The Parable of the Weeds, a sermon based on Mark 4: 26-29, preached on June 23, 2024

Last Thursday, I attended the funeral for Tim Moran. Tim lived in our neighborhood, and he worshiped with us here at First Presbyterian Church whenever he didn’t feel like driving down to his church in Midtown. We met Tim and his wife, Mary, not long after moving into our house in July of 2017. We were thinking about how to decorate and renovate our new home when we learned that Tim made his living by selling reclaimed wood. He salvaged old long-leaf pine timbers from log cabins and smokehouses built generations ago and sold them out of his warehouse, so we asked him to help us find some beams to build a bookcase for my wife, Sara’s, new office. He invited us to his warehouse where all these pieces of ancient wood were stored. We fell in love with four thick beams, each maybe 10 feet long. He gave us the price, which I’m sure was discounted, but the thoughts of new home expenses gave us cold feet. We started thinking about the moving costs we’d just paid, how we needed to build a fence, paint walls, possibly replace appliances in our new home, and quickly felt like those beautiful beams were too great a luxury. We told Tim we’d have to think about it and reluctantly walked away. Later that same day, we pulled into the driveway, and there the four beams were, stacked next to our back door. It was a gift, and it was a gift that neither of us were expecting, which is the way it goes with so many blessings. They surprise us. We don’t expect them, and yet, if they’ve happened in the past, why wouldn’t they come again? Might the Kingdom of God be something like such an unexpected blessing? This morning, we continue our summer sermon series on the parables of Jesus with what I’m calling “the parable of the weeds.” In this parable is a man who has little to nothing to do with a weed that springs up in his field. He doesn’t water it. He didn’t plow the ground in which it was planted. There is no mention of fertilizer or pruning. This weed seems to have sprung up despite of him rather than because of him, and yet when it bears fruit, he grabs the sickle for the harvest for it’s not a weed at all but a plant that bears grain. This is what the Kingdom of God is like, Jesus says. “The Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” Consider this weed, which he’s done nothing to produce, and consider your blessings, which you’ve done nothing to earn. We humans sometimes we forget about the blessings and start to think that it’s all up to us, or at least I do. How many sleepless nights have I spent tossing and turning, trying to work out some crisis in my head? How many nights have I spent asking myself, again and again, “What am I going to do? What am I going to say?” as though it were all up to me. It’s not all up to me. I remember that when I can’t find something that I’m missing. When I can’t find my car keys or my pocketknife, at first, I’m certain that what I must do is look harder for it. However, it turns up once I finally stop looking. Likewise, so often has it been the case that I spend a restless night worrying about a problem, thinking through what I was going to say, when it resolved itself on its own, like a gift I wasn’t expecting, like a weed that turned into grain. The author Mark Twain was famous for saying, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” So it has been with me. That’s how it always is with these sermons. Every week, I start writing these sermons with the same thought in my mind. I look at that blank sheet of paper and think: “How am I going to fill up the page? Do I really have anything else to say?” I often worry about what I’m going to say all week long, when the reality is, all I need to do is wait for God to tell me what to say. I need to get better at watching for God’s hand at work and listening for God’s voice. God’s always speaking, but the thoughts in my head are racing so quickly, I listen more to my own worries than His assurance that I need not be afraid. This week, I went to Tim’s funeral. As I said before, he came to our church when he didn’t feel like driving down to All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Midtown. That’s where the funeral was, and during the service we sang one of my favorite hymns, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” The third verse goes like this: Finish then thy new creation. Pure and spotless let us be. Let us see thy great salvation Perfectly restored in thee. Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise. Do you ever get lost in wonder? Do you ever step back from the work on your desk to consider the work of God’s hand? Do you ever take a break from whatever it is that you must do to give thanks to God for what God has done? Do you ever consider how weeds grow without us? Or how many blessings fall right into our laps? And when you consider the future, will you remember all the good that God has done in the past to assure you that even if you can’t do it all, God is in control? My friends, we are coming closer and closer to election season. I’ve been dreading it for months already, for I’m tired of hearing about how everything hangs in the balance. I’m sick and tired of listening to the news coverage of this next presidential election because it seems like everyone is telling me that the future is uncertain and that no election has ever been so important as this one, as though my vote will determine our destiny, even though never in my life has that ever been the case. I can’t tell you how many of my bad decisions led to my greatest blessings. I can’t tell you how many blessings from God have sprung up like weeds in the yard. I can’t tell you how often it has been the case that finally, in my surrender, once I stopped trying to find the right answer, did the solution appear like my keys under the couch. Don’t listen to the anxiety preached by the 24-hour news cycle, for the Kingdom of God is not like a hard-fought election campaign. The Kingdom of God is not like a marathon that you must train for relentlessly. The Kingdom of God is not like a promotion you earned or a luxury car that you saved for. The Kingdom of God is like a weed that grew without you having to do anything but harvest the wheat from it that you did nothing to earn, and my friends, the Kingdom of God is coming. Jesus said it is coming like a thief in the night, so I’m not going to listen when the world tells me to work harder. Instead, I’m going to remember the voice of God who says, “Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I’m not going to listen when the world tells me to be afraid, for Scripture declares, “The Lord is my Shepherd, of whom shall I fear?” I’m not going to listen when they tell me that everything hangs in the balance, for Scripture declares, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” When the world makes me feel like I’ve just got to do something, I’m going to remember the psalm that says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Last Sunday was Father’s Day. My wife, Sara, and our two daughters asked me what I wanted for Father’s Day. Well, I wanted their help. Since we moved into our house, one thing that has bugged me is that half of our front yard is covered in English ivy. That English ivy just takes up so much space. I like that I don’t have to cut it, but I don’t like that I can’t plant azaleas or hydrangeas or something there. It’s just big, green ivy, covering up snake holes and rat dens, as far as I’m concerned, so when Sara and our girls asked me what I wanted for Father’s Day, I told them I wanted their help pulling up ivy, and since last Sunday, we’ve pulled up all of it. I mean all of it. It’s in these huge piles by the street. You can drive by and see it if you want to. Get your picture taken in front of it. It’s a huge pile of ivy that my family helped me pull up while neighbors walked by to watch, and without fail, every neighbor who walked by us working on that ivy said the same thing. “That ivy is coming back.” They said, “You can pull it up. You can spray it with Roundup. You can mow it down, but that ivy is coming back.” That’s what every neighbor said. That might be what you’re thinking right now. If it is, let me ask you this, “If we had faith in God the way we have faith in weeds, can you imagine how it would change us?” If we had as much faith in God that God would never leave us nor forsake us; that the Kingdom of God is coming, no matter how bleak things seem; that the Light of Christ is not going out, no matter how deep the shadow; that God is good, all the time, no matter how bad the news is; that we will overcome, no matter the obstacle, for the Kingdom of God is like a weed that will grow despite of us, and we will eat of its harvest because God is just that good. can you imagine how we would live if we had faith like that? Jesus said, “One with the faith of a mustard seed will move mountains,” and I say, “One who has faith like he does in the weeds in his front yard will never be moved.” Do not be afraid, for He is with us. Do not fear, for He knows our name and will never forsake us. Do not worry about tomorrow, for the Kingdom of God is like a weed that grows no matter how much we spray it. No matter how poor the soil. No matter how little we water. For the Kingdom of God is coming. Halleluia. Amen.

The Parable of the Sower, a sermon based on Matthew 13: 1-23, preached on June 16, 2024

I once heard about a woman whose husband died. Like many, she was surrounded by family and friends. When people got word, they rushed to be by her side. At the funeral, many grieved beside her. Her church supported her, her family was there, yet life goes on. After a while, her family flew home, and her church family moved on, yet she hadn’t moved on. The healing wasn’t complete. There was still a hole in her heart that hadn’t yet healed, and at some point, she stopped trying to get back to life as normal. She stopped doing all kinds of things. If she didn’t feel like getting out of bed, she didn’t. If she didn’t feel like cooking, she didn’t eat. If she didn’t feel like leaving the house, she stayed home. After not attending worship for several Sundays in a row, this woman’s pastor went to visit her. By that point, the funeral had been months before, yet her home was still covered by the shadow of grief. The blinds were closed. The rooms were dark and dusty. There was little to nothing in the refrigerator. She only had water to offer her pastor, and so they sat on her sunporch on the back of the house drinking a glass of water. The sunporch was unlike the rest of the place. The sunporch was open and bright, and there were African violets everywhere. They bloomed from shelves and on tables. They were pink and purple. The pastor was amazed by them, and after complimenting her for her green thumb, he asked the woman if he might take one to a man in the church who had just lost his wife the week before. The woman agreed. The pastor delivered the African violet to the newly-widowed man, and just a few days later, the woman who grew the violet received a thank-you note from the newly-widowed man, thanking her for the gift. This man who received her violet in the wake of his wife’s death wrote to say that in his time of grief, it meant so much to have a plant blooming in his house. In a time of hardship, it meant so much to have something so beautiful to admire. Well, that sentiment touched the woman’s heart. A note like that would touch anyone’s heart, and so she picked up the newspaper on her coffee table, turned to the obituaries, and mailed African violets to those who were mourning. Continuing the practice for weeks, then months, slowly but surely, her own broken heart began to heal. She left the house. She started to cook and eat again. She went back to church. She pulled up the blinds, for when we give of ourselves, something happens within us, and it doesn’t even matter if we don’t receive a thank-you note every time. It doesn’t matter if some of the violets never get watered or go unappreciated, for it is good simply to give. This morning, as we continue our summer sermon series on the parables of Jesus, I want you to know that in the Parable of the Sower, this passage from the Gospel of Matthew that describes a person sowing seed so indiscriminately, so carelessly, so generously, that he didn’t even pay attention to whether the seed went on rocky soil or on the path where birds would eat it, Jesus is telling us, His disciples, about what God is like and how God designed us to be. That’s so much of what our Bible is. Years ago, I was reading the Bible in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, and the man next to me struck up a conversation. He said, “I love to read the Bible, too. It tells us what God is like and how we ought to be.” The man was right about that, so based on today’s parable, what is God like? God is like a sower who throws seed out onto the ground and doesn’t worry too much about where it goes because there is something good that happens just from the sowing. Jesus is like a sower who walks around spreading the Good News like a sower throwing seed indiscriminately, as though it brings him joy simply to spread the Good News, regardless of whether it takes root. That’s not how I sow seed. When I sow seeds, I do all kinds of stuff first because seeds are expensive. This year, I bought my vegetable seeds from the Burpee catalogue, where one packet of seeds costs between $4.00 and $7.00. These are vegetable seeds I’m talking about, not gold nuggets, yet that’s how much they cost. It seems like a packet of them used to cost 50 cents, but not anymore, so when I get my tomato seeds in the mail, I take them down to the basement where I have grow-lights and special soil. I carefully put one or two seeds per hole in this special soil tray that I buy. I have the grow lights on a timer, and I place my trays carefully under the lights so that as many seeds as possible have a chance to take root. Then I go down to the basement every day to check on them as though they were my babies. I once showed my mom the whole operation, and I think it worried her a little bit, either because it scared her how obsessed I’d become or because she wasn’t sure those were just vegetables I was growing down in the basement. I’m not sure which it was, but when the little plants are big enough and the weather is warm enough, I take the baby plants and carefully put them into the soil I’ve turned and fertilized. I’m careful about how I do all this because seeds are expensive. I can’t imagine just throwing them out all around the backyard. If I did that, some would get into the weeds where they’d be choked out. Others would fall onto the driveway where they’d be eaten up by the birds. Some might sprout in the rocky soil, but their roots would not go deep, and they’d dry up. Never would I just throw out seeds so indiscriminately the way the sower in our parable did, but Jesus isn’t really talking about sowing seeds, is He? No. He’s talking about how God is, and how we ought to be, and haven’t some of us forgotten how to be? Last Wednesday, columnist Dick Yarbrough of the Marietta Daily Journal looked back on his childhood to reflect on how far we’ve come. When he was a child, there were only three channels on his family’s black and white TV, and to change the channel, someone had to get up and turn the dial. They had one rotary phone, and if someone called while they weren’t home, no one was there to answer it. The caller would just have to call back. When they wrote letters to relatives in Scotland, it would take three weeks to receive their response. Today, things have changed. They email weekly with relatives throughout the world and receive a response immediately; he’s never away from his phone because it fits in his pocket, and all the channels are on his TV, which he can control without getting up from his La-Z-boy. I’m not as old as Dick Yarbrough, and still a lot has changed since I was a kid. If you would have told 10-year-old Joe Evans about a world where I’d have access on my phone to all the music that’s ever been recorded, and that all the TV shows and movies that have ever been made would be at my fingertips, I would have thought you were describing Heaven. But here’s the question for us in this modern age with so much entertainment right at our fingertips: Now that we have so much to entertain us, are we happier? Last week, our daughters went away to camp in middle Tennessee. It’s a Presbyterian camp in a remote valley. There’s no cell phone signal. There are no TVs. They swim in the cold water of a dammed-up creek. They eat in a mess hall. One night, the mess hall serves Chinese food, and I want you to know that rural Tennessee is not known for Chinese food, and yet they love camp. They love being there. In fact, it’s their favorite week of the year. In a world where we are being constantly entertained, why would they want to go to camp? Or why would they sign up for Road Rules? This morning, our daughters, along with other members of our youth group, left for a weeklong mission trip that we call Road Rules. They don’t know where they’re going. The itinerary is unknown to them. All week, they’ll be sleeping on the floor of church basements as they go from unknown destination to unknown destination, doing mission projects all along the way. Our daughters went last year, and they wanted to go again this year. They didn’t have to be persuaded. We don’t make them do stuff at this church just because their dad is one of the pastors. They wanted to go. Why? Because there is something about doing. There is something about giving. There is something about sharing what we have that nourishes our souls in a way that the glow of our phones or the headlines of our TV screens never could and never will. The Parable of the Sower tells us what God is like, and God is like a sower who casts out so much seed that he doesn’t really worry about who gets it or if his bag will be empty by the time he gets back home. He’s like the peach tree in our front yard that will work all year to produces peaches that it will never eat. God is like that, and in this parable, Jesus is telling us how we ought to be, for we were not created to be entertained. Our purpose in this life is not to eat, drink, and be merry, for we are like the Sower: It makes us happy to give and to share regardless of the outcome. On this Father’s Day, I think about how being a father has taught me some of these lessons. When I think about my own father, I realize that so much of what he did for me, I never thanked him for. I never thanked him for paying the mortgage on time. I never thanked him for keeping the lights on, and yet, now that I’m a father, I realize that in doing these things, while it’s nice to be thanked, it is also a blessing simply to give. It is a blessing to give and to help. It is a blessing to share. It is better to give than it is to receive, and that’s why so many people retire and lose touch with joy and happiness. We weren’t created to watch the news all day. That’s not what we’re here for. We were created to spread the blessings that we have received from the Lamb of God who spread the Gospel on this earth. We received it, and now it is our joy to spread it ourselves. We weren’t built to sit around, but to serve, to give, to sow, to share. Trusting that our God shares abundant mercy with us and this world, share what you have been given. Give. Sow. And be healed. Amen.

Choose Life Over Judgement, a sermon based on Matthew 7: 1-5, preached on June 2, 2024

The week before last I was grateful for the opportunity to go with Sam Collier to a Braves game. I love watching the Braves. They lost, but that hardly took away from it. The weather was perfect. Our seats were great. At the concession stand, they offer a hotdog with bacon jam, so the food we ate was outstanding as well. It was a great day. I love watching the Braves, and there’s only one thing that gets on my nerves while watching a game in Truist Park. I can’t stand how washed-up old baseball players like me will be sitting there, drinking a souvenir size coke and eating a hotdog with bacon jam, while critiquing the players on the field. I heard this man, who got winded walking to his seat, yell: “You should have caught that!” to a player who dove for a line drive. That’s the part that drives me crazy. We’re all sitting there in the stands, some of us would have trouble touching our toes, yet we’ll criticize the athletes who miss a ground ball. Even with a head start, most of us can’t outrun the Freeze, and yet we judge the players who get called out stealing a base. Those of us in the stands, we’re no physical specimens, so how can we criticize those able-bodied athletes? We compare their batting averages, but to see some truly concerning numbers, we should look at our own cholesterol. We compare one pitcher’s ERA to another’s, but what about our blood pressure? Before we go pointing out the spec in the athlete’s eye, let us deal with the log in our own. Today, we begin another summer sermon series. For the last few summers, the Rev. Cassie Waits and I have preached a summer sermon series. We preached on the “I AM” sayings of Jesus a couple years ago. That summer, we preached on all the statements Jesus used to describe Himself, and we asked you to write on ribbons. Do you remember that? Last summer, we preached on spiritual gifts, and we asked you to write on little cards, giving thanks to God for those who had been given the gifts of generosity, artistic expression, and faithfulness. This summer, we’re focused on parables. When Jesus spoke, He often used parables or metaphors. Recognizing that telling someone, “You’re being an awful hypocrite” is likely to make them defensive, Jesus told stories and used images to help people see the truth of their condition. Each Sunday this summer, one of us will try to help you understand a different parable of Jesus, which requires us to try to wrap our heads around the parable for ourselves. This morning, it’s the parable of the speck and the log. To get started on this sermon, I googled, “What’s the meaning of the parable of the speck and the log?” The meaning, according to many websites, was relatively simple: that in this parable, Jesus is trying to tell us that we tend to see the faults of others without recognizing that we are guilty of much greater faults. We focus on the speck in our neighbor’s eye while ignoring the log in our own. That’s true, and what’s more, doing so doesn’t get us anywhere. In the Gospel of Luke, two went up to the temple to pray. One was a priest. The other was a tax collector. The priest, standing by himself, was praying like this: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector I walked up here with. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” That’s an interesting prayer to pray, right? But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and saying, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” Then Jesus said, “It was the tax collector who went away justified.” Why? In the eyes of Jesus, we’re all sinners in need of forgiveness; It matters not the magnitude nor the flavor of our sin, yet we can be like priests who say, “I must be doing OK because I’m not like this tax collector.” Or we can be like two sisters who snuck ice cream from the freezer while their mother was out. One was eating with a tablespoon and the other with a teaspoon. When their mother walked in to catch them both with the ice cream on their faces and their spoons in their hands, she didn’t care who had the bigger spoon. When two boys fight in class, the teacher doesn’t care who started it. When Jesus comes offering us forgiveness, He’s not impressed that some think they need less forgiveness than others. So long as not a one of us is perfect, we need to be asking Him for help, not standing up in the temple in self-righteousness or pointing out the speck in our neighbor’s eye. Even if our neighbor is guilty, pointing it out won’t make us innocent any more than judging the athletes will make us athletic. Coming out of the 8:30 service, Ken Farrar told me that a football coach was being interviewed about his team’s performance after a loss. The coach said, “Sometimes this happens. Players make mistakes. And while we keep looking for the player who never misses a tackle or drops a pass, he hasn’t tried out yet, but maybe we should start looking for him in the stands because apparently everyone up there can do this better than we can.” Don’t judge your neighbor. Instead, deal with your own issues. In courage and humility, call on Him for help. Remember the tax collector. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” And God did have mercy. He went home justified, but the priest went home with a log still in his eye. Jesus could see it and so could a lot of other people, which is the point of the parable: Those who spend time judging others are blowing their cover. Those high school bullies are hoping that if they spend all their time making fun of other people, no one will notice the secrets that they’re trying to hide. Those churchgoing Christians who use the Bible to condemn their neighbors have a brokenness within them that they’re afraid to face. The more guilt we carry, the more judgmental we become, yet Jesus knows. Jesus knows that attached to the finger pointed in judgement is a sinner in need of redeeming. That’s why He says, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and carrying a heavy burden and I will give you rest.” “If we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Yet if we confess our sins, he who is faithful and righteous will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In this church, we confess before God and one another that there is a log in our eyes. Yet we live in a world where it seems at times as though our national pastime isn’t baseball anymore, but casting judgement. It’s like we’re all looking for a reason to feel superior. We live in this divided political climate, and I can see it in your eyes how much you worry about it. I worry about it, too, but here’s what I know: If we could just break the habit of making ourselves feel better by looking down on each other, we will live. One of Abraham Lincoln’s earliest published speeches was one he gave at 28 years of age in Springfield, Illinois. Weeks before, a mob had burned St. Louis. Lincoln took the incident seriously, as a sign of growing division in the United States, which at the time was hardly 50 years old. To our young, fledging republic, full of people who wondered if our country would last the test of time, this is what he said: At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? And by what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step over the ocean, and to crush us with a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; and with a Napoleon Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free people, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. My friends, I feel our nation pull against the seams that have knit us together. When we split into parties and call one side the enemy, we threaten our very existence. Yet when we kneel before the Cross, together confessing our sins and calling on Jesus for mercy, we will live. Amen.

The Holy Spirit Has Been Set Loose on the World, a sermon based on Acts 2: 1-21, preached on May 19, 2024

According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, as of last September, the entire Bible has been translated into 736 languages. The New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of Scripture have been translated into another 1,264 languages in addition to that, bringing the grand total of languages that some portion of the Bible has been translated into to 3,658. Since that day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak in languages that those pilgrims in Jerusalem could understand, the Holy Spirit has been set loose on the world. There is no need to learn Latin, nor Hebrew or Greek, to hear the Good News. In their own mother tongues, the people who speak any of those 3,658 languages can hear of God’s great deeds of power without an interpreter. The Holy Spirit has been set loose on the world. Today is the day when we celebrate this reality. The fire started on this day so long ago when the disciples, who had been huddled in their one room, not knowing what to do with themselves since Jesus had ascended into heaven, were pushed out to address the crowd. Before the Spirit came, they busied themselves voting on stuff. They sound like a group of Presbyterians. “What should we do?” one asked. “Maybe we should form a committee.” Yet the Spirit burst into their meeting. They were like a valley of dry bones that were suddenly given flesh and blood. Their agenda was tossed out the window by the holy wind that swept the room. These disciples were then given a power they didn’t understand. They faced the crowd outside and began speaking in languages as the Spirit gave them ability. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, so that Parthians, Meades, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belong to Cyrene all heard them speaking, not in any language they had to learn in school, but in the very language their mothers had cooed into their ears since the day they first rested on their mothers’ chests. When the disciples spoke, the crowd of people didn’t have to think, “What do these words mean?” They knew instinctively. They heard the Gospel preached directly to them. They could hear God speaking in a language that they could understand. Do you know how wonderful that is? The fire of Pentecost is still spreading today. The Scriptures are being translated more and more, yet there have always been people who wanted to put out the fire of Pentecost. You all know that there was a time when God’s people had to learn Latin to understand Scripture. When John Wycliffe, the namesake of the Wycliffe Bible Alliance, whose objective is translating the Bible into every language on earth, first translated the Gospels into English, he was declared a heretic, his translations were burned, and his remains were burned as well, then thrown into the River Swift by order of Pope Martin V. Why? For just as it was true in the time of John Wycliffe, so it was true on that day of Pentecost so long ago: Not everyone rejoiced at the sound of hearing God’s word spoken in the mother tongues of the nations. Some there on that day of Pentecost so long ago assumed that the disciples were drunk. “Drunk? No,” the Disciple Peter said, “It’s much too early for that.” I love that line. Think with me, though, about what the crowd thought. Some in the crowd thought that the disciples were drunk. Some in the time of John Wycliffe thought it was reckless to translate the Bible into the language of the people. Then, when Martin Luther translated the Bible into German about 100 years later, he was called a heretic as well, but this time it didn’t matter because by the time of Martin Luther, the printing press had been invented, so his works couldn’t be burned. They were all so mass produced that they spread throughout Western Europe, as though the Holy Spirit had been set loose on the world once again. Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic, all that comes to mind. I think about the disciples and how the crowd thought they were drunk. I think of how Wycliffe and Luther were declared heretics. I remember how the internet was streaming our service out into the world in 2020, but so many were anxious for things to go back to the way they had been before. Do you remember? There’s an article that appeared in The New York Times that made me so mad that I’m dedicating my doctoral dissertation to proving the author wrong. The article is titled, “Why Churches Should Drop Their Online Services.” It was written in January of 2022, and the author makes some great points about how much better it is to be here, worshiping God together in this one room, how community is strengthened by the physical presence of other human beings. The author is right about all of that. Just think about how much easier it is to sing when there are other people around you singing. Think about how good it feels to pass the peace and have a hand to shake. Yet, also think about how, before 2020, we weren’t thinking too much about the men and women in the Cobb County Jail. Before 2020, members of the choir weren’t going out into the community, singing at retirement homes. Before 2020, if you were traveling with your kids’ sports team, you were missing church. If you lived out of state and missed your home church here in Marietta, tough luck. If you were in the hospital or couldn’t drive here, we’d say a prayer for you during the service, but you couldn’t hear it in the hospital. Worship had to happen here in this place. The Spirit was confined to these four walls, yet since 2020, this worship service has been set loose on the world. I drove up to Nashville, Tennessee a couple weeks ago to marry a couple who worships with us online. This summer we’ll be welcoming a new member to our church who lives in London. Not London, Arkansas. London, London. I bet she’s worshiping with us right now, as she does every Sunday, because the Holy Spirit has been set loose on this world of ours, pushing Christ’s disciples out into the world in ways that we’ve never dreamed of and in ways that some people in the crowd think are crazy at best and heretical at worst. It’s different is what it is. It’s not heretical. We’re not drunk. It’s just different. And not everyone likes different. The author of this article in The New York Times just a couple years ago that called on churches to discontinue their virtual worship services wanted churches to turn off the livestream, assuming that if we stopped livestreaming, people would come back into the church building. The point of the article was that if we stopped doing this new thing, people would return to the old thing, yet I can’t believe that we are wise to ever be quick in rejecting what is new and different, for new and different may be the work of God. If people accuse you of being drunk or heretical, it may mean that you’re on the right path. Now, that’s not always the case, of course. If new and different is vegetarian lobster or tofurkey at Thanksgiving, I’m against it. But hear me on this: On Pentecost, nearly 2,000 years ago, God made something happen, and crowds of people explained it away, saying, “They must be drunk because they sure are acting crazy,” for when human beings see something they can’t explain simply, they explain it away. Don’t be quick to reject what is new and different. What if different is the work of God? What if God wasn’t satisfied with what we were doing before? Remember with me what the disciples were doing in that room before the Holy Spirit showed up. Do you remember what they were doing? They were voting. I’m all for voting. Here in the United States of America, we are blessed to live in a functioning democracy where we have the right and the privilege to elect our leaders, yet voting is not the same thing as doing, and the Church, sometimes, gets stuck in voting. We vote, and then we vote again. It’s happened to the Presbyterian Church. It’s happened to the Methodist Church. We vote on who can do what and when and how, as though once we get all the voting out of the way, we’ll finally be the perfect church that Christ has called us to be, while the Spirit pushed the disciples out of their voting booth and into the world. That’s what the Spirit did on Pentecost so long ago. The disciples had been in their nice, little room taking care of business, yet the work Jesus the Christ calls us to cannot be confined to these four walls. The Spirit pushes us out into the world that we might make known the love we have received in Him. Get out there, the Spirit says. Get out in the world, for once this hour of worship comes to an end, the service begins. That’s Pentecost. That’s what it’s about. New things. Radical things. The kind of new and radical things that might make all of us good Presbyterians a little nervous because if we go out into the world doing the things that the Spirit moves us to do, someone might start whispering about us. Maybe they’ll say: “I thought he was a pastor. Should he really be serving beer at Two Birds Taphouse?” Outside a church in a small town in Tennessee, Jack and Frank were standing around talking, when a stranger walked up disgusted. “Is this one of those churches that welcomes everyone?” he asked. Not knowing what to say besides the truth, Jack or Frank said, “It sure is. Why don’t you come on in?” The man didn’t like that answer, so he kept walking. Sometimes that’s how it goes. You can’t please everyone, but can we please the Holy Spirit? Can we be moved by the Spirit to do the will of God? My friends, in our Sanctuary, a room that has been standing in Marietta, Georgia for nearly 200 years, there is a black box sitting atop the pulpit. About 100 years ago, the pastor at the time, Dr. Patton, had a telephone installed in that pulpit that he would take off the receiver so that any on the party line could listen in to the worship service. From that pulpit, the Gospel went out into the world. From this Great Hall, may the Gospel go out into the world through you. Go from here out there, led by the Spirit to let our world better understand the radical love of God for all people. Regardless of the languages that they speak, may they hear the Good News in their mother tongues. Regardless of who they are, may they know that they are loved, unconditionally. Regardless of what the world says about us, may we be bold in our proclamation. May the Holy Spirit be set loose on the world. Amen.

Where Would We Be Without Her? a sermon based on Acts 1: 1-11, preached on May 12, 2024

Hal McClain told me last week that the night Martin Luther King, Jr. died, Hal was in Nashville, Tennessee. Because he’s Hal and because at that time, he was a young, carefree college student, he ignored the total curfew mandated by the National Guard, and with two friends, he was driving around the city, until he was pulled over by an armored personnel carrier. I tell you this story because I want you to think with me this morning about what happens when the great leaders leave. When Dr. King died, the nation erupted in riots, and the Civil Rights Movement slowed down. Some would say it never regained the momentum that it once had. Martin Luther King, Jr. who brought together leaders from the big six: the NAACP, the SCLC, the Congress On Racial Equality, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, and the National Urban League, left a leadership hole so large that no one else could fill it, so these organizations, several of which still exist and have gone on to do important things, have not been unified since the day he died, which reminds me of what happened after my mother-in-law’s aunts died. When Sara and I were first married more than 20 years ago, her favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. She couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving because the entire family on her mother’s side would drive to Knoxville, Tennessee to the street where the aunts lived. All four of these sisters had homes on the same street, so when the cousins came to town, they could run from yard to yard until the Thanksgiving meal was served in the oldest sister’s house. There was no wine because she was a teetotalling Methodist. The dessert was something they just called “yum-yum.” That’s how good it was. It was named after the sound you made while eating it. Surely your family has or had similar traditions, but such traditions sometimes require a leader to keep them going. What happens when the great-aunts die? Does the family still come together? In our case, no. Those aunts died, and no one calls the family together. Sara still loves Thanksgiving, but without the aunts, it’s not the same, for in this life, there are people who bring us together. They bring unity. They help us cooperate. They insist that everyone come to Knoxville for Thanksgiving, and no one drink wine, and today we can drink wine at Thanksgiving dinner, but there aren’t nearly as many seats at the table because the aunts who brought the extended family together are gone. On this Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about those people in our lives who have played such an important role that in their absence, things kind of fall apart. Where would we be without her? You may feel that way about your mother. Or maybe you’re thinking, had my mother been different, I would have saved a fortune on therapy. I don’t know what you think about Mother’s Day, but think with me about Jesus, who called Himself the mother hen. Before He was crucified, He looked over the city of Jerusalem and said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” In our second Scripture lesson, the Mother Hen lifts off, leaving a brood of disciples to figure out what to do without their great leader. He ascends into Heaven. There is no tomb containing His body, for Jesus ascended into Heaven, the book of Acts tells us. Now that He’s gone, what will happen with His disciples? What will happen with the great religion He started? What happens when the great leaders leave? I’m no great leader, but when we left Columbia, Tennessee to move here nearly seven years ago, I remember so well a phone call I received from our friend and real estate agent, John Hill. John sold us our home in Columbia when we moved there. A couple days after the announcement went out that we’d be leaving there to move here, John called me and said, “Joe, everyone has been so sad that ya’ll are leaving. It’s all I’ve heard about for two days, but now they all want to buy your house.” Sometimes, when someone leaves, it’s hard to see her go, but after a while, you’re thinking about how nice it would be to live in her house. Maybe when the leader leaves, his lieutenants jockey for position. If you look to the fourth verse of our second Scripture lesson, you’ll see that “he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” “The Holy Spirit is coming,” He told them. “Just wait here.” That’s no small order. “Just wait,” He said, but when you were a kid, did your mother ever give you that instruction? “I’ll be right back,” is the opening line of all the great stories that end in chaos, for maybe with her gone, we took the opportunity to gain some independence. To step out on our own. To do things our own way. Some are so anxious to take over once the great leader leaves that they abandon all the lessons of love that he taught, becoming ambitious and ruthless, yet when we jockey for position, are we honoring the ones who came not to be served, but to serve? I’ve just recently heard about a tradition shared among the members of the Habsburgs who ruled a massive European empire for 700 years. When a member of the family dies, still to this day, the body is taken to Vienna. After a requiem mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the funeral party carries the deceased to the entrance of the crypt where the leader of the procession knocks on the door. Hearing the knock, a voice on the other side asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the funeral procession describes the titles the deceased held: “It is Otto of Austria, former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, and Salzburg; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Istria; Count of Sonnenburg; Lord of Trieste; Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia.” Those Habsburgs were impressive, but upon hearing the magnitude of the territory that the deceased ruled over, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. The voice on the other side of the door asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the procession then announces the accomplishments of the deceased: “This is Dr. Otto von Habsburg; President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; Member and Father of the House of the European Parliament; Holder of honorary doctorates from countless universities and freeman of many communities in Central Europe; Member of numerous noble academies and institutes; Bearer of high and highest awards, decorations, and honors of church and state made to him in recognition of his decade-long struggle for the freedom of peoples, for right and justice.” Hearing that, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. A voice on the other side of the door again asks: “Who desires admission?” For a third time, the leader of the procession answers, yet this time the answer is different: “It is Otto, a mortal, a sinful man!” Finally, the voice on the other side of the door declares: “Let him be admitted.” Last Sunday, I stood with the young men and women who, upon completion of their Confirmation Class, declared their faith as Christians, some for the first time publicly. One of them was my own daughter, and what I realized was that those young men and women who are raised in this church, they will go on to earn titles and to gain authority. They will go forth from this church to do great things, and yet the greatest title that they will ever hold they have already obtained, for there is no greater distinction than to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is the great title. To be baptized and claimed, forgiven, and redeemed, to confess Jesus as Lord, to be one of His disciples is the best that any of us will ever do, and yet the minute the Savior ascends into Heaven we, His disciples, continue our arguing over who will sit at His right hand because sometimes that’s just what people do. We want big titles. We want to do things our own way, and yet, will the titles, will the accomplishments, will the prestige, make us any more loved than we are already? Lately, every night at 8 o’clock, the Evans family sits in front of the TV in our sunroom to watch an episode of Young Sheldon. The main character in this TV show is a child genius. He’s tested into high school, and even though he’s 9 years old, Sheldon clearly knows more about calculus and chemistry than his teachers. He’s amazing, yet it’s his mother who is the true star of the show. Sheldon’s mother doesn’t seem to care how smart he is or how well he does on tests. She’s not most interested in what he’ll go on to do in the world. She loves him absolutely already. To her, he is precious. He is worthy, not because of what he’s done or what he will do, but because this is the way of love. My friends, how will we honor the love that we have received from God? Will we jockey for power? Will we work ourselves to death, attempting to gain approval and status? This morning, our first Scripture lesson came from that great disciple who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and came to understand Him so clearly, so precisely. As the Apostle Paul pondered his own death, these were his words: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. When we recognize that in Him, we have already inherited everything, there is no need to strive for more. Remember the love of God and those who have embodied it to you and honor the Savior who ascended into Heaven by living as He did. We honor the One who will come again, not when we jockey for status or puff ourselves up; not when we give up on the movement or split into factions, but when we claim that same spirit of wisdom and revelation that He gave us. We honor Him when we remember that we are already more than conquerors, through Him who loved us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You Are the Branches, a sermon based on John 15: 1-8, preached on April 28, 2024

You might remember Fran Dresher from the 90’s sitcom, The Nanny, or more recently, as she led actors’ and writers’ strikes. Last week, I heard her tell a joke on a show that I like to watch, Somebody Feed Phil, and since this joke is inspired by the book of Genesis, I thought I’d include it in my sermon this morning. God was talking with Adam about creating for him a wife, so God told him, “Here’s what I’m thinking. She’ll never complain, and she’ll always tell you that you’re right about everything.” Adam said to God, “She sounds great. What’s she going to cost me.” God said, “An arm and a leg.” Adam asked, “What will you give me for a rib?” Forgive me for telling a joke like that. It’s not an appropriate joke for the pulpit, but I tell it because while initially, a partner who never complains and tells me that I’m right about everything sounds wonderful, I don’t know where I would be if my wife agreed with me all the time. When we’re lost, Sara is the first to tell me. When I’m wrong, she lets me know. Rather than tell me I look perfect, she bought me nose hair trimmers and other gifts that have helped me when I look less than perfect. I could go on and on with the ways she has cared enough to help me in my imperfection. I used to ask her to read my sermons the day before I preached them, and she didn’t tell me they were perfect. She loved me too much for that. She took out a page at least, and because of that level of honesty, I trust her more than I trust anyone else. I trust her not because she always tells me that I’m right, but because she tells me when I’m wrong. Likewise, I value honest feedback from you, the congregation, and I expect it from our staff. With friends, I’m the same way. I trust friends who are honest with me, so when I think of that old hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus,” I know what kind of a friend we have in Him. Is He the friend who always tells me that I’m right and they’re wrong, or is Jesus the kind of friend who holds up a mirror to me, saying, “You’re worth a rib, but not an arm and a leg.” We all have some work to do on ourselves, and so I tell you Jesus is the kind of friend who loves us as we are yet loves us too much to leave us as we are, so to help us get closer to being our best selves, God is at work in our lives, pruning our bad habits as a vine grower prunes dead limbs. That’s the Gospel lesson for today. He is the vine; we are the branches. God is the vine grower who prunes us, yet remember that getting pruned is not the same thing as being cut off from the vine. Plenty of people have struggled to understand the difference. People who misunderstand pruning don’t like being told that they’re wrong. They don’t like advice. They can’t take criticism. In struggle, they fall apart. When things don’t go their way, they throw up their hands, giving up and giving in, maybe because they think they’re perfect already or else because they’ve confused being pruned with being cut off from the vine. When I’m not my best self, that’s what I do. Last Sunday, Rev. Cassie Waits was giving the children’s sermon. She asked those kids if they thought I knew everyone in the church’s name, and they said “yes.” Well, this past week, I’ve proven those kids wrong more than once. I was tired on Friday afternoon, and I called two people by the wrong name. I didn’t say, “Hey, buddy,” or something like that. I said, “Good to see you, Sam,” and he said, “The name’s Alex.” Ten minutes later, I did the same thing again with another person I know and love. Because I was tired, these two mistakes sent me down a shame spiral. I started thinking not only did I fail to honor those two people I care about, but I also let all the kids in the church down. They had me up on a pedestal, and now I’ve fallen from it. Should I turn in my letter of resignation now and apologize to all the kids this coming Sunday? That’s probably an overreaction, and once I had a nap, I thought better of it. After a nap, I could see that it’s one thing to say, “I made a mistake,” and it’s another thing to say, “I am a mistake.” Humility is one thing, and being humiliated is another. Shame sends us down a spiral. Shame is the feeling that we are being cut off from the vine and thrown into the fire, and so I ask you to think about pruning this morning so that we all remember that being pruned and being cut off from the vine are not the same thing, for “you are the branches,” Jesus said. That’s not just a good thing: It is a miraculous thing. It is a miraculous thing to be a branch attached to the vine in the sense that when we hear criticism, when we are pushed, when we face trials, it may be God’s hand at work in our lives enabling us to do more and to be more. Being pruned is not the same thing as being cut off from the vine, for we are the branches. So many teachers help us remember that because they help us learn and grow without kicking us out of their classes. So many coaches do the same when they push us, making us better, without ever giving up on us as people. Today we are celebrating Stephen Ministers, and this is exactly what Stephen Ministers do. They stick with people after those major life prunings. They listen to people after they’ve been left or laid off. They’re there after the divorce to remind them that not everyone will leave. Not everyone will walk away. God will never leave you nor forsake you; however, this good news can be hard to believe for we live in a culture where people don’t get criticized, they get canceled. Years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon in which he mentioned science and technology and cautioned the congregation, saying, “there is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance… We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together.” In other words, we have the technology to have a conversation that involves millions of people on social media, but read through your Facebook feed and tell me if our moral maturity and our spiritual depth have caught up with our technology. These days, when one expresses an opinion, those who agree cheer and those who disagree cut you off. I’m tired of it. I’m so tired of the “you’re either with me or you’re against me” mentality. To think that you either agree with me or you’re wrong is a mentality that will not advance our society; this willingness to give up on each other is not good for the national conversation and it’s not good for our souls because if we were to lose all the friends we disagree with, we would be isolated and alone. Our Gospel lesson this morning is telling us that God is different. God chooses to stick with you even if you’ve put your foot in your mouth. God chooses not to reject His people but to prune them, refine them, help them to grow. And if that’s God, then how should we be? There’s a great joke about a man who was shipwrecked on a desert island. For two or three years, he lived there all alone, but one day a rescue boat pulled up to the shore. He’d been saved, but before he left the island, he wanted to give his rescuers a tour. On his island were three huts. He pointed to the first one and said, “That’s the home I built.” Then, he pointed to the second, “And that’s my church.” Wanting to know what the third hut was, the rescuers asked about it, and the man said, “That’s the church I used to go to. They made me mad and so I left.” My friends, we can’t storm out on each other. We can’t storm out on each other, not if we are modeling our lives on the God who never storms out on us. We can’t give up on others, and that starts with not giving up on ourselves. We are the branches. We are the branches. We are beloved. We are accepted. We will be changed, challenged, and pushed to grow, but that’s because we are loved, valued, and worthy to bear much fruit. May we all trust in this promise so that we endure the pruning, not with resistance, but with faith, knowing that God is not done with us yet. Halleluiah. Amen

We Wish to See Jesus, a sermon based on John 10: 11-18, preached on April 21, 2024

Last Friday, Rev. Brandon Owen of First Baptist Church and his wife, Lesley Ann, invited Sara and me out for dinner to Two Birds Taphouse on the Square. That sounds like the beginning of an old joke: A presbyterian minister, a Baptist minister, and their wives walk into a bar. We had dinner at Two Birds, and last Friday, every staff member had on matching t-shirts. It was one employee’s last night working at Two Birds before she moved to Greece, and every staff member wanted to celebrate her. They all had on matching shirts, and customers could help her raise money for the big move by putting a little cash into the jar. I was excited to do that. Rev. Brandon Owen was as well, and it got me thinking about what a special workplace Jeff and Rachel Byrd have created in that restaurant they own, where the customers love the staff, the staff loves and supports each other, and this one staff member was so sad to leave. This staff member, Alex, had been working at Two Birds since the restaurant opened seven years ago. In the restaurant industry, that’s a long time, so while I’m sure she stayed that long in her job because of the pay or because the hours worked for her life, when I think about the matching t-shirts and the number of people wanting to wish her well, I could see why she stayed for so long. She didn’t have a typical job, and she didn’t work for a typical boss. I know a father who once told his son that people stay in jobs for one of three reasons: the money is good, they love the people they work with, or they feel good about what they’re doing. I think he’s right about that. People will stay in jobs for the money, even if they don’t like the people they work with and they don’t really enjoy the work that they’re doing. They’ll also stay in jobs because they love the people they work with even if the money isn’t good and they don’t especially love the work. They’ll also stay on because the work matters. I think of teachers and school counselors and social workers. The money is OK, but no one teaches for the money. Teachers teach because the work matters. Police officers put their lives on the line because they have the chance to make a difference. Now, imagine how many teachers would teach or how many police officers would sign on if they got paid what they deserve. Have you seen those police cars out everywhere advertising that the MPD is hiring? This father also said, “Son, if you ever find a job with two of those things, you won’t ever leave.” I feel especially blessed to have all three. I’m grateful for that, but I wonder about everybody else who is just working for a living. Are you just working for the money? This morning our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of John is all about the Good Shepherd. He’s not like the hired hand or any typical shepherd. He’s different, but before we can really appreciate Him, think with me about a typical shepherd. A typical shepherd is something like a typical boss. A typical shepherd isn’t bad or evil; he’s just a shepherd. I knew a man back in Tennessee who raised cattle for a living, and he always got frustrated in Sunday school classes and Bible studies because people would talk about shepherds without knowing anything about them. They’d be reading Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. That’s all good and right and true, but if the shepherd in the psalm is anything like the man I knew who raised cattle, some sheep from the fold would be dinner soon enough. That’s what shepherds do. Shepherds raise sheep and turn those sheep into sweaters at best and lamb chops at worst. That’s the deal with a normal shepherd. That’s what a typical shepherd does. How does a shepherd act? In what way does a shepherd take care of his sheep? Does he hug the sheep and lie down beside them? Does he pick burrs out of their wool and make sure they’re fed and watered? Sure. Most shepherds are going to do some of that the same way that most employers are going to take decent care of their staff, but how does the shepherd make a living? Why does the shepherd have sheep at all? It’s so he can shear them or milk them or eat them. And that’s the reality that most of us know. Whether it’s our bosses or our boyfriends, many people want something from us. Will they take care of us? Will they protect us? Will they help us out? Sure, they will, but they also want to get paid. They’ll scratch our backs if we scratch theirs. Our bosses will pay us in exchange for our labor. Our politicians will learn our names and listen to our concerns, but they also want our votes. Even pastors can be like this. How many pastors have I known who were wonderful and kind and supportive, but as soon as I joined the church or turned in my pledge card, I was no longer the center of attention because he got what he wanted from me, and he had other sheep to go and find. I haven’t ever wanted to be that kind of shepherd. I’ve wanted to be more like the Good Shepherd, who, as Rev. Cassie Waits just said in the children’s sermon, knows my name, for the world is full of transactional relationships. We work for a paycheck. We exchange money for haircuts and checkups. We spend money so that we can buy goods and services. This is the way it is, often enough. However, this is not the only way it is, for while our world is full of shepherds who treat us fine but want something from us, the Good Shepherd knows our names, and it’s not because He wants something from us. As a matter of fact, while a typical shepherd will sheer or milk or kill his sheep to make a living, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He died to save us, and what does He ask in return? He asks us to go and do likewise. John 15: 9 and 12 says, “as the father has loved me, so I have loved you… this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” That happens often enough. Back to Two Birds. Sitting in Two Birds, thinking about those t-shirts and the staff celebrating their coworker who was leaving and wishing her well, Rev. Brandon Owen told us about this experience he had at a Braves game. He was right in the middle of a financial transaction at Truist Park. He was paying too much for a hot dog when he received a message from his mother telling him that his Aunt Sonya had died. As he told us this, he told me that I remind him of his Aunt Sonya, and Sara said, “Joe sometimes reminds me of a 65-year-old woman, too.” I don’t know what she meant by that, but I thought it was funny. We laughed, and Brandon went on with his story. As the news of his Aunt Sonya’s death sunk in, tears filled his eyes, so when he gave his credit card to the woman at the concession stand, she saw the tears and asked him what happened. My friend, Rev. Brandon Owen of First Baptist Church, just opened up to the stranger at the concession stand. He told her he just got news that his aunt had died, and she reached over the barrier between them and hugged him. That’s a great story, right? He’s already told it in a sermon, so he said I could use it. I tell it to you this morning because, while the way of the world may be quid pro quo, the way of Jesus is also at work in our lives. People are following the way of Jesus in this dog-eat-dog world too, and I don’t want you to ever forget it. Think about all those times someone went the extra mile or showed you kindness without expecting anything in return. Has it ever happened that the person in front of you at the drive through window paid for your order? Or has it ever happened that the good people in your office rallied together to support you through a hard time? Last Friday, I was preaching the funeral for Fannette Adams, and right during the welcome, tears came to my eyes. They came to my eyes because it was a Friday afternoon at 2:00, and yet the whole Sanctuary was full. A whole congregation showed up to be there for Fannette’s family. They were daughter Emily’s coworkers. They were elders who serve on the Session beside Bebe. They were Fannette’s high school classmates. They were neighbors and friends. They all stood as the family walked into the Sanctuary, and as I stood in the pulpit looking around, I was moved to tears because there He was. There He was in His church where the followers of the Good Shepherd were loving each other just as He loves them. His love for us isn’t too good to be true, and His commandment is that we accept His love, let it fill us up, and show this world that we live in, where too many people struggle to see the light because of all the darkness, that the Light of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, will not go out, for He is Risen. Halleluiah. Amen.