When Love Refuses to Keep Its Distance

There's something deeply uncomfortable about watching someone grieve in public. That raw, heaving kind of sorrow that makes us want to look away, cross to the other side of the street, give them space. We're not equipped for that level of vulnerability in our daily lives.

Yet on Palm Sunday, tucked just beyond the parade route where cloaks carpet the road and voices rise in celebration, we find exactly that kind of grief. While the crowd still echoes with "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord," Jesus stands on a hillside overlooking Jerusalem and weeps.

Not polite tears. The Greek word used here—ekklesin—describes deep, audible, wailing grief. The kind that shakes the body. The kind that cannot be hidden or controlled.

The Geography of Divine Love

What makes this moment so striking is that it's not sudden. Jesus didn't accidentally stumble upon Jerusalem and find himself unexpectedly emotional. Back in Luke chapter 9, we're told that Jesus "set his face towards Jerusalem"—a phrase heavy with intention and resolve. He knew where he was headed. He knew what awaited him there. And he chose to keep walking.

This is love with a physical address. Love that travels. Love that closes distance rather than maintaining it.

From the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem spreads out below—not a stranger's city but a place Jesus knows intimately. And his words in that moment cut to the heart: "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace."

This isn't anger. It's not satisfaction at predicting judgment. It's mourning the gap between what could have been and what is. Between potential and reality. Between the city Jerusalem was meant to be and what it has become.

The Problem of Distance

Here's an uncomfortable truth: most of us have become exceptionally skilled at loving from a distance.

We care deeply about causes and communities. We think about them. We pray for them. We genuinely mean well. We might even change our social media profiles to show solidarity. And it can feel like love. It can feel like enough.

But somewhere between the caring and the actual closing of the gap, something in us hesitates. Because loving from a distance is safer. You can hold the feeling without bearing the cost. You can care deeply while remaining protected from what that caring might actually require of you—or the pain that real love inevitably brings.

We donate without showing up. We pray without proximity. We feel compassion for the unhoused neighbor and drive right past. We're troubled by injustice and return to our comfortable routines. We believe people deserve better and never ask how they're actually doing.

We're not bad people. We're just distant people.

The Cost of Incarnation

The good news of the Gospel is that God refused to love from a distance. That's what the incarnation means—God closing the gap. God deciding that loving humanity from a safe height wasn't enough.

So God gets on the road. Takes on flesh and bone and dust and limitation. Learns what it feels like to be tired, hungry, misunderstood, betrayed. God moves toward us—all the way toward us—not to observe our brokenness from a comfortable vantage point but to enter into it.

This is the love that's been pursuing us throughout the entire season of Lent. The love that made room for the broken woman everyone wanted to ignore. The love that stopped on a dangerous road to tend to a stranger in a ditch. The love that ran down a driveway to embrace a wayward son. The love that got on its knees with a towel and basin to wash feet.

Always moving toward us before we deserved it. Before we asked for it. Before we were even ready for it.

A Love That Leans In

The tears on the hillside matter because they reveal something essential about divine love: it doesn't protect itself. It doesn't retreat when the cost becomes clear. It spills out in grief and keeps moving forward anyway.

Jesus weeps not because he's surprised by Jerusalem but because he loves Jerusalem. He has known since the beginning where this road leads. He sees clearly. He has no illusions about the outcome. And he gets on the road anyway.

Not because the city deserves it. Not because the reception will be warm. Simply because the love is real.

Real love doesn't wait for guarantees before it shows up. It doesn't demand worthiness as a prerequisite. It moves toward the mess, toward the pain, toward the brokenness—eyes wide open.

Finding Our Jerusalem

The invitation of Palm Sunday isn't to wave palms and stay at the parade. It's to ask ourselves an honest question: Where is our Jerusalem? Who is our Jerusalem?

What person, what community, what broken place is God calling us to move toward rather than simply care about from a comfortable distance?

Post-colonial theology teaches us that ministry has an address. The work happens in real, tangible places with physical locations. You cannot love a place from a distance and expect that love to bear fruit. Transformation requires proximity.

This is what John Wesley meant when he insisted there is no holiness without social holiness. Personal piety divorced from engagement with the brokenness of our communities isn't holiness at all—it's just spiritual self-protection dressed in religious language.

The Road That Costs Everything

Jesus reaches the top of the Mount of Olives and sees Jerusalem spread out below in all its beauty and brokenness. And the love doesn't give up. It doesn't look away. It keeps riding straight into the city, straight into the mess, straight into the week that will cost everything.

That's the shape of divine love. That's what it looks like when love refuses to keep its distance.

The question for us is simple but demanding: How close are we willing to get?

Because somewhere between the parade and the cross, between the celebration and the cost, between caring and actually closing the gap—that's where transformation happens. That's where we discover whether our love is real or just another way of keeping ourselves safe.

May we have the courage to get on the road. To set our faces toward our own Jerusalems. To let our hearts break over what breaks the heart of God. And to keep moving forward anyway, because that's what love does.

It leans in.

5-Day Devotional: The Love That Leans In

Day 1: Love That Moves Toward Us

Reading: Luke 19:28-40

Devotional: Before we even know we need saving, God is already moving toward us. This is the stunning reality of prevenient grace—divine love that initiates, pursues, and reveals itself without waiting for our invitation. As Jesus rides into Jerusalem, the crowd celebrates what they've witnessed: deeds of power, signs of the kingdom, love made visible. Today, pause to consider where God has been moving toward you, perhaps long before you recognized it. What moments of grace were you too busy to notice? Where has divine love been closing the gap in your life? We cannot save ourselves, but we can open our eyes to the One who can—and already is.

Day 2: The Courage to See Clearly

Reading: Luke 19:41-44; Jeremiah 9:1

Devotional: Jesus weeps over Jerusalem not because He is surprised by its brokenness, but because He loves it deeply. True love sees clearly—both the beauty and the wounds, the potential and the pain. The depth of Jesus' grief measures the depth of His love. We often protect ourselves from this kind of seeing because it costs us something. To truly see our cities, our neighbors, our own complicity in systems of injustice requires us to feel the weight of what could be versus what is. Today, ask God for courage to see one situation in your life or community with clear eyes. What does love require you to acknowledge? Grief and love travel together on the road to transformation.

Day 3: The Distance We Keep

Reading: Luke 10:25-37 (The Good Samaritan)

Devotional: We have become experts at loving from a distance—praying without proximity, caring without closing the gap. The Samaritan didn't admire the wounded man's plight from the safety of his journey; he stopped, touched, stayed, and paid. The incarnation itself is God's refusal to love humanity from a comfortable distance. Jesus took on flesh, limitation, hunger, and betrayal to enter fully into our experience. Where are you keeping distance from the very love you claim to offer? Is it the unhoused neighbor you drive past? The injustice you acknowledge but don't address? Today, identify one way you can move from observation to participation, from concern to costly presence.

Day 4: No Holiness Without Social Holiness

Reading: Matthew 25:31-46

Devotional: "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." Personal piety divorced from social responsibility is not the gospel Jesus preached. Our individual spiritual practices must overflow into tangible love for our neighbors, especially those society overlooks. The working poor, the immigrant, the prisoner, the hungry—these are not abstract issues but beloved children of God with physical addresses and real names. Wesley understood that true holiness transforms not just hearts but communities. Faith that doesn't move us toward justice isn't faith; it's preference. Today, examine your spiritual practices. Do they lead you deeper into compassion and action, or do they insulate you from the pain around you? Let your prayer life propel you into proximity.

Day 5: Setting Your Face Toward Jerusalem

Reading: Luke 9:51-56; Isaiah 50:4-7

Devotional: "Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem." This phrase carries profound intention and resolve. Jesus knew the cost, saw the outcome clearly, and moved forward anyway. This is love that doesn't wait for guarantees or favorable conditions. It shows up eyes wide open, willing to bear whatever comes. What is your Jerusalem—the difficult relationship, the challenging calling, the costly obedience you've been avoiding? Love leaning in doesn't mean recklessness; it means faithfulness despite the cost. As we move through Holy Week, we follow One who loved us enough to close every gap, to enter every darkness, to bear every consequence. Today, ask: where is Jesus inviting me to set my face with courage? What love is calling me forward, even when the road is hard?

Good morning, friends.

It is good to be with you on this Palm Sunday.

If you are a guest, welcome.

If this is your first time here, my name is Mitchell.

I'm the senior minister here.

And seriously, come see Vicki afterwards.

She would love to give you a gift.

And I want to sort of

 Give us just a quick recap of where we've been through this season of Lent.

It's also all for me to do that since I was away last week.

On spring break, went to Phoenix, Arizona, watched some spring training baseball with the family.

It was 108 on Tuesday.

Cool front.

Cool front.

 Pastor Anthony said.

Not in March, apparently.

Set records for March temperatures.

But it was lovely being in the desert.

In all of Lent, we've been sort of asking a very simple question.

What does love, or specifically divine love, actually look like?

What does it look like?

Not the...

 idea of love or even a broad definition of love, the thing itself.

What does divine love look like?

What is the shape of it?

What does that love do when it shows up in the world?

 So week after week after week through this season of Lent, we followed Jesus through stories that keep redefining the edges of love.

Each week the picture has gotten a little more clear and unfortunately I think a little more demanding of us.

And I've noticed something about this divine love revealed through Christ.

This divine love

 At its essence is movement.

 This divine love closes the gap.

It doesn't admire or care from a safe distance.

It is a love that moves towards us.

Now, as United Methodists, we believe that this love, this divine love, grace, this grace is moving towards us, and it is a sign that God is always initiating, always pursuing, always revealing, always moving towards us.

 We call that pervenient grace, and it is a part of our theology, and I believe it is unique to a Wesleyan way of thinking.

It is unique to think that God, before we're even aware of it, is moving towards us.

We don't have to earn that movement.

We don't have to do the right thing for God to move towards us.

 But really, it can also be boiled down, I think, into two simple things.

And it's really the reason we're all here, hopefully.

The reason we claim Christ as Lord.

Essentially, there are two simple things to being a faithful Christian.

Acknowledging two simple things.

And one is the reality that we cannot save ourselves.

We can't do it.

 And once we realize that, we seek to model our life after the one who can.

We can't save ourselves.

 Jesus is the only one that can save us, all of creation.

And because we believe that, then we seek to live like Christ.

And yet loving, truly loving like Christ is way more difficult than reading scripture or waving palms or showing up to church because we are pretty good at loving things from a distance.

 Cities, people, communities, causes.

We think about them.

We pray for them.

We mean well towards them.

We'll change our profile picture on Facebook to signify how much we love a place or a person or a cause.

And, well, it can feel rather performative at times.

Because something...

 Somewhere between the caring and the actual closing of the gap, something in us hesitates because loving from a distance is safer.

You can hold the feeling without bearing the cost.

You can care deeply and still feel rather protected from what that caring might actually require of you or the pain that loving something or someone will or can afflict upon you.

 And so on this Palm Sunday, and like every Palm Sunday, we watch this love manifest itself in Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

We watch or listen to the parade, the cloaks spread across the road we read about, the crowd at full volume, the whole electric energy of the city about to receive its king.

 And on Palm Sunday, we tend to stay right there in the parade.

It's a good parade, and there's plenty to glean from it, no doubt.

But if we follow Christ just a little farther, if we follow Christ just a little farther down the road, we find something that doesn't really belong at a parade at all.

And so I invite you to rise and embody your spirit as we read the Gospel of Luke.

 The 19th chapter, verses 28 through 44.

After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead going to Jerusalem.

And when he had come near Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples saying, go into the village ahead of you.

 And as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden.

Untie it and bring it here.

And if anyone asks you, why are you untying it?

Just say this, the Lord needs it.

Now, I can't recommend any of us do that, but...

 So those who were sent departed and found it as he told them.

And as they were untying the colt, its owners rightfully asked them, why are you untying the colt?

And they said, well, the Lord needs it.

And then they brought it to Jesus.

And after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus upon it.

As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.

 Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen, saying, "'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.'"

 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, teacher, order your disciples to stop.

And he answered them, I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.

As he came near and saw the city.

 Jesus wept over it, saying, if you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes, indeed the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will crush you to the ground, and you and your children within you, and they will not leave.

 within you, one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.

For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, and for the Word of God that's within us.

Thanks be to God.

You may be seated.

Will you pray with me?

May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.

 And on this day of palms and procession, open our eyes to what we might otherwise miss.

Give us the courage to follow love all the way down the road.

Amen.

 Now, like I said on Palm Sunday, the instinct is to stay right there with the parade.

And I understand that because there is real powerful theology in the parade.

And while I've mentioned in a sermon from this pulpit before that I do not love parades, there is real power in this story, this palm procession.

There's real power in the description that the author of Luke gives us, the cloaks on the road.

 The crowd at full volume, the disciples celebrating all the deeds of power they had witnessed.

There is something electric and important happening in these verses, no doubt.

But for today, I want us to follow the story, follow Jesus just a little farther down the road, past the celebration, past the noise, because just beyond the parade, we find Jesus on the side of a hill.

 And Jesus is weeping.

And it's not sort of a shy cry.

It's not hiding grief, trying to look strong.

The Greek here, ekklesin, means deep, heaving, wailing type of grief.

 It's audible.

It's loud.

It's the type of crying that when you encounter out in the real world, when you see it in someone, your first instinct is to just go the other way because it's so uncomfortable.

And what...

 Jesus says in the middle of all of this is rather haunting.

If you, even you, Jesus says, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace, Jesus is not angry here in the text.

Jesus is not satisfied with his own prophecy.

Jesus is mourning.

He is grieving the gap between what Jerusalem was meant to be and what it has become.

Between what could have been

 and what is.

And this is not the first time a prophet has wept over Jerusalem before naming its destruction.

Jeremiah did it.

The book of Lamentations did it.

Jesus is standing in a long line of voices who love the city enough to grieve what it could not see coming.

And what he describes in verse, what Jesus describes in verses 43 and 44 is not abstract.

 It is the Roman siege of 70 CE, 40 years from that moment of Jesus' sort of crying and weeping, 40 years from that moment where the city of Jerusalem was destroyed.

Luke's community, the author of Luke understood that the community in which he was writing had either witnessed or lived in the shadow of that siege.

 So the violence that Jesus talks about in these verses is not a threat, it is a lament.

This is what happens to a city that cannot recognize the things that make for peace.

And if we're paying attention, we know that the temptation to confuse the will of God with the will of the empire did not end with Jerusalem.

 It is alive in every nation, including our own, that wraps its flag around a cross and calls it faithfulness.

It is alive in the drums that are beating towards war with Iran and every attempt to baptize that march, that movement towards war with the language of divine purpose.

But this, this text, this one line revealing Jesus's

 Grief is what has stood out to me all week as I've wrestled with the text because what I've begun to realize is we don't see Jesus weeping at the cross.

We don't see Jesus weeping when he's arrested or when he's betrayed, when he's imprisoned.

We see Jesus weeping here before the celebration is even over, which means that the grief is

 Love or traveling together as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem.

You don't weep or grieve over something you do not love.

The depth of the tears in this text is a measure of how much Jesus is leaning in with his love.

 If we back up all the way to Luke chapter 9, we learn that this is not a sudden arrival.

Jesus doesn't accidentally stumble upon Jerusalem.

Luke chapter 9 tells us that Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem.

It's a phrase of intention.

It's a phrase of resolve.

It's a phrase that brings us along on this journey.

Jesus knew where he was headed.

He knew what he must do.

And he knew

 Ultimately, what the likely outcome was.

And he encourages his disciples to keep walking alongside him as they make this move towards Jerusalem.

So when he finally reaches the top of the Mount of Olives, it makes it sound like it's a 14er in Colorado.

It's not.

It's sort of just like a little hill outside of Jerusalem.

I've been there.

It's impressive, but not for its size.

 He sort of looks out.

You can kind of see Jerusalem below in a little valley, but you stand on top of the Mount of Olives and you look out and Jesus sees Jerusalem from this vantage point and he sees the city sprawling out below him.

He is not a stranger then arriving in an unfamiliar place.

It's a place that he knows.

This is someone who loves deeply.

 and knows what this is going to cost and yet shows up anyway, eyes wide open.

Jesus is sort of all the way in here.

And it feels a bit familiar.

I was in graduate school, proud alum of the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

I know you know that institution well, prestigious.

When one of my mentors pulled me aside, Dr. Tink Tinker, Native American scholar and theologian,

 one of the most important voices I might add in post-colonial theology.

And as I encountered his work, it deeply formed my own perspective.

And he said something to me towards the end of my time at ILF that I've never forgotten.

He told me that if my work as a minister, as an ordained clergy person was going to flourish, if I was going to feel satisfied and whole, if the theology I was learning was ever going to mean anything

 I had to go home to do the work.

Post-colonial theology, he said, demands proximity.

 The work has an address.

The ministries that we are called to as individuals and a community, they happen in real tangible places with a physical mailing address.

They're not abstract.

You cannot love a place from a distance and expect that love to bear fruit.

So I got in the car with my new wife and we came back to Dallas.

 I want to be honest with you about what it means to love the city because I do love the city of Dallas.

I love the grittiness that lives below all the shine and pomp and circumstance and the sort of flair in which Dallas operates.

I love the entrepreneurial spirit that shows up not just in the gleaming corporate towers, but in the visionaries who take corner stores and turn them into something extraordinary

 I love the way that the community burrows itself down into neighborhoods.

 because being hyper-local and protecting a neighborhood's identity is so important to us not getting swallowed up by the concrete jungle that we call home.

I love the diversity of this city, not only in the music that is displayed on Buckner Road late in the evenings, I also love when you can hear the diversity of cultures

 and experience those cultures in restaurants.

You can taste it in the food.

I love the way that you can experience so many different perspectives and the beautiful ways that the city celebrates itself.

But I think we also need to love the city enough to name the truth about the city.

 The way we treat our unhoused neighbors is a moral failure.

The line between wealth and poverty in Dallas is not a gap, it's a chasm.

Our schools remain segregated in ways that should trouble everyone in this sanctuary.

 And there are people who do the essential work of the city, who cook the food, build the buildings, care for the children, who cannot even afford to live in this city.

They drive in from somewhere they could afford and do the work we depend on and overlook, and then they drive back out to their homes.

That is not a city living into its potential.

That is a city that has learned to love from a distance the very people who hold it together.

 I love what Dallas can become.

I'm not yet fully in love with who we are, though.

And I've chosen to stay not because I can save this city, but maybe in learning to love more like Jesus, it can give me the opportunity to be saved.

Because it is still too easy for me to love from a distance.

And if I'm really honest with you all, even this pulpit, this one right here, can become a place to love

 to love from a distance, to talk about brokenness without ever having to touch it.

 The challenge of this text is that Jesus moves towards the city he loves knowing that it will likely reject that love.

And if we are going to model that kind of divine love, if we're going to try and live our lives like Christ, the real personal transformation, the real repentance comes not from our pursuit of personal piety above all else, but the challenge that our personal piety demands of us

 that our faith moved towards the pain in our communities and works for the transformation of our city.

There is no holiness, absolutely no holiness without social holiness.

And we know that tension.

We feel it in our bodies.

The problem is not that we don't love.

Most of us in this room love deeply.

We do.

 We love our families.

We love this church.

We love this city in our own way.

The problem is the distance we keep while we do it.

We have become skilled at caring without closing the gap.

We donate without showing up.

We pray without proximity.

We feel genuine compassion for the unhoused neighbor.

And then we drive right on past.

 We are troubled by the segregated schools, and then we go home to our neighborhoods where we send our kids to segregated schools.

We believe the working poor deserve better, and then we order the food from the working poor, and we don't ask the person who brought it how they're doing.

If you're like me, you'll just complain about your order, but it's wrong.

We're not bad people, but we are distant people

 We're distant.

And the gospel keeps asking us the same uncomfortable question, how close are you willing to get?

Because here's the good news of Palm Sunday, God refused to love from a distance.

That is what the incarnation is.

It is God closing the gap.

It is God deciding that loving humanity from a safe,

 Distance was not enough, and so God gets on the road.

God takes on flesh and bone and dust and limitation.

God learns what it feels like to be tired and hungry and misunderstood and betrayed.

God then moves towards us, all the way towards us, not to observe our brokenness from a safe distance, a comfortable height, but to enter into it.

 to enter into our brokenness, to weep over it, to bear the cost of it.

And this is what makes the tears on the side of the hill in this text so important.

Jesus doesn't weep because he is surprised by Jerusalem.

Jesus weeps because he loves Jerusalem.

 He has known since Luke chapter 9 where this road leads.

He has set his face towards the city with full knowledge of what it will cost him.

And he finally sees it spread out below him.

The love does not retreat.

It does not protect itself.

It spills out in grief.

 and yet it keeps moving forward.

That is what love leaning in actually looks like.

It looks like someone who sees clearly and yet still knows the cost, who has no illusions about the outcome, and who gets on the road anyway.

Not because the city deserves it.

Jerusalem doesn't deserve it.

The city of Dallas doesn't deserve it.

 Not because the reception will be warm.

That's not why Jesus moves towards the city.

Jesus moves simply because he loves Jerusalem and that love is real.

The kind of love revealed in Jesus Christ does not wait for a guarantee before it shows up.

 This is the love that has been pursuing us this entire season of Lent.

The love that made room for the broken woman in the room that wanted to ignore her.

Remember that story?

The love that stopped on the dangerous road to tend to

 the man who was in the ditch, the love that ran down the driveway, the love that got on its knees with a towel and basin and washed feet.

It has always been moving towards us before we deserved it, before we asked for it, before we were even ready for it, God's love has been moving towards us.

And now on this Palm Sunday, that love reaches the top of the Mount of Olives and sees us spread out below in all of our beauty, in all of our brokenness.

And

 Not because that love is giving up, but because it loves us too much to look away.

Keeps riding straight into the city, straight into the mess, straight into the week that will cost it everything.

That is the invitation of this day.

Not to wave palms and stay at the parade, but to ask ourselves the honest question, where is our Jerusalem?

 Who is our Jerusalem?

There is no holiness without social holiness.

John Wesley knew it.

Dr. Tinker knew it.

And Jesus, weeping on the side of a hill with his city spread out before him, knew it too.

Love does not do simple observation from a safe distance.

Love leans in.

 even when it knows the cost, especially when it knows the cost.

May we have the courage to get on the road with Christ.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Reckless Love of a Towel and Basin

There's something profoundly unsettling about reckless love when it stops being a song lyric and becomes an actual person kneeling on the floor with a towel.

We sing about a love that climbs mountains and tears down walls. We celebrate love that goes after the one and leaves the ninety-nine. But when that same love puts on flesh and gets down on its knees to wash the dirt off your feet? That's when things get uncomfortable.

The Power of Knowing Who You Are

John 13 gives us one of the most intimate and challenging scenes in all of Scripture. Before the Passover festival, knowing his hour had come, Jesus does something that stops everyone in their tracks. But here's what we often miss: John tells us that Jesus knew exactly who he was before he moved a single muscle.

"Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God."

This wasn't humility born from insecurity. This wasn't service performed to prove something or earn approval. Jesus washed feet from a completely full and settled place of knowing exactly whose he was and where he belonged.

That changes everything.

Most of our service doesn't come from that place, does it? If we're honest, much of what we do flows from obligation, guilt, or the need to be needed. That kind of service has a ceiling. It burns out. It keeps score. It eventually runs dry.

But service that flows from overflow? From being so rooted in your identity as beloved that love simply spills out of you? That's sustainable. That's transformative. That's the kind of love that can change the world.

The Unbearable Intimacy of Being Loved

Peter's protest is where most of us see ourselves: "You will never wash my feet!"

We laugh at Peter, the lovable bumbler who's always one step behind. But maybe Peter is the most relatable person in the room. He had a vision of what Jesus was supposed to be—conquering king, political revolutionary, the one who would finally set everything right. And now here's Jesus on the floor doing the work of the lowest servant.

This doesn't match the vision.

But there's something else in Peter's protest that cuts deeper. There's a vulnerability in letting someone wash your feet that most of us aren't prepared for. Feet carry the dirt from wherever you've been. They're intimate. Exposing. To let someone wash them is to let them really see you—not your best self, not your curated version, but you in your actual need.

And Jesus says something that should stop us cold: "Unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me."

This goes both ways. You can't fully participate in this love if you won't let it reach you.

Most of us are fine with serving. We'll show up, bring the meal, volunteer, help out. What's harder is the other direction—being tended to, being seen in our need, letting someone else kneel in front of us with a towel.

Letting yourself be loved is not weakness. It's where discipleship starts.

The Scandal of Indiscriminate Love

But here's the detail that should haunt us: John tells us in verse two that evil had already put it into Judas' heart to betray Jesus. And then in verse eleven, we're told Jesus knew.

He knew.

And he washed Judas' feet anyway.

The man who was about to hand him over to be killed got the basin and towel too. This isn't weakness—this is reckless love with the volume turned all the way up.

We get really good at loving the people who are easy to love. We can work hard for justice and inclusion and welcome, and then quietly draw a circle around the people we think deserve it. But Jesus doesn't let us do that. The love he commands doesn't get to place limits on who receives it.

Who is Judas in your story right now? Who's the person it would cost you something to love? Can you picture kneeling in front of them—not excusing what they did, not pretending the harm wasn't real—but choosing from that rooted, beloved place to extend grace anyway?

That's what reckless love looks like when it gets all the way down on the ground with a towel.

What This Looks Like on a Tuesday

After the foot washing, Jesus puts his robe back on and asks, "Do you know what I've done for you?" Then he says, "Love one another just as I have loved you. By this everyone will know."

Not by your theology. Not by your worship style. Not by having all the right beliefs. By whether you actually love each other.

So what does that look like in real life? Not in theory—what does reckless love look like for you right now?

Maybe it's the coworker who gets on your last nerve, and love is asking you to actually ask how they're doing and mean it. Maybe it's the kid at home in a hard season where every conversation turns into a fight, and love looks like putting your phone down and just being present. No agenda. No fixing. Just presence.

Maybe it's the friend you've been meaning to check on for weeks. Love looks like sending that text today.

Maybe it's your own body—going to the doctor, getting rest, letting someone else cook, not insisting you're fine when you're not.

Maybe it's showing up for someone going through something hard when you don't have the right words, but sitting together anyway.

That's the basin and towel on a random Tuesday.

The Rest Will Come

Love serves from overflow. Love serves even when it costs something. Love serves and also lets itself be served. And both take great courage.

The invitation isn't to have the full picture or to have arrived or to know how everything will unfold. The invitation is simply to pick up a towel from that rooted, beloved, overflowing place.

The world is watching to see if we mean it.

Go and love. The rest will come.

The Courage to Say "I'm Not Okay"

There's a moment in the television show Shrinking that captures something profoundly human. Jimmy, a therapist who lost his wife to a drunk driver a year earlier, has been running—from his pain, from his daughter, from himself. He's numbed everything with alcohol, drugs, and work. He's become functional enough to fool people, but he hasn't healed. And when his mentor tells him the devastating truth—"The worst thing in the world happened to you and you never asked for help"—Jimmy responds with two words that reveal everything: "I'm good."

But he isn't good. And neither are we, most of the time, when we say those words.

The Illusion of Control

"I'm good" sounds like strength. It sounds like resilience, like someone who has it all together. But often, it's actually resistance. It's our way of staying in control, of keeping people at arm's length, of maintaining the illusion that we can manage our own brokenness without help.

Jimmy thinks he can fix himself by fixing others. As long as he's helping other people, he never has to face how broken he is inside. For a while, it works. He feels that warmth when he helps someone, that sense of purpose and competence. But it doesn't last as long as it used to. The fix is no longer fixing.

This pattern—staying busy, staying useful, staying in control—is one many of us know intimately. We define ourselves by what we do, by how we help, by the problems we solve. We become doers and actors, always managing, always deciding, always maintaining control. And in doing so, we hide ourselves from others and from the truth of our own need.

Peter's Resistance

This same dynamic plays out in one of the most intimate moments in the Gospels. Jesus gathers with his disciples for what we now call the Last Supper. During dinner, he does something shocking: he gets up from the table, wraps himself with a towel, fills a basin with water, and begins washing his disciples' feet.

In the ancient Near East, foot washing wasn't optional—it was expected hospitality. When Simon the Pharisee failed to offer this service to Jesus earlier in the Gospel, he was essentially saying, "You're welcome here, but you're not honored here." Foot washing was an act of service, humility, and intimate care.

So when Jesus kneels before Peter with the basin, Peter's response is immediate and emphatic: "You will never wash my feet."

At first glance, this sounds like humility. Peter doesn't want to burden Jesus with such a menial task. But look closer, and you'll see something else: Peter is maintaining control. He's managing the situation, defining the boundaries, deciding what will and won't happen.

Jesus responds with words that cut to the heart of the matter: "If I do not wash your feet, you have no share with me."

This isn't a threat. It's a truth about the nature of relationship. As long as we grip tightly to our control, we cannot truly be in relationship. Relationship requires vulnerability. It requires allowing someone else to serve us, to see us, to touch the parts of us we'd rather keep hidden.

The Vulnerability of Feet

There's something deeply vulnerable about feet. Many people don't like exposing their feet to others. They're often the part of us we're most self-conscious about—calloused, imperfect, unadorned. They literally carry us through the dirt and dust of daily life.

When the disciples exposed their feet to Jesus, they were exposing their vulnerability. They were allowing themselves to be seen, to be served, to be out of control.

Peter struggles with this. After Jesus tells him he must allow the foot washing or have no share with him, Peter swings to the opposite extreme: "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

But notice—Peter is still trying to manage Jesus's behavior. He's still trying to control the situation, just in a different way. He hasn't yet learned what it means to simply receive love.

The Lesson We Miss

After washing all the disciples' feet, Jesus asks them, "Do you know what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet."

It's easy to misinterpret this teaching. We hear it as another command to go out and serve others, to fix people, to be the helper. But that's not what Jesus is teaching at all.

Jesus is still trying to teach Peter—and us—what it means to receive love. He's teaching us that being present in love means not controlling the outcome. It means kneeling before another person's vulnerability without trying to fix them, manage them, or change them.

One of the most difficult lessons for Christian chaplains is learning to sit with someone of a different faith and be present in love without being able to control the outcome. They can't fix the person's theology, solve their spiritual crisis, or convert them. They can only be present.

Where Are You Not Okay?

Back to Jimmy's story. After the distractions stop distracting and the house is empty, he finally makes a phone call. He sits down with someone who truly sees him. And he says perhaps the only honest thing he's said in a very long time: "I'm not okay."

Those three words are an act of profound courage. They're a relinquishing of control. They're an admission of need, of vulnerability, of humanity.

Where in your life are you saying "I'm good" when you're really not? Where are you fixing others to avoid facing your own brokenness? Where are you maintaining control instead of entering into relationship?

Jesus kneels before us with a basin and a towel, waiting silently as we struggle with everything within us. He's not asking us to have it all together. He's not asking us to be strong or competent or in control. He's simply asking us to let him wash our feet.

He's asking us to be vulnerable enough to receive love.

Can you imagine that moment—sitting in your seat, Jesus kneeling in front of you, waiting? What would it take for you to say, "I'm not okay"? What would it mean to be present in love without controlling the outcome, both in receiving care and in offering it to others?

The invitation is simple and terrifying: Let yourself be loved. Let yourself be seen. Let go of control long enough to enter into true relationship.

Because as long as we're gripping tightly to our control, we cannot truly share in the life that Jesus offers—a life of authentic connection, vulnerability, and love.

Thank y'all so much for kicking us off.

My name's Monica.

I'm one of the associate ministers here at First United Methodist Church of Dallas, and I want to welcome you to Modern Worship.

And for those of you who have been here for a while, and those of you that this might be your first Sunday, I want you to know that

 This is a place where you come as you are.

You get up and get coffee and water, kids run around.

It is a space where we just come as we are and we encounter God here in this community that just comes without a lot of pretension.

And we seek to be a place where you can find spiritual growth

 in a place that doesn't have a lot of barriers.

And so I hope that you find that this morning.

And I'm joined by Reverend Elizabeth Mosley, who's one of our senior associates, and she'll be helping us lead this well today.

And I'm really honored to get to offer a word this morning.

Our senior pastor Mitchell usually preaches, and he is on spring break with his kids, and he'll be back next week.

So I hope you'll come back next week to hear

 as we finish out this series.

We've been in Lent, this kind of period of time preparing for Easter, and focusing on our series theme, Simply Love.

And so we're spending some time on that.

And we just sang about a love that's reckless, right?

That goes after the one, that leaves the 99, that climbs mountains and tears down walls and doesn't stop.

 And I want to start by just sitting in that for a second, because the scripture we're going to be in today is what reckless love actually looks like when it puts on flesh and gets in the room with you.

It doesn't look necessarily like a mountain being climbed.

It looks like someone being on their knees with a towel, washing dirt off your feet.

 It's the same love with just a completely different posture than anyone expected.

So we're gonna be in John chapter 13, starting in verse one, and it'll be on the screen or if you wanna look at it on your phones.

Let's begin.

 Now before the festival of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The forces of evil had already decided that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, would betray Jesus.

 And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "'Lord, you are not going to wash my feet.'"

 Jesus answered, do you not know what I'm doing?

But later you will understand Jesus.

Peter said to him, you will never wash my feet.

Jesus answered, unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, then not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.

Jesus said to him, one who has bathed does not need to wash except for the feet, but it is entirely clean and you are clean.

 though not all of you.

For Jesus knew who was to betray him, for this reason he said, not all of you are clean.

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, Jesus said to them, do you know what I have done for you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am.

So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

 for I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you.

Very truly I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.

If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us, thanks be to God.

 Jesus knew who he was.

That's where this starts.

John is really deliberate here.

He says before Jesus moves a muscle, before he gets up from the table, before one sandal is taken off, John gives us this whole setup.

 Jesus knew the Father had given all things into his hands.

He knew he had come from God and was going back to God.

In other words, Jesus didn't do this because he was confused about his identity.

He didn't wash feet because he was trying to prove something.

 or earn something or perform humility for the room.

Jesus does it from a completely full and settled place of knowing exactly who he is and who he belongs to.

 And I think that flips something for us because most of us think of foot washing and we kind of immediately think humility, self-sacrifice, making yourself less.

I mean, feet are gross, right?

But that's not what John is showing us.

John is showing us power held loosely, power held gently, power in service rather than in control.

 I think too often our service doesn't come from that place.

A lot of my service, if I'm really being honest, has come from obligation or from guilt or needing to be needed, right?

I'm an Enneagram too, if that means anything to you.

We really love being needed.

And that kind of service has a ceiling.

It burns out.

It keeps score.

 The foot washing posture is different.

It flows from overflow, from being so rooted in who you are and how fully you're loved that love just flows out of you.

 About 20 years ago or so, I was sitting in the balcony of an empty church in a little town called Grand Coteaux, Louisiana.

It was an old antebellum church, and I was in a bit of a hard season.

I was sensing God calling me to ordained ministry, but I was at the time in a denomination where that was impossible.

 because I'm a woman, because of who I love.

So I had sort of set that call aside, and I'd actually sort of walked away from all organized religion for a while, and I've talked about that with y'all before.

I was working for a nonprofit, and just kind of trying to do good in the world without church, without a church that had told me there were limits on what God could do through me.

 And so I'm sitting in this empty church, I'm up in the balcony that was built for enslaved people and it was so far away from the table where communion was held and all things sort of holy, quote unquote, right?

And I was just sort of overwhelmed with a sense of God's presence and the words that kind of came to me in that moment were God kind of saying, this is my table and you are welcome here.

 You may not be able to host the meal right now, but go and wash feet, and the rest will come.

 Go and wash people's feet.

Go and do that.

The rest will come.

And that was the call.

So for 20 years, that's what I did.

I served as a campus minister.

I worked in churches doing discipleship.

I lived and worked at a retreat center and taught and worked for the bishop and all kinds of random things and then filled in when pastors needed a break, I would go in and preach in their churches when they needed a day off.

 just serving in every way that I could in a church and in a denomination that just until two years ago wouldn't fully ordain me as an openly married queer woman.

And so here's what I learned in the process of that journey.

You can only serve that way for that long through that much that way if it's coming from overflow, if it's rooted in knowing who you are

 and whose you are.

Because if it's coming from obligation or need for approval, the institution withholding something from you will take you out.

You'll lead from bitterness, right?

But if it's coming from that settled place, a few weeks ago we talked about the baptism of Jesus and that voice that calls you the beloved.

If it comes from that settled, beloved place, the institution doesn't get to be the last word.

 on what love does.

And that's what John is showing us about Jesus.

He served knowing his hour had come, knowing what was ahead.

The cross was already on the horizon.

And knowing who was at the table.

And he picked up the towel anyway.

 Love serves not from obligation, but from overflow.

And I think the part that I can't really get past is there's this little detail that John drops in verse two, kind of quietly.

It's sort of the powers of darkness, evil.

Some translations say devil.

I don't really love a corporeal version of evil called the devil, but...

 Evil had already put it into Judas' heart to betray Jesus.

That's what it says in verse 2.

And then in verse 11, we're told Jesus knew.

He knew.

And he washed Judas' feet anyway.

The man who was about to hand him over to be killed, Jesus knelt in front of him too, took his feet in his hands and washed them.

Judas got the basin and towel too.

 This morning we sang about reckless love, love that goes to links that don't make sense.

And here it is, not just in a song lyric, but as an actual moment in a room where Jesus looks at a person who is about to destroy him and chooses to love him anyway.

That isn't weakness.

Jesus knew this is reckless love with volume all the way up, right?

 I'd be honest, you know, this part of the gospel is sort of what I kind of wrestle with the most.

I get really good at loving the people who are easy to love.

I can work hard for justice and inclusion and welcome and build the church that I think God wants us to build and then quietly draw a circle around the people that I think deserve it.

 But the institution that told me for decades that there were limits on my call, the church that was wrong about women, wrong about queer people, wrong about who gets to host a meal, Jesus is asking me to kneel in front of that too.

 And the biblical scholars who study this text kind of point to Jesus and his decision to include Judas, that it tells us something we can't avoid.

The love that Jesus commands for us doesn't get to pose limits on who receives it.

Love for enemies shows up with a pitcher and a towel too.

And that's a hard word for us, I think, especially in our world right now.

 So who is Judas in your story right now?

Who's the person that it would cost you something to love?

Can you picture kneeling in front of them, not excusing what they did, not pretending the harm wasn't real, but choosing from that rooted place to extend grace anyway?

 That's what reckless love looks like when it gets all the way onto the ground with a towel.

Love serves even when it costs something, even when it doesn't make sense.

And here's where I think it gets personal too, that Peter says no, right?

He says, you'll never wash my feet.

And we always kind of laugh at Peter.

He's always sort of the last one to figure it out, always kind of one step behind, sort of this lovable, bumbling character in the Gospels.

 But he, I think I want to slow down and actually pause here because I think Peter's kind of the most relatable person in the story.

He has this whole vision of what Jesus is supposed to be.

This falls right after Palm Sunday, and we're going to read that story next week.

But there's this parade of people coming in, you know, honoring Jesus, proclaiming him King of Kings, and then...

 He just says, he kind of has this vision of, okay, we're ready.

We're going into Jerusalem.

Jesus is going to overthrow the rulers.

He's going to be in power.

I'm going to get to be at his right hand.

That's going to be great.

He has this vision, right?

Everything's finally happening.

 And now, the one that Peter has given up everything to follow is here on the floor with a towel, doing the job that was for the lowest servants to do.

This just doesn't match the vision for Peter.

And I think there's also something in Peter's protest that I recognize, maybe something that most of us feel but never really say out loud,

 which is I don't know if I can let myself be loved like that.

Serving is one thing.

Most of us are fine with that side of the equation.

We'll show up, we'll bring the meal or door dash the food or we'll volunteer, we'll help.

What's harder is the other direction, being tended to, being seen in our need, letting someone else kneel in front of us with a towel.

 Think about what it means to actually have your feet washed.

Feet carry the dirt from wherever you've been.

It's intimate.

It's exposing.

To let someone wash them is to let them see you, to really see you.

Not your best self, not your curated Instagram version of yourself, but the version of you that doesn't necessarily have it all together.

Just you in your vulnerability.

And Jesus says, unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me.

 I think that lands a little differently for someone that's more comfortable giving than receiving.

Jesus is saying, this goes both ways.

You can't fully participate in this love if you won't let it reach you.

Love is on both sides of this vulnerability equation.

 Can I love someone enough to approach them in their most vulnerable state, to serve them without making them feel small?

And can I love myself enough to let someone else approach me in mine?

Some of you this morning have come in, I think, carrying something heavy.

You might be very practiced at carrying it alone.

The, I've got this, the not wanting to burden anyone, the making yourself fine.

 Jesus has a word for us too.

You have a share with him.

You belong to this.

Letting yourself be loved is not weakness.

It's where discipleship starts.

That same love that makes us capable of serving others without strings or keeping score, that love has to reach us first, to sit in that, to let it get all the way in.

 And watch what it does to the way you love other people.

Love serves but also lets itself be served and both take great courage.

So here's where Jesus lands it.

After the foot washing, he puts his robe back on, he returns to the table and he says, do you get it?

Do you know what I just did for you?

 And then he says, love one another just as I have loved you.

By this, everyone will know, not by your worship style, not by your theology, not by what you believe about all the right things, by whether you love each other, by whether people can look at this community and see something that looks like Jesus on his knees with a towel

 So what does that look like for you in your life?

Not in theory.

What does reckless love look like for you in your life right now?

Is it a coworker that sort of gets on your last nerve and you've been keeping a professional distance, but maybe this week love is asking you to actually ask how they're doing and mean it.

 Or if you've got a kid at home that is in a hard season and every conversation turns into a fight, love might look like putting the phone down, sitting on the floor of their room and just being present.

No agenda, no fixing, just presence.

Maybe it's a friend you've been meaning to check on for weeks.

 And you know who that is that comes to mind.

Love looks like sending that text today.

Get out your phone now, I don't care.

Send that text today.

And maybe it's your own body.

Maybe love looks like actually going to the doctor or sleeping, letting yourself get rest, letting someone else cook for you or just not insisting that you're fine.

 Maybe it's showing up for someone in your community that's going through something hard and you don't have the words to say, but sitting together in being present, whatever that looks like, that's the basin and towel on a random Tuesday.

For me, that moment in the balcony in Louisiana, God said, go wash feet.

The rest will come.

And 20 years later, I'm standing here.

 Right?

Finally getting to host the meal too, but the rest came not on my timeline, not the way I would have drawn it up, but God wasn't done in my story and God's not done in yours.

And what I know now that I don't think I fully understood then was that the washing and the hosting were really never separate.

 That 20 years of service weren't just a waiting room for the real thing.

They were the real thing.

Every person that I accompanied, every table set, every foot washed in whatever form it took, that was my call being lived, not deferred.

God didn't say go and wait until the institution catches up, until the church is ready for you.

God did not say that.

God said go and love.

The rest will come.

 So that's the invitation this morning for all of us.

You don't have to have the full picture.

You don't have to have arrived.

You don't have to just know all the ways that this is gonna unfold for you.

You just have to be willing to pick up a towel from that rooted, beloved, overflowing place.

Love serves and is served.

The world is watching to see if we mean it.

Amen.

Would you join with me in an attitude of prayer?

O Lord, may the words of my mouth, the meditations of all of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight.

O Lord, our rock,

 and our Redeemer.

Amen.

I've been watching the television show, Shrinking.

Some of you are familiar.

It's the first season.

It's about a man named Jimmy, and he's not doing very well.

 Which is understandable because one year prior, his wife was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

And he's not doing well with it.

He's not dealing with what's happening within him.

And so he's responded by numbing

 alcohol, drugs, even work.

Anything to keep him from having to face what's going on inside of him.

And he can just keep on going.

And it works.

 for a little time, but not really.

Because once he looks up from that numbing, what he discovers is that he is not the only one who is grieving.

And that his behavior

 is not just making his life worse.

It's also affecting his daughter.

And so when he finally recognizes that after a year, he knows he's got to do something.

So he tries to pull himself out.

 lets go of the worst of his behaviors, tries to learn how to be a father again, get back into the normal cycles of life.

But you notice, as he's becoming more functional,

 He's not actually healing.

And the longer that time goes by and the further the gap gets, it becomes unsustainable.

And so it finally breaks.

 There's a day that was supposed to be a wonderful day.

A day that he had been curating to make a unforgettable moment.

But then a secret that he had been keeping within him, it gets revealed.

 perhaps the worst possible way.

And so late, late that night, there's a heartbreaking argument between him and his daughter.

And she says to him, way to ruin another birthday.

 So the next day, he's at work, and his mentor and his boss tells him a very simple and devastating truth.

The worst thing in the world happened to you

 and you never asked for help.

Do you know how Jimmy responds?

I'm good.

But he isn't good.

 And so, he does what he thinks he is good at, fixing other people.

Because as long as he fixes other people, he never has to face how broken inside that he is.

 So he goes out.

He's helping other people, trying to fix them.

And for a moment, it works.

He helps someone.

And he feels that warmth inside of him.

But it doesn't last as long as it used to.

 It fades quickly and you can see it on his face in that moment.

His mentor, Paul, had predicted this earlier.

He had said, this is your drug.

And it was no longer lasting.

 And so his story that he's telling himself begins to break.

The fix is not fixing.

He goes home and his daughter has chosen to stay the night at a friend's house.

And so his house

 is empty.

And the distractions are no longer distracting.

There's nothing left to keep between him and the truth.

And so he's confronted

 And he begins to spiral downward.

And we're wondering, what is he going to do?

How bad will this get?

And then he makes a phone call and he says,

 Hey, it's me.

And he sits down with someone who sees him, truly sees him.

And Jimmy says, perhaps the only honest thing he has said in a very long time,

 I'm not okay.

I want to jump back briefly to the middle of this story.

When Jimmy says, I'm good, it sounds like strength, doesn't it?

 but it's really resistance.

It's Jimmy trying to stay in control of his life.

And when Jesus kneels down in front of Peter,

 Peter says essentially the same thing to Jesus with just a little bit more honesty.

You will never wash my feet.

Three weeks ago,

 We heard about Jesus visiting Simon the Pharisee in his home.

And it was there that a woman took an alabaster jar of ointment and used it and her tears to wash the feet of Jesus.

And then she used her hair to dry his feet.

 And it was there that we talked about and learned that the washing of one's feet or washing someone's feet was not an option in the ancient Near East.

So when Simon the Pharisee did not offer to wash the feet of Jesus, he was saying, you are welcome here.

 and you are not honored here.

If we take that into this Sunday scripture, we find Jesus gathered with the disciples at the Last Supper, that moment that we remember at every communion.

Our scripture tells us that Jesus

 During dinner, he got up from the table.

He got a wash basin, wrapped himself with a towel.

He went to the disciples and washed their feet.

And when he gets to Peter, Peter says, you

 will never wash my feet.

At a quick look, it sounds like humility.

Peter is maintaining control.

 And then Jesus responds, if I do not wash your feet, you have no share with me.

And so then Peter responds, and I want you to listen closely to his words.

Peter responds, Lord, not my feet only,

 but also my hands and my head.

Does this sound like Peter is giving up control?

This

 Here we can ask, how is Peter still trying to manage the behavior of Jesus?

And that is my normal MO.

That's what I'm comfortable with.

I'm comfortable with being in control.

 I'm a doer.

I'm an actor.

I like to define myself.

I like to make decisions.

I want to be in control.

The problem here, though, is that by Peter maintaining his control, he is not entering

 into relationship with Jesus.

And that's why Jesus says, unless I wash you, you have no share with me.

This is not Jesus setting up a boundary against Peter.

 This is not Jesus offering a threat to Peter, nor is Jesus talking about cleanliness.

Jesus is expressing a truth to Peter about the nature of relationship.

 as long as we want to grip tightly our control, we cannot truly be in relationship.

And being in relationship means being vulnerable.

 This whole scripture is terribly vulnerable, isn't it?

Even reflecting about that we have this expression of the disciples exposing all of their feet.

There are many people who do not like to expose their feet, right?

 One reason is because it exposes our vulnerability.

When we expose our vulnerability, to be out of control means that somebody might see within us.

They might see our wants, our needs,

 our fears, how afraid we might be of being in control.

So it's so much easier to be the doer, to be the helper, to be the one who is acting.

It hides ourselves from other people.

 And Jesus reveals that.

As long as you're in control, you don't have a relationship with me.

I imagine this moment where Peter is there, sitting on his seat,

 Jesus kneeling in front of him, waiting silently as Peter struggles with everything within him.

And I would hope that this is the moment when Peter could say,

 I'm not okay.

The scripture tells us, Jesus continues, and he washes the disciples' feet, and then he turns back to all of them again and says, do you know what I have done for you?

 You call me teacher and Lord, for you are right, for that is what I am.

So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

 It is so easy to misinterpret what Jesus is saying here.

Jesus is not saying to Peter, now go out and fix everybody else, right?

 This is not a commandment to go and control others.

Jesus is still trying to teach Peter what it means to receive love.

 My wife is one who teaches religious leaders how to be hospital chaplains.

And one of the most difficult lessons

 that especially Christian chaplains have in learning how to be a chaplain is how to sit with a non-Christian and be present in love without being able

 to control the outcome.

In what area of your life are you not able to fix that you could say that you could be present in love

 and not control the outcome.

Where in your life can you be present in love and not control the outcome?

 Amen.

Good morning, friends.

It is good to be with each and every one of you on this Spring Break Sunday.

I'm grateful for you being in this space.

I'm also grateful for our online ministry.

For the past few years, Reverend Anna Hagler has been leading a team of both staff and lay leadership and lay volunteers to do all we can to ensure that people have access

 to our worshiping community while they are either away or permanently live in another location.

And I am very pleased to say that our online offering continues to grow at an exceptional rate, which signifies, I think, that folks feel connected here, like they have a sense of belonging, like we're kind of working on this thing, right?

 And so as there are people traveling all week for spring break, I am grateful that there are many watching online with us this morning.

And so, Anna, thank you for your hard work and your team's hard work.

Media team, you are sequestered away in the media room, but thank you.

Dexter and all the volunteers, I am very grateful.

I'm also aware that we are moving rather quickly, maybe...

 Maybe it's just me, but it feels like we're moving through Lent rather quickly.

In just a few weeks we'll be celebrating Pop Sunday, then Holy Week, and then of course Easter morning.

And I'm aware that

 it can feel, I don't know, it's luring to move quickly to the Easter story because we're in such good news, we're such desperate for the good news that Easter morning proclaims.

But before we get there, I want us to appreciate that the challenge that's sort of been laid out in this Lenten worship series, Simply Love, because we're now four weeks in to this series and the love that we're describing, the love we're wrestling with is not simple love.

 But when we strip it all away and we realize that divine love is both given and then there's sort of this expectation that we then give it to others, that is certainly not easy.

The type of love we're talking about is not sentimental.

It does not necessarily stay where we put it.

Simply love has really challenged me as a pastor, especially as a preacher, having to engage with this week in and week out.

Remember in week one, we

 We talked about receiving this love before we do anything, before we feel like we deserve it.

Week two, we really asked ourselves the question about how far is God's love going to travel, and we looked at the story of the woman who interrupted a dinner party.

Last week, we stretched ourselves to think of what it's like to be in need.

 To see ourselves not as the Good Samaritan, but as the person in the ditch.

And this Sunday, we are looking at a story about a father and two sons.

And hopefully at the overlooked center of this story, which is actually patience.

I know we want to sort of move to forgiveness in this story, but I would argue that one of the major themes in this story is patience, not forgiveness.

 And it's not the type of patience that maybe we're familiar with.

So I invite you to rise and embody your spirit for the reading of the gospel.

Luke chapter 15.

I'll actually be reading verses 11 through 24.

Then Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father,

 father give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me so he divided his assets between them and a few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region and there he squandered his wealth and dissolute living when he had spent everything a severe famine took place throughout the region and he began to be in need so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs

 He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger.

 I'll get up and I'll go to my father and I'll say to them, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me like one of your hired hands.

So he set off and he went to his father.

But while he was still far off,

 His father sought him and was filled with compassion.

He ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

And then the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his slaves, quickly bring out a robe, the best one, and put it on him.

Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and get the fatted calf and kill it.

 and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate for the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, and for the word of God within us.

Thanks be to God.

You may be seated.

Will you pray with me?

 May the words of my mouth, the meditations of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.

Teach us the patience of the Father who watches.

Teach us the love that does not force.

Teach us about the grace that waits with its eyes open.

Amen.

 So I've been rather fixated on this one line.

And if you're in the pastor's Bible study, you've got a little bit of this.

I've been fixated on this one line that gets sort of lost in the beauty of this story because it is a beautiful story.

In verse 20, the text says, so the prodigal son, the younger son, set off and went back to his father.

But while he was still far off,

 While he was still far away, his father saw him.

His father was filled with compassion, the text says.

The father ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

While he was still far off.

When I was growing up in Rockwall...

 We were culturally swimming in these sort of hyper-evangelical waters, and there were at times, at times, the cultural pressure of the suburbs, and particularly of Rockwall, found a leak in our sort of First United Methodist Church firewall.

And like many of us millennials, I was part of a youth abstinence program called True Love Waits in my youth group.

Some of y'all know it.

 Many of us who grew up in a youth group in the 90s, early 2000s know what I'm talking about.

And it really is, if you spend some time thinking about it, it's wild to think about what we were taught.

I remember feeling the tension of puberty and the amount of tension existing and the changing of our bodies and the real push and pull between wanting so desperately to

 to love God with my whole being, with my head and my heart and to serve God and also feeling a real pull to wondering if the girl from Plano was gonna be hit summer camp the next year.

This is a very natural, very human, very real way of growing and changing and feeling all the feelings

 And those feelings and those desires, the thinking of the day was that lust or desire was a real threat to Christian youth programming and the efficacy of what the church was teaching.

And so a program was created out of LifeWay resources, True Love Waits.

 And it was all framed as patience, as waiting, as a virtuous thing that we as youth could do.

Your future marriage deserved it, we were told.

Your future spouse was probably going to require it.

And your wedding night would either be a night of exhilaration or a night of deep pain and disappointment.

You choose, ninth graders.

 I wish it was as funny back then because there were cards to sign and pledges to make and sometimes young women in our youth group were given rings to wear as a sign of their commitment to remain pure.

But here's the truth.

What we were taught about our bodies, what we were taught about God, what was expected of us didn't actually feel like patience.

 It felt like pressure.

It felt like control.

It felt like someone else's timeline was placed on top of our bodies, on top of our questions, on top of our life.

And this was true for me, but it was especially true for the young women exposed to purity culture at such a young age.

 There have been plenty of studies that have shown the real harm, significant psychological trauma that was inflicted by the church in the 90s and early 2000s around purity culture.

That's why I think there's a real difference between these two things, pressure and patience.

That's why I'm also very, very pleased that we as a church don't shy away around conversations around sex with our youth.

 But we do so, we have these conversations in ways that promote healing and wholeness and flourishing for both the young boys and girls in our program.

Wonderfully Made at the end of March is not just one more program that we offer.

I know that it's easy to look at the list of events on our church calendar and think, wow, they just are trying to do as much as they possibly can.

Everything that we offer is actually very thoughtful.

 And wonderfully made as an antidote to a purity culture that has done significant harm.

So if you or you know someone who is raising young boys and girls who would benefit from having real honest conversations about changing bodies, sex, and faith, I really encourage you to sign up.

Have them sign up.

Because real patience...

 Real patience cannot actually be demanded.

It can't be demanded from us.

The moment patience becomes some sort of mechanism for control, it actually stops being patience.

It becomes something else, something that looks like love from the outside, but does not feel like it from the inside.

 I think a lot of us have experienced this kind of waiting.

Not the waiting that trusts, but the waiting that is sort of in relationship with pressure.

Not the waiting that leaves room, but the waiting that narrows the room.

And I think some of us have confused the two for a very long time.

And now here's what I want you to notice about the father in the story.

 And I have to be honest with you, this is not the first time I preached from the text from this pulpit.

I know many of you keep very meticulous notes and remember everything that I say from this pulpit.

And if you are one of them, then you would know that I preached on this text in September.

 where I argued, I think very effectively, that Jesus Christ is the prodigal son.

It's a view I still like to hold, and I am saying that the reckless, sort of extravagant, self-emptying love of God is what we actually see in the prodigal son, what the story is really pointing at.

I do still believe that, but a text this rich, even though we know it well, a text this rich does not give up everything in one sitting.

 It's why we read scripture over and over and over again so that we can see the true depth and breadth of God's love.

And what I want us to see today is something that I did not linger on in September.

It's not the younger son.

It's not even the theology of return or the practice of forgiveness.

It is simply the father standing at the edge of the property watching the road.

 day after day before anyone came home because I think that image has something to say to us that we are not finished hearing the father saw him while he was still far off that is not the language of someone who happened to glance out the window at the right moment

 That is the language of someone who's been watching the road, someone who has been standing at the edge of the property, scanning the horizon day after day, not knowing if today would actually be the day that his son returns.

There's a theologian named Thomas Ord, I love his work, who has written about what he calls the uncontrolling love of God.

 His argument is simple and it's still rather unsettling because he argues God does not control, not because God lacks the power to intervene, but because love by its very nature cannot force.

The moment love becomes coercive, it stops being love.

It becomes something else entirely.

 The father in this story lives that out.

He does not chase the son down.

He does not manipulate the circumstances to engineer his return.

He does not withhold food from the far country until his son has no choice but to come home.

He lets him go fully and then he simply watches.

Because that is what love does when it refuses to become controlled.

 It opens its hands and it keeps its eyes on the horizon.

The father had to be looking actively, persistently with a great measure of hope.

And this is not sort of a passive waiting.

This is not resignation.

This is not the kind of patience that simply folds its arms and says, fine.

 Let me know when you're ready to come back home.

This is the patience of someone who has decided that the story is not over, who has decided that the distance between them does not have the final word.

 In the ancient world, a Middle Eastern patriarch did not run.

Running was undignified.

It was beneath a man of standing.

But his father sees his son in the distance and he lifts his robes and he sprints down the road.

And the father does not wait for an apology to be finished.

He does not wait for proof that the son has changed.

He moves towards him before the son can say a word.

 That is the patience Jesus is describing, not passive, not controlled, it's not a strategy, a love that watches the horizon because it cannot stop hoping.

We live in a culture that has very little use for this kind of patience.

We celebrate speed, we reward hustle,

 We measure people by their output, their efficiency, their ability to produce results, their ability to drive fast on 75.

This is especially true, feels true.

This culture of speed feels very true in this city, in Dallas.

And when something or someone takes longer than we planned, we start to wonder if we should just cut our losses.

 We do this with projects.

We do this with processes.

And if we're honest, we do this with people too.

We give relationships a window.

We give people a certain amount of time to come around, to get it together, to figure it out, to return who we need them to be.

And when they do not, we tell ourselves, are we being reasonable?

We tell ourselves, patience has limits.

And maybe it does.

I'm not going to tell you that every relationship should be held open forever.

 or that patience means absorbing harm without limit.

But that's not what this story is saying.

The Father in this parable is doing something our culture cannot quite make sense of.

He's watching on the horizon.

 for someone who gave him every reason, every single reason to stop watching.

And he keeps watching anyway, not because the son deserves it, because that is simply the nature of the father.

That's who the father is.

I think many of us need to hear that this patience is also aimed at us.

A lot of us are carrying a quiet pressure every single day that our lives should be further along by now.

 that we should have figured it out by this point, that the version of ourselves we imagined at 25 or 35 or 50 should already be here.

And when that version has not arrived, we do not extend ourselves the patience of the Father, we extend ourselves the pressure of the culture.

 We take on shame like it's productive.

We rehearse our failures like they are evidence.

We stand in the far country of our own regret and wonder if we have wandered too far.

Have we gone away for too long?

Are we too far gone to come home?

But the story says God is watching the road.

 God's not waiting for you to deserve it, not waiting for you to have it together, not waiting for you to make it back on your own, watching with hope still active, with love still oriented in your direction, ready to run before you even finish explaining yourself.

That is the good news this parable reveals, a God whose patience is not passive, but pointed directly, specifically at you.

 Here's the gospel at the center of this story.

The father does not run because the son finally got it.

The son came home because he was hungry, because he was desperate.

He rehearsed a speech about being made a servant.

He was not yet transformed.

He was broke.

And the father ran anyway.

Grace arrives before the apology is finished.

 before the repentance is verified, before behavior is even changed.

The robe goes on the shoulders, the ring goes on the finger, and the party starts.

This is the shape of God's love.

It does not wait for perfection to move towards us.

It moves towards us in the middle of the mess we've created.

It covers the shame we have not yet finished confessing.

It celebrates the return before we have even proven that that return is real or can be trusted.

 And if that is true, if the patience of God is this active, this relentless, this oriented towards us, even when we are still far off, then something else is also true.

We're not as far from home as we often think.

But the much-needed homecoming we experience...

 This isn't the end.

Because the whole series has been building towards something.

If we receive the good news only for ourselves, we have missed half of what Jesus is doing in this story.

The Father's patience is not just a gift, it's a posture.

And it is a posture we are being invited into.

There is someone in your life who has not yet come home.

Someone you've been waiting on.

Someone who has taken a

 their sweet time the long way around.

Someone you're not sure is going to turn back toward you or toward health or toward the life they were meant to live.

And the question this parable asks is not whether you're patient enough.

The question is simply this, are you still watching the road?

 Whether you've written them off or whether there's still part of you standing at the edge of the property scanning the horizon, refusing to let the story end, the love that we see in this parable is not meant to stop with us.

It's meant to move through us.

The father who ran toward the younger son also went to the older brother too.

 The same love that celebrates the broken pleads with the bitter.

The same patience that watched for one lost person watches then again for another.

 We do not just receive this kind of divine love.

We must learn to practice it toward the person we have given up on, towards the parts of our city that we have given up on, towards ourselves, those parts of ourselves that we have given up on.

True love does wait, not because it's passive, not because it has no other options, not because it has run out of things to do.

It waits because divine love

 has decided that the story's not over.

It watches the horizon because it has refused to stop hoping.

It runs down the road before the apology is finished because love does not need to wait for a reason to move towards someone.

 And today on the fourth Sunday of Lent, in this season where we are being asked to unlearn what love is not and relearn what it actually looks like, we are being invited to trust that this is the love that has been aimed at us, each and every one of us all along.

Not a love that waits for us to get it right.

 Not a love that is withheld if we somehow go back on our purity pledges.

Not a love that is dependent on the efficacy of our change.

 A love that is already watching the road.

That is what we read about.

A divine love that is already scanning the horizon.

A divine love that is moving towards us even before we start finding our way home.

May we trust that love.

May we trust that love and may we extend it to others.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Patience That Watches: Discovering the True Heart of the Prodigal Story

We think we know this story. The rebellious son, the squandered inheritance, the pig slop, the homecoming, the celebration. We've heard it preached a thousand times, painted on Sunday school walls, reduced to bumper-sticker theology about forgiveness and second chances.

But there's a line in Luke 15 that deserves our attention, a detail so easy to miss in our rush toward the happy ending: "While he was still far off, his father saw him."

Not when he arrived at the gate. Not when he knocked on the door. Not when he began his rehearsed apology. While he was still far off, the father saw him.

This is not the language of coincidence. This is not someone who happened to glance out the window at precisely the right moment. This is the language of watching—persistent, active, hope-filled watching. Day after day, the father stood at the edge of his property, scanning the horizon for a silhouette that might be his son.

The Difference Between Pressure and Patience

Our culture has confused patience with pressure. We've learned to call control by gentler names, to dress up our demands in the language of waiting. But true patience—the kind this father embodies—cannot be demanded. The moment patience becomes a mechanism for control, it stops being patience altogether.

Many of us learned this confusion early. Perhaps in youth groups where our bodies became battlegrounds, where natural desires were treated as threats, where rings and pledges and purity culture taught us that God's love had conditions attached. We were told this was patience—waiting for marriage, waiting to be worthy, waiting to deserve love.

But that wasn't patience. That was pressure wearing a religious disguise.

Real patience leaves room. Real patience trusts. Real patience doesn't narrow the path but widens it, doesn't tighten its grip but opens its hands.

The Uncontrolling Love of God

Theologian Thomas Oord writes about "the uncontrolling love of God"—the radical idea that God does not control us, not because God lacks power, but because love by its very nature cannot force. The moment love becomes coercive, it ceases to be love. It becomes something else entirely.

The father in this parable lives this out. He doesn't chase his son down. He doesn't manipulate circumstances to engineer a return. He doesn't withhold resources from the far country until his son has no choice but to come home. He lets him go—fully, completely—and then he watches.

This is what love does when it refuses to become control. It opens its hands and keeps its eyes on the horizon.

A Love That Runs

In the ancient Middle Eastern world, patriarchs did not run. Running was undignified, beneath a man of standing and status. But when this father sees his son in the distance, he lifts his robes and sprints down the road.

He doesn't wait for the apology to be finished. He doesn't require proof that his son has changed. He doesn't demand to see the transformation first. He moves toward him before the son can even speak.

This is the patience Jesus describes—not passive, not resigned, not a strategy. This is a love that watches the horizon because it cannot stop hoping.

The son came home because he was hungry. He was desperate. He rehearsed a speech about becoming a servant. He wasn't transformed yet—he was just broke. And the father ran anyway.

Grace arrives before the apology is complete, before repentance is verified, before behavior has changed. The robe goes on the shoulders, the ring on the finger, the party begins. This is the scandalous shape of divine love.

The Pressure We Carry

Many of us live under a quiet, constant pressure that our lives should be further along by now. We should have figured it out. The version of ourselves we imagined at 25 or 35 or 50 should already be here.

When that version hasn't arrived, we don't extend ourselves the patience of the father. We extend ourselves the pressure of the culture. We take on shame like it's productive. We rehearse our failures like they're evidence. We stand in the far country of our own regret and wonder if we've wandered too far, been gone too long, become too far gone to come home.

But the story says God is watching the road. Not waiting for you to deserve it. Not waiting for you to have it together. Not waiting for you to make it back on your own. Watching with hope still active, with love still oriented in your direction, ready to run before you even finish explaining yourself.

The Invitation to Watch

Here's where the story becomes uncomfortable: if we receive this good news only for ourselves, we've missed half of what Jesus is doing.

The father's patience isn't just a gift—it's a posture. And it's a posture we're being invited into.

There is someone in your life who hasn't come home yet. Someone you've been waiting on. Someone who's taken the long way around. Someone you're not sure will turn back toward you or toward health or toward the life they were meant to live.

The question isn't whether you're patient enough. The question is simpler and harder: Are you still watching the road?

Have you written them off, or is there still part of you standing at the edge of the property, scanning the horizon, refusing to let the story end?

The same father who ran toward the younger son also went out to the older brother. The same love that celebrates the broken pleads with the bitter. The same patience that watched for one lost person watches again for another.

Not Over Yet

We live in a culture with little use for this kind of patience. We celebrate speed, reward hustle, measure people by their output and efficiency. When something or someone takes longer than planned, we start wondering if we should cut our losses.

But divine love has decided that the story's not over. It watches the horizon because it has refused to stop hoping. It runs down the road before the apology is finished because love doesn't need to wait for a reason to move toward someone.

This is the love that has been aimed at us all along—not a love that waits for us to get it right, not a love withheld until we prove ourselves worthy, but a love already watching the road, already scanning the horizon, already moving toward us even before we start finding our way home.

May we trust that love. And may we extend it to others.

Luke 3:21–22

Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

While the Gospel of Luke begins with a well known and beloved story of Jesus’ birth, with angels and shepherds and swaddling clothes, followed by a brief interlude featuring Jesus as a somewhat prickly pre-teen, it quickly moves to the beginning of Jesus’ adulthood. That is, the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

The transition is marked, as so many are, with a ritual moment. Specifically, a baptismal scene. John (aka, Jesus’ cousin, who we already know is going to be a big deal in the religious scene of the day) is going around preaching baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He is challenging people to change the way they live; to live, in fact, as if they are actually forgiven. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” he says, before telling them to share generously and to treat people fairly.

When the people start to think that maybe John is the long awaited Messiah, he quickly corrects them. “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” We know this will be Jesus (thanks to the angels of the birth narrative), but before John’s words about Jesus are fulfilled, Jesus himself is baptized by John.

In Luke’s gospel, we don’t actually witness the moment of baptism, like we do in Mark and Matthew. Instead, we are invited into the moment immediately after the baptism when Jesus is praying. It is here that Luke says, the Holy Spirit descends upon him, and a divine voice proclaims to Jesus that he is the beloved son, with whom the Divine is well pleased.

It is then, after his baptism and the heavenly proclamation, that Jesus begins his work.

His ministry, his work–all the teachings, and healings, and forgiveness, and redemption that he offers people throughout his life–up to his death, and finally his resurrection, begins with this moment of recognition. For the Gospel of Luke, it is less about the baptism itself (any developed theology around the ritual of baptism comes later as the church formalizes its liturgy and practices) and more about what that baptism marks: God claiming Jesus as God’s Son. And not just a son, but a beloved son, with whom God is well pleased. We do not know if anyone else hears it, as the voice uses the second person singular. But it’s clear that the message, whether audible to others or not, is for Jesus.

Jesus is claimed for no other reason than God desires to do it. Jesus does not earn his belovedness–his work of ministry hasn’t even started–it just is. Love, holy and sacred love, from God is a gift to Jesus. It is undeserved, unearned, and even perhaps unexpected.

A gift always says something about the giver. These divine words of love and connection and joy reveal a God who loves freely and wholly, without strings attached, without demands or conditions. God loves because that is who God is. In the same way that God claims Jesus as beloved, God claims us, as well. We are loved not because we deserve it but because God loves us. Period. It is a gift, and we need only to receive it.

How would your life change if belovedness came before achievement?
How would it change your relationships if you offered love to others as an unearned, undeserved gift?

Luke 7:36-50

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and when he went into the Pharisee’s house he reclined to dine. And a woman in the city who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair, kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain moneylender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus really likes to eat. Story after story includes Jesus sitting around a table with others, eating and drinking. And it quickly becomes obvious that he does not discriminate when it comes to his dinner companions. From Pharisees, high-ranking religious leaders who set the social and behavioral standards for the Israelites, to tax-collectors and other sinners, Jesus will share a meal with anyone. In fact, Luke juxtaposes these situations to illustrate just how inclusive and powerful Jesus’ presence is, and to put in sharp relief what Jesus’ mission is.

Meals during this time were important affairs, usually held only two times a day. While morning meals could be more simple, evening meals were typically elaborate and were not rushed affairs. In shaded areas in and around the home, often in courtyards or porches open to the street, people would sit, or in wealthier households recline, around a table to enjoy a robust spread of breads, olives, vegetable stews, fish, honey, and all kinds of fruits.

Hospitality before the meal was expected and essential for sanitary purposes alone. Wiping the dirt off of a guest’s feet was an act of welcoming someone into your home as well as preventing the spread of germs. Providing oil or ointment to be applied to feet and hands was viewed as a common courtesy and simple hygiene, not something reserved for sacred rituals.

But when Jesus eats with Simon, a Pharisee, the typical hospitality is lacking. It’s only when an unnamed woman (whom we are told is a “sinner”) approaches the table, and begins to wash and anoint Jesus’ feet, that Simon seems to react in any way to Jesus’ presence. He reproaches Jesus for not being able to tell “what kind of woman” he is allowing to touch him. And Jesus calls him by name and then tells him a story.

Jesus’ story is reminiscent of Nathan’s story to David in 2 Samuel, told in order to cause the hearer to pass judgement on their own behavior. In the story Jesus tells, debt is a common metaphor for sin, and forgiveness is directly related to love. Jesus brings it home by relating the story directly to their situation. The woman, whose sins were many, is already forgiven, and she demonstrates overwhelming gratitude and love. While there is ambiguity in the original text around whether or not love enables forgiveness or is a demonstrative response to forgiveness, the link is clear. Love and forgiveness go together.

This woman, compelled by gratitude for who Jesus is and what his forgiveness means for her, slips into a space where she is not welcome. But she enters anyway, her love giving her courage to overcome whatever shame she is sure to encounter. Somehow, of all the people around the table, she sees Jesus clearly, and she responds accordingly. She pours out her perfume along with her tears, and is received, defended, and blessed by Jesus. Only God can forgive sins, so Jesus’ statement is an announcement of his power and divinity. What starts as an awkward moment at the dinner table becomes a sacred moment for everyone there who has eyes to witness it.

The relationship between sin and forgiveness is messy. It is not simple or straightforward; there is no easy formula. But when love is present, then the work becomes holy. Jesus’ forgiveness and love of this woman makes space for her to love him back, and she doesn’t hesitate. Jesus does the same for us.

Where has forgiveness made space for love in your life?
Where has love been the ground for forgiveness in your life?

Luke 10:25-37

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

By this point in the gospel of Luke, the religious leaders were getting feisty. They are fascinated by Jesus, inviting him to dinner and engaging him in conversation. But they were also worried about his growing influence amongst the people. A lawyer, a religious professional who was an expert in the Law, representing the religious elite, all of a sudden pipes up to test Jesus’–faithfulness? knowledge of the law? loyalty to the socioreligious power structure? Probably all of the above. And his question is meant as a challenge. What, he asks, must I do to inherit eternal life?

Of course Jesus answers with a question. What is the law?, he asks. He follows his response with another question, asking how the lawyer interprets, or “reads” it himself. The lawyer responds by quoting part of the Shema, a daily Jewish prayer, from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and adds the commandment from Leviticus 19:18. One must love God and love neighbor in order to have eternal life. Jesus indicates he is correct and the conversation seems to be over. But then the lawyer doubles down and ups the potential conflict by asking a hotly debated question: who is my neighbor?

While first century Judaism was inclusive in some ways (“Love the alien as yourself,” Lev. 19:34), it also had strict boundaries around how people could behave towards themselves and one another, who could do what to and with whom. These boundaries supported power dynamics and determined who was in and who was out. The lawyer was pushing Jesus to see where he would draw the boundary for how far his love should go.

And then Jesus proceeds to tell a story that pushes the boundary so much farther than anyone hearing could have ever imagined.

A man is beaten and left for dead, and, as Jesus tells it, has absolutely no identity. No way of determining if he was an Israelite or not, wealthy or not, a foreigner or not, employed or not. He has no social or political or religious qualifier that would make him a more sympathetic victim. He is simply a stranger, grievously wounded. The location of his attack would have been familiar to the crowd. The road down from Jerusalem to Jericho was notoriously dangerous, with lots of places for bandits to prowl. The man’s only hope is that someone will pass by to help him.

And someone does! But the priest, who by tradition would have had a duty to bury a corpse if he had seen it, does not stop. He goes down, away from Jerusalem, with no religious excuse for avoiding help. A Levite, a lesser temple worker, also passes by, ignoring the man. The third traveler stops though, finally someone who will help this poor man. Shockingly though, it is not an Israelite (which would have added an anticlerical tint to the story, showing an average person doing what the religious leaders would not). It is a Samaritan.

Samaritans were a group of people who were ethnically related to Jews, but they were considered unclean as they were descendents of Israelites in mixed marriages with Assyrians, and significantly, they did not center their worship on Jerusalem. Sometimes when we are similar to someone, it is the differences that stand out and offend us even more. And that seems to be the case between the Jews and Samaritans. It would have stunned the Jewish hearers that the person who came near to the wounded man, was moved with compassion, and went above and beyond to heal and help was not one of their own, but was, in fact, their annoying, unclean, offensive neighbor.

And yet, when the story concludes and Jesus asks which of the three travelers was the neighbor to the wounded man, the lawyer says, the one who showed mercy.

At this moment, even he no longer identifies the characters by their outward differences. The neighbor is characterized by his loving and gracious actions. The one who shows mercy, the one who acts with compassion, the one who gives without expectation of repayment or reward–that is your neighbor. The boundaries that we so often set up are defined by who we are willing to love, and we often start with who we do not. Jesus desires us to love much more expansively, without any boundary.

The question is no longer, who is your neighbor? The question is, will you be a good one?

Who is being redefined as your neighbor?
What does it mean for you to be a good neighbor?

Luke 15:11-32

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”


By now, the Pharisees and scribes (or lawyers) are downright mad. They really cannot get over how much Jesus hangs out with and how often he shares a meal with sinners. In response to their angst, Jesus tells three parables in quick succession. They all involve a character losing something precious, and the effort that character goes through to find the lost thing. The first is about a good shepherd who leaves the 99 other sheep to go find the one who is lost. The second is about a persistent woman who sweeps her whole house, searching until she finds her one lost coin. And the third, is about a father with two sons.

While the characters’ actions in the first two stories are predictable to Jesus’ first century audience, the characters in the third story are surprising.

The younger son is typically the favored son in Old Testament stories (ie, Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and his 11 brothers and Joseph). In this instance, it’s the younger son who starts the drama. He asks to receive his inheritance while his father is still alive. He would have inherited about a third of his father’s estate after his death, and his request essentially means he is treating his father as if he is already dead, thereby severing any future relationship.

The father allows this, and takes no action to reject or punish his son for his hurtful behavior. Rather, the father gives his son his share of the estate, which he takes as cash, and the next thing we know, the son has gone to a foreign land (which for Jews would be a Gentile land), and wasted it all in “dissolute living.” There is a famine, and the prodigal son realizes he only has one option if he is to survive: he must return home and beg his father to allow him not back into the family, but just to serve as a servant.

This is where the characters really veer off expected course. The father has not gone and searched for his son, like the characters in the previous stories did. Instead, once the son has turned towards home, the father sees him “while he is still far off.” The image is of a waiting and watching father, who always has an eye to the horizon, hoping for exactly this moment. The father then runs to meet his son. Running was considered undignified behavior, and certainly broke the norms of how a head of the household should act.

Once the father gets to his son, he embraces him, and does not even let him get to the heart of his prepared speech before signaling his forgiveness and restoration. While the son did not expect to be accepted back into his place in the family, the father immediately provides him with the symbols of the original relationship: a robe, a ring, sandals, and a celebration. Joy covers this moment and it mirrors the joy of the previous two stories when the lost item is found.

But this story isn’t over. The older son is working in the field, and presumably had been faithfully helping his family the whole time his younger brother had been wasting his life. He hears the party, learns what is going on, and refuses to go in. This time, the father does come looking for his son. He pleads with the older brother to come and celebrate, but the older brother refuses, anger pouring out of him. The father tries to explain, but the last words of the story do not resolve this tension. We are left wondering if the father ever convinced the older brother to join him in celebrating the return of his brother.

While often focusing on the younger son, or even on the brothers, this story is as much about a father, who waits, who forgives, who invites, and who seeks out his children. He acts in socially unacceptable ways (almost like someone who eats with sinners…), which requires generous, unconditionally, powerful love. The kind of love that waits at the edge of the driveway with open arms, and that goes out into the field to invite in. There is an obvious connection to God, revealing not a vengeful or angry or punishing relationship between the divine and humanity, but rather a patient and hopeful love that is always moving towards us, never giving up.

What kind of love waits without conditions?
How might you practice true love this week?

John 13:1-7

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

This week we are going to take a quick excursion to the Gospel of John.

This gospel is a bit of a wild card. It was probably written slightly later than Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and yet does not seem to use them as direct references. In John, Jesus doesn’t do or say many of the things he does and says in the Synoptic gospels, while other stories and speeches are added. The pacing, locations, and structure of Jesus’ life is also different. But it nonetheless provides a historically and theologically integral lens through which we can view Jesus and his ministry.

One of the most beautiful parts of John is the narrative of the night before Jesus is crucified. In John, Jesus’ actions and conversation with his disciples cover over five chapters. The night begins with a meal. But instead of speaking the words that institute the Lord’s supper, like in the other gospels, Jesus does something surprising.

His friends are gathered at the table to eat a meal before the Passover. In the middle of the meal, Jesus himself engages in a humble act of hospitality towards his disciples. As we have talked about, washing and anointing feet, before a meal especially, was a common practice during the time when wearing sandals on dusty roads would have made for a particularly messy home and dining area. However, it was not something the host did themselves, rather it was the job for lower staff or members of the household. But Jesus is always flipping the expectations of those around him. So it is he who takes off his robe, assumes the position of a servant, and carefully washes the feet of his friends. And he dries them with the towel he had wrapped around him. He is not washing their feet with a disgusted or hesitant or reluctant attitude, gingerly holding the dirty towel as far away from him as possible. He is coming into full contact with their mess, and absorbing what he can in order to leave them clean.

Peter, per usual, does not quite understand. He is confused about how Jesus–this incredible teacher, healer, miracle worker, clearly holy and learned man, whom Peter has been loyally following for years–is presenting himself. How could Jesus be the one to wash his feet? But Jesus calmly replies that he knows what he is doing, and Peter needs to trust him.

Jesus is more explicit about his actions later on in the narrative. But in this moment, we are left with the question Peter implies: “Why would someone with influence and power, or even a modicum of self-respect, act like a servant?”

And in this moment, we are reminded that love is not merely an abstract emotion. It is not something we feel, that comes and goes, as transient as the weather. Love is an act of service. It might be humble, low to the ground, something easily considered beneath us, but nevertheless it is tangible care we show for another. It is a powerful act that Jesus does now for his friends. He serves them the night before he dies for them. He models love in action, as hospitality and as care, before modeling love as making the ultimate sacrifice. If he’s willing to give his life for their sake, for all of our sakes, then he can easily kneel down and wash their feet.  Like Peter, even if we don’t understand, Jesus is inviting us to accept and believe that Jesus’ radical act of love is for us as well.

What does love look like when it serves quietly?
Whose feet do you need to wash, and who do you need to allow to wash your feet?

Luke 19:28-44

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,
“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

And now back to the Gospel of Luke.

Jesus has been heading toward Jerusalem since chapter 9, approaching the city that carried so much meaning and symbolism and hope for the Jewish people. Jerusalem was the physical location of their socio-political-religious life, the holy city where God’s final salvific work would manifest in the Messiah, an earthly ruler who would overthrow the oppressive foreign forces, and once and for all rise up the fully realized Kingdom of God, reigning over all others nations. Jesus has been to Jerusalem before, first when he was dedicated as a baby, and every year with his parents for the Passover. The significance and expectation of this location would not be lost on him. He would know it in his bones, as he now returns for a final time.

Jesus leans into the anticipation that he knows his followers have. But if we know anything about Jesus at this point, he moves in a way that still defies expectations.

As he prepares to enter the city, he tells his disciples to go and get him a colt. If anyone asks, he says, tell them it’s for the Lord. Jesus then sits on the colt and rides into town from the Mount of Olives, directly east of Jerusalem. Triumphant processionals featuring a conquering ruler were not uncommon, and spreading cloaks on the ground was a symbolic act recognizing Jesus as king. Rather than a warhorse, though, Jesus is entering on a young colt (in other gospels it’s specified as a donkey), revealing what kind of king he will truly be. And his disciples are rejoicing. Loudly. They are praising God, declaring Jesus as king, and shouting an echo of the angels’ proclamation at his birth: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”

The image Jesus embodies pulls firmly on a thread that runs all the way back to Israel’s ancient prophets. For anyone at all familiar with the words of Zechariah 9:9-10, which would have been most Israelites, it would be impossible not to see the clear connection. And oh, yes, the people do. Especially the Pharisees, who are threatened and afraid of what Jesus’ presence could mean. If he is king, that is a political threat to Rome (which is the legal grounds used to crucify Jesus) and could result in disastrous consequences for the Jewish people. Jesus being king also means that the season of their political and religious power has come to an end. That’s a difficult pill for people with authority to swallow.

So they push back on Jesus and his disciples, telling them to be quiet. But Jesus does not stop, claiming that even if humans are quiet, the earth knows who Jesus is at this point.

In Zechariah, the king will enter Jerusalem, humble on the colt, and will cut off the means of war, and will command peace to the ends of the earth. The angels and then the disciples announce Jesus’ presence in the world and in Jerusalem as a declaration of peace.

Jesus pauses before entering Jerusalem. He looks over the city, and he weeps. He knows that they still will not embrace the peace he brings, and he knows the destruction that will come as a result. Yet he is not angry that people will not accept or believe him. His heart breaks for them and he grieves.

While Luke is writing after the destruction of the Temple in 70ce., Jesus’ words are offered as prophecy. His love will be rejected, but that does not stop him from showing it and living it out anyway, despite what it costs him. This kind of love is not performative, it is prophetic and present, and as we will see, powerful beyond expectation.

What breaks your heart the way love does?
What would it take for you to love even with a broken heart?

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

It’s been a long journey to this point. In the last week or so, Jesus has clashed directly with the powerful Jewish leaders in the Temple. He has shared a last supper and spoken words of blessing and leavetaking with his disciples. Then, in a matter of three days, Jesus was violently arrested, tried, beaten, mocked, tortured, and crucified. His disciples scattered, and only a few of them, some women who had followed him from the very beginning, remained nearby, witnessing the location of his body’s burial.

There is confusion, fear, and most of all grief. In the face of the swirling emotions, the women do what they know to do: they prepare to anoint their Lord’s body one last time.

At early dawn, as the light is just creeping over the horizon, the women go to the tomb. Instead of a sealed grave, they find the stone rolled away and immediately look around for Jesus’ body. In the middle of their concerned wonder, two dazzling men appear, whom the women immediately recognize as messengers of the divine. The men ask, why do you look for the living among the dead? And they tell the women that Jesus has been raised, just like he had told them he would be.

The women remember that Jesus had said this, and they realize what has happened. That Jesus, really and truly is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord that they had hoped he’d be all along. And that even death could not prevent the love and grace and power of Jesus from bursting forth for the sake of the world.

It is obvious that as much as they tried, as much as they wanted, as much as they had reason to believe that Jesus was who he said he was and who he showed them he was, they could not quite fully comprehend the full impact of what he was trying to reveal. They had heard him talking about being raised, but they couldn’t quite believe it. Otherwise, they would not have gotten up early to head to the tomb at all.

Sometimes it is difficult to really understand the power that love has in our lives and in this world. Sometimes it is easier to hate, easier to let fear take over, easier to give into despair. Sometimes we only have eyes for what is dead, and can’t imagine that new life is possible. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ revealed something that morning to the women, and then to Peter and the other disciples, and now to us today.

The resurrection revealed that love is, and will always be, alive and well. That love is with us and for us, and that not even death can stop it from working to bring the glory of God’s goodness to all of creation.

This is what we celebrate on Easter morning, and every day. That love lives, and love wins. When we receive this true and abiding and sacred love and offer it to others, we too can be raised to new life, fully participating in the love of God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, now and always.


Where are you being invited to look for life again?
How can you let love bring life to you and others this season?