijah asks his chosen one, Elisha what he might do for him, before being taken away.  And without hesitation Elisha asked for, ‘a double share of his spirit.’  Elijah paused, and regarded his eager student:  “If you see me as I am being taken from you, says Elijah, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” 
 
And as the whirlwind swept Elijah up into the heavens, Elisha was able to watch – watch until he was gone – a tempest of fire and water.  And now, truly alone, Elisha was mad with grief! 
 
He had been afraid of this feeling too.  And it made him all the more angry to remember the fellow company of prophets who had badgered him with their insistence, that he didn’t know that Elijah would be taken from him.  He covered his ears, crying, be silent! 
 
But that kind of anger could only turn into self-pity, and he had little time for that, now that he was wearing his master’s mantle, himself.  His grieving would need to lead to acceptance, and a new way forward. 
 
Face it, the view from the valley is the normal perspective we all live with.  The visions of chariots of fire, and a whirlwind up to the heavens, are fleeting and rare.  Never-the-less, a true vision of God, can carry us a long ways!
 
The journey of Peter and James and John with their LORD, seems to go – geographically anyway, in the opposite direction.  The went from the valley up to the mountaintop, instead of down into the valley like Elisha, then watching Elijah go up!  But after the long climb ‘up the high mountain apart’ from everyone else, Peter and James and John, see visions of the two great prophets, Elijah with Moses, talking with Jesus, who was transfigured before them.  Jesus’ clothes had become ‘dazzlingly white, such as no one on earth could bleach them,’ says Mark.  Is this a Tide commercial? 
 
Actually, it reminds me most of Moses and the burning bush!  The transfigured Jesus is a kind of a burning bush – lit up, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, but not consumed!  And the voice of God will come from him, too.  It’s an amazing moment!  But doesn’t make much sense to Peter, who tries to understand and name it, and bring it under control, which was ridiculous – and finally he admits he’s simply terrified!  Moses was afraid at the burning bush too, asking what God’s name was, but receiving only a mystery we are still talking about today: ‘I am who I am!’ 
 
Part of the mystery of the Transfiguration of Jesus, is how it’s connected to his resurrection, another mountaintop mystery, beyond our understanding, but hopeful and beautiful beyond anything else, in our lives of following! 
 
It’s curious then, that what Peter admits, that “he was terrified,” is exactly what the women followers say at Jesus’ resurrection after they witness that the tomb is empty, and they flee, and “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  A bold, if clumsy final word, to Mark’s gospel! 
 
Do the women even go back to tell the other disciples?  Even if they do, what happens?  Are they as angry and depressed as Elisha was, when his master was taken from him?  Is that all there is?  What of the promise of Jesus to go ahead of the disciples to Galilee, back home to Capernaum, and meet them there? 
 
Indeed, the disciples, women and men, would have to regroup after the resurrection.  They could not – would not want to – wallow long in their sadness and confusion, either.  The message of Jesus, his words and deeds, had changed their lives.  His spirit was close by, and calling them, still.  And his words, that Transfiguration Day, when they were walking back down the mountain into the valley and ‘he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen… until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead,’ now woke them up!
 
Now was not the time to ‘keep silent’ any longer.  That’s what the disciples came to understand – maybe not right away, but gradually, as they reflected and prayed, discussed and grieved, the loss of their master. 
 
And so, us too!  We can’t, we won’t, keep silent any longer.  We have been down to the valley.  We know what it’s like to be afraid of our calling.  We have grieved the loss of friends or family, those who been with us on our journey’s, and those who have fallen away from our calling to this place, this moment in time.  But through our prayers and our hopes, we have received good news of a new way to reach out, in Food for the Soul – and new ways to praise our God, and share our joy – and new people to walk with on the way – whether up to the mountaintop, or down into the valley. 
 
We are blessed with a company of fellow believers.  Our perspective from the valley, is informed by our burning bush, or whirlwind, or mountaintop experiences, of Jesus.  And we can rest assured, that our fellow travelers, will help us to carry the good news of our transfiguration and new life.  And so now, we are silent no longer! 

Readings for 5th Sunday after Epiphany, February 4, 2018

• Isaiah 40:21-31
  
• Psalm 147:1-11, 20c 
• 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 
• Mark 1:29-39

Lifted Up, Pastor Kinsey
Capernaum was a good sized town on the Sea of Galilee – it became much more prominent after Jesus died.  The reason is clear from modern excavations that have revealed, probably the most revered home in the whole region of Galilee.  This is the only home that has ‘plastered walls’, and were frescoed with Christian symbols, dating from the turn of the 1st century.  Over time it was enlarged and separated off as sacred by a series of partitions in 3 concentric circles – transformed into a public space.  Shards of elegant fine wares from well-known kilns in Africa and Cyprus have been uncovered, brought by Christian pilgrims making offerings, like the wise men, perhaps who came bearing gifts to the baby Jesus.  There were elegant plates and cups of fine clay, and stamped with crosses, meaning likely that the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, was celebrated there. 
 
It makes sense, of course – though there’s no way to confirm it – that this was the home of Peter and Andrew in the bustling fishing port of Capernaum.  I have seen it with my own eyes, in 2005, when I went on study tour to Israel-Palestine, and it can take your breath away!  Not because of its opulence – the homes are extremely modest, made of clay, the straw-rooftops, long gone.  But it’s open to tourists today, and the home, converted into house-church and pilgrimage site, is carefully covered with a platform so you can look down into it through the glass, and wonder – is this where Peter, and Jesus himself once broke bread together?!   
 
And on the northern edge of Capernaum is the excavated ruins of a 4th century synagogue.  So it can’t be the synagogue that Jesus and his disciples have just come from in our gospel story, where Jesus silenced the unclean spirit, commanding the demon to come out, and healed the man.  Synagogue buildings, may or may not have been around during Jesus’ life time, because mostly synagogues were just outdoor meeting places until after the year 70AD, when the 2nd Temple was destroyed. 
 
So in our gospel reading today, when they all go to Peter and Andrew’s house with James and John, they were hoping to just chill for a while.  They didn’t know Peter’s mother-in-law was on her death bed, burning up “with a fever.”  So suddenly, Jesus is right back to work!  This is the first contact Jesus has with a woman in the gospel of Mark, and even though she is so sick, he comes to her and compassionately takes her by the hand, and with words that could be used to describe his resurrection to come much later, he “lifted her up!” 
 
Almost as soon as the news gets out, and after sundown when the Sabbath is over, the residents of Capernaum are bringing Jesus, “sick and evil-afflicted people to him,” says Mark, “the whole city lined up at his door!  He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits.  [And] because the demons knew his true identity, he didn’t let them say a word.”  (The Message trans.)
 
So Jesus will continue to expand his circle of followers and demonstrate the power of God.  And remarkably, in wholly new ways!  He will go on to neighboring towns and villages, to preach and announce the good news, and cast out demons.  And just doing that, where he goes and who he cares for, is turning all the normal religious- political-social conventions on their head! 
 
Jesus was a good Jew, but he couldn’t abide the misinterpretation of God’s love and grace in the human-made boundaries and conventions of religion.  The Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon had been trying desperately to Make Israel Great Again for some time.  But they had built up such a rigid system of orders, of clean and unclean, insiders and outsiders, that they had lost much of their original spirituality and life in the covenant agreement to be God’s people. 
 
There were clearly defined holiness ritual zones.  And at the center was the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, where the ark and presence of God resided.  Only the Chief Priest was allowed there.  Then in concentric circles moving outward, were the Courts of the Temple, the Temple itself, Jerusalem, the region of Judea, and finally the Gentile lands, which were entirely unclean. 
 
This ritual pattern was repeated in every arena of Israel’s life.  The Jewish calendar designated holy days from the profane.  Food, was either fit for the altar, the family table, or unfit for consumption altogether.  And of course, people, who were ranked in their relationship to the Temple.  So Priests were in the middle or the holiest, while the sick or physically disabled were at the most outer layer or farthest from holiness.  Gentiles were off the map! 
 
But you get the picture.  Jesus was announcing God’s realm and kingdom, and triaging people – farthest from the center!  Throughout Mark’s gospel, we’ll see how Jesus reverses every marker of human-made holiness:  the calendar, food, people, and the Temple itself. 
 
Jesus breaks down the crumbling insider-outsider divisions, that were corrupting the values and beliefs of his people – liberating them, lifting them up from their ailments that were in no small part created by the corruption of God’s intended order of life, and freeing them from the demons that had them bound for so long. 
 
So, where do we see these walls and boundaries existing among us today?  Can we name the demons? 
 
Healthcare, for one, has locked us into a system of increasing oppression, as for-profit insurance companies control the doctors who feel straight-jacketed, but want to help, dictating how much care they give, what prescriptions and procedures we may have, and if they will be covered.  The division into winners and losers is truly sinful, and needs to be ‘lifted up’ to new life.
 
Another, perhaps better example yet, is the divisive issue of a wall on our border with Mexico:  Just like Making Israel Great Again in Jesus time, the building of a wall is based on the orders of perceived holiness.  White American men are at the center, and brown skinned people farthest away, outsiders, deemed drug runners, and many other un-holy, dog-whistle names.  Dividing up people by race and nationality is perhaps the worst kind of abomination.
 
And to Jesus, this would matter!  Jesus reaches out with ultimate compassion, not only to heal, and lift up those on the farthest most outer circles, but to bring the good news of the realm and kingdom of God, to those in every town and village on the borders of society. Jesus rejected the walls that separate us for their inhumane qualities, and exorcised those demons that were infesting the land, in order to make room for a loving and compassionate God. 
 
Unlike the Jerusalem elites who learned to dine like Herod in royal palaces and elegant dining rooms, Jesus shared meals in villages, like the fishing town of Capernaum, in the common room of their little homes or the shaded portions of the open public courtyard.  They had no finely made pottery plates, but they scooped their lentils and beans, possibly some olives or fruit, right on to their bread. 
 
This is how Jesus enacted the kingdom and realm of God, as a third way, a distinct alternative, from the divisions and exclusions which protected a privileged few, at the center.   
 
When Jesus lifted up Peter’s mother-in-law, and her fever left her, she became a ‘deacon,’ Mark notes, ‘one who serves.’  This was perhaps the highest compliment you could get, in Mark’s gospel.  For it was the women, many of them, who had followed Jesus all the way to the cross, from Galilee to Jerusalem, who Mark singles out after Jesus’ crucifixion, as the best examples of discipleship – and like Peter’s mother-in-law, are called deacons too.  They had learned from Jesus to serve others, and were themselves, ‘lifted up,’ as the key to becoming the people of God, the church.
 
Jesus’ mission brought people together in one circle of peace and justice – healing the sick, dining in festive simple meals, and offering the gift of life, God’s great love, which is given as a gift to all.  
 
And today, God does it through all who are followers – through us, as we enact the realm of God, in all we do.

Readings for 4th Sunday after Epiphany, January 28, 2018

• Deuteronomy 18:15-20 
• Psalm 111 
• 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 
  
• Mark 1:21-28

"Recognizing the Powers," Pastor Kinsey
The unclean spirit expresses the most clear vision of anyone who came to worship in the synagogue that Saturday.  He is the only one to recognize Jesus, and call him by name, and title, and he practically screams it out, “I know who you are, Jesus of Nazareth, the holy One of God!” 
 
The other worshipers had an inkling this might be true, for they were “astounded at his teaching,” says Mark, and could see he was not just any old instructor, but “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”  And yet, they were unable to make a public determination: to give a word, or stand up for the feelings stirring within them.  And, they may not have been exactly sure what to make of Jesus!  Was he truly a prophet?  Or more a danger to society?  Was, he, maybe possessed?  Could he really be trusted?  What if his authority is not from God? 
 
We may know that feeling.  We’ve seen charlatan’s before.  And those who infamously followed Jim Jones down to Guyana in 1978, for example, and all perished in a horrible night of delusional betrayal, knew him to be a very talented man, a great spiritual leader.  And he had indeed started out by helping the poor, and was hailed as a great community leader from Indiana to San Francisco.  But look what happened when his unclean spirit came out! 
 
But, Jesus is also rescued, temporarily at least, by the unclean spirit that day in Capernaum’s synagogue, because the man’s interruption becomes the story.  He becomes labeled and identified as, unclean, as ‘not of’ the people who were worshiping there.  As other!  Possessed!  Knowing Jesus, and deathly afraid that he has come to destroy them.  And so, the spotlight was taken off Jesus in that moment.
 
And Jesus demonstrates his power by healing him; by exorcising the so-called, unclean spirit ‘out of him.’  “Be silent,” commands Jesus!  Likely Jesus doesn’t want to reveal who he is just yet, because that will turn up the heat with the authorities, and of course, because he wants to quiet the legion of voices that have taken-over this man’s life.
 
Later when we read that Jesus stilled the storm out in the middle of Lake Galilee with the disciples, he uses the same command, Be Silent!  What is this about?  How – most people will ask – does he do it?  But I think the question is, Why?! 
 
And so, what is going on here, in this rather strange exorcism story?  I mean, has anyone seen an exorcism lately?  Even in 1973, when the movie the Exorcist came out, most people didn’t believe in exorcisms.  Why is this, the signature moment to begin Jesus’ ministry?
 
Well, Mark’s gospel, I think we could say, is a story of the conflict between, the gracious love of God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, and, the powers aligned against him, and his realm or kingdom.  This is the first public act of Jesus’ ministry.  After Jesus’ baptism, when he battled Satan in the desert, alone, save the angels who waited on him.  After Jesus called his followers and gathered his disciples that would be his nucleus and closest confidants throughout his ministry.  So this exorcism is his first truly public act, as ‘the Holy One of God,’ the inaugural moment of his mission. 
 
There’s something very important to Mark, in telling his gospel, about this first act of Jesus.  In a word, Jesus of Nazareth has authority even over the powers of this world, overall the cultures that compete with God’s realm and kingdom, grasping for our ultimate attention. 
 
And what happens?  Does Jesus kill them, the unclean spirits in the man?  That is the fear expressed by this highly intuitive interrupter who has appeared in the synagogue out of nowhere: “Have you come to destroy us?”  And, looking through his eyes, it seems it’s going to have to be, one, or the other.  But Jesus heals the man, by commanding the unclean spirit to be silent, and then ordering them to come out of him.  And in this way, the man is preserved -saved- and Jesus demonstrates his “authority, a new teaching,” as Mark says.  Jesus prevails, at least for now.  The confrontation, of course, continues throughout the gospel story.  And the question of defeating evil once and for all, remains a bit of an enigma – though by faith, we will come to know it in Jesus’ final act of cross and resurrection. 
 
And it seems the eyes of faith, and the ears to hear, are keys to apprehending the good news of Mark’s gospel story. 
 
Our stories, even today, are ones of confrontation with the opponents of God.  We are never wrestling just with disruptive people, or just with racist or sexist actions, or with ourselves, but at bottom, we wrestle with the powers that do not seem to die, who seek to possess us, and cloud our eyes, and dissuade us from simply learning how to trust one another.  Evil is still alive (today).
 
One of the most heartbreaking examples of this, a story once again of leaders abusing their powers, that played out in public in the last few weeks, was the Olympic doctor Larry Nassar who was sentenced to up to 175 years, for his abuses – an evil that spread in plain sight.  What started as a case with only a couple of accusers, quickly blossomed into scores of women coming forward to say Me Too, and were allowed to testify, one after the other.  In this case, the legion of women who came out to tell the truth, prevailed against the doctor, and all those who enabled the decades of abuse, like coaches, parents, and the U.S. Olympic leaders – and because of this brave and persistent legion, the unclean spirit has been cast out! 
 
Jesus will go on to heal those who have been harmed by the legion of institutional abusers in the religious system of his day, and compassionately bind up the poor and those afflicted by them. 
 
What are the ways that this is happening today?  How can we break down the institutional evils and wrongs that we ourselves participate in?  And how can we be repairers of the breach?  How can we have the courage to speak out and name these people and these evils, knowing we risk our good names to do so, sometimes? 
 
Well, the first step surely is by supporting one another in our community of faith, so that building up our spiritual muscle, we are prepared and eager to go out and do the same in the institutions we work and participate in every day, that they too may embody God’s love and truth. 
 
Today, it’s very exciting, that we do this supporting in our community, in a more formal way, as we welcome Aaron and Greg to Unity, in the Affirmation of Faith.  Of course, they’ve already been a part of us, but because they’re willing to stand-up, and pledge their faith today, we delight in their witness.., we join together with them in our common creed, and our spiritual muscle is strengthened in our community of faith and for our work in the world. 
 
For, Who are we, after all, if we are not a community that supports one another and shares the good news of the gospel of ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy One of God?!’