I wrote that just before the start of the year. It was a reaction to a Baptist pastor in Louisiana who stated he would not knowingly serve communion to an undocumented immigrant. His logic: undocumented people have broken the law and are therefore living in sin, which excludes them from communion.

I didn’t expect that off-the-cuff observation to get the traction it got—more than 6,000 views, dozens of likes and comments, mostly positive, and several new subscribers.

Whether this qualifies as “viral” is debatable. The sentiment behind it, though, matters: welcome, belonging, and the ways we try to police both.

God’s table does not belong to us. We are all invited guests. And if the table is God’s, gatekeeping it makes no sense. We do not get to define or limit who belongs there.

And this extends beyond the Communion Table.

I think we sometimes try to gatekeep God’s kin-dom as well. We define who is “in” and who is “out,” who qualifies as a Christian and who is a sinner destined for hell.

And if we’re gatekeeping the kin-dom, aren’t we really trying to gatekeep grace? Aren’t we claiming the authority to decide who is eligible to receive God’s grace and mercy?

That is shaky ground.

God’s table is not ours to offer.

And it’s not ours to withhold.

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong

This past week, I started seminary. Again. For the third time.

This isn’t really something I expected to be doing at this stage in my life. And yet life—and God—has a funny way of surprising us. So here we are.

This time, though, something is very different. I’m bringing my full, authentic self to my theological studies. I’m here as an openly queer, certified candidate for ordination as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church. I’ve deconstructed my faith, and I am actively reconstructing it. I’m approaching theological studies not as a quest to learn all the right answers, but as an opportunity to learn how to wrestle more faithfully with Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. And I’m bringing the whole messy fusion of my religious and spiritual background with me.

I have quickly found that Candler School of Theology at Emory University is exactly where I belong.

Almost as soon as I set foot on campus, I could see that I was not the only queer student there. We are here to study theology together, and we get to do so without first having to justify our existence or our place at the table.

Worship at Candler fed my whole being. I’ve called myself a Catho-Metho-costal because of my Catholic upbringing, previous ordination as a Pentecostal, and my current Methodist home. Honey, the way worship fed every one of those parts of me—with pipe organ, liturgy, and jammin’ gospel music. As they say, we had church!

The sermon during that opening worship service further confirmed that this was where I belonged. Preaching on Peter’s confession of Christ, the preacher turned Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” around: “Who does Christ say you are?”

In a room full of theology students, was there room for doubt? Could anyone wonder whether they really belonged? Whether the admissions committee had made a mistake—or whether that scholarship came only because there happened to be money left over?

Naturally, yes.

The preacher spoke of Deloris—the name she had given to the imposter syndrome that followed her through her first year in seminary. Doubt, fear, imposter syndrome, and whatever else may show up. But they don’t get the last word.

Christ has already called, chosen, and commissioned each of us. Candler simply recognized that calling and said: “You belong.”

There was room for each of us at the table.

We belonged.

We’re Guests, Not Gatekeepers

My experience in this first week of seminary has been so different from my previous experiences. Before, belonging required me to hide or deny parts of myself. Welcome came with conditions, and I understood that I had to meet them.

The church can be very good at this kind of conditional welcome. We hear it all the time: “All are welcome here.” It sounds wonderful. It seems generous.

But often there is an unspoken list of conditions lurking beneath the welcome. You belong as long as you conform to certain ways of believing, being, or behaving.

You’re welcome—until you’re not.

There is a deeper assumption underneath all of this: that we have the authority to extend or withdraw welcome in the first place.

Sure, a host controls the welcome. They can invite people in. They can ask people to leave. That is their prerogative because they own the house.

But we don’t own God’s table.

We don’t get to set the conditions of welcome. We are guests at the table too.

Recognizing this changes how we understand belonging. We’re on equal footing. We don’t control anyone else’s place at the table. Instead, we recognize, treasure, and celebrate the uniqueness we each bring. We understand that the table is richer because of the diversity gathered around it.

It is not our place to tell anyone they don’t belong.

Jesus Doesn’t Need Bouncers

Belonging recognizes that we don’t own the table. We don’t control it. We can’t offer it, and we cannot withhold it either.

We go wrong when we act like the maître d’ at God’s table. God doesn’t ask for our opinion about the invitation list, and God hasn’t sought our input on the seating chart either. Sure, some of us have been at the table longer, and some may have just arrived. But we’re all guests. There is no hierarchy of worth or deservingness.

No one has been appointed as a bouncer at the door.

In fact, Jesus had harsh words for the religious folks of his day who tried to limit access to God’s kin-dom: “You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Matthew 23:13, NIV).

God’s grace brings us to the table. That’s the only invitation any of us have, and it’s the only invitation any of us need. We aren’t at the table because of what we have done or accomplished. We can never earn our place there. And because of this, we should never look down judgmentally on anyone else at the table. “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

And yet, we often try to keep a ledger of who is deserving and who is not. We define who is in and who is out. We loudly try to convince those we define as “out” to change—don’t we love using the term “repent”—so they can become insiders.

But grace renders the whole in/out, deserving/undeserving ledger irrelevant.

Rather than trying to restrict God’s grace and mercy, we should celebrate one another and—more importantly—celebrate the grace of God that brought each of us to the table in the first place.

We each belong—not because of who we are, where we come from, or what we have done, but because grace is free and mercy is wide.

Once we understand that, we understand that we don’t own the table. We don’t control the invitation.

May we finally get that the table is not ours to withhold.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

I did not write a long-form essay this week because I was busy most of last week at New Student Orientation at Candler School of Theology. And also—we all need a break from time to time.

In that vein, I am resharing one of my early essays from Substack. The theme—Selah, pause, rest, recharge—is vitally important, especially at moments of new beginnings like this—the start of a new school year.

Several years ago, I took one of those assessments to identify my strengths. As I looked at the results, one of the strengths identified took me by surprise. There it was on the page—Achiever. I thought to myself: “Well, this can’t be right.” I’ve never really considered myself to be an achiever. Sure, I work hard, study hard, all that, but when I hear the term “achiever” I think “over-achiever.” Type A. High Drive. Perfectionism. That, I thought, is not me. While I work hard and give my best effort most of the time, I wouldn’t have called myself an achiever.

Then I read the description:

You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day–workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied. You have an internal fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more.

–Strengths Finder 2.0, From Gallup

That hit like a ton of bricks. It describes me to a T. While I don’t consider myself to be an achiever in the sense of always needing to be the best, I am definitely an achiever. I need to accomplish something every day. I can have a hard time slowing down—stopping to smell the roses as it were. I need to “do.” Even on days that are supposed to be days of rest, I need to do. It’s not always big things–sometimes it can be as simple as loading the dishwasher or doing a load of laundry–but it has to be something. I have to earn my points every day.

Pause

There’s a funny little word that appears in the Bible, particularly in the Psalms. Selah. If you’ve ever read the Psalms you’ve probably seen the word. It’s there, usually nestled against the right margin. Often printed in italics. And, if you’re like me, you probably skip right over it and keep right on reading. Which is kinda funny because of why the word is there in the first place.

While scholars aren’t sure precisely what it means, the consensus is that it is likely some kind of a musical notation–an indication of a break or pause. It may be a moment of change in tone. Or it may be an instruction for the singers to stop, to pause for a moment. Perhaps an invitation to listen and reflect, to contemplate.

We need these selah moments–a moment to slow down, rest, reflect, and recharge.

The Danger of Doing

Burnout is real. It affects people across many professions—from social workers, teachers, and first-responders, to retail workers, journalists, and farm workers. Not even folks in ministry are immune. Statistics tell us that some 75% of ministers report being “highly stressed,” and over 90% report working long hours (between 55 and 75 hours per week). No wonder 40% of ministers report that they have considered leaving the ministry in the past year!

I can relate. When I was previously in ministry (and given my nature as noted above) I struggled—a lot—with feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. I worked for the Big Guy Upstairs (God), afterall. There was so much to do, so many people to reach, and so little time to do it in. I could have easily put in 10 or 12 hour days (and often did), and I probably could have kept going. But all that does is lead to is burnout.

We have to slow down. We have to pause. We have to rest. Whether we are in ministry, another helping profession, or whether we work in the corporate world or spend our time volunteering—we are of no use to anyone if we are burned out. We can’t give to others when we are empty.

The Art of Self-Care

Self-care is important. Even Jesus took time for self-care (I can almost hear my former Evangelical friends groaning at expressing it that way). We see stories of him sending his followers ahead while he stayed back—alone—to pray, rest, and recharge. If Jesus needed it, how much more do we?

So figure out what self-care looks like for you. It’s different for everyone, and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer as long as you are doing it. If Spiritual Practices, like prayer and meditation, are important to you—do them! If booking a spa day is what will recharge you—do it! Maybe you like working in your garden, going to the gym, or talking with a therapist. All of these can be self-care. So do them!

Self care—rest and sabbath—for me often looks like going for a walk by the lake, getting a mani-pedi, or relaxing in a bath with a book. Other times it looks like listening to music while cooking a favorite meal, or laying in the hammock. And I pray. And play my guitar (much to the chagrin of my roommate, sometimes).

The important thing is to find what recharges you, and then do it. Regularly.

Selah

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

With school starting, and my wall already full of parchment, this week’s reflection may strike you, dear reader, as ironic. Yes. It will be somewhat ironic.

Christianity needs more witnesses, not more experts.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-education or anti-intellectual. Clearly. There are too many degrees hanging on my wall for that to be true. But education alone is not enough. We can make the mistake of equating knowledge or expertise with authority.

And when it comes to the things of God, that can be a bad combination.

The goal of theological study should include not only knowledge and understanding, but spiritual formation. In the end, the purpose should not be to boast about all the things I know about God that I didn’t know before, but to become someone who notices God more readily, loves my neighbor more deeply, and witnesses more faithfully.

He’s Been to Cemetery…

Educational requirements for ordination vary widely across Christian traditions. Many mainline churches require rigorous graduate-level study, often a Master of Divinity or similar degree. The United Methodist Church requires a course of study known as Basic Graduate Theological Studies (BGTS), which includes coursework in theology, biblical studies, worship, church history, and more. The BGTS for my Conference requires thirty credit hours of coursework. My entire degree program is only 48 hours. Electives? What’s an elective?

On the other side are churches and denominations with less rigorous educational requirements for ordination.

I was previously ordained in the Assemblies of God, which did not require a specific degree or diploma to hold credentials. There were multiple paths to meeting the education requirements, including college or seminary study or a series of correspondence courses. Most of my peers in ministry either held undergraduate degrees from one of the Assemblies’ colleges or had completed the prescribed courses. I think I was the only minister in my District who held a seminary degree.

This prompted a tired old joke. More times than I can count, someone (often another minister) would say, “Oh, so you’ve been to seminary, huh? Or cemetery as I like to call it. Because that’s where faith goes to die.” So funny. Not.

There is a kernel of truth hidden in the joke. Theological education can become an exercise in learning about God from a safe, academic distance. It can become head knowledge with little impact on the heart, soul, or spirit. But it doesn’t have to be.

The answer is not less theology. It is not less study. It is not less education. We need theological education that does more than inform us—it must shape and form us. Our theology must deepen our encounter with God, expand our capacity for love, strengthen our discipleship, and equip us to bear witness.

We Don’t Need No Education… Except…

Some of the churches I’ve been part of through the years have held education in higher esteem than others. I am thankful for my Jesuit education—the Jesuits certainly value learning and intellectual inquiry. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, in some non-denominational and Charismatic circles, theological education was viewed skeptically. The argument goes: the apostles were uneducated fishermen and they changed the world. Why should we need education?

Yet within these same circles, I knew pastors who used the title “Doctor.” They had not earned a terminal degree, but an institution had conferred an honorary degree upon them. Academic rigor and expertise could be dismissed as unnecessary—even spiritually suspect—until the symbols of academic achievement could lend authority.

This rubbed me the wrong way—not because they hadn’t suffered enough for the title, but because of the contradiction: academic expertise was suspect until its trappings could confer authority.

The problem is not a title. It’s not a degree. The problem is what we believe gives someone authority to speak about the things of God.

An Ounce of Love, a Pound of Knowledge

As I prepare to begin my third round of seminary, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from John Wesley. In a 1768 letter concerning Joseph Benson’s education, Wesley offered a warning particularly appropriate for someone about to return to seminary:

Wesley was not making an anti-intellectual statement. He was Oxford-educated himself, required rigorous learning for Methodist preachers, wrote and published extensively, and distributed Methodist writings throughout the movement. Methodists also founded schools to educate the poor.

Wesley’s point was not that knowledge is bad. It was a matter of ordering. We must not become so consumed with acquiring knowledge that we displace love. Knowledge must serve love. Knowledge must help us grow both in our love for God and our love for neighbor.

This echoes Paul’s words to the church in Corinth:

Knowledge and education are good, but they are not ends in themselves. Knowledge must be rooted in and ordered toward love. Otherwise, as Paul reminds us, it becomes little more than noise.

Experts vs. Witnesses

Experts know things.

Witnesses have seen and experienced something.

Experts can tell us what they know.

Witnesses invite us to come and see.

Christianity needs more witnesses. We need a testimony about what grace has done in and through us. We need to be able to say, “This is where I encountered Christ. Come join me here.”

Expertise without witness can become sterile. It is knowledge without experience—head knowledge without heart.

On the flip side, witness without formation can become shallow. When we do not have the tools necessary to wrestle with historical and cultural context, language, genre, and interpretation, we can easily substitute certainty for understanding. Insufficient formation can leave us unable—or unwilling—to distinguish between reading the words on the page, understanding their historical and cultural context, and discerning their meaning for us today. “The Bible says it, that settles it,” ends a conversation that deeper study might have only just begun. Formation doesn’t merely teach us what to think; it teaches us how to wrestle faithfully with what we think we know.

Unexamined certainty—both as experts and witnesses—can harden into dogmatism. Humility is essential to both knowledge and witness.

The sweet spot is when we form knowledgeable witnesses. When our theology fosters an encounter with God, our encounter deepens our love for God, for neighbor, and even for enemy. We aren’t trying to become experts about Jesus—we are becoming witnesses to Jesus. We can wrestle with hard things and still say, “Here is where I encountered grace.”

Knowledge is important.

Love is even more important.

If our knowledge doesn’t produce at least one additional ounce of love, then what is it really for?

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

During evening prayer one night this week, the light was set to a deep indigo. As I prayed, I noticed the gold leaf on my Christ Pantocrator icon beautifully reflecting the purple light. It was not merely lit by the light. The gold leaf was answering it.

The painted areas of the icon remained subdued, catching amber and honey tones from the candlelight. But the gilded areas—the halo, border, and parts of Christ’s robe—caught the cool indigo and returned an amazing, warm golden-violet glow.

A few months ago, I may not have noticed this stunning reflection at all, or I might have simply thought “that’s pretty.” But that night, it was a contemplative moment that deepened my experience of God.

The icon never changed. Different light sources interacted with it in their unique ways, and my experience changed depending on which light held my attention.

In life, different lights will shine on us. The experiences may shape us in different ways. None of them, however, change who Christ is.

Learning to See

As we develop the spiritual discipline of noticing, we recognize that noticing was never the destination. Noticing is a starting point. Formation grows from noticing.

Noticing refines our attention. We begin to recognize grace in places we previously only noticed routine. As our awareness of grace develops, our love, trust, and worship deepen.

Formation is never instant. It happens over time—often very slowly.

Formation is not behavior modification. We are not trying to will ourselves into behaving more like Jesus.

Formation is transformation. It is becoming the kind of person who naturally looks and acts like Jesus.

Formation is about developing a spiritual palate.

Years ago, I worked at Starbucks. We did a coffee tasting on my first day of orientation. Like a wine tasting, the goal is to slowly observe and taste the coffee. You sniff and describe the notes in the aroma. You sip (really, slurp) and describe what you find in the taste.

That day, we were tasting an African coffee. The coffee master leading the tasting talked about floral and lemon/citrus notes we should detect in the aroma and taste. But I remember thinking, “It smells and tastes like coffee.”

A few months later, though, I was walking past the coffee brewer one morning and was hit by the distinct smell of grapefruit. After quickly assessing that I was not having a stroke, I wondered why in the heck I smelled grapefruit. Then it hit me. We were brewing Kenya AA as the coffee of the week. Kenya—like all African coffees—carries detectable citrus notes in its aroma. And Kenya’s citrus note is distinctly grapefruit. I wasn’t smelling actual grapefruit; I was noticing the notes in the coffee! My palate had developed since that first morning.

This same kind of development happens with spiritual formation. Initially, we can miss grace at work all around us, especially when grace appears ordinary. But over time, we notice what we once overlooked. As our grace palate develops, we can see God at work in all kinds of places—even beyond traditional “God spaces.”

Yielded to the Potter’s Hands

Formation is almost never an instant transformation, and it is not usually quick either. It happens as we spend time in God’s presence. We place ourselves in this presence by practicing the Spiritual Disciplines—things like prayer, fasting, worship, and celebration.

The Disciplines themselves do not form us.

We must not practice them legalistically—they are not part of a spiritual to do list. Rather, we practice them as ways of connecting with God.

Wesley called the Disciplines “means of grace.” Prayer, scripture, fasting, worship, and the other Disciplines do not magically transform us. Instead, they position us to encounter God’s transforming grace. They are the ordinary rhythms of Christian life by which we intentionally place ourselves in God’s presence. And in that presence, God’s grace accomplishes extraordinary transformation.

Think of the clay on the potter’s wheel.

The clay does not shape itself. It cannot will itself into the vessel it desires to be.

It just remains in the hands of the potter.

By practicing the Disciplines, we put ourselves in the hands of the potter. We position ourselves before God. And as we abide in God’s presence, yielding ourselves to the Spirit, God transforms us.

Always We Begin Again

Formation is cyclical.

We begin with noticing. As we train ourselves to notice, we develop greater perception of the places God is working all around us. We begin to see God in places we once considered merely ordinary. We may even begin to see God working in places we have never considered sacred.

Perception leads to formation. We grow deeper. We are transformed.

But the cycle doesn’t end there. Formation is not a destination. The cycle begins again. Formation leads to deeper perception; perception in turn leads to deeper formation.

This is the beauty of spiritual formation—as we are formed and shaped by the Spirit, we become better at recognizing the One doing the shaping.

God is thus both the potter shaping us and the teacher who refines our spiritual attention.

Perhaps that is why that evening in prayer has lingered with me long after the candles were extinguished, the prayer book closed, and the lights turned off.

That night, I noticed how the purple light was reflecting. The gold leaf did not create the light. It simply reflected the light that was cast upon it.

The icon did not change. It remained the same whether the room was filled with soft white light, warm candlelight, or the deep indigo. What changed was the way the light revealed its beauty.

Spiritual formation does the same. Formation does not make God more present—God has been present all along. But as we are formed, we increasingly recognize what has always been there. And as we recognize it, we begin to reflect it.

Perhaps this is the deepest work of Spiritual Formation. We never create the light. And we cannot stop at merely noticing the light.

We are called to become people who abide in the light. And as we abide, our lives increasingly reflect God’s light into the world around us.

Every day, we begin again. We return to prayer. We return to the One who has been with us all along. We return to the light. And as we do, like the gold leaf on the icon, may our lives learn to answer the light of Christ.

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

• Subscribe: If you’re looking for a faith rooted in love, justice, and a wider table—you belong here. Pull up a chair—subscribe to receive these weekly reflections right in your inbox!

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

It’s the stuff of Sunday School flannel boards, VeggieTales movies, and general cultural awareness: Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish. We may also remember how he ended up there—he was trying to run from God.

But the childhood version of the story usually tells us only that Jonah ran. It rarely asks the more important question:

Why did Jonah run?

It’s Not Because He Was Afraid

The story begins with immediate action. God instructs Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim judgment against it. Jonah gets up and leaves immediately—except he goes in the opposite direction. He sets out for Tarshish, about as far from Nineveh as he can go.

Why does Jonah refuse God’s call? We might reasonably assume that he is afraid. Nineveh was a major city of Assyria and would eventually become the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire—the empire that conquered and destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE. It would be one thing to proclaim judgment against Nineveh from the safety of home. But God tells Jonah to go there.

Walking into an enemy city to announce its destruction seems like a good way to be harassed, assaulted, arrested, or worse. Fear makes perfect sense as Jonah’s motivation.

But the story doesn’t leave us guessing. Jonah eventually tells us exactly why he ran.

After Jonah proclaims God’s judgment, the king of Nineveh calls the entire city—even its animals—to repent. When God sees their response, God relents and does not bring upon them the judgment Jonah had proclaimed.

And this makes Jonah angry.

Jonah preached. The people repented. God showed mercy.

And Jonah pouted.

This is why I didn’t want to come here, he tells God. I knew this would happen. Just kill me now.

Fear may have been understandable, but it is not the reason Jonah gives for running. Jonah ran because he knew God’s character. He knew that if the people repented, God might show them mercy.

And Jonah did not want them to receive it.

So he ran.

Nineveh: The Wrong People

In Jonah’s eyes, the Ninevites were very bad people. Wicked. Evil. Deserving of God’s judgment, not God’s mercy.

For Jonah, Nineveh represented the wrong people.

Jonah’s hostility did not arise in a vacuum. It formed amid conflict between peoples and empires. This is the logic of empire—and, in our own time, of nationalism. Empire sorts people into categories: ruler and ruled, conqueror and conquered, insider and outsider, friend and enemy. Nationalism reinforces those boundaries by teaching us to say, “Our country and our people are good. Those people, from that country, are bad.”

Once those boundaries are drawn, the distance to dehumanization is dangerously short.

When we stop seeing others as neighbors, we can quickly stop seeing them as people. We reduce them to categories and label them as enemies rather than recognizing them as beloved bearers of God’s image. Then their mistreatment becomes easy to excuse. Whatever happens to them, we tell ourselves, they deserve it.

I Thought I Was Running for Different Reasons

Readers of Notes from a Crowded Table may know that I am a certified candidate for ordination as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church. The candidacy process includes a series of interviews with groups who are discerning alongside me whether the church will affirm my calling through ordination. Candidates are often asked: Which biblical call narrative do you most relate to, and why?

For me, the answer has long been Jonah.

Jonah ran from his calling. I tried to run from mine. Jonah could not outrun God. Neither could I. Jonah needed a great fish to turn him around. I told God, “I hear you, God. I’ll respond. No fish needed.”

For a long time, though, I thought my reasons for running were different from Jonah’s. Jonah ran because he knew how expansive God’s mercy could be. He understood that if he fulfilled his calling, the people might repent and God might relent.

Jonah ran to limit God’s mercy. He ran to exclude people he considered enemies.

I would have said that I ran for different reasons. When I first heard the call to ministry, I was a Catholic teenager. For me, ministry meant entering the priesthood and taking a vow of celibacy. To be honest, I wasn’t ready to swear off sex before I had ever experienced it.

So I ran.

But I could not outrun God. After several years, I went to seminary, sought ordination, and entered full-time ministry.

And all that time I carried a secret.

I have known that I am gay for as long as I have been aware of attraction. But I wasn’t out. I worked hard to suppress those attractions. I treated ministry almost like a bargain with God: If I work hard enough for God, maybe God will work in me and take these attractions away.

This never happened.

Eventually, I left ministry. I came out. I worked through the deconstruction of my faith and began the long work of reconstructing it.

Then the Holy Spirit came knocking again, reminding me of the call.

My pulse quickened. My feet twitched, ready to run again. My mind raced through every reason I did not want to respond.

But this time, something had changed. I had begun to understand something I could not fully grasp when I first heard the call all those years ago.

God’s mercy is big enough for me, too. God loves me just as God made me.

Over time, I realized that my running had never been only about celibacy. Beneath it lay a deeper belief: that being queer placed me beyond the reach of God’s mercy.

This realization has changed the way I understand my connection to Jonah. I used to think we were alike simply because we both ran. I’ve come to understand that our running grew out of the same false boundary.

Jonah drew a boundary and put the Ninevites outside it. Other people drew a boundary and taught me to believe I was outside it. Jonah resented mercy for others from the inside; I feared I had been denied mercy from the outside.

We both accepted a false premise: that human beings get to decide where God’s mercy ends.

God refuses the boundary.

God’s Unanswered Question

The story of Jonah ends abruptly. The prophet is pouting—big mad that God showed mercy to people he considered unworthy. Then God causes a plant to grow and provide Jonah with shade, only to have a worm destroy it the next day. Jonah is furious over the loss of the plant.

God uses Jonah’s anger to expose the contradiction at the heart of his resentment. Jonah cares deeply about a plant that he did not cultivate or cause to grow. Shouldn’t God care about the people of Nineveh?

And the story ends.

Jonah never answers the question because the question is not only for Jonah. It is for us, too.

God’s mercy reaches further than we can imagine. It extends beyond every boundary we try to impose upon it. No one is beyond its reach. We cannot earn it. There are no prerequisites for receiving it. God extends mercy because mercy belongs to God’s character.

Whatever follows—repentance, sanctification, formation, or growth—is not the price we pay to receive mercy. It is our response to encountering it.

God’s mercy doesn’t need to expand. It is already boundless. But our understanding of mercy must grow. The circles we draw must widen—and some need to disappear altogether.

So God’s unanswered question becomes ours:

Who is our Nineveh?

Whom have we placed beyond the reach of mercy? And where have we accepted boundaries set by others as if they belonged to God?

God refuses the boundaries we draw to limit mercy.

Will we?

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— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

This impulse lies behind several phrases you have probably heard:

Touch grass.

Stop and smell the roses.

Be mindful.

The common thread is an invitation to slow down and pay attention—to become more aware of what is happening around us. In short, each phrase invites us to notice.

We are not exempt from this failure to notice simply because we are Christians. We can become so focused on seeking God in mountaintop experiences that we miss God’s presence in the ordinary things—a cup of coffee, a conversation with a friend, an evening walk, the sunset, the face of our neighbor.

Perhaps, then, one of the most profound spiritual disciplines we can practice is noticing.

This may sound unremarkable. Noticing may not seem to carry the same spiritual weight as prayer, fasting, or worship. Yet as we train ourselves to notice—to recognize where God is at work around us and within us—we begin to discover the depths of God’s mercy, grace, and love.

Grace is always at work. But it often arrives quietly, disguised as ordinary life. That is why we must learn to notice.

Jesus’ Ordinary Things

In the Gospels, Jesus rarely began with abstract theological concepts. Instead, he taught through common things—things his listeners encountered every day. He spoke of birds in the air and flowers in the fields, of coins, seeds, sheep, and soil. He drew attention to children and widows. He called fishermen to follow him. He even took ordinary items from the dinner table—bread and wine—and made them signs of extraordinary grace.

Through these familiar images, Jesus taught his followers to recognize God at work in the ordinary. His stories and lessons show us that the world is constantly revealing something about God. But to see it, we must learn to pay attention.

The Holy Spirit is constantly at work—within us and around us. The question is whether we will notice.

Grace Is Already Here

In the Wesleyan tradition, we call this prevenient grace: the grace already at work before we are even aware of it. This grace goes before us, awakening us to God’s presence and drawing us toward God. It is at work even when we remain blissfully—or perhaps woefully—unaware.

We don’t have to manufacture it. We cannot earn it. It does not fall to us to create the conditions for God to act or to convince God to become active in our lives, our churches, and our communities.

God is already at work.

God is already moving.

Our task is not to make God move. It is to notice where God is already moving.

• Where are relationships forming and growing?

• Where is reconciliation quietly taking place?

• What injustices can we no longer ignore?

• How is compassion taking shape in us?

• Whom are we being drawn to love—and to welcome at our table?

This is why I think of noticing as a spiritual discipline. It trains us to recognize where God is at work. But noticing is not the end of the practice; noticing prompts a response. The Spirit stirs a holy discontent that will not allow us to remain where we were when we first noticed.

The Spirit always calls us deeper.

A Rule of Life

If grace is already at work, then we need practices that train us to notice. My personal rule of life has become one such practice.

Several months ago, I read a post by Bishop Ken Carter on his Grinding the Beans Substack about keeping a visual rule-of-life journal. Inspired by his example, I adopted and personalized the practice, incorporating aspects of Ignatian, Benedictine, and Wesleyan spirituality.

My rule of life focuses on four areas:

• Spirit

• Body/Life

• Vocation/Work

• Community

At the center of the page, I write AMDG—ad majorem Dei gloriam, “for the greater glory of God.” Around that center mark, I divide the page into four quadrants representing the four areas of my rule. In each quadrant, I try to record at least one meaningful thing from the previous day: a place where I noticed God at work, an activity that formed me, or something—often something ordinary—done for God’s glory.

This is not a productivity journal. I am not recording completed tasks to prove I accomplished something. The journal invites me to pay attention to my whole life—to take notice of grace.

The practice does not end with recording what happened. Below the quadrants, I reflect more deeply through an examen built around three words: grace, attention, and intention.

Grace: Where did grace appear? Where did I notice or connect with God? What am I learning about grace as I observe my daily routines?

Attention: Where do I need grace? What needs focus, healing, correction, or growth?

Intention: Where will I direct my attention today—not as another item on a to-do list, but as an invitation to be present and faithful?

My journal is ultimately about observing: noticing where God is working, where the Spirit is forming me, and even where I fall short or need to be challenged to grow.

The practice takes the ordinary moments of life and makes them into material for prayer, reflection, and growth.

Even when a day seems uneventful, it is never empty.

Learning to See

Noticing is more than passive observation. It invites a response. When we notice beauty, we respond with gratitude. When we see someone in pain, we are moved toward compassion and action. When we recognize unhealthy patterns, we may be drawn to repentance, reconciliation, and change. And when we notice grace, we find the courage to join in the work grace is already doing.

Attention becomes the starting point for transformation.

Before we set out to change the world, perhaps we are being invited to notice it:

To notice the person the world often overlooks.

To notice what gives life—and what drains it.

To notice the sacred within the ordinary—a meal, a cup of coffee, the daily commute, the sound of the dog snoring at our feet, or the children playing in the yard.

Grace is always at work, often hidden in the common things of life. When we slow down long enough to notice, we may find that grace is already transforming the world—and inviting us to take part.

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

Oh, the B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me! I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!

Confession time: I have never attended Vacation Bible School. And yet, I can sing every note of the B-I-B-L-E song, and many others.

They’re catchy songs meant to teach kids a lesson. They are intentionally memorable so that the lessons stick.

But the question is: is the right lesson sticking?

For most of my life, I was taught to approach Scripture in a particular way, summed up in that old acrostic: BIBLE = Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

We were taught to look for four things in Scripture:

• Rules

• Certainty

• Proof texts

• Definitions of who was in and who was out.

But what if the lesson that has stuck isn’t the lesson Scripture was ever trying to teach?

I stopped reading

Scripture has been part of my life, in some way, through my entire life. I was raised Catholic. I was Pentecostal. I became an Ordained minister. I studied Scripture in high school, college, and two seminaries. I’ll start a third round of seminary again in a few weeks. I’ve prepared and preached hundreds of sermons. Scripture has been part of my life for ages.

And yet, there was a long season when I didn’t read the Bible at all.

When I came out and my deconstruction journey shifted into high gear, I hardly ever picked up the Bible. I didn’t know what I thought and believed about the Bible. I knew it was not meant to be a divine instruction manual. I knew it was a library collection of scores of writings, written over centuries by dozens of authors. I knew the Bible represented various cultures, and moments in history. It was written for different audiences, in a culture far removed from our own. But was it more than just ancient literature?

So I stopped reading. But the truth is I missed it sometimes.

Not the certainty. Not the arguments and proof-texts. Not debates about whose interpretation was right.

I missed the beauty of the Psalms. I missed hearing Jesus in the Gospels. I missed the strange, beautiful story of a people learning—often imperfectly and sometimes messed up in so many ways—what it means to walk with God.

But could the Bible still have meaning for someone who had rejected many of the dogmatic assumptions I had inherited?

The good news is yes. The Bible is deeply meaningful for many of us in post-evangelical Christianity. I have rediscovered that for myself.

Over these past few years, I have again found joy in reading and studying the Bible! Not because it gives rules or certainty, but rather because it invites me to encounter God and understand God’s people.

Deeper than the surface

Yes. I reject a lot of the dogmatic certainty with which some people approach the Bible. What do I mean by “dogmatic certainty?” I mean things like plenary inspiration (God inspired every word of the Bible), univocality (the Bible speaks with a single unified voice throughout), and infallibility/inerrancy (the Bible contains no factual error or contradictions).

People sometimes assume I don’t take the Bible seriously because I reject those assumptions.

The opposite is quite true.

I take the Bible too seriously to settle for surface readings.

The Bible is a collection of literature written long ago, in cultures far removed from our own. To take Scripture seriously, we must wrestle with the hard parts.

Several months ago, I saw a Note that said something like: “Never read the Bible without a good commentary nearby.” Someone restacked it saying: “I thought that was what the Holy Spirit was for!”

Here’s the thing: they’re both partly right.

My Pentecostal heritage still shapes me. I believe the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures and continues to illuminate our reading of them. I still believe the Holy Spirit guides us.

But the Spirit doesn’t eliminate the need to wrestle with the history, language, genre, and culture. If anything, I think the Spirit delights when we love God with all of our minds as well as our hearts.

So we dig deep and seek better understanding of Scripture.

These days, I no longer look to Scripture for rules and certainty. Instead, you’ll find my Bible open in my prayer corner during my morning prayer. I pray the Psalms. I lift up the Benedictus. I sit with Mary in the Magnificat. And often, it is open beside my laptop while I write.

None of this is about certainty or collecting prooftexts. It’s about encounter. These ancient words bear witness to the living God—a God who still meets us today.

Finding my way back

The goal of reading Scripture isn’t just to know more about the Bible. Ultimately, the Bible is neither a divine rule book, objective history, nor pure mythology. Through its many voices, Scripture bears witness to the living God.

After many years, the Bible found a meaningful place again in my daily rhythm.

I don’t read it as an instruction manual. I don’t read it as a mandate for life, ministry, or the afterlife. I read it because, through those ancient words, I still encounter the living God.

My prayer is that you might as well.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

Depending on your background, the word alone may make your shoulders tense. For many of us who have deconstructed, or are deconstructing, it can almost hit like a dirty word. And there is good reason for it.

Too often, evangelism has become a high-pressure, coercive endeavor focused on convincing people to “accept Jesus.” It can often bear more resemblance to a slick sales pitch than an invitation into a life-transforming relationship.

To be honest, I always hated “doing evangelism.” I’m an introvert by nature, and it has never felt natural to turn every conversation into a sales pitch for faith, or to treat every relationship as an opportunity to “close the deal” for Jesus. I cringe when I see videos of people loudly “preaching” the gospel to captive audiences on airplanes, airport terminals, or even on the street corner on a Friday night.

And yet, I always felt guilty for not doing it.

Too often, we are told that not evangelizing means that we are ashamed of Jesus. And if we are ashamed of Jesus here and now, we are warned that there will be consequences later.

But we were never meant to carry the burden of someone’s eternity on our shoulders. Nor were we meant to believe that their eternity depended on our ability to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. Eternity is beyond our scope.

At its most basic, evangelism is simply sharing good news. That good news is that God loves people. Evangelism is not about convincing people that God loves them. It’s announcing that God already does.

The Admission Requirements We Invented

Formation is what happens in community. It is not the admission ticket to community.

When we talk about evangelism, there are three concepts we often apply: believe, behave, and belong. In simple terms:

• Believe: accept the correct doctrines.

• Behave: live according to those doctrines.

• Belong: finally, be welcomed into the comunity

The important question is the order in which these occur.

Most of the time, the order is believe — behave — belong. In other words, you must believe correctly before you can be welcomed into community. Often, you are expected to behave in certain ways as well to earn a sense of belonging. You have probably heard it expressed this way: to be a Christian you must “accept Jesus,” and stop sinning. Then, and only then, can you belong to the community.

Many churches function this way, even unintentionally. They likely do not have a flow chart hanging somewhere in the church showing their evangelistic strategy in these terms. But the reality is, this has become the default structure.

But there is a darker side to it as well. As Christianity became intertwined with the Roman Empire, leaders often assumed that a people group needed to be “civilized” to be Christianized. This looked like assimilation before evangelization. Many barbarian peoples were compelled to adopt Roman customs of language, dress, behavior, etc. before they could receive the gospel. And that carried over into modern European and American missionary endeavors as well with devastating consequences throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia, and among Indigenous peoples. In the United States, slavery was even justified because it civilized and evangelized the enslaved.

Whenever the Church confuses the gospel with our culture, evangelism becomes colonization.

Evangelism becomes harmful when it treats belonging as a reward for correct belief or behavior, and especially cultural assimilation. But Jesus imagines evangelism very differently. He did not force people to become first-century Jews to hear his message. He simply proclaimed that the kingdom of God had come near, and invited people to experience this new kingdom.

Jesus Begins with Welcome

The most common criticism leveled against Jesus did not have to do with what he taught. Rather, the accusation was: he eats with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’ core message was that the kin-dom of God had come near. And he lived this message through radical welcome, especially for those society pushed to the margins.

If we think of this in terms of the believe, behave, belong framework, Jesus began with belonging. He didn’t start with correct doctrine—he never told anyone that they needed to believe the right things first. He didn’t necessarily start with changed behavior either. Jesus simply practiced radical welcome—inviting people to join him—and often sharing a meal with them.

Consider Zacchaeus. He was the original short king. But he wanted to catch a glimpse of this Jesus he had heard about, so he climbed a tree. Jesus spotted him, called him down, and invited himself to lunch at Zacchaeus’ house. Jesus didn’t insist that Zacchaeus pass a doctrinal exam, and he didn’t wait for Zacchaeus to make restitution for his corrupt ways before inviting himself to lunch. Rather, Zacchaeus changed because Jesus welcomed him. Welcome preceded transformation. Grace was at work before restitution.

Or think about the Samaritan woman at the well. She came at noon to draw water—not the normal time for that chore to be done. Perhaps this was intentional—the woman may have wanted to avoid the shame of the other women of the town whispering about her reputation. She meets Jesus at the well. He speaks to her—culturally and religiously inappropriate for him to do. He offers her living water, not a sermon with an altar call. Jesus sees and values her, and once again presence transforms.

Belonging Before Believing

Although today the default practice of evangelism often flows in the order of believe, behave, then belong, throughout church history belonging often came before belief.

In Acts 10, we find the story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius was a Roman Centurion and a Gentile. Up to this point, followers of Jesus were most commonly Jews. A question facing the young church was whether someone had to be a Jew in order to follow Jesus. God answered that question in Acts 10. Cornelius asks Peter to come tell his household about Jesus. Peter goes, the Spirit falls, and Cornelius and his household are baptized. When Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was questioned about this. His answer was that God was at work, and that it was not his place to get in the way. The circle of belonging expanded.

From this point, more Gentiles were welcomed into the church. In Acts 15, the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem decided they needed to settle the question definitively. They determined that one did not need to become culturally Jewish—that is, they did not need to be circumcised and follow the dietary laws—to be a Christian. They simply declared that welcome into the community of faith was open to all.

Likewise, the Celtic Christian communities in Ireland and Scotland, founded by Patrick and Columba, followed this pattern. At a time in Church history when leaders often insisted that assimilation was necessary before evangelization, the Celtic Christians followed a different way. They formed monastic communities, where people were welcomed into a way of life. Faith was learned through hospitality, work, worship, and prayer. People were invited to join in the life of the community, and through living that life together they learned and came to believe.

This pattern is even evident in the ministry of John Wesley and the early Methodists. Wesley famously said that he considered the whole world to be his parish. Though initially resistant, he took to open air preaching, taking the message of the love of God to wherever people who needed it were found. Wesley’s societies and bands were Christian communities where people were invited to come and belong. Faith was learned together, through work and worship.

We see this pattern also exhibited in Wesley’s theology of Holy Communion—the open table. Many churches practice “closed” communion—in other words, communion is reserved for believers only. Wesley understood Communion as a means of grace. He believed people, even non-believers, could meet Jesus at the table. So he practiced an open table, welcoming anyone who so desired to participate in Communion. Once again, we see belonging preceding believing.

From Belonging to Becoming

Evangelism was never meant to be a slick sales pitch. It is not a high-pressure effort to close a deal. The goal is not merely getting people into heaven.

Simply put, evangelism is sharing good news. Our job is not to convince people that God loves them or berate them to “stop sinning.” It is to announce the good news that God already loves them and to welcome them into a community where love can be experienced and lived. This is especially important in a world experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

But truly, the task doesn’t end there. The goal is not belonging alone. Neither is it believing, nor changing behavior alone. The ultimate goal is transformation into the likeness of Christ.

Jesus did not call us to make converts.

He commissioned us to make disciples.

Disciples are not made in a moment. They are formed over a lifetime.

Most contemporary evangelistic efforts focus on making converts. It is easy to count conversions or “decisions for Christ.” But our true goal must be to make disciples for the transformation of the world. Making disciples is far harder to measure. But we fall short if we stop at believing, behaving, or belonging.

We must move to becoming.

Formation happens within community.

Abandoning the Sales Pitch

Christianity, at its purest, is a life to be lived. It isn’t a product to sell. It is not a ticket to heaven. So our goal must be to invite people into this shared life together. What might it look like if we abandoned the sales pitch, or high-pressure forms of evangelism, and instead simply invited people into relationship with Christ’s people?

• LGBTQ+ people are welcomed as people made in God’s image, possessing sacred worth, and loved by God without insisting that they must be straight or celibate.

• Doubters are welcomed, questions and all, without insisting that they must be certain about every nuance of faith first.

• Seekers are welcomed and loved, without requiring understanding doctrine, church lingo, dress codes, or pew seating assignments.

In this kind of community, welcome is unconditional. Formation is inevitable.

Because Christ did not invite people to be more like us.

He invited them to become more like him.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

I love my country.

I am grateful to have been born in the United States of America and thankful for the freedoms I enjoy, as well as for those whose sacrifices made those freedoms possible. I want to see the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence more fully realized—that all people are created equal and possess inherent dignity.

Yet as the United States celebrated its 250^th birthday, I found myself unable to celebrate. America has always been a nation caught between its ideals and its reality—a tension I cannot escape.

For much of our history, the ideals expressed in the Declaration did not apply to large swaths of the American population. Even so, hope remained. We aspired to live more fully into those ideals. But lately, it feels like we are moving backwards.

We proclaim liberty but treat immigrants as a threat. We speak of equality while many neighbors are treated as less than fully equal. We speak of the American Dream while stripping aid from those who need it most, even as the wealthy accumulate still more. The promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness remains out of reach for many. And in some cases, these fundamental rights are being stripped, limited, or threatened.

And sadly, much of it is being done in the name of Christianity.

Love Rejoices in the Truth

Few passages of Scripture have shaped the Christian understanding of love more profoundly than Paul’s words to the Corinthians.

Biblical love does not sanitize. It tells the truth about failure. We fail to consistently embody the love Paul describes. But notice his last statement: love never ends, it never fails.

The Bible is honest about failure. Israel’s kings missed the mark. They failed to lead the nation in the best way—failing to care for the most vulnerable. Even Scripture’s heroes are presented with surprising honesty. King David abused his power, taking Bathsheba and covering up his actions by ensuring that Uriah was killed in battle. Peter denied Christ three times. The disciples all fled at Jesus’ arrest.

The Bible doesn’t protect its heroes from the truth. Because love rejoices in the truth, it never fails. It never needs mythology to sustain itself.

This is where nationalism differs. Nationalism presents a mythic America—a nation uniquely chosen. Uniquely righteous. Largely innocent. Nationalism looks past America’s failures and shortcomings to preserve the myth. Nationalism cannot bear confession and truth because both threaten the myth.

Love rejects that mythology.

Love preserves uncomfortable truths. We fall short even as we strive to do better. Love compels us to keep striving toward what is good. Love remembers both triumphs and failures because redemption requires both memory and truth.

Nationalism resists redemption because it resists confession. And without confession of shortcomings, there can be no redemption—“all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

A Beautiful Ideal

The Founders expressed a beautiful ideal in the Declaration of Independence.

But have we lived up to this ideal?

No, we haven’t. Throughout our nation’s history, the story has been an argument over who counts as all. The struggle has been marked by mistreatment and oppression of Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, women, and countless others. We interned Japanese Americans during World War II. Black Americans were denied equal rights under segregation, and even today the effects of systemic racism remain. Marriage equality for LGBTQ+ Americans only became nationwide law a decade ago, and the rights of transgender Americans remain under constant threat.

But America’s greatest moments have come when we have answered the question by widening the circle of who belongs.

So, no. We have not fully lived up to the ideal established in the Declaration. Yet, despite setbacks, we continued moving toward that ideal.

Relating to the Prophets

Love rejoices in truth.

Therefore, it must refuse the temptation to rewrite history into comforting nationalist mythology.

But nationalism is so firmly entrenched in our national ethos that any acknowledgment of America’s shortcomings is equated with hatred for the country.

I don’t criticize our national shortcomings, or our leaders, because I hate this country. No. It is because I love this country and want to see it live fully into the ideals upon which it was founded that I raise my voice to critique those places where we are falling short.

The prophets of ancient Israel were the same. Isaiah did not hate Israel. Jeremiah did not hate Judah. Amos did not despise his people. No. They loved God—and loved their people—too much to remain silent. They did not ignore the nation’s failures. So they took the courageous step of proclaiming judgment in hope that the nation would repent and turn to the ways God desired for them to live.

The prophets were not merely critics. They were guardians of God’s vision for the people God was forming. Restoration—not destruction—was the hope. Their call was to become more faithful to God’s purpose.

And that purpose has always been expanding the circle of those who belong. Expanding the definition of who counts as all. Grace and mercy always expand to welcome more people to God’s table.

The story begins with the Hebrew people. The prophets pointed to a day when all people would be brought into God’s presence. In the early church, the circle expanded to welcome the Gentiles. And Revelation gives a vision of all nations, tribes, and tongues gathered in God’s city to feast at God’s table.

America is at its best when it widens the circle of who belongs.

A Call to Return

America has always been an aspiration, caught between our ideals and reality. We have never fully lived our ideals. But we have always been at our best when we have widened the circles of welcome, belonging, and rights. This progress has often come through struggle and repentance.

So our call is to return to America’s highest aspirations. We must keep striving to be a nation where all are truly equal. Where all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where the huddled masses are welcomed. Where all are treated with dignity. Where all can live their fullest, authentic lives.

To do so, we must reclaim some things. Patriotism must mean loving our country too much not to tell the truth about both the good and the bad. Patriotism doesn’t mean being silent. Love never fails. Love is redemptive. So we must continue striving toward our ideals, even though we may not always agree about how.

Love of country refuses nationalist mythology. Love tells the truth because love always hopes—for peace, for justice, for equality, and ultimately for the redemption of the nation it loves. We strive for an America where all truly means all.

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

“Incompatible.”

For 52 years, this word sat in the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church.

For 52 years, a paradoxical tension existed between the affirmation that all people are of sacred worth, regardless of their sexual orientation, and the word incompatible.

For those 52 years, this word dominated the conversation.

It is impossible to affirm the sacred worth of all people when in the same breath you affirm that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”

I was reminded of all this a couple of weeks ago during our Annual Conference here in North Carolina.

A resolution was presented to the Conference titled “repairing the breach.” The resolution asked the Conference to work toward reconciliation with those who disaffiliated by opening dialogue around points of common ministry and shared Methodist heritage, and to examine the theological roots that caused the breach.

As the resolution was considered, you could see the queer folks in the room twitching. Those who rose to speak against the resolution did so with trembling voices. The wound is still fresh. Incompatible still echoes in the halls.

Reconciliation is holy work. Reconciliation is not easy work. And reconciliation requires repentance, change, and a new way of thinking. Asking those who have been harmed by the incompatibility language, many in real, tangible ways, to reconcile is unfair and unwise while the wound is still healing.

I genuinely believe that the resolution was presented with good intentions. But good intentions are not enough when people—not concepts, ideas, or hypothetical personas—have been harmed and are just beginning the work of healing.

Ultimately, the resolution was defeated, which I believe was the right outcome. But before we can talk about reconciliation, we must understand how we got here. We must tell the truth about how the wound was made.

How We Got Here

In 1972, the first quadrennial General Conference of the newly formed United Methodist Church adopted the first set of Social Principles—a statement of the church’s moral and theological witness. The Social Principles were not “church law”; they were intended to articulate what the Church believes about God, humanity and the church’s role in society as we seek to live faithfully in the world. Yet, guided by the Social Principles, numerous legislative provisions were added to the Book of Discipline over the years.

The original proposal for the Social Principles simply included a statement that all people, no matter their orientation, were people of sacred worth. However, an amendment was proposed which added the statement, “we do not condone the practice of homosexuality, and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.” The amendment also added a statement that the church did not condone same-sex unions.

The amendment passed, and the incompatibility language was adopted as part of the moral witness of the church. In the same breath, the church affirmed the sacred worth of queer people, and labeled us incompatible with Christian teaching. Paradox.

From 1972 until 2024, a seemingly endless cycle began. Every four years, the existence, dignity, and sacred worth of queer people was debated on the floor of General Conference. Each time, proposals to remove the incompatibility language were defeated. The paradox and tension remained.

Over the years, additional restrictions accumulated in the Discipline—prohibitions on clergy performing same-sex unions and marriages; a ban on “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” from ordination; processes for complaints, charges, Church trials, and punishments for clergy who performed same-sex weddings; restrictions on use of Church funds to support LGBTQIA+ causes; investigations and barriers for queer clergy and candidates.

In 2019, a specially called General Conference again affirmed the discriminatory language through the passing of the Traditional Plan. The hope, held by many queer Methodists for the removal of the harmful language and for full inclusion, affirmation, and acceptance in the church, was delayed once again. Many openly wept while watching live streams of the conference; they also committed to continuing the fight.

But the Traditional Plan also introduced a paragraph to the Discipline which opened the door for churches to exit while retaining their property. Paragraph 2553 of the Book of Discipline provided a temporary exit pathway for churches who disagreed with the Church “around issues of human sexuality.” This became the escape hatch for thousands of congregations and resulted in the formation of the Global Methodist Church.

COVID delayed the 2020 General Conference, but in 2024 the church adopted a brand-new set of Social Principles. The incompatibility language was finally stripped. Provisions in the Book of Discipline were amended. The United Methodist Church was finally on the path toward becoming a fully inclusive and affirming church. Change does not happen overnight. There is still much work to be done. But this was a first step.

The Breach Was Not Neutral

The breach was real. The consequences of disaffiliation were real, and their effects are still being felt today.

Let’s face it—disaffiliation was painful. But we cannot pretend that the impetus for disaffiliation was merely a family squabble between Methodists of various stripes over abstract matters of denominational policy.

Paragraph 2553 allowed for churches to disaffiliate if they disagreed with the church’s stance on “human sexuality.” That phrase sounds neutral. But it can obscure what is really at stake. At heart, these disaffiliations happened because churches opposed the church’s full inclusion of queer people. That stance caused real harm. It represents a position that refuses to recognize our full humanity and our sacred worth.

Over the decades that the incompatible language lived in the Social Principles, along with the legislative provisions in the Discipline, there were human impacts. Queer people carried the weight of the incompatible language in their bodies and spirits. Queer clergy were defrocked. Candidates were denied or endlessly deferred (until many simply gave up or sought ordination elsewhere). Straight allies were brought up on charges for providing pastoral care to queer church members—even for performing a same-sex wedding for their own child!

The lived reality of many queer people was that the motto—Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors—did not apply equally across the board. Welcome came with conditions. Open hearts, minds, and doors had an asterisk. While many, me included, found homes in Reconciling United Methodist congregations during this time, the acceptance was conditional in many congregations. In some congregations queer folks were welcomed as conditional guests—welcome to come, worship, participate, and perhaps pay our tithes. But there were limits on being our full, authentic selves. We were tolerated, not affirmed and celebrated. And some places were openly unsafe for queer people.

The debates are not abstract or theoretical. At heart, they determined who could answer a call to ministry. Whose relationships could be blessed and sanctified by the church. What church funds could be spent on, and in service to whom. The debates had real consequences for real people—with faces, names, hearts, and souls.

Ultimately, a breach caused by exclusion cannot be repaired by pretending the exclusion did not happen. While the exclusionary language has been removed and many exclusionary congregations disaffiliated, all is not suddenly well. We must work beyond tolerance to full acceptance and inclusion.

Reconciliation Requires More Than Conversation

The motivation for the resolution presented at Annual Conference was a call to reconciliation. Repairing the broken places. Finding common ground. Sharing tradition and heritage. And reconciliation is holy work.

But Christian reconciliation is not pretending that nothing happened. It’s not “forgive and forget.” Reconciliation requires repairing broken relationships. It requires telling the truth about the broken relationship, confession, and repentance. And it needs the hard work of rebuilding trust.

God’s reconciliation with us doesn’t ignore sin; it overcomes sin.

So, reconciliation in the church cannot bypass the truth about the wounds inflicted. We must not merely move into conflict avoidance or institutional harmony. Before we can move to reconcile, we must lament. We must grieve for the wounds we have inflicted. We must grieve with those we have harmed.

We cannot simply ask people who were wounded to return to a table where their belovedness and sacred worth are still negotiable. That is not dialogue or healing. That is asking them to quietly return to an abusive relationship.

We’ve been down this road before in the North Carolina Conference. During the decades that the incompatible language remained in the Social Principles, our bishops hosted several dialogues—bringing queer people and affirming allies to the table to discuss “human sexuality” with those who upheld the incompatible language. I have been told that those dialogues did not go well—essentially amounting to queer people being subjected to homophobic attacks. The intention may have been good. The reality was performative and abusive.

Dialogue cannot be meaningful if one person’s humanity remains debatable.

Reconciliation cannot happen without truth-telling, repentance, tangible repair, and psychological safety. The baseline for any dialogue toward reconciliation must be the unconditional affirmation of the sacred worth of all parties at the table. We are made by God. Some of us are queer. We are beloved exactly as we are. Full stop.

Reconciliation is valuable. Reconciliation needs to happen. But it needs to begin inside the house. The United Methodist Church stands at a pivotal—indeed a kairos—moment. This is a moment to heal the breach between the church and its queer members, making the church a truly safe, welcoming, and affirming place.

A Different Kind of Repair

The incompatible language existed for a lifetime. Many people were harmed, both within the United Methodist Church as well as in broader Christian circles. We must acknowledge that many queer people may never return to church. And we must respect that decision.

We need to repent for the harm we caused.

But beyond this, we can seize this pivotal moment and transform the church.

The work before us is not merely to repair relationships between Methodist institutions. The work is much deeper, and I would argue more urgent, than that. Our task is to become the church.

To be the kind of church where queer people are welcomed, where their sacred worth is recognized, where they are celebrated, and where they no longer tremble when reconciliation is mentioned because they know their belovedness is no longer up for debate.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

This past weekend, we celebrated Father’s Day here in the United States. Like many holidays, Father’s Day is not simple.

For some, it is a day of joy. It is a time to celebrate and honor the fathers and father figures who love, provide, and care for their families. Some have supportive and emotionally healthy dads.

But for others, the day can sting. It can bring the pain of absence and grief. It may stir memories of emotional distance, patriarchy, abuse, or neglect. For those who do not have a positive image of fatherhood, the day can awaken a longing for something they never experienced.

And for many, the day holds both joy and grief.

My Dad and Me

My own relationship with my father is complex. My parents divorced when I was about eight. While my mom did her best to shield my siblings and me from the ugliness of the divorce, it was not exactly amicable. My dad wasn’t completely absent from my life, but neither was he always the kind, caring, and supportive father I often needed. He could be self-centered and sometimes saw our behavior as a reflection on himself. That’s a difficult approach with children, because children are messy. They spill things, get holes in their jeans, and make noise. There were times I don’t think my dad understood that, and he would get upset with us for… well, being kids!

I love my dad. And, to be honest, my relationship with him has improved as I have grown. Part of that growth came with realizing that my dad is who he is. I’ll never be able to change him. I could spend my life wishing that he were different—more patient, kind, and compassionate. But that would be wasted time. So, I’ve accepted that he is the only dad I have, imperfect as he may be. Acceptance has enabled me to love him as he is. That’s especially important now that my dad is over eighty and I know the time I have left with him is short.

So, I can understand when people wince when facing the idea of God as “Father.” This image of God can comfort. Jesus taught us about intimacy with the Father. But I also understand how this image can wound. For many, whether because of earthly fathers or patriarchal systems, the very term “father” has become distorted. In truth, God is the Father many of us needed and longed for—and, for some, the Father we never had.

Learning from Joseph

Consider the story of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. He stands quietly at the margins of the gospel story and Christian tradition. But in many ways, he provides the antidote to both bad fathering and patriarchy.

There are many who grew up with an absent father. Some men, when they hear the words, “I’m pregnant,” disappear. They leave. They walk away from responsibility, becoming little more than the donor of some DNA.

Distorted forms of patriarchy teach men to protect their honor above all else, preserve their reputation, assert their rights, and remain in control. The result is that they defend, deflect, deny, or disappear when love demands sacrifice.

But Joseph does just the opposite. When he heard of Mary’s pregnancy, he was well within his rights to publicly shame and dismiss her. He could have assumed she had been unfaithful. He could have questioned her sanity when she explained that she was pregnant through the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead, he chose mercy.

Joseph’s first instinct was to quietly divorce Mary. He did not wish to expose her to public shame and disgrace. No matter how hurt he may have felt, he chose mercy.

Then something astonishing happened. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and explained the whole situation. The angel instructed Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. And Joseph obeyed.

He stayed.

He listened.

He protected.

Joseph chose to bear the shame and offer shelter and safety to Mary and the child who was not his own. He became “father” through this faithful presence.

Holy fatherhood is not domination; it is presence.

It is tenderness, care, protection, humility, provision, and love.

Scripture only gives us a brief glimpse of Joseph. He never speaks in the Bible. Yet his life and actions speak volumes. In a culture governed by the idea of masculinity as dominance, Joseph embodied a quiet, tender strength. He listened and obeyed. He stayed and protected. And in this, we find great mystery.

God as Father

Joseph’s quiet faithfulness invites us to reconsider what fatherhood is meant to be. And if fatherhood is the kind of faithful presence Joseph embodied, it might change how we hear Jesus speak of God as Father.

Jesus first experienced fatherhood through Joseph’s quiet presence. Before Jesus ever taught his disciples to pray “Our Father,” he encountered in Joseph a love that stayed.

So then, when he taught the disciples to pray, it was “Our Father.” Not, “our king,” or “our ruler,” or “our dictator.” Our Father. Intimacy. Jesus referred to God as Abba—an intimate, familial term. It conveys relationship, belonging, and trust—not hierarchy or distance.

God’s fatherly care is not patriarchy baptized in religious language. It is love that stays, shelters, makes room, and leads us safely home.

An Invitation

The invitation of Father’s Day is not to pretend that every earthly father got it right. We haven’t. God knows, we haven’t. But maybe we can recognize that fatherhood has never been about power. It’s about love that stays. Perhaps fatherhood is meant to point us toward the God whom Jesus called Abba. The God who welcomes prodigals, speaks belovedness over all his children, and remains present even when others walk away.

For those who know good fathers, may we see the image of God in the tender care and love we received from them.

And for those whose experience of fatherhood has been less than ideal, may we find the comfort, care, love, and presence that we did not receive from an earthly father in the tender embrace of Father God.

Whether our earthly fathers reflected that love well or poorly, the good news of the gospel is this: God’s love stays. God’s love shelters. God’s love makes room for us. And God’s love never walks away.

Perhaps today is a good day to consider:

Who taught me what fatherhood looks like?

And what might change if I believed that God’s love never walks away?

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

When I left home, I was carrying a lot of sadness. These past few weeks have been… rough. And that is putting it mildly.

But this isn’t an article about heartbreak or grief. Not really.

As I said, I had to travel for the wedding so I was stuck on an airplane for several hours. Alone. With nothing but my thoughts, feelings, earbuds and Apple Music.

Planes are interesting places. They are liminal spaces. In between. You’re no longer at your starting point. You aren’t yet where you are going. There is nothing you can do to speed up the journey.

Airplanes are crowded, cramped and uncomfortable. And once you’re onboard, there is no going back.

You’re just stuck in the middle.

So, there I was—carrying sadness, stuck on an airplane in seat 29F, staring out the window, alone with my feelings.

And that is when Apple Music chose violence. The algorithm, clearly sensing my delicate condition, decided to inflict maximum emotional damage™.

· Hold On to the Nights—Richard Marx

· Against All Odds—Phil Collins

· Stupid Boy—Keith Urban

· Never Say Goodbye—Bon Jovi

· Look Away—Chicago

· Brave—Sara Bareilles

To quote Michael Scott from The Office: “And this is how technology will try to kill you.” Yes, in some data center somewhere, the algorithm decided—let’s bring Bryan to tears as he wistfully stares out an airplane window on his way to a wedding.

I broke up with my boyfriend nearly five years ago. This has been the longest period of singleness I have had in my adult life. I’m okay most of the time. I’m living life. But it gets lonely sometimes. There are areas that are still healing. And I am still growing.

The infinity music selection from Apple Music hit me with emotions about idealized love, love remembered, love lost, memories, healing, and strength.

And then something shifted.

It’s not that the sadness suddenly disappeared. It didn’t. I did not land in Providence magically healed, emotionally regulated, and ready to sashay into the weekend unbothered. That would make a cleaner story, but not an honest one. No. There were still plenty of tears. There is still an ache.

The shift was much smaller.

I recognized that pain and loss are part of life, but they are not the whole of life. The point is not the pain itself. The point is learning to see where grace is present in the pain, in the sadness, and in all the unfinished places we often try to rush past.

Grace is often present before we even recognize it.

Wesley called this prevenient grace: God already at work before we are aware of it. Grace before healing. Grace before answers. Grace before arrival.

Grace doesn’t leave us at the departure gate and then meet us again at baggage claim. Grace meets us in the journey. Grace journeys with us.

Grace met me that day in seat 29F at 37,000 feet.

And I realized that this is where most of life is actually lived.

Life is lived in the middle—between departure and arrival. Between doubt and certainty. Between deconstruction and reconstruction. Between the breakup and whatever comes next. Between the call and ordination. Between Ascension and Pentecost.

We want the destination. We want the end result. We want to arrive healed, whole, certain, and formed.

The good news is that God meets us in transit. Grace meets us in the journey.

We can be tempted to see the in-between times as wasted space. But that is not what it is at all. God doesn’t waste in-between spaces. Grace meets us there to form us, to prepare us, to get us ready for what is coming.

That’s not always how it feels, of course. In-between times can feel like delays or detours. We can feel like we’re circling the airport endlessly, wondering when or if we will be cleared to land.

These moments can be frustrating. And if we are completely honest, it can also be exhausting.

I think Israel knew something about this. When they left Egypt, the Israelites did not immediately march into the Promised Land. They had to go through the wilderness. Forty years of wandering. But it wasn’t the distance that took them that long to arrive. The timeline could have been much shorter. In truth, the issue was preparation.

When the Israelites first reached the border of the Promised Land, the spies sent to scout the land came back with a frightening report—the land is full of giants. The people weren’t quite ready to trust God to overcome the giants, and forty years of wilderness wandering followed. I’ve sometimes heard this taught as punishment—God made them wander to punish them for not trusting. But I think that misses the point. The generation who first reached the border of the Promised Land was unable, or unwilling, to fully trust God to fulfill God’s promise. So, they returned to the wilderness, where God continued the work of formation and preparation. The next generation learned dependence through God’s constant care and provision. And when the time came to enter the Promised Land, they were ready to trust God to fulfill God’s promises.

I also think about the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the Resurrection. Jesus joined them, walked with them, and talked with them. But they failed to recognize who he was. When they arrived and Jesus broke bread, their eyes were opened and they realized who had been with them the whole time. But the telling part of the story happens after Jesus departs. The disciples look at each other and say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” That’s formation. The full revelation and recognition did not occur until the table. But the in-between time was not wasted. Their hearts were strangely warmed by grace meeting them in the journey and preparing them for revelation.

I’ve seen this in my own life too. When I first went to seminary, I was originally pursuing a Master of Divinity degree. After my first year, though, I changed degrees. Part of the reason was that studying biblical Greek nearly took me out—I struggled to maintain a C average in those classes. But the bigger reason was impatience.

I wanted to get out there and “do” ministry. I thought changing paths would get me there faster. I thought I was choosing the more direct route. But God, apparently, had other plans.

I ended up graduating in 1999 anyway, which was basically the same timeline it would have taken to complete the M.Div. And I did not enter full-time ministry until 2001. In the end, changing degrees did not actually bypass the waiting. I did not outrun the formation God had in store for me. I simply took a different route through that formation. But to be fair, avoiding more classes in biblical languages does still feel like a defensible life choice.

That season, though, was not wasted. God was forming me. It was a season that took us to New Mexico, where we heard the call to college campus ministry. It took us through an internship that formed the way we would do ministry. It brought me mentors and taught me lessons that shaped who I am even today. I wanted arrival. But God was still working in the journey.

Maybe you are feeling like that today. You might have an idea of where you want to go, who you want to become. And it might feel like you are circling without advancing. And that is hard. But I would invite you to consider how grace might be working in the journey. Eventually, air traffic control will give the clearance, and you will land. You will reach the destination.

But remember: the time in the air is not wasted. Grace is with you, even at 37,000 feet.

And you just might be a little more formed and prepared when you finally arrive.

For Reflection

1. Where in your life do you feel like you are “in-between” right now?

2. What might grace be forming in you in this season?

3. When have you looked back and realized that God was present before you even recognized it?

4. Where might grace be meeting you at 37,000 feet?

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

Sometimes, I think, the deepest prayers may be the ones we pray when we feel nothing. The most powerful prayers don’t come from places of triumph or certainty, but from moments when we feel nothing except the decision to keep praying.

That may not be the way we’ve been taught to pray. We’ve been taught to hold fast in faith. To declare victory, even if it hasn’t happened yet. To “name it and claim it.” To “fake it until we make it.”

But what about when we only feel sadness, loneliness, depression, grief, or desolation? What about the times when it feels like our prayers are not reaching beyond the ceiling of the room where we are praying?

What happens when we persist in prayer during these times?

When Prayer Feels Empty

I had one of these moments this week. Maybe I’m still in that moment. I came to my prayer time simply not feeling it.

There were a variety of reasons why.

My granddaughter turned a year old this week, and I have yet to meet her because of some estrangement between my son and me. It hurts—especially knowing that she gets to spend a lot of time with her maternal grandmother, while we remain excluded. I hurt for myself, and for my mom as well—this is her first great-grandchild, and even she is being held at arm’s length.

It was also confirmed this week that my ex is dating again. Believe me, it’s not that I want him back. But it hurts to be lonely and to have zero prospects of a relationship—or even a date—remotely in sight. It makes me feel invisible and unlovable.

So yeah, I’ve been down. And the other night, as I came to evening prayer, I just was not feeling it. Life be like that sometimes.

But I decided to pray anyway.

I wish I could say that prayer magically made everything better. It didn’t.

But I did have a realization: sometimes these prayers matter because they are prayed from a place of emptiness.

Hope Before Deliverance

It’s easy to pray when things are going well. Praise comes easy when you have victory. Gratitude is easy in abundance. But it takes faith to pray when you’re empty.

During my evening prayer, I usually recite the Magnificat—Mary’s song of prayer and praise found in Luke 1. That night, as I read and prayed the Magnificat, I realized that prayers that come from emptiness and desolation just might be our most powerful. As I read Mary’s words, a distant, plaster saint was transformed into a relatable human being clinging to hope.

Mary expresses radical hope amid circumstances that don’t naturally produce hope. The Magnificat gives us future-tense faith spoken as if it’s already true. Mary “magnifies the Lord” and “rejoices in God” for:

• scattering the proud

• bringing down the mighty

• filling the hungry with good things

• remembering mercy

But the reality for Mary was that Rome was still in power. She was still poor and vulnerable. Outwardly, nothing had changed.

But the Magnificat is not a celebration of victory after deliverance. It is a prayer of hope in advance of deliverance.

Defiance Against Despair

Mary is not alone in expressing this kind of hope in advance. Biblical faith (especially throughout the Psalms) is often expressed in longing, wondering, and lament.

• How long, O Lord

• Why have you forsaken me

• Out of the depths I cry

• My tears have been my food

All of these are still faith. Faith doesn’t mean certainty. Faith doesn’t suddenly make everything better. Faith is still expressed in sadness and lament. In fact, lament may be one of the purest forms of faith because it speaks to God even when we don’t understand what God is doing.

The reality is that life is complex. Life can be paradoxical. But things that seem like opposites don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Joy can coexist with fear. Hope can coexist with uncertainty.

Praise can be an act of defiance against despair.

Prayer becomes part of that resistance. Prayer isn’t about emotional certainty. Prayer doesn’t instantly make everything better, resolve every issue, or erase every bit of pain. But prayer opens us to God when our own emotional resources have been exhausted.

Prayer itself can be our hope. Not evidence of hope. Not an act produced by hope. Prayer is hope.

When we pray, we refuse to surrender to despair or to give up hope. It shows that we do not believe that darkness has the last word.

Prayer, then, is our act of resistance. It demonstrates radical trust and dependence amid our circumstances.

So, yes, I think some of our most faith-filled prayers can occur when we aren’t feeling it.

Lighting Candles in the Dark

That night, I kept praying. Words and tears mixed.

When I said “amen” and blew out the candles, the sadness was still there. And the sadness still lingers. But I will keep lighting the candles, and I will keep praying.

Mary praised before she experienced deliverance. She prayed long before there was resolution. She held on to hope before there was evidence of God’s action.

And maybe that’s what I’m doing too.

It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to lament in darkness—whether that’s because of something personal or the state of the world in general.

Trusting God is not a promise that there won’t be sadness or struggles. These experiences don’t mean anything is wrong with your faith. Prayer doesn’t have to bring immediate comfort to have worked.

We persist. We light candles against the darkness, even if they don’t fully eliminate it. We keep going. We keep trusting.

May we have the faith to join Mary in saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” despite our circumstances.

For Reflection

• Name the darkness that you find yourself carrying right now.

• What would it mean to light a candle against the darkness rather than pretending it’s not there?

• What might it look like to continue praying even when you are “not feeling it”?

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

• Subscribe: If you’re looking for a faith rooted in love, justice, and a wider table—you belong here. Pull up a chair—subscribe to receive these weekly reflections right in your inbox!

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

Acts 2:1-11

This week celebrates on of my favorite days one the church calendar—the Day of Pentecost.

If you’ve been with me long enough to know a little of my background, you’re probably thinking, “Well, duh. You were an ordained Pentecostal preacher. Pentecost is obviously your favorite holiday.” There may be some truth to that.

Then again, we didn’t follow the liturgical calendar in the Assemblies of God. As Pentecostals, every day was Pentecost!

But my love for Pentecost started long before my Assemblies of God days. Even as a Catholic child, there was something special about it. Maybe it was the red vestments (red has always been one of my favorite colors). Maybe it was the prayers and hymns inviting the Holy Spirit to come.

Or maybe it’s what Pentecost is really all about.

Last week was about goodbyes. Jesus’ final conversations with his disciples were about preparing them for his departure. Or maybe, more accurately, preparing them to encounter a new kind of presence.

Promise

Among Jesus’ final words to his followers in Luke’s Gospel was the instruction to remain in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit—the promise of the Father. The disciples were entrusted to carry on Jesus’ mission. But he was not abandoning them. He was not leaving them to their own power or ability to accomplish this work. Rather, Jesus promised them that something—or rather someone—was coming to aid them. The Holy Spirit would work alongside them to accomplish their mission.

This promise is found throughout Scripture.

Peter’s sermon on Pentecost draws on a promise made by the prophet Joel:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

     I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
     your old men will dream dreams, ,
     and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
     in those days I will pour out my spirit.

Joel 2:28-29

What the crowd in Jerusalem was witnessing in real time, Peter says, is this thing that Joel foretold. God was pouring out the Spirit as promised.

But Joel is not alone in recording God’s promises. Jeremiah records: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Even though the people had broken covenant with God, God still loved them and promised to restore them and make a new covenant with them. Ezekiel also records God’s promise of a new covenant: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Ezekiel illustrates the promise in the next chapter: God restores the valley of dry bones—representing the fallen state of the nation—and brings them to life again by the breath of God’s Spirit.

God’s promise to God’s people was to renew and restore them, making a new covenant, and putting God’s spirit and law within them.

Presence

The events of the Day of Pentecost are wild. Luke records that the sound of a violent wind filled the place where the disciples were gathered. Some sort of flame appeared, dividing and resting on each of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began some form of ecstatic speech—which drew a crowd made up of people from across the known world. Each person, though, heard the wonders of God proclaimed in their native languages.

The encounter was so wild that some scoffers in the crowd assumed that the disciples must be drunk—even though it was early morning.

The scene raises all kinds of questions. Did the crowd hear an actual wind? Did they see flames resting on each disciple? What exactly was happening?

Luke doesn’t answer these questions. And, perhaps, that is because the details aren’t the point.

The point of the audible and visual signs of Pentecost is divine presence.

Wind, ruach in Hebrew, can be translated as wind, breath, or spirit. The wind here recalls Ezekiel 37—the wind blew over the dry bones and brought them to life. It also harkens back to creation itself—the wind of God sweeping across the face of the waters, or God breathing into the first human so that it became a living being. John’s Gospel gives us yet another intimate scene. On the evening of the resurrection, Jesus breathed on the disciples and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John echoes God’s creative work. In each instance, God works and is present in the wind or breath.

God’s Spirit is God’s presence among us.

Fire is also a common symbol of divine presence. Moses encountered God in a burning bush. In the wilderness, the Israelites were led by a pillar of fire at night. When God descended on the mountain to meet with Moses, the mountain appeared engulfed in fire. Even today, we commonly light candles as part of worship—the flame reminding us of God’s presence. And here, on Pentecost, a tongue, as of fire, rested on each disciple. This was a sign of God’s presence.

God was present in each believer, and among the gathered community of faith.

Power

There is a reason Jesus instructed his disciples to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit before they launched into fulfilling their great commission. He knew they would need power to accomplish this mission, especially in the face of resistance and persecution.

The Spirit transforms a group of fear-filled disciples—those who had fled when their teacher was arrested—into a bold, boundary-defying community capable of carrying on the work of Jesus.

Our temptation, depending on background, may be to either reduce the Spirit’s power to signs and wonders, or to dismiss such experience altogether.

Pentecost is much more nuanced than that. The importance is not about winning arguments about miracles or the importance of ecstatic speech. The point is what happens next.

The Spirit falls, and a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural crowd gathers. Each person, no matter who they are or where they are from, hears the wonders of God proclaimed in their native tongue!

The miracle of Pentecost is not the ecstatic speech. It’s not even a miracle of hearing. The miracle is that frightened people became faithful witnesses.

That witness immediately reached across boundaries. Pentecost is not about assimilation. Pentecost shows radical welcome across differences. Pentecost opens the table to everyone—regardless of background, language, culture, gender, or status. The Spirit brings mutual understanding and communion across those divides.

So yes, the disciples needed empowerment to accomplish their mission. Although they had experienced the Resurrection, they still hid behind locked doors out of fear before the Spirit arrived. But the Spirit empowers ordinary people to do extraordinary things—to live and love like Jesus, and to proclaim the wonders of God in extraordinary or mundane circumstances.

Pentecost Now

Yes, I love Pentecost. And I think it is because of:

· God’s Promise—we are not abandoned, left without mercy or covenant

· God’s Presence—God dwells among us, and within us

· God’s Power—we are sent into the world to tell the wonders of God and show radical hospitality to all.

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
     and in our hearts take up thy rest!

Indeed. Come, Holy Spirit.

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Notes from a Crowded Table

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

—John 17:1-11, NRSVue

This week has me thinking of goodbyes.

Graduation season is in full swing, and it struck me that I graduated from college 30 years ago this week. Thirty years later, none of us are quite the same people we were back then. Life carries us in many directions—careers, marriages, divorces, children, moves across the country. All of these are the joys and heartbreaks that shape a life.

I graduated in the 90s, a time when graduations often ended with sentimental slideshow montages set to songs like Amy Grant’s “I Will Remember You” (or the Sarah McLachlan version later in the decade) or Green Day’s “Good Riddance.” Their cheesy sentimentality marked the transition to a new chapter.

In many ways, this week’s Gospel passage is also about goodbyes.

Throughout his final meal with the disciples, Jesus has been saying goodbye. Not in those words, exactly. But Jesus is preparing them for his absence—or at least, for a different kind of presence.

In just a few hours, he’ll be betrayed, arrested, and tried. Before the next day is over, his lifeless body will lie in a tomb. And even after the Resurrection, his time with them will be limited. He must prepare them for what is imminent—and for the mission that will continue after he is gone.

Anticipating his return to the Father, Jesus turns from speaking to the disciples and speaks to God. His final goodbye is a rich prayer.

Glory—Not as Spectacle but Revelation

Jesus begins by acknowledging that his suffering is near. He prays that he would be glorified in this moment and, in turn, return glory to the Father. This is the moment John’s entire gospel has been moving toward—Christ left his pre-incarnate glory to take on flesh and dwell among us and now, through his suffering, he will glorify the Father.

John uses “glory” differently than we usually imagine. We think of glory as renown, honor, and praise earned through significant achievement or power. We might picture God’s glory as radiant beauty and splendor. But John reveals glory in the places we least expect it—washing feet, abiding love, and ultimately the cross.

Empire glorifies power, prestige, achievement, and domination. But God’s kin-dom glorifies self-giving love. It values justice, mercy and faithfulness. Jesus did not seek glory through power or prestige. He knelt and washed feet. He didn’t try to escape the cross. Rather, he knew glory would come through his self-giving sacrifice.

Eternal Life as Relationship

Jesus defines eternal life clearly in his prayer—the abiding and participatory relationship with God that begins right now. In John, eternal life is not solely something experienced after death. It is life with God now.

All Jesus has said and done during his earthly ministry has been accomplished through his union with the Father. He has emphasized that he and the Father are one—an intimate and abiding communion—and promised the disciples that they are invited into that same intimacy. He describes this communion in images—the way, truth and life; building a home with believers; vine and branches.

Jesus will pray, later in his prayer, for believers through the ages. He prays that we will be one—that we will experience the same intimacy with each, and with God, that he enjoys with the Father.

The Work is Finished—the Mission Continues

Jesus came into the world to do God’s works. John 3:16 summarizes the mission: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” By going to the cross, Jesus will complete the work he was sent to do.

And having completed the work, Jesus will return to the Father.

But he also recognizes that his followers remain “in the world.” What does this mean, exactly?

Before returning to heaven, Jesus commissions his followers to carry on his mission:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19)

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:21)

The work has been completed: rescue and salvation are secured. But the mission continues. And it is entrusted to us.

Too often, we make the Great Commission too small. We reduce it to making converts and tie it to church growth. We celebrate numbers, counting “decisions for Christ.” But this misses the point. Jesus didn’t commission us to make converts. He sent us to make disciples.

And that means living the kind of life—and doing the kind of work—Jesus did while he was in the world.

We have not replaced Jesus, but we must embody him in the world. We are called to share the self-giving love Jesus did. We must see human dignity in all people, loving friends and enemies alike. We’ve been sent to work for justice, lift up the poor, liberate the oppressed, heal the sick, and feed the hungry.

Unfortunately, we too often take an escapist approach. We define holiness as trying to live as separate from the world as possible. I saw this embodied in Brother George, an older gentleman in the Assembly of God church where I “got saved.” Although he worked for the post office for years, he refused to attend celebrations for co-workers—retirement dinners, for example—if they were held at a restaurant that served alcohol. Relationships mattered less than separation. Brother George would not set foot in a place he deemed unholy.

But Jesus did not pray for us to be taken out of the world. We cannot carry on his ministry if we refuse to love the way Jesus did. The most scandalous thing about Jesus was who he ate with!

Wesley spoke of works of piety and works of mercy. Piety is about our relationship with God. It nurtures the abiding communion through which we experience eternal life. Mercy is what we do to carry on the work of Jesus today. We glorify God when we show the same self-giving love that Jesus showed.

We do not achieve glory through dominance. We don’t win the world through force, coercion, or legislation.

We glorify God when we embody love, when we do justice, and when we show mercy.

For Reflection

1. Name the places where you find yourself seeking glory through achievement, recognition, control, or power. What would it look like to practice the self-giving love that Jesus embodied instead?

2. Jesus did not pray for his followers to be removed from the world, but to remain faithful within it. What are some areas where you can embody Christ’s love, justice, and mercy more fully in the world around you this week?

If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

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— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

Yesterday was Mother’s Day here in the United States, so this week I’m taking a brief detour from the usual lectionary reflection. If you’re disappointed, fear not—the lectionary will return next week!

Several months ago, I came across an album produced by the Center for Christian Spirituality, a contemplative worship community connected to Chapelwood UMC in Houston. These songs have become part of my daily prayer rhythm—I often choose a song from this album as a centering moment.

But one lyric stopped me cold the first time I heard it.

Just as God is our Father, God is our Mother
And she rejoices in us

I had to go back and listen to it again to make sure I had heard it right.

Depending on your background, you may be just as shocked by that lyric as I was. We’re used to paternal images for God. We’re comfortable when God is presented as Father. We accept that Jesus referred to God using the Aramaic term abba, a familial term conveying closeness, trust, and belonging—something akin to the way many of us in the southern United States might use the term “daddy” well into adulthood.

We get very uncomfortable when imagery strays outside those lines. We may bristle at hearing the statement “God is our mother,” and even more so using the pronoun “she” in reference to God.

But this imagery is not modern. It’s not a new invention. The song is inspired by Julian of Norwich, a 14^th-century English theologian and mystic, who wrote: “Just as God is our Father, so also God is our Mother.” For Julian, God’s life-giving love is itself maternal. Julian calls God our Mother because God is the source of our life.

If this rubs us the wrong way today, imagine how scandalous this must have been in Julian’s time.

And yet, the idea of God as our Mother does not originate with Julian, either. It traces back to Scripture itself.

Scripture’s Maternal Images

We miss something powerful when we limit our imagination and language for God narrowly. While most biblical imagery for God is paternal (God as Father), there are a handful of images that present a maternal image of God. Let’s consider these images.

A Mother in Labor

God’s people had strayed from God’s ways. As a result, they were punished—the nation destroyed and its people carried off to exile. Through Isaiah, though, God promises return and restoration. In this restoration, God is not distant, restrained, or composed.

The image Isaiah presents is visceral—a woman in labor giving birth. God is straining, crying out, and bringing forth something new through the pain. God’s creative and redemptive work is not detached. This work is costly, and the price is paid in pain.

A Nursing Mother

One of the most tender images of God in all of Scripture, Isaiah pictures God as a nursing mother. God’s memory—faithfulness toward God’s people--is compared to the intimate bond between mother and infant. In spite of anything that may occur, God promises that God’s faithfulness will remain. Even if a mother could somehow for get her child, God will not.

This faithfulness is not transactional or earned. It is not based on actions, beliefs, or worth. Rather, God’s faithfulness is relational, embodied, and instinctive.

A Mother’s Comfort and Care

In the final chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, God promises comfort. After all that God’s people have been through, God assures them of care and comfort. The image is simple and direct—as a mother provides comfort to her child, so God will comfort God’s people.

Divine care is intimate and life-giving. God remains closer to us that we often dare to imagine. This care is not abstract, cold, or distant.

A Protective Mama-Bear

Lest we think that the maternal images of God in Scripture are all soft and tender, Hosea presents this image of God as a mother bear. This one has teeth.

Hosea is warning people who turn away, forget, and wrong God. He says that, for these people, God will be as fierce as a mother bear whose cubs have been snatched from her.

God’s maternal nature is not solely tender and nurturing. It can include fierce protection and holy anger when harm is threatened or done.

A Mother Hen

As Jesus drew close to the end of his ministry, as he was facing the cross, he lamented over Jerusalem. He explicitly used maternal imagery—a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings—to refer to himself.

God’s longing is protective and sheltering, offering God’s wings as a place of protection, safety and comfort. Unfortunately, this protection and shelter can often be rejected. But this doesn’t stop God’s longing for us.

What Does it Mean?

I want to make clear that, in considering the maternal imagery of God, we are not striving to replace the language or imagery of God as Father. This is a both/and situation. Our spiritual imagination is well served if we engage both maternal and paternal images for God.

I also want to make clear that we are in no way attempting to argue that God is biologically gendered. If we consider the creation story, God created humanity in God’s image— male and female both reflect God’s image. God both embodies and transcends our categorizations. Again, our imagination is well served by considering both masculine and feminine aspects of God’s image.

Unfortunately, paternal language for God carries negative connotations for many people. Their understanding of God has been distorted by experiences of abuse, domination, and coercive authority. When our concept of God is narrowly presented as masculine and authoritative, some people will struggle to recognize God as safe, nurturing, or near.

Every image we use for God is necessarily incomplete. God transcends the limitations of our language.

Yet, while no single image can fully contain who God is, Scripture itself stretches our imagination beyond narrow categories. We are invited to encounter God through many different images of love, care, protection, and presence. Our invitation is to broaden our spiritual imagination, embracing images of God that go beyond our inherited defaults.

Just as God is our Father, God is our Mother.

And she rejoices in us!

For Reflection

• What images of God were you taught growing up? How do these images still shape your relationship with God today?

• Which of the maternal images of God in Scripture feels most meaningful to you? Which is the most challenging? Why?

• How might your spiritual imagination—or your prayer life—change if you allowed yourself to encounter God through a wider range of biblical images?

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  Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

  — Bryan

  Notes from a Crowded Table

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:1–7 (NRSVue)

I’m starting to think the Lectionary is messing with me. Back-to-back weeks we get passages often used as narrow, exclusionary boundary markers.

For those of us who are deconstructing—or have deconstructed and held onto faith—these are the texts we have to wrestle with. Can they be read in a way that aligns with the wide, welcoming grace of God? I believe they can!

This week, we turn to Jesus’ statement about being the way, the truth, and the life.

The Context: Comfort

As always, it is important to set the passage in context. Jesus is not giving a TED talk about the mechanics of salvation when he proclaims he is the only way to the Father. No, Jesus is talking to a group of anxious, disoriented, and frightened followers just hours before they are going to lose him.

Today’s passage follows immediately after the tense moment at dinner when Jesus indicates that one of them will betray him. Then, after Judas leaves, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him.

It’s only natural for the disciples’ hearts to be troubled. I can imagine their heads are spinning, their heart rates are elevated, and they’re on the verge of hyperventilating.

In this context, Jesus speaks: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Chaos is unfolding, but Jesus calls them to trust.

In typical Johannine fashion, Jesus speaks poetically about preparing dwelling places in his Father’s house, and how the disciples will follow where he is going. Thomas cuts through with a blunt question: Jesus, we don’t know where you’re going, how can we know the way?

Thomas is asking for directions—he wants a map. But Jesus shifts the conversation. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It’s no longer about location—it’s about a way of life.

Jesus’ statement is not a threat of damnation or a closed door of exclusion. It’s an assurance: “Don’t be afraid of losing your way. I am your way.”

The point is not a password for heaven, but a way of life: self-giving love.

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I am the Way…

In response to Thomas’ question, Jesus doesn’t give a map or directions. Rather, he reveals a person-shaped path. A way to live that leads to God.

This way is marked by non-violence, even in the face of betrayal and injustice. It is the way of radical welcome, gathering people around a table. It is leadership that kneels to wash feet rather than dominate. It is forgiveness so abundant you lose track of how often it’s given.

It is the way of self-giving love—the way that leads to a cross, not around it.

Jesus’ followers are called to the same way—identifying with Jesus in hostility and rejection, and practicing self-giving love, care, and forgiveness.

…and the Truth…

When Jesus speaks of being “the truth,” he is not talking about doctrinal correctness or a checklist of beliefs. He is speaking of embodied truth—the revelation of God’s character in his life.

This is truth that is recognized—like the disciples at Emmaus, or Mary in the garden. And when we live this way, the world recognizes Jesus through us—in acts of service, compassion, and resistance to domination.

…and the Life.

Like truth, life is an expanded expression of “the way.” Life is the source of our ability to walk in God’s way, experienced through our connection with Jesus. The abundant life that Jesus offers is not restricted to the afterlife. It is meant for living now.

This life looks like liberation—freeing those bound by oppression. It looks like lifting up the poor, amplifying silenced voices, and restoring what is broken. It takes shape in forgiveness, justice, and peace.

No One Comes to the Father Except Through Me

Many of us were taught to read this as if Jesus were a bouncer at heaven’s door—checking the list, deciding who gets in and who doesn’t. If your name isn’t on the list, you’re out.

But that’s not what John is doing here.

Yes, John makes an exclusive claim in his Christology. But that claim is not saying there were many valid paths to God and Jesus shut them down. For John, humanity was not at a crossroads choosing between equal options. Rather, we were cut off with no path at all.

Jesus doesn’t restrict access. He opens it. He creates a way where there wasn’t one.

The claim is about reconciliation, not restriction. God took action to restore relationship with humanity through the self-sacrificing love of Jesus—not through domination, coercion, or violence. In the cross, Jesus absorbed the violence—the worst the world could give—and triumphed.

Ultimately, this is not about saying the right things about Jesus, but about walking in his way. The question is not what we claim to believe, but whether our lives reflect the self-giving love he reveals.

For Reflection

1. Name a place in your life where you feel afraid of “losing your way.” What might it mean to trust Jesus—not for a map or destination—but to follow him into a new way of living?

2. If the way of Jesus is a way of self-giving love, where can you can you be more intentional about living that out this week? Where are areas of tension, conflict, or discomfort that invite self-giving rather than domination?

3. If we believe God’s welcome is wider than we’ve been taught to imagine, how might that reshape how you see others? How might it change your understanding of your own place at the table?

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   If this reflection resonated, don’t just read—stay connected.

   • Subscribe: If you’re looking for a faith rooted in love, justice, and a wider table—you belong here. Pull up a chair—subscribe to receive these weekly reflections right in your inbox!

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   • Share: If you know someone who might need this message, pass it along.

     Share

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   There’s always room at the table.

   — Bryan

   Notes from a Crowded Table

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:7–10 (NRSVue)

This week’s scripture is one of those passages that can feel PTSD-inducing for exvangelicals.

If you’ve been in that world, you’ve certainly heard it preached many times. And it almost always lands the same way.

• “The sheep know his voice… Do you hear Jesus calling today? Don’t wait! Come to the altar.”

• “Jesus is the door—the only way in. You can’t get to heaven except through him! Make your heart right today.”

• “Jesus came to give you abundant life. Eternity is on the line. Don’t miss it!”

This is the version many of us were given.

But making this passage all about the altar call misses the point. In fact, that reading doesn’t just miss it—it shrinks it. It makes the passage much smaller than it’s meant to be.

When Leaders Become the Threat

This passage isn’t just metaphor—it’s critique. Jesus speaks in images—sheep, shepherds, and a sheepfold—but he is naming something concrete. The religious leaders have just expelled a man because he dared to give Jesus credit for giving him sight.

Long before Jesus called himself “the Good Shepherd,” the prophet Ezekiel named this very crisis. Israel’s leaders had failed. They fed themselves instead of the flock, neglected the weak, ignored the injured, and abandoned the lost. Rather than caring for the sheep, they ruled with harshness and authoritarian force. The sheep were scattered and became prey.

God’s response was not to reform the system—making them better shepherds. Instead, God said: “I am against the shepherds … I will rescue my sheep” (Ezekiel 34:10). God boldly declared: I will be their shepherd.

For Ezekiel, the danger was not outside the fold. It was wearing religious and political authority.

John tells this same story in real time. Jesus heals—a man is made whole and should no longer be cut off from the community.

The religious leaders investigate, not with curiosity or joy, but for control. When the man refuses to conform, they cast him out. The very leaders entrusted with care became the ones who rejected and expelled.

But Jesus goes and finds the man. He offers care, presence, and restoration—the exact shepherding behavior Ezekiel said was missing.

He Doesn’t Change the Subject

So, when Jesus begins to talk about sheep and shepherds, sheepfolds and gates, he isn’t changing the subject. He is naming what just happened—and revealing that God has come to do something about it, echoing Ezekiel.

Jesus’ critique is not hypothetical. He interprets what just happened. The thieves and bandits are not distant figures or false messiahs. They are the ones who have just pushed the healed man out into the dark.

Too often, we interpret the sheepfold as a boundary between saved and lost. We use it to mark who belongs and who doesn’t.

But that isn’t what Jesus is doing here.

The sheepfold is about safety, not sorting.

It is a place of protection—a refuge from harm. The boundary exists not to keep people out, but to keep danger away. Wolves, predators, and thieves may lurk nearby, but they cannot enter. At most, they can harass from the outside.

When Jesus calls himself the “gate,” he is not talking about access to heaven. He may be speaking quite literally. Some sheepfolds—especially in open pasture—did not have a physical door. The shepherd would lie across the opening, using his own body to guard the flock—keeping the sheep in, and every threat out.

Following the Shepherd to Abundant Life

So, what does it mean for us to follow a shepherd like this?

If Jesus is our Good Shepherd, then we don’t simply admire his care, compassion, and protection—we embody it.

We learn to recognize and resist any system—religious or otherwise—that protects its own power while ignoring or expelling the vulnerable. We refuse leadership that exploits rather than serves. We reject the use of fear, force, or violence—especially when it is justified in the name of God.

Instead, we work to build communities shaped by God’s expansive love and mercy—communities that include rather than exclude, that restore rather than discard. Spaces not just for survival, but for dignity, belonging, and thriving in joy.

We often spiritualize Jesus’ saying that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We imagine a distant enemy, an abstract force of evil—the Devil. But the meaning is much simpler than that. The “thief” is anyone—especially those holding power—whose actions bring harm. Thieves are false shepherds, failed leaders, those who exploit and scatter the flock.

By contrast, Jesus says that he came to bring life—and life abundantly.

This is eternal life. But eternal life is not just about heaven. It isn’t something we must wait for after death. Abundant life is the life of the coming age breaking into the here and now.

We experience this life when we live as our Shepherd lives.

Abundant life is free from fear—seeing neighbors to love, not enemies to oppose. It creates spaces for people to live, move, and be known—where they are valued and celebrated as they are.

It refuses to reduce people to what they produce. It resists systems that consume human lives for power or profit. It honors dignity without demanding endless output.

If we fail to experience this kind of life, our default is, unfortunately, to reach for control instead. We start deciding who is in and who is out. We turn the gate into a boundary for exclusion rather than the mark of protection it is meant to be. We become, in our own ways, the very thieves Jesus warned about—stealing joy, limiting life, and closing off what God has opened.

Jesus does not guard the gate to keep people out.

He becomes the gate to keep harm away.

The question is not who gets in.

The question is: who is safe?

And whether we will make it so.

For Reflection

1) Who do you find yourself most tempted to see as a threat rather than a neighbor? What would it look like to practice the protection and care modeled by the Good Shepherd rather than fear?

2) Who in your life or community is being excluded, ignored, or pushed out? How can you help to make that space safer, more whole, and more reflective of God’s abundant life?

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— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him… When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24:13–16, 30–35 (NRSVue)

In the stories of the Resurrection, the disciples fail to recognize Jesus—over and over. Mary Magdalene mistakes him for a gardener. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus take him for a traveler. Even when Jesus appears to a group of disciples, they think he is a ghost.

The gospel writers don’t pause to explain why.

Maybe grief or fear obscures their vision. Maybe even a flicker of recognition feels too good to be true.

Or maybe the failure to recognize Jesus is part of the story itself—preparing us for the dramatic moment when recognition finally comes:

• Jesus speaks her name, “Mary,” and she recognizes him,

• Jesus breaks bread in Emmaus, and they recognize him,

• Jesus appears to the group, shows his hands and feet—still bearing the nail marks—and asks for something to eat. Then they believe.

• Jesus shows his wounds to Thomas—and he responds, “My Lord and my God.”

Encounter followed by recognition is a common thread through the Resurrection narratives. Perhaps that’s part of the message. Jesus is alive, but maybe we’re also to learn this: we can recognize Jesus when we are open to him.

If this is true, then this isn’t just the disciples’ story. We are not so different from them. For 2,000 years, we have been looking for Jesus to come back.

What if we’ve been looking right past him?

We expect a dramatic return—a conquering king riding on clouds. But what if it’s a lot simpler than that? What if Christ is already present among us—and we are missing him?

We believe every person bears the image of God—the imago Dei. If that’s true, then we don’t encounter Christ only in people who look, think, or behave like we do. We also encounter him in the poor, the marginalized, and the overlooked.

And this kind of recognition takes effort—especially when we would rather look away.

This isn’t a new idea.

In the First Letter of John, we’re told that it is impossible to love God while hating a brother or sister. This echoes Jesus’ own teaching: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. And the truth is—everyone qualifies as a neighbor.

James pushes even further. He warns against mistreating the poor and calls us not only to hear the word but to live it.

Jesus makes this unmistakably clear in Matthew 25:

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Matthew 25:35–36

In this vision of judgment, people are separated like sheep and goats. The dividing line isn’t belief or affiliation. Rather, it’s how they treat those in need.

And to remove any doubt, Jesus identifies himself with them. What is done for the most vulnerable is done to him.

So maybe we don’t have to look that far to recognize Jesus.

We’re not the first to miss him. The disciples did too. But they weren’t left there. Jesus opened their eyes.

Will ours be opened—or will we continue to walk right past him?

Can we recognize Christ in places—and in people—where we do not expect to find him?

If so, that recognition will not stay abstract. It will look like this:

• Our Somali, Mexican, or Haitian neighbor

• The poor and disadvantaged, standing on a street corner asking for spare change

• The gay couple holding hands as they walk through the local grocery store

• The transgender woman working in the same office

• The friend, neighbor, or family member who sits on the opposite side of the political aisle

• Our neighbor, coworker, or the stranger who has a different skin color than us

• Our Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist neighbor doing their best to abide by the tenets of their faith

The list could go on.

Jesus is revealing himself all around us today.

Will we choose to see him?

For Reflection:

1. What would it look like this week to recognize Christ in a person or place you least expect? Where is it easiest to overlook Jesus?

2. Who are you most tempted to look away from instead of really seeing?

3. How can you practice seeing differently this week?

If this reflection resonated with you, here are a few ways to continue the conversation.

• Comment: Share your reflections below or join the subscriber chat.

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

—John 20:24-29 (NRSVue)

Five years ago, when I first met my pastor, I told her something that felt both immensely honest and really risky:

“I think I’m still a Christian . . . but probably an agnostic one.”

I had been on a deconstruction journey for a while. I had come out of a faith tradition that held certainty as a core of faith—you just weren’t supposed to have questions… and if you did, you kept them quiet. That had not worked for me for a long, long time.

And yet—I was still drawn to church. I still had a deep appreciation for the liturgy and the symbolism—what some might call the “pomp and circumstance.” I loved the people, the community that made up the church.

I just had questions about a lot of things. I knew I didn’t have all the answers. In fact, I was pretty sure that some of the questions did not have answers.

I hadn’t lost my faith—but I had lost my ability to pretend.

Which is why I’ve always had a soft spot for Thomas.

“Doubting” Thomas?

I think Thomas has been terribly misunderstood. He gets a bum rap most of the time. We refer to him as Doubting Thomas because of this scene in the Gospel of John, but how unfair is it to label him based on this single moment.

We likely wonder where he was that Sunday evening. Why did he miss Jesus’ visit? We might scorn his “lack of faith” for asking for evidence that Jesus was alive. We probably assume Jesus was scolding him when he said, “Do not doubt but believe.”

The thing is: faith is not about certainty. It’s not about having all the answers. It’s not about having everything figured out.

No. Faith is trusting in the middle of uncertainty. Enduring in relationship through the doubt.

A Missed Moment

John doesn’t give us details about why Thomas wasn’t with the ten when Jesus appeared. We just know that he wasn’t there, and when the others told him, “We’ve seen the Lord,” Thomas said he would not believe it without seeing for himself.

I wonder if Thomas was really any different from the rest of the disciples? That morning, Mary had reported that she found the tomb empty—Jesus’ body was gone. Had their grief turned to bewilderment, and maybe anger that someone would take their teacher’s body?

When Mary returned, proclaiming that she had seen Jesus alive, did they believe her?

Until Jesus appeared to them, resurrection had occurred but they had not experienced it for themselves. And so, they were locked in a room, emotionally paralyzed by fear. Only after Jesus came to them did they understand and believe.

But Thomas missed it.

We don’t know where he was, but we do know something about Thomas’ character. In John 11, Thomas speaks. When Jesus tells the Twelve they are going to Judea to raise Lazarus, eleven object: “Jesus, they just tried to kill you there, man. Why would you want to go back?” Only Thomas speaks in favor, “Let us also go that we may die with him.”

Thomas staked his very life on Jesus.

Faith Cannot Be Borrowed

When Jesus appears and Thomas misses the experience, it seems natural for him to be a bit skeptical. He’s not calling the others liars. He’s not dismissing what they experienced. He’s just being brutally honest: this is what it will take for me to believe. The response is specific and embodied.

Thomas is saying, “I cannot stake my life on your experience.” He needs his own encounter.

Faith cannot be borrowed.

Thomas’ response isn’t really doubt. He’s skeptical, sure. But he’s not rejecting faith. He’s rejecting pretense. He won’t pretend to believe something just to appease the crowd.

Over the course of the next week, Thomas stays. He shows up, in spite of his doubts and skepticism. He remains with the others, even though he has not had the same experience as them.

Doubt doesn’t drive Thomas away. It keeps him honest.

Jesus Comes to the Doubt

The next week, Jesus appears again. Again, the doors are shut and locked, but Jesus appears anyway. Again, Jesus greets them, “Peace be with you.” And then Jesus does something incredible.

Using Thomas’s own words—his exact conditions—Jesus meets him. “Put your finger here in my hands, Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

Jesus wasn’t afraid of Thomas’ questions, skepticism, or doubt. He doesn’t shame Thomas—he meets him. He comes right to the level of Thomas’ questions and answers them with revelation.

“Do not doubt but believe.”

This isn’t a rebuke—it’s an invitation. It’s a loving call to a fuller relationship.

Thomas is overwhelmed. John doesn’t tell us, but I can imagine that Thomas didn’t even need to reach out and touch Jesus in order to believe. Being met at the point of his need was enough. “My Lord, and my God,” he exclaims.

Jesus Still Shows Up

Five years ago, I might have identified as a Christian agnostic—or maybe it’s agnostic Christian. I don’t anymore.

It’s not because I became certain. I still haven’t found all the answers. But, I will say that my relationship with Jesus is stronger and deeper than it has ever been.

I’ve found that Jesus was willing to meet me in the questions—in the wondering, the uncertainty.

And I’ve found that relationship is what ultimately matters.

I am heading back to seminary and toward ordination (again), not because I have no questions, but because I kept showing up, and Jesus did too.

Faith is not certainty. It’s not the absence of questions or doubts, or having everything figured out. In fact, I think doubt can be sacred—because it pushes us toward trust.

And that is, really, what faith is—trust. Remaining in connection. Staying in relationship with each other, and with Jesus, through the questions, the doubts, and the uncertainty.

Jesus doesn’t wait on the other side of doubt. He doesn’t wait for us to come through it. Rather, he meets us in the middle of it.

Just keep showing up.

Jesus will meet you right where you are.

For Reflection

1) Where are you tempted to “fake” certainty in your faith?

2) What are some of the questions you are carrying right now?

3) What does it look like to keep showing up, even without answers?

If this reflection resonated with you, here are a few ways to continue the conversation.

• Comment: Share your reflections below or join the subscriber chat.

• Share: If you know someone who might need this message, feel free to pass it along.

  Share

• Subscribe: To receive these weekly Notes right in your inbox, consider subscribing.

  Subscribe now

• Support: Notes from a Crowded Table is free. If you’d like to help keep the conversation going — and the table full — you can buy me a virtual coffee.

  

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Pull up a chair. There’s always room at the table.

— Bryan

Notes from a Crowded Table