Mercy Over Judment

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, March 22, 2026

As we prepare for this sermon, would you please pray with me?

Holy One, when you speak, we don’t want to miss it—
when you bend down and write in the dirt,
when you move through the trees,
when you wake with the dawn,
when you tug on our hearts and whisper into our dreams.
We don’t want to miss it.

So today we pray:
clear out the cobwebs in our ears,
quiet the steady stream of thoughts that march through our minds,
and open up space in our hearts so that we can receive your word
and what it has for us today.

With hope we pray. Amen.

Recently, I wrote an op-ed that appeared in The Tennessean newspaper. The Tennessean has been very kind to publish some of my ramblings. This piece was about how we all choose which scripture verses to live by—and how that’s actually a good thing. It’s called discernment. It’s called discipleship.

In this op-ed, I gave a couple of examples of two posts I saw on Facebook regarding the U.S.’s recent bombing of Iran. One post critiqued the war from a pacifist perspective. They said that the Ten Commandments instruct us not to kill, not to murder, and they called for soldiers to refuse unjust orders.

The other post was a rebuttal, saying that we are instructed to obey authority, according to Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 13.

As I mentioned in the piece, both of these are biblical arguments. But what they highlight is more about the interpreter’s agenda than about the scriptures themselves.

You see, the Bible is complex. It was written and compiled by many authors over roughly 1,200 years. Of course this vast library contains contradictions and discrepancies. The Bible is not a magic eight ball. You can’t open it to a random page, point your finger, and live by whatever that verse says. That’s not how it works.

Regarding the verses above, one of the most obvious of the Ten Commandments is “You shall not kill.” However, there are other verses—such as Leviticus 24:17—that seem to permit killing in certain cases: “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.”

Similarly, regarding submission to authority, Romans 13 instructs the early church to be subject to governing authorities. Yet the prophet Isaiah says, “Woe to those who make unjust laws.”

And as I’ve mentioned before, Romans 13 has been used throughout history to justify slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation.

So which is it?

As we move toward Holy Week, we acknowledge that Jesus’ ministry increasingly put him at odds with religious leaders—those who prioritized legality and saw Jesus as a threat.

Our passage today tells us that while Jesus was teaching in the temple, scribes and Pharisees interrupted him. They brought a woman allegedly caught in adultery and put both her and Jesus on trial. They cited Mosaic law and placed her fate in Jesus’ hands.

But instead of focusing on punishment, Jesus flips the script, as he often does. He invites them to consider their own sin.

He knows what the scripture says—but he asks:
“What is the most just, merciful, and faithful interpretation of this text?”

It’s important to note the hypocrisy of the law itself. The law of adultery largely applied only to women. Men could have multiple wives and concubines. A man would only be tried if he defiled another man’s “property.”

The woman’s male counterpart is absent. Her accusers—her jury—are people who would not have been breaking this law themselves, yet they get to decide her fate.

We’re given no details. Was she assaulted? Threatened? Or simply bait for Jesus?

Jesus’ teachings were grounded in scripture, but his actions interpreted the law through love, compassion, and mercy.

The Reverend Lizzie McManus-Dail writes:
“The inconvenience of mercy is that it is hardly ever merited.”

And yet Jesus speaks of mercy constantly. He tells his disciples to forgive seventy-seven times. He calls the merciful blessed. Even on the cross, he says, “Father, forgive them.”

Reverend Lizzie continues:
“In John 8:2–11, Jesus embodies mercy with a woman who may have received none in her life. She may not deserve it—and yet he offers it anyway.”

Because mercy—unmerited, impractical, and full of hope—is the mark of a true follower of Christ.

Verse 6 says they were using this moment as a trap. But what does Jesus do? He bends down and writes in the dust.

What was he doing?

Was he writing a message to the woman? Listing sins? Reciting the law? Buying time?

Instead of reacting, he pauses.

Then in verse 7, he says:
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Then he bends down again.

One by one, they leave—beginning with the oldest—until only Jesus and the woman remain.

He asks, “Has no one condemned you?”
She replies, “No one, sir.”
“Then neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus does not abolish the law—he reinterprets it through mercy.

The scribes focus on legalism. Jesus focuses on transformation—for the woman and for everyone present.

Some say the issue here is Jewish law, but that misses the point. Jesus was Jewish. This is not Christian versus Jewish—it is legality versus love.

In Matthew, Jesus says:
“You have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”

How we interpret scripture says more about us than about the text itself.

And the Bible has been used to harm.

So I ask: What will our message be? What is our agenda?

This week, our state legislature considered bills to mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms, require Bible reading, and track students’ immigration status.

So what good is it to look like a Christian state if we don’t act like one?
What good is Christian decor without Christian decency?

We have neglected the weightier matters: justice, mercy, compassion.

On Ash Wednesday, Reverend Margie reminded us that Lent is a season of preparation, reflection, and transformation.

As new members join this church and others prepare for baptism, we are reminded that we follow Jesus because of the good news.

And that good news must be for everyone.

It must be rooted in justice, mercy, and faithfulness—because that is what Jesus calls the most important.

Reverend Lizzie writes:
“Receiving and extending mercy—even in the most unlikely places—is how I know God is still at work.”

Mercy reminds us there is more than what hurts us.

God’s justice is not retributive—it is restorative. It is the joy of the lost being found.

That is why Jesus says, “Go and live.”

The good news is rooted in justice and mercy—but it is not automatic. We must make it so.

That is why we don’t just say “may it be so.” We say, “we make it so.”

We are the ones who create a more just, compassionate, merciful world.

So what is our message going to be?
What is our agenda?

This church has a legacy of love, mercy, and faithfulness—but we cannot rest on that legacy.

We must live it forward.

Amen.

So let us go into the world—this week and beyond this Lenten season—choosing love over hate, peace over violence, compassion over condemnation, and mercy over judgment.

Because this is the good news.

Amen. Amen.

May we make it so.

Welcoming the Child

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, March 15, 2026

Many of you know this by now — I've talked about this exhaustively in the last couple of months — but I found my first diary a few years ago. It was a small Tweety Bird journal, and it had one of those locks on it that's fake, but I thought it was real, so my brothers couldn't open the lock and see it. And written in sparkly gel pen — y'all remember gel pens? Everyone's like, "Yeah." — written in sparkly gel pen, it said "Important Questions." This was the page right after I had listed all of the Tennessee Titans from the year 1999, which was when we had hope, you know. So, Tennessee Titans — the next page said, "Important Questions. Question number one: Who made God? Question number two: Is God really a boy? Question number three" — which I haven't talked about — "Is there life on another planet?"

I've been thinking about that little girl a lot as I step into this new role of senior minister. Her wheels were turning. Her questions were kind of the same ones that I have today. And her Tweety Bird journal was the first book she was writing in that led to her fascination with a bigger book that she would study and try to understand for decades. I'm talking about the Bible.

We know that kids say the darndest things, and kids also ask the deepest questions. On a podcast I found this week — it's called Hearing Jesus for Kids — the podcast host Rachel Gro shares questions that she has received from kids that she attempts to answer on the podcast. Listen to some of these questions: Will my pet go to heaven? What does God's handwriting look like? Why did God make Satan? Why did God make mosquitoes suck my blood? Where does God live? How old is God? What's the best way to pray? If heaven is such a happy place, why are people so sad when folks go there? Why do bad things happen if God is good?

Kids say the darndest things. Kids ask the deepest questions, do they not? And I'll admit that in my years of growing up, I sometimes forget the very children in my life — my eight nieces and nephews, the little ones here — who hold these theologically rich questions that you and I are still asking today. What's the best way to pray? If heaven is such a happy place, why are we so sad when people go there? Who made God?

Kids start asking "why" from such a young age, and then somewhere along the way, we stop asking it as much. We tense up. We become rigid. We start to feel embarrassed when we say, "I don't know." We play pretend. We seem a little too smart to ask why anymore. We shrug our shoulders. We say, "I'm not creative. I'm not an artist." A little kid would never say that. We stop playing dress-up. We stop dancing around the house. We think that kids' movies are silly, when so much of them have things to teach us adults. Can you think of any kids' movies that have done that for you? Inside Out. Zootopia. Balto. So many rich lessons in those movies.

Instead of crouching down to look children in the eye, we stand tall. We posture maturity and wisdom, dominance and absolutes. We want more families and kids in our pews, but what about the families and kids that are here that need care and nurture? And as the youth say — and I think as Jesus would say — church, we've lost the plot.

It's easy, then, to identify with the disciples in our scripture this morning, who sternly — such a good word; has anybody had a parent be stern with you? — who sternly speak to the children that are running up to Jesus. And it's easy to imagine arguing with the disciples. In Mark 9, in this same story, in Matthew 18, they say, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?" It's no surprise that adults are asking about the greatest. Kids don't care about the greatest. Who's the greatest colleague? Who got the greatest performance review? And yet the disciples are asking Jesus: who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus has an answer for them, and it's very short and very direct, as Jesus can be. He says, "The kingdom of heaven belongs to kids." That's what he says. He says, "Let the little children come to me, and don't stop them."

In this account in Mark 10, Jesus continues: "Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." Whoever welcomes a kid welcomes Jesus. Whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes God. Are you following this? So through the transitive property — I think that's what it's called — when we welcome kids, we welcome God. It's that simple. And yet we have made it a little bit complicated. So the good news this Lent is that welcoming kids is welcoming the one who came to us as a vulnerable baby.

These words — welcoming kids — they might feel kind of cute to us today, but they would have felt very destabilizing and perplexing to the disciples. Why? Because kids in Jesus's day weren't like they are now. Children weren't how we think of them. Michael Joseph Brown notes that "children and childhood in antiquity was different." Fifty percent of kids died before the age of five. The weakest members of society were kids. They were fed last. They received the smallest and least desirable portions of food. They were the first to suffer from famine and war and disease and natural disasters. Many — some say more than 70% — would have lost a parent before they hit puberty. A minor had the same status as an enslaved person, and it was not until adulthood that they became what we might think of as a free person.

In other words, in Jesus's day, children weren't the main event. They were the side items that would be useful later on — when they were able to care for their parents, when they were able to work in the family business, when they were able to bring money to their family from a marriage dowry. Children were more often treated as slaves than family. It's so hard to fathom that.

And so this story — it's not only an illustration, it's a metaphor pointing us toward the least and the lost and the last in the kingdom of God. The ones that God wants us to be the most attentive to. The ones who lack societal status. Not just children, but anyone vulnerable and in need of care and protection.

I think this is also illustrated in Deuteronomy, which Lydia read — and thank you; I love the way you emphasized "the alien," or what we might think of as the foreigner, the sojourner, the immigrant — the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. A litany repeated four times in just five verses, as if God is trying to get us to wake up to these populations that are in need of our attention and care and protection.

"Do not deprive them," we read. "Don't hoard your sheaves in the field. When you drop one, leave it. Leave your abundance for the immigrant and the orphan and the widow. And when you have olives left on your olive trees, don't pick them all — leave some for the immigrant and the orphan and the widow. And when you have grapes in the vineyard, don't pick them all — leave some for the immigrant and the orphan and the widow. And you do this to honor me, and because you must remember that you were vulnerable too. That you were enslaved in Egypt and I set you free. Don't forget that you experienced oppression. And so you don't get to sit on that and say, 'Whew, that's over.' You get to look around and crouch down and wonder: who else needs care?"

And this isn't a suggestion in Deuteronomy. It's a commandment. That word appears twice: I command you to care.

So, while children and immigrants and widows and orphans are named in our scripture today, I think we're invited to remember that each of us has been vulnerable at some point in our lives. We have needed care and protection. We have needed attention and respect.

Jesus is talking to kids, yes. But as priest Joanna Cybert writes, he's also talking about the ones in this world with no status, no influence, no income — like the working poor and the homeless, the people with disabilities and mental health issues, the LGBTQ teenagers who tell their parents who they are and are kicked out of their houses. He's talking about immigrants and abused children and vulnerable elderly people and abused men and women, people in the throes of this dreadful war. God is daring us to welcome all as bearers of God.

Joanna said this, not me: to believe that God's hierarchy is the reverse of culture's hierarchy. I want to repeat that because I need the reminder. God's hierarchy is the reverse of culture's hierarchy. The good news is so hard.

Church, we've got a bill in our legislature right now where people want to track and surveil kids who are immigrants. Imagine going to school in that kind of fear. We've got missiles that destroyed a girls' school in southern Iran, killing over 150 girls. We've got kids going to school in a synagogue this week, just trying to go and learn, that synagogue interrupted by an attack. And of course, one zip code over, we've got kids lacking the resources to thrive and flourish — to be quite literally fed.

We have got to care for and seek protection for and welcome children, knowing that in doing so, we welcome God. God who — remember this — called the prophet Jeremiah, who was around ten years old, just a kid, we might say. God called the prophet Jeremiah. God called Jesus, who shows up as a baby, who is found at twelve years old in the temple wrestling with scripture, talking about scripture with his teachers. I think there's a reason that story is in scripture.

God called a refugee and a little one, and had no hesitation when Jesus grew up that he wasn't supposed to sternly talk to kids. He was supposed to welcome them in, lay hands on them, and bless them, knowing that they are the face of God.

So, church, our job is yes — to care for those who are overlooked, to care for those who are also looked down on, because God reminds us we were once overlooked too. Our job is to learn the names of our little ones in this church. Our job is to nurture their faith. Our job is to volunteer as Sunday school teachers if that calls to us. Our job is not to look down on, but to crouch down. To say, "How are you?" And not only to ask them questions, but to hear theirs too. To learn from them just as much as we may think we teach them.

Kids say the darndest things, and kids ask the deepest questions. And when we welcome children — when we welcome the child in us, when we grab a kid's bulletin and color, as I know some of the adults like to do — when we welcome that child in us, we welcome God. And that's important too.

The good news that we are grounded in this Lent is that we love and believe in a God who offers care and protection for the most vulnerable. But we don't watch God do that. We join in God's work doing that.

So, church, hear these words from the prophet Isaiah — called to be a prophet probably around the age of 18 — who said: "The wolf shall live with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the lion will feed together. And a little child will lead them."

Amen.

Far More Abundantly

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, March 8, 2026

Before we get to this passage, something really terrible has happened. Leading up to it, we learn that John the Baptist has just been beheaded. It's a passage that you probably won't hear preached on; it doesn't come up in our lectionary, but I think it's important to note before we get to this miracle.

The disciples have learned of this—have learned that he has been beheaded for the person he was, for the work that he did. And so they go to him, and they take his body and they lay it in a tomb. Then they gather around Jesus, telling him what they've been up to. And perhaps they do talk about anointing the sick and casting out demons and healing those that nobody else wanted to touch. Maybe they also talk about how he told them they weren't allowed to take their bag or their bread or any money on the journey. Perhaps they lament to him about this friend that they lost.

I wonder if one of them, in sharing, was kind of like a teacher's pet—trying to display his work and prove that he had done enough, that he had healed enough and cured enough, looking to Jesus for that affirmation like some of us may have done with our favorite teacher. And maybe one of them was just ragged and tired, his head hanging low, feeling shame that he hadn't made Jesus proud, that he hadn't done enough—that he had tried his best to heal as many as he could, but he had still walked by people in need.

Maybe one of them was on fire, totally galvanized by the work that they were doing, ready to sprint off and continue it. Maybe one of them was resentful, with blisters on his feet and this audible hunger, looking at Jesus like, "This is what you're having us do? This is the kingdom work?" And maybe all of them in that moment were also heavy with the death of their friend, afraid of what it might mean for them to show their loyalty was not to Herod, but to a different kind of king.

This is where the disciples are when we get to this miracle. Do you feel that sense of raggedness? Do you feel that exhaustion and perhaps fatigue?

Knowing Jesus, knowing the person and the Savior he is, he perhaps had compassion on them. I think he did, because he invited them to go to a deserted place. Maybe he knows that we have to rest in the midst of the work. And so it says that many were coming and going and they didn't even have the leisure to eat. Maybe he wanted them to have the leisure time.

So perhaps with a relieved sigh and that feeling—y'all know that feeling of being at home with someone who loves and sees you—you can just deeply exhale and lean into that comfort. They take their weary bodies and they crawl into a boat to go out to a deserted place and find that respite. And before they can even remove the sandals from their feet and rub the calluses and maybe the bunions, people recognize them. And the people actually beat them to the place where they were going to rest.

And Jesus—perhaps leaving the disciples in the boat to look at each other and say, "There he goes again"—he walks to shore. Scripture tells us that he looks on the crowd with compassion. They were sheep without a shepherd; they were a flock without food. And we learn that he begins to teach them many things.

Can you imagine being there and hearing what he might have taught? What did he teach them? Did he recount his stories of the wedding at Cana, of the hemorrhaging woman, of the demoniac? What did he say to them? Rocking on a boat, getting spiritually fed once again by the one who embodied compassion. Perhaps the disciples were starting to regain that spiritual energy that they so desperately needed.

Whatever he said, he talked into the night—which I'm not going to do right now. It says that he talked into the night. It says that it grew late. And so perhaps these seasick disciples rocking in the boat and the crowds—well, they're listening to the Son of God. I would hope to be pretty alert, taking mental notes, but he is preaching and he is preaching.

And so finally they say, "Hey Jesus, this place is deserted. Not that people went away, but it's deserted and it's late. What if you just come with us and then have these people go and find food for themselves in the villages and in the surrounding country?"

And he answered, "You give them something to eat. You give them something to eat. You give them something to eat." The teaching portion was over. The speaking into the night had ended. And Jesus, the one with the divine power, did not perform the task himself, but empowered his disciples to do it. Do y'all hear me there? He empowers them to show everyone what Good News looks like. "You go give them something to eat."

"You want us to buy bread? Well, you sent us out without money and without a bag and without anything on our person. It's impossible."

Jesus has presented them with what we may think of as an impossible task. Then he says, "Okay, well, what do you got? What are we working with here?"

Five loaves and two fish. That's not even enough to maybe feed just these front rows of people right here. What didn't seem like enough for the disciples somehow was more than enough for Jesus. What seemed impossible for them became this grand holy possibility for him.

And then he says, "You—not me—you go get all of these groups of people to sit down on the grass." And so, we're not talking about the size of this congregation today. We're talking about 5,000 people that they had to organize and mobilize. You know something about mobilizing and organizing people? It's not easy work. 5,000 people. I have a friend moving to Pleasant View, Tennessee. Population: 5,000 people. Trying to put it into perspective for you.

You go organize the people, and the people are still there. The people have seen five loaves and two fish and the people stick around, waiting after hearing what this man has said to see if he really is who he says he is. And I bet a lot of them thought, "He's got this."

And so the disciples go out to the crowd. Jesus takes the food. He blesses it. But he's not the one who goes out and feeds them. He doesn't ask them to come forward so that he can share the loaves and fish with them. No, the one with power empowers the disciples to go and share the Good News—to see a crowd in need and be nourished by their gratitude as they nourish them with food.

And all ate and were filled. Man, if we could etch those words on that table: And all ate and were filled.

And Jesus, whose first miracle was to make wine overflow with abundance, shows them that, Church, there is always enough in the Kingdom of God. And all ate and were filled—yeah, by food. And we talk about that a lot in this miracle. But perhaps they were filled by other things. Filled by touching the hand of a disciple who passed them a loaf. Filled by the eye contact of one who perhaps also embodied compassion. Filled by seeing neighbors and strangers also being fed. Filled by being together in one place. Filled by seeing this shepherd feed his flock. Filled.

What I love about these stories in this Lenten season, and what is so convicting to me, is that Jesus is working out of the spotlight. So, he wouldn't be here; he's working out of the spotlight to bring the Good News to people. He is a "secret agent Savior." He doesn't need to be the one recognized and rewarded. In fact, he is telling us something about how miracles work—how the impossible becomes possible. He empowers the servants at the wedding just as he empowers the disciples at this feast to share the goodness.

There are so many of you who I've thought about this week as I've thought about secret agent stewards. So many of you who are working outside of the spotlight to make this community flourish.

• You who iron the paraments—you bring in your iron from home and iron the paraments and the cloth as we change them over every liturgical season.

• You who write birthday cards to most members of this congregation without expecting anything in return.

• You who hand me grocery cards every Sunday—you know who you are, and you've asked to remain anonymous—and you say, "Share them with people in need."

• You who purchase lighters for lighting this Christ candle when you saw me and Wesley struggling for a couple weeks—we couldn't get it working and then just gets awkward and we're up there for more and more seconds—and you hand me a bag of lighters that you purchased and say, "Okay, that's getting old. Use these."

• You who pick up the scattered bulletins after the service and grab the trash to throw away.

• You who made soup and cornbread for us during the ice storm.

• You who stand in the back, making sure that our online viewers can be a part of this community—those who are sick, those who can't make it here today, those who live in a different state and want to be a part of what Vine Street is up to.

• You who change light bulbs on ladders.

• You who volunteer in our nursery when one of our workers is sick.

• You who stay after every event to clean the kitchen, to wash tablecloths, to put chairs away.

• You who buy the donuts every week so that we have a sugar rush as we wrestle with Scripture.

You know who you are. Doesn't matter about the spotlight. A church is the people who are stewarding in secret. A church is made of disciples. A church is made of people who hear this story and trust God's abundance and say, "There is enough if we make it so." And we don't have to do it alone, but it is up to us to do it—to participate in the work of Jesus.

And you all remind me that the one we follow—yes, he preached in front of crowds, but a lot of the Good News he shared was behind the scenes. He says, "You give them something to eat. You fill the vessels with water, and I will figure out a way to turn it into wine. You go tell the disciples that I have risen, Mary. I could do it—I am fully divine—but I'm trying to tell you something about community: that the impossible is possible together. It doesn't happen alone."

The miracle requires group participation. How many of you hate group projects? Faith goes, "Me too." And yet the miracle requires it.

And for those of you like me who relate more to the disciples than perhaps the secret agent Savior, I think we need that holy nudge. This Lent, as Reverend Verzola says, Lent is not about watching Jesus work. It's about participating in the work that Jesus is already doing. I want to repeat her words: Lent is not just about watching Jesus work. It's about participating in the work that Jesus is already doing.

All ate and were filled because the miracle became possible through the power of community.

So I got to wonder where God is inviting you to participate in the Good News this Lent.

On Ash Wednesday, I thought I had really messed up. I have never mixed the ashes with the oil before. This was my first Wednesday to do that. And so I got here early and I took the ashes that we burned from the palms on Palm Sunday, if you didn't know that. And I took the oil and I went down to the kitchen. And many of you know that I can't bake, but Kathy wants me to try to bake a cake for the Festival of Cakes to perhaps empower me ("You give them something to eat"). Nobody buy my cake, okay?

And I look at the ashes and I look at the oil and I just make a guess. Later, right before people processed, Wesley comes up and I've given him the bowl of the ashes and oil that I mixed. And he looks at me and says, "I don't know if this is right. It's like... gloopy." Y'all wouldn't even know what goes on behind the scenes! And I freaked out and my stomach dropped. "Oh my gosh, I'm not good enough. I'm not like the man who led before me. Gosh, I messed up this sacred ritual that is serious. We're talking about ashes and dust."

And people walked toward us and I did my best to remain present, but I felt a small sense of shame that I hadn't prepared well enough. And all the while, people continued to come forward to receive their ashes. And a man I'd never seen before was one of the last to come forward. And I imposed the ashes on him.

And I sat down thinking about my "concoction," we're going to call it. And he came up to me after the service and he said, "I am in Nashville for just today. I have been at Sarah Cannon Cancer Center and I have Stage IV gastric cancer, and I found out today that the clinical trial failed and I have some very, very hard decisions to make now. Receiving these ashes means more to me than you will ever know."

We participate in the work flawed, and then we let Jesus be Jesus.

We mix the oil with the ashes and we show up and we let God work. And we crawl out of the boat with all of our human gifts and flaws and we look to the one who just empowers us to do the best we can. Whether we're weary or galvanized, whether we are exhausted or in grief, we show up. We let Jesus be Jesus.

Because the Good News, Reverend Lizzie McManus-Dail writes, is that what the disciples have to offer is enough. What we have to offer is enough. The Good News is that the disciples' limiting beliefs do not limit what God is up to. The Good News is that everyone's fed. And the Good News is that the impossible becomes possible together.

God doesn't start with the problem—"How do we feed these people?" God starts with what God has, which is everything held in God's hands. And God starts with what God has given us, which is five loaves and two fish.

So our work is simple: Participate in the Good News this Lent while also letting Jesus be Jesus. We can follow in his footsteps. We can do works in secret with a reminder that the good wine and the long table and the many loaves—that's Jesus laughing at the impossible. That's him not shuddering from this "not-enoughness." He's not scrambling with scarcity; he's leading with abundance. And he's showing us that we never have to do it alone. We get to do it together.

And that's the miracle in this story, Church. So, how will you participate with me in crawling out of that boat—maybe scrambling out—showing up, offering what you can as he tells us: "You... you give them something to eat."

Amen.

The Call to Love

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, March 1, 2026

And now hear this reading from Matthew’s Gospel, the 25th chapter:

"For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me into your home, and I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you cared for me. I was in prison and you visited me."

Then the righteous ones will reply, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink, or a stranger and show you hospitality? When did we see you naked and give you clothing, or come and see you when you were in prison?"

And the King will say, "I will tell you the truth: when you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me."

Friends, for the Word of God that is in scripture, for the Word of God among us, and for the Word of God within us: Thanks be to God. Let’s pray together.

God of good news, speak louder to us than the news updates. Speak louder than these mental distractions. Speak louder than our anger. Speak louder than our fear. God, speak loudly to us today because we long to hear good news once more. We hope and we pray. Amen.

I too am tired this morning. I got back from Philadelphia last night pretty late. This weekend I presented a paper that I wrote on interfaith coalition building and policymaking at a conference in Philadelphia that was titled Liberating Our Democracy. This event and other events are strategically planned this spring as we lead up to America’s 250th birthday, also known as the semisesquicentennial. And if you can say that, I’ll give you 50 bucks. If you can spell it, I’ll give you a hundred.

This conference began with a land acknowledgment, as many events or organizations do nowadays—churches do that, agencies do that. But this conference had the Tadodaho, who is a spiritual leader of the Onondaga Nation. And this gentleman gave this Thanksgiving address to kick off our time together. We were told ahead of time that these Thanksgiving addresses can be anywhere from seven minutes to two hours. So, I kind of sunk back into my chair for what might be a long winter nap.

He began speaking, and I obviously wasn't able to understand what he was saying, and he went on for about seven to ten minutes. So, he was really gracious for us. But then he told us what he actually said, because he was speaking in his native tongue. He said he was giving a Thanksgiving address that has been passed down through his people’s bloodline for centuries.

In this Thanksgiving address, the speaker gives thanks to the Creator for each and every person that is gathered there. They give thanks for their family, for the earth, for the plants, for the waters and the skies, for the weather and the animals; for the thunders, whom he called his grandfather; the sun, whom he called his elder brother; the moon, whom he called his grandmother; and for the stars, whom he named as his ancestors. He also said that this Thanksgiving address gives thanks for the gifts brought by their white brothers and sisters.

Now, before we try and sanitize this and "Disney-fy" this story, that isn’t all that he and his wife shared. Both of them are from the Onondaga Nation, the Snipe Clan specifically. His wife works for the American Indian Law Alliance, and they fight for the rights of indigenous peoples in America.

They shared stories of how both sets of their grandparents, and their grandparents' parents, and their grandparents' grandparents attended these boarding schools where they were trained by white settlers. They were not allowed to speak their native tongue. They were not allowed to wear their traditional garb. They were not allowed to do anything that resembled their heritage or their culture. Not only were they not allowed to do it, they were punished if they did.

She also shared how her nation had a three-party system that our government is modeled after. But we often don’t hear that story—except she mentioned that in her nation, in her tribal government, it is egalitarian and the women have actual rights. She recalled this story where the Onondaga tribe met with white colonists and they asked, "Where are your women? How are you going to make decisions?" In fact, she mentioned that the tribe that she belongs to—in that tribe, the women choose the chief and also remove the chief when he’s doing a bad job. It sounded pretty good to me.

She told this story of her grandmother who wouldn’t speak in her native language because if other people were around, she got scared. She had this PTSD moment where she got scared of what happened to her in those boarding schools. She shared that that trauma they experienced then trickled down into the younger generations in the form of self-hatred and erasure of their own culture. And then she said something that really struck me: "These boarding schools taught them Christianity."

And all I could think about was these people who had stolen these people’s land and had beaten their heritage and culture out of them were teaching them how to love their neighbor. They’re teaching them Matthew 25 and completely missing the whole thing.

Like Disney sanitized the colonizer story in Pocahontas—despite the fact that it has a killer soundtrack—I think we can all agree we too have sanitized the Golden Rule. We’ve taken "love your neighbor as yourself" to mean be nice, be polite, be civil. And all those things are good and well, but that isn’t what Jesus lays out when he talks about loving your neighbor in Matthew 25.

He shows in Matthew 25 that in order to love your neighbor, you have to do something about the atrocities and the injustice that they are facing. To love your neighbor, you have to feed them. To love your neighbor, you have to clothe them. To love your neighbor, you have to care for them. Why? Because loving God and loving neighbor are intrinsically connected. We cannot truly love God if we are not loving our neighbor. Loving our neighbor is a form of loving God by honoring the divine image in each and every person. Jesus says, "I am them and they are me."

But just as the characters in this parable didn’t get it, Jesus' disciples didn’t get it either. Going back to Luke’s passage, Reverend Dr. Brian Blount tells the story this way. He says:

"Simon, a Pharisee, a religious man who lives his life according to the law—God’s laws—invites Jesus into his home. And customarily, such a host would greet such guests with acts of hospitality: the washing of feet that have been soiled by dusty roadways, the anointing of oil as respite from the heat of the day, a kiss of welcome. And though Simon receives Jesus, he provides no such greeting. Impertinent and audacious, having heard that the great teacher is in Simon’s house, this woman—likely an unsolicited sex worker—invades the space."

Immediately the Pharisee, someone who is tasked with conveying God’s love to God’s people, distances himself from her. From his perspective, the "love" in which she traffics commercially, but not virtuously, prohibits her presence from them. But Jesus graciously allows her to draw near. And when she’s close, ironically, she offers Jesus the hospitality that Simon had neglected. She washes, she dries, she anoints, she kisses.

Scandalized, Simon rebukes Jesus, of all people, for letting this woman touch him. Disappointed in Simon, Jesus responds with this parable about the extravagance and ferocity of God’s love. These two people are in debt to this man, just as every one of us is in debt. One debtor owes him a little, but the other owes him a lot. Ridiculously, the man forgives both of them their debts.

"Which debtor," Jesus asks, "will be the most grateful? Which one will respond to the man with the most love?" And of course, we know it’s the one who owed the most. Simon believes that he owes God much less than this woman—this disreputable woman—because he has lived this life of holiness or righteousness in his mind. Simon can never know the ferocity of the woman’s love for God, who loves her back.

According to Jesus, God loves her with this extravagance of grace that cancels all of her sin just as surely as the creditor expunged the lender’s massive debt. Jesus then tells the woman to go in peace. But how can she, though? Living on the streets, she’s found welcome among those who struggle like her. But forgiven, she now needs the welcome that she has given to be shown back to her by whom? A community of Jesus people who often fail to do so. People who should recognize that they too have been graced with the extravagance of God’s fierce and ferocious, unrelenting love, but so often fail to do so.

Since two Ash Wednesdays ago, I’ve been wrestling nonstop with something that we prayed while standing outside of the hearing rooms at the Cordell Hull building at the Capitol. We prayed for the oppressed—yes, obviously. But then we prayed for the oppressors, because they too are victims of oppression.

And it convicted me. That’s really hard for me to do. And don’t get me wrong, we have just cause to criticize and critique these systems and these structures. ICE snatched a blind refugee off the street recently—a blind refugee. And when they realized that they could not charge him with anything because he was here lawfully, they left him about five miles away from his home and he died in the cold.

Despite running on a "no new wars" campaign and calling himself, 79 times, the "peace president," Donald Trump and his administration—and he’s not alone in this—in conjunction with Israel, launched missiles at Iran, one that struck an all-girls school. The last time I checked, the death toll was 85.

Here in Tennessee, pro-life lawmakers are seeking to charge women who have abortions with the death penalty. Lawmakers in Kansas revoked the licenses of trans folks, making them invalid and didn't even give them a grace period to change their licenses back, setting them up to fail.

There’s so much injustice in this world. There’s so much injustice in this country, and in our state, and in our community. But we cannot let up. We cannot back down. We cannot let hate win, or injustice win, or malice win. But friends, as soon as we begin to dehumanize those that oppress, we have become that which we preach against. Audre Lorde said that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

And it’s hard, and it sucks. It goes against our human nature. We want to retaliate. We want to fight back. We want to do to them what they did to us. And we fail at it a lot—or at least I do. But that is why we confess today that God, we long to be people who love our neighbors, but we’ve got a long way to go.

The Tadodaho, the spiritual leader of the Onondaga tribe centuries ago—despite the land theft, despite the colonization of his people, despite the boarding schools that beat the culture and the heritage out of his people, despite the erasure of their history and the replacement of history that centers the white man—he still gave thanks for his white brothers and sisters. Why? Because he understood that they are a part of this mess, too. He understood that this is a part of their world, too. They were made by the same Creator.

What strikes me about these stories is that those who are actually modeling Christ and modeling Christ’s teachings are not the Christians in the story. They’re not the followers of Christ in the story. Instead, it’s those who are following Christ and modeling his teachings that we often discredit, disparage, and cast out. These lessons that we read every Sunday—they’re not for those who don’t know Christ. They’re for us that do and don’t do a good job at showing it.

I know it feels bleak. I know it feels discouraging. I know it feels heavy. I feel it; I’m sure you feel it, too. But if the Tadodaho can love his neighbors despite everything that we did to his people, and if this woman with the alabaster box can love God despite being disparaged by religious people of her day, then surely those of us who call ourselves Christians—those of us who call ourselves disciples of Christ—can learn to love our neighbors better.

Amen. And his call is simple: Feed them, clothe them, care for them, visit them, love them. For when you do, you feed me. When you do, you clothe me. When you do, you care for me. When you do, you visit me. You love me.

The good news is that even when we act with judgment, even when we are guided by fear, even when we turn our back on our neighbors in need, God does not turn God’s back on us. We are instead loved with this extravagant grace, this ferocious love. And we’re seen, and we’re forgiven, and we’re invited to try again. We’re invited to do better.

Thanks be to God for this unending love. And let’s love and learn to love our neighbors better. May it be so. And may we make it so. Amen. Amen.

Good News Catches Us By Surprise

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, February 22, 2026

This morning’s scripture reading will be Matthew 13, verses 31 and 32. You can find that in your pew Bibles on page 14 of the New Testament.

He put before them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

For the Word of God in scripture,
for the Word of God among us,
for the Word of God within us.
Thanks be to God.

I’m coming down here today because we’re going to have a chat.

Will you pray with me?

Holy One, it is easy to see the mustard plant and forget to marvel at the seed. It’s easy to taste good wine and not appreciate it. It’s easy to miss the holy that is in our midst. So as we turn to your text today, we pray: surprise us, speak to us, move through us, draw us closer to your good news. We wait with bated breath. Amen.

You may or may not know this, but the season of Lent—its initial intent—was to prepare new Christians for their baptism on Easter. This was for new converts to begin to understand the ministry of Jesus and the tenets and core beliefs of the Christian faith.

On Easter, they would be baptized, having now come to know what is central to Christianity. We typically think of the beginning of Lent as Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, of fasting and deprivation. And certainly, that is how the story begins in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What the good news could have really meant to them—and what it means for us—is something we want to explore. How were the early converts coming to understand what the word gospel meant? What good news actually means?

So we are grounding ourselves in the good news of Lent. Because I think at the heart of Jesus’ teachings, we find love, and we find mercy, and we find wide, long tables, and we find fine wine, and we find good surprises. I think it was a ministry he hoped we would understand as truly meant to be good.

On Ash Wednesday, we talked about a host who throws a great dinner. First, he invites his friends—people of the same class as him, people of the same social status. One after the other—maybe you’ve had this experience with a birthday party—the first guy says, “Hey, I can’t make it. I just bought a piece of land. I’ve got to go look at it. I send my regrets.” The second guy says, “I can’t make it. I just bought a bunch of oxen, and I want to go test them out. I send my regrets.” The third guy just says, “I got married, and I can’t come. I send my regrets.” We don’t need to think about that too hard.

So then this man sends his slave out and says, “Okay, don’t go find people like me anymore. Go to the streets and the lanes of the town and find the poor, find the crippled, find the lame, and find the blind.” And the slave does. These people come in for the great dinner, and scripture tells us there is still room. There is still room.

So he sends his slave out again. The slave says, “What you’ve told me to do, I’ve done, so that your house may be filled—and there is still room.” If the good news on Ash Wednesday is that there is still room, then I’m hoping that today the good news we hear in the wedding at Cana, in this moment of fine wine, is that there is still more. Still more for us in this good news.

For early converts, if they opened up the first three Gospels, they would have found temptation and deprivation. But if they opened up the Gospel of John, after Jesus is baptized, after he calls his disciples, the very first story we get in his ministry is what? A wedding. A wedding—not healings or exorcisms. We find our Savior at a wedding in Cana.

I want to read that passage to you now. This is from the second chapter of John, verses 1–11.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the one in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the one in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the one in charge called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

So at this wedding, Jesus, his disciples, and his mother are there, and the wine has run out. Mary pulls Jesus aside, and when I read it, they kind of have this mother-son dynamic going on. Maybe you caught that, too. Mary—ever attentive and observant, like a lot of parents—has noticed the scarcity at this wedding. She lets Jesus know, and then she looks at the servants and says, “Okay, do whatever he tells you.”

We have to note that in this context—the lack of clean water, the large number of guests, how long wedding feasts usually lasted—the lack of wine was a problem. It was a failure of hospitality. It would have brought great shame on the bride and groom and the family hosting the event.

So how did the family fail to provide enough wine? How does that happen? Lindsay Scott notes that it was also an ancient custom for guests to come with gifts of food and drink. So did the community not provide enough resources for this celebration? That doesn’t look good for the family and friends of this couple.

Jesus was not only acting on behalf of the hosts; he was acting as a community member—jumping into action, showing up, being loyal to this family. And what follows next is a series of what I’m going to call good surprises.

The first good surprise, and we all know it, is that Jesus turns water into wine. This isn’t just any wine. This isn’t wine that’s on sale. This isn’t wine that tastes a lot like grape juice. This is fine wine—the fancy stuff, the good stuff, the top-shelf stuff. It’s almost as if Jesus is revealing that part of his glory is showing the abundance of goodness he brings—sometimes when we least expect it. That he saves the best for last, even when we think things have run out. That’s the first good surprise.

The second good surprise—and maybe you caught it, too—is that the only people who know about this miracle are not the bride and groom, not the guests, not the person in charge. It’s the servants. This is written almost as an aside: the ones who drew the water knew. It’s as if the writer of John is letting us in on a secret.

The servants are the ones who know about the miracle—the background characters, the ones cooking in the kitchen, the ones making sure everything runs smoothly. Jesus reveals in his glory the abundance of God and the sneaky, surprising nature of God that we see again and again in his life.

And the third good surprise—and I’ve mentioned it already—is that the first story we learn about Jesus is not a healing or an exorcism. It’s not him turning over tables for justice. It’s him stretching out joy. It’s him keeping the party going. It’s him reminding you and me that even in this world right now, there is cause for celebration.

Church, we’ve got to lean into it. Hope is a muscle we stretch. Joy is a discipline we practice—to celebrate the goodness and abundance of God. That is a good surprise. It’s as if Jesus knows the end of the story. He knows that evil is defeated and love has the last word. Evil is predictable. So Jesus doesn’t have to start by showing how to overcome it. He already knows the plot twist. He starts his ministry by saying, “God’s abundance overflows like fine wine every single time.”

This week I asked people to tell me about a good surprise they’ve experienced lately, and I want to read some of those to you.

One woman said, “After three years of infertility, I am pregnant.”
Another said, “I was diagnosed with diabetes a month ago, and I’ve been surprised by how supportive and encouraging my friends and family have been.”
Another: “A cousin called me out of the blue just to check in.”
“The office parking attendant, who’s only known me three days, brought me avocados from her tree.”
“I’ve been feeling closer to my partner through the grief of losing our dog.”
And this one is my favorite: “My driver’s license was lost for six months, and I found it in the pocket of an old jacket.”

I kind of wonder if they had already ordered a new one. You know how that goes—you order a new card, then you find the old one, and now you’ve got to cut it up. It’s a whole thing.

Some of these are grand—life-changing. Some are small, like a mustard seed people once thought was just a weed. So I wonder what it looks like for you and me to notice the good surprises in our lives, both big and small. What does it look like to have eyes to see the holy abundance that God shows us—the overflow of the best stuff?

Maybe it’s small, like a couple of avocados from a parking attendant. Maybe it’s grand, like closeness after loss or birth after hardship. Maybe it’s like these little resurrection surprises sprinkled throughout our Lenten journey.

For the early converts—and perhaps for you and me today—we have to remember: the good news really is good. His ministry was about showing us that the gospel is as good as he says it is. Not only is there still room, there is still more wine. It overflows, church, if we look for it, if we believe in its goodness.

So may we bask in the joy of this first miracle—in these unsuspecting characters, in the overflowing abundance, in a Christian faith that, if we examine it closely, is filled to the brim. The fine wine was saved for last. God’s love is good and abundant. It will never run dry.

We’ve got to look for it, be surprised by it, and surprise others with it.

Amen. Amen.

Do Not Be Afraid

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, February 16, 2026

I wonder if any of you have had what I'm going to call a "let me stay" experience. I remember growing up at summer camp, and when my parents would come and pick me up, I remember some of the girls and boys hiding in their cabins or around camp because they didn't want to go home yet. They wanted to stay. I remember seeing Wicked on Broadway in middle school, and I remember that last scene with Glinda in the bubble, and trying so hard to will the curtains not to close because I wanted to bask in that final scene, stay in it for as long as I could. Or like when you're dancing at a wedding and the DJ says, "Last song," and you're like, "No, we're just getting going." These are those "let me stay" moments—lingering for as long as we can when we're watching a sunset. We don't want that little dot to dip below the horizon, holding a baby in our arms. We don't want to put him in the crib just yet. I'm sure you've had those "let me stay" moments. And I think that's what Peter is asking today. I can really relate to him with this. He's sort of saying, "Let me stay." And I think this is why.

So, we're in Matthew 17 today, but right before this passage, Jesus is trying to show his disciples that he's got to go to Jerusalem, that he will experience great suffering, that he will be killed. That is heartbreaking news for the men and women who have been following him around in his life and in his ministry. And Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. Imagine having the audacity to rebuke Jesus, and he says, "God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you." That's what he says. And Jesus says, "Peter, you are not setting your mind on divine things, but on human things." And maybe to prove his point that Peter really needs to start setting his mind on divine things, Jesus takes Peter and James and John, and he takes them up to a high mountain. I've got to wonder what these guys were thinking about as they hiked up this mountain with Jesus. Maybe they were mapping out the next few days or weeks, trying to find a way, trying to find an alternative to the imminent suffering. Maybe trying to freeze time. Maybe trying to stop time and stay with Jesus just a little longer. I think that's how I would be.

Then they get up to this mountain, and this man, this Son of Man, reveals his divinity. He is transfigured before them, and we learn that his face shines like the sun, and all of a sudden his lowly clothes are dazzling white. It kind of makes me think of—I'm going to nerd out really quick—like Gandalf the White in Lord of the Rings, or Galadriel, which is even scarier than Gandalf the White, or the Ghost of Christmas Past, that little girl in The Muppet Christmas Carol. These characters where the light is emanating from behind them and it's a blinding light, and the people receiving this image are, quite frankly, terrified.

I bet that's how they felt. And not just that. So, we've got the Son of Man, this divine being dazzling in white, and then they see him talking to a couple guys. And these aren't just any guys. It's the prophet Moses and the prophet Elijah, who know a little bit about going up on high mountains and experiencing the glory and the awe of God. So Peter cries out, "Hey, it's good for us to be here. We could stay. We could pitch tents. We could roast s'mores on a campfire. We could be up here for just a little bit longer. I don't want to go back down to the chaos below just yet." Would you be like that? I know I would. It's safer up there, away from what Jesus says is to come. But while Peter is going on and on, kind of in the—God maybe trying to interrupt Peter on this tangent—a cloud overshadows them, and we hear this voice, and it's the same voice that we hear in Jesus's baptism. You remember that, when we hear a voice from the heavens that says, "This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am"—keeping y'all awake today—"with whom I am well pleased." But that's not where it stops in this passage in Matthew. Did you catch this? God says, "This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Listen to him."

And you know, like we hear in a lot of scenes in scripture, they hear the voice of God. They're terrified. They fall to the ground in fear. And Jesus, seeing them laying prostrate in fear—you know, he could have kept talking to this prophetic circle of people, Moses and Elijah. He might have wanted to stay in that moment with them. He could have stood far away in his dazzling white, being this majestic being of glory.

But in true fashion, in holding both his divinity and reminding them of his humanity, he comes over to them, and we learn that he touches them.

And I wonder if it was just a hand on a shoulder, or maybe he clasped his hand in theirs. And I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but sometimes in moments of deep fear, when someone gently touches me, I feel some of the fear diffuse.

Our Son of God, reminding us that he came as one of us and he lives among us. And then Jesus says this—and Jesus says this a lot—"Get up and don't be afraid."

Get up and don't be afraid. And this time when they look up, they don't see this light beam of a savior with two prophets next to him. Did you hear Rachel say they see Jesus and he's alone? It's just him again. It's just their friend and their mentor and their teacher and the one they've been following around. It's just him, right there with them.

And so in this story, the disciples actually listen to him, and they get up, and they follow him, and they follow him down the mountain where the scary things are.

The transfiguration—this moment—it seems to last for just a minute. It's not very long, it seems. I think we've all been there. There are these moments of epiphany. We're still in our season of Epiphany, church. There are these moments of epiphany. You and I have had these moments of being dazzled in awe, maybe quite literally on mountaintops or in ordinary moments in hospitals or classrooms—these epiphany moments that we have where we feel this flash of light or this experience of God's love, where time seems to stop and we want to stay there in that shining experience before we have to go back down to shadows or clouds. "Let us stay," we might think. You know, why would we want to walk toward the cross? Why would we want to go to Ash Wednesday this week and be reminded that we're dust and ashes and that's where we're headed?

Because—and these words are not my own; they are the words of theologian Patrick Wilson—the transfiguration offers the disciples, and it offers us, this interesting paradox: that while there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering, there is also no way that we could shield ourselves from the light of God that sheds hope in the darkest moments. Somebody say amen. While there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering, there is no way that we could shield ourselves from the light of God that sheds hope in the darkest moments.

I will never forget the story of a little girl in Walmart. She really wanted to buy a flashlight, and she's in Walmart with her mom. She finds an awesome pink flashlight. She really wants to use it as quickly as possible. So, they go and find the batteries and they open up the pack. Does anyone do this? Like, when I'm at the grocery, I start eating the blueberries before I've paid for them. But I do pay for them. So, they open up the battery pack and they put the batteries in the flashlight, and the little girl is so excited and she turns the flashlight on in Walmart. She doesn't see anything. It's already bright in there. She can't see anything. She says, "Mom, it's not working. Did you put the batteries in?" And the mom says, "Yeah, you have to understand that when you shine light where there is light, it's hard to see." And she says, "Mom, I want to go find some darkness." Are you picking up what I'm putting down? "Mom, I want to go find some darkness" in order to shine my light there.

The mountain—it was this way for God to prepare the disciples for the sacred journey ahead, to offer them something to hold on to so that when they descend into this crushing reality of the world below, they have the memory, they have the experience of the fullness and divinity and the light of God.

And I'm going to nerd out again and talk about Harry Potter, because some of you might be thinking this is like a Patronus charm. Who knows what that is? Okay, thank God we got a couple hands. The Dementors, who are these very dark creatures who inhabit the wizarding world, and they come to feed on human happiness and spread despair—they got a tough job—they come to Harry and his friends, the good guys and the good gals, wanting to spread despair. And Harry learns that the way to prevent them from doing that is to think of a very, very happy memory. One that fills up your whole being and just makes you emanate with joy. And that's what you need to cast the charm. And that's what you need to dispel the despair. That's your flashlight. Maybe the transfiguration is this memory that Peter and James and John will hold as they confront the harsh reality of what is to come. And we know what is to come. Death and loss and fear and a crucifixion. Perhaps God gives them—gives us—these transcendent moments as a way to endure what I'm going to call the world of the cross, because we are experiencing something like that.

Maybe it's a reminder that the world may try to crush our hope and maybe has the ability to do so. But we worship a God who shines that light in the darkness, and the darkness has not and does not overcome it.

It is so tempting to stay in place. It is so tempting to pitch a tent, to dwell in the safety of friends and dwell in the safety of a mountaintop moment. Peter and the guys, they just want to build a safe sanctuary away from the world, to be content in the moment. They don't want the curtains to close. They don't want the DJ to stop playing music. They don't want to be picked up from camp.

They want to save Jesus and they want to save themselves from the heartache that is to come.

But they can't. And we can't.

In the moment of transfiguration, though, God encourages us very, very explicitly to listen to Jesus. That's our homework in this passage. And the disciples' ears perk up when Jesus talks to them. This is the first instruction that we hear him give Peter and James and John. He says, "Get up and do not be afraid." And they are like, "Yes, sir," because the one who loves us, the greatest light there ever is, told us to listen to you. And your instructions are clear: Get up. Don't be afraid.

Sometimes the good news feels like bad news because we've got to get out of our beds. We can't remain in the comfort of our privilege. We can't remain in the safety of our economic stability. We can't remain in the ease of our lives or the correctness of our own opinions and no one else's.

Listening to Jesus means taking his homework seriously and putting the batteries in our pink flashlights and leaving Walmart and turning them on in the darkest places of this world.

So, three pieces of homework for you and for me: Listen to him. Get up. Do not be afraid. Amen. Amen.

What to Leave Behind

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, February 8, 2026

Good morning. I want to do a little experiment. How many of you know what it means to be salty? Can you shout it out? Well, if I say you’re being salty, what am I saying?

Bad attitude. Anything else? Grumpy. Bitter. Okay. Okay. Y’all are cooler than I thought. Yeah.

If I’m being salty, I’m in a bad mood. I’m frustrated. I’m sulking. I’m letting people know that I’m not happy about something. And so it always makes me laugh when I think about Jesus saying that we are the salt of the earth—because Christians do be salty sometimes.

I think Christians are often salty in bad ways. But here’s what I’m proposing for today: when language is translated and then later transcribed, word meanings—and even their functions—change. It’s good for us to revisit what the author meant by this text and how the audience who first received it would have understood the message. Because obviously, Jesus was not calling these people salty.

So I hope we can dive a little deeper into God’s Word this morning. And as we do so, let’s pray together.

O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight as we seek to hear the Word of God that is in this passage, but also the Word of God that is among us and within us. Amen.

It’s important to note that salt in Scripture is significant in many different ways.

First, salt is a sign—or symbol—of preservation, reflecting its role in preventing decay and corruption. In Scripture, salt was used with meat and other foods to preserve them and prevent spoilage.

Salt is also a symbol of God’s covenant with us. It represents the enduring nature of God’s covenant with God’s people. In Leviticus 2:13, God commands that all grain offerings be seasoned with salt, indicating the importance of this element in sacred rituals and symbolizing the lasting promise between God and humanity.

Salt is also a symbol of cleansing. It signifies the need for purification. In various biblical passages, salt represents the cleansing of sins—both personal and systemic—and the necessity of approaching God with a pure mind, a pure heart, and pure intentions.

It also symbolizes wisdom and gracious speech. In Colossians 4:6, believers are encouraged to let their speech be seasoned with salt, emphasizing the importance of wisdom and grace in how we speak to one another—suggesting that our interactions should be seasoned with kindness, compassion, and discernment.

Salt also symbolizes judgment and consequences. In the story of Lot’s wife, she looks back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah during their destruction, disobeying the angel’s instructions, and is turned into a pillar of salt.

I know it feels a little late to be setting intentions for the year, but I think we have an excuse, right? We’ve had several weeks of snow and ice. We had to get the kids back into their schedules. We had to get ourselves back into routines. So even though we’re already well into February, I’m wondering if we might still set some intentions—for our lives and for our church—by asking a few questions from this passage:

What do we need to preserve?
What covenant do we need to strengthen?
What do we need to cleanse?
What behaviors do we need to season with salt?
And what do we need to leave behind—without looking back—into 2025 and beyond?

There’s so much in this passage that I really feel like it could become a multi-week series. But today I want to focus on the section that the NIV subtitles as The Fulfillment of the Law—verses 17–20.

A few weeks ago, I was working overnight at Room in the Inn and met one of our guests. He was kind and helpful, assisting with cleanup after dinner and again the next morning. At dinner, I had the privilege of listening to his story.

He told me he was a truck driver who drove routes from Reno, Nevada, to somewhere in Virginia and back. On one trip, while stopped here in Middle Tennessee for the night, he transitioned to the sleeping cabin of his 18-wheeler. Before going to bed, he had a couple of beers.

In the middle of the night, police arrived for an unrelated issue—something about lighting or how his vehicle was marked where he was parked. I don’t remember the exact reason. They banged on the cabin door where he was sleeping, searched the cab, and found the open containers. Because the truck was technically on, he was arrested and charged with a DUI.

To be clear: he was not operating the vehicle. He was not driving the truck. But he was still arrested.

Because of that DUI, he lost his job. And because his job also provided him shelter, he lost his housing as well. From there, he spiraled into depression and began using substances—not recreationally anymore, but as a way to numb the pain of losing everything.

Thankfully, he has since found another job, is paying off his fines and court fees, and is beginning to turn his life around. But it highlighted how one decision—however ridiculous it may seem—caused everything to unravel.

Christians have been very vocal lately about the law. Quite literally, some have said that the law is above everything else. As tensions rise in Minneapolis, as Homeland Security and ICE continue to abduct people, as others say, “Well, they shouldn’t have done this” or “If only they had done that,” we’ve heard a lot about the law.

And to be fair, many cite biblical foundations—often quoting Romans 13:

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. And consequently, whoever rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment upon themselves.”

So yes—Paul said that. Paul said that to the church in Rome. Paul said that to a people who were occupied by empire, a people who were directly under the thumb of a very dangerous empire.

But I want to go back to what we were reading just a minute ago—the passage from Jesus we heard today, where he says:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter—not one stroke of a letter—will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never even enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I think what Jesus is saying here is that the law and the prophets are needed. Yes, they are necessary—but not at the expense of love, not at the expense of justice, not at the expense of mercy, and not at the expense of compassion.

In fact, in verse 19 he says, “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great.”

Romans 13 is an important part of our scripture. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t have been canonized into the Holy Bible. But what purpose is it serving?

I think it’s a stark reminder of how the early church had to survive in dangerous and oppressive times. It’s also a reminder that the early churches were not all the same. They had different contexts. They experienced different trials.

It’s also important to note that Romans 13 has been used throughout U.S. history to preserve slavery, segregation, the separation of families, and now the despicable behavior of our own government toward other children of God.

But in today’s passage, Christ is calling us to more than what the law and the prophets alone have called us to. He says that in the fulfillment of his commandments, we will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and the scribes, we will never even enter the kingdom of heaven.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket. Rather, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

So my question for today is this: are we going to be salty as Christians, or are we going to be the salt of the earth?

I want to go back to our questions, and I really hope you’ll ponder them this week and come up with your own answers. But I want to share some of mine with you this morning.

What do we need to preserve?
I think we need to preserve the idea that Christians are called to love. Our reputation cannot be based on hate. It cannot be based on who we’re against. God loves all. Christ welcomes all. That must be the first thing people think of when they think of Christians—and I’d be willing to bet that right now, it’s not.

What covenant do we need to strengthen?
I think we need to strengthen the covenant we have with our fellow human beings. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves. That doesn’t just mean being nice. It means wanting for them what we want for ourselves. If we want rights, protections, and dignity, then we must fight for theirs as well. People outside the church, people of other faiths, and people of no faith all need to know that we are here for them too—no matter who they are.

What do we need to cleanse?
We need to cleanse ourselves of the need to control everyone. We need to cleanse ourselves of the desire for power and dominance. We need to cleanse ourselves of fear-driven decisions and fear-driven policies. We need to cleanse ourselves of the belief that we are always right and everyone else is wrong. Christ called us to love—and that is enough.

What behaviors do we need to season with salt?
This one is hard for me. We need to be more mindful of how we speak about “the other.” I’m not saying don’t call out injustice. I’m not saying let injustice slide. But when we speak, we must remember that whoever they are, they too are children of God. I’m preaching to myself here. Even the people I vehemently disagree with—even those enacting some of the most despicable actions in our nation and world—are themselves caught in systems of oppression. Those systems have their claws in people who are also children of God.

What do we need to leave behind?
What do we need to leave behind in 2025—with no looking back?

I think we need to leave behind the desire to be biblical but not Christlike. Using Romans 13 to uphold slavery and segregation was biblical, but it wasn’t Christlike. Using Romans 13 to justify hateful and harmful immigration practices may be biblical, but it certainly isn’t Christlike.

In today’s passage, Christ calls us beyond the law and the prophets. He calls us beyond being merely biblical and invites us instead into the abundant life he so often speaks about—the life shaped by love, mercy, and justice.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket, but put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to the entire house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.”

So what kind of light are we going to be?

This week, ask yourself:
What do you want to preserve?
What covenant do you need to strengthen?
What do you need to cleanse from your life?
What behaviors need to be seasoned with salt?
And what do you need to leave behind—without looking back?

And finally, ask yourself: are we going to be a salty church, or are we going to be a church that is truly the salt of the earth?

May it be so.

The Kingdom is Near

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, January 25, 2026

Oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts who are gathered be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

In other translations, verse 17 is actually written as: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is nigh.” Repent. That’s not a word that we really say or use a lot in Disciples circles. We don’t really talk about repentance very often. And that’s probably for a good reason. A lot of people find their way to our tradition, to the Disciples of Christ, by way of other traditions that might harp on sin or the depravity of humanity, the need for repentance in order to get right with God. And a lot of that theology has done a lot of harm and damage to folks over many decades.

And yet Jesus calls us to repent in this passage. So what do we do with that? As I read earlier in the Common English translation, Jesus says instead, “Change your hearts and lives, because here comes the kingdom of heaven.”

This passage today begins on a note of danger. One commentator said, “John the Baptist, who is Jesus’s beloved friend and cousin, has been arrested. And so Jesus withdraws to Galilee, but not to hide, but instead to give comfort to some of those that were the most vulnerable among them.” Because at this time, Galilee is occupied by the Roman Empire, and one of their most prophetic voices and prophetic leaders has been taken from them.

Earlier this week, we remembered the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his life and legacy. And so I’m thinking about what his movement must have felt like in that moment when he was taken from them. What did the other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or the labor unions or these clergy groups feel? Fear during this time?

But then Jesus proclaims these prophetic words from the prophet Isaiah who said, “The people who have lived in darkness have seen a great light, and a light has come upon those who lived in the region and in the shadow of death; a light has dawned.”

Ancient readers would have recognized these as prophetic call stories. So here is Jesus, following this horrific event, going to those whom he loved and whom he cared for and giving them this word of inspiration — that the darkness, the turmoil, all of this that they had been facing, would not be the final chapter in their story. And then he says, “Change your hearts and lives, because here comes the kingdom of heaven.”

This week, I’ve been following — as many of you have probably as well — the turmoil happening in Minneapolis. Several clergy friends of mine actually have traveled to the city to try and be a witness to the atrocities happening there and to diminish the harm happening. Perhaps you might have seen a little 5-year-old boy named Liam Ramos who was detained by ICE just a few days ago. They used him as bait in order to detain his father. They caught them as his father was walking Liam home from school.

And in the picture that’s being shared on news outlets and social media, you can see this scared little boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack, a little blue bunny toboggan over his head, and this fear in his eyes as he’s being held outside what looks like to be an ICE van. According to several news outlets, another adult who had been living in their home had been outside during this incident and had begged the agents to let the 5-year-old stay with them, but the agents refused and transported both Liam and his father to a Texas detention center.

The family’s lawyer stated that the family did everything they were supposed to do in accordance with how the rules have been set out. They did not come here illegally. They were not criminals, and yet they were taken from their community.

Christians — those following the Christ who himself was a refugee to the nation of Egypt, as we heard in Matthew earlier a few Sundays ago — we’ve been called to proclaim good news to the captives. We’ve been called to proclaim that those who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. And here we’ve been called to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is nigh.

Now, oftentimes when we read this passage, we like to jump to the part about making disciples — creating “fishers of men,” as it says later in this passage — and that’s all well and good. But one commentator that I read said that Jesus’s call to repentance is actually one of the most important pieces of this passage. Stanley Saunders notes that when John the Baptist says that the kingdom is near, by implication he means it’s near but not yet here. So whereas John is setting expectations, Jesus is calling us into participation.

Later in the passage, it speaks of Jesus’ ministry of going out and healing, and that both works toward and embodies this realization of God’s kingdom. So what if, when Jesus says to repent or to change our hearts and lives, he isn’t just talking to the oppressive powers of that day or of this day, but he’s saying that to his own followers who have lost sight of the kingdom of God that is right in front of them?

So what if instead we might say: “Repent of the mindset that nothing can be done. Repent of the idea that evil will always win. Repent of the notion that we don’t have the power to make change. Repent of the belief that ‘that’s just how it is.’ Repent of the feeling that your voice doesn’t matter.”

I know that we’re probably snowed or iced in in this moment. I know that we’re probably stuck behind our phones or iPads, our laptops, our TVs. We’re doom-scrolling. We’re taking in all of this turmoil that’s happening in our world. But I think that this passage is meant to be heard today. It’s meant to be a reminder from God not to give up hope.

We just finished this Advent series on fear. And yes, fear is real. We must acknowledge it. And it likely will never go away. But what we can’t do is let fear rule our lives. We can’t let fear dictate. We can’t let fear act. We can’t let fear write policy or enforce rules. We can’t let fear win in the end.

“The people who once lived in darkness have seen a great light. And a light has come to those who lived in the region and in the shadow of death; a light has dawned to them.” Amidst the turmoil of this life, of this news cycle, I think this is a reminder from God that we have the power to change our world. We have the power to create the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven that Jesus talks about — bringing it to earth now. Not something that we just wait until the next life to experience, but something that we have the ability to cultivate now.

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

Come and See

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, January 18, 2026

I don't care how many times I have been to St. Thomas West, the hospital right over here. Every single time I walk into that building, I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I don't know where I parked. I don't know which entrance I walked into. I don't know the maze of hallways and how I'm supposed to find you in room 128. And so I always end up going to the desk and saying, “Hey, I'm trying to get to room 128.”

And sometimes the people behind the desk say, “Walk down that hallway. Take a left at the surgery doors. You're going to see room 400. Take a right. You follow that hallway for a while. There's a water fountain. Take a right. And then you're going to take a left at the bathroom.”

And then there are people who stand up and they come around the desk and they say, “Come and see. Let me show you.”

The same thing is true when I go to grocery stores. I was making Mediterranean bowls this week and I wanted to have falafel, and I went to Kroger and I searched that whole dang store and I couldn't find falafel. So I went up to an employee and said, “Do you have any falafel?” And he said, “What is that?” And I don't really know how to describe it. I was like, there are these little balls that have like mush. I don't know.

And instead of saying it's on—well, he didn't even know—but let's assume he did. Instead of saying it's on aisle 12, he came with me and looked for it with me. And you know, we didn't find any at Kroger, but I have a feeling that had we, he would have stayed with me as we searched diligently to find falafel.

There are people who are describers and there are people who are showers. I can't describe to you the sunset at Love Circle, but come and see it. I can't describe to you the queso at Satco, but you need to come and see it. I can't describe to you the way Abby sings jazz at Rudy's. You have to come and see her for yourself.

And in our passage this morning, we meet John the Baptist, who is not just a describer, he's a shower. You know John the Baptist. He's the one who was a voice crying out in the wilderness, this crazy-looking dude who wore camel hair and ate locusts and honey, who said, “It's going to be kind of hard to explain. There's one who came before me. I'm not even lowly enough or worthy enough to untie the sandals from his feet.” He's trying to describe Jesus. He's not gatekeeping the Son of God. He is—and don't be scared—evangelizing about him.

And so he's testifying about Jesus. He says, “Y’all listen up. I saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove onto this man, and I am testifying that he's the Lamb of God. He takes away the sin of the world. He's the Son of God.” Some people might have given him blank looks, but some people in hearing his description gave him attention. And all of a sudden, Jesus’s cousin, the great pointer to the light, started attracting some disciples himself. And they began following him around.

“Look, here is the Lamb of God.” He sees Jesus and that's what he says. He's showing them to Jesus. And as Jesus walks by, as Olivia read, he just says, “Look, that's the Lamb of God.” He shows them the way and then they follow the way—the way and the light, as we say.

And Jesus, kind of turning around, maybe sees this crew following him and he says, “What are you looking for? What are you seeking? What do you want?” And they say, “Rabbi,” like they already know who he is. At this point in our Gospel, Jesus hasn't done anything to warrant people following him. We haven't gotten to the wedding at Cana. We haven't had any healings, any miracles. We haven't heard any sermons in the temple. And yet they recognize him as their teacher and their rabbi. What is it about him?

And he says, “What are you looking for?” And they say, “We just want to know where you're staying.” The Greek translation for “staying” here is “abiding.” We just want to know where you abide and whom you abide with. That's all we're wondering.

And Jesus doesn't respond, “You get on 440 and then you hop on I-65 toward Huntsville.” He says, “Come and see. Come and see. I can't really describe to you what I'm up to. But what if you just come and see? What if you come and see where I'm abiding, the one in whom I'm abiding with, the love that I'm spreading, the justice I'm seeking. Just come and see.”

And guess what happens? It's like one of those good books that you pass around in your friend group or like the Amy Poehler podcast you've probably sent around at this point. It becomes contagious. It becomes contagious.

Andrew the fisherman, who had heard John the Baptist testifying—he followed John and then he followed Jesus—and he went and got his brother Simon and he said, “We found the Messiah. We found the anointed one.” And he doesn't just stop at describing him, but he brings Simon to Jesus. So he's not only showing, he's then inviting.

The guys in our passage today, they do describe the one we follow. Did you catch how many adjectives and descriptors there were for our Savior this morning? We have Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah. But they don't stop there. And church, we cannot stop there either.

It might feel really simple to describe this place. It might feel really easy to sit behind that reception desk and say, “We have an amazing choir. We have very meaningful and joyful worship. We have great ministries like Room in the Inn and Community Grants.” And it may feel like enough to tell those stories or show pictures from Trunk or Treat or our Pride parade. You feel like you've done your due diligence by describing what goes on here, by describing the one in whom we follow. You might talk about your Sunday school class or the book study and relay funny moments from the youth fundraiser. But we are not John the Describers. We are John the Inviters.

It takes time to show people how to get to the falafel. It takes time, and it's sometimes inconvenient, to continue to welcome people who visit here or who are out there. What is going on in the life of this church takes time. But I believe that John, Jesus—they don't want us to stop at using descriptors for the one we follow. They want us to beckon our hand out and say, “Just come and see. Just come and see.”

And I don't know about you—it's even outside of my comfort zone. And I am a minister. I have become a little bit self-effacing about what I do and the community that I serve because I don't want to pressure anyone. I don't want to pressure people who have been harmed by the church, who have religious trauma. I don't want to force anyone to come and see what's going on here. And yet, it's contagious, right? The music we hear on Sundays, the ministry that goes on downstairs on Thursday nights, the grants that we offer people—nonprofits and grassroots organizations doing the work of justice and fairness—the conversations that you have in Sunday school where you're really chewing on Scripture, the kids that make you laugh in children's Sunday school. There's something contagious happening here.

And I don't want to scare people off by evangelizing to them, but I want people to come and see. And that's how I feel convicted. That's my job in this new year: to be bold and unafraid of saying we're a different kind of Christian in this world. And if you are feeling heartbroken by the church or lost or scarred, just come and see. Just come and see.

Being a Christian is not about what I'm doing. It's about the one in whom I follow, who first invited me. And I wonder who first invited you. Can you call them by name? Was it a friend or a grandmother? Was it a camp counselor or a fellow student? Who was your great inviter?

I don't think it's about me. I think it's about the one who first invited me. I think it's about asking where Jesus abides and following him there and then inviting others—like Andrew—inviting others to hop on the train and follow along as well.

And y’all don't take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding, because right after this passage, right after this passage, Jesus calls Philip and Nathaniel and he says, “Follow me.” That's all he says. Just “Follow me.” And pretty quickly Nathaniel asks Philip—anybody remember this?—he says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good really happen on Harding Pike? Can anything good happen in Nashville, Tennessee? Can anything good happen right on this little street?” And Philip says, “Just come and see.” That's what he says, church: “Just come and see.”

In John 4, after Jesus meets with the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman runs back to the city. And what does she say? Say it with me: “Come and see.” That's exactly what she says. She says it to the whole city. Scripture says—and listen to the next verse right after she says it—“The people left the city and they were on their way to him.” Not missing a beat, they followed.

If you believe that Jesus is up to something in your life—something compelling and contagious, something indescribable sometimes—then it is not enough to just call him your Lord and Savior, your teacher and your friend, your Messiah and God enfleshed. It's not enough. It's not enough to describe the influence that he has on your life. You’ve got to walk people to aisle 12. You’ve got to take them out to lunch at Satco. You’ve got to drive up Love Circle and watch the sunset with them. You’ve got to bring them down to Room in the Inn. You’ve got to take them to choir rehearsal on Tuesday nights. You’ve got to bring them to worship here—even if you're sitting directly into the sun.

That's what we're called to do. Because some people can't find the directions. They need us to help them locate what's going on.

After Mary finds Jesus in the garden, after he's resurrected—remember this—she immediately says, “Teacher,” just like John and the disciples do today. Teacher. And I love this so much. Jesus says, “Don't cling to me. You can't gatekeep me. I'm not your secret. I'm not just for you.” He says, “Go and tell folks what you've seen.” And our very first preacher in the Gospel runs down the hill and tells people, “I've seen the Lord.”

Jesus is not just for you and me to cling to. He is for us to show and invite, to usher people in, to talk about the effect that he's had on your life—the ways that he has transformed and changed your heart, galvanized you, and loved you so unconditionally with grace upon grace that you can't help but sprint after him when he says, “Follow me.”

So, are you just going to describe him? Are you just going to describe this community that follows him? Or, like the one that we follow, are you going to invite people to come and see like John the Baptist and Andrew? Like the Samaritan woman and, yes, Mary.

Can you say it with me one time? Come and see. Yeah. Three words. And then you can let people make the decision for themselves. Maybe they don't come. There were a lot of people who didn't follow Jesus. And maybe they do. Maybe they do.

I don't think we're in the business of telling, church. There's a lot of talk going on these days. I think we're in the business of showing, of inviting. So, I don't know about you, I'm going to try to show up and invite others to see that there is something good that comes out of Nazareth. There is someone good who comes out of there, and he is up to something radical and loving and groundbreaking and amazing in our lives. Is he not? So just come and see.

Amen.

Another World is Possible

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, January 11, 2026

On Thursday morning, I woke up with a really troubled spirit. My soul was disturbed, is how I would put it, because the day before, as you know, a woman named Renee Nicole Good — she was 37 years old, the age of Pastor Wesley, a mother of three — was shot and killed in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officer in broad daylight. As the officer approached her Honda Pilot, you can see her turning her wheel to the right, away from the agent, before he fired three shots and killed her. Her partner can be seen rushing toward the car and a physician at the scene asked, “Please let me check on her.” But he was refused. In broad daylight on a street in Minneapolis, one of God’s beloved children was taken from us. And if you have felt fear this week, you are not alone. It feels like fear is getting the final say these days as the powers that be — the powers that deport and detain, that threaten us, and yes, even kill — loom large.

In our scripture this morning, we hear that same narrative of powers looming large — of those six words we heard the very first Sunday of Advent back on November 30th when we read Luke 1:5–13. Those six words that said: “In the time of King Herod.”

The words that frame our entire Christmas story. And church, we have to frame our Christmas season in these words. Because as you and I know, the King Herods of this world and of Jesus’ time still loom large in the background or the foreground.

Herod, who represents the worst of what power can do to someone, exists between every line of our Christmas story.

Today, we read that in the time of King Herod, there were wise people from the East who came to Jerusalem to ask about this child who was born a different kind of king. They said he was not King Herod — he was King of the Jews. We often sing about these three wise men in our Christmas season — the three kings who traverse field and fountain, moor and mountain to follow this rising star. And that term “three kings,” magi apo anatolon in Old Persian, simply means “magi from the East.” There’s no specification of gender or number of people or religion. So anytime I can find a woman in scripture, I’m going to find her. In the Zoroastrian tradition, men and women could hold this title. It isn’t a stretch for us to wonder if you and me were some of those magi — this group of people following stars all the way to the birth of Christ.

And then we quickly learn that when King Herod hears of these foreign astrologers coming to pay homage to the child, he is frightened. He is frightened.

What is he so scared of? Why is he so scared of the title of a newborn baby born in a poor town, not in a large city, somewhere insignificant, in a smelly barn? What is he scared of?

He secretly calls for the magi and he wants to know the exact time that they saw this star appear in the sky. Then he says, “Okay, go to Bethlehem. Find this child. Tell me when you have found him so that I may pay homage to him as well.” Deceit at its finest. So they set out obeying what he tells them to do and they follow this star until it stops right over the place where Jesus was born. And when they see this star stop in Bethlehem in this broken-down barn in a poor village, guess what Noah just read? That they were overwhelmed with joy. That in the midst of fear looming large, they were overwhelmed with joy.

When was the last time, church, you were overwhelmed with joy?

When these men and women get there and they see Mary with Jesus, what did we just hear? They immediately kneel. They kneel when they see this baby, in awe and obedience to another kind of king.

And here we get this really neat imagery that you and I know well in our Christmas pageants, that we’ve sung hymns about. They open their treasure chests and what are the three things they offer? Ready? Gold.

I’ve never known what myrrh is. But gold — maybe for a different kind of royalty. Frankincense — this fragrant resin used in incense and perfume, maybe the same perfume that Mary Magdalene used when she took her hair to Jesus’ feet before he was crucified. I wonder if it was that frankincense. And myrrh — which is this sort of gummy resin that’s used as an anti-inflammatory and treats wounds. Did they know Jesus was going to be wounded when he was beaten and flogged by empire? Did they know he would need myrrh for the harrowing journey ahead?

In any case, after they give these gifts, they spend the night, and in a dream — there are so many people who are visited in dreams — they are warned not to return to Herod. And I love this verse. Ready? “So they left by a different road.” They left by a different road. Having seen what they saw, having been overwhelmed with joy, having knelt at the Christ child, they return home by a new route, a new way, possibly this new transformed life. Perhaps believing that in the midst of this power-drunk king and empire that was using coercion and control to threaten its people, in the midst of all that, perhaps they choose to believe that another world is possible.

On this day, we celebrate Epiphany. And so we might ask ourselves: what kind of epiphany provoked these wise men and women to go down a different road than the road of Herod? You know — a different road, church. Reverend Dr. Boy Lee writes: “Epiphanies, they’re not always warm and personal. Sometimes they’re disruptive. Sometimes they’re dangerous. Sometimes they lead to confrontation with empire. Sometimes they ask us to cross borders. Sometimes they send us home by another way. They ask something of us, church. Will we move the way fear makes us move? Or will we move the way love calls us to? Will we move the way fear makes us move? Or will we move the way love calls us to?”

So on Thursday morning, when I wanted to move the way fear was making me move — when I woke up with rage — I reached out to Pastor Wesley and he said, “There’s a vigil taking place at the ICE facility not far from you, not 10 miles from here, and it’s this morning — Thursday morning — and I don’t know who’s going to be there, but come.” So I met him there, where over a hundred people gathered — clergy, United Methodist and UCC, Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ clergy, teachers, students, all kinds of folks. And we gathered and we lit candles and we shared stories of heartbreak and pain. And we lamented together and we sang songs. And between every story shared — by people who have had siblings deported, by people who volunteer tirelessly to protect the most vulnerable in our community — a woman leading this vigil asked everyone to repeat: “Another world is possible.” Will you say that with me? Another world is possible.

Saying that, I think, is its own kind of epiphany. Saying that insinuates that fear looms large in Herod’s world. But we believe it doesn’t stop us. We believe it doesn’t get the final say. We believe that love leads us forward. And we believe that we are here to work toward another world — a world where we follow the one who wasn’t born in Jerusalem but Bethlehem; the one who is hailed not by the religious elite but by Gentile astrologers; the one who’s not protected by armies but by dreams, by a refugee father; the one who wasn’t visited by government officials or palace royalty but by smelly shepherds, by magi like you and me.

That vigil reminded me that the question for us today is not whether fear exists or not. We know it does.

The question is what we do with it. Do we let it stop us? Do we let it paralyze us? Do we let it make us callous and bitter, rageful and vengeful? Or do we let it move us forward?

The birth of Jesus has not silenced the Herods of this world — I wish I could tell you that it has. And they feel perhaps even louder, or so it seems, using their power to intimidate and coerce, to threaten and yes, to kill.

Fear is so loud.

But I can’t stop thinking about that group that we gathered with on Thursday morning in broad daylight, defying empire not with swords but song — singing This Little Light of Mine and begging, crying out, emphatically shouting that another world is possible.

I’m begging you, church. Begging you like the magi who knelt before this Christ child. I’m begging you not to let fear stop you. Don’t let it take your hope. Don’t let it take your love. Don’t let it take that gospel spirit in you that knows that the inbreaking of the kingdom of God is all around us. Don’t let it have the last word. Look to the magi who sprinted toward that guiding star, who refused to let fear be the end of this story. And so, if you must gather, and if you must lament, and if you must sing, and if you must pray fervently, and if you must use your hands and feet to be Jesus out in this world —

Because we place our loyalty with the most surprising thing of all: with this unexpected baby, this different kind of king, whose title scared the man with the most power, whose birth led the magi to proclaim: “Star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.” Still proceeding. That’s what I’m writing on my hand this week. With hope, they proceeded. With hope, they placed one foot in front of the other. They knew what we know. They knew what we choose to work toward when we follow this man. They knew that we’ve got to believe and work toward a world where good news is louder than fear. And none of us are off the hook.

Love, not fear — it gets the final say. Love gets the final say. I promise it does. And another world is possible. I promise it is.

May it be so. But we’ve got to make it so. Amen.