We are looking forward to teaching again Sunday, AND these couple of weeks off have given us some time to read, breathe, and think. As a reminder, we’ve spent the weeks before Easter dissecting the Lord’s Prayer line by line, and this is what we are up to:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

This line is essentially about freedom. Not necessarily in the way that you or I may be thinking about freedom as an American, or perhaps even more specifically as a White American, but more like spiritual or existential freedom. One of the ways we can “get free” is to move away from unhelpful theology. Bill points out that substitutionary atonement, where Jesus died for our sins, is not helpful, nor even the intent of this season. And yet this belief that we are somehow bad or wrong or sinful has done great damage.

So if we get free from bad theology, we need something to go toward, which is perhaps the possibility that freedom may actually be about returning to the Self, letting go of estrangement from ourselves and each other. Getting free, then, is both about individuality and community. Becoming ourselves in the context of a loving, supportive, mutually empowering community. That sounds lovely.

So how do we do it? Join us these next weeks as we explore this line together. Thanks for listening!