Rooted and Centered in Christ, and Inspired by the Holy Spirit, we are sent to share God’s love.
God’s love – which, as described by some of our youngest members is like a continuous number line that goes on from forever to forever, is greater and weightier and bigger than the whole cosmos, is with us when we are joyous and feeling down, and is passed on when we love our neighbor as ourself.
God’s love is the love that is freely given, not earned – don’t have to prove you are worthy first. Therefore, the love we share with others isn’t because they are worthy, but because they are God’s beloved and that’s enough.
Sunday’s Gospel text, Luke 16:19-31, has Jesus telling another parable about the proper use of wealth – when you are blessed with a financial abundance you raise your standard of giving before your standard of living. In this parable, a well-to-do man who lives a leisurely life ignores a neighbor in need right at his front gate, Lazarus. The unnamed well-to-do man does so with dire consequences for Lazarus and for himself, inhibiting the abundant life God intends for both of them.
We are sent to share God’s love. And we are sent, at the very least, to the place we are right now, to our home, our work, our neighbors. To the people right outside our gates. So we’re faced with the questions:
Who is at our gates? Who is Lazarus?
For our congregation, it’s a question of who in our midst and among our neighbors have we been ignoring. Who have we not invited in, but left sitting alone.
It’s the families served by our Spirit Blessings and the CavLounge who are unsure of it they will have a next meal while we know we will have lunch.
For our nation, we have thousands at our gates who have shown up because they have nowhere else safe to be or because they hope to better their lives and provide for their family in the midst of drought. Folks of all ages from infants to elders. Some of whom aren’t just left at the gate, but placed in holding pens.
For you and for me-who is at our gates? Honestly, I must confess, and I ask for God’s help in doing better, but I couldn’t even tell you the names of many of my closest neighbors who live on my street. I certainly couldn’t tell you much about the children of God who live at the RV park across from the entrance to my neighborhood. And they are most certainly my neighbors and people to whom I am sent to share God’s love.
Throughout November we’ll be digging deep and exploring the Christian art of being a good neighbor. We’ll learn from the example of Christ, from saints who have blessed our lives, from the lessons of our favorite Television Neighbor, the incomparable Rev. Fred Rogers, and from one another. Challenging each other to know our neighbors, love our neighbors, increase the life and joy of our neighborhoods, share God’s love in our own pocket of this world God so loves.
This is vital not just for others, not just for those at our gates, but us too.
This is a matter of life and death. We have scripture, we have the gospel, we have the gift of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit compelling is again and again. Have we been transformed by the Risen and living Christ? We most certainly have. But we also aren’t perfect. But we are loved perfectly by the source and ground of all goodness and life.
And so again and again we are gathered, centered, inspired, and sent. Because the life-giving, saving work of Christ has given us treasure worth more than any billion dollar stock option, a home more secure and of greater value than any gated house on a hill. And we are called to be salt and light, to shine brightly into a world wrapped in shadow, to present hope to a world convinced of despair.
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