“Counting Sheep”

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

March 30, 2025

Fun fact: all those little titles for Bible stories -  “The Good Samaritan,” “The Woman at the Well,” “The Wedding at Cana.” They are all editorial comments - added later by publishers of various translations. They don’t exist in the original text. 

So when we say the passage we just heard from Luke is the “Parable of the Lost Sheep,” we are already beginning to interpret the original text. Same as when we call the two stories after this, commonly known as “The Lost Coin,” and “The Prodigal Son.” 

Of course, the text itself was already an interpretation of a story Jesus told once upon a time. None of the gospel authors were eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life and ministry. The earliest books of the New Testament, letters written by Paul, were written in the 50s - decades after Jesus died. And Paul didn’t know Jesus when he was alive, though he makes a big deal of having met Jesus in that vision on the road to Damascus because it gave him apostolic authority. 

But I digress. This is not a sermon about Paul. It’s a sermon about the Gospel of Luke. And sheep. 

So whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke was sharing a story that was passed down to them. A reporting of a parable that Jesus once told. And when the Gospel authors wrote these parables down, they often added their own interpretations at the end. It seems likely that Jesus’s style of storytelling was more open-ended. He’d weave a tale and then just let it sit there. Perhaps people wandered away still turning it over in their minds or talking about it at the dinner table. The authors of the gospels sometimes tried to make things easier on us by trying to tie things up with a neat bow by placing the moral of the story in Jesus’s mouth. But Jesus himself almost certainly didn’t offer up those conclusions himself. 

So when Jesus says “In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives,” we begin to think of this parable as a story about God’s grace and about sin and redemption.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine cautions us about mindlessly accepting the gift handed to us with the neat bow on top. When we focus on that sweet message at the end, we hear a message of encouragement and good news. But, she says, “What has gotten lost, however, is any provocation, any challenge.” [1]

And if we know anything about Jesus, we know that if there’s no challenge, we probably need to go back for another listen. 

Without the interpretative words the gospel authors’ put into Jesus’s mouth, we’re left with a very short story, indeed. 

Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’

Parables have many interpretations - that’s what keeps them alive. So the interpretation I’m about to offer is just one possibility. The first thing I notice is that Jesus is pretty clear the main character - the caretaker of the sheep - is not God. It’s one of us. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep….”

And suddenly this story feels like instructions for living in community. If we’re the caretakers of the sheep, how are we to act? What do we do when we notice someone has wandered away? In real life, it can feel awkward to go looking for someone who has left the group. You can’t just pick up a person and throw them over your shoulders. There are laws against that. 

But I think this image of inviting people back is an important one. As we wander together through whatever this is we’ve living through, I’ve been prayerfully holding onto an image of following Jesus on the Way. All of us together, on a path. We’re not sure where exactly we’re headed but we are following Christ and we keep putting one foot in front of the other. We take breaks. We take care of each other. We’re here, on the path, come what may. And we’re together. 

In a world where federal employees are losing their jobs and losing sleep over how to hold onto their values in workplaces turned upside down, we have to keep looking out for each other. In a state where trans youth are under attack and politicians are unashamedly voting to disenfranchise voters, we have to keep looking out for each other. In a world where people are being stopped, harassed, and sometimes even thrown into unmarked vans by ICE agents, we have to keep looking out for each other.  

It seems like a lot of people who call themselves Christians have wandered off the path. When following Jesus leads you to hate, not love - you’re off track. When you call yourself a follower of Jesus but you put your trust in political leaders instead of Christ and proudly proclaim violent nationalist views - you’re off track. When you fail to care for the widow, the orphan, the immigrant and instead persecute them - you’re off track. 

Ensuring we all stay on the actual pathway of Jesus is hard work. We need to actively shepherd those we love when they start to wander off. We need to gently admonish each other when we fall into the trap of making God in our own image. Or when we start to hate those who are preaching hate. 

Back to the path. Back to the fold. This story reminds us that this is what it looks like to live in community. 

The second thing I notice, is how many sheep there are. Just pause for a moment and try to visualize one hundred sheep. That’s a big group. If one of those sheep wandered off, would you notice? I know I probably wouldn’t. But Jesus is so sure that if we had a hundred sheep, we’d notice right away if one went missing, and that we’d go right off to look for the missing one. And find it! And bring it back! And throw a party!

It’s kind of nice to see ourselves through Jesus’s eyes, isn’t it?

In order to notice one sheep out of a hundred has gone missing, you have to be constantly counting. I’m reminded of trips to amusement parks with groups of children or teens - “Okay, are we all here? Everyone count off!

What does it look like to count everyone as faithfully as a teacher on a field trip? 

We have an example right here in Manhattan. Just over ten years ago, some citizens from various social service agencies, the school district, and a few churches noticed that we weren’t accurately counting all of our neighbors. Folks at the school district noticed we were significantly undercounting students who were experiencing homelessness. And it was important to count more accurately so that we could apply for appropriate government funding and grants to better serve those in our community whose needs weren’t being met. 

So they dreamed up an event where they could take a more accurate count. They decided to offer services that would be useful to people in our community: free back-to-school haircuts and physicals, mental health screenings, vision screenings, blood pressure, glucose, and balance checks….and on and on. And at the event they would gather demographic information about local residents so they would be better-equipped to tell the story of our communal needs. And what did they call the event? Everybody Counts. 

Just as Jesus told the disciples they’d be fishing for people, not fish - Everybody Counts is counting humans, not sheep. They continue to host this event every year and I think it’s a beautiful illustration of this parable. Carefully counting our community again and again to make sure everyone has what they need and everyone knows they are important. 

The final thing I notice is that this is a story about partying. It’s a story about joy. As are the two similar stories that follow: the story about the woman who lost her coin and the man who lost his sons. All three stories end with a big party. All three stories are about losing something or someone precious, seeking them, finding them, and rejoicing.

So if anybody tries to tell you that following Jesus means you can’t cut loose, laugh, and act ridiculous on the dance floor - you can tell them this story. And then invite them to the party. 

Because joy and gratitude are at the very heart of what it means to follow Jesus.

NOTES:

Levine, Amy-Jill. Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (p. 37). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

 

“Go and do likewise”

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

March 9, 2025

I grew up in a communally-oriented family. My parents were both public educators. My dad was a rural school superintendent, which means I spent several nights a week at various sporting events, tagging along while he made his public appearances. Basketball, football, volleyball, cross country - you name it, we were there. I spent countless hours sitting under bleachers with friends and consumed a significant amount of neon orange nacho cheese dip. 

When I wasn’t at 2A sporting events, you might have found me at Walmart with my mom. These were never quick trips because, well, as a teacher, she knew everyone. I’d think we were running in for just one or two things only to discover that she ran into several people she knew and so I’d twirl in the aisles or count cereal boxes or take out my book to entertain myself while she chatted. 

An introverted child in an on-the-go family, I never left the house without a book. I think it was a coping tool for me, a way to “shut down” the loudness of the world around me. To this day, there’s almost no place I’d rather be than wherever the pages of a book will take me. It’s my happy place. 

I think my grandmother must have been a bit more introverted like me. She’s the one who taught me the art of people-watching. She would sit with me on the bench at the mall and we’d pass the time noticing everyone who walked by. We’d make up stories about people and pass the time quietly together. 

Though she may have been more introverted, my grandma was also a product of her time. A homemaker in the 50s and 60s, she found herself enmeshed in all kind of communal activities. She played bridge, was in a bowling league, and went down to “the Moose” most Friday nights. She was even in a literal club called “The Jolly Homemaker’s Club.” Not kidding. 

I thought about my grandmother when I first read Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone. Putnam’s argument is that, by the turn of the 21st century, we were starting to see some major tears in the social fabric that holds us all together. We might go bowling, but we probably weren’t part of a league. 

Putnam said a lot in that book about the rise of television. But he had no idea of the sea change that was about to come in the form of social media. Or COVID. 

Americans are spending more time alone these days. I definitely spend more time alone than I was ever able to as a child. And please hear me when I say: that’s not always a bad thing. Many of us need our alone time to recharge. And it’s truly a gift to enjoy your own company.

I wonder if the lawyer in the story we heard today was a bit of a bookworm, like me. I mean, he’s a lawyer, so I’m guessing he spent a good deal of his life with his head in some text or another. Reading, learning, pondering, wondering. Maybe he enjoyed organizing ideas - putting concepts in order, creating checklists, breaking the world down into if-then statements and 1-2-3 lists. He’s certainly done his homework. When he asks Jesus how to gain eternal life, he already knows the answer. And when Jesus shoots the question back at him, he’s ready to answer: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus gives the lawyer an attaboy and, really, you’d think the story would stop there. I mean, if Jesus told me “well done” I like to think I’d be smart enough to leave well enough alone, you know?

But the lawyer has another question: “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answers this question not with another question but with a story. 

A man is attacked while traveling the notoriously dangerous road between Jericho and Jerusalem. Left for dead, naked, as vulnerable as a person can be. A priest and a levite both pass him by. A third man, a Samaritan, is moved with compassion and stops to help. He takes the injured man to an innkeeper and generously starts an open tab to pay for his stay, promising to come back soon to check on him. 

Jesus closes the story with a question, “What do you think? Who was the neighbor to the man in need?” 

With this question, Jesus flips the script a bit, doesn’t he? The lawyer asked WHO is my neighbor. But Jesus gives an answer to a slightly-different-but-related question instead: HOW do we neighbor? 

WHO is my neighbor is focused on who is in and who is out. And it’s a great question. (Spoiler alert: it seems that everyone is in, in Jesus’s story.) 

HOW do we neighbor, though? Well, that takes us in a different direction. A neighbor is a noun. But neighboring is a verb. And so Jesus’s answer is less about categorizing people and more about what we DO when we’re neighboring.

In this story, it looks pretty straightforward: to neighbor is to notice, be moved with compassion,  and take time to care for others - going above and beyond to ensure the welfare of those we encounter.

And it is to do all of these things on a dangerous road - traveling from point A to point B, in a liminal, in-between space. The Samaritan is not a homebody like I prefer to be most of the time. He’s out there in the world dealing with whatever comes his way. He’s intentionally put himself in a space where he might be called upon to neighbor. 

Neighboring is something we desperately need right now. No wonder Jesus told this story in response to a question about the greatest commandment. Want to work on loving God and loving neighbor as yourself? It turns out neighboring may be the key. 

What is neighboring? It’s being aware of the people we encounter. It’s seeing them with eyes of compassion. It’s extending ourselves for their well-being. It’s receiving their gifts to us in return. It’s a reciprocal relationship based on proximity. In short, it sounds a whole lot like love. 

Neighboring is something we have to work at in the year 2025. It’s not just going to happen naturally in our current environment. After all, the Jericho road can be a scary place, so you might not want to open yourself up to strangers. And besides, we’re all in a hurry to get where we’re going. Plus it’s easier to just stay home and go to Jericho in VR anyway. 

It occurs to me that flexing our neighboring muscles would actually make a great Lenten practice for anyone who’s still looking for one. Neighboring happens in big and small ways - formal and informal. You might choose to neighbor in structured ways like….

• Joining a book group

• Taking on a regular volunteer commitment

• Creating a babysitting co-op with friends

• Participating in a mutual aid group

• Joining the choir, adult Sunday School, the Ministry of the Decorative Scissors

• And Dr. Putnam’s favorite: joining a bowling league

Neighboring also happens on the fly. When it does, it might look like:

• Taking 15 extra seconds and making small talk with the clerk at the store

• Speaking of the store: shopping locally where you can make those connections

• Taking leftovers to your next door neighbor because you made too much soup

• Striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to you at the game

• Picking up the phone and calling someone that you haven’t talked to in a while

• Staying for coffee hour after church and visiting with someone new

• Inviting someone you’d like to know better out for a walk or lunch

It’s not rocket science, right? And for some people it comes as easily as breathing and it’s joyful and exciting and energizing. For others of us it can feel hard and like one more thing on our to do list. Regardless of whether it feels easy or hard, like work or play, neighboring is something we are called to do as Christians. 

Incidentally, I kind of think Jesus might have fallen into the category of people who found it hard because he was always pulling away from the crowds to carve out some quiet time. But he recharge and then head back onto the road to neighbor some more. We are called to do the same. 

A few years ago, I read Together by Dr. Vivek Murthy. Like Robert Putnam before him, Murthy shared his concerns about the state of our social fabric. As the Surgeon General, he went a step further, saying that loneliness is a public health crisis in our nation. Throughout the book, Murthy shares stories of organizations and individuals that are combating the loneliness epidemic. Time after time I was struck by how simple and basic many of these solutions can be. One of them was a group of older guys who get together at their church every week just to tinker. They replace bulbs, clean out closets, replace toilet flaps, that kind of thing. And that’s what I thought, “Oh! These stories feel basic to me because they are what we DO as a church.” 

Neighboring is our bread and butter as followers of Jesus. And our congregations are places where we intentionally practice and model the art of neighboring. The church is called to be a place where we intentionally weave a web of social connection - both with each other and with the world around us. To walk and talk and act like Jesus is to extend ourselves for the benefit of others. In ways big and small, formal and informal, we are called to the work of neighboring. It’s the work of being love in the world. 

And boy does the world need it right now. 

I don’t know how much worse things will get before they get better. 

What I do know is that if we want to build something better on the other side of this moment of national crisis - if we want to weave a world that we’d like our grandchildren to live in - neighboring is the way. 

And if we’re going to care for those who are directly in harm’s way - if we’re going to make sure we all make it to the other side as healthy and whole as possible - neighboring is the way. 

Because we’re on the Jericho road now. It’s not an easy road to walk. In fact, it’s been known to be quite dangerous. We know there are robbers lying in wait. And there are people languishing on the side of the road who need our help. 

But sometimes the only way out is through. And neighboring is how we will get through. One foot in front of the other, resting as needed. When we see people on the side of the road, we will stop and check on them. When we are thirsty, we’ll pause by the spring and fill our bottles. When the children need to be carried, we’ll take turns carrying them. We will sing our songs and tell our stories and gaze upon one another with compassion. We will share what we have with those in need and welcome newcomers into our traveling band. We will gently call each other back when we wander off the path. And when we get worried or need to have a good cry we’ll find someone by the campfire willing to listen. 

And we will tell the story of the time a lawyer asked Jesus how to find his way to the fullness of life. And Jesus told him a story about neighboring. And how, at the end, he said, “Go and do likewise.” 

We’re trying, Jesus. Walk with us. Show us your way of compassion. Weave us into one body. Neighbor us through the ups and downs of this hard road. 

May it be so. Amen. 

“Listen!”

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

February 16, 2025

Early January may seem like a very long time ago. But if you can, try to reach back in your mind to the beginning of Epiphany season. This short little season of light and revelation begins each year with the story of Christ’s baptism. Before he’s whisked away to the wilderness and tempted… Before he stands up in the Temple and proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me - God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…” Before he calls his disciples by the shore of Galilee… Before the questions, the healings, the parables…. Before all of this, Jesus was baptized by in the Jordan River by his cousin John. The Gospel of Luke says “heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” 

During Epiphany we’ve traveled through Luke’s gospel with Jesus and his friends. Time and time again, we’ve pondered, “Just who is this Jesus?” And now we’ve arrived at a threshold of sorts. 

In today’s passage, the inner circle of disciples - Peter, James, and John - have a mountaintop experience with Jesus. Now, we know that when people in the Bible start climbing mountains, we’d better pay attention, right? The story goes that, while they were on the mountain together Jesus was transformed in front of their very eyes into a shining, glimmering figure. His face was shining like the sun itself and his clothes were a dazzling white (which, I’m guessing, was pretty rare in Biblical days. They didn’t have Oxy Clean back then, you know). 

We after gifted this story of the Transfiguration every single year on the final Sunday before the season of Lent begins. I actually kind of love these stories that we hear like clockwork every year because I find that every time I return, I notice something new. 

This year what grabbed me was the way this story bookends with the story of Jesus’s baptism. When he’s standing in the river, the voice from the heavens speaks directly to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And now, when he’s standing on the mountain, the voice speaks, instead, to the disciples. We are told that a cloud overshadows them and they are terrified. The cloud overtakes them and they hear a voice from within it, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

LISTEN TO HIM. 

Perhaps we are not the only ones who struggle to sift through all the noise and pay attention to what really matters. We have our digital distractions and anxiety-riddled brains but it seems that even the smartphone-free disciples needed a reminder to open their ears and hearts and LISTEN.

The fascinating thing is that Jesus doesn’t say anything at all in this story. No questions. No parables. Nothing. 

And so we have to go a little further afield if we want to honor the voice from the cloud. And it turns out that in the rest of this chapter, Jesus says a LOT. Wow. Let’s take a moment and LISTEN together. (readers are in place)

Jesus called the twelve together and sent them out to heal and proclaim the good news. 

Listen!

The disciples were concerned because there was a huge crowd of people and nothing to eat. Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples gathered up five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus took the food, blessed it, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. Over 5,000 were fed and there were leftovers. 

Listen!

Jesus was praying alone and he asked Peter, “Peter, who do you say that I am?”

Listen!

Jesus said that he would undergo great suffering and be killed and also raised. He said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

Listen!

Jesus grew frustrated that his disciples weren’t able to heal. The time was growing short and he  knew they needed to learn to do all this on their own. He chastised them fiercely, then healed the boy they were unable to heal. 

Listen!

Again, Jesus tried to explain, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”

Listen!

The disciples were having a petty argument about who among them was the greatest. Jesus brought a young child near and said, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.”

Listen!
John saw a stranger healing and grew concerned because they didn’t know him but Jesus said, “Don’t worry about it. Whoever is not against you is for you.”

Listen!

Jesus and his friends were unwelcome at a Samaritan village. His disciples asked if they should burn it to the ground. Jesus rebuked them and then kept on. As they were walking, Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest.” He invited some along the way to follow him but they gave excuses. And he responded, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It’s a lot, isn’t it? You can just feel the urgency like it’s a firehose. As Jesus gets closer and closer to the end of his life, the intensity is dialed up. No wonder the disciples were overwhelmed. No wonder they needed something dramatic like the Transfiguration to capture their attention. To get them to slow down and really LISTEN to Jesus. 

I take a bit of comfort in knowing that even Jesus’s closest friends and followers had to be reminded to listen to Jesus. And he was standing right there in front of them in the flesh. How much more do we need the reminder to listen? With all our distractions and worries? As the chaos swirls we, too, feel overwhelmed and, if we’re honest, most of us could use a timeout. We could use some time on the mountain with Christ, being enveloped in a cloud, and reminded to listen for the movement of the Spirit. 

Luckily for us, that time in the cloud is here. The season of Lent beckons with an invitation to pause. To intentionally enter into new patterns. To reevaluate our daily routines. Lent comes from the same root word as lengthen. Just as a seed starts to put down roots and sends out tendrils looking for water and nutrients in the soil, we, too, can stretch ourselves in this season of growth. As the days get warmer and longer, we can root ourselves firmly in place, lengthening down and up as we mature in our faith.

Each of us will find a different way to do this. Some may prefer the classic Lenten practice of giving something up - switching up just one thing in our daily routines can feel like a cold splash of water on our faces. It can stop us in our tracks again and again as we notice the change. And with each noticing, we can pause and listen for the Spirit’s movement. 

Some of us may choose to add something into our lives - a new spiritual practice that we’ve never tried before. Or maybe we want to make a deeper commitment to something we’re already doing that helps us listen to Jesus. Picking up a copy of the Lenten Devotional or signing up for the daily devotional cards in your email can be a great jumping off point. So can just setting a timer for 5 minutes a day and learning to simply be still and listen. One of my favorite ways to pray is to forget about words completely and just rest inside an image I have for the Holy - or even simply visualize a color or pattern that draws me into the Spirit’s presence. 

As we enter this Lenten season, we know that the voices of hate are loud. The chaos is very real. The pain in our world is palpable. It can be tempting to cover our ears and try and block everything out. Instead, God’s clear, strong voice beckons to us across the eons, offering a command that is also a gift, “This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him!” 

May all who have ears to hear receive the gift. Amen. 

“Salvation”

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

February 16, 2025

The other table guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this person that even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Sometimes I think that we’ve all gotten so comfortable with Jesus - so used to his miracles and funny little stories and extravagant love - that we forget to ask some really important questions. Questions like “Who IS this person that even forgives sins?”

There’s a high-falutin’ seminary-learnin’ word for the answer to that question: what we believe about Jesus is our Christology. 

Not that we all have to have the same one. I’m pretty sure that if we took a detailed quiz about Jesus we’d discover a diversity of beliefs about among us. And that’s just fine. One of the things I love about our tradition is that we don’t all have to believe the same thing to belong here. We just have to want to be on the journey together. 

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that following Jesus is less about what we believe and more about how we are trying to live. Christianity is a religion of transformation – it’s an experience of the holy that changes us and invites and empowers us to live in new ways. 

That transformation piece - that renewal that happens in us when we follow in the Way of Jesus - is at the very heart of what it means to be Christian. You can see that played out in dramatic fashion in today’s passage from Luke’s gospel. This unnamed woman is so moved by an encounter with Jesus that she kneels at his feet during a dinner party - weeping openly. We aren’t told the details but we can see that something significant is happening in her life. A transformation is taking place. 

Who is this person that makes grown adults weep openly in public? Who is this person who forgives sins? 

The transformation we see in this story - the epic shift that is taking place for this woman - has a fancy theological word, too: salvation. 

But before you put this whole story in a neat little box, let’s unpack that concept a bit, shall we? Because salvation in the Christian tradition is much bigger than some kind of magical-nothing-but-the-blood thing. And it’s even bigger than the what-happens-after-we-die thing, too. 

By the time I learned about “salvation” as a Protestant child in the U.S. in the late 20th century in Sunday School, the version I got was definitely about going to heaven and it was definitely all about Jesus’s death on the cross. But it turns out that for the first several centuries of Christianity people understood it as much broader and deeper than that. 

Luckily for us, some theologians continue to hold onto this bigger understanding of salvation. Like Lutheran Bible scholar Marcus Borg, who, like the early Christians, understood salvation as a multifaceted gift. [1] Salvation has that same root as the word salve - it’s a healing balm. And Borg points out that it doesn’t look the same from person to person or moment to moment. If you are captive, he says, salvation looks like freedom. If you’re sick or hurt, salvation looks like healing. If you’re in exile, salvation may look like return. If…….well….maybe a story would be better: 

In Kent Haruf’s Plainsong trilogy there is a teenage girl named Victoria Robideaux. Seventeen and pregnant, she’s kicked out of her mother’s home and taken in by a school teacher. Eventually the teacher arranges for her to stay with the McPherons: two elderly bachelor brothers who live 17 miles south of town. The three slowly become an unlikely family and near the end of the first book, Victoria welcomes a daughter, expanding the family to four. 

At the beginning of the second novel, Victoria is 19 and headed to college with her now-two-year-old daughter. The McPherons drive her to Fort Collins to drop her off at school and she gets some strange looks from another college girl who wonders aloud if the men are her grandfathers. No. Uncles? Also, no. 

“What about her daddy then? Is he coming too?” [the girl asked.]

Victoria looked at her. Do you always ask so many questions? 

I’m just trying to make friends. I wouldn’t pry or be rude. 

We’re not related that way, Victoria said. They saved me two years ago when I needed help so badly. That’s why they’re here. 

They’re preachers, you mean. 

No. They’re not preachers. But they did save me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them. And nobody better say a word against them. [1] 

If you’re a pregnant seventeen year old whose mother has kicked her out, salvation may just look like two old ranchers who put a roof over your head and become family. 

We don’t know what, exactly, salvation looked like for the woman at the dinner party with Jesus. We’ve given very few details about her life. We can surmise that she must have encountered Jesus sometime before this meal because he’s already had a profound effect on her life. We are told that she’s “a sinner” but that could mean almost anything. We deduce that her presence and effluence of emotion made the host uncomfortable. 

But we don’t know the details of what, exactly, is saving her life. 

And so we are invited to wonder along with the other dinner guests: “Who is this person that even forgives sins? That saves?” 

Sometimes I think that we’ve all gotten so comfortable with Jesus - so used to his miracles and funny little stories and extravagant love - that we forget Christ’s power to save. 

And we forget that this Christ-force - this gift of  liberation, healing, reconciliation and love - is still surging all around us - even now. 

You don’t have to go far to find it. 

If you come into the church building early in the morning, you’ll run into some of the volunteers from the Center of Hope. Many of them volunteer because they’re trying to live like Jesus. And some of them volunteer because they, too, have been unhoused and have stayed in shelters just like the one they’re now running. Their mission is simple: to ensure every person who crosses their threshold lives to see “one more day.” When you’re living from day to day, salvation looks like seeing one more sunrise and having a chance at one more day. 

And it’s not just the volunteers who channeling Jesus’s life-saving love: because I’ve seen the joy and love and laughter that flows so easily in the kitchen lobby every evening. The guests are showering that healing, easy, life-changing love right back on the volunteers, too. There is reciprocity in the love shared at Center of Hope. Salvation there is a two way street. 

I saw salvation in Topeka this past week when over 20 people showed up to offer testimony against a hateful bill that would force teachers to call kids by only the names and pronouns on their birth certificates. I was particularly moved by the educators who stood firmly on the side of love and said that teachers will call their students whatever those students ask to be called. Whether it’s Khadijah or Olivia or Ash or Noah or José or Pookiebear. Sometimes salvation looks like a trusted adult seeing you and affirming who you are. 

You may or may not have noticed a salvation story on display during the Super Bowl last week. If you’re not fluent in the language and culture of hip hop, it may have whizzed right past you. But if you haven’t had a chance to hear the voices of people who DO speak the language, I encourage you to go seek them out. Because many saw salvation represented in the art that Kendrick Lamar shared at halftime. Lamar lifted up the story of generations of Black Americans seeking liberation and dignity amidst the horrors of a culture steeped in white supremacy. A culture that has too often sought to devalue and demean rather than respect and affirm. And so, when an artist tells just a small part of that story of perseverance and strength on a big stage? Well, this too is a part of the deep, wide, unstoppable, free-flowing story of salvation. Because sometimes salvation looks like getting free, celebrating that freedom, and inviting others to do the same. 

The gift of one more day. 

Being seen and affirmed for who you are. 

Getting free, celebrating that freedom, and inviting others to join you. 

Salvation is a salve – a healing balm, a cure for what ails us. If we are poor, it is the provision of basic needs. If we are held captive, it is a release from captivity. If we are being oppressed, it is liberation. 

We may not know this unnamed woman’s full story, but there are still stories of salvation all around us. Are we paying attention? Are we celebrating the gifts being poured out even now? 

Because God isn’t finished saving the world just yet. The light that Jesus pointed to all those centuries ago still shines brightly. As long as there are people who are sick, or poor, or trapped, or abused, or oppressed, or silenced, or addicted, or hurt, the Christ force is still at work. 

Thanks be to God. 

NOTES

[1] Borg, Marcus. The Heart of Christianity (and elsewhere - it’s a recurring theme for him). 

[2] Haruf, Kent. Eventide, 14-15.