An Invitation We Did Not Expect SERMON 3/16/25
On this Second Sunday of Lent, we find ourselves in a season of unraveling.
A time when the comfortable layers of our lives begin to fall away, inviting us to
look deeper, to breathe slower, to see more clearly.
I remember a day when everything was falling apart.
I was striving to get the office Church Office, then the dishwasher did not work,
and I had to secure maintenance service, and it was one thing after the other.
wrestling with a day that felt like it was constantly spinning out of control. I was doing what I’d always done – keep performing. Keep moving. Rushing to get to my car, I needed to make a quick ATM stop, and refuel the gas
tank, so that added another 15 minutes. A moment stopped me that would change everything.
A parent and two children were selling candy. As I hurried by, the young teen said. “Free candy,” she said. Now, nothing is ever truly free. I pulled out my wallet, ready to pay. But she stopped me. “No,” she said. “You don’t get it. This is free. You look like you could use a free candy.” I waited for the punchline. For the hidden camera. For some elaborate joke. But there was none. She was offering me something I couldn’t buy. Something I couldn’t earn. Something I simply had to receive.
That child’s unexpected grace was more than just a free candy. It was a moment of profound invitation – just like Jesus’ interaction with Mary and Martha. In that moment, she disrupted my entire performance. My rush. My constant doing. She offered an invitation to something I couldn’t earn. Something I couldn’t control.
Let’s dig deeper into what’s really happening in the text. Jesus isn’t just managing a domestic dispute in Martha’s kitchen. He’s revealing something profound about human overwhelm. Look at Martha. She’s doing everything right. She’s serving. Preparing. Working herself to exhaustion. In that culture, hospitality wasn’t just a nicety – it was a sacred duty. Martha is performing exactly as society expects. Every dish perfectly placed. Every surface meticulously cleaned. Every expectation met. And she’s drowning.
“Lord,” she says, “don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by
myself?” Her words drip with exhaustion. With frustration. With a kind of spiritual burnout that feels achingly familiar. Martha represents every single one of us who has ever felt crushed by expectation. Who has ever looked around and thought, “I’m doing everything right. So why does this feel so wrong?” This isn’t just a story about two sisters. It’s a profound exploration of human overwhelm.
In that culture, a woman’s place was only in service. Cooking. Cleaning. Caring.
This role is important, but also women were not learning to teaching. Never sitting at a rabbi’s feet. That space was exclusively male – a sacred territory of religious scholarship forbidden to women. Mary’s choice isn’t just personal rebellion—it’s a profound challenge to an entire system that defines women’s worth through service alone. When she sits at Jesus’ feet, she isn’t just claiming individual dignity; she’s dismantling the very structures that reduce human beings to prescribed roles. Her act is not just personal transformation, but a courageous reimagining of community.
When Jesus invites Mary to sit and learn and explore becoming a teacher yourself, he’s saying something extraordinary about human dignity. About who gets to be considered worthy of knowledge. And lead spiritual formation. Both Martha’s role was valid, and Jesus expanding to say AND so is Mary in the role of one who is learning to teach. Mary’s choice to sit isn’t passive submission. It’s deliberate transgression to engage in what? Holy ambition! She’s claiming a space that society has explicitly denied her.
But here’s the thing about claiming space – it’s never comfortable. Just like Martha was wrestling with her overwhelming expectations, we’re
constantly managing impossible loads. The roles we’re told to play. The
performances we’re supposed to maintain. Think about your own life. How many masks do you wear? How many versions of yourself exist between work and home, between public and private? We’re constantly shifting, adapting, trying to fit into the spaces others have defined for us. And isn’t that exhausting?
Here’s the truth we don’t want to hear: Our overwhelm isn’t our enemy. It’s trying to tell us something. Think about your own life. How many pieces are you trying to hold? Work. Family. Spiritual life. Personal dreams. We’re constantly trying to manage these fragments, like we’re holding a bunch of china plates, terrified of dropping something. But what if dropping something is exactly what we need to do? What if that something is perfection?
Let’s talk about something real. We’re all trying so hard, aren’t we? Trying to be perfect. Trying to prove our worth. Trying to show the world we have it all together. But here’s the truth: Perfection is a lie. A beautiful, exhausting, impossible lie. What if we engaged in some creative arithmetic this Lent? What if we gave up perfection for Lent? And then, what if we decided to add faithfulness?
We drop perfection. We embrace faithfulness. And we do this for one profound
reason: so we can faithfully and clearly respond to God’s call in these times.
As Frederick Buechner so beautifully described, God’s call is where the world’s
deepest need meets our deepest gladness. Think about that. Your call isn’t a burden. It’s not a checklist. It’s the sacred intersection where your unique gifts touch the world’s most urgent longings. Where your joy meets the world’s deepest pain. Faithfulness isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about showing up. Exactly as you are. Messy. Broken. Beautiful. So you can hear. So you can respond. So you can step into that calling.
Some days, faithfulness looks like getting out of bed. Some days, it looks like
asking for help. Some days, it’s just breathing. And that is enough—because it
keeps you open. Listening. Ready.
We drop perfection so we can be present. We embrace faithfulness so we can be responsive. We clear away the noise so we can hear God’s call. Jesus doesn’t want your perfect performance just to check off boxes. He wants your true self. Not the self you think you should be. Not the self others expect you to be. But the real you. The one ready to answer when called. Perfection says, “Do more.”
Faithfulness whispers, “You are enough. And you are ready.”
Our entire journey—dropping perfection, embracing brokenness, showing up
authentically—it’s all so we can be positioned to respond to God’s call. To that
place where our deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest need. And we do this not just for ourselves. We do this so that not only I, but we can be
made whole again. Our brokenness is collective. Our healing is communal. Our calling reaches beyond individual restoration to the restoration of all. When one of us becomes whole, we all move closer to wholeness.
We are not alone in this journey. Jesus looks at Martha. He looks at Mary. He looks at you. And he says: You are enough. Right here. Right now. Exactly as you are. Ready to be called. Ready to help make us whole.
As a wise leader once said, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
JESUS CAME OVER. WILL WE? March 9 Sermon
Luke 10:46-52
Beloved, I’ve heard the parable of the Good Samaritan preached numerous times. Perhaps you have too. And every time, without fail, the message remains constant: “Be like the Samaritan.” Help those in need. Cross distances. Show mercy. The focus rests squarely on what we are to do. All good things, mind you. All true things.
But they’ve become so familiar that we might miss what flows beneath the surface. This morning, I want us to look at this story from a different angle—not focusing on what we should do, but what’s being done for us. Because sometimes, many times, we’re not the Samaritan at all. We’re the one in the ditch. Will you stay with this man for a moment? Feel the hot dust against his broken body, the sun searing through his swollen eyes, sweat and blood mixing in rivulets down his face. Smell the metallic tang of his own blood, the stench of sweat, tiny rocks from the dirt pressing into broken skin while dust coats his wounds like baking flour.
We know this place, don’t we? Not the physical road perhaps, but that place of desperate need. That place where help seems far off and hope grows dim. We’ve all been there – in our personal lives, in our national life, in these difficult days when our democracy feels as fragile as a paper boat in a storm. The truth is, my friends, we are all the man in the ditch.
And while we are all called to be the Samaritan, more importantly, Christ is the truest Samaritan who comes over to us. When that neighbor you barely knew brings meals every day while you’re sick – that’s Jesus coming over. When that choir member sits with you in your grief, though no words are spoken – that’s Jesus coming over. When that old friend calls “just because I felt I should” on your darkest night – that’s Jesus coming over. When the doctor says “cancer,” when grief overwhelms, when anxiety grips – Christ crosses the distance through the hands and hearts of others.
That’s the very nature of our Jesus. Every time Jesus comes over in Scripture, things don’t just return to normal – they become more than anyone imagined possible. The blind doesn’t just see – they become a witness to God’s power. The woman at the well doesn’t just get water – she becomes a messenger of living hope. The Canaanite woman doesn’t just receive healing for her daughter – she teaches Jesus himself about the wideness of God’s mercy. The disciples on the road to Emmaus don’t just meet a stranger – they discover the risen Christ in their midst. That’s what happens when Jesus comes over – the impossible becomes possible.
How about those times that Jesus showed up to us in disguise? not always come wearing the face we expect. Doesn’t always speak with the accent we trust. Doesn’t always fit the categories we’ve made. We all remember lying in our own ditch of grief, convinced that only certain people, certain words, certain prayers could help. And then help came wearing a tattered shirt with a stench that singes your nostrils, came with different politics and questionable theology, never set foot in a church and the only time they heard the name Jesus was the name of a child’s classmate, came through the very people we’d been taught couldn’t possibly be carrying God’s grace.
The man in the ditch had to trust not just anyone, but a Samaritan. Had to let not just anyone, but a Samaritan’s hands touch his wounds. Had to accept not just anyone’s help, but a Samaritan’s mercy. So often the very people who the world says we should fear or look the other way at are the ones God sends to save us. And is it not ironic that our healing requires not just receiving help, but receiving it from the “wrong” hands? Where would that man be – where would you be – if we did not trust our Samaritan to help us when we were in a ditch?
And yet, isn’t it flabbergasting that you hear many Christian voices in the public square tell us that walls and divisions are part of God’s plan. They say if we don’t like them, we need to take that up with our Creator. But here’s the thing – this isn’t just about walls. This is about how we these voices use holy language to create distance, to make some people matter less. They take something that sounds righteous – protecting borders, defending doctrine – and turn it into a weapon. They flatten entire human experiences into categories: who belongs, who doesn’t. And they do it with such certainty, such righteousness,
that they forget they’re talking about actual human beings – God’s creation!
It results in those outside the margins being pushed toward non-existence
while concentrating power among those within their circles.
Look at the Housing and Urban Development cuts – real families choosing between medicine and rent. Look at the patriarchal systems they perpetuate, telling women they matter less, even as we celebrate Women’s History Month.
These are more ditches where people lie wounded by their systems of power.
But that’s not the way of Jesus. He looked past every societal division,
spoke with women as equals when no one else would, touched those deemed untouchable, elevated those society had cast down. But here’s where God’s grace enters the story. Jesus shows us a Samaritan helping a Jew. Now, this is crucial to understand what this meant. A Samaritan helping a Jew wasn’t just unusual – it was revolutionary. It wasn’t just unexpected – it was scandalous.
This wasn’t just kindness – this was divine rebellion against the very walls they had built. In his ministry, Jesus shattered the very concept of hierarchy. In a world obsessed with status and power rankings, he created something entirely new: a community where everyone was simply neighbors.
Not just welcome – but a whole new way of being human together. Shakespeare understood something of this love – Christ’s love. Remember young Juliet’s words to Romeo: “So long as I can breathe or I can see, so long lives your name, and it gives life to me.” Here was love that defied the walls of hatred, that came over despite every reason to stay away. Their tragedy wasn’t that they loved too much – it was that their world loved too little. Because from the very beginning, God created not in isolation but in relationship… light coming over to dance with darkness, waters above coming over to meet waters below, earth bringing forth vegetation that comes over to feed the animals, humans created to come over and tend it all in an intricate web of mutual dependence. Even our own bodies are miracles of systems coming over to work together.
We feel it in the tension between caring for our immediate circle and responding to the cries of the circle of those who are suffering in our community. Some say we must choose – that we can’t possibly do both. But Christ shows us a different way. Jesus lived this tension perfectly. And here we encounter a profound paradox, my friends.
Within Jesus dwelled both perfect neighbor and rejected stranger. As the truest neighbor, As the truest neighbor, he touched lepers others feared to approach, fed thousands when religious leaders questioned his timing, healed the sick on the Sabbath while others called it sin, and stood between an accused woman and her accusers. the truest stranger – his hometown tried to throw him off a cliff, his own family thought him mad, and those closest to him would eventually betray and crucify him.
Just look up at night. Those stars you see? They’re coming over to each other across light-years, pulling at each other, dancing together in cosmic webs. Down here on Earth, tree roots don’t know anything about property lines –they’re too busy coming over to share nutrients with their neighbors through underground networks. In Clay, New York, my own tree on my property apparently didn’t get the memo about my property tax assessment – it’s been sharing nutrients with the neighbors next door for years, no permits required.
And don’t get me started on the squirrels, rabbits, complete with diplomatic immunity from supposedly squirrel-proof birdfeeders. They’ve established their own United Nations between yards, the morning doves turned my porch light into a heater without ever paying a dime towards the electric bill. But you know what? Maybe they’re onto something.
In these troubled times, when our democracy feels like that Alaska Airlines flight— plunging toward earth, passengers gripping armrests, wind howling through a blown-out door— we must remember something vital: That plane didn’t crash. It turned around. It flew higher than before. and so can we, when Christ comes over, when we come over to each other. We can have something more inclusive, more vibrant, more progressive, more welcoming than before.
What looks like descent becomes ascent. What appears as ending becomes beginning. What feels like death becomes resurrection. Because when Jesus comes over, resurrection isn’t just possible – it’s promised. And that’s exactly what Jesus does in our darkest hours. When Jesus comes over, he shows us how to build a different kind of world. A world where the innkeeper’s door stays open. Where strangers become neighbors. Where even those who once robbed and beat each other might sit at the same table. We see it happening in our world today with acts of holy defiance to look at the world through swollen eyes and die on the side of the road.
When our judicial system stands up, our elected officials stand up, and most importantly as we are watching the people around us stand up. Why we saw it in Newton, when people came together on Tuesday. Why we saw it in Newton,
when people came together on Tuesday at 8:30pm with the League of Women Voters and many others on that day across to protect democracy at record numbers. Interfaith communities standing guard at synagogues and mosques. Small towns welcoming refugee families. These aren’t just isolated acts of kindness –
And within each of us, we carry both the capacity to stay away
and the capacity to come over. In God’s economy, there are no permanent strangers – only neighbors who haven’t yet recognized each other.
May we have the courage to follow where Christ leads – May we as we wait, watch, and work open our hearts to Christ who will come over again in these troubled times crossing the distances that divide us, reaching out with open hearts and open hands. For there, my friends, is where we’ll find not just our neighbor, but our Lord. The question for our world today is Will we? Amen
Sermon Transcript: Sunday, February 23, 2025
Not Today!
Psalm 37:1-11;39-40
Growing up, it should be no surprise to some of you that I loved books, and one of my favorite books that my late aunt gave me was a collection of nursery rhymes entitled “Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes.” I know you all are not children that are here today, and in fact you all are quite well-read—a well-read congregation—but there is a nursery rhyme from that collection that I still keep in my office to this day, all tattered, that stands out to me that I think that we can all relate to. And here is that nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and All the King’s Men
Couldn’t put Humpty back together again
A simple nursery rhyme, words we whisper to children at bedtime. But within these words lies a truth that no matter your age, we can all grasp: everything we build can break, and everything we hold precious can slip through our fingers. We live this in our everyday lives, in our communities, and our world.
You rush through the day checking the news, scrolling social media, racing through emails, and all we see around us is collapse, corruption, and crisis. Does it not feel like these days we are living in a consistent state of emergency? Always running, always behind, always chasing time itself. And in this endless race, we barely notice what seemed solid as rock turns fragile as an egg shell, and we wonder what is next—not if, but when.
But unlike Humpty Dumpty, will the story be told that we could not be put back together again, whether it is our lives, this nation, our communities, or the world? And I say not today. Our story continues past the falls.
In Psalm 37, here David writes from this very experience—not some imagined fable. He watched his own child rebel against him. David tasted the pain of exile, and if we are going to be 100% honest about the track record of David, David also knew what it was like to be the wicked himself that prospered while the righteous suffered. And now David himself was the one who was suffering while the wicked prospered.
So, when he says “do not fret because of those who are evil,” he’s not offering us empty words. He’s sharing wisdom that was learned through the School of Hard Knocks. The Hebrew word he uses for fret—”tar”—means to heat yourself up in anger or anxiety. Think of taking a pot of water, putting it on the stove, and it boiling over. That’s what happens inside of us when we are overwhelmed about the corruption, the violence, the suffering that we experience in our lives in the world, when our days slip away too fast, when that surge of worry burns us up from within.
And what do we do? David here does not just tell us what not to do. David here shows us how to act. He says:
- Trust in the Lord and do good
- Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture
- Take Delight in the Lord and God will give you the desires of your heart
Look at those words about what David says to do: Trust, Do, Dwell, take Delight. What a quartet. And these words carry weight—they hold stillness, they push back against our rushing world. And this is not giving up; this is indeed standing firm.
Let us remember what Rachel Held Evans in “Searching for Sunday” wrote: “Faith is not the belief that everything will be okay but the trust that we are not alone in the midst of everything that is not.”
To this world that tries to convince us that what we are seeing is the new normal and perhaps today we need to get with the program, we say not today. There is nothing normal about where what we are seeing and what we should accept. But on the other hand, this can create the demand to also panic, to react with rage, to withdraw, to carry on as if nothing is happening. Into this we too must declare what? Not today. Not today will we let fear write our story. Not today will we surrender to cynicism. And not today will we let despair win.
Let me tell you about a moment in my own life where I had to draw that Line in the Sand and say not today. It was September the 4th, 2023. One moment I was enjoying Labor Day festivities, the next I was rushed to the hospital. Five days disappeared, and when I woke up, I couldn’t engage in the basic functions of life alone. People asked me, “If you’re a pastor, if you’re so close to God, how could this happen?” They wanted deep theology, and I gave them simple truth: faith isn’t a shield against falling—it’s finding the courage to say not today. And I made one simple decision that I would live, take it day by day, but dying was not the option. Not today.
As African-American womanist theologian Dolores S. Williams writes in “Sisters in the Wilderness,” the strength of the oppressed comes from their faith not just in a future deliverance but in the hope that sustains them—the hope that sustains us right now in the present.
Yes, we live in what sociologists call a “time famine” in an age of information overload, always racing the clock, never enough hours, always squeezing in more. But what if the mathematics to persist and say not today and decide and that choice to live with hope and do good is not so much about having to add more to our lives, having to do addition? Perhaps maybe it is about division. What if it is about persisting to be intentional with the time that we do have?
The psalmist shows us four things: trust, delight, dwell, and do good. And look at what sits right in the middle—Delight. Not by accident. We don’t schedule Delight; we choose it, we protect it, even when the world rushes by. See, the world wants us worn down, distracted, and discouraged, but we can make the choice to be different. This Faith isn’t waiting for change but it’s acting now in this moment with whatever it is that we do have, however tired we feel, whatever the cost.
So what does saying not today really look like in practice? It is beautifully simple: each day choose one small Act of Hope or kindness. Just one. If you need to write your not today moment somewhere where you can see it—your mirror, your phone, your fridge notepad—let it remind you that even on the hardest days you can still choose to do one small act that says today I will not give in. Not today will I stop caring. And not today will I forget that love is stronger than fear and I can still persist and live with hope.
One person, one moment, one choice at a time—that is how hope persists and that’s how light spreads. That’s how we live our not today. Today we say I will keep showing up. The world stays broken, the news doesn’t improve, problems do not shrink, but we are not alone.
Like that nursery rhyme we begin with, we all face falls, but unlike Humpty Dumpty, our story continues because we serve a God who takes what’s broken and makes it new—not by fixing what was but by creating what could be with what we have right now.
So to everything that tries to rush us past what matters, to every voice that whispers “In these times, give up,” to every force that pushes us to despair, we say it with one voice—what do we say?
Because we stand together, held in God’s love, strong in each other’s presence, in the name of the one who falls with us, rises with us, and walks beside us always. And today, and when we ask, “Have I been left alone?” will always shout back to us: Amen.