October 29, 2017 Matthew 22:34-46

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had left the Sadducees speechless, they met together. One of them, a legal expert, tested Jesus. “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

****

I want you to think for a moment about a time you have felt close to God. Maybe it’s riding horseback in these hills, maybe its sitting next your granddaughter in church, maybe it’s the solitude of a hunt, or laughter around the dinner table. Whatever it is, I want you to think for a moment, of a moment when you have felt close to God. 

We had been thinking about this theme a lot in our congregation, as we sought to apply for a Lilly Grant for sabbatical for the church and myself. The grant asked, “What makes your heart sing?” and for me, the answer came immediately, it was being with friends in water. It was being in water. That is where I felt closest to God. Yet despite the ease of my answer, there were often months between opportunities to become submerged. This is because, taking time for yourself is a hard thing to do when there is so much to do. It’s a hard thing to choose, to love yourself.

As I have preached before, I went through some of my first major health issues, from about last fall until this summer. I menstruated for seven months straight, was pumped with hormones, and told I may not be able to have kids, and then that I needed to sooner rather than later. It was heartbreaking and panic inducing. 

I had been dating for about four years, and though people say, “You never know when your going to meet someone,” I knew the statistics here weren’t good and I was a little odd. It made the timeline of my life become oppressive, “Katy, you have to find someone now, and you’re never going to find someone here. You have to leave.”

And then, with the thought of leaving, I would feel a different kind of heartbreak. I remember riding in the car with Kate Averett last winter under a full moon to go snowshoe Anthony Lakes, and my saying, “This may be the most beautiful place I will ever live,” and her concurring, and we two poets, our words dropping into the vibrant, silent light bouncing off the snowy mountains. Similarly, I threw a party recently, and a new friend remarked, “I looked around and saw you have created this amazing community of people, and I thought about your job, and how, after awhile you’re expected to go, and I how hard that will be for us all, but especially for you.” I felt like my friend saw it, and saw me. Then, there was this church, in the same way as that party, and in some ways more, I walk in, and see my family. I see the people who took me on as a first-call pastor, who upheld and healed me during my divorce, and since then had nurtured, encouraged, and continually inspired me. This was the place I felt at home. But as much as Baker City felt like home, and the place to which I am called, I knew even more strongly, I was called to be a mother. But the life paths didn’t make sense. What was God asking me to do? I didn’t understand. 

And then there was this Lilly Grant, which was truly the opportunity of a lifetime, but I felt like I didn’t have time, my biological clock was ticking, and the grant required the pastor to stay a year after they took the sabbatical. I knew in my head that to choose the grant was to choose the abundant present, instead of an unknown dreamed of future. To choose the grant was to choose to seek peace, over fear. I knew to choose the grant was to choose love, love of this church, of this place, of this community, and especially of myself. But it is hard to choose to love yourself, when there is so much else to do. It’s hard to love yourself, when so much of life is out of our control. 

I figured I would at least apply. We as a church worked together, and whenever I would be asked, “What makes my heart sing,” I felt an overwhelming peaceful pressure, like that of sinking into warm water, and when I submerged into that dream of the sabbatical, I found myself smiling. I found myself, feeling like myself, something I hadn’t felt in awhile. In the same way, when I heard different congregants share what made their heart sing, I saw that same sense of peaceful direction from God. 

We had to wait from submitting the grant in April, until August to know if we had received the grant. In the meantime, I worked diligently with a spiritual director, and we focused on healing. I focused on me, on loving myself, and loving God, instead of dating and trying to find someone to fit in a timeline. It sounds easier than it was; I needed constant reminders to choose me. I needed those good friends, I needed afternoons in the mountains, I needed invigorating discussions at Lectionary Bible Study. I needed those times I sat in awe at an amazing Session and the wisdom and compassion of our elders. I needed those moments where I was in the present choosing to love myself. 

While I was gone on Summer vacation, I got the call from Susan, the secretary that there was a big envelope on my desk from the Lilly Foundation and should she open it. I was in the car with my college roommate, and when the answer was yes, acceptance, I got squealing excited. We were stuck in traffic but all I wanted to do was jump up and down. I didn’t need any more convincing I had made the right choice, and what convinced me was not the grant acceptance, but the joy I felt. It was an answered prayer, or an answer to more prayers than I can count, as I know you lifted them up too. 

I went to the doctor last week, the nurse said she remembered my name very well but couldn’t place it until she read the file. The visits had been intense but then distant. I told her and the doctor my bleeding had stopped being crazy, and I could see a peace in them too. I asked the doctor what my next steps were in regards to fertility and/or freezing eggs. She said she had just read a new study which told, that despite a lot of research, there are just too many factors to predict fertility, that one couldn’t really know, and then she said, I had time and I felt like I did. I feel like I do have time. And so do you.

Love yourself. Go do that thing. Forget about your timeline. Lean in to God. Start right now. Choose to love yourself. 

October 22, 2017 Matthew 22.1-14

INTRO

As we hear this scripture, it is important to know that this again is a parable Jesus is telling to the Pharisees. So, like last week, Jesus is laying a story over a story, in this case about a king, God, who is inviting firstly his guests to  wedding party. These guests are those of high standing in the community, or in this case the pharisees, or religious leaders of the time. With this background, hear now the Word of the Lord.

SCRIPTURE 

Matthew 22.1-14 Common English Bible (CEB)

 Jesus responded by speaking again in parables: 

 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding party for his son. 

 He sent his servants to call those invited to the wedding party. But they didn’t want to come. 

Again he sent other servants and said to them, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look, the meal is all prepared. I’ve butchered the oxen and the fattened cattle. Now everything’s ready. Come to the wedding party!” ’ But they paid no attention and went away—some to their fields, others to their businesses. The rest of them grabbed his servants, abused them, and killed them.

“The king was angry. He sent his soldiers to destroy those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding party is prepared, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. Therefore, go to the roads on the edge of town and invite everyone you find to the wedding party.’ “Then those servants went to the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding party was full of guests. 

Now when the king came in and saw the guests, he spotted a man who wasn’t wearing wedding clothes. He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But he was speechless. Then the king said to his servants, ‘Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the farthest darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.’

“Many people are invited, but few people are chosen.”

SERMON (PASTOR)

The roads on the edge of town, I have never thought to be the best representation of Baker City, though they are the first sight any way you enter. Coming in on Highway 30 from the Southeast, the dirt of high desert greets you with starkness, brown and tumbleweed. It’s Bridge Street Inn, skirting the road, functions less to welcome traveling visitors and more to shelter those who have been pushed out of the center, needing a cheap place to live or an out of the way place to hide. 

Haines Highway 30 from the North isn’t much better. After a lovely drive past farms and ranch-land, a once faded, now dilapidated sign, seems to mock an unworldly population, “The Primer Rural Living Experience,” it boasts, as you drive past farm supply equipment, an auto-body shop, dozens of old tires on a white plastic tarpaulin covering hay, and two goats fighting to be king of a tree stump. It makes the Primer Rural Living Experience translate to hard work of the land, broken down cars, frugal aesthetics and the kingship of goats. 

From the highway, Baker’s version of a big box store, like ByMart and Maverick are flanked by the old Truck Corral, where indigent travelers with dirtied backpacks and the late night hungry, can be found waiting for the next smokey greyhound or hitch, or while truckers and teenagers consume cheap greasy eats before seeking a bed. 

My highway exit, I think is the prettiest, the way it curves around past the kitchy A-Frame RV Park, and the old painted Victorian next to it and then lines up with the mountains, past the pretty homes of Betty Kuhl, the Wards, and the Rohner/Ingrams, especially when Kyra puts up that giant wreath on the barn at Christmas time. But I wonder still, how that entrance introduces our town, to be greeted by an RV-Park and the unwavering literal traditionalism of the Nazarene and Morman churches. Though accurately representative, of a small town midset and a tourist economy it is not the Baker I seek to enjoy, which is one of an open minded congregation and a locals access to the wilderness. 

Yet, it is to these edges of town, the king, our God, sends God’s servants to invite everyone they find to the wedding party. 

When I imagine it, knocking on the outside facing doors of the Bridge Street motel rooms and handing over an embossed wedding invitation to our endowed building, in the center of town, across from the middle school and the court house, I wonder, how that would feel. That expectation that those on the outskirts have to come to the center, perhaps to the teachers to whom they were not the best students, or the court who had seen not their best moments, or to the fellowship hall, which was grander than any church building they had entered. 

I think about how the invitation might be received by those who find pride in, “The Primer Rural Living Experience,” it’s cream linen envelope instantly stained by men with car oiled fingers, or stuffed in the pocket of a rancher’s Carharts to be hopefully remembered after the chores of the more pressing things like getting hay or feeding the goats. Though equally as intelligent, and in many ways more so, would my sermons to the majority graduate and college educated congregation, be meaningful to those that spend their days needing to join the knowledge of their brain to the work of their hands? 

From those doing their shopping at the BiMart, lingering outside the Maverick, or waiting without a shower at the Truck Corral, would it be nice to be invited to a such thing, to get to eat the oxen and the fatted calf, instead of fries and a burger, or would it feel like a pity invite, somewhere where they would never quite fit in, as if we didn’t think of where they could shower beforehand or what they might wear, so as not to smell, or be dressed offensively to the king. Would we have invited them but have so many unknown rituals and traditions that would feel lost navigating communion or answering the questions during a baptism, or just finding a seat and someone to talk to during Fellowship time.

What about my exit, I often wonder about all those RVs parked out by the A-Frame and what they are doing here once the weather turns cold. Day before yesterday there was a tent set up close to the road, which I thought looked cold considering the almost snowy drizzle that greyed the skies. Would a warm place for a few hours be just what they need on their trip, or are we only catering to people who will come and stay, and bring their family, instead of retirees or cyclist tourists passing though? Do those that are headed toward the mountains and find it’s beauty so appealing they want to stay, know that there are more options than our friends at the Nazarene and Morman churches, but that there is also a church with just as many from different places as there are those who were born raised in the valley? Do we, those who struggle with outright evangelism, have extra invitations in our pocket that we are scared to hand out just in case they are rejected or feel over bearing? Do we know how to speak about the Son, whose wedding banquet it is, in way the invites all into his presence?

Do we know how to speak about the Son, whose wedding banquet it is, in way the invites all into his presence? 

The son, is the one we have come to honor, somehow, someone gave us an invitation, and I don’t think that invitation was that different than those welcoming those on the edge of town. You have been given an invitation, maybe it was our grandparents, maybe our neighbor, our patient, our teacher, a store owner, a co-cower, a friend. Maybe they invited us first to help with Mission at Open Door or Backpack and we found the heart of much of the church and served alongside them. Maybe they invited us to worship and said they would pick us up or meet us at the door, and sit with us the whole way through and introduce us in the fellowship hour. Maybe they talked of their women’s group and the friendship they found there. Maybe they were our immediately family and introduced us to a wider version of family of grandparents and parents and brothers and sisters and grandchildren at church. Maybe we read online everything we could and showed up hoping we would fit and someone came over and shook our hand and introduced themselves. Maybe we were going through a rough time and sat by ourselves in a group of worshipers and found a place of comfort and hope. These were our invitations which brought us to honor the Son’s banquet. Those type of invitations are the kind that welcomes, the ones that are not guided or embossed, but sent with love, welcome with love. That is the invitation was given to us, and we have enjoyed it’s bounty, but have we extended it out? How far? Have we gone to the edge of town invitations in hand? 

The Lord has given us more invitations than we could ever hand out. We are his’ servants. Let us go to the edge of town and invite everyone we find. Amen.

October 8, 2017, Colossians 3:12-17

Sermon by guest Jason McClaughry

October 8, 2017

Colossians 3:12-17, Page 198

Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. The peace of Christ must control your hearts—a peace into which you were called in one body. And be thankful people. The word of Christ must live in you richly. Teach and warn each other with all wisdom by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Whatever you do, whether in speech or action, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God the Father through him.

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Preface

A bit of an introductory note here as I begin. Over the past several years I have come before you with several sermons recounting stories of my childhood and Christian values important to me. The overall structure of the writings is as letters to my children (when they are older), with the purpose of explaining to them the kind of person I am, think I am, or that I hope to be. I have done this by exploring Gods words and their Biblical context. Last time we met, I gave you my perspectives on Love, Unity, Faith, and Courage; principles I hold most dear in my daily faith walk. I now add two more key words that arose on the basis of a recent conversation about a current article discussing the problems with modern identity politics in America. This concept of “identity” led to a basic, but rather personally profound question: What will my legacy be and to what “identity” do I want to be remembered for?  With considered reflection, the answer is straightforward.  We were created for a purpose. That purpose is not left to chance or whim, but was determined by our maker and written in our nature. Our purpose is to seek truth in order to discover and to act on what is good and beautiful in this life.  Love is what is good and beautiful. We demonstrate this through the compassion of our heart and soul and our outward acts of kindness towards others.

To My Children,

Beneath a silhouette moon crossing a cinnamon sky a great river sweeps by, rolling over boulders etched and sculpted by the depths of time. Beneath the rocks are the words of God, whispering timeless wisdom to all who will listen. I stand by the river, a solitary fly fisherman waiting; waiting with the simple hope that a fish will rise. With a four count rhythm, I unfurl effortless casts; the perfect blend of physics, art, and grace. This is the special place I go to reflect, to pray, to listen. I listen for the words of God. If you listen carefully all your life, you too will hear and understand 

God’s words.

The classic American novella, “A River Runs through it” by Norman Maclean is widely regarded as the anthem of fly fishing in the American west. The novella is a semi-autobiographical account of a Scots-Presbyterian family, that has captivated readers with vivid descriptions of life along Montana's Big Blackfoot River and a near magical blend of fly fishing and family pains. The story reflects on two brothers and their relationship with their minister father, the Rev. John Maclean. The Rev. Maclean is a traditional Presbyterian minister of the early 20th century, dedicated to a breadth of education in religion, literature, and of course fly fishing.  Norman, the eldest brother is characterized as responsible and cautious. Educated at far off Dartmouth College, Norman later goes on to a long career as a distinguished Professor of English at the University of Chicago. By contrast Paul, the younger brother, is more individualistic, frequently testing the limits of a rigid Presbyterian upbringing. Unlike his older brother, Paul elects to attend college at the local University of Montana in Missoula and then goes on to work as a newspaper man in the nearby town of Helena. The brothers collectively share a deep love and respect for their parents, their home, and fly fishing.

However, all was not perfect in the Maclean family. While Paul was an exceptionally gifted fly fisherman, a beautiful artist according to father, his life was more so defined by a self-destructive and troubled nature highlighted by profuse drinking, fighting, and gambling.  Despite Norman’s best efforts, the self-destructive behavior, designed for repercussion, led to Paul’s untimely death when his was life was taken on the south side streets of Missoula.

Our modern world is full of examples of trials and tragedies like that which took the natural art and beautiful life of Paul Maclean. Many will easily relate to similar examples within their own “ordinary families” of spiritual beauty and Grace marred by the ugliness of addiction, conflict, sin, and death.  As individual creatures of God, we seek God’s Grace, yet we struggle with our own failings; we struggle to reach out and help those around us that need it. Especially when they need it the most. For some unknown reason it is those we live with and love and should know, who seem to elude us the most. But what if we faced these struggles with hearts with that overflowed with Christ-Like compassion and overwhelmed each other with kindness?

Compassion is a key part of our Christian spirituality encouraging us to sympathize and relate to the pain and suffering of others. Relation of similar situations and common ideals motivate us to rise to the occasion and seek to alleviate the pain and suffering felt by others. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, He responded that it is to love God with all our heart, mind and strength. But He added in Matthew 22:34-40 that the second commandment “is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself’”. The Pharisee had asked Him which single command of God is the greatest, but Jesus provided two, stating not only what we are to do, but also how to do it. To love our neighbor as ourselves is the natural result of our loving devotion toward God. The Bible is clear that compassion is an attribute of God and of God’s people as well.

Let us then share our heartfelt compassion for others by acting through kindness. Kindness is one trait which is characteristic of the “Fruit of the Spirit” as discussed in Galatians 5:22. One who is kind is friendly, generous, warmhearted, sympathetic, considerate, gentle, affectionate and forgiving. But kindness is not something that you just are. Kindness is an attitude of heart that must be demonstrated or practiced. It is an action, and we learn to be kind by receiving kindness from others. Kindness to others really matters when the recipient has the need, but we may not know where that need may exist. So we should make it a natural part of our being.

Jesus demonstrated his compassion and taught us how to be kind through His many acts of kindness towards others. Throughout his ministry He supported the weak, healed the sick, comforted the bereaved, fed the hungry, found and forgave lost sinners, and gave rest to those who were burdened, or abandoned. Jesus taught us that the key ingredient in kindness is love. In 1 Corinthians 13:4 Paul tells us that “love is kind”. This must be true since love by definition must seek the good will of another. Kindness is the expression of that good will. This is true whether we speak of the kindness of God toward man (Titus 3:4) or that of man toward man (Romans 12:10; II Peter 1:7).

Plant the seeds of Compassion and Kindness in your life and let God’s word flow through you like the waters of the world’s great rivers. When you feel that there could be no pain greater than yours, look around you. Recognize that someone before you has suffered greater. Know that someone after you will suffer more. Reaching out, extending Compassion and Kindness to others is never wasted. Do not undervalue the power of a kind word, a listening ear, or the smallest act of caring. Simple things such as these carry God’s banners of Grace and Peace and have the potential to turn a life around.

Let us depart our correspondence here with a familiar poetic verse entitled One Solitary Life, adapted from a sermon originally written by Dr. James Allen Francis in 1926.

“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.”

That is Jesus’ Legacy. Ask yourself if you have compassion in your heart? Do you act on this compassion with kindness toward all those you encounter? What will your legacy be?

Amen!

October 1, 2017 Ephesians 2.14 - 18

Ephesians 2.14 - 18

For Christ is our peace; 

in his flesh he has made both groups into one 

and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 

He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, 

that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 

and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

***

I want to repeat the first line, “For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” 

That is what Christ does, Christ takes the sides of who we thought we were and makes us into something so much greater in him. In Corinth the people are debating whether Jews or Gentiles can become Christians, and the Author of Ephesians reminds them that it isn’t about who they were but who they can become in Christ. 

An example of this can be see in Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall. In begins,

Mending Wall

Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side.  It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it

Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.'  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself.  I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

The people in Ephesis have been building a wall, one side are the Jews who say that only Jews who are circumcised can become Christian, the other side walking along the wall are the Gentiles who believe that they can be Christian without even being circumcised. Well then the writer to the Ephesians says, you can be either, but as long as you have that wall between you, you can’t be a Christian. Being Christian isn’t about the walls we put between us, its about the way we like the hunters, or the earth swell, dismantle those walls. It makes us not just neighbors, whom we treat as ourselves, but family, the family of God. 

But to be this family of God, to live out our Christianity, there are identities we have to dismantle stone by stone,

Imagine a world

Where animal and plant, and humanity, all become creation,

Where farming, ranching and forest service all become stewards,

Where the spectrum of male and female, become person,

Where straight, gay, lesbian, bi and transgender all become about love,

Where kid, or young adult, or youth, or middle aged, or infant, or elderly, become valued,

Where teacher, staff, principal, administration, and school board all become students,

Where poor, and rich all become equally abundant and generous,

Where the athletic and the disabled all become special,

Where the gifted and talented and those with special needs all become gifted and talented,

Where Baker City so vastly caucasian becomes racially diverse,

Where kneeling and our Flag and National Anthem are not where rockets red glare but signs of peace whether on the field on in the sanctuary.

Where the solider and conscientious objector both become hero

Where all boarders between countries, and regions, and states, and the East and West side of this one, become a communion of saints.

Where pastor, elder, deacon, acolyte, and first time visitor become a priesthood of all believers.

Where Catholic and Protestant become Christian,

Where Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Atheist and Agnostic all become Chosen,

Where bikini and burka both are symbols of women’s liberation,

Where Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and the Green Party and those that didn’t even vote become American. 

Where that vote is not a source of our polarity, but a celebration of pride in our nation’s democratic diversity, and that voting diversity includes Puerto Rico.

Where Fox News or Stephan Colbert, or our Facebook feeds become listening silence,

Where it isn’t us vs. North Korea, and instead we who seek eternity of what God called good.

Where weapons and threats of weapons are dismantled into marshmallow roasting sticks and the scary stories told around the campfire.

Where the only reason Russia and the United States are at odds was because of a friendly competition to explore the heavens. 

Where we are not earthlings but beings in a vast universe beyond our fathoming.

Where we are not only those present here now but also those who have passed in a chorus of witness.

Where God is not only He, but also a nesting mother hen, and a baby and a dove.

Where the Holy Spirit is not merely for the people of Pentecost but also the Spirit joins us together today.

Where Jesus isn’t only the human who tore the bread and poured the cup so long ago, but also the Christ who tears apart the walls which divide us, and pours out our clinged to identifies now, and in so doing makes us one and blesses us today.

It’s this tearing, from what we were, bread and juice, to what we will and can become with him, the blood and body of Christ in the world for all people. A people who are not just good neighbors, but family.