Locked Room

Locked Room

Locked Room

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service April 12, 2026
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 20:19-31

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

The disciples were in a locked closet for fear of the government authorities that come and take non-citizens, torture them, and then kill them. Now, the scripture said Jews; but we know better, don’t we. We know it was Romans, not rabbis, that came and took Jesus away. We know it was Romans, not rabbis, that put him on the cross. The government killed Jesus. Like to smooth that over and blame the Jews. Or maybe the religious authorities.

Where was Thomas? Did you ever wonder? What in the heck was he doing? I mean, it’s going to be like 2,000 years before they have kids’ soccer on Sunday morning, and I don’t know what else. I’m thinking maybe, maybe he was like a closeted Presbyterian, and he was off at some Presbyterian church somewhere. They go, “Where is he? Oh, he’s doing Presbyterian.” I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe he didn’t want anything to do with what the disciples were doing, hiding from the government in a locked room, in a closet, if you will. I don’t do politics. I don’t want to meet with those politics. Doesn’t affect me. I’m good. I’m fine. I’m wonderful. Doesn’t affect me. Nothing to fear. Long as you do right, don’t cause trouble, you’ll be fine. You don’t have to lock the door for fear. Wasn’t in the room.

How many rooms do we stay out of? How many places do we not go because we’re afraid of what we will find there? Worried that it’s going to challenge our biases, our expectations, our beliefs. You know, it’s really easy to do, stay away from people that are suffering, that are oppressed, that are under the heel, and say it doesn’t exist because I didn’t see it. Doesn’t affect me. They must be doing something wrong because I’m fine. And I’m not talking politics. I’m not talking about rules and regulations, laws and elections. I’m not talking about political party. I’m not telling you who to vote for. I’m not talking to you about any of that stuff. I am talking morality.

And if you say any talk of morality is subject to politics, well, then, we disagree on that, too, because I believe there is more things to life than politics. I believe there are more important things in life and faith than politics. I believe that politics does not feed to what we get to talk about or what we believe or who we love or what we support or what we say is not allowed. I believe in going into locked rooms that politicians say stay out of there. Don’t talk to those people. You can’t trust them. So stay out of them locked doors and don’t listen to the people that are imprisoned. Don’t talk to the people.

America has 5% of the world’s population. Five, 5%. But of the total population of the people in prison, we have 25%. Are we that much worse than every other country in the world? Are we five times worse than every other country in the world? I do not believe that. I saw that’s a moral issue, not a political issue. We lock up people and then say, well, I didn’t see it. Must not be happening. There was a saying about doing your own research, you know. But does doing your own research often just mean watching some – going down some rabbit hole on YouTube and as the algorithm takes you more and more to what you like more and more, and you don’t hear anything else, you don’t go in a locked room.

Or it might be just your limited bias, your limited experience as a person growing up, and you don’t see anybody else. It might be that social media echo chamber where you just like the people that say what you like, and then suddenly all you hear is yourself echoed back through influencers and posters and content providers. But you don’t see any of that. Heck, now we’ve got AI. AI will tell you anything you want. AI will hallucinate if it needs to, to tell you what you want to know, how you want to know it. We’ll never get to that room where Jesus is. We’ll never be in that room where people are scared for their lives. We’ll never be in that room where people are suffering. And I tell you what, we’ll never see scars. And we say there is no pain. I haven’t seen any scars. Unless I see them, they’re not there. They don’t exist.

I can drive through town and not get shot dead, so it didn’t happen. Renee Good, Alex Pretti must have been doing something wrong. Because I don’t want to go in there where I think that people are shot dead in the streets. I don’t want to go that route. Might be scars in there. Heck fire. I might get some scars. Oh, no. You know, church has always been about experiential, where we’re all about the experience and the belief and the overwhelming and the feelings and all that. That’s great. But, you know, the church never stopped there. The church has always been experience plus.

You know, like Alexa+. You get the extra AI on your little talking thing? Oh, my god, it’s just annoying. And then, or Amazon+ or whatever plus. Where religions, where experience plus. And that plus is testimony. Which is a limited subset of what a plus really is. Testimony to people talking about their experience, what they believe, where they’ve been, how they’re doing. Sure, that’s a plus. But the real plus includes the testimony, but it’s actually something called empathy. Empathy. Where we feel the other people. Where we’ve gone into that locked room and found out what other people do to those that preach peace and love and acceptance of others.

Thomas almost got it. I don’t know, maybe he did. But Thomas seems to think that the scars and the holes and the wounds are some kind of ID, you know, like a passport or the CLEAR ID or some kind of TSA program where you have to have biometrics in order to figure out who Jesus is. But that’s not what Jesus showed him, I think. I think what Jesus was saying goes, yeah, you’re not hurt. Yeah, you don’t have scars. Yeah, they didn’t crucify you. But they do it to other people. And you should recognize that. You should feel that. You should know, feel, be empathetic with those that are suffering and are full of scars.

Not to say that Jesus exists, but to say that suffering exists. Other people exist. Other people matter. Oh, my gosh, you’re saying that’s so close to black lives matter. Other people matter. Not just what I feel and think and experience and know. ICE isn’t coming to Carson City. We’re fine. Been told that. Really? We’re all out there with Thomas. There’s places I don’t want to go. Oh, my gosh. I can’t think of any. One thing I think about right now is telling my daughter how to parent. Oh, man. Don’t want to go in there. That’s awful. That’s a dangerous place. But, you know, I know about her pain and her suffering. I see it. Trying to navigate a 10-year-old that, not really, that she suddenly got. Not from her significant others.

I remember talking to a really gifted and competent church leader. And I asked him why he hadn’t been moderator in a presbytery, you know, a leader in the church. I forgot he was gay. At that time, gay people couldn’t have leadership in the church. I was kind of embarrassed. I was running around in my white cis male privilege everywhere, unaware of who was hiding in locked closets, looking at each other’s scars, telling tales of oppression and heartache that I just skip on by.

Thomas, you know, something, you know, he started out kind of denying and doubting, and we kind of make a little fun of him. But you know what? That guy went into the locked door. He went into the locked room. He risked his bias, he risked his belief, he risked that everything’s okay, and I’ve just got to live my good life and think good things will happen. He risked all that and went into that locked room because he believed the testimony of others. He did not just research, but a real search. He went to find the people that were hurting and were telling him things he didn’t believe and went where they were and checked it out and experienced it and found some scars.

So when people say, well, I’ve done your research, I’ve done my research, how about doing a real search? How about talking to some real people? I bet you whatever research you did you didn’t talk to one single real person that was affected by whatever you’re talking about. How about doing that? Next time someone says they’ve done their research or you do your research. Harder to do.

Just did a schedule for – I’m in the 12-Step group, and I did a schedule for our region, and I noticed how over the last five years we’ve pretty much moved to Zoom. I’m how thinking how much we lost that, you know, the time before, the time after. I think those are the times that we show each other our scars and our wounds. And we can touch them and say, yeah, you really got hurt. It’s real.

Apple TV series “Shrinking,” love it. It’s almost worth buying. You can get like a month free or something, you can just do them all, three seasons. It’s about some psychiatrists and counselors working away. The finale was there, I’m not going to spoil it all, but there was one. Harrison Ford’s in it. Harrison Ford’s fans, okay, cool, he’s very much so. So Harrison’s in there, and he’s the lead psychologist. And he’s talking to Jimmy, the other main character.

And Jimmy’s had some rough times through the series, really rough times with his wife dying, his father issues, his daughter, all sorts of relations. And Harrison Ford as Paul comes and tells him, meets him where he’s at and says, “I know you’ve got a lot of scars. I know you’ve got a lot of scars.” And Jimmy says, “Paul, I’m covered with scars.” And Paul says, “How horrible it would be for a 41-year-old man not to be covered with scars,” because that means you’ve been with people, that means you’ve reached out and you’ve loved people. That means you’ve been in relationships. He didn’t say all that. I’m putting that in.

And he had arranged that the relationship he was scared to continue was sitting right over there. And he says, “Your breakfast isn’t with me.” Okay. It’s a spoiler. “Your breakfast isn’t with me. It’s with her.” And he says, “Go make some more scars.”

Gee, Christy, that was really good. But it was kind of a downer. I mean, really, we usually have some ‘90s romcom, you know, to bring us a little up, you know. Well, guess what? Warning. The word “gay” is seen a lot in this clip. So much gay. So buckle up.

This would be a room without doubt. Be gay.

Clip from In & Out 
© 1997 Paramount Pictures Corporation

Locked Room

Mission In Advance

Mission in Advance

Mission in Advance

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey & ChatGPT

From worship via Zoom for Lee Vining Presbyterian Church March 22, 2026

written with the help of ChatGPT

Luke 13:31-35

 Should Jesus Be More Careful? You know, sometimes I wonder if Jesus would last very long in a modern pulpit. I mean, really, what would happen if a pastor stood up on a Sunday morning and said something like, “Go tell that fox Herod…”? What would the emails look like on Monday morning? Would Jesus be accused of being too political? Would he be asked to “stick to the gospel” and leave the government out of it? Would he be told, “We come to church to feel uplifted, not to be reminded of what’s wrong with the world”? And yet here he is, in full view of his listeners, calling out a political leader, not behind closed doors, not with vague innuendo, but with metaphor and clarity: “Go and tell that fox…”

Jesue doesn’t flatter Herod. He doesn’t fear him. He names him. And in doing so, Jesus reminds us that the gospel is not an escape from public life, it’s a commitment to its transformation.

In Greek culture, the worst thing you could be called wasn’t a fool or a coward, it was an idiotes.That’s where we get our word idiot. But it didn’t mean unintelligent. It meant private, a person who withdrew from the concerns of the city, someone who refused to take part in the common good.

A user on Reddit, athstas, which is a modern day community helping others says:

During the Athenian Democracy, there were two major factions in the city, the democratic faction and the aristocratic faction. The aristocratic faction wanted to restore the previous aristocratic system of government so wanted to discourage participation of poor Athenians in the assemblies. The democratic faction wanted to encourage all citizens to take part in the government of the city. So the members of the democratic faction despised those citizens who only cared about their private (idiotic) affairs, and not about the public affairs. They considered those people stupid and dangerous for the democratic system of government because they were willingly giving up their political rights. So they word idiot (private citizen) took a bad meaning and through the Romans it spread to all of Europe.

But in modern Greek we use the word idiot with its original meaning, ie private An idiotes thought only of themselves, not the community.

So when Jesus speaks out, when he names Herod and keeps moving toward Jerusalem, he is not being rude, he is being faithful. He refuses to be an “idiot”, someone who checks out of public responsibility. Instead, he lives out the mission of the kingdom of God, a kingdom that reaches into every corner of human life: the sickbed, the street, the heart, and yes, the palace.

“Fear, Flattery… or Focus?”

When Jesus hears that Herod wants him dead, he doesn’t respond with fear, though who could blame him if he did? He doesn’t cave to flattery either, trying to win favor, smooth things over, or stay in the palace’s good graces.

Jesus chooses a third path. Let’s call it focus. Focus on the mission. Focus on the calling. Focus on the work of healing, freeing, gathering, and loving. “Tell that fox I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow…” In other words: I’m doing exactly what I came to do, and I’m not stopping now.

We live in a time where the threats may look different, but the temptation is the same. When power acts unjustly, when truth is twisted, when the vulnerable are mocked or scapegoated, we may be tempted to do one of two things: We might give up, turn inward, numb ourselves, walk away. Or we might give in, go along to get along, say nothing, let fear or comfort rule.

But what if we chose something better? What if, like Jesus, we chose to give them heaven? Not as a threat. Not as a weapon. But as a promise. Give the world a taste of the reign of God where mercy is stronger than cruelty, where truth is braver than silence, where hope walks forward, even toward Jerusalem. We don’t fight fire with fire. We don’t meet foxes with fang and claw. We meet them with focus, and faith, and the fierce love of Christ.

There’s a scene in the film Gandhi that speaks directly into this gospel moment.

It takes place not in Jerusalem but in India, under the shadow of colonial rule. Gandhi is walking with a Christian minister down a street, where danger is thick in the air. The minister begs him to turn back. “This is madness,” he says.

But Gandhi, calm and clear, keeps walking. He replies: “I’m not so helpless as you think. I have friends and the whole world is watching.” And then, quietly, bravely, he walks forward.

That moment mirrors Jesus in Luke 13. He, too, receives a warning: “Get away! Herod wants to kill you!” But Jesus doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t flee. He says: “Go tell that fox I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow… and on the third day I finish my work.”

He chooses neither fear nor flattery. He chooses focus. Focus on the mission. On the healing. On the truth. On the love that drives him forward.

This is not just a model for courage; it’s a model for discipleship. Because Herods are still with us. In every generation, there are those who use fear to cling to power, in government, in business, even in faith communities. You don’t have to name names for people to know who you’re talking about.

And when fear starts to rise in us, when the threats grow louder or the pressure to flatter becomes stronger, our instincts may urge us to either give up(fear) or give in(flattery). But the gospel gives us another way.

The gospel does not teach us to cower. It teaches us to walk forward. To stay focused. To give the world not what it demands, but what it needs. Not more outrage. Not more retreat. But heaven. The reign of God, step by step.

Even the urgent advice of well-meaning people, “Run away, Jesus! Herod wants to kill you!”, is gently turned on its head. Jesus doesn’t run from danger. He runs toward the heart of it. Toward Jerusalem, the very place where Herod holds power.

But Jesus doesn’t go to fight. He goes to love. He goes because the mission compels him. Because the people, even the ones unwilling to receive him, are still his to bless. Like a mother hen gathering her chicks, he longs to draw them in, even if they scatter. This is not recklessness. This is divine compassion with a spine.

So we walk, too, not away from the world’s brokenness, but toward it. With open hands. With brave hearts. With heaven in our stride. For there is Room for all of us.

Let us not give up or give in. Let us give them heaven. Let us move with focus, with love, and with the fierce tenderness of the Christ who still walks toward every Jerusalem, longing to gather us all in.

Lee Vining Presbyterian Zoom Worship March 22, 2026

DOWNLOAD PDF VERSION

Welcome

Helpers to read 1) responses in Call to Worship, 2) Prayer of Confession

Call to Worship 

Christy and an unmuted person on Zoom will alternate reading.

Christy: The Lord is our light and our salvation; whom shall we fear?
Person: The Lord is the stronghold of our lives; of whom shall we be afraid?
 

Christy: Christ calls us forward, even when the path leads through risk and sorrow.
Person: We will follow, not in fear, but in faith.  

Christy: Come, People of God—gather beneath the wings of mercy.
Person: We come to worship the One who goes before us in love.

 SONG  O Lord Hear My Prayer

Prayer of Confession:

Person – Merciful God, We confess that we often obey in fear rather than walk in faith. We let threats turn us inward, and we let worry silence your calling. We flee from risk instead of moving toward your mission of justice and peace. Forgive us for the ways we resist your grace. Gather us again under your wings, and teach us to mission in advance—to heal, to speak, to follow—even when the path is hard. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon:

Hear the good news: God does not abandon us to fear, nor condemn us for faltering. Christ gathers us in love, forgives us in mercy, and sets us again on the path of peace. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Sharing Joys and Concerns with Prayer
and The Lord’s Prayer (together while on mute)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Offering – Doxology  For phone giving, use the QR code.

or go to https://77da2f07.churchtrac.com/give

A Reading From The Greek Scriptures:  Luke 13:31-35

³¹At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” ³²He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. ³³Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ ³⁴Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁵See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Message: Mission in Advance

Give them Heaven There is Room for All of Us

SONG  Here I Am

Charge

Go out into the world with love for the mission of God.

Do not be ruled by fear, but be led by faith.

Speak the truth, offer healing, seek justice—

and walk toward God’s vision, even when the path leads through challenge.

For Christ goes before you, and the Spirit goes with you.

Benediction

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you now and always. Amen.

 

- Liturgy made with ChatGPT

Service Orginally planned for March 2025

Christmas 2025

Carey Christmas and Happy Neat YearClick for PDF

May your life be full of the care of others and your 2026 be neat—without ICE.

We are grateful for diverse gifts, undeserved grace, and open hearts of all people. 

Photos in our PDF of our Christmas Letter.

God Moves Into the Neighborhood

God Moves Into the Neighborhood

God Moves Into
the Neighborhood

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service December 28, 2025
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 1:1-18

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

When Bette Lynn and I moved, I don’t want anyone to think that we’re breaking up or anything, people go crazy when I talk like this. When Betty Lynn and I moved over to our house at Hanson Drive, across the street was a forlorn vacant sad house. We were 2600; they were 2601. But what a difference. It was vacant. There were some very stubborn tufts of grass among the dirt in the front yard. There were actual tumbleweeds on the porch. There was an eviction notice in Times New Roman font, so you know it’s official, on the door, telling everyone get out, no one belongs here. And of course it was dark all the time. Dark through the nights, dark at Halloween, dark at Christmas, dark for long, empty, vacant, sad.

I saw it every time I left the house and every time I came back. And I saw it through our kitchen window. It was like centered, front and centered. And I confess that it did bother God. And I said, “God, could you do something about that? Could a nice family move in?” It’s so sad to see the house just falling apart, dark, abandoned. It’s not good for the neighborhood, either. And it’s certainly not good for my soul.

Well, watch what you pray for. But boy, did they move in. Oh, my gosh. The landscaping. The new roof. The painted garage door. The lights for Halloween? Oh, my gosh, you were so scared to come home. And then Christmas, there were airplanes that go, oh, no, that wasn’t the airport, and they move on. So many lights. And they were so active. I can’t count the number of cars, four, five cars coming out, going in, going around. There was even – every weekend there’s a table saw in the driveway, he’s doing some project. You know, activity everywhere. And every weekend and holiday an RV the size of a Supreme Court Justice Land Cruiser shows up in front of the house, blocking everything. And I said, okay, God, you can dial it back a bit.

And they would call me at night about 11:00 o’clock, being good neighbors; you know? And they would say, “Hi, Christy. This is your neighbor across the street. Did you know your garage door was open?” I’d go, “No, I didn’t. Thank you very much.” It got so when it rang I picked it up, I said, “Is my garage door open?” They go, “Yes, you did it again.” Okay. Thank you.

Eugene Peterson has a paraphrase with John 1. In the 14th verse, where it says in a reading that God came and dwelled among us, he says: “God moved into the neighborhood.” How different that is. God moved into our neighborhood. Because this, John 1, is the Christmas story in the Gospel of John. It talks about God coming to Earth.

Now, in Matthew and Luke, we have shepherds and kings that come to see the Baby Jesus. Say come, come, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that we have been told. Let us go and follow the star and go see it is God. But in John we don’t go to God. God comes to us. And that is the message to take. We don’t go to God. God comes to us. It is the most epic, the most momentous, the most beautiful border crossing you’ve ever seen. The greatest wall hopped over. The wall between Heaven and Earth.

Imagine, if you will, like Philippians, where the Philippians too, where the great Christ hymns talked about how God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be taken to seize, to grab, to say that is mine, mine, mine, but instead throughout all the stuff of his heavenly home, all the privileges, all the power, all the glory, threw it all away and came, jumped the border wall, and came to be an immigrant among us.

And not just an immigrant king. There are no kings. But a servant, a doulos in Greek, which is slave. An immigrant that gave up everything in their homeland, all their status, their friends, their money, their heritage, their language, and came to live among us to serve us, to get to know us, that came and stayed, even though he was rejected, even though he was thought a stranger, know that Jesus, he hangs out with those lepers. You know, they’re probably vaccined. He hangs out with loose women. They’re probably piggies. But Jesus hangs out with them. He gave them, gave it all up.

He gave up his home country to come and to live, to move into our neighborhood, to be with us as a servant. And we treated him horribly. But still he was here to stay. That story of John is that God came, and God stayed. Not to conquer. Not to take over. Not to be at something sightseeing, oh, well, there’s no politics today. We can go to church. As long as there’s nothing important to talk about, we can go see Jesus, and then we can leave. And leave everything behind. No God came to live with us across the street. And that humongous Land Cruiser comes in, and there’s no missing that he’s here.

God. With us. Emanuel. That pesky immigrant that tells us to live a different way. That challenges our assumptions. That is there wherever, when we go out of the house or come in the house, when we look out the window, God is there. He moved in. God is with us. Maybe now and then we get out away. We get a little call that said, “Christy?” “Yeah?” “You forgot to open your heart.” “Oh, sorry. I’ll get that done.” “Christy? Christy? You’re closed up. You’re not welcoming. You’re not loving.” “Well, thanks. Thanks for reminding me. I’m so glad you’re in the neighborhood. Who knows where I would be if that place was still vacant, and tumbleweeds were blowing through where care and concern shine out now.”

A Presbyterian minister – I always like to drop that – Mr. Rogers says – have you noticed he says “Will you be my neighbor?” He doesn’t say will you be my friend, will you be my brother, will you be my sister, will you be my companion. He says “neighbor.” And a neighbor is not a friend. Friend is someone that you’re on the same journey with. You’ve got something in common. You’re moving toward a certain place, and sometimes, you know, it could be college, it could children, it could be church, whatever. And as long as you’re on that same journey, you’re with a friend, and you go do things together. But that’s a whole ‘nother sermon. We’re almost there. Let’s quit doing that.

But neighbor is someone that’s with you. That’s near you. That’s come to be with you, to abide with you. And you may not like them. You may not have anything in common with them. But you’re going to get along with them because they’re your neighbor. At tech camp we have a lot of kids that come, and I tell them that they’re neighbors now this week. They may be friends, and that’s great. They may make a friend. Every now and then that happens. Sometimes they hang out together. That’s fine.

But I said, you know, that’s not an expectation. Expectation you’re a neighbor. You’re a neighbor, and you put up with one another. You help one another. You watch out for one another. You certainly don’t hurt one another. And you are all in this together for each other’s success and to have a good tech camp. You’re neighbors. Someone needs something, you lend it to them. Someone needs help, you give it to them. Someone needs encouragement, you give it to them. Because we’re all in this room together. We’re neighbors. Won’t you be my neighbors.

What would this radical hospitality, this neighborliness, this acceptance as Joan Osborne said of one of us, she goes, what if God was just one of us? What if God was just a slob like one of us? What if God was just someone on the bus? A neighbor that came to town with strange ways, and different ways. But we’re all in this together. We’re all going to get through this together. We’re all going to help each other. We’re all going to make sure we’re not going to run away. Christianity is not something you go and see. Christianity is not something you put in your back pocket and bring out when there’s nothing important going on. Oh, my gosh, that’s important. That’s politics. Shut up about religion.

When did that start? Religion used to be important. Faith used to be important. People used to say things about how we should live as a people, as a country, treating one another. And people, oh, you, now you’re talking politics. No, I’m talking my faith, and don’t you dare put your politics above my faith. Don’t you dare tell me that because of this vote or that election, that I cannot follow my faith. My faith says that God came to the neighborhood. God immigrated here. And God lives among us. And I’m not kicking him out because he’s different. Because he teaches love and care and compassion instead of profit and self-interest. Don’t tell me that’s politics. That’s faith. That’s mine. It was given to me by Jesus Christ at tremendous cost. And I’m not throwing that away.

God is one of us. God is here to stay. We’re not kicking God out. We’re not deporting God. God gave up everything to be here. God traveled the furthest of the furthest ways to immigrate to human kind land. And we struggle. But it’s too good if we welcome, we pick up that phone when they call and say, “You’re not really living up to what you’re supposed to be doing, Christy. You’ve really got to do better.” Thank you, neighbor. Thanks for watching out for me.

And when other people come and say, those people aren’t your neighbors, those people aren’t one, how can we do that? How can we divide up when we are the benefit of the greatest leap over the border that has ever happened in the history of the universe of God becoming one of us? How can we say somebody is not good enough to be one of us? God has become one of us. What are we talking about when we talk about, oh, you’re different. Oh, you’re strange. Oh, you’re not here. Oh, you’re not supposed to be here. God’s not supposed to be here. Yet God came. God with us. Ramana Maharshi asks the question: “How do we treat others?” And he answers the question: “There are no others.”

Amen.

 

Clip from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995),

 dir. Beeban Kidron. © Universal Pictures.