What Freedom Looks Like

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, October 4, 2026

Good morning. If you've been here for the last couple of weeks, you know that we just spent four weeks in the book of Revelation. And personally, I really enjoyed that study because revisiting these books of the Bible that we don't spend a lot of time in and kind of reclaiming those books from those who would use it to instill fear, conformity, and power has been really, really empowering for me. And now we're about to spend three weeks in the book of Exodus. And while we didn't know what the world would look like when we planned this, I can't think of a more perfect transition.

Because as we said, Revelation was never written to help Christians escape the world. It was written to help Christians see the world more clearly. Revelation refuses to let us look away. It pulls back the curtain. It exposes the realities that we've learned to easily ignore, and it wakes us up. It was written to those seven churches in Asia Minor, as you might remember, that had become comfortable with the way things were. Churches that were tempted to accommodate injustice, churches that had settled into apathy, while systems of violence and oppression carried on around them. And John's message to them was, "Don't worry, you'll get out of here soon." His message was, "Wake up. Pay attention. God is at work, and God is calling you to be faithful now."

And that perfectly brings us to the book of Exodus. For many of us, the Ten Commandments are familiar. We know them as rules. We know them as laws. We know them as religious obligations that we've heard since growing up. But before God gives a single commandment, God says something else. God says, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." So this text doesn't begin with the rules. This text begins with liberation.

God is speaking to people who have known oppression. People who have lived under a system where some lives mattered more than others. Systems where people have experienced violence and exploitation and fear. And God says, now you are free. This is what freedom looks like. This is how a community of justice and dignity and belonging lives together. These commandments teach us what life looks like when God rather than fear holds power. They teach us what society looks like when human beings are treated as sacred. They teach us that neighbors matter, that workers deserve rest, that truth matters, that families matter, that life itself matters.

So, as we begin this three-week series on exploring Exodus, it's worth remembering where the Israelites were when they heard these commandments and what events took us and led us to this place. Because these commandments were not given to a comfortable people or a settled people. They were given to a people who were on a journey. A people who were learning to live in freedom after generations of bondage and slavery.

You see, after celebrating their deliverance at the Red Sea with songs of praise, they quickly faced the hardships of the wilderness together. They complain about the bitter water and the hunger and thirst that they experienced. And again and again and again, God responds with provision for them, making the water drinkable, sending manna and quail for food, and bringing water even from a rock. Along the way, they are attacked by the Amalekites, but they are sustained through God's help. Jethro, who you might remember from the movie Prince of Egypt, is the father-in-law of Moses, and he advises Moses to share leadership responsibilities so that the community can learn to flourish together.

Finally, in the third month after leaving Egypt, 90 days later, the Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai, and there God reminds them that they have been carried on eagles' wings out of Egypt and invites them into this covenantal relationship with God. The people prepare themselves amid thunder and lightning and smoke and this trembling earth. This really dramatic scene, and God descends upon the mountain, setting the stage for giving of the Ten Commandments that we read this morning.

This is again a people who are learning to trust God in freedom. And so God reminds them who he is. And God gives us these Ten Commandments that so many of us learned growing up. Have no other gods before me. Make no idols. Do not use the Lord's name in vain. Remember the Sabbath. Honor your parents. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not lie. And do not covet.

What I really love so much about revisiting these books, as I mentioned, such as Genesis in June and Revelation last month and now Exodus this month, is that we get to revisit these texts that we've heard a thousand times and perhaps learn something new about them. Perhaps something that we didn't learn when we were younger, or perhaps something that we weren't ready to learn until we had experienced life as an adult. So let's walk through these commandments again, maybe with new eyes this time.

Number one, have no other gods before me. In the ancient world, other gods were often linked to empires and military power, wealth, and social hierarchy. Today, our gods may take different forms, such as nationalism, greed, consumerism, perhaps political ideology, white supremacy, the things that we hold on to in our systems. Systems that demand ultimate loyalty while harming God's children. These modern idols promise security and identity, but often at the expense of justice and human dignity. So this first commandment asks us whether our deepest loyalty and where it is and where it lies. Will we follow the God who liberates the oppressed or the gods of profit and exploitation? Will we serve the God who hears the cries of the vulnerable or the gods of wealth and power and domination? Will our allegiance belong to God's beloved community or to those systems that other and dehumanize?

Number two, make no idols. The second commandment warns us about idols. And we often hear that word and we think of golden calves or carved statues or ancient temples, but idols are not confined to the ancient world, are they? An idol is anything that we create and trust more than we trust God. An idol is anything that claims our loyalty and shapes our identity and demands our devotion. Wealth can become an idol. Political power can become an idol. Nationalism can become an idol. Even religion can become an idol, when we begin to worship our idea of religion, our image of God, rather than the living God.

The dangers of idols, though, is that they always make God smaller. Idols reduce God to something that's manageable, something that we can control and possess, something that we can use to justify our own agendas, something that we can easily overlook or ignore. This week, the Secretary of War stood in front of military leadership and our brave folks in uniform and said that we are fighting a war against religious fanatics. And then he went on to quote scripture more than he did military strategy. Meanwhile, this senseless war continues. You see, we love to create a God who looks like us, who thinks like us, who votes like us, who blesses everything that we already believe. But the living God refuses to be contained by our own assumptions or by our ideologies or our fears. The call of this commandment is to let God be God. Refusing to bow before any image, ideology, or institution, or power that demands devotion that belongs to God.

Number three, don't use the Lord's name in vain. I remember getting popped when I was little. Popped every time I said, "Oh my God," instead of, "Oh my gosh." Anybody else? You got the scars to prove it. As if God really cared about the difference of those three little letters. As an adult, I know that while, yes, language does matter, that is an extreme oversimplification of what that commandment is saying. We were told that it means not cursing or not swearing or not speaking God's name carelessly. But this commandment is about far more than just words.

In the biblical world, a name represented a person's character, a person's reputation, and their identity. To bear God's name meant that you represent God before the world. Let me say that again. To bear God's name meant to represent God before the world. So the real question is not how often we say God's name, but how faithfully we live in God's name. We take God's name in vain whenever we claim God's authority for things that contradict God's character. We take God's name in vain when we use religion to justify prejudice or exclusion or oppression or violence. We take God's name in vain when we speak of God's love while refusing that love to our neighbors. We can avoid every swear word in the world and still break this commandment every day.

Number four, keep the Sabbath. Now, here's where I'm preaching to myself, y'all. If you know me, I'm not content unless I'm doing three too many things at once. This commandment reads like this in the NIV version: "Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not work on it. Not you, not your sons or daughters, or your male or female servants, not your animals, or the immigrant who's living with you."

The commandment to remember the Sabbath is about more than just taking a day off. It declares that our worth is not measured in our productivity. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt. Right there, their value was defined by how much they could produce. But by giving them Sabbath, God taught them a new way of living. That they were no longer slaves, but free. And notice too that the Sabbath is not reserved for the powerful or the wealthy. It's for everybody. Everyone is included. Children, servants, immigrants, even animals. Sabbath is one of the Bible's most radical visions of justice, because everyone is entitled to rest. It reminds me that God's kingdom is not built on endless labor and exhaustion or expectation.

So perhaps the Sabbath question asks us this: Are we living as a free people, or are we still serving the idols of productivity, achievement, and busyness? Ouch, that one hurt. Are we living as a free people? Are we still serving the idols of productivity, achievement, and busyness? I know I am. But this commandment invites us to resist a world that tells us that our value comes from what we do, and instead to remember that our value comes from what God gives us, who we are.

Number five, honor your parents. The commandment to honor our father and mother is often heard simply as just obedience, right? But it's really about sustaining healthy relationships and communities across generations. In the ancient world, honoring parents meant recognizing our responsibilities to one another and ensuring that our elders, our families, our communities were cared for rather than abandoned. This commandment calls us to build a society where people can age with dignity, where families have the support that they need to flourish, and where we learn from those who came before us while also preparing this world for those that come after us. Honoring our parents is not about blindly accepting what they say or do, but rather about recognizing our interconnectedness with them and taking responsibility for one another and each other's well-being.

Number six, do not kill.

Sometimes things happen in the world that forces us to pay attention, don't they? This week was one of those moments for sure. Across Tennessee, many people found themselves talking again about life and death, justice, punishment, and what it means for a society to take a human life. The attempted execution of Christa Pike brought difficult questions back into public view. Questions about accountability, about mercy, about whether redemption is possible. Questions that many of us and many in our society would rather not think about.

I'd say Christa Pike, who did do something unimaginable and inexcusable in 1995 when she took the life of Colleen Slemmer, has spent nearly 30 years on death row. And despite several other botched executions this year, they proceeded with lethal injection this past Wednesday. The execution descended into chaos when Pike, who's aged 50, survived two rounds of lethal injection drugs and was rushed to the hospital. Her attorneys on October 2nd said that she was unconscious and on a ventilator. "Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike's life and clear the pentobarbital from her system," her attorney said on Friday, comparing pentobarbital to bleach and Drano. It's caustic and highly alkaline and burns upon contact, including skin, tissue, and veins. And apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed, or that the veins had blown and the pentobarbital was in whole or in part entering Ms. Pike's body.

A catastrophic failure on Wednesday that caused Frank Strada, the commissioner of the prison system, to resign right as they are opening an investigation. And one would think that after this gruesome, inhumane treatment, you would think that you might see the complexity, the expensiveness, the sickening truth of state-sanctioned murder as a sign that perhaps we don't need to be taking a life. And yet the woman who is most likely to become our governor made bringing back the electric chair a campaign promise. God help us.

You see, we love to cite "do not kill" when it comes to abortion, and apparently abortion only. Not when it comes to genocide across the globe. Not when it comes to the wars that we start. Not when it comes to the 52 people who've died in ICE custody. Not for the 18 migrant miscarriages that have occurred in ICE custody. Not when it comes to the 256 transgender lives lost last year to violence. But friends, "do not kill" says that every human life is sacred, because every single person bears the image of God. We do not get to assign worth based on what they've done or who they are, where they're from, if they've come here legally, because they have been claimed by God.

Number seven, eight, and nine. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. I think these are pretty self-explanatory. All of these are about honoring the dignity of others while protecting the trust that makes community possible and those relationships possible. In each case, the harm extends beyond just an individual act. It weakens the bonds that hold us together. These commandments recognize that healthy relationships and communities are built on mutual respect, integrity, and faithfulness.

Under these commandments, young men should know that they can never violate a young woman unconscious in such a disgusting way as the Cornell 7 did. And furthermore, under these commandments, the powers that be know that they cannot make excuses for them. They cannot assign them essays instead of jail sentences. They cannot worry about these young men's futures, but not the safety of these young women on their campuses. These commandments call us to reject every form of exploitation. They call us to be trustworthy in our relationships and equitable in our dealings with others. At their core, these commandments ask whether we are treating people as gifts to be cherished or objects to use.

And finally, number ten, do not covet. This commandment moves beyond our actions and into desires. While the other commandments focus on what we do, this one asks us to examine what's happening in our hearts. Coveting begins when we become consumed by something that belongs to someone else, whether it's possessions or status or success or relationships. And I think growing up, we all thought this was just wanting other people's stuff, right? I admit I've coveted Brock's boat. It's a beautiful boat. He's since sold it, unfortunately, but I coveted it for sure. I coveted the $39.5 million house I saw in Zillow the other day in Fort Lauderdale. Looked beautiful.

But after going through these today, I think we all know that it's so much more, so much deeper than just wanting other people's stuff, right? This commandment challenges a culture that constantly tells us that we are incomplete, that we need more to be worthy or successful or happy. It calls us away from scarcity and comparison and greed and invites us instead into gratitude and generosity and contentment. Rather than viewing others as competitors or their blessings as threats, we are called to celebrate one another's flourishing and work towards a community where everybody has enough. God's vision of this world is not defined by endless wanting, but by a beloved community that is shaped by gratitude and generosity and mutual care.

So perhaps that's the question before us this morning. In a world still marked by violence and division and injustice, will we treat these commandments as ancient words carved into stone? Or will we hear them as God's living invitation to become a different kind of people, now, here? Because these commandments were never merely about personal morality. They were about forming a beloved community. A people who worship God instead of idols. A people who tell the truth. A people who honor one another's dignity. A people who rest when they need it. A people who honor life. A people who reject greed and exploitation and violence. A people who reflect God's dream for the world.

So hear this charge this morning, and think about these things as we reflect on the book of Exodus this month: that the God who spoke at Sinai is still speaking now. The God who spoke at Sinai is still calling us now. Calling us away from idols of power and fear. Calling us away from the lies that divide and dehumanize. Calling us away from the violence that wounds God's vulnerable children, and instead is calling us towards justice, calling us towards mercy, calling us towards beloved community. So maybe the question is not, is God still speaking, but instead, are we awake, and are we ready to hear it?

Your Vision of Heaven

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 27, 2026

I asked in the newsletter this week: what's your vision of heaven? Jack sent me... thank you for responding to the newsletter, Jack. Wow. Jack sent me a really beautiful answer of how he perceives heaven, and I would love to read how you do as well.

What's hard about all of this being-alive business is that we're in the middle. The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "You don't wish to live without the beginning, without the end, because being in the middle causes you anxiety." God created, and we were not front row for it. God will reconcile all things into a new heaven and a new earth, but we haven't gotten tickets to that show yet either. So we often wonder, with great awe and fear and maybe even curiosity: what happens after this? Where do we go when we die? Heaven. What does heaven look like? Who gets to go? What might it be like? These are questions that a lot of us have wrestled with. Some from a young age, and some who are older are wrestling with that as they reckon with and face their own mortality.

I started thinking about it more when my sister-in-law Tallu was diagnosed with brain cancer and died about five years ago. She wrote a beautiful book called What We Wish Were True, and it's about reckoning with life when you know you're going to die. She was actually buried out at Larkspur Conservation, wrapped in a shroud, and we buried her in the ground. It was a really beautiful moment and also very intimate with death. In this book, at the very end of it, she writes a meditation, and she calls it "Some of What It Might Be Like," where she's maybe wondering what happens after she died. This is what she writes, just a little bit of it:

"It might be that I'm a waxy leaf rushing downstream, following the curve of the water, flipping, tumbling, somersaulting down the watershed, a delight right in the water. Or maybe I will be cosmic, a ball of light, a star in the night sky, obvious and out loud. Or maybe I will be a song, golden words rolling off of someone's tongue, a tune anyone can hum. Or maybe I will be the ears that hear it."

And she continues on. She says, "Maybe I'll be a wide quilt large enough to cover a multitude. Maybe I'll be a box turtle lounging on a log to get as much of that hot sun. Maybe I'll be a forest floor, damp, sweet, constantly renewing itself through death and decomposition." She goes on and on, wondering what it might be like. And this is the last line of her book: "May we become all of this and more."

If you have been hanging out with us this month, you have persisted through quite a book. We have heard about dragons and beasts. We've heard about seven seals being broken from a scroll. We've heard about seven trumpets blasting and seven bowls of wrath being poured on God's people. We've heard about the four horsemen. There's stuff in there about the mark of the beast and the lake of fire. All this violence, all this chaos. It's not a prediction of what's to come. It's a wake-up call from a guy named John who's exiled on an island, writing to seven churches that need to be awakened to the ways in which they are complacent to empire. Y'all know anybody like that? The realities of Rome.

It's too much to wrap our heads around. And so for fifteen chapters, John is giving us a diagnosis. You want to know how broken the world is? He says, "I'll show you." You want to know how complicit we are in systems of oppression? "I'll write it out for you." It's been a hard couple of chapters to get through, and we've spent the last few weeks looking pretty unflinchingly at the pathology report. And now today, finally, we get to hear about how to heal this illness. We hear about heaven. And for a guy on an island, we hear about some of what it might be like.

And some of what it might be like actually begins with (I don't know why we love the number seven in this book) seven things it won't be like. It's an interesting way to hear nos as we try to figure out God's final yes. He says, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I saw a holy city, a new Jerusalem. It was actually coming down from heaven to us."

And the first thing he says of what it's not like, he says, "The sea was no more." For those of you, when you picture some of what it might be like, your toes in the sand, you looking out at the water, that's not really what he's talking about here. The sea in those times represented chaotic power. In Revelation 12 and 13, we read about a beast coming out of the sea, a metaphor for the Roman Empire, for these armies and imperial cults who would come to touch ground and rule. Chaotic power coming to threaten and intimidate the people. The sea will be no more. Maybe also for John, the sea is what's separating him from his beloved communities. There will be no more separation, and I will not be exiled on this island far away from you. The sea will be no more. That's his first vision of heaven.

Two: there will be no tears, death, sorrow, crying, or pain. The home of God is not somewhere up there or out here. God says, "I'm among mortals. I will dwell with you. You will be my people, and I will be with you." Death will be no more. Mourning will be no more. Pain will be no more. Crying and suffering will be no more. Not in this new heaven.

The third thing it won't be: there will be no cowards, no faithless, no polluted folks, no murderers, no idolaters, no liars. The people reading this would have known exactly who John was talking about. People who were bending the knee to Rome. People who would rather worship an emperor than worship a loving God. People who were so scared of the wrath, of the greed and power of a leader, that they turned away from what was inside of them to bow down to something intimidating and threatening. He said there's no more of that. There's no wealth hoarding. There's no power mongering. There's no lying. There's no fear spreading in the new heaven.

And then no temple. No temple in heaven, no set-apart place where we encounter God, 'cause God is everywhere in heaven. No temple. No... and I'm looking at Katie... no electric bills. No gnats in the sink. No internet woes. No HVAC systems going down. There's no church tension and strife. There's no place to go to church in the heavenly city, because what John is describing is that God is the temple. The Lamb, Jesus, is the temple. We don't need to siphon off in buildings to gather, even though we know, Vine Street, that we gather in order to go out and be the church in the world. John is saying God is that, permeating everything and everywhere in this holy city.

And the fifth thing it won't be: the city has no need for sun or moon or light, because the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. There is light in the heavenly city because God is that glorious light. Isn't that a beautiful image? Its lamp is the Lamb. Say that ten times fast.

The sixth: there will be no closed gates in this city. Everyone is welcome in. There is no lock. There is no password. There is no discriminating against who is in and who is not out. The entrance of the city is open to all people.

The seventh thing John says heaven won't be: there's no curse. Nothing is accursed. The angel shows John nothing will be cursed anymore. We'll be stripped bare of all of our shame, of all of our guilt, of all of our resentment, of all of our anger, of being naked and afraid. We will walk vulnerable and open into God's loving embrace, into this new city.

What do y'all think of that?

It's easy to dream of this new Jerusalem, this new city coming down, this future that we can escape to in our minds. But did you notice that when John was writing about this, he used some past-tense verbs? He said, "I saw a new heaven and earth," like Mary and the Magnificat. God has already filled the hungry with good things, already sent the rich away empty. It's been fulfilled. The already and the not yet. And if it's been fulfilled, and it is being realized before us, maybe we have a part in making it happen. John saw it. As William Pender writes, John cracks the window shades on this room that we call reality, and we catch a glimpse of God's world surrounding us, just beyond the walls of reality.

What changes for you? What changes for me if we believe that heaven is not remote? It's not what we wait for until the rapture comes. It's not where we go when we die, or not just that. But as Eugene Peterson says, it is immediate, and it is also barely out of range of our senses, but it's brought to our senses because of this guy's vision.

So heaven begins on earth, at least for John. It's the invisible to which we are drawn now, he says. And when we are drawn to it, it will develop into a full visibility, a full completion. And the features of heaven John describes, they are what we already know. I've seen it. Have you seen it? I've seen the seven nos that John lays out. There's no chaotic power when I hold a baby. There's no tears or sorrow when I spend time out at our church camp. There's no cowards or liars when I go down to the Capitol and I see people speaking truth to corruption and greed. There's no temple, but there's church outside of church, like an AA meeting or a hike at Percy Warner or a shared meal with a bunch of misfit toys. There are no closed gates, but an open table. And there is no curse of shame. There is only abounding freedom. Imagine glimpses of heaven all around us. The invisible breaking in, desperately wanting us to see it, to experience it. But not just that.

Earth is crammed with heaven. The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes, "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

What happens when we look up from plucking blackberries, to see heaven all around us, to see earth? Don't you love that? That verb: earth crammed with heaven.

What John notices, though, it's not a blackberry bush. It's not even a garden. Heaven for John is urban. Heaven is a city. This is the dominant theme in his vision. It's a city where we don't just sit back and look at it, the splendor, but it's a city where we have a responsibility to renew and restore and redeem and reconcile it. Which means we play a part in bringing heaven to earth.

But the biblical track record for cities, it ain't great. Y'all remember the first city in the Bible, the one that was built by Cain? He murdered a guy. Y'all remember Babel? Y'all remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Y'all remember even Jerusalem? Jesus says in Matthew, that's the city that kills the prophets and stones whoever is sent to it. "How often I have desired," Jesus says, "to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing."

And of course, Rome. Babylon. What about Nashville? We haven't always had the best track record. These broken cities, they actually have a holy city to strive toward. Heaven is not eternal nothingness. William Pender writes, "Heaven is not eternal nothingness, because we continue to have work to do." Is that daunting, or is that encouraging?

So for John, for Tallu, this is some of what it might be like. And if we receive this letter, just like the seven churches did in Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and so on, we're given a greeting. It's a good way to start a letter. And then we're given a wake-up call, the diagnosis that we really have to look around us at the brokenness of what we've done and come to terms with it. And then we're given an invitation. And the invitation, whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, is not to escape, but to engage. Not to wait, but to work for heaven. To be hopeful enough to believe in the healing of the nations. To be imaginative and bold enough to believe that there is a new heaven happening, where God is making all things new, where we will see God's face, John wrote, and God will be our light, John said, and we will reign forever and ever and ever.

The beginning of that big book (and that one is particularly big): God. And the end of that big book: God. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end. And so when we feel this messy middle of anxiety, that we didn't get a front-row seat to the beginning, that we don't have a ticket yet to the end, it means that we can both hope and work toward an earth that just might be crammed with heaven.

And this is just some of what it might be like. Or what it can be like, or what it should be like, or what it will be like.

May it be so. And as Wesley often says, may we make it so.

Amen.

Pulling Back the Curtain

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 20, 2026

The Muppets Christmas Carol. Why are y'all already laughing? You haven't even said anything. The Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my favorite movies. It's one of my family's favorite movies — one of the ones we quote the most in our family. I was reminded of this movie this week by Dr. Barbara Rossing, a scholar on apocalyptic literature in the Bible, who used The Muppets Christmas Carol as a metaphor for the book of Revelation. Y'all know the story: Ebenezer Scrooge, this callous and selfish guy, has lost the meaning of Christmas. His heart has turned colder and colder as his pockets have become fuller and fuller. So he's visited by three ghosts who hope to instill in him a transformation of sorts — the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and finally the Ghost of Christmas Future. The Ghost of Christmas Future takes him to a graveyard, and he finds that people are happy and gleeful that a wretched man has died. He comes to realize that they're celebrating his death. Scrooge looks at the spirit and says, "Are these the shadows of things that will be, or the shadows of things that may be only?" The spirit points at the gravestone, and Scrooge slowly approaches. "These events can be changed," he cries out. "A life can be made right." He clears the snow from the stone and finds his own name. "Please, spirit, no," he says. "Hear me. I'm not the man I was. Why would you show me this if I was past all hope?"

We are in week three of studying the book of Revelation. That word simply means a revealing or an unveiling — not revealing a future escape from the world, as we've come to learn together, but unveiling what already is happening in the world, and what could be if we don't take a good, long look at the brokenness of Rome, or the many names that Rome has had throughout history. For those of you just tuning in, there's a guy named John — not John of the Gospel of John, but John of Patmos. He's exiled on the island of Patmos, and he's writing a letter to seven churches along this Roman postal route — like down Harding and West End and back again. He's writing to churches, some of which are poor, some of which have more resources, but all of which are slipping into spiritual apathy and complacency, and starting to be tempted to worship Roman imperial culture rather than a god who made manifest in a vulnerable lamb. That's the image of Jesus throughout this book. Last week, John addressed these churches, and then he had a vision — a vision of a heavenly throne room. But instead of the emperor being seated on this throne, it was God. And instead of Roman rulers and attendants bowing down before this ruler, it was angels and creatures of every kind and elders. Worship, John seemed to say — heavenly worship. I'm inviting you to consider this: the gathering, the centering, the singing, the listening. This was a different kind of worship. And by the end of it, remember, there were rainbows and seas of glass and singing — not to an emperor that the emperor was worthy, but to God: "Thou art worthy. Thou art the one to receive power and honor and glory. Amen and amen." Feels like Christmas morning.

Wow, what a heavenly sight. And we could just stop there, couldn't we? But then, just like that, the Lamb — let me give you a little visual. Pretend like this is an ancient scroll. The Lamb is holding a scroll with seven seals on it, and the Lamb begins to open the first seal. In a galaxy far, far away — just kidding. The Lamb opens the seal, and here begins the messy middle of the book of Revelation. The messy middle, which is Revelation 6 through about 19. We're not going to get to all of it today — and that's why we're studying it the whole year. Just kidding. This messy middle — it's not a prediction. As Dr. Rossing points out, this is a wake-up call. This messy middle, this seven seals and seven trumpets and seven bowls of wrath, is showing the churches that there is something wrong in the world. There is an illness, and we can't even talk about healing and hope until we've really addressed the diagnosis. We've got to really examine what is going on in the world. And folks, it ain't good.

Just how sick is the Roman Empire? Just how sick is the state of things on earth? We're about to find out.

The first seal opens, and there is a white horse. There's a rider on this horse with a crown and a bow and arrow, and this rider came out conquering and to conquer. The color white at that time meant victory — but not eternal and holy victory through peace, but victory through violence, military conquest. We've got to think about — in that time, just twenty-five years earlier, this invincible Roman legion had been crushed by the Parthians. So this horse, this metaphor, is familiar to these churches reading this letter from John.

The second horse: the horse of war. Its rider was given a sword, and it was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people would slaughter one another. The people would be reminded when they read this that just a few years after this Roman army was thrashed, there was a bloody civil war in Judea, destroying Jerusalem and the temple. They would remember that.

And then a third horse. This horse was black, and a voice said, "A quart of wheat for a day's pay, and three quarts of barley for a day's pay." This horse was famine. And the tragedy of famine, as we know, is that daily necessities — like wheat and barley, or gas for our cars — are priced out of range for average workers. That's what happens when we enter war. So around the time of John's writing, the crops were failing. There was a disruption in the food supplies. This horse would have been familiar.

And finally, a fourth horse. This horse was pale green, ashen, like those who die. Its name was Death, and Hades followed it. Its rider was given authority to kill in all kinds of ways.

These are the first four seals opened in this scroll, and they show not what is going to be — they show what is. They are revealing a sickness and brokenness in this world.

And then there's a fifth seal, because we're not done yet. This fifth seal is opened, and under the altar are the souls of the martyrs — people who have been killed and persecuted for their faith — and they are told to rest, because unfortunately, more people will die. But it won't last forever. This would have been familiar to them. Thirty years earlier there was a great fire in Rome, and Christians were blamed for it. So many suffered and died. This fifth seal, these martyrs under the altar — it would have been familiar to these people.

And a sixth seal — this one is so gripping and haunting and jarring. There's an earthquake. The sky turns dark. There are gales of wind. You've got to remember, Mount Vesuvius had erupted thirty years before, so this image of ash and darkness, of wind, of the earth rumbling — it wouldn't have been unfamiliar to these people. All the kings and the army generals and the rich and the powerful — they want to hide in caves. Why? But not just them — everyone, slave and free, everyone wants to hide. They even say, "Let the mountains fall on us, for we want to hide from the wrath of God."

How bad was it that they thought God was wrathful? When, in fact, as William Barclay points out, the wrath of God is always the wrath of love — which is not out to destroy, but even in anger, is out to save the one it loves. How bad had it gotten, church, that they thought they would be punished? They're so scared, even though they have forgotten our God is not one of wrath but liberation. And so they ask, "Who is able to stand? Who is able to face and endure what is going on?"

And then the seventh seal is broken. And this seal — you'd think it would bring more violence. You'd think it would bring more chaos and pain and bad news. And yet what it brings is thirty minutes of silence in heaven.

As if everybody needed a little nap after all that. Thirty minutes of silence in heaven. Is it the calm before another storm? Or, as a couple of theologians have pointed out, maybe that silence was heaven halting — a listening. Because what happens in chapter 8 is you start to hear the prayers from the saints. Even the music of heaven and even the thunder of Revelation are stilled, so that God's ear may catch the whispered prayer of the humblest of God's trusting people. War and famine, military conquest and disease, cosmic upheaval and the killing of the souls of martyrs, the powerful and the disempowered hiding — and then silence.

And I wish it ended there, but this is the messy middle, and so it's back to the brokenness of the world we go. Angels enter the scene — seven of them. This number seven keeps coming up: Sabbath, wholeness, unity, the churches. Seven angels holding seven trumpets, and later these angels are given seven bowls of wrath. And in both instances, what they sound out and what they pour out are seven plagues. And these plagues are not just random plagues — does anybody want to guess what these plagues are reminiscent of?

Egypt — I heard it. Whoever that was, I've got a cake for you.

The plagues of Egypt. So when we read about these trumpets and these bowls, what's poured out, what's sounded out, are frogs and boils and the water turning to blood and fire coming down. It was the same reminder of these plagues that were begging Pharaoh to repent, and he didn't. As if God is saying something about these nations that also won't repent. As if John, like Moses, is trying to speak to these unrepentant people and say, "Did you not hear when I unsealed the scrolls? Did you not hear the Lamb? Did you not hear the trumpets? Well, then it's time to pour out these plagues."

This is a messy middle — a diagnosis of spiritual and ecological disaster and brokenness, if nothing changes. And if you want to keep reading — if you're a really good student, like whoever said Egypt — what continues is more beasts and dragons, metaphors for Roman imperial rule, for people at that time who demanded power, who were greedy, who were hungry for everyone to worship them, to say, "Thou art worthy." To say, "Thou art God." To say, "Thou art Lord."

This vision didn't happen in a vacuum. This vision happened as a reaction, as a promise that things could be, can be different, if we can wake up enough and shake our spiritual apathy enough to see it. You picking up what I'm putting down? That even though this book feels long ago, it is right now.

And so we ask, just like Ebenezer Scrooge: are these the shadows of things that will be, or are the shadows of things that may be only?

Why would John show us this? Why would John show them this if all hope was lost?

Clearly, not all hope is lost. But in order to have hope — this is kind of the ironic thing about hope — in order to really feel a sense that things could get better, we have to see things as they are. We have to be unflinching and willing to look at the wound. And in this case, the wound is great. If in order to heal, we need to know what we're healing.

John — he's pulling back these curtains. He's showing us different images. Maybe some of you musicians understand the trumpets. Maybe some of you ceramicists understand the bowls. Maybe some of you writers understand the seals. Example after example, image after image, to try to get their attention, and ours.

And what Scrooge says at the end of this movie — and your homework is to go back and watch The Muppets Christmas Carol — it might be exactly what we need to hear today: "I will not shut out the lessons that the spirits have taught me. Tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone. Spirit, please speak to me." That's what he says. And so this morning we ask: Spirit, speak to us, that we may not shut out the lessons of a book that can feel intimidating and strange and scary and hurtful, but that we may see a book of lessons that speaks to this moment. That we may see a Lamb on a throne — God flipping the script once again, reminding us that not all hope is lost. Not yet.

Peace, Justice, Glory

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 13, 2026

I don't know what we have gotten ourselves into with these wings and eyeballs and creatures like eagles and ox.

For those of you who aren't aware, we are studying the book of Revelation this September, and Wesley did an amazing job prepping the intro of this book for us last Sunday. For those of you who weren't here, Revelation simply means revealing. And it's considered an apocalyptic text, which sounds a little bit scary. Many of you may have heard sermons on this book that have frightened or hurt you. But apocalypse, an unveiling, simply pulls back the curtain to see what is. This book was written by a guy named John of Patmos. This is a different John from the guy who wrote that gospel. And he's exiled on an island, the island called Patmos. So you can call me like Margie of Hawaii, okay? [laughter] He's exiled on this island and he has a vision from God. And so he picks up a pen and paper and he writes seven letters to seven different churches. And these churches are on a circular route, kind of like a postal route. So maybe you start with St. George Episcopal. And if you follow Harding, you get to Vine Street, Westminster Press and Otter Creek Church of Christ, Blakemore United Methodist, Christ Church Cathedral, Weston United Methodist. You're writing to seven different churches on this postal route. Many of us think these churches were the people who were being oppressed and marginalized and victimized by the rulers at the time. But a lot of these churches were actually victims of spiritual apathy, of complacency, people who had kind of an anemic faith, who actually were pretty well resourced. [laughter] You think about this strip all the way down Harding and West End, but they had come to believe that their social life was tied up in their religious one, that worshiping an emperor, an earthly ruler, someone who was claiming power and authority was a little more inviting than worshiping this son of God. So John is writing to these folks some pretty wild images, but they get it. He is writing in a language that they actually understand. He didn't write this book as a secret code for you and me to decipher this timetable of Jesus's return. It's a symbolic vision that brought hope and challenge to these seven first century Christian churches. And it reveals history's pattern and God's promise that every human kingdom eventually becomes Babylon and it must be resisted in the power of the slain lamb. Well, you will hear in this entire book, the image of Jesus that we get in the book of Revelation is of a lamb. That visual is so important to our faith and our theology.

But let me back up. So in the first three chapters of Revelation, John is writing these letters and sending them off. In the last four churches he writes to, let's say Vine Street, Westminster, Blakemore, Otter Creek. They don't even know they're being called out today. Nobody tell them. He says, "Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches." That's his sincerely. And then chapter 4 begins. Caitlyn did an amazing job reading about wings and eyes and all kinds of things. He said, "I looked and there was a door that stood open to heaven, and the first voice which I heard speaking to me, it sounded like a trumpet and it said, 'Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this.'" This verse, the first verse in chapter 4 of Revelation, is one of the ways that we have heard a rapture theology talked about, that when John hears this vision that says come up here, in the 1820s when people started this rapture theology, they thought it meant come up. But what Wesley preached last week is that this isn't an escape from our world. This is a revealing of the world that John was seeing and a vision of a heavenly throne room. In other words, a vision of heavenly worship. I looked, he said, and a door stood open into heaven. A voice like a trumpet said, "Come up here and see what our worship is about." What John finds on the other side of this door to heaven, worship that has four elements that I would argue are the same as our earthly worship. Centering, gathering, revealing, and singing. So, first there's centering. Worship is a time of centering for John and his communities, just like for us. And in this case, it's centered around this throne. [laughter] This looks a lot like a throne, doesn't it? It's centered on this throne, on the one who sits on this throne. And in this heavenly worship, there is one seated on the throne, the one we call God, who is shining like jasper and carnelian. Does anyone know what those are? I didn't either. These are precious stones and metals. I kind of imagine like Glinda the good witch. She's in her bubble and there's shining pink aura and there's little stones on her dress. This is what we're invited to do with this book of Revelation. Come up with our own images and metaphors and visuals for what we are reading that make sense to us in Nashville, Tennessee in September of 2026. So we can play with it. We can think about Glinda. We can think about other visuals in our mind that the exiled prophet was talking about. And around this throne, there's a rainbow. It shines like emerald. Is it the same rainbow that God hearkens back to in Noah when God promises after the flood that God will not destroy again? I don't know. And around this throne are 24 thrones.

Seated on the throne are 24 elders dressed in white robes with gold crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are these flashes of lightning and these thunder rumblings. And in front of this throne are seven burning torches. Are you seeing it? Seven burning torches and seven spirits of God. And in front of this throne is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

I want to pause there and go back. So in this heavenly worship, what is centered has everything to do with the earthly worship of John's time. In Rome, the emperor Domitian sits on a throne. He demands to be called Lord. He demands to be called God. He demands for people to say, "Hail Domitian," just like hail Caesar. He demands that people say, "Thou art worthy." But in heavenly worship, God sits on a throne. This divine entity and a rainbow shines around this throne. In Rome, there were 24 Roman attendants and rulers that sat and stood in the throne room around the emperor. And they set their crowns before this image of Nero swearing allegiance to an earthly ruler. And in the heavenly worship, y'all following? These 24 elders worship not a ruler hungry for power and authority, but a God. They set their crowns down before one who invites them to center on something of peace and justice and glory.

In this heavenly worship, there is a lamb. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This lightning and thunder we hear. You might have thought about other parts in the Hebrew Bible where we see it. This is a theophany. Say theophany. Y'all sound smart. [laughter] A theophany from God. Kind of like Moses when he went up to Mount Sinai in Genesis or Isaiah in First Kings when he stood on Mount Horeb. We hear lightning and thunder. Sometimes God is noisy. Lightning and thunder drawing people's attention to the one who is centered and the seven torches. I don't know. Could John be talking to these seven churches and saying, "You can be the light. You can be set afire with the gospel. You can be filled with these spirits of God, these seven spirits that John has the vision of." And then this sea of glass. Some people who read this book, theologians and authors, say that John might have just been looking out at the Aegean Sea writing this water, this clear, beautiful water like crystal that he sees. We don't center corruptors of power in this heavenly worship, this throne room. We center the one true God. And then we have the gathering. This is where it gets a little weird. We have four living creatures on each side of the throne full of eyes in front of them and behind them. This is how angels were often described in scripture. So the first one is like a lion, the second one like an ox, the third one has a human face, and the fourth one like an eagle. Kind of like school mascots, but then you glue googly eyes all over them. What's cool is in Ezekiel 1, the priest Ezekiel, he has a similar vision of living creatures with faces like an ox and a lion and a human face and an eagle. This book, which hearkens backward, shows us the way forward. The noblest animal, the king of beasts, the lion. The strongest animal in the field, the ox. The wisest animal, or some think the human. The swiftest animal, the eagle. That's what is around the throne. Just like in Ezekiel, this priest has a vision of God with these creatures, and they dart to and fro with lightning behind them and a throne above them. William Pender writes that the impact of John's vision is this. Around the centering throne are not 24 Roman attendants, but 24 elders. And a lot of people think these 12 elders represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And these 12 represent any guesses? The disciples. Oh, y'all are on it today. In other words, we have all creatures of our God and King represented. Both the history and the future and animals that fly in the air and animals that are livestock on the ground. We have it all. A diversity and a myriad of who centers around this kind of ruler, which is not a ruler at all, but a lamb of God. So, we've centered and we've gathered some pretty interesting characters and then there is a revealing. So, I took you through chapter 4 just then. Do you feel smarter? I feel smarter. And now we're getting into chapter 5. This revealing. So, John sees God sitting in the throne and in God's right hand is a scroll with writing on the front and back of it. John can tell and there's seven seals on this scroll, but no one can open it. No one is worthy to open the scroll. An angel asks, "Who's worthy?" And John begins weeping bitterly. No one on heaven or earth is able to open it. He says, "No one's worthy." One of the elders turns to him. He says, "Don't cry. The lion of Judah, the root of David, he has conquered and he can open it and its seven seals. Did you notice that? He has conquered." Y'all remember Mary's song? Even before Jesus is born, she says, "He has cast down the mighty. He has brought the poor good things. He has conquered already. Only the lion of Judah can open the scroll," the elder thinks. And then John finds out that not a lion, not something intimidating and threatening and the king of beasts opens the scroll, but a lamb, a lamb that is slaughtered, a vulnerable little lamb that is the one who can open this scroll … and the unrolling of this scroll. Again, there's so much intertextuality happening in the book of Revelation. The unrolling of this scroll. It kind of reminds me of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Y'all know where I'm going. When he reads from this scroll of Isaiah and he says, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and to tell you all today that the oppressed will go free." That's the kind of scroll that Jesus Christ reads from. Those the same words in John's vision that the oppressed really can go free under Roman rule. That there will be recovery of sight to those who are blind to the woes of many.

Only the lamb is worthy to unseal this scroll. And only through the lamb do we see what God is revealing to God's people. So worship in this text, it's the center point of what God is trying to show us. All of the people who gather are all kinds of kinds. And what is revealed is revealed by a lamb, a slain lamb. Are y'all picking up what I'm putting down? And finally in these four elements of a heavenly worship that John wishes and hopes for for these seven churches is does anyone remembering? I think I heard it. You should singing singing in Revelation 4 and 5. We get five hymns in this heavenly throne room, which we definitely sing five hymns on purpose based on this book. If you include the Gloria, we also sing five hymns here. It made me think about what we sing when we sing the Gloria a little differently. Glory be not to any earthly ruler but to God who was in the beginning, who is now, who will be forever and ever.

These choruses of praise in this heavenly throne room. They proclaim who is really holy in a world where the emperor deemed that he was when he said, "You tell me I'm Lord. You tell me I'm God. You tell me I'm worthy." And our hymns say, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," which isn't just some hymn we proclaim in a vacuum but an act of defiance in itself that we who are sitting here centered and gathered and revealed and singing are worshiping a different kind of God and a different kind of ruler. Right?

The last two verses in Revelation 5, the four living creatures said amen. They said amen. They said amen to a lamb who was slaughtered, not an emperor who had conquered.

This book which has been so misused, so poorly taken care of, so misinterpreted, so misunderstood. And I have such deep sorrow for those of you for whom this book was thrown at. It reveals so much about what the churches at the time needed to hear to shake their spiritual complacency, to stop believing in the powers of an emperor and begin to understand a heavenly worship from a lamb of God.

And all four living creatures said, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped.

And the church says, "Amen."

The First and The Last

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, September 6, 2026

Good morning. As you have noticed, this month we are diving into the book of Revelation. We did a study back in June on the lectionary readings of Genesis and we talked about it through this lens of kind of family, complicated family dynamics, and we really enjoyed that and we heard from you that you did as well. So we thought that we would bookend the Bible by doing this series that we're calling Reading Revelation. So we're going to be preaching on this book all of the weeks and Sundays in September. And then, as Noah mentioned, on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. for any of you that may have that time free, we are enjoying this lecture and video series by Reverend Travis Meyer about the book of Revelation. I explained it to someone: like, me and Margie are general practitioners or general physicians, and he is truly a specialist. This is definitely an area that he knows a lot about and can add some wonderful knowledge and information to that topic. And we're rediscovering this book, too. We're rediscovering this book that has been so influential in our faith and in our culture and in our lives, sometimes in ways that we may not even recognize or realize at the time. And I know for some of you, myself included, you might feel a little nervous about it or you might feel a little uneasy about it. After all, this book has been used and misused in order to control and to scare people, to ensure that people assimilate so that they can belong in a group. Some of the things that people have told me about this book when I was growing up kept me up at night. Perhaps the same is true for you as well. But what I hope happens in this next month is that there's a rediscovery of this text, a reclamation of this text, not as something that's meant to scare you into submission, but something that's meant to empower you and embolden you to bring heaven to earth here and now. Something that's not supposed to be about fear, but something that shows us the way to restoration over rapture and deliverance over dominance and faithfulness over fear. So, with that in mind, if you would, let's take a big deep breath together because I think we need it. [sighs] And would you pray with me?

Oh God, reveal yourself. Reveal yourself through us. Reveal yourself through this text. Show us how this book can be reclaimed for justice and mercy, for love and acceptance, and show us how this book can be rediscovered not as a tool of the empire, but as a tool for love. Amen. Okay. Who said this? You like me? You really like me? Sally. Sally Field. Except, did you know that's not what she said? She said something very familiar and similar to that. She said, "I can't deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me." Did you know that? It's the Mandela effect. It's this idea that we have collectively believed something that is not true. As a society, we have accepted a version of the truth. The Mandela effect. Perhaps you're familiar with it. And most of the Mandela effect examples are pretty harmless. Words that aren't spelled how we remember them, like the Berenstain Bears, right?

Or phrases or movie quotes that we have collectively misremembered, like "Luke, I am your father." But he didn't say that, right? But then there's this other phenomena called the illusory truth effect. This refers to the human tendency to believe a claim or believe a piece of information to be true after being exposed to it multiple times. So when we hear or read something repeatedly, we are more likely to believe it even if it runs counter to our prior knowledge. There's also this thing called the consensus theory of truth: the view that a statement is true if it is widely accepted or agreed upon by a group or a society. In other words, truth is not necessarily tied to objective reality, but to the collective agreement of a community. So, I'm going to shift gears, but keep that in mind now. How many of you read the Left Behind series growing up? How many of you saw the books or the movies starring teenage heartthrob turned conspiracy theorist Kirk Cameron? Show of hands. Okay, some of you, some of you—we're going to trauma bond this month. For those of you who did not see it, let me explain it to you. Left Behind is this multimedia franchise of apocalyptic fiction written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that depicts the ending of the world over the span of seven years. And the true believers in Jesus Christ have been raptured. They've been instantly taken away into heaven, leaving non-believers behind on earth in this shattered and chaotic world that remains. This is a series that ruled my childhood and maybe some of you as well. We read the books, we watched the videos, we played the pranks where we put our clothes on the couch so it looked like we got raptured.

And we stayed up late sometimes wondering when it was going to happen to us. The rapture, as it's often called, is this eschatological, which just means end times, concept held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, that consists of an event when all dead Christians and believers will be resurrected and joined with Christians who are still alive together in the clouds as they meet the Lord Jesus in the air. It's often associated with the book of Revelation, but it isn't found in this book. In fact, the word rapture isn't even in the Bible at all. It comes from a theme found in First Thessalonians, and we'll talk about that later this month. But still, these conservative theologians have built an entire library of theology and school of thought around this concept. There is pre-tribulationalists, mid-tribulationalists, and post-tribulationalists. There is premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. We're not going to get into all that, but we'll talk about it more this month. But I just want you to know that it absolutely has nothing to do with what John is writing about in this book. The book of Revelation was written by John of Patmos, also known as John the Revelator, not to be confused with John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, who wrote the Gospel text attributed to John. And that's because, as Reverend Travis Meyers mentioned this past week on Wednesday, that the book of Revelation is written at a third or fourth grade level, unlike the Gospel text of the same name. And John is considered to be exiled during this period to the island of Patmos, during this time of persecution under the Roman Empire when he wrote this text. He writes it in a Jewish apocalyptic genre. And here apocalypse just means revelation or unveiling, but essentially it's just a letter. In fact, the NIV titles this section that Dominic read as the prologue to Revelation. The NRSV calls it the introduction and salutation. And as you heard, he begins the letter with the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. And he made it known by sending his angel to the servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are the ones who hear and who keep what is written, for the time is near. He then addresses the seven churches in Asia Minor. And if you come on Wednesdays, you'll get to explore what they were. These are early Christian readers who lived in the Roman Empire where worship of the emperor was part of their social life, and many cities in Asia Minor held temples to the emperor and other gods as well. People often participated in imperial worship because Rome provided new levels of prosperity and opportunities for social advancement. In the years leading up to the time of Christ, Caesar Augustus created what New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan called Roman imperial theology. Caesar Augustus put his face on the currency and other government-issued items. He put his name on all these temples and all these buildings and he erected statues to himself. Does that sound familiar? He called and described himself as divine, the son of God, God incarnate, the redeemer and savior of the world. So this is language that existed before Jesus was even born. Roman imperial theology says that if you want peace, you must have victory. If you want victory, you must have war. And that war is bred by religion. So when language like prince of peace or redeemer or son of God, which is meant for the Roman emperor, is given instead to this small, poor, brown-skinned Palestinian-born Jewish baby named Jesus, you can see why the Roman Empire did not like that. John goes on and writes, "Grace to you and peace from him who is and was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom of priests, serving his God and father. To him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." John is drawing from this entire world of Jewish apocalyptic imagery. A genre that was familiar, beloved, and instantly recognizable to his first century audience. When he describes beasts rising from the sea and angels blowing trumpets and scrolls that are sealed with wax and cosmic battles between good and evil, he isn't trying to confuse us or scare us. He's using symbolic language of his own tradition to help people see this world differently. This is the same way that our modern fantasy writers use dragons and kingdoms and prophecies and epic battles to reveal deeper truths about justice and courage and hope. So to us it reads like high fantasy, like something out of Game of Thrones or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. But to his audience, this was the normal way to talk about God's victory over empire, God's faithfulness in suffering, and God's promise to renew creation. They would have recognized these symbols and these metaphors and these dramatic scenes that he was telling. They would have understood that John wasn't giving them a literal play-by-play of the end of the world. He was giving them a theological imagination that was big enough to sustain them through persecution and fear and uncertainty. I think that's why Revelation still can speak to us today because we too need a bigger theological imagination. We need language that helps us see beyond the empires of our own time. We need imagery that reminds us that God is not distant or passive, but present and active. We need stories that pull back the curtain and show us that the world that we see is not the only world there is. John's imagery is not meant to frighten us. It's meant to wake us up. It's meant to help us see that heaven is not that far away. It's meant to help us see that God is already moving in our world. It's meant to help us see that we are a part of something bigger and deeper and more beautiful than the powers of the world. When John said that the time is near or "look, here he comes on the clouds," he wasn't giving the readers a literal countdown or a weather report. He was using this symbolic imaginative language of the Jewish apocalyptic literature, this genre that's designed to pull back that curtain to show people the deeper spiritual reality beneath their own political circumstances. For this audience, this imagery communicated urgency and hope, divine presence, not this prediction of Jesus parachuting down out of the sky. Saying the time is near meant that God's justice, God's reign, God's healing were already breaking into the world. Saying that he's coming on the clouds meant that the Christ authority and liberation were on the move even if the empire seemed overwhelming. John's language is meant to awaken the imagination and strengthen our courage and remind the church that God is actively at work right now calling us to participate in this work by bringing heaven to earth. His audience would have understood that. But it's clear that our world hasn't. Street preachers and politicians here in our own state capital in fact preach and make policy about this type of theology with this theology in mind. These self-proclaimed Christian nationalists believe that in order to usher in the end of the world, they must make America a Christian nation one way or another. I mentioned a few weeks ago failed gubernatorial candidate who called for a Christ first Tennessee where he would ban Islam. In fact, many of our Muslim brothers and sisters are constantly under attack today often because of this type of theology that leads and reads revelation as a playbook for the end of the world. But knowing how easy it is for our society to slip into a post-truth reality, like I mentioned earlier, it makes sense sometimes. Some of the loudest Christian voices have sold us this version of the end of the world that happened to be pretty profitable, too, to the tune of $50 million for the Left Behind series. And our society slips even further and further into a post-truth reality every day. Unfortunately, we are shoveled misinformation, ads, trends, and opinions. In fact, did you know that our own government allowed the state of Israel to purchase a plan which is on file currently at the US Department of Justice, by the way, that targeted over 300 black churches in the west and on the west coast. So, California, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. 300 black churches. And in these 300 black churches, they drew geo-fences around the churches so that anyone that entered that campus would be targeted with specific ads and information that quote increased positive associations with the nation of Israel while linking Palestinian populations with extremist factions. This is how we are being fed information. This is how we've been fed information for years. So, it makes sense that we don't always know what is truth anymore. These are the same tactics, by the way, that were used against the Jews in World War II, but at a much more frightening and digital and virtual rate. And it's a reminder that the powers of empire still exist and they are working hard to control the narrative. They are working hard to keep us in this state of fear and to make us think that like the Romans, if we want peace, we need victory. And if we want victory, we need war. And if we want war, we have to have violence and greed and power.

But John writes that he who was and is and is to come said, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives. I was dead and behold I am alive forever more. I have the keys of life and death." And I like to think that as a call back to the gospel text in which Jesus says, "In the world you may have tribulation, but fear not. Do not fear. I have overcome the world."

But knowing all of this, understanding all of this about how easily we can accept something as truth so much so that it becomes a part of our identity and our community and our message helps me release the anger and frustration that I have about what I was taught as a child. That someday Jesus was going to come back and rapture us to heaven. And I better be ready or else. Because despite the nights that I stayed up scared to death that it was happening then, despite the fear that it placed inside me, despite the years of deconstruction that I had to do after that, I realized that they were likely just doing their best that they could with what they had. They were also victims of this imperial theology that we've let control this narrative in America. They were reading it as a road map to escape this world. They're reading it as a road map to escape this world, not as a revelation of how God is transforming the world now here today. They're reading it as a threat, a threat, not a promise. And when you read Revelation that way, you end up with this faith that is always looking to leave. A faith that is always waiting for God to snatch us out of here instead of empowering us to live faithfully here and now. But John wasn't writing to a people who needed to escape. He was writing to a people who needed courage. He was writing to a people who were suffering under empire, who were being pressured to assimilate, who were wondering if God still saw them or still heard them or even still cared about them. And John's message to them and to us is not hold on until God evacuates you. Instead, it's do not be afraid because I'm the first and the last. I am the living one. His message is grace and peace to you. His message is look, Christ is coming, not coming to snatch us away. Coming to make all things new. Coming to heal what the empire has broken. Coming to reveal what has always been true. That God is with us and for us and already at work in our world. And that brings us to what I believe is the heart of Revelation's calling. That if Christ is the one who is and was and is to come, then our task is not to wait for heaven. Our task is to join Christ in bringing heaven to earth now. Because heaven is not this distant escape. Heaven is God's presence breaking into the world through ordinary people, through small, poor, brown-skinned Palestinian-born Jewish babies. Ordinary people who choose to love over fear, choose justice over domination, and compassion over cruelty, courage over silence. Heaven comes to earth when we refuse to bow to the empires of our day, the empires of greed, the empires of violence, of exclusion. The empires that tell us that some people matter more than others. Heaven comes to earth when we live as the kingdom of heaven now here, not in some life that comes after this. When we bless instead of curse. When we serve instead of dominate. When we lift up the vulnerable instead of protecting our own comfort. When we bear witness to the living one in a world that seems obsessed with death. Heaven comes to earth when we choose God's way over Caesar's way. When we choose humility over spectacle and truth over illusion and community over control and hope over fear. And heaven comes to earth every time that we remember that this book, this book of Revelation is not about escaping the world, but it's about transforming the world. It's a book about a God who refuses to abandon his creation. A God who walks among us and speaks to the exiled. A God who holds the keys to life and death. Who is already making all things new even as we speak. So this month as we begin this series, my prayer, my hope is that we reclaim Revelation not as a threat, but as a promise, not as a warning, but as a calling, not as this map of destruction, but as a vision of restoration. And may we be a people who bring heaven to earth in our worship and in our lives, in our work, in our neighborhoods, in our relationships, in our courage, and in our living and in our loving. I may be naive, but I think that we can do it. Amen. Amen. Amen.

The Gospel According to Dolly

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 30, 2026

We've been through it this week, haven't we, Nashville? And I reckon I'm going to preach about the Bible, but I'm going to preach about Dolly Parton, too. Is that okay with y'all? We've been through it this month in the Gospel of Matthew. In the beginning of this month, Jesus walked on water and stilled a storm. And then he had his heart and his mind transformed by a Canaanite woman, an unlikely soul who didn't back down, who begged for her blessing until her daughter was healed. And then he went on a few more healing tours. He saved a few thousands with food. He made Peter the very rock on which he would build his church. "You are the Messiah," Peter told him. "You're the son of the living God." Jesus handed him the keys to the kingdom. And then today, just as the disciples were hearing about this Messiah who brought good news, they get some bad news. I am going to Jerusalem. Jesus told his crew to suffer, not only to suffer, but to suffer at the hands of the elders, at the chief priests, at the scribes, and I'm going to be killed. As Caroline Lewis writes, this is what we call a passion prediction. He knows what's coming. We know what's coming. He's trying to prepare them for it. And Peter, the guy jingling the keys of faithfulness and trust, takes Jesus aside in what must have been pretty unimaginable pain. And Peter rebukes who he just called the Messiah. "God forbid it," Peter says. "This must not happen to you." And Jesus replies, "Get behind me, Satan." Professor Eugene Gibson points out that it's not that Jesus sees Peter with pointy horns and a tail, but rather Peter is in this moment an adversary of God's will. Peter, who has been jingling the keys, has forgotten that they are attached to his belt loop. That his confession of faith has made him the rock. And in this moment, the rock becomes the stumbling block. A saint to a sinner. Can anybody relate to that? How quickly we can change our minds and turn our hearts rather than remembering divine things like the one who is the creator and redeemer and sustainer and comforter, the God who is with us. So then Jesus looks around at his guys and he says this. If you want to follow me, you're going to have to carry a cross. And it's going to be heavy. You're going to have to carry it. Even as you stumble after me, tripping over your shoelaces. And if you want to save your life, you've got to lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake, guess what? You find it.

And this moment, as Jesus gives them yet another stern talking to, I hear in his voice a challenge. I reckon Jesus is telling them about outlaw Christianity. Will you say outlaw Christianity? I read about outlaw Christianity this week as I looked into the life of our Tennessee saint, our honky tonk angel, our Appalachian Jesus, as one article wrote. This piece in the New Yorker called Dolly Parton's Christianity outlaw Christianity. I think she might be one of the best examples of taking up a cross and following Jesus, our outlaw.

For those of you who don't know, her roots are really interesting. She grew up in, as Casey Kemp wrote, a sharecropper's cabin in a Smoky Mountain holler. Like a secret siloed missile built from blonde hair, hope, mascara, and the King James Bible. She grew up with 11 siblings in a one room log cabin just a few hours from us in a family of poverty, and is the granddaughter of a Pentecostal preacher. Who's the grandkid of a preacher? No, you are. Who else? Yeah. She was raised in struggle, but she was never embarrassed about it. Kind of reminds me of another guy born poor, raised in struggle, unashamed of his roots, who was focused on the kind of mission brought to the poor. She didn't like the kind of gospel her granddaddy was preaching. She said, "Hell, fire and brimstone." Anybody grew up with a gospel like that? So, she started sneaking away to this abandoned church on a hill where teenagers went to drink at night with broken windows. And there she felt the presence of God. Not as a chastising, bombastic bully, she said, but as a friend that she could talk to on a one-on-one basis. He is our father after all, she said. Y'all know anybody who went to temples and left some of them because they didn't hear a message of love and then snuck up to mountains to pray and feel a divine presence? Y'all know who I'm talking about. And from then on, she practiced this outlaw Christianity. Here's a definition that Casey Kemp gave. A kind of Christian for whom you can positively see the dust rising from the line that Christ would have drawn in the sand for her, daring the rest of us to cast stones. Y'all know about this outlaw Christian. She didn't shove her religion in anyone's face. And she said she didn't just practice her faith, she lived it. She didn't want to be worshiped. She said because that wasn't biblical. She knew she didn't want to be an idol. She just wanted to live like Christ, to lose her life for the sake of Jesus and in doing so to save her soul. And she lost a lot when she took up that cross. She lost a lot of money. She could have been a billionaire, but she decided to be an outlaw, starting the Imagination Library in which she mailed free books monthly to children and newborns. I'm not talking about a couple million books. I'm talking about over 300 million books have been mailed to people who don't necessarily have access to public libraries or resources to buy them. By 2024, one in seven American children under the age of five had received a book through the Imagination Library. Loaves and Fishes. Reminds me of somebody I know who said, "Let the children come to me for they will receive the kingdom of heaven. It actually belongs to the kids." Y'all know about that man. Could have been a billionaire, could have hoarded her wealth, could have hoarded her fame, her power, and her name. She didn't. She gave Vanderbilt University a million dollars during COVID to fund a vaccine. She created funds when the wildfires came through her county in Tennessee. She lowered the dropout rate in our state, 35% to 6%, giving $500 to anybody who completed seventh and eighth grade in certain counties. Y'all mind if I keep going? Our outlaw who said, "Of course, black lives matter. You think our white butts are the only ones that matter?" No. And I'm replacing the word butt with. Our outlaw who said, "I know trans people and I love them all. I don't judge. I see how brokenhearted they can get over certain things. I know how real they are. I know how important gender affirming care is to them. That's who they are. We are all God's children and how we are is who we are." The words of our country queen, our outlaw. She performed in Queens in 2016. That was a year of a lot of political upheaval and tension to a crowd. Listen to who this crowd was. Drag queens, evangelical Christians, hipsters, people whose lives otherwise would have never overlapped, all waiting to see the same woman. Y'all know somebody like that? A man who ate with and healed and traveled with and loved people whose lives didn't really overlap, did they? Collecting taxes and smelling like fish. And when Whitney Houston's iconic recording of "I Will Always Love You," a song that Dolly wrote in 1973, when that became a smash hit and Dolly started collecting royalties from that song, she gave all that money to a black neighborhood in Nashville. She bought a commercial complex there and she later jokingly called it the house that Whitney built. That wasn't a charity performed for applause. It acknowledged that a black woman with an extraordinary voice had created an enormous amount of wealth for a white woman who said, "I will empty myself out in order to support and empower and celebrate others." Y'all know somebody who emptied out his privilege to save lives. This outlaw Christian, she woke up at 3:00 a.m. every morning. Raise your hand if you woke up that early today. Sherry. Wow. Sherry, we're going to talk. She said, "I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to thank God for the night and to ask God to bless the day. How can you use me?" She asked every morning. "And what can I do today?" I'm writing that down. How can you use me? And what can I do today? Do y'all know a man who woke up early, who prayed at dawn or dusk? I know that man. She has shown me how to know that man. Can I tell you another story that's funny? She called a Nashville church, and it wasn't ours. I don't know why she didn't call us. I'll take it up with her. She called a Nashville church. She told the senior pastor she wanted him to come to her house for a baby dedication. So this senior pastor and a younger associate went. And when they arrived, she had something a little more than a dedication in mind. She wanted them to baptize her granddaughter. She even brought water from the Jordan River back to Nashville, Tennessee, while she had it shipped. So, she left the living room to go get her goddaughter. And the younger pastor looked at the senior pastor and he said, "What are we going to do?" Cuz this was a theological problem. This church didn't baptize babies. The senior pastor said, "Brother, we are in Dolly Parton's house." And Dolly Parton just went into another room to get her goddaughter and the water she shipped from the Jordan River to baptize her with. So, I tell you what we're going to do when Dolly Parton comes back into this living room. We're going to baptize that baby.

Y'all know an unlikely baptism story in which people were perplexed at who baptized whom in that Jordan River in those same waters. Y'all know about that man.

Y'all may think I'm getting a little off script because I know we're here to talk about the Bible, too. But I think, and I've been thinking all week, that in the heart of this passage is this woman's faith. In the heart of this passage in Matthew in which Jesus talks about carrying crosses and losing lives that don't speak of divine things, I think Dolly's faith is right in here. When I look at who's grieving her death, have y'all noticed who is grieving her death? Not just people who look a lot like most of us, but all kinds of kinds. Cuz when we talk about setting that table wide, we may never get to where she was. Pulling up chairs, bringing up picnic tables from the basement. Everybody was invited to that table. And I sure hope we can get there. Jesus's life. It can seem so daunting to try to emulate his obedience to God, his perfection, the way he loved. And yet here is a real life woman who showed us how to lose our power and our money and our fame and our privilege. She wasn't a people pleaser. She didn't care about popularity. She cared about loving all of humankind because she felt that same love from a divine presence in an abandoned church with broken windows. A life focused on divine things.

The disciples thought Jesus was going to be immortal. And how many of us thought Dolly might live forever?

And Jesus gave them a passion prediction. But he also gave them, did you notice, a resurrection prediction? He said, "I'm gonna be killed. I will suffer under the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. And then three days later, I'm coming back." Hope is coming back.

I went to the Brandi Carlile concert last night. Was anyone there? Sherry at that one. You're just up at 3:00 a.m. Okay. Brandi was a dear friend of Dolly's and she gave such a lovely tribute to her last night. She sang through some songs. She showed images of Dolly, and a lot of Dolly's family was there too. And Brandi said, "I think this is the most well-behaved Americans have been in a long time this week." She said, "Probably because Dolly can now see what all of us are doing." I think people are being a little kinder, a little nicer, a little more considerate of who is at this table and who's not. How do we get them there? I got a call from a buddy who was in Knoxville last night. He was at something called a Nitro Circus show. So, this is where guys ride dirt bikes and they do cool tricks as fire shoots out of thingies.

He said, "This crowd really grieved the loss of Dolly." And I said, "My crowd did too," listening to a gay woman from Washington State. We got Nitro Circus and we got Brandi Carlile. And we are all mourning the loss of an outlaw. A different kind of Christian. A Christian that I hope we could aspire to be like. The one who pointed us not toward what is human, not toward what shields us from the love of God, but what is divine.

What would it look like, church, if we lived a little more like our holy outlaws this week? If in our death we saw these unlikely overlaps of people come together to grieve who we are and who we loved. If we laid down our life for a savior who took up his own cross who asks us to do the same. Even when we trip over those shoelaces as we stumble up that hill toward Calvary. Even when our feet sink below the sea a little bit. Even when we misplace our keys to the kingdom,

we could choose comfort or we could choose commitment. We could choose grandeur and we could choose being known. We could choose money and privilege and sheltered. Away from the vulnerable things that scare us, away from the people that we call those people. But Dolly called herself a Jezebel, unashamed of what that word meant.

So I hope you share stories with me about her and what she meant to you as I share a prayer, a prayer from a song she wrote called "The Seeker." Will you pray with me? I am a seeker, a poor and sinful creature. There is no weaker than I am. I am a seeker and you are a teacher. You are a reacher. So reach down. Reach out and lead me. Guide me and keep me in the shelter of your care each day.

Amen.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, August 23, 2026

“Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”

That is such a perplexing statement to me and perhaps to most Christians because here is the man that we believe to be God incarnate. The man who came to earth, became flesh, was born, lived, suffered, and died in our own human flesh. Died and rose again. He performed these miracles, and he stood up to the empire. He gave an occupied and oppressed people hope for a future that is better than their present reality. Why would he not want to tell them who he was or why he was here on earth or what he had come to do? To preach good news to the poor, the recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the captives free. Why not tell them? Why do you think he would not want anybody to know who he was? Well, I know that we're not the first ones to ponder this question, and we're definitely won't be the last, but I want us to keep that question close to ourselves this morning, and I want us to practice this holy practice of questioning today. Many of us may have grown up in traditions where you weren't supposed to question, right? Questioning was a sign of doubt. But I'm here to tell you that questioning the text, trying to get into the mind of the author and the audience and trying to discern what Christ was telling them then and what he might be telling us now is a holy act. So I encourage you to question this morning or wonder, be curious about this text. And we may leave this place with more questions than when we walked in. But I also know that we will also leave filled with wonder at who God is. Would you pray with me?

God, you reveal your word in scripture. You reveal your word among us and within us as well. Be with us now as we seek revelation from this passage in Matthew and guide us into a deeper understanding. Amen. I've been thinking about this question all week that Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" as I've been preparing for this sermon. And I was driving through Canada earlier this week. And when I was driving and encountering all these people, I was wondering, "How might these folks answer that question if I were to ask them? How might the flight attendant answer the question, who do you say that I am?" Would she answer too that he was a nomad, a traveler, a wanderer, going wherever he was needed? How might the Jehovah's Witnesses who were set up in the Detroit airport answer that question? Would they say that he had existed originally as Michael the Archangel before becoming Jehovah's first creation, fully divine in purpose, but not equal in who God is in status or nature? That's who they believe Jesus to be. How would the border patrol worker answer that question? Would he recognize that Jesus was also a refugee, an immigrant child seeking asylum in a foreign land with his parents to escape this dangerous tyrant? Would the person reading their Bible in the Tim Hortons answer as Peter did that he was the Messiah, the son of the living God? What about all these folks that aren't involved in church? Who would they say that he is? A teacher, a prophet, a mystic, a man who was maybe misunderstood, or would they point out that he's a man whose name is invoked a lot but his teachings and actions are not?

Earlier in this chapter, Jesus is approached by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and they tell him to show them a sign from heaven and seemingly frustrated, he illustrates this short lesson for them and they miss it completely. This is the beginning of the chapter and I like how the Message version puts this response by Jesus. He says, "You have a saying that goes, red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. You find it easy to forecast the weather, but you can't read the signs of the times." Of course, this is a paraphrase, a retelling, but I think it helps us kind of see what Jesus was trying to do here. He was telling these religious leaders that they were missing the forest for the trees. Then he leaves them and he and his disciples cross the lake in the next section of this chapter. And when they get to the other side, they realize that they didn't bring any food. They don't have any bread with them. And Jesus says, "Speaking of bread, watch out and beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." And they, just like the religious leaders that they had just spoken to, miss the point completely. They think he's speaking literally about bread. And so he scolds them, reminding them that he multiplied bread and loaves of loaves of bread and fish just a few chapters earlier to feed the multitudes. And he says to them, "How could you miss that? I wasn't talking about bread. Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." And they finally understand that he's not talking about bread. He's talking about the teachings of these religious leaders. And then we get to the passage for today, chapter 16:3. And it has me wondering if these prior events has Jesus questioning his purpose, questioning why he's there. If he's feeling frustrated or nervous that they're not getting it. And so he asks them, "Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?" And to me, it feels like he's about to say, "Hey, I'm about to leave y'all, and I need y'all to make sure that you're on the same page as me before I go." In fact, in the next passage of this chapter, he's foretelling his own death. So, it seems like he's really making sure that his disciples, like the religious leaders, are not missing the forest for the trees. And it makes me think about how many times have Christians, how many times has the church hurt people? How many times have we been so concerned with the letter of the law and reading the text that we hurt people? We miss the point entirely. We read the text, we sing the songs, we go to the camps, we get the t-shirts, but we still don't get it. In the church of my upbringing, I remember us having this heated debate about whether or not divorced men could be deacons. There's this verse in First Timothy that says, "A deacon shall be the husband of one wife." And we were having this debate about whether or not that was about divorce or polygamy. And Reverend Stacy Rector, who preached here just a few weeks ago, told me about an old man from the church that she grew up in who lost his wife recently, a partner of 50-some years. And because of that, because he was now a widower, he could not be a deacon in their church anymore. Because a verse in First Timothy says that a deacon shall be the husband of one wife. How many people has the church hurt? Have Christians hurt because we're so concerned with trying to live literally by these lessons from 30 AD, nearly 2,000 years ago. So then Jesus, likely frustrated and perhaps nervous that his three years of ministry has been for nothing, asked them, "Who do people say that I am?" One commentator put it this way. Jesus says, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" And the answers reflect the crowd's confusion. John the Baptist, they say, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And these aren't insulting guesses. After all, Matthew's audience is primarily Jewish. And these are really powerful Jewish figures, recognizable by any Jews of the time. But these answers fall short because the world recognized Jesus as special and powerful, but not divine. And so Jesus says, "But what about you? Who do you say that I am?" And Peter, whose spirit is being stirred in this moment, responds with clarity and with courage and says you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. I should note that the location of this story is equally important. Caesarea Philippi is no accident of geography as the location for this story. It was located at the foot of Mount Hermon in what is now northern Palestine. And this massive rock wall carved with niches for idols stood tall over this deep cave that many of that community believed to be the gate to Hades, the very threshold between the natural and supernatural world. So in this place that's known for dead idols, Peter speaks of this living God in a city where people worship gods made of stone. Peter speaks about the true rock, the one who will be the cornerstone of the church. And even more than that, so much of the language that we use such as son of God, son of man, savior of the world, he who forgives sins, all of this was a part of the Roman imperial theology. So when Peter says that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God, it is a direct challenge to the power of Rome and the empire. One commentator noted that Peter's confession wasn't whispered in a synagogue quietly. It was shouted spiritually speaking from enemy territory. Surrounded by all these altars to Caesar, Peter declares allegiance to the one true God. This is more than theology. This is the light confronting the darkness. This is the truth piercing this centuries of deception that these people were facing.

And when he says that, Jesus looks at him and calls him blessed because he finally gets it. Peter finally gets it. And I like to think in this moment that Jesus's nerves were calmed and he feels seen and he feels affirmed and he feels like he can actually do what he knows is coming next. So Jesus makes this powerful statement. On this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. And again, this reference isn't random, right? These people in this community believe that they were literally standing next to the gate of Hades. And here is Jesus declaring victory over the powers of evil, over the power of death, over hatred, over oppression and occupation and tyranny. And so Jesus says to Peter, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." In other words, no more barriers between heaven and earth and earth and heaven. The New Century Version says, "Whatever you allow on earth, you allow in heaven. Whatever you don't allow on earth, you don't allow in heaven." This is a call back to me at least to the Lord's prayer and this reminder from Jesus that he has come to bring heaven to earth on earth as it is in heaven. He taught us to pray. And at the same time, it's this precursor to a little bit later in this book of Matthew in chapter 25 when he says that when you feed the hungry, you feed him. Or when you clothe the naked, you clothe him. When you set the captives free, you free him. It's this powerful moment, this beautiful, powerful message that Christ gives to his disciples. But then he tells them, "Don't tell anybody who I am." And I wonder why. Could it be because they were doing ministry under the thumb of this very dangerous empire that had slaughtered Jews, especially Jewish political leaders, and the cost of their ministry was very real and very dangerous? Could it be that he was already in hot water with the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees of that time, and he had to be careful and tread lightly around them for fear of betrayal or deceit or retribution? Or could it be that he was less interested in what people said with their words and more so he was interested in what they said with their actions?

Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith back in May said that Americans should be given permission to hate again. He said, "We are giving people permission to hate again. And I know that sounds a little harsh at first, but when we've seen this movement to eradicate hate in our culture, that's the worst thing we could do." He doubled down recently in a sermon going as far as to say that the cross teaches us how to hate. Failed gubernatorial candidate Monty Fritz distinctly said that he wanted a Christ first Tennessee. Christ first Tennessee. Then he explained that a Christ first Tennessee would include banning Islam and immigrants and outlawing same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ rights. The Crusades, the doctrine of discovery, the genocide of indigenous people, the boarding schools that we put them in later, those who supported the enslavement of human beings, those who supported segregation, the list goes on and on. All of these folks proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah and the son of the living God. Yet their actions,

their actions were anything but Christlike.

Will we as Christians speak with our words or will we speak with our actions? When will we quit using the name of Jesus as a social indicator of who's in and who's out? When will we as Christians stop witnessing with pious Facebook groups and pious Facebook posts and branding deals and start witnessing with our actions of love and mercy and forgiveness.

And maybe that's the point of this whole passage. Maybe Jesus wasn't looking for a perfect disciple and perfect answers and perfect theology. Maybe he was looking for people who were willing to keep showing up, keep trying, keep wondering, keep wrestling, keep trying to see the forest instead of the trees. Because here's the thing we cannot miss from this passage. The same man that Jesus said, "On you, I will build my church," is the same man who didn't have enough faith and sank into the water. The same man that Jesus said, "On you, I will build my church," is the same man that denied him three times. The same man that proclaimed, "You are the Messiah and the son of the living God," is the same man when pressure rose and the danger closed in, he said, "I don't know him." And I think Jesus knew that. I think Jesus knew that. Jesus knew Peter's courage and he knew his fear. Jesus knew Peter's clarity and his confusion. He knew his faith and his failures. And still he called him blessed,

which I think means Jesus calls us blessed, too. Not because we're perfect, not because we always get it right. Not because our actions always match our confessions, but because God's grace is bigger than our mistakes. God's love is greater than our failures. And God's calling is stronger than our fear. So when Jesus says, "Who do you say that I am?" He isn't looking for this flawless answer. He's looking for a faithful life. He's looking for people who will try, really try to live as if heaven is coming to earth. People who will feed the hungry and clothe the naked and welcome the stranger and free the captive and love your neighbor. People who will see these idols of empire and still proclaim that there is a living God. People who will refuse to let hatred and greed and power have the last word.

Because the good news of this passage, this is my favorite part of this entire sermon. The good news of this passage is not that Peter got it right. The good news of this passage is that Jesus stayed with him when he got it wrong.

And Jesus stays with us, too. So may we go from this place today, not striving for perfection, but striving for faithfulness. Not clinging to clarity or certainty, but clinging to Christ. Not fearing our questions, but trusting that God meets us in them. And may we live in this beautiful way that lets our actions speak louder than words. I really wanted to sing "Louder Than Words" from Tick, Tick... Boom, but I just couldn't put it together. Really quick. I would need two more people. If you know it, meet me after the service. But may we live in a way that our actions speak louder than words. So that when the world asks, "Who do you say that he is?" They will see our answer. They will see our answer in the way that we live and love.

Amen.

Not Some, But All

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

There are two kinds of tired. There is the first kind, which is when you just need to go to bed. You have been running around in the hot sun or studying for a test or crouching over your desk at work, and you just need a good night's sleep. And then there is the second kind of tired, one that we might call weariness. You are a new parent. You are up night after night for weeks or months trying to calm your screaming child. You are someone who is in and out of doctor's appointments and hospital appointments, trying to figure out a diagnosis, trying to sift through paperwork, trying to be seen and heard. You are a parent with the kid's calendar taped to the kitchen fridge, so busy that sometimes you're unable to look into the eyes of your spouse or check within yourself. You are weary from grief. How it hovers, how it depletes you. You are weary from studying for finals, for physics, and the Great Wall and the square root of something. Don't ask me. And that kind of weariness does not get resolved by a good night's sleep. It sits above the eyebrows for some of us. It shows up below the eyes. For some of us, it sits heavy on our chest. It makes our limbs heavy.

That's the kind of weariness that the son of David has today. Jesus has been so busy pouring out his compassion and mercy on all kinds of kinds, especially those on the fringes of society. Paralytics and demon-possessed men and women who have been bleeding for 12 years when no one would help them. And people with leprosy, and it seems for him that no one is beyond healing. He has come for the last and the least and the lost. But the people of God don't have ears to hear. They are throwing this man out of towns. They are arguing with him about the law when it is so clear that he has come to fulfill it. Even his own disciples barely understand what he's up to. Just last week, Peter sank into the sea from disbelief that Jesus is who he says he is.

So today we find this weary man traveling to Tyre and Sidon with the disciples. Not just traveling to any district, but this is a Gentile district. This is foreign territory. These are not Israelite cities. But what's funny is that folks outside of Israelite cities seem to recognize the son of God more than those who he came to save first. Amen. But Jesus is never afraid of putting himself in uncomfortable situations in foreign places. But in these districts, his disciples, they kind of have their ears perked up. They have their eyes shifting around. They are a little more nervous as they cross over into Gentile territory where they are looking at those people. Y'all know about those people. Weary and raw, dejected and rejected. Jesus meets this Canaanite woman. Somebody give me a name for her. Sarah. Jesus meets Sarah. Not only does he meet her, but immediately Sarah starts shouting. Imagine they are in this district that they are not familiar with. And a foreign woman, an outcast, someone who is different from them ethnically, shouts at them. They would have been pretty spooked. And here is what she says. Help me. Have mercy on me, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon.

Take a second and imagine the urgency in this woman's voice. We have a lot of mamas here today, or a lot of mother figures. And so there is nothing you wouldn't do for your kid, even if it meant approaching a group that hasn't really been considering you on its mercy tour. But just 10 chapters ago, Jesus preached something called the Sermon on the Mount. And he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive." Y'all better wake up. I'm not done here. They will receive mercy. Sarah has heard whispers of this, traveling from town to town, about this man who preached mercy. And so surely if she crosses her fingers and reaches out, it could be for her, too.

And she is met with silence. Not a word from the man who has been walking around while people grasp his cloak, trip him in the streets, grab onto the fringes of his clothes, begging to be healed. Silence and maybe a weariness.

And his disciples jump in. Send her away. She keeps shouting after us. Get rid of her. Like a starving mom in Palestine, yelling for food for her babies. Like a weary mom in the emergency room pleading with the staff to help her and her kid. Like a desperate father begging for mercy so that ICE doesn't snatch his own son. But they look at her with fear and they look at her with disgust and they find her annoying.

And Jesus finally talks to her. I was only sent to help the lost sheep of Israel.

Is this the Jesus you know? This isn't the Jesus I know. But somehow in the Gospel of Matthew, we're able to say, "This man calmed storms." And this man needed a dose of mercy. This man ate with tax collectors and sinners. This man crawled into caves with crazy people. This man walked on water. This man set the table. And somehow he forgot an extra placemat today. He forgot to pull up a chair. And nevertheless, she persists. Kneeling at his feet, she pleads, "Lord, help me."

This woman is not giving up until her daughter is healed. Y'all remember when Jacob wrestled with the angel and he said, "I'm not letting go until you bless me." Y'all remember when Hagar fled into the wilderness with her son and she looked at God and said, "You will not let me look upon the death of my son. Bless me." That same tenacity, that same persistence is what we see in Sarah, the Canaanite woman, today.

He said, "I'm so sorry. It's not fair to take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs."

The dogs, a derogatory word used for Gentiles. That's pretty rude. But he is tired. He's just been on a particular mission. God has said, "Jews first and Gentiles later." In other words, the good news is not quite ready for Gentiles. Okay? Not yet. There's only so much mercy to go around. This is the same man who just fed 5,000 with an overflow of abundance, reminding us that there is a myth of scarcity that we better not buy into. And yet, he's got a mercy shortage. And nevertheless, she persists. And not only does she respond, and I kind of imagine it in like a quippy manner where she's using his own language with him, she says, "I understand what you're saying. I agree with you. But even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table. Even the dogs, Jesus."

As priest Jennifer Wickerly writes, she takes Jesus's nasty words and she transforms them. She takes that belittling label dog and she puts the label right in front of Jesus. She says, "I'm not waiting until Easter. I'm not waiting until the resurrection. It also applies to me. You will extend your mercy to me right now."

She is not going to wait for the people of God to wake up. She wants her blessing, the blessing that God eventually intends anyway. So why not right now?

And what follows? It may even surprise Jesus. Sometimes our own generosity and abundance might sneak up on us and we're like, "All right, I'm pretty good." He holds his hands and a surplus of mercy pours out. Bread that spills over for the 5,000 and the children. And yes, Sarah, the Canaanite woman. Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish. Thank you for the reminder. And her daughter was healed instantly. Somebody say instantly.

You know what happens next? I'm not going to make Noah the intern come back and keep reading. Now he goes up to a mountain, and the disciples, instead of sending the people who need healing away, they bring these people to Jesus's feet and he heals them all. And listen to what it says in Matthew 16. The crowd was amazed at what they saw. The mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, the blind seeing. Imagine that. That maybe the faith of this Canaanite woman sped up the mercy that was already intended for all of God's people. Because y'all read the last part of Matthew, right? When Jesus commissions his disciples, he says, "Go and make believers of all people." I wonder if he learned some of that from Sarah. Not some, but all. Not some, but all.

And so today on kickoff Sunday, we're kind of dusting off our Bibles and we're kicking off. We're trying to do a little spiritual inventory and ask ourselves at Vine Street Christian Church, is the table set for some or is it set for all? Truly, because let me tell you something, and this is true for me. It is tempting to limit the gospel and the good news for who I want it to go to. It is tempting to limit God's mercy to just the people who agree with me, who look like me, who vote like me, who worship like me. But y'all, Jesus's mission is so clear, perhaps more so because a Canaanite woman woke him up one day. He says, "Set the table for not some, but all. Set the table for the people who vote like you. Set the table for the people who don't. Set the table for the people who forget to vote. Set the table for the men and women on death row, the people who faithfully visit them, the lawmakers who approve their execution, the protesters who don't support it and the counterprotesters who do, the correctional officers who have to look at it. Set the table for babies who can't yet speak for themselves and for our older folks who are teaching us how to slow down a little bit and our young people who sprint through the hallways. Set the table for your closest colleague, the one that you can make eye contact with in a staff meeting and kind of roll your eyes together, and the colleague who annoys you to no end. You better not say me. Set the table for the boss who is so attentive to you. And set the table for the one who still doesn't get your name right. Set the table for the people marching in glee at the pride parade. And for the people holding up signs that say sinners. And for the people who aren't ready to be there yet. Set the table for single moms shouting for their kids to be healed. And set the table for the people working at corporations who don't want them to. Set the table for your grumpy uncle, for your self-obsessed aunt, for your overbearing dad, for your anxious mom, for your weird cousin, for your annoying sibling. You set the table for them. Set the table for your spouse who is late to dinner again. And set the table for the guy standing at the 440 intersection right now whose stares you ignore, whose motives that you don't trust. And set the table for yourself, that your mercy is limited. Set the table for the abused and the abusers, for the perpetrators and the victims, for the rich and the poor and the hungry and the filled and the hoarders and the sharers and the friends and the strangers and the Christians and the atheists. Not some, but all. No one. No one is too broken or too foreign or too different or too damaged to have a chair pulled up for them at Christ's table. No one.

And when we pull up that extra chair, when we shift in our pews at the thought of those people sitting next to us here, that that is when the real work of the gospel begins. That's when we kick it off. When the abundance falls out of our hands. Bread for the kids, bread for the dogs, bread for everybody.

Endless mercy. Endless mercy. It began with a Canaanite woman named Sarah. A woman who wouldn't take no for an answer. And the son of God who wasn't too ashamed to change his mind.

Who ended this book commissioning all.

So, we got to pull up an extra chair, especially for the ones crying out, "Help me."

And there we will find the uncomfortable, stretchy, subversive, merciful kingdom of God that is never just for some, but for all.

Amen.

Still Small Voice

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 9, 2026

Many of you know that a couple weeks ago I went to Iona Abbey, which is on an island off the coast of Scotland. It's an island that's three miles long and one mile wide. Before I left, I went on a walk with my spiritual director. And for those of you who don't know what that is, a spiritual director is a therapist for pastors. So you'll be glad I have one. And after talking to Jean for a while, she looked at me and said, "You are so hard on yourself. Why are you so hard on yourself?" And then she asked me, "Is that how God talks to you?" And I said, "I don't know. I haven't been listening." Well, then Iona is probably coming at the right time, she said, because it's time to listen.

The same thing was true 10 years ago when I was in seminary. The world felt noisy. The political landscape of 2016 was noisy. Studying theology and philosophy and divinity makes the mind a little bit noisy. Screen time and scrolling and all that good stuff was noisy. And on top of that, within my own family, divorce was making things noisy. So I got an email about going to an abbey spring break of that year. I don't know what it is with me and abbeys. It's like the monks. I don't know. So I said yes without realizing in the email that this week at the abbey was a silent retreat. Why are y'all laughing?

I went up to this Cistercian Abbey in Berryville, Virginia, and for a week I was silent. I sent an email to my family that week and I said, "What a gift silence is." But it's also, as it turns out, much louder than I thought it would be. By that, I mean it makes the things that I've been stifling come to the forefront in an almost aggressive manner. Maybe that's why all the other retreaters look pained, too. The only time that we broke our silence in that week was to worship at night with the monks to do an evening service where we chanted the psalms and read the liturgy. And on my last night there, for whatever reason, one of the monks approaches me and says, "What are you doing here? What are you doing here?" It's the same question that God asks Elijah today. What are you doing here, Elijah?

If Jeremiah is the weeping prophet and Jonah is the reluctant prophet, I think Elijah is the fleeing prophet. And for good reason. He has just killed about 400 false prophets that were worshiping Baal. Not the Israel's God of love and liberation and care for all people, but a different kind of idol. And Queen Jezebel, the head of all of these false prophets, wants to kill him. We keep having these stories where someone wants to kill someone. She wants to kill him. So he's on the run. And in First Kings 18, it says Elijah was terrified. He got up and ran for his life. And we're not talking about a couple miles. We're not talking about a couple days. We're talking about three weeks of running over rough terrain, not knowing if he was safe or not, trying to get away and run for his life. At one point, he even asks God, "I don't want to live anymore. Take my life. I'm scared." But God is a God of provision and continues to feed and nourish Elijah as he's on the run.

Elijah's walking an ancient path. It's actually one that Moses has walked before. Elijah makes it to Mount Horeb, which is the same mountain that Moses received the Ten Commandments. Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights after hiding in a cave. But unlike Moses, who stood up to Pharaoh, who had the courage and the boldness even with a stutter, Elijah cowers to Queen Jezebel and doesn't trust in a God who has promised to always be with him. And so God asks him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah says, "I have been very zealous for the Lord." Zealous here means to campaign or to champion. I have been championing you, God, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel, they have forsaken your covenant. They have thrown down your altars and killed your prophets. I alone am the only one left, and they want to kill me, too.

Go out, God said, and stand on the mountain, for the Lord is about to pass by.

Now there was a great wind so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks, but God was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. But God was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But God was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of sheer silence.

The Common English Bible version of that is a sound, thin, quiet. The King James version, a still small voice.

And when Elijah hears it, he wraps his face in his mantle and he goes and he stands out at the entrance of this cave and a voice says, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

And he says the same thing. I have been very zealous for you. I've been campaigning for you. They want to kill me.

A few things here for those of you who find that God does show up in the noise. That is true of God in the Hebrew Bible. Earthquakes and winds and fires, God has shown up there. But today, to this fleeing prophet, God makes herself known in the silence.

What comes up for Elijah in that moment? I have a feeling it's things that he doesn't want to confront. And what comes up for Peter and the disciples when Jesus stills the wind? Because did you notice that it's not when Jesus walks on water that they say that is the son of the Lord? It's when Jesus quiets the wind that they are able to proclaim truly you are the son of God. As if in the silence they experience feeling known and seen and heard by God.

Sometimes it takes stillness for us to feel the Lord passing by.

There is this place in the Hoh Rainforest, I've talked about it before, in Olympic National Park in Washington State. It's called one square inch of silence and it's marked by a red stone and it is placed on top of a moss-covered log and it is said to be the quietest place in our country.

There are only 15 places left in our country where you can experience 15 minutes or longer without any noise intrusion. 15 places.

We are starved for silence and yet it is becoming dangerous. Silence. When we listen to ourselves, when we listen to a divine, still small voice is being co-opted by productivity and efficiency and noise. They don't want us to hear from a God that makes himself known to us when we quiet down.

It may seem like you have to go overseas or up to Berryville, Virginia to find silence, but you don't. You don't. The location of Elijah's encounter with God, it actually doesn't matter. Yes, it's significant because that's where Moses stood, but many commentaries said he could have experienced God anywhere. In the cave, in the wilderness, in the temples, which means that we don't have to go anywhere to feel the Lord passing by.

I was in an old Bible study once and we talked about this passage and we made an agreement. Okay, at 3:03 p.m. every day, we're going to set a timer. And for that moment, wherever we are, we will pause. We will look around. We will listen. For months we did that, checking back in weekly to see what had come up, what had been noticed, what had been heard.

Because believe it or not, lots of things come up in silence that we don't want to face. Oftentimes when I get quiet, it's the things that I'd rather avoid that speak to me. You are lonely. You are scared. You have lost hope. You are tired. You are frightened. You miss him. You grieve her. You don't want to be alone.

And then oftentimes underneath the scary stuff is a loving voice. One of mercy and grace, always ushering me back to believe that I am beloved. God is well pleased with me. But if we don't take time to listen, how can we ever hear the still small voice of God? And if we don't take time to listen to God, how do we think we're going to be able to hear each other in a world that really doesn't want us to listen to each other? Amen.

There is an American composer John Cage. He wrote a song called 4'33". Do you know this song? Of course TJ knows this song. There are no intentional music notes. There's a video of him sitting at the piano and setting his timer, and for 273 seconds.

Perhaps that's the only time in the audience's day when they hear nothing and therefore hear everything, or the only time in their week or their month.

Elijah's response before and after this event. This is what's kind of frustrating and kind of interesting and a lot relatable is that did you notice before this moment of thin quiet, God asks, Elijah, what are you doing here? And Elijah answers, I'm scared. I'm scared for my life. I'm running away. I have been campaigning for you. Why aren't you here for me? And God gets Elijah's attention in ways that God has been known before. And then silence. And then again, God asks, perhaps hoping that Elijah was transformed by that 4 minutes and 33 seconds. God asks again, "Elijah, what are you doing here?" I'm scared. I'm running for my life. I've been campaigning for you and they want to kill me. And we know that even after Jesus calms the wind that Peter still has moments of doubt and denial.

The invitation there, I think, is that this isn't a one-time show. This isn't a one-time experience. This is a spiritual practice that we have to build up and attempt because it is subversive. Because the world doesn't want us to.

What's also interesting about this story is it's actually a retirement plan. After God says, "What are you doing here?" for the second time, and Elijah answers in fear, God says, "Okay, go back down the mountain. I'm decommissioning you and I'm going to appoint Elisha, a new prophet."

Perhaps in that moment, God saw Elijah's fear and thought, "Then I will give you a rest." Perhaps in that 4 minutes and 33 seconds, God felt Elijah's fatigue when Elijah was able to say perhaps the most raw, honest things to God in that stillness that he wasn't allowed to say in the noise.

God wants to pass by. God is passing by. God is calming the wind and inviting us day in and day out to take a moment, a moment for something beyond and greater than us to speak.

When I got to that island, when I walked around Iona, I felt flooded, flooded with mercy. And I heard God say, "It is enough. To have helped one person, it would have been enough. You are enough."

Thank God that in that moment and in moments that we can find if we look for them, we hear a still small voice.

Walking Scared

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 2, 2026

Is anyone here a twin? Okay. Two. Oh, right. Okay. Two twins in the building. I was curious. This is a really interesting passage to me and maybe to you. And before we talk about this wrestling match, I want to take us very back to the beginning of this story of a set of twin brothers. So, Isaac and Rebecca have two twin boys. The first one to come out of the womb is Esau. And we learn that Esau is red in complexion. He's very hairy and he is going to be strong in might. This is kind of foreshadowing to the fact that Esau will be this skilled hunter and will be kind of a nature man. And then grabbing onto his heel as he exits Rebecca's womb is Jacob. Jacob literally means to take by the heel. And what we learn about Jacob is that he has softer skin. He's a quieter baby, meaning that he becomes a quiet man. And so, we start to see the difference in these twins. Y'all are very different as twins, right? That's usually the case. And then we learn later in this story that Jacob, the younger brother, steals his older twin's birthright and his blessing. And the Hebrew in this moment is really cool. This play on words. Jacob steals Esau's birthright, Becker, and has his dad grant him a blessing bar of the firstborn son. So what happens? Esau hates Jacob for tricking him, for stealing the blessing and the birthright for him. And we learn that Esau wants to kill his twin. 

Jacob in this moment has his mother approach him, Rebecca. Rebecca favored Jacob, and Isaac favored Esau. And Rebecca says, "You have got to flee from Canaan. You got to get out of here. Let Esau cool off. Let him calm down a little bit. And when that happens, when he doesn't really want to kill you anymore, I will send for you and you can come back home." But Rebecca never calls for her son. 20 years go by and Jacob is living with his uncle Laban in Haran, Rebecca's brother, and she never calls for him. And at this point in the story, Jacob hears from God. And God says, "It's time to go home. It's time to go home to the land of Canaan. But in order to do so, you're going to have to pass through Edom." Anybody want to guess who lives in Edom? Esau, who last time we checked in with Esau, wanted to kill him. So, Jacob in his sort of trickster younger twin way sends a messenger, sends a messenger to his older twin and he says, "Listen, Esau, I've been a foreigner for a very long time in my uncle's house and I've had my struggles and y'all can read the couple chapters before 32 to get a sense for that." He says, "I'm going to send some things ahead for you, some presents, so that maybe you find favor with me, your servant again." So Jacob sends ahead of him an oxen, donkey, male and female slaves. He says, "They're all yours." He tells this to the messenger to tell to Esau. And Esau tells the messenger to say to Jacob, "I will come and meet you. I'm going to bring 400 men." So, I'll be there and I'm gonna come with 400 of my buddies. Obviously, this might not incentivize Jacob to come and meet his brother. 

So, Jacob has another idea at this point because he's very, as scripture tells us, distressed and afraid, as many of us would be. He separates his people, his animals into two companies. He says, "Okay, I'm going to send one company ahead, and that's going to be a lot of animals and some family and possessions, and then I'm going to have another company follow behind so that even if Esau and his 400 men kill the first company, we got a backup company who can escape." So, Jacob first petitions to God and says, "Will you just deliver me from the hand of Esau? Like I've had it pretty rough. I had to flee my home. I had to live with my uncle who wasn't really fun to live with. I just want to go home. Can you spare me that?" So, he takes these presents. And I want to read you everything he takes. 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 camels, 30 colts, 40 cows and bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. He's laying it on thick, church, is he not?

If Esau asks whose, therefore, he says again, therefore, his servant Jacob. He's laying it on real thick, isn't he? Jacob says, "I'm going to come behind y'all. Okay, y'all go ahead with all these animals, with all these presents. I'm going to come behind y'all so that maybe I can appease him with these gifts." And when he sees my face after receiving all that I want to give him, maybe he will accept me. The presents pass on ahead of him. And he decides to spend a night in this camp with his wives and maids and 11 children. And then he thinks, actually, I think we should cross this ford of Jabbok, and I'm actually going to send all my family across a stream. And so he does. And then scripture says this, Jacob was left alone. Hundreds and hundreds of animals, possessions, family. He sends them ahead of him. And Jacob was left alone.

And a man wrestled with him until daybreak. A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak. Any guesses as to who this man is? People are undecided on this. Any guesses?

God. Great guess. Any other guesses? Who would be wrestling with him?

His twin. And that's another guess. Some people think that Jacob's wrestling partner was actually his twin. That Esau had come to meet him, gotten into the ring, and wanted to have it out. Some people think that this wrestling match actually didn't take place physically while Jacob was awake. It was like a nightmare where he wrestled with his twin in his dreams. And maybe you've experienced this, church, when you have these anxiety dreams when something is going to happen in the next day or week or month that scares you and anxiously you're wrestling in your sleep. Most theologians do think it's God, but it's unclear who Jacob meets in the night. And that's how it is with night, isn't it? It can be muddled who we are addressing and approaching and wrestling with when we wake up or are asleep. Walter Brueggemann writes, "What's interesting is during the day, Jacob has it all together. He manages and takes initiative. And then at night, as it is for all of us, Jacob turns out to be really vulnerable and things rush powerfully beyond his control. His night is peopled with someone who's uninvited and unwelcomed into his life. But they are the ones with whom he has to come to terms with before he can go home peaceably." Jacob has to wrestle with himself and with this wrestling partner before he can see his brother.

So God gets in the ring with Jacob. Let's say it's God. God gets in the ring with Jacob. And many people reading this story actually don't think that it's a nightmare or a dream or something psychological. I'm willing to play with the fact that it might be. It's fun to play with scripture, but a lot of people think that he was fully awake. Fully awake. And he wasn't flinching in the dark, but he was wrestling with this man, God, whoever this was. And what I love is that in this genuine encounter with God in which Jacob does leave physically affected, God doesn't prevail from the very jump. God wrestles back with Jacob. God wrestles back with Jacob. God wrestles through the night with him until he finally strikes Jacob on the hip, putting his hip socket out of joint.

And I wonder if in that moment their relationship changed. Both God and Jacob. Maybe their relationship changed because they hold fast to each other and neither of them will turn away. Neither of them turn away from each other in the wrestling match. Then God says, "You got to let me go cuz day is breaking." And what we know from that time is anyone who sees God face to face during the day dies. So maybe God wants to spare Jacob's life. Okay buddy, we just had this big old wrestling match. Maybe we've both come away from it changed and now you have to let me go. You've got to continue on. Actually want you to live to play out your story. And Jacob says, "No, I'm not letting you go. I'm not letting you go until you bless me." Jacob talks back to God. I'm not letting you go until you bless me. Maybe God smirks at this point. Maybe God is surprised by the boldness and courage of this demand for a blessing because God says, "What's your name?" Jacob. God says, "Not anymore. Your name is Israel." Which means he who strives to strive because you have wrestled against man and humans and God. And you have prevailed. Your name is changed. The name you had grabbing life by the heel doesn't reflect the story of your life anymore. And the wrestle that we just had a new name for you. Not that you struggle in the moment, but that you have striven and you have prevailed.

A changed name. And then Jacob says, "Okay, I told you my name. What's your name? Who are you? Who is this person who has met me and encountered me and not been too scared to meet me in my fears and anxieties, but has said, 'I'm with you. I'm engaging in this challenge with you.'" And God in such an annoying God way answers a question with a question. Do y'all know people who do that? I feel like three-year-olds do that. Why do I think that? It's like, why? Why? And then you start to like go down your own loophole and you're like, I don't even know why anymore. So God answers a question with a question. Why do you ask? Why does it matter? Why do you want to know? And before Jacob can answer, God cuts him off and God blesses him. This isn't a stolen blessing. This isn't Jacob tricking his father into blessing him. This is a willing blessing from a God who loves blessing people. Just read Genesis and you will see our God loves blessing us.

Oh, this is way down here. Have y'all been able to hear me? Why don't I start over? So, who's a twin? Raise your hand if you're a twin.

I'm going to grab the microphone if that's okay. I'm having my own wrestling match.

God blesses Jacob. And in doing so, he receives this divine blessing. It really validates who he is. It validates his life, what he's been through, not who he was born as. His old name doesn't fit anymore. And in this moment, here's what Jacob says. I've seen God face to face and I've lived. I've seen God face to face and I've lived.

And of course, then the sun begins to rise. That in that twilight, in that darkness, Jacob sees God not in the light, but in his darkest moment. That's when God chooses to reveal Godself to Jacob. Then the sun rises. Then the dawn breaks and in that moment, Jacob doesn't sit down and nurse his wounds. I mean, he has developed a limp because of this wrestling match. A limp that he'll have forever. A sign of what it means to be wounded and changed and given a new name because of this wrestling. Jacob doesn't sit down. Jacob doesn't turn back. Jacob isn't passive to his own life. Jacob doesn't turn back from what he has to do, which is go face his twin. We learn then that Jacob gets up and he goes on limping because of his hip.

I don't want to spoil the story for you. A lot of you know the story, but for those of you who don't, for those of you who have forgotten, I really encourage you to read Genesis 33 when you get home. Or you can pick it up right now and tune me out. The ending of this story is quite beautiful.

There's so many things in this passage that feel freeing to me. So many moments in this passage when I feel God's invitation. And I want to name a few. The first is that I feel like God is normalizing how much we feel anxiety, how much we feel scared, how much we feel alone when we wake up in the night with our thoughts racing, unable to go back to sleep for fear of what's coming, a difficult interaction, a really hard exam, a moment at work that we don't want to face, something going on in our own family unit. To wake up and be anxious and scared is pretty dang normal. It's helpful that in our most vulnerable moments, especially at our nighttime moments, God says that happens. That's okay. That's human.

And then what a beautiful, beautiful testament to who our God is. God doesn't exist far away from Jacob's moment of fear. God steps in the ring with Jacob. God chooses to engage with each of us personally because nothing is too scary. Nothing is too challenging. Nothing is too far beyond our God who meets us, who wrestles with us until daybreak. It means that you and I can pretty much bring anything to our maker. God will not sit away from it. God will engage with it.

I love that Jacob's given a new name. I love that he's changed from this experience. There's no way he's going to walk away and be the same man that he was. Maybe he lays down his tricks. No more putting presents and livestock and land and family ahead of himself in order to save his butt. Maybe he lays down this feeling of being an underdog of trickery and says mercy and says grace and says forgiveness and says honesty and says courage is not being brave. Courage is walking scared to meet my twin not knowing what will happen to me. Jacob is given a new name. And I love that Jacob demands a blessing. Sometimes this story reminds me of Hagar that sometimes I think it feels like we have to cower away from God. That we're not allowed to demand blessings from God. But here is a man who does who doesn't let go of God. Who doesn't let go of the challenge before saying, "You better bless me. If you're going to wound me, then transform me."

And finally, none of us are getting out of here without wounds. Nobody is exempt from a wounded life. Y'all remember a guy named Jesus and a guy named Thomas? Thomas who doubted that after the resurrection, it really was the risen savior until Jesus said, "I am wounded just like you. I carry these wounds and these scars from a life lived of struggle. I'm not exempt from that either." That none of us are getting out of here wounded. And I dare say none of us are getting out of here transformed.

And for some of you, it's quite literally physical wounds. I've actually met with a couple people this week who've had knee replacement surgeries and back issues and whose hips are very much in pain. Some who may have gone from walking upright to needing to limp. And for some of you who I meet with, it feels more like a mental wound, a broken brain, limping in a way that feels invisible, but is very much personal and acute.

God is a God of blessing and we will be wounded in this lifetime. But I dare say we will be transformed.

I think we're invited to hang on to God. I think we're invited to wrestle with God. I think we are invited to claim our promises. I think we are invited to demand our blessings. And I think we're invited to persist in a relationship with God.

And maybe the most freeing of all and what I feel here in this church is that we welcome the wounded. This life is not one of perfection but one of salvation. And so if you do not have it all together, if you identify with any part of this story, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. We welcome the wounded and we welcome the wrestlers. Those who are willing to get in the ring with a God who shows up with us and won't let go until we are ready. The wounded, the wrestler, the blessed, the changed name, the transformed. It is all in this rich story. A story for us today.

So, I don't know about you, but I'm hopeful for a God that sticks around. And as I wrestle with God in my woundedness, I feel comforted that God's not going anywhere. God says, "I'm coming into the ring with you in all of your wounds, and you are blessed."

Amen.