When Grief Meets Grace

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:12

Psalm 130

(A song of rising)

From within the suffocating darkness

of what I will never comprehend

I cry out to you, Holy One

—You who exist eternally—

I plead with you:

Hear my voice!

Force your ears to listen,

to respond to the sound of my pleas!

But if you kept track of transgressions, Holy One, who would stand?

With you there is forgiveness . . .

. . . in order to inspire reverence.

With my whole being I ache for your ever-eluding vision,

like those who watch for the morning,

even more than those who watch for the morning.

Await the Holy One, all you people with whom God perseveres—

wait expectantly, confidently, defiant against despair—

Because union with the Eternal Existence is “hesed”:

a steadfast, persistent, NEVER-ENDING LOVE

beyond anything we can possibly know with our minds.

And union with God is an exponentially-increasing

and ultimately everlasting

repayment of our crushing debt

in this world and the next.

And God will repay the debt for all of our transgressions,

because we are the people with whom God chooses to persevere.

Her mother’s death was beautiful, Kathy Sakai whispered in response to my question. When I asked her how that moment we all dread, and that she had endured—the death of her mother—had affected her life. It was the most beautiful moment she had ever known, she said. And she was right.

The room was decorated for Christmas. The continual coming of Christ. With white Christmas tree lights glowing in every direction. And candles burning brightly through the winter darkness. And tinsel sparkling with delight from the windows. With a bowl of warm ginger water and a vat of lotion mixed with lavender oil sitting at her mother’s bedside. Ready to bathe and anoint her body upon her death. Which is exactly what Kathy and her sister-in law and her niece did. Led by a hospice caregiver who was very much with child.

Wow.

The combination of their bathed and oiled palms massaging her mother’s bathed and oiled body settled them all into a peace that passes understanding. Every stroke of their gentle, firm hands overlapping one another in a gift of unqualified grace.

Another dear friend offered hymns in the background. Her still, small angelic voice singing one life into being through the pregnant woman’s womb. And one life into ending through Kathy’s mother’s death. And all life into being again and again and again in an embrace of a moment the mystics call “the eternal now” and what I would call “the fullness of time.”

And it really was beautiful. And it really is who we are. Every one of us bound up in this moment together. Which, with Kathy’s permission, has now become a shared memory for us all.

If we have to die, which we really don’t want to do, but we really do have to do, someday, hopefully far away, this is how we want it to be, isn’t it? At the end of a long and well-lived life. With the baptismal covenant re-enacted in its purest form. And a thousand angels singing us through the suffocating darkness of what we will never fully comprehend, into the everlasting light of the steadfast, persistent, never-ending hesed love of God. Beyond anything we can possibly know with our minds. Bathed in the font of our identity flowing forever in oil and water and tears and laughter.

This is how we want it to be. If it really does have to be. And, of course, it does.

The reality of our mortality has been much on our minds here at Madison Square in these past several weeks. In our Wednesday Conversations on heaven and healing and hope. In the several brushes with death we have been through together just this week with many we love. In Kathy sharing her story with a pastor . . . and now with a congregation.

And in the tragedy of yet another mass shooting just one week ago. This time in a house of worship not all that different from ours. On a Sunday morning not all that different from this one. Among a group of people not all that different from us. Coming together in their own sacred moment of “home.” Practicing in their own way what it means to love their God and their neighbor and perhaps most importantly themselves, in this time of deep pain. Met with a bullet and a hate crime and a crying out in anguish.

And we must join them in this cry. Because in the deep truth that the writer of Ephesians is trying to tell us, they are us, and we are them, in spite of the vitriol of racial and religious supremacy that would argue otherwise. As the writer of Ephesians keeps trying to tell us, we are one with one another. And God is doing everything God can to keep breaking through these barriers we keep insisting on constructing. The barrier between Jew and Gentile in the first century being not very different at all from the barrier of Christian and Sikh and Muslim and Hindu in our own.

And so we must join them in the crying out “from within the suffocating darkness of what we will never comprehend.” Joining with the psalmist in pleading with God to listen. Speaking, perhaps the truth of our deepest fear: Are you even listening, God? Do you have ears to hear? Do you care? Are you there?

The thing about the psalms is they do not gloss over the depth of human grief with mere platitudes about God and greatness and grace. They tell it like it is. As we must. That it hurts. That it leaves us aching for that ever-eluding vision of wholeness and hope that flows from our baptismal covenant. The one we glimpse for brief moments in stories like Kathy’s with her mother but that far too easily fades when we face the fear that comes in violence and the too-soon taking of a living, breathing presence in our midst. And it does not make sense. And there is no way to explain the unexplainable. Or excuse the inexcusable. Or console the inconsolable. And so we plead with God to listen. To hear. To care.

And God does.

With a reminder that our baptism into grace asks something of us in return, as well. And it is time for us to take heed of that call.

In the days of the early church, confirmands into the faith of Christ committed themselves to a rigorous process of preparation for a life of non-violence. Of stripping away the anger and the indignity and the aggression that was deep within them. Of refusing to return evil for evil but to respond to evil with grace.

The way Jesus did.

In the days of the early church confirmands into the faith of Christ would face to the west and renounce the forces of darkness. And then face to the east claiming allegiance to the light. And then strip off the clothing of their old life and wade through the waters of the font of their new identity. And receive an anointing in oil on the other side. And wrap themselves with a new robe, in a new self. With a singing celebration to carry this moment of heaven here on earth with them always. Just like Kathy did with her mother. Which is why I will always remember the moment she shared as a re-affirmation of the baptismal covenant.

This is the call to each of us today, as well. Re-affirming our baptismal covenant and the grace it proclaims. But also re-affirming the commitment we make in return to keep on stripping away the anger and indignity and aggression that continues deep within us. And prepare ourselves over and over and over again for the non-violent gift of grace we are meant to become in Christ.

It is harder than we wish it were, or we wouldn’t be here today crying out in anguish again and again and again, right along with the Ephesians in the first century. Which is why Paul must remind them, and us, to keep on practicing the grace we have been given and the grace we are to give in return.

Even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard.

“Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” the writer of Ephesians tells us. “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander,” we hear again and again and again. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

Let’s just admit it. It is easier said than done.

The problem with anger and bitterness and wrath is that it is real, no matter how much we cling to our baptism in grace. And the reality of anger and bitterness and wrath is that it is how we deal with our pain. We call it “grief.” And so I would suggest that the admonition to “be angry but not sin,” as the writer of Ephesians encourages, must be more like praying psalm 130 to its fullest than it is like glossing over the very real rage we carry from whatever wounds the violence of this world has inflicted on us and on the ones we love. It must be about the reconciliation that can only begin by naming the anger, and the hurt, and the hope. And dealing with it truthfully as soon as is humanly possible so that the grace of God can somehow transform it for “building up the body.”  In order “that our words may give grace to those who hear.”

The psalmist does not hide from the pain and the anger and the grief that she feels and neither should we. She sings through it. Crying out to God. Crying out to community. Calling forth an active, listening, truthful response that every one of us needs to hear:

Which is that none of us can stand if God is keeping track of transgressions. Not one. That the pain we receive becomes the pain we inflict, if we are not careful. Whether it is intentional, or whether it happens without our knowing.

So what are we to do?

A generalized search on Amazon.com will reveal over 40,000 religious titles addressing the topic of anger. We could read our way into wholeness and hope and healing.

But I think ritual matters more.

I think it is not enough to reason our way to the beloved community of grace. I think we have to actually practice it when we come to worship every Sunday. Grounding ourselves over and over again in the glow of the “eternal now” we claim in our baptism. Touching God and each other over and over and over again in a shared memory of a room filled with candlelight and oil and the healing touch of two mothers giving birth to the grace that will always meet our grief. With one part of our body always pregnant with life. And one part of our body always pregnant with life beyond death. And every hand and heart and hope in touch with the healing love of God. In union with the God who really does choose to persevere with us. Even when we find it so hard to persevere with ourselves. And singing us into the fullness of time.

And I think if we can keep drawing ourselves back to the memory of that moment when we worship, as if it were happening still now, because it some mysterious way it actually is, perhaps we just might be able to “imitate Christ, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us. A fragrant offering,” like lavender mixed with lotion. Welcoming every one of us home.

“So then, putting away falsehood,” the falsehood that would deny the reality of our mortality, or the grace that meets our grief, we might live fully in each moment. As members of one another. In the household of our faithful God. Expectantly, confidently, defiant against despair. Kind to one another. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

Body Building

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Ephesians 4: 1-16
John 6: 1-15


Did you know that most Olympic-level endurance athletes burn through calories so quickly that they resort to consuming massive quantities of junk food just to make sure they have enough fuel in their system to power through the main event?

No kidding. It’s really true.

According to Dr. Michael Joyner, who studies the super-metabolism of super-athletes at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Olympians we will be cheering on in the next two and a half weeks can burn through 20 calories in a single minute. A single day’s workout can burn up to six thousand calories! Meaning that our beloved American swimming champion Michael Phelps, for example, must regularly eat three fried-egg sandwiches, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast, and three pancakes with chocolate chips . . . for breakfast! . . . just to keep his body energized. How’s that for some loaves and fishes!

(Okay so maybe after yesterday’s performance, he should cut back on a pancake or two . . .)

Most of us are not Olympic athletes . . . but the incentive to eat massive quantities of junk food . . . or to look good in a Speedo . . . might inspire us to start some body building in the next few days. Am I right? Which of course would go the same direction as New Year’s Resolutions once we realize Olympic athletes train upward of six hours per day . . . for twelve years of their lives. Most of us can’t even carve out the recommended thirty minutes of exercise per day! What are we to do?

Well there is good news, my friends. Recent research by Dr. Glenn Gaesser, who directs the Healthy Lifestyles Research Center at Arizona State University, has concluded that just ten minutes of exercise per day . . . repeated three times a day . . . can have the same benefit as one thirty minute session per day. Which means the point about building up the body is that we “just do it” . . . one small step at a time . . . over and over and over again.

Which leads me to the apostle Paul in our Ephesians text this morning, turned-personal-fitness-instructor, “building up the body of Christ” in 1st century Ephesus.

Of course the kind of body building Paul is more about a metaphor than it is about athletics . . . maybe . . . And the kind of body building Paul is talking about is actually a team sport, not an individual one. And the kind of body building he is talking about focuses on a community of faith, and not a nice set of abs. But does it not take just as much discipline to build a community of faith as it does to compete in the Olympics? Paul thinks so. At least when it comes to the Ephesians.

Most of the Ephesians are non-Jewish Gentiles newly converted to the faith, unfamiliar with the rich heritage of the Jewish tradition so central to the life of Jesus and his earliest followers. They may not understand the legacy they are joining . . . at least not as much as others in the community who are very familiar with Jewish law. Those long-time members want to keep the familiar structure, and they expect the newcomers to follow more of the tradition they have inherited. And of course the newcomers have bold new ideas and can’t understand why it takes so long to implement them. And they have to keep practicing the building of one body together . . . over and over again, as time passes and new members come and go. Because new members come and go and come and go over and over and over again. How can they get this hodge podge mix of believers to be one body, one spirit? How can they equip the saints to build this new body together, with Christ as its head—joined together in peace, living up to the life to which God had called them?

One option for Paul the personal fitness trainer would be to channel the first century version of Jillian Michaels . . . you know, the rock hard, tough love, no complaints task-master who used to work with The Biggest Loser reality TV show? She got right in their face, didn't she? Keep running, keep sweating, don't even think about quitting, we have a goal to reach! Maturity into the likeness of Christ! Hurry up, Ephesians! Get to work! Go, go, go!!!

That’s one option for building of the body.

But I think Paul is a bit more like Bob Harper, the quieter, kinder, compassionate personal trainer, nudging his parishioners to do the thing they have already said they want to do. I mean, Paul does tell the Ephesians to be “humble, gentle, and patient, accepting each other in love,” right?

He uses the sort of do-it-for-me-if-you-really-love-me approach: I'd be so proud of you, friends in Ephesus, if you would just pull out your running shoes once or twice a week, do what you can, eat one less brownie . . . even a little bit of exercise is better than nothing, I know you can do it. I'll be right here with you . . . just don't give up when it's hard . . .

In case you haven’t noticed, your Pastor Gusti has been vacillating between these two approaches in this past year of transition at Madison Square. Because are we not also our own hodge podge of believers uniting together as one body, one spirit, “making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”? What we have been doing together is a little bit like training for a distance relay race. The kind where we’re all on the same team and we just run for the love of running . . . passing the baton to our fellow worshipers . . . speaking the truth in love about what brings us to this race . . . and what keeps us on the field through thick and thin.

There are those among us who joined the team back in the days of Bill Lytle . . . running our hearts out in response to his call to mission and his commitment to serving “the least of these” in San Antonio. And there are those among us who came running alongside the ministry of Ilene Dunn in her clarion call for lgbt justice and her love of the life of the mind. And how many of our children and youth grabbed hold of the baton from the witness of Kenny Davis . . . and loved the creativity of Linda Charlton whose legacy of liturgical art is with us to this day.

And then there are the brand new members who have come in just this past year . . . yearning for a place that will receive all of who they are . . . and trusting that someway, somehow, this place really means it when it says “welcome home.” This is the wonderful mix of saints at Madison Square . . . coming into the unity of one body . . . speaking the truth in love to one another . . . building itself up in love . . . (and not just in brownies!)

Surely we are equipping the saints at Madison Square for some body building in this Olympic summer! But you know, it's an interesting word in Greek, the one we translate into English as “equip.” katartismos It's the same word you would use to describe setting a bone after it has been broken.

And isn’t that also what the ministry of God at Madison Square has been about all along? Don’t we bring our broken bones and our broken hearts to this place of healing and hope . . . trusting God will heal us even stronger than we were to begin with? That, too, is what it means to build up the body. Yes, it’s about adopting a new exercise plan as a community of faith, growing together in maturity, and spiritual discipline . . . adjusting, healing, trusting each part of the body to do its own work to make the whole body grow and be strong with love. But it’s also about sharing the broken parts of ourselves with one another . . . and trusting God to set things right. It is something we choose to do; it requires effort; but as each of us makes that choice and effort, as each of us grows into the likeness of Christ, we are joined and knit together by every ligament, and the entire body grows together.

It is still an organic, dynamic, prophetic body of Christ into which we have been called here at Madison Square Presbyterian Church. And each of us has been given grace upon grace according to the measure of Christ's gift for building up the body, whether we want to hold on to the best the Madison Square tradition has to offer, or whether we are new to the tradition but inspired to live it out in new and fresh ways. Whether we are ready to run the race with fresh new sneakers . . . or whether we have some broken bones we need to offer for healing. Some of us are apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, but all of us—every single one of us—is a minister of the gospel, building up our part of the body in service to the whole.

So, my friends, it's time for us to recommit to some body building here at Madison Square, as we gear up for the next phase of this team sport we call the church. We have a brand new body to build together, with Christ as our head, trusting Christ to knit us together in love to serve one another and, indeed, the world.

May it be so for each one of us, and for all of us together. Amen.

The Humanity of the Nations

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Psalm 9:9-20        A Prayer for the Triumph of Justice
Ephesians 2:11-22


The Holy One of our ancestors who were oppressed and enslaved in Egypt lifts up those who are oppressed today into a safe and secure retreat
A safe and secure place in times of distress

Those who know your name, Holy One, will trust in you
Because you have not—and will not ever—abandon those who seek you

Sing to the Holy One of our ancestors, whose eternal dwelling place is a safe and secure retreat in a city of peace!
Proclaim the deeds of our liberating God among all people everywhere!

Because the One who avenges the blood of those who have been victimized remembers them;
Our God does not forget the crying out of those who are afflicted

Have mercy on me, Holy One. See my many sufferings at the hands of my enemies. You are the One who lifts me up from the gates of death!

If I am instead at the gates of your safe and secure place . . . if I am instead at the gates of your city of peace,
I can rejoice in your deliverance and recount your praises in song!

The nations around me have sunk into a pit they have made;
Their own foot has been caught in the net they hid for others

The Holy One of our oppressed ancestors has made himself known; she has executed judgment.

In their own handiwork, those who do wicked things are ensnared.

Those who do evil—the nations around me who forget their divine mandate for justice—will return to Sheol:
a graveyard of their own—completely separate from God.

Because the person in need will not always be forgotten!
The person who is poor will not lose hope forever!

Rise up, God! Thou shalt not let humankind prevail!
Let the nations around me be judged in your presence!

Put them in terror, Holy One of our ancestors.
Let the nations around me know that they are, indeed, only human.


The thing about the Psalms is that they a real. They are human. They speak the truth of what we really feel when we really feel it.

Like how many of us feel this weekend after watching yet another community ripped apart tragically by the deep underpinning of violence that dehumanizes our nation in ways we can no longer choose to ignore. Surely our very humanity is at stake. Surely we can understand in this moment what kind of wrenching anguish that would cause the psalmist from our Scripture reading today to cry out in desperation for a “safe and secure place” where God’s justice and peace will prevail for all time. For those who have been victimized to be avenged by a God who will not ever forget their name. And, in the end, for God’s great mercy to prevail among us all.

In a prayer that speaks the truth of the experience of any human being who has suffered at the hand of another—of any human being who has suffered the inhumanity of the nations—the psalmist prays for vindication, for the triumph of justice, for deliverance from the gates of death that surround him on all sides.
You are a God who avenges the blood of those who have been victimized, the psalmist insists, even as we cringe at the violence of these words. You are a God who can put terror in the hearts of my enemies, the psalmist says, of the ones who do not even see me as human. You are a God who will rise up and judge the nations who have forgotten their divine mandate to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with you. You are a God who will remind the nations that they, too—that we, too, are only human.

I first came across the power of this psalm when I was serving a church in Tucson and faced the reality of our nation’s immigration crisis on a daily. It occurred to me that this must also be the prayer of the migrant who does not make it. The one who dies in the desert between the United States and Mexico. Or the one who returns to Mexico with bleeding feet, or worse. Or the one who builds a home directly across from the border wall—from the gate of death we have built as a deterrent to anyone who would dare pursue a dream of life abundant. A wall whose explicitly stated purpose at its creation was to drive the migrant into the most dangerous parts of the desert. Where every one of them is dehydrated. Traumatized. And if you are female, most likely raped.

Surely this was the prayer of Jose Mario Ocampo Rivera when he migrated from Mexico at 41 years of age. Surely he cried out for a safe and secure place where God’s justice and peace will prevail for all time as he, too, perished senselessly. Discovered in the desert on January 9, 2012. Cause of death: exposure to the elements . . .

Surely this was the prayer of Maria Martha Luna Sanchez . . . age unknown . . . discovered in the desert on February 13, 2012 . . . cause of death: organ failure . . .

Surely this was the prayer of Juan Cruz Garcia . . . age unknown . . . discovered in the desert on February 27, 2012 . . . cause of death: blunt force injuries to the head.

Surely this was the prayer of every migrant who has died crossing the desert from Mexico to the United States, beginning from the time the wall of hostility that lines the U.S. border with Mexico began to scar the landscape between Douglas, Arizona, U.S.A. and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, and continuing until that day when we can reclaim the humanity of the nations. And break down the walls that divide us, both literal and metaphorical. And proclaim finally and forever that God has made peace for those who are far off and for those who are near, as the writer of our Scripture lesson from Ephesians begs the early church to proclaim.

The names of migrants who have died crossing the desert have been called out in a vigil of prayer every Tuesday of every week of every year since the border wall was constructed. One of the sponsors of the prayer vigil is an organization called Frontera de Cristo, which is one of six official Presbyterian ministries along the U.S.-Mexico border. And just in case you didn’t know, the national coordinator for Presbyterian Border Ministries is our own Micaela Reznicek, and her office is right here at Madison Square.

I joined this prayer vigil one Tuesday several years ago with a mission group on behalf of the church I served in Tucson. We began our prayers at a street corner a quarter mile from the border wall, each one of us picking up a plain white cross with the name of a migrant who had died. We spoke out that person’s name, if we knew it. If we did not we named them, “Desconocido/a.” And then we shouted with all our might, “presente!” So that they might somehow hear from the great beyond that they are “no longer strangers and aliens but citizens with the saints . . . and members of the household of God.”

The words of judgment from the psalmist were fresh on my mind as we crossed back into Agua Prieta after our prayer vigil in Douglas. We drove along a road ironically named the “International Highway,” because it travels along the official border between Mexico and the United States. But there was no United States to be seen. All we could see was that gate of death to our left, for miles ahead, all the way up the hill to the horizon and through the rear view mirror all the way back to the horizon behind of us. Half of us were already sick with a stomach ailment. All of us were tired and full of despair. All of us felt helpless to do anything but lament our common inhumanity. And lamenting our inhumanity is, I would argue, an act of faith with deep integrity.

But it is not the end of the story. The psalmist continues: The Holy One of our oppressed ancestors lifts up those who are oppressed today! God has provided and will continue to provide a safe and secure retreat in times of distress! The nations may forget the cries of the afflicted, we may disregard the names of those who die in the desert, but God does not! God remembers!

As we drove along that border fence—still in an attitude of prayer from our vigil in Douglas—we just happened to look up through the windshield and a miracle from God appeared before our eyes just ahead: a double rainbow had formed, beginning on the U.S. side of the border wall, crossing high above, high into the heavens, leading into Mexico, where it merged into the clouds. God’s covenant promise for all the nations available to us, who are only human. All we have to do is open our eyes and capture the vision.

“This wall is coming down!” one of our group declared boldly, as we prayed through the power of that moment. “The Berlin Wall came down in Germany and Nelson Mandela came out of prison in South Africa, and this wall is going to come down!” God has willed it to be so. All we have to do is catch the vision and make it real. This is the Word of God to us today!!!

Desmond Tutu often says that the prayers of the women were the deciding factor in the end of apartheid in South Africa. That their trust in a liberating God, that their honesty with God and one another about their suffering and anger, that their hope in the midst of despair kept the movement alive in its most difficult days. And it can continue to be true today. I, for one, believe in the power of prayer to change the world. And to change you. And to change me. And maybe even to change our broken immigration system along the way . . .
And so I ask every one of us to join again in the prayers of that vigil along the U.S.-Mexico border that takes place every Tuesday. And to turn our prayers into action by joining our adult education conversation about immigration in the next five weeks. And to trust that God will always welcome us home to the joyful work of restoring the humanity of the nations. And join all of our prayers together into one beautiful cadence from one family, built together in the Spirit into a beautiful dwelling place for our God, proclaiming peace to those who are far off and to those who are near, no longer strangers and aliens, but every one of us citizens with the saints and members of the one household of God.

I pray it may be so.

Amen.

Surviving the Calm

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Mark 4:35-40
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"


About five years ago, when I was still in seminary, one of my very best friends had a baby. I will call her Elizabeth. Having a baby was harder than Elizabeth thought it would be. The baby cried. A lot. Elizabeth cried. A lot.

When I finally had a chance to visit her over my so-called summer “vacation” I ordered my dear friend straight to bed, took over the childcare, and held her son in my arms. It was time to calm the storm.

Three hours later I was crying! The baby was crying. Elizabeth was crying.  I was training to be a pastor, but every prayer I ever knew escaped me (and I will not repeat the words that took their place!). I was completely lost. But singing, now that I still remembered. And for whatever reason those songs I learned in Sunday School came flooding back. The lullabies most of all. And I started singing (in my “those who can’t sing, preach, soprano” . . . or is it alto?) “Peace . . . peace . . . be still . . . peace . . . be still . . . peace . . . be still . . .

I did not care how badly I sang off tune that day. I just sang with all my might to that crying baby. And to the baby’s crying mother. And yes, to my crying self. And it wasn’t immediate. And it took a lot longer than I really thought it should. But finally . . . eventually . . . the wailing ceased. And the hiccups turned to sighs. And the baby became a lump in my arms. And I collapsed . . . exhausted . . . on the couch. And my friend finally got some sleep. And so did the baby.

And so did I.

I am guessing just about everyone here could tell a version of that story—from five years ago or from five minutes ago—about coming to our wits end in the swirling chaos that just won’t quit, not even for a second, and holding on to whatever gift of grace God gives us in a moment. Crying out for peace. Singing out for peace. Literally making peace so by our singing. And in an odd way by our crying. Because somehow in our singing and our crying we are finally able to relax enough to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are leaning on everlasting arms. And they are the arms of peace. And they will not ever let us go.

[choral interlude, “Riding Through the Storm”]

The thing about the winds and the wave is that they have been with us from the beginning of time. From those very first verses in Genesis, when God was beginning to create the heavens and the earth, and the New Revised Standard Version translation says “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” And of course the Newquist Interpretive Version from the Hebrew [ve·ru·ach e·lo·him me·ra·che·fet al-pe·nei ham·ma·yim] coming from a woman named “Gusti,” would translate this as the Spirit of God, the breath of God, the wind of God, according to our sacred stories, literally swooping and swirling and maybe even storming over the waters of primordial chaos. From the very beginning.

Which means that the Spirit of God has not just been calming the storm from the beginning of time, but that the Spirit of God has also been in the storm from the beginning of time. And that the Spirit of God may even be using the storm as an uncharted gift of God’s presence and grace and ultimate healing, if it can lead us to know deep in our soul that God is still with us, in good times and in bad, through the swooping and swirling Spirit that forces us to confront our deepest fears, and the peace of Christ within it that passes all understanding, and the everlasting arms of our mothering/fathering/or even best-friend-stepping-in-to-help-out-on-vacation God who will do whatever it takes to calm us in our chaos. Because even God knows what it is to take a break and rest, in the midst of the storm.

Which is, of course, what Jesus is doing on that boat in the first place. With a really long day of preaching and teaching behind him and another long day of healing and casting out demons ahead of him, you could say he is a little tired. And so he is, as we say, “asleep at the wheel” as the storm rages on . . .

And the disciples are terrified, of course, fearing Jesus has abandoned them. But in his defense, may I just point out that Jesus is a carpenter! The disciples are the fishermen! They are the ones who know about boats! What on earth do they expect Jesus to do that they don’t already know how to do themselves? And how often do we cry out to God to save us when we really already do have everything we need to survive already in our possession, as God-given gifts and talents, just waiting for a storm to give us the chance to step up in ways we never knew we could? We know that, here at Madison Square. We do know that . . .

But of course Jesus does still the storm as soon as he wakes up. And chides the disciples for their lack of faith. And then they go on about their healing mission on the other side of the Lake of Galilee. And so, in the end, must we, on the other side of whatever storm has raged—or is still raging . . . around us . . .

But here’s where the real trouble begins. Because if the Gospel of Mark is any indication, the more difficult journey for the disciples comes when the storm ends, and the waters calm, and the clouds fade, and the gentle waves lap at their hull. We start to take the other boat-riders for granted. To jockey for positions of power. To forget the mission that draws us together in the first place. That’s what the disciples do. That’s what we do, if we’re really truly honest.

Jesus asks them to do something different. Jesus asks us to do something different. Yes, we can descend into petty bickering. And miss the moment of grace in search of another crisis. And even go so far as to re-create the storm in an ironic twist that we think will bring us together to “survive” again.

Or we can celebrate all that God has done to lead us through. We can play together and appreciate one another and glorify the God who made it so. We can splash together forever in the cool, calm waters of baptismal grace that form the font of our identity. We can feast with abandon at the table of mercy that offers us such generous sustenance. We can sing boldly—and even badly!—from the word of memory and hope that helps us survive the calm.  And we can walk together with one another whenever the moment arises to offer a word of comfort and care, as the people of God who really do already know how to steer this boat.

And we can survive the calm even better than we have survived the storm. Because the peace that passes understanding is with us always. Leading us forever home. Where help will always come. And we will always be held. Leaning on the everlasting arms of a God who is just as tired as we are. And is bidding us all to rest. And be at peace. And be still. I pray it may be so. Amen.

The Guidance of the Spirit of God

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


1 Samuel 16:1-13


“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh . . .” Peter says on Pentecost Sunday . . . “and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . and the ones among you who are young shall see visions . . . and the ones among you who are old shall dream dreams” . . . so that in all things you will seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . in the name of Christ . . . Amen . . .

And so we have arrived. The final chapter of our meditation on the Madison Square mission. A meditation that began with a celebration of Madison Square’s 130th anniversary on Transfiguration Sunday, and a sermon series on the mission statement combined with Focus Groups in the Season of Lent, and has continued since Easter Sunday with a report from your Transition Team on the vision and values and priorities for Madison Square, and with the presbytery affirming that Madison Square is, indeed, ready to begin the search for an installed pastor.

You may recall, if you were paying very close attention in this period of preparation, that I never did officially preach on the final statement of the Madison Square mission: “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” And that is because I was saving it for today. The day we elect a Pastor Nominating Committee to do this very thing that ties your entire vision and mission together, which is “to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” in calling that new installed pastor who will lead you into the future.

I saved a sermon on the guidance of the Spirit of God for this day because we really must live this part of the Madison Square mission in the next step of the interim process. We really must trust the guidance of the Spirit of God in bringing your installed pastor to you. We really must affirm together that this part of the Madison Square mission is in the end the only thing we can truly hang our hat on in any part of living out our mission as the Pentecost People who form the Christian Church.

The mystery and the promise of our faith is that we really do trust that the Spirit of God that was present in the beginning of Creation, present in the anointing of kings and the utterance of prophets, present in the baptism of Jesus, present in the birth of the church on Pentecost Sunday, present in the promise of our own baptism, present at the table that sustains us with bread and wine in abundance, present through the words of memory and hope that soar through the sacred words of ancient Scripture, is also present in the still, small voice that speaks within every one of us. In our sighs too deep for words to express. In our visions. In our dreams. And in our prophetic actions for justice and peace.

What we have learned and affirmed over and over and over again in this Spirit-led meditation on the Madison Square mission is that the Spirit of God really does call the entire congregation to the ministry of this church. Not just the next installed pastor. Or, I might add, the current interim pastor. We are, every one of us, called by the Spirit of God to the ministry of the gospel through our baptism. Nourished by the Spirit of God in our communion. And commissioned by the Spirit of God in our preaching.

And so I would even dare to say that in a very real sense it should not matter who your next installed pastor is. Because the ministry of Madison Square belongs to you, the ones God has called to worship in this sanctuary and called to service beyond these walls. Your vision is the Spirit’s vision for you. Your mission is the Spirit’s mission for you. Your priorities are the Spirit’s priorities for you. And you are the ones who will bring this vision to life, through the power of the Spirit.

It is precisely because we have been so diligent in affirming your calling as a congregation in seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God in the recent meditation on the Madison Square mission that we are finally ready to elect and commission a small group of people to serve as your Pastor Nominating Committee, in the same manner as the prophet Samuel in our Scripture lesson today, seeking just the right person to bring to you as a candidate for your next installed pastor. To support and encourage and nurture the vision God has given you, receptive always to the ongoing guidance of the Spirit of God.

The good news is we really are ready. It has been a long haul, but we really are ready. The challenging news is . . . well . . . the task of seeking a new installed pastor is just plain challenging. If we have been paying any attention to how the guidance of the Spirit of God works in our lives—and in the lives of our biblical ancestors—well, we just cannot ever predict how the guidance of the Spirit of God will lead. Or how long it will take to discern the guidance of the Spirit of God. Or if we will even like the guidance of the Spirit of God.

Take Samuel, for example. He is the biblical version of a Pastor Nominating Committee in our Scripture lesson for today. And surely he is seeking with due diligence “the guidance of the Spirit of God” in declaring who will lead the people in his own time and place. But if you remember from last Sunday’s lesson, Samuel was never in favor of this whole “king” business to begin with. He only submits to it begrudgingly. And it takes him a while to find exactly the right person.

The guidance of the Spirit of God has at least made it clear to him that the next leader for the people of God will come from the family of Jesse. So Samuel goes to Jesse. And what do they do? They worship God. Did you notice? The search for the new leader begins . . . with worship. Just like it is for us today. It is only after the worship service has concluded that Samuel actually evaluates the candidates.

Jesse brings his children forward. Which one will it be? Surely that first-born son is the one! (they all think) Groomed for greatness from the very beginning. The one who would allow them to call off the search right away and go back to a life of leisure. But “God does not see as mortals see; we look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” The guidance of the Spirit of God is clear. The one who makes the most sense in the eyes of Samuel is simply not the one God has chosen for the job. So Samuel keeps searching. Candidate after candidate parades before him. All of them are great people. All of them are fabulous in their own way. But none of them are anointed by the Spirit of God for the particular purpose of leading the people into the next era.

Samuel becomes quite certain the task is hopeless. “Do you have any more children?” Samuel asks of Jesse. And Jesse hesitates. “Well, there is that little shepherd boy,” he says, dismissing the notion this could possibly be God’s anointed. And of course that little shepherd boy turns out to be exactly the one who is clearly anointed by the Spirit of God for this purpose: King David, himself! The one we remember today as the greatest king of all.
This, too, will be the case for the Pastor Nominating Committee at Madison Square. Once they are elected by the congregation, they will gather regularly to seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in developing a “Church Information Form” to share with prospective candidates. They will bring that form to the session for approval and then they will post that form on-line to what I affectionately call the “Presbyterian Church on-line dating service,” matching the profiles of potential pastors with churches that might be a good fit for them. The great computer in the sky will send resumes to your Pastor Nominating Committee. And pastors themselves will send their resume. And the PNC will seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in reviewing applications and sermon samples and checking references of those applicants.

They will update us periodically on where they are in the search. But under no circumstances will they divulge the confidential information they share with one another in the search. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they share the names of candidates they are considering. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they tell us when and where they have scheduled face-to-face interviews. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they enter this process with the expectation that they know from the beginning whom God has chosen for the position. That’s what Samuel did. And he was wrong. So don’t ask them!

What they will do, what they must do, in all that they do, is seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God. Just as you have told them to do in the Madison Square mission statement. They will feel excitement and enthusiasm at the beginning, just like Samuel did. And they will go through periods of great frustration and disappointment, just like Samuel did. And they will keep on seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God through every part of the search process, just like Samuel did.

And then, in the end, at exactly the right time (and not a moment before), the Spirit of God will make it very clear who the next installed pastor of Madison Square should be, just like God did with David and Samuel. And the Pastor Nominating Committee will present that person to you for your approval at a congregational meeting. And we will most definitely shout yet another alleluia!

There is no way to know, today, when the time will be. We have been advised to expect a year. Perhaps it will take longer. I doubt it will be much less. But rest assured, that day WILL come!

In the meantime we continue to celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit upon all of us for ministry at Madison Square in this Pentecost season. The summer is full of fun for our kids with Vacation Bible School. The pulpit will be filled with incredible guest preachers and children’s moment leaders and a double infant baptism in the middle of July. The Stewardship Committee continues to prepare for a congregation-wide conversation this fall about the treasure God has given to us and our faithful stewardship of it. The Finance Committee continues to assess and improve our accounting procedures one large step at a time. AND we will move forward in August with envisioning new ideas for adult education and member care. And we will do it all with gratitude and delight in the guidance of the Spirit of God . . .

Because God is still “pouring out the Spirit upon all flesh,” . . . “and your sons and your daughters are still prophesying” . . . “and the ones among you who are young are still seeing visions” . . . “and the ones among you who are old are still dreaming dreams” . . . so that in all things we may continue to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” . . . in the name of Christ, we pray . . . Amen.

On Rummage Sales and the Reality of God

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


1 Samuel 7:15-8:22, 10:17-25


Poor Samuel. He has tried so hard.

By the time we meet him in our Scripture lesson this morning, he has given every part of his life to leading the people of God in ancient Israel. He has spoken prophetically of God’s justice and love. He has led priestly rituals as a steward of God’s mysteries. He has settled disputes, led the people into battle, soothed their wounds, and kept the peace. They cannot even begin to imagine their lives without him.

But to everything there is a season, and by the time we meet Samuel in our Scripture lesson this morning, Samuel’s season is coming to an end. And he knows it. And so do the people.

So Samuel sets up a transition team. Joel and Abijah, Samuel’s two strapping sons, have more than enough wealth and training and God-given talent to take on the task. Samuel sends them off to learn the trade throughout the farthest reaches of the federation, expecting them to return to Ramah—the center of the federation in the time of Samuel’s judgeship—ready to lead upon his death.

It does not go according to plan.

While Samuel shows every indication that he has found his power directly from God’s anointing of his ministry, Joel and Abijah draw their power more from the job of judging, itself. They plunder the villages they have been appointed to serve. They take bribes for their economic influence. They twist justice at every turn in order advance their own agendas.

Or at least that is what history records. Truth be told, we never do hear their side of the story.

The bottom line is that something must be done. The question is . . . what?


It helps to understand what is going on in this Scripture if we take a step back from this tale of a transition gone south and focus on the even bigger transition going on all around the people of ancient Israel. Because at the time of our Scripture lesson, the entire political and social and economic structure of the land we still to this day call “holy” is also changing dramatically. The other, non-Israelite, tribal federations that live in the land with them have begun to centralize their governments and specialize their occupations and consolidate their militaries and emerge as nation-states. Every one of them ruled by a king.

Sociologists who study religion have begun to call the kind of sweeping societal change that is taking place in our Scripture lesson today something like a great big “rummage sale,” when people of faith re-evaluate our expected norms and practices in light of dramatic societal shifts. It happens every 500 years or so. The Protestant Reformation was an example. The emergence of Christianity in the first century as a form of post-temple Judaism was an example. And this transition from the period of judges to the period of kings was an example.

So Samuel’s pending retirement, in the context of the Really Big Rummage Sale that is swirling around their society, gives the ancient Israelites a chance to toss out what they don’t need any more and to make way for the new. Which is what the people rightly call for, even though Samuel gives them a whole lot of grief for it. And although though the first King—Saul—the one who is hidden in the pile of baggage—doesn’t work out so well, the next King—David—and the King after that—Solomon—are truly fabulous. They lead the glory days of ancient Israel. In hindsight, we can see that the people who are calling for a king do move the tradition forward. And they are to be commended for it.

The real point of the lesson of First Samuel is not about whether or not it is a good idea to transition to a king. The real point of the lesson is about whether or not we are trusting the God who has anointed the king! And every other leader who came before the king! And every other leader who will come after the king! Because the community of faith really is, always and forever, about the kingdom of God, regardless of whom God has anointed as their leader.

And it is the God who is our king, who will always and forever lead every one of us out of whatever bondage we are in, through whatever transition we are in, into whatever new life we are about to become. That is what Samuel is so concerned the people will forget if—and when—they finally get their all-too-human king.

Woe unto us if we forget it, too, here at Madison Square, as we turn toward the task of nominating and electing a Pastor Nominating Committee that will function as your “Samuel” in seeking a new installed pastor. Because as thorough as we have been in consulting the congregation in this season of self-assessment, this transition is not, in the end, about the individual pastor who will lead you for the next season. It is about the God who will guide you through every season.

And while it may have been an immediate pastoral transition that has been occupying much of our imagination in this interim period, we, like those ancient Israelites clamoring for a king in the face of Samuel’s pending retirement, do well to remember that we are caught up in a much larger transition as American Protestant Christians in the twenty-first century. Another of what the sociologists of religion call a “great rummage sale” of re-evaluating basic norms and practices in light of our own great dramatic societal shifts. And, boy, are we shifting!

While the national trends are less true in south Texas than they are in other parts of the country, the shifting reality for American Protestant Christianity is that we really are no longer a clearly culturally Christian society. And the so-called “mainline Protestant” churches are no longer the center of the society we are becoming instead. Even just in my lifetime—and I am of the “Generation X”—we have become more secular, more pluralistic, and more diverse. Changes which many of us actually might like. We are also much more consumed with a culture of individual choice, from the marketplace of consumer goods to the marketplace of ideas to the marketplace of religious practice.

We can lament the effects of these trends on our tradition, of course. And perhaps we do. We are—at least as a Presbyterian denomination—just as conflicted about “what went wrong” as the crowds and Samuel were in our biblical text for today. But the bottom line is that this shift is upon us, and it is not going away, and our challenge is to adapt our way of ministry in a new way for a new day, just like they did in ancient Israel. We just have to be clear about the God we are serving in the midst of this shifting.

Where the ancient Israelites were consolidating and expanding in response to their cultural context, we are decentralizing and diversifying and dreaming whole new ways of being church. Where the ancient Israelites were compiling their traditions into a grand narrative, we are opening up a multiplicity of new ways to tell “the old, old story” of Jesus and his love. Where the ancient Israelites were building a big temple for the common worship of God, we are learning to take the church to the people beyond the building. And there are some exciting new ways of “being church” that Christians across the country are exploring these days.

A pastor from my Interim Ministry training program is starting a church on the beach in California. Can you imagine taking the church to the people, right there along the shore of this new Lake Galilee, sharing communion and celebrating the Spirit of creation. Another pastor friend of mine in Louisville has founded an Eco-Justice worship collective, where they gather to reclaim our God-given gift of true stewardship for this creation in ecological crisis. The San Antonio version of ministry beyond borders is taking place at The Foundry coffee shop, where people young and old gather for coffee and community and the gift of God’s grace. I understand they are going out of business fairly soon, which is really too bad . . . or perhaps we at Madison Square might find a way to fill the gap?

The bottom line is that what we are learning in this great rummage sale that is the emerging 21st century version of American Protestant Christianity is that the church, itself, is a “mission field.” That we, ourselves, are rediscovering the meaning of the very “transformation” we preach. And that being on the margins of an increasingly secular society may in fact be just the kind of jolt we need to boldly proclaim the good news of God for all who are on the margins of society.

Which is, of course, exactly what the self-assessment of Madison Square has said you want to do. So let’s do it! The two things we have agreed to work on together in August when I come back from vacation are adult education and member care. One way to do that could be to say, “Well, this is what we used to do, and we got away from it, so let’s get back to it again. Or we could say this is a whole new season for God’s grace to be proclaimed, and we have bold new ideas to explore together. What new gatherings of community might God be forming in us and through us as we reach out even more beyond this sacred sanctuary? What new risks are we called to take as we let go of ways of being church that had their place and time but need to make space for something else? And what anxiety do we need to let go, in order to trust that the God who has always led us out of whatever bondage we find ourselves in is doing so again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and even with us?

Poor Samuel did not really get it wrong when the people clamored for a king. He just wanted their true king to be the God they worshiped and served. And we won’t go wrong if we remember the same. No matter what transition we are in.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

Love Makes a Trinity

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Trinity Sunday
More Light Sunday
Celebrating the One Who Love You Sunday


John 3:1-8


“Love makes a family,” we say in our efforts to describe the great diversity of relationship configurations in which modern American society provides care and support and concern for one another. Including within the church.

“Love makes a family,” we say here at Madison Square, because we have experienced in our own congregation so many of the different kinds of ways that families may be faithfully constructed. To the point that even our efforts to compile a comprehensive list of these many configurations inevitably overlooks beloved members of our community. Which is why the final report of the Madison Square Vision and Values and Priorities statement adopted by your session two weeks ago simply states that “children from all types of families mingle naturally in worship for all ages and in our age-appropriate activities in Children’s Church.”

Which is emphatically true.

Which is why we are observing “The One Who Loves You” Day in this very moment, halfway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

I learned of this observance when I was speaking with your Interim Pastor Search Committee about what to expect upon arriving at Madison Square. “Celebrate the One Who Loves You Day”—or “Celebrate the Ones Who Love You Day”—came about, I was told, after a member of the Madison Square Worship Committee volunteered with the children’s church several years ago. It happened to be Mother’s Day. This church volunteer thought she would do a marvelous thing by inviting the children to celebrate their mothers on that day, only to end up with one of the children weeping in her arms because that child was parented by two fathers and wanted to know why they could not be included in the celebration. 

Right then and there the reality of modern families hit home for this faithful volunteer among our children. And when she took a second look around the room, she saw love making all kinds of families at Madison Square. Some children were parented by two mothers. Some children were parented by a mother and a father. Some children were parented by grandparents. Some children were parented by foster parents. Some children were parented in ways she did not know at the time.

And in that moment of simply paying attention to the parenting love of God in the lives of the children of the church, the Spirit of God transformed the family values of this faithful volunteer. And led her to conclude that if love also makes a church family, then Madison Square must update its traditions and celebrate everyone who extends the parenting love of our parenting God with the ones who need that parenting love the most.

And so we have.

On most days the ones who celebrate the parenting love of God in this updated tradition at Madison Square will likely be our children. But if we’re honest, on some days it might just be any one of the rest of us. The so-called “adults” in the room. Because don’t we all need the parenting love of God in our lives? Perhaps even more when we’re supposedly “all grown up”? Don’t we all need to celebrate the one who loves us—or the ones who love us—with the parenting love of God?

I know I do.

It is, after all, the parenting love of our parenting God that led a very adult Jesus to call God his “Abba,” or his “Father.” Or, to translate the Aramaic more accurately, his “Daddy.” Which was absolutely an update of the traditions of his time. Because the little boy Jesus knew in his bones what it was to rely on the parental love of God through his “non-traditional family” of an adoptive father and a scandalized mother. And the grown-up Jesus knew he needed to extend that parenting love of God to his own spiritual “band of brothers” (and, I would argue, more than few sisters) who would one day plant the seeds of the church family we have become two thousand years later. So he changed the way we understood God. And he changed the way we understood how to relate with God and with one another. And a primary way of expressing this change is through the language of the Trinity.

The God whose name was too holy to be pronounced became known as in the most intimate of familial terms: Father; Son; Holy Spirit, in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula. Or, as the 5th century theologian St. Augustine would put it: as Lover; Beloved; and the Love that binds them together.

And wow! What a difference that intimate, familial, ever-present divine love has made since we updated our traditions to reflect its ongoing revelation! And what a difference it can make when we continue to update our traditions to reflect its revelation today!

Because if the adult Jesus is, for all time, “God, the Beloved Son,” as we have come to know him in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula; and if the Holy Spirit is, for all time, the love that binds the Loving Father and the Beloved Son together, as the classically conservative fifth century theologian St. Augustine has taught us; then it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say today that love makes a divine family, as well. That “love makes a Trinity,” just as much as love makes a human family or a church family.

Because it is not at all beyond the broadly accepted scope of our faith tradition to understand the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Lover, Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, we can say with absolute assurance that the Christian view of God is that God’s very being is what we might today call a “non-traditional family.” Bound together by the grace of a mutually affirming and life-giving love for all time.

Because love isn’t what a solitary, self-sufficient God does, in Christian experience. Love is who God is! Bound up in a mutually affirming and ultimately life-giving family of grace that invites us to be “born again” into this very divinely human family. In God. And of God. In love. In all of our many configurations. Forever and ever. Amen!

And it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say that when Jesus asks us to be “born again,” of water and Spirit, what he is asking of us is to let the Spirit of divine and steadfast love—swirling in a wind that will always blow wherever it chooses—transform our far too narrow knee-jerk reactions of what it means to be the family of God, so that we may participate in God’s triune vision for a divine home that binds our human family together in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Which is what Jesus was asking of Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson today.

The righteous, respected Pharisee, certified member of the religious establishment, Nicodemus knew Jesus was up to something divinely inspired, even when his peers put him down. So under cover of darkness, he approaches Jesus, in our text, to talk about the teaching of the kingdom of God. With the intention of bringing the clearly divinely led Jesus into the respected tradition of the elders, to which Nicodemus belongs.

But Jesus offers the exact opposite.

In the name of the God who is Lover, and Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, you can almost hear Jesus saying, I want to bring you, Nicodemus, and you, religious establishment into the updated tradition of the family of God. I want you to be “born again,” Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, as a participant in God’s holy family. And I want you to invite others to do the same.

Because what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that spiritual rebirth really is possible. And in fact, it is necessary, for all who would keep up with the divine wind that “blows where it chooses.” And what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that it is often the most “religious” people who need that spiritual rebirth.

The good news, for Jesus and for us, is that Nicodemus does exactly what Jesus asks him to do. He lets the Spirit of love re-make his participation in God’s holy family. Because although Nicodemus is only willing to approach Jesus in today’s lectionary text from the Gospel of John under cover of darkness, in a “secret meeting,” as a “closeted” supporter of Jesus, you might say, Nicodemus later comes out full force as a defender of Jesus among his fellow Pharisees. And he brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint the broken body of Christ after the crucifixion. And he aligns himself for all time with the kind of care for the Beloved Son of a Loving Father God that any model brother would perform when confronted with the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love right before his eyes.

And the same thing can happen among the religious establishment of our day, as well.

Because the good news for us, on this Trinity More Light Sunday Celebrating the One Who Loves Us, is that the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love continues to birth us over and over again as God’s beloved family. Especially as we come to the table of our parenting God in our common communion. Where there is always room for one more to “come home” and learn all over again what it is to love the one human family that we most assuredly are. Created by the God who will not ever let us go.

I pray it may be so. Amen.