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Sardis: Sleeping on the Job

title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Presbyterian Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
June 15, 2025
Revelation 3:1-7

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, June 13, 2025.

At the beginning of worship:

One of the most embarrassing things I’ve done as an employee occurred the summer after I graduated from high school. I’d been working at Wilson’s Supermarket since I was 16. Back then, the store closed at nine. After the floors were mopped, the stockers came in and filled the shelves. That summer, for the promise of more money, I agreed to work night shift when someone was on vacation. It was hard work. Even harder because I spent the days on the beach or running around with friends. Young and invincible, who needs sleep? 

I reported to work at 11 PM. One night, I got home around 9 PM. My family had gone on vacation without me. Alone, I had run without sleep for days. I decided to take a nap before going in—so I set the alarm for 10:45 and fell asleep, dressed for work. I woke up and it was nearly 3 AM, the alarm had gone off and died. I’d slept right through it. I felt like a fool going to work four hours late. It was probably only because I had been a reliable employee in the past that I wasn’t fired. But it was the last week I worked night shift at the supermarket which was okay with me. I could have used a “wake-up call.”

All of us, at one time or another, can benefit from a wake-up call. And most of us have received them. Maybe it’s a note from the Dean of your college saying, shape up or ship out. I got one of them, too. Maybe it’s your doctor telling you to get your cholesterol under control or to ditch the cigarettes if you want to live to see your children grow up. Maybe it’s a reminder from your spouse which forces you to deal with what’s important. Wake-up calls can be a good thing. They force us to concentrate on what’s important and hopefully allow us to make the changes needed in our lives.  

Before reading the scripture:

Today will be our fifth city as we work our way through the seven churches of Revelation. We’ll stop at Sardis. Get out your right hand up as a map. Tuck your thumb in and hold your hand sideways. If you remember, we started our journey at Ephesus, a city on the coast that’s located at the tip of your ring finger. Then we moved up over a peninsula of land to the city of Smyrna, also on the coast, some forty miles north, on your hand about the tip of your big finger Then we traveled further up the coast, then inland a bit to the beautiful city of Pergamum. Last week, we moved inland a bit more, to about where your knuckle of your big figure is at to the city of Thyatira. 

Today, we’re moving about forty miles southeast to Sardis. As I’ve mentioned, the seven cities make a circle, and you can now see the circle taking shape.  

This is a sobering letter. While there’s no mention of heresy nor reference to persecution, the Christians of Sardis receive the harshest message of all the seven letters. They think they’re alive and doing well, but they are dying. Of the seven churches, I wonder if the church in America isn’t most closely related to Sardis. This is a haunting letter. The church in Sardis appears to be growing and flourishing, but underneath it’s rotten at the core. The church lost its focus. It no longer values of the gospel. It no longer bears the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.[1]

There is a personal side to these messages. If we know something about the city, we have clues into Jesus’ message. Sardis was a proud city with an enviable past. In the 6th Century BC, it was one of the most powerful cities in Asia, but by the time of the Romans, it was considered a relic of the past. 

Situated on a 1500-foot-high acropolis, high above the surrounding valley, Sardis could easily be defended. But twice in its history, the city guards slept while enemy soldiers slipped into the city and attacked from the inside.[2] With that in mind, let’s listen to what Jesus has to say to Sardis.  

Read Revelation 3:1-8

In Mitch Albom’s novella, for one more day, a man receives a wake-up call. Chick, a former professional baseball player and top-notch salesman, spiraled into a drunken failure. When he wasn’t invited to his daughter’s wedding because of his drinking, he attempts suicide. But he miraculously lives and while lying on the stretcher, his mother comes to him one last time. You’re not sure if it’s real or a vision. Afterwards, he gives up drinking and tries his best to help others. He works for the local Parks and Recreation Department. Shortly before his death, he asks that he be remembered for his final years, not the glorious years as a ballplayer. Those years, he was like Sardis, alive but nearly dead. The booze only numbed the pain. 

Not being invited to the wedding and his mother’s visit in the hospital served as wake-up calls. He turns his life around, reconciling his differences with his daughter.[3]  

Sardis receives a wake-up call. The church there, much like the city, and much like Chick in Albom’s story, lives on past reputation. As I’d said earlier, the city had once been a jewel of Asia, but by the first century had become a shell of its past. Its citizens still basked in their former reputation, but times have changed. 

There wasn’t much to be bragging about within the church in Sardis. Too many of the Christians forgot what they’d been taught by their mothers and fathers and other who influenced their faith. Spiritually, they’re dead.   

Jesus tells them that he’s coming like a thief in the night, a warning that should have caught the attention of the residents of Sardis. After all, the city’s location made it a natural fort. Yet, the city twice fell when enemy forces slipped inside the city—as thieves in the night. When Jesus tells them to stay awake, they recall those who supposedly watched their gates but napped on the job. 

While the thief in the night illustration might be seen as a warning for the end times, we must also remember all but one of the cities have disappeared.[4] Our time is up when we leave this place. We only have the present to get right with God.

Unlike other cities, the problem with Sardis isn’t heresy or great sins committed by the church. Unlike last week, we don’t have any Jezebels encouraging wild parties in pagan temples. Instead of transgressions, the church in Sardis adopted the culture of its community. There isn’t anything which distinguishes itself from those not in the church. 

Unfortunately, this is often true for the church in America. Numerous surveys show that Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians. Child and spouse abuse seems to know no religious boundaries. Professing Christians have headed companies which frauded shareholders and employees and the public. I’ve known several “committed Christians” who embezzled from their employers. 

Does our faith make any difference in our lives? Does being a follower of Jesus change who we are and how we act and how we relate to one another? If we say Jesus is our Lord and Savior, does it make any difference in the decisions we make here at church, in our homes, in our communities, at our workplaces? Do we make our decisions based on our faith in Jesus, or on what we think will get us ahead the fastest? 

Sardis received a warning. “Wake up,” Jesus says, “some of you still haven’t spoiled your clothes.” In other words, some of the Christians in Sardis haven’t sold out what they believe in. But most have. The same is true for the church today. There are still Christians who, because of their Christian faith, stand up for what they believe even though it is uncomfortable and goes against the norms of society. Sometimes it cost them their jobs. They lose friends and their status in the community. But they retain their honor, their dignity. 

Jesus tells the church in Sardis that those who conquer, in other words those who are awake and who strive to live the gospel, will receive a three-fold promise. First, they too will be clothed in white robes, which is the dress of the saints in the book of Revelations. Even if their clothes are now stained, there is still a chance for them to wake up, to repent, to turn around, and put on new clothes.

Second, their names will remain in the book of life—but the implied threat here is that those who are do not repent will not find their names in the book of life. The blotting out of names from the book of life probably refers to an ancient practice of removing the names of criminals from a city’s roll, thereby denying citizenship protection.[5] Even though we are saved by the grace of our Savior, we have a responsibility for our actions. We are to be stewards of all God gives us, using our gifts in a way that will bring him glory and honor. 

Finally, for those who conqueror, Jesus will put a good word in for them with the Father. Jesus, as Paul reminds us, “prays for us.”[6]

The decision is in the hands of the folks in Sardis—will they wake up or will they continue sleeping and face the coming judgment? We, too, must make such a decision. Amen.

[1] Galatians 5:22

[2] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 91-2.

[3] Mitch Albom, for one more day (New York: Hyperion, 2006).

[4] As we’ve seen, only Smyrna still exists as a city. https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/05/25/smyrna-poor-yet-rich/

[5] Mounce, 96-7.

[6] Romans 8:34 (the NRSV says intercedes instead of prays)

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Charlie Wallace: A Man with a Positive Disposition

Title slide with a photo of train tracks and a picture of a loaf of Holsum Bread

“We’ve lost a good friend, Jeff,” Terry said. It was late in the spring of 2010. I stopped by to see my Uncle Frank on his farm just north of Carthage. Terry, Frank’s oldest son, heard I was around and dropped by to see me.

I’d forgotten my cousin knew Charlie. Terry runs a company which rakes and ships straw from longleaf pines over the East Coast. Charlie’s wife had inherited a track of land, and my cousin harvested the straw off it. Terry told me about the old homestead near Cowpen Landing on the Northeast Cape Fear. Although I’d heard about the place, I’d never been there. My cousin told me the old house had fallen in, but the chimney still stood upright. Charlie had pointed out an indention in the brick where his mother-in-law sharpened the blade of her butcher knife. She ran the blade along the course brick till the blade was sharp. Then she would walk out to the smokehouse to cut off a slap of meat for dinner. Over the years, the metal of the knives carved into the brick.

I met Charlie at the Holsum Bakery. I hired on the summer I was nineteen, between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Charlie would have been almost sixty then. He spent most of life working for the bakery. You could always count on him to lighten things up with a good joke and you knew that any joke he told would be clean. Charlie worked hard but laughed even harder.

One afternoon, there wasn’t much to do as we’d run out of flour and the railcar, which was scheduled to be delivered that morning, had been delayed. We sat out near the loading dock where we could look down the tracks. Charlie came by and told us of growing up next to the railroad tracks, out north of the Green Swamp, east of Wilmington.

His daddy had been a section foreman for the Atlantic Coastline, maintaining the rails and water tower along a section of the mainline between Delco and Bolton. It may not look like much to those who speed by these days on the four-lane highway, US 74-76, but it’s a magical place. The land is as flat as a pancake and grows some of the most interesting plants on earth including the Venus flytrap. In some high sandy areas, higher by only inches, stately longleaf pines, and huge live oaks grow. In wetter areas, tupelo or black gum grow, often capped with mistletoe. And on the edge of swamps, often standing in water, are cypress, their sparse limbs dangled in Spanish moss. On cleared land in these parts, farmers raised tobacco and grew peanuts, along with strawberries and blueberries. 

This is black-water country, water darkened by the tannic acid produced by the tupelo and cypress. Often, in the evenings when the air cools, fog develops over the waters, making it even more mysterious.

“Charlie,” I asked, “have you seen the lights?” 

Just down the tracks from where Charlie grew up had been Maco Station. There, just a couple years after the Civil War, at a time the line was known as the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, a brakeman named Joe Baldwin rode in a caboose. His car decoupled from the rest of the train and started to slow down. When Joe realized what happened, he grabbed a lantern and ran out on the back deck of the car. There, he swung his lantern back and forth, a universal sign on the railroad for trains to stop. He knew the schedule. Another train followed them.

Joe hoped to signal the engineer in time. But in the foggy swampland, the engineer didn’t see the signal until it was too late. The engine collided into Joe’s caboose, destroying it. Joe died; his head severed from his body. As they cleaned up from the accident, they never found the head and Joe’s body was buried without it. Most just assumed the head had rolled down the embankment and into the black waters filled with cottonmouths and an occasional alligator.

Shortly after Joe’s death, people started reporting a strange light moving in the swamps near the Maco sidings. Some suggested it was Joe’s lantern swinging along the tracks. A legend developed that Old Joe still looked for his head. People often went to these parts to walk the tracks to see the lights, but the tracks were removed in the late 1970s and not long afterwards, the highway expanded, and the lights fades away. 

Charlie had seen the light, but he didn’t believe it to be Joe’s lantern.  If I remember correctly, he brought into one popular theory that the lights were caused by swamp gas.

photo of old railroad tracks
I don’t have any photos of the line near Charlie’s house. This is the Aberdeen, Carolina and Western Railroad in northern Moore County, North Carolina

Living by the railroad tracks, hearing that lonesome cry from the engine pierce through the night as freight rolled toward the port in Wilmington must have been sealed in Charlie’s memory. But that lonesome wail can also bring sadness, as Charlie shared with us.

A year into the Great Depression, when Charlie was still just a boy, finishing up grade school, the lonesome wail wasn’t heard as much. There was so little freight moving that the railroad laid off every other section foreman. Charlie’s dad lost his job. The next day, Charlie went with his dad into Wilmington to look for work. But there were none to be found. Coming back home, late in the day, discouraged, they noticed smoke over the distant pines. As they got closer, they realized their house was totally engulfed in flames. The family lost everything. 

Charlie’s life was forever changed. He went to live with family in Wilmington, where he worked hard and earned a little until the war came and he joined the Navy.

You’d think that after such hardships, Charlie would have been bitter. But there wasn’t a bitter bone in his body. He was one of the most joyous and positive individuals I’ve known. He wasn’t a bellyacher. Even when he had good reason to complain, he just shrugged it off. 

About a year before I left the bakery, I was called into the General Manager’s office. I wasn’t sure what was up. When I entered, Charlie was there, along with the general manager, plant manager, and the president, who owned the bakery with his brother. It was obvious, they had been talking for some time to Charlie. At this point, Charlie’s responsibility included sanitation, receiving, and building maintenance. I was a production supervisor.

In the past six months, we had several problems in sanitation and receiving. When I entered, they informed me changes were being made. They assigned me Charlie’s responsibilities. Thankfully, they kept Charlie employed. He would continue to handle building maintenance but even there would report to me. It seemed strange for Charlie was nearly three times my age. I felt sorry for him, but he never showed any bitterness toward me. 

Thinking about Charlie, I’m left to wonder why some people endure tragedy and disappointment and yet can still be joyful. He continued to maintain a positive attitude. In Charlie’s case, this partly had to do with his faith. Charlie knew he was loved by God. He found joy in creation, in life, in laughter, and in good friends.

My cousin met Charlie long after I had left the bakery “Charlie thought a lot of you,” Terry said. “He was always asking about you.” 

Two weeks before Easter, 2010, and a month before Terry and I talked, Charlie died at the age 91. Hearing of his death, it seemed as if a part of my past died with him. Charlie was the one person from my time at the bakery whom I would occasionally see. After he retired, Charlie found a home in the church in which I grew up. Whenever I visited my parents, I would attend church on Sunday. Afterwards, Charlie and I would talk about old times. 

Oh, how I wish I could talk to him again.

I haven’t yet been able to find any photos of Charlie. I wrote this in 2010, but edited and significantly expanded it for this post.

More Bakery Stories:

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

Baking Memories and a review of a book on “White Bread”

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Thyatira: Don’t Compromise Your Morals

Title slide showing the two rock churches where the sermon will be preached.

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
June 8, 2025
Revelation 2: 18-29

Today is Pentecost, the day we recall God sending the Holy Spirit to empower the disciples and early believers to establish the church. It’s important for us to remember this was God’s work. Yes, the disciples played a role, but the Spirit empowered them. I’ve said before, the book we know as “Acts of the Apostles,” really should be called, “The Acts of God Through the Apostles.” Without God’s help, we’d be lost. We can’t save ourselves nor our world. While we might make a small effort to make things better (and that’s our calling), any long-term change depends on the Almighty. 

Before we adopted our dog, Mia, there was Trisket. He was a good boy. An English Shepherd, he always stayed close, kind of like God’s Spirit. He’d run around but quickly came back to check on us. 

We got Trisket as a puppy. Caroline was a toddler. He lived well into his 17th year. Caroline named the dog for the cracker. He was about the same color. The dog had a weird taste in food. I don’t know if he ever ate a trisket, but he preferred banana pudding and fresh pineapple to steak. But that’s another story. 

Trisket had one bad habit, but one common with canines as I’ve recently heard a similar stories about one of your dogs. He loved to roll in something dead. The first time I remember experiencing this was when he was less than a year old. We were living in Utah. Thomas, Caroline, Trisket, and I hiked up a canyon in the winter. As a herding dog, Trisket stayed close, so we let him off leash and he ran around. Then he discovered some dead carcass and proceeded to roll in it. 

A few minutes later, he returned, all excited with his tail wagging and stinking to high heaven. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the nearly frozen creek. We both got wet. But I did my best to clean him up for the trip home. I wasn’t going to let him inside the car smelling like a dead rat. 

For some reason, far beyond my ability to understand, the dog found great pleasure out of this disgusting habit. He would come back to me, with a smile on his face and his tail wagging. But as soon as I looked up at him, his tail quickly dropped between his legs. He bowed his head, knowing he’d been caught doing something which brought him great happiness (in some perverse sense) while angering me. But he also knew he’d get a bath, which he enjoyed.   

There’s an old Appalachian folksong titled “Don’t You Hear Jerusalem Moan,” which makes fun of various preachers. One verse goes:  

      There’s a Presbyt’ian preacher, an’ he lives in town,
his neck’s so stiff he cain’t hardly look around. 

Another of the verses goes: 

Well, a Cambellite preacher, his soul is saved, he has to be baptized every other day.

That was my dog. Of all things, a Campbellite. He loved sinning and bathing. I suppose a lot of us are like that. We know we shouldn’t do something, but it’s just so much fun. Afterwards we feel guilty, and repent. Thankfully God still loves and forgives us. I’m also sure there have been times God has wanted to wring my neck just like I wanted to wring my dog’s neck. But God has been graceful, and so should we. 

After Trisket’s sins, I performed the closest thing to a canine baptism. A bath. And once Trisket dried and his hair fluffed back out, he acted as if he was the most beautiful animal on earth. And he was. 

Before reading the Scripture:

We’ve off to another stop on our trip through the seven churches of Revelation—the city of Thyatira. Y’all know I lived in Michigan for a decade and there learned how to use my hand as a map. You can do the same thing for the country of Turkey, where these churches are located. 

Take out your hand, tuck in your thumb, and hold your hand sideways and let’s plot these churches. We started our journey at Ephesus, a city on the coast that’s located at the tip of your ring finger. Then we moved up to the city of Smyrna, some forty miles north, found on the upside of your big finger. Last week, we traveled further up the coast, then inland a bit to the city of Pergamum. This week, we’re continuing to move inland, to about where your knuckle of your big figure is at to the city of Thyatira.   

This is a city out in the hinterlands. It was established to be a military outpost—to be a buffer to protect the more important cities near the coast safe. But unlike Pergamum, which was located on a hill, there were no natural fortifications. They had to rely on soldiers and the citizen-soldiers for protection. Various emperors over the centuries populated Thyatira with craftsman, who could be free to drop their crafts and pick up a sword. As such, Thyatira was a blue collar, working class, city. One commentator said: “the longest and most difficult of the seven letters is addressed to the least known, least important and least remarkable of the cities.[1]

Although the city might have been unremarkable in the ancient world, we know of at least two women from there. One’s infamous; we’ll read about her in just a second. Lydia, the other woman, is more noteworthy. She’s Paul’s first convert on European soil, in the city of Philippi, Lydia hailed from Thyatira and sold in purple cloth.[2] Think of her as a sales representative for the tradesmen back home.  

Read Revelation 2:18-29

Let’s explore this message from Jesus.

We start with a unique vision of Jesus. Piercing eyes and bronze shoes, this is the only place in Revelation where we find Jesus with the title, Son of God. 

These opening descriptions of Jesus align with a situation within the community. Here, Jesus stands in contrast to the local worship of Apollo, the sun god, and his earthly son, Caesar. Coins from this community show Apollo shaking Caesar’s hand. The letter reassures the Christian community of God’s true son. Jesus’ eyes flame brighter than Apollo’s.[3]

The piercing eyes also indicate the omnipotence or all-knowing characteristic of God. The bronze feet represent the steadfastness of our Lord. God sees their good deeds and their bad. As they’re called to stand faithfully with God, God will also stand by them. 

Next, Jesus provides praise. Thyatira receives a good pat on the back. They’re loving and faithful and full of service and persevere when things get tough. Not only are they doing well, they also are growing in their faith. They do more work and grow in their excitement for the gospel. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ephesians, who started out loving and caring and ended up so legally bound they can’t love. 

Although praised, there is a problem in Thyatira, a woman identified as Jezebel. I’m sure that’s not her real name. After the first Jezebel, who would name their daughter that? But those reading the letter knew the woman. In scripture, the first Jezebel, the foreign wife of King Ahab, came to Jerusalem and tried to convert the holy city to her faith. But thankfully, Jezebel had a problem, a prophet named Elijah. He and the queen and her priests duked it out.[4]

The Jezebel in Thyatira appears to be a lot like her namesake. She tries to seduce the faithful to worship and live in a manner unbecoming for Christians. She encourages them, we’re told, to engage in illicit sex and to eat the food of idols. 

Thyatira had a lot of craft guilds with links to pagan temples. Those involved in such crafts were expected to pay homage to pagan idols and practices which included eating banquets in the temple. Perhaps, it was expected they have sex with temple prostitutes. This created problems for Christian members of craft guilds.[5]

Some Christians, thinking it didn’t hurt, compromised what shouldn’t have been compromised. 

It appears Jezebel encouraged this type of accommodation. We can try to understand their reasoning. If guild members failed to patronize the temple of the gods of their trade, they could lose their union card. In other words, they risked being kicked of the guild. But still, there is a limit to what we as Christians should do to accommodate to culture. It appears some in the city, at Jezebel’s encouragement, crossed the line. 

In the late 1990s, Jim Carrey played the role of Fletcher Reed in the comedy, “Liar, Liar.” Fletcher, a high-powered attorney, loves his son Max, but the demand of his profession causes him to miss events and break promises. At Max’s 5th birthday party, he wishes his dad could go 24 hours without telling a lie. Surprisingly, the wish comes true. 

The inability to tell a lie creates all kinds of problems and humorous situations. With a trial scheduled that day, Fletcher asks his son to remove the wish. “Max,” he says, “no one can survive the adult world if they have to tell the truth.” Even that line is a lie, but it’s one we often believe when we play loose with what’s right and wrong.

A similar thing may have been happening in Thyatira. Imagine a sales manager telling his Christian sales staff to entertain clients at the temple. After all, throwing out cliches, “when in Rome do as the Romans,” or “what happens at the temple, stays at the temple.

But Jesus, with those piercing eyes, knows what’s up. He tells them to clean up their act. And if they don’t, he warns them of a coming judgment. But if they stay the course and focus on Jesus and his teachings, he promises they’ll have authority. Remember what I said about this little hick town on the frontier. Economically, Thyatira is probably the least of the seven cities, but as we often see in the gospels, the last will be first.[6] They just must hold firm to what they’ve been taught, and they’ll go from insignificant to having authority.

It’s the same with us. Where do we make compromises with the gospel to get by a little easier in life. I hope none of you are out participating in a pagan orgy, but there are other ways we compromise our ethics and morality. When you come down to it, getting ahead, being popular, and an enjoying an easy life doesn’t count for much. When the roll is called up yonder, the only question asked of importance, is this: Have we been faithful to our Lord. Amen. 

This sermon was adapted from one I preached in 2007 at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, Michigan.

[1] Quote from C. J. Hemer, as quoted by Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT, revised (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1997), 84.  I’ve depended on Mounce for most of my information about Thyatira.  

[2] Acts 16:11-15.

[3] See G. B. Caird, The Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York; Harper & Row, 196), 43; and Mounce, 85. 

[4] See I Kings 16:31ff. 

[5] Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993), 37.

[6] Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31; Luke 13:30. 

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Reviews of books completed in May 2025

cover of books I competed during May 2025

While I only completed two books in May (compared to five in April), I am posting three reviews. I finally set out to complete Taylor Branch’s trilogy about the Civil Rights movement in America. I have one more volume to go!

Jim Shea, Get Up and Ride: A Humorous True Story of Two Friends Cycling the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal 

Cover photo of "Get Up and Ride"

(2020), 189 pages with some maps and photos. 

Somehow Facebook knows my brother and I are planning to peddle from Pittsburgh to Washington, D. C. in late May. I learned of this book in which two brothers-in-law did the same trip in 2010 from a Facebook advertisement.

Two brothers-in-law. One teaches and has his summers off. The other finds himself between jobs. They decided to do the trip they’d been talking about for a few years. This book is easy to read and humorous, although much of the humor reminded me of listening in at a restaurant to conversation of a family unknown to me. This is not Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods or the writings of J. Marteen Troost traveling in the South Seas. But I did laugh and their stories helped me envision my own planned trips. I just hope the weather is as good for us as it was for them. (It wasn’t as I showed in my blog: Part 1 and Part 2).  I can handle one day of rain, but it would be a bummer to have a week of rain! 

Most of the humor of the book come from the experiences of Jim and Marty before they set off to peddle to Washington. We learn about how they often vacation together (after all, their wives are sisters). While one is from Pittsburgh (and still lives in the Steel City), the other is from just outside Washington but now (or at the time of their trip), also lives in the Pittsburgh area. One is an avid bicyclist, and the other is kind of along for the ride. While there are a few humorous things which happened during their ride, most of the laughs come from how they relate within the two families. 

The author of the book speaks of not reading much as if that means he won’t sound like a Hemingway or Steinbeck. At least he can make light of himself, but I would suggest that he read more and learn about how humor works. Bill Bryson’s short adventures on the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in the Woods,  which he turned into an international best seller might be a good place to start. 

Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65

 (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1998), 746 pages including index, notes, and one set of black and white photographs.

This is the second volume of Taylor Branch’s massive undertaking of chronicling the Civil Rights Movement during the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike the first volume (review below), this is less of a biography of King than recapping what happened in these three pivotal years to the Civil Rights movement. This included the Burmingham Church Bombings, the death of voter registration workers in Mississippi, and significant Civil Rights work in Mississippi, St. Augustine (Florida), and Selma Alabama. In the background there is the death of John Kennedy and America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam. 

In a way, reading this book is like reading the newspapers for three years. At times, it seems Branch jumps around, but the movement was in such flux with events happening in multiple places at the same time.

The book also takes us inside both political parties in 1964, as they struggled with what to do with the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic candidate, Lyndon Johnson, had just passed the 1964 Civil Rights act, shifting African Americans further away from the party of Lincoln, who’d freed the slaves. Furthermore, the Republican candidate Goldwater tried to avoid discussion on Civil Rights, there were those within the party who used the movement to steal away Democrats who were unhappy with their party’s move toward supporting the movement. This was the campaign in which Strom Thurmond would become a Republican and Jackie Robinson would condemn his Republican party as being the party of “white men only.” Robinson would later leave the GOP. 

Much is made of the FBI’s role with both King and other Civil Rights leaders. They helped solve the murders of Civil Rights leaders, but they also kept close eyes on the leaders of the movement, watching for communist connections. Through wiretaps, they learned of King’s infidelities an even used this to encourage King to commit suicide. They attempted to thwart King’s reception of the Noble Peace Prize, which he later received. They also called in Cardinal Spellman to give him the dirt on King to block a papal visit. While Spellman supposedly took the information to Rome, the meeting papal meeting still occurred partly due to the intervention of Rabbi Abraham Heschel. Like the first book in the series, King isn’t seen as totally a saint or sinner, but a man who struggled with depression and his own humanity.

Branch spends considerable time providing a background on the Nation of Islam and the conflict between its founder, Elijah Muhammad and Malcom X. The Nation of Islam created a vision of separation of the races and violence toward their enemies, which contrasted to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference vision of a beloved community. The book begins with a deadly police encounter after a Nation of Islam meeting in South Central Los Angeles in 1962. Toward the end of the book, the Nation kills Malcom X after he left the Nation for a purer form of Islam. His view of religion had become less racially focused, and he softened his stance toward King’s nonviolent resistance. 

This book also shows the tension within churches over supporting Civil Rights. Not all African American churches supported the Civil Rights movement, with some seeing it too dangerous. After all, there were many firebombed churches in the American South during the early 1960s. Northern Episcopal bishops struggled with what to say as they didn’t want to be seen as challenging their southern colleagues. This led to the wives of some bishops taking up the clause. One of the interesting stories was the wife of a Massachusetts bishop and mother of the state’s governor, Mary Peabody, who was arrested and jailed for protesting in St. Augustine. 

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand the Civil Rights movement in America. I don’t plan to wait another 19 years before I read Branch’s third volume. The final volume holds interest in me as I remember some of the events which happened. 

This review is from 2006, after reading the first book in Branch’s series: 

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63

Parting the Waters:: America in the King Years, 1954-1963, Taylor Branch

 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 1064 pages including index, notes, and two sets of black and white photographs. 


This book is an enormous undertaking, for both the author and the reader. The author provides the reader a biography of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s work through 1963, a view into the early years of the Civil Rights movement, as well as showing how the movement was affected by national and international events. This is the first of three massive volumes by Taylor Branch that spans the years of King’s ministry, from his ordination in 1954 to his death in 1968.

This volume also provides some detail about King’s family history and his earlier life through graduate school at Boston University. I decided to read this book after hearing Branch speak in Birmingham AL in June. It’s like reading a Russian novel with a multitude of characters and over 900 pages of text. However, it was worth the effort as I got an inside look as to what was going on in the world during the first six years of my life.

Branch does not bestow sainthood, nor does he throw stones. The greatness of Martin Luther King comes through as well as his shortcomings. He demonstrates King’s brilliance in the Montgomery Bus Campaign as well as in Birmingham. He also shows the times King struggled: his battles within his denomination, the National Baptist; King’s struggles with the NAACP; as well as his infidelities.

The FBI also had mixed review. Agents stood up to Southern law enforcement officers, insisting that the rights of African Americans be protected. They often warned Civil Rights leaders of threats and dangers they faced. However, once King refused to heed the FBI’s warnings that two of his associates were communists, the agency at Hoover’s insistence, set out to break King. Hoover’s inflexible can be seen as he reprimanded an agent for suggesting that King’s associates are not communists.

The Kennedy’s (John and Robert) also have mixed reviews. John Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech (and on the night that Medgar Evers would be killed in Mississippi) is brilliant. Kennedy drew upon Biblical themes, labeling Civil Rights struggle a moral issue “as old as the Scriptures.” Yet the Kennedy brothers appear to base most of their decisions based on political reasons and not moral ones. This allows King to sometimes push Kennedy at his weakness, hinting that he has or can get the support of Nelson Rockefeller (a Republican).

Although we think today of the Democrat Party being the party of African Americans, this wasn’t necessarily the case in the 50s and early 60s. Many black leaders, especially within the National Baptist Convention leadership, identified themselves as Republicans, with Lincoln’s party.



Many of the black entertainers played in the movement. King was regularly in contact with Harry Belafonte, but also gains connections to Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin and others. The author also goes to great lengths to put the Civil Rights movement into context based on the Cold War politics. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy found themselves in embarrassing positions as they spoke out for democracy overseas while blacks within the United States were being denied rights.



The book ends in 1963, a watershed year for Civil Rights. King leads the massive and peaceful March on Washington. Medgar Evans and John Kennedy are both assassinated. And before the year is out, King has an hour-long chat with the President, Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner, who would see to it that the Voting Rights Acts become law. 



As a white boy from the South, this book was eye opening. I found myself laughing that the same people who today bemoan the lack of prayer in the public sphere were arresting blacks for praying on the courthouse steps. The treatment of peaceful protesters was often horrible. There were obvious constitutional violations such as Wallace and the Alabama legislature raising the minimum bail for minor crimes in Birmingham 10-fold (to $2500) to punish those marching for Civil Rights.

I was also pleasantly surprised at behind-the-scenes connections between King and Billy Graham. Graham’s staff even provided logistical suggestions for King. King’s commitment to non-violence and his dependence upon the methods of Gandhi are evident. Finally, I found myself wondering if the segregationists like Bull O’Conner of Birmingham shouldn’t be partly responsible for the rise in crime among African American youth. They relished throwing those fighting for basic rights into jail, breaking a fear and taboo of jail. The taboo of being in jail has long kept youth from getting into trouble and was something the movement had to overcome to get mass arrest to challenge the system. In doing so, jail no longer was an experience to be ashamed off and with Pandora’s Box open, jail was no longer a determent to other criminal behavior. 

I recommend this book if you have a commitment to digging deep into the Civil Rights movement. Branch is a wonderful researcher, and his use of FBI tapes and other sources give us a behind the scenes look at both what was happening within the Civil Rights movement as well as at the White House. However, there are so many details. For those wanting just an overview of the Civil Rights movement, this book may be a bit much. As for me, I’m looking forward to digging into the other two books of this trilogy: A Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 and At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68.

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Pergamum: Theology Matters

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
June 1, 2025
Revelation 2:12-17

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, May 30, 2025.

At the beginning of worship: 

In the late 1990s, I was a pastor in Utah. Dave who pastored the church in Sandy, Utah served as a commissioner to the General Assembly. In a heat of debate, Dave stood up and made a bold statement. Identifying the culture in which we ministered, he proclaimed, “Theology matters.” It became a rallying cry for a few years within the denomination. Occasionally, I still hear someone cite it.[1] Theology does matter. Not as much as love as we saw with our visit to Ephesus, but our ability to articulate our faith is important as we’ll see this morning.

Before reading Scripture: 

We’re going to move inland a bit in our journey through the ancient world of Asia Minor this morning as we work through the opening chapters of Revelation. As you remember, we started out in Ephesus, a glorious city along the coast with a quarter million residents. The Ephesian church hated false doctrine, but in their hate, they lost their love. Next, last week, we moved up the coast to the city of Smyrna. A longtime ally of Rome, Smyrna worshipped Caesar. A rich city with poor Christians. Yet, they remained faithful.

Today we move to Pergamum. From Smyrna, the road follows the coastline northwestwardly for about forty miles, and then you take a turn inland. There, about ten miles from the Aegean Sea, on a cone shaped hill, is the magnificent city of Pergamum. One ancient writer considered this to be the “most distinguished city in Asia.”[2] Let’s hear what Christ says to them. 

Read Revelation 2:12-17

Pergamum, like Smyrna, was a center of emperor worship. As we saw last week, Smyrna built the first temple to a Roman god. Pergamum had the distinction to build the first to an emperor. In the year 29, they received permission to erect a temple to Augustus. Caesar Augustus, as Luke’s gospel reminds us, ruled the Empire when Jesus was born.[3]

Pergamum also contains Satan’s throne. Possibility, this refers metaphorically to Caesar’s temple. Or, the fact pagan shrines covered the city 

Residents of the city were expected to go to Caesar’s temple and proclaim Caesar as Lord. Now to the Romans and to Caesar, this didn’t preclude the worship of other gods. After all, after paying homage to Caesar, they could also worship Zeus just down the street. Religious pluralism was the name of the game. You just had to first be willing to pledge your allegiance to Caesar.  

The city had a temple for Zeus, that offered sacrificed animals 24/7. The smoke from these offerings could be continually seen curling up to sky, reminding you of the importance of Zeus in the ancient world.[4] It also had temples for Asclepius, the god of healing. His symbol was a snake, like that on the symbol for medical doctors.[5]

All these temples created a problem for Christians who proclaimed Jesus to be Lord. As John reminds us, “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[6] And mostly, it sounds as if those in Pergamum insisted on worshipping only God as revealed in Jesus Christ. One of their members we learn became an early martyr. Antipas, the only martyr mentioned by name in Revelation, died here.[7] For their faithfulness, those living in Pergamum are commended. But Jesus does have a bone to pick with them.

Although the congregation refused to show allegiance to other gods, they have tolerated heretical teachings. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ephesians. We’re told that they listen to the teaching of Balaam and Nicolaitans. We must go back to the book of Numbers, in the Old Testament, to learn what Balaam was up to. He was a foreign seer, who practiced what we’d call witchcraft. The king of Moab hired him to curse the Hebrew nation. God turned the tables on Balaam, and he blesses Israel. Later, however, Jewish theologians came to see Balaam as the father of religious syncretism, or the blending of religions.[8]

In the Old Testament, not being faithful to God was metaphorically referred to as adultery. The analogy makes sense. One compromises one’s heart by adopting the practice or the worship of another faith. While it appears the church in Pergamum had been faithful, there were those in the church proposing they compromise their beliefs a bit. “Let’s burn a little incense for Caesar,” they may have suggested. “Then we’ll all get along better.” Jesus will have none of this. If they don’t repent, he’s going to be the one who fights against them.

But if they do repent, Jesus has a wonderful promise. He’ll give them the “hidden manna,” and a “white stone.” There are questions about what this means.  One plausible interpretation, that ties the stone and manna together to the heavenly banquet, is that the stone was like similar engraved stones used by the Romans as a token admission to a banquet. Similar stones may have also be presented to the poor so they might trade the stone for food.[9] This is kind of like a coupon some cities have that allow the homeless to buy food. 

If the Christians in Pergamum repent, Jesus offers to invite them to the heavenly banquet. That’s a promise! So keep your eyes on Jesus.

Now, I don’t lay awake at night and worry about you all going off and worshipping Caesar or Zeus or any pagan deity. However, even today the world tugs at us to change what we hold true so that it will be more palatable to the larger world. And in a way, we’re all guilty. Just as we’re probably all guilty of coming down harder on the sins we’re less likely to commit and ignoring those sins with which we struggle.

After all, how many sermons do you hear on the dangers of materialism in America, which is one of our great idols?  From this passage, we learn that what we believe is important. It has consequences. Believing the wrong things may lead us down the wrong path. Wrong beliefs we’ll cause us to create false illusions about what is right and good and noble. Believing in the wrong things causes us to do things which go counter to the gospel. 

This is a hard message for a society like ours which values pluralism and with some who may suggest there’s no bad ideas. That’s a myth; there are plenty of bad ideas.[10] Think about how ideas of a superior race have led to all kinds of atrocities. It supported our ancestors’ dealings with native populations, to slavery, to the Nazi holocaust, to attacks on Israel and genocide-like policies in Gaza, to Russian continual attacks on the civilians in Ukraine and so forth. Bad ideas abound. The church must stand firm in our truth, Jesus Christ, and resist temptations to compromise our beliefs just so that it is less offensive to parts of the world.  

The late Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that “tolerance is for people, not for ideas.”[11] We’re to love and to be gracious to all people, even those with who we disagree, but we must hold firm to the principles of our faith. This is why tradition is not only important in the church, but also necessary. For we aren’t the first generation of Christians called to be relevant to the larger world. Without tradition, without theological grounding, we’re liable to be blown about, and in our attempts to be relevant, we become irrelevant.[12] Don’t get me wrong. Tradition should not hold us back. It should, “bear fruit” as it builds on the “achievements of the past.”[13]

The bottom line of what we learn from this passage is that theology matters. What we believe is important for it helps shape how we respond to the world around us. Amen.  

This sermon was modified from one I preached at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings in 2007.

[1] This phrase was used by David Gilbert, a pastor in Sandy, Utah who recently retired from Tazwell, Virginia.  

[2] Quote and description of Pergamum from Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 78-79. Pliny was the one who considered Pergamum to be most distinguished.

[3] Luke 2:1.

[4] Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 34.

[5] Metzger, 34-35. 

[6] John 14:6

[7] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 2217, footnote for Revelation 2:14.  While Revelation speaks of many martyrs, Antipas is the only one mentioned by name. 

[8] Numbers 22-25, for an explanation see G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 38-41.

[9] Mounce, 82-3.

[10] I am indebted here to Craig Barnes 2004 installation address as the Robert Meneilly Professor of Leadership and Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.  

[11] As quoted in a sermon on January 21, 2007 by Dr. Vic Pentz, Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA.

[12] See Ephesians 4:14.

[13] The quote, given to me by Don Drummond. Source: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller, Aging to Saging, who quoted from Robert Augros and George Stanciu, The New Story of Science.

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Pittsburgh to Washington DC, Part 2

Title slide with a photo of the author and his brother

For Part 1, click here.

My brother becomes a hero 

Lock and lock house
Lock and a lock house. Some of the lock houses can be rented for those traveling on the C&O.

A couple of miles from the Paw Paw tunnel, we came around a bend and noticed bicycles thrown on the ground and several people kneeling over one of them. I peddled faster, thinking someone was hurt.  When we pulled up, we saw Max and three women cyclists. No one was hurt, but one of the bikes had been taken apart. She’d had a flat. Max, seeing the stuff on the ground from the bike, said he threw up his hands and said, “there’s some engineers just behind me who can help.”  At dinner the evening before, Max and Warren discussed various metals used in bicycles. From the discussion he learned my brother was a mechanical engineer. For some reason, he thought I was one, too. The women greeted us like saviors. When I shook my head at not being an engineer and pointed to my brother, they dropped interest in me and lauded praise on his arrival. 

Warren to the rescue

We spent the next 30 minutes trying to get the bike back together. They had removed the entire back sockets and de-railer. While Warren and the woman with the broken bike worked finding what goes where, Max and I talked to the other women. They were all serious cyclists. When asked what they do when there’s a problem, they pointed to the woman whose bike was torn apart. “We call her husband. He’s a serious racer and knows everything about bikes and can walk us through what needs to happen.” Sadly, for them, we were in an area without cell service. 

Once the bike was back together, we had the owner get on it and ride it a ways, making sure everything worked. It did. We ran into them again, late in the afternoon at the bicycle shop in Hancock. This was after 30 some miles of riding. One of the employees went through the bike and confirmed everything was back as it should be. The only issue was the tire pressure was a little low, but that’s to be expected with those emergency pumps which go on bicycles. 

As they rode away, my brother joked about telling his wife how he had satisfied three women this morning. 

Saturday, Cumberland to Hancock  (61 miles of which we rode roughly 40)

Potomac River
Potomac RiPonver, having fallen but still well out of its banks

This was to be the big day, 61 miles. The only problem was knowing there was a section of trail washed away in the floods about ten miles away. The National Park Service said there was no acceptable detour. We also learned from the bike shop that the road around this section was narrow, curvy, and unsafe to ride because of tractor trailers. So that morning, we arranged a shuttle for us and for Max, whom we’d talked to at breakfast. We had them drop us off at Paw Paw, cutting out about 25 miles of trail and the section that had been washed out.  

Paw Paw Tunnel

Paw Paw Tunnel walkway
Paw Paw Tunnel (My bike is pointing the wrong way)

The highlight of the day was the Paw Paw tunnel, an engineering marvel for the early 19th Century. We entered the tunnel just a mile or two from where the shuttle dropped us off. Bricks lined the walls of the tunnel. Bicycles (and mules in the day) travel on a wooden walkway that was so unleveled and bumpy we quickly heeded the warning to walk and not ride our bikes. Besides, the railing was only three foot tall, making it easy to tumble over if your bike fell. I attached the light to my handlebars and began the dark cool journey through the 3118-foot tunnel. 

Author's brother pulling his bike over a tree
Warren pulling his bike over a tree

Little Orleans

Bill's Place

The trail appeared better than we expected. While there were places with mud and many trees had fallen, requiring us to dismount and lift our bikes over them, it wasn’t as bad as some of the other places we’d heard of. We ate lunch at the Devil’s Alley Campground. When we came to Little Orleans, we left the trail and headed to Billy’s Place for ice cream. The place was a bar that served food. They advertised in large letters, “Beer, Boats, Bait.” In smaller letters the sign mentioned food, groceries, and shuttles. While we’d just had lunch, the burgers they’d fixed for a man and his wife we met outside of the establishment were enticing. 

It didn’t take long this day before my left foot became sore. Over the past couple of days, the soreness would manifest itself late in the afternoon. The evening before I realized the area around the Achilles tendon had swelled. This slowed my pace and made me want to take more frequent stops, sometimes even walking my bicycle. 

Western Maryland RR bike trail
Western Maryland Railroad bike trail.

The Western Maryland Trail begins at Little Orleans. While this path parallels the C&O canal, it’s high above the river and is paved. This old rail bed, which we’d ridden on from Connellsville on the GAP, was a welcome relief to the mud of the C&O. It was nice to bel able to ride on pavement, even though we still had trees to pull over. We rode it all the way to Hancock, except for one detour for about a mile onto the C&O as there is a tunnel that hasn’t yet opened. About three miles outside of Hancock, we came upon a group of trail workers from the Maryland Parks clearing trees which had fallen during the recent storms. 

Arriving back in Hancock

We arrived at Hancock at 5 PM, riding to the Presbyterian Church where I had left my car on Tuesday. We loaded our bikes and drove to Motel 8, where I had made reservations. On Monday night, I had stayed at the Potomac River Hotel, which looked like a bedbug haven. While it seemed to be free of bugs, the hotel had the ambiance of the 1940s. About half the lights were missing bulbs and the bathroom was small and the tub dirty. After discussing it, we decided to try the only other hotel in town. At least the bathroom was clean and larger, but the floors between the bed were soft and I wondered if one of us would fall through. 

After cleaning up, we met Max at the Potomac River Grill, across from the hotel of the same name. The food was excellent, and the place crowed. It appears to be owned by the same folks at the hotel. At least they’re doing something right. I had a wonderful burger with a salad and a Stella beer. 

After we got back to the hotel, Warren called his daughter, a physical therapist. She had me do a few moves and said she didn’t think my tendon was torn, but thought my tendon and muscles were angry and I may be suffering from Achilles tendinitis. She also recommended taking it easy, icing my ankle after walking or biking, taking ibuprofen for the swelling, and stretching in the morning. While riding, she suggested that while riding not to use toe-caps and to move my foot forward on the peddle so that I weight would be more on the arch of the foot.

Sunday morning, May 18

curvy lines on a straight road
Not an illusion

As Super 8s don’t provide breakfast, we drove to the IHOP on the east side of town, near the interstate. Coming back, I noticed some of the most creative line painting on a highway I’ve ever seen. Obviously, the Maryland line painters believe in drinking on the job! 

Then we worshipped with the good people at Hancock Presbyterian Church. I met Pastor Terry on Tuesday, when I left my car in the church’s parking lot. The 1845 sanctuary reminded me of the church where I was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, the United Church of Ellicottville in New York. Both brick sanctuaries featured high ceilings and a square design with cathedral style windows. While the United Church (formerly First Presbyterian) served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, the Hancock Church suffered damage during the Civil War when Stonewall Jackson’s men shelled the town. 

This morning the service honored the church’s graduates and featured a musical trio (soloist, keyboard, and bass) from Fredrick called “Solid Ground.” They lead the congregation in singing and sang several songs themselves. Afterwards, the congregation had a wonderful potluck lunch which they do once a month. If you’re ever in Hancock on the potluck Sunday, don’t miss it! 

Fort Frederick

Inside Fort Frederick
Ft. Frederick

Taking my niece’s advice, I decided not to ride on Sunday, which had been scheduled for our shortest day on the C&O, only 27 miles. Instead, I drove to Fort Frederick. The British governor had the rock-walled fort built during the French and Indian Wars to protect the frontier. In the American Revolutionary War, the fort housed British POWs. It never experienced the tragedy of a battle. Overtime, much of the fort had fell into disrepair, but the CCCs rebuilt it in the 1930s. Today, it’s a Maryland State Park. I toured the fort and reconnected with Warren as the C&O passes by the site of the fort. Then I moved on to Williamsport waterfront, where I waited to pick up Warren later in the afternoon. Williamsport features an aqueduct, where the canal (and its water) crossed a local creek, which was amazing to see. 

Williamsport’s Acqueduct

That night, we stayed at a Hampton Inn in Hagerstown. For dinner, I had a pecan chicken salad and sausage chili at Bob Evans, which was across the street from the hotel.

Monday, May 19.  A free day of touring the area

The First Washington Monument
First Washington Monument

We had planned a day off, since I had a car in the area and was wanting to see the Antietam battlefield. Leaving early, we first drove to the nation’s first Washington Monument along South Mountain. This monument was built in 1827 by the people of Boonsboro, Maryland. In 1862, the people living in the valley used the site to watch the battle of South Mountain and Antietam. I first visited the monument in 1987, while hiking the Appalachian Trail. In our few minutes at the site, I met several section hikers on the trail. 

fish tacos
Fish tacos

After the Washington Monument, we headed to Point of the Rocks, to look at the C&O trail. We had seen Facebook posts of riders who became bogged in mud between Brunswick and Point of the Rocks and, talking with a bike shop owner, learned several had busted their de-railers by trying to ride through the muck.  Then we drove along roads which parallel the trail, across from Harper’s Ferry and then across the Potomac to Shepherdstown, the oldest community in West Virginia. We had lunch in this quaint town at Marie’s Taqueria, where I had three delicious fish tacos. 

Antietam

Sunken Road at Antietam
Sunken road, sight of fierce fighting, taken from observation tower

After lunch, we headed to the Antietam battlefield, first stopping at the visitor’s center to watch a movie introducing us to the battle and exploring the museum. September 17, 1862 is the bloodiest day in American history. While more died at Gettysburg, that battle lasted three full days. Lee had assembled his troops between the town of Sharpsburg (some still refer to the battle as Sharpsburg) and Antietam Creek.  Fighting began that early that morning in a cornfield north of town. It continued in several different locations over the next twelve hours, before coming to an end. Strategically, the north won the battle. They forced the South to retreat into Virginia. But the price was heavy on both armies. The significantly larger northern army lost more soldiers than the south.  Dinner for the evening was picked up at a grocery store that had a hot food and a large salad bar. 

Tuesday, May 20 (36 miles)

down trees across path

With the reports of muddy and nearly impossible sections of the trail, we decided a new plan. We would start where we planned in Williamsport and ride as far east as possible before the mud became too deep.  Leaving Williamsport, we peddled east. The two days’ rest made my ankle and Achilles feel better. I also stopped wearing my toe clips and moved my foot further up on my pedals.  I wouldn’t have problems with my ankle until later in the afternoon. 

As I was leaving Williamsport, I came up on a man walking his dog. “On your left,” I yelled, to warn him of my passing. He jumped, looked around at me, and started cussing me out. Here, I had tried to be polite and not scare him and instead, I both scared and upset him. 

Lock, lock house, and train
Competing modes of transportation: Lock, lock houses and train

At first, our only challenge was stopping every little bit to pull our bikes over trees. This area is filled with history as we passed where Lee and his army were held up by a flooded Potomac as they retreated from Gettysburg, a year after Antietam. After about 7 miles, the path started to become muddier. After another half mile, we decided to turn around and head back to my car. On our way, just after we passed a huge down tree, in which we’d each be on a different side of the tree and hand bikes over, we met a park service crew cutting fallen trees.  The last half of the ride back to my car was much easier.

Afternoon ride

Then we headed to Brunswick. We had hoped to peddle here today, but knowing there were sections of the trail out, we set out and road east to Point of the Rocks, stopping for lunch on the trail about halfway to our destination. Our thoughts were that this would give us only 48 miles to Washington on Wednesday. I appreciated seeing this site in the afternoon. The day before, still early in the morning, had the sun behind the unique train station. 

Point of Rocks

Point of Rocks station

The original Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) tracks tracks ended at Point of Rocks, Maryland . Here, the railroad and the canal locked in legal wrangling over right away. It was eventually settled, with the railroad building a tunnel, which allowed them to move the lines westward. The railroad also began building a line eastward, to serve Washington DC. In the 1870s, where the two tracks converged, forming a wye, they built a station. Today, the station closed and owned and used by railroad. The Maryland commuter rail that runs into DC boards just west of the old station. 

I waited to catch a photo of the station with a train that was slowly approaching. The train was going slow and I could have easily jumped aboard as a hobo, but then I noticed that this unit train on open containers marked with the symbol of Republic Trash Service. Dirty water poured from the containers and a rotten smell filled the air. The stench encouraged me not to take up hoboing.

Harpers Ferry

Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry

After riding back to Brunswick, we continued west on the trail to Harpers Ferry. This also washed out but was temporarily patched with gravel. In 1987, the afternoon before visiting the Washington Monument, I had hiked along part of this section who also serves as the Appalachian Trail. Across from Harper’s Ferry, we locked our bikes up and walked across a pedestrian bridge. My Achilles ached and I mostly hobbled along. We explored a little of the Lower part of Harpers Ferry.  Then we rode back to my car, loaded up our bikes and headed to our hotel, where I could ice my ankle. With only two hotel options in Brunswick and no B&B available, Warren had booked us in the closest hotel to the trail, a Travelodge, 1.7 miles away from the C&O.  To reach this hotel on bicycles required a hard climb (as did the other hotel which was further away). 

Hotel in Brunswick

We feared the hotel might be a repeat of the Super 8 night, but it was quite nice. It seemed odd to have a hotel like this off a major road or interstate, but we quickly surmised the hotel primarily customer to be the railroad. They even had a lounge only for CSX employees and featured a 1950s style dinner that was open 24 hours a day. A local taxi company shuttled train crews back and forth to the railroad.

A great ending dinner

Chicken and lamb shawarma

That evening, we decided to forgo the diner and try the Potomac Street Grill near the railroad tracks. They advertised both American and Middle Eastern dishes. It was a good decision. I had a delicious combo shawarma platter, with both chicken and lamb, a wonderful mediterranean salad, and a local beer for $24. 

Wednesday, May 21, 2025           zero miles on bike/350 in the car

The night before, we watched the news and weather channels for what the next day would bring. Everyone was saying 100% chance of rain, with rains heavy in the morning and again later in the afternoon. It poured as we walked over to the diner for breakfast. We decided to quit. Having already had gaps in our travels along the C&O, we could come back and do the C&O again. Besides, my Achilles hurt. 

Our plan had been to ride into DC, stay with my brother’s sister and brother-in-law, then the next day, Warren would bring me back to my car and we’d head home. Now, we’d both be home a day early. 

Great Falls
Great Falls on the Potomac, just outside Washington DC

We left Brunswick at nine, in the pouring rain, hoping to miss the worse of the traffic.  As we approached DC, the rain slowed to a drizzle. We stopped at Great Falls to witness the power of the Potomac at high water levels. Amazing rapids! A few minutes after leaving the rapids, we arrived at Hitch’s home, where we transferred my brother’s bike to his car. A few minutes later, we took off on our separate paths. For me, it rained most of the way home. 

Ankle Update

I was checked out on Tuesday. While I didn’t tear any tendons, I have angered a few. The recommendation is that I not do any bike riding or long walks for a few weeks while it heals. In addition, I will do a few weeks of physical therapy to strengthen the muscles in my ankles.

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Smyrna: Poor, Yet Rich

title slide with photo of the two churches where the sermon is to be preached.

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
May 25, 2025
Revelation 2:8-11

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Friday, May 22, 2025

At the beginning of worship: 

Wouldn’t it be great to receive a letter from Jesus? Imagine pulling the envelop out of the mailbox, your hands shaking as you tear open the flap and take out the letter. Does the letter contain good news? Has Jesus heard our prayers? Or maybe the news isn’t so good; maybe he knows some of the darkness that lurks in our hearts… 

From a human perspective, there can be a good and a bad side to an all-knowing God. It’s nice to have a God that knows what we need; it’s a little frightening to have a God that knows what we’re up to.  

Of course, in the first century, a letter wouldn’t have been arriving in our mailbox, or as an email. Instead, a messenger would have brought a scroll containing the message. Word would have spread fast throughout the Christian community, and everyone would have gathered in anticipation, wanting to know what Jesus had to say to them. The messenger would read the letter to the assembled crowd. No one would have thought of taking this letter out to a private secluded spot and contemplating what was said.[1] The letter was to the church, not to individuals.  

Before reading the Scriptures:

Today, in our trip to the seven ancient churches of Asia-minor, modern-day Turkey, we’ll stop at Smyrna. The city is located along the coast; some 40 miles as the crow flies north of Ephesus, where we visited two weeks ago. Of the seven cities Jesus sends a message to in Revelation, only Smyrna exists today. However, its name has been changed to Izmir. 

If you remember from two weeks ago, Ephesus put so much attention on doing right and hating evil they lost the love they once had. As I suggested, the Ephesians had become bitter legalists. Smyrna, on the other hand, is not chastised by Jesus. In fact, it’s one of only two churches to which these letters are addressed that received no condemnation from Jesus. However, things are not all right in the city.  The Christians there are poor, and they face persecution. And it won’t get better any time soon.   

Read Revelation 2:8-11

Smyrna, of the first century, was a rich city. Like Ephesus, it too was a seaport. The city had about 100,000 inhabitants, significantly smaller than Ephesus, yet the city had certain bragging rights. Smyrna was believed to be the birthplace of the ancient poet Homer. The city obtained the status as the “first city of Asia,” a designation given because it had been Rome’s ally for centuries, back to the wars between Rome and Carthage. 

Smyrna was the first city in Asia to build a temple to the Roman goddess Romas. By the time of John’s Revelation, it also served as a center of Roman emperor worship. A temple honoring Emperor Tiberius stood in the city. With its strong ties to pagan and emperor worship, Christians in the city found themselves on the margin. As a persecuted minority, they didn’t enjoy the economic prosperity of their neighbors.[2]  

Making life even rougher for Christians in Smyrna was a significant Jewish population. The Roman Empire protected certain minority religions, included the Jews. You might remember that this special status allowed the early church to spread throughout the empire and, as we see in Paul’s encounter with the Jews in Corinth, the Romans didn’t want to interfere with disputes between Christians and Jews. Early on, the Romans saw the two as a part of the same cult.[3] But as the first century wore on, the two began to be seen as different faiths., mainly because those of the Jewish faith didn’t want anything to do with those who accepted Christ. This was especially after the Jewish revolt in Israel which resulted in the destruction of the temple. 

Furthermore, the Roman’s found the Christian insistence of Jesus being Lord a direct challenge to the Caesar’s claim. As this separation between Jews and Christians grew, Christians found themselves attacked and persecuted by both the Romans and the Jews. This seems to be the case in Smyrna.  

The members of the church in Smyrna who gathered to hear the letter were poor, yet they lived in an affluent city. They were persecuted. They had little going for them and I’m sure they’ve been praying over and over to Jesus for help. And now they’ve received a letter. What will Jesus say to them?

The letter starts out promising. Jesus reminds them that he is the first and last, the one who was dead yet has come to life. These letters always start a description of Jesus. Here we’re reminded of his death and resurrection. This will become more meaningful as the letter continues. Jesus assures the Christians of Smyrna that he knows what they’ve endured, yet he says that they’re rich. Of course, this doesn’t mean they’re rich by banking standards. Certainly, they’re still at the bottom of the economic ladder when it comes to income or wealth. But they know the truth. Their faith is strong. They are rich for the gospel is clear that the last shall be first.[4]

Then the letter continues warning the faithful in Smyrna of what’s coming. Those listening to the letter, I’m sure, hoped to hear that Jesus will make everything better. Yet, they now learn the city’s Christians will endure more persecution. “Don’t fear,” Jesus says. Don’t fear even though some of you be imprisoned and others will die. They’re not to fear because the one, who was dead but is now alive, will grant them the “crown of life.” That’s the hope of the resurrection.

Smyrna is a city known for persecution. In the next century, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, becomes one of the most famous martyrs. He was burned burned to death during the reign of Marcus Aurelius for refusing to renounce Christ and worship the emperor. The sufferings of those in Smyrna will get worse. This isn’t the type of letter I’m sure most of them wanted to receive. We must admit our world is different. We have a hard time seeing ourselves in the mirror here, yet we know that the church continues to suffer in the world.  

It’s often cited that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20thCentury than in the previous 19 centuries. Sadly, the 21st Century seems to be off on a similar trajectory. For much of church history—and if we take Paul’s writings seriously, the church is one body—Smyrna is the norm.[5]  Much of the church in the world is poor and in many places the church is persecuted. The prosperity of the Christian Church in North America and Europe isn’t the norm. As rich Christians, we have better stand with our brothers and sisters around the globe who struggle to make a living and to survive persecution.   

Let me suggest what we learn about the Christian life from this letter. I’ll highlight three major lessons.  

First, faithfulness does not mean an easy life. Too often we think that if we just accept Jesus, it’s going to be alright. Nonsense, such teachings go counter to the gospel. Jesus tells us that if we’re truly followers of him, expect to be hated.[6] Yet, we’re not allowed to hate back; we must love even of our enemies.[7] In Smyrna, those Christians listening to the letter read learn that Satan’s attacks will intensify. Their faith will be challenged.  

We don’t know what it means to have our faith challenged. American Christians often act like we’re persecuted when someone says happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. But think about what’s happening to Christians in places like Iraq and Iran, Palestine and Pakistan, Nigeria and North Korea. Living with prosperity, we should remember that being a follower of Christ doesn’t mean everything will suddenly become easy. If we learn this lesson, we won’t be so surprised and lose faith when things don’t go the way we want. We got this belief that there should be a solution to everything, and if we just do what’s right, we’ll be okay. And we will, in an eternal sense, but the short run might be difficult.  

A second thing to take from this letter is a warning not to compromise the gospel to fit into the larger culture. Society expected first century Christians to worship the emperor or stick to their Jewish roots and to forget about Jesus. But we must remember that our allegiance isn’t to a nation nor is it to a peer group, it’s to Jesus Christ and to him alone.

A third thing: society shouldn’t define success for us. By common definitions, Smyrna was a rich city. People had money. The per capita income was high. Success meant having a villa overlooking the sea and operating a thriving import business. Success was eating rich foods, not cornbread and beans. It meant drinking fine wine, not branch water. Success wasn’t overalls, but colorful tunics, and fashionable sandals instead of clodhoppers. 

But the Christians of Smyrna lived in the slums. Overworked and underpaid, they went hungry and were lucky to have clean water to drink. I imagine them in rags and going barefooted. Yet, they were faithful and because they are faithful, they are successful. As Christians, we resist external definitions of success. Such ideas will mislead us into placing too much value on the wrong kinds of things. As Jesus warns, don’t store treasures which will rust and rot and may be stolen.[8]  

To sum up this message to Smyrna, being faithful to Jesus may lead to troubles in the short-term. However, it’s the only long-term insurance of value. Amen.  

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 43. 

[2] For information on Smyrna, see G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 34-36 and Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (revised) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 73-77.    

[3] See Acts 18:12-17.

[4] Examples: Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 10:31; and Luke 13:30

[5] Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.

[6] See Matthew 10:22, 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17 and John 15:18.

[7] Matthew 5:43-48

[8] Matthew 6:19-21

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Pittsburgh to Washington Bicycle Ride, Part 1

Photo of author on Hot Steel Bridge, Pittsburgh and a map of the trail

“I was asleep. I had been told to wear ear plugs to block the train noise,” he said. “At 4 AM, I woke up to my tent shaking and people yelling. At first, I couldn’t make it out, but then realized they were saying the water rising and I must get to get out.” This was the experience of another bicyclist along the Great Allegheny Passage. He had camped on the banks of the Youghiogheny River, just outside West Newton. He got up just in time to pull his tent and gear to higher ground. Then he joined in the effort to help others with the rising water. 

I didn’t get his name. My guess is he was in his 40s and from York, Pennsylvania. We met him on Friday morning, at Meyersdale. He was heading out on his last day on the trail. He would complete the “GAP”, (the Great Allegheny Passage) that afternoon after a 24-mile downhill run.  Later that day, as we ate lunch at an overlook just outside the Big Savage Tunnel, my brother recalled his positive attitude. Such an attitude pays off when confronted with challenges. 

Day 1: Getting to Pittsburgh

Warren and I began our journey on Tuesday afternoon, when his brother-in-law Hitch dropped us off a block from “The Point” in Pittsburgh. This is the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, where they form the Ohio River. 

Flight 93 Memorial
Flight 93 Memorial showing the flight path taken on Sept. 11, 2001

 It had rain heavily for two days. On Monday, after planting the tomatoes I’d grown from seed in my garden, I’d drove in rain to Hancock, Maryland. The next morning, Warren and Hitch picked me up. I left my car at the Hancock Presbyterian Church. In the rain, we loaded my gear in my brother’s car and placed my bike next to his on this rack. We took the backroad, US 30, which had been the Lincoln Highway before the interstates, so that we could stop at the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville. The museum was sobering, but it rain too hard to do anything outside. Then, in Irwin, I introduced the two of them to a Western Pennsylvania stable, an Eat-n-Park Restaurant. 

Author and his brother at the Point in Pittsburgh
At Three Rivers

Thankfully, as we approached the city, the downpour weakened to a drizzle. Warren pulled the car over a block from Point State Park. We got our bikes off and loaded. Hitch took the keys to drive the car back to his home in Washington. Warren and I headed out to the Point. Looking over the city I called home for three years; I pointed out several landmarks to my brother. Of course, in the nearly 40 years since I moved to the Steel City, many things had changed. Three River Stadium was gone. Replacing it along the north side of the river was two new venues, one a football stadium for the Steelers and PNC Park, where the Pirates play. 

Day 1: The Point to Homestead, 8 miles

Downtown Pittsburgh from Hot Metal Bridge
Pittsburgh downtown from the Hot Metal Bridge

The GAP runs along the east side of the Monongahela through downtown, until it crosses over to the west side of the river on the “Hot Metal Bridge.” When steel was still being made on the Southside and at the J&L plant just outside of Oakland (home of the University of Pittsburgh), this bridge was still in use. When I lived in Pittsburgh, the Southside had been converted to an upscale shopping district known as Station Square. J&L was still running but would close before I left the city. We continued along the river, stopping at a hotel in Homestead.  We only rode 8 miles in a hour which included a lot of stops along the way. 

Homestead

author photo in Homestead from late 1980s
That’s me in Homestead, late 1980s

Homestead had been completely remade since I lived in Pittsburgh. While there, they began to tear down the huge US Steel plant, which ran for four miles along the river.  The first book about the city I read after moving there was Thomas Bell’s Out of this Furnace. The novel, published in 1941, told the story of three generations of eastern Europeans who worked at the mills in Homestead and across the river in Braddock. I found myself making several trips to Homestead, especially after they started tearing down the mill. Today, where the mill once sat is a community of apartments, condos, hotels, restaurants, parks, and shopping.  After arriving at the hotel, we explored the community on foot. 

Day 2: Homestead to Connellsville, 51 miles

Barge on the Monongahela
Barge on the Monongahela

We left the hotel in Homestead at 7:45 AM. The remnants of steel mills were all around us with only one mill appearing to operate. Before McKeesport, we had a long detour as they resurfaced the trail. At McKeesport, we crossed over the Monongahela and began our climb alongside the Youghiogheny River. As we were leaving McKeesport, having traveled along some streets, my back tire went flat. Stopping, I discovered an inch and a half finishing nail through the tire and the tube. I replaced it with a fresh tube and after about 15 minutes we were again riding. 

Steel mill

The trail along this section consisted of former industrial sites and some forest. With the river to our left, we occasionally would have a waterfall to our right. Often, these falls carried toxic waste from coal mines and left an orange sludge on the rocks.

Lunch in West Newton

At West Newton, we stopped at a bike shop where I picked up a new tube. I kept the old tube to repair so that I would have two tubes available. We’d been told of a good restaurant along the river, just behind the bike shop, but it was closed. The shop suggested we try Gary’s Chuckwagon, where for $15, I had a huge slab of a beer-battered fried cod (fish) on a homemade hoagie bun. 

Water from an old mine
water from a mine (thankfully, you don’t have to smell the sulfur)

Coming out of West Newton, I spotted a possum. It appeared to have badly matted hair. When I got closer, I realized the matted mess of hair were younger possums getting a ride on mom. These weren’t small possums. They looked to be about half grown. I would have thought the mother would have told them it was time to start walking by themselves. 

About eight miles from Connellsville, our evening destination, the skies opened. We took shelter for a while under an overpass with two other riders. When the rain subsided, we began to ride again, only to have another downpour. By the time we reached the hotel in Connellsville, we were both soaked, and our bikes were dirty from the mud. Thankfully, the Comfort Inn where we were staying had a wash station for bikes, which we used. They also had a room, which was locked at night, where we could store our bikes.  That evening we ate at the River’s Edge Restaurant. I wasn’t overly hunger, so I had a bowl of crab bisque and a salad. 

Day 3, Connellsville to Rockwood, 45 miles

The GAP around Ohiopyle

We left again at 8:15 in the morning. This was my favorite section as we left behind old industry and mostly peddled through woodlands with lovely stops at Ohiopyle, an old resort town that features some of America’s best whitewater. However, due to the high water levels, no one was kayak or rafting. We stopped at ate lunch in the park at Confluence. Warren had brought a couple of Underwood Chicken Salad cans and was wanting to rid himself of the extra weight. I grabbed an extra bagel at breakfast and used it to make a sandwich. 

Rapids at Ohiopyle
Rapids at Ohiopyle
Waterfall beside the GAP around Ohiopyle

The trail became noticeable steeper, especially after Confluence, as we broke away from the Youghiogheny River and followed the Casselman River. But the bed was wider, probably because of requiring double tracks on this steep section. It was easy to ride double through much of this section. For some reason, my left Achilles tendon began to bother me the more I rode. As for animals, I saw several deer and a few garner snakes. 

We were the only people staying at the Rockwood Trail House, a bed and breakfast in which the hosts lived elsewhere. Max, whom we’d met the day before, stayed by himself in another B&B. The old home had been magnificently restored. It was also well stocked with healthy breakfast makings including yogurt, multiple kinds of granola, fruits, boiled eggs, and breads. For dinner, we walked into town (about a half mile) and ate at the Rock City Bar and Café. It was your typical Western Pennsylvanian bar with cheap bottle beer ($2.50 each) and great burgers. I had a Rocket Burger, which included sautéed mushroom, peppers, onions with cheese sticks. Including the beer, my tab was $13.65. 

Day 4, Rockwood to Cumberland, 43 miles  

I woke up after a weird dream mixed with people from the church I served in Michigan with the church in which I grew up in North Carolina. The morning was humid. After eating fruit, granola, and yogurt for breakfast, we headed out. It felt like rain. We still had 19 miles of climbing, but the grade was less than it had been the day before. After an hour, we were in Meyersdale. Thankfully, the trail runs high above the town where there was a nice museum in the old depot. I purchased a GAP/C&O Canal shirt. The town had experienced bad flooding earlier in the week. The trail also became more rutted from the water that eroded the bed. It was at the museum that we met the guy who had been flooded out of his tent site earlier in the week.  

trail washout near the Eastern Continental Divide
Washout near Meyersville

After Meyersville, we had another six miles of climbing as we made our way to the Eastern Continental Divide. Shortly afterwards, we passed through the Big Savage Tunnel. While I had a light for my handlebars, I didn’t need it as we discovered the 3,294 feet tunnel had lights. Coming out of the tunnel on the south end, we were treated to a magnificent view of the mountains to our east.  As we took photos of the tunnel, we spoke to a biker heading to Pittsburgh. He was riding a commuter bike with a metal basket on the front. He’d come from Washington and told of the flooding and long detours and carrying his bicycle through knee-depth water along the C&O.  He hoped for our sake; things would be drying out.  It wouldn’t.

Downhill from the Savage Tunnel

Author at the Mason Dixon line
at the Mason Dixon line

After the tunnel, we stopped for lunch. Eating tuna salad sandwiches, we could hear the wisp of windmills generating electricity from the ridge above the tunnel. While we still had a little over 20 miles to go, we felt as if we had completed the trail as it was downhill from here. A mile or less after the tunnel, we paused at the monument for the Mason Dixon line, which separates Pennsylvania from Maryland. Crossing over, we were officially back in the South!

Tourist train beside the GAP, between Frostburg and Cumberland
Western Maryland tourist train between Frostburg andCumberland

The GAP passes underneath the town of Frostburg. We talked of ice cream, but it required a climb to get into the town. Frostburg is a college town and on both sides of the town, we passed college students walking and running along the trail. About a mile south of Frost burg, I had another flat on my back tire. This time, I couldn’t find the cause. But the tube had a ¼ inch hole not far from the valve stem.  One set of tracks of the Western Maryland still operate through this section and moments after having sat on the raised ballast to change my tube, a tourist train came down the tracks.

Looking out of the Brush Tunnel in the rain
Taking refuge in the Brush Tunnel during a Thunderstorm

As the trail became steeper going down the hill, it also became more washed out. Instead of flying downhill, we had to control our speed on a roadbed that felt like a washboard.  At places, the trail was so rough we walked the bikes. Clouds began to build, and thunder could be heard. We entered the 914-foot Brush Tunnel as the skies opened and waited out the storm inside. Another biker, who had ridden much of which had walked, joined us. The rocky and jarring path had caused him to lose both his light and his water bottles. 

In Cumberland, at the end of the GAP

As the rain slowed, we again ventured out and rode all the way into Cumberland, arriving a little after 4 PM. We had hope to get there before the National Park Service office for the C&O Canal closed, but learned they work only till 4 PM. The rain and lightning had slowed us down and we just missed them. A maintenance employee for the park service came out and talked to us, confirming our fears. Parts of the trail were completely washed out and closed. We then went to a bike shop where we learned that the bypass to the C&O wasn’t a good option as it was a narrow windy road with semis traveling on it. We tentatively made plans for a shuttle in the morning. 

Next, we headed to the Ramada Inn, where they had a room for bikes. After cleaning up, we headed out for dinner. Checking in as we were leaving was another biker who had passed us. He had continued along the C&O but came to place where he couldn’t go any further and didn’t want to ride the roadway. He came back to Cumberland and was planning to take the next day’s train to Pittsburgh. 

We ate dinner at City Lights, a place that sounded a lot like a North Beach bookstore in San Francisco (and there’s another one in Iowa City). I had a Greek Salad with grilled chicken, which was delicious. After dinner, we walked around town, crossing a creek to see the Cumberland First Presbyterian Church, where I had once preached during my second year of seminary.  We headed to bed early, not knowing what the next day would hold. At least, we’d completed the GAP. 

Hopefully, I’ll write about the C&O experience next week.

Where the GAP ends and the C&O begins
A toast (with coffee) at the end of GAP and the beginning of the C&O
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Ephesus: The Church Who Forgot to Love

Title Slide with photo of two rock churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches 
May 11, 2025
Revelation 2:1-7

At the beginning of worship:
Let me tell you a bit about Sam Jones. He was one of America’s most popular preachers in the late 19th and early 20th Century. You could sum his message up in this manner: “Quit your meanness!” At his peak, he often outdrew Dwight Moody. Many considered him a better preacher. By all accounts, he was funnier. 

Sam Jones is mostly forgotten. While there have been numerous biographies of Moody, there’s only been one of Jones published since his death in 1906. Laughter in the Amen Corner came out in 1993.[1] Reading this book I learned Jones was from Cartersville, Georgia. It’s just a jump from Donna’s hometown. The next time we visited, I insisted on going. Donna thought I’d lost my mind and acted like Cartersville was on the far side of the earth. 

That didn’t matter. I drove the 15 miles over to Cartersville. I wanted to see the town that produced Sam Jones. 

Cartersville is a pleasant railroad town. Lots of trains race through the town, but they no longer stop. For Civil War buffs, this is the same railroad grade upon which the great train chase with the locomotive “The General” occurred.   

As with most county seats, the courthouse sits on a hill in the middle. Three churches flank the courthouse in Cartersville. Looking up from the train station, you have the Baptist on the left and the Methodist on the right. We Presbyterians are behind the courthouse—but we had a fine church there, one we cand be proud of. I walked around town to see what I could glean. 

At the Baptist Church, I learned Lottie Moon, the famous missionary to China and for whom the Southern Baptist have named their world mission offerings after, grew up in that church. And then, at the Methodist Church, I was surprised to see it named for Sam Jones. A few years after Jones’ death, they built a new sanctuary and named it, according to the cornerstone, “The Sam Jones Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South. (This was before all the mergers leading to the United Methodist Church.) I was amazed that this little town produced two of the South’s most famous religious figures in the late 19th Century. I was a bit envious, wondering when the Presbyterian Church would catch up.

Although Jones was a proud Southern Methodist, it didn’t make much difference to him what flavor of religion one belonged. “A creed hasn’t’ got legs,” Jones often quipped, ‘and I can’t follow it.” And he’s right. Ultimately, we’re not called to be Presbyterian or Methodist or Baptist, but to follow the Savior. Jones humor was such that it pointed out human folly. “I could never preach,” he told a reporter, shyly adding, “but I can talk a little.” Once Jones got the crowd laughing at themselves, he’d introduce them to Jesus. It’s not a bad strategy.   

Before reading the Scriptures

Starting today, we’re going to look at each of the seven churches of Revelation. While all of Revelation is a letter, there are individual messages to seven churches, which we were introduced to last week. 

These seven churches are in towns which form a circle along a Roman postal route.[2] Jesus is present within each church, so he’s able to communicate what’s happening in the life of each congregation. But it would be a mistake to think these letters only applies to the seven individual churches. The number seven, the divine number, implies fullness. So, within these letters we find situations that are present in our churches still today; hence, looking at these letters will be a lot like us looking in a mirror.   

These seven messages within the larger letter all take on a similar form. They’re addressed to an angel of each church. Christ is the author, but for each church a different metaphor is employed to refer to his identity. In most cases, there is praise for what the church does well as well as condemnation for where they fail.[3]

Like these churches, we’d probably find Christ evaluating us in a similar manner, patting us on the back for the good we do and chastising us for the times we fail to live up to his standards.  

The first church in our visit is Ephesus. We know a lot about the early life of this church from the book of Acts. We also have Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Christianity was probably brought to Ephesus by Priscilla and Aquila around 52 A.D.[4]  Paul spent a couple years in the city. So did Timothy. Ephesus bustled with trade in the first century. A port city of nearly quarter million people, it sat on a major trade route into Asia. 

The city boasted several major pagan temples, the most important one being for the Greek fertility goddess Artemis (the Roman goddess Diana). We know from Acts the silversmiths of this temple rioted because people were converting to Christianity and buying fewer pagan statues.[5] Trade wars are nothing new. 

Let’s turn to Scripture and see what Jesus has to say to this congregation. 

 Read Revelation 2:1-7.

Think for a minute. Do you know any Christians who used to have a vibrant faith, was a pleasure to be around, but since has become a legalist? Someone joyous and happy, but now bitter?  Someone who use to be sweet and are now sour? Perhaps you’re feeling this way. It seems to be a common occurrence. We burn out. We lose focus. And we have all the right intentions but find ourselves bogged down in petty disputes. 

As the revivalist Sam Jones, whom I introduced earlier this morning, once said, creating a commonly used cliché, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We start out with great plans but become sidetracked. Perhaps that’s what happened to the church in Ephesus. Or maybe they just felt good demanding other people obey God’s law. It gave them a sense of authority which is why humility is so important.

The Ephesians are zealous enforcers of orthodoxy. They tow the party line. They deal with heretics, those whose teachings go against the gospel, swiftly. The congregation has been patiently waiting for Christ’s return and has not grown weary. That sounds good. But then the tone of the letter changes, as Jesus charges them for abandoning the love they once had. 

It appears the Ephesians started off being a loving community. But their love waned. They put too much emphasis on right and wrong beliefs. Now, according to this letter, While Jesus isn’t too happy with these false teachers, he’s even more concerned about the lack of love among the faithful. They’re like those Jesus condemns in the Sermon of the Mount. They try to take a speck out of someone’s eye with a log in their own.[6]

In John’s Epistles, we’re told that God is love and those who love abides in God and God abides in them.[7] The church in Ephesus, for all their insistence on believing right, missed the boat. As important as right doctrine may be, it’s more important to have a loving community. Surpassing all creeds in importance is the command to love.

John Leith, the late professor from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, in the 1980s wrote a powerful little book titled The Reformed Imperative. It’s a challenge to fundamentalism—on both the left and right wings of the ideological spectrum. We tend to think of fundamentalism as conservative, but it can go either way. And both sides are wrong, according to Leith. Both make too simple distinctions between people. 

“The gospel is hidden from those who in their self-righteousness are proud of their moral achievements,” he wrote. And those “who know that they are righteous by their identification with the proper causes,” yet are vindictive toward others who have different views, whom they desire “to discard, to destroy.”[8] Fundamentalist according to Leith miss the good news.

In other words, those who think they’re religious, yet who do not love, find the gospel hidden. And those who make a big deal about their faith, but do not love, miss the gospel’s truth. And those who are proud of their righteousness, but hold others in disdain, miss the good news. Leith, writing about the church in the late 1980s, could also have been writing about churches today. And he could have been writing about Ephesus in the first century. 

The Ephesians felt so good about their success in rooting out evil that they became self-assured of their righteousness. They forgot what’s most important. They forgot how to love. In striving to be right, they missed the gospel and became what they abhorred, heretics and hypocrites.

The dilemma of the church in Ephesus remains within the church today. How can we, the church, remain faithful to the truth while loving all people? It’s a tough challenge. Often someone quotes the cliché, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But the tone of their voice makes me wonder if there is really love for the sinner. If we don’t love, despite right beliefs, we fall into the same trap as the Ephesians. 

Many of you, I’m sure, remember the old Wendy’s commercial. A grandmother-looking lady shouts, “Where’s the beef?” The implications being a hamburger joint is judged by the amount of beef between the two halves of the bun. Likewise, the church is judged, not so much by our orthodoxy, but by our love. Where’s the love? That’s what we need to ask, that’s the way our faith is evaluated. Do we love one another? 

Remember Sam Jones’ comments about not being able to follow a creed because “it ain’t got any legs.” What’s important is following Christ. We follow him who loved even his enemies and those who nailed him to the cross. Don’t get so hung up on making sure that everything is proper, and everyone acts up to our expectations. While proper thinking and right actions are important, it’s more important that we as a community love God and one another. Amen.      

[1] Kathleen Minnix, Laughter in the Amen Corner: The Life of Evangelist Sam Jones (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973).  Jokes and information on Jones from Minnix and from Doug Adams, Humor in the American Pulpit from George Whitefield through Henry Ward Beecher (Sharing, 1992). 

[2] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 28. 

[3] For a detail discussion on the nature of each message see M. Eugene Boring, Revelation: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), 85-97. 

[4] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 67

[5] Acts 19:21ff

[6] Matthew 7:3-5. 

[7] 1 John 4:7

[8] John H. Lieth, The Reformed Imperative: What the Church Has to Say that No One Else Can Say (Louisville: Westminster,1988), 60-61.  

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HopeWords 2025

title slide with photo of The Granada Theater

This is my third trip to Bluefield, West Virginia for the HopeWords Conference, which is held in the beautifully restored Granada Theater. This year’s theme was “Writing in the Dark.” I have also attended this conference in 2022 and 2023. Unlike the other years, probably because I wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t take many photos.

Bluefield is an interesting setting to discuss hope and writing, as the city has struggled in recent years. At one time, Bluefield was a happening place, as Travis Lowe, the founding director of HopeWords loves to tell. Lowe grew up in Bluefield and while he currently lives in Oklahoma, he still considered Bluefield home. While coal mining was just a bit west of Bluefield, the city grew as a supply point for the mines and for the railroads that served the mines. Still today, cars of coal are built up in the Bluefield rail yard to be hauled to distant locations to “make the electricity to light up the world.” 

I had only two complaints about this year’s conference. Neither had anything to do with the conference and everything with my enjoyment of the event. The first had to do with the pollen count in the air. It was at an all-time high. My head pounded. I just wanted to sleep, which was hard because of sinus drainage causing me to wake as I coughed. The second was the replacement of the flooring in the hotel I stayed. In previous ones, I stayed in Princeton, about fifteen miles away, and the hotels were nicer. This time, I stayed in a Quality Inn in Bluefield, Virginia, about seven miles away. The hotel was older and will be nice once the remodeling is done, but for now is under construction. 

Christian Wiman

 Wiman served as the main speaker this year. The last conference I attended, in 2023, featured Miroslav Volf, a theologian from Yale. In introducing Wiman, Lowe noted that when Volf was the featured speaker, he confessed that he wasn’t worthy and recommended his colleague at Yale, Wiman. While Volf had much to add to the conference, it was a pleasure to hear Wiman, an excellent poet.  

In Wiman’s opening lecture, he discussed faith and God, in contrast to religion. We only experience a fraction of God, yet we don’t have to name God for God to be God.  God is always God. And our faith needs to be growing, as we put away our childhood and silly notions of the divine. 

On the second day of the conference, Wiman and Lowe had a conversation. For some reason, I assumed (wrongly) that Wiman was European. He grew up in Texas, raised by parents who were first poor, then his father became a physician. He told about attending First Baptist Church in Dallas and writing a poem which first line went, “I love the Lord and He loves me.” He gave the poem to Criswell, the pastor, who had it published in the Baptist Standard. Wiman joked that his first poem was published when he was eight.

Hannah Anderson

 Anderson was the first speaker on Saturday morning. This was a shame as I found her insights some of the best at the conference. Most attendees (myself included as I was five minutes late) missed the opening of her talk. Focusing on the conference theme, she spoke about a personal time of crisis (darkness) in which she felt she would never write again. She discussed the need to give herself permission to write again. She also reminded us how, in darkness, we can use other senses to experience the world. But she warned writers not to give too much artificial light into a dark situation. She closed with an essay of hers on Psalm 74, where she acknowledges that God creates light but doesn’t obliterate darkness. 

I had read one of her books, Humble Roots, a few years ago. I picked up her book, All That’s Good, from the conference bookstore and recently read and reviewed it.  I look forward to hearing wonderful things from my congregation about her as she’s scheduled to preach for me on June 22.

Karen Swallow Prior

This is Prior’s third appearance at HopeWords. Like Wiman, I’ve also seen her at Calvin’s Festival of Faith and Writing. She began discussing her upcoming book on “calling,” and then gave suggestions for those wanting to be writers:

1. Study language.
 2. Read good words by others.
 3. Seek honest feedback. 
4. Writing is not the same as publishing. 
5. Journal, it’s a place for you to record and work out ideas and you may have them burned after your death. 
6. If you want to write to feel good about yourself, do something else. Writing is humbling.
7. Don’t write to make a living. While Prior is making money from writing, it’s only after 30 years of teaching in universities. 
8. Do the writing you’re called to do. 

Dr. Derwin Gray

Gray and his wife pastor Transformation Church outside of Charlotte, NC and has published several books. I am currently reading his book, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation. 

As an African American, Gray attended Brigman Young University on a football scholarship. He later played five years for the Indianapolis Colts and a year for the Carolina Panthers. As he introduced himself, he joked that NFL meant, “Not For Long,” for most players only make it a few seasons. During his fifth year in Professional Football, another teammate led him to Christ. Since he retired from football, he has attended seminary and done doctoral work. 

Gray began by telling his story. Much of his early years were spent in special education. He also didn’t grow up in church but, as he proclaims, “God loves to use the ordinary to do extraordinary things.” His talk resembled more of a sermon, mostly based on Psalm 23, with a lot of one-line zingers. “ 

“God is not a microwave. He’s more like a crockpot.”
“Our challenge: May our lives be better than our books.”
“Fight for your readers.”
“David defeated a giant but lost to lust.”
“All of life is worship.”
“Let your ink pen become a means of grace.”
and from the Roman philosopher Cicero: “The greatest form of revenge is not to become like your enemies.”

We had a long lunch hour, and I went back to the hotel and slept, causing me to miss the S. K. Smith, the afternoon’s first speaker. 

Dr. Craig Keener

A professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Craig Keener has been prolific in publishing commentaries on the Bible. While I have a decent commentary library with two or more commentaries on each book in the Bible, I have not read Keener. This cause of this oversight is that I tend to read mainly Reformed commentaries while Keener writes in the Wesleyan tradition. 

Keener began his talk which he titled, “Writing Because It Matters,” with a confession. “I like writing better than speaking because you can edit before it’s public.” Most everyone laughed. He also confessed that it was because of God’s grace that he, someone diagnosed with ADHD, could become a writer. 

Keener discussed his writing journey. From meeting two missionaries in high school, to his first wife leaving him, which locked him out of evangelical circles, he spoke about how writing and dealing with Scripture was forged with struggles.  Fifteen years after his first wife left, he married a woman he met as a missionary in the Congo (she also has a PhD from the University of Paris). Together, they have a book, The Impossible Love.

Keener encouraged the writers in the crowd to remember that they’re not writing for themselves but for Jesus Christ. 

Lewis Brogdon

Like Hannah Alexander and S. K. Smith, the last speaker on Saturday was another HopeWords regular. Lewis Brogdon, like Travis Lowe, is a native of Bluefield. He teaches homiletics at Baptist Seminary of Kentucky but also holds a part-time position at Bluefield College. Brogdon began discussing an upcoming book of his, The Gospel Beyond the Grave: Toward a Black Theology of Hope. While making the point how writing takes time, he suggested that this book had a long gestation period going back to article he read by a Catholic theologian 25 years ago. The theologian suggested that racial reconciliation would happen in purgatory. Of course, Brogdon acknowledged that as a Black Baptist, purgatory isn’t something he believes in, but the article caused him to think. Then, 23 years ago, his father died. These events, while also dealing with recent events in America, led to the book (which I will look forward to reading). 

His theme was how writing can be a place of light, and he discussed how our journeys involve the work and word of God along with our own holy conversations. 

Evening and Sunday morning

Inside Christ Episcopal after the service. I especially like the cork floors (which we have in our new addition at home).

After the final speaker, there was free time where I went back to my hotel and napped. Then I went to an evening reception. I wasn’t hungry and a small plate of hors d’oeuvres sufficed for dinner. I had conversations with a few folks but called it an early evening and headed back to the hotel for bed around 8 PM. On Sunday morning, I attended Christ Episcopal, where Amanda Held Opelt, who’d provided music between speakers at the conference, preached. Her text was from John 12:1-8 was on Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. 

First Presbyterian Church, Bluefield WV
First Presbyterian Church, across from Christ Episcopal. Like most of the large downtown churches in Bluefield, they have lots of extra space. I recently learned that the Presbyterians have converted part of their extra space into bunk rooms for those coming in to volunteer for mission work in Appalachia.