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🗓️ 21 November 2012
⏱️ 61 minutes
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0:00.0 | One of the rituals of having a Wenzheni class each year is that we get to have a Thanksgiving |
0:22.9 | Eve kind of gathering here. And in this season the culture's sensitivities are a little |
0:32.2 | heightened to the qualities of heart. There's a little more of a tendency to remember, oh, it matters |
0:39.4 | to be giving, it matters to be grateful. So in the spirit of this season tonight will be exploring |
0:46.1 | gratitude and generosity. And I'd like to begin with a story that I read in a book called Tatus of the |
0:57.0 | Heart. And this is Gregory Boyle. He's a Catholic pastor of a church in an area most concentrated area in |
1:06.2 | LA for gang violence. And he's done miraculous things in terms of setting up business for the |
1:13.0 | homies, which are the younger people in these gangs and so on. And one of the stories he tells is |
1:20.6 | of the church they have there which became declared itself a sanctuary church in 1987. And it began |
1:28.0 | to house about 100 homeless people a night. And the challenge was that the next day people come to |
1:36.0 | the church and they start grumbling about the smell that was there. And they started talking about |
1:40.3 | church elsewhere. And they did everything they could. You know, they sprinkled and they put, |
1:45.7 | I love my carpet on all the rugs and potpourri and airwik around. But you know, 100 guys is a lot of |
1:51.9 | guys. So they decided, Gregory decided to address the discontent and a sermon and I want to tell you |
1:59.2 | what happened because I think it was so cool. So he said right out front, he says, okay, so what is |
2:05.9 | this church smell like? And of course the people were mortified and they didn't answer. And finally |
2:11.4 | someone booms out, it smells like feet. And he asked them, why does it smell like feet response? |
2:19.5 | Because many homeless men slept here last night. And he asked, well, why do we let that happen? |
2:26.5 | Then the response was, it's what we've committed to do. Well, why would anyone commit to do that? |
2:34.0 | Response, purge, es, lo que, haria, jesu. It's what Jesus would do. Forgive my way of speaking on this. |
2:41.6 | Not good accent. Well, then what does the church smell like now? A man stands and bellows. |
2:47.7 | It smells like commitment. The place cheers. The woman waves their arms wildly. |
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