1.10.10 Sermon: “Called by Name”

Texts: Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

“Neither flesh of my flesh nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own. You didn’t grow under my heart but in it.” This short poem sat framed in my house growing up. It was a poem about me from my mom. I was brought into my parents’ house when I was about three weeks old; they adopted me through Catholic Charities. Yes, I have always known I was adopted, no, I don’t feel any desire to seek out my biological mother. Why? Because the words of that poem truly sum it it. While I did not grow inside my mother’s body, I am still hers. I am fully my parents’ child, and even though I don’t share their DNA, anyone who knows both me and my parents can tell you, I definitely resemble them in mannerisms, and I am getting to that age where I, myself, am starting to realize that at times I act like my dad, and other times, I sound an awful lot like my mother! I have been adopted into my family. But it is my family! We, here, have been adopted too. We have been adopted into God’s family!

Today we hear the story of the baptism of Jesus, and we hear God’s words to him, “You are my Son, the Beloved, in you I am well-pleased.” At first when we hear this story, we may simply think that it is a story about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and that those words spoken by God as the Holy Spirit descends like a dove are meant only for Jesus. But if we look more fully at the meaning of our own baptism, we find that those words are also for us. This baptism of Jesus is a significant event. In it, we witness one of the few places in Scripture where we explicitly see all three persons of the Trinity working together. As the Son is baptized, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks from heaven. The baptism of Jesus points to the way in which God works in our own midst: always with all three persons of the Trinity in consort, and our baptism is no different. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we are clothed in Christ, in his death and resurrection, and in that, we may stand before God as his daughters and sons.

Just as in his baptism, God affirms Jesus’ identity as his dearly beloved Son, in our own baptism, our identity is affirmed. We too, are now called dearly loved children of God. What does it mean to you to hear those words? To have God say to you, “You are my child, the beloved?” Do you feel like you are? Do you know it to be true? There are times where God can seem distant from us, and we can sometimes feel like anything but loved. Yet in baptism, through the touch of the water, God gives us a tangible sign that we are, in fact loved, and that we will always be his children. This is God’s gift to us, and we hear the sentiment of what baptism is in today’s Old Testament reading. Listen again to the words of God relayed by Isaiah: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. ²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. ³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour, I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia^* and Seba in exchange for you. ⁴Because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; ⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’, and to the south, ‘Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— ⁷everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’” God speaks these words to us! To you, and to me! Are they not the words of a loving and present Father?

Baptism is about God’s love for us. While we generally associate baptism with a personal choice, a personal confession of faith, or with a promise to raise a child in a household of faith, baptism is about much more than that. In fact, it is probably fairer to say that baptism is first and foremost a sign of God’s choice for us. There have been debates throughout the ages over the merits of infant baptism versus adult baptism. Some believe that only adults should be baptized because they believe a personal profession of faith is necessary. Others believe that it is ok to have infants baptized. In the Methodist Church, we do both, because we believe that baptism is a sign of what God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives. It is about the love of God that precludes all of our own actions and choices. Baptism is one of the two sacraments of the church, the other being communion. The definition of what a sacrament is can be summed up in these words: an outward sign of an inward grace. In other words, it is a sign that we can, touch, see, witness. It is an action that we can understand, and that action points to the deeper ways that God is working. The act of baptism points to the deeper reality that God chooses us through his Son Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Growing up, I always knew that I was adopted, and one of the books my parents read to me when I was little to help me understand was a book called “The Chosen Baby.” The title tells it all. They used it to help me to understand that I was sought out, that I was picked specifically, that I was chosen. As we remember our baptism, we are remembering that we are first chosen by God, before we can ever even respond, before we can ever even choose back. This is what we call God’s prevenient grace, that grace that precedes us in all things. As 1 John 4:19 reminds us, we love because He first loved us. Yet, our baptism is about more than just God’s choice for us. It is also about how we respond to God. Whether we are baptized as infants, children, teenagers, or adults, our baptism on some level is about a response of faith. It may be on the basis of our parents and surrounding community, or it may be our own. Nonetheless, baptism is in part, about human response to God’s choice for us. It is about saying, yes, I want to be a part of God’s family. We too, are given in the unique act of baptism, a way to respond to God’s love for us. While we only need to be baptized once, every time we witness a baptism, and every time we reaffirm our baptismal covenant as a congregation, we are remembering our baptism, and we are making a continual choice to respond to God’s love for us. But what exactly happens in baptism? What is it really about?

Just prior to baptism, during the prayer of thanksgiving over the water, the pastor prays these words: “Pour out your Holy Spirit, to bless this gift of water and those who receive it, to wash away their sin and clothe them in righteousness throughout their lives, that dying and being raised with Christ, they may share in his final victory.” In these words, we hear what is going on in baptism. First and foremost, we are recognizing that God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s own spirit to live inside of us, guiding us, sustaining us, transforming us. It is about having our sin washed away and putting on the righteousness of Christ, but it is also about being baptized into Christ’s death. It is about death to self and being reborn into a new life characterized by sacrifice and a willingness to follow Jesus. It is about fully sharing in the life of Christ, which also includes his glorification. We too, are marked as dearly loved children of God, so God says to us also, “You are my child, the beloved, in you I am well pleased.” Baptism is a radical act because it acknowledges the way that God changes us, and we acknowledge the way that we want to be changed, willing to be identified with Christ in his death, willing to put away the old person of sin and put on the new person of Christ. These are heavy words, with a lot of weight to them, and they deserve to be taken seriously.

Around here these days, we see mostly infant baptism, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is good to baptize our infants who will be brought up in church, and it makes sense to have them baptized young. However, historically, while infant baptism has been a practice of the church for most of its history, it has not been the norm until more recent years. Instead, adult baptism was much more frequent. You see, infant baptism only happens with families who are already in the church, but adult baptism is based on a conversion model. When adults are baptized, it is almost always because they were not brought up in the church, or they didn’t stay in the church. Adult baptism reflects a reaching out beyond the church walls. We are not seeing a lot of adult baptism these days because we are failing to reach out to the community in ways that effectively communicate the love of God, and we are failing to show how life is different for Christians. Sometimes the church looks too much like the rest of the world.

In the early centuries of the church, adults who wanted to be baptized went through three years of what was called the catechumenate, or three years of preparation and learning before they could be baptized and come to the Lord’s Table for Communion. During those three years they would learn the lifestyle of the Christian: works of mercy, care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow. They would study the stories of the Old Testament, and only during the final year of the catechumenate would they study the New Testament. Finally after those long three years of preparation, their moment of baptism would come. Naked they would come to the baptismal pool, literally making 180 degree turns as they were asked to renounce satan and sin, and to make a turn towards Christ. They would enter the pool, being immersed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and as they came out they would be anointed with fragrant oil, symbolizing the seal, the gift, of the Holy Spirit. They would then be clothed in a white robe representing the righteousness of Christ as they would finally be ushered in to share in their first communion, that Holy meal of Christ. The newly baptized understood the weight of the baptismal act. After three long years, they had learned that to be a follower of Christ meant that their life would look and feel different from the world around them. To be a Christian, in many ways, means to be different from the world. To be a Christian means to put on the righteousness of Christ and to live a life of peace, of sacrifice, of love. Are we taking our own baptismal vows this seriously?

When I was adopted, I was issued a new birth certificate, with my new name, given to me by my parents. There was no real trace of my old life prior to my adoption. I now belonged to my true family, to the ones who would love me, raise me, teach me, who would be there with me. My life could never be the same again. When we are baptized, it is like we are getting that new birth certificate, for we are reborn of the water and of the Spirit and brought into our true family, God’s family. Our life can never be the same again.

Today as we reaffirm our baptismal covenant as a congregation, consider the significance of your own baptism: what it means for God to first choose you, and what your life looks like when you respond to that choice. What does it mean for the choices you make, the encounters you have? Maybe you were baptized as an infant, and the baptismal vows were made on your behalf by someone else. But today as we reaffirm our baptism, you can claim those words for yourself. Are you ready to claim the life that God gives to us? Are you ready to let the Holy Spirit transform you into a person who looks more like Jesus Christ? Today let us remember our baptism and be truly thankful for all that it means. Amen.

1.3.10 Sermon: “Waiting for Daylight”

Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

As a fairly recent graduate of seminary, I have many memories of school still clearly etched into my mind: sitting in lectures, discussions about theology over lunch, going to chapel services during the week. Those are the better memories. And then there are those other, darker memories of staying up all night in the library, desperately trying to finish papers that were way too long for anyone’s good, hoping I would be able to turn them in on time. Those nights always dragged on forever, as I would wait for an epiphany to strike me, maybe a stroke of insight, or even just any sort of motivation to at least write something that made some kind of sense. I would go to the library, watch the sun go down, and it would then be dark forever, and I would always wonder at some point if I would even make it through the night. I was always waiting for daylight because that would mean the long night would be over, I could turn in my paper and be done with it.

And then even more recently, I remember the nights where I was the chaplain on-call at one of the largest hospitals in NC. Occasionally I would have a slow night, but more often than not, I would be up all night, being called from the ER to the ICU to a patient’s room where someone would just need to talk. The hospital could be a dark place at night. While the hallways were much quieter than during the day, death would still come, families would be faced with grief in the wee hours of the morning, or a patient, unable to sleep, would open up about the despair they were feeling. It was a blessing to be able to be with people in the midst of crisis, but I was always still waiting for daylight to come, so I could leave the hospital behind, go home and get the rest I needed.

Waiting for daylight. That’s what the world was doing as it waited for Christ to come. Today, we celebrate the day traditionally called Epiphany, the day that marks the three wise men following the bright star to the place where Jesus lay. While we usually associate this story directly with Christmas, it has its own unique message to proclaim: one that deserves special attention. The story of God’s salvation up to this point had only really been given to Israel. They were marked as God’s special chosen people. While from the beginning Israel was to be a light to the nations, pointing to the future promise that salvation would be available to all, it was not until Jesus came that God’s covenant promises to Israel were opened up to the whole world. The world sat in the darkness of sin and death, waiting for daylight, waiting for the moment when the darkness would be overcome by light.

The visit of the three wise men is the first sign that salvation is now for the whole world. The world that lived in darkness now meets the true light of Christ. The three wise men were from a distant land, they knew very little, if anything at all about the religion of Israel, but they were guided to the Christ child, to bow down before him. They recognized that there was something very special about this child that would change the life of the world. The story of the magi is not meant to be a sentimental story about the birth of Jesus. Instead it is a story about the gospel being opened up to the Gentiles. It is a story about the way Christ affects the whole world, not just Israel. It is a story about God’s plan, which is always greater than we can conceive.

On this day of Epiphany, we are celebrating that God’s promise of salvation is for all of us. The word Epiphany literally means appearance or manifestation. The star that guides the three wise men to the infant Jesus is meant to be a sign of light entering into darkness. When we look around at the world, we do see darkness. We don’t need to look any further than a newspaper to see that the world is full of evil things that are happening. We don’t need to look any further than our own families and friends to know that there are broken relationships. We don’t need to look any further than inside ourselves to know that sin exists and that it holds a power over us. Darkness both surrounds us and is in us, and we, by ourselves, can’t really change that.

Today’s Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah starts out with these words: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” While these words were written centuries before the three wise men showed up, they capture the weight of the gospel story. For truly as the wise men come to Jesus by following the star, representing the nations, the Gentiles, they are literally coming to the light. They, in many ways, recognized what others could not. Herod himself, who was a Jewish king and should have been able to recognize Jesus, saw him only as a threat, not as a Savior. Instead, it was the ones who had never been a part of Israel’s story in the Old Testament who were brought in. The opening up of salvations to the rest of the world in no way negates the covenant that God had already established with Israel. Instead, it broadens the horizons, and expands God’s promises. God’s promises would now save the whole world from the darkness of sin and death, not just Israel. On the flipside, the light of Christ revealed to the world that it needed salvation.

Sometimes light reveals just how dark darkness can be. Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night, but you can’t see where you are going so you turn on the light? It can be blinding, and you have to squint your eyes until they can adjust. Then when you turn the light back off, the darkness can seem even darker than before. Sometimes it takes a light to recognize darkness for what it is.

When I worked at a United Methodist camp in Maryland, we used to take our campers on a late night hike on the trail through the forest and the marsh. On a small part of the trail, the trees were so thick that you could not see anything at all. You couldn’t even see your hand if you held it right in front of your face. For that small part of the trail, we all grabbed one another’s hand, following the person in front through touch. But then we would always step out of that dark part of the forest. On night that we were doing this, there was a full moon. As we stepped out of the pitch black forest, there shone the moon. It illuminated the sky and the path before our feet. Seeing how bright the moonlight seemed reminded us of how dark the forest had been.

Like the moon revealing the darkness of the forest, Jesus is the light that reveals the truth about the state of the world: that it is fallen, broken, and unable to change itself. Yet the light of Jesus does much more than just make us more aware of the darkness around us. He is much brighter than that moon at summer camp. He is the more like the sun that overcomes night as we wait for daylight. When we come before Jesus, he is the light that changes us in three ways. He illuminates the darkness of our own lives, he overcomes that darkness by living in us, and we become lights ourselves that reflect him to the world. This is what Epiphany is about: the light of Christ that changes us, and the whole world.

Yet as we look at this story about the three magi coming to Jesus as an infant, recognizing that he is the light of the world, this story also speaks a message that is more specific to this congregation at this time and place in our life. These three men are able to see the value of Jesus as a child! They didn’t wait to come to him until he was an adult. They came when he was a baby. They could see Jesus for who he was, as a child! This story reminds us of the kids we have here at Dunbar. It is obvious that this is a congregation that values its children and takes delight in them. And yet, we are not meeting our full potential in helping them become disciples of Christ.

Children too, are prophets of God, and teaching them, guiding them, walking with them as they begin their own faith journeys is central to our life as a church. This past summer I had the pleasure of meeting a boy of about 10 years old at Ichthus, and I have never heard a child so plainly speak the words of God. The youth and adults who were there for the service portion of the trip no doubt remember him. But this boy said something in particular one night that has stuck with me. After we had all finished washing one another’s feet using bottles of water as an example of Jesus’ service to his disciples, this child said, “Don’t think of this just as pouring bottles of water on feet. Think of it more like a river of glory washing down on you.” I was floored and my eyes teared up. This kid got it. He understood that Christ was truly in the midst of us, and he was reflecting that light to all of us there.

The three wise men came to see the Christ child, not Christ the adult. They were able to recognize that a child was doing the work of God in the world, that a child was God in the flesh! Here at Dunbar we are blessed with many children and youth in our midst. They are an integral part of our congregation and they are the future of the church, but the rest of us have to recognize them for what they are now: dearly loved children of God who need those around them to guide them and help them establish a firm spiritual foundation. We have a number of committed adults to the children and youth of this congregation, who work with Wonderful Wednesdays and Children’s Church, or who help out with special summer activities like VBS and Sports Camp, but with the number of children we have the and the desire to help them become disciples of Christ, we need more. We, as a congregation, must, like the three wise men, see the way that God’s character may be seen through the face of a child, and we must value that, treasure it, and cultivate it. I’ll say it bluntly. We are a congregation blessed with children, and we cannot miss out on the opportunity to be a part of their discipleship process. And those of us who do spend time in ministry with the kids can tell you, we need more people to become more involved. We need more people to help with Children’s Church and Nursery Church. Not only are we currently not adhering to the Safe Sanctuary practice of always having two adults present, the teaching itself is sometimes not as effective because there is one adult trying to fill the dual role of teacher and helper, and that takes away from our kids’ spiritual formation. We want to expand our Wonderful Wednesdays program in the future so that the church can become even more of a home for our kids: a place where they can come after school to do homework, share in a meal, music class, and bible teaching, but that vision can’t become a reality until we have people who will make a commitment to it. Maybe you have been looking for a way to become more involved in the life of the church. Maybe you are feeling called to something but you don’t know what. Could this be it? For myself, I can say that some of my most valued time has come from spending time and building relationships with the kids and youth of this church, from youth group, to from Terrific Tuesdays this summer, and Wonderful Wednesdays, I have been blessed in those relationships. If you feel like this message is speaking to you or you have a vision for the young people here at Dunbar, come see me, see Carolyn, see someone who is already involved in ministry with children here.

The three wise men saw the Christ child for who he was. Do you see these children and youth in our midst for who they are, and who they will become? May we come to Christ today, asking him to illumine our darkness and guide us forward as we seek to reflect his light not only to the world around us, but also to the children in our midst, so that they too can be a part of God’s great plan of salvation for the world. Amen.

12.23.09 Sermon: “That’s the power of God?”

Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Luke 2:1-20

Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap the tallest buildings in a single bound! Through sheer power he brings down the corrupt and rescues those in danger! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Superman! Since Superman made his first debut in comics in 1938, he has become a cultural icon of superpower. He has been the subject of movies, of TV shows, video games, and of countless comics. He is an idealized depiction of superhuman powers, which probably most of us have secret fantasies about possessing. As individuals, this is the sort of power we probably wish we could have.

And then there are those other images of power in our society: the patriarch or matriarch of a large family, the wealthy CEO, the movie and sports stars who have people at the beck and call, the strength of our government and the military force of our country. For our culture, power indicates a sense of control and authority over others, to have a certain amount of clout. To have this kind of power can be pretty enticing, and in fact, isn’t this what the American dream is all about? Raising ourselves up by our bootstraps through the ranks of society so we can inch our way towards the top. This is power by the world’s definition. This is just the sort of power that we all seek: the power of security, the power of having a place in the world, the power of having some sort of control over our own lives, and we all go after it to varying degrees. Seeking this kind of power isn’t always a bad thing.

We often talk about the mighty acts and the power of God. The Old Testament is filled with great events in which God intervenes. A few of the biggies: the flood, the Exodus from Egypt, the conquering of the Promised Land. Those are all pretty major things, with what I think could be considered pretty flashy shows of power. But the greatest show of God’s power is in the gift of his Son Jesus Christ. Yet, when we look at the person of Jesus Christ, in whom the full power of God dwelt, we see something very different from the world’s definition of power, or even the way God often worked in the Old Testament. In fact, what we see at Christmas is the complete weakness and the vulnerability of an infant. What we see at Christmas is God emptying God’s self out to become a human being, and paradoxically, it is in that emptying out that we find the power of God.

The continually surprising thing about God is that God always seems to act in a way that is the opposite of what we are expecting, in ways that seem counter-intuitive to us. As Israel waited for the Messiah, many were expecting a political revolutionary, a strong military leader who could defeat the greater forces of empire that were marginalizing them. They were looking for someone with worldly strength. And why shouldn’t they? What they thought they needed was someone who could liberate them from their current political, economic, and social circumstances. As they watched and waited, looking for a sign that this Messiah had come to establish a new order, they missed it because they were looking for the wrong thing. How could it possibly occur to them that God’s power would be manifested in a baby born to a couple of nobodies in a small town in a smelly barnyard?

This is the nature of God’s power in Jesus Christ: to work in the most unexpected of ways. Tonight, we are celebrating Christmas (even if it is a early) and at Christmas, we look to the incarnation: to God coming in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the most popular of Christmas decorations is the nativity scene, often depicting a serene image of Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus, surrounded by animals and the three wise men. Usually we look at it and think, oh, that is nice. But if we stop to think about what that scene is representing, the word “nice” doesn’t really cut it.

In this scene, we see the first picture of the incarnation. Jesus as a baby, completely dependent upon his parents’ care. Jesus as a baby, who can’t even hold his own head up, who can’t even feed himself. Jesus as a baby. God making himself as one who becomes completely dependent upon human beings to care for him. That is true vulnerability. That the God of the universe should condescend in that way is mind-boggling.

Oh well, we can say, he wasn’t a baby forever. He grew up to be a self-sufficient man. He performed miracles that exhibited God’s power. These things are true. All of his miracles acted as a testimony to his identity so that the world might understand who he was. But it was not in these miracles that the fullness of God’s power dwelt. Instead, it was in his vulnerability as he accepted his fate at the hands of the world’s violence on the cross. As the famous Christ hymn of Philippians 2 says, “he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.” God, in Christ, became human in every way. He not only lived as one of us, but died as one of us. This is the miracle of the incarnation. God became one of us, with all of our weaknesses, frailties and temptations. And he did not become a powerful human being, as defined by the world. God didn’t come as an earthly prince seated at the top of worldly political structures. Instead, he was born in a barnyard in tiny Nazareth, to an unmarried teenage mother, as part of largely marginalized people group, on the edges of the Roman Empire. In the eyes of the world, he was a complete nobody. Even during his own lifetime, he only traveled a small distance, and a limited number of people had even heard of him. He didn’t come, taking the world by storm. But he did come.

The power of God is not a power that takes control, or that overthrows by force. The power of God is the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, putting himself at he mercy of the world. It is the uttering of the words, “not my will, but your will be done.” At the hands of the violence and the power-grabbing of the world, Jesus did not fight back against it, but instead allowed it to overtake him. Is that the power of God? How can it be? On the cross the world’s power met God’s power. And the world appeared to win. But we know that it did not. We can focus on the resurrection, and say that ultimately that reflects God’s true power, to conquer death. And it does. But we cannot ignore or quickly pass by the incarnation of Christ to get to the resurrection. Who Christ was on earth, how he lived and died reveals to us the nature of God: who God is, what God does, and above all, the greatest defining characteristic we can know about God. That God is most fully revealed as a self-giving love.

As we celebrate the Incarnation this Christmas season, what we are really celebrating is that God his given himself to us fully in the person of Jesus Christ. As the theologian Karl Rahner said of the incarnation, “There is no longer any abyss between God and the world.” In becoming a human being, God entered into the world to be with us in a new way forever, and God revealed his own power which ultimately contrasts with the power of the world.

We look at people like Superman, with his extraordinary strength and speed, wishing for superpowers like him. And then we look at Christ, who offered the greatest superpower of all: that of self-giving love. Superman may save a few people, but Jesus Christ has come to save the world through the most unlikely of means. He gives himself. He gives himself not only through his death on the cross, but also through his continual presence with us. As one who knows what it means to be human in every way, he understands us, he empathizes with us. In the person of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit to remain with us forever, God offers himself to us over and over again, never leaving us or forsaking us, and tonight, as we share the Holy meal at the Communion table, Christ again gives himself to us in a unique way. When we share in communion, in the gifts of the bread and the cup, Christ is present in them. We don’t simply remember what God has done for us in the past, it is not just a memorial. Instead, as we receive from the bread and cup, Christ is with us in that act, nourishing us, renewing us, simply being with us, feeding us spiritually with his own body and his own blood. In this communal act of worship, we come to the table to meet the living Christ, who gives himself so freely to us, and who gives us the bread and the cup so that we might be able to touch him, taste him, to recognize his presence in a more tangible way. The celebration of communion is a gift that God gives to us that not only reminds us that once Jesus Christ walked the earth with us, but that he is here with us now, giving himself to us.

As we approach the communion table tonight, may we recognize God’s gift in Jesus Christ, who is with us. It is almost Christmas, where we mark the incarnation, of God entering into the world in a new way. As we celebrate the gift of Christ’s presence with us, may we also be transformed into people more like Christ as we learn what it means to both receive and offer his self-giving love. For that is the power of God.