In a world increasingly marked by individual loneliness and isolation, societal disconnection and discord, there lies a unique opportunity for communities of faith to major on connection, renewal, but, most importantly, the celebration of transformation. Simply put, there would be a huge benefit for the church to learn how to throw a really good party.

I know religious communities don’t really have that party animal reputation. The cops aren’t usually called to settle things down at the Sunday School class or church picnic; but I’d like to suggest that the tranquil celebrations on church grounds have much more to do with us than with God. There is actually a surprise that awaits anyone who picks up the Bible for the first time. It’s unexpected and unbelieved, but the Bible actually, through and through, from beginning to end, seems to have this insistence on and adoration for a really good party.

Contrary to the rumors and stereotypes of dust-covered irrelevance and regressive intolerance that paints people of faith as somber and overly-restrained, and their gatherings much the same, the Bible reveals a God who delights in festivity, values togetherness, demands rejoicing, and spares no expense and cares not about noise when personal and communal transformation are involved. It’s not a dry account of laws but, rather, a lively prescription for joy and community.

And there-in lies the current opportunity, challenge, and question, amidst both ecclesial decline and societal loneliness in epidemic proportions: will communities of faith pause to reread this story, receive the invitation anew, and allow it to help us rethink what it means to celebrate?

It’s gotten a bad rap, but it's actually the Book of Leviticus where God first demands that the people party and then outlines, detail by meticulous detail - from the guest list to the menu, how to throw a party people will remember. Chapter by chapter, festival after festival, party after party, with some lasting for weeks, God would command the people to stop working, loosen up a bit, and join the party.

“These are the parties that I appoint to be mandated for you,” says the Lord: this divine invitation to embrace life, to step away from the burdens of the daily grind, to pause and loosen their grip on self-dependence, self-provision, self-control, and to revel in the joy of togetherness.

Just imagine it: a vibrant community, liberated from the chains of oppression, now spurred on to remember the joy of living. After four centuries of enslavement in Egypt, the Israelites had forgotten how to celebrate until Moses liberates them from bondage and into a new life, guides them not just on a physical journey but an identity transformation, and reminds them how to party.

It’s one of the reasons why the story of the God of Israel and the story of Jesus got slapped together as one continuous story. With Jesus, there is this uncanny continuation of this divine emphasis in celebration. Over and over again, Jesus finds himself at the center of gatherings, criticized for his penchant for feasting and companionship and “partying too much” by pharisees and other guardians of decorum wishing he would embody a more austere, somber, religious demeanor that aligned with their expectations of faithfulness.

In parables, Jesus speaks of the joy that lies in finding what is lost and invites us, all of us, across time and space, to consider what we would do if we lost a sheep or a coin. Would we leave the healthy ninety-nine sheep for the one decrepit sheep, and then cry, “Come party with me. I’ve found 1/100th of everything I own,” upon return? Or would we, having lost a quarter, sweep the whole house, turn the couches upside down, sweep out the duct work, and upon finding the quarter shout, “Come celebrate with me, for I’ve found twenty-five cents,” from the roof tops? And the answer is: of course we wouldn’t.

But the Bible it’s a story about us. It’s a story about the God who can’t help to throw a party when transformation happens; and there’s a real opportunity at this very moment within our cultural landscape for moral leadership and communal clarity from the church through celebration.

When new life is found, when a life is changed, when transformation breaks out, communities of faith should pull out all the stops. When anyone who’s lost, cut off reality, relationship, dignity, community, finds new life, communities of faith should respond as if heaven just exploded, angels grabbed their harps, cherubs got in line for the club, and God just let off fireworks. When transformation occurs—whether in the life of an individual or within a community—God rejoices, and so should we. That thing called the Kingdom of God that the Bible talks about is not just abstract theology; it’s a vibrant community where transformation is celebrated at every turn.

Yet, in our contemporary landscape, the busyness of our over-scheduled day-to-day, the intensity of demands or perceived demands, the transiency of life in and just outside the big city, the entrenched political, racial, and socioeconomic divides, the rarity of real friendship, and the scarcity mindsets of religious institutions have served to crash the party.

Along the way, we’ve become a society of lonely people, who, like the Israelites, have forgotten how to party and for whom connection, celebration, even friendship have become values we’re almost resigned to losing along the way in our pursuit of everything else. Despite the fact that, in some sense, religious communities haven’t been immune to this epidemic of loneliness, this incredible, gaping hole in human relational health should unnerve us all and jolt communities of faith out of our amnesia.

The Didiche, an ancient book of the faith, older even than the Bible itself, actually depicts this cultural malaise and ecclesial and communal amnesia as an alternate party, as one of the two parties going on in the world around us. One party centers on death and all its allures - greed,

lust, despair, often masquerading as achievement, self-improvement, and independence - and ultimately leads to brokenness and isolation. The other party, the one we are called to join, the one the Bible tells us God has been throwing all along, celebrates life, hope, and transformation and fosters connection and healing.

A poignant example of the second party the Didiche describes, the party of transformative celebration, I have come to believe can be found in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In AA, individuals gather not only to confront their struggles but to celebrate the journey towards recovery. I’ve witnessed the transformation of friends in this community as they have sought refuge and renewal and found a place where their stories are met with understanding and celebration rather than judgement.

In a conversation about faith and community a few years ago, one of these friends reflected on her experience with the church. She could appreciate the beautiful hymns and was often moved by the ritual of communion; but often she felt that most congregations she had been to were just content with upholding the status quo instead of inviting transformation. She said, “I don’t need a pat on the back. I need a new life now;” and her words resonate as this reminder of the charge and opportunity for communities of faith to strive not just for acceptance but for genuine change and to celebrate that, like the God of the universe does, with all the glitter and glam, swag bags and swizzle sticks.

The call to transformation is universal. God is throwing a party and the only price of admission is the desire to be transformed. But the need for communities that embrace and celebrate that transformation in ways that reconnect people in mind, body, spirit, soul to themselves, their community, and the partying God, is not just universal, it’s the vaccine for the mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual epidemic of our time.

My father died earlier this year. He died peacefully, on his own terms, with family bedside. The last time we went to the hospital, my dad knew this was his final visit. He told the medical team he was ready to die. When he was moved from the ICU to hospice care, we gathered around his bedside knowing the days and hours were growing thin. He wasn’t able to say much, the strength was leaving his body. But he held each of our hands, gave us a slight nod, and whispered to each of us: “I love you.” He died in the middle of the night, peacefully and humbly, the same way he lived his life. Amidst the chaos of hospital visits, medical treatments, anxiety and fear that had been ever present in the years prior, somehow my father brought us peace, even in his death. It was, I believe, his final gift to us.

In John 14, Jesus says to his disciples as he prepares for his own death: Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I don’t think I fully understood this passage until this past year. After all, how can there be peace in death? How can we tame our troubled hearts and still our trembling bodies? I’ve been thinking a lot about peace in the midst of death. We often associate death with chaos and unrest and turmoil. After all, the cross was marked by betrayal, suffering, violence, and pain. But Jesus’ death didn’t lead to chaos. His death, which was meant to upend and to shatter and to end, instead, his death led to peace. And three days later, resurrection, not death, had the final word, the ultimate act of peace. Only in the gift of Christ’s peace, that peace which surpasses all understanding, does death lead us to peace.

The song “Gabriel’s Oboe” is the theme of the 1986 movie “The Mission.” The Mission tells the story of a Jesuit missionary in 18th century South America. The story is chaotic and brutal and ugly, as it faces the darkness of human sin, slavery, and colonialism. But in the midst of the chaos comes this song. The melody breaks through the chaos, and a transcendent calm settles in its place. It’s salve for the weary soul, beauty in the midst of brutality, peace for the broken, sinful, and fallen human.

I don’t know if my dad knew this song or watched the movie–although I suspect he would have loved both. But this song always reminds me of my father. Like this melody, he was able to bring peace to even the most chaotic moments. Like this melody, he brought calm to our family.

This summer, we buried my father’s ashes at Camp Highroad’s EcoEternity forest. The ashes are buried at the foot of a memorial tree. The tree is tall and majestic, just like my dad. Its branches give us shade and rest from the sun. It watches over our kids as they play at the foot of the tree. There is profound calm and peace, and in the distance, a tranquil melody playing.

A common refrain in my Eastertide preaching is that in some ways it’s a shame that we know what’s going to happen on Easter morning. We miss out on the holy shock and surprise of the resurrection after the heaviness and grief of Holy Week. This year, I am feeling more and more grateful that, all throughout Lent and Holy Week, we knew the promise of resurrection was coming.

Lent, in my experience, is a season of longing. Deeper than mere wants or needs the Lenten season taps into a spiritual longing. Like the longing for the warmth of a sunny spring day in the midst of the doldrums of winter. My soul longs for the joy of Easter, new life, and resurrection.

This year, I find that when I open a social media app or turn on the news the weight of that longing becomes harder and harder to bear. I long for a government that values truth and honors the dignity of all people. I long for communities that connect and celebrate the beauty of diversity. I long for churches that seek to build relationships with their neighbors instead of acting as social service organizations. I long for schools where children can learn and play in safety and without fear. I name a hundred other things for which my heart is longing these days.

I find comfort in the reminder that there is a place for longing in Scripture and in our observance of the Christian year. There are a number of psalms that give voice to our shared longing as a broken people in a broken world in need of healing and wholeness.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning…
(Psalm 130:5-6a)

Along the Lenten journey, our whole beings have been waiting for the Lord. Filled with the spiritual longing so beautifully named in the Civil Wars’ "From This Valley":

Oh the desert dreams of a river
That will run down to the sea
Like my heart longs for an ocean
To wash down over me
Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance
Just to find pure love's embrace
Like an orphan longs for its mother
May you hold me in your grace
Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind
That will flow beneath her wings
Like a voice longs for a melody
Oh Jesus, carry me
Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

What is your soul longing for today? What might healing and wholeness look like for you as the Lenten season winds to a close and Eastertide begins?

I, for one, am grateful that in the midst of my longing I always have the promise of the joy of new life and resurrection to come.

As I wait for the Lord (because, let's be honest, the waiting doesn't end on Easter Sunday) I rest in these promises, relieved that Easter isn’t a complete surprise.

No matter the weight of watching and waiting, the tomb will always be empty and joy will come in the morning. Amen.

We were so excited to meet our niece that night.

She was our first niece (or nephew) and she’d just been born.  After our oldest son finished his day at school (he was in first grade at the time), we loaded the family in the minivan, packed dinner to eat on the road (lunch meat sandwiches, chips, apples, etc.) and started driving.  It would take about two hours to get to the hospital where our beautiful little niece was waiting for us.

But the drive didn’t go as we had planned.  Our son has food allergies – at the time, he was allergic to dairy, egg, and peanuts (he’s outgrown the dairy and egg allergies since then, but still has a life-threatening peanut allergy). His dairy allergy had been becoming less severe, and his allergist had recommended that we introduce him to dairy in small amounts in food items that had been baked – he couldn’t have a glass of milk or a slice of cheese, but he could eat Cheez-its and breads with small amounts of dairy baked into them – and, he was supposed to eat some of those things every day, in order to slowly get his body used to dairy and build up his resistance to it.

Anyway, to go with his sandwich we packed him some puffy cheese curls – the kind covered in artificial powdered cheese.  They had a tiny amount of dairy in them, and he had just started eating them a few weeks earlier, and he loved them.  We drove down, listening to music, singing along, excited to meet our new family member.

About an hour later, we looked into the back seat, and we realized something was wrong.  Our son was congested, his face was red and puffy, he was still breathing OK, but he definitely was not the perfectly healthy, smiling kid who we had picked up from school.  It seems that he had had a reaction to the cheese puffs.  He was only in first grade, after all, and as the artificial cheese coating got on his skin, he rubbed it on his face, and then his face itched, and he rubbed his itchy face with his cheese-powder covered hands, and, before we knew it, he was having an allergic reaction.

It was scary.  We pulled over.  We gave him the meds he was supposed to take for a reaction like this.  And then, when it was under control, we kept driving.  We got to the hospital and waited for an hour before going in to meet our niece – waiting to make sure the reaction was over. Any parent who has ever sat with their child in the midst of a medical crisis has a sense of what we were feeling. Once he was better, we went and saw our niece – she was beautiful, and it was great to meet her and celebrate her with her parents – and then we drove home.  We were full of joy over the addition of a new member to our family, but we were also overwhelmed, scared, worn thin in the wake of this unexpected moment of panic.  When you have a child with life-threatening food allergies, any day can become an existential crisis.  One time forgetting to check the ingredient label, one time when someone feeds your kid without your permission, one moment when someone doesn’t wash their hands after eating peanuts or forgets that their famous cookies have a secret ingredient – one mistake, and you’re in the ER, or worse.  He was OK – and we were OK – but we were shaken. We had gotten in the car ready to celebrate a new life – but by the time we got to our destination we were worrying about the life of our beloved son. It was a reminder that life is fragile, that it is out of our control – it was a reminder of risks we’d rather not contemplate most days.

On the drive home, as we were decompressing, processing the day, listening to music, “It’s Quiet Uptown” came on Spotify.  If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s from the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” (We were listening to the version sung by Kelly Clarkson on the Hamilton Mixtape, but it and the Broadway original are both worth a listen.) It’s a song about the aftermath of Alexander Hamilton’s son, Philip, being killed in a duel.  It’s about the grief of losing a child and trying to move forward in the face of unimaginable darkness.  It’s also about Hamilton and his wife, Eliza, reconciling after Hamilton’s (very public) affair.  The song is about people who are trying to put one foot in front of the other when the weight of the future seems impossible to bear. It’s about being in the deepest darkness and finding a glimpse of the light.  It’s about experiencing grace, forgiveness, and hope that goes beyond words.  The song opens with these words:

There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you're in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down
The Hamiltons move uptown
And learn to live with the unimaginable

As I listened to those words, I found myself reaching for my wife’s hand.  I squeezed it as I drove, and we looked at each other, and we sighed deeply.  Unlike Hamilton, our son had not died. Our situation was much better than the one depicted in the song. But we knew that his food allergies really were (are) life-threatening.  We had felt – maybe for just a moment – that he was in danger. We had watched this child who we love more than words can express gasp for air and experience fear over his own health.  We had felt out-of-control and frightened. We had faced – even if only momentarily – the unimaginable possibility of losing him.  We had been forced to face the fragility of our lives together.  

The story we Christians tell is a story about a God who enters into the darkness of suffering and death.  God knows what it is like to feel hopeless, because God, in Jesus Christ, has felt it.  God knows how fragile life is, because God, in Jesus Christ, has experienced the end of life, the candle being snuffed out.  God knows what it means to grieve for a loved one, to stand on the precipice, to walk into the darkness when all seems to be lost.  God shows up – is present in – moments of suffering, the depths of our fears, experiences of death and loss.  

Towards the end of “It’s Quiet Uptown,” as Alexander Hamilton and Eliza begin to come to grips with their son’s death and reconcile their relationship, we hear these words:

There are moments that the words don't reach
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza's side
She takes his hand - it's quiet uptown.
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?

From the deepest darkness, hope emerges.  In the midst of death, new life is born.  That is the story we tell each year as we move towards Holy Week and, through Holy Week, to Easter.  Death is real.  Suffering is real.  The world can be dark, and can sometimes feel hopeless. But that is not where the story ends.  There is a grace too powerful to name.  God is present to us in and through the worst things we face.  After death comes resurrection.

Sitting in the car driving home, we had to trust that there was more to life than simply its fragility. There is more to life than the risk of death. Our son had faced a medical crisis that night; beautiful new life had entered into the world in the person of our niece. Life is terrifying, but it is also beautiful. Death stalks us, but so does resurrection. This is the mystery each of us must face. This is the mystery of a God who is revealed in cross and empty tomb.

In a world that can be overwhelming, in the face of life’s fragility, that is the Good News we need.  God is with us. God does not give up on us.  God can bring hope from even the most hopeless situations.  Can you imagine?

After other members of her group were beaten, police officers led her into a large room.  There, two black men from the jail were told to beat Fannie Lou or face a beating themselves.  Fannie Lou was held down while the men beat her with a makeshift blackjack until they exhausted themselves.  Then the police officers took their turn.  Fannie Lou suffered kidney damage that would never heal and had a blood clot over her left eye that nearly blinded her permanently.  She was led back to her jail cell where she hurt so badly she couldn’t sit down.

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed

While she was laying in that prison cell, body still broken from the beating, she began to sing.

“Paul and Silas was bound in jail, let my people go.
Had no money for to go their bail, let my people go.
Paul and Silas began to shout, let my people go.
Jail doors open and they walked out, let my people go.”

Charles Marsh notes, “Her songs of freedom gave voice to her suffering and the suffering she shared with her friends.  Their singing did not remove their suffering or the particularities of their humiliation; rather it embraced the suffering, named it, and emplotted it in a cosmic story of hope and deliverance.”

That cosmic story is the story of Christ crucified.  Christ mocked and beaten, tortured and killed for the sins of the world, for your sins and mine.  There was a dream that was this world, there was a dream that was creation and humanity; but on Good Friday all we are left with is a hellscape of violence and death.  For God so loved the world, he gave us his one and only son; look what we’ve done.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…

Even still, the spark of hope that caused Fannie Lou Hamer to sing on that prison floor still rages against the darkness.  That light, though faint, still shines.  That light is grace, an invitation to wonder could there be more than violence and jugement?  Could there still be a new word?  Might the story, might the song, go on? 

In the last few weeks my family gathered for celebrations and traditions, we enjoyed an incredible long-planned vacation, dealt with worry around needs of family/friends, wrestled with feelings and realities around the political landscape, enjoyed the snow and days off from school, and reeled from the death of the oldest son (16) of close friends.

It’s a lot.

I wonder what the last season of your life has looked like?

My guess? It’s had some ups and downs.

It’s the nature of journeys. I bet all of us would name ourselves “long time travelers.” We’ve been on the road and aware of our own stories long enough to expect valleys along the way. And yet --- even as we know to expect them --- we often find ourselves unprepared.

My oldest daughter has a complex set of heart conditions called Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia. She’s 16 and has experienced 11 heart surgeries in her lifetime. Many times people have said to me, “I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t handle it if my kid…” as if I have some kind of special preparation or training to be the parent of a child with profound medical needs.

I don’t. I’m not prepared – never was. But at this point, I am a long time traveler. She is too. The road from there to here has made us weary, and unbelievably strong. It has exhausted and taken so much from us, and also been the source of life. Isn’t that the tension we’ve all come to know in this life? The way holds beauty, mystery, pain, loss, and hope – and none are isolated experiences. We’ve found our way through because we haven’t been alone. We have recognized God with us in the community that has chosen to be present in countless ways over the years – and it has made the journey bearable.

The repetition of the phrase “I’m a long time travelling here below” always struck me in the Wailin’ Jenny’s song. I’m an unashamed bluegrass fan and that high and lonesome sound echoes through this song as voices blend and fill the space with both purpose – and melancholy. The voice of the song is seeking a home where rest can be found. There’s an attachment to the journey of this life – but an awareness that it is but part of a larger story.

There’s a line in the song, “Farewell kind friends whose tender care has long engaged my love. Your fond embrace I now exchange for better friends above.” I don’t know that I love the reference to “better” friends above – but I do really appreciate the clear knowledge that relationship is part of the journey here and there.

I think that’s what I’m holding close this Lent. We are formed by a triune God who values relationship – creates from it. We are called into relationship in community as long time travelers in this life – and we will one day be gathered to our people in a place we recognize as home.

When Jacob dies (Genesis 49:33) there is a line that always strikes me. In fact, I share it in every funeral I preach. It says, “When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.” Other translations say that he was gathered “unto” his people or even “joined his ancestors in death.” There are plenty of other similar phrases in scripture. It’s clear that community is not just something we experience on this part of the way. We will one day be gathered to our people already there.

Lent is a season of awareness. It’s a time when we are given permission to reflect thoughtfully and consider our position as travelers. Is there some realignment that would be life-giving, that would help us love God and others well? Are we recognizing that we are together along the way – both with God and the larger family of God’s creation? Do we remember that we are creatures, not Creator – formed by the creative breath of a God who walks with us and prepares a place ahead for us?

My prayer is that as we continue through this season – and all that we are experiencing as individuals and community – we will do it together. We will hold one another in the pain, motivate one another to action when it’s time to “go,” cheer one another on in the good news, and keep the journey in mind when it feels like there’s nowhere else to go. There is. And the next faithful step is best taken together. Long time travelers.

I have a Lenten discipline that you may find odd (some people call me extra). Every Lent, especially during Holy Week, I make sure to mow the grass. That in itself is not that remarkable. However, while I mow the grass, I listen to the entirety of Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer.

The album is pretty dark (and so is Lent), so now is probably a good time for a warning. This is not going to be a cheery devotion. But there’s something to this lawn mowing ritual which I’m excited to share with you, anonymous reader. I have a fan theory that the entirety of OK Computer is actually a soundtrack for a musical or a film about Jesus’ last week, only it’s even more moody (and biblical) than Jesus Christ Superstar.

Admittedly, if you go listen to this album right now you’ll likely find it grim. But, look, the biblical narrative of Holy Week is a grim story! It’s a confrontation between Jesus’ righteousness and the depravity of humanity! Now, I know there are some of you that will say “I’m not into all that human depravity theology,” and that’s fine. As for me, I wouldn’t say I’m into it so much as I would say I’m aware that I am in it. Lent helps me confront my own sin, and the sin of humanity writ large, and witness as it is borne by another, and borne entirely away.

So, I put on my cheap “noise cancelling” headphones, start up the mower, and press play on my annual suburban labyrinth pilgrimage through my front yard, accompanied by Radiohead.

I can’t take you through the whole album, and it’s hard to pick just one track. “Airbag” works as an ode to the incarnation. “Paranoid Android” works as Jesus’ temple tantrum in the Gospel of John. “Subterranean Homesick Alien” speaks to Jesus’ nature as one of us and yet totally “other” than us. You’ll have to take my word on all of that, though (if you email me, I’ll send you my notes).

But the next track, “Exit Music (for a film),” that’s where the action slows down. Think late Maundy Thursday night, the Last Supper is drawing to a close. The disciples have started tidying the table. Judas is about to leave. That’s when Jesus lifts a glass and says “This is my blood, of the new covenant.” So much is ending, but Jesus is proclaiming something new is about to dawn. “Wake from your sleep, the drying of your tears. Today we escape. Pack and get dressed… before all hell breaks loose.”

The sound of the wind kicks up as the remaining disciples and Jesus walk out to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus says to himself, as a prayer, “Breathe, keep breathing. Don’t lose your nerve. I can’t do this alone.” In other words, “Lord, let this cup pass… but not my will but your will be done.”

The disciples fall asleep, and no matter how many times Jesus asks them, they can’t stay awake. “Sing us a song, Jesus,” they ask, “a song to keep us warm. There’s such a chill.” Hasn’t he done enough for them already? In John 20 he has prayed that they might receive all that the Father has given him, and declared “now we are one in everlasting peace,” but in their sleepiness, in their failure to stay awake with him, in their sin, their actions speak for themselves “We hope that you choke.”

I told you it got dark. And I know this takes some suspended disbelief, but try and stay with me.

By the time I get to the back yard, I’ve mowed myself into this story, into the reality of human drowsiness, our willful or sinsick sleepiness to the things of God, and I’ve listened my way into the reality of Jesus’ rejection. Not only does humanity fail to stay awake, we ultimately push him away, push him out. We hope that he chokes.
The album and the biblical narrative bear this out as Jesus is “Let Down” by his disciples, arrested by the “Karma Police,” is “Electioneered” but not elected by the crowds. Peter, poor beloved Peter, denies even knowing Jesus. It’s awful, but really there are “No Surprises” here. This is the confrontation that the incarnate Christ was bound to endure since the Fall.

Just as I get to the last of the mowing, the part of the back yard that’s just weeds and mud and sticks, the album comes to a close. I release the gas on the lawn mower and empty the last bag of clippings into the bin in silence.

Then, the album starts to auto play again. “Airbag” comes back, and suddenly, it’s Easter. I’m not kidding. It surprises me in the best way every year. In an “interstellar burst,” as Thom Yorke sings, Christ is “back to save the universe.”

I need that autoplay. I need this pilgrimage. Every year. We all do. What happens on Easter shines new light on the whole of Lent, and of life. It reveals to us that the grim journey to the cross is not for nothing. In fact, it’s for our gain.

Again, I know not everybody is into “that human depravity theology,” and I get it. No one wants to look in the mirror that deeply. No one, myself included, enjoys taking a long hard look at our own sin, or the sin of the human family. We want to believe we’re not all that bad.

But what I want to say to you is that Easter changes things. Easter shines new light even on our depravity. Easter says, “It’s okay, you can be honest with yourself.” In fact, if we want to discover the redemptive power of Christ, we must. We must see the depths of sin. We must bravely journey along the labyrinth of truth to its center, its depths. For it is to that depth that Jesus has journeyed, to catch us, like an “Airbag,” interrupting our fall in order to raise us into something against which all our depravity could not and shall not prevail: Christ’s work of redemption.

On tough days, my family and I have Taylor Swift dance parties. We turn up the volume on a track like “Paper Rings” or “Look What You Made Me Do” and let loose with the sort of wild, flailing dance moves that you’d never throw on the floor of a club, but which somehow fit perfectly in your living room. After a couple of songs, we’ve usually released enough stress that we’re ready to move on to the rest of the evening routine of teeth-brushing, bedtime stories, and evening chores.

One night after our dance party, I moved on to the dishes without stopping the music—which is how I discovered the final track on Swift’s Reputation, “New Year’s Day.” The shift from the driving beat of the rest of the album to a simple piano track caught my attention, but it was the words that drew me in.

“Don’t read the last page,
But I stay when you’re lost, and I’m scared, and you’re turning away.
I want your midnights
But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day.”

I was struck by the faithfulness and the steadfast love expressed in these lyrics. Usually love songs are either about the highs of love—the sparkling, passionate, life-changing moments of affection—or the lows of love—fights, break-ups, and losses. But this song captures something in the middle: The beauty of love that shows up and stays in the ordinary messiness of life. The song is powerful because it reminds us of what we overlook both in our human relationships, and in our relationship with the Almighty.

Often when we praise God, we talk about God’s power in the highest highs and the lowest lows. We sing about God creating the universe and giving life. We celebrate God liberating the Israelites and speaking comfort to those in exile. We proclaim God’s triumphant power in miracles and moments of victory. Or we talk about God’s power made known in weakness, in times of desperation and deep grief. But what about the in-between?

In Swift’s lyrics I heard an echo of Jesus’ promise from Matthew 28:20, his last words before ascending to heaven: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The phrase we typically translate as “Always” actually appears in the Greek as “all the days.” It’s not just a blanket promise of forever, it is the assurance of divine presence with us each and every day. Jesus promises his disciples to be with them going forward as he has been throughout his earthly ministry; he will be with them, with us, in the ordinary activity of our lives. Jesus promises to be with us on all the days. The good days. The bad days. The days of celebrating. The days of mourning. And the in-between days of cleaning up bottles and doing the dishes.

Those in-between days are where we spend most of our time as humans. We have big celebrations and we have seasons of deep struggle, but the majority of our days are ordinary. We spend more time doing laundry and dishes and errands than we do having parties or crying at loved ones’ bedsides. What’s sort of miraculous is that Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, loves us enough to show up on ordinary days, too. God is with us as much on a regular Tuesday afternoon as the most joyous Sunday morning or hardest Thursday night. God loves us as deeply, and cares as much for our well-being when we’re cleaning up the morning after as when we’re celebrating the night before.

This is what God’s faithfulness looks like. It is the Spirit of God with us on all the days. It is the comfort and guidance of God not just in our highest high and lowest lows, but in the midst of in-between times. It is the love of the God who is invested in our every day, as well as our eternity.

Ephesians 4:2-6, NIV
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

If you know, you know. A lot of people say this, but I didn’t like the phrase in the first place. To me, it somehow sounded exclusive. If I know, I’m in. But if I don’t, then what?

That’s exactly how I often feel about living miles away from my birthplace and immediate family. Now, I have my own kind of family here in the United States, but there are still places and moments when I feel as if I do not belong. People do not see things the way I do. I cannot see what they know. The sense of unbelonging is not entertaining. It is in those moments that I miss my family in Korea the most.

You’re on the other side as the skyline splits in two
Miles away from seeing you
But I can see the stars from America
I wonder, do you see them, too?

Interestingly, in times of disconnection and indifference, what connects me with my beloved is often found in something distant and far-reaching. When we are captured and overwhelmed by self, reality, and anxiety, it is easy to become narrow-sighted and lose the ability to see the good in the things or people near us. We keep complaining. We blame those around us. We focus only on the differences between us.

And yet, it only takes a moment of looking up to realize that, actually, we share more than we don’t. We see the same stars. We breathe the same air—the breath of life. We share the sky, waking to the rise of the same sun and ending our day at its dusk. If we take one step back and lift our gaze, we will see the undeniable truth: We are all connected. We are made in accordance with the image of one good, loving Creator.

So open your eyes and see
The way our horizons meet
And all of the lights will lead
Into the night with me

The greatest thing of all is that once we see, we cannot unsee. It’s like reading Where’s Waldo? The initial challenge of finding Waldo may take time, but once we spot him on the page, it becomes nearly impossible to not find him again. Whether we intend to or not, our brains automatically point him out whenever we revisit the page. No matter how chaotic the pages seem, out of the mess, we find his joyful, smiley face.

Isn’t that the same for loving our neighbors? Once we remember someone, it is hard to un-remember them. Once we recognize God’s image in another, we can no longer unknow their worth. Once we truly see someone in our community, it becomes impossible to unsee them.

And I know these scars will bleed
But both of our hearts believe
All of these stars will guide us home

At first, truly seeing each other can be intimidating. Acknowledging differences is not always comfortable, and facing them head-on can be unsettling. But if not during Lent, then when? In this season of intentionality, just as Christ gave himself to see each and every one of us, I pray that we, too, may find the shining stars—the light of Christ—in one another.

If we know, we know. Once we see, we see. And we can never unsee thereafter.

So, what shall we see in those around us today?

? We’re leaving all the windows open;
We don’t even mind the rain,
Or where we let the floors get wet,
So what if the hardwood stains? ?

This past year, for me, has been one holy invitation after another to leave the windows of my life open to God’s renewing rains of honesty. Perhaps you know, too, what that’s like - to be drenched by the seasonal or momentary rains of God’s unmasking in your life.

Maybe you had to get really honest with someone you love: to force the subject that had been off limits until it suddenly wasn’t anymore, revealing a courage in you that you had no idea you possessed and unearthing a whole new depth of trust.

Or maybe someone who helped make you who you are, who has long held the seat of your respect, was unmasked in all their jarring brokenness to be just as human as you are, ushering in an astonishing, relational reversal that, at first though, felt like disorienting loss.  

Or perhaps you’ve known what it’s like to just get really honest with yourself: to force the subject of your own unhealth, or unsustainable choices, or insistence on control, uncovering all those lies you’ve told yourself, all the harm inflicted, all the balance and connection lost.

However you’ve come to know Saint Honesty – whether you’ve been saturated or stained by her rains or are just learning to open the window – I promise you’re in good company, as you continue to wade into this 40-day journey of Lent.

? ‘Cause we’re collecting evidence
Of one remarkable storm.
How wild it was to find it, finally feel the climate
Instead of only staying dry and warm. ?

The season of Lent serves as this invitation into a divine, honest unmasking, both of God and us. It’s in this season that the extraordinary reality of who Jesus is is unveiled; that the evil in our midst is exposed; and that we, collecting all the evidence of God and becoming intensely acquainted with the turbulent, destructive climate of our sin and death, are readied for resurrection.

Which might be why I’ve always had an affinity for the gospel writer Matthew’s way of telling the story. Chapter by chapter, Matthew seems to major on the unmasking.
In chapter one, Matthew gets unapologetically honest about Jesus’ pedigree, unmasking him with localized, genealogical specificity - not as some hip, new spiritual guru, but as the fulfillment of God’s promise to the people called Israel.

Then, in second chapter, the Magi show up, and another mask is removed. Matthew, in unison it seems with Saint Honesty, whispers, “But, hey, psst! Make sure you pay attention, though, because this fulfillment of God’s promise to the people called Israel is also the Savior to all nations.” Plot twist.

But, still, Matthew continues to confront us, removing yet another veil obstructing our view of God. As Jesus is baptized and the heavens break open, God shows up palpably and then proclaims in audible voice, “This is my Son,” revealing now that the Savior to all nations doesn’t arrive, though, to save the world from us; but, instead, is us, and we are him. God, Emmanuel, with us.

Peeling back every pretense, Matthew introduces us ever-so-honestly to the empire-upending paradox of the God we get in Jesus: the one who meets us as a newborn in a slop-trough and refuses to hide his face from us on the cross. And you’d think that this - God’s crude with-ness - would be the summation of Matthew’s exposé, but it’s not.

At the entryway of Jesus’s 40-day wilderness journey and at the onset of our own, Matthew lays bare one more dimension to Jesus, this time by way of an encounter with Satan, the Tempter, which Matthew unambiguously emphasizes was led by the Spirit - desired and orchestrated by God - in order that Jesus might be tempted.

What a no-holds-barred, theologically provocative, Scriptural moment this is! Matthew has left all the windows open for Saint Honesty to rain, to pour even. It’s as if he’s warning us that if we really desire to know and follow the God revealed in Jesus, we better be ready for it to land us face to face with our own deepest, veiled temptations. For one of the things that Jesus does like no other is he reveals evil for what it is.

?  Rain on us, Saint Honesty;
Salvation is coming in the morning,
But now what we need is a little rain on our face
From you, sweet Saint Honesty. ?

And, I know, it’s counter-intuitive and oxymoronic. This kind of honesty isn’t sweet; frankly, it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to face our temptations. It’s exhausting to have to always do battle with the things inside of us and outside of us. That’s why it’s so easy to escape it or transcend it - especially during Lent - for some kind of ethereal, cerebral, divine Easter moment; but sooner or later the Spirit will lead us to face the things that tempt us most.

And deep down, I know that you know (like I know) that that’s good news. Every Sunday we pray together, “Lead us not into temptation,” but what we’re really asking is that God would lead us away from the temptation to veil our temptations, from the temptation to run towards blue Easter skies without getting a little Lenten rain on our face, from the temptation to choose ease over honesty.

?  So we won’t sleep tonight
While we brace against the wind.
Oh, these hearts, they’re weather-makers;
We’ll go where they take us
Until we find ourselves shelter again. ?

Deep down we’re all yearning to know virtue from temptation. The good news is that Jesus, leading us by the gift of the Spirit, will unmask evil for what it is, day by day, as we follow him in this wilderness.

That’s why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, logged temptation as a means of grace. Prayer, reading Scripture, confession, receiving communion, singing, gathering - these are means of grace. But Wesley also listed among them temptation.

Why? Because God’s grace, truly unmasked, is more warped than our temptations. And it’s in our honest confrontation of the storms inside and out, that God unmasks us, refines us, and makes us better than we are. God, bringing us face to face with the Tempter as a means of loving who God’s creating us to be.

(Song Translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFtmPRV-9QU)

After the Korean War, Korea became one of the few countries to maintain a mandatory draft in the post-war era. The responsibility of defending the nation has largely fallen on young men’s shoulders. They are typically drafted between the ages of 19 and 35, and you can choose when to enter the service within this age range. I decided to join the Korean Army when I was 23, during my college years.

I thought I was old enough to understand the world, but looking back, I was too young. I still remember the day my family and I visited an Army training center. We made it a family trip, exploring the town and enjoying a nice breakfast together.

However, when I was about to enter the center for the 6-week basic training, I was nervous. I still vividly remember how my parents and my brother greeted me with heartfelt words at the gate of the center. I saw my mother with tears in her eyes, and my heart broke.

At the time, I was listening to a song called “A Letter of a Private,” which expresses the feelings of a young man on his way to the training center. One of the lines sings, “Everything, from a blade of grass to the face of a friend, seems different. My youthful life, it is beginning again now.”

Since I was facing something completely new, I started to see things differently. Like the line in the song says, everything seemed different to me. Part of the reason was the anxiety and fear of uncertainty that came with facing a new reality. I struggled with the thought that anything could happen during my service.

This feeling of unease overshadowed my first few months in the army. Life there was different, and somehow, it was overwhelming and difficult to adjust to. The strict hierarchical order was foreign to me. I saw many things as inefficient and even unreasonable. The song captures this unsettled experience that young men face in the military.

However, I also felt that this song resonates with the truthfulness of Christian identity. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to step into uncertainty and the unknown, just as Jesus calls us to be witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

The word “witness” comes from the Greek word “martus” (μάρτυς), which originally referred to a legal witness—someone with knowledge who could testify in a court of law. Over time, the word also came to refer to those who gave their lives for their testimony, as many of the apostles did.

Being a witness for Jesus could mean sacrifice, even martyrdom. There is a correlation between witness and martyrdom because the world often rejects the message of hope and justice found in the good news of Jesus Christ. So, being a witness is about more than just words—it’s about living a life that reflects the love and justice of God.

Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into the world and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God. I believe this identity gives us a new perspective that helps us see things differently. We begin to see people with God’s eyes, hear their voices with God’s ears, welcome them with God’s heart, and recognize each of them as God’s created image. We are called to go to our Jerusalem, then to our Judea and Samaria—where we don’t want to go—and eventually to the ends of the earth, beyond our own ego and self-centeredness, through the love of Jesus.

Lent invites us to enter a space and time where we can encounter things and people with God’s eyes, ears, and heart. It is a spiritual journey we embark on for forty days as Christians, followers of Jesus, and his disciples.
I learned a lot from my military experience and grew in understanding of a bigger world. I believe we all grow in Christ’s love as we are called to be “A Letter from Christ” (2 Cor. 3:3). Let us be the hands and feet of God so we can become a sign of God’s kingdom for the world.

Text: Luke 15:11-24

I fell in love with music while riding in the car. Because my parents divorced before I could walk, every other weekend, my dad would drive two hours, one way on Friday evenings and back on Sunday afternoons, so that I could spend time with him. On those East Texas roads, we listened to country music or rock from my dad’s era. We connected over the lyrics as much as the melody, my dad appreciating how an entire story could be told in three minutes, capturing more feeling than simple prose could. So, it’s no surprise the first time I heard “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, I was captivated.

There’s a story that Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke that gives us insight into what God is like. He tells the story of a man with two sons. The first comes to his father, demanding that he be given his share of his inheritance (even though his father is still alive.) Without any disagreement, the father does as the son asks, and the son goes his own way. As the story goes, the son squanders away all that he is given in “dissolute living.”

I think there’s a common pull in adolescence when children decide that they need to stand on their own two feet. There’s this internal need to become independent and charge our path instead of living out the lives that others, especially our parents, may have planned for us. It’s not always easy for the child or the parent. But the hope is that, unlike the son in Jesus’ story, who, based on cultural norms at the time, implies that he wishes his father were dead, is that when the time comes for children to become independent, they are able to do so with a bit more tact and grace.

In the thoughtful twang of the guitar and through the steady pull of the melody, Stevie Nicks soulfully tells the story of one stepping out on their own. With images of climbing mountains and self-reflection in “snow-covered hills”, one can imagine the anxiousness of stepping out on your own for the first time, whether through encouragement from a loving parent or whether the young person demanded their way out in the first place. And then “the landslide brought me down.”  

As Jesus continues the story of the son who had set off in independence and wasted his wealth away, it becomes abundantly clear that the landslide of his choices brought him to his knees. Starving and desperate, he is forced to recognize the error of his ways as he is brought down in the literal dust and muck of the fields where pigs need to feed. (This is another one of those details that, in the cultural norms during Jesus’ life, meant that this young man had hit rock bottom.) Recognizing that he is being crushed by the choices that he has made, he makes the decision to humble himself and return to his father in hopes of mercy.

My own forging out in independence was definitely anti-climactic in comparison. Mine was a typical modern story of a young college freshman packing up her car and moving into the college dorms. This time, I would travel three hours away, determined to get an education, make new friends, and begin crafting a life of my own. There were hiccups, for sure. Friction came in the form of my father, who deeply loved Fightin’ Texas Aggie Football and his baby girl. In his mind, nothing could be better than spending every other weekend at Kyle Field, followed by taking his girl to dinner and hearing about her new life and adventures. Meanwhile, I just wanted to hang out with my friends.

In the song, Nicks doesn’t offer us anything more than questions about the future or wonderings about reasons that may have landed one under the landslide in the first place. The tone is filled with melancholy and reflection; one can almost imagine the melody playing as we envision the young son that Jesus talks about making his way back home to his father.  

Jesus continues to tell the story of the young man heading toward home, but before he even makes it, the father, so overjoyed at the sight of his son coming toward him, runs in compassion to greet him. In this scene, we find another cultural insight. In first-century Jewish culture, it was deemed undignified for grown men to run. As the son apologizes, the father hurriedly welcomes his son home, caring for his needs and celebrating his return.  

Ecclesiastes 3:20 notes, “All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.” During the season of Lent, we reflect on the ministry of Jesus and, ultimately, his journey to the cross. It’s a time for us to reflect on our own lives as disciples of Jesus Christ and how we live as a reflection of God’s love in the world. There are seasons of life where it can feel like we are buried in the landslide of dust and dirt from our own life choices. But unlike the questions that linger in the song, we know that Jesus, who overcame the power of sin and death, reaches right down into that dust, pulling us out from under the rubble.

On this side of heaven, we still experience the sting of death, the tangible reminder that from dust we came and to dust we shall return. In 2016, my father died after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Shortly after his diagnosis, he made the seventeen-hour drive to the Mojave Desert, where I was living with my husband and our daughters. Both of us grappling with the realization that our time together on this side of heaven was coming to an end, we set out for a drive through Joshua Tree National Park, just the two of us, just like when I was a little girl.

Dad was driving, and I rode shotgun as country radio played softly in the background. We didn’t connect over the music this time. My dad shared that in spite of the sadness he felt that his time on earth was coming to an end, he was at peace. He knew that he was a beloved child of God who was deeply loved and forgiven. Through Jesus Christ, there is hope and resurrection. Just as God breathed life into the dust that would become humankind at creation, we will one day be made alive in Christ.

“The world won't get no better if we just let it be….
The world won't get no better…. we gotta change it yeah, just you and me…”

I’ve long wondered what the immediate internal dialogue of Jesus was like before he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Was he happy? Was he sentimental? Was he content? Even though we’ll never know this, we DO know that Jesus knew that the world wouldn’t get any better if things were just left as they were. Back then, the world was full of sinful people driven by selfishness, greed, envy, anger, lust, and other sinful passions.

Humanity was disconnected from God, as the seeds of the Original Sin caused by the actions of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden had caused generational ramifications across centuries of humanity and still was. Jews & Gentiles alike were chasing their own idols, whether it was Pharisees and their often self-centered adherence to the Torah for the sake of public acceptance or nonbelievers who worshiped Caesar and the Roman gods. Humanity was lost, divided, polarized, and focused on all of the wrong things.

In some ways, our 21st century world today has some parallels with many of the previously named sentiments in the time of Jesus. Sin runs amok in our world too, whether it’s through the greed-filled idolization of societal capitalism, “holy wars” raging overseas that have caused the death or displacement of millions of people, the rise of Christian Nationalism, the danger-filled silos we put ourselves in by only surrounding ourselves will people who think and/or look like us, and even attacks on the shared Image of God that we were created in, whether it’s our race, age, gender, or place of origin. In the same vein, just as it was when Jesus roamed the Earth, our 21st century world can also arguably be labeled as lost, divided, polarized, and focused on all the wrong things.

Still nonetheless, Jesus cared for humanity and the world so much that he gave himself up for us, not for the sake of himself, but for the betterment of all people in the world. Even in light of our sins and shortcomings, he didn’t want to just leave us be - he wanted to help us BE BETTER. Jesus choosing to be baptized wasn’t the only significant decision he made for the betterment of all people. Everything he did was for the betterment of all people and it was all out of unconditional love, undeserved grace, and unyielding faith.

In this Lenten season, I want to invite you to first listen to the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. In this song, you will hear an action-filled plea that empowers and encourages people of all gifts and graces to rise up and make the world a better place. Teachers, doctors, anyone and everyone - we all as people have to wake up and choose to make the world a better place. The next thing I want to invite you to do is to DO SOMETHING about our world. You have gifts, graces, skills, talents, knowledge, and many uniquely God-given tools to change the world.

If you care for the Earth, take care of God’s creation through planting and watering. If you care for your neighbors, write kind notes or say something kind to someone every day. If you have a heart to serve, then serve those who are less fortunate than you. If your gift is prayer, then be in prayer for others, especially for those who can’t find the words to pray for themselves, and even, pray for those who persecute you.

It’s time to wake up, everybody. The world won’t get any better if we continue to let it be. Our world is still full of sinful, broken, and lost people. However, even against the overwhelming challenges of the time, Jesus still woke up every day and carried his cross. As Christians who follow Jesus, we must not only focus on waking ourselves up, but to wake up EVERYBODY so that together, we can ALL make the world a better place.

When I was younger, I saw my daddy cry
And curse at the wind
He broke his own heart and I watched
As he tried to reassemble it
And my momma swore
That she would never let herself forget
And that was the day that I promised
I'd never sing of love if it does not exist
But darling, you are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul
That love never lasts
And we've got to find other ways to make it alone
Or keep a straight face
And I've always lived like this
Keeping a comfortable distance
And up until now I had sworn to myself
That I'm content with loneliness
Because none of it was ever worth the risk
But you are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
I've got a tight grip on reality
But I can't let go of what's in front of me here
I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up
Leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
You are the only exception
And I'm on my way to believing
Oh, and I'm on my way to believing

So let’s start with some real talk: this is not a song about God. It’s not rooted in any kind of intentional sense of theology or worship or anything remotely intended to guide a journey of faith. But it is a reflection on another kind of journey: one where our lived experience informs our future expectation. Where we have been is where we think we’re headed.

Surely this is done from some place of wisdom, if not resignation. “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side” or something like that. Invitations to the familiar are the kind of litany that can bind us in our own spaces of repetition and belief that it will never get much better than now or then even if now or then hasn’t been all that great.

But darling, somewhere along this familiar journey comes the only exception. A romanticized departure from the past and present that allows even the briefest glimpse into what could be, whether or not it will. The implication in the song is that it is hard to believe this exception can be real. The expectation is that it will end poorly.

It’s almost as if the failure has already been written. This cannot work because it never has. It doesn’t fit the pattern. For a different outcome to occur would mean that a love was risked the might not have been worth it, even though the familiar isn’t really worth it either.

All of this makes me think of the scene where many people are preparing to hear Jesus teach in Luke 15. There are several parables in this chapter – a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost person – and these are tools to connect with the wide audience that is present. One could guess that some might be more excited to hear what Jesus has to say than others. Here’s Luke 15:1-3a:

“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "’This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable:”

From there, the parables are told. And each one of them, whether it be goods, monies, or offspring, describes to the gathered what it means to receive that which has been presumed lost. To reacquire what was once in our possession. To find that finding is a great gift, a miracle even.

And as this is happening, the people most familiar with the journey are most displeased with what is unfolding. In many senses, it is as if they are saying “we know how this journey goes and what you are saying isn’t how it is supposed to end.” They have long rehearsed the songs of waiting, of loneliness, of a wonder that is less about hope and more about apathy.

Instead Jesus offers an exception, the only exception. That which you believed you could not have is before you. And because you have me, you have all you will ever need.

Goodness knows this is something I need a reminder of constantly. It is far easier to rehash the rhythms of disappointment than it is to risk the wonder of hope. And yet, as this journey of Lent meanders on, perhaps we are finding that hope is worth the risk. Maybe for us, that last stanza is becoming all the more real:

And I'm on my way to believing
Oh, and I'm on my way to believing

Tracy grew up knowing three things.  One was the life she lived.  The second was the life she wanted to live.  The last thing she knew: the infinite gulf that stood between them.

Tracy dreamed of a life that was more: more than menial jobs, more than taking care of an alcoholic father who would never appreciate her, more than feeling like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, more than seeing life as just getting to the end of a day only to repeat the same cycles over and over.  And she saw her way to that life, a way across the infinite gulf: a new man and his car.

Many of us know that difference, between the life we are living and the life of our dreams.  The life of our vision boards.  Or we know the difference between the selves we are and the selves we want to become.  

Maybe you want to be more successful, get that promotion, take home more pay.  Maybe you want a bigger house or more security for retirement.  Maybe you want a job, a career that meets your passions instead of the job you’re stuck in.  Maybe you want to be more patient, more compassionate, more empathetic.  Maybe you want to spend more time with family or finally be able to travel.  There’s always something, some way we know we can do better, some way we can improve.  We’re Americans!  And Americans are nothing if not always moving forward, always trying to do more, always working to do better.

And for many of us, life has afforded us comfort and privilege such that we believe the difference between who and where we are and who and where we want to be is surmountable, is achievable.  There isn’t that infinite gap between us and our dreams.  Many of us are able, or at least we believe we are able, to build for ourselves the lives we want.  There may be obstacles in the way, but we believe we can overcome them.  We believe we are one promotion, one career move, one family move, one intention away from becoming who we want to be.

Tracy does leave.  She gets out of her prison of a town, out of her prison of a life and starts anew.  Tracy gets a job and believes she will finally live the life she’d dreamed.

But then her partner struggles to get a job.  And when he does get a job, its one he doesn’t like.  Tracy notices that he is coming home from work later and later.  When she inquires about where he’s been, he talks about meeting up with friends at the corner bar.  More and more Tracy finds that all the household tasks, chores, all the parenting tasks are falling to her.  She works all day, then comes home and has to take care of the house and the children all while he gets drunk and comes home to sleep it off.

She dreamed that fast car would take her away from days spent working menial jobs and nights spent taking care of an alcoholic who cares more for the bottle than he does for her.  That fast car took her out of town.  But it dropped her off right into the same life she tried desperately to escape.

At some point we all have to face the fact that we can’t fix our lives.  We can’t solve all our problems.  We can’t save ourselves.  Our vision boards, our intentions, our goals don’t save us.  We can’t save ourselves.  We need a savior.

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Jesus himself goes to be baptized by John.  Now, Jesus did not need a baptism of repentance, he never sinned.  He always walked in the way that leads to life, his life was pure holiness and righteousness.  But still he walked into the water.  Not for his sake, for ours.
Jesus is baptized for us and for our salvation.  His repentance is for all the ways in which we have tried to save ourselves, be our own Messiahs.  His repentance is for all the ways in which we believe we can make for ourselves good and perfect lives, all the ways in which we think we can make ourselves pure and holy.  His baptism gives us a way to become holy and righteous.  Not by living for ourselves, but by dying to ourselves.

When we are baptized, we die unto trying to be holy on our own, trying to be righteous by our works, trying to be, ourselves, enough.  We die to any attempt to present ourselves before the throne worthy of God’s eternity.  We can’t do it.  So we die to any attempt to prove otherwise.  And when we are baptized we are raised to life.  Not to a new way of still doing our old life, not to any life of our own.  We are raised into Christ’s life.  We are raised into Christ’s righteousness.  We are raised into Christ’s holiness.  

We become clothed with righteousness, but not our own.  We are freed from our sin, but only because we, ourselves, have died to it and with it.  Our life is no longer ours, it is God’s in Christ.  

We have a fast car.  But not one that takes us from one way of living to another.  One that leads to the only life that is life.  One that leads to a life eternal.  One that leads to Christ.  Remember you are baptized and be thankful.

I first heard this song a few years ago when I was listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast. I found myself regularly angered and astonished at the actions of the Pastor, Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill. For any who have not listened to the podcast or know the story, Mars Hill was led by Mark Driscoll who in 2014 resigned after staff members and congregants alleged abusive behavior. One elder of Mars Hill accused Driscoll of being “domineering, verbally violent, arrogant, and quick-tempered." Kraft further argued that this "established pattern of behavior disqualified Driscoll from church leadership.”

As a pastor in the local church at the time, the podcast and especially this song, served as a powerful reminder of the sacredness of the work of the church. Lay and clergy are invited into people’s lives in very vulnerable times: during a crisis, following the death of a family member, during preparation for marriage etc. We must constantly hold one another accountable to our motivations as we have the power to build up or tear down a person, and church hurt adds an extra layer of pain.

In Ezekiel 34, God’s word comes to Ezekiel about the current shepherds and their massive shortcomings.

Ezekiel 34:1-8 CEB: The Lord’s word came to me: Human one, prophesy against Israel’s shepherds. Prophesy and say to them, The Lord God proclaims to the shepherds: Doom to Israel’s shepherds who tended themselves! Shouldn’t shepherds tend the flock? You drink the milk, you wear the wool, and you slaughter the fat animals, but you don’t tend the flock.  You don’t strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, or seek out the lost; but instead you use force to rule them with injustice. Without a shepherd, my flock was scattered; and when it was scattered, it became food for all the wild animals.  My flock strayed on all the mountains and on every high hill throughout all the earth. My flock was scattered, and there was no one to look for them or find them. So now shepherds, hear the Lord’s word! This is what the Lord God says: As surely as I live, without a shepherd, my flock became prey. My flock became food for all the wild animals. My shepherds didn’t seek out my flock. They tended themselves, but they didn’t tend my flock.

These shepherds were good at tending themselves, but they failed to tend God’s flock. They didn’t strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, sought out the strays or lost. The flock instead became scattered and prey.

The song Sticks and Stones sounds like it was written by a flock that has been scattered and become prey. And while the song speaks to the role of the people in pledging allegiance to the “purpose of progress,” we also see how while they were being led by a shepherd who tended himself, the deep wounds and trauma as a consequence to the health, or unhealthiness, of the shepherd. In the shepherd’s unhealth, it became about him and no longer about God. We are dust, and we see the dangers when we forget that we are from dust and to dust we shall return. When we play “god in the process,” we have failed to repent and return to God. When we play “god in the process” we have built ourselves as idols.

Our dustiness is a good thing, it helps us to remember our mortality and that we are not God. We need God, on our own we have the bent towards sin that John Wesley described, we will make it about us and our needs. We can justify just about anything.

There is another way as shepherds. As pastors and lay people, we are called to be shepherds, good shepherds, who point others to Jesus, the Good Shepherd. John 10 is a direct contrast to Ezekiel 34.

John 10:11-16 CEB: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. When the hired hand sees the wolf coming, he leaves the sheep and runs away. That’s because he isn’t the shepherd; the sheep aren’t really his. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. He’s only a hired hand and the sheep don’t matter to him." 

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I give up my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that don’t belong to this sheep pen. I must lead them too. They will listen to my voice and there will be one flock, with one shepherd."

While we are from dust, we point others to Jesus who is from God, the Good Shepherd, the one who willingly lays down his life for the flock. We are both assistant shepherds as co-laborers with Christ, and sheep. When we embrace our dustiness, when we recognize who is the one Good Shepherd, we can help others to see the “honest mission,” and help others to “give and taste forgiveness.” It is Christ who we are accountable to, ensuring we do not become “god in the process” but instead point others to the true God.

You're broken down and tired
Of living life on a merry go round
And you can't find the fighter...
When the silence isn't quiet
And it feels like it's getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying

How many of us can relate to those lyrics? Life is brutal. It certainly is not fair. And oftentimes it is just plain exhausting, and maybe even debilitating. I remember over four and a half years ago: I was recovering in the ICU at Duke Hospital from being shot in a drive-by-shooting.

In the weeks and months following that wrong place, wrong time shooting, I did feel like dying and I did experience what it felt like when it got hard to breathe. I learned in the deepest sense that the feeling of “silence not being quiet” and the fear and constant replaying of the terrifying night in my broken and damaged soul. It was in those holy, haunting, and sacred moments that I clung to the hope of a savior who had come to this Earth, was broken and defeated, and claimed victory over it all. It was in those moments of relearning how to walk and how to get out of a chair that I was surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, the faithful people who had built up a community around me despite being in the first six months of COVID.

It was not until I lived in the valley of the shadow of death and felt like literal dust that I recognized that I was not alone, not even for a second. God and God’s people have a tendency to show up in the darkest and most exhausting of circumstances. And they certainly did. And they certainly will.

The season of Lent brings a lot of emotions, feelings, and responses. Maybe you “feel like you are a plastic bag, drifting though the wind, wanting to start again”...or maybe another not so-Christian way of explaining the Lenten season comes from the infamous Rocky Balboa, who stated so clearly, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place, and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.”

The season of Lent echoes these statements, but the season of Lent is not where the story ends. Although Lent may leave us on our knees, the promise keeper, way-maker, eternal redeemer, does not leave us there. In fact, just like all difficult seasons in our life, it ends. And what replaces it...well, we will cling to the hope and promise that it is better than where we were. But praise be, we do not have to do this alone. The Body of Christ is in this season together. Just as the Body surrounded me four and half years ago, the Body is surrounding us in this journey. For as Andra Day finishes in her song:

And we'll rise up
High like the waves
We'll rise up
In spite of the ache
We'll rise up
And we'll do it a thousand times again

As we journey this Lenten Road together, know, friends, that we will rise up together. We can rely on Christ who walks the road to Calvary for you and for me, and who never leaves us to walk that road alone. We can rise up out of our dust in spite of the ache, not by our own doing, but by the love, grace, and mercy of our Redeemer. For Jesus will do it a thousand times again, for you and for me; so, take heart my friends. Amen.

I've been through the desert
On a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert, you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

As the youngest of six, the soundtrack of my childhood was whatever my older siblings happened to be playing on their transistor radios or little 45rpm record players. Too young to understand that the band America's song A Horse with No Name was controversial and even banned in some countries since apparently "horse" is a euphemism for "heroin," something about this song resonated with that little girl who spent a lot of her time playing in solitude.
During Lent, the Church remembers the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Whereas Mark and Luke imply that the temptations of the devil happened over the course of the forty days (Mark 1:12 and Luke 4:2), Matthew tells us that "He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished" (4:2) and then the Tempter comes.

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot, and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

Jesus is baptized by John and is then "led" or "compelled" into the desert by the Holy Spirit. Maybe that first day was a day of observing and listening to "air full of sound." As the song continues through additional days, the lyrics speak of sunburn and rivers run dry. It's easy enough to imagine Jesus hungering and thirsting in a desiccated landscape.

Yet as the song continues, "in the desert you can remember your name."  Jesus had been named: Beloved. This time in the wilderness gave him the silence, the solitude away from those who would cling to him, try to mold him to their purposes, distract him from his calling as Beloved. Out here with the "plants and birds and rocks and things," there is no one diverting his attention, giving him pain, at least not until the end.

The Tempter knows who he is, too, just as, for forty days, Jesus has embraced his identity, has remembered his name. The Tempter knows he is the Beloved, and the Tempter’s job is to divert him from his path. But at the end of these forty days, Jesus knows who he is. The Tempter is powerless.

Jesus has been out here, out of the rain, away from the noise, where he can remember his name. By the end of the temptations, the end of the forty days, nothing will be able to change his course, because he knows who he is, he has remembered his name - Beloved, the savior of the world.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about Chance the Rapper’s Dear Theodosia (Reprise) from The Hamilton Mixtape.

Dear Theodosia is a song from the Broadway musical Hamilton (I’m a little obsessed with Broadway musicals – in fact, there’s another entry based on a song from Hamilton coming from me later in this devotional).  In the play, this song begins a transitional moment.  The first act of Hamilton tells the story of the American Revolution (and Alexander Hamilton’s role in it).  When the first act ends, we move from the frenetic energy of fighting for freedom to the second act’s story about the complicated work of building a new nation and figuring out how to govern it (along with the tragedies of the second half of Hamilton’s life).  As the revolution ends, just before the end of the first act, Hamilton and Burr sing to their newborn children (Burr’s daughter’s name is Theodosia) about their hope for the future.  In the play, the music brings a hopeful energy, which gives these lyrics a sense of real optimism:

I'm dedicating every day to you
Domestic life was never quite my style
When you smile, you knock me out, I fall apart
And I thought I was so smart

You will come of age with our young nation
We'll bleed and fight for you
We'll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We'll pass it on to you, we'll give the world to you
And you'll blow us all away
Someday, someday

It’s a great song about the hope that comes with new beginnings and a parent’s longing to leave a better world to their children.

In 2016, a variety of artists contributed to The Hamilton Mixtape – an album that used the musical Hamilton as source material for new and innovative musical work.  I love many songs on that album, but I find myself particularly haunted by Chance’s Dear Theodosia (Reprise).
Chance doesn’t change any of the lyrics to the song.  But he changes the mood.  The music goes from hopeful to mournful.  Instead of confidently proclaiming that “we’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you,” those words sound more like a question – more like a prayer.

In essence, this song asks the question: what if we don’t leave a better world to our children? What if our generation doesn’t build a stronger foundation for the future, but instead makes things harder for the people who come after us?  I listened to this song on repeat that first year it came out, and I find myself listening to it in much the same way over the last several months.  In a society full of division and demonization, in a world where the future seems uncertain, in a nation that refuses to do anything about the epidemic of gun violence that is the leading cause of death for children and teens, with spiraling violence and conspiracy theories, with immigrants and the marginalized being increasingly targeted by the powerful, with hatred and retribution being amplified over love and grace, I find myself sometimes wondering if my children’s life will be spent rebuilding a world that we have destroyed.  I look at my children and I sometimes wonder, will they know a world that is far less safe than the world I have known for most of my life?  Will they know more suffering than I have known?  Have we, as a society, failed them and their generation?  Chance’s version of this song gives voice to these concerns and more.  It helps me lament the ways in which we, as a society, have failed our children.

But Chance’s Dear Theodosia (Reprise) doesn’t stay with lament.  It doesn’t leave us in despair.

We’ll bleed and fight for you, I'll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, I’ll give the world to you

Instead of optimism, Chance’s version of the song finds a way to balance both lament and hope.  It’s never sappy or saccharine, but it doesn’t leave us in the valley of the shadow of death.  There is much that makes us doubt, but there is also reason to hope, there is reason to keep working.  There is pain.  There are reasons to lament.  And there are also reasons to hope.  We will bleed and fight for our children.  We will continue to work for good.  Many folks who have come before us have fought for a better world, and they made real progress – and as much as we grieve what is broken, we know that there are many people working to bring healing.

For me, the ultimate hope I have for my children is not in my willingness to “bleed and fight” for them, but in the Jesus Christ who has bled and died for them.  My children’s hope is not that I (or anyone else) can “lay a strong enough foundation” for their lives, but that Jesus Christ is the firm foundation, that in his death and resurrection, everything shall be made new.

I don’t say that as pie in the sky escapism.  I don’t mean to say that “just believe in Jesus and everything will be OK.”  I mean to say that, when things feel hopeless, I don’t know what else to do but cling to the Christ who is my ultimate hope.  When I feel defeated, I don’t know what else to do but remember that Christ has won the ultimate victory.  When the world seems dark, I remember that Christ is the true light – and that he has been at work in and through his people across the generations.  Things have felt dark before.  Human beings have long wondered whether we will actually leave a better world to our children – or if things are just getting worse.  Jesus Christ does not call us to save the world – that’s his job – but he does invite us, as he has always invited his people, to join him in the work of embodying love, standing up for justice, loving our neighbors, reflecting his light for a world in need.  We can’t eliminate all the hatred we see, but we can make our little corner of the world more loving.

We can’t defeat every injustice on our own, but we can work to embody justice and advocate for goodness in our own communities, in our day-to-day interactions.  The promise that Christ is our true hope enables us to join in his work – because we don’t have to do everything (that’s Jesus’s job) we are empowered to do something.

What Dear Theodosia (Reprise) does is give voice to our fear while also inviting us to hold onto hope.  That’s the only way forward that I know.  I do worry about the future.  I do grieve over the harm we have done to our world and the mess we are handing on to our children.  But I also trust that God is faithful and that God is still at work.  I believe that the love that Christ has given to us is a love that we are called to share.  I see all the people who are speaking the truth, resisting evil, working for good, and I give thanks to be part of a world with other people who refuse to give up, who insist on being part of the work of love.  I know that even the little contribution I can make to this world matters – not because I can save the world by myself, but because my work is bound up within the work of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is making all things new.

As the song ends, Chance repeats the word “someday” over and over, and it almost feels apocalyptic, it almost feels as if he is pointing towards the biblical “Day of the Lord.” In the end, someday, God will make all things right.  In the meantime, we grieve what must be grieved, and we join in the work of love, and we trust that the God who has always been faithful will continue to be.
And the reason we can trust that the someday will come – the reason we can cling to Jesus and it’s not simple escapism – is because the God who promises things will be put right “someday” is also the God who has entered into our world, in all its brokenness and despair.  God chose enter into – and to be for and with – the world of Chance’s Dear Theodosia (Reprise). God chose to enter into and love a world full of violence and oppression.  God chose to be one of us in Jesus Christ, and to enter into this world via childbirth, which was one of the leading causes of death for women in the ancient world.  God chose to be born among a people that was living under foreign occupation, oppressed and brutalized by the unjust government of Rome.  God chose to die the death of a criminal in order to save us.  When God enters the world in Jesus Christ, it isn’t with the blind optimism of Hamilton and Burr singing the original version of this song.  It’s with the sobering mixture of lament, realism, and hope of Chance in his remix.  But only a God who chooses to do that can possibly deal with the brutal realities we face in this world.  Only a God who chooses to be with us in the real world – in all its pain and hurt and complication – could possibly blow us all away with universe-changing love and give us real, lasting, hope for a “someday” when all shall be put right.  God, in Jesus Christ, has walked through the darkness.  Therefore, we can trust that, someday, God will lead us to the light.

Because this world belongs to the God who is faithful in Jesus Christ, in the end, the world will be safe and sound, for our children, and for all of us.

Someday.  
Someday.

When “Of Dust and Nations” moves to the chorus, Kensrue invites us to:

Put your faith, in more than steel
Don’t store your treasures up with moth and rust
Where thieves break in and steal
Pull the fangs from out your heel
We live in but a shadow of the real

“Put your faith, in more than steel,” reminds me of Jesus’ words when one of the disciples’ cuts of the slave of the high priest’s ear, and others ask, “Lord, should we strike with the sword?” Jesus heals the slave and says, “No more of this!” (Luke 22:49-51). The early church understood these words of Jesus to be an explicit call to nonviolence, that reverberated in the body of Christ as persecuted Christians were led to death by Roman authorities. Their faith was in more than the violence that nations put their faith in to try to give themselves power and security.

The next part of the verse calls to mind Jesus’ words to not “build up treasures” for ourselves in this life (Matthew 6:19-21), and to “pull the fangs from out your heel” is to remember the curse in Genesis, where God says about the man and the snake, “he will crush your head and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This is a curse from which we are being healed in Jesus Christ. However, since the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23,) Qohelet’s reminder that our lives are “merest breath” continues to echo in our minds. Similarly, Kensrue reminds us,

It will all be undone, and nothing built under the sun
Will ever stand before the endless march of sand

Everything is “merest breath.” Everything we build will eventually crumble. But at this point in Thrice’s song, we are returned to the chorus. “So put your faith, in more than steel/don’t store your treasures up with most and rust.” Our faith teaches us that to realize that everything will pass away is not a sign that we should lose hope, but instead that if our faith is in our Eternal God whose love is enfleshed in Jesus Christ, then we need not despair. Instead, we hear the one from the throne say “See, I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:5).

And what of Qohelet? He gives us clear, solid, realistic counsel. There is no pie in the sky, no Pollyanna in Qohelet. This is his wisdom: “This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of life God gives us, for this our lot” (5:18).  His final verdict is that because all of life is “merest breath,” we should try to live our lives well, we should faithfully do the work given to us, that we should care for those who are oppressed, that we should enjoy ourselves within reason, and at the end of the day realize that the part we play in history is a very small one.

On this side of the cross we know that we can do this because our past, present, and future is found in Jesus Christ. While we may spend our lives searching for meaning, we ultimately find it in the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus Christ, the beginning and the end. We need not fear the ephemerality of our lives because there is an eternity to be found in God. As the “Hymn of Promise” says,

In our end is our beginning,
In our time, infinity
In our doubt, there is believing,
In our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection,
At the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season.
Something God alone can see.

Have you ever heard God’s voice speaking to you in and through music? Has music ever made you feel as if you were in touch with something bigger than yourself?

This year’s Lenten devotional is called Out of the Dust. A group of pastors, scholars, and folks who love Jesus have worked together to create a devotional that is inspired by the power of music to point us to God.

Each entry focuses on a song (whether an intentionally religious song or a “secular” song), connects it with Scripture or the life of faith, and offers reflection on how this song can deepen our experience of Lent and/or our life with God.

Each entry will include a Spotify link to the song for that day. We have also created a Spotify playlist containing all the songs that will be covered in this devotional.

May God open our ears to hear the song of God’s mercy and love:

All of our hearts have been extra heavy these last two weeks as we've learned of the unprecedented destruction and death toll in nearby Western North Carolina from hurricane Helene, followed up immediately by the intensity of Milton. There are so many communities in need of our prayerful and resourceful response right now.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has always been positioned well to respond quickly and systematically following natural disaster; and this week, they've put out the all-call to churches across the US, but especially in neighboring southeast states, for the assembly and collection of cleaning kits/flood buckets to be delivered in the next wave of relief to the hardest hit areas of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.

If you've been looking for a way to respond, a way that, as a family, you could rally in support and put your hands, hearts, funds towards something that matters and teaches your child(ren) compassion and care, here's a valuable way:

1. Pick up a five gallon bucket or two with lid (available at Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes, Amazon)
2. Follow these Cleaning Kit/Flood Bucket Instructions & Specifications provided by UMCOR to fill the bucket with the most needed items;
3. Bring your bucket(s) on Sunday, October 20 to be blessed in worship and then delivered that week wherever needed the most.
4. Let us know you'll be assembling a bucket so that can arrange appropriate transportation of the buckets from Hayfield to the distribution site.
5. Please only donate exactly what's asked for and do not submit random donations that are not to the specifications of the list. Read more about why this is important.

SERIES SCHEDULE

• Week 1: Sun, Oct 13: (Built to) Revisit the Value | Ezra Intro, Nehemiah 1-2
• Week 2: Sun, Oct 20: (Built to) Rethink the Ordinary | Nehemiah 3-4
• Sun, Oct 27: All Hallows Worship & Trail-or-Treat at Franconia Park | Nehemiah 5
• Week 3: Sun, Nov 3: (Built to) Reimagine Leadership | Nehemiah 6-7
• Week 4: Sun, Nov 10: (Built to) Rediscover the Community | Nehemiah 8-9
• Week 5: Sun, Nov 17: (Built to) Renew Our Compassion | Nehemiah 10-11
• Week 6: Sun, Nov 24: (Built to) Repurpose Our Work | Nehemiah 12-13

CUSTOM NEHEMIAH READING PLAN
In addition to the broad-stroke schedule above, we are developing a special, custom Nehemiah daily reading plan that will be available in the Bible section of our Kingstowne app with additional questions & prompts by Sunday, October 20th. Stay tuned!

NEHEMIAH IN CHILDREN'S SUNDAY SCHOOL
In addition to our usual Sunday School curriculum, our children will also be learning about Nehemiah in Sunday School with a special 3-week, interactive Nehemiah children's series on Sundays, November 3, 10, and 17. Make sure your kids are present all three weeks to get the full Nehemiah temple-building experience!

If you've driven by the construction site on Telegraph lately, you've probably noticed that Brightview Senior Living's construction is a considerable way towards completion. At the front of that property, closest to Telegraph Rd is where our new shared worship space with Virginia Hills Church & Learning Center will be located. And, no, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Construction has not yet begun on the building.

Here's what's been happening behind the scenes:

June 2024
Virginia Hills was denied for a loan for the additional $500K+ needed to fund their original design since the price increase since COVID. This forced them to make the difficult but wise decision* to have the building redesigned with a smaller footprint that wouldn't cost more than their original $4.2 million budget.

*While it has delayed the build a bit, this decision was very good news to us at Kingstowne and something we actually suggested earlier in our partnership with Virginia Hills. It's absolutely worth waiting to build something completely paid for by the funds received and already in the bank from the sale of their land.

July-August 2024
New architectural designs are drawn, approved, and resubmitted to the county for permitting.

September 2024
The building permit is approved and received from the county!

October 2024
Final engineering blueprints are being drawn now to send to the contractor; and upon receiving them, construction can begin within 2-3 weeks.

It's all coming along! And it's very exciting! We'll update you as we know more; and once construction is underway, you'll be getting updates constantly.

A lot has happened in the last few months at Kingstowne as it relates to children's and youth ministry. We wanted to give you the highlights as well as what you can expect in the coming weeks:

Sam Barnes Resignation
The day before Michelle's renewal leave was set to begin, Sam tendered her resignation, after a doctors appointment in which she was encouraged to take a step back and make her health and her family her first priority. Continue to pray for Sam as she adjusts to the new normals of Parkinson's and its tole on her body.

Zach Anderson, Interim Sunday School Lead
It only made sense to immediately hire Zach, who had already been assisting and filling in for Sam much of the summer, in an interim capacity over all Sunday morning Children's ministry. Zach has an extensive knowledge of Scripture and a desire to teach children the love and way of Jesus.

Until further notice, Zach is committed to prepare children's lessons for each Sunday at Kingstowne, equip our nursery lead Rosa to teach the younger kids based on his lesson, and schedule children's workers across both classrooms.

Additional Children's Workers
Every Sunday at Kingstowne, we make sure that there are four children's workers scheduled, including Rosa Lopez, our wonderful Nursery & Preschool lead, and Robbin Blaya, our Sunday School Assistant.

Marcos Correa, {NEW} Leadership Team Member
Marcos has joined our leadership team as the chair over children's and youth ministry. As the supervising staff person now over children's & youth ministry, Pastor Michelle and Marcos are excited to host a children's & youth input meeting in November. Fill out this interest form to be included in the invite and scheduling of this meeting.

Accepting Resumes Now
While we don't intend to hire now until the new year, we are currently accepting resumes for all interested and qualified for our part-time Children's and Youth Director opening. All information can be found at https://kingstownecommunion.net/jobs.

BUILDING UPDATE FROM PASTOR MICHELLE
Thursday, March 21, 2024

Dear Kingstowne friends,

Over the past four months, the Kingstowne Communion leadership team has been working through a multi-step process of discernment and approval regarding the prospect of a permanent space for our ministry in the future; and today, finally, I am able to share the exciting, God-inspired news with all of you.

In early 2023, Virginia Hills Baptist Church and Preschool demolished their original 1959 building, set back on a seven acre property right next to Franconia District Park at 6507 Telegraph Rd, Alexandria, 22310; and began renting and sharing space at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church while they await the ground-breaking and construction of their new building, made possible by the sale of five out of seven of their acres of land to Brightview Senior Living. Watch this video about Virginia Hills Baptist Church's new building project.

I imagine that you've driven past this property and seen the mounds of dirt, construction, and signs along Telegraph Rd. Brightview Senior Living has already made considerable progress on their construction, and the ground-breaking for Virginia Hills Baptist Church is anticipated around the end of April 2024, with completion expected in the spring of 2025.

While Virginia Hills Baptist Church’s preschool continues to thrive, is and has been for some time a staple within the Kingstowne, Virginia Hills, and Hayfield communities, and continues to grow even in displacement in the Mt. Vernon/Belle View area, their church congregation is an aging one, currently gathering about 20 people on Sundays for worship at their leased location of Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church.

For this reason, and because Virginia Hills has envisioned a new space that would be remarkably outward-facing, shared with, and used by the community, in November 2023, Pastor Bart Purdy and his wife Jeannine Purdy of Virginia Hills Baptist Church reached out to Pastor Michelle Matthews of the Kingstowne Communion, asking if Kingstowne would be interested in forming a partnership over the next 18 months, with the goal of Kingstowne leasing space from and sharing space with Virginia Hills in their new building upon completion in the spring 2025.

In such a partnership, Kingstowne, as a growing congregation of predominantly young families, would be able to match the demographics and meet the spiritual and relational needs of the ever-widening preschool community, while Virginia Hills would be able to intentionally tune-in to and pivot some of their energy toward the new Brightview Senior Living resistants on property, offering spiritual community and care, and building an interdenominational and truly multi-generational spiritual and communal hub at the center of our neighborhood.

Of course, this partnership would also provide the Kingstowne Communion, with the highly-desired, permanent space for Sunday worship and other weekly gatherings; the much-needed storage, stability, consistent visability, and room for growth that our current mobile context cannot provide; and an opportunity to alleviate the toll of mobile ministry on volunteers and staff, remobilizing our most valuable asset - our people - for other crucial mission and ministry.

Our leadership truly believes that this space - this partnership - would give us everything we need to grow, while also ensuring that we remain true to our core values of courageous conversation, creative community, and collaborating for the common good.

The following timeline should give you a picture of the last four months of discernment, and why it was important for us to wait patiently before sharing publicly:

DECEMBER 2023

• Initial dinner meeting with Pastor Bart and Jeannine Purdy, Pastor Michelle Matthews, and the Kingstowne Communion lay leader, Ryan Bouma.

• Kingstowne leadership team agrees to move forward in pursuing a relationship with Virginia Hills Baptist Church & Preschool with the goal of leasing and sharing space in their new building.

JANUARY 2024

• Virginia Hills church council hears and considers the possibility of the Kingstowne Communion renting and sharing space in the new building.

• Virginia Hills shares building plan with Kingstowne pastor and leadership in an additional, initial meeting to assess need, expected use, and rental costs (anticipated starting at $2,500 /mon), as well as formalize a timeline toward approval.

• Kingstowne leadership lays low while allowing Virginia Hills to properly inform their leadership and gain buy-in from their congregation.

FEBRUARY 2024

• Kingstowne submits pre-proposal to NoVA District Committee on Church Location to elicit feedback on whether there are any other United Methodist churches within the geographical vicinity of 6507 Telegraph Rd that would prohibit an otherwise cogent full proposal from being approved (2/8).

• Virginia Hills leadership council approves shared-space lease with Kingstowne, after meeting with Kingstowne’s pastor and hearing more about the Kingstowne Communion and its mission and vision for ministry (2/11).

• Virginia Hills church business meeting, resulting in the following affirmative decisions to:
  • Disaffiliate fully and cut any remaining ties with the Southern Baptist Convention
  • Join the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
  • Remove “Baptist” from the church’s name and new logo
  • Rename the church: Virginia Hills Church & Learning Center
  • Share space with and lease space to the Kingstowne Communion in the new building (2/25).

• Church Location and Building Committee meets with the five closest UMC churches to appropriately and adequately inform them of the possibility of the Kingstowne Communion moving to and leasing space at 6507 Telegraph Rd (2/29).

MARCH 2024

• Kingstowne and Virginia Hills leadership teams meet for lunch to continue to get to know each other and continue conversations about shared space, usage, equipment, calendars, worship times, and timeline (3/10).

• Kingstowne submits updated pre-proposal to District Location Committee in advance of March 21 meeting (3/11).

• Kingstowne Communion is approved by the District Location Committee to pursue a shared-space partnership and lease with Virginia Hills in their new building at 6507 Telegraph Rd and to share with our full congregation publicly (3/21).

We are so excited to share more details with all of you, and we know you will have plenty of questions going forward, so here are a few things we can all immediately look forward to:

• SUN, MARCH 31 | Easter Sunrise at Nalls with Virginia Hills Church: This Easter will be unusual and bitter-sweet for Virginia Hills, while they are displaced from their property. We have invited them to celebrate Easter and our future ahead together by joining us for our 7:00am sunrise service at Nalls.

• SUN, APRIL 14 | Informational Meeting & Church Conference: Join us back at Hayfield Secondary School after Easter Sunday and our post-Easter Sabbath Sunday, for a chance to hear all the details as we know them now, to ask your questions, and vote as a church to officially move forward in this direction.

• LATE-APRIL (DATE TBA) | Ground-breaking ceremony with Virginia Hills: I have seen God move in every single detail of this process, thus far. Such an opportunity can only be a sign of God's grace and of Kingstowne's reputation and impact in our community thus far.

Grateful and Excited,

Michelle Matthews
Pastor