 St. Paul speaks to a concern of people bringing a different Jesus another Jesus different than the one that they'd been preached Paul will address this later in an even more strong statement when he says that even if an angel comes down from heaven and Gives you a different gospel let him be cursed in The early church we see already Different images of who Jesus is. What does he expect? What is he like and in our day? You know the joke is if you have five priests, you'll have six opinions Yeah Everybody knowing we laughs knowing that's true even though I have a degree in Jewish studies and actually the first time I heard that It was when you have five rabbis. You'll have five six opinions. So it's kind of a universal thing But what could be more crucial to our folks? Then presenting them with an image of Jesus that is authentic to who Jesus is And how do they find that? With a scary part especially for priests is that they look to us To say that we act in persona Christi is a huge huge thing The heart of our ministry the heart of our ability to do what Jesus calls us to do But how does it impact our life? What do we broadcast to our people about whether or not this actually works? You know for generations people would come to mass because it was their duty was their obligation They felt compelled to do so and that was a good thing, but that's not the case now people do very few things out of duty or obligation and the generation of Millennials and the generation of seekers that may be coming What they want to see is does it work? And in a scary fashion, especially scary for priests is one of the things that they will do to see how it works So look at us. Does it work for us? If we talk about freedom, are we free if we talk about joy? Are we joyful? I was watching a TV show and there was a televangelist and He goes to the mic and he says If you give your life to Jesus You will be as joyful as I am The odd thing was that he meant it Joy was some kind of esoteric no relationship to here and now reality If I was at a revival meeting like that and the guy who went up and said that I would run for the door and Lots of people these days are running for the door, but why? Pope Benedict when he was writing his Cardinal Ratzinger had a very interesting statement He said he believed that the number one reason why people leave the church Was not scandals was not humana vitae was not, you know any of the other things to which is typically attributed He said the number one reason why people leave the church is they experience it as joyless And he said that's particularly interesting because the command to rejoice was the way that things began Gabriel to Mary rejoice rejoice So how do we do that? Well one of the great gifts of this unbound ministry that we've been looking at is it brings us to a place where we can Broken and you know living in a broken world where we can come into a place of greater freedom We can experience more we can be freer, you know some place sometimes we come from positions of significantly less freedom ethnically I'm Scottish English Norwegian and Swedish and if there was ever a combination for a lockdown emotional state That's it Did you hear about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much? He almost told her Welcome to my life don't you know, so there was a certain amount of Lack of freedom in that both my parents were alcoholics going up was a disaster was a nightmare my hero in Great in high school was Spock Not the baby doctor either, okay Why because he never felt anything he couldn't be touched. He was perfectly invulnerable and that was my hero When I finally met Jesus my senior in high school and I got spirit filled and I became Catholic Things began to change and when he called me to the priesthood not long after that I was excited and delighted and was absolutely convinced and pleaded with him all the time to send me To some monastic environment in which it was just Jesus and me. I Caught I wrote the Carthusians. I visited the Trappists. I Called the Camel de Lise. I was looking for a monastic environment in which it was just me and Jesus because I was afraid of doing anything in Public I was afraid of dealing with people and there was so many wounds and so much lack of freedom in my life I thought I would just be a disaster anyway and But Jesus began to bring into my life Opportunities to experience greater freedom, you know 12-step work for adult children Alcoholics counseling things like you know inner healing and deliverance ministries Unbound eventually these are all great gifts and move more and more to set me free But it was always a combination of kind of healing what was damaged in me You know the wondrous idea that grace builds on nature Unbound is about restoring that nature But then there's all sorts of grace that Jesus wants to pour out on us to set us free to bring us to a place of greater freedom to a place of greater joy and One of the things I experienced when I was a freshman at the in the seminary I had a friend who called me up and he said could you come up to Duluth? I was in Minneapolis at the time Could you come up to Duluth and give a talk in your conversion story to a group? And I said well, how big is the group and he said there's 10 or 15 people I couldn't possibly do that Because you know I took a speech class my senior year in high school to break me of the fear of speaking in public I would be sick for four days before a speech I would almost throw up all the way through my speech and by the time it was over I was a wreck for the next day and Didn't exactly work And so here's this idea that I was going to go up and speak to this group of 15 people And that just filled me with terror all the way from Duluth to Minneapolis. I'm driving along and I'm praying for blizzards I'm praying that you know Bambi would come up out of nowhere and smack into my car something would happen to stop this You know because it was like all these people are on the other side of this trip, and I'm just literally terrified of the idea Well to distract myself as I'm getting into town I turn on the radio and it turns out there's this group It's rented the largest auditorium in Duluth and they're doing this kind of renewal revival meetings people can come and experience Jesus Like in 1972 a lot of those meetings were taking place and when I get to the guy's house When I'm supposed to address this group. I say I got a better idea Let's go to this other group because I'd be so much better than what I can do and he says to me Oh, and I'm so glad you feel that way because we decided to do that. I was like, yes, there is a God, you know So we go to this auditorium and the leader comes up to me He says you know Oh, there's a guy wants you to meet and so he brings me up and I'm just kind of chatting with this guy and the guy turns to me He says I hear you have an interesting testimony you're on and The curtain opens and I'm standing in front of like 8,000 people Have you ever been unconscious, but the only reason why you didn't fall is your body couldn't figure out which direction to go in Well, I was standing there Terrified and as the curtain is moving the guy's kind of backing up with you'll be fine. You'll be fine. Go ahead. You'll be fine And then he said something to me that changed my life. He said Just ask Jesus to share with you how much he loves them and He did and that was the last time I was ever afraid of being in public Because he was greater his power was there Jesus wants us to be men of freedom and of joy But it's not something we have to do on our own without me. You can do nothing applies in a particular way to try to rev up joy Our joy comes because of our relationship with the king of kings But the idea of our identity is crucial because a lot of times I bet if we ask people to fill in the blank I am a how many people would have just simply said I'm a priest or I'm a deacon because What we don't immediately move to is I'm a son or a daughter I'm a son first. I'm loved by the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. That's who I am That's my primary identity and everything that I do flows from that Reestablishing our sonship so that we know who we are is absolutely crucial if we're going to minister Because our priesthood in a sense rests on that foundation if we know Abba if we are in love with him If we have experienced freedom and healing if we can look into the mirror and honestly love the person looking back at us Then we know we're moving in the direction of freedom and restoration that he has for us And the good news is if we're not there yet we can get there as Has it been emphasized several times this week? It's a process But it's a process that brings us closer and closer and closer to that full identity that full realization of the destiny that we have So that when we stand up in front of the people of God we can show them. Yes, it actually works Jesus is setting me free Jesus is bringing me greater joy Jesus is bringing me greater peace Jesus unleashing the power of the Holy Spirit so that his bride can look like he's always wanted his Bride to look radiant with his love filled with joy and filled with hope in the midst of a collapsing world The bride is meant to be the source of hope because the king is in her heart So as we gather as we plead with Jesus to continue to change us We recognize that's exactly what he wants to do It's what he has planned for us from the beginning That we experience his freedom we experience his joy we experience his love So that we can share this wondrous gift of who he is with the people that he sends us to Let us open our hearts and plead with him for more We can look and see okay. There's areas in my life where I'm not free There's areas in my life where I'm not joyful and when we face challenges. I Had to go tell a priest friend of mine that I've known for years that because of a credible accusation his priesthood was over Lots of hard things can be present in our life But you know when Paul goes through that whole list of here's all the hard things. He's experienced He makes the point of saying that none of that can come between us and the love of God made visible in Jesus Do we spend the time we need with the king to bring us to that place where we are simply walking with him And then we can handle everything else Do we open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit that we were given so that Pentecost can be more alive in us As we heard earlier the idea, you know that confession is kind of the great unrealized sacrament in the church Well, I would say that confirmation is running a close second How many of our folks is confirmation the sacrament of exit thanks for the confirmation You know there was a priest and a rabbi and a minister got together and they were all having the same difficulty that there Were bats present in their in their worship spaces and a couple weeks later the priest says to them Well, I got rid of the bat. He said what do you do? I confirmed him when they were never seen again not supposed to be The catechism of the Catholic Church describes confirmation as being that which unleashes Pentecost in the life of the faithful Well, Pentecost changed lives Filled people with love and joy and peace and sent them on mission We've been confirmed a prayer that we can pray is Jesus unleash unlock Restore let the graces of my confirmation be present that I would walk in Pentecost That that freedom especially the freedom to delight in his presence would be ours as well So as the king himself is here as we're about to receive him You know the Eucharist is still the primary healing sacrament of the church one of the things It was really helpful for me when I noticed how many ways in which my heart has been damaged is a spiritual director told me once as you Come up to receive communion simply say to Jesus is I've received your heart Restore mine And the Eucharistic Lord moves and little by little our hearts become healed our hearts become more like his So let us prepare our hearts the king is coming to us with the greatest gift of all himself