But it’s KNOWvember, and there had to be someone worth meeting. There was Aarika Wells, the docent, historian, and artist in residence. Gladys an artistic cow who is the town greeter. And some dude who is the glass blower and whose name I forgot to write down. But that’s okay.

​At the end of the day, it really was the town that was worth meeting!

​Harmony was founded in 1869 around several dairy ranches and the creamery. The operation changed hands repeatedly because of rivalries that led to a killing. In 1907, owners and rancher agreed to call off their feud and call the town by his present name as a symbol of their truce. all agreed to live in harmony and from this name the town was derived.

In it’s hay day the village boasted a large residence for management bunk houses for employees of the Harmony Valley Co., a general store, a livery and stable, a blacksmith and feed store, a post office and a school house. Eventually the dairy business shifted a little further south to San Luis Obispo and in the late 1950’s, Harmony Dairy closed down.

For many years the town was abandoned, with the exception of the post office. And in 1972, restoration began to bring back the beauty and vitality of the Harmony of years past. Today it’s more of an arts colony, and a winery up the hill. There are tons of spots to take pictures for Facebook and Instagram. Including a beautiful chapel and gladys’ cow friends who make up 4 of 101 cows created by local artist for the San Luis Obispo Cow Parade of 2016.

Hospitality was not his first job. He’s been a mortician. He ran the crematorium for a while. And after his first marriage bit the dust, Dan took a job watching a parking lot. “I didn’t have to do anything. Zero. Just be there. It gave me time to read a lot of books. (Judging by the numerous times Dan ran out to get a book from his car to show me I reckon he likes to read).

It was while nursing his wounds from his first marriage that Dan began “to experiment with new age thinking.” Which was interesting to me because he told me he had been baptized twice already. A story all of its own.

But it makes sense he’d go down that route. He liked trying things and learning new things a seeing how it’s all connected. His life began a bit disconnected with a mom in Long Island, NY and a dad he never met who lived in Santa Barbara. Mom was a Christian (who he saved and now she’s a super Christian...part of the other story). Dad was a swami, as Dan would come to discover after getting kicked out of his house for causing a riot in his high school (once again a whole other story). “It’s no wonder I like religion. I got both eastern and western religions in me.”

But there is so much more to this man who just turned 60 on my sister in law’s birthday. He also dabbles in video production, and had a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos he’s made over the last six years. “While working the parking lot I met a man who had a show on Public Access. He invited me to see his set. When I saw take a blank room and turn it into a show I just had to learn that.”

This is Dan’s creative side. He enjoys taking footage off the internet and recutting with music. He has also shot his own footage for a local show he did here, “like postcards from Santa Barbara.”

In this weird little space Dan has found his niche, a canvas where he can create. And the world is watching. Some of his videos have 200 views and other 2 million views. “They won’t watch public access in Santa Barbara, but they watch my stuff about it.”

Something about strangers getting to know someone from their work that they post online that fascinates me. I wonder why? However I am glad I got to know Dan. He is the man!

Speaking of hell, our Congress has spent the past couple of weeks questioning people about the President’s use of quid pro quo to get information on a political rival. The world has tuned in to hear the statements from diplomats and career civil servants hoping to learn the truth. After all, the President’s reputation is on the line. 
 
In today’s reading from Luke, we get an unembellished statement from a man whose reputation is also on the line. His is profoundly poignant - especially given its context. The one who asked the question is overjoyed because the answer he receives reveals the truth he had hoped for.
 
READ LUKE 23:32-43
 
Last week we spoke of hope. And now on the last Sunday of the church calendar, as we celebrate the Reign of Christ, Jesus offers the world hope like it’s no one’s business. In his final statement to another human being Jesus tells a confessed criminal, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” 
 
Jesus is the diplomat of God’s grace. The ambassador of  love.  A statesman for salvation. This shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus began his ministry announcing the kingdom of God to the world, and now at the end of his short life he shows us what that kingdom looks like. Often in the most unorthodox of ways.
 
“Jesus was pretty weird,” writes Todd Brewer in a recent essay on Mockingbird. “Jesus laughed off death threats, and he regularly insulted his dinner hosts. He held a patent disregard for social conventions. And when he had the chance, he did or said the last thing people expected. He must have been incredibly infuriating to be around.”  Sound like anyone you know?
 
The priest and politicians deemed Jesus a threat, because he represents and embodies God’s grace  - the greatest threat to anyone who reigns over people with fear instead of love. Even in his final minutes of life Jesus practice what he preached – showing what real grace looks like to those who believe they aren’t worthy to receive it. 
 
This begs the question, “Who among us is worthy?” 

Jesus says you are worthy. God loves us all no matter what. Hanging on the cross is proof of that love. Sadly, we waste so much energy believing that we are unworthy. So, we avoid God as if God is keeping score. Or hiding in the bushes to catch us.
 
If what Jesus says is true, if God’s grace is real, and God’s love is abundant, then what does that say to those who doubt or mock Jesus from their cross? Are they any less worthy than the ones who recognize him?
 
There are some folks who say yes. They don’t want to believe that “all” people deserve God’s grace. Muslims, Hindus, Democrats, or your weird gun-toting uncle who spews conspiracy-theories whenever you’re around. Who wants to share eternity with them? 
 
In a recent Facebook post, a friend made a comment about not wanting to live in heaven next door to the kid who killed two students last week at Saugus High. She preferred he be “in substandard housing in a really warm climate.” 
 
But then another asked, “Does this kid get more of a pass because he was messed-up?” This got me thinking. God didn’t mess this world up, we did. God didn’t teach this boy to hate, we did. We made a place for him where violence and killing is normalized. Who needs God’s grace more than this him? 
 
In her book Accidental Saints, Nadia Bolz-Weber confessed she was reluctant to recognize the Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza among those killed. But then she realized “that the light of Christ cannot, will not, shall not be overcome by that darkness. Not by Herod, and not by Adam Lanza. The light of Christ is so bright that it shines even for me and even for them.”  
 
It’s hard to think God loves mean, angry, bad people. But if God is alive in all, then no one can be left out. The grace of God that is revealed in Christ is so deep and so abiding, that even to those who disappoint can receive it if they want it.  
 
Some might call this fake news. But to me, it’s the good news. The gospel Jesus proclaimed when he ushered in the kingdom of God. A kingdom where prodigals are forgiven,  lost sheep are found, people are restored, and those who are condemned can claim God’s mercy and grace if they want it.

 Christ has shown me God’s Kingdom is like a dad who never gave up when his son screwed up. Or a mother who patiently loved her daughter through those difficult years. It’s like my wife who forgives me not because she’s committed to loving me for better or worse, but because she too has received undeserved grace.  She knows the power of claiming it…if she wants.
 
Congress can debate the usage of quid pro quo, but Jesus knows God plays by a different set of rules. You see, God’s grace is not transactional. It’s transformational. It has nothing to do with what we did to deserve it. But it has everything to do with those who want it.  
 
Here is a person who does not taunt or mock Jesus with royal titles, but simply addresses him by his name. Jesus. A name which means “God saves.” And more precisely, “God is rescue.” I don’t know if that criminal knew Jesus is the embodiment of God's salvation and rescue, but he wants it. The very last thing this dying man does is to speak “the name that is above all names” (Phil. 2:9). And today he is with Christ in paradise.
 
I want you to remember this as you go out into the world. God’s love is infinite. So too is God’s grace. There is plenty for everyone – not just those who recognize who Jesus is but even for those who mock him. If they want it.

But if you accept it, remember that grace is God’s way of saying, “I’m not interested in what you’ve done but what you are doing right now, today, in this paradise.” Jesus has already died. We have already received the benefits of his sacrifice. Now it’s up us to go and be the presence of God’s greatest gift for others .
 
Today it’s up to us to go be weird like Jesus, who showed us how to sit with others in their sorrow, how to celebrate in their joy, and feed their hunger for something other than what this world offers. It doesn’t matter which side of the cross they are on, to care for the least of our brothers and sisters is to care for Jesus himself.
 
As we move towards Advent, we do so with the cross of Christ in front of us and the hope that it sheds light on. It is our reminder that God love is real. And God’s grace is real. The life that Jesus invites us to live is an everlasting life that begins today. If you want it, God says it’s yours.
 
Today, let us call on the name of Jesus, to make his name our statement in the world. This means to be a diplomate and ambassador of Christ and proclaim the truth of God’s love in all that we do. 
 
Today, I invite you to see and do what Jesus did, so the narrow path expands and the doors of the Kingdom are pushed wide open for anyone who desires to enter into paradise.
 
 
Work Cited
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word, Year C. Vol. 4. (Westminster John Knox: 2010) pp. 332-337.
Bolz-Weber, Nadia. Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People.  (Convergent: 2015) p. 78.
Brewer, Todd. The Elusive Strangeness of Jesus. Mocking Bird: Nov. 19, 2019. (accessed 11/19/19)  https://mbird.com/2019/11/the-elusive-strangeness-of-jesus

There were metal toy trucks from the 1940’s, miniature doll furniture from the 50’s, antiques from every era, and a Hillary Clinton puppet – from the Senator collection. We laughed about how it could have been worth something had it been Candidate Hilary or even Sec. Clinton. “Nobody wants the senators anymore.”  You see, Sue has a great sense of humor. 
  
I suspect she got her quick whit from the same place she got her smile and her heart of gold. “My mom was a funny Jew. And my dad, an Irish Catholic. Not very common 50 years ago, not even in Bergen County New Jersey. Born and raised there, Sue always wanted to live in California. “It just took a little longer than I had planned.” Eight years ago she finally made the move; switching states and careers in one move. 
 
I didn’t ask her what the reason was for her moving, but it didn’t seem like an impetuous decision. On her wrists are the words from a song she heard right before making the move; “Faith of the heart. Strength of the soul.” A day after arriving she got the tattoos. 
 
Once an accountant, Sue has spent the last five years working with people who have eating disorders, and substance abuse issues. When I asked her to tell me about the hardest part of her job she said, “At first I couldn’t bring medicine to work because that was considered contraband to the addicts. Now that I work with eating disorders, I can’t have my Diet Coke.” While it didn’t seem politically correct to laugh at other people’s problems, we decided it was okay to bond over another good laugh.
 
As I told her about this project, Sue was right there with me. She said, “My mother used to say you’ve never met a stranger.” I asked her what she meant by that and Sue told me that everywhere she goes, she runs into someone she knows. On a private tour of the Vatican, she ran into an old friend who was on another tour. When she was at a football game in England, someone she knew was four rows behind her. Bermuda, Jamaica, Las Vegas…the list went on. “You better not break any laws or do something you shouldn’t do," her mother would tell her, "because someone you know might be watching you.”
 
And isn’t that what getting to know people is all about? I mean, imagine a community where you know your neighbors, and not only share laughs but to be there for them and to watch out for them. This is the kind of world I want to live in. Sue is on board with me. She took the first step of moving into our neighborhood. I took the next step to meet her.  Yes, it happened while all those strange, stuffed birds were staring at me…but like her mom used to say, "you never met a stranger," instead I met a new friend.

​
Both are born and raised in different neighborhoods of L.A. Both have immigrant parents. And both social workers. Victoria works for a family clinic and Gerry, after 30 years of doing family and child advocacy work, teaches field classes at UCLA where he is a Bruins alumni. She is USC Trojan. The two biggest rivals on the West Coast, yet they make that work. At least until tomorrow when their respective schools will battle it out in the gridiron. 
 
Ironically, the two of them met by accident as well. A much happier accident than the one today. First of all, they like to tell people they met when Victoria put an ad on Craig’s List Personals looking for “some arm candy” to take to a wedding she didn’t want to attend alone. Gerry was that guy. 
 
The real story is they met at a work conference in downtown Los Angeles. She was living and working in New York, which meant that they had a long-distance relationship for the first of the three years they have been together. They would FaceTime daily, but also kept and sent one another journal entries that they wrote. Super cute!   
 
Their real, real story is even better than the first two simply because it happened a year before they ever met. Victoria, who was on the social workers cycling team at USC, was getting ready to do a charity ride. One of her team members asked her if she would pin a photo of his dear friend who had just passed away to the back of his jersey. Victoria obliged and then spent the rest of the ride staring at that man wondering who he was. 
 
Well, as happy accidents tend to work out, that man just so happened to be Gerry’s dad. She would not know it until they were already dating. “Seems like my dad wanted us to meet.” 
 
I doubt his dad wanted him to meet the back of that car, but I am glad he did. As Victoria said, “This put a happy ending on an unhappy event.” I would agree.