<html><body><div>Part 2</div><div><br></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"> If this is how we train ourselves to follow Jesus, or, rather, if this is how we ask Jesus to train us and to give us compassionate hearts, then we can learn not only how to order our own lives in the way that Jesus seeks of us, but we can learn to minister to the world which is filled with disruptions such as murder, family dysfunctionality, and so on. These are always going to exist. None of this is new to our generation. Yet each generation seems to have to learn how to respond, how to reach out, how to seek what’s at the heart of broken communities and societies – starting with ourselves.</font><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s easy to make light of the plucking out of one’s own eye, or cutting off one’s hand. What Jesus was pointing out, though, was that in so many instances, the problem starts with us – either our own behaviour in the first place, or our behaviour in reacting to what is so wrong in our communities.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b> it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>OUR</u></b> eye, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>OUR</u></b> mind, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>OUR</u></b> heart, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>OUR</u></b> lips that would enflame a situation? Is it our problem that reform and reconciliation cannot take place, or can only with great difficulty? </span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jesus had and continues to have the knack of not letting anyone off the hook, yet it’s not so that He can, somehow, obtain His pound of flesh from us. What Jesus seeks – what we’ll hear quite prominently on Ash Wednesday in a couple of weeks – is a commitment not to engage in practices that bring His Name and the ministry in which we engage on His behalf, into disrepute.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Can you imagine Paul’s comments to the first Christians in Corinth being said of us here? When one says, “I belong to Henry VIII, and Richard Hooker and Samuel Seabury” and another, “I belong to John Wesley”, and another, “I belong to John Calvin”, and another, “I belong to Menno Simons”, and another, “I belong to Jakob Amman” – what are we saying? One group has better prayers? One group is better educated? One hymnbook is better than another?</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Well, maybe we should stop right there before we get into trouble! But you get the point. What must be at the heart of every follower and representative of Jesus is the desire to live with care and compassion, with love, with tenderness, with understanding, with nonviolence in any form. What needs to be absent from all of our hearts is the desire to put ourselves, or anyone else, before Jesus. And if anyone tells you about what she or he knows, or writes a book with the word “Real” in the title, referring to Jesus and/or the church – then run from it as fast as you can.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NO ONE</u></b> has a corner on the truth – even Jesus learned throughout His life, no matter that He was and remains Son of God. We <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ALL</u></b> have a part of the truth, though, so we must find ways to bring them together in order to see how gloriously immense is the Creation of God which is evolving in front of us, evolving through reconciliation, evolving through respect, evolving through courage.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All of the things which were going wrong in Jesus’ day developed in the same way the things that are wrong in our day. They began with things being allowed to slide: an angry word; a snide put-down; an unwillingness to listen. The inequality among different people then is just the same as it is today. The way that tempers flared into violence then are the same as today. And most of them grew and grow out of fear – fear that, somehow, we won’t get at least our fair share of something, never mind more than our fair share.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It all begins with the small things, which can be corrected if we have the sense and the will to do so.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>A newspaper article several days ago began, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.05pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Have you heard about the latest outrage? Can you believe what (so-and-so) just did?” It doesn’t matter who or what is being described here, it’s such a common way of hearing about something. The author went on, “I’m not actually talking about anything specific, but between the time I’m writing this and the time you’re reading it, there will no doubt have been plenty of examples. Your inbox and notifications are likely full of them. Your friends are probably texting you about them. You may well be talking about them at dinner tonight, before settling in to watch outraged pundits rehash them. Then there’s one last check for late-breaking outrages before a night of restless, fitful sleep. In the morning, with a check on the accumulation of whatever new outrages rained down overnight, the cycle starts all over again.” <sup>3</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.05pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>From the first reading of the headline – a relatively small thing in and of itself – to the time we put our heads down on the pillow, all those small things have begun to weld together and to feed disorder, discontent, disunity, dis-Christianity, if I may put it that way.</span></p><p id="1e1e" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What do we do with all the small things, then? Bishop Curry remarked several times in Pittsburgh that “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>if it doesn’t walk and talk and look and smell like Jesus, it’s not Christian … and if it’s going to look like Jesus, it’s got to look like love.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Our lives, our missions as friends of Jesus, involve noting, shaping, loving, the small things, so that the whole into which they will grow may be the place of Jesus.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><i><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“At the Edge of the Enclosure Soulwork Toward Sunday: Self-Guided Retreat </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> <span style="margin: 0px;">Epiphany 6 (Year A)” <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></i><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>February 12, 2017 </span><strong><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'>"Come to Terms" </span></strong><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Suzanne Guthrie <a href="http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany6a.html"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany6a.html</font></a></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><h1 style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333">2</font></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><font color="#333333"> </font></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><font color="#333333">‘Don’t be afraid to be people of love,’ presiding bishop tells Pittsburgh revival </font><span style="margin: 0px;"><font color="#333333">Three-day event kicks off Episcopal Church plan to claim new life, change the world </font></span></i></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>By Mary Frances Schjonberg </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>February 6, 2017</span></span></h1><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=11af1a2c9761394bbd97cdb1a&id=6f67256673&e=42c81782ef"><font color="#0000ff">http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=11af1a2c9761394bbd97cdb1a&id=6f67256673&e=42c81782ef</font></a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><h1 style="margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333">3</font></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><font color="#333333"> </font></span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style="margin: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.25pt;"><font color="#333333">“</font></span></i></b></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; letter-spacing: -0.25pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>How To Get Out Of The Cycle Of Outrage In A Trump World </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>If we live in a perpetual state of outrage, Trump wins.</span></i><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333">”</font></span></i></b><b><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333"> </font></span></b><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;">02/07/2017</span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333"> </font></span></b></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><font color="#333333">by </font></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; letter-spacing: -0.3pt; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Arianna Huffington</span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></span></h1><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/how-to-get-out-of-the-cycle-of-outrage-in-a-trump-world_b_14635200.html"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/how-to-get-out-of-the-cycle-of-outrage-in-a-trump-world_b_14635200.html</font></a></span></p></div><div><br></div></body></html>