Again & Again: God Meets Us

 Mark 1:9-15       Common English Bible

About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”

At once the Spirit forced Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.

After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”

My earliest memories of the church are all very positive.

When I was five years old, my parents moved to Roselle, Illinois --- which was then the farthest reaches of the western suburbs of Chicago.

The formative years of my Christian experience took place there --- and it was there that I stood before the church and confirmed my baptism and claimed it for my own.

But what I remember most about the Roselle United Methodist Church (we became united while I was there) are two things.  

It was during this period that I developed my love for coffee --- I took a little coffee with my sugar. --- Now I drink my coffee black.

We must not have had donuts --- because it is coffee that I remember.

Second --- my love for live music

The church put on a teen night, in the basement and even though I wasn’t old enough --- I always got to go and hear the local bands.

But it wasn’t until later that I learned --- what I have come to believe --- are the most important lessons from God.

There are two parts to this lesson --- and I think we can learn them in any number of different ways.

Individually

Or hand in hand

As I reflect back on my life --- I am pretty convinced that I learned them independently.

The first of these two ideas that I learned is that GOD IS WIH ME

For whatever reason --- I have always felt the presence of God

Sure there have been times when I have felt abandoned by God

But they are few and fleeting

In hindsight --- I can always see that God has been with me.

What I have not always felt --- is the love of God

I think this was especially true when I was younger

Though Sunday School --- and the culture

I saw God as mean and angry

Always looking for a reason to punish me.

It was almost a mentality of a God filled with wrath --- disappointed with me

It wasn’t until years later that I began to see and experience a God who loved me unconditionally.

And that completely changed my relationship with God

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent.

Lent is a 40 day period in which we are called to prepare ourselves spiritually.

As the book of worship says:

During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.

It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins

and had separated themselves from the community of faith

were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness,

and restored to participation in the life of the Church.

In this way the whole congregation was reminded

of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ

and the need we all have to renew our faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,

to observe a holy Lent:

by self–examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting, and self–denial;

and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word.

It is seen as an austere season

A time of self-reflection

Traditionally in the Roman Catholic Church one is not allowed to be married during this season --- although in the last few years a number of parishes have changed that practice and now allow weddings but not all parishes.

It is often seen as a bleak, dreary season.

The words we proclaim as the ashes are placed on the forehead are:

You are dust --- and to dust you shall return.

But what if we turn this season on its head?

Instead of focusing on the NOTs --- what we cannot have --- wat we are giving up

A season of depravation

Rather focusing on the opportunities

Pope Francis reminds us of this opportunity when he remarked:

Yet we are dust in the loving hands of God, who has breathed his spirit of life upon each one of us, and still wants to do so.

After the creation stories in Genesis, we get the story of Adam and Eve and the beginning of civilization.

Right away things don’t go as God had intended.

Humankind decides to go their own way.

So God decides to destroy the earth with a great flood

I don’t know about you --- but that is a story that I have always found troublesome

Regardless, God chooses Noah --- and invites him to build an ark to protect his family and a pair of each animal on the earth.

This is the story I asked you to read at home this week, particularly when God makes a covenant with Noah.

“This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.” (Genesis 9:9-16 The Message)

What God wants us to remember is not the destruction --- but the promise --- the covenant

The promise that even in the midst of pain --- God is there.

All four of the Gospels tell us the story of Jesus being baptized by John in the river Jordan.  They each bring their own unique twists and insights into the story --- but each want us to know that --- the baptism of Jesus is the start of his ministry.

In our earliest gospel Mark’s telling of the story we find great efficiency of words.

In seven verses we learn of three major events in the life of Jesus.

The first event is his baptism --- it is here where a voice calls out to Jesus and proclaims: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

God claims Jesus as his very son.

The second event is what we call the temptation in the wilderness.

For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him. (Mark 1:13 The Message)

The final event in rapid succession tells us of the arrest of John the baptizer and the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.

There is one common thread through all three of these stories 

--- the presence of God.

In the most important moments of life --- in Jesus’ life and your life --- God is always present.

Recently, the Thursday lunch group was talking about stories

I asked everyone to write down the pivotal moments in their life story

The good --- the bad --- the ugly

And then I asked if they saw a theme

One theme was crystal clear to me --- at all those moments 

The high ones and the low ones

God was there.

The same is true in the life of Jesus

God was always present in every moment in his life

God meets us where we are --- but the good news is --- God doesn’t leave us there.

God gives us the opportunity to move forward

To move from being aware of God’s presence --- to embracing God’s presence.

Remember how I told you that it was at the Roselle UMC that I began my love affair with music

When I work on my sermons I generally have music playing in the background.  

Just as I got to the part where I was talking about God’s presence a song began to play on the radio by Blindfaith.  

Some of you probably recognize the group.

The song goes:

I have finally found a way to live just like I never could before

. . .

I have finally found a place to live, in the presence of the Lord

In the presence of the Lord

How has God come to you --- again and again --- in your life?

I invite you to take a look at your life --- note those “turning points” and see if you don’t find God there as well.

God meets us at these edge places of our life

In suffering

In uncertainty

In reluctance

God meets us there --- but more importantly --- God promises to stay there with us.

God never promised to get rid of the hard places --- what God promises is God’s presence.

So as we begin this season of Lent --- God promises to stay close by

God wants us to recognize that presence and celebrate it.

We sang to start this service “God is here!”  

God is present and drawing us close.

My we live in that belovedness

And may we act as if that belovedness is the cornerstone of our lives.

CLOSING PRAYER (“Prayer by Sarah Are | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.”)

We believe in a God who is everywhere and right here,

Bigger than the sky and in the smallest details,

All at once and in every moment.

We believe that God meets us where we are—

In heartbreak and high hopes,

Around crowded tables and in quiet homes,

In joy and in suffering,

In loneliness and in connection,

In sanctuaries and in living rooms,

In marches and in waiting rooms.

We believe that nothing we do or leave undone

Can distance us from God’s love.

God is forever drawing us close and pulling us in.

Again and again, God meets us where we are

And invites us into wholeness.

Thanks be to God for a love like that.

Our Money Story --- Restore

 

John 21:1-19          Common English Bible

Later, Jesus himself appeared again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. This is how it happened: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two other disciples were together. Simon Peter told them, “I’m going fishing.”

They said, “We’ll go with you.” They set out in a boat, but throughout the night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples didn’t realize it was Jesus.

Jesus called to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?”

They answered him, “No.”

He said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.”

So they did, and there were so many fish that they couldn’t haul in the net. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he wrapped his coat around himself (for he was naked) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they weren’t far from shore, only about one hundred yards.

When they landed, they saw a fire there, with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you’ve just caught.” Simon Peter got up and pulled the net to shore. It was full of large fish, one hundred fifty-three of them. Yet the net hadn’t torn, even with so many fish. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples could bring themselves to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”

Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”

Jesus said to him, “Take care of my sheep.” He asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was sad that Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” He replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.”

Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. I assure you that when you were younger you tied your own belt and walked around wherever you wanted. When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and another will tie your belt and lead you where you don’t want to go.” He said this to show the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. After saying this, Jesus said to Peter, “Follow me.”

 

 

On my second Sunday with you --- almost 5 years ago --- I asked you a rather simple question --- I asked you to show me Jesus --- and what I said was --- what would you show me?  How do you show Jesus to the world?

If there is anything that I have tried to teach you --- it is that your story matters. 

How people see you spend your life

--- spend your words

--- spend your actions (or inactions)

--- how you spend your money

are all pointers toward the Jesus you proclaim.

For the past month we have been talking about Our Money Story --- looking honestly at how we use the resource of money to proclaim the kin-dom of God.

We began by remembering --- remembering that it all belongs to God. 

God is creator of all that there is --- and that God provides to meet our needs. 

But we also remembered that money can be used to betray --- as Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

Then we practiced releasing shame, anxiety, guilt, greed, or anything that keeps us from freedom and wholeness.

We release the elements of our money story that prevent us from fully living into God’s story. 

The freedom from releasing those things that hold us back free us from ourselves --- and liberates others.

Last week we began to reimage our money story.

We began to reimage a world where our social and economic systems provide for and benefit all of God’s children.

And that brings us to today.

The whole purpose of this journey --- of remembering, releasing and reimagining is to help us experience the wholeness that God created us for --- so today we look at our money story and how it can help us restore right relationships with one another.

Those of you have gotten to know me have heard me share the story of Jacob over and over. 

If you have ever visited my blog --- you know the title is Wrestling with God --- because like Jacob --- I have wrestled with God.

Jacob --- whose name means: "to follow, to be behind" because he was the second twin born (behind his brother Esau) but it also means "to supplant, circumvent, assail, overreach" --- which is the story of Jacob’s life.

Jacob, with his mother’s help --- cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright and blessing from their father Isaac.

Because of that --- Jacob is forced to flee the wrath of his older brother.

While living in exile he marries --- and is tricked by his cousin Laban into marrying Laban’s eldest daughter Leah and not the one he loved Rachel. 

Eventually, Jacob --- who has grown very rich decides it is time to return home and confront his elder brother.

On his way to meet his brother --- Jacob wrestles with God --- and wins!

          God blesses Jacob and gives him a new name.

                   No longer will he be the supplanter, but he is now Israel

We are told in Genesis:

“Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”

Jacob/Israel fears encountering his brother, Esau, whom he has deceived --- so he devises a plan to attempt to appease his brother. 

He offers half his riches.

In Genesis 33 we read:

Esau said, “What’s the meaning of this entire group of animals that I met?”

Jacob said, “To ask for my master’s kindness.”

Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what’s yours.”

Jacob said, “No, please, do me the kindness of accepting my gift. Seeing your face is like seeing God’s face, since you’ve accepted me so warmly. Take this present that I’ve brought because God has been generous to me, and I have everything I need.” So Jacob persuaded him, and he took it.

I already have everything thing I need --- God has been generous to me!

We are invited in this story of Jacob and Esau to think about restoration in our own lives.

We cannot earn salvation --- but we are invited to examine our heart’s attitude toward stewardship --- as we as we investigate our own experiences, fears, desires, and passions with money.

Restoration is an act of grace.

Yet I am convinced that good stewardship practices can restore healthy relationships between people, the earth, and God.

Lives are transformed in the giving of gifts to change and repair a broken world.

It is in the act of giving that we often find that we are being reconciled to God.

Our Gospel story continues this theme of restoration. 

This story takes place a week or two after the resurrection.

The disciples have all returned home --- disillusioned, disappointed and no doubt confused about all that they had experienced while Jesus was with them --- and they have gone back to their pre-Jesus lives.

We find several of them back out on the Sea of Galilee --- fishing --- trying to make a living.

But John wants us to know that this had not been a successful fishing trip.

They have been fishing all night long and have caught NOTHING.

A stranger shows up on the beach and suggests that if they just throw their nets on the other side of the boat --- they will catch some fish.

          Not advise most of us want to hear.

But --- for whatever reason --- they decide to give it a try.

And the result was that they were overwhelmed with fish.

But I don’t think the abundance of the catch is the point.

          Jesus is offering a restoration

Remember how we began four weeks ago --- the disciples gathered with Jesus around a table --- remembering stories and dreaming of a new way of life.

          A new economy in which there is enough for everyone.

          A new dream for how we too are to live in community

We end with Jesus and his disciples in virtually the same place:

The disciples once again gathered around a table

          Confused and trying to figure out a way forward.

What I love about this story is that Jesus gives us clear instructions on what we are supposed to do.

“Feed my sheep.”

Because the old way does not work.

It’s not the first time he has told us this.

Do you remember when the crowds had gathered and had been listening to Jesus teaching them and the evening became late.  The disciples come to Jesus and said to him:

“This is an isolated place and it’s getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

But Jesus said to them, “There’s no need to send them away. You give them something to eat.”

YOU --- You “Give them something to eat” --- You “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus is reminding us that the old way no longer works.

He is telling us today that our old money stories no longer work as well.

Sure --- they gave us a foundation. 

But that foundation must be restored

--- it must be made new through God’s economy

And that is the choice that Jesus presents us with

We can live in the old stories, or we can make new ones.

We can find ourselves in fear of the money stories that have taken hold of our lives --- or we can transform them to create them into a new economy --- God’s economy

The good news is Jesus has told us what to do --- we are not left to our own devices.

Jesus says --- let go of the ways we have known       

--- that no longer work

--- and feed the sheep.

Today I invite you to look deeply --- honestly at your money story --- if you haven’t already.

And as you examine your money story to ask God to help you how best you can feed the sheep.

Today we are inviting you to return your faith promise cards.

          These are not a binding pledge

They are an estimates toward the ways that you hope that God will help shape your money story.

Some of you will exceed your expectations and hopes

          Others will still have growth to do

But until we take the step of challenging ourselves and setting a goal

--- we really can’t examine and grow toward God in our money story.

I can give you all the reasons why it is helpful to the church to set this goal

But I would prefer you to look at your relationship with God and seek how it can help that relationship grow by being intentional in your money story.

You can make your estimate by going to our website which I will post in the chat (https://meridianstreet.org/what-if/estimate-of-giving-card/) or by sending your estimate into the office.

It’s your money story --- how does God fit in it?

I asked you to show me Jesus ---

    How does your money story show me Jesus?

Our Money Story: Reimagine

Mark 12:38-44       Common English Bible

As [Jesus] was teaching, he said, “Watch out for the legal experts. They like to walk around in long robes. They want to be greeted with honor in the markets. They long for places of honor in the synagogues and at banquets. They are the ones who cheat widows out of their homes, and to show off they say long prayers. They will be judged most harshly.” 

Jesus sat across from the collection box for the temple treasury and observed how the crowd gave their money. Many rich people were throwing in lots of money. One poor widow came forward and put in two small copper coins worth a penny. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than everyone who’s been putting money in the treasury. All of them are giving out of their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had, even what she needed to live on.”

 

Let me begin with a prayer from Henri Nouwen:

Dear God, 

I so much want to be in control.

I want to be the master of my own destiny.

Still I know that you are saying:

“Let me take you by the hand and lead you.

Accept my love

and trust that where I will bring you,

the deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled.”

Lord, open my hands to receive your gift of love.

Amen.

Sometimes it is easy for us to forget how radical the biblical story is.

In the Torah, in the book of Leviticus – that rule book that most of us like to ignore --- God gives some powerful commands.

Moses is given instructions from Yahweh on how this newly freed people are to live.

Remember --- God had just delivered them from the Egyptians and slavery.

In these laws, God reimagines a whole new way of life for the children of Israel.

The laws of this new kin-dom are created to ensure that all of God’s children live with justice and equality.

          These laws are radical

God seems to be trying to reorient the Israelite’s money story.

While slaves --- money was used as a tool for self-security while impoverishing others

God is seeking to help them see a new vision ---- one where care is given for all --- where all of God’s children have enough

It is a vision which transforms how we relate to our neighbors and our resources.

The instructions, God shared give practical and specific ways to love our neighbor.

In Leviticus 19 we read that God commands that that farmers are to leave gleanings for the poor.

When you harvest your land’s produce, you must not harvest all the way to the edge of your field; and don’t gather up every remaining bit of your harvest. Also do not pick your vineyard clean or gather up all the grapes that have fallen there. Leave these items for the poor and the immigrant; I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:9-10 CEB) 

And then just a few chapters later we find the most radical commandment of all --- the idea of the year of Jubilee.

The practice of Jubilee is when, in a fifty-year cycle, imbalances within the economic structure are rebalanced.

Where “those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.”

Debts were to be forgiven --- and property returned to the original owner.

My Jewish Learning describes it this way:

The seventh year, during which the fields were to be left fallow (Leviticus 25:1-7) and debts released (Deuteronomy 15:1-11) [is called in] Hebrew Shemitah (“Release”). The seven years are counted in the cycle of fifty culminating in the Jubilee

In The Jewish Religion: A Companion explains it this way:

[Jubilee is] the institution described in the book of Leviticus (25:8-24) where it is stated that a series of forty-nine years [was] to be counted . . . and every fiftieth year declared a special year during which there was to be no agricultural work; all landed property was to revert to its original owner; and slaves were to be set free. (Leviticus 25:9) 

Just a little aside --- inscribed in our Liberty Bell that is found in Philadelphia are the words from Leviticus 25:10 which describes the Jubilee.

The Liberty Bell has these words: “proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” which come from the King James Version of the Bible.

In the context of the Liberty Bell, the word “liberty” is usually understood to refer to our values of freedom and independence.

However, in its original context, the Hebrew word dror (best translated as “release”) refers specifically to economic amnesty to be enacted during a year referred to as the Jubilee—from the Hebrew, yovel, which refers to a ram’s horn trumpet blown to announce the occasion.  (William Gilders: Bible Odyssey)

Jesus picks up on this same radical theme in Mark’s Gospel.

And what is challenging is that most of us hear this story of the “widows mite” very differently than the first hearers would have.

I hope that you noticed that I include the story of the “widow’s mite” in its larger literary context --- this context is pretty much the same in both Luke and Mark’s gospel.

The story of the “widow’s mite” is sandwiched between two challenges that Jesus gives to the Scribes and Pharisees.  The harshness of these sayings can still make us squirm, as I am sure that the earliest hears did.

The story of the destruction of the temple --- which opens the 13 chapter of Mark, is especially damning.

Luke Timothy Johnson at the 4^th Annual Lake Lecture in commenting about Luke’s version of this story said:

Those “noble stones and offerings” that Jesus includes in his summary prediction of the temple’s destruction are, after all, precisely the ancient Jewish equivalent of endowed buildings with memorial plaques praising the benefactions of pious donors, the visible evidence of noble philanthropy. And the ancient scribes with their religious garb and public posturing were not so different from contemporary examples of preachers “swallowing the houses of widows” for their self-aggrandizing projects.

The middle part of our sandwich is especially challenging to understand.

Luke Timothy Johnson continued:

It has a double contrast: between the wealthy and the destitute widow on one hand; between the gifts of the rich given out of their excess and the gift of the widow out of her neediness on the other. The widow is said to have given “more than all the rest,” not because of the size of her gift but because of its more radical character: by donating two of the smallest coins in circulation, she was giving away “all her life (bios),” that is, all that supported her marginal existence. The wealthy could give greater amounts but with less impact on themselves. The measure of giving, it appears, is here less the product than the cost. 

Before the destruction of the temple, [the treasury] was the method used to fulfill the demands of Torah for the collection of alms for those perennially dispossessed in a land-based economy in a patriarchal society, namely widows, orphans, and sojourners.

By giving to the treasury, the rich were fulfilling their responsibilities --- so that the widow did not have to.

The reality is: widows were not required to give to the temple.

Widows and the perennially dispossessed were to be cared for through the safety nets that were created by these gifts --- to keep the dispossessed from falling.

Even in Jesus time --- the systems weren’t working and needed reimagining. 

This widow gives all that she has --- and the system fails her.

How would it change the story --- if we hear it like I believe the earliest followers of Jesus did --- with Jesus telling this story, sandwiched between the others --- to use her act of giving as a way to highlight the corruption of the economic system in power?

What if Jesus tells this story to show us, in contrast, a new — and yet ancient way (harking back to the concept of Jubilee) --- a new/old way of sharing, distributing resources, and caring for each other?

Luke Timothy Johnson continues --- it is a long explanation --- but I think it is important:

In its negative form, the mandate of faith is clear and consistent. Faith forbids all acquisitiveness and greed and envy as intrinsically the expression of idolatry. Therefore, all of Scripture consistently and emphatically forbids stealing and fraud and oppression and perverting of justice and moving of landmarks and withholding of wages and neglecting of widows and orphans and sojourners. 

In contrast, the mandate for the positive sharing of possessions is far more various. It was this side of the issue that most intrigued me. Why so definite on one side yet so vague on the other? One reason could be the notorious difficulty with all positive commandments. Negative commands are easier to spell out and to observe, for they exclude a specific form of behavior but allow all others. Positive commands, because they are open-ended, tend to be difficult both to define and execute. Think of, “Do not kill,” which leaves open all the positive ways of giving life, and then, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which gives rise to anxious perfectionism.

But I think that something more is at work in this case. The vagueness and open-endedness of the mandate “share possessions” is connected directly to the open-ended character of faith in the Living God. God moves ahead of us all in the circumstances of our lives and calls us to respond in those specific and ever-changing circumstances . . .

What this means for the faithful disposition of possessions is, I think, clear. The mandate of faith is, in the most proper sense, to symbolize faith. Faith needs to be embodied in ever-changing ways in response to the call of God. That embodied response in physical action, and specifically the disposition of possessions, is not “symbolic” in some weakened sense of the term, but in its fullest, sacramental, sense: it effects what it signifies. Acquisitiveness, greed, oppression: these all obviously symbolize the response of idolatry. But every open-handed sharing of possessions equally enacts the very essence of faith. It is in this respect that the obediential faith of Jesus, which expressed itself in a complete receptivity to the call of God in every circumstance and in the self-emptying service to his neighbor at every moment, can be seen as the Christological exemplar for the sharing of possessions. As Paul tells the Corinthians when trying to persuade them to join in his great collection of money for the poor in Jerusalem: “You know the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Jesus seems to be challenging us to reimagine our gifts of stewardship

He asks:

Can we reimagine systems of charity that have inevitably fail to honor and uplift --- that fail to provide true transformation and liberation?

Can we reimagine how we earn and how we distribute resources as members of our faith community?

Can we, in the words of Luke Timothy Johnson move our giving, spending and acquiring closer to a statement of our faith in Jesus --- while balancing that with the reality of the economic system we live in?

Can we reimagine our giving?

And are we willing to give it a try?

The first step seems to me to be the mandate that we reimagine our neighbor.

We must see our neighbor as a child of God --- regardless of their race, sex or even geographical location.

May God help us to begin to reimagine all that God has blessed and given us.

Let me end with the words of Jose Marti:

“Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.”

Let us see all the people --- and seek to treat them as the sisters and brothers that they are.