Call to Worship based on hymn, "I Love You, Lord"

Leader: We come together today to proclaim:
People: We love you, Lord!
L: We lift our voices in worship.
People: Rejoice, O My Soul!
L: King of all, take joy in our worship and praise.
P: May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.
All: Amen.

“The Good News is…Alive in the World” an Easter sermon on Matthew 28:1-10

Matthew 28:1-10
“The Good News is…Alive in the World”
Preached Sunday, April 5, 2026 (Easter)

I love proclaiming the Good News of Easter. I love when I say, “Christ is Risen” and I hear over a hundred voices echoing back “Christ is Risen, Indeed!” So let’s proclaim the Good, Good News of the Gospel together this Easter morning:

Christ is Risen!
Christ is Risen, Indeed!

This is the Good News of the Gospel! Christ is risen! Jesus is alive! Death does not have the final say! God offers us all an abundant, joyful, and Good News filled life!

We live in a world that is desperate for Good News. In the pews and in the world, we are a people parched, starving, in need of good news. There is a lot of bad news out there - even as I was writing this sermon, I saw multiple headlines that broke my heart - or would break my heart if I didn’t construct a wall around it to protect it from the endless awfulness of the world. Which is also not what God wants for us. I don’t need to belabor the bad news today - you all know what it is. Wars rage. Disasters happen. Children - and adults - die much too soon. People are mean to one another. We treat one another as less than the beloved children of God that each of us was created as. This is not the Good News of the Gospel.

We also need to acknowledge that sometimes what is 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 over the past six weeks, during the course of the season of Lent, as a church we have been focusing on the Good, Good News of the Gospel. The word “Gospel” literally means “Good News” and it is as the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus, “Good News of Great Joy for all People!” If it’s not that, it ain’t the Gospel.

And so we have been focusing on the core of the Gospel message, to satiate our desperate thirst for Good News in our world. And today. Today is the day of ultimate Good News. Good, Good News of Great Joy for all people:

Jesus is alive!
Easter is here!
The Resurrection is real!

And so today as we proclaim the Good News of the Resurrection we should not just proclaim it but live it as well. And so we ask: How do we let this Good, Good News be alive in us? Alive in the world? Especially in a world that constantly tries to drown out, diminish, and obscure Good News with all the pain and hurt of the world?

Jenny Lawson is an author who writes and speaks very openly about her mental health struggles. She does so in a way that is often irreverent, hilarious, and relatable. In her newest book, “How To Be Okay When Nothing is Okay” she gives tips and tricks that she has found to function, be human, and stay alive when she is at her low points.

One of those tips and tricks is curating a joy list. She writes this:

“When depression creeps up on me, I am unable to find joy in things, but sometimes that’s because my depression makes me forget the things that bring me joy, and eventually I find myself stuck on the couch, unable to think about what I could do to help break out of it. So I’ve created a list of things that bring me joy or comfort that I continuously add to, and when I’m struggling, I go back to that list to remind myself of things that I can reintroduce to my life that made me happy. Sometimes a simple reminder that I’ve found joy before can be enough to convince me that I’ll soon find joy again.”

Her joy list in the book includes dressing her cat up, reading, singing loudly in the shower, microwavable kettle corn, and sitting in the sun. It made me think, what would be on my joy list? So I made one:

The sound of my children’s laughter
When the cherry trees are flowering
Marking off a book as finished on my reading app
The first sip of a matcha latte
A hug from a friend I haven’t seen in awhile
When I step outside after a long winter, and for the first time in months, I realize the birds are singing and that which was dormant inside of me comes to life again

That last one feels a lot like the Good News of Resurrection for me.

What would be on your joy list? What on that list feels like the Good News of Resurrection to you? Take just a moment and let a couple things come to your mind.

The next step as Christians, taking this from a great tool for mental health to a spiritual discipline of keeping the Good News of the Resurrection alive inside of us, is seeing the “things” on our joy lists not just as “things” but as gifts of joy from God in order to bring the Good News to our everyday lives.

Being a Christian means seeing all things through the lens of the Resurrection. The line between sacred and secular, the line between everyday and holy, disappears when we see all things that are life-giving as gifts from the God who is Life itself. Gifts from the God who broke the powers of sin and Death over us. Gifts from God who wishes abundant life for us.

Because we do live in a world where Death still sits on the throne and has power over us. We live in a world where there is grief, loss, tears, pain, bad news. And the Good News of the Gospel is that all the bad news won’t have the final say. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Death was defeated, and death is dying. We look to that day when Christ will return again to create a new heaven and a new earth, when Death will die the final death, Christ will reign, and we will share in eternal life. We look towards that day - and God offers us a foretaste of it now, whenever the Good, Good News is shared, whenever life flourishes, whenever we experience joy.

The Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dial puts it like this: “How can we trust resurrection when death is on the world’s throne? Because Jesus knows what we will always need to be reminded of: the good news is greater than any tyrant. The good news of God is more alive than anything that tries to kill God, more alive than anything that tries to kill the imago dei in all of us. Kings come and kings go, and we may tremble still—but God? God shakes the earth with power and might so tender and so fresh it can make a tomb bloom with new life.”

And so - let us make joy lists. Let’s also make Good News lists. Lists that proclaim the Good, Good News of the Gospel, Good News of Great Joy for all people! Perhaps our lists would look something like this:

“The Good News is…All Are Invited”
“The Good News is…So Good it Catches Us By Surprise"
“The Good News is… Great Love for God & Neighbor”
“The Good News is…Together, the Impossible is Possible”
“The Good News is…Protection & Care for the Vulnerable”
“The Good News is…Rooted in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness”
“The Good News is…Even Judas Gets His Feet Washed”
“The Good News…Revealed through Nonviolence”
“The Good News is…Alive in the World”

If you didn’t pick up on my little sermon Easter egg - those were all our Good News sermon titles in the season of Lent. We’ve been working on our Good, Good News lists all along.

And so, root yourself, ground yourself in the Good, Good News. Make the joy list. Make the Good News list.

The Gospel in Matthew is the “loudest” of all the Resurrection narratives - an earthquake, an angel descending from heaven before their eyes, his appearance like lightning, the guards shake and faint, there is great fear - and great joy - and running, and then…there is Jesus, alive and standing before them.

Let the Good News of Easter be loud in your life. Let the Good, Good News of Great Joy be alive in your life and in the world. Cultivate joy. Cultivate Good, Good News. In a world that so desperately needs the Good, Good News of the Gospel - be its amplifier. Offer a deep drink of life-giving joy to a world that is parched. Let your life be like birdsong after a long winter.

And with that, I want to leave you this morning with a poem by The Rev. Sarah Speed entitled, “Birdsong.”

“Every morning the sun rises,
majestic and steady.
She is greeted
in all her strength
with the joyous cacophony of birdsong.
I like to believe
this holy chorus
is the birds telling each other—
I’m here.
We made it through the night.
You’re not alone.
What good, good news.
I think the resurrection is a bit like that.
God is here.
We made it through the night.
We are not alone.
What good, good news.”

Christ is Risen!
Christ is Risen, Indeed!

Amen.

“The Good News Is…Even Judas Got His Feet Washed” a Maundy Thursday Sermon on John 13:1-35

John 13:1-35
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
“The Good News Is…Even Judas Got His Feet Washed”
Preached Thursday, April 2, 2026 (Maundy Thursday)

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

This is the Good News of this night - a night of love. A night of service. A night of water and towels. A night of bread and wine. A night of Good News.

And the part of the Good News we are focusing on tonight in our Maundy Thursday meditation, is that Jesus’s love, Jesus’s service of foot washing, and Jesus’s invitation to the first Lord’s Supper - included Judas. He was present for the foot washing. He was present for the institution of Holy Communion. And he was one of Jesus’s own - loved until the end.

Yes, even Judas. And that also allows us to say, “Yes, even him.” “Yes, even her.” “Yes, even the one I despise.” And, perhaps, “Yes, even me.”

I think, at our core, as humans, all we ever really want to know is that we are loved. Loved by the people who gave birth to us. Loved by our caretakers. Loved by friends. Loved by significant others. Loved by God. For most people, there is never enough assurance that we are loved enough. We are always seeking love and seeking proof and assurance of the love we have.

And the world warps our own self-image as one created in the image of God and called “very good” by that God, to a mess. To someone full of faults and mistakes. Even when we say, “I’m only human” - this is what we mean. We are sinful people prone to follow our worst natures, inklings, and desires. Even if we “aren’t that bad” - even if we are generally good people, we can still have low self-esteem, be our own worst critics, and see only the bad parts when we look at ourselves.

In the Poem, “Even Now,” The Rev. Sarah Speed, gets to the gist of this human desire to know we are loved:

We ask the question a million different times
over the course of lives.
Do you love me even now?
As children we ask this question
with eyes the size of saucers
and a quivering bottom lip.
In our teenage years,
we ask the question by pushing people away
and paying attention to who comes back.
As adults we ask the question by
extending the first invitation
and seeing who returns the kindness.
Over and over again we ask the world,
Do you love me even now?
The thing I’ve learned about God
is that, no matter what comes before “even now,”
the answer will always be yes.

End quote.

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Judas betrayed Jesus, ultimately setting up the dominoes to fall - for his death to his resurrection. In the Gospel tellings of this last night with his disciples, we see Jesus address Judas’s betrayal in various ways - and yet, he doesn’t say “this is my body, broken for you. My blood, shed for you. Except for you, Judas, you are beyond the pale - not worthy of grace and forgiveness.” And even as Jesus says, “Not all of you are clean” in tonight’s reading from John - Jesus had not yet named Judas a betrayer. He got down on his hands and knees before Judas, washed his feet, and showed him a service of love - yes, even him.

Ultimately, it was up to Judas as to whether he would accept the love, grace, forgiveness that Jesus was offering him. After all, Peter betrayed Jesus that very night as well. Denying him three times. - and yet, after his resurrection, Jesus meets Peter on the beach and allows him to accept forgiveness of himself, asking him three times, “Do you love me?” and allowing Peter to answer three times, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Three declarations of love to counter act three denials of Jesus - opening room in Peter’s heart to accept the love and forgiveness that Jesus was offering him.

If we used our Biblical imaginations, we might imagine a future where, after his death and resurrection, Jesus met Judas and offered him the chance to repent. What would it have looked like to repent for Judas?

Unfortunately, we don’t know because Judas could not accept God’s forgiveness for him in this life. Perhaps, his thoughts mirror our thoughts in our darkest moment: “I am not worthy of love. I am not worthy of forgiveness.”

But. And. The Good News of the Gospel is that…Jesus was still offering that grace and forgiveness to Judas. He was offering him love and service through the washing of feet. He was offering him a place of belonging and participation in the salvific act of forgiveness through Holy Communion. It is as we say in our Communion liturgy, “When we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast.”

Jesus’s love for Judas was steadfast. God’s love for you is steadfast.

There is nothing you can do to change God’s invitation to you to come to Jesus, to accept grace and love, and to be forgiven. The only thing keeping us from God’s love is ourselves. It is as CS Lewis said, the gates of hell are locked from the inside - or even that there are no gates, the only thing that could ever keep us from God is just…ourselves.

And this is hard news. For us. And it is also very very Good News for us. The invitation is here to accept God’s love. It’s wide open. It always will be - tonight and for forever.

I am going to end with one more poem by the Rev. Sarah Speed because it’s so good. It’s called “If You Hear Nothing Else, Then Hear This.”

You can make a fool of yourself.
You can bet on the wrong thing,
lose it all, unravel people’s trust.
You can laugh at a funeral,
curse in a church, say the wrong thing
at the wrong time, every time.
You can lose yourself in a bottle,
a relationship, a false sense of security.
You can uncover prejudice
and wrestle with the shame of it all.
You can withhold an apology,
blame it on someone else,
tell yourself it’s not your fault.
You can trade in love
for a bag of coins.
And even then,
even still,
even now,
Jesus will love you enough to
wash your feet.
If you hear nothing else in the gospel,
hear this.

End quote.

If you hear nothing else in the Gospel tonight hear this Good News: God’s love for you is steadfast.

Amen.

“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.