Matthew 28:18-20 – Where Will We Do Our Ministry?

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (New International Version)

We will do our ministry by going and jumping into the people’s lives who are in our neighborhood and community. To “go” doesn’t exclusively mean to travel to another place. It mostly involves the willingness to get up, go, and walk across the street, or even just across the room.

Tony Campolo is a Christian preacher, professor emeritus, and author. He tells of once being in a city doing some business and could not sleep. So, he found a greasy spoon diner that was open all night. He retells his experience this way:

“As I sat munching on my donut and sipping my coffee at 3:30 in the morning, the door of the diner suddenly swung open and, to my discomfort, in marched eight or nine boisterous prostitutes. It was a small place, and they sat on either side of me. Their talk was loud and crude. I felt completely out of place and was just about to make my getaway when I overheard the woman beside me say:

“Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be 39.” Her “friend” responded in a nasty tone, “So what do you want from me, a birthday party?”

“I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”

I sat and waited until the women had left. Then I called over the large man behind the counter named Harry, and I asked him, “Do they come in here every night?”

“Yeah!” he answered.

“The one right next to me, does she come here every night?”

“Yeah!” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why do you want to know?”

“Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday,” I told him. “What do you say you and I do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”

Calling to his wife, who did the cooking in the back room, Harry shouted, “Hey! Come out here! This guy’s got a great idea. Tomorrow’s Agnes’s birthday. This guy wants us to go in with him and throw a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night!”

His wife came out of the back room all bright and smiley. She said, “That’s wonderful! You know Agnes is one of those people who is really nice and kind, and nobody does anything nice and kind for her.”

“Look,” I told them, “if it’s okay with you, I’ll get back here tomorrow morning about 2:30 and decorate the place. I’ll even get a birthday cake!”

“No way,” said Harry. “The birthday cake’s my thing. I’ll make the cake.”

At 2:30 the next morning, I was back at the diner. I had picked up some crepe-paper decorations at the store and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read, “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” I decorated the diner from one end to the other.

The woman who did the cooking must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in the city was in the place. It was wall-to-wall prostitutes and me!

At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open, and in came Agnes and her friend. I had everybody ready, and when they came in, we all screamed, “Happy birthday!”

Her mouth fell open. As she was led to sit on one of the stools along the counter, we all sang “Happy Birthday”‘ to her. As we came to the end of our singing with “happy birthday, dear Agnes, happy birthday to you,” her eyes moistened. Then, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.

Harry gruffly mumbled, “Blow out the candles, Agnes! Come on! Blow out the candles!” Agnes looked down at the cake. Then without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, “Look, Harry, is it all right with you if I keep the cake a little while? I mean, is it all right if we don’t eat it right away?”

Harry shrugged and answered, “Sure! It’s O.K. If you want to keep the cake, keep the cake. Take it home if you want to.”

“Can I?” she asked. Then, looking at me, she said, “I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home, okay? I’ll be right back. Honest!”

She got off the stool, picked up the cake, and carrying it like it was the Holy Grail, walked slowly toward the door. As we all just stood there motionless, she left.

When the door closed, there was a stunned silence in the place. Not knowing what else to do, I broke the silence by saying, “What do you say we pray?”

I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed, and that God would be good to her.

When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said, “Hey! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?” In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered:

“I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.”

Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, “No you don’t. There’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I’d join a church like that!”

My friends, that’s the kind of church Jesus came to create! We may not know any prostitutes, but there are people around us who need basic human kindness expressed in basic caring actions, no matter who they are.

Many people want nothing to do with church or Christians because they believe they’ll be given judgment instead of justice.

Its important where we are located. God has sovereignly placed us there. So, we need to be attentive and listen to the people and the neighbors God put around us, no matter who they are. To ignore them is to treat the Great Commission of Jesus as if it were the Great Omission.

One of the best ways to be missionally rooted in the place we are planted is to walk the community, be in it, and hang out. Developing an understanding of what’s going on and being connected to the issues a neighborhood is facing, is key to building neighborhood credibility and demonstrating that we really do care about the people, whomever they are.

Discovering what people care about doesn’t necessarily mean we need to do something for them but with them. To go most often involves going where the people are – getting to know them and being a friend.

Whenever a pastor or parishioner becomes someone the community knows, neighborhood residents will share their hopes and concerns. The church can be the center of community life, going out and opening up to the neighborhood.

Often, we might focus on what’s lacking, what’s not there, the deficits within a person, family, or community – instead of looking for the assets, what is there already, and what is going right. It’s wise to begin with the good things already happening, the potential which already exists, and the dreams people have for the future of their place.

In focusing on what’s already there, here are some things we begin to see:

Each person having a contribution to make, no matter who they are.
Relationships building the community.
People being active participants in developing what is good, right, and just, rather than passive recipients.
Everyone can get involved because everyone has a meaningful place in the community.
People caring and not apathetic about the neighborhood.
Making decisions with everyone’s voice being valued.
Asking for ideas is better than giving solutions.
Folks doing the work are given authority and power.
People mentoring others and building into their lives.

All of this requires getting to know local businesses, neighborhood associations, healthcare institutions, places of worship, schools, and cultural groups, as well as the individual talents of those within them.

We are to serve others, rather than imposing our own agendas on them. This is how we begin making disciples, that is, developing people who follow the words and ways of Jesus.

And it all begins with the command by our Lord to go….

Lord Jesus Christ, let your presence fill our hearts and overflow through our actions so that we may proclaim the good news of your Kingdom. Fill us with your compassion and insight to respond to human need with loving service. Let the fire of your goodness and justice burn into us and through us so that we may seek to transform the unjust structures of society. Guide us to renew and sustain the life of your creation.

Almighty God, in our baptism you adopted us for your own. Renew us by your Spirit in body, soul, and mind so that we may worship you in sincerity and truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Luke 5:27-32 – Included Through Hospitality

On February 9, 2022January 10, 2022 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

Jesus Eats with Tax Collectors and Sinners by Sieger Köder (1925-2013)

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (New International Version)

Eating meals together in the Ancient Near East was much more than simply taking in sustenance and having some social interaction. It was also a deeply religious affair of spiritual connection and sharing.

So, it was rather surprising for a lot of people, not just the religious leaders, that Jesus freely ate and drank with people of dubious reputation.

Tax collectors were a hated lot by the Jewish people. Most were Jewish themselves, and so, were understandably seen as traitors and turncoats, colluding with the Romans to squeeze as much tax money out of their compatriots as they could.

Jesus actually calls one of these despised persons into his group. Then, even eats with him and his Mafia friends. This is a radical and unheard of inclusion, completely reversing the exclusion tax collectors had from the Jewish community and synagogue.

The religious leaders, of course, want an explanation for such unacceptable behavior by Jesus. He gave them a simple answer, short and sweet: It’s unhealthy people who need help, not healthy ones. I came to help.

For the malady of sin with all its guilt, shame, and exclusion, a powerful remedy is the act of hospitality.

“Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.”
Henri Nouwen

The word “hospitality” literally means “love of the stranger.” It is an invitation to accept another into our home that we do not know very well and befriend them.

Hospitality is what Jesus did. Because of our sin and disobedience, humanity we were estranged from God – we were on the outside. But because of God’s great love, the Son was sent, the Lord Jesus, to come and dwell among us.

Jesus invited us into the life of God. He is now standing at the door and knocking, and we are to invite Jesus in (Revelation 3:20). Christ has so closely identified with his people that when we invite others into our homes and lives, we are inviting Jesus in.

Keep in mind that for Matthew to invite Jesus into his life and home cost him time, effort, and negative attention from those not around the table. There was no grumbling or belligerence by neither the tax collectors nor Jesus.

In an ideal world, we always receive something back for our own work of hospitality – an invitation from the other person, or, at least, a simple thank you. But that does not always happen, and it cannot be the driving reason why we practice hospitality.

Hospitality must be a work of love that comes from a heart that has been touched by the hospitality of God. Our earthly hospitality is to be a form of saying “thank you” to God for his great grace to us. And that is precisely what I believe Matthew was doing with his own hospitality.

Complaining comes when we expect to receive and don’t get it. Yet, if you truly receive another person as though she were Christ himself, you will not complain but will rejoice in your service. Jesus has said, “Whoever receives you, receives me.” (Matthew 10:40)

In ancient Christianity, a concrete expression of love to other believers was providing food and shelter for Christians traveling throughout the Roman Empire. Many times, the traveling strangers were itinerant evangelists spreading the message of the gospel from place to place (3 John).

At other times, believers were deprived of some basic necessities due to the occasional waves of persecution that broke out. They were often poor and needy because of their situation, and of being different; and the townspeople were not typically hospitable. So, Christians had to rely on the love and hospitality of those believers they could connect with who had the means to help.

Hospitality is an important means of showing and providing love.

Contribute to the needs of God’s people, and welcome strangers into your home. (Romans 12:13, CEB)

One of the qualifications for church leadership is that they are hospitable.

An elder… must be respected by others. He must be ready to help people by welcoming them into his home. (1 Timothy 3:2, ERV)

There is a great need for hospitality in our world. Many people are lonely, isolated, and withdrawn, sometimes even excluded because of their mental illness or struggles with addiction. Being in a pandemic certainly doesn’t help that situation whatsoever. They have no one to talk to about important matters.

Hospitality cuts both ways for us. We are to invite the lonely into our hearts and homes; and the lonely are to invite others into their hearts and homes, instead of waiting for somebody to just show up.

Jesus fully understood that eating a meal together with Matthew and the other tax collectors was a sacred affair – communicating mutual acceptance, care, and friendship. This is why the religious leaders had such difficulty seeing Jesus eat with “sinners.” By eating with outsiders and those excluded from the community, Jesus was broadcasting his love and acceptance of such persons.

Our dining room tables are little mission stations.

When my wife and I were new believers, there was a Christian couple who often had us into their home. Both of us had learned some unhealthy relations through our families of origin. Here we were, not really knowing what a Christian family should look like.

Through hospitality, eating together and sharing around the table, we began to learn how a family dedicated to Christ lives. We learned life lessons that we probably could not have learned in any other way.

Jesus, on the cusp of his Passion, enjoyed a meal with his disciples. He said…

While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28, NRSV)

One thing Jesus meant by those words is that, eating and ingesting the elements of bread and wine, serve as a very tangible way of understanding what life is to be like.

We are to take Jesus into the depths of our lives. We are to ingest him, that is, to engage in a very close and intimate relationship with him to the degree that the two of us cannot ever be separated.

The same is to be true of our relationship with one another in the Body of Christ, the Church. We are to do life together. We are to enjoy eating and drinking together.

We are to share with others, in a radical act of hospitality which emulates our Lord, not only our food, but our hearts.

Let your heart and your home be open today.

Soli Deo Gloria

Luke 10:25-37 – How Do We Start Our Ministry?

On February 6, 2022January 5, 2022 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (New International Version)

Mosaic of the Good Samaritan in the Cathedral of St. Mary, Madrid, Spain

Start with Love and Mercy

The short answer to the question of how to begin any ministry is love, by providing relief through showing mercy. Compassion, mercy, and love are always behind every true Christian ministry.

Being available and approachable, crossing paths with people in need, noticing and caring about others is a merciful response. Following the example of Jesus, the Christian community ought not to pass by on the other side of the road. Instead, we are to stop and get involved smack in the middle of human need.

That isn’t what always happens, though. It can be far too easy to respond to the vast sea of human need by being judgmental and critical. We might observe people’s predicaments and write those persons off as being lazy, foolish, or of bad character. Just as bad, our prejudice or bias might see a person’s clothes, habits, race, ethnicity, or gender and immediately make sweeping negative assumptions about them – without having even engaged them.

Frankly, from a Christian perspective, it just doesn’t matter. Whether we believe someone deserves our help or not, all Christian ministry is to be driven by a spirit of love, compassion, and mercy – rather than a spirit of condemnation. We need to see all people, without exception, as image bearers of God who possess inherent worth and dignity as human beings.

The Good Samaritan by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

Start with Relationships

It is good to give money, food, and resources to those in need. It’s even better to develop relationships and get to know the people for whom we are helping. Both handouts and hugs are good and necessary. In this COVID-19 world we are currently living in, I am using “hug” as both a metaphor and an acronym….

Hold eye contact. One of the things we all have discovered about masking is that the eyes communicate a lot. Looking someone in the eye is important. Far too many people in our world don’t feel seen by others. They wonder, if they fell off the face of the earth, whether anyone would even notice. Seeing people is a necessary ministry, in and of itself.

Understand another’s life and point of view. Be curious about their lives, their history, their faith background, and their experiences. Put yourself in their shoes. See things from their perspective. Empathy (communicating to someone that they are not alone) goes a long way. What’s more, we don’t have to agree with another to extend mercy.

Go to others, rather than waiting for others to come to you. Go where they are. Get close enough to show empathy and compassion, even if it’s an air hug. Half of any relationship, before any talking or doing happens, is simply showing up. The good Samaritan showed up and stopped. He was willing to go wherever the mercy of God sent him.

Start with Building Trust

Most needy people have been, at the least, ignored or dismissed by others; and, at worst, like the man attacked by robbers, beat down and berated by others and left for dead. Anyone who has endured past abuse or trauma is understandably guarded in trusting others. The last thing they want to do is be open and vulnerable to a stranger who might take advantage of them and hurt them.

It takes time to build trust. A person’s issues, a neighborhood’s concerns, and a city’s anxiety won’t be solved overnight. Those problems took a great deal of time in their development, and so, it will take just as much, or more, time to address and resolve all that is wrong.

As we lovingly and mercifully tackle those problems, we must always keep in mind that we fix problems and heal people – and never the other way around. Trying to fix people is a fool’s errand because people are not their problems. Nobody is a cancer, a disease, a schizophrenic, or a lunatic. People have physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual illnesses but they are not inherently those problems. Anything we won’t possess in heaven is something we are not, as people.

Human organizations, systems, institutions, and culture can be a problem – but not people themselves. Whenever someone begins labeling people as “problem” people, or as “those” people, or even worse, as “monsters” or some other label, the judgment of God is not far behind. (Matthew 5:22)

Trust cannot be developed with putting adjectives in front of people’s names or replace those names with pejorative terms. Christian ministry can only thrive in an atmosphere of love, mercy, and compassion.

Trust is developed when we give people the dignity of choices and ask whether they would like help, or not. We don’t save anyone. God does. We are all responsible for our own choices and our own openness to accepting and owning our own problems.

Start with Meeting a Need

The man alongside the road had a clear need for immediate assistance. The Samaritan stepped in and met that pressing need. The man would have died without it. Yet, some people’s needs aren’t quite so obvious. If we have worked at building trust, some of those needs become known. And there are always existing organizations who are diligently addressing many of those needs with whom we can partner.

Another way of meeting needs is to connect people with one another. Through consulting and collaborating with others, we can foster relational connections in which someone’s or a group’s needs can be met. Since no one person or community can meet everyone’s needs, many times the best approach is to help people meet one another.

When we get neighbors working together to care for one another and improve their neighborhood, they are empowered to make a difference. This is especially viable when a church commits itself to the place or parish in which it exists. By being involved, partnering with community organizations or neighborhood associations, the church joins others as a community connector and a place where the community comfortably gathers.

Conclusion

All Christian ministry begins with a loving attitude, a compassionate heart, and a merciful spirit. Then, it looks for opportunities to be available and show up with a compassionate presence. From there, we are able to discover and discern the real needs of people so that we are providing what is truly needed instead of what we believe someone else needs.

In one of the communities I once pastored, I noticed the town had a significant number of single parents trying to raise their kids. So, I did a bit of demographic work and presented it to the elders, pointing out the opportunity we have to make a difference in many of these family’s lives. The elders became excited about the chance for outreach, that is, until I proposed that we recruit two or three of those single parents to come, sit around the table, and help us understand their needs and how we might help…. The elders became eerily silent…. Finally, one of them spoke up and said, “We can’t do that. They got themselves into this single parent situation. They don’t know what’s best. We do….”

That response is just the opposite of what God is looking for in us. If we believe we know better to the point of not even asking others how we might help, then our arrogance and prejudice has blinded us to true Christian ministry in the way of Jesus. Now for a better story….

A woman and her husband were not from the area they were living, and so, every Thanksgiving they spent it only with each other, since both their families lived far away. So, when one Thanksgiving came around, they wondered if there were others like them, spending the holiday apart from family.

They found a few and spent that Thanksgiving together. Those folks had such a good time together that, next year, the woman and her husband asked if they could use the church fellowship hall where I was pastoring at Thanksgiving because they found more people who had no family to celebrate with.

To make a long story short, these two people now serve about two-hundred people in the community every Thanksgiving who gather together, and another two hundred shut-ins are delivered a Thanksgiving meal, along with some needed human connection. Many positive friendships and relationships are formed.

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
Mother Teresa

Small acts of kindness done with big love result in the kind of Christian ministry which pleases God.

Lord, help us believe we are all ordinary people made extraordinary through your vision and power. Take our insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and give us the courage to see ourselves and others as you see us, with gifts and potential to transform your world and build your Kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Luke 4:42-44 – Holding onto Jesus

On February 5, 2022January 4, 2022 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (New International Version)

A domesticated Jesus is nothing more than a fictional character, part of the panoply of old classic literature, and just another person in the Christian writings of the New Testament.

Many so called Christians want to control Jesus, to have him serve their purposes. Like some magical entertainer, they want to hold onto him, keep him around, trotting him out occasionally to impress friends and family.

Such persons have not yet come to terms with the spiritual reality that Jesus belongs to others, to everyone, not just me or people I like.

Whenever we grab hold of Jesus to keep him from going to others, we play the role of Mary Magdalene, who did not recognize her Lord when he was standing in front of her face. Then, when realizing who he was, did not want Jesus going anywhere. Yet, the Lord responded:

“Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17, NRSV)

Mosaic of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, Washington National Cathedral

Jesus did more than proclaim good news; he was the good news itself, embodied, for the life of the world – and not only for the life of a particular race or ethnicity or gender, or even religion. As the Lord of Life, there is enough Jesus for everyone.

Maybe the true mark of a Christian is not having bumper sticker messages or a bobblehead Christ or an impressive Bible on the living room coffee table or erudite theological ideas. Maybe its in telling others about Jesus from our own mouth, from a heart that overflows with the gospel of grace.

We must let God be God. Yes, there is a very important place for us to ask, seek, and knock on the door of heaven. And there is also an equal necessity for solitude, silence, and patience, in waiting for the Lord to say, “Come here to me.”

The wisdom to know when to practice solitude, and when to actively seek, arises by purposely engaging in both. We must have an action/reflection model in which we seek to do the will of God, then step back and reflect upon the experience and learn from it. And, at the same time, we are to practice a contemplation/response model that communes in solitude with God, then responds with active involvement of just and merciful acts toward others.

Our Gospel lesson today highlights the need for solitude as a Christian spiritual practice because our Lord practiced it. The solitude, however, is not to be unending. At some point, we must descend from the mountain peak and enter the valley, just as we ascended it from the activity below.

Good news needs proclamation. And for that to happen, it must be proclaimed from both the top of the mountain, as well as the lowest valley. The gospel cannot be chained so that it is tethered for only my group of cronies. No, Jesus is for all, and so, good news is meant to spread to every corner of the earth.

Perhaps we need to sit still long enough, without allowing our inner anxiety to rule the day, to let Jesus call to us and invite us to come. Then, maybe we will be able to hear the gracious words of the Lord:

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, CEB)

There’s no need to break down doors, trying to squeeze ourselves into the kingdom of God. We need only respond to the gracious invitation of Jesus and let him invite others. Truly receiving amazing grace changes us, and we then do not seek to keep Jesus from leaving.

“How amazing, amazing that the one who has help to bring is the one who says: Come here! What love! It is already loving, when one is able to help, to help the one who asks for help, but to offer the help oneself! And to offer it to all! Yes, and to the very ones who are unable to help in return! To offer it, no, to shout it out, as if the helper himself were the one who needed help, as if he who can and wants to help everyone were nevertheless in one respect himself a needy one, that he feels need, and thus needs to help, needs those who suffer in order to help them!”
Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity

Coming and going, silencing and proclaiming, holding and letting go. We allow Jesus to do it all. And we simply follow in his footsteps.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Humanity, your presence here on earth never becomes a thing of the past – thus never becoming distant. Our faith and experience of you is very present and very much real in the here and now.

Might all people see you in your true form and in the way you walked this earth – not in an empty or meaningless way of mere thoughts or distortions. May all people see you as you are, a lowly man, yet the Savior and Redeemer of humanity – who out of love came to earth to seek the lost, to suffer and die, to call the straying soul, and to absorb the opposition of others without raising a hand in defense.

Would that we might see you in this way, and not be offended at you and your gracious gathering of all kinds of people into your glorious kingdom. Amen.

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Tag: jesus christ

Matthew 28:18-20 – Where Will We Do Our Ministry?

Luke 5:27-32 – Included Through Hospitality