St. Francis Liberal Catholic Church, 741 Cerro Gordo Avenue, San Diego, CA (2026)

But first let’s look at the use of the word ‘liberal’ in the group of churches known as Liberal Catholic Movement. Liberal means free, as in liberty. Sometimes it means generous, as in using ketchup liberally on French-fries. We sometimes think the latter only relates to politics, but that is not the way we use it in the Universal Catholic Church. You can “lean to the right” in politics and still

be a Universal Catholic. We receive grace freely. When Jesus healed a man with palsy, He said: “Rise, your sins are forgiven.” There was no quizzing about the man’s past. What he had done in the past didn’t matter. There were no promises about doing prayers or penance in the future. The man was probably just an ordinary man: the Bible would have mentioned it otherwise. Universal Catholics are married and divorced and single parents, gay and straight, rich and poor, alcoholics in recovery or otherwise, and all other shades in the tapestry of mankind. As we were welcomed at God’s table, we try to make space for all. When our Master Jesus was scolded in the Gospels, it was usually because he spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes and others shunned by society. He was once scolded because he whipped up a batch of wine so a party could continue. In short, the Bible is full of stories about Jesus hanging out with people involved in rough or “un-Christian” behavior. Universal Catholics go to Confession, and it is good for the soul to do that. However, Absolution is not tied to penance or prayers. It is freely given: “Rise, your sins are forgiven.” Every Mass begins with a Confession said by all, followed by Absolution that is freely given. Our marching orders are to love God, to love ourselves, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Those three things are at the top of our To Do lists. Be free, and don’t sweat the small stuff. After love, it is all small stuff. All those orthodox rules and laws are the fine print.

07/27/2026

July 26, 2026
Trinity 8
It was a beautiful, sunny, summer day in Baltimore, Md. People in a neighborhood of neatly kept brick rowhouses were going about their usual business. A few minutes before 10 a.m. — BOOM! — a massive explosion rocked the entire neighborhood. A great plume of white smoke shot into the sky, and a hail of debris — bricks, scraps of wood, roof shingles — came raining down on the manicured front lawns. Articles of clothing were left hanging from tree limbs.
A security camera across the street captured the scene on August 10, 2020: three houses simply exploded. In the blink of an eye, nothing remained of them but a massive pile of rubble.
It appeared to have been a natural gas explosion, although Baltimore Gas and Electric said at the time its equipment was in good working order and there had been no reports of gas leaks. An investigation ensued, with five months of questions and uncertainty. Finally, on January 11, 2021, the company called a press conference and reported that the explosion happened when someone turned on a stove in one of the houses. Nothing unusual about that. But it was also discovered that a contractor had done unpermitted repairs in that house the day before — under the radar, as they say, without calling the gas company in to certify the repair.
Two people died instantly. Seven more were injured.
One of the dead was Joseph Graham Jr. He was supposed to begin his sophomore year at nearby Morgan State University in a few weeks, studying electrical engineering.
Joseph was an outstanding student by all accounts, well-respected by his classmates and professors. He had gone to a party with a friend the evening before and decided to spend the night at his friend’s house afterwards. It was one of the three houses leveled in the blast. Firefighters found his body in the rubble the next day.
Responding to the gas company’s report, Joseph Graham’s mother issued a written statement that expressed with quiet dignity the family’s agony. “We’re still trying to process and accept the loss of our son Joseph. He was such a beautiful young man with inspiring dreams. He had so much drive and ambition. This hurts like hell.”
An event like that raises all sorts of questions, not just for the survivors, but for everyone else. Some questions can be answered in time, as the gas company did when it issued its report. But there are other questions, many of them unanswerable.
The hardest questions usually begin with “What if …”. What if Joseph hadn’t gone to the party on Sunday evening? What if he hadn’t decided to sleep over at his friend’s house? What if he hadn’t slept so late on Monday morning, and walked out the front door minutes before the fateful hour of 9:54 a.m.?
Everything depended on timing. The explosion just happened out of nowhere. Whether or not you were a victim came down to dumb luck. Or did it?
Is there such a thing as luck if God is all-knowing and all-powerful? If, as Jesus says, not even a sparrow falls that God does not know about (Matthew 10:29), does the same go for exploding houses?
This raises even more disturbing questions. If God knew those three houses were about to blow up, and God — being all-powerful — had the ability to stop it, then why did the Lord of love not intervene? Couldn’t God have at least set off a fire alarm or something so that everyone inside those three houses could have been standing outside on the sidewalk?
Such questions are as old as the hills and really don’t have an answer. But that doesn’t stop us from asking them. It’s only human to wonder about such things — and to wonder what role luck may play in determining who lives and who dies.
We talk about luck all the time. Will we have the good luck to find a great parking space, a better job or the right person to marry? Plunk down a greenback or two for a lottery ticket and you’re confessing a certain belief in luck … or at least your fervent hope that some may come your way. Some folks are said to be “lucky in love,” meaning they find a life-partner who is better-looking, smarter or richer than they are.
The truth is — as park bench sage Forrest Gump famously pronounced — “Life [is] like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Good news or bad news, we all get a portion of both. The best any of us can hope for — on this earth, anyway — is that, in the final analysis, the good and the bad will cancel each other out, offering maybe a slight advantage to the good. A life free of all trouble and disappointment is not likely for anyone.
St. Paul says: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
On first hearing those words, you may think this is a promise of good luck bestowed on those who believe in God. It does say, “all things work together for good.” Isn’t Paul saying — if you believe — that the Lord dealing cards at the heavenly blackjack table will make sure most of your hands are just shy of 21?
It’s an appealing thought. And it probably explains why this verse, or at least the first half of it, has made it onto bumper stickers, T-shirts and coffee mugs.
But Paul is not saying that at all! “All things work together for good …” doesn’t mean only good things will ever happen to you. The key to the meaning of that promise lies in what follows: “… who are called according to God’s purpose.” God does have a purpose for the world, a purpose much bigger than any individual person. We are all part of that divine purpose together, not separately. It surrounds us. It’s the universe we inhabit, the air we breathe and the life we live.
The great British preacher, Leslie Weatherhead, used to encourage his listeners to think of God’s purpose like a great river, rushing to the sea. Within that river are scattered bits of debris. Logs and branches float and spin upon the surface. Rocks and pebbles are borne along beneath, scouring the stream bed, bumping up against each other, and sometimes causing damage.
Does God, who made the river and charts its course, manipulate every bit of debris? And do the random collisions of those pieces of debris make the least difference to the river’s larger purpose?
Of course they don’t. Within the great plan, things happen that we can only explain as accidents. They cause us no end of consternation and make us wonder why God delivers such afflictions upon us. But, in the larger view, they’re part of a greater movement for good.
What about the decision of the people residing in those three Baltimore houses to be in that very place on that sunny August morning of 2020? Was that part of God’s plan for their lives? Or was it entirely their doing, the result of choices they made, in all innocence? Or was it sheer randomness, a floating chunk of wood, turning end over end in the torrent of God’s greater purpose?
It’s perilous to think of the accidents of our lives in that way … as random. But consider the alternatives. Either God exercises ultimate and complete control, manipulating every tiny event that happens — from whether the preacher waves a hand right now to whether a house collapses — or God has walked away from the universe and no longer cares.
Both alternatives are distasteful because either one makes God sound like a monster. On the one hand, God is like an evil, willful child, catching flies and tearing off their wings for sheer amusement. On the other, God is the ultimate deadbeat parent, having moved away with no forwarding address and never sending another child-support check.
It’s much better to envision a God who does care, deeply, but who is also committed to the principle that there is going to be freedom in this world. We human beings — creation’s crown — have been graced with such a gift. But it comes at a price, and that price is accidents. These accidents are not just random gas explosions but include anything incidental to the main purpose. For God to intervene in every accident would really take away our free will. Whether that is good or bad, is a question too long for today.
Bad things happen in this world, things that cause pain and heartache. But here is the good news: pain and heartache are not the last word. The great river of God’s purpose flows onward to the sea. Like it or not, we are carried along with it. At times, our progress is slow and listless — a peaceful paddle on a meandering stream. Other times, it has all the excitement and terror of a whitewater rafting expedition. Either way, the river carries us. We can’t predict its route, nor can we declare what obstacles we will encounter along the way. The only certainty is that the Lord will bring us to our destination.
When we do finally emerge from the waters — wet or dry, exhausted or exhilarated, bedraggled, bewildered or bemused — we have a promise. The promise is that someone will be waiting for us on the shore.
Maybe it will be something like what happens to the apostle Peter in the 21st chapter of John. That old fisherman hauls himself out of the water, dripping wet, after jumping out of his boat. Peter’s eyes lock with those of his master, the risen Jesus. “Come,” the Lord says to him with a smile, turning over a fish filet on the barbecue. “Come and have breakfast.”
Take it as a promise. The promise of a complete happiness without the perils we experience now, is promised to us in the next life, not this one. There will be a welcome awaiting us on that riverbank. Arms will embrace. Gentle voices will offer comfort. Love will be all around. And the words of Revelation, chapter 21, will ring true:
See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
They will be his peoples …
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.
It’s not that experiences such as mourning, crying and pain have no reality or true existence. The good citizens of that Baltimore neighborhood can attest to that as they think back to that awful day. The tears are all too real. But — and hear this well — the tears are not forever.
Let us pray.
In today’s Gospel Jesus likens the kingdom of God to a great treasure, for which we should abandon all worldly goods to pursue. We pray for the wisdom to listen to his word and commit our lives to finding the great treasure of being forever in His eternal presence. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for the understanding and strength to know that this life has no promises except one; that those who follow the Lord will have a place in heaven waiting for us where no pain will exist anymore. May we have the perseverance to this end. We pray to the Lord.
On this special day for grandparents and the elderly, we pray that those who are blessed to have grandparents value their presence, help them to live serenely and bestow on them the love and gratitude they have earned through their lives of sacrifice and dedication. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for our children and young people that they may be guided by the example of parents, grandparents and community to seek the treasure that is the love of God. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for all those whose lives and homes are threatened by the excessive temperatures and forest fires being experienced in so many parts of the world at this time. We pray to the Lord.
As we mark World Day against Human Trafficking on this coming Thursday, July 30th, we pray for the protection and release of all those who are exploited, forced into labour and trafficked into sexual slavery. We pray to the Lord.
We pray to God for an increase of priests, deacons, and religious for our denomination to bring the Good News to all peoples without prejudice. We pray to the Lord.
We pray that those with generous means may be led to our small church and give generously to our mission so that we may continue to be a church open to all peoples. We pray to the Lord.
For those on our parish prayer list, that they may receive swift answers to their needs and that they may find consolation through Christ’s healing presence. We pray to the Lord.
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers (pause). We pray to the Lord.
God who watches over our lives, who knows our inmost desires and pain, help us keep our heads about us as we are carried along by raging waters — be they propelled by accident or purpose. Bring us, by your grace and in the fullness of your time, to the place of firm footing, the place of solid rock, the place where the love of Jesus is all in all.
O God, Omnipotent and Omnipresent, while it may seem that you are distant and unreactive to the problems of the world, that you do not hear us; we take heart in the words of your Son who said: “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Help us in this struggle of life to know you are there even when our finite minds might think otherwise. In the end, when we are all brought into heaven, we, then, will be free of all pain and doubt. Until then, we are called to faith, never doubting that you are here. Knowing full well, as Jesus taught, that you indeed do answer prayers. Sometimes, what to us may seem like inaction from you, is merely an inaction on our part to pray.
And so, O God, helps us during the storms. Help us to know that we hold some responsibility in the blight of this world. Help us to know, that even so, we but need to come to you; to confess our mistakes in the part we may have played – large or small – and pray for help in rectifying what we can and the grace to understand when we cannot. We ask all these things through Christ our Lord. Amen.
God Love You +++
The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Chapel
San Diego, CA.
Donations … As a small parish, we come to you all as beggars! Share with us this Christmas, a little sacrifice for the Christ Child. Your generous support also allows us to continue these important projects that fuel the movement of progressive Christianity. Thank you and God bless you! +++

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06/28/2026

June 28, 2026
Trinity IV
You are staring at a frozen computer screen. Nothing happens, no matter how many times you click the mouse or how hard you bang on the keyboard. But, before you pick up the machine and take it to the trash in the fit of a temper tantrum, you move on to the last-ditch solution: reboot.
Rebooting is what you do when something goes deeply wrong — with either your machine or one of its key programs. You probably had to learn how to reboot a computer at some point, not because you wanted to, but because you had to.
If it is a PC, you hold down three keys at the same time: control, alt, delete. PC operating system designers chose those keys because hitting all three requires both hands and some intentionality. They did not want it to be a key sequence you could hit accidentally. You do not want to reboot if you do not have to because you could lose any unsaved work — an important email, vacation plans, or the best sermon you have ever written.
But sometimes there is no other option. Rebooting your computer is your final, desperate choice to get things running again. (Of course, if you have shaking hands and an impulsive right thumb such as I have, there is no telling what kind of trouble one could get into!)
“Reboot” is a strange word with its own back story. To “boot” a computer means to start it up. The origin, they say, is in that colorful, old expression “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” In other words, to start something up from nothing. To reboot is to shut everything down, then start it up again.
Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is, of course, absurd. Try to picture it. You crouch down and slip a finger through each of the leather bootstraps just above your heel. You yank hard, both boots at the same time, and you pull yourself up in the air!
It is the sort of thing that only works in cartoons, like Wile E. Coyote dashing off a cliff and running along through the air — until he looks down, loses his moxie, and holds up a little sign that says, “Help,” before plunging to the canyon floor below.
Sometimes, though, rebooting is the only choice you have. Turn it off, turn it back on again, then hope for the best.
What do you do when it is not your computer that needs a reboot, but your life? How do you clear out the bugs in your personal programming so God the Creator can breathe new life into you again?
Romans, chapter 6, introduces God’s “control-alt-delete” combination. Like a great operating system designer, God has provided us a reset routine that is an effective way to start over again when all else fails.
It is called baptism. For some people, the rebirth comes in being baptized as adults when they come to Christ for the very first time. But for a great many other Christians baptized as infants, it is the remembrance of baptism that is effective for rebirth — the taking up of promises made for us, long ago, by our parents or sponsors and renewing them. It is all about making those promises our own. We receive this opportunity every Easter when we renew our Baptismal promises.
When St. Paul tries to describe this life-changing experience, words fail him. The only expression he can come up with is one that, for most of us, is acutely uncomfortable to hear, especially when we are talking about babies. It is the image of baptism as death and rebirth.
“Do you not know,” he asks, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?” This is pretty shocking stuff, especially when you consider the way Jesus died. But Paul goes on, sticking his shovel deeper into the soil of the graveyard.
“Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”
Now before you go thinking of Paul as a first-century Stephen King, consider that he believes the death-and-rebirth images of baptism to be a blessing, not a curse. They are a blessing because, after the experience of spiritual death comes a resurrection, as followers of Christ walk with him “in newness of life.”
Sometimes, it does happen that there is nothing left to do in life but reboot — to shut everything down, in a spiritual sense, and start over again. It is, in every way, a fearsome step to take. But it is a step any of us can take in confidence, trusting in Christ’s promise to pull us up out of those baptismal waters, gasping and spluttering, and revive us!
As last on last Sunday’s Father’s Day, more than one of us may think about the virtues of being a man. To many people, one of the essential traits of masculinity is being impervious to change — standing firm, holding the line, or anchoring the end of that tug-of-war rope, feet dug deeply into the sand.
Paul clearly has a different image of Christian manhood in mind. A Christian man, in his view, stands firm when he needs to stand firm. But he can do so — paradoxically — only because he has already yielded, deep in his heart, to another. He has yielded his life to Jesus Christ.
Sometimes life is a struggle. Sometimes, in our resistance to what we perceive to be the enemy, we end up contending even with God. We know what is required in the Christian life. We have heard that sermon since we were small. We know God demands sacrifice, the turning over of the heart to Christ. We know that to be a Christian is to live differently from the rest of the world. We know that, as Paul says, we “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. But sin, as we all know, is not laid aside so easily.
There comes a time in life when there is nothing else to do — a time when our proud talents are all tied up in knots, when we know we can never extricate ourselves from the mess we have gotten ourselves into. Such are the times when, spiritually speaking, there is nothing left to do but press the control and alt keys with our left hand, then hit the delete key with our right hand.
We might even feel that warning message popping up … “Are you sure? Unsaved data may be lost.” But yes, we are sure — maybe for the first time in our lives — that we do want to do it. There is no other choice. We have exhausted every other alternative. Control, alt, delete.
Our screen goes blank. The fan spins down and all is quiet for a moment. We take a deep breath as everything seems to hang on to the fearsome decision we have just made. But then comes the reassuring whir of the fan spinning up again and our favorite desktop background appears as the computer restarts. The essential data is still there. All is not lost. Death in Christ — and rebirth!
At the age of 36, Count Leo Tolstoy was thrown from his horse while hunting. When he came round, a thought entered his mind that he just could not get rid of. “I am a writer,” he told himself. Soon after, Tolstoy began writing and eventually authored the book War and Peace.
Harriet Tubman’s name is famous in American history. Once a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, she escaped to the North but returned again and again to lead other slaves to freedom. Harriet’s life as a liberator began one day in her teenage years, when she stepped between her master and another slave he was savagely beating. Harriet was struck on the head. She fell to the ground, her skull fractured. She laid comatose for weeks but finally recovered. She would suffer epileptic fits for the rest of her life because of that injury.
Yet that injury was also Tubman’s liberation. “The blow that cracked Tubman’s skull,” a biographer wrote, “struck off her psychic chains. She had already died once; she had nothing to lose.”
Death and rebirth. It sounds paradoxical, to be sure. But that is the spiritual truth of it.
Facing such a dire decision, who is there to trust but the man who went to his death on a cross, then was raised to new life to the glory of God? The mark of his followers is baptism, and the meaning of baptism is death and rebirth.
That meaning is lost, unfortunately, on the infants we bring to the baptismal font. They are too young to understand. It is also often lost on many adults who get caught up in the cuteness of the occasion. We call it a baptismal font for a reason. Spiritually speaking, it is like a fountain, a spring bubbling up from the earth. We may not see it clearly, but the essential meaning is still there — living water for God’s children. It runs under the desert sands of life, like some great, underground stream. It becomes suddenly real, bubbling up for us in those moments of crisis when there is nothing else to do but trust the risky promises of Jesus.
As the poet Stephen Vincent Benét writes:
Life is not lost by dying! Life is lost
Minute by minute, day by dragging day,
In all the thousand, small, uncaring ways …
Do not lose your life in “the thousand, small, uncaring ways.” Lose it once and for all in Jesus Christ. Lose it in him — and you will gain everything!
Let us pray.
In today’s Gospel we are reminded by Jesus of the importance of hospitality, kindness, and generosity in our Christian lives. We pray that we be ever mindful of His message and that we hear the cry of those in need and be generous in our response. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for those workers and volunteers who feed and clothe the poor and needy, that the Lord bestow on them the grace to continue in their work and reward them for their sacrifices and acts of mercy. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for a generous response to today’s Peter ’s pence collection which supports Pope Leo’s humanitarian, social justice, and charitable activities throughout the world. We pray to the Lord.
As many areas of our world suffer from unprecedented high temperatures, we pray for climate justice, for fairness in the distribution of resources and opportunities, and for the protection of those most affected by our environmental crisis. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for our children, now officially on their summer holidays, that they have a safe and happy environment in which they can enjoy the wonders of nature and the good company of friends. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for the success of the ongoing peace negotiations in the Middle East, so that the suffering peoples of the Holy Land may be able to return to their homes and enjoy safety and peace in their lands and with their neighbors. We pray to the Lord.
As we approach our 250th anniversary as a nation, we pray that everyone celebrates in safety, knowing the great strides we have made to get here and come together as a nation and simply enjoy this great milestone. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for an increase of priests, deacons, and religious. We pray to the Lord.
We pray that those with generous means may be led to our small church and give generously to our mission so that we may continue to be a church open to all peoples . We pray to the Lord.
For those on our parish prayer list, that they may receive swift answers to their needs and that they may find consolation through Christ’s healing presence. We pray to the Lord.
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers (pause). We pray to the Lord.
God of liberty, we rejoice in the blessed abundance you have bestowed on our cherished land. We praise you for the freedom of religious expression which allows us to gather the way we have today. We praise you for the freedom to say what we think without fear of the governing authorities. We praise you for the freedom to come and go as we please. We praise you for the benefits of education made available to all. We praise you for the freedom to dream our own dreams and to strive to make them come true. We praise you for the gift of living in a land untorn by war. We rejoice in the bounty of this fruitful land, which provides us with plentiful food and beautiful places to rest and play.
In freedom we are strong, yet freedom is a fragile thing. Help us protect our freedoms through the exercise of personal and civic responsibility. Sting our conscience every time we say to ourselves, "Let someone else do it; it's their problem; I don't care." Give us as citizens the brains to realize that poverty and violence anywhere weakens the nation everywhere, just as illness in one part of a body weakens the whole.
Help us choose leaders who will do what is necessary for the well-being of the nation, who will not simply promise to grant our selfish wishes in exchange for re-election. Help the citizens of this land to achieve consensus on our most pressing issues, so that united we can help our elected leaders lead with clarity, consistency and decisiveness.
As people who have been freed forever through the blood of Jesus Christ, help us defeat in ourselves the impulse to slavishly submit to the tyranny of self-interest and greed. Help us, whom you are preparing for eternity, to take the long-range view of what would be best for all, not merely what is expedient for those who presently enjoy political and economic advantage. Inspire us to be advocates for people whose voices cannot be heard in the public debate, that all your people may have a share in honor, prosperity, and hope. In Jesus' name. Amen.
God Love You +++
The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Chapel
San Diego, CA.
As a small parish, we come to you all as beggars! Share with us this Christmas, a little sacrifice for the Christ Child. Your generous support also allows us to continue these important projects that fuel the movement of progressive Christianity. Thank you and God bless you! +++

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06/21/2026

June 21, 2026
Trinity III
One evening a while back in San Bernardino County, California, a car chase began about 6:30 p.m., coming to a conclusion about 90 minutes later.
The suspect in a car theft took off from Chino and led police on a chase that ended in Hawthorne. The erratic and meandering journey took officers to the Ventura Freeway, where the suspect vehicle sideswiped a Prius and nearly hit a tanker truck. After driving in the wrong direction, the thief pulled the car into the southbound lanes of the Interstate 5. There, the stolen vehicle was rammed once by a patrol car, but that did not deter this guy.
When he got into the Hawthorne area, having eluded capture for almost an hour and a half, a California Highway Patrol SUV executed a PIT maneuver, and game over. The car went sideways into a spin, and the driver was apprehended.
It might be unpleasant to use this as a metaphor for our relationship with God. But, in fact, it is a very common one, not only in the Bible, but in literature.
Notice that in the Bible, people are often running. They’re described as running away from God who, alternatively, is frequently depicted as wooing or chasing them.
Jonah is perhaps the best example. God’s hand is upon him, but Jonah is not comfortable with what God has in mind, and he tries to sneak away. He takes a compartment in the steerage of a ship hoping to hide out. You know the story.
The psalmist David writes, “Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7).
The Israelites are often depicted as people careening down a path to destruction. And in battle, they sometimes ran away, rather than standing their ground. See 1 Samuel 17:8-11.
Alternatively, we have Jesus refers to the shepherd who, although in possession of 99 sheep, sallies forth at great risk to himself to find the 100th lamb that’s run afield (Luke 15:1-7).
In that same chapter, Jesus tells the story of a young man who runs away from home. We know how that turns out.
It’s weird. Sometimes we mortals believe we can outrun and outmaneuver God.
To review this analogy: When the LAPD engages a suspect in a car chase, they hope first that the vehicle will run out of gas. Failing that, they hope the suspect will have a change of heart. The suspects who flee clearly understand that the law takes a dim view of their behavior. The LAPD officers in pursuit might try to get roadblocks into place. Failing that, officers may throw spike strips across the road.
When all means have been exhausted, the chief will authorize the PIT maneuver. The officer’s car now becomes the tool bringing the suspect’s surrender. The patrol car makes contact with the suspect’s rear fender and then pushes, sending the vehicle into a sideways spin and causing a loss of control.
Then, surrounded with no place to go, the runner emerges from the car with hands in the air, and then is usually told to kneel, and then may be asked to lie prostrate, whereupon he is cuffed and taken into custody.
This patience and reluctance by law enforcement is mirrored in the way God handles us during the chase. As Francis Thompson’s hound with the hare, God is relentless but unhurried, patient and yet passionate.
• God begins by giving human beings free reign in the created world. But the rebellion is obvious and odious.
• God provides in writing what humans should have known in their hearts: the “law.” The running continues.
• God pursues.
• God sends adversity, obstacles, defeats, wars and pestilence and still — after momentary repentance — the resistance and fleeing continues.
• God sends prophets to be the voice of God, to remove any ambiguity they may have about God’s love and aspirations for the people of God. Through the prophets, God reminds us that — by all rights — God is the one who should be running away from the mess; it is the people who should be chasing after God who, in turn, would be justified in washing his hands of the whole affair.

And yet, were the people to truly seek God, God would be found: “When you search for me, you will find me. If you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).
The Romans text explains how the PIT maneuver works.
The tool or vehicle is the cross. After providing the law, sending the prophets and exposing the people of God to disciplinary adversity, which failed to curb rebellion and disobedience, God uses the cross as a battering tool to send us spiraling into submission, hands in the air, on our knees and prostrate before him in complete surrender.
Of course, the metaphor breaks down because, unlike the California Highway Patrol, God is not going to force us to get out of the car, hands in the air, kneel and surrender.
That thief on the run in the opening paragraphs? The CHP stopped him with a PIT maneuver, but they had to smash windows and send in a K-9 unit before that miscreant exited the car, knelt and surrendered.
God’s not going to force us to surrender. We may need to stop before the cross, but we might not kneel.
Yet, Paul explains why surrender is our best option.
He has already reminded us that “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Now, in these verses, he explains the difference between Adam, our ancestor, and Christ, our Savior. And the question he implicitly poses is: “To whom are you going to surrender?”
This is the meaning of the cross: There can be no more running away.
Let us pray.
In today’s gospel we get a very clear message – when we speak up for Jesus and for his message of love, he will certainly speak up for us before God, our Father. We pray for the wisdom and will to speak out for truth, justice and charity in our daily lives. We pray to the Lord.
For the healing of our earth. May we grow in our efforts to work toward healing and rejuvenation of our planet. May God help us sustain the earth upon which we live. We pray to the Lord.
For people who do not feel worthy to stand upon the earth. May we embrace people who have been abused and shamed in life. May our children be worth more than many sparrows. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for the repose of Charles Abbott Gentzsch, our beloved Associate Pastor and Vicar General for our humble church. May he rest in peace eternal in the arms of our Blessed Lord and Our Lady Mary. We pray for his family, that they be comforted that their husband, father, and grandfather is now in a place where pain and suffering are no more. Bring many to comfort them in this time. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for those approaching end of life that they may draw strength from God’s love – and that this spiritual strength encourage patient endurance in the face of difficulties and give true and certain hope in God’s promises to us. We pray to the Lord.
On this Fathers’ Day, we pray for all fathers that they be guided by the Holy Spirit to love, support, guide and encourage their children in their education, recreation and knowledge of our loving God. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for peace in the world, particularly in the Holy Land and in Ukraine, that the Holy Spirit reveals to all the futility of war and creates a desire for peace in the hearts of all peoples. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for an increase of priests, deacons and religious. We pray to the Lord.
We pray that those with generous means may be led to our small church and give generously to our mission so that we may continue to be a church open to all peoples . We pray to the Lord.
For those on our parish prayer list, that they may receive swift answers to their needs and that they may find consolation through Christ’s healing presence. We pray to the Lord.
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers (pause). We pray to the Lord.
Creative, passionate God, you delight to shape the world in beauty and harmony. You invite us to participate in the balance of creation. We grow in wisdom as our experience unfolds; we take good learning out of difficult situations yet also find our well-meant endeavors leading to unintended consequences. Too often we give in to temptation that disrupts the joyous, chaotic order of the universe. We cannot undo all our mistakes, but we can turn once more to the living presence of Jesus and find new ways to live and love each other and the earth. Amen.
God Love You +++
The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Chapel
San Diego, CA.
As a small parish, we come to you all as beggars! Share with us this Christmas, a little sacrifice for the Christ Child. Your generous support also allows us to continue these important projects that fuel the movement of progressive Christianity. Thank you and God bless you! +++

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741 Cerro Gordo Avenue
San Diego, CA
92102

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http://www.stfrancisucc.org/donate.html, http://www.liberalcatholic.net/

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St. Francis Liberal Catholic Church

07/27/2026

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