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[Transcript of video]
A Call to Courage
Rev. Elder Goudy
Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:13-14)
Greetings Metropolitan Community Churches and welcome to a journey together through the Lenten Season. There is a call to courage during this season:
• The courage to face death and embrace life
• The courage to invest time and energy on things of the Spirit
• The courage to seek deeper relationships with God and God’s people
• The courage to be sacrificial
The courage to face death and embrace life: Lent is a journey with Jesus to the cross and also to the resurrection. At some point we will all courageously face Golgotha (Matthew 27:33), a place of death and destruction. Equally courageously, we will all encounter eternal life, “for if we have been united with Christ in death, we will certainly also be united with Christ in a resurrection” (Roman 6:5).
The courage to invest time and energy on things of the Spirit: There are so many distractions and so many things demanding our attention but in Lent we are invited to pause and reflect on where we are making investments of time and energy. We may experience the Spirit nudging us to spend more time in prayer or praise and less time in worry or finding fault. May the hearts of MCC’ers be brave in seeking out fresh winds of the Spirit.
The courage to seek deeper relationships with God and God’s people: It does not require much of us to travel in the shallows with one another, exchange occasional pleasantries and avoid authenticity in favor of cheap peace. Likewise, we can keep things on the surface with God, sing a few hymns once a week and consider ourselves in good with the Divine. It is audacious to desire connections of greater depth with God and God’s people. May we be gutsy in developing stronger bonds with one another.
The courage to be sacrificial: “Sacrifice” is a loaded word but I think it is time to reclaim it.
Certainly we have to be careful when using the term and many people in oppressed groups have had the experience of being called on to sacrifice while no sacrifice has come from those holding power. And yet sacrifice is at the core of the call of Jesus, who says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” There is nothing more thrilling than surrendering control of one’s life to the glory of God. Many MCC’ers have experienced this joy that comes with entrusting our lives to God’s care. We do it for a moment and another moment and another and those sacrificial moments build on one another and we come to understand that it is all about love.
I became a part of MCC Churches because of the love I witnessed for all of God’s people. Let’s continue to pour out that love this Lenten season and beyond.
Amen.
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