The Future of the Church...

Preached by Rev. Wesley King on June 8, 2025

Well, good morning, church.

Would you please bow in prayer with me, beginning with a few moments of holy silence?

Holy God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and all of the hearts that are gathered here this morning be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

Okay.

A drive-in on the beach, a dive bar using karaoke tracks, and a group of former inmates discovering a new life on the outside. What do these three things have in common?

They are—or were—an iteration of church within our denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Daytona Beach Drive-In Church was established as an outdoor ministry by First Christian Church of Daytona Beach with a vision to provide a less formal service to its vacationers and, of course, its snowbirds. After establishing a relationship with Neptune Drive-In back in 1953, First Christian Church of Daytona Beach began leading Sunday worship there in addition to its other services at its own location. At Neptune Drive-In, it used the projection platform for the sermons, and the concession stand was used for the choir. I'm sure they enjoyed that.

Four years after its first service, Drive-In Christian Church was chartered, which means it became a full church within our denomination as a separate congregation. And when the movie theater closed in 1961, the faith community bought that property.

Next, Gilead Church was a new church plant in Chicago that began meeting in a dive bar, and they used karaoke tracks to sing thematically appropriate songs for worship—albeit they were mostly pop songs. They were a storytelling church, and they utilized the stories of God that we find in Scripture, but also the stories of God that we find among us and within us. They did not follow the lectionary. Instead, they chose themes based on whatever spoke to the neighborhood and the folks who came.

Their congregants were largely folks who did not grow up in church and had been disillusioned by religion. And some of them were a little rough around the edges, we’ll say. For example, their board had to have a conversation like, “How many four-letter words is too much for a worship service?”

Lastly, Church of Another Chance was a body of believers who were seeking new life on the outside. These formerly incarcerated folks—mostly men, I believe—sought to rebuild their lives after serving their time. And this church was right here in Nashville. And I know many Disciples in this area, perhaps some of you, even volunteered and helped serve this community.

These communities look vastly different from us. They worship vastly different from us. They obviously use a little more colorful language than we might. But they were—and they are—church.

For the past four years, I’ve had the honor of serving our denomination as the Associate Executive Minister for New Church Ministry. This is the entity that Reverend Margie talked about earlier, and this is the group within our tradition that starts new churches or helps resource those who are starting new churches.

We were tasked back in 2001—I wasn’t there—with starting a thousand new congregations a thousand different ways before the year 2020. They accomplished that goal, and some of those churches are actually still open today. Though, as you can imagine, with the pandemic, some have closed as well.

Today, I have the honor of serving the current 230 churches in formation across the United States and Canada—one of which meets right over here in our chapel: that is Novellalon’s Christian Church. And one of the things that I get to love the most about this position is that I get to see the many and mighty ways that God is working in our denomination. I see, often, the creative and innovative and new and fresh ways that God shows up in our world—ways that most consider, “That doesn’t even look like church.”

Later in the service, when we take up the offering, these specific funds will go to the Pentecost Offering, as Reverend Margie already mentioned, and half will go to Tennessee and half will go to the national church. So I hope that you’ll pray and give generously when that time comes.

Now, let’s get back to the text.

This scene from Acts 2 is a really wild scene. Imagine this rushing wind sound coming from the heavens—but also somehow there’s flames and fire there as well. And then imagine all of this diverse group of people speaking in different languages, but also somehow they understand each other at the same time. It’s this really dramatized story, and I often contemplate how this could literally happen, and maybe you’re the same way.

In fact, I often wonder if most of us are actually maybe a little uncomfortable with the mystery found in these stories and find ourselves trying to explain away the parts of the story that we simply just don’t understand. Like maybe the rushing wind was just thunder. And maybe the fire and the flames was actually just lightning. And perhaps the hysteria of this crowd was just caused by them being scared of this storm.

But I also wonder if maybe in doing so, if in doing that, we are missing the point altogether.

Maybe if we’re honest with ourselves, more often than not, we—the big “C” Church—take the role of the pious Judeans in this story, trying to explain away the mystery and make sense of what is happening. But in doing so, we are not leaving any room for God to move in ways that are inexplicable.

The pious Judean crowd often discredits what’s happening, chalking it up to just being drunk. And then Peter stands up, raises his voice, and says, “These people aren’t drunk. It’s only nine o’clock in the morning.” Which—Peter’s never been to Broadway here in Nashville—but at that time, I’m sure it made sense.

And then he gifts them with this prophetic and imaginative word from the prophet Joel. And he says:

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams. Even upon my servants, men and women, and everybody, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

Now, a minute ago, I mentioned that I work for New Church Ministry. And that means that I get to see the amazing new and fresh ways that God is moving in our midst and the ways that God’s people are responding. But what I didn’t share then is that I also get to see how God’s people—like the Judeans in this story—often try and gatekeep what is and what isn’t church. Who is in and who’s out.

Now sure, there are criteria that make something church, right? There’s something that we’re doing together right now that’s different from any other philanthropic group or advocacy group or charity. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the rigid parameters that we put on what we will and won’t consider church. How it looks. What they preach. How they preach. Where they meet. The music that they use. The practices, the rituals that they participate in.

Friends, I often wonder if we’re getting in our own way when it comes to what God is doing in our world. I often wonder if we’re getting in our own way when it comes to what the church could be in this world.

After all, our reputation has led the world to believe that the Church at large is just this hypocritical, behind-the-times, anti-this, anti-that body. And unfortunately, they are not entirely wrong.

When I look at Tennessee, churches here seem to have big budgets for indoor fireworks shows, but I don’t see them at the Capitol when they are cutting Medicaid and other resources that people need to live.

Churches here seem to have funds to give away AR-15s as door prizes in worship, but I can’t find them at the vigils for gun violence victims.

These churches like to flaunt Jesus as a mascot for the powerful instead of a liberator for the oppressed and the poor and the downtrodden and the vulnerable.

This is who we have led the world to believe we are. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to be that way.

One of my favorite lyrics is from composer Stephen Schwartz—who I’m sure you know from the Wicked musical (and the movie trailer for Part Two just came out recently)—but he also wrote this musical called Children of Eden. And there’s this lyric that I love. It goes:

“There’s no journey gone so far that we cannot stop and change direction.
No doom is written in our stars—it’s written in our hands.”

We have the ability to change.

Now, Vine Street has done amazing things in this community. Just last week, we heard from Terry Terrell, one of our community partners at Urban Housing Solutions, about the ways that Vine Street has helped fund this ministry for low-income and homeless seniors. And I hope that you will follow up this generous gift that we’ve given them with the opportunity to volunteer. When I heard that we can lead bingo—that sounds like my spiritual gift.

But even we are not immune from getting in our own way when it comes to being what God has called us to be in the world. Even we aren’t immune to getting in our own way when it comes to being the hands and feet of Christ in this city.

But the good news is, Vine Street, that we have this unique opportunity to decide who we want to be in this next chapter of our life as a community and as a church.

We have a strong and firm foundation of welcome and justice and fellowship, of outreach, that we can build upon. But I’m curious as to what visions our young will vision and what dreams our elders are dreaming up. I wonder what our sons and daughters and everybody will be prophesying over this church and how the Spirit will do her thing and move this community into new places that God is calling us to go.

Earlier I asked you to fill out this piece of paper: “The future of the church must include ______.” And there were a lot of good responses. If I don’t read yours, it’s because somebody also said it, and I’m trying to condense for time’s sake.

The future of the church must include me and everybody else.
The future of the church must include—and this one came up a couple times—Reverend Margie as our lead minister. And a hearty amen to that.
The future of the church must include outreach and meeting the needs of people to grow and to stay alive.
The future of the church must include beautiful music glorifying God.
The future of the church must include seeking justice for all people—“all” is in all caps.
The future of the church must include opportunities for individuals to have small group sharing and genuine connection.
The future of the church must include—and I really love this one—a functioning HVAC unit. I thought that was you, Katie.
The future of the church must include empathy, inclusivity, and courage.
The future of the church must include young faces and young voices to keep the mission going for years to come.
The future of the church must include the voices of young people whose visions will lead the way.
And this one I really liked: “The future of the church must include”—and then they marked out “include” and wrote—“must not exclude.”

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. And your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. And your elders will dream dreams. Even upon my servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they too will prophesy.”

In just a moment, we’re going to sing a hymn that is not in the hymnal. Instead, the lyrics are included on the back of your insert in your bulletin. The tune is The Church’s One Foundation, so hopefully you’ll recognize that tune. But the lyrics are new, and they have to do with what the church could be:

“Beyond all that we imagine, beyond all that we can dream,
Beyond all that’s before us and all we’ve seen.”

And if singing without sheet music freaks you out or happens to throw you off, then I pray that you’ll just reflect on those words and ask yourself what visions you might be visioning or what dreams you might be dreaming up.

Our text today highlights that while sometimes we may stand in our own way—or in the way of others—to live into what God is calling us or them to be in this world, it doesn’t have to be that way. And the prophet Joel and Peter remind us that we have that ability to prophesy over the church in ways that bring God’s kingdom down to earth, to love those who have felt nothing but hate, and to lift up those that others have put down, to free and liberate the oppressed and the poor, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and be who God has called us to be.

Vine Street, you have a long history. You have been a bulwark in this community, led by faithful servants, both clergy and lay alike. And as I mentioned in my prayer last week, we have this firm foundation of our past that we will use to build our future.

And we have that same gift of prophetic imagination that Joel had and that Peter had—to create the church that we want to be and create the world that we want to see.

May it be so. But also, may we make it so—in our loving and our living.

Amen.

Thank you, church.

The Gospel According to John Lewis

Preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on June 1, 2025

Bad spirits and brutal flogging, singing and earthquakes, wound-washing and baptisms. Church, this is one of my very favorite passages in the Bible. And it’s one of the most action-packed, too. Don’t you think?

We have almost three vignettes in this one story. There’s the slave girl with the spirit of divination. Then, a couple of guys singing hymns in prison. And finally, those same guys having their feet and wounds washed by their former jailer.

But this morning, I want to make an argument: we might as well call this passage The Gospel According to John Lewis. You know John Lewis—the civil rights activist, the politician who participated in the 1960s sit-ins right here in Nashville, who organized the 1963 March on Washington, who led the first Selma-to-Montgomery march that became known as Bloody Sunday. A modern-day prophet and believer.

John Lewis said a lot of wise things in his life, but three of them stand out to me as I read this story in Acts. I think they help frame it—and maybe they’ll help you, too.

Paul and Silas are walking around the city of Philippi, which we know from verse 12 is a thriving Roman colony—a cultural, economic, and religious hub. A city with power, with colonial status.

They meet a slave girl who is being exploited for her fortune-telling abilities. Her owners see her only as a source of profit. We never learn her name. We don’t get a single word from her. For days, she follows Paul and Silas around, proclaiming that they are slaves of the Most High God. And Paul—more out of annoyance than compassion—casts the spirit out of her: “Spirit, get out of her. Go away.”

I don’t know if he realized what he was starting, but it kicked off a chain of events that echoes the words of John Lewis: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get into good trouble—necessary trouble.”

I love that: good trouble. Necessary trouble. That’s what Paul is doing here. That’s what the disciples do over and over again—in Luke, in Acts. It’s second nature by now: setting captives free. Whether it’s demoniacs with unclean spirits or literal prisoners in chains, whether it's economic exploitation or spiritual oppression, Paul understands that the healing work of the church is often a threat to the status quo. And he’s okay with that.

So he and Silas are dragged into the marketplace, stripped, beaten, flogged, arrested, and thrown into prison.

John Lewis understood something about this, too. He was imprisoned more than 40 times in his life. Forty—a pretty significant number in the Bible. After the Freedom Rides, after being beaten by angry mobs, Lewis spent 40 days in jail. All for the sake of good trouble. Necessary trouble. Gospel trouble.

The kind of trouble that looks around and asks: Who is here and who is not? Who is free and who is not? Who is safe and who is not? And what am I going to do about it?

Paul and Silas participated in that kind of trouble.

After being brutally beaten and imprisoned, they’re handed over to a jailer who puts them in the innermost cell. It’s dark and damp—no light, no hope. Their feet are in stocks. They’re cold, bruised, exhausted, bleeding. I would have given up hope.

But John Lewis once said, “We’ve been quiet for too long. There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet.”

This is that time. Paul and Silas start singing hymns. Don’t you wish you knew what they were singing? Imagine being in that prison—tired, hungry, alone—and hearing the whisper of a melody that gains momentum as another voice joins in. Harmony where there was silence.

And the earth seems to hear it, too. A great earthquake shakes the prison. Chains break. Stocks fall away. They are free.

It’s as if their singing—their little noise—drowns out the other noise: the shouts in the marketplace, the sounds of batons. All of that fades. And Scripture tells us: “The prisoners were listening to them.”

They really listened. And the captives are set free. That’s good news—for everyone, except the jailer.

He looks around and realizes he’s failed. The prison doors are open. He thinks his life is over. That he’s worthless. That his purpose is gone. And I have to admit—part of me wants to say, “Good. Leave him behind. He’s the villain.”

But then I remember the third piece of wisdom from John Lewis: “You never give up on anyone.”

He said that within every human being is a spark of the divine. And no one has the right to abuse that spark. He said when someone attacks you or spits on you, you have to remember: that person was once an innocent child. You try to appeal to the goodness in every person. You never give up.

Lewis said those words during a sit-in after the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016, when 49 people were killed and 53 wounded. He sat for 26 hours in the House chamber, demanding action. Because he never gave up.

And Paul doesn’t give up on the jailer either. When the man prepares to take his own life, Paul shouts: “Do not harm yourself. We are all here.”

We are all here.

We didn’t run. We didn’t leave you. We know you put chains on us. But the gospel we live by means we don’t give up on anyone. We’ve been loved and equipped and called by a God who never gave up on us. So we won’t give up on you.

The jailer calls for lights—because he’s been living in darkness, too. And for the first time, he really sees Paul and Silas. He sees these men who bring salvation, not only to him but to his household.

When he asks, “What must I do to be saved?” they don’t shame or guilt him. They don’t demand repentance. They simply speak the word of the Lord: “Not only you, but your household will be saved.”

Because this gospel is not just for individuals. It’s for communities. And then—this is the wild part—he washes their wounds. The jailer, the man who chained them, washes the wounds from their beatings. And then Paul and Silas baptize him and his whole family.

One washing… and then another.

And then they share a meal and rejoice together. Can you believe that?

That’s the gospel I want to live by. One where even my so-called enemy becomes someone I can share a meal with. Where we might, by grace, end up washing each other’s wounds.

And maybe the way we get there is by making a little noise. By getting into good trouble. And by not leaving anyone behind.

An entire family was baptized simply because Paul and Silas weren’t afraid to make noise. Because they weren’t afraid to get into good trouble. Because they didn’t give up on anyone.

That’s a three-step recipe for living out the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the book of Acts, we see that the early church didn’t avoid trouble. It thrived in it. It thrived in the public witness of disruption.

As Andrew Foster Connors writes: “We are encouraged to get in trouble with the world, trusting that God will magnify our imperfect actions toward more perfect ends.”

Every time the disciples challenge power and suffer for it, guess what happens? The church grows.

The jailer wasn’t saved by sitting in a pew or listening to a sermon. He was saved out in the world. Healing and singing happened in jail. Salvation was revealed through action. Through disciples brave enough to act.

So even though it’s warm and nice in here, we’ve got work to do out there. With our feet. With our lives. With our witness.

Because, as Andrew Foster Connors also wrote, “The good news is preached on the go.”

And while that’s not a John Lewis quote, it’s the perfect asterisk to his gospel.

So… are we willing to be “on the go” this morning?

Are we willing to follow the gospel of John Lewis—the gospel of Jesus Christ—to get into good trouble, to make a little noise, and perhaps hardest of all, to never give up on anyone?

We don’t know what will happen if we do. But I have a feeling—our wounds may be washed. Our households may be fed. And we may find ourselves rejoicing with all kinds of kinds when we say yes to this work.

Let’s join.

Final Remarks

Here’s a cleaned-up, print-ready version of the transcription, formatted for clarity and flow. I've removed time codes and filler words, corrected grammar and punctuation, and preserved the speaker's tone and intent:

There’s a saying among preachers about the relentless return of the Sunday. Now, you could hear this as a hopeful phrase—although I don’t think I ever heard it that way. Hopeful in that "relentless return" might suggest a holy interruption that breaks through our noise and busyness to remind us who and whose we are.

That’s what a chatty AI app suggested when I asked it what the saying might mean. It's an app with the disposition of a puppy—always sunny, always eager to please. But what my colleagues had in mind, I think, was more along the lines of, "Oh no, Sunday’s just around the corner, and I have no idea what I’m going to say."

I’ve had that dream a few times over the years—standing right here, looking out at you, you looking back at me—and I’ve got nothing to say. It’s a horrible dream. Thankfully, I didn’t have it many times, but a few, yes. Still, I’ve never had a week where the days pass and I cast the preacher’s net again and again, only to pull it in empty.

Well, I’ve never had that week until these past few days. What on earth am I supposed to say on my last Sunday?

I could always step out in faith with a prayer: Dear God, here I am. Ready or not, here I go. If it doesn’t fly, if the lines don’t land, I’ll make it up next time. But this Sunday—as far as any of us know—doesn’t come with a next time.

So the pressure is on. Final remarks. Parting thoughts. Closing words.

I was sitting with all that pressure when I realized—wait a minute—this moment isn’t about me. It’s not about me at all. This moment has all of me in it, like it usually does: memories, faith, a lot of gratitude, some certainty, a lot of uncertainty, hunger for truth that’s never left me, joy, sadness, hope. But it’s not about me. This moment has all of us in it. And it’s entirely about—how did the chatty AI put it?—the holy interruption that breaks through our noise and busyness to remind us who and whose we are.

Many years ago—probably the year before my final exams—I went to visit my friend Rhina. He had been ordained a year ahead of me and was already serving as a pastor. We were sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of red wine, talking all night. There was plenty to talk about. The contrast between student life in the city and rural parish life was as stark as it gets.

At some point, Rhina pointed to a print taped to the wall by the fridge. I got up to take a closer look. It was a woodcut, square and rough, with words attributed to Augustine of Hippo. I learned several years later that they were from a sermon he preached when he was ordained bishop—words he used to describe the obligations of his ministry:

The restless must be corrected.
The faint-hearted encouraged.
The weak supported.
Opponents refuted.
Schemers guarded against.
The ignorant taught.
The lazy roused.
The argumentative restrained.
The proud humbled.
The quarrelsome reconciled.
The poor helped.
The oppressed freed.
The good approved.
The wicked endured.
And all loved.

Standing in the kitchen that night, I chuckled when I got to the end—"and all loved"—because in German, those words are rendered with a sigh: und alle geliebt.

These words have stayed with me. They’ve challenged and comforted me. And today, I thank you for all the ways we have been in ministry together. I thank you for allowing and encouraging me to live into my calling. And for those times—and I hope they were few—when I did not love you well, I ask your forgiveness.

You have played no small part in my formation—as a disciple of Jesus, a leader in the church, and a man. I am grateful to you and to those who have moved on, those who’ve joined the saints in heaven over the years. I am grateful.

I have loved this work, and I love it still. It could have been otherwise. I could say a lot more, but it wouldn’t be enough. I trust that you will continue to shape faithful ministers in and for these uncertain times—and I don’t just mean ordained ones. I’m confident that Margie and Wesley will find much joy and fulfillment in their ministry with you.

So now, let me try this again.

We have a text to consider. This moment has all of us in it. And it really is entirely about the holy interruption that breaks through our noise and busyness to remind us who and whose we are—lest we forget.

John was a Christian leader banned by order of Rome to the island of Patmos. Jerusalem was gone. The Romans, tired of protests and revolts in the volatile province of Judea, had destroyed the city and demolished the temple. A pile of rubble was all that was left. They had finally succeeded in bringing peace to the region—their variety of peace, that is: the heavy, oppressive lid of the Pax Romana.

To those peacemakers, followers of Jesus were suspect because of their reluctance—or outright refusal—to honor the gods of the empire. Violent persecution wasn’t the norm, but Christian leaders were being executed or imprisoned. John was exiled. He found himself far from home, a prisoner on a small island in the Aegean Sea.

The world around him was falling apart. In the cities of Asia Minor, arrests and executions continued. His friends were losing hope. Rome’s imperial cult demanded that they acclaim the emperor as Lord and Son of God. But how could they, when they had come to know Jesus as Lord? How could they call the emperor “savior of the world,” when that honor belonged to God alone?

So John wrote a letter to encourage the faint-hearted. And he told them what he saw—amid the violent tensions, oppression, and fear. Much like the prophets before him, whose imagery shaped his apocalyptic poetry, John looked far beyond the horizon defined by Rome’s imperial reach. And at the end, what he saw was a city. A city coming down out of heaven from God.

Now, I hope you know by now—I don’t believe we’re to read apocalyptic poetry like it’s a cosmic train schedule. When John speaks of a holy city descending from heaven, we don’t expect GPS coordinates or driving directions. We take in the vision, the kaleidoscope of metaphors swirling around each other—all of them pointing to a world where God is at home. A world where terror and fear are no more. Where oppression and injustice are gone. Where the glory of God shines in all things, and the nations walk by its light.

God knows we need that light now. Our institutions are shaking. Some are crumbling. Cities are being bombed. Children are starving. And too many of us are overwhelmed and exhausted. Our elected leaders—whether gripped by fear or greed—can think of nothing better to do than dream up a thousand-page scheme to take the poor man’s lamb and give it to the wealthy who already own most of the herds.

That’s where we are.

John wanted the churches across the sea to know that Rome’s power could not stand against the purposes of God. He wants the church in any city, in any age, to see that no project of domination—imperial or otherwise—can prevent the advent of God’s reign.

We need to see that light.

The city of John’s vision has no temple in it. So next time you have the conversation about the building, remember that. The city is holy as a whole. In the city John wants us to see, God is present throughout all the neighborhoods, in the midst of the everyday. God’s name no longer resides in a walled-off sanctuary—it is written on people’s foreheads.

Now that’s weird, I know. But I think it’s a blunt way of saying that, finally, everyone is recognizable and known as made in the image of God. Finally, everyone is known and respected as God’s own. We’ll be wearing it on our foreheads.

But John is careful not to present the heavenly city as the end of our earthly story, but rather the continuation—and the climax—of the old story that began in Eden. God doesn’t junk the cosmos and start over. God renews the old and brings it to fulfillment.

So in John’s vision, salvation isn’t a return to some undefiled garden. What happens is that the Sabbath peace of the seventh day permeates the city. The tree of life grows in it. The river of life flows through it. And the kings of the earth bring the glory of the nations to it.

In the city John wants us to see, the goodness of creation and the best of human culture from all corners of the earth come together in God’s final act of redemption and homecoming.

Talk about a holy interruption that breaks through our noise and busyness to remind us who and whose we are.

Eugene Boring writes, “If this is where the world under the sovereign grace of God is finally going, then every thought, move, and deed in some other direction is simply out of step with reality—and is finally wasted.”

So let’s be careful to keep that light in front of our eyes.

John didn’t share his vision so we could speculate about the pitch and timing of the seventh trumpet blast. He offered it with love and urgency—as an orientation for our life here and now.

Especially in this moment—when ignorance and cowardice go hand in hand, and hope is hard to come by.

The great rabbi Abraham Heschel said that human faith is never final, never an arrival, but rather an endless pilgrimage—a being on the way. We know about being on the way. We know who it is we follow.

And so we continue on the way—with audacious longing, burning songs, and daring thoughts—seeking to serve the One who rings our hearts like a bell.

We continue on the way to the city where, as the psalm says so beautifully:

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

May it be so for all of us.
Amen.

A Witness of With-ness

Margie Quinn

I think I have told this story before, but hopefully you forget what Thomas and I say at some point so that you hear it with new ears when we repeat ourselves. It's a story that I think bears repeating, especially as I think about this text in the book of Revelation.

When my sister-in-law, Tallu, was in her last few months of life and her community felt helpless in the midst of her gradual fading—of which we could do nothing to stop—a friend of hers had this idea to initiate a kind of community practice. Every evening at 7:30 p.m., everyone who was thinking of Tallu and thinking of her family would light a candle to honor her and to hold her in light.

What began as this nightly ritual in a southern city branched out to places all over the world. In the first few days, it was just those of us in Nashville who took part. Then, it expanded to places everywhere—friends of friends, distant cousins, and even strangers who saw this on social media or heard by word of mouth joined in this communal practice of lament and presence, lighting their candles too.

I received pictures from balconies in California, porches in Georgia and cathedrals in Rome. After a particularly hard visit in what would be her last month alive, I drove home in tears and stepped out of my car to see a candle on my doorstep. The flame was small but bright. Whoever had put it there had shown up—not to fix the suffering or erase the pain or excuse it away—but to be with me in it.

The next night, the same thing happened, with a different candle. The night after that, another candle. This went on for weeks—over 20 days of someone showing up at my doorstep with a candle from Target or Thistle Farms or Paddywax or the Dollar Tree. Some candles had a note, and some didn’t. Some of the candles smelled amazing, some…not so much. Regardless of the scent, the gesture stays with me. 

I came to find out that a friend had put together a document and asked people in my life to bring me light. Despite the endless tears during that season of grief, I felt the presence of God with me through the light of my friends. I felt a witness to the gospel that I've started to think of as a withness from God's people.

In the book of Revelation, John—who has been exiled to the island of Patmos—shares a vision of this withness, too. He begins this vision by describing a new heaven and a new earth. For those of you who've read the Left Behind series, you may recall this passage as one of destruction and desolation, in which the Lord hoists up people who are morally pious enough to make it to this unreachable and distant kingdom of heaven.

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” John writes, “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” This may feel like scary stuff. But, the verb John uses here when he says “the old heaven and earth had ‘passed away’”—doesn't mean “destruction.” It doesn't mean “death.” It’s the verb for departure, for going away. Aperchomai. Heaven and earth haven’t gone up in flames. The old heaven and earth have simply departed to leave room for something new. 

John reveals this vision of what’s to come: a holy city. Isn’t that a wonderful image? A holy city that’s not out there, but comes down to meet us, right here.

“And a loud voice”—I love that it doesn’t just say a voice, it says a loud voice, like we really need to hear this part; “a loud voice that says: ‘The home of God is with mortals. God will dwell with them. God will be with them.’”

The word “with” is repeated three times to really make us hear the point. 

Pastor Sara Miles says that the most important word in the Bible is not faith or love or hope or even grace. She says the most important word in the Bible is with. She writes, “God sticks with us, plays with us, suffers with us, and abides with us. And consequently, our work in the world must be with God, who came down to us in the form of Jesus.” 

Remember what Jesus was called? Emmanuel. God with us. The person of Jesus was not above, not holier than us, but with the poor and forgotten, with the sick and lonely, with the young and old, with the prideful and ashamed. With baby Elliston as he is dedicated today and with our high school graduate, Dair, as she embarks on a new chapter soon. With Thomas and Nancy as they begin their new chapter, too. And with Vine Street as we look toward something new. 

Emmanuel. Not somewhere out there—somewhere right here. Present and among us. 

Jesus says this at the end of the Gospel of Matthew—do you remember? “I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” The end of the age. That’s a long time.

So, I keep thinking about this—that my witness needs to be a with-ness. Because that’s what God offers us in this passage as God ushers in a new heaven and a new earth.

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes, “Earth is crammed with heaven.” I love this so much. Earth is crammed with heaven. Which is something kind of hard to believe right now in the midst of what feels like these apocalyptic times—that God could be doing a new thing and cramming our broken world with wholeness.

I witnessed this cramming earlier this week as I stood with other faith leaders—rabbis and Presbyterians, Catholics and Methodists and conservative Christians—to oppose the imminent execution of Oscar Smith, who is sentenced to die this Thursday, one of five executions scheduled this year.

I was able to speak on behalf of our denomination, which has opposed the death penalty since 1957, something that makes me very proud to be a Disciple of Christ.

A man who was one of my congregants at Westminster got up. His name is Rudy. He used to be a sports director, and now he’s retired. I haven’t ever been retired, but apparently many people ask, “What do you want to do when you’re retired?” Rudy decided to answer that question by spending his retirement driving out to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison every week. 

Not one day a week. Not two. Not three. Not four. Every weekday, Rudy visits the men inside—men who will be there for life, and men on death row.

His words were powerful as he urged our Governor to choose mercy. Regardless of what happens, Rudy’s withness to me is an example of someone who wants to participate in ushering in this new heaven and earth. 

Anyway, our passage continues, saying,  “The one on the throne says, I’m making all things new.” A hearkening back to the prophet Isaiah—not destruction, not desolation, but redemption and reconciliation.

In the next chapter, Revelation 22, the angel reveals to John this really beautiful image of what’s going on in this new city that comes to dwell with us. There’s a river—the water of life—flowing in the midst of the streets of this city. And on either side, trees. The Tree of Life, which bears great fruit and abundance for everyone to eat. And it says this: “The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”

The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations—which we so desperately pray for, don’t we? Which we seek to be a part of in what feels like a very apocalyptic moment.

But, “apocalypse” doesn’t mean “the end of the world.” The Greek word literally means unveiling. Unveiling what is–a long history of suffering and pushing people to the margins, revealing to those of us who haven’t had eyes to see what has been happening for a long, long time.

Something about this passage, in the midst of everything, gives me hope. Not a hope that’s far away, that I have to be really good to reach, but a hope that meets us right here, exactly where we are—and urges us to be a part of this new heaven on earth.

Professor Anna Bowen writes, “This fifth Sunday of Easter, John reminds us”—and I love this, too—“John reminds us that we are not heaven-bound. Heaven is bound for us.” Heaven is bound for you and me. It chases after us and encourages us to be part of doing a new thing for a God who dwells among, and with, and next to, and for.

God has come to dwell among God’s people, even in our moments of pain and suffering.

So yes, it might be tempting to think of it as destructive. But that’s not the work that God calls us to do. We don’t have to burn it all down or escape to some new world.

God meets us right here on earth, is not waiting for us to join God in heaven, but is waiting for us to join God in the good work right here on earth.

You picking up what I’m putting down?

So it’s really simple. The question for me and you today:

Are you willing to join God in the good work right here on earth?
Are you willing to light a candle for someone in the midst of their grief?
To join God in wiping away every tear?
Are you willing to be a part of the healing of this world?
To cram earth with heaven?
To visit a prisoner?
To feed the hungry?
To clothe the naked?

And most importantly, to be a people of witness by practicing a gospel of withness? 

Now more than ever, we are called to be “crammers.”

Now more than ever, we work alongside a God whose home is among us—and, as Jesus promises, who will be with us always, until the end of the age.

And if that is not good news, church, I don’t know what is.

So, thanks be to God. Amen.

The long apprenticeship

Thomas Kleinert

I’ve been pulling books from the shelves in my study the past few days. I need to decide which ones to keep, which ones to leave for other readers, and which ones to drop in various bins. So I came across this slender volume again. I trust you will forgive an old man for getting a little sentimental. This was the first book of religious instruction that wasn’t read tome, but that I would read myself. It was given to me when I entered first grade, and, of course, the first weeks of the first year were all about the pictures.

On the front cover is a man dressed in a white robe carrying a lamb; and gathered around him are lots of sheep. On the back cover is another picture of that man. There’s a round corral in the background with sheep going into it, and in the foreground is the man in the long white robe, holding a staff in both of his hands, the pointed end raised against a snarling wolf. To my six-year-old eyes, the wolf looked very dangerous, almost like a dragon, but I could tell that the man standing between the wolf and the sheep would do anything to keep the foe away from them. The title of the book is “The Good Shepherd.”

When they gave it to us we couldn’t read or write yet, but we learned a song, and the words in English go something like this: “Because I am Jesus’ little sheep I delight in my good shepherd who knows how to take good care of me, who loves me, who knows me and calls me by name.”[1] “Jesus’ little sheep” — it sounds sweet and cutesy, but when I was 6, I already knew better: I had seen the back cover of the book. I knew this shepherd was a fearless defender who would protect the flock under his care. In the first week of first grade, with a picture and a song, the church taught me one of the core truths of our faith; all that followed would be commentary: I am known, I am loved, I belong to Jesus, and no wolf can snatch me.

In Israel’s imagination the shepherd is a rich and complex figure. All the patriarchs were nomadic shepherds. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, when, in a flame of fire out of a bush, God spoke to him, sending him to bring God’s people out of Egypt.[2] David was keeping his father’s sheep when Samuel came to anoint him king over Israel.[3]In Israel’s imagination kings and leaders were shepherds whom God had called to guide, protect, and care for God’s people. And when they didn’t shepherd them well, prophets rose to speak. When Jeremiah shouts, “the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord” — everybody knows he’s not talking about some sheep herders in the hills.[4] And when you listen to Ezekiel, you may think he’s been reading the budget proposals currently under consideration in Washington:

Woe, you shepherds who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.

Ezekiel’s words ring out across centuries of unjust, loveless rule, and they conclude with the awesome promise of God:

I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.[5]

When we say Psalm 23 against the backdrop of this history and this promise, we hope to absorb some of the profound trust expressed there: The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. I fear no evil. I will live in the house of the Lord. And we hope to absorb some of the polemical thrust against rulers who oppress God’s people. You are with me, we say defiantly. You are my shepherd – and nothing else matters. You know me. You love me. You call me by name. I am yours.

Learning to sing, “I am Jesus’ little sheep” I only learned a portion of all there is to know about God, but trusting the promise, I already knew, in all the ways that matter, who God is: You are with me. God said to Isaac, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”[6] When Moses asked, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” God said, “I will be with you.”[7] When Moses passed the mantle of leadership to Joshua, he said to him, “Be strong and bold, for … the Lord … will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”[8] And when Israel was in exile, the prophet Isaiah gave God’s word to an anxious people, “Do not fear, for I am with you.”[9]

Every generation of God’s people has received the promise of the divine shepherd: When earthly shepherds fail to rule with compassion and justice, as they have and they will, their failure won’t end the divine shepherd’s reign.

I myself will search for my sheep, says our God, and I will seek them out. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.

For you and me the divine shepherd has the face of Jesus. Now sheep are not brilliant creatures, and there aren’t many stories in the tradition about smart sheep. “When I was a boy,” writes Andre Dubus,

sheep had certain meanings: in the Western movies, sheep herders interfered with the hero’s cattle; or the villain’s ideas about his grazing rights interfered with the hero’s struggle to raise his sheep. And Christ had called us his flock, his sheep; there were pictures of him holding a lamb in his arms. His face was tender and loving, and I grew up with a sense of those feelings, of being a source of them: we were sweet and lovable sheep.

Well, after dealing with just one small flock of actual sheep for one summer in New Hampshire, Dubus changed his mind about those “sweet and lovable sheep.”

I saw Christ’s analogy meant something entirely different. We were stupid helpless brutes, and without constant watching we would foolishly destroy ourselves.[10]

The Lord certainly knew that, but he came anyway, and he continues to come to seek the lost and bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, so that all would live in safety, and no one would make them afraid.[11]This shepherd doesn’t run when the wolf comes, far from it — he lays down his life for the sheep. He subverts all the royal visions of power with their gilded dreams and imposing parades. The good shepherd has but one goal: to gather us into a community of deep friendship with God and with each other.

‘One flock, one shepherd’ is the name of that vision in John. What we see are multiple flocks of all shapes and sizes, mostly made up of sheep that look alike, bleat alike, and smell alike. But the good shepherd keeps reminding us, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.”Being sheep, we’re likely to imagine that the envisioned unity will come when finally all of them will have become just like us, or when our shepherds have deported the stubborn rest of them to Libya or Madagascar or someplace else far away. But Jesus’ life and mission is about “us” and “them” becoming a whole new kind of we by growing in likeness with him.

The wolf, of course, with an impressive array of podcasts and social media outlets, tells the lambs not to give in to “herd mentality” and to “forge their own path.” But all the wolf wants are lamb chops. The good shepherd wants us to have life and have it abundantly.[12]

At the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And three times he answers, “You know that I love you.” And three times Jesus responds, “Feed my sheep.”[13] To me this suggests that love turns sheep into shepherd apprentices. I’ve never been comfortable with the title “pastor,” or any titles for that matter, and you may be thinking, “Now he tells us, two weeks away from retirement?” But I’ve long loved the suggestion to think of followers of Jesus as shepherd apprentices. And I have long loved how an old shepherd described the trials and the beauty of the shepherd’s life; in my life in congregational ministry, his words have often resonated:

You need to be tough as old boots. … The romance wears off after a few weeks, believe me, and you will be left standing cold and lonely on a mountain. It is all about endurance. Digging in. Holding on. … You’ll need the patience of a saint, too, because sheep test you to the limit…  The apprenticeship period for a shepherd is … about 40 years. You are just a “boy” or a “lass” until you are about 60: it takes that long to really know a mountain, the vagaries of its weather and grazing, to know the different sheep [and] bloodlines… This isn’t just … walking [the hills] behind sheep with a dog friend – it requires a body of knowledge and skills that shepherds devote decades to learning.[14]

In other words, this apprenticeship is a lifelong project; which sounds about right.

I’ll soon be getting off this mountain and I’ll continue to listen for the good shepherd’s voice and call. And I trust that you, with new leaders, will continue to grow in love with God and all of God’s beloved. He calls us each by name to send us, and in his company we become for each other what he is to us — good-shepherd-folk, committed to life’s flourishing in the kingdom of God.

[1] Weil ich Jesu Schäflein bin, freu’ ich mich nur immerhin
über meinen guten Hirten, der mich wohl weiß zu bewirten,
der mich liebet, der mich kennt und bei meinem Namen nennt.

[2] Exodus 3:1-12

[3] 1 Samuel 16:1-13

[4] Jeremiah 10:21

[5] Ez 34:3-6, 11, 15-16

[6] Genesis 26:24

[7] Exodus 3:12

[8] Deuteronomy 31:8

[9] Isaiah 43:5

[10] Andre Dubus, “Out like a lamb,” in: Broken Vessels: Essays by Andre Dubus (1991)

[11] Ezekiel 34:16, 28

[12] John 10:10

[13] John 21:15-17

[14] James Rebanks, The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape (New York: Flatiron Books, 2015) and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/farming/11569612/Are-you-hard-enough-to-survive-as-a-shepherd.html

Tangible new life

Thomas Kleinert

In Acts, Luke paints a scene where we see the apostles standing before the council. They are being questioned. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, didn’t we, and yet here you have filled the city with your teaching.” And they respond, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

It was human authority that killed Jesus to silence him. It was human authority that resisted his authority to teach and forgive; human authority that brought charges against him, declared him guilty, and executed him. It was human authority that did all it could to put an end to Jesus. But God raised him up. And we are witnesses to these things.

Who would have thought that frightened disciples would have the courage to take a stand like that? Who would have thought that they would look human authority in the eye and defy it with such bold humility? Who would have thought they could be so free?

In John, the evangelist paints a very different scene. Jesus is risen from the dead, but the disciples are hiding behind locked doors, prisoners of fear. It’s the first day of the week, and Mary Magdalene has told them, “I have seen the Lord! He told me to tell you this: ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” But clearly, her words haven’t made much of a difference. I imagine her pacing back and forth, mumbling, perhaps pulling her hair in frustration: all she has are words, and her words aren’t enough to break the paralysis of fear and shame, not enough to let the other disciples know what she knows or see what she saw.

This dark, stuffy  room, according to John, is a snapshot of the early church: A terrified little band, huddled in the corner of the room with a chair braced against the door. This bunch will have only one thing going for them — divine persistence: the insistence of God who raised Jesus from the dead that his resurrection wasn’t his alone, but the first, decisive act of transformation that would touch every part of creation. Jesus is out of the tomb, but the disciples are still in it. And John wants us to know that we can count on God’s persistence: Jesus came and said, “Peace be with you.” The last time they had been together, he had told them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[1] And now Jesus stood among them, after they had betrayed, denied, abandoned him – Jesus stood among them and the first word he spoke in the dark was peace. The risen Lord spoke peace into their troubled, fearful hearts; light and joy filled the room, and their fear melted away.

Please note that he said, “Peace be with you,” when we wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him say, “Shame on you, you sorry bunch” or “OK, friends, let’s talk about this.”

“Peace be with you,” he said. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.Now the resurrection was no longer just something Mary Magdalene had tried to convey with her words. Now they themselves were new people, living new lives, in a world made new and illuminated by the peace of their risen Lord.

In the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet looks at a valley full of bones, and the Lord asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And the Lord tells him to prophesy to these bones, to speak to the bones and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”[2]

In Ezekiel’s day, the bones represented the people of God in exile, lifeless, dry, dispirited and discouraged. I imagine Mary Magdalene felt like she was talking to a pile of bones when her words couldn’t break through the pall of fear, shame and grief that lay on the disciples. But now Jesus was once again in their midst, breathing new life into their nostrils, and now this small band of followers, held together by little more than habit and fear, was the church.

Can these bones live? We will see – the mission of Jesus continues in the world, and his disciples are the ones called and sent to live and tell the story, to love and forgive in his name, and we continue to learn from his teachings. Since the days of the first witnesses, frightened disciples could be church because the Risen One keeps breaking in on us, breathing on the dry bones of our lives, leading us out of our tombs, and sending us to live and proclaim God’s forgiveness and peace. And so the resurrection continues to unfold until the whole creation knows the peace of God.

Thomas, of course, wasn’t there when Jesus came to the apostles in the evening of that day. Neither were any of us around then. All we have is what Thomas was given, the words of witnesses. The other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But their words, just like Mary’s before, didn’t have the power to break through whatever kept Thomas from hearing them with faith. He didn’t know whom or what they had seen, what apparition might have fooled them. He needed to see for himself, and more than see. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Thomas needed to see and touch. He wanted proof – tangible proof that this living one his friends had seen was indeed Jesus whom the Romans had crucified. He had questions that couldn’t be answered with a reference to scripture or to some other authority. He needed to see and touch the truth; he needed to see and touch the new life.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. That small fact in itself is remarkable. There have been plenty of churches since those early days where you were no longer welcome when a quick reference to scripture or to some other authority didn’t stop your questioning. And there are too many Christian communities where no one voices their struggles with believing for fear of being excluded or declared spiritually challenged. And there are many who have heard the words of the witnesses, and a week later they won’t be back with their questions and their need to experience the newness of life the words declare. But in John’s story, they’re all together. And now the scene repeats itself, solely for Thomas’s sake, we suppose.

Jesus comes and stands among them and says, for the third time, “Peace be with you.” He turns to Thomas and, far from rebuking him for his stubborn insistence on something more tangible than words, says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” And Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God.” The one who wanted proof, the one who didn’t want to settle for repeating the words of others but held out for an experience of the Risen One on his own terms, this Thomas made a confession of faith unlike any other in the gospels.

Thomas has been remembered in the church as the doubter par excellence, and many times he’s been called up by church authorities whenever the questions of some became uncomfortable and needed to be squelched. I don’t think we should remember him as a doubter, though, but rather as one who didn’t just want to hear about new life, but know it in its tangible reality.

“In the beginning was the Word,” John’s gospel declares in its opening verses, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And here, close to the end of the gospel, Thomas makes his confession, affirming that he has encountered God in Jesus, crucified and risen. That is his testimony to us. Now what will we do?

We might wish that the proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection would just catapult us into this reality of “all things new.” Certainly our faith and witness would be fearless and bold then! But we’re not that different from the first disciples: our lives are a mixture of fear and peace, and our faith fades in and out of focus, we move back and forth between blur and clarity — and that’s quite alright, because Jesus did not leave us orphaned: he has breathed on us, and he continues to breathe in us and among us through the Holy Spirit. We have not seen what the apostles have seen, but we have heard and continue to hear their witness.

In the final verses of John’s chapter, we read a note from the evangelist to the readers, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” The living Word continues to come to us, and we trust that the Spirit will guide us into all the truth: We will hear what we need to hear, see what we need to see, and touch what we need to touch in order to have life in Jesus’ name. We can count on God’s persistence. The resurrection continues.

[1] John 14:27

[2] Ezekiel 37:1-14

Your hearts will rejoice

Thomas Kleinert

A few days ago, I believe it was Monday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski addressed a room full of Alaska nonprofit and tribal leaders at a conference in Anchorage. She spoke about the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles, and cuts to federal services under the current administration. “We are all afraid,” she said; and then there was a long pause — about five seconds. It was as though she suddenly realized what an astonishing thing she had just heard herself say. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.” She called on Alaskans to “be affirmative” in protesting on behalf of programs they want to remain in place. “I think it’s important the concerns continue to be raised,” Murkowski said, “rather than letting the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.”[1] We are all afraid, but don’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.

A few days ago, I believe it was on Palm Sunday, the White House press office released a statement by the president.

This Holy Week, my Administration renews its promise to defend the Christian faith in our schools, military, workplaces, hospitals, and halls of government. We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty, upholding the dignity of life, and protecting God in our public square.[2]

I’m quite confident that God doesn’t need protection in the public square or anywhere else, least of all by the government of the United States. And instead of promising to defend the Christian faith — or what the MAGA regime imagines our faith to be — the president should perhaps remember his oath of office and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”

A few days ago, I believe it was Thursday, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen was finally able to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man illegally abducted by the United States government. Mr. Garcia is married to a U.S. citizen, he had been legally living in Maryland for more than a decade, and he was never charged with any crime. A federal judge ordered the administration to facilitate Mr. Garcia’s return home, an order upheld by the Supreme Court, but the president invited his El Salvadoran counterpart to a sham press conference where they each shrugged their shoulders, smugly pretending to be helpless in righting this grievous wrong — and all of this during Holy Week.[3] I hear echoes of Pontius Pilate washing his hands. The arrogance of power knows no limit. We are all afraid, but don’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. Wasn’t she afraid to go out by herself in the dark? I bet she was, but she went anyway. Why? Mary of Bethany had already anointed Jesus’ body with precious nard.[4] Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had already lavishly prepared Jesus’ body with a hundred pounds of myrrh and other spices before they laid him in the tomb.[5] There were no more tasks to complete, no more final kind gestures to offer. So, why did she go?

I believe she just wanted to be there. She wanted to get as close to Jesus’ body as she could, as soon as she could. I believe she went because her love was stronger than her fear. She was heartbroken and sad, and I imagine she was angry at the world and at those who ruled it so violently. Or perhaps she was way past anger, sliding into numbness. She loved this man who encouraged her and his other followers to embrace the vision of a world where masters wash servants’ feet, where the sick are healed and the hungry fed, and all who mourn are comforted. He had awakened hope in her, boundless hope. Because of him, she had begun to believe in the possibility of forgiveness, the possibility of a community shaped by mutual love, the possibility of life in fullness for all.

And now he was dead. Her joy was gone, and all she could see in the dim light was that the stone had been removed from the tomb. After everything she had lost, even that last place of tangible connection with Jesus’ body had been violated. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

“It matters little what we see when despair takes hold,” writes Jonathan Walton. “We will interpret all reality through this prism.”[6] They have crucified the Lord. They have extinguished the light of his luminous presence in the world. And now they have even taken his body. They have managed to make his absence unbearably complete. It was as though the predawn darkness became even thicker for Mary.

John seems to think we could use a little comedy now. He presents an interlude with the curious footrace between Peter and the other disciple: who got there first, and who saw what first, and who was the first to believe, and then, how the two of them, get this, how the two of them went home. The light of this first day certainly takes a while to dawn, doesn’t it?

Mary Magdalene, though, bewildered and bereft, doesn’t walk away. She doesn’t turn away from the painful reality; she stays with it, right there by the open tomb where the absence is most palpable. She stays and she weeps.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels ask her.

Why am I weeping? Why aren’t you? Haven’t you been paying attention? Don’t you see what is going on? Don’t you see how they take away all things bright and beautiful, how they destroy anything that is promising, and how they pile up only ugliness and lies, all for the sake of power? How can you not weep when they have put out the light of the world?

The angels have no comfort to offer. They just sit there, the silence of heaven in the face of human loss and pain. What do angels know about hope and grief?

Then she sees the gardener, and to us, at first glimpse, that’s another bit of comedy, a case of mistaken identity, because the narrator has already told us who this is. But he actually is the gardener. The whole early morning sequence resonates with echoes of the creation stories — the darkness before the light, the first day, God who planted a garden and walked in it in the cool of the day — and we may recall the words from the first chapter of John,

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.[7]

Mary sees the gardener, but she doesn’t recognize him. Mary stands at the dawn of a new creation, and she doesn’t know it. “Woman, why are you weeping?” he asks, sounding just like one of the angels. “Whom are you looking for?”

On the night before his arrest, Jesus told the disciples, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” They said, “What does he mean by this ‘a little while?’” and he responded, “You will weep and mourn, you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice.”[8] And now he does see her, but she doesn’t see him until she hears him speak her name, “Mary!” — and light floods in and everything becomes new in an instant.

Jesus’ vision of God’s reign awakens hope in us, but amid the fading of the world as it is and the coming of the world as it shall be, our hope often gets shaken or buried. We mourn, we weep, we seek to reconnect with what we once knew, wondering who has taken it away, wondering where we might go and find it. We run back and forth, much of what we see is ambiguous, and sometimes, like Peter and the other disciple, we just go home — except that without hope, home isn’t much of a home.

So let me suggest we do what Mary did: stay as close as we can to what’s real even when it makes us weep, or perhaps especially when it makes us weep, because amid the chaos our tears bear witness to what is good, beautiful, and true. We stay until we hear him call our name and everything becomes new.

The resurrection is not a turning back of the clock that somehow undoes the reality of injustice and suffering, or the cruelty of those in power. The resurrection is the beginning of new life in the midst of the old. It is the dawn of the world’s redemption from anything that would keep it from being a home for all.

When Jesus met his first followers, he asked them, “What are you looking for?” and he invited them to come and see.[9] When Mary stood outside the tomb, mourning and weeping, he asked her, “Whom are you looking for?” and, calling her by name, he invited her again to come and see.  Like them, we listen for that call and we follow; we seek, we find, we get lost; we hear our name; we see and we want to hold on, and we let go for the promise of fulfillment beyond our imagining. Like Mary, we do not cling to the Jesus we once knew, but to the promise that he will not leave us orphaned in a world of our own making. We are all afraid, but we won’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind us down.

The stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, of his humble birth and cruel death, his radical hospitality and boundless compassion, and his resurrection from the dead — all these stories tell us that there is a great love at work among us, a love stronger than any fear; a love so powerful and creative, it frees us to let ourselves be built into a community shaped entirely in its image: life in fullness for all. Praise be to God who raised Jesus from the dead.

[1] https://www.adn.com/politics/2025/04/14/we-are-all-afraid-speaking-to-alaska-nonprofit-leaders-murkowski-gets-candid-on-upheaval-in-federal-government/

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/presidential-message-on-holy-week-2025/

[3] https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/god-hasnt-forgotten-about-you-an

[4] John 12:1-7

[5] John 19:38-42

[6] Jonathan Walton, Connections, Year B, Volume 2, 192.

[7] John 1:2-5

[8] John 16:16-20

[9] John 1:38-39

The Foolishness of Jesus

Margie Quinn

Today is Palm Sunday. I’ve heard this story, as many of you have, countless times. We’ve heard about the triumphal entry of Jesus, who rode into the city of Jerusalem as we threw down our cloaks and our palm branches in glory and praise of Him. 

But this week, I actually learned that Palm Sunday is actually a story not of one but two triumphal entries, or parades as I like to call them. While there is no scriptural record of this second parade, many historians have pointed out that the Romans were undoubtedly holding their own imperial parade around the same time. You see, this is around the time of the major Jewish festival of Passover, when the Jewish people celebrate their liberation from Egypt, their escape from enslavement. What a beautiful Jewish ritual and celebration it was—and is—that they were able to say, "We escaped and left the clutches of empire and oppression and followed someone who showed us a different way of life and a different kind of freedom."

As they gathered around the table and broke bread together, the powers of Rome, who were so threatened and intimidated by that kind of joy and love, decided to host a parade around to remind the people that they shouldn’t expect liberation again, not from Rome.

To emphasize this point, this parade was to announce the raw political and military power of the Roman government. So Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, would ride in from the west to Jerusalem. He would appear on his warhorse with cavalry and foot soldiers following him. And people would gather on the side of the road to watch these big, strong horses and these foot soldiers, and the leather armor and the helmets and the weapons and the banners and the golden eagles mounted on poles. This was Pilate’s parade.

As Pastor Shannon Kershner notes, as they heard the marching of feet and the cracking of leather, the clinking of bridles and the beating of drums, they would grow increasingly more intimidated of this reminder: Caesar, not God, had control over their lives and over their deaths. 

I imagine that, intimidated into silence, the people watching this parade would cower in fear, or nervously shuffle their feet as these men marched by. 

But there was another parade going on at the same time. This one was led not by a man coming from the west in all of his imperial glory. This was a man coming from the east toward the city of Jerusalem. Jesus didn’t plan the timing of this parade by accident. No, he knew about Rome’s imperial parade, about the intimidation and fear tactics, about this desire to threaten and overpower the people, to keep them in their place, to keep that shoe on their neck. And so Jesus, ever the wily man that he was, said, “I’m going to have something different happen during that time.”

Some scholars refer to it as street theater—Jesus planning his own provocative performance for the sake of the Gospel; Jesus being willing to look a little foolish for the sake of the Good News. He crafted his own kind of theater to directly contrast Pilate’s parade. 

Now, let’s look at these two parades: 

In Pilate’s parade: War horses.
In Jesus’s parade: A donkey.

Imagine it: on Pilate’s horse, an expensive saddle. On Jesus’ donkey, a couple of dirty cloaks thrown over its back. Can you visualize the foolishness of this scene? 

In Pilate’s parade, he rode at the front of this intimidating, powerful group of men.
In Jesus’s parade, he rode with a small group of uneducated fishermen and despised tax collectors. He rode with a really unorganized bunch of men and women—some of whom were walking behind him, some walking alongside him, some who might’ve scurried in front of him a little bit. 

In Pilate’s parade: military gear.
In Jesus’s parade: sandals and worn clothes.

In Pilate’s parade: a display of domination.
In Jesus’s parade: a display of devotion.
In Pilate’s parade: a scared silence.
In Jesus’s parade: shouts of joy and praise.

Can you hear it, church? 

The peasants cried out when they saw him. “Hosanna!” they shouted, which literally means “Save now!”  These peasants and people were so comfortable addressing Jesus, begging for his mercy that they were willing to cry out, “Save now, Jesus! Save now!
Liberate us from this oppressive hold that Caesar has on us! Save now, Jesus! Deliver us from this looming cloud that hangs over us, telling us that we are small, that we are helpless, that no body of people who organize together to fight against the systems of power are ever going to be able to make change or do enough. Save now! Save us from the fear that swallows us and suffocates us every day.
Hosanna, Jesus! Hosanna!”

Do you hear both the praise and the desperation in their voices as they see the King of Kings? Not a warlord—a different kind of king. A king willing to hop on a donkey and ride through a town as people put palms and cloaks down out of respect and admiration for this man who was willing to look foolish for the sake of the Gospel.

In a world of winners,  he was willing to look like a loser.
In a word of powerful, intimidating leaders, he was willing to look vulnerable and weak, riding not in front of his followers, but alongside them. If that isn’t good news, church, I don’t know what is.

So the peasants and the people spread their cloaks and clothes on the ground and said, “Blessed is the king who comes not in the name of Caesar or Rome, but who comes in the name of the Lord. “Peace in heaven,” (not worldly power on earth); peace in the highest heaven, and glory!”  

And yet, amidst the laughter and praise and this palpable joy, we can hear the Pharisees begin to grumble. They say, “Jesus, order your disciples to stop! It’s a little bit too much. Things are getting a weee bit too wild.” And Jesus responds: “Even if they stopped—even if they silenced their shouting and their praise—my creation, God’s beautiful creation, would still cry out. Even the stones would cry out!”

I’m struck this morning by these two contrasting parades. I read the story this week with new eyes, recognizing these little details that Jesus intentionally placed in his parade, in his riding into the city of Jerusalem, in his triumphal entry—set apart from Pilate’s.

How could anything good come out of Nazareth, they ask? Yet, here he comes. 

I am in awe of Jesus’s constant ability to risk looking foolish for the sake of the Gospel—and the ability of those around Him to risk the same.

Y’all remember that paralyzed man who really wanted to be healed by Jesus, but the crowd was too large in the house for him to approach him? So, his friends cut a hole in the roof and lowered this man down into the room? Surely, that would have looked foolish to those people. 

Y’all remember the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and, in desperation, pushed her way through a crowd and grabbed Jesus’s cloak, saying, “Heal me”? Y’all don’t think people cried, “Foolish woman!” 

Y’all remember Zacchaeus, who climbed up in a sycamore tree just to get a look at his Savior? Imagine how foolish it was to see a grown man shimmy up a tree, peering down in between branches. Foolish followers. 

They risked humiliation and embarrassment to follow a man whose healing and way of being was so compelling that they could not resist being near him. That’s how magnetic his love was.

Do you remember Jesus Himself, perhaps the biggest fool of all?

He said, “When you’re slapped on the cheek, turn the other.” He spit on the ground and made a little mud, and took that mud and put it over   a blind man’s eyes, healing him. He spit into his hands and stuck his fingers in a deaf man’s ear to heal him. Y’all don’t think people thought all of that looked a little foolish? 

And as we enter this Holy Week, as we walk toward the cross, we remember Maundy Thursday, when Jesus knelt down before the calloused, dirty feet, the broken toe nails of his disciples and in a moment of true foolishness, of flipping the script, he washed their feet; even when they asked him not to, even when they felt a little uncomfortable or embarrassed by the act.

Jesus said: I don’t care. I don’t care how I’m seen. I care about showing you a vulnerable kind of love that is in direct opposition to the powers that you see. And yeah, it’s going to make you a little squirmy. But, I’m willing to look foolish for you.

Church, our Savior is willing to look foolish in order to heal us and liberate us and save us. He doesn’t care about social norms. He doesn’t care about showing off his power and grandstanding his might. 

He cares about you. He cares about me. He cares about the people shouting “Hosanna! Save now!” and he cares about the ones who will soon shout, “Crucify Him!” Imagine that. His love extends to our praise of him and our persecution: both the faithful followers and the fair-weather fans. Foolishness—all for the sake of us.

The fool who, as we heard in Philippians, did not view his divinity as something to lord over others, but emptied himself for the sake of being with us, among us, beside us and for us. The fool who washes our feet, even when we squirm. The fool who is willing to be arrested and humiliated and mocked and laughed at as he lays on the cross, all out of his love for us. The fool whose triumphal entry was not a display of dominance but of devotion. 

Grab your donkey.
Throw down a cloak.
Follow the fool who risks it all for our sake.

Amen.

New creation

Thomas Kleinert

I had never heard of Bill Arlow until I read about him last week, and I suspect most of you aren’t familiar with him either. Bill Arlow was born in 1926 in County Down, in Northern Ireland, as a Protestant Ulsterman. In his late teens and early twenties he became an active church worker, helping to organize the first visit of Billy Graham to Northern Ireland in 1949. After a stint with Youth for Christ, he went to seminary in Edinburgh and was ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland. In 1970, as the Troubles were taking hold, he became rector of a parish in East Belfast, where he witnessed the impact of sectarian violence. One of his early experiences there was to minister to a youth shot in the head by a paramilitary, cradling the young man’s head as he breathed his last.

Arlow began to form relationships with paramilitaries on both sides. Eventually, he convened meetings between protestant clerics and lower-ranking leaders of the Irish Republican Army, and his efforts attracted considerable criticism from the protestant community. He received hate mail and death threats, and he and his family had to move house and live under police protection for some time; more civil critics dismissed him as naïve. And yet, the outcome of his efforts was a unilateral IRA ceasefire over Christmas 1974 and a bilateral truce that lasted until September ‘75.

Then the Troubles resumed, and Arlow continued to meet with the paramilitaries as well as with the families of their victims, who were dismayed by any talk of reconciliation. In radio programs Arlow insisted that it was not enough for his Christian listeners to pride themselves on not participating in political violence, but that it was their religious duty to work actively to end it. “It is better to fail,” he told them, “in a cause that will finally succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail.” And he said this many years before the Good Friday Agreement was finally signed in 1998, marking the end of the violent conflict.[1]

It is better to fail in a cause that will finally succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail. I may not remember Bill Arlow’s name for very long – I’ve long been bad with names, and it’s not getting any better – but I hope we’ll all remember these words, or carry them deep in our bones: It is better to fail in a cause that will finally succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail. Everything depends, of course, on what we know or believe or hope the final outcome to be.

Paul once thought of Jesus as a violator of law and tradition. All he could see was a blasphemer and messianic pretender, rejected by God in his shameful death by crucifixion. But one day something big happened to Paul on the road to Damascus, a profound crisis triggered by a vision of the risen, living Christ, a crisis that slowly deflated several of Paul’s most closely held certainties. Now Jesus’ crucifixion was no longer proof of God’s rejection of the Galilean’s messianic claims and his teachings. Now the church’s proclamation of a crucified Messiah was no longer a foolish contradiction to God’s purpose, but the fullest expression of God’s love for sinners, Paul himself included.[2] Now he could no longer understand himself apart from Christ, but only as one whom Christ, in boundless love, had made his own. The compelling love of Christ had claimed him, laid hold of him, and sent him to proclaim the good news as an ambassador for Christ.

Some would say, “Wow, did you hear about Saul? Who would have thought, he really changed his mind, didn’t he?” Others would respond, “No, it’s bigger than that. He sees himself and the entire world in a whole new light – bathed in grace!” And Paul himself, what does he say? He writes, “If anyone is in Christ – new creation! Everything old has passed away; look, everything new has come into being!” To Paul himself, the transformation is not just a change of mind or a sudden sensibility to a new light in the old world – no, it’s a new creation! To him, the ancient promise declared by Isaiah has begun to take shape among him and his contemporaries and around them:[3]

I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, says the Lord; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime. 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. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well.

Paul finds himself and all people caught up in the renewal and consummation of all things through God’s redeeming act in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul knows, of course, that in countless ways “all is definitely not wondrously new.” And yet Paul proclaims that “in some vital way all things are new.”[4] The full depth of God’s love has been revealed in the cross of Christ, and Christ, the firstfruits, has been raised from the dead. Now all things will unfold from that moment. Christ’s death and resurrection brought the end of a world under the dominion of sin and the advent of another: a new creation, new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home.[5]

What the Corinthian believers must decide, according to Paul, and we along with them, is whether to orient our lives to the present that is on the way out, or the future that is already illuminating the present like the first rays of sunrise. And once we have decided, assuming we have decided to lean into the light of that dawn, we practice living no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and was raised for us,[6] and according to the pattern of his life.

Holly Hearon points out that the relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church was “tense … at the time of this correspondence.” The apostle apparently felt that a number of believers there regarded him from a point of view that was on the way out, from a human perspective that was out of sync with the newness of life in Christ. These Corinthians were disappointed because he didn’t have the powerful presence and demeanor that they expected in an apostle. And they were frustrated because he said he would come and visit, and then he didn’t show.

Paul, on the other hand, was pained that they were drawn to apostles other than him, and that may well be why he writes so emphatically about reconciliation in this passage of the letter – five times in three verses.

Hearon suspects that Paul recognized “that what goes on in human communities, how we relate to one another, has implications for how we relate to God” and vice versa.

It is not just about us; nor is it just about God. It is about how we understand ourselves to be in relationship with God and with one another, all in the same moment. The two are inextricably linked.[7]

Once we begin to grasp that God “in Christ” is reaching out to us, reconciling us, reconciling the world to God-self, not counting our trespasses against us – once we begin to grasp that God “in Christ” is re-establishing righteousness in our most fundamental relationship, once we begin to grasp that, and to the degree that we grasp that, we also begin to embrace the new-creation challenge to reach across the barriers and divisions that separate us, individually and as groups, whether due to old, ingrained injustice, or to the common daily missteps, misunderstandings, and misconceptions that get between us. We embrace the challenge and we practice. We practice reaching across in unsentimental love, seeking the healing of relationships fractured by our loveless ways.

“Were Paul and the Corinthians reconciled?” Hearon asks. “We do not know.”[8] We don’t have a Third Letter to the Corinthians telling us how things went after Paul’s urgent plea. His efforts may have failed – but better to fail in a cause that will finally succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail, as Bill Arlow reminded himself and his listeners.

Many of us wonder every day how to practice the kind of reconciliation that is not afraid to face the truth about ourselves. Many of us struggle with what to do when greed, retribution and chaos dim the horizon like heavy, gray clouds. What do we do? We practice – better to fail in a cause that will finally succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail.

For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the hinge on which God’s whole purpose not only for God’s people but for all of God’s creation turns.[9] And while we may turn every which way, forgetful as we are, self-absorbed, status-obsessed, and loveless as we can be, God’s mercy doesn’t swing back and forth, or turn like some mad whirligig.

The sun’s still rising. God has turned all things toward life’s fulfillment in justice and in peace. And that’s where we orient our lives.

[1] See Samuel Wells, Christian Century March 2025, 34 and https://www.dib.ie/biography/arlow-william-james-bill-a9451

[2] See James Dunn, Christianity in the Making, 577.

[3] See Isaiah 65:17ff.

[4] William Greenway, Connections, Year C, Volume 2, 84.

[5] 2 Peter 3:13

[6] See 2 Corinthians 5:15

[7] Holly Hearon https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-3/commentary-on-2-corinthians-516-21-2

[8] Holly Hearon; see note above

[9] See James Dunn, Christianity in the Making, 578.

Tend the Soil

Margie Quinn

The Owner of the Vineyard has planted a fig tree. Every so often, he comes around to see if the tree has any fruit on it. He’s checked on it many times, and has been disappointed many times. “How come this thing won’t produce fruit for me?” he asks.  

He finds the Gardener, the guy working the vineyard, who is actually spending the most time with this tree, and complains. “For three years I’ve come looking for fruit on this dang tree and I haven’t found any. Go ahead and cut it down! It’s just sitting here wasting soil.” 

Sitting here wasting soil. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I feel these days. I’m on email lists for countless petitions that need signing, organizations that need funding, community events that need attending. There is a palpable sense of expectation that I, that we, should be doing something, doing more. But in the midst of so much need, in the face of so much suffering, I find myself unable to engage in meaningful ways, avoiding the headlines, retreating into the comfort of ignorance, until I feel like I’m just sitting here. I’m not able to produce enough compassion at the rate it is expected of me. I’m wasting soil.

Maybe you feel that way, too. Your bodies are wearing down, preventing you from moving in the ways that you used to, preventing you from going at the pace you’d like to. “I used to be thinner in frame, sharper in mind, and I can’t figure out how to get back to that person,” you may lament.  Wasting soil. 

You aren’t making the best grades at school, aren’t excelling enough at the sports you play. 

You see your colleagues getting promotions at work when you feel ashamed that you can’t produce enough results, earn enough money or work hard enough to get that raise. Wasting soil.

Church, what I’m hearing these days is a lot of shame about our inability to produce fruit at the speed or volume that others expect. We aren’t a good enough activist, or academic or athlete or colleague or parent or partner or Christian. In our lowest moments, we may feel that we are a waste of space and a waste of time and a waste of soil. 

The owner certainly thinks so. He checks in on the tree time and time again, waiting for it to bear fruit when he wants it to. Yet it remains bare, unable to give him what he wants when he wants it. 

In my own life, I subconsciously assume that God is the owner in this story, disappointed time and time again by a tree that is unable to produce enough. God is ashamed of my lack of action or compassion or productivity. This “Owner God” in my life expects immediate results from me, to have something to show for my hard work. This “Owner God” whispers to me that rest is selfish, that I shouldn’t take a nap or take a sick day. This “Owner God” instills a sense of fear in me, a fear of what He will find the next time He comes around when I still haven’t done enough for Him. And I rarely think that I have done enough for Him. 

Work harder, move faster, be more productive. You should have responded to that email weeks ago. Why didn’t you exercise today? That pastor has been down at the capitol every day, fighting for human rights, where have you been? 

That’s where this story ends, right? “And the tree felt the pressure from the owner, and with a lot of great effort and concentration and diligence, grew a bunch of figs for the owner to consume.” Right? 

But this is the gospel, which literally means “good news.” This is the freeing word for all of us this morning: Our God does not own us, doesn’t have any interest in it. Our God doesn’t operate at a distance, only coming in every once and a while to ask for our progress report before leaving again, disappointed by what He finds. That’s not how our God works. 

So, upon seeing the owner’s disappointment, the gardener says, “Give it one more year. Let me dig around it and put manure on it. Let me tend to it. If it bears fruit next year, then woohoo but if not, you can cut it down.”  

Let me tend to it, dig around it, put manure on it. Our God, like the gardener, loves playing in the dirt. Remember in the beginning of creation? She has Her hands in the dirt. Our God created humankind out of dirt, adamah, and called it good. She didn’t sit off at a distance, checking on Adam and Eve every once in a while. No, She walked around the garden, instructing them to till the earth and keep it, without any sense of urgency. 

Our God understands that soil is never wasted, never stagnant, never useless. Soil is not a “thing” but a web of relationships and processes where so many elements and creatures come together to create diverse conditions in which life may flourish. As Hans Jenny, one of the greatest soil scientists of the 20th century, professed at the end of a long and distinguished career, it is almost impossible to give a precise definition of soil because of the grandness and mystery of what it is. Down below, this fig tree isn’t just gathering strength, it’s building relationships. 

Our God lives into this mystery, tending to a network of life that is beneath us, yes, but also within us, believing that no act of care or compassion or small gesture could be fruitless. She doesn’t expect immediate results from us, though we hear those whispers or even shouts around us these days. 

Church, you may think that your efforts in this world, in this country lately, are a waste of soil. 

But our “Gardener God” invites you to think differently this morning. Our Gardener God calls out to us with a patience and encouragement that only She can offer and reminds us: 

Though you may never see the fruits of your labor or pluck a fig, tend the soil.

Though that petition you signed online yesterday may never make a dent in the legislation, tend the soil.

Though your kindness toward an enemy may never be reciprocated, tend the soil.

Though the person living on the street may use your money in ways you don’t agree with, tend the soil.

Though you may never get a “thank you” for fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, tend the soil.

Though your parents may never listen when you try to educate them on social issues, tend the soil.

Though it is annoying to recycle all of the church bulletins every week, tend the soil.

Though your donation of $5 a month seems inconsequential, tend the soil.

Though you may never witness the justice and mercy we work toward as a church, tend the soil.

We don’t turn the manure and care for the tree because we expect it to produce figs for our consumption. We do it to bear witness anyway, to stand with our arms out to this world and profess a different way of being, a different kind of hope that doesn’t place itself in instant gratification or immediate results but places itself in a Loving, Living, Moving God who shows up not as an bitter owner but as a persistent gardener, seeing us for all of who we are, whether we believe ourselves to be a waste of soil, unable to produce, or not, and loves us anyway. Deals with our crap, literally turning it over and over with a grace only God could have, trusting our growth, believing in a future where figs blossom. 

When Mary goes looking for Jesus after the crucifixion, she does not find him in the tomb or in the temple. She finds him in the garden. His hands are in the dirt. He is digging around, turning the manure, reminding us that our God is not far away but as close as our own breath, inviting us to get our hands dirty, get to work and tend the soil. 

May it be so.