Because They Feared God

Exodus 1:8-2:10

August 23, 2026

 

There is a key moment in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey has been granted his wish to have never been born. He doesn’t understand the insight that he’s been given at first, and along with his guardian angel, Clarence, he goes into his hometown of Bedford Falls and is scared and angry at the changes that he sees. Goerge and Clarence go to what should have been a nice, clean housing development that the Bailey Building and Loan has worked to build. Instead, he finds a cemetery, and in the cemetery, he finds the gravestone of his younger brother Harry.

George argues with Clarence that Harry Bailey is still alive. Harry Bailey is a war hero and the whole town is gearing up for a huge celebration for his homecoming and for the honor he received. Harry Bailey saved a whole transport ship of men from being killed when their ship came under fire. But Clarence tells George that on that cold winter’s day so long ago, Harry died when he fell through the ice on a frozen pond and drowned. And that whole transport ship of soldiers? They all died because Harry wasn’t there to save them because George wasn’t there to save Harry.

Even before Clarence tells George that it is strange how one person’s life touches so many others, those of us watching the scene play out recognize that truth. George’s life has touched so many others. George saved his little brother Harry from drowning when they were kids. Harry grew up and saved a transport of soldiers. Who knows if any of these soldiers when on to save other people? The point is that without George in the world, living in his life, the consequences are greater and more widespread than he could imagine.

I think we see this truth in scripture as well. When we talk about Moses being called to liberate the Israelites from enslavement in Egypt, we have to go back in time and consider the women who ensured that Moses could be born so that he could be called to liberate his people from Egypt. Moses’ story does not begin with a burning bush, nor does it begin with a basket on the Nile. Moses’ story begins with two women named Shiphrah and Puah.

First, it is remarkable that we know their names. Women often go unnamed in scripture, so to know the names of these midwives is a gift. Shiphrah and Puah were two midwives to the Hebrew women and Pharaoh commanded their presence. There is some debate as to whether these two women were Egyptians who midwifed the Hebrew women or whether they were Israelites. Dr. Wilda Gafney analyzes the etymology of their names and concludes that they are Israelites. Because of her scholarship, I am going to stick with the assumption that Puah and Shiphrah are Israelites as well.

So, these two midwives, who were part of the enslaved people under Egypt’s thumb, were ordered to come before Pharaoh. Pharoah gives them a terrible directive. He is terrified of the Israelites and their growing numbers, and he wants to stop their increase. From the very beginning of these verses we know that trouble is coming. This Pharoah is new to the throne, and what’s worse is that he does not know Joseph. The word know is better interpreted as remember. Generations have passed since Jospeh was alive, but the Pharoah should know that history. But he did not know or remember Joseph, and all that Joseph did to save the Egyptians from starvation during famine, or of Joseph’s close ties to the previous pharaoh. This new guy did not remember or know any of that, or maybe he didn’t care. But what he does know is that Israelites are many in number, and he does not like that at all. So, he decides to deal with what one scholar called, “the Hebrew problem.”

He directs these two women, who were responsible for bringing life into the world, instead to act to end life before it begins.

“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.”

Surely these two women were horrified by the decree Pharoah gave them. Gafney envisions that there were probably many more midwives than just Puah and Shiphrah, and that perhaps these two women were the heads of a midwifery association of sorts. She imagines that they go back and call a meeting and tell the other midwives what Pharoah has directed them to do, and then they come up with a plan to thwart this evil order. And it would seem that their plan was to continue on as usual. We won’t do anything. We’ll just let the babies be born as they are born until Pharoah notices.

Pharaoh notices. I suspect that when the king sent them out to do his dirty work, he never thought he would have to deal with these midwives again. But the Israelites were still multiplying in number and his Hebrew problem was not going away. So, he summoned the two women once more. They must have had their response rehearsed because at least from what we read in the text there is no hesitation in their reply. When Pharoah asks,

“Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?”

Shiphrah and Puah reply, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

We can’t stop the baby boys from living, Pharoah. These women are so strong that they give birth before we can even get to them to help, to do our job. Moses leads his people out of enslavement in Egypt because Puah and Shiphrah ensure that no baby boys will be killed on their watch. Pharoah will have to find another way. And sadly he does. If killing the baby boys as they’re being born doesn’t work, then they must be killed afterward. He then orders that the Hebrew baby boys should be thrown in the Nile.

We don’t know if Puah and Shiphrah or another midwife was present at Moses’ birth, but we know that his mother looked at him and saw that he was a fine boy. In Hebrew these words are the same as God looking at his creation in Genesis and seeing that it was good. This child is part of God’s creation and he is good. But because he was a baby boy, he was supposed to be thrown into the Nile, yet Moses’ mother is not going to destroy God’s good creation. She is not going to be the instrument of her child’s death. She hides her son for three months. But after three months, a baby gets much harder to hide. So she takes a new action. She covers a basket in bitumen and pitch, the same materials that Noah used to waterproof the ark. In fact, the Hebrew word for basket in these verses is the same word used for the ark. Basket, ark, ark, basket. Just as the ark ensured that life would continue even in a catastrophic flood, so Moses’ mother ensures that life will continue in spite of Pharoah’s deadly orders.

Moses’ mother places her baby boy in this tiny ark and sets him in the reeds on the edge of the Nile. In this way, she obeys Pharoah, thwarting his wicked plan in a way he probably could not have imagined. But this did not mean that Moses was safe. His mother knew she was taking a great risk in doing this. She knew that her son may still not survive. Moses’ older sister, Miriam, is told to watch from a distance and see what happens.

It was Miriam who saw Pharoah’s own daughter find the little ark. It was Miriam who watched as Pharoah’s daughter opened the basket and discovered the baby boy. Pharoah’s daughter knew immediately that this was a Hebrew baby, and she must have known what was supposed to happen. But she took pity on the baby. She felt compassion for the baby. Even being a member of Pharoah’s household could not make her do her father’s vile deed. She did not throw this baby out into the river to his death. She saved him. Miriam steps out of her watching place and tells Pharoah’s daughter that she can find a nurse for the baby. When the other woman agreed, Miriam goes and brings Moses’ mother to her. This is strange and wonderful twist because not only did Moses’ mother save her child, but she is also given her baby back to nurse and is paid for doing it. When the boy is old enough to leave his mother, she brings him back to Pharoah’s daughter to raise as her own son. Moses’ mother ensured that her son would live, and the compassion that Pharoah’s daughter felt for the baby ensured that he would be raised in the household of the king.

Moses brought his people out of slavery because these women made certain that Moses could be born at all. Why did they do this? The answer for Puah and Shiphrah is stated clearly. They feared God. They feared God far more than they feared Pharoah. And other women? Moses’ mother saw the goodness of God’s creation in her baby boy, and maybe she feared harming that creation, that which is good. Even more, she was a mother, and she loved her child. She could not do what Pharoah commanded because she loved her child. Miriam, still a girl, must have loved her mother and her brother enough to stand guard, to stand watch, to act quickly and shrewdly when she saw Pharoah’s daughter discover the ark where her brother lay. And Pharoah’s daughter proved that compassion and kindness can win out over evil, even if that evil lives close to home.

Because they feared God. I’ll be honest, I struggle with the whole fear God aspect. I was brought up both to fear God who could annihilate me and to see God as a loving shepherd who loves me. It got confusing. But while I don’t spend most days afraid that God will strike me down or that God’s enormous foot will come down from the heavens and stomp me out of existence, it gives me pause to think of meeting God face-to-face one day and being asked hard questions. I do fear meeting God and being asked, “Why?” Why did I see injustice and not speak up? Why did I see someone hurting and pull back my hand instead of reaching out? Why did I stumble so many times while I was trying to follow Jesus, trying to live the good news, trying to live as though the kingdom of God is already here? Why did I live in fear?

Because they feared God. These women feared God. They respected God. They loved God. They feared God more than they feared Pharoah, and it must have been terrifying to defy Pharoah. But they did it anyway. And that’s the point. God calls us to act with courage, to live boldly, in spite of our fears. And that is what we must do because we fear God more than we fear those who deal in death. And we are not alone. God is mentioned very little in these verses. But God is there, with them, and God is here. With us. With us. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Great Is Your Faith

Matthew 15:21-28

August 16, 2026

 

            “Across the world, in every culture, in every time, in every imaginable crisis, mums have gone looking for their children.”

            This is a quote from Dr. Sarita Robinson, a United Kingdom survival psychologist, and it is said in the new limited series, Pompeii: Out of Time. This series is currently streaming, and it is brilliant. It is a retelling, a reimagining, and a reconstruction of what happened on that terrible day in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum and affected other communities along the Bay of Naples. Tapping into the sciences of volcanology, archaeology, classics, and psychology, the series seeks to recreate what would have happened on Pompeii’s last day.

            One of the scientists that was consulted for the series was Dr. Robinson, and she says these words about mothers in relation to the story of a young boy, Avi, who it is believed, based on archaeological evidence, to have escaped from the city. Tom Hiddleston, the show’s host, producer, and driving force, comments to Dr. Robinson that Avi must have faced the terror of that day alone. But Dr. Robinson says that he may not have been alone, at least not the whole time, and then she says these words.

            “Across the world, in every culture, in every time, in every imaginable crisis, mums have gone looking for their children.”

            Her point was that even in the midst of a horrific crisis, such as a volcano erupting, a mother will not stop looking for her child. And even though the woman in our story from Matthew’s gospel is not caught up in a natural disaster, her child, her daughter is facing another kind of disaster, another kind of crisis. She is being tormented by a demon.

            Thinking about what this survival psychologist said about moms (and dads too) made me want to begin this sermon by first asking questions of the woman we encounter in our story rather than turning our questions on Jesus. In the past, I have done the opposite. I’ve focused solely on what Jesus says and does, because this is a story where his response to someone does not resonate or jive with the Jesus that we think we know. This is one of those hard stories about Jesus which requires us to ask hard questions of him, but first I want to know about this woman.  

            In Mark’s gospel, the other gospel where we read this account, she is a Syrophoenician woman. But in Matthew’s gospel, she is referred to as a Canaanite. The Canaanites were not a nation per se, but groups of people living in a particular region. Even though they were not a nation state, Canaanites were considered enemies of Israel from the earliest days of Israel’s existence. When this woman approached Jesus, that ancient enmity and all that it implies would not have been lost on the woman, on the disciples, or on Jesus. She is an Other. Perhaps she is the most Other of the many Others that Jesus encounters. She is an Other because of her culture. She is an Other because of her gender. She is an Other because of the circumstances of her birth. She is an Other. I grew up in the last years of the Cold War, and if I had been called upon to describe someone who was considered a complete Other to my life, my country, my way of thinking and living, I would have described a Russian. But every generation has its Others, so replace the word Canaanite with any person who might be an Other in your world, and you get the picture. But this woman, this Other, clearly recognizes Jesus for who he is, and she does not hesitate to approach him. Approach is too mild. She shouts at him. She yells at him, trying to get his attention. But notice that she uses the language of worship and reverence,

            “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

            Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David. I don’t think this is just sweet talk on the woman’s part. She recognizes Jesus and she recognizes that he is not just another guy who might have the ability to help some folks. She sees him and she recognizes something in him. But Jesus ignores her. If she was trying to butter him up, it didn’t work. He ignores her. She could shout till the heavens opened, but he will not acknowledge her.

Another person might have given up at this point. Another person might have walked away, cowed and intimidated at being ignored and rejected. But not this woman. She is undeterred. If Jesus thinks he will ignore her into submission, into leaving him alone, he needs to think again. The scripture passage makes it seem as though this all happens quickly, but in my mind I imagine that she continues to shout and follow and shout some more. She shouts so much and so long that the disciples can’t take it anymore. She is getting on their last collective nerve, so they ask him to send her away. Please Jesus, send her away, so she’ll stop shouting at us. Just make her stop.

But Jesus won’t be swayed, and in response to his disciples’ plea, he says something that would have devasted me if I had been in her place– it devastates me to read it now at a relatively safe and comfortable distance – he says that he has only come for the lost sheep of Israel. And though it is not said, it is implied that this woman is not one of those lost sheep. But even this does not put her off. This woman persists. She does not turn away. Instead she kneels before him, again in a posture of worship and reverence, and utters only three words,

“Lord, help me.”

            And when Jesus refuses even that simple request, telling her that it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs, she turns the table metaphor on him, saying,

            “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

            So, who was this woman? She was a Canaanite. She was an enemy. She was an Other. To so many people she would have been a nobody, without status, without power. But she would not be consigned to nobody status because she recognized Jesus and saw that there was something in him, something about him, that could help her daughter. But who was she? We will never know her specifics, but we do know one essential detail about her. She was a mother.

She was a mother. She was a mother with a daughter who was hurting and tormented. She was a mother, and her child needed help, and she was clearly prepared to endure whatever it took to get the help her daughter needed. She was a mother. And across the world, in every culture, in every time, in every imaginable crisis, mothers, and fathers, and parents of all kinds, will go looking for their child, and they will do whatever they must to get the help their child needs. They will go to whatever lengths it takes to find healing for their child, to protect their child, to defend their child. This woman was a mother, and Jesus could insult her if that’s what it took because she knew he could heal her daughter.

            In all of the ways that this woman is a stranger, a foreigner, an outsider and an Other, she is also universal. She is a mother with a sick child. She is the mother who demands answers and fights for justice for her child. She is the mother who will put her child in a boat because the sea has become safer than the land. She is the mother who will not stop asking, pleading, persisting, and enduring if that will get her child the help she needs. This foreign woman, this enemy woman is not so foreign after all. She is every one of us who loves someone so much, that we will do whatever it takes to get help for the one we love. She is a mother.

            Now, what about Jesus?

            I will not insult your intelligence or mine by trying to soften or excuse away what he says in this story. He insults this woman. There is no getting around it. Yes, it was a different time, and yes, we are dealing with translations, and yes, in the original Aramaic, maybe what he said would have a different meaning or carried a different connotation. But we have to deal with what is before us, and what is before is a Jesus who ignores this woman, who states categorically that he is only there for the lost sheep of Israel, and who then compares her request for her daughter to be healed to a dog getting the food that should have been given to the children.

            What really makes this so strange and difficult is that in the verses preceding these, Jesus tells a group of Pharisees who complain about Jesus’ disciples not following tradition and washing their hands before they eat, that it is not what comes into us that defiles us but what goes out of us, what comes out of our hearts and minds. And then he and the disciples leave there and go into Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon are gentile regions. If anything, Jesus and the disciples are now the Others and the foreigners and the strangers. So, he tells the Pharisees that what comes out of our hearts is what really defiles, and then he says terrible things to a mother with a sick daughter. And he preaches about the lost sheep of Israel in gentile land. None of it seems to make any sense.

            In the past when I have preached on this passage or its parallel in Mark, I have reached the conclusion that what is happening in this story is that Jesus needs to learn. Jesus is fully human which means that he is not immune to the biases and prejudices that we all experience. So, in this story, we see Jesus learning. I still believe that is true. I still think that this is a prime example of Jesus learning and growing and maturing into his ministry and into himself.

            But I think what Jesus learns is much more than what I have understood in the past. I don’t think that this is just Jesus learning when he is wrong, although that is part of it. I think that this is Jesus learning that God lives in people we don’t expect. God dwells in people we don’t like. God stares back at us from the eyes of people we consider Other.

            I think, I believe, that Jesus finally looks into the eyes of this woman and sees not just a woman of Canaan or an enemy or an Other, but he sees God. He sees every mother who is desperate for her child. He sees every father who will plead for the life of his loved one. After all, this is the Jesus who tells the story about a shepherd who will leave 99 sheep to go looking for the one that is lost. This is the Jesus who tells the story of a father who will not stop scanning the horizon looking for his lost son.

            This is the Jesus who makes a point of eating with everyone that good society rejects. Which is what makes this woman’s response about even the dogs eating crumbs from the master’s table so profound. Because this is the Jesus who intentionally and frequently opens up the table to the Others in this world. Jesus is the one who teaches us about making room at the table for all. This woman puts that back on him by asking that she be welcomed at the table too.

            If you are going to make the table open to all, then am I not included in that all? Do I not have a share in your good news? Maybe that is the biggest lesson of this story. Jesus learns and understands more completely that if the good news of the kingdom of God is really good news, then it is good news for everyone. It is not just good news for some, but for all. If it is really good news then it cannot be contained or limited. It is for everyone – for you, for me, and for this mother and her child. If the good news is truly good news, then it is good news for all. So, yes, this woman’s faith was great. Jesus saw that great faith in her and he learned from it. If the good news is good news, than it is good news for everyone. Jesus learned and understood this in a new way through this woman. May we do the same. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Community Spirit -- The Day of Pentecost

May 24, 2026

Acts 2:1-21

 

            “We thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous Spirit.”

            Many years ago, a moderator of another presbytery was renowned for the rich and sometimes unusual language he used in his prayers. He did not use language as a way to impress or to show off to the people praying with him. His prayers were sincere and heartfelt. But whenever he would lead us in prayer, I would be on the edge of my seat because I knew his prayer would not only be powerful but beautiful and unique too.

            I don’t remember what else we talked about at this particular meeting of the presbytery, but I do remember that the moderator closed the meeting with a prayer that began, “We thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous Spirit.”

            We thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous Spirit. I have thanked God for the gift of the Holy Spirit countless times, and I have referred to the Spirit in as many reverent ways as I could possibly think of: powerful, enlivening, emboldening. But until that prayer I had never considered describing the Spirit as fabulous.

            Fabulous is a fabulous word. But I know that it is often used in less weighty contexts, such as, “How does this dress look on me? It’s fabulous!” Or “Oh my gosh, your new kitchen looks fabulous!” We toured our son and daughter-in-law’s newly renovated house the other day, and I think I may have used fabulous more than once. If you want to sound a little Hollywood, a little dramatic throw in the word “fabulous.” But that’s why this moderator’s decision to use the word  fabulous to describe the Holy Spirit seemed so wild, so radical. It’s not a word that I would have applied to the Spirit.

            But what is the etymology of fabulous? While fabulous is a synonym for marvelous and incredible, it is linked, language-wise, to fabled. Something that is fabulous is fabled. It is legendary. Something that is fabulous is so extraordinary that it is found only in the stuff of myth or it is almost impossible to believe. Does this mean that the moderator who prayed that prayer believed that the Holy Spirit isn’t real? No. Nor am I trying to imply that the Holy Spirit is only myth or legend. But it is extraordinary.

The Spirit brings about extraordinary events. The Spirit effects extraordinary change.  But let’s be honest, if we were to hear the story of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, in any other context than scripture, without any reference to the holy or sacred or divine, what would we think? We might be incredulous at the events described, because the story of Pentecost, as is the story of the Resurrection, is an extraordinary story. This wild wind blows through a group of people gathered in prayer. It doesn’t just swirl around the outside of the house, it fills the house where the disciples are sitting, praying, eating, sleeping, waiting. But the wind is just the beginning. After the wind fills the house, divided tongues of flame appear above these peoples’ heads. Can you imagine what that must have looked like? Can we even begin to understand what the disciples were feeling and thinking when they realized that tongues of fire were dancing above their heads?

But this is not the end of the strangeness, the seemingly impossible. The other folks witnessing these strange, extraordinary events probably could not believe what they were seeing, but then they must have wondered if they could grasp what they were hearing. Each of these men began to speak in the languages of every person represented in that large diverse crowd. If someone was from Medes, that person heard the Spirit in his or her own language. If  folks were gathered from Mesopotamia or Carthage or Cappadocia, each person heard and understood the words of the disciples in their own language. And the people gathered knew that these disciples were from Galilee. They recognized that these were common people. There was no way they had been taught to speak in any language other than Aramaic, a little Latin, or maybe Greek. But the result of this strange wind and the even stranger dancing flames above their heads was that they could speak in the languages of every person gathered in that place. Whatever was happening was beyond anything these people had seen, heard, or experienced. And it makes me think that if the word fabulous stems from fabled, then this was a fabulous Spirit indeed.

            But if the story of Pentecost was merely the stuff of legend or fairy talks, then we might walk away from it thinking, "That was cool. Hope they make a movie version." But we do believe that this story of the Spirit’s descent is true. Why? Because the consequences of the coming of the Spirit are also extraordinary. The disciples are transformed into men of courage and strength that they did not exhibit before. The Peter who stands in our story and speaks to the crowds is not the Peter who impulsively tried to walk on water as Jesus did, only to be distracted by waves and wind. The Peter who preaches this powerful, persuasive sermon that opened hearts and minds is not the Peter who told Jesus to wash not just his feet but his whole body. This is not the Peter who swore he would never deny Jesus, then denied him three times as Jesus waited to be crucified. This is a transformed Peter.

They are all transformed. They all find their voice, their courage, their call with the coming of the Spirit. And their transformation leads to others being transformed as well. And it is no secret that the gospel spreads like wildfire. Those burning rings of fire above the heads of the gathered disciples, that wild wind that filled the upper room, were signs that the Holy Spirit, the wondrous, marvelous, astonishing, fabulous Spirit, was set loose in the world, and nothing, nothing would ever be the same.

But something that we don’t often realize in our celebrations this day is that the events of Pentecost, the powerful descent of the Holy Spirit, that we read about in Acts does not stop with the end of our chosen verses. That day continues through the end of chapter 2. Peter continues to preach. Yes, some thought they were drunk or just off in general. But others continued to listen. Others continued to hear, and they believed. And when they believed, something even more powerful happened. They began to live as they believed. Not only were they baptized, but they also threw themselves into becoming a community. That’s where the Spirit led them. The last verses of this chapter reveal that the disciples and the new believers lived as one community, as one family of faith. They sold their possessions and put the money into a common pool. They made sure that everyone was taken care of, that everyone had what they needed. They prayed together. They praised together. They ate together. They worked together. They built their new life together.  

The profound gift of this fabulous Spirit was community, and that community was built on people hearing the good news in their own language. People sometimes preach the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost as the reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. If you remember that story, all the people spoke one language and they used their ability to communicate not as a way to live together harmoniously, but as a way to become more like God than God. They wanted to build a tower that would elevate them to the same height as God. So they were given different languages and scattered across the world.

Yet the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost does not reverse that. When the Spirit comes, it does not bring about one language again. When the Spirit comes all the languages are still there, but no one is excluded because of their language. They could all hear the good news in their language. Language is no longer a barrier. Language does not provide the means to exclude but to include. In fact language opens the doors to a new community and a new community spirit. The Spirit provides a bridge between all these different languages, between all these different people. The differences in language and culture and custom are still there, but they are honored and recognized. The community spirit does not suffer because of the differences. The community spirit grows because of them.

I was in college the first time I went to New York City. I traveled with a group from the campus radio station. We made the long drive from Clarkesville to New York for a convention of college radio and communication programs. When we finally made it to the Big Apple, I called my parents to tell them we had arrived safely. This was long before cell phones, so I went to find a pay phone. There were many pay phones in the lobby of this hotel, and as I waited to call my mom and dad, I realized that I was hearing a cacophony of other languages being spoken. I think I detected French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and so many more than I could recognize. I remember that I stopped and just listened, fascinated and excited at so many languages being spoken at once.

It was the greatest thing I had ever heard, and even though I was not particularly religious or church driven at that point in my life, I understood that I was getting just a glimpse of the kingdom of God. God’s world, in all its glorious, messy, fabulous diversity was there in that place, and I was a small part of it.

Thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous, extraordinary Spirit, which has the power to transform us into the people you created and call us to be. Thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous and amazing Spirit which has the power to bring people from every corner of this world to your abundant table. Thank you, O God, for the gift of your fabulous Spirit which has the power to open our hearts and minds and ears and eyes to the work you call us to do, the love you call us to share, and to all the children you have created. We thank you God for the gift of your fabulous Spirit which brings us into community and reminds us that the good news really is good.

Let all of God’s people shout out, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

 

 

           

Why Are You Looking Up? -- Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:6-14

May 17, 2026

 

            Expecto Patronum.

Is anyone familiar those two words? I’ll say them again. Expecto Patronum. They are most recognizable from the Harry Potter books and movies. The first time we encounter them is in the third book of the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban. These two words are a spell that when cast bring forth a person’s patronus. A patronus is a creature that protects the person who casts the spell from these terrible monstrosities called dementors. The patronus can be any creature. Harry’s patronus was a large stag, just as his father’s was. But whatever form the patronus takes, it comes to protect the one who calls it.

I’m not going to do a deep dive into Harry Potter today. But these words, Expecto Patronum, were not made up by the author. She did not just throw some vowels and consonants together and call it a spell. Expecto Patronum is a phrase that comes from the Latin, and it means “I await a guardian.”

Waiting for a guardian comes at the end of our passage from acts. The disciples and certain women who had ministered alongside them, including Mary the mother of Jesus and Jesus’ brothers are waiting. They are waiting in the upper room, perhaps the same room where they had eaten a final meal with Jesus in the days before his death, where he had washed their feet, and where one of their number had left from to do the work of betrayal. So in this upper room, the people closest to Jesus have gathered there once more to wait.

But before the waiting, they were gathered around Jesus himself. In the opening verses of this first chapter of Acts, Luke – the author of both the gospel and of Acts – notes that the risen Jesus has spent forty days with the disciples talking to them about the kingdom of God.

I had never considered the reason why Jesus did not ascend immediately into heaven after his resurrection. Why does it take 40 days before he ascends? Like the Israelites’ 40 years and Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness, the number 40 signifies a time of preparation. Jesus’s earthly ministry might have been over with his crucifixion and resurrection, but his preparation with the disciples was clearly not. He prepares them for the kingdom of God – a kingdom that is not like the kingdoms they understand and know. The kingdom of God is not just the restored kingdom of Israel, writ large. Even though the disciples clearly hope that it will be. The kingdom of God, as one commentator wrote, is not about the Davidic kingdom returning in all its previous glory. It is not a human kingdom founded on power, but it is God’s realm which is both here and still to come. It is a kingdom based on love, on justice, on mercy. It is a realm that defies human terminology and labeling. It is a kingdom far wider, far greater, farther reaching than any kingdom the disciples – or us – could conceive with our limited understanding.

So, now at the end of the 40 days, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to wait for the power that will come upon them through the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and throughout the whole world. And just when the disciples thought they could not see anything more amazing than witnessing their rabbi resurrected, they see him lifted up into a cloud and taken from their sight.

Of course they stood there gazing heavenward. It makes sense to me that they remained rooted in that place, eyes fixed on the last spot where they saw their beloved teacher. I can understand their reluctance to turn away. I can relate to their hesitation to move on, to leave, to walk away. But even though they may have wanted to, they could not stay. Their impetus to go came from a supernatural nudge. There was a sudden appearance of two men in white robes standing by them saying,

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

This reminds me of the two men in dazzling clothes who appeared to the women at the empty tomb and asked them,

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

The women needed to be told that they would not find Jesus in the home of the dead. He was risen. And the disciples now need to be told that they cannot remain looking up, at least not for the time being. They must go forward.

So the disciples return to Jerusalem. They enter the city and go back to the upper room where they were staying. They gather there, along with the other women and Jesus’ family and they wait. They wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. They wait for the day when they will see Jesus return. They wait.

In the tradition in which I grew up, what was emphasized about this account of Jesus’ ascension was the promise of the second coming. In our tradition, we refer to Jesus’ coming again in glory in our worship service. It’s understandable that the second coming is a big deal to a lot of folks, a lot of church traditions, and to many people in my extended family. My dad once told me that every New Year’s Eve, my grandfather would gather the family together and they would pray that in this New Year, Jesus would finally return. But I have wondered for a long time if focusing so completely on the second coming isn’t also missing the point just a little. I wonder if we have not gotten way too caught up in looking up?

Jesus spent 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension preparing the disciples to be witnesses to him and to the kingdom of God. But whether the disciples fully got that, it’s hard to know. That’s why that supernatural nudge was necessary. The two men appear to the disciples just as they appeared to the women. They all needed to be prodded into taking the next step. The disciples needed to be reminded that their work was not focused solely on looking up, but on looking out. When the Holy Spirit comes upon them on Pentecost – the story that we will read and celebrate next week – we learn that their ministry was to go out, to reach out, to set out, move out … into the world, into the midst of the brokenness and the hurting and the chaos. Their ministry, their call was to bring the good news of the gospel to the world, to be Christ’s body, hands, feet, mouth, mind, and heart in a world that so desperately needed it.

The men in white robes appear in that moment, when the disciples are staring up into the heavens, as one commentator put it, mesmerized or paralyzed we aren’t sure, to move the disciples into action, to push them toward their calling.

Why are you looking up? And to their question I add, why aren’t you looking out? I know the men in white don’t say this, but to me it seems implied. Why are you looking up? Why aren’t you looking out?

I struggle with looking up. And I struggle with looking out. I think we need both, but it seems to me that we either spend too much time doing one and not enough time doing the other, and vice versa. Let’s be honest. We need to look up. We need to look up to God in trust, in hope, in expectation. But how often do I forget that? How often do I throw a quick glance upward just to remind God that I’ve got this. I can handle all things on my own. God just needs to get on board with my plans. I’m in control and it’s going to be just fine. And only when everything is not just fine do I realize that I have been looking in, not up. I haven’t been trusting God, I’ve been trusting myself only. I’ve been looking at only what I want to see – in me and in God.

But on the other hand, I wonder if only looking up is another way to privatize faith. It’s just you and me God. My salvation is based only on our relationship. We got that all worked out, just the two of us so no one else needs to be involved. That means I don’t need to look out. I just need to look up and wait for you to come and get me. This is all about me. So I’m just going to look up.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Both of those scenarios focus on me and me alone. Either I’m looking inward, believing that I’m looking out, and trusting only in myself, or I’m looking up and thinking it’s only about me and God. Either way, it’s all about me.

But all about me, or all about you, or all about any one person does not fit with what Jesus taught and preached and lived. Maybe the disciples were mesmerized or paralyzed while looking up but they looked up together. When they returned to Jerusalem, they went back together. They stayed together. They waited together. They prayed and devoted themselves to scripture together. They were in community, the community that Jesus created and nurtured. And when the Holy Spirit does come upon them, it descends on them in community. The power they receive in the Spirit was not limited to them alone, it was shared. It was shared with every person gathered there with them, and it was then shared with the whole world. The disciples spend the rest of their lives looking out, going out, reaching out – to the whole world.

The disciples looked up and they looked out. It seems to me that God requires both. God wants us to look up. Look up, God says, look to me, trust me, believe in me, listen to me, follow me. And look out. Look out at my children made in my image. Look out and see them. Are you caring for them? Are you loving them as I love them? Look out at the world I created. Are you caring for it? Are you loving it the way I love it? Are you looking up but are you also looking out? It seems to me that God requires both. We must look up, look up to God for our hope, for our strength, for our courage. But we must also then look out. We must look out at the world God has created, at the children God has created and loves. We must take the power and strength and courage and hope we receive from looking up and carry that out into the world.

And yes, part of our following, part of our looking and out is waiting. But as one scholar said, our waiting is not passive. Our waiting is active. We wait in prayer together. We wait in fellowship together. We wait in serving together. We wait in loving together. Our waiting is part and parcel of our looking up and our looking out. We wait and we pray. We wait and we hope. We wait and we work. We wait and we remember. We wait and we live in the moment. We wait and hope for the future.

Expecto Patronum. I await a guardian. Jesus promises the disciples that while they wait they are not left alone. They will receive an Advocate, a guardian in the coming of the Holy Spirit. That promise is our promise as well. We are not alone. We are not alone in our waiting. We are not alone in our looking up. We are not alone in our looking out. We are not alone. So we look up in trust and in great expectation. And we look out in hope, in compassion and in love. And we give thanks that God calls us to do both. We give thanks that we are called again and again and again to look up and to look out. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

Something New -- Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 17:16-31

May 10, 2026

            When Brent and I were planning our wedding, we talked about backup plans. We chose a venue in a state park, and we planned for the ceremony to be outside and the reception to be inside. Having an outdoor ceremony meant that we had to consider the possibility of rain, but we knew that we could move the ceremony inside if we needed to. We also knew that because our wedding was in August, it would be hot. So we made sure to have a large cooler with bottles of water for all our guests that would keep everyone hydrated until we went inside where it was air conditioned and it would be nice and cool. What we didn’t think about was that the air conditioning would not be able to keep up with the heat. We also did not reckon with the fact that the venue would not let us turn on the ceiling fans. Had we thought about a backup plan for that, we would have brought our own fans and put them all over the place to help keep people cool. That was a contingency we didn’t plan for. Thank goodness we had our wedding programs printed on hand fans, so folks could keep up with the ceremony as well as fan themselves both outside and inside. But even with the lack of that one backup plan, we were married, which was the best and most important event of the day.

            I’ve learned through experience that backup plans are important to have when you’re planning events like weddings or parties or retreats. You want to have something outdoors, but rain happens so you need to have a backup plan. When I went to Montreat the week after Easter, the conference planners wanted to have a nightly hearth time around an outdoor campfire, but the weather had been so dry there was a burn ban. So, we had hearth time in a large gathering room, and we sat in a large circle as we might have sat around a fire. It was a backup plan.

            Some folks will make backup plans for life. Two friends decide that if they aren’t married by the time they reach a certain age, then they will marry each other. Folks think that they might never have the resources on their own to buy a house, so they pool together with others and buy a house together. These are backup plans. If the original plan doesn’t pan out, then we have a backup plan to use instead.

            I wonder if the people of Athens were also looking for a backup plan when it came to the divine. Our text from Acts begins with Paul waiting for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him in Athens. In the passages before ours, Paul has been driven out of both Thessalonica and Beroea for preaching the gospel in the synagogues there. Now his supporters have gotten him safely to Athens, and it is in Athens that he waits for Silas and Timothy.

            While Paul is waiting, he walks around the city and is distressed to see how full of idols it is. There must have been a humanmade tribute to every possible deity under the sun. So, Paul argued with the folks in the synagogues there as well. And he debated with people in the marketplace, the Plaka, which was the center of Athens. Paul even debated with both Epicureans and Stoics – these were two different groups of people who centered their lives around two distinct philosophies of thought.

            Some of the people who encountered Paul thought he was a “babbler”; just this guy going on and on about this person named Jesus. Other people thought he was a proclaimer of foreign divinities – some other gods from another culture. But this was Athens. Athens was not a seat of military power like Rome, but it was a great city of learning, of philosophy, and a desire for new ideas and understandings. The privileged of Athens wanted to learn about something new. They were eager for new ideas and new trains of thought and Paul seemed to be offering that. Paul is brought to the Areopagus.

            As I understand it, the Areopagus was a setting, just below the Parthenon, where people were allowed to present new ideas for discussion and debate. Paul was not on trial. But he was brought there to account for this new divinity he was proclaiming. I have my own issues with Paul at times, I have to give him this: what Paul says next is a masterclass in rhetoric.

            He stands before the Athenians and says,

            “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’”

            Paul does not insult them. He does not wag his finger at them and scold them. He recognizes their religious tendencies and builds on them. Paul tells the people that what they worship as an “unknown god,” is actually the one Lord, the God of heaven and earth. And this God does not live in shrines made with human hands. This God, the one God, is not captured or held within structures of human design. This God cannot be contained within any object, even within the finest objects of silver and gold. This God, the God, the Lord of heaven and earth, gives life to all mortals, life to all things. This God, the God created all the earth and every living thing within it.

            And Paul goes on to tell them, it is the Lord, the one true God, who mortals search for, even if they don’t realize it. It is the Lord that they grope for. It is the Lord who they long for. Then once again, Paul meets them where they are. He quotes one of their Greek poets,

            “For, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’”

            I imagine you have heard that phrase before, and I would also say that those words are foundational to our faith. But they are a quote from a Greek poet. Paul builds on their own understanding and proclaims to them that the true God is the very foundation of all life. What they think of as an unknown God is the God, the true God who became incarnate in Jesus the Christ. As one of my friends said in our lectionary group, “the backup plan was the real plan after all.”

            Early in our text we learn that Paul was debating with Epicureans and Stoics. We need to understand that these groups of people were not atheists or without belief. Both groups believed in deities. But the Epicureans, formed around the teachings of Epicurus, were hedonists, which is not what we think of as hedonists. They believed that the only intrinsic good in life was that which gave pleasure. What was intrinsically bad gave pain. So they tried to live in a way that caused more pleasure than pain. Unlike what we might believe from movies, that meant lives that were simple, peaceful, and not based on material goods or wealth. The Epicureans believed that there were two kinds of mental pain: fear of the gods and fear of death. While the Epicureans believed in the gods, they did not believe that they intervened in human existence. They existed in a separate plane far from human life. So, there was not point in fearing the gods.

And the Epicureans were materialists, meaning that they believed that every living thing was made of matter, down to the smallest atom. But once matter died, it ceased to exist. They did not have a belief in an afterlife. So, why fear death when there was nothing beyond death? And why fear the gods, when the gods didn’t bother with humans?

The Stoics based their life and their beliefs on reason. They believed that the universe was designed on reason and logic, so to be stoic was to recognize that whatever happened in life happened because of a reasonable and logical design, even if they did not understand what that design was in the moment. Even if something seemed illogical or unreasonable to their human perspective, if the universe was both logical and rational then there must be some purpose in what was happening. To resist it was to resist the logic of the universe and that caused pain. To accept life as it came was to follow along with the rational design of the larger world.

Both groups of thinkers, along with the other people of Athens, would have been at least confused by what Paul was telling them. Paul proclaimed a God that was the only true God. And this God was involved in the lives of the humans he created. This God was so involved that he became human like them. Not only did he become human in life, but he also became human in death. That must have blown their minds. A god that could die?! A god that died and then lived again?! Talk about something new! As so often happened, the resurrection was the wall that some of the people listening to Paul could not get over. The privileged people of Athens may have longed for new ideas to discuss and deliberate upon, but this must have been newer and stranger than anything they could have possibly imagined.

If were to keep reading, we learn that some people dismissed Paul, They scoffed at him and this idea of one true God who became human, died, and was resurrected. But some folks were intrigued and wanted to know more. But Paul understood that to reach them, he had to speak to them in a way that they could hear. He had to speak to them in their own context. And Paul realized from his observations and his discussions and even his debates, that people were groping for something more than any idol could fulfill. The people were searching for something beyond the gods they thought they knew. Maybe they believed in backup plans, or maybe they knew that there was something in them that was unfulfilled, that there was a space within them that needed a God they did not yet know.

Paul spoke to that space within them. Paul preached to their seeking. Paul proclaimed that their backup plan was the true plan after all.

I don’t think much has changed since Paul preached the good news to the Athenians and now. We are all still searching, still groping for meaning and truth beyond what our senses might tell us. We still live in a world of idols. We make idols of people, of ideas, of things, of hopes and fears. We can even make idols out of religion. We still build our golden calves because we long for security and certainty and a guarantee. We try to create  backup plans for our backup plans, but if we can be still for just a moment, if we can let the voice of God find its way through the din of noise around us, if we can feel God’s presence in both our hearts and our heads, we can make the leap of faith that Paul called for. We put our trust not in gods we make in our own image, but in the God who cannot be contained in boxes of our own making. We can know what was previously unknown. And when we do, our searching hearts find what we have been longing for – the peace of Christ, the something new that God is doing in the midst of us. God is here. God is with us. God is known not unknown. We can lay our backup plans to rest. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

Troubled Hearts -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

May 3, 2026

 

            I’m going to start my sermon today doing something that I have never done before. And that is not exaggeration on my part. I’m starting today’s sermon by asking you all a question. This is not rhetorical. I hope that some of you will consider giving me an answer. It’s your turn to talk during the sermon.

            What troubles your hearts?

            I realize that I am putting you on the spot, so to give you some time to think about this, I will tell you what troubles my heart. As a mom, I worry about our kids. Even though they are all adults, I still worry. I worried when they were little, and that worry has only grown as they have. But I also worry about the world’s children. It is unfathomable to me how many children suffer needlessly, and to me it is unconscionable. It is unconscionable to me that adults will terrorize children to terrorize adults. And it is not just children in war zones. We cannot deny that in our own country, in our own neighborhoods there are children who are suffering, who are hungry, who do not know from one day to the next what their life will look like. This reality troubles my heart. It hurts my heart. It breaks my heart.

            So what about you? (long pause to let folks answer)

            Again, I know I’ve put all of you on the spot. If you didn’t want to speak up, that’s okay. But I encourage you to think about this question and consider letting me know later. I do want to know what troubles your heart.

            Troubled hearts begin our passage this morning. In verse 1, Jesus encourages the disciples not to have troubled hearts. But why would the disciples’ hearts be troubled in the first place? The answer to this goes back to the beginning of chapter 13. Chapter 13 is where we find our story for Maundy Thursday every year. In this chapter, Jesus shares a final meal with his disciples. At this meal, he washes the disciples’ feet, and that includes the feet of Judas. Jesus, who knows what Judas is about to do, sends him out to get it over with. Judas does just that. He leaves the table, the community to betray Jesus. Jesus gives those remaining his new commandment to love one another as he has loved them, through service and acts of compassion and kindness. And Jesus predicts Peter’s denial of him even as Jesus is preparing to be crucified. And now it looks as though everything that Jesus has told them would come to pass is coming to pass.

            It is no surprise then that the disciples’ hearts are troubled. My heart would be troubled as well. Chapters 13 through 17 of John’s gospel are known in theological terms as The Farewell Discourse. Jesus is telling his closest followers goodbye. He tells them that he is going to his Father’s house, a house that is roomy and spacious and is large enough for all of them. But that does not seem to register, because even though he has been preparing them for this moment, now that the moment is here, they are struggling to come to grips with what is about to happen. Jesus is leaving them. Jesus is leaving them.

            This is John’s gospel, and typically the disciples as portrayed by John are not quite as clueless as they are in the other three. But in this critical moment, they cannot see beyond their own fears and anxieties. They cannot see beyond their own troubled hearts.

            Thomas says to Jesus,

            “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

            And Jesus responds,

            “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

            If they know Jesus, and they do know Jesus, then they also know God. But Philip wants more.

            “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

            But Jesus, with infinite patience, says,

            “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

            In other words, believe me. Trust me. Believe and trust in God and believe and trust also in me. You have been with me all this time. You have witnessed my healings; you have heard my teaching and preaching. We have created a relationship that goes beyond teacher and students. We now call each other friends. I have shown you what it is to love one another and to love this world. So, trust me. Believe me.

            But belief and trust, even when, maybe especially when, it comes to faith, can be challenging. And the disciples are clearly challenged by Jesus’s words and by everything that Jesus has told them lies ahead for him. We believe what we can see, and we trust what we know. And even though the disciples have experienced Jesus up close and personal, they are struggling to believe. If they struggled to trust, than it’s no wonder that we do.

            I think our very human trust issues have led to this passage being traditionally interpreted as exclusionary and narrow. When it comes to Jesus, you are either in or you are out. He said he was the gate after all. That must mean that the gate is about closing off people rather than opening. I don’t really want this sermon to wander off into universalism, but I do wonder if there is more to what Jesus is saying to them than what we have previously considered.

            When Jesus says he is the way, is he speaking only about a road or a path? Or is he also speaking about behavior, how we live and act and be in the world? As I said, in the previous verses he showed the disciples what he meant by loving, and that was to wash their feet. To love was to serve, to love was to do for others. Love was about being and acting with kindness and compassion and being willing to serve rather than expect service. And the truth and the life? They are connected to the way as well. The more we love, the more we see that love is at the heart of God’s creation and God’s relationship with us and the world, then the more fully we understand the truth that Jesus spoke of. And when we can more fully love, aren’t we more fully living?

The more we see that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, our relationship with him becomes deeper and stronger. And the more our relationship with him deepens, the more our relationship with others deepens. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the trust.

            There is another key point in verse 1 that is not clear in our English translations. In English, we read, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The word hearts is translated in the plural, just as we assume the your is plural. But in Greek, it is only the your that is plural. The word for heart is singular. Your is plural. But heart is singular. What does that indicate? Jesus was speaking to all the disciples about their one heart, their collective heart. Clearly, this is not literal. We all have our own physiological hearts, but in this context, Jesus is speaking about their collective heart in community, in relationship. Do not let your collective heart be troubled. You are in this together, just as we have been in this together. So, believe me.

            At the beginning of this sermon, I asked you to share what troubles your hearts. And whether you answered out loud or not, you may have been thinking about your individual troubles; your individual concerns and worries. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it. But the truth is, we come together in this place because we are a community together. We share a heart. So my troubles are your troubles and your troubles are my troubles. My joy is your joy and your joy is mine. Jesus came to be in relationship with others, with us. But those relationships were built and deepened in community. They were not isolated. They were not about one individual above another. They were in community. When Jesus forgives Peter for his denial at the end of John’s gospel, he also forgives him in community. Peter, if you love me, feed my sheep.

            The thing is, our faith is not meant to be privatized. It’s not just about my relationship with Jesus or your relationship with Jesus. Our faith deepens and grows and flourishes in the communion of the body of Christ. Yesterday at the presbytery meeting, we were reminded by a speaker that the church is not an organization, it is an organism. It is a living thing. This is true for congregations and this is true for the Church with a capital C. We are part of the living body of Christ in this world. Living organisms exist in relationship, in community. We are in community. We bear a collective heart.

            It seems to me that if we see each other and our community and this world as sharing one heart, that changes everything. There is no longer an “us” and there is no longer a “them.” Our hearts break together and our hearts rejoice together too.

            Jesus told the disciples that God’s house, God’s heart was roomy and generous and big enough for all. May our hearts, our heart, be as big as God’s. May our hearts, our heart, expand beyond these walls, beyond the boundaries of town or state or country, to share the troubles and the joys of all God’s children.

            And let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

                       

The Gate to Abundance -- Fourth Sunday in Easter

John 10:1-10

April 26, 2026

 

            I have a pair of pajama bottoms that were my dad’s. They’re getting very old, very worn, and they are too big for me. I should get rid of them. I was looking at them the other day and thought, “I should get rid of these.” But they were some of the pajamas that he wore when he went into nursing care for the last time, so there is a label in them that says William Busse. And even though they are wearing out, and could be at risk of falling apart spontaneously, I folded them up and put them back into the dresser because I just couldn’t bear to get rid of them. Even though I know that they are just pj’s, they were my dad’s pjs and I just can’t bear to get rid of them yet. So, I’m going to hang onto them for a while longer.

            Despite what I just told you about my dad’s pj’s, I can be pretty ruthless when it comes to clearing things out. If I buy new clothes, I get rid of some old ones. If I have things I never use, they have got to go. Too much clutter overwhelms me and I feel like I am constantly surrounded by it, so, I am always trying to clear it, decrease it, and minimize it – whatever I can do. But what stops me in these efforts are the sentimental things: my dad’s pajama bottoms, my kids’ favorite books from when they were little, and my favorite wooden spoon of my mom’s which has gotten warped. I don’t like clutter, and there are times when I think I should embrace a minimalist lifestyle, but then there are these sentimental things that I just can’t get rid of. I have sentimentality in abundance.

            Before they died, my parents did their best to downsize. They got rid of furniture, dishes, clothes, so many things they accumulated over almost 70 years of marriage. But the remainder of my mom’s things are still filling up my brother’s house, and although I have taken as much of her stuff as I can, I know there is more that we could get rid of. Like my parents, whenever I embark on a move, I try to downsize. When we moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee, I got rid of stuff. I donated things. I sold some things. I did the same when we moved from Spring Hill to Columbia. I donated things. I sold some things. But we still have an abundance of stuff. And I know that as quickly as I get rid of old stuff, new stuff will come along to take its place. It’s just a lot of stuff.

            Why do we have such a preponderance of stuff? Is it because we live in a consumer driven society? Is it because we are bombarded with messages that stuff will make us happy? Is it because we fear scarcity? One concrete way of dealing with that fear, the fear that we just don’t have enough, is by having stuff. And our abundance of stuff is not just a problem for us. It’s a problem for the planet. With all the stuff we accumulate, we also throw a great deal of stuff away. Landfills are overflowing. Garbage rides the current of the oceans. With the multitude of stuff we accumulate in our daily lives, it is easy to become confused with what abundance is and what abundance is not. This is true especially considering the words we hear from Jesus in the last verse of our passage from John’s gospel.

            “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

            Jesus was an itinerant prophet-preacher with no permanent address. He warned his would-be followers that if they wanted to follow him they must understand that while even animals have places of their own to rest, he did not. If they followed him, they would need to be prepared for that reality. So, when Jesus speaks of giving abundant life, I doubt he was talking about a life that had a plethora of possessions. Although let’s be honest, the prosperity gospel is alive and well in our culture. There are plenty of preachers, big name preachers, who offer the message of the prosperity gospel week after week. If you just believe hard enough, if you just cling to your Bible tightly enough, you will be blessed with plenty. Though that plenty is not always specified, the underlying message of the prosperity gospel is that plenty is an abundance of the material. Nice houses, nice cars, nice stuff equals nice lives.

            But I don’t think that’s what Jesus is referring to when he speaks of abundance. To get to the heart of abundance as Jesus preached it, we must look back to chapter 9, to the story that precedes this one. It is the story we read in Lent; the story of the man born blind.

            A man is born blind. Jesus heals him then leaves the scene. While Jesus is absent, the man is repeatedly interrogated by the religious authorities. You would think that when someone is healed of his life-long blindness, there would be rejoicing and celebration. Yet instead of joy, the people only feel fear. So the result of this miraculous healing, this giving of sight, is that the man is cast out of the synagogue. He is cast out of the community.

            Jesus tells the religious authorities that just because they can physically see doesn’t mean that they can see the holy in their midst. They may have sight, but they are still blind. He follows these words with the words we read in this passage. In verse 7, Jesus says,

            “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate.”

            I am the gate. This Sunday in Eastertide is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday, but in these verses, Jesus doesn’t talk about being the shepherd. Jesus talks about being the gate. In the ancient Near East, a sheepfold could be a communal enclosure—stone walls with a single gate, a single opening—where multiple flocks stayed overnight. A doorkeeper or gatekeeper would guard the entrance. In the morning, each shepherd would come, call his sheep, and lead them out. Sheep are not guided by force so much as by trust. They learn a voice. They remember the person the voice belongs to. They follow that person.

Jesus is telling those would listen that he is the gate, the entrance to green pastures. He is the gate and the shepherd. The sheep who know him hear his voice and with trust follow through the gate. Jesus is the gate and it is through him that we are led to abundant life. Jesus is the gate. So, if we want abundant life, if we want salvation, we must go through the gate.

None of this is surprising. I doubt that the idea that salvation comes through Jesus is news to any of us. But I think the question that is begged from this passage is what does this abundant life look like? What does salvation look like? When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly, to what and when was he referring?

Let’s go back to the story of the man born blind. Do we think his salvation came only after he died? Do we think that he finally experienced abundance when he left this life and went to the next? Or did salvation come to him in the form of sight? Think about it. He went from a life of darkness, a life of begging just to survive, to a life of sight! Would there be anything more abundant, more salvific for a person born blind at that time to receive sight? With sight came the ability to provide for himself, to envision – no pun intended – a new way of living and being. With the giving of sight, that man was given a life he had never had before. He was given an abundance of new life! He was given sight. That was his salvation.

It seems to me that this abundant life, even salvation, is not something that is reserved for a future existence. Jesus came to give abundant life now. This is not a promise of prosperity. It is not about stuff. It is about abundance. It is about salvation in the here and now. If Jesus meets us where we are, then maybe salvation does as well. If we are lost, then salvation comes in being found. If we are hopeless, then salvation comes when we realize that reasons to be hopeful abound. Jesus came so that we might have abundant lives, saved lives right now.

But do we live lives that are abundant? Do we believe that salvation is ours in the moment? Are we living lives that are filled with an abundance of joy, hope, and love? Are we living abundant lives where we share that abundance with others? Because if we are looking at abundance through the lens of Jesus, then we know that abundance is not stuff that can be accumulated. Abundance is about celebrating that we have enough at our table, then making a bigger table so we can share with others. Abundance is about picking up our cloths and washing the feet of the least of these. Abundance is about knocking down fences and recognizing that every other child of God is our neighbor.

Are we living those abundant lives? Or are we living small lives? Do we live more out of a fear of scarcity, a fear of being without rather than trusting that we will have enough? I think trust is the key. Trust is at the heart of living an abundant life. If we don’t trust that we will have enough to live, to survive, than it is downright hard to be abundantly generous. If we don’t trust that we are worthy of love, then loving others abundantly is impossible. Without trust we cannot hope. Without trust we cannot fully love. Without trust we cannot fully live. Living an expansive, hopeful, loving, joyful, abundant life requires trust.

There is a beautiful scene in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding where Toula, the main character, is sitting on her bed looking unhappy. She is about to be married to the man she loves, but this man is an exenno – a stranger, a non-Greek. Her mother comes in and asks her what is wrong, and Toula asks her mother if her impending marriage is hurting her father. Her mother tells Toula a story about her young life in Greece.

In my village there were many wars. There were many occupiers and they all left a mess. Her mother would tell her that they were lucky, lucky to be alive. But she would think, lucky? How is it lucky when people tell us where we can live and what we can eat? But when she saw Toula and her sister and brother, she knew why they came to America. They came to America so that they could live. She told Toula, “I gave you life so you could live it.”

I gave you life so you could live it.   

Jesus is the gate to abundant life. But an abundant life is not about perfection or something we can only see in the far distance. Abundant life is a full life – full of joy and full of love and full of the wonder and the messiness that comes with being human. An abundant life is a life that grows bigger not smaller, that trusts thoroughly not cowers in fear. An abundant life is what God created us for, what Jesus lived and died and rose again for, and it is what the Holy Spirit beckons us toward. So let us trust enough to go through that gate. Let’s trust the voice of Jesus calling us. Let’s go through that gate to abundance.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.