Worship Message Texts

I concluded my final interim pastorate in March 2016, so I am no longer preaching on a regular basis. I am available for pulpit supply and these sermon scripts and videos give a picture of my approach. For pulpit supply, I am happy to write new sermons targeted at specific concerns or needs of congregations, otherwise I will rework previous sermons based on the texts of the Revised Common Lectionary for that Sunday.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Love Costs

1 John 3:16-24; Acts 4:5-12
April 29, 2012
© 2012

I.                The recent news story of how Marie Bell donated a kidney to Marshall Smith, the father of one of her kindergarten students, is at once inspiring and gulp evoking. Donating organs is not on any teacher’s job description. Since it can only be done once, you better be sure you made the right choice, and be sure you can live with the possibility, however remote, that you might need it years later.

A.           When they got the word that they were a match, Marshall Smith exclaimed, “Everything matches! I mean, every single thing she has done has come out to be a match. That’s God-sent. … I didn’t think God made people like her anymore.”

B.            When she was asked why she did this, Marie Bell said, he “needed me. I was going to answer that call. … I just did what was right. … I’m slightly sore but spiritually strong.”

C.            More often than not those who are recognized as heroes dismiss their self-sacrifice with “I just did what anyone would have done.” Or “I was just doing my job.” Or like Marie Bell, “I just did what was right.”

II.            To love with God’s love is to lay down your life for someone else.

A.           We read this three different times from three different angles in John’s New Testament writing.

1.              In John 10:11 Jesus said that the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Unlike the hired hand who runs away when the sheep are threatened, because they are not his, the Good Shepherd loves the sheep, and the sheep belong to the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd stands in harm’s way to protect the sheep. Illustrating his redemptive mission, Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd.

2.              In John 15:13 when Jesus had his last talk with his disciples on Maundy Thursday evening, he told them, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus wanted them, and us, to understand the significance of his crucifixion that came the next day.

3.              We read this morning in 1 John 3:16 that we know love because Jesus “laid down his life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Jesus is not only the teacher and example of love, he is how we know love and how we are able to love. Jesus defines and embodies love.

B.            1 John 3:17 gives us practical directions for love by which we lay down our lives for one another. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” From the perspective of faith, James 2:15-16 reinforces the same principle. “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” An authentic spiritual life, authentic faith, authentic love will of necessity be expressed in compassionately providing for the practical needs of others.

1.              The translation “refuses to help” is much weaker and  less graphic than the literal Greek, which would be more like to close up one’s innards or guts. It implies shutting down human emotions and empathy. It has the strength of Lady Macbeth’s speech as she prepared to murder Duncan, her husband’s rival for the throne. (Act I, scene V)

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief!

2.              Also the translation “world’s goods” is a little too limiting. Literally it means, life of the world. This certainly includes money and possessions but goes beyond that to say that if we have Jesus’ life-giving, life-sustaining love, we cannot withhold it from others. You may remember that when Peter and John saw the lame beggar at the Temple gate they said they had no money but would give what they had, which was physical healing.

C.            When several of the presidential candidates’ tax returns were recently released to the public, the charitable giving line appropriately got a lot of attention. Though Mitt Romney’s were not released yet, based on previous years commentators projected that they would show he gave a tithe to the Mormon Church and almost an equal amount to other charities. Without implying any political opinion or assessment of the Mormon Church or other of the other causes he supports, I would wish that all who seek public office were similarly generous and suggest that would make the debate over publically supported social services much less contentious. Practically laying down our lives for others is not limited to life threatening heroics and financial generosity, as powerful as those might be.

1.              We lay down our lives for each other when we give the time and effort to provide personally for someone at a point of need. Between Thursday’s Elders’ meeting and other conversations I have had with some of you this week, I’ve heard of at least a dozen such gifts of love in this congregation this week. If I were to name a few, I’d embarrass some people and skip others, so I’ll leave it for you to think of those you know about.

2.              Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to lay down our lives for someone is to listen with attention and empathy. Our presence becomes the presence and love of Jesus when we give up hurry and busy to listen. The most powerful way to show someone how important they are is to waste time with them.

3.              Perhaps the hardest way of laying down our lives for each other is to give up our personal preferences for the benefit of others. Can you feel and express thanks to those who prepared a church dinner that included your least favorite foods on the menu? In worship can you sing with enthusiasm songs and hymns that are not your style to be in harmony with the congregation to praise God? When your new pastor comes, can you joyfully support new ministry approaches even if you are uncomfortable with them?

III.       Acts 4:5-12 opens a window into how, from the earliest days of the Church, God’s love overflowed as the first Christians laid down their lives for others. Last week we listened in on Peter’s sermon as people in the Temple came running to see the lame beggar who had been healed. About 5,000 people put their faith in Jesus that day. The Temple leaders perceived this as a threat to the sanctity of the Temple and to their authority. Since it was already evening, they arrested Peter, John and the man who had been healed to hold them overnight.

The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, 6with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed,10let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. 11This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’12There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

A.           While Peter’s sermon is what seemed to have provoked their arrest, remember that this started out with a simple response to the practical, physical need of an insignificant beggar. The love of God was not taught as a doctrine, it was lived as practical compassion for a person in need.

B.            In English we miss the word-play as Luke wrote the story in Greek. In the Temple court, they may have been speaking Hebrew as the official language or Aramaic, which was the common language. So we don’t know how this came off in the conversation, but the Greek word for healed and saved are the same – sozo. It may have worked in Hebrew because the word shalom has a similar depth of meaning for peace, wholeness, blessing, salvation. But to get the impact of the story we need to realize that Peter is not speaking narrowly about going to heaven after death.

1.              Sozo means physical healing, which is what the lame man received in the name of Jesus.

2.              Sozo means spiritual wholeness, which is being at peace with both God and yourself – in your heart as we read in 1 John 3 this morning.

3.              Sozo can also mean escape from death. Often that meant living a good long life, not meeting a premature death. As hope in the resurrection blossomed, it came to mean a hope for eternal life.

C.            Peter may not have been fully aware of the consequences of healing the lame man, preaching in the Temple and claiming the name of Jesus in court. Yet he was laying down his life for the man who had been healed.

1.              Peter’s quote identifying Jesus as the stone the builders rejected comes from Psalm 118, the same Psalm that was chanted when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Jesus quoted this same line in the parable of the wicked tenants that he told after driving the merchants and money changers out of the Temple (Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17). All of that took place just a few months earlier. Now the same Psalm was being used again in another disruption of the Temple order. First by Jesus and now in the name of Jesus.

2.              With his boldness before the council Peter was laying down his life in love, not only for the man who had been healed but in the name of Jesus, who was the source of that love.

IV.      In John 3:23 to believe and to love are a single command. We do not earn or even prove our faith by our love, but when God’s love is in us, it will come out as we lay down our lives for others in practical compassion.

A.           Criticizing others or condemning ourselves for inadequate love is all too easy, but 1 John 3:20-21assures us that that God knows our hearts better than we do. God recognizes the love that God has put there through Jesus.

B.            When we abide in God with faith and love together, we have confidence with God.

1.              Like Peter’s boldness before the council, we will be bold in practical compassion.

2.              We will be bold in prayer and intimacy with God.

C.            Whether the news is about bullying, gangs, fight clubs or cheerleader tryouts, the signs of hunger for authentic love are all around us. Counterfeits do a lot of damage. Shallow substitutes are ultimately unsatisfying. As communities of people who lay down their lives for others, churches are beacons of authentic, satisfying love to the people of the 21st century, right here in Duncanville.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Don’t Run in Church

1 John 3:1-7; Acts 3:12-20a
April 22, 2012
© 2012

I.
During Lent we focused our attention on our personal spiritual lives, our individual relationships with Jesus. Between now and Pentecost, May 27, we will be listening for the voice of God in 1 John and Acts to discern how 1st Christian Church of Duncanville can live as a community of Jesus’ resurrection in the 21st century. To what mission is God calling you? How can you organize and mobilize to pursue that mission?
A.
The April 2 cover of Newsweek featured a column by Andrew Sullivan. Though not in the text of his column, the catch-line for the cover was “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus.” Sullivan asserts the obvious that “Christianity is in crisis.” “It is no surprise that the fastest-growing segment of belief among the young is atheism. … Nor is it a shock that so many have turned away from organized Christianity toward ‘spirituality.’ … The thirst for God is still there. How could it not be, when the profoundest human questions – Why does the universe exist rather than nothing? How did humanity come to be on this remote blue speck of a planet? What happens to us after death? – remain as pressing as and mysterious as they’ve always been?” Though probably not what most would consider an orthodox believer, Sullivan is not an opponent looking to undermine Christian faith. He writes, “Whether or not you believe, as I do, in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection – and in the importance of celebrating both on Easter Sunday, … how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines” does not matter “if you do not live as these doctrines demand.”
B.
As I have read the passages from Acts we will be looking at in the next few weeks, I have concluded that in those first weeks and months after Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Church faced conditions very similar to what we face today. Though they still considered themselves Jewish, studied in synagogues and worshipped at the Jerusalem Temple, the whole context had changed, and they were trying to figure out where they fit. They were a misunderstood minority that often provoked hostility from both religious and civic leaders. Made up of people from all over the Mediterranean world, they were multi-lingual, multi-cultural and to some extent even multi-ethnic. The Apostles were largely laboring folk from rural Galilee who were now based in the urban core of cosmopolitan Jerusalem. They had Jesus’ example and teaching. They had the Holy Spirit, but they had little if any structure or organization. They were making it up as they went.
C.
My friends, so are we! The present transition of 1st Christian Church of Duncanville is a microcosm of what the whole Church (at least in the West) is facing in the 21st century. Duncanville and the surrounding post-suburban communities have become multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. A shrinking minority of people under 50 have any kind of religious or Christian experience. With meager misinformation, many echo the Newsweek cover: “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus.” To the extent that we are perceived as preserving the church as an institution rather than following Jesus, we will be written off. But if we can demonstrate the practical love of Jesus and engage people in exploring life’s huge, transcendent questions, a new era of mission and spiritual vitality opens up for us.
D.
As God’s loved children looking at Jesus, we become like him. Refreshed in his name, God’s love overflows our life together.
II.
Several years ago Candy and I worshipped with an African-American congregation whose pastor was a friend. As a visiting minister, I was seated on the chancel. The woman guest preacher spoke on the healing of the lame man at the Temple from Acts 3:1-11. She wore a pulpit robe and spike heels. Her theme line was “Comin’ in limpin’ – goin’ out leapin’!” Every time she said “leapin’” she’d jump and click her heels together. And every time, I held my breath afraid she’d catch one of those spike heels in the hem of her robe. But she never did.
A.
Though the text says the lame man was carried to the Temple steps since he couldn’t even limp, the preacher captured something of the energy of that event. In the 1st century, dignified Jewish men didn’t run anywhere, especially not in the hallowed halls of the Temple. But with the man they recognized as the lame beggar leaping and praising God, people came running to see for themselves. In Acts 3:12-20a Peter does an impromptu reprise of his Pentecost sermon. [Tell passage.]

When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.17“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.19Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, 20so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
B.
Peter was quick to say that he and John had no special power or piety to make the man walk. The jumbled language of verse 16 makes clear that it was neither their faith nor the lame man’s faith that healed him but the name of Jesus itself. Faith is confidence in the name of Jesus, not a way we manipulate it. Peter is also quick to identify Jesus as the servant of the God of their ancestors.
C.
The source of this new, still not completely defined or understood movement is the work of the same God who called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Peter’s call for repentance is not so much about taking responsibility for the death of Jesus as it is a call to surrender self-righteousness. The wiping out of sins unlocks the floodgates of refreshment. Unlike the people who had joyfully
welcomed Jesus a few weeks earlier on Palm Sunday, this is the Temple crowd deeply invested in preserving their stultified traditions and power. Peter is inviting them to welcome the same transforming renewal by the Holy Spirit the disciples had received on Pentecost. This refreshment is not generated by religious practices but by receiving it from the presence of the Lord.
D.
As God’s loved children looking at Jesus, we become like him. Refreshed in his name, God’s love overflows our life together.
III.
I know scholars have poured a lot of energy into discussing and debating the authorship of the New Testament books ascribed to John. But I don’t want that to distract us from what I believe is an important connection between this story in Acts and what we read in 1 John. John was there with Peter at the Temple but did not seem to say much. We do know that a community of disciples grew up around John and his teaching. We also know that 1 John was written several decades after the episode in the Temple and the other formative events we read about in the first part of Acts. I suggest that they are a maturing reflection on what was learned in those early days.
A.
God’s love is at the center of that learning. God has loved us enough to claim us as his children. God’s love in Christ has taken away our sin. Just as Peter said God wipes out the sins of those who repent, John is affirming something much stronger than forgiveness. God’s love is the power that removes our sin, abolishes our sin.
B.
In fact, God’s love is so powerful it promised that we will become like Jesus in his purity and righteousness when we see him. John is making an obvious reference to the future appearance of Jesus at the climax of human history. We can’t come close to imagining not only what Jesus will be much less how we will be like him when we see him as he is. Perhaps John’s experience of seeing Jesus at his Transfiguration gives a bit of a hint.
C.
But there is also a present reality. As we look at Jesus, God lovingly shapes us to become more and more like Jesus. Notice that the language here is indicative not imperative. John is not saying, “Look at Jesus hard enough to become like him.” No! he is saying, “When you look at Jesus, the Father will make you like him.”
1.
We look at Jesus when we read the Bible, when we pray, when we worship him together.
2.
The late Russian Orthodox archbishop Anthony Bloom tells of an eighteenth-century priest who once asked an aged peasant what he was doing during the hours and hours he spent sitting in the chapel. The old man replied, “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.” (Soul Feast by Marjorie J. Thompson, page 45)
D.
As God’s loved children looking at Jesus, we become like him. Refreshed in his name, God’s love overflows our life together.
IV.
Having been with you for almost 8 months now, I am convinced that God does not want 1st Christian Church of Duncanville to go limpin’ into the future. God has a leapin’ future for you. Maybe you don’t want to tell your children to start running in church, but loving in the name of Jesus will bring people running to church.
A.
The power is in the name of Jesus, not in your programs, not in your new pastor, not even in your faith. Look at Jesus! The more clearly you see him, the more the Father will make you like him. I love Paul’s line in 1 Corinthians 14:25. When an outsider enters your worship “that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, ‘God is really among you.’” In our time of skepticism and limpin’ congregations, I might be happy if an outsider at least said, “those people think God is really among them.”
B.
The more like Jesus we become, the more the love of God will overflow from us. Some of that overflow is between us. In John 13:35 Jesus said that people would know we were his disciples by our love for each other. Few things are as damaging to the witness of the Gospel as division and animosity between Christians. I believe that applies at a personal level within congregations as well as between branches of the Church. But Jesus also made it clear that God’s love has no boundaries. It is not limited to those who are like us; it is especially for those who are not only unlike us but are hostile to us – our enemies.
C.
St. Benedict spoke of conversion of life not as an event that marked our entry into Christ’s grace, but as a daily process of being made new by the presence of Christ. This is the repentance by which sins are wiped out. It is not groveling in guilt but exulting in grace! It opens the floodgates of refreshing, not just for individuals but for the whole congregation as a community of Jesus’
resurrection.
IV.
As God’s loved children looking at Jesus, we become like him. Refreshed in his name, God’s love overflows our life together.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Looking for Jesus?

John 20:1-18
April 8, 2012
© 2012

I.
Last Sunday we talked about how carefully Jesus orchestrated every detail of his grand entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. By the next day he was in trouble with the authorities and by Friday had provoked them into executing him. But on Easter morning no news reported his resurrection. No orchestra or choir for a Hallelujah Chorus! No strutting “I told you so!” before the Sanhedrin. Jesus obviously did not enlist a public relations firm for the climax of his ministry.
A.
No one was an eye witness of the moment of resurrection. Through the centuries artists have tried to imagine what it would have been like. The images tend to be spectacular! Mega-churches stage grand pageants, and we all sing stirring hymns. Like the proverbial question, does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one is there to hear it? Jesus’ resurrection is a conundrum.
B.
One by one, out of the dark of dawn a few of Jesus’ disciples made their way to the empty tomb. Jesus appeared to some of them in fleeting, mysterious moments. The Gospel accounts emphasize a variety of details we have trouble assembling into a single story, but they all agree that a few women were the first to see the risen Jesus. John 20:11-18 focuses on Mary Magdalene’s highly personal, emotional encounter with Jesus.
C.
As we read already from John 20:1-10, when she found the tomb empty, she assumed Jesus’ body had been stolen and ran to report to Peter. Peter and John ran to see for themselves. John apparently believed Jesus had risen, but Peter remained perplexed. Peter and John, and perhaps the other women, left the tomb.

[Tell John 20:11-18.]
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
II.
Whom are you looking for this Easter morning?
A.
That every pastor, every congregation, is looking for good worship attendance on Easter is no surprise. If enough of the right people are there, we’re gratified, if not, we’re disappointed. Instead of Jesus we look for full pews.
B.
I know some skeptics come to Easter worship, and plenty of Easter sermons are devoted to weighing the evidence to convince them that Jesus’ resurrection was real.
C.
We all enjoy the festivities: the music, the colors, the flowers, the pageantry, the exhilaration, even if we’re not necessarily looking for Jesus.
III.
Even when Mary Magdalene looked at and spoke with Jesus, she did not see or hear him. She had been looking for a dead Jesus. She was so anxious about what had happened to his body, she didn’t realize angels had spoken to her. She didn’t find him, but Jesus found her, and she was transformed.
A.
Jesus repeated the angels’ question, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She was not just grieving Jesus’ death; she wept for the presumed insult of stealing his body. Mary did not realize that she no longer needed to grieve. Not only had Jesus been found, he was alive and found her.
1.
So Jesus added to the angels’ question, “Whom are you looking for?” Of course, he knew the answer. Jesus was telling Mary she didn’t need to look any further. He had found her.
2.
Mary did not recognize Jesus by visual cues but when he called her by name. “Mary!” The whole relationship came rushing back. Jesus had liberated her from the tyranny of seven demons. She had traveled with Jesus as he proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God. She had contributed generously to support Jesus’ ministry. (Luke 8:1-3) She had watched him die on the cross. (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40; John 19:25) She had been there when his broken body was wrapped and placed in this tomb. (Mark 15:47)
3.
Mary simply responded “my teacher.” She not only recognized Jesus, she affirmed her intense love for Jesus. Not a romantic or erotic love between a man and a woman but a renewal of her discipleship. The risen Jesus had found her and transformed her.
B.
Despite a lot of silly speculation about Mary Magdalene through the centuries and in our own time, she is indeed an important figure in the Gospel drama. By finding Mary and encountering her at the tomb, Jesus chose her as the first apostle. The apostles were those who proclaimed the good news that they were eye witnesses of the risen Jesus. She was the first one to see him and to announce to the other disciples she had seen him. She didn’t just tell, she delivered an official message. (v. 18)
IV.
The KJV says that Jesus told Mary not to touch him. As I kid I wondered if the just resurrected Jesus was like a butterfly just coming out of its cocoon, and he wasn’t dry yet. Modern translations with Jesus saying, “Don’t hold onto me” give a much better picture of the transformations that come to those who are encountered by the risen Jesus.
A.
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples in elusive encounters. Just about the time they were sure he was really there, he vanished. They did not go back to comfortable teaching tours in Galilee. In a few short weeks he ascended to the Father and the Holy Spirit came. They did not go back to normal, but Jesus opened a whole new future for them and for us.
B.
Jesus called Mary by name, and everything changed forever. The risen Jesus is calling your name. Reply and everything changes forever.
A good friend of mine, who I’ll call Ron, manages commercial real estate investments. A friend and business associate of his, who I’ll call Mike, had been a very successful investment broker. Mike was confident and independent. Ron had often told Mike how Jesus had changed his life for the better, but Mike brushed him off with, “That’s OK for you, but I don’t need it.” Then Mike was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Ron let Mike know he was praying for him. Mike responded with gratitude but said, “I don’t know why God should do anything for me now since I shut God out all my life.” Ron told Mike he thought I could explain it better than he could, so Mike invited Ron to bring me over for a chat. I didn’t explain much of anything. I just listened and encouraged Mike to read Mark’s Gospel and see if Jesus would meet him. We got together several more times, and I listened to what Mike was hearing from Jesus. Mike and his wife began attending worship. When his strength had diminished to the point he could barely walk, Mike asked if it was OK for him to come up to confess his faith in Jesus and join the church. The next Sunday, leaning on his wife for support, Mike hobbled to the front, and he confessed his faith. He told the congregation this was completely out of character for him, but he needed to do it to confirm that it was real. Jesus had changed everything for him. When I visited him during his final hospitalization, Mike said he wanted Ron to speak at his funeral to tell everyone how Jesus could find and transform even someone like him.
A risen savior is on the loose and knows your name!