Won't You Be My Neighbor

Sermon Preached by Rev. Jack Snellgrove on Sunday, July 13, 2025

Here is your cleaned-up transcript with corrected spelling and grammar. No summarization or editorializing has been added, per your request:

Thank you. It's good to be here. I am one of you, and Lana and I are grateful to be here and appreciate you so much. The text today that I'm focusing on is the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the text that you read is a good prelude for that, as it speaks about hospitality.

But just let me share with you the essence of the parable. A lawyer that was among the crowd asked Jesus—after he had asked what was the greatest commandment. And Jesus said to him, as Jesus’s teaching mode is, “What does the law say?” And the lawyer said, “It's love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” And Jesus said, “That's right. Do this and you will live.” And then the scripture says, “The lawyer, seeking to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘Who’s my neighbor?’”

And Jesus then tells a parable. He says, “There was a certain man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers and thieves. They beat him, stripped him of his clothes, stole what he had, and left him half dead”—paraphrased, lying in a ditch. Along came a priest, a member of the Jewish royal order, who saw the man lying beside the road and passed on by. Next came a Levite, one who is vested in the law of the Torah. He looked and saw the man and passed on by.

Then came a Samaritan. And what we need to know here is the Samaritan is considered an enemy to the Jewish. Along came a Samaritan, and the Samaritan looked and saw the man, and he took him and bound up his wounds. He placed him on his donkey and took him to a nearby inn, cared for him, and then told the innkeeper—after having given him two denarii, which is two days’ wages—“Take this and provide for his needs, and if there is more needed, I will repay you when I return.”

At the conclusion of the parable, Jesus said, “Who was the neighbor?” And the young lawyer said, “The one who showed mercy and compassion.” And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” Now, that's the text for today.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together, we might as well say,
“Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Won’t you please?
Won’t you please?
Please, please, won’t you be my neighbor?”

My apologies to Mr. Rogers. I started to bring my chair and change my shoes and put on that sweater, but I thought that might be a little too much.

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is the show that educated me as I watched it with my children growing up. The lyrics make the point of trying to define who is a neighbor. A neighbor is not only about location, but being a neighbor is defined by what we do and who is the person in need.

As a young boy—preschool—I knew who my neighbors were. There was Mr. and Mrs. McNair; they lived next door to our left. And then there were Verdice and Nell Hydrickch. No, no, no—I'm sorry. My memory. I have senior moments now and then. Mr. and Mrs. McNair were on our left. They were an older couple—somewhere in their 50s. And then Verdice and Nell Hydrickch lived on our right. They had three kids: Claude, Jean, and Patty. Claude was the oldest, then Jean, then Patty. They were our neighbors.

And so, when my Sunday school teacher talked about loving my neighbor and being a good neighbor, I knew exactly what she meant: love the McNairs and love the Hydrickches. And I did that.

People that lived far away, perhaps in foreign countries, were my neighbors too. But they were to be treated as if, my Sunday school teacher said, as if they lived next door. It was for these neighbors—the ones that lived far, far away—that I put my pennies and nickels and dimes in this little box shaped like a church. And I would bring those three or four times a year, and we would give them so that it could feed the poor in our world.

I also learned—that’s when I knew that we were not poor—because they never gave the box back to me. So that was good to know. I gave our offering to these neighbors. And there was another group of neighbors that I brought food from our pantry to help—those that didn’t have food. I brought the ones that said “spinach.” Yeah. Kids have marvelous ways of getting rid of things in the pantry that they don’t like.

But I brought canned goods and things that we could give to those that were in need. And these were our neighbors also. In my mind, these were church neighbors—neighbors defined by the church. I never met them. Sometimes there would be pictures, and I could see pictures and say, “Oh, that’s what my neighbor looks like.”

I did think it was strange, though, that in our church’s neighborhood, where the building was located—a Black community and church were right outside our back door. I would suspect they were neighbors. And yet, our church—we never did anything for them as a congregation, even though they were next door. I always visited with the McNairs and the Hydrickches, and we were always borrowing sugar, flour, and milk from one another as we needed it. And yet with our Black neighbors next door at church, we never shared anything, at least that I knew about. We didn’t even share conversations.

I was confused. But after all, this was the South, and I was just a kid. Adults knew better than I did. So I just accepted that this was how adults—and my church—defined what it means to be a neighbor. But that was then.

Then I was a child, sitting in Miss Bertha’s Sunday school class, singing Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World. My Sunday school teachers and my preacher instructed me as to who is my neighbor. But now, as an adult—now, as an adult—I take my cue for who is my neighbor from the teachings of Jesus. I now understand that “neighbor” is defined by my actions and not solely by a person’s location.

So when Mr. Rogers sings, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” he’s asking me to enter into a relationship wherein we treat each other with kindness and generosity. That’s what it means to be a neighbor.

Now, all of this brings us to the teachings Jesus regarded. Whenever he was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he told the parable that I told you. Let me be clear: I’ve preached on this text for almost 50 years. And in each sermon, I try to get at the heart of the teaching. But as I approach the text today—as I have often done—I feel that I missed some of the points of the parable. So my sermon is a confession of what I missed. It doesn’t take away from what I said previously—I think I was okay. You know, it was okay. But today, I come with new eyes.

For instance, I have, for the most part, given the lawyer in the text a hard time. I read the word tested—that the lawyer tested Jesus—I read it in a negative way. I understood that the lawyer was trying to trick Jesus into making a mistake, saying something that would lead people to disrespect him or possibly get him on the wrong side of Jewish law.

I also understood the phrase seeking to justify himself as a phrase that meant he wanted to validate his point of view, his knowledge, and demonstrate how much smarter he was than Jesus—or to take himself off the spot. That was then. That’s how I preached that sermon all through my ministry.

But today, I want to give the lawyer credit for seeking clarity—clarity in Who is my neighbor? Because I say this because I find myself asking the question, Who is my neighbor? I still find myself asking the church for clarity: Who is my neighbor?

The events of last week have impacted me as I sought to understand this parable’s impact upon the lives of individuals and communities and our nation.

The events I reference are the massive flood of the Guadalupe River in southern Texas. The rapidly rising waters of the river—they say 22 feet in two hours—destroyed property and killed over a hundred people, many of whom were little girls from a Christian camp called Mystic Camp. And from the pictures and reports I’ve seen and heard, this was a horrific tragedy, leaving the surrounding communities devastated.

The grief is overwhelming for neighbors who knew someone who was killed or suffered the ravages of the storm. The New York Times reported on many celebrities who journeyed to southern Texas to the site, offering help. And besides the physical help, there was also the pouring out of funds to give aid to those who were suffering loss. The response was, according to The Times, so great that local community people pleaded with those providing help to please, please work with the established relief agencies in order to coordinate the efforts.

Truly, truly, mercy and compassion were demonstrated toward those who were—and who are—suffering. Lots of neighboring going on.

Immediately—listen to this—immediately, Mexico, who’s not always been in our good graces lately, right, with the administration? Mexico, under the leadership of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, rushed to provide help and assistance to the ravaged area. President Trump and First Lady Melania visited Kerrville, Texas on Friday. They toured the area and met with families affected by the tragedy, as well as many volunteers working in rescue operations. Fox News reported extensively on the many residents that praised the president for his concern and his compassion.

Being a good neighbor was the defining characteristic of so many people as they responded to this event.

But even as I anguished for the flood victims, I was also aware of the thousands of Gaza residents who are suffering from the ravages of war and face so many obstacles just to get meager relief supplies that are being offered. They grieve over 60,000 deaths, and yet much of the world—including our current administration—moves on as if they’re not there.

I also note that while our president was visiting Kerrville, his staff was hunting down immigrants across the nation, building prisons to house the thousands he intends to deport. He’s cutting Medicaid to the poor, refusing to fund SNAP, a government organization that provides food for the poor.

I thought to myself: if our president is a person of mercy and compassion, how could he and his administration not be a neighbor to the immigrant, the poor, and those who are suffering the abuse of war? That’s what I asked myself.

Defining who is my neighbor is a real question today. Perhaps I—and others—have been too hard on the lawyer in the text asking for clarity. Because I think a lot of folks are asking, Who is my neighbor? when they look at these actions.

When Lana and I retired in 2008, we eventually moved to a community located on the Savannah River about 40 miles north of Augusta, Georgia, in a community in South Carolina—McCormick, South Carolina. And in the absence of having a Christian Church nearby, we started attending a community church.

Well, about four or five years ago, this community church’s denomination had a General Assembly—much like what’s going on at the General Assembly in Memphis. And a resolution was passed by the denominational assembly that they would be a sanctuary church. That means that if there were any alien—any immigrants, legal or illegal—that sought help and relief, they would reach out in mercy and compassion.

Immediately, the congregation became divided in half. And after a vote, half of the people left that congregation, saying, “We will not be a part of a congregation that breaks the law.”

What law? Who is my neighbor? Split this faith community. And it’s splitting our nation and this community.

We have friends who are part of the United Methodist Church, and they’re living in the aftermath of a split—a major split—over whether same-sex couples can be married in the church, and whether a pastor or minister can be in a gay or lesbian lifestyle.

Who is my neighbor? If the foundation of the law of God is to love God with everything I am—heart, mind, soul, and strength—and to love my neighbor as myself, then I think the lawyer has a valid question when he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus answers his question with the parable that I told you. And we immediately know the answer—it’s the same one the lawyer gave. Who is my neighbor? The one who showed mercy and compassion. That’s our definition.

Loving my neighbor as myself requires me to see myself in their place and act in ways that I would want someone to act toward me. If I and my family are running away from an oppressive government wherein my life and the life of my family is in danger, how would I want a congregation to treat me? If I had to enter the country illegally, putting ourselves in the place of others is the act of being a neighbor.

I can understand the lawyer, after hearing the parable, saying to Jesus, “Sorry, that’s not who I am.” And we have a lot of folks saying that today: Sorry, that’s not my neighbor. Our administration is saying that—our current administration. The people in southern Texas are our neighbor. But the immigrant community, the poor, those that are not like us—they’re not our neighbor.

I loved the church of my childhood. I respected the Sunday school teachers, the preachers, the elders, the deacons, the leaders. I treasure my childhood. But that time is gone. We can no longer isolate ourselves geographically or racially or according to our economics. If we are truly to be Christians, we have to be able to see people as our neighbor.

The church of my childhood was too small. When we moved to Murfreesboro, I had lots of folks asking us to come join them in their congregation. And of course, being a real Disciple—a real Disciple—I simply said, “Well, thank you very much. We’re looking for a church that is accepting of all people.” And they said, “Oh, we accept everybody.” I said, “Oh, your table is open to everyone?” “Oh yeah, our table is open to everyone.” And I said, “Well, LGBTQ+—are they welcome?” And there was a silence. All did not mean all.

And so we found our way to Pine Street. Praise the Lord. Where all means all. And we define neighbor to our community as being those who display mercy and compassion. And that’s our defining characteristic as a community of faith.

So, who’s your neighbor? Who’s your neighbor?

If we had time, I’d ask us to break into small groups and tell stories about who’s our neighbor—but we don’t. But maybe we could do that at a fellowship dinner sometime. I’d love to hear your story about who’s your neighbor. I got lots of them.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Won’t you be mine?

Amen.

Witness at the End of the World

Sermon preached by Rev. Brittany Paschall on Sunday, July 6, 2025

Beloved, it is an honor to be with you here at Divine Street Christian Church, a place that has long been a Jordan stream of justice and love and mercy. I take a moment of personal privilege to acknowledge the invitation extended by your beloved Reverend Margie, who has been a longtime friend and has long been on the battlefield for justice and peace—a co-laborer in the world that we long to see come.

I greet you first in the spirit of the God who animates our very breath and being through the liberating love of our savior Jesus the Christ, carried by the Spirit. I acknowledge my ancestors as I step into this sermonic moment—many who are now across the Jordan witnessing to me. I speak the names of my grandparents: The Reverend Dr. Julia A. Pascal, Elder Samuel Aken Tolbert, Sarah Elizabeth Jamaima Red Tolbert, Doris Jean Pascal. I offer gratitude for the beloveds who have joined me here today—most especially my mama and my daddy.

And now we move to the preaching moment. Think with me about the topic: Witnessing at the End of the World.

Let us pray.

Holy One, I am your woman and this is your word. I, like the first woman to carry your gospel, meet you in awe and terror. And while I want to cling, you send me forward to preach your word. Help me. This I pray.

And now, may the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. God, you are my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

I must admit, beloved, that I am moved by each of the lectionary texts this week. I began this sermon in the aftermath of a week filled with news of war, and I finished it nestled in the woods of unceded Cherokee, Shawnee, and Choctaw land, where I had the privilege to steward sacred space and retreat over the last several days.

In many ways, the last few days and years of my own life have been devoted to receiving and calling in my own healing and that of others—reorienting myself to a God that indeed nurses me, bearing and sharing the burdens of beloved community, and attempting to witness to a world when the world, and sometimes my world, falls before my eyes.

And while each of the texts—from the histogram of the healing of Naaman in 2 Kings to the imagery of God as a nursing mother, all the way to the call of Galatians to bear each other’s burdens—each call us into wholeness. Each reminds us of it. Even our Gospel text this morning calls us to witness.

And this call to witness, it stirs questions in me. Honest questions. Deep questions.

Is it that our miraculous healings, even in the midst of our own resistance, call us to witness? Must we now, like Naaman, testify to what God did for us in the water? Is it that a mothering God nurses and nourishes us in part for the purpose of becoming those who nourish and nurture a broken world with the holy substance and sustenance of liberation, peace, and justice?

Are our personal experiences of a God who has a womb not enough to give us the insight to make our own muscles strong enough to birth and sustain movements? Is my neighbor’s and my sisters’ and siblings’ bearing of my burdens as much a comfort as it is a call?

Beloved, I do believe so. Beloved, I concur that it is time that we witness at the end of the world.

Our text today not only commissions but models what witnessing at the end of the world will require of us. We arrive here at today's text by way of Jesus’s commissioning of some seventy—or seventy-two, according to some ancient manuscripts—disciples. Jesus gives them clear instructions, advising them to travel light, offer peace, stay where offered sanctuary, and heal the sick. He also advises them to move on from places where they are not welcome, shaking the dust off—which is for another sermon.

They are told that they are not simply impersonating Jesus, but that whoever listens to them hears him.

At face value, the text this morning appears to be a beautiful commissioning, counseling, and comforting of those who follow after Jesus—which it is. But just as we contextualize the what and the how of the text, the where and under what circumstances it takes place begs to be glanced at.

It is important to note that when I speak of worlds ending, it is as much rooted in my ability and necessity to imagine a new world as it is to name that many of the worlds we are subjected to and subjugated in are not sustainable. Jesus sends those commissioned into worlds that need to end. He sends them into a world that is trembling under empire—a world of occupied lands, spiritual unrest, and social division.

It is a place where power is violent, hospitality is uncertain, and truth is often met with rejection. The harvest is plentiful, yes—but the wolves are real also, and the work is dangerous. A world not unlike our world today in many ways.

This is to say that the disciples are sent out into a world that is at least on fire, if not ending and beginning again, dependent upon their witness.

Witnessing at the end of the world requires embodied joy, vision for the unseen spiritual battle, courageous engagement with the serpents of evil, and rootedness in the eternal kingdom, where our names are written and we are held.

When we look to embody joy, we look to Luke the 10th chapter and the 17th verse: “The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us.’” The seventy-two returned with joy after mission and risk.

In January of 2019, I was sitting in The Well coffeehouse with a friend. I was writing communications for a campaign we were running for the final push for the clemency of Cyntoia Brown Long. We had joined a years-long fight—one that spanned faith communities and crossed party lines. A fight carried by organizers and survivors and lawyers and elders and artists and a few clergy that wanted to be on the right side—but, more importantly, by everyday people.

We were deep in this final push, unsure of what the outcome would be, but grounded in our commitment to justice. In the middle of drafting this press release, this update, I got a text from a comrade—now a state legislator—that simply read, “Congratulations.” I was confused at first. “Congratulations for what? We had not won.” It still looked bleak. I was unsure what she meant.

She had received the word before we had. Clemency had been granted.

I opened my browser, searched for confirmation. I needed to see it on three reliable news sources. And when I saw it with my own eyes, I stood up from that table and took a lap around the coffee shop.

That was embodied joy.

Embodied joy is not just the lap I took. It is the stillness in the in-between. It is the quiet warmth of a hot tea in your hand when you don't know if the thing that you are fighting for will ever come to pass. It is the weariness of my body and the fire that still lives underneath.

Embodied joy, beloved, is what happens when the mission takes root in you.

And so I understand in my own small way what it must have felt like when the seventy returned to Jesus. They were not just reporting their success. They were testifying to the joy that lived in them because they had gone, because they had trusted, because they had shown up to witness.

Anyway, joy in this text is not a reward. It is not a sign of comfort or ease. It is a sign that the witness is alive. Joy is what the body does when it has risked itself for something holy.

The first thing witnessing at the end of the world requires is not power, beloved. It is not strategy, and most certainly is not certainty—but joy. Joy that breathes, joy that testifies, joy that takes up space in your own body.

And now what else does witnessing at the end of the world require?

Witnessing at the end of the world requires vision for the fall. The text says in Luke 10:18, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.” Jesus reminds the seventy that there is spiritual battle unfolding beyond what most can see.

The fall of Satan is a cosmic event. The fall of empire is a cosmic event—a sign that the powers of evil are already defeated even as they rage in the world.

You see, this unseen battle is happening alongside the visible struggles—the wars, the injustice, the division, and the oppression that we understand in our natural being. In my own life, I have required this vision of the fall. It is a vision that has helped me hold hope amid chaos. During times of global unrest and personal crisis, I remind myself that what we see—the broken systems, the pain—is not the final word.

As I wait for my roommates to come home from occupations and protest, as I wait to know if my classmates’ loved ones made it through the night in a war-torn country, there is a spiritual reality at work—one that invites us into participation in the healing and renewal. And if we have this vision, it gives us the courage to walk into the world, to witness in the world’s chaos without despair, knowing that God’s justice is breaking through even when the news is overwhelming.

Beloved, will you open your eyes to the unseen battle? Will you trust that God is at work beyond what you can see? Will you carry the vision for the fall of empire so that your feet remain steady and your hearts hopeful?

Beloved, you must not only carry this vision, but you must take on the serpents. Luke 10:19 says, “Indeed, I have given you the authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.”

You see, beloved, this is not a gentle invitation. Jesus tells the seventy—and us—that there are real dangers out there and in here. Snakes and scorpions, symbols of evil and threat, particularly in Western theology, will cross our path. We are not called to avoid them or to pretend that they do not exist. We are called to walk through their territory with authority.

But the serpents—the serpents that Jesus names—are not only outside of us. They live inside of us, too. In our shadows, in our shame, and in our fears, the serpents, the scorpions live. In the parts of ourselves that systems have taught us to silence or shrink. The voice inside that says, “You are too much. You don’t belong.”

In my recent work teaching about nonviolent movements and spirituality, I have been moved by leaders like Pauli Murray, James Lawson, Grace Lee Boggs, and the Reverend Dr. Prathia Hall, who had a dream before King did—and how they have exemplified this very truth. They tread on serpents of empire, racism, and violence while wrestling with their own internal battles.

This was not easy. It is not easy. It required courage—spiritual courage—and steadfast faith. James Lawson, one of the great architects of nonviolent resistance, reminds us that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands—where they stand, where she stands—in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he, she, they stand at the times of challenge and controversy.

To witness at the end of the world is to stand exactly in those times of challenge—when the serpents hiss close and when the shadows tempt to silence us.

Jesus gives us authority not to dominate but to survive, resist, and thrive with courage grounded in truth and love. Our witness demands that we do this—firm enough to confront injustice and inner shadows, gentle enough to heal ourselves and others in the process.

Beloved, what serpents are in your path? What shadows whisper that you’re not enough? Jesus calls us to walk through with authority, with courage, and with Spirit as our guide. This is the witness we are called to embody.

After all the joy, however, all the battle with serpents, and all the visions of spiritual shifts, Jesus grounds the seventy—and us—in a profound truth. Luke 10:20 says, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Our ultimate joy and deepest security do not come from power, success, or even the victory over the serpents. It comes from being known and held by God, from our names being written in heaven.

This, beloved, is the foundation for a courageous witnessing at the end of the world. It is rootedness in a kingdom that transcends empires and even the storms that rage in our bodies and souls. It is a grounding in divine love that holds us steady when all else shakes.

For me, it is this rootedness that keeps me going—especially when the world feels and is overwhelming, and my own body weary. It is the quiet certainty that I am held, named, and beloved beyond all circumstances.

Maybe for you it is a prayer practice that centers you. Maybe it is the memory of ancestors who carried this witness before you. “I’ll be a witness for my Jesus,” they said. Maybe it’s the vision of healing and justice that reminds you of what kingdom looks like—or the eight-year-old that slept on my shoulder as I wrote parts of this sermon.

Beloved, we witness at the end of the world—the world as we have known it—trembling and breaking. We witness in the shadow of wars—the war in Ukraine, the endless conflicts in the Middle East, the struggle for survival in Syria, where bombs fall and families flee.

We witness in the floods and fires—Texas waters rising, LA being on fire, just like Octavia told us it would be. Homes swallowed by hurricanes, forests burning across continents, climate crises unrelenting.

We witness in the fight for rights—the fierce battles over bodily autonomy, the ongoing struggle for Black and Indigenous and queer liberation, the protest against systemic racism and state violence.

We witness as the old empires fall and the old money resists. We witness—sometimes suddenly, sometimes in slow motion—and a new world struggles to be born.

In this trembling, and in this breaking, in this fear, and in this hope—we are called to witness.

We witness at the end of the world because of our embodied joy.
We witness at the end of the world because our vision is clear.
We witness at the end of the world because we can take on serpents.
And we witness at the end of the world because of the Kingdom—

The Kingdom that will come when this, and as, and while this world ends.

The world is ending, beloved.
The world is ending, beloved.
The world is ending, beloved.

And the Kingdom is coming.
The Kingdom of God is coming.
The Kingdom of God is near.
The Kingdom of God is here.

Will you be a witness?
Will you be a witness?
Will you be a witness?

Will you stand, and sit, and tread over the serpents?
We will live into the hope that naming our names in heaven promises.

The answer is yes.
Because the Spirit goes before us.
Because we have been given authority.
Because joy is ours to embody.
Because love never lets us go.

And because, beloved, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

May it be so.

Amen.

A New Kind of Prescription

Sermon preached by Rev. Wesley King on June 22, 2025

I invite you to imagine with me—and if that means closing your eyes, I invite you to do that as well.

Imagine that you are in the year, or somewhere around the year, 50 AD. That is when our text for today is believed to have been written and distributed—50 AD, somewhere around there.

You have heard about this miraculous guy named Jesus and the way that he did things that others could not, and the way that he stood up to empire but was also punished and killed for it. You are intrigued, but you're also cautious. After all, you are still occupied by Rome, based in ancient Galatia—now modern-day Turkey. You have olive to brown skin and you have these dark features.

Life is bleak, but also you don't know anything else.

You hear that this guy named Paul, who's this big deal in the Jesus movement, wrote this letter to your group of friends in Galatia, who also are very intrigued by this guy named Jesus.

So ladies, you put on your best cotton or wool dress and you begin getting ready. Fellas, you also put on something that looks like a cotton or wool dress—it is the year 50 AD, after all—but you look great, and you head to this house church to hear from this guy named Paul.

You get to this house church, and everyone's being cautious because the government isn't too keen on people speaking up and speaking out. I know it's getting really hard for you to imagine these things, but you walk inside and you stand against the back of this house. This guy walks up and begins reading these words from this Paul guy to your group:

"Before faith came, we were guarded under the law, locked up until faith that was coming would be revealed, so that the law became our custodian until Christ, so that we might be made righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian. You are all God's children through faith in Christ Jesus. You all who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

You are astonished, but also shocked by this message. Perhaps you are Jewish, and you've always heard things about those people who are Gentiles. What do you mean that we are somehow the same? Or maybe it was the other way around. Perhaps you are a free person, and now you hear that you are somehow the same as someone who is not free, and you don't understand how this could be. Or maybe you're a woman, and for the first time it enters your brain that perhaps you could be equal with the sex that has all of the power in society.

These words, depending on who you are in this imaginative story, could be empowering, could be disturbing, could be confusing, could be exciting, or even bewildering.

And who is this person that is bringing us together—this person that sees us beyond these earthly labels and sees us as one?

If your eyes are still closed, I invite you to open them now, bringing yourself back to 2025, in which some things have changed drastically and some things have not.

This week, I spent time at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., attending the Center on Faith and Justice Summer Academy. And I got the full dorm experience that I never got when I was in undergrad—nor did I ever want.

I've been sleeping on a twin bed all week on a mattress—if you can call it that—living in a dorm that is musty and either too hot or too cold. I also didn't have any utensils to eat with in the dorm, so I'll give you an image. One night I had ordered takeout pad thai, and I'm sitting there in my bed, eating pad thai with my hands. It was not pretty. But it's the things that we do for the work.

Nevertheless, I was joined by people and faith leaders from all over the world—from the U.S., from Singapore, from South Korea and South Africa. Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and others. We were of different races and ethnicities. We had different grasps on the English language. We had different theology and different theological language.

And here I was, mulling over this text all week and seeing it lived out in real life. The labels that we gave ourselves—or that others gave us—did not matter, because we were all there to work for justice, specifically in the name of Jesus.

The executive director of the Center on Faith and Justice is a person by the name of Reverend Jim Wallace. Some of you might know who that is—you might be familiar with his work. He's a writer, a teacher, a preacher, and a justice advocate who believes that the gospel of Jesus must be emancipated from its cultural and political captivities.

I'm going to read that again because I feel like that's important: The gospel of Jesus must be emancipated from its cultural and political captivities.

Reverend Jim Wallace is a New York Times bestselling author, a public theologian, a preacher, and a commentator on ethics and public life.

At one point, Jim found out that myself and one other friend from the group were Disciples ministers, and he tells the groups, "These folks are part of the Disciples of Christ. They aren't Methodist. They aren't Presbyterian. They are Disciples of Christ." Sounds like a lot to live up to, doesn't it?

And he was obviously joking. But it did lead to a lot of conversations about who the Disciples are and why we call ourselves that. And since we have a couple of new faces in the room, I thought that it might be good to share a little bit with you this morning, too, in case you're not familiar.

Coming out of the Second Great Awakening, our founders Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone sought to return us to the early church, dropping labels like Baptist or Presbyterian and choosing to just call ourselves Christians or Disciples—thus the name of our very long denominational name: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Now, that information alone will not get you an A on any Disciples history and polity class—but it is a start.

And perhaps you're starting to see how this is fitting into our text for today.

Our text is a wonderful glimpse into what the kingdom of God—or, as some people call it, the kin-dom of God—can be. And I'm sure that we've probably heard this text before, either from Galatians or from one of Paul's other letters. But today, I want to challenge you to think a little bit beyond this text.

Going back to our little imaginative story—imagine that you hear this letter from this guy named Paul, but then at some point you have to go home.

You, a woman, go back into a world in which you must depend greatly on a man—a husband or male figure—for safety and financial security and shelter.

Imagine that you, a slave, must go back into the world in which you are not the same as a free person. You must go back into the context in which you are indentured or owned.

Imagine that you are a Jew or a Gentile, and you must go back into a world that hyper-focuses on you based on where you're from, what you faithfully practice, or where you were just born to be.

These words shared by this man named Paul were nice in that moment, but they also felt distant and disillusioned. They felt delusional.

But also, as you go about your week, you continue to think about this man named Jesus, who is bringing people together—creating a world in which you aren't enslaved or treated differently because of your gender, or your status in society, or your religious beliefs, or where you were born.

You know that this world he is creating is not your current reality.

But what if it were?

How do we make this so?

How do I hear more?

I've got to go back and see if he's written any more letters to our group.

In the meantime, this dream that Paul shared of a world in which all people will be one in Christ—it sustains you. It encourages you. And it empowers you.

When Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech "I Have a Dream" in 1963, he likely knew that he wouldn't live to see that dream fully realized. In fact, he was assassinated just five years after that speech.

And so, he never saw people of color rise and ascend to the highest offices in our land. He never saw that in large part, our schools are fully integrated, and that everyone has a protected right to vote.

Now, racism and systemic issues are still very prevalent in our world. But I think we can all agree that some progress has been made. And it was Dr. King's understanding of biblical text that allowed him to dream a better world and a better nation than the one that he had experienced.

Dr. King also said that we have guided missiles but misguided men. But that's for another sermon.

So what if this image of the kingdom of God found in Galatians isn't a description, but instead is a prescription for the kingdom of God—something that we must continuously work towards?

In our text today, Paul begins with this key component: that the law was our custodian. He writes, "Before faith came, we were guarded under the law, locked up until faith that was coming would be revealed, so that the law became our custodian until Christ, so that we might be made righteous by faith."

He's saying that Christ is our custodian. Now, the NRSV calls it our disciplinarian.

This means that, above all else, we are accountable to Christ.

Now, I'm not saying to hit 80 on two wheels when you leave the parking lot today because "Christ is my custodian, officer" will not get you out of a ticket.

But what I'm saying is that in realizing the kingdom of God, we are held accountable to Christ above all else.

Remember, Dr. King was a lawbreaker. He protested. He loitered. He disobeyed the police. He obstructed roadways. And he was arrested for it. And he eventually was killed for it.

Jesus was a lawbreaker. The law said to rest on the Sabbath—and he chose to heal on the Sabbath and break the law. The law said to stone those who were caught in adultery—but Jesus broke it by stopping them and asking, "Who is here without sin?" He broke the law. He was arrested. And he was killed for it.

But in doing so, he laid out a way of living that is higher than any human-made law. He laid out an example of living in which we are all held accountable to him—and him only—that we might be made righteous, as Paul said.

That person in our fictional story would have understood the clear injustices of their time. But whereas society told them that men and women had different rights and privileges, Jesus said, "Nope, they are the same."

Whereas society said that Jews and Gentiles had irreconcilable differences, Jesus said they are more alike than they even begin to understand.

Whereas society said that all people are indentured or owned, Jesus said, "No, you are all equal in my name."

And a lot has not changed, right?

In our day and age, when we hear society say that human beings are somehow legal or illegal, we know that Jesus says that cannot be. We are all children of God.

When we hear society say that these people are worthy and these people are not, we know that Jesus says that cannot be. We are all children of God.

When we hear society say that these people are valuable, but these people are not, we know that Jesus says that cannot be. We are all children of the same God.

But we can't just say it—we have to make it so.

I don't have to tell you that even as we read these beautiful words by Paul today, we still have injustices—based on our gender, or our status in society, or based on the identities, based on who we are, where we're from, who we love, and the list goes on and on.

But we aren't here to just do church as a hobby on Sunday. We have been called to bring the kingdom of God down to earth. To do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. To bring this vision that Paul had to fruition in whatever way we can—because we belong to each other.

So I ask the group today: Are we prepared to bring the kingdom of God to earth? "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

My colleagues this week sure seemed prepared.

One couple was from South Africa, as I mentioned, and they shared how they had personally been beaten by the police and counterprotesters while protesting the apartheid in South Africa.

One colleague from Singapore—she was actually preparing to leave to go to Cambodia a little bit later this year as a missionary. She had been trained as a family physician and was taking her overt skills as a medical doctor to help the people of Cambodia—and was taking her covert skills to help them organize for justice in a country where even questioning authority or critiquing the government can get you jailed or even killed.

They are prepared to do what is necessary to ensure that in Christ, there is no male or female, there is no Jew nor Gentile, nor slave nor free—but that we are all one.

And if they can make these grave sacrifices, surely we can do something, right?

Surely we can speak up when something is happening to our neighbors—for Jesus says that we are the same.

Surely we can call our legislators when they are planning to cut Medicaid, which is something that 71 million Americans depend on—1.44 million Tennesseans, by the way. Or SNAP benefits, on which 42 million Americans depend—700,000 here in Tennessee. That's the size of the city of Nashville.

If they are willing to lay down their lives, quite literally, for the gospel—surely we can do something.

And I know it's so easy to feel alone. In fact, following the COVID-19 pandemic, we entered into what the CDC called a loneliness epidemic.

But friends, I'm here to remind you that we are never alone. We are never alone because God is with us. And even if we feel alone, I guarantee you that we all feel alone together.

I leave you with this poem by Rosemary Watola Traumer titled “Belonging.” I hope that these words speak to you. They are a secular poem, but I believe within the deepest part of my being that these are sacred words:

And if it's true that we are alone, we are alone together.
The way blades of grass are alone but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it—
The green fuse that ignites us,
The warm thrum that unites us,
The inner hum that reminds us of our shared humanity.
Just as 35 trillion red blood cells make up one body of blood,
Just as 136,000 notes make up one symphony,
Alone as we are,
Our small voices weave into one big conversation.
Our actions are essential to the one infinite story of what it is to be alive.
And when we feel alone,
We belong to the grand communion of those who sometimes also feel alone.
We are the dust—
The dust that hopes.
A rising of dust.
A thrill of dust.
The dust that dances in the light with all other dust—
The dust that makes the world.

Are we prepared to do the kingdom work here on earth?

I believe that we are.

So may it be so—but also may we make it so, with our loving and our living.

Amen.

Not Anymore

Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on June 15, 2025

Let's have a little fun, shall we? How many of you have read the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert? So, this is a book about an author who had just gone through a really nasty divorce, and she decided to go on a pilgrimage, let's call it, and she wanted to spend four months in Italy, four months in India, and four months in Indonesia. She wanted to go to Italy to experience the pleasure of food. And she wanted to go to India to an ashram to find God. And she wanted to go to Indonesia to achieve balance before coming back to the States with this renewed travel.

So she—I'm going to skip over Italy. She ate a bunch of spaghetti, right? Okay. So, she's full from her experience in Italy and she goes to India, and she shows up. Do y’all hear this? Is it annoying? Okay. Can I just take this off for now? Okay. Better. Okay. Okay. She just ate spaghetti. All right. She goes to India and she gets to the ashram and she's very excited about what's going to happen there, and she was sort of hoping for what she says is a dazzling encounter with God. Maybe something like blue lightning or prophetic vision.

She describes how she had been talking too much all of her life—cannot relate—and she didn't want to waste this great spiritual opportunity by being really social and chatty all the time. She says she hoped to become known as that quiet girl. She showed up and after a few days, the ashram gives everyone a role while they're staying there in residency. Maybe she hoped she could have a role in the garden, growing beautiful plants and picking fresh vegetables. Maybe she could be in the kitchen baking bread and, um, reveling in the wafting scent of that experience. Maybe she could do maintenance and just find holiness in sweeping and mopping. Or maybe she could be the quiet administrator answering emails behind the scenes.

But she gets to the desk of the staff member in charge of the roles, and the staff member looks at her and says, "We would like for you to be the key hostess. You will talk to and greet every single person who enters the ashram during their time on this retreat. You will be the holy conversationalist." Meaning she was going to have to talk a lot more.

And I always think about this story. It makes me laugh because despite Liz's best efforts to perform a task that was so different from her nature, she is thrown right into a role that suits her gifts. And she is quite literally called to speak.

I know y'all have heard this passage before—Jeremiah's call story. God is in need of a prophetic voice once again in the midst of loss and war and exile. And God picks a very young boy, perhaps about 10 years old, named Jeremiah to be that voice. The word of God comes to him, and Jeremiah is really reluctant to have anything to do with this whole being the divine orator for God thing.

So, in what I imagine is a really tender and parental way of delivering this news, maybe God kneels down and gets down to Jeremiah's level and looks him in the eyes and says, "Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet of the nations." I just think God reveals so much to us in that really personal and intimate moment—that we are known personally and intrinsically by God. God who is and has been always forming us.

But to be appointed as a prophet of the nations—no pressure.

Jeremiah's response is a familiar one because it's the same response as Moses and Isaiah and Jonah—particularly Jonah, who waited in a whale for three days before deciding to pray and answer God's call. He resists it. He says, "Ah, God, truly I don't know how to speak, for I am only a boy. I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

How many of us have voiced these same fears?
I do not know how to, for I am only...
I do not know how to join the choir, for I'm only an okay singer. But do you take okay singers? Yeah, TJ's going, "Come on."
I do not know how to teach Sunday school, for I am only learning some of this stuff myself.
I do not know how to preach in church, for I am only a youth.
I do not know how to be an elder, for I'm only good at praying when I'm by myself.
I do not know how to march in a protest, for I am only one person. I am only just becoming aware of certain social issues.
I only have one hour.
I only think I should stay home and advocate for folks there.
I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.

Don't say that.
God responds, "Don't say that. Don't say that you are only this or that. You shall go to whom I send you. You shall speak to whom I command you. Don't be afraid of them, for I am with you. I will deliver you."

The word of the Lord isn't just heard by Jeremiah. It happens to him. God happens to Jeremiah in this event, this moment. Jeremiah doesn't choose God. God chooses Jeremiah. And not once has Jeremiah proved that he is qualified for this role, but God decided that he is. And God knows Jeremiah well enough to know that he's probably going to do everything in his power to resist. But God is a God who doesn't let Jeremiah slip away and go unnoticed. God has his back.

"I will send you where you need to go," God says. "I'll help you speak up even when your voice shakes. I will be with you, Jeremiah. You don't have to do this alone." Which is a good thing because God basically calls Jeremiah to be a holy nuisance, a constant annoyance, a weeping prophet who begs the people to see the injustice around them and do something about it.

And people mocked him. And people laughed at him. They didn't want to hear from him. He even tried to remain silent in Jeremiah 20, which I'll read in a second. He tried to give up speaking, just like Liz did at the ashram. He says, "If I say I will not mention God or speak any more of God's name, if I try to be silent, there is this burning fire within me shut up in my bones, and I'm weary from holding it in, and I can't."

The spirit of God is so strong in Jeremiah that when he tries to silence his calling, he feels like there is a fire in his bones that he cannot shut down—that is waiting to breathe out of him. That the word of the Lord has chosen Jeremiah's lips to be anointed.

Have you ever experienced that, church? Trying to resist what God is so clearly calling you to do? Trying to be the quiet girl at the monastery when God is calling you to be the key hostess?

Now, I don't want y'all to think that we all need to go out and be a public speaker, but I deeply believe that every single one of us has gifts and each of us has a calling based on those gifts. Whether it's sports or art or cheer or organizing or teaching or marketing or parenting—and it's not so much what our calling is but what we are going to do once we have said yes to God.

Amen?

Will we quiet it down or will we let that fire burn?

"I can't, for I am only..."
That's not going to cut it, folks. Not now. Not now.

We have to move beyond our hesitations and reservations and listen for God's affirmation of our unique callings in this world.

We don't need to read these prophets as biblical superheroes. Jeremiah, as James Calvin Davis wrote, was the everyman's prophet. He showed that fear and anxiety and resistance and inadequacy and even resentment toward God are understandable reactions to the call to represent God in the world. And these feelings don't disqualify us from serving God's intentions. In fact, I think they make us a little more human, a little more relatable in our serving.

Church, I'm looking at a bunch of everyman's and every woman's prophets. Not superheroes, but people who are called by God.

And I'm wondering what happens when we just ditch the "I can'ts" and the "I'm onlys" for "I must" and "I definitely."

Jack read what happens after Jeremiah heeded the call in chapter 7. He stood outside of the temple of the church and he spoke of God's judgment—not because there was corruption necessarily happening in the temple, but—and I want y'all to listen here—because the temple was a place to hide after people had been corrupt in the public sphere, in public policy.

And Jeremiah says this from right outside of the gates to the temple. So he is on the outskirts of this group, both physically and socially. He says:

"If you want to amend your ways and your doings, you've got to truly act justly with one another. If you do not oppress the alien, if you do not oppress the orphan and the widow and shed innocent blood in this place, if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors forever and ever.

And here you are," Jeremiah says through God, "trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely and make offerings to Baal and go after other gods that you don't even know and then come and stand before me in my house?

You'll feel that parenting coming through.
"Come and stand before me in my house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We're safe,’ only then to go out and do more abominations. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers to you?"

Who else talks about that?
It's the answer to every Sunday school question.
Jesus. Woo. Y'all better wake up.
"I am watching," says the Lord.

Strong, prophetic, bold words are spoken by the boy Jeremiah—words that convict me. Words that make me question what I am hiding from when I come here. What I am saying when I'm out there that I'm not willing to confront. And yet he threw away his "can'ts" and his "onlys" to preach a message of justice and fairness—particularly for the most vulnerable in his community—in the name of the Lord.

He couldn't. He was only a boy.
Not anymore.
We can't. We're only a small church in a southern city showing up, doing what we can.
Not anymore.

The Future of the Church...

Preached by Rev. Wesley King on June 8, 2025

Well, good morning, church.

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

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

Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, let’s get back to the text.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have the ability to change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

Thank you, church.

The Gospel According to John Lewis

Preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on June 1, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul and Silas participated in that kind of trouble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are all here.

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

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

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

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

One washing… and then another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s join.

Final Remarks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So now, let me try this again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s where we are.

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

We need to see that light.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May it be so for all of us.
Amen.

A Witness of With-ness

Margie Quinn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You picking up what I’m putting down?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, thanks be to God. Amen.

The long apprenticeship

Thomas Kleinert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[2] Exodus 3:1-12

[3] 1 Samuel 16:1-13

[4] Jeremiah 10:21

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

[6] Genesis 26:24

[7] Exodus 3:12

[8] Deuteronomy 31:8

[9] Isaiah 43:5

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

[11] Ezekiel 34:16, 28

[12] John 10:10

[13] John 21:15-17

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

Tangible new life

Thomas Kleinert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] John 14:27

[2] Ezekiel 37:1-14