Sermon: Etiquette

Etiquette

         Priya Parker, author of “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters” suggests that 90% of throwing a good party is preparation
—that a host has to nail down some basics in order to get people to gather well—establish a purpose of the gathering,
invite the ideal number of people for what they want to do,
make clear rules for the event,
create an alternative world that the guests are stepping into,
and have a clear ending.

         The major point Parker makes is that etiquette isn’t dead, in fact, it is necessary to keep chaos at bay, but the particular rules have to fit with the purposeof the gathering.

         And today, we can looking at how Jesus gathers us, the kind of etiquette Christ calls us Christians to, the purpose of our being together.

         Today we look at the Rules of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the Etiquette of the Kingdom of God
—Kingdom Etiquette.

Let us pray

         These rules of etiquette that Jesus calls us to would make no sense to the Romans who occupied his country. Roman Rules, Roman Etiquette, were rules of reciprocity & boastfulness.
         This was true from the Emperor on down… talk of humility would be laughable
—projecting as much power and prestige as you could was the order of the day, being seated at the head table, an end in itself. 

         The purpose of an invitation, the purpose of throwing a party, was to curry favor. Friendship itself was seen as an insurance policy of sorts
—I scratched your back… now you owe me! 
The only time you’d invite someone who couldn’t invite you back was to ask them to do your dirty work. 

         Similarly, this Kingdom Etiquette would challenge the imagination of many of Jesus’ fellow Jews. When his contemporaries wrote about the kinds of communitiesthey were forming, and also about the kind of worldGod was making through them
—what the feast at the end of this world they read about in Isaiah would look like
—the General Resurrection
—when they thought about table fellowship and etiquette…
they explicitly wrote about who would be excluded—“the fool, the blind, the lame, the crippled, the deaf, and children,”
for their presence would offend the holy angels.

         The purpose of such a party was maintenance of holiness and the exclusion of disruptive forces.

         And such etiquette,
rules of excessive holiness and exclusion
rules boastfulness and reciprocity
—they are not for us…
ours is aKingdom Etiquette.

         As guests, we are called to humility. When we get together with people it is natural to want to know the pecking order, to know where you stand vis a visother people. It can boost your ego and buttress your self-worth… but if Jesus’ Kingdom is real, that’s not where our ego or our self-worth comes from…
it comes from being made in God’s image and claimed as a member of God’s family in Baptism. 

         Then you can look around at that same group of people and really seethem!
If you’re not trying to see who is above you, you can look your fellow guests in the eyes and get to know them as actual interesting individuals…
and guess what, they may even start to respond in kind! Etiquette can be infectious.

         As hosts, we are called to invite those who can not repay us
—called to break with assumptions of reciprocity in the name of generosity.
This is not an easy calling
—what if they take advantage of your generosity? What if people look and see who you invite and start to associate them with you?

         As Christians, we are to ask a different question, what happens to them if we do not?
If they are excluded from the banquet, what will happen to them? 

         Perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of myself
—I’ve jumped straight to the clear rules of the event—the etiquette—without the why of it…
We act this way, because in a myriad of ways Jesus, has met us in our lives…the Bridegroom has been generous, the Bridegroom has invited us up.

         We came crashing into the limits of our honor and Jesus invited us up anyhow.

         We were confronted by the uncomfortable truth of our own inadequacies crying, “Lord, I can not repay,” and were confronted still more stunningly with the truth that Christ is kind-hearted!

         We are gathered together at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, all of us and so many more still, invited to honor him with our humility and our welcome, called to be what we are his Body in the World.

         That is Kingdom Etiquette. A+A

Sermon: Sabbath is for Rest, Liberation, and Holiness.

              What is a Sabbath for? It is for Rest, Liberation, and Holiness.

              A Sabbath is for Rest. Take a moment—imagine you are in the middle of a dance floor, everything is whirling around you, strobe lights, base bumping in your chest, bodies radiating energy everywhere, everyone a little dehydrated but going on anyway… and then, you step back and ascend a staircase and see the whole thing from the balcony, maybe drink a glass of water while doing so… and you can see the whole of it, and how you are a part of it, getting perspective before you return to the dance floor.

              Sabbath rest does that, allowing us to cease and assess, and see God’s work in our life—this rest reveals and reminds us of God’s grace—the givenness of creation—all that is, seen and unseen, we ourselves in our individual and collective totality, are a gift; life itself, a gift—and if that is true, and it is, then taking care of our bodily needs will not end the world, it won’t stop spinning just because we take some time—in fact, taking care of this gift of life that God has given us respects the Giver! Humans were created for rest as well as labor—to ignore that is inhumane. We are very important, the maintenance of our life is a Godly task, and we’re not that important, our rest will not endanger all of creation.

              A Sabbath is for Liberation. Look around, these gifts of God, all of them, are all gifts of God… Just as you are worthy of rest and respect, so are we all. Look around you, see these other humans before you, they too are worthy of dignity and rest. And look out the window at the creatures and trees and grass and land and sky—they too desire and deserve rest… did you know the Amazon—which produces 20% of earth’s oxygen, is burning because we would not rest—we desired farm land more than fallow forest and set it ablaze—an Amazon at rest no more.

              While Sabbath calls us to rest, it also calls us to act, to act for the liberation of everyone! There is no sabbath without service! If everyone can not have Sabbath, there is no Sabbath—and so we must work for a world where all are freed. God destroyed the Egyptians because their slaves were forced to build bricks with not rest. God cast the Israelites out of the Promised Land because they did not give the Land rest every seventh year. If those in bondage do not find freedom of the Sabbath, it is not the Sabbath.

              The Sabbath is sacred. Through it we may look up. Siblings of the faith, lift up your eyes. Look up to see the one who saves us. Listen to the stories of God’s activities and together sort out what God is doing in our lives right now! In these moments we re-prioritize the very order of our existence, remembering that our time is God’s time.

              Taking Sabbath re-orders time and breaks the all-consuming nature of work work work, or even work play work. Holy time enter into the cycles of our life, it points to the ways we use time and are used by time, the ways we offer up our time, to those things in our life that are not God, the Idols that, at the end of the day, offer and are, no more than idle time. The seasons of our lives are different when infused with the sacred.

              What is Sabbath for? Rest, liberation, and Holiness. All three weaved together into a bold and unique way of living life.

              You can not have Sabbath without Rest, because you’ll get burnt out—acting for the liberation of others becomes drudgery and holiness becomes hellish…

              Yet, Rest is not enough, for Holiness and Liberation together gives space for God to act when our actions are not enough—the miraculous is found in the interaction of those two!

              You can not have Sabbath without Liberation, that is the point of today’s readings from both Luke and Isaiah. Holy days become excuses for inaction and rest becomes laziness—freedom is put off and selfishness is bolstered.

              And yet, liberation is not the totality of Sabbath—after all when Rest and Holiness are held together there can be, at least for a day, equality—all affirmed as God’s Children, all able to rest, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “When a Walmart cashier and a bank president are both lying on a picnic blanket at the park, you can’t tell them apart.” The very thing liberation seeks is fostered by Rest and Holiness.

              And if Sabbath isn’t sacred, it isn’t sabbath. Without Holiness, the “Child of God-ness” the “giveness of creation” the “made in God’s image-ness” the “out of one blood he made all people-ness” without Holiness, there is no why behind Liberation and behind Rest—they themselves can become ends, idols too.

              And while Sabbath without the sacred isn’t sabbath, it does not follow that the Sabbath is only sacred—Freedoms call and a recognition that humans need rest are intertwined with one another and also uphold one another—choirs are often taught staggered breathing—people take breaths at different times so the song may still continue. And so too, rest and liberation—we can trust each other to keep working for freedom and trust that the work will continue when you need to take care of yourself!

             

              What is a Sabbath for? It is for Rest, Liberation, and Holiness. For looking down from the balcony, for looking around and truly beginning to see your siblings of all sorts, for looking up and being pulled into sacred story. Each of these have the ability to transform our lives for the better, taken together they re-enforce each other and can transform the world!

              Sabbath is for Rest, Liberation, and Holiness. A+A!

Sermon Video: The Prayer from Abraham's Torn Heart

Sermon: The Prayer from Abraham’s Torn Heart

The Prayer from Abraham’s Torn Heart

              How should we pray?

-First we ought to address God as a kind parent or a good friend, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” This helps us, as Luther writes in his Small Catechism, to come to God boldly and with complete confidence, as a loving child comes to their loving parent.

-Second, we pray persistently… with shameless persistence, as most Greek geeks translate it… shamelessly persistent, desperate for hospitality.
“help! my friend has arrived at midnight!”
“help! the children need food!”

This is something we see often in Luke’s Gospel:
-the Samaritan shamelessly showing hospitality toward the desperate man on the road to Jerusalem,
-Mary & Martha’s shameless hospitality toward Jesus,
-Jesus shamelessly sharing space with every outsider he can find,
-the vision of the banquet at the end of time, where all those who can not repay, are graciously, generously, shamelessly, shown hospitality.

-Third, we pray all these things, not to turn God’s heart, but to turn our own heart toward what God is already up to
—God’s name is Holy without our prayer, God’s kingdom is coming without our prayer, God’s forgiveness and leading come without our prayer
—but we pray that we might enter into God’s Holiness & Kingdom, Forgiveness & Leading.

              How ought we pray?
Pray with utter confidence to God who loves us, pray desperately for hospitality, and know that you are asking to be turned toward what God is already doing.

              And that’s all true, but if I were to leave you there, with three points and a poem—I’d be sending you all out like sheep among wolves.

              For there is another side to prayer as well, what Luther calls Anfechtung—contending, struggle, temptation, trial
—that too, is part of prayer.

              We see this in no better way than in Abraham’s desperate prayers to God today
—Prayers From Abraham’s Torn Heart.

Let us pray

              Prayers From Abraham’s Torn Heart.

              It all starts off well enough—Abraham relates to God as a beloved child, as God’s friend
—in fact, the story of Abraham is one long story of God’s ongoing faithfulness to Abraham and his kin. Abraham continually does things to threaten the promises made by God,
 and God continually makes a way out of no way!
God surely acts as Abraham’s Friend and Trustworthy Father.

              For that matter, when God and the Angels arrive, Abraham pulls out all the stops, he is exceedingly hospitable to the Three Men, he runs to them, bows, declares them lords, washes their feet, gives them shade from the hot sun, feeds them fresh bread, and then offers up a feast.

              And then the angels ask God, “Abraham is the Chosen one… shall we hide from him that we are going to destroy Sodom?”

              “No,” God replies, “He and his kin-folk are chosen for a purpose—to be righteous and just! So, he must know what we are to do.”

              And to this Abraham prays desperately for hospitality, shamelessly and persistently—50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10!”
I bet he thinks:
"well, Lot is there, surely he’s created a community of care in Sodom, at least those who are neighbors of Lot have been converted, have become righteous and just people for knowing him!”
I’m sure he’s doing the calculations:
“well there are four of them, then two sons-in-law, so really we just need 4 righteous! There has to be four righteous, right?”

              God has heard the cries of the victims
—as Ezekiel 16:49 makes clear, Sodom’s pride stunk to high heaven. They hoarded food and lived idle lives of leisure—and refused to feed the poor and the needy. (As our country chooses to kick 3 million hungry people off of food stamps, we might want to think on this)

              When the Angels arrive at night in Sodom, they seek to sleep in the public square, and cannot, because if they did, they would be sexually assaulted. (In a country where someone is sexually assaulted every minute and a half, we might want to think on this)

              Sodom is too dangerous for strangers and sojourners… immigrants. (The President of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services recently testified to congress about the difference between Christian Charities taking care of immigrant children like we used to do, and for-profit-prisons warehousing children and making nearly half a billion dollars off of them this last year… we might want to think on this)

              And then there is the kicker—Lot offers his daughters to be victims of Sodom—some excuse this as an example of ancient hospitality (can you believe that!)—but in reality it is simply a moment where Abraham’s kin are revealed to be neither just nor righteous
—Lot has NOT created a community of care, but is corrupted by the city in which he lives. (in a society where its been revealed that people regularly procured girls for Jeffrey Epstein, and his actions were winked and nodded at by powerful and influential people, we might want to think on this)

              God is saying, “Not one more victim!”

              Not one more victim!
              This. Has. To. End!

              You have to understand, talking to God is no idle pastime for Abraham—his nephew and grand-nieces, and extended family, are there in Sodom!
              He prays to God, not as some self-satisfied judge with God on his side, smugly looking down at those sinners and consumed with pride at his own righteousness…
His are not the prayers of a distant man, unmoved…
It tears at his heart—his own kin, those he loves, are unrighteous and unjust—wicked and biased!

              And that’s the stuff of Anfechtung—trials and temptations of the heart, or as William Falkner describes is, “The human heart in conflict with itself.”
—Abraham is desperately interested in the wellbeing of those he loves,
even as he enters into what God is doing to bring justice and righteousness.

God yes! Not one more victim!
and
Oh My God, it is my own kin!

              He’s praying desperately, “Maybe 45, 30… 10?”

              He’s praying from a torn heart.

              And if we pray to God who loves us, pray desperately for hospitality, and pray that we might be turned toward what God is already doing—we too will pray from a torn heart.

Amen.

Mueller Report in Meme form

So, if you watched the 7 hour grilling of Mueller you know he's super frustrated that no one read his report (other than me... apparently).

To help everyone out I posted a summary. I also posted highlights.
Here is my final attempt to make sure people know what happened... inspired by this slate article:

The Mueller Report in Meme form

Intro:

Shared Campaign Info:

Lied to Investigators:

Tampered with Evidence:

Russia Used Social Media to Influence 126,000,000 Americans... it had real world consequences:

The Russians also Hacked Democrats:

Trump's Request to Hack the DNC and Hillary were Taken Seriously:

The Trump Campaign Coordinated with Wikileaks, who Coordinated with Russia:

Trump's Son was Given the Password to an Anti-Trump PAC Website: 

Wikileaks Used Trump Jr. as a Puppet:

A Summary of the Hacking:

Trump's Campaign was Initially a Real Estate Infomercial:

Everyone Pretended to be More Important Than They Were, and that Made them More Important:

The Trump Campaign Freely Shared Information with the Russians, because they were Compromised:

But Her EMAILS!!!

So Incurious:

They Knew the Meeting was About Dirt on Clinton:

Many Trump Folk Lie, for Example:

Trump is NOT not Guilt of Obstruction of Justice:

Trump Lies:

People in Trump's Orbit Refuse to Follow Presidential Orders:

The President's Team Lied about Trump Editing his Son's Press Statements:

The Scope of the President's Actions:

Congress Needs to Hold the President Accountable because No One is Above the Law:

The President Would Not Answer Questions about Obstruction of Justice:

The President Acted in a Two-Faced Manner:

The President Refused to be Interviewed:

Either the President has a Memory Problem, or He's Lying:

They are Home: The Commander in Chief must not act like this!

            Donald Trump’s latest tweet, telling four congresswomen of color to go home, just hit me so hard. I’m in tears… and I’m a white guy, I can only imagine how this feels to folk who have regularly been told, “go back to where you came from.” 

            I am struck that the Commander in Chief would speak like this, that the president would say such a thing about members of congress. 

            For whatever reason, his actions take me back to my childhood as a NATO brat. We occasionally had drills about getting nuked or overran by the Communists. We were told to find our parents, or failing that, to find adults we trusted. The two adults I decided on were Dr. Omar and Rob. 

            The Commander in Chief of the United States Military was not only attacking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Ilhan Omar—he is also saying Rob and Dr. Omar aren’t really Americans. They would die for this country! For that matter, “The Squad”represents and serves nearly three million Americans… that’s 5 of my home state of Wyoming… that’s a lot of Americans!

            What kind of President uses his bully pulpit as a bullhorn for the worst impulses of our country? What kind of President injects that kind of hate into our nation’s veins? What kind of President holds millions of citizens in such low disregard, and states it publically?

            What kind of Commander in Chief insults 40%of the troops he commands?

A prayer for “The Squad”:

            Lord God, our President’s words are endangering the lives of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, please shield them and protect them, please keep them safe. Do not let them be demonized, do not let them be used to scare people, and do not let the evil done to them have its intended effect. 

            Instead Lord, take “The Squad” and use them to do good for this nation and prosper all who live herein. Strengthen them daily for their vocation as Congresswomen. 

            Dear Lord, be kind to them. In Jesus name. Amen.

A prayer for everyone who has been told to “Go Home”:

            There is no rest, until we rest in you, and yet… and yet Lord, this nation can be a place to be and be safe for a time. Lord, it is not so. Millions of your children are insulted, denigrated, hated. Please heal the wounds inflicted upon them. Please make it so such hatred may never again be used against them.

            Also, please turn the hearts of those who have attacked them, turn them from their sin that they might be transformed. 

            Make of our imperfect nation a home. In Jesus name. Amen.

Sermon: Four lenses on the Good Samaritan

         What is the purpose of a parable? It is a sacred story we chew on until it begins to chew on us. Its purpose is to transform our imagination and our souls. To help us know God’s will, lead lives worthy and pleasing to Christ, and bear fruit. Parables plant seeds in our souls.

         -They pull us into the story,
         -lay bare basic and fundamental questions,
         -ignite out moral imagination,
         -and tell us something about God!

         Story, questions, morality, and God—those are some of the ways parables shape us.

Prayer

         Parables pull us in

         …

         You’re wonder why you’re here?

         Well… you’re at my Inn…

         I guess you didget knocked around pretty badly… maybe you don’t even remember. A guy brought you in and paid me to take care of you. He’d already set your arm and washed out your wounds… brought you here on his donkey—walked the whole way here with you thrown over the beast like a sack of grain.

         He told me he saw you there and it hit him right in the gut—seeing you dying there on the road. He felt like he had no other option but to help you…

         A Priest? Nooo!

         You remember a Levite coming toward you… I don’t know why you’d remember that—I guess you did get hit on the head pretty bad.

         Who was he? I don’t know… just some Samaritan.

         Who beat you up? Who do you think beat you up? Zealots of course… Saccari—Knife Men, they took your money to continue the fight against Rome… it’s like they say, “Sometimes to Save God’s People you need to steal from God’s people” and “Wanna save the temple? Kill a Pilgrim.”

         Weird times we’re live in… right? You should get some rest.

         

         Yes… parables pull us into the story, and they also ask some tough questions of us…

         This last Pub Theology we talked through two questions: What keeps you up at night?And What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
These questions are designed to get behind our defenses and get to the meat of things, what’s at stake for you? What’s behind your actions and all the masks you put up? What are your most base motivations? And your greatest hopes and dreams?

         And so too Parables, they cause us to ask those big questions. Like Jesus’ parable today: 

         When everything falls apart, who do you hope will be there?
-Surely those revolutionaries liberating the land for Rome will keep us safe… except they are the ones who assaulted and stole from me…
-what about the Temple and its priests, surely they are safe… yet they walk by… 
-what about the Levites, they have a much more distinguished pedigree than Zealots or Priests… they too leave me here to die…
         They’ll all let you down!

         The other question raised is similar:

         Who do you hope will NOTbe there when everything falls apart?
-This leads to the question, who is my enemy?
I imagine most of us would answer no one, or at least no one we would name out loud…
-we’re kinda like those scenes in every Crime Procedural, right? “Who would have motivation to murder her?” “No one… she had no enemies.”
-So, it might be worth flipping things, “Who sees me as an enemy?”
         And once you get there, you have an image of who you would not want to be there when everything falls apart—then you get this strange answer by Jesus—They’ll surprise you!

         Hard questions with strange answers… all fuel for your moral imagination.

         “Go and do likewise.”

         What a command—show mercy, as mercy was shown in that story.

         This parable is a calling to love our neighbor as ourselves, and recognize that our neighbor is an incredibly broad category… It crosses class, race, creed, gender, politics—all of it.

         Condition yourselves, friends, to be vulnerable enough to be movedwhen you see someone in distress
—vulnerable enough, too, to let others see your distress…

         When you are moved to pity, when you feel it in your gut—respond to it!

         -Folk in Louisiana pummeled by Hurricane Barry—be moved!

         -A slew of girls raped and silenced by men with money and power—be moved!

         -Family and neighbors struggling with the disease of addiction—be moved!

         -Men, women, and children in standing room only cells, concrete for a bed, no showers, the stench overwhelming our Vice President—be moved!

         -Border patrol agents and police officers that didn’t sign up to be social workers, community organizers, and childcare specialists, but they end up getting used like customer service—be moved!

         -Kids and young men shooting each other and making everyone unsafe, because they themselves feel unsafe—be moved!

         -My God!
Our neighbors are everywhere!—be moved!

         Parables burn morality into our souls, but they also enlighten them with the presence of God!

         Think back just a few minutes, to when I put you in the place of the man who fell into the hands of robbers. What do you suppose that experience says about our relationship with God?
About the interplay between the human and the divine?

         There is a grave vulnerability and helplessness there
—we humans spend so much time trying to ignore it, but there it is, in a fundamental sense, we are powerless.
After Luther died they found in his pocket a slip of paper that read, “We are beggars; this is true.”
And we are—not only beggars, but surely beggars.

         We receive grace from God who has brought us into His loving care by Jesus…
Jesus who showed up in the most unlikely of ways, and continues to do so—God hidden in the opposite…
God, a Samaritan!

And that might shock you, because we are like that man, unconscious of our own rescue, perhaps we catch movements of it,
vaguely remember a priest coming by,
maybe you are shocked by the Samaritan who found us,
maybe the oil and wine—like a Holy Sacrament—leaves an impression…
sacred story reminds us that you’re care has been paid for, and the Spirit reminds you still more that the Son was moved with pity, moved to love you!

What is the purpose of a parable?
It is a sacred story we chew on, until it begins to chew on us.

A+A

I just want footnotes

What do you people want anyway?

I just want footnotes

You want open borders and roving gangs of MS13 in our streets!

I just want footnotes

You want every pregnant Mexican to have a free cell phone!

I just want footnotes

You want gas station attendants chopped up and left for dead!

I just want footnotes

I just want footnotes!

“Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” ended the footnotes.

I just want footnotes

A 1 next to Arino’s name indicating he fled religious and ethnic violence

A 2 pointing to the American children losing their fathers

A 3 for the Massie, Timesela, and Kawuwung families, all fatherless

I just want footnotes!

There are people who we brought here with our blessing

There are people who came here with winks and nods from the State Department

There are people who came here lined up outside the INS building after 9/11

There are people who came here who needed medicine and doctors

There are people!

Not bad hombres, but fathers and mothers… children!

When you eliminated the footnotes you opened it all up to chaos

I just want footnotes!

Footnotes saying Religious Persecution

Footnotes saying Fleeing Civil War

Footnotes saying deportation to home country will be dangerous

Footnotes saying deportation to home country will be deadly

Footnotes noting his connection to America

Footnotes noting he is a United States Marine

Footnotes noting that she is a minor!

I just want footnotes!

Sermon: Paul’s Second Letter to the Galatians

Paul’s Second Letter to the Galatians (the second half of Paul's First Letter to the Galatians)

          Dearest Christians in Central Turkey. Let me continue to remind you of the Gospel which I preached to you.

          Truly you are Abraham’s children, heirs, who now are receiving the promised inheritance through Jesus Christ. No longer must you hold onto the guard rails of any identity marker to make this promise plain—you are in Christ, and that’s it! You are part of God’s people!

          Yet I should not be shocked that you want to go back… after all when God brought the Israelites out of Freedom under Moses and they traveled through the wilderness to the promised land… along the way they wailed and whined and wanted to go back to Slavery, back to the fleshpots of Egypt.

          And so too, these people who came preaching to you all after me are luring you back to the fleshpots. It might be more comfortable to rely on your identity as male, free, or Jewish (or I might add…Elite, rich, young, straight, citizen, or white)—or at least, those preaching a false gospel would make you feel more welcome, once you conformed to all those identities—but you all are free of that, you all are a member of the Messiah’s family. You, yes you in particular who are hearing these words, you are Free!

          I know it’s hard—after all look at Abraham, he wasn’t able to trust God’s promises, he was promised land & children, and the first thing he went out and did was try to force the issue… he continually leaves the land and does everything he can to mess up the lives of his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren—always with a sense that he was going to make the promise happen… it already happened!

          So too with these preachers of a false gospel—they want you to force the promise God made to us through his son Jesus by adopting identities that aren’t the identity Child of God! They want you to circumcise yourself, or accept second class citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

          But I Paul, tell you this much, if you do what they say, the Messiah means nothing to you! Once you give in on that one little thing, everything else changes… the dividing walls come back up, exclusionary identities will become normal to you again—know this, neither cutting the flesh nor not cutting the flesh is of any avail, but rather faithfulness made actual through love avails much!

          You all were running the race perfectly when I left you, but now you’ve run smack into a concrete wall. I am confident you will find your way around it and back to the scandalous cross of our Lord Jesus!

          I guess what I’m saying is, it was to bring us into the realm of freedom that Christ set us free. So stand you all’s ground, and don’t get locked up again!

          You all were called to freedom! But don’t let that freedom be turned into a place the Flesh will ambush you all from!

          Instead, be captured by love of one another. After all, the whole of the Law was spoken in the sentence: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself!”

          You know the other option don’t you? Acting like two rabid dogs, snapping at one another, threatening to devour one another—It seems like you all are going that route—good luck with that—you’ll swallow one another whole.

          Look, here’s how I’d teach you if I was there in person: Lead you all’s daily lives guided by the Spirit—in that way, y’all won’t end up acting all impulsive and be tricked by the Flesh into doing It’s desire.

          Because the Flesh is actively inclined against the Spirit, and the Spirit again the Flesh.

          Check it out, these two Powers, the Flesh and the Spirit—are opposites sides, at war with one another—and in the confusion of that war you all don’t actually do what you wish to do!

          But if, in the daily life of your community, you all are being consistently led by the Spirit, then you all don’t need the Law to fight your battle against the Flesh.

          When the Flesh claims you as an occupied territory it’s really obvious.

          The effects are sexual—for example: fornication, vicious immorality, and uncontrolled debauchery.

          They are spiritual—for example: the worship of idols and belief in magic.

          They are publicly embarrassing: bouts of drunkenness, nights of carousing, and the like.

          Most worrying they are destructive to community: instances of irreconcilable hatred, strife, resentment, outbursts of rage, mercenary ambition, dissensions, separation into divisive cliques, and grudging envy of the neighbor’s success.

          In this regard, I warn you all now, just as I warned y’all before: those who practice the like will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

          By contrast, when you are rightfully claimed by the realm of the Spirit it’s obvious too—because you bear the fruits of the Spirit. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness, self-control. The Law, the other option in this fight against the Flesh—even the Law which oppresses you all as much as the Flesh, doesn’t forbid these kinds of things! And remember, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the Flesh, together with its passions and desires.

          If we live in the Spirit—and we do!—let us carry out our daily lives under the guidance of the Spirit.

          For example, if someone falls, restore them with gentleness, you too could just as easily be tempted as they were. Bear one another’s burdens—that’s how you do that love thing that fulfills the Law of Christ! Live that out by giving your neighbor the benefit of the doubt, while taking responsibility for your own actions. Imagine if we all did that!

          Those fruits of the Spirit and Works of the Flesh you are planting, they will come to full bloom—that’s a warning and a promise friends. So, in this planting season let’s work for the good of all, especially those who are members of the family of God.

          And on that note, I write one final time, in big ol’ letters, about that issue. You are members of the family of God whether you’ve been marked in the flesh by circumcision or not. Do not boast in the flesh, boast only in the Cross of Jesus. Because of the Blessed One being crucified on the cursed cross, all the divisions of this world are scattered, including the distinction between Jew and Gentile, because a new creation, a new world, is here! That alone matters!

          If you trust that to be true, I bless you with God’s peace and mercy! The Grace of our Lord Jesus the Anointed be with your spirit, siblings. Amen!