The Tyranny of the Urgent, a sermon based on John 11: 1-45, preached on March 22, 2026

There’s a great story that the author Ann Lamott tells about a women’s Bible study. The women’s Bible study was discussing Jesus, who He was, and people in their lives who had been like Jesus to them, and so the group went around the circle. The first woman said that as she went through her divorce, her golden retriever never failed to greet her warmly when she walked through the door. That empty house would have been so sad, but because of that golden retriever, she never felt alone. The next woman talked about her grandmother, who baked chocolate chip cookies and seemed to be pulling a pan of them out of the oven whenever she needed them most. Finally, the last woman at the table spoke, and she looked at the question differently, saying, “Who was like Jesus to me? Well, that would have to be the person who loved me so much that he was always honest with me, so honest that I wanted to kill him.” My friends, that’s true about Jesus. We call Him friend, we know He walks beside us, but we can’t domesticate Jesus. While we all need a golden retriever and a warm chocolate chip cookie, notice with me how many people in the 45 verses we just read wanted to ring Jesus’ neck. Jesus disappointed people. Jesus irritated His disciples because He was always pushing them to prioritize the eternal over the urgent. Have you ever known someone like that, when what you want is someone who will act immediately? Who will help and respond? When I’m panicking, I want someone who will not just stand there, but will do something, but there are thoughtful people who remain calm in those urgent situations, so calm that they drive me crazy. Do you know what I’m talking about? When I was a pastor in Columbia, Tennessee, one hot summer day, the air conditioner went out in the Sanctuary. Presbyterians get grouchy when they’re hot. I know that. You know that, so as I was walking into the Sanctuary to lead the worship service and a church member ran up to me letting me know that the air conditioner wasn’t working, what did I do but make my way out to the HV/AC unit as though I would know what to do once I got there because I’m the kind of person who will respond to your emergency with action whether I know what to do or not. Regardless, I’ll do something. I won’t always do what’s most important but what’s most urgent. Jesus never did that. Jesus never let other peoples’ worries distract Him from His true purpose, and so He often irritated the people around Him who wanted Him to hurry up and act, and that includes His mother. Do you remember His first miracle in the Gospel of John, when He turns water into wine? Then you’ll remember how anxious His mother was. She told Him, “They have no wine,” and you can imagine that she was worried about it because she makes a statement that’s obviously a command. “They have no wine.” In other words: Don’t just stand there. Do something! Sara does that to our children all the time. “I noticed that there are recyclables in the garbage.” That sounds like a statement, but somebody had better do something about it. Jesus had better do something about the wine, says His mother, but Jesus didn’t respond to the urgent with the same nervous energy of everyone else. Why not? Why didn’t the anxiety overwhelm Him? It’s because He prioritized the eternal over the urgent, and He could do that because He never forgot the power of God even when worry overpowered all the people around Him. He wouldn’t have rushed out to look at the HV/AC unit, yet His calm demeanor would have irritated the people around Him because misery loves company, and anxiety will spread through a crowd faster than COVID. Do you remember when a crowd of people followed Jesus out to a remote place where there was no food, nor any place to buy something to eat? His disciples were out among them listening to them grumble. The babies were hungry, so they looked to their parents for something to eat. The parents looked to the disciples to do something about it. The disciples looked to Jesus, and Jesus said, “You feed them.” How could He do such a thing? But He did. He was always pushing His followers to trust in the power of God, but it’s hard to trust when your babies are crying, and it’s even harder when your brother is sick. Think with me about Martha and Mary calling out for Jesus, sending a messenger to go and find Him, asking Him to come and heal their sick brother. I wish He would have treated their concern with a little more urgency. I wish He would have rushed over there to heal Him, just as I rushed outside to try to fix that HV/AC, but Jesus wasn’t worried. Jesus trusted in the power of God. He never succumbed to the tyranny of the urgent, and that made Him hard for people like us to be around, but my friends, why don’t we all take a moment to consider how we might become a little more like Jesus and a little less like the world? Think with me about the world. Gas prices are rising. How long will it take for people to lose their minds? I saw a snowflake on Monday. Was there a run on milk or bread at the Kroger? There probably was because we are anxious people who want leaders to do something when we’re anxious and afraid, even if it’s the wrong thing that they’re doing. “Don’t just stand there. Do something!” we say. However, Jesus was below deck asleep when the storm began to toss the ship, and He was calm when He received word that Lazarus was ill. What are we to learn from His demeanor? That in a world of high stress and anxiety, cooler heads prevail. Those who keep the faith are more than conquerors. Do you know what’s funny about the Gospel of John? For the second Sunday in a row, I’ve read a super long second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of John because the author tells long, sweeping stories to make his point, which is the exact opposite of the Apostle Paul. To summarize the 45 verses I just read, let me quote Paul the Apostle, who wrote, “I consider that the sufferings of the present evil age are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.” John takes 45 verses to say what Paul says in one. Regardless of whether you need 45 verses or one to hear this truth, remember the Good News that suffering comes to an end. Sooner or later, suffering gives way to glory. Jesus always remembers that which annoys the people around Him, yet how much better would we all be if, instead of wringing our hands anxiously in the face of death, we always remembered that death will not have the final word? Lazurus died, yet the dead will be raised. Weeping may last for the night, yet joy comes in the morning. On American Idol the other night, I heard a man sing: “Your love is running after, running after me.” Would His love not catch up to me a lot faster if I could stop running outside to fix the air conditioner? Do you hear what I’m saying? Be still, and let the love of God catch up to you. Is it not far more faithful not to just do something, but to stand on the promises of God? The Lord Jesus faced death and conquered it. I want Him to stand beside me. I want Jesus to walk with me. Yet Jesus calls me to have more faith than I have fear. To have more trust than I have anxiety. To have more confidence in God than I have confidence in myself. For by His power, empty water jars will be filled with wine. Stormy seas will become calm, and tombs for the dead will become wombs of new life. Do you believe in Him? Would you trust in Him? Would you follow Him? Then conquer the tyranny of the urgent with your knowledge of the eternal victory. For death will not have the final word. Sorrow will not have the final word. Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. If you believe, you will see the glory of God. Trust. Rejoice in suffering. Keep the faith. Face your fear with this assurance: Nothing will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

The Question Jesus Asks, a sermon based on Psalm 23 and John 9: 1-41, preached on March 15, 2026

That was a long second Scripture lesson. You have to read the whole thing, though, to get the whole story, and getting the whole story is something that everyone is interested in. We all want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. I once knew a lady who said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.” Spill. Give me the dirt. Tell me the story. Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? When I first read it, I couldn’t believe that anyone would ask a question such as that in our second Scripture lesson, “Who sinned?” Then, I started to think how finding someone to blame is so natural a thing that it’s basically our national pastime. Think about it. When someone gets divorced, what kind of questions do we ask? We ask: What did he do? Who cheated? What happened? Who sinned, was it him or his spouse, that they are getting divorced? Asking some version of, “Who sinned?” is a natural question for us to ask, yet notice with me that Jesus doesn’t spend any time answering that question, for the question that Jesus asks is, “Do you want to be made well?” That’s what He asked the first time He healed on the Sabbath back in chapter 5. I wanted to include that chapter in our second Scripture lesson for today, too, but then I thought, “Maybe 41 verses is enough,” and it is for us to get this point: When the disciples asked, “Who is to blame?” the question Jesus asks is, “Do you want to be made well?” and that’s the question to ask people who are going through a divorce. Not, “Was it your fault or his?” but “How can I support you as you walk through the valley?” It’s hard, though, to ask such a helpful question if we get wrapped up in assigning blame, so know this: We are the ones who like to assign blame, while Jesus came, not to condemn the world, but to save it, and so He asks, not “Who did what?” but “Do you want to be made well?” That’s the question that Jesus asks, yet the church gets mixed up in assigning blame just as those first disciples did. Let me give you an example. Have I ever told you where I got my bike? I like riding my bike to the church. People stop and watch me ride by, as though they’ve never seen a man in a suit riding a bike. I like riding my bike to the church. Riding a bike gets people’s attention. I like attention. It’s also good exercise, which I like as well. Considering traffic in Marietta, a lot of the time I make it here to the church faster on my bike than I would have if I were driving a car. I like that too, but back to where my bike came from. I bought my bike for $100 about 15 years ago. If you know anything about bikes, then you might know that my bike is basically an antique. A teal Bianchi as old as mine is a collector’s item. Models like it sell for $500 to $1,000 which is why I keep that bike lock on it. Those who recognize the make and model know it’s worth money, yet I bought it for $100, which I thought was a deal. That was before I heard that the prior owner probably rode it naked. Did you hear that? Yes. I said, “naked.” Just like Adam and Eve. The man who owned my bike before I did was arrested for running through the county park in the nude. Because we lived in a small town, his arrest made the newspaper, and when news of his arrest reached me, I bought a new seat for my bicycle. Here’s why I’m telling you this: This all happened in small town, Columbia, Tennessee. Columbia, Tennessee has a Church of Christ church on every corner. If you know anything about the Church of Christ, then you know that they don’t have instruments. They sing a cappella. They don’t ordain women to the ministry. They’re very against dancing and alcohol, and if you mess up, you must confess your sins before the whole congregation. The man who owned my bike was a member of the West 7th Street Church of Christ, and the members of the West 7th Street Church of Christ were particularly diligent about having people confess their sins publicly. If you were caught drinking, you had to confess during worship on Sunday in front of everyone. If you were caught dancing, you had to do the same. And if you were caught running nude through the county park, you definitely had to make a public confession, so this man who owned my bike had to stand and repent before the whole congregation. Can you imagine? I can because I’m standing up in front of a room full of people who knew me when I was a teenager. You know, people ask me all the time, “What is it like to be a pastor in the town you grew up in?” I tell you; it’s a strange thing to be a religious authority in the town who remembers me when I was running around this church when I was supposed to be in Confirmation Class or the youth group meeting. When I first got back here in 2017, Howard Swinford told me how to get on the roof of the church, and when he did, he said, “We can show you this now.” I got in trouble all the time, and people remember. The other day, I was with my 7th grade English teacher, Betty Neale Lawton. I loved Mrs. Lawton. To know Mrs. Lawton is to love Mrs. Lawton, but that didn’t mean that I was always good in her class, and those memories of misbehavior stay fresh because she keeps bringing them up. The other day, I was standing in front of the church with Mrs. Lawton, my 7th grade English teacher, and Dr. Bob Harper, who treated my teenage acne. Mrs. Lawton wanted to tell Bob about the time she had to pull my friends and me out in the hallway to tell us we had to stop talking in her class, and because I loved Mrs. Lawton so much, I took her words to heart. After she let us know that we were being disrespectful to her, I felt shame and guilt in my heart. Those feelings were overwhelming me as I sat back down at my desk, and this is what Mrs. Lawton remembered, that when I sat back down, she saw tears in my eyes. “He got in trouble all the time, but he had a big heart. That’s what I remember,” Mrs. Lawton said, and I still don’t like getting in trouble, but the story I just told you isn’t about a boy who got in trouble. The story I just told you is the story of a teacher who loves me despite my sin, so what is it like to serve the Lord as a pastor in the same town as the dermatologist who treated my acne and the English teacher who had to address my bad behavior? It’s healing. It’s redeeming. Would you be healed? You know, it’s not easy to accept the invitation to healing. If you want to be forgiven, you must confess. If you want to be saved, you must admit you need a savior. If you want to be healed, you must let someone see your wounds. Christians don’t deal with problems by running away from them, but by turning towards the Savior. Go home to the Father and feel His arms of mercy wrap around you. Learn to face the people you hurt, not with fear, but with faith. Don’t avoid what feels awkward or uncomfortable, for you won’t make it to Heaven pretending to be perfect. To get there you must answer His question: “Would you be made well?” Would you rely on His grace? My friends: I have no righteousness of my own. I have been saved by His grace. Redeemed by His mercy. Found. Healed. Forgiven. Would you be made well? Amen.

Go From Your Country and Your Kindred, a sermon based on Genesis 12: 1-4a and John 3: 1-21, preached on March 1, 2026

I was blessed to have two grandmothers. I also had two grandfathers, but my grandmothers treated me with near-celebrity status, and today, I’d like to tell you a little about them in the hopes of reminding you of those people who, to use the words of Mr. Rogers, “loved you into existence.” My paternal grandmother, my father’s mother, was a painter. Still, to this day, when I smell oil paints and paint thinners, I am teleported in memory to her house where I often spent afternoons. There, she not only painted, but made blackberry jelly, served me Capri Suns, and encouraged me to go explore her yard. In her yard, I would bend sticks into bows and sharpen others into arrows. Once, while I was patrolling her front yard with bow and arrow in hand, headband with a feather on my head, she stopped me so that she could paint my portrait. That portrait still hangs in my parents’ house, and my sister brings it up sometimes: that there are photographs of us all but there is only one portrait, and that’s of Joe. I was beloved by my paternal grandmother, and my mother’s mother loved me just as much. One baseball season, a photographer took our team photo, then individual photos, and turned each of our individual photos into our own baseball cards. Had you looked on the back of my baseball card for my batting average, you would not have been impressed, but my grandmother was, so she took my little baseball card to the print shop and had it enlarged to poster size. Surely for Abraham, there were such people, yet God said to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house.” I just hope he was able to carry the memory of his grandmothers’ voices with him, for in this world of ours, such love seems to be in short supply. The journey is hard, and the people who loved us into existence cannot journey with us forever. We all leave the safety of home. We all step out on the road towards salvation, reading headlines of war and the rumors of war. Whose voice do you wish you could hear this morning to reassure you that everything is going to be alright? That’s part of why I come to church. I want to hear again the promises of God. I want to hear the reassurance that God is in control. Last Thursday, I went into the barber shop, and it was my barber who reminded me: There’s less hair for me to cut than last time, Joe, but God is still in control. I hope and pray that this church is like that barbershop, that here you’re surrounded by acceptance, love, and affirmation, along with the assurance that God is in control, yet years ago, a new pastor came to our church. His wife and four children sat in a pew near the pulpit. Just as they were settling in, a longtime member of our church greeted them with, “You’re sitting in my pew.” That just can’t happen, so yesterday I emphasized the need for hospitality to our church officers. The new class of elders and deacons will be ordained and installed just after this sermon. Yesterday, they attended a training, and every year for the past couple of years I’ve been telling the deacons the same thing: Each Easter, we’ll have as many as 100 first-time visitors to our church. Each Christmas Eve, the number is just as high. And every Sunday, we have between five and 25 people walk through the doors of our church for the very first time. They don’t know where the bathrooms are. They don’t know where they’re going to sit, but what they’re really looking for is a safe harbor. A place to rest. A sanctuary from our broken world where they’ll feel valued, wanted, loved, and respected. Where they’ll hear again that while the world is falling apart, God is in control. Perhaps that’s what Nicodemus was looking for. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, we heard about Nicodemus, who went to Jesus looking for answers. Perhaps he was called by God to go as Abraham had been called. Perhaps he was looking for light as the shadow crept into his heart. Whatever it was that pushed him towards Jesus, I give thanks to God for Jesus today because when Nicodemus knocked on His door, Jesus welcomed him in. Would he have received the same reception if he came knocking on your door? Would he have felt the same welcome if you found him sitting in your pew? My friends, Nicodemus went out one night looking for the light. Do you know how many people in our dark and desolate world are looking for the light today? Do you know how many are looking for hope? Think with me about how much it changed you to be loved by your grandmother. Or if your grandmother was a dried out old witch, then think with me how good it felt to finally feel loved and accepted by someone in your life. Who was it? What was her name? What did he do for you that made the difference? This is the power of Jesus, not just that He did miracles, turning water into wine, but when people sought Him out, He assured them that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Would you allow Christ’s light to shine through you? I tell you, you don’t have to save the world, you need only remember that we have a Savior. You don’t have to welcome everyone into your house, just those who knock on the door. You don’t have to be a hero to change someone’s life. Just two weeks ago, a man wandered into our church on the worst day of his life. He walked into our church, and he wept, and I sat there and I listened, and finally I said, “This may seem like the end of the world, but it’s not. Everything is going to be alright because God is in control.” Halleluia. Amen.