<html><body><div>Back again to Sunday sermons after a brief absence.</div><div><br></div><div>Here's the draft for Sunday.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT a</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>GENESIS 12:1-4a<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>12<sup>th</sup> MARCH, 2017</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ROMANS 4:1-5, 13-17<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 121</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>JOHN 3:1-17</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Seventy-four years ago last month, Sophie Scholl, a devout, practising Roman Catholic, along with many others were executed, murdered or lost in prisons. They belonged to The White Rose, “</span><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>a<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a title="Nonviolence" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">non-violent</font></span></a><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">,<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><a title="Intellectual" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">intellectual</font></span></a> </span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a title="Widerstand" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widerstand"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">resistance</font></span></a><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">group in<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><a title="Nazi Germany" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">Nazi Germany</font></span></a><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">led by a group of students and a professor at the<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><a title="Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Maximilian_University_of_Munich"><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;"><font color="#0000ff">University of Munich</font></span></a><span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">.</span></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign which called for active opposition against the<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="Nazi" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi"><font color="#0000ff">Nazi</font></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>regime. Their activities started in<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="Munich" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich"><font color="#0000ff">Munich</font></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>on June 27th, 1942, and ended with the arrest of the core group by the<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="Gestapo" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo"><font color="#0000ff">Gestapo</font></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>on February 18th, 1943. They, as well as other members and supporters of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced unjust trials by the Nazi<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="People's Court (Germany)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Germany)"><font color="#0000ff">People's Court</font></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(<i>Volksgerichtshof</i>), and many were sentenced to death or imprisonment.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“The group wrote, printed and initially distributed their pamphlets in the greater Munich region. Later on, secret carriers brought copies to other cities, mostly in the southern parts of Germany. In total, the White Rose authored six leaflets, which were multiplied and spread, in a total of about 15,000 copies. They branded the Nazi regime's crimes and oppression, and called for resistance. In their second leaflet, they openly denounced the persecution and<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="The Holocaust" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust"><font color="#0000ff">mass murder of the Jews</font></a>. By the time of their arrest, members of the White Rose were just about to establish contacts with other German resistance groups like the<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="Kreisau Circle" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreisau_Circle"><font color="#0000ff">Kreisau Circle</font></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>or the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group of the<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a title="Red Orchestra (espionage)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Orchestra_(espionage)"><font color="#0000ff">Red Orchestra</font></a>. Today, the White Rose is well-known within Germany and worldwide.” <sup>1</sup></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We may not have known specifically about this group, but we know that it goes on all the time, whenever severe repression is practised, or fear is promoted, or hatred encouraged. Even when people know that they engage in such activities under the threat of death, still they cannot allow hatred, or fear, or persecution, or injustice to go on. The truth is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT</u></b> important. If each of those individuals is to be true to her or himself, and be able to look in the mirror and not feel shame, then people <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>HAVE</u></b> to act under cover; they <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>HAVE</u></b> to be willing to risk their lives in order to find out, and then to tell others, what is really important.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It doesn’t matter what others say. It doesn’t even matter if others are sympathetic towards them, but advise against such action because of the danger involved. Life in Christ is a life of joy. But it is also a life which demands that we take risks for the sake of Jesus’ Gospel, if we have to.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Truth, justice, mercy, compassion – they <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b> that important.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is what Nicodemus’ action speaks to me about. He was an intelligent person. He held authority in his community. He was someone who was aware of what was going on, both politically and socially. It seems as if he was doing more than just hedging his bets when he went to talk directly with Jesus. Something about what he’d heard for himself, or about which he’d heard others speak, compelled him to take that risky step. We get the feeling that he sensed that there was more to Jesus than just a good and affable speaker. It wasn’t the fact that Jesus never brushed people off. It wasn’t that He seemed so approachable. There was something about Him that made Jesus’ relationship with God not only possible, but probable.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Nicodemus <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WAS</u></b> afraid. He didn’t want to be seen going near Jesus. He didn’t want to take any chances that he might lose his authority, at the least, or, what might be worse, be punished in some deeper, darker way. It was a desperate choice. On the one hand, he didn’t want to take risks unnecessarily. On the other hand, he didn’t want go through life wondering, “What if … ? What if I <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAD</u></b> gone to Jesus? What if I could ask Him the questions that were nagging in my mind? What if I could have been specific, and seen how He reacted and how He greeted me? What if I wanted to know all that but was afraid to do anything?”</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>So he acted undercover. Nicodemus decided that perhaps there <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WERE</u></b> things over which it was worth taking a risk.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Like Sophie and the members of The White Rose, Nicodemus, and countless others, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAD</u></b> to act as they did. God was calling them, just as God called Abram and Abram responded.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Life <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ISN’T</u></b> always easy. Life can be dirty. Life can be scary. Life can be dangerous. Life can be lonely. Yet life keeps involving decisions. “What do I believe?” “How should I act?” “To whom should I talk, and when?” This is the struggle in which Lent invites us to rediscover what our vocation to follow Jesus really is. These forty days hold both hope and challenge, and, despite the habits we may have learned when younger, despite the edge to the atmosphere of this season, it’s not without its humour, it’s not without its joy, it’s not without hope.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Dear Diary:” began the newspaper column, <sup>2</sup><br><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, the train is empty enough for an incongruous ballet. A lone feather, ethereal white, dances across the scuffed rubber floor. It leaps in the air, pirouettes around a pole. Maybe it is rejoicing in newfound freedom, having just escaped from a down pillow someone was carrying home. Maybe it has been left behind, and the dance is one of distress, abandonment, fear.<br><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“An older man stands as the train approaches the Canal Street station. He holds a briefcase in one hand and grabs on to a pole with the other. His silvery hair glints under fluorescent light as the feather dances at his feet.<br><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“The train comes to a halt. The feather continues to prance and twirl.<br> ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ comes the standard excuse over the loudspeaker, ‘we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us.’<br><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p></div></body></html>