As we celebrate the Resurrection, Pastor Chad offers a reminder that the Easter Story is a direct challenge to what we think power and victory and community and even love looks like. Jesus’ death and resurrection were the beginning of the New Creation that the Prophet Isaiah shared where our whole understanding of the how the world works is challenged by God’s vision of how the world should work. When faced with this challenge, we can either stand stubbornly behind our old views or embrace the new vision that is built on the unconditional, self-sacrificial AGAPe Love that Jesus embodied on Easter morning.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday marking Jesus entry into Jerusalem as the crowds celebrated his arrival with shouts of joy. The Pharisees wanted the crowds silenced, but Jesus told the Pharisees, the crowd, and us, that Good News of God’s AGAPe Love will not be silenced, even the rocks will proclaim God’s love for the world!

Is it broken? Sometimes we are all too quick to deem something (or someone) broken when the outcome isn’t what we expected. In many cases it isn’t broken, it is user error because our expectations are what is broken. In our Focus Text, Simon the Pharisee is certain Jesus is ‘broken’ because he does not turn away the woman who is a known sinner. But Jesus shows how Simon’s idea of a working faith, that keeps others at a distance and judges them, is actually separating him from God. A faith that is really working as designed is the woman who draws close to Jesus in gratitude for being seen and loved. When we recognize we are seen and loved in the same way, our working-as-intended-faith shows AGAPe love to all our neighbors!

Asking for help can be hard! In our Focus Text the Gerasene Man possessed by too many demons to name needed help, but couldn’t ask for it. Encountering Jesus and recognizing his power, the demon legion asked to be sent away instead of being in the presence of God. The Man returned to his senses and Jesus sent him back into the city to tell everyone what God had done without being able to ask. God is always ready to help us and also sends us out into the world to bring light to those in need of help even if they can't ask for it!

“He was a wee little man. And a happy little man was he!” You may recognize this man from the Sunday School Song that was so popular. This week our Focus Text is the full story of Zaccheus, not the catchy kids’ song version or the Spark Story Bible version focused on his climb into a tree. Pastor Chad hopes we find a deeper meaning in the story by understanding Zaccheus better and the significance of Jesus’ invitation. God’s AGAPe love transforms the life of Zaccheus because he is seen and invited into the Kingdom of God. We can be transformed when we realize we too are seen and invited, and our response to this invitation can in turn help our neighbors experience the AGAPe Love of God as they are seen and invited.

This week’s Focus Text is the Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge. The widow is persistent in her pursuit of justice even though the judge does not care about justice, people or even God. Pastor Stephanie invites us to consider times when we have had to be persistent like the widow and at other times when we are more like the judge who relents to someone who won’t rest until they get their way. If the unjust judge finally gave in to the woman, how much more will our God, who is full of justice & grace, answer our pleas from the depths of despair with AGAPe love!

Life’s NOT fair! It’s not fair when we work hard and don’t get what we want. It’s not fair when someone else doesn’t work hard and gets what we want. And, it’s not fair when we don’t work hard and still get what we want. The Parable of the Prodigal Son can help us discover and share God's AGAPe Love even when life seems unfair! It’s not fair that our God loves us even when we don’t deserve it, in turn we can share an unconditional AGAPe love with our neighbors, friends, and family.

What’s your happy place? That physical space, or maybe it’s an activity or hobby, where you can escape the stress and worries of the world if even just for a moment. For a while now Pastor Chad has recognized and named that “we are not OK,” the world is weighing us down, especially when we get trapped in the “outrage, scandal, tragedy, algorithm machine” of Social Media and the 24-Hour News Cycle. A happy place can provide a temporary escape from the world but we can’t stay there forever. In our Focus Text the disciples want to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus (and Moses & Elijah) forever, but Jesus leads them back down the mountain as they continue their journey to Jerusalem and the Cross. The world needed Jesus and the disciples back in the everyday reality not stuck in a happy place. And the world needs us rested and refreshed to care for our neighbors who are also ‘not OK’ and are in need of an AGAPe kind of love in their life.

We live in a largely individualistic society today, what’s mine is mine, after all, I am not ‘my brother’s keeper.” Connecting with our neighbor is a nice thing to do but totally optional. In Jesus’ day, the community was central and caring for your neighbor was expected. In our Focus Text this week Jesus tells the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The Rich Man went through life not ‘seeing’ Lazarus just outside the threshold of his home. Pastor Chad invites us to consider the neighbors we are not ‘seeing’ because we do not cross the threshold of our own little world. There is so much the larger world has to offer when we step outside the thresholds and really connect with all our neighbors. When we take that step, when we get to know our neighbors, help meet their needs, and welcome others into a larger community, we are helping bring the vision of God’s Kingdom into reality here and now.

Last week Pastor Stephanie spoke about doing what was right vs what was considered the correct thing to do. The right thing is to put AGAPe Love into action in your life. This week she invites us to consider how we can do that right thing even when it is hard to feel love for our neighbors who are so very different from us. Developing empathy for our neighbor who is not like us helps us see they too are created in the image of God, imago dei, and are valued by God worth searching for like the lost sheep in the parable Jesus tells in this week’s Focus Text.