Category: Sermon

July 3 — Musical Manifest

There is a white marble statue near Trafalgar Square in London.  It is the statue of Nurse Edith Cavell.  She was tied to a stake in German-occupied Belgium in 1915 and shot as a traitor.  The daughter of a pastor, she had for many years headed a nursing home in Belgium, and she remained there even after the war had begun.  Along with her staff, she cared for injured soldiers regardless of nationality, whether German, French, or English.  She had been arrested by the Germans for the crime of assisting soldiers in their flight to neutral Holland. Determined to make an example of her, the Germans tried her under a military tribunal. She was pronounced guilty, sentenced to death, and executed within ten hours of sentencing. Her last moments are described by an eyewitness: After receiving the sacrament, and within minutes of being led out to her death, she said, “Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must not have hatred or bitterness toward anyone.” Those words are inscribed at the base of her statue in London: “Patriotism is not enough.”

Nurse Cavell was executed 25 years after an anonymous preacher in Baltimore preached a sermon that was recorded, in part, in the New York Times in 1895 where he proclaimed that it was amazing, given our nation’s pre-occupation with expansion and bringing civilization to the natives, that we had the creative energy to write some great hymns, the literature of which is on par with Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Tennyson.

And while this preacher has every right to tout American hymnody as great, he also ignored (as was the privilege of the Anglo- Saxon American male at the time)  the plight of women, who still did not have the right to vote, or even to take part in the leadership of the very service of worship in which that sermon was given, to say nothing of the mass executions and deportations  to reservations of Native Americans that was ongoing at the time.

Patriotism is not enough.  It is easily becomes a one-sided coin — with Ceasar’s head dictating against impartial regard for people of other countries, other races, other religions. To the question of whose coin, and thus whose loyalty, Jesus refuses the dualist trap — either country or God — and commends a way of love through community giving that serves the divine purpose through the political order. Continue reading “July 3 — Musical Manifest”

June 29 – The Unfortunate Preoccupation with Faith Testing

The story of Abraham and Isaac both fascinates and abhors.  The choir sings, “what wondrous love is this” immediately following this reading, and you have to ask — huh? What are you doing, Peter? If this is what you say love is about — no thanks.
How, we ask ourselves, could a loving God be so bloodthirsty as to ask for the sacrifice of an only son? How, we ask ourselves, could Abraham be so emotionally disconnected and so morally bankrupt as to consider even for a second giving in to the demand of such a bloodthirsty God? The story today rouses us to seriously question any kind of devotion to religious authority that would make it seem easy or lead one to consider sacrifice of a person, in any way, to some “higher cause.”
I cannot believe that these are solely the questions of a modernist.  In fact my purpose in putting Wondrous Love at this point was to highlight the tension that I believe is found in the story in its original context.
The story as it is told in Genesis is in the form of an etiological myth.  Etiological myths are a fairly ubiquitous feature of pre-modern, culture formation.  The term etiological myth is just a short hand way of describing those stories told by people to describe how something came to be.  The seasons, for example, were explained by the myth of Demeter and her daughter Persephone who was captured by Hades.  The only thing Demeter, who is the goddess of grain and growing seasons, can do for her daughter is to withhold her fecundity.  Hades in response makes a deal that Persephone can return to visit for half the year, during which time Demeter relents and the earth blooms and grows, only to fade and die when Persephone returns.
Here the story concludes by noting how a certain mountain got its name, and how a certain proverb entered the common vocabulary of the tradition.
Quite often, these etiological myths explain something about the human situation as well.  As Walter Pater notes in an essay on Demeter and Persephone,

[Demeter] and Persephone, alone of the Greek gods, seem to have been the objects of a sort of personal love and loyalty. Yet they are ever the solemn goddesses,–theai semnai, the word expressing religious awe, the Greek sense of the divine presence. . . . The myth of Demeter and Persephone illustrates the power of the Greek religion as a religion of pure ideas — [which yet maintain] their hold through many changes . . . [and afford] solemnizing power even for the modern mind.

So what about the story of Abraham and Isaac?  What deeper etiological meaning lies hidden in its telling? Is there a theai semnai to which we are to attain?
Here’s one possibility — the story, aside from explaining the origin of the name of a certain moutain,  is also meant to explain why the descendants of Abraham did not practice child sacrifice.  More specifically, it is a story meant to explain, why, given the tradition that arose from the Semitic theological understanding that all life comes from God and belongs to God, the Israelites nevertheless did not sacrifice their firstborns.  It seems some of their Semitic neighbors did.  Why not the Israelites?
In fact, the Israelites were forbidden to sacrifice their children (see, eg, Exodus 13:13b).  Instead they were required to “redeem” their firstborn males by sacrificing something else in their place, as for instance Mary and Joseph do for the infant Jesus in Luke’s story of the nativity. This story provides a theological explanation for the inconsistency — to be from God and of God  and able to understand that fact means that one’s faith need not be tested, that a higher order of self-understanding reveals a moral code entailing responsibility toward the other.
Unfortunately this story is quite often read as a story of faith testing.  To prove the point all you need do is turn to just about any commentary.
Sure enough, here’s one example:

People find this a difficult story – what kind of God would test someone in this way? What about Isaac’s mother Sarah who isn’t mentioned but who dies shortly after – are the two things connected? What about the tension in the story – Abraham had been assured that Isaac was the one through whom God’s promise to Abraham would be realised, but now God asks him to sacrifice Isaac. It may be worth  recognising these concerns. But the point of the story is clear, indicated in verse 1 and verses 16. It’s a story of how faith is tested, of the radical obedience God requires, and the faithfulness of God to his  promises which are to be trusted completely. The New Testament parallels are too numerous to mention.

I won’t mention them.  But the author has in mind, specifically Jesus and his crucifixion.  Jesus was tested and he passed and that’s why we worship him today.
If, however, instead of this being a story of the testing of one’s faith, it is a story explaining how the monotheistic tradition which grew out of Abraham’s lineage did not practise child sacrifice, did not succumb to the primitive idea that God needs to test us in order to accept us, then in fact it is urging us to think of Jesus in a different light to — to elevate our theological understanding of our experience of grace to a new level.
II.
Let me turn briefly to our New Testament reading to see how it is Jesus does this for us.
The first one short verses from Matthew make the case for what we might call “the mystery of representation.” “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” Jesus says.
One way to read that sentence is simply to read it for what it’s worth; the disciples of Jesus represent Jesus, literally make Jesus present again.
Just as Jesus made God present again, or perhaps for the first time, to those he met and ministered to,  so that those who welcome disciples are themselves welcomed into the kind of  relationship with God that Jesus continually sought — a relationship of trust and loyalty based on a sense of being made right with each other — no matter the other.
Jesus in his life and ministry embodied divine ideals that represented God’s own creative love in the specific conditions of human life. Those who knew and followed Jesus discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, in him those ideals that have “solemnizing power even for the modern mind.”  In other words, they come into relationship with a disciple of Jesus and find they have come into the very presence of God.
This central thought is repeated throughout the gospel in several variations.  In our reading today, two variation are given — one about receiving a prophet and the other about receiving a righteous person: insofar as a disciple embodies the prophetic quality of speaking-from-God or the righteous quality of acting-from-God, those who welcome the disciple receive those qualities into their own self-constitution, and so receive their reward.
But here’s the thing — this is no reward given as the result of a test.  This reward cannot be thought of as a report card for the future — good grades for heaven.  To take Abraham’s etiological story seriously  means we are called to see this welcome as itself the active embodiement of the God’s love that leads us to experience greater riches and greater death and breadth of love in our present live.
I tend not to like to use the word mystery, because it usually is an excuse for not thinking through what we say about God — But here mystery is appropriate — for the “mystery of representation” describes that certain je ne sais qua about human relationships that we know but cannot really describe.  And when that relationship is rich and deep and rewarding than we embody the divine ideals for justice and peace and love in our families, our circles of friends, and our communities.
III.
I’m an introvert.  I’ve explained this to you before.  While I enjoy being with other’s in social settings, and can usually get along pretty well.  I find myself tired out by such settings — usually.
I say usually because Thursday afternoon, as I was sitting downstairs behind the Olan Mills table, signing people in for the photographer, I had a really nice time visiting with people.  There were quite a few occasions, unlike on Friday and Saturday, when they were moving along without getting backed up, when several of us were sitting around in the lobby enjoying each other.   I reflected back to my second year here when I was quite nervous about doing such things.  The difference of course being that we hold a certain je ne sais qua now between us — a certain depth and breadth that goes beyond mere liking someone or not.
I was not worn out on Thursday by that time we had together — instead I sang inside.  We’ve passed the test — and we didn’t even know it was a test because we were busy being for each other and with each other in ways that practise the welcome of Christ.
Amen.

June 19 – Summer Livin'

The title to my sermon this morning is an allusion to one of the great american lullabies written by George Gerswhin — Summertime.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-Qa92Rzbk]
Summertime
and the livin’s easy
The fish are jumpin
And the cotton is high.
Oh, your daddy’s rich
And your momma’s good lookin’
So hush you little baby
Don’t you cry.
One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
But till that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by
Gerswin’s Rhapsody in Blue was the first real orchestral piece of music that I ever played.  I was a budding musician, playing at a summer conservatory of music.  I played music all day long that summer, and his melodies have haunted me ever since.
I suspect that this love of Gershwin was the beginning of my interest in the African American experience of freedom in the midst of captivity.  What could be more profoundly theological than their understanding expressed through story and song and their history, that “out of the heart are issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people,” unless they allow a victory against them of the spirit (Howard Marshall).
W.E.B. Dubois, in The Soul of Black Folk, argued that the African American experience is one of a double allegiance — first to the land of their origin, as a place that stands for freedom and renewal, and also, and no less, to America, their home.  This double allegiance is not simply a psychological description — it describes a trust in God that goes beyond hoping for release to seeing themselves as part of the great cloud of witnesses who proclaimed a way out of no way, a way of love and a freedom of the spirit.
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave best expression to this double allegiance when he said, “A threat to justice anywhere in the world is a threat to justice everywhere in the world.”
And when Clara sings that first lullaby, we sense that this opera is out to make the world a better place.  And what a hook. No other song says summer like those first few lines.  It’s sensuousness is concrete and unavoidable.  Tied up in this real, earthy, beautiful song — is the eternal hope — a hope that is born out of the misery of white supremacy that one day, we will all be free to fly.
II.
Anyway — summer livin’ always seems to cry out for summer preachin’. School’s out, and the thought of not having to roust the children to their morning-get-ready-for-school-chores, has me thinking light.  Problem is — today is Trinity Sunday.  Anything but light.  Anything but sensuous.  Anything but livin’ easy.
Perhaps we need to inject a little of that Porgy and Bess mentality into it.  In fact, I so heartily agree with the famous English bishop of the 1960’s, John A. T. Robinson who said of the doctrine of the trinity that it had become a formula as arid and as unintelligible as E=MC2, that I have mostly ignored it.
There are certainly those who might call my thinking heretical.  Those who would argue that if you have a low doctrine of the Trinity that you can’t well be a Christian now then, can you?
Neo-orthodox theology, which is the kind of theology that grew from a demand to modernize the orthodox theologians, and which yet remains adamant that you can’t speak of God unless you define God Trinitarily, has a strong hold. Even among my colleagues in the United Church of Christ, colleagues about whom you would say they are anything but conservative, this neo-orthodoxy holds some hallowed ground for them as the benchmark of all that is theological.
This unaccountable neo-orthodox grip prevents us from really thinking through how the church might be alienating the large percentage of the even larger percentage of people who do not find church worth their while — if those who want to name their experience of God as something other than Father, Son and Holy Spirit are declared enemies of the church, then that is in fact what they will be — against the church and most certainly not finding their heart’s longing for spiritual sustainence and the kind of transcendental relationship with the rest of the world that MLK Jr. argues is required if we are to live in peace someday.
And so, I don’t do Trinity Sunday.  In fact, I think this might be the first time I’ve preached on it in my years here.   Perhaps I am rather much like man who had to recite the Athanasian Creed on Sunday morning. It reads, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.”   The man muttered to himself, but to loudly for the comfort of those around him, “The whole damn thing incomprehensible!”
The story is apocryphal, but it does express a general feeling among many folk – church goer and ‘exile’ — ‘Trinity’ is incomprehensible indeed!  It is at best irrelevant, and perhaps at worst, nonsensical.
II.
While the neo-orthodox approach to the trinity is like this, it seems important to me not to be too hasty and throw out the baby with the bathwater.  The question is, what is the baby and what is the bathwater?
This doctrine of the trinity, like any other part of our history, was once used to explain something about people’s experience of God.  Today we don’t speak of angels at the intersection of route 2 and 100 at the entrance to the village, proclaiming good news — and that’s not for lack of good news — it’s for lack of angels.  But that doesn’t mean when we read the Christmas story we don’t stell of angels.
What was it about people’s experience of God that made them speak of three persons in one?
A clue to this question is, as is so often the case, found in the old language.  When a Greek speaking person of the antiquity used the word “person,” they did not simply or only refer to an individual, like we do today — they meant by the word to speak of something about the individual. In fact the Greek word, originally referred the mask worn by an actor used to convey an aspect of a character in a play.  They recognized that in drama they were not just characters on the stage, they were representations of parts of what it meant to be a human living in a particular time and place dealing with a particular circumstance.
The Greek word for person has less of a permanent character to it than we give it today, and instead recognizes that an individual is only an individual in relation to the moment.  A person is a becoming and not a being.
My summer-time guess is that those early theologians used the word person to express something we today express through the language of relationship and community.  It was a way of saying that in God this connection is a multifaceted sacredness, not to be limited to one way or even three.
III.
I was out working in the front garden several weeks ago after worship and a friend rode his bicycle by and stopped to chat — And he asked me what I was doing, working on the sabbath — just to poke fun.  I offered my usual bleak, tepid response that unfortunately that does not apply to me.  And he replied that well, God doesn’t really expect us to pay any mind to those old commandments anyway.
Now, I am no less an anti-literalist than he is — but I had to say that I thought of all the commandments, that was the one God really intended to be held literally.  Wouldn’t it be good!  Wouldn’t it be oh so good if our imagining about God came from a place of satisfaction and relaxation?  The doctrine of the Trinity, likewise might be freed from it’s arid nonsense to become an expression of the real and sensual that makes our relationships ones worth having.
If we could let the trinity have some summer livin’ then not only would that be a welcome change from the pulpit and church for those exiled by it, but that the literalness and woodeness which binds this doctrine, and is used by some as a kind of definition of God, as a gate, would be answered in a creative and imaginative way, involving all people seeking justice here and everywhere.
If we could bring just some of that enjoyment that we associate with summer vacation into our livin’ and thinkin’ then maybe our thinking is better and our living more fun.
IV.
Maybe this is really what the storyteller Matthew is on about. That the essence of God is to be in mutual relation . . .
A mystery of dynamic communion of connectedness.
A dancing and celebrating Christ, eager for summer livin’.
Amen.

May 22 — Im/Perfect Ministers

On Thursday I had the delightful opportunity to meet with three individuals who are currently serving UCC congregations in Vermont and have approached the ministerial standing and standards committee on which I serve about becoming ordained. The interesting thing about this meeting is that these three will not be attending seminary. The reason Thursdays meeting was so delightful was that the three of them talked about why they are in ministry now. . . . hopes, etc
One woman spoke about her childhood, and about attending an episcopal church. About her daydreams during church about becoming a priest. About her mother telling her to be quiet, that women are not priests. She talked about becoming a professor instead. And about becoming active in a small church in So. Vermont, while teaching at SIT. About responding to a call to do interim work there, and experiencing the conflict of motherhood and work – and realizing it would not work.
She described her life as a kind of alternating current.
She was not alone – the other two stories were also stories of fits and starts – of feeling left out – of discovering the unseemly side of churches – of being told no – of discovering that sometimes that “no” comes with a terrible price. And yet . . .
II.
There is a thread between these two scripture readings that we read this morning.
The word perfect used in KJV
The gospel text is more famously known by its concluding verse: be ye perfect, therefore as your heavenly father is perfect.
And the letter to the Hebrews concludes with the benediction, “Now may the God of peace . . . make you perfect in every good work to do his will.”
Most of us are wary of such language. I have never liked the letter to the Hebrews because language like this abounds. The anonymous author of the letter which was probably written in the mid 60’s, some thirty years after Jesus’ death, sounds an awful lot like some of the May 21st ers. The kind of God will take care of absolutely everything. The Hebrews Christians lived under the same kind of persecution that the gentile Christians lived under in Rome – and the author advises them to hang in there and to believe what you don’t see. It’s all understandable in the context of their persecution, but comes across as shallow to us who experience in God, something more than immovable grace acting with unchangeable direction.
In other words, perfect is not a term we use to apply to the realities of love, unless blinded by young love, everything seems perfect. Love may be an ever fix’d mark but there can be no love of any genuine sort that cannot admit impediments and imperfections. Why love, if the object of my love, be that a person or God, is not in some way changed by it, because already perfect?
III.
Unfortunately, the King James Translators did a poor job translating these passages, and we are left feeling inadequate to the invitation of the gospel.
In both passages, the word translated as perfection actually imply a natural process of coming together. In the case of the Hebrews the word implies the knitting back together of a broken bone – the very origin of the image, a knit bone, admits imperfections. In the case of the Matthew passage which comes at the end of a long list of teachings about the good life, to be perfect means to be engaged with the things that matter most and has nothing to whether or not we can be “perfect” in them.
 
I have been reminded over and over again this past week of the imperfections of people who are engaged in ministry. But I come back to the image of alternating current. Alternating current and direct current electricity both make your lights turn on – both can do the work – but alternating current, in its on again, off again, forward backward movement is able to be transmitted over longer distances for great periods of time than a current that flows only in one direction.
To be perfect, is like this too – it’s about the long haul, and about engaging in the back and forth of love that makes this a possibility for us and for our common ministry.
Let me close be reading a short charge by the great Latin American Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assasinated for his tireless advocacy for the poor.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water the seeds already planted,
Knowing they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
Far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And do it well,
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
A stop along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter
And do the rest.
We may never see the end result,
But that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs,
We are prophets of a future
That is not our own.

 
V.
There is nothing about this table that Jesus set before his disciples 2000 years ago, and nothing about it now, that implies superiority in behavior, in morals, in understanding. There is a great deal about it however that expresses hope for the future. We gather around the this table and express our confidence that our imperfection is not a barrier to the kind of love that really matters, the kind of love that is open to new ways, to new ideas, to new possibilities. And we say the spirit of God which is here, now, is the spirit which leads us in these ways.
 
Join me in our call to the table. . . .
 
 
 
 
 

June 12 — On Baptism, Wild Geese and Hunger Walks

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. –Numbers 11:24-30

I want to begin by thanking Dean for preaching last week. . . .
Part of the responsibility that I have toward you, for having that Sunday off, is to report to you a bit on what happened.
A couple of quick bullet points:

  • Barbeque
  • Old friends and new

I now know a good many of the people who attend these meetings.  I am sad to say that in fact, I did not take the time to make any new friends.  I met a few new people, and I suspect we’ll become friends over time, but when you’ve got so many other people to connect with, it’s difficult.  Anyway, I mention this, because it does seem important to have colleagues around the state who can join in the conversation about our common efforts, and by them find inspiration and encouragement.

  • worship

Worship for me, at the past several annual meetings, have been affairs of patience.  They attract some people, I am sure.  But I find them gimmicky.  It’s the old theory of “Let’s do something really over the top and impress all the audience, most of whom are fellow worship preparers.”  In their effort to impress, they go overboard and the worship becomes stilted and forced.  Divorced from the New England sensibilities of so many of us.  This year, our preacher was measured, smart, engaging and insightful.  He never raised his voice, or his hands.  He told stories that made a point and he exegeted his scriptures, which means that he took them seriously by examining the context, history, transmission and historical relevance before asking what it had to do with us.  More interestingly, he asked the question — from his own experience and right sense of it — what does it mean to be a spirit filled and led church in the 21st century?
I’ll talk more about that in a moment.  But suffice it to say for now that he was tired of and frightened by the kind of “Getting the Spirit” that so many of those past worship experiences at the annual meeting tried to foist upon us.

  • Ned Davis
  • Bicycle Ride

Geese and gooslings in front of the Hubbardton church.
The wild goose embodies the untamable and unpredictable nature of the Spirit and is a reminder that the Spirit is disturber as well as comforter. It is a symbol for the Holy Spirit used by the Celtic peoples of Ireland and Scotland.  I’m not entirely sure why it is this is so.  I do know that when geese fly over head, flying free without a map, and honking for what seems like joy, and in a common formation, their beauty makes me want to join them.  The Holy Spirit, for all the weirdness that gets associated with it, has long been the expression that God is dangerous and yet also intimate — persuading us to join in a holy enterprise that has the potential to stir up our non-migratory, and ordered lives.

  • Ned Davis

And did I mention Ned Davis — speaking of inspiration?!  “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.” — Jeremiah 24;7
The stated theme for the annual meeting was “A Faith Worth Living For.”  The implied question is not a safe one.  Our text for the week was Jeremiah — it could have been Numbers –Thus saith God,  “Do I not want all the people to speak my word?”
Our preacher last weekend, the Rev. Ben Guess, was clear — Not only does God indeed want all the people to do the work formerly safely tucked away in the hands of boring priests and pastors, God seems to be saying that the stuff worth living for is discovered in the very ordinary stuff of quotidian life.   When Jesus speaks he does so not with images from the theologians head, but with stuff from the life of a Galilean peasant — seeds and soil, wind and water, sheep and goats, weeds and vegetables, flowers and rain.  When we baptise, do we look to discover somewhere, somehow some kind of change in the children?  As though who and what they are is not enough?  How sad it is that when the church baptises, it speaks not of the joy of discovery and welcome, but of sin and abomination.
A baptism worth baptising is an opportunity for us to celebrate the good that we do, the positive influence of the church on the communities in which they are situated, a chance to say with God and for God — the creative unfolding of the future is still a thing worth living into, still something worth preparing ourselves for, still something worth modeling to each other, young and old, as vibrant with possibility.
Ben Guess noted that it is easy to become discouraged.  He reminded us of a statistic we all know — our numbers are dropping.  But he reframed that statistic.  As I have been trying to do — can we measure church vitality in other ways?  Let us no longer measure the strength of our churches by the number of babies we have saved from hell by doing proper baptisms, let us instead see these baptisms as powerful instances of God’s voice — The church I care about is not measured in baptismal fonts or stained glass windows.  The church I care about is measured by the intensity of the spirit, taking its people on a migratory journey to do justice wherever there is pain or injustice, taking its people on an eye-opening joyfilled trip to the places where people are crying out for wonder and hope.
In New Orleans, after Katrina, the UCC lost most of its churches, experienced great setbacks at its UCC College, Dillard University.  Now that University is roaring back with a $500m capital campaign and a renewed sense of community connection and academic responsibility.  Most of our 13 UCC congregations have not reopened, but over the last 5 years, some 7000 UCC members (including 15 from Waterbury, VT) have worked to rebuild not just UCC hopes and dreams by the lives of everyone along the gulf coast.  That translates into 168,100 volunteer hours and more than $3.6 billion in donated labor.
We do hunger walks not because God told us to get up and do hunger walks or else  . . . We do them because God’s spirit cannot be confined to the four walls of the church within which a baptism happens, we do them because God’s spirit is on the move, honking and winging its way to the hearts of people as they are longing for a long drink at the well of God’s grace, longing to be permeated by the spirit, conscious that these feelings are part of something immediate and important.