Another World is Possible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fear is so loud.

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

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

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

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

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

With Skin On

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, January 4, 2026

A mom is tucking in her daughter at night, and she gives her daughter a really warm, comforting hug and says, “God is with you always. You don’t need to be afraid.” And then she leaves the room like normal.

And this kiddo waits a bit and then calls out, “Mom, I’m scared.”

And so the mom comes into her room again and gives her a hug and maybe a stuffed animal and says, “It’s okay. God is with you. Now float off to dreamland.”

And then this happens yet again. And finally the mom thinks, “Okay, this is the last time.” And so the mom goes in and tucks the kiddo in and again says, “God is with you.”

And the kid says, “Yes, I know that, but I need someone with skin on.”

This is a story that writer Ann Lamott tells. She says that she actually tells this story to her children’s Sunday school. And it’s one that I’m going to tell, too, because this little girl, I think, summarizes what the profound poet John seems to be talking about in chapter 1 of our gospel.

And if your mind wanders during sermons, mine does too. It’s okay. I hope you at least jot down this important cry from that girl: I need someone with skin on. I need God to become flesh and dwell among me.

John is a really swirly, cerebral writer. One of my friends described him as a tortured poet, and he kind of writes in this discombobulated, philosophical way that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to clear interpretation. Some of the other gospels are pretty straightforward. And John is one of those poets that’s like:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.

Are you following? This more swirly way of writing is hard to interpret, and that’s okay. And if it feels a little elusive to you, you are not alone. That’s why we wrestle with this stuff together.

And moments like this—especially after the last week in December, which for me is sort of like John’s writing—it’s confusing and swirly. There’s a lack of structure to the past week. I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of clarity about it. How do I fill my time?

But maybe this text is actually the perfect way to begin this new year. So I’m out here with a lantern, searching for the liberating message in this kind of loopy introduction to the Gospel of John. And I kind of wonder what sticks out to you.

Maybe for you, you’ve always loved the language grace upon grace. Isn’t that so lovely? Let’s go get tattoos. [laughter] Grace upon grace.

Maybe you love the language the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. That’s a longer tattoo, but we could put it somewhere.

This morning, though, I’m struck by these liberating words: The Word became flesh and lived among us. Because as many theologians have pointed out, and as John states in verse 18, no one’s ever seen God. It’s Jesus who actually has made God known. We’ve seen God’s glory, John writes, through Jesus.

All we know about God, we know because of Jesus, who is God with skin on. It’s like God wanted to reveal to us the character of who he or she is. And so perhaps the best way to do that for us broken and beautiful human beings was to show up and send someone like us.

We learn from John that when God lives among us, it’s not always good for God. We pretend like we don’t know him. We don’t accept him. We reject and defile him. And yes, we end up crucifying him.

Listen to this beautiful, beautiful writing from Thomas Merton:

Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him, Christ comes uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those for whom there is no room either.

His place is with those who do not belong. His place is with those who are rejected by power because they are deemed too weak. Those who are discredited, those who are denied the status of persons, who are tortured, who are exterminated— with those for whom there is no room.

Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst— with those for whom there is no room. Christ is present in the world. His place is with those who do not belong.

So the God with skin on, the gift that we call the incarnation, means that when we feel rejected, when we feel weak, when we feel unaccepted, uninvited, like we don’t belong, we just might be a little bit closer, church, to experiencing the person of Jesus—and therefore the character and divinity of God.

And in the beginning was the Word. This also reveals to us something about God. That phrase harkens back to Genesis 1: In the beginning. And we learn that God created the heavens and the earth. And the Trinity was already at work. When we read “in the beginning, God created,” the Hebrew for God is already talking about this trinitarian divine dance— that God is in relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit from the jump.

“He was in the beginning with God,” John writes.

So what we learn is that our creator is already relational, is already interdependent—excuse me—and is already showing us that we cannot do this alone. That even God needs relationship in order to create and in order to flourish.

Maybe you identify with Jesus, who knows something about not feeling known. Or maybe you actually do feel a deep sense of belonging right now in your life— a deep relationship with those around you, a deep acceptance. And if so, I’m jumping a little bit now to what we read about John the Baptist in this passage.

John could have pointed the light at himself and said, “I’m pretty awesome for being Jesus’s cousin and showing you all the way. I’m pretty cool for baptizing the Son of God.” But instead, he testifies to the light so that everybody will believe.

How selfless and interesting that John the Baptist says, “I’m just a voice crying out in the wilderness. I’m not worthy to even untie Jesus’s sandals. He who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”

So some of us feel that rejection like Jesus. And some of us are the ones who are supposed to be the inviters and the light-pointers like John. It’s like he wants us to know that God is not some guy in the sky. God is the best among-us dweller that there ever was.

But here’s the catch. It’s so nice to imagine God showing up as Jesus, with us and fleshed. But it is hard to like the skin that we are in—especially in a new year, when we receive yet again this onslaught of messages from a now trillion-dollar industry telling us that we can be healthier, we should be skinnier, we should be stronger, we should be more beautiful, more youthful-looking, we need to get back in the gym and lose that weight and hide those blemishes.

If we only try a little harder, maybe God would love us more. And maybe the world would too.

In other words, we’ve got to chase after our worthiness and our body’s perfection every January first until, inevitably—at least for me—I end up kind of disappointed that I couldn’t keep it all up. We inevitably burn out and maybe revert back to a sense of shame for what we haven’t done, for who we haven’t become.

None of us can reach this unobtainable perfection that the world is selling us—quite literally trying to sell us.

Nadia Bolz-Weber writes, “But our bodies bruise and they decay and they disappoint us and they sag insistently toward the earth. So why in the world would God not spare Godself the indignity of having things like sweat glands and the hiccups?”

Because in Jesus’s church, the physical life is the spiritual life, whether we like that or not. God could have come as some ethereal, elusive spirit, like the Ghost of Christmas Past. But God came as a poor carpenter with calloused hands and swollen feet. And his flesh is not perfect. And his promise is not to make ours perfect either.

But God does promise to be among us in our physical imperfections. God promises to be that mom in the story, whose eyes are probably puffy from a lack of sleep because her daughter keeps waking her up. Maybe she has a bloated stomach from heaping holiday food on her plate. Maybe her back really hurts from picking up her daughter all the time, or her feet are swollen from walking her in her stroller. Maybe she’s got graying hairs from years of love and care.

And that is God with skin on, if you can believe it. Can you believe it?

The portrayals of Jesus in stained glass and in the public sphere are so misleading. Where are the wounds? Where are the scars? Where is the life lived on his body? Surely if God is in flesh, we would reveal that to each other—and to ourselves.

So in this new year, we are challenged to look for the God who dwells among us, for the incarnation of the one who understands rejection and ridicule. We’re challenged to look for grace upon grace for these bodies that comfort kids and give long hugs and hold a hymnal and shake hands with strangers.

My New Year’s resolution—I made a list yesterday, and now I’m kind of, you know, believing in Jesus is annoying sometimes—so I had to make a new list today. And it’s really simple. It’s just to search for God with skin on who is in the most unlikely places.

And I just want to try my best to embody that freeing message that Steinbeck writes about in East of Eden. He says, “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

I don’t have to be perfect among you. I feel that from you. And you do not have to be perfect for me. And we don’t have to be perfect for the one who is among us.

Now that you know God came in a body—and now that I know that too—maybe we can give ourselves a little more grace to try and do the same. To dwell among others. To love our flesh just a little bit more. And to testify to the true light of the world that enlightens not just some of us, but enlightens all of us.

Amen.

Three Angels and a Dream

Sermon preached by Christy Brown on Sunday, December 29, 2025

Good morning, Vine Street 

My name is Christy Brown, and I am a third year divinity student and this is my second year interning here at Vine Street. I am grateful for this opportunity to preach this morning and I am grateful to each of you who showed up here today on this last Sunday between Christmas and New Years! So, thank you for being here!

Will you join me in prayer as we prepare out hearts and minds to receive the word?

Lord, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds and think through them;
Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for You.
Amen.

For the past month Margie and Wesley have been talking about fear and hope in the Advent Season and how God’s presence can give us hope in a fearful world. And I know that we here at Vine Street are full of hope. It is because of hope that we gather each week. It is because of hope that we offer grants, and host Room in the Inn, and collect school supplies and food for people who have had their SNAP benefits cut, because we know that the church can help spread God’s hope in a world of fear. And it is because of hope that this church just voted for a young woman to be our senior pastor in a time when some denominations are actively removing women from ministry. 

This week I have found hope because my sons who live far away have been home, and together, we have traveled and we have visited with cousins and aunts and uncles. And we got to celebrate here at Vine Street on Christmas Eve. It has been joyful and stressful and full of travel and friends and family. 

I know that some of you have also had family coming to town, and some of you have traveled, and some of us have been missing those who are not here this year.
But whatever your Christmas has been like, December never feels like just a normal month. 

When I compare our modern Christmas to the story Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. I see some overlap. 

For the census, all their extended family had to return to the homeland. It was crowded and noisy and although there was no room for them at the inn, they were still probably celebrating some reunions with old friends and family that they hadn’t seen in a while. Their whole clan had to come together and there was joy in the birth of a new baby. 

But just like our Christmas, things change after Christmas day. After the baby is born. After the census when people start packing up to go home. 

Today’s story focuses on that part of Christmas. What happens after. And it’s a whole different story. We have been so focused on the joy of a new baby, we forget that as soon as that baby enters the world, his life is in danger. Herod has learned of Jesus’s existence. And Herod is a king who feels threatened by anyone else who has a claim to be king – Even a tiny baby is threatening to an insecure man clinging to power. So, when the wisemen tell Herod that they are following a star that marked the birth of a new king, Herod feels threatened. He uses his power to declare that all Hebrew baby boys should be put to death. If he can’t single out which baby boy is the Christ, he will just kill them all. 

And even though we have just been on this spiritual high from Christmas, we are suddenly thrust back into the real world. A world of political unrest where the Hebrew people are not in power, but they are subjects to the whims of an insecure king. 

Sound familiar?

We all know what this world looks like. It’s a world where a powerful men use their positions of authority to bully others. It’s a world where one ethnic group feels superior to people of other ethnicities. Herod issuing an edict to kill all the Hebrew baby boys is a lot like ICE arresting undocumented Latino children from their schools. Or arresting their parents who have no criminal records on their way to work. It’s a world that shoots pepper balls at a pastor while he prays outside an ICE prison. It’s a world that blows up capsized boats to ensure there are no survivors of an illegal drug raid. 

Herod was not concerned about how many Hebrew children he killed as long as he could remain in power. His story is still playing out all over the world. In Ukraine, in Gaza, in Venezuela, and in the streets of America. There are children and families crying as they live through horrific circumstances because of leaders who view them as political chattel and not humans.

And yet, the story in today’s scripture is different. Because it is not just a story about Herod. It doesn’t end with just the cruel edicts of an insecure king. 

It is also the story of Joseph, a man who bravely and quietly listens to God’s call to do what he can to help one child. It’s not about the violence of Herod, It’s about how God uses a normal, everyday man to change the future of the world. 

I don’t know a lot about Joseph. So, this week, I scoured the Bible and reference books to see what I could find out about him. Smith’s Bible Dictionary says it best, Joseph, “son of Heli, and reputed father of Jesus Christ. All that is told us of Joseph in the New Testament may be summed up in a few words.”  

But how can that be right? He’s Joseph, the father of Jesus, he’s in all our nativity scenes. I only own 6 Biblical figurines, and he’s one of them, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and 3 wise men. He’s gotta be important, right? It turns out no one knows very much. There was a much later book called The History of Joseph the Carpenter, written in the 5th century. It places a lot of emphasis on the lifelong virginity of Mary by claiming that Joseph was an 89-year-old widower and already the father of James and other sons, when he agreed to wed the teenage, pregnant Mary. The same book says that he died at age 111, when Jesus would have been about 22 years old, so that explains why he wasn’t present for any of Jesus’s ministry.

The New Testament gives us much less. Joseph is only mentioned by name as a person who does something in a handful of verses, and in a few more he is referenced as “Jesus’s parents” or part of Jesus’s lineage. 

The Gospel of Luke tells us that Joseph was engaged to a virgin named Mary and that he went to Bethlehem for the census where his pregnant wife gave birth to Jesus. That’s about it for Luke. 

And while, Matthew’s Gospel gives us a little more: outlining Joseph’s lineage through Abraham and David and calling him a righteous man, Joseph by all accounts, seems like pretty a normal, quiet guy – just trying to provide for his family. And he doesn’t even have enough clout to make it into the inn in Bethlehem, so he finds a stable to provide shelter for his wife and child. 

Joseph is just trying to get by in a world that is stacked against his people. Added to that - his life is in upheaval. First, when an angel of the Lord tells him that his future wife is going to give birth to the child of God. And later when an earthly king uproots his people and forces them to travel to Bethlehem for a census. It’s not a long journey by today’s standards, only a few hours by bus, but for Joseph and Mary it would have taken several days to make the trip, maybe even a week, on a donkey, with a very pregnant wife, and probably Joseph experienced some ridicule from the caravan who knew that Mary was pregnant before he took her as his wife. 

No wonder when Jesus is born, the family decides to stay in Bethlehem for a little while. Mary is certainly in no condition to travel after childbirth, and Joseph is a tradesman, so he can probably find work in a lot of locations. Besides – show of hands – how many of you have ever traveled with a baby? And Mary and Joseph didn’t even have a stroller or a pack-n-play! They had a donkey and a manger.

So, it’s logical that Mary and Joseph decide to stay in Bethlehem with the baby for a while.  We don’t know exactly how long, but some scholars believe it could have been several months or even a couple of years that the family lived in Bethlehem. Until one day, after the shepherds have come and gone, and the magi have brought their gifts and started their journey back home, after the Christmas story, when life is settling into something normal, an Angel appears to Joseph again.

Now even though Joseph is only mentioned in scripture maybe a dozen times, and he never once speaks, one of the ways we know that he is a righteous man is that he is visited by angels four times. In today’s scripture, just 10 verses, Joseph is visited by angels 3 times and the scripture says that each time, he followed the angels’ instructions. He did what God said. Even though Joseph could have dismissed their visit as just a dream, he did what God was calling him to do. 

First, there was the angel back at the beginning of advent who appeared and told Joseph to honor his betrothal to Mary and serve as an earthly father to her child. 

Then today’s story, a few years later, when an angel warns him to take his family and flee to Egypt. Joseph wasn’t in danger in Bethlehem. Even Mary was safe to stay there. But Joseph packs up everything and leaves his country to protect a child that technically wasn’t his because God’s angel appeared in a dream and told him to. 

At this point the family has moved to Egypt and probably established a home and routine there. Maybe they aren’t even considering going back to Israel. But again, an angel appears to Joseph, this one telling him that it’s safe to return to his homeland, and he packs up to follow God’s call. 

And finally, even when he is on his way, doing exactly what the angel told him, taking his young family back to Israel, Joseph learns from another vision that Herod’s son is now king, and he changes plans and takes the child farther north, up to Nazareth – a more isolated area north of Jerusalem where Jesus is less likely to attract attention. Joseph’s life revolves around protecting Jesus and yet he is rarely mentioned in the Bible and we never once hear him speak. 

What can we learn today from Joseph, this silent man of action who listened for God’s call even in his sleep and immediately shifted his entire life to do what God directed?

We can say that angels don’t visit us today like they did in the Bible, but do they? Do we also get nudges from God in our sleep or in or subconscious minds? When we witness injustice in our world, do we feel a tug to do something about it? Isn’t that exactly why Vine Street had a food drive during the government shutdown when we knew people were losing their SNAP benefits? What else is God calling us to do?

We live in a world that likes to provide warning signs. If there’s a chance of bad weather, we have sirens that sound all over Nashville so people know to protect themselves, stay indoors, go to a save place, and crouch down in that position that we learned through drills in school. And that’s just the old-school technology. We also have alarms on our phones that can notify us of anything we want to know about. Weather alerts, amber alerts, silver alerts. Kroger has called me on more than one occasion to notify me that I purchased some peanut butter that might have been part of a recall. But I wonder, in a world with so many loud alerts, are we missing God’s quiet nudges?

Being a member at Woodmont, one of my favorite songs was Thom Schuyler’s Still Small Voice. If I had Margie’s singing voice, I might sing a few bars for you, but you can thank me now that I’m just going to read a couple of lines. 

It’s not in the pounding of the thunder,
It’s not in the whip of the wind.
This planet could shake and take you under
But that’s not how you’ll hear from Him.

It’s louder than mountains as they crumble,
And softer than sweet morning rain,
And there in the midst of all your trouble,
Just listen as He speaks your name. 

With a Still Small Voice

God calls us. But in our world where we are constantly on our phones or laptops or on Apple Play in our car, how do we hear that still, small voice?

And don’t get me wrong, sometimes it is when we ARE paying attention to media that we hear God’s voice. When we see pictures and videos on our phones of people being treated unjustly, that is also God’s voice. 

Jesus told us, “whatever you do to the least of these, you do also to me.”

That’s convicting. Because wherever we see the least of these. We see the face of God. 

Whenever we hear a choking voice calling for justice or begging for help, we hear the voice of God. 

Angels were watching and guiding Joseph in his dreams. But how many times have you tried to go to sleep and just couldn’t stop thinking about that image? The picture of war-ravaged Ukraine or Gaza, or the image of a hungry child’s eyes, the look of fear etched across a face of an undocumented worker, or from the man who was just asking for money on the side of the road with a sign that said, “I’m hungry. Anything helps?” 

It's different for all of us, but what message is God planting in your heart today?

For Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, God was guiding them towards safety. Away from political forces that wanted end Jesus’s life even though political forces did ultimately crucify Jesus, Joseph protected him so Jesus could grow up and have a ministry and start a movement that changed the world. Without Joseph we wouldn’t have Christianity. 

And it’s the same story throughout the Bible, God’s people are almost always fleeing from something. Moses, Joseph and Jacob were all fleeing. From Pharoah, or famine, or even family conflict. 

In our world, people are still fleeing from war or famine or political oppression, as well as from hurricanes and forest fires. But the one thing they are not doing is sitting still. 

Because fear requires an action:

We live in a fearful world, but fear leads us to action. 

And fear can even be holy. When it draws us to protect others, like Joseph. Fear for others is why churches provide sanctuaries. It’s why we write to our government officials to protect SNAP funding, or protest at the capitol to protect queer and trans youth from unjust laws. And fear sometimes even causes us to break the law – like Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee who was recently convicted for allowing an immigrant to leave her courtroom by the back door when she knew ICE agents were waiting to deport him. Doing the right thing doesn’t mean we won’t face trouble, but it does mean we can face ourselves in the mirror knowing we stood on the side of justice.

Herod is also fearful. He fears losing his political power, and he politicalizes his fear, lashing out against perceived threats. Just like leaders today who exercise their authority at the expense of those who have no power to fight back. 

But Joseph’s fear is not against something. He is fearful FOR the child. It’s a fear of protection and love that causes him to act

So today I ask myself, how do I react to fear? 

Do I react like Herod and lash out to keep what is mine? Or do I fear FOR others and use what I have to help those who have even less?

I know sometimes I want to bury my head in a hole and forget it, but that doesn’t make the threat go away. 

The Sanctified Art writers says “The Holy Family becomes a model for us – not because they lived without fear but because they allowed fear to move them toward justice, safety, and protection.

Fear FOR others is what fueled the Underground Railroad. It’s what causes people to create elaborate networks to protect battered women and children. It’s what causes volunteers to go into Ukraine or to travel into flood waters and fires to help those who are trapped. God’s hospitality often comes from unexpected places, through unexpected messengers, who can provide shelter in the arms of a stranger.

The Christmas story does not promise us a world without Herods, but it does promise us Emmanuel – God with us. 

May our fear, like Joseph’s lead us to protect someone else.

A Hand to Hold Onto

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, December 21, 2025

A teenage girl is really scared. Engaged to a man but not yet married. She understands the social and political risks of her situation. She finds herself pregnant with our Messiah through the Holy Spirit. Joseph doesn’t want her to suffer public disgrace from this sort of precarious predicament, so he decides to—did you catch that?—dismiss her quietly.

I have never liked that part of scripture. A man trying to dismiss me quietly. Not a passage I’m underlining with my highlighter. But I read it with new eyes this week. I realized that Joseph is scared too. To take Mary in would expose him to a lot of religious judgment. Mary could have been stoned for this suspected adultery, and Joseph could have been—and would have been—the victim of a lot of public shame.

We’ve got an unwed mother, a fragile family, an empire that meets any threat with surveillance and violence and control. And then we’ve got King Herod, who is on the lookout for this baby boy he’s heard about, who’s going to resist the status quo, and he will kill him when he finds him. Joseph is scared, and he has every right to be afraid. And he’s resolving to dismiss Mary quietly, to sneak her away.

And then this angel appears to him in a dream. And the angel says, “Joseph, son of David”—David, y’all remember David, the one that slayed Goliath kind of fearlessly—“don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. This child is from the Holy Spirit. Mary, she’s going to have a son, and you’re going to name him Jesus, and he will heal the brokenness of this world. God has already spoken through the prophets, Joseph. I promise you. And this son, he will be called Emmanuel, which means God is with us.”

Emmanuel. I don’t know if there’s any greater word in scripture. Any word better for our Advent season. God who doesn’t do life for us or without us. God who doesn’t try to fix us, but God who simply is with us—and with us in our fear. God who is holding our hand and reaching out to us in comfort in the midst of all the scary things we hold.

And Joseph, he woke up from this dream. And I do like this part. He did what he was told. Rather than letting fear isolate him, he lets it bring him into a greater connection. I want to repeat that: his fear doesn’t result in isolation; it results in connection. He could have taken a step back, but instead he stepped in.

And if you will allow a little biblical wondering, perhaps after this dream, maybe we can imagine Joseph speaking these words to Mary: “When you are afraid, give me your hand. I cannot fix everything, Mary, but I can walk alongside you. I can’t get rid of the risk that we’re taking here, but I can share the load with you.”

And here we have it. And this is so common in scripture—one of the many reasons I love it. We don’t have a hero of our story who saves this damsel in distress. No, we have one who remains in proximity with her. Emmanuel with her in her harrowing journey that they will share together.

And maybe Mary reaches out her hand as a plea for help, and maybe Joseph takes it as a gesture of support. I think many of us have experienced the connection that comes from holding a hand. I thought about this—all of the hands that we as a community might have held.

You might have held the hands of a loved one as you recited your wedding vows to each other. Or maybe you held the hand of a loved one who was passing on, stepping into the next realm. You heard their heartbeat slowing down. Many of you have held the hand of a partner as she was giving birth, letting her squeeze your hand gently—or maybe not so gently—as she welcomed a child into this world. You’ve given a hand as your child walks across the street, keeping them safe.

Some of us have held hands—I’ve held hands with you—at things like the Linking Arms for Change event, where we held hands that stretched three miles across Nashville as we advocated for safer gun laws. You have held the hand of a friend—I know you have—who is sharing something hard with you, perhaps voicing it for the first time.

And each Sunday—you know where this is going—each Sunday at the end of our service, we hold hands with a familiar or not-so-familiar person to our right and our left. Sometimes it might be a little awkward. And that hand may be soft, or it may be worn. The nails might be polished, or they might be chewed a little. The palms might be calloused, or they might be smooth. It doesn’t matter here. What matters is that sometimes we really need that time for a hand to reach out to us in support. And sometimes we are the person who reaches out first.

Some weeks we are the Mary, and others we are the Joseph. Maybe this ritual that we do at the end of the service is a reminder to us that there is always a hand that needs holding, church. There is always a hand that needs holding.

I was thinking about Peter when he walked on water. He noticed this really strong wind, and he got really scared, and he said, “Lord, save me.” That’s what he said to Jesus. And Jesus immediately—immediately, without any hesitation—reached out his hand and caught him. Maybe he remembered the sensation of his father reaching out for the hand of his mother. Maybe that was still in his body. He knew it so intuitively. He recognized what to do for Peter. Not to walk on water for him, not to abandon him, but to hold his hand.

Church, maybe the miracle is not that Peter walked on water. Maybe the miracle is that Jesus reached out and did it with him, holding his hand as he did.

So to be brief—or at least a little brief—this week, I’m not asking you, and I’m not asking me, if we will fix people. You know that we can’t. And I’m not asking you or me if we will fix the world. This week, I’m just asking you and me to take the hand of someone that you know or someone you don’t—someone that you love, someone that is not very familiar, someone who is scared, or someone who has great courage—and reach out that hand for support.

As we close our service a little later, I wonder if you will just say a quick blessing as you grab the hand to your right and the hand to your left, hearkening back to a frightened pregnant girl and a fearful, faithless man who are to welcome the one who doesn’t fix us, but who walks with us, reaching out his hand and saying, “I am with you.”

And that is the best Advent news of all. Amen.

The Courage to Say Yes

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

There is an event happening today just down the street at Woodmont Christian Church. It’s called Walk Through Bethlehem. How many of you have been to it before? Woodmont is where I grew up and first heard my call. And Walk Through Bethlehem is a live nativity. The church is turned into this ancient town of Bethlehem, with Roman soldiers and live animals—donkeys and even camels some years.

It’s a really coveted position to get to be Mary. And when I was in high school, I got to be Mary. Big deal. And Richie White, who played Joseph, and I—I'll never forget—stood in our full garb, and I was handed a baby doll. We stood out there for many hours, welcoming lines of people as they walked through to see the wise men and the shepherds and the Christ child.

The whole time that I was standing there, I was silent. There was nothing to say other than to just pose with this baby. Actually, the only thing I said that day was when a little kid came up to me and said, “Is that baby real?” And I said, “Baby Jesus was real.” Yeah. Yeah, he sure was. But other than that, I was silent.

I thought about that memory as I heard our scripture today.

We’ve been following this Advent series by insisting on hope in the midst of fear. So, in our first week of Advent, if you’ll remember, we looked at the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth—an old couple living in a time of a lot of fear, under a corrupt ruler, King Herod, who was spreading intimidation, threatening violence, and lording over the people with his toxic power. And yet, even in the midst of their fear, they longed for God to break in. And they showed up anyway. During this fearful time, they were told not to be afraid when they did.

Then, in our second week of Advent, Pastor Wesley preached on this idea that when we’re running out of hope, God is at work. That John the Baptist, when he was sitting in prison wondering if Jesus was actually Jesus, heard Jesus say, “Yeah, I am.” And you aren’t the Savior, but you’re going to point people to the Savior. You’re going to be a voice crying out in the wilderness. When he was running out of hope, God was at work.

And this week, you are invited to consider this: even in our fears, we are called forward. Will you say that with me? Even in our fears, we are called forward.

We hear about two people in our story this morning: the story of Jeremiah and the story of Mary. These are what are called call stories. And notice how I didn’t just ask you to say, “When we get rid of our fears, we are called forward,” or “When we erase our fears, we are called forward.” No.

Our two characters on this day of Advent are a boy and a girl. A boy who says, “I don’t know how to speak, for I’m only a boy,” and a girl who says, “How can this be, since I’m a virgin?”

We often talk about the prophet Jeremiah, maybe placing him at an older age, as a wiser mouthpiece of God. But when his call came to him, he was 17 years old—the same age, around the same age, as Jack or Quinn. He was young. He was a boy from humble beginnings, visited by God, his mouth touched by God to be a prophetic voice in a dark time—a high schooler.

And then I want to talk to you about Mary. This woman that we often depict as shy and wordless, white and porcelain, timid and meek. This was a teenage girl, about the same age as Gia—maybe middle school—living under imperial control, who couldn’t read, who wasn’t married, who was facing a lot of public shame. And so her yes was not an easy one, but one that came with a lot of risk and cost.

What I love about these prophets’ responses—and yes, I think they are both prophets—is that they don’t immediately jump to courage and bravery and quick resolve. Did you notice that? No. They are perplexed. They are resistant. And they are a little bit disturbed by what God is asking them to do.

Two kids, as we might look at them, called to be the mouthpiece of God and the mother of God, called to speak even if their knees shake and their voices tremble.

And in both stories, church, God doesn’t erase their fears. God acknowledges them. I want to say that again. God doesn’t erase their fears. God acknowledges them and calls them forward anyway.

“Do not be afraid,” God tells Jeremiah. “I’m with you. I’ve got your back. I’m not going anywhere.” God gently touches his mouth—the mouth that will speak many words of truth to power, the mouth that will say, “They say peace when there is no peace,” the mouth of justice in a broken world.

And to Mary, the angel says, “Do not be afraid. You have found favor with God, and nothing will be impossible,” even when it seems like it is.

In them—in Mary and Jeremiah—I see not bold bravery, but holy hesitation and timid trust. Have you ever felt that, church? Not bravery or courage, but a timidity in your own lives, in your own call.

Too often, dominant Christianity defines courage through heroic masculinity—like you have to be loud, and you have to be bold, and you have to be certain. But Mary and Jeremiah model a different courage. They model the courage to ask questions, to hesitate, to need more time, and to take just one uncertain step.

What connects them is not a lack of fear, as Dr. Buon Lee writes, “but this deep trembling resolve to move forward anyway.” To move forward anyway—not with certainty, but with open hands and the courage to say yes even in the unknown.

Do you know something about saying yes even in the unknown, church? Especially today—you know those people who like to bungee jump or skydive or do cold plunges in really freezing lakes without any hesitation or sense of fear? I am not one of those people. I hesitate. I whine. I groan. I dip my toe in the water and I scream. I look over the edge of the cliff and I cower in fear. And then I say, “Okay, count me down. Start at five.” And then it gets to one, and I say, “Okay, countdown again. This time start at ten.”

And there are a lot of countdowns before I actually jump. But I usually jump with immense fear—fear that is in the passenger seat of my life, but not the driver’s seat.

There’s a distinction there: that I carry fear with me, that I buckle it up, that it’s along for the ride, but that something holy—something that says nothing is impossible with me, something that says do not fear—is the driver of my life.

Do you know that driver, church? My fear is welcome to be there as I am called into new chapters in this life. But God does not ask me to stay put. God does not invite me to stagnancy. God invites me to hesitantly proclaim, like Mary did, “Okay. Okay. Let it be with me according to your word.”

Saying yes—saying “do your thing, God”—does not mean that the way forward is a cakewalk. And this is the hard part of faith. This is the hard part of being a Christian.

God puts Mary and Jeremiah on a path that comes with a deep cost. Jeremiah, who many called the weeping prophet, was rejected and isolated and alienated for the justice that he so yearned to see in this world. He wasn’t a popular guy, but he was a loyal servant of God.

And Mary—her yes comes at a great cost. One of estrangement and pain. One of loneliness and poverty. And the water is freezing when we take the plunge, and the cost of our yes could be great.

But as we hear in the final verse of this gospel passage today, church, Mary says yes and then runs with haste. Isn’t that such a beautiful way of describing something? She runs with haste to her cousin Elizabeth, reminding us that when we take a step forward in fear, we don’t have to do it alone. We can run with haste to our family and our friends who surround us, who get in the car—maybe in the back seat—who are along for the ride, encouraging us, not erasing our fears, but acknowledging them as we walk into our calling.

And Mary’s next act, after she comes to her cousin and proclaims what she has heard, is not one of shy silence like a young Margie wearing Converse, standing in hay, lips sealed. No. Instead, she sings the longest song of praise that we have in scripture. And I’m not going to sing it—you’re welcome. Maybe you should come sing it.

But what would it have looked like for me, back at Walk Through Bethlehem in my teenage years, to shout these words that Mary says?

God has scattered the proud.
God has brought the powerful down from their thrones.
God has lifted up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things.
God has sent the rich away empty.

That is our prophet Mary, shouting and singing those words. Can you believe her, church?

In this Advent season, I wonder: what fears are you carrying? What invitation are you resisting because you feel inadequate? What fears are keeping you from living into your calling—from speaking truth to power, from auditioning for that role, from trying out for that sports team, from applying for that job, from volunteering for that opportunity at church, from singing that solo, from taking that pottery class, from showing up to that protest?

What fears are keeping you from living into your calling? And what is God inviting you to say yes to—not fearlessly, but faithfully?

Church, in our fears, we are called forward. And you are welcome to protest the fear, just as Mary and Jeremiah did. You’re welcome to wait. You’re welcome to hesitate. You’re welcome to feel a little bit perplexed and confused. You’re welcome to say, “It can’t be me. I’m only a boy.” You’re welcome to say, “How can this be?”

And then you are invited to take one step, and then another.

So say yes with me. Say, “Let it be with me,” even when your knees shake, even when your voice trembles. For the Holy One sits in the driver’s seat and whispers, “Be not afraid,” and says, “There is nothing impossible with me.”

Can you believe it?

Hope that Trembles

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, December 7, 2025

Margie and I had made a wager that whoever won the game got the big office. So, I guess you can stay put. As we begin to dive into the sermon, would you please pray with me this morning?

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

Okay, friends, I’ve got to level with you. I’ve got about four more days in my PhD program and then I’m done for the semester. I started back in August, and it has been exciting and invigorating and all the wonderful things, but I am counting down the days. I’ve only got a few more assignments left.

Likewise, I only have a few more days—about six more days—until the Nashville in Harmony holiday show this upcoming weekend at Harkins Hall. Shameless plug. Probably the biggest stressor in my life right now. And so, I’m counting down the days until that is also done. And I’ve got about eight more days of work until I have a nice long vacation until the new year. And so, I’m eagerly counting down the days, as you might be as well.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it has been an amazing year. Starting here at Vine Street in June is top of my list for sure. Margie and I took a wonderful trip to the Florida Keys and to Miami earlier this year. It’s been a wonderful year. And I also lost my Nana earlier this year. And I lost my great-aunt Margene just a few weeks ago. I had ankle surgery back in January that I feel like I’m still recovering from. And like many of you, I’ve watched the news and I’ve watched injustice seemingly prevail week after week and month after month. And so, I’m just feeling really tired. Anybody else feeling tired or worn down, fearful, hopeless?

And in Advent, we’re supposed to be anticipating the birth of the One who is to come, right? But I feel like I could just sleep from now until January 1st. Maybe you’re feeling that as well. That feeling that we’re describing is how we meet John the Baptist in today’s passage. This isn’t the lively, strong, prophetic version of John the Baptist that we first meet in the Gospel readings. This is a John who sounds a bit more like us right now—tired and worn down—an imprisoned John the Baptist. And he’s wondering, “Was all of it worth it? Did I do anything that made a difference?”

Our commentary from Sanctified Art says that he’s a prisoner held under Herod’s authority who is cut off from the movement that he helped ignite. And so he asks Jesus in verse three, as you just heard, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?”

And when he asks this question, remember he is in a prison cell. Perhaps he knows that he’s going to be executed. Perhaps he can see his own end in sight. He’s quite literally facing his own mortality. And so he’s wondering if he made the right choice. Did I follow the right man? Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another? It’s not just a question. It’s a cry from the edge of despair, our commentary says.

And so he says, “Tell me it was worth it. Tell me that it wasn’t all for nothing. Tell me something.”

This week’s theme is: when we’re running out of hope, God is at work. When we’re running out of hope, God is at work. That’s what we feel in the Hebrew passage from this morning. To a downtrodden, once-enslaved, once and then again-occupied people—a nomadic people and exiled people and oppressed people who were running out of hope—God tells them, “Behold, I am about to do a new thing. Even now it springs forth. Are you paying attention?” God says.

And so I’ve been wondering perhaps this passage in Isaiah and this passage in Matthew is also reminding us that when things seem bleak, when we feel like hope is lost, when we feel like injustice has won, we must remember that we are only seeing a glimpse of the larger picture—a glimpse of the larger narrative that is at work here.

Here’s an example I want to share. Earlier this year, I was down at the Capitol a decent amount, which was hard to do when you’re in crutches in a boot, by the way. And there was this specific piece of legislation that we were there to protest. And this specific piece of legislation would bar children whose parents were here undocumented from receiving a public school education, or they would charge them for it—one or the other. And the idea was that their parents were here without documentation, and so these children were not entitled to a Tennessee education because they didn’t pay taxes, which is untrue.

By the way, undocumented immigrants—I looked this up—undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $96.7 billion, that’s with a B, billion in federal, state, and local taxes. About $59.4 billion goes to the federal government. $37.3 billion goes to state and local government. So that’s not true. And that’s just the undocumented immigrants.

But these folks also wanted to challenge the 14th Amendment that certifies birthright citizenship. And the response was powerful. So many people of all types, of all backgrounds, showed up to protest. It was so crowded in those committee rooms and in the hallways for those who couldn’t get into the committee rooms. Pastors led protests in the committee rooms, reciting and kneeling and saying the Lord’s Prayer without stopping in unison to disrupt those proceedings so that they could not advance this harmful bill.

Our legislators—the bill garnered a bipartisan response, Republican and Democrat—responded to say that this is unnecessary, unkind, unfair, and does not reflect the faith that we profess. This does not reflect a God who said to love and welcome the stranger, to do no harm to the immigrant, and to let the little children come unto me.

And thankfully that bill died, but mostly because of red tape. And I was feeling really hopeless. And so I asked one of the advocates from TIRRC—the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. It’s a long acronym. And I asked them, I was like, “What happens if they bring this up next year?” He said, “Then we show up again next year.”

What we saw in this session is just the latest iteration of what they’re always trying to do to us. It doesn’t always take the same form, but it’s always there. I said, “How do you keep going?” He said, “We have to. What other choice do we have but to have hope?”

And that sentence both convicted me and gave me hope. It gave me hope because in the face—the literal face—looking dead in the face of those who would harm them, those who would vote to oppress them, these folks had the courage and the bravery to stand up and not be silenced. But it convicted me, too, because I just jumped in the fight. And some of these folks have been fighting this same fight their entire lives. And here I was already losing a little bit of hope after a couple of weeks. I wasn’t seeing the grander vision. I wasn’t seeing the hope that they had sustaining them and sustaining them from their parents and their grandparents and their ancestors.

Yesterday I noticed that Migra Watch had posted that two people had been detained by ICE. And so I drove over to the ICE facility about five to seven minutes from my house, and there were a couple people out there waiting, just watching. And I said, “Hey, can I just wait with y’all for a minute?” They said, “Yeah.” So I threw on a stole. And I was talking to them—two gentlemen. One grew up in a secular household, didn’t grow up in church. The other one grew up in church, but left. Didn’t really find a lot of hope there.

And I said, “In times like these, where are you finding hope? What are you doing? We’re out here outside. It’s cold. Like, where are you finding hope? I’m preaching about this tomorrow and I need some material.”

And they said, “I find hope here, doing this—knowing that we aren’t alone, knowing that those people know that they’re not in there alone, that we’re waiting out here and we’re fighting for them. Even if it’s just a couple people that show up, that gives me hope.”

John the Baptist’s question to Jesus is one that we’ve all asked ourselves before—after every protest, every election, every vigil, every life decision, every wrong turn, every failure, every mistake: Did I get it wrong? Was any of it worth it?

Our commentary writes that John’s question is not doubt born out of cynicism. It’s the trembling that comes when conviction meets suffering, when the cost of faithfulness is so high but the fruit of our labor has been so low. They write, “It’s what hope sounds like when it’s running thin.”

But how does Jesus respond to John? Not with chastisement. Not with a lecture. He doesn’t say, “John, you should know better.” Instead, he answers with the witness of what is unfolding. Verses four and five, he says, “Go and tell John what you see and hear. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have been brought good news.”

As Pastor Margie spoke about two weeks ago on Christ the King Sunday—about what kind of king Jesus would be—he also gives an answer that subverts everyone’s expectations. He doesn’t point to some big celebration or grand victory, but to quiet signs of transformation. We often find excitement in grand victories and celebrations of our time, but not hope. Hope is more often found in those whispers, in those small acts of kindness, in the smiles from strangers, in the little ways that God shows up in our lives and in our world.

Dr. Lee writes, “Hope in the gospel is not grounded in outcomes or visible success. Hope is rooted in perception.” Right? Our Isaiah passage: “I am about to do a new thing. Now, it springs forth. Do you perceive it?” One of my favorite passages in the Hebrew Bible. Hope is rooted in trusting that God is still at work. Even when the system remains unchanged, even when the prophets die behind the bars, hope that trembles is still hope.

And if you know the rest of the story, you know that the empire is still intact and Herod still reigned. And there have been many other Herods throughout history. John was not released from prison, and he did, in fact, get executed. But verse seven says that as they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John. And Jesus says, “What did you go out into the wilderness to find? A reed shaken by the wind? What did you go out to see? Somebody in soft robes? People in soft robes are in royal palaces. So what did you go see? A prophet? Yes. But more than a prophet.”

Jesus said, “This is the one about whom it is written: I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” And Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Jesus doesn’t see John’s crumbling hope as a failure. Instead, he names it as a part of what makes John faithful, what makes John human, what makes John like the rest of us. Hope that trembles is still hope. Even in doubt, John is still a prophet. Even in fear, he is still beloved.

Or maybe we talk about it this way: even when we are tired or at our wit’s end, even when we’re grumpy or moody, even when our patience is really running thin, or even when our cynicism and our apathy are the loudest voice, we are still beloved, and we still have the opportunity to choose hope.

Nelson Mandela said, “May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.” Advent does not require us, beloved, to manufacture hope, but it invites us to bring our emptied hope to Jesus and to ask those hard questions and to listen and look again for those signs of God’s nearness in our world. It asks us to believe the prophet Isaiah’s words from God when he says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing, and even now it springs forth. Are you paying attention?”

When we’re running out of hope, maybe it’s the perfect time, actually, to ask, “What do you see? What do you hear? Where do you see God?” and to trust that somewhere, even now, something new is springing forth—because hope that trembles is still hope.

May it be so. Amen.

Be Not Afraid

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

Good morning. Happy Advent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And what happens? An angel of the Lord appears.

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

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

Fear overwhelmed him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 What do you fear, church?

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

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

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

Maybe you are afraid, too.

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

Have I named any of your fears?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will you say that with me?

Good news is louder than fear.

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

How do we rid ourselves of fear?

Maybe it is:

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

As the prophet in Lamentations said:

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

And as Kay read, the prophet said:

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

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

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

“You have nothing to fear.”

There is nothing to fear, church.

Amen

What Kind of King?

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

Good morning.

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

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

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

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

And look what we got.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What kind of king is he?

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

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

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

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

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

Do you worship this king?

A New Heaven, A New Earth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behold those who are supposed to work for us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing to Fear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have nothing to fear.

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