WEBVTT

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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Children are often embarrassed by their parents parents to strange

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things.

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They don't behave the way that they're supposed to and we cannot explain them to the neighbor kids.

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Parents show up when they're not supposed and they're not there when

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they're supposed to be there.

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But no matter what they do you you sort of have to defend them.

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Our Heavenly Father is like that.

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He goes after death by dying.

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He meets sufferers on a cross.

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He takes the stoney and steep path through life to get to

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Resurrection.

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And so we try to defend him when his absence or his presence seems to

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do anything but demonstrate what kind of a powerful and loving father

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he really is.

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We try to do our best at making him look as good as we can when we

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think he needs to be justified via for our friends and family against

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the challenges of those outside the faith.

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We try to rescue him with our best thought-out explanations.

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And vicars may be particularly susceptible to this.

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They'll feel a little bit more defensive about God

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then you will find your season veterans perhaps.

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But he still goes on doing things

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we don't expect and don't want him to do.

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And Paul reminds us in this lesson.

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That God refused to let Satan set the terms of the contest.

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Unfortunately, we try to know more about God and God knows about

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himself and our explanations

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just don't work.

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Too often our way of thinking comes closer to Satan's then to God's. We

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think in terms of power that smashes and we end up just battering.

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God penetrates evil by entering into death's domain itself and blowing

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it up from the inside.

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God rejects our suggestions very often for how he ought to proceed

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with evil, even though he wants our suggestions he wants our suggestions, he wants us to be praying, he wants our counsel.

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But he follows it at best selectively. He is to clever to do it

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any other way than the way he did by solving all the problems that

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sin introduced.

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To going to the Cross going into the tomb

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and coming out of that to him alive forever.

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It's contrary to all human experience for dealing with all the

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problems we have.

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Now our lesson talks about other ways of of knowing then looking to the

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cross.

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The Jews liked

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empirical knowledge they want to do tests.

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There's nothing wrong with empirical knowledge.

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We have we have electric lights in here.

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We have a microphone in here and that's all due to people making

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experiments.

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So Jews were onto something.

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And as long as you're in a culture where the rules of logic or clear

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logic really works well.

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When you get old enough, sometimes the logic doesn't seem to work

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anymore with a new generation, but but that's just cultural change.

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So I would take keep using signs.

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Don't don't give up on logic.

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It's just that the signs can be revised from time to time and that's

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good.

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I mean old signs still work Ptolemy got people where they wanted to go

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when they got into a ship but but Copernicus is probably is of more use to

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us and logic as good as long as we remain within the culture produced

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a logic.

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But these kinds of knowledge finally depend on our construction our

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view the use of our instruments from our eyes on.

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And sometimes we use those gifts

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to devise false gods that lead us from the cross.

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The knowledge of the Cross is not reviseable

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it will remain valid whether we appreciate it or not.

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The knowledge of the Cross is not culturally conditioned

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it makes divine sense out of our foolish imaginations

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in every culture.

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It lets itself be preached everywhere in the world.

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God came to the Cross to infiltrate Satan's kingdom and blow it all to

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smithereens by rising from the dead.

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We like to say he paid the price for our sins, but it's a little bit

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different like that in Paul's description.

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We had gotten our payment for our sin.

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And Christ grab the paycheck right out of our hands.

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Paycheck sin gave us for being real sinners.

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He wasn't surprised after garnishing our wages that the in our

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paychecks was

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the receipt of death.

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He took full payment to shed his blood for you and for me.

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And he burned our sins in the flame of his suffering and deposited the

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ashes in his tomb.

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Now that seems foolish but it's wisdom beyond our imaginations.

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It seems weak but the contrary is the case just ask the poor devil

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who thought he had won just as he was losing it all.

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We heard on Sunday the gospel lesson for this week.

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And I think it was a very nice moved that the pericopeators or

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whatever

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you call them chose to place this text together with the Beatitudes.

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The Beatitudes are great text

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to go with into your Vicarage Service.

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Even if we don't have much chance to be persecuted, we are poor in

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spirit.

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We are certainly tend to mourn we are meek and we are hungering and

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thirsting for righteousness.

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We are merciful and pure and heart.

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We are peacemakers

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or at least we wish we were.

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We are

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because we are the Blessed ones who have been given the righteousness

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of Christ from the cross.

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And even if we don't live up to those characteristics all the time,

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they are ours.

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So God continues to work with weak and foolish approaches.

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The ones he's devised just look at who's preaching today.

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And in those moments on vicarage when you notice your weaknesses,

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and when you've encountered rejection because you have preached the

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cross.

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Remember, that's the way God designed the territory on which we are

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called to live.

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God had a fight.

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And no matter what we might have said he consulted us in advance.

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Easter proved him, right.

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That's the way it is in this fourth week after the Festival of

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the Epiphany of our Lord and in his year two thousand twenty . May the peace of God, which passes

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all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.