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I do not pretend that forgiveness is easy or that we can turn it into a law to be commanded. It is simply to say that when we enter into it as a reality that pervades everything, we can become more free, more whole, and at peace.
If, according to Gallup polls, and the Pew Research Center, about 70% of Americans identify as Christians, mirroring the students in my class, then why are so many of us lonely?
Genuine love stretches us. Mercy costs us. Courage asks more of us than we planned to give. The holy road has never been the comfortable one.
Honoring Florence Nightingale, with guest preacher Dr. Tamara Zurakowski.
This tension between the now of our present needs for healing, and the promise of a future reign of God, is at the heart of Jesus’s command earlier in Matthew’s Gospel—in his Sermon on the Mount—that we “love our enemies.”
Jesus experiences a mind-altering change of heart when this nameless Canaanite Woman has the fiercely tender courage to take his insult and transform it into the wisdom of dogs: unconditional love, steadfast loyalty, devoted companionship, boundless forgiveness, and liberating joy.
Much like the sea in this story, we live in a tumultuous time. Whether it be wars, some we started, climate change, or the erosion of our democracy, we can all identify threats to ourselves and those we love. What are followers of Jesus called to do in the midst of this storm? Should we too step out of the boat?
The kingdom of heaven is collective liberation made manifest, One Way of love and justice with many paths. Jesus talks about those many paths in the parables we read today, going from gardener to baker to treasure-seeker to trader to fisher. A world rooted in a God that is one-in-three necessitates diverse and interconnected ways of practicing God’s love and justice.
Spiritual hope is harvested unseen after many seasons of patiently, gently, and consistently caring for our innermost parts. Parts that need constant gardening. How do we do this inner, spiritual work when we cannot immediately identify our wheat or our weeds?
The sower in Jesus’ parable does not see “less than.” The sower sees soil worth sowing in. God’s Word does not depend on perfect soil. God’s call does not depend on perfect bodies. God’s grace does not depend on perfect minds. God sows because God sees possibility where the world sees limitation.
We are set free from the power of sin and death, and from the need to perform flawlessly all the Commandments prescribed by the law, but we are not set free to do whatever we want. We are now constrained by the law of Love, and that very limitation is the space of our freedom, because it is the space of the Holy Spirit, who is always free.
Mr Johnson’s words and work, I believe, embody the wisdom in Paul’s Letter to The Ephesians. Paul reminds us: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
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