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"A Ransom for Many"

10/23/2018

Mark 10:35-45

Here is a true story about how a stuck up, know –it-all got put in his place, with a happy ending to boot. Picture this scene. A coffee shop in Amsterdam. A male customer who blogs observes the following scene unfold between an obnoxious man, a beautiful blond woman with whom obnoxious guy is flirting, and a harassed server who is new at her job.
Man: “Excuse me! I ordered a non-fat, non-sugar orange mocha chip frappuccino! This isn’t non-fat, and there’s no whip cream on it.”
Barista: “I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll remake it immediately.”
Man, to the blonde woman: “What is up with these people!? They screw everything up.”
Barista: “Here’s your drink sir. I hope this one is up to standard.”
Man: “What are you, thick headed! This is a plain mocha frappuccino! I wanted an orange chip mocha frappuccino! Get it right!”
(The barista remakes his drink again, but is clearly on the verge of tears.)
Man: “Oh my God, you people need to understand English! I said non-fat. Don’t tell me it is non-fat, because I can taste—”
(At this point, the blonde woman decides she’s had enough of the man and interrupts him.)
Blonde woman: *in a strong Irish accent* “WILL YOU STOP BEING A JERK FOR FIVE MINUTES?! The girl has made the coffee perfectly this time—I watched her! And, even if she hasn’t, she’s young and clearly new at her job. It’s just a coffee! Cut her some slack!”
Man: “Excuse me, but I want what I asked for! I don’t see why that’s so hard!”
Blonde woman: “She probably looked at you, assumed you were a man, and was therefore completely confused by your non-fat non-sugar orange mocha chip frappuccino order. Real men drink real coffee, and they don’t bully teenage girls until they cry. Now, can you please stop being an almighty-know- it- all-jerk?!”
Everyone in the coffee shop claps, and the man leaves, mortified. The male blogger who witnessed this all paid for the blonde woman’s coffee, and found out that she is from the same part of Ireland as he was. One thing led to another, and he asked her to marry him last Christmas. She said yes!

        It seems like the curse of the human condition. We can’t help trying to one-up each other. Churches want to have the latest and greatest choirs, or preachers. I hear parents on the playground or in playground, depending on the zip code, making inquiries about which preschool one’s child is currently accepted or weight-listed. How many after school activities have your children crammed into their schedule? Friends, it’s a battle field out there. I currently live in Great Neck, at every corner there are scholastic enrichment centers for preschoolers up to high schoolers. Yoga centers, Takwondo, all -Day spas on every block, to help you attend to all the worries of your children’s A-s, and you & your husband s 16hr days.

        Most of us have more in common with James and John in our gospel lesson, than we care to admit, although we might not be as direct and blunt as they were. We want to be on the A list. A member of the All-that crowd. In the picture, center wearing the shades, shaking hands with the “got-to-know” person. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you .. grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”    James and John were just planning ahead. They were confident that Jesus’ popularity would continue to soar. They would arrive in Jerusalem and met with success beyond measure. Of course, when this happened, when this happened, there would need to be an organizational chart ready, a five-year growth plan in place to cement the Jesus movement. James and John were stepping up for the job.

        For good reason Jesus nicknamed the “the sons of Thunder.”   John was the one who commented back in chapter 9: ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” On another occasion, when the people in a village of Samaria were not responsive to the message of Jesus, it was James and John who wanted to call down fire from heaven on them (see Luke 9:54).   They were protective of Jesus’ ministry as they understood it. Jesus, furthermore, often chose them, along with Peter as an inner leadership team to key experiences for training. They saw the transfiguration. They were selected to see a child brought back to life. They were in the handful taken to the Garden of Gethsemane the last night of Jesus’ life. So, no wonder they thought they were on the right track. That’s why they pictured themselves flanking Jesus when the parade of glory ultimately began.

        At the time of James and John’s request, Jesus and his disciples and been making their way slowly to Jerusalem. Jesus had just predicted for the third time, in the most detailed of manners how cruelly he would die at the hands of the Gentile rulers. He specified he would be mocked, spat upon, flogged and killed. As soon as these words were out of Jesus’ mouth, James and John’s heads were instead thinking of themselves as the coolest of the cool apostles, in the spotlight, giving interviews of “I knew Jesus when….”

        As a prophet, Jesus knew what ultimately awaited him. Not groups cheering him on, scrambling to sign up with the movement. Knowing this, Jesus didn’t act to preserve himself. He didn’t set down roots in a hospitable town to teach heal, and stay alive. Jesus had to remain true to his vision, the vision given to him by his Father:   and he wants his disciples to catch on to: be great. However greatness in God’s heaven is measured by service – not by being served.” Jesus declares,
“For the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

        Jesus, therefore, sees his life’s purpose not to be a hot shot rabbi, the Wonder Boy from Galilee, who can work miracles, the trending Teacher and Preacher, the activist, the Anti-establishment leader who will cleanse the Temple one fell swoop.   By this time, the word, “ransom,” Jesus’ uses here, was commonly used for the price used to free slaves, the “liberty price.”   Jesus’ mind is not on glory and what cushy seat he may or may not have. His heart is set on freeing people.   He is prepared to give over his life as a ransom in order that others, in bondage, may be freed.

Few of us are in bondage from actual slavery, thank God. However, we are in bondage.
How many of us gets impatient or put down someone else who gets our order wrong at the coffee shop. Or at the bagel shop? Or the Falafel truck? Or wherever we get our food? We are in bondage.
How many of us judge a driver, mutter an unkind statement, because they are too slow, only to realize there was someone crossing the street, or maybe they were just having a bad day? We are in bondage
How many of us have put our jobs, our hobbies, favorite TV shows before God? We are in bondage.   How many of us pray daily? Consistently? Do we consider praying for someone who has hurt us? If not, we are in bondage.
How many of us believe Jesus truly loves us, died for us, has a personal relationship with him as Lord of our lives, and experiences a sense of freedom and joy? If not, we are in bondage.

The good news is Jesus is the ransom for our bondage.

Anything less, is less than what Jesus wants for our lives. Jesus didn’t pay a ransom, so we can be miserable. Nor did he pay the ransom, so we can become hotshot Christians. He came so that we can have an abundant life, overflowing life, a life that flow outward, embracing the world, not just inward, focusing only on me, me, me, just what I can get. I got good news. There is someone indeed who has paid that ransom. His name is Jesus. Get this, he is here to serve us! He wants us to see how awesome life can be with him. Even Mr. non-fat, non-sugar orange mocha chip Frappuccino man! That, my friends, is a true story.   It doesn’t get any better than that. Amen.

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"All Things Possible"

10/16/2018

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Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31
Freeport/Merrick

        “There was a man who had worked all of his life and has saved all of his money. He was a real cheapskate when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, ‘Now listen, when I die I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. Because I want to take all my money to the afterlife.’

     “He was stretched out in the casket; the wife was sitting there in black next to their best friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said, ‘Wait a minute!’

      She had a shoebox with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket and rolled it away.”

      “Her friend said, ‘I hope you weren’t crazy enough to put all that money in there with that stingy old man.’   She said, ‘Yes, I promised. I’m a good Christian, I can’t lie. I promised him that I was to put that money in that casket with him.’

    ‘You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the casket with him?’ ‘I sure did,’ said the wife. ‘I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a check.’”
It is said that if we are not careful, our possessions end up possessing us. Our possessions can warp our priorities. They can distort how we see life, and how we relate to the world. Our possessions influence our thinking and the choices we make. As our Gospel text tells us, they can keep us from following Jesus.

The wealthy young man who approaches Jesus wants to have it both ways. He wants to keep his wealth and he still wants to earn eternal life. Wealth is not guaranteed to anyone, anyway. It is, however, guaranteed that we all shall face death. No one, not even the wealthy, who have the most opportunities to create a secure and comfortable life on earth, can cheat or bribe death.

        This rich man filled with worry comes to Jesus for assurance. He doesn’t come with questions about the law or for a healing. He doesn’t even ask Jesus to grant him eternal life. Instead he asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.” Like a well-bred upper crust ruler, he has manners. He figures he can achieve eternal life by his own efforts.

He is so solicitous that he kneels before Jesus, which we have seen done in the gospels only by a mother or a father in distress, pleading for their child’s life, or people who have exhausted any recourse or help and have only Jesus to turn to. This man kneels, not as a sign of despair but to put himself in Jesus’ good graces.

Jesus begins to quash his tactics by responding, with the Law of Moses, quoting from the Ten Commandments. “you know the commandments: don’t murder, steal, lie, cheat, honor your father and mother.” Strikingly, Jesus omits the first four commandments here. The first four, that deal with our relationship with God. So, this wealthy young man has kept the commandments in terms of how he related to other people. It’s his relationship with God that is the problem.

Jesus looked at him. That knowing look. The word used here is used for the look the servant girl gave Peter, that look of recognition, then the look that Jesus gives Peter at the time of his betrayal. It is a look of knowing who you as you are about to go contrary to your essence. The impact of Jesus’ words created severe pain, distress and upset in this young man. He is shocked beyond belief. Give his wealth away to the poor? Then follow Jesus? He leaves without a word. This wealthy young man appears to be the only person who ever rejects a direct offer of discipleship from Jesus in the gospels.

Despite all this, or, because of all this, the text tells us that Jesus loved this man. Now, Jesus talks a lot about love. Love is to be an important theme in the Scriptures. How God so loved the world. How we are to love our enemies. How we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We know Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus, that there was a disciple who Jesus loved.   However, of all the people Jesus healed and reached out to and taught, only here it does it mention how specifically that Jesus loved this unnamed rich young man. Jesus loved him. Jesus saw beyond his façade to the heart of his problem.   Jesus saw what was missing from his life. Spiritual freedom. His wealth trapped him and kept him from loving fully. Yet Jesus loved him. A rich young man. We can’t get more perfect than that.
        Perfection in the Biblical context doesn’t mean a life without failure. It means to be spiritually whole, complete and mature; to realize who you are meant to be. The Accumulations of possessions get in the way of wholeness. That is why Jesus says, “how hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” He didn’t say impossible. He said it was hard. Some scholars say there existed a gate into Jerusalem called an “Eye of the Needle” where a camel had to be stripped of all its baggage, get on its knees, and be pushed and pulled through and barely made it in. That’s how hard it is to enter heaven when we cling to our possessions. No way can we get a camel through a literal eye of a needle. Jesus’ point is well taken. Either way we look at it, it’s impossible.

          Jesus is not condemning wealth or money in and of itself.   I like the Dolly Parton sums it up: “don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” It seems like our rich young friend left God out of the equation and Jesus was trying to help him put God back in. However, he had already become too enamored, too addicted to the illusions of wealth, Jesus was never more than a “Good Teacher” in his book. Never the Messiah. Never the Son of God. Never Savior. Never Lord. How is that? That’s the treasure he would have discovered if he laid up treasure in heaven.

        In a spiritual director’s formation class I was taking, one of my classmates, Richard, spoke up. He’s currently a pastor out on the Northshore of Long Island, but back in the late 1970s he was a rising, musician, his band the rage of the disco scene. He coveted to Europe, all the top venues, stayed at the best hotels, girls threw themselves at him, plus all the alcohol and cocaine, top fashion, everything top of the line. Yet he knew his lifestyle was decadent and there was a growing rotten center in him.

        One night after a concert Richard went and sat in his truck. He pounded on his steering wheel in frustration. Something was amiss in his life and he knew it. Then out of the blue Richard had a vision. Clear as day, Richard saw himself forty years in the future as clear as if he were transported. Still singing, but with a graveling, wasted voiced destroyed by booze and drugs. Skin pasty from years of neglect. Pot belly. Well, there was the pot there too, and the alcohol, still chain with an iron grip on him. He was playing seedy bars, no one listening, and no one really caring. He saw the trajectory of the luxury possessions, the money; the fame was not really about the music at all. Then he heard a voice speaking to him: “If you want my help you have to give up singing.”
        Give up singing. Singing was all Richard knew. It was his whole life. He was under contract and record labels could be pretty nasty. Richard took a deep breath. Unlike the rich young ruler, he didn’t walk away.   He was under contract for 12 more weeks. He finished those 12 weeks then walked away from one of the most lucrative music contracts of 1978. He rebuilt he life. He got clean and sober.   He went back to school. And although he was a musician with an outstanding voice, he didn’t sing.

        Richard and his wife started a ministry based here on Long Island. About twenty years after walking away from the record deal of his life, God, during a time of prayer, said “Richard, I think it’s time you started singing again. But this time, for the right reasons.” So now Richard and his wife have an amazing music ministry built up at their church. Richard learned to make God the priority, and God gave music and singing back to Richard, just at the time God knew he was healed, and could now use his gifts to serve God and minister to others.

We all have our struggles with money or wealth. Things that get in the way with God. Relationships. Jobs. Sports, talents and hobbies. Our schedules keep us from church. It starts out innocently. We’ll just miss church this once. Then it becomes two Sundays. Then it becomes a season. The chasm we have created is deep, and we cannot cross over. Only God can make a way.   And thanks be to God in our Lord Jesus Christ a way has been made. With God all things are possible.    Jesus took care of that through his loving actions on the cross.

        God loves us. Everyday are opportunities to enter the kingdom of God. To get that camel through the needle. To Give to the needy. To follow Jesus.

        When we surrender our possessions to God, we learn all things are possible. We can love. Grow in faith. Learn to forgive. Let go and be free, and in Jesus, and discover there is true treasure for us, on earth as there is in heaven. Amen.

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"Broken and Blessed"

10/9/2018

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Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 , Mark 10:2-16
Freeport and Merrick

On World Communion Sunday, first celebrated by the Presbyterian Church back in 1937, we celebrate the diversity and oneness of the body of Christ. Yet we also acknowledge there are over 33,000 different denominations. Some churches are limited to members of a particular family. On the other hand the largest denomination contains well over a billion members. We acknowledge the hard work it takes to overcome our differences. However, we also acknowledge the stubborn splits that just won’t disappear. The infamous fights over the centuries characterized by insults, mutual excommunication, bloody battles, blood spilt, people tortured, imprisoned, burnt at the stake. All in the name of Christ. We may call this institutional divorce. Acrimonious institutional divorce, each side claiming ownership of the truth its opponents misguided, in error, and deserving a place in the lower realms of hell.

     Today’s passage from Mark on divorce, falling on World Communion Sunday, seems bizarre. Uncalled for. Today we are here to embrace unity, not highlight separation. What worse timing for this text to fall on a day of celebration. Yet it is the breakdown in relationship, and our longing for repair that brought forth World Communion Sunday.
In Jesus’ time, divorce had become disturbing. Divorce was exclusively a man’s prerogative. A woman could not divorce her husband, but she could be sent away for the most frivolous of reasons. Initially a wife could be dismissed by her husband by a written decree of “indecency,” for adultery or immoral conduct. Over the years a husband could divorce his wife for any offense she gave him. She burnt his dinner. She raised her voice and the neighbor heard her. She left the house with her hair unbound. Men stood to gain everything while the spurned wife lost everything: her social standing, her right to raise and be with her children, her home and her future.

         Jesus refuses to debate with the Pharisees on their ground. He challenges them to refocus on God’s vision and God’s intent: not on legalisms and loopholes. In a society that where marriage was the only institution for women and children’s economic security, Jesus refuses to allow women to be cast off for the slightest excuse. Instead, Jesus insists on lifting up God’s holy purposes for relationship: inclusion, union, relatedness, durability.

               So today, on World Communion Sunday, we are reminded how easy it is for the powerful to exclude and to claim a monopoly on grace or knowledge. The powerful still get their way and turn a blind eye to truth. World Communion Sunday calls us to forgo exclusivity and power plays, and embrace inclusion, union, relatedness, durability.
The divorce dilemma of our text has been used to exclude those broken by divorce from the Communion Table. World Communion Sunday acknowledges and celebrates the variety of denominations, cultures, ethnicities, traditions, sexual orientations, nationalities, genders all made one in Christ Jesus our Lord. In our brokenness, we find hope in Christ.
     Our Brokenness is a reality. I am a divorced woman. I failed at my first marriage. Each one of us can name a breach in a relationship – from an infidelity, to bickering and bitterness, making fun of somebody, a sharp word, a stingy attitude. We are broken on the inside by pain, grief, regret, mistakes we can’t take back. We are broken in our world: our politics are more polarized than ever. The gap between rich and poor has never been wider. Our planet is broken by war, pollution and natural disasters. Faith seems fractured. The battle lines are drawn. Yet in this reality of sinful brokenness, we are given good news.

According to Hebrews, Jesus, the perfect image of God, sustains all things for us, and made that purification of sins.   Listen to this at v.11, it says that Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.   Despite all we’ve done. Where we’ve been. Where we are. that gives hope.

The passage from Mark doesn’t end with the words of separation and conflict of the Pharisees.   It turns to Jesus’s words of welcome for the little ones, which Jesus has been guiding us to see for the past several weeks of gospel readings. “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Our salvation lies in this. Jesus knows we are a broken people.   Yet we come to him nonetheless. With the truth of little children. Trusting that no matter who we are, what we have done, our goal is to be with Jesus. That’s all Jesus wants us to know: we are loved. We are forgiven. That’s all we need to know and that’s all it takes.

Today as we come to the table, each one of us has a heart that potentially be divided by a number of issues. As we examine our lives, we can think of what divides us, what breaks us apart inside and out. But for all that leaves us broken, that does not have the final say. Jesus says, come. Learn to enter the kingdom of Heaven like a little child, with trust, hope, and openness. That is the blessing.

May we learn this World Communion Sunday we are a people broken and blessed. We are worthy, for the kingdom of God because we follow the example of the little children, open, reaching for Jesus, welcomed by him as his brothers and sisters that no divorce, no separation, no division, can destroy. Let us some together to the table, cuts, bruises divisions and all, and know confidently, in the arms of Jesus, we are healed and blessed. Amen.

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"Stumbling Toward Grace"

10/1/2018

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James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50 Freeport/Merrick
September 30, 2018 “

        Like many who travel to work in Manhattan, this past week has been absolute bedlam, with the opening of the United Nations general council. Over 100 heads of state present, including the president of the United States. I happened to be in the City last week near Trump Towers. Fifth avenue was lined with fences, heavy trucks and cadres of police on every block. A gleaming Motorcade with the flag of Turkey on the hood rerouted traffic. What a hectic schedule to keep the international body running. All these activities were then overshadowed by intense hearings conducted by the Senate.

    Jesus was familiar with such grueling schedules and controversial encounters. In one week we find Jesus traveling throughout Galilee, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Tyre; interacting with foreigners, healing the deaf mute, a blind man, casting out an evil spirit from a boy, transfigured on a high mountain; taught and fed a large crowd of four thousand, interrogation and debate with the Pharisees, taught his disciples who are constantly slow on the uptake. Now do you know of crowd handlers? They see a child, they go running and get the child and bring the child to the politician for a photo op? Well, that’s what the disciples were supposed to do. Instead, the disciples acted as bouncers. They keep people away. They are quickly becoming the barrier builders, the secret service, the bouncers to decide who gets near to Jesus and who doesn’t.
In today’s lesson, they were even proud of their actions – they tell Jesus, “hey we saw a man driving out a demon in your name but he wasn’t one of us, so we told him to stop.” At that point Jesus loses it. He resorts to extreme hyperbole, among the strongest in his public ministry, to get his point across.

First Jesus sounds reasonable. Do not stop him. Whoever is not against us is for us. Very understandable.

Anyone who gives a cup of water in my name will not lose one’s heavenly reward.

Now here’s where it gets gruesome.

If anyone causes to sin one of these little ones, innocent ones, new believers, interested but not yet ready to believe, better for you to have a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin cut it off.
If your foot causes you to sin cut it off.
If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

Jesus is addressing the serious problem of his disciples driving people away or to turn away by their exclusive, we’re the best, do it our way or it’s the by-way attitude.

      The disciples seem not only worried that the man who cast out demons wasn’t one of them. They acted to control the ministry of Jesus and access to healing. They sought to put a stumbling block to healing. Jesus says this is sinful. Do not put stumbling blocks in the way for the children, or the new believers, to potential believers, to the ordinary person. Do not block access to God because someone is different from you, worships differently, speaks differently, has a different faith experiences from you as they minister in my name. Nobody, nobody has the corner market on God.

Jesus takes the disciples’ actions to the natural conclusion.   Think of all the crowds – all those who witnessed what the disciples did in turning that healer away. Their faith was shaken, perhaps eliminated. This created a stumbling block, or a scandal to be exact.   This is why Jesus takes his disciples to task. For stopping the ministry and faith of another believer, because this person wasn’t like them, and didn’t travel with them. Think of the ramifications of this for the entire Christian church, because denominations and churches argue and condemn each other, mutually excommunicate each other, over who is supposedly right and who was wrong. What a scandal! So, Jesus says: Look!

The hand we have been given to create, heal and upbuild one another in love instead is used to harm and to mare the image of God. Cut it off! Jesus says. Better this then to have those whose spiritual and physical lives depend on us be damaged, traumatized, or to lose their faith because of the careless or harmful works of our hand.

Look! See the feet given to us to travel and visit the sick, the imprisoned, to fellowship and carry the word of God. Yet we use our feet to carry us to self-serving places, to trample the poor, to neglect those under your care. Our feet stomp on the truth and trust that cause people to misunderstand or lose faith in Jesus. Cut them off! Jesus says. Better to be a cripple then to harm those who are innocent in the community, to separate them from what they need to survive, or to cause them to walk away from the faith.

Look! Jesus says. Our eyes are a gift to see the world as the kingdom of God and declare to all the beauty therein. Our vision beholds all the majesty and glory which we are to proclaim. We are to see the beauty of God in others. Yet our vision is tainted. What is holy we find evil, what is evil we proclaim as good.   Pluck your eye out! Jesus declares. Better to be blind, because you see someone you don’t know casting out a demon in my name, you see a woman in hijab and it makes you uncomfortable, or you see African American teen age boys walking down the street on a dark night and you cross over for no good reason. Pluck your eye out if we look on another’s body as an object to be used and abused. Better to be blind, then to cause the innocents to lose faith or to be infected with this same evil or filled with shame, or to turn away in despair or anger from our loving and merciful God.

Jesus is teaching us what scandal really is. It isn’t the stuff of the National Inquirer. Jesus teaches that scandal are the attitudes, beliefs, and actions that act as “traps, snares, or stones that causes us to stumble, that cause our neighbor, or fellow believers to stumble.” So, Jesus takes what his disciples are doing very seriously.

Then there are the ordinary scandals of church life we have all seen: the cliques that develop. The criticisms that are meant to be helpful but sting. The debates over doctrine or opinions while the people languish or are forgotten or ignored. The focus on our own spiritual comfort over reaching out into our community. So many ordinary scandals that we participate in without realizing it that weaken the church, take the wind out of the sails of our faith. Wherever it is coming from, Jesus says, cut it out! Because we have too precious, too loved, too important to God to become mired in scandal that chases people away.

Jesus would have us avoid scandals. Each of us knows what scandals that haunt our lives. Jesus wants us whole, salted, with whole hands, whole eyes, whole feet. We can avoid scandal when we realize that Jesus wants to awaken us, revitalize us, to salt us. That’s why he speaks so vividly. Maybe to learn from that healer outside our circle who speaks in the name of Jesus. Maybe that is the learning edge for Freeport/Merrick this upcoming year. Let’s walk away from the scandals and be at peace with each other. In that peace with each other, we share the living faith that draws others to the Lord. The Pope reminds us of our mission:

"God is in the city," he said. "Knowing that Jesus still walks our streets, that he is part of the lives of his people, that he is involved with us in one vast history of salvation, fills us with hope.”

Though strong and blunt, Jesus words fills us with hope. We can be salted. Scandal does not have to be a part of our lives. We can learn to heal and be whole. We can be at peace with each other. That peace, protective, captivating, grace-filled, and holy, will be our calling card in a scandal-filled world. A morally unpinned world that craves for such a peace. So, let us live in scandal free peace, in honor as we stumble toward grace. May Jesus use us for good deeds of the gospel: hand, eye, feet –heart soul and spirit, for the lost, the innocents, the searching, and may through the work of Christ in us find this very peace, and know what it is like to be safe, saved and grace-filled and whole. Amen

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/scandal1/#ixzz3mt1xsI3P

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"A Ransom for Many"

"All Things Possible"

"Broken and Blessed"

"Stumbling Toward Grace"

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