Be Not Afraid

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, November 30, 2025

Good morning. Happy Advent.

I first want to thank Reverend Dr. Boyung Lee, who is a feminist theologian and professor of practical theology at Iliff School of Theology. She informed a lot of this sermon.

“In the days of King Herod” — that might as well be the beginning and end of our Advent discussion. In the days of King Herod — those six words might as well frame everything that we will talk about on our way to Christmas. In the days of King Herod, a particular time and a particular place, that's when God chose to enter the world. And it was a fearful time.

Have you heard about it, church? I want to tell you about the days of King Herod that were filled with violence and occupation and fear. Filled with a ruler who governed to secure oppression, to maintain economic insecurity. A world where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Have you heard of this world?

In the days of King Herod, he governed with paranoia and cruelty. He had a guard of over 2,000 soldiers. He maintained his power by coercion and surveillance. In the time of King Herod, he had many expansion projects that required a lot of funding. Have you heard of this world?

In the time of King Herod, the world was loud with threats, echoing with grief and longing. And this is when our Advent story happens. Jesus didn't come in a vacuum. It wasn't random when God chose to break into this world. It was very much in the midst of these political realities that God sensed that the people were really afraid and broke in amidst that fear.

And it's really important for us to understand this, not only in the story of Jesus, but in our story today—our story of this aging priestly couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth. Because in the time of King Herod, they felt the larger fear of a tyrant’s rule. But they also felt this personal fear, which often shows up as longing: that they were barren and wouldn't be able to have a child.

In the time of King Herod, barrenness was seen as divine judgment. People really thought that if you were barren—unable to have a child—you had done something wrong in the eyes of God. And so what Zechariah and particularly Elizabeth were experiencing was not only personal grief, but public shame.

And still, it says both of them were righteous before God. They lived blamelessly according to all the commandments and the regulations of the Lord. They were doing life right, but they didn't have children, and they were getting older.

How many years had they been waiting to bear a child? How many years had they felt the shame of this barrenness? How many years had they looked at their friends who kept getting pregnant, or their friends running around with their kids, and thought, “When will it be my turn, if it will ever be my turn?” How many years had they followed these regulations of the Lord and lived blamelessly, but maybe stopped believing that the Lord could be righteous to them—going through the motions of faith without actually feeling it? Praying so hard for something they weren’t getting that maybe they stopped praying altogether. With every birthday, with every year of getting older.

How did fear sit in their bodies? How did it live in their hearts?

And still, in the midst of this fear, Zechariah showed up to his life. It says that once he was serving as a priest and it was his time of day. Maybe they cast lots, and he was the one chosen, and he was chosen to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And at that time, all of the people were standing outside of the temple—a great crowd—and they were praying outside, and Zechariah was here, inside, just by himself, burning the incense.

And what happens? An angel of the Lord appears.

And we think of angels as these little white cherubs, little babies—you’ve seen angels portrayed. Scripture tells us they looked terrifying. And I'm going to let you read the Bible to learn more about what they looked like—read the whole Bible; I know you already have. They were really terrifying.

So it should come as no surprise that when this angel appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right side of the altar of incense, it says that when he saw this angel, he was terrified and fear overwhelmed him.

Fear overwhelmed him.

Luke uses the verb tarassō for fear. It’s actually the same verb used when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary—tarassō. The Greek here means to be troubled, disturbed, agitated. It’s not a quick, fleeting feeling of fear, but one that evokes a deep inner shaking—a disruption of the whole body and spirit. It’s the soul’s recoil at the unexpected. It’s the mind’s clamor in the face of uncertainty. It’s the body’s trembling at the threshold of something it cannot control.

That’s tarassō. That’s fear in this text. And that’s what Zechariah felt.

We see again another word used for fear in John’s Gospel. Remember when Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid”? That’s a different Greek word there—deilió. (And Lord, don’t check my pronunciation.) Deilió. “Good enough?” “Okay.”

In that context, fear means a shrinking of the heart or spirit—a fear that doesn’t just visit our bodies but settles there. It becomes the background noise of our lives. An unshakable feeling we carry with us, a weariness and overwhelm that no hope can really change. A background noise so constant we forget it’s there.

Maybe Zechariah and Elizabeth knew something about this background noise. Maybe you know something about this background noise too.

And yet the angel said to him, “Drown out all of that noise, Zechariah. Don’t be afraid, for your prayers have been heard. Your wife Elizabeth—she’s going to bear you a son, and you will name him John.”

It is as if the angel is saying: Your fear is real, but it is not the only truth in this story. Your fear is real, but God can still enter into your longings anyway. God can still find where your fear has taken root.

And God can respond—not by minimizing your fear, not by reframing it, not by asking you to repress it, not by ignoring it, not with toxic positivity—but with presence. By saying:

“I’ve heard you.
There’s nothing to be afraid of.
I recognize and honor your fear.
I don’t ignore it.
I don’t deny it.
I know it’s there, and I know it’s real.”

And that happens a lot with our characters of Advent. They are called by God in very unexpected ways. And it’s a God who doesn’t brush aside their fear. It's a fear they show up and express. And it’s a fear they move through.

These characters of Advent are willing to show a particular kind of vulnerability—the kind of vulnerability we see in a newborn baby. They express their fear, and they don’t want it erased. They just want it acknowledged. And I want to repeat that:

 They express their fear.
They want it to be acknowledged.
They want someone to hear them.

I think Advent gives us room to sit with our fears and to ask:

 What have we stopped praying for?
What are we afraid to even hope for?
Where has fear caused us to shrink back?
How does fear live in us?

In this season of waiting, I don't think God is asking us to reframe it or ignore it. I think God is asking us to face it and name it.

 What do you fear, church?

I'll tell you some of the things that I fear:

I fear for this world. I fear what we are doing to it—for the climate extremes, for the way we have treated this land poorly. I fear for its future and ours. I fear for our kids and youth—for the world we have given them, for the amount of work they are being tasked to do for justice and mercy.

And personally, I am afraid that I am behind on the timeline of my life. No kids. No partner. What if I've missed it?

Maybe you are afraid, too.

 Maybe you’re afraid of being alone this Christmas for the first time.
Maybe you’re afraid of telling the truth about who you are, for fear of rejection.
Maybe you’re afraid of having that hard conversation with a friend or family member.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ll never get over the grief.
Maybe you’re afraid that the estrangement you feel will last forever.
Maybe you’re afraid someone might reveal you’re an impostor at work.
Maybe you’re afraid your relationship won’t survive this emotional drought.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ll never fall in love again.
Maybe you’re afraid of aging and what it will do to your body.
Maybe you’re afraid of your own mind when you get still.
Maybe you’re afraid that your rights will be taken away—that more laws will be passed that threaten your freedom.
Maybe you’re afraid you aren’t doing enough for the people struggling out there—or struggling in here.
Maybe you’re afraid that addiction will never loosen its grip on you.
Maybe you’re afraid for your siblings in other parts of the world—living in famine, living in fear.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ll fail at work or fail that exam at school and let people down.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ll never lose the weight.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ve let your parents down.
Maybe you’re afraid you’ve let yourself down.
Maybe you’re afraid you’re not enough—even after what we say here time and time again, that Christ has shown you are.

Have I named any of your fears?

What is it you fear, church?
What are the longings that you bring to God?

I think naming them can be healing. I think when we say scary things out loud, it becomes easier to face them—especially when we say them together. Because maybe we hear the whispers of the angels all throughout this Advent story saying:

“I'm not denying your fear.
But I’m telling you there is nothing to fear.
You don’t have to be afraid.”

Somehow the great irony of this Christmas story is that fear can coexist with hope.

And it's not fleeting, flimsy hope.
It’s gritty hope.
It’s resilient hope.
It’s hope that has known grief and sits with it.
It’s hope that has known fear and lives with it.

It’s a hope that understands that Christ came into a fearful world—not as a king threatening power over us, but in the most vulnerable way possible: as a baby. Somehow fearless even then. And shined as a light in the darkness—the darkness that cannot overcome it.

Whether in exile, under the rule of a puppet king, or in the depths of personal pain, we long for God to break in through this fear and bring us hope.

And I think Zechariah and Elizabeth longed for a Messiah, and they longed for a child. And God broke in and reminded them—and reminds us—that good news is louder than fear.

Will you say that with me?

Good news is louder than fear.

It’s hard to believe sometimes. I don’t know, church. Perhaps this Advent the question is not:

How do we rid ourselves of fear?

Maybe it is:

How do we name it—honestly name it—and still believe that God is near?

As the prophet in Lamentations said:

“I called on thy name, Lord,
from the depths of the pit,
and you heard my plea.
I said, ‘Do not close your ear
to my cry for help.’”

And as Kay read, the prophet said:

“You came near when I called on you,
and you said, ‘Do not fear.’”

For my hope is louder.
My hope can handle anything you say,
anything you feel,
anything you share.
And I do not deny your fear—
I acknowledge it,
and I am with you in it.”

And the whisper of an angel to a fearful man and a barren woman:

“You have nothing to fear.”

There is nothing to fear, church.

Amen

What Kind of King?

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, November 23, 2025

Good morning.

Some of you may know, but some of you may not, that today is Christ the King Sunday. How many of you knew that before walking in? Okay.

Christ the King Sunday is actually the last Sunday in our liturgical year. It’s the last Sunday of our Christian calendar—the last Sunday in Ordinary Time. Next week these paraments will change from green to purple to announce the beginning of Advent. But for now, this is our last Sunday of our liturgical year. And it's interesting to me that on the last Sunday before we start to hear whispers of the birth of this king, we read about his death.

This passage got me thinking: What kind of king was Christ? What kind of king was he?

What I know is that he was not the one they expected. Do you remember what the people probably thought at that time? They thought this Messiah was going to kick butt. They thought this Messiah was going to come in a crown, showing royalty and riches. A war hero riding in on a horse. Someone powerful and mighty. Someone potentially intimidating. Someone who worshiped Caesar and his coin.

And look what we got.

What kind of king was he? You know what kind of king he was? We've been preaching in the Gospel of Luke for what feels like years at this point, so I want to take you through what we've learned about this king so far. Are you ready? You ready? All right.

In Luke 1, Simeon says that this child will be a sign that will be opposed. And then Zechariah sings in Luke 1 that not just some people, but with this king all flesh will see God’s salvation.

And then remember in Luke 4 when Satan tempts Jesus, has him look out at all the kingdoms of the world, and says, “These can be yours. All power and authority can be yours. All you have to do is worship me.” And our king says, “I only serve God.” Do you remember that king?

Do you remember when our king stood up in Luke 4 and read from the scroll and unrolled it and said, “Today, today this scripture has been fulfilled”? It’s been fulfilled to bring good news to the poor, to release the captives, to give recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. Do you remember that king?

Do you remember the king who went to the demoniac—the man hidden in a cave that no one wanted to touch or talk to? Remember how he healed this man with demons. Remember how he healed the paralyzed man, the bent-over woman, the man with the withered hand, the woman bleeding for twelve years—healed and touched people nobody else wanted to. The leper, the boy with an unclean spirit. Do you remember this king?

Do you remember this king who ate with tax collectors that everybody hated and Pharisees that everybody loathed? This man who celebrated with the “wrong” people—people I don’t want to celebrate with. Do you remember this king who, when his disciples were calling her a sinner, allowed her to bathe his feet with ointment and dry his feet with her hair? And when they said, “You can’t forgive someone like this,” he said, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Do you remember that king?

What about the one who said you’ve got to love your enemies? You’ve got to do good to those who hate you. You’ve got to bless those who curse you. You’ve got to bless the ones who exclude and deride and revile you.

Do you remember the king who said, “I have come not to call the righteous but to call sinners”? Whose wealth didn’t lie with Caesar’s coin but with a beloved community of both sinners and saints, of both rich and poor, of both the hated and the loved, of both men and women, of both children and the old. Y’all remember that king?

That’s what kind of king Christ is. That is the king we worship today.

And somehow, ironically, the people didn’t seem to get it. And so where we meet our king in this passage today is actually on the cross. We meet him at the place called The Skull. And while we've heard about this king who said the least among you is the greatest, who said the kingdom is among you, who sent out the Twelve to proclaim that, who talked about the kingdom of God thirty-two times in the Gospel of Luke—how many times, church? Thirty-two times. Clearly, he was trying to make that message clear.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, because we find him on the cross. And in the Gospel of Luke, it’s not called Golgotha, it’s called The Skull, which was actually the shape of the hillside—meaning this hillside was raised so that when people were crucified, it was a public spectacle. That was Rome's way of saying, “We won. Do you see what we do to people who deny our power? Do you see what we do to the rebellious and the radicals? We crucify them. Do you feel intimidated yet by our power, by our reign, by our kingdom?”

So he’s up on that hillside, not for being nice, not for being neutral, not for taking the middle road, but for preaching a radical message that was life-altering, that was empire-threatening, that was love-led, that was wild to the people.

And we don’t just find him alone up on this cross. We find him in between two what? Sinners. Criminals. Who knows what they did, but they were being criminalized for it. That’s where we find our king today. And in his last moments on earth, he looks up and says to God, “God, will you just forgive them? They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know that this is wrong.”

And in the face of that moment of forgiveness, the leaders and the crowd shout, “He saved others; let him save himself. Let’s see if this guy really is who he says he is.”

And then in this scene, here comes his cupbearer, which is actually just a Roman soldier, who brings him sour wine, which was the wine given to the poor. And then here comes his royal placard announcing his kingship—you know, the one that everybody thought was hilarious—that said “King of the Jews,” meant to embarrass him.

“This is your king,” they said. “This is your king,” they announced to the loyal followers. “This is the one you worship. Let’s see what he can do.”

Even one of the criminals, watching what the crowd did, looked at Jesus and mocked him too and said, “If you say you’re the Messiah, save yourself. Prove it.”

And Jesus did—but not in the way the crowd thought. Not in the way that maybe we thought he would.

While one criminal mocked him, the other criminal turned to him and said, “This man—he hasn’t done anything wrong.” And then he looks at Jesus and he calls him not “king,” not “Messiah,” not “royal one,” not “mighty one.” He says, “Jesus, will you remember me when you come into your kingdom?”

Church, we’ve got to think about how wild it is that in a time, as Luke writes, when people failed to recognize our chosen one, when people did not have eyes to see, the person who saw our Savior—really saw him—was a criminal. Can you believe that?

And in his final breath, Jesus doesn’t help himself. He doesn’t seek revenge or retaliation. He doesn’t threaten violence. In his final breaths on earth, he looks at a criminal right in the eye, using personal pronouns, and says, “Today you will be with me in Paradise. You will be with me in Paradise. Though this feels like the opposite of Paradise, though you might think I’m a coward because I’m not fighting back, though I stand here scandalized next to you, I want you to know that death is not the last word, but that my kingdom is.”

Today. Jesus says that a lot in the Gospel of Luke—as if to say it’s easy to think about the past, to think about the world of oppression and greed and hate. And it’s easy to think about the future—of what might be or the scary things that could happen. And yet Jesus says again and again in the Gospel of Luke, “Will you just stay with me right here today? Will you work for my kingdom today? Could you actually believe that Paradise could be here on earth today? That God’s heavenly realm is breaking in?” And it’s not one of violence and retribution. It’s one of something hearkening back to a garden—as “paradise” suggests in Greek.

Today, though this doesn’t feel like Paradise, though we are suffering, I promise you that when you see me and recognize me, when you look at my face, when you call me Jesus, you are already in Paradise. For this is both the scandal and the glory of the cross.

What kind of king is he?

He is a king whose crown is made of thorns. He’s a king whose placard is not a sign of power but one of mockery. He’s a king whose throne is a wooden cross and whose constituents are sinners. Y’all know any kings like that?

What kind of king is he? He’s a crucified one. And as N.T. Wright notes, he is one who showed mercy to sinners and saints alike. He’s one who was willing to be mocked and ridiculed and derided for our sake. He’s one who practiced forgiveness up until his last breath. He’s one who was willing to be thrown into the injustice system for our sake—to suffer with. He’s one who uses his power to grant not revenge, but mercy.

Do you know that king? That’s Christ our king, whose mission is compassion and whose reign is revolutionary. Y’all know about that king?

What kind of king is he? Well, we hear whispers as we walk toward the season of Advent. We hear whispers of a vulnerable baby, born to a poor family. Not a mighty one, but a lowly one. And as we will hear next week, as the people were told, as the whispers were spread of this king—of his kingdom—there will be no end.

A final act of mercy. One of forgiveness, not revenge.

Do you worship this king?

A New Heaven, A New Earth

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, November 16, 2025

I don't really read the King James version much anymore, but I did this week because it starts this passage with the word, "Behold. Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth. And there's something really interesting and powerful about this word behold because it draws your attention to something. Anytime that the Bible says behold, you know that God is about to do something.

Behold is used approximately 1500ish times in the Bible, depending on what translation you use. And they use it as this command for us to pay attention. In Genesis, and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. In the Psalms, behold, God is my helper, the Lord, with whom my life is held. In Isaiah, behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not perceive it? Behold, I'm making all things new.

From Malachi, behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare a way before me. From Matthew. Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David. Fear not, take Mary as your wife. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

From John on the cross, he said to his mother, "Behold, woman, your son." From the book of Revelation. Behold, he cometh on the clouds, and every eye shall see him. For I am he that liveth, that was dead, and behold, I live for evermore.

Behold, we don't really talk like that anymore. Can you imagine if we did? Behold the Crunchwrap Supreme. Behold, the Titans lost again. Actually, I say that we don't talk like that anymore, but I spent about 24 hours in Alabama this week. And what phrase did I hear? Lo and >> lo and behold. Yes, I heard that one a lot. Maybe we do say it.

Regardless though, this word has been popping up again and again for me this week. So, I want you to hold on to that word behold for the rest of the worship service.

Now most scholars believe that this latter part of the book of the prophetic book of Isaiah was written after they had returned from exile. The Babylonian exile began in 586 BC or now we say BCE before common era when Nebuchadnezzar II, the king of Babylon at the time, destroyed Jerusalem and the first temple and took the Israelites captive. And this period of exile lasted approximately 70 years, an entire lifetime for many.

And so now as we read this passage, they have returned to their homeland. And they are hearing this promise of creation and recreation from God through the prophet Isaiah. For I am about to create a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

One commentator put it this way. Here at the end of the book of Isaiah, God is doing what God does, creating and rejoicing. God, of course, does many other things throughout the book of Isaiah, not to mention the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, but creating is one of those things that is paradigmatic to God.

And when God creates, God rejoices. So when God creates a new heaven and a new earth in verse 17 or when God creates a Jerusalem of joy in verse 18, the verb that's there to create is the same verb that appears in Genesis 1. And it's repeated three times in the first three verses of this morning's passage.

And in creating something new, God tells us that the old things shall not come to mind or be remembered. Now, this part of the passage usually rubs people the wrong way, right? They think that this passage is all about change and that the way that it used to be has to be stuffed into some box never to be opened again.

Then, I'm a really nostalgic person. And so, that would really rub me the wrong way, too. But you have to remember who this first audience was, who were the first people to hear this message. These were a people who had suffered for nearly 70 years in exile from the place that they called home. They were held captive by a foreign entity. They had to be born and die. Some of them in exile, never to return, never to be home again.

They faced horrible treatment and enslavement. And more than that, these people were a people who were once slaves in Egypt and would later be occupied by the Romans. These were an oppressed people.

And so when God says, "I am creating a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things shall not come to mind." God is saying, "I will make a place where the pain of your past never lingers in your mind anymore. Where the horrors of your history never cloud your thoughts."

So what God is describing is nothing less than miraculous. God says that the newness that God is creating, there will be no more life that is cut short. Those who were born will live a full life and those who are alive shall not have their time on earth cut short.

God also promises that they shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their own hands.

God is talking to a people who have been captive for much of 70 years. They've been working for 70 years building houses for others to live in. They've been working for 70 years planting for others to eat. Not out of the kindness of their heart, but out of the survival of their people. People who were enslaved and occupied by the Babylonians.

And so when God is promising that they will reap the benefits of their own labor, that they shall reap the harvest of their own crop and shall have agency over their livelihoods and their lives. This is miraculous talk to this first audience.

This kind of promise would make you want to go out into the streets and shout to the heavens praising God, thanking God for hearing your cry and bringing you into a life that is more abundant. But what does it mean for us?

Because what we just did, what we just went through was an academic study of scripture. Understanding the sociohistorical context in which it was written. Understanding who the initial audience was and how they would have interpreted and understood this passage.

But what does it mean for us devotionally? How are we as people of the way or as Reverend Marchie called us last week, children of the resurrection. How are we supposed to understand this passage?

I must also note that behold isn't just used for good things in the Bible. Of those 1500ish verses, many are about the judgment of God's people for their lack of humility, their lack of humanity, their lack of compassion, their lack of justice, their lack of love.

And the same is true for us. We live in tumultuous times, don't we? Our political climate can best be described as a hot mess.

This week, our two senators from Tennessee were discovered to have added a provision to the legislation that would reopen the government that would afford them and six others the ability to sue the government for $500,000 each, $4 million total, over subpoenaed records from back in 2020.

Meanwhile, SNAP benefits have only been partially distributed to the 700,000 Tennesseans. And just to break it down, because I don't know if you knew this, I did not know this, but in a typical month, families who are on SNAP only get about $85 a week for a family of four. $85 a week for a family of four. And that's a typical month when the government is not shut down. So, I'll let you guess what partial funding looks like for them right now.

Behold those who are supposed to work for us.

This upcoming Thursday is Trans Day of Remembrance, which is a day that we remember the number of trans people who died this year, not to natural causes, but to violence and suicide.

Trans people don't even make up 1% of our population. A recent poll said that trans folks make up 0.52% of the US population. Yet they are the topic of numerous pieces of legislation and the main talking points on everybody's campaign trail. Such a literal minority yet gets the majority of the hate.

58 names, by the way, will be read this Thursday. Behold, how we treat the disenfranchised.

This week I also saw a little video of a little girl who was one year old who got pepper-sprayed by ICE. This family was sitting in their car. They weren't protesting. They weren't doing anything but sitting in their car at Sam's Club when ICE shot pepper spray into the car. And I see on the video this little girl, one year old, pepper-faced, stained orange face.

Behold how we treat the most vulnerable among us. Those that Jesus said, "Bring unto me."

Last Sunday, I told you that at the beginning of service, I got this text that my great aunt passed away. I also told you she had gotten really fond of her middle finger in the last couple of years. My family was not happy that I shared that story. They're probably not happy that I'm bringing it up again, but we buried her on Wednesday down in Alabama.

By the way, 24 hours in Alabama and my accent is just unrecognizable. But at the graveside, the pastor read two passages and they happen to be from Isaiah. Behold, I am making all things new. And this passage right here, behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.

And I know that these backwood Baptists aren't following the lectionary. There's no way they could have known that these verses were percolating in my mind this week.

Since this summer, I have felt the presence of God working here at Vine Street. Have you felt it? I feel it on Sunday mornings. I hear it in your singing. I see it at work in our church. God is doing something. God is at work here.

16 new members this fall, 21 young adults at brunch last week. We're going to need more chairs for the deeper Bible study if at this rate it keeps growing. But it's more than the numbers. There is a spirit at work here.

My office is full of food supplies. Earlier this year, Weston Middle School supplies drive just earlier this month. Room in the Inn drive, the water drive. My office is to the brim this morning with sweatshirts that we're going to sell so that we can help our neighbors who need help with a car payment or rent.

And I've got bags and bags and bags of canned foods, peanut butters, pasta, cereal that will go to our neighbors who are still waiting on their SNAP benefits.

Friends, God is creating a new heaven and a new earth through you. You are the agents of God in this story. As children of the resurrection, we don't just see this passage as a message for a people who existed thousands of years ago. This is a message to us now in this time and place. Amen.

For they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well. Before they call, I will answer. And yet while they are speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust. They shall not hurt. They shall not destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Friends, I have to believe that God's promise of a new heaven and a new earth rings true today. And it wasn't just a promise to a people a long time ago, but that God is creating a here and now through the work of our hands, through the strength of our feet, and through the courage of our minds and our hearts.

This week, I pray that we behold what God is doing in our lives, in our church, and in our community. Behold, I am making a new heaven and a new earth. The former things shall not come to mind, nor shall they be remembered.

Behold. Let me hear you say, "Behold." >> Behold. >> Say, "Behold." >> Behold.

May it be so. And may we make it so with our living and with our loving. Amen.

Nothing to Fear

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, November 9, 2025

You might have heard this week that Tom Brady cloned his pit bull. That’s not something I knew—my friend had to tell me. Tom Brady had a pit bull named Lua who died in 2023, and he loved that dog so much that he decided to use a non-invasive cloning technology. Through a simple blood draw from the dog that passed away, he was able to replicate his beloved pit bull.

The new pit bull is named Juny but is a genetic match of Lua. It only cost him $50,000. When asked why he would do this, he talked about his and his family’s deep love for their former pit bull and their desire to experience that same life with Juny.

He said, “I have a really big passion for animals and this organization, which is called Colossal—that’s the organization that does this—they are trying to return extinct animals back into existence: the dodo bird, the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger. And they have already resurrected the direwolf. If you’ve ever watched Game of Thrones, you know what I’m talking about. The direwolf has been extinct for 13,000 years, and they have resurrected this direwolf.”

There’s such a desire to prolong and replicate life because we are scared of the pain of losing it. I was reminded of that when I read about the Sadducees this morning—the fear that life really is finite, even extinct.

Let me put the Sadducees in context a little bit. They were a sort of philosophical school connected to temple leadership. They were the intellectual elite—the people in grad school who always have the right answer, who always raise their hands first, and who seem to have read every single word in the reading. How do people do that?

They were actually trying to trick Jesus, to set up an intellectual trap for him. One theologian says there’s no such thing as dumb questions, but this is a dumb question that they ask. They wanted this weird rabbi who scrambles and puzzles their logic to try to work his way out of this question about the afterlife.

The Sadducees only believed in the Torah—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—and in the Torah, they don’t read about resurrection. They don’t believe in angels or spirits or what Jesus is hinting at. Like many people on Jesus’s walk toward Jerusalem who question, deny, and scoff at him, they’re doing the same here. They’re not approaching him with curiosity but with absurdity and hostility.

They think death is the end. They believe we have to live this life as fully as possible—and as the youth say, YOLO: you only live once. So they’re like, “Okay, let’s see how this guy handles this dilemma, this imaginary scenario. Let’s see how he handles it, because it’s kind of meant to make fun of him.”

They ask him a question concerning levirate, or brother-in-law, marriage. They say, “If a man’s brother dies and leaves him a wife, the man will marry that widow and raise up children for his brother. But if that man dies and is left childless, then the next brother marries the widow,” and so on for seven brothers. Then the woman dies, and they say, “Okay, so in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be? Which of the seven is she going to be married to?”

What’s interesting is that this is the only discussion about the resurrection in the Gospels other than, you know, the part where Jesus comes back to life. This is the only time you’ll hear people wrestling with this topic. We get the story in Matthew and in Mark.

In the story of Mark, Jesus is actually really annoyed at this question—he’s “snappy Jesus.” Does anybody identify with snappy Jesus? He says, “Is not this the reason that you are wrong? That you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?” Like, you dumb-dumbs.

But here in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has a much softer tone. He takes their question and decides to turn it into a learning moment because, as you’ll remember, they started with “Teacher.”

He says, “Those who marry in this age, those who are given in marriage in this age, they’re not going to be married or given in marriage in the age of the resurrection. They can’t die anymore either because they’re like angels—they’re like children of the resurrection. They are children of God.”

He kind of says, “You’re missing the forest for the trees.” He’s saying, “You’re asking the wrong question because you’re presuming the resurrection is just a continuation of our current lives. That’s why you’re thinking about procreation or marriage or success or failure—because you don’t actually believe that when you die, something transformational happens.”

As Paul writes in First Corinthians, we will be changed—that there will actually be a new existence that’s not just a continuation of this one.

And if you’re scratching your heads, maybe like the Sadducees were, I am too. It’s hard to understand this mystery of what happens after this. It’s hard to wrap our heads around what it’s going to be like on the other side. I get why the Sadducees were skeptical. They believed in the Torah; it didn’t mention resurrection.

But then Jesus says this to them: “Remember Moses? Remember the burning bush? Remember when God speaks to Moses and doesn’t say, ‘Once upon a time, I used to be the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but they’re dead now.’”

No—God says, “I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” Not past tense, but present tense. “I was, I am, I will be.” Maybe just a slight hint at something beyond.

Scripture tells us that God says, “I’m not the God of the dead. I’m the God of the living.”

This answer that Jesus gives—his answers are always a little cryptic—but it gives me reassurance. It gives me hope. In a world where we are so scared of death, where we are so scared of the finality of all of this—if the afterlife is actually just an extension of what we’re experiencing and nothing more, I don’t really think I could maintain hope.

I don’t think I could show up here. I don’t think I could call myself a Christian. I don’t think I could have the faith that I claim to have.

One time my mom said, “If there’s no heaven, I’m going to be pissed.” Yeah—I’d be pissed too, especially after reading this story, in which I actually hear glimpses of a mysterious hope that we may never fully understand on this side of things.

To be called not children of your marriage, not children of your anxiety, your loss, your oppression, your confusion, or your failure—but children of God, children of the resurrection. Imagine that being our eternal identity.

It reminds me of when Paul writes, “Where is thy sting, death? Where is thy victory?” As if Paul, in so many ways, already understood it. He’d already moved past some of these dumb questions.

I would have asked dumb questions too—I still do—but he’d moved on to an understanding that, as Eberhard Busch writes, “Death is the end of many things, but it is not the end of everything.”

Our death is not the end of God. God doesn’t just release God’s creatures and say, “Thanks for the life you lived.” No. God, in compassion, puts us in God’s heart, and we are never excluded from it.

Eberhard writes, “We humans are not eternal, but God’s love for us is.” Imagine that. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

Americans might be the worst culture when it comes to dealing with death. We sterilize it. We distance ourselves from it. We ignore the topic. We avoid asking people about it. We try to clone life. We try to prolong life as much as we can with AI.

But I read about a neurosurgeon—many of you have probably heard of him—Eben Alexander. He actually talks about this experience he had with what he considers the afterlife.

In 2008, he wrote a book about his experience of heaven called Proof of Heaven. He was put in a medically induced coma, and he says that despite his skepticism as a scientist, he felt the presence of God.

Listen to what he heard God say to him: “You are loved and cherished dearly forever. There is nothing you can do wrong. You have nothing to fear.”

He said, “The physical side of this universe is just a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part.”

He said, “I realized that both Einstein and Jesus got it right. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness—that human experience actually continues beyond the grave. More importantly, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares for us, each one of us.”

And this false suspicion that we could somehow be separated from God—it’s the very root of our anxiety in this universe. The cure for it, he heard, is the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God. Ever.

Do these words remind you of Paul? Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Does it remind you of his letter to the Romans? “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

This resurrection God who raises life from death—it’s beyond our human comprehension. It’s beyond our control. It’s beyond our limited understanding.

I think this passage invites us not to be so theologically limited like the Sadducees but to have an expansive theological imagination—a hope that welcomes us and invites us into the eternal presence of God.

It’s a hope that wants us to consider what it looks like to live without the fear of death. If death has no sting, if death has no victory, how then do we live? How do we spend our time? How do we spend our energy? How do we share our resources? How do we spend our money? How do we care for one another? How do we work toward justice and wholeness?

If death has no sting, what are we doing in this life to make it count—knowing that there is a great Love, capital L, ushering us in?

How do we give ourselves just a little more grace on this side of things? Take a few more naps on this side of things? Not try to suck the marrow out of every single day? We put so much pressure on ourselves, when we know there is something greater—something with its arms open, calling us children of the resurrection, calling us children of God.

I don’t know about all this cloning of life. I don’t know about all this extending of it. I understand why—the pain of losing his dog, the pain of growing old. It’s real. It’s scary. It’s heartbreaking. But for me, it shows an anxiety about finality that I don’t want to feel. When I read this passage, I’m released from that feeling.

Church, living in this resurrection hope requires a lot of faith in a future not yet imagined. And we may have a lot more questions after reading this passage than answers.

I don’t think Jesus wants to give us all the answers here. Unfortunately, he rarely does. I think he wants to hint at a hope that ties us to a love beyond the grave—to the very presence of God, to this loving Creator who ushers us beyond our earthly worries and concerns, the things we’ve left undone, the fear and shame we’ve carried in our lives.

This hint of hope says to us, as it did to Dr. Alexander: You are loved and cherished dearly forever. There is nothing you can do wrong. You have nothing to fear.

You have nothing to fear.

And when the Sadducees heard this—when the skeptics heard this—by the end of hearing it, they said, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared ask him another question.

One True Light

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, November 2, 2025

Good morning. Today I am going to offer a shorter meditation, which might be exciting for some of you. But I’m doing this because we have many saints we want to honor — saints we want to name. And their names, whether we know them or not, deserve our attention, our listening, and our prayers.

Because this doesn’t happen individually. The Body of Christ happens in community and even in ways we may not understand. It happens with our saints — with a cloud of witnesses that surround us. It’s the presence of those whose singing voices and kind hellos, whose contributions to this place and unique personalities are threaded into the very makeup of Vine Street. And it’s not just our members who have passed away this year — Alex and Sarah, Ruth and Eva — but it is also the saints who are threaded into your own life.

Maybe you are named after one of them. Is anyone named after someone? Yeah, I’m named after my Aunt Alda — a name I was very embarrassed by growing up. But Alda — I take such pride in that name and in who my family has told me she was.

Maybe you are wearing something from a saint. Is anyone wearing a piece of jewelry, or a wedding band, or an old jacket found in the closet as you cleaned up a life that meant so much to you?

And maybe the very hymnal that you just held. Maybe the very seat in the pew where you are sitting. Maybe the very chalice that you dip your bread into today. I think saints have held that book. I think they have sat where you are sitting. I think they have broken bread where you do. I think they have marveled at the changing of the seasons as they looked through this window. I think they spaced out during a sermon — maybe daydreaming about something or troubled by something or touched by something.

And I think they have graced this place and this worship in ways that really transcend our understanding. And that’s okay — that we may never fully understand this picture of what the witnesses of this place — both community members who have gone before us and those you are thinking about today — how they have surrounded us.

I want to give a little bit of history of this day — All Saints Day — because I myself learned more about it this weekend. It’s actually a three-day feast of remembrance. The first day is called All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween.

Halloween is kind of a complicated holiday for some Christians. People think that in dressing up in scary costumes, we might be welcoming evil or demonic spirits or inviting some kind of darkness to sit within this earth. But back in medieval times, when Halloween was created, it was actually to remind each other that the forces of evil are limited, and they are fleeting, and they are actually silly in light of the resurrection. Preston Sharp writes that on Halloween back then, the church would dress up in costumes to poke fun at the forces of evil because we know that evil is only experiencing its last grasp in this world. A new day has dawned in Christ and light has come into the darkness.

I think that’s a really beautiful way of thinking about Halloween. And even last week as I watched some of our children process down in their superhero costumes, I thought, “Yeah — we’re poking fun at evil, because it doesn’t have the last say here.”

And then we have today — All Saints Day.

This is a day that pushes against the myth of individualism. It is a reminder that we don’t do this faith journey alone — that we’re part of a larger story. It’s a reminder that we as Christians believe that there is a connection with the Church — a cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on and encouraging us with whispers and yelling “Yahoo!” as we wrestle with scripture during Sunday School, as we bring in items to be donated to our homeless neighbors, as we call our senators pleading for them to feed the hungry, as we lift our voices up in choir rehearsal.

But as Preston Sharp also reminds me, All Saints Day is not just a fond remembrance or a general sense of connection. It is attached to hope — and not just any hope, church, but resurrection hope.

When Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians, I think he’s hinting at this kind of hope — this kind of resurrection hope. As Quinton just read, Paul has already heard of the Ephesians’ great faith in Jesus. And I love how he starts some of his letters: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Grace to you and peace to you. And I’m praying ceaselessly for you, and thank you for what you have been doing.” And he says, “I pray that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation — that if you haven’t, that you would come to know Jesus.”

Why? So that with the eyes of your hearts enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which you are called. What are the riches of Jesus’s glorious inheritance among the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe?

Paul wants us to know Jesus because he wants us to know the hope to which we are called. It’s hard to remember that these days — that there’s a hope to which we are called. A hope, he says, that’s rooted in the power of God who raised Christ from the dead, who seated him in heavenly places. God seated Jesus far above the powers of evil. Paul writes — far above authority and power and dominion — knowing that Jesus is the one who overcame those powers, who was the greatest example that love has the last word.

That’s the resurrection hope I think he’s talking about.

And it’s a reminder that we don’t do faith alone. It doesn’t have to be this individual task that I grapple with — that I have to have more of. But no — there are saints and witnesses to this communal faith, too. Like I said earlier, we’re part of a larger story, too. It’s not just up to me — but it’s about us.

It’s a story that centers on hope. And that might be kind of an oversaturated word these days — “hope.” But I don’t think Christian hope means naïve optimism. I don’t think it means this belief that every single thing is going to work out. I don’t think it means this free pass to bypass grief and move on to just the happy and sunny moments.

I love how my old preaching professor Luke Powry put it. He said, “There’s a difference between cheap hope and deep hope.” And between candy theology and real theology.

He said candy theology is like when you’re eating a lollipop and it tastes so good — but then it gets stuck in your teeth and you might get a cavity. It feels really good to hear certain kinds of theologies — and certain kinds of cheap hope — that promise something. And then there’s deep hope — which actually knows loss, which has read the story of a crucifixion, and which has come to see a love that comes from beyond it.

He writes, “Hope is dynamic. It’s expansive. It’s communal. It’s eternal because it is rooted in God.” He says, “And hope is not cheap. It cost God’s Son his life.” And God’s hope persists and refuses to resign to suffering despite all of the despair. God’s resurrection hope rises out of the ash heap of hell. Hope refuses to die, and it is not defined by the present state of the world — it is defined by God.

I want to say that again: it’s not defined by the present state of the world. It is defined by God. A God that I believe in — and maybe you do too — who knew what it meant to die and who knew what it meant to rise and find a seat in a heavenly place.

Today, as we read the names of our saints — even if you know who they are or not — I pray that you, like Paul, give thanks for them. That you are reminded of Paul’s words: that in Jesus we may know the hope to which he has called us. It’s a resurrection hope. It’s a larger story unfolding. It is a cloud of witnesses and a community of people who have held your hymnals, who have graced these pews, who have broken bread, who have laughed with us and baked for us and cried with us and worshiped with us — showing us that even in the darkness, God’s eternal light — if you look for it — it shines.

Amen.

By Our Love

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, October 26, 2025

First of all, everybody looks great this morning. Though Sarah Tarpley did say that I was pretending to be a clergy person, so I'm not sure how to take that. Sarah, would you pray with me?

Loving and gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and everybody’s heart here be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

What makes somebody a Christian?

That's the question that I want you to ponder over these next several minutes. What makes somebody a Christian? Is it their beliefs? When I was growing up, I was taught that all you needed to do to become a Christian were the ABCs. Do you remember these? Admit that you’re a sinner, believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and commit yourself to following him. But as I grew up, I started to feel like this kind of one-time, one-act, one-sentence thing kind of cheapened my faith.

And anyway, if beliefs are what make us Christians, then which beliefs? Because there are 41,000 Protestant denominations in the world. And so, which beliefs make us Christian? And within our own denomination, to be fair, we actually pride ourselves on not confining our beliefs to some creed that must be adhered to. Instead, we have a big tent of people with a variety of beliefs. And we say, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.”

So then what makes somebody a Christian, if not beliefs? Is it belonging? Is it your birthright? That makes sense. It makes sense that if you’re a Christian, it’s because you belong to a Christian community—just like we are Tennesseans because we were born here or we moved here. We’re American because we were born here or we migrated here. And sure, you can be a Christian alone at home by yourself, but so much of Scripture is about community and belonging. But if it’s not belonging, and if it’s not behavior, what makes you a Christian?

Is it behavior? Is your belief connected to behavior? Is your belonging connected to action? It was in the Bible where James said that faith without works is dead. And Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel that many people will say to me, “Lord, Lord,” but only those who have done the will of my Father will enter the kingdom of heaven. And it can’t just be belonging, because belonging is passive, right? I mean, we’re glad that all of you are here today, but your purpose here today is not attendance—it’s action. Belief connected to action.

Let’s run with that for a moment. In our passage for today, Jesus gives us a glimpse into the private prayers of these two people. One is a Pharisee, regarded as a righteous person by all societal standards. The other is a tax collector—someone who had forsaken their own people to pursue wealth and was deeply reviled by the Jewish community of the time. By all accounts, the Pharisee appeared to be this righteous man. He faithfully gave a tenth of all his earnings to charity and subjected himself to rigorous disciplines, actually going above and beyond what the law demanded.

But the focus of his prayer was not on God, but on himself. The word that defined his devotion was “I.” I read that in a commentary this week, and I stopped. The word that defined his devotion was “I.” Rather than expressing his gratitude, he recited his own virtues—his fasting, his tithing, his patriotism, his moral uprightness. His prayer served more as a résumé than a plea. It told God how good he was instead of how good God was.

But the tax collector—the tax collector was known as a thief, as a traitor to his people. But his prayer in this moment was raw and sincere. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt, he couldn’t even lift his eyes to heaven. He just beat his chest in anguish—not so much praying as weeping—and he begged God to please wash away the stain of his soul. While the Pharisee’s prayer revolved around himself, the tax collector’s heart was fixed upon God.

Now, these are two fictitious characters, right? This was a parable—a story that Jesus was telling. The reason he often told these types of stories was to subvert the reality of all those who heard them. This little snippet of a story presents someone that society treasures and someone that society despises—and it makes the person who is treasured the villain and the person who is despised the hero.

Why did he do this? Why does he tell these types of stories? Perhaps it’s to remind us that we don’t know everything. Perhaps it’s to remind us that God still has the ability to change people’s lives. Or maybe it’s to remind us of the humanity of the very people that we despise.

The Pharisee surveyed all those around him and thanked God that he was not like this mass of undeserving individuals—especially the tax collector. He embodied the biases of race and class, showing very little compassion for those who suffered. His righteousness was built by diminishing others. Instead of elevating them, he elevated himself. The Pharisee made himself look taller by pulling others down. And while the tax collector felt unworthy, the Pharisee reveled in his worthiness.

You see, it wasn’t the Pharisee’s beliefs that caused Jesus to scrutinize him. He believed all the right things—everything he was required to believe. And it wasn’t his belonging that made him unrighteous, for he was steeped in the tradition of his upbringing. Instead, it was his behavior.

Now, don’t get me wrong—we need beliefs. Belief is what drives our action. And we need belonging, because belonging is community, and we need each other. We can’t do this alone. But our belief and our belonging must be connected to action if we are truly to live out the gospel.

Now, the cynic might say, “But what about the character’s history of behavior?” Because, to be fair, the tax collector had participated in a system that disparaged his neighbors. It’s probable that the Pharisee otherwise had a history of service to God and neighbor. He said in verse 12 that he gives faithfully back to God and fasts twice a week. That is his behavior, right? Meanwhile, the tax collector prior to this story was betraying his own people to work for the empire—those who had oppressed and occupied his own people. So what gives? What about that behavior? Does that not count for anything?

Here’s the hard truth, friends. The most beautiful and the most frustrating thing about grace—about the love of God, about the gospel message—is that it is freely offered to any and everybody. And that who you’ve been does not dictate who you are or who you will become. This very flawed man with a history of both individual and systemic sin went home justified before God. This passage tells us—and it ends with—all who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.

In reading this story, we are reminded that we don’t know everything, that God has the power to change lives, and that everyone deserves love. Earlier we sang that they will know we are Christians by our love. But I’m not so sure that’s always the case. Perhaps you’ve seen this rebuttal—this sentence that people use on Facebook, on Instagram, etc. They’ll say, “There’s no hate like Christian love.” Have you seen this?

That’s because the world sees the church—sees Christianity—as backwards, behind the times, slow. One study said the majority of the unchurched—and what they know about the church, about the American church specifically—is Christian nationalism, being anti-women, and being anti-gay. Those are the three things that we’re known for. That’s what people think of us. The study went on to say that a majority of unchurched Americans—about 79% actually—think that Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people. Eighty-six percent believe that they can have a good relationship with God without being involved in church.

And what they see the church as is candles, pews, and flowers, rather than people living out their love for God by loving others. And I wish they were wrong—but they are not wrong. We live in a nation in which the majority of our Christian identity is belief and belonging, but not behavior. Across the country, states are trying to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments and teach the Bible as part of their curriculum. Meanwhile, 36.8 million people live in poverty—10 million of those being children. Nearly 1 million people don’t even have housing.

In 2024, our own state legislature made November “Christian Heritage Month.” But now, a year later, this November, we’re kicking 700,000 people off of their SNAP benefits. This is who they think we are because that’s who we’ve shown them we are.

But friends, this is where the gospel comes alive—because who we’ve been doesn’t have to be who we are, and it doesn’t have to be who we’ll become. I’ve told you before, my favorite lyric by Stephen Schwartz is this: “There is no journey gone so far that we cannot stop and change direction. No doom is written in the stars; it’s written in our hands.”

Now, we love to say here at Vine Street Christian Church that everybody has a seat at the table. And friends, before I go on, let me just say that that alone is more welcoming and loving than some of the churches I’ve been at. It is beautiful that we have this belief in the diversity of God’s children. And this belonging that we offer here is something rare. But that belief and that belonging have to be tied to behavior—tied to action.

And we’ve done good work—hard and holy work—but there is so much more to do. And it’s true, this church has a long reputation of being on the right side of history and at the forefront of human progress. But the moment that we think that we’ve done enough, we become the Pharisee in this story.

Yes, we’ve prepared a seat at the table. But some folks can’t even get to the table because they’re working two jobs to support their friends and family, their kids. Yes, we’ve prepared a seat at the table, but they can’t get to the table because they don’t have adequate health care to feel well enough to come to worship. Yes, we’ve prepared a seat at the table, but they can’t even focus on the table because they don’t have housing.

Another call for you to sign up and volunteer for Room in the Inn this winter. We’ve prepared a seat at the table, but some are too afraid to leave their homes for fear of being snatched by ICE, which is detaining people regardless of citizenship status—more so based on the color of their skin. And so maybe it’s time to call our representatives, or show up in their offices, or give to TIRRC—the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Our belief and our belonging have to be tied to behavior and to action. Friends, I think that Jesus was teaching his disciples—and thus teaching us—that everyone is both Pharisee and tax collector in this story. We all succumb to this attitude of being more worthy than somebody else. But it’s only when we humble ourselves—when we lower ourselves—that we can truly be justified before God.

We cannot rest on our beliefs or the community that we belong to. Our behavior has to reflect the love, mercy, justice, and compassion of Christ. And when we do this, we will begin to see the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

So what makes someone a Christian? What makes somebody a Christian? They’ll know we are Christians by our love. Amen.

Wrestling With God

Good morning. It is good to be with you today. This is my second time here at Vine Street, in a way. The first time was, I think, 24 years ago—maybe 23 years ago—when I was a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and one of my good friends, Brian Frederick, was your intern. Brian, who is now the Reverend Brian Frederick Gray, said he knew where there was a basketball hoop where we could play. So, a bunch of us came over here, and we played basketball in your parking lot one day, and it was great. So, thank you for that.

But in the time I lived here, I never did make it to Vine Street for church. I was not, as far as Divinity School students go, very churchgoing. And while I was in school, my wife worked at Woodmont, actually, in the front office. So, when we did go to church, we would go there. But over the years, I have heard—as Paul would often say of congregations—I have heard of the good things and the vitality that happens in this congregation, and I have known about the faithfulness of this community. So, it is a real honor and privilege to be here with you today among all of you, and I’m grateful for the invitation.

Would you pray with me for a moment?
God who travels with us always, be with us here and now, and be in our words, and be in our thoughts, and be in our spirits. Amen.

Here’s a little glimpse into my biography. When I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to begin divinity school in the fall of the year 2000, the moving truck that I unloaded at Disciples Divinity House in Nashville I had loaded at an evangelical summer camp in North Carolina. I had been on staff all that summer, as I had for six summers before that, at a camp run by a famous evangelist you have definitely heard of before—or maybe you even once went to one of his crusades. And I moved out of staff housing at that camp, and later that same day, I ended up at Vanderbilt.

And if you know anything about the evangelical world, and if you know Vanderbilt Divinity School, then you know that that was quite a transition. And maybe some of you have lived through a transition like that one. Maybe you grew up in a conservative Christian setting. Or maybe, like me, you were swept up in the evangelical fervor of the 1980s and 1990s. Or maybe, like me, you just grew up in the South, where everyone is at least a little bit Southern Baptist whether they say so or not. At least that was my experience.

So, that transition—from the evangelical summer camp to Divinity School, that movement from the heart of conservative American Christianity to the progressive edge of mainline Protestantism—for me, that was a pretty dramatic ride. Although I have ended up in a very different place in my life, there are many things I appreciated about my time in the evangelical world. Although it is not my spiritual or religious home anymore, I still appreciate many of the ways I was invited into faithfulness in that place and time.

I felt invited into having a personal relationship with God, and often that was good. I felt invited into an emotional connection to worship with praise songs and altar calls, and there were times when I really appreciated that way of connecting with God. I often felt invited to think of myself as a servant of God—as someone who was called and sent to do God’s work—and I saw a lot of value in thinking and feeling that way.

But there was one thing that I never felt very much of in those evangelical days. There was one thing that I never felt myself invited to do, and it’s connected to our scripture for today. In those evangelical days, I never felt invited to wrestle with God.

Now, if you are a close reader of scripture, you may be objecting just now to the idea that this passage from Genesis is a story about wrestling with God. After all, in verse 24, it says quite plainly that “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” But later in the passage, in verse 30, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” And actually, in a different part of the Bible, in Hosea 12, it says there that Jacob wrestled with God that night. And it also says that he wrestled with an angel. So, it might have been a man, and it might have been an angel, but I think it was God in one form or another.

I think it was God that Jacob wrestled with there by the banks of the Jabbok River. And Jacob wrestled God to a draw, which is, I think, some pretty good wrestling.

I think one of the reasons I never felt very welcome to wrestle with God when I was an evangelical is that we had this model of God as a totally other kind of being. We had this notion of God as a wholly different thing than us—as unapproachable and totally perfect. We had this idea of God as a kind of flawless repository of all the unimpeachable morality of the universe, and that God’s role was to demand that same flawlessness of the rest of us and to punish us when we somehow did not manage to be perfect.

You cannot wrestle with someone like that. You cannot contend with a perfect and flawless being. If you ever find yourselves at odds with a God like that, we thought—if you ever find yourselves at odds with God—you are wrong. And you’d better admit it as quickly as you can and hope that God will forgive you of your wrongness. If you ever find yourself sideways with that kind of God, there’s nothing you can do except acknowledge your own fallen depravity and beg that perfect God for mercy.

I did feel invited to do that. I did feel invited to name my own sinfulness and acknowledge my inadequacy before God. And I did feel invited to understand that only the blood and sacrifice of Jesus could ever make me right with God. But I never felt like I was allowed to wrestle.

It turns out, though, I think that God likes to wrestle. That’s what I wish someone had told me back then. That’s what I wish I’d known. That’s what I wish someone had given me permission to do. I wish I had understood that our God is a wrestling kind of God.

The Bible is full of stories of people contending with God, grappling with God. And more often than you might think, the Bible is full of stories of people wrestling with God to a draw, at least metaphorically. Abraham wrestles with God over the fate of Sodom. Abraham talks God down in a long negotiation, and in the end, Abraham convinces God to at least spare his nephew Lot. Moses wrestles with God over the fate of Israel and convinces God not to destroy them. Another time, when God promised destruction, a king named Ahab was able to convince God to postpone the disaster by his demonstrations of repentance.

And of course, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was wrestling with God and with his own fate. And there are stories of others—others like Paul and Elijah and Jonah—others who went a few rounds with God on the way to accepting and carrying out their callings. Taken as a whole, the stories from the Bible suggest to me that God not only tolerates wrestling but that God actually appreciates it when we engage—that God actually likes the feeling of contending and grappling with human beings. That God might actually prefer a good wrestling match from time to time.

What does it mean to wrestle with God? Most of us do not get an experience like the one Jacob had. Most of us are not ambushed by a divine figure looking for a late-night scrap. Most of us do not meet God face to face. Instead, most of us encounter God through the Bible, and we encounter God through our traditions and through our communities and through God’s wide world. For most of us, the wrestling does not happen by a river at night, but instead, it happens in the living of our lives and the ways we find ourselves confronted by the hard realities of the world.

For most of us, the wrestling happens in the ways we live through the easy times and the hard times. We look to the Bible, and we find beautiful things there, and we find hard things there too. And I think we are called to wrestle with them both—to grapple with the ways God speaks through scripture. We look to our churches, and we find the intense joys of common purpose and shared community, and we also find hurt and pain and disillusionment. And I think we are called to wrestle with our institutions and the way God shows up in them—or doesn’t.

We wrestle with God while we are stuck in traffic and while we’re sitting in hospital waiting rooms. We wrestle with God when we see the day’s headlines. And we wrestle with God in relationships we share with other people. Most of us never get a moment of clarity like the moment that Jacob must have had alone there by the Jabbok River, striving all night with divinity in the dark. But most of us do get our share of long nights. Most of us do find ourselves locking arms with God at one point or another and trying to wrestle with the biggest thing we know how to name.

This morning in the Sunday School hour, we talked about another passage from this week’s lectionary—not this passage from Genesis, but one from Second Timothy. Some of you were there for that, but if you weren’t there, you might recognize the passage anyway. It’s the one that says, in most translations, that all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

That passage—and that verse in particular—has been cited as evidence that we should not wrestle with God. That verse has been quoted as a way to shut down any attempt to wrestle with the God we find in scripture. After all, if all scripture is inspired by God and useful, then anything we might have to say about it would be irrelevant anyway, wouldn’t it? That’s what they told me anyway in my evangelical days: any response or interpretation we might have of scripture would be beside the point, because it has already been decided for us. In that way of seeing things, all scripture is inspired by God, and wrestling with scripture can only take you in the wrong direction.

But this morning in the Sunday School hour, we talked about another translation of that verse. We talked about another possible way to understand that passage, and that way reads that “every scripture that is inspired by God is useful.” Every scripture that is inspired by God is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training. And when you put it that way—when you say that every scripture that is inspired is useful, instead of all scripture is inspired by God—the verse no longer reads like it’s scolding you for asking a question. Instead, the verse becomes an invitation to wrestle.

When you translate it that way, that part of Second Timothy turns into an invitation to grapple with the Bible and with the God who is known in the Bible. And it becomes an invitation to the faithful discernment of how God has inspired the writings that have come down to us today.

Jacob wrestled with God through a long night, all the way until the first streaks of light began to show over the river to the east—until neither of them could prevail. Jacob wrestled with God all the way to a daybreak draw. And as the sun began to rise, God asked Jacob to release his grip. God asked Jacob to let God go. And audaciously, Jacob would not do it until God blessed him.

This is, by the way, one of the reasons scholars think that Jacob was wrestling with God in the story and not just a man—because there are many stories from that time and place of divine beings that only appear at night and cannot be caught out in the daylight. So, God gives Jacob a blessing, and God gives Jacob a name. God gives Jacob a new name to mark his time of wrestling because, God says, Jacob had striven with God and with humans and prevailed. And two verses later, Jacob says of the experience, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.”

That, I think, is the lesson here. That is the thing we are meant to understand. And that is the thing I was never invited to know in my evangelical days: that wrestling with God is not only permitted but invited. That grappling with God is not only survivable but it is life-changing.

Our God is not a God of power trips and punishments for questions. Our God is not some perfect and changeless being off on a cloud somewhere. Our God is a wrestling God. Our God welcomes your most strenuous striving. Our God greets your questions and your contention. And our God respects your wrestling at daybreak when the long night is through. And our God, perhaps, even rewards you for all your struggle—with a new way to call yourself and with a renewed life to live.

So, friends, do not be afraid of wrestling, and do not be afraid of God. But when those long nights come, meet God in the darkness and wrestle there until the soft dawn breaks again. Amen.

Your Faith Has Made You Well

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, October 12, 2025

In our story this morning, we meet ten lepers. And you've heard us talk about leprosy before — this skin disease that was seen as being really contagious. One theologian reminded me this morning that having leprosy in that time made it look like you were dying, like your skin was slowly becoming corpse-like. And when people saw you, they were reminded of the imminence of death.

Anyone suffering from leprosy would have been in social isolation. They would have been removed from their families. They wouldn't have received any more loving touches or looks with dignity. They were seen as outcasts and pariahs, and only fear met them.

They weren’t made to wander in the desert, as we might think. They weren’t — we might think they weren’t, you know, just off that far away. What we learn very quickly in this story is that Jesus enters a village, which means that they were on the outskirts of society, but they were still witnessing the life of a community that they could not be a part of — which, I don’t know about you, but for me, that almost makes it worse.

So Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, and as he enters this village, he sees ten of these people who are afflicted. And they approach him — and you probably caught this — they approach him at a distance. Yeah, that’s what they’ve been conditioned to do. They approach him at a distance. Were they trembling in fear? Were they still a little bit suspicious of this man they had heard whispers about, who was able to heal people and perform miracles? Were they desperate for his mercy?

They call out to him, “Master, have mercy on us. Have mercy on us.” And when Jesus sees them, he says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Priests, church, at that time were the ones responsible for declaring whether someone was healed or not — not this radical rabble-rouser from Nazareth — but the priests made the decision in the end. And so this group obeyed him, and they went. And somewhere along the way — we don’t quite know where — they were made clean.

Imagine that feeling of having these sores on your body, of feeling like a corpse, of the pain of these wounds — and then being made clean. The ones who appeared to be dying, church, were given new life, which is a little bit of foreshadowing, is it not? But not because the priests declared it so, but because they were made clean along the way. No — it’s because Jesus made it so.

And we then learn that one of the ten — only one of the ten — after seeing that he is healed, after seeing that he is made clean, turns back. He leaves the company of these men and women that he may have been with in distance, in their own broken and outcasted community. And he turns back.

And he’s not just some regular man who was healed from a disease — he was a Samaritan. He was a Samaritan. He was a hated religious outcast. He was seen as a heretic. He was seen as a foreigner. He was seen as the villain in this story. And he is the one who turns back toward Jesus. Yeah. He turns back.

And we’re reminded in this moment that the gospel often has this wild sense of humor — that in this story, we learn neighbor love from the character that people are most likely to despise. The person we want to hate and want to send back to Samaria, back to where they came from, is the very one who introduces grace and gratitude to us.

He goes back — scripture says he praises God with a loud voice. He’s not afraid to speak up anymore. He is healed. He doesn’t have to cower in shame or fear. He can be as loud as he wants to and say, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

In that moment of complete and wild joy — maybe for the first time he could do that in years. This time he doesn’t cower. This time he doesn’t distance himself. This time he prostrates himself and kneels in front of the one who healed him. And he thanks him. He thanks him.

I have to wonder what he said to Jesus as he knelt at his feet when he said thank you. I wonder if he said, “Jesus, thank you — when no one else would look at me, you did. Jesus, thank you for the healing that I’ve heard you’ve done for so many others — to the bent-over woman and the boy with the demon, to the bleeding woman and the widow’s son, to the centurion’s servant and the man with a withered hand, to the paralytic, to the man with an unclean spirit. I’ve been hearing about what you’ve been doing. Thank you that you would do this for the outcast and the rejected, for the misunderstood and the dejected. Thank you.

Thank you for risking your reputation and your dignity, for being willing to heal us even though it might deem you one of the marked ones. Thank you. Thank you. I’ve heard you even healed people on the Sabbath, bending the laws in order to spread this gospel of love. Thank you. Thank you for seeing us as human beings — even the ones outside the gate, even the ones for whom the dogs were licking their sores. Thank you.

Thank you for treating me, a foreigner and an outsider — a villain in so many people’s eyes — with the respect and the care that I had forgotten that I deserve. Praise God for you, Jesus. Praise God for showing us mercy. Praise God for the blessings you have bestowed on my life. Praise God that I could be welcomed back into this community for the first time in ages. Praise God that my suffering is gone, that my pain is no more, that my wounds are healed, that my skin is smooth again, that my sores have vanished. Praise God that I get to hold my baby boy, that I get to hug my husband, that I get to have a meal with my cousins, that I get to embrace my friends — for how I have missed them. So praise God for you. Thank you.”

What a remarkable, remarkable moment of grace, is it not?

And putting ourselves in the shoes of the ten — or the nine, at this point — when Jesus asks, “Wait, weren’t ten made clean? Where are the other nine, guys and gals?” I’ve got to wonder — as maybe N. T. Wright hints — maybe those nine were afraid to go back and identify with this man who would now be deemed a marked one for the ways he was healing and touching people that were deemed untouchable. They didn’t want to be associated with him. They had just received this blessing and this cleansing.

Or maybe they were so excited to see their families, they just sprinted away to go find them. I would have done that, too. Or maybe — I don’t know — maybe they didn’t think they had any right to go back and look for the one, the Son of God. Maybe the priests told them not to go back, because the priests were the ones who declared them cleansed, not this rabble-rouser.

In any case, they are not there. And when Jesus asks, “Was none of them found to return? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except for this foreigner?” we know the answer.

I wonder if Jesus was hurt by this or confused by this. I wonder if he was saddened by the reality that despite everything he had done for God’s people, they would still leave him in the dust, alone.

But to the one who returned, one thing is clear: Jesus doesn’t care about this man’s religious status. Jesus doesn’t care about his citizenship status when he heals him. He doesn’t say, “Show me your papers, and then I’ll heal you.” He doesn’t believe in separating this man from his family. He doesn’t care if he’s going to get in trouble with the authorities or not. He doesn’t call for or approve state-sanctioned violence and send armies to go and beat and imprison this man — to deport and demean him. He doesn’t care about that. No, our God doesn’t work that way.

His healing is not limited by language or ethnicity, by nationality or economic status. His healing doesn’t care even about the quantity of this man’s faith — because we heard last week from Pastor Sele, all you need is the faith of a teeny-weeny little mustard seed. He doesn’t care about the quantity; he cares, church, about the nature of this man’s faith. The nature of this man’s faith. He cares that he came back. He cares that he returned and said thank you. He cares that he praised God. He cares that the attitude of this man’s faith was gratitude.

I did not mean to rhyme there, but there you go.

And as John Buchanan writes, faith without gratitude is not faith at all. He says, “There is something life-giving about gratitude.” There is something life-giving about gratitude.

And I could read you all these studies that I read this week about the science behind gratitude and the statistics about what it does for your mental health, for your physical health, for the chemical balance in your body. And I could say, “You need to write more thank-you notes.” And I could say, “You need to say thank you to five people every day.” And I could say, “You need to be more grateful. You need to make a list every single evening with everything that you want to say thank you for — for the sun, for this amazing family and baby that was dedicated, for the food in front of you this day, for a body that got you here, for a church community that surrounds you in love, even when you’re annoying, even when you get it wrong.”

But I don’t need to tell you that, because this story speaks for itself, does it not?

This story — this leper, this man — he returns not to get healed; he returns because he was healed. Oh, that’s powerful. His desire is not transactional for the Savior. His desire is simply to say thank you.

And this is no small act — especially in the Gospel of Luke. And this is the only gospel where we hear this story. This double outcast — this leper and this foreigner — his faith is made complete because it includes gratitude. Our faith is made complete because it involves praise.

And we see it so often in the Gospel of Luke. Remember Simeon and Anna and how they praise God. Remember all of the witnesses to the miracles of Jesus who see them and then praise God. Remember especially the centurion at the foot of the cross, who sees Jesus’s final selfless and compassionate last moments and praises God — these unexpected characters who teach us something about faith, who flip the script for us over and over again, that the villains become heroes and that the outcasts become our guideposts for how to be in this world.

Praising God was a very natural response to what they saw and what they experienced. The last sentence in this passage — the very last one — echoes a lot of what Jesus says in his previous healings in Luke. He says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

One of the things I love most about this man — and this God made flesh — is that he does not stop at physical healing. That’s never where the story ends. He stops at wellness. He stops at being made well.

And I think that’s a really important distinction, because as people in the medical trade know, it is one thing to bandage up someone, and it is another to show dignity and welcome them back into a community that embraces them — that doesn’t judge them. Jesus wants us to pay attention to this, and we see it over and over again. And it looks like being given the opportunity to fully participate in the life of a community again. That our skin is not made smooth for nothing, but that we return — turned back — to a place that ushers us into the kingdom of God and says, “Welcome back. We missed you. Welcome back. We’re so sorry we didn’t see you. Welcome back. You have every right to be here.”

Healing first, but wholeness finally.

And to the ones who didn’t turn back to find Jesus — because I would have been one of those nine, absolutely — Luke doesn’t say that they were any less healed. He just implies that they were less grateful. That’s the distinction. And here he insinuates that it’s in the thanking that saves this grateful leper.

And this kind of thankfulness — it’s available to us every day and every second, and it’s free of cost.

So, as we look to Mary’s Magnificat of praise, as we look to Simeon and Anna, as we look to the centurion, as we look to the witnesses of so many miracles, and to this outcast and to this leper, we sing every week a song of gratitude.

So — will you be the one who turns back? Will you be the one who turns around and runs and seeks the face of Christ and kneels at his feet and can’t help but praise him — to this God who not only heals but makes us well?

And as we will sing soon — as we sing every week — as a reminder of the importance of praise:

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise God, all creatures here below.
Praise God above, ye heavenly host,
Creator, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

And we say amen. Amen. And amen. And we say thank you.