I think we all gather as a group of friends to seek together for what is good, what is sacred, what is holy. We gather as a group of friends to learn what it means to be a child of God.

“We rededicate ourselves together to the life that Jesus Christ and the saints of our church have taught us is the true life, the life not gripped by death, but the life blooming in the light of the resurrection.”

“For us to make that journey not in darkness, not in moral and spiritual blindness, but in truth and in light, we need something like faith, something like God’s grace, to light our path and show us our way.”

“The demanding expectation that we serve others, and the grace-filled promise of support to meet the challenge—this is the good news the gospel offers us today.”

“Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

“The beloved community that we strive to be is contrast community, a demonstration project to show the rest of the world what a relationship with God looks like, and what a relationship with God can do to heal the world.”

“We owe our children something closer to the abundant, hopeful, and peaceful world that God intends for all God's children.”

In a world broken by human sin, human suffering is not equally distributed.

There is no separation between working for social justice and practicing our faith, no separation between standing up for the poor and marginalized and being a disciple of Jesus.

The text for this sermon of the sixth Sunday after Pentecost (7/1/18) is Mark 5:21-43