He Gave Himself as a Ransom for All, a sermon based on 1 Timothy 2: 1-7, preached on September 21, 2025

After spending 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela was released. He’s quoted as saying, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Hatred is at work in our nation, my friends. Hatred is at work in our world. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. What is there to be done about it? For a moment this morning, let us put the world outside of our minds to focus on what is going on in our hearts. If we are to follow the example of Jesus Christ, I remind you that there are two primary kinds of people according to the Bible: neighbors and enemies, and Jesus commands us to love them both. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, Jesus says, or risk remaining in a self-imposed prison of hatred, fear, and resentment. We’ve been singing since we were little that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, and such love echoes throughout the ideals of our nation, and so we grew up saying: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” How many times have you said it? I remember our daughter Lily, just three years old, proudly reciting those words that she learned in preschool. She’s now 16. How many times has she recited those words since then? Thousands of times, most likely. Every day it was for us that we said those words in school. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Then on Sunday, we sang, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” That word “all” matters. The question I have for you today is this: When you say “all” do you really mean “all?” When you say “all,” do you subconsciously mean “most” or “some” or “a few?” When it comes to Jesus, we know that He really loved all people, and that He loved them to such a degree that it made scribes and Pharisees uncomfortable. Listen to this: Last Sunday, I was with several members of the choir who were on tour in Scotland. During a worship service last Sunday, they sang in a beautiful cathedral in a breathtaking city called Inverness. There, we heard this beautiful sermon preached by a retired priest, who focused on the Gospel reading for the day. His accent, his delivery, his interpretation of Scripture was Scottish, so he was speaking English, but I had to work to understand him. His words were familiar and new at the same time. As he preached from the Gospel lesson for last Sunday, the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son, he referenced the Pharisees. You know how those parables start. The introduction to the parables goes: Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The priest in Scotland said, “Pharisees are not the bad people in this passage of Scripture. Don’t read this introduction thinking that the Pharisees are the bad guys. Instead, notice that the bad guys are the ones whom Jesus is eating with.” Jesus ate with the bad guys. How could He eat with them? The enemies of our people? The ones who drive us crazy and disrespect decency? Yet when Jesus said all people, He really meant all. All those people who needed correction, He began with grace. All those people rejected for good reason, Jesus ate with them for He lived as though God wanted all people to be welcomed at God’s table. Such love can be offensive, but it is important. 1st Timothy, tradition tells us, was written by Paul the Apostle to young Timothy, who is working hard to understand and comprehend what it means to be a leader in the Christian Church. Paul writes to Timothy: God our savior, desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That Christ Jesus, himself human, gave himself a ransom for all. When this Scripture lesson uses those words everyone and all, it means it. Likewise, we know that our country is built upon the virtue of liberty and justice for, not some, but all. Yet how often do we pray for all people? I know I’m supposed to, but I’m supposed to do all kinds of things that I don’t actually do. Are you the same way? I heard a story last week about a young Scottish minister, invited by a couple from the church to come and have dinner. The couple knew that their new minister didn’t receive much of a salary and so would likely be grateful for a free meal and a bit of warm hospitality. They polished the silver and laid out a linen tablecloth, yet when the meal was over they were missing one silver spoon. You can imagine the wife saying to her husband, “I knew he was poor, but stealing our silver is kind of desperate, isn’t it?” Over time, while they tried to forget about it, the missing spoon invaded her thoughts. She worried over it and how to confront the young pastor. What if he goes stealing from other people, and what of the money put in the offering plate? Does he just help himself to it? Finally, she spoke to her husband, and they decided to have him over for dinner again that at least the hard conversation would be had over a good meal. Perhaps that would soften the blow, so, “We’re missing a spoon,” they said after a couple glasses of wine. The pastor looked up, and said, “You haven’t found it? I left it inside your Bible.” Do not neglect the discipline of reading your Bible, for Scripture calls us to our higher virtues. Do not neglect the discipline of praying for your enemies, for in the words of that great Church Father, John Chrysostom, “No one can feel hatred towards those for whom he prays.” Do you pray for your enemies? Do you pray for those who persecute you? Do you pray for those with whom you disagree? Love your enemies, Jesus said, for we know what happens when people are willing to hate. My friends, the battle lines have been drawn. Hatred lurks around every corner, yet may the darkness of hatred be cast out of this church. May hatred be cast out of your hearts by the bright light of love. Read your Bible. Observe the discipline of praying for your enemies. Let your children and grandchildren hear you do it. Teach them how. Let it begin simply, with simple words: “Lord, we pray for our neighbors, both the Smiths, who gave us cookies, and the Bryans, who let their dog poop in our grass.” “Lord, I pray for my coworkers, even my boss who takes credit for my good ideas and the woman who ate a tuna fish sandwich at her desk and stunk up the whole office. Make me more patient. Prepare me for tomorrow.” “Bless my sister-in-law, even though she is judgmental. Heal my friend, even though her most likely diagnosis is being a hypochondriac.” “Wrestle from my mind the idea that I need to control and judge when You call me to love.” Pray for your enemies. Don’t shoot them. Don’t fire them. Don’t resent them. Don’t vilify them. Pray for them. Let the enemy you really worry about be the one turning you against your neighbor, for God, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, is pulling us together, reconciling us to one another rather than urging us to declare war with the other side. In Scotland, just before the choir started singing at that Cathedral in Inverness, a woman went up to Dr. Jeffrey Meeks, asking with an American accent, “Are you really from Marietta, Georgia?” Her mother had just died, and her mother’s dying wish was for her remains to be laid to rest in Scotland, so this woman we met had brought her mother’s remains all the way to Scotland and laid her mother’s remains to rest near a waterfall in that town, Inverness, the same town where we were visiting. It was a long way for this woman to journey with her mother’s remains, and it was an amazing coincidence that we would be there singing because her mother was from Marietta, Georgia. She traveled from her home, then all the way to Scotland, and met us there, for my friends, God is pulling us together. Do not give in to the power of hatred, which pulls us apart. Will Myers, our Director of Communication, and I took a side trip to London to visit little Harriet whom we baptized two summers ago. You may remember that Harriet and her family worship with us on-line. They’ll likely worship with us today all the way over in London. We walked through the door of their house in London, and Harriet read me a psalm out of the Bible that this church gave her. She made a welcome banner, which hung in the kitchen. Her aunt made us so much food; it was like a Thanksgiving dinner-sized meal. Around the table, I said a blessing, giving thanks to God for pulling us together, and after dinner, Will took out his violin and played a concert in their kitchen. Harriet’s aunt cried at the table. She was moved to tears. I was moved as well. How could I not be? Despite all the miles that divide us, there we were, for God brings people together while the enemy tears us apart. My friends, there won’t be a separate section for the Baptists up in Heaven. Nor will there be separate sections for the Democrats and the Republicans. There will be no wall between those who have a Green Card and those who do not. Nor will there be a line to separate the saints from the sinners. Therefore, we had better start getting along together now. Pray for each other, especially your enemies. May love stretch you towards acceptance of difference and may love push you towards reconciliation. While hatred lurks in our world, may an end to the hatred begin with you. May it begin with me. Amen.

There's More Than Meets the Eye, a sermon based on Jeremiah 18: 1-11 and Philemon, preached on September 7, 2025

Up until his funeral last Thursday, I’d only really gotten to know Dr. Nelson Price from reading what he wrote in the Marietta Daily Journal, but reading what he wrote in the paper was one thing. Hearing the eulogies given by friends, colleagues, and family members was another that gave me a fuller appreciation for this man who served the Lord at Roswell Street Baptist Church for 35 years. My favorite was the first eulogy given by the Rev. Dr. Ike Richard of Piedmont Church and CEO of MUST Ministries. You may have read what he said; it was reprinted in the paper last Friday. Ike began his remarks saying, “Dr. Nelson Price called me on the darkest day of my life. On March 1, 1983, I watched my wife and my child die in front of me during childbirth at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. I have no earthly idea how he found out in so short a space of time, but he called me at the hospital, and he said these words to me, “Brother Ike, Cindy is now with the only One who loves her more than you do.” This is 2025, but when Ike told this story about a phone call he received in 1983 at the funeral of the man who took the time to call, the memory was fresh. The difference that call made to him was obvious. Are there phone calls or letters that you received at just the right time that you’ll always remember? Today, our Scripture lesson is a letter sent by Paul to a man named Philemon: a letter that meant so much to him that he never threw it out. If he hadn’t saved it, we wouldn’t have it to read today. While it’s now a book of the Bible, know what we’ve just read was a personal note written from Paul to Philemon about a man named Onesimus, who is the subject of the letter. It’s the well-being of Onesimus that gave Paul a reason to write. You see, Paul knew that Philemon saw Onesimus from one perspective, while Philemon saw Onesimus from another. Knowing that there’s always more than meets the eye when it comes to people, notice verse 11 and see that Paul viewed Onesimus as useful, while Philemon viewed Onesimus as useless. Philemon saw Onesimus as a useless runaway slave, a disobedient headache, while Paul saw Onesimus as his son, his own heart. This difference in perspective reminds me of something we mortal human beings often do. Despite our limited viewpoint, we sometimes mistake our opinion of a person for the truth about a person. Sometimes, we boldly believe that our narrow judgement has authority. We imagine that we know, yet when it comes to people, there is almost always more than meets the eye. Sometimes, parents learn that lesson the hard way at the parent teacher conference. I’ve been to parent teacher conferences where the teacher spoke so glowingly about my children, saying things like, “She’s a delight in class. She’s always smiling and following directions the first time I give them, so I never have to tell her twice.” “Teacher, maybe you’d like to see how she cleans her room after I’ve asked her to clean it four or five times.” You may have had the same experience. We all get so used to seeing people in the light we’ve always seen them in that we can’t see them for who they truly are. Philemon called Onesimus useless, yet Paul called him useful. Why? Maybe because Philemon knew him as his slave, his property, while Paul knew him as his son, his own heart. This is the way it often is. There’s always more to people than meets the eye, even if it’s your husband of 40 years that we’re talking about, or your children, or the guy who cuts your grass. Later today, I’m presenting research for my doctorate, but I still remember the sting of a woman’s words when I was her lawn maintenance man. I was bagging up grass clippings in the driveway of her Buckhead mansion, and I overheard her addressing her children, “Do you see what that man is doing? That’s why you go to college kids, so you don’t have to do that for a living.” I’d like to invite her to my graduation, but there’s no need for that, for while some people in this world may not see me clearly, God always does. God sees me and knows me. He is the Potter, and I am the clay. While I may have at times been nothing more than a lump, I know that God is at work in my life, shaping me towards my infinite potential. God is at work in your life, shaping you towards your infinite potential. God is at work in your neighbor’s life, shaping him towards his infinite potential, so don’t you dare limit him with your understanding of what he is capable of. Has anyone here ever been the victim of some narrowminded assumption? Who here has ever been damaged by a judgmental word? If you know how it hurts to be judged by someone else, then give up judging your neighbor. With all God’s people, there is always more than meets the eye. Take, for example, the crew I worked with cutting grass. In another life, one had been a ballroom dance instructor; another had been a dentist. The circumstances that led to them crossing the border and taking a job cutting grass were stories seldom heard. To many of those we worked for, we were hardly more than Onesimus was to Philemon. Immigrant is a derogatory word in the mouths of some people these days. It carries with it all sorts of misunderstanding and false assumption. Likewise, to Philemon, Onesimus was an enslaved man, useless and disobedient. However, Paul saw Onesimus as a beloved child of God, and so he wrote, “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you,” and “I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love.” Paul doesn’t tell Philemon what to do or how to act. He doesn’t demand that Philemon set Onesimus free, but he does tell him how to decide what to do. In a time when slavery was legal, and Philemon had every right under the law to discipline Onesimus through corporal punishment; in a time when the law allowed for Philemon to sell him or have him thrown in prison, Paul writes to Philemon and to us, urging us to believe that the path to the right decision is informed by love. I appeal to you on the basis of love. Not on the basis of the law, but on the basis of love. While it may be that compassion and empathy sometimes need to be pushed aside by logic, reason, lucidity, and cold hard facts, Paul appeals to Philemon on the basis of love. While we live in a world of law and order, politics and policy, do not forget that ultimately, we will be judged by the only One who loves us more than those who love us most. Grant your neighbors the same grace that you have received in Christ Jesus our Lord, and may the world become a better place through your love. Amen.

Better with Age, a sermon based on Exodus 19: 16-19 and Hebrews 12: 18-29, preached on August 24, 2025

In both our Scripture lessons for this morning, we learn that Moses, a great hero of the faith, a symbol of faithfulness and dedication, was less than confident when he approached God high up on that mountain where he received the Ten Commandments. We read from the book of Exodus: Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak, and God would answer. Our second Scripture lesson alludes to this moment and tells us that as Moses approached God, he trembled with fear. Why wouldn’t he? After all, our God is, according to the book of Hebrews, “a consuming fire.” “A consuming fire,” that refines us so that our impurities go up in smoke. The work of a silver smith is one of refining. Do you know anything about how silver is refined? I’m glad because I want to tell you about it. Silver comes out of the ground full of impurities. You can’t make fine jewelry out of silver fresh from the ground. The impurities must be burned out of it. The silver ore is melted, and the heat of an intense fire burns the impurities so that what remains is pure silver. The silver refiner knows that the silver is finally pure when he looks into the melted silver and can see his reflection looking back at him. Now that’s refining, which is not the same as aging. Birth leads to childhood. Childhood to adolescence. Adolescence to adulthood. Adulthood to old age, but getting old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Many people resist the whole process and would rather stay young. The comedian Lucille Ball said that the secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and to lie about your age. The continual process of refinement calls us to embrace hardship and to face challenges with courage until our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer looks at us and sees His own reflection looking back. I’m not sure that’s how our youth-obsessed culture thinks about aging. What do we know gets better with age? Wine? Whiskey? Cheese? People? I don’t know that many in our world today believe that people get better with age. If we believed that we could get better with age, we might not spend so much money trying to look young. In 2016, men and women in the United States spent a total of $16 billion dollars on cosmetic treatments to defy ageing. We spend that money because when our skin sags, we want to keep it tight. When our hairlines recede, we resist baldness. To avoid atrophy in our muscles and to maintain bone density, we exercise in weighted vests. When varicose veins appear or unsightly hairs spring out from chins, we do something about it. We pluck and dye. We diet and apply creams. But what if instead we were bold enough to believe that with age comes refinement? That aging makes us better. One of my favorite sayings about aging is that a child becomes a teenager when he can see that his parents are not perfect; a teenager becomes an adult when he forgives them; and an adult becomes wise when he forgives himself. That sounds like refinement. Which requires courage. When I was a pastor in Tennessee, I would often visit Mrs. Jean Love, who would get upset with me whenever I was late for our appointment. Once, she called me to visit because she wanted to plan her funeral. I asked why she wanted to plan with me her funeral when she wasn’t sick and was still living on her own, and she said, “Pastor, getting old is awful, but it’s so much worse if you’re afraid to look it in the eye.” There is so much in this life that I’ve been afraid to face. I’ve feared getting older. I’ve feared looking older, and some mornings I’ve even feared just looking in the mirror, but last Wednesday night I had to. Did you hear that last Wednesday night at the Glover Park Brewery there was a Joe Evans impersonation contest? I was nervous about it, for I feared looking in the mirror. How am I being perceived? When people dress like me, will I be ashamed of how I look? Matt Sitkowski was the winner. There was no question from our daughters, who served as the judges. Matt Sitkowski was the best. He wore a robe like the one I have on. He found some glasses that look like the glasses I’m wearing, and he started out his impersonation talking about growing tomatoes in the basement, which is something that I do, and how I grew the perfect tomato, but went upstairs to make a tomato sandwich, only the Duke’s Mayonnaise jar was empty. How many times have I mentioned Duke’s Mayonnaise? Several. Finding the jar empty, I was at first, “happy, and hungry, and hopeful,” yet the “jar was empty,” Matt said. It was like looking into a mirror only it didn’t make me self-conscious. I didn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed. I only felt thankful because this church, every year, is getting better and stronger and is reaching out into the community with a greater dedication for service, and if I have something to do with it, then I simply want to say, “Thanks be to God” because I just want to be useful. I just want to be found faithful. I just want to serve the One who created me, who sustains me, who gave His life for me, and for Him to look at me and see His image looking back. In this culture of isolation, narcissism, and selfish ambition, let us all get better with age, focused less on looking younger and more on the needy. Focused less on the car that we drive and more on the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the unhoused. This morning, if you were in Holland Hall, then you had the opportunity to get involved in something new: a new Bible study, a new fellowship group, a new way to serve the Lord in this community. If you missed it, it’s not too late: Just pick up one of these catalogs and find a new activity. I promise that every opportunity listed is more fulfilling that staying at home and watching the news, and each one provides the opportunity for you to get better with age because all these opportunities keep us focused on someone other than ourselves. Let us all be refined to love our God and our neighbor more deeply. There is a world outside our doors calling for us to pay attention. Let us shape and change this world as we are refined by the power of God. Amen.

So Great A Cloud of Witnesses, a sermon based on Hebrews 11: 29 - 12: 2, preached on August 17, 2025

The seminary where I was a student was attempting to build relationships with churches in Jacksonville, Florida. Along with four or five others, I was asked to represent the seminary. I had the idea that the development office asked their best and brightest to go on this trip to preach well, reflecting the quality of education at Columbia Theological Seminary, but as the congregation left the sanctuary after my sermon, one man asked me, “What year are you in the seminary?” Proudly, I said, “I’m in my third year, sir.” “Three years? Well, they should have taught you something better than that by now,” he said. I still hear his voice some days. Although, I also hear the voice of Jim Hodges. I’ve told you about him before. A picture of his thumb sits by my desk. He chaired the committee who interviewed and called me to my first church. After each sermon I preached, he’d give me a thumbs up, telling me I’d done well. As he lay dying in the hospital, he took a picture of his thumb and gave it to me so that I’d feel his encouragement even after he was gone. These two and many others whisper in my ear as I stare at the empty page attempting to write another sermon or nervously walk the steps into the pulpit. On the one hand are the critics and on the other, the encouragers. My confidence wavers between the two. If my hands are shaking as I walk into the pulpit, it’s because each Sunday morning, I ask myself the same questions: “Is this sermon any good?” Do I have a word to proclaim? Or am I still that seminary student waiting to learn something better than that sermon I preached in Jacksonville, Florida? Can anyone here relate to what I’m saying? When you step out in faith, which voices whisper in your ear? Is there one saying, “You can do anything” and another saying, “You’ll never amount to anything?” The voices from our past come sneaking back to our consciousness, and for some, the negative voices are the easiest to believe, yet I had a grandmother who thought I hung the moon. When I was 10 or 11, she got a hold of a picture of me in my baseball uniform, and she took it to the photo shop where they blew it up into a three foot by five foot baseball card. That I rarely got on base and mostly sat the bench was of little importance to her. In her eyes, I was going to the major leagues. Did you have a grandmother like that? My friends, there is a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on while we run this race. Can you hear them? A verse from our second Scripture lesson reads: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. I love those words. I appreciate the thought of sin as a weight we carry that we are invited to lay down. I love that image of a crowd of people who love us, who are cheering for us as we journey through the ups and downs of life on our way to glory. That image reminds me of a man I heard about who collects pictures of baseball players as they’re rounding third base after they hit a walk-off home run. Do you know what a walk-off home run is? A walk-off home run is the term used for a home run that wins the game. When a player hits a home run that wins the game, it’s traditional for his teammates to clear the bench and to gather around home plate to welcoming him as he seals the win. When asked why he collects these pictures, the man said, “It’s because that’s how I imagine it will be when we get to heaven.” That great cloud of witnesses, having cheered us through the ups and downs of life, will welcome us to our eternal home. Can you hear them cheering you on now? Do you listen to their voices? And are their voices loud enough to drown out the critics holding you back? Our second Scripture lesson mentions Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. If you haven’t been to Sunday school in a while, you may not know all their names or all their stories. Let me just tell you what they all have in common: They all suffered but never lost faith in the Promise. The odds were against them, but God was on their side. They overcame hardship. They had faith amid despair. Even in times of conflict, they expected peace. They remained hopeful for the rising sun even though the night was long. Their lives pointed to Jesus, who is the Pioneer and Perfector of our faith. He faced the cross, disregarding its shame, and now sits at the right hand of God. In the last two weeks, three members of our church were added to their number in that great cloud of witnesses. Cam Jones died last week. When Cam Jones first visited our church after trying out several churches in the area, during the worship service, he looked at his wife, Darcy, and said, “This is the place.” Harry Vaughn died last week. When Harry was the greeter at the front doors of our church on Sunday mornings, he wore his best chartreuse blazer and seasonally-appropriate tie. The week before last, Bob Brown died. When Bob Brown was recovering from any of his age-related injuries or setbacks, his physical therapists would ask him, “What goal are you working for, Mr. Brown?” “I just want to get back to church.” My friends, they’ve joined that great cloud of witnesses, and when we get there, I look forward to hearing Cam say, “This is the place.” I look forward to Harry welcoming me through the pearly gates wearing that chartreuse blazer. I look forward to Bob telling me, “Getting here was worth working for, but you made it, not of your own strength. You made it by the grace of God.” Bob Brown died at the ripe old age of 98. He loved his country so much that he enlisted in the Navy. A few years later, he reenlisted in the Army. Then a couple years ago, he heard our choir sing a patriotic anthem during a Veterans Day event. Bob walked up to the lectern and declared, “I’m more than 90 years old, but after that, I’m ready to enlist a third time.” One bright morning, our battle will be over. When that day comes, you’ll be welcomed into the Kingdom by that great cloud of witnesses who have been cheering you on all the way through. Listen to them today. Learn to hear their voices, so that you might run without growing weary. Walk, but do not faint. Let us all run this race in faith until we make it to our eternal home. Amen.

Faith: the Assurance of Things Hoped For, the Conviction of Things Not Seen, a sermon based on Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16, preached on August 10, 2025

Faith is one of those elusive religious words that we use freely but which is difficult to nail down and define succinctly. That’s one reason I love the first verse of this Scripture lesson from the book of Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is something like saving for retirement in your 20’s. Do you remember what that was like? Some of you remember what it was like to start saving; others are starting now. I remember being in a meeting with a representative of the Board of Pensions for the Presbyterian Church. I was 25, and he was telling me to prepare now for being 65, which at the time seemed to have so little relevance to me because in that moment I didn’t have enough money to pay the bills that were past due. Why should I worry with bills that would come 40 years down the road? We plan for the future because the future is coming. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Aesop tells the story of the grasshopper who lived only for the day. It was Spring. Why worry about Winter? Yet the ants were filling their storeroom while the grasshopper was enjoying the sun. Winter is coming. Plan for what is not here yet. If you think about faith as something like saving for retirement, then more or less, you are acting on faith all the time. We good Presbyterians don’t just live for today. We’re always preparing for tomorrow. We are all convinced that what we see right here is not all that there will be. We know that change is the constant, so we live today with bright hope for tomorrow. We send our kids to school to prepare for careers that are far down the road. Faith isn’t so complicated a thing. You’re living this way all the time but remember that faith is on the one hand while fear is on the other. When you think about the future, are you acting in faith or out of fear? As you raise your children, which impulse guides your decisions? Listen to this passage from a classic chapter book that my mother read to me: Ramona’s day was off to a promising start for two reasons, both of which proved she was growing up. First of all, she had a loose tooth, a very loose tooth, a tooth that waggled back and forth with only a little help from her tongue. It was probably the loosest tooth in her whole class which meant that the tooth fairy would finally pay a visit to Ramona before long. But not only did Ramona have a loose tooth to make her feel that she was finally beginning to grow up, she was going to walk to school all by herself. Do you remember this book? Those Ramona books were popular years ago, but they’re showing their age now because the scene that I just described, it unfolds as Mrs. Quimby, Ramona’s mother, takes Ramona’s older sister, Beezus, to the dentist. With Mom taking Beezus to the dentist, little Ramona must wait in the kitchen by herself until it’s time to walk herself to school. Her mother tells her to wait in the kitchen watching the clock until it’s a quarter past 8. It’s not a digital clock she’s watching, but a clock with the hands moving around in a circle that some adults have a hard time reading. Mrs. Quimby tells Ramona to leave the house a quarter past 8. Ramona understand 8 but isn’t sure about how many minutes are in a quarter of an hour. She remembers that a quarter coin is worth 25 cents, so she leaves the kitchen at 8:25 when she should have left at 8:15. She misses the chance to walk with her friend Howie, who was waiting at 8:15 but went on to school without her. By the time Ramona left the house, the sidewalk was empty, the crossing guard had gone, and Ramona made it to Kindergarten late. That’s right. Kindergarten. My friends, I was still walking our girls to school into their 5th grade year because in our culture, it’s not just faith that guides our actions, it is also an overwhelming sense of fear, worry, and anxiety. I looked back at a sermon I preached on this passage in Hebrews that we’re focused on this morning from six years ago. In that sermon preached in 2019, I told you that I had just walked Lily to her first day of 5th grade, and I told you that I stood there waving as she walked into Westside Elementary, saying a silent prayer for her safety and her success. I was worried standing there, but I felt better because just before she made it into the school she turned around and waved back to me. It was a wonderful moment that warmed my heart until that afternoon. Lily came home from school and told Sara, “Mama, dad just stands there for so long when he drops me off at school. I finally had to wave him away. Go on to work, Dad. Please tell him to stop standing there for so long.” My point here is that faith is on the one hand while fear is on the other. The Bible speaks to this reality. The phrase “fear not” appears in some form 365 times in the Bible, once for every day of the year, because our lives as Christians must be defined, not by fear but by faith, and when I say faith, I’m not talking about your acceptance of doctrine or dogma. I’m not so worried about how well you’ve memorized and digested the essential tenants of the Creeds and Confessions. What I want is for you to walk out these doors every Sunday assured once again that the One who holds us in His hands is not going to let your foot slip. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. What do you hope for? What have you not seen, but you dream of? I’ve been reading a book that Dr. John Knox wrote. In addition to being a long-time member of our church, John’s been working in the emergency room at Kennestone Hospital for years, and he wrote a book that you can buy on Amazon.com in which we follow the exploits of a surgeon operating on wounded soldiers fighting in the Civil War. It’s a gruesome account. Dr. Knox describes these surgeries, some of which we know took place in our Sanctuary after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Back then, there was so little that anyone could do for a gunshot wound other than cut off the whole leg or arm, whichever had been shot. The surgeon had to sand down the bone so it wouldn’t poke through the skin once the wound had been stitched closed. Reading this book helped me gain a new appreciation for the suffering of those boys who laid on the floor of our Sanctuary. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be among them? Moreover, could they have imagined what it’s like to be us? Could the 12 families who donated their savings so that our Sanctuary could be built back in 1850 have imagined this church as it is today? Moreover, can you imagine what it will be like to be a member of this church 50 years or 100 years from now? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, and the future is coming, but do you believe that tomorrow will be better than today? My friends, we all know that we are living in this 21st century, where the influence of the Church is waning, where faithfulness appears to be in short supply, but my greater concern is that in the absence of faith comes fear, and I see fear at work all over the place. Fear is making our minds closed rather than open to the promise. Fear is making our hearts small, rather than filled with compassion. Too many are living without knowing where we are going. Too few make wise decisions because they are so fearful for what lies ahead. Those articles covering the decline of Roswell Street Baptist Church have haunted my dreams. Have you seen them? A church that declined in membership from 9,000 to 450. My friends, such reports are staggering, but I’m not afraid today. I’m done with fear. The only way we’ll fail is if we give up. God is with us, working His purpose out. Our lives are defined not by fear but by faith, which is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, so while you might look out on a world today marked by bloodshed and scarred by division, the future we are promised gives us reason to be ever hopeful. We are walking towards the Kingdom of God. Be convinced that love always wins, and that our God is working against injustice for the betterment of all His children. Scripture promises that we are moving towards a tomorrow that is brighter than all our yesterdays. Halleluia. Amen.

Mary and Martha, Followers of Jesus, a sermon based on Isaiah 64: 6-8 and Luke 10: 38-42, preached on July 20, 2025

It feels good to be back here. I’ve been gone for three weeks. During my time away, I completed a 117-page draft of my final project for my doctorate. I’ve been a student in the doctorate program at Columbia Theological Seminary since 2018. It’s about time I made some progress, considering how this program is meant to last three years, and I have been in it for seven. Thanks to this study leave, I’m well on my way. I’ll turn in my 117-page paper to my first and second reader in early September, editing between now and then. Should my advisors approve, I’ll defend my thesis in October. The defense is public. If you would like to attend what may turn into my execution, you are welcome, but seriously, several of you have asked about my progress and what I’ve been writing about. I’m honored by your interest, and I’m especially thankful for your support and encouragement. No one made me feel guilty for taking so much time off, which was very nice because not everyone gets the luxury of taking a break. Before I felt comfortable to take so much time off, I just floated the idea to the Clerk of Session, Lisa Fanto-Swain, and Susan Palacios, my executive assistant. I nervously mentioned taking three weeks off, and in response, they said things like, “It’s about time” and “Of course you should. Stay away from here and finish your degree.” That was so good to hear because like you, I live in this world of tremendous pressure to keep going and to keep doing. It’s hard to give myself permission to stop. To get focused. To walk away from busyness to prioritize, but they encouraged me to do it, and so I did. I took three weeks off, wrote 117 pages, then I came back here last Monday, and sitting on my desk was a thank-you note from Denise Lobodinski: a thank-you note that said, “You taking a break to focus on something important gives us permission to take a break.” My friends, I did not expect this result and neither did Martha. We are now on the eighth Sunday of another summer sermon series. For the last several years, your pastors have focused on something special for the summer, a theme or a particular book of the Bible. This summer, we’ve been focused on followers of Jesus, be it John Mark who was our focus last Sunday, or the women of the Gospels from the Sunday before. (I loved how Cassie said that we might think of some of them as the real housewives of Jerusalem). One of the many benefits of me being gone was that my absence gave other members of the staff the opportunity to step forward. Pastors who don’t often preach had the chance. Church Administrator, Melissa Ricketts, was the acting head of staff. Some might say that Melissa is always the one who really runs the church, but while I was gone, it was official. My point is that in a world of busyness and activity and anxiety over what must be done next, I ask you this morning to take a lesson from Mary and Martha. Martha was busy. We are all busy. Notice that Jesus said, “Mary chose the better part.” Why would Jesus say that? It’s important for us to understand what He means, for we live in a world of doing; however, we were created to be human beings, not human doings. Why do we try to do so much? Why attempt to do two things while achieving neither? I can’t listen while looking at my phone, but I keep thinking I can. Multitasking is an illusion for most of us, so we must stop doing to worship the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Does the need to do ever keeping you from the most important part? It happens all the time with funerals. In the Gospel of John, Mary and Martha’s brother dies. Before Jesus raises him from the dead, there must have been a funeral. The funeral is not described, but I can picture it. I can picture Martha busy, and I can see Mary crying, and if Mary was crying at the funeral then she chose the better part because while there is so much to do in the wake of death, while there are so many details to attend to, it’s possible to take refuge in the details to avoid the point of the funeral. The point of the funeral is grieving and receiving comfort from friends and family. Yet Martha stayed so busy attending to the details that she wouldn’t stop to let anyone comfort her. No. When she finally let herself fall apart, no one was around for her to lean on. My friends, it is good sometimes to be busy, but you also must stop to weep. If you never stop to weep then you will never receive the comfort of a community. That’s why Jesus said, “Mary chose the better part.” We must stop trying to do everything in order to slow down and do the one thing. Otherwise, we’re just spinning our wheels. It says that, more or less, right in the Bible. Take out your Bible and look up our second Scripture lesson because I want you to notice something. Look on page 844, the page right before our second Scripture lesson, and notice that the Parable of the Good Samaritan is followed by the story of Mary and Martha. Why would the Gospel writer place them side-by-side? It’s because this message of Jesus is so important that he gives us the same lesson twice in the hopes that it will sink in. The message of the Good Samaritan simplified is this: In a world of tragedy, where there are so many bodies lying by the side of the road, stop to help just one. Do good to just one. Put aside doing everything and caring about everything. You can’t help them all. You can’t stop the Texas dam from breaking. You can’t bring peace to the Middle East. But if you see a child crying, slow down. If your friend is in pain, take time to listen. Notice the pain of the people in your neighborhood. Don’t waste your empathy on problems you can’t do anything about when you have the power to do something good for somebody today. In our world, I wonder if the devil wants us overwhelmed by tragedy that we give up hope and so distracted by all that needs doing that we never do anything to make a difference. Jesus says, “Mary has chosen the most important part.” Listen to what Jesus asks us to do: Give the thirsty a cup of water, give the hungry a meal to eat, visit the isolated in jail and in the hospital, don’t be overcome by evil. Overcome evil with good, and if you start to feel like you’re ready to give up, slow down and remember the words to the hymn: My Shepherd will supply my need, and his name is Jehovah, not Martha. Do you know a Martha? I knew a Martha who went to visit the Vatican, and someone asked about her visit saying, “Did you get the Pope straightened out?” My friends, there is work for us to do. There is a calling on your life, but sometimes you must stop to remember that while something needs doing, you were not called to do everything. Do something, but if you try to do everything, you never will. Don’t try to save the world, for the world already has a Savior. While I was out, I went to the optometrist because I can be one of those people who thinks he’s too busy to go to the doctor. It’s ridiculous. I know that, so I went to the optometrist. I hadn’t been for two years. He was updating my prescription, and he asked me if I ever used optometry as a metaphor in my sermons. I was like, “Who does this guy think he is?” He said, “Sometimes, all you need to do to see clearly is to change your lens.” When you look out on the world and see all the problems, do you use the lens of “I’ve got to do something about that,” or do you say to yourself, “Thanks be to God who is working His purpose out?” I was gone for three weeks, and for those three weeks, I had to write a paper, but I wrote about the good that God has done in this place. I reflected on what’s changed because of the pandemic. God was doing a new thing in 2020, so we came out of the pandemic a different church from the one who went into it. Before the pandemic, we didn’t have the Pantry on Church feeding 400 families. Before the pandemic, we had no presence in the Cobb County Jail, but just last month we distributed 432 Bibles and helped the men and women there check out 450 books. Did you know that we run the jail library now? It’s true. That wasn’t happening before the pandemic, and that it’s happening now helps me to realize that even in a moment when we were all stuck at home quarantined, God was at work. Just because we didn’t do it, that doesn’t mean that nothing got done. That’s the lesson Mary teaches. Her story helps to teach a bunch of Martha’s like us to stop and watch as the Potter shapes this broken world by the power of His hand. Slow down long enough to notice that, while we are called to serve, we are simply joining God, the Potter, who is always at work shaping and changing creation, “making all things new.” Halleluia. Amen.

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

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