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Enemy Territory

2/23/2022

Gen. 45: 3-11, 15; Luke 6:17-38

        This week’s gospel lesson continues Jesus’ teachings and continues a pattern of great reversal – last week we heard how the hungry will be filled and those who are full will become hungry. Today Jesus flips another commonly held belief that one should ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy – which actually is not in the bible. Jesus is challenging a deeply entrenched oral tradition that considers social outsiders and foreigners as enemies. Jesus declares: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you.”

So, do you know of any enemies? Is there anyone in your life at some time that disliked you so intensely that they would be happy to see you stumble a little, or fail, or even actively tried to make this happen? Someone who has hurt you profoundly? Is there someone who opposes you vehemently and wants you to be proven wrong? Is there an adversary that promotes gossip, negativity about you? Or let’s flip the coin: have you ever been an enemy, an opponent, and adversary to somebody? Have you ever hurt someone to the point of estrangement? Chances are at some time in our lives we have treated someone with such contempt, anger or opposition that we would qualify as an enemy, an adversary, an opponent. Let’s take a closer look at the enemy territory.

Enemies are around us and they are everywhere in the bible. In the very beginning in the garden of Eden, the serpent has clearly indicated himself as an enemy to humanity and to God as it successfully gets Adam and Eve to sin and fall away from God’s grace. So, Satan is not only the number one opponent to God’s will but to us as well as 1 Peter 5:8 warns: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” In our Hebrew lesson, Joseph and his brothers were estranged. Jealous of the favoritism shown to Joseph by their father, they sold Joseph into slavery and faked his death. 22 years later, Joseph is reunited with his brothers. Joseph ends the conflict by forgiving them. Next, Egypt, by enslaving the Hebrew people, was an enemy. Israel’s neighbors were constant enemies, engaging in ongoing warfare for land and resources. King Saul became an enemy to David, seeking to kill him. Paul was first an enemy of the church until his conversion.   Scriptures teaches that the very Spirit of the world has set itself in opposition to the word of God.   Finally, we are often our own worst enemy, often engaging in behaviors that mare our spirit or our body. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do.” (Romans 7:15). To all this Jesus says: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Pray. Bless.

The spirit of enmity is strong all around us and within us since the dawn of time. Families fight. Communities fight. Nations war against each other, committing genocide and enslaving one another. The twentieth century has been called the “century of genocide”: two world wars, the Jewish holocaust, the Armenian holocaust, forced starvation in the Soviet Union, the millions of lives lost in the Great Leap Forward in Communist China, countless death in Namibia, Rwanda, Nanking, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia, Latin America – the list stretches on to so many places, so much hate, so much destruction, so much death. Yet Jesus says to us: Love your enemies. do good to those who hate you.

The arrival of modern media in all its forms as fanned the flames of hate. In 1915 D.W. Griffith produced “The Birth of a Nation” one of the most financially and popular films of its days, it put cinema on the map. The birth of a Nation, however, reinforced racism by depicting African Americans as Lazy, stupid and dangerous, while glorifying the Ku Klux Klan. Inspired by this success, the Nazis produced “Jud Suss” a film portraying Jews as greedy and treacherous and was required viewing by Nazi stormtroopers. Al Qaeda exploited the internet online chat rooms and blogs to promote its agenda of Anti-Israel and anti-American Anti-west sentiments. Social media with its ability to provide immediate, widespread impact, is used to deliberately promotes discord and hatred and bullying; truth, compassion forbearance and tolerance have become casualties in this never-ending war. To all this Jesus says: Love. Go Good. Bless Pray.

Jesus clearly saw the hatred, persecution, and division around him. Jesus knew the centuries of bloodshed and bad blood between Israel and its neighbors, Jesus was aware of his surroundings: Jews hating Samaritans and the current oppressor of the day, the Romans. Samaritans despising Jews. Jews prejudiced against gentiles. Pharisees and Sadducees opponents to each other Everyone looked down upon tax collectors and the poor. Anyone disabled was considered a sinner and out of favor with God. Into this this raging soup of conflict, distrust and ethnic hatred, Jesus declares: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who persecute you. Bless those who curse you.

It would have been so easy for Jesus to toe the party line. But he didn’t. Jesus instead insisted that his disciples follow the principle of love. The word for love Jesus uses is important: Jesus doesn’t use the word for kinship love, sibling love (phileos) but instead he uses the word agape, meaning unconditional love, redemptive love, love rooted in the divine. We don’t have to like our enemies or what they do to us. But we are commanded to love them, as God loves them, we have to stop wanting their downfall, seeking out bad things to happen to them; we have to stop putting them down, planting lies, plotting the worst. Jesus uses action verbs: love, do good, bless and pray. Jesus sums it up by saying “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Let’s want for others what we want for ourselves. Not just those whom you love. But those whom you hate, despise, hold in contempt. That’s what makes the difference, Jesus says between sinners and disciples. We are called to be disciples to help radically transform a world mindset that perpetually seeks a win-lose scenario in every area of our lives and in the world. Jesus says stop! Stop this madness! Only agape love seeks a win-win scenario – all are redeemed by the God who makes the sunshine on the sinner and saint alike.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, preached at the beginning of the civil rights movement in 1957 a powerful sermon entitled “Loving Your Enemies.” King contends that in the best of us there is some evil; and in the worst of us there is some good. Therefore, there are three choices to respond to oppression: 1. respond
violently with corroding hatred and end up as bad or worse off as your oppressor. 2. To submit to the oppression – which he considered just as wrong: noncooperation with evil is just as much a moral obligation as cooperation with the good. 3. Finally, King tells us massive nonviolent resistance rooted in love is the only answer. Like what Jesus said. Love. Do good. Bless. Pray.

        You see, hate and love operate in similar ways. Hates distorts the hater. Hating is a poison, according to Buddha, a live coal we intend to aim at someone else but that burns our own hands. Love, on the other hand, heals and betters the one who loves. Agape Love is the antidote, the spirit of transformation that can demolish divisions, create bridges and heal wounds. King knew, Jesus knew, what the scientists have been telling us for ages: hating and loving changes our brain chemistry, for worse or for better. With hate, the brain becomes obsessive, fixated, ruminating, paranoid, anxiety, anger or depression deepen. Nothing good comes from hate. Hate will bring us down quicker than any plot we devise toward an adversary. So, if just for sake of mental health: love your enemies. Pray for your persecutors.

        We need to acknowledge that some of us have been hurt so deeply, wounded so profoundly, that loving, doing good, blessing and praying for whoever has hurt us is an insurmountable obstacle. In moments like this we remember that what is impossible for us is not impossible for God. Leave the hate, hurt and anger in God’s hands. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Let go, Let God handle it in his time, and let us be freed from the destructive power of hate and its constellation of negative emotions.

        There is an eraser for everyone today as you entered the sanctuary. Take a moment with that eraser in your hand. Imagine a hurt whatever is festering deep in your heart. Start with something small but start somewhere. Ask God to erase the hate, the malcontent, the incident in your life that a bad spirit has you fixated upon, and let God erase it for you. Let God carry that burden for you. For we are not made to carry burdens of hate but of love. Begin today. start small. Give over to God a person, some entity, some movement, some idea that holds you imprisoned in your mind. May the mercy of God fill us and so heal us that we can become carriers of this mercy to a love-starved, world. In doing so, we act as Dr. King says, we make of this old world a new world, a new world governed by love. So let us remember. Love, do good. Bless and pray.

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

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"Living on the Level"

2/16/2022

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Psalm 1, Luke 6:17-26 “Living on the Level”

Who here considers themselves level-headed? You know, calm and sensible. Reasonable. Thinking before responding in any situation. Able to appreciate the pros and cons of a situation? Able to take in different points off view? Someone who tries their level-best does the best they can, given the circumstances. To be on the level means we are honest and truthful. Who here wants to be level-headed? On the level with each other?

In the Bible “level” takes on a deeper meaning. It’s used dozens of times, many instances just referring to the physical plain, level ground. But in many other instances, level takes on a spiritual connotation. Level in the Bible often means “being right with the Lord.” In sych with God’s ways. We hear the psalmist declare: Psa 26:12”My foot stands on level ground;” and also pleads Psa 27:11 “because of my adversaries, show me Your way, Lord, and lead me on a level path.” The prophet Jeremiah 31:9 describes it this way: “…..my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols! They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level”. And of course, we all know of the famous messianic pronouncements of Isaiah: 40:3 “The voice of one who calls out, "Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.” It is this famous passage which John the Baptizer refers to when he quotes in Luke 3:5, as he refers to the coming of Jesus as: “The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth; and humanity will see God’s salvation.”

Today Luke records for us for the first-time words of Jesus’ teachings to his disciples and the crowds. The text tells us Jesus stood on a level place. Perhaps Jesus stood on actual level ground when he taught. Looking deeper, however, we can see that Jesus stood on a level place because he stood in the ways of God Almighty. Jesus is the one who straightens out the crooked ways of the people, Jesus smooths the rough places in people lives, Jesus is on the level with us. He is forthright. Jesus levels with us. He tells us the real deal. His teachings are the best, the truest, revealing the heart and will of God.

So, Jesus teaches about four blessings and four woes, or warnings. Blessings on the poor, the hungry, those who weep and the persecuted; woes on those who are rich, well fed, those who laugh and those well-spoken. It is a teaching of great reversal. Because of sin or simply the human condition, we often get things backwards. Jesus sets us straight. Jesus puts things on the level for us.

Blessing and woes taken on a different meaning when we are living on the level. It is easy to believe that being rich, having plenty of food, being happy and well thought off as blessings. And you know want, indeed they are. But there’s more going on. Jesus makes clear that biblical message that God is especially close to, and cares for, people who are poor, the orphan and widow, the foreigner, those who struggle, who are hungry, weeping and persecuted for living on the level. The scriptures repeatedly tell us that God hears the cries of the oppressed, sees their misery and cares for them.

God desires for all his people to have good things, material and spiritual. But people who think they had it made, who have all that money can buy, whose bellies are full, those for whom life is a breeze and are well regarded according to world’s standards are brought to task by Jesus: There is more to life than material wellbeing, but all are deserving of material wellbeing. If that is all life is for us to make money, be held in esteem, to have a good time, to have three squares a day – well Jesus levels with us – we have failed because we have allowed our paths to go crooked. Jesus wants us all back on the right path. The level space, where issues of sin, inequality and justice matter.

My Blessings should become a blessing to others. My riches should help alleviate the situation of the destitute. My access to good food and clean water should not permit others to go without. My happiness should not shut out those who are grieving. My good stature in the world does not turn my back on the persecuted. Jesus, out of love for all of us, levels the playing field – where all have fair access to the necessities of life – food, resources, spiritual and mental wellbeing. Christians rich or poor alike are called to living on the level, where the focus is righteousness before God.

At the last meeting of the Presbytery of Long Island, on January 29, we spent a great deal of time discussing an overture to the 225th General Assembly, to be held this June in Louisville, Kentucky. The approved recommendation states: “As a beginning step in the quest for truth, equity, justice, reconciliation and repair, The Presbytery of Long Island overtures the 225th General Assembly (2022) to offer an Apology to African Americans for the sin of Slavery and its legacy.” The purpose of this overture is an act of living on the level. As a presbytery we recognize the first presbytery was organized in 1705 by an enslaver, Rev. Francis Mackie. In 1740 Samuel Davies, an enslaver and educator, believed slavery was ordained by God. The renowned Presbyterian, evangelist Charles Finney, spoke out against slavery despite believing African Americans were inferior and opposing integration. The General Assembly of 1836 accepted the argument that slavery was recognized in the Bible. There were others who opposed slavery like Rev. Jacob Green in 1776. Like Rev. George Bourne who in 1815, presented an overture to the General Assembly raising the question of whether Presbyterians who owned slaves could be Christians. The Assembly refused to act. Upon his return home to Harrisonburg, his presbytery voted to defrock him, to remove him from the ministry. In 1858, on the eve of the Civil War, the United Presbyterian Church of North America was formed with opposition to slavery one of the founding tenants. So our church has historically mirrored the good and the bad. But if we want to live on Jesus’ level, we got to do better: we need to actively seek to transcend and transform culture. Jesus calls us to seek God’s level in all matters, mediated to us through the scriptures, clarified through Jesus’ example of healing and his teachings, and through the working of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

This overture of the Presbytery is an attempt to live out the level of Jesus Christ. During Black History month, we have the opportunity to deepen our awareness of the sin of slavery and its legacy that lives on in our days, to celebrate the contributions of the African American community. We are called to straighten out the highways, to repair the roads, to level the circumstances we find ourselves through the lens of faith. Let us be levelers in the manner of Jesus. Let us stand on the level plain. God’s level. May God bless our acts of leveling and may we be blessed through the grace of God as we strive to make level the ways of life for all peoples. Amen

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In Too Deep

2/9/2022

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Luke 5:1-11; 1 Cor. 15:1-11

Have you ever gotten involved in something or with someone and found yourself in too deep?

A teenager starts experimenting with alcohol. He begins hanging out with a different crowd, his grades plummet. and before he knows it, he’s driving a car drunk, and causes an accident. He’s gotten in too deep.

A businesswoman makes an investment that isn’t paying off, and to keep things afloat, she keeps shoveling more money into the enterprise. Soon she realizes she’s in too deep – she’s got a mountain of debt to pay.

A married man starts flirting with a co-worker. One thing leads to another and he ends up breaking his marriage vows. He keeps lying to cover it up but it doesn’t work. He’s just in too deep.

We all know like when we’re in too deep. We in over our heads. Our feet can’t touch the bottom of the pool. A problem has gotten too large to solve by ourselves. Our own resources are inadequate to the task at hand. Our emotions can no longer cope. Our faith is stretched beyond its endurance. We want to escape, give up, just don’t see a way out, but we’re in too deep to just walk away.

The deep is one of the first things encountered in the Bible. We find it in story of creation in the opening lines of Genesis. In verse 2 it reads: “darkness covered the face of the deep.” The root of the Hebrew word for deep has a range of meanings: “waste, waste space, futile, meaningless, empty space, nothing, confusion and chaos.”

The deep conjured up the most dangerous, chaotic, dark places in the world. The watery depths destructive and out of control. The place where sea monsters dwell, where perhaps evil can lurk. In the biblical worldview, the deep was cosmic ocean out of which God begins to create. Our scriptures vividly convey this. Genesis describes the flood in this manner: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened." Genesis 7:11. The prophet Ezekiel declares concerning the enemy country of Tyre: Thus saith the Lord, “When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and many waters shall cover thee (Ezekiel 26:19).” The psalmist describes the providence of God while the people of Israel face the terror of the crossing of the Red Sea: “God rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, he led them through the deep as through a desert “Psalm 106: 9-10a).

It is intriguing then that Jesus, when he begins to create disciples, out of the multitudes of people, he doesn’t start at a synagogue or a temple, where the religious folk hang out. We already established last week that he didn’t go to his hometown of Nazareth and select from his oldest of friends. Jesus begins the process of creating disciples as he preaches from a boat on the waters of the sea of Galilee, finds some fishermen, and the first thing he tells them is not some bible verse, not some word of piety, but “put out into the deep water.”

Never mind that they had been fishing all night. Never mind that they failed to catch anything. Never mind that fishing during the day, especially out in the deep, meant that the fish would be swimming deeper to avoid the light, and they would be harder to catch. And Simon Peter, despite what he logically knows from all his years as a fisherman, puts that knowledge aside. He accommodates Jesus. He’s polite to the rabbi and obeys his wishes. Perhaps it is because he saw Jesus heal his mother-in-law of a fever. He saw Jesus rebuke the demons that tormented people. Simon is in deep with Jesus already, so he has to humor him.

The nets are cast into the deep, and there are suddenly so many fish, so many that the nets begin to break. They need to call for a another boat to come over to bring in this haul. And Simon, instead of rejoicing in his catch, that he’s made some money for the day, instead of asking Jesus for some other choice spots to cast his net, he falls down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Lord I’ve gotten into bad habits so deep I can’t get out. Lord my sins are too many, I can never get over them. Lord, go away I am not worthy to be in your presence, I have fallen too deep.
It takes Simon going into the deep to see the depth of his sins, too real to hide, and he also see the breadth and width of the majesty, the power the love of God in Jesus. In the deep place, Simon’s feet can’t touch the ground. Simon can no longer hide who he is.

Do not be afraid, Jesus says. From now on you will be catching people. That is how a disciple is made. A disciple fails over and over, and gets in it too deep. Too deep into self-righteousness. Too deep into pride. Too deep into selfishness. Just too deep into sin. But what the scriptures reveal is that nothing is too deep for Jesus. Jesus goes into the deep and brings us to safe shores. And that’s how we become disciples.

"John Newton, the author of the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace, “began his life’s career by searching throughout the African coast for slaves to capture and eventually to sell for profit. On one journey, Newton and his crew encountered a storm that swept some of his men overboard and left others with the likelihood of drowning. With both hands fastened onto the wheel of the boat, Newton cried out to God saying, “Lord, have mercy on us.” After eleven hours of steering, the remainder of the crew found safety with the calming of the storm. From then on, Newton dated March 21 as a day for a time of humiliation, prayer, and praise.

Upon arriving safely home, Newton did not venture out to seek more slaves. God changed him from a man who was an advocate for the slave trade to a man actively working towards abolishing it. In later years, Newton began to lose his memory. Although his thoughts were limited, Newton said he could remember two things, “That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” With this conviction of newly found life that he found only in Christ, Newton passed from his earthly life in 1807, at the age of 82. Newton did live long enough to see the signing of The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade." Unfortunately, while England no longer engaged in slave trading, its financial institutions continued to invest in slavery in the United States.

Where is life just too deep for us today? Around us we feel division and discord that seem unresolvable. Illness that remains unhealed. A materialistic society drowning in things, while denying the spirit. Today we are reminded just go out to the deep, wherever it is, for Jesus. Let Jesus catch us in his mercy. May we experience the abundance of life Jesus is waiting to open to us as we encounter him in the deep places of life. And don’t be afraid, for that’s just how disciples are caught – and how we learn to be a beacon for others who just are in, too deep.

https://www.geneva.edu/blog/uncategorized/hymnology-amazing-grace

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Love Endures

2/2/2022

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1 Cor. 13: 1-13; Luke 4:21-30

We all know the adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt” - a saying that goes back as far as Publius the Syrian, in 2 BC. The entire caption reads, “Familiarity breeds contempt … while rarity wins admiration.” Not to be upstaged, Mark Twain drolly added: “familiarity breeds contempt … and children.”

That seems to sum up the mood, it seems, by the end of our passage today from Luke. Our reading today picks up from last week. If you recall last Sunday we heard how Jesus, preaching his first sermon in Nazareth, reads a passage from Isaiah, a passage the congregation would immediately associate with the Messiah. The Messiah who brings good news to the poor. The Messiah who brings recovery of sight to the blind. Who brings release to the captives. The Messiah who inaugurates the year of God’s favor, God’s jubilee, upon the people.

The people are spellbound. They have heard of all the amazing things Jesus has been doing in the countryside and even at Capernaum. Miracles. Healings. Surely word has reached them from Cana that Jesus makes a pretty mean batch of wine. So, the people wait with baited breath. If Jesus did all these incredible things for strangers, surely, surely, he would pull out all the stops for them. King Messiah would bring fame and fortune to their backwater town. The pavements will be paved in gold. Money will rain down from the sky. King Messiah would heal all their sick, kick out the Romans, put all the nasty gentiles in their place to boot. Most of all, the Messiah will hire all the locals for all the new jobs that will be opening up to run the court that Jesus would establish right there in downtown Nazareth. Jesus, the local boy made good! Who would have guessed this of Joseph’s son? Tickled pink, the townsfolk just want nothing more than cashing in on a piece of the action.

Unfortunately, Jesus puts the kibosh on all these dreams. He doesn’t let them down gently either. Jesus stuns them by citing two stories from the Hebrew scriptures, stories that seem vague and elusive to us, but to Jesus’ listeners, would surely have carried a stinging wallop. Jesus first tells the story from 1 Kings 17, how during a 3 ½ year famine in the land the prophet Elijah was sent not to Israel’s widows, but to a foreign widow, a widow in Zarephath, in the region of Sidon. Sidon was known for its opulence and wickedness. Sidon’s idolatry and pagan practices even led Israel to copy its sins (Judges 10:6–16; 1 Kings 11). To a Jewish audience in Jesus’ day, Sidon was synonymous with wickedness. So, in our passage from Luke Jesus alludes that his blessings were not going to pour out on the good folk of Nazareth but on evildoing, idol-worshipping pagans.

Jesus doesn’t stop there. He rubs it in even further. He next gives an example from 2 Kings 5, from when Elisha the prophet healed the great commander of the army of Syria, Naaman, of his leprosy. Weren’t there enough lepers in Israel that Elisha could have healed? Syria, or Aram, as it is called frequently in the Bible, fought viciously with Israel for centuries. Syria was a canker sore that never healed. Syria was a burr in Israel’s side. Jesus just had to remind them how the great prophet Elisha healed the mighty Syrian warrior, Naaman. Another slap in the face.

        Needless to say, the good townsfolk of Nazareth do not take kindly to the gist of what Jesus is saying. The blessings of the messiah aren’t going to be manifested exclusively in Nazareth and the Jewish people, but also in foreign lands, foreign peoples, known for centuries for conflict and sin. How more scandalous could Jesus be? Predictably, the community is up in arms. They want to run him out of town on the proverbial rail, tarred and feathered, and leave him for dead at the bottom of the cliff! And you should see the bottom of those town cliffs in Israel. Often, they are garbage dumps. They want to hurl him into the garbage dump, amongst the fires and the ashes that are always burning down there.

        Jesus, in his startling way, shows his hometown folk that the work of the Messiah is not to limit God’s love and care, but to expand it to all peoples. The select examples of mercy shown to the widow of Zarephath and to Naaman the Syrian are now, under the messiah’s reign, going to be commonplace for Jew and Gentile alike. God’s love is universal. It is for all people. Not just for the hometown folk.

        Paul’s letter to the Corinthians puts meat on the bone of Jesus’ message. Paul writes to a squabbling community, with a lot of internal conflict. Paul wrote these immortal words to stop the infighting and encourage them to take the high road: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. Indeed, Love endures all things.

What makes this a radical, scandalous message is that Jesus declares, what Paul spells out, that we are to act lovingly to all our neighbors. Not just the neighbors who look like us. Not just the neighbors who speak the same language as us. Not just the neighbors who hold the same religious or political views as us. Neighbor is now redefined as all of God’s children. Imagine being patient with someone who intensely frustrates us. Imagine not being rude to the person who just cut you off in traffic. Imagine not keeping a record of wrongs against someone we might consider a nemesis. Imagine now, seeking the healing, the restoration, bringing light to people we are on the outs with. Jesus boldly teaches us that we are not just to show favors to the hometown folk. But to all.

        What he said that day in Nazareth is just as true today: Live the life Isaiah proclaimed and Paul describes so eloquently. Love. All the neighbors in our midst. I think of police officers Jason Rivera and Officer Wilbert Mora, who were gunned down in New York City last week while investigating a domestic violence complaint. Both officers were in their 20s, and had joined the force to make a difference, to change the attitudes toward police, to change how policing, and to care for their communities. In their memory, let us continue their dream of being peace makers, striving to better our communities, willing to face conflict to bring healing and justice where it is needed. To bring mercy and care where it is most needed, regardless of nationality, race, or ethnicity. This is how we will become a Beloved community of King Messiah. As the old hymn exhorts us, “Blest be the binds that tie our hearts in Christian love.” Indeed, this is the Love that endures in us and always. Amen.

. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermon/we-are-his-epiphany-4-c-january-30-2022%EF%BF%BC/
Sam Levenson, You Don't Have to Be in Who's Who to Know What's What.

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Enemy Territory

"Living on the Level"

In Too Deep

Love Endures

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