Mission between the mountaintops

May I speak in the name of the transfiguring Christ, Light from Light, who challenges us to change and grow through co-missioning.

This final Sunday before Lent begins is known as Transfiguration Sunday… and, in the Episcopal Church, also as World Mission Sunday. 

Over the last six Sundays of Epiphany, we’ve been remembering the manifestation of God’s love incarnate among us – recalling our Lord’s baptism and some of his initial actions in his adult ministry.  Today, as we prepare for our transition into the season of Lent (which begins this Wednesday with the imposition of ashes) our Gospel reading (Mark 9:2-9) takes us to the finals days of Jesus’s initial earthly ministry – an important pinnacle experience before his final days in Jerusalem.  After a couple of very full weeks of traveling, teaching, preaching, feeding, and healing Jesus now invites Peter, James, and John up to a mountaintop experience before leading them back down into mission work in the valleys below.

Mountaintops

In the story of Christ, five pinnacle moment are his birth (incarnation), baptism, transfiguration, resurrection, and his final ascension.  Today we’re hearing about one of these pinnacle moments, literally a mountaintop experience.

Our lectionary readings last year on this occasion were from Exodus (24:12-18), in which we were told of Moses’s mountain top experience with the fiery radiance of God’s presence as he received the law and commandments.  For Moses, this pinnacle experience is a pivotal moment in his understanding of what must be done in order to help his people be fully liberated. His mission now would become to record, convey and interpret divine commands and laws that he believed, if adhered to properly with faithful obedience, would keep his people in healthier covenant with God and out of trouble.  His return from this mountaintop ushers in an age of law.

One of today’s lectionary readings (2 Kings 2:1-12) tells us about Elisha’s dogged determination to follow his master, the great prophet Elijah, in mission and the eventual passing of the prophetic torch from teacher to student.  Elisha aspires to inherit double the share of the prophetic and missionary spirit (a la entitlement of firstborn – Deut 21:17). It’s only when Elijah is finally swooped up by a chariot of fire and horses of fire into the heavens (a pinnacle moment) that his younger disciple inherits the power of spirit and his own mission of prophecy and healing begins. And, Jewish tradition says that when the great prophet Elijah returns (another pinnacle moment), his coming will foreshadow the coming of the awaited Messiah to restore and redeem the people of God in a new age.

Jesus often appeals to the laws of Moses and the wisdom of the prophets in his preaching (E.g., Matthew 5:17, 7:12, 22:40). The appearance of both Moses and Elijah with Jesus on the mountaintop in today’s reading is symbolic of a culmination of the intent of the Law and the teaching of the prophets into a new reign.  And, this pinnacle moment of symbolic revelation is placed importantly, in Mark’s telling, midway between our Lord’s baptism and his resurrection – in the middle of his earthly ministry at a point when the disciples are waking up to the meaning and implications of Christ with them. The sequence hymn (Hymn 129) we just sang sums it up, “…Moses and Elijah speaking. All the prophets and the Law shout through them their joyful greeting.  Alleluia!”  In this mountaintop transfiguration story, Jewish ears would have perceived the symbolism of the Law coming together with the Prophets and remembered that this foreshadows the coming of the awaited Messiah and the redemption of God’s people.  According to Malachi (4:4-5): “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses…. Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” 

How does this mountaintop experience affect the disciples?  Peter's initial instinct is to want to dwell here with these three prophetic elders in this glorious moment and construct booths/tabernacles for them, perhaps imagining that this is the ‘Day of the Lord’ during the Feast of Booths foretold in Zechariah (14:16-21). 

But dwelling in this pinnacle moment - remaining on the mountaintop - is not the point of this experience.  God’s presence overcomes them, Moses and Elijah vanish into the cloud, and they hear God’s voice repeating what was said at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:11) – “this is my Son, the Beloved…” with the added emphasis this time, “listen to him!”  We might hear: don’t get too distracted by what has just happened or dwell on this pinnacle event, focus on what Jesus is showing you, there’s more work to do down below.  Then they are lead back down to mission in the valleys below, trying to make sense of what has just happened, with Jesus nudging them toward new understandings of the call they are living into with him.

The Greek verb form that has been translated as ‘transfiguration’ is a word that you’re probably familiar with in its Latin form: metamorphosis.  It means ‘beyond-form’ or to change form, to re-form, to re-model, to fundamentally change shape or state; a paradigm shift.  In this pinnacle mountaintop moment, the disciples undergo an apostolic initiation of fundamental changes in their form and function as living members of the new body of Christ.

We could see this mountaintop experience as less about Jesus needing to go up the mountain to re-connect with Moses and Elijah in order his figure to be transformed and prepared for the rest of his mission and ministry… and more about initiating the changes – the metamorphosis – that must take place among the disciples to prepare them to re-form as a body (that we now call the church) to carry on Christ’s interpersonal mission.

And, as we remember pinnacle moments with Jesus Christ, we’re reminded of how we’re being transformed and prepared for mission and ministry between these mountaintop experiences.  E.g., encounter with the Spirit at our Holy Baptism or the sublime pinnacle moment every Sunday - the metamorphosis of the elements on the altar and the transformation in our own lives as we inwardly digest this spiritual food.

Mission in the valley between mountaintops:

As important as mountaintop / pinnacle experiences are (they do mark seminal moments in our ongoing transformation), it’s our work in the valleys between them that really defines and demonstrates God’s love incarnate in action, compelling our mission.   

Interestingly, the pinnacle moments are spaced apart on our liturgical memory by periods of approximately 40 days – between the remembrance of the baptism of our Lord and his transfiguration, and between the transfiguration and the passion of Holy Week culminating in our Lord’s resurrection. Time periods marked by ‘40’ are important times of transition, testing, and transformation.

For instance:

40 days that Jesus, after baptism, led by the Spirit, was tempted in the desert (Mark 1:12-13)

40 days and nights of the great flood (Gen 7:4)

40 days Noah waits before exiting the Ark (Gen 8:3-8)

40 days that David was taunted by Goliath (1 Sam 17:16)

And, tying in two of the characters with us today on the mountaintop with Jesus…

40 days, twice, of Moses fasting on Mt. Sinai while re-affirming covenant with God (Exod 24:18,28)

40 years in the desert wilderness as the followers of Moses leave captivity and traveled to a promised land (Num 14: 33; Deut 29: 4)

40 days that Elijah fasted in the wilderness when all seemed against him (1 Kings 19:8)

And, after the next pinnacle moment (the resurrection), it will be 40 days that the resurrected Jesus helped prepare his followers from the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:3)

What do all of these periods of 40 have in common?  Whether forty is numbering days or years, whether the journeys are literal or metaphorical, they’re all periods marked by: being in between; waiting; trials of trust; tests of will and spiritual mettle; and precursors foreshadowing some form of liberating deliverance or salvation.  Forty represents periods when the faithful are pushed, often the brink… by God… to further develop and demonstrate the depths of their faith, hope, and love.  We might even say that they are extended periods during which we are to be transfigured (during which we should experience metamorphosis).

As we come down off the mountaintop today with Jesus, Peter, James, and John, we’ll be preparing to enter a special period 40 – our journey through the 40 days of Lent; it’s beginning marked by the imposition of ashes on our foreheads this coming Wednesday. 

Christ calls us to leave the luminance of our mountaintop experiences, return to the valleys of life, and tend to the needs of our brothers and sisters, particular those in the lowest of places.  Christ calls each of us to re-form and re-model our notions of scarcity and abundance in order to better serve the entire family of God.  Christ confronts each of us with opportunities for metamorphosis through interpersonal encounters which stoke the godly light within each other.

Mission

For the last fifteen years, the Episcopal Church* has observed World Mission Sunday on this Sunday before Lent begins (*note: Roman Catholics observe World Mission Sunday in October).  The stated purpose of this observance is to “hold up and celebrate our shared commitment and call to mission.”  We’re asked to celebrate and pray for the work and witness of missionaries we have serving in 25 countries around the world… and to remain mindful that the Episcopal Church's official name is The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church.  All members of the Episcopal Church are also members of the Society and, therefore, we are all missionaries.

Our Presiding Bishop calls us this year to focus our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, alms-giving and study on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) as a way of cultivating our conviction as a church in mission throughout the entire world, particular toward the needs of our neighbors most in need.  If you’re not familiar with the eight MDG’s, you’re encouraged to visit the United Nations website to learn about them and discern what part you can play in this world-wide mission to relieve poverty, prevent and treat disease, and promote education through new global partnerships (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/).

More locally, as we follow Jesus down from today’s mountaintop experience, let us enter the season of Lent this week re-considering and re-forming ourselves as disciples, apostles, ministers, evangelists in Christ’s name.  Consider anew the opportunities right here in Manhattan to serve the interests of those in greatest need – perhaps gather in groups of three to discern what you’d like to study and address in our community for the 40 day journey of Lent.

Paul reminds us in today’s reading from his second letter to believers in Corinth (2 Cor 4:3-6): “…we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

As we come down from pinnacle moments, prepare us, Lord, to do your work in the valleys all around us.  As we enter Lenten season, compel us toward new mission in your name -  take our lips and speak through them; take our minds and think through them; take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you and our neighbor.

AMEN.

Jesus as God’s emancipation proclamation

I enjoy Sundays when events in chronological history resonate well with themes in our Revised Common Lectionary.  Today is one of those Sundays.  

On the surface of our assigned readings, we have two stories about miraculous healings from diseases of the skin – the liberation from affliction and isolation leading to the restoration within society of those once considered unclean outcasts.  

On, or about, this day (February 12) in history, we can remember disciples who fought the good fight of faith in Christ’s name to overcome racist stigmatizations based on the color of our skin, leading to the redeeming of human dignity.

And, as we relate ancient stories about the healings of leprosy in the Middle East to more contemporary memories of abolitionists in our country’s history, hear what the Sprit is saying to us about our call to continue in God’s will and Christ’s call for liberation from all forms of slavery – things that bind and separate us - literally, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Jesus is God’s emancipation proclamation.

First, let’s consider some of what we hearing in our two readings about healing from leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-14 and Mark 1:40-45). 

The first story is a tale healing, humility, and hope emerging from a system of military domination, social entitlement, and nationalist arrogance.  Prompted initially by the small voice of a slave, a commanding dominator is lead through a process of submission and surrender to the God of those he considered ‘less than’ in order to be healed of his skin disease. If you continue reading the story beyond the verses we’ve heard this morning, you’ll hear how transformed this great man paying attention to the faith of a slave as he risks appearing naïve and gullible in following what seems to be simple and silly instructions about cleansing the waters of the Jordan – he is healed.

In the second story, we hear about courage, passion, and prophetic pronouncements of restoration emerging from a system of social isolation, stigmatization, and religious traditions that segregated people based on conditions of their skin.  Prompted by the begging of a leprous man who had nothing left to lose, our Lord is moved with deep passion to cross social, political, and religious boundaries to not only make physical contact with the man considered unclean, but to redeem and restore him to standing in the community… our Lord knowing that this action of liberation would jeopardize his own freedom and standing in the eyes of the ignorant.

Interestingly, although this story of Jesus healing the leper is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it’s only in Mark’s telling that we hear the passionate emotion motivating Jesus’s action of healing and social justice.  We heard that Jesus was “moved with pity” and then sent the man away with “stern warning”; and, indeed, that’s how several translations render some of the Greek words.  However, other translations of the same Greek words render more passionate, intense emotions motiving Jesus’s actions, suggesting that Jesus was moved with anger (the same word/phrase is used by those who scold the woman for wasting valuable oil when anointing Jesus) about this situation and even snorts with indignation as he sends the healed man back to the temple priests, perhaps to shove in their faces proof that God’s kingdom has come and people are to be united in health, not separated in sickness.

Jesus has cast out demons in worshipful gatherings, and lifted illness from someone in their home, but this act of public healing is about to send a strong message to the religious establishment – his mission and movement is about more than just miraculous healings, it’s about transforming society and the status of everyone in it. By reaching across so many boundaries in his action, and through the testimony that the healed man is about to spread throughout the land, a message is being sent - times, they are a changin’… the Kingdom of God is at hand and shall overcome and overturn the expected social order.  The children of God will no longer be oppressed and held captive by the powers of evil.

This brings us to some of our own recent and timely history about abolishment of slavery and the emancipation of people held captive based on their skin.

• On the heels of the 151^st anniversary of “Bleeding Kansas” being recognized as a ‘free’ state (January 29, 1861) and approaching the anniversary of “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka” (May 17, 1954) which declared separate is not equal
• February is African American History month (which we’ve been observing for nearly a century now in our country) 
• This week we remember several births of leaders influential who shined lights of freedom and dignity on the darkness and leprosy of slavery: President Abraham Lincoln (Feb 12, 1809), The Rev. Absalom Jones (Feb 13, 1746), and Frederick Douglas (c. Feb 14, 1818)
• Also, it was also on this day nearly 150 years ago (February 12, 1865), only a few years after he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves, President Lincoln, on his 57^th birthday, invited a Presbyterian pastor, The Rev. Dr. Henry Garnet, a former slave himself, to be the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives – Pastor Garnet delivered a sermon on the deliverance of our country from [my words: the sickness of] slavery (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/garnet-preaches-to-house-on-slavery-and-civil-war)

·         Focusing for a moment on Absalom Jones, America’s first black priest…schooled by Quakers and originally a lay leader in his church, Fr. Jones’s entire ministry was about liberation and restoration of those who had been marginalized based on the color of their skin.  Not content to simply minister separately to blacks, he fought for bringing them as a group into the Episcopal Church, established benevolence societies to help African Americans with insurance and housing, petitioned Congress to free slaves 65 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, and dared touch the untouchables during a yellow-fever outbreak in Philadelphia, organizing nursing and burials teams amid people and communities that everyone wanted to avoid.  The Episcopal Church remembers The Rev. Absalom Jones tomorrow in our cycle of Feasts (http://www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history/exhibit/leadership/jones.php)

Whether during the passionate abolitionist movement in the 19th Century, the Spirit-lead struggles for civil rights in the 20th Century, or the heated debates we continue to have in this century about dignity, humanity, and relief for other groups of people, both foreign and domestic, may we be humble before God in our recognition that there are still many brothers and sisters in need of both liberation from stigmatization and healing – this is our work, our race to run, in Christ’s name.

What is the Spirit saying to God’s people today?  Perhaps we’re being asked to revisit some questions: Who do we consider unclean today?  Why?  Do we truly believe that Christ compels us to participate in breaking the chains between sins of prejudice, presumptions about who is unclean or unworthy, and the ills of social stigmatization? What would Jesus have us to about this, even in the face of risk to our own social standing? 

If the Spirit hasn’t spoken to you through the homily, then listen for what the Spirit is saying in the hymns today.  They’re all from the same era as President Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, Pastor Garnet, Bishop Jones, and the Kansas being declared a free state (early to mid 1800’s).  During the offertory, we’ll be reminded in the first verse of hymn 552 to “fight the good fight with all they might, Christ is they strength and Christ thy right….”  And, in the second verse of our closing hymn 371, as we prepare to go back into the world out there, together we’ll be singing, “Thou didst come to bring on they redeeming wing healing and sight, health to the sick in mind, sight to the inly [inwardly] blind, now to all humankind, let there be light.”

Let there be light.

“A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with [passionate emotion], Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’” 

AMEN.

Mission of weaving with all the threads, every single one of them

There’s so much in today’s readings about our call as Christians.  In the unfolding tapestry of God’s creation, we’re being reminded that every single thread is known and that we’re being called to participate in the continued repairing and weaving with these threads, leaving not one of them missing, without being overly concerned about un-crossable boundaries of any particular grouping in the weave (although respectful of the patterns) nor remaining too fixated in one place – we are to keep moving, incorporating all the threads, helping grow the new fabric.

Yes, the once great and proud Judeans are in exile at the hands of the Babylonians.  Yes, they are weary and downtrodden.  Yes, they seem to have given up hope in God’s love for them.

Isaiah calls them to lift their eyes up and see!  The supreme creator has not forgotten them, not a single one of them – God knows their names and is a source of power and strength.

Yes, we live in stressful times and are subjected to all sorts of principalities and pressures.  Yes, we and those are around us can grow weary, burdened by all sorts of things (doubt, shame, guilt, fear, anxiety) that can arrest and hold us in place. 

Amid the harsh realities of our circumstances, is there a God?  If so, could that all powerful creator of everything actually know and care about little ole me?

Yes!  Lift your eyes up and see.  Even in the darkness of night there are millions of points of light if we keep our eyes focused up there.  Isaiah reminds us that God has created all of the stars, numbering them, calling them each by name, and not missing a single one.  Created in God’s own image, are not each of us known and beloved by God.  Every single one of us, not one of us is missing from God’s handiwork.

In the words of Isaiah, God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless…. those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Fellow weavers, we are to mount up with wings like those of eagles.  With the strength of our Lord, we are to walk and run without weariness or faint.  We are to keep moving.

With Jesus as our exemplar and Paul as another faithful model, we are to go – to fearlessly travel  - to mission – to where people are, even where, particularly where, we might not want them to be.

In this first chapter of Mark that we’ve been reading since the beginning of this Epiphany season, we have Jesus exemplifying what God’s love is like manifested in the world.  It is: drawn toward repentance (a new mind about things); endures and overcomes temptation; calls/draws/compels people to follow; drives out evil; heals many; prays; and keeps moving - continually searching for and touching the presumed untouchable (as we shall hear next week).

Jesus launches into his adult ministry calling people to join him in weaving a new fabric of a new kingdom.  He demonstrates the power of God to shine light into dark places, driving out corrupting shadows and removing obstacles and ailments that have kept people separated and lonely.  He seeks out and finds people in need, no matter where they are.

He starts by teaching and healing in the places of worship (the synagogues); then takes his ministry into homes (healing and eating in intimate settings), and then on the roads and into the communities (to people on all shores – on all sides of the tracks).  As word of this healing ministry grows, more and more people seek this light.  Jesus is not content to fix the light on a lampstand and keep it shining in only once place – he says clearly that he has come to spread widely the good news of God’s kingdom so that all might receive the message.  Christ compels us to do the same – an essential part of our discipleship is to be missioners.

In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:29-39), we hear about our Lord entering a home, healing Simon’s mother-in-law, and continuing to heal others well into the evening – the whole town having gathered around this home seeking his light.  The next morning, rising before the sun, Jesus goes to a dark, deserted place to pray – he seems to do this a lot, to take time at critical junctures in his ministry to commune and discern with God through prayer.  His disciples hunt him down, presumably a little frustrated that he seems to be neglecting his duties.  “Everyone is searching for you” they say, pointing him back toward where they think he ought to be, where they want him to stay in order to meet with needs of the town’s folk who continue to gather.  Yet Jesus compels them to keep moving – “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 

It time, it will become clear that he is commissioning people to carry on the work of his cause – equipping them with authority in this name and power through the Holy Spirit to continue in his restorative teaching and redemptive healing.  But it takes them awhile to live into this with faith and confidence.  We’re not so different.  It’s not so hard to see what we often want to keep Jesus domesticated here in our little house serving our needs.  Jesus, just stay here in our church, in our part of town where we want you.  Oh, how often we resist or ignore our call to follow Christ back out into new neighborhoods and places, sharing his message with people who are not quite where we’d like them to be.

This season of Epiphany we’ve also been hearing from one of best examples of an early missioner – Paul – as he writes correctively to an early community of believers in Corinth who are resisting and ignoring the fullness of their call.  In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he is lovingly reminded them to what it means to be a part of God’s mission through Christ.  Each and every single one of us is important and has a role to play in the new body – each thread is important to the new fabric.  We all have gifts that we are to use toward the service to which Jesus has commissioned us.  Through our baptism and unity in the Spirit we are both radically liberated and free (so many things that might have bound and restricted us have no hold any longer) and we are to be prudent and responsible in our actions, mindful of and compassionate towards those who are just coming into the fold and are still learning how to weave this new fabric of God’s kingdom.  In all cases, we need to keep moving.  Paul uses imagery of running a race and, in today’s reading for instance, the idea of winning – claiming people back as the prized creations they are in God’s unified family.  “Christ’s love compels us…” he says (2 Cor 5:14).

In today’s excerpt from his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that he has “become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”  We might here ‘all things to all people’ as a negative, particularly in this political season when we’re reminded so readily how often people attempt to change their tunes and message depending on the audience, trying to be all things to all voters.  However, that’s not what Paul is intending.  Paul’s message will remain the same, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the good news across to people, no matter what situation they’re in.  Whether he needs to look and sound a little more like this group or that group… whether he needs to conform more strictly to one set of rules in one instance for some people, or bend them a bit in another instance with different people, Paul is fearless willing and able to be flexible, adaptable, and humble in meeting people ‘where they are’ in order to get his consistent point across about the gracious love of God and Christ’s desire to weave us all back into a unified and loving kingdom together.

Hear how the author of the The Message paraphrases Paul’s words (1 Cor 9: 19-23): “Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!”

To re-cap… Isaiah reminds our ancestors and us that the amazingly ineffable creator of everything knows each created being by name and intends power to the weary and strength to the powerless.  The Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus Christ (God’s love manifest among us) comes to our places of worship, into our homes, and continues on out into the communities around us – constantly on the move, teaching and healing.  Paul is telling the early church in Corinth, and us today, that we are free to be creative and adaptable in relating to our all of our neighbors, no matter where they are (literally or figuratively), in order to form bonds with them so that we can share the good news of Christ’s redemptive power and God’s unifying plan.

ANECDOTE : I’m both a priest (administering our sacramental traditions in our church) and a missioner (a baptized Christian on the move, aiming to meet people where they are, outside these walls).  In my own journey with Jesus: I’ve been baptized and cultivated in a place of worship; nurtured as well as challenged to teach, learn, and heal in the intimacy of a home group; intentionally prepared to go forth and call new disciples – meeting people where they are physically, in coffee houses and bars as well as on-campuses and in churches… relating to people where they are figuratively, simple or advanced in their theology, not looking/sounding/believing like I do, perhaps questioning or skeptical about God, perhaps angry with the church or otherwise in the shadows of some darkness. 

DISCUSSION: So what?  What does this mean to us as a church in mission? To each of us in here?  Where are we on this journey?  How and where are you helping weave a new fabric? What threads are you called to find and include?  Have we been seduced into staying in our comfort zone?  Are we focused on the most important work?  Are we on the move with Christ Jesus? 

Following the examples of Jesus and Paul, we’re to be people (and a church) in mission.  Let’s not be tempted or lulled into repeating only the same patterns with the same community for perpetuity – God’s vision of the kingdom quilt is so bigger and much more colorful and varied than that.  And, as our Lord did after a full day of ministry, we to step-back now-n-then to reflect and discern in prayer… and then keep going to new places, finding and incorporating new threads, sharing the good news with ALL our neighbors.

We are called to mission, not just where we want people to be, but where people actually are…. to see beyond our own preferred patterns and recognize that every single thread in known by God.  No matter what its texture or color, it has a place in the divine fabric and we are compelling by Christ to weave with them all.

In God’s creation, there are no stray threads. Christ compels us to seek, find, heal and redeem all threads, together weaving them into a beautiful new creation in God’s loving image.

AMEN