26th Sunday After Pentecost
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who shows us the path of life. Amen
 
This is one of those Sundays
where it seems like there should be a question mark
after the gospel response.
Thanks be to God?
 
How is it good news that stone shall not be left on stone
and that people will come and pretend to be God
 and there will be wars and rumors of wars
before the final end will come?
 It sure doesn’t seem good,
 
 And today we have this gospel paired with our first reading,
 another passage predicting a time of anguish.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of good news in these apocalyptic passages.
 
As a side note, apocalyptic refers to a genre of writing that deals with a prophetic revelation, not necessarily but often including descriptions of disasters to come, and only secondarily but more commonly has the term come to be used as a description of an end of the world type scenario.
 
So we have these apocalyptic texts,
these prophetic passages predicting disasters,
and the question is: what do they have to do with us?
 
On the face of it,
 it seems like not much.
 A group of Pastors and I meet at the beginning of each week
 to read and discuss the texts for the week,
 and this week we pretty much agreed
 that our best chance of finding a sermon,
 finding good news
lay in the other readings assigned for the week,
we weren’t going to mess with these texts.
 
And then the other day
 I was driving to a meeting
and I was listening to NPR,
and they did a story, an update really
on the wildfires in California,
 
 particularly the Camp Fire
that wiped out the town of Paradise
10,000 homes destroyed,
 
and the reporter on the ground
interviewed a resident, who’d seen her former house
 and the woman said something to the effect of
 ‘it looks like there’s been an apocalypse.’
 
 I don’t remember the exact quote
but she used the word apocalypse.
And it hit me,
the people of Paradise are in the midst of a catastrophe,
life as they know it is over,
 in a sense that world ended
and they are faced with the question: now what?
 
And as I thought about the people in the midst of world altering catastrophes,
 the disasters of our readings began to fade
 and the hope began to shine through,
 
 yes Daniel begins
“There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence”
 but then he continues
 “But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.”
 
and sure Jesus says
“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.”
but then he pauses and goes on
 “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”
the birth pangs of what?
 Of the new world,
The new way of life that Jesus has promised
he will bring about,
 
Jesus is saying that the turmoil he is describing,
that the disciples will experience
is not the last say
God will work through it,
 and there lies the good news.
 
For those of us who are relatively safe and secure,
apocalyptic passages sound scary,
 we focus on the pain and suffering
that we’d really rather avoid,
 
 but for those in the midst of pain and suffering
they bring hope,
because they describe reality
 and a life on the other side of the suffering,
a life brought about by God who goes through the suffering with us
because we have a God who promises never to leave us.
 
Our God is realistic,
not making promises that won’t come true.
That’s one way you can tell you’re dealing with a false god,
they promise that if you follow them,
give them $9.95 a month
then everything will be okay, your problems will be solved.
 
Our God does not sugar coat things,
part of life is experiencing pain and suffering
and instead of making false impossible claims
 our God promises never to leave our side throughout all of life.
 
We see this in our psalm,
 the psalmist describes different phases of life
 and in each God is there.
 
For those in danger
God is described by the psalmist as a refuge.
 This is a familiar image for us,
we turn to God when we’re in trouble.
 
But the psalmist also assures us
that God is present with those who are content,
 at one point the psalmist says
“My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a rich inheritance.”
 
God is with us in the times when life is going well,
 these are often times
we bless God as a way of giving thanks for the good in our lives.
 
 God is with us in the bad times,
God is with us in the good times,
 and God is with us when we are in between,
in need of direction,
 
The psalmist sings “I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;”
and speaks with assurance
that because God goes before the psalmist
they will not be shaken by whatever comes their way.
 
“My heart therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope.
For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see the pit.
You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of you, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
 
Whether it seems like the world has ended
or life could never get better
 or somewhere in between
God is with us
 
God shows us the path of life,
God travels the path with us.
 Whatever comes our way,
God is there,
and we are never alone. Amen
 

25th Sunday After Pentecost
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one for whom we eagerly await. Amen
 
Contrary to popular belief,
 our gospel text for today is not a stewardship text.
 At least not directly.
 
Jesus observes this poor widow
 giving her last to coins to treasury
 and points her out to his disciples.
 
 Throughout history this act has been lauded
 as a great act of faith,
 and held up as an example for faithful giving
but I don’t think that’s entirely what Jesus was pointing out.
 
You see, before sitting down to observe people giving
Jesus warns against doing things just for the sake of appearances,
 
then he sits down opposite the treasury
and watches people giving their offerings to the temple,
for the sake of appearances.
 
This is out in the open,
there is no check folded in half and slipped into the offering plate,
 many rich people come and make a scene
putting in large sums,
 
 and they do this because they know that people will see their large sum
and they will honor them for their big gift
 and it will increase their standing in the community
 and so they’re really doing this for their own benefit.
 
And Jesus knows their motives,
which is why he points out someone entirely different to the disciples,
 the poor widow who comes and gives her last two coins to the temple,
her act of giving is an act of contributing to something bigger than herself,
not to build herself up,
indeed she gives all she has to live on,
 
 and yes this is an act of faith
 but what if, included in this act of faith is desperation.
 
 She had two pennies left,
 that wasn’t going to get her very far,
 just like the widow who Elijah encounters,
who when he asks for something to eat says to him
 
 “I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
 
She ends up feeding Elijah,
 he promises her that the meal and oil will not run out
which seems unlikely but what’s the harm in trying?
She and her son are going to die anyway,
 if she feeds Elijah and his promise doesn’t pan out
 they’ll just die a little sooner.
 
I imagine the widow Jesus points out to the disciples
 is in a similar situation,
 opening her purse and seeing two coins that won’t get her too far
and her saying, well I will give these to the temple
 and then I will go die.
 
And that’s what she does,
in the presence of those who by law
are supposed to be taking care of her,
 and nobody but Jesus notices.

Why is the widow down to her last two pennies?
Because nobody notices her,
 All throughout the laws given to the people of Israel
 by God through Moses
are injunctions to care for widow and orphan
and she is clearly not taken care of,
 
 because to take care of someone
you have to know that they exist,
 you have to notice the people around you
and take an interest in their lives,
pay attention to someone other than yourself.
 
And the truth of the world is
 that the people we pay attention to
are the ones with power,
 the ones giving the big gifts,
because we want to be like them,
 
and we don’t pay attention to those who are on their last dime
who are without power
and we hesitate to give to them
because we have falsely equated morality and success with money
 
which means in the back of our minds
 we think if someone is poor or struggling
it is because they have done something to deserve it.
 
That is sin,
breaking us apart into smaller and smaller divisions,
pitting us against ourselves.
 
So what are we to do?
 
In the grand scheme of things
We can’t do anything,
which is why we need Jesus.
 
Our second reading from Hebrews lays it out nice and succinctly,
Jesus came once, for all,
 to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.
He’s done that, past tense completed action.
 The preacher of Hebrews makes sure we recognize that this was a one time deal,
 God didn’t require or request that Jesus suffer more than once.
 
Now Jesus is in heaven
 to appear in the presence of God on our behalf
and Jesus has promised to come a second time-
 not to take care of sin, that’s already settled,
 but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Once again we are faced with our place in the middle
of the already and not yet.
 
We are thankful that Jesus has already taken care of our sin
but still we wait
 surrounded by the imperfections of the world,
waiting for Jesus to come again,
and save us from the brokenness of the world.
And here’s the kicker we are not just to wait,
 but to eagerly wait for Jesus.
 
How do we eagerly wait?
 
The first image of eager waiting that comes to my mind
 is of a child waiting for Christmas.
 
They too are stuck in the middle,
 the tree is already up,
 and presents have begun to accumulate
and on the shiny package is the little tag that says this gift is for Timmy.
 
 Timmy knows that he has been given a gift,
 but it is not yet time to open it and fully enjoy it.
 So he waits.
Maybe he shakes the box,
 attempts to figure out what is inside,
 
 perhaps he rushes home from school to double check that it’s still under the tree,
 and he has trouble falling asleep at night
because he’s imagining what it might be like to open the package
and behold what is inside and how his life will never be the same.
 
And maybe Timmy’s mom tries to redirect some of his eager energy,
 and sets him up with paper and crayons to make Christmas cards
 to share the joy of his waiting with others,
 possibly others who don’t have a tree
or shiny packages with their name on them
but who are also waiting Christmas
 
and Timmy realizes that when he gives out those cards
it’s almost like a little Christmas morning
and that’s exciting too,
he’s still waiting
but he’s making something happen while he waits.
 
We are all Timmy
- we have been given a gift, our name is on it, it’s ours,
we claim it, but still we wait for that moment
when the world is transformed fully by the opening of the gift.
 
But unlike Timmy we’ve been waiting a long time,
 a couple thousand years,
 and it’s hard to stay pre-christmas excited for that long
so we find ways to wait that, like those christmas cards
Timmy’s mom had him write,
approximate what we’re waiting for
creating for a moment the reality for which we wait.
 
The reality for which we wait
 is one where there is no more hunger, or poverty, pain or suffering,
no more poor widows going unnoticed
no more war and all creation lives in harmony
 
we’ve been given a vision of what the world will be
and even as we wait
 we seek to make it happen right now
 and one way we do that is to give,
 
 often to organizations who work to address hunger or poverty,
pain and suffering,
sometimes we give directly to people,
 those who are facing enormous health care bills
 and in these moments the reign of God is realized
and our eagerness is renewed. Amen
 
 
 
 

All Saints Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6
John 11:32-44

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who gathers the saints in light. Amen
 
Today we observe All Saints Sunday,
 the day when we formally recall those who have died.
 
 I say formally, because when someone we love dies
they are often on our minds and in our hearts,
 they’re the ones we want to call when the grief becomes too much
 or when we have exciting news,
 they’re the ones who shaped us in some way,
 and now that they’re gone
we find ourselves intentionally looking for them in ourselves,
 
 or we do something
and it reminds us of our loved one
 and we say ‘oh that’s where I got that’
and give thanks to God for their influence on our life.
 
we bring forward today the saints
 naming the hope and the assurance
 that we will see them again,
 and not just in our hearts
but in the flesh, at the last,
when the promises of God have come true,
when there is a new heaven and a new earth
 and there is no more mourning or crying or pain
and certainly no more death.
 
But until then, we wait.
 
In many ways
All Saints day is a day where we Christians
 are reminded that we are in the middle of time,
 stuck between the already and the not yet.
 
 We already have Jesus,
 that part of God’s promise and plan has been realized,
 Jesus fulfills the promises that God makes in Isaiah
 and through the prophets,
Jesus is God’s way of bridging the gap between God and humans,
 between God’s hopes for creation and reality.
But the kingdom of God is not yet complete,
it has come near in Jesus,
the process has started but construction is still underway
 
so we are left to wonder,
what do we do in the meantime?
 
We have hope certainly,
hope in the promise of God fulfilled in Jesus,
 and because of that hope
we work to live our lives according to the way of God
that Jesus taught us,
 making the world around us a bit more like God’s vision
 
but some days that doesn’t seem like enough,
try as we might
 there are days where hope and Jesus don’t seem like enough,
 
those days we’re like Mary in our gospel reading,
her brother has been dead four days
 and finally Jesus shows up
 and the first thing she says to him is
 “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.”
 
what she’s really saying to him is,
where were you? We sent you a message, you’re too late.
 
 And Jesus, seeing Mary and the mourners weeping
 asks to see where Lazarus is laid,
and Jesus too is overcome with emotion and weeps with them,
for his friend,
and here Jesus too is caught in the middle.
 
Jesus is God,
he knows who he is and what he is going to do,
 especially in the gospel of John,
and sometimes, a lot of times
this involves some suffering
especially for the humans he loves
that just don’t understand the scope of Jesus’ mission in the world.
 
 Jesus’ disciples don’t understand
when he tells them what is going to happen to him,
a crucified messiah doesn’t compute
Jesus knows they will be scared and sad,
 he tries to give them reassurance,
 at the same time knowing that the only way to get to Easter Sunday
and the empty tomb
is through the fear and sadness.
 
Jesus loves his friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus
but, here too he knows that the way to the empty tomb
 goes through pain and sorrow,
 he has a mission
and Lazarus’ death plays a role in it.
 
So when Jesus is sent word that Lazarus is sick,
 he intentionally waits for two days.
 He knows that Lazarus is going to die
 and that he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead,
this miracle will be foreshadowing of his own death
 and it will bring him closer to the cross.
 
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead
is the last straw for the authorities,
they meet together and the question is posed
 “‘What are we to do? This man is performing may signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” and they have some discussion and the chief priest points out that it’s better to have one person die then all of them die and John tells us “...so from that day on they planned to put him to death.”
 
The way to the cross and the empty tomb
 goes through Lazarus’ death and his sisters’ grief.
 
Jesus knows this
but when faced with the mourning of his friends,
Jesus weeps with them,
he’s in the middle,
 
Jesus knows what it’s like to be in the middle of the already and not yet.
Our God knows what we’re going through
in those times when hope and reality collide
 and he weeps with us,
 he comes to us.
 
Here in the middle,
Jesus comes to us through the saints,
 and when we say saints
we mean those everyday Christians
baptized into Christ
 that walk the journey with us
whether it is for a moment or a lifetime,
 
the people present who weep when we are weeping
and rejoice when we rejoice,
the ones who teach us how to live through the middle,
to hope.
 
And when our paths diverge
we’re sad, we weep and Jesus weeps with us
 but we also remember how they taught us to live through the middle
 and the promise of Jesus
that we will one day be reunited with them
on that day
when Jesus gathers all the saints together
in the completed kingdom of God. Amen
 

Reformation Sunday
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who is our refuge and strength. Amen
 
As humans we are familiar with chaos.
Sometimes it is an individual chaos that surrounds us,
the breaking of relationships,
 the losing of a job,
 health problems or just a really busy time in life.
 
 Sometimes the chaos is experienced as part of a community,
 as in times of natural disasters, political transitions,
or acts of violence perpetrated on a community
due to their identity
whether with words or actions.
 
We’ve experienced this chaos as a country
 as recently as yesterday
and even if we try to detach,
even if we don’t pay attention to the news,
we all feel the effects of the chaos
 because we are part of the community of creation.
 
Teenagers
-confirmands I’m looking at you.
 have their own particular brand of chaos,
that delightful blend of hormones, forming identities,
 social struggles and obligations to activities
all with the future hanging over your heads
 in addition to everything else going on around you.
 It’s a lot to handle sometimes, it’s chaos.
 
And into this chaos the Psalmist speaks a word of hope,
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble,
 therefore we will not fear,
though the earth be moved… the nations rage and the kingdoms shake;
 God speaks and the earth melts away.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
 
God is with us,
 a steady constant
among the shifting sands of change all around us,
 a place of peace like the eye of a storm
calm at the center of swirling winds,
 an anchor holding us steady.
 
Whatever chaos threatens,
 God is there
 offering shelter and hope for the future.
 
Today is reformation Sunday,
 a day when we as Lutherans
take time to remember Martin Luther and the reformers of our heritage,
reformers who,
with their simple questioning of how the church cared for its people
 unleashed the chaos that had been bubbling below the surface.
 
 Much of what went on during the reformation was not pretty
nor was all of it helpful,
 Luther himself became embittered and anti-semetic
and his writings against the Jewish people
have been used to justify acts of violence
against the Jewish community
much like what happened at Tree of Life Synagogue outside of Pittsburg yesterday
 
as heirs of the reformer
we as Lutherans have had to confront our role
 in the spread of chaos
and have renounced as a church the writings and the ideas
that form the root of anti-semitism,
 
the Jewish people are our brothers and sisters
 children of the same God,
 the God who has promised all of us to be a refuge and strength.
 
Taking shelter in God is an act of resistance
To the chaos around us
but Chaos is nothing if not persistent
 so we cling to the gifts of God
 brought forward by the reformers,
 the emphasis on the fact that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works.
 
For preaching this Luther was excommunicated from the church he loved
and only wanted to reform
 and a price was put on his head,
and in the midst of it all Luther wrote the hymn
A Mighty Fortress,
a paraphrase of Psalm 46,
a reminder that sometimes it is darkest before the dawn
and that God will see us through whatever comes our way.
 
Professing our faith in God
 can unleash unexpected consequences
because our faith runs counter to the ways of the world
 
but in the midst of it all
God will be there with us
 because our faith is a gift from God,
 
 God knows we can’t calm the chaos on our own
 any more than we can save ourselves,
the world is just too broken by sin for that,
 as Paul says in Romans “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
 
but thanks be to God for the gift of the justification by grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
because of Christ we are set free,
we are freed from the requirements that chaos places on us,
 the need to be perfect,
the need to take care of it all on our own,
to be better than the next person,
 to attempt to secure ourselves against whatever might come our way,
 
 we are set free,
 even from things we didn’t think we were bound to.
 
In our gospel
Jesus is speaking to some disciples who believe in him.
Jesus tells them “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”  
 
the disciples are confused by this
insisting that they’d never been slaves,
forgetting it seems
 the history of their people in Egypt as slaves,
and the time when Babylon conquered Israel
 and took the people into exile as slaves,
 and then is was the Persians and then the Romans.
As people we’re good at self-deception,
 we insist that we are free
 even as we are enslaved
by debt or social expectations or the systems of the world
that we must rely on for the basic necessities of life.
 
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Jesus tells the disciples,
 
 continuing in the word of God
 we learn the truth,
The truth that we need a savoir,
 and we learn the truth that we have a savior,
had one even before we knew we needed it,
 Jesus, who on the cross died for all,
 so that we might be free from the demands of chaos.
 
We were given this freedom at our baptism
The moment when God named and claimed us
Took us under the shadow of God’s wing
Into the refuge of our God
 
Confirmands,
 when you publicly profess your faith in a few minutes,
what you are doing is acknowledging the freedom you have in Christ,
 
you along with the rest of the congregation
will renounce the devil,
the chaos,
 and embrace the freedom that has been yours since your baptism,
the freedom of being loved so deeply
 that nothing can separate you from God.
 
And having been set free
you are able to live your lives focused on God
 rather than on yourselves.
 
 How this will play out
 is yet to be seen,
each of you has been given gifts by God,
 gifts that will help you share the love of God with others,
 
 you will find them as you continue in your faith
and explore your freedom in Christ
 but all the while, whatever comes your way
you will be anchored by God who is our refuge and strength. Amen
 

2nd Sunday After Pentecost
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who came to serve. Amen
 
The disciples in the gospel of Mark,
bless their hearts,
 are particularly dense
 and I’ve got to say I love them for that
 
 because as exasperating as it is
 to watch them throughout the gospel
stumbling along as they follow Jesus,
 never quite fully understanding his teaching,
 often turning around
 to do the opposite of what Jesus just told them to do
 what we are witnessing is the disciples’ humanity,
 
a humanity that mirrors our own.
how many times in following Jesus
 have we never quite fully understood his teaching?
 And how many times do we hear Jesus say one thing
and turn around and go do the exact opposite?
More often than we’d like to admit.
 
 The gift of the disciples’ humanity in the gospel
is that we get to see how Jesus responds to them,
 in all their density and contrariness,
 giving us an idea of how Jesus will respond to us
in all of our density and contrariness.
 
Actually we should probably give the disciples a break
because in Jesus they are encountering not only new teachings
 but a way of looking at the world
 that is completely counter to the way they are used to.
 
 The Kingdom of God is very unlike the world,
and the way the kingdom of God comes about
 often runs against the common sense of the world.
 
Take for example what it means to be a savior.
 According to the world
 a savior is someone who is heroic,
 one who is more powerful than average
 and who uses that power to defend the little guy
against some other powerful force,
which generally increases the power of the hero.
 And yet, according to the kingdom of God,
 a savior is one, the one, who serves others in suffering.
 
We heard in our first reading from Isaiah
 part of the suffering servant passage
 that we as Christians view as a prophetic description of Jesus
 and it is not pleasant,
 
struck down, afflicted,
wounded, crushed, oppressed
 and yet God says “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous.”
 
This is how God has chosen to save,
 and we wonder at that,
why is suffering necessary? we ask
 
we are confused because suffering on behalf of others
 goes against the common sense of the world,
 the sense that says we protect ourselves and honor the strong,
 common sense that tells us to avoid suffering at all costs.
 
But Jesus doesn’t live by the way of the world,
had Jesus lived according to common sense
 he would have tried to befriend the most powerful rather than the lowly,
 
 if he had lived according to common sense
he would have avoided the sick and the poor,
 he wouldn’t have touched lepers
or eaten with tax collectors
and he certainly wouldn’t have talked about a kingdom of God
 more powerful than the kingdom of Rome.
 
but Jesus did all those things,
 Jesus lives by un-common sense,
 and his un-common sense leads right to the cross
because the world moves swiftly
to remove anything that upsets the way things are
 
Jesus knows this,
 and he’s tried to teach his disciples this,
by the time we get to our gospel for today
Jesus has already made all his passion predictions to his followers,
 he’s sat them down and told them look:
 this is what is going to happen,
 I’m going to be arrested, put on trial and crucified.
And three days after that I will rise again.
 
And he heads toward Jerusalem.
the disciples continue to follow him
but they don’t understand,
 
today James and John come up to Jesus
and ask him to treat them according to the ways of the world.
They understand that something is going to happen soon
and they believe Jesus to be great, the messiah even
and they want to assure their places in the new order,
and so they make their request,
They want to sit in the highest worldly places of honor
when Jesus comes into his glory.
 
And Jesus looks at them and says
 “You do not know what you are asking.”
 because Jesus’ glory is the cross
 
“are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” He asks them,
referring to his suffering,
and they with all the confidence of ignorance reply
 “we are able”
 
and Jesus grants them what they ask
 “The cup that I drink you will drink and the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Jesus tells them,
but the positions of honor at the right and the left are not Jesus’ to give out,
 that is determined by God
and those places will be filled by the two thieves
 who will be crucified on either side of Jesus.
 
And while we might wonder at Jesus
granting James and John’s request
 without their understanding,
 
 
what Jesus is doing in that granting
 is offering a moment of grace,
 what they will understand later
and what we as listeners hear
 is that the moments of failure in the lives of the disciples
 do not determine the final outcome.
 
Yes, James and John don’t understand,
 but they are earnest in wanting to follow Jesus,
yes they along with the rest of the group will run away
 when Jesus is arrested,
but we know, as Mark’s audience knows
 that they went on to play vital
 roles in the spread of the message of the good news of Jesus Christ,
 
Acts 12:2 tells us that James is martyred,
 killed because of his witness for Jesus.
 James and John spoke the truth,
they were able to follow Jesus in his glory.
 
To be dense, confused, contrary and fail is to be human,
 to not let it get in the way,
 that is the way of God,
 
 our reading from Hebrews this morning
 in speaking of Jesus says
 “He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness”
 
Jesus, son of God,
knows what it’s like to be human
since he himself is human,
 
he understands suffering
because he has experienced it,
 
 he knows how we mess up
even with good intentions,
he knows common sense would say
do not to rely too heavily on humans to get things done,
 
and yet Jesus with his un-common sense,
 calls us, humans,
to be his disciples,
to live in the world according to the way of the kingdom of God.
 
We are to love and forgive our enemies
and those who hurt us,
befriend those cast out by society,
 share our food and resources
 so that all have enough,
 speak truth to power
even and especially when that truth is not what power wants to hear.
 
 and yes living in this way
will probably result in some suffering,
 but it will also make the world a better place,
 more like the kingdom of God brought near in Jesus.
 
and yes we will make mistakes
and fall back on common sense,
 and that is when Jesus brings us to the table,
 to share in his cup,
 the new covenant for the forgiveness of sins
 poured out by Jesus on the cross
as he gave his life so that we could be righteous
 and could dare to live un-common lives. Amen