On Thursday, while doing some much needed tidying in my office, I found this wild little sheep with my name on it. There ended up being a whole herd of sheep from some children’s moment that neither Cyndi nor I remember stashed away in a pile that includes notes from a continuing ed program about capital campaigns, an order of worship from a friend’s installation service where I preached, and a certificate from a boundary training program that I attended in 2015. If there’s anything I’ve learned from conversations with real shepherds, they wouldn’t be surprised that the sheep got somewhere unexpected. They are prone to wander. That’s why both humans and dogs get deployed to keep track of them.

     One of the staff chaplains at the hospital where I did my chaplaincy training often complained about any sentimental reading of sheep metaphors in the Bible. He’d say, “Have you ever had sheep? They’re terrible!” Then he’d go on to outline the ways they get into things they aren’t supposed to and have far too little regard for their own safety. It bugged him when people used the word “sheep” to mean “someone who is easily convinced to follow a leader.” He said that sheep are never that easy.

     In her commentary on today’s reading, Laura Holmes says that when we see or hear “very truly” at the beginning of a reading, we should understand that phrase as a connector to the story that comes before our reading. In this case, it was a story I preached on a few weeks ago, about a man who had been born blind. Jesus healed him. The man’s community had assumed that his blindness was due to something either he or his parents had done wrong and were very suspicious of Jesus’ action. They even pushed the healed man out of community. Jesus promptly invited him to become a disciple and follow him. There were Pharisees, who had been suspicious of Jesus, listening to him talk to the man about belief. They wondered aloud if they had misunderstood Jesus. “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus responds to them, reminding them that disability is not a consequence of sin. But their disbelief continues to keep them from building the relationship with him that they could have.

     In her commentary on John, Karoline Lewis points out that they aren’t literally blind, they are unable to understand his origin and identity. And this is the disruptor of relationship between them. According to Lewis, in the Gospel of John, “to remain in sin” means to not be in relationship with Jesus. While belief is rooted in relationship, sin is rooted in disconnection. This whole shepherd/sheep/gate discourse is preached to, according to Lewis, the newly connected healed man, the already-connected disciples, and the disconnected Pharisees. Jesus will use a whole new set of metaphors to help people understand who he is.
He’ll shift them from talking about blindness and sight, and into talking about sheep and all manner of ways of keeping them safe, with the gate/door and the shepherd being two identities in particular that he assumes to describe his own mission. The door isn’t intended to signal exclusion. It is to signal protection. Lewis points out that in John 18, Jesus will be the gate or door that stands between the disciples in the garden and the soldiers who are coming to arrest Jesus. The gate is put there for protection for the vulnerable. Relationship with Jesus comes with care and protection from the powerful.

     As I talked about with Thomas, another story from John, intimacy is a key feature in Jesus’ ministry. Even in the metaphor about the sheep: They feel safe and gather together when hearing the familiar and trusted voice of the shepherd. In another part of the reading, there’s a gatekeeper who recognizes the shepherd and, in that recognition, opens the gate. In her commentary, Lewis points out that even the part about knowing the sheep’s names is a sign of intimacy that will be reproduced at both the raising of Lazarus and Jesus’ own resurrection. When Jesus calls out Lazarus’ name, he comes out of the tomb, alive (11:43). In chapter 20, Mary recognizes the resurrected Christ when he addresses her by name.

     Jesus, in John, wants a life abundant for humanity. As Holmes notes in her commentary, gates and doors aren’t just for keeping people out. They are also for giving access. John is clear that Jesus intends to give people access to an abundant life. Part of the role of the shepherd to make sure the sheep have all that they need. Clean water, enough forage to remain healthy, care when they are sick, protection from predators, a community of other sheep for joy and companionship. There are seven big miracles in John, and I think it would be fair to read six of them as reinforcing an abundant life: water is turned to wine at a wedding, an official’s child is healed, a man is healed at Bathesda, he fed the 5000, he healed the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. Jesus perpetually invites people to be in relationship with him as he opens the door to a pasture full of life.

     Holmes also notes that their a long history within the Bible of leaders being referred to as shepherds. Moses and David were called shepherds of their people. Different prophets might call a leader a good or bad shepherd based on how well they were living into the covenant. Any leader who does not protect his people “death-dealing” forces is a bad shepherd. And, as Holmes says, their actions “go directly against the life that the gate leads to.”

     Very often in the Gospel, people hearing Jesus don’t understand him, and that is true in this story, too. The layered meanings of metaphors drawn from their daily lives as people dependent on sheep and shepherds for survival are still a challenge, as is often true of Jesus’ teaching. In the back half of today’s reading, Jesus attempts a slightly different angle to help the man, the Pharisees, and the disciples understand. He says, “I am the gate.” I am the portal into abundant life. I am the invitation into relationship. I will offer salvation.

     The man born blind offers an example of what salvation looks like: disabled person who has been blamed for his disability and marginalized in his birth community finds new community, its own kind of healing, while following Christ. This man who had begged for survival won’t have to beg anymore. He will have food and people who care for him and safety that he did not have before. Lewis calls this “pasture and protection.” According to John, Jesus tends to the needs of life in concrete ways. So, too, will we, the on-going body of Christ.

     When we speak of salvation, it shouldn’t be in amorphous, spiritualized terms. It should be in terms of pasture and protection. When the Gospel of John claims that God love the world, that means that God will tend to well-being of this world and the people within it. The church, as the sheep and the livestock guardian dogs in training, will be about that business of loving as well. In times when we are called to abandoned those who struggle, remember that Jesus feeds his sheep and so should we. In times when some shepherds are not trustworthy, may we look to the Good Shepherd to see what loving leadership looks like, and emulate it. When we hear of salvation, may we remember that this comes in community, not isolation. As I was reminded while I cleaned this week, you never know where you’re going to find the sheep. Let us make sure they can find the way to safe pasture.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
​Laura Holmes: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-john-101-10-7
Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).

    While I was thinking about today’s scripture, a phrase from a poem popped up in my head: “touch the face of God.” I rooted around in my mind a bit and remembered that it came from a poem Tasha had framed and hanging on her wall when we were dating. It is “High Flight” by John Gillespie McGee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air ....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew -
and, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

     McGee, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, sent these words in a letter to his parents, who had been Christian missionaries. He was a pilot and clearly inspired by his time spent in the air. This poem, in particular, he wrote after a high-altitude test flight. Unfortunately, before he even made it to battle in World War II, he died in a mid-air collision while training.

     I am grateful to McGee’s parents for sharing his poem after his death. It is a lovely meditation on feeling close to the Divine why doing something fairly extraordinary. While I personally don’t enjoy flying very much these days, I can certainly remember a measure of awe the first times I flew in my early 20’s. Particularly when hearing the testimonies of those who have flown in high altitude, I can see where one might equate the extraordinariness of that kind of flight, where one comes close to that which is beyond our Earth, to an encounter with the Divine. It is interesting to compare that kind of awe-inspiring encounter with today’s Scripture, in which two disciples encountered the Divine in a manner far more mundane... a walk to a neighboring village.

     During Eastertide, we usually spend some time in the stories of Jesus encountering his friends for the first time after the resurrection. We also end up skipping around in the different Gospels, too, as they don’t all share the same post-resurrection accounts. This one is in Luke. A little refresher on Luke as we haven’t been here in a while: Luke has Mary’s side of the birth narrative, where she sings that great song about God bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. It is also the Gospel where Jesus declares parts of Isaiah to be his mission statement (Lk 4:18-19):

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
To bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

     Luke is Gospel where the Sermon on the Plain includes blessings for the poor, the hungry, and those who mourn as well as a list of woes to the rich and powerful. It is a Gospel where Jesus shows us a vision of God as one who is directly invested in the everyday well-being of humanity. Even as he was being crucified, Jesus offered mercy to a man being crucified next to him.

     Like the Gospel account of Matthew, Jesus’ women friends are the first disciples to witness the empty tomb and preach on the resurrection. They run and tell their friends that Jesus has risen, but, in a far too familiar pattern, the men don’t believe the women. Well, except for Peter. He went to the tomb to verify it was empty. When he saw that this it was, he believed the women and was amazed. Unlike Matthew, though, Jesus does not appear to the women when they are on the way to the men. The first people to witness the risen Christ are his friends walking to Emmaus.

     Margaret Aymer points out that Luke, which begins with everyday people receiving visits from angels, visits that continue through to the Resurrection, is dedicated to showing “the inbreaking of the holy, to visions of angels, in the everyday affairs of life.” It is good to be reminded that one does not need to fly into orbit to encounter God. We can simply walk down the road. We just might not realize how close to the divine we are at first. These two disciples didn’t. They thought that they were simply talking with a wise and kind stranger.

     These disciples, though they needed extra teaching about the nature of the Messiah from the stranger, had learned two lessons well: share what you have and take care of people. So they invited the stranger to stay with them. The Spirit must have inspired them to take this action, because their hospitality and care prepared them to receive what happened next. The stranger was sitting down to eat and drink with them. He reached out to bless the food, and in that moment, they recognized who he was. While Peter needed to see the empty tomb in order to believe the women, these two disciples needed to see Jesus sharing a blessing to do the same.

     Last week, I spoke of the Gospel of John’s understanding of belief as a relationship bolstered by intimacy. This story in Luke is similar. As Aymer points out in her commentary, it is the intimacy of the table and a shared meal that helps the disciples believe. I think it may be through on-going everyday intimacies that we continue to meet Christ to this day. Rev. Lillian Daniel, Conference Minister of the Michigan Conference, shared a story recently of some strangers who helped her in a particularly Christ-like way.

     In her daily devotional entry, “Shelter in a Storm,” Daniel relates a recent travel mishap. She was not in high altitude training. She was just trying to get home to Michigan on a night full of stormy weather. She ended up partway there, in Houston, late enough at night that the food court was shutting down. Hundreds of other travelers were stuck there, too, with everyone trying to get a new flight or a hotel room. Exhausted and a little desperate, she asked what she calls her “UCC church family” if anyone knew anyone in Houston, Texas.

     Within ten minutes, a colleague had a lead. They had lived in Texas and reached out to friends. Within an hour, two strangers were at the airport to pick Daniel up. They took her to their house and got her into a safe and snug guest room before midnight. Daniel had no idea where her luggage was, so they reached into the collection of toothbrushes they had amassed to send to Back Bay Mission with their church. As Daniel writes, “These people were already preparing for guests, just not in their own house, but all those toothbrushes told me they cared.” The hospitality didn’t stop there.

     Daniel says, “The next morning, they took me to their church where we shared the experience of hearing a strong sermon, moving music in a minor key, the sweetness of cookies, and the beautiful bitterness of a cup of coffee on that dreaded Time Change Sunday—but I had already received the gospel of the good Samaritan when two strangers picked me up in the rain.” The Good Samaritan is another story in Luke 10, by the way. It turns out that strangers, both foreign and divine, do a lot of good in this Gospel.

     It is interesting to me that Daniel references the Good Samaritan in this devotional, which was actually written to reflect on Romans 15:7: Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. And, here I am, bringing it into conversation with the Emmaus Road story from Luke 24. It turns out, welcome and care are a pathway to the Divine in lots of the Bible. They are pathways to the Divine for us, too.

     Rev. Daniel finished her devotional with, “Good to meet you, First Congregational of Houston, and if you ever get stuck in Michigan, we’ve got you. In a world of suffering, the good news is worth sharing.” May we answer the call to help stranded strangers and take the risk of speaking to people we meet along the road. May we see Christ more clearly in the sharing, be it toothbrushes and a meal. May we pay attention to the burning in our hearts. It is a reminder that we, too, can see Jesus again.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Lillian Daniel: https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/shelter-in-a-storm/
The poem "High Flight": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157986/high-flight-627d3cfb1e9b7
About the author of "High Flight": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-gillespie-magee-jr
Margaret Aymer: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-luke-2413-35-11

John 20:19-31 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Jesus Appears to the Disciples 
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Jesus and Thomas
But Thomas (who was called the Twin[a]), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

The Purpose of This Book
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue[b] to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

     “The first launch attempt for Artemis II is today!” This excited text message came through mine and Tasha’s group chat on April 1st. It was not a prank. It was from our friend Cherie, who has worked as part of the science team on the mission. Knowing people who have fun space- and space-adjacent jobs is one of the perks of being married to a geologist who studies meteorites. Cherie, who has sat at our dinner table and played with our dog, is also Cherie who helps astronauts practice moonwalks here on earth to prepare for future landings in space.

     Our friend Juli, who has been to this church, is the curation lead for the science team, making plans for the on-going care and handling of future lunar samples and teaching the astronauts geology. Sarah is a painter whose work adorns our office wall. She also happens to be the lunar science lead. Barbara, who I’ve done amazing and terrible karaoke with, is the sample integrity lead for Artemis. My wife, who has loved space since she was a child, usually pays close attention to NASA missions. This one has been particularly special because some of our dearest friends and Tasha’s long-respected colleagues have been a part of making it happen.

     From planning the mission to constructing the ship to the 9 day, 1 hour, and 32 minutes that Artemis II was in space, it has been clear to me from just about every piece of communication that I heard and read that this giant team of people, in ways both practical and poignant, respected each other and loved their jobs. Just a few minutes of observation of the live feed from Houston made it clear that we were watching thoughtful professionals, who did their jobs consistently and competently, but also with an intimacy born of many, many hours of shared labor. It was so lovely to hear the gratitude and appreciation this team had for each other and for the missions that came before them.

     I can’t speak to the science. But, I can speak to some moments of love and care that I witnessed. The flight crew hid dehydrated scrambled eggs around the cabin for each other on Easter. Everyone in space and on Earth cried together when the crew in Integrity asked that a “bright spot on the moon” be named for Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife Carroll. The astronauts spoke regularly of the spiritual traditions and ethics that grounded their work, as well as the curiosity and care that carried them into space on behalf of all of humanity. Astronaut Christina Koch said, “With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it.” The four people in space, who ate maple cookies on the literal far side of moon, and the crew on Earth, who played them wake up songs each day, were one team, and told us that all people on Earth are one team, too. With the world watching, they showed up for each other again and again and again. It is no wonder that many of us who witnessed this competent, capable, and kind group of professionals do extraordinary things together were deeply moved.

     On social media, I saw people who generally don’t care much about space exploration call them “our emotional support astronauts.” Artists and poets have been writing about, drawing, painting, and embroidering moments from the Artemis mission, moments that were transmitted hundreds of thousands of miles through space into our hands and hearts. I’ve seen pilot Victor Glover’s words about this era of world-wide division repeated countless times, “...trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful. And from up here, you also look like one thing. Homo sapiens is all of us, no matter where you’re from or what you look like. We’re all one people.” This is a word so many people have been longing for a leader, especially from our country, to say.

     I have also seen far too many people, at least on social media, spreading conspiracy theories about this mission. In a world where people use AI to craft all manner of false images, it is easy for some to dismiss the new images from Artemis as fake. Some people even see this mission as one in a long line of cons going back to an original staged moon landing. This is one of the dangers of the destruction of a shared sense of reality that many politicians have used to prop up their careers. Suspicion of the government, both reasonable and unreasonable, has created a void that people will fill with all manner of ideas and explanations.

    It is disheartening for me to see this twisting of healthy doubt into something destructive and alienating. It is not the doubt of our friend Thomas, who just needed to hear and see the same thing as the other disciples so that he, too, could believe in the Resurrection. It is a mix of contrarian antagonism and opportunistic fearmongering that treats paranoia like a game. For those whose brains cannot help fearing the missions to space, I have a lot of grace. For those who manipulate that fear and misunderstanding for their own gain, I have much less.

     You might have been surprised that I would speak so kindly of Thomas’ doubt. I have been persuaded by the scholar Karoline Lewis’ argument that, in John, the Gospel where “seeing is believing,” that is it not inherently problematic for Thomas to ask for proof of the Resurrection. His friends had a pretty wild story, after all. All of them together had seen Jesus killed. All of them, aside from Thomas, had seen him after he had risen.  Even with the recent memory of Lazarus being raised from the dead, Thomas, in his grief, was not prepared to believe that Jesus had also risen based only on what he heard. The disciples believed because they saw. Thomas will need to do the same.

     Jesus’ first words to the disciples and to Thomas is the same: “Peace be with you.” Lewis notes that in John, a primary gift of the Spirit is comfort and presence in challenging times. There is a quiet intimacy in receiving the Spirit in this Gospel. This post-resurrection appearance hinges on the intimacy of the relationship between Thomas and Jesus, an intimacy born of hours of shared labor. When we remember that intimacy, we really understand the power of the moment when Jesus invites Thomas to see, and feel, that he is real. “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be unbelieving but believe.”

   When the astronauts came close enough to the moon to make out features with their naked eyes, they described being mesmerized. Wiseman said of that moment, “it's just everything from the training, but in three dimensions and absolutely unbelievable. This is incredible.” They never stepped foot on the moon, but they were in awe of it when they saw it close up. Scripture doesn’t actually tell us that Thomas touches Jesus. It does tell us that, in seeing Christ in close proximity, he believed.

     Lewis argues in her commentary that the word “belief” in the book of John is primarily a word about relationship. Thomas’ belief is restored based on the power of his relationship with Jesus. Lewis argues that this story really isn’t even about doubt as we understand that word in modern English. She says that the word that gets translated for us as “doubt” is probably better read as “be unbelieving,” which here, means be disconnected or out of relationship. Artemis II has shown us a present-day example of healthy, aligned, and gracious relationships, relationships that enable a group of people to do something extraordinary that not one of them could have done alone. In helping Thomas believe, Jesus is restoring that kind of relationship. None of the disciples will be able to carry on after the Resurrection alone. They need Thomas and Thomas needed them. Faith in Christ is a team effort. Thomas needed to be restored to the team.

     Karoline Lewis writes of the Resurrection appearance to Thomas: “Life, especially abundant life, is dependent on the reality of multiple expressions of connectivity and belonging... Even God was not alone in the beginning, because the Word was with God.” I am carrying these words into the next week with me. I’m also carrying the words of NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, “If you can’t take love to the stars, then what are we doing? That’s why we send humans instead of robots sometimes. That’s why we have that firsthand witness.” Our scripture for today ends with a note that the Resurrections signs were collected and shared to help the next generation of believers come to know Christ. Let us give thanks to the ones who have born witness and shared their testimonies so that we, too, may believe. May we remember that our actions can be signs of Christ’s love, too. We don’t even have to go to the moon to do it. We can start right here with the relationships that we have inherited from Christ, building out the Body of Christ into a future that we can’t yet imagine.  Let us remember that we cannot see what the future holds unless we take the risk of working together in the present. In the coming weeks, may we be confident that we do brave and impossible things together out of love.
​
Resources consulted while writing this sermon
It was challenging to round up sources for all the things I read this week from Artemis II. Here is a good list of resources for the things I mentioned in the sermon:

• Easter Sunday in space: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/artemis-ii-astronauts-easter-eggs-sunday-near-moon/

• A press conference when the astronauts are in space: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/nasa/space/2026/04/09/548562/artemis-astronauts-press-conference-space-moon-nasa/

• Press conference after their return, "What makes a crew:" https://www.msn.com/en-us/science/general/artemis-ii-return-what-makes-a-crew-christina-koch-artemis-ii-crew-share-remarks-after-journey/ar-AA20Bt6T

• Easter Sunday in space: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/artemis-ii-astronauts-easter-eggs-sunday-near-moon/

• What they will miss: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70dr45dj1lo

• CSA Jeremy Hansen talks about what he's learned from First Nations Elders: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DW66PmPjos9/

• About Carroll: https://people.com/artemis-ii-astronauts-moon-crater-named-mission-commander-late-wife-11944176

• An article about the launch: https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/01/science/live-news/artemis-2-nasa-launch

• Amit Kshatriya's remarks on why we send humans to space are in this article: https://spaceq.ca/nasa-managers-outline-artemis-2-reentry-and-address-propulsion-issue-ahead-of-splashdown/

Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). 

     It is almost funny to witness the fear of the guards. They remind me of those goats that seem to pass out when they get scared. One minute, they’re up, doing regular goat stuff. The next, they hear a loud sound or see a predator and topple right over, legs straight out, muscles stuck so tensed that, at least for a little while, neither fight nor flight is an option. That’s how I imagine the guards looking, stiff legged and silly, unable to intellectually or spiritually handle what is happening in front of them. These men, probably some of the same men who had gleefully participated in Jesus’ state sanctioned torture and execution, have been rendered powerless in their fear. They don’t even get to witness the glory that has overcome their violence.

     There are some people who do get to witness. They have been consistent witnesses all along, even when not being named. As Cheryl Lindsay points out in her commentary, we’ve spent a lot of the last week hearing about Judas, Peter, Barrabas, and Simone of Cyrene. The 12 disciples are mentioned as a group, as are the violent soldiers. But, there are also women whose presence is only intermittently described. Just before the Last Supper, a woman anoints Jesus with expensive ointment, preparing him for what is coming next. The next time women specifically are described in the book Matthew is after Jesus’ death. “Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Mt. 27:55-56).” This is an acknowledgement of the care they provided Jesus before death. They, alongside a man named Joseph of Arimathea, would be the ones who would tend to his body after.

     The soldiers are at the tomb only to cause problems. There’s all manner of rumors floating around and the Roman state co-conspires with local people who are threatened by Jesus. They have grown paranoid in the wake of the destruction they have wrought and believe people will move Jesus’ body to make it look like he was raised from the dead when the conspirators were sure he could not be. Imagine having to wade past the violent people who killed your friend in order to just visit his tomb? The women, who have been tending to Jesus all along, are willing to take the risk to go to the tomb, even under threat of violence.

     Mary Magdalene and another Mary went to the tomb, and heaven and earth protect them from the soldiers. There is an earthquake, said to be from the divine power of an angelic visitor who “was like lightning and who’s clothes were white as snow...” you know, the kind of white that makes it hard to see clearly. Seeing and feeling that angel’s power is what causes the soldiers’ fainting goat impression. As Matt Skinner notes in his commentary, “Nothing is ever certain during an earthquake. Nothing is stable. Everything totters.” The soldiers totter. The women do not. The angel says what angels say in the Gospels, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” The angel invites them to look with their own eyes to see that Jesus, who had been sealed in the tomb, is no longer there.

     If you have heard this story before, it can be easy to forget that it is supposed to be strange and dramatic and basically impossible. A dead person is alive! A glowing angel has shown up wrapped in lightning, riding an earthquake! Rome, the greatest power in their understanding, has lost! That’s right! Rome, who had taken their nation, who had given them a puppet king, who breathed violence across their homeland and regularly strung up people on crosses just to show how powerful they were, that Rome had lost! Conspirators who worked with one of Jesus’ closest friends... they lost, too! Death! Death lost on that day! This is a wild and weird story meant to show us, as Matt Skinner says, “No one and nothing will obstruct what God is doing.” What God is doing will include a new assignment for the women.

     In her commentary, in describing the Marys faithfulness, says “The women take the alternative path set by Jesus, and they follow him. They follow him from town to town. They follow him to the cross. Then, they follow him to the tomb.” The angel will tell them where they should go next. “Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ ” As we would expect, they follow the new path set before them, in fear and in joy. Because how else would you feel at this unexplanable moment? They ran to tell the disciples (in this case, it’s not just the 11 remaining men of the 12... it’s a big mixed-gender group of followers).

     In the midst of their haste to do what has been asked of them, they meet Jesus along the way and they worship him. He affirms them and encourages them, saying “do not be afraid; go and tell my siblings to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” J. Andrew Overman, in his notes on Matthew, reminds us that in going to Galilee, the people are returning to their homeland as well as place where Jesus began his ministry with them. They aren’t running and hiding. They are reconnecting with the place where they first came to know Christ, and where they will begin their next steps as the new Body of Christ, guided by his Spirit.

     I read in Salt Project’s notes on today’s scripture, and they offer up the idea that Easter Sunday isn’t the end of Lent, it is the beginning of Eastertide. That is to say, Easter is best understood as a new beginning of Christ’s mission. This is a commencement that is sending out the first preachers to share the Good News that will then be shared further and further and further. There is still danger at hand. As Matt Skinner notes, those soldiers are gonna wake up, and “Rome never runs out of crosses.” The next stage of the kingdom, that unfurling into the world, doesn’t need to slow down. It needs to keep going. The poet Lucille Clifton captures the vibrancy of this moment well in her poem “spring song”:

the green of Jesus
is breaking the ground
and the sweet
smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house and
the dance of Jesus music
has hold of the air and
the world is turning
in the body of Jesus and
the future is possible

     There are powers and principalities at work trying to create a future far from the love, justice, and healing that Christ demands. Their hope is that we will be convinced that is the only future possible. They are trying to put the seal on the grave of that which threatens them- affirmations of the dignity of trans people, truth-telling of our nation’s history, reparatory actions to address racism of both the past and present, the leadership of women. May we hear the story of Christ’s resurrection and know that the seal can always be broken and that the purveyors of violence can be rendered powerless. May we be like the women and follow Christ to what we think is the end, and like them, may we come to understand that new life with Christ is just beginning.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
​More information about fainting goats: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/fainting-goat.htm
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-they-left-the-tomb/
Matt Skinner: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-281-10-14
Salt Project: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/4/6/dawn-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-easter-sunday
You can find the Lucille Clifton poem here: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/4/12/three-poems-for-easter-joyce-kilmer-marie-howe-and-lucille-clifton
​

​     “Hosanna” means “save us!” While that word has come to be celebratory in the context of worship, it can be a cry for help. In his notes on Matthew, J. Andrew Overman says that this word “Hosanna” has likely come from Psalm 118:25, “Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!” It is interesting to me that the “save us” part is the only part of the line that stayed in the original language. Hosanna is a Hebrew word that carried over into Greek and Aramaic. It was carried into Latin translations of the Bible, and into modern languages like English, too. While the original language was translated for the whole rest of the line, hosanna stayed in Hebrew through the shift from a cry for help from God to an exclamation of celebration.

     A colleague of mine recently shared that a favorite question he has for people who claim to be biblical literalists is to ask them how many donkeys there are in the Palm Sunday story. You’ve probably heard me point this out before if you’ve been worshiping here for a while. Jesus’ processes into Jerusalem in every Gospel. He does not have the same number of donkeys in each story. Matthew has two donkeys. The other Gospels only have one. Matthew 21:7 says that Jesus “sat on them,” which seems... challenging. It’s not always easy to sit on one donkey, much less two.

     I am usually persuaded by one interpretation of this difference. In a commentary on this text, Dr. Wil Gafney argues that the difference in numbers of donkeys likely comes from a mistake that the author of Matthew made in reading the text that inspired this story, Zachariah 9:9: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

     Zachariah is being poetic when describing the donkey in two ways. The author of Matthew missed the poetry, reading it as literally two separate donkeys that then Jesus would have to ride at the same time. I saw another pastor I know post a funny illustration of Jesus with a foot on each donkey, as you might see in a circus act or Wild West show. The image is both majestic and deeply silly at the same time. If we can learn only one thing from the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “if you want to understand the Bible, it’s often best not to read it literally” and “even the authors of the Bible make mistakes in interpretation... you will, too” are two pretty good ones.

     Catherine Sider Hamilton offers up an additional explanation for the second donkey that I think is interesting. She isn’t as compelled by the explanation that the author of Matthew made a mistake. She argues that that because of the particular Greek words for donkey Matthew is using, one that means specifically “donkey” and the other which is more like “beast of burden,” that the author is actually referencing an additional scripture other than Zechariah. Jacob gives a blessing to Judah in Genesis 49:10–11, “The scepter [Septuagint: ruler] shall not depart from Judah,” Jacob says (49:10). Tying his foal (pōlos) to the vine and the colt (pōlos) of his donkey (onos) to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine …” (49:11). Because this scripture would eventually become an important scripture to describe the coming Messiah, and it has two donkeys, Hamilton argues that the author of Matthew having Jesus enter into the city in way that evokes both the Zachariah story and the Genesis story. By evoking both stories, the author is saying even more clearly that Jesus is the Messiah the people have been waiting for.

     Each of the Gospels has the people making a path for Jesus. John is the only one that specifically mentions Palms. Matthew and Luke follow Mark, saying that the people celebrating the entry used cloaks and branches to make a path forward. Regardless of what they used, the people, recognizing Jesus’ power and wanting to make a clear path for him, offered up what they had at hand, even if it was only the clothes on their backs. I appreciated the part of today’s liturgy where Sharon Fennema compared the laying down of cloaks and branches to make a path into the city to laying down the burdens we carry in hearts in order to make a path for the Spirit. “Lay it down,” she said, “here, now, whatever covers your vulnerability, cloaks your openness.” Lay it down, and make a way for the Spirit to enter in. Lay in down, and help make a way forward, so we can go with Christ towards love and justice.

     It has long been said in some Christian circles, “No King but Jesus.” Today’s reading would be an interesting text to support that. Because, he’s clearly being compared to a king. The Zachariah text is about the “king who is coming to Jerusalem.” And, so is the Genesis story if Hamilton is correct that it is also being referenced here. Even the “Hosanna” that three of the four Gospels (not Luke) have the people shouting to Jesus might also be shouted to a Roman politician by desperate people who needed help. Dr. Gafney, in her commentary, invites us to remember that the desire for a monarch reflect more about the people with that desire than it describes God’s preferences for styles of governance. Gafney argues that in a world where monarchs had power, the words that describe that power might be used in other context to try to explain something about God.

     In choosing to enter into Jerusalem in this way, Jesus intentionally connects his ministry to that of biblical images of kingly power, while at the same time, showing that he would wield that power in ways that they do not expect. Dr. Gafney points out that even the people who knew Jesus best would be challenged to fully understand how he would wield the power grant to him. To understand that better, we might have to return to the donkey.

     As I’ve shared before, Roman officials came into the city on powerful war horses, accompanied by phalanxes of soldiers. That is a far cry from the “beast of burden” that carried Jesus.  According to Teresa Stricklen, there is utility and humility in showing up with a donkey rather than a fine horse. Jesus, who spent his ministry among the sick, the poor, and the outcast, would not adorn his power in the trappings of Rome. Instead, he would reach back into his own tradition, to a story of a king who will arrive with humility. Sharon Fennema also points out that he didn’t own the donkey or buy it. He borrowed it. She argues that this action is Jesus alluding to the reign of God being a place where people hold goods in common and give them to those that “have need of them” not only those rich enough to purchase them. Fennema invites us to consider the question: “What resources might Jesus be asking you to share in common today?” And, I would add to this question: who is this king who teaches sharing and humility? How can we follow him?

Recently retired UCC pastor Maren Tirabassi offered up this poem for Palm Sunday.

A detail of the story
First, untie the donkey- the one that’s standing at the gate waiting to be untied-
from some sorrow or some guilt, from somebody else’s judgment -
too young for the ride, or too old, too much tattoo ink on the skin,
parkinsons in the hands, pregnant in the belly.
First, untie the donkey, the one that’s standing at the gate waiting to be untied –
from some abusive relationship or some really intricate
self-made knots, because what binds always pretends to be a blessing.
This is just the donkey God wants for the ride -
this burro with no documents, or others not-yet-ridden
because they are - gender-queer, recovery-thin, on-the-spectrum.
So, first untie the donkey - this one- the one who needs a parade,
the one willing to carry both joy and the premonition of cross,
the one embracing a day of song and danger,
fetlock deep in palms, and a life that will echo … Hosanna.

     “Who is this” asked the crowds. “Who is this,” we ask in this moment. Let us untie the donkey and maybe we’ll find out.
​
Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Sharon Fennema: https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/palm-sunday-march-29/
J. Andrew Overman's notes on Matthew in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Will Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church Year A (New York: Church Publishing, 2021)
Catherine Sider Hamilton: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sunday-of-the-passion-palm-sunday/commentary-on-matthew-2711-54-7
Teresa Lockhart Stricklen, "Sixth Sunday in Lent (Liturgy of the Palms), Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year A featuring 22 New Holy Days for Justice (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013)
Maren Tirabassi: https://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2026/03/28/a-detail-of-the-story/

After a challenging week of travel, I returned to a sermon I preached in 2023. I called it “Who Sinned” that time.

     I’m not sure if I saw it when it first aired, but there is an episode of the tv show Designing Women that has stuck with me for about 35 years. The episode originally aired in October of 1987, early enough in the AIDS crisis era where there were few treatments and many untimely deaths. Designing Women was a show about a group of women who ran a design firm in Atlanta. In this episode, a young man, who is also a designer and friendly with the women in the firm, comes to them with a sad request: he is dying of AIDS and would like them to help plan his funeral. After some hesitation, as they aren’t a church or funeral home, they agree. After all, he is their friend.

     Over the course of the episode, the young man, named Kendall, stops in the office to go over some details of the service. A few things happen that he doesn’t expect. The first thing is that the character Charlene shakes his hand. If you remember anything about how people with AIDS were treated in 1987, you might remember that people, including their nurses, were often afraid to touch them. This young man deserved care and the writer of the show wanted to be clear it was safe for Charlene, who was a deeply kind character, to offer him that measure of welcome and respect.

     The second thing that happens is less positive. There is a homophobic woman there, another client of the firm, who overhears the conversation about the funeral and decides to say something terrible to Kendall. She says that gay men like him are getting what they deserve: "As far as I'm concerned, this disease has one thing going for it: it's killing all the right people." When I was reading up on this episode, I learned that Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the creator of the show and writer of this episode, had written that line because she heard a nurse say almost the very same thing when Bloodworth-Thomason was visiting her own mother, who was dying of AIDS, in the hospital. Imagine being a nurse and having this much disdain for your patients. Imagine thinking they deserved to suffer this way.

     Well, if you know anything about Designing Women, you would know that the women in the firm would not let that hatefulness go unaddressed. Julia scoops her up, dragging her to the door, and tells her off, saying that if God was handing out illness because of sin, “you would be at the free clinic all the time! And so would the rest of us!” And, Suzanne, Julia’s sister, corrects some of Imogene’s misinformation. And, Bernice, a character who is often portrayed as confused, but with a strong moral compass, makes it clear that the homophobe is lacking the compassion it takes to really be a Christian. Julia slams the door on the homophobe, making it clear that she is no longer welcome as a client of Sugarbaker and Associates.

     I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years old when I saw this episode for the first time. Obviously, it made an impression. I remembered it when I began to think about today’s scripture, which is the beginning of a longer story about one man who was disabled and his community’s response to his illness and his healing. Turns out that plenty of people believed he must have deserved to be disabled.... that he must have done something wrong to be suffering. But, Jesus made it clear that his blindness was not a punishment, and showed his disciples, and the broader community, that this man was in need of healing, not condemnation.
Who is to blame? That’s what the disciples are really asking when they see a man who has been born blind and wonder if the blindness is because he sinned or because his parents sinned. The disciples, like a lot of us, assume that people get what they deserve. If someone has had something bad happen to them, that person, or the people they love, must have deserved it. And, they don’t even seem to be talking to the guy.

     They are just talking about him, while he is in earshot, as though his ailment is simply an object lesson in a theological argument... as though he was an object and not a person who could be talked with or helped as he struggled. In the devotional on this text, Bruce Reye-Chow argues that, in treating this man’s ailment as a thought experiment rather than an opportunity to offer mercy and care, it leads to the disciples asking the wrong question, “who is to blame,” rather than the right question: “how can we reflect God’s love in this moment?” Thankfully, and unsurprisingly, Jesus’ knows how to respond not just to their wrong question, but to the right one as well.

      Remember, seeing is believing in John. In her book on John, Karoline Lewis argues that seeing Jesus perform a sign or miracle is a gateway into believing he is the Messiah. Being healed yourself is a gateway, too. The restoration of this man’s sight will become his gateway into a relationship with Jesus. Jesus spits on the ground and takes the mud he created and wipes it on the man's eyes. We all know that healing can be messy sometimes, can’t it? Then, he tells the man to go to a particular pool in the city and wash his face. The man made his way across the city, covered in spit and mud, and washed his face. Suddenly, he was able to see for the first time in his whole life.

     Our reading stops at this point, but the story goes into chapter 10. The short version of the rest of the story is that this man’s neighbors and leaders in his community are suspicious of his healing and of Jesus. They refuse to trust what they see because they’d rather go on believing that people get what they deserve than have to change their minds about illness and healing. The formerly blind man will call Jesus a prophet and say that he believes Jesus to be from God. The ones who don’t agree with him drive him out of the synagogue, his own religious community,

     Imagine: seeing someone you’ve known your whole life be healed from a life-limiting condition, and being so afraid and annoyed that you don’t understand how it happened that you would be willing to kick that person out of community? Imagine thinking that you should make him suffer isolation because of your own limited understanding.

     While Julia Sugarbaker welcomed her friend into community by shutting a door on a bigot, Jesus welcomed the formerly blind man into a new community by opening the door for him to become a disciple. Later in this story, upon hearing that the man was cast out, Jesus goes looking for him and welcomes him with open arms to become part of his disciples. Lewis talks about this as Jesus helping frame belief as a relational category, not an intellectual one. This man believes that Jesus is from God because he can now see because Jesus first saw him and knew he needed care. And, his belief leads him into an on-going relationship with Jesus.

     I pray that we may not mistake an opportunity for healing as a place for condemnation. I pray that we seek out the answer to the question “how can we heal and help,” rather than distract ourselves with the search for “who is to blame.” May we march bigots to the door, and welcome the ones whom Jesus has seen and loved with open arms. May we always try to see our neighbors with the eyes of Christ.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
A summary of the episode of Designing Women: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_All_the_Right_People
The scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW5-IErNxuM&t=21s
Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014)
Bruce Reyes-Chow's commentary for the fourth week of Lent in Seeking: Honest Questions for a Deep Faith A Lenten Devotional from A Sanctified Art LLC (2022)

     Several years ago, I tried overwintering a rosemary plant. It did not go well. The house was warm enough, but our cat Albite’s bad habit of chewing on plants meant I couldn’t keep it near the windows with the best light. I got it through January pretty well, and even was able to take a couple small cuttings to use in an altarscape during zoom worship (remember when I’d decorate our bar like our communion table when we were worshiping at home?). I kept the little sprigs in water, thinking I’d use them for a meal later in the week. Imagine my surprise when I saw tiny roots coming off the stems. I had no idea that you could propagate rosemary in water like that.

     After a failed attempt at transferring one of them to soil, I left the remaining one in a small jar, replacing the water when it needed it. It grew more and more roots and the stem grew longer and longer. It even bloomed a little purple flower for two or three seasons. The sprig is looking a little crummy right now... it may have finally run out of space or maybe I lost track of watering it or maybe it has just come to the end of what is possible for an eight-inch twig to do in a jar in the kitchen window. But, I am glad I added that little bit of water, and kept giving it water. Something delicate and beautiful grew out of it.

     “Water changes everything.” I read that in some Church World Service materials a few years ago. Water has been a theme in our readings for weeks now... waters of baptism. Water in a miracle at a wedding. The Living Water Jesus told Nicodemus about. In the book of John, water changes everything. This interaction over the well changes things, too.

     Last week, we spent some time with the story of Nicodemus, a well-respected leader in the community who felt like he had to go see Jesus in the dark, in order to ask him questions in secret. Today’s interaction between the unnamed woman and Jesus happens in broad daylight. That’s not the only way this woman will be different than the Pharisee who needs to be braver. In fact, in her book about the Gospel of John, Karoline Lewis says that “There can be no character more opposite Nicodemus than the Samaritan woman at the well.” It is too bad we don’t know her name. She and Jesus had a remarkable encounter over the water. I can’t help but think it changed both of them.

     In today’s story, Jesus is traveling through Samaria. He left where he was because his disciples had been baptizing people, garnering the attention of leaders who were suspicious of Jesus. See, water was already changing things. We should remember that Judeans of this era and Samaritans, though they both traced their lineage back through to Abraham and upheld Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as their holy texts, were in deep conflict, especially over where they understood the proper center of religious worship to be: Mount Gerizim or the Temple in Jerusalem.

     Judeans, descendants of the Southern Kingdom, like Jesus, and Samaritans, descendants of the Northern Kingdom, did not hang out, and, they didn’t spend a lot of time in each other’s cities, even if there were religiously significant sites, like Jacob’s Well, in those cities. And, yet, Karoline Lewis notes, here in John, where Jesus is said to be the expression of God’s love in the world, it seems appropriate that he would go right through a place and spend time with a people whom his community mistrusted. Lewis puts it this way, “There is nothing in God’s creation that God does not love, not even the least anticipated persons.”

     Wells are places where a lot of important men and women of the Bible meet. Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah, and Isaac and Rebecca all meet at wells and later marry. What was going on at wells to make them such happening places? Most people didn’t have their own well dug at home. They relied on a communal well. Carrying water for a whole family is a difficult chore, often left to the women and girls to complete. This is a job often done in a group, with multiple women and girls, sometimes from more than one household, going out together. It is interesting that this woman has gone to the well alone. I read somewhere (and I don’t remember where) that some scholars wonder if she’s there alone because she is an outsider in her own community, ostracized by other women who refuse to help her. Why else would she be out at the hottest part of the day to get water unless she didn’t want to run into some folks who didn’t like her.

     Those details aren’t in the story though. If she is intended to function as kind of counter-example to Nicodemus, a respected Jewish leader who came to see Jesus at night, of course she, a Samaritan stranger, would talk to Jesus during the day, in a casual encounter that grows into an intimate conversation about faith. Also, Jesus’ strikes up a conversation with her, not the other way around. Because he asks for her help first. He asks her for a drink.

     It can be challenging to read tone, but I’m inclined to hear her response with some humor or incredulity. “Me? You’re asking me for water?” Yes, this Judean man is asking this Samaritan woman for water. Yes, this rabbi is speaking to this woman about faith. Yes, this single man is speaking to a woman who is not in his family while they both are alone, even though they are in a public place. None of those things are supposed to happen among respectable people. She is wise to ask for some clarification, because people like them do not usually hang out, much less share drinking utensils and talk about God.

     In her commentary on this text, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw notes that this conversation at the well is the longest conversation that Jesus has with any one person in any of the Gospels. She gently ribs Jesus about not having a bucket and also reminds him of both of their ancestral connections to Jacob, who long built the well to take care of his family. Water is a necessity that connects these two to their ancestor in the faith and to each other as humans who need water in this very moment. Something else beyond water is also necessary. Jesus indicates that he has the other necessary thing the “Living Water of eternal life.”

     Because seeing is believing in John, we see Jesus do something that is a little miraculous in this interaction... out of nowhere, he knows something about this woman’s marital history that one wouldn’t necessarily know about a stranger. Given that wells in the Bible are places where people get betrothed, according to Bashaw, it makes sense that something about marriage would pop up in this story. But, Jesus turns that expectation on its head. Rather than make a hasty proposal, he asks about her husband, to which she replies that she doesn’t have one. He goes on to say, “you’re right. You’ve had five and you aren’t even married to man you’re seeing now.” There’s no way a stranger would have known that. While their conversation about water and living water laid the groundwork for her belief, it is this miraculous bit of knowledge about her history that convinces the woman that Jesus is special and holy... that he is the Messiah.

     Water changes things. Had Jesus not been thirsty, he and this woman may not have met. Had he not been brave enough to reach out to someone he had been raised to avoid, and ask for help, he would have struggled on his journey. Had the woman chosen not to share a drink with this stranger, she would have missed out on a life-changing interaction. John goes on to tell us that she becomes one of the earliest preachers, going about Samaria, telling the people about Jesus who “told her everything she had ever done.” Many Samaritans grew hopeful because of what she had said and sought him out. Then, once they saw him, they heard for themselves and began to believe he was the Messiah. Water changed the Samaritan’s life, and helped something new grow.

     In the second half of the reading, we see the disciples not quite know what to do about Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan. Stumbling a bit, they end up asking him if he needed food. He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” Dr. Sharon Fennema invites us to think about this food, and the harvest Jesus says is being prepared for the disciples. She says, “Seeds of relationships and dreams had been sown there at Jacob’s well. Seeds of hostility and division had been sown there too. But Jesus invited them to look around and see what possibilities were ripening in their midst, possibilities like the truth-telling, life-changing conversation he and the woman at the well had just had.”

     This time of year, many people are turning to planning our gardens. I’m passing around a bowl of seeds. Take a seed or a few seeds. In order for these seeds to grow, they need water. They need other things, too, but first they need water. I hope you’ll take these seeds with you and remember that water changes things, be it a cutting or a dry little seed, into something larger... something that will feed people. May you find the sustenance you need to grow in this season. And, may you find your way to labor alongside those who have gone before. There is much harvest to be done. We’ll need our strength to complete it.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
More information about Church World Services work to help people access clean water:  https://cwsglobal.org/learn/hunger-and-poverty/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/
Karoline Lewis' John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014)
Jennifer Garcia Bashaw: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-john-45-42-6
Sharon Fennema: https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/lent-3a-march-8/
​

​     We have mostly been reading through Matthew since Christmas, but now we’re going to switch over to the Gospel of John for a little while. If you remember from our Christmas pageant, in John, we don’t have any baby stories about Jesus. We meet Jesus for the first time in John at his baptism when he is adult. This is the first story where his mission is connected to water. The next time, it's in a miracle just one chapter later.

     The miracle is the first big one in John, where Jesus and his mom are at a wedding that has run out of wine. It was really embarrassing to run out of the most safe thing to drink at such a big gathering in a community and Jesus’ mom ordered him to help the poor bride and groom. Unlike the wedding I officiated that ran out drinks (lemonade in that case because they didn’t allow wine in the venue) where one of the friends and I ran to the store to get some more, Jesus just turned a bunch of water into wine. I mean dozens of gallons of water into dozens of gallons of wine. Jesus saved their reputation and the celebration with a tremendous, over-the-top act of generosity. And, then there’s another mention of water in today’s reading in chapter 3.

     You know how there are some stories that are in more than one Gospel? Well, this story about Nicodemus visiting Jesus is only in the Gospel of John. Does anyone remember who Nicodemus was? He was a Pharisee. And, you probably remember that Jesus and some Pharisees argue a lot because they all thought that the religious law was important but disagreed on how to follow it. What time of day did Nicodemus come talk to Jesus? He came to see him at night. According to Karoline Smith, in her book on the Gospel of John, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night because he’s afraid that his fellow pharisees will not approve of him having friendly conversations with Jesus. So, he went out when it was dark, and hoped other people would not be awake to see him.

     While Jesus performs miracles in all of the Gospels, John is the only one where the writer of the Gospel says that Jesus performs miracles specifically to prove himself to be the Messiah. In the chapter about John in his introduction to the New Testament, scholar Bart Ehrman points out that in John chapter 20: 30-31, it says: “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you many come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name.” In John, seeing Jesus is believing him. Or, believing in him.

     One of the first things Nicodemus says to Jesus is that he saw him performing miracles, and seeing those miracles makes him believe that the power Jesus has has come from God. Because of what he has seen, Nicodemus also wants to talk to Jesus and wants to ask him some important questions about faith. Jesus reiterates that seeing is important: “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus misses the whole part about seeing because he gets distracted about the “being born” part.

     He asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” In a commentary on this text, Cheryl Lindsay points out that interpreting Jesus literally here is not helpful. She says, “Literalism makes the complex even more complex; symbolism enables simplicity.” When Jesus tells him not to take these words literally, then Nicodemus can get closer to understanding what Jesus is talking about. Remember, we have already seen water change and be changed. Jesus was born anew at his baptism, passing through the waters of the Jordan. His mission was made clear in the miracle of the water into wine. He said to Nicodemus, “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Water is powerful. It can change things. Nicodemus needs to remember the real power of water, and understand it as a metaphor for a force, the Spirit, that can bring change within.

     In a commentary she has on this text, Carolyn Brown offers her opinion that Nicodemus is trying to figure out how to be brave. And, Jesus is offering up a little instruction. It is possible to live differently, to live more bravely, but, you have to be willing to be changed. And not just changed a little. Changed a lot. Who here has seen how water can change things? Deserts bloom. Walls crumble. Solid stone gives way to cracks, then fissures, then canyons. The Spirit will mold us that way, Jesus says.

     Jesus, himself, will be a conduit for that Spirit. He will not bring condemnation but instead, will be source of life. He will be a passageway for divine healing. It’s like he’s saying to Nicodemus, “Come on in. The water’s fine.” He seems to be hoping Nicodemus will join him, awash in God’s love, born again and reconnected to God’s promise of love and justice. It’s too bad that we never see Nicodemus again in John, or in any other Gospel. Perhaps he was never willing to take the plunge into living faithfully in full view of God and everybody. Perhaps he became one of the throngs of people who followed Jesus. Perhaps he stayed among the Pharisees, recognizing Jesus’ wisdom and goodness, but staying home to living out his faith in familiar waters.

     All of us have our own Nicodemus moments, where we can be brave but only just a little at first, with the cover of darkness for protection. I pray that from those first steps, our next steps into the Spirit will be splashy enough for everyone to see. May we find the healing and new life we need. And, may it change us in ways that help us live out our faith more boldly, so that no one may be left wondering what happened to us in the rest of the story. Jesus says that the water is fine. Let us get ready to swim.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Carolyn C. Brown: https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2014/02/year-second-sunday-in-lent-march-16-2014.html
Cheryl Lindsay: https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/sermon-seeds-of-water-and-spirit/
Karoline Lewis: http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5075
Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).
Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction of The Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

     Today is the first Sunday in Lent. In a time when certain stories about Christianity are being used to cause harm and when people are very much in need of some foundational support to guide them towards right action in this world, Lent, with its emphasis on discernment, listening to the Spirit, and walking alongside Christ into the greatest of challenges could not have come sooner. Acts of discernment are rarely efficient and often done best in community. Despite the common practice of adopting a particular discipline during this season, Lent is not actually something we do alone. We do it together with Christ. And, this Lent, we will consider the Christian stories being told right now, and the good stories we actually need to hear.

     According to scholar Sharon Fennema, this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness is probably the basis for the whole season of Lent. We spend 40 days listening because Jesus spent forty days listening. Though, to be fair, this time in the wilderness is likely not the beginning of Jesus’ attentive listening to the Holy Spirit. In Matthew, he has already been baptized, which can be recognized as a sign of his following the Spirit, especially when the Spirit affirms his belovedness by God. That same Spirit, is what led him to the wilderness. He is out listening in the wilderness because he listened at his baptism. As he is in the wilderness, he realizes that he must decide who he’s going to be listening to, because an additional voice began speaking in his ear.

     Many of us have come to think “being in the spiritual wilderness,” as being in a time of confusion or a time when one feels adrift or far away from God. That is not what is happening in this text and it is not the spirit with which we should go into Lent. In her commentary on this text, Aubrey West reminds us that Jesus is not being punished and is not lost out in the wilderness. He is exactly where the Spirit wants him to be to discern his next steps in ministry.  The wilderness, a marginal, in-between space that many thought to be dangerous, was a place of connection to the Spirit for Jesus. How many of us have gained important insights on God in uncomfortable spaces? The same is for Christ.

     This first time we see Jesus in the wilderness, we are told that it is a test. The Tempter will show up. According to Scholar Melinda Quivik, we can learn something about Jesus, and about the God we know through Jesus, in paying attention to Jesus’ response to temptation. One thing we learn is Jesus’ relationship to power. One thing we learn is Jesus’ relationship to power. These tests, like many tests from antagonistic conversation partners, are from the start, obviously not in good faith. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Imagine saying something so callous to someone who is hungry. Jesus had been intentionally fasting for days and days. This question was intended to be real provocation. Thankfully, Jesus had the resources within himself to see the provocation for what it was: an invitation to use his power to make himself more comfortable. And, that’s not what his power was for. He responded with a scripture that defines his understanding of power: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

     The next two temptations are increasingly goading, with the Tempter, having heard Jesus use scripture, chose to tempt him with scripture. The tempter took him to the high point of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you’, and ‘On their hands they will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Isn’t it interesting to have a literal interpretation of Scripture as a temptation for Jesus? Melinda Quivick calls this the temptation to “abandon deep-reading of God’s word by taking it literally.” I think there is also the temptation to use literal reading to shore up an excuse to use power for personal gain. In a devotional we used a couple years ago, one of the authors, Danielle Shroyer calls this the temptation to use his gifts as a “parlor trick.” Jesus does not fall for this temptation. He does not choose to use the scripture to justify a misdeed.

     The final temptation is to have a kind of power that comes as the cost of allegiance to one who does not share the same values as God. Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world and all they have to offer if he will shift his allegiance away from God to the Tempter. Imagine what good he could do with the power? It is in his response to this temptation that we might see Jesus most clearly. When given the opportunity to have tremendous power over people at the low, low price of all of his devotion and loyalty, Jesus declines. His mission is not about his ego or his ability to dominate creation. That’s what Quivik and Shroyer, in their commentaries, argue this question is about. Will he choose ego and domination or connection and justice? The Jesus we come to know in this passage chooses connection and healing, as Rev. Shroyer says, every time. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

     In a commentary on a different text in that devotional we used a couple years ago, Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, who had suffered greatly from a covid infection and had long covid, spoke of that time, three years into the pandemic, as a time that was revelatory in the fullest sense of the word. Our personal response and larger communal responses to the pandemic revealed and continue to reveal some things about us and about our communities: some positive, some negative. With these revelations came the opportunity for us to consider, as Reyes-Chow puts it, “who we can be and become.” In this particular moment, when many Christian voices are using scripture to justify all manner of cruelty, particularly to immigrants and transgender people, Sharon Fennema, in introduction to her worship series on Lent, invites us to do what Jesus did and define our faith according to God’s sense of love and justice.

     Fennema asks, “How might we, like Jesus, re-story our faith with new interpretations and understandings of scripture rooted in liberation and flourishing for all?” One way is to take time to consider what stories about Christianity and within Christianity are being use for harm. She invites us to take them up in our hearts and imagine releasing them, like sand trickling through our fingers. In the same way, consider the scripture that guides you toward a braver, more generous, and move loving faith. Imagine taking it into your hands and holding it to your heart. Our devotional for this year Tell Me Something Good might be able to give you some inspiration for faithful stories if you find yourself coming up a little dry.

     May this season of Lent, in the midst of our own wilderness, be a place where we can hear the Spirit in the midst of our discomfort. May we follow the model of Christ and use our faith to build loving systems, not simply systems to make our lives easier. May we hear something good... that we are called together... that Christ is with us... that we can love each other in the midst of trial.

     May the words of Sharon Fennema’s prayer be our prayer:
     In the wilderness and the wandering and the weariness, lead us, Holy Spirit.
     In the hungering and the holding and the humbling, accompany us, Holy Spirit.
     In the tempting and the testing and the turning, move us, Holy Spirit.
     In the resisting and the refusing and the recognizing, guide us, Holy Spirit.
     Ground in us, as we ground in you.
     Breathe with us, as we breathe with you.
     Turn with us, as we turn toward you.
     As the new way emerges, we pray. Amen.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Melinda Quivik: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-matthew-41-11-5
Audrey West: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-matthew-41-11-2
Seeking: Honest Questions for a Deeper Faith, a devotional developed by Sanctified Art (2023)
Tell Me Something Good, a devotional developed by Sanctified Art (2026)
Sharon Fennema: https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/lent-1a-february-22/
​

     I looked over the last couple sermons on this scripture, and I realized that when I preach on this Matthew’s version of the transfiguration, I end up starting with questions. This year: who am I supposed to tell? In 2023: So, when do we tell? In 2020, I didn’t use a question as the sermon’s title, I did wonder, at the beginning of the sermon, just what was going on. Today is a day in the church year called the Transfiguration. According to Carolyn Brown, that word is only really used in church circles and only really used for this day. It is to indicate a day that something about Jesus’ form changed, or at the very least, show us a moment that changed how three of his disciples understood him. It is interesting to me that with that change, we don’t see a ton of clarity. In fact, the end of our reading includes an instruction to secrecy.

     I read a commentary from the Salt Project that points out that the period of the church year after Christmas but before Lent is full of things rightly called revelations, events that make something clear that was once less so. It begins with Epiphany, the celebration of the Wise Ones journey to Jesus. The wise astrologers had seen a bright star that showed them the way to a child who would be a new kind of leader for his people. Then, there was Jesus’ baptism, where he, and probably the people gathered, experienced the Holy Spirit descending upon him as a dove alights on a branch. They also heard the voice from the heavens affirmed that Jesus was a Beloved Son.

     From there, as Jesus passed through the temptations in the wilderness and into his public ministry, we learn of more everyday revelations, particularly healings and wise teaching from Jesus that show people more and more clearly who he is and what he is about. Even his conflicts reveal something about how God has come into the world anew in him. His disciples are confused a lot of the time, but he continues to drop epiphany after epiphany, and they keep following him, even if they don’t totally understand what is going on. Their confusion in much of the Gospel is mirrored by their confusion in the Transfiguration story. They want to understand more clearly, but they just don’t yet.

     In his commentary on this text, Eric Barreto points out that important things happen on mountains. Moses’ interactions with God on Mt. Sinai come to mind, but so do other important hills and high places where the people remembered vital parts of their history and worshiped their God before the temple was built in Jerusalem. Barreto points out that in the chapter just before this one, in an encounter in Caesarea Philippi that happens 6 days before the transfiguration, Peter demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of who Jesus and what he’s supposed to be doing in the world. He gets that Jesus is the Messiah, but when Jesus explains that he expects to have to go through significant suffering in this role, Peter admonishes him. He basically says, “God forbid you be killed.” Jesus calls him Satan for his trouble.

     Jesus goes on to say that if he were to do what Peter wanted, and protect himself, he would limit his ability to follow his mission. The Messiah is not here just to amass power. The Messiah is here to bless those who God bless and hold the powerful to account. You cannot prioritize your own safety and do those things. Jesus says that Peter’s fear is a stumbling block for him. Barreto argues that we need to remember this encounter to better understand the important encounter on the mountain. Peter is missing something when he observes Jesus. He needs something more to help him understand Jesus and his mission clearly. As Barreto states, suffering and glory are not opposed in Christ.

     So, up the mountain Peter, James, John, and Jesus go. As they climb, something wild and unbelievable and incomprehensible happens. Peter, who thought he had Jesus all figured out, realizes he very much does not. I am sure you’ve seen someone’s face shine in love and in pride and in ferocity and in joy. I imagine that shine turned up beyond measure. While Moses encountered God’s mystery in misty, smokey darkness, Peter, James, and John encountered in blazing light. Within this numinous light, Moses and Elijah enter.

     I’ll clue you in on a little interpretive shorthand: When Moses and Elijah show up, holy things are happening. Peter, doing the best he can in the moment, offers to build some tents for the three holy ones. I mean, when faced with two of your most important prophets hanging out with your beloved friend and teacher, hospitality is a pretty reasonable impulse. But, it’s the wrong one, in a similar way that Peter’s impulse to protect Jesus was wrong six days prior.

     More brightness shows up, a cloud so bright it obscures. The cloud may be hiding God or may actually be God, and is here to affirm Jesus in ways similar to his baptism. A voice comes from a bright cloud that says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased.” The voice adds, “Listen to him!” The disciples are right to be terrified. This is all terrifying and incomprehensible. What even had they just seen?

     In a very normal, very human act of kindness, Jesus touches his cowering friends, saying “Get up and do not be afraid.” When they look up, everything is back to normal... except nothing will be the same for them ever again. Scholars think that the author of Matthew carried some stories from Mark over mostly whole cloth. Mark is known for Jesus telling his followers and people he heals not to tell anyone else about what they saw. Matthew does that here, too: “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” What a strange piece of instruction with an unclear time frame.

     Epiphany brought clarity to the Wise Ones. And, the Baptism seemed to have brought clarity to Jesus and maybe John and possibly a bunch of strangers in the woods. The regular healings brough clarity to the healed. And, the teaching helped many people understand God’s covenant better. There is a presumption that everyone who received those revelations will then share what they have learned. So, why are the disciples asked not to share anything yet? Why is this revelation different?

     Ronald Allen, in his commentary on this text, suggests that it is because what they have seen is supposed to help explain something that will happen much later. The Transfiguration is the preparation for the Resurrection. They are getting a preview of what is to come. The preview is intended to help them talk about the Resurrection when it finally happens. There’s going to be a lot of hard stuff between the transfiguration and the resurrection. Jesus needs his followers to be prepared for the hard parts. It seems like the transfiguration is the “foretaste of glory divine” that might help them get through the coming weeks. Jesus hopes that in the same way that he transformed before their eyes, this experience will transform within their hearts over the course of the coming weeks and months, eventually guiding them to a clear understanding of the Resurrection. The Transfiguration is a key for a door they haven’t yet walked through.

     Allen puts it this way, “God will make good on the promises that God has made, to make blessing possible for the whole human family, including gentiles.” When they see their friend struggles, when they see him argue and be exhausted and be tormented and beaten and ultimately killed, maybe this vision of the light and the accompaniment of prophets who have come before will be enough to carry them through the mourning. Maybe it will set the foundation for them to believe Mary Magdalen and the other Mary when they rush to them saying “He is risen! He is going ahead to the mountain, a different mountain, in Galilee to meet you there!” Peter, James, and John need the light now, but may not understand why yet. Jesus wants them to keep this information close, stored up in their hearts, slowly transforming them into the disciples who will carry on the church without him physically by their side.

     What is the vision of Christ you are carrying with you in these current times of struggle? What experiences have shown so intensely in your life that, at the moment you couldn’t fully understand, but have come to see as pivotal in your understanding of Jesus on this side of the resurrection. Something began anew in the disciples on that mountain that would carry them through their hardest times. What has changed you so that you can better understand new life when it blooms before you? I don’t know yet who we’re supposed to be telling about the experiences on mountains that helped us know Christ more fully. I imagine that can change day by day. But, I do know that what we have experienced can carry us through harder things than we have imagined and help us build beautiful community on the other side. Get up, and don’t be afraid. Resurrection is waiting ahead of us.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Carolyn C. Brown: https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2016/01/year-c-transfiguration-of-lord-february.html?m=1
The Commentary from the Salt Project: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/2/18/transfiguration-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-transfiguration-sunday
Eric Barreto: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-5
​Ronald Allen: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6