God appears to Isaiah in the Temple, the holiest place in all the world to the Hebraic imagination, but all it takes to fill the Temple is the hem of God’s robe. This peculiar little line was a signal to the people about to be cast out into Exile in Babylon: God is everywhere and cannot be contained in a building. There is no “far away” in God’s world. The Irish Christians used the language of “thin places” to identify those holy spaces in the world where God seems closer to us than the breath in our lungs, but even when we feel far from God or estranged from our neighbors, God invites us to reconnect and reengage by just declaring, “Here am I, send me.”
"Keep the Party Going" - John 2:1-11
Jesus comes to bring joy and honor to humanity. In the wedding feast, not only does he allow the celebration to continue, he covers the potential shame of the host who has run out of wine. A flourishing faith life is not about obligation or regulation, but rather is about learning to lean into God’s goodness by living with radical hospitality in all of our relationships across cultural, identity, and gender divisions.