

Elizabeth Jennings
A Great Rush of Mercy
Zechariah 9:9-12; Romans 7:15-25a; Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 (The sermon begins with Elizabeth singing a song from Rigoletto.) That song is from the 1993 film Rigoletto, which is loosely based on the opera, a classic twist on Beauty and the Beast and the scapegoat motif. A teenage girl begins singing lessons from a reclusive, wealthy, irritable man with ugly scars. The town doesn’t like it. They refuse to believe that “that monster” can teach anyth