Jesus pushes us beyond the culturally acceptable practice of "loving our neighbors, and hating our enemies," and invites us into a more faithful posture of "loving our enemies, and praying for those who persecute us." This is not an easy change in human posture. But for the greater glory of God, it is the posture Jesus insists upon.

We may linger in our wilderness for a night, but blessedness will come in the morning. The Psalmist declares, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning”! Oh, our night may be twenty or thirty years long, but if we hold out and trust in God, morning will come.

In baptism, we use water as a symbol of God's forgiveness, connecting us with all the ways water has been used to mark new beginnings in our faith history. Today, we remember our own baptism, and consider the lasting power of the water used when we were welcomed into the community of faith.

Whatever wrath God feels about injustice and our complicity in it, whatever anger God directs at the human capacity for evil, flows out of love. God gets angry at sin because sin hurts the people and the creation God loves."

What kind of shame do we hold because of things we've been taught we have done "wrong," or because of parts of our life we've been told are "wrong"? Though many in the church hold to his lineage, Jonathan Edwards' approach to condemning humanity as beyond God's love is not only wrong, it's unBiblical. There is a more faithful, scripturally attuned invitation for us as the Body of Christ.

Rachel Held Evans states, "Certainty isn't faith." The life of the disciple Simon Peter gives us a great example of how a life of following Jesus doesn't have to be marked with clear knowledge, perfect discipline, or unquestionable faith. Instead of having to be a Biblical know-it-all, Christ simply calls us to follow.

"Why are you a Christian?" This is the opening question in Rachel Held Evans book, Wholehearted Faith. How would you answer this? It is because of the people around you who invited you to church or encouraged you in the faith? Or is it because of the witnes of God's love seen in Christ? Why are YOU a Christian?

On Labor Day weekend, we may be reminded of the origins of Labor Day, which offered a brief pause into the normal work-week structure during the Second Industrial Revolution (1882). But did Labor Day go far enough in shifting how we labor? The apostle Paul, writing in Romans, claims we need an even greater shift in how we labor.

The promise of Revelation is that we are returned to the intimacy with God that existed in the Garden.

Pentecost offered an invitation to be "the body of Christ", and an invitation to share in community in a way never done before.