Dove Sermons

Sermons from Dove of the Desert UMC

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  • Sermon For December 24, 2025

    Sermon based on Luke 2:1-20

    Good News, Right Here

    There is something almost dangerous about how familiar this story is.

    Luke chapter two shows up every year like a well-worn road. We know the turns. We know where the hills rise and fall. We know when the angels appear and when the shepherds enter the frame. We know when the music swells. And because we know it so well, we are tempted to let it pass over us the way background noise does—comforting, warm, but not disruptive.

    Which is strange, when you really think about it.

    Because Luke didn’t write this story to be safe.

    Luke didn’t write this story to help us feel cozy for an hour and then go back to life unchanged.

    Luke wrote this story for a community living under pressure. A community surrounded by empire. A community trying to figure out what it meant to say “Jesus is Lord” in a world where that phrase already belonged to someone else.

    So maybe Christmas Eve is not about finding something new in this story.

    Maybe it’s about recovering what we’ve learned to ignore.

    A World Run by Caesars

    Luke opens this story in a way that feels almost clinical.

    “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.”

    That line is doing more work than we usually allow it to do.

    Caesar Augustus wasn’t just a ruler. He was a brand. His image filled cities. His name was stamped onto coins. His reign was celebrated as good news. Roman propaganda claimed that Augustus brought peace to the world. Order. Stability. Prosperity.

    The Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, was held up as the great achievement of the empire.

    But peace, as Rome practiced it, came at a cost.

    Peace meant conquest.
    Peace meant taxation.
    Peace meant bodies crushed beneath efficiency.
    Peace meant knowing your place.

    The census wasn’t a neutral administrative task. It was how empire kept track of its people. How it extracted wealth. How it reminded everyone who was in charge.

    And Luke wants us to notice that the story of Jesus begins right there—in the machinery of empire.

    A pregnant woman and her fiancé don’t set out on a journey because it’s spiritually meaningful. They go because they are told to go. Because the empire has decided their bodies, their labor, their future matter only insofar as they can be counted and taxed.

    Mary and Joseph are not heroic in this moment. They are vulnerable.

    And that matters.

    Because Luke refuses to tell the story of Jesus without telling the truth about the world Jesus is born into.

    God at Work in the Middle of It

    And yet… quietly, almost imperceptibly, Luke lets us know that something else is happening.

    While Augustus issues decrees, God is keeping promises.

    While empire rearranges lives, God is placing a child exactly where the story of Israel has been pointing all along.

    Bethlehem is not a random dot on a map. It is the city of David. The place where God once chose a shepherd boy while a king still sat on the throne.

    Luke isn’t saying the empire is unaware of what’s happening.

    Luke is saying the empire doesn’t get the final word.

    There is a deep, steady confidence in this story. No panic. No scrambling. No sense that God is reacting to Rome.

    God is working through it.

    The census that disrupts Mary and Joseph’s life also situates this child exactly where the promises say he belongs. The mechanisms of power unknowingly participate in something they cannot control.

    And Luke lets that tension sit there.

    God does not overthrow the empire that night.
    God does not expose Augustus.
    God does not interrupt the census.

    God enters quietly, vulnerably, patiently.

    Which may be one of the hardest things about this story.

    The Birth Without Urgency

    We have learned to tell this story with a sense of frantic urgency.

    Mary rides a donkey.
    Joseph pounds on doors.
    An innkeeper shakes his head.
    Everything feels rushed and desperate.

    But Luke doesn’t tell it that way.

    “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.”

    That phrase suggests something settled, not panicked. They are already there. Already among people. Already within a household.

    The issue is not rejection. It’s space.

    The guest room is full.

    So the birth happens where births often happened, in the family’s shared living space. Near warmth. Near watchful eyes. Near people who knew how to care for a newborn.

    The manger is not a symbol of neglect.
    It is a symbol of provision.

    A feeding trough repurposed into a cradle.
    A practical solution.
    A sign that there was enough, even if it wasn’t fancy.

    Jesus is born the way most peasant children were born. Surrounded by the ordinary materials of daily life. Wrapped, protected, watched over.

    And there is dignity in that.

    Luke does not romanticize poverty, but he refuses to treat it as shameful.

    There is no apology in this story.

    Who Gets the News First

    If Luke wanted to impress us, he could have sent the angels to the palace.

    If Luke wanted to make the story feel respectable, he could have chosen religious leaders or wealthy patrons.

    Instead, the sky breaks open over a pasture.

    Shepherds are working the night shift. Watching animals. Doing what needs to be done so life keeps moving.

    They are not described as immoral or suspect in this story. They are simply people doing their work.

    And they are trusted.

    Trusted to receive the message.
    Trusted to respond.
    Trusted to tell the truth about what they see.

    Which matters, because Luke is careful with who gets to be a witness.

    The shepherds are given a sign—not something mystical or grand, but something unmistakably ordinary. A baby. Wrapped. Lying in a feeding trough.

    They are sent to look for meaning where meaning rarely announces itself.

    And they find it.

    Good News in a Noisy World

    The angel’s message begins with words we’ve heard so often they risk becoming background music:

    “I bring you good news of great joy for all people.”

    In Luke’s world, that phrase already belonged to Caesar.

    Inscriptions from Augustus’s reign declared that his birth marked the beginning of good news for the world.

    Luke knows that.

    And Luke dares to say that good news has arrived again, but it doesn’t look like Rome.

    This good news does not demand allegiance through fear.
    It does not promise peace through dominance.
    It does not rely on spectacle.

    It shows up quietly.
    It shows up vulnerably.
    It shows up close enough to touch.

    And that matters in a world drowning in information.

    Luke is not interested in news that cannot be used.
    He repeats the word “today” throughout the Gospel because faith is not abstract.

    “Today this scripture is fulfilled.”
    “Today salvation has come.”
    “Today you will be with me.”

    Good news matters because it speaks into the present tense.

    Not someday.
    Not eventually.
    Not after everything is fixed.

    Today.

    News You Can Trust

    The shepherds don’t receive a roadmap. They receive one reliable detail.

    A feeding trough.

    And they keep looking until they find it.

    In a world saturated with noise, Luke reminds us that good news must be trustworthy.

    It must hold up under scrutiny.
    It must guide people somewhere real.
    It must not collapse when followed.

    The shepherds stake their night on this message.

    And it delivers.

    Which raises a question for the church.

    If people followed our news, where would it lead them?

    Would it take them toward truth?
    Toward compassion?
    Toward reconciliation?
    Toward life?

    Or would it leave them lost, disillusioned, exhausted?

    Luke seems to think that matters.

    News Worth Telling Again

    When the shepherds see the child, they do what people do when something genuinely good happens.

    They tell someone.

    And the story ripples outward.

    Some are amazed.
    Mary holds it quietly, turning it over in her heart.
    The shepherds go back to their work changed.

    The story does not end with applause.
    It ends with movement.

    Which may be the most honest ending of all.

    Looking for What’s Missing

    Luke’s story is full of intentional absences.

    No innkeeper.
    No barn.
    No animals.
    No frantic search.
    No magi.
    No royal entourage.

    Luke invites us to notice what isn’t there.

    And maybe to ask the harder question: who isn’t here?

    Who is missing from our celebrations?
    Who doesn’t feel welcome in the spaces where we proclaim good news?
    Who is absent from our tables, our churches, our concern?

    Because if the angels are right, if this really is good news for all people, then absence matters.

    Luke’s story keeps pointing us toward the edges.
    Toward the fields.
    Toward the margins.
    Toward people who rarely expect to be addressed directly.

    The Peace That Grows Slowly

    The angels sing about peace on earth.

    And the world does not immediately change.

    Caesar remains in power.
    The census continues.
    Rome keeps building its roads and monuments.

    Luke is not naïve.

    Peace does not arrive fully formed.
    It grows.
    It works quietly.
    It shows up wherever fear loosens its grip.

    Peace looks like dignity restored.
    Like power reimagined.
    Like love practiced in places that don’t attract attention.

    The child in the manger will grow into a teacher who eats with the wrong people, touches the untouchable, forgives what cannot be earned, and refuses to rule the way rulers usually do.

    The song the angels sing is not a denial of reality. It is a promise about where reality is headed.

    What This Means Tonight

    Christmas Eve does not ask us to escape the world.

    It asks us to see it differently.

    It asks us to believe that God is present even when systems feel overwhelming.
    That provision exists even when space feels tight.
    That good news still arrives quietly, reliably, and close to the ground.

    It asks us to listen carefully.
    To tell the truth.
    To look for meaning where we’ve been trained not to expect it.

    And maybe, just maybe, to trust that peace begins smaller than we’d like, but deeper than we imagine.

    So tonight, we stand with shepherds.
    With tired parents.
    With a baby who changes everything without forcing anything.

    And we listen again.

    Not because the story is new.

    But because the world still needs it.

    And so do we. Amen.

    Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for December 21, 2025

    Sermon Based on Matthew 1:18-25

    Most of the stories we tell at Christmas are designed to be gentle.

    Soft lighting. Familiar lines. A predictable story arc that ends with a baby, a song, and a sense that everything is going to be okay. We like our Christmas narratives to reassure us, to settle us, to confirm that God shows up in ways that feel safe and sentimental.

    The Gospel of Matthew does not cooperate with that impulse.

    Matthew opens Christmas with tension. With law and consequence. With a man staring down the collapse of the future he thought he had secured. Before there is wonder, there is risk. Before there is joy, there is a decision that could cost someone their standing, their reputation, their sense of what righteousness even means.

    Matthew’s birth story doesn’t begin in a stable. It begins in a crisis.

    Which may be exactly why this story belongs to a congregation like ours, gathered not as holiday visitors but as people committed to walking together through the long, ordinary, complicated life of faith. Matthew tells this story not to create nostalgia, but to shape disciples—people who will have to decide what faithfulness looks like when God moves in ways we did not anticipate.

    So before angels sing and names are given, Matthew invites us to sit with a question that still feels uncomfortably current

    What do you do when doing the “right thing” no longer seems as clear as it once did—and God seems to be asking something else entirely?

    That question isn’t answered in theory. It’s answered in the life of a man named Joseph.

    Joseph’s Christmas

    Matthew’s Christmas story belongs to Joseph. Which already makes it strange.

    Joseph usually stands off to the side in our telling of the story. Necessary, but quiet. A background character. But, in Matthew, he’s the main lens. This is what Christmas looks like from the vantage point of a man who thought he knew how his life was going to go.

    Joseph is engaged to Mary. And engagement in that culture wasn’t casual. It was legally binding. The first stage of marriage. Breaking it required divorce.

    And before they live together, before the ceremony, before the future unfolds the way it’s supposed to, Mary is found to be pregnant.

    Matthew tells us plainly: Joseph doesn’t know it’s by the Holy Spirit.

    All he knows is that something has gone terribly wrong.

    The law gives him options. Public accusation. Shame. Severe punishment. But Matthew tells us Joseph is righteous. And righteousness, at least at first, looks like mercy.

    So he decides to dismiss her quietly.

    That phrase matters.

    Joseph is trying to do the right thing without destroying another person. He’s trying to hold justice and compassion together. He’s trying to obey the law while minimizing harm. He’s trying to walk away with integrity intact.

    And then God interrupts him.

    An angel comes to Joseph in a dream. And the angel says, in essence:
    Your understanding is incomplete. This situation is stranger, deeper, and holier than you know.

    “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

    Which means Joseph now has a choice.

    He can cling to the righteousness he understands…
    or step into a righteousness that will cost him reputation, certainty, and control.

    And Joseph does something remarkable.

    He obeys.

    No argument. No recorded words. No bargaining with God.
    He wakes up—and he does exactly what he’s told.

    Righteousness Reimagined

    This is the first time Matthew uses the word righteousness in his Gospel. And it won’t be the last.

    From here forward, righteousness will be redefined again and again—not as rigid rule-keeping, but as responsive faithfulness to what God is doing now, even when it disrupts what we thought God would do.

    Joseph thought righteousness meant ending the relationship quietly.
    God reveals that righteousness now means staying.

    Joseph thought righteousness meant minimizing damage.
    God reveals that righteousness now means absorbing it.

    Joseph becomes the first person in Matthew’s Gospel to learn that God’s mercy often moves faster than our categories of justice.

    And that’s uncomfortable.

    Because Joseph risks becoming the very thing the law was designed to prevent: a man complicit in scandal. A man whose story doesn’t add up. A man whose obedience looks like failure from the outside.

    Matthew is already teaching us something essential about discipleship:
    Following God may require us to be misunderstood.

    Adoption and Belonging

    The angel gives Joseph one concrete instruction:
    “You are to name him Jesus.”

    In that culture, naming wasn’t simply symbolic, it was legal. It was adoption. It was lineage. It was identity.

    By naming the child, Joseph claims him.

    This is how Matthew solves the theological puzzle: How can Jesus be Son of God and Son of David? Through adoption.

    Joseph isn’t Jesus’ biological father. But he is his real father. He gives Jesus a name, a place in the family, a place in the story. Through Joseph, Jesus is woven into the line of David—not by blood, but by faithfulness.

    Which is fitting.

    Because Matthew will go on to show us a Messiah who gathers people not by purity or pedigree, but by grace. Blind beggars. Foreign women. Broken families. Sinners and saints stitched together into something new.

    The new creation doesn’t begin with perfect origins.
    It begins with chosen belonging.

    What’s in a Name?

    The angel says, “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

    Jesus—Yeshua—“The Lord saves.”

    This wasn’t a rare name. Parents gave it to their children as a prayer. As a hope. As a protest against empire and exile and loss.

    But Matthew sharpens the meaning: from their sins.

    He’s speaking from Israel’s own story—where sin isn’t just individual failure, but communal brokenness. Systems bent out of shape. Leaders who exploit. People who forget who they are.

    To be saved from sin is to be restored to right relationship—with God, with neighbor, with creation.

    Which is why Matthew immediately adds another name.

    “Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel.”

    God with us.

    Not God above us.
    Not God waiting at the end of history.
    God with us—inside the mess, the ambiguity, the fear, the unfinished plans.

    Matthew borrows this line from Isaiah as a lens through which to see.

    In Isaiah’s day, the nation was facing invasion. Anxiety was thick. Political alliances were crumbling. And the prophet said: A child will be born. God is still with you.

    That child could be a sign of deliverance, or judgment, depending on how the people responded.

    Matthew is doing the same thing here.

    Jesus’ presence forces a choice. God’s nearness is never neutral. Emmanuel comforts—but Emmanuel also disrupts.

    God With Us—Whether We’re Ready or Not

    We tend to use “God with us” as a comfort phrase. And it is that.

    But in Matthew, it’s also a claim about transformation.

    God with us means the old age is passing.
    God with us means the world is being remade.
    God with us means things won’t stay the same.

    The Spirit who hovered over the waters in Genesis now stirs life in Mary’s womb. This is creation language again. God is doing something new—not by escaping the world, but by entering it more deeply than ever.

    And notice where God chooses to enter.

    Not a palace.
    Not a temple.
    A household crisis.
    A marriage on the brink.
    A decision that could go either way.

    The incarnation happens in the ordinary terrain of human life.

    Which means we don’t have to look for God only in dramatic moments. Sometimes God shows up in decisions we’d rather not have to make. In conversations we hoped to avoid. In responsibilities we didn’t choose.

    Joseph didn’t ask for this calling.
    Mary didn’t campaign for this role.
    And yet—this is where God’s new creation begins.

    A Community Shaped by the Spirit

    Matthew also wants us to notice the Spirit.

    The same Spirit who animates Jesus’ birth will animate Jesus’ baptism.
    The same Spirit who leads Jesus into the wilderness will sustain the disciples when they face resistance.
    The same Spirit at work here will later be promised to the church.

    Which means this story isn’t just about what happened then.
    It’s about how God continues to work now.

    The Spirit has a habit of showing up in places we wouldn’t expect.
    In people we underestimate. In movements that don’t look impressive at first glance.

    If God can begin the renewal of creation in an unmarried peasant woman and a confused carpenter, then perhaps God can work through communities like ours—imperfect, learning, often unsure.

    The Courage to Stay

    Joseph could have walked away.

    No one would have blamed him.
    The law allowed it.
    Common sense supported it.
    Self-preservation demanded it.

    But Joseph stays.

    He stays with Mary.
    He stays with the child.
    He stays with a story that doesn’t make him look good.

    That might be the most important word for a church like ours in this season. Stay.

    Stay present when things get complicated.
    Stay faithful when obedience costs more than expected.
    Stay open when God disrupts our plans.

    Advent is not just about waiting—it’s about readiness. And readiness doesn’t necessarily mean having answers. It means being willing to act when God speaks, even if we don’t fully understand what’s unfolding.

    Joseph didn’t get a roadmap. He got a next step. And he took it.

    Creation Continues

    Matthew’s Gospel begins with a holy creation, and it ends with a promise.

    Jesus will tell his disciples, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

    Emmanuel at the beginning.
    Emmanuel at the end.

    God with us in birth. God with us in death. God with us in resurrection.
    God with us in the long, ordinary work of discipleship.

    Which means Christmas isn’t just something we remember. It’s something we live into.

    The new creation has already begun. The Spirit is already at work. God is already with us.

    The question Advent leaves us with is the same one Joseph faced:

    When God moves in ways we didn’t expect, will we quietly step away…
    or will we stay, name the child, and trust that God is doing something new right in the middle of our lives?

    Amen.

    Sermon By: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for December 7, 2025

    Sermon based on Matthew 3:1-12

    Like I mentioned last week, there’s a strange tension the Church deals with every December. On the one hand, the world is humming with joy: houses glowing, Christmas playlists running, kids counting down the days, and grocery carts full of sugar and butter like we’re all collectively training for the Great American Bake-Off.

    On the other hand, the gospel lectionary hands us John the Baptist.
    And John… does not match the décor.

    There are no warm fireside vibes in camel hair and a leather belt. There’s no soft glow around locusts and wild honey. John steps onto the Advent stage with all the social subtlety of a brick. He looks like someone who hasn’t been inside a building in a decade and talks like someone who isn’t auditioning for “most inspirational quote” on Instagram.

    And his first public words?
    “Change your hearts and lives.” (or, in other translations he simply says, “Repent!”)
    That’s the welcome mat.

    His second line?
    “You children of snakes!”
    Which, to be fair, is not a phrase I’d recommend weaving into your Christmas cards.

    Yet here he is, our Advent companion, shouting from the Judean wilderness, calling us to turn around, rethink everything, examine our lives. John doesn’t care if this feels festive. He cares if it feels honest.

    And if Advent is really about preparing room for Christ… in our world, in our homes, in the quiet, unexamined corners of our own lives, then maybe John is exactly the person we need. Not because he’s warm and approachable, but because he names what we usually try to politely avoid.

    John as Elijah: The Man Who Signals a Turning Point

    Matthew goes out of his way, borrowing lines from Old Testament prophets… Isaiah, Malachi, Exodus, and echoing 2 Kings, to tell us that John isn’t just a quirky wilderness preacher. He’s Elijah 2.0. And that matters.

    In ancient Israel, the prophet Elijah wasn’t remembered for being gentle. Elijah was the guy who walked straight into the king’s house and said, “You have forgotten God, and this is not going to end well.” He confronted power. He exposed injustice. He reminded Israel of who they were supposed to be when they’d drifted too far into who they preferred to be.

    John shows up wearing Elijah’s uniform because Matthew wants us to understand the stakes.
    This isn’t business as usual.
    This isn’t seasonal sentiment.
    This is a turning point.

    When John appears, Matthew signals to the reader: “We’ve entered the moment the prophets warned us about. This is the day of the Lord. God is coming.”

    And if God is coming, if the world is about to turn, then something in us needs to turn too.

    Repentance Isn’t About Shame—It’s About Alignment

    The word “repent” often gets tangled up in our heads. We picture someone yelling it on a street corner surrounded by cardboard signs predicting doom. But biblically, repentance, metanoia, is far less punitive and far more hopeful.

    To repent is to turn.
    To change direction.
    To recognize when we’ve been walking one way and choose—intentionally, courageously—to walk another.

    It’s not about beating ourselves up for the things we’ve done wrong.
    It’s about waking up to the life God is calling us toward.

    Repentance is not God wagging a finger. It’s God holding a door open.

    John is inviting people to break away from the assumptions, habits, and cultural narratives that shape life in what scripture calls “the old age”—a world built around fear, scarcity, violence, exploitation, and competing allegiances. And he invites them to step into something better: the values of God’s realm—justice, mercy, generosity, peace, courage, dignity, wholeness.

    John’s message is dramatic, yes. But beneath the fire and fury is a deep hope:
    “The world does not have to stay as it is.”
    “You do not have to stay as you are.”

    Repentance is the doorway into transformation.

    The Wilderness as Classroom

    A funny thing happens when John starts preaching: people leave the city to go hear him. They walk out of Jerusalem, the religious capital, the place where everything sacred is supposed to happen, and they meet God in the wilderness instead.

    The wilderness is where Israel first learned how to trust God.
    It’s where the clutter and noise of civilization fall away.
    It’s where there’s nothing left to rely on except God’s presence and provision.

    John doesn’t preach in the shadow of the Temple.
    He preaches where they can hear again.

    It’s striking that Matthew tells us even the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, wander out to see him. They’re curious. Maybe threatened. Maybe assessing whether this wilderness prophet is a problem to be solved or a movement to be taken over.

    But John is not impressed.
    “Don’t even start with me,” he says (I’m paraphrasing slightly).
    “You children of snakes.”

    This isn’t polite disagreement. This is confrontation.

    And he isn’t calling them children of snakes because they’re Jewish, or because they’re religious, or because they’re leaders. He calls them that because they claim to speak for God, but aren’t living it.

    Their faith has slipped into entitlement, “We have Abraham as our ancestor.”
    Their identity has drifted into autopilot, “We’re the good ones. We’re the faithful ones.”
    Their fruit, their actions, don’t match the trust they profess.

    John’s point lands hard:
    “Don’t tell me your heritage. Show me your life.”

    It’s not about spiritual pedigree but spiritual practice. The kingdom isn’t inherited; it’s lived.

    “The Ax Is Already at the Root”

    John’s imagery gets even sharper:

    “The ax is already lying at the root of the trees.”
    Meaning: This is urgent. This matters right now.

    John sees people, leaders especially, who are spiritually thriving in name only. They have leaves, but no fruit. And John, still channeling Elijah, says: “That’s not going to cut it anymore.”

    We know this moment too well. We know what it’s like to maintain the appearance of health while something deep inside us is withering. We know what it feels like to be busy instead of whole, admired instead of honest, functional instead of flourishing.

    John’s imagery is not about punishment, it’s about honesty.

    An unfruitful tree doesn’t need shame; it needs intervention. It needs pruning. It needs turning. It needs to be reclaimed by the God who wants life for it.

    And sometimes, the Advent invitation is simply this:
    Are you willing to tell the truth about where you’ve stopped growing?
    Are you willing to let God cut away what no longer gives life?

    Baptism: A New Beginning

    People flock to John because his message takes hold of them, there’s something true about his words that resonate in their souls.

    So, they wade into the Jordan River, the same river their ancestors crossed when they entered the Promised Land for the first time, and they confess. They drop their pride. They name what’s broken. They let the cold water rush over them as a sign that they’re stepping into a different future.

    John’s baptism is not Christian baptism. It’s not the sacrament we practice.
    Instead, it’s a ritual of preparation, a turning of the soil, a clearing of the ground, so that something new can take root.

    What John is doing is announcing a new Exodus. A fresh start for Israel. A clean slate for anyone willing to step into the river.

    And then he says something stunning:

    “I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives. The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am. I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

    John is saying: “I can call you to change. But Jesus can actually change you.”

    The Holy Spirit is the power of the new age breaking in.
    Fire is the imagery of refining, burning away what’s false, illuminating what’s true, purifying what’s worth keeping.

    The Hardest People to Change Are the Most Comfortable

    One of the commentaries I read this week put it bluntly: repentance gets harder the more invested you are in the way things currently work.

    If your life fits the world as it is, why change?
    If the system benefits you, why question it?
    If the status quo treats you well, why imagine another way?

    That’s why John’s sharpest critique is aimed at the Pharisees and Sadducees—not because they’re villains, but because they are the people most likely to mistake comfort for faithfulness.

    Most of us today aren’t too different.

    Advent invites us to ask:
    Where have we become too comfortable?
    What assumptions do we make without questioning?
    What narratives do we carry… about ourselves, about our neighbors, about the world, that need to be surrendered so something new can flourish?

    Repentance isn’t a one-time experience. It’s a posture of readiness. It’s recognizing that God may break into our settled lives and say, “It’s time to learn a new way now.”

    Preparing the Way Today

    Some Advent sermons lean heavy into judgment. Others lean exclusively into hope. John forces us to hold both.

    The message is hopeful because God is coming.
    The message is urgent because we must be ready.

    But let me name something we often miss: John is not only preparing people to receive Jesus. He is training us to prepare the way ourselves.

    John is a model for the church.

    We are called to be wilderness voices… clearing paths, naming truth, helping others navigate a landscape cluttered with competing narratives and exhausted souls.

    Preparing the way looks like:

    • Turning toward truth, even when the lie would be easier.
    • Letting go of habits that numb instead of heal.
    • Asking harder questions about our assumptions.
    • Challenging the internal stories that keep us stuck.
    • Opening our lives to the Spirit who still refines, still renews, still creates.
    • Choosing practices that align us with the kingdom—not because we have to, but because we’re being drawn toward something better.

    John reminds us that the Christian life isn’t inherited.
    It’s lived.
    It’s shaped.
    It’s practiced.

    Where the Sermon Meets Real Life

    Maybe part of our Advent work is identifying the places where we feel the tension between who we are and who we are becoming.

    Maybe for someone here it’s recognizing that anger has been steering the ship too long.
    Maybe for someone else it’s admitting that fear is making too many decisions.
    Maybe it’s a relationship that needs honesty.
    Maybe it’s a habit that needs naming.
    Maybe it’s a pattern that needs breaking.

    Repentance is not what God demands before loving us.
    Repentance is what frees us to receive the love that’s already pouring toward us.

    John is not shouting to shame us. He is shouting because he sees what’s at stake. He knows what’s possible when people turn toward God with open hands and honest hearts.

    The Promise at the Heart of All This

    The loudest words in this passage are “change your hearts and lives!”
    But the most important word may be “near.”

    As in, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”
    Meaning: God is already moving toward you.
    God is already at work.
    God is already breaking open a new future.
    God is already stirring the waters.
    God’s new world is already pressing into this one.

    And the question John asks, thousands of years later, is still the right one:

    Does your life make room for it?
    Do your habits make room for it?
    Do your assumptions, your attachments, your priorities make room for it?

    Advent isn’t just about what happened in Bethlehem.
    It’s about what’s happening now.
    It’s about the God who still arrives, unexpected, unpolished, but unmistakably present, calling us to turn, to wake up, to prepare the way.

    The world doesn’t get better by accident.
    And neither do we.

    But Christ is coming.
    And that is reason for hope.

    So maybe the question for this week is not:
    “Do I feel joyful enough for the season?”
    But instead:
    “What fruit is growing on the tree of my life?”
    “What needs to be pruned?”
    “What needs to be nurtured?”
    “What new thing might God be planting in me right now?”

    John stands in the wilderness, announcing that a better world is breaking in.
    And Advent invites us to step toward it…
    honestly, humbly, courageously.
    Because the same Spirit that rested on Jesus rests on us,
    and the same fire that refines can burn in us,
    and the same kingdom that drew near in his day draws near again today.

    May we have the courage to turn.
    May we have the wisdom to bear fruit.
    And may we have the hope to believe that God is not done with us yet.

    Amen.

    Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for November 30, 2025

    Sermon based on Matthew 24:36-44

    There’s a strange kind of whiplash built into the Christian calendar year.

    We turn the calendar toward Advent—wreaths, candles, kids getting excited, Christmas music humming in grocery store aisles—and the church hands us… the end of the world. Not shepherds. Not Mary and Joseph. Not even John the Baptist shouting from the Jordan. Instead, Jesus speaks of floods, people disappearing from fields, and a thief breaking into a house at 3 a.m.

    Merry Christmas.

    It’s tempting to soften it. To reach for one of the “theme” words we often assign to the Advent candles—hope, peace, joy, love—and let that be our guide. But the lectionary doesn’t start there. Advent begins at the edge of the unknown. Advent opens not with a Hallmark glow, but with Jesus saying, “Stay awake.”

    And that’s actually the point.

    Because whether we feel it or not, Advent has always asked us to stand at the doorway between what God has already done and what God has not yet finished. It’s the same threshold Matthew’s community was standing on when this Gospel was written. They were people trying to make sense of a world where Jesus had risen, yes—but Rome still ruled, temples still fell, injustice still took its toll. They believed in a Messiah who had come… and yet they were aching for the Messiah who had promised to return.

    And into that tension Jesus speaks:
    “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the heavenly angels and not the Son. Only the Father knows.”

    It’s almost funny how disappointed we are by that answer. We want details. Timetables. Signs. Data projections. Maybe a calendar invite from God. But Jesus doesn’t indulge any of that. He gives them, and us, something different. Something harder. Something better.

    He gives us wakefulness.

    1. The Hardest Word in Advent: “You don’t know.”

    Let’s be honest: “You don’t know” is not a phrase any of us like to hear. We’re living in a world of long-range forecasting, risk assessments, predictive analytics, and the constant hum of information. We carry smart phones that can tell us when Amazon left a package on the porch.

    And yet Jesus insists:
    “You will not know the timing. You’re not meant to.”

    It’s almost as if Jesus is trying to break the habit of spiritual forecasting before it even begins. If anyone had the right to speculate about the timeline of the second coming, it would have been him. And Jesus still shrugs and says: “Only the Father knows.”

    So if Jesus can live with that mystery… maybe we can too.

    Because faith isn’t about knowing when God will act.
    Faith is what keeps us awake so we can recognize God when God does act.

    That’s where Jesus takes his disciples next—into the stories.

    2. Noah, Wadis, and the Story Everybody Thinks They Understand

    Jesus reaches back to Noah for his illustration. And almost all of us think we know Noah’s story. Animals two by two, a giant boat, and a rainbow at the end. Children’s Bibles have turned it into a whimsical adventure starring a surprisingly patient giraffe.

    But Jesus focuses not on the ark… but on the people around it.
    People who were just living their lives—eating, drinking, planning weddings, stacking laundry in baskets, checking emails, scheduling dentist appointments. In other words, normal stuff. Everyday life.

    And then, in a moment, everything changed.

    Jesus’ point isn’t that these people were especially wicked on the day the flood hit. His point is that they didn’t see it coming. The disaster arrived suddenly. They “knew nothing,” Matthew says, until water was at their ankles.

    I came across the story of an out-of-town family picnicking in a dry wadi in Tunisia—A wadi is a valley that slices through dry land. It’s dry and empty most of the year, like many of the washes we have here in Arizona. But come a sudden rain… in no time, it becomes a lethal, raging river. Out of nowhere, the water tears through the dry channel, sweeping away anything in its path. The family who picnicked in the wadi were caught in it after a strong rain storm, and they were washed away.

    That family didn’t know what a wadi could do.
    But the locals knew.
    The locals watched the sky.
    The locals never picnicked there.

    Jesus looks at the church and says: “You are the locals in the world of God’s purpose. You know what God is doing in the world. So watch. Stay awake.”

    It’s not fearmongering. It’s wisdom. It’s a way of saying:
    “You know God’s story. You know hope is coming. Don’t fall asleep to what matters.”

    3. And Now About That “Left Behind” Stuff…

    If you grew up anywhere near the American religious landscape in the last fifty years, you probably bumped into rapture theology—the idea that believers get whisked into the air while everyone else is left on earth to face destruction.

    I want to say this gently: I don’t believe that is what Matthew is describing.

    In fact, Matthew flips the whole idea on its head. In Noah’s story, the ones “taken away” were swept away in judgment. The ones “left behind” were the faithful in the ark.

    Matthew says the coming of the Son of Humanity will be like that.

    Two people in a field. One taken away—into judgment.
    One left behind—safe.

    Two women grinding grain. One taken—judgment.
    One left—faithful.

    This is Jesus reminding a community that’s losing hope that God is still with them. Matthew isn’t painting a timeline for the end of the world. He’s painting a picture of what it means to be faithful in the present.

    And it’s here, at this moment, that Matthew does something powerful.

    He shifts the question.
    Instead of asking, “What will happen when Jesus returns?”
    Matthew asks, “What kind of people should we be while we wait?”

    4. The Already and the Not Yet

    For Matthew, the second coming isn’t a distant threat. It’s part of the fabric of Christian life right now. The early church lived in a strange in-between time—a time some scholars call “already/not yet.”

    Already, Christ had come. Already, the world had changed. Already, resurrection had broken open the grave.
    But not yet had the reign of God fully taken root.
    Not yet had the world become what God intends it to be.
    Not yet had justice rolled down like waters.

    And Matthew seems determined to tell his community:
    “You are living in the turning of the ages. The End has already started. So how you live right now matters.”

    In other words:
    Advent isn’t just the season we wait for Christmas.
    Advent is the season that reminds us how to live the rest of the year.

    5. Wakefulness: Not Panic, Not Prediction—Presence

    So what does Jesus tell us to do with the not-knowing?

    He gives us the image of a thief in the night. A strange metaphor, but an effective one. No thief calls ahead and schedules an appointment. They arrive when you’re not expecting them.

    Jesus says: “if the head of the house knew at what time the thief would come, he would keep alert and wouldn’t allow the thief to break into his house.”

    Again—the point isn’t fear.
    The point is attentiveness.
    Presence.
    Wakefulness.

    It’s the posture of someone whose heart is anchored in what matters most.

    When I think of wakefulness, I think of people who have trained themselves to see what God is doing right under their noses. People like the two women in Matthew 28—the Marys—who showed up at the tomb at dawn. They didn’t know what they’d find. They didn’t know the timing. They simply knew that God keeps promises. They showed up. They watched. And because they were awake, they became the first witnesses of the Resurrection.

    Wakefulness in Scripture is almost always this:
    Being where God is likely to show up.
    Standing in the places God calls us to.
    Keeping our attention tuned to healing, mercy, justice, and love.

    Wakefulness doesn’t mean scanning the sky for earthquakes or eclipses. It means scanning our neighborhoods for places God is already stirring life.

    6. Living Awake in a Sleepy World

    If Matthew were writing today, I’m convinced he would have no shortage of examples of a sleepy world.

    A world where some people are lulled by comfort.
    A world where others are exhausted by survival.
    A world where the noise is constant, and the urgent crowds out the important.

    A world where scrolling on our phones can deaden us.
    A world where fear can shut us down.
    A world where distraction is so easy it becomes a way of life.

    And right inside this sleepy world—Jesus whispers: “Stay awake.”
    Not in an anxious way.
    Not in a paranoid, end-times-calculating way.

    But in a grounded, intentional, spiritually alert way.

    Stay awake to injustice.
    Stay awake to suffering.
    Stay awake to the lonely.
    Stay awake to the good.
    Stay awake to beauty.
    Stay awake to the quiet ways God is growing hope in the world.

    Stay awake to your own heart.

    Because the moment we fall asleep to our own souls… we risk missing what God is doing in us.

    7. The Responsibility of Being “Left Behind”

    For Matthew, being “left behind” isn’t punishment.
    It’s responsibility.

    The faithful who remain are given more to do—not less.

    The parables that follow this reading make that crystal clear:

    • The faithful servant who stays compassionate and consistent is given more responsibility.
    • The bridesmaids who are prepared get to enter the party.
    • The servants who steward their talents faithfully are entrusted with more.
    • And the righteous who feed, clothe, welcome, care, and visit—the ones who love the most vulnerable—are invited to inherit the kingdom and continue the work.

    In other words:
    God’s reign isn’t something we wait around for.
    It’s something we step into.
    It’s something we participate in.
    It’s something we practice, right in the middle of our ordinary days.

    Being awake looks like this:
    Paying attention to the hungry child.
    Paying attention to the grieving neighbor.
    Paying attention to the stressed-out teacher.
    Paying attention to the planet we’ve been entrusted with.

    Being awake means seeing where the world is still “not yet” what God wants it to be, and doing something about it.

    8. Advent as a Countercultural Claim

    And this is why Advent matters.
    Because Advent refuses to let Christmas be just a cozy season.
    Advent pulls us back into the larger story.

    It reminds us that the birth of Jesus is not the beginning of something sentimental. The birth of Jesus is the inbreaking of the End—the capital-E End—into the middle of history.

    Advent says:
    The End has already begun because Christ has already come.
    And the world is still being remade.

    It’s not always spectacular. Sometimes it looks like slow, faithful work in quiet places. Sometimes it looks like a church stepping into a need. Sometimes it looks like a person choosing compassion when revenge would be easier. Sometimes it looks like doing the right thing even when no one sees.

    Advent asks us to look for those places.
    To cultivate those places.
    To join those places.
    To believe that God is still pulling this world toward a future we cannot see, but deeply hope for.

    9. Becoming Local Experts in God’s Future

    Remember the wadi?
    The locals knew better than to picnic there.

    In the same way, we—Christ’s people—are meant to be the locals in the terrain of God’s future. We know the story. We know the trajectory. We know that hope is not naïve. We know that resurrection is real. We know that light is stronger than darkness. We know that God’s love is outlasting everything that tries to bury it.

    So we watch.
    We stay awake.
    We keep our eyes on the horizon.
    We keep our hearts attuned to grace.
    We keep our hands ready for service.
    We keep our lives pointed toward the One who promised to return.

    We stay awake because we know something the world doesn’t always see:
    God’s future is already breaking into the present.

    10. A Final Word for a Busy Season

    Let’s be fair: between now and Christmas, life is going to get loud. Baking and shopping and travel and school programs and stress and joy and all the little details that come with this season.

    And right in the middle of it, Jesus offers a simple invitation:

    “You—yes, you—be ready.”
    “You stay awake.”
    “You remember what matters.”

    He doesn’t say it harshly.
    He says it like someone who knows we’re prone to drift.

    He says it like someone who loves us.
    Like someone who wants our lives anchored in something solid.
    Like someone who refuses to let us sleepwalk through our days.

    Advent is not the warm-up to Christmas.
    Advent is the wake-up call to Christian hope.

    So what if, this year, we approached Advent like locals?
    What if we stayed awake to the signs of God’s presence?
    What if we watched for Christ in the places he always shows up—the hungry, the lonely, the forgotten, the overlooked?

    What if we lived like people who know the end of the story?

    Because that’s who we are.
    We are the people who know that darkness doesn’t get the last word.
    We are the people who know that love outlasts death.
    We are the people who know that God is not done with this world.
    Not by a long shot.

    So stay awake.
    Stay alert.
    Stay present.
    Stay grounded in the hope that holds you.

    And maybe—just maybe—the world will see something in you that points toward the dawn.

    What if the first step toward that awakening begins today? Amen.

    Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for November 23, 2025

    Based on Luke 23:33-43

    I came across a news story this week. It’s the story of Kelly Gissendaner, who was executed in Georgia ten years ago. Her crime was horrific… she plotted the murder of her husband. No one denied her guilt. But in prison, Kelly underwent a transformation that was so complete it felt almost unfamiliar in our world, a world that doubts that people can really change. She earned a theology certificate from Emory University. She ministered to women who were in such despair that some had attempted suicide. She brought comfort into a place where comfort is a stranger.

    As her execution approached, former inmates she had ministered to pleaded for her life. Correctional officers pleaded. Pope Francis pleaded. Even Kelly’s grown children—who had lost their father because of her actions, pleaded. But the state did not bend. The allure of punishment outweighed the possibility of redemption.

    And that caused me to think… are we a culture that believes in second chances… until we’re asked to give someone one?

    Luke 23 takes that hesitation, that suspicion, that stinginess with mercy, and drags it right out into the open. And not with a safe example. Not with someone mildly flawed or somewhat sympathetic. With a criminal… someone who, by his own admission, deserves the punishment he’s getting.

    A person most of us would never consider worthy of mercy is the first person to hear Jesus say, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

    This is the last Sunday of the church year—Christ the King Sunday. The day when we proclaim Jesus as ruler, sovereign, king. And yet the picture Luke gives us is the opposite of what we expect from a king. No throne. No crown of gold. Not a hint of ceremony or dignity. Just a cross planted in a place with a name dark enough to make you shiver: The Skull.

    Christ the King—lifted up not in triumph, but in excruciating pain.

    And somehow, we’re told: This is his reign.

    –

    The whole scene is structured around mockery. It comes from every direction—the leaders, the soldiers, even one of the criminals next to him. They all aim at one idea: If you’re really a king, save yourself.

    It’s the ancient version of: “Prove it.”

    Which always makes me wonder: If they had seen Jesus pull the nails out and climb down from the cross… would they have suddenly believed? Would their cynicism have dissolved? Would they have fallen to their knees?

    Probably not.

    “What we mock reveals what we fear,” as someone once said.

    And they feared a king who didn’t play the game the way their kings did. Because all they knew were kings who used power to protect themselves. Kings who demanded privilege. Kings who never suffered publicly, because suffering publicly was the most humiliating thing a person of status could endure.

    And here hang Jesus—arms nailed wide, body breaking under the weight of torture—absolutely refusing to use power to shield himself.

    Instead, he uses his power to reach out.

    “Father, forgive them.”

    “Today you will be with me.”

    Even at the very end, when he is out of strength, out of breath, out of options, Jesus is still doing the thing he always did: connecting. Offering presence. Extending relationship.

    He is a king whose reign is built not on dominance, but on mercy.

    If you’ve ever been with someone in their final hours, you know those moments carry a weight that’s hard to explain. People say things that rise out of some deeper place, some distilled core of who they really are. This is why martyr stories are always filled with last words, words spoken with clarity and courage, even when the body is wracked with pain.

    Luke paints Jesus with that same quiet, steady resolve. He doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t withdraw. He doesn’t bargain. He shows us the true shape of God’s rule, and it looks nothing like the power structures we’ve grown used to.

    It looks like a man refusing to disconnect from people even as they destroy him.

    Relationship, as it turns out, is the currency of this kingdom.

    And if we’re honest, that hits differently after the last few years we’ve lived through. Because we’ve become fluent in fracture. We’ve learned how to distance ourselves in ways that go far beyond physical distance. We’ve gotten good at saying, “I don’t need them.” Or, “If they don’t agree with me, I’m out.”

    But Jesus doesn’t get out.

    Jesus doesn’t withhold himself.

    Jesus stays connected… to God, to the guilty, to the ones hurting him, to the ones lost beside him, to the ones who abandoned him and could only watch from far away.

    Maybe the most subversive thing Jesus ever did was simply this:

    He didn’t let pain break his commitment to love.

    –

    There’s something almost jarring about the second criminal’s request: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

    We don’t know his story. We don’t know what he did. We don’t know his motivations. We don’t know whether he understood anything about what Jesus was doing. Honestly, we don’t even know if he was repenting. There’s no speech. No promise to live differently. No theological confession. No signs of moral turnaround. He just says, “Remember me.”

    And Jesus answers him with this avalanche of mercy:

    “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

    He doesn’t say, “After you demonstrate repentance.”
    Or “Let’s talk about what you did.”
    Or “Let’s tally up the damage.”
    Or “We need to evaluate if you’re really sincere.”

    He simply welcomes him.

    As one early church father put it, “The favor shown is far more abundant than the request made.”

    And this is where the story gets under our skin.

    Because almost everyone I know, including myself, has a line somewhere. A place where we think, “Okay, grace is great, but not for them. Not for the ones who did that. Not for someone who messed up so badly that they ended up here.”

    But this is the kind of king Jesus is. A king who doesn’t ration mercy. A king who doesn’t do background checks before offering compassion. A king who doesn’t think redemption is too expensive, even when the world has already written someone off.

    And this is where Kelly Gissendaner comes back into the picture. Because her story and the story of the second criminal share the same uncomfortable truth:

    Jesus doesn’t wait for people to get their act together before offering them a place in his kingdom.

    He extends mercy long before we’ve earned anything.

    Which means, of course, that he extends mercy to you. And to me. And to people we struggle to love. And to the people we’re not sure deserve it. And to the people we’ve quietly decided are too far gone.

    Grace always expands the circle wider than we want it to.

    –

    One of the most powerful lines in today’s story is also one of the quietest:

    “And the people stood by watching.”

    Standing by. Watching. Not acting. Not speaking. Not intervening.

    Some because they were afraid. Some because they were confused. Some because they were complicit. Some because they weren’t sure what to believe anymore.

    And that might be the most honest description of us that Scripture ever gives.

    We stand by while injustice plays out.
    We stand by while power is abused.
    We stand by while structures we benefit from harm others.
    We stand by because we think we’re powerless, or unsure, or just overwhelmed.

    And into that kind of world—a world where violence is public and suffering is entertainment—the cross was meant to be a spectacle. A lesson in dominance. A warning.

    Rome used crucifixion to say: “This is what happens when you challenge the system. We can crush your body and your dignity. Don’t forget that.”

    But Luke wants us to notice something Rome didn’t intend:

    Jesus is surrounded by faithful Jews—women, followers, mourners—who show up anyway. They stand close enough to be counted as witnesses.

    And the second criminal becomes one of them.

    He sees what Rome cannot see. He notices what the mockers miss. He recognizes Jesus as king when the entire world is bent on humiliating him.

    And that recognition becomes an act of resistance.

    Because when you call Jesus “king” on a cross, you are saying: Rome’s version of power is not the real thing.

    And here is where Luke pushes us to confront the hardest truth of this passage:

    Jesus reveals that real power is self-giving love.

    Not domination. Not fear. Not control. Not the ability to escape suffering, or to use status to avoid consequences, or to silence enemies.

    The power of God’s kingdom is revealed when Jesus refuses to save himself so he can save others.

    “Save yourself!” the crowd shouts.

    But if Jesus saves himself, the world isn’t saved.

    If Jesus climbs down from the cross, mercy does not go out to the guilty. Forgiveness is not spoken. Paradise is not promised. Hope does not break into the world.

    Sometimes power is shown not in what you can escape, but in what you choose to stay with.

    –

    There’s a small word in this passage that could change your entire understanding of Jesus:

    Today.

    As in “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

    Not “someday.”
    Not “after everything gets sorted out.”
    Not “in the distant future.”

    Today.

    In Luke’s Gospel, “today” is a loaded word. It’s the word used when angels announce good news to shepherds. It’s the word Jesus uses in Nazareth when he says the Scriptures are being fulfilled in their hearing. It’s the word used when Zacchaeus climbs down from the tree and Jesus declares that salvation has come to his house.

    Today means the kingdom is not just a distant promise. It is a present reality.

    And if that’s true, then the cross isn’t just the end of Jesus’ life, it’s the beginning of the world’s rescue.

    Because on the cross, the king is not defeated. He is enthroned.

    His elevation is not his humiliation, it is his coronation.

    Not in the way the world understands it, but in the way God chooses to rule:

    Through mercy.
    Through forgiveness.
    Through solidarity with the suffering.
    Through refusing to let pain be the final word.
    Through welcoming a person everyone else has discarded.

    And here at the end of the church year, right before Advent, right before we enter the season of longing and hope, we’re reminded of what kind of king we follow:

    A king who rules from a cross.
    A king who refuses to retaliate.
    A king who speaks comfort to the guilty.
    A king whose kingdom opens its gates to the very last person anyone expects.

    So What Do We Do With a King Like This?

    Maybe that’s the question this Sunday leaves us with.

    If Christ is king… not Caesar, not Rome, not the systems that reward selfishness, not the voices that mock, not the powers that crush, what does that require of us?

    If Jesus is king, then mercy must become our native language.

    If Jesus is king, then relationships, especially the strained ones, are sacred ground.

    If Jesus is king, then we cannot write people off as hopeless or beyond redemption.

    If Jesus is king, then we are free from the world’s hierarchy… free to serve, free to forgive, free to advocate for those who are trapped in systems that destroy them.

    If Jesus is king, then we are called to stand near the suffering rather than avert our eyes.

    If Jesus is king, then showing up, again and again, even when we’re afraid…is part of our identity.

    Because Luke’s message is surprisingly simple:

    The kingdom of God often begins with somebody showing up.

    The women showed up.
    The crowds showed up.
    The faithful followers showed up.
    The criminal, desperate, dying, guilty, showed up.
    And Jesus showed up for them.

    He shows up for us.

    Not because we’re worthy.
    Not because we’ve proven anything.
    Not because we’ve cleaned ourselves up.

    But because mercy is how he rules.

    –

    So maybe the invitation this week is this:

    Where do you need to show up?
    Who needs your presence?
    Who needs your mercy?
    What relationship needs tending?
    What fracture needs healing?
    What injustice needs your voice?
    What pain needs your compassion?

    And maybe the harder question:

    Where have you been standing “at a distance,” watching?

    Luke’s Gospel ends Jesus’ earthly life not with triumphal language, but with quiet, stubborn grace. Grace for the guilty. Grace for the ignorant. Grace for the ones who abandoned him. Grace for the ones who mocked him. Grace for the ones who didn’t understand.

    Grace for people who look suspiciously like us.

    And maybe that’s the point.

    Because if the kingdom can reach a dying criminal on a cross, then there is no one outside its reach.

    Not even you.

    Not even me.

    Not even the people we’ve given up on.

    Christ is king. Not the king we expected. Not the king we would’ve elected. But the king we desperately need, one who rules through mercy, remembers the forgotten, welcomes the undeserving, and refuses to stop loving even when love costs everything.

    And this king turns to each of us and whispers the same word he spoke to the criminal beside him:

    “Today.”

    Today salvation has come.
    Today mercy is yours.
    Today the kingdom is at hand.
    Today paradise is closer than you think.

    And today, if we’re willing to show up, we might just see it breaking in.

    Amen.

    By: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for November 16, 2025

    Sermon Based on Luke 21:5-19

    I heard a story about fourth-grade class that was given a choice between two rewards. The class had been recognized for consistent school attendance, and they could vote on what kind of celebration they wanted: either a homework pass or the chance to bring a stuffed animal to school.

    Now, I would’ve bet money they’d choose the homework pass. I mean, who wouldn’t? But they surprised everyone. They chose the stuffed animal.

    One kid told their parents, “You know, there’s really no such thing as a homework pass. You might get to skip it for that day, but you still have to learn it.”

    There’s wisdom in that—ten-year-old wisdom, but wisdom all the same. They seemed to know something we adults sometimes forget: the hard things don’t just go away. You can delay them, but you can’t skip them. And sometimes, when life’s challenges show up, the best you can do is bring along something soft and comforting—something that helps you endure.

    Maybe it’s that same truth Jesus was trying to get across when he looked around at the temple and said, “All these stones you see, every one of them will be thrown down.”

    The Unthinkable

    The Jerusalem temple was one of the most beautiful structures in the ancient world. Herod the Great had spent eighty years expanding and refurbishing it. He built new foundation walls, hired the most skilled artisans, and used white marble slabs the size of small houses. Tapestries of fine linen—blue, scarlet, and purple—hung at its entrance, and gold-plated doors gleamed in the sunlight.

    It was the pride of the Jewish people, the center of worship, the symbol of God’s presence among them. And it was also, quite literally, a political statement. Herod had rebuilt the temple not just for God, but to show off—to prove his power to both Rome and his own people.

    So when Jesus said it would all come crashing down, people were stunned. How could that be? How could something so permanent, so central to faith, be destroyed?

    By the time Luke wrote these words, that destruction had already happened. The Romans had torn the temple to the ground in 70 CE, leaving behind only rubble and grief. For Luke’s community, the question wasn’t, “When will it happen?” but “What do we do now that it has?”

    And maybe that’s our question, too. Because life has a way of knocking down the things we thought would last forever.

    The job we thought was secure. The family that was unbreakable. The body that once felt strong. The institutions we trusted to keep us safe.

    We all know what it feels like when the stones start to fall.

    Impermanence and Power

    When the disciples looked up at the temple, they saw permanence. They saw power. But Jesus saw something else.

    He saw the instability beneath it all. He knew that what looks unshakable can crumble overnight. He knew that Herod’s shiny marble monument was built on fear and control. It was a projection of strength masking deep insecurity, like so many of the “temples” we build today.

    Jesus wanted them to see that human achievement, no matter how impressive, doesn’t last forever. Nations rise and fall. Economies shift. Buildings crumble. Empires fade.

    The question isn’t whether they will fall. The question is where our faith will rest when they do.

    Luke’s Gospel subtly shifts the focus from the grandeur of the temple to the story that came just before it, the widow who offered two small coins in the temple treasury. Her gift was small, but it was faithful. Her trust wasn’t in the temple’s walls or the wealth it represented, but in God’s enduring presence.

    So maybe Jesus was saying, Don’t get distracted by the stones. Pay attention to the widow. Pay attention to what lasts.

    When the Ground Shifts

    Jesus goes on to describe what sounds like a global unraveling: wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, betrayals, persecution. It’s an unsettling list. But it’s also not meant to be predictive in a literal sense. Luke’s audience had already seen war and destruction.

    Apocalyptic language like this was common in the ancient world. It wasn’t meant to chart out a timetable for the end times, it was meant to give meaning to suffering. It was meant to tell people, Hold on. God is still here.

    Every age has its own earthquakes and false prophets. Every generation thinks the world is ending. But apocalyptic writing reminds us that even when everything looks like chaos, God’s story is still unfolding.

    It’s not a code to decipher. It’s a promise to trust.

    “Do not be terrified,” Jesus says. “These things must take place, but the end will not follow immediately.”

    The point isn’t to predict, but to persevere.

    The Opportunity to Testify

    Jesus then tells his disciples that persecution is coming—that they will be arrested, betrayed, even hated. But rather than offering an escape plan, he says something strange: “This will provide you an opportunity to testify.”

    I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of opportunity most of us are looking for. We prefer opportunities that involve good news, or at least comfort. But Jesus reframes adversity as a moment of witness.

    He says, “Make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance.I’ll give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to counter or contradict.”

    It sounds like bad advice at first. If you know trouble is coming, wouldn’t you want to prepare? But Jesus’ words are not about neglect—they’re about trust.

    He’s saying: You don’t have to script your faith ahead of time. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to show up and trust that God will give you what you need in that moment.

    Faith, in this passage, is less about mastery and more about surrender. It’s less about control and more about courage.

    And that’s good news for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t know what to say or how to keep going. Jesus is saying, You don’t have to prepare your defense. You just have to bear witness to my love, right where you are.

    History Repeats

    We’ve seen this kind of faith lived out before. In the book of Acts—the sequel to Luke’s Gospel—the early church faces the very trials Jesus describes: persecution, imprisonment, betrayal. And yet, they find words and wisdom when they need them most.

    Stephen, the first martyr, testifies with grace. Paul speaks truth to power before kings. The Spirit moves through ordinary people who endure hardship with hope.

    And through it all, the gospel spreads, not because the church was powerful, but because it was faithful.

    That same pattern has continued through history.

    And that’s the kind of endurance Jesus is talking about. Not stoic toughness, but faithful persistence. Not denial of pain, but hope in the midst of it.

    Endurance and Resurrection

    When Jesus tells his disciples, “By holding fast, you will gain your lives” (or said in another translation) “By your endurance you will gain your souls,” he isn’t calling them to grit their teeth and hang on through sheer willpower. He’s inviting them into a kind of endurance that comes from trust in God’s ongoing presence.

    The Greek word for “endurance,” hypomonē, doesn’t mean stubbornness—it means steadfastness. It’s the quiet strength that allows a tree to bend in the wind without breaking. It’s the faith to hold on, not because we’re strong, but because God is faithful.

    The Apostle Paul echoes this in Romans 5: “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope—and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

    This kind of endurance doesn’t deny pain. It transforms it. It’s not an escape from hardship; it’s a trust that God is at work within it.

    David Livingstone, the missionary to Africa, once prayed, “Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.” And he testified, “What has sustained me is the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.’”

    That’s the promise Jesus gives his followers. Not an easy road, but a faithful companion.

    When Endurance Isn’t Enough

    One of the commentaries points out that this passage shouldn’t be cut short. It belongs to a larger scene that continues beyond verse 19—a scene that moves from destruction to cosmic upheaval to the promise of redemption.

    If you stop too soon, it sounds like Jesus is saying that our job is simply to endure. But if you read further, you realize endurance is not the end goal—resurrection is.

    Endurance is what gets you through the night. Resurrection is what greets you in the morning.

    Luke’s audience already knew what it meant for their world to collapse. The temple was gone. The city was trampled. Their faith community was scattered. But Luke insists: even in the ashes, God is not done.

    In fact, the chapter ends with a beautiful image—crowds of people gathering early each morning to listen to Jesus teach in the temple. Even as destruction looms, the people of God gather, waiting for redemption together.

    Maybe that’s the real invitation here: to be a people who wait together for resurrection.

    Waiting Together

    Every church I know has its own version of this waiting. Some wait for renewal after a difficult season. Some wait for reconciliation after conflict. Some wait for healing, or for a sense of direction, or for the courage to rebuild after loss.

    But waiting isn’t passive. It’s not about sitting still—it’s about staying faithful.

    In Luke 21, Jesus’ words are not meant to terrify. They’re meant to anchor. When the world shakes, we lift our heads, not because we’re fearless, but because we know who holds the world together.

    That’s the difference between apocalyptic panic and apocalyptic faith. Panic says, “The world is ending.” Faith says, “God is still here.”

    And maybe that’s what we need to remember in our own moment—when the news cycle feels like one long apocalypse, when institutions we trusted seem to falter, when even the church struggles to find its footing.

    Jesus never said it would be easy. But he did promise we would never be alone.

    The Stones and the Soul

    In the end, this passage isn’t really about the temple at all. It’s about the soul.

    Buildings fall. Systems crumble. Certainties collapse. But what endures is the Spirit of God within us—the same Spirit that carried the early church through persecution, that inspired the prophets to speak, that empowers us still to live as witnesses of hope.

    The temple may have been destroyed, but faith wasn’t. In fact, the Spirit of God transcended those walls and spread into the world. The same is true today. The Spirit still moves beyond the boundaries we think contain it—beyond denominations, beyond politics, beyond even the structures we call “church.”

    Our calling isn’t to protect the stones. It’s to be living witnesses of the love that cannot be destroyed.

    Holding On When the Stones Fall

    When Jesus said, “Not one stone will be left on another,” he wasn’t issuing a threat. He was offering an invitation—to stop clinging to what cannot last, and to start trusting the One who always will.

    Because in the end, faith isn’t about holding everything together. It’s about being held together by God.

    It’s about learning to stand when everything else falls apart. It’s about bearing witness when the world seems lost. It’s about trusting that the same Spirit who gave words to the persecuted disciples will also give strength to us when we need it most.

    And maybe, in the middle of it all, it’s about having the wisdom of those fourth graders—knowing that the hard things can’t always be avoided, but they can be endured when you have something—or someone—who goes with you.

    We don’t get a homework pass in life. But we do get a companion.

    So when the stones start to fall, when the future feels uncertain, and when your heart feels heavy, remember this promise:

    Not a hair of your head will perish.
    By your endurance, you will gain your soul.
    And the God who holds the universe together will hold you, too. Amen.

    Sermon by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for October 19, 2025

    Sermon based on Luke 18:1-8

    “Jesus was telling them a parable about their need to pray continuously and not be discouraged.”

    Those are the kinds of words that only make sense when life has worn you down. When you’ve prayed until you have no more words. When you’ve stared at the ceiling in the dark, waiting for something—anything—to shift.

    “Pray always and don’t lose heart,” Jesus says.

    It’s easy to read that like a piece of advice on a refrigerator magnet. But Jesus isn’t giving advice here. He’s giving survival instructions. Because the moment we stop praying—when we stop believing that something good and just is still possible—our hearts begin to close.

    And that’s where this parable begins: with the question of whether our hearts can stay open in a world that keeps breaking them.

    The Setting of the Story

    The story Jesus tells is strange and, in a way, a little bit comical. There’s a widow who keeps showing up at the courthouse, demanding justice. We never learn the details of her case. We only know that she’s been wronged and that the man in charge of doing something about it refuses to care.

    This judge is everything a judge shouldn’t be. Jesus describes him as someone who “neither fears God nor respects people.” In other words, he doesn’t believe in accountability—to heaven or to humanity. He’s a man whose power has insulated him from empathy.

    And then there’s the widow—his opposite in every way. She has no power, no husband to represent her, no family to advocate for her. She’s at the very bottom of the social order. But she does have one thing left: persistence.

    Day after day, she keeps showing up at the courthouse. She stands in front of the judge’s door until he notices her. She doesn’t go away quietly, and eventually, he relents—not because he suddenly cares about justice, but because she’s driving him crazy.

    It’s such a vivid image. This widow, small in stature and big in courage, threatening to wear down this man of status. We can almost see the scene: the crowd chuckling at the absurdity of it, the judge trying to maintain dignity, the widow standing firm.

    And then Jesus turns to the disciples and asks, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. Won’t God provide justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night?”

    It’s the moment we realize that Jesus has been setting us up—not to compare God to the unjust judge, but to contrast them.

    If even someone like that can eventually act justly, how much more can we trust that God—the one who hears the cries of the oppressed—will not delay in bringing justice?

    God Is Not the Judge

    Of course, it’s easy to get tangled up in the comparison. Some of us have prayed for years and still carry grief that hasn’t lifted. We know too well that justice doesn’t always arrive “quickly,” as the text suggests.

    So it’s tempting to hear this parable and think: Maybe God is like that judge—distant, slow, unfeeling.

    But Jesus isn’t painting God as indifferent. He’s showing how radically different God is from the human systems we’ve grown used to.

    In our world, power concedes nothing without a demand. That’s what the widow knows. It’s what anyone who’s fought for their dignity knows. But Jesus is saying: the God who made you doesn’t need to be badgered into goodness. You don’t have to wear God down to get a hearing.

    What Jesus does here is almost a theological judo move—he takes the imbalance of power in this story and flips it on its head. God is not the unjust judge. God is the one who stands beside the widow, listening to her cries.

    It’s an inversion of everything people assumed about divinity. In the ancient world, widows were symbols of vulnerability. Yet throughout Luke’s Gospel, they are also symbols of faith.

    There’s Anna, the prophet who recognizes the infant Jesus in the temple and begins to proclaim the good news to everyone who will listen.
    There’s the widow of Zarephath, who shares her last bit of flour with Elijah and receives the miracle of her son’s life restored.
    There’s the poor widow who drops two coins into the temple treasury—“all she had to live on,” Jesus says, and yet she gives it freely.

    Luke never treats widows as objects of pity. They are models of active, courageous faith. The same faith that Jesus asks about at the end of the parable: “But when the Human Onecomes, will he find faithfulness on earth?”

    Faith as Persistence

    So, what kind of faith is Jesus talking about here?

    It seems to me that it’s not the kind of faith that recites doctrines or checks theological boxes. Instead, it’s the kind that keeps showing up when the odds say you shouldn’t.

    The kind that prays through the silence, even when the heavens feel closed.
    The kind that refuses to accept that injustice has the final word.
    The kind that keeps knocking on the door—not because you’re certain it will open today, but because you believe the One on the other side is still good.

    This widow’s persistence isn’t born out of naivety. She knows how the world works. She knows how the system is stacked against her. But she also knows something the judge doesn’t: that justice still matters. That her voice still matters.

    Her persistence becomes an act of resistance. It’s faith with grit in it.

    Dorothee Soelle, the German theologian and mystic, once said that prayer doesn’t give us a new vision of God—it gives us a new vision of the world. Prayer, she said, teaches us to “borrow the eyes of God.”

    That’s what this widow is doing. She’s seeing her situation through divine eyes. Every time she returns to the judge, she’s declaring—without words—that the world as it is cannot be the world as it must remain.

    Her prayer is not just a plea; it’s a protest.

    Prayer as Protest and Communion

    I think that’s something we sometimes forget. We treat prayer as a quiet, passive act—something that happens in our heads or at the dinner table. But in Scripture, prayer is rarely quiet. It’s active. It’s embodied.

    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of marching in Selma for civil rights in the 1965, “I felt my legs were praying.” That’s what happens when faith takes form. Prayer becomes motion.

    To pray always and not lose heart is to keep faith with a God whose justice runs deeper than the world’s corruption.

    And yet, that’s not easy. Because when we look around—when we scroll through headlines or sit beside a hospital bed—it’s not always clear that justice is coming soon.

    We can understand why Jesus told this story right after his apocalyptic teaching in chapter 17. He had just told the disciples that suffering and chaos would come before the kingdom of God breaks through. That the world would carry on “as in the days of Noah”—people eating, drinking, marrying—oblivious to the holy interruption that’s about to arrive.

    He knew they would face despair. He knew they’d be tempted to lose heart. So he told them this story: when justice feels delayed, pray anyway. When the world is unfair, stay faithful.

    Because prayer is what holds us together when everything else is falling apart.

    The Mystery of God’s Justice

    Still, we ask the question: Where is justice?

    It’s one thing to say that God will bring justice quickly; it’s another to live through the waiting.

    I’ve sat with families who’ve buried their children and wondered how those words could possibly be true. I’ve prayed with people who’ve waited years for a diagnosis, or a job, or forgiveness. And there are days I’ve prayed for peace in our world and felt nothing but the echo of my own voice.

    So when Jesus says, “God will not delay,” part of me wants to whisper, “Are you sure?”

    But maybe the point isn’t timing. Maybe the point is trust.

    The cross itself is the place where it looked like justice had been forever delayed. Jesus, the Chosen One, hanging between two criminals while the religious leaders mocked him: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s chosen one.”

    And yet, in that moment of complete injustice, something holy was happening. God was still at work. Life was being born out of death. The one who cried out from the cross was the same one who told this parable—the one who promised that God hears those who cry day and night.

    Three days later, justice came running out of a tomb.

    God’s justice is not about getting even—it’s about setting things right. It’s resurrection justice. And it’s already begun, even if it’s not yet complete.

    When Justice Feels Far Off

    That’s what Jesus gives his disciples here: not an explanation, but a way of living through the in-between.

    “When justice seems far off,” he says, “pray.”
    “When rejection is near at hand,” pray.
    “When your heart is tired and the world is cruel and your hope feels small—pray.”

    Not because prayer is a magic trick, but because it keeps us tethered to God’s heart.

    It keeps our imagination alive.

    It keeps us from becoming like the judge—numb, indifferent, cynical.

    When we pray, we hold space for something better. We open ourselves to the kingdom that is “among us,” as Jesus said in the previous chapter, and also within us.

    The widow’s persistence shows us that faith isn’t a feeling—it’s a rhythm. It’s the steady heartbeat of hope in a weary world.

    Living With Faithful Persistence

    Though fictional, some have said that this widow might be one of the bravest characters in all of Scripture. She’s not given a name. She’s not given status. But she is given a voice—and she uses it. That’s what faith looks like.

    It’s not the loud confidence of someone who’s sure of every answer. It’s the quiet determination of someone who refuses to give up.

    Faith, in this story, looks like persistence in prayer and persistence in love. It’s the refusal to let the darkness define you.

    And that raises the question Jesus leaves hanging in the air: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

    Maybe that’s not a question of belief so much as a question of endurance. Will he find people still praying? Still hoping? Still believing that goodness is stronger than evil, that mercy is stronger than hate?

    Will he find people who, like the widow, keep coming back to the door of justice and knocking, even when the world says it’s pointless?

    That’s the kind of faith Jesus longs to find. Not perfection. Not certainty. Just faith that keeps breathing.

    Eyes Wide Open

    There’s another way to say all this: prayer keeps our eyes open.

    Dorothee Soelle wrote that those who pray with the eyes of God learn to see the world differently. They begin to notice what God notices. They begin to love what God loves.

    That’s what this widow teaches us. She prays with her eyes open. She prays standing up, with her whole body involved. Her persistence is not simply spiritual—it’s incarnational.

    In a time when “thoughts and prayers” have become clichés, when we hear those words after another act of violence and wonder if they mean anything at all, this parable calls us back to the deeper truth: prayer is not a substitute for action. Prayer is action. It’s the movement of our hearts toward God’s justice.

    To pray always and not lose heart is to live as though God’s kingdom is already breaking in.

    The Invitation

    This parable begins with an invitation to pray and ends with a question about faith.

    Between those two lines lies the entire Christian life.

    We live somewhere between praying and believing—between crying out for justice and trusting that God is already at work bringing it about.

    That tension can be hard to hold. But maybe the point is not to resolve it, but to inhabit it faithfully.

    To be like the widow: to show up again tomorrow, to keep praying through the silence, to keep believing that our persistence matters because it mirrors the persistence of God’s own love.

    Because God doesn’t give up on us. God doesn’t grow weary of our cries. God doesn’t stop showing up.

    So we keep praying—not to convince God to act, but to remind ourselves that God already is.

    And we keep living—not as if justice will come someday far off, but as if it’s already stirring in our midst.

    That’s what it means to pray always and not lose heart.

    That’s what it means to live by faith.

    And when the Son of Man comes, may he find that kind of faith in us.

    Amen.

    Sermon by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for October 12, 2025

    Sermon based on Luke 17:11-19

    Jesus is on the road again—headed toward Jerusalem, toward the cross, toward the final act of his ministry. Luke says he’s moving “through the region between Samaria and Galilee,” which, if you check a map, is not a real place. There is no region between Samaria and Galilee. They are two territories that directly border each other. Luke’s geography doesn’t make sense, but that’s okay. He’s doing theology, not cartography.

    Jesus walks the in-between spaces—those edges of belonging where few dare to travel. And that’s exactly where this story begins. Somewhere between here and there, between insiders and outsiders, ten men stand calling out from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

    They are lepers—people living quite literally on the margins. Not just physically sick, but socially and spiritually exiled. They are cut off from family, from worship, from touch, from hope. If you had a skin disease like theirs in the ancient world, you were considered unclean—an outcast.

    And Luke tells us that Jesus sees them.

    He doesn’t recoil. He doesn’t ignore. He doesn’t ask for proof of worthiness. He simply says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they go, they are healed.

    That’s the miracle. But the story isn’t over.

    Of the ten who are healed, only one turns back. Only one stops mid-stride, notices what’s happened, and returns to Jesus shouting praise to God. He falls at Jesus’ feet and thanks him.

    And Luke saves the surprise for last: “…he was a Samaritan.”

    If this were a play, that line would come with a gasp from the audience. Because Samaritans were despised. They were the heretics of their day—the theological wrong crowd. Jews and Samaritans didn’t share meals or worship together; they crossed the street to avoid each other.

    So when Luke says the one who returned was a Samaritan, we know something important is happening. Once again, the outsider sees what the insiders miss.

    Jesus’ question hangs in the air: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine—where are they?”

    We’re left wondering: Why didn’t they come back? They obeyed Jesus’ command. They did what he told them to do—go to the priests, get the official stamp of approval, reenter society. But in their rush to reclaim life as usual, they forgot the deeper miracle—the presence of the One who made them whole.

    It would be easy to turn this into a simple “remember to say thank you” story. And yes, gratitude matters. But this isn’t just about politeness; it’s about perception. It’s about learning to see.

    All ten were healed. Only one saw.

    Only one recognized that this healing was not just a change in medical status but an encounter with God’s mercy breaking into human life. The Samaritan sees, returns, praises, and thanks. Each verb moves him closer—from recognition to relationship, from healing to wholeness.

    Martin Luther once said that true worship is the tenth leper turning back. That moment—seeing what God has done and responding in gratitude—is the essence of faith. Faith, Luther said, is not just believing; it’s seeing rightly.

    Faith is noticing the holy in the ordinary, the grace hidden in plain sight.

    Like I mentioned before, this story unfolds in the borderlands—a “region between.”

    Biblically speaking, that’s not just geography. It’s theology.

    Jesus always seems most at home in the borderlands. He’s forever crossing the lines others draw—between clean and unclean, Jew and Samaritan, insider and outsider. Those boundaries may keep people safe, but they also keep people apart.

    Author Gloria Anzaldúa described borderlands as “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary.” It’s a space where the forbidden live. A space where two worlds meet and neither one fully claims you.

    And that’s where Jesus shows up.

    He walks into the thin places where heaven and earth nearly touch—where people have been exiled by fear or shame, where pain hides beneath politeness, where loneliness lingers behind smiles. Those are the places Jesus enters. And there, healing happens.

    Maybe that’s why the church exists—to live in the borderlands of the world. To stand where others refuse to stand. To touch what others avoid. To remind those who’ve been pushed aside that God still sees them, still calls them “beloved.”

    Luke’s story also tells us something about how healing works. It’s not magic. It’s not passive.

    Notice how the men call out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They’re not bystanders; they take initiative. They step forward in faith even before they see results. Healing begins with participation—with showing up, crying out, believing that something more is possible.

    And Jesus honors their agency. He doesn’t touch them or make a grand scene. He simply gives them a direction: “Go.”

    Healing is a partnership between divine grace and human courage.

    The Samaritan’s act of returning shows what wholeness looks like. It’s not just about physical restoration—it’s about restored relationship, renewed gratitude, and reconnected community.

    When Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” the Greek word sozo can also mean “saved” or “made whole.” This man hasn’t just been cured; he’s been reintegrated—drawn back into relationship with God and others.

    In Luke’s Gospel, healing is never just about the body. It’s about belonging.

    Jesus’ final words in this story sting a little: “Was none of them found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?”

    He calls the Samaritan a foreigner—not as an insult, but as a revelation. The foreigner becomes the model of faith.

    Throughout Scripture, the “foreigner” is a theological key. In exile, Israel learned compassion by remembering what it was like to be strangers in Egypt. Jeremiah told the exiles in Babylon to build homes, plant gardens, and seek the welfare of their new city. God’s people learned that holiness is not found in isolation but in solidarity.

    The Samaritan—this “foreigner”—teaches us the same lesson. He knows what it’s like to live on the edge, to long for home and never quite belong. His gratitude is born from that ache. His faith is shaped by displacement.

    Maybe that’s why he sees what others don’t. Those who have suffered know how to recognize grace when it appears.

    Theologian Howard Thurman once said, “The disinherited know the language of the heart.” That’s what happens here. The Samaritan’s gratitude is not etiquette—it’s revelation.

    Faith begins when we start to see.

    That’s the pivot of this story. All ten lepers are healed. Only one sees. Only one allows the moment to sink in. And that seeing changes everything.

    He sees that mercy has touched him. He sees that the kingdom of God has drawn near. He sees that gratitude must move his feet.

    When he returns, Jesus doesn’t say, “Your manners have saved you,” but “Your faith has made you whole.” His seeing leads to believing, and his believing leads to movement—turning back, falling down, giving thanks.

    Faith is not abstract belief—it’s perception. It’s learning to see the world through the lens of grace.

    How different would our days look if we practiced that kind of seeing?

    When we look at our lives, do we see scarcity or abundance?
    When we look at the stranger, do we see threat or neighbor?
    When we look at our church, do we see limits or possibilities?
    When we look at ourselves, do we see failure or belovedness?

    Seeing rightly changes everything.

    This story could have ended with ten happy lepers heading home. But Luke insists we watch the one who turns back, because gratitude is not an afterthought—it’s the heartbeat of discipleship.

    This fall, as we move through our own stewardship season, this story offers a quiet challenge. Stewardship isn’t first about giving—it’s about seeing.

    It’s about noticing how much we’ve already received, how deeply we’ve been healed, how persistently God’s mercy keeps meeting us in the borderlands of our lives.

    When we truly see that, generosity follows naturally. Gratitude becomes a way of life.

    Each year, we invite our congregation to prayerfully consider their giving—not out of obligation, but as a response to grace. The Samaritan didn’t return because he was told to; he returned because gratitude overflowed.

    That’s what we hope for in our stewardship, too. To see all that God has done among us—the lives touched through GriefShare, the families sheltered through Family Promise, the growing laughter of children on Sunday mornings—and to realize that all of it is possible because we, like that Samaritan, have turned back in gratitude.

    Stewardship is not a campaign to fill a budget; it’s a spiritual discipline of seeing God’s work and responding with joy.

    At the beginning of this story, ten men are stuck between regions—socially, physically, spiritually. They live in a “no-man’s-land.”

    By the end, all ten are healed. But one has something more: he is made whole.

    The difference is not in what Jesus gives but in what the man sees.

    All were cleansed; one was transformed.

    That’s the difference between being cured and being saved. One changes your circumstances; the other changes your soul.

    The Samaritan’s gratitude becomes an act of worship. And Jesus names it as such. “Your faith has saved you.” He’s no longer just a healed man; he’s a worshiper, a witness, a disciple.

    True worship is the tenth leper turning back. It is the moment when awareness becomes praise, when gratitude becomes faith, when the gift points us to the Giver.

    Notice how the story moves:

    • The lepers cry out for mercy.
    • Jesus sees them.
    • They go in faith.
    • One sees, returns, praises, thanks.

    Each movement draws us deeper into relationship. That’s the pattern of discipleship: cry out, be seen, go in faith, return in gratitude.

    Gratitude doesn’t erase hardship; it transforms how we live within it. It reorients us from self-preservation to communion.

    The Samaritan shows us that faith and gratitude are not two separate things—they are the same motion of the soul turning toward God.

    Maybe that’s what this story is ultimately about: seeing.

    Seeing what God has done. Seeing who God includes. Seeing how mercy crosses every border we draw.

    In a world obsessed with drawing lines—who’s in, who’s out, who belongs—Jesus still walks through the “region between.” He still meets us where we least expect, healing what we didn’t know was wounded.

    And when we see it—when we really see it—we can’t help but turn back.

    There’s also something tender in this story for each of us personally.

    We all have our own borderlands—those unspoken corners of our lives where we feel distant, unseen, or unclean. The places where we keep our shame, our doubts, our grief.

    But the Gospel says Jesus isn’t afraid of those regions. He walks right into them. He meets us in the middle space—between what we’ve been and what we hope to become.

    And when he speaks, it’s not condemnation but mercy: Go. Show yourself. Be made whole.

    Maybe the invitation for us this week is to name the borderlands we’ve been avoiding—and to trust that Christ meets us there.

    Imagine a church shaped by the vision of the tenth leper.

    A community where gratitude is not a reaction but a rhythm. Where worship is not confined to an hour on Sunday but lived in acts of mercy, generosity, and awe. Where we practice seeing God’s grace in each other’s faces, in every shared meal, every stitch of a quilt, every pledge card offered as a prayer of thanksgiving.

    That’s what it means to be the body of Christ in the world—to keep turning back, again and again, until gratitude becomes our native language.

    At the end of the story, Jesus tells the Samaritan, “Get up and go; your faith has made you well.”

    He stands, rises—anistemi in Greek—the same word used for resurrection. The one who turned back now steps forward into new life.

    That’s what gratitude does—it resurrects us.

    It lifts us from routine to wonder, from duty to delight, from healing to wholeness.

    So this week, may we learn to see as the Samaritan saw.
    May we notice the grace that has already healed us.
    May we turn back with joy, giving glory to God.
    And may our lives—our words, our giving, our service—become acts of thanksgiving that point to the One who still meets us in the borderlands and calls us whole. Amen.

    Sermon by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for October 5, 2025

    Sermon based on Luke 17:5-10

    “Increase our faith!”

    That’s the disciples’ plea in Luke 17. And you know what? It feels like a prayer that we’ve prayed ourselves more than once. It sounds so familiar that it could be whispered in a hospital waiting room, scribbled in a prayer journal, muttered in a quiet car ride after a long day.

    “Lord, I don’t think I’ve got enough to handle this. I need more faith.”

    We live in a world where more is always the goal. More money in savings. More followers online. More activities for the kids. More productivity at work. More security for retirement. And, sometimes we bring that same expectation into our spiritual lives: more faith, more certainty, more assurance.

    The disciples ask for more because Jesus has just laid down some of the most demanding teachings imaginable. Hea teaches them: Don’t cause the vulnerable to stumble. Rebuke sin, but also forgive, even if someone sins against you seven times in one day and repents seven times. Forgive again and again. That’s too much, Jesus!

    And so they ask for what seems like the only thing that could possibly get them through: “Increase our faith!”

    But Jesus doesn’t pat them on the back and say, “You’re right, let me sprinkle some extra faith on you.” Instead, his answer sounds like a rebuke: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

    For Jesus, It’s not about more. It’s about trust. It’s about the kind of faith that may look small, but when put into practice, can move things we thought immovable.

    We tend to think of faith like a bank account. If only I had a little more stored up, I could draw from it when life got rough. But Jesus redefines it. Faith is not a measurable commodity, something you can count, chart, or compare.

    Faith is practice. Faith is action. Faith is trust put to work in the real world.

    One commentary I read this week put it well: Jesus isn’t talking about quantity but quality. A mustard seed is tiny, yes, but alive. It carries the possibility of growth, change, transformation. Faith—even small, fragile, hesitant faith—is like that. When it takes root, it grows beyond what anyone would expect.

    Think of the people throughout Luke’s Gospel whom Jesus names as faithful. The woman who crashes a dinner party and pours out ointment on his feet. The blind beggar crying out by the roadside. The Samaritan leper who comes back just to say thank you. None of these people show what we’d call “big faith.” They simply act, in trust, in response to Jesus.

    Meanwhile, the disciples—the ones who left everything to follow him—often look like they’re stumbling their way through the story. They panic in the storm. They argue about who’s the greatest. Peter denies him. And here, they ask for more, as if what they already have isn’t enough.

    Jesus doesn’t dismiss them, but he also doesn’t let them off the hook. You already have enough, he tells them. Enough to forgive. Enough to act. Enough to live this way of discipleship. What you need is not a bigger dose of faith but the courage to use the seed you’ve already been given.

    Martin Luther King Jr. once told a story about a night during the Montgomery bus boycott. After weeks of threats, one phone call broke him down. He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t think he could continue. He prayed. And in that prayer, he heard God whisper: “Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.”

    King later said the threats didn’t stop. The danger didn’t vanish. But he experienced a peace and calm that carried him forward. That wasn’t “more faith.” That was mustard-seed faith—tiny, trembling, but rooted in the living God. And it changed the world.

    Most of us won’t face a moment like that. But we know the feeling of being at the end of our rope, unsure if we have what it takes. And in those moments, faith is not a heroic surge of confidence. It’s a small step forward. It’s showing up. It’s forgiving when it’s easier to resent. It’s risking kindness when it feels safer to stay distant. It’s putting one foot in front of the other, believing God will meet us on the way.

    The second half of this passage unsettles us even more. Jesus turns to an image of a master and a slave, or as we just read in the Common English translation, a servant.

    Jesus says, “Would any of you say to your servant, who had just come in from the field after plowing or tending sheep, ‘Come! Sit down for dinner’? 8 Wouldn’t you say instead, ‘Fix my dinner.…’?”

    This imagery is hard for us to hear. It leans on a system of slavery we rightly reject as cruel and dehumanizing. In Luke’s world, slavery was woven into the fabric of household life. That doesn’t excuse it, but it helps us understand how this metaphor functioned.

    Jesus uses this uncomfortable picture not to endorse systemic slavery but to teach about discipleship. A slave/servant in that world did what was expected, without reward or special thanks. And Jesus says, “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘‘We servants deserve no special praise. We have only done our duty.’”

    It sounds harsh, but at the heart of it is this: discipleship is not about earning credit. It’s not about piling up accomplishments to prove our worth. We serve because that’s who we are—servants of a God whose generosity is beyond measure.

    And here’s the paradox: while Jesus tells this story using the language of master and slave, we know from the rest of the Gospel that he flips that. In chapter 22, at the Last Supper, he says: “I am among you as one who serves.” The master takes the role of the servant. The one entitled to be served is the one washing feet.

    So when Jesus says, “Don’t expect thanks for doing your duty,” he’s not diminishing us. He’s inviting us into a way of life where service is simply natural, like breathing. Where love and forgiveness aren’t heroic acts but ordinary discipleship.

    I recently read a story that another preacher told about being twelve years old, lying in a hospital bed. He wasn’t raised in church, but during that hospital stay, he received two visits: one from a part-time pastor and one from a youth group. The youth group brought a little gift with them to give to the patient. It was a simple gesture, but it was one that would stay with him.

    Years later, when he finally embraced faith, he remembered those visits. Ordinary acts of kindness. Nothing spectacular. But mustard-seed faith at work.

    We sometimes imagine discipleship as grand, world-shaking acts of devotion. But more often it looks like that youth group showing up at a hospital. Or a casserole delivered after surgery. Or a phone call to someone who’s lonely. Or a quiet prayer whispered when no one else knows the struggle you’re carrying.

    Faith is not spectacular spirituality. It is ordinary faithfulness. Small acts of trust that, when planted in God’s hands, grow into something beyond what we can measure.

    That’s also why our stewardship campaign matters. Filling out a pledge card or setting aside part of your income for God’s work here at Dove doesn’t always feel spectacular. It feels ordinary. But that’s exactly the point. Mustard-seed faith shows up in these regular, sometimes unseen choices — the faithful commitments that keep this community strong, that sustain ministries of care and justice, that make space for future growth. Your pledge isn’t about “more” faith or bigger recognition. It’s simply one more way of saying, “We will serve. We will trust. We will do what disciples do.”

    We also shouldn’t miss the connection between this teaching on faith and the command that comes just before it: forgive, even seven times in one day.

    That’s the real context of the disciples’ cry for more faith. Forgiveness is hard. We carry grudges because they feel safer than letting go. We replay wrongs because they give us a sense of control. But Jesus says forgiveness is not optional—it is essential for the life of the community.

    And when the disciples groan, “We can’t do this without more faith,” Jesus says, “Yes, you can. You already have enough.”

    Because forgiveness isn’t about heroic strength. It’s about mustard-seed trust that God can do what seems impossible: heal wounds, mend relationships, break cycles of resentment.

    So that leaves us with the question, what mulberry trees are rooted in our lives, too stubborn to move?

    Maybe it’s an old wound that keeps resurfacing. Maybe it’s fear about the future, or anxiety that you can’t shake. Maybe it’s the struggle to forgive someone who hurt you deeply.

    Jesus says even mustard-seed faith can move it. Not because faith is magic, but because God is faithful. The seed is not about what we can do, but what God can do when we dare to trust, however slightly.

    There’s another caution here. Sometimes we long for faith to be a spectacle. We imagine it as a dazzling certainty, an overwhelming experience, a mountaintop moment that leaves no room for doubt. And when we don’t get that, we wonder if our faith is enough.

    But mustard-seed faith reminds us: it’s enough to pray when you’re not sure anyone’s listening. It’s enough to keep forgiving, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s working. It’s enough to keep showing up in worship, keep serving your neighbor, keep offering love in small and hidden ways.

    Faith isn’t an escape from struggle. It’s the courage to walk into the struggle with Jesus beside you.

    So when the disciples cry, “Increase our faith!” Jesus answers, “What you already have is enough.”

    Enough to forgive. Enough to love. Enough to serve. Enough to live as disciples.

    And the beauty of mustard-seed faith is this: it grows. Not because we manufacture it, but because God brings the increase. Our part is simply to plant it—to act, to trust, to serve.

    Sometimes discipleship looks spectacular. More often, it looks ordinary: forgiving again, serving quietly, showing up faithfully. But in God’s kingdom, ordinary faithfulness is never wasted.

    So let’s not wait for more faith. Let’s use the seed we already carry. Because in God’s hands, even that little seed can grow into something we never imagined. Amen.

    Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson

  • Sermon for September 21, 2025

    Sermon Based on Luke 16:1-13

    What we just read is not a comforting parable. It resists easy answers. Many preachers over the centuries have admitted that it is among the hardest of Jesus’ teachings to understand, much less to proclaim. At its center is a dishonest manager who has squandered his master’s resources, who manipulates the books to save himself, and who somehow, by the end of the story, is praised as shrewd. Jesus seems to lift him up as an example, at least in some way, for his disciples.

    Why would Jesus do that? Why would Luke preserve such a story? And why does the church keep reading it if it only leaves us scratching our heads?

    Part of the challenge is that we come to the text with certain assumptions about how stories should work. We expect the villain to get punished and the righteous to be rewarded. We want to know who the “good guy” is so we can learn from their example. But here, the line between good and bad blurs. The dishonest manager is both condemned and commended. The master is both the victim of fraud and a complicit figure in an exploitative system. The debtors are either innocent peasants finally given relief, or willing participants in a shady deal. Nobody comes out clean.

    And maybe that is exactly the point.

    Squandering and Reversals

    The parable falls immediately after the story of the prodigal son, and the language of “squandering” connects them. The younger son squandered his inheritance in reckless living. Now the manager is accused of squandering his master’s property. In both cases, someone entrusted with resources fails. Yet the outcomes differ. The prodigal returns home in repentance, welcomed by his father. The manager does not repent. He schemes. He calculates. He leverages the situation for his own survival.

    Still, both parables are about reversal. In Luke’s Gospel, reversals are central: the mighty brought low, the hungry filled, the rich sent away empty. The dishonest manager creates a reversal by cutting debts and forging new relationships. He shifts the balance, at least temporarily, away from the master’s wealth and toward the debtors’ relief.

    To Whom Is the Manager Responsible?

    One way into the parable is to ask: to whom is the manager accountable? On the surface, he is responsible to the master, the rich man who employed him. That’s the assumption that gives the story its shock value. If he is wasting the master’s property, he is betraying the one he serves. That is dishonesty. That is theft.

    But what if the system itself is corrupt? Scholars remind us that in the world of Roman-occupied Galilee, wealthy landowners and rulers functioned like loan sharks. Interest rates hidden in contracts stripped peasants of their land. The manager’s job was to enforce this system, to collect payments, to keep wealth flowing upward. If that’s the case, then perhaps the dishonesty is not simply between master and manager, but between the entire system and the people crushed by it.

    When the manager cuts debts, he is not merely committing fraud against his boss. He is undoing, in part, the exploitation built into the system. He is reducing the burden on those who owed more than they could ever repay. He may have been canceling the interest that never should have been charged in the first place.

    If so, then the question of responsibility shifts. To whom does he owe loyalty — the master who profits, or the neighbors who suffer?

    Shrewdness in Crisis

    Whatever we think of his ethics, we cannot deny his pragmatism. Once fired, he knows his options are limited. He cannot dig. He will not beg. He needs a future, and he needs it fast. So he turns to the only resource left: relationships. He lowers debts, betting that gratitude will buy him welcome later.

    This is the moment the master praises. Not the squandering. Not the dishonesty. But the recognition of crisis, the creativity of response, the willingness to act decisively to secure survival. The word Luke uses phronimos, which means shrewd, prudent, wise.

    Jesus then adds the sting: “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” In other words, the people of the world often show more practical wisdom in navigating reality than the people of faith do.

    That hurts. Because it is true. Too often, Christians withdraw from complexity. We want clean choices. We want to stay untainted by the messiness of politics, economics, or culture. Yet Jesus seems to say: learn from the shrewdness around you. Not to imitate dishonesty, but to imitate urgency. To recognize the moment. To act decisively with what you have.

    Negotiation in a Broken World

    Many of us would prefer that discipleship meant a clear line between good and evil, right and wrong. But most of life does not work that way. Most of life requires negotiation within broken systems. People in the ancient world knew this. People in our world know this too.

    When interest rates trap families in endless cycles of debt, when housing is priced beyond reach, when wages are stagnant but costs climb — where does faithfulness look like? It might not be a pure solution. It might look like navigating compromises, weighing priorities, seizing opportunities to bend systems toward mercy, however imperfectly.

    This is not accommodation to injustice, nor is it total resistance. It is the wisdom of finding a way through. Perhaps that is what Jesus admires.

    Wealth, Faithfulness, and Masters

    The sayings that follow the parable hammer the theme home. Be faithful with little, and you can be trusted with much. Be faithful with dishonest wealth, and you might be trusted with true riches. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and Wealth.

    These lines remind us that money is never neutral. Wealth demands allegiance. Systems of profit will shape our loyalties if we let them. That is why Jesus personifies Wealth, turning it into an idol, a rival god. The danger is not only greed, but worship — placing ultimate trust in money, letting it dictate our values and our relationships.

    The parable of the dishonest manager sits uneasily inside this teaching. The manager uses wealth — unjust, compromised wealth — to create relationships. He uses Wealth to build community, to secure welcome. Jesus seems to suggest that if even unrighteous wealth can be used for something good, how much more should the children of light use what they have for God’s purposes.

    But the conclusion is clear: wealth cannot be your master. If you serve money, you will inevitably exploit people. If you serve God, you will use money to bless people. One or the other.

    The Slave Question

    Some interpreters point out that the language of master and manager echoes the realities of slavery in the Roman world. If the manager was enslaved, his predicament is even harsher. Accused of dishonesty, he cannot defend himself. His word carries no weight. He cannot testify in court. His labor and life are not his own.

    Read this way, the parable highlights the precariousness of the enslaved. Caught in systems of power that assume their guilt, they survived through cunning. Sometimes deception was a means of survival. Jesus’ sympathy, then, is not for the master but for the vulnerable one navigating impossible choices.

    That reading resonates with the long history of enslaved people who used trickery, theft, or small acts of subversion simply to live another day. To hear this parable through their lens is to recognize that survival itself can be a form of wisdom in an unjust world.

    Crisis and Recognition

    Theologian C. H. Dodd once observed that Luke himself seems unsure what to do with this parable, tacking on multiple interpretations at the end. But maybe that is not a weakness. Maybe that is the strength. The parable refuses to settle into one meaning because life rarely does.

    What stands out is the crisis. The manager realizes his status is gone. He cannot cling to old security. He must act. And he acts by reaching down, by depending on those beneath him in status, by trusting that hospitality will be his salvation.

    Luke loves to tell stories of reversal like this. The wounded man on the road must depend on a Samaritan. The prodigal son must depend on hired hands. The rich man in Hades must beg Lazarus for mercy. In each case, the one with status is brought low and must find life through those they once overlooked.

    The dishonest manager fits the same pattern. His salvation lies not with the master above him but with the neighbors around him.

    What Does This Mean for Us?

    So what do we do with all this? What does it mean to preach this parable today?

    First, it means we should be honest about the systems we inhabit. Our economy, like that of the first century, is not neutral. It favors the wealthy. It burdens the poor. It demands loyalty. And we are not outside of it. We are managers within it, stewards of resources, caught between loyalty to the master of profit and the call of the kingdom.

    Second, it means that faithfulness is not found in purity or withdrawal, but in how we navigate the mess. Jesus does not praise dishonesty, but he does praise urgency and creativity. He does not tell us to imitate fraud, but to imitate prudence — to use what we have, even compromised wealth, to build relationships, to practice mercy, to create communities of welcome.

    Third, it means we must choose our master. The parable will not let us avoid that decision. We cannot serve both God and Wealth. Either money will dictate our values, or God will. Either we will use people to love money, or we will use money to love people. One or the other.

    The Hard Saying

    This is not a tidy parable. It will not let us walk away with a clear hero to imitate. But maybe that is a gift. Because life is not tidy either. We face moral dilemmas, messy systems, conflicting loyalties. We cannot wait for perfect clarity before acting. We must act in faith, in crisis, with what we have.

    The dishonest manager knew his situation, saw the urgency, and acted decisively. Can we do the same, not for self-preservation, but for the sake of God’s kingdom? Can we recognize the crisis of our time — the crisis of inequality, of debt, of creation groaning under the weight of consumption — and act with creativity to use what we have for mercy, for justice, for love?

    Conclusion

    This parable leaves us unsettled, and that may be its truest word. It shakes us out of complacency. It forces us to wrestle with loyalty, wealth, and the ways we use what has been entrusted to us.

    At the end of the day, the question is not whether we are comfortable with this parable. The question is whether we are willing to learn from it — to be as shrewd in our discipleship as the children of this age are in their pursuits, and to remember that our ultimate allegiance belongs not to Wealth, but to God.

    Because you can only serve one master. And the choice you make will shape not only your wealth, but your soul.

    Sermon by: Rev. Dave Wasson