I want to begin by thanking you for the time last month when I got new eyes.

Now, that was not a miracle. That is called perspective. My first eye after surgery compared to my eye, pre-surgery was fuzzy, but compared to the second eye after surgery. Wow, what a difference. It’s all perspective. What the piece about perspective is that there’s a bit of choice in that. I mean, not with how my eyes see, but boy, did I find color. Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen the colors to have my kitchen painted last year. Maybe I should have waited till I had my eyes done and taken off those, it was like I was wearing yellow glasses. My kitchen’s bright. I still like it, but it’s bright.

But that perspective piece is where we have agency and choice, and we can choose how we view others. That’s gonna be my point.

I said to somebody this week that our sermon is about loving your enemies. And somebody said, “Well, I don’t have any enemies.” Good for you. I wouldn’t say that I have enemies, but I have a shorter list. But it’s a choice for me to change that. I can choose differently. I can choose how I perceive that person.

When we see a person standing on the corner of Prince and King St asking for money. We can immediately think, “Oh, they’re lazy.” Or we could choose to think, “I wonder what’s going on in their life that has taken them to this point.” That’s a choice. That’s a perspective choice and I’m going to try and make that a theme in this sermon.

So, this scripture, Luke 6:27-36, has two big verses, love your enemies and do to others as you would have them do to you.

These scriptures are a part of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, which is very similar to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. And in both of those, they’re not identical; there are differences. Luke’s is called the Sermon on the Plain because he was among the people, whereas the Sermon on the Mount talks about him and the disciples going up to the mount and him talking to the multitudes.

But both of these verses are in both gospels, and they’re hard, especially that first one. The beauty of them being in those sermons is that they were not directed to one person or an individual; they were directed to the corporate body, to the community, because loving your enemies, that is just too hard by ourselves. We need each other to say, “Hey, you can do it. You can find that compassion, you can find that empathy within you. I know you’ve got that in you.” We need that.

The golden rule, and you might be thinking, “That’s not that hard. We teach that to our children because that’s a good thing.” Right, but do you follow it? If somebody cuts you off in traffic, are you following it? If somebody charges you more than you expected, how loving are you in that moment? How loving are you when the person you’re talking to is espousing a position and arguing for a position that makes your blood boil? That’s hard. That’s hard work.

This is an expectation. It’s God’s expectation about what the beloved community should be like. And that’s why we come together and have community, so we can do it together. Because you know what? We’re all gonna mess it up. We are all gonna fail these, maybe even every day. But we come together and we remind each other that God is still with us, that God’s love and God’s grace covers a multitude of sins, thank goodness.

So, in spite of all of our failure to meet the expectation, we are still loved and we are not alone.

We are kin. We are meant to be family. We are meant to see the Christ in each other. This always brings to my mind the concept of Ubuntu, which I learned from a book by Bishop Desmond Tutu. I am Ubuntu, says I am because you are. The divine in me is connected to the divine in you. The love in you is the same as the love that is in me. We are interconnected, and we need to remember that.

That’s where we start putting people as enemies or on our “less-liked” list. But I have to remember that it doesn’t matter; the reality is, we are 99% the same, every single person on this earth. It’s not just the people in this room. It’s not just people with white skin. It’s not just people of European ancestry, Western European ancestry. It is everybody, all of humanity. We are kin.

We are all children of God, and we are called to remember that first. We have to put that in our mind and let that be the lens.

Today, we’re talking about having kindness be the lens through which we look at the world. As I was going through this, I thought about Joanna Macy.

She passed away in July. I don’t know if you know who Joanna is or not, but she did a lot of teaching, and one of her pieces that she often shared was called the Shambhala Warrior Prophecy. I want to share that with you.

She says it says in a future time of great danger, when the earth will be ravaged and all humanity hangs by a thread, a new kind of warrior would emerge, not with weapons of destruction, but with tools of healing.

This is not a fantasy or a metaphor, but a call. Shambhala warriors will not destroy, but will dismantle poisoned systems with compassion and insight. They will be led by compassion. So that the suffering of the world breaks their hearts even when the world is unraveling or without shutting down or turning away, and the insight to see clearly the interconnectedness of life, even when, or especially when the world is unraveling.

The Warriors are not limited by race, gender, or belief, not chosen or ordained by institutions. They will be ordinary people, teachers, gardeners, artists, organizers, students, and elders trained in being present. Refusing to be numbed or distracted, willing to stand in love when fear would be easier.

This is who we are called to be. This is us. The question is, how will we train for them? How will we become these people? Because we don’t need any more heroes. We need people who can hold fire without burning others. Hear that again.

People who can hold fire without burning others doesn’t mean that we don’t get burnt.

People who have faced grief and choose to sing. The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully engaged and present in what is happening in the world. The choice is ours.

May it be so. Amen.

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 I’m very fond of historical period pieces, such as movies and TV series.

I love Downton Abbey, and I kept hearing about this series on HBO called The Gilded Age. So, I started watching it to see what I thought. Then, when I read Luke 7:44-50, I thought these two go together. Because the thing about The Gilded Age is, a lot of the period pieces that I watch are about England, but this is set in America.

This is set in New York City in the late 1800s, and it is about old money versus new money. The families who started in New York City, old money. Then, the people who were making money, and a lot of it in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and moving into the city, such as the Rockefellers. That’s a name they drop a lot during the movie. I don’t think that any of the characters are based on real people. I think that it is all fictional. But they certainly talk about the Rockefellers.

But what I noticed in this is how the old money generation uses their privilege to be arrogant and judgmental of others. The old money people are always peeking out their windows and peeking around corners. I think that there’s a bit of that at play in our scripture today.

On Friday, when I was at home, my neighbor next door got a new shed, and it came as the heavens opened, and it just started pouring. I realized I was the neighbor peeking around the corner saying that they better not drive that through my yard. I don’t know how they’re gonna get that in his backyard, but it better not go in mine, because that’s gonna make some ruts. I’m no better.

We need those realizations that we can be just as petty as the rich people.

There’s a moment where the one woman doesn’t want to have anything to do with her new money neighbor across the street, but she finds out that her lead servant had asked for time off, and is serving at the house across the street. She barges in there with gusto until she realizes she’s just walked into a dinner party, and she has to save face because she just broke her own rules.

The old money people created rules that the new funny people don’t even know about. They only find out about them when they bump into them.

I hope that helps you to see where this ties in into the scripture because it’s about figuring out how we can be together.

I think that there’s a bigger societal lesson in this, too, where those of us who want to make the rules need to realize that not everyone has the same life experiences that we’ve had.

So, how do we open ourselves to hear the stories of others with compassion? How much room do we make for those who think differently from us? I think that’s big for us right now. Do we put ourselves in places to hear stories of different people?

So, as we look at the scripture, Luke 7:36-50, I want you to think about where you would be in the scene. Who do you most identify with? Do you identify with the woman at Jesus’ Feet? Crying and washing his feet with her hair. Are you the Pharisee saying these are the rules? Or are you just one of the disciples or a bystander watching the scene unfold? I want you to think about that as we look at this.

This scripture was very important to the early church, and I say that because it’s in all four gospels, and that does not happen often, so that means it’s something to pay attention to. Now, each one is a little bit different. In Luke’s version, the woman is unnamed. She is unnamed, and she has no voice. That’s important. In other versions, she’s called Mary Magdalene or a prostitute, but here she’s just a woman of sin. It doesn’t tell us what kind of sin. We put all kinds of labels on her. We want to name her sin, but here’s the thing: that’s not for us to do.

That’s not our place. This scene makes us uncomfortable because there is a lavishness to this. She is so grateful that she is weeping at his feet and bathing them with her hair. That is very sensuous, even a little on the erotic side. And that makes us uncomfortable.

It makes sense that we go there because when Ruth was trying to get with Boaz, she walked into his tent and uncovered his feet. So, there is something about all of this that has a sexual overtone to it that makes us uncomfortable. But Jesus recognizes what she needs. Jesus sees her need for healing and immediately forgives her and blesses her by saying, “Go in Peace.”

In contrast, I did choose this particular artist rendering of this scene. I hope you can see that there’s a golden halo. This is a classic icon that artists put a golden halo around people whom they want you to perceive as divine or having some holiness about them. The artist gave one to the woman, gave one to Jesus, and gave one to the two other people sitting across the table. Which makes me think that maybe they’re disciples of Jesus, but the Pharisee does not get a golden halo. He is all dressed up in his finery, which is where my brain was going with the connection to the Gilded Age. It’s like those from the upper class who think that because they are upper class, because they are the 1%, they get to write all the rules for everyone else.

Luke’s version is a little different in that he gives us Simon’s thoughts. We get to know that Simon thinks this is not a good thing. He says, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” His thinking is not wanting to have anything to do with her. She would be at the of the servant class, but without noting what Simon’s thinking, Jesus tells that little parable about people who had borrowed money, and their debt was forgiven.

He has this classic line, which to me is the heart of it, “But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.” (7:47) I think we have to sit with that. Jesus is letting Simon know he knows what he’s thinking. While Simon’s trying to discern who Jesus is. Jesus’ answer proves that he is much more than he appears, as he knows the character of both the woman and of Simon.

So who do you think you most connect with?

I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of us that want to be the Pharisee, even though, like I was telling you in my story about the neighbor’s shed, I think far too often we are the Pharisee judging other people. Judging other things as being less than or how we might be taken advantage of.

Do you feel like the woman who’s broken and in need of healing? Because if so, I hope that you find it today. I hope that you connect with someone here and they are able to hear you, be a listening ear, and a comfort to you.

If you’re like the Pharisee and you wanna remind us all about the rules, maybe we need to look in the mirror more closely and recognize our own failings because none of us in here are without sin. The image of the church as a hospital where sinners can come for healing is certainly more attractive to me than a place where only saints hang out.

If you’re a disciple, then I think that our job as disciples is to come alongside people, knowing that we’re not here to fix it. We’re here to listen, to comfort, and to say that we’re going to walk with you. I think that we are here to create a spiritual home where grief can be tended and rage can be organized, and hope can be reimagined because hopelessness is the worst. We don’t wanna reach that point, but together we can remind each other to see the things that help draw us along.

May it be so. Amen.

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 Today is the beginning of a new season. We are now in what is called ordinary time or the season after Pentecost.

This is the longest season of the year. Today is Trinity Sunday. Trinity is when we celebrate God, the traditional language is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit. We also say Creator, Redeemer, & Sustainer to identify their roles.

I change things a little bit every season. Like the call, the prayer of confession is now silent, and we added the prayer of illumination. That’s not a piece we usually do. I gave that to the reader, which is different. We also have this table, because we’re going to talk about who Christ welcomes to the table.

Specifically, at this point, we’re talking about the people who would have been considered by everyone else to be outsiders, like a Roman centurion.

The Roman centurion in our scripture for today was the enemy.

He represented the empire that was taking the people’s money, taxing them to the point of poverty, and was a huge military presence that intimidated the people to make sure that they didn’t rise against the empire. All of that, and yet Jesus welcomes and heals him. I want to try to unpack all of that.

I was also at Penn Central Conferences’ annual meeting on Friday and Saturday.

It was an emotional time because we believed this was the last annual conference meeting of the Penn Central Conference. We believe that and hope that at the General Senate in July, they will agree to let us become one Keystone Conference.

So, the four conferences in Pennsylvania will become one conference, and then the State of Pennsylvania will be divided into three regions. We will be in region one, going towards Philadelphia. Berks County is with us, Lebanon County is coming with us, and York County is coming with us. We’re joining essentially the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference. It will not be called that. We’re all gonna be the Keystone conference.

There were a lot of mixed emotions in that. The keynote speaker was Rev. Dr. Courtney Stange-Tregear from the Cornerstone Fund, which is the investment and loan branch of the United Church of Christ. Telling you that, you might be surprised to know that her specialty is in storytelling. She tells the stories of the loans that they have made and the work that has been done for Christ, and she reminded all of us of the importance of storytelling.

I’m still figuring out how we’re gonna do more storytelling together. But I will tell you as an exercise, she had us at our tables tell a true, personal story.

I think this story fits all of her criteria.

While I was sitting there, I was also thinking about my sermon. I think about it all week. This sermon was called Who Is Worthy. And I realized that when I go to the conference, I want to be viewed as worthy by the rest of the conference. I want them to acknowledge and respect who I am as your pastor. There are a whole lot of other pastors. Not that I would be special, but that we would all be valued.

I have learned in my life that a way in which I feel worthy is by pleasing others, but when I please others, I don’t take care of myself, and I also end up hurting relationships. That was my takeaway from that presentation. And I think that was what I was supposed to be focusing on, because on my phone, I have a little app that sends me positive messages. When I flipped over my phone after thinking about that, my phone said this, “I love myself too much to question my worth.”

If that’s something that you needed to hear today, that you should love yourself enough that you don’t need to question your worth. I want you to take that with you.

This whole idea of worthy and of who’s worthy or who’s not, that’s what I’ve been sitting with.

I did what I call a deep dive. I went through this scripture, and it’s a Jewish leader who goes and says, the centurion is worthy. But the centurion says, “I’m not.”

I looked at how many other scriptures talk about someone being worthy, and there are 78 scriptures in the Bible talking about being worthy or not being worthy. What I noticed is that every single one of them was in the Voice of Humanity. It was a human who was saying about declaring someone’s worth or unworthiness. It was never God or Jesus. And what that tells me is that this isn’t a God issue. This is an us issue. We are the ones who are concerned about who’s worthy and who’s not. God isn’t concerned about that, and I think that’s because to God, we all have worth. After all, we are God’s children. God is that parent who loves us unconditionally. We don’t have to prove that we’re worth loving. God just loves us.

Are we really worthy?

I think we’re pretty darn self-interested. I think we worry about ourselves more than we worry about what we’re supposed to be doing for God. We listen to ourselves and our egos more than what God is calling us to do.

Rather than commenting on this scripture and rather than commenting on the centurion’s worthiness, Jesus doesn’t. He comments on the amount of faith the Centurion has because the centurion asks for healing without knowing Jesus. He’s never met Jesus. They’ve never been in the same room together.

He’s heard the stories of what Jesus has done and he believed and he trusted that Jesus could make a difference in this servant’s life.

He believed without seeing. That’s us. Jesus isn’t here with us walking, talking, and we aren’t able to see his hands, his feet, and his side, but we trust that he is who he is and that he can still help us.

But we are the ones who create this label of worthiness. We’re the ones that create lines in the sand or boundaries that say these people are in and these people are out, and these people are good and these people are bad, and these people are worthy or not worthy. The church has been doing that for a long time. What I hear in this scripture is that that’s not ours to judge. God’s the judge, not us. And it’s not even a thing that God worries about.

We need to look at who we keep outside.

Who do we prevent from coming to the table that is not ours anyway? It belongs to Jesus. We need to invite and welcome all those who feel like they are not worthy to come into this house, because there are so many people who have been told that God does not love them. We need to be a different voice that says that we think God loves you. God wants a relationship with you, and you are welcome here. We want you to come in

Just to drive that point home a little more is the Galatians 3:23-29 scripture, which declares there are no labels. We are all Children of God, there are no longer the labels of Jew, Greek, slave or free, male or female, although we still have that one. It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that we are all children of God and that we are to care about the needs and well-being of others. That’s what God told us. That’s what Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” – Mark 12:30-31. That’s who we are supposed to be.

We are to care for the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, and those who struggle every day to survive. That is why it is so hard right now, because there are people in power who are not interested in that.

They are interested in making us afraid and telling us who to blame for it. As I was thinking about that, I heard a line from my favorite movie, The American President, where he says, “That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”

Let’s go and be present with people. Our God wants to be our ultimate parent, thinking of the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Today is Father’s Day. God wants to be that father figure, that one who encourages us and bodes us through the struggles, and who tells us not to give up. But we have a God who allows us to make choices. Recognizing that we will learn through our mistakes and that there will be comfort and support in our difficult times. Rev. Call said in her sermon, “God is most present in the breaking of our hearts.”

I am heartbroken by the stories that I see on the news.

I’m heartbroken for the people who are guilty until they can prove that they have documentation and that they’re a citizen or that they’re allowed to be here in America. But I’m also worried about the ICE agents and the effect this has on them.

I worry about our LGBTQ+ family and friends who are in Pride Month, the month where they celebrate that they can finally be who God created them to be. Yet, they’re not safe. They don’t feel safe. Not right now.

I grieve for Minnesota and for those senators, the families, the friends, and for the depth of anger and despair that person must have had to do that act.

We have people who are hurting, and they need to hear that God loves them. May this be the work that we do.

May it be so. Amen.

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 I was going to talk about the spirit and how the spirit is experienced differently in today’s scriptures, Acts 2:1-6 & John 14:8-17 and 25-27. But something wasn’t sitting with me.

I’m going to call that the spirit wasn’t sitting with me. I even woke up this morning and said, “This isn’t the sermon I want to do.” Which is kind of scary on the day that you’re gonna do it. But it opened me to read my email, and in my email, I found a very heartfelt, but serious email from Rabbi Jack Paskoff letting me know just how afraid the Jewish population is right now. After this, we just had the attack in Washington not too long ago, and then there was the attack in Colorado, and I knew that the attack in Colorado left me almost numb with grief.

I’m sharing this because as Christians. We have had a habit of saying that our beliefs trump theirs. That’s where we started, but now we know better. It sets up this hierarchy. Like they’re not as evolved, they just haven’t come to the belief or faith that we have. That is the understanding within Christianity that fuels antisemitism. And right now in our country, there are so many people hurting, and there is this permission to be cruel and hateful that the church cannot abide with.

That is not who we’re called to be on any level. We need to remember that as we talk about our faith, as we talk about Christ, as we talk about Pentecost.

They read the Book of Ruth. Now, two things about that to make note of. Shavuot is 50 days after the second night of Passover. But by celebrating Ruth, she became one of the ancestors of King David. They get King David because of Ruth.

But Ruth was not born of Jewish heritage. You can convert to Judaism, and it means that it’s more inclusive. Judaism itself is more inclusive then we give it credit for.

Then we use this term Pentecost, Penta meaning five. Pentecost is supposed to be 50 days after Easter, and you’re going, “wait a minute, it’s been eight weeks. That’s not 50 days.” But we don’t count the Sundays because we need to make it complicated. Pentecost is supposed to be the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit’s been with us since the beginning.

We talk about that in Genesis 1. The word for the pronouns we use for God are all plural. I hope you’ve noticed that. If not, go back and read Genesis one again, and you’ll be surprised. We talk about those plural pronouns, saying that it is because God is plural. We have a plural understanding of God in that we have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, or the Creator, Redeemer Sustainer. That’s one of the reasons we are sometimes accused by other religions of not being monotheistic. That’s the whole Trinity piece. That’s next Sunday, come back and we’ll try to try to unpack how we have one God that we know in three different ways.

In Proverbs 8, the spirit is described as wisdom. Wisdom was there from the beginning. a All of this is trying to come together. Maybe not very clearly, but in a way that is part of it because the spirit is mystery.

I was going to start this sermon by saying, “How do you experience the spirit of God or the Holy Spirit?”

In our scripture, Acts 2:1-8, it comes as this rushing wind and fire. There are flames, tongues of flame up above everybody’s head. Suddenly this group of people, who would’ve been gathered in Jerusalem because of their festival. According to Luke’s version, it’s this large group of people who suddenly, because of the Holy Spirit, can understand one another in languages they didn’t know. It’s this inclusive nature of Christianity.

The point is that everybody there was able to communicate and be together. Then, they decided this was so good that they needed to live together, and they chose to call themselves followers of the way. The name ‘Christians’ came much later. They were followers of the way, and they chose to live together to share their things and to create a whole different way of being. That attracted people. People wanted to have what they had. To know that spirit that calls them to be loving, compassionate, and caring. That’s the same spirit that in John 14:8-17 and 25-27 was being promised.

But, in John 20, according to John’s gospel, it happens in the upper room when Jesus breathes on the disciples. It’s a breath.

So, whether the spirit comes to you as the breath of God that enlivens you and brings humanity to life. From the very beginning, we are breathed on again to put more and new energy into us, and all of this breathing, all of this inclusion. It’s all about relationships. It’s all because from the very beginning, God has been trying to be in a relationship with humanity. And humanity has constantly done otherwise.

But God continued to speak and God spoke through the priests, God spoke through the prophets, and we continued to say that when things were going wrong, we needed God on our side. But, when the storms cleared, everything’s great now, we got this. Our story is that God finally decided to come and be one of us, that we just weren’t getting it. And so God came and took on this body because then God was relatable. God was one of us, and yet still wasn’t enough for us. We rejected that God, crucified that God, and God still came back and said, “I’m going to make sure that my spirit is in all of you, so that everyone has the opportunity to follow God.”

The question is whether we choose to or not? Do we choose to listen to that still, small, forever speaking voice?

Maybe it’s this energy in us that’s telling us something’s wrong? Something’s not right here. The way I’m supposed to live, I need to do something. If you have that kind of energy within you, I call it a nudging, but sometimes it’s a bit stronger than a nudge. God’s given me a head slap once or twice. Because I, too, can get caught up in what I want and what I think is important, but it’s not about me, and it’s unfortunately, not about you. It’s about our relationship with God.

I do mean OUR relationship, because we have our relationships, but we need the body. We need the group because it’s within the group that we keep ourselves on track. It’s within the group that when one of us is falling apart, the group can come together and be the hands and feet of Christ. That’s why we come together. We gather each week because life is hard.

I get frustrated and depressed watching the news, and I need to come together with the rest of you so that I remember who I am, that I remember who God is, and our reform traditions. We believe God’s got this. We just keep going because God loves us and cares about us, and we, too, love and care about others. So when we see someone who’s being picked on, we reach out to them.

God calls us to be those people, and God calls us to have a little bit of fun. So we’re we’re going to close this sermon with having some fun.

I know that some of you are now panicking, asking, “what is she going to have us do?” You are going to be the spirit. Because today for Pentecost, the spirit came as a rush of a mighty wind. I’m gonna have you breathe and ask, “Who?”

Every time I say the word spirit, that’s what we’re gonna do. “On that day, the Spirit broke through every barrier, language, culture, fear, and doubt. That day, the Spirit turned hiding into preaching, confusion into clarity, and death into life. That was just the beginning because the Spirit kept moving through baptisms, through brave words, through acts of love and justice. The Spirit did not stay in the upper room or the temple. The Spirit moved into hearts and homes and every corner of the world. Today, the Spirit is still moving, still breaking barriers, still breathing hope, still calling you, calling each of us. So if you wonder, am I ready? Am I good enough? Am I brave enough? Remember Pentecost, and remember this: you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be open because the Spirit is already moving.

Will you let the Spirit move in You?”

May it be so. Amen.

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 This week I had a call from someone who’s not part of the church, but has a lot of questions about the church, about what we believe, and about how we have faith.

He had a lot of questions about what faith is, and I gave him my definition of faith, which to me is believing in something that you cannot prove. Hebrews 11:1 has this as the definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things, hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

With those definitions, I want you to think about what it is that you have faith in? Where does your faith lie? I think an equally important question is why. What is your why? What is the why that helps you have that faith in this conversation with this person asking questions? He was asking, but how do you know that they’re telling you the truth?

So, what is your why? Why do you believe what you believe? I think it is so easy for humans. There’s a part of humanity where our default is to have more faith in ourselves than in anybody else. If we think about that, I think that’s because we think that we can control ourselves. We can have faith in that which we can control, but that is not faith.

And that believing in ourselves more than God is what broke the relationship with God. From the very beginning, God gave us everything, and we thought we knew better. Isn’t that still true? Aren’t there times when we think we know better? We’re so good at making up stories in our heads and reinforcing those stories. We see examples that reinforce the stories that we want, but all of that is following our agenda rather than God’s agenda.

One of our challenges in life, which doesn’t stop, is to learn to open ourselves to God’s leading, to open ourselves to God’s agenda, which is about love and forgiveness. Are we able to let go of that?

When I think about how we try to trust in ourselves because we think we can control ourselves, I also think about how we can control ourselves until we have a diagnosis that we can’t control, or we’re faced with the realities of aging and bodies. They don’t work the way we want them to, and we can’t do anything about it.

Having faith is challenging and that’s why I think we get this beautiful letter to the Ephesians.

Whether Paul wrote it or whether someone else wrote it later, we don’t really know. But it begins by praising the Ephesians for their faith, but then it goes on to pray that they would have wisdom and that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened.

If we ask this question of why it was written this way? I think we realize that it sounds like they were having a hard time. They had faith, but they weren’t as good at getting along with each other. Especially if you’ve read the whole book. There’s a lot about how they’re to be the body of Christ and what that looks like. But this is all the writer is asking, that they may have this wisdom and revelation, that they can have a stronger ‘why’ for their faith.

When everything’s falling apart and we pray to God and it doesn’t feel like God’s listening sometimes, but is that because God’s not listening or is it because God’s not doing what we want God to do, and don’t we have to wrestle with that? That maybe what we want isn’t the most loving and forgiving thing. Maybe it has more of our agendas tied up in our fears.

The author of Luke wrote both the Gospel and the Book of Acts and our scripture today, Luke 24:36-53, is the Ascension story or scripture in the Gospel of Luke.

There’s a slightly different account in the Book of Acts and one might ask, why did he write two different. accounts? Well, they have different purposes. This one is still trying to help the disciples to understand that their work was to continue the work of Christ.

This scripture puts us back in Easter, which seems like a long time ago, seven weeks. This puts us back on Easter Day, and the disciples are confused and scared. They’re scared because they watched the one that they were following, the one that they loved, cherished, and believed had the answers. They watched him be killed. They didn’t do anything about that, and they were afraid that they were next.

Then they heard about this empty tomb, and they really didn’t know what to do about that because they didn’t have his body. So, where was his body? Luke 24:36-53 comes right after.

The story about the road to Emmaus, if you remember that story where two other disciples were walking and they met someone and they invited him back for dinner, and during the breaking of the bread at dinner, all of a sudden they realized he was Jesus, and he disappeared. Now they’ve shown up with their story. They’re confused and they’re scared. In the middle of that, Jesus just shows up and says, “Peace be with you.” Every time he shows up in a resurrection moment, he says, “Peace be with you.”

The word that he uses is (i-ray’-nay) means peace of wholeness. It’s a wish of health and welfare for them to be whole. In other words, don’t be afraid, scared, or self-limiting. He’s inviting them. He’s trying to give them this freedom to open themselves to the rest of the world. To open themselves and do the work that he was doing, meeting people who were struggling and offering them love and forgiveness.

I often say it’s about doing the next most loving thing. Anytime we have a challenge and we don’t know which way to go, what is the most loving thing to do, or what is the most forgiving thing to do? That’s what God is doing with us. That’s how God’s trying to guide us in loving and forgiving ways. That’s what God’s looking for us to do.

God was looking for the disciples to let themselves out of the locker room. Don’t be closed down, but be open. Be open and go out. Go out into the world. Make a difference in the world.

All of creation was meant to be in harmony. From the very beginning, we pushed back on that. We thought that we knew better, or we wanted to do it our way.

The reason Jesus came, the whole incarnation, is all about Jesus, God coming after trying in so many different ways through prophets, priests, and through the writings of the Psalms. God needed another way to get our attention.

He came in the body of Jesus. In Jesus, He showed us how to live, but the disciples wanted that to continue. They said, ‘Don’t go away. Stay with us because life is better when you are here.’ We’d probably say that too. We’ve got a mess here. Come on back and straighten this out.

But that’s not the point. Jesus is probably saying, ‘You didn’t listen to me the first time.’ That’s why Jesus gave us the Spirit, and the Spirit encourages us to go out in love and forgiveness. It’s about repentance and transformation. We live transformed lives so that others realize the joy that we have and ask themselves, “Why are they so happy? Why can they look at this mess and be okay?” It’s because we have hope in something bigger than all of this as reformed people.

I was just reminded yesterday at the Interfaith Coalition, Lee Barrett was there talking about the reformed tradition and saying how, because we believe that God is sovereign and that in the end all will be well, God will win. That was last week’s scripture in Revelation. That, in the end, it will be the garden again, and all will be well.

We are called to live through this time to look for and stand for justice and to make sure that everyone is treated equally and with equity. Make sure that we are living in ways that are loving of our brothers and sisters.

As I was sitting with all of this, I was still struggling and wasn’t clear that the why was so much a part of the questions that I was asking. I ended up finding myself at Rader Park, sitting on the steps at Brubaker Run, watching the water. That’s a place that is comforting and calming for me.

As I sat there and thought about the river, I thought we were meant to be like the water, trusting that God would guide the way. There will be bends that will have to be gone around. There will be falls that we experience. We’ll have to go around the rocks, the impediments, but we will also help to purify with that love and that forgiveness. We’ll wash away the impurities, and we’ll promote and bring life-giving properties to all that we meet.

Knowing that the way leads us towards God. So we follow the way. But, I encourage you this week to think about why you follow the way and where you draw your reasoning from. What is your big why? For why you believe and have faith that you do.

In these trying times, we need to hang on to our why. That is why our hope is our resilience in these trying times.

May it be so. Amen.

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Sermon Given by UCC Conference Minister, Rev. William P. Worley

Brothers and sisters in Christ from the 150 congregations that make up the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ, where I have been the conference minister for the last 10 years.

What I have learned in the anniversary Sundays and sermons I have preached around those 150 congregations is that nobody really knows what a conference minister is or does. The easiest way I have found to describe that is to say that a conference minister is like the superintendent of a school district that has 150 schools filled with students who have one very simple lesson.

That lesson is how to follow Jesus Christ. I am joined this morning by my conference minister colleague, the Rev. Dr. Carrie Call, who’s not only a conference minister for the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, but one of the finest conference ministers in the United Church of Christ. That, of course, is my objective opinion. Carrie and I are working with other colleagues in ministry, David Ackerman, who is in Penn West and Bonnie Bates in Penn Northeast to bring together the four Pennsylvania conferences to make one large keystone conference of 530 congregations in the state of Pennsylvania, from which we will take over the entire United Church of Christ.

If you quote me as having said that, I will call you a boldfaced liar. Even though it is now apparently recorded for posterity.

I grew up here. It’s hard to stand in this spot and not hear the whispers of saints in my ear.

Including Rev. Nevin Shellenberger, who bent over this pulpit many times with a bony finger pointed in what I thought was my direction, because clearly I was asleep. Saying something that I didn’t always quite understand, but I knew that Nevin believed it. And because he did, I could.

I think about that baptism window where I have a picture of my now 32-year-old son being held a loft on the day he was baptized. Who is at this moment with his wife, I believe, having some early contractions before giving birth to what is going to be our second grandchild. So, if you see his mother jump up in sudden anxiety, heading for the door. It is to go get our two and a half year old granddaughter.

There are other whispers from the past, but there’s a message from God for the future and we need to get to that. So I invite you to join me in a spirit of prayer.

Holy God. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable unto you, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Well, friends, 50 years, that’s half a century of hymns sung, casseroles served, council and board meetings, budgets, quandaries, coffee hours, fellowship meals, and moments that could only be called holy.

You don’t last 50 years in church without getting some bumps and some blisters, and you don’t last 50 years in church without having some love that gets you past the bumps and the blisters. Love for this place. Love for the people in these pews. Hopefully, love for their church.

People are notorious for being challenged to like each other, let alone love each other, and love for God. What God has done through Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ is doing through you. Because that’s what today’s about. Not just the memory of what was, but the love that is and the love that will create a future for this place and all people who call on the name of Jesus, the one who gives us a commandment.

Commandments don’t sit well in the church. That is sometimes referred to as the church of you can’t tell me what to do.

Some hear the word commandment and old echoes of obligation, duty, and guilt arise, and it feels heavy, like something I should be doing. But when Jesus speaks this commandment, it doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds like a gift, maybe even a map. Maybe a GPS that gives you good directions to get where you’re going. He gives this commandment when one of the 12 disciples is about to get very lost. Judas has just stepped out of the room. The bread that Jesus offered, the bread that Judas took to identify himself as the betrayer, has barely passed his lips, and he has gone out into the night to forge the legacy that will linger. And everyone left at the table is looking at the door and wondering. Did that just happen?

This is when Jesus starts talking about glory, not on the man of transfiguration, not walking across water, not changing water into wine. Not only Easter Sunday, but also in a moment of betrayal, when it looks like things are falling apart. Jesus looks at the people who haven’t walked out the door with Judas and says to them, Now, the son of man has been glorified.

Judas, our treasurer, just walked off with all of our money, and now the son of man is gonna be glorified. Imagine your treasurer walked off with all the funds of this church. Would you believe that God was gonna be glorified in this place? Probably not.

$30 billion are embezzled from churches in the United States every year. It doesn’t feel to those congregations like God is gonna be glorified, and yet this is when Jesus says, I give you a new commandment to love each other. Not just love when it’s easy, not just love the people who agree with you. Not even love the world though. That’s coming too. No, he says, as I have loved you, so you should love each other.

And just so there’s no doubt about what he means by loving each other, he has just shown them. It looks like washing feet that have trudged through dirt and manure. It looks like feeding someone who will sell you out. It looks like kneeling low when you could have just as easily run towards safety.

In other words, love isn’t about feelings. This love that Jesus is speaking of is about freedom. Freedom to love, even when you don’t want to. Freedom to love when it’s risky. Freedom to love when it’s gonna cost you everything.

Church anniversaries are not just memories and celebrations. They are a celebration of what people have done with their freedom.

This place was built on how people used the freedom of their time, their treasure, and their talent to build something magnificent. One of my very first experiences of freedom was in this room. Some of you remember that when this sanctuary was in construction, the congregation was worshiping down the hall in Fellowship Hall.

Just before the carpet was laid over the concrete floor that holds this space up, someone, I don’t remember who it was, invited the children to pick up chalk and draw on the floor. Now for an 11-year-old who had been told time and time again, do not write on the walls of the house, especially someone else’s house, and do not write on the floor unless you are outside on the driveway or the sidewalk.

To be invited into this empty space and told, Go for it, was huge. You all are sitting on a whole bunch of young doodles, blessings, and words of hope. They’re still here.

There were other freedoms. Lou, last night, mentioned liturgical dancers, which I had forgotten. I don’t know why I did. My mother was a liturgical dancer in this space at that time. That was a little risque in a church where people get excited when they do this.

I saw some of your heads bobbing this morning to the music. Some of the people in the congregation at that time didn’t like that freedom. That freedom looked uncontrollable, unrestrained, dare I even say, in those outfits, sexy, holy cow.

And yet in that movement, there was inspiration. There was freedom. There was permission to worship in ways that neither St. Paul’s or St. John’s did. There was freedom in that.

There was freedom for Nora Smith to become a woman in ministry in the United Church of Christ in the day when women were not ordained to minister.

That was a huge freedom. The freedom to practice ministry in this place created opportunities for all of the women that followed. I don’t know if you noticed, but I am the only male clergy person up here this morning, which is in keeping with the fact that there are now more women in ordained ministry in the United Church of Christ than men. That freedom. Began in part here in this space.

Then there was the freedom to make mistakes. I was the treasurer for the youth group when someone came to me with bank statements that showed that the youth checking account was overdrawn. She was a little panicked and came to me to ask what was going on. We figured out that I didn’t know the difference between a checking deposit slip and a savings deposit slip, and that you had to put money into the checking account to write checks. Who knew?

She didn’t freak out. We figured it out. I wasn’t fired, though I could have been. What she gave me is what I believe many of our churches don’t have, and that’s the freedom to fail.

Underneath it all is the stubborn belief that something sacred happens when people get together in the bumbling, stumbling ways that humans do. Something miraculous happens when you set people free to love, free from shame, from fear, from walls that keep people out, free to say, come in, there’s room for you.

Freedom to say you are loved no matter what. The kind of love and freedom that doesn’t always look impressive.

It looks like a casserole in choir practice, it looks like protest signs, and prayer cards. It looks like showing up when the world is burning down to sing the doxology.

Jesus knew that when he was commanding the disciples to love, the cross was not that far off. Betrayal was already in motion, and still he gave this commandment, not a creed, not an obligation, not a duty, not a pledge card. He gave them this commandment to love each other. It’s that simple. And it’s that hard.

So Church of the Apostles, what do we celebrate? 50 years of a not a flawless history. Say amen if you know the place that is, the Church of the Apostles is not flawless. Amen.

God’s got nothing to do here if you all were perfect. We celebrate freedom, the kind that Jesus gave his disciples that night at the table, and the kind that lets you build something beautiful together.

Church was never meant to be a museum. Someone once said, it’s a garden, a workshop, a kitchen table, a harbor. I love that. So here’s your word, church of 50 years for your golden anniversary. Don’t stop loving. Don’t stop breaking bread. Don’t stop showing up at hospital beds. Don’t stop praying for each other.

Spontaneously grabbing someone’s hand when they have just told you that they’ve been diagnosed with cancer and saying with them a very simple prayer that Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, come with your healing spirit and help this friend of mine. It’s that simple. Say it. Don’t be afraid of it.

Don’t stop telling stories, the story of God who loved the world into being and this place into existence. In the end, maybe the greatest glory is not in the miracles that we are going to expect, but the love that we are gonna be able to share with each other.

Because everyone who walks in the door of this place for the very first time has gotten over their fear about what might be inside. Maybe just maybe, the people in there have a place for me.

Love that does the dishes, and I hate doing dishes. Love that forgives. I’ve got a long list of people I’m still working on, and I know that I’m on the list of others. Love makes room and stays at the table even when there’s somebody at the table who’s ready to take your life.

50 years of that kind of love, that’s a miracle and that’s where celebrating. May you keep loving.

May it be so. Amen.

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 Today is Mother’s Day, and as I have talked to many people over the years, that can bring a wealth of emotion.

I want to name that upfront because there are people who specifically stay away from church on Mother’s Day. After all, it’s not easy. Some people have complicated relationships. But today I wanna celebrate with you. All of the people in your life who have nurtured you, who have encouraged you, who have been there and loved you, all of those people who have helped you to have second chances.

I’m going to lean on this idea of second chances because I think that’s what it means to rise again. That’s the theme of today. Let’s celebrate all of those people who’ve helped us over the years, whether they are biological or chosen family. Let’s acknowledge that everyone needs someone who believes in them, who reminds them that they are loved. And someone who encourages them to be all that they were created to be.

This week, the theme is rising again. To do that, though, before you can rise again, you have to admit that you’re not up at the moment.

Life isn’t the way you want it to be. We all experience loss. I think right now we are going through what could be called life-draining times. There seems to be a lot that people are carrying, and I want to read this piece by Cameron Trimble this week that I thought touched on some of the pieces of loss that we may not be thinking about.

“Modernity told us that if we played by the rules, contributed productively, and kept our side of the social contract, then the ledger would stay balanced, that we’d be safe, respected, and protected. But the ledger is burning.” – Cameron Trimble

What’s being revealed is that the system of modernity has never worked for all of us. It was never built to hold everyone equally. This is not just about a collapse. It is about a revelation. It reveals the systems that were never just, never sustainable, and never sacred. Even if we thought that they were. Saying that might sound like I went to a really dark place. But the good news is that it provides us an opportunity to change and to create new systems to work on being different people.

To rise again and create a world where everyone is seen as a child of God, where everyone is encouraged to fully be who they are, and to live into their potential. That is what we have the ability to do. This time, it is an opportunity to look at the potential rather than just wallowing in the sorrow.

That’s where this scripture, Acts 9:36-43, hits us because we meet this group in Joppa that was grieving.

The whole town was grieving the death of this woman because it tells us she was very active in the community. She did a lot of good work for the community and was very charitable. She was generous with her time and her money. She was an important person to the town and they were devastated that she had died.

They heard that Peter was nearby. Now, remember Peter is our one who during the gospels could never get it right, but now that the resurrections happened, he seems to have been able to put it all together. Peter had just been in Lida and had gone to a man who had never walked and commanded him to walk, and he did. Now that’s not about Peter, it’s about Christ working through Peter. But Peter being open to that and being able to have that work through him.

They called for Peter and told him to come to Joppa. What isn’t said is what they think Peter would do? We don’t know that. Did they know that Peter was going to bring her back to life? They might have wished it, knowing that he had just done a miracle in the town over. They may have hoped for a miracle. In this moment, in this story, they receive that miracle.

He goes in and he commands her to rise, and she wakes up and walks out with him like Lazarus coming out of the tomb. Jesus says, get up and she gets up and comes out. The whole town believed because they saw something that is beyond our understanding and imagination. I don’t wanna get caught up in that.

But what I want to focus on is the fact that Tabitha was given a second chance. The whole community was given a second chance to be maybe even more like Tabitha.

Maybe they need more people in the community who operate like Tabitha, people who care about another person and live that out. I think that’s who Christ wants us to be. I think that’s what Christ was trying to teach us in the way he lived. That was part of the whole message, he wanted us to love each other.

One of the ways that we do that is by being there and supporting one another. The smiles that we give to each other. You’re supposed to tell the person who is down that everything’s gonna be all right. That’s not what I think you should say. I think you should say, we’re gonna get through this together. Because we don’t know what the future brings, but we can choose to do it together, to support one another, and to be that positive influence that reminds. Sometimes we need a reminder that there are second chances.

It may be raining today, but the sun will come out tomorrow. We won’t stay in this place. There will be another tomorrow. However you’re feeling right now, know that it won’t last forever. There are always resurrections.

Resurrections are about reawakening to life, to God’s presence, to the life source that is within creation that can energize us as much as it energizes the rest of the world.

The indigenous people call that the grandmother spirit, and I wanna tell you a little bit about the grandmother’s spirit. It is more than a person. It is a presence. It is the wise one who lives within the trees, the ocean, and the moon. It is the ancestral hum that echoes through generations. It is the womb of the earth, the fire of the hearth, and the medicine in our bones. The grandmother’s spirit lives in all who choose to love with depth, nurture with grace, and hold others in sacred remembrance.

To me, that is no different than the Holy Spirit, the Christ spirit that is within each of us. Where each of us can love with depth, nurture with grace, and hold others in sacred remembrance.

Now your challenge, there is someone in this world who needs you to be that person. They need you to believe in them, to love them, to nurture them, to embrace them, and to encourage them with grace and patience.

Because there are a lot of hurting people right now. People who are scared and who need to know that they are valued, that their lives count, that they are seen, heard, and loved as they are for who they are.

So let us go out into the world and make that difference. Help those people to have a second chance.

May it be so. Amen.

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Our theme today is “Cultivating a Life of Curiosity.“

As much as I thought about that, I could not get myself past the show, Ted Lasso on Apple TV. I will play a clip so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about. To set up the clip, Ted was a soccer coach in America who was hired to coach an English football team. In this scene there are two of the main characters, Rupert, who used to own the team, and his ex-wife. Rupert has just acquired significant ownership of the team and he has just announced that his new wife will be joining him and his ex-wife in the owner’s box every game. He bought enough stock in the team that he could set the line up if he wanted to, because he doesn’t like the way Ted’s coaching the team. They ended up making this wager that if Rupert wins, he gets to set the lineup for the rest of the season. But if Ted wins, Rupert doesn’t go near the owner’s box and he lets his ex-wife alone.

Are we curious? Do we ask the questions?

The point that Ted was making is that too quickly we become judgmental just as Rupert was, but unless we ask the questions, we will never truly understand one another. It is far easier to judge, to make snide remarks, and to write people off than it is to get to know them and try to understand them,

That’s not how Jesus lived. Jesus went to people and he asked questions. He asks Zacchaeus, why are you in the tree? He asked the Samaritan woman at the well, why are you at the well at this time of the day? He asked the questions of people because he wanted to get to know those people. He wanted to hear their story because when we hear each other’s stories we understand each other so much more and can have more grace for one another. That’s where our empathy comes from, our compassion.

We have these Proverbs, these wisdom teachings of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-14. Remember I said context matters. This is what Jesus was saying to those who believed in him, who followed him, and for them this was his expectation. They were to do unto others as they would want to be treated. We have to remember that.

Jesus is Jewish, he’s talking to a Jewish audience, and it’s about how they are different from the rest of the community. That’s a huge part of Judaism. What makes them distinct? That may be harder for us to know in this context. If you don’t know a lot of people who are Jewish, we might be able to answer the question of how Amish people make themselves different in our community. That might be an easier question for us to answer because they do the same thing. They have ways about them that make them distinct.

Christ was calling us to be distinct. In our world, we should live differently. We shouldn’t blend with society. Here are some things that we are to do.

Ask, Seek, and Knock. We have to be looking for God, asking for God’s help. But this scripture gets taken advantage of. I think it’s because of the descriptions that he gave because it sounds like we should just ask for material things. I don’t believe that God is some type of ultimate Santa Claus. That if we ask for a beautiful house, somebody’s just gonna call us up and give us a beautiful house. I don’t think it works that way.

This is where people sometimes lose their faith when there’s a diagnosis and they ask for healing, but they don’t get a cure. I wanna say that we don’t know what healing looks like and sometimes maybe being whole is joining eternity. That’s a hard one and I know that.

But I do think if we ask for the gifts of God, think back to our last season with “The Economy of Jesus.” The gifts of God, are love, grace, compassion, empathy, self-control, and patience. Those gifts, if we ask for them, God will help us find them. If we look for a way forward, if we ask God, to help us to figure out where we are to go or what we are to do, the path will become clear to us. It may not be where we wanna go or it may not be what we wanna do because God doesn’t work like that.

I think that leads us down to the narrow gate. So the easy road is the wide gate. Do you remember where it said? it leads to destruction. It’s the narrow gate and the hard road that leads to life. That’s not what we wanna hear. We wanna hear that we can just ask God for a nice, easy life and it will all be roses and sunshine, and everything’s going to work the way we want it to. We’re always gonna be happy and we’re never gonna experience sorrow or pain, but that isn’t it. That’s not the story of Jesus. Jesus was the one who was willing to die on the cross for us because of his love. That is not an easy road.

But in order to do all of this, I think that there is a level of humility that Jesus is also calling us to.

It didn’t say that in the scriptures. It did not say, you must be humble. But, I think that there’s a humility and a vulnerability that is also needed. We don’t like either of those words. Our society says when people are vulnerable, then they’re weak, or they’re losers.

I disagree and I think that Jesus modeled for us letting go, and being vulnerable to meet people where they are. I think that we are called to meet each other, to get to know each other, and to ask questions.

We have to be willing to acknowledge that we don’t know everything. We don’t know everything that we think we know. We have to own that. We don’t know everything and we don’t have everything that we need. Not really. You may have the physical comforts that you need, but if you look within yourself, do you have all of the love, grace, compassion, patience, and peace that you need? My guess is if we’re honest, none of us do.

That’s where we can be more curious. We can be curious within ourselves, what is that within me that drives me to act like that? What is it within me that makes me think that I’m not loved? Maybe that’s an old story you need to reexamine.

Meister Eckhart’s quote invites us to approach life as a child because they haven’t lost their curiosity yet, and we can work on building our curiosity muscle. We can work on being more curious and asking more questions.

That’s actually how we’re going to bring ourselves together because none of us holds the real truth. But the truth is in the midst of our stories. With humility and a sense of curiosity, we can seek to understand and have more empathy.

This past week on Thursday night, we had the Clatterbucks here for Mocktails & Meaning.

The Clatterbucks lost their transgender son to suicide almost a year ago. They named the pain and sorrow that they still carry around. He was surrounded by people who loved and affirmed him for being who he was. But the rhetoric in our county, state, and country was so hard. It told him that he was not welcome. It wanted to erase him, and so he did.

How we treat others matters.

What we are called to do is to love. What are the two commandments? Love God with all of our being and love our neighbor as ourselves. There’s a third because that means you have to love yourself.

The next thing to do in every moment is the most loving. What is the most loving thing I can do in this moment? That’s what God wants us to do. And I told you I was going to end every sermon with these words because I think we need to be thinking about this right now. We need to be thinking about what we are telling the children by our actions and our words. What are we teaching them that they are learning for when they are adults? The wisdom of Stephen Sondheim.

“Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn. Be careful before you say, listen to me, children will listen.”

May it be so. Amen.

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 As we start to talk about meaning, meaning answers the why.

As I was thinking about this and the fact that it’s Lent, I’m wondering if any of you gave something up for Lent. You don’t have to raise your hands, this can be internal. I’m not going to put anybody on the spot, but if you did, my question is why? Why did you choose to give something up for Lent? Because I think the why is important.

Is the why, because it’s something that you always do? Does it give you something to talk about with friends? Do you wanna prove to yourself that you have some self-control so that when it comes to Easter you can pat yourself on the back? Why? Or is it because that’s what the church used to tell you to do? I remember those days.

As I told the children, we assign meaning to things, to people, and even to experiences. If I asked what was your first car, you probably remember it, because that was a significant point in your life. I know some of you are just getting there. You’ll remember it.

Our parents are important in our lives and their words and how we experience them affect us deeply. Because they’re an important person to us.

Seeing a spectacular sight. That’s what’s different for each of us.

The Northern Lights is on my bucket list. I went to Maryland for a trip and Pennsylvania saw the Northern Lights. I have lived in this county all my life and I go to Maryland once and you all see the Northern Lights. That’s an experience that once you’ve done it, you remember that.

It might be a smile or a hug from a child that we deem priceless.

Now, I’m wondering how many of you looked at the picture to the left and what meaning you assigned to that picture. That is the oldest slave shack to still exist in the United States. It is in the Virginia Chipokes Plantation State Park. Now that you know that, that might change what you were thinking about that picture.

As we begin to get into these parables today, there’s a few things that I want to name before we go there.

The first thing that we need to remember with all scripture is, that it doesn’t matter what scripture you open to and read, all scripture was written for a specific time and a specific audience. In fact, the reality is those writers had no idea we would still be reading their works 2,500 years later. If you think about the Hebrew Bible, and placing so much value on everything they said. They didn’t know at the time that they would become part of the number one bestseller of all time. That’s good to remember that it wasn’t written specifically with us in mind.

It’s also good to remember that, for that time, they understood what a kingdom was. There are all of these parables that refer to the kingdom of heaven. They were reminded of their history when the kingdom of God was under King David, and that was a wonderful time for the Jewish people. That was a time under David and Solomon. Life was good. But they also know that there are bad kingdoms, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and now the Romans.

The Romans, we call it an empire, but it’s the same idea. That there is one leader and he’s deciding exactly how life is going to be. The good, bad, and the indifferent. Being part of God’s kingdom or the kingdom of heaven was a good thing. Good things came out of that because God’s not the same as the kings or the emperors. God is a different kind of king. But, that kingdom language today is associated in our country with Christian nationalism, which has a very definite political position that I do not support.

So, I’m not going to use the language of the kingdom of heaven when I talk about the scripture. I’m just naming that for you the meaning behind that.

It’s also good to know that the Greek word that is used for the kingdom is Basilea. Basilea means the spiritual reign. The future physical manifestation of God’s rule, and it encompasses the authority, sovereignty, and royal power of God, as well as the community of believers who acknowledge his lordship. I’m going to refer to it as the beloved community. I’m just explaining my language and why I’m doing it that way.

I know this is a lot of unpacking before we get there, but I’m going to leave a lot of unpacking of the parables to you. The other part is we have to remember that in a parable, there is always a surprise factor. Parables were their stories meant to tell the truth about God and about the way God would want life to be oriented. But they’re also meant to shock us and make us go, well, that’s ridiculous.

Last week I had said to you that it’s good to ask questions of the scripture.

If there’s a scripture that doesn’t sound right, sit with it and pray about it. Look it up, look at other places, look for other words. You can do a Google search on a particular word and it’ll tell you other passages that that word is used in and you can go a little deeper because it’s in the questions that we get to the meaning. After all, this is about meaning today.

What we want to know is what truth does this name about the beloved community of God? The actual scripture says the kingdom of heaven. So it begins with the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. So what is this trying to tell us? Or we could say, what is the surprise that something that small can have a huge impact? We know that seeds are small, and some seeds will grow into a tree eventually such as an acorn will grow an oak tree. But the tiniest of seeds don’t usually grow us the largest of plants, shrubs, or trees. But it does remind us of the potential.

The potential for every small thing. Whether it’s a small thing you do. Whether you feel like you are a small person, what can you do in this situation? You might be able to do quite a lot just by doing small things that can have a larger impact. The yeast. I considered bringing in my sourdough starter and sitting here working with bread in front of you today. But, you know, what’s the point of the yeast? Why would you hide, and we always hide, yeast in the flour? Because it helps it to rise. It helps it to become more than just flour. Put too much yeast in it and I’ve blown the top off my sourdough starter. That’s a thing, a little bit can transform it.

The hidden treasure. This is a great one. Do you remember what I said about that? That’s where the man goes and he finds a treasure. Then he re-buries it, sells everything he has, and buys the plot. Buys that that piece of land. Do you have any questions about that? Don’t you wonder why he reburied it? If you found it, why would you put it back in the ground? Why not keep it? Go sell it. Display it. Do something with it. Give it to somebody. But he didn’t. He put it back in the ground. Why did he buy the rest of the land? My thinking is he thought that there was more. What does it teach us?

There is this sense that once you find a little bit, you want more of it and you’ll do whatever you can to get more of the beloved community.

How about the merchant who finds the pearl and sells everything he has for one pearl? Does that bother you? Would you do that? Would you sell everything that you have? Maybe not for a pearl, but what would you do to know that you are part of the beloved community of God? Because that’s what the pearl is. That’s what the pearl represents. What would you do for that assurance that you are part of the kingdom?

Then we have the net that they cast and a fish of every kind is brought in. The beloved community of God is inclusive. Later, we’ll figure out who’s the righteous and who’s the evil. But first, God wants everyone to be invited. Everyone comes into the beloved community of God and we’ll figure it out later.

Then, there’s the scribe that says that there is old wisdom and that there is new wisdom.

I look at that and hear there’s the law and the prophets and there is Jesus. Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill it. There’s the old wisdom and the new wisdom and they exist together. There is the way we’ve always done it and the new things that we can do. They can exist together and we can determine what is the best wisdom for this time.

It is with Jesus. So the law still stands, but Jesus brought in all these Gentiles with the Jewish community, those who the Jewish community had thought were outcasts. Jesus says, no, they’re not, they’re part of the community. Everybody, it’s that inclusive net. Everybody’s coming in.

Because at the end of the day, love wins.

I think that’s the biggest piece that I want you to focus on. The parables can be confusing, but no matter what happens, our focus needs to be on doing the most loving thing. I do believe that love wins. By doing what we can, we make meaning of it. Meaning is not something you can buy at the store. It’s what you do. It’s how it affects you.

The other thing this tells us is that we’re not responsible for the outcomes. God takes care of that. God takes care of it and God will judge.

So at this moment, what are we learning? What are we learning right now in our lives? I’m not going to answer that question. That’s a question for us to sit with. What are we learning? What is the meaning that we want to make of this time in our lives? This time we are living through together. What do we want this to be? What meaning do we want to give to this?

I know there’s a lot of people that are scared. There’s a lot of chaos, and it can feel like every day is a new day in many ways depending on what else is going on in our lives. We are called to let love win, we need to be reminded that we are resurrection people and that before you get to rise, there has to be a death. We’re anxious as we see systems breaking. But a just system, which we don’t have, we don’t have just systems. A just system cannot come in until the systems that are in place are broken. I know that’s not good news. But remember, we go through the pain.

We go through the dark night, and in the end, love wins. There is resurrection, there is new life, there is justice, love, hope, and peace. We don’t know when that’s going to happen, or how it’s going to happen. But I’m going to read this to you every week. Because everything is meaningful. This time that we’re living through, not only do we need to think about what it is for us, but we need to be thinking about what we are telling and teaching our children in this moment.

Because they’ll need to remember this. So this is, these are the first couple of verses to the finale of Steven Sondheim’s musical, “Into the Woods”. “Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be, careful before you say “listen to me”, children will listen.“

May it be so. Amen.

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What brought you to church today?

And I don’t mean your car or your spouse. You had a lot of other choices this morning and maybe going out for breakfast sounded better. But you came here instead. I want you to think about why you came. Why did you make this choice? I’m asking you because that’s where I get into a bit of it in the scripture.

This scripture, Luke 4:21-30, is the rest of the story from last week. If you were here last week, you know Jesus has come back to his hometown of Nazareth, he’s gone into the temple, and they handed him a scroll.

He read from Isaiah. He essentially announced his ministry is going to be about bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. This has been fulfilled in your hearing. Last week I argued that that’s what they were supposed to be doing anyway.

Not everybody in that picture is happy. Jesus is the one reading the scrolls, but the other people are not necessarily happy about what he’s saying. But they are amazed that he had the gall, that might be the church’s word for it, to say that he’s going to fulfill all of this.

But he didn’t stop there. They’re excited and they know this guy, Jesus grew up here. This is Joseph’s son. So, they have some expectations of him that play into this. But then what happens is he tells them this story.

He gives them an example of two healings that took place. The widow of Zarephath and Naaman. Now, for those of you who don’t recognize those stories, let me give you the backstory.

The Widow of Zarephath was someone that Elijah came across, she and her son were starving, there had been no water, they were at the last of their oil and flour, and she was about to make the last loaf of bread so they could eat. When Elijah shows up and says, Make that big enough so I can have some. And he says, don’t worry about the rest. She does it. She trusts. And indeed, they never run out of food until it rains again.

Naaman is a Syrian commander who had conquered Israel as part of the spoil, he took an Israeli girl as a prisoner to work in his house. He had sores on his body and she says, if you go and talk to the Jewish prophet, he will tell you how to get rid of that. He listens to the girl and he does what the prophet tells him.

So it sounds like two good stories, right? Here’s where I sat with my wonderment and I invite you into my wonderment. Why did they go from, “wow, this guy’s something”, to the rage where they wanted to drive him off the cliff? After he tells those stories, they drive him out to the cliff. Just think about that. I sat with that question. I thought, well, he had to of pushed their buttons. So, what buttons did he push?

I think we can tell in what he said, he talked about healing to others, to people who weren’t part of the Jewish faith. That’s part of it, but I don’t know that that would put them into a rage. He had to have said something that hurt them personally, and you can get a mob to rage easier than an individual because they get that mob energy. But where I landed on this is wondering if he didn’t.

The way they understood what he said if it didn’t tell them the healing they were seeking, the reason they showed up at the synagogue. He didn’t come for them. He came to take care of others. This is where my mama bear could get mad enough to drive someone off a cliff. If I was there seeking healing for my daughter and you told me that my daughter doesn’t count, that would drive me. Then I will find rage.

That’s why I called this sermon “Not What We Want to Hear”, because we think we’re doing it right.

We think we’re doing all this stuff the way we’re supposed to, and I have empathy for those who were in the synagogue. I mean, there were certainly some Jewish leaders there or religious leaders there, but there were also probably others who were coming and looking for something from God of which it could have been healing. I’m going to come with my wounds, my baggage, my hurts, and my cares. I want God to do something with my stuff. But, Jesus just said, my stuff isn’t it. He’s going to take care of other people. Wow.

Can you feel that? I don’t say that because I think Jesus doesn’t care about us. Because I think Jesus does. I think God cares about all of that. I think Jesus was trying to get their attention because they were only focused on their needs and what they wanted.

Jesus is saying, you need to look around. You need to see the hurt and the pain in other people.

Right now, the price of eggs is in the news. I went to Stouffer’s and I don’t usually buy my eggs at Stouffer’s, but I checked the price of eggs.

Well, that made my jaw drop. Then, I went to buy them at the central market. I saved money by going to the market. Because Levi looked at me and said, “I don’t care what the market does. The price of grain didn’t go up. The price of chickens didn’t go up. My price of eggs doesn’t go up.”

How many people do we recognize or see among us who are trying to decide if they’re going to pay their rent or get their medication? How many people at the grocery store do we see who are not even going to the egg aisle? They’re buying mac and cheese because you can live on that. Been there, done that. You can live on cans of beans. It’s not the most nutritious diet, but you can afford it if you don’t have much to spend.

How do we see those people? Do we acknowledge those people? Because there’s something that I’ve learned in ministry. It’s that when we stop worrying about ourselves and start thinking about how we’re doing things for others, we can be healed in the process. Our stuff gets healed. We find healing that we may not even know we need in the process of caring for others.

This is a communion picture. It’s about that invitation to say, I see your pain and there are choices. There are options. There’s hope. There’s hope in our faith. There’s hope because every person that comes to this table gets a piece of bread and a cup of juice. You don’t have to pay. We don’t have indulgences anymore. We got rid of them. You don’t have to prove your worthiness to come forward. You just come forward and you will receive the bread and the cup that we believe brings about forgiveness and wholeness and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That’s what we can offer and we can choose to be people who listen to each other.

Sometimes that makes a world of difference. If someone just gets heard, if we are willing to listen to somebody else’s pain, that’s the point of the Compassion Team, they’re there to listen to our pain, anything you want to share, anything that you need to talk to somebody else about, they’re there to listen.

Hopefully, we can ask some good questions because I’ve also learned that it’s not about telling people how to get better. We all have to find the answers within us. So it’s about asking good questions. We can do that. We can be people of empathy and compassion for others. We can be people who want to make a difference in the environment. We can be people who want to make a difference with people who feel victimized right now, LGBTQ+, people of color, and immigrants. We can be a source of safety, and of peace. Of maybe even love and acceptance that they haven’t found anywhere else.

So the question is, who will we be?

How will we respond to Jesus’ call to say, it’s not about our healing, it’s about the healing of others? We’ll receive healing in the process. I do believe that. But it’s not about doing it for us. It’s about doing it because other people need us. Other people need to know the love and compassion we have found, the forgiveness we have found, and the grace. It is about mercy.

So, is that who we’re willing to be? Are we willing to reach out to our siblings and undo the knots of fear? Are we willing to liberate the vulnerable from the prisons of poverty? Are we willing to offer comfort to those who are fearful? Are we willing to step out of the box that we have created as Church of the Apostles because that’s the way we’ve always done it? Are we willing to let those sides down and explore other ways of being?

That’s your decision. That’s for you to seek in your heart.

May it be so. Amen.

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