Only when we take this personally will we act purposefully.

From Colossians:

“But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

Dear God may we learn this.

Know this.

Live this.

Today we need to figure out, deep in our hearts and our souls, what to do. 

There is an epidemic of hate in our world.

The rhetoric is coming from the highest levels of our government, it is being acted out by lost and rageful white men who are citizens of the very country they are destroying. 

If this was happening elsewhere—-when this has happened elsewhere— we as a country unite and act to wage peace in their lands.

Who will wage peace in ours?

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Who are the peacemakers?

We are. 

Instead of the readings and the creed and the confession we usually recite on Sundays, to day we need to dig deep.

Really deep, to determine how we can stop this madness. 

How we can turn the tide of America

How we can activate the Jesus Movement here and now. 

We will never fully live unless we are willing to remember and honor those who have died....

Because of our Day of Discovery, the Eucharist was going to be shortened anyway. This morning we are changing it up quite a bit.

To get us started we are going to listen to some music, pray a litany and then have some silence.

We will then offer the peace. When the peace if offered look in each other’s eyes and realize that it is up to you to save the other person. Only when we take this personally will we act purposefully. 

We will then break bread together as our Lord taught us. For without this nourishment, we are nothing.