Oh, so many stories to hear. . .

One of the great joys in serving the Church of Jesus is the opportunity that I have to serve members of the church communion in their home. I enjoy these visits for they give me the opportunity to dwell with the Body of Christ in a personal way. I have the chance to listen and to hear so much. 

Of course, each visit begins in a similar fashion. We begin by catching up. . . "How are you? How you are feeling?" But it isn't long before the sacredness of the visit takes over, and if you are not careful, you might just miss when God walks into the room. 

Hearing about the joy of the hummingbirds coming to the windows, or the pride in how a granddaughter comes to get a soda and sandwich often, those are more than just casual stories. They tell of a sacredness, a richness. They have a depth to them that speaks about how God is at work in the life of a family, and in that person, specifically. 

As I listen I have the chance to sit back and enjoy the blessing of just being present while hearing about the daily miracles that take place in someone else's life. Then, just as the story begins to take shape, God steps in and reminds all of us, that He was here the whole time just waiting for us to be still. 

It was God who brought the squirrel onto the porch. God moved that person to send the card of blessing to another friend who needed it. God nurtured the relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter. God fostered a home of peace where health might be failing but where God is present all the more as a resolute foundation. 

Healing flows in each story... if we take the time to dwell and to listen. 

J. Parker Vaughn said it this way: 

"We can remind the church that healing comes not through assent to a particular doctrine, but through the struggle and development of a caring relationship. We can model for the community of faith, a form of evangelism that strives to be responsive to the metaphor of the cross. As [and the church] we hold forth [this] good news for the church!"

Every time we come together, either as the church or as friends and family, we have the opportunity to continue in this work of listening and relationship building. It can be formal or informal--but it should always be done in Christ. So I wonder today, if God is asking you to dwell with someone, listen to someone's story, as a way to help them heal and be heard? 

What does that look like and I wonder how that might help healing come for you both? 

The Good Samaritan--Luke 10:25-37. Sermon for July 13, 2025

            One of the benefits of the parables of Jesus is that there is always something to learn when the church takes the time to consider them. As we slow down and meditate upon each story, and lesson, the church can grow in their faith by wondering what Jesus is teaching—even in a parable as familiar as the Good Samaritan—there is the opportunity for us to grow. 

            So today I want us to think about these familiar words from Luke 10 which is a story that we have read and considered since early in our faith walks. 

            But before we consider any application of these words, let’s first see how the parable begins.

Move 1- Who is Jesus talking about? 

            Our passage begins with an encounter. A lawyer is talking with Jesus, and he has a question. However, this person is more than a simple lawyer as we would define them by 21^st century standards. 

By station this person was tasked with 3 distinct roles marking him as different from the Pharisees who normally challenge Jesus’ authority and question him. And those roles are:  

A. Continuing to master the Torah. This individual studied the Torah and considered it often. This would something like what you and I do in Sunday School or Bible study. 

B. Familiarity with the oral traditions. More than just copying and considering the Torah (which was part of their daily task), this person was also familiar with the teachings (or the applications) related to the Torah that was passed down from the rabbis. So, he knows the text and he also is aware of the interpretation of the text. An important distinction here to note.

C. Recognized authority over difficult legal cases. When a legal dispute came into the community, this person was charged with adjudicating these disputes fairly based on their studies and their understanding of God’s Law in totality taking oral tradition and the formal text and holding them both before the dispute and then making a ruling.

            In this case, we might consider the lawyer who is speaking with Jesus in Luke 10 to fill a position that looks more like a hybrid between judges and lawyers in our current cultural context. 

            While they might have interacted with Pharisees often, and have frequent run-ins with them, a lawyer such as they, was not the religious arm of the nation of Israel. 

            So, when this person, whose name is lost to history, asks Jesus these two questions that begin our text, he knows where they questions originate from in the Torah, and he would have a solid understanding of how Mosaic Law would prescribe, and he would know the mandated answer to both questions. 

            So, Jesus is confronted by this person who should know the answer to the very question being asked of him. 

            And we can conclude that Jesus is being baited into a trap. . . But a trap he won’t fall into. 

Move 2- Jesus is the Samaritan

            When we come to Jesus with a question, we think we have the answer to and want Jesus to affirm our answer, there are times when the Lord offers us a different direction to reflect upon. . . this is one of those moments. 

            Jesus offers a response in the form of a parable that you are familiar with. 

A man is travelling the 17 miles between Jerusalem and Jericho. The road is treacherous, sloping down 3,000 feet from the Holy City of Jerusalem to its destination in Jericho.[1] As such it is rocky, and it is curvy. The topography is a mixture providing suitable places for bandits and criminals to hide—and you know what happens next. 

            The man in our story is robbed, beaten, stripped, and left for dead.

            Three people come by and all three have the same choice in how to act. Two ignore him; one does not. 

            It is the last one that we always focus upon for he provides a rebuke, we believe, of the legalism of the first two.

            We typically consider the first two (the priest and Levite) to represent the institutional church—and we are cautioned to be careful that we do not become like those two characters. Uncaring. More worried about the letter of the law that does not consider who our neighbor is and what the Lord asks of us. 

            Then we naturally focus on the last person who finds the beaten man, and we are then drawn to wonder about that person.  

            So, let me ask you to consider the Samaritan. . . Who is this unnamed man? The text gives clues for us. 

            For me the most glaring clue is found in verse 33. Luke says that the Samaritan was “moved with pity.” And the verb used here is translated as pity, but it is also rendered accurately as compassion. 

Whenever we hear the word pity in our context today, we often think of it negatively or in condescension. But the word here carries none of that tone. As does happen at times, we add the negative tone. 

Every narrative use of this verb in the gospels is a hinge between human need and divine intervention. The nine other times it is used narratively in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus displaying COMPASSION as he looks out at the very people that he has been sent to. For instance, “Jesus looks upon the people, and he has COMPASSION upon them for the were like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36. Not a use of negative pity but loving compassion.

            The other three times this word occurs in the New Testament? 

We have the Prodigal Father seeing his son coming home and he is moved with COMPASSION and runs to restore his lost son. 

            In Matthew 18, the Lord of the house sees that his servant cannot repay his debt, and he has COMPASSION on him, and he releases the debt. 

            And finally in Luke 10, the Good Samaritan, has pity, or COMPASSION, on someone who through no fault of their own is beaten, wounded, and in need of salvation.

            In this case, who is the Good Samaritan? 

I wonder if it is Jesus and not the Church Universal, not the Church local, and the aspiring Church-to-be. 

I wonder if parable is telling us today that Father, has sent the Good Samaritan, an outsider, someone who does not belong here, someone who was not born here, to come and to find the broken, the lost, and the wounded, and to give of Himself, sacrificially, to help and restore the one in the ditch?

So, when the lawyer asks who is my neighbor, and who does the law call me to care for, we find Jesus offering a very specific answer? 

Move 3- the one in the ditch.

            So then this begs the question, who’s in the ditch? 

            And I suspect that you can guess that I think the one in the ditch is you and me. The church both local and historic. For through no fault of our own we have found ourselves in the ditch separated from wholeness with God. 

            In the case of our parable, the Good Samaritan does what the institutional church, and the lawyer, will not do, as he looks for his neighbor. Jesus practices being with, and from last week— Jesus shares the burden—when he is free to pass the work off. 

The Good Samaritan Lord has COMPASSION on those who are broken, and he is willing to care for each of us for we know what it feels like to be beaten down as we travel from one place to another along the path of life. We know what it feels like to be set upon and left for dead by people who judge us to NOT be their neighbor by the letter of a law that they choose to elevate.  

            This then leads me back to our conversation from Galatians from the last two weeks. 

If we are truly in the ditch, and if we need a Good Samaritan, a Savior, to find us, to give of himself for us, to make sure that we are cared for, and to come back at a later time for us to insure that we are fully healed and restored, then should we not be working testify about the goodness of the Savior who helped us and found us when no one else was willing to do that work on our behalf? 

For in myself I am not redemptive. You are not redemptive. No church building is redemptive, and neither is a church ministry—only the Lord who pulls us out of the ditch can save us. We may aspire to be the Good Samaritan, but this text causes me to pause and wonder about the nature of the one would willing care for the broken when others pass by. 

            Should we not be working together to make sure that we are not biting and devouring one another and then the share the burdens with those we know who are hurting and beaten just like us? 

            While others have passed right by us, while they have walked right by thinking they have all the answers to all the questions, the Good Samaritan has sacrificial compassion on us, and actually on them. For nowhere in the parable do we see him judge them or complain about them either. 

Conclusion

            If the Lord is indeed the Good Samaritan, then we have an important role in this parable—even if we are in the ditch. And as I have said it is one of testimony and it is one of evangelism. 

            So, as we think about our Good Samaritan who finds us and rescues us, can we also notice how we are then called to be present in the lives of other members of the Body of Christ who themselves have been wounded and left by the wayside by others? Can share this good news with them and help to turn to the one who loves them and will care for them as we too have been cared for? 

---

[1] https://www.rotation.org/topic/bible-background-for-the-good-samaritan. Accessed on July 9, 2025. 

Bread crumbs on my hands.

Having just partaken in Holy Communion, my mind has been thinking a great deal recently about the nourishing nature of bread. One detail that often comes to mind when I stand behind the Table of the Lord, and before the Body of Christ, is the crumbs that fall into my Book of Common Worship as I break the bread during the Communion liturgy. 

I often find myself rubbing my hands together as I finish the liturgy as a way of cleaning them off before proceeding. A fine dust of flour and crumbs falls on the pages of my book each time and I wonder if Jesus had the same experience during His Last Supper? 

Those crumbs stay wedged in my book until the next time I open the pages and begin the liturgy again and I invite the Body of Christ to come to the Table of the Lord with me. 

In my heart the Communion Table is a sacred space and a space made open by Jesus for us. 

As a Presbyterian student pastor, I was unable to administer communion for 4 years when I first began preaching God's word, so now communion remains very special to me. It reminds me that God's care of myself, my family, and the Church, takes on a form that I often cannot vocally express. How is it that simple bread and juice means so much to me that I wept the first time I stood behind the table and said those words of Jesus to the Body of Christ? 

This morning I was reading Isaac S. Villegas' words about manna, and as I read them, I heard echoes of Communion and God's care for us that I wanted to share with you. He wrote:

"God sends manna because God cares for the human needs, God's love matters for our lives. To talk about care is to get specific about the nature of God's love. God's care is what God's love looks like; care is what God's love feels like."

You may not be taking communion today, but I suspect that you will have the opportunity to enjoy some bread, and as you do, maybe you will feel the crumbs on your hands. As you to, I wonder if you might pause and remember the care of God and the love of God that can be found in bread? And if you feel the crumbs, give thanks to the Lord for the care that He offers to you. . .  

Bearing Gently--Galatians 6:1-6. Sermon from Sunday July 6, 2025

     Last week I ended with the word that I believe sums up the freedom that comes in Christ, a word that speaks about our value to God. It is also the word that symbolizes how Jesus invites us to come to him, to be with him, to dwell with him, and last week I said that word is: communion.

Now as we return to Galatians, we finish around this table with Paul’s concluding words to the Church. For chapter 6 invites us to adopt a posture when we are together.    

Move 1- sharing the burden

         While one concept in verse 2 gains the lion’s share of the emphasis and consideration when this chapter is read, I want us to remember what Paul says to the church in Galatia—but from a slightly different emotional direction. For the church in Galatia is a church that in chapter 1:4, is guilty of, “turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ.”[1] This is how Paul began his letter. 

         These are people of the church, like you and me, people who are called by God, and people who have turned their calling. And while we do have chapters in Galatians to articulate that ‘turning,’ the same sin is always at work in the church.   

For five chapters now Paul has called the Church back toward Christ. 

He has called them to live faithfully in response to their high calling from God. As I said last week, Paul reminded them of their freedom in Christ. This freedom leads to care for one another, and it leads the Church to serve their community. And while that calling, to a people who appear lost, or confused, or misguided, could be seen as a word of rebuke. . . at the end of this letter, Paul uses a different approach. 

         Rather than hold some up, or wag his finger at others, in verse 2 Paul, draws out humility. . . Paul calls forth gentleness in our practice of faith when we are together and as we go out among the people. Paul asks each of us to look at the works of other members of the church and to take a sense of pride in their work and not in ours. 

         In the concluding words from Paul the church is told to gently and humbly help one another (verse 1). And in verse 2, “share each other’s burden.”[2]

If you were following with me in your Bible, you might have read, “bear one another’s burdens,” that is the rendering from the NRSV and KJV is close to that. And while that is right, and I do not want to fault any translation committee or the work they have done, I wonder what it would look like if the church of Jesus saw what we do not as ‘bearing a burden’ but as ‘sharing the burden?”

And there is a significant difference to consider here. 

         As we come to the Table of the Lord, that is the focus for you, and that is the invitation for us. As we think about as the bread that is broken and the cup that is passed, how are we ‘sharing the burden?’ 

But this is not the end of our thinking or reflecting. . . As you leave this service, or watch it later, or listen to it in the future, think about what happens in your life, and the life of this community as we stop simply ‘bearing burdens’ but ‘sharing that same burden?’

         And as I said there is a difference. 

Move 2- the difference.

         The first thing to note about the difference is that for Paul and in his word choice here, there is a sense of gentleness in this pericope when we share the burden as the church. Throughout verses 1-6 Paul reinforces his meaning by using words that are filled, or identified with, gentleness. . . Gentle verbs. . . And gentle actions. Just a quick glance at the text and you will find them: 

         “A spirit of gentleness”—verse 1. Right from the beginning Paul sets the table for how the posture of this work should look. Gentle. . . humble restoration taking place. In a community where this choice is not often elevated, consider how counter cultural this choice would be?!? 

         Then carries that tone forward in verse 3 where he writes: “If you think you are too important to help someone…you are not.” While we might read it, and add a tone of rebuke to these words, Paul does not. In his writing that tone is missing.  

         But the Apostle is not done yet in helping to remind us of our place with each other, In verse 4 Paul says, “you will enjoy the personal satisfaction of having done your work well, and you won’t need to compare yourself to others.”[3]  

         On and on it goes. We are responsible for our own actions and we are called by God to be gentle when considering the actions of others. We are called to be humble and kind, rather than brash, aggressive, or judgmental. That posture is left for God alone. Our eyes firmly fixed on who Jesus calls us to be and not on what someone else is doing. This choice, this posture helps return to back to verse 2 where we are sharing the burden. And the word for sharing also occurs in this formulation in Luke 10:4 where the disciples are sent out into their community and told to ‘carry’ or ‘bear’ nothing with them. But to rely on the gentleness and goodness of the people to whom they travel and witness to. 

Further, when we dig a bit deeper into the text and into Paul’s theological lexicon again, we learn that for Paul:


“The community [of the church] is obliged to rally around the overwhelmed [rally around each other], while individuals remain responsible for the stewardship God assigns [to] them. . . Here the ‘call to share the burden’ functions as a call for patient, and sacrificial fellowship.” (Taken from Biblebub.com)

           In this sense we are not doing the work for someone else, but we are providing the space, the safe space, for them to encounter God and allow God’s self-revelation to mold, shape, and change them.
For congregational life thrives when believers share one another’s burdens while not neglecting individual responsibility that comes from discipleship and the faithful on God’s word personally. We do not do the work for the other person. But when we are with them, when we hold them, as we have done before at this church with those who grieve, those who are healing, we share a burden as the Body of Christ and as Paul calls us to do.

               We surround each other, providing a safe space to work out own salvation and faith continually in the Freedom that comes in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion
        And this freedom leads us back to the Table of the Lord which is set before us.

[1] Galatians 1:4 NLT. 

 

[2] Galatians 6:2 NLT. 

 

[3] All scriptures in this section are taken from the New Living Translation. 

Time to replant. But I have not done this before.

This past spring JonMark helped me select three plants to put in my office (four if you count the one he gave me from his biology class). We left the nursery and he repotted them and gave me some basic instructions: water them (but too much), and make sure they get plenty of sun... but not too much. And throughout the spring my plants prospered. 

The cactus, well, I just left that one alone. Cactuses thrives with little water and plenty of heat. So this summer, I am seeing what I assume is signs of vitality and joy. Spikes have grown all over the cactus as have a white, cottony, substance on the top. That one is doing well. 

The succulent is growing like crazy. I water it once a week. Turn it occasionally so each side gets plenty of sun and, as Elsa would tells us. . . I let it go. This one started close to four inches high and now it is about a foot tall. As I look at it I think, 'yeah I can do this.'

The aloe plant in my coffee cup also is doing fine. Five mini stalks are growing and I will need to do something about that. It is getting too big for the cup. We put this in a cup without repotting it so the water can drip through the soil and not get overwatered and the evaporate back into the soil--I think. JonMark said something about this being a special way to help to grow and not take on too much water.

But the orange marmalade. That poor plant. Today I went to check on it, and, well now I have an empty pot to work with. The plant completely broke free from its root system and died. Truth be told I was wondering what I was doing wrong with this one for some time. I never saw a flower bloom which is why I bought it in the first place. So now I need to move the aloe into the former home of the marmalade. It needs more space to grow anyway. 

Truth be told though I have too much to do today! 

I am too busy to take the two pots to the kitchen counter and perform the task of repotting a plant. While I know it will only take five minutes at the most, I am just too busy. Maybe I will call Emma and ask her to do it? 

While you may not have had the same struggles that I am having with plants today, I bet you are familiar with the mindset--too busy for a five minute task. Maybe even too busy to spend a little extra time with the Lord. 

In her book Sabbath in the Suburbs, I remembered the words of MaryAnn McKibben Dana where she wrote something to my heart as I kept looking at the pots on my window sill throughout this morning: 

"I didn't want to live the kind of life in which an extra four minutes were so crucial to my schedule that I would petition the county government to get my way. . . [But] I, too, treated time as a sacred commodity to be hoarded. It was a constant struggle to keep from gripping tightly to every four-minute nugget of time, maximizing every moment, multitasking as if my life depended on it." 

I wonder if today, you can locate those extra four minutes... maybe five. Give them over to the Lord and notice how differently your day will become. I bet you will be surprised.  

Oh, as for the fifth plant. The African violet is fine... I think. It is still just a leaf that I water and wait, but I hear those plants are often tough to deal with. But I will be patient and watchful. 

 

Freedom in Christ--Galatians 5:3:13-25. Sermon from Sunday June 29, 2025

            Not long ago it was Pentecost, the time where we recall the empowerment of the church. Peter and the disciples have begun their work of sharing the gospel and teaching what Christ taught them to their community. 

            But as we all know, and have all experienced, internal strife and internal struggles can limit the effectiveness of the work that we do for the Lord. 

            While this text can easily hold our attention in one of two places, both lists of Fruits of the Spirit, the massive list of sins that the church does not want to fall into, I want us to back up to the previous section: verses 13-15 and consider those words from Paul as a challenge to hold fast to the true nature of the gospel. 

For in those first verses of our text a popular concept from today is elevated, and this concept is held in contrast with a worldview that we see each day. Freedom contrasted with biting and devouring in the church. 

            Let’s examine them one at a time before returning to the place where we will start. 

Move 1- Freedom.

            When I say freedom, we are quick to identify that term with July 4^th, with both the religious and the political freedom that we witness in our country and upon which our country was founded. And while that is one definition and one application of freedom, the term used here by Paul for ‘freedom’ carries with it a deeper definition for the church. 

This deeper definition also carries with it a deeper theological richness that we need to recall and hold onto before we get to the list of sins in verse 19-21 and the Fruits of the Spirit in 22 & 23. 

            Freedom in Paul’s theological lexicon: “signifies the liberating reality that believers possess in Christ. More than political emancipation or philosophical autonomy, it is the God-given release from every form of spiritual bondage so that the redeemed may serve the Lord willingly, joyfully, and fruitfully.”[1] (REPEAT)

            Notice how Paul takes our concept of freedom, the one that you and I might bring to any discussion on the idea of freedom, and Paul expands this idea and gives it theological legs to stand upon. He widens it, while he brings the Lord into the discussion.

            Freedom in Paul’s theological mind is linked to our freedom in Christ and our choice to serve the Lord willingly and joyfully and ultimately fruitfully together. 

We are free in Christ and that freedom cannot be held back and it cannot be held only to ourselves. Our freedom in Christ calls us forward as the church. It calls us to care for the community, and it specifically calls us edify the church and build up one another—the two (Freedom and living and working in Christ) cannot be separated and Paul did not intend for them to be. 

            And in Paul’s mind, these two ideas were never meant to be separated. We are free and we live and work in Christ as the church. 

This is a popular theme that we will read and consider throughout the remainder of Pauline epistles. For when we have Christ in our hearts, when we live with Christ at the center of our being, and allow Christ to guide our actions, we are truly free to care for each other in the church, and we are free to serve our community in faith. 

Move 2- biting and devouring

            While we are free in Christ, Paul is aware that the church in Galatia, and the church of our past, and the church today, right now, we are working in and building, we will be confronted with a challenge.

            And while we might be tempted to think that these challenges are different; that they bear no resemblance to each other. I wonder if there are some similarities, some underlying theme that Paul is speaking about that we can take with us when we face our community and serve them? 

For as Paul writes about this challenge in Galatia, he is just as vivid in his description of that challenge as he was when thinking about freedom in Christ. So, his words then, they should strike at our hearts now when we come to this passage. For while the context is different—it is not truly that different.

            The two words Paul uses here to speak about the challenge are: biting and devouring.

And he warns us not bite or devour one another or risk being consumed. Let’s look at them separately and notice how they are diametrically opposed to the freedom in Christ that comes in our personal relationship with Jesus. 

Biting

            When Paul says that ‘biting’ occurs, the first thing that he is saying that this behavior is taking place inside the church. 

While certainly external persecution happens, by his word choice this suffering, this biting, wounds and breaks the church down. The term that Paul employs in verse 15, it speaks directly into the church. 

Paul warns the church then, and today, that we are to watch our destructive speech when we are together as the Body. Watch our destructive behaviors for they have a ‘biting,’ a tear with teeth, a painful impact, on the Body of Christ first. 

            For Paul this behavior is tragic because these are self-inflicted wounds that the church causes to itself that could, and if we are freed by Christ then these wounds should be, avoided. These wounds are unnecessary. . . but we choose to bite. We choose to tear rather than build up and to be free in Christ.

            This biting amplifies the sinful choices that we make every day that are listed in verses 19-21 and they lead us toward devouring one another. 

Devouring

            The second word that Paul uses is devouring and it is just as vivid and just and painful to consider. 

            If biting hurts the church internally then devouring is what happens after the biting action and choice takes place here. The devouring is how our life here looks after we have bitten each other repeatedly and consistently. 

While ‘biting’ only occurs in this once place in Paul’s epistles, the word for devouring appears in other places in the scriptures. Most notably this is the word that the elder brother accuses his younger prodigal brother of doing with his portion of the inheritance. The younger. . . devoured it. And in that case, you can begin to imagine what the impact of the ‘devouring’ action and choice looks like. 

            In that case it was: “utterly devour[ed], leaving nothing; ferociously consume all the way down, i.e. with a rapacious, voracious appetite – leaving only ruination, without hope of recovery (or even remains).[2]

            In our day, in the places that we go, in the people that we seek to care for in the church and throughout our local community, I think that each of you can put a face not just being bitten, but we can put a face to what it looks like, and who you know, who has been devoured in this way. . . We know people in the community of faith who might, if they were honest in the moment say, they know what it feels like to live in a place without the hope of recovery. 

Move 3- back to freedom.

            Because Paul warns us about the dangers of being bitten and devoured and consumed by one another, we need to once again to return to the freedom that comes from Christ in these places of biting and devouring in the church and in the community. We need to find the strength to help each other, and those of our community, reach this freedom in Christ together that is promised and offered in Jesus. 

We need to be reminded of the healing that comes in Christ Jesus as we are together as the Body of Christ. We need to practice and live through and with the Fruits of the Spirit that this text ends with. 

For Paul, “Freedom isn’t a perfect, unassailable state we attain after passionate campaigning and willful struggle. It’s an experience we can attain right now by living, like Jesus, in the face of enslaving temptations, with patience, gentleness and generosity. Then we may call our lives, and the life of this church, a parable for our times.”[3]

Freedom in Christ means a change in our hearts where we move from one state, one choice back, towards another where we love our neighbors as ourselves (verse 14 which is a word from Jesus in Matthew 7) in care and support. Freedom means moving back from the choice to bite and devour others and back towards loving each other as Christ loved His church. 
Conclusion
            So, the challenge of this text is one of meditation and reflection for the work is never done because we are always confronted with the choice to bite and devour. Yet we are also always offered the freedom in Christ. 
            And we have a final word for that freedom that comes in our relationship with Christ, a word that captures how important to God it is that we, the Body of Christ come together in the freedom that Jesus won for us. . . and that word is: communion. 

---

[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/1657.htm  accessed on June 25, 2025. 

 

[2] https://biblehub.com/greek/2719.htm  accessed on June 26, 2025. 

 

[3] https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/the-second-sunday-after-trinity/  accessed on June 25, 2025. 

 

Up and down. . . a lesson in caring.

It was shortly after 7:30 last night. Jennifer was drying her hair after a night of swimming and supper while I scrolled through the evening news on my phone. Outside the thunder of the storm was growing. I sighed. . . I love a good thunderstorm. They make some of the best sleeping weather. 

Then she interrupted me. "Did you hear that?" I did not hear anything She said it again before completing her thought: "It sounds like a horn. There it is again. Get up and look."

"A horn," I wondered. I expected perhaps a tornado siren but not a horn. 

Rushing to look out our window I was shocked to see seven horses trotting across the church driveway with a white Toyota pickup honking their horn behind the horses attempting to keep them off McConnells Highway. Jennifer was indeed right--she heard a horn.

Of the many things I thought I might see on a 'dark and stormy night' seven horses in my driveway was not high on my list. 

Over the next hour, Jennifer and I, with several church members alongside of us, attempted to find these misplaced horses and get them back to their home. The horses settled, for a bit behind the Family Life Center between the cemetery and the playground. Back there is a fence and the horses ran free and fast in the grass. I could not tell if they were afraid or having the time of their lives. But it did not matter. They were safe and they could graze.  

Up and down that hill I travelled trying to keep my eye on them. I walked that hill so many times that I lost track of the count. My knees ached. The shoes I wore, my dad's old Crocs, are a size too small so they kept slipping off my feet in the wet grass. Up and down I went because I knew it was what was needed in the moment as others watched the road for the owner of the horses.

We do a lot of things in the church for nameless and faceless people of our community. But we do it because we care and because it is what God asks us to serve and care. So I wonder today if you can find a place or a moment to serve a little bit more, a little bit deeper because it is what God asks of you?