"Turning a Prophet" with guest preacher Neal Watkins

Imagine your child is the “outcast,” the “despised,” for no other reason than to whom she or he was born. Such was the situation for Hagar and Ishmael. Such is the situation for many black parents. Today is Father’s Day and I wish you a happy one if you are a father; and I wish you a happy one if you ever had a father – no matter what that relationship may have been.

We face much work as a nation and as people to find a greater way of “justice for all.” We who claim to follow Jesus Christ need to not let this moment slip away in order to preserve a bad status quo. We must commit to listening, learning, praying to understand God’s purpose and priorities. We must commit to working to change things, with governmental officials if they are willing to work for true change for true justice, or we must work to change those who rule.

God’s promise is that God is working for this, will work for this, and will bring this to be. And God’s prayer is we will realize this – understand it, then work for it, and ultimately experience it – here on earth!

So the word for Pentecost 2020 and the Church, the Spirit, and the Future is this: we must recall, reclaim, and renew the power of that Holy Spirit to guide us. We must embody the way of Jesus Christ, not the ways of division and selfish demands. The hope for the future is to start making solving problems a priority.

We need to physical distance ourselves while we maintain a social connection. We need to actually figure out a way to overcome the “social distancing” that has been emerging more visibly with each passing year and maybe each passing day in our nation if not our world.

I think virtually every commencement speaker says something that reminds the graduates that they do not know everything, that there is more to learn, and that in fact learning is a life-long task. But I have a question? Why do so many people forget this applies to what we know about God too?

This morning I want to invite you to think about how you are feeling. Of course, Mother’s Day – we all may be feeling nostalgic – but in this strange Coronovirus time, most of us are feeling disrupted if nothing else. But I think many of us are feeling a variety of feelings, and this morning I want to share some good news about how to identify and process those feelings for better spiritual health.