Reading for August 27, the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

• Isaiah 51:1-6 and Psalm 138  
• Romans 12:1-8  
• Matthew 16:13-20

"Heliocentric" by Pastor Kinsey
The earth revolves around the sun, right.  Nothing shocking about that.  Not anymore.  It’s a fact that everyone agrees on – although I haven’t consulted with the Tweeter-in-Chief… maybe he’d find some merit in the ‘many’ other sides of the argument! 
 
500 years ago it was different, even Martin Luther himself cast doubt on the subject, declaring that Copernicus was, more or less, a young upstart trying to make a name for himself, and needlessly upsetting the apple cart.  Luther was just going along with popular opinion, I guess you could say, as most people were pretty skeptical of the idea at the time. 
 
Even a few decades later, towards the end of the 16th century, after Copernicus and Luther, along came scientist Johann Kepler.  He was himself a devout Lutheran, and Kepler added to Copernicus’ heliocentric belief, that the Earth revolves around the sun, by correctly calculating for the first time that there was an elliptical pattern to the Earth’s orbit – which, only managed to help get Kepler in trouble with the Lutheran Church, and he was barred from his position at Tubingen University, and later excommunicated. 
 
So, there was a time when saying, earth is not the center of the solar system, that was not acceptable!  It took some time for us as a people to catch up to this heliocentric solar system!
 
At the time, of course, theology and science hadn’t been compartmentalized, and were still one discipline.  And Kepler himself was motivated to learn more about astronomy, because of the biblical view – that the sun, and moon, and stars, and all the celestial bodies, were closer to God – which made his calculations about them all the more fascinating to him.  And so, it’s not that surprising that Kepler also proposed a theological explanation for a heliocentric solar system – that, just as by faith we all revolve around God’s Son, that is, Jesus Christ is at the center of our lives, so God created the planets to revolve around the Sun – s-u-n. 
 
Which brings me finally to our gospel: “13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’”  In other words, do people think everything and everybody revolves around their own lives?  Or, do they begin to see that their lives, and all their families, clan, religion, and all the nations, revolve around the Son of God? 
 
It’s no coincidence that Jesus took his disciples to the edge of Israel, way up north, to the district of Caesarea Philippi.  As the name implies, this was the stomping ground, the playboy mansion, really, for the Herod’s and other Roman elites, built as a resort get-a-way in the back-water of Palestine.  There was no question that their world revolved around Caesar.  We might see a parallel in present day Mar-a-Lago, a palatial resort, where only the super-rich are welcome, and might hope to play golf with the once, and perhaps future, Reality TV celebrity, our Commander-in-Chief.  This was the type of place Caesarea Philippi was, and where Jesus asked his disciples for a candid take on what people were thinking about him. 
 
It was roughly half-way through Jesus public ministry – between his baptism and crucifixion.  His reputation was spreading among the masses who had been healed by him, who had learned from him, or heard of the miracles he performed.  ‘So, what do they make of me,’ Jesus asked his closest friends and fellow journeyers? 
 
Some say you are John the Baptist or Elijah come back to life, which was thought to be the sign that a new age was about to dawn.  ‘Others still’ claimed he must be Jeremiah or one of the prophets, due to his speaking truth to power – to the corrupted Jerusalem crowd.  Either of those titles would be a huge complement to most of us, yet to Jesus, they represented only minor planets of the solar system. 
 
So Jesus asks his own disciples: “who do you say that I am?”  Only Peter speaks up, or maybe he speaks on behalf of them all, “you are the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed one,” he tells Jesus, “the Son of the living God!”  And Jesus affirms that Peter has spoken correctly.  But not because Peter really understands what he has said – more on that next week! – but because God, Jesus’ father, has ‘revealed’ the answer to him.  Jesus is ‘Son of the living God,’ and by a shot of insight God has revealed it to Peter. 
 
Nothing about Jesus’ identity is completely comprehensible for us – apart from the Holy Spirit, that is, apart from revelation, or knowledge that comes from faith. 
 
Yet, how often! do we think our striving toward God, is a way to garnish our faith creds, when it’s really the other way around!  It’s God, who comes to us, God who loves us first, passionately and completely – and that’s the only kind of knowledge that can begin to form the gift of faith, germinating in our lives like a tiny mustard seed, about to blossom into a huge bush. 
 
Or as Teresa of Avilla says, “It would be absurd to suggest that someone go into a room she is already in!” —(Teresa of Ávila,1515-1582)  In other words, God has given us the room, the whole of creation, and the kingdom and realm of God, to live within, if we have the eyes of faith to see it, and welcome it, as a gracious gift.  That’s the Copernicus and Kepler revolution – reorienting who we are, and transforming our lives.  It’s not by our striving or work, that God’s love and forgiveness come about.  It’s not by our status or ego.  And only the counter-intuitive realization, that we already live in ‘the room,’ that we already revolve around God’s Son, within the realm of God, equally with all others – are we able to joyfully discover the revelation, that has already saved us.  We are not the center of the universe!  We draw our life from the light of the son… the Son of the living God.
 
God, is the great lover, the unambiguous giver of all good things.  Even in suffering, God is bringing all things back around to life.  Because as Paul says, suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and the hope we have in Christ Jesus, does not disappoint us!
 
Or, as Richard Rohr says it, “It is not that if I am moral, then I will be loved by God; rather, I must first come to experience God’s love, and then I will—almost naturally--be moral.
 
And the disciples have been hanging out in “the room” with Jesus long enough to feel it.  It seems to roll off Peter’s lips, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  At least surrounded by the glitz and egos of the swanky district of Caesarea Philippi, it’s not hard to get it!  But it’s when they get back to Galilee, back to their friends and families, and all the distractions of every day life, that they have a more difficult time discerning where the kingdom of God actually exits.  Where is the center of the heliocentric universe, when there are so many bright attractive stars all around? 
 
‘It’s hard to tell the weeds from the wheat,’ Jesus says.  And, all that glitters is not gold! 
 
After all this, Jesus tells the disciples – in fact, ‘sternly orders them’ – not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah!  Wait, don’t spread the good news about Jesus Christ?!  That seems wrong! 
 
But I’m guessing Jesus is thinking of all the people who know him as John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.  You can’t just tell people what to believe.  We’re talking about the living God here – how do we come to know the living Jesus, in the Holy Spirit?  How do we find the courage to let the world – spinning around ‘me, myself, and I’ – go?  How do we find a patient persistence, in sharing the good news, in such a way that others don’t reject the revelatory Copernican news, that the Son of God is the center of our lives, even though, some days, this calling seems to risk as much as Johann Kepler did! 
 
But how can we keep it to ourselves!... that we indeed have found our true selves, we’ve had our eyes opened, and experienced that we live in the room of God’s amazing love and grace, already, right now, every day! 
 
How can we?!

Memorial service for Aaron, August 20, 2017
Text: Psalm 121

Caring Community, by Pastor Kinsey
We only know Aaron’s name because of Nathan.  Nathan is the site director for our Space Sharing partner who was here that day, Tuesday August 8th.  Nathan readily and naturally included Aaron in the outdoor chalking activity the RefugeeONE youth were doing.  These kids – who are from all over the world – met Aaron and they all chalked together on our front sidewalk. 
 
When Aaron had his turn, what he wrote was, “We Await Heaven.”  And also, he drew right under that: a star of David, a cross, and the crescent and star, symbols of the three Abrahamic faiths.  He also drew a Smiley Face.
 
Nathan offered Aaron bread and water, before he and the RefugeeONE kids headed back inside for their next summer program activity. 
 
We didn’t know Aaron for long.  Aaron was not even on this earth all that long, at 19, which of course, is the tragedy and sadness we have all been feeling and experiencing, together. 
 
But Aaron came to, this church, on his final day.  It could have been any church, probably.  But he came here to us.  And our space sharing partner, through its Site Director, didn’t fail him.  Nathan and the refugee kids were friend and fellow travelers with Aaron, in his last hours. 
 
Later, we found out, it was not Aaron’s first attempt on his life.  And Nathan had no idea of Aaron’s intentions – which is why Nathan felt so down after he found out. 
 
We are, whether we like to admit it or not, “our brothers and sisters keepers.”  In fact, I’d say, that’s what ‘community’ is all about.  ‘None of us is an island,’ as John Donne said, or at least, we shouldn’t be.  The level of alienation we experience in today’s world, varies from person to person, community to community. 
 
And the thing I’ve come to know is the ‘degree of separation’ we experience, in whatever circles we travel, is at its base, created by us, whether barriers by race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, or economic status – divisions and fissures that continue to twist and distort us, in ways we can barely perceive, until the darkness surfaces as pain, injury or death.  And, save for natural disasters, we – humans – make them – just like we can also un-do them.  We, tacitly agree and daily accept living in their world – we can also fight them and consciously organize to alleviate or abolish them. 
 
But when they are so oppressive, so stigmatizing as to make us a community of ‘one,’ the pressure can be too great.  Mental illness, especially depression, can increase the feeling, to make the most lonely decision there is. 
 
As individuals, none of us knew what Aaron was feeling inside or what he was planning.  As a community, we failed Aaron by not knowing, as communities do.  So, none of us are guilty – all of us are guilty.  We are seemingly left with this contradiction as the only answer to this tragic situation.  Unless, of course, we go home from here, transformed by “the power of love” that comes from bravely and collectively looking evil squarely in the eye, and still deciding to ‘live for our neighbor,’ and thereby overcome the divisions and the forces that seek to pit us against each other.
 
Whatever higher power or God you pray to, I pray it is a power that is forgiving – for yourself, and for Aaron. 
 
Aaron came to this church – and when he did, he already had, ‘going to God’ on his mind.  I believe he found sanctuary here, and that he was ministered to, though I wish all the more we could share the tomorrows, we have, with him as well.  So, for us who are left in the wake of sadness and mourning, I realize, and offer to you, what a great blessing it is that our lives continue on, that God gives us a brand new day every morning, and the opportunity to live life with purpose.
 
I guess, for me, the phrase that Aaron wrote, “we await heaven” has especially torn at me.  But I finally found, what I think may have been the passage in the Christian scriptures that Aaron was thinking of.  It’s from the letter to the Philippians, where Paul says, “… our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we [await] a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,” (Philippians 3:20-21)
 
We have not always gotten this right in the church, but this passage is really about God’s power and goodness coming down to us, here on earth, not the other way around – so that our failings and humiliations might be transformed, and we might come together as a community of people who care for one another, and where no one is an island, but that we all have a small taste of heaven, right now. 
 
We, are created for community.  We are not perfect, but we are a whole lot better, when we lift one another up, and bear one another’s burdens, than when we divide and conquer.
 
I believe the power of a caring community comes from the one whom the Psalmist said, “watches over our going out and our coming in from this time forth, forevermore.”
 
Whatever you believe, I’m glad you’re here – thank you for showing you care. 
 
Let’s continue to be our sister’s and brother’s keepers. Let’s work, and organize, and love one another, that we may be blessed with a little taste of heaven, together, here on earth. 

Readings for August 20, 2017, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

• Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 and Psalm 67  
• Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32  
• Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

"Mercy!" by Pastor Kinsey
Is this the same Jesus we know in the rest of the gospel stories? the Son of David, the Rabbi and teacher smarter than all the rest, the one who feeds 5,000 from a few loaves and fishes?  How did this story make it into both Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels?  Is Jesus really equating this foreign woman with dogs?
 
One explanation, is that our modern ears do, of course, bristle and take issue with Jesus’ treatment of the Canaanite women – but when it comes to the much more lengthy and equally harsh words Jesus has for the Pharisees, who were a very faithful and religious denomination of 1st century Judaism, we don’t really bat an eye! 
 
And, the thing is, this is just the opposite of the first listeners to Matthew’s gospel.  In the late 1st, and early 2nd centuries, the early Christians wouldn’t have batted an eye over Jesus’ treatment of a woman, or a man, from Canaan, the traditional enemy territory and people, who were under threat of death from Israel, according to Deuteronomy.  Whereas, Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees would have been, very controversial, and his own disciples even raise objections about it, to Jesus. 
 
So what’s going on here?  I think it’s helpful to view it through the lens of, ‘mercy.’  The Canaanite woman, who is a one person greeting party for Jesus when he enters the district of Tyre and Sidon, has already heard of Jesus, no doubt.  His reputation as a merciful healer and teacher precede him.  And the woman pleads with Jesus, in the identical words of so many other un-named petitioners, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” 
 
But notice, the mercy she asks for is not directly for herself.  She asks on behalf of her daughter, who she says is tormented by a demon. Her daughter is not with her, apparently, but perhaps she’s heard that Jesus heals even without being in charge of the action, just touching the fringe of his garment without his knowing, has the power to heal, according to Matthew in an earlier story.  So, she assumes that mercy for her daughter would mean the exorcism of the evil spirit, and is bold to ask for it – in fact, she won’t give up. 
 
Even today, women have had to learn to be bold in their ask.  So many studies have recently told us that men not only get paid more than women in the Corporate world, but they also ask bigger.  While for women, it’s traditionally been ingrained in their upbringing, to be nurturing and attentive to the needs of others, before their own, and so they don’t ask near as often, or for as much. 
 
Maybe that’s partly because women are used to being talked down to, interrupted and put in their place, as we’ve seen so publicly in recent months, even in the hallowed halls of the US Senate!  First it was Elizabeth Warren, who had the gumption to criticize then nominee Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.  She was reading the words of Coretta Scott King about the past racist policies of Mr. Sessions, and was censored by another Senator, Mitch McConnell, using the very obscure, Rule 19.  Ms. Warren persisted that she didn’t think the testimony of Martin Luther King’s widow should be objectionable on the floor of the Senate, but she was voted down – though, not to be defeated, she found a much greater audience than the Senate’s CSPAN, by taking to Facebook!  (And Senator Warren’s testimony proved to be prophetic, as the voter suppression agenda, and other discriminatory policies, that AG Sessions has gone on to pursue, prove the point Ms. Warren was making.)
 
Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, received much the same treatment a couple of months ago, when questioning, guess who? Mr. Sessions again!  When he wouldn’t give a straight answer to her questions, and when she persisted on behalf of the American people who wanted an answer, this former District Attorney, and, five year veteran as the Attorney General of California, was shut down by her male colleagues.  Later, Senator Ron Wyden pointed out that when he asked similar probing questions, he was not silenced!
 
The Canaanite woman is as persistent as Senator’s Warren and Harris.  When she first asks Jesus for mercy for her daughter, he doesn’t even dignify her with an answer.  Yet she kept up until the disciples come to Jesus demanding he send her away.  Speaking to all in general, Jesus gives the theological reason why he can’t help her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says, and therefore not to this foreigner.  Which makes sense to a point, if Jesus was only a prophet and reformer for Judaism.  And that was likely how the disciples saw him, at least, in the beginning.  But there is this thing called mercy, that this Messiah, this Son of David, represent. 
 
And to his answer about the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the woman now comes closer, and she kneels before Jesus, the posture of worship, and implores him, “Lord, help me.” 
 
And now for the 3rd time Jesus aims to silence her, and says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  That is, Israel’s food that Jesus gives in the form of healings, teachings and miracles, cannot be given to those outside God’s covenant.  And, as that hurtful remark hits home, and starts to sink in, the woman has already formulated her reply, in that self-deprecating way of a really smart and persistent woman: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table!” 
 
Have you ever been stonewalled when you petition God?  Felt as if you are not deserving in your prayers?  But, finally we see – Jesus gives in.  Did the woman know that he would?  Probably not, but I’m pretty sure she would have persisted anyway, until something happened! 
 
In this case, mercy happens!  Mercy is also translated as ‘compassion’ in the Gospels.  That feeling you have when your heart goes out to another person because you are deeply moved – you’re transformed beyond what you previously understood to be true or took for granted. 
 
Mercy is what Jesus, has already protested to the Pharisees, is needed more than rote sacrifices: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mt. 9:13)
 
Jesus has mercy – has compassion for the woman – which transforms him.  And finally, seeing her perhaps for the first time, he says, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And her daughter was healed instantly. 
 
Even the crumbs that fall, from the meal that we don’t want, can be enough ‘bread of life’ for those who persist in their faith!  And I think it’s really interesting that, in our Lutheran polity we say much the same thing about Holy Communion.  That even taking communion in ‘one kind,’ can be valid, that is, either the bread, or the wine, is enough to contain and hold, the fullness of God’s Grace and forgiveness.  And in practice, of course, even taking a small round pre-made communion host is enough bread, though we have moved to a whole fresh loaf, every week. 
 
So, “what’s going on here,” it seems to me, is that persistence in faith has broken through the conventional thinking and plans, even of Jesus – our Lord changes, or transforms, having compassion on this foreign woman of great faith, and through this encounter, a way has opened up for the gates of mercy and loving-kindness, previously not available to her, to now pour over the walls of Israel, and negate the ongoing ancient death-sentence – and Jesus will see his mission and that of the disciples, as a mission to all nations, all peoples – crossing again and again into Gentile territory. 
 
Jesus, is the one who is transformed in this gospel story, as we see the power of God working in and through him, for the benefit of the Canaanite woman, and the world. 
 
And because we are disciples too – men and women – our job as followers, is to enact this mercy and compassion we have discovered in Jesus, and to be persistent in our faith, like the Canaanite woman.  

Readings for July 30, 2017, 8th Sunday after Pentecost

• 1 Kings 3:5-12 and Psalm 119:129-136  
• Romans 8:26-39  
• Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

"Joyful Grapeshot," Pastor Kinsey
Jesus would have flunked preaching class!   His professors would have called this week’s sermon:  “grapeshot.”  Too many little ideas going every which direction, for listeners to really absorb.  Just about the time you’ve got the seed thing, Jesus is on to bread, then treasures, then pearls, then fish, and finally, householders – and Oh, it makes my head spin, and I think I have, parable-fatigue!
 
But then, Jesus had a big subject – the kingdom of God! – the rule of God, and what it meant that it had come among us in Jesus!  Life with God, kind of defies explanation, and isn’t just one thing, is it?  So Jesus does his best with us.  I’d be happier, though, with this complexity of life with God, if the ways of God matched up a little better, with our earthly expectations.
 
The mustard seed thing for instance…  I can go along with the imagery of the little seed packing a wallop of potential – you can almost hear his disciples panting with eagerness for the kingdom – ‘Life in God’s rule is like’ the little seed, the tiniest of seeds, really, that grows into... and here, the disciples might have expected:  the legendary Cedars of Lebanon.  The biggest trees alive!  Or at least a righteous, Oak!  Because… this is what they are needing to hear.  They are poor, oppressed, beleaguered people.  They are an occupied country and taxed to death by Rome... a mighty empire getting richer and richer, while the poor get poorer.   …They are daily being harassed, physically and mentally by the Roman soldiers, and the threat of imprisonment. 
…They press in, more and more eagerly on Jesus, for his good news, of the kingdom of God.  “And the tiny mustard seed becomes... a glorious shrubbery!”  Really Jesus, a shrub?! 
…You’re telling me the kingdom of God will grow into, A bush?  “Well, a small tree, really,” the Master qualifies.  “But how is a small tree going to crush Rome,” the Disciples wonder, “and give us victory over the evil empire?” 
 
But look here: this rather glorious bush is big enough to make a home, a safe and refreshing nesting place, for the little-creatures – the small birds.  That’s where God’s eye is... on the sparrow!  Life with God is concerned with every little thing, from the ground up, not top-down empire-building.
…Here’s where the real game is, says Jesus: how concerned God’s people are, for sheltering the little-ones.  You don’t have to be that big – and not that powerful – to be a safe haven for the most vulnerable.  That’s! what life with God, is all about.
 
But then it seems like size does matter in the rule of God, because before the disciples can even digest that one, he’s on to the yeast and the bread.  Once again, the yeast is a small grain, that multiplies.  Jesus has been on that for a few weeks now, trying to teach us about God’s expansive ways among us.  But three measures of flour is a HUGE amount. God is like a woman, who is baking for a crowd, it seems.  Leavening that much flour, would yield about, 150 loaves of bread! 
 
…Now, if you were going for an abundant, hearty meal, the disciples might have been more interested in the rule of God being like, a liege-lord, who assembled his subjects for a fabulous pig-roast, with generous tankards of mead and ale.  No, it’s a simple meal, consisting of the ‘staff of life.’  But bread in generous proportions:  as though a crowd is expected.
 
So the kingdom of God is small, but abundant; generous, but basic to life.  It’s not about size, as in, earthly empires, but it’s about size in expecting a crowd, in being ready to feed the strangers coming our way.  …Ok.  Maybe I’ve got that.
 
And then – in grapeshot succession – we get two more “twin parables” about seemingly opposite things, that God’s rule is supposedly like.  It’s like treasure you stumble on, without looking for it at all.  And, it’s like that thing you have been, diligently, obsessively searching for – which are two really different ways to come upon the treasure of God... but in both cases the result is the same: the value of life with God is so apparent, that both the lucky day laborer, and the compulsive small business owner, go with joy, to give everything they have, in order to possess it. 
 
WE could probably stop here – and maybe avoid that parable-fatigue.  But Jesus doesn’t.  He wants to gather it all up now, so that the ways of God are like a big net, that just scoops up everything.  The net doesn’t discriminate.  It just puts it out there and lets what comes, come.  Fish of every kind.  Not just white fish, but red fish, blue fish, fish of every color and kind.  
…And once again, we want to know why Jesus would advocate for that?!  Just like letting the noxious weeds grow up with the good and righteous wheat – so now these indiscriminate fish, are all gathered up without any sensible regard for bringing in, both what’s good, and what’s bad – workers from two different kingdoms.  But if we open ourselves to it, we get a startling glimpse of God’s open arms of grace!  God’s wild, hopeful, risky desire that the whole world, will come to God!
 
In grapeshot fashion, we hear today from Jesus, the desire of God, that the intimacy of the small, sheltering bush, will make a difference for the little-ones who otherwise would be trampled and forgotten.  That the crowds of strangers will enjoy the blessing of heavenly food!  That the leaven, hidden in the flour, will infect the whole shebang and raise wholesomeness and satisfaction within the world!  That those who stumble upon treasure, and those who search 24/7 for the value of God’s ways, are equally entitled to its joy!  We see the net... and all those caught up in it, without maybe even knowing what hit them.  Good and bad together!  Fish of all kinds!
…We see God’s risky gamble here.  God’s fervent hope that the world will come to wholeness – and evil will be subsumed, in the power of love.  God gives us chance, after chance, after chance.  That’s the-way-of-God, among us, in Jesus.
 
Like the disciples – We may be impatient for the reckoning.  We long for evil empires to be crushed with God’s shock and awe, not with talk of glorious shrubs.  We want those weeds of evil, infesting our world, and those bad fish, stinking up the joint, out of there!  Paul gives us a whole list of them:  Rulers, bosses, the powers that be, terrorist attacks – really, how the power of death keeps chipping away at us – not to mention, hardships... poverty, famine, disease, the cruelty of cancer, Alzheimer’s, PTSD, you name it.   While we want to separate these things from our human experience, Paul reminds us that none of them can separate us from – the love of God, the way of God, the life with God – that we possess and inherit, through our baptisms into Christ.
 
Jesus promises that he’ll give it to the end of the day... so that the whole world might be made whole, in God’s love.  But at the end of the day, we will live free of those evils of this world.  That is, that at the end of the age, we will be citizens of a kingdom where there will be… no more sorrow, no more crying, no more dying, no more war, no more despair, no more injustices, no more fear, no more crushing poverty:  Just light, and love, and blessed peace, and the face of God to shine on us forever!  In the death and resurrection of Christ, the promise has already been made true.  We live in that hope, that life, that love, now, and forever.
 
Jesus asks the disciples if they understand all this.  Yes.  They say.  I’m not so sure. 
…But I hope that you heard something ‘old and new’ today, as Jesus says.  The old story of God’s love, and the miracle, that that love is enough to sustain worried lives, small congregations, and unity in the midst of diversity.
...And that you’ve also heard the new: a ‘living word,’ for our world today, of a shelter, abundance, the joy of giving all we have for the treasure of our life with God, and a risky wild love that invites the stranger in.

Let us open ourselves, and our lives, to this kingdom of heaven, and walk right in, each new day.