This very special We Offer Ourselves SUNDAY
open thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody
to post whatever they feel they would like
to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA world.

Say what you want, comment on what other people said,
comment on people’s comments.
Keep it civil.  Treehouse rules, but expect lots of QAnon.

See the January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.

Remember – your greatest gift to President Trump is FIVE WORDS:
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU

We Offer Ourselves

When Christ came into the world he said:
“Here I am, Lord God, I come to do your will.”  (from: Hebrews 10:9)

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

From a sermon by Saint Andrew of Crete, bishop

Let us go together to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives. Today he returns from Bethany and proceeds of his own free will toward his holy and blessed passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation. He who came down from heaven to raise us from the depths of sin, to raise us with himself, we are told in Scripture, above every sovereignty, authority and power, and every other name that can be named, now comes of his own free will to make his journey to Jerusalem. He comes without pomp or ostentation. As the psalmist says: He will not dispute or raise his voice to make it heard in the streets. He will be meek and humble, and he will make his entry in simplicity.

Let us run to accompany him as he hastens toward his passion, and imitate those who met him then, not by covering his path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before him by being humble and by trying to live as he would wish. Then we shall be able to receive the Word at his coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us.

In his humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world and he is glad that he became so humble for our sake, glad that he came and lived among us and shared in our nature in order to raise us up again to himself. And even though we are told that he has now ascended above the highest heavens—the proof, surely, of his power and godhead—his love for man will never rest until he has raised our earthbound nature from glory to glory, and made it one with his own in heaven.

So let us spread before his feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in his grace, or rather, clothed completely in him. We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before him. Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of his victory. Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children’s holy song: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.

But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
They will no longer teach their friends and relatives, “Know the Lord!” Everyone, from least to greatest, shall know me—for I will forgive their iniquity and no longer remember their sin.
Jeremiah 31:33-34

“This is the covenant I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord:

‘I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them upon their minds,’”

Hebrews 10:16

“And I will give them another heart and a new spirit I will put within them. From their bodies I will remove the hearts of stone, and give them hearts of flesh.”
Ezekiel 11:19

And so I offer my thoughts…

Socialism … Communism … attempt, as all  utopian constructs do, to EXTERNALLY regulate  kindness, generosity, and right living.
We are taught, in the epistles (letters) to the young Christian church, that this is not  possible–even for those following the law given to Moses.
They want to tell us right from wrong. The same deal the serpent offered Eve. And that path has never helped anyone to get back to Eden.
We have broken programming. Laws, rules, codes of ethics can’t fix this kind of broken. Our moral software always generates the wrong answer like a phone book with all the numbers scrambled.
Some of us have been delighted to find our Creator has a remedy for us.
But it’s not an easy or comfortable path.
Because, well, our faulty program is not just neatly removed.
That would be easier, I think.
Instead we are offered access to a source without any malware, and the option to operate by our power of choice to moment by moment IGNORE our own malware, and live from an alternate motivation, the mind of Christ, the heart of God.
Shall we offer ourselves to do His good will–that living water might flow to those thirsty places we touch in our everyday lives? Who wouldn’t want that?
T*3

He pierced the rock to give them water;
It gushed forth in the desert like a river.

Psalm 105:41

Whoever believes in me, as scripture says:
‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’”

John 7:38