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Good morning. It’s my vicar friend Si’s birthday today. When we were young and free, we used to go climbing and hiking together, finding castles whose gates were barred, conducting dusk raids, clambering over locked gates to perch on ancient fortifications and watch the transitioning rainbow colours of vast summer sunset skies. I thought of myself then as quite a law-abiding person. I was shocked by this vicar who would willingly transgress the laws of property in order to appreciate the history and mystery of places once ruled by different kings, different laws, in order to witness the world as others could never see it. I am grateful I learned to transgress with caution, humility and yet courage.
It’s also my friend Kim’s birthday today. She hasn’t met Si. But the few years I’ve known her, she has accompanied me on other adventures and escapades. Through her love of Christ and her compassion for people, she has helped me to break into different castles – theological fortresses, their gates locked to people for their gender or sexuality, for their failure to be the kind of compliant law keepers who can pay to enter by daylight, with all the safety features in place.  So I am thankful  for Jesus, the key of David, who unlocked gates barring us from entering the kingdom; who broke down dividing walls between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, gay and straight, breaking the binary, so that the two may be one. 
Thank you, God,  for friends like Nicodemus, daring to come to Jesus by night, so he could learn to follow also by day. May fortresses of exclusion become places of refuge and safety, freedom and beauty, just as in Christ, crucifixion becomes salvation,  our judgement becomes our redemption Amen