Readings for June 26, 2016
6th Sunday after Pentecost 
(proper 8, lectionary 13)

• 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 and Psalm 16 
• Galatians 5:1, 13-25  
• Luke 9:51-62

Tagged, Touched and Called, by Pastor Kinsey
As a lifelong Lutheran, it’s hard for me not to see my life tagged and called by God.  Though, of course, there are many who were baptized when I was, back in the day, who no longer believe.  But to me, everywhere I look, I see the hand of God at work. 
 
Some of my earliest memories are of going to Pine Lake Lutheran Camp every summer, where everything we did was connected to Jesus, it seemed like!  Like a baptismal renewal, we jumped in the lake for Jesus!  We had a mission as church group, joining the Spring Clean-up, to paint cabins for the upcoming summer season.  The whole community took turns helping in the kitchen, and all the kids wanted to be tagged as the one to ring the dinner-bell to call everyone to eat.  We began every meal with prayer, and at sunset, we sang Vespers, or Evening Prayer together.  Even using the common bathroom and shower facilities was tied to our calling as Christians, I remember, because we had a song we sang, “Go Down Moses”, that ended with, “Let my People Go!” 
 
Whether at play or at work, in church or the world, I felt God’s touch, tagging me to be the follower of Jesus God desires, from an early age.
 
That touch of God, is also etched into my mind by the famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depicting Creation.  God, as the grand elder with white beard, reaching out to the youthful Adam, the earth creature, a mere whisper away.  You can almost feel the sparks, the power of that moment when humankind was born, Adam’s finger, ‘this close’ to God’s! 
 
Does the artist depict the moment just before, or just after, they touch, when God creates human beings?  And does God’s tag represent a one-time big-bang explosion like the spark that ignites a furnace, or is it more like the beginning of a continuing engagement of the Creator and creatures?  Surely, it captures for us all, who know this picture by heart, that God has touched and tagged us as the people of God!
 
On this Pride Sunday, we can see God expanding our horizons, that sexual orientation and gender identity are created in many and various ways beyond what our old lives could have imagined, and that falling in love and building a relationship is a wideness as stunning as the spectrum of light represented in the rainbow flags that will wave proudly down Broadway this afternoon.  
 
What does a call from God, a call to use your gifts for the sake and the need of the world, feel like to you? 
 
The Prophet Elijah in our First Reading, “tags” Elisha to be his protégé, by throwing his mantle, his coat, over him.  Elisha doesn’t seek this, he’s just out plowing fields, but in the midst of life, he is called to this service – he is identified as, a “somebody.” 
 
The elder Elijah has been under call from God his whole life, pretty much, “tagged” to be the mouthpiece of God, to feed the widows, and to fight evil and corruption in his country of Israel.  He comes to feel burdened and alone, in his later days – it has been a tough row to hoe, and a very difficult time in Israel’s history.  Its leaders are corrupt, trading justice and mercy for their own benefit.  ‘Am I the only one left, God, who is willing to listen to you?’ Elijah wonders.  ‘Have I a failed?  Is everything lost?’ 
 
Each of us in our own baptismal vocation has been called out by God for service in the world every day.  That service is lived out, Luther believed, in four arenas… family, daily work or school, citizenship, and church, each equal and valid calls.
 
I’m delighted, as well as a little afraid, to proclaim today that you been tagged by God.  You’ve been touched for the prestige of this call… made kings, queens, presidents if you will, in your baptisms into Christ Jesus’ realm!  What an honor!!  What a privilege and responsibility!  If you were baptized as a baby, you probably didn’t seek it.  But God continues to call us out along the way.
 
And once you start to live it out, no one can dispute that this call, this tagging, this vesting and putting on of Christ, is also a challenge…  we often feel our livelihood and meaning, positions at work, our church, our society, sometimes our homes and relationships with family, are hanging by a thread, about to go under, or be torn apart.  We hold our breaths and sometimes wonder if we are up to the challenge. 
 
When Elijah felt alone in his work of Israel’s prophet, God reassures Elijah, “There are still thousands of other faithful ones”.  And to make it real, to point him in the right direction, God “fingers” 2 new kings, and one new prophet, who will partner with Elijah to bring the faithful remnant, the people of God, together, to rebuild. 
 
Grudgingly, Elijah rises up, trying to remember and feel the call one more time.  Discouraged and doubting, Elijah can conjure no words with which to address Elisha, he can only throw his mantle on him, as he keeps on walking.  Why should a rich young man want to follow you, Lord?  Is this another false lead?  He doubts that Elisha will understand this call, and he finds it hard to invest in this new project God is envisioning. 
 
But Elisha does feel tagged, and he comes running after him, excited, “Please, just let me go back and kiss my family goodbye, and then I’ll be right with you!” 
 
Elijah at first brushes this off as only a half-hearted attempt to follow, dismissing him, if Elisha’s not willing to follow.  But in a surprising act of faith, Elisha shows his commitment by slaughtering his whole herd of oxen, burning up the equipment of his now former life -his plow- to cook one huge barbeque and celebrative community feast.  And with this pleasing odor, this burnt offering to the Lord, Elisha “liquidates his assets”, making a generous offering to God, and proclaiming a complete break with his past.  ‘Tagged’ by God, he lives now by faith in his new vocation. 
 
How has God tagged you for a life of faith?  And how has God touched us as Unity Church to be a blessing for the world?  What is the gift that we have to bring?  What are doubts that are holding us back? 
 
We have been “tagged” by God, and are ‘this close’ to God’s healing and creative touch!  In St. Paul’s language, we are “called to freedom”, and should take care not to “submit again to a yoke of slavery”. 
 
Like Elisha, a mantle has been thrown over our shoulders.  It is ours to try on for size.  We may fidget and fuss with this new garment, unsure if it really is a good fit.  But like our baptismal garment, the white robe or dress that was traditionally given to begin a new life, reborn, and recreated in Christ, it is, a tailor fit, for the Kingdom of God. 
 
In Christ we are a new creation.  We are reborn by water and the Spirit.  We are called by God and fit for a mission.  So let us put hand to plow, and not look back, trusting in what God has in store for us, as we walk together. ​

Readings for June 19, 2016, 5th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 12)

• Isaiah 65:1-9 and Psalm 22:19-28  
• Galatians 3:23-29  
• Luke 8:26-39

"Legions" by Pastor Kinsey
Whatever is evil, or demon possessed, in the gospel world, wants nothing to do with Jesus.  We see it in Legion, the man, and in the legion of people from the city.
 
In our gospel, Jesus took a trip across town, on the Red Line, from Berwyn to Howard.  Or maybe it was on the Green line, from Oak Park to the Loop, or maybe it was the Metra from Union station to Elkhart, IN!  But, whatever, he ended up in foreign, Gentile territory, “opposite” his home base of “Galilee,” as Luke sets up the story.
 
And immediately as he “stepped out,” a man of the city was there to meet him.  It wasn’t the Alderman, but a man who hadn’t worn clothes for some time, like the rest of the bodies in the cemetery where he lived, I guess; Or, maybe like those naked ones that Jesus said, if we clothed them as an act of faithfulness, we would be clothing Jesus himself; Or, maybe naked like an baptismal candidate, who in the early church days, when Luke was writing, shed all their clothes before walking in the river, lake, or deep immersion baptistery, only to come up again out of the water and put on new clothes, a white robe of rebirth, baptized into Christ. 
 
And when the Gerasenes man, “saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘what have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I beg you, do not torment me’ – for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.” 
 
Luke gives us even more information on this un-named man, in a little aside, how he had been bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet would still break free of that, and the demon, or whatever was possessing him, that was so strong, would drive him into the wilderness.  Apparently, this state would come and go, and each time it returned, he would again be locked up by the people from the city, in the cemetery. 
 
Whatever is evil, or demon possessed, in the gospel world, wants nothing to do with Jesus. 
 
But Jesus looks him in the eye, this man, this person, who can readily and easily identify Jesus as, the Son of God – which even his own disciples have a hard time doing – and Jesus asks him his name.  I’m not sure that would even have occurred to me!  Probably, what I would have thought to do, was to call 911 first; or possibly, run in the other direction!  Or, if I had one, get out my MCX. 
 
Why don’t, pretty  much any of us, see him as a person?  Yet astonishingly, when addressed, the man answers Jesus, my name is Legion. 
 
His name, identifies his illness, his possession, his demon, as the gospel of Luke calls it – which, it seems to me, is more like a nickname, then.  Maybe he has a whole mess of voices going on in his head, or maybe he’s having psychotic episodes, which he can no longer control himself.  It’s difficult to translate, or even know exactly what’s going on over the distance of 2,000 years, in between very different cultures, divided by medicine and science, religion and a whole host of other social-psychological factors that aren’t equivalent to one another, and which we aren’t able to line up nice and neatly, no matter how we try. 
 
But in their conversation, Jesus and the naked man from Geresene, have a negotiation, which you don’t see in any other healing story, that I can recall.  But by the end of it, Jesus can go with the man’s ask, a proposition from the Legion within the man, not to go back into the abyss, but to give all of them leave to enter the, “large herd of swine on the hillside” that were feeding nearby.  It was perfect – a Legion of many, sent into the huge herd of pigs!  Except that, as soon as Jesus did that, “the herd rushed down the steep bank into the [Sea of Galilee] and was drowned,” Luke says.  And they ended up, “…just where they hoped that they would not go, [to] the abyss, the bottomless pit where they join the fallen angels and spirits “kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day,” as Jude writes in the last NT Letter; (1:6). 
 
But, the man is freed!  He is really saved, from the fate of always being tortured by the violent spirits that had controlled him.  He’s himself again!  Yet when the people from the region of Geresenes see him in his “right mind”, just sitting there at Jesus’ feet – much like the woman Jesus healed in last week’s gospel – they become very afraid!  And instead of falling at the feet of Jesus in worship, “all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes,” it says, “asked Jesus to leave them!” 
 
What?!  Although, this sounds a lot like the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning – those who were afraid when the angels gave them the news that Jesus was no longer in the grave, but had been liberated, and was on his way to Galilee, just as he promised you that he would!  They were afraid of that announcement.  Or, is it just like the Legion, the man of the tombs of Gerasenes who was afraid of the power of Jesus, Son of the Most High God, who might change him? 
 
Whatever is evil, or demon possessed, in the gospel world, wants nothing to do with Jesus.  We see it in Legion, the man, and in the legion of ppl from the city.  Change is gunna come, and that isn’t always what we want to hear!
 
The transformation from slave to free, and from death to life, can easily fill us with fear.  Because, if we are changed, who then will we be?! 
 
The death that has gripped so many this past week in the shooting in Orlando, brought fear too.  Such a senseless taking of life, by such a hater, hurts beyond belief.  And for the LGBTQ and LatinX community that found safety and a community in the Pulse nightclub, the hurt is all the worse, which has reverberating out across the country, this week. 
 
We, can understand that desire for safety, as a community that has come to trust in the freedom of religion, and knowing that this place, this sanctuary, is protected.  It is open, and so it is vulnerable, but it is also ours to define, and it depends in a way, on all of us to stand up for it. 
 
In addition, we have taken the courageous step to welcome, in no uncertain terms, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, to worship, and to find safety here in this sanctuary, as much as anyone else. 
 
Unfortunately in Orlando, no one felt the responsibility to look into this man’s eye, this shooter, and ask him his name – I don’t mean as he did it, but in the days and years leading up to it.  For he had a Legion of demons, or spirits, too.  He had been to this place, the Pulse, before, possibly been on a date.  He had had two wives that he verbally, psychologically, and physically abused.  He had a co-worker in his Security job that demanded to be separated from him, because of his violent temper.  And yet we don’t consider these, public problems that concern us a society, as communities.  Except, we do, religiously!  We, the followers of Jesus, understand, and learn how.  First of all, we know we have nothing to fear as a baptized people, because we have been made as dead as we can, having passed through the waters.  And so, we know our responsibility to look the other in the eye.  We know, they could be us; that we have all fallen short of the glory of God.  There is no exceptionalism, as a person of faith. 
 
Like the people in Jesus day, we understand that evil is a social problem.  What hurts one, hurts us all.  Socially, in this country, we individualize our demons, we psychologize them, we medicate them, which is another way to respond, and has validity too.  But more is needed.   
 
In our 2nd Reading today, Paul says, “27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  The church is all the people, all the baptized who are the whole Body of Christ.  And baptism is open to all, which means no one can discriminate based on nationality, religion, social class, sexuality or gender. 
 
Whatever is evil, or demon possessed, wants nothing to do with Jesus.  Because, those who are the Body of Christ in the world, are not afraid.  We live with one foot in the world of justice and peace already.  We have been freed in Christ.  We live to liberate the Legions of the world, for the sake of the one who saved us.  Amen.

Readings for June 12, 2016
4th Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 11

• 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15 and Psalm 32 
• Galatians 2:15-21 
• Luke 7:36-8:3

What Does It Take? by Pastor Kinsey
What does it take to be noticed?  “Do you see this woman?” Jesus says to Simon in our gospel, who then proceeds to lift her up as a great example.  Jesus points out her act of love.  But more than that, he’s asking us if we notice?
 
I remember, years ago, playing Peek-a-Boo with my nieces and nephews when they were little.  There’s something about the simple, no-cost, game, that just delights children, and puts big smiles on their faces.  Being noticed is a validating and delightful thing! 
 
On the other hand, do we seem to play hide-and-go-seek, for example, with the poor and homeless, even though they live and walk the same streets with us?  If we notice them, do we really consciously see them as people we should engage – talk to, or develop a relationship with?  Everyone seems to know the tent city that lives under the Wilson viaduct.  But are they people we think of as living in the same circles of friends we have?  Has our culture taught us to play hide-and-seek… with more emphasis on the former than the later?!
 
Who is Melania Trump, or any other model we see looking at us from the magazines in the check-out line, or smiling in car commercials?  Who are the women, more than 1 in 3 in the United States, who have experienced intimate-partner-violence in their lifetime?  Who are the women who go to work and earn 79 cents on the dollar for the same work men are doing in the cubicles right next to them? 
 
What does it take to be noticed, appreciated, and treated with the respect Jesus gives to every person he encounters?
 
This story of a woman in the city who was a sinner, is wrapped in a story about the importance of hospitality.  A long tradition of interpretation, jumped to the conclusion early on, that this un-named woman must be Mary Magdalene, and thus the sins in question have to do with prostitution.  That tradition has been bolstered in our time by an Elizabethan gloss that she must have let her hair down is some sexualized way.  But as Amy-Jill Levine has recently said, this is not accurate to the Jewish tradition.  And she offers a variety of more, historically valid explanations for letting her hair down: including, women who are grieving, or who show gratefulness… a gesture of sacrifice to a god, or a demonstrative pleading.  Using her hair to wash and anoint Jesus’ feet, may suggest intimacy, but it need not be erotic, Levine says. 
 
That the un-named woman stood behind Jesus at his feet at the rich man’s house, tells us they are dining in an open air portico, where the guests would recline on couches, that look more like short benches to us.  Servants brought food from the inside, while people like the un-named woman could easily approach from the street side. 
 
It is the rich ruler in the story, Simon, who makes the story all about the woman’s sins, as she bathes Jesus’ feet with her tears, kisses his feet and anoints them with the ointment she brought in the alabaster jar. Jesus must not be much of a learned man if he doesn’t understand this, Simon suggests to his guests.  Although we need to give the rich host some credit, in that he has the courage and interest at least to invite Jesus to dine with him in the first place.  He is curious, and willing to engage in dialog with Jesus. 
 
But Jesus is much wiser than the rich man expects.  And Jesus tells a parable that ensnares Simon, just like Nathan reeled King David in, in our First Reading.  40Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."  41A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other [only] fifty.  42 Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts.  Which of the two, do you think, would be more grateful?”   43Simon – starting to feel the tension rise – answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." "That’s right," said Jesus .  44Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?”  Of course, Simon has only seen her as a sinner, a poor woman that he is under no obligation to treat as an equal. 
 
But Jesus says, I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair.  45You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet.  46You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it?   47Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.  But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." 
 
The startling difference here is in how Simon and the woman each treat Jesus.  Simon is miserly and guarded, and so doesn’t know how to welcome Jesus into his home.  But it is this un-named, ill-treated woman, ironically, who offers Jesus the appropriate hospitality.  Simon ‘the rebuker’ is himself rebuked – while the rebuked-woman, is named the perfect hostess and is forgiven her sins, even though she seems, never to have confessed them.
 
As [Pastor] Michael Lindvall notes, Simon‘s hospitality is really all about himself and his personal spiritual interests. Our society, and even our churches sometimes, are populated with more than a few Simon’s, whose interest in spirituality never grows beyond the self-help section into anything more life-giving for the world.
 
The woman, by contrast, offers Jesus a hospitality that is all about Jesus and the kingdom he has announced.  There is no bracketed theological dinner talk, only her beautiful act of putting her body on the line for what she believes in. She needs Jesus, not to round out her personal spirituality, but she is seeking, like all of us, to become whole, the human being she was created to be. (Lindvall)
 
Jesus shows the glaring contrast between Simon’s behavior, and the tenderness and respect offered by the woman, as [Campus Pastor] Mihee Kim-Kort has observed.  Simon is so convinced of his own righteousness that he doesn’t feel he is in need of forgiveness.  Do you know anyone like that?  But if we are unable to feel its need, how can we know forgiveness, or experience the love that makes it possible for us to forgive others?  One cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus, it seems, and not be ready to fall at his feet, to know the need for forgiveness and mercy.
 
But if we live the life that Jesus calls us to, we will become more and more infected with the gift of the Holy Spirit, that gives us the courage to offer our life back in sacrifice to the world, and to be instruments of grace and forgiveness too – whether we do that in our work, as parents, or the ways we volunteer and support family, friends or the causes we believe in.
 
The world may not notice, but Jesus does.  Jesus sees us, eye to eye, and lifts us up.  We have the opportunity for forgiveness every day, and are raised to stand up to the Simon’s of our world, to love the un-noticed all around us, and to show God’s love. 

Readings for Pentecost 3, Lectionary 10
June 5, 2016

• 1 Kings 17:17-24 and Psalm 30 
• Galatians 1:11-24  
• Luke 7:11-17

Gramdma Erma, The Rev. Fred Kinsey
He, “gave him to his mother”.  First it was Elijah, then Jesus.  Two similar stories.  Two raisings.  Two widows restored.  They gave the son to his mother.
 
I knew one widow, Grandma Erma, who had two sons.  One son was nearly blind from macular degeneration, the other son was known as the friendly town drunk.  Needless to say, neither son was much support.  The son who was blind lived too far away to be able to help, day to day.  The son who was the drinker, was full of promises to his mother, yet on snowy days, I always saw Grandma Erma shoveling her own front step, and unloading her own grocery bags from the car.  Thank goodness for Medicare, on the one hand, and Grandma Erma’s unflappable optimism, undergirded by her rock steady faith.  She had the fortitude of the 10 next strongest people, and the generosity of more than one saint. 
 
What she always told me was, that it was her church family, the gathering of her friends in Christ that meant the most to her, and were her support and life-line which was reassuring to hear, because by all accounts, what I saw was her unfailing service to others.  At church, Erma was the coordinator of the 3 Circles that served lunch at church for funerals, baptisms, and other occasions, which she always did with great compassion.  She knew everyone in the gathering of the faithful at Bethany, and everyone loved her.  They couldn’t “give her sons back to her”, healed and whole, but in their relationships and their support, the people returned to her the life we are promised in Christ, a gift and restoration, none-the-less.
 
In Elijah’s day, it was pretty desperate times for Israel.  King Ahab and Jezebel were the bottom of the barrel, in terms of leadership – demagogues.  Not only were they corrupt and unfaithful, but they were really good at it!  They were holy terrors, and surprisingly, much of Israel was willing to follow after them.  It was a dangerous time for the country.
 
So Elijah was forced to find the faithful, those hungry for salvation, outside of Israel, on the margins.  In the town of Zaraphath in Syria, Elijah meets a widow whose son is starving to death, in the midst of a great famine in the land.  When his breath is gone, Elijah takes the widows son to his own bosom, and cries out to the Lord for justice.  After three times holding him close, the Lord listened and breathed new life back into him.  When Elijah presented her restored son to the widow of Zaraphath, it says, “he gave him to his mother”.  And she praised God to Elijah, praised this foreign God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom she had not known until that day. 
 
And so, when we get to the gospel, we already know how the good news works!  Jesus goes to the marginal town of Nain, and with a large crowd in tow.  There, at the city gate, he meets a funeral bier in procession – no hearse, but a simple pallet, on which is laid the son of a widow.  And Jesus has compassion for the widow, sentenced now to a life of poverty.  But this is not the first, nor the last time, he shows this emotion for the marginalized, the unclean, or rejected.  In plain view of the whole crowd, Jesus says, “young man, I say to you, rise!”  And after the young man sits up and starts speaking, Jesus, “gives him to his mother.”  In awe, both Jews and Gentiles glorified God, and praised Jesus as a great prophet, the Lord, who brings life out of death. 
 
Where is the power to raise up new life in our gathering?  Who are the widows, the marginalized, the poor, in our neighborhood? 
 
In Jesus time, there were no Medicare or Social Security programs.  Women were economically dependent on either a husband or a son.  And for the people of faith, there was no separating out losing one’s dignity because of the loss of a breadwinner in the family, from one’s grief and shame.  Jesus responds to it all, her faith, social and economic status, in this one act of “giving him to his mother.”  As a widow who had lost her son, Jesus had compassion for her, even this outsider of a different faith, and responds as an agent of God’s Holy Spirit, transforming what was dead into new life. 
 
In stopping the funeral procession, Jesus protests the injustice of death for the poor, healing the pain and transforming the penalty, overturning its sentence, gifting her with a new day.  And through the people of faith, we continue to call on the Spirit to bring new life.  We did this, for example, a few years ago when we stood with other Edgewater neighbors in solidarity with the folks about to be removed from Sommerset Nursing Home, protesting the loss of their dignity.  And so, raising up our sons and daughters can take on a variety of forms and shapes.
 
In the gospel stories we hear this summer, throughout this green and growing Pentecost season, Luke will continue to develop the theme of the lowly being lifted up and the mighty being brought low.  Luke will continue to assert that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob shows compassion, that widows and the marginalized will be vindicated, and those who worship Mammon and wealth, will be brought to justice.  And this, “justice with compassion,” shines through in the Lord Jesus, more and more, on his way to Jerusalem and the cross, in the one who brings life from death. 
 
Where is the power to raise up new life in our gathering?  What does a healing justice look like in our neighborhood?  Who shows us compassion, and how do we share it with others? 
 
Grandma Erma found new life in the body of Christ, in the people of her neighborhood parish.  There, she was a respected leader, her compassion and wisdom found a home in her congregation, a dignity that raised her up, that her two sons could not give her.  And, is this not the equivalent of the body of Christ saying to her, “here is your son?”
 
In our gathering here at Unity, we continue to fill up our Care for Real basket, confident that its collection will raise-up those who hunger, sharing and communing with those hungry for meaning, justice and dignity.  And here at our table, we eat the bread and drink of the cup, which are raised up for us, a sacrifice of thanksgiving from Jesus, a gift from God, that satisfies our hunger for righteousness and salvation.  And filled with good things, we share Christ’s compassionate healing and wisdom in all we do throughout the week, finding ways to lift up, the Grandma Erma’s in our neighborhood. 
 
The power of new life, is in the body of Christ.  As the people of faith who are sent out to tell the story of Jesus’ great love and acceptance, justice and peace, we have the power to restore new life, in his name.  And, like Jesus and Elijah, we gladly share the gift of life we have received.  “Here is your son,” is a word of restoration and hope, that God is the source of life for all.  ‘Here is your life!’  ‘Here, put on your dignity!’  Whoever has been marginalized, be raised up, be healed, and live.