Serve | Matthew 20:24-34

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

Good morning, South. My name is Erin Young. I’m on staff here at South. I’ve helped lead the food bank for many years, and now I help lead the local outreach team, and it’s technically now my second time on stage ’cause this morning was my first time. Yeah, right? Woo. Thank you. Yeah. This has been super fun, but guys, I’ll be real with you, it’s also super scary.

So here we go. I turned the clicker on. All right. So this is our fourth Sunday in our Love Thy Neighbors s- series, and we started with… Yes. Begin with prayer, listen, eat, and today we’re landing on serve. And spoiler alert, this is not a message about serving more. In fact, I wanna start with honoring our community because South, we already serve so well.

We serve in kids ministry. We serve in students. We serve on Christmas Eve and Easter and Pentecost with the potluck that Alex was talking about. There’s over 140 volunteers in the food bank alone. We serve in our schools, at our workplaces, at other non-profits, in our communities, in our families. We bring meals for new babies.

We bring meals for people who are sick. We bring meals for people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. We show up, and we serve, and it’s beautiful and good, and we are living out this third pathway here at South to be a church that our city and world would miss if we were gone. So rather than more serving, you might be like what are we talking about?”

So my question to us this morning is what happens when we hold our answers loosely and our curiosity tightly like Jesus did as we are serving? And I have to confess that before we get too far in here that I really wrestle with the word serve, right? She’s preaching a sermon on serving, but the word serve makes me cringe.

It’s a word of power. It’s a word that talks about someone serving and then someone receiving service, right? And so when we’re talking about serving, there’s a giver and a receiver. There’s a have and a have-not, someone who’s independent and maybe dependent, a perception that someone is capable and someone is lacking, that someone is a helper, and that someone needs help.

It’s a complicated word. Nadia Bolz-Weber says, “Being the one who gets to serve is a position of power.” I agree with her. No matter how selfless I like to think I am, there’s always something in it for me. That’s brutally honest, which is one of the things I love about Nadia. It takes a lot of courage to say that when we serve- We’re the ones with power.

So what are we supposed to do with that? And then on the other side, the people receiving service, right? It takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to be the one served, to receive service, to be in need of help. And let’s be honest, we don’t always serve well. I’m sure you can think of a time when someone served you, and it wasn’t quite what you wanted or needed.

It missed the mark. Maybe well-intentioned, but missed the mark. A short story from my own life. Seven years and three days ago, our kids were present at the school shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch. Kendrick Castillo gave his life to protect his classmates, and we honor that. And it was a really long day as parents.

The kids were way better than we were because we were waiting to find out if they were okay. And during that time, we got a lot of phone calls, as you can imagine, and two stand out to me. The first was from Jessica Rust. She’s on staff here at South. At the time, she was on staff here at South, and she called to support us from a staff perspective, to pray for us, to send us a meal of pizza for supper, if that would be helpful to us.

And I said, “Yes, that’d be great.” And I remember her asking me what we wanted, and I said, “Jess, I just can’t make any more decisions right now.” And she received that, and she said, “Okay.” And she took care of it, and she sent us this huge, generous, kid-friendly meal. We had three mostly little kids at the time, and it was such a blessing.

Such a blessing. So then there was this second phone call, another friend offering to bring us a meal in the future. Well-intentioned, but it turned into this conversation where she was interrogating me like, “So what’s it like, and what’s going on, and what are the officials doing, and da?”

And it almost turned into this, like she was living vicariously through my trauma. It didn’t feel very good. I didn’t feel served. And it made me wonder how often we think we’re helping when we haven’t slowed down to see or listen in a gracious and compassionate way, when we haven’t gotten curious because we’ve shown up with answers about what that person needs or maybe even what we need.

In our scripture today, Jesus talks about serving. He addresses the power dynamics that we’re talking about, and then he actually goes and serves people. It’s a really great example of both the complexity of service and how we might do it well. And so here at South, we stand up for the reading of scripture, so please rise.

We’re gonna be reading from the Gospel of Matthew 20:24-34 in the NIV. And the words will be on the screen. You don’t have to pull one out, but you sure can if you’d like to pull out your Bible. When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him.

Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. Jesus stopped and called them. Oh, I’m so sorry.

Did I do this right? Okay. Jesus stopped and called them. What do you want me to do for you? Lord, they answered, we want our sight. Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

So we’re going to jump right in. When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. And this word this is a cue to us to back up and find out what’s happening in the story because we got dropped right in, right? And so the verses 20 to 23 before this, the mom of James and John, that’s two of the 12 disciples who follow Jesus, their mom came to Jesus and said, hey, Jesus, when your 12 disciples get their 12 thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel, lots of 12s, put my sons at your right and your left in the highest places of honor.

Whew. How’s that for a Mother’s Day sermon, guys? Mom is I don’t know, helicopter parenting, maybe a little bit. Or maybe this is a culturally normative thing to have your mom go and advocate for two adult men. I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you there, guys. But if you’re as curious as I am, maybe some people will have some answers on the Red Couch Theology podcast this Thursday.

Putting you on the spot, Alex. Somebody figure this out. If you have some questions, send them in. We’ll talk about it. So we’re not going to stop here. We’re going to go back and look at when the 10 heard about this thing with mom, they were indignant with the two brothers. They’re angry. They’re annoyed.

We don’t know exactly what they’re thinking, but maybe they’re thinking I wish I would have gotten my mom to go and do that. Sounds pretty good to sit at Jesus’ right and at his left, right? To be in this place of power and authority and to be seen as amazing. I think we all want to be seen as amazing.

At least I know I do, especially up here. I want to be seen as amazing. So they have all the answers. They’re going to rule. And what does Jesus do with that? He does a Jesus thing. He calls them together and says… So he calls them together. He’s let’s break up this infighting and this jostling for power, and let’s drop some wisdom here.”

What does he say? He says, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. But not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I don’t think this is what they wanted to hear. This is a reversal of power. It’s basically telling them, “You wanna be at the top. You wanna be in control. I’m inviting you to be a servant and a slave.” And by the way, also he goes on to say, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” which is Jesus foreshadowing his death on the cross.

It doesn’t sound very appealing, shall we say. Who wants to follow a God who asks you to suffer? Who asks you to be a slave? Who asks you to be a servant? Esau McCaulley says that Jesus is Lord, and his way of being God, namely that he suffered and humbled himself, challenges all the Romans’ understanding of strength and success and power.

And I would say yes, it challenged the Romans’ understanding. Those were the people in charge at the time, right? The Jews were basically under them. But it also challenged the Jewish people’s conceptions of power. It challenged the early church’s conception of power, and hopefully, it continues to challenge our conception of power today.

He invites his disciples, both then and now, to consider another way of power, a way of humble service that’s motivated by love. The early church wrestled with the same questions we’re still wrestling with. How do we… What does it mean to belong? How do we live as a people not shaped by domination or exclusion, but by love?

We’re gonna continue to wrestle with those questions this morning. So going back to the text, Jesus has just challenged their views of power, right? Drops this big moment on them. Reverses all their thinking around power. And then what do they do? They’ll go back to what they were doing before. So Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, and a large crowd followed him.

Jesus and his disciples are on their way out of the city of Jericho as they’re going towards the city of Jerusalem. It’s the typical pilgrimage for the Jewish people for the Passover celebration, which is coming up soon. And he’s not traveling alone. Not only does he have the 12 disciples with him, but he’s got this large crowd with him.

And so this large crowd might be other people who are just on pilgrimage, because this is what you do at this time of year. You go up to Jerusalem. Or it could be a larger group of his disciples beyond the 12. We don’t really know. So they’re leaving Jericho, and what happens as they’re walking out of the city?

Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, son of David, have mercy on us.” And in this time and culture, beggars were common on the side of the road as the pilgrims were going by. It was considered righteous to give alms to the beggars.

And so here are these two blind men on the outside of society, marginalized, seen as other to people in the m- majority of the society, and they’re literally begging to be seen and cared for. Let’s pause for a moment on that word marginalized. What does that mean? To put in a lower or outer position and treat someone or a group or an idea as unimportant.

So how does the crowd treat these blind men who are on the margins? The crowd rebuked the blind men and told them to be quiet. Now, this is not a kindly, “Shh, be quiet.” This is a very sharp rebuke. This is a stay away from Jesus rebuke. This is stay in your place, don’t bother the teacher rebuke from the crowd.

And I ask myself, seeing this off-putting response from the crowd, what if we are sometimes the crowd? What if we are sometimes the crowd? What if we are sometimes, probably unintentionally, the people who are othering someone else in our society, someone that we’re not curious about, someone that we have the answers for.

What if that’s sometimes us? Who might we be pre-deciding that we have all the answers for? So I made a couple lists. If you’re a list person, you’re very happy about this. If you’re not a list person, you’re like, “Really, Erin?” Not to dehumanize people, because I don’t love putting people on lists, quite honestly, but to spark our consideration and to wrestle together with people we might see as other.

The unhoused or homeless neighbor with his sign in the middle of the road asking for money. The Latino woman at the supermarket. The kid at school who seems awkward and nobody wants to be his or her friend. The young Black man with lots of ink. The neighbor with the messy yard, maybe someone that we don’t really wanna talk to, or maybe it’s the person with the perfect yard that we other and maybe don’t wanna be curious about either.

And then I felt in today’s day and age, I think there’s an invitation to expand our definition of other. What might that look like to make a second list, and to perhaps be a little bit more uncomfortable together? The trans woman at the food bank who comes in wearing hot pink and flamboyant purple.

The confrontational white podcaster. The female church leader. The billionaire business owner. The No Kings rally participant. The undocumented immigrant. The ICE agent. Chances are you may have seen yourself on either of these lists, or you may have seen someone that you don’t understand, maybe even someone that you other, maybe someone that you’ve made a comment about on social media because you don’t know them, and maybe you’ve forgotten to be curious about them.

So I’m inviting everyone to just sit with that for a minute, and to ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind, who are the people I’m quicker to label than to be curious about? Who do I see as other? There’s actually a space on your sermon notes today if you wanna write it down or jot it in your notes. I’m gonna give us a minute to reflect on that.

So I’m inviting us into this space not out of condemnation, but an invitation to conviction and an invitat- invitation perhaps to repentance, which is this turning away from one thing to another. And so if we’re turning away from othering people, how do we turn towards people? How might we move to serving people like Jesus?

And I think one of the key ways we do this is that serving people like Jesus starts with seeing people as created in the image of God. We are all created in the image of God, whether we’re sitting here in this church this morning or we are other somewhere else. So what does it mean to see people as created in the image of God?

Because Jesus loves them, and he invites us to love them, too. He says this thing called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He says that a few times, actually. And then in the very beginning, he starts with this, “Let us make human beings in our image,” from the very beginning of the story of humanity. So if this is true- That we are all created in the image of God, including people that we might see as other.

How does it change us? I’m no longer inclined to label anyone poor, because we’re all carting around our own particular poverties. There’s no us or them, rich or poor, needy, generous. There is only us. Love exists only among equals. So how do these marginalized blind men, how do they respond to the crowd?

And then let’s get curious about what does Jesus do? The crowd rebuked the blind men, like we talked about, told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, Lord, son of David, have mercy on us. The blind men didn’t let the crowd stop them from pressing into Jesus, from advocating for themselves. They were persistent.

They’re used to being on the marginal, on the margins. They’re used to asking for what they want. And Jesus responds. He stopped and he called to them and he asked them, what do you want me to do for you? He doesn’t walk by. He stops. He doesn’t ignore them. He calls out to them. He doesn’t presume that he knows what they need, even though they’re described as being blind.

He doesn’t just assume, oh, they don’t, they must not want to be blind anymore. He asks them what they want. When we decide he honors their dignity and agency as people created in the image of God. And when we decide for people rather than with them, we diminish their God-given dignity and agency. I want to say that again.

When we decide for people what they need, what they want, instead of rather than with them, we diminish their God-given dignity and agency. What does that mean? So dignity is being worthy of honor or respect. And agency means the capacity to act or exert power. These are things that are part of being created in the image of God.

Everyone already has them to some extent. God made us in his image with these things. So a couple examples about how it might look to decide for people. Telling them what their problem is. Jumping into solving things for them. Giving them unsolicited advice. Like I was really good at this in my teens and my 20s.

Anybody else? Assuming what they need. Deciding with people might look like getting curious about their story. Listening and asking questions. Respecting their boundaries. Because just because they’re a person in need doesn’t mean that they need to accommodate you and everything you want from them, right?

Letting them own their own problems and solutions. And the cool thing that I can tell you after many years of serving and helping lead the food bank is that with curiosity that honors dignity and agency, we actually help create community. Community. So the young people serving in our food bank on Wednesday nights are experiencing this firsthand.

It’s been so fun to work with them, and I got to ask them a little bit about, “What do you love about serving in the food bank and what are you learning while you’re here?” And I would love to play that video for you.

I’ve learned that it’s more than just helping people around you, but letting them know that they’re, like, seen and that they’re loved.

I like being able to connect, get to know people, even through a language barrier. Just give them high fives and, cheer ’em on.

Learned that it’s a lot more than just giving people food. I feel like that it’s interacting with them and building conversations, so it makes them feel more welcome and that they’re welcome.

When I first came to food bank, I felt like it was like just handing out food to people. But I’ve learned that it’s a lot more. It’s making them feel good about themselves and making them feel seen and cared for. I love everything in general, but I specifically like to get to know the shoppers more and more every single visit.

I really enjoy talking to the different people and just getting a different perspective on how life goes for other people. I enjoy being able to connect with the community that I wouldn’t usually connect with just on a normal day, outside of school friends, neighborhood, stuff like that.

Yeah. I enjoy meeting the new people and talking to them and having conversations with people that I usually wouldn’t have conversation

with. I think not judging somebody automatically at first, maybe taking the time to actually get to know them. That’s what I’ve learned here talking with people who aren’t as fortunate who you might not approach on a normal day.

Like, when you get to know them, they’re really nice, and they’re just great to get along with.

They get it. They get the heart of the food bank. They get this feeling of community, of welcoming people in. So much fun. So much fun. So let’s talk about that natural outflow of shifting from for to with that leads to community, because doing things with people actually builds two-way streets. It’s both giving and receiving.

It’s relationship that leads to community. And so one p- important part of that is that understanding that receiving help requires humility and vulnerability, especially if we’re not someone who’s good at receiving help. Our food bank shoppers walk in carrying a lot of shame that they need help, that they need help with food, that they need help providing for their families.

We have this American story that says that we are independent, that we are self-sufficient, that we are enough all on your- on our own. That’s not the way of the kingdom That’s not the invitation of Jesus. And so when we welcome people in who are receiving from us, and we truly believe that they are capable, and we tru- truly believe that they have dignity and agency and things to offer us, we create opportunities for them to give also.

But if they’re gonna give to us, we need to learn how to receive with humility and vulnerability. Good neighboring is not about doing charity work. It’s not simply about doing for others and looking for ways to give and give. Rather, good neighboring is about helping to create a sense of community within your neighborhood.

It’s about empowering people and breaking down walls. Everyone on our block has something to bring to a relationship. So in the food bank, this looks like calling everyone by their name, inviting families to choose food for themselves, believing that they’re capable of choosing what they want and what they need, and that they’ll leave some for the next person coming.

Asking Spanish speakers to help us learn. “”We are all learning.” We are all learning, right? And they have things to offer us. We can prayerfully build relationships, again, respecting boundaries, and we can practice reciprocity in our stories. And in our neighborhoods, we might ask our neighbor to borrow their ugly Christmas sweater to wear to church on Sunday morning.

Three years in a row, guys. Same neighbors, then they gave us the sweaters. Not sure what that exactly communicates. But we did do this. And these are also other things from my experience. Going for a walk and meeting people in our neighborhoods can teach us how to see people and how to receive.

Inviting kids to play T-ball with your kids in the cul-de-sac, or allowing someone to provide a meal. And just a couple quick thoughts on this reciprocity, this two-way street, this giving and receiving just from my lived experience. Be authentic, please. Two-way streets are built on actual need and honesty.

If you’re in the grocery store and you’re thinking, “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t buy this sugar that I need for my husband’s birthday cake so that I can ask my neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar,” they might be able to see through that. They might be able to see through that. I know I probably shouldn’t have to say that, but maybe we’ve all been there, where we’ve tried to manipulate a situation in order to make it go the way that we want to.

But please, be authentic and allow others to care for you. It honors them to be able to give to you. When we practice receiving, when we practice saying instead of, “Oh no, I’ve got this,” when people offer to help us, and instead we say, “Hey, I would love some help. I’m not quite sure what that looks like.

Let’s talk about it,” it’s a gift to the person who’s offering help to us to create that space and allow them to give to us. We’re both blessed. All right, we’re going back to the scripture. We’re almost done. What did Jesus do? After stopping, calling out to them, asking them what they wanted, He had compassion on them, and He touched their eyes.

So after Jesus heard what they wanted, He cared for them, and then He acted. Jesus’ faith was living and active, and we’re called to the same. Jesus’ faith was living and active, and we are called to the same. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about doing something good for someone, and I’ve had this whole circle in my head about this thing, and I didn’t actually do it.

And I think even there’s a psychological element to this where we think about it, and we talk about it, and we think. We have this fulfilling feeling that maybe we did the thing, but we actually didn’t do the thing.

Compassion in the Gospel of Matthew is not simply feeling sympathy and empathy, but is acting concretely on the behalf of the afflicted. Jesus’ messianic compassion extends beyond Him to the work of those who follow Him, that’s us, and into the life of the communities they enter. Those are our communities.

Convinced that God was working either in, through the indwelling Spirit, or on, because God’s desire is that all be saved, each of the people in my new neighborhood, I saw my task as being not only to share the gospel, but also to discern God’s activity and how to work in sync with it. Because let me tell you, Jesus is already working in our neighborhoods, and maybe we get to ask the question of how do we join in?

If we’re not already joining in, which a lot of us are, but how do we join in? By the way, this is called missional living. It’s a theological perspective that says that God’s already working in the world, and we are invited to notice what He’s doing and participate in His kingdom work. Because God is bringing the kingdom now and in the future, but He’s bringing it now in our everyday lives, whether here at South or in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools, our grocery stores, and more.

Everywhere we go, God is already bringing the kingdom, and we get to be part of that. So Jesus cared for the blind men. He acted on their request. He worked in their lives, and what was their response? Immediately, they received their sight, and they followed Him. So they received His help, and then they took action too.

They did something they were capable of. They followed Him, and the verb follow here is the same one in verse 29, where the crowd follows along as they’re leaving Jericho to head to Jerusalem on that pilgrimage for Passover. It’s the same verb that Matthew uses many times to indicate someone who decides to accompany Jesus or become His disciple.

So when I saw this, I had to ask, would Jesus have chosen to stop, be curious, and serve them even if they hadn’t chosen to follow him? And I think the answer is yes. Just a quick scan of the Book of Matthew, just one of the four gospels that talks about Jesus’ life, shows at least five instances where Jesus served or healed someone, and the story doesn’t say what happens afterwards.

The story doesn’t say how they responded. The story doesn’t say, “And they gave their life to Jesus.” This is actually an outlier, where we get to know this, and it’s a beautiful thing that we do get to know it. But I don’t think that Jesus is anxious about outcomes. I don’t think he only acts when he knows the outcome is what he wants.

He doesn’t serve people to secure followers. He helps people because he loves them, and we’re invited to do the same. So looking at this arc of Jesus interacting with the blind men, my main takeaways are we love people where they’re at, we get curious about their needs, we honor their dignity and agency, we do what we can, and we trust the Holy Spirit to work.

So I think that’s the last essential piece here, is that we’re responsible for faithfulness, not outcomes. The Holy Spirit takes care of the outcomes. We do what we can, and we trust God to work in that space, and we trust God with our hopes for the outcomes too, right? Because we probably do have some hopes about what those outcomes might look like, and we can trust him with that.

So imagining and contending for what you hope for in this world is one of the hardest and kindest paths I’ve discovered out here. Don’t forget to dream of what could be possible, and don’t forget to live into those hopes with faithfulness. We’re invited to hope and imagine and act and trust God with the outcomes.

A story from the food bank. A few months ago, a young Black woman walked in, new to us. She’s from the Dominican Republic. And she came up to our front desk and signed in to shop, and she started talking to our two volunteers and said, “Hey, like, how do I get a car seat?” And so our volunteers got really curious with her and just gently asked, “What’s going on?”

She had just had a baby. She borrowed a car seat from a friend in order to get home from the hospital, and then dad left because she decided to keep the baby. So she’s here alone in this foreign country with its foreign systems and its foreign language. This is all in Spanish, this conversation, and they’re trying to figure out how can we support you?

And so one of our volunteers asked her, “If it’s helpful to you, I’d be happy to buy you a car seat.” And the other volunteer said, “If it’s helpful to you, I have one in my basement that I use for my grandkids, and it’s safe to use, and I’d be happy to give it to you.” They were so kind and respectful, and you could just see in her body language how overwhelming this must all be.

And so she went back and shopped for food and we were hoping and praying that she would come back up to the front desk, and she did. She came back. She came back, and I don’t know what they said, but suddenly the three of them are crying and hugging each other and talking rapidly in Spanish, and there is this moment of connection and community, and Jesus in that space with them, them embodying the love of Jesus and honoring her dignity and agency and wherever she was at, right?

And then I had to leave for an appointment. I don’t know how that story ended. I don’t know if that young woman now comes every Saturday to our food bank with this car seat that our volunteers bought for her and brings her baby and hears about the love of Jesus and is part of our community. I don’t know.

That would be good and beautiful and amazing. But it may also be that she had that time of connection, she had that kindness from strangers, and that was good and beautiful, and that was the part of the story that we got to participate in. I don’t know. I can’t control the outcome. Either way, God is still working in her story.

And so as we close, we serve our neighbors like Jesus when we hold our answers loosely and our curiosity tightly. And again, this isn’t about doing more, unless that’s what God’s calling you to. Please pay attention to what God’s calling you to and do that. Don’t listen to me. But

it’s about practicing this curiosity towards ourselves, towards others, towards the Holy Spirit. And after looking at this scripture together, how might we do that? We might start with asking some questions. Like, where is Jesus inviting me to be less concerned with having all the answers? Where is he inviting me to grow in curiosity?

Who are the people he’s brought into my life, and am I invited to serve them? And if, yes, you are invited to serve them, I just want to say quick, you don’t have to serve alone. We have this thing here at South called Together Teams where we would be happy to support you, to encourage you, to pray for you.

We’ve got a little bit of funding if you want to cook a meal or whatever your idea is for serving people. We would love to support you in that. But as we wrestle around these questions, my heart for us is that Jesus would continue to invite us into imagining what it might look like to live in more well-connected neighborhoods where we are giving and receiving, where we are active, we are honoring the dignity and agency of every person we encounter because they’re created in the image of God, that we would trust the Spirit with the outcomes.

Because we’re invited to remember Jesus is the Savior, and we get to be the neighbors. We get to be the neighbors. What a gift to serve our neighbors with the love of Jesus. So let’s pray. Jesus, people fully. You stop, you listen, you ask. You honor dignity and agency. You love people where they are at as created in the image of God.

You invite us to do the same. Help us to hold our answers loosely. Help us to hold our curiosity tightly. May we trust your spirit already at work in the lives around us as well as in ours. May we grow in serving like you by actively giving and receiving as we love our neighbors and live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.

Amen.