Love your enemies.

    Beloved of God,
   
    Beginning on Saturday, February 26, April Nolen is leading a group in exploring some spiritual disciplines within the broader Christian tradition. The book is available for review in the Gathering Space, as well as a signup sheet. If you have other questions you may reach April here. 
   
    Beginning March 2 we will once again be offering a study over N.T. Wright’s Lent for Everyone. If you would like to sign up to participate, you may do so here. There is also a copy of the book for review and a signup sheet available in the Gathering Space.
   
    The Scripture reading for this week picks up where we left off on Sunday in Luke 6:27-38. It is a word about loving your enemies, and treating people well regardless of how you yourself are treated. Really and truly, nobody wants to do this. It is deep within the human race to track down anybody and everybody who ever wrongs us, and reciprocate in kind. In fact, when given the opportunity we’d really like to see worse done to them than to us. Forgiveness is not a trait native to the human race. By and large we are all working with an overdeveloped sense of vengeance. 
    I often wonder why Jesus would give us such a difficult set of commands. Didn’t he know that living this way would just get you rejected, beat up on, even killed? Why would he have us take up such a way of life, with seemingly no advantage at all and an awful lot of risk?
    This is one of those moments when Jesus’ divinity and humanity, the two natures in the one person, seem to crash upon those of us who follow him. Jesus is asking us to live human lives with a divine perspective; to move in the world as if even the wickedest person we encounter is a beloved creature who might be redeemed. Love your enemies? Why? Well, because that’s what Jesus does. 

Please join me this week in praying for:

• An end to this pandemic.
  
• Courage, recovery, and peace for those among us facing medical challenges.
  
  
• Our worship team; for creativity and energy in their service.
  
• Children in our community as they navigate stressful moments, big adjustments, and difficult relationships.
  Those among us who are grieving the loss of a loved one this week. 
  
  
• Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local level.
  
  
• Those who respond to emergencies on our roadways, in our wildlands, in our communities and even our homes.
  
  
• Opportunities for study and growth which will be underway in the coming month.
  Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer ministry).
  
  

Your are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall