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Sermon – Luke 23.33-43, P29, YC, November 23, 2025

03 Wednesday Dec 2025

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Today I have a confession.  I am tired.  After watching the debacle of the longest ever government shutdown, only to jump into the next political scandal, struggling to understand how vastly different the kingdom of God is from the kingdom of man, I find myself not emboldened, but just tired.  Now, as person of faith, I am always looking for hope.  In fact, even this week, your Vestry and I spent time taking a step back and looking at all the goodness happening in this place – the signs of vitality and vibrancy, the things that are bringing us joy, moments and ministries that are giving us life.  But I confess, even with all that energy and goodness to celebrate, one look back out into the world, and my spirit is dampened and I am just…tired.

As I turned to our gospel lesson for today, I was hoping for some bit of encouragement – some promise that everything would be okay.  Knowing today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the liturgical year whose text should bring into focus the point of a year of journeying with Christ, I had hoped that there would be some sort of rallying text that would invigorate me and shake me out of my exhaustion.  But instead, on this day when we honor Christ our King, what is the image we are given?  A beaten, humiliated, ridiculed, discredited, shameful shell of a man, hanging on a cross, defeated in approaching death.  We do not get Christ risen from the grave today – the ultimate Easter message.  No, today we get Good Friday – our hoped-for Messiah, seemingly defeated on the cross.  Of course, he dies with great dignity, forgiving sinners until the very end, welcoming the repentant even on their last breath, resisting every urge strike back or at least refute the charges against him.  He dies with dignity, but he dies nonetheless.

I have often thought it is strange how the cross, and not the empty tomb is our primary Christian symbol.  That we use an instrument of death as our sign for victory is rather odd.  But today we do not just honor Christ’s death on the cross; we honor how he died on the cross.  Even in death Christ our King managed to love his neighbor – even the really bad neighbors.  Even in death, Christ managed to love God – inviting God to forgive even the most hateful behavior.  Even on the cross, Jesus never loses his focus.  Jesus never gets tired.

Just like the kingdom of God is different, so is the king of God.  The people of God never really had a king until they reached the Promised Land.  They saw the neighboring countries with their armies and their admirable kings, and they wanted one for themselves.  That was their first mistake.  God granted them a king to rule over them, but inevitably, the kings, like any humans, were flawed – some more than others.  Hence, there are four books in the Hebrew Scriptures about the kings who ruled and the judges who tried to correct their behavior.  Most of the kings were corrupted by power, money, and greed.  Many abused the people.  Even the most revered king, King David, was a bit of a mess.  But Jesus is not like foreign kings or the kings of Israel.  Jesus’ kingship is different.  He loves the poor and cares for the sick, he sees through the pretenses of the temple and calls for authenticity, he loves deeply and forgives infinitely.[i]  And he never tires of being this kind of king.

For most of us, looking to Jesus as an example of how to rally out of our fatigue and weariness may feel overwhelming to our tired selves.  Instead, I found looking at the repentant thief to be helpful.  You see, the thief was probably tired too.  Anyone who is a thief has been hustling long before he gets caught.  He may have even been caught several times before for more minor offenses.  His arrest this time is different.  There will be no escape.  He will hang on that cross until he dies.  With the cruelty of the cross, and the pain of his body, also shining forth is an overwhelming sense of fatigue.  He too is tired.  Tired of running, tired of hustling, tired of the life that leads one to become a thief.  But even in his deep fatigue, he does something extraordinary.  When the other thief taunts Jesus, the repentant thief lets the other thief have it.  Hanging in agony, he looks outside himself, and refuses to stand for the hypocrisy of the other thief.  He decries the injustice of Jesus’ sentence, he wisely points out his own, as well as the other’s, culpability in sin, and then, without shame looks right at Jesus and asks Jesus to remember him.

Even at our most weary, tired states, when we feel like there is no hope, or when death feels ever present, Jesus invites us to keep shining our light for all to see.[ii]  Our gospel this week has people doing just that:  taking their world of hurt, pain, sadness, sorrow, defeat, seeming hopelessness, and turning toward the light.[iii]  The thief, hanging in humiliation and death, finds his light.  Jesus, defeated in the eyes of all but the thief today, keeps shining his light until the bitter end.  And Hickory Neck has them too.  Our children last Sunday and our psalm this Sunday that tell us to “Be still and know that I am God.”[iv]  Our parishioners delivering food before thanksgiving and shopping for the forgotten for Christmas.  Our members making stretch gifts to support the work of the kingdom here. 

Christ our King invites us to do likewise.  Of all people, Jesus understood being tired.  His cry out to God in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is a prayer of a tired man.  But Jesus stood up that night, all the way to the cross on Calvary and refused to let fatigue be an excuse for a world without love, hope, and forgiveness.  Our king may not look like other kings.  His story may be strange and full of contradictions.  But our king has the power to pull you out of darkness and drag you into the light.  But along the way, he is going to need you to shine your light too.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Christ the King C:  What Kind of King Do You Want?” November 14, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/christ-the-king-c-what-kind-of-king-do-you-want/ on November 21, 2025.

[ii] Karoline Lewis, “Who and What is Your King?” November 13, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4754 on November 21, 2025.

[iii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 337.

[iv] Psalm 46.10a.

Sermon – Luke 20.27-38, P27, YC, November 9, 2025

12 Wednesday Nov 2025

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When my oldest was about three years old, a parishioner of mine died.  At the time we were still recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  Though many of us finally had our power back, an early snow storm delivered just enough snow to knock out power in some of the local schools and mucked up roads that were already struggling to be freed from fallen trees.  My daughter’s school was cancelled, and I had anticipated just trying to stay warm at home for the day.  But when I got the call that my church member had died – I was dumbfounded.  There was no doubt in my mind that I would go join the family for prayers, but I had no idea how to incorporate my daughter into the visit.  With the weather conditions such as they were, there was no way she could stay anywhere else.  And so began a ten-minute drive during which I frantically tried to explain to my three-year old daughter what death meant, what heaven is, and what God’s role in all of this is.  Of course, I totally forgot to factor into my explanation the fact that the parishioner’s body would still be present, and how her body figured into my three-year-old-appropriate explanation of heaven.  Needless to say, that day was not one of my finest parenting or priestly moments, and I ended up fielding questions about death, heaven, and God for months.

Truthfully, I think adults have just as many questions about death, heaven, and God as young children do.  When we hear the complicated question of the Sadducees to Jesus about the woman with seven husbands, we find ourselves morbidly curious too.  What does happen to this woman in the afterlife?  Would she have wanted to be with one over another in heaven?  Her scenario makes us think of all the stories of loved ones we know – or maybe even of ourselves.  What happens to the widow who remarries in the resurrection?  What about the couple who divorces and later remarries?  Surely they will not have to be reunited with their exes!  Or what about that abusive father, that mean uncle, or that estranged sister?  Do we face them in the afterlife?  Since we do not really have anyone to give us an insider’s perspective, these are the questions that we really wonder about.  And if we have ever held the hand of a loved one approaching death, we may have asked these questions to God, to our priest, or to a friend.  So, when the Sadducees ask this question of Jesus, we perk up, hoping for some real clarity from Jesus, and secretly praying for the answer that we think is best.

The trouble with this text though is the Sadducees are not really asking Jesus a practical question about what happens in the resurrection.  In fact, the Sadducees do not even believe in the resurrection.  The Sadducees are the group of people who believe the Torah – those first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures – to be the only authorized scripture.  None of the other books that we know from scripture – the prophetic writings or the Psalms – are considered valid scripture by the Sadducees.  Because there is neither a doctrine of resurrection of the dead nor a belief in angels in the written Torah, the Sadducees refuse to believe that there is life after this earthly life.  The Pharisees, along with Jesus and his disciples, on the other hand, believe in ongoing interpretation of Torah handed down by word of mouth, and so, they have no problem with the ideas of resurrection presented in other Hebrew scriptures.[i]

This question by the Sadducees about the resurrection, therefore, is not really a question for which the Sadducees are looking for answers.  Instead, this is a question meant to both ridicule Jesus,[ii] and to trap Jesus in an impossible question.  Though we may feel some sense of camaraderie in shared curiosity, the Sadducees are not simply a curious bunch with a heartfelt question.  They are trying to manipulate Jesus and embarrass him in front of the crowd.  Luckily for us, Jesus offers an answer anyway.  The answer is not as specific as we might like, but the answer does offer hope and mercy in a roundabout way.

What Jesus basically tells the Sadducees and those gathered around him is that the resurrection is not like life here on earth.  Life after earthly life is not “Earthly Life, Part II,” where everything is the same, but better.  In the resurrection life, rules of this life – and in particular, rules that applied to Levirate marriage, like a brother taking on a widowed sister-in-law – are not the same as the rules in the afterlife.  Jesus does not explain exactly what this looks like or how this plays out, and Jesus does not fully satiate our curiosity.  But Jesus does give an answer that is full of mercy and love.  Jesus basically tells those gathered that the beauty of the resurrection is that the strictures and limitations of this life are lifted in the life to come.  Things like women being treated as property to be managed, infertility, and grief are erased in the afterlife.  Things like disappointment in marriage, pressure to be married, and even death itself are no longer present in the afterlife.  Things that define us here, limit or frustrate us, or pain us here in this life are absent in the afterlife.  Jesus will never concede to the Sadducees that resurrection life does not exist.  But Jesus does try to kindly invite the Sadducees into seeing that resurrection life is so much more than they can imagine, and so much fuller of true life than this earthly life they know.  Jesus does not answer their question fully, but Jesus does say that the Creator God of Torah is still revealing truth, and that the truth is full of mercy, grace, and love.

I am reminded of the scene from the movie The Matrix where the main character, Neo, goes to visit a woman called the Oracle to find out if he is “the one,” a messiah-like figure to save the world.  Neo goes to the Oracle with a clear-cut question, “Am I the One?”  The conversation that ensues is complex and layered with meaning.  She seems to be telling Neo he is not the one, but we later learn in the movie that she was actually telling him that he is not the one if he will not claim his status as the One.  The scene is as complicated as my rudimentary attempts to explain the scene.  But what the scene reminds me of is our conversations with God about ultimate things.  We often come to God with basic questions and concerns that are rarely answered directly.  But that does not mean we do not get an answer.  In the end, the answer is loving, full of compassion, and ultimately full of truth when we are ready to understand and interpret that truth.

This is all that Jesus can offer us today.  Jesus is not offering an exclusive interview to a top news source to tell us everything we want to know about resurrection life.  We will not be able to watch with bated breath as Jesus answers every question we want answered.  Instead, Jesus offers us a promise to take home.  His promise is that we have resurrection life beyond this earthly life.  His promise is that resurrection life is not some two-dimensional repeat of this life, with the limited happiness we can find here, but instead is a three-dimensional life beyond our knowing because of our limited earthly experience.  His promise is that God is ever revealing truth to us, showing us the most important truth:  that God loves us, shows us exquisite mercy, and offers us unfailing grace.  Jesus’ words today may not be the 60-Minute special we were hoping for, but Jesus’ words today give us something to hold on to in the midst of this crazy, chaotic world that is our earthly home.  Hold fast to the Lord who loves you, shows you exquisite mercy, and offers you unfailing grace.  Amen.

[i] Vernon K. Robbins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 285.

[ii] Eberhard Busch, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 286

Sermon – Luke 6.20-31, AS, YC, November 2, 2025

05 Wednesday Nov 2025

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On the blog this week, I shared about friends of ours who are fragrance aficionados.  When we spend time together, we’ve taken to doing fragrance samplings with them – sort of like wine tastings, but with the focus on the sense of smell.  Invariably, I find a new fragrance I like that I had never heard of, but that brings me a sense of playful joy.  This past week I was sharing one of those fragrances with one of our daughters and she said, “It’s okay, but I prefer your ‘Mom smell.’”  While I wish there was a more attractive label to that particular fragrance, and while I suspect that “Mom smell” is some combination of the scents of my soap, hair products, and laundry detergent, I get what my daughter meant.  Just like fragrances can evoke memories of special places, fragrances can also recall to us people in our lives.  One whiff, and we are transported to another time and place, remembering what someone meant to us.

On this All Saints Sunday, we engage in a similar kind of sensory recalling.  In our case at Hickory Neck, instead of the sense of smell, we invoke the sense of touch – the feel of smooth or ridged ribbons running through our fingers as we tie them to the altar rail in memory of a saint of God, the feel of droplets of water landing on our heads and bodies as we recall our baptismal identity and the baptisms of saints who have died, and the feel of the wafer in our hands and mouth or the feel of the priest’s thumb as they rub a blessing on our forehead, as we engage in the earthly banquet, reminiscent of the heavenly banquet our loved ones are enjoying.

But just like scents have the power to remind us of beloved memories, so scents can remind us of painful memories.  While some of us may have a “Mom scent” we recall with love and affection or wistful memory, others of us didn’t have such beloved memories or experiences – and unfortunately, smells can recall those memories too.  As I was reading Luke’s gospel for today, that’s where I landed – that all of us – all of us saints of God – have the opportunity to live lives of good or ill – to leave behind fragrances that help or harm.  And since Luke’s language is entirely literal and not at all the flowery, spiritual language of Matthew’s beatitudes[i], we are very clear on Jesus’ words and meaning.  The blessings and woes of Luke’s beatitudes are straightforward and simple.  As one scholar puts it, “If you want anything to do with Jesus or the God who sent him, Luke says, you had better go find the poor, the hungry, the captives, the blind, and the outcast, and join Jesus, as Jesus cares for them.  The way we know who Jesus is, is to go where Jesus is, with the poor, the hungry, and the oppressed.”[ii]

While All Saints Sunday can take us to place of remembering loved ones and the saints of the church, tempting us to get lost in those memories, what All Saints Sunday ultimately hopes to impart is that the lives we live matter.  We remember the saints of the church and the lives of our loved ones we miss because they showed us what living lives that matter looked like.  We do not honor them because they were rich or well fed or joyful or respected.  We honor them because they loved their enemies, they did good to those who hated them, they blessed those who cursed them, and prayed for those who hurt them.  We honor them because they were nonviolent, because they gave sacrificially of their wealth, because they understood that poverty makes people desperate – and because they did to others as they would have them do to them.

We could easily leave here today with the commission to “go and do likewise,” as if Jesus’ words are a simple commission.  But nothing about what Jesus is saying is simple or easy.  Several years ago, I was talking to our children about the Golden Rule – those words we hear today about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  To my great shock, my children did not see the wisdom of the words at all.  Instead, their desires were rooted in a sense of justice or fairness.  “No way!” one said.  “I’ll do unto others what they do to me.”  What I had understood as simple, universal wisdom that is shared among faith traditions totally flies in the face of secular, American ideals.  Even Professor Johnson says about Luke’s text today, “It is not only greed that jeopardizes the wealthy Christian’s relationship with God, but the simple – and subtle – temptation to think we can take care of ourselves.”[iii]

Luke leaves us, then, with a challenging invitation.  As you tie on a ribbon to remember a loved one today, you can certainly recall whatever fragrance of theirs you miss.  But Luke asks you to go further – to recall the witness they left to you about living a faithful life, and be emboldened to start leaving your own faithful fragrance behind too.  Lean into those who have gone before to encourage your own witness of love, compassion, and justice.  Lean into the faithful who gather beside you in person every Sunday who struggle to live that Golden Rule with gusto instead of resentment.  Lean into Jesus, who walked before us in incarnate form, leaving behind the fragrance of incense – the fragrance of humility, compassion, and sacrificial love.  With them, you can then begin to create a signature fragrance of your own that will help draw others to God.  Amen. 

[i] Marjorie Procter-Smith, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 239.

[ii] E. Elizabeth Johnson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 239.

[iii] Johnson, 241.

Sermon – Luke 17.11-19, P23, YC, October 12, 2025

15 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Several years ago, A.J. Jacobs wrote a book called Thanks a Thousand.  Jacobs had decided that he loved his daily cup of coffee from his local coffee shop so much that he wanted to thank every person who made the cup of coffee possible.  His book journals what started out as that simple premise that became a journey around the world.  You see, he could easily thank the barista he saw every morning.  But then he realized he should thank the owner of the shop for the shop existing in the first place.  From there, he realized the owner had a graphics designer who designed the logo, and there was company that made his coffee cup that carried that logo.  He eventually recalled the beans for the coffee came from somewhere – and there were hundreds of people who moved the beans from tree to harvest to packaging to shipping to storage and to distribution.  And that didn’t include those who made sure the city had clean water that was used to combine beautifully with beans to make his daily beloved cup of coffee.  Each thank you – often received with confusion, surprise, mystification, and occasional delight – led to another individual for Jacobs to thank.  Jacobs had read that the practice of gratitude could change your life, and slowly, he began to find that genuine gratitude made him kinder, happier, and gave him the opportunity to make an impact in the world.  Gratitude helped him to see the world differently.

In our gospel lesson today, ten lepers experience a miraculous healing through Jesus.  Jesus sends the lepers to the priests and they become clean along the way.  But only one of the lepers actually sees that he is healed.  We are told that because he sees, he turns back, praises God, and prostrates himself at Jesus’ feet, thanking him.  Now, to be clear, the other nine lepers do nothing wrong.  In fact, they follow Jesus’ instruction explicitly and enjoy being healed.  The promise made to them is fulfilled.  The tenth leper – a Samaritan of all people – though sees.  And when he returns to give thanks, he is blessed a second time.  David Lose explains, “Jesus concludes his exchange by inviting the man to rise and go on his way and saying that his faith has made him not only physically well, but also whole and, indeed, saved.  That’s part of the complex and multivalent meaning of the Greek root word σoζω (transliterated as “sozo” and pronounced “sod-zo”) Jesus uses.”[i]  That second blessing does not happen though without the act of seeing.

The Samaritan leper experienced a second blessing much like A.J. Jacobs experienced a second blessing.  Once Jacobs began his coffee gratitude journey – thanking all those folks who made that perfect cup of daily coffee – he began to see just like the leper.  His eyes were opened to the powerful work of God by the simple act of gratitude.  Scholars across the centuries have noted how deeply faith and gratitude are linked.  “Karl Barth was fond of saying that the basic human response to God is gratitude – not fear and trembling, not guilt and dread, but thanksgiving.  ‘What else can we say to what God gives us but stammer praise?’ [Barth says.]”  C.S. Lewis “also observed the connection between gratitude and personal well-being.  [He said,] ‘I noticed how the humblest and at the same time most balanced minds praised most:  while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least.  Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.’”[ii]  The entire enterprise of thanking thousands of people for his cup of coffee was A.J. Jacobs’ attempt to correct his vision so that he might cultivate a healthy practice of faith.

The Stewardship team at Hickory Neck this year has been doing the same thing.  They have been working to help us better see God in this place we keep returning to.  Today you will receive a packet of information meant to engage your vision.  In the packet will be testimonies of how much this community has impacted the lives of your fellow parishioners.  You will find a visual representation of how every dollar is stretched to make possible the goodness we experience here.  You will find an invitation to respond to your own gratitude to Jesus for the many blessings in your faith journey by committing your time, your talent, and your treasure –not out of a sense of duty, but because you have seen goodness here, and gratitude is bubbling out of you.  And in case all those invitations into seeing differently are not enough, our Stewardship team will be bringing back to you the stories of your fellow parishioners in their own words.  Each week, you will be sent videos on what they are calling Motivational Mondays and Faithful Fridays – videos of your fellow parishioners describing how their devotion to generosity has richly blessed their faith journey.

In the coming weeks, you may be tempted to do what the nine lepers do – to dutifully follow Jesus’ invitation to go and be healed – and simply open your stewardship packet and return the commitment card and time and talent form.  And doing so would not be wrong at all – in fact, the Stewardship Team and Vestry would be deeply grateful.  But our invitation from today’s gospel lesson goes a little further than duty.  Our invitation is to put on new lenses – to use the tools Hickory Neck is gifting you to better see the overwhelming blessings from the Spirit and to make tangible our gratitude – “gratitude for the gift of life, gratitude for the world, gratitude for the dear people God has given us to enrich and grace our lives.”[iii]  I cannot wait to hear what you see.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Second Blessing,” October 7, 2013, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/second-blessing on October 10, 2025. 

[ii] John M. Buchanan, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 165.

[iii] Buchanan, 169.

Sermon – Matthew 11.25-30, St. Francis Feast, YC, October 5, 2025

15 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Image credit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CF_31K6sogj/

I was talking to a friend recently who had been on a road trip.  She had stopped for gas and was standing by her car when another car pulled up next to her.  A family piled out of the car, followed by the family’s dog.  My friend was paralyzed in place.  The dog looked exactly like her beloved dog Buddy who had passed away four years ago.  Her eyes immediately watered, and even though four years had passed, an ache appeared in her chest that she thought had long ago gone away forever.  “I just really miss that dog,” she explained later – surprising even herself at how her grief lingered.

I have sometimes wondered if our celebration of St. Francis and the Blessing of the Animals is not a little gimmicky.  We even took our celebration on the road yesterday for the first time, offering to bless animals and their owners whom we have never met, who maybe never harken the door of any church, let alone Hickory Neck’s doors.  But as I thought about my friend’s lingering grief over her dog who had passed, and as I have heard countless stories over the years of cats, horses, Guinea pigs, goats, and even chickens who have been a source of joy, companionship, sometimes consternation, but always love, I understand more fully why we commit to blessing animals and their owners, even if on the surface the practice may seem like a gimmick.

We engage in the blessing of animals because of the inspiration that comes from St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis is one of the most beloved saints of the Church.  Most of us think of Francis as the patron saint of animals and creation.  When we think of him, we may think of a St. Francis statue in a garden.  We may think of various images of him preaching to birds.   Some of us may even recall that tale where Francis negotiated peace between a village and a wolf that had been terrorizing the town.  His understanding of animals as his brothers and sisters is why we bless animals on his feast day – the creatures that were so dear to him.  That is also why when we say the Eucharistic prayer [at 10:00 am] today, we will use Prayer C – the one that praises, “the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, and the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.”[i]

At the heart of our blessings yesterday and today is an understanding that St. Francis had mastered and we continue to understand – that we are bound to all of the creation God created – to the earth, to the earth’s animals, and to one another – even the other humans or other creation we may not like.  Jesus reminds us of the nature of that bond today in his words about following him.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Those yokes Jesus talks about were used to harness two animals for work.  The yoke allowed the two not just to double their work, but to rely on one another – if one was tired, the other could push harder; and then the weaker one could later support the stronger one.  Yokes, like Jesus’ work, were easy and made the burden light. 

But beyond the mechanics of a good yoke, the yoke is also a good metaphor for how we see the gospel.  Being yoked to another makes you connected.  And once you are connected, and see how dependent upon one another you are, you begin to see how that connection extends beyond the two of you – that your yoked interconnection is a microcosm of the connectedness of all of God’s creation.  Francis, who was just as known for helping the poor as he was for befriending animals, understood that all humanity is connected.  He learned that the more we spend time seeing the humanity in others – especially the humanity in those we would rather not – then we start to see that our interconnectedness extends even further – to God’s creation, to God’s creatures, to the cosmos.  If we open our hearts to one, we cannot help but to open our hearts to all.  Francis’ love for the poor and Francis’ love for creatures were not two separate things – they were one in the same. 

The invitation for us is to start claiming our yoked nature – yoked to those we love, yoked to our political opponents, yoked to those who have different ethics and values than ourselves, yoked to parents who make different parenting decisions, yoked to those with different skin color or sexual orientation, yoked to those we see as deserving of God’s grace and those who are not.  Our yoked nature allows us to pray [and later sing] the Prayer of St. Francis from our Prayer Book:  “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”[ii]  We can do the work of St. Francis, blessing animals, humans, and all creation, because of the yoke of Jesus.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[i] BCP, 370.

[ii] BCP, 833.

Sermon – I Timothy 6.6-19, Luke 16.19-31, P21, YC, September 28, 2025

01 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Parenting is probably the most difficult of the vocations God has given me – not simply because parenting can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, or because of the heftiness of the responsibility of shaping decent human beings who will have an impact on the world, or because parenting forces you to justify every belief and value you hold.  Those alone would be daunting enough.  But parenting is also a difficult vocation because of the way parenting evolves:  from those early days of helping this creature learn the basics for survival, to those young days of helping children wonder and ask the big questions of life, to those middle days of clarifying family, faith, and individual values that will guide their behavior and choices, to those later days of gently reflecting on those ultimate things of life – of what really makes for a life of meaning and purpose.

In many ways, our scripture lessons lately have felt like listening to a parent trying to help us figure out what this whole life thing is all about.  On the surface, our lessons today are straight of central casting for a stewardship talk – we’ve really teed up the parishioner who will share his testimony today with everything he needs.  From Amos who foreshadows what will happen to those who spend their lives luxuriating in lavishness, as if luxuriating is an end in and of itself; to Paul’s letter to Timothy who warns how dangerous a love of money can be, distracting us from things of ultimate significance; to our gospel lesson which starkly depicts the eternal significance of how wealth can make us so blind to the needs of others that we condemn ourselves in the life beyond this life.  The lessons this week seem to serve up the ultimate stewardship sermon:  the place of money in our lives is so fraught with spiritual consequences, you should just give that money to the church so that you do not have to worry about a fate like those in our lessons today!

And while our budget for next year might appreciate such a lesson, much like parenting has varied phases, so does the church’s teaching of us.  The one line of all the weighty lessons on wealth from today that has been hovering in my mind comes from Paul’s first letter to Timothy.  In the last line of the portion of his letter we heard today, Paul says we “are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for [ourselves] the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that [we] may take hold of the life that really is life.”  So that we may take hold of the life that really is life.  The verb in the Greek translated as “take hold” is a not a gentle verb – taking hold is better translated as to grasp desperately.[i]  So we are to grasp desperately to the life that really is life. 

This is the phase of parenting where I find myself:  how do I teach my children what the “life that really is life” is?  In a world that very much feels like the passage from Amos, telling us that “life that really is life” is a life so comfortable you can set your goal as luxuriating in peace, or in a world that so values individualism that we are trained not to let our gaze linger on people like Lazarus or to even know their name for that matter, or in a world that seems to jump from one political controversy to the next, destabilizing our moral compass, how are we supposed to even know what the life that really is life is?

Award winning journalist Amy Frykholm, inspired by that simple phrase “the life that really is life,” traveled to a tiny city in southern Mexico, Fortín de las Flores, after reading Sonia Nazario’s book Enrique’s Journey.  The book details the story of a Honduran man trying to make his way into the United States by traveling on top of a freight train.  His story is not all that unique – the 20,000 residents of Fortín see people like him all the time.  What is unusual about Fortín is how they respond to these migrants.  Instead of responding with fear, or with self-protection, or even with a blind eye, the people of Fortín act as a place of mercy.  Actively making their way to the trains to deliver food, water, and supplies every day – food left over from their food trucks which are just barely making enough for their own families to survive, water poured into zipped baggies they can toss them to the tops of trains, and even sweatshirts or winter hats because they know that after the stop in Fortín, the migrants will face the brutal cold of a trip through mountains.  When journalist Frykholm asked them why they cared for these strangers, most of the residents just looked at her like she was asking a silly question.  A resident of Fortín who had lived in the United States understood her confusion.  He said, “‘The central value of this society is compartir,’ [the Spanish word for “sympathize”] …as he carried a bag of oranges toward a train that had briefly stopped not far from the hotel.  ‘Even a business is primarily a place from which to share.’”[ii] 

The wealth the rich man has in our gospel lesson is not bad in and of itself.  The wealthy man is not even an evil man – he does not actively do anything bad to people like Lazarus.  The danger in the wealthy man’s life is how he does not see,[iii] how he presumes his wealth is simply a blessing for him to enjoy from God.  Debie Thomas writes, “It has taken me a long time to recognize how insidious this notion of ‘blessing’ really is.  How contrary [the notion of blessing] is to Jesus’s teachings.  When I was growing up, no one ever told me that by locking human suffering out, I was locking myself in.  Locking myself into a life of superficiality, thin piety, and meaninglessness.  As our reading from [Paul’s letter to Timothy] puts it this week, the refusal to confront my own privilege, the refusal to bear the burdens of those who have less than me, is a refusal ‘to take hold of the life that really is life.’”[iv]

That is our invitation today – to desperately grasp on to the life that really is life.  Fortunately, scripture does not give us this hefty command like a parent sending out their grown child with one last bit of advice.  Paul wrote this letter not just to Timothy but to the community of faith.  Paul wrote this letter to the community of faith because Paul knew they could not grasp desperately to the life that really is life without some companions on the journey – without a village of people whose central value is compartir.  We gather with people every week because we need a community who can hold us accountable to our values and who can challenge us when loose track of what a life that really is life is.  Sometimes the community will do that by looking at us like we are asking a silly question; sometimes the community will do that by inviting us to be generous givers; and sometimes the community will do that by sitting us down to open up wisdom for us.  But mostly, the community will partner with us because each one of us is desperately trying to grasp onto that life that really is life too.  Together, we create our own little Fortín right here in Toano, witnessing with simplicity the life that really is life – together.  Amen.

[i] Stephanie Mar Smith, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Pres, 2010), 110.

[ii] Amy Frykholm, “Life That Really Is Life,” September 21, 2025, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3969-life-that-really-is-life on September 26, 2025

[iii] Charles B. Cousar, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Pres, 2010), 119.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “The Great Chasm,” September 22, 2019, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2374-the-great-chasm on September 26, 2025.

Sermon – Exodus 32.7-14, P19, YC, September 14, 2025

24 Wednesday Sep 2025

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This week Hickory Neck hosted a group from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Powatan.  The group has been touring historic churches, gleaning lessons from each church’s stories, and asked if they could come do the same with us.  I told Hickory Neck’s story – from a newly constructed country church, to the act of siding with the British and closing altogether after the Revolutionary Way, to being a school for generations of children, to being a hospital for physical healing, to being ransacked by militias in multiple wars – where even the pulpit was used as firewood, to finally hosting a worshiping community just over 100 years ago, to now, being situated on 12 times the amount of property we originally had, hosting three buildings and a vibrant community of faith.

As I fielded questions from the group, I reflected on how as I have prayed in those wooden pews, as I have brushed my hand over those bricks with initials carved in them, and as I have stepped over a tombstone every time I enter that historic building, I find myself wondering about the stories of countless souls who have graced that building.  I know the more recent stories – of children in window wells, and people crowded around the altar for seating, and even of decisions like the one to build a new chapel so we have room to grow.  But I wonder about the stories of those who first opened the church who awaited who might show up that first Sunday of business.  I wonder about the grief experienced by those who watched their worship space become something else – or for those kids who grew up to tell tales like “when I was young, that didn’t used to be a church…”  I wonder about those who, for over 60 years never imagined anything for Hickory Neck other than being a little family-sized church, to those who worried a new building would mean the loss of intimacy the historic church provided.

As I pondered those various voices, imagined the myriad emotions of almost three hundred years experienced on this property, contemplated how those histories impacted spiritual relationships with God, I could not help but recall another group of followers of God – the Hebrews we read about in our lesson from Exodus today.  Those folks had been on a long journey too.  Their ancestor Abraham had journeyed to a foreign land and been promised countless descendants.  After his own dramatic journey, his descendants ended up in Egypt to escape a time of famine.  The rescuing by his son Joseph evolved into slavery under a new pharaoh.  After deaths and suffering, a reluctant prophet, Moses was sent.  Then came plagues, a mass exodus, a chase that led to drowning of the enemy, and a long journey in the wilderness.  But despite centuries of God’s faithfulness, the people lose their hope again and cling to something tangible – an idol – to soothe their anxiety. 

Now the part of that story we get today is interesting – I mean, who doesn’t have questions about the idea of God changing God’s mind, of God being so enraged by the infidelity of God’s people that God would destroy them entirely, of Moses slyly arguing with God, reminding God of how appearances matter (Does God want the Egyptians to see God destroy the very people God liberated?), of how God’s action of rage would negate the promise God made to Abraham, of whose people the Hebrews are (with God and Moses sounding like two arguing parents – your people have sinned…I think you mean your people with whom you made a covenant!). 

But what is more interesting to me is the greater arc.  Reading Genesis and Exodus is like reading a soap opera.  Journeys and betrayals, covenants and falls from grace, destruction and rebuilding, promises made and promises broken.  In the greater arc of that saga is a truth:  God’s faithfulness.  Over and over and over again, God’s faithfulness wins the day.  Theologians have read this passage from Exodus, and become anxious about the implications of a God that can change God’s mind.  If God’s mind can change, does that somehow make what we know about God inconsistent?  Danish Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard addresses this very issue.  Kierkegaard describes God as, “You Changeless One … You who are changeless in love, who just for our own good do not let yourself change.”[i]  In other words, “To say that God can be changed is not to suggest that God’s love for the world can be changed, but simply to say that there is no part of the world, no matter how meaningless to us, that is not of importance to God.”[ii]

As I think about the chaos of these days – of the unchecked shootings of children, political activists, and everyday people doing everyday things; of the demonizing of anyone who does not think like we do; of the disregard for the dignity of other human beings – I can empathize with a sinful people who would make an idol to have some tangible sense of comfort.  But this week, as I thought about the soap opera of our ancestors in Genesis and Exodus, and as I imagined the varied journey of our ancestors at Hickory Neck, I found myself overwhelmed with the faithfulness of our God – of the Changeless One who is changeless in love.    

I do not know what part of the world’s chaos is tugging at your anxiety or your temptation to craft an idol – perhaps an idol of money, power, popularity, and fame.[iii]  Whatever that force that is tugging at you, pastor Catherine Young reminds us that the interaction between Moses and God today is an invitation to remember that, “We can converse – even argue – with God.  The irony-filled dialogue between Moses and God shows that God has a sense of humor and appreciates ours.  More than our piety, God wants our honesty and candor.  God calls us to talk, listen, wrestle with our emotions, and be honest about our problems.  Those direct interactions change us…and sometimes they even change the mind of God!”[iv]  What they do not change though is God’s changelessness – God’s changeless love for God’s people in ancient days, in American history, and in our own day.  You Changeless One … You who are changeless in love, who just for our own good do not let yourself change.  Amen.

[i] Søren Kierkegaard “The Changelessness of God,” found in the collection of Kierkegaard writings, The Moment and Late Writings, eds. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton University Press, 1998, p. 268.

[ii] Michael Fitzpatrick, “The Lord’s Mind was Changed,” September 4, 2022, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3442-the-lord-s-mind-was-changed on September 12, 2025.

[iii] Catherine E. Young, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Supplemental Essays (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 3.

[iv] Young, 5.

Sermon – Luke 14.25-33, P18, YC, September 7, 2025

10 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Having been born and raised in Georgia and North Carolina, saying living on Long Island was a culture shock would be an understatement.  But one of the things I came to love about living on Long Island was the directness of communication.  Now do not get me wrong, having been raised in the South, I know all too well that when your mom says, “You’re wearing that?” or your grandma says, “Don’t you want to wear lipstick?” or your friend says, “Well those new shoes are utilitarian,” they are not actually saying what they mean.  On Long Island things are much clearer.  Instead, you’ll be told, “Don’t wear that,” “Put on some lipstick; I’ll show you which one,” and “Those shoes are awful.”  The words always sting, but at least you know you what people think.

Today’s gospel has me convinced some of Jesus’ relatives were from Long Island.  In these short eight verses, Jesus says if we want to follow him, we will need to sell our possessions, carry our cross, and hate our parents, spouse, children, siblings, and even life itself.  I have to say, on this Kickoff Sunday, on the day we return to the fullness of Hickory Neck, and we feast and laugh and worship together, I could have used a little more southern-speak from Jesus today.  Jesus could have at least saved the hard sell for Stewardship season!

But as we start putting our calendars together for the fall, as our children sign up for the extracurricular activities, and as we think about what ministries we may want to try at Hickory Neck this fall, I suppose there is no time like the present to get real.  This is a season of hard choices.  I have talked to parents just this week about how to find a common date for the kids given all the scheduling challenges.  As we adults have mapped out our own calendars, we have realized there are things we can say yes to and things to which we have to say no.  In our own family, there are times when we have to bring in a third adult to help us juggle four people’s commitments.  This is a season of hard choices.  This is a season of conflicting priorities.

I do not actually think Jesus is being harsh in today’s gospel.  I know we sometimes get so used to the inclusive, loving, embracing God that we forget that following Jesus is not all rainbows and sunshine.  Jesus, like our beloved Long Islanders, is not harsh – just honest.  And Jesus is not saying there will be no health, healing, and wholeness; no justice, mercy, and grace; no forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  But Jesus is saying those things will cost us.  All those rainbows and sunshine we will receive come at the cost of redistributing wealth, of being faithful even when being faithful gets us ostracized from our social circles, of being intolerant of injustice, even if doing so risks our most valued relationships with others.

If we can agree that Jesus is just being honest, understanding why he is setting such a high standard can be helpful.  Starting with one of the trickier things Jesus says today may be best.  Jesus says in the final verse today, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  We all know that Jesus talks about money perhaps more than any other subject in scripture.  Jesus talks about money so much because Jesus knows the power money has over us.  Jesus tells us to give up our possessions, to stop worrying about what is mine because my obsession with owning, possessing, or claiming things as my own can make me think ownership is my exclusive, inviolable right.  Jesus knows having possessions can make me think all things are my own:  my money, my time, my comfortable lifestyle, my political or religious beliefs, my closest relationship, my independence.  Jesus knows when I get possessive, I cling to things that are not God, and create habits in myself leading me to smother, not love; to exploit, not steward; to hoard, not appreciate.[i]

Several years ago, on the podcast “On Being,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie retells an old Talmudic parable.  In the parable there is “a ship that is sailing, and there are many cabins.  And one of the people in the cabins on the lower floor decides to dig a hole in the floor of his cabin, and does so, and sure enough, the ship begins to sink.  And the other passengers suddenly discover what’s going on and see this guy with a hole in the floor.  And they say, ‘What are you doing?’ And he says, ‘Well, it’s my cabin.  I paid for it.’  And down goes the ship.”[ii]  What this parable and what Jesus are trying to do is help us see that possessions tempt us to live like the man in the cabin – to believe our ownership negates our relationship to others.  Our possessions can create an obsession with “me, me, me,” with a disregard for the “we” to which we belong as followers of Christ.

Jesus goes on to say in verse 27, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Part of Jesus’ cross is a redefining of the “we,” we were just talking about.  After some time being a member here at Hickory Neck, most of us start to move from third person to the second person language.  Instead of saying, Hickory Neck is committed to faith formation and serving neighbor, we start to say, “We are committed to faith formation and serving neighbor.”  The sense of belonging we find here takes us out of “me and my” language and “they and them” language and puts us into “us and we” language.  So, when Jesus talks about carrying our cross as Jesus invites today, he is not just talking about personal sacrifice.  Jesus is also asking, to whom and for whom we are responsible.  Jesus is widening the circle of “my people,” to consider who the people are we will love, welcome, serve, and for which we would make sacrifices.  Jesus is asking us to take on the task of widening our “we” to be broader and riskier than we have previously embraced.  By taking up our cross, we are saying the whole ship, not just my cabin on the ship, but the whole ship has an irrefutable claim on my life.[iii]

Jesus’ brutal honesty though comes right at the beginning, in verse 26.  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Hate is a strong word – a word we have banned in our home, especially when talking about other family members.  I will not be going home today and telling our children they can pick up that word again.  But I do think Jesus uses a powerful word because the power of discipleship will involve taking on some powerful experiences.  We will need to be willing to hate some things about this life.  We will need to ask which customs, beliefs, or traditions we have inherited we need to renounce to follow Jesus.  We will need to look at what baggage we need to abandon, what ties we must loosen, what relationships we must subordinate.  What scholar Debie Thomas says is “Jesus spoke his hard words about ‘hating’ one’s family in a cultural context where the extended family was the source of a person’s security and stability.  Jewish families in first century Palestine were self-sustaining economic units.  No one in their right mind would leave such a unit behind in order to follow a homeless, controversial preacher into some uncertain future.”  What Thomas asks us to consider is what sources of modern-day security and stability we trust more than we trust God.[iv] 

So, where do we find some Good News in all this sobering honesty?  Why would we do all this hard stuff?  We do all the hard stuff of discipleship because of the rainbows and sunshine.  We give up a sense of possession, we take on crosses, and we renounce things we have loved because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of Hickory Neck:  we have experienced life-altering community here; we have experienced love, joy, and blessing we did not know we needed here; we have experienced purpose, meaning, and value here.  We also take on Jesus’ intense notion of discipleship because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of the world around us:  we have experienced the profundity of loving our neighbor as ourselves; we have experienced the blessing of seeing God in someone we thought unworthy of our love; we have experienced being transformed by walking right out of our comfort zones into life-giving discomfort zones.  We accept the invitation of illogical discipleship because of the more cosmic rainbows and sunshine of faith:  of being known and accepted by a loving, living God; of the promise of forgiveness of our most heinous sins; of the reality of eternal life made possible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Once we start thinking about the rewards of the life of discipleship, the cost seems surmountable.  Once we look at the depth of Christ’s rainbows and sunshine, letting go of possessions, taking up crosses, and hating the stuff of life that only brings death seems much less scary.  Once we realize we may not be able to do whatever we want to in our cabin, we realize we have a ship full of people ready to hold our hands as we take on the burden of discipleship together – because the burden is easy and the yoke is light.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “What It Will Cost You,” Journey with Jesus, September 1, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2346 on September 5, 2025.

[ii] Amichai Lau-Lavee, “First Aid for Spiritual Seekers,” On Being with Krista Tippet, July 13, 2017, as found at https://onbeing.org/programs/amichai-lau-lavie-first-aid-for-spiritual-seekers/ on September 5, 2025.

[iii] Thomas.

[iv] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 14.1, 7-14, P17, YC, August 31, 2025

03 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Tables are a funny thing.  Tables are where families gather and catch up about how their day was.  Tables are where a young adult eats their first solo meal on the plate they got at the local thrift store and where a much older adult gets lost in thought looking at the China pattern their grandmother chose as a new bride.  Tables are where friends gather in laughter and storytelling, and where formal introductions are made over so many forks you do not know which one to choose.  Tables are where the cool kids, the nerds, or the jocks sit in the cafeteria, and where students ask the terrifying question, “Is this seat free?” 

Tables were no less meaningful in Jesus’ day.  Much of Jesus’ ministry and the stories we know from Jesus happened around tables.  As scholar Debie Thomas describes, “Though the Gospels record [Jesus] receiving and accepting many dinner invitations during the years of his ministry, those mealtime scenes usually ended in drama, provocation, or scandal.  Once, a woman of dubious reputation caressed his feet under the table.  Sometimes he interrupted a meal to heal sick people on the Sabbath.  Often, he ate with dirty hands, shared a table with riff-raff, and drank more than his enemies considered respectable.  Worst of all — he said things.  Blunt, embarrassing things that no one cared to hear.”[i]

Today’s gospel includes one of those same uncomfortable encounters at a table.  Jesus has been invited to dinner by the one of the leaders of the Pharisees – an honor, to be sure.  But after watching the other guests jockey for the seats of prestige – those seats closest to the host – Jesus begins to tell a parable – or at least, Luke’s gospel says Jesus tells a parable.  What Jesus says sounds more like advice – and his advice, on first glance, sounds oddly manipulative.    “When you go to a wedding sit at the lowest-honor seating so that you can be honored when the host insists you move up to the prestigious seat.”  Somehow humbling yourself will let you be exalted, but I’m not entirely sure how authentic one’s humility is if they are being humble just to be exalted. 

So, then what is going here?  Well, Luke’s labeling this as a parable is helpful.  Though Jesus does not tell a narrative or story, like we know most parables present, we know by the use of the word “parable” Jesus is speaking directly about something with a deeper level of meaning.[ii]  Jesus is not giving social advancement advice.  He is calling into question the entire social order and contrasting that social order with the kingdom of God.  As scholar David Lose would argue, in this parabolic advice, Jesus is calling all social orders into question, saying that “…these things are not of God.  Jesus proclaims here and throughout the gospel that in the kingdom of God there are no pecking orders.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  And while that sounds at first blush like it ought to be good news, it throws us into radical dependence on God’s grace and God’s grace alone.  We can’t stand, that is, on our accomplishments, or our wealth, or positive attributes, or good looks, or strengths, or IQ, or our movement up or down the reigning pecking order.  There is, suddenly, nothing we can do to establish ourselves before God and the world except rely upon God’s desire to be in relationship with us and with all people.  Which means that we have no claim on God; rather, we have been claimed by God and invited to love others as we’ve been loved.”[iii]

I think that realization of the deeper level of what Jesus is saying is why what Jesus says next is even more unnerving.  Jesus says the next time you have a meal, not to invite your friends or your family or even your rich neighbor.  You are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  In other words, our tables are meant to be a welcome space to outsiders. 

Dan Clendenin tells the story of family wedding.  When the young couple got married, “…they wanted to invite their entire church, but budgetary constraints prohibited that.  Instead, after the service they had the local police block off the main street in downtown Waco, Texas.  Guests danced in the streets and enjoyed refreshments from a Baskins Robbins ice cream cart.  The gazebo in the concrete park next to the theatre sheltered the wedding cake.  …[The groom] had made friends with a number of homeless men who lived under a bridge.  As a pastor [he] would employ these men for odd jobs at his church.  ‘Coyote,’ the leader of his homeless friends, came to the wedding in his usual attire of jeans with holes in the knees, a scraggly beard, and unwashed hair.  He organized his friends to clean up the streets after the wedding, then sat on the curb with a big smile and smoked a cigar.  Another guest was [the bride’s] next door African-American neighbor.  The little girl loved to spend time with [the bride], and really wanted to come to her wedding.  So the mother, the daughter, and the grandfather all came.  The 70 year-old grandfather was soon the center of attraction as he went out on the street and danced to the music.  Soon the college girls were vying to dance with him.  As passersby strolled by and inquired about what was happening, they too were invited to the wedding.  There were guests dressed in their nicest clothes alongside guests who wouldn’t feel at home at a formal occasion.  However they dressed, on this occasion every person felt welcomed as an honored guest, just as God himself welcomes us to himself, and invites us to welcome each other.”[iv]

This year, Hickory Neck is planning to launch a third worship service.  The dream for that service centers around a table too.  The guest list does not really include any of you here (no offense!).  We are hoping to create place settings for those who do not have a church home.  We do not expect to invite people who are friends, family, or even rich neighbors – though we certainly would not turn them away.  And although all our services gather around tables to share the Eucharistic meal, this service will literally be conducted around a dinner table – a table that feeds us physically but also spiritually.  Where all sorts of folks can gather, can share in community, can learn about this radically good news of Jesus’ love, and can shape disciples who invite the wideness of God’s kingdom.  Like all experiments, I am not sure how the experiment will go.  But today’s text reminds me of why we want to center that space around tables.

Of course, endorsing this new ministry doesn’t get us off the hook.  We do not leave Jesus’ parable (or parabolic teachings) today with a promise of a ministry that absolves our call to love like God loves.  Although Hickory Neck is hoping to model a communal way to live into the gospel, Jesus still offers us a personal invitation to think about our own tables this week.  “Jesus asks us to believe that our behavior at the table matters — because [our behavior at the table] does [matter].  Where we sit speaks volumes, and the people whom we choose to welcome reveals the stuff of our souls.  This is God’s world we live in; nothing here is ordinary.  In this realm, the strangers at our doorstep are the angels.”[v]  Our work this week is not quick-fix, one-time work.  Our work is the on-going work of welcome, love, reverence, and humility.  We do that work one table at a time – and all with God’s help.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Table Manners,” August 21, 2016, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/1070-table-manners on August 29, 2025.

[ii] Luke Timothy Johnson,The Gospel of Luke:  Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 3 (Collegeville, MN:  The Litrugical Press, 1991), 224.

[iii] David Lose, “More Than Good Advice [or] Why Jesus Gets Killed, Pt. 2,” August 22, 2010 as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/more-than-good-advice-or-why-jesus-gets-killed-pt-2 on August 29, 2025.

[iv] Daniel B. Clendenin, “Jesus Does Dinner:  Food for Thought for Guests and Hosts,” September 7, 2007, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3637-20070827JJ on August 29, 2025.

[v] Thomas.

Sermon – Genesis 15.1-6, Hebrews 11.1-3, 8-16, Luke 12.32-40, P14, YC, August 10, 2025

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

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We have been in a season of Vacation Bible School.  As I watched our kids learning songs at Vacation Bible School this week, I found myself reminiscing about all the songs I learned as a kid at VBS – Deep and Wide, Jesus Loves Me, and, probably the most fun and robust, Father Abraham, complete with full-body motions and increasing speed.  Watching the joy of our children, and experiencing my own nostalgia for that innocent time of my life left me so grateful for our continued ministry with the children of our community.

Unfortunately, thinking about Father Abraham and his many sons and the admonishment “Let’s just praise the Lord,” collided with our lectionary readings this week.  Though we talk about God’s abundance with our children, our adult selves know all too well the rest of the story – both for Abraham and for ourselves.  Our lesson from Genesis sets the stage.  Abraham is still Abram at this point, and Abram, faithful follower of God who has been promised bountiful descendants is sitting empty handed with Sarai – who is far too old to be bearing children anyway.  Abram laments with God about his hopelessness that the promised abundance will ever come. 

Later we hear from the letter to the Hebrews a recounting of Abraham’s story as an example of what faithfulness means.  We are reminded that not only do Abraham and Sarah face infertility into old age, Abraham has had to leave everything familiar to him, journey to a place he does not even know, living in tents in a foreign land.  In fact, the letter to the Hebrews describes Abraham as “one as good as dead” – as in, given Abraham’s age, and the length of infertility in his marriage, and the data-based expectation that he would have no children – Abraham is as good as dead because there will be no one to keep his name alive.  Barren was not just the state of Abraham and Sarah – barren would have been a reasonable state of their faith in God.

There are times these days that I relate much more to the barrenness of Abraham and Sarah than to the jubilant songs about praising the Lord.  As I talk to workers whose employment is insecure, being reduced, or eliminated altogether, I hear echoes of Abraham’s complaints about barrenness to God.  As I listen to people of color express their vulnerability in these volatile times, I feel a sense of barrenness in our country.  As I hear stories of anxiety from those needing medical coverage or our nonprofits whose funding cuts threaten the very lives of their clients, I hear the barrenness of those who seem like “one as good as dead.” 

So where do we find hope in the bleakness of the barrenness of life?  How do we join the songs of our children, reminding us to “just praise the Lord”?  Some of that hope comes from scripture today too.  In Luke’s gospel, right at the very beginning, and so fast we might miss his words, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom… Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  Of course, we know that truth – God promises Abraham abundance over and over again.  The community of the Hebrews celebrated the abundance of Abraham’s many sons when their own faith waivered.  And Jesus tells his followers the same, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” 

Now, I know words are easy to say, but sometimes hard to believe – even assurances from Jesus about God’s good pleasure of abundance for us.  So, today we are going to do something totally different and try a little exercise from pastor and theologian David Lose.  When you came in today you received a blank notecard.  I want you to take that out and write on one side these words:  God wants to give you all good things.  Got it? 

Now, I want you to turn the card over and write down one fear or worry or concern you would be willing to share – not aloud, and not with your name attached.  Just one fear, worry, or concern you are carrying right now.  As you are thinking about that and writing that fear, worry, or concern down, I will explain what we are going to do with your notecard:  when we get to the offering, the ushers will pass both the offering plates and a basket for your cards.  When you leave today, we will take those baskets, mix up the cards, and invite you to take out a random one.  Your homework for this “week ahead is simply to pray for whomever wrote down the concern on the card you [receive] on the way out.  You don’t need to know who it is, just that it’s a fellow member of the body of Christ who has this concern.  As you are praying for that person, you [will] also know that someone is praying for you.”

Do you have your fear, worry, or concern written down?  Hang on to your card until the offering.  [The hope today through this small exercise is that] you [will] realize that you are not alone.  We all have the promise that God wants to give us the kingdom; we all have trouble remembering and acting on that promise; [and] we all are praying for and supporting each other.”[i]  This is our tangible work this week – to be a community in prayer for one another, working through our resistance to God’s promise to give us the kingdom, and seeing the abundance that will allow us to “just praise the Lord.”  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Dear Working Preacher:  The Heart of the Matter,” August 5, 2013, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-heart-of-the-matter on August 7, 2025.