Note: On Sunday, May 27th, I preached my last sermon as Interim Senior Minister at Bethany Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. What follows is the text of that sermon.

I have given this sermon the title of “A New Beginning” because that is what we face today. This will be my last sermon here at Bethany, next week another will stand here and I will be standing in a new place so for both of us it will be a new beginning.

Change can be difficult, and change can be a little frightening. Change brings all sort of new adventures into our lives and sometimes, to make room for those new things, we have to get rid of some of the old. Although change can be challenging it is not bad, and we will survive if we allow God to lead the way.

In September of 2014, I had a parting of the ways with my previous church and found myself a wanderer in search of a new spiritual home. The last 12 years of my ministry had been filled with many, many joys and some sorrows. I had the privilege of baptizing babies, marrying couples madly in love with each other, and saying goodbye to many, many friends as I presided at their funerals.

My ministry allowed me to bring a group of college students to an orphanage in Guatemala where I witnessed their lives, and the lives of the children there changed forever. My ministry brought me to the flooded streets of New Orleans where I prayed with those dying in an airplane hangar at the Louis Armstrong Airport. My ministry brought me to Blacksburg Virginia and the campus of Virginia Tech after shots rang out and changed the once peaceful school into a shooting gallery that took 32 lives and altered that small town forever. My ministry took me to the White House where I was able to meet with representatives of the President’s Faith-Based Initiative and tell them about the work we were doing in Southbridge and that same weekend, my ministry also took me to Newtown, Connecticut where another gunman walked into another school and took the lives of 28, 20 of them children just going to school.

But, as with most things in life, change comes and a new beginning. I returned to my hometown of Quincy and knocked on the door of the church that I had looked at our the windows of the high school.  The church where in 1982, I was part of the Bethany Players production of “Here We Go Again.” Little did I know that church would one day be a place of spiritual sanctuary when my soul needed it the most.

October of 2014 found me knocking on the door and thankfully that door was answered with open arms and an outcast was welcomed in. I mentioned this last week, and it bears mentioning again this week. We are fond of saying that Jesus found rest and refreshment in Bethany and we hope you find that rest and refreshment here. Bethany was where Jesus’ friend Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha lived. Bethany was the place that Jesus often retreated to after a difficult time of ministry. Bethany was the place where Jesus performed one of his greatest miracles, raising Lazarus from the dead.

This place we call Bethany has a long history of being the place of rest for many. 1982 saw the 150th anniversary of Bethany, and in the program book for that celebration, there is a short history of the church. In the opening paragraphs of that history we are reminded of the fact that is 1842, “when it was not only unpopular but almost dangerous to do so, the church rented the meeting house for lectures on the abolition of slavery.” Bethany was also one of the first churches in Massachusetts to say that if you owned slaves, you could not be a member of the church. There is also a legend that Bethany was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The history also reflects on the Massachusetts Conference meeting held here at Bethany in 1954, when the first black person was elected moderator of the Massachusetts Conference. For generations, Bethany has truly been that place of sanctuary, rest, and refreshment.

But in October of 2014 Bethany opened its doors to another outcast, me, and welcomed me in mostly with open arms. For me, Bethany was a place where I could heal the wounds of the past, wounds that were deep and painful, wounds of a past that had not closed and was not finished. Like so many others before me, this place gave me space to “work it out” and to heal and to grow. You called this outcast to be your Associate Minister at a time when I was not sure I still had a call to be a minister, at a time when I needed to be ministered to. But you took a chance on an outcast, an unknown, a broken soul and called me to minister with you. And when our beloved pastor of 22 years announced his retirement, you called me to step into those rather large shoes and be your minister, your teacher, and your pastor. This place celebrated my marriage and wrapped me, and my wife, in arms of love when my mother died last February. I have had the privilege of ministering to you and being minister to by all of you these past almost four years, and although it has not always been easy, I will count this time as some of the best moments of my life.

Believe it or not, you have made me a better person; you have made me a better minister. You have restored my faith not only in the church but in people. You have taught me how to trust and to love again, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

After the death of Jesus, as the apostles and others were gathered in the upper room, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty. What was going to happen was on their minds and then Jesus came in the midst and said, “peace be with you,” and the felt at rest. He told them that he would not abandon them and he was sending another that would help them, the Holy Spirit. He said to them that the Holy Spirit would guide them and bring them comfort and so I remind you today that that same Holy Spirit is with us and will bring you guidance and hope in an uncertain time. I do not know, none of us know what the future will hold for this place but I know, I am confident, that if we trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and we let God guide us, God will not abandon us and will bring us through.

Although I tried, there really are no words that can adequately express the feelings that I have as my ministry with you comes to a close so I will simply say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and God bless you and keep you now and always. Amen.

Yesterday some 23 million Americans rose early to witness the wedding of Prince Harry of Great Briton and Megan Markle of the United States. Those 23 million Americans were joined by a worldwide audience that thought they were tuning in to watch a young couple in love exchange their vows and begin their married life together. But what they got was a stirring sermon about love from an American bishop.

It has to be mentioned that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Michael Bruce Curry, is the descendant of slaves and sharecroppers from North Carolina and Alabama. It should be noted that this “son of slaves” although born in Chicago and educated at Yale, returned to North Carolina as the Episcopal Bishop in 2000. This “son of slaves” was elected as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States in 2015 on the first ballot. And this “son of slaves” was asked by a young couple to preach at their wedding, at St George Chapel in Windsor England.

Now it should also be noted that in 2016 the Episcopal Church of the United States was sanctioned by the world Anglican Communion for its stand on inclusivity. You see the Episcopal Church, as our United Church of Christ, does not believe anyone has the right to tell anyone else who they can and cannot fall in love with. But the world Anglican bishops gathered in London and kicked the Episcopal Church, and its almost 2 million members, out of the club for being inclusive. And on Saturday, the Presiding Bishop of that church, the “son of slaves” stood at not only the heart of the British political system but at the center of the British religious system. I tell you all of this because for Bishop Michael Curry it is all about love.

Bishop Curry began his sermon with a quote from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King:

“We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love, and when we do that we will make of this old world a new world. For love is the only way.”

As Bishop Curry began to speak the internet exploded with Tweets and quotes of “amen” and “preach.” Now, Bishop Curry did not say anything that many of my fellow preachers and I have not been saying. If you have listened to me preach these last three years, or so you know that for me the central theme of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is the love of God and love of neighbor. You know that I believe, as Jesus did that everything is central to this concept of radical love, radical welcome, and radical inclusion. But what many other Tweeting preachers and I were the happiest about, is that Bishop Curry preached a message of love so radically different from that of many Evangelical preachers in the United States today. In one very short sermon, and I am not sure if this was his intention, Bishop curry snatched back Christianity from fringes, on both sides of the theological, political, and ideological spectrum and told the world that enough is enough and that “love is the only way.”

About the halfway mark in his sermon, Bishop Curry reminded those listening that love has power:

“Love is not selfish and self-centered. Love can be sacrificial. And in so doing, becomes redemptive, and that way of unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love, changes lives. And it can change this world. If you don’t believe me, just stop and think or imagine. Think and imagine, well, think and imagine a world where love is the way. Imagine our homes and families when love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce when love is the way. Imagine this tired old world when love is the way, unselfish, sacrificial redemptive. When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields down, down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way, there’s plenty good room, plenty good room, for all of God’s children. Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other, well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all and we are brothers and sisters, children of God.”

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Fifty days ago we celebrated the fact that Jesus Christ overcame death and set us on a new path, not a new way of righteous indignation but a path of love, radical love. Jesus was not hung on that cross because he was a timid preacher who was afraid to say anything about the way the world was going, no, Jesus Christ was killed because he stood in the face of everything that was wrong and he told them no and show a new way forward.

Some call Pentecost the birthday of the Church and well, I think that is wrong. The Church was not born in that Upper Room on that day when Holy Spirit came rushing in like a wild wind; no, the Church was reformed on that day. No longer was it to be a church of exclusion, but it was to be a church of inclusion a place where it did not matter how much money you had or how your clothes looked. A church where it did not matter where you came from, where you were going, or what job you had. A church where it did not matter whether you were a saint or a sinner all were welcome. A church that says “No matter who you are, No matter where you are on life’s journey, You are welcome here.”

One of the first commentaries I read yesterday afternoon regarding the Sermon by Bishop Curry mentioned how stoic the British people, especially the Royals are. The article went on to speak about the younger generation of Royals, the likes of William and Kate and now Harry and Megan and how they are breathing new life into an old institution. As Bishop Curry preached, and the camera panned around the Chapel, there were a lot of dower faces in that room, but there were also some smiles. The conclusion of the review and it seems funny to read a review of a sermon, but the conclusion was that Bishop Curry brought a breath of fresh air into an otherwise stale system. In other words, he brought a Pentecost into the room.

The message of Jesus Christ was that the only way we had to transform the world was through this idea of radical love. Bishop Curry ended his sermon by saying that we need to discover love. We need to rediscover the redemptive power of love, that same redemptive power of love that was shown when Jesus Christ willing went to the cross. The cross is a symbol of inclusion and the redemptive power of love and not a symbol of exclusion and hate that so many have turned it into. Jesus believed, Dr. King believed, Bishop Curry believes, and I believe that the only way we have of ever beginning the process of healing and transformation of the world is to discover that redemptive power of love.

Jesus told his Apostles that he was leaving them with a new commandment and that new commandment was to love one another. Let us pledge on this day, this day of rebirth and regeneration, that we will go from this place to simply love each other.

If you did not watch the sermon at the Royal Wedding you need to watch it. Bishop Curry brought the REAL message about the love of Jesus Christ.

I am continuously amazed at how we can take something so simple and make it monumentally difficult and confusing and the writer of the Scripture passage we heard this morning is no different.  The Gospel of John lays out the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. Of all the Gospel writers this is John’s singular focus and is why this Gospel is often referred to as the Spiritual Gospel. For John, the incarnation of God in Jesus happens throughout his entire life from his birth, to his miracles, to his ministry, and even his death and resurrection.  For John, and therefore for us, we cannot separate these realities, and we need to continually remember that Jesus was both human and divine.

Jesus starts us off by telling us that his father, God, has loved him and therefore he loves those who were listening and by extension us as followers of Jesus.  He says that we are to abide in his love as he has abided in God’s love. What does it mean to abide in something?

We are told that we have to abide by the rules and regulations of the various organizations and societies we belong too. So we follow, we obey, we conform to these rules and regulations, and by doing so, we keep the order of the organization or group. But to abide in God’s love goes a little deeper than that. Yes, we follow, obey, and conform to God’s love but we also dwell in God’s love, we hang around, we sit with it, it becomes a part of us. We do not conform God’s love to fit us; we conform ourselves to God’s love. It is a deep sense of feeling that only comes over time.

Jesus then goes on to tell us how we will abide in his, Jesus’ love, and consequently God’s love; we do this by keeping his, Jesus’ commandments just as Jesus has kept God’s commandments.  Now, just so there is no confusion Jesus tells us what his commandment is, also keep in mind that due to our Trinitarian theology, Jesus is God, Jesus commandment is to “love one another as I have loved you.” There it is, it is written right there, my commandment = “love one another as I have loved you.”

Many people struggle with this concept of loving as Jesus has loved us.  You have heard me say before, and I will continue to say, that the love Jesus is speaking of is unconditional love and I come to this understanding by reading John 3:16, we all know it, God loves the world, notice the passage does not say the Christian world, those who believe in him world, the Middle Eastern World, the passage simply says God loved the world, the whole world. Because he loved the world and desired that all be reconciled to him, he sent Jesus, not to judge, but to show us the way. This is a difficult concept and hard to understand.

This love concept of Jesus is all about inclusion but we have taken this to mean we can exclude some folks, we can judge them no longer worthy of God’s love, and we can cast them out. It has become fashionable for some to believe they have the authority to decide who gets God’s love and who does not and for those folks I simply will say, you need to read and understand this passage we heard this very morning and if you desire to abide in God’s love then you need to obey his commandments and that is, “to love one another as I have loved you.” Without conditions.

I will admit that it is difficult to love those we have judged not worthy of our love. It is even more difficult to love those who do not love us back or who are our “enemies,” but the bottom line is we have no other choice if we hope to abide in God’s love. The very act of thinking we are doing God’s will by casting people out of God’s love as in fact cast us out, although I believe that God continues to love us no matter what we do. We have placed such a narrow definition of who deserves God’s love and who does not want that often we exclude ourselves.

Back in the 1970’s Coca-Cola introduced a commercial around the season of Christmas. The commercial began with a shot of a single candle burning against a dark background. The shot fades to a woman who begins to sing about buying the world a home and furnishing it with love. As the song continues the focus shifts to different people of different races, an Asian woman a black man. The shot widens, and we get a glimpse of a chorus of people, of all races and nationalities all sitting and singing together about bringing love into the world. The song goes on to say that all of these folks would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Harmony requires different parts to make it work. If everyone sang the same note, we would all sound the same, but if we sing different, complementary notes, a beautiful melody will be born. The idea is we celebrate the diversity because when brought together we produce something beautiful.  Oh, and we have to buy a coke as well. In other words, we love everyone.

Jesus then goes on to say that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend. Now, this has been interpreted in many different ways over the years, but I would like us to focus on the spiritual aspects for just a moment.

Right after Jesus says that the most excellent show of love to lay down one’s life for a friend, Jesus says, “You are my friends,” and we all know that Jesus lays down his life for us. But he says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” And what is that?  Se previous verse, “love one another.” So if we love one another, we are Jesus’ friends, and it is us that he is laying down his life for. But, it goes deeper than that.

If we follow the example of Jesus, and that is the entire point of the Gospel, then we have to lay down our lives as well for a friend, now, keeping this on the spiritual plane, we are to lay down our lives for Jesus. We are to die to self, to self-desire, to self-interest, to using people as objects to get what we want, we have to die to “looking out for number one” and focus on the greater whole of humanity. We are to take up one’s cross and follow him. We have to die so we can live. We have to die to conform our lives to that of Christ.  Too often today we try and conform Christ’s life to us, but the way is narrow, many are called, but few are chosen.

In the end, Jesus reminds us that we did not choose him he chose us and he has appointed us to go and bear fruit, not for our own glory, but for the glory of God. Nothing Jesus did was for his own glory but always brought glory to God.

And he finishes off with, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” That is it, that is all we have to do, love others unconditionally. That’s the word, and that is the example. Now go, and do.

“I am the vine, and you are the branches.” This is another of the great “I am” statement by Jesus. Last week Jesus told us he was the shepherd and we are his sheep. We discovered that the sheep know the shepherd’s voice and will only go where the shepherd has gone before out of fear of what lies ahead, and we are reminded that we have to place our trust in God all along the journey of our life.

A good preacher and teacher will use illustrations that the people hearing the sermon or lesson will understand. Jesus uses examples for the lives of the people listening to him, and so he uses a lot of illustrations around fishing, sheep herding, and now gardening or vine growing. Growing anything that to produce the maximum yield is difficult in the best of circumstances, and today we get gardening tips from Jesus, the master grower. The soil conditions need to be right, there needs be to the right amount of water, too much and the plant will drown, not enough and the plant will dry up. Conditions need to be perfect.

Jesus uses the illustration of the vine, the vine grower, and the branches of the vine. Jesus is apparently the vine as he says so in the passage.  God is the vine grower and we, of course, are the branches. There is an assumption that the soil is perfect since God is the grower God would have already prepared the ground.

An excellent vine grower knows that the best grapes are produced closest to the central stalk on the vine. The best fruit is produced there because that is where the nutrients are the richest. The further away from the central stem the lesser the yield and taste. With careful pruning, the vines are made to produce the best fruit possible but, if the vine grower prunes too much it will destroy the plant. So caution is always needed.

I am not the best gardener in the world.  I like the idea of gardening and often think of myself as the victory gardener, but that is often not the case. I prepare the soil, select the appropriate plants for my area, stick them in the ground, and hope they produce. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t, but that is farming. But I learned a valuable lesson a few years ago regarding tomato plants; they have to be pruned to produce the best yield. Sure, one can let them grow wild, and they will provide, but for the best return one needs to take the pruning shears to the plant.

Okay, but what does this have to do with our spiritual life?  Jesus was not making a Saturday afternoon gardening show after all, and he was not telling them anything that they did not already know. But, he was using the illustration of the vine to point us in an essential direction regarding our spiritual life.

As we have already established, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. We are commanded in the Gospel to go and make disciples. The gospel command is not to go and create programs or sit and wait for people to come to you. No, the gospel command is to GO! Action, we have to do something. But we cannot make disciples until we are disciples right?

So if Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, and we want to produce the best fruit we have to stay close to the central stem of the vine meaning Jesus. If we desire a fruitful spiritual life then the closer we are to Jesus the better off we will be. So we have to spend time every day, with Jesus. It does not matter how much time we spend as long as that time is quality time and produces fruit. Daily scripture reading, meditation, and prayer are the best ways to make this happen in our daily lives. I get that we are busy but we make space for all sorts of things that we find necessary in our lives, and this is very important.

But today’s gospel also speaks of pruning the vine and throwing those branches into the fire. Now, like many other passages of scripture, this one has been used to point to other and call them the withering vine and saying that they will be cast into the fire.  Well, I guess that is one way of looking at it, but I want us to look at it from a personal perspective keeping in mind that to make disciples we first have to be disciples.

So the pruning Jesus is speaking of is not other people, although that can be part of it, it is all of those things that prevent us from having a fruitful spiritual life, all of those distractions that call us in another direction and pull us further and further away from the central stem of our spiritual life. These are the things that we need to prune out of our lives, and yes, sometimes those things are people.

In last week’s sermon, I spoke of the sheep, us, knowing and understanding the shepherd’s voice. I mentioned that in all of the craziness of the world a sheep could distinguish between their shepherd’s voice and another shepherd’s voice and they know who to follow. But I also mentioned that sometimes, if the sheep is sick, they will stray off and follow another voice that is not their shepherd’s voice. The same is true in this illustration today.

The world is pulling us in many different directions, and there are so many voices all vying for our attention. They give us advice and tell us what we should and should not believe. Those voices want us to exclude others from the vine, or the heard because they are different then we are or think differently then we do. Sometimes those voices make us afraid of the other and draw us away rather than towards, and it is up to us to know the genuine voice over the false voice, and that happens when we stay close to the central stem, Jesus, and pray for guidance.

I have a rather extensive collection of bibles. English language Bibles, Romanian language bibles, Gaelic, Scots, Russian, and I even have one in Sanskrit. I have study bibles with extensive footnotes that help me drill down on a verse, and I have the Good News for Modern Man version for those days when I just want to read. But some of my favorite bibles are the ones with the red letters in them, you know, the red letters are the passage when Jesus speaks, and the editor of that particular version put those verses in red, so they stand out.

Those are the actual words that Jesus spoke, and there are a lot of them, and I tend to gravitate to those words, not the words about the words that Jesus spoke but the actual words. In historical language, this is what is called a primary source, the words right from Jesus. I guess I would consider myself a Red Letter Christian and only focus on what Jesus has said, the essentials of the faith if you will. When I encounter a contradiction in Scripture, and there are many, my default is to head to the red letters and see what Jesus has said about it. Why do I mention all of this? Because in the world of competing voices the red letters are the voice we need to hear, and we need to understand, all of the others need to be pruned off the vine. When we hear something that calls us away from the red letters, prune it off the vine and throw it in the fine.

In the end, if we stay close to Jesus we will produce the most fruitful spiritual life, and we will be fed with love, joy, and peace that we can bring to the whole world and that is the goal.

One of my first jobs after joining the community at Glastonbury Abbey was to work with the guys that cared for the animals at the Abbey. There were not as many animals at that time as there had been and most of them were strays that one person or another had dropped off over the years. Nevertheless, the animals needed caring for. There were some ducks and geese who were very nasty, and there were sheep and one goat. I used to walk the goat on a leash around the Abbey property.

I hated working with the ducks and geese, they always tried to bite me, so I worked mostly with the sheep and the one goat. Sheep are skittish at first if they do not know you but after you have worked with them the warm up to you. Our small flock of sheep was dependent upon us for everything. We did not have a significant pasture for them, and the pen they were in was rather sparse on grass for them to eat so we had to feed them each day, twice a day, rain, shine, snow, sleet, and the rest. I learned a lot working with sheep.

This Sunday is the Sunday we call Good Shepherd Sunday. All of the Scripture readings from the lectionary, including the Gospel passage we heard this morning, have this theme of the Good Shepherd. But, this passage is not always what it seems at first glance.

Show of hands, how many of you work as shepherds? How many of you know someone who works as a shepherd? How many of you have ever really been around sheep for an extended period? As I figured, not many of us have so the imagery of the shepherd and sheep is somewhat lost on us. Perhaps we have an idealized image of rolling fields and puffy white sheep scattered about and the shepherd standing high on a hill watching over them. As pretty as that picture might be it is not reality.

The life of a shepherd was anything but ideal. It was dangerous, risky, and menial. Shepherds were rough around the edges, spending most of their time in the fields rather than in polite society. When Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.” This would have been an affront to the religious elite and educated. The claim he was making had an edge to it. If we were to put this in modern day language, we might hear Jesus say, “I am the good migrant worker.”

But, as Jesus usually does, he takes things a little bit further. In this passage, we hear Jesus speak of the false shepherds, the hired hands that did not care for the sheep but ran away at the first sign of trouble. In this statement, we hear echoes of the Old Testament Prophets who spoke out against the religious leaders who were neglecting their people. This image of the shepherd is meant to remind us that God is chiefly concerned with those at risk, and those who are vulnerable. As I learned, sheep are lost without constant, vigilant care by their shepherd.

So if Jesus is the shepherd, we must be the sheep.  How do you feel about being called sheep?

There is a myth that sheep are stupid this is anything but the truth. It seems this myth of sheep being stupid was started by cattle ranchers.  Cattle are herded from the back. The cowboys, on horseback, ride behind the cows pushing them forward. Other cowboys ride alongside to keep the stragglers in line. Sheep are herded from the front.  You can stand behind sheep and make noise, and all they will do is turn around and run behind you. Sheep will not go anywhere that someone else – their true shepherd- has not already gone. The shepherd is out in front of the sheep showing them that everything will be okay and that there is nothing there that is going to harm them. Cattle, on the other hand, will walk right off a cliff if the cowboy pushed them in that direction, so who is the stupid one?

In her sermon, “The Voice of the Shepherd,” Barbara Brown Taylor says that “Sheep seem to consider their shepherds part of the family, and the relationship grows up between the two is quite exclusive. They develop a language of their own that outsiders are not privy to.”

The shepherd’s voice is critical in the relationship. Jesus says, “I know my own and my own know me.” Not only that but Jesus gives his life for the sheep. The shepherd intentionally becomes the sacrificial lamb. But Jesus makes it clear that he is doing this willingly.

But the message today gives us hope. Sometimes we go astray, just like sheep do. Sheep that are ill might follow the voice of a stranger. Sheep wander off and fall in ravines and get caught in all sorts of things. There are many voices that are trying to get our attention, and many distractions lure us from the right path. But Jesus promises that he will never let us go, and his voice will bring us back. We belong to him. This is the word of assurance to us that in life’s struggles, and they will come, we have to remain faithful. In the choices that we make each day we practice our faith by saying yes to some voices and saying no to others. Jesus is right there, going before us, to lead us.

Jesus seeks out the lost, those in need of rescue, the often forgotten in our society. Those lowly shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, were the first to hear the good news of the birth of the savior. The relationship between the sheep and the shepherd is based on what the shepherd does and not on what the sheep do. It’s all about who the shepherd is rather than who they are. The sheep feel secure just to hear the shepherd’s voice. Our job is to let that voice speak through us as we reach out an encounter the lost and hurting along the way.