Help Me 211 Community Resources
Prayer Ministry
If you have a prayer request, please send it to pastordelawareheadwatersparish
SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her sermons from our most recent sermon series on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. Our last series was The Joyful Kingdom, which examined some of the joys that Easter brings us. Our current series is an examination of events in the Acts of the Apostles. Enjoy.
What are We Waiting For?
May 14 &17, 2026 Ascension Sunday
Luke 24:44-49 Acts 1:1-11
From the beginning Christianity has lived with the idea that Jesus is going to come back to earth, defeat all the legions of evil, and restore it to a paradise. Heaven and earth will no longer be two separate realms, and everyone will live in peace and harmony. This idea comes from Jewish theological tradition. Many Old Testament prophets predicted that God will restore the country of Israel and that all the nations will come to recognize that God is the supreme God of everyone and everything.
But a new or renewed world is not limited to Christianity. Most major religions have some version of a restoration of a perfect paradise. Either the paradise existed before, like the Garden of Eden, or the paradise will be realized in the future, like the Baha’i and some Buddhists sects.
Many scholars have debated where this idea originates in the collective human consciousness. In the last century it’s been discovered, from extensive studies of the world climate through time, that before 5,000 BCE the climate of the Middle East was a lot different. The Sahara Desert was much smaller and the areas around the Nile and other rivers, like The Euphrates, were more like tropical forests, with elephants and other forest animals, unlike the arid regions of today.
This has led many historians, anthropologists, and archeologists to speculate that the idea of a past paradise, like Eden or the Golden Ages of many cultures, is actually referring to this time. In our collective cultural psyche, we have a memory of climate abundance and the peace and harmony that existed with a lower population and tribal interactions. And we translated this into the myth of lost paradise and the possibility of that paradise coming back to us in the future. We know it was there once and we believe that it can be again.
Christians have named this as the coming of the Kingdom of God. In this kingdom the earth will be fertile and provide us with all the food we need to eat. We won’t need to worry about our homes being destroyed by natural disasters. There will be no violence among animals; Isaiah 11:6: The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. As well as people; Isaiah 2:4: They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation will not lift up a sword against another, nor will they ever again be trained for war.
Jesus was asked several times during his ministry when this restoration would take place, and his answer was always the same: It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. He did caution people to be watchful and to be ready for the moment, which could come at any time, but he refused to name a date.
These statements influenced the early church. Paul and John especially believed that the moment was going to happen during their lifetime or within a few decades. Both of them wrote about the coming and urged people to keep themselves devoted to God. But this idea of an imminent restoration wasn’t without controversy.
When the Council of Nicaea, in 325, was debating which books to put into the Bible and which to leave out, Revelations, the book about what would happen with the coming of Christ, only made it in by one vote. Many people argued that it would encourage people to only think about the second coming and not focus on the mission and ministry work that needed to be done in the present.
And in some ways their caution was warranted. Over the centuries humans have gotten caught up in end-of-the-world-restoration-hysteria. At the turn of the first millennium nearly everyone in Europe went to sleep in their local churches, convinced that it was a safe place to ride out the destruction of the world. When they woke up the next day and went outside nothing had changed. Think of all the cults in our lifetime that predicted the end of the world and the coming kingdom that never showed up.
So, what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for God’s Kingdom to suddenly come with Jesus descending from the clouds and legions of angels at his back? Are we waiting for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse to ride through town? Are we waiting for that perfect world to suddenly be manifested around us?
Personally, I’m not waiting for any of that. First of all, because Jesus told us not to wait for it or worry about it; that it’s all well above our pay-grade. Second, because the idea of me waiting feels similar to a girl waiting by the phone for her boyfriend to call when she could be out with her friends having a good time. I’m not going to put my life on hold waiting for the perfect world. I have things to do, places to see, and missions and ministries to act on.
But actually, I think that the idea of a perfect world is a good idea. It’s part of our Christian heritage to try to make ourselves better people and the world a better place to live. It gives to us a positive ideal that we can work toward. And I believe that that’s what we’re supposed to do.
You see, I believe that the creation of God’s Kingdom is a two-way street. On the one hand you have God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit working up in heaven and planning for good things that can happen on earth. On the other hand, there is us, working with God’s justice; Jesus’ teachings of how to love each other in our daily lives, and missions and ministries; and the Holy Spirit, who gives us nudges in the right direction and power when we need it. And we take all that and we use it to make the world around us a better place to live. It’s a cycle of the plan and the energy from heaven flowing down to us, and the energy of our actions flowing up to heaven. And, at some point, we don’t know when, those actions are going to meet in the middle and create a new reality.
Now what that new reality will be, I have no idea. But it’s not something we need to worry about. You let God & Jesus worry about the timeline and the result. We just need to worry about what’s happening right here, right in front of us.
So, what do we need to do while we’re waiting for it all to come together?
First of all, take care of yourself. This can be selfish if you are only taking care of yourself FOR yourself. What we do is take care of ourselves so that we can love and serve others. Eat right, exercise a little, and get enough sleep. And for your own peace of mind stay away from the negative as much as you can. I know we can’t cut that out entirely from our lives, but balance the negative with positive experiences and people. And give yourself time to connect with God: Through prayer, journaling, nature walking, or a hobby. Also, don’t be afraid to grow and change. God did not make us to stay the same all our lives. We are continual-learning creatures.
Second, take care of the people and the world around you. Our lives are made up of interconnected relationships. Think of your life like a collection of expanding circles. In the first circle you have your family. In the next you have your friends. In the next you have people in your community. Then we have the larger communities of our county, state, region and country. And finally, we have a relationship with everyone in the world. Maybe not directly to everyone all the time, but the possibility of connecting is there.
We connect with all those people, in all those circles, through the actions of love that we give to each other. Through the ministries and work that we do in our communities to make them better places to live. Through the mission work that reaches beyond our immediate boarders. All that energy is poured into the world and is used by God to further the design that He’s working on.
There’s nothing wrong with waiting for the Coming of Christ. But don’t spend your time just waiting. Use the time that God is giving you to become and be better and more loving; to reach out and make the world around you better and more loving. And who knows, someday we might see a new world being made right before our eyes.
The Joy of Knowing Our Worth
May 10, 2026 6th Sunday of Easter Mother’s Day
Psalm 139:1-6 1 John 3:1-6
It is hard for us in this day and age of democracy, public education, equal rights, and many opportunities, to comprehend how truly revolutionary Jesus was in his teachings.
Back when Jesus was preaching 80% of people lived in poverty and many of them did not own the houses or the land that they lived on. They were tenant farmers or laborers who were dependent on the property owners for their security. Most people worked for barely minimum wage, and they had no say in the manner of how they worked or when.
The local Jewish synagogues did try to teach boys how to learn how to read and write, but many children didn’t last past the ages of 10-12 before they went to work in adult jobs, thereby ending their education. Only women in the upper classes of society were taught to read and write and that was only if you had progressive parents.
People did have certain rights under Jewish law and custom, but unless you had some social or political influence you had practically no rights under Roman law. A young man could be conscripted at any time by the army for a construction project, and many were. This caused economic hardship because it was one less person who could work for the family.
People were very much locked into their family’s work. If your father was a carpenter or fisherman, you became a carpenter or fisherman. You probably never traveled farther than the town next to you. Although if you lived in Israel, you might travel to Jerusalem for one of the High-Holy days at least once in your life.
The impoverished population was not considered to be of worth socially or politically. They were fodder to keep the production of necessities flowing to the very small middle class, mostly consisting of traders and government officials, and the only slightly larger upper class, mostly consisting of landowners.
So, where did those 80% find their self-worth? Well, I think they found it in their families. I think they found it in the excellence of their work. And I really think they found it in their faith. If you look at the psalm that we read today (and remember that palms are ancient songs that we’ve lost the music to) you see that this is a song of assurance. A reminder to the singer that God knows them, surrounds them, and is with them always.
But this sentiment wasn’t supported by the world at large. I’ve mentioned before that Jewish law and custom was very strict and it was almost impossible for a poor person to keep all the laws. So that 80% was constantly living in a state of sin and was looked down upon by the more fortunate as being unworthy of God’s attention. I am sure that this weighed on people. No matter how positive you try to be, if you are constantly being made to feel that you’re not worthy of God’s love, you’re going to start to believe that.
And then, to your town comes a Rabbi. He’s well versed in the scriptures; a holy man, who is able to heal the sick – something only the power of God can do. And he tells you that no matter how poor you are, no matter how insignificant you are, no matter how many times you sin because you don’t have the means to live a blameless life according to the rules, that God still loves you. That God forgives you when you mess up. That you are God’s child and all you have to do is believe in that. and then work on being the best person you can be by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. And by doing that you are loving God’s creation, which means that you are loving God.
How mind blowing that must have been for those people: That God loves them. That they are blessed even though they feel downtrodden. That those who are mourning are blessed. That those who have no political power are blessed. That those who want justice are blessed. That those who are compassionate are blessed. That those who are keeping their faith are blessed. That those who work for peace are blessed. And that those who have had injustice inflicted on them are blessed. God loves all those people.
They are God’s children and are worthy in His eyes. They have a place in this world that matters. And they have a place with God in eternity. God loves them.
Think of what that message did. It was counter to every message out there which promoted: You are only worth of a lowly place. You can do nothing to change your circumstances.
Once people believed Jesus’ Good News, they started to form communities around his message. And they weren’t looking to overthrow governments. Jesus himself said: Give to Ceasar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God. What they were looking to do was to support each other in love. To help each other out and to affirm that, even if it’s only in this small community, that they are of worth. The early church was a mission unto itself, helping the members grow and prosper using the power of God’s love.
And yes, there was stumbling and misunderstandings, and they were trying to sail the boat while they were building it. But the core message that each person is of worth; that each person has gifts and graces that they can give to the community; and that God loves them for who they are as individuals, was fire in their hearts and spirits. And if you weren’t a Christian and saw that fire – that certainty of worth in someone; that strength of community that lived in love and support – wouldn’t you want to join that?
You bet you would, and a lot of people did.
When you feel that you are of worth you can do anything. When you feel that you have God’s love and strength behind you, the pettiness of the world doesn’t matter, because you have a mission: To love those around you by helping to make their lives better in your daily routines.
Now in today’s world we are fortunate. We have democracy, the right to choses our leaders and the public policy that we live by. And if it’s not working or is out of date, we can change it. We all of us have access to public education. People bemoan the 79% literacy rate, but the majority of us know how to read and write. And with the internet we have access to a lot of information. I baked a pie the other day and it took me 15 seconds to look up the proper ratio of milk to condensed milk. (We do have to verify our information, but that’s nothing new.) Equal rights – we’re working on it, but they weren’t working on it in Jesus’ day. And what an opportunity it is for us to have the option to find a career that speaks to a passion with in us and reflects out gifts and graces.
Plus, we’ve been raised in a culture that tells you that you are of worth and loved by God. And yet how many of us feel helpless in today’s political and social climate? How many of us feel that it’s all getting away from us and going haywire, and we can’t do anything about it, and it’s going to crash?
The early church lived on the edge of that, and they had less power than we do. But they knew that the best way to push against the helplessness was to have faith that God loved them, and to build positive community that supported each other. And that’s what we can do too.
And yes, the outside world is going to push back. It’s going to tell you that you are stupid and worthless for believing that you can make the world a better place through love. It’s going to tell you that those people aren’t worthy of help. That you are weak for showing so much concern and compassion.
Don’t believe them. God loves you, Jesus loves you, and the Holy Spirit is working with you. And with God’s love and strength you can take your gifts and graces and do anything.
We all have a choice. We can be the one who tears down, who bullies and claims that strength lies in dominance. Or we can be the one who stand against that, and lives and promotes love for their fellow humanity. And that person is a warrior of God, and lives in the joy of creating the Kingdom even if it’s just in their own community.
I challenge you to believe that you are loved by God. I challenge you to find strength in your gifts and graces. I challenge you to be a warrior and bring that self-worth and love out into the world, stand against the negativity, give the love of God to others, and find joy in God’s creation of this wonderful life that he’s given us.
The Lord knows our going out and coming in; He lays his hand on us and we are blessed. So, get out there and be his loving warriors of worth in the world.
The Joy of God’s Love
May 3, 2026 5th Sunday of Easter Communion
Romans 8:31-39 John 3:16-1
Do you know that the ancient Greeks defined nine different types of Love? In the 1st century, when Jesus was talking about the love of God, for 300 years Greek philosophy, thought, and language had permeated the Middle East. And since Greek was the international language of the time, even a simple peasant in Israel would know some Greek words. So, all the people who Jesus talked to about love, would have had an understanding of the various types of love.
Now I’m not going to give you all nine definitions, but I want to point out two things. First, that these definitions include both positive and negative aspects of love. For instance, back then the word MANIA described the obsessive love that is unhealthy for a person to have that can lead to abuse and violence. On the other hand, MERAKI describes creative love, which applys to the devotion that you put into something that you really like to do like an art, or even a sport, job, or craft.
But the most important words and concepts that related to Jesus’ lessons on love are: Agape, unconditional love; Phila, spiritual love; Storge, devoted love of friends and family; and Philautia, self-love. These words reflect the two great commandments: To love God with your whole being, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
God’s love has been described as Agape – that God loves us unconditionally. Now unconditional love doesn’t mean that you can just do anything and get away with it because someone’s love for you is unconditional. It’s not love without consequence. I love my children unconditionally and I will always love them even when they do the wrong thing.
When my son was little, before he understood the concept of money, he took a little car from the neighborhood toy store. I found out when I saw him playing with it. Apparently, his friend, who also didn’t understand money or credit cards, saw his mother buy something in a store without money and he thought she got it for free. Therefore, he thought he could just take a little toy for free and both he and my son each took a car. This was a life lesson for my son. We took the car back to the store, explained to the manager what had happened and apologized; paid for the car; and then my son had to do chores around the house to pay me back the amount that I had paid.
Was I angry and disappointed? Yes, but just a little. Did I understand that he still hadn’t gotten the concept of money? Yes, and we worked on that. Did he have to face consequences? Oh, yeah. I didn’t love the incident, but I never stopped loving him because of that incident. I love him simply for who is: My son, a human being, and a child of God.
That’s how God loves us, with Agape love. He knows we don’t always get it; He knows we mess up. But he loves us anyway. And sometimes when we mess up, we hide away and we don’t think that we’re worthy of love. But there is always forgiveness from God, which gives us the strength to face the consequences when we do mess up.
Because we know that God is on our side, we can face the problems we create as well as the problems that the world creates for us. That is what Paul is talking about. The line With God on our side like this, how can we lose? Is traditionally spoken as: If God is for us who can be against us? It does not mean: Since I believe in God and Jesus, I am right and have the moral high-ground. Paul is talking about our own fallibility and how we cope with it in order to be and become better people who are more loving. If we are more loving then we are more patient, more generous, more forgiving, more compassionate, and more faithful to ourselves, others, and God. And because we have that love from God, we are able to make it through all the hard times that the world dishes out to us.
That’s what agape does for us. But our love for God is also Phila, or spiritual love, the kind of love when you have a strong spiritual relationship with someone. The word implies spiritual connection, trust, the sharing of values, and shared goals and happiness. That’s very much the parameters of faith. We become aware of the grace and presence of God through Christ. Then we realize that we share the values of Christ, and our goal is to grow in our faith and understanding. We trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us in actions of love, and the result is happiness and lasting joy.
The next love is Storge, the devoted love that we have for family and friends. This is directly related to the second commandment: To love our neighbors. Now the word neighbor literally means the person next to you, so that includes your family, and friends, and the people next door, and the person you’re standing online with at the store. Your neighbor is whoever is in contact with you at the moment. But as our faith matures so does our love, and we are able to see that it’s not only our community but the whole world that is our neighbor.
Today we are coming to God’s table to celebrate communion. And I challenge you to think about the fact that all across America, in North and South America, and in the rest of the world, there are other people partaking in this ceremony at the same time we are. We are connected to them through communion and God’s love. The next time you’re in a store take a minute to recognize in your heart the neighbors surrounding you.
And finally, there is the second part of that commandment: To love ourselves. That is Philautia, self-love. And now we circle back to God again, because when we know that we are loved and forgiven by God we can love and forgive ourselves. And we can turn around and love and forgive others.
Now there is a scary bit of scripture in Romans that I want to clarify for you. Paul says: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
I’m actually not fond of this more modern translation; I prefer the more traditional leading a lamb to slaughter. (It’s not about ducks.) Which is still grim, but Paul is referring to Isaiah 53:7 and it’s meant to refer to the traditional sacrifice of the Passover lamb and Isaiah was also referencing the coming Messiah. Paul is reminding people that Jesus gave his life so that we would not have keep sacrificing ourselves on our own altar of guilt. God wants us to get out of the guilt loop where we spiral down into our own shame when we do something wrong, and we can’t recover and continually feel unworthy and cut off from God. Jesus paid the price so that we don’t have to keep paying it in our hearts and minds. And that is why we are never cut off from God.
As Paul says: Absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
None of this love stands alone. The great thing about it is that it all feeds off of one another and becomes stronger the more we give it, receive it, practice it, and live in it. When we live in love, we gain happiness. And happiness is like a savings account. The more you put into it the bigger it gets and gradually grows into joy that is everlasting. And then one day you have such a store of joy that even in dark times you can find a measure of comfort and hope, because you know you are living in God’s love.
This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. May we be blessed in God’s love always.
The Joy of God’s Pace
April 26, 2026 4th Sunday of Easter
1 John 2:15-17 Matthew 6:25-34
Yesterday I manned a water-table at the 5k in Stamford. The Hobart Rotary Club handed out water and energy gummy packets to the runners. We were well equipped with water and paper cups, but I think because it was cooler than most race days not a lot of people wanted water. We only went through about half a gallon and most of the energy gummies were snapped up by the kids who were running with their parents. We had a lot of fun cheering for the runners, and the people who did take the water seemed to be very grateful to have some.
Now I am not a runner – I’ve never had the knees for it. But I’ve worked for several races, and several of my friends have been runners, and my brothers have all done track at one time, so I know that a sprint is very different from a run.
In a sprint you take off with a burst of energy and try to maintain or increase that energy so you can maintain or increase your speed and get to your goal as quickly as possible. However, in a run, especially a longer run, you have to set a pace at the beginning that you’re going to maintain for the whole distance. My friends have told me that you need to be careful about your starting pace, because when you first start a race, you’re often very excited and raring to go, and it is so easy to start at too fast a pace and then lose your energy halfway through. You have to tamp down that enthusiasm a little and force yourself to start a little slower than what your mind thinks your body can do. A friend of mine once said: I can always go faster later if I start at a good pace that I know I can maintain.
And that got me thinking: When we have a new project that we want to do – how often do we start out with a whole bunch of enthusiasm and rush into something only to become discouraged because we find that it’s going to take longer, or require more effort, than we thought? I know I’ve been guilty of that. Many of us start out projects in our lives as if they’re a sprint, not a long run. Then we get tired and, if we don’t change our pace and accept that things are going to take longer or need more effort, we burn out and don’t finish the project.
I think that part of the problem for our impatience is that we do want to be successful at what we do. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but I think that because of social media, films, and television, we’re led to believe that things should happen a lot faster than they do in real life. Especially in television, time gets suspended or compressed and a problem seems to be solved in a very short time. Who remembers CSI? It always seemed that DNA and forensic lab tests happened within a 24-hour period, and all the suspects seemed to be interviewed in a couple of days, solving the case within a week at the most. In real life, lab-tests often take up to one week if not longer, and interviewing people is not that fast an occurrence.
Life takes time and a bit of effort. It takes time and effort to knit a sweater, to bake a cake, to do your homework, or clean out the garage. It takes time and effort to learn a new job, or to start and grow a business. It takes time and effort to develop a relationship with someone, whether it’s a friend or someone romantic. Life doesn’t happen quickly.
This week I’m preaching on pacing ourselves with God. And not being so caught up in our lives as if they were a sprint is one way to connect with God. When we slow down our pace, when we stop forcing things to happen as quickly as possible, we can enjoy the experience of life as it unfolds before us. We can take the time to enjoy what we are doing rather than worry about getting to the end RIGHT NOW! We live more with our blessings than with our frustrations and we give ourselves the time see how God is working in our lives.
But there is another side to God’s pace. Jesus says: Don’t love the world’s ways, which I think is an indication to step back a little from the hustle and bustle that the world says we should be in. And he also says: Don’t love the world’s goods; don’t get caught up with materialism. In both of our scriptures Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t be worried about acquiring things.
I think it’s natural for us to want to get stuff to be comfortable. It’s more comfortable to sleep on a bed than on the floor. It’s easier to cook food with a stove top and an oven rather than over an open fire – safer too. A washing machine for clothes is a lot more convenient than a wash tub or a local stream. But how much do we really need to be comfortable? Do you know that one of the biggest real estate boom in America isn’t new housing but storage units? Yep folks, we have so much stuff that we’re buying it separate houses. Or that most people only wear 20% of their wardrobe consistently – the other 80% is only worn some of time or for special occasions. (Come on, we all have that favorite shirt that we wear once a week.)
And it’s not even having stuff that’s really the problem. It is the thought that acquiring more stuff will somehow make us happy. Acquiring more stuff might make us more comfortable, but it will not guarantee happiness or joy.
Now the majority of people who Jesus was talking to in the 1st century were really poor. Most only had one set of clothing to wear: An undergarment, like a long t-shirt, an overgarment, and a robe that was often used as a blanket. Most of them lived as tenet farmers or estate workers and lived in a one or two room house 6-foot square. A lot of their food was cooked on an open fire in one pot, which was then set in the middle a mat, and then people sat in a circle around it and ate from it using their hands. Often they didn’t have plates, your piece of flat bread was what you put your food on. Jesus was talking to people who had the bare minimum and who wanted more, just to be comfortable.
Plus, they were unfortunately living with a cultural belief that if you were poor that meant that God wasn’t blessing you, because you weren’t being holy enough in your life. Often poor people couldn’t follow all the strict laws of Judaism because they didn’t have the resources. It was a catch 22 for them that they never could act holy enough, and therefore be holy enough, and therefore never be loved or blessed by God.
Can you imagine how they felt when Jesus said to them that all that acquisition of wealth doesn’t matter? That God loves you anyway. I love when he says: Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? Well, maybe if we wear high heels, we get taller, but that’s just artifice. I’m still 5’8” whether I’m wearing heels or flats. Has anyone ever become a kinder person by buying a Mercedes Benz or a helicopter? I don’t think so!
Being a kind person means that you help people out, and that you treat people with dignity and respect. A follower of Jesus is supposed to feed the hungry, help the sick, and support those in need. Jesus also tells us to go out into the fields and look at the wildflowers to see how beautiful they are. To go and watch the birds and see how much enjoyment they get out of life just flying around. He’s trying to get us to see our blessings in this beautiful world and to find God in this beautiful world. We can’t find our blessings and God in the wanting and getting of stuff, stuff, stuff.
In one of my churches there was a group of women who loved jigsaw puzzles. Now to do jigsaw puzzles you have to buy them, but anytime someone bought a jigsaw puzzle, new or used, (they were crazy-mad thrift store shoppers) they would pass it on to someone else once they finished it. And there was no rush – everyone did the puzzle in their own time. That was a sharing of their blessings and an act of love among each other. How many times do we share our blessings with each other?
God’s pace is to relax and enjoy the experiences of our lives as they come to us, and to spend time with those we love. And to do that we need to step away from the franticness of the world that calls us to want, need, and buy things we don’t need, which aren’t going to give us joy or connect us to God anyway. God’s pace involves enjoying our blessings and sharing our blessings with each other. And then to thank God for them, thereby connecting with him in our hearts, minds and souls.
So, the next time you want that helicopter, think for a minute: Is this going to help connect me with God’s love through the love of those around me? If the answer is NO, maybe you need to spend your time in a different way that will connect you with others and will, in turn, find yourself connecting with God and His love. After all, whoever does want God is set for eternity.
The Joy of God’s Way
April 19, 2026 3rd Sunday of Easter
Galatians 5:22-26 Matthew 7:7-15
Every time I read a scripture, I notice something different. This time what struck me in Matthew was the last section: Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.
In my early twenties, I was into self-help books. I loved to go to the local bookstore and browse through that section. And you know, they all have a target audience. I admit that I mostly stuck to the ones that were for my age, gender, and demographic. Some of them weren’t helpful, some of them were MEH, but some of them really got me thinking and gave me good pointers. And they all tell you that if you followed their system, the step-by-step process that each of them had, you would supposedly get a handle on your life, improve it, and you would be on the road to happiness.
Now I do not disparage self-help books. Different people need different kinds of help and motivation at different points of their lives. And there was one book that really got me thinking about the possibilities that I had in my life, and in doing the exercises I acknowledged that I had always wanted to travel to the Orient. And about a year and a half later I was teaching in Japan.
However, I don’t think that any of those self-help books taught me how to be happy, even though that was one of their promises. They taught me how to discern my priorities and how to rank them; how to focus my energies; and how to evaluate and re-evaluate my methods for getting things done. But they did not teach me how to be happy or how to find joy.
Joy is not happiness. Happiness depends on circumstance; Joy is deeper than that. Joy can happen when you have a moment of happiness, but joy can be with you even when you aren’t happy in the moment. Joy is when you have a certainty inside you, even in bad times, that you’re going to be okay. Joy is when you can see your blessings, even in dark times. Joy is knowing that you are connected to others and God, even when you’re alone.
I was catching up with my Lenten coin jar the other day. I had put a copy of the daily sheet to my kitchen door, and every time that I did one of the challenges, like figure out how many shoes or pillows I had, I crossed it out so I would know that I had done it. It struck me, when I was counting how many things I had, that this exercise was a sneaky way to remind me of how many blessings are in my life. Even stuff we take for granted, like toothbrushes and toothpaste. There are places in the world where people don’t have those, and I do.
That made me feel good, because I had some assurance of my privilege and good circumstances. But it also made me feel a little concerned for those people who don’t have what I have. That’s empathy, which is such a huge part of being a Christian.
Hmmm – didn’t Jesus say something about: Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. When we think of what we want and need, that is what others want and need too. What do we want? We want to be treated with fairness and dignity. We want the world to make and have a safe space for us to learn, and grow, and prosper – Not in a greedy way, just in a living and having enough way. We want to be loved, and we want to love others. We want to have meaningful connection. But we can’t just wait for it to happen, we have to actively participate.
Jesus was trying to get his disciples on the right path to God. Now walking the path to God requires us to pay attention to two parts of our lives. We need to take care of our inner life and ourselves so that we can have a better connection with God. We need to take care of our physical bodies: Get enough sleep, eat healthy, and exercise. We need to meditate, and pray, and study so that we can better know how to deal with our emotions; stretch our minds so we don’t stop learning; and practice connecting to the Holy Spirit.
Doing all this helps us to get stronger so that we can then take ourselves to the outside world. And in the outside world that’s where meet, make, and nurturing our relationships by expressing our love for others in our words and actions.
Jesus gives us a strange image in this scripture: If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? He’s using the parent-child image to illustrate the actions that God wouldn’t do to us, His children. I think he’s also using some shock images to get people to think.
How many people do we know who say one thing and do another? Who pretend to be friendly to you and then turn around and are anything but friendly. People who demand from you, but when you need help they are nowhere to be found. And unfortunately, how many times do we behave that way? (And many times we don’t realize what we’re doing.) We’re all human, but one of our joys is that God loves us anyway, even though we stumble on our path.
Jesus says: Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. God doesn’t play hard-to-get. All through the Old and New Testaments he’s direct. He tells us: Love God with all your being. Love the people around you as you love yourself. And love me as I have loved you. Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. The Ten Commandments aren’t the ten suggestions. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get. All of these are actions and attitudes that keep us on the path to God.
But the world is very distracting. It tells you that you don’t need to rely on anyone but yourself. That the way to get respect is to dominate people and keep them beneath you. You need to look out for yourself and no one else. Status is more important that kindness. And the status quo is more important than justice and fairness, and providing dignity to people, so don’t change anything for the better because you’ll just upset the apple cart.
Like that isle in the bookstore, which sells systems that will supposedly make you happy, the world is going to try to sell all of us a seemingly self-centered, easy way that might give us temporary happiness but will not give us lasting joy. Jesus’s way is direct – but it does take attention, commitment and work. But all of that practicing does have benefits. As Paul says: We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Now I admit that right now the world seems to be overwhelming. We have economic uncertainty, we have a war, we have hate and negativity in our media and social media. And I so get why people are tired, and discouraged, and uncertain. But even at this moment we can live in joy if we care for those around us with kindness, compassion, generosity, and love. We can recharge ourselves if we allow ourselves to spend some time meditating, reading, and journaling. Or even just talking with God while we do a hobby like knitting, gardening, or wood working. Put yourself into an infinite loop of self-care and connecting with God, then give your love and care out to those around you. Then return to yourself to recharge and then do it again.
It might not seem like you’re doing anything to make the world better, but you are. We all have a circle of influence and in that circle, you can create a space of love, joy and hope. In that circle you are traveling that road to God, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit walking next to you. It’s a place where you can rest in joy during the bad times and happiness during the good. And the joy that you find will be increased, and ripple out, when you share it with others. And in walking the way of God we will find our blessings.
The Joy of Reconciliation
April 12, 2026 2nd Sunday of Easter
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Mark 1:9-15
Welcome to the 50 days of Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! This is the time after Jesus is Resurrected and before he ascends to heaven. And we have a couple of scriptures that show us where he met disciples during this time. He appeared to them in the upper room, to a travelling couple on the road to Emmaus, and he had breakfast with them by the Sea of Galilee. As Karen Monk, our district Superintendent said: Jesus is a savior on the loose.
When I heard that I thought, you know, Jesus probably appeared to a lot more people than just the ones we have from our Gospel stories. I'm sure that he was visiting disciples all over Israel. Wouldn’t that be a joyous moment to have Jesus walk into your front yard while you’re hanging out the laundry and tell you that he was risen?
During this season of Easter, we’re going to be preaching a sermon series: The Joyous Kingdom about what Easter gives us that’s joyful. And the first sermon is about reconciliation.
Paul wrote in his 2nd letter to the Corinthian church: All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
When Paul wrote this letter the Corinthian church was in conflict. The church was a mixture of Jewish people and gentiles. And since Corinth was a major trading port, to promote good business relationships Corinth allowed anyone to open up a temple or shrine to their God so that while they were in town they had a place to worship. It’s been estimated that there were well over 150 different religions represented.
You can imagine if two different religions merge to form a new religion, it could be sticky working out what traditions to keep or to get rid of. Paul is trying to get a large number of people from different religions, with a bunch of different ways of worshiping, to decide how this new church is going to worship God. That sounds like a lot more conflict and stickiness than just two groups. Paul tells them that they need to make their decisions based on the Christian ethos and belief. For instance, you couldn’t do animal sacrifices since Christ made the final sacrifice by sacrificing himself. Blood sacrifices – out.
Instead of people saying: Well, I like this tradition, how can we plug it into Christianity? Paul is saying: First look at what Christ’s message is and then see if even helps to illuminate who we should be as Christians. Since God reconciled himself to us through Christ, we need to use Christ to reconcile ourselves to each other.
But what does reconcile mean in the context of ourselves or our community?
To Reconcile is a verb which covers a lot of bases. The first meaning is to restore people or situations to friendship or harmony, like when you have a disagreement with someone and then you come to some sort of compromise that the two of you can work with together. It also means or to come to an agreement on, or a solution, like when you figure out in a family meeting how and where you are going to go on vacation. It also means to make something consistent, like when a bookkeeper puts all the spending, income, and the savings in the right categories and you know where all your money is. Finally, it means to accept something unpleasant, like I have reconciled myself to the fact that my kids want to live in Japan right now. (I have to accept that decision since it's their life descisions.)
But what do we mean when we say that God reconciled us to himself through Christ? Does it mean that we can have a friendship or harmony with him? Does it mean that we have found an agreement or an answer to a problem? Does it mean that we have put our mind hearts and souls into alignment with God? Does it mean that we are accepting unpleasant things about ourselves and possibly our relationship with God?
I would say all of the above in three ways. Christ’s life – living with us, dying like us, and then coming to life for us, reconciles us to God.
Christ living with us shows us that we can have a personal relationship with God and that God understands us because he lived as us. This means that we can ask him directly to help us. The dean of my seminary once said to us: Don’t be afraid to ask God the hard questions. He’s seen it all before and he can handle it. If you’re having problems you can cry to God, yell at God, complain to God. After all, if Jesus is our brother and friend shouldn’t we be able to vent to him when we need to? Yes, share your joys as well as your sorrows – God can handle it all.
Christ dying for us releases us from always having to live with the weight of our sins crushing us. When we do something wrong, we can fall down that rabbit hole of despair by believing that we can never be good enough or make things right enough. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t feel remorse or guilt – they can be the emotions that indicate to us that we need to fix something. But it is easy to get trapped in those emotions and freeze yourself into inaction. By remembering that Christ died for us and paid, what was known in the ancient world, as the blood fee for atonement, we don’t have to keep sacrificing our emotions and mental health. We can say: I have God on my side, and I can work on making things right. And this works for when we hurt ourselves or the people around us. Because we know we are forgiven we can forgive and ask for forgiveness, and work on reconciling, or restoring the balance.
Christ coming to life again for us solved the question of: Is there anything beyond this? And the fact that Christ died, and then came back, is proof positive that the next stage in our soul journey, that we call heaven, exists, and that we also have access to that place beyond this life. Which answers the question: Is this whole life worth it? Since there is something beyond, it is worth it to work on becoming better people, so we are ready to go into the next life.
And when we become better people, we put our hearts, minds, and soul onto one aligned path that leads us to better relationships with those around us. And positivity like that tends to spread.
I took a very specific required course once where there were five of us in the class, and when the professor asked everyone how they felt about being there, three of the students said that they felt that this course was a waste of time.
Then it was my turn and I said I was happy to be here because I knew that I was going to find answers to problems, and that I was looking forward to learning the material and techniques. This was not brown-nosing. I actually took this course to solve problems, and I thought that going in with a negative attitude wasn’t going to help.
And you know, later the three other students, who were younger and had less experience, asked me: Do you really think this is going to help? I had a chance to tell them why it would help, and they started to see that maybe this was a good idea. And they reconciled themselves to what they thought was going to be a horrible event, and by the end it was a positive one for them.
Now reconciling doesn’t always mean that everything becomes positive. But it does mean that we can find our way through the negative into something that is better because we have the support of knowing that we have a relationship with God Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is a place to rest in joy. Even when things are going terribly you can say: I am reconciled to God. I have a friendship and relationship with Him. I have the mean to solve my problems through Him. I can learn and become a better person through this experience. And because of all that I can accept this unpleasantness that is happening right now.
I am sure that some people in Corinth wanted to solve their problems the easy way: All of you just accept what we want and we can get on with things. But reconciliation takes some time and some work. Because of Christ reconciliation is always there for us, but we’ve got to get in there and do the work of listening, evaluating, compromising and aligning with Christ to make it work.
And yes, that is sticky and frustrating, but it also leads to joy that we are able to make it through the tough stuff. So don’t be afraid to confront what needs to be done. Keep yourself aligned with Christ, work on putting right what’s around you, and you will find yourself living Joy in the Divine Parent with our brother Jesus and our sister the Holy Spirit.