Litany of Confession, Grace, & Journey to the Star-Child (Advent 3)
The times were trying. The world was dangerous.
Into those times Isaiah, son of Amoz speaks. The world is a place filled with violence and evil.
Isaiah speaks God’s vision. He names the sins of the people.
He places before the leaders and people, the consequences of their actions. Humanity’s sins have come to roost. Hope is hard to find.
The prophet’s vision reflects the consequences of sin. We confess we, too, have sinned. We re-commit to strive to live as called.
Speaking God’s word to a king, the prophet points to a time of renewed hope. He points to a young woman who carries a child. By the time that baby is born, God will be with the people.
Seven and a half centuries before the birth of Christ,
Isaiah offers hope to come with the next generation. God’s hope for humanity and the world lies within each newborn.
Times were again trying seven and a half centuries later. In the time of Mary and Joseph, life was grim and the world dangerous. The people yearned for the messiah, who would change the world.
The nations were occupied by hatred and the power hungry. And God points to a woman with child. The star-child, our savior, will be born to Mary.
Yet again we face times of fear. Into these violent times we yearn for hope.
Within the star-child of Bethlehem is a new beginning. Love manifest. Emmanuel. God is with us.
The magi perceived the hope of Christ. Herod feared it. Many rejoiced as Jesus came of age and began his ministry of hope, peace, and love. Love manifest. Emmanuel. God is with us.
Though it is hard to perceive in times like these, God does not abandon us.
Within each newborn, within each human being lies another way, the way of God. Love manifest. Emmanuel. God is with us.
Turn away from fear and the ways of the world. We turn our hearts and minds toward Bethlehem.
Turn toward the ways of love and justice and hope. We turn toward the star-child.
Love is manifest. Emmanuel. God is with us. Let us worship!
Many people have already applied themselves to the task of compiling an account of the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used what the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down to us.
Now, after having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, I have also decided to write a carefully ordered account for you, most honorable Theophilus. I want you to have confidence in the soundness of the instruction you have received. (Luke 1:1-4 CEB) We are blessed by the gospel writers — Luke, Matthew, Mark, and John who each wrote stories constructed to point us toward God. Amen.
__
Only the response above is original material. The first segment is a direct quotation from Luke 1:1-4, Common English Bible. It is modified to be read responsively.
Litany of Confession, Grace, & Journey to the Star-Child (Advent 1)
Open your hearts. We confess that we allow greed or hurt or fears to
prevent our hearts from being the home of divine love and hope.
Open your minds. We confess we allow our minds to fixate on doctrine, dogma, & our own desires.
We fail to love and learn from those who think and worship differently than we.
We fail to listen to what our Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist, and our atheist kindred can teach us about you.
Trust in the Holy One to guide you to the Star-Child. Though we’ve failed before, we begin the journey again.
Trust the Spirit journeys with you, always in life, in death, and beyond death. We begin the journey again to the sacred birth of the child of grace and hope.
We commit to grow and learn from the stories of the one who takes God’s wholeness inside himself, and breathes out love in our hurting and fearful world.
Open your hearts, minds, & spirit. God’s grace and love is for all. We begin the journey to the Star-Child who guides the way. Amen.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
recollection of what God has done
God was a good parent
2 The more I called them,
the further they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and they burned incense to idols.
this is a pattern throughout biblical arc
Baals – plural
3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them.
Ephraim refers to largest of 12 tribes
notice obliviousness to all YHWH has done for Israel
4 I led them with bands of human kindness, with cords of love. I treated them like those who lift infants to their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them.
Further evidence of good parent
Legal proceeding
Part 2:
Present & Near Future
5 They will return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria will be their king, because they have refused to return to me.
Could be interpreted as God doing
Hermeneutic of love = God stating results of our own behavior
Free will
6 The sword will strike wildly
in their cities; it will consume the bars of their gates and will take everything because of their schemes.
Because of their schemes = further that this is if our own making
7 My people are bent on turning away from me; and though they cry out to the Most High, he will not raise them up.
lament
Most high refers to Baals
Agony that we look the wrong way
Technology & Money
To ourselves
Violence
Hatred of kindred
Part 3 Long Term Future
8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
Admah & Zeboiim are cities in Sodom & Gomorrah
Legal proceeding means God has right to destroy
No help to God’s Agony
My heart winces within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
This is the God I experience.
Tho we deserve nothing God’s love offers forgiveness
9 I won’t act on the heat of my anger; I won’t return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a human being, the holy one in your midst; I won’t come in harsh judgment.
God is different than human beings
Judgement
Judgement, yes.
Harshness, no.
***
This is literally about the people’s in the northern kingdom in 700s BC
They trust wrong gods
They focus on wrong things
Also about us.
We trust in violence.
Military
Emotional violence
We trust in our money.
We prop ourselves up worshipping god of self-reliance
belittle the poor.
don’t believe we have any part in racism.
Rules over love
Pettiness
We trust in everything but God’s love to solve problems.
No wonder Jesus 750 years after Hosea laments like God,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you!
How often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you didn’t want that. Luke 13:34 CEB
Good News
God loves us no matter how terrible we act.
God judges, yes, but judges in a loving way.
not an unmoved judge
Means our humanity can be forgiven
God loves every one of us
even terrorists
even child abusers
even those who find God through other faiths
God loves every one of us
This is hard; why the Assyrians overran and conquered ancient kin
Why our world is as it is
The Good News is that we are loved no matter what.
The Good News is grace gives us the chance to try again and get it right.
We can participate in stopping Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad.
We can help correct racism.
We can help one another.
We just have to trust God’s ways of love and grace instead of humanity’s ways of money, power, and violence.
Trust in small acts
Trust in ripples
Trust in expansive love
Think about it. We can help solve all the horrible things in the world just by focusing on loving in small ways.
[pause]
That’s Good News.
True.
It’s not easy but we can overcome our anger and hatred if we trust in God’s ways.
Pray and ask for release from our pain, anger, and hurt.
The Good News is that when we trust in God’s expansive love, when we practice God’s expansive love, the world becomes a more humane place.
The Good News is God points us in the right direction.
Do we want peace and justice? If so, we must love in our every encounter.
Trust in ripples.
Trust for the sake of our great-grandchildren if not for ourselves.
Trust in extravagant & irrational love and watch the world change.
Trust and act in the ways of Jesus, and heal God’s broken heart.
Take a wobbly first step and watch our mother-father God beam with pride.
At our inception, God loved us like a proud parent. God called out to us.
The more God called to us, the further we ran. We sacrificed to other gods. We burnt incense to idols.
Yet it was God who taught us to walk, hugging us in loving arms. We didn’t know it was God who healed us.
God lifted us to God’s cheek. God fed us and nurtured us.
___
We chose violence and hatred and the ways of war. We terrorized our neighbors. We threw tantrums before our God. We were bent on turning away from God.
The God of all peoples and all times grew frustrated then and now at our misbehavior. We blamed one another. We called out to false gods & heard silence.
“How can I give you up?” agonized God. “My heart winces within me.” Despite our actions, God’s extravagant love grew warm and tender.
God calls to us. Praise be to the grace that gives us another chance to be who we are created to be.
Let us worship the God of all generations. Praise be to the God of all times and all peoples. Amen.
For the people of Paris, we pray but we also pray for the invisible peoples whose daily lives — in our own nation and across the globe — are enmeshed in violence.
We confess that too often we turn a blind eye to the pain that our choices cause. We confess that too often we grieve most for those involved in tragedies that remind us of our own vulnerabilities. We grieve for those who look and act like us forgetting that all peoples are your peoples.
As we focus our compassion on France remind us this day that our every action allows us the opportunity to expand love or contract love, to hear & see the divinity within another or disregard their humanity.
Remind us today that in the midst of the grieving you are present, saddened by the failure of your people — all of us — to live as we were created to live.
Move us.
Offer us the grace of one more chance to sow love and justice in a broken world of our own making. Open our hearts to changes in our own behaviors.
May our every action ripple out love, peace, and justice until all of creation is as you dream it can be. Amen.
Note: There is a short gap in the video due to a problem with the video equipment.
We get it wrong, too.
Like the Baalist prophets, we act like there is something we can do to light the fire.
We Didn’t Start the Fire.
__
Confused in north
about Ahab
marries Jezebel
Builds Baal shrine
mixed messages = confusion
Being both
Jealous God – YHWH
Sends prophet
Prophet Elijah challenges
In the challenge
Call on god Baal
Hopping Dance
Cut selves
All day
Frantic
So they took the ox he had given them, prepared it for the altar, then prayed to Baal. They prayed all morning long, “O Baal, answer us!”
But nothing happened—not so much as a whisper of breeze. Desperate, they jumped and stomped on the altar they had made.
By noon, Elijah had started making fun of them, taunting, “Call a little louder—he is a god, after all.
Maybe he’s off meditating somewhere or other, or maybe he’s gotten involved in a project, or maybe he’s on vacation.
You don’t suppose he’s overslept, do you, and needs to be waked up?”
They prayed louder and louder, cutting themselves with swords and knives—a ritual common to them—until they were covered with blood.
This went on until well past noon. They used every religious trick and strategy they knew to make something happen on the altar, but nothing happened—
not so much as a whisper, not a flicker of response. 1 Kings 18:26-29 MSG
They didn’t start the fire.
[pause]
Sequence matters:
Grace>response
vs
Action>grace
Deuteronomists
be good = God’s love
YHWH = jealous God
Joel Olsteen is a Deuteronomist
The Deuteronomists’ theology is evident in this story
Deuteronomists =
action first then grace
It’s about blame
The Deuteronomists’ way of thinking had dissipated by Jesus’ time.
But it was still present.
Still present today.
after all…Joel Olsteen
People believed that bad things happen for a reason. If bad things happen to you, you’re being punished or tested by God.
In John’s gospel, Jesus responds to a question about this:
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him. John 9:1-3 CEB
___
After Baalists fail to start the fire Elijah
12 stones significance all
Drenched with water
Can afford to waste with YHWH
Shows no trick
He calls upon God.
At the time of the evening offering, the prophet Elijah drew near and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant.
I have done all these things at your instructions.
Answer me, Lord! Answer me so that this people will know that you, Lord, are the real God and that you can change their hearts.”[d] 38
Then the Lord’s fire fell; it consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up the water in the trench!
All the people saw this and fell on their faces. “The Lord is the real God! The Lord is the real God!” they exclaimed. 1 Kings 18:36-39 CEB
Elijah calls upon YHWH
He points the people back toward YHWH
He trusts in God.
God responds.
But even Elijah didn’t start the fire.
[pause]
We don’t have to start the fire.
We can call on God.
We can point others toward God.
We can trust in God’s love.
God responds.
We didn’t start the fire
God is the fire.
A hunk of burning love for
us
others
all
esp poor and oppressed
Imago dei
We also have the fire within
When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. Acts 2:1-4 CEB
see how the fire of God manifests
notice that God acts first
The Good News is that grace precedes anything we do.
God’s burning love permeates
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
Stop your hopping dance
Stop your desperate cries to false gods
Build an altar that symbolizes all of us
Call on God. Listen & trust.
When we
see grace
Feel grace
Experience grace
We can’t help but be God’s love in the world.
The Good News is we don’t have to light the fire.
All we have to do is allow God to ignite the fire within us.
When we do, when we love as God loves us, the unfolding realm of God will grow just a little bigger.
Rev. Tim Graves preaches about the transition between King Solomon and the divided kingdom. Readings are 1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29 and a quote from 1984 by George Orwell.
Who has acted and who has done this, calling upon generation after generation since the beginning?
I, the Lord, was first, and I will be the last! Isaiah 41: 4 CEB
Who has called upon generation after generation since the beginning indeed!
Eve. Adam.
>made of earth & breath
Abraham. Sarah.
>laughter & learning to trust
Moses.
>Shiphrah & Puah
Ruth & Naomi.
>love not biology
I, the Lord, was first, and I will be the last! Isaiah 41:4 CEB
___
The united kingdom has had a good run.
>Saul. David. Solomon
>120 or so years
David
>descended from Boaz & Ruth
>Jesus is descendant
Mythology of David
>adept at battle
>David danced in the streets
>personality keeps the twelve tribes together
But David
>raped another man’s wife & had him killed
>brutal in battle
Still…God used David for God’s purposes.
>maintaining united Israel
>strengthening united Israel
Solomon.
Mythology of Solomon
>wisdom
>built the temple
12 So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and the two of them made a treaty. 1 Kings 5:12 CEB
But Solomon
>came at expense of people
13King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. 14 He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts;
they would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. 15
Solomon also had seventy thousand laborers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, 16
besides Solomon’s three thousand three hundred supervisors who were over the work, having charge of the people who did the work. 1 Kings 5:12-16 CEB
But Solomon
>married Pharoah’s daughter
>excess. ostentation.
Still God uses Solomon for God’s purposes
>God at center of Israel’s life
>Jerusalem
The united kingdom has had a good run.
>Saul. David. Solomon
>120 or so years
Twelve tribes
>note Jerusalem
>Judah is David’s tribe
Rehoboam
>Solomon’s son
>becoming king
People ready to affirm
>a demand
“Your father made our workload very hard for us. If you will lessen the demands your father made of us and lighten the heavy workload he demanded from us, then we will serve you.” 1 Kings 12:4 CEB
Older advisors
>Solomon’s contemporaries
>genuine?
>manipulative?
According to the traditions of the tribal league, the king was supposed to be the people’s “servant,” and this is what the veterans counseled him to pretend to be so that the people might become his “servants” permanently.
One of those veterans wrote up what happened as a reproach, and his complaint is not so much that Rehoboam heeded the advice of the newcomers as that he scorned to follow the veterans’ ploy for one single day.
Surely Rehoboam was a weak and fragile personality, disguising this for the moment with a show of harshness and bravado. — Simon Devries (Word Biblical Commentary OT)
Younger advisors
>Rehoboam’s contemporaries
>say:
‘My baby finger is thicker than my father’s entire waist! 1 Kings 12:10 CEB
Rehoboam replies
>avoids expletive
He said, “My father made your workload heavy, but I’ll make it even heavier! My father disciplined you with whips, but I’ll do it with scorpions!” 1 Kings 12:14b CEB
Jeroboam
>My hero. Not.
>Man of the people. Not.
>Justice-seeker. Not.
Jeroboam
>worked for Solomon
>conspiracy to seize power from Solomon
>fled to Egypt
“while still young [Jeroboam] was promoted by Solomon to be chief superintendent … of the bands of forced labourers. …
he began to form conspiracies with the view of becoming king of the ten tribes; but these having been discovered, he fled to Egypt.” Easton’s Bible Dictionary 1897
Jeroboam sees opportunity
>now he’s back
>leads unhappy north in secession
Secession of northern tribes
>Rehoboam occupies Benjamites
>Rehoboam doesn’t attack
Jeroboam thought to himself, The kingdom is in danger of reverting to the house of David.
If these people continue to sacrifice at the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, they will again become loyal to their master Rehoboam, Judah’s king,
and they will kill me so they can return to Judah’s King Rehoboam. 1 Kings 12:26-27 CEB
The object of power is power. –George Orwell, 1984
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. –George Orwell, 1984
Still, where is God in all this political muck?
>want perfect heroes.
>never get
Still God uses the imperfect
>People’s cries answered by Jeroboam
>Civil war averted by Rehoboam
When Rehoboam arrived at Jerusalem, he assembled the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—one hundred eighty thousand select warriors—to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom for Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.
But God’s word came to Shemaiah the man of God, “Tell Judah’s King Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the rest of the people,
‘This is what the LORD says: Don’t make war against your relatives the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, because this is my plan.’” When they heard the LORD’s words, they went back home, just as the LORD had said. 1Kings 21, 24 CEB
United kingdom was fragile
>moves us ever closer
>incremental
God works through us.
>Jeroboam
>Rehoboam
>us
That’s Good News
>trust in us to eventually get it
>Jesus showed us how
The people complained
>Rehoboam didn’t listen
“Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you.” 1 Kings 12:4 NRSV
The Good News is that Jesus hears us:
“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.
Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 CEB
Who are they!? asked Egypt’s new king. They worshipped a different God. They acted a different way. They looked different. They were growing in number. They must be a threat.
And so he was afraid of the other, of the outsider, of the Jewish immigrants living within Egypt.
He said to his people, “The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are. Come on, let’s be smart and deal with them.
Otherwise, they will only grow in number.
And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.” Exodus 1:9-10 CEB
First Pharoah tried making their lives miserable through hard labor. Then when that didn’t work, his hatred and fear growing, the Egyptian king enslaved them.
Who are they!? asked Egypt’s new king.
When slavery did not prevent them from the ancient world’s greatest success — fertility and many descendants — he ordered the midwives to kill all boy babies.
But that didn’t work. Hebrew women are too quick, giving birth without midwives, he was told. Though it was a lie he didn’t know it.
Who are they!? asked Egypt’s new king.
Still fearful despite a history of peaceful coexistence with the Hebrew people since the time of Joseph, the Pharaoh ordered all baby boys killed, thrown into the river.
He perceived a threat. It was if he’d said, I don’t understand the Hebrew’s faith or their god and so they must be eliminated. (You see, the Egyptians and other ancient people, including the Hebrew people, still thought there was more than one God.
They did not yet realize that there is only one God of all faiths and all people.)
Who are they!? asked Egypt’s new king. They worshipped a different God. They acted a different way. They looked different. They were growing in number. They must be a threat.
And so he was afraid of the other, of the outsider, of the Jewish immigrants living within Egypt.
The new king of Egypt’s downfall was that he asked the wrong question. He asked, Who are they!?
The result will be the plagues upon Egypt as Moses leads his people out into the wilderness.
[PAUSE]
###
Who are they!?
ask the anti-Muslim protesters across our nation this weekend.
Who are they!?
ask the anti-immigrant radicals among us.
Who are they!?
fearful whites ask about the black and brown men gathering in DC for the million man march.
Who are they!?
ask heterosexual folk about our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer kindred.
Though it is good and wise to learn about others, … “who are they!?” is not a question about learning.
“Who are they!?” is too often a question infused with hostility and fear and feelings of being threatened.
It is more like, “Who do they think they are!?”
Who are they!? leads us to the wrong answers. It leads us the wrong way just as it did the new king of Egypt.
Notice that the Pharaoh in our biblical story doesn’t even get a name.
He is that unimportant in the arc of history that bends toward justice and the loving realm of God that unfolds across the biblical narrative and beyond.
###
But look at whose names are revealed in our story today? The midwives!
Shiphrah and Puah
The two women asked the right question. Shiphrah and Puah asked the question that leads to life.
Who am I!? wondered the midwives when told to kill baby boys at birth.
Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live. Exodus 1:17 CEB
Who am I!? wondered the midwives
And they knew in their hearts they were God’s beloved and they knew what they must do.
As God’s beloved, they responded in the most loving way that they knew how.
Who am I!? wondered the midwives asking the right question.
###
Because of the love of women like Shiphrah and Puah, Moses is born and lives.
When his mother could hide him no longer she placed him in a basket and put it in the water. We know that this baby will grow to be someone important for two reasons.
First, because of the many ancient stories of important men being found in baskets or near rivers as infants.
Some of these stories pre-date the Bible and at least one is of Egyptian origin.
This literary archetype reveals to us what will happen in much the same way that we can tell the boy will get the girl at the end of a romantic comedy.
Second, we know that this baby will be important because of the description of the basket. In Hebrew it is described in a similar way as Noah’s ark.
This, my friends, is a basket of covenant between the Jewish people and God. It is a vessel of promise.
God keeps God’s promises. Always and in every generation.
[pause]
Once left in the water, the infant Moses cries. The Pharoah’s daughter finds him crying. The baby’s sister points the royal daughter in the direction of the baby’s mother.
And, so, Pharoah’s daughter entrusts the baby into the care of a Hebrew woman who, though Pharoah’s daughter doesn’t know it, just happens to be his mother.
That is, the woman who ends up being Moses’ wet nurse for the adoptive mother is none other than his biological mother.
Who am I!? multiple women ask themselves in our scripture lesson from today.
Notice the importance of women in these stories. Moses would not have survived were it not for multiple women.
The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, Mose’s mother and sister, and finally the Pharoah’s daughter all answer the question, “Who am I?”
As God’s beloved, as compassionate people, they each respond with as much love as they are able in the circumstance in which they find themselves.
Who am I!? wondered the midwives Shiphrah and Puah. Who am I!? Mose’s mother and sister asked themselves. Who am I!? the Pharoah’s daughter questioned.
###
In the final segment of our lesson for today, the adult Moses encounters the burning bush.
As he approaches he learns the divinity in the bush that burns but is not consumed is the God of Eve and Adam.
The divinity is the God of Abraham & Sarai, of Rebekah & Isaac, and of Jacob and Joseph. God is the God of all generations.
Says the LORD to Moses:
Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them.
So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:9-10 CEB
Moses responds asking,
“Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:11 CEB
Who am I!? asks Moses when commanded to lead his people out of Egypt. Moses doesn’t ask, who are they that I should risk my life for them?
Instead he asks the question that will lead him to respond affirmatively — albeit with some coaxing — to God’s call.
God replies to Moses, I will be with you. God will even acquiesce and send Moses’ brother Aaron with him to help.
But by asking the right question, “Who am I!?” Moses learns that he is a beloved of God who — despite his many imperfections — God chooses to use to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
You see, God uses imperfect people for God’s purposes because there aren’t any other kind of people.
###
Suicide is too present in our community.
Shootings are too frequent in our country.
Blaming those who are different in faith or wealth or culture or appearance than we are, is all too common.
Even simple courtesy and kindness is less common than it should be.
So the question we must ask ourselves is “Who are we!?”
Though we cannot fix it all, the small things we each do matters. A smile. Listening. Hugging.
Speaking out when our neighbor blames Muslims or black and brown people for the ills in our world.
We may never know what good we do in the tapestry of life.
We cannot see the whole tapestry of the unfolding realm of God and our importance within it. What we can do is ask the right question:
Who am I? Who are we?
We are God’s beloved. Our neighbor is God’s beloved. And because we are God’s beloved, we are called to spread the Good News of God’s infinite love.
Who are we? We are God’s people. As God’s people, as followers of Jesus. we are called to
love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] being, with all [our] mind, and with all [our] strength [and, second, we are called to]… love [our] neighbor as [ourselves]… [Jesus tells us that] “No other commandment is greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 CEB
###
Who are we?
We are God’s beloved and so we are called to be God’s love to everyone.
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