WEBVTT

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Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord

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and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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It was just after World War 2 a Lutheran Pastor a German

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Lutheran Pastor named Hans Joachim Evant who had himself been jailed

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during WWII

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during the Nazi regime. Was asked by a Jewish Christian sociologist to

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write an essay in an important and

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somewhat academic but also popular periodical in Germany, after the

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war. This German Jewish, Christian sociologist, had been himself, put

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into a concentration camp and yet had survived.

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And so he asked Evant would you write an article exploring what

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it looked like and what it looks like now to love your

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neighbor, as yourself.

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This was an extremely challenging assignment you see because not only

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as a good Lutheran did Evant understand that we have some serious

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challenges, keeping the law and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

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Evant also wanted to reflect on the very real problem of the World

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War 2. Which was a problem not in the heart of the Christian at least

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not at first, but was rather a problem in society

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and in the world. It was this problem that Evant called the Criss

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crossed wires

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of death.

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If you've ever been to a concentration camp or if you've seen

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pictures, you know that concentration camps are surrounded by walls.

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And what's on top of those walls, what surrounds those walls?

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Barbed wire razor wire. These wires

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these Criss crossed wires of death serve at least two purposes.

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One is to keep those who are inside

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from getting out.

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But they also serve to keep those outside

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the Concentration Camp from getting in

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and loving the neighbor as oneself.

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This made doing what our text today calls us to

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do love your neighbor as yourself for

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this is the fulfillment of the law.

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These crisscrossed wires of death, made this impossible to love ones

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neighbor.

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What Evant was especially troubled by was that it was the authority

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that God himself had instituted

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that put up these barbed wires.

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It was the authority that just before our text today

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Paul in Romans 13, says obey these authorities.

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Well, what is the Christian to do?

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Because it's not just Barbed wires on a concentration camp that Evant

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wanted us to think about.

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He says,

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it doesn't always need to be a single unfortunate person.

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It could be hundreds or thousands of people. And around them

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is a visible or invisible fence, a loaded wire.

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Which says compassion and acts of love

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are forbidden here.

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For Evant

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this is what it's like to live in the modern world.

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The command to love your neighbor as yourself is crystal clear, but

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there are all sorts of Barbed wires whether literal or metaphorical

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that keep us at times from loving our neighbor as ourselves.

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The church wants to care for this new family that moved into town.

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But the immigration lawyers and the immigration officers, deport the

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family back to Mexico. A new member joins a congregation and he's

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really excited to welcome the African-American youth who happened to

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live right next to the church to use the church's basketball court to

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play on an off night.

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It's just that the church councils policies

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don't allow

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non-members from using the gym because of liability issues.

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You want to go visit your grandfather in the ICU

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but the hospital policy says I'm sorry

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he's already had two visitors today.

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You can't see him.

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These wires this policy, this bureaucracy, borders, boundaries, the red

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tape of our modern world.

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Sometimes prevent us from loving our neighbor as ourselves.

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And Evant wants to know, what do we do about that? Further

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he's quite concerned of what this does to us.

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He writes this,

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all these crisscrossed wires of death, hardened the hearts of the

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people who must live in such a society.

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These crisscrossed wires of death harden, the heart of Christians.

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So,

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what are Christians to do?

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They want we want to love our neighbor as ourselves.

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We want to follow the scriptures and what it calls us to do and yet

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we're prevented because of all these policies and procedures. borders,

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and boundaries.

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And instead, what happens is our hearts grow hard. Evant called this

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the Babylonian captivity of the Christian and the church in the modern

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world.

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Leads to hardness of heart.

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I'll never forget

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when my wife.

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My now, wife told me for the first time when we were dating those

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crazy, three little

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 three little words, I love you.

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We were at a Fourth of July barbecue.

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We were hanging out with friends.

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It was while I was a seminarian and we were having a lot of fun.

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We were being silly and in the great mix of all of the fun toward the

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end of the evening,

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Celina said, just loud enough for me to hear for the very first time.

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I love you.

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Well, I said what you're supposed to say when someone says that to you

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I did not say what Han Solo said

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In Star Wars, I know.

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I said back to her.

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I love you too.

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The problem came

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the next day.

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We were reflecting together.

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She said, wow, pretty crazy

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that we said I love you to each other, right?

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And that is where the problem came.

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I had had some time to think about it and my seminarian brain was kind

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of in overdrive and that's when I said to my now wife, I'm not sure

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I know what love is. That's what I said.

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Oh is right.

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Celina loves to tell this story.

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Some advice don't ever say that to someone that you like and you're

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just not sure if you're up for commitment.

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What I had done

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is I had wrapped Barbed wires

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and red tape around my own heart.

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Celina was not just calling me too.

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She wasn't asking for some romantic love.

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She was asking for commitment.

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She was asking for sacrifice, and I realized this was going to cost me

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something.

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And I had wrapped some barbed wire some red tape around my heart

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because I didn't want my heart to get hurt.

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Sometimes

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we are prevented from loving our neighbor as ourselves

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because of our own hardened heart.

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So if the modern world has put these crisscrossed wires of death around

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our neighbor to prevent us from loving them and we have ourselves

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because of those crisscrossed wires.

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Put

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barbed wire around our own heart.

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What is the Christian to do?

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Well, there is one who was not afraid

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to go over boundaries, to trespass.

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There is one who was not afraid to show us the full extent of his love

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as Saint Paul early earlier in this epistle to the Romans says God

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demonstrated his own love to us in this. While we were yet

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sinners

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Christ died for us.

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That is while we were yet wrapped in red tape and Crisscrossed wires

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of death.

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God loved us by sending his Son to us. The poet

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John Donne had a similar image.

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He was thinking about a medieval town with high walls.

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When he wrote his poem, it's Like a Prayer.

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Listen to these words. Batter, my heart three-person'd God for you as

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yet, but knock breathe shine and seek to mend; that I may rise and

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stand, o'erthrow me and bend your force to break blow burn and make me

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new.

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I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to

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no end; Reason your Viceroy in me

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should defend,

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But his captive proved week or untrue. Yet

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dearly, I love you and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd to your

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enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that

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not again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

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Except you enthrall me, shall never be free, Nor ever chaste, except you

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ravish me.

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It took a God willing to be condemned for breaking and entering,

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to come to us.

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A God who was willing to climb over walls and himself, be wrapped up

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in these crisscrossed wires of death.

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Our Lord, Jesus, who literally took on the thorny crown that had grown

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up from all of our sin.

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Bloodied

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He came to us.

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And that's what we remember

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remember, especially during Advent. Advent comes from this Latin

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word aventura, which means to come to someone to come to

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someone. Evant calls this Christ, one who eliminates the

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boundary between Heaven and Earth.

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One who eliminates the boundary

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the between God and man. Christ, feared no boundary of the law.

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He never became callous.

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But instead he came to us, we saw this yesterday during the Posada

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when the evil Leopoldo Sanchez, The Innkeeper.

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Wanted to keep the peregrinos out of the Inn.

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He wrapped himself with the crisscross wires of death, no room here,

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but the peregrino, the babe would not be content to stay out. Instead

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he came time and time again until finally the Innkeeper welcomed

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the peregrinos in.

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ

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this very day.

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Christ, enters in.

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He climbs over all your walls and wires and he calls you his beloved.

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You are his beloved.

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And so as Christians who have been rescued from all these walls that

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we put up, we are freed to love our neighbor as ourselves. Were freed

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to love again.

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And that's exactly what Evant did after the war. Evant lived, right on

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the border of the East and the West. And he established this home to

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welcome in refugees from both the

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 East and the West to find a place of refuge.

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Those who had been rejected by the East and the West, the left, or the

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right found a home in this home

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for refugees. Evant further went on to come to the legal defense, of a

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number of Christians, confessing Christians who had had to make the

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very, very difficult choice to break laws

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to love their neighbor during the Nazi regime.

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What about you?

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Where do you see crisscrossed wires of death around your neighbor?

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Where do you see crisscrossed, wires of death

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around your own heart?

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Christ, Jesus has come and called you his beloved.

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And invites you with all courage to love your neighbor

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as yourself for love is the fulfillment of the law. In the name of

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Christ.

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Amen. We sing our hymn.