We want exceptions to who we have to love because the alternative challenges us in a deep and dark place. Humans are shockingly good at dehumanizing other humans to create lists and categories of people that we don't have to care about, who we can harm, who we can exclude. Jesus obliterates all of that with one parable - the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The hated enemy gets cast as the hero, who in turn, cares for his enemy. We don't get easy outs. The call is to love even the most unlovable - even the person ruining the thing that you love.

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God just is. God is everywhere. God is in your life. God has power. God is constantly moving. As humans, we develop tools and techniques that help us comprehend, access, and see what God is doing. We have religious words for them like "ritual," "worship," or "sacrament," These things can help us find God, but they are not themselves God or powerful. In the story from 2 Kings, the great general Naaman feels disappointed that he didn't get an elaborate ceremony, but it wasn't needed. God just healed him.

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Freedom is a fascinating thing. Paul gives us that Christians are free in Christ, but what is it that we are free to do? It certainly doesn't seem to be freedom as often culturally defined. Instead, it's the freedom finally live free of things that drag us down and away from the life that God always intended for us. Christians are free to live and love a more whole and constructive human life.

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In what feels like a spot on description of life with major depression, Elijah flees into the wilderness and essentially collapses. God sends angels to care for him. Then, in what one of the Bible's best known scenes, Elijah experiences the direct presence of God not in some grand gesture but in stillness and silence. We long for the grand gestures, but so much of how God moves and so much of what we need happen in the midst of the quiet, simple, and mundane.

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Proverbs lyrically declares God wise and personifies that wisdom, but this should lead us to ask the next order question: what is wise? As humans, we often conflate complexity and wisdom, when if fact, the wisest answers are often deceptively simple and elegant.  

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The story of God's people is a never ending relay race, where one generation passes the baton to the next in an unbroken chain. The Holy Spirit continually moving in people is what facilitates that. In the story of Pentecost, we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit, but it just kept going from there. We can struggle to believe it sometimes, but the Holy Spirit will always keep things moving along.

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We are promised by Jesus that God, in the form of the Holy Spirit will continue with us as our guide and advocate. However, there is a fair corollary question to that we don't answer often enough - how exactly does that work? People often talk of feelings or mystical experiences, but what if you want desperately to have one of those, and it just ain't happening? The answer is that we should look around, listening the people around us not just for a voice on the wind, and recognize that a lot of God's work happens in community.

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Peter really thought that he understood how God worked. Even after Jesus's earthly ministry, he thought that some things remained true. Specifically, Gentiles were still on the outside of what God was doing. Then, all of sudden, God tells Peter that it's otherwise and then directly demonstrates in no uncertain terms that Gentiles can receive the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter then sets a great example for us. He rolls with it. He's totally surprised, but he sees the movement of God and keeps moving with it.

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The Book of Revelation has a fearsome reputation. Thus, it gets avoided consistently by most folks not interested in the End Times Industrial Complex. It will get shouted at you by very sweaty people with an ax to grind and world to end, but it seldom gets calm consideration as a piece of Scripture. It's actually a story of hope, of hanging in there, and of God's inevitable victory. It's also a work that shows that world won't look right until God's victory gets cemented. So, if you look at the world and see a thing that doesn't look right and need a source of hope, Revelation is literally the book for you!

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A lot of people suffer from an internal perfectionism that we then project on to God. Yes, God cares deeply about how we behave. Yes. God sets standards and does expect us to rise to them. However, when we see Jesus encounter a well meaning follower, Peter, who screws up royally, Jesus offers Peter a way back. Jesus doesn't ignore what Peter did, but Jesus also doesn't damn or reject Peter for it. Peter gets an offer of grace, love, and opportunity to grow.

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