From a Rocky Hillside

May 24, 2026May 24, 2026

Pentecost, The Right Path, and a Paddle Down the Missinaibi

Title slide with photo of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
May 24, 2026
Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Thursday, May 21, 2026

Theology minute on “Pentecost”

Bird nest in arms of a cross decorated for Pentecost at Bluemont Presbyterian Church.

Today is Pentecost. As a theology minute, and before we get to the sermon, let’s reflect on the meaning of Pentecost. The word comes from the Greek for 50. Depending on how you count it, Pentecost is 50 days after Easter. Most of us would count 49 days, so close enough. In some English traditions the day is also known as Whitsunday, referring to the white robes of baptism often performed on this day.

Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit descended as in a flame on the faithful who had gathered in Jerusalem, giving the disciples the spirit and the power to begin the church. From a standpoint of the church, the day is perhaps third in importance to our theology, behind Good Friday and Easter.^[1] However, it often gets overlooked since many years it falls after Memorial Day, when people take off for vacations.

Many people wear red on Pentecost as we recall the flames of the Spirit. In most Presbyterian Churches, and in our denominational seal, you’ll find two flames. They represent the flames of the Spirit in the Old and the New Testament. The Old Testament flame was God’s encounter with Moses at the Burning Bush which didn’t burn. In the New Testament, it’s the coming on the Spirit.

In the Jewish world of the first century, this was a time for pilgrimages to Jerusalem. If you couldn’t make it for Passover, when the Mediterranean Sea was rougher, you’d come for Pentecost or, as it is known in the Old Testament, the Feast of Weeks, a harvest festival.

As we heard earlier in our reading from Acts 2, Jews throughout the Roman World gathered in the holy city on this day. The empowering of the church encouraged incredible preaching in languages people understood, allowing them to carry back the good news to all corners of the empire. God works in mysterious yet incredible ways.

Before reading the Scripture:

Today, we’ll begin the ending of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Last week, we saw how Jesus provided those listening to the sermon how they might live a notable life which helped not only them, but the world around them, to flourish. Jesus now moves to his closing in which he gives three eschatology or “end times” warnings to insist those listening to him take his teachings seriously.^[2] All three of Jesus’ warnings contrast two different concepts: gates, prophets, and houses. We’ll look at each set individually, starting today and in my next two sermons.

Jesus began the sermon with the beatitudes which sounds mellow. Then, in a way, the center of the sermon which we finished last week, focuses on expanding the beatitudes into helpful ways we might be more Christ-like.^[3] Now, at the end, he warns us to be careful. A good life is not just obeying the law in a manner others may praise. A good life means we strive for righteous, not just in our deeds, but also in our hearts. That latter part is more difficult.

Read Matthew 7:13-14

Missinabi River canoe trip, 1992 — On the Missinaibi

In the summer of 1992, I paddled the Missinaibi River in northern Ontario. The river ends at the James Bay in the sub-arctic region of Canada. About halfway through the trip, the river slips off the Canadian Shield, a large granite base which stretches from just north of the Great Lakes to the sub-arctic. Where the river comes off the shield, a series of waterfalls and dangerous rapids requires two long portages. The first, at Thunderhouse Falls, is a mile long. The second, around some difficult rapids, is two and a quarter mile hike through a bog. It was a workout.

Thunderhouse Falls is up there with Niagara. You don’t try to run it. The river, which has been two to three hundred yards wide narrows down into a slot between the rock that in places is less than ten yards across. If you hike up to the edge and to look down, it’s scary to see the force of the water. It’s also so noisy you must yell to talk to someone next to you. It’s so noisy you don’t even hear the buzz of mosquitoes feasting on your exposed skin.

Thankfully, during this trip, the guy who helped me arrange for shuttles and stuff, sat me down with a map and pointed out this rapid and a problem which existed on the map. The map showed the portage trail on the east side of the river, but it was on the west side. Making it even more dangerous for those who didn’t know this, they would have to ferry back across the river at a point where the flow accelerates. A little mistake could easily pull you past the point of no return and you’d be sweep down a mile long rock crushing gorge with a series of good-sized waterfalls.

The guide suggested after we passed a small easily identified rapid a mile upstream, we hug the west or left bank and carefully look for the trail.^[4] We did and didn’t have any problems other than sore shoulders from lugging the canoe and gear overland. I later learned that over a dozen years the misguided map was in circulation, ten paddlers died in the river.

Had the guide not given us the clues needed, I don’t know what would have happened. Like with Jesus’ teachings in our text today, we must find the right gate and travel on the right path. Moses and a generation later, Joshua, called the Hebrew people to decide between life and death.^[5] Jesus issues a similar challenge to those who listen to him preach. The passage today calls us to seek the narrow gate and the hard road.

But it’s tempting to enter the wide gate and the easy road. But that journey will end in destruction. Think of getting caught in the current on the Missinaibi and drawn down the roaring river toward Thunderhouse Falls. Once the current catches you, it’s hard to make it out before it’s too late.

With this warning from Jesus, we could be tempted to throw our hands up in resignation. After all, it appears Jesus suggests most people don’t take his path and are bound for damnation. But with these warnings, as he’s done throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers practical and not dogmatic advice.^[6] He’s not saying, look at all the people bound for perdition. Instead, he encourages us to take the right path.

We don’t know who or how many are saved. Instead, this passage challenges the idea that we should make our determination on what is right or wrong based on an opinion poll. Don’t strive to be in the majority. Think about this. Jesus may be calling us to join the “moral minority.”^[7] Just because everyone else is on a particular path doesn’t mean it’s the right way.

And, the right path isn’t easy. We’ve seen this throughout Jesus’ teachings here. Jesus wants us to follow him, and we know the direction of his travels. Jesus’ path led to Golgotha. His path took him to the cross. Jesus willingly gave up a life he loved for us. And we’re called to be willing to give up our own lives for others. As the hymn The Old Rugged Cross goes, to lay down the trophies of this life for a cross for which we, one day, can exchange for a crown.

Jesus, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, calls us to a conversion. We’re to make him our Lord,^[8] and be willing to live for him. For, as Peter would later claim in John’s gospel, only Jesus has the words of eternal life.^[9] The wide and easy road may look appealing, but that’s not where our Savior leads. Often, we want to take the easy way, along with everyone else, but such a path is not where we’re called as followers of Jesus. The life of discipleship requires us to make Jesus our Lord and to commitment ourselves, day after day, to follow him and not the crowd.

One of the problems with an over emphasis on making the decision to follow Jesus is that it sounds as if all you must do is confess your sins and invite him into your heart and then your set. But that’s not scriptural. Think about the Hebrew people. When they crossed the Sea, they experienced salvation from the Egyptian army, but still had the wilderness to cross and would spend 40 years there. The Apostle Paul encourages us to work out our “own salvation with fear and trembling,” but Paul also goes on to remind us that God also works within us to make our own work possible.^[10]

The gate represents our decision to accept Jesus as Lord. The road represents the ongoing journey, which we struggle throughout our lives as we move closer toward the eternal kingdom. This struggle, as we’ve seen throughout the Sermon on the Mount, involves not just external piety. Obeying the letter of the law, as demonstrated by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, could be done. But Jesus desires a deeper change within our hearts, as he pointed out repeatedly in the Sermon on the Mount.^[11] Our call and our only hope for salvation is to follow him through the tight gate and down the narrow and hard road. Amen.

photo of Jeff Garrison in the pulpit at Mayberry Presbyterian Church — The video of the sermon shows me in something other than red, today I was wearing red!

^[1] I place Pentecost before Christmas because without the church, we’d not even have a reason to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Besides, only two of the Gospels recall Jesus’ birth. Good Friday offers us salvation; Easter provides us with a future hope. These two realities, transmitted to the world through the church, starts on Pentecost.

^[2] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY, JKP, 1993), 81.

^[3] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/05/17/asking-god-and-the-golden-rule/

^[4] There were no good guidebooks to the river in 1992. Hap Wilson has since published Missinaibi: Journey to the Northern Sky (Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 2004). Wilson mentioned the deaths at Thunderhouse Falls due to the mistaken map.

^[5] Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Joshua 24:15.

^[6] Hare, 82.

^[7] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 350

^[8] Bruner, 349.

^[9] John 6:68.

^[10] Philippians 2:3-4.

^[11] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, Baker Academics, 2017), 274.

May 22, 2026May 22, 2026

Memories of Walnut Hills and Fort Hell

Title slide featuring my 1st grade photo and a photo of Ft. Hell in 1864

My day and siblings on Easter Sunday 1964 — House on Bishop Street. My dad with the three kids: Left to right: Warren, Sharon, me

We moved to Walnut Hills in the fall of 1963. It was in town but there were no real hills. Someone may have had a walnut tree, I don’t remember any. I do remember pines and sycamores and sweet gums. The latter’s hard spikey fruit served as make-believe hand grenades in the battles we reenacted.

Walnut Hills was in the city of Petersburg, but still partly country when we moved there. I attended first grade at Walnut Hills Elementary school and would occasionally walk home from the school to our house on Bishop Street. Petersburg’s suburbs were expanding outward. While a nice working class neighborhood, we were not as rich as those who lived in the big homes along Sycamore Street. Yet it was a good place to be a kid.

Behind our house was an alley; across it was another row of houses and the last street which was named for my brother Warren. Behind those houses, woods stretched all the way back to Carter Road This road’s name came from one of the battles during the Siege of Petersburg which lasted for nine months from the summer of 1864 to the spring of 1865. On Saturdays, my friends and I played Johnny Reb in these woods, covering the same terrain our ancestors fought over a hundred years earlier during that final bloody year of that rich folk war.

Fort Hell in 1864-65 — Fort Hell 100 years earlier. From the internet

At the second Crater Road turn off into our subdivision sat a genuine civil war fort operated as a private museum. Folks who attended church with us owned it, but I don’t remember their name. However, I’ll never forget the name of the fort. Known as Fort Hell, its real name was Fort Sedgwick. When my uncle Frank came to visit, he asked me why they called it Fort Hell. “’cause they really gave the Yankees hell,” I proudly proclaimed. I only vaguely remember saying that, and maybe I don’t really remember saying it at all. Instead, I remember it because Frank kept reminding me of it right up to the time of his death some 15 years ago.

I later learned that it wasn’t a Southern fort after all, but a part of the Union siege line and at the time was the largest inland artillery battery in the country. In the summer of ’66, after three years of roaming those woods, we moved back to North Carolina. We moved just the nick of time. As we left, workers busied themselves cutting down trees and laying out roads through the woods. The people who owned Fort Hell sold it to developers. Soon, the bomb proofed shelters dug by hand a 100 years earlier faced down bulldozers leaving the ground. The place became a strip mall. By the time we left, the woods in Walnut Hills ceased to exist.

Kids and young families filled Walnut Hills in the mid-1960s. I enjoyed my time there. It was a great place to spend a few years, and it still haunts me. Just a month or so ago, in Ronald White’s biography of Josiah Lawrence Chamberlain, I learned his severe wound occurred along the Jerusalem Road (I think that’s now Crater Road) near Fort Hell.

Uncle Frank on a tractor around 2010 — Uncle Frank around 2010

Check out other posts about my time in Petersburg

Moving to Petersburg

My Great Grandma’s funeral in 1964

Thanksgiving Day and hunting

May 17, 2026May 17, 2026

Asking God and the Golden Rule

Title slide with photos of the two churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
May 17, 2026
Matthew 7:7-12

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Thursday, May 14, 2026.

At the beginning of worship:
How many of you remember the movie, Hoosiers?^[1] I can’t believe it’s been 40 years since it was released. The movie starred the late Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, a former college basketball coach, banned from the NCAA. After a ten-year stint in the Navy, he’s given another chance to coach basketball, only this time for a small high school in rural Indiana. It’s 1951. A lot of the townsfolk question this new coach. Many want to fire him, but then he starts winning. The movie is about more than basketball. It’s about second chances. It’s about living out the Golden Rule. Coach Dale demonstrates this rule when he recruits Shooter, played by Dennis Hopper, to be his assistant.

Shooter had been a basketball legend at the school. But that was twenty years earlier, back in the 1930s. Now, Shooter drinks heavily. Everyone thinks the coach is crazy to recruit him as his assistant, including Shooter’s own son, one of the team’s stars. But Coach Dale, who had been given a second chance, believes Shooter deserves one, too.

The Christian Faith is about second chances. Through Jesus Christ, God gives us a second (and third and fourth and forty-ninth and four hundred and nineth) chance. God forgives us. We’re to forgive others. It’s that simple. We’re to offer second chances.

Before reading the Scripture:
As we continue through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we’re at the end of the main body of the sermon which began back in the middle of the 5^th chapter. In 5:17, Jesus says he didn’t come to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them. In 7:12, after he gives the Gold Rule, he summaries what he’s been saying as containing all in the law and prophets. These two mentions of the law and prophet bookend the middle of the sermon.^[2]

After this section, I’ll have two final sermons, to wrap up the closing of the Sermon on the Mount. In the ending of this chapter, Jesus provides warnings about what’s ahead.

In our text today, Jesus begins on a hopeful note, encouraging the disciples to come to God for their needs.^[3] Jesus has already spoken about prayer in the 6^th chapter,^[4] but he revisits it here. Then, he ends by empowering them to make decisions about how to live well, a passage we know as the Golden Rule

Read Matthew 7:7-14

William Carey is considered the father of Protestant missionary movement. He left England for India early in the 19^th Century, telling those seeing him off “to expect great things from God, and do great things for God.”^[5] We depend on God for the strength we need to do God’s work in the world. In these six verses, we see both sides. We go to God for what we need, and then do God’s work through how we treat others.

Jesus begins with Ask. We can create an acronym from this first word. ASK: “a” for ask, “s” for seek, and “k” for knock. In three different ways, Jesus encourages the disciples to bring their needs to God.^[6]

In the previous chapter, Jesus provides the Lord’s Prayer as a model. He also encourages us to make our prayers short and straight forward, without repetition. These guidelines still apply. We should know that God hears us. Prayer is not about our efforts, but about a gracious God who hears our needs and answers, giving us that which is good. It’s not about us laboring in prayer, but about God gracious giving.^[7] That caveat of God giving good things provides a clue into those prayers not answered. God won’t give us that which is not good for us.

As Jesus has been doing throughout the Sermon, after he presents an idea such as us coming to God, he provides examples to help us understand. Here, he draws on how parents care for their children. A normal parent will not give a child something harmful, likewise God will also look out for our needs.

However, we learn something else about prayer. Not only should we bring our needs to God, but we also shouldn’t be ashamed for asking. Sometimes those who try to appear spiritual emphasize praising God over asking.^[8] Or they suggest praising God is more godly or spiritual. But here, and throughout Jesus’ teachings, we’re invited to bring to God what we need.

After this reprise on prayer, Jesus jumps to another topic, the Golden Rule. It may seem disconnected. After all, he moves from prayer to our conduct. But understand there is a link. Just as God has been gracious to us, we are to be gracious to others.^[9]

“Do unto others as you’d have them do to you.” With this simple rule, Jesus frees his disciples from having to depend upon experts to direct our behavior. In Jesus’ day, Jews consulted their rabbis for guidance.^[10] Those in other faith traditions consulted sages, wisemen, or even astrologers, for advice. Even today, we often consult others about decisions we make. And that’s okay. But with this little saying, Jesus provides us a way to decide for ourselves how we should live our lives and treat others.

This teaching from Jesus isn’t anything new or novel. You find similar teachings in the Old Testament. Leviticus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.^[11] But here, Jesus doesn’t say to love our neighbor or even our brothers or sisters. He says that we are to treat others (read all people) as we want to be treated.^[12] In the Talmud, the Jewish rabbinical teachings of the day, we find: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law. All the rest is commentary.”^[13]

But the Golden Rule goes back even further. Confucius taught, “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” In the Buddhist scriptures, we have “a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” And from the Hindu texts, “This is the sum of duty: Do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” Philosophers call the Golden Rule the Ethic of Reciprocity. Socrates taught five centuries before Jesus, “do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.” ^[14]

And, of course, this saying has been reworded. Many prefer the parody, “Do to others before they do unto you.” Rest assured, such a saying has no scriptural basis in the New Testament.^[15]Nor is it okay to investigate the past and do what others have done to you. That would be the ethic of revenge. Instead, Jesus draws on a principle already old, reminding his listeners what they should have already known. If you want to know how to act toward others, look inside yourself and think about how you want to be treated.

Much of scripture is about divine generosity, what God has done for us. Verses 6 to 11 deal with this, as well the forgiveness offered by Jesus. But for our faith to be real, it needs a humanistic element. Our faith should impact our lives, change us, and that’s where this rule should come into play. The rule is not solely the domain of Christians, but that’s okay.

Those of us within the Reformed Tradition, like Presbyterians, believe God gives two kinds of grace. There’s the saving grace of Jesus Christ, but there’s also common grace, given to all people to help us get along with one another.^[16] With the Golden Rule being common across religious and philosophical lines, it would be an ideal place to begin a dialogue with those of different faiths. It’s a rule almost all people agree with, but do we live it?

Living by the Golden Rule can bring a bit of heaven down to earth. It will not help us be saved, for Jesus did that for us on the cross. It’s not going to get us a better room in heaven, for we will all be equal there. But it will help the world be a better place. So, think about how you’d like to be treated. And treat others that way. And if that’s too hard, ask God to show you the way. In the end, we’ll all be better off. Amen.

^[1] The movie was released in 1986. The script was written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh. The story was inspired by the Milan High School surprise win in the 1954 Indiana State Finals over Muncie, a much larger school.

^[2] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 81.

^[3] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2017), 264.

^[4] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/04/12/jesus-teachings-on-piety-and-prayer/

^[5] Hare, 79.

^[6] Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 204), 342.

^[7] Bruner, 343.

^[8] Bruner, 344.

^[9] Bruner, 346.

^[10] Bruner, 346

^[11] Leviticus 19:18.

^[12] Bruner, 347.

^[13] Talmud, Sabbat 31a.

^[14] For a listing of various forms of the Golden Rule, see https://www.goldenruleproject.org/formulations

^[15] While you have the “eye for eye philosophy in the Old Testament (Leviticus 24:20), Jesus has already reinterpreted that teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-39.

^[16] See Richard J. Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace (2001).

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

Remembering George

Last Wednesday we held the funeral for George Grogan at Norris Funeral Home in Stuart. His burial at the Oakwood Cemetery in Martinsville. I was asked if I would make my remarks available, so I’m posting them here. George grew up in Martinsville, where after a stint in the Army, worked for the Post Office. After retiring, he moved up on the mountain and became a beloved member or our community. The location of the funeral in Stuart made it easier for friends from both Martinsville and Meadows of Dan to attend.

The Eulogy: Memories of George

We lost a good man. George came from a small family. Having no children of his own, George Grogan loved and doted on his nephew and niece, Trip and Elizabeth. He gave them other names, “Dude” and “Sug.” He taught them to swim and ride a bike. George took the two of them to the beach and to the pool in the summer. In the winter, he took them sledding. Instead of building traditional snowmen they’d fashioned dinosaurs and dragons and use food coloring to make them more life-like. (There must have been a little bit of Calvin, as in Calvin and Hobbes, in George). He taught Elizabeth how to drive in Oakwood Cemetery, where we will intern his body this afternoon.

As Trip recalls, he was the best uncle anyone could ask for. After all, how could you go wrong with an uncle who joked his Christmas present for you made the list of the top ten most dangerous toys that year! Or when helping Liz with a leaf collection for school, they collected 32 instead of the minimum requirement of 10, far overachieving the rest of the class. Or who took you to all the top movies as they were released.

George almost always arrived at Mayberry Presbyterian Church before or as I arrived on Sunday morning. He’d bring with him a delicious dish for the brunch after church—sometimes a sweet dish but often some kind of grits. I joked with him about the need to spice up his grits with jalapenos. “No,” he firmly insisted. But he did relent enough to make grits with pimentos the next week.

One Sunday, I brought jalapenos poppers: peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. I planned to egg on George. The joke was on me. He wasn’t in church that Sunday. It turned out this was one of his stays at New River Valley Hospital. I wrapped up two of the poppers in foil and took them up to George at the hospital that afternoon. “Get those out of here,” he laughed as he rose up from bed and pointed to the door. A nurse gladly took them off George’s hands.

While I couldn’t tease George into exploring spicy food, he was a wonderful cook. And while George may have seemed set in his ways, he was open to change. As a mail carrier who walked throughout the city of Martinsville, George had a great dislike of dogs. They were his nemeses. I don’t know what it is about dogs, but their DNA seems to contain a distrust of mail carriers.

But after he retired, someone needed a volunteer to dog sit a Lab. George, wanting to be helpful, agreed, and fell in love with the dog. From then on, he always had a dog. The last, which also shows his humor, being Knucklehead. It took me a while to realize that was the dog’s name, not just what he was called.

Another area in which George held firm was politics. As one friend said, George was one of five people in Patrick County who would admit to being a Democrat. And there was that bumper sticker which left no question as to where he stood. But that aside, Geoge was always civil even to those with whom he disagreed. He never condemned others. George showed us how to be respectful in a world filled with hate. We need more people like George in our world.

George enjoyed joking around and having a good laugh. Who else would relish in nicknames like “Chicken George,” as the sign Mike Gillette made which he proudly displayed on his house. George always had a flock of chickens. Mike also made a sign that read “Chicken Crossings.” Motorist didn’t always abide by the sign as George lost several chickens to traffic on DeHart Road.

Trinity, a longtime friend , confided to George about leaving a pot of water on the stove. The water boiled, leaving a ruined dry pot. Geroge reassured Trinity that it won’t get any better with age. Charlie runs the kitchen at Poor Farmers. George started his day with coffee and a sausage biscuit from there. Charlie shared a story about George making her an origami ring out of a dollar bill . Then he proposed with it.

George enjoyed walking the hills around Marby Mill and Rocky Knob with his dog and always appreciated running into friends. Beth Ford tells about how she could never remember his dog’s name. They’d met up on a trail and she called the pooch, Bull Shirt, which bought laughter to George.

Beth also told me about working the polls in Meadows of Dan and how George would always stop by mid-day on election day with a treat he’d whipped up in the kitchen. He acknowledged and thanked them for their hard work and a long day that starts before sunrise and ends long after sunset.

This past election, just a few weeks ago, George came in to vote. Exhausted and not doing well, he still wanted to do his civic duty. Beth said they were willing to take a folder with a ballot inside to his car, but he insisted on coming in. He then sat down to catch his breath, smiling at everyone. He allowed her to bring over a ballot. After he voted, he said, “Thank you so much for this.” And those were the last words she heard from her friend.

Bob Potter tells about running into George at the Dollar General. He was heading into the store with a plate of cream puffs he’d made to give to the cashier on her birthday.

George was always present to help with Pancake Days and VFW spaghetti dinners. He was up early to grab coffee at Poor Farmer’s Market and to exercise with the morning stretch class. George was laid back and really wanted what is best for our community.

He was also a caring and nurturing man. He loved his mother so much that on his birthday, he’d send her flowers to thank her for giving him life. And in her later years, after she was confined to a wheelchair, he took care of her. He also helped take care of his older sister during her last days. And even while he was sick during the last months of his life, George took things in stride.

George's garden — George’s garden. George wasn’t up to doing work here this spring, but he did have his onions in.

George's home — George’s home seems quiet without the clucking of chickens

There’s a lot more that could be said about George. He was an incredible gardener and often supplied fresh flowers for Mayberry Church or brought extra produce to share. I encourage you to share your stories of George with each other today, to honor this gentle giant of a man.

We will miss him. The best way we can honor George is to learn from his demeanor, to care for others, and to jump in and help our communities thrive.

Be like George button — Through the effort of Barbara Wagoner, Be Like George buttons will soon be available at Mayberry Church and in the Meadows of Dan community.

Homily for George Gorgan’s Funeral

For my homily this afternoon, I want us to look at the 23rd Psalm, a hymn of confidence which acknowledges the hurt and the pain in our world. But it also reminds us of God’s presence in times of trouble. Listen, as I read the Psalm from the King James Version.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to life down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. he restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The author of the Psalm, credited to be the shepherd king David, knew from experience God supplied his needs. He experienced first-hand God’s mercy. Using rich metaphor’s, God is compared to a shepherd who leads his flock to fresh green grass and still waters where the sheep might be able to get a drink. George was a shepherd to his chickens, caring tenderly for them.

Just as the grass and the water restores the bodies of the sheep after a long trek through the desert, the Psalmist experienced such nourishment from God after treks through the desert of life. The God who restored his soul is the same God who restores our souls. Like a good shepherd, God revitalizes our lives when everything seems hopelessly chaotic. God as our companion can transform every situation.

Now this does not mean there is no hurt to be felt in the world. The Psalmist recognizes the deep dark valleys we must cross. A shepherd, experienced at leading his flock up through canyons and gorges, knows of the importance of being there beside his sheep. Where the trail narrows and the cliffs rise steeply on both side, danger lurks behind every bend. But the sheep remember yesterday’s taste of fresh grass and clear water, and trusting the shepherd, move forward in the face of danger.

Likewise, George experienced much trouble over the last few years as his medical challenges grew. George knew his time was short. I saw him last Thursday. He remained in bed and acknowledged the end was near but was okay with it. He trusted his Savior. I saw him again on Monday. He seemed to be doing better. He remained at peace, Although his energy remained low, at times he laughed at something said. His dog, Knucklehead, remained at his feet. At this point the decision was made that he’d be moved into hospice, which happened later that evening.

In the Psalm, an interesting stylistic shift occurs in the third verse. God is no longer spoken of in the third person as in the beginning of the Psalm. The author realizes during journeys through the valley of the shadow of death that God, like a shepherd, has become more real and more present. Instead of saying, “God is with me,” the Psalmist addresses God in the first-person present tense: “I fear no evil for you are with me.” The author admits, at times like this, he hurts and is afraid, but God is so close that he can address God intimately.

Having acknowledged God’s deeds in the past, the green grass and the still waters which provide of nourishment for our bodies and souls and having experienced God’s presence in a time of trouble, the Psalmist concluded this song with a statement of confidence in God’s future. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

We can be comforted in God, not because of any myth which denies the existence of pain, but because God promises to be present with us when we suffer. God the Father, having experienced the death of his Son Jesus Christ, knows our pain and promises to be there with us. God the Son, as a man named Jesus, experienced death and knew what George experienced last week as he left this life. Jesus promised we would never be alone. God’s spirit is here with us, just as God’s spirit was present with George, as they moved him to hospice where he would die a day later.

God’s presence can help us cherish our memories and come to terms with George’s death. Amen.

George on the back row on Pentecost 2025 — George, at his place on the back row at Mayberry Church, Pentecost Sunday 2025. Thanks to Beth Almond Ford for sharing this photo.

To view George Grogan’s obituary at Norris Funeral Services, click here.

May 10, 2026May 12, 2026

Can we really avoid judging?

Title slide with photo of Bluemont and Mayberry Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
May 10, 2026
Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Thursday, May 7, 2026.

At the beginning of worship:
Are any of you Eeyore’s? You know who I am talking about, don’t you? The donkey with floppy ears in Winnie the Pooh. He’s always down and out. If the sun shines, he worries about a drought. If raining, he knows they’ll be a flood.

You know, friends who are Eeyores, they drag us down. They take a lot out of us. It’s easy to judge such friends as unworthy of our attention. Yet, the Eeyore’s of the world need friends. And we all know this. All of us have at one time or another, found ourselves in a funk. At such times, friends help us get through the darkness.

A suicide prevention article from years ago had this take on Eeyore:

One awesome thing about Eeyore is that even though he is basically clinically depressed, he still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. And they never expect him to pretend to feel happy. They just love him anyway, and they never leave him behind or ask him to change.^[1]

If you are an Eeyore, I hope you have the same experiences as Pooh’s flea-bitten friend. May you have all kinds of adventures and shenanigans. Who here wants to oversee shenanigans in the church? As a church, we should be willing to welcome all Eeyore’s and others who are easily left behind. We need to create a counterculture community, which pushes back against the common view of Christians as judgmental. We should strive to create a community which displays hospitality, one that not only welcomes the Poohs and Tiggers of the world, but also the Eeyore’s.

Before reading the Scriptures:
We’re moving into the final chapter of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 7, verses 1-12 are consider the last section within the meat or the main part of the sermon. Today, we’ll look at the first half of these verses. Next week, will finish the middle section. By splitting these in two, we can focus more in detail. After verse 12, Jesus ends with a few other topics as he brings this all-inclusive sermon to a close.

Our passage begins with sharp words. “Don’t judge.” What does Jesus mean?

Read Matthew 7:1-6

Today is Mother’s Day. So let me talk a bit about my mom as one of her traits applies to the broader meaning of this text. Mom had the capacity to always think first about the feelings of others. She also tried to instill such feelings in her children. As we’re talking about judging, I’ll let you be the judge of her success. However, I admit I fall short of what she taught.

In the 5^th grade at Bradley Creek Elementary School, during the winter when the weather was bad, we held PE on the stage of the auditorium. The school had no gym. There’s not a lot you can do up there on the stage, so our teacher decided we would learn to dance. This brought groans, especially from the guys in the class. And probably a few girls who didn’t want to dance with us. But I’m not sure about that. Among us guys, as we talked about the prospect of dancing, we realized this meant we had to dance with certain girls. One of the girls was the only African American in our class. Of course, that wasn’t how my friends referred to her.

That day, I came home from school, bragging as had my friends that I was not going to dance with her. My mother exploded. “Yes, you will! You will not hurt that girl’s feelings.” She then picked up the phone and proceeded to call my teacher. She told him I better be willing to dance with her.

I wonder if my mother’s concern for the feelings of others came from her own background. Her family struggled and she always had a bit of inferiority complex. Part of it may have come from her father, whom she adored, but who also spent time in the slammer for bootlegging. My great-grandmother had such disdain for her son-in-law; she left the land and house she owned to her daughter and granddaughters, to keep it out of his hands. While my father’s family wasn’t rich, they were certainly better off financially and didn’t have such baggage hiding in the closet. At least, not that I know of, for one of the things we see throughout the Sermon of the Mount is that we don’t always know the heart and secrets of others. This is a part of the reason we’re not too quickly judge others.

Whatever reason, my mom was well tuned to the feelings of others. It’s a noble and Christ-like trait.

In The Message paraphrase, our text today begins, “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.”

I like the fresh way that Eugune Peterson translates this passage in this paraphrase, but I think he may have missed one point. We don’t judge to keep others from judging us. This is not a “tit-for-tat” suggestion. “I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me.” That’s not even healthy for all of us need healthy criticism to grow and mature spiritually. Otherwise, with no guardrails, we can go astray.

The judgment Matthew speaks of us avoiding by not judging is not the condemnation of others for our sin, but God’s judgment.^[2] If we judge unfairly, God will judge us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus envisions an accountable community which looks out for one another.

Often, people cite this passage and use it to condemn all judgment. I recently heard this passage cited against challenging political behavior. This isn’t what Jesus means by not judging.

Discernment is a Christian discipline which requires us to make judgments. Later in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus instructs the disciples on how to confront others guilty of sin.^[3] Paul, in his writings to the Corinthians, condemns then for not confronting one involved in a grievous sin which has the power to destroy the church.^[4] Again, such a situation requires judgment. In a way, we can’t avoid some judgments.

One commentary suggests a better translation of the opening verse might be, “Do not judge unfairly.”^[5] Jesus addresses here a social sin, “judgementalism.” It’s the sin of constantly finding fault with what others say and do. And not only do we find fault in others, but we also overlook the faults we harbor. Judgmentalism indicates a disease within our spirit, for we assume we are superior to others.^[6] While there are times we are called to judge, we must do so honestly and with humility and mercy.

To help clarify what he means, and perhaps to lighten things up with a bit of humor, Jesus tosses in a parable. Don’t go around trying to take a speck out of someone’s eye when you have a log in your own eyes. Try to imagine your optometrist looking at your eyes with a log in his. The verbal picture here is quite funny.

Jesus essentially says need of healing before we can heal someone else. Furthermore, Jesus’ command, “don’t judge,” doesn’t mean “don’t think.”^[7] At times, discernment becomes necessary. But we must be merciful. As Bo Diddley asks in a classic blues tune which was later recorded by Eric Clapton, “Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.”

Another point to understand. In verse 5, Jesus uses the word “hypocrite.” We’ve heard this word before in the Sermon on the Mount, but this time is different. Elsewhere in the Sermon, Jesus used it to refer to those outside the community of believers, generally the Pharasees and Sadducees, but here, Jesus refers to those inside the community, believers who don’t live up to their calling.^[8] Yes, as we well know, there are even hypocrites inside the church. We must be careful of how we look at others, considering our own sin and also knowing we don’t know their hearts.

After the parable, Jesus makes a strange statement in verse 6. “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine.” This is one of the harder sayings of Jesus to understand. It certainly shows the culture of that time and that part of the worlds, where dogs and pigs were considered unclean, so you had to discern what to and not to give them. That which is holy and valuable have other uses.

Perhaps Jesus adds this statement to remind his listeners we need to discern or make judgments. Otherwise, they might toss away valuables.

So yes, despite a literal reading of verse 1, judgment may be necessary. But judgment must be done with justice in mind. We must be honest and fair with those we judge, so that we won’t do so prejudicially. Furthermore, we must be honest about our own faults which can prejudice our decisions.

We all stand in need of forgiveness. We can’t use the sins of others to boost our standing. Instead, in humility, we accept our need of divine forgiveness and, as Jesus and my mom taught, be concerned about others. Amen.

^[1] This was from “Suicide Prevention Australia” and found on Facebook in 2014.

^[2] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 7

^[3] Matthew 18:15ff.

^[4] 1 Corinthians 5:1-2.

^[5] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 256.

^[6] Hare, 76.

^[7] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 340.

^[8] Pennington, 260.

May 6, 2026May 6, 2026

April Readings

Edward Abbey, The Fool’s Progress: An Honest Novel

(1988, New York: Avon Books, 1990), 513 pages.

This is my third time reading The Fool’s Progress, but it’s been 35 years since I last read it. I had felt it was Abbey’s best novel, but I am no longer sure. I do plan to reread The Monkey Wrench Gang. This time through The Fool’s Progress, I found myself repulsed by the narcissistic, misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist views of the protagonist, Henry Holyoak Lightcap. The harsh language, especially in the first 40 pages, turned me off. I almost quit, but glad I didn’t. The book, in my opinion, gets better and many of Henry’s extreme views seem to taper especially after his marriage to Claire. Warning Spoilers: If you want to read this book, you might want to skip my review as it contains spoilers.

This novel is somewhat autobiographical. There are many parts of the novel which Abbey drew from his own life including military service at the end of World War 2, serving as a MP in post-war Italy, tramping around the country during a summer in high school, his time working seasonal jobs as a ranger and a fire lookout, and his relationship with a plethora of women. But it’s also fiction. After all, Abbey is from the coal country of Western Pennsylvania, not the coal country of West Virginia.

As the novel begins, Henry’s latest wife has left him. He goes into a rage and then decides to head across country, from his home in Arizona to Stump Creek, West Virginia. He wants to see, one more time, his brother Will. Driving a dilapidated old truck with a dying dog riding shotgun, he heads across country. Henry mostly sticks to backroads. He stops along the way to see friends. To finance his trip, he sells a gun to one friend who is in the pawnshop business. But he’s also not above using his defunct credit card (in the days before the internet) to buy gas. And if that fails, he has another “gas credit card,” a long flexible rubber hose.

As he travels, we learn more about Henry’s life and the country through which he drives. We sense his love for this country. Abbey often makes lists for his protagonist, of the trees, the flowers, the animals, music, books and authors, etc. Henry is a lover of creation. About halfway through the book, Abbey begins to drop hints that the dog and the truck are not the only thing dying in this novel. But it’s only near the end that we learn of Henry’s serious illness. The end of the book leaves the reader wondering how much of what happens is real or is a vision in Henry’s mind as he dies.

While Henry flunked at becoming an academic, he continues to read philosophy and poetry. His musical taste varies from “country” and “western” to classical. Henry also has a keen sense of vision of what goes on around him. We see bits of both of his parents in Henry. His mother, the Presbyterian organist, and his father, an agnostic anarchist. Henry carries on a debate with a deity he can’t seem to believe in. But also can’t cast away. Henry could be modelled on Mark Twain. As Edgar Lee Masters said of Twain:: “he threw out the Bible, but it seemed to be attached to a rubber band and was likely to bounce back into his lap at any time.”

Another character I found myself pondering in this story is Henry’s older brother, Will. Two years older, Will found himself fighting in Europe in the Second World War. When he came back to West Virginia, Will insisted on farming (and living) the old way. He shunned electricity and indoor plumbing and preferred to use horses for farming. I found myself comparing Will to the author Wendell Berry, who also prefer to live a simple farming life. Both Abbey and Berry studied under Wallace Stegner at Stanford University.

The big change in the book comes with Henry meeting Claire. He’s a middle-aged seasonal ranger in Arches National Park and she is a 19-year-old music student. After Henry’s crazy courtship, they marry. In the story, both appear incredibly happy.

Then, a truck crash in the mountains, claims her life. While the grieving Henry recovers in the hospital, her monied family takes their newborn child. His mother-in-law protects the girl from Henry with an army of lawyers. Henry now lives knowing he has a daughter he will never see (except, perhaps, in dying visions). This part of the book doesn’t seem to come from any real-life experiences of Abbey, but it does hint at his idealism. It also, too me, seems to draw his earlier novel, Black Sun. Love, for Abbey is fragile and can be easily lost. Often, he was to blame. At the death of Claire, I found myself wondering what would have happened if the two of them settled down as a family. In a way, her death was convenient for Abbey, an unconventional anarchist with a romantic streak.

If you want to read this book, I encourage you to first read Desert Solitaire, which I reread last year.

Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter

(Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2014), 192 pages.

Every day through Lent to Easter (and the week after), Guite provides a poem along with a couple pages of reflection. The style is like a later book of poems he collected for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.. Guite wrote many, maybe half, of the poems. Other authors include George Herbert, John Donne, W. B. Yeats, S. T. Coleridge, Dante, Czeslaw Milosz, John Davies, G. M. Hopkins, among others. The commentary links the reader to scripture and theological understandings behind the poetry. The commentary also provides insights into the style of poetry. I enjoyed these readings and recommend them for anyone looking to grow deeper in poetry and the meaning of Lent and Easter.

Eric Goodman with Kaveh Zamanian, Mother of Bourbon: The Greatest Whiskey Story Never Told

(New York: Post Hill Press, 2025), 298 pages

Mary Murphy married John Dowling when she was just 14 and he nineteen years her senior. Mary’s parents made the arrangements. John was a successful cooper (maker of barrels) and was beginning to invest in Kentucky’s infant bourbon business. Mary, who had finished the third grade, worked at her father’s store. Both were children of Irish immigrants who had moved to America to escape the potato famine. In the pre-Civil War years, America wasn’t friendly to Irish Catholics.

It shocked Mary, at first, that she didn’t have a say in the marriage. She also didn’t like the idea of moving away from her family but consented. In n time Mary and John become partners in an expanding whiskey industry. Their main distillery was Waterfill and Frazier, but they also own part of a distillery with John’s brothers. And their family began to grow.

John Dowling died in 1903. Upon his death, Mary inherits the business, but soon it’s in threatened. The bank refused to supply the credit and suggested they sell the business. Also, the broker for the business quit. Mary quickly reorganized, takes her business to another bank. She also found another broker, Henrich Hiensohn, a German Catholic who continued to work with Mary until prohibition.

After the war (World War 1), the Midwest experienced the second rise of the Kul Klux Klan. This group not only went after African Americans, of which Mary was suspect as she employed and treated them fairly, but also Catholics. Mary reached out to a relative of one of her employees whose son was lynched. Prior to the Klan’s rise, Mary’s namesake (Mary Bond, who had married a Protestant) became a prominent leader within women in Kentucky who attempted to get revisionist books on the Civil War into the school system. Mary and her daughter fell out, but with the rise of the Klan, her daughter admitted to being wrong. The Klan activity also played into Probation as many distillers were Catholic.

Prohibition presented another challenge. Not being granted a medical exemption, Waterfill and Frazier ceased operations. Working with Hiensohn, they sold most of their barrels before prohibition. She also had many barrels moved into the basement of her large home, paying taxes on the liquor before prohibition took effect so that it was legal. But this didn’t stop their troubles. After a few years, Mary’s youngest son, Emmett, came back from school at Harvard. He loved to party. He also, unknown to his mother, sold some bottled whiskey to a man in town who was a known for selling illegal liquor. The revenuers raided the family home one night and everyone who living there arrested. They were all released on a $5000 per person bond.

Much of the book centers on the trials which took place. The book was hrown at the family, with charges not just of bootlegging but conspiracy. The first trial ended in a mistrial, with 10 jurors voting for conviction and two for acquittal. The second trial resulted in a conviction which was appealed but overruled. At this time, the sisters were fined $100. Mary Dowling’s received a fine of $10,000. But most troubling was her two boys living at home, Johnny and Emmett, who received a prison sentence.

Mary certainly felt the revenue agents took advantage of her. While it later came out that Emmett had sold a few bottles of liquor, this didn’t rise to a conspiracy, nor did it involve the entire family. Everything had been done legally in her eyes. Furthermore, not only had the government confiscated her liquor, but the warehouse where they stored it burned. Rumors circulated that government agents sold the liquor. The fire covered their tracks. She couldn’t help but to feel that they were after her because she was a successful woman and Catholic.

During this time, she decided to get back into the liquor business by setting up operations in Juarez, Mexico, across from El Paso. She could legally make liquor there.

Interestingly, Mexico didn’t allow its grain to be distilled. Mary had grain shipped in from the United States. Waterfill and Frazier used 50% corn with a mix of rye and barley. She found a Mexican partner who provided the land and hired local workers. She hired a descendant of Jim Beam to oversee the running of her distillery. While she went into prohibition financially well off, she made another fortune with Waterfill and Frazier, SA. This distillery did a large business around the border where bars which were filled with Americans (especially soldiers from Fort Bliss). She also allowed those running the business to sell booze to bootleggers who would bribe the border guards to transport the liquor to sell to speak-easies in the America.

The employees of the Mexican distillery gave Mary Dowling the title, “Mother of Bourbon.” That distillery continued to operate until 1984, but after Mary and Emmett’s death, the family ignored its operation. Oddly enough, the American government had a hand in its demise as it outlawed the sale of bourbon made outside the United States.

After prohibition took effect, Mary continued to experience sadness. Ida, a daughter who didn’t marry until she was almost 40, died. Then, the next year, John and Emmett died way too young, the same year in which Mary Dowling died.

I enjoyed this book. The story flowed smoothly. Woven into the last half of the story was a rosary given to Mary by her liquor wholesaler,. Late in their business partnership, he expressed romantic interests. Mary wasn’t interested. The authors used the rosary beads to link to Mary’s own sorrows with her children. This nice touch displayed the importance of Mary’s faith. However, I found myself wondering if it happened or was it just a detail made up by the authors. While Mary Dowling was a real woman who achieved and endured much, with the book being a novel instead of non-fiction, I know the authors had to create a framework and dialogue to make the story more readable.

I have now read three books by Goodman. In 2019, I read a baseball novel, Days of Awe. In 2020, I read his novel, based on his wife’s parents, Cuppy and Stew.

wBruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation

(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993), 144 pages.

I first read this book in early 2004, when I last taught a class on the book of Revelation. Metzger, an outstanding Biblical Scholar from Princeton, spent part of my last year in seminary on Sabbatical at Pittsburgh. I got to know him a bit during this time as his apartment was next to mine.

Metzger approach is strictly Biblical. He shows how much of Revelation was written in response to was happening within the Roman Empire in the second half of the first century. Even the number of the beast (666) works out to a title of Nero. A variant number (616) found in some ancient manuscripts matched a variation in Nero’s title. I used this book as the base for my class, but also drew on a more detailed commentary by Robert Mounce along with Eugene Peterson’s literary commentary, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Poetic Imaginaton.

Alan Gurney, Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation

(New Yor: W. W. Norton, 2004), 320 pages including index, notes, and bibliography.

I’ve used and felt myself competent with a compass ever since my grandparents gave me one for my 11^th birthday, when I was old enough to join the Boy Scouts. Taking the compass for granted, I had no idea one could write a history of the compass that stretched out to 272 pages of text! Gurney manages to do this by primarily focusing on the use of the compass by the British Royal Navy and commercial ships. I knew that even in the ancient world, it was known that a suspended lodestone was known to point north/south. But I was shocked that it was only recently (last 150 years) that the compass as we know it was perfected.

The original compass was a dry one, often suspending a thin piece of metal that had been magnetized so that if was free to move and point to the north. Below the pointer, a papers stock which could be moved to correct the heading. This “dry compass” was the main compass of British mariners until early in the 20^th Century. Such a compass had a difficult during rough weather or on a ship firing canons broadside. This led to use of compasses with the lodestone floating on water (or alcohol). Another problem discussed is magnetic deviation. Interestingly, at one time, sailors hoped that correcting the deviation could help them know their latitude. Later problems arouse as ships used more iron in their construction. Earlier, such problems were noticed as the housing of the compass might use nails which affected the needle. When the who ship was iron, the problem magnified.

While this book primarily focuses on the British use of the compass, toward the end the author acknowledges the American Navy to be ahead of the British in the late 19^th Century. American adopted the floating compass for its navy 30 years before Britain. Through this book, we learn of the various individuals whose work with compasses to increase their efficiency. While there were interesting parts of this book, I realize it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. The book is only about the role of the compass while on water, nothing about its use on land as in orientating. A good companion to this book is Dava Sobel’s, Longitude, which I read in 2017.

May 3, 2026May 3, 2026

Don’t Worry

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
May 3, 2026
Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon taped on Thursday, April 30, 2026 at Mayberry Church

At the beginning of worship:
There’s a legend about Death visiting a city. At the city gates, an old man recognized Death and asked what business he had in the city. “I’ve come to take 1,000 people with me tonight,” Death said.

The next day, Death reappears and the old man was again sitting by the city’s gate. “Yesterday, you said you were going to take a 1,000 people from our city,” the man cried. “This morning, the newspaper reported that 7,000 people died. Why did you do this?”

“I didn’t,” Death answered. “I took my 1,000. The rest succumbed to worry and anxiety.”

We worry a lot, don’t we? We like to have things under control, but Jesus tells us not to worry about the future. A preacher once addressed the problem of worry in our culture in a sermon which he titled, “Don’t let worry kill you, let the church help!” Yes, even churches can be filled with anxiety and worry.

Before reading the Scripture:
Last week’s passage ended with a proverb. No one can serve two masters. We can’t serve God and wealth. Jesus continues his sermon on the Mount, drawing the attention of his audience to the nature which surrounded them as he begins to discuss anxiety or worry.

This is one of the most beloved passages of Scripture, perhaps falling in behind Psalm 23 and John 3:16. The poetic words in this passage contain power, encouraging us to trust God. But I want you to listen to the passage closely and ponder what Jesus is really saying. If we take this passage too literally, it sounds like we shouldn’t worry about or plan for anything. But is that what Jesus says?

Read Matthew 6:25-34

A Scarlett Tangier in my cherry tree, June 2025

Jesus is almost two thirds through his sermon. People may be getting hungry as he tells them not to worry about what they eat or drink or wear… He points a finger to the air and follows a few birds as they dart from one bush to another. “Look at ‘em,” Jesus says. “They don’t have a care in the world. You know, they don’t sow or reap. They don’t set out crops and then, like farmers, bite their nails and pray the crop will be plentiful. Can you imagine a bird planting a crop?” he might have asked.

The thought of Joe Sparrow pushing a plow or storing grain might have brought laughter to the crowd. No one images a bird doing such a thing.

Then Jesus gets to the point. “You know, these birds don’t worry about tomorrow, but they get by. And think about it, Jesus says, “Are you not more valuable than they?” Here, Jesus reminds them of the teachings of the first two chapters in Genesis, where God crowned humankind as the pinnacle of creation.^[1] God created us to work, to be gardeners in his world, to be his servants with dominion over creation. Certainly, if God cares for the lonely sparrow, God will care for us.

When taken together on the heels of the previous passage, we’re again remained not to be fanatical about accumulating stuff. It’s something we have a hard time doing. But the disciples who abandoned their boats to follow this teacher from Galilee knew something about placing their trust in God. And so did the day laborers who did not own land and couldn’t count on having work from one day to the next. Of course, not everyone lives in such a manner. Some must plan for tomorrow and next month and next year. Even in Jesus’ day, those farmers who hired the laborers had to plan which fields to plant and so forth.

Perhaps this passage shouldn’t be taken too literally. After all, birds die in blizzards. Wildflowers wilt during a drought. Furthermore, a literal interpretation sounds like we should have no cares and should live a lazy life which isn’t at all what God placed on earth to do. “Don’t worry, be happy,” as the song goes. Some Christians have taken it this way. In Paul’s writings to the Thessalonians, he deals with such laziness and informed them if they don’t work, they don’t eat.^[2] Wisdom literature within the Bible often condemns laziness and those who do not plan.

When you think about it, birds and lilies are not good models for human beings. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say we’re to be like them. Instead, he says, Look. Or, think of it this way, “consider or ponder” for a moment the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. They should remind us of what God can do for us. They are poetic symbols of God’s providential care.^[3] Seeing the wonders of nature, we see the glory of the Creator reflected in his creation, the glory of a God who cares for the earth.

In Dale Bruner’s commentary on the passage, he acknowledges the danger of misinterpreting this passage. Bruner, early in his career, before he became a New Testament scholar, worked as a missionary in the Philippines. He writes that he became convinced this text would be cruel to preach in such a context, among those who are so poor and who go around without proper clothing.

But then, Bruner continues and questions the wisdom of preaching such a passage to the well-to-do. He feared this passage could confirm a dangerous prejudice that spiritual values are to be placed over material needs.

This sets up an opportunity for Bruner to clarify what the passage doesn’t teach. It doesn’t say we should be unconcerned whether others have enough to eat or wear. Certainly, Jesus’ ministry showed his concern for the poor. Instead, the passage commands us to take our eyes off ourselves, off our lives, away from our own selfish anxieties. Bruner concludes, “look around God’s world for a place where we can throw ourselves into the cause of God’s poor.”^[4]

Our passage could be interpreted from a celebrative lens. Consider how the lilies and the birds all reflect the glory of God’s creation. Watching and listening to the birds or exploring the wildflowers give us a reason to reflect on God’s gracious care. We can delight in God’s creation and strive to care for it.^[5]

In a way, this passage links with our text last Sunday where Jesus encourages us to save treasures in heaven and not on earth. If you remember, Jesus never said that earthly treasures are bad. He just said we can’t count on them. This ties into the climatic verses of this passage. Verse 33 reminds us of how our primary focus should be on God and God’s kingdom. And then, the passages end with verse 34, reminding us not to worry. We are not to worry about tomorrow (nor about those things we can not control). Jesus doesn’t say that planning is bad, we just shouldn’t worry about what is beyond our control and trust those things to God.

This closing verse seals the meaning. Jesus doesn’t leave us thinking that because we belong to him that tomorrow will be wonderful. Yes, at some point, we’ll enter the kingdom, but until then there will hard days in which we have to trust God.^[6]

Throughout this middle section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus attempts to focus his listeners on God’s goodness and love. Instead of trying to win earthly admiration with public prayers and acts of piety, we are to do such activities quietly and let God see and reward us. Instead of making the accumulation of stuff our primary purpose, our hearts should be first focused on God.

Do you remember those bumper stickers popular back in the 1980s which read, “He who dies with most wins.” Jesus’ teachings point out such nonsense. Our purpose is not to accumulate, but to, as the Westminster catechism reminds us, “enjoy and glorify God forever.”^[7]

May we so glorify God and enjoy his blessings. Amen.

^[1] Genesis 1:27, 2:4ff.

^[2] 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.

^[3] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY, JKP, 1993), 74.

^[4] Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2004), 329.

^[5] Hare, 75.

^[6] Looking for things to soon be made good might be what we desire, but it’s not what we get. This idea comes from Scott Hoezee’s commentary on this passage. https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2014-12-15/matthew-624-34/

^[7] Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1.

May 1, 2026May 1, 2026

Heading to Grand Rapids and Part 1 of the Festival of Faith and Writing

When I returned home, not only did I get a chair cut, I trimmed my beard!

On Tuesday morning, April 14, after filing an extension for my taxes, I boarded the northbound Crescent, in Danville, Virginia. At Union Station in Washington, DC, I had long enough a break to eat before catching another train bound for Chicago. My destination was South Bend, Indiana, a city I arrived in a little before 8 AM on Wednesday. I had planned to get a sleeper. When I first looked at this trip, I could have done each leg for about 400 dollars, but after the debacle of airlines and unpaid TSA agents, train travel became more popular. Two weeks later the cost for a sleeper on each leg jumped to 900 dollars (over $1800 total) and I decided I could travel coach.

The ride was smooth despite some bad storms which caused the train to slow down as it cut through the Alleghenies and through Pittsburgh and Cleveland. There were tornado warnings, but all I saw between naps was a lot of lightning and some heavy rain. Once in South Bend, I had to wait at the station till after 8 AM to call Enterprise Car Rental to come pick me up. They did. And by 8:30 AM, I was on the road. On Wednesday night, I planned to stay with Jerry and Janet, friends who go back to our seminary days, in Kalamazoo. Knowing they had church duties that morning, I drove to Eckhart hoping to see the New York Central Museum which was beside the train station in the town. It was closed that day, so I drove north to Three River’s Michigan, and spent a few hours in Lowry ‘s Bookstore.

For such a small town, this is an amazing bookstore with both new and used books.At Lowry’s, I found a copy of Lucius Beebe’s classic, Mix Trains Daily: A Book of Short Line Railroads. This I will add to my growing collection of Beebe’s railroad books, published in the 1940s and 1950s. After Lowry’s Bookstore I had a wonderful lunch at Rooster’s Wing Shack next door. Then I drove to Jerry and Janet’s. We spent the afternoon birding in a nature area in Portage, then fixed dinner and spent a lot of time talking.

The three of us are moving toward retirement. Jerry and Janet plan to retire this summer and I plan on retiring after Easter next year. On Thursday morning, we said our goodbyes. I then headed to Grand Rapids for the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University. On the way north, taking backroads, I came across one area where a tornado had ripped through the area the night I was on the train.. While the main road was clear, the side roads were blocked and workers were repairing electrical lines.

I have attended the Festival of Faith and Writing many times. It’s held every even year and Calvin brings in around 60 authors. They don’t have to be Christian, although most are. The one requirement is that the authors write seriously about faith. As with the other years, this year didn’t disappoint. As before, there those authors I wanted to hear and meet. In addition, there were other authors I didn’t know, whom I heard and are now interested in reading their works.

The festival opened with its first plenary speaker, Laurie Halse Anderson, who writes historical fiction for young adults. I was not familiar with her work, but she has won the Nobel Prize in Children’s literature. She has written some interesting books around the American Revolution. Her success, she credits, is with doing the research of a non-fiction writer to assure her stories are factual. She also focuses on the “ordinary.” Instead of writing about Washington or Franklin, she tries to bring in the common people, especially women, children, and minorities. Through their eyes, she shows how they perceive the events of the day. She also talked about how writing one book leads to another. Having written about the Revolutionary War, she became interested in a Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia a few years later, which resulted in Fever 1793. I plan to read that book.

In addition to four plenary speakers, the Festival offers numerous concurrent sessions throughout the three-day period. The first afternoon, I attended a conversation by two young adult writers (Kate Albus and Dana VanderLugt) discussing the craft of writing fiction and how it can be used to draw younger readers into the past.

Next, I attended a presentation by Carrie Fountain titled “About a Million Blessings a Day.” Fountain is a poet who sets out every morning to write a poem. She acknowledges, most are not very good, but she feels the need to get something on paper and overtime has a collection of material with which to work. I enjoyed listening to the poems she recited and came away with an autographed copy of her book of poetry, The Life. Fountain charmed me by asking where I was from when I was having her book signed. She then complementing me on the sound of my voice. The next day a guy I was talking to during a break stopped me in mid-sentence to ask if I read Audible books. I thought he meant listening and I said I generally have one going all the time. Then he said, I don’t mean listening, I mean reading, you have the ideal voice. I laughed and said it would be ideal until I butchered the punctuation of some word.

That night, the plenary speaker was Robin Wall Kimmer. The title of her talk “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” is also the title of her latest book which I read and reviewed (link above) in January. Of all those authors in attendance, Kimmerer was the one I really wanted to hear. She’s both a scientist and a Native American and draws on both in her books, of which I have read all three. I read Gathering Moss in 2021 and Braiding Sweetgrass (her most popular) in 2024. While Kimmerer titled her talk after her book, it wasn’t a recap of writing. Instead, she presented a thesis around what the writer can do to help heal the world. Her first rule: always begin with gratitude. She encourages writers to help people know their place on earth. For nature writers, she suggests we celebrate the living world, foster kinship, incite wonder, inform, sound the alarm on danger to the planet, seek justice, and defend wild places. She also peppered her talk with startling statistics such as the average American child can identity only 10 plants but knows around 100 cooperate logos.

Kimmerer (in the middle) talking to Debra Rienstra and Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

Kimmerer also spoke of the danger of linguistic materialism, moral exclusion, and how the colonial experiences around the world have damaged native languages which were more earth based. Of all the presenters over the three days, I took far more notes (4 whole pages) on Kimmerer’s talk. Most other talks I only took a single page of notes. After her talk, I checked into my hotel and then walked over to a nearby Olive Garden where I had dinner with a former colleague. MaryMartha served with me when I was the pastor in Hastings (2004-2014), serving as the church’s adult ministry coordinator. Several years ago, when her husband Larry began to decline in health, they moved to a continuing care center on the southside of Grand Rapids. Larry has since died. I enjoyed our late dinner and talk, but was ready to crash when I got back into my room.

(look for part 2 in a couple weeks)

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026

Don’t Let Stuff Weigh Us Down

Title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
April 26, 2026
Matthew 6:16-24

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, April 24, 2026

At the beginning of worship:

When hiking the Appalachian Trail through Pennsylvania, I stopped late one day at a lovely campsite. Thinking I’d spend the evening by myself. Fixing dinner, as the light faded, a family of four trudged in. Dead tired—they set out that morning to hike ten or so miles and had only covered half that distance. The man asked if I would mind if they shared the campsite, as there was a spring for water nearby and plenty of room. “Not a problem,” I said, even though I wasn’t overly excited.

Continuing with dinner, I glanced over amusingly at the family. The scene could easily have been out of National Lampoon Vacation movie, if they made a backpacking version. The father even resembled Chevy Chase.

New at backpacking, they had not tried out their brand-new gear. Some of their gear remained in the original packaging. The family appeared to have stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog. With my dirty and torn clothes and well used equipment, I looked a bit like a hobo. After a comedy of errors, they finally pitched their tent. Then came dinner.

The dad became frustrated trying to use the stove. Finally, he came over and asked for my help. He had the same stove as mine, an MSR multi-fuel stove. This was preferred by long distance backpackers because it could burn regular gasoline. In 1987, I could top my fuel bottle up at a gas station for 25 cents-it’d be a dollar today. While a good stove, it wasn’t the type of stove most folks used on weekend trips.

Next, he had the top of the line cook set that all nestled together and included a windscreen for the stove. Knowing this, he left behind the windscreen which came with his stove. But there was a problem. The cook set was designed for a different type of stove. They didn’t go together. No matter how hard he tried, it wasn’t going to work. I showed him how to set up some rocks upon which he could make a windscreen as he cooked. Soon, he was heating up dinner.

After they’d finished eating, his wife put their kids to bed, he came back over to talked. He was a physician. He’d hiked a few times with the Boy Scouts and now thought he’d like to get his family into it. He went to a backpacking store. I’m sure the guy selling gear had a nice dinner later that evening on the commission he earned. Everything this family had with them, and they had way more than they needed, was first class (even if some of it wasn’t designed to work with other pieces of gear). And the sheer volume of their gear was overwhelming. He confided in me that they were probably going to hike back to their car in the morning instead of continuing down the trail, for there was no way they’d make the distance planned.

Talking with this guy, I realized a couple of things. In the woods, it didn’t matter he had the money to buy fancy gear. It didn’t do him any good. Backpacking is a great equalizer. When you have too many treasures, it weighs you down. This guy carried a pack weighing nearly eighty pounds, and his wife had another fifty. Each of their kids had a small knapsack. All this stuff was killing them. My pack weight was more like his wife’s and that was only when I was fully loaded with ten days of food, a liter of fuel, and two quarts of water. Thinking about this, I felt a tinge of pride.

Then I realized that I, too, was storing up treasures. These were in the form of memories and bragging rights. Idolatry is a sneaking temptation. I wanted to be able to say I hiked the whole trail and at this time had made it halfway to Maine, a goal which became an obsession.

Ultimately, however, whatever we do, God must come first. As we’ll see this morning, it’s not about what you or I can do. It’s about what God can do through us.

Before reading the Scripture:

We’re continuing in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Two weeks ago, we looked at what Jesus taught about almsgiving and prayer. Through out of this central part of Jesus’ sermon, he uses a similar style. He states a well-known practice or discipline, such as almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, Then, he explores how it can be abused. Finally, Jesus ends by encouraging how we might practice such disciplines by having our priorities right and drawing us closer to God.^[1] Understand this. Jesus criticizes any attempt to use religion for earthly gain! Let’s hear what he has to say.

Read Matthew 6:16-24

For most Protestant Christians, fasting went out of style centuries ago. We might give up something for Lent, an idea we borrowed from the Roman Catholics, but it never really caught on. There used to be calls for fasting during times of trouble, but that seems to have waned.

Note that Jesus doesn’t condemn fasting.^[2] He just wants us to do it for the right reasons. If we fast, it should be to draw us closer to God, not to gain the praise of admirers. When we start using religion for personal gain, we’ve fallen into temptation, as Jesus repeatedly shows.

Next, Jesus moves to the dangers of treasures. He knew “stuff” wouldn’t satisfy us like a relationship with God. When it comes to stuff, be it money, the junk we collect, or our accomplishments, it’s never enough. We will always want more. Last season’s hero soon becomes a has-been.^[3] Supposedly, John D. Rockefeller was asked how much more money he wanted. “Just a little more,” he said. If we try to satisfy our appetites with treasures, our stomachs will always feel empty.

This passage encourages us to look deeply behind our motives and to get our priorities right. Jesus provides three connected proverbial thoughts for us to see where we place their trust.

First, we’re not to trust worldly treasures for they have a way of disappearing. A fine wardrobe can be destroyed by nature (moths). Time takes care of objects crafted out of metal as they succumb to rust. And what’s to stop someone from stealing our stuff when we’re not looking?

Notice, however, Jesus doesn’t say having nice things is bad. He just says we can’t trust them to always be there and that the problem with such niceties is that when we place too much trust in them, we risk not trusting God. Ultimately, our treasures fail us.

The second proverbial thought is about a “healthy eye.” No, Jesus isn’t making a pitch for eye surgery. Jesus’ listeners would have known right away what he was talking about when he mentioned an unhealthy or evil eye. They understood an evil eye as an envious, grudging or miserly spirit. A good eye connotes a generous and compassionate attitude toward life.

One of my professors, in his commentary on Matthew, said it’s as if Jesus’ says: “Just as a blind person’s life is darkened because of an eye malfunction, so the miser’s life is darkened by his failure to deal generously with others.”^[4] Generosity brings light into the world; greed darkens it.

The next statement by Jesus concerns serving two masters. A slave would run ragged if he had to answer to two masters. Likewise, if we try to serve both God and money, we find ourselves with two masters and the latter, money, makes a harsh master. There can never be enough. We need to place our priorities in order. We need to stick with God.

But then again, as I said, Jesus never says that treasures in and of themselves are wrong. He never says our desire to have treasure is wrong. We’re not Buddhists trying to remove desire in search of enlightenment.^[5] Instead, Jesus knows we have desires. So, he encourages us to put our desires into the right channels. “Store your treasures in heaven.”

It sounds too simple. “Store up your treasures in heaven; don’t worry about things here on earth.” Easier said than done, right? We all worry about having enough for tomorrow—and the day and the year and the decade that follows. We must admit that our prayers for daily bread seem unnecessary when we have a pantry full of food. When we have too much, it’s hard to depend upon God.

But Jesus wants us to trust in God, which is why we’re to store treasures in heaven. On earth, we’re to be about doing the Father’s work. And when we do what God calls us to do, we store our treasures in heaven. But when we forget about what God wants us to do and focus only on our wants and desires, we lose our way.

How might we learn not to store up our treasures here on earth? First, “Enjoy things, but don’t cherish them.” God created this world good and wants us to enjoy life and the blessings provided, but God gets angry when we see such blessings as being ours. Then we easily serve or worship such stuff. We are given this world as a steward and one day we must give it all back.

Second, “Share things joyfully, not reluctantly.” If it bugs you to share something you have with someone who needs it, you should then know that item has gotten a hold on you. It’s an earthly treasure, an idol.

Finally, think of yourself as a pilgrim, not a settler. “The world is not my home, I’m just passin’ thru,” the old gospel song goes.^[6]Store your treasures at your destination, then your journey will then be easier.

Look inside yourself and use these thoughts to evaluate what you have: Enjoy, Share, and think like a pilgrim. A pilgrim is like a backpacker. Remember, you don’t want your pack weighing you down and keeping you from enjoying the view along the way. Amen.

^[1] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 230, 232.

^[2] This is the only place where Jesus addresses fasting. Later in Matthew’s gospel (9:14) as well as Mark 2:18 and Luke 5:33, John’s disciples questioned why Jesus’ disciples don’t fast. There was some fasting in the early church. See Acts 13:2-3, 14:23.

^[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004),, 320.

^[4] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 72.

^[5] Bruner, 321.

^[6] Kirk Nowery, The Stewardship of Life (Camarillo, CA: Spire Resources, 2004), 122-123.

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026

Jesus’ Teachings on Piety and Prayer

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
April 12, 2026
Matthew 6:1-15

Sermon recorded on Friday April 10, 2026 at Bluemont Church

At the beginning of worship:

Johnny prepared to go out on his first date with Cindy, a cute girl in his High School English class. He’d borrowed his dad’s car for the evening. That day, after school, he stopped by the local candy store, looking for a way to impress her. The owner of the store noticed Johnny’s difficulty at picking out a box of chocolates and asked if he could help.

When Johnny told him he wanted to impress a girl on a date, the store owner suggested a one-pound box if he just wanted to shake her hand after the date. But he said, if you want to kiss her on her cheeks, I’d go with a two-pound box. And, if you want to kiss her on her lips, go with the five-pounder.

That night, Johnny showed up at Cindy’s home with a big five-pound box of chocolate candies under his right arm. This pleased Cindy. She invited Johnny in to meet her family. Sitting in the living room, he spied a Bible on the coffee table. He picked it up and asked if could read a few verses and pray before they left for their date.

Later that night, Cindy slide across the seat of the car to be closer to Johnny. She whispered into his ear, saying. “Johnny, your wonderful. I never knew you were so religious.”

Johnny responded. “I never knew your father owned a candy store.”

We all know to whom Johnny directed his prayers that evening, don’t we? We’ll talk about the right use of prayer this morning.

Before reading the Scripture:

After breaking for Palm Sunday and Easter, we’re back to Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.” We’re in the heart of this sermon, where Jesus teaches about piety and prayer. The center of our text is the Lord’s Prayer.

I won’t spend too much time on that prayer. Several years ago, I gave six sermons dealing with the six petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, so if you want to dig deeper into the prayer, look up my older sermons.^[1] I’ve footnoted them in this sermon, so you can find them easily on my website. But I still will discuss the Lord’s Prayer briefly. It’s important to see how the prayer fits within the larger sermon. In this text, Jesus continues with his concern raised with his re-interpretation of the law. While our behavior is important, what’s in our heart is also important. God and other people watch what we do. But God also knows the reason why we behave in such a manner.

Why do we help others? Is it only to obtain recognition or some other reward? If that’s the case, God’s not impressed.

I am also going to read our text this morning from The Messagetranslation. This paraphrase of the passage offers us a fresh way to hear Jesus’ message. Plus, I like how The Message draws upon the language of the theater in the opening of this passage. This seems to be closer to the Greek which use the language of the theater to express Jesus’ message.^[2]

Read Matthew 6:1-15:

In Chapter 6, Jesus moves from reinterpreting the law to how we live out our faith through piety, prayer, and fasting. As with the commands in which Jesus raised the bar, here he also shows his concerned for what’s in our heart.

Jesus assumes all religiously devoted people will practice these acts of devotion, especially the first two which we’ll look at today: almsgiving and prayer.^[3] The first involves helping those in need. The second involves our relationship with God. Both are important. Jesus assumed everyone will give to those in need and pray. But Jesus wants us to respond for the right reasons. Why do we do such acts? Is it to earn praise from others? Or are our hearts truly moved to compassion and to a desire to connect with God?

As we’ve seen, Jesus draws from the language of the theater. You know, an actor attempts to convincingly portray a character. Whether it’s a hero or a villain, when the actor brings the character to life, they earn the appreciation of the audience. But our lives are not lived out in the theater. We should play ourselves and not seek the approval of others. Instead, we need a generous heart, which is something only God can see.

Jesus begins with almsgiving, the support of those who are in need. Think of it as slipping a dollar or two to a beggar sitting on a sidewalk. Or maybe helping someone have enough money to make their electric bill or to get their car fixed. Or dropping off some groceries to someone sick. All these are good things.

But there is a catch to doing good. When others see us perform such acts, they praise us. So far, so good, right? But when we eat up the praise, our pride gets the best of us. Soon, we do such acts, not out of compassion and empathy for those in need, but because we like the boost it brings to our ego. At this point, we’re sliding down a slippery slope. Those of you involved in the study of The Screwtape Letters saw examples of this. Even good acts, if done for the wrong reason, will leads us in the wrong direction.

We worship a generous and gracious God. And while we should strive to be godly, we need to understand that praise is due to God, not us. Even if we are generous, it’s only because God’s generosity allows us the means to be generous. So, as a literal translation of this passage reads, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In other words, perform deeds of mercy but don’t make a big deal out of it.

Furthermore, when we perform acts of charity for our own benefit, we belittle the ones we help. It is much better to protect their dignity and help quietly instead of making a fuss about what we are doing and their needs. Using the misfortunate of others for our own praise is troublesome.

Jesus then moves into prayer, our conversation with God. Again, Jesus encourages us not to make a show of our prayers. We’re to pray simply in secluded places.

You know, there are people who like to make prayer into an approved form of work. I’ve read in several places how the Reformation came about on the prayers of folks like Martin Luther, who supposedly prayed four hours a day. It sounds like Luther’s pious, right? But there is a problem. It’s a myth. Luther, himself, talked about how after a few minutes of praying, he struggled to stay awake.^[4]

Furthermore, such a concept is a problematic to our theology. The idea of four hours of daily praying makes the Reformation more about Luther efforts than God’s faithfulness. Don’t think you have to pray long with elaborate words to pray successfully.

In Jesus’ day, public prayer seems to have been popular. Jews as well as pagans strove to pray to be seen as faithful.^[5] Remember the priests of Baal, who had elaborate prayers compared to Elijah’s simple prayer.^[6] The idea is that if you prayed the right things, long and hard enough, you would encourage the gods to answer. Jesus strives to pull this bad theology up by its roots. God already knows our needs. Our prayers, which involves speaking and listening to God, draws us closer to the Almighty. It’s not about us tying to encourage God to fill our shopping list, but about us striving to become closer to God.

This is why Jesus then gives his audience the Lord’s prayer. The corporate nature of the prayer stands out in the prayer. It’s not about me taking my own concerns to my God. It doesn’t begin with “My father,” or “give to me.” Instead of singular concerns, the prayer is plural. “Our father,” and “give us,” we pray. It’s not about God belonging to us, individually. Instead, all of us, collectively, belong to God. Good prayer comes from having our theology right. For our prayers are between us and God.

Remember Johnny, whom I told you about at the beginning of worship. Who did he direct his prayer to? God or Cindy’s father?

Now, I should say something about public prayer, as I am often expected to lead them. Jesus, here, isn’t addressing prayer in worship. Such prayers are necessary and expected. We see examples of such prayers in the Psalms. But again, like our personal prayers, such prayers need to be addressed to God, not to those in the congregation. I will be the first to acknowledge, this is hard. We want to please others. We like it when others praise us for our sermons and prayers and whatnot. But our piety isn’t about bringing glory to us, but to God.

So do good and pray faithfully, but for the right reasons. Amen.

^[1] These six sermons were preached in the fall of 2022. See:

The Lord’s Prayer, Part 1

The Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom Come”

The Lord’s Prayer, Part 3: Thy Will Be Done

“Give us this day our daily bread.” The Lord’s Prayer, Part 4

“Forgive our debts” The Lord’s Prayer, Part 5

The Lord’s Prayer, Part 6: Temptation and Evil

^[2] In verse 1, Jesus’ warns not to be in “theater to them.” Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 283.

^[3] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary to Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 63; and Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 213.

^[4] Frederick Dale Bruner, who studied Luther extensively, noted this in a lecture I once heard. He said that once he began to study Luther extensively, he looked for an affirmation of such prayer and never found it. Instead, it seems to be a story made up in the 19^th Century to encourage prayer.

^[5] The Jews, who did pray in public, were encouraged to do so softly and not be boisterous. Bruner, 287. Even this seems too much for Jesus, for they were praying to gain attention instead of connecting to God.

^[6] 1 Kings 18:22-39.