“The Good News Is…Rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness” a sermon on John 8:2-11 & Matthew 23:23

John 8:2-11
Matthew 23:23
“The Good News Is…Rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness”
Preached Sunday, March 22, 2026

The end of Lent is in sight - next week begins Holy Week with Palm Sunday - and then two Sundays from now we will be proclaiming the Good News of the Resurrection together.

This Lent we have chosen to focus on the Good News of the Gospel. In a world that is so desperately in need of Good News - within the church pews and without - our sermon series is, “Tell Me Something Good: Rooting Ourselves in the Good News this Lent.” We are highlighting that the word “Gospel” literally means “Good News.” And the messages that God has to share with us are, as the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus, “Good News of Great Joy for all people.”

And yet - as we come nearer to Holy Week, we see Jesus butting heads with the religious elite involved in mob mentality. That same mob mentality that partners with the power of Empire will lead to Jesus’s death on Good Friday. Good Friday, as well as today’s Gospel reading from John, is meant to hold the mirror back up to us, causing us to cease our human practicies of mob mentality, scapegoating, and treating each other as less than fully human.

To Jesus, his situation at the beginning of this week’s Gospel is not good news. And it’s certainly not good news for the woman dragged before him. For a trap has been set for Jesus and the woman and her very life is the collateral damage that the mob is willing to sacrifice to catch Jesus in a trap.

There are several reasons to assume the men in the mob who bring this woman before Jesus do not actually care about her or upholding the law at all. Where was the man who she was supposedly caught in adultery with? Was it a set-up? Who betrayed her confidence? Was the “act” they caught her in even adultery or was it, as many feminist scholars have wondered, actually assault? Why drag her before Jesus at all, why involve him? How long had they kept her in their grasps before they found the opportune moment to make the biggest scene involving Jesus? No, they are certainly not recognizing her humanity, they mean for her to just be a pawn in a game, a scapegoat, collateral damage.

They waited until Jesus was teaching in the temple - and there were not only the accusers and the woman present, not only Jesus and the crowds listening to him teach present, but also Roman soldiers. According to scholar Kenneth E. Bailey, this area of the temple was regularly patrolled by Roman soldiers, keeping an eye out for unrest. So you can picture the scene - this woman and Jesus are literally between a rock and a hard place. The jaws of the trap are ready to close in on them. For the question they asked Jesus, “Now what do you say?” was a trick question with no right answer.

Sarah Bessey on her piece “The Woman Who Was Not Collateral Damage” put the trick question like this: “The religious leaders are pretty sure they have Jesus in the trap now because to their minds, he only has three options: 1) yes, let’s stone her - which runs afoul of the soldiers standing nearby, or 2) ‘alas, I wish we could stone this bad lady but we can’t because of our occupiers,’ which could be interpreted as not taking the law seriously or as cowardice and a betrayal in service of their occupiers or 3) forgive her and let her go, therefore showing his lack of respect for the law and discrediting him entirely. Bailey goes on to say that if Jesus decides to ‘carry out the law of Moses, he will be arrested. If he opts to set it aside, he will be discredited. What is it going to be: Moses or Rome? Either way he loses and his opponents win.’”

End quote.

And so, caught in a trap, Jesus bends down and begins to draw in the dirt. But they keep pestering him, asking him questions - not asking the woman questions, perhaps they were afraid she would share how they trapped, tricked, and betrayed her to be in this position - but no, for them, this isn’t about her, it’s about trapping Jesus. And so they keep on questioning him, “What do you say? What do you say? What do you say?” And so Jesus answers, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And he then bends down and continues to draw in the dirt.

There have been thousands of interpretations about what Jesus wrote in the dirt. Did he write the strictest interpretation of the law they were bringing before them and then wiping it away? Was he writing the portions of the law they were ignoring - like where were the witnesses? Where was the man? Was he writing the sins of the accusers? Reminding them that they are not without sin and thus cannot cast the first stone? Was he writing the names of the accusers? Was he simply doodling, not giving them the satisfaction of baiting him?

I have always liked the interpretation that he was writing the sins of the accusers or even their names. Because one by one, the crowd disperses until there is no one left to accuse the woman or stone her.

I like these two ideas of what Jesus was writing because they focus on the individuals that make up the crowd of accusers. It moves them from being part of a murderous scheming crowd, it moves them from mob violence, back to individuals who are known, loved, and forgiven by God.

Bessey says, “I find it interesting that Jesus refuses to let them remain part of an anonymous angry mob. He slows down the panic, demands, and the passionate exchanges by writing on the ground. That decision disarms them. And then, with his question - usually translated as ‘let him without sin cast the first stone’ - he transforms that mob into a crowd of people with faces and names. He essentially asks each person there to own up to what they are about to do. If you want to do this, buddy, do it with your full chest and your name attached. Let us see you do it.”

Because in our world today, just as it was 2000 years ago, it is easier to pass on judgement and condemnation when one’s individual identity is obscured. That is, we are seeing ourselves as part of a crowd - the accusers who meant to trap Jesus that day with a woman’s life on the line were viewing themselves as a part of a crowd, of a group. Mob mentality had taken over due to religion and us-versus-them mentality. This pattern continues today in political parties, religious sects, extremist groups, and anyone who has ever gotten in a fight online, their identity hidden behind a keyboard. When we stop viewing ourselves as individuals who are also in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness - and recipients of that mercy and forgiveness - we also stop viewing “the other” as individuals in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness, also beloved by God. It is “us-versus-them” / “right-versus-wrong” / “righteous-versus-unrighteous” / “The good guys versus the bad guys.” And thus whatever we do to one another is excusable.

We cannot extend mercy to one another. We cannot extend forgiveness to one another. We cannot strive for God’s justice in this world (which is nothing like our human systems of punishment) when we are too busy engaging in cultural wars and sorting everyone we meet into boxes of “good” and “bad.”

This is what Jesus means in his teaching from Matthew 23 today. Our verse was this:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.”

I like The Message paraphrase so I am going to share that here: “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?”

Mint, dill, and cumin grow in abundance. They are the little things. If anyone has accidently made the mistake of putting mint in the ground or in a large garden bed they know this. It takes over. So basically Jesus says they are paying attention to the little things - “nickel and diming” the law. “Oh you messed up here on this little tiny thing - you put a comma in the wrong place! And so you are condemed!” While ignoring the GOOD NEWS, the whole point of the law and how we are to treat one another in a way that is pleasing to God - with justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

So Jesus doesn’t play their games. He breaks up mob mentality, centering the humanity of each person in that mob of accusers until there were none left in the crowd to accuse. It is then that he turns to the woman, putting his full attention on her, and releases her from the trap that was laid, freeing her from being the collateral damage that she was intended to be. Just as he refused to let the accusers lose their individual identities in the mob, he now centers her personhood. I imagine he remains crouched down in the dirt, at her level, looks her in the eyes and says “You are not condemned - by them or by me.” I imagine he helps her stand - tall, upright - no longer crouched inward protecting herself, no stones will be thrown today. He then says, “Go and sin no more” which Bessey interprets as “be careful.”

She isn’t a pawn in a game. She isn’t what they accused her of. She is a beloved child of God, a recipient of God’s mercy, forgiveness, and justice.

We all are. This is the Good News of the Gospel - the Gospel that is Rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness.

This is the Good News of the Gospel: God offers us unmerited, unearned mercy and forgiveness.
This is the Good News of the Gospel: we are called to extend mercy and forgiveness to others, modeling God’s reign of justice.

We do this when we center the humanity of each and every person in our lives and our world. When we consider our individual and collective actions, how we treat one another in our day to day lives on the micro scale and the laws and systems in place on the macro scale. The Good News of the Gospel should cause us to ask: “What is the most just, merciful, and faithful action?” Or even simply, “what would Jesus do?”

The thing is, mercy in our world is not easy. It makes no sense. The scales don’t balance. And that’s the point. If we were worthy of mercy based on human metrics, we would never receive it - or give it. It would be an eye for eye until the whole world was blind.

The Rev. Lizzie Dial-McManus says it like this, “Mercy—unmerited, inadvisably offered, and brimming with foolish hope—is the making of a Christ-follower…. And yet, mercy makes no sense. It is not logical, or equally beneficial. Mercy does not make us money or make us look good. But mercy is what makes us God’s own. The receiving and extending of mercy in the most awful and improbable of places is what makes me know that God is still at work in this world. Mercy is a practice of hoping and knowing that there is more than the thing that hurts us—more than the thing that haunts us.”

So hear this Good News - God is offering you mercy. God is offering you the invitation to do the faithful thing and extend mercy and forgiveness to your fellow beloved human beings, all of us known and named before God - no “us and them” no “others” - just people. Messed up people and yet known and loved by God - with the capacity to be known and loved by one another.

This is the Good News of the Gospel. There is no judgement. There is no stoning. The world’s justice is flipped on its head, no one gets what they deserve - but we do all get God’s love. Will we accept it and share it with one another?

Amen.

“The Good News Is….Protection & Care for the Vulnerable” a sermon on Deuteronomy 24:17-22 & Matthew 19:13-15

Matthew 19:13-15
Deuteronomy 24:17-22
“The Good News Is….Protection & Care for the Vulnerable”
Preached, Sunday March 15, 2026 

This, this is where children belong
Welcomed as part of the worshipping throng
Water, God’s Word, Bread and cup, prayer and song
This is where children belong

So we have sung every Sunday for almost three years.

We sing this song to celebrate the presence of children in our midst. To let them and their caretakers know that they are loved and welcomed here - as they are. Whether they stay in the sanctuary in the pews, sit in the Pray-Ground, or go to childcare or Sunday School. Whether they are so quiet you didn’t even know they were here, cooing and whispering, or having a full blown tantrum. Whether, whether, whether - they belong here.

We sing this song to remind us adults how we should welcome the children in our midst that they might come to know God and know God’s love through our community. It echoes the vows we make in baptism to surround these children with a community of love and care.

We also sing this song because we are all God’s children - no matter our age. Each of us is claimed and celebrated, cared for and loved, as a beloved child of God. We belong here - in God’s house, hearing God’s word, sharing in the sacrament, worshiping God and singing praises together. Each and everyone of us belongs - to God and to community.

And this is part of the Good News of the Gospel we are exploring today.

We are on our fourth week of our Good News Lent - passed the halfway point and rounding closer to Easter. We are continuing our sermon and worship series, “Tell Me Something Good: Grounding Ourselves in the Good News of the Gospel this Lent.” In a world desperately thirsty, parched, for some Good News we have chosen this Lent to focus on the core tenets of the Gospel that are, as the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus, “Good News of Great Joy for all people.”

Historically, how churches have treated children - along with the last and the least - hasn’t always been the good, good news of the Gospel. How we treat children is a baseline that reflects how we treat and feel towards other vulnerable populations. And we haven’t always gotten it right. And in our world today the evidence of failing our children - and other vulnerable populations - the alien, the orphan, and the widow - is all too evident. I will admit to you, when I was writing this sermon I had to take a deep breath here but I was - I am - angry about how as a society we are failing children. From human trafficking and the horrendous abuse that goes along with it. To school shootings. To separating families based on immigration status. To the school to prison pipeline. To children who are victims of war. And so much more.

The reality of children as representative of the last, the lost, and the least - the most vulnerable of society - changes how we view our Gospel lesson. It goes from a cute “aww, that’s so sweet” moment, reflective of the precious and cared for children in our midst running down the aisle to sit on these steps - to a more convicting moment of how we live as Christians who recognize that all children, and all people, ultimately belong to God.

In that vein, let us consider how Jesus’s disciples and the crowd that day would have reacted to Jesus’s invitation to let the little children come to him. In True to Our Native Land, author Michael Joseph Brown gives insight into the reality of children in first century Israel. He writes: “We should dismiss ideas of childhood bliss when we read this passage. Childhood in antiquity was difficult. Fifty percent of children died before the age of five. They were the weakest members of society. They were fed last and received the smallest and least desirable portions of food. They were the first to suffer from famine, war, disease, and natural disasters. Many, some say more than 70 percent, would have lost one or more parents before reaching puberty. A minor had the same status as an enslaved person, and it was not until adulthood that they would be considered a free person.”

Because of this harsh reality for children, Jesus’s disciples did not understand what he meant when he said that they must become like children in order to receive the Gospel. They did not understand why Jesus would welcome the children into his sacred space. For them to be lifted up by a parent before him. For Jesus to bend down and teach them at their level. For a highly regarded holy person, this just…wasn’t done. His attention would be expected to go to the adults - not the children who were considered among the last and the least, many not even guaranteed tomorrow. And so the disciples rebuked those who were bringing their children to Jesus - which tells me, even though times have changed, the love of parents for their children was present 2000 years ago as it is today. Of course the parents of these children who they loved would want to bring them to be blessed by Jesus - who healed the sick, who cast out demons, who at this point even had raised a precious child of God from the dead. For those who loved their children and would have done anything for them to ensure that they lived to adulthood, to see another day, of course those parents would do what they could to bring them to Jesus to be blessed. But the disciples don’t get it. To them the children are a distraction, a nuisance, unwelcome in their midst. And so they rebuke the parents and try to usher the children away. But then Jesus rebukes them in turn.

The Rev. Dr. Brian Blount phrases it like this: “So Jesus rebukes, not the parents and their children, but his dull disciples. They refuse to entertain the radical truth about God’s reign that Jesus is trying so desperately to teach them. The reign of God belongs to children and everyone who, like children, is not granted polite society’s respect and acceptance. The children, then, are a metaphor for all who lack societal status, who so-called decent folk find distasteful and undesirable. The migrant worker. The immigrant. The alien. The homeless. The powerless. The undocumented. Harking back to Deuteronomy 24:17-22, where God commands the people to care for the socially downtrodden because they themselves had been beaten down in Egypt, Jesus issues a clear, if not controversial, command for his followers. They are to live as an ekklesia, a ‘church.’ And this church is to exist in this world as a refuge of radical welcome.”

This is the Good News of the Gospel - that this, the church, the community of believers, is to be a place a radical welcome - this, this is where children belong, welcomed as part of the worshipping throng. That this, this is where the last, the lost and the least belong. This is where the most vulnerable of society belong. Because God has great care and love for all of God’s people and has a preferential option for the poor. And so we are to create those churches, the communities, of radical welcome and belonging and extend God’s care and protection to the vulnerable in our midst.

This is the Good News of the Gospel that we, that the world, so desperately needs. And the Good News of the Gospel requires us to not be complacent with the way the world is now. We must actively work to create places of radical welcome and belonging. We must actively work to share God’s love, care, and protection for the vulnerable.

Pastor and theologian Brian Zahnd has a convicting reflection on this mindset, centering on how the Chief Priests, religious people who should have relied on the prophetic visions of peace and lordship of the Messiah, rejected Jesus and called for his death by relying on the excuse of three simple words, “but not now.”

Let’s consider Zahnd’s words:

“They would certainly give lip service to the prophetic promise that Messiah would someday come and establish a kingdom of peace, but they forestalled it with a simple rhetorical trick of three words: but not now. Caiaphas and his cronies would say, ‘Oh, yes, someday Messiah will come as the Prince of Peace and establish God’s kingdom of shalom, but not now. For now, we must live by the sword. For now, we have no king but Caesar.’ Then the chief priests played their ultimate trump card: ‘If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’ Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar’ (Jn 19:12 NLT). This is when Pilate knew he had no choice but to acquiesce to the crowd.

But lest Christians feel superior to the chief priests who rejected Jesus as king, haven’t millions of Christians since the time of Constantine done the same thing when we kick the eschatological can down the road by saying that someday the Messiah’s peaceable kingdom will come, but not now? When we refuse to live as if the Prince of Peace is King of kings and Lord of lords right now, aren’t we, too, essentially saying, ‘We have no king but Caesar’? When we do this, we continue to mistake truth for the lie that the way the world stands is the way the world must be. No! Jesus died to do nothing less than re-found the world.”

This ends the quote but I want to lift up that one line again: “When we do this, we continue to mistake truth for the lie that the way the world stands is the way the world must be. No! Jesus died to do nothing less than re-found the world.”

The Good News of the Gospel is that we do not have to accept the way the world is not as the way the world must be. We cannot accept the mistreatment and abuse of children, the alien, the orphan, the widow, the most vulnerable of society - whoever they may be - as just the way the world is until Jesus comes back. We cannot just shrug, accept it, and go about our business.

The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ has already died to change the world’s order and through the Holy Spirit we are empowered to live into the eschatological vision now. We do that when we create places of belonging and welcome, when we offer care and protection, when we live into the peaceable, welcoming, and loving Kingdom of God in the here and now.

This is the Good News of the Gospel - we can make a difference by treating each and every person as the beloved children of God that they are and being a church of welcoming them.

This is the Good News of the Gospel that:

This, this is where children belong
Welcomed as part of the worshipping throng
Water, God’s Word, Bread and cup, prayer and song
This is where children belong.

Amen.

Prayer of Confession & Words of Assuraunce for before Holy Communion

God invites all to the table of love, all who repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another. And so we pray:

When we question your love for us,
Loving God,
Forgive us.

When we question your love for our others - our neighbors and our enemies,
Loving God,
Forgive us.

When we fail to respond to your love for us,
Loving God,
Forgive us.

When we fail to love others as you would have us love,
Loving God,
Forgive us.

Assure us of your love.
Invite us to your table.
Wash us clean and forgive our sin and so we say one more time:

Loving God,
Forgive us.

(Silence)

Loving God, you do love us. Even us. And yes, even them. You love us all and you invite us to your table. May this invitation assure us of your love that we may live free from the shackles of sin and death. Amen.

“The Good News Is…Together, the Impossible is Possible” a sermon on Mark 6:32-44 & Ephesians 3:20-21

Mark 6:32-44
Ephesians 3:20-21
“The Good News Is…Together, the Impossible is Possible”
Preached Sunday, March 8, 2026 

Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: Together, the impossible is possible.
Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: Our God is a God of abundance and there is enough.
Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: We are empowered to share the miracle of God’s abundance with others.

We are on our third week of - halfway through - our Good News Lent as we continue our sermon and worship series, “Tell Me Something Good: Grounding Ourselves in the Good News of the Gospel this Lent.” In a world desperately thirsty, parched, for some Good News we have chosen this Lent to focus on the core tenets of the Gospel that are, as the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus, “Good News of Great Joy for all people.”

I will admit to you - I have both been loving this sermon series and struggling with it. How can I preach Good News of Great Joy for all People at a time when …well…. (gesture wildly). I have wondered to myself, “Is this too optimistic?” “Am I sticking my head in the sand like an ostrich?” “Is focusing on the Good News of the Gospel a denial of the real hurt and need in this world of ‘bad news’?” Wars still rage. Children die in bombings. Schools are on lockdown. People are hungry. People are hurting.

Preaching Good News at this time is not a denial of the pain in this world. It is not ignoring it. It is recognizing that these stories happened and have been re-told and shared over and over and over again in historical times of oppression, war, and terror. The Good News is that, even in a hurting world, Jesus still comes to us. In times of war, Jesus shows us peace. In times of pain, Jesus shows us healing. In times of scarcity, Jesus shows us abundance. In times of death, Jesus shows us resurrection.

It is more important than ever to focus on the Good News of Great Joy of the Gospel - not so that we can ignore the pain of the world, but so that we can be bearers and sharers of the Good News that the world so desperately needs. And the Good News today is that while that may feel like an impossible task - together, with God and with each other, the impossible is made possible. It is as our Ephesians text says to us today: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…”

And in this week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus invites the disciples and the crowd to participate in a miracle of abundance, of Good News, of Joy - that all are fed.

Jesus and his disciples go away to a quiet place to be by themselves after the death of John of the Baptist - but the crowds follow Jesus. Perhaps they, like us, were desperately thirsty for the Gospel message that Jesus was bringing. They were hungry - both physically and metaphorically. And when Jesus sees the crowd, he is moved to compassion, the Greek word implies that he felt the compassion in his gut, and so he came to them - teaching many things to meet their parched souls' need for Good News.

And it is at this point, as the hours went on, that their physical hunger began to grow louder than their spiritual hunger. The disciples suggest a practical approach: send the people out in the surrounding villages, disperse the crowd, let them figure out their own dinner. It is then that Jesus looks at his disciples and asks them to do the impossible: “You give them something to eat.” The disciples are incredulous. There are over 5,000 people in the crowd. That’s a BIG crowd. Imagine the Pavilion seats at Blossom in Cuyahoga Falls - perhaps you have been to a concert there. The Pavilion seats 5,700 people - a huge crowd, a crowd probably similar - or even smaller in size - than the crowd gathered to hear Jesus that day (because remember - the 5,000 people are men but there were women and children - whole families in the crowd). The disciples reply to Jesus is basically, “Uh…what?? The math ain’t mathing.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” Some estimates equate that two hundred denarii would be anywhere from 10 to 20,000 dollars in today’s world! That’s a lot of bread to feed over 5,000 hungry mouths! And yet, Jesus is seemingly unbothered by the disciple’s response of scarcity. He says to them, “Well, what do we got?” And so the message goes out into the crowds - no microphone - just passing the message along: what food do you have that you are willing to share? Pass it forward.. The disciples come back and say - we have five loaves of bread and two fish. I highly doubt that would have been enough for every person in the crowd to just have a measly crumb. But again, Jesus is undaunted. He instructs the crowds to sit down, he blesses the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and distributes it through the crowd. And all are fed. With leftovers - 12 baskets full of leftovers, more than they even started with.

It is Good News of Great Joy for all people that the crowds were fed. That scarcity was turned into abundance. That, together, with God and one another, the impossible was made possible.

The Good News of Scripture is a story of Abundance. Our God is a God of abundance. From the creation narratives in Genesis of a lush garden, to Abraham and Sarah with ancestors outnumbering the stars, to the Israelites escaping the scarcity of Egypt to be fed manna from the sky, to stories of calling the disciples with boats overflowing with fish, to the feeding of the 5,000 - these stories and beyond, our God is constantly trying to tell us through the Holy Scriptures that our God is a God of abundance. In Jesus, there is enough. And enough is abundance.

Unfortunately, it is our human nature, our fallen nature, to operate not out of a mindset of abundance but out of a mindset of scarcity.

Theologian Walter Brueggeman summarizes it like this for American Christians: “We who are now the richest nation are today's main coveters. We never feel that we have enough; we have to have more and more, and this insatiable desire destroys us. Whether we are liberal or conservative Christians, we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God's abundance and the power of our belief in scarcity -- a belief that makes us greedy, mean and unneighborly. We spend our lives trying to sort out that ambiguity.”

Churches often operate out of scarcity. In our day and age, it’s hard not to. I don’t think I’ve ever been to an anxiety free finance meeting in any of the five churches in which I have attended finance meetings. This is not a criticism of the people who serve on these committees. This is not a criticism of how churches steward the gifts given to them. This is not a criticism of the generous gifts that people give to God through the church. This is simply a remark on human nature and the reality of how churches operate in our world of scarcity and rising costs.

A speaker at a church property redevelopment meeting this last week said that tithing as the sole means to support a church budget is dead, it’s a thing of the past. The cost of insuring a church alone makes this the reality.

The question is - will this reality push us to despair? Will it push us further towards a scarcity mindset? Will it cause us to fold into ourselves? To protect what we have until the last of us is dead and our doors are closed?

Or.

Will we realize that we serve a God of abundance and together, with the God of abundance and with each other, the impossible is possible. Can we look at what we do have - our building, our community, our gifts, our preschool, our relationships - and realize that we have more than enough and enough is abundance. That we are capable of so much Good - some that we are already doing and some that we have yet to do? That we can do the impossible. And not the impossible of filling the plates to fund the building - but the impossible to leverage our assets of abundance to be bearers of Good News to a world that is thirsty for Good News and parched for the Gospel of Abundance.

Can we trust the Good News of the Gospel that there is enough? That abundance is possible?

The Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman interprets the feeding of the 5000 through the lens of our reading from Ephesians today and this is what she has to say:

“Through the lens of Ephesians, if Jesus were to ask us today what we have to give, our answer would be: We have the power you have given us to do the impossible. The same power that turned five loaves and two fish into a feast for thousands— with leftovers—empowers us ‘to accomplish far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine.’ Do we allow this truth to settle into our bones and animate our actions?

I’ll admit, I tried to avoid this passage because it felt overly optimistic in light of today’s world. People still go hungry. Wars rage. The earth groans under our misuse. Yet if we reimagine the systems we created, studies show it is possible for every human being to have what they need. That would require massive restructuring, international cooperation, and the reallocation of resources—but not more than we already possess. We don’t need a miracle of multiplication. We simply need to use what we’ve been given.”

And to a world so entrapped in the scarcity mindset - this is Good News of Great Joy for all people.

We may not need a miracle of multiplication - but we still need miracles. Miracles of infrastructure and mindset changes. Miracles of changed hearts. Miracles of open hands.

As individuals, we don’t have the ability to satisfy all the hunger in the world. And yet we have the power to do all the good we can, here and now, with all the abundance that God has already given us. It starts by asking: “What can I bring to the table - to do the impossible with the power of God in community?”

I’d like to end our sermon this morning with a testimony from The Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity. Bear with me as it’s a little long but well worth sharing:

In 2022, I joined the strategic planning committee for my church, Black Mountain Presbyterian [in] (Black Mountain, NC). Like many churches, we were discerning a new mission statement—one that could be embedded within the life of our community and not just a bunch of words that no one paid attention to. Through a long committee process, we struggled to identify a new 'vision' statement that felt relevant and authentic. One day, a committee member pointed to the question carved into our Communion Table: ‘Has everyone been fed?’ He asked, ‘What if that was our mission statement?’ We collectively pondered this idea. A question as a mission statement? We unpacked it more and listed all the ways our church feeds people in body, mind, and spirit. We decided the question was also a charge: our work is always ongoing. We can’t get complacent. Like good Presbyterians, we submitted the new mission statement to the church session for approval (which means the entire process moved very slowly).

By September 2024, we were finally ready to present the new mission statement to the church. On September 22, 2024, our head pastor Rev. Mary Katherine Robinson preached on the new mission statement with a sermon titled, “The Time is Now!” A few days later on September 27th, hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on our mountain town and the surrounding areas of North Carolina. Catastrophic flooding wiped out homes and businesses, causing hundreds of deaths and decimating the entire infrastructure. Once the storm relented (and nearly everyone was without water, power, or cell service), my husband, daughter, and I made our way to our church by foot (nearly every road was impassable). We hoped to connect with other neighbors to make sure people were okay. Selfishly, we also set out looking for information and possibly some ice for our quickly-spoiling food. To our great surprise, we found several church members emptying the church pantry, cooking up anything they found in the freezer using gas-powered cooking stoves. A line of hungry people was quickly forming in the parking lot. ….
The post-storm situation was dire. We soon learned about harrowing rescues and neighbors who didn’t survive, and that the destruction was far greater than just our small town. But the church didn’t hesitate; without any plan or pre-thought, they opened the doors wide and began feeding anyone who showed up. Within a few days, the church was feeding nearly a thousand people a day. Neighbors and strangers gathered around tables in the parking lot. Volunteers showed up, both to serve and also receive hot meals. As word spread and supplies were finally able to come in (which took nearly a week due to impassable roads), the church soon filled to the brim with donated supplies and food. …
Over weeks and months, financial donations poured into the church, designated into a hurricane relief fund. Thanks to the careful discernment of a task force, over 2 million dollars of donations were distributed to local organizations and non-profits to support rebuilding efforts as well as long-term recovery needs such as affordable housing. Our mission statement is known far and wide by the community; people remember the church that acted quickly to feed people after the storm. Yet, the work continues. To this day, each time we celebrate Communion, after the elements have been served, one of the pastors asks the congregation: “Has everyone been fed?” And the congregation shouts back: ‘Not yet!’”

Thus ends The Rev. Garrity’s testimony.

May we live into this not yet. May we open ourselves up to God working through us to make miracles happen with all we have - alongside God and one another.

Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: Together, the impossible is possible.
Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: Our God is a God of abundance and there is enough.
Hear the Good News of Great Joy that is the Gospel Message: We are empowered to share the miracle of God’s abundance with others.

Amen.

“The Good News Is…Great Love for God & Neighbor” a sermon on Luke 7:36-50 & Matthew 25:35-40

Luke 7:36-50
Matthew 25:35-40
“The Good News Is…Great Love for God & Neighbor”
Preached Sunday, March 1, 2026

We are on the second week of our Good News Lent.

Lent is the six weeks before Easter, 40 days plus Sundays, that lead us up to the Resurrection of Christ. In the early church, Lent was a time for converts to Christianity and those who had strayed from the Church, to focus or re-focus on the core tenets of the Gospel message, to be baptized or re-join the Christian community come the celebration of Easter. It was - and is - also a season of fasting, penitence, and prayer.

And this Lent, we are taking a slightly different Lenten journey. We are still preparing for the Celebration of the Resurrection by focusing on the Gospel message. We are focusing on core tenets of our faith. And I am encouraging fasting and prayer for wherever and however it is life-giving for each of you. The difference is, we are breaking from the often somber and serious attitude of Lent, in favor of one that takes literally that the Gospel means Good News and that Good News is as the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus - Good News of great joy for all people!

We live in a world where people are thirsty for good news - both the everyday kind and the Gospel of Jesus Christ kind. Unfortunately what is often packaged and sold as the Good News of Christ Jesus often fails to actually be “good” news - a “Gospel” that is exclusive, limiting, controlling, shaming, hateful is not the Good News of Jesus Christ.

And so this Lent our sermon series is, “Tell Me Something Good: Grounding Ourselves in the Good News this Lent.” And so today’s Good News is one of the core tenets, perhaps THE core tenet of the Gospels: Great love of God & neighbor.

I’ve preached on this many times before. I will preach on this countless times in the future. If I could preach but one sermon in life it would be this - Love of God & neighbor as self is central to the Good News of the Gospel.

And we must all become evangelists of that Gospel. To be clear, I did not just say we should all become evangelicals which is its own branch of Christianity right now. No, no one owns the term evangelist because it means one who brings Good News. The Good News of the Gospel at its core is that God loves us. God loves me. God loves you. God loves all. It is as it says in John 3:16, that God so loved the world that God sent us Jesus to know that love for all eternity. We are all called to carry this Good News of God’s love to all we meet…

But. And. No one will care that a God they can’t see loves them if the people they can see who are the representatives of God on this earth don’t love them first. And if it is not just not-love that Christians share but indifference, disdain or hate - they will run away from our loving God as fast as they can.

And so, we must all be evangelists - bearers of the Good News of God’s love - and that means loving God and loving neighbor. It means we show God’s love with, to, and for others and all when we love them - and when we love others, when we love our neighbors, we too are loving God.

With this in mind, let us look to our Scripture this morning of the unnamed woman washing Jesus’s feet with her hair. A slight caveat, in the Gospel of John this story happens at a different place in the life of Jesus - before his crucifixion and burial - in John that woman is named Mary although not Mary Magdalene as many assume. In Luke, this is smack dab in the middle or even closer to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. The woman is unnamed and identified solely as a sinner.

And so Jesus is eating at the house of Simon, a Pharisee. Now, although Simon invited Jesus in to eat, it appears he was not a good host of Jesus. A good host would have offered Jesus water to wash his feet - dusty from the roads. A good host would have offered Jesus oil to anoint his head with - relief from the heat of the day. A good host would have offered Jesus the kiss of welcome - as was customary at the time. Simon offers Jesus none of these things.

And then in comes this woman who is marked solely as a sinner. Often when women are named as sinners in the Bible, generations of misogyny cause us to assume they were prostitutes - although, in this case, I do believe that is an inference that Luke wants us to make. And she washes Jesus feet with her tears and hair, anoints him with oil, kisses him. What she does is offer the hospitality, the acts of loving welcome, that Simon himself neglected. Albeit in a different way - a more extravagant, bold, loving way.

And Simon, the text says “he says to himself” - we may take this to mean under his breath but the Greek implies more that he thought this to himself, that “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” It is at this point that Jesus says, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” In a twist of irony, Jesus is a prophet and he knows what Simon is thinking here - and/or perhaps Simon’s judgement was written all over his face.

And so Jesus tells Simon something. He tells Simon that she is the one who showed him great love. The term used for great love here is the same used in Matthew when Jesus gives the second greatest commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.” This woman has shown great love to God who was her neighbor Jesus.

This story may cause us to pause and ask ourselves - who are we often more like? Simon, who neglected to show great love to his guest and judged his neighbor? Or the woman to whom much had been given and showed extravagant bold love without regard for her own self image? And which one was the evangelist - the bearer of the Good News of the Gospel?

Which brings us, briefly, to our second Scripture lesson of the day - the famous, beautiful, and convicting Matthew 25 passage. It is worth repeating: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’”

Mathew 25 tells us that not only are we to love our neighbors through actions of compassion and mercy, it tells us that when we love our neighbors, we are loving God God’s self. God is the least of these. T. Denise Anderson offers this beautiful commentary on this Scripture: “Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus uses diminutive language to refer to people of importance and describes small, humble things (like sheep, lilies, and sparrows) as precious. He uses a mustard seed in a parable about faith, and tells his disciples to be like children. For Matthew’s Jesus, little is a big deal! For that reason, we should pay attention to Jesus’ use of the word “least” in this text. In a book where Jesus talks about little things being loved, the word “least” here takes on new meaning: most loved. Indeed, God loves everyone, but there are certainly those for whom God has a special affinity.”

Matthew 25 tells us that the two greatest commandments - to love God and to love neighbor as self are indeed inseparable. They are not different items on a to-do list, they are not different boxes we can check, they are one and the same. We love God when we love our neighbors. When we love our neighbors, we are loving God.

And above all - we can do all this because God loves us. God does not look at us and label us purely as sinners. God does not look upon us with cruel judgement. God offers forgiveness, grace, and love to every single one of us - even and especially - the least of these. Even to Simon, I believe Jesus leaves the door open to him - now that Simon’s neighbor has shown him an example of love, forgiveness, and hospitality - will Simon better love his neighbor and in turn better love God?

This is the Good News that we receive and that we are called to be evangelists to bear to others: God loves you and you can know God loves you through my actions of love towards you, my neighbor.

I am going to leave you today with this poem by The Rev. Sarah Speed entitled, “If God Lived Next Door.”

“If God lived next door,
I’d drop off a loaf of bread.
I’d use my mom’s best recipe.
I’d wrap it in parchment and ribbon
and place it on the front stoop.
If God lived next door,
I’d leave a note with my phone number.
Call anytime you need anything!
I’m always happy to help!
If God lived next door,
I’d keep sugar on the shelf,
just in case she needed a cup.
I’d put a picnic table in the front yard
and begin taking my coffee there.
Whenever God passed by with their gaggle of rescue dogs,
I could say, Want to sit for a moment? Want to rest your legs?
I’d keep a jar of dog treats and water by the mailbox
and change my doormat to one that says:
All are welcome here.
I’d invite God over for dinner.
[He’d] bring bread and juice.
I’d host a block party,
so that everyone could meet [him].
I’d start a community garden
so that the kids could run between rows of squash and tomatoes
while we adults put our hands in the dirt.
We’d share stories while we weeded,
and eat harvest meals at the end of the season.
If God lived next door,
I’d want to build something beautiful.
Then again,
who says [God] doesn’t?”

Amen.

"You're Invited" a sermon on Luke 14:15-23, Youth Retreat

Luke 14:15-23

"You're Invited"

Preached Saturday, February 28, 2026 at Youth Retreat

I want to start tonight off by sharing a poem with you entitled, “The Gospel According to Mrs. Farnell’s Pre-K Class” by the Rev. Sarah Speed. It goes:

“In Pre-K the whole class gets an invite to Tommy’s birthday.
He places the paper invites in our cubbies. There’s a helter-skelter sticker
sealing each one, proof that tiny hands did the work. So we,
the members of Mrs. Farnell’s Pre-K class, arrive at the park on Saturday.
We arrive whether or not we’ve ever built a sandcastle with Tommy.
We arrive whether or not we’ve ever shared half of our PB&J at lunch.
We arrive at the park on Saturday, with pigtails and balloons,
because we were invited.
And together we play tag, and we eat birthday cake, and we run barefoot in the grass.
Together, we sing Happy birthday to youuuuuu, so excited we can barely stand still.
Together, we momentarily forget that Chloe never gets picked for Red Rover and that Quinn cried in class last week, because the park is not the playground and everyone was invited.
And when we load into our cars at the end of the day, with grass-stained knees, chocolate frosting on our faces, and the awareness of inclusion, we say to our parents, This was the best day of my life.”

Our Scripture lesson tonight was also about invitations extended for a party. We heard a parable of a banquet feast where those invited did not accept the invitation - those who would have been on equal social standing, or even friends with, with the host of the party make up excuses of other things to do. They will not be attending dinner.

That’s kind of, well, sucky. Imagine you were throwing a party and you invited those closest to you and they came up with lame excuses like, “I can’t come - I have to plan what college I’m going to go to.” (And college is like - years from now). Or if they said, “I can’t come - I just got a new puppy and I want to play with him.” or “I’m going to hang with my new boyfriend instead.” That might hurt your feelings that your friends were choosing to do things that weren’t necessary to do right then or hang with people or animals just to hang - not a special planned party.

And the host is angry about this. Perhaps his feelings are hurt. But he doesn’t cancel the party. He just decides to invite more people. And so the invitation is extended - to the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Those who would have been considered - and often still are considered - the last and the least. The invitations, however, do not stop there. After that, the host then tells his servant to go into the streets and compel anyone and everyone - any who will accept the invitation - to come in and feast.

So often our invitations to the tables we sit at, the parties we throw (and now I am talking metaphorical not just literal), look like the first round of invitations the host sent out - invitations to those of the same social standing or sphere, those in our “groups”. So often our tables are full of people who look, act, and think just like us. This is not the Good News of the Gospel.

The Good News of the Gospel looks a lot more like that Preschool Birthday party. The Good News of the Gospel looks like inviting all.

And sometimes, all, starts with you. Each and every one of you, here, as individuals, is invited by Jesus to know him and be included in the big party.

In the United Methodist Church we believe in something called prevenient grace - and maybe you’ve heard that term if you’ve already gone through confirmation and maybe you’ll hear more about it in the future - but basically it’s this idea that from the moment each and every one of us is born, God is extending love to us. God is whispering in our ears, “hey! I’m right here! Hey! I want to be in relationship with you! I want you to get to know me! Hey! I love you!” From the moment each and everyone of us is born, God is inviting us. And this is happening constantly, consistently, every single moment of our lives whether we realize it or not.

God is always whispering in your ear, “I love you. Accept my invitation to get to know me.”

All of your names are on the invite list.

Actually, everyone’s name is. That doesn’t make your personal invite less special, it just makes the eventual party - both in this life which is the community of Christians, the Church, and in the next life, that big wedding feast, that much better.

So look - Jesus has made the invite list - everyone, full stop, no exceptions - and Jesus is doing the inviting work through the Spirit whispering love into our ears and… we are called to amplify God’s invitation of love to one another.

That means, just as we are invited by God, we are called to invite others - to know Jesus and to be a part of the Church which is the community of people who know Jesus and follow him.

Let’s parse that last sentence out into two parts - first - we are called to invite others to know Jesus.

When we come to accept Jesus’s invitation of love for us, it can completely change our lives. Maybe not our outer lives - like who our family is or what our day to day life is like - but it does change our inner lives. When John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, accepted an invitation of God’s love, truly believed that God loved him, he said his heart was strangely warmed. This strange warmness is a defining characteristic of our lives with God. That no matter what we are going through, no matter what is happening in the world around us, God’s strangely warm love for us is always there. There is also a safe person to go to in Jesus. There is always hope to be found. As followers of Jesus, we know this to be true!

And we are not meant to keep this strange warmness, this knowledge of love, the safety of Jesus’s presence, the hope that springs forth - to ourselves. We are meant to share it. To invite others to experience it.

Okay, so I’ve been talking for awhile now. Let’s talk about this. Like I’m going to throw a question out and it would actually help me a lot if you answered, if we turned this next part of the sermon into a kind of conversation. But we want to hear everyone so don’t all talk at once.

How can you share the warmth of God’s love with others? How can you invite them into a relationship with Jesus?

(Receive answers from youth)

Yeah, those are a lot of good ways. I think it’s a mixture of our words and our actions. Some people only use actions - and while it’s great to show kindness and love to others, they may never know that Jesus is the reason behind them if you don’t tell them. And some people only use words - but those words won’t have much weight unless they are backed up by actions of love.

Okay - so that’s inviting others to know Jesus. Now let’s talk about inviting others to church.

The Church, which is made up of people like you and me, is one of the many ways people experience God’s love in this world. The Church community it’s meant to be a safe and welcoming space for all to experience the love of Jesus.

Now…you may notice I said it’s “meant” to be. Because we are human and sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong.

Sometimes the church is full of fighting and bickering.
Sometimes the church is not welcoming of all the people that Jesus would invite - because of their race, or the language they speak, or what country they were born in, or if they’re LGBTQ, or, or or…
Sometimes the church…just gets it wrong.

Which is often why people want nothing to do with it. They think, “Why would I want to be a part of that?”

Now - God has been whispering an invitation of love in their ear since the moment they were born. And God will keep on doing that.

And. It’s up to us to show them how the Church, the community of people who God, can be a safe and loving place for all people - and we can make it so.

Let’s do that things where I ask you all questions again - So let’s imagine you were throwing a party and all sorts of different types of people were going to be invited - people of different ages, people with different needs and abilities, people with different dietary restrictions, people with different hobbies, etc etc - how could you be good host and make everyone feel welcome? Give examples.

(Get answers from youth)

You’ve all thought of it exactly.

Whether people work, have kids, or are in school would influence the time of the party. And what kind of party it is! You don't break out the fancy breakable plates when there are going to be little ones running around. If someone has an infant, you might even consider opening up another room for them as a quiet place to care for their child. Or even...helping arrange childcare. Or, what if someone was in a wheelchair or just had surgery...the venue would need to be considered to make sure it's accessible and there is room at the table. And consider the food too. We always do as Methodists, don't we? Maybe someone has allergies or is vegan or vegetarian. Maybe someone doesn't eat a specific food because of their cultural background. When you are planning for a dinner party, a good host takes the guest list into mind when cooking. Cause you want everyone to feel welcomed at the table. If you don't think of your guests then when they arrive you can't suddenly change the menu or short order cook. No, you prep and plan to make it a place and a time where all are welcomed at the table. If you have a reputation of being a host who isn't prepared to welcome all - those with different life experiences, those with kids, those with disabilities - whatever it is. When they get the invitation, they're not going to come. They're going to say "oh. This isn't really for me." Think how much more it is for the church instead of a party. We can be the change in our church communities to help them be places where all are welcomed and celebrated.

Now God's table, this table, the Communion table, the feast at the heavenly banquet, God’s table - that table is already open to ALL. God has made it so. God has the guest list and each and everyone of us is invited - just as if it was a preschool party. And here in the United Methodist Church we strive to reflect that openness of God's table by saying that all are welcome at our table - you don't have to be a United Methodist, you don't have to be a member of a specific church...you only have to want to be at the table with God. Cause Jesus won't turn anyone away, there is truly a seat for all. God wants us and everyone of us to come to this table and walk away grinning and smiling, saying This was the best day of my life!

So as we consider invitations tonight -
Remember, God is always and ever, from the moment of your birth - extending an invitation of love to you.
The invitation of love is also going to everyone else in our lives and the world - we can help amplify that invitation by inviting people to know Christ and the Church - and helping make that church a truly safe place for all.
And tonight - you are being invited to this table, to experience God’s love for you, and let it warm your heart. Amen.

“The Good News…Is So Good It Catches Us By Surprise” a sermon on John 2:1-11 & Matthew 13:31-32

John 2:1-11
Matthew 13:31-32
“The Good News…Is So Good It Catches Us By Surprise”
Preached Sunday, February 22, 2026

A wedding feast is a very strange place to be for this first Sunday in Lent.

Normally we start the season of Lent in the desert - where Jesus goes for forty days to fast, pray, and face temptation. Our season of Lent is modeled after these forty days - a season of fasting, praying, and wrestling with our temptations - especially those things that keep us from love of God and love of neighbor as self. Now - every year I say, Lent is not just about giving up chocolate. It is not a diet. It is a spiritual discipline of seeking to walk closer to God and fasting from things that take your time, energy, or gifts away from that which is life- and love- giving. So if one does decide to fast from something like chocolate, soda pops, or meat - when there is a desire for that thing, the desire should remind us to turn to God in prayer - re-orient our attention from the things of this world to the things of above.

The primary purpose of these next six weeks before Easter is to prepare ourselves to receive the Good News of Easter - the Good News of the Resurrection of Christ. And yet, so often, Lent gets a bad rap. It becomes the season of self-flaggelation, of dour faces, and somber attitudes. Now - repenting of that which holds us back from Love of God and Love of Neighbor as self can be really hard work. In order to do that, we have to do deep reflection. We may even need to uproot, cast out, or exorcize habits, routines, or attitudes that have become deeply a part of us. This is hard work.

It does not have to be somber work. Or even if it does illicit feelings of sadness and grief, those feelings can intermingle with the joy of connecting more deeply with God. For ultimately, the journey of Lent is one steeped in the Good News of the Gospel.

The word “Gospel” means “Good News.” It is the Good News of Great Joy for all people that the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus. And I don’t think that in order to receive the Good News of Great Joy for all people that is Easter, we need to starve ourselves of Good News of Great Joy for six weeks. In fact, I have found that so often joy multiples joy. We hear Good News - we experience something wonderful and life changing - and we cannot wait to share it with someone! Good News is not meant to be kept to one’s self - it is meant to be shared, it is meant to be cause for celebration.

And so this Lent - we are taking a different approach to this season. One that I have never taken before and so we will be on this Good News Lenten journey together. Because our world is parched from a lack of Good News. From a lack of the Good News of the Gospel. From a lack of Good News of great joy for all people. Not only is a lot of what we hear not Good News - some of it is outright bad news and I am just not talking about the headlines of the day, I am talking about the words and actions of people who claim to know Jesus but don’t represent that Good News for all people or who present a “Gospel” that is limited or oppressive rather than expansive and liberating.

And so this Lent we are going to root ourselves in the core tenets of the Goodness of the Gospel. Our sermon series is entitled “Tell Me Something Good: Grounding Ourselves in the Good News This Lent.” We are going to come to the feast table of Communion every week and talk endlessly about how Good the Good News of the Gospel is, so that when we reach the Good News of the Resurrection on Easter, our joy is multiplied more than we can yet even anticipate.

And so - for those in the pews who are parched for Good News, for those in the streets who have not heard a Good Gospel, for those in the world who are crying out for living water to quench their thirst - we are not starting this Lent in a dry, arid desert - we are starting at a wedding feast.

The Gospel of John actually doesn’t have Jesus going into the wilderness. He is baptized, calls a couple of disciples, and then goes to a party. Weddings back then weren’t too different from Youngstown weddings now. There were no cookie tables. But there were tables overflowing with food and desserts. There was no DJ but there was live music. There was no Cha-Cha Slide but there was dancing. There was laughter. There was joy. There was celebration of love and community and a new family formed. And there was, it seems, an open bar. We do Jesus a dis-service if we picture him as standing outside this jubilant party rather than in it. Perhaps he was laughing with friends. Perhaps he was busting a move on the dance floor. Perhaps he was relishing in the spread of food. And it is here - that his mother comes and tells him - the wine is running out. This party is about to go downhill. It will end soon - and we had planned on it going well into the night! So Jesus, do something about it! The conversation Jesus had with his mom here has been interpreted many different ways - sassy, sincere, embarrassing, mischievous…maybe all of the above? And yet, Jesus did what his mother told him to do. Jesus tells them to fill six stone jars - each holding twenty to thirty gallons - and turn it all into wine. The equivalent of 1,000 bottles of wine! And so Jesus’s first public miracle was performed - a miracle that made the partying, the joy, the celebration continue. And even better than that - the water that Jesus turned into wine was the goooooood stuff. And so the party goers were surprised - they got better than they expected - and it multiplied their joy.

The Rev. Lizze McManus-Dail adds this interpretation to the wedding miracle:

“Behold: Jesus’ debut act of ministry. It’s not a healing, or an exorcism, or turning tables for justice. Jesus’ first act is to help ensure a party becomes the best party possible. It’s a total surprise. Because this… this is who Jesus is. Jesus doesn’t have to begin with defeating evil because he knows ultimately evil doesn’t stand a chance against a God who loves disco and his mother. Evil doesn’t stand a chance against a God who is not only not afraid of scarcity, but laughs in the face of it. Evil doesn’t stand a chance against a God who will never let an empty cistern or full tomb have the final word. Evil is predictable. But our God loves a surprise because God knows the plot twist is the same every time: God’s goodness will overflow. Every single time.”

In the poem, “They’re Out of Wine” by The Rev. Sarah Speed, the miracle is framed in similar terms:

“I wonder if Jesus stopped dancing when he heard the news.
I wonder if he looked out over the crowd of happy people.
I wonder if he could see their joy poking through their fragility.
And I wonder if he knew, in that moment, that joy was holy,
that joy would sustain them, that joy was a form of resurrection,
so he turned water into wine and the dancing did not stop.”

Let’s take a moment now to pivot to our other Gospel lesson this morning - the parable of the mustard seed. Because just as the Good News is joyful as in the miracle at wedding in Cana - the Good News can also take us by surprise and be so much more than we ever imagined it could be. And perhaps we need something that isn’t a wine metaphor! And so we turn to the smallest of seeds.

A mustard seed was often considered a weed - it was unruly and took over much of the wanted vegetation around it. Unless you specifically wanted to grow it, it would be behove the gardener to pull it up before it took over the whole garden bed. And yet it grew - not only into a large shrub but into a tree! That gave shelter to the birds of the air - gave a safe home. And perhaps also a seasoning for cooking, a spice for medicine, and something for everyone to marvel at - the shrub that became a tree.

We can’t always see what joy God has in store for us buried under the dirt. What miracle is God working just below the surface, through a seed planted in the ground, or water poured into stone jars. It may be something that we never even could have imagined before - the best wine brought out last, a weedy shrub being turned into a magnificent and useful tree, something we have not yet ever imagined but God has imagined it for us and can’t wait to surprise us with it!

This is actually the root of the Gospel. Humanity really struggled to imagine a God who was inherently Good, who was inherently Loving, who cared for us not along our lines of human divisions of tribe or race but spanning to loving-kindness of all Creation! We see this struggle throughout Scripture. And so God said to humanity, to us: “Let me surprise you with Good News of Great Joy for all people! Let me show you what I am like and what I want for you!” And so God took on flesh and became Jesus - Jesus who danced at a wedding. Jesus who taught us about love. Jesus who took on the weight of the cross, who broke the chains of sin and Death over us - so that we would have the Joy of abundant living! So that we could be surprised over and over again by the depth of God’s love for us! So that we could be free from the weight of sin to dance freely!

This morning I want us to think about times in our lives when the Good News of the Gospel - Good News of great joy for all people took us, took you, by surprise!

The scan is clear - the cancer is gone.
The grant comes through and the project is fully funded.
You hold a friend’s newborn who just came home from the NICU.
You share a laugh with a friend, a fellow church member, another human being that reminds us that the world is not so bleak after all.
Or you laugh so hard you cry and you realize it’s been too long since you last felt like this.
You take a deep breath of spring air and it feels like you’re breathing for the first time.
You got the job!
The outpouring of cards and meals after a surgery is more than you ever anticipated.
In the summer time your tomato harvest is so abundant you are giving tomatoes to everyone you meet or perhaps you are ding-dong ditching neighbors with zucchini on their porch.
The new dog you adopted is filling your days with delight.
An afternoon with grandchildren has you feeling young again.

I honestly could go on and on and on and I hope multiple examples for your life - those moments big and small - are coming to your mind.

God wants us to find delight and joy in the lives we lead. They are gifts from God. They are signs of abundant life. They should point us back to God, the source of our joy.

When John Wesley first felt that God loved him, yes even him, he wrote that his heart was strangely warmed. Can you think of the first time - or even the second, third, or hundredth time you felt God’s love for you? Where you felt it in your heart? Where God’s abundant grace and love took you by surprise? I think God’s Love and Joy strangely warm our hearts and our lives. That surprising love is The Good News of the Gospel.

And maybe…maybe lately you are feeling disconnected from surprising joy. You are feeling disconnected from Good News. You are feeling disconnected from the Gospel. Perhaps you can’t remember the last time your heart was strangely warmed.

And that’s okay.

I mean…it’s not okay and it’s okay. It’s human and our world has the ability to numb us to joy, to blind us from the surprises of God, to obscure God’s abundant love for us. My prayer for you today and for this Lent is that we would ground ourselves from the Good News and satisfy our thirsty souls from drinking abundantly of the living water - of the Gospel - of the Goodness of God - and our hearts would be satisfied in Christ’s abundant joy and love. And we would dance.

Jesus danced.
Jesus performed a miracle that surprised all the wedding guests and multiplied the joy present.
The seed in the ground grew into something that no one ever imagined - and it brought God’s Goodnessto all of Creation.

May we dance.
May we share the Goodness of the Gospel with all we meet.
May the joy of the Gospel, the love of God, the Goodness of our faith - take us all by surprise this Lent.

Amen.