Earlier today, I had the pleasure of providing the sermon for the Toronto Community of Christ congregation’s Beyond the Walls online ministry. Like when I preached last summer, the congregation is working its way through the parables associated with a particular gospel (Luke last year, Matthew this year), and I preached on the parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

The parable’s reference to visiting prisoners—combined with having recently read Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle—made me think about a decade(ish)-old memory that I hadn’t thought of for a long time. I also got to think about a Gérard Siegwalt book I recently reread and a recent experience at a spiritual retreat I attended a few years ago. I enjoyed thinking about this text and putting the sermon together and wanted to link to it here. I also really enjoyed the contributions from Estaban (who, it turns out, has some professional overlap with what I do!), Ron, Leandro, Mike, and John, which all tied together into a service that did a lot for my Sunday.

I bought this book with a gift card and to thumb my nose at an obnoxious visiting authority at a Latter-day Saint stake conference from over four years ago. This guy spent the Saturday evening session of the conference complaining about young adults who supported gay marriage and parents who pushed back against school discipline instead of giving their kids a whuppin’ (his words, not mine) and then still had the gall to talk about how great Mormonism is because it doesn’t believe in a fire and brimstone angry God.