“Afraid and Brave”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Matthew 14:22-33

August 23, 2026

Last week we explored the Apostle Paul’s beautiful words in the 12th chapter of Romans about all of us being many parts in the body of Christ. And how we all belong to one another. I talked about the powerful experiences we can have in worship when we are gathered with people from many cultures. We may speak different languages and come from different places, but when we sing common hymns or hear ancient stories from shared scripture, we have a sense that the divisions between us are just man-made and silly. 

This sense of unity is a powerful antidote to the heretical voices of White Christian Nationalism, who are primarily concerned with building more barriers between us and shoring up the ones that already exist. Christian Nationalism, whether here in the U.S. or abroad, is antithetical to the truth of the Gospel: which is that we are all one body and we all belong to each other. The Way of Christ is never about creating more divisions, it’s always about integration - creating more wholeness. 

Christian Nationalism - actually, wait. I don’t think that’s quite accurate and I think words are important. Because this dangerous ideology is not rooted in the teachings of Jesus. So why pretend it is? Perhaps it would be better to call it something like “Nationalism Masquerading as Christianity.” That’s a mouthful, though. So let’s go with Pseudo-Christian Nationalism instead. 

Pseudo-Christian Nationalism misses the entire point of Jesus in several ways. Obviously, it creates division and stokes violence, neither of which are of Christ. But today I want to talk about another way that Pseudo-Christian Nationalism makes a mockery of the Way of Jesus: it creates, feeds on, and amplifies fear. 

It’s no secret that we live in a time that is rife with fears - big and small. On a daily basis, I see headlines about the epidemic of anxiety that stalks people of every age, race, nationality, and creed. We could probably go on all day with a list of things people are afraid of but since this is a sermon about conquering fear, let’s keep it short. Hit me with just a few things people are afraid of these days: ___________

Whew. Okay. Yep. That’s a lot. 

Luckily for us, the Way of Jesus is laser-focused on facing our fears - and moving through them in community. To put it more succinctly, the Way of Jesus is about learning to live brave. This theme of bravery is woven throughout the stories of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Mary was afraid when the angel came to her and told her she would give birth to the Messiah. She bravely said yes. Jesus' disciples were certainly afraid as they followed him from town to town, knowing they were putting themselves at risk. They didn’t always act with bravery, sometimes allowing their fears to get the best of them, but they kept trying. Jesus himself was afraid when he realized his arrest and execution was imminent. He prayed to God for a different ending. And then he found the bravery to face the scariest thing imaginable with courage and grace. And the stories of what happened after Jesus’ death were filled with fear and bravery - the women going to the tomb while it was still dark, the disciples lost and afraid in the upper room. But we know bravery must have won out over fear because they did not stay silent. The stories were passed down to us. 

Today’s story from the Gospel of Matthew is, at its heart, a story about being brave. Which, it’s important to note, is not the same as being unafraid. In fact, you have to be afraid to be brave. Otherwise, it’s not bravery at all, right? Bravery is about moving forward with intention even though you’re afraid. 

And the disciples were almost certainly afraid out on that boat. And exhausted. Just the day before, they had received the horrific news that King Herod had murdered Jesus’s cousin, John the Baptist. A brutal and horrific execution. And a reminder of just how at risk they were, themselves. But before they even had a chance to process their grief and fear, they were thrown into the whirlwind of caring for needy people once again. Jesus had tried to escape the crowds to find a moment’s peace, but they followed him and the disciples were there to witness the whole thing as Jesus cured the sick despite his own grief. As the day came to a close, Jesus’ friends begged him to send the crowds away, but he insisted that they do the impossible - feeding a crowd of over 5,000 people with nothing but five loaves of bread and two fish. 

Exhausted, grieving, and fearful, the disciples clamored into the refuge of their small fishing boat, relieved to lose the crowds (and perhaps Jesus, too, let’s be honest) at sea. And Jesus retreated to the mountain to pray. But far from finding peace that night, they found more trouble. A big storm kicked up at sea and the disciples were tossed this way and that on the water. By daybreak, they were spent. Jesus walks out to the boat on the water, seeking to offer comfort, but instead makes them more afraid because they think he’s a ghost. 

Somewhat oddly, Peter reacts with a challenge. “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come out onto the water.” It’s not clear why Peter feels the need to be brave, but that’s what he seems to be seeking. A chance to do something hard - a chance to step out in faith despite his fear. 

Jesus meets Peter where he is, staying with him every step of the way - even when Peter’s fear almost overcomes his desire for bravery. In the end, both men end up back in the boat. And something about this odd display of bravery in the midst of fear and exhaustion inspires the other disciples. They fall down on their knees before Jesus saying, “Truly, you are the son of God.”

Fear is such a basic human emotion. Not one of us is immune from it, you know. We are born with the innate capacity for fear and, if we’re lucky, we fine tune it throughout our lives, using it as a tool. If we’re not so lucky, we end up stuck in anxiety loops that are less-than-helpful or even debilitating. But none of us escapes the basic human emotion of fear. 

Fear and anxiety are two sides of the same coin, but they aren’t quite the same thing. Fear is a primal physiological response to a stimulus. You see a lion, your pulse races, your breath quickens, your stomach drops - and your body responds to the stimulus: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. You don’t even have a chance to think about it: your body knows what to do to keep you safe. 

Anxiety is more diffuse. It’s future-oriented and dwells in the realm of possibilities. The lion is not standing right there in front of you….but he might be lurking around the corner in the dark. Your imagination creates “what if” scenarios that lead to many of the same physiological sensations as fear. And if we replay these anxieties enough times, they become ingrained. They become automatic. And we find ourselves stuck in anxiety loops where we feel all the sensations of anxiety but we’re not even sure where they’re coming from. Or we trap ourselves in rumination, constantly play the “what if” game and creating plans A, B, C, D, and E. 

Interestingly enough, many people who live with chronic anxiety are some of the bravest people you’ll ever meet. Those who have found a way to live their lives in spite of the never-ending anxiety loop have a lot to teach us about how to live brave. Because, despite their fears, they’re showing up in the world every day scared to death.

Neither fear nor anxiety are, in and of themselves, inherently good or bad. Both can be useful. If you ever run into a lion in real life, you’ll be awfully grateful for your body’s fear response. It’s what will keep you safe! And even anxiety can be helpful - imagining what could happen if you stick your hand in the lion’s enclosure at the zoo is what keeps you from doing it! 

Psychologist Padraic Gibson, explains how anxiety can be useful:

Anxiety can be a source of strength and can, for example, lead to better job performance. Worriers are more likely to be more goal oriented, more organized, and self-disciplined. They plan effectively for unforeseen events and consequences that others may ignore. They are better at taking care of their health. In short, anxiety is productive when it is not excessive. [1]

And fears can essentially be broken down into useful and not-useful categories. “Appropriate fears” are the ones that keep you safe. Like heading the other direction if you run into a lion in a dark alley. “Neurotic fears” are the ones that engage the body’s fight/flight/freeze/fawn response…even though they don’t need to. So, for example, if you go to a high school whose mascot is a lion and even the statue of the lion outside the school makes your body freeze up and you can’t walk into the school? That’s a neurotic fear. The lion statue can’t hurt you but your body is confused and thinks it can. [2]

Appropriate fears are useful. Neurotic fears are not.

Appropriate fears help us stay safe. Neurotic fears can make us feel trapped. 

Anxiety of fear - Appropriate or neurotic - Helpful or unhelpful - the beauty of our faith is that it can help us find bravery in the midst of it all. By the time Jesus came to the disciples that morning on the lake, the storm had already passed. There was no active threat. If they were afraid, it had moved into the neurotic territory because the risk to them was in the past. And Jesus came to them in the midst of that kind of fear and provided comfort. 

Peter’s fear was different. When he was out there walking on the water, his fear was wholly appropriate. Storm or no, a person could die if they sink into the sea. So there’s no ridiculing Peter’s fear when the wind kicked back up. He was in a vulnerable place. The lion was real. And Jesus met him in the midst of that kind of fear and helped him be brave. 

If Jesus was able to rise early in the morning and walk on water to the fearful disciples to help them find their bravery, then surely he can meet us in the midst of our fears, too. And help us to be brave. 

Let us pray:

God, thank you for sending Jesus to show us the way to bravery when we are afraid. And thank you for these ancient stories of faith that help us remember it’s okay to cry out to Jesus when we’re bogged down in fear and anxiety. Help us to be brave even in the midst of our fears. Help us to bravely stand up for love in a world that too-often seems fixated on hate. Help us to watch out for each other when we are trapped in our worry and fear. In those moments, may we, like Jesus, show up and offer words of comfort and hope - encouraging others to seek the path of bravery, the path of love, the path of joy - even in the midst of fear. Amen. 

NOTES:

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/escaping-our-mental-traps/202301/whats-the-difference-between-anxiety-and-fear 

[2] With gratitude to David Richo for the concepts of appropriate and neurotic fears. From his book How to be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration. 

“Many Parts in One Body”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Romans 12:1-8

August 16, 2026

The Apostle Pauls’s voice echoes through the centuries as he writes to the church in Rome: “We have many parts in one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function. In the same way, though there are many of us, we are one body in Christ, and individually we belong to each other.”

It’s pretty easy to see how we belong to one another and function as one body in Christ when you participate in the life of a local congregation: with joy, we watch our children grow up; with sorrow, we say goodbye to members of our congregation when they move away or reach the end of their earthly lives. We work side by side - feeding the hungry and advocating for justice. We learn and deepen our faith together - asking hard questions and sharing openly when God seems far away. There is a powerful sense of unity when we sit together in silence, or listen to beautiful music, or raise our voices in song, or pray in unison. We are one body in Christ - and we belong to each other. 

Of course, this unity in Christ extends far beyond these walls. I’ve often heard from people in our congregation, when they get involved with something in the wider United Church of Christ, that they have this same sense of belonging…just bigger. If you travel to the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference annual meeting or serve on a conference board or participate in an ordination, you get a sense that our Church (with a capital “c”) is much larger than just our congregation. 

And when we gather in ecumenical and interfaith spaces, we find a similar sense of belonging to one another. We join with people from varied faith backgrounds in Topeka with Kansas Interfaith Action - we worship and learn alongside our UU, Mennonite, Disciples of Christ, Jewish friends. Though our practices and vocabulary may be different, we are many parts in one body of Love. And we each have our roles to play. 

This summer I had the immense privilege of feeling that unity extended once again, as I traveled with our conference’s clergy delegation to southwestern Germany. I promised a few weeks ago that I’d have a few more stories to tell you about this trip, so today you get more photos and reflections!

For those who are new: this was a two-week trip to visit our partner church, the Protestant Church of Baden (called EKIBA, which is an acronym for their name in German). Our formal partnership has been in place for over two decades now and is one of many regional partnerships between our denomination and Germany. Over the past two decades, we’ve sent individuals and delegations back and forth. Our congregation has hosted at least three Germans in my time here:the Rev. Andrea S. visited us in 2022 while on sabbatical; Hannah R., who is studying to teach religion in the public schools, stayed with us for 5 weeks in 2025; and Bishop Heike Springhart and her colleague Dr. Jens Adam, came through earlier this year. 

Our delegation this summer has the unique opportunity to travel, not as tourists, but as a part of a community. We were greeted warmly by colleagues and friends that we’ve hosted here in Kansas-Oklahoma over the years. And, of course, there were also opportunities to meet people we’ve shared so many emails and Zooms with that we felt like we already knew them. So there were all these warm and wonderful reunions. 

And…there were so many new colleagues to meet. And not just from Germany, but all over the world! A significant part of our trip was spent at the annual EKIBA gathering for those interested in global and ecumenical connections. There were people there from Argentina, South Korea, Rwanda, India, Australia, and more. Many of the international participants were young adults who were spending a year in Germany as a part of their nationwide volunteer service program. Young adults are given a modest stipend and assigned to positions in hospitals, schools, and retirement homes. Many of the international participants hoped to work on their German skills and then continue university or graduate work in Germany. The presence of guests from all over the world added a richness to our conversations, which were centered on the church’s role in resisting authoritarianism. We all have so much to learn from one another. 

Some of the most profound moments of sharing didn’t happen in meetings or conversations - but in worship. Singing songs from Taize together, learning hymns in Korean and Hungarian, hearing familiar Bible stories preached and interpreted in German - it was all a reminder that we may come from different cultures but we share a global culture of Christianity across borders and across the centuries. We share the same foundational stories, we speak the same theological language. For me, at least, this identity as a follower of Jesus is much more important than my identity as an American or even Kansan. Sharing in worship together helped me experience this with my heart, not just my head. 

While it might not seem like having these warm feelings while singing songs is a huge deal, I came away from this experience realizing just how important these kinds of experiences are in this current moment in history. We are, unfortunately, living in a time when a dangerous blend of nationalism and authoritarianism are on the rise throughout the globe. Sadly, in our country, this sea change includes the rise of White Christian Nationalism which is, let’s just be clear, blasphemy. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t for any one nation or culture or race or ethnic or political group. The Gospel of Jesus Christ binds us together across the borders that have been created by humans. Any one who attempts to use Christ’s teachings to claim that your country is somehow better than another - or to make you scared of someone who doesn’t look like you - has completely missed the point of what Jesus came to teach. Full stop. 

The Apostle Paul understood this. “We are one body in Christ,” he says, “and individually we belong to each other.” He’s not just speaking of the people in these pews. Or the people in our denomination. Or the people who look and think and dress and talk like us. I would argue he’s not even just talking about people who go to church or call themselves Christians. I believe that we are all - the whole entire world - one body in Christ - whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not - and we all belong to each other. 

Paul also knew how tempting it is for people of faith to allow our values to be formed by politicians, talking heads on the news, and content creators - rather than by the teachings of Jesus. In this same letter, Paul cautions the early Church, “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.” 

One of the things that struck me during my time in Germany was how this desire to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” is a common thread in their Church and ours. Meeting together for worship, Bible study, book studies, conversations about current events - these are all ways that we grow as people of faith and help ourselves resist the temptation to “be conformed to the patterns of the world.” 

Christians are united in this desire not only across oceans but across the centuries. I want to close with one last short story from my trip that highlights the ways Christians around the world have been seeking to “renew our minds” for centuries. 

This is the Church of the Holy Spirit in Heidelberg. We were fortunate to have a behind-the-scenes tour with one of the pastors, so we learned a lot about the fascinating history of this congregation. It was established in the 13th century, and has changed denominations from Catholic to Calvinist to Lutheran at least ten times. For a few hundred years it even had a wall dividing the church in half - Catholics in the front, Protestants in the back! And, in case you were wondering, yes, this is the birthplace of the Heidelberg Catechism.

But what I really want to show you about this church building is tucked away on the third floor. While this currently looks like an unused, dusty gallery, once upon a time it housed one of the most important libraries in Europe. The Bibliotheca Palatina contained over 8,000 books and manuscripts. At a time when public libraries didn’t exist and you certainly couldn’t “just Google it,” the Church played a critical role in gathering and stewarding human knowledge. Sadly, during the Thirty Years War In the 16th century, the entire library was stolen and the contents were taken to Rome, where most of them still live at the Vatican. Some have since been returned to Heidelberg and are at the University. The Church is currently working to create a museum in the space that will tell the story of the library and display some of the books and codices. 

Standing in this old, old space in the year 2026, when we’re dealing with the almost-totally-unrestricted rise of AI and hearing about books being fed to AI corporations, it made me feel a sense of solidarity with these Christians who lived centuries ago and also understood the importance of knowledge. The written word back then may have been on vellum scrolls rather than pixelated on tiny screens, but these Christians also understood how important words are for those of us who seek to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” 

They, like us, understood that knowledge is often the key to greater freedom. And that when knowledge is stolen and locked away - or owned by corporations - we are all a little less free. It made me wonder about the role of the church in today’s information and data wars. And what more we are called to do as followers of Christ in the time we live in. 

The ways that we humans learn and share what we know with one another have changed so much over the centuries. But the God-given desire to transform ourselves by the renewing of our minds is something we will always have with us. Even in an age when we are being tempted by billionaires to outsource our humanity to water-guzzling data centers. May we, like our faith ancestors who studied the written word these alcoves, never stop learning. May we never stop renewing our minds so we can figure out God’s will. And may we always encourage others to join us in this sacred task. 

“Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Part 1”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Song of Songs 2:8-13

June 21, 2026

We are officially in the thick of the summer holiday season. Have you ever noticed how many holidays are packed into such a short period of time here in the U.S.? Mothers’ Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Fathers’ Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day….did I miss any? That’s a lot of holidays for a two month period! Sometimes it feels like it’s hard to settle into any kind of routine during this time of year. The whole town feels different with many of our college students gone. Younger students are out of school and working summer jobs or splashing in the pool in their bright Little Apple Day Camp t-shrits. People of all ages are heading off to visit family in far-flung places or going on road trips, cruises, adventures. 

By the time we get to Labor Day in a few months, we’ll be ready to settle back into a groove. But, for now, many of us are decidedly out of our regular routines. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

After all, the Bible is full of stories about stepping off the beaten path, exploring, learning, growing. There is very little in our Bible that encourages us to just wiggle ourselves down into a well-worn groove in the record, staying put forever. Even the rhythm of time God establishes in the first chapter of Genesis has a built in break from our regular routines. 

If you think about a vinyl record, Sabbath is a bit like the ungrooved surface between each track. The record needle settles down into the groove and brings music to our ears. When the engraving goes away, the sound ends, and we’re left with a space between songs. The record is still turning, the needle is still doing its thing, but the break in the music causes us to sit up and take notice. Something is about to change. 

This break in the audio action makes an album more engaging. The brief pause gives us a moment to shift our attention, prepare for what’s next, listen with fresh ears. Holidays and sabbath do the same, don’t they? A small shift in the routine keeps things fresh, helps us move through our lives with greater intention, causes us to notice things we might have missed otherwise. 

There is a line in today’s reading from the Song of Songs that makes for an excellent “break between tracks” mantra to hold onto: “Arise, my love, and come away.” 

It is an invitation as lovely as anything else in scripture. “Arise, my love, and come away.” Pause, lift yourself up and out of that groove, turn towards new possibilities. Try something new. Shift your routine just slightly. Move with intention, rather than just riding those well-worn grooves of your life without a thought. 

In the context of the Song of Songs, these words are spoken from one romantic partner to another. And since the Church has historically been so antsy about discussing bodies, romantic love, and sex it turns out the Song of Songs doesn’t come up very often in our lectionaries. The Revised Common Lectionary only schedules this beautiful book twice and the newer Narrative Lectionary somehow managed to avoid it entirely. 

Which is really too bad because Christianity has been used in so many harmful ways to instill shame around human sexuality. If we had all grown up hearing the poetic words from this book more often, we might have been better-prepared to combat unhelpful ideas like abstinence-only sex education. 

What we have in the Song of Songs, instead, is an entire book of beautiful poetry devoted to the joys and delights of two people who are not shy about explicitly detailing their love for each other. They are not afraid to talk about their bodies or the joys that can be found in honoring and inhabiting our bodies fully. 

The whole book is a dialogue between two young lovers. God is not mentioned, which has sometimes puzzled theologians. Because of this, there is a long history in the Church of allegorizing the Song - saying it’s about God’s love for us, rather than about two young people’s intense romantic love for one another. While I don’t think it’s appropriate to pretend-away-the-sexuality in this book, I do think we can use that face-value-romantic love as a jumping off point for exploring all kinds of love that humans share...romantic love, love between friends and families, our love for our pets, nature, art, place. Our love -  in all its varied forms - often grows out of a connection to God….just as our connection to God grows when we experience love - all kinds of love, not just romantic - here on earth. 

In the passage we read today, the young lovers urge one another to pause, make space for joy, beauty, pleasure, love in their daily lives. They invite their beloved to come away to a place where they can enjoy each other and rest fully in the wondrous gift of love. 

Now this - this! - is something so many of us need to hear. This invitation to come away to a holy place to make space for giving and receiving love. Not just romantic love, but love of all kinds. 

When I think about all kinds of love, I often reflect that some of the purest love I’ve been gifted with in my life has come from animals. Sometimes when I’m busy or distracted or in a rush or stressed out, my dog Sweetpea comes to me and bonks me. She wants to play with her favorite rope toy. Or she just wants a few scratches and a cuddle. “Arise, and come away!” her eyes say to me.  I can try to put her off for a while, but she usually wins. And when I do finally “arise and come away,” I receive the good gifts of love. I feel tension seep away when I put my hand on her belly and feel her breathing. And I laugh like a kid while we play tug-the-rope. 

“Arise, and come away,” she says. Take a moment to just be. Take a moment to love. Take a moment to remember you are loved. And the invitation is good. Because when we accept the invitation to bask in love - in all its many forms - we remember that holiness is all around us. 

So often we fool ourselves into thinking holiness is reserved for “sacred spaces” like church sanctuaries or deathbeds or the Grand Canyon. Those places can be holy, certainly. But holiness can be found in many other places, too...an everyday moment, a little ritual. Can you think of a time this past week that felt holy to you? We’ll pause for just a moment to give you space to ponder that silently. 

(pause)

“Arise, and come away,” Love beckons. “Get out of the groove you’ve settled down into. Come and see the beauty, the joy, the holiness in digging in the dirt, Facetime with a grandchild, chopping vegetables for dinner, turning towards someone you love and connecting through touch.” 

The word holy seems to have its origins in wholeness and health. When we accept Christ’s invitation to seek holiness each day, we are really accepting an invitation to move towards wholeness and health. And not just for ourselves as individuals! Just think about what our community would be like if every single day we listened to that invitation to “Arise, and come away.” If we each allowed ourselves to seek even 3 or 4 moments of connection with Love, beauty, joy, vulnerability the way these young lovers do in the Song of Songs. Imagine how our hearts would grow. Imagine how the gift of God’s love would overflow out of each of us to the world around us, creating more wholeness and health for all creation. 

The invitation is there, my friends. “Arise, and come away.” Walk into the open arms of Love and be willing to receive the good gifts of the Spirit. There’s no expectation that we do it perfectly. Even if we just open ourselves to receiving God’s love in a holy moment ONCE each day - just one time! - we will discover that we yearn for more and more of it. 

You’ve heard it said that “practice makes perfect” and this is rarely true. But “practice makes progress,” and the more we open ourselves to holy love, wholeness, and health - the more naturally it will overflow into the world around us, creating a chain-reaction of healing in a world that desperately needs it. 

It doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be something small, like this:

A spiritual teacher of mine told me that when she was a little girl, her mom ironed shirts for 8 kids every day. “Arise, my love, and come away,” those shirts said to her each day...and while I doubt that she experienced that chore as a time of delight and joy, nevertheless, she found a way to seek holiness in that mundane task. Each day as she ironed, she prayed for each of her 8 children by name. She pressed God’s love into each shirt as she prepared it for each one of her beloveds. 

And she was often frustrated that she was rushing, running behind, hurrying to complete the task. And so her children would breeze through, waiting for each shirt to come off the board before school. And when they put them on, they were still warm. Still warm with love. Still warm with care. And I can see those kids putting those shirts on, day after day, wrapping their mother’s prayers around them like a fierce cloak of love. Their mother’s love, which flowed from God’s love - a gift given freely for the taking. 

“Arise, my love, and come away.” And off they went into the world, wrapped up in love, sent out from holiness to holiness to do love and be loved as beloved children of God. 

“Arise, my love, and come away.” 

The invitation still calls. 

“One Vision: Light and Lady Wisdom”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 and John 1:1-4

June 14, 2026

Ancient Stories: Amplified is our theme for summer worship. Each week we’re exploring a different ancient text from the Bible that might make you walk away singing or humming a more modern tune. We started out with a little Bowie from the early 70s and turned the corner into the early 80s last week as we examined Abraham and Sarah’s lives “under pressure” with Queen and Bowie. 

This week we continue into the 80s with a Queen song that I think might be a deep cut? I’ve long been obsessed with their 1986 album A Kind of Magic, but when I consulted Wikipedia I discovered the album only peaked at 46 on the U.S. Billboard Charts. This is a real travesty, given that some of their best songs are on this strange album. It was also their final tour with Freddie Mercury - the last time he had the stamina needed to perform sold out stadiums before his decline and eventual death in 1991, caused by complications of HIV/AIDS. 

So I stand here today recognizing that most of you probably don’t even know the song One Vision by Queen. And I say to you: be not afraid. I love it enough for all of us. 

Last week we spent a good deal of time pondering the nature of God. Remember those three questions that I said you can use if you ever need to lead a Bible study? What does this scripture tell us about God? What does it tell us about humans? And what does it tell us about the relationship between God and humans? 

Those questions are still at the forefront as we dive into this week’s ancient texts from the book of Proverbs and Gospel of John. The text from John might be familiar to you because we read it almost every year on Christmas Eve. What does this scripture tell us about God? It feels like John is trying to tell us many things about God and his poetry made me think of this week’s song by Queen. 

John says: 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

And Freddie sings:  

One heart, one soul,

One mission. 

One flash of light,

Yeah, one God, one vision.

This God described by John may be ephemeral and mysterious, but there is a real sense of unity of the spirit here. God is one. God exists in union. God is a flash of light, never overcome by darkness. 

That one-ness of God from the beginning of time isn’t unique to John. We see it in today's passage from the Proverbs, too, as we read about Lady Wisdom. 

Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible is personified as a woman and Christians over the years have called her sophia, Greek for wisdom. 

Sophia stands at the city gate, in the crossroads. She’s down at Dara’s buying a lottery ticket and sitting on the patio at Aggieville Brewing Company having a drink. She’s directing pedestrian traffic on College Avenue right before a K-State Soccer Game and you might catch a glimpse of her this summer at Northview Pool. My guess is she can even be found in the ether - at those digital crossroads of Instagram and YouTube - crying out, making her voice known, shouting for our attention. 

Sophia is everywhere all at once. There’s nowhere we can go to get away from her. What’s so important that she has to yell for our attention?

She says:

To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.

Ages ago I was set up, at the first,before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth…

When God established the heavens, I was there…

when God assigned to the sea its limit…

then I was beside her, like a master worker;

and I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before them always,

rejoicing in their inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Wait. What? She was there at the first? Before the earth? She was there when God made the heavens and the earth? How can Sophia be this important and most of us have hardly heard anything about her?

But there it is, in black and white. Sophia sounds an awful lot like the Word in the beginning of the Gospel of John, doesn’t she? “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God….” One light. One vision. 

I remember when I first learned about Sophia in seminary and my thought was, “Wait. Is there a fourth person in the Trinity? Why has no one ever told me about this before???”

Theologians haven’t been quite sure what to do with Sophia. Some have equated her with the second person of the Trinity: Christ. Since the description of her is so much like the description of the Word made flesh in John 1, the idea is that Sophia and the Word are the same. They are the experience of God that came to earth in human form as Jesus. That Christ Force that moved into the neighborhood as an infant human, grew in wisdom and stature, spoke in parables, died at the hands of the Roman government, and somehow continued on in ways we can scarcely comprehend. 

Christ, Sophia, the Word made incarnate in Jesus. And for those paying attention to gender, yes, this means that our tradition holds that Christ is both masculine (the Logos, the Word) and feminine (Sophia, Wisdom). 

Others have equated Sophia with the Holy Spirit, who has long been understood as feminine and not just in fringe parts of Christianity. In fact, one of the earliest writings about the Trinity doesn’t mention “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Instead, Theophilus of Antioch, writing in the first century, refers to the Trinity as God, the Logos (Christ), and Sophia (Wisdom). [1]

So is Sophia the Holy Spirit? Or is she the feminine aspect of Christ? Or a fourth part of the Trinity? Or something else entirely?

We don’t know. 

Now you might be thinking, “Okay, preacher. This might help me when I’m watching Jeopardy but what does it have to do with my faith life?”

Well - everything, really. 

Because this confusion, this confounding, this not knowing is at the core of what it means to be followers of Jesus. Part of the good news of the Christian Trinity is that this weird and mind-blowing concept invites us into communion with a God that defies explanation. A God that refuses to be contained in a neat-and-tidy-box. A God who is beyond our wildest imaginings. 

I went through a very long period where the Trinity made me angry. I even wondered if I could still be a Christian because I didn’t believe in the Trinity. Newsflash: you CAN still be a Christian without believing in the Trinity. I know we have plenty of faithful non-Trinitarian Christians in our congregation. 

The Trinity made me uncomfortable because it felt too constricted. It felt like someone was trying to tell me, “Here. THIS is the way God is: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That’s it.”

And when I listened to people try to explain all the ins-and-outs of how one person can somehow be three but also still just one, my head was spinning and I thought, “This just doesn’t make sense. At all. This can’t be it. God’s got to be bigger than this.”

Over time, the Trinity began to mean something else to me. These days, it feels more like an invitation than a doctrine. Sophia standing there in the street, beckoning, inviting us to step into a more expansive vision of the Divine that defies our definitions. 

One heart, one soul,

One mission. 

One flash of light,

Yeah, one God, one vision.

Perhaps the puzzle of the Trinity isn’t meant to be solved at all. Perhaps it stands there, like Sophia at the crossroads, as a testament to the vast, inexplicable nature of the Holy. Perhaps Sophia reminds us that it is wise, indeed, to hold onto our convictions with a lighter touch, and that our Stillspeaking God created us with open hearts and minds, ready to learn and grow.

“But how can we have a relationship with something we don’t understand?” you might be wondering. 

Well, we all have relationships with people and things we don’t understand every single day, don’t we? I don’t understand how my voice is amplified so that you all can hear it, or how my image is floating through the ether to those of you on Zoom. I surely don’t understand how my car or phone work, but I use them every single day. 

And none of us can truly understand the people we love. Even when we know them well, we can’t ever truly know them fully. Understanding someone is not necessarily a prerequisite for being in relationship with them or even loving them. Those of us who are cisgender, for example, can love and appreciate our nonbinary and transgender friends without needing to fully understand their experience. We don’t have to understand someone in order to fully love and respect them. Those of us who are white can listen to the experiences of our Black and brown friends when they explain what it’s like to live alongside the evil of white supremacy. We don’t have to have first-hand experience to believe it’s a problem. 

The same must be true for the Holy. Though the experience of God might feel a bit like trying to catch a cloud in a jar, we can still be in relationship with the One who calls the worlds into being, stands at the crossroads proclaiming the goodness of creation, comes to us in human form, and is present in each and every holy breath we take. 

This is what Sophia testifies to. Wisdom says that she was with God before the beginning and that they delighted in one another, rejoicing always, and rejoicing in the earth as it was being formed, and delighting in the human race.

Sometimes, prayer - sometimes, our relationship with God - sometimes, our faith - is not at all about having the answers. Sometimes it is simply about being aware of God’s gentle, loving gaze. Sophia is there delighting in us. Like a mother whose eyes sparkle every time her child walks into the room. Like a dog who leaps for joy when her humans come home from a trip. Like a tree that offers shade on a hot day and the sun that kisses our cheeks.

The God who we call Father, Mother, Holy Parent; Wisdom, Sophia; the Word, Christ, Logos; Holy Spirit, Paraclete, Advocate, Comforter delights in us. 

Thanks be to God. 

NOTES

[1] https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/theophilus-antioch 

“Under Pressure: Blessed”

Acts 2:1-21

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

May 24, 2026 - Pentecost

If you were with us last week at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, you already know that our theme for our summer shared worship services is “Ch-ch-ch-changes,” inspired by the 1972 hit single by David Bowie. Taking our cue from Bowie, we’ve decided to go on a whole rock journey this summer with our series: Ancient Stories Amplified. Each week we’ll explore an ancient story from scripture that might make you hum a tune from more recent decades. This week we’re starting strong with one of the oldest stories in our sacred texts - the story of Abraham and Sarah. 

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that most of us here haven’t seen the music video for Bowie and Queen’s Under Pressure. Despite growing up in the heyday of MTV, I somehow hadn’t ever seen it until this week either. In the video, Freddie and the guys are nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s a montage of footage that does what true art does best: evokes a feeling. 

In this case, it feels like you’re in a pressure-cooker. Crowds hurrying, explosions of every kind interspersed with creepy black and white film footage from the 20s. It’s four minutes of intensity, evoking exactly what Bowie and Queen were painting with the words and music of the song: a sense of relentless stress, confusion, longing, and - well - pressure. 

While these modern images would be unrecognizable to any of the ancients who stepped into a time machine, they certainly would have been familiar with the emotions elicited. Even a quick read through Abraham and Sarah’s journey in the book of Genesis calls forth similar reactions: a sense of relentless stress, confusion, longing, and pressure. 

Abraham and Sarah’s journey was filled with pressure points. For starters, they were always on the move. Picking up and going from one place to another, sometimes at great distances. Almost on a whim, they left their whole life behind - more than once. The pressure that built as they made their way through life is palpable, sometimes resulting in horrific behavior. Like when Abraham uses Sarah to curry favor with high-ranking officials. Immigrating to a new place, he worries that if the locals know he’s married to the beautiful Sarah, he’ll be killed so the local ruler can lay claim to her. So he pretends she’s his sister and sells her off to the highest bidder to ingratiate himself to the higher ups. Desperation leads to some truly disgusting choices in this story - lives lived under pressure. 

Or the relentless pressure and confusion Abraham and Sarah felt about their legacy. Early on, God promises that his progeny will be as numerous as the stars in heaven. But the couple grows older and no children have appeared. They start to wonder and worry how this legacy will come to be. And so Sarah tells Abraham to sleep with her servant, Hagar, thinking perhaps the inheritance will come through Hagar instead. In this sad, sad story, Hagar is used and abused. She surely had no choice in the matter, but became pregnant. Sarah, filled with jealousy, begins to treat her horribly (despite the fact that this was her idea in the first place). Hagar eventually runs away with her child, then comes back, then is later sent away again by Sarah after her own son is born. Again, pressure leads people to act in egregious ways. It’s enough to make you wonder just what, exactly, some Christians are talking about when they try to hold up “Biblical family values” as a goal. 

To enter this pressure-cooker world of Abraham and Sarah is to enter a mythic tale. If you try to understand it as something that “really happened” you’ll get bogged down in the details. But if we can engage with it instead as an ancient piece of folk wisdom passed down from generation to generation, we will find richness worth exploring.

This is the story of ancient people - not all that different from you and me - struggling for meaning amidst the pressure-cooker of life. While waking up each and every day to milk the cows, pull the weeds, make the bread, nurse the children, these ancient folks still managed to grapple with the same big questions we have today: where did we come from, exactly? What is our place in the world? And what is our relationship with this mysterious entity we call God? 

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite have a grasp on who God is, perhaps you’ll feel better when you read a Bible story like the one we heard today. Because God is a nebulous character in these ancient stories. In these early chapters of Genesis, this God is tightly-bonded to Abraham and Sarah, but it’s hard to discern much else about God from these early stories. Perhaps this is fitting for a God called YHWH, which sounds like breath itself. YHWH - the sound of a breath in and out again - as close as the air we breathe but always seemingly slipping through our fingers. Defining this YHWH is about as easy as catching a cloud. 

It’s not even clear where or who exactly YHWH is in today’s passage. We are told Abraham is at his home by the oaks of Mamre, a place where he also built an altar to his God. The story says the Lord (YHWH) appeared to him and then mentions three men who appeared to him. Are these three men also YHWH? It seems so. Odd because how can God be contained fully in the bodies of three normal-looking men? We’re not told. But since YHWH speaks to Abraham and Sarah several times in this story, it seems God is somehow speaking through the men. They aren’t messengers, exactly, they seem to be YHWH themselves. Strange. Are these men, men? Or God? It’s a bit like a mirage - look at it one way and you see one thing, blink and look again and the image has shifted. 

A wise pastor once told me that the best questions we can ask when looking at any scripture are these: What does this tell us about God? What does it tell us about humans? And what does it tell us about the relationship between God and humans? 

Those are great questions, aren’t they? You can apply them to basically any story from the Bible. If you’re ever asked to lead a Bible study, those are basically the only questions you need.

What does this tell us about God? What does it tell us about humans? And what does it tell us about the relationship between God and humans? 

As nebulous and shape-shifty as God seems in Genesis, there are some things we can learn about the relationship between YHWH and humanity in this old, old story. 

The people experienced God as deeply invested in and involved in their lives. God seems to care deeply about what happens to Abraham and Sarah and their kin. God tells them where to go, what to do, and seems to have concrete desires for how their lives will unfold. God is not far away. God is near, speaking to them directly in their daily lives. In this story, it’s fascinating how close God is to them. When the strangers arrive at Abraham’s home, they ask about his wife Sarah. They already know who she is. And then Sarah stands nearby, overhearing the promise that she will bear a child, she laughs, wondering how this is possible since she and her husband are so old. YHWH seems to hear her very thoughts and responds to them asking, “Why did Sarah laugh? Doesn’t she know nothing is impossible with God?”

Sarah, out of embarrassment or politeness, tries to cover up her laughter. “I didn’t laugh,” she insists. But YHWH knows better - perhaps better than she even knows herself: “Yes, you did.”

This vision of our cloud-like God may or may not match up with how you’ve experienced God. There are so many different depictions of the divine in our ancient scriptures - it seems safe to say we’ll never fully understand the Holy on this side of reality. But whether this nearby, invested, meddling God sounds familiar to you or not, we can surely all identify what it’s like to turn to God - to reach out and try to hold onto that cloud - when we are under pressure. 

Last month, I asked for questions about anything related to our faith. One of the questions was this: “Does God want us to be happy? Or is this the wrong question?”

When it comes to our faith, I don’t think there are any wrong questions. I think God welcomes them all. And I think Genesis 18 would answer this question - does God want us to be happy? - in the affirmative. God is present throughout their lives, moving in the background, clearing pathways, pointing them towards a fuller, richer life. 

“Happy” might not quite be the right word for what God desired for them. You know, in the Psalms, “happy” appears over and over again. In some translations, though, it says “blessed” instead. 

In fact, the very first word in the Psalms is happy/blessed. From Psalm 1

Happy (blessed) are those

    who do not follow the advice of the wicked

or take the path that sinners tread

    or sit in the seat of scoffers,

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees

    planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

    and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

I think what I like about “blessed” is that it’s a relational word. Happy is something you can be on your own. Blessed is something you can only be when in relationship with another. Happy is about me. Blessed is about us. 

We may not always be happy - Abraham and Sarah certainly weren’t. But despite their failures and flaws, their fears and flailings, they were blessed. They were held in reverence by a God who wanted the very best for them. Created in the image of love to be a light to others. Blessed to be a blessing. As it was for them, may it be for us. Amen.