Sermon preached at the Church of St Luke & St Simon Cyrene, Rochester, New York on July 20: Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
How many of you have ever been asked, “What does your Church believe?”
Apropos of this being Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride weekend, how many of you have been asked to explain how is it that we can include gayfolk in our congregation, even as our priest?
Our readings this morning provide us with some ways to answer these questions. I’ll grant you up front that most of the people who ask you them are not going to like these answers, but that much is not our problem. We should, however, be able to answer the questions for ourselves with some, shall I say, “integrity.”
Our first reading is from the Wisdom of Solomon, a book of the Apocrypha. It is proof that the good news that Jesus proclaimed was not new to Jewish thought.
There is no god beside you, whose care is for all people…although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us…you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind…because you give repentance for sins.
We believe that God forgives sins and one of his primary characteristics is forbearance. To put it simply, God puts up with us. Moreover, we must do likewise, put up with one another.
This means we strive not to judge; we leave judging to God. That gives plenty of room for sinners of all sorts and conditions to be members of the church. That really means all of you who have assembled here. We do not judge although we all know we will have to face a judge one day. But we know that judge to be the One who is in love with us.
As far as gayfolk go, in a very important sense it doesn’t matter whether or not they are sinners. In fact, we assume they are, since everyone is. We all depend upon the forbearance of God.
The primary objection we will get to this is that there is right and wrong, and God requires sinners to repent. We are opening ourselves to an “anything goes” philosophy.
My response to that is that it is God who is opening himself to an “anything goes” philosophy. But if you want a standard than use St. Paul’s from Galatians 5:22-23. If Episcopalians were to memorize any verses of Scripture I think it should be these two. They should be our John 3:16.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
As far as gayfolk go, if they exhibit these fruits of the Spirit as much as the rest of us sinners, we have no bone to pick with them.
So we believe in forbearance, a God who puts up with us.
On to Romans. Paul is consistent with the bit from Galatians that we just heard.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
How do we know someone is being led by the Spirit of God? The aforementioned fruits of the Spirit.
We believe, with Paul, that we are all children of God, that God does not want us to be afraid of him. God’s only real desire for each and everyone of us is that we cry out to God with our own spirits, “Abba! Father!” The desire for relationship with God is enough. God’s own Spirit working in us will do the rest.
Furthermore, from this passage we also believe that the whole creation is good. It is all “eagerly longing” for its redemption. God will waste nothing he has created.
In terms of our inclusion of gayfolk, we do admittedly have to make an assumption here. Gayfolk were created that way.
One of the responses will be the old saw, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Too which I reply, “Then who created Steve? Somebody had to create Steve, because Steve is real.” This is to say that the creation stories in Genesis were never intended to be the first and last word about the creation.
Another response, which is, by the way, the official response of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, is that even if gayfolk were created that way, God requires that they not act on it.
To which I respond with words of Paul from this morning:
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear…The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God…in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
It is about freedom from fear. That is the glory of the children of God. Or, as St. Irenaeus put it near the beginning of the church’s life, “The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.
How can we possibly ask a whole segment of humanity not to be fully alive? And how do we know what it means to be fully alive? We are right back to the fruits of the Spirit.
Speaking personally, for me to be fully alive, and to produce the fruits of the Spirit that I am able by the grace of God to produce, I need to be, among other things, in relationship with John Clinton Bradley. That is my witness.
And finally the Gospel reading, another farming parable like last week’s parable of the sower. And once again, God proves himself to be a lousy farmer, this time allowing weeds to grow along with the wheat. No, it’s not how they did it in Jesus’ day. Jesus was turning practicality on its head. No farmer in his or her right mind would let the weeds grow because they would do what weeds do, take over. And who could actually do the sorting out at the end?
Jesus’ answer is, of course, God. God can and will sort things out at the end. For now we do the counterintuitive thing and let the weeds grow.
I think to many people the Episcopal Church looks like a very weedy field. So be it. There’s biblical precedence for keeping at least what look like weeds and letting God sort it out later.
We believe in a messy church. And we believe in a messy church not just because we like it or it is more convenient for us. We believe in a messy church because we believe God wants it that way. For us to be a “bible-believing” church means to be a messy church.
If you want things neat and tidy this is not the church for you. I might suggest this is not the religion for you, either, but lots of our brothers and sister Christians don’t see it that way. They have managed to come up with a pretty neat and tidy version of Christianity.
God love them. It is not our way. Messiness for us is the way, the truth and the life.
This brings me to a last point—a kind of reality check for us Episcopalians. We have got to get used to and comfortable with being a minority church. That’s not the way it once was. There was a time when we were firmly among the majority. But now, most of our fellow Christians disagree with us—and not just on the issue of human sexuality, but certainly, yes, on that. They, in fact, think we are nuts, and, worse, heretics. That’s what a heckler called Gene Robinson as he was preaching in London this past week—a heretic.
A great deal of the culture around us thinks we’re nuts as well. And part of that reality means that our messiness is not a state that naturally leads to growth. This truth creates a dilemma for us. We need to grow, but we can’t do so without sacrificing our principles.
On the other hand, I do think there are folks out there who would be quite open to the news of a messy church, a church of radical forbearance. We have to get better at telling them about it, which means we have to get comfortable with who we are.
Who are we?
We are a forbearing people, radically so. We put up with everybody who walks in the door unless they want to harm someone. Everyone’s welcome at our table, perhaps except someone whose mission is to tear it down.
We believe that what God makes is good, and he makes human beings to be unafraid and free to be in relationship with him.
We believe in a weedy, messy church as a biblical mandate. We strive to leave judgment to God.
Above all we believe that the followers of God are those who strive, under the grace of God, to produce the fruits of the Spirit, and exhibiting these fruits overcomes anything else that is true about us.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
And so, by the mercy and love of God, we are a welcome table for all. All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Kingdom Gardening
Sermon preached at the Church of St Luke & St Simon Cyrene (8 am) and St Stephen's Church (10 am) on July 13, 2008: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom…
A sower went out to sow some seed…
Back in chapter 10, Matthew has made it clear that the good news for Jesus was the good news of the kingdom. In Matthew’s Gospel it is usually referred to as “the kingdom of heaven.” In Mark and Luke it is usually referred to as “the kingdom of God.” Same thing.
Furthermore, Jesus sends out his disciples with the message: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
But just what is this kingdom of heaven? Jesus mostly tells stories—parables—to answer this question. There are a whole raft of them in chapter 13 that we’re going to spend the next three weeks reading.
This morning we have the familiar parable of the sower, as we usually call it. In all three of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) it is the first full-blown parable told. That’s significant. The first one sets the tone, and, in most ways, summarizes all the others.
New Testament scholar and theologian Robert Capon identifies four truths about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God that are contained in the parable of the sower and then keep popping up in all the rest of the parables.[1]
These four things are in contrast to our natural way of looking at the world, including our religion. We tend to be, he says, “parochial” in our outlook. We want to deal with our like-minded group, which means we inevitably end up being exclusive.
We also like things that we can see—that are visible, tangible practical. Third, especially in terms of our religion, we like it to be about the future. But this is true in our daily life as well. We are easily distracted by the next thing. Our attention span is not great.
Last of all we like things handed to us. Our greatest dream is to win the lottery—virtually free money.
In contrast, Capon says, the parables teach us that the kingdom is the opposite of these things. It is catholic (which is to say, inclusive) rather than parochial/exclusive. It is mysterious, hidden, rather than visible, obvious. It is actually present here and now, not in some future time. And it requires our response, usually in the midst of some hostility. It is not just handed over to us.
So where are these characteristics in the parable of the sower—inclusiveness, mysteriousness, actual presence and requiring of our response in the midst of hostility?
The notion that the kingdom is inclusive is the notion that it is at work “everywhere, always, and for all, rather than in some places, at some times, and for some people.”[2] This is literally what our word “catholic means. The “h-o-l” in the middle of catholic comes from the Latin word meaning “whole” or “all.” It is just an example of how we naturally tend to think that the word “catholic” has come to mean something exclusive when it actually means exactly the opposite.
The four kinds of ground in the parable of the sower are clearly meant to cover all the bases—every kind of people. And the sower sows the seed in them all, indiscriminately. It is not a very efficient way of sowing seed. It is as if a toddler were asked to plant a garden. But this is kingdom gardening, so the seed goes everywhere.
It’s important to point out here that God is the sower in the parable. God sows the seed. The seed, we are told, is “the word of the kingdom.” We also might think of the seed as Jesus himself, since we call him “the Word” and he is the embodiment of the kingdom.
This should say to us that the kingdom has already been sown. We too often act as if we take the word to others who didn’t have it in the first place. This was the assumption of the great missionary endeavors of the 19th century, some of which still goes on today. There are heathen out there who need to be brought the word.
Jesus imagined no such thing. The seed has already been sown. Our job, if anything is to point out the fruit that has already been produced by the seed, to find where the kingdom of God has already come near. After all, Jesus told his disciples to say to others that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” He did not tell them to say, “We’ve got the kingdom and we’d like to give it to you.”
The kingdom has already been sown everywhere. It is a catholic, inclusive kingdom.
Second of all, the parable teaches us that the kingdom is mysterious. This is simply in the nature of seeds themselves. They are wondrous things which store within themselves the energy and the information, if you will, to build an entire plant thousands of times its size. You can barely see it when you put it into the ground and then you cover it up. If you went to look for it after it had started to grow, it would be gone.
To say that the kingdom is mysterious rather than obvious is to say that it cannot known as we are used to knowing things. It can only be believed. Faith is required. I can’t prove to you in any generally accepted use of the word “prove” that the kingdom has come near. I can only believe it and encourage you to believe it as well.
Third is how the kingdom is actually present in the parable. Seeds work. They grow. This is not a story about thinking about planting seeds, it is about planting seeds and their growing. This is even true in the seeds that fall on the sidewalk. The birds eat it, yes, but birds passing seeds through their bodies is one of the way nature works to plant seeds.
The power of the kingdom of God is actually present and working. It does not depend upon our activating it. Here’s how Capon puts it:
The history of Christian thought is riddled with virtualism. “Sure,” we have said, “the Lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world.” But then we have proceeded to give the impression that unless people did something special to activate it, his forgiveness would remain only virtually, not actually, theirs. Think of some of the things we have said to people. We have told them that unless they confessed to a priest, or… accepted Jesus in the correct…terms—or…did penance, cried their eyes out, or straightened up and flew right—the seed…might just as well not really have been sown.[3]
And finally, the parable of the sower manifests the need for our response even in the midst of hostility.
Note first this is not our response in order for the seed to be sown or in order for it to grow. Those two things have already happened. But our response is in a hostile environment. There is pavement too hard to penetrate. There are rocks that make the soil thin. There are weeds which choke the plants.
All these things are ways we or others can interfere with the growth of the seed. In one sense it seems like the response that is required of us is to do as little interfering with the growth of the seed and the plant as possible. As Capon says,
It is not that they do anything, you see; rather, it’s that they don’t do things that get in the Word’s way.[4]
Our response does not affect whether or not the seed is sown, nor does it effect whether the plant grows. Our response affects the bearing of fruit. The whole purpose of the Word of the kingdom being sown is to produce people who bear the fruits of the kingdom. We can either help enable that to happen or hinder it.
So the kingdom that is the good news that Jesus proclaimed and embodied is catholic, inclusive. It is mysterious, which is to say that it is in God’s control and not ours. It is present in the here and now and not pie in the sky. And we must learn to cooperate with it for it to bear fruit.
That’s today’s lesson in kingdom gardening.
[1] Robert Farrar Capon, the Parables of the Kingdom (1985), p. 63ff.
[2] Capon, p. 73.
[3] Capon, p. 80.
[4] Capon, p. 83.
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom…
A sower went out to sow some seed…
Back in chapter 10, Matthew has made it clear that the good news for Jesus was the good news of the kingdom. In Matthew’s Gospel it is usually referred to as “the kingdom of heaven.” In Mark and Luke it is usually referred to as “the kingdom of God.” Same thing.
Furthermore, Jesus sends out his disciples with the message: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
But just what is this kingdom of heaven? Jesus mostly tells stories—parables—to answer this question. There are a whole raft of them in chapter 13 that we’re going to spend the next three weeks reading.
This morning we have the familiar parable of the sower, as we usually call it. In all three of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) it is the first full-blown parable told. That’s significant. The first one sets the tone, and, in most ways, summarizes all the others.
New Testament scholar and theologian Robert Capon identifies four truths about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God that are contained in the parable of the sower and then keep popping up in all the rest of the parables.[1]
These four things are in contrast to our natural way of looking at the world, including our religion. We tend to be, he says, “parochial” in our outlook. We want to deal with our like-minded group, which means we inevitably end up being exclusive.
We also like things that we can see—that are visible, tangible practical. Third, especially in terms of our religion, we like it to be about the future. But this is true in our daily life as well. We are easily distracted by the next thing. Our attention span is not great.
Last of all we like things handed to us. Our greatest dream is to win the lottery—virtually free money.
In contrast, Capon says, the parables teach us that the kingdom is the opposite of these things. It is catholic (which is to say, inclusive) rather than parochial/exclusive. It is mysterious, hidden, rather than visible, obvious. It is actually present here and now, not in some future time. And it requires our response, usually in the midst of some hostility. It is not just handed over to us.
So where are these characteristics in the parable of the sower—inclusiveness, mysteriousness, actual presence and requiring of our response in the midst of hostility?
The notion that the kingdom is inclusive is the notion that it is at work “everywhere, always, and for all, rather than in some places, at some times, and for some people.”[2] This is literally what our word “catholic means. The “h-o-l” in the middle of catholic comes from the Latin word meaning “whole” or “all.” It is just an example of how we naturally tend to think that the word “catholic” has come to mean something exclusive when it actually means exactly the opposite.
The four kinds of ground in the parable of the sower are clearly meant to cover all the bases—every kind of people. And the sower sows the seed in them all, indiscriminately. It is not a very efficient way of sowing seed. It is as if a toddler were asked to plant a garden. But this is kingdom gardening, so the seed goes everywhere.
It’s important to point out here that God is the sower in the parable. God sows the seed. The seed, we are told, is “the word of the kingdom.” We also might think of the seed as Jesus himself, since we call him “the Word” and he is the embodiment of the kingdom.
This should say to us that the kingdom has already been sown. We too often act as if we take the word to others who didn’t have it in the first place. This was the assumption of the great missionary endeavors of the 19th century, some of which still goes on today. There are heathen out there who need to be brought the word.
Jesus imagined no such thing. The seed has already been sown. Our job, if anything is to point out the fruit that has already been produced by the seed, to find where the kingdom of God has already come near. After all, Jesus told his disciples to say to others that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” He did not tell them to say, “We’ve got the kingdom and we’d like to give it to you.”
The kingdom has already been sown everywhere. It is a catholic, inclusive kingdom.
Second of all, the parable teaches us that the kingdom is mysterious. This is simply in the nature of seeds themselves. They are wondrous things which store within themselves the energy and the information, if you will, to build an entire plant thousands of times its size. You can barely see it when you put it into the ground and then you cover it up. If you went to look for it after it had started to grow, it would be gone.
To say that the kingdom is mysterious rather than obvious is to say that it cannot known as we are used to knowing things. It can only be believed. Faith is required. I can’t prove to you in any generally accepted use of the word “prove” that the kingdom has come near. I can only believe it and encourage you to believe it as well.
Third is how the kingdom is actually present in the parable. Seeds work. They grow. This is not a story about thinking about planting seeds, it is about planting seeds and their growing. This is even true in the seeds that fall on the sidewalk. The birds eat it, yes, but birds passing seeds through their bodies is one of the way nature works to plant seeds.
The power of the kingdom of God is actually present and working. It does not depend upon our activating it. Here’s how Capon puts it:
The history of Christian thought is riddled with virtualism. “Sure,” we have said, “the Lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world.” But then we have proceeded to give the impression that unless people did something special to activate it, his forgiveness would remain only virtually, not actually, theirs. Think of some of the things we have said to people. We have told them that unless they confessed to a priest, or… accepted Jesus in the correct…terms—or…did penance, cried their eyes out, or straightened up and flew right—the seed…might just as well not really have been sown.[3]
And finally, the parable of the sower manifests the need for our response even in the midst of hostility.
Note first this is not our response in order for the seed to be sown or in order for it to grow. Those two things have already happened. But our response is in a hostile environment. There is pavement too hard to penetrate. There are rocks that make the soil thin. There are weeds which choke the plants.
All these things are ways we or others can interfere with the growth of the seed. In one sense it seems like the response that is required of us is to do as little interfering with the growth of the seed and the plant as possible. As Capon says,
It is not that they do anything, you see; rather, it’s that they don’t do things that get in the Word’s way.[4]
Our response does not affect whether or not the seed is sown, nor does it effect whether the plant grows. Our response affects the bearing of fruit. The whole purpose of the Word of the kingdom being sown is to produce people who bear the fruits of the kingdom. We can either help enable that to happen or hinder it.
So the kingdom that is the good news that Jesus proclaimed and embodied is catholic, inclusive. It is mysterious, which is to say that it is in God’s control and not ours. It is present in the here and now and not pie in the sky. And we must learn to cooperate with it for it to bear fruit.
That’s today’s lesson in kingdom gardening.
[1] Robert Farrar Capon, the Parables of the Kingdom (1985), p. 63ff.
[2] Capon, p. 73.
[3] Capon, p. 80.
[4] Capon, p. 83.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
A Cup of Kingdom Water
Sermon preached at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene, the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (June 29, 2008): Matthew 10:40-42
It ends up that the Gospel is as simple as this: a cup of cold water for someone in need.
Chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel began with Jesus’ calling together the twelve disciples and giving them a mission: Proclaim the good news: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
He then gives them instructions:
· Travel lightly; depend on the kindness of strangers for your well-being.
· Go where you are welcome; do not stay where you are not welcome.
· Expect opposition, sometimes violent and sometimes at the hands of those closest to you, even your own family.
· Do not, however, be afraid. You are of great value to God.
· Be single-minded in your mission, even if it means taking up a cross. If you lose your life you will find it.
Then the chapter ends with our reading this morning. Jesus’ instructions end with some good news. The disciples will be an extension of Jesus to those among whom they find themselves.
Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
In the language of our tradition we would put it this way. The disciples are the sacrament of Jesus and Jesus is the sacrament of God. We are all included in the word “disciples.” Others know the Jesus we follow only as they know us. Our lives are the sacrament of Jesus.
An example of how this works is when we welcome others to this place. The second you are in the presence of another person—particularly a stranger—you are the sacrament of Jesus. You don’t even have to say anything. Just by your body language, how you conduct yourself in this space, you are either showing others the Jesus we follow or showing them a sort of anti-Jesus. It is the difference between welcome and un-welcome, and un-welcome doesn’t have to be hostility or even deliberate inhospitality. It can be simple indifference. When I’m away and visit a church I know almost instantly whether or not the regulars care if I’m there or not. They usually don’t have to say a word and I pick up the vibe. Of course, they usually follow that up by literally not saying a word.
This is what we mean when we say “Hospitality is Job One.” It’s not just a slogan I made up. It is our job to be the presence of Jesus for others. It is the very Gospel we profess.
This is how we practice the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven, that we are called to proclaim: welcome for others, a cup of cold water for anyone in need, which is what I believe Jesus means by “little ones.”
A cup of cold water may be what we are literally called to give, but it is also a symbol for the giving of our lives for others, the extension of our lives, which, as I’ve been saying, is the extension of the very life of Jesus.
The cup of cold water is a cup of kingdom of heaven water. It is a way of enacting “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is an act of compassion and mercy, and not just a spiritual balm (although it may be just that) but also a sharing of substance. It can be an act of healing. It can also be an act of justice.
So it ends up in this image of a cup of kingdom water, the three great phrases of our mission statement are all present.
We are a healing place for souls, called to be a place that responds with compassion toward those of us in need of spiritual healing. In this we know that our ministry is an extension of Jesus’ ministry.
We are a school for justice, called to be a place that seeks where a cup of kingdom water is needed and that seeks to give it. We know that this kingdom we are called to proclaim is a kingdom of justice in the here and now.
We are a welcome Table for all, called to be a place where hospitality is indeed job one. We know that God has no way of welcoming others to this Table then our own actions toward others, especially the stranger.
A cup of kingdom water…a healing place for souls…a school for justice…a welcome table for all. Let us follow Jesus in being and doing this things, proclaiming with our words and our deeds that the kingdom of God has come near.
It ends up that the Gospel is as simple as this: a cup of cold water for someone in need.
Chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel began with Jesus’ calling together the twelve disciples and giving them a mission: Proclaim the good news: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
He then gives them instructions:
· Travel lightly; depend on the kindness of strangers for your well-being.
· Go where you are welcome; do not stay where you are not welcome.
· Expect opposition, sometimes violent and sometimes at the hands of those closest to you, even your own family.
· Do not, however, be afraid. You are of great value to God.
· Be single-minded in your mission, even if it means taking up a cross. If you lose your life you will find it.
Then the chapter ends with our reading this morning. Jesus’ instructions end with some good news. The disciples will be an extension of Jesus to those among whom they find themselves.
Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
In the language of our tradition we would put it this way. The disciples are the sacrament of Jesus and Jesus is the sacrament of God. We are all included in the word “disciples.” Others know the Jesus we follow only as they know us. Our lives are the sacrament of Jesus.
An example of how this works is when we welcome others to this place. The second you are in the presence of another person—particularly a stranger—you are the sacrament of Jesus. You don’t even have to say anything. Just by your body language, how you conduct yourself in this space, you are either showing others the Jesus we follow or showing them a sort of anti-Jesus. It is the difference between welcome and un-welcome, and un-welcome doesn’t have to be hostility or even deliberate inhospitality. It can be simple indifference. When I’m away and visit a church I know almost instantly whether or not the regulars care if I’m there or not. They usually don’t have to say a word and I pick up the vibe. Of course, they usually follow that up by literally not saying a word.
This is what we mean when we say “Hospitality is Job One.” It’s not just a slogan I made up. It is our job to be the presence of Jesus for others. It is the very Gospel we profess.
This is how we practice the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven, that we are called to proclaim: welcome for others, a cup of cold water for anyone in need, which is what I believe Jesus means by “little ones.”
A cup of cold water may be what we are literally called to give, but it is also a symbol for the giving of our lives for others, the extension of our lives, which, as I’ve been saying, is the extension of the very life of Jesus.
The cup of cold water is a cup of kingdom of heaven water. It is a way of enacting “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is an act of compassion and mercy, and not just a spiritual balm (although it may be just that) but also a sharing of substance. It can be an act of healing. It can also be an act of justice.
So it ends up in this image of a cup of kingdom water, the three great phrases of our mission statement are all present.
We are a healing place for souls, called to be a place that responds with compassion toward those of us in need of spiritual healing. In this we know that our ministry is an extension of Jesus’ ministry.
We are a school for justice, called to be a place that seeks where a cup of kingdom water is needed and that seeks to give it. We know that this kingdom we are called to proclaim is a kingdom of justice in the here and now.
We are a welcome Table for all, called to be a place where hospitality is indeed job one. We know that God has no way of welcoming others to this Table then our own actions toward others, especially the stranger.
A cup of kingdom water…a healing place for souls…a school for justice…a welcome table for all. Let us follow Jesus in being and doing this things, proclaiming with our words and our deeds that the kingdom of God has come near.
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