An Invitation from Larry Greenfield

Dear Friends in Faith:

I urge you to participate in the "Chicago Day of Conscience for Darfur, Rally to Save Darfur" on Monday, May 1 at the Federal Plaza (Dearborn and Adams), beginning at 4:30 p.m.

Larry Greenfield, Executive Minister, ABC-MC
***


Larry also composed and essay entitled "Hired Hands" about the subject. Please go to my blog if you wish to read it.

Reconciler Weekly Update

I have been thinking lately about the movement of the Spirit. There are so many ways that we often conceive of the Spirit. The Spirit is often appealed to as that which works against the institutional aspect of the church. But if the church was founded by Christ, and the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit are three in one, then in fact no such dichotomy can be legitimately employed. However, we as the church, either as individuals or corporately as institution, can resist or be open to the movement of the Spirit. Being of the Spirit neither has to do with being always spontaneous nor does being of the Spirit have to do with guarding every form and rule. The Spirit of God is that which forms the church and us as members of the church. The Spirit is the life of us as persons and of the church which is manifest as institution.

In the past several weeks we have experienced the work of the Spirit as we have joined with Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. Elias Christian Church as we worshiped together on Ash Wednesday and then Holy Week. Pastor Monte Johnson of Immanuel Lutheran Church told me that Immanuel experienced a new joy in worship as we worshiped with them. We also experienced this joy as we worshiped with Immanuel and St Elias. This is the movement of the Spirit in us and Immanuel and St Elias as we joined together seeking the unity of the body of Christ,in worship that also sought to be connected with the church across ages and cultures.
I want to encourage us to awaken to the subtle movements of the Spirit in our midst and in us as we worship together and seek to be church.

As part of this we will begin a Bible study on Ephesians on Wednesday May 3 extending through Wednesday June 28th. We will be meeting at North Shore Baptist Church,5244 N Lakewood, three blocks from the Byrwyn Redline Stop at the corner of Lakewood and Byrwyn. Bible Study will begin at 7PM, North Shore serves supper on Wednesday nights at 6:15. Please contact the church secretary Mae, at 773-728-4200 by Monday of Each week if you wish to join us and North Shore for supper. Suggested donation for the meal is 5 dollars.
We will be focusing on what Ephesians has to say about the unity, life and worship of the church. As a companion to our study of Ephesians we will be reading essays from The Liturgy after the Liturgy, by Ion Bria a Romanian Orthodox priest who is also been a leader in Ecumenical work and the World Council of Churches.
Schedule:
Week 1, Wednesday May 3- Introduction and Ephesians 1
Week 2 Wednesday May 10 Chapter 2 of Liturgy after the Liturgy
Week 3 Wednesday May 17 - Ephesians 2
Week 4 Wednesday May 24- Chapter 3 of Liturgy after the Liturgy
Week 5 Wednesday may 31- Ephesians 3
Week 6 Wednesday June 7 - Ephesians 4-5:2
Week 7 Wednesday June 14- Ephesians 5:3-6:9
Week 8 Wednesday June 21- Ephesians 6:10 to the end.
Week 9 Wednesday June 28- Chapter 7 The Liturgy after the Liturgy
If you do not feel you can make every Wednesday all should feel free to come on the days you can. While we do conceive this a a single course. Each week also will make sense on its own.

Also, a note about our worship. Sunday May 7th Tripp is gone and the Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, Executive Minister of the American Baptist Churches-Metro Chicago(ABC-MC) will be our guest preacher. This also gives us a chance to meet and become acquainted with a leader in one of the denominations we are affiliated with.

Also, the artist gathering Reconciler has been coordinating, which began meeting in January, is going strong meeting once a month. It is meeting this Thursday April 27th at Matt and Cindy Newports apartment 4652 N. Beacon #1, near the intersection of Clark and Wilson. Their apartment is easily accessible by public Transportation: three blocks from the Wilson Red Line stop and the #22 Clark Bus runs all night.

Lastly we will be having a meeting of our church council/core group Monday May 8th at Immanuel Lutheran Church at 7pm. If you have been attending Reconciler regularly you are encouraged to attend and participate in the meeting. This is a chance for all to become acquainted with how we function as a church beyond Sunday worship.
May the love of God the peace of Christ and the unity of the Holy Spirit be with you,
In Christ,
Larry

Reconciler Almost Weekly Update

Greetings from Reconciler!

We want to remind everyone about the party this Saturday evening. It is at the the appartment of the Community of the Holy Trinity (Kate and Larry's place) 6443 N. Bosworth #2. Starting about 7:30 PM and going late or whenever everyone leaves. Kate and Larry will be providing some food and some drink but if you come bring some food and/or drink a sort of old fashion potluck, we will see what people bring and that is what we will have to eat and drink.

Be sure to invite your friends and let anyone who has come to chruch and not on this list know. The appartment is 5 blocks from the Loyala "L" stop, walk down Arthur until you get to Bosworth and turn left on Bosworth 6443 is near the end of the block. We are also a block north and east of the corner of Clark and Devon.

Please RSVP to this e-mail address. All are invited, past participants and current members and your friends!

It is time for the Council to begin meeting again. Please let us know when you might be available. We are looking at either Monday May 8 or Monday May 15 at Immanuel Lutheran. We still need to finalize the location with Pastor Monte at Immanuel. So the location may change. Please e-mail your availability.

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.(Acts 4:32-35)

As we enter into the Easter season, we are presented with this astounding vision of community. Can this have ever been a reality? Can we even begin to imagine such a promise being fulfilled in our own lives?

Perhaps. In some ways, the specifics of this story are unimportant. Certainly it may guide us in understanding current economic realities, but in this case it is the spirt of the passage that may matter most to us. What can we give so generously to one another? What can we share? Can we receive so completely from one another? In another word; how might we be reconciled to one another through the grace of Easter?

Think about it. Pray on it.

Peace and all good things be to you,

one of the girls

One of the Girls St Patrick's Day 2006 at the Poitin Stil,
originally uploaded by AngloBaptist.

Tripp on stage? You betcha!

We have a concert this Friday! Huzzah. We will be at the Poitin Stil (pictured) at 10pm until the Murphey's stout runs out.

One of the Girls
April 21, 2006
Poitin Stil
1502 W. Jarvis
(near CTA Red Line)
Chicago

play

Maundy Thursday Sermon

I preached this sermon last night at the joint service of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Chruch St Elias Christian Church and Church of Jesus Christ Reconciler.
Exodus 12;1-4, 11-14
Psalm 116;1, 10-17
1 Corinthians11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
As we enter this time of the Three Great Days, the Holiest days of the Church year, I want to begin by saying on behalf of Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler and the Community of the Holy Trinity, that it is with great joy that we join Immanuel in worship as we commemorate the passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler is deeply grateful for the hospitality and love of Christ that has been shown to us these several short months we have been worshiping in your side chapel. As a pastor of Reconciler I am honored to have been asked to preach on this the Passover of our Lord.

Tonight is the night that our Lord Jesus Christ celebrated the Passover with his disciples instituting the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and giving us the new commandment to love one another. The name of this day, Maundy, comes from the Latin for command, “mandatum”. Jesus had gathered his disciples knowing he was on the way to the cross. So, today we begin the walk of the passion of our Lord. We begin with communion and a command to love one another. These two things are among the last things Jesus does and says and are the beginning of what turns the world upside down.

The Gospel of John is not concerned directly with the meal itself. As is John’s tendency we are given the deep and mystical meaning of the Last Supper. So John tells us that on the night the Eucharist was instituted by Jesus giving bread and wine to his disciples saying they were his flesh and blood and to repeat this meal whenever they gathered in remembrance of him, on that night Jesus performed a symbolic and prophetic act of God’s sacrificial love, washing his disciples feet. Jesus demonstrates the meaning of it all: of the Eucharist, of the Cross, of his coming, and of his resurrection from the dead through the washing of feet.

When we think of washing feet we may feel embarrassed or it may feel oddly intimate to have someone else wash our feet. Our feet are generally encased in shoes and socks. We see people’s feet rarely, in the summertime mainly and not always even then.

While some of our issues may have been at work in the time of Jesus, there are other issues, which were more prominent. At the time of Jesus in Palestine shoes were open sandals, and roads being largely unpaved were dusty and in rain muddy. Feet got very dirty. When you entered a house it was customary either to have a basin of water for the purpose of washing feet or if the household had a servant or servants it was the servants job to wash guests feet. This was seen as a lowly task for lowly servants.

When Jesus Takes up a towel and offers to wash the feet of his disciples he is placing himself as their Rabbi, leader and as God incarnate in the place of the lowliest of servants. This is not something a great Rabbi would do. The prophetic act over turns the classification and order of the world, for love. We should not be surprised that brash Peter tries to refuse and keep Jesus from doing this, until Jesus makes it quite clear that accepting this act of reversal is essential for his disciples. In this act Jesus demonstrates that God’s sacrificial love cares for the other without concern for rank, class, or privilege. The Son, God incarnate, Jesus Christ takes up a towel like a common slave and washes his disciples feet out of love.

Jesus then to reinforce the meaning of this washing of the feet leaves his disciples and us the commandment to love one another. It is significant that on this night we come together from different congregations representing differing denominations as we commemorate the night on which Christ promised himself to us in the Eucharist and commanded that we his disciples should love one another. He did so as he submitted to the way of the Cross and suffered for us. In his suffering death and resurrection the great reversal was effected as he passed through death becoming our Passover.

On this night as we begin to walk again the path of Christ’s passion we have heard our Lords commandment to love one another as he loved us. We are called to show God’s love and love one another, to be servants to each other as Jesus became our servant. We follow or Lord’s example signifying the great reversal of loving service through the washing of feet.

This is worth noting.

New Christian ecumenical group off the ground with 34 members

“We finally found the courage to confront our obvious and longstanding divisions and to build a new expression of unity, rooted in the Spirit, that will strengthen our mission in the world,” Wes Granberg-Michaelson said in a CCT press release.

This is the organization's website.

Sermon - Palm Sunday

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1-15:47

Palm Sunday. For Christians, it’s a day of contrasts, isn’t it? We begin with celebration, with rejoicing, with what has come to be called “The Triumphal Entry.” People strewing coats on the ground, and waving palm branches, and generally making a spectacle of themselves. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

And we end with betrayal, and shame, and death.

We know it’s coming. We’ve read the book-- and maybe even seen the movie. The church calendar moved us into Lent, the season of preparation, back in February; so we’ve had weeks and weeks to prepare for this.

Jesus’ followers didn’t have that advantage. Oh, there were warning signs, certainly. The gospels record plenty of them, both subtle and overt.

But put yourself in their shoes. Jesus has been living with them, and leading them, for years. They’ve been at risk more than once-- and always managed to come away unscathed, able to continue the ministry, the healing, the gently defiant, “in-your-face” teaching that so irritated the religious leaders. They’ve been playing a dangerous game, in direct opposition to their culture, their society-- a society without any Bill of Rights protection. And they’ve been getting away with it.

And now they’ve come to Jerusalem, the capital city, openly and with joyous abandon. They have paraded into the city, shouting and creating a ruckus, waving palms and “preparing a way for the Lord,” as the psalmist says. I’ve read more than one commentator who notes that, in this moment, they’re recognizing Jesus as more than an itinerant rabbi; that this is more in the style of a welcome that might be given a victorious military leader, or powerful state official. With all the fuss, It’s important to realize that this was not simply a religious action; it was also seen as a political statement. In this moment, the Judeans seem to believe that Jesus really is the Messiah-king they’ve been expecting, come to lead Israel out from under the crushing oppression of Roman occupation.

Then, the next thing they know, they are surrounded by soldiers in the Garden. Jesus is arrested, and sentenced, and executed-- their vaunted, miraculous leader, hung between two common criminals to die. And they weren’t ready for that, not at all.

Yes, we read of the warnings, of Jesus telling them what was to come. But we need to remember that the Gospels are written down years after all this takes place. The evangelists have the advantage of hindsight, of looking back to see the signs that were there, of remembering the indicators that should have prepared them for that night. But I don’t think they owned it, that they really understood, in the moment. That week in Jerusalem was such a reversal, as sudden as a heart attack. How could they have been ready for that?

Can you sympathize with that sort of sudden turnaround, the feeling that, in a split second, the world has been turned upside down? I know I can. I think of when my mother died, nearly eight years ago. Looking back, I can recall a few things that might have warned us. Signs of change, small indicators that were overlooked in the day to day functions and busyness of life; things that might have given some hint, if I had known what I was listening for. But I didn’t.

On a Wednesday morning, I was over at her house, helping paint the bedroom closet; everything seemed as usual. Thursday afternoon, my sister called from the hospital; Mom had complained of chest pains, and Jan had taken her to the Emergency Room. I spoke to Mom, told her I loved her, and planned to head up to the hospital as soon as I could find someone to watch the kids. But before I could do that, Jan called again-- and she was gone. Yes, I was forewarned; but even the more overt notice didn’t gear me for what was to come. I can still remember standing in my kitchen, seeing the April sun pouring in the window, and whispering into the phone, one word: “No.” I couldn’t grasp that what I was hearing was real. Even with knowing what might happen, the truth came upon me suddenly, and all at once-- just like soldiers in the Garden.

That’s how I imagine the disciples must have felt. Even if they had heeded all the signs, all the warnings, the reality had to have been far beyond anything they could possibly have imagined. Think about it-- would Peter have struck out, and cut off the slave’s ear, if he had known what to expect? Are we to believe his denial of Jesus was based on understanding what was going on? Or was it a gut reaction, born out of uncertainty and panic?

And the rest of the apostles-- would they have run in fear, if they were ready for what was to happen? They had been told what to expect; and, more, told of the hope that would follow; but in the face of death, they lost sight of the prior warnings-- as well as the promise of resurrection, and the kingship of Jesus that was foreshadowed in the procession that we celebrate today.

So, here’s an advantage we have over the disciples. We have scripture, laying out the story for us, from four different perspectives. We have 2000 years of history, and tradition, and lots of examples in that time-- good and bad-- of what it can mean to follow Jesus. We have all the information we could possibly ask for.

And yet, it’s still not easy, is it? With all that, just like the disciples, we still don’t get it. We can choose to speak, and to listen, to one another in love and respect-- and still we strike out in anger and fear at those with whom we do not agree, or understand.

We can choose (in our voting, in our volunteering, in our values) to work for justice, freedom and peace-- and still we run and hide, focusing on our own security rather than standing against the violence, and hunger, and abuse that exists around us every day.

We can choose a life of discipleship, of acknowledging Christ in everything we do; and still we deny Jesus, and his call on our hearts, preferring to protect ourselves and our comfortable way of life from the changes that answering a call to discipleship might bring.

This is why I’ve often struggled with the phrase that we casually use so often, to explain the sacrifice at the cross: “Jesus died to save us from our sins.” That’s very easy to misuse, and to mishear. I mean, Jesus’ death certainly doesn’t keep us from sinning, does it? Human beings are still racking up the same old sins, committing the same atrocities, falling into the same traps as we ever did-- and every one of us here this morning can testify to the truth that Christians are no less liable than nonbelievers to that insidious pull. No; if that’s what that phrase means, Jesus would stand, quite bluntly, as a miserable failure.

But is it sinning from which he saves us? Or, is it the effect of that sin? Paul comments on this in his letter to the Romans, when he says “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, what Jesus saves us from is death: the death that is the inevitable result of sin. Not only the cessation of our lives after we are done here on earth, but also the smaller deaths of a sort; the sins that eat away at one's soul on a daily basis.

That’s something that we can also testify, here today: though we are still susceptible to human sin as Christians, we are also witnesses to the forgiveness and restoration that God holds out to us in Jesus Christ. That beyond the death, is resurrection.

I think this is the key to the contrast of triumph and terror that we hear on Palm Sunday: It is by living with us, as well as by dying and rising for us, that Jesus offers us salvation. His death and resurrection offer us restoration in God, and his life shows us how to accept it.

We have this incredible gift laid before us this day. And, though we can neither know nor control what will happen in the next moment in our lives, we have, in this, been offered the clear-cut opportunity of preparing, of being strengthened for whatever that may be. We are offered death-- and then shown that only through death is resurrection possible.

So, the choice is ours. Will we continue to deny Jesus? To run and hide in our seemingly secure world? Ignore the signs, and assume that things will continue for us the way they always have?

Or shall we recognize our own failings, our own sin, and be willing, over and over again, to accept Jesus’ invitation to walk away from them? To deny ourselves, and take up the challenge and gift of the cross, and follow?

Hypotyposeis: Gospel of Judas is Published

Hypotyposeis: Gospel of Judas is Published...

The above link is to a good blog on the topic. Give it a gander. You may find it interesting.

Weekly Update

Psalm 130

1 A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to thee, O LORD!
2 Lord, hear my voice! Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
3 If thou, O LORD, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
This is an amazing short psalm. The psalm moves powerfully and beautifully from despair to hope. In brief it sums up our human condition and GodÂ’s own desire for us.
“With [God] there is plenteous redemption,” Starting with this Sunday we commemorate and celebrate this plenteous redemption.
Palm Sunday we will have the liturgy of the palms and reading of the passion. This starts our Holy Week observance. We will be joining with Immanuel Lutheran Church for our Holy Week Services. I will be preaching at the Maundy Thursday service and Tripp will be singing with the choir and cantoring for the services, and Kate and Trish will be reading Scriptures for the Easter Vigil. We will have our Easter day service at our usual time it will be an Evensong with Eucharist.
Our Holy Week Schedule of services are as follow:

Maundy Thursday 7:30 PM
Good Friday 7:30 PM
Holy Saturday Easter 8:30 PM

We are also planning a church party for April 22nd at 7:30 PM at the apartment of the Community of the Holy Trinity. Come and fellowship with us celebraEasterter, invite your friends and we will hang out with good food drink and conversation.
God is good let us wait on the Lords mercy and celebrate together God's plenteous redemption.
In Christ
Larry
Pastoral Team

Sermon 5th Sunday in Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 4:14-5:10
John 12:20-33
We are nearing the end of Lent. As we have gathered around Scripture and Table this season we have been wandering in the desert wrestling with what God does, where God appears, and our responses to God. We have been confronted with the mystery of God’s grace and the mystery of community. We have done all this to prepare ourselves to receive anew the central event of our faith: Christ’s death and Resurrection. As we near the end of Lent Hebrews calls us to hold fast to our faith because we have a Great High Priest, Jesus Christ.

What does it mean for Christ to be our high priest in terms of our life and world? My own problem is that I know this is true. I do not remember a time when I didn’t understand that because of Jesus I could approach the “throne of grace”. Even so I struggle with relating Jesus as High Priest to the world I live in; a world without priests and sacrifices, a world that does not know or understand the language of sin, a world that speaks of rights and justice and self-determination and may speak of social evils but doesn’t speak of personal sin.

If we are to make the necessary connections I think we first need to stop and uncover what lies behind Hebrews assertion of Jesus as High Priest. We also need to take a look at the possible meaning of sin. What is sins effects and ultimate consequences of our sins. Once we have examined these two things then we can return to the significance for us of Jesus High Priesthood and thus the significance of the central event of our faith, Christ death on the Cross and his Resurrection.
You may or may not be ware that High Priests were an important feature of Israelite religion and an essential component of the Covenant God mad with Israel after their exodus from Egypt. Moses’ brother, Aaron, was the first High Priest. God mandated that one of the tribes of Israel, tribe of Levi were to be priests. Aaron and Moses were of the tribe of Levi. Thus the book of Leviticus describes the offerings and sacrifices as well as how Aaron the first high priest was ordained. However, Hebrews is primarily focused on the role of high priest and the offerings and sacrifices made on one day, the day of Atonement.

The other thing Hebrews has in mind is the Tabernacle of Tent of meeting where the above rites of sacrifice and offering took place. There were two basic parts and outer and inner tent. The innermost room was known as the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies there was the Ark of the Covenant that had two golden Seraphim with wings outstretched. This was seen as the place where God’s glory rested on Earth in the midst to of God’s people. The Ark of the Covenant was also known as the mercy seat. The catch of all this was that no one was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies except for the High Priest on the day of Atonement when he would sprinkle the Mercy Seat with the blood of the sac rife for his sins and the sins of Israel. This is what Hebrews has in mind as it talks about Jesus the high priest.

However Hebrews also has in mind another priesthood that is before the covenant of Mount Sinai the priest King of Salem Melchizedek. He is an obscure figure and is important for two reasons. Firs since the messiah was to be form the kingly line of David and Jesus was from this line, according the Covenant of Sinai Jesus was a king but not priest. But Melchizedek shows precedent for a royal priesthood. Second Melchizedek is said to be a priest of the most high before the Levitical priesthood is not the only priesthood ordained by God. These two points are perhaps unimportant for us except that it is theologically significant that Christ be both Priest and King.

All of this, the priesthood the sacrifices all presupposes a notion of sin and sins. But how should we understand sin fundamentally? A key to the answer to this question is how Hebrews understands Jesus’ sinlessness. Hebrews asserts was tested in every way like us but without sins. This being without sin is exemplified in his perseverance at the point of suffering and death by being obedient the Father even in undergoing suffering and death. As such Jesus Christ the High Priest always had access to God and never needed to offer a sacrifice for himself, but we do need a high priest because there is a gap and estrangement between God and us, which is repaired by the sacrifice of a high priest. So the sinless state is one of faithful obedience and unbroken relationship. Sin I would then propose is fundamentally the reality of estrangement from God and ourselves which is then manifest in various forms of disobedience and faithlessness, that is particular sins.

I recently saw again the film by Jim Jarmush, Coffee and Cigarettes. If you haven’t seen it the film is essentially a montage of eleven short films about encounters over coffee and cigarettes (sometimes tea) in restaurant and cafe’s. the move opens with Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni meeting in a cafe. The encounter is awkward. Steven keeps insisting he be called Steven and Roberto Benigni keeps calling him Steve. They never quite connect, though Steven does give Roberto his dentist appointment. The short ends with Steven sitting alone, isolated with the sounds of the café. One is left wondering if Roberto and Steven ever actually connect. This pattern of meeting and attempting to connect without much success is repeated in each short. The drinking coffee together seems to represent this attempts at connect the never fully happens. Even the final short “Champagne” which is a very intimate scene of two old friends and coworkers on a coffee break follows this pattern. The friends are talking to each other one friend is talking about grand things, in comparison to what is before them; the other friend is mystified by this line of conversation but plays along without actually understanding. Finally the first friend says he needs to take a nap. His friend says that he only has about only 2 minutes for a nap. The friend nods off, and the friend tries to wake them but the fringed doesn’t wake up. One is left again wondering about the connections made and strained.

From the perspective of Hebrews and Christianity this movie is about sin. We fail to connect we are estranged and alienated and isolated because of sin. Sometime we can trace this estrangement back to particular acts or attitudes we have or have done personal; sometimes we simply find ourselves in the this state as though it were the air we breathe- in the system of government and economy or patterns of family relationships and not due to individual choices we’ve made. This is part of the brilliance of Coffer and Cigarettes, for at times you can identify the source of the estrangement between the people at times the isolation is simply there like the muse that plays in the background at all restaurants and cafe.

Hebrews affirms that only in Jesus Christ as our high priest is this estrangement repaired. Only; in Christ is rue connection made because jess Christ was fully and truly one with us as human beings an tiredly one with God. This is why the doctrines of the incarnation two natures in one person Jesus Christ are not abstract ideas but of deep relevance to our lives. Only the one who was most truly human because he was completely united to God and humanity simultaneously can show us the way to true community and the way out of a world of isolation estrangement an injustice.

This is why Hebrews enjoins us to hold fast to our confession and that in holding fast an in our prayer we have access to that place that only one person once a year could enter. By clinging to Christ our high priest we are joined to God through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross where he took into himself and suffered the consequences of all the estrangement isolation injustice and abuse of the world.
Every Sunday in our worship around Word and Table we cling to Christ and boldly enter the Holy of Holies, for it is Christ who presides at the Table as bread and wine are blessed and Christ gives himself to us in that bread and wine, that we may remain steadfast in the faith and remain joined with him thus uniting us to God and each other. This is possible having removed all barriers through his death and resurrection. But as Hebrews implies we can choose to live according to this reality of our worship in our daily lives holding fast to our faith or we can choose when we leave her today to live as though Coffee and Cigarettes an alienation and estrangement are the last word. Yet even if we do loose sight of Christ and our faith Hebrews calls us back for Jesus is human and understand our weakness and have once for all removed the barriers. Since we have such a Great High priest we can come again and again to the throne of grace where there is always already forgiveness, strength, and reconciliation. So come today to the Table with confidence knowing we have a great high priest who unites us to God and each other even when we lose sight of this and find ourselves estranged and in sin.