saying something

Sermon
Augsburg Confession Day
June 27th, 2010
Ocean Forest

Something needs to be said
AC VII and Isaiah 55:6

Sometimes something needs to be said about what you believe. You find yourself in situations where you just know that people are either looking to you as the nearest representative of the Christian Faith to say something on an issue or about how God sees things, or, you feel in your conscience that you need to offer a word of truth into a conversation.

In my role as Padre, I get quite a few invites to say something about thing religious or spiritual because people think I am some sort of expert of God! If only they knew the truth! I suspect our teachers here get many moments in which to say something about their faith and their church too.

I remember once a long time ago, long before I was anywhere near being a student of theology or pastor, I had one of those really hard conversations with an old friend around a kitchen table with a few others listening in. He kept pushing me for an affirmation that all roads lead to heaven – all faiths in all deities and gods are in the end the means of finding peace with God. I just could not do that – especially considering those words of Jesus – I am the way, truth and life and no one comes to God the Father except through me….” In the end we had to agree to disagree. It was difficult. Others around the table were not willing to so bold as to offer their opinion!

Not long ago I went to speak to a couple who wanted to talk to me about having their children baptized here. I know them fairly well. I played soccer with the guy for 5 years and got to know his wife through the club. Low and behold, as often happens, they are now “parents of the college”.

They grew up without any meaningful experience of the church and they want to know now. I could feel their hunger for spiritual understanding. I had the opportunity to respond to their questions. Question on whether or not the Bible is really a special “God book” or just a human thing; what is sin and what can God do about the world; what place have little kids got in the church, and so on…. It was great.
Speaking to a senior class at college: They want to know but it is hard for them to ask because of appearances in their peer group. The hunger is there and they are listening, even if they have to make sure that their peers don’t see them listening too much. Things need to be said.

What about you? Had those kind of experiences where you were invited or just felt that it was a moment to say what you believe when it comes to life and God and church?

I reckon it would be most Christian people’s No 2 fear, though. If the No 1 fear of everyone is to speak in public, then for the Christian saying something even mildly definitive about their faith might be close second!

I guess that is because we know from the word, history and from experience that saying something about God and who he is an how he works can cost us – friends, family members, colleagues, status, even livelihood and maybe in extreme situations – our life.

As a result of this fear of saying something when needed, someone suggested that “In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering”(Howard Henricks).

It seems worthwhile for us to reflect on that defining moment of the reformation movement when the gathered new community of faith within Mother Church had the guts to say something under extreme threat.

On June 25th, in the fair southern German city of Augsburg, the newly gathered evangelical community still within the Roman Catholic church said something about who they become. The tone of the Augsburg Confession is quite conciliatory and is firmly founded on the established belief of the Christian church. It begins by affirming the bible and the three great universal creeds (Athanasian, Nicene and Apostle’s Creed) and then totally reforms the basic teaching of the church centred around that chief tenant of the Christian Faith – peace with God only by God’s gracious act of love in Jesus Christ, only received by faith in him.

There was still the belief that if this moment could handled with all care in a gracious tone, there would not need to be a parting of ways and a severing of the relationship with Mother Church. If only they could hear us they too might be revolutionized by the grace if God given in Jesus and recovered with a simple but profound faith!

We know the rest. This moment did not become a moment of genuine church-wide reformation around Jesus Christ’s forgiveness. Instead it signaled more mistrust, disunity and in the end a splintering of the Church, both in organizational/institutional terms, but more importantly in faith and practice terms.

And here we are, still splintered and still wondering what we are all doing here together! We have Lutheran, Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Dutch Reformed, Quakers, Church of Christ, a plethora of Pentecostal communities, and so on.

I do believe that we all are God’s church. In fact one the things I am most thankful for in the Augsburg Confession is that it says that “the church is the assembly of God’s holy people in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments administered rightly (according to the gospel). The one holy church will remain forever” (AC VII 1-2).

We take this mean that as far as the gospel in proclaimed and the sacraments administered according to the gospel” there is the one, holy catholic church”. Despite our tendency to alienate and make human lines in the sand about who is in and who is out, the foundational approach the Lutheran church has to other traditions is all about the gospel. Wherever it is preached and God’s sacrament gifts administered, there are my brothers and sisters in this one Church of Jesus.

It even goes on to say that “it is enough for the true unity of the church to agree concerning teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments”. The good news of Jesus which is only to be received by faith, not by earning it in lots of good deeds or intellectual understanding or any other “merit” we might try to put on it, is the point of our unity in Christ.

“It is not necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies instituted by human beings be alike everywhere”, says the AC. (AC VII 3-4)

People can misread that to suggest that rites, and ceremonies are to be done away with and dismissed as useless. That is not the case. The confessors are simply saying that they don’t need to be uniform for me to accept another person as a member of God’s church. These same people spent a whole lot of time reforming rites and ceremonies and liturgies to make them “gospel-centred”, or “evangelical” because they knew that we need ways to gather, words to speak, songs to sing and rituals to enact as we journey together in faith.

So, friends, we come from somewhere and are a part of much bigger story and a global community of huge diversity and this is to be enjoyed! We would be wise to reflect on what we love about our church, our school and what we know fo this bigger story that we are now a part of. Knowing who we are and what we love about our church will surely help us find confidence to truly engage with others and when the time is right – to actually say something of our trust in the our God.

We have no need of being scared of other Christians or other people in general. Yes, we need to be careful with God’s word and how we represent him and his people, but not scared. We are given opportunities to say something and we can take those opportunities – not to judge and condemn people, but to simply bear witness to Jesus, to share how God’s grace in him has revolutionized our life, our view, our direction in life.

The Spirit’s promise is that our words don’t fall to ground without God achieving his intended goal. As the rain of your witnessing words fall into the heart of the one to whom your bear that witness of Jesus, it will yield God’s harvest. So, we really cannot lose when saying something sometimes!

Sermon
Pentecost 3C
Sunday June 13, 2010
Ocean Forest

The Love of Forgiveness
Luke 7: 36-50

The one who thinks he is learned gets taught a lesson and the one is not supposed to know anything good “learns” Jesus. That’s the reality of this dinner party moment to remember, as Luke tells it.

One of the fellows listening to Jesus on a particular day in the local village takes the punt and invites him home for dinner. Now, this man belonged to a group of men who had very strong opinions on just about everything and saw themselves as being the teachers and guardians of God’s people. They were professional teachers of the bible. But this man who sees himself as a teacher is going to be taught a lesson about life and faith by a person he least expects to be able to teach him anything.

It’s not clear from Luke why this teacher invited Jesus, “The Teacher”, home for dinner. Was he wanting to really listen to Jesus without the condemnation of his friends? He could do that at home. Luke suggests that this man who was a member of the very powerful Pharisee party had heard that Jesus was supposed to be a great prophet. That news had been circulating ever since Jesus raised up the young son of a single mum who lived in the town of Nain (Luke 7:17).

Was the Pharisee wanting to get Jesus to let down his guard so that he could tell Jesus a thing or two and quieten him down a bit because Jesus was causing a few headaches for him and his friends? Was he genuinely wanting to hear the word of the prophet? Who knows…?

Now have you ever been invited to dinner where someone does something that is really embarrassing? Someone does something really bold and unashamed and sort of spoils the whole night?! You know; someone has gas or burps out loud…. Really embarrassing! Or more intense – someone mentions THAT thing that happened that we are all meant to forget, or, they raise THAT issue which everyone knows will go down like a lead balloon.

Well this little dinner party is not going to be one of light conversation, a few wines and jolly good fun!

As Jesus the teacher and this teacher of Israel lean on their elbows at a low table sharing a meal, this woman comes in and she is visibly upset. The Pharisee and all other local people would know that it is THAT woman. They roll their eyes, no doubt…

Luke says she has “learnt” that the Teacher is in town. She does this very bold, upsetting, risky thing – not just the risky thing of actually entering the house of a Pharisee, but then, sitting next to Jesus as she cries, and then with her tears she washes Jesus’ feet with her own hair. And then to make the moment cuttingly complete, she then kisses his feet and bathes his tired feet in expensive ointment. Oh, the shock of it and the shamelessness of this woman.

We get an inside thought of this Pharisee, “If this guy were really a prophet of God he would know that this woman is a shameless sinner who is notorious in these parts. If he were a teacher from God he would know that he is being defiled by the touch of this lower-class, untouchable sinner”.

We can tell that this man concludes that there is nothing for him, the learned one, to learn from this so-called prophet. He is the one who is the teacher after all. He is safe in his own importance.

But then a word from the one we know to be the real teacher in life. Jesus now addresses this Pharisee by his name – Simon. “Simon, I know what you’re thinking about this woman and about me, but let me teach you now…”. “I have something to say to you”, says Jesus.

Jesus the teacher says to Simon the teacher in the presence of the woman who has done all the learning, “Teacher, tell me what you think about this”.

There are two men who owe a lot of money to their bank manager. One owes $1M and the other $1/2M. Both of them are broke and can’t pay their debt to the banker. The banker does the unexpected and writes off their debt. They are both now are square with their banker. Which one of these fellows will love the forgiving banker more?

“Well, I suppose the guy who had the biggest debt cancelled by the banker”, says Simon.

“Yep, you are spot on, Simon”, says Jesus.

And now Jesus is going to teach this teacher something most important for him and all of us.

He says to Simon while looking at this woman still bathing his feet, “The one who has been forgiven little loves little”. Or, “If you are forgiven little, you will love little”. Or put the other way, “As you are forgiven much you will love much”.

That’s the life lesson that this teacher is helped to learn. I reckon the “unlearned” woman already had learned this. Love has to do with being forgiven - not keeping rules or appearances or knowledge about things – even God.

The love that this woman showed in her hospitality, her welcome, her touch, her affection and her serving has its source in the forgiveness that only Jesus could give.

In other words, as we are forgiven we are set free to respond honesty and freely to God and others in love. Love comes from forgiveness. Forgiveness produces love. The more we are forgiven the more there is love in our lives.

So where is it? Where is love in your life? Where is forgiveness? Where is lack of these at the moment? The Spirit is wanting to touch those points of unforgiveness, guilt, shame and anger against another now.

True self-giving self-less love come from forgiveness. But where does forgiveness come from?

Well, notice that Jesus didn’t say – the more WE forgive the more we love. If that were so, love in our marriages, our families and among our friends would all depend on our ability to forgive, and as we know, forgiveness can be the hardest thing of all to give.

No, Jesus says, the more we are forgiven (by God) the more we will be his love for others. So even our ability and willingness to forgive so that we can love again comes from love – from the One who is Love.

By faith in Jesus, that One is present now and I have no doubt he wants to free us from our lack of love, our pain, our sorrow and our lack of forgiveness so that we can love again and be loved again.

Friends, this teacher had to learn a lesson about that most longed for thing – love. He who was so concerned about keeping rules and doing the right thing had to learn of God’s love that is so much bigger than rules. We need to learn love to.


Like that woman, who taught the teacher so much, Jesus has welcomed us, embraced us, wept for us, and bathed us in his forgiveness by his cross. He has become that sinful woman for us and we have become his righteousness. He now offers a moment to receive his unabashed forgiveness and love to set us free now.

Will we welcome his forgiveness today – especially in those long-held places of unforgiveness we may carry? Will we give up those pet dislikes, those things of hatred or dread and let the Lord surround them with his forgiveness and so, remove them from us?

Or, is it true that “we want just enough forgiveness so that we don't feel so bad, but not enough to make us change our lives? Or can we urge each other in Jesus to become so devoted to him that we act in ways contrary to society's expectations” (Brian Stoffregen).

Will we hand over the bag of bad words and deeds that have weighed us down and receive the light and fulfilling load of forgiveness from Christ this day? This is what he offers and as we are forgiven much, we will love much – that is his promise.

Sermon
Pentecost 2C
Sunday June 6, 2010.
Galatians 1: 11-24

Confidence to live“Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy”. -Samuel Johnson

I wonder if this might be part of our experience as people with belief in the God of the bible? This belief is often under attack and we sense that somehow this diminishes our confidence in God, our confidence in church, our confidence in ourselves, as Spirit-filled people of God, to live out this faith we have been given?
The question for me is – where do I look to regain confidence in faith – confidence for living this calling fully and freely with all the confidence in God’s world!? Someone said, “Confidence in courage at ease”. I like that. I want to have consistent courage to risk truly living but be at ease – not angry, not judgmental – open, compassionate, strong in faith and relationship with Jesus and others.
As we hear something of Paul’s personal story in this first part of his letter to the Galatian Christians, we hear that he is sharing his story for a reason. He is defending himself and correcting wrong views for the sake of the gospel for which he lives and breathes.

Paul obviously has his detractors. People seemed to have doubted his integrity and his authenticity when it came to being an apostle (a ‘sent one’ called by Jesus himself). I guess that stands to reason. Paul was not actually one of the original 12 and he never suggests that he knew Jesus “in the flesh”. Instead he always recounts that Damascus Road experience when he personally heard the voice of Jesus calling him. He says he is one “abnormally born”, but nevertheless, “an Apostle, sent not my human beings but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead”(Gal 1:1).

Paul had to deal with what all people in any kind of responsible position have to deal with. He had to live with what any leader has to live with. He had to cope with what any Christian living their faith in practice has to cope with: People, who from time-to-time, doubt your skill, your sincerity, your ability or even your integrity – for whatever reason.

This kind of experience is not just some “leadership issue”. When people doubt your calling, your place, your authority and even your integrity, it is personal and it can often hurt. All the little voices of self accusation and self doubt can built to destroy confidence and self-esteem, not to mention puting a dent in one’s faith in the One who has called you and placed you in that role with that authority.
So, Paul, like most of us, had his moments of doubt and pain (inflicted by others). He needed to find the confidence to keep believing, keep hoping and keep doing his calling to be a person “sent by God” to live and tell the good news.

Paul’s confidence came down to trust; trusting that this faith and this calling he had received through no great contribution of his own skills or personality, was not actually only to do with his own mind, or personality or giftedness, but that his life and his role and his gifts came from God’s intervention in his life. In the face of criticism and judgment from others (often very unfair) he seems to look outside of himself to the Word of God he knew and the experience of God he had.

I suspect we tend to live as though it is all up to us and that we have to figure everything else out all by ourselves. We have to draw out all of this confidence to live life in God’s grace and love from inside of us all the time.
We find this less risky. I wonder if we would rather tough it out alone with a lack of confidence and hope in the Spirit’s power and grace than seek a Word from God through a friend, a worship experience, or a personal reflection in the Word of God.

Maybe this is so because we are just too proud to admit we need help and power to live our calling. Maybe we are just too scared. The risk of being judged by God or his people might freak us out? Maybe we just don’t believe that God can really help or that anyone else would give us the time of day?
Paul can give us some practical ways in which we can seek that confidence to live out our calling as his people with confidence – to have ‘courage at ease’.

Paul bears witness to the reality that we gain our confidence to live Jesus’ way of love by not only looking within but looking outside of ourselves to remember who it is that we have been created and called to be.
In prison, in betrayal, in unfair and harsh personal criticism, Paul seems to suggest doing three things. He takes time to process his experience, he looks outside of himself to the Word he knew and he drew on the experience of the Holy Spirit he was given and he internalizes that outside word so that it becomes part of him. We need to do these three things too if we are to live confidently and faithfully in Christ.

Paul took time – a lot of time. First, three years, and then another 14 years of living and working among local people, just doing his work and loving the people among whom God had placed him – before he eventually heads back to the Big time in Jerusalem. He did not seem to be in a hurry to become someone he wasn’t. All this time was the natural process of “working out his salvation”, as he calls it in another letter. He stayed where he was put, constantly processing the huge event of being named and called by God to serve in his world.

Paul looked beyond himself to find God. No doubt, there is a time for self – reflection and even introspection. Paul seemed to automatically know that he needed this time immediately after his Damascus Road experience. He went off to somewhere East of Damascus for three years, he says.

I take this as an acknowledgement that it is okay, and in fact needed, to process what is happening to us, especially when big things happen to us. When life takes a dramatic turn and we sense God’s Spirit doing things that are shifting us sideways in some way, we need to do a Paul and focus on it and reflect internally on it.
But there is no way a man who has been brought up memorizing the OT would have ever only looked inside himself for the confidence to live out the ramifications of what God had done in him. He would have surely looked to Another for spiritual life and wisdom. He would have gone over those well worn stories and events that had shaped him but had now been revolutionized by Jesus in his own mind and spirit. In God’s greater story and experience of God’s presence was confidence to live now.
We can definitely view our baptism as our original “Damascus Road” experience by which we have been given life in God and calling to be his ministers of his Word.

As Paul looks back to his Big moment of calling from Jesus to find confidence to continue on his life’s work in the face of criticism, conflict, harsh words and the pain they cause, so we can look back to our baptism as that sure calling and promise of God that gives us the confidence again that we are still God’s loved people, still called, still having a future in God and a community to which we have the right to belong.

Paul then was able to internalize those big stories of God and his people into his own experience and find integrity, honesty, consistency in world view and yet stay open to “staying in step with the Spirit” as he puts it elsewhere.

Confidence for living the calling of God we have here will come from taking time to process what is happening, consulting outside ourselves, particularly in God’s Word and owning what we find; taking into the heart the things we hear from God through the Word, people and what is around us.

When confident in God and our place in him, we will look in that mirror and overlook the guilt, the trouble, the weaknesses, the pain, the hang-ups and see the “Lion of Judah” instead of a small little pussy cat!

Take time as you sense you need it.

Look outside yourself to the Word and let him speak to you through it and others.

Take what you hear into the heart and let it sit there and practice what you hear.

No need to be in a hurry to become what you are not. The Spirit’s word working in us might take a year or two, or even a decade!

The thing is that we can take the risk of sharing our lack of confidence because He is giving the gift of confidence to live in your place, your body, your history, your skills, all the time.

When we look in the mirror we can see ourselves as the “lion of Judah” and not just that little pussy cat! That’s not because we are so fantastic, but because the Spirit is living and working in us – through the Word, active in others, in our time out, in our pursuits, in the Word, in our relationships.

Courage at ease, today, friends. Confidence to live is ours. Take the time. Remember the Word and the experiences. Remember your baptism, own these internally and put your confidence in the Spirit of Jesus living in you and through you. Amen.

Sermon
Holy Trinity 2010.
May 30, 2010
Ocean Forest

Life is better in community

Friends, this is the only Sunday dedicated to a doctrine of the church. Holy Trinity is a focus and celebration on the biblical reality of God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the one and only ‘Triune God’.

Why celebrate a doctrine? The famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant, probably spoke for a lot of people when he said, 'even if one claims to understand it, the doctrine of the Trinity provides [us with] nothing, absolutely nothing, of practical value.' He said that we need to face the fact that it 'offers absolutely no guidance for conduct.'

Many might agree…..Doctrine is not practical. The doctrines of the church are the things that hold us back spiritually. The doctrines of the church are just human constructions anyway. They have been used to control people instead of encourage and focus people spiritually.

Keeping the church’s long-held doctrines at a distance from my spiritual life may serve some purpose for some people, – until the chips are down and we really need some clarity about who we are, who God is and how he says he works, what the world is and where we are all going. It is then all of sudden very relevant to talk about what the church actually has taught, what doctrines it has upheld and for what reasons.

After all, doctrines don’t have to be seen as a big set of sticks used to keep all of us on the straight and narrow or some thing that leaders use to control our thinking. Neither do the great doctrines of the church come from thin air – they come from rigorous, long-term dialogue with the biblical witness.

The doctrines we have arrived at from the bible, like, what grace is, what the church is, who God is, what sin is and etc…. are God’s stuff. He reveals himself in this Word he has given. Doctrine can be seen as a dialogue with God and each other – not for limitation but for the care, shaping and making of people – God’s loved people.

Leonardo Boff, the Latin American liberation theologian, spoke for millions of poor people in base church communities around the world, when he said that the 'divine society' was their 'permanent utopia' - the true social program for any human society seeking participation, equity and equality.

I am with Boff. God is Community in perfect unity and harmony and his way of being communal is there for us to live together. God three and yet God is one – an unfathomable mystery which is only grabbed hold of by faith, each “person connected in love, sacrificial giving, intimate conversation, close understanding, mutual submission, deep concern…….

So, contrary to the popular view, I am into doctrine because I trust that God is God, and the church is not only an institution, but a community of people who have struggled and dialogued and suffered for clarity on this life of faith we are called to live.

“Guard your doctrine (or teaching) carefully, says Paul to the young Timothy. “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise people”, encouraged St Paul, “so that you are not tossed about with ‘every wind of doctrine and listen to what itching ears want to hear’, but seek the teaching of God and discern his will in his Word”.

So, this Sunday dedicated to a foundation reality is okay by me. In fact, I wonder if it gives us a way of viewing ourselves that the world just cannot give us?

(Comments by Dave Andrews, Australian author and thinker…../)
See, “everybody loves ‘community’.

According to sociologists Colin Bell and Howard Newby, 'everyone - even sociologists (who usually like to sit on the fence) - want to live in community.'

Aussie commentator, Hugh Mackay, says that human beings are like mobs of kangaroos, because - like them - 'we are creatures who thrive on our connections with each other. We are at our best when we are fully integrated with the herd; we are at our worst when we are isolated.'

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam observes that
1. We are most healthy when we are most connected., People who are connected are less likely to suffer heart attacks, strokes, cancer - even colds! They are also two to five times less likely to die prematurely.
2. We are most happy when we are most connected. The best single global indicator of happiness is connectedness. Those who have strong relationships with family and friends are much less likely to experience loneliness, low self-esteem, eating and sleeping disorders, and sadness and depression, than those with weak relationships.
3. We are most honest when we are most connected. In relationships, long-term credibility is worth a lot more than any gain from short-term treachery. This explains why there are a lot fewer unreliable used cars returned to second-hand dealers in small town communities.
4. We are most generous when we are most connected. The most common reason for giving is being asked. The most common reason for not giving is not being asked. People are more likely to be asked if they are in contact with others. Thus, people in clubs and churches are ten times more likely to give help than those who are not.
5. We are most prosperous when we are most connected. When people know one another, they are much more likely to share access to jobs, promotions, bonuses, and other benefits. Moreover, when people trust one another, there is a significant reduction in expenses from the cost of security to insurance.
6. We are most safe and most secure when we are most connected. The willingness of neighbours to look after one another, and to actually intervene to protect one another when someone causes trouble, can reduce all kinds of crime in a neighbourhood. A local neighbourhood watch can reduce graffiti, muggings, even gang violence”.
For me, this teaching called “Holy Trinity is all about being connected – connected to God and to each other in God – who himself is a connected communal being. Holy Trinity is Community. Being at home in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with all you mob brings to my spiritual life the gifts of health, happiness, honesty, generosity, prosperity, safety and security.

God, the Divine community – Father, Son and Spirit, as the New Testament names God, is surely our permanent utopia – our permanent goal, hope, direction and belonging, from which we draw all those good things mentioned.

Because, by virtue of God’s grace poured out into our very being in baptism, we are in community with the Divine community. We experience very good things;
We have a Divine community from which we all can draw health, happiness, generosity, honesty, prosperity, safety and security in our identity as God loved as accepted people.

This is very good news for anyone who is experiencing ‘unhealth’ or a who may be a long way from being happy with their life. There is Somewhere to go to be re-connected and regenerated – our God, the only God, the communal God who loves us to be with him in community.

Trusting God as a deeply communal and welcoming God is such a relief when we desperately need to be honest and generous. The sense of thankfulness that comes from receiving everything we own and enjoy from a communal God who gathers us and gives to us constantly re-shapes our lives into lives of prosperity but also generosity with all we have been given.

Tell me how good it is to return to a safe place when you have been in dangerous territory. This is the Holy Trinity- this is our God – a community of belonging and safety and a trustful future.

Maybe we could view our God in his communal character as home? Like, when I am out on my motorbike of mountain bike a long way from home in the wind and rain. It is dangerous in these conditions. I must be very careful and be very alert and disciplined. There is fear. But then I think of home and that my future (God willing) is home. I will come home and be safe. I can drop my guard, talk about the journey, rest, enjoy, love and be loved….

That’s our God. That’s the Divine community for all of our life – in the dangerous borderlands of faith and in the bosom of the church- the people of God. We go out and we come in surrounded by and fortified in our spirit by the reality that we belong, we have a place, a home, a community – we are people of the Divine Community, the Holy Trinity. We are ever being drawn deeper into this community of perfect unity and love and one day we know in full what we only now glimpse.
All praise be to God, the Father, Son and Spirit, our home, our place, our community of love.

Life is definitely better in community!