​Young at Heart Message
​
The title of my sermon today – “Understanding the Trinity” – is a bit of an oxymoron because using the word “understanding” and the word “Trinity” in the same sentence doesn’t really make much sense to most of us.

The Trinity is notoriously difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to understand!

There’s a humourous YouTube video that I pondered showing today, but if people aren’t pastors or theologians, it doesn’t make much sense.

But, in the video, two cartoon characters ask St. Patrick to explain the Trinity.
 
St. Patrick starts by telling them that there are three persons of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet there is only one God.
 
The two characters tell him that doesn’t make any sense, and ask him to provide some analogies.
 
So, St. Patrick tries to offer analogies to explain the Trinity, and each time he tries, the two characters tell him his analogy doesn’t work because of some theology heresy.
 
St. Patrick finally gets angry with the two characters, raises his voice, and says:
 
Fine! The Trinity is a mystery which cannot be comprehended by human reason but is understood only through faith and is best confessed in the words of the Athanasian Creed which states that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance that we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess that each distinct person is God and Lord, and that the Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coequal in MAJESTY!
 
Here’s a picture of St. Patrick’s face as he says “MAJESTY!”

And the joke behind this short video, is that even Patrick’s frustrated explanation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
 
And yet, the two characters seem to understand it perfectly.
 
So, let’s talk about the Trinity, and see what kind of understanding we can come to.
 
(The video can be found here, if you are curious: https://youtu.be/KQLfgaUoQCw?si=3HUGmtEvEcSsYYg5)
 
The Message
When I was a kid, many of you know that I was raised in the Catholic Church, but chose to leave the church and not confirm into it.
In high school, I went to a Catholic Mass at my grandmother’s church, and I remember distinctly asking the Priest after service why, if we believe in one God, are there three persons of the Trinity.
And the Priest smiled and simply said, “it’s a mystery.”
 
I have to say, that was not a satisfactory response, in my opinion, to my question.
 
Now, to be fair, that’s a hard question to answer after a service when there are a lot of people talking with you.
 
I know this now since I am a pastor and find answering theological questions difficult when I am busy doing other things.
 
That said, my question would have been difficult to answer even if we were sitting in his office and had plenty of time to discuss it.
 
Without leaning on academic sources to help explain the Trinity, it really is easiest to just say, “it’s a mystery we cannot fully comprehend.”
 
Now, that said, I don’t know if any of you caught it in St. Patrick’s final response, but he mentioned the Athanasian Creed.
 
I have to admit that in all of my seminary education, I had never heard of the Athanasian Creed.
 
So, I looked it up. And, I discovered that it seems to provide a bit better explanation for the Trinity than most average people could offer off the top of their head.
 
So, I want to share it with you all today. We won’t recite it together, but I’m going to read it out loud, and of course the words will also be on the screen.
 
Before I read it, it might be helpful to know that it was named after Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy against Arian attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity.
 
(This is where the theological heresies mentioned in the video I referenced come into play, but that’s another sermon entirely.)
 
So, without further ado, here is the Athanasian Creed. It’s long, so try not to fall asleep. ☺ 
 
Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.
 
Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.
 
Now this is the catholic faith:
 
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.
 
For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
 
What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated.
 
The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.
 
The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal.
 
And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.
 
Similarly, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty. Yet there are not three almighty beings; there is but one almighty being.
 
Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.
 
Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord.
 
Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.
 
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
 
Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers; there is one Son, not three sons; there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.
 
Nothing in this trinity is before or after, nothing is greater or smaller; in their entirety the three persons are coeternal and coequal with each other.
 
So in everything, as was said earlier, we must worship their trinity in their unity and their unity in their trinity.
 
Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the trinity.
 
But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.
 
Now this is the true faith:
 
That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and human, equally.
 
He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.
 
Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human.
 
He suffered for our salvation; he descended to hell; he arose from the dead; he ascended to heaven; he is seated at the Father's right hand; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will arise bodily and give an accounting of their own deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
 
This is the catholic faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
 
So…
 
Do we understand the Trinity better now?
 
I don’t know about you, but when I read that, I understand the individual words, but the concept overall is only understood if I don’t think too hard about it.
 
Part of the reason I chose to use portions of the Moravian liturgy for Trinity Sunday today is because I think it makes a little bit more sense.
 
We said the words “we acknowledge the profound mystery of your being, beyond our comprehension” earlier today.
 
When we talk about Moravian theology, we tend to lean into our “motto” – In essentials, unity; In non-essentials, liberty; In all things, love.
 
Part of the essential things we believe is in God the Father as Creator, Jesus Christ the Son as Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer or Sanctifier.
 
And for me, this is the easiest way to think about and understand the Trinity.
 
I think about the ways God manifests in my own life, and I believe that this is the only way our human minds can comprehend the mystery of the divine.
 
If I consider God as Creator, I understand the gift that God gave all of creation – the gift of life and sustenance, beauty, and majesty.
 
If I consider Jesus Christ, I understand the gift of Immanuel – God with us. Jesus walked with humanity to model the way to treat other beings, and then he sacrificed himself to redeem all of us.
 
And if I consider the Holy Spirit, I understand the gift of God’s presence in my life today – through every challenge, every heartache, and every joy.
 
So, regardless of how well we comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, at the very least we know how God works in our own lives.
 
And, perhaps that is all that we really need to understand. Amen.
 
I would like to end my sermon with a music video.
 
This song is called “We Believe” by a contemporary Christian group called Newsboys.
 
I like the song to celebrate the Trinity, but I also like the diversity and the representation of humanity in the video.
 
So, before we pray, enjoy the video. Feel free to sing along if you know the song, or if you catch on to the words as it plays.
 
https://youtu.be/WjZ01FcK0yk?si=t81g7HD_uX6vk4oM 
 
Let us pray:
 
God, Creator, for your glory shining forth in sky and sea, in the changing light on the hills, in the flight of birds, in the plants of the field, for the gift of life in all its fullness, we thank you.
 
Jesus, Redeemer, for blessing children, healing the sick, raising up the lowly, suffering the brokenness of the world in your own body that we might have fullness of life, we thank you.
 
Holy Spirit, Comforter, for breathing new hope and strength into our lives, breaking down barriers, drawing human beings together in love, resisting all that diminishes fullness of life, we thank you.
 
Holy Trinity, in all that we do and say and are, may we always choose life, for ourselves, and for our neighbours. Amen.
 
~ prayer posted on the Monthly Prayers page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/
​

Young at Heart Message

Has there ever been anything that other people have insisted exist, but you’ve never seen it, so you just aren’t convinced that it’s real?
​
For example, some people adamantly believe in the Sasquatch – aka Big Foot or the Yeti. 

​Of course, none of us have actually ever seen these things, and there’s little if any actual proof of them.
 
And yet, there are people who strongly believe they exist anyway.
 
There is something that I am convinced doesn’t actually exist in the wild, but Canadians everywhere will tell me they do.
 
Can you guess what it is?
 
Moose.

​I am utterly convinced that they don’t actually exist. I’ve seen moose in zoos, but even then, I wonder if they’re real.
 
I have traveled out to Montana more than 8 times, and I’ve stayed on a property where, every year, they tell me a mother and her baby walk through.
 
And I still have not seen them.
 
I’ve traveled throughout the western US where moose supposedly frequent, and nothing.
 
My sister and I just traveled to Jasper for a night, and we saw a bear walking along the highway…

​We saw several deer, and we also saw these baby crows hanging out in a nest in a canyon…

But, we still didn’t see a moose.
 
I’m further convinced by the fact that my colleague, Aaron, who moved up here several years ago now and serves Millwoods in Edmonton, has also never seen a moose.
 
It’s starting to feel like Canadians just tease those of us from the US by saying they’re real just to get us up here, and then we’re let down when we realize they don’t exist.
 
There are some things that one just feels like they need to experience themselves in order to fully understand the reality.
 
I think moose are just one of those things.
 
To me, they are the unicorns of Canada and unless I see one for myself, I simply can’t believe they exist.
 
Now, my irrational lack of belief in moose might seem silly, but there are plenty of people who aren’t convinced of the existence of the Holy Spirit either.
 
And, the Holy Spirit isn’t necessarily something that can be seen with the naked eye.
 
The Holy Spirit is a presence, a feeling, a knowing that is beyond explanation. So, it makes sense that it would be difficult for some people to believe the Holy Spirit is real.
 
The Message

Today is Pentecost – the commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Mary, mother of Jesus and the Apostles of Jesus while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31).
​
In the scripture reading we heard today, Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit would be sent to them, but it could not come to them until after he was gone.
 
And, I imagine the disciples were a little bit like “yeah, sure Jesus… we won’t believe it until we see it.”
 
Kind of like me when it comes to moose.
 
I won’t believe they exist until I see it with my own eyes, either.
 
And yet, there’s something to be said for believing something on faith, too.
 
Now I actually think it’s true that the disciples didn’t believe Jesus when he said he’d send the Spirit.
 
Or perhaps they did, but they had no idea what that experience would be like until it happened.
 
And then there’s the realization afterwards that the experience of “a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind,” and “fiery tongues moving in all directions” was in fact the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus talked about.
 
Most of the people experiencing this were simply confused, and they even mistakenly thought people were drunk.
 
It wasn’t until Peter reminded them of the prophecy that people started to realize maybe this experience was what Jesus had promised.
 
It didn’t look anything like they expected, but it was happening right before their eyes nonetheless.
 
I have found my personal experience with the Holy Spirit to be rather mysterious and difficult to explain as well.
 
It certainly isn’t as obvious as the experience described in Acts, so I can understand why some people struggle to believe in the Holy Spirit because it isn’t typically something that can be detected with our standard senses.
 
I have had challenging times in my life, and I have also had times which required heavy discernment and decision-making.
 
And in those moments, I have struggled to see or hear or feel the Spirit guiding me.
 
When facing the challenge or the decision head-on, I have found it difficult to determine exactly where and how the Spirit is moving in my life.
 
I have experienced moments when I feel utterly alone – as though no one in the world will understand what I’m going through, and I have nowhere to turn.
 
But when I look back on those difficult times from a future point in time, I can far more easily see how the Spirit guided me through those challenges.
 
I couldn’t see it in the moment because I had been overcome by despair and the negative self-talk that tends to happen when we feel alone, or like the world is out to get us.
 
Part of the reason it can be harder for me to see the movement of the Spirit in the moment is because it doesn’t always look the way I expect it to look.
 
The way I expect things to work out is often not the way they actually work out.
 
So then I find myself wondering if the Spirit was really there, or if I muddled my way through it on my own, relying on what I would call “gut instincts” instead.
 
As I move forward in my faith journey and in life, I have learned to trust that even if I am not sure in the moment what path is the right path, the Holy Spirit is guiding and moving in my life.
 
For me, it isn’t about needing tangible proof that the Holy Spirit exists.
 
It’s about trusting that it exists despite not being able to see or feel or touch it.
 
So, perhaps I should also trust that moose really do exist?
 
I’d still like proof, but I suppose if I am going to stand here and tell you all that the Holy Spirit exists, I should also believe that moose exist based on the experiences of others.
 
And, there is something to be said for trusting in what we might call our “gut instincts” – perhaps that’s one of many ways the Holy Spirit speaks to us and guides us through our lives.
 
So, as you leave the sanctuary on this Day of Pentecost, may you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit moving in your life.
 
May you lean into the Holy Spirit as it moves and guides you throughout your day, and may you become aware of the ways the Spirit touches your life in small ways and in big ways. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Holy One, For all of the ways you speak to us – in rushing wind, in dancing flames, in words we understand, and in all that transcends language, we give thanks.
 
Give us courage to speak your love, everywhere we go, to everyone we meet. Amen.
 
~ Prayer written by Joanna Harader, and posted on Practicing Families.  http://practicingfamilies.com/

Young at Heart Message

In preparation for today’s sermon, I was doing some research about love stories.

I came across a list of the greatest love stories in literature.

Can you guess what stories were on that list?
​
The number one love story of all time was Romeo and Juliet. No shocker there.

Next up? Pride and Prejudice.

​The Lord of the Rings made the list, believe it or not, for the love story between the elf, Arwen, and Aragorn.

​Then I found a list of “real life” love stories, which included mostly people from a looong time ago. But, Johnny Cash and June Carter made the list!

My dad would be thrilled that Johnny Cash made it into one of my sermons!
 
Do you notice anything about all of these pictures?
 
They pretty much all look the same, don’t they?
 
Lots of staring longingly into one another’s eyes with these deep, passionate looks about them.
 
I’m guessing in most real-life love stories, those looks are few and far between!
 
In all of my research (which, admittedly, was not that deep and I didn’t find any academic studies about the best love stories of all time), not one mentioned love stories in the Bible.
 
Perhaps this is because when we think of love stories, we think of popular love stories – mostly, fictional love stories.
 
Often, people long for their own love story.
 
And the stories we read in books or watch in movies are not realistic love stories. They are stories in which people fall in love, and then live happily ever after.
 
They forget to include the parts where the characters get annoyed with each other because one of them didn’t fold the towels properly, or because someone left the gas tank on empty and the other one is late for work.
 
They don’t think about all of the little stressors that come with actual relationships that can make real life feel more like a “tolerate each other” story versus an actual love story!
 
So, when we heard today’s scripture reading, I am guessing that “love story” wasn’t the first thing that came to mind!
 
And yet, that’s essentially what’s happening here. We are meeting Jesus in the middle of a love story.
 
The Message

​In the Gospel of John, Chapter 13, verse 23, it says “One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining on his bosom.”
 
The narrator repeats this again a couple verses later.
 
In fact, throughout John 13-17, we hear an epic story gushing with love.
 
It begins when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.
 
He says “I have loved you” three times over the course of chapter 13 and 15 – he says it in 13:23, 15:9, and 15:21).
 
He pours his heart out to his disciples on his last evening on earth, and this is where we see the disciple whom Jesus loved resting on his chest.
 
In today’s passage, we hear a tone of desperation as Jesus turns toward God and prays for his friends.
 
This particular passage almost sounds like a plea of desperation from Jesus as he begins to mourn the loss of his beloved friends as he prepares himself to leave them.
 
The prayer sounds like a request for God to continue to guide the disciples, but it’s as much a plea for Jesus’ own comfort throughout his preparation.
 
It reminds me of two different people I have known recently who have lost battles with cancer.
 
In both cases, the women fought long and hard, but ended up realizing they could not fight anymore.
 
And, in both cases, the women celebrated their lives before they passed with their friends and family.
 
And I wonder if they felt a bit like Jesus in this passage – a bit of panic as they realized they would be leaving behind the people they loved the most.
 
At our final Going Deeper study group this past Monday, we had a discussion about love.
 
How do we “love” people who have harmed us? How do we “love” people who have been very terrible people in their lifetime?
 
It’s hard to envision loving most people in the way that love is portrayed in the “greatest love stories of all time” that I mentioned earlier.
 
Very often in true love stories, there is an element of self-sacrifice on one or both people’s parts.
 
There are love stories that portray people who rather despise each other at first, but as they get to know each other and spend time together, they begin to experience love for one another in ways they never thought possible.
 
So what does love have to do with it? And, does love always look like passionate, emotional love like in Romeo and Juliet or Gone with the Wind?
 
Of course not. Love can be quite complex, and can go well beyond the emotional love we tend to think of when we talk about love.
 
The best example of this type of love I can come up with from my own life is this:
 
When I owned my business, I had a neighbour who caused all kinds of problems for me.
 
Mostly, he would complain about noise because of dogs barking.
 
He complained so much that I had to get a decibel meter set up and actually record the frequency and level of noise we were producing.
 
Loving my neighbour in the sense we typically think about love was not really possible for me, because I barely liked the guy, let alone loved him.
 
But, when a storm came through and blew his stuff all over our yards and the fields behind us, did I stand and laugh and tell him he deserved it?
 
Well, maybe in my head I did a little bit.
 
But then, I got out there and I helped him clean it all up.
 
And I think that this is the kind of love Jesus was trying to get at.
 
It’s not an emotion. It’s an action. This kind of love is different than what we typically think of, and it allows us to care for people, find compassion and kindness, but still hold them at arms length. It doesn’t require liking someone at all, if that’s too much to muster.
 
This love story is one of longing and of hope. We experience Jesus longing for this type of agape love, not just for himself, but for the world.
 
Jesus’ love proclaims the truth of the gospel and the truth about us: that we are the beloved of God, and through the examples Jesus provided us, we can know how to love deeper than what we’ve seen through books, TV, or movies.
 
This deepness, this richness of relationship requires a deeper intimacy than any real or fictional love story one could imagine.
 
It requires that we step out of our comfort zones, recognize people for the flawed humans that they are, and get to know them in ways that humanize them.
 
This helps us to better understand humanity, even if we don’t always agree with others.
 
When we bring another person’s humanity to the forefront of our minds, we can allow ourselves to love them, even if we might not particularly always like them.
 
This call to love others is what Jesus spends 5 chapters in the Gospel of John trying to convey to us.
 
It’s not about passionate, emotional love.
 
It’s about a deeper understanding and joy in humanity.
 
So, may we celebrate this love story as the greatest love story of all time - one that extends over two thousand years and meets us in this time and this place so we can continue to share it with others. Amen!
 
Let us pray:
 
God of compassion, we come before you with gratitude and humlity as we recognize that our human understanding of love is not always on par with your understanding of love. We pray that you would help us to learn to love others in the way Jesus showed us how to love. We know it is not always easy, and we know our human emotions can sometimes get in the way of the love we know you want us to demonstrate.
 
God, we pray that you would help us to better understand and behave in ways that are loving toward everyone we meet, even if we do not understand them. We also pray that we continue to see your example of love demonstrated throughout the scriptures to use a model as we interact with others.
 
May your endless wisdom guide us today and every day. In your holy name we pray, Amen.

The Message
When you think of the word “slave” or “servant,” I imagine that something fairly specific tends to come to mind.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is the images of slaves that I saw when I went on the Moravian Church’s racial justice pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama.
​
I see images of chained Africans crossing the Atlantic on ships in spaces that gave them enough room to stretch out, and that’s about it.
 
I see housekeepers and field workers, working until their bodies could quite literally not do anything more, but having to keep going because it was their only choice.
 
I see the images of slaves and servants we see portrayed in movies and media, who are not invited to the table despite their hunger, but instead are expected to prepare and serve the meal, and find their own sustenance after their masters have been cared for and fed.
 
I do not typically picture a servant or slave becoming friends with their master.
 
And yet, this is exactly what we see Jesus do in today’s scripture.
 
More accurately, we see Jesus talking not as master to servant, but as servant to servant.
 
Even though he says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends…”
 
Jesus is not putting himself above his disciples. Rather, he is speaking to them on the same level.
 
He is a servant of God, and he sees them as servants of God as well.
 
Jesus modeled servanthood in every way, and he called others to do the same.
 
Doing so resulted in him being harassed, persecuted, and eventually put to death, but he modeled it nonetheless.
 
We may need to consider letting go of the view of servanthood or slavery that we hold based on what we know of history’s definition of servanthood or slavery.
 
For some people, especially those in many of our favorite biblical stories, having the title of “slave” was a deep honour.
 
For example, Moses, Joshua, David, Paul, and James counted it as a privilege to be considered a slave of the Lord.
 
We have to remember that the disciples did not choose Jesus as their rabbi.
 
Jesus sought them out. Jesus called them to service.
 
For much of Jesus’ ministry, he taught, acted, and modeled the way he expected all of his followers to think and act.
 
So in some ways, they were apprentice-servants under Jesus’ guidance.
 
Now, in this passage, they receive this shocking news that they were being taken into a much deeper relationship with Jesus: he no longer considered them servants, but instead, he considered them friends.
 
Why? What did this mean in reality for the disciples?
 
Jesus would essentially be depending on his friends to be the hands and feet for the mission of God.
 
He reminds them, especially toward the final days of his ministry, that everything written about him in the Law of Moses and the prophecies had to be fulfilled.
 
Jesus spends much of his ministry teaching his disciples, passing on knowledge, and, in a lot of ways, encouraging them to step well outside of their comfort zones so that they could understand scriptures and the work he expected them to do through a missional lens.
 
He needed to help them understand that from the beginning to the end, the mission of God is the epic story they needed to be a part of.
 
They move from servants to friends of Jesus because Jesus doesn’t just need servants who follow orders blindly.
 
Jesus needs friends who feel equally as called to mission and service – friends who feel just as passionate and excited about their call as he does.
 
We understand that it is possible to be a servant without being a friend.
 
In fact, most people who are servants or slaves likely hold some kind of negative feelings toward the person or people they consider “masters.”
 
But, it is impossible to be a true friend and not be a servant.
 
Christ gave us a new command: to love each other as he loved us.
 
This theme is repeated so often in scripture that as a pastor, I sometimes feel like I’m preaching the same message over and over again – love each other.
 
Just love each other!
 
Love your neighbours as you love yourself!
 
God says to love one another!
 
Do you think Jesus thought this was an important command?
 
As the Father has loved us, so we will love.
 
As the Father sent Jesus, so he sends us as servant-friends to bear fruit.
 
I do believe it’s possible to serve others and love others without being friends with them.
 
We can serve people we have only just met, regardless of whether or not we will ever see them again.
 
But, we do not keep true friends for very long if we do not also set aside our own needs on occasion and serve their needs as well.
 
I have been in friendships with people who do not serve my needs well, and they do not last long.
 
It is not because I am selfish and only want to be friends with people who will serve me and only me.
 
It is because it doesn’t feel like mutual friendship if I am the only one serving.
 
It becomes exhausting, if you have never been in a relationship like that before.
 
I think this is what Jesus is getting at with his disciples.
 
He does not consider them merely servants, expecting them to serve him without their own needs being met.
 
He is telling them that as his friends, he serves them as much as they serve him.
 
He is modeling this love-in-action to them so that they can take that love and spread it to the world.
 
He is teaching them, just as they are trying to learn.
 
Jesus is in their service as much as they are in his service.
 
So, as you leave here today, I invite you to ask yourselves these questions:
 
Who are you servant-friending today?
 
How are you modeling Jesus’ command to love each other as he loved us?
 
May we all leave this place and go into the mission field ready to be friends and servants to those around us, modeling the love of Jesus outwardly to everyone we meet. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God, we are grateful to have a friend in Jesus, and that we are more than merely servants. We ask that you continue to guide us in the direction you would have us go, helping us to servant-friend others in ways we may never have considered before. Help us to live out our faith in meaningful ways that honour your love for us and the model of care and compassion you gave us in your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray all of this in your Holy name. Amen.