Lost & Found

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 14, 2025

Back in March of 2021, I was feeling pretty lost. I was grieving the news of a dear family member who had a terminal illness and would inevitably pass away. And we were still very much in the throes of the pandemic too. You know, the loneliness and isolation, the confusion and pain of that time for all of us. I was doing ministry, and a lot of it was over Zoom—which I know all of us love so much. But I was experiencing a little bit of Zoom fatigue.

So I decided during that spring break time to take a week and go hike the AT. My dad dropped me off at Wendy Gap, and I had planned for one of my best friends, Meline, to pick me up eight days later at Allen Gap, which is not a well-known spot to be picked up. Kind of off a random trailhead. So for eight days I thought, I will feel found by the end of this. I will do the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing. I’ll squeeze it into eight days. I’ll eat the pita with the peanut butter and the beef jerky.

And there were many times during that week where I got lost, somehow found my way back. But overall, as you might expect, that week did not heal the parts of me that were sad. But I hiked on, and the plan was for Meline to pick me up on the eighth day. On the seventh day, I called her from a phone in a hostel and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she was sobbing. She said, “My dog ate a sock. I cannot come get you. I have to take her to the emergency vet. There is a sock in her somewhere, and we have to get it out of her somehow.”

I didn’t know how I was going to get home, and it was a six-hour drive away. So Meline and I scrambled, called friends, and one of my dear friends, Megan, said, “I got you.” The next day, she hopped in the car from Nashville, drove the six hours, probably got a little lost herself trying to find this trailhead, and found me. And Meg is one of those people who, when she sees you—whether it’s been one day or ten years—it’s like she hasn’t seen you in forever. She said, “I found you.”

And with double masks on, we drove back home. So, for her, this was a 12-hour drive in one day. We were blasting pop music and stopped for Reese’s Fast Breaks. And I was more afraid of the harrowing hike of what was waiting for me at home. But Meg didn’t just diligently search for me. She didn’t just find me. When we got back to Nashville, she continued to restore me to my community. And I’ll get into that in a little bit.

But for now, we have this story this morning—this passage that probably all of us have heard—of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and, if you read on, the lost son.

At the beginning of this story, Jesus is having dinner with a bunch of people he shouldn’t be having dinner with. What I love about Jesus is that probably the most offensive things he does in his life happen over a meal. He just sits down and eats pizza or whatever with people others hated, misunderstood, ignored, or wouldn’t touch or talk to. He ate dinner with anybody and everybody.

And the Pharisees were pretty upset about this. “You’re eating dinner with tax collectors.” These were people who were despised among the oppressed. They were benefiting from the economic exploitation of the poor and from living within the Roman Empire. They were hated. “And you’re having dinner with sinners.” Who knows what that meant, but these people weren’t doing too well, right?

They were upset that Jesus often ate with the humiliated, the humble, and the hated. And so, they started to grumble. And I would be grumbling too, to give them some credit. I would be grumbling if I saw Jesus eating with people I hate, people I judge, people I don’t understand. They were followers of the law. This didn’t make sense. “You seem to think you can eat with anybody and everybody.”

They said of Jesus—actually said this guy, this fellow, which in Greek is kind of like this dude, a diminutive term—“This dude is eating with people he shouldn’t be eating with.” So probably in a biting tone, as we know Jesus can have sometimes, he jumped in and asked them a question that he framed as a parable:

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after this lost sheep?”

And just as an aside, shepherds in ancient times weren’t making a lot of money. Every sheep counted. Every single one of the hundred mattered. For these Pharisees, tax collectors, and sinners, Jesus knew they probably wouldn’t have gone after one sheep. They didn’t really need the money. But shepherds did.

He said, “When the shepherd has found this one sheep, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he gets home—because the story doesn’t end there with just finding it—he calls his friends and neighbors, and he rejoices with them too because he found this sheep that was lost.

“I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who are grumbling with their chins held high.”

And then he asked them another parable:

“What about a woman who has ten silver coins—which, by the way, would be about ten days of labor for her? This poor woman who didn’t have a high social or economic status—she has to find this coin. What about her if she loses one?

“She lights a lamp—not just turning on a flashlight. She would have had to use some of her oil to light this lamp, which was expensive. She picks up a broom and sweeps this dusty, dirty floor, looking who knows how long for this coin. And when she finds it—because the story doesn’t stop there—she calls her friends and neighbors, and she spends this coin rejoicing with them because she had found something that was lost.

“I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

One sheep, one coin.

In both stories, we can wonder: does God show up as our shepherd? Does God show up as our diligent, relentlessly searching, persistent woman? In both stories, God not only finds the sheep or the coin, but once God does, God immediately restores it to community—brings it back into the fold of friends and neighbors—and celebrates.

That’s our equation in this passage this morning. As Matt Skinner puts it: it’s really fun to be God, to see a lost person become found. And in that way, both are found: the lost, which God has searched for, and the community, which has lost one of its own. That missing puzzle piece—something is longing to return back to us, to restore us into wholeness. The job isn’t done. The rejoicing doesn’t happen until one is reconciled to all.

As Professor Trey Clark writes, in our divided and divisive times, this passage reveals that God is a God whose heart is insistent on closing chasms. And church, we need some chasms closed this week, don’t we?

God rejoices in finding lost things—shows up as a shepherd, shows up as a devoted woman, not stopping the search until the puzzle piece is found. And I believe, church, that this missing piece has been you and it has been me.

We have all felt lost at some point. Lost to addiction or grief. Lost to peer pressure or homesickness. Lost to unemployment, separation, or abandonment. Perhaps we are the sheep roaming around in fear, unable to find our ninety-nine. Longing to be reconciled to community. On a hike, trying to find our footing.

And I wonder if you are feeling that way. Who are the shepherds in our lives seeking us out?

Maybe it’s the psychiatrist who has your back, who walks with you, searching for the right medication to make your mind, body, and spirit feel good again—not stopping until you’ve found something that works. Maybe it’s a friend who helps you look for your car keys as the sun goes down, turning on the flashlight app on your phone until you find them.

Has anybody been there? Okay, thank God—I’m there. Mia knows I’m there every week.

Or a music minister helping you try to find that note when you’ve lost it over and over again, patiently and carefully helping you reach high or low to get there. Or a parent who searches the whole house for your lost homework, then drives back to school to give it to you. Or a friend who visits you in the hospital, gives you a ride to physical therapy, or calls you on a day when you least expect it and you feel lost. Or maybe it’s your partner who offers you grace upon grace when you lose it—even lose it on them a little bit.

Maybe it’s a camp counselor who makes sure you feel included, who learns your name in the first ten minutes and always brings you back into the fold when you show up not knowing anyone. Or a student who shows you where to find that classroom on your first day of school when you’re new. Or a congregant who shuffles out of their pew to greet and welcome you, even though they don’t know you, just to make sure you feel a sense of community here—that you feel found.

Maybe you’ve felt that lost. Or maybe you’re in a place where you feel like you could be the shepherd, the woman, the finder. Even if you grumble at the beginning, maybe it’s your turn to find others.

Maybe you’re the one who can help new mothers with their breastfeeding questions because you’ve been through the throes of motherhood yourself. Maybe you’re the one who points people in the right direction when they seem lost in Nashville, Tennessee, stuck on 440 and just going crazy. Maybe you’re the one who invites someone to AA or Al-Anon because you’re intimately connected with addiction. Maybe you’re the one who picks up the phone just because someone’s name crossed your mind on a random Tuesday—and you call them, and you rejoice.

Maybe you’re the one who finds cash in an old shoebox and treats your friends to a nice meal, like that woman who found the coin and immediately celebrated.

Megan found me. Woo! Sorry.

But her shepherding didn’t end with finding me, and it didn’t end with driving me home. She continued restoring me to community—checking on me when I felt pain, texting me most mornings and saying, “Good morning. I love you. You can do this. You can get through this. I’ll be right there with you.”

Showing me that God doesn’t just seek us out and diligently look for us. God doesn’t just find us and end the story there. No—God rejoices when we are welcomed back into the fold of community.

And this missing puzzle piece—that might be you, that might be me—is finally placed back where it belongs.

So may we be like Meg—persistent and carefully searching. May we be listening for the cries of help, seeking the ones who might be on the outside. Closing the chasm and putting that puzzle piece back where it belongs. And celebrating. Celebrating when we do.

Amen.

The Cost of Discipleship

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn and Rev. Wesley King on September 7, 2025

The last couple of weeks we have been digging into the book of Luke. And if you've been here, and if you haven't been here, that's okay. You have heard about this man named Jesus and what he's been up to. He has been up to some radical healing. Healing a man with a withered hand. Healing a woman who was hemorrhaging blood for 12 years. Healing someone who was paralyzed. Healing a little girl who many presumed dead. And he's also been doing some other kinds of radical welcome. He's been feeding thousands of people with just a few loaves and fish. And last week, the gospel reading showed us that when Jesus talks about inviting people to this great dinner, this banquet, that he means everyone. And he shows us that this form of inclusion doesn't just mean some, it means all. That his radical healing is actually not discriminating based on gender or wealth or social status. That he is touching lepers and people that no one else would talk to or touch. And he's breaking rules when he does it, even doing it on the Sabbath. That is what our Savior has been up to. We've had some tough talks from Jesus as well. A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege, we'll call it, of preaching on the text where Jesus says, "I did not come to bring peace. Instead, I came to bring strife and division." And that was a passage that makes a lot of people, myself included, really uneasy to kind of reconcile who we've built up Jesus to be in our heads and then who Jesus says that he is in scripture.

This tough talk that he gives us today that Eric just read in some ways might come as a surprise or startle us. But if we read the passage right before, we have a little context clue that Jesus is about to sit us down and tell us some stuff. Because when he talks about this great banquet, he says this: "Don't invite your friends or your brothers. Don't invite your relatives or your rich neighbors. When you give a banquet, scripture says, invite the poor, invite the crippled, invite the lame, invite the blind, and you will be blessed." So today's text shouldn't be that surprising because in the context of Luke, we know that Jesus, this God of acceptance and compassion, is also sometimes that person that's going to sit us down and give us a little talking-to. And that's what he does today. He is speaking to a big old crowd. Clearly, these are people who were compelled by what he was saying. And these followers may have really loved his words. And they may also have been people who were acquiring material possessions and had economic comfort over in the Roman Empire and were people who took pride in their social status. And they know that Jesus is a captivating figure with a powerful message.

But he's also asking for a significant commitment, a significant commitment, one that goes beyond just getting baptized and one that asks and urges us to consider a lifelong cost of discipleship. As Lynn Japinga puts it, Jesus looks out at this crowd and says, "You need to know what you're in for. Be prepared for loss. Be prepared for poverty. Be prepared for suffering. Following me, I never promised it would be easy, but I promised it would cost something to gain something."

In other words, there is a cost to discipleship. And after giving this sermon, I kind of wonder how many people left and said, "I really liked the guy who was about healing everybody and the guy who invited us to dinner. I don't know about this guy who was giving us a pep talk that I don't really want to hear." It is hard to consider that cost. And even in the early church, they actually took this lesson quite literally. They were going off into the desert to pray. They were building their own monastic communities. They were even suffering as martyrs on the cross. I don't know about y'all, I'm not going to the desert and I'm not going to a monastery. So, what does it mean for me, for us today, when we think about the cost of discipleship?

Some of you know that I've been digging into the history of this church more and more since I've started here. History has always been one of those areas of interest for me. And I recently read this phrase in the Designed for Worship book that Vine Street and many other Nashville churches are listed in. It's in my office if you want to borrow it. And this quote says, "The Reverend Wayne Bell led Vine Street through the tumultuous 1960s, and some members left for other churches when Bell made it clear that all people, regardless of race, were welcome at the table of Jesus Christ and thus were welcome at Vine Street Christian Church."

And so I wanted to learn a little bit more about this. So I actually called Stephen Moseley's dad, Reverend Dr. Dan Moseley, who was the associate pastor under Dr. Bell, and he told me that the tension was high, to put it lightly, at Vine Street. On one hand, you had Vanderbilt and other university faculty who had found refuge here because of their pro-integration views and that being shared by Dr. Bell. And then on the other hand, you had folks with the town and gown conflict—those who were from this area who had lived here all of their lives versus those who had just moved here either for schooling or to teach at one of the universities.

Dan told me that there were some Sunday school classes here at this church even that petitioned the board of elders to remove Bell and remove Moseley because of their politics when it came to integration. One group of men, Dan tells me, came to Sunday school every week, but then they hung out in the kitchen during the worship service in protest to Bell's stance on integration and a couple of other matters. Thankfully, the board of elders rejected their petition. But he told me that Reverend Bell began to record his sermons because people were misconstruing what he said and making false statements about him and his sermons, and he thus needed proof about what he was saying. Mosley also told me that some folks outside of the church even protested right on those front steps because they believed that Vine Street wasn't doing enough when it came to the fight for integration.

So, some folks left, yes. But Mosley also told me that many folks who opposed Bell's views on integration stayed, stating that nobody would run them out of their church. Bell and Moseley's discipleship to a God who made all of his children equal and beloved in God's own image was costly to them. They sacrificed their mental state, their well-being, their comfortableness just to be inclusive of all of God's people without barriers.

Nowadays, one would hope that integration is a given. That the idea that someone's race should not preclude them from certain spaces or rights or opportunities, I would hope, is a basic understanding of how we treat our neighbors. But in the 1960s, this was bold. This was radical welcome. And so I can only imagine what our cost for discipleship would look like in our lifetime. And I ask the question: will we be ready? Have we missed it already? Is there still time to pick up our cross, to deny our comfortableness and our social status in order to be that justice-seeking, mercy-giving, all-loving disciple of Jesus Christ?

That's the history of our church. That history is the heartbeat of our church. But it's not something we can just look back on with appreciation or nostalgia. That is the blueprint of our church. That is the roadmap. Because in our passage this morning, Jesus does not mince words. He says, "Your discipleship will cost you something." And in verse 28 he says, "Work out how much it'll cost." Cost is used one time in the New Testament—one time—and it's right here. You are going to have to sacrifice something to gain something.

As scholar N. T. Wright puts it, Jesus isn't denying the importance of close family here. He's not denying the need to live in supportive harmony. But there is this urgent task to be done, as there is right now. And everything else, including one's own life, has to be put at risk for the sake of the kingdom of God. Which makes me wonder, have I really thought through what I'm about? Or has following Jesus become too easy? If I'm not experiencing some kind of cost to my discipleship, I might need to reexamine my faith today.

And the cost of discipleship—it might feel kind of elusive to us. It does to me. I don't have to sacrifice much in my life to claim that Jesus is Lord. I really don't. I have the comfort of sitting in my own faith tradition in this country, my own race, my own nationality. But there are times when I have felt that cost. Just a couple of months ago, we posted a sermon clip of something I preached, and a boy, a teenage boy from Canada—we don't know him—commented under it. He wrote, "Get this bee," and I'll let you fill in the rest, "Get this bee out of the pulpit." Inconsequential. I don't know him. That's just a comment on social media. But it really rattled me that there are young people who are growing up in our country who don't think that women should preach or teach or hold spiritual authority. And yet I deeply feel called to this work. But sometimes it's coming at the cost of criticism and condescension and callousness.

So in those moments, it would be easy to retreat and say, "Maybe he's right. Maybe these people who don't think I should be wearing this and doing this up here—maybe they're right." But I know Jesus, and I follow Jesus. And he never promised ease. But he promised me that following him—yeah, it would come at a cost, but I would get to be his disciple and gain something out of that. I've worked in churches for a long time, since I was 16 years old. But you know, it wasn't until after I came out that I had the courage to finally accept my own call to ministry—something that I had known was coming for a long time, but didn't have the courage to do until I was my authentic self. And it's been immensely rewarding. And it's been really hard, y'all.

I had one family member come to my ordination. Thankfully, I had a lot of chosen family and friends come as well. Some of you were there. But the truth remains that there are folks that do not believe that we should be up here doing this, that we should even be pastors because of who we are. But we aren't here to follow the beliefs and the thoughts of men. We are here to follow the will of God who has undoubtedly called each of us—not just Margie and I, but each of us—to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God, to love our neighbors and help bring that kingdom of God down to earth.

Silence can be uncomfortable, but I just want you to take a minute and think about—you know, Reverend McNeil last week said, "There's a difference between being a Christian and being a disciple." And part of that is a cost. So, just take a minute. We can do it. Think about what that cost might be for you today in your own discipleship. I've worn cross necklaces. I've worn cross earrings. But I have not always carried my cross. I haven't always been willing to. If we never feel the sacrifice of our faith, we've got to have a good honest look at what we are willing to give up along the way.

Maybe it's money or pride. Maybe it's greed or entitlement. Maybe it's possessions. Maybe it's comfort. Maybe it'll cost you socially to be kind to those kids at school who nobody talks to. Maybe it'll cost you your own comfort to be witnesses for justice and fairness in our city. And maybe it'll cost you a greater wealth when you give to those in need. That's for you to think about. We know what it cost our predecessors—Wesley just told us. But what will it cost us?

As scholar Emily Towns writes, the cost isn't just about becoming this accumulator of information. And it's not just about changing our behavior in regards to Jesus and his teaching. The cost—listen here, she's so brilliant—the cost is engaging in a profoundly radical shift toward the ethics of Jesus with every fiber of our being. Every fiber of our being. And that's our homework today, church: to pray that we may have this radical shift toward the ethics of Jesus with every fiber of our being. That we might consider the cost, that we might carry the cross, and we might be willing to risk our own comfort, not just as a Christian, but as a disciple of Christ. That's the homework for you and me.

And our homework is going to start right now. We are going to take the prayer that Eric read earlier in the service, found in your bulletin. But I'd love for us to read it collectively this morning as a recommittal, as we begin to recommit ourselves as we do each and every week that we come to this place to be that justice-seeking, mercy-giving, loving people of God.

And so let us read together the prayer.

Forgiving God, you gave us a wonderful world filled with beauty, power, and majesty. Yet we have not treated this world or one another with compassionate love. We have turned our backs on situations of need in which we could have been instruments of help, healing, and peace. We have neglected service to others and have focused our lives on accumulating things and status. We have chased after false gods—greed, power, fame. We have chosen comfort over a costly discipleship. But you are the potter, O Lord. You have fashioned us. Refashion us to be your people, following your ways, living your words aloud, celebrating your love in service to others. For we ask this in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Friends, may it be so and may we make it so. Amen.

A Living Sacrifice

Sermon preached by Rev. Kevin McNeil on Sunday, August 31, 2025

Thank you, Jack, for the reading. Good morning. We just want to make sure, um, from the scripture that was read, um, I want to lift up verses 15 and 16 again in our hearing.

Therefore, through Jesus, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name, and do not forget to do good and share with others. For with such sacrifices, God is pleased.

Um, for the four hours I've been afforded this morning, I want to— You, somebody just said, “We going to miss brunch.” Uh, but I want to use for our subject this morning: A Living Sacrifice.

Let us pray. Lord, we are thankful for this day. For when the sun shined over the mountaintop, you called our name. We're glad that last night wasn't our last night. Now Lord, we're here at the door of our tent needing a word from you. Speak to our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. Give us courage not just to hear but also to respond. It is in your name we pray. Amen.

Um, we live in some interesting times. Um, times when it feels like the church is under pressure sometimes, challenges that come our way from things that are happening all around us. The question I ponder most days is: What is our response?

What is our response to the things that we see happening, whether it's in the statehouse or in the house next door? What is our response when there are folks who seem to embrace a life of division and hate and strife and they call themselves Christians? Maybe I'm the person that's got that challenge in their life right now, that's feeling that tension as they move in and about society. But I'm challenged when I hear people say, "I'm a Christian," and then they enact policy violence on the weak and the poor. I'm challenged when I hear people say they are Christian. And in some cases, I was watching one of the news channels and the guy said, "Well, he's a good Christian, but he committed a senseless act of violence." And I listened as folks tried to justify. And maybe that's our problem. We've gotten too comfortable being Christians. Maybe that's it.

And for me, I will offer up part of that challenge with that word Christian now is sometimes I wonder: What does it mean to be a Christian? You know, I used to teach these healthy communication classes, and I would always say to folks who would come into the class, “Your problem most often when you're having a difficult conversation with someone is that you're using the same words, but you're actually speaking a different language.” What happens most of the time is when we hear people say common phrases like “I love you,” we don't know what they actually mean. We hear what we mean. And so we respond based on what we mean with what we've heard and not what they've actually said.

And so I suggest sometimes when people say things, the best thing you can do to make sure that you're not having a miscommunication is ask a simple question: What do you mean by that?

And so sometimes I find myself in these places where people are talking about Christianity and being a Christian and I want to ask, What do you mean by that? Because if you look at the history of Christianity throughout the ages, and especially in the context of our country, sometimes it gets a bit complicated.

But maybe there's a problem with the church. Maybe the problem is we were never called to be Christians anyway. That's why you probably say, "Well, where's he going with that?" Anybody remember the Great Commission? In the Great Commission, we were never called to make Christians. We were called to make disciples. And when you start to sit back and think about all that Jesus did, all that he said, and who he is, being a disciple is very different from being a Christian.

See, in 2025, Christians are transactional. I'll do this if you do that. Disciples are relational. We talk about the kingdom and family and being a part of one body together. Christians like to draw lines in the sand that Jesus does not draw. Disciples say we're all part of one body of Christ. Christians like to have rules and regulations that determine whether or not you're a member. And disciples say all are welcome at the table.

So maybe that's my issue with this word Christian in 2025: that we are about the business of making disciples. People who fall in love with Jesus and then live through their best efforts to try to mimic him.

Here is a litmus test. Now don't nobody tell on yourself. What does your life reflect? I often used to tell my students this. I would say, “Your life is like a mirror. You reflect the thing that you're closest to.”

So, if you see somebody—I know I'm not talking about anybody in here—but if you see somebody and their life is all about hate and being mean and nasty and ugly to somebody, you can probably guess what they're close to. But as a disciple, one who follows Christ, one who tries to mimic the life of Christ, I am meant to get close to him. And if the Bible says that God is love, what should I be reflecting? Is your life reflecting love? Just a thought.

The writer in our text this morning, in an attempt to deal with a church—a body of believers who find themselves in a very similar place dealing with pressures from the government that was allowing and even sanctioning folks to commit violence against them, dealing with social structures that were challenging their existence and their identity, and also dealing with some wolves in sheep's clothing who were infiltrating their communities of faith and questioning whether or not this Jesus thing was real. They were under stress. They were under tension. They were being pushed.

The reason the letter is written is because there were Jewish folks who had infiltrated the church and were trying to turn these new disciples back to Judaism. And so the letter is written to say, "Hey, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You were saved by grace through the belief in Jesus Christ." Remember that you were meant to walk in a life of love. As a matter of fact, you were meant to live a life of love. Live a life so that people who are looking for Christ find him in you.

I often wonder when people see me, what do they see? I have been told several times that I don't look like a preacher. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. You know, I've been doing this for 27, almost 28 years. And I still haven't figured out if that's a good thing or a bad thing, you know. But I often wonder when people see me, what is it they see? What am I reflecting? What am I living out so that when people see me, I hope they find themselves a little bit closer to Christ.

Um, and if they are transformed and have to like my football teams, that'll be good too. Um, the strategy of the church is to love. We were commanded to love. We're commanded to care. In the writing here, in the first three verses of this chapter, there is a command for each individual to care deeply about the person next to them—even the stranger, the person you don't know.

You know what is interesting? In John, Jesus says, “By this they will know you are my disciples: that you love each other.” Notice that Jesus says the litmus test to tell whether or not you're a disciple is not how well you love me, not how much money you put in the plate. Because if you’ve ever seen The Sopranos or some of those movies, I mean, that could be a little sketchy. But he says the litmus test for how to tell, how I will judge whether or not you're a disciple, is how you love each other.

That's the test. Not how much money you make, not whether you go to the right school, not whether you cheer for the right team—Hurricanes and Dolphins, by the way, in case you're keeping score—but how you love each other. That's our test.

The test for the disciple is to love. And through living a life of love, you become a living sacrifice. Know what I mean? You don't know what I mean? Um, so let me see if I can help us. Maybe I'll just— So here is the tension in my own personal life.

I have three kids. Um, and I have a new granddaughter who just turned a year old. And I'm so thankful for her because I now have somebody in my family I like. But being a dad is a selfless act. Um, y'all probably had better children than me, but there are moments where I looked at my kids and said, "Is this the baby I brought home from the hospital? Is this the kid I taught his ABCs, or I taught her how to tie her shoe? Is this the child that I talked to and said, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so'? Really?"

There have been some moments when I've looked at my children and said, "What made you think that was a good idea?" Oh, y'all didn't have those issues? Pray for me. I'mma find a support group.

But here's the challenge. The tension for me is even when they messed up, as a dad, God's expectation of me was to still show up and love and forgive, and show up and love and forgive, and continue to teach and not be judgmental about when they get it. So the tension for me is God is saying, "Don't just do it for your kids. Do it for all of my kids."

So every person I meet, I've got to pray for. I've got to show love. I've got to encourage. I've got to forgive. I've got to lift up. And some days I don't want to. I know I'm probably not supposed to say stuff like that because I'm standing here with the robe and the stole on, and I look, you know, real holy and all that, but let's just be honest. There's a real reason why in the Old Testament there's a book of Lamentations. Sometimes God puts something in front of you and you're like, “I don't want to do that. No.” But then he says, "Nope, that's exactly the thing I want you to do."

And sometimes when I'm looking at that thing, I want to go—well, sometimes I do go in the back and throw a temper tantrum. Then I come out and do what he asked me to do, because I mean, he is God and there's a judgment day coming. Um, but the reality is I must sacrifice not for my benefit but for the benefit of the kingdom, so that somebody else will see and meet Jesus in their own way. And then I've got to not be judgmental about when they get it, but just thank God that they get it.

He then moves on and talks about in verse 8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forevermore." That's the linchpin. That's the reason I can be a living sacrifice, and you can be a living sacrifice also, because the same God that forgave on yesterday, the same God that's forgiving and providing grace and love and mercy and all those things right now, will provide them on tomorrow.

And the God that forgave me, the God that watched over me, the God that protected me—I want that same God to do it for somebody else, to do it for everybody else. But not just so they can keep doing what they're doing—so that I have an opportunity to model his love in front of them, so they want to end up getting closer to him.

The hope of the disciple is that Jesus is who he is. He doesn't just love us. He gave his life for us. He died for us. He rose for us. And he even now makes intercession for us.

We used to sing this song when I was a little boy: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and his righteousness. I shall not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Y'all sing that? They still sing those songs.

Do you live with that hope? Because if you live with that hope, then you embrace being a living sacrifice and give people grace. You encourage people. You push people forward. For the disciple is not one who lives to put people down. That's the rock. Jesus is the rock we stand on. He's the hope we live by. And he's the strength we live through to be a living sacrifice, not just for us but for others.

And then in verse 15, he says, "Therefore—" Well, first he says, "Through Jesus." Therefore—so let me stop. Let me just not be presumptuous. Do y'all know Jesus? That one was not rhetorical. I was hoping I'd get a yes or two.

But do you know Jesus? No, I don't mean do you know of him the same way we know of some of these athletes. Do you know him? Are you in relationship with him? Does your life reflect him each and every day? Are you trying to get to know him better and better?

Here's a test. Do you talk to Jesus on days that are not Sunday? It's a piss-poor relationship for people that only talk one day a week.

Now, if you know Jesus, if you love Jesus, if you didn't just show up here by accident this morning—you intended to be here, you got up and, you know, did your hair and your makeup and put your clothes on and you were headed here. Hopefully nobody that's sitting in here was headed to brunch somewhere and made a wrong turn and decided you would stay. But if you came here on purpose, the thing that is inferred by your presence is that you know Jesus, and y'all are good friends, that you're all right, that you love him and you've accepted his love.

The writer states, "If that is true, therefore, because you know him, because you love him, because you've accepted his love, because you're endeavoring to be a disciple, a study of him, because of those things, continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God."

Continually. What does continually mean? I know kids have just gone back to school. We starting doing English words here already, huh? Getting definitions too early. Nonstop, at all times. Not just on Sunday, and not just on the Sundays when they sang your favorite hymn. But the scripture of the text suggests to us—no, it doesn't suggest, it mandates—that we who call ourselves disciples should continuously offer the sacrifice of praise.

And why does he call it a sacrifice? Because sometimes you don't feel like it. Okay. Sometimes I don't feel like it. Sometimes I wake up and stuff that wasn't hurting when I went to bed is hurting when I woke up. Sometimes I want it to be sunshine and nice all day, and I wake up and it's raining. Sometimes I want my day to go this way, and it goes that way. Sometimes I have high hopes for people and they let me down. Sometimes I have high hopes for myself and I let me down.

But the scripture suggests that all times are good times to offer God a sacrifice of praise.

That’s really the tension in the text this morning. The tension is that these disciples, these folks who were followers of Christ, had gotten distracted. They had gotten turned around and twisted in all kinds of different ways. And so the writer is trying to point them back to their true mission, to their true identity. And so he says, “Remember to offer up the sacrifice of praise.”

What does that mean? That means that every day I wake up, no matter what’s going on in my life, no matter the struggle, the sacrifice of praise is my offering to God. That means when I don’t feel like it, I still praise. When it’s raining outside and I’m running late for work and the kids are acting crazy, I still offer a sacrifice of praise. When the doctor gives me a bad report, I still offer a sacrifice of praise. When the bills are due and I don’t know where the money is coming from, I still offer a sacrifice of praise. Because it’s not based on my circumstances. It’s based on who God is.

The writer says, “Don’t forget to do good and to share with others.” That’s the other piece. If I am to be a disciple, it’s not just about what I say on Sunday morning. It’s about how I live Monday through Saturday. It’s about how I treat people when nobody’s looking. It’s about what I do when I pass that person on the corner with the cardboard sign. It’s about what I do when I see somebody being mistreated. It’s about how I share the love of Christ not just with my words but with my actions.

And then the writer says, “For with such sacrifices, God is pleased.” See, God is not looking for your lip service. God is not impressed with your church attendance record. God is not even impressed with how much you put in the offering plate if your heart is not in the right place. What pleases God is a life lived in sacrifice—where I lay down my agenda for his, where I lay down my comfort for somebody else’s well-being, where I lay down my pride to pick up humility, where I lay down my selfishness to serve somebody else.

That’s what it means to be a living sacrifice. And when I live that way, my life becomes a testimony. My life becomes a sermon. My life becomes the gospel somebody else may never read in a book but will see in me.

So the question this morning is simple: Are you living as a Christian, or are you living as a disciple? Are you going through the motions, or are you offering your life as a living sacrifice?

Because at the end of the day, titles don’t matter. What matters is fruit. What matters is reflection. What matters is love.

So my prayer for us this morning is that we will leave this place not just saying we love Jesus but showing it. That we would leave this place not just calling ourselves Christian but living as disciples. That we would leave this place committed to being a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.

And if we do that, not only will God be pleased, but the world around us will be transformed. Amen.

Eyes of Faith

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 24, 2025

Imagine that you are a woman with a chronic disability that most scholars would compare to something like spondylitis, which is a fusion of the bones and the spine that creates this ongoing stiffness and pain and inflammation and fatigue. And for 18 years, what you see is not God's confetti of stars sprinkled in the night sky. For 18 years, what you see is not the branches of a willow tree wrapping their arms around each other as you look up. What you see is not the eyes of your neighbor as you look into someone's face. No, you can hardly look up, cowering from the pain of your disease. What you see is dirt and dust and trash. Bound by this disease, you move through the world in a lot of physical pain, but you also move through the world in social pain. Many think that your disability is the result of God's judgment, which was true 2,000 years ago and in some areas of our world is still true today. So most people won't touch you. They won't talk to you. They're disgusted by you. They think your disease is contagious. And so they expect you to stay home, hiding away so that you do not get others sick with something that is causing you such chronic pain for almost two decades. Imagine feeling invisible. And you are so resigned to your illness at this point. You are so accustomed to the pain that you don't even dare consider asking for help, asking for healing. What good would that do? You've heard whispers of this man. This man who healed someone with a withered hand. This man who reached out and touched lepers. This man who healed a woman who was hemorrhaging blood for 12 years. This man who raised a little girl from the dead when everyone else thought she was gone. You've heard about him—Jesus of Nazareth—but there's no way he would heal you.

And this is who we meet in our passage today. Most theologians call her the bent-over woman. But if you know me, you know every time we have scripture with a nameless woman, we’ve got to name her, church. So, let's get a name for this woman. Evelyn. I love that name. Evelyn, for whatever reason, that day, despite the fact that she wasn't allowed to talk to rabbis and they weren't allowed to talk to her, who doesn't expect to be healed, appears at the synagogue that day. Did she leave her house wringing her hands in fear of people's judgment, taking a big resolute breath as she started to approach this place of worship? I don't know. But regardless, she arrives on the Sabbath looking down at the dust, perhaps even wondering why she showed up. And then she hears the voice of a man, and she cranes her neck to the side and she sees Jesus of Nazareth, and he is looking right at her. He is looking right at her, and he speaks right to her, and he invites her to come to him. And perhaps she shuffles over, scared, confused. And perhaps—I want to believe—Jesus kneels in front of her and gets on her level and looks right into her eyes and sees Evelyn. Maybe he wants to truly see her before he heals her. And then she finds those loving eyes of our holy healer. But she wonders why he has called her over and bent down to acknowledge her. No one talks to her. No one looks at her. And yet he does. He does. And he speaks these words to her: Woman, Evelyn, you are set free from your ailment. And then he touches her, knowing many would call him unclean for this action. He's risking his status by doing this, but he doesn’t care. He lays his hands on her. She hasn't received a loving touch in God knows how long. Feeling his weathered hands on her shoulders or neck, she feels the pain leave her body—a freeing experience she will never be able to quite articulate to people. And immediately, immediately she stands up straight and she praises God. She praises God because of this holy healer who sees her, who calls to her, who lays hands on her, who invites her, who speaks to her, who sets her free.

This isn't just about healing someone from physical pain. It is about a holistic healing of bringing someone back into the wholeness of community. And we’ve got to put a pin in that because what happens is our holy healer very quickly becomes our rebellious rule breaker. Have you heard of that Jesus? Healing on the Sabbath wasn't allowed because healing, church, takes work. Amen. And work was prohibited. And Jesus, ever the rule breaker for the sake of mercy, decides to piss some people off. And while it's easy to villainize this leader of the Sabbath, as I often do when I read this story, I actually get what he's saying. He's got a good point. Sabbath is reserved for rest. God rested on the Sabbath. God commanded us to rest on the Sabbath. We follow that God. We obey that God. He wasn't following some arbitrary cultural custom that he had made up. He was following the covenant that his ancestors had made with God. But sometimes, sometimes y'all, in the name of God and in the name of rest, we make rules and then we forget the reason for some of those rules. Sometimes our obedience, church, gets in the way of our mercy. And Jesus, he recognized that mercy and healing were more important in this moment than keeping a rule. And so, in true Jesus form, he raises his voice a little bit and he looks at the leaders of the synagogue and he says, "You hypocrites." And then he rolls up his sleeves and he puts on his attorney hat and he's ready to make his case. And he uses this argument which the Jewish people call kal va-chomer. And it basically means lighter to greater. Lighter to greater. He says, "Don't y'all untie animals from the manger and lead them to water on the Sabbath?" And this is the lighter part of the argument. And then he says, "Shouldn't this woman be set free on the Sabbath then?" And that's the greater part of the argument. If then so this. He's got the rule followers scratching their heads, doesn't he? And not only were they stumped, scripture tells us they were shamed. And I have felt that same shame before when I choose procedures over people. And scripture tells us next, the entire crowd—and maybe that means the leaders of the synagogue and the people following Jesus—the entire crowd rejoiced at the wonderful things he was doing. Imagine that. I wish I was there. For a woman on the margins who, as Lynn Japinga writes, tiptoed around the edges of worship spaces and marketplaces.

For years, Jesus's act of healing was not only physical, it was communal, it was spiritual, it was social. Elizabeth Caldwell makes it plain. She is both healed and restored to community through the one who sees her, through the one who invites her, through the one who speaks to her, through the one who lays hands on her, through the one who frees her. Y'all ever heard of that Jesus? This isn't just about her spine. Although, what a beautiful testament to Jesus's healing that is. This is about being seen and acknowledged and known, church. Surely the crowd witnesses this—I hope they do. And they see his work of mercy and they begin taking notes and they are ready to usher her back in. He sets her free. And just as the Sabbath is a reminder of the ways in which God set the Israelites free from captivity, Jesus is reminding us that sometimes the work of mercy means freeing people, untying their knots, from a loneliness, from a disease, from a way of not being seen that only he can. He allows her to once again marvel at the stars and see those branches of the redwood and look into the eyes of her family and friends.

Every so often during the week, we have folks who come to our doors asking to be seen. Perhaps they need a gas card or a bus pass. Honestly, sometimes they just want to talk and be heard. And this week, we had a really lovely young couple grace our doors. And they needed help paying for a few more nights at a hotel. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes these interruptions are very annoying. I had a lot to do. I wasn't in the mood to sit with folks and listen for I didn't know how long. And sometimes, I'll be honest with you, my skepticism, my weariness, my wondering if they're telling the truth or not, gets in the way of my mercy. But God is annoying. And God invites me, invites me, a broken woman, to look at others and see them and choose mercy over work. And so we sat in my office and they were petting my dog Joe. What's really interesting is they told me about their kids and their dog that they had to give away because of their financial situation. The woman said, "This is so comforting, this dog. This is such an emotional gift to me right now that this dog is loving on me." My dog Joe doesn't know who anyone is. She doesn't know where they came from. She doesn't care. She extends that loving nuzzle to everyone. And it may seem trite, I don't know. Maybe it's cheesy to you. But her excitement at seeing anyone from anywhere of any walk of life is convicting to the ways in which I limit my grace. Would I have given this couple a hug on their way out if I hadn't seen Joe do it? Would I have offered them the same grace and financial help if I hadn't felt that nudge from my holy healer, my rebellious rule breaker? Church, I don't know. That's why I keep coming back here.

As Professor James Alcantara writes, "For those who are religious, you've got to remember that when you do not see others, Jesus confronts you. The church is not meant to be a gated community," he writes, "but rather a place where those who are seen and freed by God are empowered to see others with—listen here—eyes of faith." Say it with me, eyes of faith. These aren't regular eyes. These are eyes of faith. These are eyes who know about a different savior and a different God. Who invites, who sees, who speaks to, who lays hands, who frees. Church, there are people in our community who feel invisible. And maybe they're sitting next to you right now, who may be in chronic pain without anybody who they feel gets it, who may feel in psychological pain, swallowed by the loneliness of depression or grief. There are those who may find themselves on the margins of society, maybe the margins of this church, and we’ve got to know better. We’ve got to do better, for those who feel like they are not being welcomed in and seen and healed in the ways that they wish. And they want to be desperately, desperately seen and known and invited to lunch and listened to and heard. And it is easy to overlook them and put our hurried lives first.

But there is the one who looks around. Y'all know who I'm talking about. And he slows down and he invites us over and he offers a gentle touch to our lonely or bitter or resigned souls and he says, be made well. And he says, I see you. And he says, come back to community. And he says, I’ve got you. He sees us. He calls us over. He speaks to us with love. He lays his hands on us and he frees us. And the question today for you and for me is whether we are willing to break some rules for the work of mercy.

Are we willing to go and do likewise? Are we willing to scramble after the one who says come? Are we willing to see each other with eyes of faith? May it be so. Let's make it be so.

Peace that Divides

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, August 17, 2025

As we prepare for this word, would you please join me in prayer?

God of healing mercies, we come to you this day as imperfect people. We know that you desire for us hope and happiness and love. Yet, we have found so many ways in which to block your gifts or to grab hold of them as if we are entitled to them. We've been given the pathway to peace in the witness of Jesus Christ. He taught us to live as a people of compassion and service. But our service has often been for ourselves, for our own gratification. We have failed to be your church. We are witnesses on earth. We have neglected the needs of others in our own rush for our own comfort. Forgive us, O merciful God. Heal your wounded spirits, our wounded spirits. Turn us again to you, that we may again learn of your love and mercy, and help us to become partners in peace and hope for others. And may glory be to God our Creator, to Jesus Christ our Redeemer, to the Spirit our Sustainer. As it was in the beginning, will always be, world without end. Amen. And amen.

There's a gym in my hometown that's a faith-based gym, and the logo is this shield with a big kind of gaudy cross on it. The name of the gym I've always giggled at: Resurrected Warrior. I typically giggle or roll my eyes sometimes because it feels a little silly to me that this gym would have that persona of Jesus. But I understand why they call it that. It comes from a literal understanding of John's apocalyptic writing in the book of Revelation.

But I understand that book differently—that it isn’t meant to be understood as a literal description of the end of times, but instead a genre of prophetic writing meant to challenge the powers of empire and give hope to an oppressed and occupied people. Still, this image of Christ that the owner had—or maybe the image of Christ the owner thought might sell more memberships—is fair. Because to be honest, Prince of Peace Pilates doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi.

Truthfully, I think our culture has many ideas and imagery of who and what Jesus of Nazareth is and who he came to be. Some describe Jesus as someone who wants you to prosper. And while I do believe that’s true, I don’t think twelve monthly payments of $5.99 is how you achieve it. Some describe Jesus as a healer. And I do believe that to be true as well, but I don’t think a bottle of holy water for $10 will fix whatever problem you might have. Some describe Jesus—like the gym in my hometown—as a shredded bodybuilder who, like social media influencers, wants you to achieve your peak aesthetic goals. And I do believe that our bodies are temples and holy vessels that we should take care of. But I don’t think that Jesus cares about the size of our biceps or triceps.

I think many people have made Jesus Christ into their own image, rather than trying to live into the image of who Jesus Christ is as described in scripture.

Now, our text today is a strange one. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, says that he’s coming to bring strife and divisions, and that families will essentially be torn apart in his name. So I want to read this text again, this time from the Living Bible translation. And I also want to offer a method of reading scripture. This is a method that Catholics and Episcopalians often use when reading the gospel message in order for them to ingest it in three different ways. They say, “The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: may it pierce our minds, may it pierce our mouths, and may it pierce our hearts.”

Here now from the Living Bible Translation:

"I have come to earth to bring fire to earth, and oh, that my task were already completed. There is a terrible baptism ahead of me, and how pent up I am until it is accomplished. Do you think that I have come to give peace to the earth? No. Rather, strife and division. From now on families will be split apart, three in favor and two against, or perhaps the other way around. A father will decide one way about me and his son the other. Mother and daughter will disagree, and the decision of an honored mother-in-law will be spurned by her daughter-in-law.”

Then he turned to the crowd and said, “When you hear the clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you’re right. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. But you hypocrites! You interpret the sky well enough, but you refuse to notice the warnings all around you about the crisis ahead.”

What we know about this passage from Luke’s gospel is that Jesus in this moment is in transition. He’s on his way to Jerusalem, where he will ultimately meet his end. Earlier in this chapter, someone from the crowd of thousands who had gathered to ask Jesus some questions said, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” And Jesus replied, “Who appointed me as judge or referee between you and your brother?”

Jesus then goes on to say, “Guard yourself against all kinds of greed. After all, one’s life is not determined by one’s possessions, even when someone is wealthy.” I take that to mean that probably the people he was speaking with didn’t have much in the first place.

Later in Luke’s gospel, he is sitting with tax collectors—some of the most hated people in the community—and with sinners. The Pharisees and the legal experts were grumbling and judging him. He also heals a man later in the gospel on the Sabbath, which was against the law.

So Jesus was teaching people a new way of living, a new way of interpreting the law that they had been given—even breaking the law when necessary to care for and love his neighbors. He was challenging Roman and religious authority.

I can imagine those who were listening to him and following him might have returned home to their households or communities, who likely didn’t take too kindly to these new teachings, these broken laws, these words of challenge to the way things were. I can imagine these teachings caused a lot of heated conversations, perhaps over the dinner table. I can imagine fights breaking out as sons, grandmothers, and fathers brought home the radical teachings of this man Jesus, and all the arguments that might have followed.

Think of it this way: we all think very highly of Martin Luther King Jr. now. But at the time, he was marching and obstructing roadways. He was encouraging sit-ins, protests, and rallies. In fact, when he died, he had a public disapproval rating of nearly 75%. And that wasn’t just racists—that was everybody.

And so I think of Jesus the same way. His teachings were radical. He was challenging Roman and religious authority. He was challenging ethnic and racial assumptions of the time. He was challenging gender assumptions of the time. And like MLK, he was making a lot of enemies. And like MLK, he was later murdered for it.

Jesus said, “Do you think that I’ve come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, I have come instead to bring division.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but that makes me uncomfortable. I grew up thinking of Jesus as the Prince of Peace, as someone who would unite the nations—“Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.” And I still believe those things universally about Christ. But in this story, we are in a particular part of human history. At this part of the story, Jesus has not yet completed his time on earth.

This summer, I participated in the Center for Faith and Justice program in D.C., and they gave us shirts that said, “If you want peace, you have to fight for justice.” And I believe we are closer to achieving peace because of those who fought for justice. Much like MLK, the peace Jesus was working toward would not be realized until long after his death, resurrection, and ascension. And in some ways, it still hasn’t been fully realized. That’s what we continue to fight for.

That is why we continue to fight for justice now—so that one day that same peace the prophets foretold, that Jesus preached about, and that MLK dreamed of might finally become reality.

Peace does not mean passive. Peace does not mean saying nothing in order not to ruffle any feathers. Peace does not mean taking the path of least resistance when you know what the right thing is, even if the right thing may be much harder.

Jesus starts this passage saying that he came to cast fire upon the earth and how he wished that it were already ablaze. My hometown gym, and those who like me grew up hearing a very literal understanding of the final book of the Bible, might interpret that to mean something apocalyptic, something end-times related.

But think back to John the Baptist, who told the crowds that while he baptized with water, there would be one to come after him who would baptize with fire. And maybe that fire that Jesus is casting is the courage to be Christlike as described in scripture—especially in a world that has made Jesus into its own image.

Maybe that fire looks like taking care of the vulnerable and the downtrodden in a culture and in a society—and even among other Christians—who say that somehow empathy is now an epidemic and a weakness. Maybe that fire looks like taking care of human beings no matter where they are from or where they were born, when our culture, society, and even other Christians generalize them as criminals and lowlifes. Maybe that fire looks like ensuring that we don’t look, sound, or act like our society, our culture, or even our fellow Christians when they aren’t being Christlike.

The Indian philosopher Barodata said in the 1920s, “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians—you aren’t like him.” Even last week, Reverend Margie said, “By faith, we proclaim to be a different kind of Christian in this world. One who is not tempted by the powers of greed and pride, but is faithful to a God of humility and love.”

Our passage ends with verses 54 and 55. I’m reading from the Common English Bible now:

"Jesus also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud forming in the west, you immediately say, It’s going to rain.’ And indeed it does. And when a south wind blows, you say, ‘A heat wave is coming,’ and it does. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the conditions on earth and in the sky. Then how is it that you don’t know how to interpret the present time?’”

When I hear this, my mind translates it into something like this: “You seem so self-aware of the obvious around you, yet you have your heads in the clouds. And I’ve told you, but you still don’t understand.”

And I get it. This is a hard passage. It shakes us up. Jesus is using his teacher voice in this moment, and it seems like the folks surrounding him just don’t get it. But we’re not judging. Churches across the world will read this gospel message this morning, and still much of our world won’t get it either.

But that’s where we step in, friends. That’s where we step up.

The front of your bulletin says, “Help us to become partners in peace and hope for others.” And I love that. But don’t be fooled into thinking that achieving that peace and hope only looks like sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya. It means fighting for justice now so that we might someday have peace.

And it might be tough. It might be unpopular. It might be hard and uncomfortable. It might mean uncomfortable conversations at the dinner table with friends and family. But we have been called to so much more. We have been called to bring the kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven, where each and every person is treated with respect and dignity as a beloved child of God. We have been called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the imprisoned. We have been called to be agents of peace and justice and mercy and compassion in Christ’s name.

And I believe that we can do it. I might be naïve, but I believe that our fight is not over.

I offer this prayer as we close today. I pray that you receive it in this moment, take it with you into your week, and live it this week:

Christ, who has called us to be so much more than this world might offer, help us to become partners in peace and hope for others. Help guide us in how we achieve that peace and hope. Be with us, be before us, be beside us, and behind us in this work. And may the fire that you have baptized us with ignite our bones to do your will on earth. May it be so. And may we make it so with our living and our loving.

Amen.

19 Reasons

We don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews. We really don't. But we do know who this book was written to. This book was written to a group of new Christians who were following Jesus and were already being ridiculed and imprisoned, who were already having their possessions stolen, who were being mocked for following this person named Jesus Christ. So this book was written to them amidst a lot of their disappointment and discouragement that this person that they loved, this God enfleshed, hadn't returned yet, had been resurrected, and they thought would return immediately and still hadn't. And so they were losing hope. That's who this book was written to.

And we're kind of in a different time, aren't we? We're in a different country than that. We're in a different demographic than those Christians hearing these words today. And yet, I think this passage that Sarah just read from Hebrews has something to offer us in the way of encouragement and hope. We have all heard the first verse of that passage before, right? I call these pillowcase verses like Philippians 4:13 and Jeremiah 29:11. They're sort of the perfect verses to put on a pillowcase. And so this one is kind of like that: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen.”

Sometimes verses like this lose their power when they're taken out of context. Or sometimes words like the word faith are so overused that they lose their meaning. Faith. How would you describe faith to someone who asked you what it meant?

I love what the author of Hebrews does. Instead of giving a long Webster's definition, he actually points to a litany of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs who embodied faith as a way to explain the word to this group of people. And what you'll notice is this author—or I'm going to say preacher, because a lot of theologians think that the book of Hebrews is just one long sermon—this preacher told them about people. And the thread through all of the people I'm about to describe in Hebrews 11 are people who followed God even when they were not sure where God was leading them.

I'm going to say that again: they were people who followed God even when they were not sure where God was leading them. So Sarah read eight verses this morning, but I want to give you the entire overview of this chapter. So I am going to quite literally roll up my sleeves, because 19 times in this chapter alone, you are going to hear the words by faith. You are going to hear how our ancestors followed God by faith. Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay, buckle up.

By faith, our ancestors received their approval from God. By faith, God created the world—created something visible out of something that was invisible. By faith, Abel and Enoch and Noah put their trust in a God who didn't even tell them the plans God had for them, but they trusted God anyway. By faith, this guy named Abraham obeyed God when God told him to depart from his homeland of Mesopotamia and go to a foreign land he had never been to. God promised him that this land would provide for him, and Abraham went without knowing where or seeing what it was.

And by faith, Abraham stayed in that land for a very long time—a land where he was seen as a foreigner, a land where he was living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs to the exact same promise as him. By faith, he was able to have children with Sarah, even after they had been told they were too old, or, as the scripture writes, he had been deemed “good as dead.” By faith, Abraham was put to the test, offering up his son Isaac. And by faith, Isaac then invoked blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith, Jacob blessed each of the sons of Joseph.

Y'all see where we're going? By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites. By faith, Moses, the leader of those Israelites, was hidden for three months by his parents because, scripture says, they saw he was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king. And by faith, he refused to be called a son of Pharaoh's daughter, instead receiving ill treatment with the Israelites, the people of God, rather than receiving the fleeting pleasures of sin. By faith, he left Egypt. By faith, he kept the Passover. By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea.

By faith, the walls of Jericho came crumbling down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab lived because she had sheltered two Israelite spies and kept them safe. And what more should I say? That's the preacher in Hebrews talking, not me. Verse 32: “What more should I say?” the preacher says. “For time would fail me if I continued to tell you about Gideon and Barak and Samson and David and Samuel and Jephthah and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, who through faith administered justice, who through faith obtained promises and shut the mouths of lions and quenched the power of fire and escaped the edge of the sword, and were made strong out of weakness.”

Y'all, this is in the Bible. You may need to read this before you take a test or have a work presentation. This is a cheat code right here. By faith, some were mocked and suffered and were flogged and put into chains and imprisoned. They wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. Yet, all of these were commended for their faith. Though they did not receive what was promised, they knew that God had provided something better.

Imagine, imagine hearing this sermon, church, when you are hopeless, when you really, really thought your Savior was coming back, and you look around and you do not see Him, and you are being beaten and brutalized for your own belief. Imagine hearing this lineage of biblical heroes before you who, by faith, were able to do what God asked them without knowing where God was leading them. Faith, the preacher shows us, is not about certainty in God, as many people would lead you to believe. It's about trust in God.

Faith is a hope that is directed toward the future. Perhaps you caught that in Abraham's vision—it's not strictly earthbound. As David Gray points out, Abraham looks beyond the temporal binding of his own life to this full reality of God and God's promises—the city of God. Did you hear that in verse 16? The city of God contrasts with these tents that they were living in and moving in. This city of God, this heavenly place, was a place that would provide them stability—stability and safety and permanence. The holy architect of that city had their back.

It is as if God is saying, “Keep one eye on the very human realities of this world, and the other eye on the future kingdom that I have promised you—a kingdom for those who live by faith.” Because when you live by faith, you let your future determine your present. I want to say that again: when you live by faith, you let your future determine your present. Which doesn't mean we get to bypass this life and just wait around for the heavenly one. It means we get to put our trust in an architect who has already pointed us toward where we are going, even if we don't know where God is leading us to today.

And it's because of this faith in the future kingdom that we can trust in that God today. We as Christians believe that faith cannot be severed from hope. But we also know that hope is really risky, isn't it? Hope is risky. It's probably why the author and preacher of Hebrews felt the need to use 19 examples to tell the people the kind of faith and hope they were going to have.

I wonder, church, what about our 19 examples? What would a preacher say to Vine Street Christian Church 19 times to allow us to live into this risky and bold hope and courage and trust in the year of our Lord 2025? I'm going to give you 19 of them. You ready?

By faith, you are participating in the life of a church during a season of a lot of transition and change. By faith, you are putting your trust in not one but two reverends with nose rings—it's true, one, two. By faith, the leaders of our church this morning are saying yes. Our council members, our elders, our deacons are saying yes to serving our church this year. By faith, Lydia is putting together a Room in the Inn task force to make sure that our lay leaders continue to do the necessary work of serving and walking with our homeless neighbors.

By faith, our staff is expanding and changing and dreaming of what this church can be. By faith, we all try to hit these high notes, and we hope to God it sounds decent on the live stream. By faith, Quentyn is leading an open and affirming task force to make sure that “all means all” in the life of this church. By faith, we are doing the best we can to live and believe in hope in a time of fear and scarcity. By faith, we are going to try intinction during communion again, y'all—come on.

By faith, our Sunday school teachers have answered the call to teach spiritual formation and biblical curiosity to kids ages one to 101. By faith, our new members today will take a chance on this church as they start an orientation. By faith, we are counting on this new HVAC to keep the temperature comfy up in this sanctuary. By faith, you have pledged your tithes and offerings, trusting that we will do the will of God with the gifts that you give.

By faith, we are discerning ways to engage in outreach in a new way and be the hands and feet of Christ out in the world. By faith, we proclaim to be a different kind of Christian in this world that is not tempted by the powers of pride and greed, but is faithful to a God of humility and love. By faith, every time we close this service, we hold hands and say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” because we desperately and faithfully believe it to be so. By faith, we show up week after week to love each other and serve each other—even when it's uncomfortable, even when we are annoyed, even when we'd rather sleep in, even when we feel overscheduled, overburdened—because we believe that a commitment to a community is the only way we're going to get through this, y'all. Amen.

And by faith, we believe in the one who didn't place his hope on things of this world, but placed his hope on the resurrection, the heavenly place, the eternal place where we will all be one with God. And by faith, we live our lives as if that is true—trusting in the things that are unseen, having confidence in what could be with God's help. And by faith—somebody was counting—they think I got to 19 there.

Church, if you hear anything today, I hope you hear that all things are possible through God by faith. And faith isn't the assurance in things that we can see or that we know are going to happen or that have been foretold to us. No, that would be boring. What a silly end to that story. Faith is the substance, is the belief in the things that are unseen and yet to come. Our litany of heroes like Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Rahab and Abel and Enoch—they didn't know what was on the other side of their “yes,” but they said yes anyway.

Their faith was courage. Their faith was trust. Their faith was hope—hope in a future kingdom, hope in a God who had a plan even when they didn't. Their faith allowed them to follow God when they weren't sure where God was leading them, trusting, hoping that something better was waiting for them on the other side of their yes. Say yes with me this morning, Vine Street. Say yes with me and let's see what waits for us on the other side of that yes. Amen.

Courage and Context

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King, August 3, 2025

This morning’s text is one that I normally would shy away from because these types of texts have been used—and misused—to try and assert control or shame people for many, many years.

This entire book, actually—the book of Colossians—has been used and misused many, many times. This book contains a version of the “wives, submit to your husbands” text. It also contains the “masters, be just and fair to your slaves” text. But I decided that instead of trying to shy away from this text and choosing an easier one, I wanted to possibly turn this into a teaching moment. It’s why I’m right here instead of up there. I’m also down here because I want us to truly tackle this text together this morning. And I want you to know that I expect both of us to put in a little bit of work.

So, if you’d like to actually grab that pew Bible and go to page 2011, I invite you to do so. And while you do so, allow me to pray over our time together.

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me and mold me. Fill me and use me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Amen.

Okay, you don’t have to raise your hands, actually, but how many of you grew up during, adjacent to, or just knew about—or remember—purity culture? Hello.

If you are unaware of what I’m talking about, purity culture was an evangelical movement from the ’90s that placed a really strong emphasis on abstinence before marriage. This is where you start getting uncomfortable in your pews. It also laid out that abstinence was the only sexual ethic outside of marriage and thus did not leave any space for anything or anyone that did not fall into that heteronormative assumption.

It instructed women and girls to cover up and dress modestly, though that same instruction was often not given to the men or the boys. Purity culture also emphasized traditional gender roles and asserted that men must be the head of the household, the main moneymaker, and that women must be more submissive. They must stay home. They must provide whatever is needed for their husbands. Dating was discouraged or heavily confined—mostly to avoid premarital sex. Self-pleasure was highly discouraged, though more strongly discouraged for women than men.

You’re really getting nervous now.

And lastly, purity culture established comprehensive moral systems in which sexual behavior was closely tied to your spiritual identity, your gender roles, and your communal belonging—meaning if you did not believe this way or act this way, you were out.

Texts like this passage from Colossians were central to purity culture.

Now, some still proclaim that it was the right decision and are happy to have participated in this movement. Others, though—and truthfully, most of the people that I’ve heard from, talked to, or read about online—have shared that all it did was turn them off to church, make them repressed and confused.

All of that to say that what we do here, the words we share here, has weight. These texts—these words—are long-lasting, for better or for worse. And that is why what we do here must be intentional, and we must be invested in what that message is.

So today I want to talk about this text. But more than that, I want to talk about how we read and engage texts like these—specifically, three different ways that I want you to use, or invite you to use, rather, moving forward.

And the first way is this: you have to ask yourself, Who wrote this? Who were they writing to, and why?

The letter to the Colossians is considered a disputed letter. That means that biblical scholars do not believe that Paul literally wrote this letter. In fact, Colossians is perhaps the first letter written in Paul’s name after his death.

My Bible professor at LTS, Dr. Jerry Sumney, said this: “Paul personally did not found the church at Colossae. But the language is more powerful if Paul had already suffered a martyr’s death.”

So if Paul didn’t write it, who did? Most scholars suspect Ephesus—someone who was on Paul’s mission team—probably wrote this. And I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t listen to him just because Paul didn’t write it. But it does pose the question of how much weight we give it, or how much authority we give it over our lives, knowing that Paul himself didn’t give the instruction.

Moreover, we have to understand that Paul and his mission partners believed that Jesus’s return was imminent—so much so that in some of his letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, Paul even discouraged folks from getting married altogether because he believed that Jesus could return at any moment. And thus, perhaps this text too was written with that same kind of urgency in mind.

Next, the Colossian church had several leaders come through proclaiming that you had to have seen visions in order to secure your place with God. That is mentioned one chapter before this, in chapter 2. And so Paul’s purpose in this letter—or in this text—was to instruct, or possibly re-instruct, what his theology is when it comes to spiritual living and salvation.

Keep in mind that the early church did not have thousands of years of theological tradition. Many ideas and theologies and understandings flowed through the early church. And part of Paul’s purpose in writing his many letters was to institute what they believed and why.

These details are crucial because if we read these passages at face value, we are only hearing our 21st-century understanding of a text that was never intended for us. Now, that isn’t to say that we can’t learn something from it—but it is to say that it was not written to us with our 21st-century context in mind.

Here’s an example of what I mean: if I write the words, I want a Mountain Dew, and I give that note to Margie, she’s going to assume that I want the soda, Mountain Dew. But if I put that same note in a time machine and send it back a hundred years—before the invention of the best soda, Mountain Dew—they’ll assume that I’m talking about actual dew from an actual mountain. And if I send that note 100 years into the future, who knows what they’ll think I’m talking about.

That context—that historical context—is key.

Understanding that this passage was written to an early and young church about spiritual living in a time when women were still property to be owned and used to barter business deals, and where slavery was common practice, is crucial in discerning the weight that we give this passage and the authority that we give it over our lives.

Which leads us to the second way to read and understand scripture: discerning what is contextual about a passage and what is universal.

I always get really frustrated when I hear somebody say, “The Bible says it. I believe it. And that settles it.” Because if that’s the case, then what do you do about the parts that say, “Don’t get married because Jesus is coming back”? What do you do about the part one chapter later than this text in which we instruct masters to be just and fair to your slaves, in a society in which we denounce slavery? What do you do about the fact that the details of the four Gospels are all different—and sometimes even contradictory?

The Bible says... what you believe... what is settled...

The Bible is not univocal—meaning, it does not have one writer. This book was assembled over the span of 1,200-ish years and has been translated umpteen times. That’s not to discredit it at all—but it is to say that it takes more work than that.

The author of our text says in verse 5: “So put to death...”—again, words we probably wouldn’t use now—“Put to death the parts of your life that belong to the earth, such as sexual immorality, moral corruption, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.”

Now, when I was growing up, this verse was interpreted to mean what my 1990s Sunday School teachers understood it to mean—and that’s what they taught me. But what did it mean to the writer?

Well, people much smarter than me think that it likely meant sexual practices as a part of pagan worship at that time. It likely meant adultery—specifically for the woman or the wife—as the men were not always expected to adhere to that same standard. It could have meant any practice that did not lead to pregnancy, as procreation was always the main goal. It could have meant sexual practices between married men and women that the society or the culture deemed inappropriate.

The point is: biblical scholars think it could have been a number of things pertaining to that time.

And so to you I ask: What is contextual from this passage, and what is universal? In other words, what was written for a very specific historical context—a very specific point in time—and what might we glean from it today in 2025?

I do believe that God holds a sexual ethic for us. And I believe that that message is universal. But surely the actual practice of said ethic is not the same as the first century.

So then, what is it?

I believe a key part of Christian discipleship is engaging with scripture and discerning God’s will—not just accepting something because someone told you so many moons ago. And in that same mindset, don’t just accept what I have to say today because I’m up here wearing this.

The writer had a specific intention in mind—as did our Sunday School teachers and preachers growing up. But I’m asking you: What do you think it means?

Growing up, I was told that drinking alcohol was sinful—any alcohol at all. But as I’ve grown older, though, I’ve come to realize that, for me at least—only speaking for myself—drinking alcohol isn’t inherently sinful. I’ve had many parties, dinner parties, celebrations, or just nights out with friends in which beer, wine, or rye bourbon (which is my favorite) was shared—as were cherished memories and stories. Bonds were built, relationships and friendships forged, and they remain to this day.

But I’ve also misused alcohol at times—made poor choices, said or did things that I might regret. And so I’ve had to learn my limits and how to conduct and control myself. And so I wonder if maybe our sexual ethic is similar.

The truth is: the Bible does not convey the message of “abstinence only before marriage.” Those words—or that message—is just simply not in the book. That’s just how people have interpreted it.

Which is fine, by the way. For some people, maybe it works. And for others, maybe it doesn’t. Because I know people who waited until marriage and wish that they hadn’t. And I know people who didn’t wait and wish they had.

So maybe sexual morality is more complex than that. Maybe a godly sexual ethic is for you to discern with God.

Perhaps it’s more about honoring the act, treating people with dignity and respect, emphasizing communication, and not treating sex as something of power or gain or control—but as caring for and perhaps loving somebody else.

Verse 7 of that text begins:

“These are the ways that you once followed when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of such things—wrath, anger, malice, slander, abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off your old self with its practices and have clothed yourself with a new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

To me, this message is universal. It surpasses historical context and speaks through time and space. Christ has called us to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. And here, Paul—or someone writing on Paul’s behalf—is reminding us that in order to love our neighbors as Christ has commanded, we must put away anger, put away wrath, put away malice and slander and abusive language that hurts and harms our neighbors if we are to be set apart.

The beginning of this passage describes us as being raised with Christ—meaning that when Christ was resurrected from the dead, we too were raised, leaving behind earthly behaviors that hurt and harm. For when we are raised with Christ, it is to be more like Christ.

Lastly, the third way that I want you to understand scripture is not only personally—how does it affect you and your walk—but communally. In scripture, in the original text and in the original languages, these authors and speakers are rarely using the singular “you.” So much of these teachings were meant for the entire community.

So with that in mind: What does it mean to respond to this text as a community?

Perhaps we end sexual immorality by working to end human trafficking.

Perhaps we end moral corruption by ensuring that our communities are registered to vote so that their voices are heard and counted.

Perhaps we end lust and evil desire by training people to communicate what they want and what they need, but also recognizing consent and honoring the “no” as much as the “yes.”

Perhaps we end greed by ensuring that funds and resources are not hoarded but are flowed and given back to the community.

Maybe a country made up predominantly of Christians doesn’t look very Christian at times because for far too long, the majority of us have just been on autopilot—not engaging with the text, not engaging with God—just accepting it at face value and then never questioning, never digging deeper, never re-evaluating or asking ourselves these questions.

And to be fair, many of us were taught, especially at young ages, not to question—and that actually doing so was antithetical to our discipleship.

Wasn’t going to tell this story, but after my grandfather died, my grandmother was really doing poorly. And I went and visited her, and she began to share with me all these questions that she had: Why did this happen? Why could God let this happen? And then she very quickly cowered and said, “I know you’re not supposed to question God. I know you’re not supposed to question.”

And I asked her. I said, “Gran, the Bible is full of people questioning God. The Psalms, the lamenting Psalms—everybody is questioning God. Why would you let this happen, God? How long, O Lord, must we wait?” But that speaks to the fact that she—like myself—was taught that questioning meant that you were not a good Christian.

And I’m not saying to throw away the things that we learned growing up. We wouldn’t have made it this far without the amazing parents, grandparents, teachers, preachers, and everybody who taught us the stories of God and of God’s abundant love.

But in those moments that we find ourselves questioning, perhaps instead we lean into it—not as an act of defiance, but as an act of taking agency over what we believe and why.

Friends, we follow a God whose time spent here on earth ministering was spent asking questions—both of his own followers and of religious authority. He often said, “You have been taught this, but what I tell you is this.”

I believe that that is another way that we are raised with Christ. Jesus’s example on earth was many things, and one of them was an eagerness to seek love despite laws, to seek mercy despite mandates, to seek compassion despite codes of conduct.

This led him to questioning the man who was accusing—or actually the men who were accusing—the woman of adultery and were ready to murder her for it.

This led to Jesus questioning religious authority when he healed the man on the Sabbath, despite it being against the law.

This also led to the Ethiopian eunuch questioning Philip as to why he couldn’t get baptized despite his racial, sexual, and gender differences.

This led to the Stone-Campbell movement ordaining Rev. Clara Hale Babcock in 1889—despite her being a woman—because the first people who shared the gospel were women.

This led to Vine Street Christian Church in the 1960s questioning why anybody would be barred from the table of God because of the color of their skin, when our own Savior had brown skin.

This led to our denomination questioning why anyone would be barred from membership or ordination or any other facet of the church because of their orientation or their gender, back in 2013—because these people too are children of God.

Friends, I hope that this has given you not any answers but more questions. But I hope that you take these frameworks and apply them to the scriptures you read. Ask these questions. Be empowered to ask these questions.

And I think in doing so, we will find and follow Christ’s example.

So may we question.
May we inquire.
May we discern.
May we pray and seek God’s will.

And in doing so, may we be raised with Christ—leaving behind earthly things that may hurt or harm ourselves or our neighbors.

And may it be so.
But may we make it so with our living and with our loving, and with the help of God.

Amen.

Holy Boldness

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, July 27, 2025

Prayer by Marie Howe: Every day I want to speak with you, and every day something more important calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage that I need to buy for this trip. Even now, I can hardly sit here among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside already screeching and banging.

The mystics say that you are as close as my own breath. Why do I flee from you? My days and nights pour through me like complaints and become a story I forgot to tell. Help me. Even as I write these words, I'm planning to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

Prayer is complicated. It's intimidating. It's fleeting. It's inconsistent. And it may be something that you or me mostly do alone—in our car or before we go to sleep. Maybe your prayers are hurried or even transactional: “God, if you help me find my car keys, I promise to go to church this Sunday.” I've done that one before.

And maybe your prayers are sung or shouted. Maybe they are desperate: “God, let her live. I will do anything for you if you let her live.” Maybe your prayers are sighs too deep for words to express.

When we think of the word prayer—or at least when I think of it—many of us go immediately to that spiritual conversation with God, this personal posture of begging and giving thanks and admitting our wrongs. Our prayers are sprinkled with “I”s and “me.” And I really don't think there's anything wrong with that.

If prayer is, as one pastor says, being exactly who you are before God, that includes me and God. But what does it mean this morning that the disciples don't ask, “Teach me to pray?” They say, “Teach us to pray.” Teach us to pray.

It is as if they understand that this whole prayer thing is not just personal—it's communal. They've seen Jesus praying quite a bit in the Gospel of Luke. He prays before his baptism in Luke 3. He prays after cleansing a leper in Luke 5. He prays before he calls his disciples in Luke 6, going up to a mountain. And he prays before his transfiguration in Luke 9.

So it's not surprising that after watching their rabbi pray and pray and pray, they notice this rhythm and they ask Jesus, “Teach us how to pray. We don't get it.”

Jesus offers them a pretty simple instruction manual:

“When you pray, say,
‘Father, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
Give us each our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”

Pastor and professor Jennifer Wyatt notes that in his answer, Jesus offers four requests: a request for the kingdom to come, a request for daily bread, a request for forgiveness, and a request for deliverance.

In other words, in this prayer, Jesus summarizes all of the things that we need most when we come to God together: God’s presence, our needs met, forgiveness, and mercy.

God's presence, our needs met, forgiveness, and mercy.

And so in my mind, for me, it boils down to: presence, bread, forgiveness, and mercy. Say it with me: presence, bread, forgiveness, and mercy.

This is more than a prayer, though. Jesus is not only teaching them what to say. He is teaching them a life—how to live before our God.

And how does Jesus address God in this prayer? Not as someone far away, but as a father.

And if that doesn't resonate with you as a parent, isn't that so nice—that Jesus invites the disciples as a group to remember that their relationship with the one who listens is personal? That the God in scripture is one who is intimate and sacred and a trusted authority—and personal. Personal. Not a relationship centered on fear, but on love.

What I resonate most with is that the Lord's Prayer does not contain the word “I” anywhere in it.

In other words, this is not a prayer that we are meant to pray alone. We've got other prayers that we can pray that way. Meaning that where two or more are gathered, we are encouraged to remember our life together.

Presence, bread, forgiveness, and mercy.

We pray the Lord's Prayer every Sunday—whether we use trespasses or sins or debts, or kingdom or kin-dom, or Father or Creator—not as this mindless recitation, but as a collective pleading to a sacred God.

It is no coincidence that we pray this every week. In Luke's gospel, the Lord's Prayer says “us” four times and “me” zero times.

What matters is that this isn't a “me” prayer—it's an “us” prayer.

It's a promise to each other and to God that we want God's kingdom to come. We want our bread—not just for us in this room—but for every person on earth, from Gaza to Green Hills down the street.

We want God's will—not our will—to be done. We want forgiveness for the ways that we as a community have failed to show up and bring the kingdom of heaven here on earth. We want God's mercy and deliverance. We want to forgive others too—together, as a community.

When we think about church—when we think about this service—it’s important to be reminded that our worship is not sprinkled with prayer. It is centered on prayer.

We open worship with prayer. We follow our sermons with prayer for the people. We pray for the offering we give. We pray for the bread that we break. And we pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Not one, two, three, or four—five prayers. That’s a lot of praying. And it’s not a coincidence. And it’s not fluff. We include these prayers because we understand as a church that gathering means praying.

Gathering means praying.

And y’all—we don’t have one person say all the prayers. We have young and old, youth and elders, men and women, pastors and congregants. That’s for a reason.

I’m not good at praying by myself. I need you and you and you to pray with and for me. And if we only pray one day a week, let it be when we are together.

If we only think to lift up each other’s names or ask for forgiveness or remember those who don’t have enough bread in our world, let it be with the sinners and the saints who are sitting to our left and to our right.

Okay, but back to the passage.

So, the story that follows Jesus saying the Lord’s Prayer—which you probably picked up, the Luke version is different from the Mark version—the story that follows is so refreshing and relatable to me.

And I love when Jesus is kind of funny in his stories. And it goes like this:

Let’s say you’ve got a friend. Actually, let’s name him. Somebody give me a name.

Jose.

Jose. You shouldn’t have said yourself—I’m about to call you out.

Jose. Say you’ve got a friend named Jose and you call Jose up at midnight: “Give me some bread. I’ve got a buddy who just got into town and I looked in the fridge and the pantry—I don’t have any food for him.”

Jose is like, “Don’t bother me. My door is locked. My children are asleep. I’m about to hang up the phone on you. I can’t get up and give you anything.”

Jesus says even though Jose is not going to get out of bed, at least because of his persistence, he’s going to get up and get out of bed and give you what you need.

I love that. Because of his persistence—not necessarily because he wants to—but because he is persisting in the life and urgency and habits that God instills in him. He’s going to get up out of the bed. He’s going to unlock the door. And he will give you the bread that you need.

Persistence in prayer.

Professor N.T. Wright says Jesus is kind of encouraging this holy boldness. Holy boldness. A sharp knocking at the door. An insistent asking. A search that refuses to give up. That’s what our prayer should be like.

This isn’t just a routine or a formal prayer going through the motions like daily or weekly tasks. This is a battle—a fight against darkness. And those who have glimpsed the light are called to struggle in prayer.

We don’t have to get it right. We struggle in prayer. We struggle for peace, for reconciliation, for wisdom, for a thousand things in the world—for the church, perhaps a hundred or two for one’s family, friends, neighbors—and perhaps a dozen or two for oneself.

And I know there are too many things to pray about. We become paralyzed by the enormity of “thoughts and prayers.”

Who has seen that on Twitter or heard it again and again these last few years?

We are asked to send out thoughts and prayers at an alarming rate and perhaps become callous to the ways that “thoughts and prayers” has been thrown around amidst senseless violence.

But prayers in church—hate to say it—are not optional. They are vital for our spiritual health.

And he says that they are like the metal shell of a car. To be effective, it needs fuel for its engine. To be effective, prayers need energy, too. In this case, the kind of dogged and even funny determination that you’d use with a sleepy friend like Jose, who you hoped would help you out of a tight spot.

Maybe church—maybe our prayers—are really just us shaking awake a sleeping Jesus, asking, searching, knocking with an annoying persistence because we believe in a loving God who might just be listening—who may not give us the results that we want, but whose door is always open to us.

One friend said to me, when asked, “Why do you pray?”

“Because prayer changes me. It may not change the outcome of what I desire, but prayer changes me.”

And we don’t have to say the right words. And we don’t have to say the same words. We just have to stay in relationship with the one who loves us mutually.

So this morning, as we sing the Lord’s Prayer in a minute, and as we speak the Lord’s Prayer in a few minutes, and as you hear Reverend Wesley and elders Kathy and Larry pray, consider that our role as a church—as a church—is to bang on that door over and over again.

Whether it’s clunky or messy or you’re already thinking about the next thing, we ask for presence, for bread, for forgiveness, for mercy—always. And we do it together.

Always.

Amen.

Everything is Theological

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King, July 20, 2025

My iPad is updating right now. As we wait on my iPad to update, would you join me in prayer this morning?

Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart—and all of the beautiful hearts that are gathered here this morning—be acceptable in your sight. In the name of your Son, we pray. Amen.

Friends, it is good to see you.

This past week, I spent a full seven days in Memphis, Tennessee, for the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which is—if you don't know—the denomination that Vine Street belongs to. And it's one of those things that I look forward to with both excitement and dread every two years. Excitement, because there are always amazing preachers, amazing worship, amazing music, workshops, and the chance to see so many people—friends and colleagues that I rarely get to see. And dread, because it is a long time. It is early mornings, long days, and often late nights. And while it can be so invigorating and life-giving, it is draining. So, I was happy to come home on Wednesday.

This year was kind of bittersweet because we recently changed our governing document so that we will no longer meet every other year—we will now meet every three years. And though we don't know what it will look like in three years’ time, it was still a good time together. It was amazing to see people that I love and adore, a church that I believe in, and to see how the Spirit is moving despite how sobering our world—or the news—can be sometimes.

This year, I did something I’ve never done before. I introduced a resolution to our General Assembly on behalf of the work that I do for our denomination—my day job. A resolution is kind of like a piece of legislation, though not mandatory. It announces the direction that the denomination is going. My resolution was GA-2515, opposing Project 2025 and other policies that are inconsistent with our commitment to justice, mercy, and compassion for our neighbors.

Signed onto this resolution were New Church Ministry (which is my day job), Open Hearts Gathering Christian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, St. Andrew Christian Church in Olathe, Kansas, and Independence Boulevard Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri. I spoke on the resolution in front of thousands of people, along with about six or so others. And when the vote was called, the General Assembly of this denomination overwhelmingly voted in favor of adopting this resolution.

But this process unveiled two conversations that I think our text today supports—and that we, as a little "c" church (Vine Street), and as a big "C" Church, need to have.

The first conversation is this: when I floated the idea of this resolution in a Disciples clergy Facebook group back in January, I was asked, “Wouldn't it be better for us to just get involved in our community rather than working on a piece of paper that won't do anything?” And this person is not completely wrong.

These resolutions, as I mentioned, are not mandatory in our polity—which is a word that means how we govern ourselves. These resolutions do not force any Disciples congregations to believe, affirm, or follow them. In fact, you as an individual are not mandated to believe, affirm, or follow any of the resolutions that we adopt in our denomination. While it is an indication of where and how our denomination is moving in the world, we remain a big tent people who can and will disagree and still gather at the same table.

But I do want to have a conversation about this idea that it has to be either/or. This person had good intentions. Responding to the policies of Project 2025 will immediately affect our neighbors. And I've been having this conversation a lot, actually. But I believe that it has to be both—both the immediacy of need and the longevity of change.

And this is the example I often give: each fall and winter, our church—along with many, many others—participates in Room in the Inn. This amazing ministry seeks to take individuals experiencing homelessness off the street for a night, give them a warm meal, a place to take a shower, and a warm and safe place to sleep. The next morning, we drop them off back wherever they would like to go. Vine Street participates in this wonderful ministry, and it’s a beautiful way to care for our neighbors. If you're interested in helping out with this, speak to Lydia Grub—I know she’d be happy to talk with you about it.

But I want to suggest that it can’t just be the immediacy of need without the longevity of change. If we feed, clothe, and provide shelter for these folks, but never work with the city or other charities or the state or federal government to eradicate homelessness, then we are just putting Band-Aids over bullet holes. It’s charity, yes—but it’s not justice.

Similarly, if we’re only working toward long-lasting systemic change and not meeting the immediate needs of our neighbors, that isn’t justice either. We can't tell our neighbors who need a meal, a shower, a roof tonight to “come back later—we’re instituting a three-year strategic plan to end homelessness.”

So, I felt that it was important for our denomination to name and publicly oppose Project 2025—to call it out for what it is: policy violence. But we also named that, while this was a first step, it was not—and could not be—the final step. The end of the resolution reads as follows:

“Whereas the church has historically addressed policies and agendas of multiple administrations in a nonpartisan manner:

Therefore, be it resolved that the 2025 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. and Canada, meeting in July of 2025 in Memphis, Tennessee, declares that Project 2025 is inconsistent with how we have discerned our call to follow Jesus Christ in our world—in word and deed, through prayer, and through the reading of scripture.

Be it further resolved that we encourage the General Assembly and all members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to get involved in local justice organizations, who will undoubtedly need our help in countering this document.

And be it further resolved that we call on Disciples of Christ—regardless of political affiliation—to be vigilant in opposing the policies listed in this document at the federal, state, and local level.

And finally, be it resolved that we call on Disciples to put their faith into action, to fight for justice for all of God’s children, and to stay steadfast in our mission to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”

The second conversation is this: there was some opposition to my resolution—and that’s okay. Some said they didn’t think it was necessary because we had already made resolutions committed to justice, mercy, and compassion for our neighbors. And we have. They felt that naming Project 2025 was too political. Similarly, some folks didn’t think the resolution went far enough—and that’s okay too.

Disagreement is okay.

We Disciples, as I mentioned, consider ourselves a “big tent” people, meaning that we acknowledge that we will not always agree—and we acknowledge that that is okay. I shared with those who spoke to me and opposed this resolution that my end goal is not to be political. My end goal is not to admonish any political party or presidential administration. My end goal is to love, care for, and protect our neighbors—especially the most vulnerable among us.

I have always believed, unfortunately, that everything is political, because policies affect us and our neighbors. And thus, we are—like it or not—thrust into the political arena in order to love, care for, and protect those Jesus calls us to protect.

The problem is that when we say “politics,” most people hear “partisan.” But our end goal is theological—not partisan. Likewise, we are not disillusioned into thinking that any political party, always and without fail, has our best interests at heart.

One colleague at General Assembly this week reframed it for me this way. She said that in her mind, nothing is political—instead, everything is theological. She went on to say that she doesn’t oppose the reconciliation bill because it was introduced by a Republican. She opposes it because the Bible teaches us to care for the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the vulnerable—the very people this bill will disparage and disenfranchise. Likewise, she did not hold her tongue about the injustices happening to the people in Gaza while the former administration looked the other way, just because they happened to be a Democratic administration.

Our end goal is—and must be—the livelihood of our neighbors, those we are called to love as much as we love ourselves.

Later this morning, you’ll hear from Brian Zelic, an organizer for NOAH. NOAH stands for Nashville Organized for Action and Hope. NOAH is committed to things affecting our community—like affordable housing and transportation—things that affect our neighbors because they are instituted through policy. His work, though nonpartisan, is political. But NOAH’s end goal is theological: a community in which everyone has what they need to live the abundant life that God has called them to.

If you're interested in learning more about NOAH—and again, you are not committing to anything, you're just learning—we will have refreshments following the service in the South Meeting Room. Brian will be expanding upon his work with NOAH and how we at Vine Street might get involved. I hope you’ll join us.

But we aren’t doing this or talking about this because it’s trendy or because it’s hip. We’re doing it because we have been called by the prophets of old to do this work.

Our text today gives a prominent description of Israel’s economic sins. One commentary said this: “Like Jesus’s God, Amos’s God is a God of justice—a God who sides with the poor when no one else comes to their aid. This God refuses to do nothing while those in need suffer deeply—even if it means the death of Israel. God will take action against those who will harm the least of these.”

If you haven’t picked up on it, hospitality is huge in the biblical narrative. And I don’t mean how we understand the word hospitality—a warm welcome, refreshments, swag bags full of stuff that will live in your junk drawer until the end of time. I mean biblical hospitality: welcoming the stranger, like Abraham’s hospitality to the three strangers in Genesis 18; or sacrificing your own resources for others, like Rebekah’s hospitality in Genesis 24 or the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17.

Likewise, God often, in the Hebrew Bible, destroys—or threatens to destroy—entire communities because of their lack of hospitality. Despite what the street preachers may say, Ezekiel 16:49 says that the actual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was their lack of hospitality—their violence toward the stranger and their greed over all else. God sends Jonah to Nineveh to warn them about their inhospitality and violence, and thankfully, they listen before it becomes too late.

In these stories, people tend to focus on the wrath of God. But I think it’s more important to focus on how much importance God places on hospitality—biblical hospitality. How we treat the stranger among us, the ones society has cast out, and how we give of ourselves for the betterment of others.

In verse 6, Amos accuses the powerful and the affluent of his day of bullying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. In our day and age, “silver coins” might translate to tax cuts. A “pair of sandals” might translate to a $1 trillion requested military budget—meanwhile cutting SNAP for 42 million people and Medicaid for 71 million people.

I mentioned that we had amazing music and worship at General Assembly. We had amazing speakers, including the Rev. Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We had amazing fellowship, workshops, and business meetings.

But what I’m most proud of from our time in Memphis is when we—Pastor Margie and I—participated in a Moral Monday rally led by many of our denominational leaders, including the Rev. Dr. William Barber II. All to bring attention to how this reconciliation bill will harm the most vulnerable among us.

That means we left our beautifully air-conditioned convention center to march and rally for our neighbors in the very, very hot streets of Memphis—outside the walls of the temporary church we had designated. Calling attention to policy that will harm the very people Jesus calls us to care for, the very people Paul calls us to care for, the very people the prophets of old—Amos, Micah, Jeremiah—call us to care for.

And I know I keep bringing up the reconciliation bill because I know how dangerous it is. But if we think that this policy violence doesn’t really affect us, doesn’t really affect the middle class—think again.

As many have pointed out to me: yes, the bill includes some good things, like the new tax deduction for tips and overtime pay for workers making less than $150,000. And that does sound good—except that it’s capped at $25,000 each, and it expires in 2028. Meanwhile, the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this nation, established back in 2017, are now extended permanently.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with our text—or what this has to do with God—I think it’s important to note that in our text today, while God is calling out Israel for their economic sins through the prophetic voice of Amos, they’re still having church. They’re still praising God. They’re still attending temple. They’re still following the law—all the while letting their neighbors suffer.

Meaning: they were having church, but they were not being church.

God says in verse 10, “I will turn your feasts into mourning and all of your songs into lamentation.”

I love gathering with you all every Sunday. Gathering in this beautiful space, seeing your lovely faces, hearing the beautiful words and melodies shared in this space. But unless we are being the church out there—we are not honoring God.

It has to be both.

One commentary said this: “Amos’s words continue to shape our personal identity. Amos calls each of us to expose injustice. For when we do so, we become beacons of hope for those caught in the web of violence, pain, and suffering.”

I know in my heart of hearts that this church is ready to burst at the seams with the potential to respond to this world of hate and suffering with the God of love and abundance. I see it in our history—in the ways that this church made it known in the 60s that any and everyone is welcome at the table, regardless of race, and thus is welcome at Vine Street Christian Church.

I see it in our present—in the ways this body of Christ responds to need and injustice in our community through Room in the Inn, through the community grants, through the school drive at West End Middle School, and potentially through NOAH, and so many other ways I don’t even have time to list.

I’m going to end this morning by asking you to grab your bulletin. And I want us to read our prayer that we heard earlier—but I want us to read it responsively, as one body. We do this to recommit ourselves to the work of God, the work of justice, and the work of being church outside of these walls.

We read together:

God of justice, we confess to you today that we have trampled on the needy, choosing greed.
We confess that we have brought ruin to the poor of the land, neglecting many parts of your creation.
We confess that far too often we choose busyness over the gift of your loving presence.
We mourn the harm we have caused—knowingly and unknowingly, individually and collectively.
We ask your forgiveness to envelop us, inspiring us to make amends with ourselves and with others.
Help us better love you by loving all of your creation. Amen.

Friends, may it be so. And may we make it so—with our living and with our loving.

Amen.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Sermon Preached by Rev. Jack Snellgrove on Sunday, July 13, 2025

Here is your cleaned-up transcript with corrected spelling and grammar. No summarization or editorializing has been added, per your request:

Thank you. It's good to be here. I am one of you, and Lana and I are grateful to be here and appreciate you so much. The text today that I'm focusing on is the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the text that you read is a good prelude for that, as it speaks about hospitality.

But just let me share with you the essence of the parable. A lawyer that was among the crowd asked Jesus—after he had asked what was the greatest commandment. And Jesus said to him, as Jesus’s teaching mode is, “What does the law say?” And the lawyer said, “It's love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” And Jesus said, “That's right. Do this and you will live.” And then the scripture says, “The lawyer, seeking to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘Who’s my neighbor?’”

And Jesus then tells a parable. He says, “There was a certain man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers and thieves. They beat him, stripped him of his clothes, stole what he had, and left him half dead”—paraphrased, lying in a ditch. Along came a priest, a member of the Jewish royal order, who saw the man lying beside the road and passed on by. Next came a Levite, one who is vested in the law of the Torah. He looked and saw the man and passed on by.

Then came a Samaritan. And what we need to know here is the Samaritan is considered an enemy to the Jewish. Along came a Samaritan, and the Samaritan looked and saw the man, and he took him and bound up his wounds. He placed him on his donkey and took him to a nearby inn, cared for him, and then told the innkeeper—after having given him two denarii, which is two days’ wages—“Take this and provide for his needs, and if there is more needed, I will repay you when I return.”

At the conclusion of the parable, Jesus said, “Who was the neighbor?” And the young lawyer said, “The one who showed mercy and compassion.” And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” Now, that's the text for today.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together, we might as well say,
“Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Won’t you please?
Won’t you please?
Please, please, won’t you be my neighbor?”

My apologies to Mr. Rogers. I started to bring my chair and change my shoes and put on that sweater, but I thought that might be a little too much.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is the show that educated me as I watched it with my children growing up. The lyrics make the point of trying to define who is a neighbor. A neighbor is not only about location, but being a neighbor is defined by what we do and who is the person in need.

As a young boy—preschool—I knew who my neighbors were. There was Mr. and Mrs. McNair; they lived next door to our left. And then there were Verdice and Nell Hydrickch. No, no, no—I'm sorry. My memory. I have senior moments now and then. Mr. and Mrs. McNair were on our left. They were an older couple—somewhere in their 50s. And then Verdice and Nell Hydrickch lived on our right. They had three kids: Claude, Jean, and Patty. Claude was the oldest, then Jean, then Patty. They were our neighbors.

And so, when my Sunday school teacher talked about loving my neighbor and being a good neighbor, I knew exactly what she meant: love the McNairs and love the Hydrickches. And I did that.

People that lived far away, perhaps in foreign countries, were my neighbors too. But they were to be treated as if, my Sunday school teacher said, as if they lived next door. It was for these neighbors—the ones that lived far, far away—that I put my pennies and nickels and dimes in this little box shaped like a church. And I would bring those three or four times a year, and we would give them so that it could feed the poor in our world.

I also learned—that’s when I knew that we were not poor—because they never gave the box back to me. So that was good to know. I gave our offering to these neighbors. And there was another group of neighbors that I brought food from our pantry to help—those that didn’t have food. I brought the ones that said “spinach.” Yeah. Kids have marvelous ways of getting rid of things in the pantry that they don’t like.

But I brought canned goods and things that we could give to those that were in need. And these were our neighbors also. In my mind, these were church neighbors—neighbors defined by the church. I never met them. Sometimes there would be pictures, and I could see pictures and say, “Oh, that’s what my neighbor looks like.”

I did think it was strange, though, that in our church’s neighborhood, where the building was located—a Black community and church were right outside our back door. I would suspect they were neighbors. And yet, our church—we never did anything for them as a congregation, even though they were next door. I always visited with the McNairs and the Hydrickches, and we were always borrowing sugar, flour, and milk from one another as we needed it. And yet with our Black neighbors next door at church, we never shared anything, at least that I knew about. We didn’t even share conversations.

I was confused. But after all, this was the South, and I was just a kid. Adults knew better than I did. So I just accepted that this was how adults—and my church—defined what it means to be a neighbor. But that was then.

Then I was a child, sitting in Miss Bertha’s Sunday school class, singing Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World. My Sunday school teachers and my preacher instructed me as to who is my neighbor. But now, as an adult—now, as an adult—I take my cue for who is my neighbor from the teachings of Jesus. I now understand that “neighbor” is defined by my actions and not solely by a person’s location.

So when Mr. Rogers sings, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” he’s asking me to enter into a relationship wherein we treat each other with kindness and generosity. That’s what it means to be a neighbor.

Now, all of this brings us to the teachings Jesus regarded. Whenever he was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he told the parable that I told you. Let me be clear: I’ve preached on this text for almost 50 years. And in each sermon, I try to get at the heart of the teaching. But as I approach the text today—as I have often done—I feel that I missed some of the points of the parable. So my sermon is a confession of what I missed. It doesn’t take away from what I said previously—I think I was okay. You know, it was okay. But today, I come with new eyes.

For instance, I have, for the most part, given the lawyer in the text a hard time. I read the word tested—that the lawyer tested Jesus—I read it in a negative way. I understood that the lawyer was trying to trick Jesus into making a mistake, saying something that would lead people to disrespect him or possibly get him on the wrong side of Jewish law.

I also understood the phrase seeking to justify himself as a phrase that meant he wanted to validate his point of view, his knowledge, and demonstrate how much smarter he was than Jesus—or to take himself off the spot. That was then. That’s how I preached that sermon all through my ministry.

But today, I want to give the lawyer credit for seeking clarity—clarity in Who is my neighbor? Because I say this because I find myself asking the question, Who is my neighbor? I still find myself asking the church for clarity: Who is my neighbor?

The events of last week have impacted me as I sought to understand this parable’s impact upon the lives of individuals and communities and our nation.

The events I reference are the massive flood of the Guadalupe River in southern Texas. The rapidly rising waters of the river—they say 22 feet in two hours—destroyed property and killed over a hundred people, many of whom were little girls from a Christian camp called Mystic Camp. And from the pictures and reports I’ve seen and heard, this was a horrific tragedy, leaving the surrounding communities devastated.

The grief is overwhelming for neighbors who knew someone who was killed or suffered the ravages of the storm. The New York Times reported on many celebrities who journeyed to southern Texas to the site, offering help. And besides the physical help, there was also the pouring out of funds to give aid to those who were suffering loss. The response was, according to The Times, so great that local community people pleaded with those providing help to please, please work with the established relief agencies in order to coordinate the efforts.

Truly, truly, mercy and compassion were demonstrated toward those who were—and who are—suffering. Lots of neighboring going on.

Immediately—listen to this—immediately, Mexico, who’s not always been in our good graces lately, right, with the administration? Mexico, under the leadership of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, rushed to provide help and assistance to the ravaged area. President Trump and First Lady Melania visited Kerrville, Texas on Friday. They toured the area and met with families affected by the tragedy, as well as many volunteers working in rescue operations. Fox News reported extensively on the many residents that praised the president for his concern and his compassion.

Being a good neighbor was the defining characteristic of so many people as they responded to this event.

But even as I anguished for the flood victims, I was also aware of the thousands of Gaza residents who are suffering from the ravages of war and face so many obstacles just to get meager relief supplies that are being offered. They grieve over 60,000 deaths, and yet much of the world—including our current administration—moves on as if they’re not there.

I also note that while our president was visiting Kerrville, his staff was hunting down immigrants across the nation, building prisons to house the thousands he intends to deport. He’s cutting Medicaid to the poor, refusing to fund SNAP, a government organization that provides food for the poor.

I thought to myself: if our president is a person of mercy and compassion, how could he and his administration not be a neighbor to the immigrant, the poor, and those who are suffering the abuse of war? That’s what I asked myself.

Defining who is my neighbor is a real question today. Perhaps I—and others—have been too hard on the lawyer in the text asking for clarity. Because I think a lot of folks are asking, Who is my neighbor? when they look at these actions.

When Lana and I retired in 2008, we eventually moved to a community located on the Savannah River about 40 miles north of Augusta, Georgia, in a community in South Carolina—McCormick, South Carolina. And in the absence of having a Christian Church nearby, we started attending a community church.

Well, about four or five years ago, this community church’s denomination had a General Assembly—much like what’s going on at the General Assembly in Memphis. And a resolution was passed by the denominational assembly that they would be a sanctuary church. That means that if there were any alien—any immigrants, legal or illegal—that sought help and relief, they would reach out in mercy and compassion.

Immediately, the congregation became divided in half. And after a vote, half of the people left that congregation, saying, “We will not be a part of a congregation that breaks the law.”

What law? Who is my neighbor? Split this faith community. And it’s splitting our nation and this community.

We have friends who are part of the United Methodist Church, and they’re living in the aftermath of a split—a major split—over whether same-sex couples can be married in the church, and whether a pastor or minister can be in a gay or lesbian lifestyle.

Who is my neighbor? If the foundation of the law of God is to love God with everything I am—heart, mind, soul, and strength—and to love my neighbor as myself, then I think the lawyer has a valid question when he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus answers his question with the parable that I told you. And we immediately know the answer—it’s the same one the lawyer gave. Who is my neighbor? The one who showed mercy and compassion. That’s our definition.

Loving my neighbor as myself requires me to see myself in their place and act in ways that I would want someone to act toward me. If I and my family are running away from an oppressive government wherein my life and the life of my family is in danger, how would I want a congregation to treat me? If I had to enter the country illegally, putting ourselves in the place of others is the act of being a neighbor.

I can understand the lawyer, after hearing the parable, saying to Jesus, “Sorry, that’s not who I am.” And we have a lot of folks saying that today: Sorry, that’s not my neighbor. Our administration is saying that—our current administration. The people in southern Texas are our neighbor. But the immigrant community, the poor, those that are not like us—they’re not our neighbor.

I loved the church of my childhood. I respected the Sunday school teachers, the preachers, the elders, the deacons, the leaders. I treasure my childhood. But that time is gone. We can no longer isolate ourselves geographically or racially or according to our economics. If we are truly to be Christians, we have to be able to see people as our neighbor.

The church of my childhood was too small. When we moved to Murfreesboro, I had lots of folks asking us to come join them in their congregation. And of course, being a real Disciple—a real Disciple—I simply said, “Well, thank you very much. We’re looking for a church that is accepting of all people.” And they said, “Oh, we accept everybody.” I said, “Oh, your table is open to everyone?” “Oh yeah, our table is open to everyone.” And I said, “Well, LGBTQ+—are they welcome?” And there was a silence. All did not mean all.

And so we found our way to Pine Street. Praise the Lord. Where all means all. And we define neighbor to our community as being those who display mercy and compassion. And that’s our defining characteristic as a community of faith.

So, who’s your neighbor? Who’s your neighbor?

If we had time, I’d ask us to break into small groups and tell stories about who’s our neighbor—but we don’t. But maybe we could do that at a fellowship dinner sometime. I’d love to hear your story about who’s your neighbor. I got lots of them.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Won’t you be mine?

Amen.