Use Your Words - a reflection on John 8

Then they all went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

As I was studying for this sermon, many commentaries brought up the fact that the woman should not have been brought there alone. As one commentary put it "adultery is, after all, a team game." That the woman is brought there alone felt significant. So I tried to read it with that fact in mind and then I started to see echoes of the story God has been telling all along.

Marriage is a metaphor that God uses from the very beginning to describe His relationship with His people, Israel. Adultery is a metaphor that God uses starting in Deuteronomy and continuing throughout the entire Old Testament to describe the way His people will act towards Him. Over and over again we see Israel as the harlot, the prostitute, the adulterous or wayward wife. In Ezekiel, God says "I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery…I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers; they will strip you of your clothes and bring a mob against you, who will stone you..."

The accusations are swirling around Jesus' head and the woman is standing helpless and accused. Jesus writes in the dust of the temple court. The first covenant was written in stone by the hand of God. It established the covenant relationship between God and Israel. These marriage vows that were meant to unite God with His people became a list of do’s and don’ts.

How did we get here? How did our relationship get so broken? When God is talking to Jeremiah about his unfaithful wife Israel, He says "“How bitter it is! How it pierces to the heart!" God loves and longs for His unfaithful bride.

Then Jesus stands up and faces the crowd. When Jesus sees the crowd of accusers, He sees and hears THE accuser: the one who accuses us before God day and night. Later that same day He will say to the crowd, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning." Jesus knows who the real enemy is.

After He says to them "anyone without sin can cast the first stone," He bends down to write a second time. He is beginning a new love letter. A letter that will be written on our minds and hearts. A new covenant that will make the first one obsolete.

When Jesus stands up, He is alone with the woman. Such a powerful and intimate scene.

where are they? has no one condemned you?

no one, sir

then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will promise to make you Mine forever. I will take you as My bride. I will keep My promise and make you Mine. Then you will know the Lord. It shall come about in that day,” says the Lord, “That you will call Me my husband."

God uses language to speak to us in ways that we can understand. He used the imagery of the wayward wife in order to communicate to the nation of Israel in terms that they could relate to. He does not use this imagery to shame, but to communicate His desire for His people. All through the Bible God uses different words to describe His relationship to us:  He is a Bridegroom, a shepherd, a king, a door, a Father running to meet us on the road, a bird, a rock, living water, the bread of life and the Light of the World.

This all reminds me of another story: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Let me read to you just a few pages:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”

If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,“ I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”

“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”

This goes on like this for several more pages until the conclusion:

Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.” And so he did.

Over and over again in the Bible, we see God like the mama bunny telling us how He will meet us at every turn. And like the mama bunny, He desires for us to give up our rebellion and wandering.

So what is our response? Can you see yourself as the woman in the story? Can you stand before the living Christ just as you are? Caught in the act.  Filthy, naked, exposed. In the presence of Jesus our guilt is revealed; we have no defense.

Only the one without sin has the right to cast the first stone. Only Jesus is in the position to condemn. But instead of condemning, He rescues. Instead of accusing, He intercedes on our behalf. He knows we are guilty but He wants us to be free from shame. Brene Brown, in her study of shame and vulnerability says this: “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither...language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.”

Hosea, the prophet who married the harlot, writes these words: “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously" And God responds “I will heal [your] waywardness. I will love [you] lavishly.”

Lessons from Gideon

The text I have been reading for this sermon is Judges 6-8. I have actually been reading and rereading this text over the past 2 years when I felt that God put this story on my heart. It's the story of Gideon; which I think has some familiar parts, but maybe the whole story isn't as well known. It is an epic underdog story that has a lot to teach us today.

so let's pray and then we'll unpack it together

I am not going to read all 3 chapters to you this morning, but I am going to give you an overview of the story. First of all, the book of Judges is a book of a repeating cycle – apostasy, bondage, repentance, deliverance, freedom.

Apostasy means an abandonment of a religious belief. Twice in the book of Judges, it is described as "everyone did what was right in their own eyes." 7 other times, it is described with the phrase: "the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord." The result of this  was bondage or slavery under an enemy nation. In the midst of their suffering, they would remember God and call out to Him, and He would send a Judge to deliver them and then there would be a period of freedom and peace. Which would only last until the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord or everyone did what was right in their own eyes yet again. Gideon is the 5^th judge that God has sent.

And so this is how our story starts: Judges 6:1 "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites." The Midianites were very oppressive, causing the Israelites to leave their homes and hide in mountain caves. They destroyed the Israelites crops, livestock and land. It was a terrifying time. 

When we meet Gideon, he is hiding in a winepress, threshing the grain. Threshing is something you usually do out where the wind can catch the chaff. But because Gideon was so afraid of the Midianites, he is hiding in a hole in the ground. As he is doing this defiant act somewhat cowardly, the angel of the Lord appears to him and says "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” to which Gideon counters with one of the most heartbreaking responses in the Bible. Judges chapter 6 verse 13 “With all due respect, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn’t the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us.”

To which the angel responds: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” And again Gideon counters "With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the youngest in my household.”

The Lord answered, “I will be with you" and Gideon starts to change. He starts to trust. But he needs some proof. He asks for his first sign. He goes and gets some offerings – some meat, some bread and some broth. The angel tells him to put the meat and bread on the stone and pour the broth over it. Then the angel touches the end of his staff to the offering and it goes up in flames and the angel disappears! And Gideon realizes he has been in the presence of God. Terrified, he hears God speak to him: “Peace! Do not be afraid."

Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.

So now, God has a call to action. He tells Gideon to tear down the idols – an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole. Not only tear them down, but then to build on their ruins an altar to God. In Judges 6:26, God says, "build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this stronghold with stones laid in proper order."

Gideon does this at night because he is afraid that his fellow Israelites will not be happy about their idols being removed. And he's right. The next morning, somehow word gets out that Gideon tore down those idols (maybe one of the 10 servants he brought with him blabbed) and people want to murder him for it. Gideon's father defends him and says, if Baal is really a god, he can fight his own battles and so they leave him alone.

Next call to action God tells Gideon to fight the Midianites. This is where the well-known fleece story comes in. Gideon says ok, God if you are really going to save Israel through me, then show me. I am putting a fleece (wool from a sheep) on the ground – make the fleece wet and the ground dry around it and I'll trust you.

The next morning when that happened, Gideon felt a little sheepish (ha!) that the laws of absorption could have caused such a thing to happen and so he apologizes to God and says, can you do it the other way around? so the next morning, the fleece is dry and the ground is wet and Gideon is ready to obey God!

Gideon assembles an army of 32,000 and then God says – that's too many people. I want to show you My power and strength. Tell anyone who is afraid that they can go home. So 22,000 men leave.

Now there are 10,000 and God says, still too many. Take them down to the lake and anyone who laps water like a dog with cupped hands, those are your men. Only 300 men did that.

So now, Gideon and 300 men are going to fight the 135,000 Midianites. God knows that Gideon must be feeling a bit nervous about his odds, so he tells him to go listen to what the Midianites are saying.

In verses 13 & 14 of chapter 7, it says, "Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”

So Gideon and the 300 men surround the camp at night, break jars to reveal torches and yell "for the LORD and for Gideon!" which throws the Midianites into confusion. Then they blow trumpets and when the trumpets sound, the Midianites start fighting each other and the survivors flee.

Gideon sends word ahead to other Israelite tribes to fight the fleeing troops. There is some more fighting and ultimately Gideon is the hero of the day. Then everyone wants to make him their king, but Gideon wants God to be king.

But he asks everyone for their gold earrings and other plunder and melts them down to make an ephod.  So then everyone starts worshipping this golden ephod and it becomes a snare to Gideon and his family. 

Israel has peace/freedom for 40 years while Gideon is alive and then in verses 33&34 of chapter 8: "No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side."

whew. that's a long story. But it is so instructive. For today, I found 5 lessons that we can take away from this story: 

1.  If God wants to use you, it doesn't matter who you are.

Gideon was a nobody. the least of the least. God chose him and that's that. It wasn't about him – it was about God.

2. God will not compete with idols. They have to be destroyed.

Jeremiah 2:5 Eternal One: What happened between us? What could I have done to your ancestors that was so wrong, so unfair?  Why would they pull away from Me to pursue the empty worship of idols that has left them just as empty? Modern day idols are not altars to Baal or Asherah poles, but things other than God that you are worshipping. Anything that is master over you. more on this later.

3. God will persist in His purposes until they are accomplished.

Through Gideon's doubts and tests of God, God remains patient and steady in His purposes. He often uses methods we don't understand and his numbers are way off, but He has a plan.

4. The miraculous way God accomplishes His work should leave no doubt that you did it in your own strength.

God wants us to know that it is His victory, His power, His glory.

5. After God uses you in a mighty way, don't let others praise you.

Gideon says to the Israelites that God should be King, but then he acts sorta like a king. He gets everyone's gold, he has many wives, he sets up a new place of worship in his home town. The temptation to be important proves to be great for Gideon – come see the guy that God used to conquer Midian! feels like the general vibe.So even Gideon, who witnessed the power of God so personally and so powerfully was not immune from wanting the glory for himself. 

As I was preparing for  this sermon, I got an email from Matt Walters, an intern from 2 summers ago. He and his wife Sandy are raising $10,000 for clean water projects in South Sudan. In their support letter, they wrote, " We are constantly being reminded that Jesus is the real God, and money/the fear of having it or not having it, is not." They identified a false god and are actively working to tear it down and work against its power in their life. 

In his book Your God is Too Safe, Mark Buchanan sums up the problem with these idols, or as he calls them "safe gods" "God calls us out of secluded winepresses and into open battlefields. Why ruin the idol of the safe god and risk our good standing in the community? The safe god is actually your worst enemy. He breeds cowardice. He keeps you stuck, complacent, bored, angry, threshing your meager wheat where the wind never blows. The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Now go, tear down the idol of the safe god; this flimsy, gimcrack invention cobbled together from faintheartedness and softheartedness. On its ruins build a real altar to the true God."

Identifying our idols isn't that hard. In Timothy Keller's book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters he gives us some very simple tests: "What do you enjoy day-dreaming about? One or two day dreams do not indicate idolatry. Ask rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?"

"Another way to discern your heart's true love is to look at how you spend your money." 

This next test is for people who have been following God for a long time. Keller asks, "What are you really living for, what is your real—not just your professed—God? A good way to discern this is how you respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes…when you pray and work for something and you don't get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god. Like Jonah, you become angry enough to die."

He goes on to say "A final test is [to] look at your most uncontrollable emotions. Look for your idols at the bottom of painful emotions, especially those that never seem to lift and that drive you to do things you know are wrong."

God will not compete. He wants your whole heart. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all you mind and all your strength. Timothy Keller again, "Why do we ever fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is 'because we are weak and sinful', but the specific answer in any actual circumstance is that there is something you feel you must have to be happy, that is more important to your heart than God himself. "

Exodus 20 God said to the people of Israel: I am the Lord your God, the one who brought you out of slavery. Do not worship any god except me.  Do not make idols that look like anything in the sky or on earth or in the ocean under the earth.  Don’t bow down and worship idols. I am the Lord your God, and I demand all your love.

If you worship idols, you become enslaved. If you worship idols, you become worthless like an idol. If you put anything in the place of God, he will do everything within His means to reclaim first place in your heart. 1 John 2:15-17 (PHILLIPS) encourages us to see “the world” for what it is "Never give your hearts to this world or to any of the things in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. For the whole world-system, based as it is on men’s primitive desires, their greedy ambitions and the glamour of all that they think splendid, is not derived from the Father at all, but from the world itself. The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. But the man who is following God’s will is part of the permanent and cannot die."

The final thing I want to leave you with is these questions to help you identify your idols. find them. tear them down. build proper altars to God in their place.  

Questions to Identify Your Idols
from David Powlison's Seeing With New Eyes
What do I worry about most?
What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
What do I do to cope? 

What are my release valves? 

What do I do to feel better?
What preoccupies me? 

What do I daydream about?
What makes me feel the most self-worth? 

Of what am I the proudest? 

For what do I want to be known?
What do I lead with in conversations?
Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
What do I really want and expect out of life? 

What would really make me happy?
What is my hope for the future?

The Transistive Property of Love

The texts for this week were Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6 and John 15:9-17. Instead of choosing just one of these texts, I read them all and prayed about finding a connection. As I read over them, certain parts of the texts stood out and started weaving together.

From Acts: While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles…

From I John: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God…By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments.

and from John: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

let us pray.

so first of all, in Acts, when the circumcised believers are all shocked that these unclean Gentiles can receive anything from God, this is so us. all of us. We are so sure we know who God loves and doesn't love. who is deserving of God's gifts.

The reason we are so sure is because we want to be the ones who receive God's gifts. We want to be in right standing with God. That where the next text comes in – believe in Jesus and obey God's commandments. ok, but what are God's commandments? 

So now the Gospel reading – Jesus tells us that His commandment is to love one another. Ok! now we know what the requirements are, we can live right. Where do we start?

All of this reminded me of a certain expert in Jewish law. He too wanted to make sure he was the right sort of person. He wanted to justify himself, to declare himself righteous, to defend his position. He too was surprised by the hero of Jesus story.

The story goes like this:

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant (Levite) walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.

The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

This is a weird answer to the question "who is my neighbor?" It seems convoluted and lengthy. The priest and the Levite are supposed to be the good guys in the story but they are not. Then this enemy, this unclean, despised Samaritan comes on the scene. This is the where the dark music comes in – oooh, the bad guy! what's he gonna do to this poor helpless guy lying in the ditch? he has compassion on him. he binds up his wounds. he takes him to a place where he can receive more care and promises to come back and pay his bills.

Jesus is seriously blowing this law expert's mind. But, if we are careful in our reading of God's word, we will see that God has been telling us all along that He ALWAYS uses the "wrong sort" of person: Adam and Eve blew it, Noah got drunk, Abraham lied about his wife and tried to hurry God's promise, Jacob was a deceiver and trickster, Tamar posed as a prostitute, Rahab was a prostitute, Moses was a murderer, Ehud was left-handed, Deborah was a woman Judge, Gideon was the least of the least, Samson was, well, don't even get me started on Samson!, Ruth was a foreigner, David was an adulterer and a murderer and a warmonger, Jonah disobeyed God, then repented and then got seriously angry over a dead plant.

Jesus stories and actions show us the same thing: healing beggars, celebrating the prodigal son, talking to the woman at the well, going to Zacchaeus' house, hanging out with tax-collectors and prostitutes and now this: the "good" Samaritan.

All my life, I have thought of this story as a message to reach out to others who are not like me or to help those in need regardless of their gender, creed or color. And is it that. God does want us to love our neighbor and this story does cast a wide net over who our neighbor might include. But Jesus is a master story teller, and as I read this story over and over, I started to see some other connections.

First of all, the priest and the Levite are not accidental choices for the ones leaving the guy in the ditch. What is Jesus trying to say about that? The priest is a representative of the Law. The Law was what this expert was banking on to guarantee him eternal life. The Levite was one who carried out the duties in the Temple and in that represents service to God. So, neither the Law nor service to God saved this man from his helpless condition.

Then a certain Samaritan came by. Someone who was "despised and rejected" by the Jews – and Jesus says "when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him" This is almost word for word what the Bible says about Jesus in Matthew 9:36 "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless" Then he goes over to him. The man can do nothing but lie there half-dead. The Samaritan pours oil and wine over his cuts and bruises. Oil and wine are used frequently in the Old Testament as examples of how God will provide for His people. Joel 2:19 says The LORD will answer and say to His people, "Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, And you will be satisfied in full with them." Jesus often uses wine to represent His blood.

He bandaged the wounds and put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn. An inn is not a home. People don't live in an inn forever. It is a temporary place of safety, of rest. There is an inn keeper there who will take care of him. The inn keeper is given what he needs to care for the man and a promise to pay back if he spends more. And lastly, the Samaritan promises to come back.

Could Jesus be talking about Himself?  

Tullian Tchividjian, professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, thinks so: "In a rich irony, we move from being identified with the priest and the Levite who never perfectly love our best friends “as ourselves,” much less our enemies, to being identified with the traveler in desperate need of salvation. Jesus intends the parable itself to leave us beaten and bloodied, lying in a ditch, like the man in the story. We are the breathless bruised. We are the needy, unable to do anything to help ourselves. We are the broken people, beaten up by life, robbed of hope.

But then Jesus comes.

Unlike the Priest and Levite, He doesn’t avoid us. He crosses the street—from heaven to earth—comes into our mess, gets his hands dirty. At great cost to himself on the cross, he heals our wounds, covers our nakedness, and loves us with a no-strings-attached love. He brings us to the Father and promises that his 'help' is not simply a one-time gift—rather, it’s a gift that will forever cover 'the charges' we incur."

This view of the Samaritan as Jesus dates all the way back to the 3^rd century. It takes this story from the realm of a moralistic tale to a story of salvation. The original question was “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” and it would uncharacteristic of Jesus and contrary to the gospel for Him to give an answer that reinforces human effort as the way to salvation.      In answering the question "who is my neighbor?” Jesus shows us the condition of our souls.

Romans 5 says, "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Jesus said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Now it's Jesus turn for questions: " Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” The expert in the law can't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan. He answers: “The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus says, "go and do likewise" Show mercy. He is asking us to be his hands and feet here on earth. To find those lying in ditches and bring them hope and healing in His name. But we have to remember that we were once in that ditch ourselves. We were dead in our sins and transgressions, and we have been made alive in Christ. Only when we see our own need for God’s grace and mercy can we reach out to others from a place of mutuality and compassion instead of advantage or privilege.

But we find ourselves like the expert in the law and the circumcised believers trying to figure out if we are doing it right.    Jesus says "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." So there's not a formula per se, but if there were, it would look something like this:

Loving God = Obeying God

Obeying God = Loving one another

In mathematics, there is something called the transitive property of equality which states that if a=b and b=c, then a=c. Using this property, we can conclude that:

Loving God = Loving one another

We can show God how much we love Him by loving those around us. And we can also see how much of God's love we have by noticing how much we love those around us. Frederick Buechner describes this kind of love: "Loving each other doesn't mean loving each other in some sentimental, unrealistic, greeting-card kind of way but the way families love each other even though they may fight tooth and nail and get fed up to the teeth with each other and drive each other crazy, yet all the time know deep down in their hearts that they belong to each other and need each other and can't imagine what life would be without each other--even the ones they often wish had never been born."

Jesus saw our need, had compassion, crossed the road, bandaged our wounds and brought us to safety – go and do likewise.