Love Not Fear

I preached this sermon on June 23, 2019 at Northminster Presbyterian Church. I was filling in for our pastor, whose husband was in hospice. He died earlier that morning. You know, almost everyone who preaches on that second bit of scripture focuses on the demons or the demon-possessed suicidal pigs, and I understand, because how often do you get to say the words “demon-possessed suicidal pigs”… in church yet? But for today, I’m not going to focus on the demon-possessed suicidal pigs. I’m going to focus more on the naked guy, but first, a story and some poetry talk. Recently, the father of Richard, a co-worker and friend, died. I got a card for Richard, and passed it around the lab so that we could all sign it for him. Now this was right before Father’s Day, so the greeting card shelves were a little sparse on anything that wasn’t birthday or Father’s Day related. There was one sympathy card, and it was blank inside. That meant that I had to write something, and that meant everyo