09/06/2026
"...if someone hurts us, we should let them know. That should be the first thing we do. That should be our practice as disciples of Jesus. And our culture as a community that wants to love one another.
And if it isn’t, if we don’t want to bother doing that, if we would rather gossip and talk bad about someone behind their back and then talk nice to their face, then we participate in what Jesus calls sin. Catholic theologian James Keenan defines sin is the failure to BOTHER to love. We don’t bother to care about the truth. We don’t bother to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We don’t bother to think about how our words and actions might affect them. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite don’t bother to help the man beside the road. But the good Samaritan does. He BOTHERS to love his neighbor as himself."
Pastor Mary Weese, sermon based on Matthew 18:15-20