• Life, in all its varied mysteries and forms. That each of us has a time to live.
• Beauty, in the natural world that touches all our senses. In human relationships. In art and music. And in mathematics.
• Reconciliation, because it enables new lives to go forward.
  

I started writing this morning about 5:30 with a tribute to sixteenth century English theologian, Richard Hooker. As I studied the puritans and the treatment of them by succeeding generations of American historians, I came upon an observation by John Winthrop after sailing on the Arabella to the New World. This was the voyage where he is said to have written his now-famous “City on a Hill” sermon (although he was not an ordained minister, it was a “lay sermon”).

I have friends on both sides of the political divide who are scared. Tough, Army veterans who were shot down behind Vietnamese enemy lines who are scared. Seniors, healthcare workers, business owners, and venture capitalists who are realistically concerned about the potential for violence. American Jews fear a repeat of Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) when, in 1938, the Nazis began the systematic destruction of the German Jewish people.[1] In the original Nazi violence, Protestants and Roman Catholics stood by, watching passively, while their Jewish neighbors and friends were rounded up and their businesses and synagogues destroyed.

Farmer Brown had a nice flock of chickens she kept in a coop and their enclosed yard.  Being mindful of the wily coyote, Farmer Brown never let her flock roam freely on the beautiful grass around the barn. You might say they were always “cooped up.” The Leghorns were a fairly plain breed, mostly tan in color with little to distinguish them. The flock produced reliable eggs and that is what Farmer Brown treasured every morning.

I had a seminary professor who encouraged his homiletical students never “to show too much of your exegetical[1] underwear” meaning that you never want to turn your sermon into a college or graduate class on the topic of the day. I have also learned in 21 years of preaching that when a complicated idea arises, the best strategy is not to take it head on or avoid it (as many do), but to get playful and have fun with it. This Sunday’s sermon focuses on the poorly understood and under-appreciated idea of grace (I refuse to call it a “doctrine”).

I love studying languages and how the words change in pronunciation and meaning over time. Sometimes it can be instructive to back to an ancient source to get a better understanding of the modern term once we know where it came from.

This statement was made by Yale University theologian Eboni Marshall Turman last year at an academic conference. When the Americas were discovered and explored by white Europeans in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, various European nations began their grand history of empire-building. European missionary priests brought Christianity to indigenous peoples around the world. The underlying assumptions in all this conquest and exploration was that the Christian religion was best for everyone, and the specific version of Christianity* was white and European.