Sermons

It's been seven days since the world turned upside down for our community. We came face to face with the pain and turmoil and upheaval which many in our world experience as a regular part of their living. And in the past seven days we have gathered together for comfort, for healing, for support, for questions - so many questions. And the thing about such soul-searching moments is that the answers seldom turn out to be what we expect. We want to know why? And why is not usually what we find. Why is a backward looking question which threatens to keep us stuck in the past. It is also a question that teeters on the edge of judgment and blame, and that never leads us anywhere useful. So, if we can manage to keep our hearts open, the answers we discover instead tend to be of the sort which keep us grounded in the present moment, and that is, finally, the only place where it is possible to encounter God, each other and ourselves.
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Over and over again in the Gospels we find Jesus taking the traditional approach to faith and religion and turning it upside down. You can almost hear people asking him, "What are the rules we're supposed to follow?" They were looking for a convenient check-list, and instead he gives them a new "commandment." "You want rules," Jesus seems to be saying. "You want to know what to do. OK, try this. Love one another." That's it! It really is as simple, and as challenging, as that. And 2,000 years later, we are still struggling with how to live out the profound implications of those three words.
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