Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

"[This is] What the church is hoping you will do in your everyday

life. That you will hear these stories of Jesus, the image of the invisible God

who drew near to us so that we would see him and be seen by him and give

compassion and love to the world, a world that is hungry for all of that, for

that connection, for that communion, for that love, that is available in Jesus

and in God."

Our job isn’t to go into the world and figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. Because we will never meet someone, never anywhere in our lives will we meet someone that God doesn’t love. And to all of those people, whether they like us or hates us, whether they accept us or reject us, our message is the same. The kingdom of God has come near.

'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.' It's very possible for us to hear that there are a bunch of people out there who need our help and we'd better get out there and help and fix them and make the world right. But that's not how harvesting works. Jesus doesn't say, the harvest is a disaster and the crops are right on the edge of failing. [...] He says, the harvest is abundant. Which means it's ready, let's go! The harvest, the people, are ready for God. You're going to go out into a world of people whose hearts, their love and their yearning for joy, for connection and relationship with God and with one another is ripe and ready to be harvested and all you've got to do is do the harvesting. Jesus isn't sending you out to fix. Jesus isn't sending you out to make the world right. He is sending you out into the harvest to reap the harvest of God's belonging. To recognize the beauty and the belonging of the people right in front of you.

Cranky Jesus, today, is the Jesus who because he loves us, is saying you don't just get to live into this thing and not give anything up. You don't get to the place of being part of the mission of God's love and changing this world on your terms, exactly as you'd like, in your time frame, and in your way. And you certainly don't get to stay comfortable while doing it.

Living into a new vision is living into something unknown with courage and commitment and with vulnerability. Because we all can trust that at some point we're going to mess up, at some point, we're learning, we're going to get it wrong.

This tradition grew up around the understanding that there's this incredible power, the power of God, which is coming into our presence, coming into this bread and this wine And, God help us, it could destroy us all, but it doesn't.

What we have to understand is that us being sent back into the world as lovers of this world is part of our healing. One of the great gifts this man receives is being sent back into the world in love to serve God. This is a healing act. And when he does this work he is not alone because God is with him in it. Maybe we're scared that if we are being sent out into the world to love the way that we have been loved, that we are going to get it wrong and we are going to screw it up. [...] This isn't about being flawless. And it's not about conjuring up love out of nowhere and just trying to be the right, kind of loving, good, perfect person in the world. Forget it! Your healing happens when you continue to remind yourself and connect yourself to the God who continues to love you and reconcile you and heal you in Jesus Christ. And in Jesus' name to go out into the world, not making love happen but being a bringer of the love that already is within you. This is the healing of God.

"We are very blessed to be in a community that is so committed to living into Christ's love. We are so blessed to be in a community that does listen for the Holy Spirit to guide us. We are so blessed to be constantly challenged by how we might live more deeply into that, by becoming beloved community, by living into our vision more fully of welcoming all people. We need to not take that love for granted because it does not happen everywhere."

"Becoming Beloved Community is at its heart calling us to dwell in the Trinitarian oneness of God. We are called to look for God, to find God, and then to love God as we love one another and embrace the whole creation. Becoming Beloved Community is not easy, in fact, it is the hardest work imaginable, because it is our search for God. It's our search for a God who creates and parents our creation. It's our search for Jesus, for God's concrete share in our community. And a search for the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, who breathes in and through us. It's our search for unity, unity with God and with each other, unity with all creation: beloved community." ~ The Rev. Canon Lee Anne Reat

"Jesus says, I am the Alpha and the Omega. I'm everything between A and Z. I'm the whole works. I'm the manifestation of everything that God has in store. Before all time, God's intention was that I should bring all things to be. I am manifesting God's intention to bring all things to their perfection and to fix all things that are wrong, because there's a lot that can go wrong between A and Z."