Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Doers of the Word: Hearers

This sermon starts a month long study of the Book of James.
Readings for this Sunday:  Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15, James 1:17-21, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

It’s a tiny ordinary town, surrounded by other tiny, ordinary  towns.  This is a town of everyday folks – farmers, housewives, small shop keepers, artisans.  People who have known each other for generations, who are related to each other.   Simple people of deep faith.

Looking around, there’s nothing really remarkable about this town.  Oh, but what a story it has to tell!

It was the winter of 1940.  The people of LeChambon, France[i] embark on what would become a 4 year rescue mission.  This town of Huguenots, a French Protestant sect persecuted by the Catholic church in the early 1700’s, opened its arms to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.  For four years, they housed, fed, clothed, educated people they didn’t know, had no family ties to, who didn’t share their nationality, who didn’t share their faith.  The last 2 years of the war, LeChambon was under Nazi occupation and despite the very real danger, the people protected and cared for the strangers in their midst – refugee Jews escaping Nazi death camps.

About 5000 Jewish men, women, and especially children passed through LeChambon on to safety and freedom.  One of the men rescued – only a baby at the time – later made a documentary film about the story.  He returned to LeChambon and found the same warm welcome that his family had found.

We call them heroes.  But the people of LeChambon don’t consider themselves heroes.  Frankly, they don’t quite get why people are so interested in their story. 

“Again and again, when asked why they risked their lives for their Jewish brothers and sisters, the peasant farmers respond matter-of-factly with comments like: "Sure, We gave up our bed when there was no choice." "It happened so naturally, we can't understand all the fuss." "The bible says feed the hungry and visit sick. It was the normal thing to do."”[ii]

It was the normal thing to do.

 

This kind of faith in action is exactly what the book of James is all about.

In Lutheran circles, James often gets pushed to the side.  Martin Luther famously calls it an “epistle of straw.”[iii]  Luther firmly believed that the most important thing the scriptures do is reveal the love and grace of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  James does not talk about Jesus death and resurrection, in fact it only mention’s Jesus’ name twice.[iv]

If Luther’s diss wasn’t enough to make Lutherans hesitant to crack open the book of James, there’s that the whole ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2:17) thing.  We know we’re saved by grace through faith and not by anything we do ourselves (Ephesians 2:8-9)  It’s God’s good gift to us.  Sola gratia, sola fide (only grace, only faith).  We’re really uncomfortable when anyone wants to tell us that we need to do something - like works - to prove we are really Christians.

So often, we just leave James to gather dust on the biblical bookshelf.

And that’s too bad, because there’s some good stuff in James.  Some wise advice.  For a book that only mentions Jesus twice there’s an amazing parallel between what Jesus says in the Gospels and what James teaches.  The Sermon on the Mount, the Greatest Commandment and the Golden Rule echo through James.

James wrote to encourage believers.  Some of them had faltered in their faith because of intense persecution.  Some of them had downplayed their faith to conform to the Roman culture.  Some of them were ready to learn more about how to live their lives in a way consistent with Jesus’ teachings.

So, James is writing to Christians to encourage them in their faith and instruct them on Christian living – sort of a New Testament book of Proverbs.

Think about James as a handbook on how to live in response to God’s grace, not as a guide on how to earn God’s grace.

That’s an important distinction, and one that James himself makes:  

¹⁷Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 

Every generous act of giving, every perfect gift is from above, from God.

Which means….

…all the good works James is encouraging us to do are only a natural part of God’s grace working in our lives.

It’s like a plant.  God plants the seed of grace in us, God’s Living Word.  It takes root and grows and over time, pushes the weeds of sin out of the way and blooms.  As a plant matures, it produces more blooms and more fruit.  It’s the same with us.

James says to us, “So, you have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…ok…now what?  What difference does God’s grace make in your life?  Show me!”

By the way – that’s the very question the people around us are asking.

I first met Jay Gamelin at Ohio State’s campus ministry.  Jay is passionate about ministry to young adults and part of his passion is teaching congregations about the ministry needs of young adults.

Jay talks about the post-modern world we now live in and how young people experience the world differently than their parents and grandparents generation.[v]  We are a generation of the printed word – our children are products of the Internet explosion.  We experience the world and learn through word – spoken and printed.  Our children experience the world and learn through what they see and experience. 

Jay highlights this difference with a common faith question.  Our generation would ask, “What church do you go to?  Tell me about it”

Our young people ask instead, “Do you believe in God? Show me.”  In effect they ask, “So, you been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…ok…now what?  What difference does God’s grace make in your life?  Show me!”

 

We may never be called to risk our lives for others like the people of LeChambon.  Sometimes living out faith calls for heroic actions.

Most of the time, though, living out your faith is quieter.  It’s shown in small day to day actions.

When my paternal grandmother died, I remember people saying that she never said a harsh word about anyone.  People said that about Tillie too at her funeral.  Grandma and Tillie took James’ advice to control their speech to heart.

I remember a co-worker who sat through many lunch breaks listening to me cry out my grief over my mother’s death.  He had learned from James to be quick to listen and slow to speak.

I remember a VBS teacher telling us about the time she accidently walked away from the store carrying the $3 pair of gloves she tried on.  How she returned, apologized and paid for the gloves. 

Sometimes it’s the little things that speak volumes. It those little things that you do Monday through Saturday that show the world that what you do here on Sunday has meaning. 

Sunday is important, no doubt about it.  We come here to confess and be forgiven, to encounter the God of love and grace, to be fed by Jesus the Living Word, to have our hurts heals and our souls encouraged.  All of that is good and necessary and useful.

But when the last hymn is sung, we are given a charge – Go in peace, serve the Lord.  Live in love as Christ has loved you.  Proclaim the good news.  Remember the poor.  Feed the hungry.

With that charge laid on us, we are commissioned and empowered for a new week of caring for the little piece of creation – our family, friends, co-workers, our town and schools and houses and land – that God has entrusted to us.

As we read through the book of James together, I encourage you to ponder James’ challenge:  So, you have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…ok…now what? 

Where does God’s grace in your life make a difference?

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[i] Thanks to www.textweek.com movie suggestion of ‘Weapons of the Spirit’ for reminding me of this story of faith in action.

[ii] Quote from the documentary ‘Weapons of the Spirit’, as recorded on www.textweek.com.

[iii] Luther’s Works, vol. 33.

[iv] Martin Luther wasn’t the only one who had issues with James.  The early Church Fathers (and we assume the Church Mothers also) never quoted from it and it doesn’t appear in the earliest lists of New Testament books.  It wasn’t until about the mid 3^rd century that James starts appearing in the lists of accepted books. (I found this tidbit in my seminary notes on the book of James and have no other attribution for it.)

[v] http://vimeo.com/39982913

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: Cravings

Readings for this Sunday:  Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78:23-29; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:24-35

You know how it is when you have a craving.

We laugh at the sometimes weird cravings of pregnant women.  When I was pregnant with our daughter, it was hot, spicy foods.  I couldn’t get enough – burritos with extra jalapenos, spicy salsa.  It got so bad that I took a bottle of hot sauce into work, so I could add it to whatever we had for lunch that day.

I had to have that hot sauce.

With our son, it was fresh fruit and veggies.  I guess if you have to crave something, fresh fruit and veggies aren’t too bad.  Unless you’re 8 months pregnant in January and those fresh strawberries you just have to have are $5 a pound. 

That’s the thing about craving – you just have to get the thing you crave.  You can try to satisfy the craving with other things.  But it won’t work.  If you’re craving chocolate, eating a carrot just won’t do.

It’s even worse when you have a craving and you’re not really sure exactly what you’re craving.  Sometimes in the evening, my husband[i] will start grazing – first a sandwich, then maybe a bowl of cereal, then some popcorn, and so on.  One evening, he had started his graze-fest and I commented that I couldn’t believe he was still hungry right after the huge meal we had for dinner.  He said, “I’ve got the munchies, but I don’t know what I’m hungry for.”

That’s where we find the crowd in our gospel reading today – they’re hungry, but they don’t really know what they are hungry for. 

Last Sunday, we heard how Jesus fed 5000 people from a boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish.  The hungry people ate their fill, and then decided that this was such a wonderful miracle that they were ready to make Jesus their king on the spot.  To stop them, Jesus went into seclusion on the mountain.

Today, the crowd is hungry again.  They have a craving.

They seek Jesus out to fill it.

They are surprised that Jesus is not still on the mountain.  They notice a boat is gone, so they pile in other boats and sail on over to where Jesus is.

“Jesus – when did you get here?”

Jesus doesn’t answer this question.  He knows why they have come.  He knows that they have a craving.

He also knows that they aren’t craving what they think they are.

“You are just here because I fed you yesterday and you are hoping I’ll feed you again.  You’ve missed the whole point of yesterday’s miracle – it’s a sign to point you to God.  You’re focused on food that will fill you for a moment, but then you’ll be hungry again.  Let me tell you what you are really craving – food that brings eternal life, bread of heaven.  Focus on that.”

The crowd still misses the point.  They want to know what they have to do to get that food.  They will work for food.  What does God charge for this heavenly bread?

Jesus tries to re-orientate their focus from themselves and points them to what God is doing. 

“The only thing you need to do is trust-abide-have-faith in the one God has sent.”

“Ok.  We’ll trust – just give us a sign.  Perform a miracle.  Oh say, something like Moses when he fed our ancestors with manna!  Yes.  Manna. That will do nicely.”

I imagine Jesus just shook his head at this point.  Really?  A sign?  What did they think the whole 5 loaves 2 fish thing was yesterday? 

The crowd was craving.  They were hungry – they just didn’t realize that their hunger was deeper than just filling their bellies with bread. 

The bread satisfied their hunger –for a little while - but it did nothing to satisfy the deeper longing they had.

They don’t know it yet, but Jesus is exactly what they are craving.

We’re a lot like the crowd.  We know we are craving something. 

We don’t always know what that something is. 

So we go on a graze-fest, trying all sorts of things to satisfy our craving.  Sometimes we try to stop the craving with things are not so good.  It’s easy to think about people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs and say, “They need to realize that that drug, that drink will not fill that deep empty space in their lives.  It’s only masking the pain, masking the craving.”

Sometimes we try to fill the craving with things that are pretty good – things like our work, a hobby, our families.  We get so invested in the thing we think we are craving that these good things can also become an excess – workaholism, a hobby or interest or sport that takes all our energy, getting so invested in our family that it’s hard to tell where one person starts and the other ends.  We can even becomes so involved in church and doing the work of the church that there’s no room for that one thing that we really crave.

God.

I’ve heard it said that we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts.  St Augustine said, “You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You” [ii]

We are restless, flitting from thing to thing, following this fad and that whim, unable to find that place that where we find true rest.

We are craving, hungry, but we don’t know what we are hungry for.

Jesus looks at us and loves us and says to us, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever trusts-abides-has faith in me will never thirst.”

“What Jesus wants to bring is nothing less than the full realization of God’s shalom which God intended from the beginning. That shalom includes empty stomachs getting filled, but it is much, much more. It’s this much, much more that Jesus is helping people to see as he also fills empty stomachs.”[iii]

It’s that much, much more that Jesus wants you to see as he meets you here, to quiet your craving, to still your restlessness.

What are you craving today?

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[i] Permission has been granted for me to share this story!  I always ask before talking about family members.

[ii] St. Augustine's Confessions (Lib 1,1-2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1-5)

[iii] The Hardest Question, http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/new-testament/ordinary18bgospel/

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[i] Permission has been granted for me to share this story!  I always ask before talking about family members.

[ii] St. Augustine's Confessions (Lib 1,1-2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1-5)

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost: Gahtering Holy Leftovers

Readings for this Sunday:  2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-18; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

I guess I have gathering on my mind.  After spending a week in New Orleans with youth from all over the United States it’s probably to be expected.  But when I read today’s gospel lesson, all the gathering jumped out at me.

First the crowd gathered.  Bit by bit, from near and far, group by group, until Jesus looked up from teaching his disciples and saw them coming up the road.

We, too, gathered from all over.

We gathered, in groups large and small.

·        5  teens from New Tripoli, PA;

·        91 from Mankato, MN;

·        2 from Ridgeway, IA;

·        12 from Kenosha, WI;

·        13 from Warren, Sterling Heights, and Bloomfield Hills, MI;

·        14 from Mercer Island, WA;

·        5 from Dorchester, IL;

·        16 from Summit, NJ;

·        2 from West Columbia, SC;

·        5 from Beckley WV;

·        10 from Lima OH;

·        12 from Bexley, OH;

·        10 from Grafton ND;

·        2 From Faulkton, SD;

·        5 from Peace and 2 from Pollock, (SD).

We gathered in New Orleans, bit by bit, group by group, 35000 strong.

Jesus sees the crowd on the road and immediately is concerned with their needs, concerned with providing food for them.  And so a little lunch was gathered – from a young boy who had 5 loaves and 2 fish.

The crowd may have gathered to see Jesus, but Jesus now gathers the crowd, welcoming them to his table.  And he took the food and blessed it and gave it to them.

They ate their fill – all were satisfied and there were even leftovers.  It was a feast.

We too had a feast.  Of course there was great food in New Orleans.  But better yet, Jesus gathered us to his table and served us a feast for our souls.

Bishop Michael Rinehart compared this Gathering to gumbo – with its unique ingredients combining to create a satisfying deliciousness.  We are God’s gumbo, a tasty gift to a world hungering for God.

We were fed discipleship – the staples of following Jesus.  We practiced worship, praying, bible study, giving, encouraging, inviting and serving.

We were fed peacemaking – a buffet of interactive activities where we learned to walk in another’s shoes, learned ways to advocate for peace and justice in the world.

We were fed justice – a lesson in cooking God’s feast where we went into the community and served – painting classrooms, rebuilding libraries, cleaning up parks and wetlands..  I’ll be honest, there was a mix-up for our group and we didn’t get to do much, but even with the mix-ups and the day some projects got rained-out, more that 400 service projects took place and we left New Orleans better than we found it!

Some of the other things we learned to cook out of God’s recipe book:

·        By Friday morning of the Gathering, the Million Book Project had collected $40,000 in donations (with another 120 emails from the day before not yet opened) and 18 pallets of books had been collected, some of which we helped distribute to kids.

·        1,193 pints of blood were donated by teens and adults at the Gathering.

·        509 head were shorn to provide Locks of Love for people suffering from illnesses that rob them of hair.

·        $256,000 was donated during Sunday offering.

·        $400,000 was given to the 100 wells challenge (all reported as of July 26).

·        Walls for 3 houses in Slidell (Habitat for Humanity houses) were built, blessed at Sunday worship and shipped.

I brought some tidbits of the feast back to share with you, a few quotes from some of our speakers:

 

·        Nadia Bolz-Weber was the keynote speaker the first night we were there.  She told the story of her journey to faith, going from hating Christians to becoming a Lutheran pastor.  In part of her story she said– “Soon I began to realize that there are people that take that scripture from Matthew 25 seriously – that when we clothe the naked and when we feed the hungry, we do so to Jesus’ own self – and it ends up that they’re not magical creatures.  They’re Lutherans.”

·        Shane Clairborn, another keynote speaker - “There’s those moments where you throw your hand up at God and you say God, why don’t you do something.   And if you listen close you hear God say, “I did do something.  I made you. Get on out!” 

·        We heard from a young person, 18 year old Greg, who had attended the last gathering.  He told us that he first heard “be the change you wish to see in the world” at the last gathering.  He went on to say that “Jesus calls each of us not to read the headlines but to go and be the change.  The newspaper and blog post and twitter feed are no longer easy reading but our call to action.”

·        Nadia said something else – “Here’s what you need to know about this thing you have – this Lutheran liturgy, this Lutheran theology: it is a feast.  It is a feast to be shared and I’m here to tell you, people are hungry.  People are hungry and you have a feast entrusted to you.”

And that brings me to the last thing gathered in our gospel reading – the leftovers.

We don’t hear what happened to them.  Did the disciples take the leftovers with them? 

I like to think that as the crowd dispersed, the leftovers were distributed. 

-       Oh, you’ve got a 2 day journey – here’s some food for the trip. 

-       You say you have a sick mother at home – take some bread and fish for her. 

-       You’re meeting up with a friend who was visiting a relative – have some extra to share on the road home.

I like to think that those holy leftovers were abundance that spilled over to nourish not only those present, but the people in the world around them.

Imagine telling that friend you met up with about how Jesus fed you on the mountain top and then handing her a chunk of bread and saying, “Here’s some of the food that remained.  Here, eat.  Jesus gave me some to take to you.”

In a way, that’s what happens to us.  Each Sunday we gather and Jesus feeds us.  We feast on the Word of God, on Jesus the bread of life.  And each Sunday, we are filled to overflowing with God’s love and grace and mercy – so much that we become baskets for those holy leftovers.

Here’s God’s love.  Here’s God’s grace.  Jesus gave freely, abundantly to me.  Jesus sent me here to share it with you.

I want to share one more story from the gathering with you.  We got in a head of schedule.  So we decided to kill some time at a local mall until we could register and get in our hotel.  Lynn and I were talking to a woman in Williams and Sonoma and she asked where we were from.  When she found out that we were here for the Youth Gathering, she got so excited.

“I have to tell my daughter.  She’ll be so happy to hear the people in the orange shirts are back.”

Her daughter was 6 three years ago when the Youth Gathering first came to New Orleans.  She remembers us.  Since then, every time a large convention was held downtown, she would ask, “Are the people in the orange shirts back?”

It’s a holy leftover from the last gathering.  This young girl’s life was touched by our presence.  Did someone tell her about how these strangers came to her town to do about 244,000 hours of service because of Jesus’ love in their lives?  I don’t know.  All I know is that there was an impact.

What are the holy leftovers from this gathering?  What was carried away, carried home to be shared with family and friends, neighbors and strangers?

"Here, take and eat.  Jesus gave freely, abundantly to me.  Jesus sent me here to share it with you."

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: A Tale of Two Banquets

Readings for this Sunday:  Amos7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29

Let me tell you a story – the tale of two banquets.

The first banquet was quite the extravaganza. 

-       Held in a richly appointed palace,

-       to celebrate a king’s birthday.

-       The guest list was elite and limited – the court was invited (at least the men), and the top military leaders, and the most influential men in the city (again – only the men).

-       The food was abundant, with many different dishes, expensive delicacies and wine flowing freely.

-       They relaxed on padded couches and watched entertainers, delighting in the dancing of a young girl.

-       A rash, probably drunken, promise was made to give the young dancer, the king’s daughter, anything she wanted.

-       And a man died simply to fulfill a drunken oath, and his head was the leftover carried home from the banquet.

The second banquet really wasn’t a banquet at all.

-       Held outdoors, just a bit in from the seashore.

-       There was no celebration, just the need to feed hungry people.

-       There were no guests of power or wealth or great reputation, just ordinary men, farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, men looking for work – 5000 in all, and their wives and mothers and children.

-       Instead of a fancy feast and abundant food, there were just five loaves of bread and 2 fish.

-       Instead of entertainment, they sat on the ground and listened as Jesus taught them.

-       Jesus blessed the meager food, and the disciples passed it around.

-       Not only was a basic necessity for life met – everyone ate their fill, no one went away hungry – but there was such abundance that twelve baskets of leftovers were carried away.

It was a feast of death versus a meal of life.  Mark places them side by side in his gospel – the birthday celebration of Herod with its gruesome final course of head-on-a-platter, and Jesus feeding 5000 by the seashore.

We only hear about the feast of death today.  It’s hard to listen to this story and hear any good news in it.  And yet Mark tells it in such detail – it’s a story that needs to be told in all its unpleasantness as a witness to the evil that is in this world.

This is the story of the world, the story of acts that promote death and decay:

-       Lust and envy – Herod covets his brother’s wife and she wants him too, so they divorce and marry each other.  No matter that Herod’s first wife brought a political alliance with her and by divorcing her; he incites her father to wage war on him.  No matter that Herodias is not only his brother’s wife and off limits, she’s doubly off limits because she’s also Herod’s niece.  Which also means he’s off limits to her as well!

-       Greed and gluttony (and sloth) – Herod throws a big bash for himself, just to show how powerful he is.  A lavish meal, lots of good wine, no expense spared.  He displays total disregard for the poor who could have benefited for receiving just a portion of what he spent on his party – remember, the welfare of his subjects is his responsibility, especially since he was a ruler of the Judeans who believed that God set kings over them care for them as a shepherd.

-       Pride and power - Herod makes a most-likely drunken rash promise to give his daughter ‘half his kingdom,’ in appreciation for her dance, effectively saying “Look at me.  I’m so rich and powerful I can give away half of what I have, for something as trifling as a dance, and still be enormously rich and powerful.”  When she asks for something he doesn’t really want to give, he does it anyway because if he welshed on his oath, he would look bad in front of his guests.

-       Wrath- Herodias was one who could really carry a grudge.  Anger fueled her and led her to plot ways to get revenge on her enemies.  Herod also let anger control him – he after all had John arrested because of John’s calling them out on their adultery, but couldn’t quite bring himself to have John killed.  In fact, the one redeeming thing Mark tells us about Herod is that he liked to listen to John and he protected him from Herodias’ demands for his death.

Herod’s feast is a snapshot of the world – of how the forces of evil and death sow corruption and greed and anger and violence.  We see it all around us, all the time.

And if this was the only story Mark told, it would be a sad telling indeed.

But there’s more to the story because this is a story not about death, but about life.  A story of life beyond death.  A story of abundance and wholeness and healing and mercy and amazing grace and infinite love. 

This is a story about Jesus.

Remember how the reading today began: 
“When Herod heard of it…” –

-       Of Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom of God was near and that we need to turn from our own inward-focused ways (repent) and turn to God;

-       Of Jesus’ deeds of power, that the blind see, and the deaf hear and the lame walk, that demons are send packing and a little girl who was dead lives;

-       Of Jesus’ authority and power placed in his disciples that even THEY –those fishermen and tax collectors and other riff-raff – could also heal and cast out demons;

When Herod heard this, he recognized the truth of what John has preached:

-       That the power of evil and death had been broken;

-       That the kingdom of God was right here, right now;

-       That although he killed the messenger, he could not, would never be able to, kill the Message.

Herod heard about Jesus, and saw the proof of how God’s kingdom was coming near. 

And that is the story Mark really wants to tell, the story that Mark spends the rest of his gospel telling – that even though death tries it’s hardest to drain life of the abundance and joy that God intended, that even though it looks like death will win as Jesus – like John – suffers from an arrest on trumped-up charges, and stands before a ruler who despite, believing his innocence, still condemns him to death, and dies and is buried, death does not win.

Life does.

Jesus rises.

God says “yes” to life, to creation, to love, to grace, to us.

I’d like to tell you the story of one more banquet:

-       Held the first time in an upper room, but now gatherings all around the world, in large and small congregations, and camps and retreat centers and homes, and sometimes even hospital rooms.

-       It’s a celebration of life, of God’s ‘yes’ triumphing against the feast of death.

-       Everyone is invited, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, from every nation, and time and place.

-       It may look like just a bite of bread and a sip of wine, but hidden in, with and under those morsels are the abundant bread and wine of heaven, Jesus present with us.

-       We come and gather, some sitting on pews a church, or chairs in a borrowed worship space, or the ground at camp, or reclining in a hospital bed.

-       There’s a promise and a blessing: God chose us, adopted us as God’s own children, lavished upon us grace and forgiveness made available through Jesus’ death and resurrection, and shows us God’s desire to bring healing and wholeness to all of creation and inviting us to get up out of our seats and join in the dance.

-       There are no leftovers – no scraps to carry away.  Instead there is more abundance as our souls are nourished by Jesus’ grace and love and mercy to the point of overflowing from us to the world around us.

This is a story of the feast of life.  

-       A feast where beggars become rich,

-       where outcasts are welcomed,

-       where orphans become beloved sons and daughters,

-       where the lost are found,

-       where the blind and the deaf and the lame and the sick healed and made whole.

It’s a feast of life, a feast of victory, a feast where all are welcome, where all are fed, where there is more than enough to share, where life is celebrated and death destroyed.

And that’s a story that begs to be told, over and over again.