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Jered Weber-Johnson | Craig Lemming | Marjorie D. Grevious | Barbara Mraz | Guest Preacher | All
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.”
Let’s assume for today that God does want personal communication with us, he is our mover and Trinity is our way of understanding the movers’ ways of communicating and being present with us. That is what I experience, direct communication with God. So, let’s wonder about some readings.
If you want to know and understand the mission of the church in the world, you couldn’t go far wrong reading and meditating on the Solemn Collects. The catechism says that mission of the Church is to reconcile all things to God in Christ. That’s the ministry Paul claims for himself and for the church at Corinth. The Solemn Collects spell that ministry out in detail.
Guest preacher Nicole Starr is diakonal minister with the United Church of Christ and works as a District Court judge in Ramsey County where she holds tightly to the ideal that “justice is what love looks like in public.” (Dr. Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary).
Jesus speaks the words that echo across history: “It is finished.” Not “I am finished.” Not “This is the end.” But “It is finished”—the work of love, the work of reconciliation, the work of bearing the world’s brokenness.
Teachers did not wash the feet of their followers. Jesus challenges a system that says some people are less than others. The Roman system required free men to demonstrate their superiority through speech and action. In the act of washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus very deliberately and profoundly transgresses gender expectations.
“It’s hard to believe resurrection/freedom can happen when folx have been walking dead for so long…hungry for so long…low for so long. It is hard to believe that wins can happen for them when they have been told for so long that they were losing…losers…a lost cause. After white supremacy and patriarchy tells us we are nothing for so long, it is understandable that we come to underestimate others and ourselves, assuming that we’re just not ‘fill-in-the-blank’ enough to do the thing that needs to be done – that we long for and that the world needs.”
“How often do you and I experience testimonies – stories of God – that push against our understanding of how God has been revealed to us through scripture or through our own experience? How do we handle these conflicting narratives?”
“St. Brigid has been called the Lady of the Threshold. This image of threshold has also been used to represent navigating life’s transitions, birth, new careers, etc. An Episcopal priest named Robert Jennings wrote that transitions could also mean a test of character, a change of time, daily occasions when we transition from talking to listening, from being unaware to fully aware. In one way or another we are all on thresholds.”
At the heart of our baptismal vows is this same call from Jesus to each of us.
“Follow me” Jesus says.
“Stop being who you were supposed to be … and start being who you are meant to be.”
And what is that? Glad you asked.
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