Sermons

A Lesson from Dr. Werner

April 26, 2026
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

My college band director, Dr. Christopher Werner, arrived to Lakeland University the same year I started. He endeared himself to his students by his wit, his sarcasm, his love of a good cup of coffee, and yes, even his searing conversations with you when you needed an attitude adjustment.

One of his most important teachings was to always stay focused on improving, and never stop practicing. He actually had a sign on his office door that had a numbered list, photocopied from somewhere on the internet. 
1.    I’m sorry I’m a mean band director.
2.    I’ll try to be nicer. 
3.    #1 and #2 are lies. 
4.    Go practice. 
  
His energy was electric, and there was such hope for the future of the music department because of him.

But then he got esophageal cancer, and after a few medical leaves of absence, it came back with a vengeance and turned out to be terminal. While he was on his last medical leave before his death, Lakeland had a fundraiser for him to help with his mounting medical bills and celebrate his massive effect on our community. 
I went to that fundraiser for a couple hours, but I knew I also had a huge music history paper that I needed to write for the next day. I waited awhile in the long line to talk with him personally, but all I could think about was finishing that paper. I told myself, “he’d be telling you, ‘Oh go on and finish it.’” Because that’s the kind of person he was. So I left, sure that I would get the chance to talk with him again. I didn’t truly believe that he would die that quickly.

But then, two months later, when he died, I had immense regret that I hadn’t stayed longer to thank him personally for the ways he impacted my life. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have pulled an all-nighter if I had to. That paper was very important, but so was the opportunity to say thank you to someone I at that point considered a friend. I chose one at the expense of the other, when in reality, that paper still would’ve gotten done, even if I had stayed longer at the fundraiser. But I was too focused on the task in front of me to reason with myself, to tell myself the paper could wait just a little longer, and to be fully present with the wonderful person in front of me.

I tell this story not as a cautionary tale, and not because I need reassurance or validation for the decision I made. I tell this story because of what it taught me about being present to the people around me, even when there is other important work to be done. 
This week I wonder: what if God had done that? One of our texts from Genesis reminds us that on the seventh day after God had made everything, God rested, not because the work was complete, but because it was enough for the world to start. We know God looked at the world and called it good. Not perfect. Not complete. But good.

What if God had worked and worked and worked, and not appreciated what God had done? What kind of model would that be for us?

This week in our series on prayer, we're talking about sacred encounters and how those sacred encounters can be helpful for our own faith lives. First I'll talk about rest and Sabbath and what that means in the context of our scripture from Genesis. Then I'll talk about how part of resting is being present to the people in our lives and how that presence can open new connections to our faith. 
As we consider this piece of the creation stories we’e reminded that rest is actually part of the work, not separate from it, as many of us would be tempted to believe. God understood this as well. One commentary reminds us that “God resting on the seventh day becomes a sign that God's created order continues to exist in the present.” In other words, even God takes a break and offers a phone number to call on an off day in the event of an emergency.
Our series writer, Dr. Marcia McFee, reminds us that the Bible uses the word “hallowed” to explain what God did on that day. That's the same word that we use in the second phrase of the Lord's Prayer to praise God for God's holiness. “Hallowed” means holy and set apart. God made the seventh day holy and gave it a different purpose that was not separate from the work of creation, but a part of it. When I think about Dr. Werner, I wonder if what I failed to do that day was to hallow him — to set him apart as worthy of my full attention.

The letter to the Philippians takes that a step further, reminding us to think about the things that bring us joy in the midst of our work for justice. We should take a few moments to hallow—to set apart—the special people in our lives, and the things that bring us joy. After church today, we're going to spend some time together celebrating our amazing confirmation students who will be confirming their faith next week, sharing food and drink with one another, and fellowshiping the way we love the best. Becky, our confirmands, their families, their faith partners, and many others have worked so hard to make this day possible, and now we get to enjoy it. The Phillipians text says, “if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” I certainly think all of this is worthy of gratitude and joy!

When we have worked hard, and when the work seems to never end, we're invited to think about the things worthy of praise and gratitude.

In some ways, the story that I shared at the beginning of the message has a sad ending. I didn't have a chance to share well-wishes with someone I cared about. But it's also given me a new perspective. Because of that experience, I have learned how important it is to be present to those around me, and that has paid dividends in my life and in my career. I ended up in a career where the work is never really done, just abandoned for the rest of the day. There are times I get sidetracked into these beautiful conversations with some of you while I'm trying to do some of the more routine work. But what the experience with Dr. Werner taught me is that those conversations are not separate from the work. They are part of the work. I'm going to try not to make the same mistake twice.

Even as I knew Dr. Werner to be an endlessly productive person, the reason why he was so beloved was that he took time, even in the midst of busyness, to build relationships and celebrate the people around him.
So maybe that was his final lesson to me, one I learned quietly and without a letter grade. Do honest work, rest, and enjoy the world and the people around you. It seems fitting that we learn this in a series on prayer — because rest and enjoying the world around us is a form of prayer that doesn't require fancy liturgy or even any spoken words to God. Rest is prayer because it is an act of trust — a declaration that the world doesn't depend on our unceasing effort.

So my friends, may you receive the gift this week of setting aside the scrambling through everyday activities. May you set something important aside, in favor of being present with your Creator, and with someone else in front of you. May you receive the gift of someone telling you, "It can wait." You might be surprised by the gifts your rest will give you. Thanks be to God. Amen.

“The Me and the We”

Sunday, April 19, 2026
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

As we continue our series on prayer this week, I'm going to take us back to an experience that most of us can probably resonate with, praying as a child. Every night I would say two or three short prayers in the same order, and sometimes I would even sing them. One of them revolved around thanking Jesus for the day I had just had:

Thank you, Jesus, for this day 
to have the chance to learn and play.

Then, of course, there was the prayer that most of us have probably said some version of:
Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep, 
and if I die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I may not say the same words now when I pray before I go to bed, but the spirit of those prayers still guide the prayers that I say today. I give God thanks for the joys of the day and the ways that God has been with me throughout it. I pray for the people of this church, and I pray for special people in my life and situations that are on my heart.
 

As I remember my prayer life as a child, especially the prayers I said at night before bed, I'm struck by how many of the prayers emphasized the relationship between Jesus and me. Not in a vain or self-centered way, but just because that was how my childhood brain could conceptualize a relationship with God. We pray to God about what's on our hearts.
But as I got older, my parents started to encourage me to pray more often for people outside of my circle.
 

I remember praying for family members who had cancer or who had just lost a pet or who were grieving the loss of a loved one. People that don't have enough to eat, people that struggle to make ends meet.
 

I took whole classes in seminary which revolved around how to design a worship experience that is meaningful and brings other people closer to God. And of course, worship services often involve saying lots of prayers so we studied different forms of prayer.
But sometimes I'm struck by the fact that some people's prayer life isn't that different from my childhood prayer experience.
 

A lot of the prayers that they say revolve around something they themselves want. Some types of Christianity that preach a prosperity gospel talk about prayer as a way of manifesting great wealth, which I think is really disturbing, especially in the conflicts that our country is facing right now with other countries.
 

I have heard several public officials praying for our success in Iran and other places that we might vanquish our perceived enemies. And yet Jesus himself taught us to pray for our enemies, not our victory over them. That, I think, has never truly been the point of prayer, even if some of the psalmists have prayed for their victory in times of war. Over the years, some people have told me that part of the reason prayer is tricky for them is that it revolves so much around our self-centered desires rather than the needs of the world and how we might be a part of God's liberating and justice-seeking love.
 

All of this, of course, is deeply complicated. What does it say about who we are as Christians or our relationship with God? We're going to look at two different scripture texts this morning which talk about that relationship and how prayer is a part of it. As we go through the message this morning, I want you to keep in mind how the me and the we are deeply interconnected and how our individual prayers can become catalysts for the healing of communities.
 

Our first text today comes from the book of Romans where Paul talks about our individual relationships with God. Jesus models this by using the name Abba for God. Abba is the Aramaic word Jesus used that distinguishes a close relationship with God who he understood as Father. (If you didn't know, Aramaic is the language Jesus spoke which is now pretty much a dead language, but pieces of it have been left intact in the original Greek, this being one of them.)
 

A lot of people translate Abba as father, but a former pastor of mine preferred to use a warmer familial term, daddy. As a kid, when I learned about God as daddy, it reminded me of the very warm relationship I have with my own dad.
 

I would be remiss if I didn't recognize that some of this is tricky because many people I know don't have warm or loving relationships with their fathers for all sorts of reasons. But I think the point in keeping the Aramaic word Abba in our English biblical texts is to remind modern readers of the very warm, close, and intimate relationship that Jesus had with God. In the letter to the Romans, Paul says that you and I have been adopted into that familial relationship that Jesus and God share.
The other scripture takes a totally different tone and brings us to the second part of the message, the "we". We heard the scripture recently on Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. Jesus said: "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want."
 

Jesus is essentially saying, "I don't really want to do this, God, but you and I are in this together and I'm committed to doing the work that we have promised to do with each other." This is one of the most raw moments in the gospels where Jesus expresses his own reluctance. I think most of us have been in that Gethsemane place — when we knew what faithfulness required and really, really didn't want to do it.
 

But that's the point: Jesus understands that this mission is bigger than himself and is modeling that same kind of faithfulness to us, the communities who are reading and studying the way of love and liberation the Bible professes.
 

This church understands how to do that well I think. That's exactly what our confirmation fundraiser is about — helping people find places where me and we come together, this one specifically highlighting the rare and amazing camp programs our Conference has to offer, both for children and adults.
 

And we've also done the work in other ways through partnering with the Food Pantry and with other organizations that help other people in this community fulfill their basic needs.

So as you go into this week, I invite you to say two different types of prayers: one for yourself and things that are going on in your life, and another for a community far away that you've never met who needs God's love and care in a special way.

We are not separate from people who are hungry or wounded or in need. Some of us have been too.
 

I'm about to share a song with you by my friend and former seminary professor, Christopher Grundy called "Leaning In", which he calls a prayer of intention. I'll invite you to sing it with me as you learn it. The impetus behind this song was that he wanted to help congregations understand that when we say prayers for other people, that we are not separate from them.

Remember, my friends, that prayer is not an isolated act. It's an act of love for the whole world. It is me and we. May your whole life be a prayer, and may your prayers lead to liberation and healing for a hurting world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

“Can We Trust Prayer?”

Sunday, April 12, 2026
 Sermon for U-CC Waupun
 

Last night I got back from our conference's annual meeting, which I lovingly sometimes call a big old family reunion for church nerds. I'm sure that maybe John might have more to say as one of our delegates to that meeting, but it relates to what I'm going to talk about today. Yesterday over lunch I had a conversation with a clergy colleague that gave me some fodder for today's message. I won't share the specifics of anything that he told me because it's not my story to tell, but one of the things he told me was that there was a 20-year period in his life before he became a pastor that he never prayed because there were so many things in his life that happened. And when he prayed, God didn't answer. At least God didn't give him the desires of his heart like what our scripture says Jesus will do. His story is part of an emerging pattern I've been seeing where people who I consider to have a very strong faith, even clergy colleagues, have a very complicated relationship with prayer.
 

I've seen social media posts all over the place about the topic, both in Facebook groups I follow and from some of my personal friends, and I appreciate the vulnerability and also find the characterization intriguing at best. So that's why I wanted to bring us into a series on prayer in this time of Easter because I actually think that a series on prayer in a time when trust in external systems is at an all-time low, in my estimation, could be really good for us. I also decided it would be very good for my own spiritual journey to consider my own relationship with prayer and that of my loved ones and friends who have talked about this.
 

I'm going to be going on this journey right along with you, and I look forward to sort of gradually telling you what I learned from the experience, and I would welcome anybody's feedback as this sermon series progresses. In truth, prayer is a rather interesting beast. In our text from Philippians, we're told not to be anxious but instead to tell God everything that's on our hearts and minds, and in our gospel text from Matthew, Jesus says that everyone who asks something of God will receive it.
The reason I find these texts a bit tricky is because it's often interpreted in such a way that reduce God to a vending machine. Just like you put money in, press a button, and your soda comes out, these verses taken out of context can be used as a proof of concept that anything you ask God will be given to you, and if it's not, you just need to pray more or pray harder. What I've been learning from my colleagues and friends, however, is the many different kinds of situations where that appears to be untrue.
 

Even while so many people talk about their deep belief in the power of prayer, and I know I've been one of those, other people have personal experiences that make them suspect of prayer at best and totally turned off by it at worst. In a clip I shared with the media service this morning, the pastor Rob Bell talks about two different situations. One where people prayed for the healing of a baby in the neonatal unit and he died while another young woman with a rare heart condition was suddenly and unexplainably cured. I've sat with enough of you to know that most of us have been on both sides of that.
 

In the same way, I think a lot of us have dealt with the double-edged sword of prayer being something that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Several of you have told me stories of painful moments in your life, and some of you have told me how at times those challenging moments were a real test to your faith. So I titled my sermon Can We Trust Prayer? Right now at this point in my journey, my answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no.
 

I want to talk about why I think that's the case and how we can view prayer in the church in such a way that doesn't feel inauthentic. So I'm going to start with the pitfalls of it all. I've already named several different situations under which people's faith is tested, their resolve is a bit wobbly, and life just seems really messy because sometimes the rain just falls and keeps falling and doesn't stop for a while.
 

And we don't know what to do. We don't know how to make sense of it all. And when we have so many people in our lives who are more in a fundamentalist tradition shaming us for not praying hard enough or not trusting that God can make a difference, we almost feel embarrassed to even talk about vulnerable points in our faith life to people we trust the most.
 

Because we've always been taught through Sunday school and other places that God answers our prayers and God listens to our prayers and all of that. And a lot of times in my own life, I feel like that's been true for me. There have been several moments where I have felt God's presence in my life and that prayers were answered for me.
 

So I myself have been very connected with prayer for as long as I can remember, knowing what prayer is. But honestly, in practice, it's not that simple. Because sometimes we might feel that God is absent and unaware or even uncaring about our struggle.
 

Read Psalm 88 and you'll hear what I'm talking about. If you've never read it before, you'll see that the psalmist feels like they're at the end of their rope and is even blaming God for their tribulations. Because I'm sure that in the earliest days of our Judeo-Christian traditions, our faith ancestors equated prayer with deep trust and faithfulness.
 

But somehow over the thousands of years, modern Christians have lost the plot and instead held on to this vending machine kind of faith. But the truth is that vending machine faith only gets you so far. Just like when the vending machine is broken, when God doesn't answer you or doesn't answer in the way you expect, you feel cheated or isolated or angry or whatever kinds of emotions you might feel.
 

So the truth is that for me, it's impossible to just trust prayer if your only model lies in the vending machine faith that says that you ask God to grant you what's on your heart and voila, everything happens. But I want to talk to you today about the kind of prayer that I think you can trust. I think if we think about prayer as a moment of wholehearted emotion with God, whether that's deep gratitude or unexplainable joy or brutal honesty, that I think is the kind of prayer that actually makes a difference.
 

If we believe that regardless of the outcome, that God's presence in our lives actually matters and actually means something, our prayer lives might actually be richer. Maybe the colleague that I referenced at the beginning of this sermon might have had a different 20-year period in his life if he hadn't been taught to reducing prayer to a vending machine. Maybe my friends and loved ones might have had a better faith life if they had been taught something different.
 

If we can actually find a way to pray that feels authentic to the experiences we're actually facing, our whole understanding of faith could be radically different and our whole understanding of life could be radically different. I think if we became comfortable sharing the laments of our lives — lament is the ancient biblical practice of bringing your real, unfiltered grief and anger directly to God without prettying it up — or the real unfiltered problems that are going on, we might be able to cultivate more meaningful community with one another that bridges divides and instead draws people closer together. I know that radical a way of thinking might be strange for some of us introverts.
 

There have been a lot of Sundays lately where it seems that joys and concerns time has been more readily shared with God alone in our own hearts rather than with each other. And I think that if we were willing to be vulnerable with God and with one another about the things that are actually happening without expecting that God would just automatically give us what we want when we talk about it, we might have more resilience to deal with this messy life. This week, I want to invite you to pray one honest, unfiltered prayer — not a polished request, but whatever is actually true.
 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

“Resurrection In Spite of It All” 

April 5, 2026
Sermon for Easter Sunday 2026

U-CC Waupun

Almost every week I talk with a colleague of mine named Pastor Chris at a church in Beaver Dam about what we're going to preach on the following Sunday to give each other some ideas and a space to talk things out. He's been a pastor for over 20 years and I've been a pastor for about 3 1/2, so we have different philosophies and different ways of doing things that each of us find beneficial to the other.

This week, Chris started our conversation by saying, “Jacob, you’re a young pastor.” I thought, “oh boy.”

He goes, “I've been in ministry for long enough that sometimes, all the extra work for pastors this time of year feels like going through the motions. Why do we do all this to ourselves?”

I was surprised by this and I think I said something like, “well I think it's because Jesus rises again, no matter what’s going on in the world.”

Chris said, “well that's a bullcrap answer.”

All joking aside, it actually made sense to me that people might be cynical of the typical Easter message to some degree, even if they're a pastor. There are so many problems going on in our country and in the world that a happy-clappy Easter sermon might feel like it doesn’t meet the moment. Because the truth is, Jesus lived and died and rose again, directly in opposition to the Roman empire, and what those leaders represented. For the Easter story to mean anything, we have to contend with the problems the world faces. For the Easter story to be worth going back to year after year we have to understand at our core why it matters, why it's worth recounting over and over again.

That's what this Lent has been about — learning to find the good news in a complicated world. In our worship we’ve studied what was central to Jesus’ life and ministry: radical welcome, love for neighbor, care for the vulnerable, nourishment for the hungry, nonviolence in the face of injustice. At the heart of Jesus’ teachings, we find liberation, love, mercy, and grace—all of which are meant to be very good news for us all, no matter what the world brings us.

And of course that leads us to today, the Resurrection—the good news, alive in the world. For many people, the Resurrection is also what makes their faith make sense. We all love a good happy ending, and things like living in fear of the Empire and  the finality of death aren’t great evangelism tools.

But that doesn't mean it’s just that simple or without any complications. The writers of the commentary that goes along with our worship series are quick to point out that Jesus is here, and he’s alive, and that’s wonderful…but all the people who killed him were…also here. The people who scorned Jesus and told him to save himself were still here, too. The soldiers who mocked him with vinegar, taunting to call down Elijah were here, too. Pontius Pilate still reigned. Herod still terrorized his people. And meanwhile, we live among people in their same lines, who sometimes make our own existence full of fear.

That might be what makes the two Marys fearful in this rendering of the Easter story. (Well, that and the earthquake.). These two Marys—one of them his mother and the other his most devoted female disciple—had just watched him die an unusually violent sort of death at the hands of the state. So we can only imagine the range of emotions they feel.

That's why the angel of God says to the two Marys, “see for yourselves. Look inside, he’s not here.  Do not be afraid. And now, go tell the others.” Our commentator reminds us that the phrase “do not be afraid” is one of the most repeated commands in all of scripture, and we hear it twice in these ten verses alone.

But I don't blame the two Marys for still having at least a little bit of fear as they excitedly went to tell the others. I think if that happened to me, I would probably wonder what the heck had just happened. And there have been so many reasons to fear in these last few days.

But here’s the truth: the Easter story reminds us fear and empire can’t kill hope. While many of the same forces that nailed Jesus to the cross are with us today—greedy world leaders, systemic inequality, the marginalized not getting a fair shake—Jesus still rises and reminds us all that his message still matters. What he worked for, fought for, bled and died for, still matters. Even now. Especially now.

My friend Pastor Chris was probably joking around as he often does. (He has a pretty twisted sense of humor sometimes.) But his question reminded me—and can remind all of us—why this work still matters.

One of the most recent initiatives in this congregation to help people burdened by the rising costs of food has been to work with our local Food Pantry in a very specific way. This congregation donated meat, meal preparation time, and crockpots so that families could have balanced, easy to prepare, and filling meals in times of crisis. Just as Jesus’ ministry was all about feeding people who were hungry, that's become something that we've wanted to be a part of recently as well.

Our confirmation students have also been learning about local organizations like REACH that are helping people their ages and younger, who are in need of community and belonging. Several people in our congregation also mentor children served by REACH.

And I'm not saying any of this to puff us up. There are still real inequalities and real problems in the world that we haven’t been able to respond to yet.

But that's what Easter often means: resurrection, in spite of it all. Jesus rising from the dead, does not magically make all the problems in the lives of early Christians go away, in fact it may have amplified them. But today, we celebrate the resurrection of our savior because it gives us solid reasons to keep our faith. Reasons for hope while the world still rages against one another. Reasons for meaningful conversations when our divisions threaten our relationships. Reasons for laughter and joy in the midst of pain.

Jesus is alive today, friends. May you go from this place and make that good news mean something, so it never feels like going through the motions. Instead, may it help us deepen our faith and empower us to share that truly good news with a world in need. Thanks be to God. Amen.

“It’s Happening Now”

March 29, 2026

Palm/Passion Sunday
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

I was in fifth grade when our beloved Pastor, the Rev. Art Wille, left the leadership of my home church in Neenah. He had baptized both my sister and me, and he and his wife Cathy have always been important to our family. I think the closest comparison I could make to who Art Wille was for my home church is to compare him to what Mike Bausch was to your church: lots of new ideas, a long tenure, and a gift for pastoral care.

So whoever came after Art had big shoes to fill. My dad was on the search committee who identified the Rev. Lynne Spencer-Smith to be our church's next pastor. Lynne came into a community of people set in their ways, and she also came into this church as the first woman to serve the pulpit at Congregational United Church of Christ, Neenah/Menasha.

I probably would've been skeptical of the leadership of anybody who tried to replace Art Wille. Change is a part of life — but Art's departure was one of the first ways I had to learn that lesson.

Very quickly, though, Lynne became not just a pastor to me. She became a friend, a confidant, and someone whose leadership I wanted to emulate. Most of my earliest conversations about pastoral ministry were with her. By the time she left to pastor a church in Montana when I was in college, I was well on my way to discerning my own call to ministry. I ended up enrolling at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis — the same seminary both Art and Lynne had graduated from.
Fast forward to just a few months ago, when a package arrived at the church for me. Lynne had just retired and sent me a communion set along with a note. In part, it said:
"Dear Jacob, It's always a pastor's dream to experience a young person discerning a call to ministry and then be able to see them fulfill that call. Your discernment and answering that call to ordained ministry has been one of the great joys of my ministry. My hope is that this communion set will serve to remind you that you have embraced the call of God to let your light shine.”

Because of people like Lynne, I was able to embrace that call in a very specific way. There have been good days and hard days. There have been times when my ministry was embraced, and times I've faced some pushback. And yet all of these things have helped me grow as a pastor and as a person. I'm grateful to serve a congregation who embraces that growth, and still cares about me if I mess up.

Lynne taught me something else, too — something I've been sitting with as we enter Holy Week. Even as she was beloved by many, Lynne also faced real resistance during her time in Neenah. Some people came to worship expecting Art’s personality and way of doing things, and no matter what she offered, they couldn't quite open themselves to receive it. None of it was her fault. Her call was to introduce a new way of thinking and being church — and that's not always something a congregation is ready for. But Lynne kept loving the people in front of her, no matter what.

I share this story because I think she understood something that Jesus understood too. What Lynne understood, and what Jesus understood, is that when you walk into a room carrying something new and true, you should expect resistance from the people who were comfortable before you arrived.

When you come in with humility and bring in a new way of thinking and doing and being church, you have to be prepared for whatever consequences may come from that. That's why I believe you can't have Palm Sunday without also including elements of Passion Sunday, which serves as a reminder of what will happen the rest of this week. Because the truth is this: Jesus came into Jerusalem to disrupt the established authoritarian regime, knowing everything that was going to happen to him.

Mark 11:10 notes that the crowds believe that Jesus’ parade signals the coming kingdom of God. The poor, the victimized, the marginalized, and the oppressed all show up. Many of us grew up calling this the Triumphal Entry, because they wave palms, rip off their robes and shout “Hosanna”—literally translated as “save us”.

But if you look closely, it isn't really triumphant at all. A true royal procession in Jesus' day would have ended with a grand sacrifice, a banquet, a public transfer of power. Instead, Jesus rides in, looks around the temple, and slips away to Bethany. Because he knows that those same people are going to turn on him in just a few short days. He knows that his job now is not to do anything fancy—the people aren't ready for that—but he knows that a time has come for him to fulfill the entirety of God's will.

Because even after all he represents, they still kill him. Maybe they go along with it for self-preservation for fear of punishment by the Roman authorities, but they still don't have the courage to accept the new way of living Jesus Christ is proposing and actually live it out. That's the tragedy of Holy Week.

But the truth is that Palm Sunday is in many ways happening right now. Our world is in the midst of many wars with each other. Greedy and dangerous people exist in all forms of government, in every seat of power. Many people's way of living, and even their very lives, are at stake. I’m often called upon to help people in this community who don’t have enough money to pay rent, don’t have enough food or don’t have the kinds of civil rights most people in this room are afforded. The same people that Jesus fought for in his day are the people who are fighting for their rights and their lives today.

So you might say that the more violent part of Palm Sunday it's happening now. The people of Jerusalem lived in the cloud of Roman rule. The people of our world today live in the cloud of oppression and war.

But you know what's also happening now?

People all across our country and across all of the world are being inspired to act. That's what the good news is according to the commentary for our sermon series.

Just like I learned from both the joys and challenges of Lynne Spencer-Smith's ministry and still felt the call to engage in ministry myself, I think this Church is also doing a wonderful job of responding to oppressive systems around us. We're feeding hungry people and giving other material resources to people in need. Our VBS theme this summer will deal with mental health and remind our children that God loves us no matter how we feel and what's going on in our lives, a message that so many children in our community probably need to hear.

So the question I bring to you today is this: how will you be inspired to act this Holy week? In the midst of the difficulties going on in our world, how will you enter with humility into the life of somebody who needs liberation?

As we follow Jesus to the cross this week, may we remember that he did all of this for us because he loved us, knowing what would happen to him all the same. We may not always be greeted with gratitude when we try to do our own little work to change the world, but friends— this is exactly the work that Jesus calls us to do. May you let your light shine in desolate places, so that everyone might know the dream of God. Amen.

“No One's Throwing Stones Here”

March 22, 2026
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

A few months ago I opened a sermon with the story of getting my shoe lift for the first time as a high schooler, and what that represented for my physical health. This time I'm telling you a different side of that story.

When I first got the shoe lift I had to essentially relearn how to walk because I had been used to a very different way of walking where I was so far out of alignment all the time and it made things rather painful.

The first couple of weeks after getting the lift were the most consequential and also the most difficult. One morning on my way to class, I was walking pretty quickly as I had to go from one end of my large school to the other in just a few minutes. That was a feat because, especially when I’m physically tired, I tend to walk more slowly than most people.

All of a sudden as I was walking I heard loud exaggerated stomping behind me.

As I turned around I realized that a student and his girlfriend were behind me and the boyfriend was mocking my gait, with loud stomps and an exaggerated waddle. I was crushed. There was no way I could defend myself in that moment because it sunk in slowly that the guy was actually mocking me.

The girlfriend said to him, “why are you walking like him?” He replied, “I don't know.” Then hand in hand they turned around and walked the other direction.

The entire interaction lasted for only about ten seconds, but I felt numb the whole rest of the day and didn't know how to react to it as I fortunately hadn't been bullied that many times in high school. I was grateful to have friends who helped me feel better and my walking felt a lot more natural after only a few days so I was able to get on with life as they say. But I'll never forget that situation.

As a society we don't do particularly well with human difference. In reality we're only good at associating with people who are like us. Anything different about people—race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status—is viewed negatively, instead of being understood as part of the vast tapestry of human experience. Difference is so often equated to sin in religious circles. From the whitewashed history of American Christianity to the Bible’s contradictory depiction of disability, to Paul’s belief that women should be silenced.

I hadn't done anything to earn the jeering, but to that guy my sin was that I was different.

I never saw the boyfriend or girlfriend again. I don't know what happened to them, but it strikes me that this young woman had the strength to interrupt the bullying that she witnessed, even in her romantic partner.

As I thought about that moment more, I realized that I felt like the woman in today’s Gospel text. I was target for vilification, right out in the open. Thankfully, no one else joined in and it was interrupted by a good Samaritan, but it stung in a very particular way.

Interrupting the bullying was what Jesus did in today’s text.

First, a little historical context. Stoning is an ancient practice that some countries actually still use but more developed countries like ours have agreed that the practice is too barbaric because it involves very public shaming.

Adultery was condemned in a very specific way in biblical times and that sort of condemnation led to a very specific kind of punishment. Stoning was the usual punishment for such a crime, and a community of people were legally required to carry it out. The Israelites believed that sexual immorality "defiled the land." If the community tolerated such acts, they risked losing God’s protection and being "vomited out" of the territory, as is written in Leviticus. Death was the mechanism used to "purge the evil" from the midst of the congregation.

People could not be executed on hearsay, so two people who had witnessed the act of intercourse would be the ones to throw the first stone.

We don't know her name or anything about her; we know her only by the sin she's committed. The chief priests demeaned her in a long, drawn out way. Think about this: if the incident occurred the previous night, they would’ve had to witness the act, take her away, and hold her in custody until Jesus arrived, in order for her to be used as a pawn to test Jesus. So the woman was terrified, as I’m sure any of us would be. But Jesus intercedes and calls out all the witnesses on their hypocrisy: if you can prove to me that you haven’t done anything you aren’t proud of, go ahead and throw a stone.

Here, Jesus isn’t excusing what the woman had done, but he’s implying his belief that this particular instance does not fit the crime. More importantly he’s trying to show a new way of God’s grace which overrides legalism.

What happens next? Well, we don’t know.  She completely disappears from the biblical narrative after this encounter. We don't know if she's able to live a different life in any way or regain any sort of social status. None of those details are afforded to us. And that sucks—I think doing so would’ve been a better redemption story, but John’s gospel chooses not to address it, probably because the stories of women in the bible are selectively preserved by the men who write them.

The focus is instead on Jesus and his ability to distinguish from just laws and unjust laws. He's able to remind people of their own sin and frailty in such a manner that makes everybody else walk away.

Sometimes I wonder how many of us feel like the woman and wish somebody would intervene for us when we are being vilified or publicly shamed or made fun of, whether we've done something wrong or not. As he always does, Jesus chooses love over law.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: I often wonder why we as a society are so quick to throw stones. How many times would we ourselves have joined the crowd to punish the woman, if not by death, by teaching her some soft of painful lesson?

This is not just a sweet story of forgiveness. I think this story calls us to a bit of personal conviction and learning from the ways we've fallen short ourselves.

And I think the good news in today's text is that Jesus continues to intercede for us in our times of trial, and because we believe in God's redemptive and transformational love, I think Jesus calls us to do the same. It certainly isn't going to be easy. The work Jesus calls us to never is.

Just like that woman, we have the chance to start again from whatever skeletons we have in our closet. Like the girlfriend in my story, and like Jesus, we have the chance to interrupt oppressive systems that allow the most vulnerable among us to be scrutinized.

So how will we have compassion for people like the woman in today’s text? How will we continue to show compassion and change the culture for the better?

I was heartened by how many people in our church showed up at the library meetings in support of LGBTQ people and their stories.

Time and again, you've offered the church kitchen to our local animal shelter as they do important work to protect animals from abuse and neglect. 
This church culture has offered a non-judgmental space for all manner of marriages that might not be allowed to be performed in other churches or would require some level of public shaming. Because I think this church ultimately understands what it means to have proverbial stones thrown at you.

This church's reputation in this town is frankly mixed depending on who you ask. Some people embrace our radical welcome while others are so connected to the exclusionary belief system they've grown up with and are incapable of understanding that there can be another way to practice your faith. And we've made peace with that.

We certainly aren't perfect, and of course we will mess up again and again.

But Jesus could have upheld the law and he didn't. Instead of legalism, Jesus presented to the woman an opportunity for liberation, to have a chance to start again, to have a chance to live a better life. Not one that erases all we’ve done wrong, but one that is anchored in knowing our mistakes don’t define who we can become.

That is the kind of work that our church is called to do.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

“What’s Possible…Even Now”

March 8, 2026
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

One thing about this church that I discovered before I even started with you was the sense that you believe that you are a people of possibility. I saw that at work in the search committee interviews. I saw that at work through some of the work you had already done in the community, feeding hungry people through your summer lunch bag program.

And I had seen that through your progressive theology in a largely conservative area, giving people a safe space to question their faith, to remember that they are loved as they are, and to cultivate community when so many people in this world have become jaded by our differences. I'm not sure that I could have predicted how true that would become before the political realities in our world continued to get more dire in the last few years I’ve been with you.

Especially over the past 10 years or so, the discourse of the world and the way we think about each other has become awfully cynical. The disciples in today's text would probably resonate with that worldview as well, because they have given into this sense of scarcity that I think at one level many of us have done. This idea that there's not enough food, not enough resources, not enough money, and so on.

And we've heard this story so many times that most of us could probably summarize it on command if we were asked. But before you say, “do we really have to reflect on this story again?”, I would say not only yes we do, but that continuing to reflect on this story can remind us why the theology behind it continues to be important in this world of silos and isolation that we live in today. I'm going to start by looking at the Bible passage from a different angle than we sometimes read it. Then I'm going to talk about a church in North Carolina who understood and learned what this story meant in a time of crisis. Then I'm going to bring this back to us and what it means in Waupun, Wisconsin.

Now this story is one of the only stories of Jesus's ministry that is repeated in all four gospels. One of the only other times that happens is the recounting of the final week of Jesus's life. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all decided that it was this story that summarized Jesus's ministry better than most.

Our theme for this week in our Sanctified Arts series is that the good news is that together the impossible is possible. They emphasize that each person doing their part to make the world more fulfilled and more equitable is what will promote lasting change. But the disciples, of course, have to learn this the hard way.

To set the scene here, Jesus and the disciples have just learned that John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, has just been brutally killed. And they are going to a deserted place on foot, probably to grieve together over the loss of their friend and Jesus's cousin.

Of course, Jesus and his disciples can rarely get a moment alone. People find Jesus wherever he happens to be and often need something from him. But instead of shooing these people away, he has great compassion for them. And not just casual compassion. The Greek word for this type of compassion—which I won’t try to pronounce!—literally refers to a gut-level visceral response; Jesus doesn't feel for them from a distance, he feels with them physically. The text says that he considers them sheep without a shepherd—people who aren't just lost in the desert, but lost without each other. And so he teaches them.

But all of a sudden it's dinner time, but everybody is in the middle of a desert. And the disciples say, “what do we do?” Jesus responds, “Figure it out, give these people something to eat.”

And the disciples act probably like most of us would act, saying, we can't afford to feed all these people. We'd go broke.”

But as Jesus so often does, he flips the script and he says, “what do you have?” After their report, he says, sit them down.

And so everybody sits on the grass. Then Jesus looks to heaven, takes the bread and fish, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to the disciples and tells them to pass it around.

And they do so, and everybody eats until they're full. Not just has had enough for the journey back home until they could get something more, but actually full.

What this story teaches us over and over again is that we don’t have to believe in scarcity as a forgone conclusion.

In fact, the famed theologian Walter Brueggemann calls scarcity a myth. He says, “Our world absolutely requires this news. It has nothing to do with being Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, socialists or capitalists. It is much more elemental. The creation is infused with the creator's generosity and we can find practices, procedures and institutions that allow that generosity to work.”

A Presbyterian church in Black Mountain, North Carolina learned this in a very real way. They had just spent years discerning a new mission statement. After a long committee process, someone pointed to the question carved into their Communion table: "Has everyone been fed?" A question as a mission statement — it felt incomplete on purpose. Because the work is never finished.
They formally adopted it in September 2024. Three days later, Hurricane Helene devastated their mountain community. Roads were gone. Power was out. People were desperate. And without a plan, without a committee meeting or a budget approval, the church simply opened its doors. Members emptied the freezer, fired up gas stoves, and started cooking. Within days, they were feeding nearly a thousand people a day — neighbors and strangers gathering around tables in a parking lot, the whole building converted into a food pantry. Over the following months, over two million dollars in donations were carefully distributed to support long-term rebuilding.

The community didn't remember the church for its mission statement. They remembered the church that fed people.

To this day, after Communion is served, the pastor asks the congregation: "Has everyone been fed?" And the congregation shouts back: "Not yet.” A reminder for them all that their work continues.

This church had this amazing opportunity to live out their faith and to defy the myth of scarcity and understand the world instead as a place where everybody has something to offer and together we can create the conditions where everybody has what they need. I'm not sure if our church will ever be presented with this large of an opportunity but I think what that church's story can teach us is that, in this small town where many people live on meager salaries and limited resources by whatever means, we can actually do something to make our community more equitable.

I was reminded just recently about the time when a woman named Amy — someone none of us had met before — came to our church from the emergency room in search of a way to get back home and we were able to provide enough for her to get a ride home and a good meal. We had no idea this was going to happen. It wasn't on our bingo card.

But yet we pivoted and did what I believe this church does best. When there is need, we are so good in this church at coming forward and filling it. Whether the need is providing a taxi fare for a woman without any resources, to transportation for your pastor, to a vibrant and energized congregational care team.

All of these examples can remind us that we too can dismiss the scarcity mindset that so many people in our world would like us to have. Despite the cynicism that our society continues clinging to, it becomes true over and over again that a bunch of people sharing seemingly small gifts that they have actually can change the world.

So as we go into this week, I invite you to think about this: 
How can we create the conditions for these loaves and fishes moments to keep happening and to change the world around us away from the isolation, away from the fear, away from the othering?

Because my friends, the only way that we can continue to have hope in the world we live in is in recognizing that God equips all of us in our own little ways to make sure everybody has what they need. And we need only to remember to keep that mindset alive in our hearts.

May it be so. Amen.
 

Sermon for U-CC Waupun

March 1, 2026

Rev. Emma Landowski-Sancomb (filled the pulpit in Pastor Jacob's absence)
 

My daughter loves looking at books and I am really proud of the collection that we are building together. She of course has some of the classics like “Goodnight Moon” and “Owl Baby’s” But one of her favorites has recently been from the series “A little Spot of Feelings” by Diane Alber.
 

Diane’s books include stories about identifying our feelings and how to care for those
feelings. We have practiced identifying when we are calm, angry, happy or sad…and she is getting pretty good at spotting those emotions in others as well! So Cora’s favorite in this series is a little spot of empathy, which I will never be mad about reading over and over again! If there was a children’s time today, I would have brought that book to read!
 

As the story unfolds, the “detective” spot notices that there is a little boy who is sad. The picture depicts several kids playing soccer with the little boy standing off to the side with tears in his eyes. Detective spot invites us to look at the situation from different perspectives. Is he sad because he wasn’t invited to play soccer? Or is he sad because he doesn’t know how to play? Maybe he is sad because he really wanted to play something else altogether?
 

When the little girl goes to check in on the little boy who is sad, she first asks herself questions to help understand how he is feeling and why he is sad. She asks questions like, “what could that person be feeling? Have I felt that way before? How would I want to be treated?”

When she asks these questions and meets this other child where he is, she is honoring that she may not know what he has been through or what he is experiencing but she can still show him empathy and hear things from his perspective! “She shows him empathy by saying, " I understand how you feel. I have felt that way before. That would make me sad, too.”
 

Our gospel reading for today shares a similar story. Both stories center on how we interpret someone’s pain, both stories expose the difference between choosing empathy
and judgment, and both stories ask: Who do you see?

In our gospel, rather than choosing empathing and a willingness to see from someone
else's perspective or experience, we see something else unfold. Jesus is invited into the house of a Pharisee to share a meal. He sits down, actually he reclines, making himself comfortable. At some point in the meal, a woman from the community who had heard that Jesus was there, came to the house, found her way in and stood behind Jesus weeping.
 

But then she doesn’t just stand there! She actually gets down on the ground, still weeping and begins washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. And she doesn’t stop there! She actually kisses his feet and has ointment or oil that she anoints his feet with.
 

Can you imagine how startled each of the guests might be? I imagine this was not on
their agenda for the evening. What questions might they ask?
- Why is she here?
- Why is she crying?
- Why is she washing the feet of Jesus?
- What is she hoping to accomplish?
 

Rather than asking those questions, the Pharisee, Simon, thinks to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who is…he would know WHAT kind of woman is touching him…
 

Now all we know about this woman, if we are just looking at the context of the story, is
that she is a “sinner.” Obviously, nobody is perfect and each one of us is a sinner. So
does it matter what kind of a “sinner” she is?
 

The only “clues” that we might have, if we want to be like “detective spot” is that she
also had perfume with her, and perfume in that time was either a sign of prostitution or
wealth. Which is probably why Simon is thinking, “does Jesus know who and what kind
of woman this is who is touching him?”
 

The response of Jesus shouldn’t surprise us, it doesn’t matter if she is a prostitute or if
she is wealthy, what matters is she has shown up in tears with what appears to be the
intention of repenting for whatever her sins are.
 

That’s the type of character that Jesus cares about. Not only does Jesus recognize
that, but he also sees what kind of character Simon has. And Jesus is going to call him
out! Jesus calls out Simon’s unspoken objection or judgment towards this woman and
shares this story.
 

If a moneylender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
When they couldn’t pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them
would love him more?

Simon responded with “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” Jesus acknowledged that he judged rightly. Even still, in the story about the debt that Jesus shares:
Both are human and sinners. Both are made in the image of the Divine. Both are forgiven. Both respond with different levels of understanding and appreciation. Jesus goes on to point out that the actions of the woman, washing and drying his feet, were culturally things that Simon himself “should have done” as the host of the house welcoming a traveler.
 

Jesus proclaims that the sins of this woman have been forgiven, which is why she has shown such “great love” through what she has done. So I wonder if the questions we should be asking are:
- “Why did this woman show up so boldly and vulnerably?”
- “How do we learn from her bravery as she shows up boldly and receives forgiveness?”

- “What does the woman bring to the table…literally?” and what does she have to
offer?”
 

If we reframe our response from that of judgment or shame to a space of empathy and maybe even compassion, we might find that we could be asking ourselves the same questions…after all, aren’t we all sinners too?
- Where are we called to show up boldly and with vulnerability?
- What do we carry that we might be ashamed of or need to repent from?

- What do we bring that might actually make a difference? To God and to each
other?
 

Jesus says that her actions showed great love, yet Simon grossly misinterpreted what she had done. Jesus and Simon witness the same thing but the way they interpret it are two very different ways. They both had two very different perspectives of what happened.
 

The question isn’t what we see. The question is how we interpret what we see. What the woman did was bold and very risky. There was probably a large "social cost” to showing up and not knowing how Jesus might respond. But her bravery led to a space of healing and growth.
 

Not only did she experience forgiveness and praise from Jesus, but Jesus also reminds us that it is faith exactly like that which is required to love those who are overlooked, outcast, the neighbors we may not like or are across fences or boards.
 

Turning to our second reading for today, the story of Jesus saying “for I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…”
 

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these siblings, you did it to me.”
This passage asks us whether we “actually show up” for each other. What is so profoundly important for us to understand about this text is that the stranger, the hungry, the immigrant, the one that annoys us or that we ignore,is in fact an embodiment of the Divine. In other words, the judge of all of the earth is “the least of these”.

So in both of our stories, the stranger, the sinner, the hungry and the thirsty are not just representations of the Divine, or sent by the Divine, they ARE the Divine. Or at the very least, the Divine is embodied in each of them. In Luke 7, Jesus aligns himself with the “sinner.”
 

In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies himself with the hungry and stranger. In both texts, the Divine hides in the person we least expect.
 

So, If that is where God, the Divine is, where should we look to find the Divine? Where should we be looking to love our neighbor? I think I could probably name a few countries and communities in need of extra love right now.
 

We, like the woman with tears and oil, are called out of our spaces of comfort to show
up boldly, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We are called to love our neighbors. We
are called, with the help of God, to ask, what could that person be feeling? Have I felt
that way before? How would I want to be treated? And then treat them with that empathy and compassion!
 

Like the detective spot, we are invited to look at situations and events in our world from
different perspectives, particularly through the lens of Jesus. So, friends, as we go out into this world, may we be people who pause long enough to ask better questions. May we see with the eyes of Christ. And may we love the Divine in each unexpected stranger.

 

“How to (Actually) Believe in Miracles”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

February 22, 2026

A couple years ago in one of my earlier sermons, I started by asking if you could agree that you believe in miracles by a show of hands. And most of you looked around at each other to see what everybody else was going to say.

And I get it. While I would not intentionally ask you a “gotcha” question in a sermon, because I don't think that is appropriate for a pastor to do, I think that exchange underscores how miracles are often perceived in our society. Sometimes miracles happen and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it can seem like God answers a prayer. And sometimes it can seem like God is far away.

At some point, no amount of theology can make these things make sense. We have to be guided by our experiences, and the ways we live our lives.

Today, I'm going to take that analogy in a bit of a different direction than I took it the first time around, recognizing how faith can be miraculous and how in so many ways the miracle is community. The miracle is you.

A Sanctified Art’s title for this worship series is Tell Me Something Good. I think about that as a desperate plea for something, anything good, in the midst of the political, ideological, and cultural mess we find ourselves in. On this first Sunday of Lent, we're reminded that the good news is better than we could imagine.

I'll admit to being a little bit cynical when I think about the wedding at Cana sometimes, because when I think about all that Jesus did for the world—reminding oppressed people that they were loved by God, or seeing God's likeness in people others had pushed aside, and likewise turning the status quo upside down—turning water into wine doesn’t always feel worthy to me of being called “Jesus’ first miracle”. In fact, sometimes I've read that story and thought to myself, “whoop-dee-doo, he made the good stuff reappear again.”

This is also a tricky story to preach in a church that hosts an active Al-Anon chapter. Al-Anon is a program that provides support to those who have an alcoholic in their family. This story can perhaps be triggering for those who are working on their sobriety or live with someone who is. So, like many stories which ask the listener to believe in miracles, the miracle is complicated.

But remember the miracle is community.

Winnie Smith, the facilitator of our Al-Anon group, once told me that it’s in those moments of community where people can turn their shame into strength. It’s in those moments that each person’s struggle, each person’s story, multiplies into something that can provide a sense of peace and comfort. That's not so different from what happened at the wedding at Cana, or from Jesus’ mustard seed analogy.

I'm actually much more immediately compelled by what I’m calling “the miracle of the mustard seed”. Here, Jesus is looking for some sort of analogy to explain to the disciples what the kingdom of God feels like and looks like. If you'd prefer less patriarchal language, you might think about it as asking the question of what God dreams for the world. 
The mustard seed is never actually called a miracle, but I actually think it may be more miraculous than turning water into wine.

When I think about the mustard seed, the reason why that is so compelling to me is because so many of us often need reassurance that our work matters, that our small pursuits of justice matter, that our witness matters, that our hope for a better world matters. I think we need that reminder at this time more than ever before.

And those are things that can only be done through having mustard seed faith.

Those are things that can only be done when we're crazy enough to believe that our little acts of resilience and resistance can actually make a difference. Last week, we talked about how I believe that all of us have big-picture changes we need to make so that the church continues to be relevant. But I think what's also true is that paradoxically, the small acts of faith are going to be a lot of what helps the church survive.

Too often we're told in our lives that we aren't enough. We don't have enough money. We don't have a big enough house. We don't have enough retirement savings. We don't have a fancy enough car and all sorts of other things.

But neither did Jesus and Mary and the disciples when they went to the wedding at Cana.

In this story, we often imagine the wine ran out because some caterer got it wrong. But that’s not what we’re supposed to get from this. One commentator notes that it’s possible the wine ran out because Jesus, his mother, and his disciples showed up empty-handed.

It’s important to know that the custom of the day was BYOB. Guests contributed to the feast. But Jesus, his mother Mary, and the disciples were voluntarily poor as a way of living out the faith that God would provide for them. They couldn’t contribute what they didn't have. They came thirsty — and perhaps, commentators suggest, they were thirstier than most, the way people are when they don’t have access to abundant resources. They drank. They didn't bring. And the wine ran out.

Now Mary is ashamed. Mary doesn't pull Jesus aside to whisper about a logistical problem. She's telling him: “People are watching. We shouldn’t have come here. What will people think?” The poverty that followed them into this wedding is now visible to everyone.

But I think the mustard seed part of our faith invites us to flip the script.

I titled this sermon, How to (Actually) Believe in Miracles, because I believe with all my heart that people like you, people like us, have the power to be miracles. I have seen this at work in big and small ways in my three years and some change with this congregation. And because of who I know you to be, I know that I will continue to see that in so many other ways for as long as I'm here with you and as long as I am privileged to be your pastor.

Even though it's so easy to be cynical of the miracles that we read about or hear about from other places, there is one kind of miracle that I will absolutely never be cynical about. And that is the fact that everyday people can do little things that make the world safer, more inclusive, more loving, and more hopeful in ways that we could never imagine. And I think that's what God is most interested in, too.

Even though I still have theological questions, I have a new perspective on the wedding at Cana because Jesus is underscoring the importance of community even here.

Lots of people have told me they’re cynical about Jesus’ use of the mustard seed analogy. But, remember what the mustard seed means.

The realm of God doesn't serve the people who already have it all. It begins small, it begins poor, it begins at the edges of the invitation list, like we remembered on Ash Wednesday. And the miracle in the Wedding at Cana is not that Jesus fixes a catering problem. It is that the very presence of the poor, their thirst, their visibility, their shame, is the occasion God chooses for abundance to break open. Jesus, a poor, seemingly insignificant person who was at that time in the beginning of his ministry, took a quiet gift he had to create abundance.

That’s the good news. That’s the miracle. That’s where the rubber hits the road.

God isn't interested in performative acts of faith or justice. God isn't even interested in one person being the superhero or the savior, because God already sent someone like that. That job has already been filled.

I think God is most interested in the actions of people like you, people who make the world a better place just by being in it. The people who make us laugh when we’re sad or afraid. The people who drop everything to deliver a meal to a grieving family after a death. The people who show up week after week to this building, doing their part to make worship feel worshipful.  

The miracle is community. The miracle is you.

If it’s not a miracle that community is still at work in today’s world in today's difficult world, I don't know what is. 
And honestly, if that miracle is not compelling enough to respond with a faith journey filled with gratitude and joy, I don't know what is.

So may you go into this week ready to enact your own little mustard-seed miracle. After all, it’s only when a whole bunch of little mustard-seed miracles come together that the world actually changes. And that, my friends, is no small thing.

Thanks be to God. Amen.
 

“You Can Do This” 
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

February 15, 2026

About three and a half years ago, when I started talking to your search committee, one question that I find myself reflecting on regularly at this point is this one: What personal goals do you have for yourself while you're with us?

At that time, there were two main goals that came to my mind.

One was to get my music more out there into the world. That goal has started to be reached. My music is now in more places, as well as my own website.

Another goal that I had was finding a partner and having a family. I wanted to pastor a church that would be willing to go along for the ride with me as I made the journey from a single 20-something to a family man. Of course, you all know that I'm in the process of reaching that goal as well. I’m excited to have you alongside me on that journey for what I hope and pray will be a long time.

But one of the goals I had not even dreamed would be possible was the ability to get behind the wheel again and be able to drive independently. As has been the case with so many other situations, this congregation has very readily helped me reach that goal as well. Several of you have been truly brave souls in taking this 31-year-old student driver out onto the open road and helped me put the necessary time in to hopefully take my road test in a month or two.

But, of course, that goal comes with a lot of fear and trepidation. What if after all this effort, things don't work out as I've hoped they would?

But in all seriousness, you all have been so supportive of me reaching this lofty goal of being able to drive, and I've learned circumstances are different from what they were at 16 when I tried and failed to drive while living with my parents. I'm doing this for my growing family and to better be able to live into my call as your pastor as life continues to evolve. It feels like a transfiguration of sorts, which is why I wanted to share this today as we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday and prepare to enter the season of Lent on Wednesday. Like Jesus on the mountain, I'm being transformed into something I never imagined possible—and it's terrifying But at every turn, I’ve had people say, “you can do this.”

A careful reader can trace that arc and that experience of grace through today’s text as well. In every account of the transfiguration of Jesus, there is fear both in the sense of awe and wonder and also in the sense of being completely terrified. There are also several moments where the disciples have no idea what the heck is going on, but as Jesus comes down from the mountain, he says to get up and don't be afraid.

That's the theme that we are working with today as we wrap up our sermon series on spiritual affective disorder. So today I want to talk about what transfiguration means both for Jesus and for us as we follow Jesus on his journey to the cross.

When you look up the word transfigure in the dictionary, the definition is “to change in outward form or appearance; transform.” We are not only celebrating a visual transformation of Jesus, though that's often what we think of when we hear this story. The transformation is also theological. We are told that Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a mountain and has this radical visual transfiguration, but then the voice of God booms from a cloud and speaks. The disciples fall to their knees in fear and Jesus comes to them saying, get up and don't be afraid. As commentators write, when Jesus tells his frightened disciples to rise and release their fear, he's offering more than comfort for that single moment—he's preparing them for every trial ahead, assuring them that God holds them through whatever terror comes next. The brilliance they witness on the mountain won't make complete sense until they've sat with the cold finality of death itself, learning that God's transformative power is most real when we've walked through our darkest valleys.

So in other words, the only way we can truly understand Christ’s call in our own lives us to enthusiastically say yes to hard things, knowing that if we do that, God will be with us. That might be good theology, but it’s far too oversimplified in real life.

After all, there are so many times where we are called to engage in growth and self reflection and we become very afraid.

For those of us who have become partnered with another person or for those of us who have had children, these life-transforming events can radically change us in very specific ways. They call us to step up to the plate or grow up a little. They call us to face a fear we previously thought was insurmountable. They call us to remember the beloved-ness that God claims in each of God’s people.

Because we can’t do hard things if we don’t know from the start that we are loved.

The same “this is my son” words were spoken by God verbatim when Jesus was baptized by John earlier in Matthew’s gospel, and are said once again to affirm the important calling Jesus has to alter the status quo and turn hearts and minds towards God. And he also has Moses and Elijah, symbols of the Law and Prophets of old guiding him on this journey.

Because if we say yes to God, we’re empowered to do things that we never would have thought possible. I'm quite sure that Jesus was probably afraid at least a time or two as he prepared to share his ministry with others if he was fully human as we understand him to be. And yet the fully divine piece of Jesus's identity likely reminded him that he was particularly empowered to share God's good news of love and liberation with the people badly in need of it.

So I think Jesus understands and empathizes when we are afraid to do hard things or to do things that require a lot of us. At some point, we will all face many decisions that ask us if we are going to fall to our knees in fear or if we are going to get up and boldly respond to the call that God sets in our hearts.

I think that's true of this church and I think it's also true of each of us as individuals. And just as Jesus called his disciples to transformation, God calls us—both individually and as a church—to change that feels equally difficult.

By the very nature of how organized religion is changing, I think that the institutional church and our individual church will also have to make some radical transfigurations if we want to meet this community where they're at. We may need to be more demonstrative about what we believe in order to attract new members to our ranks. We may need to remember that outreach is more than writing checks and that we might have to get our hands a little dirty.

And not everybody is going to love doing church that way because we necessarily have to do church differently today than we did 50 or 60 years ago. And in order to change things in our little church in this little town, we as individuals will probably have to undergo some transfiguration of our own.

Some of us might go through that with curiosity.
Some of us will go through it kicking and screaming. Some of us will go through it with anxiety and fear.

But because of the amazing community we are, we don't have to do any of this alone. We can tell each other to get up and not be afraid because all of us are working our very best to do what God calls us to do in the here and now. We remembers the Moseses and Elijahs that accompany our own transfigurations. Mike Bausch. Cathy Carlson. Jean McKim. Ardell Stelsel. And so many others.

I will be doing some of that work alongside you as I transform into an independent driver after many years of thinking that would never come to fruition. But if I've learned anything through this process, it's that I don't have to go through this journey alone. I wouldn't be able to do this without the support from my beloved fiancée, from my parents, from the patient guidance of my adaptive driving instructor, Jim, to the three brave souls in this congregation, Jeff, Becky, and Deb, who have volunteered to help me practice.

Yes, sometimes the world or our circumstances will call us to change. And sometimes that change is scary and it'll ask a lot of us. But we don't have to do it alone. As long as we are following God, God will always be a step ahead waiting for us and saying that we are God's child in whom God is well-pleased.

As you go into this week, I invite you to think about how you might be called to be part of the change that God is inviting us here to at Union-Congregational Church. And I invite you to ask yourself what kinds of changes God might be asking you to make in your own life.

These may be abstract questions without a clear answer, but that's so often what change is.

We don't know what the end result is going to be all the time. We don't know how we'll get there. We don't know what it will ask of us.

But by the grace of God, we do know that God journeys along with us and reminds us that we are God's beloved. So go this week with that assurance and venture boldly into where God is leading you. May it be so.

Amen.
 

“Everyone Should Be Full”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun
February 8, 2026

Admittedly, this week the theme Marcia McFee is encouraging us to play with seems a little bit weird. Her call for us this week is to “leave room for dessert”, meaning that we should always make space to save and share what we have for the sake of our own thriving and for the sake of other people's thriving.

It might not be a self-explanatory connection, but I think it's a good one. We are so often trained in our society to be hyper-individualistic, every person for themselves. And friends, that's not what God intends for us. That's never been how God wants us to live in community with one another.

And so today I'm going to talk about how we can share our resources to make space for ourselves and each other to live in community as God intends. Of course, this is a larger part of the conversation that we've been having in the last few weeks about spiritual affective disorder. But the main idea today is this: we are called by God to be co-creators of abundance, not just by sharing our resources but by creating the conditions needed for abundant life in all its forms. By abundance, I don’t mean endless stuff—I mean enough dignity, enough care, enough connection for everyone to thrive. I’m going to get into this idea by talking about an article I shared this week, as well as about a lyric video we’re about to watch by one of my favorite progressive Christian bands called The Many.

This very interesting article was written by by the Milwaukee-based community organizer, Garrett Bucks, talking about how we can be cultivating more meaningful community.

First he says that in order to combat the difficult political time we find ourselves in, we need to understand each other first and foremost as neighbors. Bucks quotes a journalist who recently said that “in a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is the neighbor.” In other words, it’s our civic and moral responsibility, and also our Christian one, to be very aware of who our neighbors are and how we can help them. Leviticus reminds us that there are appropriate ways to treat our neighbors. As Eugene Peterson paraphrases in The Message:

Don’t steal.
Don’t lie.
Don’t deceive anyone.
Judge on the basis of what is right.

And here’s my favorite: Don’t just stand by when your neighbor’s life is in danger. That means we can’t give into the isolationism that too often divides us. We can’t give into close-minded political interpretations, for example, just because that’s what Fox News or CNN says.

Another piece from the article that feels important to highlight is that Bucks says, “it's so much easier to ask people to do hard things together if you already love and trust each other.” He talks about the ways that we can cultivate that love and trust through informal gatherings like game nights and potlucks. He argues in this article that cultivating honest community can help us do the work of justice together, not in the silos.

The entire article is great, and I'd be happy to send it to anybody who might be interested in reading it. It goes further politically than what belongs in a sermon, but it’s worth reading if you want to keep thinking.

As I read that article, I thought about our text from Leviticus. At first glance, you can almost read it to be much like the Ten Commandments, because as it turns out, the Ten Commandments were given to Moses in the book of Exodus, and our passage for today is from Leviticus, the very next book in the Bible.

But it's also true that confining this passage to understanding it like the Ten Commandments, specific rules for that time and place, also doesn't do it justice. The specific moment that the people in biblical times are facing is much like the moment we face right now. Trying to understand how to live in community with one another, with our neighbors, in times of significant political upheaval, it's important to recognize that the people living in Old Testament times would have been all too familiar with people at the top threatening their freedoms and restricting their autonomy as human beings.

So they had to do a lot of hard work to understand how to live in community with each other. They had to come up with some level of social norms, saying, for example, that stealing is bad, or that we shouldn't slander against our neighbors because we don't like their opinions or we dislike how they live their lives. But the truth is this: We are not going to get through the hard times our world faces with a culture of isolationism. We need each other more now, perhaps, than we ever have before. We need each other's courage. We need each other's loving connection. We need to learn from each other's stories and find resonance in other people's experiences and in the ways that those experiences shape their lives.

But lest we think that we are going through this difficult time in our world without any kind of guide, I would say to you not to lose heart because God was with the people in Leviticus who were learning how to be community together. God is with us just the same.

When we seek to understand the life and the experiences of our neighbors and even strangers, God is already there waiting for us to grow a deeper level of empathy for the people around us. God is asking us to save some of our resources, so that everyone can be filled with community support, and filled with the love and grace of God. As the Many will sing in our song, “there is mercy enough, there is grace enough, there is love enough for all of us.” Marcia McFee reminds us that community works the same way as a shared table—if one person takes everything, no one gets dessert.

And truthfully, my friends, you embody the kind of community I’m talking about very well. Not every church can have as many political and ideological differences as we do, and still understand ourselves to be community. We can sit next to each other at coffee hour knowing that our worldviews are often very different and still crave community and connection. I know I say this often, but I keep saying it because it’s so hard to find these days. You should be commended for the work that you are already doing across all of the systems that are working so hard to alienate ourselves from one another. I saw that at work when you joined me at library board meetings when the Board was asked to ban LGBTQ+ literature. You showed up in solidarity with everyone who desperately needs to belong in a world where so many people try to “other” them.

If you’re looking for practical ways to do even more, here are a few ideas. You might consider bringing in a donation to our community food pantry to help sustain our community’s efforts to provide meals to the hungry. Our grocery cart is always out and gets brought over to the pantry several times a week. Beyond material goods, you might consider volunteering with an organization that promotes social justice for our neighbors, especially those oppressed or marginalized.

However you do so, may you go into this week mindful of how the connections you are cultivating can help you get through this frightening time in our world. And may you be reminded that the way of God challenges and comforts in equal measure. It challenges us to cultivate deeper connections with one another and comforts us because we are not alone. And when we make room for one another at the table, God keeps showing us that there really is enough for all of us.

For all the ways this message of hope continue to be true through each of you. I say thanks be to God. Amen.
 

February 1, 2026

“What I Learned from My Shoe Lift”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

If you don't already know this, I have a two inch leg length difference as a result of my cerebral palsy. Because my right leg is longer than my left leg, I learned to walk out of alignment with how people typically walk. It didn't bother me very much until I was in high school when I started to notice the difference more acutely in my hips and back.

There was a point that it became rather painful simply to walk normally. It wasn't that occupational and physical therapists never recommended that I use a shoe lift. I was just stubborn because I didn't want to be different. I saw even that small adaptation to my clothing as yet another way I was different from everybody else in the world. And there were already too many of those examples in my view.

I would later understand that this kind of thinking was nothing more than internalized ableism. The way I learned to think about myself through the same distorted social constructs people with “normal” bodies had. But at some point I couldn't just ignore those feelings anymore. I knew that if I used a shoe lift, my hips would be more aligned and I could finally walk more comfortably. That experience taught me something not just about my body, but about faith—about alignment, shame, and what it means to walk in God’s ways.

I can still remember the first time that I walked with a shoe lift. The first three steps I took were utterly transformative and I couldn't believe I had allowed myself to be influenced by the same kinds of lies that have kept me from greater comfort and accessibility. Now I walk a lot straighter and a lot taller and even though my hips will still come out of alignment as a result of normal daily usage, that situation is much more manageable and usually can be dealt with by going to a massage therapist regularly.

And as it turns out, most people will tell me that unless I had actively told them to notice my shoe lift and how it looks relative to my regular un-lifted shoe, they would never notice. As I was thinking about this week's texts and this idea of movement as resiliency that Marcia McFee is playing with this week, I thought about what I learned from my experience of using a shoe lift. I learned that no matter if I was perceived to be different in some way, that I still deserved to be as physically comfortable as possible with whatever adaptations I needed. Just like anybody deserves to live in a life with as little chronic pain as they possibly can.

It's true that both of our texts for today use walking as a metaphor for following God and doing what God asks of us, but Marcia McFee offers us the opportunity to actually live into the metaphor. As we think about the kinds of spiritual resiliency we can cultivate in these difficult and scary times, Marcia McFee reminds us that walking and other forms of movement can deepen our connection to the world around us.
Both of these texts amplify these point but through slightly different ways. Deuteronomy, for example, frames this as a pretty stark opposition between good and evil, life, and death. Eugene Peterson paraphrases at this way:

But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, you will most certainly die. You won’t last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
At first this Deuteronomy text seems fairly binary. If you do the right things, God rewards you. If you don't, God punishes you. Full stop. In our current political landscape, using this kind of theology can be very tempting if we cling to the rightness of one perspective or the other. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of giving you examples of that, but I think you are smart enough to figure that out for yourselves.

And that kind of thinking has done real harm—especially to people already suffering. If we forget the fact that we need each other, forget the fact that not everybody in our world has the same opportunities as we do, forget that the good news of God's love is truly for everybody, we certainly will die. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in the sense of our morality. In the sense of keeping community with one another.

Because the truth is that this notion that if we believe in God, everything will go OK for us it's not quite that simple. Other biblical voices—like the Psalms of lament, Job, and Lamentations—push back, naming a harder truth: good people still suffer, the wicked often prosper, and pain is not a punishment earned. To blame people for their suffering isn’t faithful theology—it’s adding shame to wounds that never should have been theirs in the first place.

So how do we frame it instead? What can we learn from today’s texts?

I think our text from the psalms can offer us an antidote. The psalmist reminds us that we're not always going to get it right. The Psalmist says, “How I wish my ways were strong when it comes to keeping your statutes!”

I know I personally can think of times where I haven't followed what God wills for my life. Strange as it sounds, I don't think God would have willed that I believe a lie that it was shameful to be different from others. God’s will was not my endurance of pain, but my flourishing.

But it’s okay to have these experiences and learn from them. Because the Psalmist reminds us to give thanks for God’s grace and mercy as we keep trying:

I will give thanks to you with a heart that does right
   as I learn your righteous rules.

Because the ways of God lead to a better life, a more fulfilling life. That’s why our media song today was “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, which we just saw. In the song, joy isn’t tied to circumstances but to an inner orientation—“a room without a roof,” open and resilient no matter what comes. The psalm echoes that same idea by grounding happiness not in fleeting feelings, but in walking God’s way and living with integrity. Together, they suggest that deep happiness grows when our lives are aligned—open to joy and rooted in faithfulness, even when life doesn’t cooperate. That’s also what Mary Oliver talks about in her poem “Don’t Hesitate”, which substituted for our Call to Worship this morning. I chose to feature it because it’s okay to hold space for joy and happiness, even as we grieve over the state of the world. The choir’s anthem. “Lift Your Light” also reminds us to shine our light through the darkness of the world because of the love Jesus has for us.

But the truth is, you already know a lot of this. Many of you have told me that you enjoy taking walks to experience nature, and you might walk with somebody else and talk with them to deepen your connection with each other. That aligns with what we’re invited to do after today’s message: This week, you are invited to take a walk around your neighborhood and simply notice how you feel in your body. If walking is difficult for you, consider engaging in some form of movement that helps you feel good in your body.

None of this means that the problems of our lives will go away. We still have to reckon with all of the terrible news going on in our country and around the world, but today's scriptures remind us that walking in God's ways, keeping our promises to God, and treating others in a way that pleases God can help us be resilient in times such as these, and give us ways that lead to life.

As we have our annual meeting after worship today, that gives us an additional opportunity—to remember who we are as a church and how we want to journey along God’s paths in the coming year. You are incredible people and you have what it takes to continue that growth even when it’s hard.

So may you go into this week knowing the joys and happiness of journeying with God through hard times. You are loved by God and you have what you need to grow in your faith and in your life. And as you walk this week—literally or figuratively—may you trust that God desires your alignment, your comfort, and your joy, not your pain. Amen. 
 

January 25, 2026

“Has God Left the Building?”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

Focus: At times, the places in our homes can be where we connect most with the Sacred. These forms of resilience can help prepare us for justice work.

As we continue on in our sermon series of “spiritual affective disorder”, we consider the forms of resilience that we have to be able to connect with God outside of the church. Today I'm going to talk a lot about the theme of places and spaces that we can find God both inside and outside of the church and relate that back to Psalm 84 which is our text for today.

My sermon title today is, “Has God Left the Building?”, because I think that when I ask most of you about where you find God the most it would be in church and Community with church people. That certainly isn't a bad answer. In fact it's a very good one because it speak to the strength of the community we have in this congregation. We care for each other and do our best to support one another in times of difficulty.

That's a lot of what Psalm 84 is saying. Psalm 84 is known as a song for travelers on their way to worship in Jerusalem. People would sing it as they made the long journey to God’s temple. These trips weren’t easy—they often meant walking through dry, rough lands and facing many challenges before finally reaching the holy city. But once they did, they were deeply rewarded from the journey. Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message Bible paraphrase summarizes versus 10 and 11 like this:

One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship,
   beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches.
I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God
   than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.

And I think a lot of us probably feel the same way, which is why many people think of church as such a sacred place. I know that I personally have gotten a lot out of singing the old hymns, offering musical gifts on the gorgeous Steinway baby grand piano at my home church in Neenah.

And yet that assumption was tested just a few short years ago, was the fact that we couldn't gather in church together and stay healthy. And Marcia McFee, the writer of our sermon series asks this uncomfortable question: if God is so limited that God can ONLY be found in a SINGLE place in the entire cosmos God created... well, how powerful can God be?

So I'm going to talk about places that we can find God outside of the church. Because the truth is that at times, the places in our homes can be where we connect most with the Sacred. These forms of resilience can help prepare us for justice work.

I'm going to start by sharing an artifact from my own home called my piano desk. This desk was made for me by my dad out of my grandma Nault’s 102-year-old piano. When she died, that piano’s soundboard had cracked and no longer held a tune, and it was going to cost more to have the piano moved away for parts than the piano was worth. But it was a very special piano for me because it's the first real piano I ever played So my dad had an idea. I was in need of a new desk for my computer and other various things. So he turned this piano into a desk with a sheet of glass on top of the piano components. He kept the glass open so I could touch the real ivory and ebony of the keys. Of course the action itself doesn't work and it doesn't make any sound, but today that desk is the centerpiece of my home recording studio here in Waupun.  It will move with us wherever Raphi and I decide to live, and it will require several people to move it because it really is quite heavy! It now holds a computer, high-quality speakers, and other various audio equipment that makes my studio function. When I use this desk, I think of my grandma and the joy she had for that piano, the many people in our lives, who played it, and I also think of my dad who put all sorts of hours into it.

Having a recording studio in my house has become more than just a cost saving measure because I have so many ideas that trying to do them all in a commercial studio would be cost prohibitive. Having a studio in my house, allows me to experience holy moments of musical inspiration, and find the presence of God in the midst of it all. Some of what I've recorded in that studio and mixed at that desk came out of moments that truly felt vulnerable and sacred.

So I wonder today what that looks like for you.

As we reflect together today, we are reminded that in this season we are learning to take the simple and ordinary moments of life and use them with intention. When we do this, we find that even the gray days of winter can give way to a renewed sense of gratitude and well-being.

This week, I invite you to turn your attention to your home—your dwelling place. Consider how you might nurture a greater sense of peace and joy within its walls. Maybe you will carve out a small, sacred space—an altar or quiet corner—where you can more easily become aware of God’s presence. Maybe it’s finally clearing out that cluttered closet or dusty corner that weighs on your spirit. Perhaps a small rearrangement of furniture can bring fresh life to a familiar room. Or maybe it’s as simple as placing flowers in a vase, a gentle reminder to delight in the gift of your home and to give thanks. In these small, intentional acts, we create space for God to meet us right where we are.

As your Pastor, I've been honored to be invited to some of your homes and have seen some of the sacred places and items of your own: Rick Vant Hoff’s nature photography on the walls, Jeff Duchac’s shed were projects are built and company is entertained, the Manchesters’ Christmas decorations, Terry Meyer’s bike, Jean McKim’s kitchen.

So—has God left the building? No. God was never confined to it in the first place. The building matters. Community matters. But the same God we worship here goes home with us, sits at our kitchen tables, and meets us in the places where our lives actually unfold. When our homes become places where we are grounded in God’s presence, we’re better able to face the hard work of justice, whether that’s speaking up for a neighbor, caring for someone who’s hurting, or refusing to let cynicism have the last word.

Whatever it is for you, I invite you as you go into this week to think about that place and how you might understand it as a reflection of God's grace and presence in your own life. As we take in the news of these last weeks, with what’s going on in our communities, in our country, and in the world, we can find solace in the sacred moments and places we hold dear. 
In these cold, difficult days, may you find the warmth of God’s love in your special places. Amen.

January 18, 2026

“Why Are We Laughing?”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

Focus statement: While laughter and joy do not take away difficulties from our lives, finding that capacity in times of difficulty can make things brighter.

As you know, we're in the midst of a sermon series on what we're calling “spiritual affective disorder”, thinking about the ways that we can find spiritual and emotional resilience in the face of truly difficult times. Of course, there are lots of reasons why the world is difficult. The things we see on the news often give us reasons to feel depressed. Even this time of year, weather-wise—it’s cold and yucky outside and so on; I've talked about this before.

But what if something happens to you specifically?

As you know, a couple of Novembers ago, my mom's cancer came back after we thought she was cured. After what felt like forever, with the right medical interventions. She's now back in remission. But it was such a whirlwind time for my whole family, and, without going into too much personal detail, the trauma of going through cancer treatment once again was very hard on my mom, but also on the rest of my family, and it took months to come out of that hard place. The air was so thick with the whiplash of those hard days, that we almost forgot how to lighten up.

Then Emily, my younger sister, had the opportunity to get a puppy. Her name is Poppy. She's an Australian Cobberdog, which is sort of the Australian equivalent of a Labradoodle. Since Emily lives at home with mom and dad right now, she saw firsthand what was going on with mom, and I think all three of them needed something positive to put their energy towards.

And of course, Poppy literally jumped her way into all of our hearts. My dad, who swore he'd never let a dog live in his home, has become an old softy. Even though Poppy is a lot of work, I think Mom enjoys spending the afternoons with her and will eventually be sad when Emily moves out, and her granddog is not always with her. Of course, they'll miss Emily too, but my fiancé and I both see that Poppy brings a whole different energy to their household! My fiancé's nearly 15-year old dog isn't so sure about Poppy, but the new golden retriever puppy that she and I are getting this year will certainly be ready for a playmate!

I bring up this story because, as cute and amazing as Poppy is, her presence didn't erase the previous challenges, but made it easier to live through them. But I also bring it up because laughter through the hard moments can feel like we aren’t honoring the gravity of the situation when life is hard. But as God often does, God reframes our ways of thinking.

I think that's kind of what Isaiah is saying in today's text.

This has become a popular text for good reason. There are lots of people who are afraid of darkness. Children think there are monsters under their bed, or we want to have enough light to find our way home in unfamiliar places. But it's also important to remember what this symbolizes for people in biblical times. The commentator Juliana Classens reminds that for the people of Israel, light breaking into darkness wasn’t just a one-time event—it was a pattern they lived with again and again. The words of Isaiah speak into more than one moment in history, because they were first spoken to people who knew fear, loss, and uncertainty firsthand. Isaiah's use of the word anguish is far from melodramatic. Chief among the threats faced by the Israelites was the Assyrian Empire, a brutal force known for violence and cruelty. Assyria would eventually destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and spread terror throughout the region, even reaching the gates of Jerusalem. But Isaiah dares to say that this darkness would not have the final word. A new time was coming—a time when God’s light would break through and change everything.

It takes courage to follow God in the midst of this kind of uncertainty, doesn’t it? With everything we hear about things going on in the world, and even in the pain of our own lives, I'm sure many of us can resonate with the prophet Isaiah when he talks about the yoke of our burden, the weight of the physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish when we face difficult times.

But as God often does, God reminds us that circumstances can turn around. When we trust in God, God loosens the grip of the forces that oppress us and reminds us that joy is still possible. If we've experienced pain, whether physical or emotional, God reminds us that the pain doesn't have to have the last word. God uses our joy—even moments of laughter—to hep us understand what the world can look like when God is active in our hearts.

But by now you might be asking, “what does laughter have to do with it?” Our sermon series, author Marcia McFee remind us that it's important to lean into the joy of this passage. She then reminds us that one of the best ways we can express our joyfulness is by laughing. Many studies have shown that laughter has great power to diffuse conflict and promote stress relief. This isn’t about forcing happiness or minimizing pain—it’s about making room to breathe when life feels especially hard. And even as celebrations of life are emotionally difficult for example, when it's my turn to give remarks, I always try to find at least one small vignette that can make everybody laugh. It's never something that takes away from the solemnity of the moment but I also think it's important to laugh a little bit. One of my favorite memories of a funeral in this congregation was when I asked Roy Williams what he'd like me to keep in mind when I eventually presided over his celebration of life, which is a question that I don't always get to ask. Roy was a man a few words, and his request was simple: “short and sweet, no BS!” I still remember that when I shared that in the context of my funeral sermon, laughter roared throughout the sanctuary because it was such an honest description of how people knew him. It was one of the first funerals that I did in my pastorate here, and the candor with which Roy and Shirley talked about his life, and the way the entire Williams family treated me is something I won't soon forget.

Even one of the world's greatest speakers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow, used humor in his public and private personas to cope with the difficulties involved with trying to attain civil rights. One time, Representative John Lewis, who was a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, told a story that King and his friends saw a restaurant one day while riding in a car in Mississippi. Dr. King joked that they should stop, get arrested and go to jail on a full stomach. He was even coined as the comedian of the civil rights movement and known by his friends for starting pillow fights in private moments. So even though he had a fairly serious public persona to maintain, there were instances that he could be very funny.

Because he knew what all of us have come to know at some point in our lives: even as life continues to be difficult, laughter can give us some resources to deal with the hard stuff as well. Sometimes it's through a dog. Sometimes it's through friends and family. Sometimes it's through people who help us do the work of love and justice.

Because my friends, even though the world is hard in a multitude of ways, and things in this world are not as they should be, we don't have to resign ourselves to the gloom. The prophet Isaiah tells us that through God, exultation and joy can be ours because of the way God liberates us.

So my friends, as you go into this week, knowing the trials of the world, may you give yourself permission to laugh, not to dismiss the world's difficulties, but to help you find the strength to do the work you do so well. You are people who know how to do the work of love and justice, and thank goodness you're also people who know how to laugh. So may you know that all of this is holy. The laughter, the love, and the laboring for a better world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

January 11, 2026

“A Good Song Never Dies”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

I remember the joy I experienced when I got my first iPod. Since I was my parents’ live-in babysitter for my younger sister Emily, they thought that they should do something nice for me for my 12th birthday. For years, I had faithfully been carrying around my Sony portable CD player, so often that my dad finally had to tape the battery compartment shut so the batteries would stay in! Because that's how often I used it—music was something that was with me wherever I went, and my parents decided that having something that was more portable, but held more music would make me happier for longer when we were away from home

Of course, when I got that first iPod, I lost my mind, because I could hold something like 500 songs—which was a lot at the time—in this tiny little device that fit in my pocket. It meant I could branch out even further in my music listening. I could listen to songs in different languages, sad songs, happy songs, religious songs, non-religious songs, all sorts of songs. I didn't get the really fancy one that held 1000 songs but that was OK with me because at least I had one that held 500.

I remember that the marketing slogan when the iPod first came out was that you could have “1000 songs in your pocket’. A revolutionary technological breakthrough. But that's kind of like what the psalms are; 150 songs in your pocket. The Psalms is one of my favorite books in the Bible because it speaks to the entire arc of human experience — perhaps more completely than almost any other book of scripture. I titled this sermon A Good Song Never Dies in part because, in biblical times, the Psalms were not simply read; they were sung. Sometimes in shouts of praise or cries of anguish or whispers of uncertainty, sometimes all three at the same time. The book of Psalms does not have a singular author. There are probably many authors and each Psalm is a vignette into somebody's life. Most biblical scholars agree that the psalms can be placed into three major categories and then a couple of subcategories off of those. The first two major categories are Psalms of praise and psalms of Thanksgiving, offering either praise God for God's majesty of God's creation, or offer thanks to God for something God has done for the individual or community. That's the category we're looking at today, of course. But over a third of the psalms in the psalter are in a different category called Lament Psalms, capturing moments of desperation, sadness, loneliness, and even anger, wondering where God is and how God is present.

So today, I’m going to talk about how the Psalms—and especially Psalm 40—accompany us through both joy and grief.

No matter our political leanings, I think that we can all agree that this has been a hard week in the news, with the tragedy coming out of Minnesota this week. No matter how we feel about immigration in this country or the actions of our federal government this week, I think that we can all agree that there are few easy answers to solving the many problems in our country. Here in this congregation, I believe that we are people who do our best to seek justice for all people and to do our best to demonstrate the incredible love of God in and through our words and actions.

So it seems fitting that we are drawn to the Psalms today.
In story after story, we get vignettes of what's going on from our various news sources, each speaking their own angle of the situation, which may include some of the facts, but not all of them, or may tell some of the story, but not all of it. This particular Psalm happens to be mostly joyful.

In our focus text today, Psalm 40, the Psalmist says that they waited patiently for God's deliverance and God came through. The Psalmist continues by saying, happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. To be able to praise God that wholeheartedly and effusively, it's important to remember that we have to know pain.

We have to know the pain of being “in the desolate pit”. And there are plenty of Psalms that speak to that reality as well. I wonder what Psalm might be accompanying the hearts and minds of the people in Minnesota this week. I have a hard time believing that it would be Psalm 40, the one we're discussing today. But that's kind of the nature and the beauty of the Psalms. This book of various moments in people's lives is given to us that we might understand that living a life of faith is not easy.It's not always happy-clappy. It's not always joyful. A few verses later, after our passage stops, the psalmist turns to recognize some of the difficulties they've already faced.

The psalm continues with verses 12-14:

For evils have encompassed me
   without number;
my iniquities have overtaken me
   until I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head,
   and my heart fails me.
13 
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;
   O Lord, make haste to help me.
14 
Let all those be put to shame and confusion
   who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
   who desire my hurt.

That part of the psalm seems to be a bit more relevant to the discord facing our country right now.

But it's in these moments where we can remember that God can still come to us, even in spite of the horrible things happening we hear on the news. It's important to remember in these times that we are not alone in our grief or anger over the state of the world.

The psalm finally ends by saying:

17 
As for me, I am poor and needy,
   but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
   do not delay, O my God.

So lest we think that the beginning of Psalm 40 suggests an easy, uncomplicated psalm of thanksgiving and deliverance, the rest of the psalm reminds us that’s not true. And I’m reminded that most of the music we hear on our iPods or on the radio isn’t surface-level either. These songs help us name what’s heavy and trust that God is carrying us through the times we’re living in.

So as you go into this week, this is a question that I'm hoping you'll consider: can you remember a moment where God brought you out of struggle, where God gave you a new song to sing in your heart?

Even in a world of so much despair, even when the state of our country keeps us up at night, even when politics continue to divide us—despite all of the pain in the world—may you rejoice that you know the deliverance of God. And once you've had the opportunity to thank God for way, God has delivered you, may you do the same for someone else through way as big and small. There are so many wonderful ways that our congregation is already helping the community. Just this week I had the opportunity to assist multiple families that need through our family support fund, and both of them expressed incredible gratitude for even the small gift that they had been given.

No matter if you give money, share food, or simply offer a compassionate word or smile…you are doing real ministry. You are offering others the opportunity to sing a psalm of Thanksgiving in their hearts. For that, I say thanks be to God. Amen.
 

January 4, 2026

“Waking Up”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun

Most of you know that I'm not a morning person.

At all.

On my earliest wake up days, which so happen to be Sundays, before I have my morning coffee, I'm often pretty grumpy and don't know where I am half the time. I curse the clock and wonder to myself why on earth I decided to pastor a church whose services always begin before 10:00. I've even tried to talk to the diaconate over the years about changing the service times, and…let's just say that didn't go over so well.

It's even harder for me to get up in the morning when it's cold and snowy outside, when icy roads are difficult for me as someone who can’t drive right now, and is liable to fall more often because of my disability. I already have an anxiety disorder, and the idea of slipping and falling certainly doesn't help matters at all.

But when I found this sermon series, I decided that it might be helpful to me and to a lot of us. During Epiphany, we are embarking on a new sermon series called Spiritual Affective Disorder, recognizing that this is a hard time of year for a lot of people because the weather is cold, the roads and sidewalks are icy, and sometimes that means that most of us feel a bit “blah”. In the midst of this series, the author Dr. Marcia McFee wants to help pastors and their churches have spiritual practices for resilience in this time. The series gives us not just spiritual practices that we can apply once during an already chaotic day or week, but instead gives us examples of how things we already do to take care of ourselves are already helping us maintain our resilience and spirituality through this really difficult time. This week we're talking about waking up in the morning and how that empowers us to do the work of love and justice.

All of this was planned well before the military action in Venezuela this week. It’s alarming, and many fear what the consequences may be. I'm well aware that some of us come to church to get away from the politics of the day and remind us of how God cares for us and loves us and calls us to be better people. I'm also mindful that others of us come to church with the difficulties of the world very much on our minds. We want to imagine how the news we hear interacts with God's hope for the world. Additionally, we reflect on how we might be called to respond with justice, love, hopefulness, and joy—whether at Union-Congregational Church in Waupun, within the wider United Church of Christ, or throughout the rest of the world. So I'm not going to get too political here, but I'm going to try to share something with you that is mindful of all of these realities, and most importantly, mindful to the scripture which has been set before us. 
Because no matter the context in which we read scripture today, we have to remember that Jesus did not come into a simple world. Jesus did not come into a happy world. Jesus came into a world that was badly in need of turning around. Kind of like many of us feel about the world we live in today So today we are going to continue with our regular epiphany observances, understanding that the light of Christ shines even in seemingly hopeless and uncomfortable times.

If you get one thing from this sermon today, I want it to be this: Jesus still comes to us even when the world may seem difficult, and causes us to be people of faith who are dedicated to the work of justice in the world. His light shines through us and around us and everything we are and everything we do.

In order for us to understand that, let's set the scene a little bit. Our scripture is from the book of Isaiah, in the Old Testament, far before Jesus was even conceived by the Holy Spirit, but the prophecy of his coming is a big part of why the book of Isaiah is important to modern-day Christians. Several commentators remind us that when this poem was written, Jerusalem was a defeated and nearly forgotten city on the margins of the Persian Empire. Into that reality, the prophet dares to speak hope: “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” God invites Jerusalem to see itself not as abandoned or insignificant, but as radiant with God’s own glory—a light so strong that even nations once lost in hopelessness are drawn toward it, bringing their people and their gifts. This is why this text is often paired with other scriptures commonly used for Epiphany, including the visitation of the newborn Jesus by the magi. Epiphany Sunday typically recognizes the Sunday where the so called three kings show up and bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There was one thing the people in Isaiah’s time and Jesus’ time had in common: though the people were weak and under the oppressive rule of others, there was something special about them—something so captivating that nations and kings were drawn to them, eager to explore the mysterious light shining from a faraway place. It’s a sort of hoping; as Collective Soul asks in their song, “Shine”, which ew’ve just heard—will love be there?

Marcia McFee talks a lot about the gift of waking up in the morning, and how waking up is not just something we do as a biological necessity, but something that empowers us for the work that is set out for us that day. She writes, “This spiritual practice of arising is so important not only because it invites us to an awareness of the potential of God's abundance each day, but also because it is a way we can be grateful, even when depression can make that feeling of gratitude hard to recognize or even feel.”

In other words, in times of hopelessness and despair, God will arise upon us and God's glory appears around us. Every day, God gives us new possibilities for a world which is not here yet That's kind of a strange thing to think about, when all around us it seems that there is so much sadness and brokenness and pain and conflict. But this is exactly the world that Jesus came into, and this is the world that Jesus still comes into today.

In the Isaiah passage, camels are the main long‑distance carriers of treasure and goods in the ancient Near East, so they represent incoming wealth and tribute from far‑off lands. That coming wealth gave a scared people a sense of hope.

Jesus may not come to bring us immense wealth, but he does bring a loving presence in spite of all the difficulties.

As much as all of us desire a world where war and conflict are not part of the news cycle, whether at home or abroad, we don't live in that kind of world, at least not right now. So today we remember that Christ the Savior is born—in us and among us and around us and through us, and that we are the hands and feet of Christ to do what is ours to do to care for the vulnerable, work for peace, and build a world of hope.

It's a nice thought, but how are we going to do that?

I don't know how our political social or ideological conflicts are going to shake out in the months and years ahead. But I think there's a very simple and yet revolutionary thing that we must do together here in this small town.

In smaller communities, it is so much easier for our discourse to divide us. We simply don't have access to broader communities of support to get us through the hardest times that we face. So I want to remind you that words matter and that how we treat each other as people matters. We as people are much bigger than what divides us. We may have intense political disagreements over the weeks and months and years to come because of the moment that our country is facing. But every day I'm reminded that we worship a God who comes to us in spite of all that, who comes to us hoping that we will treat one another as people in need of God's grace just as much as we are, and people who genuinely want to build a better community. I think I can speak confidently about this church that that's something we want to do.

So we find little ways to work for justice. We do our best to care for the vulnerable. We take care of our neighbors without fear or favor. We remind ourselves that each day we have a new start, and that we don't have to let Yesterday’s problems dictate how we are going to live today and tomorrow.

God's light lives in you and cannot be extinguished by any kind of darkness. You are wonderful people who can provide hope to a hurting world through what you do. This week,  I challenge you to do one small act of kindness for someone in your life, or maybe even a stranger. When you wake up, instead of feeling grumpy, find one small way to let in some grace. Why does that work with my sermon today? Because doing an act of kindness are ways that we can provide hope and light to a world in need of it. No matter what kind of scary things are going on in the world, no matter the uncertainty we feel, may you be a reminder to somebody else that Jesus still comes for them. Christ keeps showing up with the hope of a new start. For that I say thanks be to God. Amen.