Good morning, friends.

It's good to see you all.

Welcome once again.

For those who do not know me, my name is Mitchell.

I'm the senior minister here, and it's a great joy to be with you this morning.

And if you are a first-time guest, seriously, we're glad you're here.

We hope you come back and worship with us again in the future.

And you're catching us right at the end of a worship series we've been calling Facts, Frequently Asked Questions.

 Not more facts, just facts.

And you know, we solicited questions that you all had last time we did this, and I told you all we got like 90.

But I'm recognizing that

 you know, the curious mind may have new questions or different questions than what was originally submitted.

And so, while this is the end of the series, I anticipate it coming back again because it's so well loved by many of you.

If you have a question you want me to answer, I can't promise that I'll answer it from the pulpit, but I will at least try to respond to your email.

 Send me an email with your question, mboone at fumcdallas.org.

I'd love to read whatever questions are burning within you.

And the whole point of this series is really to wrestle with the real honest questions, not the sort of questions we're supposed to ask, but the real ones.

The ones that are often asked quietly over cups of coffee or in the halls or in emails.

 The ones that come up at dinner tables or on long drives in the quiet moments when not a whole lot of folks are listening.

And to take those questions and to try to answer them faithfully.

And today is obviously the last one.

And I want to say before we start that I think

Good morning, friends.

Welcome to First-Year Mother's Church of Dallas once again.

We're really glad you're here.

My name is Mitchell, and I really mean that.

I just realized about halfway through that you've already been welcomed probably three times.

So, but...

 If you don't know who I am, it's your first time here.

My name's Mitchell, I'm the senior minister here.

And seriously, if you're a guest this morning, we're really delighted that you're here.

Hope you come back and spend some time with us.

We're really serious about our mission statement and we wanna create space for you to belong.

And so know that that's a real invitation.

 And I wanna start this morning off on this Mother's Day by saying something that might feel a little out of place, but it is true.

You are allowed to be tired.

You're allowed to be tired.

Moms that are in this space, you are allowed to be tired.

 Not just busy, but actually tired, like worn out.

That's okay.

There is a difference, and I think most of us know exactly what that difference feels like, even if we never have said it out loud in a room like this.

Busyness is a calendar problem.

Busyness is a sort of logistics problem, but being tired is a spiritual one.

 Busy has a fix, just do less things.

But tired I think runs deeper than that, being worn out, being exhausted, runs deeper than just what one good night's sleep would solve, although I'd take one of those.

 Tired is what happens when you've been giving and giving and giving and giving and somewhere along the way, the giving sort of stopped being connected to receiving or nourishment.

And of course, on this Mother's Day, we recognize that a day like today, it carries a lot of complexities with it.

 Of course, for some of us this morning, it is a day of genuine celebration, and I hope that you experience that.

I really do.

But for others of us, this day sits heavy with grief or with absence or in the midst of a relationship that does not neatly fit into a $3.99 card.

No.

No.

 For many of you who are mothers yourselves, today is one more Sunday in a long season where you've been holding the world up for everyone around you, and almost no one has stopped to ask whether or not you are okay.

Here's what I've noticed about our culture, and specifically our culture and mothers.

Mothers are rarely allowed to be tired.

 Not really tired.

Mothers can say the word, I'm tired or worn out.

They can joke about it.

They can post about it on social media.

But the moment the exhaustion actually becomes true, the moment the depletion is real and not performed, something soft like a serpent in the garden, I would say, says,

 just keep going, it's okay, or you signed up for this, or other people have it harder, or what about the kids, or what about everyone else?

And I want to say something gently and directly to every person in this room who's been carrying more than their share for longer than they want to admit.

God actually has a question for us this morning that I think will help us reorient ourselves to the

 the tired, worn out nature that many of us are operating in.

And this question isn't, it's not a rebuke.

That's good.

It's not an accusation.

God's not making an accusation this morning.

It's simply an invitation.

And to get us to that invitation,

 Our scripture this morning is, I know y'all all had this on your bingo cards for Mother's Day, will be in 1 Kings, yeah, 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 1 through 13, everyone's favorite Mother's Day text.

So here we go.

1 Kings 19, verses 1 through 13.

1 Kings 19.

 Now King Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

And then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.

Then Elijah was afraid and he got up and he fled for his life and he came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.

 And that's where he left his servant.

But he himself, on a day's journey, Elijah went into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.

 And he asked that he might die, saying, it is enough now, O Lord.

Take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.

And then he lay down under the broom tree, and Elijah fell asleep.

And suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, Elijah, get up and eat.

 So Elijah looked and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones in a jar of water and he ate and he drank and then Elijah lay down again and the angel of the Lord came a second time and touched him and said, get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you.

So Elijah got up and he ate and drank and then he went in the strength of that food for 40 days and

 and 40 nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

And at that place, Elijah came to a cave and Elijah spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying, what are you doing here, Elijah?

 He answered, I've been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, throw down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword.

I alone am left and they are seeking my life to take it away.

He said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by.

 Now there was a great wind so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence.

And when Elijah heard it,

 He wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And then there came a voice to him that said, what are you doing here, Elijah?

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.

Will you pray with me?

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

For you are the one who meets us in the wilderness and asks the question we most need to hear.

Amen.

 So before we go any further in this sermon and with this text, you need to know something about Elijah, something I think that's really critical.

Elijah is not a failure.

 It's not like he isn't up for the task or he is out running God or trying to circumnavigate what God is asking him to do.

It's not like that.

Elijah is not spiritually weak.

He has not wandered from his faith or made some catastrophic mistake.

 that landed him under the broom tree in the middle of the wilderness.

The chapter right before this one is, chapter 18 is one of the most dramatic chapters in the entire Old Testament.

Elijah has just faced down 450 prophets of Baal and on Mount Carmel and he called down fire from heaven and he won.

And by any measure of prophetic accomplishment, Elijah is at the absolute top of his game.

 And then one threatening message from Queen Jezebel and Elijah runs.

He runs a full day's journey into the wilderness and he sits under a broom tree and he says, it's enough.

I'm done.

Lord, take my life.

I'm over it.

I'm so overwhelmed.

 Elijah is feeling like we do, like what happens when all this stuff, all the weightiness of a moment rises to the surface when we come face to face with the cost of faithfulness and when the resistance has been real.

Elijah has just won an incredible battle and Elijah has nothing left to give.

I think we know that feeling.

 not super common but i think we all have these moments in our life where we have sort of reached the end of giving everything we have i know there have been times in my own ministry where i've felt like i've been faithful that i've answered the movement of the spirit that i have trying to discern and trust and faithfully lead a congregation and

 Instead of applause or gratitude, it's just a lot of complaining.

And I have felt sort of that resistance and I have felt being misunderstood.

And it's that sort of soul level exhaustion that comes with it.

It's not the work per se, but from doing the right work and feeling completely alone in it.

 And wondering quietly in the places that you don't say out loud whether any of it actually matters or not.

That is Elijah under the broom tree.

Not faithless, just simply depleted.

And God doesn't just fix it.

 God does not rebuke Elijah for feeling this way.

God does not remind Elijah of what he has accomplished or suggest that other prophets have had it harder.

God simply sends an angel, and the angel wakes Elijah up from his slumber and says, hey, just eat something.

 That is the whole first response that God has to Elijah's pity party under the broom tree.

It's not a strategy.

It's not a sermon.

Simply God gives Elijah bread and water and rest.

And then when Elijah lies back down, the angel comes again and says, hey, get up and eat some more because the journey ahead of you is too much for you.

And that's the truth for all of us this morning.

 The journey is too much for you too.

I want every mother in this room to hear those words today because

 Our world never says them.

The world is perfectly content to let you keep going on empty, to keep performing capable, together, being put together and being fine, to keep being the emotional anchor, not only for your children or your spouse or partner, but also for your aging parents and also the emotional anchor at your workplace.

The world will take everything you have and call it love and never once say to you, this is too much for you to do alone.

 Rest.

You cannot keep going like this.

 But God says it to Elijah, and through Elijah, God is saying it to us here this morning.

Because the first thing God does with depletion is not wipe it away.

God simply works to address it.

And Elijah then walks 40 days on the strength of that food and arrives at Horeb, the mountain of God, and goes into a cave and spends the night.

And the word of the Lord comes to him, and God asks a question.

What are you doing here, Elijah?

 four words that I have not been able to sort of walk away from all week long as I've wrestled with this text.

And at first I thought it was sort of a sarcastic approach that God was taking with Elijah, essentially spurring him to leave the cave.

And while I think ultimately that is the goal that God has, I really think that this question lands a lot better when we think about it in terms of a

 the question we ask one another all the time, how are you doing?

That's essentially what God is doing here.

What are you doing here, Elijah?

How are you doing, Elijah?

What are you doing here?

What has brought you to this place?

What are you carrying that has driven you so far back into this cave?

What is the true condition of your life right now?

And will you say it out loud to someone who is actually listening?

 And Elijah answers, I've been zealous.

I've been, I've given everything I have and I'm the only one left and I am completely alone and they want to take my life.

And now this is Elijah's truth and God lets him speak it.

God does not interrupt Elijah.

God does not correct him.

God first makes space for Elijah to say what is true inside him, even if it's not the whole truth.

 Because Elijah thinks that he is the only one left, but that actually is not true.

There are 7,000 others who have not bowed down to Baal.

But God giving Elijah space to speak his truth, that matters.

That is not merely a footnote in the story.

It is the essence of our text because there is something profoundly generous about a God who asks us a question and then waits for us to answer.

 Most of the forces in our lives, most of the people in our lives ask how we are doing as a formality, as a greeting, and have already moved on before we open our mouths.

We live in a world not set up to receive an honest answer to how you are doing.

So we learn not to give an honest answer to how we're doing.

We learn to say, oh, we're fine.

We're busy.

 We're stressed.

We produce a socially acceptable summary of the interior life, and then we keep moving because there's much to do, much to accomplish.

And somewhere along the line, in that long practice of saying fine, we stop knowing how to say anything else.

We even stop knowing how to be honest with God.

 But God asks the question again after the wind and after the earthquake and after the fire, after all the spectacular noise where God was not found, it is in the sheer silence that the voice comes back and asks Elijah again, what are you doing here?

How are you?

 The question for today is, why do I need the church?

But underneath that question, if we're being honest, is something more like, does any of this even matter?

Is there not an easier, more engaging way to find connection and meaning?

I'm worn out, I'm tired, I have obligations everywhere.

Is Sunday morning one more thing or is it actually something different?

 Now for our graduating seniors, maybe the question feels a little more urgent.

You're leaving soon.

You're about to step into a world that will offer you a thousand substitutes to this.

 New friendships, new communities that feel exciting and immediate and all of that actually that's really good.

It should have new friends and new communities and do fun things and make some mistakes and grow.

 But before you go, I want you to hear this.

You are leaving this place with a memory, a memory of a place that asks you the real question, how are you doing, and waited for an answer.

And I want you to take that with you.

And when the new chapter that you're embarking on gets hard, remember that the church is not just building you a building that you grew up in.

It is a way of being with people that the world will not naturally accept.

 offer you anywhere else the answer the text gives us is this the church at its best is the place where the question gets asked and then someone someone just waits for the real answer how are you doing

 Governments have been labeling loneliness a public health epidemic for a few years now.

It's not a personal failing to be lonely It's an epidemic and every generation is experiencing it the silent generation is lonely because everyone that they know Everyone that they have loved they've buried Boomers are lonely because the digital world moved faster than they could follow and

 Scrolling Facebook is such a boomer thing, isn't it?

Gen X is lonely because the institutions that once held communities together have crumbled.

Millennials, we're lonely because technology promised connection and delivered something entirely different.

 and Gen Z studies show have fewer friendships than any generation to ever be studied.

We are the most connected people in history with the ability to contact anyone at any time when we feel like it, and we, at this moment in time, are starving for real connection.

 It isn't to say that social media can't be that for us, but it is not naturally a place that is going to cultivate real relationships.

It is possible actually to be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.

It is possible to be the person everyone depends on and have no one who actually knows how you are doing.

The dopamine hit of the scroll

 Scrolling through our newsfeed at midnight, not because it satisfies us, but because it requires nothing from us, is a quintessential picture of the moment in which we're living in.

Because social media and cheap connections, they don't require anything from us.

No vulnerability, no risk, no one to disappoint, and no one asking us how we're doing it.

 Bad theology on social media will tell us that you don't need the church, that you can be spiritual without being religious, that you can find God on a walk or in a podcast.

Certainly God is with you on a walk or a podcast.

And that the church is, though, just overhead or just one more obligation in a life already thick with obligations.

 There is something true, I think, about that critique.

The church has earned some of our skeptics, and I know that.

But here is what a walk alone cannot do.

Here's what a podcast alone cannot do.

It cannot ask you what you are doing here or how you are doing.

 It cannot wait for the real answer.

It cannot be the place where the noise finally stops and someone looks at you and sees the depletion and hands you bread and says, you cannot keep going on like this.

Please rest, eat something, and tell me how you are really doing.

 You're not alone.

God does not answer Elijah's loneliness with a proposition.

God answers it simply with presence.

First the angel, then the food, then the question, then the silence, then the question again.

And if you are sitting here this morning and the honest answer to that question, how are you doing or why are you here, is I do not know, that's okay.

Okay.

 Maybe you're here out of habit, or maybe it's obligation, or maybe because you've not figured out how to stop coming.

That is okay.

The fact that you are here and cannot fully articulate why might be the most honest thing that you can say in church.

Because sometimes we arrive in the presence of God before we know why we came.

 Elijah was in the cave when God asked the question, not on the mountaintop, not in a posture triumphant moment of faith.

He was hiding and God asked the question anyway.

And after all the wind and the earthquakes and the fire and in the sheer silence, right, then the voice came.

The church is supposed to be

 that silence for you in your life, not the performance of certainty, not the spectacle of a rigid posturing faith, the quiet in which a real question can be asked and a real answer can be given by someone and something true, that there can be real connection between human beings who are all, every single one of us, more tired than we let on.

Maybe that is exactly what this place is for.

 not to fix us before we can show up, not to require that we have a better answer than we had last week, but simply to keep asking the question again and again in the silence beneath the noise until we find ourselves moving from the back of the cave to the front of the cave, not completely out of the cave, but at least we are moving closer to the light.

And so, friends, God is asking you this morning, what are you doing here?

 Why are you here?

You do not have to have a polished answer.

You just have to be here engaged and willing to stay engaged long enough to hear the question asked again.

Because the journey that we are all on, it's too much, friends.

 It's too much to go alone.

That was always true.

It will always be true.

And that is why you are here this morning.

That is what matters.

That is why the church, for all of its failures and limitations, is still the place where the question gets asked.

And in the silence, there is something holy.

 and you are never alone in that holiness.

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

Will We See Our Pets in Heaven? A Question of Love, Loss, and God's Goodness

The question sounds almost trivial at first, doesn't it? "Will I see my dog in heaven?" It's the kind of question that might make us feel a little embarrassed to ask out loud, as if it's not quite serious enough for theological consideration. We expect deep questions about doubt, suffering, and the nature of God—but our pets?

Yet this question reveals something profound about the human heart. We're not really asking about the logistics of the afterlife. We're asking whether the love we shared with another living being—the companionship, the loyalty, the joy—matters in the grand scheme of things. We're asking if our grief is legitimate. We're asking if God cares about the things that break our hearts.

The Theology We've Inherited

Most of us have absorbed a particular vision of heaven without even realizing it. It goes something like this: Earth is temporary, a waiting room. Heaven is somewhere else, somewhere up there. The physical world—bodies, animals, nature—doesn't really matter in the end. The goal is escape, evacuation, getting out of here and going somewhere better.

This theology has shaped how we sing, how we talk about death, and how we think about what comes next. But what if we've gotten the direction wrong?

Heaven Comes Down

The book of Revelation offers us a stunning vision in its twenty-first chapter. John sees "a new heaven and a new earth," and then something unexpected happens: the holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down from heaven to earth. Not up. Down.

God doesn't say, "I'm taking you away from all this." God says, "The home of God is among mortals." The direction of redemption is not escape—it's return. God is moving toward creation, not away from it.

This changes everything about how we think about the end of all things. If God's ultimate plan were to scrap the earth, to evacuate human souls to some ethereal realm while leaving everything else behind, then maybe our grief over a beloved pet would be misplaced. But that's not the story Scripture tells.

God Makes Things

Go back to the beginning. Before we learn anything else about God—before righteousness, holiness, or power—we learn that God is a creator. God makes things. And at the end of each day of creation, God looks at what has been made and calls it good.

Not useful. Not temporary. Good.

The animals are called good. The wild creatures, the birds, the fish—every living thing receives God's blessing and God's declaration of goodness. The first thing God ever said about creation was that it was good. The last thing John sees in his vision is God coming down to dwell among that good creation.

This is not a God who is indifferent to what God made.

All Creation Is Groaning

Paul writes in Romans 8 that "the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of labor," waiting to be set free from bondage and decay. Not just people—all of creation is groaning. The animals, the rivers, the mountains, the forests, the oceans. Everything is waiting for liberation.

Your grief over a beloved animal is not separate from this groaning. It's woven into it. The pain you feel when you have to make that impossible decision at the vet's office, when you say goodbye to a companion who gave you unconditional love—that pain is part of creation's longing for wholeness.

Pain, grief, death, and loss were not God's design. They're the unfortunate byproducts of the freedom God gave creation. Freedom comes with risk. Agency comes with the possibility of suffering. And so all of creation waits and yearns for the day when suffering will be no more.

All Things New

The most important word in Revelation 21 might be this one: new. "See, I am making all things new."

Not all people. Not all souls. All things.

The Greek word here is kainos, which doesn't mean brand new from scratch. It means renewed, restored, refurbished—made what it was always meant to be. God is not starting over. God is redeeming what already exists, completing what was always intended.

Before John sees the new creation, he sees something remarkable in Revelation 5: around the throne of God, "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea" joins in worship. The song at the end of all things is not a human chorus alone. It's the voice of all creation—everything that breathes and moves and has been called good by God, gathered together in praise.

The Promise Is Wide

God promises to wipe away every tear. Not some tears. Every single one. God will end all mourning, all grief, all pain. "Death will be no more."

If that promise is as wide as it sounds—and Scripture suggests it is—then the love you shared with your pet is not beneath God's concern. It's not a loose end. It's not trivial.

The God who bent down to form the creatures of the earth with the same hands that formed us, the God who declared them good, the God who promises a new creation where every tear is wiped away—that God has not forgotten what you lost.

What We Hope For

We don't have a precise blueprint of what the new creation looks like. Anyone who claims to have all the answers is being more confident than Scripture allows. But we can say what the text says:

God called the animals good from the beginning. All of creation is waiting for liberation. The vision of the end includes every creature joining the song. And the promise is that everything and everyone who didn't quite get to do what they were made for—everything bent and broken by this world's groaning—gets to be made whole.

Gets to find their place. Gets to discover their purpose and joy. Gets to be, at last, what they were always meant to be.

A Legitimate Grief

The culture doesn't leave much room for grief over animals. You get a few days, maybe a week. Then you're supposed to move on, get another pet, stop being so sentimental.

But grief doesn't work that way. Love doesn't work that way.

If you're still carrying the loss of a beloved companion years later, that's not weakness or foolishness. That's the natural consequence of having loved something deeply. And if God is making all things new, then that love—and that loss—matters more than the world tells you it does.

God is making all things new. All things. And we can hope that promise is exactly as wide as it sounds.

Well, good morning, friends.

It is good to see each and every one of you.

If you are a guest this morning, once again, welcome.

My name is Mitchell.

I serve as a senior minister here, and we are in the midst of a worship series, week two, a series we're calling Facts, Frequently Asked Questions.

And we put out a call because, like I said, this is a

 a sequel to a series we did last year.

We put out a call for questions, got almost 90 of them last year, and so we didn't do that again.

You all asked plenty of questions to work through.

And when I was reading through these questions in preparation for this series, I expected the theology stuff.

We're a deep-thinking church.

I expected questions around doubt, because I think we all carry it in some form or fashion.

I expected the hard stuff, and yeah,

 thank you you you submitted the hard stuff and we got all of that but more uh people asked about their pets than I thought uh I thought would happen and so here we are week two of uh more facts and the question uh for today is will I see my dog in heaven

 And so I want to start by telling you about my dog, Hava, and how she came into my life.

I was in my last semester of seminary, gathered together with my fellow students and dear friends.

We had a little group, probably about 10 of us, and we would get together every Sunday night in Denver to, well...

 to watch Game of Thrones.

We streamed Game of Thrones from a BitTorrent download because we were poor seminary students who strong ethical convictions did not extend to corporate profit.

Just being honest.

 And at some point during the evening, someone pulled up one of those old BuzzFeed quizzes.

I don't remember if it was like, what kind of dog are you or what kind of dog should you own?

I don't remember which one, but I took the quiz and I do remember the number one answer.

And that was a Spanish water dog.

And I had never heard of a Spanish water dog before.

 Now, like I said, we did have strong ethical convictions.

And every single person in the room said that I should adopt and not buy a dog.

And they're right.

And that's the right thing to do.

But I was curious about the Spanish water dog.

So I looked it up.

 And there were three Spanish water dog breeders in the United States, three breeders in the entire country, and one of them was 41 miles away from Lone Oak, Texas.

And I was moving to Lone Oak in three months.

And if you don't know Lone Oak, shame on you.

It's a town of about 500 people east of Dallas.

 One stop light.

And like I've said many times from this poll, but one of the best bacon cheeseburgers in the entire state at the grocery store.

And so I just accepted my first appointment in Lone Oak and I was moving from Denver, which is Denver's awesome.

I was moving to Lone Oak.

 in East Texas, I'd never been there, and I would be a solo pastor of a little United Methodist church there, but

 They had a parsonage and it had a three quarters of an acre yard.

And I was 26 and I didn't know anyone.

And I was both excited and terrified, probably in equal measure.

And so I called the breeder and I learned about Hava.

And she had been born actually in Spain.

Hava had been born in Spain and brought to the United States specifically to help introduce the breed to

 to Americans.

And she was brought over for that purpose, but her hips weren't perfect.

She had a little bit of hip dysplasia, nothing debilitating, but enough of it that they didn't want to enter it into the gene pool so early.

So here was this dog, already four years old, with a job she was supposed to do and a body that wouldn't cooperate, and she needed a home.

And so three weeks after moving to Lone Oak, I adopted Hava.

 And I want to tell you about her for just a minute because, well, she deserves it.

Spanish water dogs were bred specifically to work with fishermen off the coast of Spain.

These dogs would spend their entire day right next to one other person, a fisherman, in a small boat in the water.

And

 The owner would send the dog out into the ocean to help herd schools of fish into nets.

One person, one dog, all day in a tiny boat, which means they were bred over centuries for one thing, loyalty, proximity.

 the deep instinct to be near another person they belong to.

Hava was that dog.

She wanted to be close to me, not in sort of an anxious way or an annoying way, not in a way that made you feel like she was following you around everywhere.

She just wanted to be at your feet, so she would find you wherever you were in the house and settle in.

She slept on her back with her feet up against the wall.

It was very cute and a bit weird.

 She was obsessed with tennis balls, her one tennis ball.

She would adopt one tennis ball for a season, and I swear I could throw 20 tennis balls out in the backyard, but she'd find the one that she had adopted and she would carry it around with her everywhere she went.

She was smart and a bit silly, and honestly, she was exactly what I needed when I moved from Denver to Lone Oak.

 Because those early years in ministry were lonely in ways that are sometimes hard to explain, and the parsonage was big.

 four bedrooms.

The town was small, and I was building something from scratch within myself, really, relationally and vocationally.

And most days, most days, I was really not that busy.

Most days, it was just me, three quarters of an acre of land and a Spanish water dog who had no interest in being anywhere other than right next to me.

 She became my constant.

And Eli and I have talked about getting another dog, and the boys would love it.

And we have the space.

It's kind of a sin we don't have one with the yard we do have.

And every time we get close to that decision, we find a reason to wait.

The schedules are complicated.

It takes a lot of coordination and care, it turns out, to keep things alive in a house.

And there's already four of us.

 two hermit crabs, so we're busy.

But if I'm being honest, the deeper truth is we're still grieving.

We said goodbye to Hava at the City Vet on Gaston and Garland Road.

Some of you know that intersection.

And we knew it was time.

She had developed a brain tumor, and we could have extended her life, but that would have been for our benefit, not hers.

 So we made the harder, more loving decision and we let her go.

And the boys were young enough at the time that their world included her but didn't revolve around her.

Eli and I are the ones I think who felt it most and honestly, we still feel it.

I don't always know what to do with that grief because the culture that we live in doesn't leave a lot of room for it.

 You get a few days, maybe a week, you're not supposed to still be sitting with the loss of a dog years later.

You're supposed to just get another one.

But grief doesn't work that way.

Love doesn't work that way.

So here's what I wanna say before we get into the text.

I don't think that this question, will I see my dog in heaven, is an embarrassing one that we're asking.

 I think we're asking it because many of us have loved something deeply and lost it.

And we want to know whether or not our love survives.

So it may seem trivial, but it's really not a small question.

It's a question of depth and meeting and ultimately God's goodness.

So this morning to help us answer that question specifically, we're in the book of Revelation.

I'll be reading from chapter 21, verses 1 through 5.

 The author says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

I saw a holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, see, see the home of God is among mortals.

 He will dwell with them.

They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

For the first things have passed away.

And the one who is seated on the throne said, see, I am making all things new.

 Also, he said, write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.

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.

Will you pray with me?

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

 Help us to trust, to really trust that you are indeed making all things new.

Amen.

There's a lot going on in the book of Revelation.

We know that.

But one of the things that jumps out at us really quickly when we read this text in the 21st chapter is the orientation, the location of heaven.

Heaven is

 I hate to break it to you all, but heaven in this chapter does not go up.

It comes down.

And I know that runs against most of what we have absorbed our whole life.

We've been singing about going up to heaven our whole lives.

 We picture this upward motion leaving the earth behind, arriving somewhere else where the real permanent life finally, finally begins.

The theology most of us have inherited is somewhere along the way.

It goes something like this.

Earth is essentially temporary.

It's a temporary location.

Heaven is permanent.

The body is.

 doesn't really matter that much.

Animals, they don't matter.

The physical world is essentially just a waiting room.

And the goal, the ultimate goal is to get out, to leave earth behind, get to heaven.

And while we may not fully believe that or our logical self can't fully buy into that, it has no doubt become a part of our embedded eschatology, how we think about the end.

 But heaven as an escape, as a physical place somewhere else, is not what John sees in his vision.

John sees the holy city coming down.

The new Jerusalem descending from heaven towards earth.

And the voice from the throne does not say, I'm taking you away from all of this.

Sorry, unfortunately.

It says the home of God is among mortals.

 The direction of redemption in Revelation 21 then is not a direction of escape.

It is a return.

God is moving towards creation, not creation escaping from itself.

 And that reframe, that simple reframing of heaven's location, changes everything about the question we're asking today.

Because if we have the theology wrong, then we will have the answer wrong.

If we believe that God's ultimate plan is to scrap earth, to do away with it, to evacuate the human souls to some other realm, then maybe the animals don't make the cut.

 Maybe the physical world is just kindling.

Maybe grief over a dog is essentially a category error, right?

An attachment to something that was never meant to last.

 But John is not writing that kind of theology, and neither is the rest of Scripture, if we're honest, because if we go back all the way to Genesis 1, before anything else is said about who God is, before we know that God is righteous and holy and powerful, the first thing we learn about God is that God makes things.

That's the first thing we learn about God, that God is a creator, right?

 God creates.

And at the end of each day of God's creation, God looks at what has been made and God calls it good.

Not useful.

Not temporary.

Good.

The animals are called good, the wild creatures of the earth, the birds, the fish in the sea, every living thing.

God looks at it all, all of it, and says, it is good.

 The first thing God ever said about creation was that it was good.

The last thing John sees in his vision is God coming down to dwell amongst that good creation.

That is not a God who is indifferent to what God made.

And yet, for some reason...

 The creation we know is not the creation as God designed it to be.

Paul names this plainly in Romans 8.

He says a whole of creation, all of creation has been groaning.

 groaning together in pains of labor, waiting to be set free from its bondage and decay.

Not just people are suffering, all of creation is groaning.

The whole thing, the animals, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, the oceans, the beaches, the plains, all of it is groaning.

Paul says creation was subjected to futility, not by its own choice, but out of hope.

 and in hope that it would one day be liberated.

There is very real suffering in the world.

There is death in this world.

 There's a dog with a brain tumor and you have to make a decision at a vet's office and it breaks your heart.

And according to Paul, that grief, that particular weight you carry is not separate from the groaning then of all of creation.

It's a part of it.

Your pain is woven into something much larger.

The whole of creation is waiting exactly for what you are waiting for.

 Pain and grief and death and loss are not God's design.

Rather, it's an unfortunate byproduct, I believe, of God giving us the greatest gift.

Freedom.

The ability to choose.

The freedom to make decisions.

And free will comes with significant pain.

Having agency, having freedom comes with the pain associated with being free and living amongst the free creations.

 And so all of creation is waiting and yearning and groaning to no longer be connected to that kind of suffering, which brings us to the most important word in our text this morning.

The one seated on the throne says, see, I am making all things new.

 Chancel Choir did a wonderful job of helping us connect to this idea of making all things new.

Not all people, not all souls, not all humans who said the right prayer at the right time.

All things are being made new.

Now, if you were with us last summer, when we were in our band series and spent four weeks in the book of Revelation, lucky you,

 You may have remembered that we talked about how the church has spent decades turning that book into a manual of fear.

 Left behind theology, escape hatch theology, a God who's done with this world and ready to light it on fire.

And one of the things that we kept coming back to is that Revelation, though read carefully, tells a very different story entirely than the one we've been sort of sold.

And this word is part of the reason why.

The word new here in the Greek is not the word for replacement.

It's the word kenos, which means renewed.

 restored, refurbished, made what it was always meant to be.

God is not starting over from scratch.

God is redeeming what already exists, completing what is always lost.

 But it's always been intended to be.

Which I'll say is going to matter quite a bit when we, this summer, continue our band series and pick up the book of Joshua.

Because if you think Revelation is a difficult book, just wait until we spend three weeks with one of the most unsettling texts in all of Scripture.

A book full of conquest and violence.

 and divine commands that make us modern day readers deeply uncomfortable.

And the question we're going to ask is really the same question we asked about Revelation.

What happens when we stop avoiding the hard parts and actually wrestle with them?

What do we find about the character of God on the other side of that wrestling?

So I don't know if this has ever been said from this pulpit, but mark your calendars for July 19th when we start a series on Joshua.

 Don't miss it.

It's going to be amazing.

But for now, with the book of Revelation in its proper place, I want us to quickly look at the fifth chapter.

Because before the vision of the new creation, there is a scene that we talked about.

 Around the throne of God and every creature in heaven and on earth and under earth and in the sea, all of them are joining in song.

Every creature is worshiping God and singing.

That's very odd image, but the song of worship at the end of all things is not a human chorus.

It is the voice of all of creation.

Everything that breathes and moves and has been called good by God gathered together.

Singing.

 That is the image John gives us, and that is what the end looks like.

So will you see your dog in heaven?

I don't exactly know.

I don't know what the new creation looks like.

Nobody does, and anyone who tells you that they have a precise answer is being more confident than the text allows.

But I can tell you what the text says.

 I can tell you that God called the animals good from the very beginning.

I can tell you that Paul describes all of creation as waiting and groaning for liberation.

I can tell you that John's vision of the end includes every creature in heaven and on earth joining the song.

And I can tell you that the promise is not that God will wipe away some tears, but every tear.

That's what the text says.

God will wipe away every tear.

 God will not end just some of our mourning or grief, God will end it all, all of it.

There will be no mourning and grief when God's work is complete.

 So if God's promise is that wide, and I believe it is, then the love you shared with that animal is not a loose end, it's not a category error, it is not beneath the concern of the God who made it and called it good and promised to make all things new.

What I believe and what I put my hope in is that the God who bent down to form the creatures of the earth with the same hands that formed us is the God who declared them good, the God who promises a new creation

 where every tear, every single tear is wiped away.

That God has not forgotten what you lost.

That God is not indifferent to the grief you carry quietly because the world doesn't give you enough room to carry it out loud.

Hava was a Spanish water dog actually bred to spend her life beside one person in a very small boat.

 She didn't get to do the thing she was made for, and so instead she ended up beside me in a parsonage in East Texas in a season when I needed exactly that kind of company.

And maybe that is what I believe about the new creation, that everything and everyone who didn't quite get to do the thing they were made for, everything and everyone bent and broken by this world's long groaning gets to be made whole.

 gets to find their place in the course, gets to find their purpose and their joy, gets to be at last what they were always meant to be.

That is the promise.

That is what John saw coming down out of heaven.

God is making all things new.

All things.

And I will continue hoping that promise will

 is as exactly wide as it sounds.

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

Amen.

5-Day Devotional: All Things New

Day 1: The Goodness of Creation

Reading: Genesis 1:24-31

Devotional: Before God was known as righteous or holy, God was first revealed as Creator. In these opening verses, we discover something profound: God doesn't just make things—God delights in what is made. Each creature, each living thing receives God's declaration: "It is good." This isn't utility; it's affirmation of inherent worth.

Consider what you've loved and lost—a pet, a relationship, a season of life. That love wasn't misplaced. God called creation good from the beginning, and what God calls good matters eternally. Your grief over what you've lost isn't trivial; it's a recognition of the goodness God placed there. Today, thank God for something in creation that brings you joy, remembering that your capacity to love reflects the heart of the Creator.

Day 2: Creation's Groaning

Reading: Romans 8:18-25

Devotional: Paul reveals a stunning truth: you are not alone in your suffering. All of creation groans together, waiting for liberation from decay and death. The pain you carry—whether from loss, illness, or heartbreak—is woven into something much larger. The whole world aches alongside you.

But notice Paul's emphasis: this groaning happens "in hope." Suffering is not the end of the story. Creation waits not in despair but in expectation of redemption. Your grief is valid, and it's also temporary. The freedom you long for is the same freedom all creation yearns toward. When you feel isolated in your pain, remember that even the mountains and rivers wait with you. Let this truth comfort you: God hears all of creation's cry, including yours.

Day 3: Heaven Comes Down

Reading: Revelation 21:1-5

Devotional: We've spent our lives singing about going up to heaven, but John's vision moves in the opposite direction. The holy city descends. God comes down to dwell among mortals. This changes everything about how we understand redemption.

God's plan isn't evacuation—it's restoration. Earth isn't a waiting room to escape; it's the stage for God's ultimate renewal. The physical world matters. Bodies matter. Relationships matter. What you've loved here isn't disposable. God is moving toward creation, not away from it, promising to wipe away every tear and end all mourning.

Take comfort: the things you treasure aren't beneath God's concern. The God who descended in Christ continues descending still, coming close to your pain, your loss, your longing. Heaven's direction is toward you, not away from you.

Day 4: All Creatures Sing

Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

Devotional: In John's vision of worship around God's throne, the chorus isn't exclusively human. Every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea joins the song. This is the ultimate community of praise—all of creation united in worship.

What does this tell us about God's heart? That nothing created is forgotten. Everything that breathes has a place in the eternal chorus. The animals aren't background extras in God's story; they're participants in the grand finale.

If you've loved a creature deeply, take heart. The God who includes every living thing in worship hasn't excluded what mattered to you. Your Spanish water dog, your faithful companion, the pet who met you in loneliness—God knows their worth because God made them. Today, let yourself imagine that final song, where nothing good is lost.

Day 5: All Things New

Reading: Isaiah 65:17-25

Devotional: "I am making all things new," God declares. Not some things. Not just souls. All things. The Greek word here means renewed, restored, completed—not replaced. God doesn't scrap creation and start over; God redeems what already exists.

This is the hope we cling to: everything bent and broken by this world's groaning gets to be made whole. Everything that didn't quite get to fulfill its purpose finds completion. Everyone who suffered finds healing. Every tear—every single one—is wiped away.

Your grief matters because what you lost mattered. But grief isn't the final word. The promise is as wide as it sounds. God is making all things new, including the things you thought were gone forever. Live today with that hope: nothing good is wasted in God's economy. What you've loved, God loves still. And what God loves, God redeems.

Holy and merciful God,

You have gathered us in worship, and we are grateful. We come with songs, prayers, offerings, and words. We come longing to know you, to serve you, and to be made more faithful.

And yet your prophets remind us that worship can become hollow when it is separated from justice. We confess that we do not always see what you see. We do not always hear the pain our neighbors carry. We do not always notice the systems, habits, fears, and silences that wound your children.

So today, do not let us hide behind beautiful words. Do not let us confuse comfort with peace, politeness with love, or anxiety with faithfulness. Search us beyond the places where we already know how to agree with you.

Where racism is blatant, give us courage to resist it. Where it is subtle, give us wisdom to recognize it. Where it is hidden in our habits, assumptions, institutions, relationships, or even in our efforts to do good, give us humility to be changed.

Teach us to listen without defensiveness, to repent without despair, and to act without needing to be praised. Free us from the need to appear righteous, so that we may become more truthful, more just, and more loving.

Let justice roll down like waters, not as a slogan, but as a way of life. Let righteousness flow like an ever-flowing stream, not only in our public witness, but in our decisions, relationships, leadership, and hearts.

Bless this church and all who call it home. Make us not merely a people who speak about love, but a people through whom your love becomes visible.

In the name of Jesus, our mercy, our truth, and our peace, we pray.

When Worship Becomes Noise: A Biblical Call We Can't Ignore

There's a question that keeps surfacing in quiet conversations, whispered in parking lots, sent via late-night text messages: "Why does the church keep talking about race?"

It's asked by people who are exhausted, circling the same conversations for years without seeming to arrive anywhere. It's asked by those who worry the conversation has become more about politics than the gospel. And it's asked by those who have devoted years to this work and still feel like they're barely moving at all.

The answer is uncomfortable but clear: the Bible doesn't let us off the hook.

A Shepherd's Unwelcome Message

Twenty-seven hundred years ago, a shepherd from Tekoa named Amos received an assignment he probably didn't want. He wasn't a professional prophet or a trained priest. He raised sheep and tended fig trees. But God called him north to deliver a message to the prosperous elite who definitely didn't want to hear what he had to say.

Amos arrived in Bethel, a religious center where the wealthy gathered to offer sacrifices, sing songs, and feel good about their standing before God. They saw their accumulated wealth as divine blessing, their worship as pleasing to the Almighty.

Amos began preaching, and he was clever about it. He started by pronouncing God's judgment on all the surrounding nations—Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab. The crowd loved it. Nothing brings people together like focusing on someone else's failures.

Then Amos turned and pointed directly at them.

The trap shut.

The God Who Sees Everything

The God who sees injustice in other nations also sees injustice in Israel. The God who judges the outsider is the same God who judges the insider.

And what God saw in Israel was devastating: a community that had separated its worship from its treatment of the poor. A community that sang beautifully, prayed regularly, gave generously—and still crushed the vulnerable beneath the weight of economic exploitation.

God's response through Amos is one of the most startling statements in all of Scripture:

"I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies... Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:21-24)

Not "I'm disappointed." Not "I wish you would do better." The Hebrew word is hate—the strongest language of rejection available.

God looks at worship that peacefully coexists with injustice and calls it noise.

The Connection We Can't Ignore

Amos wasn't talking specifically about race—he was addressing economic injustice and the exploitation of the vulnerable. So why does this ancient text matter for contemporary conversations about race?

Because in America, race and economic mobility have never been separate conversations. The racial wealth gap, the concentration of poverty in communities of color, documented disparities in education, housing, and criminal justice—these aren't abstract political ideas. They are the present-tense version of what Amos described.

When Amos calls for mishpat (right social and legal order) and tzedakah (right relationship between people and God), he's calling for structural faithfulness that doesn't leave entire communities outside the circle of flourishing.

This is what God sees when looking at our cities today.

The Inheritance We Carry

Most of us didn't choose the contexts we grew up in. We didn't design the systems we inherited. But privilege of any kind—particularly white privilege—doesn't announce itself. By definition, that's what makes it privilege. It's the air you breathe without noticing until someone opens a window and you realize the room wasn't as clean as you thought.

Many of us carry inheritances that require reckoning. Family comfort, prosperity, or social position built in part on systems that didn't offer the same opportunities to everyone. If we look closely enough at our own histories, we'll find something that demands honest examination.

Here's the gospel truth in that reality: the gospel isn't for people whose ancestors' hands are clean or whose own hands are spotless. The gospel is that God keeps calling people whose hands are not clean.

God uses complicated people with complicated histories to do holy work.

A Space for Grace and Growth

One of the church's most important offerings in conversations about race is something the world cannot provide: a space where people are accountable without being condemned, challenged without being shamed, invited to keep going even when they get it wrong.

As Methodists call it, this is sanctifying grace—the grace that doesn't wait for you to arrive before it starts working within you and on you. Grace that meets you mid-journey, mid-failure, mid-question, and still keeps forming you into something more faithful than you were yesterday.

We don't have to choose between conviction and compassion. We don't have to choose between prophetic clarity and pastoral patience. We get to hold both. In fact, we're instructed to hold both.

People don't stop asking hard questions because they stop caring. They stop asking because they got embarrassed, because they got it wrong once and someone made them feel it was unforgivable, because the conversation moved so fast or ran so hot that staying in it felt more dangerous than stepping away.

Not a Dream, But a Demand

"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

Martin Luther King Jr. quoted these words at the March on Washington. They're inscribed on monuments and have become one of the most recognizable lines in American religious history.

But notice what these words are in context: not a dream, but a demand. Not an aspiration cast into the future, but what God says is missing right now. It's the condition God names for worship to be worship rather than noise.

An ever-flowing stream—not a seasonal creek that depends on rainfall. Not a moment of inspiration that surges and then dries up. What Amos describes is structural, constant, built into the landscape.

That's the kind of faith community God is looking for. Not one that talks about justice when it's merely timely or trending, but one where justice flows through everything—every decision made, every dollar spent, every person welcomed, every conversation we're willing to have.

The Work Continues

The work of racial justice isn't finished. It isn't comfortable. And God isn't going to let us stop talking about it because the Bible won't let us stop talking about it.

But here's the good news: the same God who says "I hate your worship" when it coexists with injustice is the same God who keeps showing up anyway. God keeps calling shepherds, preachers, and congregations to keep moving, keep reckoning, keep trying—not because we've arrived, but because the God who demands justice is also the God who sustains the people trying to practice it.

That's grace. And that's enough to keep going.

It's been a beautiful season in the life of our church.

We had an incredible, I think, season of Lent where we talked specifically about love and what that looks like in our daily life.

Easter was incredible, absolutely incredible.

Last week, the choir did an

 an amazing job, and it was such a gift.

And so it sort of feels a bit anticlimactic to start a brand new worship series, especially one called Facts, since we did that one last year, and it's the sequel that no one asked for.

But we know sequels are almost always better than the original, so...

 I actually argued for the name More Facts, but I was outvoted in the room.

So Facts, we get to use the same graphic that way.

I think that was a real deciding vote.

So here we are again.

And last year, the reason I think it was so popular is because we're trying to answer honest questions that you all have.

 We opened a survey last year, and the reason we didn't do it this year is because you all submitted 90 questions.

So we have plenty to work on, but we're only going to go for four weeks, okay?

So we're not doing two years of this, but we're going to spend the next four weeks trying to honestly wrestle with the questions that you've been asking.

And we're going to do that in a real way.

 not with like talking points or bumper sticker theology or trying to come up with a slogan that Anna can put on a coffee mug.

We're gonna try to do it faithfully by using scripture, some humility, and with a particular Wesleyan conviction that we all share, right?

We are Wesleyan in nature.

 And so here at FUMC Dallas, if we're gonna be a place that magnifies God's love for all people, part of that is being comfortable with asking very hard questions.

Now,

 That's not a threat to our faith.

That helps us grow in our faith.

It's an invitation to deepen our faith.

And so the questions this year, you know, hard-hitting ones like, will I see my dog in heaven?

Which is actually a deeper theological question than just that.

Or why do I even need the church?

Seems particularly relevant.

 in today's culture?

What do we do with other religions?

And our question though for week one this week is, why does the church keep talking about race?

And I wanna be honest with you about something before we go any further.

Of the four questions of this series, this is the one that I've been asked the most.

But you all didn't put that question on the survey.

 It's almost always asked to me sort of quietly, like in the parking lot or a text message after an event or an email and a one-on-one conversation.

And most of the time it's prefaced by saying something like, I don't want to cause any trouble or I'm not racist.

 But why does the church keep talking about race?

And truthfully, I understand that question.

I want you to know that I understand it from people who are exhausted and feel like we've been circling this conversation for years without really arriving anywhere.

 I understand it from people who worry that talking about race has become more about partisan or identity politics than about the gospel.

And I also understand the people in this room who have devoted years of their lives to this work and still feel like we're barely moving at all.

All of us, in the variety of ways that talking about race makes us feel, are in this room this morning.

And so I want to start by saying I see you and I get it.

 And the reason the church, though, keeps talking about race is not because we are partisan.

It's not because we're captured by a particular ideological agenda.

The reason the church keeps talking about the race is because the Bible does not let us off the hook.

So there's the sermon, and we're done for the day.

The Bible doesn't let us off the hook.

Scripture doesn't let us off the hook.

 And today our witness comes from a shepherd from Tekoa who's been dead for 2,700 years.

And Amos, he's not going to let us off the hook either.

And so once again, let's take a deep breath.

And let us hear this reading from the prophet Amos.

The fifth chapter, verses 21 through 24.

 Amos speaking on behalf of God.

I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

And even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.

And the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals, I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of your songs."

 I will not listen to the melody of your harps, but let justice roll down like water, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream 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.

Will you pray with me?

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

Give us the courage to hear what we would rather avoid.

The honesty to see what we have learned not to notice.

And the grace to be changed.

Amen.

Okay, so Amos.

 Amos is not a professional prophet.

There actually were those professional prophets.

He's not a priest.

He's not been trained as clergy.

He has no formal training whatsoever to speak on behalf of God.

He is a shepherd.

 He's a shepherd from the southern kingdom who raises sheep and tends to fig trees.

So he's a fig tree farmer.

And God calls him north.

So Amos is in the southern kingdom.

God calls him north to deliver a message to the northern elite who don't want to hear the message that he's being asked to deliver.

And so Amos arrives in Bethel, which is a religious center, a place of worship.

 a place where the prosperous gather to offer their sacrifices and sing their songs and feel good about their standing before God as they see all that they have and the wealth that they have accumulated as a

 blessing from God, and Amos begins to preach.

And it gets interesting pretty quickly.

He does not actually start with Israel.

Great, great homiletical trick.

He starts with all the nations surrounding Israel.

Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab.

And so one by one, Amos is announcing God's judgment on the neighbors.

 Nothing pulls people together like focusing on others.

And the crowd in Bethel is cheering.

They're loving it.

And then finally, someone is telling the truth about these people.

And then Amos turns and he points at them and the trap sort of shuts.

Because the God who sees injustice in the nations also sees injustice in Israel.

 The God who judges the outsider is also the God who judges the insider.

And what God sees in Israel is a community that is separated in very real ways, separated its worship from the treatment of the poor.

A community that sings beautifully and prays regularly and gives generously and still worships.

 crushes the vulnerable beneath the weight of economic exploitation.

And God's response is delivered through this shepherd from the south.

And it is one of the most sort of startling statements in all of scripture.

Right off the bat in verse 21, we hear God say, I hate your worship.

 Not I'm disappointed in your worship.

Not that I wish you would do better.

The Hebrew word here saying is hate.

It's the strongest language of rejection that's available in the text.

God looks at worship that coexists with injustice and God calls it just noise.

Just noise.

 Take away from me the noise of your songs, the text says.

Now, here's the move that some of us may resist.

Amos is not talking about race.

 He's talking about the poor, he's talking about the economically vulnerable being ground down by the prosperous while the prosperous go to church on the weekend and feel just fine about themselves.

So why this text then with this question?

Because in America, regardless of how we think about it, race and economic mobility are not separate conversations.

 We can't separate the two.

They've never been separate conversations.

They can never become separate conversations because the racial wealth gap, the concentration of poverty in communities of color, the documented disparities in education, housing, criminal justice, these are not like abstract political...

 ideas.

They are present tense version of what Amos is describing.

They are what God sees when God looks at our city.

So when Amos calls for mishpat, which is right social and legal order, or when he calls for right relationship between people and between God, he is calling for the kind of structural faithfulness that does not leave an entire community outside the circle of flourishing.

 And that is the wrench that Amos churns.

It forces us to see what God sees.

And in Dallas in 2026, what God sees includes the faces of our black and brown neighbors, whose mobility no doubt has been structurally constrained, in some cases for generations, by policies and practices that this church and churches like ours did not always resist.

 and sometimes actively blessed.

Now, I don't think it's going to shock you.

I grew up in overwhelmingly white spaces.

My childhood, my adolescence, my early education, I did not choose that context.

The bishop did.

Most of us do not choose our context.

 But I've spent the better part of my adult life reckoning with what that context, in particular my time in Rockwall, gave me and what it cost me without knowing it.

Privilege of any kind, but specifically white privilege, does not announce itself.

By definition, that's what makes it privilege.

It's the air you breathe without noticing you're breathing it until one day someone opens a window and you realize that the room was not as clean as you once thought.

 I finally understood this after years of work, both in academic spaces, sure, but also in my social context changing.

But nothing did more for my awareness than taking a class at, you all know it well, the Iliff School of Theology called Disrupting White Privilege.

It was designed specifically for white students.

A space to work through the theology and sociology of race with people who shared a similar location.

 It was at the time a controversial class and some people thought it was too much, some people thought it was long overdue.

What I can tell you is that it gave me something I did not have before, a space where I was allowed to get it wrong.

To ask the question I was afraid to ask out loud, to sit with the discomfort of what I was learning without being condemned for the fact that I was still learning it.

 That experience in particular shaped how I think about this work and the work of dismantling racism in the church, because here is what I know.

People do not stop asking hard questions because they stop caring.

They stop asking because they got embarrassed.

 Because they got it wrong once and someone made them feel like that was unforgivable.

Because there's shame in those spaces and not grace.

Because the conversation moved so fast or ran so hot that staying in that conversation felt more dangerous than stepping away from it.

And the church has a theological responsibility to hold something very different.

Not a space where everything goes, but a space where you are accountable without being condemned.

 Where you are challenged without being shamed.

Where you are invited to keep going even when you get it wrong.

As United Methodists, we call this sanctifying grace.

The grace that does not wait for you to arrive before it starts to work within you and on you.

The grace that meets you mid-journey, mid-failure, mid-question, and still keeps forming you.

 into something more faithful than you were yesterday.

This is, I believe, one of the most important things that the church has to offer a conversation around race.

And it is something that the world cannot and will not ever offer.

 We do not have to choose between conviction and compassion.

We do not have to choose between prophetic clarity and pastoral patience.

We get to hold both.

In fact, we are instructed to hold both.

And if we do not hold both, we will lose people.

And we'll deserve to do so.

 Because I need this type of space as well.

I need to tell you something that I have not said publicly before.

Well, I said it about 45 minutes ago in modern worship.

But I want to say it very intentionally because it's not a confession that I make to perform like vulnerability or something.

I need to be honest with you about something because I think honesty right now is what this sermon requires.

I...

 I am a direct descendant, and Kelvin confirmed this, I'm a direct descendant of Thomas Auld, who was the slave holder of Frederick Douglass.

He owned Frederick Douglass, he bought him, he sold him, he reclaimed him, and he is one of the central figures in one of the most important autobiographies ever written in this country.

 And he's very clearly in my family tree.

I share it because it's the truth and the truth about where I come from and because I think the church of all places should be a community capable of holding that kind of truth.

Now, what do I do with that?

I'm still working out, honestly.

But what I cannot do is pretend it's not there.

 What I cannot do is stand in this pulpit and talk about race and racism as if it's someone else's history.

It's my history.

It's stitched into my family's story.

And that means the work of racial justice is not for me an ideological position.

It is really reckoning with my own inheritance.

 I think some of you know something about that, not necessarily with the same specific history, unless we're family, but with the particular weight of realizing that your family's comfort or prosperity or social position was built in part on systems that did not offer the same to everyone.

And most of us, if we're honest and we look closely enough, we'll find something in our own inheritance that requires reckoning.

If you don't find it, just keep looking.

 And here's the gospel in that.

The gospel is not the gospel for those whose ancestors' hands are clean or that our hands are indeed spotless.

The gospel is that God keeps calling people whose hands are not clean.

Amos speaks the truth to power by revealing that God looks at Israel and says, your worship has become noise.

Essentially, God is not impressed.

 Not because worship is unimportant, but because worship that coexists peacefully with injustice has lost its connection to the God it claims to address.

So if our choir, and they certainly do, sound amazing, but we are not doing the work, God is not impressed.

 if our programs are flourishing, but we are not doing the work, God is not impressed.

If our pews are filled, but we're not doing the work, God is not impressed.

And if our building is beautiful, and it certainly is, and our budget is healthy, and thank God that it is, and our reputation in this city is strong, but we are not doing the work, God is not impressed.

 And this is not a new message.

This church has people who have been carrying this work for years, and some of them are weary, and some of them are frustrated, and some of them have pushed harder than the institution could move, and they have felt resistance, both personally and deeply, and I want to honor that.

The frustration is not a sign of bad faith.

It's a sign of genuine love for what the church is supposed to be.

And I also want to say gently that conviction without community will eventually burn out.

 The work of racial justice is not a project that some people in the church own and others support from a distance.

It is the whole church's calling.

And the whole church moves differently than a cohort within it, more slowly sometimes, more messily often, but with a different kind of durability.

And I remember a few years ago, it was my first year, I remember it very well, I made an offhanded comment in a town hall meeting.

 I said I thought we should chisel away the inscription on our front steps that reads First Methodist Episcopal Church South.

Now, I meant what I said.

I probably shouldn't have said it in that space.

And I still think it deserves a hard conversation.

But I've also learned, and part of what Pastor Anthony has taught me, is that what a pastor thinks should happen and what a community discerns together are two very different things.

 And this work belongs to you all.

And taking time to decide is not weakness, it is by definition the work.

The conversation about that inscription is still happening and there's a proposal now to keep it and add a plaque and that is being evaluated by lay leadership and I do not know how it will land.

What I do know is that a church willing to have that conversation at all is a church that has not given up on faithfulness.

 Which leads us to Amos and how he ends his oracle with a word that has outlasted everything else that he has written.

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Martin Luther King quoted it at the March on Washington.

It's beautifully inscribed in monuments and it has become maybe one of the most recognizable lines in American religious and political history.

But notice what it is in context.

When Amos is speaking it,

 to the people.

It is not a dream.

It's a demand.

It is not an aspiration Amos is casting out into the future.

It is what God says is missing right now.

It is the condition God names for worship to be worship rather than noise.

An ever-flowing stream, not a seasonal creek.

 that relies on how much rainfall comes in any given year.

It's not a moment of inspiration that surges and then dries up.

What Amos is talking about is structural, it's constant, it's built into the landscape.

That is the kind of church God is looking for, not a church that talks about justice when it is merely timely or trending.

 A church where justice is structural, where it flows through everything we do, every decision we make, every dollar we spend, every person we welcome, every conversation we are willing to have.

It is the only way we can talk about magnifying God's love for all people and actually mean what we say.

That is the work.

And the work is not finished.

And the work is not comfortable.

 And God is not going to let us stop talking about it because the Bible's not going to let us stop talking about it.

So that, that is the answer to the question, why the church, our church, keeps talking about race.

But here's the good news in all of it.

The same God who says, I hate your worship when it coexists with injustice is the same God who keeps showing up anyway.

I don't know.

That's just what God does.

 calling shepherds from the South, calling preachers from complicated family trees, calling congregations like this one to keep moving, keep reckoning, keep trying, not because we have arrived, but because the God who demands justice is also the God who sustains the people who are trying to practice it.

And that is grace, my friends, and that is enough to keep going.

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

5-Day Devotional: Let Justice Roll Down

Day 1: When Worship Becomes Noise

Reading: Amos 5:21-24

Devotional: God's harsh words to Israel shake us awake: "I hate your worship." How can this be? The Israelites were faithful in religious observance—singing, sacrificing, gathering. Yet God called it noise. Why? Because their worship existed separately from how they treated the vulnerable. Our Sunday devotion means nothing if it doesn't transform our Monday actions. God desires integrity—worship that flows into justice, songs that lead to service, prayers that produce changed lives. Today, examine your own worship. Does it remain confined to sacred spaces, or does it spill into how you treat your neighbors, especially those society marginalizes? True worship transforms us into agents of God's justice in the world.

Day 2: The Ever-Flowing Stream

Reading: Isaiah 58:6-12

Devotional: Amos envisions justice not as a seasonal creek but as an ever-flowing stream—constant, structural, life-giving. Isaiah echoes this vision: true fasting isn't ritual abstinence but breaking chains of injustice and sharing bread with the hungry. God calls us beyond momentary inspiration to sustained commitment. Justice cannot be something we address only when it's trending or convenient. It must flow through everything—our decisions, spending, welcoming, conversations. This requires building new structures, not just having good intentions. What would it look like for justice to flow constantly through your life? Through your church? Identify one area where you can move from occasional concern to sustained action, creating channels through which God's righteousness flows continuously.

Day 3: Sanctifying Grace in the Journey

Reading: Philippians 1:3-6

Devotional: Paul's confidence is beautiful: "He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion." This is sanctifying grace—God's transforming work that meets us mid-journey, mid-failure, mid-question. The work of justice and reconciliation is messy. We will get things wrong. We will ask clumsy questions. We will stumble. But God's grace doesn't wait for perfection before working within us. The church should be the one space offering accountability without condemnation, challenge without shame. You don't have to arrive before God starts transforming you. Whatever inheritance you're reckoning with, whatever discomfort you're sitting in, whatever learning you're still doing—God is present in that process. Grace sustains the journey. Where do you need to receive sanctifying grace today?

Day 4: Reckoning with Inheritance

Reading: Nehemiah 9:1-3, 32-38

Devotional: Nehemiah led Israel in confession—not just for personal sins but for their collective history and inherited patterns. This is uncomfortable work. Many of us discover, when we look closely, that our family's comfort or position was built on systems that excluded others. This isn't about guilt that paralyzes but truth that liberates. We cannot change what we refuse to acknowledge. The Israelites didn't pretend their history was clean; they named it before God. The gospel isn't for those with spotless ancestry—it's for all of us whose hands aren't clean. God keeps calling imperfect people from complicated histories to do redemptive work. What inheritance requires your honest reckoning? Bring it before God, not in shame, but in truth.

Day 5: Conviction with Community

Reading: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; Hebrews 10:23-25

Devotional: "Two are better than one... a threefold cord is not quickly broken." The work of justice cannot be sustained alone. Individual conviction without community eventually burns out. We need each other—those who've been carrying this work for years and those just beginning to engage, those with prophetic clarity and those with pastoral patience. The church moves differently than an individual, sometimes slower and messier, but with greater durability. We don't have to choose between conviction and compassion; we hold both. This requires staying in community even when it's uncomfortable, continuing conversations even when they're difficult, and recognizing that the whole church's calling cannot be owned by just a few. Who walks with you in this work? How can you support those who are weary? Justice as an ever-flowing stream requires a community committed to the long journey together.

Will you please join me in an attitude of prayer?

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

Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

Amen.

 There's an old film some of you may remember, The Sixth Sense.

It follows a psychologist who's trying to help a child make sense of things that only he can see, no one else.

And as you watch, everything feels coherent.

 The conversations make sense.

The ways he's interpreting the events, it all seems reasonable.

And you trust the psychologist.

And you trust the story.

And then, as you get to the very end of the movie, you realize we were wrong.

 The psychologist was not aware of everything that was happening.

But not just him, you, the viewer.

You had been watching the entire story through a lens that made sense to you at the time.

And only at the end do you realize

 there was a deeper reality that was present the whole time that you never saw.

And then, by the time that you realize it, it's too late.

It's too late to go back.

 You don't ever get to rewatch it for the first time with that new understanding.

You only understand it afterward.

And I wonder, I wonder if you've ever had that experience

 in your own life where you were moving forward doing the very best that you could making sense of things as faithfully as you knew how and only later realized

 You never fully understood everything that was happening.

It doesn't just happen in the movies.

That is in our scripture for today too.

Two disciples walking along on the road to Emmaus.

 They're talking, they're processing, they're trying to make sense of the tragic and miraculous aspects of this Easter story they're experiencing.

Jesus had been crucified.

Then they're hearing these wild stories.

 about him coming back.

And they say in the midst of this, we had hoped.

We had hoped.

They had hoped that he was the one.

 They had hoped that now things were going to be different.

They had hoped that their understanding of what God was doing was right.

They're sincere.

They're thoughtful.

 And they are desperately trying to make sense of their own faith.

As they're walking, we heard, as they're walking, Jesus is walking right alongside of them.

And as he does, they don't even recognize him.

 It's not because they're careless.

It's not because they lack faith.

And definitely not because they're rebellious.

They simply do not see what is right in front of them.

They're walking with Jesus.

And misunderstanding

 what is happening as they walk Jesus listens listens to their story listens to what they're saying listens to the wide variety of emotions that are stirring within them and then the conversation shifts and he starts

 reinterpreting their story.

He opens up the scriptures for them and reframes everything that they thought that they knew.

And still, they do not recognize him.

It's only later in the scripture

 at the table, in the breaking of the bread, that their eyes are opened.

Then they see, and in that moment, in that moment, right when they recognize Jesus, he disappears.

And in that space, they don't get to

 mentally, emotionally, they don't get to go back and to walk that road all over again with clarity.

They only realize afterward, we're not our hearts burning within us.

They were sincere.

 They were walking faithfully.

And they did not or could not understand what was happening.

And they didn't even know that at the time.

That might be an essential part of the journey.

 Consider for yourself.

What happens when you already know the ending of a story?

When someone tells you how a movie ends before you've gotten to see it?

Or perhaps worse, when someone tells you the score of a game you were just about to watch.

 You can still watch it, of course, but you don't experience it in the same way, do you?

Something changes.

There's less tension, less uncertainty, less wondering what's going to happen next.

 And in some ways, it feels safer.

It feels more controlled, less chaotic.

But something is lost in that, isn't it?

And I wonder how many of us

 are trying to live our lives just in that way.

Trying to know how it's all going to turn out.

Trying to understand everything before we move forward.

And I would be included in that.

 It's happening to myself recently.

As many of you know, I'm in the middle of a transition.

I've been here at First Church Dallas coming up on a full three years, and I'm moving from Texas to Connecticut.

There's a lot of decisions, a lot of unknowns,

 a lot that is not settled in my life.

And I have also been praying a lot.

Praying and praying and praying.

And if I'm honest, I have not been praying for adventure.

 I think I've been praying for certainty.

I've been asking God to make everything clear, to show me exactly what to do, to remove the ambiguity before me.

And if I'm even more honest,

 I have not been asking for clarity because I want to follow God better.

I've been asking for clarity because I do not like the discomfort and anxiety that I've been feeling.

And I'm still in that.

 In our scripture, the disciples, they too do not get clarity first.

They get presence.

They do not get explanations first.

They get companionship.

 They're already walking with Christ before they understand what's happening.

And this is where the text meets us.

Because right now, there are people here, perhaps like me, trying to make a decision.

 trying to understand something that has happened.

Trying to figure out where God is in a situation that does not make sense.

And the instinct is, if I could just understand what God is doing, then I would know what to do.

 If I could just get clarity, then I could move forward.

But what if clarity is not what comes first?

What if you are already walking with Christ and you do not recognize it?

 Now, instead of our tradition of posting our reflection questions after the sermon, I'd like to share them with you before we're done and to take some time for reflection.

Could we get the first question?

So, where am I waiting for clarity before I act?

 The second question is, where am I trying to force meaning so I can feel more certain?

 And our third question is, what story have I already decided is true that might not be the whole story?

Let's take another minute and sit with these.

 So now, what would it mean if Christ is already present with us in the tension of our answers to these questions, and we don't see it yet?

You know, we often think of theology

 theology as a way to make everything make sense.

But what if it's something else?

What if theology is what we do when we're trying to make sense of where we have been while we are still walking forward into the unknown

 without fully knowing where it's all going.

The disciples do not get everything explained.

They do not get to go back.

They do not get certainty about what comes next.

But they do realize something.

 they realize Christ was with them, even when they did not recognize him.

And somehow, that is enough for them to turn around and to keep going.

 And so maybe the question is not, do I understand everything that God is doing?

Maybe the question is, can I keep walking even when I don't?

 Can I trust that Christ may be present even when I don't recognize it?

Can I live faithfully without needing the whole story to make sense first?

 Because it may be that clarity does come, but not usually in time to make things easier.

Only in time to help us keep walking forward.

Walking With Christ in the Uncertainty: Lessons from the Road to Emmaus

There's a peculiar moment in the film The Sixth Sense that reshapes everything. Throughout the entire movie, you've been watching, interpreting, making sense of the narrative. The conversations seem coherent. The events unfold logically. You trust what you're seeing. And then, in the final moments, everything shifts. A deeper reality reveals itself—one that was present the entire time, hiding in plain sight. And here's the heartbreaking part: you can never watch it for the first time again with that new understanding. You only comprehend it afterward.

This cinematic experience mirrors something profoundly spiritual: the reality that we often move through life doing our best, making sense of things as faithfully as we know how, only to realize later that we never fully understood everything that was happening.

The Road to Emmaus: Walking Without Recognizing

The story of two disciples walking to Emmaus captures this experience with stunning clarity. Fresh from the crucifixion of Jesus, these followers are processing grief, confusion, and fragmented hope. They've heard wild reports about resurrection, but nothing makes complete sense. As they walk, they articulate their disappointment: "We had hoped."

Those three words carry the weight of shattered expectations. They had hoped Jesus was the one. They had hoped things would be different. They had hoped their understanding of God's work was correct.

Here's what makes this story so compelling: Jesus himself joins them on the road. He walks alongside them, listens to their story, hears their emotions, and begins reinterpreting everything they thought they knew. He opens the scriptures and reframes their entire narrative.

And still, they don't recognize him.

This isn't because they're careless or lacking in faith. It's not rebellion or spiritual dullness. They simply cannot see what is directly in front of them. They are walking with Jesus while completely misunderstanding what's happening.

The Moment of Recognition

The revelation comes later, at a table, in the breaking of bread. Suddenly, their eyes open. They see. They recognize. And in that very moment—right when clarity arrives—Jesus disappears.

They don't get to walk that road again with their newfound understanding. They can't go back and re-experience the journey with clarity. They only realize afterward: "Were not our hearts burning within us?"

The burning hearts were there all along. The presence was real throughout the journey. But recognition came only in retrospect.

The Tension of Not Knowing

Consider what happens when you already know the ending of a story. When someone spoils a movie or tells you the score of a game before you watch it, something fundamental changes. You can still watch, of course, but the experience is different. There's less tension, less uncertainty, less wondering what happens next.

In some ways, knowing the ending feels safer. More controlled. Less chaotic.

But something essential is lost.

And yet, how many of us spend our lives trying to live exactly this way? Trying to know how everything will turn out. Attempting to understand everything before moving forward. Seeking certainty as a prerequisite for action.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus don't get clarity first. They get presence. They don't receive explanations before the journey. They receive companionship. They're already walking with Christ before they understand what's happening.

What If Clarity Isn't First?

This challenges our instincts profoundly. When facing decisions, transitions, or confusing circumstances, the natural response is: "If I could just understand what God is doing, then I'd know what to do. If I could just get clarity, then I could move forward."

But what if clarity isn't what comes first?

What if you're already walking with Christ and you don't recognize it?

Consider these questions for your own life:

Where are you waiting for clarity before you act? Is there a decision you're postponing, a step you're refusing to take, because you don't have all the answers yet?

Where are you trying to force meaning so you can feel more certain? Are you constructing narratives about your life, your circumstances, or God's will that might be more about managing anxiety than discerning truth?

What story have you already decided is true that might not be the whole story? What interpretations have you settled on that might be premature or incomplete?

Theology in the Tension

We often think of theology as a system that makes everything make sense—a neat framework that answers all our questions. But perhaps theology is something else entirely.

Perhaps theology is what we do when we're trying to make sense of where we've been while we're still walking forward into the unknown, without fully knowing where it's all going.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus don't get everything explained. They don't get to go back. They don't receive certainty about what comes next.

But they do realize something crucial: Christ was with them, even when they didn't recognize him.

And somehow, that's enough for them to turn around and keep going.

Living Faithfully Without the Whole Story

The question, then, isn't necessarily "Do I understand everything God is doing?"

The question is: "Can I keep walking even when I don't?"

Can you trust that Christ may be present even when you don't recognize it? Can you live faithfully without needing the whole story to make sense first?

This isn't a call to thoughtlessness or recklessness. It's an invitation to a different kind of faith—one that doesn't demand certainty before obedience, one that can tolerate ambiguity while still moving forward.

Clarity may come. But usually not in time to make things easier. Only in time to help us keep walking forward.

The Burning Heart

Looking back, the disciples recognized their burning hearts. The presence of Christ had been real all along, creating warmth and movement within them even when their minds couldn't comprehend what was happening.

Your heart may be burning right now in ways you don't fully recognize. Christ may be walking beside you in circumstances that feel confusing, uncertain, or even painful. The full story may not reveal itself until much later.

But that doesn't mean you're walking alone.

And that doesn't mean you need to wait for complete understanding before taking the next faithful step.

The road continues. The companion walks beside you. And sometimes, that's enough.

Pastoral Prayer for "The Clarity We Don't Need"
Based on Luke 24:13-35

Gracious and loving God,
we come to you as people who are still on the road.

Some of us are walking with confidence today.
Some of us are tired.
Some of us are carrying grief, uncertainty, questions, and decisions we do not know how to make.
Some of us are doing our best to move forward faithfully, even when we cannot see the bigger picture.
And still, you meet us on the road.

You meet us in the unanswered questions.
You meet us in the ambiguity.
You meet us in the conversations we carry, in the burdens we name aloud, and in the ones we keep tucked quietly within ourselves.
You meet us not always with the clarity we want, but with the presence we need.

Forgive us, O God, for the ways we have believed that faith means having everything figured out.
Forgive us for the times we have chased certainty more than we have trusted your companionship.
Forgive us for the moments we have missed you, even when you were right in front of us, walking beside us, holding us together, speaking peace into our confusion.

Like those on the road to Emmaus, we confess that we do not always recognize you.
We do not always see how you are moving.
We do not always understand what you are doing.
But teach us to trust that you are with us anyway.

When our lives feel uncertain, remind us that Christ is already walking alongside us.
When we are longing for answers, give us the grace to receive your presence.
When we are looking for direction, steady us with your peace.
When we cannot make sense of where we have been, keep our hearts open as we keep walking forward.
And when the time comes for bread to be broken, for grace to be shared, for hindsight to open our eyes,
help us to say with joy and wonder,
“Were not our hearts burning within us?”

Be near to those who are grieving.
Be near to those who are making hard decisions.
Be near to those who feel lost, discouraged, or alone.
Be near to those whose faith feels fragile.
Be near to those who are beginning again.

For all of us, in every season, be our companion on the road.
Remind us that if we do not have clarity, we still have Christ.
If we do not have answers, we still have your presence.
If we do not know what comes next, we still do not walk alone.
We pray all of this in the name of the risen Christ, who walks with us still, and who taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

The Wounds That Prove Love Wins

There's something deeply human about wanting proof. We don't want to be fooled, catfished, or made to look naive. In an age of AI-generated images and deepfakes, our skepticism feels not just reasonable but necessary. We want to know what's real.

This desire for certainty isn't new. It's as ancient as the first Easter evening, when a group of frightened disciples huddled behind locked doors, and one absent follower declared he wouldn't believe unless he could touch the wounds himself.

The Realness of Resurrection

The Gospel of John gives us something remarkable in its resurrection account. Unlike the other gospels, John isn't shy about the body—the real, physical, wounded body of Christ. This gospel alone mentions the spear piercing Jesus's side. It alone specifies nail marks in his hands. It alone describes blood at the crucifixion.

When Jesus appears to his disciples on that first Easter evening, he doesn't arrive as a sanitized, Instagram-filtered version of himself. He shows them his hands and his side—the very places where violence had marked him. Only after seeing these wounds do the disciples rejoice.

This detail matters more than we might initially think. The risen Lord is the crucified Jesus. The one who conquered death still bears the scars of dying. His suffering wasn't erased or forgotten or covered up. His very real pain, torture, and burial didn't stop the power of God from raising him to new life.

Jesus carries his wounds not because they won, but because he did.

Our Bodies, Our Scars

There's something countercultural about a faith that isn't afraid of damaged bodies. We live in a world obsessed with perfection—with hiding wrinkles, covering scars, and filtering out any evidence of aging or struggle. We're pressured to present flawless versions of ourselves, bodies without blemishes or marks.

But our bodies are miracles. They heal and grow and change and adapt. They tell the stories of what we've survived, what we've lived through, how far we've come. Our scars are proof of life, evidence of battles fought and won.

The resurrection story reminds us that God isn't afraid of real bodies—even broken ones, even damaged ones. In fact, it's precisely in that damage that we see God's power most clearly. What was destroyed and buried did not stay that way. Death did not have the final word.

The Disciple We Understand

Thomas gets a bad reputation. We call him "Doubting Thomas" as though his skepticism was a unique failing. But read the story carefully. The other disciples didn't believe Mary when she told them she'd seen the Lord. They didn't rejoice when Jesus first appeared and said, "Peace be with you." They only believed after Jesus showed them his hands and his side.

Thomas wasn't different from the other disciples. He just wasn't there for that first appearance. When he heard about it later, he said what many of us would say: "I need to see for myself. I need proof. I won't be fooled."

Thomas is relatable because he's honest. He voices what many of us feel but are afraid to admit in religious spaces. He represents everyone who's ever questioned, doubted, or needed more than just words to believe.

And here's what's beautiful: Jesus doesn't condemn him for it.

Peace, Not Condemnation

Three times in this passage, Jesus says, "Peace be with you." He says it to the fearful disciples. He says it again after showing them his wounds. He says it a third time when he appears to Thomas.

Peace—not condemnation, not frustration, not sarcasm. Peace. The kind of peace that means wholeness, completeness, the absence of striving and fear. The kind of peace that lets you finally take a deep breath.

When Thomas declares he won't believe without touching the wounds, Jesus doesn't rebuke him. He doesn't say, "Haven't I done enough?" He doesn't roll his eyes at Thomas's skepticism. Instead, he shows up and offers exactly what Thomas needs: "Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side."

There's no record that Thomas actually touched the wounds. Just Jesus showing up and offering was enough. Thomas responds with the fullest declaration of faith in the entire gospel: "My Lord and my God."

Jesus meets us where we are. He doesn't demand that we get our faith sorted out before he'll show up. He appears in locked rooms, behind closed doors, in the midst of our fear and doubt. He offers proof not because he has to, but because he loves us enough to give us what we need.

What This Means for Us

The author of John breaks the fourth wall at the end of this chapter, speaking directly to readers across the centuries: "These things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name."

Life. Real life. Not just existence, but life worth living—full of peace and hope and meaning, full of love, ultimately greater than anything we could imagine.

This is what resurrection is about. Not just a historical event two thousand years ago, but an ongoing reality. God meets us in our wounds, in our doubts, in our locked rooms. God shows up in real, tangible ways. God offers peace that brings wholeness.

And if we claim to follow this Jesus, we're called to do the same. We're sent out, scars and all, wounded and damaged though we may be, to show up for others in real ways. To meet people where they are. To bring peace. To make life better for everyone—regardless of whether they believe, maybe especially if they don't.

The resurrection isn't about having all the answers or never doubting. It's about a God who loves us enough to show us the wounds, to offer proof, to meet us exactly where we are. It's about life—abundant, real, scarred, and beautiful life—offered freely to all who reach out their hands.

The question isn't whether our doubts are valid. The question is whether we're willing to encounter the one who meets us in them, wounds and all, offering peace.

Good morning.

Once again, welcome to FUMC Dallas.

My name is Reverend Elizabeth Mosley.

I'm one of several ministers here on staff, and it's a joy to be with you in worship this morning while our senior minister, Reverend Mitchell Boone, takes a much-needed break on this first Sunday after Easter.

 How's everybody doing after Easter?

Yeah, good.

It was a great Sunday.

It was so fun, so big, so celebratory.

And of course, up until this Sunday, we have been in a really terrific worship series throughout Lent called Simply Love.

And last week, we celebrated big.

I mean, banners and all, but

 Also, I've learned that it's not just banners, it's streamers as well.

Streamers and banners and everything to celebrate the culmination of that worship series.

The message is that love wins.

Amen.

 And it was incredible and amazing, and I hope you hold on to that truth every single day of your lives.

And if we are honest, after something big like that, as we get further and further and further away from that amazing, high-energy, exciting moment, we can feel a little bit like, okay, now what?

 Do you know what I mean?

Have you ever felt that before after a big celebratory event?

Kind of the days leading after it, the days after it are a little bit of a, a little bit of a letdown maybe.

And I also think, if we're honest, that the Easter message, as amazing and wonderful and life-giving as it is, for some of us, even after Easter,

 it can still be hard to believe that message sometimes.

That love does actually win, that Christ is risen when life still feels kind of the same.

The struggles, they're ongoing.

 How many of you watched the Artemis II land safely on Friday evening?

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

What an incredible moment.

I made all my children watch this because I was like, you will want to say at some point in the future that you saw it live.

 It was such an incredible story and the whole mission was incredible.

How many of you followed it the whole way through?

We were just into it, just obsessed.

The history, the learning, the humble expertise, the going farther than humanity has ever gone before, and how incredible that they had that detailed, that precise of a landing.

They were on time from space.

 I cannot even be on time here, I'll just be honest.

It is hard for me to be on time five miles away.

I was reading so much of the comments and the memes and the interviews and all the posts that people were making about it, and one caught my eye.

One comment said, well, now what am I going to obsess over?

I need a season two, like immediately.

 And I get that.

Something that big and that huge, when it's over, you're kind of like, well, now what?

So let's talk about that today.

Would you bow with me in prayer?

Oh, Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be acceptable to you.

You are our rock and our redeemer, and we love you.

 Now, I don't know about your home, but in my home, there is a healthy dose of skepticism at all times.

Neil and I are both what you could call critical thinkers.

We're both products of great public school systems.

Shout out to any teachers out there.

 We're both seminary graduates.

We both like to ask lots of questions, just like Monica encouraged the children to do today.

We like knowing things, but we don't typically believe things just because someone told them to us, which is, I think, helpful when it comes to synthesizing the news these days and discerning what is true and real and important.

 But that's a little bit harder when your children have inherited those traits from you.

Our children are fantastic skeptics.

 They always want to know why.

Why do we have to do whatever it is we've asked them to do?

Why can't we just do it ourselves?

They want to know how.

How will this work?

How will this help them?

How could they possibly get out of the task at hand?

 They are very comfortable with the word no.

No, they will not go.

No, they will not stop.

No, they will not whatever, unless I present a very good argument as to why they should.

And even then, they often say no.

Actually, what they say is, nabra, that's cap.

And then they tell me not to crash out.

 Even though this trait that we have passed on to our children makes it a little challenging to parent them now, I'm actually okay with them being on the skeptical side.

Asking questions, not just taking things at face value, that's a valuable skill that will serve them well not only today, but for the rest of their lives.

 And I think we all actually like to know what's real and what isn't, don't we?

Now, some of us may live in a fantasy world, but none of us want to be catfished.

None of us want to be made fools of.

None of us want to believe that something is true and then have it turn out to just be AI.

 We want the truth.

We want to know for sure what's going on.

We don't want that feeling of uncertainty.

We want to know what is real.

And if that is you, like it is me in my household, there's a story in the Gospel of John that I think offers us great comfort and hope.

 It's a story actually that occurs the very same day as the resurrection, just a bit later.

It's the story of Jesus and Thomas.

Now the Gospel of John, just in case you're not as familiar, is the fourth gospel.

You'll find it in our scriptures in the Bibles in front of you after Matthew and Mark and Luke.

 And it's a little bit different than those gospels.

Those first three gospels are what we would call the synoptic gospels.

The word synoptic is a Greek word that essentially means seen or grouped together.

And those three gospels really can be

 seen and read and grouped together.

They all have similar words, similar stories of Jesus, a similar structure, language.

The order of things happens in the same way.

But the Gospel of John is very different.

 It actually doesn't include the same stories.

It adds in new stories.

It doesn't have things happening in the same order.

It uses different language and vocabulary, and there's a different structure.

We think most of the scholars agree that it was written probably later and separately than the other three gospels.

 around the turn of the century, the first century, and it was written, we believe, to a community of folks who knew the stories of Jesus, who were maybe from the Jewish tradition as well, but were dealing with persecution by the Jewish leaders.

In fact, they may have been kicked out of the synagogues at this point.

 There was a lot of disagreement and confusion between different Christian groups about what to believe.

And so the exact message of Christianity and what the stance may be and how to worship God and follow Jesus, there was just a lot kind of swirling around in that time.

 And so that's what the author of the Gospel of John, it seems to us, tries to do.

Explain and defend and clarify the Christian message so that all of the followers of Jesus could have hope and be united.

 Now the place that we are going to pick up in the gospel is appropriately immediately after the resurrection.

Now remember, Mary and the other women have gone to the tomb to prepare the body, but it's not there.

And Mary actually sees the risen Jesus.

She talks to him.

He calls her by name.

 And then she goes and she tells the disciples that she has seen the Lord.

I invite you to rise and body your spirit for the reading of the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 19 through 31.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews,

 Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

 As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

And if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

 So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

A week later, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.

 Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

And then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Do not doubt, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

 Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.

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.

 So on Easter Sunday, the same day that he was resurrected, right after Mary had gone and told all of the disciples that she had seen the risen Lord, the disciples lock themselves in a room because they are afraid.

 And yet, Jesus appears to them there in the room.

Now, somehow he is able to enter into the locked room, but he is not an illusion.

He's not a hologram.

He's not AI.

He's real.

He has the right number of fingers on both hands.

And even more powerfully,

 This is a small detail, it seems like in the Gospel of John, but it packs a big punch.

He shows them his hands and his side.

He shows them his hands which were pierced by nails and his side which was pierced by a spear.

And it's only after he shows them these physical markings, these wounds on his body,

 that the disciples rejoice.

Now, for as much as the Gospel of John presents a very high view of Christ, we call it a high Christology, where Christ is presented as the eternal cosmic word of God, very cosmic, very eternal, very I am.

 John, in the Gospel of John, this author is not afraid of the realness of Christ's humanity.

This author is actually not afraid of Christ's body.

 This gospel is not shy about acknowledging the violence of the crucifixion, which we actually don't get in the other gospels.

This is the only gospel that describes the spear stabbing in and piercing Jesus in the side.

This is the only gospel that actually mentions blood

 around Jesus's crucifixion.

It's the only gospel that specifies nail marks in his hands.

For the gospel of John, Jesus's crucifixion is real.

It's about a real body and real damage.

About two years ago, my youngest daughter fell at the playground at school.

 and she had to get stitches.

She's actually the first Moseley kid to ever need stitches, my youngest, and still so far is the only one who's ever had them.

I hope that lasts.

If you've ever seen a wound that needs stitches, you know that that's real, and it's gross.

 And I won't get graphic here, but let me just say that our bodies, they're pretty incredible.

They're pretty miraculous, and they're messy, and they're gross, and they're cool, and that's when they're working the way that they're supposed to.

I think about this a lot.

Our bodies really are miracles.

 They heal and they grow and they change and they age and they adapt.

And I know that there is a lot of emphasis in our world about having perfect bodies with no flaws.

I think especially for women, but really for all of us, there's a lot of pressure to not let any of the marks show, to not let any of the scars or the wrinkles show.

 Sometimes I think we prefer to just cover over the aging and the realness of life.

And that's okay because we're human.

But I really love that Jesus, that the Almighty God is not afraid of a real body.

That God is not afraid of

 of even a damaged body.

In fact,

 It's in this very damage that we see the power of God at work here in this story.

Remember, they hurt Jesus.

They tortured Jesus.

They beat Jesus.

They killed Jesus.

His body was destroyed and buried, and that did not stop God at work in him or through him.

 Because the Gospel of John presents to us, and we should not miss this, that the risen Lord is the crucified Jesus.

The risen Lord is not a sterile, glossy, sanctimonious, ultra-filtered Instagram post or TikTok reel.

The risen Lord is the real, life-wounded Son of God.

 And the suffering that Jesus went through, it was not for show.

It was not forgotten or brushed over or covered up.

His very real suffering, death, and burial did not stop the power of God from raising him to new life.

And so Jesus carries his wounds, not because they win, but because he did.

 And our scars do that for us as well, don't they?

Our scars show how much we have lived through and what we have survived.

 Now, as if the drama of the disciples seeing the real Christ raised to new life wasn't enough, we have this whole scenario that the Gospel of John paints because, of course, one disciple was not there when Jesus first appears.

Sweet Thomas.

We don't know why he wasn't there.

 Maybe he wasn't afraid, and so he didn't want to hide out in the room with the other disciples.

Maybe he was busy.

He had errands to run or a job to do, but all we know is he wasn't there.

And when he hears about it later, we do know that he has major FOMO.

He declares that he does not believe the disciples saw the real Christ, and he will not believe it unless...

 He can put his hand into Jesus' actual wounds, which is gross.

But hear what he's actually saying here.

He is saying, I am not going to be tricked.

I am not going to be fooled by anyone who's just claiming to be Jesus.

I know what I'm looking for, is what he says.

I know what I saw.

 I know the wounds on Jesus's body.

I saw him tortured.

I saw him crucified.

I saw him buried.

He knew what happened to him.

He wanted to make sure he wanted to see and touch for himself the real Jesus.

And I just want to say that I get it.

I get Thomas.

I get wanting to know.

 especially again in this day and age.

I mean, come on, we see a headline and we want to know, is that real?

We see a picture and we want to know, was this AI generated?

Is this real?

And remember, Thomas is actually not different from any of the other disciples.

Remember, they did not rejoice until after they had seen Jesus had shown them his hands and his side.

 Jesus appeared before them and said, peace be with you, but it's not until he actually shows them the proof that he is who he says he is that they rejoice.

So Thomas is actually not different from the other disciples and he's not different than any of us who are skeptical or who question or who doubt because no one wants to be duped.

No one wants to be made a fool of.

Thomas is very relatable.

 But this story isn't actually about Thomas.

It's about Jesus.

Look at what Jesus does.

Jesus shows up and he says, peace.

 peace be with you.

He says it to the disciples when he first appears to them.

He then repeats it to those same disciples after he shows them his hands and his feet, and then he says it a third time when he appears to Thomas as well.

He says, peace be with you three times, because in case you forgot, Jesus's resurrection is about peace.

 and not just the absence of conflict.

It's about wholeness, completeness, a time when there's no more striving, no more want, no more fear.

Peace, full peace be with you.

He offers that peace to everyone.

 He offers it to the disciples and those who are afraid like the disciples were.

He offers it to Thomas and those who doubt like Thomas did.

He offers it to those who don't understand and to those who are all in.

 Jesus offers peace, even now, even to us.

And in an age where lots of people claim to act on behalf of God, I think that this story reminds us that if something is of God, it will bring peace.

Not just the absence of conflict, but wholeness and fullness, the feeling where you can finally take a deep breath and you don't have to be afraid anymore.

 Jesus also shows up for the disciples in a real way.

Peace be with you, he says, and then he shows up in person.

He shows them that it's not just his words, but he is real.

 And catch this, he isn't mad.

He isn't mad at the disciples.

He's not mad at Thomas.

He's not mad at their fear or their questions or their doubts.

He shows up and meets them exactly where they are, even when they're in a room with a shut door, even when that door is locked.

And you know what he does?

He gives Thomas exactly what Thomas needs to believe.

 He isn't mad.

He isn't upset or sarcastic or frustrated.

He doesn't condemn Thomas.

He shows up and he says, here, put your finger in the holes of the nails in my hands.

Here, put your hand.

Give me your hand.

Reach out your hand.

 He literally lets Thomas not only see his wounds, but offers them, allows him to touch them, to connect with his damaged and scarred body.

 There is no scorn here.

It's often presented that way, that Jesus has a little bit of sarcasm.

That's not what actually we read here.

There's no frustration or bitterness.

He just meets Thomas where he is and gives him what he needs.

And it works.

 It works.

We don't actually know if Thomas touches Jesus.

Again, kind of gross.

But we don't know if he actually touches him.

But what Thomas does say is the most complete and full declaration and recognition of who Jesus is that the gospel wants to make clear all of us here, which is my Lord and my God.

That's who Jesus is.

My Lord and my God.

 And just Jesus showing up to provide what Thomas needed was enough for Thomas to have that realization.

The truth is, is that Jesus has and does meet us where we are as well.

This is actually what the incarnation, Jesus' birth and life and death is all about.

 He meets us as we are and reminds us of the miracles that we are.

God becomes incarnate, embodied, just like us.

And in doing that, God redeems us even when we are wounded, even when we are damaged and broken.

God raised Jesus and God raises us.

And finally,

 Just like God sent Jesus, Jesus sends the disciples and also us.

 to continue God's work in the world.

He breathes on the disciples.

Did you see that?

Giving them the Holy Spirit.

Side note, this is actually Pentecost and the Great Commission in the Gospel of John, all wrapped up on the same day as Easter, okay?

Pentecost, the way we celebrate it in 50 days, that's the Lucan timeline, okay?

The Great Commission in Galilee on the mountaintop, that's the Matthew timeline.

But in John, it's all together.

 The resurrection is connected with the giving of the Holy Spirit and the sending out of the disciples to continue Jesus' mission in the world.

And the language there is to the whole community.

Look, the Gospel of John truly hardly ever focuses just on this small group of 12.

There's sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more throughout the whole Gospel, but this message is for the whole community.

The work is given to all who follow Jesus

 And it is done in and through that community ongoing.

So that means us.

That's for us as well.

And this is where that amazing little kind of breaking the fourth wall comes in at the end of this chapter, where the author is directly reminding the readers, us, that Jesus did actually even more signs in the presence of his disciples, but that these signs

 These physical, tangible manifestations of God's love for the world were done so that all who hear of them or read about them, even if they don't get to see or touch the physical Jesus, may believe that Jesus is still the one who was sent to save us and love us.

And why is it important that we believe this?

 Why is Easter important?

Why are we even here today?

What is all of this for?

What all of this is for, what all of this means, all of the stories, all the writing, all the traditions, all the music, all the ministry, all of this is actually for us so that we might have life in his name.

 God did this for us so that we might have life.

And isn't that what we all want?

Isn't that what we need?

Life, to have life, not just to live, but to have a life that is worth living, that is real, that is full of peace and hope and meaning, that is full of love and ultimately is greater than anything we could imagine.

 This story reminds us that Jesus offers this to us but he doesn't dangle it out of our reach.

This is not a scam.

This is not an illusion.

There's a lot out there in our world that promises to make our life better but actually just sucks the life out of us.

There's a lot out there in our world that claims to be peace but is actually just more violence.

 There's a lot in our world that claims to be love but is actually about dominance and control.

There's a lot out there that claims to give hope but actually just peddles in fear.

It's not surprising that there are skeptics of what our faith tradition claims.

 It's not surprising that there are people who want proof that what we claim to believe is real.

This story reminds us that the disciples, Jesus' closest friends, were skeptics.

They doubted, they questioned, they didn't understand.

And Jesus' response is not to judge, reject, or treat them with contempt.

It's to treat them with love.

In fact,

 The very same love that took Jesus to the cross takes him to those who need even more.

He shows up in a real way with his wounds out.

He meets Thomas and the disciples and all of us where we are.

He doesn't say, haven't I done enough?

He says, here I am, touch my wounds.

 And don't miss this, especially if you claim to be a follower of Christ.

As the Father sent him, so he sends us.

If we follow Jesus, we also must show up.

 scars and all, wounded and damaged though we may be, we must show up in real and tangible ways for others, for the world, for our neighborhood, for our communities, in ways that bring peace, to make life better for everyone, regardless of whether or not they believe, maybe especially if they don't.

And if you are here, and you, like my children, are still skeptics,

 I really get it.

And I hope you know that this church is not afraid of your doubts and that we welcome your questions and your conversation.

Any of our clergy are here.

We're available.

We would love to listen and to talk and to just hear you out and meet you where you are.

And that's my prayer.

My prayer

 is that every person in this room who calls themselves a Christian will show up for you in a real way, that they will meet you where you are and that you will feel loved as you are.

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

Amen.

Desperate for Hope
based on John 21:15-18

Good morning, friends. I’m so grateful to be with you today—and happy Easter season.
What a gift it is that Easter is not just one Sunday, but a season we enter into.
And as Mitchell reminded us last week—love wins.

Love didn’t just win on Easter Sunday. Just as we cannot contain Christ’s love to one day of the week, love continues to win.

It’s not lost on me that in the United Methodist Church, we get the opportunity to experience on the full journey of Lent - from Ash Wednesday to Easter morning.
We begin on Ash Wednesday, where we are reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. It’s a moment that grounds us in our humanity—our finitude—and reminds us that we only have so much time here, and we get to decide how we’re going to spend it.
Then we enter into the forty days of Lent—a season of fasting, reflection, and growth. Whether you fasted or not isn’t really the point. The point is that Lent invites us into a deeper closeness with God—a kind of spiritual maturity.

Then we move into Holy Week.
We gather on Maundy Thursday—that mandate moment—where Christ washes the disciples’ feet and shares a final meal with them. It’s a beautiful reminder of the community he gathered… even though they had no idea what was about to happen.
And then we gather again—one more time before Easter—for Good Friday.
The day Christ dies. Where everything seems lost.
The moment the disciples truly felt… this is the end.

And then—we get Easter Sunday.
A beautiful Sunday.
A day of celebration. Of family. Of Easter egg hunts and baskets and pictures in front of the cross.
And, of course, we know—death did not have the final word.
But here’s the thing.
Just as we were reminded last week, love winning is not just something we celebrate.
It’s something we remember—especially in the hardest seasons of our lives.

Because the truth is, there are still Good Friday moments.
In our lives and in the lives of the people we love.
People we know are:

• navigating addiction
• feeling strained in their Marriage
• experiencing Bodies that are failing
• trying to build a family and walking through infertility, miscarriage, adoption
• losing their jobs—sitting in the uncertainty of what comes next.
• worried about Financial strain
• finding that season of parenting feels overwhelming.
• struggling with Friendships that feel distant or lost.

And I know that I don’t have to look very far to see how real this is:
In just the last few weeks, I’ve received texts from people I love—

• One friend entering rehab.
• Another being laid off unexpectedly.
• Another needing an organ transplant.
• Another walking through miscarriage.

These aren’t distant stories.
These are people we know and we love.
These are folks in our group chats, in our small groups, in our everyday lives.
Folks carry so much. And sometimes they carry it quietly.
Which means we don’t always see how desperate someone is for hope.
But it’s there.

Because if you really think about it, all of those Good Friday feelings are pointing to something deeper.
They’re not just emotions. They’re a kind of longing.
A kind of desperation for something we can’t always name—but we feel it.
Hopelessness is really a longing for hope.
Isolation is a longing for connection.
Despair is a longing for joy again.
Agony is a longing for peace.
Dread is a longing for something steady to hold onto.
Scarcity is a longing to believe that there will be enough.

And underneath all of it… is a deep, human need for hope.
At some point, every one of us becomes desperate for hope.
And that’s why this moment in John 21 matters so much.
Because by the time we get here—Easter has already happened.
Christ is risen.
The tomb is empty.
Love has already won.

And yet… not everything feels resolved.
Peter is still carrying something.
Peter is desperate for hope.
Jesus finds him on the shore.
And if you slow down and sit in that moment, you can feel it.
Peter, as a follower, had been so sure about Jesus.
“I’ll never leave you.” “I’ll follow you anywhere.”
And then fear crept in.
And Peter denied even knowing Jesus.
Three times.

So in our scripture today, he’s face-to-face with the risen Christ, after the denial.
And you have to wonder what he expects.
Disappointment? Distance? A reminder of what he did wrong?
Instead, they’re eating breakfast. They sit together, with their community.
And then Jesus asks him: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Once. Twice. Three times.

You can almost feel the silence and the weight lingering between each question.
The way Peter has to lean into the moment instead of pulling away.
And Jesus doesn’t rush him.
He stays there—long enough for the restoration to take root.
Because this isn’t just forgiveness. It’s formation. It’s shaping Peter into someone who can love the way he has been loved.
And each time Peter says yes, Jesus responds:
“Feed my sheep.” This is where the story turns for us. Because love for Christ is not something we just feel. It’s something that moves.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, talked about this as “works of mercy.” And that’s not just church language. It’s actually very practical.
It looks like feeding people who are hungry,
Visiting people who are sick.
Sitting with someone who is grieving.
Caring for people who feel forgotten.
Showing up when someone is in crisis.

It’s the kind of love that shows up in real life.
Not dramatic. Not perfect. But present.

Wesley believed that these were “means of grace”—which means that when we care for others, it’s not just helping them…
God is actually shaping us in the process.

This is what spiritual maturity looks like—not just knowing that God loves you, but becoming someone through whom that love moves. Which means loving Christ and loving others are the same movement.

And we see that movement all throughout the Gospels:
The woman at the well (John 4).
She comes alone, in the middle of the day. Not because it’s convenient—but because it’s safer. She has learned how to live on the edges. How to avoid people. How to carry her story quietly without being seen too closely.

Isolation has become her normal.
And underneath that isolation is something deeper— a longing to belong, to be known, to connect with someone.
She is desperate for hope—even if she can’t name it that way.
And Jesus meets her there.
Not after she fixes her life.
Not after she explains herself.
Right there. He sees her and speaks to her.
And then he offers her something she didn’t even know she could ask for—living water.
Hope in the middle of isolation.
Connection in the place she expected distance.

Then, in the feeding of the five thousand (Matthew 14).
A massive crowd gathers—people who are hungry.
And the disciples do what we so often do. They start calculating.
“We don’t have enough.” “There’s no way this works.”
Scarcity.
The belief that there will not be enough to meet the need in front of them. And underneath that scarcity is something deeper— a desperation for provision. And Jesus looks at them and says: “You give them something to eat.”

Which feels impossible.
Because all they have is a small amount—five loaves and two fish. Not enough. Not even close. But in the hands of Jesus, what is not enough becomes more than enough.
Bread is broken. Food is shared. Everyone eats. And there are leftovers.
Abundance in the middle of scarcity.

The man lowered through the roof (Mark 2:1–12).
He cannot walk which means cannot get to Jesus on his own.
And underneath that reality is something deeper— a desperation for healing, a longing for relief, and a need for someone to help him get there.
And his community refuses to leave him where he is. They carry him. They push through the crowd. They climb onto the roof. They tear it open.

Because sometimes, when someone is desperate for hope, they cannot get there on their own.
They need people who will carry them. People who will believe for them when they cannot believe for themselves. People who will do whatever it takes to get them in front of Jesus.
And Jesus meets him there.
Not just with healing—but with restoration. Relief in the middle of helplessness.

Every one of these stories is about people who are desperate for hope.
And every one of them shows us the same thing: Christ meets people right there—and often, he does it through the presence of others.
So what does it look like to carry that hope?

Because “feed my sheep” sounds beautiful. But what does it look like when someone texts you something hard?
Sometimes it looks like presence.
Just showing up.
Sometimes it looks like naming truth: “You are not alone.”
Sometimes it looks like consistency.
Checking in again and again.
Sometimes it looks like prayer.
And sometimes it’s refusing to look away.
Because love that carries hope doesn’t look away.

This is where theologian M. Shawn Copeland is so helpful.
She writes about how love is not abstract—it’s embodied. It’s about recognizing the dignity of another person and refusing to treat them as invisible. Her work comes out of deep reflection on suffering, injustice, and community—and she reminds us that real Christian love looks like presence. Like staying with people in their pain. Like honoring their full humanity. Like refusing to leave someone alone in their Good Friday moment.

And what a gift it is that we know Easter is coming. We are not people stuck in Good Friday.
We are people who know that Christ is risen.
Which means hope is not gone. And this isn’t just true in general.
It’s true for you.

Whatever you are carrying into this space today— Christ is with you in it. Not waiting for you to fix it. Not waiting for you to figure it out. With you—right now.
And if today you find yourself in a Good Friday season—if you are desperate for hope— you are not alone. Christ is with you. And we are called to be with you too.

And if today you find yourself in a season of stability—that is an invitation. Because there are seasons where you are the one being carried—and seasons where you are strong enough to carry someone else.

And spiritual maturity means we don’t just celebrate Easter. We embody it. We become people who carry hope into the lives of others.
Because at the end of the day—everyone is desperate for hope.
We just carry it differently.

And someone in your life right now is sitting in a moment that feels like Good Friday—and they may not have the words for it. But your presence might be the thing that reminds them— Easter is still coming.

So may we be people who love Christ deeply enough to love others tangibly.
May we carry hope into every place that feels like despair. Because love wins. Christ is risen. And hope is not lost.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

When Good Friday Feelings Linger: Finding Hope in the In-Between

Easter has come and gone. The tomb is empty. The lilies have been cleared away. The celebration has concluded. And yet—something still feels unfinished.

Perhaps it's because while we proclaim that love has won, our lived experience sometimes tells a different story. We know people navigating addiction, marriages under strain, bodies that are failing. We receive texts about friends entering rehab, facing unexpected layoffs, needing organ transplants, walking through miscarriage. These aren't distant headlines. These are the people in our group chats, our small groups, our everyday lives.

The truth is that even after Easter Sunday, Good Friday moments persist.

The Journey We Walk

There's something profound about the full liturgical journey from Ash Wednesday through Easter. It mirrors the reality of human existence in a way that a single Sunday cannot capture.

We begin with ashes—grounded in our humanity, our finitude, reminded that we only have so much time here. We enter forty days of reflection and growth, invited into deeper closeness with God. We gather for Maundy Thursday, that mandate moment of foot-washing and final meals, beautiful community on the edge of tragedy. Then comes Good Friday—the day Christ dies, when everything seems lost, when the disciples truly felt this was the end.

And then Easter arrives with its celebration, its joy, its proclamation that death does not have the final word.

But here's what we often miss: the story doesn't end on Easter Sunday. The Gospel of John gives us a glimpse into what happens after—into the messy, unresolved feelings that linger even after resurrection has been announced.

Peter's Desperation

By John 21, Easter has already happened. Christ is risen. The tomb is empty. Love has won.

And yet Peter is still carrying something heavy.

This is the same Peter who had been so certain about Jesus. "I'll never leave you." "I'll follow you anywhere." And then fear crept in, and Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Three times.

Now he's face-to-face with the risen Christ after the denial. Imagine what he expects. Disappointment? Distance? A reminder of what he did wrong?

Instead, they eat breakfast together. They sit with their community. And then Jesus asks: "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

Once. Twice. Three times.

You can almost feel the silence, the weight lingering between each question. The way Peter has to lean into the moment instead of pulling away. Jesus doesn't rush him. He stays there—long enough for the restoration to take root.

This isn't just forgiveness. It's formation. It's shaping Peter into someone who can love the way he has been loved.

And each time Peter says yes, Jesus responds: "Feed my sheep."

What Desperation Really Means

All those Good Friday feelings—hopelessness, isolation, despair, agony, dread, scarcity—they're not just emotions. They're a kind of longing. A kind of desperation for something we can't always name but we feel deeply.

Hopelessness is really a longing for hope. Isolation is a longing for connection. Despair is a longing for joy again. Agony is a longing for peace. Dread is a longing for something steady to hold onto. Scarcity is a longing to believe there will be enough.

Underneath all of it is a deep, human need for hope.

At some point, every one of us becomes desperate for hope.

Love That Moves

"Feed my sheep" isn't just poetic language. It's deeply practical. Love for Christ is not something we just feel—it's something that moves.

It looks like feeding people who are hungry. Visiting people who are sick. Sitting with someone who is grieving. Caring for people who feel forgotten. Showing up when someone is in crisis.

This is what John Wesley called "works of mercy"—means of grace that shape us even as we care for others. When we show up for people in real, tangible ways, God is actually forming us in the process. This is spiritual maturity: not just knowing that God loves you, but becoming someone through whom that love moves.

Biblical Patterns of Hope

The Gospels are filled with people desperate for hope, and Christ meeting them right there:

**The woman at the well** comes alone in the middle of the day—not because it's convenient, but because it's safer. Isolation has become her normal. She has learned to live on the edges, to carry her story quietly. And Jesus meets her there, not after she fixes her life, but right where she is. He offers living water—hope in the middle of isolation, connection in the place she expected distance.

**The feeding of the five thousand** confronts scarcity head-on. The disciples calculate and conclude there's not enough. But in the hands of Jesus, what is not enough becomes more than enough. Bread is broken. Food is shared. Everyone eats. There are leftovers. Abundance in the middle of scarcity.

**The man lowered through the roof** cannot get to Jesus on his own. So his community refuses to leave him where he is. They carry him. They push through the crowd. They climb onto the roof. They tear it open. Because sometimes, when someone is desperate for hope, they cannot get there alone. They need people who will carry them, who will believe for them when they cannot believe for themselves.

Carrying Hope

Every one of these stories shows us the same thing: Christ meets people in their desperation—and often, he does it through the presence of others.

So what does it look like to carry hope?

Sometimes it looks like presence—just showing up. Sometimes it's naming truth: "You are not alone." Sometimes it's consistency—checking in again and again. Sometimes it's prayer. And sometimes it's refusing to look away.

Because love that carries hope doesn't look away.

There are seasons where you are the one being carried—and seasons where you are strong enough to carry someone else. Spiritual maturity means we don't just celebrate Easter. We embody it. We become people who carry hope into the lives of others.

The Gift We Know

What a gift it is that we know Easter is coming. We are not people stuck in Good Friday. We are people who know that Christ is risen. Which means hope is not gone.

Someone in your life right now is sitting in a moment that feels like Good Friday—and they may not have the words for it. But your presence might be the thing that reminds them: Easter is still coming.

Everyone is desperate for hope. We just carry it differently.

May we carry hope into every place that feels like despair. Because love wins. Christ is risen. And hope is not lost.

5-Day Devotional: Meeting Jesus Where You Are

Day 1: The Risen Lord with Wounds

Reading: John 20:19-23

Devotional: The resurrected Jesus still bears the marks of crucifixion. His wounds are not erased but transformed—evidence not of defeat, but of victory. In our culture of filters and perfection, we often hide our scars, physical and emotional. But Jesus shows us that our wounds tell a story of survival and God's sustaining power. The scars don't define us; they testify to what we've overcome. Today, consider: What wounds are you hiding? How might God be working through your broken places? Remember, the risen Lord is the crucified Jesus—and in that paradox lies our hope. God doesn't erase our pain; God redeems it.

Day 2: Peace in the Locked Room

Reading: John 20:19-20

Devotional: The disciples locked themselves away in fear, yet Jesus appeared among them anyway. No door is too locked, no fear too great to keep Jesus out. "Peace be with you," He says—not once, but three times in this passage. This peace isn't merely the absence of conflict; it's shalom, complete wholeness and restoration. Where are you locked away today? What fears have you barricaded yourself behind? Jesus meets us in our hiding places, not with condemnation but with peace. He doesn't wait for us to get it together, unlock the door, or overcome our fear first. He shows up anyway, bringing the peace we desperately need.

Day 3: Blessed Doubters

Reading: John 20:24-29

Devotional: Thomas gets a bad reputation, but his doubt is profoundly relatable. He wanted proof, evidence, reality—not wishful thinking. And Jesus didn't reject him for it. Instead, Jesus offered exactly what Thomas needed: tangible proof, an invitation to touch and see. Faith isn't the absence of doubt; it's trust despite uncertainty. Jesus blesses those who believe without seeing, but He doesn't curse those who need more. If you're struggling with doubt today, you're in good company. Bring your questions to Jesus. He's not intimidated by skepticism. Ask, seek, knock—and discover that Jesus meets seekers with grace, not judgment. Your doubts don't disqualify you from encountering the living God.

Day 4: Sent as Jesus Was Sent

Reading: John 20:21-23

Devotional: After showing His wounds and offering peace, Jesus commissions His followers: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." This is breathtaking. Jesus was sent to embody God's love, to meet people where they are, to bring healing and hope. Now He sends us the same way. We don't go in our own strength—He breathes the Holy Spirit on us. Our mission isn't to judge or condemn, but to love as Jesus loved. How does this change your Monday morning? Your interactions with difficult people? Your response to a hurting world? You are sent—scars and all—to be Christ's presence. Show up for others as Jesus showed up for Thomas: with patience, grace, and tangible love.

Day 5: Life in His Name

Reading: John 20:30-31

Devotional: The Gospel writer breaks the fourth wall to tell us why these stories were written: "that you may believe...and that through believing you may have life in his name." Everything points to this—not just existence, but abundant life. Real life. Full life. Life that transcends suffering and death. This isn't a prosperity gospel promise of easy living; it's the assurance that even in our woundedness, even in locked rooms of fear, even in our doubts, Jesus offers us something greater than mere survival. He offers us life worth living, grounded in His love. Today, receive this gift. Whatever you're facing, Jesus isn't dangling hope just out of reach. He's offering real, tangible, life-giving presence. Believe, and live.

Day 1: When Love Asks Questions

Reading: John 21:15-19

Devotional: After Peter's denial, Jesus doesn't lead with condemnation—He leads with questions. "Do you love me?" Three denials, three opportunities for restoration. Jesus meets Peter exactly where he is, offering not shame but formation. Notice how Jesus doesn't ask Peter to explain his failure or promise to do better. He simply invites him back into relationship and purpose: "Feed my sheep."

Where have you denied Christ through your actions, words, or silence? Jesus is asking you the same question today—not to condemn, but to restore. Your past failures are not disqualifications; they're the very places where Christ's resurrection power meets you. Love doesn't just forgive; it transforms failure into purpose. How will you respond to His question today?

Day 2: Meeting People at the Well

Reading: John 4:1-26

Devotional: The woman at the well had learned to live in isolation—coming alone at noon to avoid judgment and rejection. Yet Jesus intentionally meets her there, crossing every social boundary to offer living water. He doesn't wait for her to clean up her life first. He sees her, speaks to her, and offers hope in the midst of her desperation.

Who are the people in your life living on the edges, carrying stories quietly, avoiding connection? Jesus models radical presence—meeting people where they are, not where we think they should be. Isolation whispers that we're too broken to belong, but Christ's presence declares otherwise. Today, consider: Who needs you to cross a boundary to offer the hope of connection? Spiritual maturity means becoming someone who sees the invisible and speaks to the isolated.

Day 3: Abundance in Scarcity

Reading: Matthew 14:13-21

Devotional: The disciples saw scarcity—not enough food, not enough resources, not enough time. But Jesus saw opportunity. "You give them something to eat." What seemed impossible in their hands became abundant in His. Five loaves and two fish fed thousands, with leftovers remaining.

What "not enough" are you holding today? Not enough strength, time, resources, or faith? Christ invites you to bring your insufficiency to Him. Scarcity thinking keeps us from acting, but kingdom abundance begins when we offer what little we have. The miracle isn't that we have enough—it's that Christ multiplies our offerings beyond what we can imagine. Your small acts of obedience, your limited resources, your weak faith—all become enough in His hands. What will you offer today, trusting Him for the multiplication?

Day 4: Carried by Community

Reading: Mark 2:1-12

Devotional: The paralyzed man couldn't reach Jesus alone. He needed friends who would carry him, push through crowds, tear open a roof, and refuse to give up. His healing came through the faith and persistence of his community. Sometimes we are desperate for hope but lack the strength to pursue it ourselves.

Are you in a season of being carried, or a season of carrying others? Both are sacred. Spiritual maturity recognizes that we cannot do this faith journey alone. When someone is in their Good Friday moment, they need people who will believe for them, pray for them, and physically show up. Who is God calling you to carry this week? Or perhaps you need to humble yourself and allow others to carry you. Christ often meets our desperation through the hands and feet of His people. Don't refuse the gift of community.

Day 5: Embodying Easter Hope

Reading: 1 Peter 1:3-9

Devotional: Peter, the same one who denied Christ three times, writes these words: "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Peter knows what it means to move from Good Friday despair to Easter hope—not as theory, but as lived experience.

Living hope isn't passive optimism; it's active trust that Easter changes everything. Even in trials that test your faith, even when you cannot see the outcome, resurrection power is at work. You are not stuck in your Good Friday moment. Christ is risen, which means death, despair, and darkness never have the final word. Today, how will you embody Easter hope? Will you carry it to someone still sitting in their tomb? Will you speak resurrection into someone's death situation? Love wins—not just once, but continually. Let that truth move through you today.

Well, good morning, friends.

My name is Mitchell, and I serve as a senior minister here at First United Methodist Church of Dallas.

And it is so good to be here with you all on Easter morning.

I mean that.

It is a joy.

And so whether this has been, you know, your first Easter with us, or whether you have been here for decades, I'm grateful that you have made time to worship.

 to proclaim the good news of the gospel once again on this glorious day.

And I am grateful for those who, especially for those who it's their first time here.

You know, our church's mission to magnify God's love for all people by creating space for belonging, purpose, justice, and joy really starts with this idea of belonging.

And so if you need a faith community to belong to,

 know that we would love for you to find a home here.

I also begin this sermon with a bit of a confession.

I have been working on this thing for quite a bit, much longer than I'm used to.

And if you were in the pastor's Bible study this past Sunday, that is not news to you, as I sort of struggled to make sense of what we were going to get into today.

I've read commentaries and

 I've spent time reading others' interpretations of the Greek, and I've prayed over this text more than I've really prayed over anything in recent memory.

I've been in my office in the late afternoon sipping cold coffee.

I don't know why I'm sipping cold coffee.

We can have warm coffee anytime we'd like in the staff offices, but...

 I've been sipping cold coffee, staring at a blank page more times than I care to admit, and I am still at awe of how hard this sermon has been over the past several weeks.

I've had thoughts in the shower, felt like a breakthrough, like I kind of got my head around it, my hands around it, and it turned out to be nothing.

And after all of that, after all this sort of struggle I've had with the text, I remain committed

 I remain confident that the title that I penciled in back in August still holds up, and it's really two words.

Love Wins.

Love Wins.

Now my son Cash, who's in second grade, could have told me that on Ash Wednesday and saved me a lot of time.

I genuinely did not need six weeks in a Greek lexicon to get here, and yet here we are anyway.

And so, here's what I've come to believe.

 The simplest things.

The simplest things are almost always the hardest things to actually hold on to.

Saying love wins in February is easy.

Saying it when the circumstances you face aren't changed by its proclamation becomes second nature to us as Christians.

But standing in front of a tomb

 And meaning it is something else entirely.

And that is what we're here for this morning.

For those of you who have been with us through this Lenten season, you know what we've been carrying together.

Seven weeks of asking what love, divine love, actually looks like.

Especially when it costs us something.

Love that winds the circle past what is...

 Comfortable.

Love that waits without controlling.

Love that walks into the face of rejection and chooses to love even as those around it don't.

And all of this sort of love, this divine love, has been risky every single week.

And here on this morning, on this Easter Sunday, is where there are not, we see if it holds.

 And so, I invite us to hear the Easter story proclaimed once again as you rise and embody your spirit for the reading of the Gospel.

From the Gospel of Luke, the 24th chapter, verses 1 through 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.

And while they were perplexed about this, suddenly, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them and the women were terrified and they 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 he 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 on the third day, rise again?

And then they remembered his words.

And returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

And now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with whom

 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 in and looking in.

He saw the linen clothes by themselves, and then he went home amazed at what had happened.

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 and meditations of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.

You are the one who refuses to let love be the last casualty.

Help us to remember.

Amen.

 Here's the thing about today, and maybe this is why I struggled so much writing this particular Easter sermon.

You already know the story.

It's not new.

You already know how this story ends.

Every single person I imagine in this room already knows how the gospel concludes.

The tomb is empty.

Christ is risen.

Love wins.

 You knew that before you got dressed this morning.

You knew it before you fought your way downtown to find a parking spot.

You knew it before the brass played and the lilies arrived and someone handed you a bulletin.

The Easter story then is not a mystery that is waiting for us to solve it.

It is not information that you are lacking.

This is the most told story in the history of the Christian church, and most of us have been hearing it since before we could even read.

 The real question this morning is not whether you know the story.

The question is whether you can remember it.

And I want to be careful about that word because I do not mean it casually.

There is a difference between knowing something and being able to find it when you need it.

 My entire life seems to be teaching me this lesson as I am stuck in this theme.

I know this about myself better than I know almost anything.

I lose things.

Like real things, I lose things a lot.

It's one of my most consistent and least charming qualities.

Keys, wallet, phone, a kid's water bottle.

 Shoelaces you spend too much time tracking down to buy the day before Easter for your Allen Edmund dress shoes.

Whatever I was just holding 30 seconds ago, I can easily misplace it.

 And the particular frustration of losing something is never that it has ceased to exist.

That's obviously true.

It is that I know it is somewhere.

It's in the house.

I just cannot locate it in the moment when I actually need it.

And I will spend 20 minutes tearing apart every room only to find that thing that I'm missing sitting exactly where it was supposed to be the whole time.

 My wife, Eli, though, has this gift for resolving this clear character flaw of mine.

She can walk into a room and take one look and find the thing that I've been searching for for the better part of an hour.

And most of the time she does it with patience that is either deeply loving or she's deeply amused, probably a little bit of both, because the thing was never gone.

I just lost my ability, right, to find it.

 Now, not to belittle the Easter story by comparing the resurrection account to my shoelaces, but this is often what happens to us in the middle of ordinary life.

We know that love wins.

Most of us have known it for a long time, but then life does what life does because the world is not neutral on this.

 The world is not simply indifferent to whether or not we remember the pace of our lives, the noise of our culture, the relentless demands of work and family, and the thousands of small emergencies that fill out all of our days.

All of it is moving in one direction, one clear direction, and that direction is not towards remembering.

It's towards forgetting.

 We live in a time and place that's extraordinarily good at making the urgent, the urgent feel more real than the truth.

The notifications that pull us away from the conversation, the deadlines that crowd out our prayer life, the crisis of the moment that helps us swallow the convictions we've held for a lifetime, we are good at forgetting.

And we're not bad people for this.

 We're not bad because we forget.

We're just people.

Finite human beings with finite attention spans and limited energy living in a time that is asking more of us than we can give at any single moment.

But the cumulative effect of this, the cumulative effect of all that is

 is that we forget and that the forgetting is real.

You do not lose the Easter story all at once.

You lose it the way you lose anything, gradually, incrementally, one distraction at a time, one disappointment at a time, one moment where you reach for the truest thing you knew and could not find it.

And then it happens again and again

 And again, until somewhere along the way, the story that was supposed to be the center of everything starts to feel like something you used to know, something you believe in theory but cannot quite access it or practice it, something that belongs to a version of you that had more time or more faith or fewer reasons to be tired.

 And the world is patient about this.

The empire does not need to defeat the Easter story directly.

It just needs to keep us busy enough that we stop reaching for it.

It just needs the noise to stay loud enough that the still small voice gets harder and harder to hear.

It just needs us to keep our eyes down long enough that we forget to look up.

That is not a new problem though for us.

 For humanity, that may very well be the oldest problem.

And it is exactly the human condition that the author of Luke is describing in this text.

Not ignorance, not malice, just the ordinary heartbreaking difficulty of holding on to the truest thing we know when everything around us is insisting otherwise.

 What makes Luke so provocative, so unsettling, so relentlessly honest is that the author has been telling us the truth about this the entire time.

The whole gospel of Luke is built around it.

And if you read it from beginning to end, which I encourage you,

 to do, you start to see that Luke is not surprised by any of this.

Not the forgetting, not the dismissal, not the men around the table reaching for the language of derangement when the women walk in with the most important news in human history.

Luke has been preparing us for this moment since the very first chapter.

 A young woman, Jesus' mother, in a small town in Galilee, opens her mouth and sings.

She has no power, no standing, no platform.

She is nobody measured by the world's standards.

And yet what comes out of her is not a timid prayer of resignation.

It is a proclamation.

 A proclamation that's sung in the past tense as though what she is describing has already happened.

She sings, he has brought down the powerful from their thrones.

God has lifted up the lowly.

Mary's not describing something completed.

She's describing, though, something that is certain.

 She is so sure of what God is doing, is going to do, that she sings it as if it's already done.

That song is the theological thesis for the entire gospel of Luke.

And Luke essentially spends the next 23 chapters proving it to be true.

Over and over and over, the author shows us who gets seen, who gets heard, who ends up in the room when something holy happens.

 the shepherd in their fields, the tax collector, the woman who lost her coin, the father who runs down the road, the thief on the cross, the Samaritan who stops, the lowly are lifted, the hungry are filled, the powerful not getting the last word.

Mary knew it before any of it began, and Luke has been asking us to remember alongside her ever since.

 And now we're in chapter 24.

The women come to the tomb before dawn.

They come with spices because love does not abandon what it loves even after death.

They find the stone has been rolled away.

And two men in dazzling clothes are there.

And the women are terrified and they bow their faces to the ground.

And the men say to them something remarkable.

 They do not say to them something new.

They do not give them an announcement that they have never heard before.

They simply say, remember.

Remember.

 Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, it was always there.

Everything they needed was already in them and they had been given the truth.

They just needed someone to help them find it again.

And they remembered his words again.

 And that remembering changed everything.

Then they went and told the disciples.

And the author of Luke connects the story to the constant lack of memory we face.

Because when the women return to tell the good news of the resurrection, the women are quickly dismissed.

 The word that the disciples reach for when they hear the woman's report, the Greek word here is leros.

Our English translations tend to say idle tale, but leros is not simply an idle tale.

It's a state of delirium.

 It's the incoherent babbling of someone whose fever has broken their hold on reality.

It is the most dismissive word that they could have probably used.

And the first Easter proclamation in human history is delivered by women who have encountered the risen Christ.

And the men, the men around the table, they call it a fever dream.

 And if you've been paying attention to Luke all along, this is not a surprise.

This is essentially the point.

Mary's saying it in chapter one, the lowly will be lifted, the powerful will not get the last word.

And here at the very end of Luke, the author shows us this pattern completing itself one final time.

The witnesses the world would dismiss are still the ones who carry the truth.

The insiders who should know better reach for the language of contempt and dismissiveness.

 The great reversal is finishing exactly the way Mary said it would.

The world has always called love's proclamation nonsense.

It was called that on the first Easter morning.

It's still called that today.

 Every time someone says the hungry should be fed, the unhoused deserve dignity, the vulnerable are worth protecting, and that love is stronger than fear, there is a voice somewhere reaching for a dismissive retort.

The world says love, divine love, like this is naive.

It's sentimental, delusional.

 that those who proclaim it don't understand how the world actually works.

And yet on today, we proclaim the tomb is empty anyway.

 Notice that Peter cannot quite write it off.

He cannot quite stay at the table.

Something in him will not let him stop reaching toward what he already knows somewhere deep down.

So he gets up and he runs to the tomb and he stoops in and he looks in and he sees the linen cloths lying there by themselves.

And the text says that Peter goes home amazed, not believing yet fully, not preaching the good news of the resurrection, not running to tell anyone

 Peter is just amazed, turning something over in his mind that he does not yet have the words for.

Something has shifted and he cannot name it yet, but he cannot unfeel it either.

I find enormous comfort in Peter in this moment because I think a lot of us are more like Peter than we are like the women.

We're not quite ready to

 to call the resurrection story a fever dream, but we're not quite ready to go tell anyone either.

We're somewhere in between, running towards the doom because something in us will not stay seated and leaving a maze because what we found is more than we expected, even though we cannot yet say what we actually believe.

And that is the good news of today.

The good news of the gospel is that, well, that's enough.

 That is more than enough for the gospel of Luke to work with because here's the truth, the resurrection does not wait for you to have your confession fully formed.

It does not wait for your certainty to catch up with your longing.

It's already happened.

The

 tomb is already empty the story has already turned and the invitation this morning is not to perform a belief you do not feel it is simply to let what is true be true to let the thing you already know just come back to the surface

 Everything love risked across these past seven weeks turns out to have been right.

Good Friday was indeed real.

The grief was real.

The cross was everything that the empire wanted it to be.

And the empire's logic turned out to be hollow anyway.

Death told the world.

It was the final authority.

And on Easter morning, we learn that the resurrection proved it was lying.

 And in doing so, Mary's song is once again reaffirmed.

The powerful were brought down from their throne, so lowly were lifted up.

Mary sang it before it happened, and Luke spent 24 chapters proving she was right.

And on the first day of the week at early dawn, before anyone was ready, before the disciples had been moving towards the story, dismissing the women's proclamation,

 Before any of it, the tomb was already empty.

Love wins.

But Cash could have told you that back in February.

As it turns out, the truest and hardest and most necessary thing any of us will ever say is love wins.

And this morning, on this Easter Sunday, we are not here to learn it for the first time.

 We're simply here to remember it.

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

Alleluia.

Amen.

5-Day Easter Devotional: Remembering Love's Victory

Day 1: The Song Before the Story

Reading: Luke 1:46-55 (Mary's Magnificat)

Devotional: Before the resurrection, before the cross, before any miracle, Mary sang a song of reversal. She proclaimed God's victory in the past tense—not because it had happened, but because she trusted it would. This is the foundation of Easter faith: believing God's love wins even before we see the evidence. Mary had no power by worldly standards, yet she carried the truth that would change everything. Today, consider what God has promised you that feels incomplete. Can you, like Mary, sing it as though it's already done? Faith doesn't wait for proof; it proclaims truth in the waiting. The lowly will be lifted. The hungry will be filled. Love's victory is certain.

Day 2: The Danger of Forgetting

Reading: Deuteronomy 8:11-18

Devotional: We don't lose our faith dramatically; we lose it gradually, one distraction at a time. The Israelites were warned not to forget God when life became comfortable, when their bellies were full and their houses were built. We face the same danger today—not from persecution, but from busyness. The urgent crowds out the eternal. Notifications replace prayer. Crisis swallows conviction. The resurrection doesn't become untrue; it simply becomes inaccessible, buried under the debris of ordinary life. Today, ask yourself: What has made me forget what I know to be true? The empire doesn't need to defeat Easter; it just needs to keep us distracted enough to stop reaching for it. Remembering is a spiritual discipline.

Day 3: Why Do You Look for the Living Among the Dead?

Reading: Luke 24:1-12

Devotional: The angels asked the most important question in Scripture: "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" The women came expecting a corpse and found a proclamation instead. How often do we do the same—searching for life in places death has claimed? We look for meaning in achievement, security in possessions, identity in approval. We expect resurrection to look like preservation, when it actually looks like transformation. The tomb wasn't restored; it was emptied. Jesus didn't return to life as it was; He inaugurated life as it would become. Today, examine where you're seeking life. Are you tending to something that needs to be left behind? The invitation isn't to guard the tomb—it's to leave it empty and follow the living Christ.

Day 4: When Truth Sounds Like Nonsense

Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Devotional: The women proclaimed resurrection, and the men called it delirium. This pattern hasn't changed. The world still calls love's proclamation foolishness. When we say the hungry should be fed, the vulnerable protected, the enemy loved—there's always a voice reaching for dismissal. "That's naive. That's not how the world works." But Easter declares that the world's wisdom is precisely what got overturned. The powerful were brought down; the lowly were lifted. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. Today, notice where you've internalized the world's dismissiveness. What truth have you stopped proclaiming because it sounds too idealistic? The resurrection wasn't reasonable—it was real. Love wins not because it makes sense, but because the tomb is empty.

Day 5: Amazed Enough to Run

Reading: John 20:1-10

Devotional: Peter wasn't ready to believe, but he couldn't stay seated either. He ran to the tomb, saw the linen cloths, and went home amazed—not yet preaching, not yet certain, just amazed. This is where many of us live: somewhere between dismissal and declaration, running toward truth we cannot yet fully name. And here's the grace: that's enough. The resurrection doesn't wait for your confession to be perfectly formed. It doesn't demand certainty before it becomes real. It's already happened. The tomb is already empty. Your job isn't to make it true—it's to let what is true rise to the surface. Today, bring your amazement, your questions, your half-formed faith. Run toward the tomb even if you don't know what you'll find. Love has already won.

Love Wins: Remembering What We Already Know

The Easter story isn't new information. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen. Love wins.

We've known this truth since childhood, heard it proclaimed countless times, celebrated it year after year. Yet knowing something and being able to find it when we need it most are two entirely different things.

The Problem Isn't Ignorance—It's Forgetting

We don't lose the Easter story all at once. We lose it gradually, incrementally, one distraction at a time. The pace of modern life, the noise of our culture, the relentless demands of work and family—all of it conspires to make the urgent feel more real than the truth.

The notifications that pull us from conversation. The deadlines that crowd out prayer. The crisis of the moment that causes us to swallow convictions we've held for a lifetime. We're not bad people for forgetting. We're just human beings with finite attention spans living in a time that asks more of us than we can give.

The empire doesn't need to defeat the Easter story directly. It just needs to keep us busy enough that we stop reaching for it. It needs the noise to stay loud enough that the still small voice becomes harder to hear. It needs us to keep our eyes down long enough that we forget to look up.

This isn't a new problem. It's the oldest problem, the fundamental human condition.

Mary's Song: The Thesis of Reversal

Long before the resurrection, a young woman in a small Galilean town opened her mouth and sang. Mary had no power, no standing, no platform by the world's standards. Yet what emerged wasn't a timid prayer of resignation—it was a proclamation sung in the past tense, as though what she described had already happened:

"He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly."

Mary wasn't describing something completed. She was describing something so certain that she sang it as if it were already done. Her song became the theological thesis for the entire gospel narrative—a pattern repeated over and over.

The shepherds in their fields. The tax collector. The woman who lost her coin. The father who runs down the road. The thief on the cross. The Samaritan who stops. Again and again, the lowly are lifted, the hungry are filled, the powerful don't get the last word.

Mary knew it before any of it began.

The First Easter Morning

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, women came to the tomb carrying spices. Love doesn't abandon what it loves, even after death. They found the stone rolled away, and two men in dazzling clothes standing there.

Terrified, the women bowed their faces to the ground.

And the angels said something remarkable—not something new, but something old: "Remember. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee."

Everything they needed was already in them. They had been given the truth. They just needed someone to help them find it again.

And they remembered.

That remembering changed everything.

When Truth Sounds Like Nonsense

The women rushed to tell the disciples what they had seen. But when they arrived with the most important news in human history, the men around the table reached for a specific Greek word: leros.

Our English translations say "idle tale," but leros means something more dismissive. It's delirium—the incoherent babbling of someone whose fever has broken their hold on reality. The first Easter proclamation was delivered by women who had encountered the risen Christ, and the men called it a fever dream.

The world has always called love's proclamation nonsense.

Every time someone says the hungry should be fed, the unhoused deserve dignity, the vulnerable are worth protecting, that love is stronger than fear—there's a voice somewhere reaching for dismissal. The world says divine love is naive, sentimental, delusional. It insists that those who proclaim it don't understand how the world actually works.

The tomb remains empty anyway.

Peter's In-Between Space

Peter couldn't quite write it off. He couldn't stay at the table. Something in him wouldn't let him stop reaching toward what he already knew somewhere deep down.

So he got up and ran to the tomb. He stooped in, looked inside, and saw the linen cloths lying there by themselves. Scripture tells us Peter went home "amazed"—not believing yet fully, not preaching the resurrection, not running to tell anyone. Just amazed, turning something over in his mind that he didn't yet have words for.

Something had shifted, and he couldn't name it yet. But he couldn't unfeel it either.

Many of us are more like Peter than like the women. We're not ready to call the resurrection story a fever dream, but we're not quite ready to go tell anyone either. We're somewhere in between—running toward the tomb because something in us won't stay seated, leaving amazed because what we found is more than we expected, even though we can't yet say what we believe.

The Good News for the In-Between

Here's the liberating truth: the resurrection doesn't wait for you to have your confession fully formed. It doesn't wait for your certainty to catch up with your longing.

It's already happened.

The tomb is already empty. The story has already turned. The invitation isn't to perform a belief you don't feel—it's simply to let what is true be true. To let the thing you already know come back to the surface.

Everything love risked turned out to be right. Good Friday was real. The grief was real. The cross was everything the empire wanted it to be. And the empire's logic turned out to be hollow anyway.

Death told the world it was the final authority. On Easter morning, the resurrection proved it was lying.

Mary's song was reaffirmed. The powerful were brought down from their thrones. The lowly were lifted up. She sang it before it happened, and it proved true.

Love Wins

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, before anyone was ready, before the disciples could move toward belief, before the women's proclamation could be believed—before any of it—the tomb was already empty.

Love wins.

The truest, hardest, most necessary thing any of us will ever say is simply this: love wins.

We're not here to learn it for the first time. We're simply here to remember it. To find again what was never actually lost, only misplaced beneath the clutter and noise of ordinary life.

The Easter story is waiting to be remembered.

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.