Sermon for the International Day of Peace

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on September 18, 2016
Scripture: John 15:9-12

Last Sunday was the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I made brief mention of it in my sermon, but didn’t make a lot of fuss over this landmark remembrance. Part of that was the needs of the moment as our community was reeling from its own tragedies and part of it was admittedly personal preference.

I always feel a great sense of ambivalence towards the 9/11 remembrance. Like most folks, I want to remember those whose lives were lost with a sense of sorrow and solemnity. But it seems there’s always this handful (and I hope it truly is only a handful, but that may be a naive assumption) who take that day to scream at us “don’t forget what THEY did to us.” These folks turn what should be a day of quiet contemplation and turn it into a rallying cry for retribution. A cry we have answered in many and various ways over these past 15 years with no end in sight.

Memes like these pop up every 9/11

If “an eye for an eye” is the benchmark for how retributive justice is meant to work from the Old Testament, then for every “eye” lost on 9/11 we have taken two eyes, a nose, one ear, two hands, and more than our share of heads with no seeming end to our calls for more. We are no closer for it to a sense of security or justice or peace. The Middle East is awash in blood and it’s spreading.

Yet the calls continue with each passing year and with each call the definition of “they” in “don’t forget what they did to us” gets vaguer and vaguer. So the blood spreads to the streets of our cities. First it was the terrorists. Then it was all Muslims. Then it was anyone insufficiently patriotic. Then it was the liberals. The blacks. The gays. The immigrants. The non-Christians of any kind. And now we listen to the screeches of demagogues and pundits that point fingers at anyone not white, Christian, and male and say “It’s all their fault.” And there are those who act upon it.

A woman in a hijab was set on fire in Manhattan. A protester at a rally who was using oxygen was cold cocked out of nowhere. Protesters of the North Dakota pipeline have had dogs set upon them. The blood is spreading. And we are no closer to peace in our time.

There is a poison that has infected our country. It is the poison of hate. It is a poison that is bigger than one person or group. It’s bigger than Trump and Hillary. It’s bigger than the political parties and their platforms. It’s a war for the soul of a nation and a society. At what point are we going to stop and ask ourselves “is this who we truly wish to be?” When are we going to wake up and realize that what we’re doing isn’t working? It’s only making things worse. How much more blood will be spilled? How much more suffering will there be? How much more will we demand before we have our pound of flesh for those wrongs done to us both real or imagined? And who will we be when we get there?

I am reminded once again of one of my favorite quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche. “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” The abyss is staring back at us, my friends. What are we going to do about it?

As followers of Christ Jesus and as citizens of this country, we often express our desire to be a “Christian nation.” But that can’t simply be a tribal identifier. It can’t simply be about monuments to Scripture, nativity scenes in our parks, and acts of piety in our schools. It can’t just be style and appearances. It has to be a perspective on life. It has to be who we are and how we behave towards others. WWJD? Hate is not on the menu.

The abyss is staring back at us, my friends. What are we going to do about it? The answer is simple. Be like Jesus.

Do we truly seek peace in our time? Justice for our society? Be like Jesus.

We have been blessed in the history of this nation, immensely blessed, to have known giants. Men and women that were not perfect by any means, but who aspired to be more than they were. I’m reminded of Abraham Lincoln, who offered grace to the Confederacy upon its defeat, and men like Robert E Lee and Ulysses Grant who carried out that grace and accepted it in defeat and victory. I am reminded of the challenge of JFK who told us to do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Turning back the tide of hate and enmity will NOT be easy. Grace and forgiveness are hard. Love and compassion are hard. But they are a way forward. A good way. A better way.

Jesus knew that. It’s why some of his last instructions to his disciples so focused on them. Our Gospel lesson is from the final night of his life, the “night on which he was betrayed.” His commandment to them and to us “love one another.” It’s so simple. Yet quite hard.

How do you do that? Stop assuming you know what another’s life is like. Stop judging their motives. Offer respect and dignity whether you think they deserve it or not. Do not tolerate the snide comment or indignant insinuation about another. In all things, ask yourself honestly. What would Jesus do here? How would he respond? The specifics may vary, but you can bet he would fall squarely on the side of mercy, compassion, and love.

We’ve been very blessed here at Canadochly. Over the course of these many years and decades that this church has stood, we have seen many souls grace these halls who have embodied this simple but difficult ethos. And while I suspect he might be embarrassed for me to say it so publically, one of the finest examples is the man we’ve all been thinking about and praying for this week. Mike gets it. He’s lived it. He’s done it.

But he need not be alone. Christ calls each of us to love. To be him to those in this world. What does it mean to live a Christian life? We are the saved, the elect. Our future is secure in heaven. Christ has died and lived again for our sake. Of this, we are certain. But what do we do with it? We make a better world. We make peace our primary goal. And we do that by love, care, and compassion for others. A tall order perhaps, but it is not hyperbole to say that right now the world needs us. Time to step up and bring peace through love. Amen.

The 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on September 11, 2016
Preaching text: Luke 15:1-10

One of my favorite members of my previous congregation, the late Dick Wolfe, once pulled me aside after worship and told me that he always knew how I was going to preach on a given Sunday. That I had a formula that I followed pretty diligently. But he did add in that, even though there was a clear predictability to what I would say, he always appreciated hearing it, that it was something that he felt still needed to be said.

Maybe I am in a rut or sorts. Maybe I am predictable. You folks have had me as your pastor for over four years now, so I’d be willing to bet you could guess how I’d approach today’s Gospel lesson: the first two of the three parables about “lost things” from Luke. I would probably say something like “God loves everybody, so we should pay particular attention to how he loves the ones we regard as lost in our world today and do likewise. Amen. Let’s sing our hymn.” That’s not a bad interpretation. It fits in with how the Scripture interprets and introduces itself: The Pharisees are grumbling about Jesus’ choice of dinner guests. How dare he eat with tax collectors and sinners! He then counters with these stories about the value of the lost to God.

But I should perhaps be a bit more circumspect in how I toss around that sort of interpretation. I seek to be an ally to those in our society who are disenfranchised and exploited in so many ways. If that’s my goal, do I really want to equate them with being “sinners?” Perhaps I should be more deliberate about how I define sin. And maybe that’s where I should really begin today.

So, what is sin? We tend to think of sin as moral and ethical failing. We sin when we do something that unjust, immoral, and/or illegal. If I cheat on my wife, I sin. If I murder someone, I sin. If I lie to you, I sin. There are also sins of omission, when we fail to do something that is just, right, and good. If I do not intervene in a friend’s suicide attempt and he dies, I sin. If I turn my back on a person in need and do nothing, I sin. This is typically how we look at sin. It is the birthplace of evil within ourselves and others. When we sin, evil comes to pass.

The Star Trek franchise is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, so my FB feed (full of my nerdy friends) has been predictably blowing up with excitement. All sorts of posts and articles celebrating the event. Ten best episodes of the franchise. 50 greatest quotes of the series. On that particular list, I suspect is one I find rather appropriate to our conversation. In one episode of TNG, Picard reminds Data that “It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.”

Gaming has certainly taught me the truth of that. I can play a perfect game, have ideal strategy, excellent die rolls, the right hand of cards, and still get the rug yanked out from under me by an opponent’s remarkable streak of luck. I can do everything right and still lose. In fact, I find it happens a lot.

Oh, Hearthstone, the lessons that you teach...

So I wonder then, when it comes to life, can evil come to pass even when we don’t do anything wrong?

There are certainly those that would argue that the events of this day 15 years ago were such an example. Few if any of those who died when the towers came down or when the Pentagon was hit or when the plane crashed outside Shanksville were in any way involved with whatever foreign policy decisions by our nation’s government that so enraged the terrorists. Over 3,000 lives lost. What did they do wrong? Why was such evil done to them? They made no errors and still lost...everything.

Sin is as often the evil done to us by outside forces as it is our own nefarious behavior. Perhaps, in some cases, it is even more that.

What about us? Or me? I get back from New Orleans, and I lose a job, my car blows up, and I get sick. Really sick, like I did last year. What did I do wrong?

But not just me. All of us. Come on. We are still coming to terms with Amy’s tragic passing last month and now Vale is gone. And all this after Fred and Jim and Millie and Suzie and Don and everyone else we’ve buried over the last 24 months. IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS ANY OF THAT FAIR?

I’m hurting. We’re hurting. I’m angry. We’re angry. I’m tired. We’re tired. I had a gentleman the other day at the senior center ask me a nice theological question. He asked if I thought hell was real. I gave him a nice scholarly response, but I should have said something else. My heart wanted to tell him, “Yes, it’s real. BECAUSE WE’RE LIVING IT.”

In moments such as these, what we find in Jesus’ stories in our Gospel lesson is that they are less about how we are to treat the lost than how God treats us when we ARE lost.

Stranded as we are in this wilderness, we have a shepherd who is searching diligently for us. We have a God that is hunting us, seeking us, trying to find us. Because he knows we’re scared. He knows we’re confused. He knows we’re hurting. And all he wants to do is scoop us into his arms, hold us tight, and whisper in our ear that “It’s going to be alright.”

It’s going to be alright because I went to a cross for you. It’s going to be alright because the stone rolled away from the tomb. It’s going to be alright because I have made death and hell my footstool. It’s going to be alright because I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, did all this and more FOR YOU.

It’s in moments like this when the first thing any of us learn about God as children becomes beyond profound. “God loves you” is said so often that it can seem cliche even to us who are steeped in its truth. But, my friends, GOD DOES LOVE YOU. He is hunting for you in the wilderness. He wants to save you from this hell you’re living. And he will NOT stop until he finds you and pulls you into his loving embrace.

And when he does, there will be joy in his heart the likes of which cannot be described with human words. You are his beloved, his precious one. You and I and all of us, we mean the universe to God. We are EVERYTHING to him. And when we hurt, he hurts, because that’s what you do when you love something. And he does love us.

Yeah, we’re a mite lost right now. And it’s scary and painful and worrying and a whole host of other things. But God is on the hunt, he is searching, He has heard our cries and he is coming for us. And he will come and put things right. For he is Lord of Heaven and Earth and he will do anything and everything to see his precious ones safely home. Amen.

Funeral Sermon for Vale Welsh

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on September 10, 2016
Scripture text: John 14:1-6

It is said that “only the good die young,” implying that people who reach great age in life may have an ornery streak or two. I don’t believe that and the reason why I don’t believe that is because I got to know Vale Welsh. Vale was a good person in every way that can mean, and at 90 years old, she’d had a lot of times to go a different way and she never did..

My favorite story of Vale is probably my first real encounter with her as her pastor. Rewind to four years ago. I had just started here at Canadochly and many of you may recall that it was an interesting few months. The first Sunday I was here, for instance, the air conditioning system in the building broke down. So we had our worship services in the fellowship hall. We got the AC fixed, moved back into this sanctuary, and I’d bet it was the first or second Sunday we were back in here when Vale took a fainting spell in the middle of my Sunday sermon.

We stopped the service, got the paramedics here, and got Vale taken care of. Here I am, all nervous and worried, “Is she going to be alright? I should have noticed sooner that something was wrong.” But Vale, as she was being wheeled out the door, looked at me. “Don’t worry. This happens all the time. I’ll be fine.” in her typically nonchalant way of talking.

Little did I know that she was absolutely right. That was just her way. Life would send Vale a rough patch and she’d just sort of laugh it off. “Happens all the time. I’ll be fine.”

Vale, her family, and I have been through a lot together. I buried Paul, her beloved husband, a few years back. I remember when she fell and broke her hip some months ago. After each setback, she’d pop back into church with a smile on her face. She had the prettiest smile. She just glowed and would just fill the room with her light. Everywhere she went she just brought this aura of positivity. “Things’ll be alright. I’ll be fine.” She made you believe it.

I know I did. I never really worried about Vale when something would go wrong. She was strong. She was spunky. She would bounce back. She always did.

Things didn’t seem so fine when I went into the ER to see Vale two weeks ago. We knew she was very sick. A couple surgeries later and she was still sick. But I think all of us still sort of believed in Vale and her optimism. “She’ll be fine. She’ll pull through. She always does.”

It was a punch in the gut to all of us when she didn’t this time.

The brightness of the world has dimmed considerably, because one of its lights has gone out. I will miss her smile. I will miss her spunky attitude. I will miss her positivity. I will miss how she could make you feel, no matter how bad things might seem, that things were going to work out.

I know I’m not alone in these thoughts and feelings. Many, if not most, of you knew her better than I. You got to experience the person she was as mother or friend in far greater capacity. Now she’s gone and it hurts. It hurts a lot.

One of my favorite verses from Scripture is from Hebrews. We had it in one of our lessons just a few weeks ago, although I did not preach on the text. It goes like this. “Do not hesitate to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so, you may have entertained angels unawares.” It always reminds me that angels, God’s messengers of grace, do not always appear the way we think they should.

In a very real sense, Vale was an angel in our midst. Not some supernatural being, I don’t mean this quite so literally, but as a messenger of God’s holy grace. What is the core lesson we can take away from our Scripture texts today? God loves us. God will take care of us. Not even death will truly harm us because God has claimed us as his own.

We have the dedication and the love of a God who went to die on a cross for our sakes. We have the promise of the empty tomb that where Jesus has risen again so too shall we. You’ve heard these promises in our funeral proceedings today. You’ve heard them from this and many other pulpits throughout your lives. And I would argue that you have heard them and seen them lived out in the life of Vale Welsh.

“No big deal. Happens all the time. I’ll be fine.” Do you hear the confidence in that? Do you hear the strength? The faith? Can you hear it still in the midst of this dark time? Because I believe in my heart of hearts that if Vale could speak to us all here, one last time, that’s precisely what she’d say. And she’d say it with a big grin on her face because she knows the promises are fulfilled. Everything God had told her has come to pass.

And not only is she going to be fine, but so are we. Because those promises weren’t just for her alone, they’re for all of us. Everyone here has a God that has offered you the salvation of the cross and empty tomb. Everyone of us has a God who loves us so much that he’d rather die than be without us. Everyone here has a God who has declared “I have put death underfoot. It cannot harm you.” and I have done this because I LOVE YOU so much that it spans this universe and beyond.

Vale lived those promises. Vale proclaimed those promises to everyone she encountered. Another favorite quote of mine is attributed to St. Francis, “Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.” That was Vale. She proclaimed the Gospel with a smile. In her own way, she taught each one of us truth of a loving god who seeks to save his own.

Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Thank you, Vale, for that constant reminder. And thanks be to God that because of his cross and empty tomb, we will, in fact, be just fine. Amen.

Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached (presumably) at Canadochly on September 4, 2016
Scripture text: Philemon

Pastor note: I want to offer up both an explanation and a note of gratitude. I say "presumably" above because I missed Sunday morning due to personal illness. (Curse you, ulcerative colitis!) I did email this manuscript to several members of my congregation, one of whom I presume spoke these words in my stead. To me, that's a wonderful statement of the true nature of ministry. As pastor and laity, we support one another in our times of need, walking together and holding each other up on this journey of faith. Whoever of you (which remains unknown as of this post) filled in, you have my thanks. God bless.

I get to break out my archive of useless knowledge this week. (Not that I don’t frequently on other matters.) Where in the Revised Common Lectionary do we get the text of an entire book of the Bible as one of the readings? Today, of course, when we read Philemon in its entirety.

The book of Philemon is more than just fodder for dumb trivia questions though. It stands in a unique place in the New Testament among Paul’s many letters. We’re used to Paul writing letters. He writes to the church of Ephesus, the church of Corinth, the church of Rome, the church of wherever. He writes to all sorts of churches all over the known world at the time, addressing their circumstances, their strengths, and their failures, and we are the better for having his thoughts still with us today. Those letters are often grand treatises of theology and practice, giving us a model to follow for forming and maintaining the church today.

Personal correspondence is much rarer among those letters. Yes, we have the so-called Pastoral letters where Paul writes to Timothy or Titus about their duties as leaders of the church, but most scholars do not believe these are truly written by St. Paul, but by someone speaking in his name and authority. Philemon is, however, authentically Paul, and it is both a wonderful window into the mind of this man who has created so much of the form of modern Christianity as well as a powerful statement on how Christians are meant to conduct themselves in regards to one another.

Here’s the context of the letter. One of Philemon’s slaves, a man named Onesimus has run away and fled to Paul who is serving one of his many prison terms as a apostle of Jesus Christ. Now Paul’s a Roman citizen, so he gets a slightly more relaxed form of imprisonment (membership has its privileges), so he can people assist him while under arrest. Onesimus becomes one of those assistants and proves quite valuable.

But Onesimus is still a slave; he is Philemon’s property. As a runaway, Onesimus is eligible for all manner of terrible punishment, including death. Paul can’t in good conscience keep Onesimus for himself. What to do?

The core problem, of course, is slavery. Here is a human being, a child of God, a baptized child of Jesus Christ, who is property of another human being, another child of God, another baptized child of Jesus Christ. Paul sees the problem as clearly as we do. This isn’t right. These two men, Philemon and Onesimus, are brothers. They are peers. They are equals or at least should be. And it is from that idea that Paul formulates his response.

I could command you, Paul insinuates, drawing upon his well-earned authority as one of the major apostles of the Church, to do what’s right. This is how he begins his appeal to Philemon. But he quickly changes tone, but I’d rather appeal to you out of love. There’s that word again. As I’ve said in recent sermons, we keep coming back to it. It’s about love. It’s always about love.

Here is your slave, Onesimus, Paul writes. I love him. He is my son. He is my brother. He has proven of immense use to me (that comes out of a pun that Paul uses here. The name Onesimus means “useless one” in Greek, so he’s using humor here as well.) He is a good man. Do what’s right, for his sake and for mine.

We don’t know what happens to Onesimus, since we don’t get Philemon’s response to Paul’s letter. One can hope that Paul’s appeal struck a chord and Onesimus was granted the freedom that all people have by right.

But what does it all mean to us? Well, again it comes back to love and Jesus’ call to love our neighbor, ourselves, our enemies, and (most importantly) God. How do we live that out? Jesus himself gives numerous examples. He heals the sick, welcomes the stranger, eats with the outcast, and dies and rises again for the sake of the whole world. Paul is living into that model himself. He has gone to the four corners of the world to spread the gospel of Jesus and it's landed him in prison. And now comes this moment to put into practice all that he’s been taught by Christ. Let Onesimus go. He is your brother. Love him as such.

We in these modern times should take this lesson to heart as well. We here in America carry an ugly legacy of our time of slavery. We fought a bitter and bloody civil war to resolve the question of whether people who are different from us white folk are, in fact, human beings worthy of rights. That battle did not end with Appomattox, but continued through resistance against Jim Crow, and the KKK, and even today we do not give people of color a fair shake in our society. As a certain football quarterback’s defiance of our patriotic traditions has uncomfortably reminded us.

What would Paul’s words to us be about our brothers and sisters who are different by race, national origin, sexual orientation, or whatever other dividing line we’ve put between us and them? It’s not hard to guess because it always comes back to the same thing: love. Love them. What does love demand of us? To do right by them. To treat them with dignity and respect. To listen to them when they speak of what their lives and circumstances are like. To discard unhelpful and hurtful stereotypes like the lazy Mexican or the thuggish gangbanger. To recognize our common humanity, our brotherhood and sisterhood with one another.

Dismantling racism, sexism, and all the other isms, phobias, and bigotries that plague our society is going to take more work than simply abstaining from using certain insults and opposing certain supremacist organizations. It’s about building each other up. It’s about walking together, arm in arm to build a better world.

What would you do if you were Philemon? Most of us, given that hypothetical, would free Onesimus without hesitation. Well, do that, here and now, for all the Onesimus’ of the world! That’s our calling as Christians. That’s what the kingdom of God inbreaking upon the world looks like. For God so loved the world...the whole world to give us Jesus. He came for everyone, regardless of these human-created dividers between us. He loves everyone and the people of the world see THAT when we as Christians live it out in our lives in the world.

Much like Paul talking to Philemon, I’m not really telling you anything you don’t already know. You’ve been taught love here in Church from the first day you came. Just do it. Do it for Christ and do it for them. Love will build us a better world. It starts with you and me discarding the world’s lies about what people are like and choosing that path of love. Go forth and love. Amen.

Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on August 28, 2016
Scripture text: Luke 14:7-14

Who do you think you are?

Not “who are you?” That question is usually easily answered. I am Allen or I am the Pastor of Canadochly or I am the husband of Sarah or so forth. No, the question is “who do you think you are?” That’s a different animal. When it is asked of us, the situation is usually tense. There’s a hostility in the question. “How dare you! Who do you think you are?” The context is usually some manner of social faux pas, when we have presumed too much of our standing and station.

But that stand-offish character may make it a better question than “who are you,” because it really gets to the heart of our sense of identity. Who we truly are is often less important than who we think we are in this great big world; because, like it or not, there is a pecking order among us humans. A caste system, a hierarchy, a pack mentality, with alphas, betas, and everything all the way down to the omegas. And where you fall on that list determines a great deal about your life.

Most of us want to be higher on that list than we probably deserve, since there so many tangible rewards for those higher up. Greater wealth, greater opportunity, some immunity from disaster, and so forth. So we fight for those places, we scramble and struggle, and occasionally we lie and decieve ourselves to the top. All for that reward.

So who DO you think you are?

This question is on Jesus’ mind in our Gospel reading for today. He’s been invited to a banquet at the home of a Pharisee. He enters early and watches the people as they arrive, making note of where they choose to sit at the banquet and WHY. It becomes clear from his observations that people are jockeying for the best seats. They want the ear of their host or at least someone who has the ear of their host. Some are likely stepping above their station, hoping that either no one will call them on it or that by their presumption they might get that bit of elevation in life they seek. They’re playing a game, the game of social status and prestige.

We all do this, often times without even knowing it. Other times it's very deliberate. Human beings are political animals, even in circumstances that don’t on the surface seem political. Who we associate with in social settings says a lot about who we THINK we are. We play this game too.

But there’s a problem with the game. In our efforts to elevate ourselves to whatever social standing we think we deserve, we often leave something (or rather someone) behind. “Who do you think you are” is often about “who you’ve left behind” and “who you think is beneath you.”

Jesus offers two bits of advice. The first has a certain snark to it. Rather than presume the place you deserve, take the lowest position and see what happens. Those who’ve truly earned their prestige (by whatever means it's measured) will find themselves asked to come up higher, while those who’ve presumed too much may find themselves very disappointed.

The second is directed to the Pharisee, to the host. Rather than invite the deserving, invite the undeserving and see what happens. That changes the whole game. Rather than this jockeying game of prestige and politics, you’ll have instead an outpouring of gratitude, thankfulness, and praise.There are other rewards to be had, Jesus implies, when you refuse to play the old games.

So what does all this really mean?

Well, who do you think you are? Author John Steinbeck once commented that American society is made up almost entirely of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” and I’ve seen plenty of evidence that his analysis is spot on. We all want more than we have, in fact, we feel we deserve it. So the game goes on. Is that who you think you are?

Jesus offers an alternative. You are a child of God, born of the waters of baptism. You are called through those waters not to power or prestige but to service. You are not meant to leave people behind on some ambitious climb to the heights of glory, but to mingle in their midst and do what needs to be done for them.

Jesus himself provides the model for this. Think about this for a second. Here is God incarnate, the divine being embodied in this human being. All that power, all that knowledge, all that glory. If there can be said to be anyone at the top of the pecking order, it’s Jesus or it should be. The alpha of alphas. And yet the place he claims is not the top, but the bottom. He’s born in a barn, not a palace. He embraces the unclean and the outcast, making him in the eyes of society their equal.

He heals the sick. He helps those in need. He’s not all that interested in people’s fawning adoration. Sure, people worship him and fall down before him, but usually only after he’s done some act of great kindness and compassion. He’s made the blind to see or brought a beloved child back from death. When he dies, it’s not the quick clean honorable death that those of prestige who’ve fallen from grace receive (beheading, if you’re curious). No, he dies the slave’s death, dangled from a cross as exhaustion and exposure prolong his suffering as long as possible. He dies as he lived, a servant to all.

Think about that for a moment. No matter where you think you belong on the social hierarchy, the King of Kings places himself below you. The reason he does that is because his love for you is so great that he’ll anything for you, even die a horrible death on a cross. You are the most important thing in the world to him. You are what matters. He loves you beyond description and so he serves you. God, the creator of all things, humbles himself before you, because of how much you matter to him.

And he does that for each and every one of us. Your perspective on life will change when you recognize that not only does God love you that much, but he also loves the person next to you that much too. And if they’re that important to God, how important should they be to you?

Who do you think you are? Some temporarily embarrassed millionaire, doing everything in their power to reclaim what they think they deserve out of life. Or a child of God, seeking to serve those for whom our Savior lived and died? A good question. Amen.