In the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (v.23) he wrote, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.“

What a beautiful statement! In the mainline church, we have spoken at length for years about the state of one’s soul; however, we speak less our bodies. It is a widely held opinion that actually our bodies, spirits, and souls are very closely linked, and that our bodies carry traumatic memories and hurts that can affect us physically.

In my study of Gestalt Pastoral Care, I have learned to specifically look at the body for what it is trying to tell us – the wisdom it has for us. There is even research proving that our bodies hold generational wisdom without our awareness which can lead or guide us to approach a problem in a certain manner. Actually, I find it quite amazing!

I bring this up today because both of our scripture texts involve bodily healing.

I want to begin with the story of the unnamed man whose friends bring him to Jesus for healing and who are SO persistent that they make a hole in the roof of the house to lower him into the crowded space with Jesus. Here, it is the friends’ faith that is noted, and Jesus’ response to the paralyzed man is to say, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

There are two things I hear in that response. First, an acknowledgment of the relationship between the man & Jesus. Even though Jesus didn’t know his name, he used a familial term, indicating that he is a child of God without stipulation – no need to prove anything – no need to work for it. And then Jesus gives a statement of forgiveness. I hear this as telling the paralyzed man that whatever limitations he was putting on himself – in whatever ways he thought he was unworthy of love or forgiveness- he was wrong. The unnamed man was loved and given mercy just as he was. And in this way, Jesus empowered him to be more than the unnamed man thought possible.

Now, when the religious authorities were rattled by his words, Jesus went even further and said, “Stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.” And the unnamed man does! His life has been radically changed, as has the crowd’s, by what was possible.

In Mark 10:46-52, Bartimaeus advocates for himself. He is the one who wants Jesus’ attention and does so by shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And as in several other stories, the disciples and those around him try to silence him, but he will not be deterred: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” He is a believer. We might say, “His spirit and soul are right with God,” as he recognizes his own need for mercy AND he knows Jesus is the one who can grant him the mercy.

By calling Jesus “Son of David,” Bartimaeus indicates that he believes Jesus is the royal Messiah, the long-awaited One. It would be my guess that he has keen hearing to help offset his visual disability. So, he has probably heard things about Jesus and what he has done. When he is called over, Bartimaeus feels so empowered he throws off his cloak – which was probably his most valuable asset, as it keeps him warm at night and provides a place to receive donations when he spreads it out in front of him. Bartimaeus is healed by Jesus, and Jesus says, “Go, your faith has made you well.”

But rather than leaving, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way. His life was changed so drastically that Bartimaeus chose to stay with Jesus and the disciples. He acted to be with them, which allowed him to learn more. Bartimaeus has become a character who understands, as opposed to the disciples who have been with Jesus all along and who, in the story right before Bartimaeus, had been asking to sit at his right and left hands – Thinking of power and privilege in contrast to this one who seeks only to follow.

When thinking about these stories, I was reminded of Tom Rex, a member who has been dead for a while but whose story has stayed with me, and who loved telling his story.

Tom had lived a hard life and had gotten into plenty of trouble. But one night, after being shot and thinking he was going to die, he realized that he didn’t want to die and prayed for God’s help. I cannot remember if he actually had an experience of the afterlife or not, but the doctors were able to fix his body, and he then dedicated himself to sharing his story and helping others find the love and mercy of Jesus that he had found.

He felt that God had given him another chance, and he was going to make the best of it for God. For those of us who have not had a traumatic experience or a challenging disability that has healed, we can still know within our soul, our spirit, and our body that we are loved and forgiven.

And with that knowledge, seek to help others experience belovedness too!

May it be so. Amen.
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The Parable of the Sower is one of my favorite parables.

In fact, I asked it to be used for my grandfather’s funeral as he had grown up on a farm and always kept a large garden himself. If you garden, it is easy to understand that the character of the soil makes a difference and that there are many uncontrollable variables that affect the harvest. Too much rain – too little rain; other creatures – birds, bunnies, groundhogs, or deer; plants that limit sunlight to others or take away too much of the water. And yet, with some effort, the seeds can find just the right space and create an abundant harvest.

In this scripture, we also have the benefit of hearing Jesus explain this parable to the disciples, which is not usually the case. In studying parables, I have learned that they invite us to engage with them and study to understand them. They are designed to encourage us to look at the parts of ourselves we would rather ignore – places where we act like those who are wrong. They can take us out of our comfort zone, and we may choose a narrower interpretation to prevent their “sting.”

Parables are intended to remind, provoke, and disturb us, and they usually contain a “surprise” element for their 1st century readers. So looking at the original context and language is invaluable.

Let’s begin by looking at some other things we know about today’s scripture.

First, this is one of those rare scriptures that appears in all three of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; and Luke 8:4-15. This tells us it was an important story for the early church. Oftentimes, the lectionary skips Jesus’ answer to why he uses parables, but there is a challenge in these words.

In verse 12, Jesus implies that he shares to “nudge people along” the path of understanding – as he is doing with the disciples. Although in our simplistic, capitalistic minds, we hear that those who have will receive more and those with little will have what they have taken away. This is a great justification for increasing the wealth of the rich and depriving the poor of what they need. But this is NOT an economic statement but one about wisdom. Those who are wise and understand will be given more “insider information,” while those who don’t will not receive it.

In Matthew, this scripture comes between the Pharisees conspiring to destroy him (12:14) and the people of his hometown rejecting him (13:54–58). This may sound a bit harsh but it could be part of what is meant to be surprising.

God won’t spend extra time on those who aren’t trying.

How engaged with our faith might we be with God? In the other scriptures this summer, we considered what they told us about God. So, what do you think?

It doesn’t tell us God’s role in this, but the church has taught that God is the sower. How do you envision the Sower? I would say this is an extravagant farmer who sows with reckless abandon. God does not seem to care whether the seed falls on the path, in the rocky ground, among the thorns, or on good soil. God just sows – leaving the harvest up to chance! Is that how you understand God?

There is beauty in that God is willing to give everyone a chance! All are worthy! All are welcome!

This is what we say with our “inclusive refuge.” And what does it say about us? We are reminded to see and listen. It appears that is the way to become “good soil,” although that is not specifically named. The traditional interpretation of this parable is that we are to consider what type of soil we are.

In the Come Sunday, I invited us to wonder about what if we are the seeds that God sends to the many different places.

I know, Jesus’ explanation says that the seeds are “the word of the Kingdom.” However, I have also heard it said that we are the only “word” or “Bible” some people will ever read. So…how well do we represent “the word” of God in Jesus?

Said another way – How well do we live Jesus’ teachings?

And to push us a bit further, what if we are to become sower patterned after the one in the parable? Are we willing to be that generous with the gifts we have? Are we sharing the “the word” in all the places we can?

If we go back to verse 11, Jesus said this is about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. What does this parable say about the kingdom? That some will know it and others will not? Or is it that some accept the invitation and thrive but others will not?

The “word” is given to all. Where are you?

May it be so. Amen.
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Last weekend I graduated from the Foundations Training Course for Gestalt Pastoral Care that I have been taking this past year, and as part of that work we looked at our ancestry.

Many of my ancestors, both Celtic and German, were farmers. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that working the land, getting my fingers in the dirt and watching things grow, is “in my blood.” I know that both sets of my grandparents always had gardens and fresh produce was a normal part of life with them.

Today, I want to focus on the soil and what it means to work with it. Our scriptures for today reminded us that God created the earth.

This means it is sacred! It is holy! And when I work the earth, particularly when my hands are in the soil, I recognize that I am just a small piece in the ongoing story of God, the land, and humanity.

The Bible is rich with agricultural stories as the first peoples relied on the ground for all their food. Even in Jesus’ time, he used so many agricultural metaphors because that was what the people knew –that was what made sense to them.

When I work the land, I am also often barefoot. Yes, it means my feet get dirty – but there is something about being that close – that close to what is real and that close to what touches the inner parts of my being. You see, I am a panentheist, which is a big word that means that I believe God is in or with everything.

The land is not God, and God is not the land, but God is with the land, and the land is with God.

So when we work with the land, when we touch the ground with any part of our body, we are connecting with God through our bodies and the land.

A farmer, Forrest Pritchard, in his book Gaining Ground¹, described it this way: The soil…was soft and dark. I slid my fingers into the dirt, cupping a handful of earth to my nose. The aroma of the broken ground was profoundly rich, at once mysterious and inviting. In the depths of winter – with the pastures grazed low, the sycamores stark and leafless, the creek banks rimmed with ice, and the sky a gray blanket spread from mountaintop to mountaintop – here the earth abided. The soft warmth spoke to me saying, “I’m waiting now, but I will be ready. We are mutual participants, you and I, intertwined.” Indeed, the ground was waiting and now it is beginning to share it bounty.

The definition of soil is: the loose, dynamic layer of Earth’s surface consisting of a living, complex mixture of minerals, organic matter, gases, water, and microorganisms.

The living matter is a combination of worms and bacteria decaying plant and animal matter or humus – “of the ground or lowly.” Humus is where we get our spiritual discipline of humility – not thinking more highly of ourselves – recognizing that we are a small part in God’s great creation.

Humility is also a trait exhibited and valued by Jesus, who was known to lift up those considered to be “lowly” – who said, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” (Mark 10:31) He also said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

Humility is not self-deprecation, but rather it is acknowledging what is real and true – as human beings, we are selfish and make many mistakes. In Paul’s words, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15) So we acknowledge this and ask for God to remove our failings. Because the reality is: “It’s not about me!”

In April, the Board invited the Rev. Dr. Matt Lenahan to speak with us from The Wittel Farm Project in Elizabethtown which is part of The Lutheran Camping Corporation.

In his presentation, he encouraged us to create a land management program for Rader Park and the area around the main building. He also asked us a profound question: What does the land need? Which changes the conversation.

We have been looking at the ground, the land, and what could happen here as if it were ours. And yes, from a political position, we own the deed to it. But this is bigger than that conversation. This is about remembering that the land is God’s – it always has been and always will be – it is just ours to care for during this time. Before us the Brubaker family tended it. Before them, Native Americans tended it. And someone will tend it after us as those of us in the room will not be here forever.

So what does the “long view” look like? Remembering what it has been over the last centuries and what it could be over the next century. What does the land need so that it not only meets our needs but will meet the needs of generations to come?

May it be so. Amen.
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 I was thinking about an example of faith, and I’m a movie person, so this image from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the image that always comes to mind.

He has to make the leap of the lion’s head, which is he has to walk across that cavern because the room with the chalice is on the other side and it doesn’t look good. It’s not an easy step to take. I have a real fear of ledges. Ledges show up in my dreams. I am so scared of falling from a ledge and it’s tied into my fear of heights.

But, we are called to take that step, realizing that we don’t know where it is. We don’t know how this is gonna work out, but what happens in the movie when he takes that step? He finds out there’s actually a bridge that’s camouflaged into the cavern below. So you can’t see it until you take that step of faith. And that’s who we are called to be.

That is what the Hebrew scripture, Hebrews 11:1-3 & 8-16, is all about.

It’s about encouraging people to continue to take the step of faith. That passage was written by a very educated Jewish person. It’s written in Greek, but it contains so much knowledge of the Hebrews and the Jewish traditions that the icons of the Jewish faith are lifted in it.

It was intended for a Jewish audience and written by someone who knew the story. Someone of Jewish background who has come into the church. Although it’s not stated in the letter, it seems that the people are starting to fall away, and he’s trying to convince them to stay. It’s possible that the people thought Jesus came and he said he was coming again, and that the end of the world was coming, and it hasn’t happened yet. They’re starting to question that, and he’s trying to keep them together by saying, “Don’t give up on the faith. Keep your trust because your faith is what leads you.”

This scripture focuses on Abraham and Sarah. He acted in faith. He followed God in faith. He never got to see what his homeland or that city that was being described to him. “By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered the one faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” – Hebrews 11:11-12. He’ll never see that. He sees his children born. He has two sons, but that’s as much as he sees.

But it continues. There is more than we can see. That’s the scripture encouraging us in that light to keep the faith and to trust in God because things are not always what they seem. We can encourage each other and come together to direct the love and mercy so that we all become the people who God intended us to be. Because none of us are complete. None of us are done growing and learning. We’re all in that together.

Then we have this scripture, Mark 4:35-41.

This must have been a really pivotal story for the early church because it is in all three of what we call the synoptic gospels. That’s Matthew, Mark, and Luke because they share a lot of stories. John has a different take on things.

But we even have it in our stained glass windows. The second window has the boat on the stormy waters. Something happened in that boat that was so important that everybody had to know about it. I don’t know about you, but when I have heard this read and preached before, and I have preached it this way too, there’s that line from Jesus to the disciples. I have heard it in an angry or demeaning tone, more of a, why are you afraid? Have you no faith? But I didn’t read it that way today because tone matters. We don’t know how Jesus actually said it, but what if Jesus’s tone was one of love and compassion, which fits how Jesus operated in general?

So instead of coming off being angry and frustrated with these stupid disciples that never got it, even in the end. Because the end is never the end. What if he actually said, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” In an almost pitying and compassionate way?

He didn’t give up on those disciples, and he silenced the waves and the wind to help them have the peace and the assurance that they needed. That left them saying, “Who is this that can silence the waves and the wind? Who is this?”

He could have easily said, “Peace out. I’m done. Let me off the boat.” He could have walked to shore. He walks on water in another gospel, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t give up on them, and he doesn’t give up on us. Are we still willing to put our faith and trust in Jesus to guide us?

I also think that love is the goal because Jesus came trying to help us understand who God really is.

The other scene that came to me was this scene from The Replacements. I’ve said that to a couple of people, and nobody else seems to know this movie. Maybe I’m the only one who watches this movie, but this is a favorite of our family. It is about a Washington football team, it’s near the end of the movie, they’re in the final game of the season, and they’re losing. At halftime, like always happens, the commentator comes over and that’s Coach McGinty. Gene Hackman plays Coach McGinty. He says, coach, what do you gotta do to come back in the second half? And Coach McGinty looks at him a,nd he says “It’s all about heart, miles and miles of heart.”

To me, that’s love. It’s about the love and the person who needs to hear that comes back and saves the day, ’cause it’s a movie. But we have to have heart. We have to use, we have to follow the love in our hearts. Faith doesn’t make sense in our brains, but faith makes sense in our hearts. It’s our hearts that call us to have compassion, to share love, to encourage others. It’s in our hearts that we follow as people of Jesus.

That’s what he was teaching us: to follow our hearts, to be led in love and mercy. I know that we have not always been good at expressing it. We have a lot of German roots, and we’re very stoic. We don’t like to let people see our emotions.

The band and I are up here doing our best to get something out of you. Anybody awake? Some of you are more obvious when you’re sleeping than others, but you know, we try to keep this going and keep you engaged because it matters.

We have to learn to show our hearts. We have to learn how to laugh together, and I’m glad I got you to at least chuckle. We have to be able to express that love and that encouragement with each other. That’s when we will most fully be who God intends us to be. When we share the inclusive love and create a safe space for all.

Who comes looking for a relationship with Jesus?

May it be so. Amen.

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 It is my intent every Sunday morning to give you the best information I have. And last Sunday morning, I talked about the historical markers, and today I have more information.

Or we’ll say better information. I found out that the Stephen Smith marker is that it was erected as part of the Civil War Trails, where markers were installed specifically for the150th anniversary of the Civil War. That’s when the Stephen Smith marker was put on the building beside Mount Zion, since then, that marker had been vandalized and was worn. What I learned from one of our members who contacted the Pennsylvania Historical Marker Program, is that they are in the process of refurbishing markers for our 250th anniversary of the country. They have also taken some down that have to do with race and black history because there was some racist language on some of them. So, some of the language needed to be updated, and they are working on all of that.

It is not my intent to create any ill will with the Pennsylvania Historical Marker program, and I wanna make sure that you have accurate information. So I wanted to start with that.

But in preparing this sermon, I ran across that phrase with malice towards none, and learned that that was the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which I wanna read to you.

He wrote this in March of 1865, and the Battle of Appomattox was in April of 1865. So, this was written before that battle and before Lee surrendered. He wrote “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the rights, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. That sounds profound right now. So at a time when the battle was still raging, when the war was still raging. Lincoln asked specifically the people of the North who were listening to him to have charity, and that charity is based on the Latin form of the verb, which is caritas, which is a concern for others.

Not charity as in just give them something. It’s not about a handout. It is about having love for neighbor. It is caring about the other. That’s what Lincoln was calling us to be about, and I think it’s who we need to call ourselves to be. It’s not easy right now.

Our scripture today is Matthew’s Gospel, and it was written to a Jewish audience.

As far as chronological order in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has come into Jerusalem for his final stand. He knows that he has come to Jerusalem and he will not leave alive, and he’s running into the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians. Because they’re all looking for something they can use as a reason to arrest him.

The lawyer says to him, what is the greatest commandment? It’s a trap. Jesus knows it’s a trap. It sets up the same piece that, in Luke’s gospel, leads us into the Parable of the Good Samaritan. But this is Matthew’s piece, and if you read the next chapter, you’ll find out that Jesus is not in a particularly charitable mood with the Pharisees and Sadducees. He’s about to put them in their place.

But for this moment in time, Jesus gives them the right answer. It’s simple, “Love God with all of your being and love your neighbor as yourself” – Mark 12:30-31.

I think we tend to think about the Pharisees and assume they’re always saying inappropriate things and are always challenging Jesus. We never would’ve done that, but I really wonder if we aren’t closer to the Pharisees than we realize. Because if Jesus were here, we might also say, “But Jesus, what is the one thing that I need to do? What’s the one thing that I need to do to be faithful? What’s the one thing that I need to do to secure eternal life?”

And Jesus’s answer is simple: love God and love your neighbor. If you can’t love God with all of your being, then love your neighbor.

The Pharisee was probably saying the same thing because Pharisees are Jewish. It was like, what is the one thing that I need to do to be a good Jew? How can I be a good Jew? Love God. If you can’t do that, then love your neighbor because in Matthew 25, we’re gonna get the parable of the sheep and the goats.

That one always takes us because we so wanna be sheep. If everybody’s gonna get divided into sheep and goats, we wanna be sheep, because it doesn’t go well for the goats, and we don’t wanna be on that side. So what do we have to do to be sheep? In that parable, the king says, “When you do it to the least of these, you have done it to me” -Matthew 25:40.

By loving your neighbor, you are loving God.

It’s that simple, and it’s that hard because we don’t always love our neighbor. We don’t know how to love God. With all of our being, we struggle. We can’t love God with all our being, and God knows that. We can’t love our neighbor as ourselves, because God’s watched us do that. I don’t think we trust in God’s mercy.

I think that’s a problem. If we can’t make all of our lives about loving God, then God wants us to try and love our neighbor, and if we still fail at that, then the Apostle Paul reminds us that Christ said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” – 2 Corinthians 12:9. We have a hard time with that power being perfect in weakness. That is not the way our society is set up. That is not what we’ve been taught. That’s not how we function. That turns us around

Power in weakness. How much do we trust God to be God?

I said this was a hard week, and I’ve been talking about the fact that I’ve been asking what the world is that we are trying to create.

It matters; our energy that we put out into the world makes a difference. I believe that. I think that’s part of prayer. I was really struck by two people. I don’t know what all you heard around the shooting, but I heard the mayor say, I don’t want your thoughts and prayers. I want something to change. Then, I heard Fletcher’s father. If you didn’t hear his piece, that will take you down. It took me down because he said, I don’t want you to remember my son as a victim of a mass shooting. I want you to remember him for who he was.

What kind of world do we want? What kind of country do we want to raise our children in? Because we have a chance to make a difference. Right now we are living in a time where everything, all the systems are being broken, and we have a chance to build it better. We have a chance to make it just, where every kid has the right and the ability to achieve and become who God created them to be.

I also wrote down in my notes, Jeremiah 31:15, maybe this is a good time, while I might not make it to the end of this sermon. The prophet Jeremiah reminded the people in exile, “This is what the Lord says: A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” – Jeremiah 31:15.

As of Friday, it was day 241 in 2025. There had been 286 mass shootings, 1,180 injured.

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned? They’re allowed to be free. Yes. And how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see? Yes. And how many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” – Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan.

That song is one year younger than me, written in 1963, and the sentiment hasn’t changed. How Long, oh Lord, How Long?

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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Today, we’re going to do something a little bit different, and I’m going to start the sermon with a guided meditation.

I want you to have an experience as best we are able of the transfiguration. I invite you to get yourself into a comfortable position. You can focus on the picture, or you can just close your eyes and listen to my words. As I recount some of the scripture and invite you into some questions.

Recently, Jesus had called the disciples together and given them the power to cast out demons and heal the sick. Then he sent them out and they had been so successful as they came back. You were standing nearby within listening range and you heard Jesus ask them, “who did they think he was?” Peter said “he was the Messiah of God.” But then Jesus got very stern with them and told them that they needed to pick up their cross and follow him. What do you make of this scene? Do you think Peter was right?

About a week later, you see Jesus and his disciples talking again. But this time, he walks away from the group with Peter, James, and John. You decide to follow them and they start going up a mountain. So you go too, but at a distance, so as not to be noticed. You’ve heard that Jesus often goes up into the mountains to pray, but you wonder why they didn’t all go. How do you feel while you watch them? Do you wish you were closer, or are you glad you’re further away?

Then they stop, and Jesus begins to pray. Peter, James, and John are praying too, but they could be sleeping. It’s hard to tell. So you sit quietly when you notice something odd about Jesus’ face and clothes. It is as if light is coming from within him. Not just having the sun shine on him, but he is becoming so brilliant that you can hardly look at him. So, you look at the disciples. They’re awake now, for sure. On each side of Jesus, there’s a figure. The one on the left appears to be Moses, and the one on the right looks like Elijah. How do you feel in this moment? What are you thinking?

Peter must feel like it’s another Exodus moment, as he suggests that they build booths, like they do at Sukkah and celebrate. But Jesus dismisses this idea quickly. Poor Peter. He’s wrong again. You know how that feels. You think of the times when you have misunderstood a situation and you wish you could go back and change what you said.

Then a cloud moved across the mountain and covered everyone. You are in the thickest fog you have ever seen. You cannot see anything else. And then you hear a voice. A voice that says, “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him.” Whose voice is that? Could it be God’s? Did you just hear God’s voice speaking? How do you feel? Are you scared, questioning, or excited?

When the clouds pass by, you realize it is only Jesus and the disciples. Now Moses and Elijah are gone and they begin wandering down the mountain silently. You are wondering how this will change them. How has it changed you? Are you inclined to tell anyone about this? Does anything in your life need to be different?

As you are able and ready, I invite you to open your eyes and come back to the present. Because that mountaintop experience has ended. And now, the work begins.

When they came down from the mountain, they were encountered by this family. This family that is hurting. This family that needs help. What the Father says to Jesus is that I brought my son to your disciples, and they could not help him. This story follows the transfiguration in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That means this was a significant event, and these two stories have to be together.

We get the transfiguration and then we get this healing story. It doesn’t say that the disciples wouldn’t help or didn’t want to help. It says that they couldn’t. I had to sit all week with why not? Why couldn’t they help? If you remember, or if you heard it at the beginning of the meditation, I reminded us that Jesus had given them the power to heal, to heal illnesses and to cast out demons. So they have the ability. But why couldn’t they do it now?

The answer that I came up with is that they were unsure of themselves. They didn’t have the confidence that they initially had when Jesus sent them out because nothing else had changed except Jesus had gone away for a day, but that wasn’t unusual for him to go away and pray. They still should have had that ability. But I wonder if they were scared, and they didn’t have the confidence that they could still do all these amazing things.

Actually, I found myself almost beating up the disciples this week. I was getting pretty judgmental about them. What else do they need? What more do they need from Jesus? He already gave them the power to do this, and now they can’t? But then I had an experience on Friday morning.

Some of you know that there’s a group of us that walk dogs and we were at a field and from a distance, we saw this black thing at the edge of the field by the forest.

Didn’t know what it was. It was hard to tell. Another friend, her dogs were there, and they were barking like crazy at this thing. The dogs tend to get upset when something is out of place. Even a snowman they’ll rush up and bark at a snowman because it’s out of place. Or if somebody moves something, if the school puts something new on the field, they’re barking at it because that’s not where it belongs. They were barking like crazy at this black thing that kind of looked like a log, but we were unsure.

As we were approaching and passing, it began to move. And I realized what it had been, it was a person in a sleeping bag who had slept there. They were coming out of the bag, and they just started screaming at me. I don’t know if it was a different language, but it scared me.

After that, I thought maybe that’s what it was for the disciples, that they were just scared. They knew what Jesus had given them. They knew the power that they had, but they became scared because sometimes life frightens us and we want to retreat. We want to say there’s too many bad things going on, and I just want to crawl in my hole. Let me have the sleeping bag. Let me go in this sleeping bag and put the rest of the world out and shut everything else out, because that’s the only place that I’m safe.

But that’s not who we’re called to be.

We’re called to be the light. That shines in the darkness. We are called to be the voice of love and compassion. We are called to be helpful, thoughtful, and kind. Not just our kids. That goes for us, too. Right now, there’s not a lot of helpful, thoughtful, and kindness going around. We see a lot of other things.

There was an 11-year-old girl in Texas who took her life this week because her friends at school were telling her that ICE was coming to take her parents away from her, and she couldn’t deal with the possibility. She thought it was better for her to take her life.

It’s time for us to think about what we are saying to the children about the messages we are sending. Are we about love and compassion and grace? That’s who Jesus asks us to be. That’s, that’s the call on our lives.

The children are watching. What are we saying to them? What are we teaching them by our actions and our words?

May it be so. Amen.

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This story, often called the story of the Syrophoenician woman, is one of the many stories told in the Gospels, which are repeated in more than one Gospel.

In this case, we have a version in Mark 7:24-30, which is brief. There’s another version of this story in Matthew. Both Mark and Matthew put this story in a similar context.

But what is this story about? Is it a story of a casting out of a demon? Is it a story of a non-Jewish woman talking with the Jewish rabbi and coming away looking smart and victorious, where his disciples look like fools? Not right in that story, but in the larger context, they certainly do not seem terribly competent.

Is this a story about demons, children, bread, and dogs? Is this a story about a mother’s love for her daughter? Is this a story about faith? Matthew says so. Mark never uses the word. Is it about bread and leftovers? Is it about having a place at the table and greater sharing?

I think that it’s all of these things. And I think that it is also a cue for us not to take no as an answer, even when we’re talking with God. Also, it alerts us to seek God’s abundance wherever it may be found. I think of the words in the song “Oh, I Know the Lord’s Laid His Hands on Me”, some seek the Lord, but don’t seek him right.

This story is placed in a context, in both Matthew and Mark, between a feeding of 5,000 people with 12 baskets left over and a feeding of 4,000 people with seven baskets left over.

At the end of both Matthew’s version and Mark’s version, Jesus tweaks his disciples, saying, Don’t you understand? Didn’t you get this? We fed 5,000 people and had 12 baskets left over. We fed 4,000 people and had 7 baskets left over. Don’t you get it? First of all, it’s not about bread.

This is the context between these two stories about bread is a story, of all things, about bread, about demons, children, bread, dogs. This is a story about a feast. It’s a little bit disguised.

We have several words in this story about the Syrophoenician woman that point to banqueting. One is that the master’s table from which the crumbs slip down to the dogs. In Greek, that’s the very word that’s used of a banqueting table. It’s a specialty word in Greek. It refers to a banqueting table.

When the girl is recovered from the demon, she’s placed, in some translations, a bed, some say a couch, and the word in Greek is the word that’s used for the couch upon which people recline at a feast. What has happened is that at the end, the healing is not just that the demon has left, but that the daughter is placed reclining for the feast.

This story is also preceded in both Matthew and Mark by a curious debate.

Jesus is in Galilee, which is north of Israel. It’s in the modern country of Israel near to the border with Lebanon. Jerusalem is far south, but some elders and Pharisees have come out from Jerusalem to meet Jesus, specifically to grill him on the way that his disciples eat with, it’s often translated as, unclean or defiled hands.

Now, the word in Greek is “Koinon”, which means common or shared. The problem with the disciples is that they’re eating with just anybody. They’re not eating like good Jews are supposed to eat. Separating themselves from everybody else. Cleaning themselves of the common dirt of the world. Blessing the food at the beginning. Blessing the food at the end. Following a careful protocol. Jesus’ disciples don’t do that.

Now here’s Jesus in immediately the next little section of text. Meeting with a woman who is not a Jew. She’s a single woman. She’s a single mom. She’s got a problem. Her daughter has a demon. She comes to Jesus because she figures that he can help. He’s been helping all kinds of people with problems. So she comes to him. She doesn’t get someone as a middle person. She doesn’t have a male relative who comes to him. This means basically that she’s living on her own. She is isolated. Possibly by her daughter’s affliction.

She has a real problem. She has a real need. At first, Jesus response to her seems kind of strange. Because he says you don’t need help with the demon. There is no demon. He doesn’t dismiss her. He says it’s not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs.

It sounds like Jesus is being a little mean. I have heard in the past year, like four sermons on this, that really dwell on Jesus use of the word dogs. As though he is accusing this woman of being a dog. Which, maybe he is. But it’s also quite possible that just having come from this debate with the Pharisees about defilement and what makes one clean or unclean, which he says is what comes out of you and not what goes into you that makes you clean.

If you remember that from a couple of weeks ago, now he’s faced with this woman and he says this thing, and I think that we could interpret this as being a bit of irony. Matthew reports that Jesus is with his disciples and they play kind of gatekeeper role. But in Mark, it’s just the woman and Jesus. Still, I think that we can imagine that his disciples are with him when Jesus says it’s not right to throw the food of the children to the dogs. With maybe a little sly look at his disciples to see whether they got the message which is to share with everyone.

The woman at any rate does get it. She sees this as a riddle and she answers it in a riddle fashion. She says, even the dogs get crumbs. Just maybe, she understands what the disciples don’t. Which is that Jesus is talking about sharing and he is talking about food, but he’s also talking about bread in a cosmic sort of way, in a, you might say philosophic sense, that it is that which gives one life, and that is the abundance of God. Amen.

It is the property of God that God is abundant, but one of the things that is difficult to grasp is that God’s abundance is not everywhere and in all places at all times.

I think of one of those nature documentaries, you know with David Attenborough, maybe. Here, the fig tree has come into its full ripeness, and now the monkeys feast for the day. But, when the figs have all gone, the monkeys are left with nothing, and they must go to the next fig tree, which is ten kilometers away. And how do they find it? By the smell of it.

Well, what is the smell of it, but the wind, the breath, the spirit in the same way we need to be directed to God’s abundance wherever we can smell it out and be guided to it by the Holy Spirit reaching to us. If you ever remember those cartoons where the odor of the pie would come to the person and draw them away, we should be drawn by the Holy Spirit to God’s abundance.

This woman has recognized that, she gives a proper answer. If you are receiving the bread of life, what’s the difference between a big slice and a crumb? It’s infinite. It’s God’s eternity. You can’t break it down into pieces. The crumb will be enough.

Now, let me say that there is an abundance of riches in these five verses, which I am not plumbing here.

I would be delighted to discuss this at much greater length with anyone who was interested. But now, I want to come back to the basic point. We are called to change our minds. That’s the meaning of repentance.

It is, in Greek, it is “Metanoia”, to change the mind. We are called to change our mind. God’s rule is all around us. We do not need to fear scarcity. If we seek God’s abundance, we will find it. We must find ways to seek God’s abundance and support others in their search.

Those who have ears, let them hear.

This Sermon given by Mark Achtermann

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As I was sitting down to think about this sermon, the words that came to me were,

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epic of belief. It was the epic of incredulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens opening line to the tale of two cities. There’s a truth that is in that that, for most of us, we can find ourselves somewhere in there. When I read the whole piece, it reminded me of the words of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there is a time for every season under heaven.

I invite you today To think about where you are, what kind of season are you in? Are you in a season of hope? The spring of hope? Are you in the winter of despair? Are you in the best of times? Are you in the worst of times? How is it with your soul?

We just sang “It is well with my soul”, but how is it with your soul? Where are you right now?

As I was was thinking about this scripture and just reflecting on my life, I had a realization this past week that I am my own worst enemy. I am so good at looking at a situation, thinking about how something was going to go and figuring out how it can go wrong in all so many ways and how I’m going to either disappoint myself or someone else.

My brain is so good at creating all of those stories for me that I sometimes fail to act. But what I have found recently is if I can take those stories and set them to the side and choose to move forward anyway. What happened was beyond what I ever imagined. It was better than any of the best scenarios I could have considered because it probably wasn’t my idea to begin with. It was probably that little nudging from the spirit in my brain saying this is what you need to do. But I’m good at figuring out reasons I shouldn’t.

I share that with you because in our gospel reading for today, I think the disciples should be our heroes.

That’s not usually the way we depict the disciples. But the disciples in all of the gospel writings showed us our true humanity and all of the ways we can muck things up.

They did it in the presence of Jesus. So, if they were forgiven, surely we are forgiven. That’s my logic for it. So let’s look at this scene that I just read about from the gospel of Mark.

This is the fourth chapter in Mark, just to set the scene. Remember, mark does not have a birth narrative. Mark’s gospel doesn’t start until Jesus is baptized. It starts with the baptism and goes right into Mark’s ministry. It’s the baptism, it’s the time in the wilderness, he calls his disciples and he gets moving. That’s the thing about Mark’s gospel, Jesus is on the move.

One could even say that he knew he had a short amount of time to get his work done and he was going to be about it. His job was to reach as many people as possible who had been turned away from the faith, who had a different experience, had a different understanding, or let’s be honest, were outright told by the religious people, that they were not welcome within the community of believers.

After that, Jesus was out teaching and healing. In fact, the rest of chapter four is all parables.

Until we hit Mark 4:35-41 and I even sat with it, is this a parable? Is there a parable within this story too? And I think there is.

So I’m going to let you sit with that till I get there. See if you can figure out the parable in this story. Or what I think might be a parable.

But during the night, and that’s a clue. That’s like saying if you were reading a novel that the hero or the main character was going into the deep woods at night. What do you think is going to happen? Something bad. Because that’s what happens in dark places. It gets scary in the middle of the night. When you go out on the water in the middle of the night and it’s dark, you can expect that something is going to happen.

So they go out, but Jesus is like, no, we have to get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. So, they go and they meet this storm, not unexpected. But in the middle of this storm that comes up, Jesus is asleep.

Here’s where I even thought this morning, even the way I perceived this, when I read this and whether it was just my own reading or whether I was taught to read it this way by anybody else, the disciples sound like they’re helpless when they wake Jesus up. to me. My first reading was, well, the disciples are being helpless and asking, don’t you care? You’ve got to help us.

Well, maybe they weren’t completely helpless because they were fishermen. They’ve been on boats before. They have handled rough seas before. They know how to maneuver a boat in the middle of the storm. When the waves get big. Right? There’s a way to do that. They would have known how to do that.

So maybe they’re not being really helpless and asking what do we do? But more of a, Hey, you know, wake up. We’ve been bailing here for an hour and you’re sitting there sleeping. Come on, we need help here. We can’t tell which version may be closer to what Mark intended.

Let’s also remember that this story is in all three of the synoptic Gospels. So we read them all. So they kind of become one story, even though they’re not. But anyway, they wake Jesus up. They want his help. And he does it, he stops the storm. But that must not have been what they expected him to do because they are frightened.

This version said fear. Some versions say awe, and they think it’s more, “Oh my gosh”, because then they say, Who is this?

Now, they’ve watched this man heal all kinds of people, and he has even given them the power to cast out demons. But, now they’re surprised because he can still the storm.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in all of them. But what caught me when I put Job 38:1-11 as our reading, was that he was faithful to God and he lost everything. He loses his family, his business, his reputation. He becomes an outcast. Nobody wants to be near Job. I think he even ends up with skin conditions. Job’s got everything going wrong. And most of Job’s is his friends telling him it’s his fault. He’s done something wrong to make God mad, and him saying, but I didn’t.

Finally, Job goes to God and essentially says the question that is always on our lips when life goes wrong. He says, why me, God?

I hear that so often when, when life comes at us hard and fast, we too say, but why me? What we heard today was God’s response. Where were you when I laid the cornerstone? Where were you when I founded the earth?

What struck me in both of these situations was we have humans asking the divine a question, sort of like, you know, where are you God? Are you going to wake up and help us? Are you going to allow us to perish? Or why is this happening to me, God?

In both cases, the divine answers with a question, not an answer. I mean, you could say the stilling of the storms was an answer, but they come back with a question. Jesus says, are you still afraid? Do you still not trust? Do you not have enough faith? The actual words were, why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? According to this version.

Because at the end of the day, this all boils down to how much do we trust God? How much do we trust the mystery that is the three in one Father, Son and Holy Spirit? How much do we trust them to be there? And this is big, Right? This is really big. But I wonder if it is that we don’t trust that they are there because they all ask questions.

But we don’t want them to just be there, we want them to fix it and we want them to fix it the way we want it to be fixed. That’s where the rub comes because we don’t get what we want. There’s some of you in here that are going to know this line because you don’t always get what you want, but you always get what you need. God will be there. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That’s where I think the story from the gospel is a parable. Because the storms of life do come at us and we may feel like we are drowning. But God is with us. We will not perish, or maybe we will physically perish. But if we physically perish, we will be united with our God.

All will be well.

I want to leave you with the words of Julian of Norwich. Her wisdom says this.

“God did not say you will not be assailed. You will not be belabored. You will not be disquieted. But he said, you will not be overcome.” – Julian of Norwich

There’s a little bit more to this quote. God wants us to pay attention to God’s words. Always to be strong in our certainty in well being. For God loves us and delights in us. God wishes that we would love God and delight in God and trust greatly in God and all will be well.

All matter of things will be well. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Today begins with this very uncomfortable scene.

The women go to the tomb with expectations. They expect to find a dead body. They expect to do what they feel called to do. They want to anoint this body. This is a gift that they want to give to Jesus. To have his body anointed, even though we know he was anointed. We had that scripture a couple weeks ago. With the woman who broke the bottle and poured the gnar all over his head. He was anointed for burial, but they needed to do something. So they go to the tomb and they have expectations.

They’re already thinking, how are we going to move the stone? But interestingly, they don’t bring anyone with them to do that. Probably because the ones that they know best are hiding, remember? Because they didn’t want to be picked up by the Romans. They didn’t want this to end the same way for them. So those guys are in a locked room, but they go because the Romans aren’t looking at them, and what they find does not meet their expectations.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you expected something to play out a certain way, and it didn’t?

It can be frustrating and confusing. Especially when you meet someone that you don’t know who they are or what they are. Maybe they’re an angel.

Somebody dressed in a white robe sitting in a cave by themselves saying his body was there but not anymore. The grave was not robbed. He has been raised. Can you imagine how scared they probably were?

But, I wonder if it isn’t in those moments when our expectations are thrown off, that we actually can have a God moment. A moment where we realize that God is present.

Then he says something very interesting, He says, Jesus goes ahead of you to Galilee. I think that that’s important because the Bible gives us little phrases and asks us to think deeper about them.

“He goes ahead of you.” It’s like a throwaway phrase. But it also means that he has already done everything that we would do. He has lived this life. He was born as a human. He experienced birth, growing up in this world, in his world, not ours. It’d be interesting to see what he would be like today, but he grew up in that world, and he experienced all the heartaches.

He knew what it would have been like to cut his finger or to touch something hot. And he has already died. He knows what it’s like.

Even worse, He knows what it’s like to have his best friends betray him, deny him, all of that, be hurt by those closest to us. I’m guessing some of us know what that’s like. But so does Jesus. And Jesus goes ahead.

That’s a clue. Galilee is where Mark’s gospel started with John the Baptizer. It’s like, go back to the beginning. This is typical for the Jewish people. Jewish people read through the Torah, what we call the first five books of the Old Testament, and when they read Deuteronomy, where Moses dies, then they go back to the beginning, and they start with Genesis 1 again.

So Mark is saying to us, it’s time to go back to the beginning and work through the story again, because you’ll hear things differently this time.

We are not the same people that we were last year. We haven’t read Mark since 2021. Are you different than you were on Easter of 2021? Do you remember Easter of 2021? I remember Easter of 2021. We were in the parking lot, and I ordered 200 cupcakes because I said we are going to come together and we are going to eat.

We have changed since 2021. We are a different people. Thanks be to God. Right? I don’t know how many of us want to relive ’20 and ’21.

We are called to be witnesses.

That’s what the people are. That’s what the women are called to be. And yes, Mark’s gospel doesn’t leave us feeling all warm and snuggly because it says they ran home and told no one.

But we know eventually they told somebody. Because we have the stories. We wouldn’t have the stories if they hadn’t. Right? They did eventually tell someone, but they didn’t tell that someone right away, and that’s okay.

If you’ve ever had an experience of a loved one coming back to let you know that they’re okay, most of us don’t talk about it, but you all tell me. So I know lots of those stories. You don’t want to admit it to each other, but I know lots of those stories.

We’re called to be the witnesses.

So how do we witness to Jesus? Life? We live it. We work for justice. We feed the person who’s hungry. We give water to the person who’s thirsty. We visit the person who’s imprisoned and we work to change systems so that when people are sick they don’t go unpaid. When people need medical care they get the care they need. That’s how we witness.

We recognize that we are meant to be the love and mercy of God present in this world.

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