Today we focus our attention on the S in our RISE to PRAYER series, which stands for Searching. A Searching style of prayer relies on knowledge and logic to discern God’s presence.

This Lent, we are completing our three-part series on PRAYER. Prayer is connecting to God and allowing that connection to make a difference in our lives. In Part One, we explored our connection, or relationship to God, as one of love, and how our role is to be open and receptive. In Part Two, we explored compassion, justice, and acceptance as the difference God makes in our interior lives and in the world. Now we turn to the practical part. Even though we may understand what prayer is, we don’t always understand how we pray.

In my 13 years as a pastor in the United Methodist Church, my heart has never felt so conflicted as it does today. I am filled with grief and anger about the decisions made by my denomination that do not reflect the United Methodist churches and people of faith that raised me, and have caused so much harm towards my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer colleagues, friends, and family.

Today we welcome Mike Moberly,

a Site Manager for the Year-Round Shelter for Congregations for the Homeless who was here in January when we hosted the men. He is going to share his perspective on the impact we have in the lives of the men.

Please extend a warm welcome to our guest today, Samantha Pak, from Sound Publishing. We are grateful for her presence today.

In this last week of our Healthy Relationships worship series, we turn to the importance of boundaries and love. Both are needed and work together. A boundary is a line that marks a limit, and, in a relationship, communicates what is okay and what is not okay. Love, from the Greek word agape, is redemptive good-will, holy affection, unconditional care, and concern. I offer you this description of Paul’s words that opened my heart a little bit more when I read it:

love takes its time

makes itself good and useful

love doesn’t envy

it doesn’t boast

it doesn’t bluster

it doesn’t make a scene

it doesn’t look after its own interests

it doesn’t throw fits

it doesn’t dwell on the negative

it takes no pleasure in injustice

but is delighted by the truth

love upholds everything

trusts in everything

hopes for everything

endures everything

love never falls away

-from The Authentic Letters of Paul, c 2010.

Author and researcher Brené Brown says that churches need to be safe containers for people so they can be loved for who they are because “worthiness has no prerequisites.” I believe our Paul was saying something similar: the entire body of Christ is indispensable. Every one of us is worthy of love. In our Healthy Relationships Class this week, we will be discussing what it means to create safety in our relationships using the resource, Different but not Divided: A Third Way. Here are a few attributes about safe and unsafe communities that I offer to you for reflection.

Safe People and Communities:

- Are good listeners, willing to sit with painful stories instead of fixing or giving unsolicited advice.

- Value relationship over opinions or differences, and nurture a spirit of equality with those different from us.

- Receive help, input, and feedback instead of only giving it, and engage in healthy conflict instead of avoiding it.

Unsafe People and Communities:

- Tend to be extremely judgmental and defensive.

- Are quick to offer advice to others but remain unwilling to receive input

or feedback.

- Think they have all the answers and reflect certainty that their opinion or perspective is somehow superior.

Are we looking for unity or uniformity in our relationships? It is great to be with people who “think like me,” but is that the goal of community and relationships? Paul affirms a diversity of gifts for the common good united by the Spirit. How does Paul’s understanding of unity apply to all of our relationships?

We begin by recognizing and affirming that we are indeed created to be in relationships as we reflect on Jesus’ baptism and our own. This truth can be hard to accept because it is counter-cultural to the American dream of self-sufficiency and independence. What does it mean to be baptized into community?

Today is Epiphany, which means “showing forth,” and marks the end of the twelve days of the Christmas season. The story we celebrate every January 6th is the wise men from the East who followed the star that led them to worship Jesus.