Sermon - 5-14-23

<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Honesty and love”…foundational words that came to me during my junior year in college in 1963 and ’64.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Years marked by JFK’s assassination… by George Wallace declaring “segregation forever”… by the reawakening of the women’s movement (Betty Friedan)…by MLK’s arrest in Birmingham –“Parading without a permit”…<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> by the cruel tactics of Bull Connor… by the Supreme Court ruled that state mandated Bible reading in schools was unconstitutional….by an attack on American journalists in South Vietnam…by our entrance into the war in Viet Nam after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a US destroyer ship in the Gulf of Tonkin… <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by MLK’s “I have a dream” speech and his letter from the Birmingham Jail, by the bombing at 16^th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham killing four young children, by a mock election to protest systematic disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi, by the killing Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, …by Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in prison….by President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tumultuous both deeply troubling and hope-filled time in so many ways, affecting so many lives…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style= "font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Honesty and love”…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span> One day in my sophomore year while working in the chemistry lab (pursuing a major in chemistry), it came to me that this was not to be my profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> My grades were fine, though calculus was a struggle.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> But my really difficult, deeper struggle was about discerning what God was calling me to be and do with my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> My father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all pastors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> I was