The Ethiopian Eunuch: A Follower of Jesus, a sermon based on Acts 8: 26-39, preached on June 22, 2025

Friends, today is the fourth Sunday in our summer sermon series. Each sermon this summer is focused on a particular follower of Jesus, and today I call your attention to the Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian eunuch is not named in our Bible. He’s only described, and there is a significant quality of his that has nothing to do with his being Ethiopian, which I’ll simply allude to without going into detail. Should you be wondering, “Now what exactly is a eunuch?” I’ll echo the response my Sunday school teacher, Dr. Ken Farrar, gave when I was 8 or 9 and asked him about circumcision. “That’s a question you’re going to have to ask your father.” Without getting into the specifics, let me say that being a eunuch made this man neither a social outcast nor a social insider, which might be the loneliest place of all. He was on the fringes of two worlds, fully accepted by neither. On the one hand, he operated in the world of wealth and privilege. He worked among the polite and the powerful, and yet he had no family, and he would leave no heirs. He was respected, but people made jokes about him behind his back. He was wealthy but had no one to share his wealth with. He was powerful but lonely. He was an insider and an outsider. He owned his own chariot, had made the journey from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, and was now on the way back. We read in our second Scripture lesson that this was no business trip, for he went to Jerusalem to worship. He didn’t write the travel expenses off to his business account but paid out of his own pocket. Remember that it took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to the Holy Land, and that was only one way. How many horses did he have to own to pull that chariot from Ethiopia to Jerusalem and back? The long journey points to his desire to know God and to his substantial wealth, but he could afford it. He just didn’t have anyone to travel with, so Philip found him as he was sitting alone, reading his own copy of the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. Today, Bibles are not expensive. Members of our church give out hundreds of them in the Cobb County Jail each year. The Gideons have given out 2.5 billion Bibles worldwide, yet there was a time when Scripture was so rare that an entire synagogue might only own two or three books of the Bible written on scrolls and locked up in a cabinet so that no one could steal them. To own his own scroll of the book of Isaiah was rare. It points again to his desire to know God and to his wealth, and so I imagine that when he walked into Jerusalem, as a wealthy representative of the Queen of Ethiopia, he was shown into the shops where scrolls could be bought. Surely, the scribe who sold him his scroll treated him the same way that the salesperson at the car dealership treats the man waving around an Amex Centurion Card looking to buy a Bentley. “Yes, sir, right this way. Can I get you a coffee, sir?” “Would you like that scroll gift-wrapped?” Yet the minute the Eunuch said, “I am here to worship. May I go into the Temple?” he would have run right into verses like Deuteronomy 23:1 or Leviticus 21:23. Look one of those up. I’m not going to read them. Not every verse of the Bible should be read in polite company. Just know that this man who traveled to Jerusalem to worship, who spent a considerable sum so that he might own his own scroll of the prophet Isaiah, was not allowed into the Temple, for he was wealthy but also considered impure and unworthy. He was invited into the community, but only so far. He was permitted to explore his faith, yet, left to linger in his heart was the feeling that there was something wrong with him. I imagine that someone in here knows what it would have felt like to be the Ethiopian eunuch, for the Church still causes people the feel this way. I’ve told you before the story of Flora Speed, who, with her four children, walked into this Sanctuary the first Sunday her husband, Jim, was to preach from this pulpit as the new Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church. They were dressed to make a good first impression. They were surely nervous and excited, for it was their first Sunday in their new church. They walked right into this Sanctuary and took a seat on the fourth pew from the front, which they found out was where someone else always sat, for this someone stood at the end of the pew and said, “You all are sitting in my seat.” After that show of hospitality, they walked up to the balcony and never came back down, for while all are welcome here, not all are made to feel welcome. There are all kinds of ways that the children of God are made to feel as though they would not be at home in God’s house. So it was for the Ethiopian eunuch, and so it is for all kinds of people in all kinds of churches every Sunday morning, even here. The good thing about being in this Sanctuary for the summer is that at 11:00, we nearly fill this room up. The bad thing is that those who walk in from the back can’t tell that there are plenty of seats up front or in the balcony. At 11:00 on a Sunday morning, from the back it looks like the school bus scene in Forrest Gump. “Can’t sit here.” Remember that? No one here would ever say that. I’m just talking about the way it feels walking into the back of a room where back pews fill up first, as though everyone feared sitting too close to the preacher. I get self-conscious about the back pews filling up first. It makes me worry about what people are saying about me out on the street. Is it because I yell? I do yell. I only whisper to my children when I want them to fall asleep. I don’t want you falling asleep. I want you awake to the reality that people walk into this Sanctuary looking for love and acceptance, hoping to encounter God, and trying to figure their faith out. Unless they’re welcomed in, unless y’all make some room for them in your pew, unless you make them feel at home in God’s house, they may wander back out that door with the words of Mahatma Gandhi ringing in their ears, “I like the sound of their Christ, but I’m not so sure about those Christians.” After trying to worship God in Jerusalem, the Ethiopian eunuch left that city and was on his way back home when Philip found him sitting in that chariot, reading the scroll of Isaiah with his head full of questions, asking “How can I follow Jesus unless someone guides me?” That’s what the Ethiopian eunuch says to Philip, and this is where I admire his faith. Rather than walk away, this man kept seeking Jesus, asking, “Might Jesus know what it’s like to suffer?” Might Jesus know what it’s like to be a lamb silent before its shearer? Might Jesus know what is like to have justice denied? Might Jesus know what it’s like to be me? Now I want to stop right there and ask you to think about that because in the 21st century, there are all kinds of reasons given by all kinds of people not to come to church on a Sunday morning. Many people feel rejected as the Ethiopian eunuch did. Many feel left out, or only half included. Sometimes, that’s my fault. Folks wander out from the fold quietly, which I hate. Far better is to speak up. Silence can be bad. I’ve just bought an electric car. It’s a Nissan Leaf. The biggest challenge I’ve faced in owning an electric car is that it’s so quiet, more than once I’ve walked away while it was still running. I’m not kidding. Just last Sunday morning, I pulled into my parking space in the west lot across the bridge, talked to Parker Gilbert, who was out walking around, got out of my car, started walking towards the church, and couldn’t figure out why my headlights were still on. It was because my car was still running, but it made no sound. How many people have been hurt by the Church, but suffer in silence? We would pay attention, I would pay attention, but unlike the Ethiopian eunuch, they’re not boldly asking the questions. They’ve already given up or they’re waiting for us to prove to them that we care enough to listen, which some among us are bold enough to do. It happened just last Tuesday. Hundreds of cars were lined up for our food pantry. Each week, hundreds of families drive through our parking lots to get a box of food, diapers, and dog food. Our volunteers even hand them a prayer card. They can write on that card their prayer request with the assurance that we’ll pray for them. Last Tuesday, one woman in the line took the card from one of our volunteers and said, “Knowing that you’ll pray for me matters more to me than the food.” When you think about people who aren’t in church this morning, I want you to know that some of them just love baseball more than church right now. They think their kids are going to play for the Braves or something. Don’t worry about them; they’ll be back when they finally realize their kid isn’t Dansby Swanson. But there are a whole lot of people outside the walls of this church this morning because someone at some time made them feel as though they weren’t good enough to sit in here. The Ethiopian eunuch dared to question that feeling. Might Jesus know what it’s like to be me? And what is to prevent me from being baptized? The answer to that question: nothing. Nothing would have prevented him from being baptized, so don’t you dare stand in his way, for we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Theophilus: A Follower of Jesus, a sermon based on Acts 1: 1-11 preached on June 1, 2025

Back in Columbia, Tennessee, where we lived before moving to Marietta in 2017, older men were notoriously witty, if a little morbid. “How are you this morning?” I’d ask. “Glad to be upright,” some would reply. Around here, Greg Brisco of Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home will often say, “Better to be seen than viewed.” My favorite from Tennessee was, “I’m doing great. This morning, I opened the paper and didn’t see my obituary.” In 1888, an obituary for Alfred Nobel was published by mistake. It was his brother who died, but there in the newspaper was Alfred’s name, his picture, and his date of death, but what most disturbed Alfred Nobel was that his obituary referred to him as a merchant of death. Making his living selling explosives, according to the obituary, Nobel “made it possible to kill more people more quickly than anyone else who had ever lived.” Disturbed to learn how he would be remembered, upon reading this obituary and still being alive, Nobel determined to live in such a way that his obituary would need to be rewritten. Therefore, today, rather than dynamite, when I mention the name Alfred Nobel, you likely think of a prize given to those who contribute to peace, and his story illustrates the power of considering the legacy that we will leave behind while we still have time to do something about it. This morning, I ask you to consider the legacy that you will leave behind, specifically by learning from those who sponsored, funded, subsidized, and underwrote the great awards given, the works of art we see in museums, the theaters that celebrate music and drama, and the literature that we enjoy. You may not know who the 3rd Earl of Southampton was, but without him, we may never have heard of William Shakespeare, for the 3rd Earl of Southampton subsidized the meager salary c earned as a poet and a playwright. Andrew Carnegie made his fortune in steel, yet he gave so much of his money away that his contributions led to the creation of over 2,800 libraries. Because of Dolly Parton, our daughters received a book in the mail every month until they turned five, along with every other child in the state of Tennessee. I add to this list of great philanthropists one name from our second Scripture lesson: Theophilus. Each Sunday this summer, we will focus on a specific follower of Jesus from Scripture. As we follow Jesus in the 21st century, there are lessons for us to learn from the first followers of Jesus, and today I ask you to consider one who caused the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts to be written: Theophilus. We just read: In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven. Who was this man, and why is he mentioned? He didn’t write Luke and Acts. He wasn’t the one who gathered the account of Christ’s birth, researched His genealogy, was an eyewitness to His miracles, or recorded His parables. Theophilus was the one who gave the author the resources to do it. Now, it’s not often that the one who funds the project is remembered, and so while several of the letters in our new testament are addressed to particular people, only Theophilus is listed as a book’s benefactor. That makes sense. Often, we forget that what we have was paid for by somebody. Sick people on the way to surgery at Kennestone hospital don’t slow down to notice the historical plaques that list the names of donors. We don’t know the names of those who donated the $7,000 that enabled our community to break ground on Marietta High School back in 1886. This Sanctuary was built by human hands, but we don’t know the names of the masons, and though we do know the names of the 12 families who funded the construction of this Sanctuary, their names are all listed on a plaque that I often walk by without giving it a second look, for we go on living, often too busy to slow down and consider those who laid the foundation that we have built our lives upon. We sing out of hymnals that someone bought for us. We read out of Bibles donated by one of my 3rd grade Sunday school teachers, though I hesitate to call her name, for the great benefactors don’t give for recognition. They don’t give in the hopes of being celebrated or seeing their names in lights. We read right past the name, “Theophilus,” without a second thought, and I imagine that this is the way he would have wanted it because he didn’t sponsor the author of the book of Acts in the hope of recognition. He sponsored the book of Acts because he wanted to know Jesus. Think with me about Theophilus this morning, not just because his generosity has given us the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Think with me about Theophilus because he wanted to know who Jesus was. He wanted to know, and so he paid someone to go and find out. Maybe he was searching for something. Maybe there was a hole in his heart, an emptiness that couldn’t be filled with a better palace or a faster chariot, and he hoped that this Jesus he kept hearing about would provide him the secret to abundant life. My friends, I’ve been watching a new show on Apple TV. Until Ted Lasso season four comes out, I’m not sure exactly what to watch, so I’ve been watching this TV show with that handsome guy from Mad Men. The new show he’s in is called Your Friends and Neighbors. I’m not recommending that you watch it. It’s not an uplifting or spiritually nurturing show. It’s about a man who lives in a neighborhood of mansions, who drives a car worth $200,000, who had a family and a wife, then lost everything. Finding himself unemployed and too proud to sell his assets, he resorts to stealing expensive watches from his friends and pawning them to a pawn shop owner who won’t ask too many questions. Some of these watches that he steals cost $300,000. And all they do is tell time, which is a limited resource. No matter how fancy the watch we can afford, no amount of riches can buy us any more time. No matter how much you have, the clock is still ticking. How do you want to be remembered? When it comes to Theophilus, who we know was a wealthy citizen in the Roman Empire, I imagine that one Sunday morning, he got out of bed. His wife had already gone to church. The house was empty, and he walked down the driveway to collect his copy of the Rome Daily Journal. I can see him spoon another mouthful of Ceaser Flakes into his mouth as he saw his obituary there printed by mistake and didn’t like what it had to say. Some have said that Theophilus was the secret name of the Roman Emperor’s cousin, Flavius, whose wife, Domitilla, was an early follower of Jesus. They lived during the rule of Emperor Domitian, a time when every misfortune the empire faced was blamed on the Chrisitan community, and we know that eventually Flavius was executed. His wife, Domitilla, was banished. Might they be the ones we have to thank for the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts? Should Theophilus be a pseudonym for Flavius, then by funding this book of Acts that we now read, he risked his life. Or did he find it? What I’m trying to say is that money can’t fill the hole in our hearts that Jesus was meant to fill. Thinking only of ourselves can’t fill the hole in our hearts that only service can fill. Having a lot of everything will never get anyone out of bed in the morning the way that living your life for a higher purpose will, so as Theophilus died, I imagine that he was thinking to himself, “It cost me a little something to finance those books, but thanks be to God I now know that my death is not the end of my story, for the One who came to earth to save me also ascended into Heaven, and so will I.” My friends, right now, there are people shopping at Home Depot, spending hundreds of dollars on plants to put out in their yard. Right now, some are boating out on Lake Allatoona, and I’m happy for them, but I wonder if they know that unless they learn to serve the Lord with their lives, that unless they find a meaningful use for their treasure, then something will always be missing. I don’t want my obituary to read, “Joe Evans sure had a pretty front yard.” I don’t want it to read, “He sure had a nice boat.” I want to leave a legacy that blesses the generations who will follow me, and from the example of Theophilus, I know that it is better to live and to have died for something that matters than to fade off into the sunset counting the minutes as they pass on a $300,000 watch. Thanks be to God for Theophilus. May we all follow Jesus as he did. Amen.

The City of God, a sermon based on Genesis 2: 4b-9 and Revelation 21: 1-6, preached on May 18, 2025

Our Bible begins in the garden, but it ends in a city. According to the book of Revelation, when we come to our end, we will be welcomed into a holy city, the new Jerusalem, the City of God. In that place, death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Jesus tells us that in that city, there is a mansion with many rooms. There will be a room for me and a room for you, and when we get there, we won’t have to worry anymore about cancer or poverty, death or taxes, crime or inflation. We won’t spend time worrying about when the next shoe is going to drop, for God will be with us, making all things right and all things new. This is the promise of Scripture, that some bright morning, when this life is over, I’ll fly away, to that home on God’s celestial shore, where joys will never end. We anticipate that day, not with fear, but with faith. We live as those expecting the world to be put together perfectly. We are not the kind of people who fear that the world will go to hell in a handbasket, for we know that the day is coming when sin will be no more. In that city, our God will heal what’s broken. We will be so filled with the love of God that there will be no more room in our hearts for selfishness or greed. We will be made new, as our God puts right all that’s gone wrong. My friends, Scripture promises, the book of Revelation promises, that this fallen world will be made new, yet Christians have never been satisfied just waiting for that to happen. For 2,000 years, Christians in every nation under heaven, while taking heart in the promise of what is to come, have worked to make this world cloaked in shadow just a little brighter. We are called to be healers of the breach. We are called to be a balm for a wounded world, to be salt and light. We were created to be a blessing to the nations. While we wait for justice to come rolling down, we also work for justice. While we wait expectantly for redemption to come, we’ve also built schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Some even went so far as to leave their homes behind in the hope of creating a more perfect union built on the love of God and the love of neighbor. In 1630, Rev. John Winthrop preached a sermon in a boat among fellow settlers just before they reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In that sermon, he called their new colony to be “as a city upon a hill. A light to the nations,” and I’m not going to say that those colonists achieved their goal of bringing heaven to earth, but they didn’t sit around waiting for this world to get better all on its own. They got to work. They stepped out in faith. They tried to start a new country that was built differently than their old one. They attempted to create a new nation defined by decency and order, mercy and justice. They longed for a nation where the politicians were honorable, where hard work was rewarded with a fair wage, and no one went into debt after buying a week’s worth of groceries. My friends, in so many ways, we are living in a blessed city. We live in a place that often seems to me to be pretty close to Mayberry, or to the bar in Cheers. Marietta can feel like a place where everybody knows your name. For example, last week, I walked into a restaurant on the Square for lunch, and at a booth in the back was a table. Nearly every woman seated there to celebrate a birthday, I knew by name. One was a former teacher at the elementary school I attended. Others were members of this church. After greeting them, I joined the pastors of First Baptist Church and Zion Baptist Church and the director of Mayes Ward Funeral home for lunch to discuss the future of our parking lots. The waitress came and introduced herself. Rev. Brandon Owen of First Baptist Church invited her to his church because that’s what Baptists do, but notice that we all had lunch together because that’s what pastors in this town do. I give thanks to God for such a close-knit community. I’m so thankful that we live in a town where the pastors of the churches don’t compete with one another, but work together for the common good, and yet, there are newlywed members of this church who are trying to buy a house in which to raise their family, and they can’t afford much closer than Acworth. Our city’s elementary schools offer food pantries because so many of their students live in homes where the cupboards are bare. Too many of them have no address, for they live out of their cars. Too many of them have parents who work but can’t make ends meet. We live in a society of wealth and poverty. Some have savings accounts and others are drowning in debt. On the one hand, I think of Marietta, Georgia as a city on a hill, a bright light in a world of shadow; however, we are not yet the community that God calls us to be. My friends, the call of God is not to wait until we make it to those Pearly Gates to live in a city of justice and peace, but to walk towards such a reality today. Now, maybe you’re thinking: What can I do about the brokenness and injustice of our world? I think that way sometimes. Last week, I had breakfast with a representative of the Presbyterian Foundation. The Presbyterian Foundation is this big, well-funded organization responsible for managing the endowment entrusted to the Presbyterian Church. Because they have so much money, I asked the representative if she thought the Presbyterian Foundation would get our denomination moving in the right direction again, and she looked at me and asked, “Why are you waiting for us, when the light of Jesus Christ is shining in you?” Why are you waiting for something to come along to make a change in this world when the light shines so brightly in you? My friends, don’t wait for someone else to do what you are more than capable of doing. The light shines in you, so reach out your hands in love to your neighbor. Walk into the jail. Visit the sick. Use the gifts you’ve been given to the glory of the Lord. When you do, you make our community a little more like the City of God. Amen.

The Lord is My Shepherd, a sermon based on Psalm 23 and Revelation 7: 9-17, preached on May 11, 2025

Mother’s Day is today, and I’m celebrating because our daughters have received the great gift of a wonderful mother. My wife, Sara, is a particularly wonderful mother. Among other things like feeding them, paying attention to their grades, and taking them to the doctor, when our girls need her to hold them, she holds them, and when they need her to let them go, she lets go. Think about that skill with me for just a moment. When we hold onto our children too closely, we call it coddling. When we push them out of the nest too early, we may break them. When we dropped Lily off at Kindergarten, she was ready, and Sara was excited. Sara could see how excited Lily was to go to school, so she celebrated with her little girl. She cheered her on in taking that step of independence into her Kindergarten classroom, while I, soon after dropping Lily off, cried in the car. Likewise, as Lily passed her driver’s test and drove off into the world on her own, Lily was happy. Sara was happy with Lily, while once again, I cried, only this time it wasn’t the car, because now my car is Lily’s car. I cried in the house instead of crying in the car, and I cried because I felt like I was losing our little girl, while Sara was proud and excited, for motherhood is, at its best, the mastery of two movements which are at odds with each other. A mother holds her baby close to her chest and then encourages her to fly. Today, on Mother’s Day, I’m focused on flying and those who have nudged us out of the nest. This movement begins as soon as the umbilical cord is cut. From the moment that cord is cut, babies are learning to move out into the world. They roll over, learn to crawl, stand up, and start to walk. From walking, they run, and the best mothers cheer for them. The best mothers nudge their chicks out into the big scary world, which becomes a little less scary the more we trust the community to watch out for them. How wonderful that there would be a baptism today, for in baptism, mothers are reminded that they are not their children’s lone caregiver. In the Presbyterian church, the baptism is a public event. It takes place during the worship service so that the parents can hear the congregation promise to help them raise their child. In every Presbyterian baptism, the congregation is asked two questions: “Do we, the people of this congregation, receive this child into the life of the church?” and “Will we promise, through prayer and example, to support and encourage her to be faithful in Christian discipleship?” We Presbyterians can’t have private baptisms because the parents must hear the congregation say: “We do,” and “We will.” Parents need to know that their baptized child has this incredible advantage of community. Not only is there mom, but there is also a congregation, so faith, for us, is not the promise of an easy life without trial. Faith, for us, is instead the promise that amid all the trial and tribulation, we are not alone. There is a community, both human and divine, for our fellowship includes the Good Shepherd, who promises, not to watch from a distance from the clouds up in Heaven, but to walk with us, leading us beside the still waters from green pasture to green pasture. The Presbyterian church continues in this celebration of relationships with the wedding liturgy. I’ve had the honor of officiating many weddings, maybe 200 weddings. The most memorable include one with a medieval theme held at a botanical garden that started one hour late because the mother of the groom was making all the dresses but hadn’t finished in time, so the groomsmen were killing time, just wandering around the botanical garden with swords on their belts. They scared a few people with those swords, although the most terrified of all was the father of the bride. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He didn’t. Still, I’ll never forget that wedding. Another wedding I’ll always remember is the wedding of my wife’s sister. Sara’s sister Ami married a Methodist minister, so my wife, Sara, and her sister Ami both married protestant ministers, which is ironic because they were raised Roman Catholic. The Rev. Lyn Pace, my brother in-law, is a chaplain at Duke University. The two of us arm wrestle over who will pray at Thanksgiving. My daughters, Lily and Cece, will have the option of their uncle or their father to officiate at their weddings. I’m thankful for the honor of officiating their Uncle Lyn’s wedding, both the first and the second time he married Sara’s sister Ami. Upon their engagement, Lyn and Ami set their wedding date and put the invitations in the mail. Then Lyn’s father got sick. When his father’s death seemed eminent, Lyn and Ami asked me to officiate a small wedding service, just family, so that, should Lyn’s father die before the publicized wedding date, he wouldn’t miss the chance to see his son marry the love of his life. The small, family wedding was beautiful. A picture of Lyn’s father giving his blessing to his son on that day is etched in my memory, but the invitations had gone out. The original date had not been canceled. On the day their guests showed up, I asked them, “If they’re already married, what are we doing here?” “We are here because they need your love and support,” I said. Then I asked the congregation: “Do all of you promise to uphold this couple in their marriage and strengthen them in their life together?” This is an important question that is asked at every Presbyterian wedding, for like the congregation at the baptism, the guests at the wedding are not there just for the open bar at the reception, but are a group of people who create a community of love to support and encourage newlyweds as they step out into the world together, making our big scary world just a little less scary. In addition to the people is a Shepherd who promises, not to watch from a distance from the clouds up in Heaven, but to walk with us, leading us beside the still waters from green pasture and even through the valley of the shadow of death. Do not fear for He is with you. Think with me this morning about what it means that our Bible would again and again use this image of a shepherd to describe who Jesus is, for what does a shepherd do? If we are His flock, and if the Lord is my Shepherd, then what does a shepherd do but help me move from where I was or am to where I will be? On this Mother’s Day, think with me about the ones who held our hands while we learned to walk, but in helping us to walk, enabled us to move from one stage to another. Those stages continue on far past childhood and adolescence. The young look forward to turning 16 so they can drive. Then 21. Then, we stop looking forward to the next birthdays, yet the stages continue. We move from one pasture to the next one until we reach the final destination. Be not afraid, for you are not on this journey alone. The road is not easy, but He will not let your foot slip. Think with me about that gentle Shepherd who leads us to lie down in the green pastures, beside the still waters, and through the darkest valley because we were not created to settle in and make our permanent residence until we stand before the throne of God. My friends, we are pilgrims in a foreign land. We are on a journey to our final destination. We travel through this mortal life. Do not be afraid. Do not get stuck where you are, for our journey through life requires we move from our mother’s arms out into the world. Yes, we may get hurt along the way, and yes, we may not all make it from adolescence to adulthood. From early adulthood to middle age. From middle age to retirement. From retirement to that age when we are not testing to receive our driver’s license but testing to determine when we must relinquish it. We are on a journey from one pasture to the next. It’s not easy to keep moving, so I implore you: Trust the Shepherd who guides us to our final destination. Do not neglect your relationship with Him. Learn to hear His voice. Learn to trust Him. Learn to follow. For until we stand before the throne, we cannot settle in. We are on a journey of maturing, a journey of rising, a journey of falling, a journey of learning and understanding, rejoicing and weeping, winning and losing that will be far too terrifying to embark upon if we do not trust the One who leads us. Follow Him until you stand before the throne of our Creator and hear that loud voice saying, “Salvation belongs to our God.” Trust Him, until He wipes every tear from your eyes. Last week, I was back on the Presbyterian College campus because now I’ve been graduated long enough to be considered wise and experienced, wise and experienced enough to instruct recent graduates in how to be a Presbyterian minister. It was a gift to be there, for that was the place I first fell in love with a young woman, who was raised Roman Catholic who has now become my wife and the mother of my children. While I was there, I saw two of my professors, who now live at the Presbyterian Village Retirement Community. They did not resist retirement. They did not fight it but embraced the journey because they trust the Shepherd and know where He is leading them. The Lord is my Shepherd. And I will trust Him, too. Amen.

Those Who Ask Questions Receive Answers, a sermon based on John 20: 19-31, preached on April 27, 2025

Late one night, having had a nightmare, our young daughter cried out. I hurried to her bedroom and rubbed her back. Then, I fell asleep next to her, and I know that she did not fall asleep because I woke up to the feeling of her pulling her finger out of my mouth. A salty taste lingered on my tongue, and so I asked her, “Did you just feed me a booger?” She had fed me a booger. But I don’t regret being there. Every child needs to be able to reach out and touch her mother or her father when she is afraid. We all learn that everything is going to be OK, not because someone told us it was, but because when we cried out, someone with flesh and blood was there. Love must have flesh and blood. Otherwise, it is unbelievable. A lasting image of Pope Francis, who died last Monday, will be him kneeling at the feet of incarcerated men, washing their feet. How are incarcerated men to comprehend the awesome love of God unless such love is wrapped in flesh and blood? The Gospel, to be understood, must come down from the pulpit and to the people because so many understand kinesthetically. How’s that for a big word? Kinesthetic learning means to learn by doing or experiencing. Think of going to the part of the museum designed for young children, where they get to touch a fossil or gently pet the back of a stingray. One of my earliest childhood memories is going to the High Museum of Art and walking across a giant tongue. The taste buds lit up under my feet as I walked over it. We know this about kids, that they learn, not just by listening to us talk or reading about new things, but by doing and touching, feeling and smelling, and we learn about the love of God the same way. We don’t just believe because someone told us, but because someone walked into our lives and made the love of God real. Do you remember that scene in Ted Lasso when Coach Beard goes to Nate’s apartment? Nate is afraid that Coach Beard is there to head butt him. Instead, Coach Beard turns his hat around, gently places his forehead against Nate’s, and forgives him. Jesus said to the disciples, “forgive the sins of any and they are forgiven,” for no one believes in forgiveness until forgiveness comes in flesh in blood. Likewise, Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” because the good news is just too good to believe until it takes flesh and blood. Until the Gospel takes flesh and blood, we cannot believe it. The love of God can’t just be learned by listening or reading the Bible but is comprehended kinesthetically. We believe because we have known. Because we have touched His wounds and felt His grace. This is how we learn the truth about people, who they are and whether they can be trusted, not just by reading their resumes, but by shaking their hands and going into their homes, so the great author Mark Twain is famous for advocating that people travel, saying, Travel is fatal to prejudice. It’s fatal to bigotry. Travel is fatal to narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and women and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. But that is what we are too often doing. I read about the nation of Haiti. Then I went on a mission trip there, and I tell you, it is one thing to read about the poverty, the mounds of plastic floating in the coves, the lack of sanitation and prenatal care. I tell you it’s one thing to read about a lack of sanitation, and it’s another thing to smell the lack of sanitation. It’s also one thing to read about overwhelming poverty, and it’s another thing to witness the strength of human resilience in spite of it. We learn the truth through touch. We come to believe in miracles once we’ve witnessed one. How does anyone ever come to believe that the alcoholic can recover from his addiction, but to see it? How can we comprehend the miracle of the healed broken heart but to see the woman broken by grief lifted and restored? We believe that the light shines despite the darkness because that light has shined upon us, so Jesus doesn’t question Thomas’s motives but says to him, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe,” because this is the way it always is. God who created the heavens and the earth is not some figment for theologians to describe. God is no faceless theory to ponder academically, but is a reality to be experienced. Jesus Christ is God’s love in flesh and blood, which is the way people learn what love is, and so when this city drives by our church, seeing a line of hundreds of cars on Tuesday afternoons, and dozens of volunteers providing those families with food to eat, they know that hope is alive. When the world reaches out and finds Christians here that they can touch, lives are changed. Through ministry here that they can feel, people come to know that this place is not a den of hypocrites, or a country club for casual believes, but the Church of Jesus Christ. For we all learn by touching, smelling, hearing, and witnessing in person, so Jesus calls the disciples to forgive so that His grace takes on flesh and blood. Jesus calls on Thomas to touch His wounds, that he might believe that life has victory over the grave, and I tell you that it’s one thing to read about it in book, and it’s another to experience hope for yourself. I’ve read a book called The Anxious Generation. It’s a book full of incredibly bleak statistics that point towards a concerning reality. Many kids are addicted to their smart phones. They’re not playing outside as much. They’re not on the playground so much. Instead, they’re inside, which seems to many parents as though they’re safe at home, yet so long as they’re on their phones, they’re at risk for exposure to child predators, unhealthy images, and all kinds of other bad influences. That’s the reality that I read about, and in reading this book, I wanted to destroy our daughters’ iPhones. I wanted to destroy your children’s phones and your grandchildren’s phones, too, but then, the week before last, our girls had some friends over, and one friend brought with her a phone basket. She demanded that all in attendance place their phones in the basket so that they would all be present in the moment, talking and interacting instead of staring at their screens. Everyone complied with 16-year-old Birdi Dixon. I put my phone in the basket, too, and I tell you this story because the night is not necessarily so dark as you have heard, but to see the light, you’re going to have to open your eyes and reach out your hands. Death will not have the final word, but you may not hear that on the evening news. He is not dead, for He is risen, but to believe, you’re going to have to go out into the world to find where God’s love has taken on flesh and blood. Don’t take their word for it. For prejudice and racism thrive when people stop searching for the truth. Don’t just read about it. Evil in this world grows when good people give up on finding hope. And please don’t let the talking heads tell you what’s really going on, for ignorance thrives when good people stop asking questions. I’ve heard a lot of concerning news in recent weeks, but when God’s love takes on flesh and blood in us, it changes things. I was invited to lunch by a new banker in town. Before we ordered, he started telling me about his Easter, how he spent the weekend with his daughter, a student at Florida State. You may know that there was an active shooter on the campus of FSU. Two were killed, and several others were injured, and upon hearing the news, he called his daughter right away. She was safe, and he told his wife that she sounded fine. His wife told him to drive to Tallahassee to make sure. “What did you do once you got there?” I asked. “All she needed was a hug from her dad,” he told me. My friends, we all learn that everything is going to be OK, not because someone told us, but because when we cried out, God provided us One to touch. Will you let your faith become action, that those who do not yet know or understand might gain a sense of God’s love through your flesh and blood? Amen.

Why Are You Weeping? A sermon based on John 20: 1-18, preached on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025

As I think about the empty tomb on that first Easter morning and the scene described in the Scripture lesson we just read, I notice that there are three people who showed up, and all three were there for different reasons. First, there’s the unnamed “disciple,” the one whom Jesus loved. Some Bible scholars have said that this disciple is nameless in our Scripture lesson so that we can imagine ourselves in his shoes. Regardless, we know that Jesus loved him and that he knew that the Savior had been crucified, then put in that tomb, but it’s as though he believed Jesus when He said He would rise again, for when he hears that the tomb is empty, he’s ready. He rushes so quickly to get to there that he beats Peter there. This unnamed disciple reminds me of those of you who woke up this morning with your Easter dresses laid out. You knew which flowers you’d bring to place on the flower cross outside the church. Your ham is already in the oven, and peeps are your favorite candy. There are people here like that unnamed, beloved disciple. On that first Easter morning, Peter and that beloved disciple heard that the tomb was empty from Mary Magdalene. Peter and the unnamed, beloved disciple set off running; yet that Peter would run towards the empty tomb is ironic. Do you remember how quickly Peter had been running away from Jesus since the Lord was arrested? When Jesus was arrested, Peter was afraid that he would be next. While Jesus was suffering, Peter didn’t want to suffer alongside Him, so when a crowd pointed him out saying, “That man was with Jesus,” Peter denied that he even knew who Jesus was. Why then did Peter rush to the empty tomb? Was it because he felt guilty? Was it because he wanted to apologize? Was it because he’d been carrying around regret and shame, punishing himself for what he’d failed to do? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that some of you are here for such a reason. While I know that some of you are here because of how you love Easter and love the Resurrected Savior, I imagine some of you are here because you haven’t been to church since Christmas, and it seems like it’s about time for you to get back in here. Peter went to the tomb carrying a heavy burden, and people carry heavy burdens into this church. So many of us are weighed down with guilt, shame, regret, and self-loathing. Not everyone joyfully rushes to get in here on Easter morning, yet regardless of why you’re here, I want you to know that I’m so thankful you are here. I’m thankful that you’re here, even if you don’t want to be here. That’s how it was with Mary Magdalene. Remember that there were three. The unnamed, beloved disciple who rushed to get there. Peter who rushed, too, because he suffered from a guilty conscience. With Mary Magdalene, it was out of devotion to a man she loved with all her heart. Mary Magdalene showed up at the tomb that first Easter. She was there to anoint a corpse for burial. She didn’t want to be there. She needed to be there. She was there early that morning to honor a man who changed her whole life, but she wasn’t there to see Him; she was there to pay her respect. She wasn’t there because it was pleasant. She was there because it was necessary. Some of you are here today for a similar reason. Mama asked you to come, or your father used to go to church here. You’re here because being here makes them proud. You’re here out of respect or devotion. Your wife comes to this church, and she begged you to come today because it’s Easter. You’re not really expecting anything special to happen. In fact, if a miracle fell in your lap, you might miss it, and so it was with Mary Magdalene. Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she bent over to investigate the tomb. Two angels were there, and they asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” If it sounds strange to be asked a question like that by two angels, know that Mary didn’t notice it was strange. She didn’t think it was strange to see two angels. Neither did she think it was strange to see Jesus. She didn’t recognize the angels as angels, and she thought Jesus was the gardener. That’s how it is with miracles for people who don’t believe in miracles. They just look right through them and explain them away, so Mary, who showed up at the tomb to anoint a dead body for burial, never considered that Jesus was talking to her. She thought He was a gardener, and when He asked her “Woman, why are you weeping?” she said, “because I wanted to stay home to watch the game, but my husband dragged me to church.” No. Assuming that this man who appeared to be the gardener had moved the dead body, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Right then, Jesus said to her, “Mary!” He called her by name. That opened her eyes, and my friends, regardless of why you’re here, I want you to know that Jesus knows your name. He knows why you’ve come, what you need, and who you are looking for. He knows who you’re missing, and why your heart breaks, and what brings you joy. Jesus has called you here, even if it was your mama who twisted your arm. Jesus called you here, even if every day is Easter Sunday for you. Jesus called you here, even if you drug in a 10-pound bag of guilt along with you. And He knows why you weep. I wonder if, when that beloved disciple investigated the empty tomb, he wept for joy. I wonder if Peter, on the night he betrayed the Lord, wept because he had failed. Do you weep, late at night, wondering if you’ll ever live it down? Do you weep because you can’t believe what you did? Or is it because you miss him? Like Mary Magdalene, do you go in his closet, just to breathe in the smell of his clothes? Out of devotion to someone buried in the grave, have you come here today? Is it simply because you thought coming here might help you feel closer, or might help you feel connected? I want you to know that while the unnamed, beloved disciple showed up at the empty tomb that first Easter morning with Easter basket in hand and a hymn on his lips, Peter showed up at the tomb weighed down by guilt and shame. Mary Magdalene showed up to anoint a body for burial. Yet as soon as He said her name, she dropped those burial spices and rushed to embrace the Lord, for He is risen. Peter might have done the same, had he dared to doubt the voices in his head telling him he’d never live it down. Peter might have laid down his heavy burden of guilt, shame, and regret had he just noticed that Christ had broken those chains and removed that burden, but he was so stuck in his own dark, desolate tomb that he wasn’t ready to come out. He was so stuck in the habit of shedding tears that he left that empty tomb more confused than ever, for we all get stuck. This Easter morning, I tell you it’s not just Jesus who has been stuck in a tomb; it’s you and me. We get stuck in tombs of our own shame. Stuck in tombs of our own selfishness and narrowmindedness. Stuck in tombs of grief and mourning. Stuck in tombs where death has all the power. Why are you here? Why are you weeping? The reason hardly matters, for we are all here together, and I tell you, in a divided world, division will not have the final word today. Isolation will not have the final word today. Death will not have the final word today. For He is risen. Doubt your conviction that miracles are all superstition, that people never change, that the bad guys always come out on top, or that all hope is lost. Doubt your conviction that you can never be forgiven. That the church serves no real purpose. That everyone is out to get you. That being here is just killing time until the ham is served. Doubt those stories that the world has told you and take notice of the miracle of Easter. For death gives way to life. Shame gives way to forgiveness. Doubt gives way to faith. Isolation gives way to community. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb to anoint a corpse for burial. She dropped those burial spices to rejoice in the Good News, and I hope that you who are carrying heavy burdens will drop what you’ve carried in here. Drop your burdens and rejoice in the gift that God provides. For He is Risen. He is Risen, indeed. Halleluia. Amen.

Riding a Borrowed Donkey, a sermon based on Luke 19: 28-44, preached on April 13, 2025

I was watching Driving Miss Daisy last week. Do you remember that movie? I was on a plane trying to decide how to occupy my time on this flight, and I realized that I’d never seen Driving Miss Daisy. It takes place in Atlanta during the age of the Civil Rights Movement, and Miss Daisy gets invited to a dinner where she’ll hear Dr. King speak. She asks her son to go with her, and her son likes Dr. King. He believes in what he stands for. He agrees that it’s time for change. He knows that segregation is holding the South back, and as a Jewish man, he knows what discrimination feels like, but when it comes down to making a choice to stand publicly with the Civil Rights icon, he gets worried about what rubbing shoulders with an agent for change might do to his business. Maybe you know the feeling. Maybe you’ve been there before. There’s a choice to be made, and some people join the parade, cheering beside the Messiah riding on the borrowed donkey. Others stand near the edge, trying to keep a foot in two camps. They’re with Jesus, but quietly. They don’t want to disturb the peace. They get all wrapped up in second guessing, wondering: “What will people say?” “How will this choice affect the bottom line?” Not everyone is comfortable taking the risk to follow Jesus, so while today we celebrate these crowds of people who waved their palm branches to welcome the king and who lay down their robes in defiance of Rome without a care for tomorrow, listen as Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” What does that line mean? He means that if these people weren’t celebrating, then the stones would. In other words, this celebration is inevitable. This moment in history is unavoidable, and whether the parade of people forms, whether their cheers are loud or soft, it doesn’t really matter because Jesus is the King of Kings, and He doesn’t have to win an election to make that true. He just is. His Lordship is not based on public opinion, but on the arc of history. Nothing lies in the balance. The future is not uncertain, for He commits to us fully even if we suffer from cold feet. He is determined, and He has decided. He rides on a borrowed donkey because there will not be a return trip. He rides to the cross, where the price of our salvation will be paid. If we don’t lift our voices to praise Him, the stones will. That’s the message I want you to hear this morning, in an age where it seems to many that our nation sits on a precipice. My friends, empires rise and fall, stock markets rise and fall, nations have histories that begin and end, while His kingdom will never end. Do you believe it? As mortal creatures, it’s hard to grasp something that never ends, but I caught a glimpse of eternity last week. I watched Driving Miss Daisy on the plane to California because we flew there to see the giant sequoias. The largest one is called General Sherman, and it’s been growing for more than 2,000 years. It’s truly something to stand at the foot of a tree that big. The marker claims that standing at the foot of General Sherman and looking up at its branches is something like how a mouse feels when he looks up at a human. The proportions are about the same. Compared to a giant sequoia, we are like a mouse, yet compared to the God who created the heavens and the earth, the giant sequoia is like a toothpick. At some point, that tree will fall. Maybe we’ll be alive to see it; maybe we won’t. Regardless, all that we see and worry over and obsess about will end, sooner or later. The work of our hands, for good or for evil, will not outlast the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Bow to His power in awe and wonder today and allow the politics and the problems of this present age to take their place in the backdrop of your consciousness. The powers of this world will rise and fall, but the Word of God will stand forever. Stand with the One who rides that borrowed donkey and have the assurance now. Believe the Good News today that the One who rides that borrowed donkey, He rides on to bring our salvation. Halleluia. Amen.

Come Back to the Party, a sermon based on Jonah 3: 1 – 4: 1 and Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32, preached on March 30, 2025

If you were reading with me in your personal Bible or your pew Bible, then you noticed that I skipped from verse 3 to verse 11 of our Gospel lesson. Do you ever wonder why the preacher would skip over verses like that? Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke tells three parables right in a row. I skipped the first two, the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin, to get to the third parable: the parable of the lost sons. Jesus tells two parables to set up this third one about a father and his two sons, both of whom are lost in their own way. Now speaking of being lost, Jesus tells the three parables together because, when it comes to lost sheep, lost coins, or lost car keys, people rejoice when they find what they thought they’d lost forever, and God is no different, especially when it comes to His children. That’s the point of telling the three parables together. Together, they give us a glimpse of who God is. The love of God is like the love of a father who says, “There is nothing you could do or tell me that would make me love you any less. I just want you to come home. Come to the party I have prepared for you. Don’t let shame get in your way and certainly don’t let the resentment of your grouchy older brother weigh you down.” My friends, I hope you’ve all heard enough sermons focused on the son who left home, squandered his inheritance, and was still welcomed home that you understand the love of God. I hope and pray that you know that mostly what God does is love us because you need to know, and I need to focus on the older brother this morning. There are two lost sons in this parable, and while many sermons have focused on the son who rebelled, left home, squandered his inheritance on loose living, and out of desperation came home to receive a grace he did not expect, many of us need to hear about the resentful son, who stayed home, did what was asked of him, followed the rules, was there when his father needed him, and couldn’t take it when the rebellious son came home and received not punishment from the father but a party. The great preacher Tom Long once said that the parables of Jesus are like a stick of dynamite wrapped in a story, and the dynamite is this: Jesus is telling this parable to a whole crowd of older brothers. It’s the pharisees and scribes who are listening to Jesus here: good, church-going folks who knew and understood the resentment that the older brother felt. They were the audience. We are the audience today. Do you know what it’s like to be the older brother? I’m the oldest of three. There are enough years between the three of us that we all had different experiences being raised by George and Cathy Evans. I’ll summarize by saying that they wouldn’t let me do anything, and they would let my little sister and brother do whatever they wanted. That’s not true, but at times, it’s felt true. Parents raise each child a little bit differently because no two children are the same, so I don’t parent our daughter Lily the same way that I parent Cece. They are two different kids. They’re both beautiful, but they don’t look the same. They’re both miraculous, but in different ways. They’re both gifted, but they have different gifts. For example, Cece is an athlete. The first time she beat me in basketball, she was in 4th grade, but Lily’s not an athlete. In fact, every time I see Lily run, it looks like she’s trying it for the very first time. Instead of athletically, Lily excels socially, and she is so sweet to me. Every time we’re in the car together, she asks me specific questions about my day: whom I had lunch with, which meetings I had, what was great about my day. Cece hasn’t asked me a question about my day maybe ever, but in her heart, there is so much kindness. Twice in school, she was asked to write about her hero, and twice she picked me, and she dotes on our two dogs while Lily would leave them for dead. They’re not the same kid, so I don’t parent them the same way. Likewise, I’m not the same as my brother or my sister, so my parents have not raised us the same way either. For example, I was 6 or 7 years old, and I got mad at my mom and told her that I was running away. She said, “Let me help you pack.” I’m not kidding. She studied drama in college, and so she made it a theatrical experience. She prepared peanut butter and crackers for the road, wrapped them in a handkerchief and tied it to a stick so that I could walk down the sidewalk like a hobo about to catch a ride on a slow-moving train. She knew that I wasn’t going anywhere. All I needed to do was cool off around the corner, eating my peanut butter and crackers. Once I finished eating my provisions, I came back home. All she had to do was wait. The older brother wasn’t like that, so while the father waited for the rebellious, prodigal son to come home, the father left the party to go and ask the older brother why he wasn’t there rejoicing with everyone else, and the older brother says: For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him! He needed to say that, and so the father went out there to let him. The father knew that this son was in a kind of self-imposed exile. He’s not lost in some far-off land, but he’s still lost: lost in his anger, lost in his hurt. He’s like Jonah, disappointed that the people of Nineveh will be spared. He’s just like all of us, who sometimes feel resentment and anger over the grace of God flowing freely to people who don’t deserve it. Resentment in many ways is a greater barrier to overcome than geographic distance. To bridge that chasm of anger and resentment that the older son felt, the father went to him and listened. He let the older brother spew his anger and his hurt, and then he said: Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. My friends, when I feel resentment, I want God to be on my side. And God is on my side, but God comes to my side to listen, and to invite me back to the party, not to take my side in the argument. God can’t take my side in the argument, for if God is like a father then know that until all His children are at the table, the party will not feel like a party to Him, and if you’re not at the party, then who is being punished? The older brother was outside of the party. Why would anyone choose resentment over a party? Is that where you are? Are you outside of the party? Are you waiting for God to take your side? I want you to know right now that God isn’t ever going to do what your resentment wants Him to do. God isn’t going to exile His children if He can help it. The party is going on, and if you’re outside all by yourself, don’t blame God. Get over yourself. Let go of your resentment and come back to the party. Outside in the cold, stewing is no way to spend today, and it’s no way to spend eternity. If you are looking forward to judgement day to finally hear that someone in your life gets what he deserves, you’re going to be disappointed, and you’re misunderstanding the grace and love of God, for in Heaven, there will be a party, and everyone is welcomed in because Heaven is not about being worthy. Heaven is all about grace. Stay out if you want to, but I implore you: Leave behind whatever would keep you from celebrating and come back to the party. Amen.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, a sermon based on Luke 13: 31-35, preached on March 16, 2025

One of the greatest challenges in preaching is maintaining the congregation’s attention. The key to success comes from following the advice of the great comedian Groucho Marx, who said, “Every sermon should begin with a joke and have a really good ending, and those two parts should be as close together as possible.” Some Sundays, I feel as though I’ve followed his advice and succeeded in keeping your attention. Other times, I know I’ve failed by the number of you who have fallen asleep. The other great sign that I’ve failed to keep your attention is to find a bulletin on Monday morning, left in a hymnal, covered in tic-tac-toe games. This is the challenge of every preacher, every teacher, every person or ad agency who is fighting for your ear. The number of advertisements we see each day is between 4,000 and 10,000. A 30-second slot for an ad during the Super Bowl costs about $8,000,000. All kinds of voices are fighting for your attention. I would go so far as to say that multiple voices in your life are fighting for your soul. To whom do you pay attention? To whom are you listening? Some speak because they want the best for you; others whisper in your ear because they want something from you, will take it, then throw you aside once they have what they want. Discerning between all the voices is a crucial skill, and it isn’t always easy. According to Jesus in our Gospel lesson, Jerusalem couldn’t tell the difference between which voice to listen to and which one to ignore. There, we read Jesus say: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and yet you were not willing!” By making this statement in our Gospel lesson, Jesus is positioning Himself on the one hand with King Herod on the other. Jesus calls Himself the mother hen who just wants to protect the people from harm. On the other hand is Herod, whom Jesus calls “that fox.” Herod is the fox who wanted to eat the people of Jerusalem as a fox eats the chicks of a mother hen, and while it defies logic, Jesus goes so far as to say that not only does Jerusalem chose to listen to the fox, but Jerusalem will stone the hen. So it is with humanity. We can’t always tell which voice to listen to. Sometimes, we reject the one who loves us to rush towards the open jaws of the one who will devour us. That happens in all kinds of movies, like Pinocchio for example. Do you remember Pinocchio? Pinocchio is a powerful movie. I was watching the remake that came out a couple years ago the other night when I couldn’t sleep. In this recent version, Tom Hanks plays Geppetto, Pinocchio’s father, because Tom Hanks can play anyone apparently. All these voices are fighting for Pinocchio’s attention. Pinocchio is learning which voices to listen to. On the one hand is Geppetto, this kind, lonely man, who so longs for a son that he builds one out of wood. The wooden boy comes to life, and Geppetto cherishes him. He loves him. He clothes him, feeds him, provides him a bed to sleep in and treasures him as a precious gift. This is what parenthood is supposed to be like. We parents pour our hearts into our children, only then, our children are seduced by voices that are not our own. Pinocchio tries to make his way to school, but on his way, he hears the voice of a fox named Honest John who knows that the great puppeteer Stromboli would pay handsomely for a puppet like Pinocchio. After this fox encouraged Pinocchio not to pursue an education but to take to the stage to see his name in lights, he’s thrown into a cage by Stromboli, who locks his new source of income behind bars. They make that guy so nasty. He eats an onion like it’s an apple. Do you remember? Had Stromboli led with that kind of behavior, Pinocchio might have known not to rush towards him, but the promise of fame comes first; the onion eating comes later. Because the fox is seductive, Pinocchio struggles to learn which voice to trust and which to ignore. By listening to a series of other people, all who want something from him, Pinocchio drifts further and further from his father who loves him. Eventually, he ends up on Pleasure Island, a cursed island with all the junk food a boy can eat and all the free cigarettes a boy can smoke, but all the boys seduced to this island are turned into donkeys. Do you remember all that? Voices are fighting for our attention. Many of them just want something from us, but the most sinister lead us to destruction, and we listen. Like headstrong toddlers, we reject the hand of those who love us because we want to walk on our own. Like self-assured teenagers, we think we know everything already and won’t listen to wisdom or advice. Like lost sheep, those who love us call us home, but we blunder down broken paths that lead to ruin. That’s who we are, so we must be careful about whom we listen to. Will we listen to our doctors, who tell us to cut out saturated fat and to exercise more? We don’t want to hear that. Or will we listen to our children’s teachers, who offer us an assessment of our children that we don’t like and can’t agree with? Likewise, the Bible so frequently tells us what we don’t want to hear. Scripture calls us to stay out of debt and to beware of lending money. Interest is mentioned in Scripture not once, but nearly as often as we are warned not to commit adultery are we warned not to lend with interest, yet the fox encourages us to spend money that we don’t have to buy things that we don’t need. Such voices as these who will us lead to enslavement are everywhere because we live in a culture full of foxes. Thousands upon thousands of voices call us towards what they say is an easy way sure to lead to happiness, and we are listening. We listen to the fox while we push away from the hen. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and yet you were not willing!” I wonder if here Jesus sounds a little like your mother. In some ways, Jesus sounds like mine because there were and still are so many things that she wants to protect me from. Years ago, she wanted to protect me from cigarettes, and not only was she on my case, but I am confident that she enlisted the help of my doctor who told me during an appointment when I was 13 or 14 years old that my asthma was so bad that if I ever so much as tried a puff of a cigarette, I might just die there on the spot. Regardless of whether that was true, I don’t know because I’m still too scared to try. That’s not entirely true, but she was successful overall. She kept me under those wings and away from smoking, but she couldn’t keep me completely away from my friends who did. The mother hen has her work cut out for her because there comes a time when the chicks want to go out into the world and desire the approval and acceptance, not of their mother so much as their peers, so Willie Nelson sings, “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys,” Mama can try to “make them be doctors and lawyers and such” but they may not be willing because if all their friends want to be cowboys, then they want to be cowboys, too. My mom couldn’t keep me from wanting the approval of my peers, and when it came to several other temptations, I was unwilling to be gathered under her wings because I wanted not her protection but their acceptance. Do you remember how much it mattered to have the right clothes in high school? Every teenager pushes her parents away and is tempted by the voices of those from whom she wants approval and acceptance. And that never changes. Longing for approval and acceptance, we listen and we follow, and we find ourselves in the jaws of the fox. Like puppets, we are pulled and manipulated by so many messages, but our Gospel lesson is not primarily about the fox and his seduction. This Gospel lesson is about the mother hen who so longs to gather us under her wings that she never stops calling us home. Do you remember how the story of Pinocchio ends? The story of Pinocchio is really the story of a father who never stops looking for his son. While that son did things that he was surely afraid to tell his father about, Geppetto didn’t love him any less no matter what he heard his son confess. He just wanted his beloved child back under the safety of his wings. Such love as this reflects the awesome love of God. Sometimes, the shame that we feel keeps us silent and afraid to return home. If the fox has caused you to do something that you’re afraid to mention, if in underestimating the allure of the fox, you’ve turned down that road that led to your ruin, do not underestimate the love of Christ Jesus our Lord and His power to redeem. The Mother Hen would rather die than see us harmed. The Mother Hen would sooner be pelted by stones than abandon us to violence and destruction. The Mother Hen will face death, die, and rise again, for so wonderous is the love of God. Trust in His grace. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Come home to the wings of mercy. Amen.

Be Reconciled to One Another, a sermon based on Isaiah 58: 1-12, preached on Ash Wednesday 2025

My sister has been in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. While the roots of Mardi Gras are religious, she’s not there on a pilgrimage. Mardi Gras is a big party that ends today, with Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, the high point of Mardi Gras was yesterday, Fat Tuesday, the last day you can eat all the things you give up for the season of religious fasting that we call Lent. Lent, which begins today, leads us to Easter. The 40 days of Lent are days of preparation and fasting, meant to remind us of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness tempted by Satan, and the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering after leaving slavery in Egypt before they reached the Promised Land. For 40 days, beginning today, we prepare for Easter, Resurrection, and the Promised Land. Now is the time to leave behind that which stands in the way. It’s a time to let go of heavy baggage that’s holding you back. Now is the time to repent and be saved. Many Christians give something up like wine or chocolate during these 40 days as a daily reminder of what they’re doing without. That seems like a good thing to do, but our daughter Cece used to always say that she was going to give up church for Lent. It’s a good spiritual practice to give up something for Lent, but you must be careful about what you’ll give up. Giving up something for Lent wasn’t something that I ever did until I was a student in seminary. Going through seminary and becoming a pastor can make you a more observant Christian in a lot of ways. Once you’re a pastor, you’re going to church every Sunday. I didn’t realize how many Sundays I wasn’t going to church until I was working every Sunday. Even 4th of July weekend. I also didn’t develop much of a prayer life until I was praying all the time and encouraging people to pray. Likewise, I didn’t tithe until I had to ask people to tithe. Now I start each day with prayer and a devotion, and we give 10% of my income to the church because I can’t stand up here telling you to do those things unless I’m doing them. I also started giving up something for Lent in seminary, and seminary students are competitive, as all students are competitive, but because seminary students are preparing to be pastors, it’s weird the things that seminary students are competitive about. I remember classmates competing over who was giving up the hardest thing for Lent. I was thinking about giving up dessert until I heard that a classmate was giving up meat. Then another was giving up driving a car. For the whole season of Lent, he’d be walking or riding a bike. Someone else was giving up coffee. Another alcohol. Regardless of the severity of what we were giving up, we were all missing the point. What kind of fast does the Lord require? Our second Scripture lesson from the book of Isaiah draws a clear comparison: there are those who fast, who humble themselves, but do so expecting God to notice how hard they’re being on themselves. Don’t fast trying to impress God with your suffering. Jesus warned His followers not to use religious observance to impress anyone. What kind of fast does the Lord require? It was there in our Scripture lesson from Isaiah. Is not this the fast that I choose, To loose the bonds of injustice. To undo the thongs of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free. And to break every yoke that God’s people labor under. In other words, give up that which stands between you and your neighbor. Give up doing the things that cause your neighbor to resent you. If the way you are managing your business is building resentment among your employees, if they’re complaining about you at the water cooler and behind your back, then change the way you’re managing people. If your family is in conflict, then consider what you’re doing that makes things worse. What are you doing to add to the conflict? Don’t give up chocolate or French fries. Give up resentment, anger, or stress. Don’t give up something that makes you harder to be around than you already are. If giving up coffee makes you grumpy, then keep drinking it. If giving up beer keeps you from hanging out your friends in the neighborhood, then keep drinking it, but if drinking gives rise to anger, then let it go. If you drive your car through the neighborhood and never slow down to greet your neighbors, then consider with me that your car is keeping you so isolated that it’s getting in the way of better relationships. God doesn’t care about fasting for the sake of fasting. The goal of Lent is to consider everything that we’re doing that keeps us from being reconciled to each other. Back to alcohol. If you’ve seen my favorite TV show, Ted Lasso, then you’ll remember in the first season the strained relationship between the young superstar, Jamie Tart, and the aging veteran, Roy Kent. Seating them at the same table for a benefit dinner, Coach Ted Lasso brings over a round of beers and says, “This is either going to make things a little better or a lot worse.” So often, this is the case with alcohol. So many substances and devices in our lives started out as making life a little bit better, a little bit easier. They were fun until they took over so much of our time that they started making our lives worse. Some of our habits are like pet boa constrictors. They’re little and cute and easy to control, but they grow so large that they can suffocate you. What is suffocating you? What is isolating you? What are the bricks that you’re using to maintain the wall between you and your sister? What would it take to bring that wall down? You don’t have to give anything up for Lent. You can start doing something new. I wonder what would happen in your life if you gave up playing Candy Crush on your phone to take up texting a different member of your family every night. I wonder what would happen if you gave up watching TV and started inviting the neighbors over for dinner. I wonder what would happen in your life if you gave up ordering Starbucks coffee in the drive thru in favor of going in and learning the name of the tattooed graduate school student who is working behind the counter. Do you know how fun life can be if you take the ear buds out of your ears to listen and greet the people in your neighborhood? Sara asked me to walk our dog, Izzy, last week, and I was putting the ear buds in my ears so that I could listen to a podcast while I walked, when Sara said, “That’s a good way to let everyone know that you don’t want to talk to them.” I felt a little resentful when she said that. Not only was she asking me to walk the dog, but she was also telling how to walk the dog, but she’s right. What am I doing that is shutting other people out, and why am I doing that when it’s other people that make me happy? Where are your damaged relationships and what can you do about them? Wouldn’t it be nice if you got back together with that friend whom haven’t talked to? Maybe you had a falling out. She said something mean. Then you got defensive. Maybe it all took place on Facebook. As it turns out, Facebook is a good place to destroy a friendship, and it’s not a good place to rebuild one. What if you gave up Facebook for Lent and took up face-to-face meetings with someone whose feelings you hurt? What if you gave up running on a treadmill in your basement and invited your mom to walk the neighborhood with you? Speaking of moms, my mom’s favorite thing is to walk with me around the neighborhood, but when I walk the dog, I just listen to this history podcast about the emperors of the Roman Empire. I don’t need to establish a relationship with any of them. With whom do I need to establish or reestablish a relationship? Which friendships of mine are frayed and why? What are you doing that is taking so much of your energy that when you get home, there’s nothing left for the people you love? Ike Reighard, who runs MUST Ministries, is known to have defined success this way: Success is when the people who know you best, love you most. Do the people who know you best love you most, or would they describe you as distracted, frustrated, and preoccupied? Give up over-functioning. Give up turning on the TV as soon as you walk through the door. Give up listening to the biggest complainers in your office and take up a new practice of writing thank-you notes to the people who make you happy. It’s been said that the opposite of addiction is relationships. We substitute so many substances and so many mindless activities for relationships. Give up the substances. Give up the distractions. And be reconciled to somebody. If we all tried to lay down the grudges, to speak to each other with respect, to try to understand, to be curious rather than judgmental, can you imagine where we would be at the end of these 40 days of Lent? It would be a lot more like Heaven. It would be something like the Promised Land, which is where He’s taking us. Lay down your burdens, your bad habits, your addictions, and follow where He leads. Amen.

What Happens on the Mountaintop, Stays on the Mountaintop, a sermon based on Luke 9: 28-42, preached on March 2, 2025

Last Monday, Ken Miner invited me to attend a special lunch at NorthStar Church in Kennesaw. Leaders in the community were invited to glean faithful leadership skills from Scripture. Our focus was Joseph, whom we read about last Sunday in the book of Genesis. Joseph was a leader in Pharoah’s Egypt. What did he do, and how did he conduct himself? What lessons might we learn from his example as we work and lead in this community? There are seven days in a week, but how often do we leave faithfulness to Sunday? What about Monday? That’s a challenge. It’s a challenge to lean on your faith in a world where people are ashamed to ask for help. That’s a challenge for us. That was a challenge even for the disciples who saw Jesus up on a mountaintop. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, notice with me that the miracle of the mountaintop doesn’t last. It doesn’t last for the disciples as they make their way back down into the valley. Today, we celebrate what happened up on the mountaintop. Today is one of those high holy days of the year that no one pays too much attention to. You might say that Transfiguration Sunday is the Arbor Day of the Church year. It’s an official holiday, but no gifts are exchanged. No one plans a big family meal to celebrate the Transfiguration. Does anyone even know what it is? The best example from popular culture is probably in Star Wars. Either Star Wars or Harry Potter. In both, the hero faces death. In Star Wars, our hero, Luke Skywalker, goes to fight his great enemy, Darth Vadar. Likewise, in Harry Potter, our hero, Harry, the boy wizard, goes to face the evil Voldemort, but before either goes to face his foe and his probable death, he’s suddenly joined by figures from beyond the grave. In Star Wars, it’s Luke’s greatest teachers, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. In Harry Potter, it’s Harry’s parents and the two most important figures from his days at Hogwarts, Professor Remus Lupin and his godfather, Sirius Black. My point is not to reveal to you how many times I’ve watched these two movies, but to assure you that you know more about the Transfiguration than you think you do. You just didn’t know that Star Wars and Harry Potter got the idea for those scenes from the Bible. As Jesus fully recognizes that He’s going to the cross to die in order to defeat the greatest enemy, death itself, He is encouraged up on that mountain by the two great heroes of our Old Testament: Moses and Elijah. The disciples recognized them, and I remember that once, in a Bible study, someone asked, “How did the disciples know that it was Moses and Elijah?” They had never seen a picture of them. No one knew what they looked like. Someone else in the Bible study said, “Maybe they had on nametags.” They didn’t have on nametags. The disciples just knew, and how they knew isn’t as important as considering why they were there. Why did Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus? It was to encourage Him as he prepares to face the cross. You can’t overcome life’s greatest challenges all on your own. That was true for Jesus, and that is true for you and me, and yet, the next day, they had come down from the mountain, and a great crowd met Jesus. Just then, a man from the crowd shouted: “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Why not? Disciples can’t always do what the Master can do, but if the Master is with them… Bring your son here, Jesus said. While he was coming, the demon dashed the boy to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. My friends, Jesus can do things that we cannot, and He is with us, not just on top of the mountain but down in the valley below, but are you trying to heal the world’s demons all on your own or will you call out for help? Now, that’s not easy. I don’t like asking for help. I don’t like people knowing that I need it. Just last Thursday, I was trying to get out of the hospital’s parking lot. I’d just been to visit a member of this church who’d had surgery, and I was trying to pay for parking at the kiosk. The machine didn’t like my debit card. A young woman asked if I needed help. She was in her 20’s. She asked me if I needed help, and I was too proud to accept it. I decided just to stay trapped in the parking garage, as though what I say from this pulpit has no bearing on how I live my life. Are we not always in need of help? Then call out for it. Ask and you shall receive, but so long as we go along this road thinking it’s all up to us and we know all the answers, we will be paving our way to Hell with our good intentions and our best-laid plans. Yet, the moment we turn to Him to confess our sins and rely on His grace; He will lift us up and take us to the Promised Land. My friends, we call him the Savior because we need saving. Watch the news if you don’t think we’re broken. Yet after watching, call on Him for help and trust Him to cast out demons and make us whole. Amen.

Love the Porcupines, a sermon based on Genesis 45: 3-11, 15 and Luke 6: 27-38, preached on February 23, 2025

I’ve always believed that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who dip their French fries into their ketchup, and those who squeeze ketchup all over their French fries. Jesus also believed that there were two kinds of people: neighbors and enemies, and He commands us to love them both. That’s a tall order. It’s hard enough to love your neighbors, but everyone does that, Jesus says. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Well, that’s a good point. Our neighbor Dan McCloud, a couple weeks ago, he was driving out to County Farm Road to take his glass to be recycled. He offered to take ours as well, which was so kind. I’m thankful, but every time I drive out to County Farm Road, I do the same. He carries my glass to the glass recycling center, and I return that favor. Before too much longer, things will change. Thanks to Jim Sommerville, we’re going before the City Council tomorrow night to place our own glass recycling bin in our church parking lot, and I suspect that we’ll be heroes to our entire community who have grown tired of driving out to County Farm Road. Even the Mayor told me that he’s tired of driving so far, but what credit is it to us to be kind to our neighbors? Even sinners love those who love them. Love your enemies, Jesus said. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Why? I have a friend who works for the federal government. Anyone else have a friend who works for the federal government? Is your friend as scared as my friend that he might lose his job? Whenever people are angry and afraid, the world divides into two kinds of people: friends and enemies. Love your enemies, Jesus said, and some have done it. Have you seen Les Misérables? I hadn’t seen it before last week. It was mentioned on my favorite TV show of all time, Ted Lasso, so last week I watched it. In this play-turned-movie, the main character, Jean Valjean, is out on parole. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Upon release, he must present his papers, which state that he’s a criminal, so no one will hire him. No innkeeper will host him. He falls asleep in a cemetery where a bishop takes him in. To repay the bishop for his kindness, Jean Valjean steals the silver from the bishop’s church. Caught red-handed on the run, he’s dragged by the police to kneel before the bishop with his bag full of the church’s silver. Expecting condemnation, he’s surprised to hear the bishop say, “I tried to give him the silver candle sticks as well, but he left before I could. All this silver I gave him freely. Release this man. He’s done nothing wrong.” Love your enemies, Jesus said. Why? Because such love as this changed Jean Valjean’s life. Divine love is the only force that can change your enemy into your friend. Divine love is not so much concerned with fairness as it is with mercy. Divine love is patient. It is kind. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Divine love does not delight in evil but always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Think with me about God’s divine love and consider with me the very essence of who God is. How has God been at work in your life? When have you felt His mercy? We read about it in our first Scripture lesson, which is the conclusion of one of the truly great narratives. The narrative begins when the boy Joseph was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers. Do you know the story? Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote a musical about it. It was on Broadway. But just as the book is better than the movie, so also the Scripture lesson is better than the Broadway play. This narrative that unfolds in the book of Genesis begins with a little brother, Joseph, Daddy’s favorite, who, by his brothers, is thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and is locked behind bars in Egypt, but because he can interpret dreams, he ends up the Pharoah’s right-hand man. While he advises Pharoah and accumulates grain for the Egyptian Empire, his brothers and their families face famine. Desperate for food, they go to Egypt, begging for grain before the throne of the one who controls the granaries of the Pharoah. My how the tables have turned. As his brothers kneel before him, Joseph finally had the chance to get revenge. Can you imagine how many times he thought of it? From the bottom of the pit they threw him in, he swore he’d get even if they ever let him out. Then, bound in chains on that slaver’s caravan, he plotted retribution. On those cold nights in his cell, he was warmed by the thought that payback would rain down on the brothers who put him there, only as he looked down on them from his throne, saw the gaunt looks on their hungry faces, the thought came to him, “You threw me into a pit, sold me into slavery, so that I ended up imprisoned in Egypt, but had you not done that, I would be just as hungry as you are now. God put me here. God sent me before you to preserve life.” Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Why? Because they deserve love? Why should we bless those who persecute us? Because they deserve our blessing? Such love makes no sense to those of us who follow the social contract. A social contract is this agreement. It’s not necessarily a formal agreement. It can be nothing more than a handshake or a nod, and it works like this: If I take my neighbor’s glass to the recycling center then he’ll likely offer to take my glass to the recycling center. If my neighbor Jamie blows the leaves off part of my yard, then I’m going to blow leaves off part of his yard. There are these social contracts. The few people who don’t abide by them are called sociopaths. They’re like the people who put ketchup all over their French fries. No, seriously, some people just take. They never return favors, but most people do. Even sinners, Jesus says, love people who love them. They return generosity with generosity. That’s a social contract. We’re used to that. We give favors to those who do us favors. But love your enemies, Jesus says. Why? Because our lives are not governed by the social contract. Our lives are not governed by a human contract, but by divine love and divine mercy. Jesus is saying, “Give to your enemy expecting to receive nothing in return, for you’ve already received everything from God.” Don’t forgive expecting to receive forgiveness. Just forgive because you’ve already been forgiven. Consider God’s abundant mercy, so don’t just invite people over for dinner who invite you over for dinner. Instead, consider the feast we are invited to in the Kingdom of Heaven. Can anything compare to the glory about to be revealed to us as the children of God? Notice what God has done and consider what God has promised. I think about His mercy today as I watch a cycle of revenge unfold before my eyes. Russia invades Ukraine. Terrorists from Palestine commit atrocities in Israel, so Israel strikes back until there is nothing left in Palestine. These cycles go on and on and on, for the dark deeds of our enemies fill our bodies with rage. We long to return evil with evil. To stop the cycle, Jesus says, “Lift up your eyes to consider, not what your enemy has done, but what God has done,” and what has God done? What has God done for you, in your life? Consider His mercy and His blessing especially amid affliction, for people are mean. Last Thursday, I sat down at a table. One I sat down with asked me if I’d gotten a haircut. Hearing the question and noticing my lack of hair, another asked me, “Which one did you have cut?” My friends, there’s a great story in the Bible about the Prophet Elijah who calls a bear to maul a group of boys who call him “old bald head.” I can relate to that thirst for vengeance. It’s not my fault I’ve lost my hair, yet while I may have so few hairs that my Creator will have no trouble numbering them all, I will never be able to count all my blessings, so will I fume in anger or buy my neighbor another round? You know which is better for your heart, and you know which response reflects the divine love and mercy of our God. Don’t lose yourself in getting even. Get lost in counting your blessings, for the blessings of God are not just a little, but a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. That’s what will be put in your lap, for the measure you give, that will be the measure you get back. You see, it’s not the social contract that matters most, but the divine contract that has made all the difference in our lives. It’s God’s mercy that defines us. That’s what the bishop taught Jean Valjean. That’s what Joseph realized as he looked down on his brothers, and that’s what Jesus always knew, but that is also what this world is always forgetting. That God gives. God forgives. God provides. God suspends judgement. Consider these things and share with your enemies out of the abundance of what God has provided. Now, somebody said, “Pastor, my enemy doesn’t deserve it.” Somebody said, “I’m not going to give them that. They’ve taken too much. They’ve done too much evil,” and I say to you, “Harboring hate in your heart is like drinking from a bottle of poison and hoping that your enemy is going to die.” Hate is doing harm to your heart. Hate is doing harm to the heart of our nation. Hate is too great a burden to bear, so I choose love. That’s a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was beaten, imprisoned, slandered, criticized, and maligned, but trusted in the dream of a new heaven and a new earth where all God’s people lay down their grudges to love one another as brothers and sisters. My friends, we are living in scary times, and fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. It was Yoda who said that in one of the Star Wars movies, and he was right about where hate will take us, while love will lift your soul towards Heaven. Love your enemies. Do good and lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Amen.

The Fisherman, a sermon based on Isaiah 6: 1-8 and Luke 5: 1-11, preached on February 9, 2025

It’s hard to imagine Jesus recruiting His first disciples, considering how the Church has grown since this moment by the Lake of Gennesaret. At last count, in 2020, there were 2.4 billion professing Christians in the world. That’s more than 25% of the world’s population. We just baptized another one, Adeline Elizabeth Garcia. This room is full of His disciples. In just the city of Soel, Korea there are as many Presbyterians as there are in the entire United States of America, so while today, our world is full of His disciples, as we read this Gospel lesson, we are asked to imagine Jesus trying to recruit the first one. How did He do it? Where did He go? How did He start? Last Monday, at the funeral of Dr. Clem Doxey, who founded what became the largest dermatology practice in the state of Georgia, Dr. Bob Harper, who became his friend and colleague, told the story of Clem coming to Marietta and trying to recruit his first patients. Having few patients to care for in his new office, he spent time at Kennestone Hospital asking doctors to please refer to him some sick people. Today, we stand in line for our appointments at that same practice, but it started slow, and this is how it is for most everything in the beginning. The ministry of Jesus begins, and it wasn’t much different. Jesus wasn’t born having followers. He had to go out and find them. To do so, He didn’t stand in some grand pulpit like this one, waiting for disciples to come to Him. No, He went out into the world. Standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, He saw two boats there at the shore. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore, so that He could preach from the boat. Our daughter Lily helped me to notice the significance of this detail of our Gospel lesson. Our daughters are preacher’s kids, so they’re a little different. We were discussing this Gospel lesson over the dinner table last Thursday night. Lily told me that she remembered a sermon preached on this same Gospel lesson by Sadie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame. When she preached on this Gospel lesson, she wisely observes that Jesus steps onto Simon’s boat and preached from there. Then Sadie Robertson asked, “What boat are you preaching from?” Jesus didn’t need some grand pulpit like this one to proclaim the Gospel. He went out into the world and preached the Gospel from Simon’s boat. What boat are you preaching from? If you have a desk job and know the Good News, then you can preach the Gospel from right where you are, and it serves the Kingdom for you to preach from your boat or your desk or your neighborhood walking group, for it’s out there where the people are who need to hear what is said within these walls. Jesus went out into the world looking for sinners to save. In the same way, Dr. Doxey went into the hospital looking for sick people to heal, but when Simon Peter saw the catch of fish that Jesus provided, he fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” I can’t get over this part of our Gospel lesson, yet this is the way it always happens. Maybe this is the way it always is. If you remember our first Scripture lesson, which tells the account of the prophet’s call to ministry, when God comes to speak to Isaiah, Isaiah is so amazed by the glory of God and amazed by his own sinfulness in comparison to God’s glory that he says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” I think about this because Jesus the Savior came to earth not looking perfect people. No more did He come looking for perfect people than Dr. Doxey was searching for perfect skin, yet Simon said to Jesus after Jesus provided him a catch of fish so large that their nets began to break, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This is the power of shame. I read in a book about Alcoholics Anonymous that guilt and shame are different. Feeling guilty can be OK. Guilt tells us when we’ve made a mistake and provides the motivation we need to make it right again. Shame is more destructive, for while guilt tells me “I’ve made a mistake,” shame tells me, “I am a mistake.” This is another lesson that the Church needs to learn from AA, for it’s been said that “AA is to shame as a hot knife is to butter.” Reading our Gospel lesson and hearing the call of Isaiah, I realize that the Church should be no different than AA, for when we reveal to Him our brokenness, we are saved, only sometimes the Church makes such vulnerability even more difficult than it already is. Denominations will literally look at the demographic breakdown of neighborhoods before they’ll consider building a new church, looking at things like rates of college diplomas, value of homes, and median income, as though building the Church of Jesus Christ were no different than franchising the Publix grocery store chain. Now, I love Publix, but our call is not to sell fancy produce to rich people. The Great Physician came to heal the sick. As His disciples, our target is the lost and the lame, the blind and the hopeless, the poor and the afflicted, and yet church youth groups try to recruit the popular kids as though recruiting people for the church were just like recruiting players for a football team. My friends, when Clem Doxey went looking to build his dermatology practice, he was looking for people who suffered with skin cancer and melanoma. When you go out into this world and you find your boat to preach from, don’t try to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the people with perfect skin, but the people with broken hearts. I began this sermon saying that there are 2.4 billion professing Christians in this world. That’s true, but it’s also true that there are more than 800,000 people here in Cobb County, and more than half of them have no religious affiliation. Some of you remember the days when everyone in your neighborhood, or it seemed like everyone in your neighborhood, went to church on Sunday morning. I don’t remember that. That time in human history was already ending when I was growing up. The only business I knew of that was closed on Sunday was Chick-fil-A, and by the time I was old enough to buy beer, I could buy it any day of the week I wanted. The world outside our doors is not as full of disciples as many remember it being. For many, today, Sunday, is a day for playing soccer and going to Home Depot, and the way I hear people talk about Christianity these days, they’re describing a religion that barely resembles what I read in the Bible, for people suffer from a level of Biblical illiteracy that’s reaching epidemic proportions. But don’t let me get self-righteous here. That’s not what the world needs. The world is cloaked in shame. Many out there would respond to the Gospel the same way Simon did: with shame and misunderstanding, and while some have said that our religion is under assault, if we take that mindset, if we go out into the world defensive and braced for attack, then how will we comfort those who are just as full of shame as Simon Peter was? My friends, today let us take this account of the calling of the first disciple as an example for us, for the world is full of sick people who are suffering. Full of people who are isolated and alone. Full of people who are hopeless and distracted. Full of people who are anxious and afraid. So full of people who are hurting that rates of suicide in our community have risen by 14% in the last year. My friends, when Simon Peter revealed his brokenness to Jesus, Jesus stepped towards him. Jesus gave him a new name, a new identity, a new calling, a new purpose, yet when the church hears of brokenness, do we not too often step away? There’s a story that so broke my heart that even though I read it 15 years ago, I still remember it vividly. It’s a story that Bishop Gene Robinson told when he was interviewed by GQ magazine. I used to subscribe to GQ magazine, which explains why I’m so fashionable. Well, when the good Bishop was telling his life story to this journalist, he remembered how present the church was on the day he was married to the woman who became his wife. On their wedding day, the church was there in full force, celebrating that happy day, but on the day they were divorced, no one was there. There were no flowers. There was no reception. There was no music, nor singing, nor presents, nor words of encouragement, and as he looked back on it, he reflected that he needed the Church far more when he was going through his divorce than he did on his wedding day. My friends, when we step away from broken people, we do not bear in our actions the image of Jesus Christ. We do when we step towards them. You may have read this, but you need to know it because it’s miraculous. As we’ve been more and more involved in the Cobb County Jail, we’ve become more and more aware of the realities that the men and women who work there and who are incarcerated there face. We started with livestreaming our worship service, then after one of our members felt called to serve as a chaplain in the jail, he made us aware of the bare shelves of the jail library. You filled those shelves, and now hundreds of books are checked out every week. Then, more recently you were made aware of those men and women who are released from jail and are handed the clothes they were arrested in as they reenter society. If they were arrested in July but are released in January, that means they’re walking out of the jail in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Those outfits are not warm enough for the winter, not to mention how those clothes carry the shameful memories of what happened the last time they were worn. My friends, when the call went out to provide the jail with seasonally appropriate clothing, you so fulfilled the call that after just a couple weeks, the jail has already said, “No more. We have enough. We have no more room to put these clothes!” I’m so thankful to be a witness to such an act of love. I’m so thankful for the way you have stepped towards the imprisoned. If there is a Simon Peter among those who you have clothed, I expect that by the grace of God, our world will be transformed by the ministry of that new disciple of Jesus Christ. May it be so. Amen.