I would like us to think about what God’s love looks like.

How does that feel if you had to describe God’s love? What would you say about it? I’m going to invite you into a little bit of theology with me because I think you know more than you realize.

Think of a Bible story that you know. Whatever comes to mind. How was love present in that story? Now, I need the extroverts to talk.

The way the widow gave all that she had, she did not hold back. So that’s what love looks like. Love looks like giving what you have and being generous with what you have. That’s God’s love.

The good Samaritan. I love the fact that we have this whole window on the good Samaritan. If you didn’t recognize that before, that is the good Samaritan window where the person helps. God’s love is reaching out to those who are in need and helping. Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” – Luke 10:37

Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” It’s about reaching out and doing something. It’s not just this ethereal peace.

When is God showing us a love that calls us to be more than what we are or who we are at this moment? I think there’s this balance between the God who loves us and says that we are loved and worthy just as we are in this moment and the God who wants us to know that we have the potential to be more than that, to be better than what we are, to be more loving.

It is in the scripture from 1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

What do we do with that? What does that look like? What is striking to me is that this scripture is meant to be an encouragement, but it’s also meant to tell us that everyone who loves then knows God, whether they put it in that kind of language or not.

It’s a very inclusive love. It’s not God loves these people because those are the people we love. And these people over here they’re not that loving so God must not love them either. What I hear in the scripture is God loves period and we’re the ones who want God to hate our enemies. But I don’t think that’s what this says.

This says God loves. God is love.

We’re the ones who play these childish games and want people to be out of God’s love. This is hard. It’s simple and hard. It’s simplistic, we are to love everyone. Some people are not very lovable and that’s hard work, but that is God’s expectation on us.

I mentioned in the Come Sunday that I’ve been sitting with who we are to become with our new vision and mission.

We’ve been living into that now for a year. So what are we becoming? Well, I think we’re becoming the beloved community. We’re to be about building a beloved community. So, that means we need to be love. Does that make sense? In order to be beloved, we need to be love. So how do we be love? How do we love others?

Well, one of the things that came to me as I sat with that was to show up and listen. That’s how you love. You love by showing up and listening rather than telling others what they need to do. But if we listen to them, if we help them, if we ask them questions, they probably know what they need.

It’s about listening, really listening. I think there are so many people in this world who are hurting because they feel like no one’s listening. I mean, they’re saying the pandemic of this year is loneliness. We can be all together and yet we’re lonely because we don’t let anybody else know those dark things that circle in our brains, those places that we don’t like to share.

Last week, Craig Gross was here with you. I know Craig well and Craig calls it his drawer. He said he has this drawer of dark things that he only opens so much. Then he closes it again because nobody else needs to see the dark things that are in the drawer.

Here in Lancaster County, we like to put a lot under the rug and we hide things there. We were taught to hide things. You don’t talk about your dirty laundry. You keep things private. You put on this stiff upper lip, right? Hold your chin high. Even if your world’s falling apart, unless we find a safe space to let ourselves fall apart, we’re all just a hot mess and we have to be able to create that safe space, which is part of our vision, creating a safe space for those who are vulnerable or afraid.

The reality is we’re already sitting here. Some people aren’t here who need a safe space now more than ever. So we need to be clear about who we are.

When we get to the annual meeting today, I put together an overview of what has happened over the past year and where we’re going.

As I was doing that, I was struck by the fact that my brain wanted to say the outreach commission did this and the property commission did that and the education commission did this and the parish life commission did that.

I stopped myself and I realized that’s the way we have defined it a lot of the time. Instead of saying, we did this and we did that. Do you hear the difference? I heard the difference. I felt the difference when we go from this group and that group to being one group. What have we done and what will we do next?

That’s what this morning is about. It’s about going out and being love.

But I’ll tell you, as I said before, this is hard work. There are two things that you need to do to do this. You need to love. To go places that feed you or do things that feed you and that fill your cup. Go places that inspire you and bring out life in you where you feel invigorated rather than drained wherever that is.

Last Sunday I went to Longwood Garden. It’s gorgeous. The new conservatory is beautiful. Take time, put yourself in places where you see beautiful things, wherever that is.

We all have different things that do that for us. So think about what it is for you and make sure you’re including that in your life and remind yourself that to be love involves our faith and faith is risky. It’s scary sometimes. Faith is about believing in something that we can’t prove. Hope. We have to hold hope. Hope is about thinking something is going to happen that hasn’t happened yet. And love is about holding people in our hearts, even the people that are hard to hold.

This is from Facebook. It was posted by a book company, which turns out was Celtic Spirituality Book Company. I felt very good sharing it.

May it be so. Amen.

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Sermon by Rev. Craig Ross

This is a time of the year when we often think a lot about the word freedom, right?

Elections are a corporate event that virtually demands a pause in life. We can reflect on the blessings and privileges of freedom and what it offers to us in our country and how we might best embrace this blessing through our choice of leaders.

Change of seasons we experienced in these later months of the year also leads some to migrate to different parts of this magnificent globe because we have the freedom to travel, to embrace the rich diversity that our nation offers us. From sea to shining sea and beyond. Increasingly, individuals have the freedom to live their lives in ways that reflect the identity that they believe God has sewn into the very fabric of their lives and souls.

Freedom is one of the themes of today’s lesson from the gospel.

As Christians, we’re pretty comfortable defining the gospel of Jesus in a variety of ways, right? We all have our sort of mini gospels that we carry with us. We use words like salvation, maybe grace, maybe forgiveness, maybe life. If we took a bit of time this morning, we could add additional words that would describe this gospel as we experience it in our uniqueness, in our communal ways, and everywhere in between.

In our lesson today, we’re called to embrace one word. One word that might not always be on the tip of our tongues when we think about the gospel, and that’s this word, freedom. Today, Jesus adds freedom as another way to describe the gospel.

Think about it. The images we use to describe salvation typically assume some need that we have. One has to value salvation because one knows one needs saving. One to whom grace is important and is aware of the need for grace. Forgiveness implies sin, so you get the picture.

No wonder those who engage Jesus in our lesson today are offended. Because Jesus says to persons who already believe in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” – John 8:31-32. The promise of freedom, awesome! Except it’s not. At least not to those whom Jesus makes this promise. They’re pretty much the opposite of excited or grateful for Jesus’ words as they offer their answer. “We are descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying you will be made free? – John 8:33.

No thank you, Jesus. No praise God, and definitely no awesome. Instead, those that Jesus addresses are offended. “What do you mean” is all they can offer in response to this teaching and this assurance. The modern way of saying that might be, who do you think you are anyway, Jesus, to talk like that?

Now we have the luxury of a couple of thousand years of reflection on this scripture. So to me it makes sense.

But it is a challenging encounter that Jesus offers us today because by offering them freedom, Jesus does imply that they are not free. And as is the case with most of us, we get backed up into a corner, we pull out our tried and our true responses that are usually pretty defensive responses. These Jews here do the same. We are descendants of Abraham. We have never been slaves to anyone, they say.

We’ll time out here for a moment. Admittedly, none of us here are Old Testament Bible scholars, including me. But we know the problem in this response, right? This problem is embedded in what the Jews say. Did the Jews somehow forget their slavery in Egypt? Or the Assyrian captivity? Or the Persians? Or any of those who have taken over Jewish life and enslaved them for periods in history. What about the Romans? They’re not exactly your friends here in first-century Judaism.

As the old saying goes, denial is not just a river in Egypt. But before we judge our first-century brothers and sisters in faith, shouldn’t we ask the question, aren’t we at some times just the same?

How good are we at naming and admitting our own needs, our own hurts, our own brokenness?

How comfortable are we in naming those things that enslave us as individuals, as families, and sometimes as churches? This enslaves us in the sense of honesty admitting that we’re not perfect, we have problems, and that we are enslaved by things. It’s hard to do, but Jesus’ presence and Jesus challenging us throughout his various teachings and stories and all those with whom he engages reminds us that through admitting our lives being imperfect, we have a little bit of breathing room, not just for growth improvement, but also for help.

Maybe big words like repentance and forgiveness. It’s not easy to do. It’s sort of my business and I’m not good at it all the time. I’m good at talking about it, really good at that, and advising other people about it. But, you know, in my friendship circles, in my family, in close connections I have with folks, I’m not too easy to own my bondedness to things that I don’t want to let go of.

Today, it seems for me at least, it’s harder than it used to be because there’s so much cultural pressure to act as if we have everything together.

Great life, great job, great relationships, great future, great Facebook and Instagram pages, great everything, right? There’s such pressure. Our lives to the point where they shine. And as we buy into that illusion, we contribute to our own bondage.

For a while social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (Now X) have proven a great way to keep in touch with people we love and cherish, no question about that. But they also have proven to be vehicles that demand greater attention and effort and ultimately pretense as we try to convince the world that we’re living our ideal lives.

Maybe I should be a little better than they are. I can make that happen on social media. That pretense takes a toll, of course. We know that. We’re honest with ourselves. We don’t claim descendants from Abraham but by our acts and our loyalty to God. We might not claim descendants from Washington or Luther either. We might admire Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, or Beyonce. One way or another, we name them as our apostles. And then we cry out, or we should cry out, that we have never been slaves to anyone.

I don’t honestly know what a United Church of Christ community might do in this situation. Maybe look to James O’Kelly, Abner Jones, the former Baptist, or Barton W. Stone as the early formers and followers of the United Church of Christ movement. You might know more modern ones. Who is thinking closer to home? The Right Reverend Katherine Kuhn? We have persons we look up to, and we ask them to help guide us in deciding what makes us authentic, and what gives us a sense of purpose in our lives. But I don’t know those persons as well as many of you do.

So I’m going to go to the one that Lutherans know, Martin Luther, and his earliest seminal, and of his theology, the 95 Theses.

I can’t read much of Luther, it’s too long and gobbledygook, but I can understand the 95 Theses they’re short and they’re tight and I can remember even a few of them.

But the first of his 95 Theses is about repentance. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. In our softer and more gentle times, we’re not all that big on the word repentance. It’s pretty harsh, but I think our reticence around embracing repentance is that we might misunderstand what repentance really means. Luther says that when calling for repentance, he’s not talking about confession and penance as administered by clergy. Luther never saw repentance as an inward, cathartic, feel-good, or feel-bad kind of moment. For Luther, true repentance is a kind of truth-telling that allows you to be honest about how you are deceiving yourself or letting yourself be deceived by the world.

And that, Luther suggests, gives you an opportunity, a moment. To think, speak, and act differently. To put it another way, that gives you an opportunity to live in freedom.

Jesus’ invitation from freedom demands an act of repentance as truth-telling before it hits home and does that saving work for us.

Because it demands that we become clean about our needs, which isn’t easy for self-made women and self-made men to admit. Just as with Jesus, earlier conversation partners, the truth of which Jesus speaks is two truths. First, a truth about us, and then a truth about God’s response to us.

God’s news is that we’re always sinners, God’s fallen, and at times flailing around confusedly, always imperfect. And in the face of that fallen grace that characterizes our lives, God then chooses to love us anyway. Hope that divine love in time will change us, transform us, and redeem us.

Gloria Simon was known for repurposing an old Alcoholics Anonymous saying when she struggled in her life, she would say, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you feel miserable.”

The truth with which Jesus confronts us, that we are sinners. God’s fallen, at times flailing, regularly confused, and always imperfect children from birth to death is true. But, and here is the second, I won’t say more important, but certainly equally important truth that does sound like good news, that we are also those sinners who are simultaneously God’s beloved children.

Those sinners who God calls blessed and holy and perfect. Those sinners whose futures are not determined by our regrets and our mistakes, but by the possibilities created by resurrection every day of our lives. Those sinners who God loves above anyone else. We are not perfect. We don’t have to be in order to be loved because only God is perfect.

We are granted the privilege of hanging on to God’s coattails until that day when we die and have the chance to see what it looks like up close and personal.

In closing, I offer a final word of David Lowes, one of our bright Lutheran voices of hope.

We are sinners. Sinners that no amount of indulgences, good works, intentions, status updates, or creative social media posts can redeem. But, here is the second truth which finally sounds like good news, we are also those sinners who are simultaneously God’s beloved children.

Those sinners who God calls blessed, holy, and perfect. Those sinners for whom Christ died. Those sinners who make mistakes but by the possibility created by resurrection, those sinners whom God loves above all else. We are not perfect, and we don’t have to be in order to be loved by God.

Amen to that!

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Whenever we hear the words from first chapter of Genesis, we think about the master plan of God’s creativity out of chaos, out of an ugly world of nothing.

God created our world. Genesis paints a marvelous picture of how God did this. In the first chapter of Genesis, we listen to the likes of, “n the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created light and sky and water and dry ground and God filled it up by creating habitats for animals and plants.

Then, finally, God created human beings and when God was all finished, what did God say? It is good.

You’re all familiar with this story. God made humankind to be like God. Created to reflect the very nature of God. Did you ever stop and wonder why? Why did God bother? Was God bored? Was God lonely? What was God’s motive in all of this creating? Well, to find an answer to this question, we go searching the scriptures to find out a little more about God.

I read to you today from Psalm 19. Listen to what the psalmist tells us about God.

“The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. Yet they have no speech and they have no words. No sound is heard from them yet. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.” Psalm 19.

I believe God is revealing God’s self through the action of creation. God’s omnipresence, God’s all encompassing presence is revealed in God’s artistic act of creation. God’s spirit surrounds us in the air and the sea and the mountains, even though you hear no words.

The sounds that you do hear are the very presence of God.

Have you ever perched yourself on the edge of a cliff and the wind blew through your hair onto your face? Or have you ever sat on the sands of the beach and listened to the rhythm of the waves crashing onto the surface? Or have you ever lingered in your garden watching the movement of the bees and the butterflies and the birds? What did you feel in these moments when you were surrounded by God’s creation? Did you feel peace, tranquility, comfort?

I would like to suggest what you were feeling is love. The Bible clearly tells us God is love. We see it from the very beginning. It’s always been about love. In all of creation, God created love.

Why? Because as scripture tells us in 1 John, God is love. Love. It’s just who God is. I’m here to tell you, love is how we were created to be. We are children of God and that makes us children of love.

The scripture test for today says God created human beings. He created them to be godlike. He created them to reflect God’s image. You my friends were designed by love you were designed by love in God’s image thus you were made to be loving.

Genesis is pretty clear That God created us for a very specific purpose, we’re to be like God. We are to be a reflection of God’s image. In other words, we are to look like God.

And how do we live up to God’s expectation of us being God’s image bearers? What does a loving God, a loving image person look like? What are we to look like?

First of all. According to Eugene Peterson, God made us to be responsible for tending God’s created world. We are to love our planet, and we do that by tending to the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. We are to be intentional in preserving life. We are to ensure all God’s critters and grasses are preserved. This is a declarative act. Call to action by God. The words we heard today say we are responsible for the planet.

Other biblical versions use harsher language that say humankind is to rule over all of creation. Some say humankind has been given dominion over the critters and the trees, but a loving interpretation, the one Peterson uses says we are to be stewards of the planet. We are to care for it.

The creation story clearly tells us that we have been given a responsibility to nurture creation.

But secondly, and in my opinion, even more importantly, the creation story tells us we are to love creation. Again, taking on an image of God means we are to be loving.

What does that look like? We know that love is a word that has multiple meanings. What images come to your mind when you hear the word love? We can love ice cream. I know I do. We love our siblings and our children. But that’s a different kind of love than what we have for our spouses.

Love is beautiful. Love it evokes the best in us and also the fiercest in us. I believe what the scripture is telling us to do is to love like God loves.

If we are to be like God than we must imitate God, but here’s the thing God doesn’t love like we love. We humans love in what is more a reactive manner. When we love, it’s because we find the object of our love pleasing to us. I love a Dairy Queen Blizzard with all its candy and ice cream blended into a tasty treat. I love them. Because they tantalize my taste buds. We humans love by our senses. When we see or smell, taste or touch something that is pleasing, we love it. You may have fell in love with your spouse because of his or her beauty, or because he or she was a good cook. This is the way humans love. Human love is reactive. We respond to our environments, but God’s love is different.

God’s love is not a reaction to the senses, rather God’s love is transformative. God’s love is creative. You see, here’s the thing about love. It’s not static. Love is an action word. God was busy during the creation week. God started off with nothing. Just chaos and God got busy creating land and sea and critters and plants. Then, the most marvelous act of his love was when God created us.

God created humankind. God was so busy that week that God got tired, didn’t he? So, what did he do? He rested. He set aside a day of all of this busy work so that we can rest, revive, refresh, and reflect. God needed a day of rest because creating is hard work.

Loving can be exhausting. You know that’s true. It’s not always easy to love. It’s especially hard to love like God loves. It’s not easy to create goodness from the ugly, but that is what God did. And that is what God commands us to do. Therefore, we are also called to do just as God loves.

God’s creation story is a call to action. We are called to transform lives.

We are not just to slumber and bask in the comfortable, peaceful, sunny meadows of life where we love to hang out watching those wildflowers sway in the breeze, birds flying in the air and the wind moving the clouds around in those remarkable shapes. We are to be busy. We are to always be on the move.

We are to be instruments for God’s creative and transforming love. See, here’s the thing, you know, God never stops creating. God created the world and God continues to create the world as an act of love. I know this and you know this because you and I can see it in the face of a newborn baby, in the blossom of a flower, in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly, at the dawning of each new day, and we are offered the opportunity to be awakened and changed because God loves us.

When we invite God’s love, we too can create something lovely out of the chaos of this world, when we too become agents for change. Daily, my friends, we walk through the muck and mire of the “isms” of this world. Racism, sexism, ageism, and all forms of hate. We must be agents of change and create love.

When we tend to the social soils with loving hearts, chaos that accompanies violence, hatred, anger, while it’s transformed because love transformed. Those things are transformed to the likeness of kindness and justice and mercy. Love in action creates a world of beauty that blossoms into abundance.

Change begins with each one of us.

You may feel small and insignificant, but remember, God created you with love to be love. It’s in your DNA. Do not get comfortable. Today is the day to love God’s people and by loving, I mean nurture, inspire, revive what God has already initiated. Go forth from this world and be an agent of love and make change happen.

You can do that right where you are. Even you, my friends, can make a difference.

Now that is love is an amazing love. Amen.

This Sermon given by Rev. Katherine Seiler

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The scripture text for our contemporary words this morning is this, “That they may be one as you father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” – John 17:21

The setting for this prayer of Jesus follows the meal with his disciples. On the evening before he was arrested, it follows his washing of the disciples feet and his emphasis on the commandment to love one another. It’s part of a lengthy prayer in the gospel according to John, a prayer which Jesus offers to his Father, for his disciples, and for those who love him. Who would believe in Jesus as a result of what the disciples would do later.

You and I are included in this prayer. The Gospels mention Jesus going off by himself to pray. But except for what we call the Lord’s Prayer, and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. We don’t know much about what Jesus prayed.

Here we hear him praying for his first disciples and for us. The theme of the prayer is that all may be one, that is, united. As he and the Father are united. He prays that his disciples may be united with him and his father and with each other.

I’ve titled this sermon Untied or United. They both have the same letters, but the different arrangement of the letters leads to very different meanings.

Untied means not held together by any bond, not restrained, not joined in unity, free from outside control, as typified by such remarks as I’ll do it my way or I’m numero uno or other self centered attitudes.

On the other hand, united means made one, combined, no longer separate, acting in unison, concurring, dwelling in unity.

Notice that united does not mean total uniformity. We can have differences of opinion or personality. and still be united. Clearly, Jesus prayer is for the disciples and for us to be united rather than untied. The big question is, united for what?

Both the Old and New Testaments make very clear, that we are to love God and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In other words, human life is essentially about relationships, relationships with ourselves, with Jesus and God, neighbors, fellow workers, church members, the natural world, society, and our nation. We’re related to all those in some way.

To love God is not to have some fuzzy warm feeling. It’s to obey God’s commands. To love our neighbors is to seek God’s love and work for their good, Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” – John 13:34. The unity of Jesus and the father is the template for the unity of the disciples with Jesus and the father, and with Jesus and each other.

Lest, we inadvertently fall into a trap by assuming that untied is always bad and united is always good.

It’s important to acknowledge that the situation is not absolute, but very nuanced. It’s good to be untied to the attitudes and actions that are banned by the 10 Commandments. It’s good to be untied to having other gods, to making idols, to taking God’s name in vain, to steal, to commit adultery, to murder, to bear false witness, to covet. It’s good.

Likewise, It’s bad to be united with what may be good for a political party to win elections rather than what is good for our country and all our people. But most of the time it is better to be united than untied.

So where does this point us?

God loves and accepts us as we are. We do not have to meet a set of preconditions in order to be loved by God. But God does not expect or desire us to remain as we are at this point in our life. God’s plan is for us to become more like God. In other words, more holy as God is holy. We won’t fully attain that, but that is the goal.

Let’s look at two examples, one positive and one negative, that show us what becoming more holy means. In Jesus telling, a priest and a Levite came upon a man who had been injured and robbed. They both felt untied to him and passed by, leaving him lying on the road. A Samaritan also came upon him, but he felt united with him, pitied him. Dressed his wounds, took him to an inn, paid the innkeeper to take care of him, and promised to pay any additional costs for the man’s care. That Samaritan was becoming more holy, more like God.

On another occasion, Jesus told about an older brother who came in from working in the farm fields to discover music and dancing going on. He asked what was happening and learned that his younger brother, who had left home, taking his inheritance that he subsequently wasted, had returned home, and their father had joyfully welcomed him back. and ordered a festive celebration to begin. Despite entreaties from his father, the older brother refused to go in. He wouldn’t join the party referring to your son rather than my brother, thus revealing. that he was untied to his brother. He was not becoming more holy, more like God.

If our goal is to be more united with Jesus and with one another, what are we to do?

Let me offer several things for you to consider. First, We can acknowledge the truth of Jesus teaching that he is the vine and we are the branches. If we abide in him as he abides in us, we can be united. We can grow and bear fruit, becoming more like God. Because apart from him, we can do nothing. It is only as we are united in him that we grow more holy.

Also, we often hear the words, the truth will make you free. But that overlooks the first part of what Jesus said. “If you continue in my word, You are truly just my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” – John 8:31-32. It is as we are continually learning about Jesus and his teachings that we will learn the truth about God and the human life God intends for us.

To have another figure of speech that is helpful, we can think about a wheel with a hub and spokes leading out from the hub. Then we can also realize that it is only as we move toward Jesus as the hub, that we are getting closer and more united with him and with each other.

We can do more praying, especially more listening for what God is calling us to be and do. We can do more reading of the scriptures, especially the four gospels.

Getting to feel less untied and more united requires more than an attitude or a feeling, it requires action.

The epistle of James puts it quite frankly, if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says, Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill and yet does not supply their bodily needs. What is the good of that?

We can also move toward being more united by deliberately and appropriately living into our congregation’s recently adopted mission statement. We can make changes in our governance structures. We can offer our increased personal involvement and financial support. Becoming more united calls for action in how we use our financial resources.

Jesus observed some rich people putting gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins, and he remarked that she had put in more than all the rich people because they contributed out of their abundance while she, out of her poverty, had put in all she had to live for.

Becoming more united also leads us to become more and more generous by increasing the percentage of our income we give for our congregations ministries to welcome and help our neighbors. To do that necessitates giving a higher priority to our neighbors needs than to our own wants. That’s not easy. It means saying no to some of our expenditures on ourselves as we seek to be more united with Jesus, with the father, with each other, with our neighbors near and far.

The good news is that we are not expected to become united all by ourselves. We are called to be intentional and faithful about our decisions and actions, but we do not have to become united all on our own. Our Lord has promised to help us every step of the journey. He has said, “I am with you always to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20. We can encourage and help each other.

Remember also the Apostle Paul’s assurance that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So sisters and brothers in Church of the Apostles United Church of Christ, will we be untied or united?

Sermon Given by Rev. Milton Gockley

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If you have been in the church for a while, then you recognize that today is Pentecost Sunday.

Pentecost is the 50th day following Easter. The normal Pentecost reading is one where we have all those names that nobody wants to get stuck with. All those names that nobody can pronounce and be ashamed of fumbling through them.

Then we have this experience of tongues of fire and wind. But, my sense is that most of us probably have not experienced tongues of fire and wind that way. That’s not how we’ve experienced the Holy Spirit. In talking with the Worship Commission in preparation for this Sunday, what they said to me was, “you know, it seems like the Holy Spirit is really hard to understand. We’re really not sure that we know that much about it.”

So I put this graphic here because the Holy Spirit is confusing. Just in Scripture alone, all of those things represent the Holy Spirit. It is represented in wind and in fire, but it’s also represented by the hand of Jesus, by a dove that descends, by anointing oil. Sometimes it’s a cloud, sometimes it’s a seal, sometimes it’s in water at baptism. There’s so many different images for the spirit, that the spirit is confusing.

I thought rather than sit with the Pentecost and what happened, where we give credit for the church being created, I thought it might be worthwhile to just try to unpack a little bit about the Spirit.

In these readings that we had today, John 15:26-27 & 16:4b-15, we heard some things about the Spirit. The Greek word is paraclete, which in the NRSV gets translated as advocate. But the word comforter is a lot closer to what it really means. It’s not just one who goes before you, although the Spirit does help us intercede in our prayers with God. But it also said that the Spirit comes to us in our weakness, The Spirit pleads our case, like the advocate, but the Spirit also convinces the world of its sin. And it explains or brings the availability of God’s goodness. It brings deliverance from judgment. It guides us into all truth, and it tells us about the future. The Spirit praises Christ.

All of those things are just in the scriptures that we read this morning about the Spirit. The Spirit really is like a first responder that’s coming to us, that is with us whenever we need it.

All we need to do is ask for the Spirit’s guidance, for the Spirit’s comfort and help in whatever situation we’re in.

Then, it’s up to us to listen. That’s where I think, probably more than anything, we miss out. Because, I think, the Spirit even comes to us in ways that we didn’t ask, in ways that we miss, because we’re so focused on our own agendas and what we’ve got to do. It comes in gentle ways.

So, there’s a lot of ways to experience the Spirit. But the Spirit is there to help guide us to remember that Jesus is our helper. That Jesus is there for us to help us with our sin. In fact, sin here, in this scripture that I read, means not abiding in Jesus. It’s a theological understanding of sin rather than a moral one, right?

Sin can also be the injustices that we allow within our communities, within the bigger county, state and world. When we allow people to be hurt, that is not of God. Actually, that’s the challenge with listening to the spirit is that we have to determine what is spirit and what is ego.

For me one of the big ways in which I tell the difference is that spirit will always lead us towards life, towards wholeness and peace, love and joy.

It is an expansive peace. It is not about retracting. It’s not about dividing us. The Spirit doesn’t want us, like the disciples, to be hold up in a room, shuttered from the world.

That’s why the Spirit breaks in that way comes to them and says, “it’s okay.” In that Pentecost story from Acts 2 that we didn’t read, the Spirit comes to all of these people. People that would have been from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan, and says, “you need to work together. Stop dividing. Come together.” They were able o come together and agree. That’s the beauty of the Spirit.

But when we hear things within us that encourage us towards mean spiritedness or violence, that is not of God. That is of our egos. So telling the difference is something that’s the most important thing. Because the Spirit does come in different ways. We might be like Samuel, who actually hears the voice calling him. Or it might be like Elijah, where the Spirit is not in the wind or the fire, or the Earthquake. But the, Spirit is in that still small voice within.

That’s the one that I particularly relate to because I find that the spirit more like nudges me. I’ll be walking along and all of a sudden somebody’s name will come into my mind. Like, “Yep, you haven’t talked to that person in a while.” So often when I do that and I’m thinking, I’m late, I should have called them last week. I should have gone yesterday. But, I get there and they look at me and they say, this is the perfect time for you to be here because we put all that other stuff on ourselves.

But the spirit is there, if we’re just paying attention to those little nudgings.

If you feel called to call somebody, if they’re coming to your mind, do it. Pick up the phone. Give them a call. They may need to hear from you right now. There may be something going on that you don’t know. Or maybe, you may be like Mary and actually see a vision of an angel.

There’s so many ways to experience the spirit. I heard a colleague speak this week and was talking about the spirit in a very prescribed way. I think the church has tried to control the spirit. The church has tried, just like we’ve tried to control God. Instead of thinking and remembering that we are made in the likeness of God, we try to make God in the likeness of us. We try to control what the Spirit does and we say, “this is Spirit, but this isn’t.” Maybe I’m doing that too with this mean spiritedness versus wholeness and love, but I think there are so many times we want to put a frame around what the Spirit is, who God is or who Christ is, and the answer is actually yes and much more.

Our versions of God and the Spirit and Christ are too small. We can’t comprehend all of God. We can’t comprehend all of the Spirit or even all of Christ. Jesus was our best way to know God and it gave us an understanding of who God was as one of us. But that was just a piece and there is so much more.

So I hope that you think about the Spirit and I put this picture because it’s a transformation. It’s striking because usually a caterpillar will go into a cocoon or a chrysalis in order to transform and it appears to be doing that without it. It’s going right from caterpillar to finding wings.

How might we transform if we listen to the spirit? What is the spirit calling you to be about today? If it’s calling you towards love, peace and joy, then it is the Spirit. And it is not just of you. And I hope you choose to follow. May it be so.

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Testimony is a word that we don’t use a lot.

Testimony is what the evangelicals do. Those people that we don’t want to be. That’s what the white protestant churches said. We don’t want to be like those people. They force people to have conversion moments. That’s not who we want to be. I want to say today that I think we have done ourselves a disfavor in this because testimony can be as simple as sharing our story.

Just as Emmanuel did last week, for those of you who heard or were here last week. Testimony is just about sharing a piece of our story. That is how we encourage one another in faith. It hurts us that we don’t do that more often.

I will admit that those testimonies, the way some churches have put them out or created them, it’s almost like there’s just this formula. As long as you say that you’ve received Jesus into your heart, then you’re good. That’s all that needed to be done. We know that there’s a lot more to it.

When I think of my story, it’s not a once and done thing. I’ve had many moments and my faith has grown through the moments. I think that’s part of what’s supposed to happen. The heartaches that we all carry, the pain that we have gone through, the struggles. When we admit that, we can see the places where our stories may connect or they may touch. They’re not the same. It’s not the same pain. It’s not the same struggles, but there is something about going through the pain and the grief that helps us grow, in our stories and in our faith.

I want to start today with the scripture that was read for us, 1 John 5:9-13.

Let me begin by saying that I should never assume what you know or do not know. This scripture that was read comes out of the first letter of John. That is not the same thing as the gospel of John. It is a letter further to the back of the Bible when you’re looking for it. It is meant as a type of testimony. It is meant to encourage the faith of the believers of the faithful. The scripture that we read was all about testimony. For as much as I’m not really a fan of the word testimony, it appears God’s going to make sure we talk about it today.

God says, it begins with saying if you believe human testimony, if you believe the story of another. If you believed Emmanuel’s story last week, if you believe the story of anyone else you’ve talked to, any of your friends or family, then you should believe God’s story even more. Some people set it up like that, it means that God’s story is the only testimony that humans aren’t. It’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to just say, Our stories are true and God’s story can be trusted even more because our stories do change over the years when we get some distance away from the event where our perceptions change about it, but God’s story doesn’t change and it comes down to the simple verse.

It was verse 11, 1 John 5:11. “The testimony is this. God gave eternal life to us and this life is in His Son.” It’s meant to jar our memories or to be a parallel, almost a paraphrase of John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son. That whosoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” It’s meant to help us connect the dots and say, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.” That’s a good thing to remember. It’s naming that God stands opposed to the world because the world is the way in which our capacity to hurt one another. We have a tremendous capacity to create pain and conflict with each other, and God’s love is in opposition to that.

Then the scripture that I read from John’s gospel, John 17:6-19, I heard that as well, it’s unique.

Let’s start there. It’s unique in that it’s the first time we get to hear Jesus pray about the disciples specifically. Usually when Jesus prays, he goes off by himself. It says Jesus went off into the mountain and prayed. We don’t hear much about it. We hear it in the Garden of Gethsemane. There we get to hear some words of Jesus. But this time, Jesus is praying to God about the disciples right in front of the disciples. So they’re hearing it. It’s meant to be a blessing. Jesus wants the disciples to understand that they are blessed.

Now I want to say, I want you to understand that you too are blessed.

You’re not just blessed so that you can pat yourself on the back and feel good about yourself, but that you are blessed to be a blessing. You have a story so that you can share it. and encourage others.

Jesus knows that the disciples are about to face one of their hardest times. When Jesus is arrested and taken away and crucified, they are going to feel like their world has fallen apart. He wants them to know that he has asked God to be with them, to protect them. It says it a couple of times, protect them. He wants them to know God is with them even when they don’t feel like it.

This is where this touches my story.

Some of you know, some of you are aware of parts of my story, but one of the parts of my story is that my father died when I was two years old. My father was a UCC minister. But I have absolutely no memory of him. So, through my life, I have tried to figure out who he is. Just because I thought it would be appropriate, I put a picture of him here for you to see.

This past week, I went to clergy convocation. Clergy convocation is when all four conferences in Pennsylvania, so all the clergy of Pennsylvania in the United Church of Christ, were invited to gather and it’s a time of learning, but our focus was on healing. Healing me. Healing you. Healing us.

At that convocation, A gentleman came up to me and said, I was a friend of your father’s. They went to F&M together. They went to the seminary together. He said, I need to talk to you. I was both excited and scared at the same time. Anxious in all those ways. I thought, “oh, there’s so many questions I have for you.” Because I really wanted to know who my dad was as a pastor. What was his thing? What was his specialty? Where were his passions?

But when we gathered, I decided that I needed to listen. I didn’t end up asking any questions. I just received his story. What he wanted to tell me was the last conversation he had where my dad told him that he was okay dying at 26. That was okay. That all he wanted was to spend as much time as he could with my mother and I. What that told me, which I think was underneath all of my questions, was that my dad loved me. That’s what I really needed to hear. More than anything else. The rest is frivolous in comparison. It wasn’t what I thought I wanted. But it was what I needed. His testimony affirmed me.

We can do that for one another. That’s who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who are willing to open up our lives and share the hard stuff.

Because everybody’s got that safe superficial stuff. But we’re supposed to look at the hard stuff. Because that’s who we are. When we can see each other’s stories, that’s when we break open our hearts, we learn to have more compassion for others. Then we can walk with another. Not because we’re better or because we have any special gift, except that we’ve gone through the grief. We know what that’s like.

We can encourage one another.

I will encourage you because I can tell you, God can handle all of your words. Because I spent years railing at God for the situation of my life.

I just had the opportunity the other night to listen to another person’s story who told me about how they were physically and emotionally abused as a child by a stepfather. I said, me too. Me too. I know what that’s like. They didn’t know that about me. It’s amazing the places where our lives connect.

But we are blessed to be a blessing to others. That’s who we are.

But when we keep our stories to ourselves, then we’re denying that. We’re holding back that encouragement that is meant for someone else. Because we are not alone. We have one another and the Spirit is here encouraging us to be here for each other. To be a shoulder to cry on, to be one who laughs with us, who celebrates with us, and will walk with us, even through the valley of the shadow of death. That’s who we are.

In John 17:13, it said “And now I am coming to you. I have told them many things while I was with them So that they would be filled with my joy.”

Have you looked for the joy in your life? What does that look like to you? Where do you see the joy of Christ?

Because let’s celebrate that. Our white Protestant pietism gets in our way and we can be the chosen instead of acting like we’re here for a celebration.

Let’s celebrate that love and grace. Let’s have a good time because that’s part of who we are. and who Christ calls us to be. Thanks be to God.

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I want to go back to that first scripture (1 John 4:7-13) about love because a lot of times when we talk about love, I think we’re a little confused about what kind of love are we talking about?

It’s not just the feeling that we have. It’s not a romantic type of love. It is a caring type of love. But more importantly, it’s a verb. It’s an action. It’s love. Love is put into action. Loving someone else means you do something about it. Which is why I talked about the caring cart and what we have done in collecting these personal care items. You love somebody by doing something.

I think it is just that easy and that difficult because we don’t always know what loving someone looks like. What action is a loving action? But I’ve said in the past, and I’m going to repeat that. I want us to hold this question.

What is the most loving thing I can do?

If that is the question that we hold in our being every day. Then when we run into a situation or we encounter someone, we can bring that question to mind. What is the most loving thing I can do right now? We will get an answer. We will know what to do. If we listen to our hearts, God will tell us what the most loving thing to do is.

On Thursday, April 18th, the most loving thing I could do was go to this rally called Justice for Education at J. P. McCaskey.

Because the point of the rally was to help show our legislators that we care about this issue. Now I’m going to give you a little bit more information about the issue if you haven’t been following it in the news.

Our system for funding education in Pennsylvania has us ranked 45th out of 50. Even more importantly, last spring a commonwealth court ruled that it is unconstitutional according to the Pennsylvania Constitution. We have to change the way we fund education in Pennsylvania because not every child in Pennsylvania receives the education that they need. That’s has been proven.

So, now it is dependent on our legislators on how to change that. Last summer, there was a Basic Education Funding Commission that had a series of meetings across the state to understand ideas. It was half Republican, half Democrat. This is bipartisan. They went back to Pennsylvania and they have come out with a new plan.

What we are saying is you need to vote for this plan. The plan is in the 2024-25 budget and you need to vote for it. You need to codify it. You need to make it law so they don’t just do it this year, but they continue to do it because it’s a seven year plan. So doing the first year of a seven year plan and not doing any more isn’t really going to get us far. We got to keep doing the plan until we get to where we should be with that. That’s the education justice issue.

Now you might be thinking, social justice. Do you know what my schedule looks like?

I’ve got enough going on in my life right now. I want to affirm that we do have enough going on in our lives right now. I know that. I know that a lot of us are overwhelmed. That we are filled, we feel like we’re pulled in so many different directions by so many different priorities and we don’t know what to do with that.

In the midst of all of that, I want to say, it’s also matters that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world, to how other people are being treated. We need to do whatever we can. Maybe you can’t go to a rally, but you can be kind to the next person you meet, or act in a loving way.

I also want to name that we talked about the fact that social justice and compassionate justice is part of who God is calling us to be.

When we talk about “what does home look like?”, Home is a place that accepts you, that recognizes you and affirms your humanity. Because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about.

It’s about looking at another person, regardless if they are like you or not. Regardless if they have the same political position as you or not. That’s really big right now. Recognize their humanity. We all still want to be respected. We all still want to belong and feel that we matter. We all want that.

So here comes our story today from Acts. Philip and the eunuch.

This is a social justice story. Did you know that? It’s a huge social justice story. Philip and the eunuch are both in places they don’t belong. Philip and the disciples have been chased out of Jerusalem because the Pharisees are out for them. They want to squash this Christian thing that’s going on and the Romans want to squash it because they thought if they killed the leader the movement would die and it didn’t. So now they got to go after the next level.

The Apostles have left Jerusalem and Philip is going around all different kinds of places. The spirit, which is what happened at the end of this story, the spirit just picks him up and puts him somewhere else. But for this story, he’s on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

Now I want everybody to just take a deep breath, because we know something about the road from Jerusalem to Gaza right now, do we not? I hope you do. I hope you’re paying enough attention to know what’s going on in Gaza and Israel. That’s the road they’re on.

Philip hears this eunuch reading. That means he is emasculated. The question can be asked, “Why is that the feature that is brought out in this scripture?” He’s an Ethiopian. It also tells us that he’s the treasurer. He mines the treasury of the queen. He’s in a chariot. That’s why I chose this picture, this image of it, because he’s in a different class than some others. He has privilege. He has a driver because he is in a chariot, and he may even have a bodyguard. Because he’s that important.

The part that they tell us in this story is that he’s a eunuch. He’s been emasculated. To the Hebrews, that means he is not a man. Because he cannot procreate, because his body has been altered, he is not welcome in the temple. So even though he’s been to Jerusalem, he would not have been welcome. He needed to stay out with all the other people, with their leprosy, their bleeding, and the other things that made them unworthy of walking in.

But he wants to learn. The piece that we need to pay attention to is what Philip does. Philip doesn’t care. Philip doesn’t ask about any of that. He doesn’t talk about the fact that he’s a eunuch. He doesn’t say, “Hey, since you couldn’t get into the temple, I’ll help you out.” He just says, Do you know what you’re reading? The guy says, Essentially, no, I need help, and invites him into the carriage, and Philip goes.

Then they find water, and even more than teaching him, oh my gosh, he baptized him. That means he is part of the body of Christ. He is welcome. Room has been made for him. Even though the religious authorities would have shun him, even though he was everything that they said no to, he was welcomed and baptized into the family and God blessed it.

It’s very interesting. Something else I learned when I was doing my research is there is a verse in Matthew 19:12. You want to read it because it never comes in the lectionary. We never read that verse. We read the verses before it and after it, but we never read that verse, and it’s all about eunuchs. Eunuchs that are born as eunuchs. Eunuchs that are emasculated by someone else’s choice and eunuchs who allow it so that they can be part of the kingdom. You need to think about that in all of our things that we do.

Because we are called, as a congregation, to make sure that everyone feels welcome. That’s what we say. Inclusive refuge, Anyone who is powerless or afraid, Anyone who needs refuge is welcome here.

This isn’t easy. We’re going to make mistakes. I picked this picture on purpose because you see what’s going on in this picture? All the white people are making a demand of the black woman and we’re very good at that. We’re very good at expecting them to fill our expectations without finding out what they need or who they are.

But we are called to compassionate justice. So, what I want to suggest is that I think right now with our congregation, we are at a point where it’s time to set up a justice team. This is what I would like the team to do. I would like the team to interview the congregation. Because I want to know. I want us to know. What keeps you up at night? What wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning? Which issue? Because there are a lot of social justice issues on the table right now. The education justice is just one issue, but there are so many. So I want to find out what is the number one issue in our congregation?

Then we’ll decide how best to work in that area. What difference can we make in our Lancaster community? Because I think we can make a difference in our Lancaster community. But we need to do our research first. I’ve learned from the organizers that you start with research meetings. So we need to do an internal research meeting first and find out what our priorities are. Then I have resources that I can connect us to in the community so that we can work. We’re going to work with people who are already doing the work. So that we can make an impact in this community. Because we want to. This is not just about coming in here to serve us. We want to make a difference with people. I heard that during our discernment process for the vision and mission. It matters why we’re here.

Reverend Roland Forbes, some of you may know Rev. Forbes from Ebenezer Baptist, he always says, “What would happen if your church disappeared? If your church disappeared, would the community notice?” And we want the community to say, don’t disappear. We need you. You are vital in this community. That’s our call to action. So, if you are interested in being on a social justice team, then come talk to me and we’ll put that team together because we make the way by walking.

We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fumble, we’ll stumble, but we can make a better community and we can share love with others.

The story of Philip and the eunuch, in several ways, an outsider, expresses the inclusive love of God for all. All are invited to come home to God because love is simply part of our nature. Love is from God. The invitation is as simple as it is every time we make it. When you endeavor to love your neighbor and live in peace with each other, there’s always room for you, no matter who you are or how you think you don’t fit in.

No matter whether you’ve been coming to church a long time or not a long time. Welcome home.

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This image of Jesus as the good Shepherd is one that I think we really love.

I think it’s one of those beloved things. So I did choose a shepherd image that is not maybe as comforting as some. I know in the church up the road at Salem, UCC of Roherstown, they have a Good Shepherd window that is the normal Good Shepherd image with Christ carrying a lamb across his shoulders. My grandparents always sat so that it was directly in front of them. So, that’s where I sat too. That image is comforting to me because we always think that we’re the one sheep that Jesus would leave the 99 to rescue. But maybe that’s not really who we are. Maybe we’re one of the 99 that get left out.

I think there’s a lot that comes into this idea of Jesus as shepherd.

If Jesus is our shepherd, then Jesus is the one who is to be guiding our lives. The one that we look to for answers. The one we listen to, more than our own desires.

That’s where the rub is, isn’t it? Because we want to be independent people. We want to do life our way. That’s the American way, but that’s not the Christian way. The Christian way says we follow Jesus. He’s our guide, He’s our model, and He’s the one directing where we go and what we do.

There’s a couple other points that he makes in this passage and I think we have a tendency to get caught in sort of this nostalgic feel good “We’re special because Jesus would do anything including lay down his life for us.” That’s true and it’s also true that we probably are more in the 99 and we need to think about that one that Jesus will go off to rescue.

Because that one is going to be one of the vulnerable in our society. One of the ones who is shunned or pushed to the edges, marginalized is a word we use a lot today. One who doesn’t have a voice in the public square. One who is discriminated against. So I just want you to stop and think. This is a question for you to contemplate.

Who is that today? Who, who are the vulnerable in our society today? Who are the ones without voice?

Because that’s who Jesus wants to take care of. That’s who Jesus wants us to take care of.

Then we have this other piece, John 10:16 says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” There will be one flock, one shepherd. What I hear in that is this idea that they’re all welcome to the table. In fact, if there’s not room at the table, then we need to make the table bigger.

But we’ve spent millennia, Big Church has spent millennia deciding who’s really worthy and who’s not. Who’s welcome and who’s not. But that’s not what this says. This is Jesus inviting everybody, looking at us to say, how are you living that out?

I hear that in our Inclusive Refuge and in our Compassionate Justice. But it matters how we’re living. That’s something for us to think about.

Then we have Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

I don’t know about you, but this was the first piece of scripture that I memorized. I had the whole thing memorized because when I was a young teenager my mother taught me to be afraid of strangers, particularly the people in our town. Our town wasn’t a safe place to be. It wasn’t a big town. She had me walk to piano lessons for a mile and a half every week by myself. It was a different world. People don’t have kids walk a mile and a half by themselves anymore. Maybe in the city to get to school. But at that time she set up that situation so I would repeat the 23rd Psalm all the way to piano lessons and back because I felt like that kept me safe. It worked for me. Nobody bothered me. They might have thought I was crazy, “Hey, there’s that kid again mumbling to herself.” But they left me alone.

That scripture evokes a sense of comfort within us. But if you read it seriously, there’s hard stuff in that scripture. We love that we’re invited to lay down in green pastures and walk beside still waters. We love that. We love that our cups will runneth over.

But there’s also that whole piece about walking through the valley of the shadow of death and making a place for me at the table of my enemies.

I saw a post this week by our associate conference minister who suggested that this is a psalm that you could take and meditate on every day because every day there’s a piece of it that would work for you. And I would encourage you to do that.

It is about comfort. It is about reminding us that God is with us through everything, through the highs and the lows. Through the good and the bad, the gratitude and the fear.

But then I wonder, do we think about God being with us all the time? Do we think about that? Do we think about God seeing the choices that we make? Monday through Saturday? Or just when we walk in the Sanctuary?

Would you make different choices if you thought about the fact that God was watching you all the time?

I think God is watching us all the time and nudging us, like the shepherd, prodding us in the right direction. Sometimes we go, and sometimes we say, “Nah, not today. I don’t feel like it today. I’d rather binge watch Netflix today. Because that’s all I can manage.” That’s not the end of the world. We’re still forgiven. But it’s not all easy. Right?

A Place at the Table

That’s the theme for today. With this picture, I think any of us would take a place at that table. That looks like they’ve got a wonderful assortment of food. There’s plenty of food, plenty of good fellowship.

But what if it is a table with people that you would consider enemies? This isn’t about us just sitting down with our families on Thanksgiving. This is about us, the Catholics, and the Protestants of Ireland sitting down at a table together back in the 90s. This is about Israelis and Palestinians sitting down at a table now and not talking about all the pain, but just talking more deeply so that they hear the hurt in each other. Because everyone’s hurting.

We have to remember the humanity. That’s the beauty of the table, I think. Is that when we sit down at a meal together, then we start talking about more than the weather and the social pleasantries, and we can really hear what’s on one’s heart. If one feels safe enough to share.

We recognize that we all have essentially the same goals. We all want to be loved and we all want to feel like we belong. We all want to feel like we matter in this world. That it matters that we got up today. That we’re above ground, as I’ve heard people say. We all want that.

The Africans have a word called “Ubuntu”. Which means, “I am because you are.” and “You are because I am.” We are interconnected. And we forget that. We forget that we’re interconnected. We forget that we need one another.

So we need to make a bigger table if there’s not enough room. Because everyone deserves a place at the table with everything that they bring to that.

That can be a challenge because there’s some people I would not want to sit down at a table with. And I bet you have a list too. There’s definitely some people I would be like, “Really? Not that one. Anybody but that person, please.” But sometimes God calls us to those places where we have to sit down with that one.

Our United Church of Christ has called in this season for prayers of peace. There’s actually a place on the website where you can submit your own prayer of peace. I’m going to be sharing one written by the Reverend Dr. Nora Faust this week with the conference. She is our associate conference minister about being a peacemaker.

But there is so much war in our world right now. So much conflict. I feel like our country is headed to the brink of that ourselves. In the way we are divided so deeply. We need to find ways to talk to one another. To see one another and to figure out how we move forward together.

There was a news piece this week about speaker Johnson and the commentators thought it was terrible that as a Republican speaker, he was going to have to rely on Democrats to get a bill through. And I thought, Hallelujah! We have to recognize that it can’t be all just my people. Well, all my people are going to vote for it and we’re going to make you do it. Regardless of what you think. We have to come together and find how to compromise. It’s the only way we go forward. We’ve got to get rid of the sharp lines we have. In our country, in our community, they’re here too.

So, I encourage you, if you’re inclined to write, I encourage you to write. If you’re able to get on the internet, put your prayer in there. There’s not a lot of prayers yet, but it’ll get published. It’ll end up on the UCC website. You can tell us about it. We’ll all go on it and see it and celebrate with you. Doesn’t have to be your best work ever, but it matters that we be involved in bringing about peace. I think that’s who Jesus calls us to be. May it be so.

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What does it mean that we call ourselves family in the church?

I’m wondering what ideas you had. The children said they’re people that you love and care for, and who love and care for you. They’re people that you are related to, and we are related through this common story of the Bible. Family is love.

This ability to be together and to support one another. Because the reality is life is hard. We all have really hard moments, and the way that we get through that, the way we can get through our guilt and our grief is by caring for one another. By talking together and reminding each other of this love that we have.

The presence of Christ, which sometimes we feel it and sometimes not as much. We can feel sometimes like God’s not listening. So we need to remind each other that God is listening, even if our prayers don’t get answered the way we wanted them to be answered, or in the time frame we wanted, right?

The other reality about family is sometimes there’s members that you just want to say, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” It’s really good when we don’t all think the same, because that’s how we grow in faith. If we all think exactly the same thing, that’s a boring life. We won’t get anywhere. We won’t deepen our faith. We won’t trust more. We need people that challenge our thinking. So it’s good, it’s really good that we don’t all think the same.

But one of the challenges right now of the church is, we have to decide how much of our faith, of the church that we have been, do we want to continue? And how much do we need to break open to be something new?

That’s part of the thing that I think is happening the entire way through the Bible, is that God is inviting us not to have a more closed mind. But to break our hearts open so that we have the ability to love more fully, to love more people, more diverse people, more people that we wouldn’t always love. That’s part of the story.

I do think that, in our culture now, we use that language of “family of origin” and “family of choice.” Because some of us, unfortunately, our families of origin have not always been healthy places. Many of us it was a very healthy place and praise God, but some of us not. So, we can also choose family.

That is what we think we’re doing when we come to the church. Is that this is a family of choice. I want to push us just a little bit to say, “Hey, I wonder how much God influences that choice?” How much are we here because God has called us to be here in this group with these people at this time? We may think that we did wake up and decide to come to church on our own. But I think God is also in there nudging us towards being part of a community of Christ.

These scriptures, when you put John 3:11-19 and Acts 3:1-7 together, it’s a real dichotomy.

Because John’s scripture, the letter of John, is encouraging and it’s about love and light and community. Then you get to hear Peter’s words and Peter feels like he’s shaming us and he wants us to have that guilt.

I want to say, this is Peter. Peter often got it wrong when Jesus was alive. Not to say that this is right or wrong. It’s in the scriptures. It’s there. But I don’t think it’s meant to just guilt us. I think that Peter, at this point in the right, has actually had a come to Jesus moment. He’s had a real one. So in those days leading up to Jesus death, he was the denier. He was the one that said, not me, I don’t know that guy, I’m out. That’s the same guy that we hear today saying, “…but you didn’t stand up for him.” You’re in this too, Peter.

I was frustrated by this text because Peter doesn’t own his own part in it. We all know he had a part. But Peter has also been forgiven. After Jesus’s resurrection, Peter has a meeting with Jesus. Where he has to admit, “Yes, Jesus, I did deny you just like you said I was going to. That was me. And I’m really sorry.” Jesus forgave. Jesus offers all of us forgiveness. That’s why I can say we are all loved and worthy.

This is the picture of the gospel reading today, which is the two men on the road to Emmaus who encounter this stranger and what they do is they bring him home to have dinner with them and in the breaking of the bread they realize that it’s Jesus.

There is something about the breaking that we all need to experience that opens us up to a better encounter of God. To a better understanding of who Jesus really is and who we are called to be. We need to have our hearts broken. That’s a hard message because none of us like pain. Nobody wants to go through the heartbreak.

And yet, it is through the heartbreak that we find life and joy and love and the abundant life that we didn’t know before.

I want to share a clip with you of the miracle club. It is a movie that’s right now, streaming on Netflix for free. It’s a movie about three women who go looking for a miracle at Lourdes. If you don’t know what Lourdes is, Lourdes is a cathedral in France where the Virgin Mary had made an appearance. At Lourdes there are baths that you can go into and people have had miracles. It’s a good family movie. British humor, but a good family movie.

So that is the challenge are we going to get a miracle?

I don’t know, but we can heal together and we are better together than we are apart. So, I encourage you to think about how we are family. To think about what that means to you. And to really make a commitment to that. To make a commitment with your time, your talents, and your gifts.

Because we say that we offer Inclusive Refuge, that everyone is welcome. Especially if you are afraid or powerless. People are walking in our door and we want to show them the love of Christ that we have received.

May it be so. Amen.

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If you came today for a feel good sermon, you picked the wrong day.

If you came hoping that there would be a lot of images, because I usually use a lot of images, there’s only one. This is a very different sermon. It almost looks like it’s very black and white. Because there’s a lot of words, white words on black backgrounds. I don’t mean it to be quite that black and white, because I believe in a lot of grey in this world.

I want to start by defining some terms.

One of the things that we need to know is definitions on what is sin or trespasses.

In the Ephesians text, the word trespasses is used. So sin and trespasses are essentially the same thing, both of which are in opposition to God’s benevolent purposes for the world.

It’s something that opposes God. Not trespasses as in our contemporary, meaning you stepped on my property and I didn’t want you to. Trespasses as in something that is going in against what God wants, or in opposition to God, or even away from God.

Salvation, or being saved, means being reconciled with God again.

That’s the whole journey of the Bible, is that we started with God, somehow we broke off from God, we stopped following God, we tend to follow with our free will, we tend to go our own ways, and we forget about God, and we need to be reconciled with God. That is being saved or that is what salvation is.

Grace is God’s favor that is given to us.

Mercy is also used and mercy means compassion or the word also can mean pity. So God can have compassion on us or grant us favor when we don’t deserve it.

We’ve done nothing to deserve it. Those are important points that you just need to remember when you look at these scriptures.

I’m going to focus on John 3:16-17. Then, a couple verses out of the Ephesians text.

This is probably, at least by John 3:16, the most recognized scripture of all. I don’t know that everybody knows what it says, but we paint it on our barns and we make signs and take them to ball games.

John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

But there’s a piece of that that I think we forget or we gloss over. That is that word “Whoever” or the old language was “Whosoever”. Some of the more contemporary ones use everyone, but that everyone believes in him.

I lift that because that’s not what we’ve practiced. That’s what it says, but then we said, “You don’t look like us, you don’t talk like us and you don’t act like us. So, sorry, that doesn’t apply to you.” How dare we? Who do we think we are?

That’s not me saying that to just you. That is the church, Big C. We’ve been doing this for years. Saying who’s in and who’s out. Who’s really saved and who’s not. Because they don’t follow or believe the way we do or think the way we do or look like us.

Whoever believes in him means we don’t get to choose.

I found a beautiful quote by Mary McLeod Bethune. She was a black woman who grew up in the Jim Crow South. She has been described by Alan Dwight Callahan as an educator, activist, and presidential advisor. She was born in 1875 and died in 1955. Here’s her whole quote:

“….Did you hear that word, ‘whosoever’? That whosoever means you. Not just white people. Not just rich people. You! This is where your human dignity comes from- from God, our creator and savior.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

There are no qualifications. Whosoever. That means inclusiveness that we have been talking about. That everyone is invited in. Everyone is invited to the table. Everyone.

Now, I want to look at John 3:17 because I think we often forget this one too. We stop at 3:16 and we forget to read the rest of it. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

It’s not about judgment and condemnation.

In fact, we are the ones who by our choices create consequences. God’s not condemning us. We’ve lived with that for a long time.

The church, Big C. has made a lot of money, gained a lot of power and influence over making people feel guilty, feel ashamed, and by scaring them. That’s not what John 3:17 says. What this says is that God loves us first and foremost, and that because of God’s love, we’re not condemned, but saved.

But that didn’t suit us. So we’ve manipulated this. That’s where we’ve been wrong.

Christ is our experience of God. Emmanuel, God with us.

We have had an experience of God in Jesus Christ, and we have been reconciled. That’s the story of the cross.

Our sinfulness, it exists, but it does not define who we are. We are broken and whole at the same time. We hold that. We do not understand it. That is the mystery. We don’t know how we can be broken and whole at the same time. But those are the words. That’s what’s there.

We are created not to be perfect, but to be whole and to have an abundant life. Created to be saved, to be reconciled, in spite of ourselves.

That’s where the Ephesians text comes in.

“But God who is rich in mercy…” Let’s say rich in compassion “…he loved us, that even when we were dead through our trespasses, sins, and transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2:4-6

I want you to read this and I want you to think about it. When we read these passages, what do we learn? Did you catch anything that was the same out of both John 3:16-17 and Ephesians 2:4-6?

Here are some of the things that I saw. I see that both of those passages lead with God’s love. God’s love is where it starts and ends. That’s the most important thing. We are saved by love. The love that we have, that we did nothing to earn, except that we are God’s creatures. We are part of God’s creation. And we are loved just as we are. We don’t have to prove our worthiness. We all fall short, but God loves us anyway. It’s not about having to be worthy. We are good just as we are, with our brokenness, with our frailties, our sins, our trespasses. We are loved.

Everyone is loved, regardless. Christ came to help us understand that we’ve had this reconciliation.

That was Christ’s message. If you look at the stories over and over, Jesus goes out and meets people where they are, and reminds them that they are loved and forgiven. Their faith is what drives it. Their sins are forgiven. “Your faith has made you well.” – Luke 18:42

Someone asked me, after a sermon the other week, if I believe that everybody’s saved. And I do. Because of these verses. It’s right there. I do believe that everyone’s saved, except that we still have a choice from the very beginning. We have a choice to say, “No thanks, God. I’m doing it on my own.”

Right now the church is frustrated and struggling because so many people are out on their own or asking God, “Where were you? I needed you. You told me I was out. You told me you didn’t have love for me. You’ve already lied to me once, I don’t know if I can trust you again. Even if the world’s falling apart.”

That’s where we are today. That the world is falling apart.

People are looking for where they can find answers. Where are they loved and safe? And the question is, is that us?

Our vision and mission says yes! Our vision and mission that we discerned says that God expects us to love everyone, to welcome everyone, and to help everyone know that they are okay.

That doesn’t mean that everything works out beautifully.

For those who say, “No thanks, don’t need you, God”, there are consequences when we do that. Just as I think that there’s consequences when we look at, look at God and say “You told us that we’re supposed to love everybody, but we’re not.”

When we choose to do that, I think there are consequences.

We have had three people who identified as trans commit suicide in the last three to six months. I think some of that was in the fall of 2023, so I don’t think it was just in 2024. We just had another suicide, Ash Clatterbuck.

In my work in the community, I’ve had several people talk to me about it. Different people in different places that just brought up the subject. What are we doing? Who are we as a community?

Ash was loved and supported fully by their family, was loved and supported fully by the church, and yet they couldn’t handle the pressure of the community.

What does that say about us as a community? That’s bigger, right? That’s Lancaster. Lancaster City and County. What does that say about who we are?

We need to look at who we are, because it matters. It matters a lot.

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