Positional Blindness

The following video was inspired by the notes below it.

 

In the last week, I witnessed a moment in which someone very much like Nicodemus in today’s text had a moment in which they saw beyond their position of privilege and power to recognize that something they cared about was harmful to their brothers and sisters, and rather than continue to embrace it, they chose to remove it from the equation. I am referring to the courageous stance taken by the Republican leadership in South Carolina to pass a bill removing the Confederate Flag from being flown at public buildings in their state. In the face of death threats, a group of people chose to obey God’s call to remove anything in our lives that could lead others into sin. The Governor of that state signed the bill, and the flag, which was re-flown in the 1950s in protest of the Civil Rights movement, was removed to be placed in a relic room. It is not an easy thing to find that we might be blind, and in today’s text we get to see just how hard it really is to overcome our positions in life to see with God’s eyes.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” John 3:1-15

• There was a Pharisee. Who were the Pharisees and what did they believe?
• Came to Jesus in secret. Position of power comes with fear of loss.
• A private acknowledgement.
• Taking things way too literally.
• The wind of the Spirit blows where it pleases, not where we think it should. Acts controversy with Gentile membership.
• Power blindness. Power has difficulty seeing things that would challenge or destroy its supporting structure.
• If we are to believe what Jesus says about spiritual realities we must first believe what he says about earthly realities. The gentiles have their lords…
• The heavenly singularity and the despised savior.
• Jesus words speak as clearly to us today as they did to Nicodemus, we must accept Jesus’ teaching about the deadly nature of human priority systems in order to be born anew into God’s eternal life. To be born of the Spirit is to accept Jesus as our new head honcho and follow his commands above all others’.
• Every one of us has blinders that come from our position in life, and it is in our submission to Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit that our blinders can be removed. Join me in praying for the Holy Spirit to fall freshly upon us, to remove whatever blinders keep us from seeing God’s will, and to bind us together as one body dedicated to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

First Things First

This sermon was inspired by the following notes.

In our lives, we have many things surrounding us attempting to claim a higher position on our priority list. The hardest decisions in our lives tend to not be between good and evil, but between competing “good” things. Often we make choices and wonder if we chose the right good thing to take precedence. The difficulty for us is compounded by the messages and advertisements around us that each tout themselves as “the best thing”. We have foods that claim to be “superfoods”, insurance companies with “superhero” mascots, politicians claiming to be saviors, and all kinds of products with words designed to make us prioritize that product over everything else. In today’s scripture we see what Jesus’ coming does to our priority structures and what we have to gain from the change.

35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” 39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. 40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter). John 1:35-42

• A relationship with someone who knows.
• The responsibility to point to Jesus when we see him at work.
• Jesus is inviting of people right where they are. He had no entrance exam for following. You start where you are.
• When we welcome people to be in relationship right where they are with no conditions that is incredibly inviting and when that invitation is accepted Jesus begins to teach.
• Andrew could have gone back to John, back to work, etc, but he found his brother first and told him about the Messiah. When people encounter the God who loves them Just as they are it changes priority structures. Priority one becomes sharing that love, that good news with loved ones.
• What would have happened if Andrew had gone back to life as usual? No Peter. A different set of disciples. A different story. A story with a huge missing piece.
• Andrew’s priorities were not to make Peter acceptable than to bring him, but to drag him exactly as he was, with all of the flaws we have come to know and love, the cowardice, the rashness, the temper, the fear, and all that sheer impulsive open mouth insert footedness that made Peter what he was, directly to Jesus to meet the Messiah.
• Jesus didn’t give Peter the fifth degree over his theology or lifestyle, but gave him a new name and an invitation.
• The “Bounded Set” mentality vs. the “Centered Set” mentality.

http://notreligious.typepad.com/notreligious/2008/12/fun-story-and-a.html

Bounded Set: Do you believe like me? Concerned with enforcing conformity to a norm. What would you say the pros are to this kind of setup? Pros: Easily defined boundary. Easy to determine who “belongs”. How about the Cons? Cons: Who controls the measuring stick? Not welcoming if not ready to 100% conform.

 

http://notreligious.typepad.com/notreligious/2008/12/fun-story-and-a.html

Centered Set: Where are you in relation to Jesus? Concerned with relationship building. What would you say the pros are to this kind of setup? Pros: Welcoming to all. Focused on drawing closer to Jesus. How about the Cons? Cons: Can become relativistic rather than relational. Requires more work.

 

 

[The] situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100% Christians and 100% non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand…. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together.    Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001), 208-209.

• Today we bear that same trust, to seek God’s face, live for him and reflect the light of his love around us. When this happens we see people coming to God just as they are, with all their flaws and we get to witness the transforming power of God at work in them over the years.
• Sometimes we allow things about ourselves or others to get in the way of the light we are called to shine, and that light grows dim, we forget to put first things first because our eyes have strayed from the love of Jesus.
• I am sure that I am not the only one here that is guilty of allowing myself to turn away from God’s light, and I invite all of you to join me in praying that we could have the obstructions and false priorities cleared that we might reflect the unconditional love of God on each person around us, welcoming them into relationship with the Messiah, Jesus. Let us pray. Our Open worship will end with the Keith Green song Oh Lord You’re Beautiful.
• Open Worship

The Rejected Cornerstone

Watch the sermon that arose from the below notes here:

When we first moved to the West Coast we were participating in the life of the L’Arche community in Tacoma, and I got to learn a lot more about the everyday rejection and fear that people with developmental disabilities and mental illness face. There was an opening in my heart as I got to know some of these people, and I learned about the ways I had mistakenly judged others’ value. Our society puts a lot of emphasis on ability and is very quick to push people who it thinks can’t, or won’t, contribute away from others. This rejection leads to all kinds of things, but God has a message for us to hear.

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’[h]?

43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

• The builder and owner of the vineyard
• Renting the land has conditions
• The fruit: “22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” Galatians 5:22-23
• The servants = the prophets who were killed when they convicted God’s people
• The tenants were self-centered and focusing on what benefitted them. This is of course completely unfamiliar to American culture right?
• The kingdom of God is for those who produce its fruit. Not the fruit of temporal wealth, position, privilege, or power, but the fruit of the Spirit which turns us to the benefit of others.
• The rejects of a society, the incarcerated, the mocked, the weak, the ill, the poor, the sinner, those unable to produce are the very people God has called to the center of his kingdom.
• Jesus was rejected and killed because of his understanding that God’s law existed to generate love of God and neighbor, the joy that comes from loving God and seeing his image in every face we encounter, the peace of right relationships that are based on love and not what is in it for us, the patience to seek out that image no matter what, the kindness to cultivate that image and forgive the inevitable mistakes when we don’t live into the image we bear, the generosity to share what we have so that others can have the resources they need to produce spiritual fruit, the faithfulness to keep pressing on to know the Lord and seek his face, the gentleness with ourselves and others that builds us up carefully, and the self-control to place the good of others above our own desires.
• God is looking for us to produce fruit for him. The cornerstone of self-sacrifice has been laid down and we are built upon it. All our desires and hopes have fallen to pieces and now we live in the glory of a life that is God-centered.
• As we enter into open worship let us ask God for the strength and grace to live into his values. Let us ask him to prune us so that the fruit we bear can be bountiful and that his glory will be revealed through our love for the bearers of God’s image who surround us. Let us fall on the cornerstone together that all within us will be broken apart that it can be rebuilt to the glory of God.

Jesus Came To…?

Click here to listen to the sermon that came from these notes.

This week we celebrate the coming of Jesus, not only into this world, but into our hearts and lives. Jesus was born to an unwed pregnant teenager in an impoverished town under the brutal oppression of the Roman Empire. Jesus was born to a people that were considered insignificant and lived out many of the nightmares faced by the global poor in his earliest years. Jesus did not come in the way anyone expected him to, and yet the impact of this unexpected coming, teaching, death and resurrection has altered the way the world works. God’s intervention had truly come. Last week, we ended with an open worship in which we shared some ways that Jesus came to us and intervened in our lives. It is interesting that all of those ways fit in with the mission statement that Jesus used to describe the reason for his coming.

17 The synagogue attendant gave Him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus unrolled it to the place where Isaiah had written these words:

18 The Spirit of the Lord the Eternal One is on Me.

Why? Because the Eternal designated Me

to be His representative to the poor, to preach good news to them.

He sent Me to tell those who are held captive that they can now be set free,

and to tell the blind that they can now see.

He sent Me to liberate those held down by oppression.

19 In short, the Spirit is upon Me to proclaim that now is the time;

this is the jubilee season of the Eternal One’s grace.[f]

20 Jesus rolled up the scroll and returned it to the synagogue attendant. Then He sat down, as a teacher would do, and all in the synagogue focused their attention on Jesus, waiting for Him to speak. 21 He told them that these words from the Hebrew Scriptures were being fulfilled then and there, in their hearing.

22 At first everyone was deeply impressed with the gracious words that poured from Jesus’ lips. Everyone spoke well of Him and was amazed that He could say these things.

 

• It didn’t last long. Jesus declared God’s grace on all humankind and that was offensive.
• Isaiah to Jesus the space between.
• The Spirit of God is the source of Jesus power. Fully human fully God tension.
• This Spirit worked through him for The Divine Purpose.
• Good news to the poor. Freedom to those held captive. Sight to the blind. Liberation for the oppressed.
• The significance of the jubilee.
• The fulfillment has begun and now we are part of the fulfillment of God’s Promises.

 

Let me encourage you again to remember the ways the gift of God’s son has impacted and changed your life. During our time of open worship take the first five minutes to remind yourself of the ways God has been active in your life and consider what ways God may be leading you to be the agent of His promises of redemption in the lives of those around you.

Bearing Good Fruit

Click here to listen to the sermon that came from these notes.

As we get into the tail end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is becoming more emphatic and is speaking to a broader reality. He has given some very specific instruction, and now is giving the disciples some warnings about what they are going to encounter when the training ends and their time of service begins. Last week we heard Phil speak to the reality that the world around us makes it easy to follow paths that lead away from God and the truth of who and what we have been gifted to be. This week, Jesus addresses how to spot those who are luring us to the easy path for their own ends.

15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:15-20

• Agrarian society. How wolves hunt.
• The two types of wolfishness.
  1. Fear wolf. Throws the acorn at Chicken Little.
  2. No worries wolf. Prosperity, God just wants us to be happy and succesful.
• The wolves play off of each other for mutual benefit.
• Wolves are identified by behaviors that benefit them at others’ expense.
• The fruit we are looking for is fruit that is benefiting others and building them up.
• Paul in Galatians gives very similar teaching, reiterating what Jesus calls us to look for.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:13-23

• There are no qualifying statements. One of the ways we can identify wolfish thoughts in ourselves is when we feel the need to qualify these characteristics and make exceptions.
• Jesus’ way is focused on others and how we can serve, and that is a narrow gate and a narrow path indeed. Let us ask God to give us wisdom in recognizing the messages of self-gratification that are used to entice us from His path and for the grace to confront ourselves when we give in to wolfish thoughts..

Where the Heart Is

(Click here to listen.)

There are a couple of things that I am led to address as the pastor of this community. The first is to thank you for the prayers you have poured out for Analise and us, there were times in the last couple of weeks that your prayers were what held me together. There are times in our lives when we need others prayers to make it through and by God’s grace we are. The second is to speak a bit about what is happening in Ferguson, and the larger conversation about race that still needs to happen in this country. I grew up in neighborhoods very much like Fergusen and can confirm that there are some members of our nation’s police forces that forget the “and serve” part of the motto that says “To protect and serve.” This happens most often with people of minority status and reflects some of the prejudices that have been active in our country for a very long time. As Christians we have a responsibility to speak the truth and while the expressions of violent rage are indeed counterproductive, we must admit that the rage we are witnessing is not without cause. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that riots are “the language of the unheard.” The question that I see as most important for us to answer is: What are we as a church called to do here, where we live, to bridge the divides that all too obviously still exist in our society? As Christians our first response to the kinds of tragedy we are witnessing is to fall to our knees. All too often we step out and act or speak before consulting with God and we speak to what we see before inviting God to examine our hearts. We have a responsibility to represent the kingdom of God and we cannot do that in isolated and segregated churches or without a proper foundation of prayer. Many of you have asked me what we can do in this climate of crisis we are in and I have a proposal that I want to lay before you: I would like to open the doors of our church from 8AM to 8PM Monday through Saturday for any who desire to come and pray. This will require some volunteers to be here hosting prayer times, but can any of us see the news and say that we don’t need centers of prayer to be open in our communities? I also want to invite you to consider ways in which God may be calling us to mourn with our brothers and sisters who are mourning in Missouri, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Nepal, West Africa and the neighborhoods in which we live. Can I get a quick show of hands on who would be interested in hosting prayer times here at the church? Thank you.

As I was preparing for this week’s sermon, I looked at the upcoming text, and as I prayed over the text on fasting, I got the sense that it was ground that didn’t need to be covered again since it was a continuation of the prayer theme from three weeks ago in which we talked about the ways we can abuse public acts of piety to place our glory ahead of God’s. Jesus’ top priority was the work of spreading the kingdom, and as he invested his teaching in the disciples he gave them tools to help diagnose their priorities and warnings about how placing other priorities ahead of God’s work causes a divided life. God’s call on us is not to divide our allegiances and loyalties between the things of this world and God, but to instead place our entire being, way of life, and value systems into the hands that knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. We live in a society that is based on the consumption of goods and services, more so than at any other time in history. This society teaches us that what we produce and consume is the measure of our worth as human beings, and everything is designed to fail or be used up. That attitude bleeds over into our opinions on the value of human beings and we see interactions like those in Fergusen and elsewhere in which people are treated as disposable. This is what happens when we place value in finite things, and Jesus gives us words from God to check ourselves.

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:19-21

Now that Jesus has addressed the controversial topics of sex and power he turns his attention to money and the ways we determine value. These teachings of Jesus are not intended to shame us, but instead to invite us into relationships that have their value in the things of God. Jesus begins by warning us about storing up what the world around us holds to be valuable. Let me give you an example from the past, does anyone remember beanie babies? These were small stuffed animals that were mass produced and marketed as “collectibles.” They were released in an artificial scarcity with a slick marketing campaign. Many people got caught up in the craze and jumped on the bandwagon with some paying upwards of $200 for a single stuffed toy. This bubble eventually burst, but not without some people losing a lot of money in their speculation. The things marketed to us as valuable can all too easily turn out to be worthless in the long run, and Jesus is reminding us that there is only one place in which our investment is safe.

There is no security here on this earth. Let me repeat that: no matter what anyone tells you or promises, there is no place on this globe or in this universe in which any of us will be secure from loss. The flowers fade, the grass withers and our flesh is as dust, my future hangs on my feeblest breath. Every town and city will wither and every nation will eventually crumble. Every currency will collapse, every bit in our bitcoins will be set to zero. Little geek humor reference: there are 10 kinds of people in the world…those who understand binary and those who don’t. In binary there are only two numbers, zero and one so 10 would be two in decimal. Every corporation will close its doors and its books. Even the very world we tread on is susceptible to the dangers of space. Nowhere that life exists can be secure. Jesus is preparing his disciples for the next part which says don’t worry, and we will get there in a few weeks. For now Jesus is telling his disciples that trust and hope placed in the things and powers of this world is misplaced. Hope and trust cannot be supported by things doomed to fail.

There is only one source of hope and trust, one source for security that is not dependent on circumstances. When what we treasure is the joy that comes from being in the presence of the God whose love caused the universe to exist, there is nothing more needed to feel a sense of security, and nothing will shake us, not even other people’s religious opinions. I we are feeling insecure in our faith or life, it might be time to do some prayerful evaluation to discover what we might be trusting in that isn’t God. Where is my treasure invested? That might just tell me where my priorities are.

The next passage requires a bit of explanation since there is a bit of a translation issue here. The word Jesus uses that our bibles translate as “healthy” implies generosity and the word we translate as “unhealthy” implies stinginess. When we don’t allow ourselves to be controlled by accumulating things or wealth we look at others with generous and healthy eyes. This is a consequence of living in the light of God’s truth, that nothing is more valuable than the treasure of serving God. When we look upon others with the understanding that our treasure is entirely in God’s hands we can be healthy in the ways we give to others. Jesus hasn’t really changed the topic that he has been talking about, just approaching the need to have right relationships built on the foundation of God’s loving grace and mercy from a different angle each time. Every display of unhealthiness and darkness comes from being afraid of losing what we rely on. It comes from treasuring that which is fleeting in its very nature. When we are deceived into believing that things or money are where our value lies, we look out at others in unhealthy ways, we hoard what we have. The fear of loss will then begin to taint our relationships and as we gather our things up to hide them and keep them away from others. That fear and anxiety will then begin to dominate our thinking and any disagreement will be perceived as a threat to the house of cards we have built on the shifting sands of worldly power, reputation, or wealth. Why is it that Jesus could hang around the people that his society deemed worthless? What was it that prevented the Pharisees from hanging out with the tax collectors, gluttons, hookers, and other broken types? He did not treasure the things or opinions of the world, but instead invested himself fully in the love of God. This is the source of power and courage, that God is with us and we can serve him. This is what can enable us to truly befriend the people who our society tells us are threats. What would it mean for us as Clackamas Park Friends Church to place our treasure, the resources we have been gifted with, entirely into God’s hands to be used up and given away without fear of loss? What kind of faith statement would it be for us to declare with our actions that we trust the generosity of God to overcome our fear of loss? That we could lose every worldly possession and still rejoice because our treasure is secure in God?

Friends, if there is fear in our lives it comes from having something other than God’s priorities guiding our actions. I can only speak this from my own experience of this truth given us by Jesus: when I am fearful it is because I am trusting in something that can be shaken. This is the hard truth that Jesus gives us today: we can only serve one master, there can never be “God and” there is only “God or”. I really would like there to be some way for me to serve God and money, God and food, God and my family, but as soon as I allow for any other master, no matter how important that master is to follow in this world, the door to fear has opened because of my idolatry. Every one of us in this room has something that it is most easy for us to slip an unconscious “and” into our lives, something that we tend to focus on instead of God. Let us take the time now to renew our determination to follow God and God alone.

Let us begin our time of silence with a time of confession and renew our focus. Friends, every day we must get up, face into the unhealthy patterns of this world and ask God to give us the strength to resist the temptation to put other things first in our lives. We are called together as a body to help each other resist, to help each other overcome, to redirect each other’s attention and priorities back to God as our eyes slip off the mark. Let us take this time of open worship to confess our fears to God, renew our determination to serve God alone, and resolve to support each other as we face into the unhealthy patterns of fear that close us off from the generosity that comes from serving  God. Let us put everything with God that our treasure may be stored up in His presence and our hearts reside in his steadfast love. Let us pray.

Poking Holes in Public Holiness

(Click here to listen. Speaker’s Note: The audio version of this sermon deviates from and significantly improves on the printed text below.)

In the Sermon on the Mount, we have seen how Jesus consistently raises the bar for his disciples from the letter of the law which kills to the spirit of the law which brings life. From a faith that is self-centered to a faith that is God-centered. Today’s text is no different, and the critique Jesus levels has been echoed repeatedly through the centuries. One of my favorite Dilbert comics is a conversation between Dogbert and Ratbert in which Dogbert had just cashed out as CEO of a company and was going to turn his attention to Philanthropy. Ratbert, being the comic foil, asks if that is the study of people named Phil to which Dogbert replies “It’s mostly about watching people beg and having buildings named after me.” In Jesus’ time the practice of giving alms to the poor was a part of Hebrew tradition and throughout the scriptures there are commands to care for the poor, the stranger, the alien, the orphan and the widow. The awesome thing was that the Jewish people really did make a big deal about the importance of their acts of charity, and their theology reflected it. However, as with many good works, there came a time in which a line of glorification was crossed. The line between glorifying God and glorifying self gets blurry awfully fast sometimes, and Jesus was fully aware of that fact. In today’s teaching Jesus addresses some of the things that will help us to keep our eyes on the mark of God’s glory.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:1-4

Today’s text is one that we can struggle with applying, so to get our minds on the same page I want to share one way I saw this done. In a large high school like the one I attended the statistical likelihood of someone experiencing tragedy was pretty high, and we often heard through the grapevine how someone’s parent had cancer or was getting divorced. What was really interesting was that usually within two days of the tragedy making the rounds of the school, a bouquet of handpicked flowers addressed to the student would appear overnight. Nobody could figure out who was doing this, and it had a hugely positive effect on the student body. I still couldn’t tell you who, but it had to be someone or some people on the staff who had access to the student address records. Regardless of who did it, on the back of each card was the 23^rd Psalm. Whoever did this found a way to apply today’s text and led others to share secret acts of compassion in ways that point to the goodness of the God who inspires them.

When we give in secret, without strings or even allowing others to know who is doing the giving there are some amazing opportunities that open up. The first opportunity is for God to be glorified. When I was growing up in the ministry in New York, we were trying to feed 25-40 people three meals a day and some months we used all of the tricks the third worlders who lived with us knew about stretching food. Occasionally a miracle would happen. We would open our front door in the morning and there on the porch would be bags and bags of food. There would be no note or anything to identify where this came from other than the name of the store on the shopping bags. That food came from God, and everyone in our house knew it. When whoever left that food did it in secret they turned away from credit and acclaim so the people who were living with us would know that the source of this food was Jesus. God received the glory.

There was something else that happened as well, when miracles occur it doesn’t feel like a handout. There is no weird relational dynamic that places the giver over the receiver because nobody knows where things came from. One of the dynamics that Jesus is really addressing here is giving with an eye towards exerting influence or control over others. When we don’t let our left hand know what the right hand is doing in our giving we are exercising a very important act of trust. We are expressing a trust that God will be glorified and we trust that the right things will be done in God’s church without our exerting financial influence over the process.

These acts of trust and faith are not easy, and we are bombarded constantly with the message that other people are not trustworthy, especially people in the church, especially the fallible people who lead our churches. Don’t hear me say that we should not have checks and balances, but that those checks and balances need to be disconnected from personal financial involvement. The problem is one of a misplaced sense of ownership, and I must confess that I have heard that little voice in my soul that says things like “I am a consistent giver so the leaders had better listen to me.” and “Hey, this is my church because I help support it.” and even “I helped found this church and everyone knows I give to make this ministry happen so my voice needs to be heard on this.” I think all of us have heard variations on those themes and have had to check ourselves with the reminder that “No. This is God’s church and I have to submit to his leading.” All glory, authority, control, and power belong to God and God alone, and Jesus is helping us find ways to silence those voices that tempt us to think otherwise.

Jesus is doing more here than keeping us from trying to Lord it over others because of the amount of money we are able to give. He is reminding us of the answer to one of the big questions of life “Why am I here?” Humanity has asked this question for as long as there has been the ability to think about it. For a majority of my life, the answers that I would give, even in theologically prettied up language, were mostly variations on the theme of do the best I can for myself and my family. As I have been part of the Friends and experienced the challenge to live simply, below my means, God has used that to help me focus on the purpose we all are created for: To glorify God; to serve God’s purposes in the world and to show by my trust that God is worthy of the glory, worthy of honor, worthy of praise. When I surrender my desire to control and let my giving be hidden from others, I create an opportunity for others to experience the goodness of God. In that experience of God’s goodness, maybe, just maybe a seed will be planted and God can be glorified in another person’s life as they accept the gift of Jesus.

Jesus is reminding us in today’s teaching to once again keep our eyes on the end game. The mark we aim at is that mark of loving perfection which we see in Jesus. We need his help to keep our eyes focused on that, and Jesus points out for us the reward that comes from following him and his purposes in the world. God’s glory is shown and when we are in his presence we get to hear the words we so long to hear: “Well done my good and faithful servant.” As we enter into our time of open worship take the first five minutes of silence to allow your thoughts to quiet. As we consider this teaching of Jesus maybe you will be inspired to an act of creative hidden generosity. What joy can we bring to others so that they might give glory to our God? Who knows, maybe if enough of us take on this task we can begin to see the fulfillment of the promise in Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Let us pray.

 

Jesus’ Sexual Ethics

*Trigger Warning* This sermon makes reference to situations of domestic abuse. 

One of the things I most appreciate about Jesus’ teaching is that he faces into difficult subjects and doesn’t avoid them.  Last week we looked at the connections between murder, judgment and grudges and this week we look at Jesus speaking very frankly about lust and power. Now let’s address some background issues that will give us some understanding into the culture Jesus is addressing. In Jesus’ time women were considered to be property. They existed to serve men, their life was governed by men and self-determination was a privilege that only men had access to. Women had no say in who they married. Women had little to no actual power and were extremely vulnerable members of society. In the first century it is estimated that 60% of the population were men and 40% were women, and this teaching of Jesus might explain to us why the exact opposite was true in the church in which 60% were women. Jesus decided to address again what he felt to be the root issue that led to problems which if we address it early enough keeps things from getting to the point of major moral failure.

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Matthew 5:27-32

 

Jesus started out with the second biggest no-brainer on the list of commandments, and yes having sex with someone you aren’t married to is extraordinarily unhelpful in maintaining peace and harmony in a marriage covenant. Really simply put: Don’t do it! Jesus could have left it there, but he knew there was a deeper issue that he had to address. We now have a word that describes what Jesus is talking about, and can help us get insight into the underlying problem of lust that Jesus talks about here: objectification. Jesus knew that adultery, like murder, was not the beginning of the sin, but was the tail end of a long process. The beginning of that process is in looking at another human being as a means to an end. Specifically when we look at others as tools to use for our own sexual satisfaction, we dehumanize them. We look at them as objects rather than people who have the same access to the voice of the Holy Spirit that we have.  Jesus knew that in God’s eyes every person on this earth is a beloved son or daughter and by addressing the primary sin of objectification Jesus tries to help us see the root of what leads us to breaking our covenants of marriage. When we objectify someone, it implies the idea that we can control them, use them, and discard them when they are no longer pleasing to us. In a very real way I see this as one of the root sins of our society in which the value of a person is determined by net worth or their purchasing power, in which our interactions become transactional in nature.

Jesus is calling our attention to just how damaging this commodifying attitude is at the most basic levels of our most foundational relationships and he compares it to gangrene in which it is vital to remove the infected part of the body before it spreads. He is not advocating removing actual body parts, but is highlighting just how damaging it is to our entire relational framework when we commodify and objectify just one person. That is all it takes to get us started, and if you are having trouble believing that this is the case, remember the testimony Josiah shared about how his porn addiction affected his interactions with others. We like to think they we can compartment off little pieces of ourselves, but Jesus here is reminding us that when one part of us is engaged in sin it affects the rest of us as well.  Or to put it another way when we are trying to hit the mark that God has set before us it doesn’t matter which direction the arrow goes when it misses the target we still missed and have to aim again. Our goal is to keep our focus on the mark and when we begin to objectify others we are prioritizing our own pleasure over God and that is idolatry, plain and simple. I have to admit that the more I study the concept of missing the mark, the more I see how every sin is somehow connected to worshipping or prioritizing something other than God and his way of being and doing what is right.

There is something else here to remember and that is the role of control and power in Jesus’ teaching. He is addressing the men who had power in the society and not the women who didn’t. Lust acted upon is definitely a control thing. When we objectify people we have no problem exercising control over their bodies, in many ways the biblical understanding of lust implies desiring ownership over someone, not loving relationship. Lust is a one way control. When we act in lust it is for our pleasure and our desires’ fulfillment, not the good and well-being of the other person involved. We justify this thinking in many ways and try to shift responsibility away from ourselves.  In certain parts of our society, women are devalued as lesser and taught that it is their bodies that lead men into sin and Jesus is saying that the sin was already there and that the only person responsible for my sin is me. I can try to shift the blame or the responsibility for my sin elsewhere, but if my heart was pure it wouldn’t matter what someone was wearing, or not wearing as the case may be. If we look at clothing trends and headlines in history we see that it didn’t matter how modestly a woman dressed, when women are viewed as objects everything becomes tempting even ankles. When men are viewed as objects it doesn’t matter what they wear, temptation is still within. Jesus places the responsibility for the way we look at others and act towards them and think about them on us, where it belongs.

Objectification and denial of personal responsibility are the first steps on the path to what is essentially an abusive relationship. An abusive relationship is one in which one person’s needs are more enforceable than another’s and in which coercion exists. This coercion can take many forms: emotional, physical, spiritual, or mental and is found out by threats. The biggest threat of Jesus’ day was that of divorce. Since women were property, if they were abandoned by their husband they had very few options other than to try returning to their birth family or if that wasn’t possible selling themselves.  The divorce that Jesus was speaking out against was an abuse of power for personal gain in which many men of the time would divorce their wives because they could benefit financially or physically by having a different wife. This was especially common if a woman was childless or had only given birth to girls, if so it would be common for the daughters to be discarded with their mother. When people are objects they become disposable.

Jesus made one exception to the necessity for divorce and when we look at it carefully we see a very interesting concept that gets a little lost in the translation and requires a bit of unpacking. The word we have translated as “sexual immorality” is the word “porneia” which would literally be translated “to sell off one’s sexual purity” and has the connotation of promiscuity and idolatry. When we believe the lies that are told us and commodify our bodies and relationships it becomes very easy to break the relational covenant of marriage. When that happens we wound our relationship to a point that only an act of God can heal. I don’t think God’s greatest desire is for us to break our marriage covenants, but God also knows that there are conditions in which we must walk away from a marriage in order to remain faithful to him and protect the vulnerable who are in our care. I don’t think anyone who has gone through a divorce feels like it was the best option and walking away from someone you made a solemn vow before God is not easy. There is a great deal of pain, and Jesus knows that there are points of no return in which the covenant has been so violated that restoration can be beyond us. There is no sin on your part in walking away from a marriage that has become abusive, in which your spouse has decided that their needs are more important than anything else. Let me say again that if you ever feel unsafe, that your life or the lives of your children are in jeopardy walk away now, the covenant is already broken. We can help you find a safe place.

Notice that in talking about remarriage Jesus is not pointing the finger of adultery at the woman with no power, but at the man who comes along to take advantage of someone in a desperate situation. When we try to apply this kind of scripture text we can do a lot of damage if we ignore the biblical and cultural context and must remind ourselves that Jesus is talking to his disciples, most of whom were married, about the behavior and ethics that God expected of them in their marriage relationships. In the last few sermons we have looked at the ways Jesus has raised the bar by taking an interpretation of the Torah that limited itself to actions and reinterpreted the same passage to get at the attitudes underlying the sin that distract us from God and his way of being and doing what is right. Jesus knew that if we could begin to focus on the underlying attitudes of placing our desires ahead of God’s we could begin to keep our aim centered on the mark by eliminating distractions before they grew into destructions. In this instance Jesus reminds us that looking at another human being as a vessel for our own sexual fulfillment is adultery. That this attitude of seeing another person as an object will lead us from inward thoughts that objectify not only the person we were looking at, but our spouse as well, which then lead to outward actions that destroy the covenant of marriage.

Our sexuality is a gift from God. When we harness that gift and use it ways that honor God and others, it is beautiful and is literally life-giving. When we abuse the gift and use it as a means for personal gratification or treat it as the only piece of someone that matters we are entering into that attitude of adultery. Jesus in his teaching on this area reminds us that no person is disposable, that everyone must be treated as a gift from God. The needs that we have cannot truly be met by another person, and we are not made complete or whole by marrying. We are made whole by God’s grace, and can only find satisfaction and wholeness through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who comes to us through the Jesus’ sacrifice. As we enter into our time of open worship take these first 5 minutes to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit and to ask for the strength to resist the seductive messages that tell us there is no harm in using others for our own ends. I don’t know about you, but that first silence in open worship is always the hardest. It seems like my mind jumps to the most distracting and dark places and I wonder if God really wants to present in that. That first distraction is common and by bringing our mind into God’s presence we can allow those distractions and darkness to be burned away in the cleansing light of the Holy Spirit’s fire. That is why I find it so important to spend time with God every day, so that I can be cleansed in His presence. So take this time of open worship as a time in which we can practice together the tough discipline of dragging our frenetic minds into communion. Ask that your eyes will be kept on Jesus, on the mark we are aiming for. And if God grants you words to share with us to encourage us on the journey that help direct our eyes to the mark then stand and share your gift with us. Let us pray.

The Women Who Brought Us Jesus: Bathsheba and Mary

(Click here to listen.)

Today we are looking at the stories of two women, two women who became pregnant by someone who wasn’t their husband. Bathsheba, who was spied on undressed then brought to king David for his pleasure, and Mary the fiancé of Joseph whom the Holy Spirit made pregnant with Jesus. I read the story of Bathsheba a few times and have to say that I made a very shocking discovery: nowhere in the text does it imply that Bathsheba sinned in this interaction with David. In reading between the lines a bit I have to say that the bible doesn’t give the impression that Bathsheba had any choice in what happened. David played the peeping tom, sent his men to bring her to him and then slept with her. Would it make us feel better if she had tried to resist David? Yes, but her passivity in the face of overwhelming power tells us a lot about the lack of options women, especially the wife of a foreigner, had at that time. Her passivity may even have been an attempt on her part to spare the life of her husband. We don’t know, but need to be very careful when encountering stories and situations where there are power differences to not blame the victim for the crime committed against them. When Nathan came, he came to confront David, not Bathsheba; did Bathsheba suffer at the death of her child? Yes, but her suffering started well before that event. That is not the end of the story though. God is not one to let an injustice go unredeemed. Bathsheba’s next son became the king of Israel, David watched his family disintegrate into infighting factions and Solomon the son of David and Bathsheba claimed the throne of Israel and built a great temple to God. The story of God’s redemption doesn’t end there though, God had a plan to redeem the whole world through the broken family of David and the broken heart of Bathsheba. Their family line persisted and even though it lost access to worldly power, brought us to another young woman who had access to the power that came from trusting the God who redeems all hurts and sorrows.

²⁶In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”²⁹But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³²He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. ³⁶And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. ³⁷For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. Luke 1:26-38

Mary was a poor girl in a hick town a little west of a major Roman enclave. She was engaged to a man who was most likely older than her and had little to no say in the running of her life. She was the property of her father until she married and became the property of her husband. Into this life of a girl who obviously had little control over her activities we can infer that despite the lack of control Mary chose to honor God in what she did and spent time praying and pondering the words she had heard from her parents about God. Mary was familiar enough with the stories of her people that she echoed the words of Miriam in her praise to God for using her as the vessel of the Messiah. Mary knew that God used the unlikely to confound those who thought they could control events, but growing up without any control showed Mary the lie behind the illusions of power. When that angel came to her Mary neither dropped in fear nor made assumptions about the angel’s purpose, but waited to see what was meant by the favored greeting. This response belies a maturity beyond her years. How often have I gone haring off after hearing what essentially was a greeting and expression of love from God? It is very easy to assume that just because we hear from God that he loves us that our agenda has been blessed and that it is time to hit the ground running.

Mary waited to hear the full message and on hearing it asked a very practical question about the implementation of this plan. There was just a tiny matter that she felt needed to be brought to the angel’s attention that would raise some fairly major difficulties in achieving the desired goal. I also think that Mary was stating in no uncertain terms that she was not willing to compromise the call to be faithful to her future husband. Honestly I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to see the expression on the angel’s face as he tried to deliver this message. This has entered into some fairly intimate and awkward territory. Mary needed to be reassured that what would happen was truly of God. Here is another area that we can learn from Mary, we need to weigh the words we hear from God and ask questions if we don’t understand something. Mary questioned God’s messenger here and while some would say that it wasn’t her place to question God, this text and many others in the bible warn us to test the words and spirits that come to us. Mary knew that she was called to be faithful to her future husband and the angel could say what it wanted, but if it was asking her to violate that, she was going to send that angel packing. We need to guard ourselves as well, because there are many voices out there purporting to be connected to God that have sweet messages that sound good at first, but on closer investigation fall short. Those messages start out with telling us how special we are and then begin enticing us to buy another gadget because we deserve it. We also get messages that start off by telling us how horrible we look, but with this product we can look great. We hear messages about what the good life looks like, but if we follow all of those messages without testing them against the scriptures and God’s priorities for redemption, our homes begin to look like the Hoarders crew is due to start filming next week. Mary knew what God’s priorities were and knew that God would not ask anyone to go against those priorities. Sometimes the overwhelming messages we get from the millions of ads we see overcome that sense of sacred attention we try to cultivate and we end up with things in our lives that we not only don’t need, but have materially contributed to the degradation of the earth or have been made by child or forced labor. The fog of advertisement and the mantras of “free-trade” can overcome the urge to follow the Christ who came to us through a woman that refused to accept anything  that got between her and the life God called her to live, no matter how attractive the message or messenger.

The angel reassured Mary that nothing untoward would happen and gave her a sign that what he said was true: Mary’s aged cousin Elizabeth would bear a child as well. Mary’s reply echoes the words the high priest Eli told Samuel to say when he heard God calling him. “Here I am Lord. Speak for your servant hears.” Mary said let it be so and then when the angel left went to Elizabeth to double check on the angel’s sign and get away from the glances and rumor mill of small town Nazareth. When she had met Elizabeth and received confirmation in the flesh, Mary sang out the following words in praise of God and acknowledging the purpose God has given his people and began to carry out in her womb. She said

“My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Luke 1:46b-55

God’s salvation had come and through that salvation the world would be changed. Human hearts would be changed and the mercy of God would be poured out through his son Jesus. The proud and powerful would be cast down from the thrones built on the oppression of others and those who bore the brunt of their oppression would be freed. There have been times when the oppressed have given in to temptation and become oppressors themselves, but Jesus seeks to free us from that cycle. The change he brought is not a change of who is on top of the heap, but to remove the heap entirely, creating a space that has been redeemed from the value systems of this world. That is our mission, we are to embody a redeemed space in a culture of competition designed to separate us into winners and losers. Jesus’ sacrifice in coming to us as a helpless infant, living life as the “illegitimate” son of Joseph and Mary, then giving up his life and livelihood to a ministry which showed us the way of the cross lived out in graphic brutal detail leads us to care for the “losers” and even allow ourselves to be considered “losers” by the society around us. Tamar the abandoned widow, Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the immigrant, Bathsheba the rape victim, and Mary the unwed mother were all considered to be “losers” in the societies they were in, but God sees beyond our definition of success and failure and intentionally shows the value of those our society considers worthless. As we reflect on these women that God brought Jesus to us through, let us be aware of those who our society and culture considers to be worthless. Let us also ask God to help us move beyond awareness of the value he sees in each of his creations, that he came and died to redeem, and actively seek out and welcome the precious children of the most high God upon whom his favor rests. Let us seek out the abandoned widows, the women forced into prostitution, the immigrants, and the victims of our world’s value system and welcome them into our family. As this motley crew enters into our time of Open Worship, remember to hold this time in reverent communion with God and the, broken, misfit, overwhelmingly loved, rich, healthy mix that exists within these walls and our spiritual family the world over who celebrate Jesus’ coming with us.

How Easy it is to Abuse Power

This last week I had asked our counseling pastor Kathy to bring the sermon on Ruth as part of our Christmas series The Women Who Brought Us Jesus. She kept coming back to me for feedback on her topic, direction, etc. and at one point I told her that a direction she was going would not really work within the series. An hour after that conversation it struck me that I had just denied someone’s leading and in effect had stifled their voice. I had power in the relationship and had used that power to further my voice at the expense of the way the Holy Spirit spoke through someone else and I was dead wrong. We can throw in the gender issues as well to add to my error, and I felt that little tap on the shoulder from the Holy Spirit asking me what I was planning to do to make this situation right. I have to admit I sat on it for a little while and then finally contacted Kathy to tell her that I misspoke, was wrong and that I needed to trust her leading. I apologized for my trampling of her voice and, thankfully, she was quick to forgive me. I realized that I had been using my power in an unhealthy way, and must say that I had no idea it would be as easy as it was to abuse power. I thought that there would be some obvious point at which crossing this line would be an abuse of power, but it doesn’t happen that way, it seems perfectly reasonable and right to cross a line I wasn’t even looking for or thinking about, until I looked back briefly to see this glaring error behind me.

I have to say her speaking turned out awesome and you should definitely listen to what Kathy taught us on Sunday about Ruth. (Click here to listen.)