Faith by Walking Around

In his multi-chapter lead-up to this morning’s lesson, the apostle Paul employs breathtaking language to explain first to the Ephesians and now to us God’s plan of salvation.

God firmly intends, Paul writes, “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under Christ” (1:10). Heaven’s plan begins with God saving humanity “by grace … through faith” (2:8), but the Lord is not content to leave it at that.

God in Christ also intends to unite Jew and Gentile – insider and outsider, friend and foe, creating, in Jesus, “one new person out of the two, thus making peace,” and letting the Cross of Jesus put to death the hostility that separates us from ourselves (2:15-16). All of that uniting ultimately aims to use the Body – the Church – to display God’s wisdom in the fullness of lush variety (3:10).

Over the high-flying course of his first three chapters of correspondence, Paul soars deep into outer space to provide a dazzling account of what God is up to in Jesus Christ. Now it’s time to come back down to earth and explain exactly what God’s cosmic plan means for you and me as we together walk the mean streets of our communities. The rubber of faith and belief is meeting the road of everyday life and living – in Paul’s vision, a transformation point where we shed the skins of our old selves and put on new, more divine selves in Christ.

What we’ll be hearing shortly is Paul’s devastating critique of godless living. But Paul’s words compose no mere checklist of moral demand that only drives despair, because you cannot follow its litany of strict demand. Nor are Paul’s words a simple formula for self-righteousness that you cook up by checking off each item on his recipe.

Instead, if we pay careful heed to Paul’s understanding, we become empowered to nourish one another in living Christian lifestyles that witness to the effectiveness of grace, as God unites and reunites all things in Christ. Listen, then, for such amazing grace, with the help of the Holy Spirit, who plays a key role in all this, too, as we drop into mid-chapter four of Paul’s letter to the ancient church at Ephesus.

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 4:17-5:2)

Poll after poll confirms that we Christians don’t live any differently than non-Christians, except that Christians are judgmental, narrow-minded, and bigoted – or at least that’s how non-Christians perceive you and me.

Paul offers several opportunities for you and me to change those perceptions. Notice, in particular, the behaviors to which Paul points as he begins platting out street-level living: speech, anger, and stealing.

Many of us grew up hearing the Church describe distinctively Christian living in much narrower terms: You don’t go to movies; you don’t dance, and you don’t play cards. Those restrictions, supposedly, are how you avoid living like non-Christians – in Paul’s language, living “as the Gentiles do.”

Now, in her defense, the Church had good reasons for compiling those checklists of morality. They intended to keep Christians separate from the world – from being lured and enticed into the darkness of sin. But sadly, it also leads us to think that, if we just don’t do those things, we are being good Christians. Paul, instead, drills down deeper and hits the bedrock of faith: Where you go and what you do for entertainment aren’t as important as how you talk, how you handle your anger, and how you deal with material things. Those metrics aren’t uniquely Christian, but Paul puts a distinctively Christian spin on each behavior.  

For starters, we always must speak the truth, because we all belong to the Body. Speaking untruthfully destroys the trust that is so important to the unity of the Body of Christ and, by extension, to the unifying mission of God. Our speech must bestow grace upon those who are listening – part and parcel of God’s work of grace in the world.

We always must speak the truth, and we always must manage our anger. Letting it simmer and fester day after day gives evil a foothold on our lives and lets the devil coerce us into his divisive campaign. Or, in more positive terms, if you deal with anger properly, if you rid yourself of anger in all its broken forms, and if instead you learn to forgive, then you are modeling – imitating – the work of God in Christ.

We always must speak the truth, and we always must manage our anger, and we always must avoid dishonesty – stealing! – and put our God-given gifts and talents to work not just to support ourselves and avoid being a drag on society but also so that we might have something to share with those in genuine need. Let the former thief become a community benefactor! Our approval ratings in the polls will soar if we Christians were known mostly for our benevolence and advocacy for the pale and downtrodden, and less so for our judgment and self-righteousness.

Reforming our behavior, as Paul suggests, shows non-Christians that living a uniquely Christian life as an intimate follower of Jesus is not life lived primarily in the negative.

In each command, Paul flips a negative into a positive – replacing falsehood with truth, substituting anger with forgiveness, reforming stealing with generosity, editing noxious talk with edifying speech. 

Too often Christians are known for what we oppose, thus we come across as critical and disapproving – not that our world lacks for brokenness that must be named. But our lesson calls us to qualities and behaviors that are liberating and life-enhancing, even as it names the sin we must avoid. The bottom line is that God calls us to an alternative, counter-cultural lifestyle that focuses not primarily on law and rules but first and foremost always on love. “Be imitators of God, therefore, and live a life of love … .”

Uniquely Christian living – the “life of love” to which we are called – embodies a particular kind of love. It is not the erotic love of the bedroom, or the neighborly love of the kitchen table or coffee shop. Rather, it is a life that centers itself on the unconditional love that hung on the Cross! The Lord calls us not merely to be nice to people who like us, or who look like us, or to care only for those with whom we feel some bond of shared experience, but to give ourselves up for others – even those who have treated us shamefully or done us wrong.

How possibly do you make such a seemingly impossible sacrifice? 

Only be keeping your focus on the One who made such a sacrifice for you on the Cross.

In the same way and measure as Jesus, you and I must be “kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as – in the same way and measure – God forgives us in Christ. And we must imitate God by living a “life of love” just as – in the same way and measure – Christ loves us and gave himself up for us.” Christian living that honors the name is primarily characterized by a love that forgives and sacrifices, even for those who haven’t done a blessed thing to deserve such grace.

Genuinely Christian living depends and centers on the work of Father, Son, and Spirit. We must do all these things “as dearly loved children,” who want to imitate their Father, as revealed in the Son, and driven by the Spirit. We do all these seemingly difficult and impossible things because the Holy Spirit is always at work within us.

Shunning the work of the Spirit grieves the Spirit. Her sadness arises from the reality that our bad behavior terminates our adoption as forgiven children of God in Christ! We must live at imitators of God in Christ, because of the vast investment that Father, Son, and Spirit have made and continue to make in us. When we stray, the Spirit weeps with sadness, just as human parents weep when their children stray from the path of joy and holiness.

So, when he calls to imitate our Father, Paul is calling us to walk around as our Father walks around.

Which recalls a picture I saw as a child every Sunday in the congregation of my youth. Among the fold was a family of nine – mom, dad, and seven kids. The father walked with a very strange and unusual gait – bent forward from the waist at a not-so-slight angle, head thrust even farther forward; arms hanging limp at his sides, never swinging when he walked. His legs were stiff – as another suggested, a bit like a giant blue heron gingerly picking its way across the shallows of a pond. 

When this guy walked that way into Mass every Sunday, his wife and seven children marched in behind him – with exactly the same ungainly gait. Without even intending to, they walked in imitation of their father. 

Let us be as intentional with our imitation, if we are to walk around with the graceful strides of our heavenly Father, his one and only Son, and their ever-moving Spirit.

Let us continue proving the pollsters wrong! Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, May 14, 2023, the sixth Sunday of Easter at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the fifth of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Stan Mast, and Pheme Perkins inform the message.

Who Fixed the Roof?

When Mark is your Gospel pilot, best you buckle your seat belts tight. For he takes off into the story of God with us on a short runway, and it’s wheels-up before you know it.

As we’ll hear shortly, Mark at the start is a man of few words. He wastes no time launching us into the action: John the Baptist appears, predicts the coming of a long-awaited Savior, and then that very person shows up to be baptized. In his first three verses, Mark clearly and plainly announces that what follows will be the story of the true Messiah, the Son of God, the fulfiller of Old Testament prophecies like the one Mark quotes from Isaiah.

Savvy readers and perceptive listeners will sense that, for all its obvious brevity, this section in Mark sums up nothing less than the whole history of God’s plan for salvation – even as it plunges us deep into the heart of that plan, as the incarnate Son of God arrives on the scene and immediately earns his Father’s favor.

Yet, no sooner does God express divine love for Jesus, when suddenly the Holy Spirit tosses Jesus headlong and headfirst into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Hardly seems like a very loving thing for God to do! Feels more like a hard slap in the face – and a kick in the pants! Those many promises – that we’ve been hearing in our Scripture lessons of the past few Sundays, about the gentle comfort and companionship of the Spirit – are all are starting to ring hollow! And the silence is deafening!

Why would God the Spirit do such a seemingly mean and nasty thing to Jesus?

I’ll unpack that in a minute. For now, though, listen for the Word of the Lord in the first of two powerful, Spirit-driven lessons from the Gospel of Mark.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. (Mark 1:1-12)

And our lips still stammer the same question: Why?

God the Father no sooner declares passionate affection for Jesus, God the Son, when God the Spirit throws Jesus into the wilderness, a place that stands as biblical metaphor for sin and evil, darkness and decay, brokenness and death. Why?

Why would God do such a thing?

Very simply, because such engagement with sin and evil, darkness and decay, brokenness and death, is precisely what Jesus’s baptism is all about! His baptism marks the beginning of his ministry – his humble service to others at the precious cost of himself.

That’s why!

God sends not the beloved Son into our world just to be nice. No, God comes in Christ to reconcile the world to himself, and for that very reason, the first order of holy business – once baptized in water and anointed with the Holy Spirit – is to join the company of the baptized and engage the evil that holds captive our souls and spirits.

That’s why!

The action here is fast and furious – and violent. The Spirit doesn’t just “invite” or “send” Jesus into that wilderness place. The original Greek text paints a picture of Jesus being “thrown out” there. The Spirit apparently descends like a gentle dove but suddenly transmogrifies into a kind of hawk who snatches Jesus in its talons and brutally drops the Lord into the wilderness realm of the devil himself!  Think, maybe, of a well-muscled bouncer at a seedy bar hurling a drunken scallywag through the swinging doors and out into the street, and you’ll get a vivid picture of the dark direction in which the Spirit so violently steers Jesus.

It is indeed strikingly dramatic! This is no snuggly, cooing baptism on a bright Sunday morning in springtime. There’ll be no gathering afterward for sheet-cake and punch. No posing for pictures with proud grandparents and godparents. Clearly something cosmic is afoot here. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark is light on details. But if you pay attention there are a couple hints about how things turned out. 

One hint is obvious: Angels attend to Jesus. That probably forecasts that Jesus will survive this hellish wilderness storm – just as angels attend to you and me and see us through when calamity strikes and heartache burns.

But the other hint is more subtle: Mark’s reference to the “wild animals.” It’s an odd detail to throw in, but think about it: When was the last time in the Bible you had one man alone among the animals? It was Adam. The first man lived in harmony with the Garden of Eden’s animals. He called them to his side. He named them. He knew them by name.

By taking on the powers of evil, Jesus begins life again for us all – the ones he calls to his side, the ones he names, the ones he knows by name. Jesus is Adam version 2.0, doing it all over again but this time doing it right, deftly setting our fragile cosmos back on the course God intended in the beginning. Jesus goes out into as wild and chaotic a place as exists, but instead of being consumed by it, Jesus changes it into an oasis of shalom!

Because here’s what Mark wants us to know: In Christ a whole new world had dawned. All things are not only possible but probable. Which is precisely what happens in our second lesson, a chapter later in Mark: The dawning of a whole new world for a man stricken by paralysis, thanks to a group of committed friends willing to confront and lift high the brokenness of evil and lower it gingerly into the presence of healing grace.

Once again, listen for the Word of the Lord:

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.

So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them,

“Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralytic – “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”

And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:1-12)

The preacher began his message with a real attention-getter: “I was paralyzed, not with a physical paralysis, but emotionally and spiritually.”

He had me at “paralyzed.” And he continued with similar candor.

“I seemed unable to grow and move freely in the life God planned for me. This sense of emotional and spiritual paralysis kept me defeated. I knew I needed help but didn’t know how or where to find it. I realize now that I am indebted to many people, some of whom I can’t even remember, for ministering to me in various ways.

“They saw my need, were willing to take time to speak a word of encouragement to me, to pray with me, and to offer the Bible’s Good News to guide me until I was emotionally and spiritually made whole. I can’t repay them, but I can pattern their behavior – those who helped me to wholeness in Christ.”

The preacher went on to explain that he had come from a dysfunctional home and a life of deep sin and utter brokenness. Because of these challenges in early life, he did not know how to relate to other people properly, let alone how to relate to God and the community of faith. The man desperately wanted to experience the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that he saw in the lives of his Christian friends. But he hadn’t the first clue how to cultivate those spiritual fruit.

He saw his own life reflected in Mark’s account of the healing of the paralyzed man. He saw parallels between the people who helped him find emotional and spiritual healing and those who helped bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus for physical healing – with some spiritual healing thrown in to boot. These friends the preacher called “the bearers of the mat.”

Thanks be to God you and I have been baptized.

For the courageous grace we receive in baptism enlists us into the ranks of the mat-bearers – children of God and followers of Jesus who see another’s need and are willing to get involved. If Jesus has done great things for you – and he has, in his great rising from the grave for you, then your confidence in Jesus’s ability to help others must spur you to action. Because the paralyzed are all around us and closer than you think.

Not necessarily the physically paralyzed, but folks paralyzed emotionally or spiritually – the forgotten and overlooked who haven’t the first clue how to move into the healing presence of the Lord or receive the anointing of the Spirit. If and only if you and I start seeing them as they are – like you and me, wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God but paralyzed and needing our help, not our criticism and judgment, then and only then will we be motivated to become “bearers of the mat.”

And finally, one more thing.

There remains the vexing question, “Who fixed the roof?” Who repaired the gaping hole those committed friends ripped into the ceiling on their mission of mercy?

Hopefully no one did! Or even tried! For the way to Jesus is always open – forever and always:

Thanks to heavenly power that rolls away stones and slices through thick, seemingly impenetrable obstacles of all kinds.

Thanks to the spiritual power of friends, neighbors – and maybe even strangers – who are the mat-bearers.

Thanks to faithful, intrepid saints who, like Jesus, take seriously the meaning and purpose of their baptism and confront the evil of the world head-on. And so we confess:

In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.

As bearers of mats.

May it be so! Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, May 7, 2023, the fifth Sunday of Easter at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the four of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Allan Brown and Scott Hoezee inform the message.

Upside Down and Backwards

John 3:16 – “for God so loved” – one of the most familiar and recognizable verses of the New Testament.

The statement is full and true on its own, but like all Scripture, you miss out on a lot when you avoid drinking-in the intoxicating concoction of verses that come before and after.

The popular verse – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” – is part of a long conversation that Jesus holds with a religious leader named Nicodemus. Along the way, Jesus stresses the spiritual need to be born again from above. Understandably, Nicodemus is confused, and Jesus goes on to break things down and unpack that powerful truth. It’s been described as “the greatest conversation ever held”!

Those who study such things speculate that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night to keep their conversation on the down-low. That’s a very real possibility. Don’t forget: Jesus isn’t exactly popular in the circles that Nicodemus frequents, because Jesus challenges the beliefs and behaviors of Nicodemus, his fellow religious leaders, and other such supposedly holy and pious folks.

And let’s be honest: No one likes being the object of such deep, personal scrutiny. No one likes being called on the carpet and held to account for words and actions. Great vulnerability befalls when you’re fully seen in broad daylight for who you are and for what you stand, and no one likes running the risk of being defined by character faults and spiritual blemishes.

Most of us only trust a select-few others with that intimate portrait of our true selves, and that’s usually because we know that those who know us as we are also love us as we are.

And there it is: Love.

Again and again, God’s love calls us into its redeeming light. Which raises the hard question of walking a post-resurrection journey with Jesus: Can we – will we – muster enough trust in his love to draw back the curtain on our souls and let in the game-changing, life-altering beams of the Lord’s heavenly light?

Thanks be to God, we’ve been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, whose glory has been jumping off the pages of our Scripture lessons these Sundays of the Easter season. By her power and might, the Spirit enables us to experience the loving Word of the Lord with all our senses. So, feast on the nourishment that is the story of God with us at the start of chapter 3 in John’s Gospel.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 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. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 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.” (John 3:1-21)

Nicodemus was a teacher in the Jerusalem synagogue.

He’d taught the truths of Scripture to hundreds of people.

He’d grown used to having all the answers and liked being the expert.

But then, perhaps out of simple curiosity but more likely because of deep spiritual hunger and thirst, Nicodemus seeks out Jesus and finds himself confused and stumped by what he hears:

“Unless you are born again, you will never see the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus recognizes the truth of Jesus but doesn’t understand it, and Nicodemus is at once humiliated and stimulated.

So, he decides to ask Jesus what it all means, and Jesus lays out the truth of life:

Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.

Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

Very truly, I tell you, no one can embody the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

You must be born from above.

Being “born again” is a slogan and rallying cry for an entire segment of modern Christianity.

In those circles, being “born again” is the yardstick that measures the validity of one’s faith,

the surety of one’s salvation, and the piety of one’s life. It’s often a very flat measure that marks the moment when a person “comes” to Jesus or “accepts” Christ.

But if that’s all the farther you want to take it, then you’re missing what being “born again” is really all about.

To be “born again” is to be “born again from above” – to receive ongoing re-birth from the power of God above through the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross. Being “born again” as the phrase is typically used usually ignores the source of rebirth. It ignores the Cross. You simply cannot know the true meaning of human life without grounding it in the reality of Jesus’s life and death.

When “born again” becomes just a slogan or a label, you risk losing out on the powerful offer of a new, unprecedented way of living that Jesus brings – a life regenerated through the Cross of Jesus, a life borne and reborn of water and of Spirit, a life lived on the terms that Jesus offers and presents.

To believe in Jesus on those terms is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that God loves the world so much that the Father gives the Son as a gift. The God revealed in Jesus

is a God whose love knows no bounds and who asks only that one receive the gift. And if you receive the gift, you receive eternal life.

Simple enough, right? No, not really!

The hard part between today and that promised eternity is letting the love of God in Jesus Christ reshape and redefine your life in the here and now – taking up your own cross, dying from the darkness of your old worldly self, and rising into the light of a new life made possible by water and Spirit.

Exactly what does that look like?

Meet Domingo and Irene Garcia. He’s a mechanic. She’s a hairdresser. They’ve been foster parents to 32 children and have adopted 16. They did so only by the Spirit’s power.

Domingo and Irene have not always been as gracious as they are today. In the early days of their marriage, Irene hated Domingo. He was abusive, an alcoholic, and she regularly prayed that he would die, because of the physical and emotion pain he inflicted on her. She even daydreamed about him driving off a cliff!

Now she calls him the godliest man she knows. Here in their own words is their story:

Having a coherent picture of Jesus means more than observing what he did or listening to what he said.

It means experiencing a change of heart and mind, and letting the Holy Spirit change your heart and mind doesn’t happen overnight. It surely could happen that quickly, and sometimes does. But usually, you and I are too stubborn, stiff-necked and stuck in our ways to let the Holy Spirit work that fast.

That means we end up spending some time in an already-but-not-yet place of limbo where we know the truth but wrestle with what it all means, an already-but-not-yet place of limbo where the Spirit is still at work but stymied by our resistance to change.

Release from that limbo demands precisely the kind of spiritual re-birth that Jesus is talking about and the Garcias experience – the kind of spiritual re-birth that envisions the world in the upside-down terms that Jesus always uses when he talks about the Kingdom of God.

A person’s soul and spirit have to be re-wired to believe and live the idea that humility and kindness – loving and serving God and neighbor, putting others’ interests and needs ahead of your own – are far more valuable in the eyes of the Lord than brazen pride, endless self-promotion, and living the best life ever.

When you are re-born from above, you live and move in the belief that the meek, and the lowly, and the quiet are far more treasured in the heart of God than the bold, and the lofty, and the noisy.

What’s truly upside-down and backwards in terms of human logic is that God makes this type of transformation happen in you and me by depositing a little baby into an animal’s feed through set out on the edge of nowhere in this world.

And salvation from the evil powers that be comes through a Cross – an emblem of the very thing that terrifies us the most in this world: death. But when you are re-born from above, you look at a bloody instrument of execution and see life – new life in the Kingdom of God, where the rules have changed and resurrection and re-creation are your new normal.

In this season of Easter – and for all the days, weeks, and years that follow, what we have to hold onto – what you and I cling to for dear life – is the Good News of God’s love: Easter’s promise of resurrection, re-birth and re-creation! Easter’s promise of the Holy Spirit!

Thus the invitation still stands: Come and be born again from above by water and Spirit. For God so loved. For God still loves! In, by, and through the Spirit – always and forever the giver and renewer of life!

Ancient words, ever true. Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, April 30, 2023, the fourth Sunday of Easter at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the third of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Francis Chan and Scott Hoezee inform the message.

In Case You Ever Wonder

For these Sundays of the Easter season, our Scripture lessons are speaking to us about the gift of the Holy Spirit – all in preparation for the annual celebration of the Spirit’s appearance to Christ’s followers on Pentecost.

Last Sunday, from the Gospel of John, we heard Jesus make a profound promise to his closest friends on the eve of his crucifixion. Into the midst of their confusion and sadness, Jesus breathes words of assurance: “I will not abandon you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will send the Holy Spirit to live and abide with you forever.”

Fast-forwarding to this morning’s scene from the New Testament’s Book of Acts, the Resurrection is now 40 days past, and Jesus is about to return bodily to heaven. During his farewell speech, Jesus doubles-down on his earlier promise of the Holy Spirit. But now, Jesus says, when she arrives, the Spirit will do more than merely abide. The Spirit will arrive with instruction and guidance, holy power and divine glory.

Listen now, with the help of that same Spirit, for the Word of the Lord in the opening scenes of the book of Acts, authored by Luke after carefully writing his Gospel – both volumes apparently funded by a wealthy patron named Theophilus.

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.

“This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:1-11)

It’s a real puzzler, that’s for sure. A head-scratcher if there ever was one: Jesus has ascended and disappeared into a cloud.

But his disciples can’t seem to walk away from the Lord’s launch pad. His followers are frozen in place, staring up into the sky, wondering what to make of what feels like a here-again-gone-again God, a Lord God who at times makes a way and at other times closes way, a Savior who seems to be taking his sweet time in coming to the rescue.

You and I now stand in their sted, looking up into the sky, asking just how long will it take before the Lord comes down and fixes our families, or our finances, or our nation, or our world?

Just how much longer do you have to wait before the Lord blesses you with a spouse or a friend? Or even just someone who listens to you, understands who you really and truly are, and honors your inherent dignity and worth?

The wait for answers is painfully long, which gives a body good reason to wonder if any of God’s promises are true. So, this story is for you who are confused and questioning, “Just in Case You Ever Wonder,” written by Max Lucado and illustrated by Toni Goffe.

Being God’s witnesses isn’t first of all about memorizing Bible passages, and reading the right books, and attending to the right conferences and retreats – however helpful and faithful any of those things can be.

Being God’s witnesses is, first of all, about being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Being God’s witnesses is about receiving the power of the Holy Spirit.

Being God’s witnesses is about harnessing the Spirit’s power to love others with the same passion of grace, mercy, and peace that God lavishes upon you and me.

It’s relatively easy to love the lovable without condition, but it’s a whole nother thing to love those we find irritatingly different, downright offensive, or somehow threatening.

Oh how good it is that the gift of the Holy Spirit is ours to get done the holy work that Jesus calls us to do: Loving one another as Christ loves us. It is precisely as we declared earlier with the psalmist: The Lord God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

Just in case you ever wonder.  Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, April 23, 2023, the third Sunday of Easter at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the second of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee and Max Lucado inform the message.

Holy Spirit Stuff

Certain sects of Christianity are sometimes accused of being a lightweights when it comes to championing a robust theology of the Holy Spirit.

This morning’s Word of the Lord tearfully reminds the faithful how vital the Holy Spirit is in our lives and precisely why we need the Spirit of God in Christ.

Understand, first, the real dynamics – and the original acoustics – of this tender scene from John’s Gospel. In the ever-darkening days leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus tries to breathe comfort into hurting, confused, and disoriented souls. For us to avoid such similar heartfelt anxiety and genuine brokenness, you and I need the Spirit now as much as ever!

Which is why I’ll be preaching about the Holy Spirit for these next six Sundays leading up to Pentecost, the annual feast day of the Church when we revel in amazement of the sparks that fly as the Spirit descends upon a group of Christ’s early followers.

Rising from a handful of Old and New Testament readings will be lessons on the Holy Spirit’s role in quickening our faith, providing re-birth, and guiding our way. As we’ll re-discover, those blessings come through the gifts of the Spirit whose identities are many: Advocate, Guardian, Counselor, Guide, and Friend, to name but a few.

Let the story of God and us continue with this morning’s Good News: Jesus promises never to leave us orphaned. Those ancient, ever-true words blossom from the Word of the Lord. Listen, now, with heart and mind, soul and spirit.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” Jesus said.

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:15-27)

Long before gender pronouns became one of the farcical battlefields in our ever-waging culture wars, I engaged in my own bit of fire-fueling – poking the bear, as it were – when I started referring to the Holy Spirit with the pronouns “she” and “her.”

My choice of spiritual pronouns has nothing to do with being “woke” and everything to do with my very first, tangible experience of the Holy Spirit at my side and doing her thing.

The Spirit began her marvelous work – or better said, the first time I realized the Holy Spirit was engaging in marvelous work – was revealed, in hindsight, over a business lunch with two clients of my freelance photography business, a side gig back in the day that supplemented my entry-level income as a freshly minted newspaper photographer. After the three of us had taken care of business, the conversation turned personal with the usual, get-to-know-you sharing of where each of us grew up and the family members we cherished.

Turns out, one of my hosts – a woman, Laurie – knew of my mother, who with my father lived in retirement about 75 miles away. Like my mother, Laurie was active in church choir circles, and she was pretty sure her vocal path had crossed with my mother’s at some time or another. Go figure! Small world, eh? After dessert, the three of us parted company to return to our respective workplaces.

I easily remember that crisp-but-sunny midwinter day, February 26, 1985 – because it was the day that my mother died, quite unexpectedly, at age 62, just a few weeks after cashing her first Social Security check. I was devastated, for as is so often true, mothers raise their sons. And mine was a great blessing to me, my dad, and many others.

Laurie, my business-lunch acquaintance, read my mother’s obituary in the paper and reached out to me a week or so after the funeral. Laurie and her family invited me to their home for dinner. Over our meal, knowing that one of the loves I shared with my mom was singing, Laurie invited me to join the tenor section of the choir she directed at the local Presbyterian church.

Thus began with Laurie and her family a close, nurturing, and loving relationship that helped soothe and heal the gaping wound that my mother’s death inflicted upon my heart.

Thus began my spiritual transfer from Roman Catholicism to Presbyterianism.

Thus began a very-real sense of God the Spirit working together unto good in my very own life!

The whole tearful drama surely rang with a certain irony.

At virtually the same moment as Laurie, her colleague, and I were having that business lunch, my mother’s soul was departing the bounds of earth. But when I aloud labeled it all an amazing coincidence, Laurie quickly refocused my understanding.

What I at the time considered a fluke she called “Holy Spirit stuff” – the Spirit working the midst of tragedy to create new life or point in the right direction when the way forward seems impassable: In this case, for me, being adopted like the quasi-orphan I’d just become into a new family who made my mother’s loss a whole lot more bearable. And much more hopeful. And way more spiritual. It was my a-ha moment of the Lord’s presence in my shattered life, and his hand upon my weary shoulders, and his love upon my broken heart.

“Holy Spirit stuff” – a first-person lesson learned from my friend Laurie, a woman, who by grace became my advocate, guardian, guide, and friend – all names that Scripture places upon the Holy Spirit. By my theological calculus, that adds up to the Holy Spirit being a “she.”

For me, God is neither male nor female yet both; Jesus is definitely a man, and the Holy Spirit – fair or not – embodies the characteristics I enjoyed first in my Mom and later in my friend Laurie. It was the promise of God in Christ, “I will never leave you orphaned,” and it was “Holy Spirit stuff” that cemented the Lord’s promise in my heart and mind.

“I will not leave you as orphans.” What prompts Jesus to say that?

That’s why understanding the dynamics and acoustics of our Scripture lesson is vital. Think about it:

The disciples are experiencing significant disorientation. Their little world is falling apart. The grim shadows of a death by crucifixion are drawing longer. Even Jesus no doubt is a sad-sack of a man, tears forming in the corners of his eyes; perhaps, chin and lips quivering. The Gospels all record that, on this night of his betrayal, Jesus is “troubled.” Um, ya!

What begins as your standard Passover meal becomes something quite jaw-dropping! One of their number has slinked out of the room only minutes earlier with the storm clouds of betrayal hovering above his head. The leader of their little band of followers has just been informed that, soon and very soon, the main thing he’ll be leading are the rats fleeing the sinking ship of Jesus Christ. And in and through it all, Jesus liberally peppers his speech with red-flag warnings of a sudden departure.

Maybe think about it like last weekend having Easter brunch with all your family. The gathering begins as a lovely affair but then flies far off the rails when suddenly Dad uses the occasion to inform everyone that he’s having an extra-marital affair, that he’s in love with another woman, and that he and Mom will soon be divorcing for the good of all. Ringing the rim of your Easter table would be tears, glassy-eyed stares, confusion and disorientation almost too great for anyone to bear!

The Upper Room that night must have been like that.

And so, as he talks about the Holy Spirit and everything else, Jesus is staring into moist eyes, gazing sadly upon Peter, who cannot keep his own chin from quivering with emotion. Jesus is looking at Judas, not Iscariot, who appears about as befuddled as a human can look. Thick fear pollutes the upper room air, very nearly to the point of instilling panic.

And out of that tense atmosphere, deep love and everlasting compassion motivate Jesus to promise, “My friends, I will not abandon you. I will not leave you as orphans.  Please stop crying, please stop being so afraid, as I know you are. It’s going to be OK. Really! 

“I know this looks and sounds bad – and parts of what is to come will be nasty-ugly. But in the end I will be with you in a way you cannot even fathom right now. The Holy Spirit really will help. Through the Spirit you really will understand, and you really will still be connected in an absolutely real and living way to me. It’s gonna be OK!”

As in that Upper Room long ago, so also now: Jesus understands our loneliness, and our fears, and our grief, and our sense of abandonment – not by some divine, all-knowing power devoid of personal feelings or experience. Jesus feels all our pain from the inside out as the loneliest man who ever lived – the One who utterly died alone, orphaned for a short while from even the presence of his Father and Spirit.

When this One tells you that you are not abandoned like some orphan, he means it.

Even all these centuries and millennia later, we still are not orphans. We are never alone. Jesus forever is as good as his Word. It’s Holy Spirit stuff.

Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, April 16, 2023, the second Sunday of Easter at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the first of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee and Gail R. O’Day inform the message.

From the Pastor: Taking Up Your Cross

“The next day, the great crowd that had come to the Passover festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!'”
(John 12:12-13)

Today is a Sunday with a split personality. It is both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Our worship starts with the upbeat Gospel telling of the party atmosphere that erupts when Jesus rides into Jerusalem. It’s a festive affair, complete with a parade route lined by palm branches.

But quickly the party’s over, and our Scripture lessons turn dark as we fast-forward to Friday and the stark story of the Lord’s passion and death. Yes, the story is harsh. But it is bearable only because we already know its happy ending.

Remember, the steps you take toward the Cross you do not walk alone. Jesus walks with you. Though he is the Lord and you are you, the two of you are truly one. So, his way of the cross 2,000 years ago and your “way” now are also one.

But note this difference. His life was incomplete until he crowned it by his death. Your steps will only be complete when you have crowned them by your life. So seek Jesus not in far-off places. He is close at hand. Your workbench, office, kitchen, classroom – these are the places where you offer love. And Jesus is there with you. Accept each moment as it comes to you, with faith and trust that all that happens has Christ’s mark on it.

Go now! Take up your cross, and with your life, complete your way in Christ Jesus the Lord.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you!
For by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world!

Always Room for One More

Many of the stories in the New Testament’s book of Acts all seem to end the same way.

After either witnessing an amazing miracle or hearing a passionate sermon, people’s souls and spirits are so deeply touched that scads and scores of them come to faith in Jesus Christ. And they’re all welcomed into this unique community of faith and belief that the Holy Spirit is assembling in the months and years after Jesus walks straight and tall from Easter’s empty tomb.

This morning’s stunning moment of spiritual resurrection comes as the book of Acts revisions the world with the eyes of heaven. And here’s what Acts chapter 10 uncovers: God in Christ is re-writing the definition of “neighbor” – who it is that we’re supposed to regard as a neighbor and, more importantly, what it is that God expects us to do for a neighbor.

The Lord’s new definition of “neighbor,” which intends to untangle the ties that bind you and me, is intimately linked to our attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. When human attitudes, decisions, and behaviors start aligning with God’s steadfast love and infinite mercy, there’s no limit to the great things that can happen!

In a few moments you’ll experience that truth in the story of the apostle Peter’s daring visit to the household of Cornelius, a Roman military officer, a feared and dreaded enemy, an armed occupier and puppet of a foreign government. Two people more diametrically opposed to one another than Peter and Cornelius you’ll never meet.

Yet God parts the deep waters of division separating the two men, and Peter and Cornelius become spiritual brothers. And the community of faith is blessed and far better off because of their newfound relationship with one another in Christ.

This Lent, the Word of the Lord – Jesus Christ – is speaking to the community of faith and belief about our relationships with one another. The Holy Spirit is focusing our Lenten repentance on those human connections where time and the elements have taken their toll.

And God, well – thanks be to God, heaven’s gameplan for Creation remains unchanged: Fixing life’s brokenness, repairing its breaches, and conquering its fears. Grace is turning dreaded enemies into fast friends; darkness is becoming light, and death is giving way to life!

In both word and image, may the Holy Spirit allow the voice and hand of God to reach out and touch your heart and mind in this moving scene from Acts 10. Listen for the Word of the Lord.

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called.

He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.”

He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.”

When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa. About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance.

He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.”

So Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” They answered, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.”

So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.”

And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me. He said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea’

“Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say.”

Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:1-35)

The incredible faith and courage that fill Peter’s heart, for me anyway, is the scene-stealer of this dreamy, angel-filled episode.

Peter’s heartfelt commitment to following the Lord’s orders to the letter surely trumps what Peter is thinking and feeling. Being sent by God to engage with a military leader is definite cause for fear and loathing. Remember, Cornelius is an officer not of a defensive army whose mission is to protect Peter and his neighbors but an occupying army whose mission is to suppress any and all resistance against the Roman Empire – a maniacal government that routinely uses crucifixion to silence those “woke” voices who rock the boat and raise objection.

Officers of the Roman army are powerful, intimating men whose paths you don’t want to cross, and to be summoned to one’s home would be an occasion for trembling and gnashing of teeth for even the most faithful of Christ’s followers. Think about Peter’s going to Cornelius in terms of how you would feel if you were Ukrainian and God told you to go visit the home of an officer in the invading Russian army. If you can get yourself into that place of empathy, then you start to get a sense for how much calm the Holy Spirit brings to moments of overwhelming dread and white-knuckle terror.

What’s even more striking is this new revelation of truth that suddenly overtakes Peter.

His strange vision of an animal-filled sheet coming down from heaven gives Peter the new understanding that God shows no partiality or favoritism. God in Christ has come for all who worship him. The Lord has come not just the Jews but for everyone – Jews, gentiles – even Roman officers and their troops!

In Christ, they’re all one – no longer aliens and strangers but close neighbors – sisters and brothers together in the peace and grace of community. The Holy Spirit is moving freely with absolutely no regard to national borders, cultural boundaries, or social divisions to extend God’s extravagant, arms-wide-open hospitality that invites everyone to enter the holy tent that Jesus pitches smack-dab in the middle of the new neighborhood.

That good news is comforting and assuring – no question about it, but that good news arrives with a challenge that’s oftentimes awkward and uncomfortable: The challenge of learning to love and care for people we never really expected or wanted to have as neighbors. And even more challenging and discomforting: What are we willing to do for these former outsiders now that God has moved them next door from the other side of the tracks and converted these strangers and enemies into friends and family?

I could share with you any number of heart-warming stories that illustrate how God would have us serve and care for our neighbors.

You probably have a story or two of your own about how you’ve helped a neighbor in a time of trouble or how a neighbor has come to your aid and done something nice for you – all good stories that reflect the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit.

But the story I’ve decided to share goes way beyond so-called “Iowa nice,” far above the zany social-media challenges designed to help people we likely don’t know and probably will never meet. The story I’m about to share is a story of extravagant, face-to-face, risk-taking hospitality that – like God’s – shows no partiality or favoritism and – like the Spirit’s – shows no regard to national borders, cultural boundaries, or social divisions.

The story I’m about to share starts with this man, Luis Lopez-Acabal.

Luis grew up in Guatemala, and when he turned 16, a local gang began trying to strongarm him into joining up. Luis avoided the thugs for several weeks, but they eventually cornered him and gave him an ultimatum: He had 24 hours to either join up or be killed. Within hours, his family put him on a northbound bus. Luis entered the U.S. in 2007 and got a job as a night janitor and maintenance worker at a school. It was there where he met his wife, a legal resident from Mexico.

Driving home from work one day, Luis got pulled over by the police and quickly found himself facing deportation. He applied for asylum, saying that he could meet the legal requirement of “credible fear” of returning to his home country. But his bid for asylum was rejected, and he was given 45 days to leave the country. His wife tried to sponsor him for residency, but that effort failed, too.

Then along came University Presbyterian Church and an offer of sanctuary.

Luiz spent 100 days living in a small, windowless, wood-paneled room in the Tempe, Arizona, church. The church’s decision to provide sanctuary for Luiz was neither easy nor unanimous. The reaction from the surrounding city was a similar mix of opposition and support.

Nevertheless, members of the congregation began signing up to provide Luiz the things he needed – food, soap, toothpaste, clean towels and sheets – and something even more valuable: friendship and companionship. Community: a sense of belonging, a place of shelter. During his time at the church, other folks signed up simply to spend time with their new neighbor and unexpected guest so he didn’t feel lost and alone. Here’s what one woman says about her visits with Luis:

“My God says we’re all brothers and sisters. So, I’m visiting my brother here. Visiting is an attempt to somehow say, ‘You’re not walking this road alone. I can’t understand it, because I’ll never have to go through it, but I can sit here and visit with you.’  It’s kind of cool to see the other side of it, the people side. It’s one thing to hear, ‘Another immigrant is being deported’ but seeing someone’s face, having them smile and laugh with you. It’s different.”

As for Luis, the government ended up deferring his deportation. “I have faith in God that my case will be resolved so I can be by my family’s side,” he said. “I know that with God, nothing is impossible. That’s why I came to a church.”

Do I struggle with what University Church did for Luiz? Yes, I do. It challenges me on a number of fronts. I even wrestled for much of this week whether I should share this story with you this morning. There certainly are lots of other, safer, less controversial ways to illustrate the message of this morning’s texts.

But since the scene from Acts challenges our thinking and our behavior, I decided to climb back out on the preaching limb with a story that’s equally challenging.

Am I suggesting that we do the same thing here? No, not necessarily. But Peter, Cornelius, Luiz and my Presbyterian brothers and sisters in Arizona challenge me with edgy questions: “Who is my neighbor, and what am I prepared to do for him or her?”

Who is my neighbor? For whom am I willing to go to bat? Whose suffering am I willing to bear?

For whom am I willing to risk arrest or even lay down my life? With whom will I dare to laugh or cry? Who is it that the Lord would have me learn to love?

Are you my neighbor? Would you loan me a loaf of bread at midnight? Would you dig through a tall grain bin to rescue me if I fell in and got sucked under?

Would you wade through waist-high grass looking for my lost child? Some would, but would you? Would I?

Our times are such that we all could use a good neighbor and a safe place of sanctuary. After all, there’s always room for one more in God’s house and in the Kingdom of Heaven.

To the ancient church at Ephesus, the apostle Paul writes with his trademark vigor about the kinds of hospitality and risk-taking that Peter and Cornelius embody, the kinds reconciliation and reunion that reflect our oneness, thanks to the person and work of Christ. Continue listening for the Word of the Lord!

So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” – a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands –

Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Ephesians 2:11-22)

Ancient words, made ever true by the Cross of Jesus and the Resurrection of Christ: “Never call anyone profane or unclean.” Never call anyone profane or unclean whom God has cleansed! For the Spirit invites and enables each of us to be built together spiritually into a resilient dwelling place for God.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, March 26, 2023, the fifth Sunday of Lent at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the fourth of his Lenten series, “Called to Repentance: Working on Our Relationships.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee and L.T. Johnson inform the message.

On the Turning Away

Last Sunday’s Scripture lesson was grounded in brokenness – in the rips tearing the fabric of intimate relationship between Jesus and the apostle Peter, the three-time denier of his association with Christ.

During a humble shore lunch of freshly caught fish and bread, Jesus – recently arisen from Good Friday’s grave – makes the first move to mend the broken ties that once tightly bound Jesus and Peter. And so it goes, sometimes: The person who is offended must initiate reconciliation with the offender. No scolding. No judgment. No anger. Only restoration of relationship in support of the Lord’s efforts to redeem the world.

This morning’s lesson reinforces that very-faithful response to the conflicts and divisions plaguing so many of our human relationships.

Unfolding early in Jesus’s earthly ministry, the Pharisees haul before Christ a woman literally caught in the act of adultery. Her illicit partner in carnal knowledge, presumably a man, apparently has escaped accountability for his role in the whole sordid affair. Regardless, before a large crowd – also presumably mostly men, the Jewish religious authorities, who all are men, literally drop the nameless woman at the feet of Jesus and demand he render judgement.

Her attackers remind Jesus about the Old Testament’s Law of Moses, which clearly states that such a person – one found guilty of committing adultery – must be executed by stoning, perversely believing that the offender’s death will purify the community of sin and guilt. Of course, that never happens. Sin and guilt never disappear completely – at least not yet, anyway. Nonetheless, after reminding Jesus of the requirements of the Old Testament Law, the hypocritical leaders, in a failed effort to trick Jesus, ask him, “What say you?”

Maybe that’s a good Lenten question for us all: What do you say?

Ponder that, as well as the other meditations that the Holy Spirit sets upon your heart and mind, as you listen for the Word of the Lord in chapter 8 of John’s Gospel. The blood-thirsty crowd comes to see a woman pay the ultimate price for her sin. But they leave understanding, at least on some level, that the men also deserve to pay the price for their own moral debts and trespasses. May finding your place in the crowd be your Lenten offering of ashy-ness and repentance.

Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” (John 8:2-11)

By all accounts Maddi Runkles had never been a disciplinary problem.

Maddi Runkles

She had a 4.0 GPA at Heritage Academy, the small, private Christian school she attended in Maryland. Maddi played on the soccer team and served as president of the student council. But when her fellow seniors in the Class of 2017 donned their caps and gowns for graduation, Maddi found no place amid all the pomp and circumstance.

Why? She was pregnant!

Because she was “great with child,” school administration decided there’d be no place for Maddi in the line of graduates taking the big walk across the stage to receive their high school diplomas. And she was removed from her leadership position on the student council. And she had to stand before an assembly of the entire student body and confess her decision to have sexual relations before marriage, which was a big no-no in the school’s code of student conduct.

Did I mention that the baby-daddy faced no consequences for his role in the sensuous encounter with Maddi?

The whole awkward situation would have remained private and confidential had Maddi and her family not made the decision to go public. They reached out to an anti-abortion group, “Students for Life,” who maintained that Maddi should be praised, not punished, for her decision to keep her baby. And that argument is not without its merits.

Even so, I still tend to think that school officials fell short in missing a great opportunity – just as that angry crowd in our reading also missed the point. In everyone’s vigor to enforce the letter of the law, what got lost was the holy work of restoration: Returning Maddi to her former standing, welcoming her back to the good graces of the community, remembering in this and so many other potentially embarrassing instances that “there but for the grace of God go I.” As Jesus puts it, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”

Yes, Maddi signed a covenant with her school committing herself to chastity before marriage. But unlike Old Testament Law, which clearly states the punishment for such violations, the covenant Maddi signed was silent about the punishment that awaited a rule-breaker. The school code only mentioned that there would be consequences for behavior that cut against the grain of the school’s morality.

Of course, as always, Jesus embodies the faithful way forward.

Having fulfilled the penalty of Maddi’s poor decision – as well as the myriad trespasses of her administrators, classmates, and teachers, the Lord shows his people that any human consequences for breaking the rules must be grounded in mercy and grace, for the purpose of restoring the offender to the fullness of loving community.

Why make “human consequences” its own subcategory? Because there are natural consequences over which we have no control: Like having to raise a child as a single parent, having to struggle to make financial and career goals, having to walk around for nine months with an ever-expanding baby bump that reveals to the entire Christian community her failure to keep her promise.

The same sorts of natural consequences appear in the story of the woman caught in adultery. The effects of her decisions on her family and herself remain, even after Christ removes the guilt of her sin and delivers her from the punishment of the law.

Refusing to allow Maddi the honor of walking in her graduation is not a natural consequence of her premarital sex nor does the punishment restore her to the community of faith. Quite the opposite: It shuns her presence and removes her from fellowship.

“But pastor,” you might argue, “letting her walk would signal to all the other students that breaking the honor code is OK. When they’re not vaping in the bathroom, they’ll be having sex in the band room!”

Well, maybe.

But if that were the case, then Jesus himself commits the same mistake and fosters the same behavior by pardoning that adulterous woman before a crowd of people and refusing to enforce the biblical requirement that such fornicators be put to death. And remember, this Jewish woman knows – even before sleeping with her lover – that her escapades could result in death, and Jesus still does not enforce the clear command of the covenant by punishing her.

Instead, as with that hapless woman and with you and me, Jesus, on the Cross, lets himself be punished. Which means that the price has already been paid. Forgiveness and grace are ours in Christ, whether we are the guilty fornicator or the repentant legalist. Thus the question remains: Will you and I extend that same mercy to the sinners we know, love, and serve? Or we will stand rigid, stone in hand, screaming for the sinner to pay?

The apostle Paul urges Christ’s disciples to the higher road. I’m reading to you from Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. As ever, continue listening for the Word of the Lord.

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith. (Galatians 6:1-10)

The lyrics to a powerful-but-admittedly secular tune by the rock group Pink Floyd well express the spirituality of Paul’s heart as well as mine:

On the turning away/From the pale and downtrodden

And the words they say/Which we won’t understand

Don’t accept that what’s happening/Is just a case of others’ suffering

Or you’ll find that you’re joining in/The turning away

In the bearing of one another’s burdens, in the forgiving of those who sin against us, let there be no more turning away. By the Holy Spirit of gentleness, let there be only restoration of belonging, for Christ’s sake.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, March 19, 2023, the fourth Sunday of Lent at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the third of his Lenten series, “Called to Repentance: Working on Our Relationships.” Reporting by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and reflection by Ardee Coolidge inform the message.

From the Pastor: Flexible + Resilient = Blessing

“Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered about them often.” (Luke 2:19)

Words like “interim” and “transitional” best describe how I sense personal life and ministry these days. So I’m glad I last year picked “flexibility” as “my word” to guide moving, living, and being. Overall, I’m eager and excited to experience how the Spirit will lead you, me, and us in the coming months and years.

“Secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things. When you try to figure out the future, you are grasping at things that are Mine. This, like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion: doubting my promises to care for you,” author Sarah Young writes in the first-person of Jesus.

Go ahead and pronounce me guilty. As it relates to the future, my Lenten confession admits that I worry and fret too much, and I trust and rely too little.

In repentance, I’m incorporating a new attitude into my mindset: resilient — similar to “flexible” yet more muscular. “Flexible” bends without breaking when adapting to new situations.  And that’s a good thing. “Resilient” is all that and more. It bounces back when you’re hit hard. Really hard!

Resiliency is more art than science. Practice makes perfect, like all sports or leisure activities. The more you do it, the better you get. And over the years, I’ve surely had opportunities to practice the fine art of resiliency.

In my parents I had good mentors. They came of age during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the World War of 1940s. When it came to flexibility and resilience, they did it well, because they’d been there and done that — deftly surviving global economic collapse, wartime rationing, and a Cuban missile crisis. Easily rattled they were not.

And much of their hand-to-mouth days they remembered fondly: “We didn’t even know that we were poor,” they would recall. (Although, on some level I’m sure they did.)

Regardless, when I was coming of age, pitfalls and setbacks that befell our household stood no chance in the face of my parent’s resilient determination to bounce back from circumstances beyond their control. Such tough times are the stuff of nurtured hope, not in the sense of starry-eyed, wishful thinking but in the sense of assurance — confidence that God really is present in changing times and really will work together unto good in the midst of life’s ebbs and flows.

A time of comings and goings is where our shared life and ministry finds itself on this eve of springtime.  Our office manager, Michelle Gress, has accepted full-time employment, which means she’ll have less time and energy to share in support of God’s work among us.

Elder Jim Johnson has offered to take over all bookkeeping responsibilities from Michelle. At our meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 21, Session accepted Jim’s offer and appointed him “volunteer bookkeeper.” In the coming weeks he and Michelle will partner to transfer responsibilities. Jim will continue to serve as an active Session member and co-moderator of the Finance and Stewardship Committee with Elder David Hahn. But he no longer will be an authorized check-signer of church accounts. Treasurer Al Rissman will continue to oversee and coordinate deposits of tithes, offerings, and other income.

For her part, Michelle will continue to prepare bulletins and newsletters, sort postal, e-mail and voicemail, order supplies and deal with vendors, and provide clerical support to staff, Session, deacons and committees. She will work three to five hours a week all on flextime. She will not have regular office hours but is available to meet with anyone by appointment. Her personal cell phone number is (563) 380-6771. Feel free to reach out to her anytime by voice or text.

For its part, Session will be evaluating the position of office manager to identify how best to make use of that role.

For my part, my hope for good things to come lies in flexibility and resilience, blessings through which God’s grace has always flowed in my interim seasons of transition and change.

Like Mary, let us keep all these strange and wonderful things in our hearts and ponder about them often.

— Pastor Grant

Yelling at Squirrels

Dramatic scenes set just days on either side of Easter provide the settings for our two Scripture lessons this morning. They unfold a couple chapters apart in John’s Gospel, yet the passages are tied intimately.

The Lord Jesus and the apostle Simon Peter take lead roles in both episodes, and with good reason the relationship between the two is prickly at best. The first reading explains why the ties that bind are so stretched and strained, and the second reveals what Jesus does to ease the tension and cultivate reconciliation.

In this Lenten season of humility and repentance, I’m inviting all of us to take an honest look at our relationships. That means allowing the Holy Spirit to name the elephant in the room.  As the pachyderm was for Jesus and Peter, so also for too many of us: Our relationships are torn and in tatters. Human sin and brokenness are to blame, and the Lord asks better of us.

What the Lord asks is at once simple and complex: Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly (Micah 6:8). Simple and complex: All God asks for is your heart.

In praise and thanksgiving for the endless grace and countless blessing that flow like currents of a mighty river from the throne of Heaven, all God asks for is your heart. That was one of the takeaways from the message we heard last Sunday from my friend and colleague, Pastor Loren Shellabarger.

In return for all that God has done for you, is doing for you, and will do for you – not the least of which is your undeserved salvation, all the Lord asks for is your heart – that his heart be yours and your heart be his.

In a cardiac fusion of cosmic proportion, all Father, Son, and Spirit ask for is your heart: That it become as caring, as hospitable, as healing, as tolerant, as forgiving – as loving! – as theirs is.

Toward that end, let us enter the story of God with us in the hours just after the Lord’s Last Supper and just hours before his crucifixion. Place yourself in the story, huddled in the warmth of a ragtag charcoal fire. Listen for the Word of the Lord and the crow of the cock.

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus.

Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.”

Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.”

When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” Jesus answered, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?”

Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed. (John 18:15-27)

To riff on the poet, ask not for whom the cock crows. It crows for thee.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus is more direct: “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (John 8:7 NLT)

Before any of us, in righteous judgment, gets up in Peter’s face to render a guilty verdict upon his faithless denial, please take a moment. Before your finger of accusation pokes deep into Peter’s chest, please dial it down a notch or two and recall your own moments of denying Jesus.

You deny Jesus.

I deny Jesus.

All God’s children, at one time or another, deny Jesus – sometimes without even so much as giving a second thought to the blatant denial on full display.

Our willful denial comes into view in decision and action – as much or more as our willful denial comes into sight in both indecision and indifference.

Our willful denial exists in the sour words we choose and the cowardly actions we take.

Our willful denial emerges in the grudges we bear and the revenge we seek.

Our willful denial shows up in friendships gone awry, in lines crossed, in boundaries breached, in once-solemn agreements and treaties broken and scattered to the four winds.

Our willful denial materializes in the relentless pursuit of profit regardless of its toll on God’s Creation.

Our willful denial erupts in the lies we allow and the corruption we ignore. At least Mussolini got the trains to run on time, right?

And perhaps worst of all, from the people the Lord calls his own, our willful denial reflects lack of trust in the God whose gracious blessings all intend to establish none else than trust.

But undoubtedly best of all, to the people the Lord calls his own, the Lord is always the first to reach out a gentle, healing hand of renewal, reconciliation, and revival. Which is precisely what happens in our second lesson. Jesus has recently risen from the dead, and he invites his followers to Easter brunch. Jesus summons his disciples to a quiet beach for a nourishing breakfast of fish and bread.

Once again, listen for the Word of the Lord.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,

“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)

After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” (John 21:15-21)

What an awkward moment it must have been:

Jesus and the apostles, just after the Resurrection – their denial and betrayal, doubt and cowardice, throughout the eventful course of the previous few days still fresh in everyone’s memory.

Starting with Peter, Jesus in a roundabout way names the elephant in the room. Their relationship is stretched to the breaking point, and Jesus intends to repair the damage and return Peter to the good graces of heaven.

In this case Peter is the offender, and Jesus is the offendee. By all rights, Peter should take the lead and be the one who first seeks forgiveness. But no, Jesus is the one who makes the first move – well, a couple moves actually. Jesus in his repeated question “Do you love me?” provides Peter several chances to make amends, but the Lord’s subtle approach is lost on Peter.

Jesus knows Peter will respond affirmatively about his love for the Lord. And Jesus hopes Peter will keep going: “Yes, I love you, and I’m sorry I denied your love.” But no, Peter misses the boat. Yet Jesus hauls Peter back aboard. “Follow me,” Jesus invites. “Follow me, Peter, all is forgiven. You’re still part of the community. So, come, follow me.”

Sometimes, the person offended needs to be the one who initiates reconciliation.

As a man of a certain age, I’m becoming inclined to yell at squirrels – particularly the bushy-tailed beasts who raid our birdfeeder. I’m more than happy to feed the sparrows, juncos, blue jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, and redpoles who daily feast on birdseed just outside our kitchen window. But squirrels, not so much!

Thus I again was incensed when I looked out one morning last week and saw a squirrel in our birdfeeder. The hungry critter was thrashing its head back and forth, rummaging for the best seeds while the rejects fell to the ground in all directions. The needle on my anger meter was moving quickly toward the red zone.

Then, I looked down under the feeder to see maybe two dozen or more birds feasting on the birdseed that the dastardly squirrel was knocking to the ground. It’s “raining” seed.  Halleluiah, it’s raining seed.

And no one was going hungry.  So, I forgave the squirrel – let go of my anger and made peace. No more yelling at squirrels. But woe to the first rabbit I see nibbling away at Julie’s garden!

It’s a silly example, I know. But it surely goes straight to the heart of the Gospel’s call: Sometimes, the person offended needs to be the one who initiates reconciliation.

And because Jesus, the offended, opens the door to forgiveness and restoration, Peter becomes a different man. He enjoys newfound humility and learns not to rely on his own strength of will. Never again does Peter deny Jesus. If he does, the Bible is silent.

But what Scripture does hold is the sound of Peter raising his voice in testimony to his faith. And as a result, thousands come to faith in Christ (Acts 2:14-36). As Jesus asked, Peter feeds the Lord’s flock. For the rest of his life, Peter teaches, leads, and cares for Jesus’s lambs!

Despite Peter’s past failure in his threefold denial, Jesus finds him a place in the Kingdom where Peter does great things. Upon Peter’s repentance, Jesus puts him to work on an important task: Proclaiming the Gospel in word and deed.

Thanks be to God, no one’s story is ever over when you stumble and fall or mess things up royally. God is Lord of second chances. Trust that Jesus will restore you – in body, mind, and spirit – and send you forth to do great things. For great things happen when God mixes graciously with us – and when we mix graciously with friend, neighbor, and stranger.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, March 12, 2023, the third Sunday of Lent at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the second of his Lenten series, “Called to Repentance: Working on Our Relationships.”