Our worship this Sunday will be rooted in John 12.20-33 and the ministry of Lorenza Andrade Smith
Lorenza Andrade Smith is a United Methodist Pastor who asked her Bishop to appoint her to a ministry on the streets. She chose to take a leave of absence from her church and conference and to renounce all of her possessions, including her home, her car and her salary. In her own words: “I am taking a vow of poverty, and I am dedicating myself to learn to live on the street for three years to understand the plight of the homeless and the needy.”
What would it take for you to make a similar choice?
In part John 12 reads: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, God will honor.”
“In our experience of the Crucifixion, we fully confront the anxiety of death, meaninglessness, and guilt that the Church so often attempts to protect us from. A confrontation that must happen if we are to ever enter into the new life described in the Gospels as Resurrection. For Resurrection life is not some turning away from the experience of death that we find in the event of Crucifixion but rather describes a way of living in its very midst and finding there a way of truly affirming life.”
(from Insurrection by Peter Rollins)
Lorenza Andrade Smith calls each of us to trust God and as the Gospel of John records, this is troubling news for our souls. In what way do you turn away from what you know God longs for your life? How might your trust in God break you open into a new way of life? What (if anything) are you ready to share about this with your Kitchen Table so that you might be held accountable in a new way?
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