Happy Reformation Sunday! The week we celebrate Martin Luther's work to reform the Church and Society, pointing us toward God's grace through faith and not our own actions. Today we get a text of Jesus promising freedom by the truth of love and not anything we are able to accomplish on our own. Grace is a release from the spiral of sin and perfectionism we often find ourselves in if only we are able to admit that perfection is impossible.

In today's sermon we hear the story of the 10 people cured of their skin disease who are made well while still on the way to show their cured state to the priests. It is a great act of hope... and points to showing up in faith even when we don't have everything figured out. Their healing happens while on their journey, and the one who returns in thanksgiving shows us what wholeness could look like for us.

This week we celebrate Saint Francis of Assisi and think about our relationship to creation, including our non-human companions on this earth. So often we find ourselves removed from our connection to creation, but this is not God's intent. Our beginning story in Genesis shows an intimate and interdependent relationship with creation, with God, and with each other. When we live with these symbiotic connections in mind, we live into the Kingdom of God, and God's original hope for us.

Happy Michaelmas to one and all! This week we celebrate the arch angel Michael and Michael's defeat of the Deceiver and Accuser of the whole World, Satan. Michael casts out the Dragon (Satan) from heaven and on this old old holiday, we remember the real Dragon's in our own lives that bring fear, manipulate us, and deceive us but in the end are no match for God's love.

This is a difficult text with lots of moving parts and questions, but at the end of the day God's call to creatively prioritize God's way, in the same way that many prioritize wealth and personal power looms large. It is a real choice riches and wealth and not stewarding those gifts well means we simply won't see the real and true gifts of God. Standing for justice and love with our whole selves however leads to eternal gifts. One cannot serve two masters.

This week, Lauren Smith from ELCA World Hunger stopped by and shared with us about ELCA World Hunger, Disaster Relief, and AMPARO. It was so cool to have her with us on a week where Jesus invites everyone, to come eat with him. We are encouraged to do the same and ELCA World Hunger is one way we as a Church answer that call.

Our guest preacher Asher Vincent shared a wonderful message this week on Jesus telling people not to take the seat of honor at the table. It's not just good party etiquette, it's actually an invite into Jesus' radical grace filled life where everyone is welcome and God's love is experienced by all. At Jesus' Table there is always room for one more; the poor, the oppressed, the weird aunts, and us.

In the text this week, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath who was incapacitated for 18 years and "in bondage by an infirmity". Jesus reminds everyone that the origin of the Sabbath is to remember that they were once enslaved in Egypt and that Sabbath is actually intrinsically tied to freedom and healing.