Grace Happens Always

This is a creative writing Zoom assignment from a chronic illness support group: It was the night before I resigned as a police officer with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. I had asked my soon to be wife, Kathy, to come with me to the grounds of the local Episcopal church near the campus of my Alma Mater, the University of Arizona. In front of this Episcopal church was a prayer labyrinth. I had walked it many times before, but that night had more purpose than purely devotional.  I took my badge with me, the badge that I had to turn in the next day. I still remember how that badge looked and felt. It was polished brass and the engravings had grown smooth with all the polishing I had done during the past seven years. My number, 4570, was prominently displayed in blue, along with the words, “Arizona Highway Patrol Officer.” I had worked so hard to earn that badge.  But as I had closed in on seven years of police work, I knew that a new calling in me was being nurtured. I...

A challenge I find on Sundays is that I have already written my sermon and explored the texts, so my mind goes to what I am about to preach. So, as I try to compartmentalize about what I will be preaching on this Second Sunday of Lent, I am drawn to the Genesis reading and God's command to Abraham to, "Go from your country..." And this is a completely personal and selfish reflection. Pastoral ministry, at least in the years of my formation, almost always required one to "Go from your country..." My ministry travels have taken me to Berkeley, CA, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Concord, CA, Pacifica, CA, Clinton, WI, Dubuque, IA, Loves Park, IL, Rockford, IL, Durand, IL, and now to Phillips and Smith Counties in Kansas. All these places from someone who is a third-generation Arizonan, who initially served the state of Arizona for seven years, and who could not imagine anything that would entice him to leave. In fact, when I am honest with myself, the prospect of leavi...

Something that I have noticed in teaching confirmation classes over the years is that the church has been very good at preaching law but not so much on grace. The questions I often get start out as, "Is it okay for Christians to...?" And while the law is important, the focus on the law as simply prohibitive instead of freeing is a real problem.  It is steeped in our culture. After all, we fight about the Ten Commandments being displayed in courthouses, but we never have the same discussions about the Beatitudes, which are a definitively Christian contribution that reveals for what and for whom we are freed.  So, I gently try to steer the questions from "Is it okay for Christians to...?" to "For what or for whom are Christians freed?" "How are we freed to be a living law of love and grace?"