During our trip, we spent a morning visiting the National Archives. If you have ever been inside that main, cavernous rotunda, you know it feels almost like entering a secular cathedral. The lighting is low to protect the parchment, the floors are marble, and the air is quiet. Encased in protective, bronze-framed glass barriers, sit the foundational charters of our national identity: The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, and two recent additions: 19th Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Then we were shown a few other documents—the ones behind the famous ones. Reminders that freedom and rights for all did not just materialize out of thin air. They were not greeted with immediate, universal applause. They were resisted. They were fought over. They were protested, debated, delayed, and feared. In fact, some of the most fascinating artifacts in the Archives are not the grand declarations themselves, but the messy, angry, frantic documents of resistance that were generated to try and stop them from ever becoming reality.

We stood reading a petition from 1873 written by the National Women’s Suffrage Association, boldly signed by Susan B. Anthony. Even still, it would be nearly fifty more years before women would actually secure the constitutional right to vote. Next, we saw an official manifesto from 1917 printed by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. This group, largely made up of the wives of members of congress, saw women voting as an imminent threat. In the text of their formal petition to Congress, they pleaded with lawmakers to reject the amendment, writing that granting women the right to vote “would be an official endorsement of nagging as a national policy.” And on the archival paper, that phrase is aggressively, frantically underlined.

They were dead serious.

Next, we saw a draft of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We often think of the Civil Rights Act as a triumphant, inevitable moral victory. But the archives remind us of the desperate tactics used to kill it. The bill was held captive in committee for years because the chairperson was a staunch segregationist. When public pressure finally forced the bill out onto the house floor, opponents tried one final, desperate political maneuver to get the entire thing voted down: they sneakily added the word “SEX”—meaning gender discrimination—to the document. The strategy was simple and cynical: they knew Congress might reluctantly pass a resolution banning discrimination based on race and religion, but they assumed that if women were included, the idea would be so laughably radical, so completely disruptive to the domestic and economic status quo, that the entire Civil Rights Act would instantly stall out and die.

But it passed anyway.

It was a reminder that every major movement toward justice, expansion, and freedom in our history was fiercely resisted… because it required the people in power to give up control. True progress always threatens the manicured order of the status quo.

In the back of my mind during the tour, was this week’s passage, and line from the Lord’s Prayer: The most disruptive and dangerous line of the entire prayer: “Your Kingdom Come.”

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working our way through the rather lofty, vertical beginning of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father… Who is in Heaven… Hallowed be thy name. So far, the subject of the prayer has been entirely focused on God: Who God is. Where God dwells. And how God should be rightly praised. But today marks a turn. We’ve come to that beautiful but deeply elusive line: “Your Kingdom Come.” And next week, we will consider the second half of that elusive line: “Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I think Jesus is intentional about the arc of the Lord’s prayer. It begins with God as the sole focus. Before we ask for a single thing, we ground ourselves in the holy and the parental love of God. It is a model for how we live our faith: we begin with our eyes fixed on God.

But today’s phrase starts the great cross over. Today is when we begin to engage with how to partner with God in the coming of God’s kingdom right here. This is the line that begins to crack the prayer wide open. It invites a partnering with God to bring the reality, the justice, and the peace of the heavenly realm down into our messy, broken, earthly realm.

Your Kingdom come. When Jesus gives us this line, he gives us an invitation. A wild, uncontrollable invitation to do whatever we can to bring God’s kingdom to earth. And to understand what this all actually means—and what it will cost us—we turn to this short, profound passage from Luke 13.

“He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

These two parables seem simple enough on the surface: Mustard seeds and yeast…like the raw material for a summer picnic. And historically, I have always read these parables with a measure of sweetness. I think many of us have. We treat it as a simple moral lesson that says, “small things can do big things.” We use it to encourage children: “You might be small, but look what God can do with you!” That phrase has a particular poignancy in our home. A little bit of faith can turn into a massive amount of faith. I think I may have even preached that exact sermon before! And all those things are true!

But then earlier this week, I read an essay by David Lose, one of my favorite preachers, and he completely flipped the script for me. In the essay, he says that to Jesus’ original audience, this parable wouldn’t have felt sweet, comforting, or encouraging at all. In fact, it would have been deeply unsettling. He wrote: “While mustard had modest value as a spice and a medicinal plant, it was also very hard to control and so many farmers treated it like a weed, an invasive weed that can take over not just a garden but a whole farm, soaking up the water and nutrients in the soil and making it difficult for the planted crops to thrive. Similarly, birds were not considered pets but rather pests, stealing the seed farmers had sowed. Remember the parable Jesus told way back in chapter eight about the sower who scattered all that seed, some of which was choked by weeds and some plucked up by birds? Well, that’s kind of what Jesus says the kingdom of God is like – it’s a weed that can get out of control and that will attract all kinds of unwanted ne’er-do-wells.”

In the ancient world, first-century Jewish farmers took immense pride in their strictly organized, neatly manicured gardens. Levitical law strictly forbade the mixing of different kinds of seeds in a single plot of land. They wanted order. They wanted clean, predictable rows of vegetables that stayed exactly where they belonged. But if a mustard seed drops into the garden, it was an absolute disaster. Mustard doesn’t stay in its designated row. It shoots roots out horizontally underneath the soil, invisible to the eye, until suddenly it erupts everywhere. It chokes out prize crops. It is an invasive, aggressive weed that completely ruins the farmer’s neat, carefully controlled plan.

And then Jesus adds that this giant, invasive weed becomes a nesting place for the birds of the air. Again, we think of birds as sweet little creatures that sing on our windowsills. But to an ancient farmer, birds were economic ruin. They were dirty, noisy, destructive pests that swooped in to steal the harvest and disrupt the peace. And Jesus says: “That is what the Kingdom of God is like. It’s a giant, unstoppable weed that plays host to a noisy, disruptive flock of pests.”

And what about the yeast? We think of yeast as a nice little baking ingredient package we buy at the grocery store. But in the ancient world, yeast was viewed almost exclusively with negativity. It was a contaminant. It was a fungus, a form of rot that you mixed into pure dough to cause it to ferment and puff up. Almost every single reference to yeast in the entire Bible is used as an analogy for sin, corruption, and arrogance. It was something to be purged from the house during holy days. And yet Jesus looks at the religious elite and says: “The Kingdom of God is like a contaminant that a woman sneaks into a pristine batch of flour until the whole thing is completely infected.”

So what in the world? But Jesus words fit within their larger context of chapters 13-16: Jesus is locked in a fierce, ongoing debate. He isn’t talking to his disciples here; he is sharing his message of the Kingdom directly with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the neat, orderly farmers of the religious world. They had their lives perfectly manicured. They kept the rules, they drew the borders, they knew exactly who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out.’ They wanted a Messiah who would come in a grand, royal procession to validate their neat rows of righteousness.

But from the very beginning of Luke’s gospel, Jesus proclaimed a radically different reality. Jesus said that God is coming to change things around – to bring the low high and the high low, to feed the hungry and send those who are regularly full away empty, to make the lowly proud and the proud lowly. He is proclaiming a kingdom not based on power or might but on weakness and vulnerability.

This kingdom – where the fragile are welcomed, the poor valued, and sinners forgiven – runs about as contrary to the kingdoms of the world as we can imagine. And I know that we can imagine…

We see this over and over again: In Luke 13:30,”The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” In Luke 14:11, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” In Luke 15, the prodigal son is welcomed home. The chorus of the gospel is the REVERSAL of power. David Lose again writes, “And it is no surprise that the rulers and beneficiaries of the current order will resist the encroachment and growth of God’s kingdom with all the power at their disposal.”

They will resist giving full human rights to people of color. They will resist giving women the right to vote. And perhaps a little more recently, two prominent denominations will vote to keep women far from the pulpit. Nations will struggle over borders, making policy decisions that leave vulnerable lives from faraway places unprotected. Grasping at power…sometimes even in the name of Jesus.

This is not the Kingdom Jesus speaks of…

But if we look around, we can see it. We can see mustard seeds of hope. Yeast causing goodness to rise. I see it here in this place. When the food program was started. When kids from the neighborhood were invited. When a partnership with Kendra’s house was fostered. These were and are bold steps from a congregation willing to let its own tidy garden get disrupted for the sake of the Gospel.

Once the mustard seed is dropped into the garden, you cannot get it out. Once the yeast is mixed into the flour, it alters the entire batch. We cannot compartmentalize Jesus. We cannot assign God’s Kingdom to a neat one-hour slot on a Sunday morning and keep the rest of our week perfectly under our control.

Praying “Your Kingdom Come” is a dangerous prayer.

It means asking God to bring an invasive, barrier-breaking, grace into our carefully organized world. It means letting the beautiful “contaminant” of love infect our neat biases until we no longer look at the marginalized with judgment, but with the radical hospitality of Christ.

We pray “Your Kingdom Come” with fear and trembling. We pray “your Kingdom Come” with open hands. We pray “your Kingdom Come” not knowing what in the world might happen. Just as it should be.

Dear God, overcome our defenses and infect us with your Spirit that sees good where most see evil and offers grace where others would offer condemnation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I was struck by the particular timing of the Early Bird service, set around the Sunday closest to the peak of the northern hemisphere’s spring migration, and this service, set around that time of year when we mark and bless the graduation of many of our students.

It is peak migration season for them as well.

Spring does this. Now that it is finally here, we can see the change all around us. From the birds to our students…this is a season of movement and change.

We live in transient world. One where our start often looks different from our end…where migration patterns are sometimes more than annual, for the birds as well. And yet, here we are, in the middle of of series called “A Place to Call Home.” A series that has repeated our hope: that all who come here find it to be a place of welcoming and settling.

So what does a series about home have to say to a flock of graduates in particular, who are preparing to migrate? What does “A Place to Call Home?” say to someone who is preparing to leave home?

Perhaps a lesson from Philippians, and the birds, will teach us.

Philippians 2 is a favorite of mine. It is well rehearsed in my memory, and perhaps yours as well. Paul builds momentum from the beginning from the passage: “If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, then make my joy complete…by doing this: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

It all points to that: be of one mind.

Now we have all been around humans enough to know this is no simple task. For the several hundred minds listening to this, there are several thousand opinions. How could we possibly have the SAME MIND? And yet, Paul insists on it. Not once…but five times in this letter. “Be of the same mind.”

Now, our graduates could tell you that “mind” is a noun. Same mind or one mind…it’s a mind and it’s a noun. And yet, in the original, the word for MIND does not occur once, let alone five times. The word is in fact not a noun, but a verb. But not just any verb…it’s a super verb. It’s a verb with wings.

The word is “phronesis.” It sounds like a catabolic state, like “when he exercised, he reached a state of phronesis.” And that just might be the proper use of the word.

Phronesis means thinking as it relates to actions. It means setting your mind to do something. It means a mindset so deep it impacts how you act. It’s a belief that leads to action. We don’t have a verb like this in the English language, so translators turn it into a noun and say “same mind.” But this loses the full embodied action of this word.

Phronesis is a mind with wings.

When you first read this passage, it seems as though Paul is saying that everyone should think the same thoughts, have the same ideas, the same beliefs. But what he is actually saying is that we are to all start from the same place.

Professor Frank Crouch writes, “He wants them to embody and be guided by the kind of decision-making that leads them into the ways of Jesus, and opens them up to God’s life-giving power that permeates all of creation.”

He wants them to start on the same page. From the same place. From the same home. After all, it’s what birds do. They navigate thousands of miles across open oceans, through fierce storms, and over international borders. They fly far into unfamiliar territories, completely exposed to the elements. Yet, no matter how far they fly, they possess an internal, biological map that points them back to where they belong. They don’t just fly aimlessly; they are guided by an invisible, powerful instinct that tells them exactly how to get back home.

Friends, we have a home in which to migrate. A home that has given us values, loves, and roots that will guide us. And then send us. We are meant to give these values wings. We are meant to be out there—in the world, “phroneoing.” We begin your journey from a solid foundation of a home that sends you into your next chapters—and is here for your whenever you migrate back.

We are meant to put all the things that we learn from scripture, from our families, from this place…into action. Because the real test is not one that you take in a classroom, but how you put it all into practice.

We could all describe humility, grace, faithfulness. But it’s a whole other thing to be humble, grace-filled, and faithful. We could easily memorize verse three: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” But It’s another to actually live it out.

Students, a Christ shaped life happens at the intersection of knowledge and action. Take all that you have learned—and give it wings.

It is after the third mention of having the same mind as Christ where Paul seemingly breaks into song. This hymn was probably well known at the time (although it seems a little wordy to be memorable). Paul uses this familiar song to remind that that Christ himself “practiced phronesis.” He humbled himself. He took on the form of a slave.He became human. And became obedient to death. Even death on a cross.

Jesus didn’t just give us a set of rules from a safe distance. He showed us that the ultimate expression of phronesis—willingly bending down to lift others up.

All these winged verbs Paul uses here in Philppians 2 are in the plural. Phronesis is best done in community. Loving one another, sharing in the Spirit, compassion, sympathy, mutual humility…these happen best in flocks…

I’m in the middle of a lovely book called Theo of Golden. For those of you who haven’t read it—I commend it to you. For those of you who are beyond chapter 19, I don’t want to hear a word.

Earlier this week, I was listening to the end of chapter 17. The main character, Theo, is sitting on a bench, facing west. As he is prone to do. And he takes in a particularly beautiful sight. Here’s how the author puts it:

“A cloud of birds — starlings and redwings, thousands upon thousands of them — flew with synchronized precision, a dancing funnel, undulating in perfect unison. Theo had learned somewhere in his past that the spectacle was called a murmuration. His soul caught its breath at the sight, like a swimmer coming up from the depths. For that moment he could separate beauty from his grief, and celebrate, if only ambivalently, that a world of goodness exists apart from, or bigger than, his aching loneliness.”

This is the picture I had in my head for all of us: when we echo Christ, when we seek humility, gentleness, and love, when we phronoes together…we are this cloud of birds. There is no single bird shouting orders at the others. There is no leader dictating the exact coordinates of the next turn. Instead, every individual bird is acutely attuned to the presence, the rhythm, and the movement of the birds right next to them. They share a single, collective disposition. They share an animating life force. They dance through the sky in perfect unison because they are practicing a group phronesis. They are looking out not just for their own flight path, but for the flight path of the whole community.

I wonder if murmurations are phroneos with wings.

In a few moments, a murmuration of students will gather here at the front of their church home and we will mark the beginning of migration season for them. For our younger graduates, your migration will be to summer camp, the beach, maybe the Cone Shop. To our older graduates, your migration might take you farther.

But wherever you go, remember, you always have a home here. And remember, there is a world of goodness apart from, and bigger than, any moments of loneliness.

The ultimate promise of this text is that we are not left to your own devices to figure out a flight path. It is God who is at work in you, giving you both the desire and the ability to fly according to God’s good purpose.

Students, trust the wings God has given you. Align your heart with those flying beside you, and go transform the world into a place of God’s goodwill.

And in the midst of all your flights, remember, you always have a place to call home.

-Thanks to Jane Lancaster Patterson and Frank Crouch and their excellent Working Preacher essays on Philippians 2.

I know I’m biased, but there is something about a track meet. I complain about our son running the first event and the last event 7 hours later. But I love every minute of it.

My aunt began the meet by inviting us to stand for the national anthem. She then told us that it would be a recording of the Ottawa Hills High School choir. Now, those of you who are familiar with our local geography and school system know that Ottawa Hills sits at a complex intersection. It is a school that serves an economically precarious and racially diverse community, by and large a sharp contrast to the private schools located in close proximity.

The recording rang out over Houseman Field. It was, of course, the National Anthem. But it was most unique version of the anthem I’ve ever heard. The words were the same. The notes followed many of the same cadence. You could tell it was the National Anthem. But this version was gospel. It had pauses, swells, and several parts that at first were in disharmony and would slide into harmony… It was beautiful. And haunting. And clearly memorable.

I stood there on the bleachers and I wondered about the students on the other side of that recording. What was on their minds as they sang the words: “land of the free… home of the brave”? I wondered if they truly felt free. I wondered if they truly felt brave. Their passion seemed to indicate they did. But as they sang about their country…one in which I would imagine had at times caused them to feel marginalized and inferior, I just had to wonder if this was to them “land of the free and home of the brave?”

I love that they sang the National Anthem. But I love even more that they sang it gospel.

Today’s passage is Philippians 1. The whole thing. Not just the first few verses that 9 out of 10 sermons, life verses and thank you notes prefer. Yes, Paul thanks God every time he remembers the Philippian church. But he is remembering this…from a prison cell. Yes, he’s encourages them and supports them in every way he can. But he is encouraging and supporting them…from a prison cell. And yes, he’s telling them how to be good citizens…while being a prisoner of the empire. He’s begging them to lead a law-abiding Roman Empire life…but to lead it gospel.

We’re in our fourth week of our series, A Place to Call Home. Wondering how we as a church can be a place where everyone who walks through these doors—no matter what day of the week—can feel welcome, known and connected. So far we’ve considered a place of generosity, grafting, grace. And today is “A place of grappling.”

Grappling is a funny word. It’s one of those words where if you look at it long enough, it starts to look really strange. I looked up the actual definition of “grapple” and love that Webster actually listed “to use a grapple” as one of the definitions…super helpful. The one I was looking for was a bit more relatable: To engage in a close fight, struggle, or try to solve a difficult problem (usually used with “with”). Like “She had to grapple with how to define the word grapple.” Or “Our church has had to grapple with complex challenges and a changing neighborhood over the years.” Or if you’re Paul and the Philippians: “They had to grapple with living as both citizens of Heaven and citizens of an empire with opposing values.”

And perhaps we do too.

I love that the definition has that short caveat…usually followed by “with” Yes, we grapple with issues, problems, divisions…complex tensions that need and deserve reckoning. But this is best done WITH each other. Paul writes to the Philippians because they are grappling with many of the same issues Paul himself was. Scholar Jane Patterson points out: “They, too, have experiences of suffering, anxiety, and deprivation. Roughly a hundred years before this letter was written, Philippi was the site of the final battle of the Roman civil war. The town was taken by Antony and Octavian, subsequently colonized by Rome, and the tillable land seized from the local Greek-speaking populace and given to Roman veterans. Paul’s letter is addressed to a community of people who have known and continue to experience economic precariousness and social ostracism. The letter does more than create a bond through mutual suffering; the real point is to share the joy and confidence of solidarity in Christ, while maintaining clear-sighted awareness of their situation.”

You can sense Paul’s personal grappling. Here he is, penning this from prison, using the word “joy” more than any other letter. But also fully aware, by his own surroundings no less, of the danger of his situation. He is awaiting a sentence of either life or death. And this he shares with the Philippians, because grappling is best done in community.

Once he brings a word of thanksgiving and joy, Paul casually lays out the thesis statement of the letter in verse 27: ”Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Sounds good, right? Live your life? Be a good person? Maybe even live your best life ala Joel Osteen! In our English translations, “live your life” sounds like a general moral encouragement—like “be a good person.” But the Greek word Paul uses is politeuesthe. Which at first meant absolutely nothing to me—until you take the word a part a bit. It comes from the word polis, or city. As in “Indiana…or Ana…” The literally meaning is: “Conduct your citizenship.”

Using the word “citizenship” with a group of non-citizens was a bold, almost provocative move. He waits until chapter three to spell out what he means: “our citizenship is in heaven.” This a direct challenge to the Roman status quo. By claiming a heavenly citizenship, Paul is telling his readers that their ethics and loyalties belong to the Kingdom of God, not the Empire. Paul is quietly signaling to them that their true home is in Christ—not in the empire. That their “conduct of citizenship” doesn’t come from Caesar. It comes from the Gospel. So in other words, give to Caesar and all that…but give it gospel.

Paul had to be careful. Sometimes I forget that his letters would have to screened by his jailers. So some writers on Philippians have spoken of a “hidden transcript” within the letter, a message that would have eluded his captors while getting his true message across: Philippians 1:27-30 talks about the gospel of Christ, faith, salvation, grace. To outside readers these terms probably seemed meaningless. But to the intended hearers, they signaled complete devotion to the status-overturning mission of God.

This sounds an awful lot like gospel music to me. Gospel music began as a form of “hidden transcript”—a way to speak truth to power right under the power’s nose. When they sang about “crossing the River Jordan,” they were singing about the afterlife, yes, but they were also singing about the Ohio River and the literal North. It was a form of spiritual and social resistance, but perhaps more accurately, it was a form of sacred resilience. It was a way of taking the master’s language and “singing it gospel”, infusing it with a hope that the master couldn’t understand and a joy that slave owners couldn’t take away. It was a way of claiming a home in God while being a slave in homes in the world.

This is what Paul is doing in Philippians. He is taking the “National Anthem” of the Roman Empire—which was built on the “Pax Romana,” peace achieved through the sword—and he is reinterpreting it through the lens of a Savior who was executed by that very empire.

There is a lot to grapple with here. How do we live as citizens of Heaven while being citizens of our nation? A nation is at this current moment is so divided?

We call this place “home.” And yet, Paul reminds us that we are also “citizens of Heaven.” And we have to grapple with our dual citizenship. We have to grapple with the values of the kingdom of God while living in the kingdom of this world…. And so we pay taxes, we vote, we cheer for our athletes, and we sing the anthem. But friends, let’s sing it gospel.

How exactly do we do this? Especially a bunch of people who made not have great rhythm? We begin with this: we tell the truth. We acknowledge that we haven’t been so good at this in the past. Many of us don’t have the necessary rhythm for gospel music, and haven’t been great advocates for all it encompasses. We tell the truth about the “beautiful and haunting” reality of our world: That we refuse to sing a “cheap” anthem that ignores the suffering of the poor or the cries for justice. As citizens of a democracy, we have a responsibility to work for the “shalom” of our city. But as citizens of Heaven, we have a responsibility to tell the truth when our earthly home fails to reflect God’s justice.

Second, we practice solidarity. Paul felt a deep “solidarity in Christ” with the Philippians because they were both “at risk.” When we see the the economically precarious and racially marginalized, our dual citizenship calls us to stand with them. We don’t just “pity” them we recognize that their struggle is our struggle, because we are members of the same kingdom.

Third, we practice a “holy restlessness.” We know that as good as this home is, it isn’t the final home. This perspective is what allowed Paul to have joy in prison. If his “home” was his comfort, he would have been in despair. If his “home” was his reputation, he would have been crushed. But because his “home” was Christ, the prison walls couldn’t touch his center. This is a tough one for us. We don’t like restlessness. We don’t like discomfort. And I grapple with this: has our “citizenship” become so comfortable that we’ve forgotten how to grapple?

Friends, we are called to be citizens of God’s kingdom. To be planted and participate where we are in this place. But to sing it gospel.

When the choir sang the National Anthem “gospel,” I heard an underlying message that said: “We will sing the song of this land, but we will sing it with the soul of a Kingdom. We will sing about the ‘home of the brave,’ but our bravery comes from the Spirit of God.” I want to live the way those students sang. I want to be someone who acknowledges the “notes and patterns” of the world I live in, but who brings gospel version to that song.

How can we sing the anthem…but sing it gospel? That’s a question for us all to grapple with…

As we move throughout our days and weeks, we hear many voices. We hear the voice of status, the voice of fear, the voice of political division, and the voice of “me-first.” Friends, the midst of those voices, listen for the “hidden transcript” of the Spirit. “Conduct your citizenship in a manner worthy of the Gospel. Love your neighbors. Seek the peace of the city. Hold fast to the joy that suffering cannot quench.”

Sing the anthem. But for heaven’s sake, let’s sing it gospel. Amen.

I’m not sure whether to call it “Comfort Watching” or just free therapy, but I have a habit of watching certain TV shows over and over again. But there are a few criteria to become one of these well-worn shows: they can’t be scary, mean, or disturbing; they are most often set in either the British countryside or somewhere sunny; and they are best enjoyed if I absolutely know what is coming next.

I’ve watched the episode of the Great British Bake Off where they make a Swedish Princess Cake more times than I can count.

I know that Matthew is going to propose to Mary in front of Downton Abbey in the snow…and it still gets me every time. I know how the Greyhounds score the final goal in Ted Lasso, but I still cue it up every couple months.

I would contend that these stories are better because I know the ending. And I know I’m not alone.

I asked my dad, a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, about a clip he kept on their digital recorder for years and this simple question produced the following email: “It was 1992. Game seven of the National League Championship series. The winner would go to the World Series, the loser would go home. (I might be adding the voice effects…) The Pittsburgh Pirates, with Barry Bonds and company, were leading the Braves 2-0 into the bottom of the ninth. The Braves scored one run, and then loaded the bases with two outs. And then, little known Francisco Cabrera got a base hit to left field! The tying run scores and the slow-footed (read: old) Sid Bream comes racing around third, Bonds throws from left field, and Sid barely beats the catcher’s tag and the BRAVES WIN!”

He told me he rewatched it again yesterday…with tears in his eyes.

There’s something comforting, reassuring, and yet still exciting about watching something when the end is already known.

Here we are, on Easter Sunday, and frankly, we know the ending. It’s literally all around us. The hallelujahs are out of the jar. The 40th day has come. Christ is risen! We know the ending.

It is a perspective that the disciples in our Gospel passage do not share. Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb while it is still dark in utter despair. So when she sees the stone has been moved, she doesn’t think “Jesus is Alive!” She thinks “his body has been taken.” Even when she sees Jesus, she thinks he’s the gardener! What has gone so wrong has now gone even worse. Jesus is dead. And now, they’ve taken his body.

Mary was just one of the many disciples who were living in this desolate space on the other side of the cross. Their teacher, their guide, their friend, was gone. They were living the agony of the 39th day…that silent, waiting space that we’ve talked about this entire Lenten season. (For the visitors here with us, we’ve named that before the resurrection on the 40th day…there’s the 39th. And not just here in Scripture, we all have them. Perhaps there’s a resolution that has not yet come. A diagnosis that has not been healed. A relationship that is still fractured.)

The disciples were living in their worst 39th day… made even worse because not only did they not know when the 40th day was coming…they didn’t have an imagination about it coming at all. This was it. Jesus was gone.

Yesterday a group of us met to mark Holy Saturday with scholar Suzanne McDonald. She brought to life, in art and speech, just how terrified the disciples were. They were, as she put it, “humanly hopeless.” The only thing left for Mary was the grim errand of the burial spices—and now this gardener was impeding her plans.

It is only when Jesus speaks her name that she recognizes who he is. As Jesus said, “Mary”, right around dawn, so did the 40th day.

So she runs back to tell the disciples: “I have seen the Lord!”

This 5-word testimony is one of the most pivotal in history. Notice, she doesn’t say “I saw the Lord.” “I think I saw the Lord.” She says it this way for a reason. In the original Greek, and in our English present perfect tense, “I have seen” means something specific.

While the past tense stays in the past, the present perfect tense is an action in the past that has current relevance.

In other words, her present is made perfect because of Jesus’ presence.

Mary says this to the disciples, but here in John, we don’t know their reaction. We don’t know if they believed, if they asked for proof, or if they scoffed like they do in other gospel accounts.

What we do know is when evening comes, one verse later, John reports that the “doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.”

So you get the feeling that resurrection hope hasn’t fully been realized. That even though they were well into the 40th day… they were still living in the 39th. That their present was far from perfect.

Perhaps we know the feeling. Like the disciples… we have to rely on Mary’s word. It was her perfect present. Not ours. And besides, there are still problems in the world. Wars. Fear. Injustice. Many of our 39th days plod on…

Friends, we are not here because all our problems are solved on Easter morning. We are here because Mary testifies that there is something greater than all our problems: a promise of resurrection. A promise of the 40th day. We are here because we know the end. And we want to watch it again and again. And frankly, we need to. We need a resurrection perspective. A lens in which to see the world. A perspective that tells us there is more to this life than the pain that is so often prevalent. A perspective that shows us hope in the midst of despair. A perspective that sees resurrection, even in death. I’m calling it a resurrective.

Now it turns out, despite my auto-spell check, resurrective is a real word, not just one I made up. It’s an adjective defined as “tending to resurrect.” But today, I’m promoting it to a noun.

Because having a resurrective is what we all so dearly need: to be about the business of tending all things towards resurrection. This is what changes everything. It’s what gets us through every 39th day…a resurrective that lives with the sure knowledge of the end, seeking to watch, create, love, care for it over and over again. Despite everything else that we are seeing…“I have seen the Lord.” Despite Mary being at a tomb and then surrounded by disbelief, she proclaims, “I have seen the Lord.”

Preacher Karoline Lewis puts it best: “These words not only communicate that Mary’s perspective of Jesus has changed, that she is able view Jesus in all of the promises of his resurrected self, but also that her perspective of her very self has changed. Her first-person sermon suggests that she has confidence in her words and now in her true identity because in calling Jesus ‘Rabbouni’ she views herself as a disciple. This is perhaps the oft-overlooked promise of the resurrection—it alters your perspective on your identity, who God wants you to be in the world, toward what God is calling you to do. All of a sudden you start to trust that who God said you were all this time might actually be true; that God might have something in mind for you that you have not allowed yourself to believe.”

A 40th day Resurrective is the viewpoint that empowers us to move through the world and call attention to the light that the darkness cannot put out. We become like Mary in these moments, resurrection translators who speak grace and love and light into a world where violence, pain, and hatred have too much airtime.

We do this by practicing resurrective listening, hearing what’s behind someone’s angry words and seeking to understand.

We do this by engaging in resurrective ministry, investing in our neighborhoods because we see both the need and the hope.

We do this by offering resurrective presence, standing in the shadow with someone until they can see the light.

There is still despair in our world. There is still loss, illness, and injustice. But the difference between us and the disciples in that upper room is this: we know the 40th day is coming. In fact, we know it’s here. Today. On this Easter Sunday.

For our own 39th days, we might wonder when. We may wonder how. But because of the empty tomb, we never have to wonder if.

We know the end.

So we can now look on every shadow and see the light that is stirring; we can look at every locked door and know that Christ is already standing on the other side. We can live with the quiet, joyful confidence that the 40th day has dawned.

And this makes for an ending better than we ever could have imagined.

Today’s account of Elijah reminded me of a word, or really an article that circulated broadly about five years ago titled,“There’s a name for that blah you’re feeling… it’s called languishing.”

The author, Adam Grant, explains it best: “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.”

The funny thing is I remember where I first read the article, on Facebook—a place that can, let’s face it, be a home for languishing if you let it.

The article’s thesis statement is essentially, “Languishing dulls your motivation and disrupts your ability to focus.” Part of the danger is that when we’re languishing, we might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive (or that you’ve resorted to alliterating sentences for no reason). We become indifferent to our indifference.

Recently, there are a few new terms that have grown from languishing since the article came out. Like “brain rot”, that feeling one gets after staring at your phone for too long. Or “doom scrolling.” Why are these things that sound so bad so easy to do?

The author writes, “Even if you’re not languishing, you probably know people who are. Understanding it better can help you help them.”

Languishing is a great word to describe the 39th day. And it is the perfect word to describe Elijah at the beginning of our passage for today.

We meet our fair prophet when he is on the run from evil queen Jezebel…and he goes out into the wilderness and asks God to let him die. So, perhaps he’s a few steps beyond languishing. But instead of granting his wish to die…God sends an angel.

Suddenly an angel touches him. The angel said, “Get up and eat.” Elijah looked around. Near his head he saw some bread. It had been baked over hot coals. A jar of water was also there. So Elijah ate and drank. Then he lay down again.

This is then repeated again. Fortified by this double gift of food and drink, Elijah sets out for Mt. Horeb. But for this rather large detail of the story, we have only this: “He went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.” Or in the NIV, “He traveled for 40 days and 40 nights.”

In terms of the actual journey that Elijah takes—that is all the airtime it gets here in 1 Kings: “He traveled for 40 days and 40 nights.”

40 days is a long time. And for it to simply be a footnote, a verse, a mention, it leaves me with more questions than answers. Because it’s not just 40 days, it’s a 40 day walk. It is a big deal.

Some of you may know that I have a thing for walkers. Kyle reminded me this week that it has been 8 years since he walked the French way of the Camino, a 33 day walk across Spain to Santiago. He spent hours researching the journey: the right bag, the right shoes, the right pants. He read blogs, websites, books, and even watched that Martin Sheen movie…

Pilgrims of the Camino do not bring tents. Or food. They rely on hostels and food stands, often run by volunteers to make it through their journey. And so while there is an element of great preparation for Kyle, there was also a huge amount he had to take on faith.

I don’t get the sense here that Elijah had visited too many travel blogs before setting out. This was, after all, a few years before you could grab travel gear deals on Steep and Cheap.com. It doesn’t seem like there was much preparation at all.

But the text just says, “he traveled for 40 days and 40 nights.” We hear about the beginning and the end, and somewhere in between is the 39th day.

The start of the journey is marked by two heaven sent meals…but apart from food and water, that is all we know. In fact, most scholars believe that he did not eat or drink for the rest of the 40 days. That the food that was given to him by the angel sustained him for his entire journey. So while Elijah could not rely on the hospitality of strangers along the way, he is sourced by the hospitality of God from the beginning. And that was all he needed. Not once…but twice. “And he was given new strength.”

If you’re anything like me, you could use a reminder of this new strength. That while we go searching and seeking, while we act on our restlessness, while we languish. God lavishes.

Elijah was broken. Hidden under that shade of a puny little shrub, he asked to just be done. And he is touched by God. Not once…but twice. God’s love and grace in our life is never just enough. It is LAVISH.

I believe that antidote for languishing is lavishing. Elijah is sustained by the meals he receives from God. One after another. Grace upon grace. This is God’s nature and pattern. Not just for Elijah. But for all of us.

1 John 1:3, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

Not just love, great love. Not just children, children of God.

When Madeline was a toddler, whenever she would ask for a drink of water or milk, or cookies or ice cream, when we would ask her how much? She would always answer, “too much!” This is how God answers us—with too much.

Too much love, grace, kindness and mercy. Enough to carry us through our journeys. Enough to get us through any 39th day.

Our stories of the 39th day are bookended by angels. Here, they attend to Elijah in the before. With Jesus, they attend to him after. Strength for the journey ahead. Strength to help recover from the journey. Strength to help us through the languishing. The angel simply asks Elijah to get up.

Elijah had taken on the preferred posture of languishing…also known as the fetal position. Also known as the official posture of doomscrolling. And in the midst of this he says, “I’m no better than my people of long ago.”

He manages to disparage both himself and his people. We knew the sentence was in trouble when it started with “I’m no better than…” That’s right up there with ‘I never…’ or ‘I always…’

In his latest book, The Tears of Things, Richard Rohr calls Elijah an ‘unfinished prophet.’ I love that. We often think God only uses the finished product, the polished, ‘40th-day’ version of a person. But God’s favorite medium is the unfinished.

God doesn’t wait for Elijah to get his act together or to stop ‘languishing’ before He calls him a prophet. He uses the man under the broom tree—the one who is tired, grumpy, and ready to quit.

The angel silences Elijah’s inner critic by simply telling him to “GET UP.” And when he did…his focus shifted, he saw more clearly, his needs were lavishly met, and he went in the strength, right into his 39th day.

Going in the strength of God does not mean that our troubles are over. Our skies are clear. Our 40th day is here. Evil queen Jezebel was out for Elijah just as much after he had been fed by God. But it does mean that our eyes are fixed on something other than our own troubles—

What would it mean if we all got up? Where would we go if we truly believed we went with God’s strength? Imagine if we all decided to lavish God’s grace on someone we suspected might be languishing?

The challenge for many of us is not to over think it. The simplicity of the angel’s gift is beautiful. It was bread and water.

For us it might be a text of encouragement, a phone call to someone you haven’t seen, a word of welcome to someone at the margins, a meal to someone just because.

These simple things can give more strength than we know, despite their appearance, they are beautifully “too much.”

That bread and water set Elijah on a new course. And gave him new strength. One that led him out of death into life. One that led him out of languishing into lavishing.

Friends, the same journey is available to you and to me. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us…that we should be called children of God. And indeed…that is who we are.

But this was not a typical day. This was the day I had looked forward to for over six months—the day I was flying to Luxembourg—like the country—in Europe—to speak at a women’s retreat there. I don’t do things like this. I mean, a trip to Trader Joes is a big day for me. I was giddy with excitement. I had packed my Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer, cause safety first—and hearing no concern from the organizers of the retreat—I left for the airport.

After a quick layover in Newark, I boarded my flight—first to Copenhagen, then I was to go onto Luxembourg City. The plane was eerily empty…this should have been my first clue that there was a problem. You know that middle row on big planes? I had the entire thing to myself. It was hands down the best overseas flight I’ve ever taken. No kids, no crowds, no working wi-fi…just what I needed.

I landed at 7 am (Copenhagen time) on Thursday, March 12. On my way to my next flight, I turned my phone to text Kyle that I had arrived. A few seconds later…I looked down at my phone.

I had 47 text messages…

Over the course of the 8 hours I had been on the flight—with no contact or access to news—the world had shut down. President Trump had announced a travel ban on flights from Europe. Schools had announced closing. Churches had indeed cancelled worship for this Sunday-a lighthearted joke just 12 hours earlier. And I was 4,000 miles from home.

Despite the early or late hour (depending on which side of the ocean we were on)…Kyle and I connected by phone. I remember his words so clearly…”I need you to come home…now.” And I remember my response even better, ”No!” I went on…”I can’t leave! I just got here. I’ve been looking forward to this! For so long. I’ve been here for five minutes. I can’t come home now.”

Over the next hour, the seriousness of the situation sunk in. And the reality that I could be stuck in Europe for an indefinite period of time sunk in, and although that was tempting for about 30 seconds, I knew I needed to get home. Seven hours after landing in Copenhagen, I was on a flight back to Chicago.

I landed at 6:30 pm on Thursday, March 12…along with every other American who had been in Europe. It took me six hours to get through the customs and another three hours to get home.

So many lines, so much waiting, a few tears, and no sleep…all to make the largest U-turn of my life. Exactly 40 hours after I had woken up, I fell back asleep.

I’m sure you have a Covid story to tell as well. The moment you heard that everything was shut down, school, church, tournaments, all of it.

We all lived that crazy Covid collective story. A story of both loss and gain. Quiet and disruption. A story of both gained family time and increased isolation. A story of both realigned priorities and increased addiction. A story that is still being written—because I don’t know that still know the full impact of those months of isolation.

Once I finally returned home from my lunch break in Europe…I did indeed count the hours that I had been awake, 40 to be exact. I found it particularly interesting, being a Bible nerd, that it was 40. I’ve always been interested in that particular number.

After all, it’s a Bible Trivia favorite:

-it rained for 40 days during the flood, and took another 40 to dry

-The Hebrew people wandered around the wilderness for 40 years

-Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai…three separate times!

-Goliath challenged the Israelites to a dual for…you guessed it, 40 days

-Jesus fasted in the wilderness before his temptation for 40 days

-Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after his resurrection

40 days or years (or hours in my case) is indicative of a time of challenge and endurance. In Scripture, it signifies a time of testing and trial. It’s an in between space that is harder than most.

The number I’ve been considering even more than 40—is the number 39. The 39th day. The almost but not quite end. And this, of course, is our theme for Lent.

The 39th day represents that span of time when God seems far away. When the lesson is yet unlearned…when the challenge has not yet been conquered…when the person you’ve wronged has not quite forgiven.

It is that messy in-between space that so many of us are caught in. It is a time of testing. A time of quiet. A time of endurance.

And it’s hard…waiting for all of this…on the 39th day. Especially when we don’t know when our 40th day is coming. Like the Israelites we meet in the text for today…“When the people saw that Moses was SO LONG in coming down…”

Here they are…in the wilderness…stuck in the 39th day…

And so how does a group of wandering Israelites handle it?

Not great.

They succumbed to a three common temptations of the 39th day:

RESTLESSNESS

When timelines do not happen at a pace that WE MANAGE, it is frankly too easy to take matters into our own hands. Moses, and God, are taking way too much time. So we will solve this problem for ourselves. Look! Other nations have lots of gods…let’s do that.

This is the dangerous pivot of the 39th day: when we stop waiting on God and try to work around God. Our restlessness convinces us that God’s silence is actually God’s absence, so we begin to look sideways.

We scan the horizon of our lives, comparing our empty wilderness to the ‘shiny’ solutions of everyone else. We decide that if we can’t have God yield to our schedule, we’ll settle for a creature of our own making.

We trade the steady, invisible presence of the Almighty for the immediate, hollow comfort of something we can touch, see, and, most importantly, control.

Restlessness is fed by another “ness” of the 39th day…

Forgetfulness

Restlessness has a way of erasing our memory.

Think about the Israelites at this moment. They have been freed from slavery-they’ve walked across the bottom of the Red Sea-they’ve been sustained by manna from God. All these good gifts. Totally forgotten.

4 He made an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

This golden calf—fashioned just 5 minutes before this from a bunch of costume jewelry—is now the god that brought them out of Egypt.

When we are restless…we forget ALL that God has done for us. We forget God’s faithfulness, God’s goodness, God’s providence in our lives. We forget—and we look to the bright and shiny things in our life for our salvation. In our yearning and searching for the next best thing, we forget the beautiful past things that God has already done.

Finally, we turn to…

Impulsiveness

They were restless. They were forgetful. So they come up with a solution…on their own. For just a moment, think back over your life…can you identify a time when you’ve done the same thing? When you’ve ‘taken matters into your own hands’? For me, the trouble is thinking of JUST ONE TIME.

In the early years of our marriage, I grew tired of the fact that we had a car payment. So I came up with a plan: we’d buy a cheaper car and sell our nicer car. So I started looking at old Volvos on eBay. I found one that looked pretty good…and I don’t know what came over me, but I charged ahead and bid on it. And all of a sudden—we were the owners of a 1995 Volvo Station Wagon in South Bend, Indiana. (By the way, we lived in Minneapolis at the time). What in the world???

If I’m honest, I’m sharing this story so I don’t have to share others. Words I’ve spoken. Actions I’ve taken. All out of my restlessness. All without the proper memory. All SO JUSTIFIED at the time in my head. All I regret.

Impulsiveness is caffeinated restlessness…and the results are rarely good.

So God gets mad, really mad, and Moses goes down the mountain. And when he questions his brother to get an explanation—I just love his answer:

22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

Whoever said the Bible isn’t funny??

I guess there is one more ‘ness’: deceitfulness. Not only to others, but to ourselves and to God.

And so the invitation this morning is the lose the ‘less’ and the ‘ness.’ To move from “Restlessness” to “Rest.” Just rest. Lose the less. Stop relying on your own doing. Your own posturing. Controlling. Managing.

Before you take matters in your own hands. Before you say the thing you will regret. Before you act in a way that betrays the person God is calling you to be.

The truth is we can do nothing to make the 40th day arrive any faster. But the greater truth is that whatever circumstances of anguish or exhaustion we find yourselves in, God is with us; with us in the quiet, with us in the wait, and with us in our 39th days.

Friends, the one who walked through the wilderness for 40 days is the same one carrying us through ours.

Thanks be to God.

Perhaps you are familiar with the story of Lazarus.

I remember it from Sunday School like this: Lazarus is sick. Lazarus dies. Jesus comes and raises Lazarus from the dead. And they all live happily ever after…

But this is not the story. Or at least, this is not the full story. We are quick to jump to the end, to get to the good part. Because we know what the good part is. This is one of Jesus’ top ten miracles. A greatest hit, if you will.

But I would contend that the good part is actually somewhere in the middle. Because there is a lot that happens in between “now a certain man was ill” in verse 1 and “take off the grave clothes and let him go” in verse 44.

43 verses to be exact. 43 verses of waiting. 43 verses that did not go the way Mary and Martha wanted them to.

-Why did Jesus wait 2 days before leaving?

-Why was it four days after Lazarus died that Jesus arrived?

-Upon arriving, why does Jesus not act right away, instead of so much back and forth?

-And why does Jesus weep, if he knows he is about to work a miracle?

This passage leaves more questions that answers. And frankly, on this day of all days, I am grateful. I’m grateful for a passage that dwells in the meantime. I’m glad to sit in a text that does not rush to a tidy ending.

It’s good to consider a chapter where those close to Jesus say what is hard and honest: if you had been here. Jesus, why did you wait? Jesus, where have you been?

Perhaps you’ve asked the same questions. Perhaps you’ve met Jesus somewhere between verse 1 and 45. If so, you are familiar with a space that I have come to call the 39th Day.

In the Bible, the number 40 appears over and over again. It is a designated period of time set aside for challenge and endurance. Usually, we join the story after the 40 days are over. When the trial is done, the rain has stopped, and the waiting is finished. When Lazarus is raised.

But what about the during? What about the hours, the days, and the years of endurance needed to sustain the meantime?

This is the 39th day: when the lesson is yet unlearned, the challenge hasn’t been conquered, and the healing has not come. When Lazarus is still in the tomb.

Mary and Martha did not know when and if the miracle would arrive. And more often than not, neither do we. We are all in a 39th day of some sort. It might be a relationship not yet healed, an illness not cured, a desire not realized, or a past story that still haunts. We are all waiting for something to resolve, caught in situations beyond our control. And it is hard to be stuck in the 39th day when you don’t know if the 40th is coming tomorrow or ten years from now.

But look at how Jesus meets Martha in her 39th day. She says, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus’ response is not defensive. He doesn’t rush to fix it or offer syrupy platitudes. Instead he responds with the most transparent and startling “I AM” statement of them all: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Right there, in verse twenty-something, in the middle of Martha’s longest 39th day, Jesus gives her the fullest picture of himself: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

We begin the season of Lent tonight, a season that weaves through the wilderness for 40 days until we reach the glory of the resurrection. But we do not start our journey at the end of the story or even the end of this chapter. We ended the reading tonight before Lazarus was raised. Lent is perhaps best marked with a passage that doesn’t rush to a happy ending, one filled with angst, unanswered prayers, and honest cries to a Savior who seems to be taking his time. This is the text that begins our Lent, a story that gives us permission to be frustrated, sad, quiet…you fill in the blank.

I don’t know what 39th day you might find yourself in. Maybe you are in the meantime of a grief that won’t lift, or a diagnosis that has not changed. Maybe you are in a relationship that is still fractured, or a career that feels like a dead end. In that space, you might be weary of the waiting. You might be deeply frustrated by the silence. You might even be throwing air punches at a God who could have been here by now, but chose to stay two days longer.

If that is you, know that Jesus is with you. He is with us in the middle of all our chapters. He can handle our honest emotions, and frankly knows them anyway. The good news is that Jesus loves us just as much in the 39th day as he does in the 40th. And taking a cue from this passage, he might have more to say to us in the meantime than in the resolution.

We are all waiting for something to resolve. We are all holding our breath for the 40th day to finally dawn. But tonight, as we receive these ashes and enter the quiet, we consider the meantime.

We remember that the Good Shepherd does not just meet us at the end of the chapter. He meets us in all our 39th days, standing with us in the dark until the dawn finally breaks.

But this particular hook is a new one for me. Even though it’s an old reference I’ve used many times…I think I can honestly say that this is the first time I’ve ever quoted the show Project Runway in a sermon. I tried to take it in a different direction. But I kept coming back to the wisdom of the Runway. Now, just in case you’ve never seen Project Runway, I’ll save you the time. It’s a reality show where aspiring fashion designers compete for the top spot by making various garments on various themes week in and week out.

In the finale in 2008 (yes, you heard me right…2008…Project Runway transcends time), a finalist made an entire line of clothing trimmed on the hem and the collar with hair. Human hair. UGH. Tim Gunn, the designer’s mentor and coach, took this in for the first time and said this: “I have a refrain about the monkey house at the zoo. When you first enter into the monkey house, all you can think is “This place stinks!” And then after you’re there for 20 minutes, you think “it’s not so bad.” And after a bit longer, it doesn’t smell at all.” Tim then looked at the designer, his line of clothes, back to the designer and said, “you’ve been living in the monkey house.”

At the risk of irreverently implying that the Temple is like the monkey house at the zoo, this is the story that came to mind when I read this passage from John. Those who have selling and money changing don’t smell it anymore. They’ve grown accustomed to what it has become: a marketplace in a place of worship. But Jesus walks in, smells it right away, and calls it out. And not only does he call it out, he moves it out. He goes into the Temple and sees what he sees, that “His Father’s House” has become not a monkey house, but a sheep house, and a cattle house…and a bird house…which I would imagine has its own smells. But it’s not the smell from the animals Jesus is worried about. It’s the stench from the practice of greed and rampant capitalism in the name of God that makes him so mad. What strikes me is the great measures he goes to in order to act on his outrage: He braids a whip to drive out the animals, he empties out the coins, and he over turns the tables.

With thousands of Passover pilgrims there from all over the region, Jesus being one of them, he takes matters into his own hands. Because he knows exactly what is happening at those tables: The money changers are exploiting pilgrims coming in for Passover by charging them exorbitant exchange rates. You couldn’t use Roman coins to pay the temple tax or buy sacrifices because those coins had images of Caesar on them and were considered”graven images.” That was blasphemy in the holy place. So, you had to exchange your Roman money for “Tyrian shekels”…the only approved currency. The money changers charged a fee for that exchange. And then, once you had the special money, you had to buy the animal. What if you brought your own animal from home? The temple inspectors would almost certainly find a “blemish” on it and reject it. So you were forced to buy their pre-approved animals...at four or five times the street value. The passage doesn’t have Jesus speaking until he reaches the doves. Yes, Jesus saves his biggest reaction for these winged creatures of peace. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Does Jesus have something against doves? Not the doves themselves, just the people selling them. Because doves were the only animal poor people could afford to offer as a sacrifice.

Jesus had seen this his whole life. Starting when he was a baby, when Jesus’ parents brought two doves to the Temple, as recorded in Luke 2. The text tells us explicitly that they offered “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” (Luke 2:24). Just imagine: the lamb of God was born into a family who could not afford a lamb. So when Jesus stands there in John 2, watching these money changers exploit the poor, I don’t think he just sees a generic injustice. I think he sees his mom and dad.

Jesus sees a system that has taken the House of God and turned it into a toll booth. And the whole thing stunk. Greed has kept the moneychangers in the bird house for too long. The laws for sacrifice and purification did not start out this way. Laws for this were laid out in the Hebrew Scripture and were strictly adhered to. Jesus was familiar with all of them growing up in a Jewish family. But laws have a way of evolving over time. Or at least, practicing those laws have a way of evolving over time.

“We have to find a way to change out all the different money: so put that table there.”

“We have to find a table for the sheep station, and the cattle station…and the dove station…”

“And inflation is high, and Temple costs are going up, so we need to charge more…it’s simple economics…”

In God’s name.

It is no accident that right before this passage, Jesus turns water into wine. Preacher Barbara Lundblad points out: “That story is deeper than wishing Jesus would come to our parties! John tells us a particular detail that we sometimes miss in our fascination with all that wine: The stone jars were used for the rites of purification. Jesus turns the purification water into wine.”

By the time of Jesus, an elaborate system of purification had been developed. Marcus Borg says that Jesus challenged this vast purity system. It was a system that had profound implications for all of life: “...the effect of the purity system was to create a world with sharp social boundaries; between pure and impure, righteous and sinner, male and female, rich and poor. Changing water into wine was not so much the way to a great party as a way of breaking down the barriers. It was a different way of seeing the world and God’s presence in it. It’s no accident that the miracle at Cana was the first sign Jesus performed. In the message and activity of Jesus, we see an alternative social vision: a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion.”

Those who upheld the laws of purity believed they were sanctified by their actions. Their proximity to God’s holy Temple gave them license to do as they pleased. For the sake of purity. And the smell grew and grew…and they never noticed it.

If only this weren’t so relevant a story. If only I could speak of corruption and greed in the church in the past tense. Those of us who are deemed “closer” to God are at the most risk. Because having God “on your side” gives permission to behave however you want.

So we set up a table of consumer comfort, treating the church like a vendor.

We set up a table of gossip, disguising our slander as “prayer requests” or “concern.”

We set up a table of theological arrogance, loving our being “right” more than we love our neighbor.

We set up a table of Christian Nationalism, wrapping greetings of “Merry Christmas” in the flag, all the while mistreating people created in the image of God.

We set up a table of moral superiority, refusing to see how anyone could see it anyway but ours.

And it’s all too much, so we set up a table of apathy, stepping over the wounded because we just don’t have the time or energy.

And after all these tables are up…we call them out. We name them with righteous judgment. And then we realize we’re sitting at one too. And we don’t smell a thing.

The good news is that purity Jesus offers is not something we have to buy, or earn, or fake. It is a disruptive compassion that overturns the tables we are hiding behind. God loves us too much to let us live in the monkey house. God loves us too much to let us settle for a faith that smells like a transaction. God loves us too much to let us continue sitting at a table of apathy or exclusion.

This morning, Jesus clears the space so that he can set up a different kind of table. A table of generosity, grace and compassion. A table of forgiveness, mercy, and love. A table where all are welcome…money-changers, sinners, disciples…you and me.

And it is at this table, we are purified for service in Jesus’ name.

Let us pray.

Gracious and loving God, overturn the tables of our pride, our apathy, our exclusion. Drive away a transactional faith that tries to gain your favor by over-performing. Lead us at last to the table where every person is seen, every debt is cleared, and every heart is made whole. Amen.

I’m talking of course, about John 3:16…For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have ever lasting life.

I mean, that pretty much says it. There’s a good reason it’s the preferred sign of choice at sporting events. If only the poster had enough room to carry all the nuance, layers and even confusion that comes before and after it…or at least an asterisk to indicate that there might be more here than can fit on a poster.

When we first meet Nicodemus here in John chapter 3, he seems like a pretty amiable guy. He strikes up a conversation with Jesus by saying, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” He and his buddies had seen the signs of Jesus. “Jesus, we know!” You’re the one. You’re it! You’re the sign who does the signs. Next thing you know they’ll be searching for sharpies and poster board. Nicodemus declares, Jesus, you have come from God and God is present in you. And that’s all the sign he needs.

But Jesus is not looking a poster child, and his response is less than enthusiastic. Because for Jesus, seeing a sign is not enough. And he’s read a few signs of his own. First, despite Nick’s certainty, there are new things that make this encounter a little suspicious. Notice it says that he has come to see Jesus in the cover of night. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to hold up that poster board. He wanted to keep this meeting a little more private. Also, it seems as though Jesus is dubious of this quick faith. Such a declaration of certainty about who Jesus is, without much information behind it. And Jesus sees right through it.

There were a few times in this conversation where I felt a little bad for Nicodemus. He comes with a simple declaration as if making profession of faith, and Jesus lands a systematic theology exam in his lap. He engages the pharisee in a conversational style somewhat reserved for Pharisees, one that I like to call, “confusation.” (Did you see what I there?)

Part of the job description for a Pharisee is “having and needing the right answers.” Jesus words are just not adding up…maybe I don’t know who this is after all. Ironic, since he had just prior to this oh-so certainly declared who Jesus was.

But instead of clearing up any confusion, Jesus leans in further. He starts talking about the wind, how you can hear it, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it goes. The more Jesus explains, the more Nicky is confused. By verse 9, he is reduced to a four-word question: “How can this be?” The man who started with “we know” has ended with “I don’t understand.” And that is exactly where Jesus wants him.

Friends, we cannot be filled with the Spirit if we are already full of certainties. We can’t be born from above if we are still trying to manage everything from below.

Jesus is not trying to be a pain. He is simply trying to get Nicodemus, his disciples, and all of us to get to a point where a little more of us is required than the right answer. He’s wary of those who would sign on the dotted line so fast. He knows that they’ll leave as quick as they signed up. Jesus isn’t looking for one-dimensional poster holders who hold up their piety and right answers for all to see. He’s looking for three dimensional disciples who lay down their lives for the sake of the other.

There’s a short grouping of verses right before this passage that I think is important to consider: Right before Nicodemus comes to Jesus, John writes, 23 When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone, for he himself knew what was in everyone.

Jesus would not entrust himself to them. This line made me ache inside. They believed too fast. They had jumped onto a quick service faith as if they were ordering it up through the drive thru line, one served up with a sharpie, poster board and a Coke “He knew all people, and—cut to the heart—he knew what was in everyone.” He knew them…he knew they would bolt at the first sign of trouble. He know us, he knows our tendency to craft a faith made in our image, not God’s.

We think we know the signs. We know who Jesus is. We’ve got the answers. We’ve got it figured out. But so often we are just as confused as Nicodemus.

When I was in high school, I remember observing an argument between two students in my youth group. The argument was around whether or not Catholics are going to heaven. I watched my friend declare with utter certainty that they are not. Catholics are not going to heaven. He told me later, “I know I am right.” He was 16 at the time.

But before we distance ourselves from him or judge him too harshly, think about the many things we have declared as certain. We think we know. We think we’ve got the answers. We’re ready to make the poster. And then Jesus goes and confuses us all over again.

I love how scholar Gail O’Day turns this passage around. She writes, “We cannot determine who Jesus is, but WHO WE ARE must be determined by who Jesus is.” We cannot fully define or encapsulate the divinity of Jesus. But we can be defined by him.

But how does this work? If we can’t determine who Jesus is? How are we to be determined by him? I guess that’s where mystery, faith and relationship all converge. We are to be shaped and defined and transformed by Jesus. It is a deep, long lasting relationship. And it doesn’t fit on a poster board.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from a prison cell in Nazi Germany, made a clear distinction between cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. it is grace without the cross. It’s the faith of the poster board, loud, visible, but ultimately flat. Jesus offers costly grace. It is costly because it calls us to follow. It is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus.

Friends, both John 3 and our time call for costly grace.

I struggled with what I was going to say today. So much. And so I texted a dear friend who pastors a church just south of Minneapolis.

She first just wrote back, “Lindsay, it is so terrible.” Then she continued, “People are not leaving their homes because they are afraid if being nabbed by ICE; they are grabbing anyone and not even finding out if they are citizens, they just take them and find out later, they took a five year old boy with his father to Texas even though there were people available to keep the child. And beating, pepper spraying and killing Minnesotans who protest.”

Yesterday, World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization, posted the following, “Our refugee and immigrant neighbors, including children, are enduring horrible trauma, fear and suffering. Scripture is clear: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.” (Leviticus 19:33) Christians, now is the time to speak up. To get loud. To stand with the most vulnerable.”

Friends, we cannot profess that “God so loved the world” without being an extension of that love. We cannot read John 3:16 without the verse after it, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’

Our beliefs do not allow us to stay silent while the immigrant, the person of color, and the marginalized are mistreated.

Our faith does not allow us to sit with Jesus in quiet devotion in private, hold up a public shiny faith in public, and do nothing to help the oppressed.

This passage that begins in the dark also ends in the dark. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Despite his initial certainty and confusion, Nicodemus kept the conversation going. We see the fruit of that transformation much later: Jesus has been crucified. The crowds who had once cheered have vanished. The poster boards are in the trash. And in the fading light of a Friday afternoon, in the twilight hour before the Sabbath, John tells us the Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. In the ancient world, that was a burial fit for a King.

Nicodemus isn’t hiding in the dark anymore. To carry a hundred pounds of spices to the tomb of a state-executed “criminal” is the ultimate public declaration. It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s scandalous. It’s costly grace.

In the dark of Chapter 3, Nicodemus had all the “right” answers, but he had no courage. In the fading light of Chapter 19, he has no answers, but he has the courage to show up.

Friends, it’s time to look at the signs we are carrying. If they don’t require us to speak, to sacrifice, or to act…it’s time to lay them down. It’s time to stop being poster children for a faith we’ve mastered and start being born again into a love that empowers and befriends.

-A love that carries the heavy spices…this might look like bringing a meal to a neighbor who is weary or scared.

-A love that shows up at the tomb… this might look like visiting someone who is lonely or living in fear.

-And a love that refuses to let the vulnerable stand alone… this might look like committing to be trained and ready to respond when our neighbors are in crisis.

Indifference is the darkness that Jesus warns us about. It’s the comfortable shadow where we can keep our certainties and our safety while others bear the cross. Nicodemus shows us that there is a way out of the dark. It doesn’t happen all at once. It happens through a long, sometimes confusing, conversation with a Savior who refuses to be simplified.

For God so loved the whole world. And that world is right outside these doors, waiting for us to step into the light.

Let’s pray.

Holy and Mysterious God, Forgive us for the times we’ve preferred a poster-board faith, loud and easy, over the costly discipleship of the Cross. We thank you that you do not leave us in the dark of our own certainties. By your Spirit, blow through our lives today. Give us the courage to trade our “right answers” for a love that actually shows up. Help us to carry the weight of your grace into the messy, hurting world you so dearly love. In the name of Jesus, the Light of the world, Amen.

The story of Esther has all the makings of a Disney movie. You’ve got Esther, the beautiful queen; King Xerxes, the over-the-top ruler who loves a good party; Mordecai, the eccentric uncle, a little bit dramatic but with a good heart; and of course, no Disney movie would be complete without a Haman—the bad guy. The really, really bad guy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we meet our cast of characters in the fourth chapter of Esther, it’s important to provide a bit of background so that we understand what is happening when the house lights go down.

Before we get to chapter four, a lot has already happened in this story. King Xerxes throws a six-month-long party to show off his wealth and power. When Queen Vashti refuses to appear before him and his drunk friends, the king banishes her and launches a nationwide search for a new queen.

That’s how Esther—a young Jewish woman being raised by her cousin Mordecai—ends up in the palace. She wins the king’s favor and is crowned queen, and she keeps her Jewish identity a secret. Meanwhile, Mordecai uncovers a plot to assassinate the king and reports it, saving Xerxes’ life.

Soon after, the king promotes a man named Haman, who demands everyone bow down to him. Mordecai refuses, and Haman’s pride turns to rage. When he learns Mordecai is Jewish, he convinces the king to issue an edict ordering all Jews to be killed. By the time we reach chapter four, the death sentence has gone out across the empire. The people are mourning, Mordecai is in sackcloth, and Esther—safe inside the palace—has no idea what is happening.

—-

Esther 4:1-17

1 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; 2 he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

4 When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. 5 Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. 6 Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, 7 and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and to entreat him for her people.

9 Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. 10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that, if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law: to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.”

12 When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, 13 Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

15 Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” 17 Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

—

Can’t you just see this in animation? You can almost see the characters dancing in front of the castle at Disney World. In less capitalistic ways, this story is acted out every year during the festival of Purim, when Jewish communities read it and act it out. They laugh, they boo, they cheer. When Haman’s name comes up, everybody stomps and yells and shakes noisemakers. When Esther appears, the whole crowd cheers.

There is a lot to cheer about Esther, but not the kind of cheers she was used to. As you heard, she won a beauty contest. She was chosen to be Xerxes’ wife solely on her appearance. She was a literal trophy wife. That was how she was cast. That was her character. Her role was to appear, speak, and act only when summoned. She was on a permanent “as needed” basis.

So when she hears that Uncle Mordy is causing a scene at the gates, the first thing she does is send clothes out. It’s almost as if to say, “Um, please don’t embarrass me! We’re keeping a low profile.” But through messengers, Mordecai tells Esther everything—about Haman’s plan, about the decree, and about the danger. He tells her, “You have to go to the king and beg for your people.”

There are so many things for her to object to in this statement—mostly the verbs “Go” and “Beg.” Esther was used to verbs like “Respond,” “Answer,” and “Conform.” “Go” and “Beg” are big action verbs, ones that Esther’s character did not typically take on. Furthermore, the consequence for acting out in this way was death. It all just depended on the mood of the King. It is no wonder that Esther’s first reaction is, “I can’t do that! If I go, I could die!”

Mordecai responds: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone will escape… and who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” He is telling her that her original character—the one she was first cast for—was all in preparation for this next role.

Esther is not just a side character in someone else’s story. She’s the one God has chosen for this moment. This was the character she was meant to play. And so she sends a response: “Go, gather all the Jews in Susa, and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days. My attendants and I will fast as well. And when this is done, I will go to the king—even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

In this moment, she steps into her calling as a character to intervene on behalf of her people. That’s when we see the depth of her character. The invitation of Esther is to find yourself within the story—not without it.

Our time calls for characters with character. Our time calls for us to stretch out beyond how we have originally been cast and move into a role that we had not imagined for ourselves. Esther had never imagined this role for herself. She was noted for her beauty, her submissiveness, and her selflessness. She had to be; remember, the woman who was previously cast in her role was fired for having an opinion.

That was her lane, and there were serious consequences for not staying in it. But then events occurred. The Jewish people were just fine when she was crowned queen. She—and Mordecai—could never have imagined their entire nation could be wiped out. But that was then, and this was now. All of a sudden, Esther was cast in a new role, one that would require a set of skills she maybe did not know she had.

I wonder where we can find ourselves in this? Where have we placed ourselves for one reason, only to find that the job description was a little bigger than we ever imagined? What is God doing in our lives that might require a little more?

The problem is many of us talk ourselves out of these roles before we even step into them. We use language like “stay in our lane” or “know your role.” But the question is: are we acting in a role for such a time as this—or such a time as that? Did we cast ourselves into this Disney movie as an “innocent bystander” years ago and never leave the sidelines? Or even worse, did we neglect to cast ourselves at all?

I wonder if we use words that diminish ourselves as a way to escape responsibilities. “Oh, I’m not that zealous. Oh, I’m not a mentor. Oh, I’m not an activist.” Maybe we weren’t for such a time as that. But maybe we are called to be for such a time as this.

We live in an extraordinary age where values and norms are being challenged all the time. We cannot stay safely in our lane when God is calling us from oncoming traffic. We cannot rely on a call we lived into in a prior season. What are we being called to “for such a time as this?”

Esther’s role wasn’t revealed to her all at once. It took several chapters to get to this point. She could have easily said, “Nope, that’s not my role. That’s not the part my character plays.” And in many ways, she’s right. But God had a bigger role for her to play, and she steps into it with great courage and character.

Friends, what is God calling you to do for such a time as this? If it’s the same role as three chapters ago, if it’s a role that continues to minimize yourself or your service, if it’s a role that tells you to watch and not act—you have miscast yourself. Self-deprecation is not an excuse for inaction.

There is a powerful new devotional out called For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional. In the chapter of the same name, author Hannah Reichel makes the compelling point that Esther might have decided to leave the king and his court. She continues:

“It takes moral clarity to recognize one’s complicity; it takes courage to renounce one’s privilege. But wanting to have no part in what is happening cedes space, access, and power. The question is: What is the best possible use of the power entrusted to you? Don’t bury your talents in the hope of saving yourself. Spend them. Don’t throw them away to keep your hands clean. Invest them. Don’t give up your privilege; don’t hide behind it. Put it to work.”

You will resist most effectively where you have the most experience and knowledge, the best networks and connections, the furthest access and reach. Maybe, like Esther, God has given them to you for such a time as this.

The story of Esther has always reminded me of a powerful poem by a favorite poet, David Whyte, called “Just Beyond Yourself.”

Just beyond yourself. It’s where you need to be.

Half a step into self-forgetting and the rest restored by what you’ll meet.

There is a road always beckoning. When you see

the two sides of it closing together at that far horizon and deep in the foundations of your own heart at exactly

the same time, that’s how you know it’s the road you have to follow.

That’s how you know it’s where you have to go.

That’s how you know you have to go.

That’s how you know. Just beyond yourself.

Friends, the story of Esther is not ancient history—it’s an invitation. Every generation faces its own “such a time as this.” Ours is now. God still needs people who will risk comfort for courage, who will speak when silence feels safer, who will act when waiting feels easier.

You may not have chosen your role—but you have been chosen for this moment. Because just beyond yourself—that’s where faith begins, and where God is already at work, redeeming the story through you.

For such a time as this, may we trust that what lies beyond ourselves is where God is already waiting, ready to meet us, ready to work through us, ready to write the next chapter of the story.

We usually join the Bible hero after the 40 days are over. We meet them when the trial is done, the rain has stopped, the waiting is finished. But what about the during?

What about the hours, days, and even years before the 40th? What about the endurance needed to sustain the during? That’s what this newsletter is about. It’s about the 39th Day.

This was a concept I first started curating during Covid. I had to record my sermon on my back porch a few days before Sunday. Somehow I figured out it was the 39th day after Easter, right before Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Collectively, we were all in a space of waiting for the world to go back to normal, without any idea of when that day would come (still waiting, by the way).

Since then, the idea of the 39th Day has followed me around. That day that represents the almost-but-not-quite end: when the lesson is yet unlearned, the challenge has not yet been conquered, when forgiveness has not quite been given.

While some characters in Scripture knew going in that 40 was the endpoint, others had no idea. They didn’t know when the 40th day would come.

More often than not, neither do we. And for some of us being tested, the 39th day can stretch on for years.

I created this space to explore what it means for us to be in that span of during; to capture the messy in-between space that so many of us are caught in. Because whether or not we realize it, we’re all in a 39th day. It might be a relationship not yet healed, an illness not cured, a desire not realized, or a past story that still haunts.

We’re all waiting for something to resolve. We’re all in situations beyond our control. And it is hard to be stuck in the 39th day, especially when we don’t know when the 40th is coming.

This Substack is an extension of a sermon series I outlined several years ago called “The 39th Day.” As I prepare to revisit it during the season of Lent, it seems like a good time to pick up this conversation. Here, I will share sermons, essays, and thoughts designed to help in the “during.” And together we will stumble towards the 40th day.

In the meantime, we’ll consider the meantime. And remember that God is with us and loves us, today and all our 39th days.

Thank you for being here.

Grace and Peace,

Lindsay

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