"God is Powerful" a sermon on John 6 6:22-59

Paraphrase of John 6:22-59
John 6:16-21
“God is Powerful”
Preached Sunday, August 9, 2026

God is Powerful.

This is the second week of our sermon series, “God is…” based on the book “Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Need to Heal From” by Meredith Miller. In the book she pictures faith as a web that is woven together - and webs have anchor strands. These 6 anchor strands are what a child, or any person, needs to know about God first in order for them to know God, trust God, and have a lifelong relationship with God. These six anchor strands make up the topics of this sermon series over our six weeks. They are: God is Good (that was last week), God is Powerful (today), God is Just, God if Joyful, God is With Us, Jesus is Lord. And I’ll admit to you, out of these six weeks - today’s theme is the one I struggle with the most. I think a lot of us struggle with “God is Powerful.”

Inherent in this struggle is what we as theologians call theodicy - that is “the problem of pain.” If God is all Good, all loving, all powerful - how can there be so much pain and suffering in this world? Many, many theologians and just every day followers of God have attempted to answer this question in various ways. In his book, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People,” Rabbi Harold Kushner wrestles with the problem of pain and concludes that while God is all Good, God’s power is limited by the constraints of creation. Pastor Ben Patterson proposes that God’s power is tied to other attributes of God which shape how God exercises power. He says, “There is God’s power: Can God do what is best? God’s wisdom: Does God really know what is best? And God’s love: Does God care? Does God really want what is best? God’s power, God’s wisdom, and God’s love are infinite.” In other words, God’s power is tied to a wisdom and a love that are also beyond our understanding.

I think another way to approach the question theodicy as it relates to God’s power, is - do we inherently misunderstand what power, especially God’s power, is? Human power is used to control others. Human power is used to get one’s way. Human power is used to do what one wants, without consequences or repercussions, or without taking into account those with less power.

Human power and God power are not the same. For God’s Power IS connected to God’s perfect Goodness and Love and in Goodness and Love there is no control. God does not control us. This has always been really important to me in my understanding of God. In seminary, I spent a semester doing an internship with a domestic violence advocacy center. People, mostly women but men too, could come to us and get help filing an order of protection or get resources in the trauma-informed space within the court house while they waited for their case to be heard. Often, they would look at us and ask some form of, “What should I do?” And often, every fiber in my being wanted to yell “LEAVE HIM!” I wanted to tell the person in front of me exactly what to do - but early on, the person who trained me told me, “And how does that make you any different from their abuser who controls their every move and tells them exactly what they can and cannot do?” An act of love is offering free will, it’s offering a choice. Love is not about control.

A hallmark of Wesleyan, that is United Methodist, theology, is free will. As humans, we are completely free to make decisions without being coerced by God. We can accept - and even reject, God’s love and grace - out of our own free will. Often, the rejection of God’s love and grace and the freedom to exercise our own power, causes suffering in this world - for ourselves and for others. And yet, it was our choice.

God’s power cannot equal God’s total control over all of our choices and their consequences, because that would cancel out God’s Goodness and Love.

What if we came to view God’s power not as about control but in light of my favorite passage of Scripture from Romans 8:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God is Powerful - meaning that there is no power, no other source of power, that could ever separate us from God. This is, perhaps, the most apt answer I have found to the question of theodicy - to be clear, I am not sure the problem of pain and suffering can ever have a completely satisfactory answer in this life - but this is where my theology and my relationship with God goes - God is powerful and that means that no hardship in this life, no force of power, no evil, nothing - can separate me from God. God is always with me. Even in, and especially in, pain and grief. God cries with the suffering. God cries with us - God wipes away our tears - and nothing could ever remove God from our sides.

This realization that God’s power is about always being with us also should bring us to the realization that we should stop trying to use God.

Another reason we may struggle with God’s power is that, when we are suffering, or when someone we love is suffering, we pray to God for a very specific outcome or intervention and then get upset with God when our prayers are not answered. This kind of relationship with God treats God as a magic genie or a vending machine. If we ask, rub the lamp, pray, our wish will be granted. If we just punch in the right numbers and feed in the correct amount of money, we get what we want. If we just pray right, ask right, live “right” as a Christian - then surely God will answer our prayers…

This is a diminishment of God that hurts our relationship with God - and yet, it may be the logical conclusion that stories we tell and hear when we are children about God’s power leads us to.

God parts the Red Sea! Wow!
God feeds manna in the desert! Wow!
Jesus walks on water! Wow!
Jesus multiples the bread and fishes! Wow!

Children’s Bibles are full of miracle stories, the awesome powers of God, because wow is a great place for children! But for children, and adults, we cannot simply stop at the wow.

Meredith Miller says, “If we stop at wow, it only makes sense that misconceptions about God and God’s power take root…God may become a genie (and prayer is the way we rub the lamp). Kids will come to see the purpose of God’s power as happiness insurance and crisis prevention. The purpose of knowing the powerful God is to access God when you need help...Therapeutic deism imagines a far-off god whose purpose is primarily to make our lives better, happier, more comfortable, or less tragic. When our conversations with kids about God’s power stops at wow, we play into this particular misunderstanding of God.”

End quote.

Stopping at the wow could also turn God into a superhero. Superheroes have power and as Uncle Ben told Spiderman, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” And so superheroes must use their power to intervene in the lives of normal folk and save the day. When God becomes a superhero, what happens to a person’s faith when God doesn’t swoop in and save the day? It often damages it immensely.

God as a genie or a superhero are actually about us using prayer to control God. And God cannot be controlled by any power - including ours.

No, every time God performs a Wow! Miracle in the Bible - it is not just to awe, it is for a purpose to reveal who God is so that the people of God can better know God. I am going to say that point again: Every time God performs a Wow! Miracle in the Bible - it is not just to awe, it is for a purpose to reveal who God is so that the people of God can better know God.

In other words, God never uses God’s power of miracles so that people will be awed and obey God. God never uses God’s power of miracles so that people will be awed and be in God’s control. God’s power has nothing to do with obedience and control. In Scripture, whenever God shows God’s power through miracles, there is always a reason - mostly so that people would know the kind of God that God is, trust God, and enter into a relationship with God.

God parts the Red Sea - so that they would know that God has power over chaos, over nature, and values freedom from slavery and oppression for all God’s people.
God provides manna in the desert so that the people of God would trust that God is a God who cares for their bodies and is a God of abundance, even in the desert.
Jesus walks on water - harkening back to the parting of the Red Sea, and just as Jesus calls out “It is I” - echoing - I AM - the answer from the burning bush in Exodus. So that people would know that Jesus is the God of Scripture and the God of comfort in our fears.
And Jesus multiples the loaves and fishes - just as in the giving of manna, it shows that our God is a God of abundance, a God who cares for our physical bodies - it also shows us God’s power as an invitation.

An invitation to partner with Jesus - like the boy came and gave his lunch - so that our actions, partnered with the power of God, may do more Good than we could ever imagine.
An invitation to come to Jesus and be filled - not necessarily always with bread, but with a loving and Good relationship.
An invitation to know who our God in Jesus is, an invitation into a relationship with Jesus.
God wanted a relationship with the people of Israel.
Jesus wanted a relationship with the crowds.
Our God wants a relationship with us, with you and me.

This relationship with Jesus is not a controlling one. It is not one where God uses God’s power to control us, to force us into obedience. It is not a relationship where we try to use prayer as a coercive form to get God to use God’s power for our will. It is instead a relationship of trust in God’s power, that no matter what we are going through in this life - no matter what storms rage in the sea of our lives, no matter how our stomachs growl, or how hungry our souls are… To trust that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation - will ever have the power to separate us from God’s love, God’s Goodness, the power of God’s presence in our lives.

And so, God exercises God’s power to always be with us and to extend an invitation for us to know the God of all creation - how do we respond? How do we come to better know the person of God?

We lean into our relationship with God in many ways - today I would like to suggest prayer. And not prayer that is focused entirely on asking God for what we want, like a genie or a vending machine, but prayer that opens the invitation for God to show God’s self to us. Prayer that invites God’s power into our lives and the lives of those we love without demands or control. Prayer that talks to God, that opens up a constant conversation with the God of the Universe who has used God’s power over and over again to extend an invitation to us, to me, to you - for us to know God.

Talk to God about things you are thankful for, for things you are awed by. Talk to God about what makes you scared or worried. Talk to God about the people in your life who are scared or worried.

Prayer isn’t always talking - prayer can be art, drawing, meditating, breathing.

Pray with your breath, paying attention to it, and attuning yourself to God’s constant presence with you as your breath is always with you. You can let your very breath be your prayer. This is a form of prayer that I find works for me to help connect me with God’s presence. I pray as I breathe in and out. Something like this:

“Inhale:You are with me.

Exhale: I am not alone.”

Let your prayer be a relationship with God - a relationship that is removed from control. A relationship that isn’t constant asks or expectations about how one will act. Healthy relationships consist of many types of conversations - think of all the things you would talk about with a trustworthy, loving friend, and enter into prayer with God. This is not about having the right words. This is not about asking in just the right away. This is not about quick-fixes or even fixes at all. This is about being in relationship with the God who has the power to be with us and remain with us and love us - in all scenarios.

I’ll end with sharing one story about a mom and her son, Riley, who had nightmares. This mom wanted to pray that her young son’s nightmares would stop…she also didn’t think her kid’s nightmares would really stop. How could she pray for her son in the middle of the night in a way that would comfort him and draw him closer to God? And so she prayed: “God, we know you care that Riley is having bad dreams, and we are asking You to help. We want You to give him good sleep, with only good dreams. But even if they happen again, help him know You are here and he is not alone. Help him know You are bigger than the scary dreams, that You are with him and You love him. Amen.”

And so here is my prayer for us all today:

God, we know you care for us.
And yes, we do often ask for your help.
And whether that help comes or not, may we know that we are never alone.
May we know that you are always with us.
May we know that you are bigger and more powerful than all our fears and struggles.
May we be in relationship with you so that your power would draw us closer to your love.
Amen.

"God is Good" a sermon on Genesis 1 & 2

Genesis 1 & 2 (Paraphrase from "Woven" by Meredith Miller)
Mark 10:17-18
“God is Good”
Preached Sunday, August 2, 2026 

I want to start my sermon today with a little call and response test. If you grew up in a church, or went to church camp, or perhaps have even just been around the church for a long time, you probably know it. If not, that’s okay too…

So I say:
God is Good - and you say? (all the time)
All the time (God is Good)

God is Good.

First, before I talk about God being Good, I’d like to give some background information on this sermon series we are starting today. This series is called “God is…” It was inspired by the book “Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From” by Meredith Miller. In the book she pictures faith as a web that is woven together - and webs have anchor strands. These 6 anchor strands are what a child, or any person, needs to know about God first in order for them to know God, trust God, and have a lifelong relationship with God.

And, the most important one is this first one - God is Good.
If we don’t believe God is Good, then we cannot trust and know God.

And I am going to start by saying - I think a lot of us actually struggle with this one. Sometimes I even catch myself wondering - do I really believe and act like I trust that God is Good? Goodness is the reason that God does anything. One of the defining characteristics of John Wesley’s theology, John was the founder of the Methodist movement, is the "Sovereignty of God’s Love.” John Wesley said God cannot act outside of God’s Love. That Love is the throne that God sits upon and Love is the crown upon God’s head. This was an argument against pre-destination for if God pre-destined those who would be saved then it is inherently implied that God would pre-destination some humans for damnation. That some people would be created to be beyond the reach of God’s love and grace. And that is so antithetical to a God who is Good. I am not saying that because God is Good that only good things will happen to us in our lives. I am not saying that nothing bad will ever happen to those who believe in God. It is obvious in our world that this is not the case. What I am saying is, if it is not Good, then it is not of God. And in those, not Good things, the God who is Good still acts towards us and all creation out of Goodness - despite that which is not Good.

God cannot act outside of God’s Love, God’s Goodness. Miller says “God is Good because God is love, and God is love because God is Good.”

God created the world out of Goodness. God listens to us out of Goodness. God loves us out of Goodness. God provides out of Goodness. God forgives out of Goodness. The problem that we struggle with in God’s Goodness, is that we often have an image of Zeus as our God - not a Good God but a god that delights in smiting and punishment. A God who has faults, a God who toys in the lives of humans, who falls back on violence and bloodshed. This is not our God - our God is Goodness and Love of itself. A lot of us hold views about God, that when held up to the Goodness and Love of God, don’t hold up. And often, instead of modeling our theology around God’s Goodness, we model God to look more like ourselves - more like our faults, quicker to anger, quicker to judge and condemn, quicker to violence.

So I want each and every one of us to hear this today:

God is Good.

God existed before creation and therefore, Goodness was present before creation. And Goodness will exist beyond the end of the ages, beyond time and space, in the eternal presence of our Good, Good God.

Today I read a paraphrase of the creation story to you - this paraphrase was written to emphasize one of the primary themes of our creation narrative - our God is Good. Many creation narratives in the Ancient Near East start with gods at war with one another. In Mesopotamia there was the story of Tiamat, a goddess of chaos and of the sea, and Marduk, a storm god fighting with one another. In the fight, Tiamat’s body is split in two, creating the heavens and the earth. In this narrative, that would have been known by the people of God, the Hebrew people, who orally passed on the creation narrative in Genesis, the world was created out of violence and death. So the people of God told a different kind of story for a different kind of God. The creation of the world was not brought upon by violence, fighting, and strength. The creation of the world came from Divine Creativity. From speaking into being. And from Goodness. Genesis emphasizes the goodness of creation by declaring each thing created as good because a Good God could not create anything that was not Good.

God is Good - and so our Bible starts with a story of God’s innate Goodness. God ordered chaos, gave life, gave to us - humanity - you and me and all people - the very image of God, marked upon our souls at Creation, a God who delights in creation, and a God who rests and gives to us the gift of rest. Everything that comes from our creation narrative tells us that God is Good. The story of our faith, our collective and individual faith needs to start there, if we don’t know and trust that God is Good then we cannot know and trust who our God is.

And yet, as I said - many of us struggle with knowing and trusting that God is Good. And knowing that God is Good is not just a head-brain thing. And it’s not even entirely just a heart-soul thing. It is a lived into thing. In any relationship, we can work on it. We can lean into it. This might mean practicing better communication with a spouse, showing up for lunch with a friend even when you don’t always want to, setting aside another task to give your full attention to a beloved child in your life… Likewise, we can do things, we can choose actions that will help us lean into knowing the Goodness of God. I am going to suggest several Spiritual practices but this is not a one size fits all and this is not a one person must do all. Because while God is Good - I don’t want this to just be a general thing for you. I want each and every one of you to know specifically, in your head, in your heart, and in your lived body - I want you to know the specificness of God’s Goodness that God is specifically God towards you.

One spiritual practice that may help anchor us to God’s Goodness is creation care. God created this good world and then asked us, who God called very good, to steward it. For those who are gardeners, they will often share that tending a garden is a spiritual act. To plant and to weed to to harvest - hopefully get to harvest - for there is a lot that can go sideways with gardening - or even to grow flowers - not to harvest but to appreciate the beauty. As we tend to the plants, admire the beauty of the flowers, and even eat and taste the fruit, we can be reminded of this good world that our Good God made. Creation care, of course, isn’t just gardening. It may be picking up litter on a walk, composting or making eco-friendly decisions, or even just learning about this world that God made - and learning about those fellow beloved humans of God that God gave the gifts to help conserve, protect, and even repair our planet. Caring for creation - and also delighting in it. Marveling at a beautiful sunrise or sunset. Appreciating the beauty of a mountain. Letting the beauty of a seashore wash over you. In a recent email, I asked members of our Administrative Council to share Good News with me! I asked, “where do you see the Gospel, that is literally, Good News, in your lives?” One church member replied: “Nature. Although it can cause damage and destruction, I love the change of seasons in [Northeast] Ohio, sometimes hourly. I love living near Lake Erie in the summer...the beaches and waves, lapping or crashing. Sunsets, sunrises, watching the eagles who live nearby. Also the hummingbirds, woodpeckers, and resident robin we named Ruby. Looking for beachglass, a treasure more valuable than diamonds. Well, almost, made by man, but tumbled and frosted by nature.” She may not have known it at the time but she was describing ways that she lives into knowing God’s Goodness - God’s specific Goodness for her. A bird watched so much that it’s named. A piece of glass, washed up on the beach, like a tiny fragment reminding us of God’s Goodness.

Another spiritual practice that may anchor us to God’s Goodness is to be intentional about speaking life-giving words. Miller says, “As we speak to our children in life-giving ways, they internalize messages that align with who God made them to be, reinforcing the truth that they are made with care and deeply loved.” This is so vital with children but I also think it is vital for all of us. All the words that come out of our mouths can reflect back to others who they think God is. This is a sobering truth. As Jesus said, it is not about what goes in the mouth that defiles but that which comes out of it. So for many of us, we may need to stop the flow of words that are not life-giving but may even be death-giving. Words of judgement or condemnation. Words of negativity. Words that inflict pain rather than lift up. One way I practice the ritual of life-giving words is every night before bed I tell my youngest child that I love her, her dad loves her, her sister loves her, and God loves her. Before she has any concept of God or love - I can use my words to begin sharing God’s goodness and love with her. Other ways to use words of love include calling people by the names they wish to be called by, praying for others outloud, regularly offering apologies - and words and acts of reparations - when we mess up. And above all, simply letting God’s Goodness fall out of our mouths in our words to others - and perhaps even to ourselves. We can say to ourselves everyday, “I am loved by God.”

Still another Spiritual practice of God’s Goodness is taking Sabbath rest. I will say a little more about Sabbath in other weeks, but know simply this: God is Good and created you and called us very good, without us having to prove a single thing. God does not love you based on your productivity or output. God does not love you based on how full your calendar is. Because God is Good - you are simply loved. Intentional sabbath and rest does not come naturally to us, especially in this day and age, but taking time off (and planning well so that we can take time off) to simply BE and to rest in the God who is Good is in and of itself Good.

And lastly, I would like to invite you to experience God’s Goodness in the sacrament of Holy Communion today. Psalm 34:8 says “Taste and see that the Lord is Good!” God came to us and took on flesh in Jesus because God is Good. Because we are loved by God. God gave us this sacrament, because God is Good. Because God knows us and knows that we need ways to tangibly and physically connect with God. And so as the bread and juice hits your tongue, take a moment, taste and see that God is Good.

I pray that each and every one of us would come to know the Goodness of God. That we would know and trust that our God is a Good, Good God. And so I will leave you with these questions to reflect on - how has God been good to you in your life, specifically? And what helps you experience God’s goodness in your life? How do you lean into, practice, and know God’s Goodness?

God is Good (all the time),
All the time (God is Good).

Amen.

"What Is Your Pearl?" a sermon on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46

“What Is Your Pearl?”
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46
Preached Sunday, July 26, 2026

One of the games from the New York Times app is “Connections.” I know I have talked with some of you that you play this game - anyone here play it? Now me? I am a big Wordle fan. I do that daily…but Connections? I’m awful at it and so I don’t do it regularly. For those of you not familiar with the game, there are 16 words that you have to sort into four groups of four. You have to figure out what words are connected without knowing the category beforehand. I find it very tricky because - you may think four words are connected but it’s not the category the game used to sort them. There are also four levels of difficulty within the four categories - so the day I went to go do this the categories in rising difficulty were Spherical Things, In An Anxious State, Parts of an Airport, and Ending in Geometry Terms. I…did not get a single category right in the allotted amount of guesses. I’m just no good at it.

But I bring this all up with you to you because I feel like today’s Gospel reading is like a Connections category: Seed, Yeast, Treasure, Pearls. What could possibly be the category that binds these things together? It would be - parables from the 13th chapter of Matthew. We got parable dumped on in this Gospel reading today - and it’s not even all the parables that Jesus offers in this chapter of Scripture!

So this week, I am not going to go in the order that the Scripture goes, but I am going to attempt to bring these four parables together into a category. Each of these parables has rich meaning and interpretation when considered on their own. And - how do they speak to us when grouped together like this?

We’ll start with the treasure in the field and the pearl of great value because those two things make sense together in my mind. A person, upon finding something of great value to them, gives up everything else in pursuit of this treasure or pearl. Now in the parable of the pearl this man is described as a merchant seeking pearls. But upon finding THE most beautiful pearl, singular, he sells everything to buy it. Not just his wares - but all he has. In essence, he impoverishes himself completely for one item. Now, what IS this pearl? Commentators throughout time have called it many things. It’s sacrifice, it’s knowledge, it’s detachment from money or this or that...but my question to you today is not what is this pearl in the story, but what is YOUR pearl?

For this man, he found something beautiful, an item hitherto unknown to him that became all consuming. He found one thing that he believed to have true value and he did whatever he had to do to attain it. And whether we recognize it or not - we all have some sort of pearl, something for which we would sell everything we own to have.

Some of you will be familiar with the book “Short Stories by Jesus” by AJ Levine as we did it as a Wednesday Bible Study several years ago. In that book, she considers the Parable oft eh Pearl. Once, A.J. was teaching the parable of the pearl to a class at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison - the class was made up of half Religion Ph.D. students and half students serving time as inmates. A.J. asked each of them, what is your pearl of supreme value? For what would you sell everything you own?

One student talked about obtaining her Ph.D. She was a professional pastor’s wife and her husband was against her returning to school. Her applying to the Ph.D. program and receiving funding came at the same time her marriage fell apart. Her story reads, “I never expected to find myself here, but when the graduate school offer came, I did what I needed to do to accept it. I gave up my home and my status as ‘minister’s wife’; I took out loans; I took back my original name. I do not know what will happen at the end of this program, but that does not matter. I am doing what is right for me. I have my pearl.”

One student who was an inmate said his pearl was freedom - he would do whatever he had to do, confession, anger management, psychological tests - whatever it took to be released. Still another said safety, he would do whatever he had to do to continue to live each day and not get knifed or attacked.

Another student “said that when he came into prison, he lost all that he had - his prosperity, his clothing, but also his identity, his dignity. He had to construct his own pearl, layer by painful layer, tear by tear, and see what was really important.”

...But our pearls, those things to which we assign ultimate value, or the path we take to achieve them, are not always good things. The word for pearl in Greek is margarita - and one student, a recovering alcoholic, said that a margarita was her pearl. And the search for her great pearl cost her her home, food, family….

Consider this over the top example in Walter White from the popular (if not a little dated) show “Breaking Bad.” When he was diagnosed with cancer, his pearl of ultimate value was making sure his family was well-taken care of after he was gone - not a bad pearl as pearls go...but he would do anything to achieve that goal. And that leads him down a path to becoming a drug lord - a path that destroys him and all of his relationships.

Not all of those things that we consider to be of true value are. Not all pearls are cultured - some pearls are fake, and yet their cost can be quite high. This parable causes us to stop and look at our priorities - and to take a good, hard look. It is often said, if one truly wants to know where their priorities lie, they better take a look at their time and their wallet. Where are you investing your time and your money? What is listed on your credit card and bank statements? What appointments are written in your calendar? What pearl are we investing ourselves in?

And then the question may come - are there things that we need to divest ourselves from? Are there things that we are invested in, pearls in our lives, that are keeping us from investing in the things that God wants us to invest in, like yeast and seeds and the Kingdom of Heaven? Are those things even on our list of priorities? Are they even one of our pearls?

So let us consider yeast and seeds.

All of these parables start “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” So we must consider - what is the Kingdom of Heaven? The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God…these can be obscure terms that people outside the church don’t understand and even people inside the church can struggle with their meaning. And if we don’t understand what the Kingdom is - how can we invest in it? How can we live into it?

The most simple way that I can define it is that The Kingdom of Heaven is just a term for what the world would be like if God was fully in charge - Hence, God being KING of the Kingdom. Now, before any of you call me a heretic for implying that God is not fully in charge, hear me out. We live in this in-between time that we call the already but the not yet. God has already come to us in the form of Jesus and defeated the power of sin & death. Because of this, the Kingdom of God is here. We live into it and catch glimpses of it. And, it is not here fully - yet. Sin and Death still have power in this world. The Kingdom of God will be fully present on that day described in Revelation 21 when God dwells with mortals and there is no more pain, tears, or death.

Another term for the Kingdom of God that many chose to use to help get to its meaning is the KIN (K-I-N)- dom rather than the KINGdom. This is because the Kin-dom of Heaven comes when we treat everyone as kin - children of God.

So the Kingdom of God is like yeast - I told you that I was going to get to it! - so the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that gets put into some bread mix and creates way more bread than just one person can eat - assuring that everyone gets fed. And the Kingdom of Heaven is like a small seed that grows into a large bush that gives shelter to all birds - everyone has a home. At a very simple level here, I see through these parables that the Kingdom of God is realized when all people are fed and all people have shelter. For many people, their pearl is simply that - do I have food today? Are my children fed? Do I have a place to sleep tonight? These basic items, these basic needs, are essentials in realizing the Kingdom of Heaven because God CARES for all of creation - and that includes our bodies and our needs. And if our bodies are not cared for, many people will not care for the care that God can give our souls.

And that’s another thing these parables show us - the Kingdom of Heaven looks like nature, all of creation, being able to live and act and be as God created them to be! The yeast, though a small ingredient in small amounts, has a very large impact when used properly! Anyone who has ever baked bread can attest to this. As the dough proofs and rises, it is amazing how it multiplies. And as the mustard seed grows, planted in the ground that God created, watered by the rain God sends, nourished by the sunlight of each created day - the bush grows into a large bush where all the animals and birds find a home and people rest in its shade. The Kingdom of Heaven is like this - when all of creation, Earth and sea and sky and US, you and me, are living as God intends us to be, created us to be.

And so as we consider what we need to invest in, our pearls and treasures, so we can be like the yeast and mustard seed of the Kingdom of Heaven where there is room made for us and for all - we ask, what do we need to divest from? We need to divest from anything that defines us as less than the beloved, created, children of God that we are. Status, power, wealth, accumulation of goods - these are on all of our priority lists - or they have been at sometime. But these things can have negative effects on us and can obscure or corrupt our ability to identify what has true value! Material goods? We never have enough? Status? We never are enough! Power? We never have enough. And just because of the world we live in, we are invested in these messages - hence why we are always trying to improve our lives, our bodies, our incomes - not for the glory of God but to the false satisfaction of the world and to the glory of self!

Henri Nouwen is an example of one who divested from his status and wealth to be who God intended him to be. He was a distinguished professor who gave it all up for life as a priest living in an intentional community for those with physical or mental disabilities. During his discernment of his life change, he wrote his thoughts in a book called “The Inner Voice of Love.” He writes that everyone around him is going to the ballet, going to the theater, going to dinner parties...and it does fill him with sadness that he is leaving that life behind. But he says to himself, “You sense that nothing but God’s love can fulfill your deepest need while the pull to other people and things remains strong…You know that something totally new, truly unique, is happening within you. It is clear that something within you is dying and something is being born.” Nouwen was in the process of divesting in status and investing in God’s love, he was changing his pearl.

And God’s love can be our pearl of great value! We might just have to live our lives in such a way, invest our lives in such a way, that we truly come to believe it and live it out in our day to day lives. Invest in nature - the yeast, the seeds, the pearls of beauty God has given us. Invest in other people, may we see that all are fed and all are sheltered. And invest in YOURSELF, allow yourself to be the person God created you to be, and just as the yeast multiples, and the seed grows, when we allow ourselves to live into who God created us to be, whatever that may look like in your life, the Kingdom of Heaven is revealed.

I also want to say - before I wrap this sermon up - even when we are striving after pearls that aren’t the pearl of great value that is God’s love, even when we are investing ourselves in things that don’t reflect the Kingdom of heaven - God still loves you, is seeking after you, and is inviting you to step into the Kingdom of Heaven. Our reading from Romans 8 today reminds us of this:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Even pursuing the wrong pearl doesn’t stop God from loving us. And because God loves us, God invests us into the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so friends, today I leave you to ponder just a few things things:

What is your pearl?

Who has God created you to be?

And do the two match?

Amen.

Camp Communion Sermon, "In the Wilderness"

Camp ----Communion Sermon
Theme: “In the Wilderness”
Preached Thursday, July 22, 2026

I want to start tonight by telling you a story of a man in the Bible named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and his group that he was a part of wasn’t supposed to like Jesus very much. But Nicodemus had a lot of questions about Jesus and what Jesus was teaching. So in the middle of the night, Nicodemus snuck out and came and asked Jesus a lot of questions - questions about God and about belief and about Jesus.

A lot of people wondered why Nicodemus came to find Jesus at night. Do you have any ideas?

(Solicit responses)

Yeah, I think he could easily sneak around at night. And I also think sometimes our questions, our doubts, our wonderings - are harder to ignore at night time. During the day we are busy and can be distracted by a lot of things. But sometimes, when we can’t fall asleep at night, all these thoughts race through our heads. All these questions, and all these emotions…

That can be like a wilderness. Have you guys…talked about wilderness at all this week? What do you think, is nighttime its own special kind of wilderness? Anyone do a night hike this week? Yeah? It totally changes your perspective.

So nighttime in this story with Nicodemus it’s like two wildernesses. There is the physical wilderness of night time. Or like, we experience the physical wilderness here. Or the physical wilderness of the jungle or a desert… But there is also a metaphorical wilderness, a wilderness of the heart and mind, and that’s that wilderness when you have lots of questions or are unsure or feeling a lot of emotions.

So I want to read this poem to you - I didn’t write it. It’s by The Rev. Sarah Speed Are:

“It’s only in the wilderness that you can see the stars.
That’s what city living has taught me.
We can shine a light on the things we want to see—
Fluorescent and bright, lighting up dark alleys.
However, it’s only in the wilderness that you can see the stars.

And it’s only in the dark of night that the questions come.
What is my purpose here? What does God have to say to me?
What does God have to say to suffering?
The sun falls and my doubt rises,
For it’s only in the dark that the questions come.

So like Nicodemus in the night,
I will throw my big questions at the sky.
And my voice will reverberate among the stars,
And my questions will echo throughout the dark.
For there in the night, my words form constellations.
And there in the wilderness, my prayers form galaxies.
So even there in the unknown, I trust that I am found.

A light shines in the darkness, friend.
So if ever you’re in the wilderness,
Look up and find the stars.”

Have any of you seen the stars at camp this week? I know it’s been a pretty cloudy week. It’s amazing how many more stars you can see here than where a lot of us live. And here’s the thing right - you can’t see the stars unless you go out in the wilderness, where there isn’t a lot of light, in nature, and at night - and look up.

Nicodemus wouldn’t have gotten to know Jesus, wouldn’t have gotten the answers he was looking for, if he didn’t go to Jesus in the middle of the night to ask his questions.

Just as we can see the stars in the night, especially in the night of the wilderness, we can encounter the light of Jesus in the midst of our wilderness experiences.

I want to briefly tell you about two wilderness experiences I’ve had.

One was being a camper and working right here at camp. A lot of this wilderness was the literal wilderness - the physical forest and landscape around us. But it was also the other type of wilderness too because it pushed me to grow - as a person and in my relationship with God. My time here at Camp was a beautiful, if also exhausting and hard, wilderness. Full of friendships and self-discovery - and falling in love with God. Especially falling in love with coming up to this hill every Thursday night, and finding God here, in the bread and the cup. Just as I also found God in the trees, and waters, and campers, and staff at camp. In a time of “wilderness” - I found God everywhere.

Where have you all seen God at camp this week or this summer?

(Answers)

Now my second wilderness experience was actually when I was studying abroad in Japan - I was homesick - a feeling I know some at camp have. Now, I was in a city of one and a half million people (that’s a lot of people!!), but I was still in a wilderness. It wasn’t a wilderness of place like a forest or a desert or a jungle or a camp…it was a wilderness of my heart. And it was there I learned that God can be found anywhere. If we just look, if we just ask, if we just pray for it - we can see signs of God anywhere. So I found a small English speaking church where we weekly broke bread, had Communion, worshiped, and shared together. God was found. And in that wilderness, I found God and learned a lot about myself.

This week (and summer) at camp

Maybe like Nicodemus, you’ve had questions about God - did you find answers? Did you find Jesus? If you did, that’s wonderful. If not, keep searching and keep asking.
Maybe you felt homesick and learned you need Jesus and others to support you and carry you through.
Maybe in the wilderness, you encountered God and God’s love in so many ways - in both the natural world and each other.
Maybe as you leave camp you will go back into a “wilderness” of your everyday life - issues you’re dealing with at home or in your family or friends…
Whatever wilderness you are in,whether it’s physical or metaphorical, know that God is there - and that God is always with you.

And so tonight, you are all invited to come and share in the bread and the cup - share in Holy Communion together. For this is a beautiful way that we encounter God, in this bread and this cup. In the beautiful wilderness of camp. In each other, Around your campfire tonight. When you look up and see the stars. Because wherever you find yourself, even in the wilderness, God is there.

Amen.

Call to Worship based on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 & Romans 8:26-39

Leader: We come together to reflect on God’s Love.
People: May we chase after it.
L: God’s Love -
P: May it grow within us.
L: God’s Love -
P: May it overflow.
L: God’s Love -
P: May nothing separate us from it.
L: Let us worship the God who is Love.
All: Amen.

VBS Sunday “Sermon”

VBS Sunday “Sermon”
Preached Sunday, June 28, 2026

I am going to start by assuring you that I am not preaching a full sermon today. It is a short message following our mini-Sunday VBS with the kids up front.

And, I want to ask you today, who first told you about Jesus? Maybe it was a mother or father, a Sunday School teacher, a pastor, a neighbor, a friend…who first told you about Jesus and helped you know God’s love for you?

I’d invite you to take a moment and either say a name aloud or share it with the person next to you.

We thank God for those people!

And now - who continued to tell you about Jesus? Who continued to make God’s love real for you? Again, perhaps a parent, grandparent, Sunday School teacher, school teacher, neighbor, friend, aunt, uncle…

Think of those people in your life who have continually told you about Jesus - through their words and or actions. Those people that have helped you, since the time you first heard about Jesus until now, continue in a loving relationship with Jesus. Think about those people. I am sure there are many. Because studies show that the longevity of faith in children and teens as they turn into adults is directly correlated to the number of adults in their lives who are spiritual mentors.

Various studies show that 8/10 young adults leave the faith of their childhood in their 20s. Gen Z, who are currently between the ages of 14 - 29, are the least religious generation, with 34% having no religious affiliation.

Statistics like this have caused researchers to ask - what helps make faith “stick” in the life of a child and young adult? The Fuller Youth Institute, which specializes in studies about faith development for children, teens, and young adults, says that it is directly related to the number of adults invested in the life, and faith life, of the child.

If a child has 5 adults, of various ages - multiple generations, who are invested in their life and their faith development, that child is more likely to retain and continue to grow in their faith as they reach adulthood.

Often in youth ministry we ask, what is the minimum number of adults we need to run this program? Volunteers can be hard to find and we don’t want to burn people out. Of course we follow Safe Sanctuaries so we always have at least two background checked volunteers with your children and youth…and this may look something like a ratio of one adult to every five kids. But as people who are committed to following out the Great Commission, and as people who committed to help let children know that God loves them, we really need to flip that ratio around - every child needs at least five adults in their life who they can trust, who care about them, and who help share God’s love with them. Faith development in children is not just the job of parents. It is not just the job of Youth Leaders and staff. It is the job of the whole church.

Our church is invested in being people, being adults, being a community, who invest in the lives and faith of children - and one another. We make these vows when we baptize a child - to love them and to teach them about Jesus. We share God’s love through childcare and Sunday School. Through youth group and children's choir. Through VBS. Through every Sunday - through the children’s moments and just being a community who includes children. I love that on any given Sunday, there is a good chance that we have ages 0 - 90 in this congregation. And we need each other.

Children and youth need us adults to invest in their lives, to get to know them, to care about them, to teach them about Jesus.
And as adults, we need these children and youth - to teach us about Jesus, to show us God’s love and joy through their actions and words, to help us know that whenever we welcome one of them into our midst, we welcome Jesus.

So today - think about the people who invested in your life and told you about Jesus. Maybe you can think of five people, maybe even more. Give thanks to God for them.

And then I want you to think about - who are the people and who are the children and youth that you are investing in, who you care about, who you pray about, who you share God’s love with…

Thank you for sharing God’s love with every generation.

Amen.

"I Don't Like It" a sermon on Matthew 10:24-39

 Matthew 10:24-39
“I Don’t Like It”
Preached Sunday, June 21, 2026

This is a terrible text for today. It is the assigned lectionary text from the Revised Common Lectionary which has been around for about thirty years - a collection of four texts a week (Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel, New Testament) that repeats on a three year rotation. Trust me, I did not seek out or purposefully choose a text for Father’s Day that says, “For I have come to set a man against his father…”

And I’ll be honest with you. I don’t like this text. Yes - a pastor can say that. A Christian can say that. This text comes to us from our Holy Scriptures, the Gospels no less, red letters from Jesus and - I don’t like it.

It doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know, love, and preach about.
It doesn’t sound like the same Jesus, the same God, who said “Love one another” or “God is Love.”

And so this makes me stop, pause and ask: What do we do with Scripture that we don’t like? How do we engage with texts that make us uncomfortable?

I am often tempted to ignore them. I will admit that I have chosen, in the past, to choose different Scriptures to focus on in preaching because the assigned text for the day was a doozy.
And this one is a doozy. At times, this choice may be a selfish one from me - that I don’t have the energy or the time to engage with the text in a way that is constructive. And still, not every text from the Bible works well in a sermon. Other texts can be parsed out better in Bible study or conversation. Regardless - my inert inclination is to ignore the texts I don’t like.

Others may take texts like this purely at face value. They may say something like, “The Bible says it. I believe. Period.” And it ends there. But - I also don’t think this is a healthy way to engage with Scripture. Because the Bible does contradict itself. Genesis 1 and 2 have different orders of creation. The history between Judges and Joshua are the same time period but have different versions of events. Some of the commands that the writers claim came from God in the Old Testament, directly contradict not only Jesus’s commands to love one another but the law passed on by God in the Old Testament. If we simply say, “The Bible says it. I believe it. Period.” We will actually end up doing our faith, our relationship with God, and the extremely complex book that is the Bible a disservice. We will tie ourselves in knots trying to erase contradictions. We will even find ourselves excusing behavior that is an affront to God simply because it is “Biblical.” Remember - not everything that is Biblical is Christ-like.

So if we don’t ignore the text. If we don’t just give it a blanket statement of uncritical acceptance - what do we do with it?

We wrestle with the text.

And so today, I was tempted to ignore this text, to pick something else to preach on - and instead, I have chosen for us to wrestle with it together.

First, let’s start with the foundation for wrestling with the Biblical text. The Biblical text welcomes wrestling, it welcomes questions, it welcomes us diving deep - Jacob wrestled with God and was rewarded for it, given the name of Israel. Thomas doubted and was able to touch Jesus. We too can come to know God better, to more closely encounter God, when we wrestle with Scripture.

This is evidenced in Scripture and it is a part of our tradition as United Methodists. United Methodists do not believe that Scripture is innerent - meaning that it is without error. We do, however, believe that as it says in our articles of faith, that the Bible holds everything necessary for salvation. And - The Bible was written by people interpreting God’s actions in the world. There are a myriad of genres in the Bible, vastly different culture concepts, and thousands of years of changing perspectives in the Bible, not to mention it was originally written in three different languages, none of which are Latin or Greek which is where a lot of modern English Bible translations come from. All of this is to say - we are called to wrestle with Scripture. And United Methodists have coined a term for the tools that we use to wrestle with and better understand Scripture and that is called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is often presented as a trapezoid where Scripture is the longest, bottom line and then the other lines are Reason, Tradition and Experience. It’s also often presented as a three-legged stool with Scripture being the seat and the legs that hold it up are reason, tradition, and experience. I prefer the example of colored lenses. We read Scripture through the colored lenses of reason, tradition, and experience - those lenses color how we understand and interpret Scripture which is not a bad thing. Because those lenses are always there for every single person whether we realize it or not. There is no such thing as an unbiased reading of Scripture. Instead we need to be aware of the factors that God is using to help God speak to us through Scripture and help make it relevant and applicable to our lives today.

Tradition is the long history of people of faith - from teachings, sermons, creeds, and hymns that have shaped, interpreted, and put our faith into practice. Experience is each and every one of our lived experiences as unique individuals in this world. Our genders, our ethnicities, our family structures, everything that’s ever happened to us - this is our experience of who we are and we cannot read Scripture without it influencing us. We can also learn from those who read Scripture and have different experiences than us. And then there is reason. Reason is our brain’s ability to think, question, and understand. To take into account science, logic, and the growing understanding of human knowledge and how God can use that to speak to us in new ways.

So yes - we wrestle with Scripture, aided by tradition, experience, and reason - so that - so that - we can better know God and be better followers of Jesus.

So whenever I approach the Biblical text - I use Jesus as the anchor of my faith and understanding. Jesus is God revealed to us. God sent Jesus so that we would better know and understand God - so that God would be revealed to us. And so whenever we engage Scripture we should always start with the embodiment of Jesus. And Jesus says that the core of the Gospel, the core of the Good News of God, is the two greatest commandments - to love God, and to love neighbor as self. All other Scripture should radiate out from that center.

Using Jesus and the two greatest commandments of the Gospel. Let's take God’s commandments in Joshua to kill every man, woman and child into account. How do we deal with texts like this that are so deeply contradictory to the life and Good News of Jesus? Many will say “well, that was the Old Testament God, not the New Testament God.” But the tradition of the church has long been considered it a heresy to divide our God into two different gods. We can use reason to see that although the text in Joshua says they killed every man, woman, and child…in Judges and Kings, we see people of the tribes they presumably killed still living in the land. So we can use reason to say there is something amiss in the text here. It doesn’t add up. And then we can use our experiences of the long scope of human history to know that there is nothing new under the sun and since the beginning of time, people have been claiming that God has sanctioned our tribalistic and violent endeavours - even though that is not the person of God. Most people today realize that the Crusades were not blessed by God. They were not a “holy” effort - they were politically motivated wars over resources and borders. Violence that was abhorrent to God was committed. And yet, if they took place during the time of Scripture, and the people leading these wars had written them into the text, they would have been written as ordained by God. People are always looking for God to bless their violence and nationalistic wars - but saying or writing it, even in a book that thousands of years later would be canonized, does not make it so. Taken together, we can say with confidence that the violence in the book of Joshua was not ordained by God and is not congruent with the person of Jesus that we follow.

Okay - I have been talking a lot about things other than our assigned text this morning in order to help us wrestle with the difficult words of Jesus we read this morning. So now let’s do a little bit of wrestling with that text.

This morning’s Gospel text is about being a disciple and Jesus is warning his disciples about what it will be like to follow him - it will not be all sunshine and roses. Jesus is not being prescriptive (that is say that being a follower of Jesus means that there SHOULD be familial strife) but he is being descriptive - saying that, at that moment in time, and throughout times in history, being a follower of Jesus will put you at odds with other allegiances - including familial ones.

This particular teaching to his disciples starts with an admonition that is repeated over and over in Scripture: Do not be afraid. “You will face hardship and be judged…don’t be afraid when this happens!” Don’t be afraid said over and over throughout Scripture, God is comforting and assuring us that no matter what we go through in this life, God will be there.

Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” - I could give a whole sermon just on the Greek words used for "destroy" and “hell” here which are not direct Greek-English translations, I think this is important to understand when wrestling with the text, we are dealing with different languages, translations, etc - and even scholars don’t always agree on the best English word to use in translation…but this sermon is long enough as it is. But the text always has more that we can explore and wrestle with.

And, basically, what Jesus is telling the disciples is again, “do not fear” - no matter what other people can do to you, no matter how being a follower of Jesus affects your other relationships, God holds your soul in the palm of God’s hands.

Jesus stresses this point again in the next couple of verses: “are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

And now we come to: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” Yikes.

Many have taken this verse as an excuse for Christian violence which is a complete misunderstanding or even an abuse of Jesus’s words - Jesus, who we call the Prince of Peace, who told us to turn the other cheek, who told us to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us, who told Peter to put away the sword and said that those who live by the sword die by the sword… No, those who want to use the name of our God to commit violence against fellow human beings created by God will always find justification - even if it means misunderstanding and misrepresenting who Jesus is. So using the other red letters of Jesus and our reasoning here, we can know that Jesus means a metaphorical sword, not a physical one.

Jesus is not telling us to commit violence, instead Jesus is saying that choosing to follow Jesus can cause strife in our world and relationships - in fact following Jesus may be the sword that cuts relational ties for us.

Which brings us to the next verses which are just perfect for Father’s Day:
“For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Jesus is not encouraging familial strife. He was talking to his disciples who were experiencing familial strife because of their decision to follow Jesus.

People who are using this scripture to justify disowning LGBTQ children are again, misunderstanding or even abusing Jesus’s words. We must understand these words alongside Jesus’s commandments to love one another.

If your relationship with Jesus puts you at odds with those in your family or inner circle - you are not alone. Jesus’s disciples from the very beginning have experienced this. Don’t seek it out or be purposefully antagonist. Keep on offering love. Because even if your relationship with Jesus puts you at odds with another, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and above all, to choose love.

After all, in another controversial Scripture, Jesus says “who is my mother?” when his mother is right in front of him. But his mother was still at the foot of the cross and he asked John, the disciple whom he loved, to care for her.

Danny Zacharias is a New Testament professor and an Indigenous Christian. He said this when reflecting on these verses of familial strife and his own relationships with being both Indigenous and a Christian:

“Reading this as an Indigenous man, I cannot help but also think of Indigenous communities throughout much of the world, but especially here on Turtle Island (North America). The church has perpetuated much harm among my people, the First Nations of Canada. Christian theology demonized our culture. Christian teachings like the Doctrine of Discovery bolstered colonial conquest and dehumanization. Christian churches helped to run Indian Residential and Boarding schools, which sought to kill the Indian in the child. It should not be hard for people to understand why there is sometimes such outright hatred toward the Christian church within Indigenous communities.

And yet, the reality is that many Indigenous people are followers of the Jesus Way. And for us, the painful division is sometimes twofold: We are sometimes at odds with our Indigenous communities because of our devotion to Jesus, while simultaneously being at odds with the church because we are proud of who we are as Indigenous people and seek to follow God the way he has made us—something that is often deeply resisted within the wider church that desires more cultural hegemony.”

End quote.

This is a faithful and real life example of what Jesus meant when he said he comes to bring the sword -- being a Christian will put us at odds with those who don’t understand the teachings of Jesus and even those who say they preach Christ but don’t live out his love.

Jesus ends this teaching with these lines: “and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

In essence - anyone who wants to follow Jesus and also wants power, wealth, or an easy way - they have to make a choice. To follow Jesus means to be crucified with Jesus, to follow Jesus means to lose one’s life, it means choosing love.

Choosing love -
even when relationships are fractured,
even when we’re navigating messy relationships,
even when you’re at odds with other people,
even when you lose power in this world.

Following Jesus is not the easy path, Jesus is letting his disciples know - “at times, it will be hard - do not be afraid, I am with you.”

So yeah, I don’t really like this text because of the way an uncritical reading of it lends itself to abuse and mis-use. I don't even really like it once I dive deep and wrestle with it because it's not an easy message! I wish Jesus could be less esoteric. I wish Jesus could speak more plainly. I wish Jesus always agreed with me… but if that was the case, God wouldn’t be God.

So when there is something we don’t like in the Bible, we don’t have to like it, and we are invited to wrestle with it, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll come to know God a little more for the wrestling.

Amen.