Discipleship In the Land of Old Scratch with Pastor Ryan Braley

Amen, let us pray, god, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here and for all these wonderful kids and pretty.

Bless us this morning, god, as we continue to unpack discipleship, and I ask that you would teach us, by your spirit, what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus, and I ask God that you would help us to, yeah, to do that, to follow you.

Would you empower us by your spirit to follow you and to choose the way of the cross over the way of self or the way of glory?

I ask that you would give us a clear picture of what it means to be people of the cross, and you know what.

You blessed us this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I mean you be seated.

Good morning everyone.

How we doing Great.

Who said great?

I like that energy.

Yeah, okay, good, bring the energy, the thunder.

So, hey, quick announcement we had a couple of weeks ago.

We had Kelsey and Anna and Katie raised a bunch of money doing a two week fitness challenge with Love 146.

You guys remember that they're trying to end human trafficking, and globally, but also even here in Minnesota, and they raised $2,295.

I think it was the total.

So give them some love this morning, yeah, outstanding.

So, yeah, keep being involved with Love 146 however you can, and we're going to try to keep exploring our partnership with them.

They have an event coming with the twins next summer, so keep your eyes open for that and we might be involved in that in some ways.

So congrats, and that's awesome.

So this morning we're on our journey of discipleship.

We're looking at what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus, an apprentice, a student?

Now, look, whether you think you are or not, we're all students of something.

We're all you know.

We all subscribe to some kind of philosophy, ideology or theology or lack thereof, but we're all sort of students of something, even non-believers.

That's a move of faith, a step of faith, to be a non-believer and to ascribe to some other kind of philosophy in life.

But what are you following?

Who are you going after and what are the things that are impacting, influencing you in your life?

And we, as a church, our kind of hope is to be followers of Jesus and to know the teachings of Jesus.

What was his life all about?

What did he say?

How did he treat people?

And that's what we want to emulate, want to be students or, yeah, apprentices of Jesus.

What's the plural of apprentice?

Apprentice, apprenti, something like that?

Apprentices Fair enough, that's what we want, to be followers of Jesus.

But what does that mean exactly?

And so if you're just joining us, you can go back?

I think we've been on like we're on week seven, but this morning I want to talk about how there is oftentimes in the Gospels, when Jesus engages in ministry, there's often these forces or these powers that he comes into contact with, that he pushes up against, that push up against him that we might call powers or principalities or evil or something like that.

And what does it mean to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, in a land, in a world that sometimes seems like there are these opposing forces to the good things, that kind of counteract the good.

And Paul the apostle writes you notice this in these verses here's the first one he writes about these forces.

He calls them rulers and authorities, powers.

There's these spiritual forces of evil.

He uses all these kind of strange words.

By the way, the Greek in there is the word RK for rulers.

Everyone say RK, your Greek is improving, I'm proud of you guys.

And then the word for powers is the word exucia.

I'm going to say exucia.

Yeah, wonderful, and these are the words.

These are two of the many use, for these kinds of ideas are used again and again.

Principalities and powers you hear them a lot in Paul and then also, like this, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

It's a very bizarre language when you heard in Colossians Paul writes this in Colossians, the first chapter in him, by the way, all these things, all these powers, these forces, these things were all created by God.

According to Colossians one anyway, they're all created by God.

Things in heaven.

So there are things in heaven, things on earth, things visible and invisible, thrones and powers, so things you can see and even maybe way and measure things you can't see.

Things again, you know, on the earth and on the heavens, things below the basement stairs, things above the basement stairs.

I mean, come on, I'm a grown man.

When I, when I turn the lights off in the basement, I race up the basement stairs, I don't know what's down there.

There's all kinds of stuff.

My kid told me one time you're not afraid of being alone in the dark, dad, you're afraid of not being alone in the dark man.

A truer sentiment has never been made.

That's so true, anyway.

So, but Paul uses all this very strange and bizarre language when talking about these things and according to Colossians, these are all somehow created by God.

And it's almost in Paul's describing these cosmic forces or things that like influence the world that you can see and things that you can't see.

They're there, their powers, principalities, authorities, and there's almost a struggle, like a tension, almost like you know, not to be too dramatic, but like a cosmic battle, and maybe it's even this idea.

Maybe you've heard of this idea of a good and evil and I wanted to find a picture that would like embody this sort of maybe cosmic struggle of good versus evil.

I couldn't find one, really, I mean until recently.

I'm just saying Now, you know, I live in Minnesota, I love Minnesota, I'm a Homer now, but I love me the Broncos, so I may or may not have two burritos on the line tonight in the game, but, by the way, the games tonight I can preach as long as I want to.

We got all day, so we can, no problem.

Lord bless Russell Wilson and all that, and Josh Dobbs too, fine, fine.

But Paul uses this very strange language and language it to us.

Maybe many moderns, maybe not you, because you maybe if you grew up in the church you're kind of used to this, remember, we call it Christian ease, like the blood of Jesus and the Lamb of God, okay, fine.

But if you're not a Christian or you didn't grow up in this maybe you're new to this You're like this is really weird that Paul would use this kind of language to describe a reality that I'm not really experiencing maybe, and it's weird, but in the ancient world it was not at all weird.

This was entirely how they saw the world and it was very much normal for them.

But for us it's different, because we live in what, again, I call Charles Taylor calls the secular age, or the disenchanted age is what Jamie Smith calls him.

We live in an age, a world that's disenchanted and our hope is to be disciples of Jesus in a disenchanted world.

What do you do when all your friends and your neighbors are like, ah, angels and demons and evil spirits?

I mean, come on, ryan, that's like superstition, I get it, you know or like belief in God.

Most people that I know of I shouldn't say that, many of the folks that I know of, not so much in the Bible Belt of the North in Minnesota, but in a lot of places in the US, people have let go almost entirely of the idea of God and they've disengaged themselves or detached themselves from this idea of the transcendent or the ethereal.

There's nothing else they really value and sort of ascribe to only things they can weigh or measure or see with hard data.

These are most of your friends at work or in school, and for you to talk about things like the spirits and the powers and the authorities, they're going to give you a side eye, a bombastic side eye.

Maybe even Did I say that, right, addison, where's my dog?

But these are like kind of it's weird kind of language that Paul uses as we live in this disenchanted age.

Now I have a good friend of mine who was sort of I was talking about spiritual warfare, this might be a cosmic battle and he's a theologian, he's a PhD in theology, he's a Christian and you can hear in his sentiment even a disenchantment.

He's like I don't believe in demons, I believe in God, but that's as far as I go.

Anything else is sort of too weird.

And here's why he says this.

He says look, we as humans, we do enough stuff.

I'll say to one another that we don't need to blame on demons.

Demons are a cop out, he says.

In other words, he himself has sort of let go of all this idea of a spiritual battle or forces or these kinds of weird things that Paul talks about and Luke and the gospels talk about.

So here's my question how do we talk about these things in an age like this where even Christians are like letting go of these weird ideas?

I think it's this Our age.

Although it's disenchanted, is very much, and this is what Jamie Smith would say.

It's sort of like we live in an age that's almost haunted by God, like we don't believe in God but we're sort of haunted by God and the idea of God.

You can hear in people's voices and whether they talk.

I met with a young woman earlier this week and she came in to talk to me about some things and she was like hey, I don't really believe in God.

I kind of grew up going to church here and there.

She's like I'm a Christmas and Easter kind of person.

I went to Little Lambs for a while so I knew how to pray and I wanted to pray.

I want to believe in God but I just don't.

She's like too many things in, like how I view the world in scientific ways.

They conflict the things that you know, I read in the Bible or that I hear ascribed to in certain churches not this church, but other churches and I said, well, we can kind of square those.

I think theology and science can have a beautiful conversation.

For sure you don't have to throw out your brain when you come in here.

I hope you don't throw out your brain.

You should engage it and use it and ask all the questions.

That doesn't bother me, or certainly not God, but she's like I don't believe in it really, but I want to.

You ever felt like that, like I don't believe in a lot of this stuff, but I, man, I want to so badly.

It's like we're haunted by God.

And she kept talking to me and as she was talking to me, she's like would tear up every time she would talk about God.

And I noticed it like after like the fourth time.

It was like a lot of times and I was like man, she's really, and I didn't know or something, are you being emotional?

Is this like just, or do you have an allergy or what?

And finally I didn't ask, she just said hey, I just I don't know why I'm so emotional about this stuff.

I was like, you know, maybe I don't want to be too weird, but maybe, like God, if God is real, if you can indulge me for a minute, maybe it's like God is sort of like wooing you, you know, or haunting you, like whispering your name or something like this.

And I said, dargo, what if you just let go, like I get it, I get all the things you object to and all these things?

What if you put that part of your brain on hold for just a minute and like went down the rabbit hole?

And if you pulled on that thread a little bit harder and you look and dig around and if there's no God, fine, and let's just get out of here and go to something else, we'll go, whatever, but you might find that there is something down the rabbit hole.

You might just find some beautiful, mysterious, divine being.

So give it a shot.

And she was like, oh, all right, and so she left.

And then the next day I sent her this email.

I said, hey, thanks for meeting.

I wanted to give her this quote by Richard Beck.

Richard Beck wrote a great book.

He says this at root Because, by the way, in an age of disenchantment.

My hope is to help re-enchant each other.

So he says, enchantment is simply a holy openness to a divine surprise.

Enchantment isn't forcing yourself to believe in unbelievable things.

I get it there's a lot of weird things in the Bible, I got it.

I get it but it's allowing yourself to be interrupted and surprised by God.

So, in our disenchanted age, may we be open to exploring this idea of being surprised by God.

I want to re-enchant us, not me.

I want the spirit to re-enchant us.

Now there's two, as I see it, two kind of ditches on either side of the road, if you will, two ruts we can fall into.

One is to not take the spirits or the powers, principalities, these things that Paul writes about, to not take them seriously, to only see the world as a material place.

It's just this and you and that, and when the lights go out, we're all done.

We go to the ground, and that's kind of it.

That's one way to view the world, and everything has a material cause or reason.

So we don't look for devils behind things.

If the typewriter jams, well, first of all, what are you doing using a typewriter?

It's 2023.

Put that thing in the antique shop and get rid of it.

Okay, it jammed because it's old, that's why it jammed.

But let's say it was the typewriter, it's just jammed, that's just what typewriters do.

Or the red lights were all red, because that's just what red lights do.

Or lights do, they just turn red.

And that's one way to view the world, purely and primarily in a non-spiritual, materialist way.

And this is all there is and fine.

But that would be maybe, in my opinion, one side of the road.

That's a rut you can kind of swerve off into and crash.

The other side then would be to find a devil behind everything that's going on.

You might know friends who are like this.

They find a devil or a demon behind every kind of bad occurrence or evil thing that happens or just sort of scary thing that happens.

I have a good friend who is sort of this way.

When he was younger and I don't know if I've told you this, but when I was young actually still to this day, katie can attest this.

But I experienced on occasion what you might call I don't know if night terrors is too strong of a word, but I will occasionally wake up in the middle of the night just screaming, and I'm not always aware of it.

Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not.

I even wake up swearing sometimes.

Don't tell anybody, but it's true.

And you can ask Katie, like when we first got together it happened we were watching a movie and I woke up just like screaming and she scared her.

It still scares her to this day.

I would say so.

But often when I go on trips I'll warn my friends.

Like hey, just so you know I have these things.

If I'm tired, I wake up screaming and it's okay, just wake me up and go.

And they're all, yeah, they all laugh Like oh, yeah, right, fine, okay, right, I'm like.

No, no, I'm just telling you, at three in the morning you won't be laughing as much.

It's kind of weird.

So I go on this youth trip with my buddy, jake, and so we go to this trip and that's just he and I and I have to warn him.

And so it's the middle of the night and I was exhausted.

Those youth trips really wear you out and I was like tired and so went to bed.

I wake up, I don't know, a few hours later and all the lights are on and Jake wouldn't mind me telling you the story.

He's got his phone, he's like pacing in the room, oh gosh, and he's talking to his friend and they're praying and I'm like what's going on?

And I'm like it's like two in the morning, why are we all awake?

And who's on the phone?

And I'm like, ryan, it's okay.

I'm like what's going on, ryan, it's okay, there's some demonic activity, some spiritual Satan things and whatever.

And I'm like, oh Jake, thanks buddy, I appreciate it, but actually no, this is sort of normal for me.

It's not anything demonic or spiritual.

I go, you can just hang up now.

But he had called his buddy to try to pray for me because he thought I was like having some kind of like I don't know demonic manifestation or whatever.

I'm like, no, no, this is normal, it's not demonic.

I'm a weird guy, just kind of the way that I roll.

But the two ruts would be one to not take any of this seriously, and the other side would be like to take it way too seriously and to not give humans or just bad luck or red lights any kind of credit.

So what I want is I want to kind of shoot the middle, because here's the deal.

I get that it's weird to think about these things, but the Bible has a lot to say about them A lot, to say about them Like a lot, a lot.

I mean Jesus' own ministry sort of, all his healings and exorcisms and things he's doing.

It seems like he's pushing back and infiltrating this dark sort of kingdom and it's an indication that the kingdom of God, or the kingdom he's bringing, is in fact advancing over and against something else.

And we're told in many places in 1 John 3a, I got proof for you that Jesus came to overcome the works of the devil.

What does that mean?

By the way, the word devil is the word diabolos in the Greek and it means accuser or adversarial one.

So Jesus came to overcome the accuser or the devil, the adversarial one, and the Bible sort of frames his whole life and his ministry and the cross in that way.

Now modern Christianity does not do on it.

Modern sort of yeah, I'd say like in the last I don't know 500,000 years Hasn't done a lot of things to help.

Because for many of us, when we think of the devil, we think of this guy right here, right Like a guy running around with like a pointy tail and some horns, and he's like you know, or like a winged being who's flying around, just sort of like dropping down on occasion on some hapless soul and tying their shoelaces together Like spy versus spy or something like that, or like somehow, like making the construction on highway 10 last even longer.

Like good grief, figure it out highway 10, 169 did it like let's go?

You know what I'm talking about.

But the devil's way more sinister.

Whatever the devil and, by the way, the Bible.

I only have 25 minutes, so I don't have.

I mean, you can write a book about this, but the Bible is not super clear at defining just what the devil or the Satan or the evil forces really are.

It's got lots to say about it, but there's like mixing and matching of metaphors and images and it's like it's hard to know fully what's going on there, but that it's in there for sure.

But this image of the devil doesn't really help us at all.

But in the ancient world this was not how they describe the devil Like this.

It was much more sinister than that, in fact.

See, they didn't have this divide between the spiritual and the material.

They didn't see.

They saw all of life as one seamless robe of existence, like this continuous reality where, like heaven and earth, and spiritual and natural was all part of the world or our experiences, human beings, and they knew the powers.

They were intimately familiar with the powers and so they of course wrote about them, and here's the words they use.

I'll put them up for you again.

This is thanks, sarah.

Everyone say RK again and exucia.

Here's the deal.

This is incredible.

The Bible talks about the powers and principalities, like Ephesians 6, in some sort of way, like some ethereal, like you know, transcendent kind of way, spiritual beings, not earthly policies.

It's not against flesh and blood we war, but against spirits and exucius and RK.

So it says okay, not embodying.

But also these words are very much used for, like earth, real life, powers and principalities and people that are embodying the powers.

Does that make sense?

So it's like a very much a mixture of material and spiritual in the usage.

So here's some examples in Luke, for example, he writes this talking to when they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers and authorities.

So these are the same words used for spiritual beings, but now it's being used for the rulers of the synagogue, real people.

Don't worry about how you're going to defend yourselves or what you're going to say.

So here's the same words used to describe the leaders of the synagogue, rulers and authorities in a real, embodied way.

How about this one Luke 20.

So they watched him and they sent spies who pretended to be honest in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the rule and the authority of the governor.

So it's talking about this.

It's the governor has this power, this principality, this authority that is embodied in the governor.

It's not just some ethereal being flying around or some demon, it's like no, this governor has this power.

So it's just, it's like a physical and a material and spiritual thing all in the same one.

Or how about this one?

Ephesians 3.

So that, through the church, the wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and the authorities in heavenly places.

Now, what is he talking about?

Now, he's going back to spiritual, heavenly places.

Like what's the answer, paul?

Which is it?

Are they spiritual or are they material?

The answer is both.

For the ancients there was no difference between these two things.

They were in a.

They were like a sort of a manifestation of the same kinds of power the powers, the authorities, these principalities.

They were embodied in real governing authorities, like political, legal rulers, legal, you know, sort of systems and people, thrones, the idea of a throne like it could be an empty throne that has power, or the person on the throne, but when the person dies, that power keeps going.

You know what I'm saying.

So when Paul and others write about these powers and principalities, there's like this physical and spiritual idea all in one, and they mix and match them all the time, because political powers always, always seem to have a divine aspect to them.

In the ancient world they always did.

Here's an example, a more modern example.

This is a guy called Adolf Eichmann.

Anybody ever heard of this guy?

So in World War II he was one of the guys who escaped the Nuremberg Trials.

He was they called him the paper pusher of death.

He was an SS soldier and becomes a high-ranking official and he was responsible for all the logistics of transporting Jews many of thousands of or millions of Jews even to the camps and then on to the extermination in the gas chambers and so on.

He's the one responsible for all these things, but he was more of like the logistical person behind it, like the paper pusher of the Holocaust.

And he escapes when they start rounding up all these criminals for war crimes and they go on trial in Nuremberg.

He escapes to Argentina and gets away scot-free, or so he thought while in Argentina somebody recognizes him and turns him over to the authorities, he ends up back in Israel for trial for war crimes, for the murder of thousands, if not millions, of people, because he's responsible.

There was an article written in the New Yorker where one of the journalists her name is I forget her first name, it's Arendt as her last name she asks her editor send me there.

I'm going to go see this guy.

I want to see evil incarnate.

I want to look evil right in the face and see what it looks like.

So she goes and guess what she finds.

She says it was boring, this was him.

He wasn't some sinister devil with a cape and with horns and a no, he was just.

She called him banal, like the banality of evils, what she called him.

And as he began to give his testimony he was like look, I was just following orders.

I was sort of caught up in the system, I was a cog in the machine and I was just doing what I was told by my authorities.

And he never questioned it and never pushed back and just did what he was told.

And because of that he's responsible for the death of millions of people and of course he's convicted to death and he's executed not that long after that.

There's the powers that are embodied by people often times, but also they transcend people.

Take Nazism in general.

Nazism didn't die with Hitler.

Hitler died almost 80 years ago and Nazism still lives on as this power, this storm, this cosmic storm that sort of, is moving and sort of sweeps up within all these molecules, as it goes.

That's what happens in Germany, of course, during World War II, and it's still around today.

Hitler's been dead for a long time but these things sort of transcend him.

But there's these powers and principalities, by the way many of us think oh, if I lived in Germany in that day, I'd be the one person on my block who resisted the evil and the forces and the powers and the authorities, and maybe, maybe you would have been the one.

But this thing swept through town and it took everybody with it and this guy just didn't question, it Swept him up too, and there were not very many who said, hey, hang on a second.

Because these forces, these powers, these authorities, these principalities are very, very, very real and very powerful and in this case, extremely evil.

Evil embodied, but it's also bigger than this guy.

By the way, these powers are not innately and I don't have time to unpack this, we can chat later they're not innately evil or good when they sort of are created.

Because it seems like Colossians 1 and going back to Genesis, there's several places that God creates the powers and there's this idea of a heavenly council.

All these ideas right, but they're there to help kind of manage and govern the world, these powers.

But when they bend towards ill intent they become evil.

But they can also bend the other way.

I love every December, not November, ben, where's Ben?

Not November December?

Okay, there's this spirit of Christmas that just infiltrates us, this power for good.

Every Christmas everyone's a little more generous, they smile a little bit more.

You enjoy that peppermint latte which tastes like heaven in a cup.

I mean, try having a bad day holding a peppermint latte.

It can't happen.

You got that in one hand, you got maybe a candy can in the other hand.

Some Christmas is going on.

It's just like this power of Christmas.

It makes you more nice.

It's crazy why it's the powers, in this case for good.

But when those powers bend towards ill, they become evil or satanic or demonic.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when Jesus is going to the cross and his friends?

They're like no, we're not going to the cross.

That's the defeat of our empire.

We want to build an empire, jesus.

We want to amass an army.

We're going to Jerusalem, but we're going to amass an army along the way.

We're going to overthrow the Sanhedrin, take over the temple.

Then we'll go to Rome, take over the Roman Empire, get the Caesar out of there and we'll establish our kingdom.

These guys are all kingdom imperial minded.

You know what I mean.

Take them over, kill them all.

And Jesus is like no, no, we're not doing that.

We're going to go to Jerusalem because I'm going to die.

No, that's not the plan.

Jesus says, sorry, that's not the plan.

And then Jesus tells Peter remember what he says to him hey, get behind me.

Satan.

He calls him Satan, dude, that's a bad day.

I mean, come on, I've been called a lot of mean names.

But Satan, you're like Peter would be like, are you talking to me, him, Me?

Why is he calling that?

Is that winged, being sort of in Peter and the?

I don't know what it is.

I know is that Satan, the Hasatan means the adversary, adversary of what?

Well, where's Jesus going?

Where's he going?

The cross you could say that the Satan or Satanic is anything that blocks the way to the cross.

If the kingdom of God looks like the cross, which friends I know we're so used to the symbol.

I wear it on our necks, we have it on our jewelry, we have it there.

It's on your Bible.

I got it, we're so used to it.

This is an extremely controversial thing that this is the love of God and it looks like defeat, but it's self-sacrificial death for enemy.

They're killing him.

He offers forgiveness.

It's this crazy scene.

And the kingdom of God looks like that it always does, and the Satan or the Satanic, the demonic, looks like anything that blocks that.

So what are the things that block the cross and our way to the cross?

What are the things that oppose the cross and what opposes us from taking up our cross and following Jesus?

That's discipleship.

I've told you you've already been saved, the work has been done.

Remember?

Carl Bart was asked when were you saved?

And Carl Bart replies oh, 33 AD.

It's done.

Now what?

What do you want to do?

Well, jesus says take up your cross and come and follow me.

Let's do this.

Let's go help the world, because the world needs it.

So I think this spiritual warfare in a disenchanted age probably looks less like exorcisms although probably involves that but less like Ouija boards and witches and that kind of thing.

Although fine, that's fine, but I think it looks more like the way of the cross, like forgiving your mother-in-law Not my mother-in-law, because she's an angel, but other you know or being kind to your neighbor that you don't like, or taking care of the vulnerable, the weak and the poor.

Being good to the poor is spiritual warfare.

Do you hear me?

Going to counseling, to see a therapist because you need help?

Is spiritual warfare.

Staying with your spouse and being faithful even though you got junk to work through, that's spiritual warfare.

Not blowing out, not being unfaithful, that's spiritual warfare.

I've said before bring in a casserole to your neighbor who's lost a loved one, gosh.

That's, in other words, embracing the suffering of your neighbor.

I don't know why these things happen, but I'm going to embrace your suffering.

That's spiritual warfare.

Standing up for others who can't speak for themselves or don't have power, that's unmasking the.

That's spiritual warfare.

Calling out injustice?

Yes, in large ways, like Dr King did, but also in small ways, on your block, in your neighborhood, in your family.

That's spiritual warfare.

That's unmasking the powers which is also in the Bible.

That's spiritual warfare.

It's the way of the cross.

This is why I love church, by the way, because church, I think, is trying to embody all these things.

Nothing magical about what we're trying to do here, but we're a community of people trying to figure it out and we're joining together.

We just had a meal together and I don't know if you know this, but you had a meal with people that don't agree with you.

Just telling you, I know because I've seen your Facebook pages.

We've got Democrats.

We've got Democrats in here, we've got Republicans, and they both love Jesus.

We've got people who are old, people who are young.

That's actually our gifting, by the way, is our diversity in here.

Look, look around.

This is not normal.

You've got people who believe in God with all their might.

Some of you are still questioning and doubting.

I got it, yeah, and you're all welcome at the table.

You've got folks in here who are rich and can buy five houses, some folks who can't even afford rent next week, yeah, and we're all together, practicing community, and we serve each other, we hold open doors, we invite neighbors, we high five little kids, we say good things to each other.

This is all spiritual warfare and it looks like the cross Central Lutheran church.

May you know that the powers and principalities and authorities and rulers are very, very real.

I don't know how to explain them.

You know much better than that, but they're real.

And may you see.

Your role in engaging in spiritual warfare looks like the cross.

When you came and ate that wafer and drank that wine, it was a free gift.

It was God coming to you, offering you forgiveness and justice and mercy and love and hope and life, and you got it Awesome.

Now your job is to go and share that with your neighbors, the ones you don't like, your friend at work and all the ones who don't believe in all this stuff.

I got it, but give it to them anyway and help them pull on that thread, because right behind that curtain might just be a divine and beautiful mystery.

Amen.