May 30, 2021. What does the Trinity mean for us? Why does it matter? And perhaps most important, what do the readings for today reveal about all the ways that God shows up in our world? Readings: Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17 *** Transcript *** Today is Trinity Sunday, so I kinda feel like I should probably be standing up here in front of you who are in your pews, in front of you who are in your homes, and eloquently explain the doctrine of the Trinity, perhaps even using a three-leafed clover metaphor, they way St. Patrick did centuries ago. On the surface, the idea of the Trinity seems pretty straightforward — three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. Simple enough, right? The reality is that life is not that simple, and as Mr. Jesse was saying, so much change happens naturally — and then on top of that, in the last year all of the “change to the change.” (I love that phrase.) And the reality is around the Trinity, wars have been fought, and people have died, because of differences in understanding the Trinity. And yet the Trinity stands, and we confess it here at Christ Lutheran every week. In the creeds we claim the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as three persons in this Triune God. And it's one of the greatest mysteries of our faith. I'm sure you will be relieved to hear that I will not attempt to sort out two millennia of conversations, battles, arguments, and council doctrines on the Trinity today. Far more important for us, I believe, is what does the Trinity mean for us? Why does it matter? And perhaps most important, what do our readings for Trinity Sunday reveal about all the ways that God shows up in our world? Psalm 29 paints this picture of God in waves crashing on the ocean, in the flashes and booms of powerful storms, and in the silent and formidable presence of enormous trees that are centuries old. God’s majesty surrounds us, overwhelms us, and although it touches us, we can’t quite bear to touch it. This is God, creator of the universe, deserving of glory, before whom none of us, truth be told, are quite ready to stand. The full majesty of God makes us quake in our boots, at least a little bit. In Isaiah, we enter a vision of God called Yahweh, seated on a throne, surrounded by seraphs singing “Holy, holy, holy!” Isaiah is called into a swirl of turmoil and anxiety of a community that has just lost their king of 30 years. Talk about change! Isaiah feels completely inadequate, and it's no surprise that his first response is, “Woe is me! I am unclean, and yet I have seen the Lord!” In a miracle of grace, God prepares Isaiah, so that he can cry, “Here am I. Send me!” And God prepares not just Isaiah, but us, you and me, to go out as witnesses to this grace. Jesus, God-in-flesh, tells Nicodemus about the intimate connection between Christ in his humanity, and us in our humanity. God came to us in Christ to bring life and redemption, to embody the love and promise, and to be in relationship with us, on our terms. And in that relationship, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, our brokenness is redeemed, and our joy is made complete. In Christ, God enters fully into our suffering, as well as our joy. God goes through all these changes that we've been talking about with us. God is with us in that. God-in-flesh embraces our grief, and shows us through the resurrection that death and loss will not be the final word. God enters our joy, and revels with us in the beauty of creation around us. Jesus-God sits with us, eats with us, laughs with us, cries with us. Because God revealed God's self to us in Jesus, we know that God is not only majesty and splendor and power, but intimately involved in our everyday life. Because God became fully human, we know that we are never alone. We have a God who understands what it means to be human. And interwoven in all of this is the Spirit, perhaps the most mysterious aspect of the Trinity. Jesus tries to explain this to Nicodemus, too. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” The Spirit empowers us to recognize who we are as children of God, and it is only through the Spirit that we call God Abba, Father. The Spirit breathes life to dry bones in the desert, anoints and calls the apostles in fire at Pentecost, calls Jews and Gentiles alike to baptism in the days of the early church. “The wind blows where it chooses...” And as we read this passage again 2000 years later, we can perhaps be comforted by knowing that even Nicodemus, teacher though he was, didn’t understand it fully. He badly wanted to understand, wanted in a way to touch Jesus, but then found that he just couldn’t get there. Just as Isaiah felt overwhelmed by his experience of God, so did Nicodemus. The Trinity is complex, and it's defied definition for millennia now. So, for today, it seems enough to trust that in the Trinity, our God is all things for us — majesty and power, a fellow traveler intimately acquainted with our human experience, and one who tells us who we are and empowers us to witness to the world. And when all of these things come together in the one God, something happens that goes far beyond division of labor, each person filling their appointed role. It cannot be adequately captured in any one metaphor, although I am sure you can imagine that doesn’t stop me from trying. In Quest for the Living God, Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson describes the Trinity as three persons in a dance that never ends. She writes, “The three circling around in a mutual dynamic movement of love, God is not a static being, but a plentitude of self-giving love, a saving mystery that overflows into the world of sin and death to heal, redeem, and liberate.” Johnson presents an image of God in relationship with God's self, equal, fully grounded in love. This is the motivation for creation — God did not create the world to follow law or do God’s will, but to be in loving relationship with God, with us, and with the rest of creation. And the Trinity is one of the greatest mysteries of our faith. As hard as we may try to neatly define and understand the Trinity, we discover as Nicodemus did that God will not be contained. Paul tells us that we've been given the Spirit of adoption as children of the Triune God. We are adopted into that love that overflows into our broken world. We are intimately integrated into the mysterious, creative, moving, loving, healing, inspiring, transforming Trinity. We, along with all creation, are invited to the dance, which never stops evolving as creation continues, 2000 years after Nicodemus struggled to wrap his mind around the mysteries of God. Jesus tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses... and so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We are, Paul tells us, adopted into the Trinity, and we are called to follow the Spirit where it chooses. Not to understand, not to define, certainly not to limit — for ours is a God who will not be so easily contained. We as God’s beloveds are invited to enter the sacred dance, and empowered to join Isaiah in saying, “Here I am, send me!” We're children of the Triune God, and we follow the wind. Thanks be to God. *** Keywords *** 2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Pastor Meagan McLaughlin, Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17, Quest for the Living God, Elizabeth Johnson, Jesse Helton

May 9, 2021. Today's sermon is on how we humans are formed, shaped, and breathed into being by the hands and breath of God, and how we abide in God and God abides in us. Readings: Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, John 15:9-17 *** Transcript *** So many things from today’s readings jump out at me. Abiding in love, like Mr. Jesse just talked about. Giving of one’s life. The Spirit anointing Gentiles. But today, I have to start with the psalm: “Sing to the Lord a new song!” This simple phrase has me almost in tears even this morning, knowing that our choir gathered together on Wednesday evening, wearing masks and keeping a safe distance, to do just that — sing to the Lord a new song, or perhaps old songs, for the first time since March 15, 2020, over a year ago! And for just a moment, before we go any further, it is worth celebrating the truth and promise that even 14 months of pandemic life have not, and cannot, erase the connections between us, and that the Spirit will not be contained. Sing to the Lord, indeed! The circumcised believers who were with Peter at Cornelius’ household were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. They were astounded that people who differed from them in religious practice and ethnicity could be chosen by God. Have you ever been astounded by who God chose? Surprised by who showed up at just the right time, with just the right gifts for the situation at hand? Shocked by who spoke the words you needed to hear, to the point where you knew God had led you right to them? It has happened to me on more than one occasion, I will admit. This sense of astounded-ness in the case of the “circumcised believers” was compounded by the fact that those clearly beloved and chosen by God were absolutely, undeniably, other. There were people meant to be part of the promise, worthy of the love that was talked so much about in the Gospel of John, and there were those who just weren’t. And the Gentiles? They weren’t. It doesn’t help that Hollywood has conditioned us to believe that love is simply an emotion. Either someone is attractive, or they aren’t. Either someone is lovable, or they aren’t. Either we have an emotional response to them, or we don’t. And I am quite sure that all of us can think of people, ones we know and ones we know of, that are difficult for us to love. People that even seem to be unworthy of love. We all know this challenge. We all know just how hard it is sometimes to make the choice to love, to put love into action as Jesus does. We all know that love, contrary to Hollywood’s illusion, requires intention, sacrifice, and commitment that perseveres even through the hardest of times. Jesus even tells us that love means laying your life down for others, and Jesus certainly did that for us, all the way to death on the cross. And we all know that truthfully, we humans simple aren’t capable of loving this way. And that brings me to the phrase John uses several times at the beginning of today’s gospel: abiding in love. Abide is not a word we use often, and when we do, it usually means “obey,” as in “abide by my rules” or “abide by the guidelines we've agreed on.” The Greek word used in this passage, however, has a very different connotation: to remain, to be present, to be held, continually. Different, right? Jesus is not inviting us to strive, to exhaust ourselves, only to ultimately fail at loving our neighbors. Jesus is inviting us to abide in God’s love. Debie Thomas writes this week in her blog, “Journey with Jesus,” ”My problem is that I often treat Jesus as a role model, and then despair when I can’t live up to his high standards. But abiding in something is not the same as emulating it. In the vine-and-branches metaphor, Jesus’ love is not our example; it’s our  source. It’s where our love originates and deepens. Where it replenishes itself. In other words, if we don’t abide, we can’t love. Jesus’ commandment to us is not that we wear ourselves out, trying to conjure love from our own easily depleted resources. Rather, it’s that we abide in the holy place where divine love becomes possible. That we make our home in Jesus’s love — the most abundant and inexhaustible love in existence.” When I have struggled to love, one of the most powerful ways I have learned to invite God in is to pray the Prayer of St. Francis. You may be familiar with it — Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. At a time when I had to frequently encounter people by whom I felt wounded, I would take time to pray this prayer, for them, and for myself, by name. Asking God to love me and love through me, because I felt empty. Asking God to bring healing for my woundedness, and in the process, seeing their woundedness as well. Claiming the faith of God, for them and for myself. I had long drives at that time, and sometimes I would find that it had taken me the entire drive — nearly two hours — just to get through the prayer. We humans, formed and shaped and breathed into being by the hands and breath of God, abide in God, and God abides in us. Because of that, there is nothing that can erase the Spirit’s presence in and among us, nothing that can contain the creative, expansive, extravagant love of God. It is this truth that makes it possible for us to embody the love of God in this beautiful, crazy, dynamic, sometimes broken world that God has made. So, sing to God, in whom we abide, a new song! Celebrate the Spirit that blows away all barriers, and connects us to one another, creation, and God who created it all. No matter the struggles, let us remind one another always to abide in God, who loves in us and through us when we just can’t. Sing to the Lord, indeed. Thanks be to God. *** Keywords *** 2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Pastor Meagan McLaughlin, Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, John 15:9-17, Jesse Helton

April 25, 2021. Scripture is filled with images of nature, and one thing evident in all of the stories, and all of our own experiences in God’s creation, is the theme of connection of God to nature, and connection to God through nature. Readings: 1 John 3:16-24, Psalm 23, John 10:11-18 *** Transcript *** One of my favorite places in Minnesota is Gooseberry Falls, on the North Shore. From the parking lot, you pass by the Visitor’s Center and make your way toward the water, the splashing of the water against the rocks growing louder with every step, along with the sounds of voices and laughter on warm, sunny days. I've always loved water, especially running water, and one of the best parts of Gooseberry is that it is really three waterfalls in one, with the water pouring down each rocky cliff, one after the other, on its way down the river. The river is surrounded by rock — all colors, all shapes, all sizes, some set like stairs to climb as you make your way to the Upper Falls, some smooth and flat and perfect for sitting on, some rising out of the river itself like stepping stones allowing the courageous to cross from one side to the other in search of new paths. And edging the stone are thousands of trees, with paths running through them, like so many veins, carrying air, light, animals, and people deeper into the woods, and back again. And then, of course, there is the water itself. I recall one year sitting by the edge of the Upper Falls, listening to the water colliding with the rocks and then rushing over and around them, when I noticed something I hadn’t before. As Gooseberry River makes its way down the Upper Falls, it doesn’t go down all in one rush, but divides and flows around the rocks in the cliff, forming hundreds of mini waterfalls as it goes. I became fascinated with how different they all were, in size, shape, direction, even speed, and I could have spent hours watching them. I took pictures of course, but that hardly does justice to the beauty that can be experienced when you are sitting there, so close you have to raise your voice to be heard over the roar of the water, and can feel the mist off the rocks a few feet away. Moments like this connect me with the presence of God in profound ways, because with stone, dirt, water, trees, sunlight, and air all around, I feel grounded in the Spirit of the one who created it all. Scripture has so many images of nature, starting with the story of creation where God spoke and breathed all things into being, as Miss Alena talked about. The psalms described the created world singing and praising the creator, bringing solace, healing, strength, and rest to all of creation, like we heard in Psalm 23 today. Moses finds sacred space in a burning bush, and removes his sandals so that he can touch the holy ground with his feet. Elijah, when he is exhausted, afraid, and completely empty, is nourished, rested, renewed, and reassured by God in a hidden cave on a hill, far from the city he'd fled. And so many stories tell of God speaking to creation and even controlling it, as when he parts the Red Sea for the Israelites, and brings water from stone for them to drink. And in the gospels, Jesus often teaches in fields, and mountains, and gardens, and even from boats, and uses images of grain, water, and trees, among other things, to explain the kin-dom of God to those who follow him. And he also reveals creation responding to the creator in stories like the calming of the storm. Today, Jesus describes God’s connection to God’s people using the image of a shepherd, guiding and caring for us, the sheep. One thing evident in all of these stories, and all of our own experiences in God’s creation, is a theme of connection of God to nature, and connection to God through nature. In our gospel today, Jesus tells us that just as the shepherd knows the sheep, he knows us, and we know him. He knows our voice, and we know his voice, just as Mary knew Jesus’ voice when he said her name in the garden outside the tomb. The truth of this knowing is revealed in the world around us. Anyone who has seen the documentary “March of the Penguins,” narrated by Morgan Freeman, may have been struck, as I was, by the description of young penguins hatched while their mothers are on a months-long journey to bring food to their families, who nevertheless know one another’s calls and can find each other out of hundreds of penguins despite never having heard each other’s voices before. Jesus knows us, and we know Jesus, out of all the millions of people on earth. This feels especially profound this week as the verdict for Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd was rendered, and as I reflected afterwards that George’s cry to his mother was heard. This time, in this moment, justice was served. There is still so much evil and brokenness and sin in this world, so much healing to happen, as we wait for justice to roll down like waters. Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, in her book Stand Your Ground, describes how black theology speaks to this lived reality: God is by nature free, transcendent of all the brokenness and sin of this world. And, God’s work in us and in the world is about freedom. Freedom to be who we are as children of God. This, Douglas says, is what gives people who are not yet truly free the courage and endurance to proclaim boldly that wherever people are in bondage, oppressed and marginalized, God is there, and hears their voices just as surely as God heard the cry of the Israelites in Egypt. God heard George Floyd’s cry, and the cries of all who suffer. Our second reading, from 1 John, speaks of this boldness, promising that in this beautiful and broken world of now-and-not-yet, God cannot help but be faithful to who God is. And we cannot help, being created by God, to continue the work of transformation, justice, and shalom. We don’t often think much about sheep and shepherds, but when we do, if you are like me you probably envision fluffy white cuteness, wandering beautiful countryside, with a shepherd dressed in pristine, flowing robes to follow them. Reality is much different from that — sheep are dirty and smelly, they get lost sometimes, and there are so many dangers that threaten that the shepherd must guard against, sometimes taking the brunt of the damage on themselves in the process. In Psalm 23, the shepherd leads us beside still waters, providing rest and renewal, but also guides the sheep through the inevitable valley of the shadow, walking with them no matter what is happening. In a world where finding leaders that we can truly count on, leaders that know us and hear our voice, can seem nearly impossible, Jesus the good shepherd is a leader we can trust. We who were created, shaped, and formed in the image of the God of freedom follow Jesus the shepherd, and we're reminded with every step that we are intimately connected with the created world around us. Grounded in the created world of earth, trees, animals, birds, air, sun and moon, we're renewed and reminded that no matter what happens, we always know God, and God always knows us. We can stand against evil, knowing that we can trust the shepherd, who has never failed us yet. Guided by the shepherd, we can face the valley of the shadow, the brokenness and evil of this world and even our own sin, and boldly claim that the God of freedom, creativity, and life means for all of creation to be free, even if we are not there yet. Thanks be to God. *** Keywords *** 2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Pastor Meagan McLaughlin, Psalm 23, 1 John 3:16-24, John 10:11-18, Alena Horn

April 11, 2021. Today's sermon by guest Pastor Tina Reyes is on being more understanding, in this year of all years, of Thomas and the disciples for hiding out in a locked room and struggling with lack of faith and the need for more proof. Readings: 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31 *** Transcript *** So as I said at the beginning of worship, I bring you greetings from LuMin St. Louis and all the students, and I also bring you greetings from the Central States Synod of the ELCA. It is indeed good to be here with you this morning as we hear the good news. This past week, a man named Earl Simmons died. I can't say I was really aware of who he was or what his gifts were to the music world, or even his journey, until reports of him being in the hospital and being in a vegetative state hit my social media accounts — and not just the news reports, but the instances of friends and colleagues who listened to his music and who were lamenting about how young he was and how he had struggled with his life and his faith in God through those 50 years. But it was the Reverend Traci Blackmon, who is a UCC pastor in residence across the street at Eden, until she wrote this on her wall about DMX, which was his rap name: “When I listen to DMX... I hear the lamentations and psalms lived out loud. And I wonder if we have sanitized the struggle out of human lives of faith. We’ve decided holiness is achievable instead of aspirational. We hear the stories of the text as victory instead of valiant. It's clear to me that DMX knows God. Not that it matters whether I know that or not. I’m glad I do. DMX’s God is not the God we meet at the finish line... this is the God who runs the race with us.” And there it was. (Now mind you I was mostly done with my sermon and I'm like, “Oh! Quote! Cool!”) But there it was: the gift of Easter, of faith, of hope that appeared to me this year in the lesson from John’s gospel. As Jesse told the kids, it's been a week since we proclaimed out loud, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!” The alleluia banner is still on the altar here. Let me tilt down so you can see it. There it is. Alleluia! The Easter lilies are behind me, and I have forgotten how fragrant Easter lilies can be in small spaces, especially when you have almost 20 of them. The last church I served was a huge space, and we could have 20 and not really affect me. We’ve more or less gone back to our lives as they are right now. But in the text this morning, it is the same night. We begin on Easter night. I think it's important to remember that. It’s only been a matter of days since the disciples ran in fear, and their rabbi was killed and buried, and just hours, hours since Mary Magdalene came running to the upper room with the news of Jesus' resurrection. And so I imagine that they're huddled together in this room with the doors locked because they're trying to process the trauma that they have witnessed. (They wouldn’t have used those words, but that's what they're doing — they're trying to process all of these things that have happened.) And so they're together in comfort and community in their grief and questions, because they're wondering: what’s next? And: can we believe Mary? And: I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The text hits me in a way this year that it hasn’t before — which I believe is a gift in and of itself. You and I have been huddled more or less in small spaces within our immediate communities. I can tell you that that's not a great way to start campus ministry. When you can't actually be in relationship with students, it creates ways. And you have to be creative and you have to be open to different possibilities. And even though we've been huddled in small spaces in our immediate communities, it hasn’t stopped trauma and tragedy happening in the world around us. So I imagine the questions the disciples were uttering are probably familiar in our own lives, like: I don't know if I can take much more of this (not really a question but more of a statement). Or: I can’t breathe — whether it's from COVID which decimates lungs, or physical restraints cutting off air flow. And there's always that, “What’s next?” What's going to happen next? I know I cried that watching angry folks storming the Capitol on January 6th. And I cry that every time I see that legislatures are trying to restrict a transgender person's right to live as God created them. No beloved, the irony that we’ve been locked in our own dark upper rooms in fear and anxiety for the last year is not lost on me — and I wonder how long we’ve really been waiting for the hurt to stop. And even more irony: out of caution and love for each other, here we are sharing worship together — and apart — at the same time, seeking comfort and joining in praise. And so I have to tell you that this year I’m not even mad at Thomas and the disciples for hiding out in a locked room, or Thomas not being there the first time and then joining them in that locked room. I get it! I get their behavior and their responses. I've pulled back the pointing finger at their lack of faith and the scapegoating of Thomas, his need for more proof. Somehow, this year, I’m with them — waiting with bated breath, wanting to see, to touch, to hear the good news of the risen Christ, just as they did. And I wonder: where are you, beloved? In the midst of their pain and their confusion, a wounded, risen Jesus meets them where they are. A wounded, risen Jesus gifts these siblings with exactly what they need in that moment. He breathes peace on them twice, and then he breathes the Holy Spirit in them. And they are comforted in their trauma and grief, and they know that it is indeed their beloved, that Mary was right. And somehow all those prophecies Jesus made, of his death and resurrection, were true. And it makes sense to me this year, more so than ever, that Thomas didn’t get it, isn’t comforted by their witness, and is still struggling with his own stuff. Thomas declares that he needs something for himself to begin his own healing, to make it make sense to him. It’s not that Thomas doubts. It's that Thomas has always needed something more, something different, to comprehend the love that Jesus offered. And that’s okay. It’s okay because there's not one single formula for healing or learning or believing. We live with an amazing diversity of abilities and understandings that were all created by same God. And here we are in this lesson, given a gift that uplifts that diversity. Before I went to seminary I was a middle school history teacher, and I worked with students of all different levels and abilities — from the brightest of the bright, to the students who were just trying to acquire English as a different language, to students who had emotional difficulties. Somehow they all ended up in my class. And in one of the wings in a teacher workroom, there was a quote put on the wall. And it said, “If the students don’t learn how you teach, then teach how they learn.” And my other favorite thing then is to tell Confirmation students, when we talk about our journey of faith it doesn't have a start and a stop, it's this long journey that lasts our lifetime. It's a journey, and we all take the same journey but differently, because we don’t have a socket in the back of our necks, like in the movie “Matrix” (showing my age a little bit) to hook up to the faith computer and to instantly have all the faith and power to comprehend what, in honesty, we just can’t. And so Jesus meets Thomas where Thomas is — still questioning, needing a different way of accessing and understanding the risen Christ. And so the wounded, risen Jesus enters the room a week later (and Thomas is with them) and he offers peace again to all of them, and then he doesn't put Thomas down, as we have done for a bajillion years. He invites Thomas in. He invites Thomas into a relationship, into that close space, and says, “Put your finger here. See? Go ahead, touch.” And that is exactly what Thomas needed for Thomas' journey of healing and living and ministry. And that is exactly what Jesus — risen, wounded, and healing — does with us in our times of grief, and confusion, and heartache. Jesus meets us where we are and journeys with us in our own needs. And sometimes we don't recognize it as Jesus. Sometimes it's just the person who sits with us. Sometimes it's the stranger a table away (a year ago) who would offer a ketchup bottle or a napkin. Maybe it's an adult offering a verse of encouragement to a young college student struggling with being on their own for the first time. But Jesus meets us where we are, and journeys with us in our own needs. In our rush to celebrate the risen Christ, I believe that we often forget the pain and suffering and confusion and hurt and heartache — of Jesus and of those who loved him. It's why I believe that every year, on every second Sunday of Easter in the Revised Common Lectionary, we have this lesson. Faith is never about one or the other. Faith is about both and. We get this lesson not as an exemplar of how to believe. We get this lesson as a reminder of God’s love for us in the wounded, risen Jesus in our own wounded selves. And we come to know that Jesus is with us wherever we may find ourselves on our journey of faith. Beloved Jesus died & rose —     the gift that eternal death is not the end. And Jesus died & rose & comes to us —     that there may be life in this place for all of God’s people... And Jesus meets us in his woundedness & his divinity     and gifts us with his never-ending presence. And Jesus meets us in our woundedness & divinity     and gifts us with peace and the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is with us     and gifts us with peace and hope to meet the suffering, and the pain,     and the hardest of the hard stuff. The gifts given in those upper rooms to the disciples and the gifts given continually to us — of peace and the Holy Spirit — are with us, now and always, as we work to bring death to the sins of racism and white supremacy, and as we learn to welcome and celebrate all folks as God created them in amazingly diverse ways, and as we hold on just a little longer to our quarantines and our safe spaces. It is indeed the second Sunday of Easter. Jesus is with us and among us. Alleluia. Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia! (Yes, there's the fist pump action here.) Thanks be to God! Amen. *** Keywords *** 2021, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, YouTube, video, Pastor Tina Reyes, Traci Blackmon, Confession of a woman who preaches, 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31, Jesse Helton, COVID-19, coronavirus