Disorganized Religion

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sermon for Proper 11, Year A — July 19, 2026

Question: Is it a good thing to tell the truth?

It’s a good thing. It’s the foundation for living a moral life.

But suppose, for a moment, that you were living in Germany during the Third Reich. And suppose that you, like many did at that time, were hiding a Jewish family in your attic. And one day, the Gestapo comes pounding at your door and says, “Are there any Jews hiding in this house?”

Is it good to tell the truth then?

A little more iffy, isn’t it? Because sometimes life is complicated. It can’t be reduced to a simple, one-line commandment, even though the commandment holds true 99% of the time.

We’re left with a dilemma, because you could tell the truth to the Gestapo agent there, but then you would be handing innocent people over to their death.

So, it’s kind of like there is no perfect choice here.

That kind of dilemma is at the heart of today’s Gospel reading, in this parable that Jesus tells of the wheat and the weeds. We heard the story where a farmer sows good seed in his field, but then someone else comes in and mixes in some weeds with it. And then, when folks notice, they say, “Hey, what’s going on here?”

And, very understandably, they say, “Well, do you want us to go pull it up?”

And the farmer says, “No. Great. Be patient. Because in pulling up the weeds, you might accidentally pull up the wheat, too.”

Because the servants were looking at the weeds. The farmer was looking at the root system. The farmer was looking deeper than the servants were.

Sometimes, trying to really root out what we perceive to be evil—or what is evil—from our midst, in our lives, in our world, we can unwittingly uproot that which is good. And sometimes, by trying to defeat an evil, we can create a new evil.

That’s just life in this world sometimes, and Jesus understands that.

It’s not just about agriculture.

In the 1950s, in the United States, we had a period known as the Red Scare. Some folks here might remember.

And during this time, Senator Joseph McCarthy led a committee on un-American activities. And there was this big hearing that was nationally televised, where Senator McCarthy was accusing a young man named Fred Fisher of being a communist sympathizer.

And his fellow attorney, Joseph Welch, interrupted Senator McCarthy and said, “Senator, let us not assassinate this lad anymore. You’ve done enough.”

And Senator McCarthy just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, until Mr. Welch interrupted him and said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Senator McCarthy, along with a lot of our country at that moment, had fallen into the trap that the servants fell into in today’s parable by Jesus: that by trying to uproot one kind of evil—namely, communist infiltration—they risked damaging a good, namely decency, one of the goods that made this country worth defending.

So Jesus is saying we need to be careful about that.

And this is not just about agriculture. It’s also not just about U.S. history.

This is something that we often wrestle with in our own personal lives, too—or at least I know that I do.

Sometimes I have friends who will come knocking on my door unexpectedly, and, as many of you know, I’m a bit of a messy person. I’m so embarrassed to say, “Oh, don’t come in. The house is a wreck.”

And often I think that I’m protecting myself from embarrassment, but really what I’m doing is I’m protecting my house at the expense of friendship.

Sometimes it’s a greater good to let one thing be messy in order to protect something that is essential and precious.

It’s exactly what the farmer is doing in today’s parable by Jesus.

We, members of the Anglican tradition, when we are at our best, practice this. We have what’s called the via media, or the middle way, where we are intentionally a messy church.

Sometimes people say, “I don’t believe in organized religion.”

I say, “Well, why don’t you come to The Episcopal Church? Because we believe in a disorganized religion.”

We are comfortable with messiness, and the via media is a centuries-old theological tradition that we practice that embodies that.

Because in England, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, you had different points of view over many issues, particularly over the sacrament of the Eucharist.

There were some who held to the more Catholic position that this is literally the Body of Christ. And some, inspired by the more Protestant end of the tradition, would say, “Well, no, this is a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ, and we remember, and we receive Christ by faith.”

And the leaders of the Anglican Church, and Queen Elizabeth I herself, decided that they were not going to resolve that question.

Queen Elizabeth said it beautifully: “I would not open windows into men’s souls.”

And what they did is they said, “We are going to celebrate the sacrament using the rites of the common prayer,” recognizing that individuals, sometimes sitting in the same pew with each other, might interpret that differently.

And we’re going to decide that is okay.

We are going to tolerate a bit of messiness for the sake of something greater—namely, our common life together, coming to the same altar together to receive Christ, however we understand that to happen.

Common prayer does not mean complete agreement on everything. And that’s part of our tradition that we continue to practice today.

And I think it’s one of the best things about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion globally.

We’re messy.

And God is a God who knows how to work with mess, and keeps loving us patiently in the midst of it anyway.

I wonder how this might connect with you this morning, in your life.

Where are you finding unresolved messes in your life?

Maybe, like me, it’s your house—or my desk, if you go into my office.

Maybe, for you, it’s a relationship that’s not working out the way you thought it would. Or a job.

Maybe it’s a tough decision where it seems like there are no perfect answers.

As you wrestle with that and sit with that tension, I invite you to hear the good news in this parable that Jesus gave: that the farmer is working with patience and with mercy while the complicated mess is working itself out.

And one day, the farmer will step in at the harvest and remove the evil.

Evil will not have the last word.

Some of the language at the end of the parable can be a little disturbing, with its furnace of fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I take that not necessarily as a statement of people suffering eternally, but rather that God will not allow evil to have the final word.

But God somehow, in God’s infinite mercy and infinite justice and infinite wisdom, will work it out.

How?

By golly, I don’t know. If I did, I’d be making a lot more money than I do now.

All of us would.

But in the meantime, you’re invited to trust in God, to show mercy to one another, and to be patient with this process that is working itself out, knowing that, in the end, the harvest will be complete and God will bring the good that God intends to its fulfillment.

Love Has a Vision

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Sermon for Proper 9, Year A

Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67

When people ask my wife and me about how we met, we have to ask them to please be more specific.

Because, here’s the thing: We met twice.

The first time was at a campus ministry conference in western North Carolina in the late 1990s. It was not unlike many of the brief encounters one has at a conference. We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, established that we had a mutual acquaintance, and compared notes on what we were learning.

Then we said goodbye. And that was that. Or so we thought.

The second time we met was four years later, on a bus in Vancouver, Canada. I was a fresh-faced seminarian, and she was a year ahead of me. She had noticed me around campus and wanted to welcome me to the school. Once again, we exchanged pleasantries and established the same mutual acquaintance as before. In that moment, we both experienced a sudden case of déjà vu.

Hadn’t we had this exact conversation before?

Sure enough, we were the same two people who had met years prior, over three thousand miles away.

What are the odds of that happening?

To make a long story short, we started dating a month later and got married a year and a half after that. So that’s why, when people ask how we met, we have to ask them: “Which time?”

Stories like that raise interesting questions.

Was that God? Was that coincidence? Was it somehow both?

If life is nothing but random coincidence, we might wonder: Does that mean our lives are nothing more than accidents? But if every detail has already been planned out ahead of time, we might wonder something else: Are we really making choices at all, or are we just actors reading from a script someone else wrote?

Somewhere between meaningless accident and a rigid script, people of faith have always looked for another way.

Pastorally, I frequently sit with people who wrestle with this question, not as an abstract philosophy problem, but as a very personal one: “If God has a plan for my life, how do I know if I’m following it correctly?”

People ask this when they are deciding what to do about a job, a relationship, or any number of important decisions. Underneath all those questions is usually a deeper one: “What if I choose wrong?”

And that creates a lot of anxiety because sometimes we imagine God’s plan like a hidden treasure map. Somewhere out there is the one correct answer, the one perfect path, the one thing we are supposed to do. And if we make the wrong turn, we worry that we have ruined the whole story. But what if God’s plan is less about what happens to us and more about who we are becoming?

When I hear the words, “God has a plan,” I like to translate that in my head as: “Love has a vision.”

Scripture tells us that “God is love,” and love’s vision, I think, is less about predicting every event in our lives and more about shaping us into the kind of people we were created to be.

Love’s vision for my life is that I become more loving. Or, to put that in more traditional Christian language: God’s plan for my life is for me to become like Jesus, in my own particular way.

That is exactly the kind of mystery we encounter in today’s reading from Genesis.

The story of Isaac and Rebekah is one of the great romantic “meet-cutes” of the Bible. I like to think of it as Sleepless in Seattle for arranged marriages.

Abraham sends his servant on a mission to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant prays that God will guide him to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. And then along comes Rebekah.

The amazing thing about Rebekah is that she does not wake up that morning saying, “Today I am going to participate in the divine unfolding of salvation history.” She goes to the well and sees someone who is thirsty, so she gives him water. That’s it.

She sees a stranger in need and does the next loving thing.

The servant sees providence. Rebekah sees a neighbor. And somehow, mysteriously, both are true. Maybe providence looks like ordinary people choosing compassion.

There is no booming voice from heaven. No angel appears to explain the plan. There is simply a person choosing compassion in the moment that is in front of her.

The Church has a word for this process of listening for God’s guidance. It’s called discernment.

Discernment is not easy. It is more art than science. It involves self-awareness, education, paying attention to our intuition, seeking guidance from wise people we respect, committing ourselves to prayer, and studying Scripture. But ultimately, discernment comes down to learning to ask the old question: “What would Jesus do?”

Because we may never know for certain whether God wants us to marry a particular person, take a particular job, or choose a particular path. But we do know the kind of people Jesus calls us to become: compassionate, courageous, and wise.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from one of our long-time parishioners, who has asked to remain anonymous. This person was passing by the church and saw several people and a dog sitting in our memorial garden. Knowing how hot it was outside, this person felt moved with compassion to buy lunch for the people and their dog. And when I heard that story, I immediately thought of Rebekah.

I don’t know whether this parishioner woke up yesterday thinking, “Today I am going to fulfill God’s plan for my life.”

Probably not.

They saw people who were hot and hungry. So they did the next loving thing.

So far as she knew, Rebekah was just being kind to a thirsty stranger and his animals. She could not have known the full story that was unfolding around her.

And maybe that is true for us too. Maybe God’s plan is less like a treasure map and more like a compass. We do not always know where we are going or how to get there. But we know if we are walking in the right direction—the direction of love.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

That is who Jesus is: A safe place for the weary. A place of compassion in an often unkind world. And that is who we are called to be.

We may not always know what the future holds. Maybe it’s not even our place to know. But we can trust that whenever we choose compassion, whenever we offer kindness, whenever we become a place of rest for those carrying heavy burdens, we are stepping into love’s vision for our lives.

We are becoming more like Jesus, doing the next loving thing. And maybe, without even realizing it, we are exactly where we need to be.

A Well in the Wilderness

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Sermon for Proper 7, Year A

Genesis 21:8-21

In today’s first reading, we got to hear about some of the people of God: Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors in faith, whom we’ve been meditating on these last several weeks.

But today, unfortunately, God’s people are not acting very much like God’s people.

We heard last week about Abraham and the incredible hospitality he showed to the three mysterious visitors on his doorstep. This week, we’re seeing very much the opposite.

The central figure in this story is the woman whose name we are told is Hagar.

This is her backstory:

Hagar was an enslaved woman from northern Africa. And her name was not actually Hagar. “Hagar,” in Hebrew, literally translates as “the foreign thing.” Abraham and Sarah took her humanity away and replaced her name with a label: “the foreign thing.”

She was a person who understood what it meant to be demeaned, to be told that she was less than, to be treated as property.

We know also, from the stories we’ve read up to now, that God had promised Abraham that he would have many descendants, that he would become the father of a great nation, and that his descendants would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.

As we’ve also noted, Abraham and Sarah were in their nineties, past the age when Sarah could naturally bear children.

So, Sarah came up with a plan.

She said, “Look, I’m probably not going to be able to have any babies in my nineties. So why don’t you take this woman that we have enslaved, get her pregnant, and have a baby with her? That can be the means through which God will make of us a great nation.”

Hagar, you may notice, did not have any say in that process. She did not have any autonomy over her own body. She became pregnant by Abraham and gave birth to Ishmael without her consent.

Later on, God miraculously enabled Sarah to get pregnant and give birth to another son, Isaac, which brings us to today’s reading.

Sarah sees her son Isaac and Hagar’s son Ishmael—both sons of Abraham—playing together and suddenly becomes consumed by jealousy.

She says, “I want to make sure that this other boy, Ishmael, does not inherit along with my son. So, Abraham, you’d better cast them out into the desert.”

Abraham is distressed about this. He feels bad. But ultimately, he goes along with what Sarah says. And Hagar and her son Ishmael are sent into the desert with only a little bit of water, presumably to die.

So God’s people were not acting in a very godly manner in their treatment of Hagar. This is a story of their failure as the people with whom God was in relationship. But God is more faithful than Abraham and Sarah.

God cares about human dignity. God recognizes that Ishmael also was a son of Abraham.

When they are out in the desert and the water runs out, Hagar puts her son Ishmael under a bush and walks away. She just can’t bear to watch him die.

The text says that God heard the voice of the child crying out and met them there.

God said, “Hagar, this is not where your story ends.”

And God opened her eyes to show her a well of water, from which she was able to fill the waterskin and give her son a drink.

They managed to survive, moved back to Egypt, and from there Ishmael grew up, became a “wild ass of a man,” as Scripture says, and went on to have many descendants.

So we can see that, yes indeed, Abraham became the father of many nations: through Ishmael and Isaac.

What strikes me about this story is how God took care of people, even those who had been cast out by God’s people.

This reminds me of a story about a young man named Kenneth.

Kenneth was an African American man who was dating a young woman named Dorothy. This was during the 1940s, when Jim Crow segregation laws were in force. Dorothy was an Episcopalian, and she invited her new boyfriend to come to church with her one Sunday.

Now, The Episcopal Church is a predominantly white church.

So Kenneth was concerned about how it would feel to be in this church where people looked so different from him, and where, legally, people at that time were expected to remain separate.

He decided not to receive Communion that first Sunday he was there. But he watched as Dorothy came up and knelt at the altar rail for Communion.

Kenneth wondered, “What’s going to happen here?”

According to the laws of the land at that time, people of color and people of lighter skin were not allowed to drink from the same water fountain, much less the same chalice at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

So what was this priest going to do?

He saw the priest come to the people before her:

“The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.”
“The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.”

And then he came to Dorothy and lowered the common cup:

“The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.”

Kenneth, watching this from the pew, was astonished.

He said to himself, “A church that allows black people and white people to drink from the same cup understands something about the Gospel, and I want to be a part of that.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Kenneth ended up joining the Episcopal Church. He and Dorothy got married and had children.

And their son grew up to become the first person of color to serve as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church: The Most Reverend Michael Curry.

God provided a well for those who had been excluded and cast out when the people of God failed to live up to their calling.

And the name of the well that God provided, in the case of Kenneth and Dorothy, was The Episcopal Church.

We have the privilege of being a center of care and rest for so many people who have felt cast off and cast out by other churches—whether it is because of the color of their skin, or maybe because they ask too many tough questions, or maybe because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

I’ve noticed that people who feel excluded often end up coming to the Episcopal Church. I am one of them, as are 70% of currently practicing Episcopalians in the United States. We found a place of rest, a well of water in the midst of a spiritual desert.

What a privilege that we get to share, as God’s people!

And yet, there are still ways in which we can continue to take the next step toward becoming a welcoming refuge for others who have been cast out, or who feel cast out, for any number of reasons.

Many of our fellow parishioners here at St. Mark’s, and in many Episcopal churches, are people in recovery from the disease of alcoholism.

The Episcopal Church, from the earliest days of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, has been a supporter of that work.

To this day, including here in our own parish, twelve-step recovery groups continue to meet because we, as a church, believe in supporting people in their recovery from a disease they did not choose and against which they are fighting with tremendous courage.

One way in which we have an opportunity to take the next step in supporting them is in the choice of the elements we use when we celebrate our most central ritual: the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

It has been a longstanding tradition to use wine, which of course contains alcohol.

And that is something that can be potentially dangerous for our brothers and sisters who are in recovery. Someone spoke to me recently and said:

“When you lift the cup on Sunday and bless it as the Blood of Christ, I look at that and I think: what’s in that cup, to me, is poison. Why would anyone bless poison?”

That question really stayed with me.

Starting today, we’re going to do something a little bit different:
We are going to be using alcohol-free wine.

It’s a way that we can continue to be a well in the desert, a place of safety, a place of refuge.

I know it’s going to require something of us, because it’s a change in the way we’ve done things for a long time. And I know that we Episcopalians are not big fans of change. But you know what we are big fans of?

Loving people the way Jesus does.

And if Jesus knew there was something in the midst of his community that was harming the people he came to save, I think Jesus would do whatever he could to make his community a safer and more welcoming place for all people.

So beginning today, we are going to be using de-alcoholized wine in the celebration of the Eucharist, while we explore our long-term options for how to do this in a sustainable way.

For those of you who are in recovery: I invite you to consider, in your own mind and heart, what is best for you in your own recovery.

If even de-alcoholized wine feels too triggering for you, I want to encourage you to protect your sobriety, first and foremost.

Up to now, many of these folks have chosen to receive only the Bread and not the Cup.

Theologically, we believe that receiving just the Bread is full participation in the Communion of Christ’s Body and Blood.

But psychologically, we also know that receiving one element and not the other can sometimes feel less complete.

I just want you all to know that the option is available, should you choose it.

It is my hope that we, here in The Episcopal Church, may continue in God’s faithfulness to Hagar and to people throughout history from all nations—to be “a well in the wilderness,” and a church where absolutely everyone is welcome to participate fully in the life of the Body of Christ.

While You Wait…

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Sermon for Proper 6, Year A

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

It was the great American, Thomas Paine, who said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

And among the many trials and tribulations of modern life, there is one that stands out as particularly vexing to the spirit, testing the limits of human endurance to their utmost:
The mandatory software update.

There are times when I’m on the phone saying, “Yes, Mr. Treasurer, I will email that PDF to you right away.”
I open up the laptop, and it says:

Update downloading: 10%.

And it creeps, inch by inch, toward that promised land of 100%.

20%.

And I start to pray.
“Lord Jesus, help me.”

30%.

That makes enough time for a conversation.
“How are you doing? How are the kids? How’s the family? Everybody good?”
“Oh, good. That’s great.”

40%.
50%.

I start praying even harder.
“Jesus, you’ve got to give me peace, because if you give me strength right now, I’m going to need bail money with it.”

60%.
70%.

At this point, I don’t know if I need to call an IT guy or an exorcist, but it’s one of those two.

80%.
90%.
100%.

And then…

Update installing: 10%.

And there’s nothing you can do, right?
Just wait it out.
And eventually, we’ll get there.

Of course, there are other situations in life where that’s true.

When we look around the world, we can see situations of national and global import that seem so far away, we feel like we can’t do anything about them.

Sometimes it’s a little closer to home: people we love going through a crisis of health, relationship, or job. We want to fix it for them, but all we can do is be there for them.

And then there are those times when it gets even closer than that:
It’s the crisis happening within our own bodies and our own minds.

Those are the moments when we really do pray:
“Jesus, help me. I want to be better, but I don’t know how.”

These are the times that try human souls.

Abraham and Sarah, in our first reading today, were in one of those times.
They longed to be parents, but had been unable to conceive.
If you or someone you love has ever been through that crisis of infertility, then you know exactly how painful and disappointing it is to continually get your hopes up and then have them dashed again.

But there was even more to it than that.
This wasn’t just a personal hope of Abraham and Sarah. It was also a larger promise they felt God had given them:

“I will make of you a great nation. Your descendants will outnumber the stars, and all the families of the earth will be blessed through them.”

They believed this.
And yet here they were in their nineties, Abraham pushing one hundred, and still no baby.

So I don’t blame Sarah one bit for laughing when some random stranger shows up on her doorstep and says, “Hey, you’re going to have a baby.” I’d laugh too.

I imagine her saying, “You men just don’t get it, do you? That’s not how this works.”

They were holding on to what was, at this point, a distant hope.
All they could do was wait, hope, pray, and—as we read in the text—laugh about it.
The text doesn’t say this, but I’d bet dollars to donuts they cried about it too.

But here’s the thing:
There was more going on in that moment than either of them realized.
Because these three random strangers were not just anybody.

The text is delightfully ambiguous about who exactly these people are.
Are they angels?
Is it God?
We don’t really know.

But there’s something more happening in this moment.
And that, I think, is the good news for those of us who are living in that territory of unfulfilled promises, like Abraham and Sarah were.
There is more going on in your life, in your heart, and in who you are right now than meets the eye—maybe even more than you yourself realize.

Still, all they could do was wait.
But there was something else they could do.

When these three strangers show up, Abraham and Sarah roll out the red carpet for them.
They are just falling over themselves in this extravagant display of hospitality.

Abraham says, “Let me bring you a little bread.”
But what he actually brings is not a little bread.
It’s a feast of Thanksgiving-level proportions.

They go completely over the top with this hospitality.
And that’s really intentional, because it’s the exact opposite of what happens in the next chapter, when those same visitors go to the town of Sodom and Gomorrah. There they are not met with hospitality, but with an angry mob that wants to take advantage of them, do violence against them, and exploit them.

In the ancient world, hospitality wasn’t just about being nice or being a good host, although those are lovely things.
It was a survival practice.
There was no AAA.
There was no state highway patrol.
Travelers were vulnerable people.
They could be robbed, exploited, even killed, and nobody would know the difference because they were strangers.

Which is why, in the Torah, we have all these laws about being kind to strangers, immigrants, refugees, and people from other places.
Lives depended on it.

That’s why the extravagant welcome that Abraham and Sarah offer these three visitors matters so much.
They could not control what was happening with the unfulfilled promises in their lives or in their world.
What they could choose was who they were going to be in the midst of that waiting.

And they decided:
“We are going to look out for our neighbors, even the ones we don’t know.”
“We are going to roll out the red carpet and welcome them.”
Because you never know: You just might be welcoming God himself.

And I think that holds true for us today.

When we think about the unfulfilled promises in our own lives and in our world, there is so much we cannot change, even though we wish we could.
But we can hold on through it, moment by moment.
We can decide what kind of people we are going to be in this moment.
Am I going to be a person who acts from fear or from love?
Am I going to reach out to strike or to serve?

Who do we choose to be in the midst of the waiting?
That is ours to decide while we await the fulfillment of God’s promises—however, and whenever, God works them out.

Bless Your Heart

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sermon for Proper 5, Year A

Genesis 12:1-9

St. Mark’s parishioner Tom Greenburg standing up for Pride

When I lived down South, we used to have this saying.

It was pretty common—or at least I heard it a lot:
“Bless your heart.”

People would say this to me quite frequently. Every time I heard it, I would think, “What a nice thing to say. This person thinks I have a good heart. Thank you so much.”

It wasn’t until many years later, after I had moved away from the South, that someone finally explained to me:
“Barrett, that wasn’t a compliment. That’s just the polite Southern way of calling you stupid.”

I had misunderstood the meaning of the word “blessing.”

That’s a common thing that happens.

Often, when something good happens in someone’s life, or someone experiences success, material wealth, or prosperity, they might say, “I’ve been blessed.”
And that’s a really beautiful thing.
Because what I think most people are trying to say is, “I’m grateful for the good things in my life, and I want to give thanks.” Whether they are giving thanks to God, to the people around them, or simply expressing gratitude for life’s gifts, they are grateful and they want to express it.

But as with so many things in this world, there’s a flip side.

If material wealth and success become identified as blessings from God, then, if we’re not careful, we can start to think that they are signs of God’s approval.

And if we have God’s approval, then it’s only one more step to saying that whatever we say or do must be right.

And from there, it’s only one more step to saying that we cannot be criticized.

And there, I think, we can see the danger.

Because anyone who claims to be beyond criticism, and uses the Bible to justify that stance, is abusing Scripture.

There is a situation in our world today where I think this danger is present.

Our first reading today, Genesis chapter 12, is often quoted in relation to the tragic situation in the Holy Land between Israelis and Palestinians.
There is a longstanding argument over who gets to be in charge, who belongs there, and who has claim to the land.
Our Jewish neighbors—and we Christians as well—trace our spiritual lineage through Isaac, the son of Abraham.
Our Muslim neighbors trace their spiritual lineage through Ishmael, also the son of Abraham.
And both groups can point back to Abraham and say, “We are descendants of Abraham.”

Anyone who has followed the news at any point during the last fifty years can see that this has been the source of incredible tension and conflict.

I am not going to resolve that today.

It is a complex political problem that requires a complex political solution.
And anyone who claims the solution is simple is probably part of the problem.

But I do think some of that conflict arises from a misunderstanding of what blessing means.
God blessed Abraham and promised land to Abraham and his descendants.

We’ve already noted other ways in which people can misunderstand the meaning of blessing.

As Christians, we have a duty to pray for the leaders of all nations, that they would exercise their authority with justice, wisdom, compassion, and peace for the sake of the common good.

Insofar as our own nation is involved in that situation, let us continue to write letters and make phone calls to our elected officials, advocating for diplomacy, so that all of God’s children might live together in the peace and wholeness that God created them for.

So we’ve talked a little bit about what blessing is not.

Let’s talk now about what blessing is—and what it is for.

A blessing is a recognition of the inherent goodness that resides within someone or something.

When someone or something is blessed, we are saying:

“This person/thing is good.”

Our Hasidic Jewish neighbors have blessings for almost everything.

Like us, they often say a blessing before a meal.
But they also have blessings after meals.

They have blessings for waking up in the morning and blessings for going to sleep at night.

They have blessings for children.

They have blessings for using the restroom.

They even have blessings for seeing a particularly beautiful person.

The reason why our Hasidic Jewish neighbors do this is because there is a belief that a spark of divinity resides within everyone and everything.

When a blessing is spoken over that person or thing, that spark is recognized and reconnected to its source in God.

And this becomes a joyful and holy duty.

I think that’s beautiful.
And I think it captures something essential about what blessing means.

Blessing is the recognition and affirmation of the inherent goodness in someone or something.

It is recognizing that goodness as coming from God and returning to God.

This month, as many of you know, we are celebrating Pride Month.
This is a time of celebration for our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer siblings.
Theirs is a community that has often been demeaned by the language of others, sometimes by people misusing Scripture in order to do so.

People have called them names.

They have been described as abominations, unnatural, inherently disordered, or perverted.

As we have grown as a society, and as many Christians have grown in our understanding of Scripture, we have come to recognize some of those past mistakes.

Pride has emerged, in large part, as a counterargument to those demeaning messages.

It is a way for a community to bless itself.
It is a way of saying:
“There is a spark of divinity in us, too.
And we’re going to gather together and celebrate that.”

That’s what blessing is.

Now let’s talk about what blessing is for.

When God blesses Abraham in our first reading today, God says:

“I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

And a little later:

“All the families of the earth shall be blessed through you.”

What Scripture is saying here is that the purpose of blessing is not ownership or possession.
The purpose of blessing is a calling.

Just as the inherent goodness—the divine spark—exists in me and in each of you, so it exists in everyone and everything else.

Our joyful calling as people of faith is to speak that blessing, to recognize that goodness in everyone and everything.

This is our joyful duty.

So as we go out into this week, as we continue to celebrate Pride Month, and as we continue to carry the burdens of the many problems in our world today, let us remember our calling to be a blessing to others.

And let us recognize that the inherent divine goodness within us is also present in everyone and everything else.

Amen.

Holy and Human

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

I’ve got this phone. You may have one similar to it. And this thing tracks a lot of my data.

It can tell me how many steps I’ve taken today. It can tell me how much screen time I had last week (answer: too much). It can even track my weight and my blood pressure, so my doctor can keep an eye on it. It can tell me how productive I’ve been by checking things off a to-do list.

It knows a lot about me.
But it doesn’t really know me in the way that my family and my friends do.

There’s a big difference between knowing about someone or something and knowing them as a person.

We experience this in other parts of our lives, too.

At work, there are all kinds of productivity trackers. Even here at our church, where I work, once a year I’ve got to gather statistics: What was the attendance like on Sunday? How much came in through the offering plate? How many weddings and funerals did we do this year?

This data is useful.
But there’s a lot about this church that that data can’t tell me.
Can it tell me how much you love God and love each other?
The answer to that is no.

Same thing with the government. Every ten years it takes a census and writes down things like our ethnicity, our gender, our age, our address, how many people are in our household—lots of data points.

But they can’t really capture the essence of you and your family.
It’s just data.

The data is useful.
But it’s tempting sometimes to reduce complex, mysterious human beings to data.

Data points can’t capture who you are, because people are not statistics. People are not cogs in a machine.

The ancient Jewish people in the sixth century BCE understood intimately what it felt like to be treated as parts of a machine.
What had happened to them was that they had a war with the Babylonian Empire, which was the great superpower of that day, and they lost.

And the elite and the leaders among the people were taken off as slaves in Babylon.
And the Babylonians did their best to erase who they were—erase their religion, erase their culture, erase their language.

But here’s the thing:
The Jewish people resisted.

They accepted the fact that they had lost the war and were now obligated to work as a slave class.
But they did not accept the conclusion of the empire—that they were just cogs in a machine, that they were just property.

And our first reading today, from Genesis chapter 1, is a statement about that.

It is not a science book about the origin of life.
It is a poem about the meaning of life.
It is a song of human dignity in the face of oppression.

The language we hear in the text is very rhythmic and repetitive.

“God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that it was good. And God called the light day and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

And that pattern repeats itself again and again for each of the six days.

Now, there’s a form of language that uses a lot of repetition and rhythm: Poetry.

Within that poem, if we read carefully, we see something really fascinating happening.

There is a thematic match-up between the first six days:

  • Day one and day four.
  • Day two and day five.
  • Day three and day six.

In those first three days, God creates a habitat in which beings will dwell.

And in the second group of three days, God creates beings to live in those habitats.

  • On day one, God creates light and darkness.
    Match that up with day four, and God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars.
  • On day two, God creates the sky and the sea.
    And on day five, God creates the fish and the birds, which live in the sea and the sky.
  • On day three, God creates the land and the vegetation.
    And on day six, God creates the animals and the humans.

In each case, there’s a habitat and the beings that live in that habitat.

And the interesting thing about those beings is that they’re all Babylonian deities.
Except that, in this story, they’re not called gods and goddesses.

The sun and the moon, for example, were major features of Babylonian religion.
The Babylonians were telling the Jewish people, “You’d better bow down. Our gods are stronger than your God because we beat you in the war.”

And the Jewish people say, “No.”
These are not gods at all.
In the language of the text, they’re literally just “the big light” and “the little light.”

They’re not even given proper names.

According to the view of humanity that the Babylonian Empire held, humans were created to be servants of the gods. Humanity existed for them.

But in this biblical passage, the Jewish storytellers say:
Actually, we are created to be stewards of creation.

God made us in the divine image and said, “Rule over and care for” all these other creatures.

So it’s exalting human dignity above these so-called deities.

And finally, most of all, is the last day of creation, the seventh day, which came to be known as the Sabbath.

“On the seventh day, God rested and sanctified a day of rest for all creatures.”

Just imagine the Jewish people who were working as an enslaved class in Babylon at that time.

Their culture is being erased.
Their faith is being erased.
But they practice the Sabbath.

A day of rest, one day a week, when everybody goes on strike.

They say, “Six days a week we will do our jobs. We will work hard for you.
But one day a week, we all stop working.
And we’re going to take that time to pray, to be with our families, and to remember that we are not your machines.
We are not your property.
We are the beloved children of God.
That is who we are.
You cannot erase that from us.”

That’s powerful.
It gets me every time.

And it makes this message so meaningful.

This is a poem about human dignity.
It’s about people who refuse to be dehumanized, who refuse to be pushed aside and reduced to productivity statistics.
No matter what data was collected about them, they knew they were always going to be more than that.

Their faith gave them the strength to make it through that season known as the Babylonian Exile.
To endure.
To resist the erasure of who they were.
And to remember their own human dignity.

And when they would go back to their work, they would go back in a new way.
They weren’t serving merely the Babylonians who won the war.
They said, “Our daily lives are about serving God and each other.”
And that’s a much more meaningful way to work.

I can think of several examples—one from history and three that are a little closer to home.

First is the historical example: Dr. Jonas Salk.
He was the doctor who invented the polio vaccine.
And this obviously was a dramatic scientific accomplishment.
But the interesting thing is that he refused to patent it.
He could have made a lot of money.
But after he invented this vaccine, he said, “This belongs to humanity.”
This vaccine was going to be distributed freely to the world, to eradicate polio and ease the suffering of human beings.
That is holy and human work.

That’s a historical example from the past.
But we don’t just have to look at history to find examples of meaningful work that honors human dignity.

Chris Russell runs a game every other Sunday night at a comic shop here in town.
I’m part of this game.
It’s very silly. A bunch of nerds get together and pretend to be the crew of a spaceship, and we have a grand old time.
It’s a fun hobby.

But let me tell you something:
It is so much more than just a game.

The place where we meet is so much more than just a local business.
This is a place where people have formed a community of support.
Many of the members of this group have been through crises—hospitalizations, family members passing away.
Time and again, the members of this group have gathered around each other to offer support, helping one another buy cars, find jobs, and get through difficult times.
It’s become so much more than just a comic book shop.
It’s become something deeply holy and deeply human.

I think also of Patti Fosdick and Joanne Grigg, who took a shoe store on Chicago Street and turned it into an animal rescue.
A place where cats who have no home can receive care.
Where they can be introduced to families.
Where they can be there for anybody who wants to come in on a random Friday, and play with them, and feel a little better.
Through caring for animals, they too are doing holy and human work.

This is a sacred thing.

The last example I’ll mention is our dearly beloved departed sister, Mary Dally.
She worked for decades in our local schools.
And yes, she had a job to do.
There were children to educate and benchmarks to meet.
But the essence, the soul of her work as a teacher in this town, was the way she loved multiple generations of students.
The week that she passed away, I was having lunch over at the diner, and the waitress said, “You know, I was one of Mary’s students. And years later, my daughter was too.”
The testimony to her holy and human work came during her funeral service, when this church was standing room only.

All of these are snapshots from our local community of people living from that essence of human being that God gives us—the image of God.
And I think it can lead us as we go about our lives and our work.

Yes, our data continues to be collected.
It’s useful.
But I invite you to consider the essence and soul of who you are as God’s child.
Your soul, loving the souls of other people—is a part of God’s work in this world.

When God had made the world, he didn’t say, “This is very productive.”
He said, “It is very good.”

Many Gifts, One Spirit

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for Pentecost Sunday

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

When I was in high school, I built my identity around being a “nice church kid.”

There’s a lot that was good about that:
I was earnest and well-mannered.
I cared a lot about doing the right thing.
And my parents didn’t have to worry much about what I was getting up to.

I was, as a friend of mine recently put it, “a good noodle.”

But there was a not-so-good aspect to this, as well:
I could be very judgmental toward my fellow Christians, who didn’t always live up to the high standard of conduct I set for myself.

I created a ranking system in my head, based on where they went to church, how often they attended, and most of all, whether they did any cussin’, drinkin’, or smokin’.

That last one loomed particularly large in my mind, because I was sure that no good Christian would ever be caught with a cigarette in their mouth.

And that’s the one that eventually got me in trouble, but I’m going to come back to that in a few minutes.

I was too polite to ever say anything out loud about this ranking system of good Christians and bad Christians, but I was definitely keeping it in my head at all times.

The Corinthian Church, during the time of St. Paul, was doing the same thing.

They had turned spirituality into a hierarchy.
They ranked themselves, and each other, along socioeconomic lines.
They ranked themselves according to which one of the apostolic leaders in the early church was their favorite.
They ranked themselves according to which of them had had dramatic spiritual experiences and which ones hadn’t.

Just like I did in my youth, they had ranked themselves, and each other, into a hierarchy of what they thought were “good Christians” and “bad Christians.”

Human beings are very talented at sorting people into categories.

We do it with politics, education, economics, and even religion.

Successful people and failures.
Winners and losers.

And usually, once those categories harden, we stop seeing each other as actual human beings. We just see the labels we attach to them.

Paul steps into all of that chaos in Corinth and says:

“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

Now that phrase, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ can sound almost ordinary to us because we’ve heard it so many times. We see it on billboards and bumper stickers every day. It seems like a generic Christian slogan.

But in St. Paul’s day, “Jesus is Lord” was a very dangerous thing to say.

The Roman empire was, by and large, willing to let conquered peoples keep their own culture and practice their own religion, so long as they also continued to honor the authority of Caesar.

The problem, for Christians, was that Caesar was honored with titles like, “Son of God, Lord, and Savior,” all of which were titles that Christians applied exclusively to Jesus.

So, when Christians proclaimed, “Jesus is Lord,“ the Roman authorities interpreted it as them saying, “Caesar is not.”

What Christians intended as an act of spiritual devotion was received as an act of political disloyalty.
Therefore, any Christian who said, “Jesus is Lord,” in public was risking serious consequences, possibly including imprisonment or even death.

And Paul’s point is essentially this:

If someone has enough courage to risk those kinds of consequences because they proclaim the name of Christ, then who are we to rank them spiritually?

And then Paul begins this beautiful rhythm:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”

Many gifts.
One Giver.

Paul is trying to dismantle the whole ranking system.

The Holy Spirit does not enter our hearts to create individual superheroes.
The Spirit is incorporating various individuals into the one Body of Christ.
And bodies are complex things.

A healthy body contains all kinds of different parts doing all kinds of different work.

Your lungs are not trying to become kidneys.

Your ears are not competing with your elbows.

And thank goodness for that.

Imagine if your pancreas woke up tomorrow morning and decided it wanted to become an eyebrow.

That is not personal growth.
That is a medical emergency.

Living things remain alive not by eliminating complexity, but by learning how to hold complexity together.
No two parts are exactly the same, but neither is one better than another.
A body without a heart is just as dead as a body without lungs.
That’s why the whole ranking system of “more spiritual” and “less spiritual” Christians makes no sense, according to Paul.

“No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.”

And that’s how I got myself in trouble, back when I was younger.

After several years of privately ranking fellow Christians in my head, I came to find the weight of perfection to be burdensome.

I was tired of looking down on my fellow Christians and holding myself to a higher standard of holiness.

I came to realize that there was more to being me than just being a “good church kid.“

Like the Corinthian church, I was beginning to realize that I was more complicated than I wanted to admit.
There was more than one part of me.
And somehow, the Spirit was still moving through all of it.

In a misguided attempt to shed my “perfect Christian” image, I started to do the very thing that I had judged so many others for doing: I started smoking cigarettes.

Now, this was a very stupid thing to do. Everyone knows that nicotine is addictive and smoking is very harmful for the body.

I thought it made me look cool and edgy, but cigarettes are not cool; they’re just expensive.

As a wise person once told me, “A cigarette is like a squirrel: perfectly harmless until you stick one in your mouth and light it on fire.”

I eventually managed to quit the “cancer sticks” and manage my nicotine habit, but the irony is that I had become the very thing I judged.

That was a humbling experience for me.
No longer could I claim to be the “perfect Christian,” who followed the rules and always did what was proper for “good Christians.“

Getting addicted to nicotine forced me to confront something uncomfortable about being human:

The parts of ourselves we repress do not disappear.
They come back sideways.

The fear we refuse to acknowledge becomes control.
The shame we bury becomes judgment.
The insecurity we hide becomes arrogance.

And sometimes the qualities we judge most harshly in other people reveal something unresolved inside ourselves.

Human beings do this kind of thing all the time.

We pass judgment on others and then become the very thing that we judge.

The good news is that, if we find the grace to face ourselves honestly, we gain the ability to extend that same grace toward other people.

We may even discover that the thing we are so ashamed of contains an important truth that we need to hear.

For me, it was the truth that there is more to me than just the “perfect Christian“ image that I display to the world.

Mercy is the one thing in this universe that has the power to help us see beneath the surface of outward complexity and recognize the one Spirit that holds us all together.

And maybe that is what Pentecost is really about.

Not the elimination of difference.
Not the creation of perfect people.
But the grace to recognize one Spirit moving through many complicated human lives.

Many gifts.
One Spirit.

Believing in Jesus

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sermon for Easter 5

John 14:1–14

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Now, that’s a tall order…
Because, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the world lately, but it’s kind of a mess out there!

I mean… My gosh!

I doom-scroll through the news, and it starts to look like the things that win, in this world, are power and money. The people who get ahead are the ones who can dominate and accumulate, at all costs.

And, when I see that, part of me is tempted to wonder: What if they’re right? What if that really is how the world works? What if love is just a nice feeling, but not the truth about reality?

And that’s when Jesus says to us: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

But what does that even mean?

Because “believing in Jesus” can mean different things to different people.

For some people, “believing in Jesus” means accepting the historical fact that, once upon a time, there was a guy named Jesus who lived in a land far away, and inspired a lot of people.

Most historians agree that much is probably true.
So whatever Jesus means by ‘belief,’ it has to be something more than that.

We church folks, on the other hand, often think that “believing in Jesus” means believing certain things about Jesus—agreeing with the traditional ideas that the Church talks about in the Nicene Creed: That Jesus is the Son of God, was born of a virgin, rose from the dead, and will come again in glory.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these. They are theological statements, which can be neither proved nor disproved by science. Traditional Christians call them “revealed truths,” which can only be accepted on the basis of faith.

But, here again, we encounter a problem:
There are plenty of Christians who say they believe all of that—and live in ways that look nothing like Jesus.
We have a word for that:
It’s hypocrisy.

So, here again, we see that “believing in Jesus” must mean something more than simply believing that Jesus existed and accepting certain theological beliefs about Jesus.

So, what then does it mean to “believe in Jesus?“

And if that question—what does it really mean to believe?—feels a little unclear, we’re actually in good company.

Because the disciples are just as confused as we are.

Jesus said, “You know the way to the place where I am going.”

And Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

But Jesus doesn’t give him a map. He gives Thomas himself.

He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also.”

That is a staggering claim.

Because Jesus is not just pointing to God—he’s revealing God.

If you want to know what God is like—look at Jesus.

If you want to know what really matters in this world—look at Jesus.

And what do we see, when we look at Jesus?

We see someone who chooses compassion over control. Someone who serves instead of dominating, who forgives instead of retaliating, who gives himself away rather than grasping for more.

We see a life defined by love.

And that brings us back to belief.

Belief, in the sense that Jesus means it, is more about alignment than agreement.

The Greek word for “believe” is pistis—it means trust or allegiance.

To believe in Jesus is not just to say, “I agree with these ideas about him.”

It’s to say, “I trust that the way he lived reveals what is actually real—and I’m going to live like that’s true.”

When we look at Jesus, we see what ultimately matters.

And that’s where this becomes both beautiful and difficult.

Because if love is ultimate, then a lot of what the world tells us starts to fall apart.

The world says: power is what matters.
Jesus says: love is what matters.

The world says: get all you can for yourself.
Jesus says: give yourself away.

The world says: win.
Jesus says: serve.

And the reason this is hard is because it doesn’t always look like Jesus is right.

It doesn’t always look like love wins.

So we live in this tension.

We feel the pull of one reality—the one we see on the news.

And we hear Jesus pointing to another—the one revealed in his life.

Believing in Jesus means choosing which of those realities we are going to trust.

It means saying, “Even though it might cost me, I trust that love is more valuable than money.”

That’s not just an idea. It’s a way of life.

Toward the end of the passage, Jesus says, “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.”

What does that mean: “Greater works?”

I don’t think he means more spectacular miracles.

I think he means more and more people living in alignment with the reality that he preached and lived—choosing love over power, compassion over control.

The works are “greater” because they spread out wider.

And I’ve seen glimpses of that.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Catholic priest who lived in Poland during World War 2.

When the Germans invaded, he had an opportunity to escape, but chose instead to remain behind. He hid Jews and other refugees fleeing persecution inside the friary.

When the Nazis arrested him, they offered him an opportunity to sign his name on a list that would have given him the same rights as a German citizen, but he refused and was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Finally, when the Nazis decided to execute ten prisoners in retaliation for one prisoner who had escaped, St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take the place of another prisoner who had a wife and children. He died at Auschwitz in 1941 and was canonized as a saint in 1982.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a man who believed in Jesus.

We know this, not because he was a priest who recited the Nicene Creed, but because of the way he lived his life.

That’s what Jesus is inviting us to do when he says, “Believe in me.”

Don’t just believe things about Jesus, but trust in Jesus himself.

Trust that the way Jesus lived reveals what actually matters.
And live like that’s true.

What would it look like, this week, for us to “believe in Jesus” in that sense?

Maybe it looks like a moment when we choose compassion over control.

When we choose the way of Jesus over the way that seems easiest.

When we choose to listen. To forgive. To act with kindness.

Not because it guarantees a certain outcome—

But because we trust that what Jesus showed us is what matters most.

Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

In other words:

Don’t let your hearts be shaped by a false vision of reality.

Trust what you see in Jesus.

And live like that’s the world you actually inhabit.

Because it is.

A Picnic in a War Zone

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment

Sermon for Easter 4, Year A

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known passages of religious literature in the world, from any religious tradition.

It’s comforting. And so we often read it at funerals. We cross-stitch it onto nice, fluffy pillows. And it’s one of those passages that we kind of take for granted. We hear it several times a year—that’s what many of us do—and we don’t really continue to think about it.

But I’d like to change that today.

I’d like to take a closer look at it. And it might help to keep your bulletins open to it so that we can really internalize these words. Our psalm is on page six—we just sang it together a few minutes ago.

We’re going to go through this and take a closer look at why this psalm is so comforting, and why it speaks both to our ancestors in the past and can still speak to us today.

So let’s start right now.

In this first verse, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.”

That word “want” is really interesting. It’s the same word that was used in the Torah, in Deuteronomy chapter 2, verse 7, when Moses is talking to the Israelites about their forty years wandering in the wilderness. He says, “These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”

Older translations say, “You wanted for nothing.”

And in Hebrew, it’s the same word as in the psalm—chesar, if you like learning other languages.

And that word choice is really intentional, because it ties this psalm back to the earlier stories of Israel.

It would be like if, in American dialogue, someone used the phrase “certain inalienable rights.” We would immediately recognize that as a reference to the Declaration of Independence.

In the same way, this word is a reference back to their ancestors’ story.

So what the author of the psalm is saying here is: these times are not unprecedented. Just as God was with our ancestors back then, God is with us now. And just as they got through hard times then, we are going to get through this hard time now.

It’s the same story. It’s connected.

So when it says, “I shall not be in want,” that’s the first reason why this psalm is comforting.

Let’s move on.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.”

This is another interesting image.

Sheep, as we know, are prey animals. And prey animals don’t survive by having big claws or being stronger than predators. They survive by hypervigilance—by watching all the time.

If you’ve ever seen a deer in a field, you know what that looks like.

Prey animals don’t lie down easily. Many animals, like cows, learn to sleep standing up so they can run quickly if a predator comes near.

They only lie down when they feel completely safe.

So when the psalm says, “He makes me lie down,” it’s describing that level of trust. That sense of safety.

Any cat people here? Dogs love belly rubs. Cats? Only if you are their very special person.

I have a cat who will let me rub her belly—but only after everyone else has gone to bed, and no one else is around. Then she decides, “Okay… now you can.”

Because that’s when she feels safe.

That’s the relationship being described here.

Let’s keep going.

“He guides me along right pathways.”

Again, something we might take for granted—but it’s referring to something very specific in shepherding culture.

The ancient Israelites were a shepherding people. Their ancestors worked the same land for generations. There were no paved roads, no GPS.

But over time, the safest routes through the wilderness became worn into the land. Paths formed by generations of shepherds who had learned where to go and where not to go.

So those “right pathways” are the collective wisdom of those who came before.

Which leads into the next verse:

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

The shepherd’s staff—that crook—is a familiar image. Our bishops carry something similar as a symbol of their pastoral office. “Pastor” literally means shepherd.

That staff is a weapon—not to beat the sheep into submission, but to defend them. To fight off predators when necessary.

The wilderness is dangerous. So it’s comforting to know that the shepherd is with you, ready to protect you.

And then we come to this remarkable image:

“You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me.”

Older translations say, “in the presence of my enemies.”

Picture this:

Two armies lined up on a battlefield, ready to charge.

And then one general strolls out into the middle of no man’s land… lays out a blanket… pulls out a basket of sandwiches and lemonade… and sits down for a picnic.

Can you imagine?

The enemy soldiers would be watching and thinking, “That guy has a lot of nerve. He’s either very brave or very foolish.”

There is nothing more unsettling to an opponent than someone who remains calm in the face of danger—who doesn’t panic, who doesn’t react, but simply holds their ground.

That is what faith looks like.

It looks like the audacity to have a picnic in the middle of a war zone.

Psalm 23 is comforting not because it describes perfect, peaceful surroundings, but because it describes a way of being—a kind of serenity—that can exist even when things are not safe.

That’s what it looks like to trust the Good Shepherd.

And the beautiful part is this:

When we trust the Good Shepherd, we begin to become the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd in the world.

We begin to offer that same sense of safety and care to one another.

This can take many forms.

It can look like bringing meals to someone who is sick—like so many of you did for my family this week when my wife had surgery. Thank you. She’s doing well.

It can look like offering rides to church.

It can look like creating a space where someone who is going through something hard can come, speak freely, and know they will be safe—that they will be held, metaphorically, in the arms of love.

All of these are ways we become the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd.

There’s another way I’ve been learning about over the past several years—something specific to my experience as a man—and I suspect many of my brothers here can relate.

My wife once asked me: if I were walking through a dark parking lot at night and saw another man walking nearby, what would I think?

And I said, “Honestly? I’d probably be thinking about what I need to get at Meijer.”

And she said, “My first thought would be: I hope he doesn’t attack me.”

That was eye-opening.

It made me realize that many of our sisters are navigating the world with concerns that have never even occurred to me.

And it made me start thinking: what are some simple ways I can be the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd?

Sometimes it’s very simple.

If you’re walking through a parking lot and there’s a woman a few steps ahead of you, you can slow down. Give her space.

You might just be thinking about eggs, milk, bread.

But she doesn’t know that.

So creating that space communicates something: safety, respect.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about what our mothers and grandmothers taught us about being gentlemen—literally, gentle men.

It costs us almost nothing. A few extra seconds.

But the impact is powerful.

It creates space. It communicates care.

It’s one small way we can walk those “right pathways”—those well-worn paths of respect, kindness, and gentleness.

There are many other ways. You can think of your own—I’ve seen you do them.

And I look forward to seeing the ways you continue to create spaces of safety and love in this community.

Spaces that reflect the care of our Good Shepherd.

Amen.