Song: How Mercy Looks from Here | Pope Leo on AI |

Friends,

I'm almost certified as a Conflict Mediator! I finish up Tuesday at 5:30 pm. The course was designed with a social justice focus, learning to attend to the ways differences in power affect how well each person can share their story.

I will celebrate completion by racing to get some of my day job done, but also by playing Wingspan with my nephew.

-Liz

Sent Out for Healing

My History of Christianity professor, the Rev. Dr. Andrew McGowan, shares about how our understanding of who Jesus is and was, and how that changes over time. He makes a point that has stuck with me throughout my ministry: when I say Jesus is God, or Jesus is Human, I have it wrong. The only way to capture the mystery is to say both of these at the same time. Which of course is impossible. Human language cannot convey the both-ness of Jesus' identity.

But still we try!

In my sermons, I try, whenever addressing Jesus' divinity, to be sure to remind people that Jesus/Christ is Human, and whenever addressing Jesus'/Christ's humanity, to mention that Jesus is God. Sometimes I use Jesus to refer to the before death, human messiah, and Christ to refer to the after resurrection, God messiah. This is again, inaccurate, for our theology is that he was fully human and fully divine both before and after his death and resurrection.

Who Jesus is has a huge implications in our understanding of who we, who human beings, are.

Jesus sends out 12 disciples in Matthew, sends them out to do exactly the work he is doing himself. In Luke it is 70 or 72 sent out, again to do what he is doing, and they report that, for the most part, they are able to do the work.

Psalm 8 asks who are human beings that God made us as little less than angels?

The implication is that we can do the work that Jesus did. He tells his students "As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give" (Matthew 10:7-8).

There are, of course, many other assignments in Matthew's gospel for healing, feeding, and caring for one another. Perhaps the details of the care are specific to an age, but the idea that we are to leave where we are, and head out to care for others is universal. We have good news me must proclaim, and there are people who need our help.

The people who need to be cared for should be helped without questioning their worthiness--we have received from God freely and thus must pass it on freely. And yet we are to arrive in each new location with nothing--to carry no money, no food, no extra clothes. This puts us in the situation of being required to ask for help before we can offer help. We are not coming in as savior, but rather as collaborator. We are invited to solidarity with those in need.

And we are not to expect the journey to be easy. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16.) We must plan wisely, and yet not be deceptive, manipulative, certainly we are not to be mean.

This is the work of resistance for the church. To find the people who need help, and to help them. This is the the immigrant, and the people who are queer, and the people who are trans. This is the person who can't afford the present cost of living, and the person who doesn't have the health care they need. This is also the person who voted for our present administration out of frustration for the way that our national systems do not work. For those that have the strength, there is the work to reach out to those who hate, and to find the nugget of hope and kindness within them, and to help to draw that out.

If we focus only on the Christ who overcame death, we can see his work as so much bigger than ourselves. This is a true picture. But we must not lose the man who taught his followers to do the healing work themselves.

What is your church doing, or thinking about doing these days? How are you being here in your particular place? Just reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
​

Pope Leo has spoken on AI. Here is an article from Sojourner's on what he had to say.

Amy Grant, How Mercy Looks from Here

Please forward this email to others who might be interested. If you got this from someone else, use the button below to subscribe to the free Act! Be Church Now email newsletter.