To be Born Again

When I was in college, I went to see a self-help guru. We met in his house with my then boyfriend and he told me a bunch of stuff and I needed to work on and I had no idea what he was talking about. It was one of the strangest conversations of my life. I could not tell if I was just dumb and could not comprehend his wisdom or if he actually, literally, made no sense. I left more confused than when I came.

The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus was a bit like this. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the elite group of Jewish scholars called the Sanhedrin, and he was used to being the smartest man in the room. But Nicodemus also knew when God was doing something and, unlike his fellow Sanhedrin, he recognized God in Jesus.  Afraid of tarnishing his reputation as a wise man, he went to Jesus by night, to question him about God.

What Jesus told Nicodemus was so profound as to completely stump him.  He had no idea what Jesus was talking about. But the words stuck in his mind and he kept chewing on them for years. When it came time for Jesus to be crucified, Nicodemus was there in the background to take his body down and, along with Joseph of Arimathea, to bury him. Clearly, something did sink in.

Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to be of God, one must be "born again." To this very day, Christians all over the world have wondered what Jesus meant by being "born again." All that I can offer you are my own musings, for the meaning of this concept goes far beyond anything that most of us can comprehend.

The Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about herself in college. She was agnostic, having been raised in a home where her folks just didn't seem to care about God or think about God. She was studying one night in her dorm room and two girls from Campus Crusade for Christ came and knocked on her door. She opened it and groaned. There they were, the pests, standing there with their electric smiles, clutching their bibles, so earnest and so annoying. Barbara thought to herself, "How can I get rid of these girls fast?  I need to study!" 

The two girls asked her if she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She decided that the easiest thing to do would be to just play along, so that she could get them to leave. So she admitted the truth,. "No," she said.  "I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

"Do you want to?" they asked earnestly.

"Sure," she said.

So they came into her room. They faced her and asked her to repeat after them, "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

 

She said the words.  They hugged her and then they left.

Thank God, Barbara thought. Now I can get back to studying.

She sat back down at her desk and couldn't concentrate, so she went for a walk.  The leaves on the trees looked so beautiful to her in the setting sun. Something was different. Everything looked so beautiful. 

Then she realized, with a start, that maybe she actually had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and maybe that's why everything looked different. And from that moment on, things didnt get easy, they got harder.  She was turned upside down and began to study religion and her parents thought she was crazy and she ended up a priest!

Something happened in that dorm room.  Something definitely happened.

 

Think about birth with me for a moment, from the perspective of the one who is born.  God made it so that we don't remember our birth and that is probably a good thing because it could not have been anything but painful. Getting squeezed through some tiny spot. Leaving warmth and comfort and a place where your every need is taken care of and emerging into a cold, confusing place that makes no sense at all. When we are born, we are lost at first. We cannot distinguish colors, sounds, smells. We are helpless and must learn how to do everything.  To be born again must also mean to go through something that could be quite painful or taxing and emerge as someone new, having to learn how to do everything all over again. You might need to learn to see again after being born. If this is true, then being born again is scary and I'm not sure I want to do it. 

In the first life, the physical life that we are born into, we are the center of the Universe. People feed you, dress you, change you. And, as we grow up, human beings think of our own needs and wants and we wonder what we will become in the world and what is happening to us. And our lives belong to ourselves.

To be born again means to give up your life and belong to God. Your self dies and is reborn as God's child. It is God who lives in you and directs your life. You literally give up the drivers seat and become helpless again. And this process, of dying to self, can be painful and scary and many people, even those who say that they are saved or born again, have never really done it.

In his book The Dance of Hope, Bill Frey tells the story of a teenager named John who was in an accident and lost his sight. John was so angry and bitter about becoming blind and helpless that he just went to bed and shut the door. At first, his parents and family waited on him hand and foot and he was miserable.  But, his parents got weary of his self-pity and his dad did something radical one day.

John's dad came to his room one morning and told him that he expected John to mount the storm windows around their house that day. "Winter is coming soon. I need you to do this. Do the work before I get home or else," his dad said. And then he left.

John was furious.  He groped his way to the garage where his dad kept the storm windows.  Crying and muttering in anger, he found the tools, the stepladder, the windows and felt his way around the house.  He could not believe that his dad had asked him to do this. "They'll be sorry when I fall off the ladder and break my neck," he said to himself. But he didn't fall. Little by little, he groped his way around the house and he completed the task. That was the beginning of a new life for John.  He realized that, even though he was blind, he could learn new ways to function and he could put in storm windows and he could learn.  He began to live again.

It was only years later, when he was home from college and talking with his dad one night, that he spoke of that pivotal day, the day his dad challenged him to move beyond himself, beyond his misery. He told his dad how shocked he was that he had asked John to do something so dangerous. "I could have fallen and broken my neck," he said. 

It was then that his dad told him that he had not gone to work that day.  At no point in the day had he been more than four feet away from his son. His dad had no intention of letting John fall.

    Being born again is scary.  It can often involve something painful, in which you are asked to give up your old self and become someone new. Sometimes the catalyst for new birth is suffering, illness, depression, loss of work, grief. But the suffering acts as a catalyst for the emergence of something wholly new. A new life emerges in which you are no longer asking Jesus to follow you but actually being willing to follow him. Sometimes the only thing that can bring about this kind of rebirth is the total and complete failure of the first life, a time in which you realize, consciously or unconsciously, that doing things your way just is not working. Being born again can happen sometimes suddenly and unpredictably as it did for Barbara and sometimes it takes a long and painful process before a new life emerges. Being born again is as unpredictable as the wind, Jesus said.

But one thing is clear. There are many of us who claim to follow Christ but what we really want is for Christ to follow us and help our lives be better, more comfortable, more successful.  It is only when we give our whole selves up to Him and let Him be in charge that we can be born again. You have to let go of life as usual before you can begin eternal life. Being born again is an all or nothing kind of a thing.  You either are born or you are not. And when you are born again, you are blind for awhile.  You have to grope your way around and trust that Jesus is close by, waiting to catch you.

What's it going to be, your life or God's life?  Your way or God's way? You have to say goodbye to comfort and your own way and be born to a new life of grace if you are to stand a chance of catching a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. You have to be willing to be helpless in the face of the unknown before you can understand what it is that God has in store for you. 

 Jesus didn't die to keep us safe.  He died to help us be born again, into Him.

The Conversation

Do you believe in the devil?

CS Lewis says that there are two fundamental mistakes we can make about the devil, one is to ignore his existence and the other is to spend too give him too much attention.

I knew a woman once who talked about the devil all the time. When her car broke down and she could not get to bible study, she claimed that it was the devil. So many things in her life were caused by the devil that the devil played a major role in her life. 

On the other hand, there are many people out there who don't believe in the existence of evil at all and this seems wholly inadequate. How else can we explain all the suffering in the world? 

On one Sunday a year, the church talks about the devil and we think about temptation. One Sunday out of 52. That is a good ratio. We are following CS Lewis' advice and taking the devil seriously but not giving the subject all our attention. 

On this Sunday, we pray in detail for all the pain and suffering in the world and we wonder why we have fallen so far. The prayers that we said at the beginning of this service are part of an ancient practice called The Great Litany. It is traditional, on this, the first Sunday of Lent, to pray for the pain and suffering in the world. So it seems appropriate that we read about Jesus' encounter with the devil this one Sunday. According to scripture, the Devil is a fallen angel, not an uncreated being equivalent to God, but the ultimate expression of our free will. The devil is the personification of our worst choices, the choice to run from God. That is why his name is tempter.

If we are called to model Jesus, then we must notice that the very first thing he did before ministering to anyone was to face the devil. Jesus went out alone to an empty place. He ate nothing and he prayed. And the devil came to him. He did not go to the devil, the devil came to him, and the devil comes to all of us too. On the first Sunday of Lent, we read about Jesus conversation with the devil. 

The devil offers Jesus three choices. First, he suggests that Jesus put himself first by breaking his fast and feeding himself. Second, he challenges Jesus to test God and despair by throwing himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple. And lastly, the devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if only he would fall down and worship the devil himself.

Feed yourself, kill yourself, take all the kingdoms of the world for yourself. 

The key to all the temptations of the devil are that they are all about the self.

The devil wants us stuck inside ourselves. The devil wants you to think only of yourself all the time, what you are feeling, how you are doing, whether or not people like you, if you have what you want and need. The devil talks in the language of me and me and me. Giving to others, refraining from taking everything you are offered, thinking about other people-these actions are antithetical to the devil's work. The devil does not know generosity. Not at all.

This past week, I traveled up north to New York City. I picked up my son and after seeing a friend, we drove at night into Newark New Jersey so that I could take the train into Manhattan to preach at General Seminary the next day. As all of you well know, it is freezing cold up north right now. In the mornings, the ice and snow covered the windshield of our rental car. I rented a jeep with four wheel drive just in case the weather got really bad. As we drove through the night, I kept those windshield wipers on to brush away the ice and snow so that I could see where I was going.

The devil is much like the ice, snow, sleet and rain that cloud the windows of our true nature. God created us to look out on the creation and think of others and be awake and live fully. The devil wants to block our vision, to cloud over who we really are and get us stuck inside ourselves, unable to see clearly. Think about what would have happened to me on the road down to Newark if my windshield wipers had broken. I would have been unable to see clearly. I could have been in a terrible accident and hurt myself or others.

Sometimes the devil won't completely block our vision but will skew it. Take for example a woman who was mistreated and beaten by her father as a small child. The abuse gave the devil an opening. She began to believe that she was bad and deserved to be mistreated. This false map of life, if it is not identified as false by her, will cover her windshield and she will not see the world clearly but only through the lens of her temptation to believe herself unworthy. Hence, she will only chose men who mistreat her and she will wonder why her life is broken. In reality, the temptation has colored her vision and she cannot see clearly.

Identifying temptation is key. You cannot refuse the devil if you don't know that he is there or what he sees. Get to know your temptations so that you can wipe them away.

I believe that CS Lewis was right. We should not deny the existence of the devil but we should not get consumed with him either.  We should brush off the devil like windshield wipers brush off bad weather. Wipe off his temptations, his distractions. You don't need to go to war with the devil, just say no as Jesus did.  The devil is intent on getting you to be completely and totally self-absorbed, to put yourself before God. If you close in on yourself, you will not only be miserable but you will make terrible mistakes, hurting yourself and others. So wipe off the self-absorption and say no to temptations daily.

Every day, you and I must wake up and wipe off the temptations to be self-pitying or consumed by worry or afraid for our futures. We must wipe away despair and hopelessness and vanity. If you are thinking about yourself all the time, it's time to clean the windshield. A healthy Christian should be awake, watching what God is doing in the world, listening to the needs of others and responding in kind. We ought to take care of ourselves, yes, but only so that we can serve God, not as an end unto itself.

Years ago, I came up with a new phrase which meant repent. "Get over Yourself" seemed a more accurate translation and I still stick to it. It is the main message of Lent. Jesus told us to repent over and over again. When he called his disciples, he said that the Kingdom of heaven was at hand but they could not see it because they had not repented, they had not cleaned off their windshields, they were too absorbed with themselves. 

Remember that the devil wants you to be all about yourself. Brush him off like frost, like old residue or dirty water, clear your mind. Only then will you be ready to begin your ministry in the world.

Ashes to Go?

Good afternoon, General Seminary.  It is such an honor to be with you on this Ash Wednesday. Since most of you are reading a lot, you are well aware of the existence of the Lectionary and the trouble that scholars and priests go to to select readings appropriate for every holiday and Sunday. I must admit to you that I have never understood why this particular gospel is selected for Ash Wednesday.

For the most part, Episcopalians are a modest group.  We do not wear strange hats or habits or shave our heads, we dont wear bonnets or phyulacteries or carry prayer rugs. Most of the time, you cannot tell us from the average agnostic if you were to run into us on the street. We dress how ever we want to dress. But on this one day of the year, we put Ashes on our foreheads and we actually wear them out of the church and into the street and, for one day of the year, we are visibly identifiable as Christians.

So, why, on this one day, do we choose to read the one passage from the gospels where Jesus tells us NOT to practice our piety in order to be seen by others.  When you are fasting, he says, wash your face. Dont make out that you are any different from anyone else. Dont show off your devotion.

I have heard of a few churches that pass out wash clothes after their Ash Wednesday services and invite people to wipe off the ashes from their foreheads so as to follow the gospel of the day more precisely, but I have never done such a thing. Nor do I think it is a good idea. I like wearing my ashes out on the streets and here is why.

On Sunday night, at the Oscars, Ellen DeGeneres said that the most important thing in the world was youth. She was joking, or at least I think she meant it as a joke, but the truth is that most of us believe that in America today.  Youth is beautiful. Youth is money.  China and the US are competing for younger work forces. Everyone wants to hide their grey hairs, smooth out wrinkles, exercise and use Oil of Olay.  The point is to look young because when you are young and vigorous, you can pretend that you are not going to die.

And there is this secret part of every American that believes that he or she will be the first not to die.  That is why we work so hard to build up our 401K's but dont write a will. That is why we work so hard to look young. Because when you are old, you are useless and you have to admit that your life is waning.  And no one wants to admit that.

I buried a woman who died of breast cancer last year. Her husband was only in his fifties.  He had to be led to the sanctuary, like a child.  He could hardly speak.  We went to the burial site and they put out that fake grass to cover over the dirt and after the service, he stayed.  They urged him to leave but he, unlike most, wanted to see the coffin being lowered into the ground.  So he stayed and I stayed with him and we watched as they pulled the fake grass away and got out this big machine and lowered the casket into the dark dirt. And he looked at me, his eyes full of grief and fear. It was so dark down there.

I dont think that we wear ashes today to show off our piety.  We are not stating that we are praying, though we obviously went to church today. We wear these ashes to say something much more important.

I AM DUST.

In other words, I am going to die.  I myself will be dirt and dust and ashes. I will be nothing at all.

In Jesus' day, when a loved one died, the family would tear their clothes and pour dirt over their heads and wail and they werent showing off their piety, they were honest about their despair.

Today, we predict our own deaths and we admit that the death rate is 100% and that we will NOT get out of it.  Today, we are not showing off.  Today we are telling the truth.

And why, why do we do this?  Why do we walk around New York City like the living dead? Because we are beginning a journey today, a forty day journey that will take us to heart of the tomb and beyond.  

If you think that somehow you will never die, then there is no room in your life for God and you can't start the journey to Easter.  If you think that you are perfect, then there is no room for God's salvation. Jesus came to the poor and the outcast because they knew that they needed help.  They knew that they had made mistakes, that they needed redemption, that their lives were a mess. If, deep down inside, you think that you are good and that you will go to heaven no matter what you do or what you believe, then dont put ashes on your forehead. Dont do it. 

But if you see how much of a failure you are and that you never can quite get your life just right.  If you understand that you are wounded and in need of healing.  If you see now that you are helpless without God, then put ashes on. Because ashes are telling the truth about our essential natures, that, without God, we are nothing but dirt. And that is not practicing piety.  That is telling the truth.

Do you remember the movie, Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash?  Cash was told by his Dad that he was nothing and he believed his dad.  He took so many drugs that he almost died.  But June Carter and her parents stayed with him, chasing off the drug dealers and waiting while he detoxed and shook and was mostly unconscious. And, when he finally came to, June was sitting by his bed with a bowl of raspberries. As he began to eat them, John spoke the truth about who he thought he was.

"I am nothing," he said.

June looked at him straight in the eyes and she responded. "You are not nothing! God has given you a second chance, John.  This is your chance!"

Ash Wednesday is our chance to say we are nothing. And then we can begin the journey of salvation.  You see, the only way to begin the journey to the resurrection is by starting in the dirt. Because we can NEVER begin to contemplate the miracle of the resurrection if we do not first go to the tomb and admit that we are going to die, that we are nothing but dust without God. Salvation is not something that we deserve, something that we are due. Easter is a gift! An undeserved gift. The greatest of all gifts. If you secretly believe that you are going to live forever and that you go straight to heaven with no questions asked, then you do not understand the radical act of resurrection.

The truth is that, without God and Christ's salvation, we are nothing at all.  We are dirt and dust and ashes. And that is the truth.

Unfinished Houses

JD and I moved to Kansas in 2002.  We bought an old home, built in 1917, in the neighborhood of College Hill in Wichita, Kansas. The home was large and drafty and needed constant work, but it was full of personality and full of history.  The Murdochs, who ran the local paper back in the 1920's, had a meeting with Charles Lindberg in our living room. Lindberg proposed the Spirit of Wichita, but the Murdocks turned him down so he went to St. Louis.

The legend of a botched buisness deal, beautiful wood floors, high ceilings and constant work.  There was very little insulation in the house which we discovered in our first winter there.  It would become incredibly drafty. The third floor was completely unfinished and the kitchen desperately needed to be rennovated. We had a long list of projects in mind.  Kitchen first, insulation, third floor.  The basement flooded when it rained. But, I loved that house.  I really loved it.

And I came to realize that there was a certain culture in the College Hill neighborhood.  People would talk of their homes, their latest projects and their dreams.  We hosted the neighborhood Christmas party which was customary as the neighbors all expected to be allowed into our home. They all had advice and they all commiserated with our leaky basement.

Some days, I was all enthusiastic, almost buzzing about the next thing to be painted or the next project to focus on.  Other times, I just felt overwhelmed, thinking I would never finish it all.  And there was some truth to that.  Most College Hill residents lived in unfinished houses. It seemed that nothing could be completed, truly completed.

Jesus gives us some really hard instructions this morning.  He tells us that when someone punches us in the face we should turn and offer them the other side.  When someone takes something from us, we should give them more.  We should love our enemies, he says.

We define our lives by the relationships we have with the people we love.  Our spouses, our parents, our children, our life-long best friends. But Jesus says God is not impressed nor does God define our lives by the people we love.  No, God watches how we relate to our enemies.  It is our troubled relationships that God wants us to focus on, the people we cant stand, the ones who seem angry at us for reasons we cant fathom and the ones who cant seem to stop trying to hurt us.  Love them, he says.  Now that is hard work. 

But that is what distinguishes true believers from people who just talk the talk.

Do you give money away, generously?  Do you give even when you feel that no one appreciates it or notices?  And do you love the people who hate you?  By love, Jesus did not mean having good feelings, thank God, because feelings are beyond our control.  He meant do you honor them, treat them well, do them no harm, bless them and even pray for them?

How you act and what you do with the people that disgust you, that is what makes you a true believer.  

Then Jesus says, "Be perfect, as my Father in heaven in perfect."

I looked up the greek word for perfect.  Teleoi.  It means finished, complete, fully matured.

God wants us to work on loving our enemies and giving generously until, one day, we are complete.

But sometimes, I feel like an old house.  As soon as I mend one relationship and do the right thing, another broken one pops up. I wonder if I will ever be perfected, if I will ever get it right. I pray with a grumbling heart and speak the names of those who offend me but I silently would rather do something else. I am still so much a work in progress.

Saul hated David and wanted to kill him, but even when Saul was having rages and going insane, David would pray for him and even sing for him.  Many of the Psalms of the Old Testament were written by David in an attempt to sing to his enemy, to love Saul even when Saul despised him. The best poetry of Scripture was written by a man trying to love his enemy.

Do you ever get up really early?  I have lately been waking up to pray at about 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.  There is this moment, when the sun has not yet risen and the darkness of night still surrounds everything, when the birds begin to sing. It is as if they can sense the coming of the sun, the coming of the light. First one chortles, then another, then they all begin to sing and quietly, slivers of light begin to mark the horizon.

God wants us to act as if the Kingdom has come and the world is put right.  He wants us to sing like those birds even though the darkness is still all around us, even though crime is high and people are killed at Gate stations and the Ukraine and Venezuela are coming apart at the seams.  He wants us to sing and love like the birds because, even though the world is dark and our houses are yet unfinished, yet the Son of God will come again and nothing will be able to prevent the dawn from on high breaking upon us.

Perhaps God loves us like I loved my old house in College Hill, never sure when all the projects would be over, if ever, but loving it just the same. A work in progress, a beautiful thing in need of repair. One day we will be finished, one day we will be complete. Until that time, we are to sing and love even in the midst of the darkness.

Simeon and Answers to Prayers

A woman was considered unclean for forty days after the birth of a son. Once the forty days were over, she and her husband were to take the child to the temple in Jerusalem, where they were to offer up a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the child. If they were rich, they would be expected to sacrifice a lamb. If they were poor, they would be asked to sacrifice just two turtle doves or two pigeons.  

Mary and Joseph went from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for this rite of purification.  They held their newborn baby in their arms with all the anxiety of young parents, wondering if they were doing OK, if the baby would be OK.

I remember taking our son Luke to a restaurant when he was just a few weeks old.  We were so young and inexperienced that we left before even eating. We did not know how to keep him quiet, where to change him.  So we just went home. But Mary and Joseph had to walk.  They could not just turn around and go home. Bethlehem is a good few miles from Jerusalem.  Once they reached the temple, there was no turning back.

And then they saw him. The old man. He came up to them with such a look of intensity in his eyes. This was Simeon.  God told him that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, the Lord's annointed. And God told him to go to worship that day. And so there he was, looking all around, waiting for Jesus.  We dont know how many years he waited but we do know that he stayed alive just for this reason, just to see this Messiah.

Did Simeon know that it would be a baby? Was he looking for a child?

 We will never know.  But we do know that he came to the Temple expecting to see God's annointed one and he did see Christ. He recognized him.

I can just picture the old man, the look on his eyes as he sees that baby, the one he has been waiting for.

There is a beautiful picture of the Dalai Lama on the Internet. He is standing beside a metro car in a subway station underground.  There is a baby boy in his mothers arms seated inside the car by the window. The baby is leaning into the window, smiling at the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama has his hand to the window, with this playful look of anticipation and joy on his face, as if he has never seen anything more beautiful than that child.

"Now, I can die," Simeon says, "for I have seen this child."

Simeon came to the temple expecting to see God. 

Why did you come here today?  Were you expecting to see God?  Were you expecting to have your life changed forever, to catch a glimpse of God's will for your life?  Simeon not only prayed deeply, but he took the next step in a life of prayer, the courageous step that most of us are terrified to take.  After he prayed, he EXPECTED and WAITED for God's promise.  But often we do not dare to expect so much of God. Often, we are satisfied with a beautiful piece of music or a piece of inspiration from a sermon. Often we come to church out of habit or some deep sense of hunger, but rarely do we dare to expect so much of God.

Why do you come to church? What are you hoping to find?  Can you articulate your expectations? What do you long for, hope for, dream for?  If you do not name your hopes and dreams and desires to God, how will you know when you have been heard?  How will you know when your prayers have been answered?

Nehemiah's heart was broken over the state of the holy city of Jerusalem.  After the exile, the city was ruined, the walls torn down and the remnant of Jews that remained were hungry, afraid and beaten down by foreigners.  Nehemiah cried out to God to help rebuild the walls of the holy city.  He prayed hard and then Nehemiah, just like Simeon, waited, expecting an answer. This time, God answered Nehemiah's prayers by sending him back to Jerusalem to raise the money and build the walls himself.

God's answer to Nehemiah was to enlist his help. He became the very one to answer his own prayers.  He became the agent of God's will.

What do you want from life? Do you want to see the hungry fed?  Do you want your family to be healthy and loving? Do you want peace in the world?  Simeon had the courage to ask God to see Christ and then to wait and go to worship expecting to see Him.  Nehemiah asked God for his city and then answered when God asked him to go there himself and help rebuild it.

Today is our Annual Meeting here at the Cathedral.  Since the 1840's, this Cathedral has been worshipping God here in downtown Jacksonville, Florida.  We have built schools, housed hundreds of elderly who live on little or no income, we have fed the hungry, built homeless shelters, taught art to thousands of children in the public schools who would not have had art without us. And yet, it is never enough to thank God for all that we have been given.  Our greatest challenge to this date is that we dream too small.  We expect too little.  We dont dare enough.

After four years as your Dean, I am convinced that this Cathedral is a giant which has only partially awoken. We need the courage of Simeon, the motivation of Nehemiah.  We need to have the audacity to say to ourselves that we expect to see God here every Sunday and that this radical encounter is going to shape us in such ways that we are no longer concerned with survival but with the doing of the gospel in profound ways. 

This country is divided and enslaved by fear, fear of a weak economy, fear of never finding solutions to our problems, fear of terrorism and fear that we have seen our peak that our days as the leading country in the world are numbered.  This city is blighted in the downtown. It is worse than any other city in Florida.  We have not yet succeeded in finding a way to revitalize our core. We are struggling.

What do you ask of God today?  And if you dare to pray boldly and specifically, are you also willing to be part of the solution?  Are you, like Nehemiah, willing to work to rebuild relationships and strive for a better city? We are all so busy, busier than ever before. But we do have choices. And if we do not choose how to live our lives, our lives will live us.  If we do not ask God for specific goals and expect and wait for an answer, we will spend our lives spinning our wheels and worrying about next steps.

This Cathedral has the capacity to lead this city. We have the capacity to light our building, reroute traffic, create jobs, envision a changed downtown. But we must believe that Christ is among us. We must come to church EXPECTING to see God and have our lives changed. And we must be willing to accept the challenge that comes when God takes over our hearts.

This place is a birthplace for ministry. It is a heartbeat that keeps this downtown alive. And when you walk into this beautiful sanctuary, expect to see God.