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Out on a Limb | Nov 2nd | Hillhurst United Church
In this episode of Hillhurst United Church's podcast, the message revolves around the biblical story of Zacchaeus, emphasizing the importance of stepping out of our comfort zones and engaging wit...
Out on a Limb | Nov 2nd | Hillhurst United Church
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Welcome to Hillhurst United Church, the podcast.
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We're really glad you're here.
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Whoever you are, wherever you're at,
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join us on the journey.
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I think a lot of people think religion is about playing
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it safe.
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People think that they do the religious thing
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so that their life will be cocooned and bubble
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wrapped in all of life's difficulty and suffering and challenge.
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Lots of people say, well, you get part of religion.
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You follow the rules.
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You sing the songs.
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You pay the dues.
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You keep the peace and you stay under the radar.
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And all shall be well.
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There are people who think religion is about just that.
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Saying under the radar, not getting to involve,
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keep your head down, your nose clean, and all shall be well.
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And yet, this passage that we just read,
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if you are hearing Kim, is be a complete opposite
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understanding of faith.
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And if you know anything about the Bible,
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which you will know lots about in the next four weeks,
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the themes, the people, the address, the invitation,
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is about turning things upside down,
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about getting dirty and messy and actually engaging life fully.
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So the rubber hits the road and you're actually glad
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that you actually show up at church and have a faith
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because it calls you to something new.
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If I was to have another child, which I am not,
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I would name that child Zakias.
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Zakias, I'm sure they would forever hate me for that.
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But I love Zakias from this scripture.
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I love this story of Zakias.
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It's a story that gets passed over so often yet.
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I think it's pivotal in shapes a lot of the parables
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that Jesus teaches.
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Remember parables are, as I said last week,
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it's like, honey, I'm going to buy some milk
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and you go to get milk and you end up in Regina.
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Like it's a wild turn, well it's actually pretty straight.
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But nonetheless, you went to do one thing
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and something else happens and that's the way parables are.
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And this story sort of summarizes a lot of what Jesus
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has said for the last little while in Louis, gospel.
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And the story is quite simple.
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There's a guy named Zakias, my youngest child, Zakias.
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Who is this guy that everybody hates?
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He's a scripture that says, short of statute.
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Think of George Costanza in Sainteau.
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Short, kind of like squirmy.
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Always looking out for himself, always looking for a deal.
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He's a tax collector in scripture.
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And their job was to literally collect taxes from people
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and give it to the Romans.
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And of course, they would skim off some for themselves,
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which would mean they would not be very popular.
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But here the scripture is, Zakias, short of statute,
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a tax collector who closes his shop at five o'clock
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and goes down the road.
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And as he's going down the road, he sees a crowd
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and a bit of dust and he's wondering.
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And someone walks by and says, Jesus, he goes,
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oh, that Jesus of Nazareth guy is coming to town.
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And so he loosens his tie and he rolls up his pants
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and he puts down his briefcase and he looks for a tree
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and he sees a tree and he goes,
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he grabs and he gets himself up the tree
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to look down at this Jesus.
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And all the people who haven't read the book, let them
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are going, who is that guy?
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What a jerk.
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What a nitty-itty.
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It's stay away from him.
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He says, let them.
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I'm not going to worry about them.
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I want to see this Jesus.
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And so he goes out on a limb to get a peek at this Jesus.
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And just as he's having a peek out on the limb looking at Jesus,
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Jesus looks up and says, the key is, hey, come on down buddy.
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I'm going to your place for dinner.
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And the crowd is as quiet as last night
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and that last play of the game.
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And everybody's going, what the heck?
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And the key is scary, it's back down.
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The key is, hose out his confession, says, hey,
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I got to tell you this.
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I give half of what I got to the poor.
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And not only that, if I ripped off anybody,
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I give them back fourfold.
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And Jesus says, something a good deal.
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I'm coming to your place.
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Not only that, your house has been saved
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or experiences salvation.
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And then a little subtext says, Jesus says, I've come to the lost.
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Now what I love about this story is many things.
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But what I love about it is the guts and the tenacity
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and the fearlessness of the key is to say, I don't care what they say.
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They haven't read the book left them.
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That was last week.
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They haven't read that book.
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Not only that, I want to see this Jesus.
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I'm going to go out on a limb.
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I want to see for myself who this is.
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And there's something about our life that prevents us
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from going out on a limb very often.
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If I look at my life, I've lived a pretty safe life.
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I really haven't done much.
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I haven't really gone out in the limb very often.
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I haven't really stood up when I saw something that was going on.
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I didn't like.
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There's many times I pretended I didn't see and walked the other way.
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There's many times I didn't write the letter I should have written
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or said the things to the person I really should have said.
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Or in my own family had a conversation with someone
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who I really should have had that conversation.
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And this story is all about calling us the dare to go out on a limb.
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And you do think about your life and I hope you're daydreaming right now.
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I hope you will think about the moments when you did go out on a limb.
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And the difference it made for you or for someone else.
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Because I think when you're like the Kias and you go out on a limb
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and you risk your life has changed or even better someone else's life has changed.
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Brian McLaren, a great evangelical,
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theologian who works for the center for action and contemplation
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who preached in your church says that preachers like me basically were chickens.
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He says we're always hiding.
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Always hiding in the bushes.
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And if we're inviting anybody to church, it's like inviting them to go back
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2000 years to an archaic age and who wants to live in an Aztec world.
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He says preachers are often hiding in the bushes rarely are they out on the limb.
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And they got to agree with them.
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Lots of times when I think about my life and our life,
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isn't it true we often pull back when we might be called forward.
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Now hang with me because I know you have.
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When I sat there and started to write the sermon which I do and I first put it on computer
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and then I scribbled it in my own handwriting, I began to think about the people that I know in my life
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who went out on a limb and how they influenced my life because other people influenced each other.
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The first person to pop into my mind was Bishop Marion Booty.
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You know her. She's the woman who climbed up the steps literally at the National Cathedral in
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Washington for the inauguration of President Donald Trump. And there in that moment she could have
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hidden in the bushes and not said much. But instead she climbed up and she said to the president,
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I hope you will be merciful to which the president wanted an apology.
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She was simply quoting scripture, simply reciting the biotitudes.
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But with courage and the hate mail that came from many other people after and the thousands of
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people affirming her, she went out in a legend and said to the new president, I hope you will be
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merciful to the immigrants, the LGBTQ to those who we have heard you will go after.
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When I think about it, she went out on a limb. She literally went out on a limb and inspired and
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encouraged other people to dare to speak out. She went out on a limb. I want you to see this person
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because I want you to follow them not that I've ever told you ever to do that and you probably
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don't have to. But James Tolerico is a Cuspitarian student minister and he's running to be a senator
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in a place called Texas and this is a two-minute piece about what he says about how he hopes his
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politics will be on by you to this two minutes. There is something broken in America. Our economy is
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broken. Our political system is broken. Even our relationships with each other feel broken.
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That's because the most powerful people in the world wanted that way. My faith teaches me
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to love my neighbor as myself. Not just my neighbor who looks like me or praise like me or votes
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like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors like I love myself because despite our differences,
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we all want the same things. A safe neighborhood, a good job, a quality, well-funded public school,
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and the ability to see a doctor when we need one. But the billionaires who own the social media
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algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens,
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they want us at each other's growths, they want us focused on how we're different instead of
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on how we're the same. I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I am tired of being told
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to hate my neighbor. It's been more than 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood school,
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politics as professional wrestling. It tears families apart. It ends friendships and it leaves us
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all feeling terrible all of the time. There is a deep hunger in this state and in this country
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we're a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hate, not a politics of tribes,
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not a politics of division, but a politics of love, a love that can heal what's broken in America.
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James Talleriko. James Talleriko is going out in the limb when he speaks in Texas.
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He's going out in the limb and what he's saying and when I did the Sermon on Christian nationalism,
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it was his stuff that I read because I think he is prophetic and he's not about Christian
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nationalism. He's about talking about how his in faith informs his leadership as a politician,
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which means he's going to have to step out just like that. It's like my friend Jim I talked to
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this past week. He's 70 years old. He went to the No Kings rally and Palm Springs. He said, I'd never
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been to a rally before and he went there because he said, I'm a proud American. I do not like what
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my president is doing and I'm here with others and he said it was a joyful experience and it is,
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I believe, a call to step out on a limb sometimes to show off a protest. When you know you might be
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filmed, when you know there might be consequences for you or for others and he said it was an amazing
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thing and a courageous thing for him unlikely that he would ever have done that to step out.
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If you've ever walked in a parade, you know what that's like to stand and walk with someone else.
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That is going out on a limb. Then I began to write other people like Greta Tunberg. Of course,
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you know, I see the amazing things she's done as a young person sailing across the United States
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being part of protests. I see Jane Goodall, who's a lot of animals and who desire to take care of
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them, inspires uncaused people out on a limb to take care of other animals or of course the easy one
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Martin Luther King. We can all say somebody like, ah, who says that, but they were out in a limb
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and it literally cost their life. Or what about Calgary? What about the students in high school
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this past week who took part in protests in their schools that take 45 minutes out of the day
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to step out on their lawn or go down to City Hall to say the public education matters to them.
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Their teachers matter to them and the notwithstanding clause is not a way to govern a province.
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There's courage in that.
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There's, it takes guts. I wonder if I would have.
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But I love that somebody did and they did. Or I think of the asylum seekers, you know,
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you might have been disclosed when when June was up here talking about the asylum seekers and some
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of you are in the room like, I have incredible incredible your courageous.
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Believe your country because of the human rights violations that gather together
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just think what that is for people. Believe their home to come to a place,
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to learn a language perhaps to start a new life. Everybody wants to be in their own home
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but to come to a new land, the courage to go out in a limb for themselves or their family.
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You are courageous people and you inspire me to remember the privilege I have and the call to
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share what we have with who we are. Asylum seekers and refugees people are fleeing. They go out in
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because it matters. And you go out in a limb because you seek to welcome people who you don't know.
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It could have been today coming to church going out in a limb. Oh my god, I'm, do you believe it?
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I'm going to a church today. A lot of us don't think about that. But for lots of people that
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experience of coming into a church or a temple or a synagogue for the first time is scary as hell.
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And you have to go out in a limb to step out to go deeper in your own life.
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Or I thought about Princeton Theological Seminary which I went to decades ago
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when there was a very fearful professor, Professor Kirkland. He taught preaching. It's not funny.
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I said they're chickens just like me and here he was. He was afraid because his wife
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was at the beginning signs of Alzheimer's. And he was afraid that she would get away and say
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something ridiculous which she did. She snuck away from him and I saw his face turned red as he's
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in the cafeteria line wondering where she's going. And she made her way through the cafeteria and
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she literally went out to people and shook them and look him in the eye and said we're all a part of it.
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And then she walked over. We're all a part of it. He's trying to get his mashed potatoes and she's
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still going we're all a part of it. And it's like this divine words coming right out of the mouth
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of this woman what dementia the thin line of truth and wisdom. We are all a part of it.
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And sometimes when you speak like that when you dare to go off your ass and do something in the
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world it's because you are called or perhaps you experienced that thin line. When you say we're all
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a part of it. We're all a part of it. You know I know in this room your people here, first of
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a side you're behind you at work this week or last week. Stowed up for somebody who gets picked on
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at school or work or maybe a neighbor maybe somebody in your own house you've actually gone out
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in the limb to say we've got to talk about this. And entering into a conversation with someone you
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know you disagree with is going out in a limb. Sometimes getting going out in the limb means you leave
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the person you are with or the job you are with. Going out in a limb is not hiding in the bushes
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and playing it safe. It's saying I've got to for my own soul and for my own life I've got to do this
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fill in the blank you know who it is or when it was or what it might be. You see the thing about
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Christianity is we follow a guy named Jesus the guy in red up here. And Jesus went out in a
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limb and was crucified there. He didn't get crucified because he you know served cruelty.
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He got crucified because he challenged the authority and the empire and the power of the day
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and flipped over tables and said to people the least the lost and the lonely the the them that you
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shut aside they're all a part of it and welcome to this place. And when you say they're all a part
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of it and you welcome them that's what you get nails and your feet and your hands you die.
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And Jesus didn't say oh I'm going to sorry I'm not going to do this I'm going to go to the
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see of Galilee and sit in my condo. He willingly stood and was hung because he knew as you and I
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know we are all a part of it. And there's times when we are called to step up and out for ourselves
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and for others and when we're like Zacchaeus and we're hanging on to that tree we will hear and
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know the words Jesus said to him is today your house knows salvation and you're made whole because of
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you. And that's kind of what all saints day is. Take a little time today to think about the people
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the places in your life that have shaped you inspired you and encouraged you to
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to climb a tree get out on a limb for yourself or for someone else and I bet you it'll be the most
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important moment of your life. May you and I have the courage some day somewhere along the line
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to grow in a limb because I think it'll make all the difference. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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Thanks so much for tuning into Hillhurst United Church the podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode
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We'd love to hear from you.