Speaker 1: Let's pray On that note.
Speaker 1: Let's pray Well.
Speaker 1: Jesus, we give you thanks.
Speaker 1: We do give you thanks for all the young ones in our midst.
Speaker 1: What a blessing it is to have kids around, and we're grateful.
Speaker 1: They are not just the future, but they are the present church as well.
Speaker 1: And so, God, may we be a church and a people that notice little ones and others who are often overlooked, and may we be people who see them the way that you see them.
Speaker 1: Jesus softened our hearts this morning.
Speaker 1: Help us to be people of faith and of life and love and mercy, and would you bless our time this morning in Jesus' name, Amen, Amen, you can be seated.
Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 1: My name is Ryan.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor at Central.
Speaker 1: It's great to be with you guys this morning, and we are in the midst of our discipleship series.
Speaker 1: And this morning we're gonna talk about scribes and widows.
Speaker 1: And, as you heard, Casey in Easton read this morning this passage in Mark.
Speaker 1: You can open your Bibles if you want, it's Mark 12.
Speaker 1: And there's two stories that get joined together by the word widow.
Speaker 1: And so Mark is trying to tell you something about these two stories and we'll unpack them briefly this morning.
Speaker 1: And what does it mean that Jesus is sort of like kind of comparing, contrasting and at least sort of putting together these stories about scribes and how they live and operate in this widow and how she lives and operates.
Speaker 1: Now, many times the story of we call it the widow's might you might have heard the story growing up or in a number of other sermons, and it's sort of a widow who gives all she has, she sacrificially gives, and so many times the sermon is like well then, you all better give and as the globe gets passed around, you better give sacrificially.
Speaker 1: If you have no money, you better give anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, that's sort of the typical.
Speaker 1: You know, oh, fancy, Ryan doing this sermon on the same day we kick off our capital campaign.
Speaker 1: I see what you're doing, Ryan, but no, I wanna offer a different version of the story.
Speaker 1: I think a prior, truer interpretation of that.
Speaker 1: By the way, a side note, you know, if you're a part of central this is how I always talk about giving If you're, everything we do here is we only operate because of the giving from the people of central.
Speaker 1: So if you're a part of central in any way and you consider this your home church or you're like here regularly, we'd love to invite you to give, but it's low pressure, no big deal.
Speaker 1: I'm not back in there in Janet's office looking through who gave and who didn't give, but if you're here, we wanna ask you to support what we're doing if you like it and if you benefit from it.
Speaker 1: That's kind of it, and even with the capital campaign, same kind of deal.
Speaker 1: We're gonna build the future, you know, church for these kids, for young ones and those other generations.
Speaker 1: So if you can give and if you can't, I get it, Cause the thing behind the thing is what we'll kind of unpack this morning.
Speaker 1: But it's not a scripture just saying you better give.
Speaker 1: If you don't have money, you better give anyway.
Speaker 1: Dig it a little bit deeper in your pockets.
Speaker 1: It's actually about this.
Speaker 1: I'll give you again my thesis ahead of time, just so you can kind of have it.
Speaker 1: But this is a story, I believe, about pouring your own life out as a good gift for the benefit and the healing of the world.
Speaker 1: So my prayer and hope is that we can be people, we can be disciples who offer up our very lives in large and in tiny ways, and we can partner with God in his movement of restoring the world and healing the broken world, and that includes everybody, Even you who think you have nothing to offer.
Speaker 1: My prayers, you will find out today that God wants to use you in partnership, to pour out yourself as a gift for the world.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Can you already see this?
Speaker 1: A much deeper interpretation than we?
Speaker 1: Better give a little bit more money.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't have any money, you better give Kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully that's what you'll see.
Speaker 1: Jesus is hanging out and he's teaching some people around him and he sees this group of scribes go by.
Speaker 1: Now, scribes are Old Testament law interpreters, so these are like ancient versions of lawyers and they're now, by the way, when he sees these scribes, because he actually pronounces a word of harsh warning against these scribes, and I'll tell you why in a moment.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't mean all of scribes.
Speaker 1: Scribes were people in the Jewish communities that really they love the law, they interpret the law, but they were not all, as you can imagine, they were not all morally upstanding.
Speaker 1: Same with Pharisees.
Speaker 1: Many times in our modern sort of readings of the scripture, we just we often use in conversation even the word Pharisee as a synonym for like, for charlatans or for legalistic people who are not really so we're like oh, what a Pharisee.
Speaker 1: Well, hang on, not all Pharisees were like bad people.
Speaker 1: There were some great Pharisees who loved the law, who loved God and who wanted to honor God and worship God.
Speaker 1: So just be careful.
Speaker 1: Not all Pharisees were these charlatan whitewash tombs.
Speaker 1: Not all scribes were what Jesus was talking about.
Speaker 1: But this group of scribes walks by and Jesus pronounces a harsh warning on them.
Speaker 1: And here's why these guys had these fancy long robes that they wore.
Speaker 1: You heard in the scripture they were these fancy long robes.
Speaker 1: Now, these were not just like prayer shawl kind of robes that the Jews wore.
Speaker 1: These were like garments made to sort of put on display their opulence and their power and their prestige and their social status and their place and their dignity.
Speaker 1: So it's like a public display of their wealth and who they were and their power.
Speaker 1: They also wanted to be greeted in a very certain way, publicly, in front of everybody else, because in this Roman system of patronage, if you were kind of higher up on the social ladder, those who are beneath you would have to greet you in public.
Speaker 1: And so these men, these scribes, wanted to be greeted in public by those who were lesser than them.
Speaker 1: So they were like hey, you better greet me.
Speaker 1: And so you read the scripture in Mark, since they wanted to be greeted in public in order to show everyone how important these men, how they truly really were.
Speaker 1: They also wanted the best seats in any house they were at.
Speaker 1: So in the synagogue, they wanted the best seats to be on display so that the cameras could see them.
Speaker 1: In the banquets, they wanted to have the highest seat of honor at the LA Laker games.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be right around the court side with Rihanna and Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake Nobody, Fair enough, I'll keep going.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be seen.
Speaker 1: They wanted the best seats to be seen and to be put you know, for everyone to know that they were powerful and important.
Speaker 1: And they also had these long-winded prayers, so these very verbose and wordy prayers.
Speaker 1: They obviously didn't get the memo from my stepdad, who would always say he'd always say hey, Ryan, if you pray long, you pray wrong, especially around meal times.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get to the food, let's hurry up.
Speaker 1: We got to get to the food, let's go.
Speaker 1: I mean taking your time.
Speaker 1: Bless this food, Amen, let's go.
Speaker 1: Oh, but these guys would pray long prayers because they wanted to appear more holy, that everyone would hear their prayers and be in awe.
Speaker 1: Oh, these guys are.
Speaker 1: What a big deal these guys are.
Speaker 1: Look at these long prayers, these fancy prayer robes, or fancy robes.
Speaker 1: You know they're being greeted in public.
Speaker 1: They have these awesome court-side seats to the nuggets games.
Speaker 1: Maybe Nuggets, Okay, Tim, we all are world champion nuggets, I should say.
Speaker 1: And they wanted everyone to know they were on display.
Speaker 1: They wanted everyone to know hey, this is like an act, and they wanted people to recognize them as big, important people.
Speaker 1: These were men who mattered and they wanted everyone to know that these were men who mattered.
Speaker 1: There we go I think I have a slide for it and they put everything about themselves on display.
Speaker 1: They love being noticed and being seen and being important and being a people who mattered.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we don't have this problem today.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why billionaires don't want to just be billionaires.
Speaker 1: They want to own a team as well.
Speaker 1: They can be interviewed on the news or be at the you know, in the game, at the game, in the press boxes beyond the spot.
Speaker 1: They want to be people who are relevant and who matter, and I'm not just picking on billionaires.
Speaker 1: Pastors can be the same way.
Speaker 1: We don't want to just pasture our little flock over here.
Speaker 1: We want to be big deals, we want to matter and know that everyone sees what we're doing.
Speaker 1: All of us have this deep sort of desire to be people who matter and put on display.
Speaker 1: And these scribes put themselves on display.
Speaker 1: But then Mark tells us that these guys also devoured widows' houses.
Speaker 1: It's a weird line, but these guys were.
Speaker 1: These were experts in the law.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to take care of widows and make sure that they could sort of maintain their housing situation.
Speaker 1: But these men, it says, devalue interesting choice of words they devour widows' houses.
Speaker 1: By the way, like I said, Mark then ties this story about the scribes using the word widow with the following story, which is about a widow and her offering in the treasury.
Speaker 1: So right from here the scribes and Jesus pronounces warning like, don't be like these guys who put themselves on display, who want to be people who matter.
Speaker 1: Then he says okay, then he's over the treasury.
Speaker 1: And the treasury, by the way, is right here in the temple.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of this public area where anyone's kind of welcomed.
Speaker 1: There were women there and they would take up offerings there.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says at the treasuries hanging out with his disciples, and these rich people come by and they offer up their offerings to God.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine what that seemed like.
Speaker 1: These are rich people, man.
Speaker 1: They had lots to give.
Speaker 1: I gotta be careful.
Speaker 1: This is Ben's Disney savings jar.
Speaker 1: I gotta True story Disney.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he's gonna need a bigger jar.
Speaker 1: If you've been to Disney and these rich guys.
Speaker 1: And then it says a widow comes by and she's got two tiny little coins and she drops them in the treasury.
Speaker 1: Why bother lady?
Speaker 1: Oh embarrassing, Clink, clink, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like that's going to help anything?
Speaker 1: By the way, the two coins that she offers are called tiny little copper coins and we think modern scholars think that it was probably what we call a mite, a widow's mite.
Speaker 1: Now, it's called a widow's mite because she was a widow.
Speaker 1: It's called a mite.
Speaker 1: I've got one.
Speaker 1: I bought one in Bethlehem last year, or rather in February.
Speaker 1: Here it is.
Speaker 1: If you want to see it, you might need a magnifying glass.
Speaker 1: It's this tiny little coin and in its day, Jesus' day, was the smallest, most invaluable coin in circulation, and here's how valuable or not they were.
Speaker 1: They were worth one sixty-fourth of a denarius.
Speaker 1: So just for you to see.
Speaker 1: A denarius, by the way, is one day's wage.
Speaker 1: So this woman has one sixty-fourth, actually two of them, two sixty-fourths.
Speaker 1: So for you, math majors, one thirty-second of a denarius.
Speaker 1: Not that she earned that month or not, that she found on the ground walking, not that she had in her pocket, this is all she had to her name, Two of these itty-bitty coins.
Speaker 1: That's all she had.
Speaker 1: This was her 401k, her IRA, her stock investment, her real estate portfolio.
Speaker 1: It's all right here.
Speaker 1: These two tiny little, meaningless coins that she drops in.
Speaker 1: It's all she has.
Speaker 1: And she takes these little itty-bitty coins and she puts them in the treasury.
Speaker 1: By the way, widows were one of the most helpless people in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: They were viewed generally as vulnerable, vulnerable to abuse, to injustice, even to starving to death.
Speaker 1: They had very little to their names.
Speaker 1: They had no power, no husband, no one around to take care of them, and in the ancient world, women were like secondary or tertiary in sort of social students.
Speaker 1: These women widows had nothing.
Speaker 1: They were in the bottom of the social ladder, by all means.
Speaker 1: They were barely noticed, almost an afterthought, helpless and utterly almost forgettable, or an ignorable, totally poor.
Speaker 1: And yet God commands the people of Israel, the people of God, who were supposed to embody the will and way of God in the world.
Speaker 1: He commands them to take care of widows and poor people.
Speaker 1: Here's what he says in Exodus.
Speaker 1: The law says this do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, For you were foreigners once in Egypt.
Speaker 1: In other words, don't forget that you were once lost too.
Speaker 1: I know that you sometimes look down your nose on certain people, but don't forget you were just like them at one point.
Speaker 1: He tells Israel and don't take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying God has favorites, but if God has favorites, it's people like this foreigners, widows, fatherless people, people that are on the outside looking in.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's this story about a woman who's a widow from Sedon.
Speaker 1: Sedon's an outside region, she's not an Israelite, she's not a Jewish woman, she's a widow and she's an outsider.
Speaker 1: And Jesus tells her story later on as if he's championing this woman like who's in the lowest of the low of the social ladder, and it almost gets Jesus killed.
Speaker 1: How about this?
Speaker 1: In Psalm, it says this.
Speaker 1: The Psalmist writes this a father to the fatherless and a defender of the widows is God in his holy dwelling.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying it fits your political party views, but if you are a disciple, a follower of Jesus, your job is to look out for people like this, for the widows, the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying there's a one-size-fits-all answer for how to respond to these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: It's complex social issues.
Speaker 1: But you should have your eyeballs on people like this.
Speaker 1: We should, as a church.
Speaker 1: These should be people that come in here and feel welcome here and your presence.
Speaker 1: They should feel welcome and belong a little bit.
Speaker 1: You should say hi to these people, At least know them by name.
Speaker 1: I remember Shane Claiborne once said I'm not afraid that Christians don't love the poor, I'm afraid that Christians don't even know the poor.
Speaker 1: So maybe we start there and we just get to know the poor or people like the widows in our midst.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because Mark gives all these details about the scribes, their robes, their presence, being greeted, their seats at the you know, at the banquets and at the synagogue, but he barely says anything about the widow other than, oh, she's poor.
Speaker 1: That's all he says, as if to say on the outside these guys have all these things and the widow's barely noticeable.
Speaker 1: In fact you might say she's nameless, she's kind of useless, and now she's penniless.
Speaker 1: She has no money to her name.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if in a world where these scribes matter, this woman doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 1: Like why is she even in there?
Speaker 1: Two little coins like the most useless, meaningless coins in all of circulation.
Speaker 1: Who cares?
Speaker 1: She doesn't seem to matter in any way.
Speaker 1: But Jesus sees her and says she gave more than anybody else because she gave all she had.
Speaker 1: That's all she had.
Speaker 1: Where'd my little coin go?
Speaker 1: I already lost it.
Speaker 1: By the way, these were worth less than a penny a long time ago.
Speaker 1: They're worth way more than that now.
Speaker 1: So I gotta be careful.
Speaker 1: I can't be losing this little tiny coin.
Speaker 1: That's all she had, and Jesus said she gave more because she gave all she had.
Speaker 1: It's as though she empties herself and pours her very self out to God and to the world as an offering with this tiny little coin.
Speaker 1: Do you ever notice how Jesus notices the smallest stuff?
Speaker 1: It's really weird.
Speaker 1: We don't often.
Speaker 1: We like big, flashy things, Las Vegas type things.
Speaker 1: We love Times Square fireworks, big bonfires, we love these kinds of things, but we don't often notice these small, insignificant, meaningless things.
Speaker 1: But Jesus does.
Speaker 1: He sees it and he notices her two tiny, insignificant, little tiny coins.
Speaker 1: He notices things that don't matter.
Speaker 1: In fact, this kingdom of God is built on things like this.
Speaker 1: They're small, ignorable, insignificant, almost meaningless things that don't matter.
Speaker 1: He's built an entire kingdom on Things like a mustard seed tiny little seed or a little bit of yeast Like pfft, you wouldn't even notice if I put it in there.
Speaker 1: A little bit of yeast or coins are so small, they're like, almost worthless.
Speaker 1: And children Jesus has left the little children come to me in a day and age when children were to be seen or not even seen or heard.
Speaker 1: They're ignorable, they don't matter, and Jesus will not bring them in.
Speaker 1: This is how I'm gonna build my kingdom.
Speaker 1: It's totally upside down.
Speaker 1: It's bizarre, it's strange.
Speaker 1: The smallest things, like this young lady over here.
Speaker 1: These things in the kingdom of God matter because God works through small things, things that you would think don't matter, Like that time you went and visited your friend in the hospital and you only had five minutes because you had to go to work.
Speaker 1: Like, I got five minutes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna matter or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it matters.
Speaker 1: Or that time when you texted someone, you only had like I always text and just say, hey, I'm praying for you, and that thing mattered.
Speaker 1: It mattered.
Speaker 1: Or you know, when you brought your neighbor who you barely know a casserole because you knew that their mom died.
Speaker 1: I don't know I can bring a casserole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those things matter.
Speaker 1: This is a cheeky story, but when I was a little boy, I was like sixth grade and I was having a really hard week.
Speaker 1: I don't remember why, but I was having a really tough week and I was in class.
Speaker 1: My teacher was Mr Rorda, Randy Rorda.
Speaker 1: I tried to find him recently but I can't find him.
Speaker 1: But so if you see Randy Rorda around, let me know.
Speaker 1: But I was having a really bad day and I was like super quiet to stay in class and which is not like me, as you probably know and we were like lining up to leave class a day we're all gathered around the door and to wait for the bell to ring.
Speaker 1: And he could tell, I think, that I was having a rough week.
Speaker 1: And he like looked at me and there was like a bunch of kids around and he's like hey, and he reached in his pocket and he pulled out a dum-dum, a sucker, and he handed it to me, Not because I was a dum-dum although now maybe you're thinking twice about it, Maybe it was something like that but he handed it to me.
Speaker 1: He's like hey, I hope you're having a good day, man.
Speaker 1: I have no idea why he did that, but I do know I'm 44 years old and I've not forgotten that moment and how it brightened my day just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Jesus notices and in fact uses, builds his kingdom on the tiniest, most insignificant things that we think don't matter.
Speaker 1: And it turns out, in the flipping of the script, that they do matter.
Speaker 1: And this woman's little, tiny coin is a good gift that she offers, because she gives out of everything that she has and she pours her very self out as an offering to the world and to God.
Speaker 1: It's a good gift.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's a Greek word for this.
Speaker 1: It's called eukarosteo.
Speaker 1: Here it is in English.
Speaker 1: Everyone say eukarosteo.
Speaker 1: Eukarosteo means a good gift.
Speaker 1: You means good carousel.
Speaker 1: We get the word charisma.
Speaker 1: It means gift.
Speaker 1: So for you, young people, who the word res charisma?
Speaker 1: It means gift, you got gifts, you got gifts.
Speaker 1: Young man, young woman, Anyway, it's a good gift, or like good life or good grace.
Speaker 1: We often use it as an expression of thanksgiving, Eukarosteo, thanksgiving, thanks, and the early church picks up on this word and they use it to describe the communion meal.
Speaker 1: You might have heard it called the eukarist.
Speaker 1: Now, the eukarist is a meal that celebrates the death of Jesus, his body being broken, his blood being poured out.
Speaker 1: Why would the church, the early church, call Jesus' death, his body being broken in a violent way, his blood being shed all over the place?
Speaker 1: Why would they call that a good gift?
Speaker 1: Why call a horrific event a good gift?
Speaker 1: Because they believe that Jesus' body was broken and his blood poured out as a healing balm for the whole world, that somehow the work of Jesus on the cross was to bring healing to the whole world.
Speaker 1: Eukarosteo, it was indeed a good gift.
Speaker 1: Eukarosteo, by the way, 1 John.
Speaker 1: So John the apostle writes a letter called 1 John.
Speaker 1: Well, we call it 1 John.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he called it, a letter, perhaps.
Speaker 1: And anyway, he don't even know if I put this in my pocket, Katie, it's been through the washing machine one time already, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: So, anyway, he, what was I saying?
Speaker 1: Oh, 1 John.
Speaker 1: He says this this is how we know what love is.
Speaker 1: So I use this at weddings, like if you don't.
Speaker 1: If you want to know what love because we're confused about what love really is here's what it is.
Speaker 1: So get your pens and papers out.
Speaker 1: Here's what love looks like.
Speaker 1: That Jesus Christ came down and laid down his life for us, and now you ought to go and do the same thing.
Speaker 1: That's the part we often forget.
Speaker 1: This is discipleship you modeling your rabbi, Jesus in his death on the cross, who gave up his life for the healing of the whole world.
Speaker 1: You and I are being invited into this movement of God the Father, Son and the Spirit we call it the Trinity, into this Trinitarian life of God which pours itself out for us.
Speaker 1: So there you go, we're being invited into this trinitarian action of God, offering up our very lives for the entire world, for the sake of the world, To bring a gift and offer it to God as contribution to the healing of the whole world.
Speaker 1: We're invited See, our lives are to be this Eucharist.
Speaker 1: Our lives should, and probably do, look like this a little bit your life is a Eucharist for the world.
Speaker 1: In response to the good gift of Jesus, we give our lives, we part our lives as an offering to God.
Speaker 1: Like the widow, we're to take part in the healing of the world, to save the world, to bless the world, to help bring healing and the healing balm to the world.
Speaker 1: I've got this guy that I work out with.
Speaker 1: I work out at a local gym here and he would notice how there's always teenagers at a certain time of day when he's working out there and they're always hogging all the machines and they're always chatting with their friends and they're always on their phones, not really working out at all, and they've got headphones in and they're just like, just generally getting in the way and he was always crabby about it and finally one day he's like you know what?
Speaker 1: I forget it, I'm just glad they're here.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to change my attitude and just be a blessing to them and be good to them, because this guy was a Christian, by the way.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to be good to them.
Speaker 1: So he starts doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go up to him and start telling them good things about themselves.
Speaker 1: He would go up and like, excuse me, young man who's hogging the machine, Doing good, Good job, hey, keep coming back.
Speaker 1: He would walk away.
Speaker 1: All right, I like that you know what that is Doing, that you know what that is, Especially that young man who told good job.
Speaker 1: That's this Offering up your life to bless somebody else as a part of the healing of the world.
Speaker 1: Now you might be here this morning and you might feel like the widow.
Speaker 1: You might feel nameless or useless or utterly forgettable, Like you have no skill, no talent, no passion, Nothing to offer.
Speaker 1: And if you had anything to offer, it'd be about this big, totally forgettable, embarrassing even your little, tiny little gift.
Speaker 1: I got nothing to offer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear you, but Jesus sees you and sees your tiny little gift and somehow, in this tiny little thing, is given.
Speaker 1: You're caught up into this beautiful movement of God and you're part of the healing of the world.
Speaker 1: So, mothers who raise their kids, who pour out their lives for their kids, that's a Eucharist.
Speaker 1: You're an offering to the world and a part of the healing of the world.
Speaker 1: That's what you do as a mom or a dad, A business leader, a CEO or a supervisor, when you care for your staff and your team.
Speaker 1: You buy them coffees or just say hello or create a good work environment.
Speaker 1: You're pouring your life out as a Eucharist and you're caught up in this beautiful movement of God who's healing the world, and you're part of that.
Speaker 1: Even your tiny little widows might be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Even your tiny little widows might.
Speaker 1: If you're a garbage collector and you keep our streets clean.
Speaker 1: Whether you think it or not, whether you know it or not, you're a part of the healing of the world and your little gift is sort of caught up in this beautiful movement of God.
Speaker 1: Teachers, professors, when you care for your students and you love on them and pray for them, even when they want to make you pull your eyes out, You're a part of the healing of the world, your gift, even that guy at Chipotle who creases my tortilla just right, perfectly.
Speaker 1: It's the healing of the world.
Speaker 1: I won't be at Chipotle all day when we change offices, but only because they open at 11.
Speaker 1: I got to work earlier than that Central Lutheran Church.
Speaker 1: May you know that God does and has always used the tiniest things to build His kingdom, Things relegated to the upper echelons of forgetfulness.
Speaker 1: He likes those things.
Speaker 1: I want that one.
Speaker 1: Give me that loser over there.
Speaker 1: I want that one.
Speaker 1: That's what I want.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use that one just to mess with everybody.
Speaker 1: We're all losers, by the way, which is the good news of the cross.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: That's some Lutheran theology for you.
Speaker 1: God loves those things and he sees them in a world where no one sees them.
Speaker 1: He sees them and uses them.
Speaker 1: So today, may you know that you are a Eucharist.
Speaker 1: Your life can be a Eucharist in the response to the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: May your discipleship be like this and may your gift, your Eucharist, be caught up in the action of God, and may it heal the world.
Speaker 1: Amen.