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.