<html><body><div>Part 2</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>When Jesus upbraided His friends about playing it safe; for staying away from potential riots in Jerusalem, for instance; when Jesus rebuked the disciples strongly, He told them that there was no place, no person, from which they should back away, even if they thought the task was hopeless. I mean, think about Moses. What on earth could he do for so many Hebrew people? What on earth could one insignificant individual do to persuade or to defy the might of the authorities of Egypt?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>And, remember, Moses <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WAS</u></b> insignificant; the disciples <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WERE</u></b> insignificant; until God challenged them and promised them the power to overcome everything; everything, that is, except the possibility of their own death. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT</u></b> wasn’t on the table.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></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>The question about doing something for God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DID</u></b> signify that it would make an important difference both for God and the world. But the life or the death of the person or people being asked? No, that carried a terrifying warning. If you <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DON’T</u></b> stand up; if you <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DON’T</u></b> speak out; if you <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DON’T</u></b> rescue; if you <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DON’T</u></b> shield anyone else, no matter who, no matter where, no matter when, “The Son of man <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WILL</u></b> repay everyone for what has been done” – or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> done.</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>God’s love <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>IS</u></b> limitless, but, for those who refuse to accept it, to respond to it, the consequences are huge. We may take heart, however. God’s mercy is limitless. And God’s signs never stop appearing, and waiting, for the moment when we’ll notice them, and take them seriously.</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>A few weeks ago, we in The Episcopal Church celebrated the Feast Day of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. <sup>1</sup> He was just your average seminarian. He’d come to that point by a circuitous route, however. After graduating from high school in New Hampshire, he enrolled in the Virginia Military Institute and, after a very rough first year, during which he was shaken by the resignation from the school of some of his friends, and the suicide of one, he survived to be his class valedictorian. His father died, shaking his emotional and spiritual life, and when he went to Harvard for graduate work he’d dropped his religious practice until he had a defining moment when he attended church in Boston. He had what he considered was the first loud call from God to follow as a disciple of Jesus.</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>He transferred and was studying at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he heard Martin Luther King, Jr., speak. That was the second call to follow Jesus. He and a few others from the seminary went to Alabama to assist in ensuring civil rights for everyone, to enroll disenfranchised African Americans as voters.</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>After most of his friends went back north, he and a few others stayed. It was while he has walking to a small grocery store with some young African Americans that the way was blocked by a shot-gun-wielding construction worker. Pushing teenaged Ruby Sales out of the way, Jonathan took the full blast of the shot gun. The young seminarian was killed, one of many people, black and white, for whom justice, mercy and righteousness, especially for another, took precedence over everything else.</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>Was he playing it safe? Had he been promised protection, either by God or by anyone in his seminary, or by anyone in the community in Alabama where he was ministering? No. As the disciples at Jesus’ side, Jonathan was warned of danger. He’d seen it firsthand. But there was something which gave him strength and confidence. There was something within which filled him with the burning desire to save God’s people – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> of God’s people.</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>When he marched, did he shout against intolerance? Of course he did. When he took the hand of those whom neighbours despised and threatened, when he was threatened for doing this, was he filled with anger on their behalf? Of course he was. But when confronted on different occasions by billy clubs, baseball bats and shotguns wielded by police officers and locals, he forged on in the white heat of what may have been just like the white hot bush imprinted on Moses’ mind.</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>There came a time when those who followed the signs and voice of God realised not only that God was speaking to them, but that God would give them understanding about how to counteract the pain, the indignities, the abuse that others of God’s family were enduring.</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>There comes a time for us when our attention must be focused on the signs around us; our ears attuned to the voices around us, to respond as at Charlottesville; as at Dallas, here in Oregon, a couple of weeks ago; as at the cities along our Gulf Coast, and across South Asia – India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The signs go on and on. There comes a time when we must recognize that ours is not a static religion. It’s one of doing as well as being. So God says to us, often, “I’d like you to do something for Me.” </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>God leaves signs all the time, all over the place, hoping that we’ll see them; that we’ll stop to look at them; and that we’ll discover and accept the challenge of what it’s like to be a messenger and agent of God, a disciple of Jesus.</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>Ghandi wrote, ”We but mirror the world.” I’d add that we mirror God also. Ghandi continued, “All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies of the world would also change. …</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>“Ghandi is telling us the injustices and foolishness (of the world) reflect who we are. As we gain awareness and understanding, we will see conditions in the world in new ways. Our ways of seeing shape our contributions which change the world.” <sup>2</sup></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>Why did Moses place his life in jeopardy?</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>Why did Jesus place His life in jeopardy?</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>Why did the disciples – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>EVENTUALLY</u></b> – place their lives in jeopardy?</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>Why did Paul place his life in jeopardy?</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>Why did Jonathan Daniels place his life in jeopardy?</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>Because they heard God’s voice say, “I want you to do something for me.” To which they each replied, “Here I am. Send me.”</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>They couldn’t do anything else when they heard God’s voice and admitted to themselves that it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WAS</u></b> God speaking.</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>Will <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WE</u></b> do what God asks, even if it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DOES</u></b> place us in jeopardy? </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>When?</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>Somebody must do it.</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>And all that about Moses? It applies to each of us too.</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>As Brian Andreas paraphrased the Bible stories, “You’re exactly what the world needs. In case you’re wondering if it’s time to get started.” <sup>3</sup></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";'><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="2"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>14<sup>th</sup> August</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></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;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“Practices From the Inside Out: How Do We Change the World?”</span></i><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>August 26, 2017 by <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/strategicmonk/author/gdrichardson/"><span style="margin: 0px; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Greg Richardson</span></a> <a href="http://click1.mail.patheos.com/mwnbgkqpndvlgqkcltwgtlzbbblpsjtnwjnsydwbyppbn_wgsgwlwfv.html"><font color="#0000ff">http://click1.mail.patheos.com/mwnbgkqpndvlgqkcltwgtlzbbblpsjtnwjnsydwbyppbn_wgsgwlwfv.html</font></a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" 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;'>3</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“Start Time”</i> in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">“Story of the Day</i>”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“StoryPeople</i>” by Brian Andreas, 25<sup>th </sup>August, 2017.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p></div></body></html>