Before you say it, I know very well that Episcopalians are not known for being crazy. In fact, if anything, our reputation is for being orderly - if not a little TOO orderly. Our worship is tightly scripted. We have notes in the margins telling us when to sit, stand, kneel and cross ourself. We have liturgical seasons dictating what colors to decorate the church with and what hymns we are to sing. We have four “orders” of ministry so we all know our role (lay, priest, deacon, and bishop). Heck, we even pre-script our prayers for every possible occasion and bind them into a neat little red book!

So why would such orderly people want to get crazy? The short answer: Jesus called us to be! Jesus was called crazy because of the people he ate with, the people he was willing to heal and the people he was willing to talk to - the unclean, the outcasts and the untouchable. By doing so in the name of God and calling on others to follow his lead, he got himself killed by the religious and the political establishment, most invested in the old order. Jesus said that we too, as his followers, would be known by the way we love, by showing the world a love that is so extravagant, so unconditional, so unrestrained, that it would turn heads and cause people to ask, “who ARE those people, that they would love the world like that?”

To the rest of the world, we would look crazy. That is exactly how the early church grew by leaps and bounds. By loving one another and by loving those that the world had thrown away – widows, orphans, and anyone else that was considered “disposable.” As we go forward, it is time for Christians to once again start acting crazy. Crazy in our love for each other. Crazy in our love for the world.

This summer, you are invited to join one of several book groups, where we will be learning how to love in crazy ways. One of those books is written by none other than presiding Bishop Michael Curry and it's called exactly that: “Crazy Christians.”