it's not about you

A reflection based on the prayer of Jesus in John 17 is at the PUMC website. Click "sermons".

It begins:

One of the most valuable experiences along a life of ministry for me was a few days spent in Bethesda, Maryland with a man named Ed Friedman, who was a rabbi and a family systems theorist. He wrote a book entitled Generation To Generation, which many pastors would place just after the Bible as a reference that they have returned to again and again. Ed was brilliant. He was also a classical Jewish comedian. I miss him.

At any rate, I recall him reflecting with our group about some conflict that was taking place in a congregation, maybe between the pastor and the congregation, and he said, “you know, most of the time, we are too egocentric…most of the time, it is not even about us”...