Still Small Voice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking Scared

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

God is For Us

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, July 26, 2026

Good morning. This weekend I watched this documentary called Alabama Snake. And actually I sang in this opera this weekend as a part of the Kindling Arts Festival that was inspired by this story. And so I've been meaning to watch this documentary. So I finally got around to it on Friday night. And this story tells of this Holiness Pentecostal preacher in Scottsboro, Alabama, not too far from where I grew up, and this little Pentecostal church in the foothills of Appalachia that believed so strongly in the power of the Holy Spirit. They believed in the signs of the spirit, healing, deliverance of demons, speaking in tongues, and they believed quite literally in the words from Mark chapter 16 that says, "And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. Shall they speak in new tongues, and they shall take up serpents?" These folks were snake handlers. So, guess what's in the box? [laughter] Margie, I'd like for you to reach your hands, [laughter] the day that the disciples of Christ become snake handlers is the day I walk out of that door and never look back. But it is this fascinating documentary, and I encourage you to go watch it if you have the streaming service. But there was something so intriguing about the fact that these people believed so fervently in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the providence of God, and the love of Jesus that they trusted that these animals would not strike them. A couple of weeks ago, I preached on the beginning of Romans chapter 8. And while Romans may not be everybody's favorite book of the Bible, I'm glad that we're coming back to it today. You may remember that I mentioned that several theologians have said that Romans chapter 8 is the heart of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. The Roman church was composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers which occasionally led to tensions amongst them. Thus, the need for this letter by Paul. The church in Rome also faced significant persecution as you heard in the reading that Daniel just read, particularly by the emperor Nero. But even so, this church in Rome grew and flourished, even being under the direct thumb of the empire. And lastly, this church in Rome held a significant place in early Christian history, being one of the earliest and most influential Christian communities around, likely established by Jewish Christians who were actually present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. So, they had witnessed these miraculous things and then returned back to Rome. So this is this very important and influential and intermixed group of early believers. So our passage for today seems to be these three important things that Paul's wanting to mention and declare to the Roman church. The work of the spirit, understanding God's promises, and then finding meaning in a confusing time. So perhaps it feels like a separate thought by Paul as you hear this text compared to the one that we read two weeks ago, but it's not. It's actually a continuation of what Paul was saying before, except he's focusing now not on the future, but on the present. Theologian and commentator Nick Carter, who is not a Backstreet Boy by the way, says that Paul has claimed that we are indeed children of God, made so through the faith of Christ's sacrifice, and we have confidence in our future salvation. But now he's saying we have assurance for our present challenges. Paul has set forth all of these doctrinal statements in this passage from two weeks ago. And those were beliefs that he was instructing the early church in Rome to believe that there's no condemnation in Christ and that the law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. That people whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things. But people whose lives are based on the spirit think about things related to the spirit. And lastly, if the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then the one who raised Christ from the dead will give you and your human body also through the spirit who lives in you. He's setting forth these doctrinal beliefs to form this, as you heard, mixed bag of believers that make up the Roman church. But in today's passage, he's also providing the reassurance that they need to sustain them through perilous times and this persecution that was mentioned in the reading. He knows that these people are persecuted. They're occupied. They're oppressed. They want to believe and they know what to believe, but they need this reassurance that the God who saves, who liberates, and who frees hasn't forgotten about them. And so Paul is reminding them in this passage from today's reading that the spirit will come to their aid, that God is working all things together for their good and that nothing can separate them from the love of God. A few weeks ago, I quoted this womanist theologian and her take on Paul's letter to the Romans. Specifically, I quoted Reverend Dr. Wil Gafney, who is this black Episcopal priest and scholar, and she noted that freedom, that liberation is communal. It's not just individual. Paul's language about walking according to the spirit in our text from a few weeks ago is a communal ethic. This idea that freedom is not just personal salvation. It is collective healing and liberation. No condemnation, as from our text a few weeks ago, becomes this call to build communities where stories are honored, where leadership is shared and vulnerability is safe. In a place like this, where joy is a theological practice that each of us embody, and where freedom means creating spaces where everyone can breathe and speak and dance and lament and flourish without fear. There's a reason that liberation theology and theologians that the civil rights movement and other movements that are centered on justice have found solace in the gospel writings and in these truly prophetic and progressive words of Paul. They too need this reassurance that the God who saves, who liberates, who frees has not forgotten about them. And while I can't get into the snake handling, I do think that this type of fervent spiritual belief that we find in Appalachia is because they too need that reassurance of a God who will never leave them nor forsake them. They need the reassurance of a God that's working all things together for their good. And they need to know that if God is for them, then no one can be against them. These communities in Appalachia are often food deserts. They're often in economic poverty. They're often in infrastructural ruin. They need the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain them through their own perilous times. Do you know what? I think that even though we're doing pretty good right now. I've been sailing a lot. I got a pretty nice suntan there. We've been traveling Europe. We've been traveling the US. We've been going to camp. We've been doing pretty well. But I think that we too need that reassurance at a time like this when more Americans have been killed by ICE than have been killed in the war with Iran. I need the Holy Spirit to intercede on my behalf with groanings that are too deep for words, assuring me and all of us that even when words fail, God understands the deepest and deepest needs of our hearts and our communities and our world, and that the spirit is advocating for us. When a 15-year-old boy from my hometown who was diagnosed with stage 4 osteosarcoma, which is this rare and aggressive bone cancer, when he died this past Thursday at the age of 15 after this long, hard-fought and public battle, I need to believe that somehow God is working all things together for our good and that there's a purpose to the things that we can't make sense of in this life or in this world. Theologian and commentator Wendy Farley asks, "Who can condemn when Christ has shown us how desperately God loves the world?" But after so many of the stories that I hear from people who have left church or were kicked out of church because they asked too many questions, they were too opinionated, they were too loud, they were too autistic, they were too gay, they were too this, too that. I need and truly everyone needs this reminder that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.

I feel like we as disciples of Christ often know what to believe. We know the right versions of the Bible to read. We know the right commentaries to read. We know the right interpretations and the right exegesis of scripture to understand. We know the right lens of how to view the work of Christ and the work that caused us to. But I sometimes wonder how seriously we take the belief that it can work. I wonder how serious we are in believing that it can truly happen. What would our ministry look like if we here at Vine Street really leaned into those promises of God that Paul lays out? What would it look like if we trusted, truly trusted that the spirit is interceding for us? Not just in those quiet moments of prayer, not just when we feel holy or feel centered, but in those messy and chaotic and aching places where we don't even know what to say and we don't even know what to pray. What if we believe that God is indeed working all things together for our good? Not as a platitude, not as a band-aid, but as this deep, stubborn, spirit-driven hope that refuses to let a suffering world have the last word. Because Paul isn't writing to a people that have it all together. He's writing to a people who are barely hanging on. People who are persecuted and misunderstood, who are pushed to the margins, who are trying to make sense of a world that seems determined to crush them. And yet Paul says in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Not conquerors because we're strong. Not conquerors because we're clever. Not conquerors because we've mastered the right theology or read the right commentaries. But we're conquerors because God's love refuses to let us go. And if God is for us, then who can be against us? And if that was true, if that was true for the Roman church, then it has to be true for us, too. If the church leaned into God's promises, our ministry would look less like cautious optimism and more like courageous imagination. If the church truly leaned into God's promises, we would stop assuming that the limits of our budgets and our buildings and our comfort zones are the limits of God's mission. If the church leaned into God's promises, we would become a community where people who have been told that they are too much or not enough finally hear the truth that you are beloved, you belong, and you cannot be separated from the love of God. Imagine a church where the person who asked too many questions is seen as the theologian in the making. Imagine a church where the queer teen who was told that God could not love them maybe for the first time hears that nothing can separate them from the love of God. Imagine a church where the grieving parent or the exhausted caregiver, the person who feels like they're barely hanging on, finds a community that says, "We will hold hope for you until you can hold it again yourself."

Paul says that the spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. That means that the spirit is already praying for things that we are too afraid to name. The spirit is already advocating for the people that we don't know how to help. The spirit is already working in those places when our own strength runs out. And if that's true, if all of this is true, then our ministry doesn't begin with our ability. It begins with our availability. I want to say that again. If all of this is true, that means that our ministry doesn't begin with what we can do, our ability, but with our availability and our willingness to say yes to where the spirit is leading us. So here Paul's promise anew that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. Not war, not injustice, not grief, not fear, not doubt, not the church's failures, not the world's cruelty, not even the places that we feel the most lost. Nothing. So, Vine Street, what would our ministry look like if we truly leaned into the promises of God? I think it would look like a people who trust the spirit more than their own fear. And we don't have to handle snakes to trust the spirit. It would look like a community that believes that God is working for their good even when the world feels broken and lost. It would look like a church that refuses to let anyone believe that they are beyond the reach of God's love. It would look like us. It would look like us. Fully alive, fully committed, fully rooted in the God that never lets us go.

We have Kickoff Sunday in a few weeks, August 16th, as Margie mentioned. We've got this amazing year planned, and we want you to be a part of it because we know that the spirit is just waiting to burst at all of the things that we're doing here at Vine Street. So, may we be that church. May we trust that promise. May we live like nothing can separate us from God's love because our ministry doesn't begin with our ability but with our availability. May it be so. And may we make it so with our living and our loving. Amen.

Believe the Good News

Sermon preached by Rev. Stacy Rector on Sunday, July 19, 2026

Good morning. It's so good to be here with you. I'm so grateful for Pastor Margie and Wesley's invitation and your warm welcome. I see some familiar faces and new faces, and I hope I get a chance to speak to everybody when the service is over.

A little bit about my background: everybody knows when I preach you often hear about my grandmothers. I was very close to them and grew up with them right around the corner. So I've got a lot of good stories about grandmothers. But the church that raised me was a rural Cumberland Presbyterian church in West Tennessee, where the 20 or 30 folks who regularly attended were all related to each other either by blood or by marriage—I was never sure. And for most of my life, I was the sole Sunday school member of my grandmother's Sunday school class. Needless to say, I aced my Bible content exam in seminary because of my grandmother.

She was the unofficial pastor of the church. She wasn't ordained. She didn't have a college degree, but when things needed to get done, Mama did them. She taught me Sunday school, as I said. She also played piano for the church services. She ran the Cumberland Presbyterian women. She visited the sick and those in the nursing home, made sure all the special offerings were taken. And any seminary student that made the drive from Memphis for the occasional preaching at our little country church always got fed.

And though she was probably one of the most loving and faithful people that has ever walked this earth, she had her church lady side—if you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. With just a look, she could let you know that she was not pleased. And she was not afraid to speak her mind or drop the occasional guilt bomb. One church member who grew up under my grandmother's tutelage was not the most consistent churchgoer as an adult. And after my grandmother's death, as many whose lives she touched were sharing stories about her, he said, "You know, if I missed a few Sundays and ran into Miss Dorothy at the grocery store, she didn't have to say a word to me. I'd just start confessing I'd skipped church to go fishing."

Now, my hunch is Jesus was likely a faithful attender of synagogue services, so perhaps would not have gotten any of those looks from my grandmother, but he does seem to have an affinity for fishing. So, I don't know. John's gospel reports that one of the first things Jesus does after his resurrection is appear to his disciples, instructing them on how to catch a few more fish. And of course, one of his most famous miracles includes a fish fry. Perhaps then it is no surprise that these fishermen recognize a kindred spirit when he calls to them.

Now, the gospel doesn't give us many details, if any really, about why these fishermen on the spot were told immediately join Jesus. But it doesn't seem to take much for Peter, Andrew, James, and John to drop their nets, to drop their livelihoods, their families, even, to follow this one who calls them now to fish for people.

On the other hand, in our other text for today, minus a few verses, we meet Jonah, who is not ready to drop anything to get with God's program. And if you remember the story from Sunday school, in a futile attempt to flee the line that God has cast, Jonah ends up serving as bait.

These texts remind us once again, as we need to be reminded over and over, that God chooses to reveal God's power, God's purposes, God's call, not just through miracles and on mountaintops, but through the mundane and the muddled. And as our texts describe, God's call is often disruptive. It throws us off balance. It puts kinks in our plans, because God's way of being, the way of Jesus, is not a particularly easy way, right? We know that. It's rarely convenient or comfortable. It's rarely safe or secure and often doesn't even seem particularly fair. Which leads us back to Jonah and those pesky Ninevites.

I'll give you a quick refresher, if any of you need it, on Jonah's story. God calls him, tells him to go to Nineveh, cry out against the wickedness of the Ninevites. They have a pretty awful reputation for being a bunch of mean people. And though it may be downright dangerous for Jonah to go to Nineveh preaching repentance to these immoral people, as we know, such messengers don't often fare well. Fear is not seemed to be what motivates Jonah's resistance to the call. In a moment of honesty that we don't hear in our reading, the text tells us that Jonah confesses the real reason he does not want to go to Nineveh is because the people there don't deserve to hear a word from God. Jonah says, "This is why I fled in the beginning, God, for I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing."

Jonah thinks the people of Nineveh might actually listen to him. Maybe they'll change, and God will spare them in the end. For Jonah, this will not do. Utter destruction is too good for them. And so the story goes. Jonah flees from God's call, hops a boat. God sends a storm. Jonah convinces the crew to toss him overboard to calm the sea. And God sends a giant fish to swallow Jonah. He remains in the belly of the beast for three days before the fish can't take it anymore and throws him up.

After all of this, you would think Jonah would immediately get that one-way ticket to Nineveh. But no, God has to call him a second time. This time, Jonah does go and tells the Ninevites, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown." And by the way, I can't wait. But Jonah's worst fears are realized. The people of Nineveh pay attention to him. They listen. They proclaim a fast. They put on sackcloth. They don't have to be convinced or told a second time like some people. They hear the word of God and repent on the spot. Then we're told God changes God's mind about their destruction. And poor Jonah, he can't take it. He stomps away, sits under a bush, and prays for death, rather than to have to live with a bunch of low-down, no-good Ninevites as his new family. Pitiful.

Now, Jonah makes the disciples in our text look pretty good in comparison. Ironic, since often in Mark's gospel they end up looking confused and bumbling. But here, I'll give them their due. When Jesus calls them to drop their nets and follow, they listen. But we know that won't always be the case, will it? They're the same guys who will argue about who's the greatest. When Jesus most desperately needs their support before his arrest, they will fall asleep on him. One of them will betray him. One of them will deny him. All of them will scatter when he is executed, leaving only the women followers at the cross. And no, in this particular instance, they show Jonah up. They're just as flawed as he is.

But that's the point, isn't it? God's freedom to choose whomever God wants, to call whomever God wants, even the most bumbling, stubborn, and mean among us. That is what God's beloved community is. That's what it looks like. Like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's Island of the Misfit Toys. And it can be hard to take sometimes, when we realize just who our sisters and brothers really are, when we realize God loves them just as much as God loves us and that God's not taking inventory or checking off boxes or keeping score. It can be hard to take, even though it's the best news our world has ever received: that our God does not love us as much as we deserve, but as much as we need.

The Ninevites, that mean old bunch of people, they listen to God's call. They recognize their own need for change, and so did the disciples, or they wouldn't have dropped everything to join Jesus. And this is our work as disciples of Jesus too. To listen, to recognize our own need for newness, our own need for change, not just one time, but over and over and over. And not only for ourselves, but we are to encourage and provide support for such newness for everyone. For everyone, even and especially those who challenge us, who push our buttons, who turn our stomachs, or who frankly don't seem capable of change at all.

Our path as disciples of Jesus is not the path of least resistance: staying where we are as we are, clinging to what we have, to those we know, and not stepping out in faith because of our fear. Our fear that following the call of God in our lives will cost too much. The Ninevites could have made that choice, the disciples too. But imagine the life they would have missed out on if they had. Not much of a life at all, really. Certainly not the abundant life that our God longs for each of us to have.

So when God calls, particularly to the hard things, to love the hard people, I mean, Jesus says, follow me. Do we dare? And if so, how? How? When the problems are so big, the people are so broken, the systems are so corrupt, the divisions are so great, how do we follow? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think we're off to a decent start here together. Gathering as a body, worshiping, praying, singing, sharing a meal at the table, and then doing what the Ninevites do and what the disciples do, and what's really hard for us to do sometimes: listen. Listen wherever we find ourselves—in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our churches—to listen to one another with compassion and open to the possibility that we will be changed.

And not only that, we step out beyond our usual spaces and we follow Jesus into proximity to those whose voices have too often not been listened to, or whose voices have been discounted or ignored. Our Black and brown sisters and brothers, the immigrant and refugee community, the indigent, the prisoner, the condemned, the outcast. We must go to them and let them teach us too. Of course, this is not easy. It is not an easy way. We know that. But it is the only way to continue to become who we truly are, the body of Christ, in a world that is hungry for newness, for life.

And if we're reluctant to follow this call to step up and step out, you know what? That's okay. We do it together, with the confidence and the faith that the one we follow, the one we follow, has never asked us to go anywhere that he hasn't already been and will not go with us still. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Life & Peace

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, July 12, 2026

Good morning. I don't know if I mentioned, but our senior minister, Reverend Margie Quinn, is in Switzerland right now. She's on a vacation and then she's going to a spiritual enrichment retreat on the Isle of Iona in Scotland. So, I'm super excited to hear how her travels go. So in her absence, as we've been diving into the gospel texts a lot from the lectionary, I'm going to do a little bit of a change. I want to focus this Sunday and then on the 26th on Paul's letter to the Romans, which is in the lectionary text for these two weeks. Of course, next week we'll have the Reverend Stacy Rector. And I hope that you'll come and hear her. It's going to be really exciting to hear from her and her work. But for this week and for the 26th, I want to talk about Romans, specifically chapter 8.

Now, Paul is a very complicated character with the Holy Scriptures, as many of you and other Christians may know, and you may have your own complicated relationship with Paul. But if you've heard me speak about this before, you may know that I am a Paul fan. I think that Paul has gotten a bad rap. I think that Paul has been weaponized and used to hurt and to harm by Christians and by other people often dressed like me. But as Dr. Eric Smith from the Iliff School of Theology, who came last fall, I believe it was, and preached for us and also gave a presentation on his own book, Paul was a progressive. Paul was a forward thinker for his time. And while yes, there are certain things that we may question now with a 2026 lens, and yes, certain writings of Paul have been used to demean and dehumanize groups of people before—they're often cherry-picked to promote an agenda about power and greed over certain groups of people—in my opinion, still, Paul was ahead of his time, we'll say.

So, Romans chapter 8 is what some theologians have called the heart of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. And there's a couple of things that you need to understand about the Roman church before reading this passage. So first, the Roman church was composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers, which occasionally led to some tension amongst those groups. It led to the need for unity and mutual understanding, which is something that Paul wrote a lot about in his letters to these various early churches. And so Paul addresses these dynamics and he urges unity and acceptance among these believers. Second, the church in Rome faced significant persecution right there, right under the thumb of the Roman Empire, particularly from Emperor Nero, who blamed the Christians for the great fire of Rome in 64 AD. But even despite these trials and these tribulations, that church continued to grow and became this central hub for Christianity and for early Christianity thought and leadership even under the Roman Empire. But still, it was a place of occupation and pressure and oppression. And tradition even states that it would be Rome where Paul would later be martyred for his faith. And lastly, the thing you need to understand about the church in Rome is that it holds this significant place in early Christian history, being one of the earliest and most influential communities in the Christian faith. And the origins of this Roman church are not explicitly detailed in the New Testament, but it's widely believed that the church was established by Jewish Christians who were present in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. So they've seen what the Holy Spirit can do, and then they return to Rome to continue this tradition of following in the way of this man named Jesus.

So Paul is writing this letter to a church that is a mixed bag of believers from all these various backgrounds. He's writing it to this group that is often in tension because of those differences. He's writing this letter to these people who were under persecution and occupation and oppression by the most powerful empire in the world at that time. So much so that the author of this letter would even be killed by them at one point. And yet this is still a stronghold of hope in the face of adversity, and resilience in the face of oppression and persecution, and freedom in the face of occupation and oppression.

So now with this lens in mind of hearing how this early church experienced the world, specifically in Rome, allow me to reread this passage in the Common English translation and see if anything jumps out at you as I reread this. So now there isn't any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. God has done what was impossible for the law since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own son to deal with sin in the same body as humans who were controlled by sin. And he did this so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Now the way we live is based on the spirit, not based on selfishness. People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things. But people whose lives are based on the spirit think about things related to the spirit. And the attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death. But the attitude that comes from the spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from this selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn't submit to God's law because it can't, because people who are self-centered aren't able to please God. But you, beloved, aren't self-centered. Instead, you are in the spirit. If, in fact, God's spirit does live in you. So, if anyone doesn't have the spirit of Christ, they do not belong to him. If Christ is in you, the spirit is in your life because of God's righteousness. But the body is dead because of sin. And if the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your human bodies also through the spirit that lives in you.

So if anything jumped out at you during the reading of this text, especially through this new lens that we put on, I do want you to let me know. And there's so many directions that we could go with this text. But here are three things that jumped out to me as I was preparing for this sermon this morning.

First, this call to embodied freedom. Romans 8 begins with no condemnation for those in Christ. And many understand that as being salvific language, and that's because we think of salvation in Christ, we cannot be condemned. And I do think that's part of what Paul was intending. That Christ freely gave of himself so that the power of death may be defeated, and that we as people of Christ may live freely in him. But I also think this is a larger critique of empire. One thing that I learned in seminary is that many of these New Testament writers may have been writing to a specific audience, but they were often writing for the society at large or the society as a whole too. So for example, in the gospel of Mark, Christ is preaching against divorce to an audience of poor fishermen who had no money to obtain a divorce through the Roman Empire. So more likely Christ was speaking to a much larger audience, critiquing a much larger audience, most likely Caesar Augustus, who had just had a divorce and could remarry now purely for the acquisitions of land and power. So here Paul says that the law of the spirit of life is Christ and that Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. And I think this does mean personal sin of things like selfishness and greed that Paul mentions. But I think he's also critiquing—subtly, of course, right, he's under the thumb of the empire—but he's critiquing those whose laws deal in death. He's telling the church that they live in a freedom that is beyond what they are experiencing and what they are understanding as this occupation by the Romans continues. And in verse 5, Paul says, "People whose lives are based on selfishness think on selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the spirit think on things related to the spirit." And I think he's making a comment about our personal behavior, yes, but also about the society in which they lived. In other words, you have been called to a behavior or a posture that is higher than that that you see modeled by the empire. You've been called to be in and of the spirit rather than in and of the flesh.

But I've also been compelled this week by the writing of Reverend Dr. Wil Gafney. And if you aren't familiar with her, she is a Black Episcopal priest and womanist theologian and scholar. She writes that Romans 8 is not just a legal declaration, but a liberation from systems of oppression—from spiritual, social, and cultural systems of oppression that have historically silenced and devalued voices, specifically in her case, Black female voices. And she notes that the freedom, the liberation that is spoken about by Paul is communal, not just individual. Paul's language about walking according to the spirit becomes this communal ethic that's expected of the community. Freedom is not just personal salvation. It's a collective healing that we all participate in. No condemnation becomes this call to build communities where stories are honored and leadership is shared, where vulnerability is safe and where joy is a theological practice. Embodied freedom means creating spaces where everyone can breathe and speak and dance and lament and flourish without fear.

The next thing that jumped out to me was the spiritual empowerment that Paul talks about. That is, seeing the walking according to the spirit line in verse four. And Dr. Gafney sees this as aligning with the prophetic and communal and relational energies that you find in scripture, these people who often acted as healers, as leaders, as peacemakers. As I mentioned, Paul and his writings have been used throughout history to hurt and to harm. Most recently, the Southern Baptist Convention, the church of my own childhood, and many of you out there, doubled down on their already in place ban about women serving in leadership positions, specifically pastoral positions. But I distinctly remember growing up in my own church and the women of my childhood church doing everything for that body. But when the question came up as to whether they could be deacons or not, it was immediately shut down. In other words, you can cook and clean and teach kids and run our missions and sing and play the piano, but you can't stand in that pulpit. That was the message that I got about these servants of God that I knew and loved.

To Dr. Gafney, a womanist theology reading of this text highlights how the spirit empowers women to speak, act, and lead even when the institutions and systems deny them authority. And she speaks to all of the women that Paul and others uplifted in scripture, even though Paul is the one most often quoted to put those same groups of people down. She lifts up that Deborah judges Israel not through coercive power but through the spirit-grounded wisdom and courage that she possesses. That Miriam leads the people in liberation song, embodying the spirit's joy and defiance. Huldah interprets scripture authoritatively, demonstrating that spirit-filled insight is not restricted to gender. Ruth models covenantal solidarity that defies ethnic and patriarchal boundaries that were set up by the systems of that day. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah protect vulnerable lives through courageous civil disobedience. Mary and Elizabeth form a spirit-filled community of mutual affirmation and blessing and prophetic hope. Walking according to the spirit means aligning ourselves with this prophetic lineage, claiming voice, claiming authority, claiming truth-telling, even when systems attempt to silence or diminish us.

And finally, being in Christ in Romans 8 becomes this deeply communal, embodied, and relational reality, one that we must live into. The Kaufman commentary states that to be in Christ also means to be in the church, which pressures us to ask ourselves, what kind of church, who shapes this church, whose voices define it, whose leadership is honored in this church that we're building. In 2017, the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, elected Reverend Terri Hord Owens to be our general minister and president, the head of our denomination. And we were the first to elect a woman of color to lead a major mainline denomination. In fact, the Disciples were the first to elect a woman to lead us in 2005, when the Reverend Sharon Watkins was elected to become the first woman to lead a major mainline denomination. And it was cool and it was momentous and it was important that we elected these two women. But we didn't elect them because of their gender or because of their race. We elected them because they were called and ordained by God for such a time as this. But what we did do was that we valued and cherished and celebrated the lens in which they worship and read and teach theology to the church.

So let's go back to the text really quickly and look at the end of this passage for today, because I want to focus on verses 9-11. But you are not in flesh, beloved. You are in the spirit. Since the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin. But the spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give you life to your mortal bodies through the spirit that dwells in you. God accomplished what the law could not by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He condemned sin in the flesh, fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law of these believers. Remember, this is a very transactional audience. They would have understood the importance of law and sacrifice, of payment, of transformation. So the indwelling spirit assures that believers are not merely forgiven but also empowered to live transformed lives, even in the face of adversity, even in the face of oppression. Paul emphasizes that those who have the spirit of Christ are no longer controlled by the flesh and will receive even in their mortal bodies through the spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. Paul's promise to the spirit, or that the spirit will give life to these mortal bodies, signals God's commitment to embodied liberation. Resurrection power that restores dignity to exploited bodies, breathes life into exhausted communities, and animates these movements towards justice. The passage ends by saying that the very same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit who sustains our joy, who sustains our leadership and our prophetic witness now. That God's spirit not only forgives but empowers us, not only transforms but liberates us, giving life to us here and now.

Someone asked me recently how things are going at Vine Street. And I told them, in some ways, we're changing. We're evolving. We're shifting. We've got new leadership, both clergy and lay leadership. We're utilizing the building in new ways. We're talking about long-range goal setting and organ restoration and emboldening our insurance and strategic planning for our future. But in other ways, this is the same church that I walked into in 2021. The same church who is committed to living out the way that Jesus has taught us and led us. Paul sought to embody freedom, to spiritually empower, and call us to community in his letter to the Romans. And I believe that this text, even though it was written thousands of years ago, mirrors what we are doing and trying to live into today. To be a church who doesn't seek to condemn but to lift up. A church that seeks to include those that have been left out, that have been told that they don't matter, that they're not worthy. A church who seeks to give voice to those who have been silenced. A church who seeks to preach the good news of Jesus dead, buried, and resurrected, and triumphing over death. A church who seeks to live into the spirit and where the spirit is calling us to go in our next chapter. So I pray that we heed these words of Paul this morning. May it be so, and may we make it so with our living and with our loving. Amen.

I Will Give You Rest

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, July 5, 2026

Good morning. Did anybody else have to drug your dog last night? Woo! We made it.

For those of you who have been coming here since June, and I know exactly who you are and who hasn't been here, we have been journeying through the book of Genesis, talking about complicated families and how, other than my family, there are no perfect families. We've been talking about what it means to have sibling favoritism, what it means to have infertility, what it means to have loss, what it means to travel with your family. And this morning, we are now back in the Gospels. We're in the Gospel of Matthew. But we are not done with complicated family. We may never be done. So, if you are someone who likes to follow along with your Bible, today I'm going to be walking through the text a little bit more than I usually do, kind of passage by passage. So, if you want to grab a Bible and look at Matthew 11 with me, you're welcome to. If reading and listening at the same time is something that is hard for you, I totally get that, too.

My best friend is a priest down the street and I called her this week and said, "What are you preaching on?" And she said, "The beginning of Matthew 11 is actually my favorite scripture in the whole Bible." She said, "What I love about the beginning of Matthew 11 is that we find John the Baptist in prison." He's in prison for talking about and calling out Herod—Herod's exploitation and domination and intimidation over those that are the most stepped on, the most oppressed, the most silenced. Herod wants to silence John. So, he throws him in prison. John, the one who baptized Jesus, Jesus's first cousin, the one who leaped in the womb when he heard about this Messiah, this savior. John has been the one this whole time beckoning people, telling them, "The kingdom of heaven is near." Maybe you have a friend like John who talks with such intensity and urgency, calling out, "I'm a voice in the wilderness saying, 'Prepare the way of the Lord.'" And yet here he's starting to doubt that Jesus is really who he says he is. John, sitting in prison, calls out to the disciples, maybe behind bars, maybe through a letter, and says, "Can you go to my cousin, the Messiah, and can you ask him this?"

Are you really the one that we've been waiting for? Or is there another one? More specifically, he says, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" The disciples scurry off to do what John asks them. And they get to Jesus and they say, "Hey, your cousin John has a question for you. Are you really the Messiah or are we waiting for somebody else?" Because John's in prison. Because things don't look like they've been changed much. Because we know you've been performing some miracles and healing people, but we still see people living on the streets. We still see people oppressed. We still see people who don't feel welcomed to church. So, are you really the one or are we going to wait for another? And Jesus says this to them. And I wonder if he says it with a little bit of exasperation at his cousin, because you get a little annoyed with your cousins sometimes.

He says, "What do you think I've been doing? Am I the one to come? The blind see. The deaf hear. The lame are healed. The poor are brought good news. The sick are cleansed. What more do you want from me, John? Am I the one to come? What more could I possibly do to show you that the kingdom of heaven is near and that those who have been unnoticed, untalked to, untouched, unseen—those are the folks that I am directly seeing?"

Who else are you waiting for? But we've got to remember that at this point, John, who is locked up, he thinks he's going to die in there. Where is this one who calls himself a savior? Is he going to save me? Now, there's fear and there's doubt even for the one who has, I think, been the most devout. And that's why my best friend loves this text, because even for those of us who are capital F, Faithful, we still got those moments. We look around and think, is Jesus really the one or are we waiting for another? Because things don't always seem like they are healed and transformed and that the kingdom of heaven actually is near. So Jesus responds with all of the things he has been doing. And then, I think in a moment where he is still feeling a little exasperated with his cousin, a little frustrated that people still wouldn't believe that he is the Messiah despite the life he has lived, he turns to the crowds and he says this. "Well then, what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the winds? No. What did you go out to see? Did you go out to see someone wearing soft robes?"

Did you go out to see a prophet? What did you go out to see? Someone who's dressed in soft robes is out living in royal palaces. That's not me. Someone who is so easily shaken by the winds of resistance and violence. That's not me. You said you went out to see a prophet and I gave you one. John the Baptist, my cousin who has prepared a way for me. Y'all remember him? He is Elijah. Scripture says he is prophetic. We have known he was going to come. He is here. What more do you want? Jesus is a little ticked off right now. And then he starts to wonder. He starts to get a little more ticked. "Let anyone with ears listen. I'm so sick of this generation." He says, "This generation is like children in the marketplace playing the flute, and you didn't dance. They are mourning and you didn't weep." Here's what I think he's saying here. I think he's saying it doesn't matter what kind of messengers God sends. No one wants to hear from prophets and teachers. No one is good enough for y'all. Because let's take John the Baptist for a second. John the Baptist is a pretty intense guy, right? He's too stern and demanding for them. He calls out people and calls them a brood of vipers. He's ascetic. He's eating locusts in the wilderness and honey. He's a little bit of a wild child. Maybe he's got that crazy hair that you've seen on your uncle at some point. He is urgent. He is on the go. He is shouting, "The kingdom of heaven is right under your nose if you would just stop to see it." And yet, what do they do? They call him demonic. And they call him deranged and they lock him up. Someone who takes to the streets with the bullhorn. Someone who is marching and advocating with the oppressed. They can't handle it. Well, then we have Jesus, who has a pretty different approach. Jesus who wants there to be even more wine at weddings. He wants the party to keep going. Jesus who's sharing meals with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus, who is rest for the weary, more of a pastoral approach, a one-on-one approach. And that's not even good enough for them, because they say he's eating and drinking with sinners and saints. He's a drunk. He's a glutton. So, we've got John, who's a little too serious for them. And they say, "Why won't you just dance when we play the flute, John? Lighten up." And then we've got Jesus, who's a little too joyful, who's a little too inclusive for them. And they say, "Why aren't you weeping and why aren't you grieving with us?" They are very, very different kinds of cousins. They couldn't be more different. And yet, neither of their approaches to sharing the gospel is enough for God's people.

One is too radical. One is too soft and pastoral. So I wonder, for me and you, what prophets or messengers or teachers are we thinking are too much or not enough? Would we ever really be satisfied with the way that someone is sharing the gospel? Feels like the bar is set so high for the people of God. And what's interesting is what happens next, something that Erica didn't read because it's not in the lectionary. For those of you who don't know, the lectionary is a three-year cycle of passages that most Protestants all over the world preach from Sunday to Sunday. So, you could be here in Nashville hearing Matthew 11, or—who's got a World Cup game today?—you could be in Mexico City and you might be hearing a different Margie preaching about Matthew 11. We are assigned these passages as part of the liturgical year so that me and Wesley aren't always choosing what we want to say based on how we're feeling, but that we examine scripture for that week and allow it to breathe life into this place. So the people who pick the passages sometimes leave things out of them, and it's important for us to literally read between the lines and wonder why certain things are included in the lectionary. So the next part of what Jesus says is not actually assigned for today. And I wonder if you can guess why.

He says, "I don't like what these cities are doing." He says, "Woe to you, for the deeds of power have been done in your cities, and you still don't repent and you still don't get it." Woe to you, Nashville. Woe to you, Smyrna. Woe to you, Murfreesboro. Who else I got in here? Call it out. Who did I miss? Woe to you, La Vergne. Anybody else? Woe to you, Mount Juliet. You don't get it. You don't get it. Things aren't okay. I am walking around your cities, sharing the good news of God, centering the voices that are the most unheard, and you aren't changing your ways. Woe to you, he says again and again and again. Why wasn't that included? I think sometimes it's hard for us to hear from a judgy Jesus. That sometimes Jesus's judgment might remind us of things we heard growing up in churches that hurt us. That Jesus's judgment makes us a little itchy and uncomfortable. But as one theologian said, the concept of judgment here is just people refusing to show mercy. The concept of judgment here is just people who don't show mercy. They don't show mercy to others. They don't show mercy to themselves. They don't spread mercy around society. Ain't no mercy in Mount Juliet. Ain't no mercy in La Vergne. Sorry, I forgot y'all. Why was that left out? So, as you can tell, Jesus is a little heated right now. He's heated that no message is good enough for them, whether it's John or Jesus. He's heated at the people for not getting it. He's heated at the cities who aren't transforming the systems and the ways of doing things based on what he is saying and doing. And you know, when you get really worked up at your child or your friend or your partner or a parent, and then you kind of go, let me stop myself. Let me pull back. And I love what Jesus does here. He's kind of been on this righteous tear, maybe channeling a little bit of his cousin. And then he stops and he breathes and he prays. How many of us stop and breathe and pray after we have gone on a little bit of a riff about mercy and judgment and righteousness? He stops and he breathes and he prays. And this is what he prays. He starts by thanking God. Not a bad idea. He thanks God for revealing God's wisdom. Not to the theologically educated, not to the master's degrees, not to the ones who have read their Bibles. He thanks God for the ones with whom wisdom has been hidden. Where wisdom has been revealed, he says, to the infants. And we might think of that as kids. And I think that's true, because we know children are wise beyond all get out. But he's also talking here in the Greek about spiritual infants. Maybe people who are new to faith, or maybe front porch people who tell a story of the gospel that's really accessible versus using these lofty words to impress. And if we ever do that, come on and call us out.

He thanks God for sharing God's wisdom with the spiritual infants. How relieving is that, that we don't need to know how to pronounce everything in here? That we don't have to prove to ourselves or anyone else that we've got all the answers, that we know all the fancy jargon about the Christian faith, but that sometimes we might feel like these little kids with wonder in our eyes at what's happening here. And that's where wisdom is revealed. So he says, "Thank you, God, for revealing it to the least theologically sophisticated," those with, as Lance Pape says, the fewest illusions about their own power of understanding, who know how to receive Jesus in humility and so gain access to the one that he came to reveal.

And after praying, maybe he sits down. Maybe he sits down like he does right before the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe he gets at eye level with the little ones. He says, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and I'm humble, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light." What I've learned about this passage this week from a lot of different writers is that he's actually not talking to me here. He's not talking to folks who are middle class or upper middle class who are just kind of stressed out. He is talking to those who are weary in their bodies. Those who have been stepped on. Those who are working right now because they can't get a break to go to church. Those who don't have the resources, the time, the money to take Sabbath. Those who have been burdened by systems that forget them, that deport them, that dehumanize them, that ignore them. He has just called out cities who are not getting it right and then looked at the ones who are so burdened, whose bodies are quite literally weary, and says, "I will give you rest." Imagine,

imagine driving around, walking around, and everyone you see who looks tired, who seems cranky, who isn't giving you grace—imagine that Jesus comes to them and says, "I've got you. Rest in me."

Because what I love about the next passage is that then he gets in trouble for doing stuff on the Sabbath. So, that's a little foreshadowing for those of you who haven't read Matthew 12.

I love what he says: "Learn from me." And here, he's not talking about being a stern teacher. Has anybody ever had a stern teacher? Someone who holds you to such a high expectation that you're always a little bit nervous you're in trouble. He says, "Learn from me." And here he means this. He doesn't say read further or mull over some theological ideas, but incarnate and embody for yourselves a kingdom of God that we know you're doing by the way you're talking and the way you're acting. That's what I mean by learn from me. I mean imitate me. I mean follow me. I mean come to me and see what I'm up to. What I'm up to is an easy yoke, an easy burden, a light, gentle, and humble spirit.

What does it look like to really believe that when we come to Jesus, some of the burdens that we carry really could be lifted a little bit? What does it look like to hear these words and feel convicted that maybe it's our responsibility to lift those burdens for others—when we do Room in the Inn, when we offer grants to those who are providing easy yoke for those in our community?

So that's our passage. That's Matthew 11 for us. It begins with a man in prison. Begins with a man who has done everything right and wonders, "How am I here? Am I gonna die? Are you really the Messiah like I have been saying my whole ministry? Or are we waiting on someone else?" It begins with Jesus trying to convince his own cousin, the one who baptized him, "Look at what I've done. How could you still not believe?"

And it goes on to a man who says, "No message, no messenger is going to be good enough for y'all." Whether you want to dance or whether you want to mourn, whether you want a prophet that's out in the streets or whether you want a pastor that simply sits around tables and shares meals with fishermen and the people collecting your tax forms. And then he calls out cities, a part that we don't want to read, makes us a little bit uncomfy, before praying and before providing rest. What a complicated and a little bit chaotic arc all in one chapter.

So I wonder who you feel like you are in this story today. Are you sitting next to John the Baptist in doubt, suffering, looking around and wondering? Is Jesus among us? Doesn't always feel like it. Are you Jesus in this story, who says, "I am doing as much as I can. How do you not see it?" Are you the people in the marketplace expecting too much?

Are you someone who looks around at your city and says, "Woe to you. What are we doing? How do we not get it?" Are you a person of prayer who is giving thanks to God this week that God shows up among the kids, God shows up among the people with a spiritual faith that feels a little bit like an infant? Or do you need rest? Are you weary as you sit in that pew? Or are you the one providing it?

One chapter in Matthew has so much to say to us today about cousins and complicated family, about prophets and pastors. But this text doesn't happen in a royal palace. This text doesn't happen with somebody wearing soft robes that are made of velvet and are fancy. This text is happening to two men doing their best to speak out to us in all kinds of ways just to say: if we look close, and it might be right under our nose, the kingdom of heaven is here. It is near. It is for those who feel burdened. If we can believe it.

Amen.

Lord Will Provide

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on Sunday, June 28, 2026

Good morning. Okay, so y'all know how there are different categories of movies. I'm not talking about genres. I'm talking about the movies that are so good, or they look so good, that you've got to see them right when they come out in theaters. There are movies that you're like, "Well, I could probably wait until it hits streaming before I see that one." And there's this third category of movie, the kind of movie that you're really only going to watch if you're stuck on an airplane. And that was me this week. I was like, fine, I guess I will finally watch the third installment of the Avatar franchise, Fire and Ash, as I flew to West Virginia earlier this week.

So, if you're unfamiliar with this franchise or this story, Jake Sully, who is a human marine, falls in love with this humanoid alien on the planet of Pandora, in which the humans have colonized and they've been terrorizing the natives there, these humanoids called the Na'vi. You fast forward through a couple of movies—sorry for some spoiler alerts here—and Jake Sully has given up his life as a human to live as the Na'vi because he's fallen in love with this woman. And so he and his wife have this beautiful, blended, and complicated family. There's Jake, who is the former human, he's the father. Neytiri, who is his wife, she's Na'vi. Their two sons, Neteyam, who unfortunately passes away in the movie prior, and Lo'ak, and their daughter Tuk. They also have this adopted daughter named Kiri, who is born of human and Na'vi, who is constantly reminded that she's different from the rest. And they've also taken in a human child named, or nicknamed, Spider. Neytiri, the wife, looks on Spider with disgust and resentment, as his people have destroyed parts of her planet, have killed her people, and have driven them to find somewhere else to live on the planet. Even though Spider is barely a teenager, is innocent, and has lived with the Na'vi his entire life, she looks on him with resentment and disgust. She looks on Kiri, the human and alien child, in a way that says, "I don't really know how to help you." All the while, she's still grieving the loss of her oldest son. And it makes their family dynamics in this story, in all three movies, uncomfortable and complicated. And it reminds me of this story in Genesis. She looks at Spider the way that I imagine that Sarah looked at Ishmael, as someone who, though innocent, represents all that had been taken from her and all that she was not afforded. Lo'ak, the younger son, feels like he's been discarded, and he contemplates leaving indefinitely.

These stories that we've been journeying through this month, they really aren't that ancient after all. But then we get today's story. A well-known story, but one that we often don't know what to do with. So before we dive into this text today, I'm wondering, I'm curious, what word is bubbling up for you. What word describes how you feel in this moment about this story? And I'd love for you to shout it out.

Evil.

Confused.

Any other thoughts? Any other words bubbling up?

Shocked. Yeah.

Holding all of these things, let's go to God in a word of prayer.

Holy God, be with us as we journey through this text. We're carrying these feelings of shock, of confusion. We see these evil acts in this story and we don't really know what to do with them. Give us the gift of discernment as we seek to understand this story today in all of its complexities. Amen.

So as we tackle this text today, I want to break it up into three different sections. First is how would the first listeners have understood this story. Next is how do we understand this story in 2026. And finally, what do we do with this story, this well-known story that we really don't fully understand even after we've heard it a million times.

So first, I think it's important for us to understand that this type of story is an archetype. It exists in all three of the Abrahamic traditions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All three have a version where a chosen son is sacrificed or nearly sacrificed. Sound familiar? Carolyn Hessle and Song Park state that this story, also referred as the Akedah, which means the binding, like the binding of Isaac, is one of the most disturbing narratives in the Hebrew Bible, but it's also one of the most central narratives in the Hebrew Bible.

So I want you to remove your 2026 lens and put on this lens of antiquity. And I want you to remember the stories that we've gone through and journeyed through over the last four weeks. And I also want you to remember the following: Abraham was 75 years old when he received the promise that he and Sarah would build a great nation and that God would bless him and would make his name renowned. Seventy-five years old. He then had to wait another 11 years before Ishmael was born of Hagar, his concubine, his slave. He then had to wait another 14 years, when he was a hundred years old, for his first legitimate son. And that's a lot to unpack. But his first legitimate son, Isaac, had to be born, and in doing so had to turn away his other son, Ishmael, and Hagar. And then God asks him, after all this time, after a hundred years, to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unfathomable.

And I can hear his inner monologue. It's not in the text, but I can hear his inner monologue in my head, and it sounds something like this. God, you cannot be serious. I have waited and waited and waited for this, my son to be born, my lineage, my namesake. I've watched Sarah's heart break time and time again, longing to bear a son. I've watched her resent Hagar and my boy, my precious boy, Ishmael. I've seen how she looks at them. I've seen how she looks at me. And then finally your promise is fulfilled, and he's strong and he's smart and he's beautiful, my boy Isaac, and now you want me to.

To ancient listeners, this was a story about commitment to following God and God providing. To ancient listeners who understood the importance of lineage, of having a male heir, of having a namesake, those who saw the high child mortality rates of their society, they would have understood how deep of a sacrifice Abraham was making. This was his son. The text says, "the son whom he loved," but it was also his name, his lineage, his status in his world, his heritage. And remember that these are stories that are told and retold orally and then written down, we think, by Moses, but really, who knows? And then told and heard by a people who are just trying to make sense of the world.

I think, and I invite you to come up with your own conclusion too, I think that they would have heard this story as a reminder that following God takes sacrifice, but that God will always provide. I think they would have understood this less about what God was asking of Abraham, but more so that despite all that Abraham had endured, that he was still willing to follow God and that God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and he provided.

I finished Avatar: Fire and Ash on the flight back to Nashville from West Virginia on Friday night. And there's this scene where Jake Sully takes Spider, his human son, or someone he counts as a son. And Spider had developed this ability, even as a human, to breathe the air on the planet Pandora. And Jake knows that if the humans get a hold of Spider, they will study him. They will figure out how to breathe the air on Pandora, and that will make them unstoppable from colonizing the planet and terrorizing and genociding the natives there, the Na'vi. And Jake thinks that the only way to save the Na'vi is to take Spider into the woods and sacrifice him. And so he takes him into the woods, he makes Spider kneel, and he draws his knife.

So, how do we understand this story in 2026? Because we don't live in antiquity. Human sacrifice isn't really a normal part of our society. Our children are important to us, yes, but they don't really determine our worth as a people or as a family. Well, I think we should be critical of this story. I think that's what we're called to do as listeners and hearers and readers of the word. So, I'm curious, what questions are bubbling up to you about this story? What's coming to the top?

Why?

Was he really going to do it?

How long was the ram there?

What does it foreshadow?

I have some questions too. Why did the text say that Abraham, or that Isaac, was Abraham's only son? Is that because he who holds the pen writes history? Are they writing Ishmael out here? Or is it because Isaac is his only son, because the writer knew that he had already sent Ishmael away? I'm curious about what Sarah thought about all this, because it's not in the text. It's not recorded. How did she feel after finally conceiving a son after 90 years, and after probably giving up the thought that it would ever happen? How did she feel when she had learned what had transpired? Would she see this as God providing, or would she feel betrayed by this?

Rabbi Dr. Cecil Gonlave provides a look into this, as she says that the biblical text practices narrative violence against Sarah. She completely disappears from the narrative of the Akedah. Abraham receives this divine command, but Sarah is neither consulted, nor informed, nor even mentioned in the story. This textual silence is a form of erasure that reflects the invisibilization of women in narratives produced by patriarchal societies. She's not informed. She's not mentioned. She's not consulted. Nothing. The Bereshit Rabbah, which is essentially a Jewish rabbinical commentary on the book of Genesis, offers this compelling image, as Sarah herself sets out in search of Abraham and Isaac. And it tells of her traversing the path to Mount Moriah. And this image of Sarah wandering, looking for her only son that she waited 90 years for, is poignant. The next chapter of our text does tell of her death, but the Bereshit Rabbah gives imagery to what our text leaves out. In fact, because Sarah promptly dies in the next chapter of Genesis, interpreters have often wondered whether her death was a result of Sarah's discovery of her husband's secret attempt to murder their child, the child that she spent her entire life waiting for. Also, following this story, we don't see Isaac speak directly to Abraham again. Perhaps it happened, it just wasn't recorded in scripture, but in the text, at least, it doesn't say anything about that. So, did this act tear their family apart?

With my 2026 lens, I'm also wondering if this is more so a testament to the fact that many people throughout human history have heard God say something and then they take actions towards violence or greed or power, and how convenient that can be. So what if this is a critique of when what God said is antithetical to the nature of who we know God to be? When what we hear God say is hurtful or harmful, and it doesn't reflect the nature of this all-loving, merciful, and gracious God that we read about. From the doctrine of discovery, where we colonize lands in the name of Christ, often killing or enslaving those who refuse to do so, Indian boarding schools, where we taught them the Bible but we beat their indigenous languages out of them, to today, when televangelists who heard God say send them some money over the TV so that they can be in turn blessed.

Yesterday at Pride, I stood with my dear friend Reverend Don Bennett. She'd been out there for a long time. I just kind of joined her at the end, and she was trying to block the street preachers, the ones preaching on the street, who were preaching fire and brimstone to the crowd as they entered the festival gates. And I truly think that they believe what they are saying. And I believe that they believe that they are being loving by helping folks with their truth and what God has called them to do. I truly believe that they believe that. But I also know that the messages that they were preaching are the same messages that make LGBTQ kids four times more likely to try and take their own lives. I know that the messages that they are preaching are the same reason that 39% of LGBTQ kids have seriously considered suicide in the last year. Their messages are the same reason that there were 372 suicides, homicides, and other acts of violence towards trans folks in general last year.

If what God is saying to us is to hurt or harm, even if that isn't our intention, maybe we are mis-sharing God. If what God is saying to us doesn't consult the closest to us who will be directly affected by our actions, then maybe we are mis-sharing God. When Jake Sully has his knife drawn and he's about to kill this child, this person who's going to become a son to him, thinking that this is the only way to save his people, he can't do it. And his wife, the one who once looked upon Spider with resentment, runs and saves him and says that there has to be another way.

We've been talking about Genesis for the last four weeks, about these complex stories that really aren't so ancient after all, about complicated family dynamics, and I think that we've barely scratched the surface. I think we could have spent the entire month on this text alone. But what do we do with these stories? I think we have to journey with them. I think we have to journey with them. There's a reason that we revisit these stories in the Bible every three years within the lectionary. There's a reason that these rabbis create this ongoing commentary, like the Bereshit Rabbah, on these ancient texts. It's because these stories aren't something that you just get the first time around. We have to journey with these stories, and these stories journey with us. And each time we hear them, we learn something new, or each time we ask a new question, or each time we better understand who God is.

Helil and Park speak about how, in Jewish tradition, Isaac, whose name means what? Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Jewish tradition speaks about Isaac as a survivor. They choose to focus not so much on Abraham here, or Sarah, but Isaac as a survivor, as a model of hope. It's a testament that we too, no matter our traumas, our problems, our abuse, we can survive and we can live and we can laugh, as Isaac did. The Jewish tradition asks, "Why was the most tragic of our ancestors named Isaac, a name which evokes and signifies laughter?" And they say, "Here's why. As the first survivor, he had to teach us, the rest, and the future survivors of Jewish history, that it is possible to suffer and to despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter and joy."

Friends, I feel like we have more questions now than we did at the beginning of this month, from when we started this sermon series four weeks ago. But the thing that has been made clear is that we are not called to journey through these texts, journey through this life, alone. We may not hear Isaac's voice in this story, but we are called into community so that we can listen for the voices that are so often left out. We have the opportunity to listen to the voices of people who've felt like their families chose their religion over them. So let this be a reminder to us that God loves each and every one of us, so much so that God called us good and has called us into community so that we may journey together and leave nobody behind. Journey through this life, journey through this world, journey through this work, together. That's what we've been called to do. So may it be so. And may we make it so with our actions and our loving. Amen.

Family Matters

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, June 21, 2026

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Margie, and I come from one big, happy, perfect family.

My mom is out of town this week, so I'm going to talk about our one... No, I'm just kidding. Unlike Sarah and Abraham, my one big, perfect, happy family has no history of marital strain. We have never had issues with inheritance. We have never had the pain of stories of infertility. We have never dealt with sibling favoritism in my one-of-six-sibling household. We haven't dealt with the complexities of blended families. No, we are one big, happy family. And you already know that's not true. And you already know that's not true for you either. Amen. We've been journeying through Genesis together, looking at the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Ishmael and so many others who show us just how human and relatable these ancient figures in the first book of the Bible are. I have found it helpful and heartwarming to read stories where I see myself reflected in some of these characters and some of these interpersonal dynamics and some of these wrestlings with God. But today what I read is actually to me the most heartbreaking story in scripture in all 66 books of the Bible. When I read this particular passage, my heart breaks every time. Last week, we hinted at this resentment that the woman named Sarah may have felt for her husband Abraham around the birth of their son, Ishmael. I didn't get too much into it then, but today before we even get to the passage that Jim just read, we have to go back a little bit to Genesis 16, because that's the origin story of the birth of Ishmael. For those of you who don't know, we learn that Sarah was barren. She couldn't have a child. And for women at that time in that culture, their womb was their identity. It was their power. It was how they carried on the family lineage and legacy. It was how they had worth in their household and in society. And she couldn't bear a child.

So she goes to her husband Abraham and she says, "You need to go into our slave girl Hagar and conceive a child for us, because the Lord is not going to do it for me." And he did as he was told. And the slave girl Hagar conceives. And when she sees that she has conceived, scripture tells us that she looks with contempt on her mistress. She looks with contempt on her mistress, on what Sarah demanded Abraham do to her and on what happened and would happen after.

And Sarah sees this and she turns to Abraham and she says, "May the wrongs done to me be on you. I gave my slave girl to your embrace, and now she looks at me with contempt." Abraham said, "Your slave girl is in your power. You do with her what you want." Taking the back seat to this story. And it says that Sarah dealt with her harshly. And so Hagar ran away. Hagar ran away into the wilderness. And all of a sudden, the angel of the Lord appears. And the angel says, "Where have you come from, Hagar? And where are you going?" And she says, "I'm running away from my mistress Sarah." The angel says, "This is hard, y'all." The angel says, "Return to her and submit to her. I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude. You will bear a son, and you will call him Ishmael, which means God hears." So Hagar, hearing this, looks up at the angel of the Lord, or looks up at the Lord — and Hagar, who is the only figure in the Bible to have the audacity to name God, which is for a whole other day, we'll get there — says, "I'm going to give you a name, God. I'm going to name you El Roy, which means God who sees," and in some translations, "God who sees me." El Roy, she said, "Have I really seen God and remained alive?" As if that can really happen.

That is the origin story of the birth of Ishmael. And you hear in it the heartbreak, don't you? You hear the jealousy and the resentment. You hear this mother who's so heartbroken that she can't have a child of her own that she pushes out the slave girl that was forced to have a child for her. And you see, perhaps, threaded into this story, Abraham's passivity allowing the women to be pitted against each other and deal with it themselves. You hear all of that?

Now we jump to our story today. In our story today, that baby boy Ishmael, named for the one God hears, is a teenager. He's about 13 or 14 years old. And maybe you can try to think through this with me. What would it have been like — since we don't know in the text — what would it have been like for Ishmael growing up? Would Sarah have looked on him with contempt too, being reminded of the way that he came into the world, of what she couldn't do? Would she have just loved him as if he really were her own son — a tenderness that some mothers have told me they didn't know existed within them until they gave birth? What about Hagar? Is she serving this family, watching them raise her child? Is she able to reveal to him who she really is at this point? There's so much that we don't know and don't get to hear. And as one theologian said, God has other stories, just not the ones written down.

So at this point, Ishmael is about 13 or 14. And Sarah has Isaac, who God promised. Isaac, which means — who was here last week? What does it mean? Do you remember? Oh, somebody said it. God laughs. Y'all are going to start getting a test on the back of your bulletin.

So Sarah has Isaac, and about two years into Isaac's life, they have what's called a weaning feast day. It's a kind of celebration for Isaac being weaned off of Sarah's breast. It's a big day of celebration in ancient culture. And Sarah sees Ishmael playing with Isaac. Just a teenage boy playing with his brother. She sees Ishmael playing with Isaac. And actually, what scripture tells us is she says she sees the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with her son.

She's not calling him his name anymore. She sees the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with her son. The verb there is actually "Isaacing." Ishmael is laughing with his baby brother and playing. Sarah doesn't like it. So she grabs Abraham. She says, "Abraham, come here." She says, "Cast out Hagar immediately. The son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac."

That is a loaded sentence, is it not? "The son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." Sarah, somewhere along the way, believed that God would not have enough for both boys — that God's promise of this offspring that would be multitudes, numbering the stars, that it wouldn't be enough for both. Sarah, as many of us do, had come to worship scarcity and question God, and be skeptical that God really could love and provide for both boys. And so, once again, Hagar — a woman who has done nothing wrong — is cast out. The first time she flees; this time she is made to go. And we learn, in a really human moment, that this matter was really distressing to Abraham. It says this matter was really distressing to Abraham on account of his son, on his son Ishmael, and on Hagar.

God says to Abraham, "Don't be distressed because of Ishmael and Hagar. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. And as for Ishmael, don't worry — I will make a nation of him, because he is your offspring too." You see what God does there? There's enough, and there is abundance, if we are patient enough to see it.

Abraham gets up really early in the morning and wakes up Hagar, and grabs bread and a skin of water, and in this really tender moment, to me, gives Hagar the bread and actually puts the skin of water on her shoulder, and then he sends her and Ishmael away. And what was he feeling then? A woman that he has been intimate with. A woman with whom he shares this heartbreaking, complicated story of joy and pain. A woman who, in some ways, has given him one of two boys that he loves unconditionally. Is he ever going to see her again? Is he ever going to see Ishmael again — his son? We don't know. We actually don't know.

So Hagar leaves. She wanders in the wilderness for a very long time. She runs out of bread. She runs out of water. And so she takes her teenage boy, her baby boy, and she hides him under a bush. She sits opposite him, pretty far away. And she says, "Do not let me look upon the death of my child. I'm not doing it." And then — and this is so interesting, too. Isn't the Bible interesting? It just kind of is. Okay, this is so interesting, too. We learn that an angel of the Lord appears again, and it says, "The angel heard the boy." The angel heard the boy. So what was Ishmael praying under that bush? Or was he crying and the angel heard it? Or was he whispering his own prayers — please save my mom, please help me? The angel heard the boy and then calls out to Hagar and says, "What troubles you? You don't need to be afraid. God heard the voice of Ishmael. Lift him up. Hold him fast. I will make a great nation of him." And then God — El Roy, the one she had named, the God who sees — God opened her eyes, and all of a sudden there appears to her a well of water. Abundance, life again — a wilderness resurrection moment, is it not? And so she fills up this water skin. And like many parents do, before she even takes a drink of water, she gives it to Ishmael. And then we learn that God was with the boy as he grew up in the wilderness and as he became really skilled with a bow and arrow. Kind of sounds like John the Baptist to me sometimes — like the wild child.

I wanted to spend time telling you those two vignettes because they are stories that need to be told. They are stories that make me ask a lot of unanswered questions — to God, to myself, to Sarah, to Abraham. They are stories of this complicated, broken, blended family that is desperately trying to be faithful and getting it wrong a lot. My family knows nothing about that kind of family.

It is easy for me to villainize Sarah. Does anyone feel that way? It's easy for me to villainize Sarah. But theologian Reita Williams talks about, in her culture, a woman's womb was her destiny — that Sarah, even though she had social standing, that she had some money, that her and Abraham had material possessions and they had slaves, that she may have had that social standing, but she didn't have respect. And there's one part in the book of Genesis that describes Sarah as beautiful, but it didn't matter. She was barren. She had material abundance, but she didn't have offspring. The one thing that she craved, the one thing that would have given her power, was the one thing that this seemingly powerless slave girl could. It's tricky. It's tricky. Hagar had been a powerless slave, but then all of a sudden, given her gift of fertility, she becomes Abraham's wife. She has this newfound power with Sarah. And so often, when two people experience some kind of brokenness and oppression, instead of looking up at who is doing it to them, they look at each other and feel pinned against one another. I know I have acted like that with women.

A lot of womanist theologians — womanist just means Black feminist — a lot of womanist theologians read this story and immediately feel this haunting memory of how this is reminiscent of Black slave women and white mistresses during American slavery. Dolores Williams, Reita Williams — I mean, they have so many commentaries on this, on these harrowing accounts of slavery. Slave masters would assault enslaved Black women, and then those women would be beaten by the white wives who were resentful. These enslaved Black women were often forced to be surrogates and take care of the white children, not being able to nurture their own. Even if the enslaved women weren't forced into these sexual assaults, sometimes they conceded to them to protect their family, to protect the ones that they thought might be sold away.

But we know that powerlessness does not unite the powerless. That harrowing history of our country, and in this scripture, teaches us how not to be. Sarah and Hagar are portrayed as rivals, which is too often a narrative we still see in our media today. Sarah just wants some sense of control and dominance. But in doing that, she oppresses a woman who is just one sister away from being a source of healing or comfort.

The mercy that God shows to Sarah by granting her a child in her womb, by giving her Isaac, is a mercy that she can no longer find in her heart for someone like Hagar.

It's ironic — Hagar, this Egyptian slave — and we didn't talk about Genesis 12 the last few weeks, but in those passages, Sarah is actually a slave of Pharaoh's. So she's experienced this same kind of oppression and forgotten it.

There's so much happening in this story. I've just touched on a little of it. There's these themes of divine favoritism that we see with Cain and Abel, and Jacob and Esau, where it often really does feel like God favors the second child and not the first child. Is anyone the first child? Yeah. I mean, the first child sometimes gets the money, or the heir of legacy, or whatever may have it, in scripture at least. God seems to choose the second child, the underdog, sometimes. Why does God do this? This problem of unfairness, as a theologian called it, in which we see time and time again siblings pitted against each other out of a disbelief that God's covenant really could be a promise for all — that there really could be enough to share. And so then we see violence and estrangement, and jealousy makes complete sense to me, because these questions from back then are still questions today. Like, who gets what money and what material benefits? Which sibling deserves what? Which brother deserves the covenantal promise and which one doesn't? Why do we value some women who can have offspring and not others who can't? What do we do about these complicated blended families? How do we talk about the complexities of growing up in those? Those are questions in Genesis, and those are questions at Vine Street Christian Church.

And I've got to know — what's God doing here? God could have easily said to Abram, Abraham and Sarah, "There's no need for your anger, because I have a plan for Ishmael and I have a plan for Isaac. They are both fruitful and abundant plans. You don't need to worry. The boys can grow up and laugh and play with each other." Why does God tell Hagar to go back and submit to Sarah? Why does it feel like God, in some of these stories, insists that we suffer before we're rewarded? And I invite me — and I also invite you — to just throw up these questions at God, because these two stories in particular, from Genesis 16 and 21, leave me with a lot of them.

What happens next is a little bit of a question mark. We know that Hagar and Ishmael go off. We learn that Hagar finds an Egyptian wife for Ishmael to marry. Then, really interestingly — yeah — we don't know if Ishmael ever sees Abraham and Sarah again. We don't know if him and Isaac ever see each other again. All we have is one verse: Genesis 25:9, which is going to be on the test next week. In Genesis 25:9, we learn that Isaac and Ishmael met together to bury their dad.

They saw each other again. Was it for the first time since that banishment? Was it cold? Was it tender? Were there words spoken? Was there healing? Was there bitterness? We don't know. We know that they met in brutal, heartbreaking circumstances to bury their father. Who knows how Ishmael viewed Abraham by that point?

Maybe they hugged. Maybe they tried to understand, and maybe they just couldn't.

Genesis may feel like a very old text, and it is a text of one big, complicated family — of which I am one. It's complicated. It's heartwarming. It's heartbreaking. It's bewildering. And it is the story that many of us have lived. Many of us still hold these unresolved questions — not just for God, not just for scripture, but in our own family systems, in our own lives. Why? Why was there favoritism? Why did the inheritance go this way? Why was there jealousy? Why is there brokenness? Why couldn't we have learned to reconcile? Why can't we see eye to eye?

We have been journeying through this book, and we will continue next week. I gave Wesley the Abraham-sacrificing-Isaac passage, because I didn't want it, and that's what I get to do now.

And again, a story that might feel so foreign and ancient, we'll learn next week has so much to do with us.

So I invite you this week, just like every other week this June, as we've been journeying through this book — however hard it might be, or freeing — where are you in it? Are you someone who takes a backseat and lets other family members fight it out? Do you feel like you're in the wilderness? Do you miss your boy? Do you feel jealous of what others have that you don't? Where is God in it all? Is God the one who sees you? Is God the one who hears? Or are you just not sure? Today, I'm asking myself the same thing. And friends, this is a place where we know what it's like to be wilderness people. You are always welcome into these complicated stories. Amen.

Nothing is Too Wonderful

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, June 14, 2026

It was a really hot day. It was really hot. And then imagine being a 99-year-old man. And there's like a new kind of hot when it comes from having been alive for a lot of hot days like that. I had been going ever since God called me into this role. Ever since God told me, Abram, you are going to go out and you are going to make nations as numbered as the stars in the sky. And I was tired. So I was lost in thought. I was leaning my back up against the tent as my wife Sarah and my teenager Ishmael slept. And I was replaying this conversation that I had had with God not too long ago. God spoke to me and said, "Your wife Sarah, she's going to have a son. She's going to bring you a son." This God who had changed my name from Abram, which means ancestor, to Abraham, which means ancestor of multitudes. Multitudes. All I had was Ishmael. I was just the father of one. And then God came up to me and said that there would be another.

I don't know. It felt like too wonderful to be true. Even for God. Sometimes I still felt this unspoken resentment with my wife Sarah. It had been 13 years since the birth of Ishmael. But those 13 years ago, she had demanded out of a grief and a desperation that I'll admit I don't know what that feels like. She had demanded that I conceive with our slave girl Hagar. She told me I needed to have a son. And so I did. And after she blamed me, and then she dealt really harshly with Hagar. I will never claim to understand what she was going through. But marriage can feel lonelier than being alone sometimes. But we had survived it. We're still here. We're still getting older day by day. And we're still finding each other's hands in the dark to hold. However weathered or wrinkled they are, we're still taking care of this boy, this boy that we didn't know we could love so much. Our Ishmael, ancestor of multitudes, God had named me. But God had promised, but God had fulfilled every promise that God had made me so far. I will bless her, God told me. And I will give you a son by her, and I will bless her, God said again. And she shall give rise to nations. Kings of people shall come from her. What could I do but fall on my face and laugh? Can a child be born to a man that is a hundred years old? I asked God. Can a child be born to a woman that is 90 years old? No offense, I asked God.

God promised to bless Ishmael, but then told me the name of my new unborn son. God said, "This son will be named Isaac." You know what that means, Abraham? No. He laughs.

I was really tired. Raise your hand if you've raised a teenage boy. Go on, raise it so you get it. Well, now imagine being 90 and having arthritis, having a bad back and being worn out and tired and fatigued all the time and sleeping in a tent with two really smelly men. Now you're starting to feel my pain. Carrying packs every day, moving around because my husband was talking to God all of the time, not that I ever had. Carrying with me this weight of such a layered life, carrying with me the grief of what my body had never given me, of what I hoped it could have, and the shame of what I couldn't do, of what I wasn't able to bear. But then the joy of this unexpected surprise named Ishmael and this inexplicable, undefinable love at my husband Abraham, who got on my very last nerve, at whom there were layers and patterns of pain there, but who always found my hand in the dark, weathered and wrinkled. I was tired and I was in that place between when you're kind of asleep but when you're kind of awake, show of hands. But then I heard the voice of God. I knew it was the voice of God. Even though God had never talked to me directly, I knew that voice by now. God who only spoke to my husband. God who even spoke to the slave girl, Hagar, but had never spoken to me. But I knew that voice, had been around Abraham enough to believe that there really was a guiding hand asking him, asking us to follow. And so when I peeked out and saw three men standing outside of the tent, somehow just intrinsically I knew that those strangers were angels, that those men were one. Abraham, my husband, he's ever the host. He immediately ran up to them, bowed at their feet. He would have done that even if it wasn't God. But pretty sure he knew who it was too. And he said, "Rest. Rest a while." Isn't it funny how we can always offer people rest and we can't really afford to give it to ourselves? Rest a while. He said, "We will get water for you to wash your feet. We'll bake you cakes for you to eat." He offered this to all of them. But I knew who was going to have to provide it. Sarah, he yelled. Yeah, I was just waiting for it. Quickly, can you make cakes for these men? And then he tried to explain to me how to bake. Okay. He said, "Make three measures of choice flour. Knead the — I got it." And then he took our calf. Women can kind of do a bunch of things at one time. So I was kneading and I was still peeking out the tent. He took our calf and he got milk from the calf and made curds and milk and offered it to them as well. From the tent, I watched Abraham and these three strangers, angels, men of God, God.

I'm from ancient times. I don't know what this is.

I watched Abraham with these strangers, angels, men of God, God, sitting and talking with them. They were swapping stories and telling tales. And I, ever the woman, ever the homemaker, stayed where I was, just listening, eavesdropping. But then I heard my name. Where's your wife? Where's Sarah? Uh-oh. Did they hear me complaining? My whole body like froze. There in the tent, he said. Oh, were they going to say thank you for the meal? I will return, the man said. And when I do, she will have a son. Okay. I'd heard that one before. I'm 90. I'm not having a son. Abraham had hinted at this. He had told me that he had spoken to God another time and God had mentioned this promise, but I wasn't buying it. No, I'd given up on prayer. I'd given up on hoping. My husband had enough faith for the both of us. And so, what do you do when something sounds so ridiculous and delusional and insane? You just laugh. So, I started talking to myself as I was cleaning up the extra dough. I've gotten old. Abraham's even older. Now, I'm going to have the pleasure of having a son. But then, of course, I hear God. But God's talking to Abraham and not me. God never talks to me. And God asks, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Uh-oh. God heard me. God hears me.

Why did she say, "Am I really going to bear a child now that I'm old?" God asked my husband, "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" "I'll come back and she'll have a son." "I didn't laugh," I cried out. I hoped I'd catch God before he left. I was scared. All of the sudden, I felt like after having lived in the shadows of my husband's story, there was this great light that was shining on me. All of the sudden, it felt like all my mumbling and complaining and crying and weeping in the night, the volume turned up and I was heard.

And then for the first time ever, God spoke to me. God spoke to me, Sarah. And God said, "Oh yes, you did laugh." And then I laughed again. And this time God joined me. Maybe nothing is too wonderful for God.

Yeah, I was asleep for that whole thing. My mom told me about something called puberty and it basically feels like someone's taking your limbs and like stretching them out and you're just really tired all the time. So, I was just taking a nap for that one. But, and maybe I dreamed it, but I could have sworn. I think for the first time in my whole life, I think I heard my mom laugh.

God ended up fulfilling God's promise. Sarah gave birth to Isaac when she was 90 and when Abraham was a hundred years old. She had not laughed in years until that day under that oak tree with God. And looking at this boy, looking at her new boy Isaac with Abraham and Ishmael next to her, she said, "God has brought laughter for me. Everyone who hears me will laugh."

I'm back. What's been going on? I do know what this is. So, who are you in this story? Who are you in this story? Are you taking a nap as I'm preaching? Maybe. Are you hosting people for cakes later today? Are you the kind of person who flings the door open and says, "Come on. Come on in. We'll get you lemonade. We'll get you cookies. We'll have it all ready." Meanwhile, you may have an introverted partner or child who's like, "Wait, wait, wait. Let's talk about this." Are you sure of God's promises in your life? Do you laugh out of a certainty and belief that you know that God is talking to you about something that you yourself had prayed for, had hoped for, and is now coming true? Or do you laugh at the possibility that the best is yet to come? A cold laugh, a bitter laugh, a resigned laugh, a laugh that says impossible, a laugh that says ridiculous, a laugh that doesn't come from any place in that deep gut belly, but is more of a scoff.

Are you old? Are you feeling those aches and pains? Are you young and feeling those aches and pains? Are you hoping for a baby? Are you hungry for someone to offer you cake and milk and sit at your feet and tell stories with you? Make you feel more welcomed and a little less lonely in a new place. Are you someone who needs me to repeat the instructions for the cake? I need instructions for the cake repeated to me. We bring our whole selves to God. And how I know that is through these families and these stories in Genesis that there's no one right way to be. That there's no right figure in these stories and these passages that we've carried on for millennia. Some are invited to rush out and kneel at God's feet in this moment of such strong faithfulness that might feel like a snapshot in our lives. Or maybe it's how we always are. Some of us laugh in God's face when something feels too ridiculous to be true. Sometimes we fall asleep and miss God's promises, numb, unawake,

not knowing or maybe trusting that they'll still be there when we wake up. And church, this week we journey through Genesis once again with a man named Abraham and a woman named Sarah and a boy named Ishmael and a baby named Isaac. We journey with angels and strangers, with a family that is dog tired and weary from trusting in a surprising, unexpecting, laughing God. We journey with a family that knows what it's like to hope. To hope against hope. We journey with a family that is tired.

Like all families, this larger family that we are a part of has it all. This family knows loss. This family knows surprise. This family knows puberty. This family knows grief and love and long marriages filled with many different lives in them. This family knows what it means to pick up and go, to travel out of love for one's family. And this family at different times has heard from God, has heard the voice of God speak to them. And for some, it happened early in their life. And for others, it happened when they were 90, which might mean that it doesn't mean it can't happen for us yet.

Are you Abraham? Are you Sarah? Are you Ishmael? Are you a stranger? Are you an angel? Are you not sure? Are you still finding your place in this ancient book, wondering where you'll see yourself in it? Today, next Sunday, and the one after. We hope and believe that you will. That this text that can feel so antiquated is actually something that's quite intimate, real, and present in our lives in this sanctuary today. So laugh with me at the hilarity of it all. Of old people getting pregnant, of a man giving a woman instructions on how to make a cake. We are in here. And believe it or not, God hears us. Believe it or not, nothing is too wonderful for God. Amen.

Whispers of a Blessing

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, June 7, 2026

I had heard stories like this before. God calling people to do God’s will. I had heard whispers of names like Moses and Noah, like Miriam and Aaron. But I couldn't believe that God's voice came to me. And God didn't just start by asking me, "How are you?" God didn't start with a simple, "Hello, it's good to see you, Abram." The first word that God said to me was, "Go."

My wife Sarai and I had been traveling for what felt like forever. We had actually tried to get to Canaan. And we were leaving the land of and we were on our way when we got stalled in Heron and had to set down roots there for now. But then my dad died. He had been alive for 205 faithful years. And in that land I lost him. So it was just me and my wife Sarah and we were childless, still struggling with infertility. I was 75 years old and she was 65. Just me and her and the nephew that we had taken in, Lot, my brother's son, who had lost his mom and lost his dad.

God didn't just ask me to leave my land when God called me. God didn't just ask me to leave my kindred and my clan when God called me. No, God said, "Leave your home, too." God used these words that I hadn't heard before. Leah, go forth alone. And God said this to me. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and your name will be great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

At 75 years old, I was too old to be called. God called young guys. God called young women. I didn't even know what God was talking about. From my family, we could bring a blessing to others for those outside of this chosen community. Protection from those who would curse us or mistreat us.

The sacrifice felt impossible and the call felt undeniable.

Don't look back on the past. God seemed to be telling me, "Don't regress out of nostalgia. Don't mimic or copy something that you've already experienced. I'm inviting you into the unknown. Into a land that you don't even know the name of yet, into a journey that you couldn't even begin to perceive. Go."

And I have struggled with a lot of things in my life, but I haven't struggled with faithfulness. And so I went, but I didn't go forth alone. That's where I disobeyed God just a little because how could I leave my companion, my wife, the woman who had journeyed with me, who had experienced pain and joy with me, Sarah. I brought her and we brought our nephew, parentless. There was no way we were going to leave Lot behind. And I brought the people that I had acquired in that land. And I brought possessions and I went.

When we got to Canaan, I felt this holy nudge telling me to go to this big oak tree at Mora. And I went and I heard this voice of God. Kind of like the story I had heard of God and Moses by this bush. As I stood under this tree, God said to me, "To your offspring, I will give your land." So I built an altar right then and there, not to any human that I worship, but to a God that had led me this far in safety. And I kept moving and moving, pitching tents and building altars as I went, showing people what it meant to be a blessing, showing people the God who blesses us each day.

I trusted the one who called me by my name. When that one said, "Go."

You won't hear my voice in this story because I felt like I didn't have one. My husband gets to talk to God directly and I don't have one conversation with this divine being. And not only does my husband have a conversation with God, which I'm not a part of, then Abram doesn't even have a conversation with me before he makes the decision to go. There is no calculation on his part. There is no including me in this decision. As his wife, as his wife who has been with him every step of the journey, he said yes before he even took a breath. He said go before he even took a beat.

Did he think this was going to be an easy journey? This wasn't like the roads were lit. This wasn't like if he got hurt, there would be some emergency of folks who showed up to help us. And what if he died? What if he died on that journey? I was no longer a potential matriarch. I was a woman who could have been a homeless vagabond. I could have been a slave. I could have been taken advantage of. Did he even think about that?

And no baby, still no baby. This wasn't just a journey into the unknown. This was a journey of life and death. We were going from a place where we had really come to belong to a place that this God had called us to and said that this land was unknown to us. God didn't even give us the name of it before we left. And when we arrived, my husband Abram picks up and begins traveling again, moving from place to place, building altars and pitching tents, leaving me to what? Follow him along, stay put where we went. There was no road map for the wife of the one who was called.

Did this God have my back, too? This voice that I had never heard from. Would this God protect me from the same curses? Would this God bless me in the same way? Would this God finally give me a baby?

I had heard the word offspring. What offspring? From who? I wanted to have faith. I really did. A promise. But I felt like faithfulness was reserved for the one who had heard from God directly and not for me.

You won't hear my voice in this story because I was speechless. I was speechless. I had lost my parents. I had lost my granddad. I had lost my sense of home. When my uncle came up to me and said, "We're leaving. Go." And I said, "Where?" Forward. I know you want to look back. He said, "I know you want to dwell on what happened. I know you want to sit in the heaviness of your grief. And I am asking you to come with us. A land that is a blessing and a promise. A land that will be ours, and it will be yours, too. God has not forgotten you, and neither have we. We can settle there."

I missed my granddad. I missed my parents. I don't know what choice I had. If I stayed behind, who was going to take care of me? Who would I turn to? My uncle and aunt, they really had cared for me very well and treated me like the son that they never had. But I'm going to be honest, I wasn't their son. Why did I have to leave the few friends that I was starting to make? Why did I have to leave the olive trees that I walked by on my way to their home? Why did I have to leave the streets that were starting to become familiar to me, that crossroads and that one? Why did we always have to move as a way of showing our faith?

Church, it's me again. And this may feel like a very ancient text with nothing that we can quite relate to. This may feel like a text that has pharaohs and plagues. This may feel like a text that has altars and pitching tents, that has giant floods and arcs. But this book, as I read it again, is a book about family. And family is complicated. There are new couples like Adam and Eve who are naked and unashamed still. And that happens today. There are brothers like Cain and Abel that hate each other. And that happens today still. There are drunk fathers like Noah who embarrass their sons and that happens today still. There is infertility. There are strained marriages. We lose our parents. We lose our grandparents. Some of us move in with families that are not our nuclear ones. And all of this is in Genesis 2.

And in this story, we hear of this call to pick up and move, to start a journey that we've never been on, to move to a land that's unknown. And maybe you have felt that, too. Many of you have experienced this. Now, in our days, we work jobs that take us all around the country. We move for schools. We're displaced from natural disasters. We move for our spouse's work. We move to serve overseas. We're grandparents who move closer to our kids or grandkids to take care of them. We are adult children who move closer to our parents who are dying.

We are called to pick up and leave. Some of us are forced out, kicked out of families because of our sexual and gender identities, torn from our families, and deported or detained. And in the leaving, we don't just leave the land we're familiar with. We don't just leave the kindred and the clan that we're familiar with, like that sports league or those colleagues that you get drinks with or that house that you loved or even your own church. But you leave home. You leave belonging. You leave behind the ways that you have felt seen and heard and known in your own context to set out for something new.

Abram's call from God, as you heard, is filled with promise. It's filled with blessing. That word blessing is used in Genesis 88 times. As if God really has something to say to us about how much of a blessing each of us are to the God that loves us.

And as we journey through Genesis this month, I hope that you will come back. I don't often tell people come back to church, but I hope you will to hear yourself breathed out of these stories. Some of you who have been called into the unknown and the families that are impacted by that call and the resentment and the hard conversations and the processing, or maybe the lack of that, is in here too.

When God has called you to pick up and go and leave the familiar behind, what do you do? And who do you turn to? And are you faithful like Abram? Or do you feel a lack of faithfulness like Sarai?

I hear in this text whispers of a blessing and a promise and a God who holds all of it with us. A God who wonders with us what it looks like to go. A God who lets us off the hook when we say, "I don't want to go alone." And maybe this is a cautionary tale, church, for us to spend more time discerning with our families, with our friends, with ourselves what we should do. Or maybe it's an example of sacrifice that we give to the ones that we love.

And maybe today it's just part of our religious history. And so I'm inviting you to dive into it with me. Whether this story touches a wound, whether you can't relate to it at all, this is a book that is rich with life and that is rife with it. It's a book that we don't read alone. It's a book that we speak and listen to together.

Where are you in this story? Where are you in Genesis? I promise you're in there. Even if it's just because you had an apple for breakfast.

Amen.