Ponder All These Things: Lent

Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Household of Believers

©The Rev. Seth Olson 2026

This sermon was preached on the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Year A, 2026) at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Ezekiel is set down by God in a valley full of bones. Not just bones.
Dry bones. Very dry bones.

That detail means this is not fresh pain. This is old devastation. The kind that has settled in. The kind that starts to feel normal. The kind that becomes the landscape.

And God asks Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

That is a hard question. Because the answer to this sort of question doesn’t feel obvious.

Can this faith live?
Can this heart beat with love?
Can this family heal?
Can this weary soul breath again?

I know something about that.

When I was a junior at Sewanee, I looked impressive on paper. I was heavily involved in chapel life, Bible studies, residential life, cross-country/track and all while maintaining my grades. From the outside, I looked like someone whose spiritual life was strong and headed in the right direction.

And during that season, our Suffragan Bishop Mark Andrus and my rector, Marc Burnette, invited me to come talk with them. They told me they thought I should pursue ordination and go straight to seminary.

It was kind. It was humbling. But I had to tell them the truth. Despite how I looked on paper, inside, my life was falling apart. My heart had been broken. My faith was unraveling. The worldview I had carefully built was coming apart. I was still showing up and doing all the right things, but inwardly I felt as dead as Lazarus.

Thanks be to God, those men did not shame me. They listened. And they encouraged me to meet with the Rev. Annwn Myers, the associate chaplain at Sewanee at that time.

When I sat in her office, I told the truth. And she did not rush to fix me. She made room for me. She reminded me that I did not need a huge faith. Just faith the size of a mustard seed.

Still, I felt dead on a soul level. This persisted for not four days, not even four months, but about a year. By that time, I had all but put down the spirituality of my childhood. In the liminal space, walking from what was to what would be I became more open and spent time seeking, wandering, and wondering what my life’s path was and whether God was part of it, nonexistent, or actively trying to sabotage me. I pondered could my spiritual life live again—could my life change?

And not on my timeline, but on God’s something did change. It took a long time for me to realize what God was doing, but eventually I realized God was filling my spiritual lungs with something fresh. And looking back now, I know this: through grace God brought me back to life, but it was the community—folks like Annwn, my friends, and my family—it was the community that brought me back to living.

And that is why Bethany matters. Bethany is the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. It is more than the place where a miracle happens. It is where this household of believers lives. And each of them shows us something.

Martha goes out to meet Jesus. She is active, direct, engaged. And here in John she is not just busy. She is bold in faith. She says, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” She shows us that discipleship includes action. Serving, reaching out, showing up, loving our neighbors in concrete ways.

Mary shows us something different. She is the one who grieves, who weeps, who stays close to the sorrow. She reminds us that discipleship also includes contemplation. Stillness. Listening. The willingness to sit with grief and let God meet us there.

Sometimes people say, “I’m a Martha” or “I’m a Mary,” but we are both—we need both! Action without contemplation can become self-aggrandizing or frantic. Contemplation without action can become self-enclosed, even apathetic. We need both action and contemplation as we experience God’s grace. But, what about when we don’t have either?

There’s another member of this household of believers—there is Lazarus. And Lazarus reminds us that sometimes we are not Martha and we are not Mary. Sometimes we are the one in the tomb. Sometimes we are so exhausted, so wounded, so overwhelmed, so heartsick, that we cannot get ourselves to Jesus and we cannot even pray, except with sighs too deep for words.

And that is when today’s Gospel becomes especially good news. Because Jesus does not only meet the active. He does not only meet the prayerful. He also goes after the dead. He stands at the mouth of the tomb and calls life forth.

And then he says to the community, “Unbind him, and let him go.” That is what the Church is meant to be—a place of God’s liberating love. A place where people do not have to pretend to be fine. A place where some serve like Martha. A place where some pray and weep like Mary. And a place where those who come stumbling out of the tomb, still wrapped in bandages, are not shamed.

They are loved. They are seen. They are unbound. So, whether you find Jesus like Martha, or wait for Jesus to find you like Mary, or need Jesus to drag you out of some dead place like Lazarus, the truth is the same:

He comes. He enters our grief. He enters our homes. He enters our tombs. And wherever he finds us, he brings resurrected life.

Amen.

Sunday, March 15, 2026

One Thing I Do Know

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL on the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Refreshment Sunday). A video on the sermon may be found by clicking here. Thank you for being here!

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Have you ever been looking for something—your keys, your glasses, your phone—only to discover it was there the whole time?

Not hidden. Not stolen. Not mysteriously vanished.

Just… there. In your hand. On the counter. On your head. In the very place where you had already looked three times. The frustrating thing is not simply that you missed it. It is that once you see it, you realize it was never really out of sight. You just could not recognize what was right in front of you.

That is funny when it is a phone charger or a pair of sunglasses. It is less funny when it is something more important. When we do not see the hurt in someone we love. When we miss a destructive pattern in our own behavior. When we remain blind to the way fear has been driving us for years. When we stop seeing the humanity of another person because we have grown too used to sorting people into categories.

And sometimes—this is where John 9 takes us—we do not see the work of God because we have already decided what God is allowed to do, how God is allowed to do it, and through whom God is allowed to do it.

On the surface, this is a story about a man born blind. But that is only the top layer. Because the deeper question is not simply, “Can the blind man see?” The deeper question is: “Can anybody else?”

Jesus and his disciples are walking along when they see a man blind from birth. Immediately, the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

And before we are too hard on them, let’s admit that we do this all the time. Whose fault is it? Who caused this? What did they do wrong? How do we explain suffering in a way that keeps the world neat and morally satisfying?

That is the first blindness in the passage. Before the man is healed, he is analyzed. Before he is loved, he is discussed. Before he is treated as a person, he is treated as a theological problem.

We do this too. We may use therapy words, political words, or church words. But we still do it. When someone suffers, we often rush to explanation before compassion. We move toward a theory before a relationship.

But Jesus will not play that game. He says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” That does not answer every question we have about suffering. It does not solve the mystery of pain. But it tells us something crucial about Jesus: he will not reduce this man’s life to blame. He refuses shame as the story line. And that is good news.

Because some of us have spent years living under other people’s explanations. Your suffering is your fault. Your struggle is weakness. Your difference makes you a problem to be solved. Your pain must mean God is trying to teach you something.

But here comes Jesus, refusing to let this man’s life be narrated by shame.

He makes mud. He anoints the man’s eyes. He sends him to wash. The man goes, and he comes back seeing.

That should be the end of the story. A man who has never seen in his life can now see. That should lead to joy. That should lead to wonder. That should lead to praise. But it does not.

The healing is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of the trouble. Because grace disrupts systems that are comfortable with people staying in their assigned places.

The neighbors do not know what to do with him. “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some say yes. Some say no. Some say, “Well, he looks like him.” And the man keeps saying, “I am the man.”

He is not only identifying himself. He is reclaiming himself. The one who had been known only by his lack is now speaking in his own voice.

His parents are afraid. The religious authorities are offended. And the people who are supposed to know how to recognize the work of God are the very ones who cannot perceive what is happening.

They interrogate the man. They question his parents. They debate Jesus. They circle around Sabbath law, propriety, and authority. And do you notice what nobody does? Nobody simply rejoices.

A man has been healed, and they cannot celebrate because the healing does not fit their framework. That is the deeper blindness here. Not the blindness the man was born with, but the blindness of people so certain that they can see that they can no longer recognize the Light of the world standing right in front of them. And that kind of blindness is more dangerous.

Because if you know you are blind, you ask for help. If you know you are confused, you seek understanding. If you know you need healing, you can receive care.

But if you are absolutely certain that your categories are complete, your judgments are pure, your tribe is righteous, your religion is tidy, and your framework is final—then how will the light ever get in?

Meanwhile, the man who had been blind becomes the clearest-sighted person in the chapter, other than Jesus himself. He does not know everything. He does not have polished theology, institutional authority, or a seminary degree. But he does have honesty.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

That is one of the most powerful lines in all of Scripture. Not because it explains everything, but because it does not pretend to. He does not claim more than he knows. He simply tells the truth about what grace has done.

And Holy Apostles, that is often how faith deepens. Not through mastering everything. Not through winning every argument. But through telling the truth: here is who I was, here is what Christ has done, and here is what I now see that I could not see before.

That is witness. Then comes one of the best moments in the whole passage. The religious leaders keep pressing him, and finally he asks, “Do you also want to become his disciples?”

That is holy mischief. Sanctified sass. The one who was being interrogated now exposes the blindness of the interrogators. He sees them more clearly than they see themselves. And that is what grace does: it makes a person harder to control.

But this story is not here so we can smugly point at ancient religious leaders and say, “Look how blind they were.” That would be to miss the point all over again. The story is here so we might ask where this same blindness lives in us.

Because this kind of blindness is not just personal. It can be communal. It can live in the church. It can show up whenever religion gets more interested in control than compassion, more interested in managing people than healing them, more interested in protecting itself than telling the truth.

Public life is not the enemy. Political leaders are not automatically villains. Power itself is not evil. Some have used authority in ways that bend toward justice, mercy, peace, and the common good. Thanks be to God for them.

But when religion becomes obsessed with preserving influence, blessing tribal certainty, or defending its own status, it risks losing its ability to recognize Christ.

Because Jesus is not found flattering the powerful or sanctifying our exclusions. Jesus is found reclaiming the excluded. Dismantling shame. Crossing lines. Telling inconvenient truths. Giving dignity back to people who have been treated as objects, problems, or threats.

Whenever Christianity starts caring more about influence than faithfulness, more about control than compassion, more about access than agape, it starts to go blind. And that is the question this Gospel puts before us: not simply, “Do we believe in Jesus?” but “Do we see as Jesus sees?” Or is our vision obscured by fear, pride, certainty, or the need to keep the world neatly sorted into insiders and outsiders?

Because the final paradox of the story is this: the real problem is not blindness. The real problem is claiming sight while remaining closed off to grace. If you know you are blind, there is hope. If you know you are confused, there is hope. If you know your life has gotten tangled up in fear, pride, status, or tribal identity, there is hope.

But if you insist that you already see just fine—that you have no need to repent, no need to listen, no need to be interrupted, no need to be changed—then even the light can start to feel like a threat.

So maybe that is the prayer for us this Sunday. Not, “Lord, show me who the blind people are.” But, “Lord, where am I still blind?” Where have I treated people as problems instead of neighbors? Where have I mistaken certainty for faith? Where have I wanted Jesus to endorse my world rather than remake it?

Open my eyes, Lord. And until I can see clearly, make me honest enough to say that. For the man born blind becomes a disciple not because he knows everything, but because he tells the truth about what grace has done.

“One thing I do know… though I was blind, now I see.”

May Christ save us from the blindness of false certainty. May Christ open our eyes. And may Christ give us the courage to tell the truth: that by grace, we are beginning to see.

Amen.

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Found at the Well

Just like the woman at the well, Jesus meets us—not just where we are—but precisely in the places where we don’t want to be found.

This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video version of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

There’s a particular kind of feeling that comes over you when you’re trying not to be seen. Not the kind of “I forgot to comb my hair” feeling. I mean that deeper instinct we all know—the one that says: If anyone really knew what’s going on in me… if anyone really saw what I’ve done, what I’ve left undone… if anyone saw what I’m afraid of… I might not survive the shame of it.

So, we learn to manage. We learn to hide in our own lives. We learn to show up at the well when nobody else is there.

And that’s why I love this story in John 4—because it tells the truth about us without humiliating us. Jesus is traveling. He’s tired. He sits down by Jacob’s well in Samaria. And a woman comes to draw water. Then, John gives us a detail that is easy to miss: it’s noon.

Noon is a strange time to draw water. That’s not usually when someone does their daily work. That’s done in the cooler hours—during the morning rush—when everyone else is there. When one would have the rest of the day to use the water. When you can blend in.

But she’s not there during the morning rush hour. She comes at noon. Which means—at the very least—this woman is alone.

And I’m going to say what the text invites us to wonder: maybe she likes it that way. Maybe noon is safer. Maybe noon is quieter. Maybe it’s the only time she can breathe without feeling eyes on her, without feeling the weight of whispers. She comes at noon because she doesn’t want to be found.

But, Jesus is already sitting there—where this woman probably did not expect him to be. This noon-time encounter has had me pondering a radical truth all week: God meets us—not just where we are—but precisely in the places where we don’t want to be found.

Not when we’re polished. Not when we’ve done enough penance. Not when we can finally explain ourselves. But right there. At noon. At the well. In the place we would rather avoid.

And the conversation begins so simply. In such a human way: Jesus says, “Give me a drink.” Which is already startling, because there are lines here—religious lines, ethnic lines, moral lines, gender lines—and Jesus steps right over all of them and shows us that love is more influential to him than the world’s categories.

She says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” In other words: Do you know who I am? Do you know what group I belong to? Do you know the story you’ve been told about people like me?

And Jesus doesn’t answer by defending himself. There’s no lecture. He offers a gift: “If you knew the gift of God… you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Living water. Fresh water. Running water. Not stagnant. Not what sits too long in a jar and starts to taste like the container.

And at first—she doesn’t get it. You may recall from last week’s Gospel passage with Nicodemus that in John: people misunderstand Jesus, and Jesus uses the misunderstanding as a doorway. He doesn’t shame them for not being enlightened yet. He stays with them until they can receive what he’s actually offering.

Confused, she says, “Sir, you have no bucket.” Then—like so many of us—she tries to steer the conversation into a religious debate. Where is the right place to worship? Which tradition is correct? Who has the true lineage? Whose holy place counts?

And did you notice Jesus’ response? He meets her there. He doesn’t dismiss the question. He doesn’t say doctrine doesn’t matter. He goes with her theology.

But then Jesus takes it deeper. Because Jesus is not interested in winning an argument. Jesus is interested in freeing this woman from her bondage. And that’s where the turning point comes.

Jesus cuts to the heart of things: “Go call your husband and come back.” Friends, that is the moment when most of us would bolt. That is the moment where the conversation stops being interesting and starts being personal.

It’s one thing to talk about worship locations. It’s another thing to talk about your life. But, she doesn’t balk, responding: “I have no husband.”

So, Jesus continues, “You’re right. You’ve had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” Now—this is important—Jesus does not say this to humiliate her. Jesus does not say this to punish her. Jesus says it because he is doing what love does: he is bringing her into the truth that can finally set her free.

And it’s complicated, right? We don’t know her whole story. We don’t know whether she’s been discarded, widowed, exploited, trapped, or surviving. John doesn’t give us a neat moral résumé.

What John gives us is this: whatever the story is, it’s heavy enough that she’s drawing water at noon. And Jesus looks straight at the place she would rather keep hidden.

And she does something brave. She doesn’t deny. She doesn’t spin. She doesn’t offer an excuse. She stays.

For a moment, she is fully seen. And somehow—mysteriously—the weight shifts. Because this is what happens when you are seen with mercy: you don’t collapse under the truth; you rise inside it. This is the holiness of Jesus: he knows the truth about you, and he stays at the well anyway.

I know some of us grew up with the picture of a God who is angry, vengeful, and waiting for us to slip so we can be punished. But this story will not allow that portrait of God to stand. Because Jesus already knows. Jesus already sees. And what does he offer?

Living water. Not shame-water. Not “try harder” water. Not “come back when you’re fixed” water. Living water!

And the result is not that she becomes small and silent. The result is that she becomes a witness. She leaves her water jar—the very thing she came for—and she runs back to the village and says, “Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.”

That phrase—“come and see”—matters in John’s Gospel. It shows up at the beginning when disciples are first invited into relationship. It shows up when someone is skeptical and needs an invitation, not an argument. And here it shows up again on the lips of this woman.

In John’s Good News she’s not explicitly “sent,” and yet she becomes a prototype of apostleship: a person who has encountered Jesus and cannot keep it to herself. She doesn’t say, “Come and see the perfect doctrine I’ve mastered.” She doesn’t say, “Come and see how I cleaned up my life.” She says, in essence: Come and see what mercy feels like.

And that means, Church, we do not only admire her. We are meant to emulate her. So, what would it look like for us—at Holy Apostles—to emulate her?

It might look like this:

It might look like telling the truth to God in prayer instead of managing God with religious language. Not “Lord, I’m fine,” but “Lord, I’m thirsty. I’m lonely. I’m angry. I’m scared. I’m exhausted.”

It might look like letting a trusted friend or spouse or counselor see what we usually keep hidden—because secrecy is where shame breeds, and mercy is what shame cannot survive.

It might look like naming the “noon places” in our own lives—those patterns we return to when we don’t want to be found: the doomscrolling, the numbing, the drinking, the controlling, the overworking, the sarcasm, the emotional shutdown, the quiet resentment.

And it might look like a different kind of witness: not loud, not performative, not “holier-than-thou”—but honest.

“Come and see. I met Jesus in the place I didn’t want to be found, and somehow, I’m still standing.”

Now—let me speak carefully, but plainly. From my pastoral perspective—which aims to see the world through the lens of Christ’s love—from my view as a pastor, we have seemed lost as a country over the last several years. We are at odds with one another. We are cynical. We are quick to disdain. We are more practiced at outrage than repair.

And whatever your politics, we are living with the consequences of forces bigger than any one of us—violence in the world, fear in the air, an addiction to domination, a cheapening of truth, and a hardening of our hearts.

And I wonder if what this story does for us in Lent is lead us—not into political debate—but into spiritual honesty. Because the question isn’t, “Can we find someone else to blame?” The question is: Will we let ourselves be seen? Will we tell the truth about our complicity—about how easy it is to want the world to change without wanting our own hearts to change?

Will we tell the truth about the ways prejudice still lives in us and among us? Will we tell the truth about the ways we can spend our lives trying not to be found—by God, by one another, by our own conscience?

Because here is the best news: Jesus already knows everything we’ve ever done.

He knows the broken relationships we’ve been part of.

He knows the ways we’ve harmed and the ways we’ve been harmed.

He knows the ways we’ve tried to quench our thirst with stagnant water—domination, consumerism, addiction, gluttony, greed, lust, revenge, the need to be right, the need to win, and all those other versions of tainted water.

And still—Christ sits at the well. Still—he speaks. Still—he offers living water.

Christ’s living water is not a religious product. It’s not something we earn. It is the life of God poured into the dry places of the human heart. And Jesus says: “The water I will give will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Not from the ground. Not from the empire. Not from the market. Not from the powers and principalities of this world. From within you. From your inmost being—the seat of your soul—where Christ is meant to reign.

So, in this season of Lent, I wonder:

When Christ finds you hiding at the well… will you run and hide?

Or will you do what this brave Samaritan woman did?

Will you stay?

Will you let him see you?

Will you receive the mercy that tells the truth and still loves you?

And then—will you become a witness?

Not because you have it all figured out.
But because you’ve tasted living water.

Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done, he can’t be the Messiah, can he?

Amen.

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Father Nick Couldn't Sleep

This week's message is a modern day retelling of Nicodemus' encounter with Jesus in John 3:1-17.

This sermon was preached on the Second Sunday in Lent at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles. You may view a video of this sermon here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Many of us woke up this weekend to headlines that feel destabilizing—news of violence, power shifts, and uncertainty in the world. I don’t pretend to have geopolitical answers in this sermon. But I do know this: when the world feels unsteady, we return to what is steady. And sometimes what steadies us is not analysis, but encounter.

So, let me tell you a story.

Father Nick couldn’t sleep again. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of insomnia the internet recommends deep breathing for. This was the kind where your mind becomes a committee meeting and every thought files a report.

He lay beside his wife, Miriam, who possessed the spiritual gift of falling asleep even when his anxious energy hummed through the mattress like a second heartbeat. She could feel it, though. She always could. She had stopped trying to fix her spouse. Sometimes the only way a person gets honest is when the house is quiet enough to hear their own soul.

Father Nick stared at the ceiling fan tracing slow circles—wondering if it might hypnotize him to sleep. But thoughts turned to the parish calendar, which was already full—vestry meetings starting in prayer and quickly turning into budget conversations, pastoral visits he’d promised but hadn’t yet made, Sunday’s liturgy waiting to be shaped. And then there was the invisible list:

Did the sermon land? Did I sound too political? Not political enough?
Are pledges down? Why did that parishioner look away when I spoke of forgiveness? What happens if people stop coming?

Father Nick was a dutiful pastor. That was the compliment people gave him.

“He’s faithful.”
“He works hard.”
“He keeps things running.”

And he did keep things running. Prayers, bulletins, sacraments, emails—like someone appointed not only to the cure of souls but to the cure of logistics.

But beneath all the competence, something felt hollow.

Not dramatic emptiness. Quiet emptiness. The kind that comes when you’ve been pouring yourself out for so long you can’t remember what it feels like to be filled.

In the dark he remembered his ordination—the bishop’s hands heavy and kind, the prayers like thunder and honey at the same time. He had believed he was being given a life rooted in God.

He also remembered something Bishop Stough, the old bishop, used to say with a half-smile: “The longest journey you’ll ever make is about eighteen inches—from your head down to your heart.”At clergy retreats that sort of statement sounded folksy. At 2 a.m., it sounded like diagnosis.

The next morning Father Nick stood at the kitchen window with his coffee, watching dawn spread like slow mercy across the neighborhood. He caught his reflection in the glass—jaw clenched, shoulders slightly hunched, as if bracing for the next request.

He had meant every promise he made to Miriam—slower evenings, laughter not interrupted by phone calls. But the church needed him. The people needed him. And, if he was honest, he needed to feel needed.

Later that day he met with other clergy at a regional gathering. Paper cups of coffee. Polite jokes. The unspoken competition of who’s busiest. Someone mentioned another church across town—the kind with professional lighting and a brand. The kind where it became harder to tell where the Kingdom of God ends and party platforms begins.

“They’re growing like crazy,” someone said carefully. The tone shifted. Not hostile. Not admiring. Just uneasy. Father Nick felt something tighten in his stomach. Not because growth was wrong. Not because creativity was evil. But because he knew the temptation.

He knew how easily growth in numbers could start to outshine spiritual growth. How influence could start to feel like faithfulness. How being impressive could masquerade as being holy. And he knew how easily a pastor could begin preaching not for transformation—but for approval.

Later that afternoon he walked into his own parish hall. Volunteers were setting up for a newcomers’ event. Banners. Postcards. Welcome items for visitors. All well-intentioned. All harmless. And yet something in him whispered: it would be so easy to make this everything. To drift. Not through greed, but through anxiety.

That evening, after dinner, Miriam watched him pace back-and-forth in their living room. “You’re going to go see him,” she said.

“See who?” he asked, though he knew.

“The Teacher,” she said. “Not the one in your sermon notes. The real one.” He tried to laugh, but it came out thin.

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Miriam softened. “Maybe it means you’re finally tired of doing religion without feeling God.”

That landed like a millstone in water—and it pulled Nick down with it. Gasping for spiritual air, he finally decided to follow his spouse’s suggestion, to listen to his soul’s yearning.

So, Father Nick put on his coat and stepped into the night. He didn’t announce it. Didn’t schedule it. Didn’t post about it. He just went. He drove across town and parked along a quiet street. A friend had given him an address—not a church. Not a chapel. Just a place. A small house with one light on.

He knocked. A young person answered. Then, strangely recognized him. “Father Nick, come in,” the 20 something-year-old beckoned.

Inside, the room was simple. No stage. No screen. A table with bread crumbs, a half full cup of wine, a candle burning low. And there, sitting as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world, was the Teacher.

No performance. No anxiety. Just presence.

Father Nick sat down, hands clasped tight. He had rehearsed what he would say, but his prepared speech collapsed under reality.

“Teacher,” he began carefully, “we know your wisdom comes from God.”

The Teacher listened, then said:

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

Father Nick blinked.

Born from above?

His mind reached for process. For structure. For steps.

“How can anyone be born after having grown old?” he asked.

The Teacher did not mock him.

“Very truly,” he said, “no one can enter the kingdom without being born of water and Spirit.”

Then, he spoke of the wind—how it blows where it chooses. You hear it. But, you cannot control it. You cannot spreadsheet it. You cannot manage it. This wasn’t about understanding. It was about surrender to the loving power that is much bigger than us.

And then the Teacher said, not harshly but truthfully:

“Are you a teacher… and you do not understand these things?”

Father Nick felt exposed.

He knew Scripture. He knew liturgy. He knew theology.

He knew it all in his head.

But somewhere along the way, he had started wearing knowledge like armor.

The Teacher was asking him to disarm.

“How can these things be?” he whispered.

The Teacher leaned forward, moving the conversation those eighteen inches downward.

“For God so loved the world,” he said, “that God gave the Son—not to condemn the world, but to save it—to free it.”

Not to condemn.

Not to evaluate.

Not to grade.

To love it, to love all people, to love all Creation.

Something in Father Nick loosened.

The emptiness he felt wasn’t failure.

It was hunger—holy longing.

Not for better programming. Not for sharper branding.

But, for new birth.

For Spirit.

For love that wasn’t a performance review.

When he stood to leave, the Teacher gave him no to-do list.

Just presence. A look of tenderness. And a short but profound embrace.

Outside, the night air felt alive.

And that’s when he noticed it:

The wind had picked up.

Not violent. Not dramatic.

Just enough to move the leaves. Enough to make the branches whisper.

He stood there, listening.

He didn’t know where it came from or where it was going.

He only knew it was real.

And for the first time in a long time, his heart did not feel like a committee meeting.

It felt like a doorway—leading to a new life born from the love above.

And now I should tell you:

The priest in that story isn’t exactly fictional.

In John’s Gospel his name is Nicodemus—a religious leader who comes to Jesus by night. Full of respect. Full of knowledge. Full of questions.

Living in a time of political tension and religious pressure.

He comes at night because for some reason, he didn’t want to be seen.

And Jesus does not shame him.

Jesus speaks of love.

Friends, Nicodemus doesn’t change overnight.

But he moves throughout John’s Gospel account.

From night in John 3…
to a cautious defense of Jesus at a religious council in John 7…
to finally standing at the cross in broad daylight, helping prepare the body of Jesus for burial.

The longest journey you’ll ever make is about eighteen inches.

From your head down to your heart.

From managing religion
to being born of Spirit.

From performance
to love.

And when the world feels unsteady, when anxiety hums in the dark, when we are tempted to drift toward approval or control—

the invitation is not to try harder.

It is to return.

To encounter.

To let the wind move you.

For God so loved the world.

Not condemned.

Loved.

And sometimes that love doesn’t simply rearrange your calendar.

It rearranges your entire life.

Sunday, April 6, 2025

The Poor, The Perfume, and the Presence of Jesus

Jesus told us we will always have the poor with us—was that an eternal truism or a reflection on our brokenness?

This sermon was preached on April 6, 2025, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL.

Holy God, may my words be your words and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I have occasionally sided with Judas. GASP! Don’t worry—I’m not talking betrayal, silver coins, or anything dramatic. I mean the kind of moment when you… hypothetically… walk into a church meeting and someone suggests spending $300 on an exotic essential oil diffuser, and you instinctively think, “How about we feed someone instead?”

It was a reasonable reaction when Judas said, “This perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor.” I get it. Frankly, his response aligns with things I’ve heard in a Finance or Stewardship Committee meeting—maybe it’s even something I’ve said!

However, John’s Gospel account does not let nuance stand unchallenged. The narrator told us right away: Judas didn’t say this because he cared about the poor—he said it because he was a thief. And before we can get too cozy with Judas’ point, Jesus turned the whole thing upside down when he said: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

That line. That verse. It stings. It sounds dismissive—like a brush-off to the world’s suffering. But it wasn’t. It was something else. Something deeper. So, let us dig down:

First, let’s wonder, what did Jesus mean? If this statement wasn’t Jesus shrugging off the poor, then what was it? These words were a reference to Deuteronomy 15:11:

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

In other words, Jesus was not denying the need to help the poor. In truth, he was reaffirming the commandment to do so—and simultaneously drawing attention to the sacredness of the present moment.

Mary in this sacred moment anointed Jesus for burial. She was the only one in the room not named Jesus who seemed to understand what was about to happen. And in that vulnerable, intimate, beautiful act, Jesus said: This matters. This moment matters. Let her do this.

This act mattered so much that here in John’s Gospel account, Jesus himself emulated Mary’s foot anointing by washing his disciples’ feet a few nights later. So, we can see that Jesus’ words were not a dismissal of the poor—they served instead as a re-centering of worship, a call to pay attention, and an invitation to see what God was doing right in front of them.

Most scholars believe that this saying of Jesus—found in Matthew, Mark, and John—goes back to an earlier version of the Good News of Christ Jesus. Whether these were the exact words Jesus said or whether John was shaping them to make a theological point, the meaning holds firm: On the Sabbath evening before what we know as Palm Sunday, Jesus’ presence was precious. His time was short. And, when people loved Jesus, like Mary did here, their love spilled over—not just into acts of worship but into acts of justice.

John’s Gospel account has a way of layering meaning: Mary’s act was about love. And, it was also about loss. And, it was about the holy extravagance of giving your best to God, even when it doesn’t make practical sense.

Perhaps this is why Jesus told parables like the one with the pearl of great price or the treasure in the field. The implication of those stories is that when we realize what it is worth to be part of God’s Kingdom, we will liquidate assets and go “all in” to be part of it.

So, is this what Jesus is calling us to do? To sell everything? Maybe. Oh, don’t you love the sweet ambiguity of the Episcopalian Way? The more prevailing consequence of Mary’s actions, Judas’ words, and Jesus’ admonition is that God calls us to live in the tension of both/and.

This is to say that as much as we may revert to either/or thinking, that is not the Way of Christ. Sure, there are clear cut moments of good versus evil, but often, like in this moment, it’s an ethical dilemma pitting good choices against one another. Serve neighbor or worship Jesus?

Our calling is truly to worship and to serve, to love Jesus and to love our neighbor, to make room for sacred moments and to mobilize for justice. These were not opposing forces—they were partners, they were siblings of goodness. Thus, Jesus did not push his followers—including us—toward false choices. Instead, he was and still is inviting us to live with holy attention—to see him in worship, and to see him again in the face of the hungry, the sick, the lonely, and the poor.

So, what about us now? Should we worship Jesus or feed the hungry?

Well, friends here’s the wild thing: we could do both, particularly we could do both byending world hunger. Like, we as a human species can actually do this.

The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone. We even waste around a third of what we grow. And experts estimate it would cost about $40 billion a year to end global hunger by 2030.

For context: humanity spends over $2 trillion a year on military budgets, and I’m not saying that protection isn’t worth it, but we also use billions more dollars on things like luxury handbags, unused streaming subscriptions, and novelty items that no one actually needs (I’m looking at you, glow-in-the-dark toilet paper).

So why don’t we end hunger? It’s not because we can’t. It’s because we as humans have chosen not to.

The poor are still with us—not because God ordained it as permanent suffering—but because we’ve built systems, economies, and politics that make it so. And yet, Jesus is also still with us—not only in the sacraments and sanctuary, but in the soup kitchens and shelters, the refugee camps and community gardens, in the quiet rooms of grief and in the loud cries for change. It’s often uncomfortable for me to see Jesus in those who are on the margins of our society.

My discomfort stems from a feeling of guilt. I know that Jesus commanded us to care for the hungry, the sick, the lonely, and the poor, but I feel the painful sting that I have continually ignored the needs of these beloved ones. On Wednesday night, the Rev. José Fernandez reminded us that reaching out is good, but exclusively practicing a hand-out style of charity, does not do the same lasting good as forming deep, long-lasting relationships with those in need.

To play around with the old fishing expression: We aren’t to give a man a fish. We aren’t even to teach a man to fish, although that’s better. We are to go fishing together!

In conclusion, this passage shows us that to follow Jesus is to be broken open like Mary’s jar of perfume. It is a calling to pour out what we have—not with shame or obligation, but with love and courage.

Yes, we are called to worship like Mary. AND, we are also called to see Christ in the hungry, the unhoused, the weary, the mentally burdened, and the spiritually parched.

We can feed the hungry. We can heal the hurting. We can lift up the lowly.
And when we do, we’re not just “doing good”—we’re meeting Christ. Because in the end, this story wasn’t about a split between justice and devotion. It was about the presence of Jesus, who said, “Don’t miss this. Don’t miss me. I’m here—in your worship, in your acts of love, in every broken place you’re willing to touch with compassion.”

So, when the world offers you an impossible choice—between feeding someone or honoring something holy—remember that God does not limit us to either/or choices.

We are called to both/and.

Worship the Lord.
Feed the poor.
Break the jar.
Spill the perfume.
And trust that Jesus is in the midst of it all.

Amen.