Through the Dust -- Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17/II Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

February 18, 2026

 

            In this month’s issue of The Christian Century, editor and publisher, Peter W. Marty, briefly tells the story of Bette Nesmith Graham. You may not have heard her name before, but you have probably seen her invention – Liquid Paper. If you are old enough to remember working on a typewriter rathe than a computer, you have probably used Liquid Paper to correct mistakes or typos.

            Graham was a single mother and painter in Texas. To support her child and herself, she worked as a secretary at a bank in the 1950’s. She was an artist not a typist, so it is not surprising that she made mistakes in her work. Again, if you have ever used a typewriter, you know that fixing errors is challenging. Graham realized that painters did not try to erase their mistakes on canvas. They just painted over them. So, she took a fast drying white tempera paint and would spend her evenings experimenting with mixing the paint and other substances, such as starch and resin, to make a liquid that could cover typos and dry fast. Liquid Paper. A mistake that she didn’t catch cost her the secretary job, but she went on to launch a multi-million dollar business instead.

As an aside, when I first read Marty’s column I thought that Graham’s story sounded familiar. But it wasn’t until I focused on the name Nesmith that I figured it out. Brent told me this story from the perspective of her son, Michael, or as some us know him, Mike. Mike Nesmith, one of the four members of the group The Monkees. In fact he was my favorite Monkee.

            However, back to Bette Nesmith Graham, Marty writes that it would be good if the inspiration of Graham’s Liquid Paper “could somehow translate into a similar invention for fixing our moral and spiritual lives.” How much easier would it be if we could swipe spiritual Liquid Paper over our mistakes, our errors, our flaws, and our foibles? How much better would it be if we could cover up our sin with a supernatural brush? But as Marty indicates, covering up our offenses is not the point of the Christian life. And this day, Ash Wednesday, brings that truth into sharp relief.

            I realize that Ash Wednesday as a church holy day is not found in scripture. But confession is. Penitence is. Wearing sackcloth and covering one’s head with ashes is. Ashes are an ancient sign of remorse, regret, and sorrow. Over and over again, through story, through songs, and through the prophetic voice, the people of God are called to pour ashes on their heads to show God, to show others, and to show themselves that they have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

            So we observe Ash Wednesday for that same purpose. We wear ashes to show God, to show others, and to show ourselves that we have sinned and fallen short. But this is also why Ash Wednesday is probably not everyone’s favorite day on the church calendar. Our daughter, who has been a participant in many Ash Wednesday services, told me once that she really doesn’t like this day or this service. To her it is depressing and kind of a downer. And I know that Phoebe is not alone in thinking this. Several years ago, I read about a trend that was focused on making this day more palatable, nicer, easier to bear. Glitter was being added to the ashes, so they became more of a cool fashion statement rather than a sign of penitence.

            While that initially sounds kind of cool, the reality is that this day is a day, the day where we are invited to stop fooling ourselves, to stop denying what we have done and what we have left undone. Today we are called to confront ourselves; to see ourselves with blinders off. We are called to face the sins we have committed and the harm we have caused – to others and to ourselves. It’s not comfortable nor is it easy to do this. But, especially as we begin the season of Lent, this season when we walk step by fateful step to the cross, it may just be necessary.

            There is also discomfort around this day because our liturgy and our spiritual practices declare in no uncertain terms that death is the outcome of life. And I realize, the older I get, that denial about death is rampant, in my own life and in others. So, yes, I can see why our daughter and other folks see this service and this day as a downer. It seems to scream, “We are sinners! We will die!”

            But I no longer hear these words as a scream, rant, or wail. I hear them as a statement of fact; and it’s not a fact designed to cause fear, but to turn us around. Ash Wednesday quietly but firmly states that we are sinners and yes we will die. Remember that from dust we came and to dust we will return. But we come to this day and this service so that we can turn around.

            The prophet Joel writes, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart.” Return to me with all your heart. Return to me with all your heart. Turn around, turn back, reverse course. It seems that God longs for us to repent of our sins and our misdeeds, our mistakes and our offenses, not because God wants to smash us into oblivion like a supernatural foot stomps out a bug, but because God wants to welcome us back with open arms. But first we must stop kidding ourselves and admit, as the psalmist admits, that we know our transgressions and we know that our sin is ever before us. God wants to, as the psalmist sings, create in us a clean heart and put new and right spirits within us. Ash Wednesday compels us to do just that.

            And it compels us to face our own mortality. It would be easier and less painful to skip over Lent and go right to Easter. It would be easier to overlook the cross and move directly to the empty tomb. But resurrection does not happen without death. New life is born out of dying. And I’m not just referring to life after life, that eternal life that we all look toward someday in the future. The fullness of life in God that Jesus came to bring to fruition happens in the here and now. But we can only make space for that fullness of life when we acknowledge the dust that is our beginning and the dust that is our end.

            I cannot think of how many times I have read about someone diagnosed with a terminal illness who claims that they didn’t begin to fully live until they understood and accepted that they would really die. I don’t want you to think that I am minimizing death or suffering or the grief and the trauma that comes with it. Too many of God’s beloved children die too young. Too many of God’s beloved children suffer needlessly, and needless suffering is just that – needless. God does not glory in that kind of suffering. I’m not asking us to run headlong toward death, just that we bear the truth that it will happen. And that we bear the truth that the suffering of God’s children is too often connected to our corporate sin, to that which we have done and that which we have left undone.

            Tonight we face these two truths: we are sinners and we will die. But even now God is calling us to return to him. Even now God is calling us to rend our hearts. Even now God longs to welcome us home. And when we accept the truth of death, then we can truly live. When we accept the truth of death, we can also see how very beautiful and fragile and awesome this life we have been given is.

            No, this is not a happy go-lucky service of worship. But I am so grateful for its power to help me see more clearly my shortcoming through the lens of God’s grace and my life through the dust. From dust we came and to dust we return. Thanks be to God.

            Amen and amen.

Indescribable Glory -- Transfiguration Sunday

Matthew 17:1-9

February 15, 2026

 

            Our last worship service on my trip to the Middle East took place on the top of a mountain. We had returned to Jordan, and there we drove to the top of Mount Nebo. This is the mountain in the Bible where Moses stood and saw the Promised Land – a land that he would never enter.

            I don’t remember who led us in worship that day, although it was probably our professors leading the trip. I imagine that we heard the reading of scripture, and prayed, and maybe sang a verse or two of a hymn. But what I do remember was standing in a circle and passing the peace of Christ. It was a powerful moment, standing on top of this ancient mountain, sharing the peace of Christ with each other. I was overwhelmed by the whole experience.

I was overwhelmed at being at the top of a mountain. I was overwhelmed at being at the top of that specific mountain. How was it possible that I was standing at the top of Mount Nebo?! Standing on that ancient land, I felt like I had stepped back in time. In that moment, I felt close to every person on that trip with me, and even more, I felt so close to God. I was filled with awe and reverence and joy. It was a mountain top experience, literally.

            The mountain top experience is what we focus on this morning. Today is Transfiguration Sunday – the last Sunday in the season following the Epiphany and the last Sunday before Lent begins. Every year on this Sunday, regardless of whether we are reading from Matthew, Mark, or Luke, we hear the story of Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. When they reach the top, something strange and scary and wonderful happens. Jesus is transfigured before them. Matthew writes that his “face shone like the sun, and this clothes became dazzling white.”

            It must have seemed like a dream to the disciples. One minute they were looking at their rabbi, their teacher, Jesus. The next minute he was changed, glowing, dazzling, shining, covered in an indescribable glory. And just when it couldn’t get any weirder, it did. Moses and Elijah appeared with him. We don’t know if they were glowing and shining like Jesus was, but they were in conversation with him. Peter being Peter, he needed to say something, to do something. So he speaks up and says,

            “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

            But before he could finish saying those words, a bright cloud enveloped them. And from that cloud they heard a voice saying,

            “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

            And with that the disciples fell to the ground overcome and overwhelmed by fear.

            Each of the gospel accounts of this story is remarkably similar, but Matthew adds a detail that Mark and Luke do not. When the disciples are cowering on the ground in terror, Jesus comes and touches them. We don’t know if he lays a hand on their shoulders or on their heads, but he touches them and says,

            “Get up and do not be afraid.”

            With those words, the disciples, perhaps still trembling, raise their heads and it is just the four of them once again. Jesus is no longer shining. Moses and Elijah are gone. The cloud and the voice are gone. Their world, as they knew it, has returned. Then they go back the way they came, back down the mountain, and Jesus tells them to keep this to themselves until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.

            This is Transfiguration Sunday, and I will be honest that I kind of dread this Sunday all year long. It’s not because I feel antipathy toward the Transfiguration itself, it’s just that I think I have run out of ideas about how to preach it. What do we do with this story? What does it mean for us today? I have spent countless hours trying to find analogies for the transfiguration. I have spilled countless words trying to describe a glory that is indescribable. And still, I don’t really know what to do with this.

            Theologian and essayist Debie Thomas, writes that she doesn’t really like Transfiguration Sunday. She grew up believing that the mountaintop experience of faith, of which the transfiguration story is the greatest illustration, was something that she should have on a regular basis. And because she didn’t have mountaintop experiences on a regular basis, that must mean that she was a spiritual failure. It must mean that her faith wasn’t good enough or strong enough or fervent enough. God is present on the mountain and therefore we should always seek him on the mountain, and Thomas fears that this kind of theology is spiritually addicting. If we are always seeking out the mountaintop experiences, we forget that God is also in the valley. God is also present in the ordinary, the everyday, in the small, daily tasks, the small daily moments.

            And Thomas points out that the disciples must have felt this too, because Peter’s words about building dwellings are his way of trying to contain the glory they are witnessing. He is trying to hold onto it, box it up, make it manageable. But the glory that was made visible on that mountain is anything but manageable. That glory is not something that can be contained or boxed or held onto. It can’t be made small. It can’t be made safe.

            There is nothing safe about what happens on this mountain. I think the disciples witness something far stranger than Jesus suddenly shining. They get a glimpse of him in his full divinity. They witness a moment when the line between earth and heaven is blurred. They see not only the world as they know it but the world to come, the world as it should be. They see Jesus talking with two of the great figures of their faith, Moses and Elijah. They hear the voice of God from a cloud. There is nothing safe about any of it, so I understand Peter wanting to make it manageable, wanting to make it contained and controllable. There is nothing safe about it, and I think it’s good that the disciples – and we – are reminded of that. It’s okay that we can’t contain or describe the indescribable.

            But that doesn’t make the valley any easier either. It doesn’t make the ordinary any safer or easier. And it does not mean that God is any less present in the valley than God is on the mountain. Our lives are not grouped into two different categories – sacred and secular. The sacred is not reserved solely for the mountaintop. Our most ordinary moments are infused with the sacred too, and it is reassuring to remember that.

            Maybe that’s what the disciples needed most on that mountaintop. Reassurance. Maybe they needed to be reassured that when they left the mountaintop and went back down to the valley, back down to the people, the struggles, the daily grind, the ordinary, that God was with them in all of it, through all of it. Maybe they needed reassurance because what lay ahead was going to be so much harder than what they had experienced so far. What they were going to see and experience and witness was more than they could imagine even though Jesus was trying to tell them what was to come. The six days before that this story begins with refers to Jesus telling them openly that he would suffer and die and be raised again.

            So, the road they were called to follow in the valley promised to be difficult; perhaps more difficult than any road they had traveled down so far. And they needed courage to face it. They needed reassurance that God was with them. They needed to hear the words, “do not be afraid.”

            I think we need those words, that reassurance as well. We are about to enter the season of Lent once more. It is the season where we are called to pay attention to each step we take, to look long and hard at the valley we walk through, to understand that it is our time symbolically, figuratively, and sometimes literally, to walk through our own wilderness just as Jesus walked through his.

            And we need reassurance for the days ahead; the days of Lent and every day beyond that. We need to have a glimpse of a glory that defies logic, reason, our senses, and our vocabulary. We need to be reminded once again not to be afraid. There is so much in our lives, in our world that makes us afraid, so many circumstances that sends our fear soaring, but Jesus told the disciples and he tells us to not be afraid. Do not be afraid because Jesus, God’s beloved, is with us. Do not be afraid whether it is in the face of this indescribable glory on this mountaintop or in the face of all that we encounter in the valley below. Do not be afraid. Listen to Jesus. Listen to God’s beloved. Listen to him and let go of our fear. It’s time to walk back down the mountain to face whatever waits for us in the valley below but remember that God is with us. God is with us on the mountaintop or in the valley, in the extraordinary or in the ordinary, in times of joy, in times of struggle and hardship and loss, God is with us. God is with us, and the glory of that truth, the joy of that good news is indescribable indeed. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.

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

            Amen.

           

           

Blessed. Salt. Light.

Matthew 5:1-20

February 8, 2026

 

            “Have a blessed day!”

            These are words I often hear when I am checking out at a store. I bring whatever it is that I’m buying, whether it is groceries or clothes or toothpaste. I try to exchange pleasantries with the person who is working behind the counter. That same person tallies up my purchases. I pay. I say, “thank you.” And as I’m leaving, the employee sends me on my way with, “Have a blessed day.”

            Whenever someone says that to me, I assume that they are probably connected in some way to Christianity. I don’t mean to imply that people of other faith traditions would not wish blessing upon someone. I think they absolutely would. But considering our context, when someone at a store here or in Columbia or even in Nashville wishes me a blessed day, my assumption that they are implying a Christian based blessing is probably more accurate than Hindu.

            But other than that brief consideration as I walk out the door, I haven’t really thought too hard about what someone is saying when they wish me a blessed day. Until I sat down to write this sermon. Then I started thinking about it.

            When someone says this, are they using the word blessed as a synonym of good? Or do they believe that blessed is an upgrade from good? That makes me wonder what do we mean when we use the word blessed? I used to use the word blessed when I referred to good fortune. We are blessed to have a roof over our heads. We are blessed to have plenty of food. We are blessed to have resources. But if blessing, especially in the context of our faith, implies divine favor, then if I am blessed to have a roof over my head, what about the person who does not? Does God not bless the unhoused person? So, now instead of blessed, I use the word lucky. We are lucky to have a roof over our heads. We are lucky to have enough to eat and warm clothes.

            I have made this linguistic switch because I don’t believe that some of us are blessed with divine favor over and above others. And my change in terminology also stems from what I read in this passage from Matthew’s gospel.

            I will confess to you that we are catching up on our gospel reading by putting two weeks’ worth of passages into one. I should have read the Beatitudes, verses 1 through 12, last week, but the ice storm and missing church threw me out of whack. I could have skipped the first twelve verses altogether and jumped straight into salt and light, but the Beatitudes sets the stage for everything that comes next, so I think it’s important that we hear them.

            Jesus begins each beatitude with the word blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. I have often heard this as an imperative, meaning you should be, must be, poor in spirit if you want to inherit the kingdom of God. But a commentator I read writes that grammatically Jesus is not giving a command. Jesus is stating what is and offering a promise.

            Blessed is a person who is mourning – mourning a personal loss, mourning a communal loss, mourning the world as it is versus the world as it should be – because I promise that person will be comforted. Blessed is the person trying to show mercy to others, because I promise that person will receive mercy as well.

            Jesus is addressing these beatitudes and the rest of the sermon on the Mount to his disciples. And in this sermon he is offering them an upside down version of the world that they know. If blessed means favored by God, then no one would have expected that the poor in spirit or the meek or those in mourning to be the ones favored. They would have thought the opposite to be true. Blessed are those who rejoice. Blessed are those who are strong. Blessed are those who wield power. Blessed are those who have status. But Jesus is turning their worldview on its head. It seems to me that Jesus is not only declaring those who would be at the bottom of the ladder as having divine favor, but Jesus is also teaching the disciples that these lowly ones are seen by God. They are loved by God. God stands by them. God values them. These are the ones, Jesus tells them, that are blessed, that are seen, that are valued.

            Last week we considered that Jesus’ initial call to the first disciples was only “follow me.” Now, he is beginning to flesh out that call, to give the disciples a deeper look into what following him means. The people who need to hear my good news, the people you will one day teach and preach to may be ignored and considered without worth by the world, but God sees them and values them. They are blessed.

            Jesus now pivots. He shifts from third person to second.

            “You are the salt of earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

            Notice that Jesus does not say that the disciples are like salt or should try to be like salt. He states, “you are the salt of the earth.” Salt is not something they are to emulate. Salt is what they are. Salt is what we are.

            The more I learn about cooking, the more I realize how important salt is. I like to watch cooking shows, not so much for the recipes they share, but because they teach me technique and how flavors work together or not. And every cook, every baker that I watch, emphasizes the use of salt.

            I once told you the story of when I was a little girl and I tried making scrambled eggs for my brother after he had been sick. I confused teaspoon with tablespoon and put a tablespoon of salt into the eggs. Unless you are making enough eggs to feed a platoon, a tablespoon of salt is way too much for two eggs. I have been leery of salt. But I’m learning that without salt, food is flavorless. I’m learning that salt is a key ingredient, an essential ingredient in just about anything I prepare.

And as one commentator wrote, we may take our salt for granted, but in Jesus’ time it was a precious commodity. Salt was sought after. This commentator noted that soldiers were often paid in salt, which is where we get our word salary. Salt was used for food preservation, and disinfecting wounds, as well as flavoring a dish. Jesus tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth. They are a precious commodity. They are not just there for themselves but to sent out, dispersed, into the world, to care for, to heal, to reveal God. As this same commentator wrote, even if they, as salt, increase thirst in others, it is a thirst that should draw people to the living water that God offers.

After Jesus declares the disciples to be the salt of the earth, he then tells them that they are light of the world. We so often think only of Jesus as the light of the world, especially in this season of Epiphany, that we may forget that Jesus clearly states that the disciples, those who follow him, are the world’s light too.

Many years ago when I was teaching a confirmation class in another church, we played a game. The person who was “it” had to take a lit flashlight, go into a dark room, and  it somewhere in that room. Then all the lights were turned on, and it was up to the rest of us to find the flashlight. In a dark room, a lit flashlight is easy to find. But when all the lights are on, that flashlight was a lot harder to find.

The point of the game was this, we live in a world of light – some of that light is good and helpful, and some less so. But if we are the light of the world, then we need to find a way to shine so that others can see. We can’t hide the light that we are. We have to shine. We have to remove the basket we want to cover ourselves with, and shine so that the whole house is illumined.

Jesus tells the disciples that God sees those that the world doesn’t see. God values those that the world does not value. Jesus tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth. They are precious and called to be salty, to reveal where life has become flavorless, to reveal where healing must happen, to increase thirst for God, and even to set the world on edge. And Jesus tells them that they are the light of the world, and that their light must not be hidden or made indistinguishable from all the other lights out there. Their light needs to be set up high, so that others can see not only that it shines but that it points to the light of God.

Blessed. Salt. Light. The words Jesus spoke to the disciples are the words he speaks to us. Who is it that God sees that we must see? How are we to be salt in a world that has lost its taste for righteousness? And how can our light shine so that others may finally see?

The good news is that we don’t have to become these things. We already are. This is who God created us to be. And the even greater good news is that we are not alone. We are not called to be disciples by ourselves. We are not called to be salt and light in isolation. We are called into the body of Christ to be the body of Christ. We are already who God created us to be. We just have to believe it. We just have to live it. Blessed. Salt. Light. May every day be blessed. Thanks be to God.

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

Amen.

The Kingdom Draws Near

Matthew 4:12-23

February 1, 2026

 

            In her newest book, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance, theologian Diana Butler Bass writes about the calling of the first disciples. When Bass was a student in a Christian college, she heard a sermon during the school’s Mission Week about Jesus’ call to follow. The sermon emphasized the sacrifice that the disciples made, leaving their nets, their livelihood, their families, everything to follow Jesus and go fish for people. The goal of the sermon, as Bass wrote, was to inspire those young Christian men and women to make the great sacrifice and follow Jesus into the mission field where they would also “fish for people.”

            Bass writes that while the story was inspiring – these brothers, Simon and Andrew, and then James and John left everything behind to follow Jesus – it also left her feeling inadequate. Her thought was, “I could never do that.”

            How many times have you heard a sermon preached on Jesus’ call to these first disciples, whether from Matthew’s gospel or from Mark or Luke, and thought the same thing? I could never do that.

            How many times have I preached on this text, or from the other gospels, and wondered the same thing? I could never do that. I don’t know what your answer is, but I can say honestly, that I have felt that deep sense of inadequacy every time I’ve preached this. It might be true that as a Teaching Elder in our denomination, I have moved to new places and new calls a few times now, but I haven’t left everything. I haven’t just dropped my nets and walked away. So, yes, this story leaves me feeling inadequate, just as Bass describes.

            But then Bass’s essay takes a surprising turn. She writes about what these brothers were actually leaving. Fishing at that time was a state run and state owned enterprise, meaning that in the Roman Empire. Caesar owned everything. Even if the brothers might have owned their boats and nets, Caesar owned everything else – the land, the lake, and the fish. What they caught did not belong to them. It went to the state. What they might take home to their families was minimal. This was subsistence work at best. They were like sharecroppers or tenement farmers. They did not own or benefit from the fruits of their labor – Caesar did. In fact, Bass points out, that everything they did was for Caesar. Everything their families did was for Caesar. They did not choose a career or a vocation in that empirical system. They did the work their place in the society dictated. These people were overtaxed and overworked and at the end of the day they had almost nothing to show for it.

            So, knowing this, Bass encourages her readers to read Jesus’ call again.

            “’Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

            Maybe it wasn’t that great of a sacrifice after all? Maybe Jesus’ call was a welcome interruption? Maybe they threw down their nets and leapt out their boats with joy because following this man, fishing for people, sounded like a much better option than giving Caesar anymore of their blood, sweat, and toil. And if word had been spreading about this new rabbi, and I suspect that it had, then they would have already heard that he was proclaiming to people that the kingdom of heaven was drawing near. Isn’t that what they longed for; for God to show up and show out? Why wouldn’t these fishermen, these men whose backs were breaking under the yoke of Caesar, want to walk away from that life and follow this man into the kingdom of God? Why wouldn’t they jump at the chance to see the new thing God was doing? Maybe leaving everything was not such a great sacrifice after all.

            I guess we could stop there and celebrate with them, but the truth is that even though they may have been overjoyed to follow Jesus, answering the call to “Follow me,” means sacrifice. Maybe it doesn’t mean sacrifice in the beginning, but it will come eventually. Following Jesus and becoming fishers of people does not mean that there won’t be times when they will look back the way they came and want to return.

Notice that Jesus does not tell them what will happen when they follow. I don’t mean to imply that Jesus is trying to fool the disciples into following him. But in that first moment of call, he doesn’t give them the full picture either. It seems to me that the easiest thing about following Jesus was leaving their boats behind. The real challenge, the real sacrifice would come every day after that.

            Let’s think about what it means to follow Jesus. When I first discerned my call to ministry, I was thrilled and awed and humbled and excited. I went into my first year of classes with this, “I love Jesus! I’ve been called! I’m going to be a minister!” mentality. But then the day to day work of learning and being pushed and stretched in my every belief, in my every assumption set in. That’s not just true for seminary students. It’s true for all of us take this call to follow Jesus seriously. And it will be true for these new disciples as well.

            What did it mean to follow Jesus? It meant that the disciples witnessed Jesus healing people and feeding people and sitting at table with not only the religious bigwigs like the pharisees, but also with the most unsavory and unwelcome of people. They witnessed him ministering to the margins and loving the vulnerable and the enemy and the stranger and the strange. Eventually Jesus will tell them, plainly and clearly, that he is the Messiah, true, but what that means is very different from what they think it should mean. He will die, but first he will suffer, and he will hurt and he will be killed. And only after his brutal death will he rise again to new life. And if they want to follow him, they’re going to have to be prepared for the same. Dropping their nets and leaving their boats behind was the easiest part of following him even if they and we might think it was the hardest.

            Because make no mistake, the disciples make mistake after mistake after mistake while they’re following. They stumble. They falter. They misunderstand, I think sometimes willfully. They don’t get what he tells them. And when the end comes, they deny him. They run away. Their fear overwhelms them.

            But the disciples prove that they are more than the sum of their mistakes. Because with the power of the Holy Spirit, they do incredible things, and they do fish for people. And I think they finally understand the sacrifice of following.

            Recently I read a statement from the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, and I’m paraphrasing his words. He said that the time has come for clergy to get their affairs in order, to get their wills written, because we can no longer put only our words between the most vulnerable and the powers and principalities. It is time to put our bodies into that breach.

            When I read his words, I shook, literally shook. Because I didn’t just read them on an intellectual level. I felt them deep in my bones, my heart, and they caused me to shake because I know them to be true. And I also worry that I won’t have the courage to act on them if that call comes to me.

            Jesus did not call the disciples to leave their boats and worship him. He did not call them to drop their nets and intellectually assent to belief in him. Jesus called them to follow. Following Jesus is risky business. There is no way to get around that, much as I may want to. There is no guarantee that when we follow we won’t also be asked to put our lives on the line, to put our bodies into the breach.

            And what is most mindboggling of all is that Jesus called them to follow because the kingdom of heaven had come near. The kingdom of heaven was now in their midst. And what the kingdom is built on is love. Love is the foundation of the kingdom, but you’ve heard me say again and again that the love Jesus called the people to have, to give, to live, was not warm, sentimental, mushy gushy love. It was love that cares for the least of these, love that puts its work boots on and does the heavy lifting of the world. Jesus said follow me and love God and love your neighbor and love yourself. And what’s most frustrating of all is that following Jesus and loving as he loved, as he loves, means that you will make some enemies. The powers and principalities of this world don’t want this kind of love. They are scared, no terrified, of this kind of love because they think its weakness and they cannot understand that it is actually strength. But then Jesus made it even harder because he called us to love our enemies too. And when I think about all of this, when I think about everything Jesus experienced and everything the disciples experienced, and everything that comes with following him, I just want to go back home and curl up under the covers of our bed and stay there. Because it just all feels like too much and too hard and more than I can do or give. And I want to cry out to Jesus, where is the good news in all this?! Where is the good news?!

            And yet, maybe this is why Jesus only called the disciples to follow, just follow, just put one foot after the other and follow him. The big picture will come. The call to sacrifice will be there. But just put one foot after another and follow, and when those other moments come, you will meet them.

            And here’s the thing; it may seem like there is very little good news to be found in this call to follow Jesus, but I will tell you that in those moments when I have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, in those moments when I have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, in those moments when I have looked into the eyes of a stranger and seen Jesus in their eyes, I know just how good the good news is. And so I answer the call again. I step out of the boat again. And I put one foot after another and I stumble along behind. 

            That’s what we are called to do, just put one foot after another and follow, even if we stumble and fall and want to give up. We just put one foot after another and keep going because Jesus calls us, again and again, to follow him, to be fishers of people, because the kingdom of heaven draws near.

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

            Amen.