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Thou Shalt Not Kill

Title Slide

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
August 9, 2026
The Sixth Commandment
Exodus 20:13    Matthew 5:21-22

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Thursday, May 6, 2026

At the beginning of worship:
Reuben, a friend of mine from North Carolina, was an attorney before retiring. Don’t hold that against him, he was also a serious backpacker. Back in the 80s, we spent many weeks together hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia into Pennsylvania. As we walked or sat around an evening campfire, we often discussed theological and legal issues and how they inter-relate. On one such hike, I learned of one of Rueben’s courthouse debacles.   

Reuben represented a man with a good job and a thriving side-business, making over $150,000 a year. This was 40 years ago. His wife wanted a divorce. She didn’t ask for much: joint custody of their kids, and the house. Rueben advised his client to make the deal.  

This stubborn dude didn’t want any part of it. He insisted on fighting for everything, including the house and full custody of the kids. Against Reuben’s. advice, they proceeded to court. The other side called witnesses. Attorneys appreciate clients who tell them everything. Witnesses spoke of how Reuben’s client bragged he would burn his house before giving it to his soon-to-be ex-wife. When Reuben’s client was asked about these threats, he didn’t deny it. Instead, he said, “I’m no longer planning to burn the house down, God will do it.” Rueben wanted to crawl under the table. The room became quiet. Then judge warned the man he better hope God doesn’t burn the house down because he, and not God, would be the main suspect. 

The judge gave the woman the house. About a month later, at night, it burned. As we might suspect, God wasn’t involved, except to look out for woman and kids, all who safely escaped.

Now, this guy attended church. I don’t think it was a Presbyterian Church, as we had no churches in that part of the county. The man confused his personal desires with God’s will. He let anger rule, which is always a dangerous thing. It ruined his life and that of his family. There is an important lesson here. If you have any question about God’s will, pray and check the Scriptures. God won’t tell you to do something against his Word.

Before reading the Scriptures:

Thou shalt not kill.  These four words from the sixth commandment, as they appear in the King James Version, have given Christians much to ponder. We’ve tried everything to rationalize them. It really means murder, we assure ourselves. And many modern translations use murder: check out the New Revised Standard, the NIV, the Message, and the New King James Version. But the Hebrew word here has a broader meaning—for it can mean the unintentional taking of another life or even a state sponsored execution. Instead of trying to rationalize our way around this command, we should understand God desires a world without violent death. Yet, we live in a fallen world. At best, this commandment causes us to live in tension between God desires and reality.

 Another place we can go to learn about this commandment is the Sermon on the Mount, which I preached upon a few months ago. I’ll read both this morning.

Read Exodus 20:13 and Matthew 5:21-22

As we’ve worked our way through the first five commandments, I’ve mentioned the reasons for the law. Today, let add to the list: God’s law helps us discern God’s will. As Christians, our first concern should be to live as God intends. Unfortunately, we confuse our own desires with God’s, as with the client of my friend I told you about earlier.

As much as you dislike someone, God’s not going to tell you to kill ‘em. That’s the enemy speaking. And the same goes with the rest of the commandments. God doesn’t offer dispensations to the law. 

The second table of the law provides the parameters in which we live out our lives within an orderly society. If we keep these commandments, society is stable. If anyone breaks them, all society suffers.

Thou shalt not kill. We like the modern translations better, ‘don’t murder.” For you see, few of us actually murder other people—at least not literally. Of course, Jesus includes character assassination as a form of murder. And then, we know the Bible acknowledges occasions where killing is necessary. How do we handle this?

First off, we’re not Hindus. To refrain from killing would mean we’d have to be vegetarian, for it doesn’t distinguish what is killed. Furthermore, within Israel’s theocracy in the Old Testament, war and capital punishment were allowed under certain circumstances and within certain regulations.   

What is forbidden here, in the sixth commandment, is for one individual to go out and take the life of another. But that’s not quite it either, for the word implies more than just premeditated murder, or even murder committed during a time of heighten emotions. Both of these are obviously condemned, but so is manslaughter, the unintentional killing of another member of the human race. In the 35th chapter of Numbers, God commands Israel to set up cities of refuge where those guilty of manslaughter can flee for safety. 

But ideally, there would be no first degree murder nor manslaughter. Obeying this commandment means we not only refrain from killing, but also that we take seriously the well-being of our neighbors. In our modern world, recklessly driving down the street of a neighborhood while kids play violate the Commandment. Even if we didn’t mean to harm anyone, by not avoiding situations which could unintentionally cause the lost of a life, breaks the commandment. The implications of this command reaches beyond premeditated murder.  

John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, provides a twofold purpose for this commandment. First, we are created in the image of God and to kill means that we violate God’s image. We should “learn to walk without causing injury to anyone,” Calvin admonished Geneva in a sermon, “otherwise God becomes our mortal enemy.”  All humankind is under God’s protection. If we kill, we invite God to step in and intervene.  Because we are created in God’s image, we must hold our neighbor sacred. God also created them in his image. 

Calvin’s second reason is that we share the same flesh with the rest of humanity and because “the Lord has bound mankind together by a certain unity,” we should concern ourselves with the safety of all.  

Thou shalt not kill… The words roll off the tongue as an imperative. The sharpness of this command demands attention. Yet, as I’ve tried to imply, there is a much deeper meaning here than refraining from murder. Jesus, in our New Testament, equates unrighteous anger with murder. Murder, whether premeditative or a crime of passion, often springs from anger. 

Jesus goes to the root of the cause and encourages us to purge ourselves of such thoughts. We’re not to be harming one another with our words. We’re not even to think about it. At the time of Jesus’ reinterpretation, his Jewish contemporaries had fantasies of what they’d like to do to the Romans who controlled Palestine. Taking this commandment literally discouraged revolution against the Roman Legions, or from striking one of those hated tax collectors who worked for Rome. Jesus upsets the balance of things: “Don’t even ponder such thoughts. Love your enemies. Pray for your persecutors.” Calm your tempers and strive not to bring harm to anyone.

If we would, as Calvin suggests and as Jesus taught, look out for the safety of one another, our world would be a better place.

The intention of the sixth commandment is to promote life’s sanctity. The breath of life is a gift of God. As humans, we only have the power to kill, half the power of God, but such power should scare us nearly to death. We can destroy life, but we are not able, on our own, to create life. Instead, at best, we are co-creators with God. But once life is snuffed out, we are unable to do anything about it. So we’re to make the most of our lives, enjoying the benefits God grants us while striving to help others make the most of theirs.  

If we could get to the point in our society where we acknowledge the image of God in another individual and consider life sacred so to avoid an untimely death, many of our problems would be solved. This is why I am against easy abortions and capital punishment. I know many Christians, including some of you, disagree with me on one or both of these points, but my position is that life, all life, should be sanctified. Unfortunately, we have a ways to go to get to where society holds the sanctity of life dear.

We often think of John Calvin as a stern old man, which makes his writings on this commandment shocking. Chaos filled the 16th Century. Wars occurred between various Christian sects and against Moslem invaders from the East. Despite this, Calvin boldly proclaimed that even just and unavoidable wars pollute a nation. And he’s right.  

In the Middle Ages, when knights and soldiers returned from what was considered a “just war,” they still had to confess and make penance before receiving Communion. Such an requirement today would be seen as “un-American,” but if we realize God’s will is for us to live at peace, there maybe a therapeutic reason for such a requirement as we strive to build a world where life is considered sacred.  

Thous shalt not kill. It sounds easy, but it’s not. Maybe we should flip the commandment and ask ourselves how we can promote life? After all, life is the foundation of our faith. Jesus himself said, “I come that you might have life, abundant life.” As his disciples, we’re to be about nurturing life. There’s a lot to think about with this commandment and with Jesus’ reinterpretation. Ponder it. Amen.

Sources:

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559).

John Calvin, Sermons on the Ten Commandments, Benjamin W. Farley, translator (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1980),

Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 419-421.

Davidman, Joy. Smoke on the Mountain (1955, London: Hodder & Stoughton , 1963), 

Garrison, Jeff. “Sermon at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, Michigan. “(July 2007).

Hauerwas, Stanley and William Willimon, The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999).

 Miller, Patrick D. The Ten Commandments: Interpretations, Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church (Louisville, WJKP, 2009),

Russell, Norman L. Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story (1993, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995),

von Rad, Gerhad. Deuteronomy, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966.

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Reviews of books I read in July 2026

Title slide with photo of books reviewed

Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man

(New York: Bantam Paperbacks, 1989), 258 pages. 

Education of a Wandering Man is only the second book I’ve read by Louis L’Amour. The other book, Comstock Lode, I read in 1988. At the time, I was heading to Virginia City, Nevada , the center of the Comstock,. I would be there for a year as a student pastor. L’Amour mostly wrote fiction. In Education of a Wandering Man, we have a memoir which looks at L’Amour’s life up through World War 2. After the war, he’d become a best selling author. We learn about his travels and reading. L’Amour hoboed, hitchhiked, and walked around the American West. He shipped out as a merchant marine from East and West Coast ports. He preferred the West Coast ships as they had been unionized which meant better berths and food. The book consists of many stories which I enjoyed but also found a bit disjointed.

L’Amour begins this book in Singapore, on the day his classmates graduated from high school in Jamestown, North Dakota. L’Amour quit school two years earlier. His travels took him all over Southeast Asia in the prewar years. As he travelled, he read. And his reading wasn’t just light fiction. He read classics, history, geography, and philosophy. Traveling to new lands, he sought out books (and interpreters) to learn about the places places he traveled. He was also a great listener, allowing him to collecting stories which would later be used in his books. Additional jobs he held included working as a security guard, at mines, sawmills, and as a boxer. Over time, he also became curious and studied indigenous cultures in America. All this became material he later used as an author.

In the mid-1930s, he began writing short stories, a form he continued to love. Writing in the 1980s, he laments the decline of the short story market after World War II. Fewer places now exist for writers to publish such work. Before publishing his first novel, he had written over 100 pieces for magazines and journals. 

I enjoyed reading about him traveling through places I’d traveled or lived in the American West. Not only did he spend time in Virginia City, he met a few old miners from the Bonanza era of the 1870s. L’Amour sought them out and listened to their stories. He also traveled through Randsburg, California. I found myself intrigued that he met Eric Hoffer (the longshoreman philosopher who wrote The True Believer. And I was jealous of him being able to see Mesa Verdi at night when the rangers place candles in the ruins. He saw this twice, once with his musical friend, Charlie Daniels. 

During the Second World War, L’Amour wanted to serve in intelligence. By this point, he had seen much of the world, and from his readings had insight into many different places. The lack of a college degree kept him out of intelligence. However, he was accepted into Officer Candidate School and served in Europe. 

At the end of the book, he lists the books he read between 1930 and 1935, years he averaged over 100 books a year.  And most of these books were not light fiction! This book shows the importance of travel, listening, and reading to form a sharper mind to interpret and understand the world. I highly recommend it, even to those not interested in L’Amour’s writings about the American West. 

George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone: Essays

Book cover of "The Braindead Megaphone"

(New York: Riverhead Books, 2007), 257 pages. 

I have read five or six of George Saunders books. For some reason, I have only reviewed one:A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in Which Four Russians Give a Master Class in Reading, Writing, and Life. All the other books by him have been short stories. Unlike the other books I’ve read by him, this book consists mostly of non-fiction essays. Many, but not all ,of the essays are travel related.

The first essay, from which the work takes it title, is a humorous critique of the news media. In a way, he blames the general population for putting up with their nonsense. He equates today’s mass media to someone in the past attending a party with a megaphone. They drown out all other conversations. In the second essay, he travels to Dubai for GQ to check out “The New Mecca.” He falls in love with this “fake town” where things seem perfect. But he notices many cracks in the facade, especially with the imported workers. 

In other essays he appreciates the writings of Kurt Vonnegut while working as a geologist in Indonesia. He also applies a similar critique of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in his essay, “The United States of Huck.” He travels to Nepal to meet “Buddha Boy,” a boy kid on an epic fast as he mediates. And then there’s a bit of fiction as he creates a Dear Abbey-like newspaper column titled “Dear Optimist.” Mr. Optimist can be a jerk, but so upsets a reader that he is killed. The killer, a total jerk, takes over the column. While it sounds bizarre, it’s also funny. In “Thought Experiment,” he lampoons the idea that any of us are “self-made.” None of us come without benefit of the environment upon which we’re raised. 

While few people will fully agree to everything Saunders writes, I recommend this book. Not only do we need to be challenged, but we also need to laugh. Saunders provides both. 

Douglas R. Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era

photo of "The Wars of Reconstruction" cover

narrated by Eric Jason Martin, (Audible Studios for Bloomsbury, 2014), 16 hours and 4 minutes. 

It’s common in the South to hold to the view that the Reconstruction as harsh and undemocratic. Egerton, however, suggests it was one of the most progressive eras in American history. It was democratic as it opened up politics for all American men. Many of the African Americans who won seats in local and state houses and Congress, had been enslaved a decade earlier. However, contrary to popular belief, only about 20% of Southern political positions were filled by African Americans. Furthermore, they were not as incompetent as often portrayed. Also during this period, literacy among former slaves grew rapidly, a benefit which could never be recalled. 

In this study of the Reconstruction, Egerton begins with the Civil War. How, from the beginning, a large numbers of slaves sought refuge behind Union lines. He leads the reader through the Northern debate on what to do with the slaves and whether or not they should be armed and allowed to serve in the military. It wasn’t until later in the war they were allowed to serve as soldiers. At first, they were second class soldiers, paid less than their white counterparts. Later, they received equal pay. Another oddity which was debated had to do with northern slaveholders in states like Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, who received a bounty for allowing their slaves to serve in the Union Army. The availability of these soldiers allowed the Union to greatly expand its army. This helped bring the war to a quicker end.

Egerton devotes much time to Andrew Johnson’s Presidency. A former slaveholder, Johnson seemed uninterested in helping the freed slaves. He interested lay in helping the plantation owners of the South. Yet, despite the Presidents reluctant support, the Freedman Bureau, it increased literacy of former slaves. It also kept them (and many white Southerners) from starving in the years after the war. A significant number of workers with the Freedman Bureau were free African Americans from the north. 

In the years after the Civil War, many of those who fought for the Confederacy continued to fight for White Supremacy through guerrilla activity. Groups like the Klan, sought to prevent former slaves from voting. In addition to discouraging voting, they sought to keep the former slaves in subservient positions. As the wars against Native Americans rose not the American Plains, the federal transferred the calvary stationed in the South to the West. This left on the mobile infantry in the South. Such forces were unable to quickly respond to the fast moving and hooded “night riders.” 

Southern resistance not only involved violence. Groups, such as the Daughters of the Confederacy, put political pressure on school boards to teach the Reconstruction as a failure. Books were written and later made into movies such as “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind.” These helped create an alternative and negative view of the Reconstruction. 

Egerton devotes significant time to discuss the seemingly failures of the Reconstruction. He identifies many reasons the progressiveness of the era struggled. A leading reason can be credited to the resistance from Southern Whites. Even those whites who would have benefited from the progressive programs of Reconstruction, shunned them out of what they considered loyalty to their own race. The era didn’t just end, it collapsed. 

Other reasons for the failure included Republicans moving away from a more radical platform to a a more pro-business orientation. Business Republicans refused to support issues such as a land ownership for former slaves. 

One minor but surprising issue involved tension between lighter skinned mix-raced freemen (as opposed to freedman, who were former slaves) in the South. The “freemen,” were often the ones who gained power. They looked out for themselves, and did not push hard enough for the radical changes desired by their darker skinned brothers and sisters. While there can be some truth in each reason, in the end violence brought an end to the era and ushered in the rule of Jim Crow. 

Another question he debates is when Reconstruction actually ended. While most historians see the era ending 1877, at the end of Grant’s second term as President. However, the end wasn’t so clear-cut. Many former slaves in places throughout the South, especially Louisiana and North Carolina, continued to vote and hold office long afterwards. However, by the turn of the 20th Century, Jim Crow laws had been firmly established throughout the South.

While many may not appreciate Egerton’s scholarship, wanting to continue to insist the Civil War was about State Rights, this book deserves to be studied. Egerton quotes James Longstreet, one of the most capable Confederate Generals, who supported Reconstruction. Longstreet led an integrated police department in New Orleans after the war. On the war not being about slavery, Longstreet quipped, “Why not talk about witchcraft if slavery was not the cause of the war, I never heard of any other cause of the quarrel than slavery.”  

Egerton’s research maintains a focus on the condition and struggle of African Americans during and after the Civil War. While the focus is primarily about the South (where most lived), he also point out the harsh conditions people of color faced in the North during the era. Many places in the North denied voting to African Americans at a time when they were voting in places like South Carolina. Racism in America has never been limited to one region of the nation.

I confess to feeling shame when I read about what my fellow southerners, some who may have been ancestors, did to restrict the progress of the former slaves. We should learn from the past and not try to clean it up, so that we can help create a society where all people might flourish. 

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The Fifth Commandment: Honor Your Parents

Title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
August 2, 2026
Exodus 20:12 Ephesians 6:1-4

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Thursday, July 30, 2026

At the beginning of worship:

A man, his wife, and son, live together. The man’s elderly father’s health declined to where he could no longer take care of himself. To his wife’s dismay, her husband brings his father into their home.  

The old father cannot eat without spilling and knocking his food all around the table. After a few days of this, the wife insists the man eat in the corner, not at the table. But he still knocked his food on the floor. One day, the wife decides if the man is just going to drop his food on the floor, he can eat it there. She finds a trough and puts his food in it and places on the floor. The old man doesn’t seem to notice his lack of dignity, he just lies down and eats like a dog, with his face in his food. This goes on for a few weeks.  

Then, the parents notice their son building something which looks a lot like a trough to feed animals. They ask him about it. The boy proudly explains he made it from them, for when they are old and must eat from the floor. 

“A child will lead them,” the good book says. The parents immediately came to their senses and realize they’re not honoring the husband’s father.  The next meal they set a place him at the tablet. 

Before reading the Scripture:

We traditionally divide the Ten Commandments into two tablets or tables. So far this summer, we’ve looked at the first tablet, commandments one through four. Each of these shows how we relate to God.  

The second tablet deal with our relationships to the human family. The fifth commandment forms a bridge between the two. We are to honor our fathers and mothers, a commandment which closely parallels the first commandment.The first tells us to worship God alone, the one who gives us life. But likewise, our parents, those who play a significant role bringing us into this life, deserve honor. They’re not to be worshipped; we’re not ancestor worshippers. But they do have a special role to play in our birth and development. Our belly buttons remind us we didn’t come into this world on our own. Yes, God gives us life. But life comes through our parents. For this reason, they’re to be honored.  

Read Exodus 20: 12 and Ephesians 6:1-4.

Our parents are important not only because it is through them that we receive the gift of life, but also because it is generally through them that we learn about Jesus and experience faith. Now, this is not always the case. At times a friend or a spouse or a colleague mentors us in faith. In such cases it’s like having two sets of parents, one that gives us life, another which offers us new life in Christ. 

We can compare our life with Christ with our life with our parents. We start out totally dependent upon them—think about all that our parents did for us, starting with changing diapers and feeding us. As we grow, we began to do those things on our own, till one day we are freed from our parent’s control and must take responsibility for our own lives. 

Likewise, we start out our Christian walk, totally dependent on Jesus, without even knowing why.  But as we grow in faith, we find that he gives us more freedom as we learn how to apply our faith to our lives.  

Honor your father and your mother, an enlightening commandment. In the Patriarchal world of the Old Testament, men ruled. And since it was also a tribal society, at the time God gave the commandments, the leader of the tribe was also given i allegiance. 

But the Ten Commandments come along and suggest we honor, not only the father of the house, but also the mother. This is significant. Parents, both of them, are placed on a pedestal. The man is not set aside as the most important, but shares this position with the woman. Not only is the tribe important, but also the nuclear family. In fact, families become the building blocks of a stable society. And when families break down society become chaotic. Without the role model of good parents and with everyone striving to look out for themselves and no one else, the structure of society melts away. 

I’m pretty sure it was Anne Lamott who said that “families are where we learn forgiveness.” That’s true. And I think we learn even more: we learn tolerance and acceptance. We learn what is important for society; life isn’t just about us. Living in a family, we learn it takes everyone to make it work. This, by the way, is also taught in the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods,” we’re told. We’re not to promote ourselves into the Trinity, as qualified as we might think we are. It’s not about me, it’s not about you. The first and the fifth commandment teach that we have first pay attention to what God wants and then to what our families need. We have to focus on something other than ourselves. 

That said, it goes without saying that parents are also suppose to show respect to their children as Paul reminds us in the passage we read from Ephesians.

Honoring our parents is a generational thing. If we honor our parents and those who have come before us, for I think the commandment extends to not just our biological parents, we then teach our children to honor us and in so doing, we help build a stronger society. 

For an example of just how destructive not honoring our parents can be, remember the chaos which ensued in Cambodia following the Khmer Rouge take over of that country in the mid-70s. 

The Khmer Rouge taught people not to trust anyone who had been in authority, including parents. They encouraged children to rat out their parents for dangerous thoughts. This destroyed the traditionally strong sense of family and respecting elders which existed in a nation traditionally based upon the teachings of Confucius. The country quickly purged into darkness as the killing fields grew. 

Instilling the importance of this commandment into our children’s psyche, we help stabilize society. And if that’s not reason enough, we should remember it’s our kids who get to choose our nursing homes. With this commandment, like many of the others, what goes around comes around. 

Let’s face it; we owe our parents a great debt. They brought us into this world; they gave us life, they changed our diapers and fed us when we couldn’t take care of ourselves. Hopefully they showed us love. Therefore, we honor them. But there is more to the meaning of the commandment.

Throughout the history of the church, those interpreting the fifth commandment have always pointed in two directions. First, as I’ve already covered, we.honor our natural parents But on a secondary level the commandment is also seen as our requirement of honoring those to whom God has given authority. In other words, the civil authorities, those who lead us in government, are to be afforded the same respect.  

Paul makes it clear in the thirteen chapter of Romans that we are to honor those in positions of authority. Now granted, some parents do not earn the right to be honored, and others abuse their position of authority. Since God allows them to be in positions over us, we honor them till what they do goes so far against God’s word that we must obey God who always deserves our loyalty.

John Calvin suggests we show homage to God when we are obedient to those in authority. Of course, we expect them to be godly and to do their best to govern justly and fairly. Otherwise, they violate both God’s and our trust. We do not have to obey them for our first allegiance always remains with God. 

By the way, I hope you can see that there is a difference between honoring and obeying. Just because your mother is Ma Barker or your dad is Jesse James, you don’t have to go out and rob banks. But when or parents and those in positions of power are honorable and we submit ourselves to them, we learn what it means to submit ourselves to God’s will.

The fifth commandment also comes with a promise. If we honor those over us, if we respect and look up to our parents, God promises us a long life, a life in which things will go well for us. 

This commandment, as a bridge between the two tables, sets the stage for all to come. For when we break any of the other commandments, we are not honoring our parents. I’m sure most of your mothers, at some point, indicated her embarrassment by something you’ve done? It’s old fashion guilt rising up which, if you think about it, has a stabilizing effect on society. Remember the family is the basic building block. The fifth commandment sets the stage for what’s to come. Strong families create healthy communities, so as we start this second table, look at how we can order society so as to strengthen it and to develop it into a place where all of us can safely grow in our faith in Jesus Christ.  

Ask yourselves how you honor your parents?  We’re not to worship them; we’re not even to follow them when they’re wrong. But our parents deserve our respect and when we give it, we help build a stronger and more godly community.  Amen.

This sermon was edited from a sermon preached in July 2007 at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, MI

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A Journey of Faith: Country Roads Revival

Jeff Garrison
Revival at Bluemont Church
July 29, 2026
Genesis 12:1-9

The video contains most of the service. I cut out the last of the songs as it was not in public domain. One of the microphone’s battery died, but with the others you can still hear everything. The sermon starts at 30 minutes.

The last week of August, a number of the Presbyterian Churches in Carroll, Patrick, and Floyd Counties hold a revival. Each night is at a different church. This year, we began on Sunday night at Fairview in Hillsville, then to Buffalo Mountain, then to Wild Goose (the former Indian Valley Presbyterian Church), then to Bluemont (we rotate between Mayberry and Bluemont each year). We will end up at Dinwiddle Presbyterian on July 30th. This is my sermon for tonight’s worship service.

At the beginning of worship:

This is the fourth night of the Country Roads revival. We live in a wonderful place with lots of country roads, some maintained by VDOT, others just two tracks curving around the hills. As we travel to different churches in these parts, we’re on a journey. Tonight, I want us to think about the beginning of one of the great journeys of the Bible. But before we get there, let me encourage you to walk if you are able. It’s good for you. As you walk, listen to the birds, the wind, look for the unusual, and think about God. Any of you who know me know you can often find either early in the morning or late in the afternoon walking. Come join me. 


Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian of the church at the collapse of the Roman Empire, once said, “It is solved by walking.” We live in a confusing world and things seem to be running at rapid pace. We all need to spend more time slowing down, thinking deeply, and enjoying the creation God lends to us to during our lives. There’s no better way to do this than to go for a walk.

Before reading the Scripture

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are often referred to as a prehistory. We learn about Creation and God’s care of his creation. We also learn how the first humans messed things up. But God refuses to give us on us. Chapter 11, the last chapter of this prehistory, ends with another famous Biblical lists of ancestors. You can look back to chapter 11, starting with verse 10, you’ll see the list which begins with Noah’s oldest son, Shem, leading up to Abram, who’ll later be known as Abraham. And we’re told that Abram’s wife Sarai is barren. 

That little bit of knowledge in Chapter 11 makes what happen in Chapter 12 even more surprising. If Sarai can’t have children, she seems to be an unlikely candidate for the mother of a nation. But bareness is only a human problem. Yet, it’s an arena God delights in. God likes surprises. God delights in taking the difficult path to bring joy to his people. Let’s listen.

Read Genesis 12:1-9

I wonder how Abram heard God’s call? Unlike Moses, who saw a burning bush, Samuel who heard God call during the night, or Isaiah who received a vision, we’re not given any details as to how Abram heard God calling. But think about it, what would it take for a man, well established and long in years, to leave his extended family and head out into the wilderness for an undisclosed location? Can you imagine Abram, walking to the edge of Haram and looking westward and only seeing sand. “Did I hear correctly?” he might think.

One day a tourist ignored all the warning signs and barricades along the edge of the Grand Canyon. He got too close to the edge and it broke off, sending him falling. As he tumbled, he finally grabbed a clump of sagebrush growing out of the canyon’s wall and held on for dear life. Then he prayed like he never had prayed. “Let go and I’ll catch you, he heard God say. The man looked skyward and asked, “Anyone else up there?”

Abram had a similar decision. Looking out from Haran, he’s called to do something which would be a feat for a young man. But for a man of his age, it seems suicidal. Yet, he decides to answer the call

If you study the scriptures enough, you’ll see a pattern. God often refuses to take the easy way out. Over and over again, God chooses an unlikely candidate to carry out his work. Abram, an old man, asked to get on the road and to start a new nation. Moses, wanted for murder and yet God orders him back to Egypt to face Pharaoh. David, just a boy who accepts Goliath’s challenge. Mary, a young woman assigned a special task of giving birth to the Messiah. God uses the weak to do what the strong can only dream of. As Paul reminds the church in Corinth, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

The Bible teaches that when God is on our side (or more correctly, when we are on God’s side), great things are possible. But if you try to do things on your own, we run into problems.

If you follow the Abraham story in scripture, you’ll see what I mean. He lies about Sarai, his wife, saying she’s his sister, to Pharaoh. This got them both in trouble. And not believing in the promise, he takes his wife’s servant as a concubine to have a child, which creates all kinds of entanglements in his household. But if we trust God and allow God to work within our lives, there seems to be no limit to what we might accomplish. The church needs to be reminded of this truth repeatedly. We don’t know what the future holds, but we need to be willing to step out in faith, trusting God to be with us. 

Now let’s look at this passage at hand and see what we might learn. First, God, not Abram, is clearly the main actor in this story. God initiates the conversation. Throughout Abram’s saga, God remains the subject. This wandering off into the wilderness isn’t Abram’s idea; it’s a part of God’s plan. It’s like this with us when God begins to get a hold of us. We don’t know what might happen.

We should understand God comes to us before we can approach him. In the call of Abram, God institutes salvation history. Through Abram, God demonstrates a willingness to take the first step in reconciliation with humanity, a work completed in Jesus Christ.  

God tells Abram to cut himself off from the land, from his people, and from much of his family. That’s a pretty tall order. Abram’ abandons his roots. Telephones didn’t exist back then, nor did mail. No way to check up on things happening at home. ATMs and Western Union Stations where a family member could wire him cash if he’s a little short didn’t exist. When Abram heads off into the sunset, he can only depend on God. The normal clan connections which protected folks two millenniums before Christ no longer exist for Abram once Haran disappears beyond the horizon.

Although its risky to answer this call, a promise is also attached to it. Abram will be the father of a great nation. Yet, even here, God remains the main actor. God tells Abram he’ll be mightily blessed so that he might be a blessing for others. This remains true for us today. If God blesses us, we are to be a blessings to others. For too whom much is given, much is expected.

In addition to Abram promised blessings, a curse is placed on anyone who might harm him. God protects Abram. His enemies must contend not only with Abram, but also with God. Interestingly, from the way the sentence structure (the one who curses you), it sounds as if Abram will have many allies and only one enemy.

Abram answers the call. Taking his wife and nephew and, we can assume, a bunch of loaded camels hauling their possessions, they drive their sheep toward the land of Canaan, a land Abram’s father had planned to settle a generation earlier. They probably took the longer path, heading north following the rivers of the fertile crescent, then turning south along the coastline, instead of heading directly west, through an unforgiving desert. This fits with what the Scriptures say as Abram first stops at Shechem, in the north, then to Bethel, in the south, before moving further south, into the Negeb. 

Let’s explore two theological themes from this evening’s passage. The first is that of a journey. When Abram answered God’s call, he found himself on a journey, which can also be a metaphor of faith. Early Christians were referred to as those of “the Way.” 

We journey as disciples, as followers of Jesus. For some, the journey is real, to new locations, new lands, and new people.” To others, the journey is metaphorical. We stay put, but we are still called to grow in faith. As a follower of Jesus, we can’t be content with the status quo. We must always look to improve ourselves and our world. Following Jesus requires changes in our lives. We’re to strive to become godlier, more Christ-like. When we live in a world contaminated with sin, accepting the status quo isn’t an acceptable option. 

When Abram stops by the Oak of Moreh, God appears again and promises this land to his offspring. So Abram builds an altar out of thanksgiving, and does the same in Bethel. Abram, as he travels, witnesses to his God. Like Abram, we, on our journeys, should never stop giving God credit. For without God, we would not be able to do much of anything. 

Verse 6 contains the second theme to explore. The Canaanites occupy the land. This land, promised to Abram, isn’t yet his. Furthermore, there are those on the land who don’t worship like him. Think about this. Abram could have adopted the religious practices of the Canaanites, but in doing so would have turned his back on the one true living God. We, too, find ourselves journeying around people who belief in what seems to be a foreign God. Some anoint God as a way to bless their way of thinking. They forget, only God can truly anoint and we’re to be on God’s side, as opposed to bringing God to our way of thinking. Although Abram spends decades sojourning in lands with foreign gods, he never forgets the God who called him on the journey.

Like Abram, we often find ourselves living in a land where people do not believe in the God of the Scriptures. We live in a world where there are many competing ideals which vie for our attention.  And it may be harder to us than it was with Abram to recognize the idols of our day. Abram could point out to the fertility idols of the Canaanites which dotted the high places, but the idols of today are more subtle. We have the promise of economic security at whatever cost, the belief we’re better than others which manifests its ugly head with racism, or the abusive belief we deserve what we desire often at the expense of others. These all run counter to Scripture.

We need to remember that like Abram, we’re just passing through. We’re pilgrims. Ultimately, our home is with God, but until we leave this life behind, we must continue to walk in faith and to listen for God to speak to us through the scriptures and the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Let us pray:  Almighty God, you know every heart here this evening. As we bow in obedience, we pray for our spirit to convict those who need to know you. Open ears that all might hear you call and follow you. Guide us in your ways, especially when our travels take us through the unknown. Help us remain focused on our Lord Jesus Christ and not be tempted by the idolatry surrounding us. This we pray in the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the one we follow. Amen.

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Keep the Sabbath Holy

Title slide with photos of Maybrerry and Bluemnt Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
Exodus 20:8-11
July 26, 2026

The sermon was recorded at Mayberry on Thursday, July 23, 2026

At the Beginning of Worship

My Dad's catch, fishing on Masonboro Island

I come from a family who fishes for sport. Growing up in Moore County, North Carolina, we fished farm ponds which provided bream and bass for the dining room table along with irrigation for tobacco fields. When we moved to Petersburg, Virginia, my dad took my brother and me fishing along the banks of the Nottaway River. Fishing was done on Saturday or in the evenings after work. We never fished on Sunday as it was too much like work since we ate our catch. The only labor I remember occurring on Sunday was cranking an ice cream maker on my grandparents back porch. At our house, we had the electric model. 

Then, when I was nine, we moved down near the coast. A few weeks after arriving, my mother got us kids ready for church. Dad was no where to be seen. This wasn’t unusual as sometimes he had to work on Sundays, but when we learned from Mom that he had been invited to go deep sea fishing, my theological brain (or maybe it was my cynical brain) went to work. 

“You mean it’s okay to fish on Sunday in salt water but not fresh water?” I asked.

Today we’ll begin our look at the fourth commandment—keep the Sabbath Day holy. 

Before reading the Sermon

I want to point out the two different reasons given for the commandment on keeping the Sabbath holy. As I’ll read in Exodus, God took a day off after creation and commands us to do the same. If God needs a break, and we’re not better than God, we should take a break. 

Deuteronomy likes the reason for Sabbath observance to Israel’s experience in bondage in Egypt. As slaves, they had to work when commanded. But God requires Israel to rest and also to provide rest for slaves and servants and even animals. 

Read Exodus 20:8-11

Smoke on the Mountain, Joy Davidman’s book on the 10 Commandments which I have referred to several times, contains a fantasy. A Martian anthropologist visits earth. Davidman wrote in the early 1950s when it was still possible to believe green people with flying saucers inhabited the fourth planet. The Martian’s assignment was to study human religious behavior.

His report concluded that like most “primitive societies,” those of us who inhabit the third planet worshipped the sun. Every seven days he witnessed a “solar worship ritual.” Some, he reported, adored the sun by baring their bodies by lakes and the seashore. Others gathered in large arenas where the crowds watched strangely dressed priests perform rituals with a ball and wooden stick. Others addressed a smaller ball with long skinny sticks. These balls, the Martian assumed, are icons of the sun.  

But his report also included a description of a heretical sect. Some people, he noticed, did not worship the sun. They dressed differently on the seventh day. The heretics, as the alien labeled them, shun the outdoors. They gathered in buildings often with colored windows, obviously to block the sun. The anthropologist was not sure, but thought these strange unbelievers may have been excommunicated and were being punished. After all, “Their faces and gestures show none of the almost orgiastic religious frenzy with which the sun worshippers pursue their devotion.”

Was this Martian right or wrong, Davidman asks. “For,” she says, “Sunday is still a holiday for us, but for many it has ceased to be a holy day.” We’re told in the fourth commandment to “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” What does this mean? Is it to be a somber day where we gather in our “Sunday best,” with long faces to worship the Lord? And what constitutes the day being holy? 

Holy is a term generally attributed only to God or to that which God claims for his own glory. A holy day is one in which we dedicate to God. We set it apart. The Martian rightly observed that one day a week is different—it’s a day that most, not all, of the population is free from work. But is the Sabbath, for us, holy? Or have we profaned it into a holiday far removed from its roots? We live with a tension. As Jesus points out, the Sabbath shouldn’t be legalistic.

Obeying the fourth commandment is one area I think our Calvinist and Puritan ancestors did us a disfavor. John Calvin cited civil order as a reason for keeping the Sabbath. We generally think of Calvin as a theologian, but forget he was also a lawyer and a bit of a political philosopher. Calvin felt it was good for society to have a day set aside for preaching, for such grounding in God’s law helps control and restrain society.  

Furthermore, Calvin came down hard on living it up for “sport and pleasure.” This he considered makes a mockery of God’s holy name. Calvin desired order, yet, in his defense, he played with children on Sunday afternoons. Over time, the Protestant establishment developed strict laws for maintaining God’s day. 

Thomas Watson, the Puritan I’ve quoted two weeks ago, suggests that on the Sabbath we should all get up before dawn since our Lord’s resurrection occurred before daybreak. Talk about nit-picky legalism! Yet, I’m always up before dawn on Sundays.

The strict and legal Sabbaths of the past were wrong, but for believers so are the free-flowing Sabbaths of today. God tells us to take one day in seven and use it for rest and worship, but with smart phones, most of us never leave work behind. This morning I want us to look at a number of ideas concerning the Sabbath and on what this commandment might say to us today, in the 21st Century.

First, let’s think about the day itself. In the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath was the seventh day of the week. Early Christians decided to celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, the first day of the week. There are many reasons for this shift. First, they started gathering on Sunday, the day Christ rose from the grave, to recall his resurrection. 

Second, their experience of grace in Jesus Christ made them realized that keeping the letter of the law doesn’t bring salvation. Freed from the strictness of the law, they moved the day forward. 

Now granted, some Christian groups insist the Sabbath be observed on Saturday. They debated this even during the Reformation. John Calvin defended the rights of those who celebrate the Sabbath on another day, as long as their reasoning wasn’t based upon superstition. In other words, don’t think keeping the Sabbath on Saturday gains you more favor from God. 

A third reason behind moving the Sabbath to Sunday was to demonstrate how God’s grace precedes any efforts of our own. Just as in the Jewish tradition, where day begins at sunset and thereby begins with rest, so too our week begins with rest. We rest and then, in thanksgiving, we work. This cycle reminds us that grace precedes law. 

The Sabbath was the first labor law. You see, the fourth commandment recognizes our need to work—“for six days you shall labor.” God created us to work. Genesis tells us the first man was created to till the earth; he was the caretaker of the Garden of Eden.  Work is a holy task, created by God.

Work is good, but with work comes the need to rest. God rested on the seventh day. But while slaves, our ancestors were not able to rest. So this command requires rest to extend to our families, our employees, and even slaves. This labor law even extended to domestic animals. All creation needs rest. I may have come down a bit hard of Calvin’s interpretation of the Sabbath, but I like the way he interprets this section of the commandment. Linking the commandment to the memory of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, Calvin comes to the conclusion the Sabbath means we must “humanely treat those who are under our powers.” In a broader scope, keeping the Sabbath commandment means we not only make time for ourselves, but we also insure that those around us have time to rest and worship.

The Sabbath is also given by God as a way to force us to slow down and, thereby, allow us to savor God’s creation. As Simon and Garfunkel sang,“Slow down, you’re going to fast.” And our world is much faster than it was in the 1960s. Observing of the fourth commandment is in greater need today, for we must learn to slow down and, as the old cliché goes, “smell the roses.” We need time to consider the glory of God, time to study God’s word, time to be in fellowship with God’s people. We were not created as machines; we’re created to glorify and enjoy God  And if our lives are too hectic, we are probably not able to glorify God nor do we fully enjoy the benefits God provides.

Observing the Sabbath is a spiritual discipline which takes practice. Each of us has to find our own ways to observe this day, to make the Sabbath holy.  Certainly observing the Sabbath involves gathering with God’s people for worship and study. But what do we do with the rest of the day? Do our afternoon activities glorify God and fulfill the intention for the day? It’s a question only you and God can answer.

By resting one day in seven, we show we can’t do it all. We must stop what we’re doing, a discipline which helps us trust God. All of us, even the most religious, risk falling into a trap of believing God needs us to carry out His will. But that’s a fallacy. God doesn’t need us, we need God.  

How do we keep the Sabbath holy? Treat others with dignity, allowing them time to rest? Trust God enough to allow things to wait. Observing the Sabbath helps us depend on God. As the Psalmist says, “the earth and its fullness belong to God.” We didn’t create the world and ultimately, the Sabbath reminds us, we’re not in control of it. Amen.   

I am not sure why my footnotes are not coming through now that I have shifted from Word to Pages. Here are sources used in the sermon:

Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559

Calvin, John. Sermons on the Ten Commandments, Benjamin W. Farley, translator. (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1980), 

Davidman, Joy, Smoke on the Mountain (London: Hodder & Staunton, 1963). 

Hauerwas, Stanley and William Williamson, The Truth About God; The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 48. 

Miller, Patrick D. The Ten Commandments: Interpretation, Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church (Louisville, KY:WJP, 2000). 

Watson, Thomas, The Ten Commandments (First published as a part of A Body of Practical Divinity, 1692: London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970).

This sermon is a variation of a version preached on July 15,2007 in 1st Presbyterian Church of Hastings,  MI 

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Civil War and Civil Rights: Travels in Central Virginia

title slide with author at the end of High Bridge

As I’m finishing up another vacation of which I plan to write about later, I thought I would catch up on Summer travels. In June, I took a week off. I spent a good portion of the time building a retaining wall, but was able to get away for three days and explore a bit of central Virginia.

Bear Creek Lake State Park, where we stayed

Last month I made a three day trip into an unfamiliar section of Central Virginia. Two things peaked my interest. One was to peddle the High Bridge Bicycle Trail.  The other was to visit the Moton Civil Rights Museum in Farmington. But while there, I also checked out a number of other sites dealing with the final days of the Civil War. As I written earlier, we moved to Petersburg, Virginia when I was six years old. I spent my first three years of elementary school in the all-white Walnut Hills Elementary School. We lived in Petersburg at the end of the Centennial of the War, I became interested and the war became real. Pieces of cannon balls and mini-balls (bullets) were often found as dirt was moved for home foundations and roads.

Petersburg is also where I have my first memories of race racial tension. We left in the summer of 1966 and you could feel the tension in the air. Petersburg would begin to integrate their school system that fall. There were four of us boys in a two block area who moved that summer. Everyone thought we were moving because of integration, but that wasn’t the case. Dad had always wanted to live near the coast and my brother and I headed with ur family into Southeastern North Carolina. The other brothers, Mark and Mike, moved with their mother to be near family in Michigan. Their father, who was a Master Sargent in the Army at Fort Lee, headed overseas. This time, they were not allowed to go with him. In the spring of 1966, Vietnam wasn’t on our radar. That would soon change. I’m pretty sure that’s where their dad headed. I often wondered if he made it back safely.

Thinking back to the spring of 1966, it’s easy to see how entwined the events of that year entangled with the events 101 years earlier. In early April 1865, after nine months of battle around Petersburg and Richmond, Union forces breached the Confederate lines. Lee had no choice but to pull his army out and make a dash west, in the hope to reunite with another Southern army in North Carolina. For a week, as Lee moved west, northern troops kept cutting off his retreat until finally, seven days later, he surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. 

For whatever reason, we never visited these places when I lived in Petersburg. Maybe it was because there were more than enough Civil War battlefield sites around Petersburg. Maybe my parents didn’t want us to see where the surrendering took place. But it probably had more to do with us taking vacations either in the mountains or along the Atlantic shoreline. Yet, I remember many of the towns around these parts from my father who traveled there for work. He called on businesses and schools around Farmville, Dinwiddie, Amelia, Prince Edward County, and South Boston among other places. Driving along these roads on these dry June days, I found myself wishing I could ask him questions, especially about the schools as he often performed boiler inspections there. I don’t remember him saying much about the difference in black and white schools, but know he visited both. 

Beaver Dam
Beaver dam at Bear Creek Lake State Park

For the two nights on this strip, we stayed at a lovely cabin at Bear Creek Lake State Park. The cabin sat in the woods, not far from the small lake around which the park sat. Most of the park’s features were on the other side of the lake, a walk of a couple of miles in which I saw a beaver, a few harmless snakes, rabbits, and a few deer. After making the walk on the first night here, I came back to the cabin and fixed steaks while enjoying the evening.. 

At home, I live on a ridge overlooking a hay fields to the north with woods to the south and east. The birds often nest in the trees, but spend much of the day catching bugs or eating seeds in the high grass, while robins find worms in the yard. The thick hardwood canopy shading the cabin provided different bird sounds in the morning: flycatchers, warblers, gnat catches, and blue jays. But we didn’t spend a lot of time at the cabin.

bicycling. across high bridge

The next morning, we were in Farmville early as the day was going to be hot. By eight, we were peddling on the High Bridge Trail, which runs about 15 or so miles east and west of the city.  We didn’t plan to ride the entire trail. The highlight of the trail is the bridge, which is located five miles east of the city. The bridge spans the floodplain of the Appomattox River. The river itself at this point is not very wide, but the bluffs on each side create a half-mile wide valley covered with trees. When we arrived at the bridge, we crossed slowly. The bridge stands barely above the trees, providing interesting observations of birdlife in the top of the canopy.

At the ends of the bridge, plaques showed what the site looked like during the Civil War. The forest of today was absent, the trees having all been cut, probably for timbers for the massive structure. About a half mile after the bridge was a museum with the history of the bridge. One section showed the various tress patterns used in the the bridge, which was rebuilt three times during it’s history.. Another section explained the bridges role in the closing days of the Civil War.  

Appomattox. River from High Bridge

This line, built in the 1840s by the Southside Railroad, linked Petersburg to Lynchburg. It later became a part of the Norfolk Southern Railway. The maintenance on the bridge became to expensive and, with other alternatives linking the east to the west, the railroad abandoned the line in the early 2000s. It’s now a linear state park running from Burkeville to Pamplin City. 

This was a bridge that wouldn’t burn. As Lee’s armies evacuated Petersburg and Richmond and moved west, a Union calvary was dispatched to burn the bridge. This could have trapped Lee’s forces which consisted of 1800 wagons. However, the Confederacy had already fortified the approaches to the bridge and repelled the attack. A few days later, after Lee’s army with its massive number of wagons crossed the bridge, the South attempted to burn it. But with the Union forces on their heels, they extinguished the flames and quickly repair the bridge, allowing them to continue their pursuit. 

Civil Rights walking tour
Sidewalk walking path marker

After riding the trail, we headed to the Moton Museum which interprets the Civil Rights struggle in Farmville. This was an African American school which, in 1951, faced a student strike for better conditions. While the law required separate but equal facilities for all races, this wasn’t the case.

Moton School, now a museum
Restored Moton School in Farmville, now a museum

Students at the Moton School used old text books from the white schools. When room ran out in the older building, the school board built tar paper shacks around the brick building, where students froze in winter and sweated during the warmer months. There was no gym or shower facilities as in the white high school. In 1951, the students walked out. This was considered the first civil rights protest in the South. Later, this area saw white resistance to court ordered integration of schools. Instead of integrating, they shut down all the schools for several years. During this time, white students mostly moved to church sponsored schools and to this day, the racial divide continues between private and public schools. 

After two hours touring the museum, we headed out to Sailor’s Creek and then Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Both of these locations where locations of battles toward the end of the war. At Sailors Creek, the Confederates had difficulty getting all the wagons over the two bridges crossing the creek. While they repelled the attack, allowing most of the army to escape, about a quarter of Lee’s army surrendered. The end at Appomattox was only 72 hours away. Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which is about 5 miles north of Farmville, was another blocking battle where a few units of Lee’s army attempted to slow Grant’s army. On the edge of the property of this church was a sign I’d never seen on a church ground: No Relic Hunting!

Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
McLean House at Appomattox Courthouse
McLean House

On our last day, we spent the morning at Appomattox, which had been restored to look like it might have appeared in 1865, when Lee and Grant meet. I didn’t know the McClean House, where the papers were signed, had been taken down to be used in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and then to be displayed in Washington, DC. But it never made it and the building was rebuilt on its original foundation in 1948. It wasn’t till after World War 2 that the site received federal protection as a National Historic Site. Surprisingly, Appomattox, unlike most Civil War battlefields, remains mostly free of monuments. The exception being my home state of North Carolina. Maybe my relatives felt it appropriate to celebrate the end of this “rich man’s war.”  

Appomattox Courthouse
Patrick Henry's dining room
Patrick Henry’s dining room

That afternoon before we headed home, we stopped at Patrick Henry’s Red Hill. This was the home he retired to 1794, after his career in politics. Henry died in 1799. The estate is ran by a private foundation who attempts to reclaim the heritage of Patrick Henry. We remember his inflammatory words, “Give me liberty or give me death.” The interpretation along the grounds doesn’t shy away with the ironic view of such liberty for himself the enslaving people. They do a good job on displaying the lives of the slaves on the plantation. A short walk from the Henry home are the restored slave cabins and slave cemetery. Patrick Henry is also known for his work for the adoption of the Bill of Rights. 

Patrick Henry's Home
Patrick Henry’s Home

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The Third Commandment

title slide with photo of Bluemont and Mayberry Churches

I’m sorry I didn’t get this up yesterday, but in changing over computers and programs, I ran into some technical issues! For some reason, I lost the footnotes. I’ve added the sources at the bottom.

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
July 12, 2026
Exodus 20:7, Revelation 5:9-12 

This sermon was taped at Bluemont on Thursday, July 9, 2026

At the beginning of worship:

Let me tell you a story about Brian, a friend from my elementary and junior high years. Although we attended separate schools, we grew up in the same church. We also joined the same scout troop and remained members until Brian moved with his family to South Carolina. The two of us competed against it other. We struggled to out rank the other in scouts. We both had our eyes on the same girl. And we both sought positions of authority. At one time or another, we both served as patrol leader and as the other’s assistant. Unlike me, Brian aspired to the presidency of our church’s Junior High youth group.  

I’ll never forget the night of the elections. A new school year began, so we reorganized the youth group. We had new kids aging up into the group and older ones, who had been leaders, moving into the high school group. Brian campaigned for the position of president. He coveted the position; a sin I’ll cover at the end of this series on the Commandments. 

That evening, however, Brian did something which worked against him. He volunteered to give the opening prayer. Generally, getting a young teenager to pray in public required serious arm twisting from our adult leaders. This evening, Brian’s hand shot up before they finished asking the question. None of us who heard that prayer will ever forget it. It went something like this, “O Lord, I want to be president. Please help me.” 

This prayer was too much for us budding Calvinists. Brian lost the election.  

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” the third commandment reads. Obeying this commandment is more than just refraining from mumbling God’s name in a fit when we curse and swear. Of course, we shouldn’t curse and swear. But there’s more to the commandment.  

Before reading the scripture: 

We are looking at the 3rd Commandment today. How to translate this commandment has been debated over the years. The King James Version translates it as “You shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…” A recent Jewish translation reads, “You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God.” In a moment we’ll hear another reading as we consider how we might apply this passage to our lives. All translations capture part of the truth. 

I will also read a passage from Revelation which shows how we should revere God. 

Read Exodus 20:7, Revelation 5:9-14

Like all the commandments, the third is simple and to the point. But reading it in different versions, we see the difficulty in translation. The Commandment comes with a warning, indicating we should take note of the commandment and how we violate it. God’s name is holy. It’s a name, as we profess in the Lord’s Prayer, to be hallowed. But its meaning goes beyond not swearing or trivializing God. The third commandment is not just a warning against profanity. However, this is often how we view the commandment: “don’t swear or curse and you’ll be alright.” By the time I’m through with this sermon, I hope you understand a deeper meaning. 

If our use of language is what this commandment is all about, then Hitler, who shunned profanity, could be an example of how to keep it. I think he broke this commandment as frequently as he did the others.

Let me begin with a definition of blasphemy. “Blasphemy is speech which attempts to make God a part of our lies.” The author of this definition goes on to say: “It’s a sign of our infidelity that we are no longer outraged by it.” Most all of us would agree saying “G-D you” is blasphemous. It’s calling on God to agree with our assessment that the object of our wrath deserves damnation. But that’s a clear-cut example. 

Yet, we’re guilty of blasphemy, of breaking the third commandment, whenever we invoke God’s name to get our way. We’re guilty when we fail to be honest with God. And we might even be guilty when we misrepresent ourselves to others. After all, when people know I am a Christian, they assume because of my identity in Christ, I am truthful. When I’m not, I stand guilty before God for using my relationship with my Savior to further a lie. If you’re a salesperson and use a Bible verse on honesty in your pitch, you better be careful. Another example would be Brian’s prayer, but I won’t say anything more about that. 

Joy Davidman, in her book I mentioned two weeks ago on the Ten Commandments, suggests this command is like a sign we might see on a fence around a power plant. “Warning: High Voltage.”  

We have a God of power, but we’re not to call on God for personal gain which would not bring him glory, nor are we to use his name in a superstitious manner. 

There is a great illustration of this in the old movie, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you remember, the movie pitted Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Karen Allen, his good-looking assistant, against Nazis. Everyone’s after the Ark of the Covenant. Jones, a scientist, is interested in the Ark for archeological reasons. The Nazi’s interest is more sinister. They hope the Ark can help their armies to dominate the world. At the climax of the movie, the soldiers of the Third Reich recovered the ark and capture Jones and his beautiful sidekick. Then a Nazi officer approaches the Ark chanting some ancient words, hoping to tap into its power. Opening the ark, he finds only sand. He laughs, thinking they have been fooled. Then the ark comes alive. The Nazis die. Jones and assistant are safe.  

Of course, Indiana Jones is fantasy, but in this one scene, the meaning of the third commandment is portrayed. At first, the ark seemed harmless. “It’s just sand,” the Nazi said as the grains poured through his hands. “It’s just words,” we might say. But what at first seemed so harmless becomes deadly. Seeking the power of the ancient ark for evil means, for a menacing purpose, the Nazis violate this commandment. They experience the wrath of a God who will not “hold guiltless those who take his name in vain.” It’s the same way with us taking God’s name in vain. At first, it may seem harmless. In time it can become deadly.

To fully understand this commandment, we need to consider the importance of a name. 

In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is an implied power which comes with the ability to name something. Think back to the creation account found in Genesis 2. First, God creates Adam. Seeing the man is lonely, God goes about creating animals and each specie he brings to Adam for him to name. The theological implication is that the power of naming places the human specie above the rest of the animal kingdom. God, on the other hand, names the first human and thereby shows his position over us. But God doesn’t give us his name. God tells Moses “I am who I am.” In other words, we are creatures created by a God whom we cannot control. Trying to control God violates this commandment.

Now, if we don’t really know God’s name, we might think we are unable to violate this commandment. But, as I’ve tried to impress upon you, this isn’t the case. For we can call upon God, even praying as Jesus did, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” We just need to make sure that our purposes are noble. 

Thomas Watson, a Puritan author from the 17th Century, in a commentary on the Westminster Catechism, includes our tendency toward hypocrisy among the ways we break this commandment. According to him, “professing God’s name and failing to live answerably to it,” violates the intent of the commandment. In other words, saying that we believe in God and then acting like we are a god, or doing those things our corrupted hearts desires rather than living by God’s law earns God’s displeasure.  

John Calvin, while discussing prayer, reminds us that “there are some who not only dare to pester God with all their follies, without any reverence or shame, and to lay before his throne anything that they have idly supposed might be good.” God’s name is holy; we should not be foolish enough to ask from God what is not good, nor should we invoke a name with such power for what is truly trivial. When we call upon God, let it be for noble purposes. In addition, as Christians we should not curse using God’s name. God is holy and to associate God’s holiness with something profane displeases our Creator.  

There is another area we need to examine in our discussion on this passage: that is the use of oaths. In writing about this commandment, Calvin devotes more space discussing the right and proper use of oaths than he does discussing the commandment itself. 

And a few months ago, when we worked through the Sermon on the Mount, I spent a lot of time discussing oaths. For Calvin, the problem wasn’t taking an oath; the problem resided in not abiding by or trivializing an oath. If at the end of such an oath, when we plead, “So help me God,” we better mean what we say. Or if we swear that something is true, it better be true. Otherwise, we take God’s name in vain.   

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” It’s a simple commandment with a clear warning and great implications. Don’t trivialize God. If you live your life as a Christian, be careful you don’t lie to God. Nor should you, by actions unbecoming of our Savior, lie to others about God.  Amen.  

Sources:

Calvin, John, Institutes, III.20.5

Davidman, Joy, Smoke on the Mountain (London: Hodder & Staunton, 1963).

Gowan, Donald, Genesis 1-11: From Eden to Babel (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1988).

Hauerwas, Stanley and William Williamson, The Truth About God; The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 48.

Miller, Patrick D. The Ten Commandments: Interpretation, Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church (Louisville, KY:WJP, 2000).

Watson, Thomas, The Ten Commandments (First published as a part of A Body of Practical Divinity, 1692: London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970).

Wendel, Francois, Calvin: Origins and Development of his Religious Thought, Philip Mairet, translator (1950, Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1987).

This version is revised from a sermon preached on June 24, 2007 at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, MI

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Review of June Readings

title slide with book covers

Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure 

Book cover

(New York: Avid Reader Press, 2022), 397 pages including index and an essay on sources titled “Acknowledgments). Audible Book by Simon & Schuster Audio, read by Jason Culp and is 15 hours and 21 minutes long.

This isn’t the first Life on the Mississippi I’ve read. I read another one. You probably heard about it. Mark Twain’s book with the same title which I read decades ago. Buck gives credit to Twain’s work,. Published later in his life, Twain elived his younger years as a pilot on the Mississippi as he traveled once again down the river.

Buck also gives credit to Harlan Hubbard’s Shantyboat: A River Way of Life. When I lived in Michigan, a neighbor had a copy of that book in his “Shack” on Cedar Creek. Whenever we were out at there, if I had a few free minutes, I’d pull it down and read. Hubbard and his wife journeyed down the Mississippi in the 1940s. Another mention in the book are the paintings of George Caleb Bringham. This reminded me of seeing his collection in a show at The Met in 2015. Visons of this show, titled: “Navigating the West George Caleb Bingham and the River,” ran through my head as I read.  Yes, I enjoyed Buck’s story and all his tangents. The book begins with the building of his boat. We then travel with him down the rivers. He launches on the Monongahela River, south of Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh, he picks up the Ohio River, and floats it West to the Mississippi. From there, he makes his way down the Big Muddy to New Orleans. 

As Buck takes the reader down river, we learn about his own life. He’s a pilot who as a teenager, with his brother, flew across country. He also reenacted a wagon train journey along the Oregon Trail. We also learn of his mother’s recent death at an old age. The hours on the water give him much time to ponder her life and what she instilled into her children.

Lessons from the River

But this book isn’t just about personal stuff. Throughout the journey, we learn about the history of this great inland waterway. Buck introduces us to the flatboat, which were first floated down the river in the late 18th Century. By the early 19th Century, it was an industry. Farmers in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee built  boats. They load them with produce (or bourbon, the liquid form of corn) and floated to New Orleans. There, they often sold their boats for lumber, often for more than they had in them, before making their way overland back home. 

Buck doesn’t shy away from the negative side of life along the river. I never knew the river’s role in the Trail of Tears. Many of the Native Americans from the lower reaches of the Tennessee River were floated on flatboats from their homeland to a location along the Mississippi. There, they debarked overland to the new Indian Territories.

However, I did know the role the river played in moving slaves south to the cotton and sugar plantations along the Mississippi in the 1840s and 50s. By this time, the flatboats had mostly given way to the steamboats. Having chattel slaves on the boats showed America the ugly side of slavery, as depicted in Harriett Beecher Stow’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stow spent time along the river earlier in her marriage, giving her an insight into the ugly side of our nation. Today, huge barges carry grain to the port of New Orleans and shuttle coal between mines and mills along the Ohio. And a series of locks and dams control the river’s depth and make navigation possible year around.   

In addition to learning about the river, we also gain insight into Buck’s crew. They frequently turn over as various members came aboard as others returned to their homes and jobs. Some came back for multiple sections, but many just serve a week or two aboard The Patience. Mostly, the crew got along, but there were also some tensions which comes upon living on a tight wooden boat he built for the trip. His boat also had a motor, which would be necessary these days as he had to maneuver around large formations of barges. Telling the story of leaving the Ohio for the Mississippi is exciting. He had to dodged huge fleets of barrages on the three rivers.

Overall Review

This is one of the books I listened to on Audible, but also checked out a hard copy from the library so I could check things and see the maps and photos. While I enjoyed the book, it seemed to me Buck spent more time discussing the Ohio River than the Mississippi. The latter is now less wild and has been engineered into more of a straightaway with rock banks protecting the channel. While he dug into the history in places like Natchez, the reader gained less insights into other places like Vicksburg and Memphis.  Despite this, I enjoyed the trip.

Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary 

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 236 pages including index, footnotes, and sources.

Between February and mid-June, , I preached 17 sermons on the Sermon of the Mount. In addition to three commentaries on Matthew (Doug Hare, Robert Gundry, and Fredrick Dale Bruner), I depended heavily on this theological commentary.  While preaching, I mostly read the commentary sections of the book. Afterwards, I went back and read the opening chapters, which I found enlightening. 

Pennington’s thesis is that there was a conversation in Second Temple Judaism between the Hebrew people and the Greco-Roman world. This makes sense. The Jewish community was dispersed throughout the region during this time. Furthermore, those living in what had been ancient Israel were under the control of the Greeks and then the Romans.

Matthew wrote in Greek. Pennington follows his use of language and ties it to Greek philosophy. Jesus (and the Bible), like the Greeks are interested in how humans might flourish. The Sermon on the Mount begins with the beatitudes, which is often translated as “Blessed be the,” but the word there could also be translated as “Flourishing.” It’s a word with no good English equivalent. He suggests that Jesus, like the Greek philosophers, desire humans to flourish. Of course, there are other aspects to Jesus teachings. This includes his focus on our relationship to God and the eschatology found within in the Sermon. Pennington also links the sermon to the rest of Matthew’s gospel.

The Sermon also falls within the genre of Hebrew wisdom literature. Pennington suggests this conversation between philosophy informs Jesus’ teaching. 

I enjoyed this book and while I spent 17 weeks focusing on Jesus’ great sermon, I feel I could spend many more weeks digging deeper into it. 

Carrie Fountain, The Life 

 (New York: Penguin Poets, 2022), 91 pages. 

I enjoyed Fountain’s presentation at Calvin’s Festival of Faith and Writing and picked up this book at the Festival. I was also enamored with her when she complimented me on the sound of my voice as she signed her book. It doesn’t take much to impress me. But I am also impressed with this book and look forward to reading more of her poetry.  At the Festival, Fountain said she attempts to write a poem every day. “Most are not good, at least at first,” she admitted. . In time she returns to some of those poems and craft into a work to be published. 

These poems are tender. Most deal with her children and a few with her husband and family. She captures the essence of life at different intervals which makes for fascinating reading. Furthermore, her poems also bring in a dialogue with the divine, who gives us life and this world to enjoy.  

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We Always Stand Under God

Title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Presbyterian Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
July 5, 2026
2 Chronicles 7:12-22

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Thursday, July 2, 2026

At the beginning of worship: 

Yesterday marked the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Those who signed that paper took a big risk. Breaking away from the Great Britain, they chanced being charged with treason. Not only did they risk their necks in a noose, but many jeopardized their businesses and fortunes.

But they had a dream. It wasn’t a perfect dream as they only called for independence for themselves and those like them. The Africans who made up a significant part of the colonies at the time, especially from Maryland south, were overlooked, even though one of the first killed at the Boston Massacre, often cited as the beginning of the Revolution, was African American.[1] Nor did they call for independence for Native Americans. In fact, over the next hundred years, their descendants and our ancestors would rob more land belonging to the native population. But their dream lived on. In time, and after more wars, those who were overlooked in the initial declaration begin to find freedom. 

One of the things we gleam from scripture is that all of us have flaws. There’s only been one perfect person, Jesus Christ. Even the great figures of scripture, like the founders of our nation, struggled to live a virtuous life. And we struggle, yet we must hold virtues as goals and strive to obtain them. Doing so, we help build a stronger and more just community. 

Before reading the Scriptures:

I’m stepping away from our journey through the Ten Commandments this Sunday as its Independence Day weekend. I want us to look at a passage from 2 Chronicles 7, which comes just after celebration dedicating Solomon’s temple. There is one verse in this passage, verse 14, often cited out-of-context, by those who consider themselves Christian Nationalist or Chrisitan Reconstructionist.[2] I want us to look at the entire passage, to see what it said to Solomon and what we might learn from it.

Let me say a bit about this book. Chronicles originally consisted of one volume, titled “The Events of the Days” by an unnamed “Chronicler.” When the Hebrew Bible was translated into the Greek, in the Septuagint, the book was split into two. Later, five centuries after Jesus, the book received its current name from Jerome, who translated the Hebrew and Greek texts into Latin.[3]His translation, known as the Vulgate, continued to be used for nearly 1500 years within the Roman Catholic Church.  

Let me also point out we find a similar passage in 1st Kings.[4]Revisionist history isn’t anything new. We find it even in the Biblical story. The two books of the Chronicles repeat a lot of is said in four books consisting of 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd King. I confess I tend to prefer those four books than the Chronicles, for the later seems to try to clean things up a little too neatly. In Kings we learn of Solomons warts and all, especially later in his life as his foreign marriages brings idolatry into Israel, resulting in the divided kingdom. The split of the kingdoms exists in Chronicles, but they say nothing about Solomon’s sins. He stands as the ideal king: wise, loaded with gold, riches, and honored by all. 

While Chronicles doesn’t blame Solomon for the divided kingdom, it does provide us the warning Solomon received as we’ll see today.[5] Let’s look at this passage:

Read 2nd Chronicles 7:12-22

The hoopla of the temple’s dedication has come to an end. The vision of the temple had first been held by King David, who felt it wasn’t right to live in a fine palace while God’s visual presence remained in a tent. But God didn’t give David the opportunity to build the temple, even though he raised the money so that his son could take on the project.[6]

After David, Solomon built the temple and had a week of celebration as it opened. But the celebration is now done, the cleanup has begun. I image Solomon, exhausted, falls into his bed. Sometime at night, God visits. 

We’re not told this was a dream, but it could have been. It’s night. Solomon appears to have been alone. And we’re not given any descriptions of the Lord. So, a dream seems a likely explanation as to how this occurred. 

This encounter provides God’s answer to Solomon prayer in the previous chapter. Standing before the people at the altar, Solomon gave thanks and praise to God. Then he turned to future needs, praying for God to answer the prayers of his people when they are in distress from drought, pestilence, or enemies.[7] God answers, claiming the place of the temple as one he chose, not Solomon. Then God claims to be the one who brings drought, locust, and pestilence upon the people. In other words, this isn’t a random happening to Israel, but a punishment.[8]

Next, we come to verse 14, which I suggest often gets pulled out of context as it’s applied to our nation. This passage is addressed to Solomon and God provides a way out of ancient Israel’s distress. The people must humble themselves, pray and seek God, and change their wicked ways. If all that happens, God promises to hear from heaven and intervene on behalf of the people. This promise made to the nation of Israel, which ceased to exist shortly after Solomon’s death. The kingdom split into two, the northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah. 

God further promises to maintain a king on David’s throne, that God’s name will forever be associated with the temple. Here, we get the sense of the Davidic kingdom being a forerunner of the coming kingdom in which the Messiah eternally assumes David’s throne. We celebrate this at Christmas, with Jesus born in David’s city of Bethlehem… 

Today, the promise is for the church, who worships the Jesus, the King who reigns on David’s throne. We always stand under God, whether or not we acknowledge it.

Next, God warns Solomon against three things: turning away from God, forsaking God’s commandments, especially the commandment against idolatry. In a statement that almost foreshadows the Babylonian exile, God tells Solomon he’ll “pluck up his people” and abandon the temple. At this point, God points out that others may ask what happened to God’s people. They will now serve as a visible proverb of what happens to those who turn away from God. 

There is one thing we should learn from this passage which reinforces my last two sermons on the First and the SecondCommandments. While God answers the prayers, God reminds Solomon who’s in charge. The king stands under God’s watch. While Solomon’s work in building the temple is explementary, the glory of the site belongs to God. Earlier in Chronicles, we learn Solomon’s skill at commerce. He forged ties to surrounding nations. He trades and imports things Israel lacked. Gold and silver and bronze and wood from the mountains of Lebanon.[9]God gave Solomon the ability to build the temple, but the temple belongs to the God who gave Solomon the ability, not to Solomon. 

This warning belongs to everyone. Glory belongs to God, not to us. We must be careful building monuments to ourselves. 

Perhaps the best epitaph on any of our gravestones would simply read, he or she “trusted in the Lord and was a good neighbor.” In the end, it’s about God and others, not about us. That was a message to Solomon and it’s this passage’s message to us. Pride in ourselves and even our country can get us in trouble. When we do great things, we need to thank God for the ability and the opportunity. Humility, which seemed to be in short supply in Solomon’s case as in our world today, needs to be nurtured. It’ll bring us closer to God and help us live in a noble manner while strengthening our communities.  Amen. 

[1]See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispus_Attucks.  Attucks is believed to be both Native American and African descent.  

[2] For more on this, see this essay by Russell Moore: https://www.russellmoore.com/2016/01/14/2-chronicles-714-isnt-about-american-politics/

[3] Mark A Throntviet, “1 Chronicles,” in The New Interpreters Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 571.  

[4] 1 Kings 9:1-9. For differences between Chronicles and Kings, see Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: The Old Testament Library (London, 1993, Louisville, KY, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 613-614. 

[5] Solomon’s life in Chronicles ends after he ruled 40 years. Then he “went to sleep with his ancestors.” 2 Chronicles 8:30-31. The blame for the split rests on Solmon’s son Rehoboam

[6] See 1 Chronicles 22:6-9 and 29:1-9.

[7] Solomon’s prayer is found in 2 Chronicles 6:12-42.

[8] Japhet, 615. 

[9] See 2 Chronicles 1:14-2:16.

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Festival of Faith and Writing and My April Trip to Michigan

title slides with photos from trip

I’m delayed in finishing up this post on part two of my trip to Michigan for Calvin University’s Festival of Faith and Writing. To read part 1, click here. Sorry, but I didn’t take many photos at the Festival.

Friday, April 17, 2026 

Barbara Brown Taylor speaking at the Festival of faith & writing
Barbara Brown Taylor speaking at the end of the Conference

On Thursday morning I first attended a discussion between Robin Kimmerer and Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, moderated by Debra Rienstra. I’VE read all of Kimmerer’s books and have just finished Meyaard-Schaap’s book, Following Jesus in a Warming World.  I also read Rienstra’s weekly Refugia newsletter. The conversation started with an interesting twist. Kimmerer expressed curiosity as to why she was invited to a conference about faith. Not thinking of herself as a faith writer, she expressed interest into why so many Christians seem drawn to her work. Meyaard-Schaap responded that Christians long for a deeper story than we sometimes are fed, and that the Old Testament is essentially an indigenous story. Kimmerer is Native American. 

The 45-minute conversation provided many insights which ranged for what we think about the human body, to the land we inhabit, and to how fear is not sustainable. Everyone agreed in the need theologians to address the ecological crisis.

My second morning session was a conversation between Laurie Halse Anderson and Ayana Mathic titled “Rewriting the Record: Literature, Memory, and the Histories We Inherit.”  Deb Van Denen moderated the conversation. 

My next lecture was by Kiki Petrosing, titled “Spell, Ceremony, Miracle: The Literary Narrative of a Lapsed Catholic.” I was especially interested in hearing her conversation having read two of her books of poetry, Bright: A Memoir, and White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia.  I also learned more of her relationship to her mentor, Gregory Orr, as both have tragedy in their past. 

At lunch, I took part of a writing circle focusing on memoir. Courtney Ellis, who along with her husband, pastors a Presbyterian Church in California, led the discussion.  Most of the lunch hour focused on the mechanics of memoir writing, drawing heavily on Annie Dillard and Anne Lamont.  She reminded us of the difficulty of publishing memoirs unless we were able provide a different hook to make our story even more interesting.  This “hook,” can help us create a framework. She also reminded us how we can’t write everything and must make decisions as to what we should cut. As a preacher, she thinks about her stories from the pulpit and won’t include anything which she would feel uncomfortable saying in a sermon. She also encouraged us to write within a community (writing group) to get helpful critique. 

After lunch, I attended the most straightforward “how-to” lecture of the conference. Margot Stenbuck, an editor and author of A Grown Woman’s Guide to Online Dating,” talked about how to pitch non-fiction books. While her outline was straight and organized, with details about the cover letter and what to say not to say, she tied it all together referring to clips from the movie “Hitch.” In a humorous manner, she presented finding a publisher (or editor) akin to finding a spouse.

My closing lecture was Ross Gay, a poet, who describes himself as a student of joy. He mostly drew on his work, Why I Garden, which sold out, but I did come home with another of his book of poetry, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.  His readings were enjoyable, but I didn’t take many notes. However, I did appreciate a side comment made between poems as to his indebtedness to Amy Leech’s work. I recently read another of her books and reviewed it here. 

Saturday, April 18, 2026

I began the final day of the conference sitting in on a discussion between Ross Gay, whom I heard the evening before, and his friend Patrick Rosal.  Not only delightful, but the conversation showed their genuine friendship for each other. They play basketball together but now live far apart so they appreciated the festival bringing them together. Throughout the conversation they told stories about the other and spent a lot of time laughing and causing us to laugh. 

Next, I attended a conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and college professor. Back in the 1990s, as Taylor began her ascent as one of the great preachers of the generation, I spent a week with her and 12 other preachers in San Francisco. A lot has changed since then as she left the church for the college classroom. For much of this presentation, she talked being “a free-range preacher.”  While she no longer a pastor of a congregation, she still gets invited to preach in churches all over the nation.  She joked about this new role, comparing herself as the babysitter who brings with her a dart board and steel darts.  The other thing which impressed me is how she still draws and relies on her mentor from seminary, the late Fred Craddock.  She mentioned him several times including his saying, “you’re a preacher. You hold the camera; you don’t get in front of it.” 

At lunch, I was with the second meeting of the memoir writing group. Courtney Ellis began with an exercise. We had to give two sentences of a scene from our story. Then, each of us had to ask questions based on those two sentences, to help the writer draw deeper into the story.  After this exercise, she provided a few closing insights into publishing and the role of social media. 

After lunch, I attended a conversation titled “Witnessing What’s There: Writing and Attention in a Wounded World” which featured Daniel Jose’ Camaco and Alejendra Oliva with Alisa Tigchelaar moderating.  The conversation centered around their work as activist writers in a conflicted world of immigration. Then I attended Christine Byl’s talk titled Place and Landscape as Character. Living between Montana and Alaska, Bly has written about her work building trails and living in remote areas. 

The closing plenary lecture featured Barbara Brown Taylor. As always, she was amazing as she spoke about the power of words. As she often does, nature played a role in her insights. She also drew from her recent book, Holy Envy, in which she writes about engagements with students from other faiths through her teachings. Part of her talk she included in a recent Substack post. 

After leaving the conference, driving back to the hotel and thinking about dinner, I spied Red Lobster. For some reason, I recalled a day of Christmas shopping with my daughter twenty years earlier.  At this point in her life, people thought she was Dakota Fanning, the child music star. Twice that morning, in stores, people had told her she looked like the star. Then, at lunch at Red Lobster, the waitress fawned all over her, again, thinking she was Dakota Fanning. I’m not sure what came over me, but I suggested she sign a napkin Dakota and leave it on the table. While I thought it would be a good joke, my daughter conscience wouldn’t allow it. I pulled in for a late dinner, recalling the events of twenty years earlier, before heading back to the hotel. 

Sunday, April 19, 2026 

Sunday morning, I attended The Church of the Master, which has over the years done incredible work with worship. I have attended this church many times, going back before living in Michigan. Several times when staying with Jack Stewart, we’d attend church there. The last time, they’d just called a woman from Scotland as pastor, and I really enjoyed her sermon. This church also an incredible group of congregants who were the intelligentsia within the Christian Reformed Church. But this time, the preaching wasn’t overly impressive. But I enjoyed other parts of the service. The most unique thing was the detailed bulletin that didn’t name any of the clergy participating. 

After church, I headed to Hastings. While I waited to meet my friend Bob for lunch, I walked along the riverwalk which runs where the old Michigan Central Line used to be. There, along the Thornapple River, was a series of monuments consisting of pages from a children’s book about an owl in Central Park in New York City. At each stop, there was a place for those walking to stop and read. This new feature was dedicated to Jane Arnold, a former 1st Grade teacher from Hastings who was a member of the church when I served this community. I had heard but forgotten that she had died. 

Bob at Cedar Creek
Bob at Cedar Creek

After lunch, Bob and I headed down to Pierce Cedar Creek, where we hiked back in the woods by Cedar Creek, where I had walked and skied or snowshoed many times when I lived in Hastings. The leaves on trees were just beginning to unfurl, allowing the flowers along the ground to put on a display. I estimated nature here is about two weeks behind what where it’s at in the Virginia Mountains. 

Swamp marigold amongst skunk cabbage
Swamp marigold amongst skunk cabbage

It’s always a joy to be in the woods with Bob as his botanical knowledge far exceeds mine. We looked at the small flowers blooming before the forest canopy closed in and shaded the ground. The swamp marigolds amongst the skunk cabbage in the lowlands were especially beautiful. 

That night, we had decided to eat ice cream for dinner at the new Culvers in town. We stayed up late talking. 

Cedar Creek

Monday, April 20, 2026

Jim paddling a canoe in winter
Nim paddling in the bow in winter

On Monday, I met Jim, my winter canoe partner, for breakfast at Richies. It was good to be served by Sandy, who still waits on tables there, and to see a lot of old regulars from when I lived in town. After lunch, I meet with the other Jim, who was my assistant at the church when I was there. He doesn’t get out much these days as he cares for his wife and depends on a walker or cane to get around. 

Afterwards, I called the finance manager at First Presbyterian Church. Nancy lost her husband a little over a year ago from a heart attack just a month after he’d retired. She had planned to retire a year earlier but stayed on a second year to have a place to go and to let the church minister to her in her grief. I had talked to her after Dave’s death, and wrote to her, but hadn’t seen her since I left Hastings. Nancy now plans to retire after the books close this year. 

author standing by his portrait
Standing by my portriat

I dropped by the church to see her, which seemed odd as this was the first time I had been in the church since I left in the summer of 2014. I had called Nancy, the church’s finance manager, to see if I could visit. She seemed delighted and had some time before a 1 PM finance meeting. Nancy has been the finance director for the past 25 years, including all the time I was at the church. She had planned to retire a year earlier, but then her husband who had just retired, died from a massive heart attack. I talked to her afterwards and wrote to her, but had not seen her since that tragic event and wanted to drop by. Nancy insisted on showing me my “full-sized” portrait on a hallway in the church. We talked about old times and how she was doing without Dave, along with what her kids (and grandkids) are doing.  She introduced me to their pastor (the second one since I left). I stayed long enough to greet those on the finance committee, all who were in the church when I was the pastor. 

When I left the church, I stopped for a quick lunch and then drove to South Bend. I picked dinner as I knew I would be boarding the train after the dining car closed. Next, I dropped the rental car off at Enterprise and had them give me a lift back to the train station.  A little after nine, I boarded the train and headed east, running through the towns and cities below Lake Erie. I slept. I don’t even remember stopping in Cleveland. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Selie by train
Selfie by train in Cumberland MD

I woke up early in the morning, just before we pulled into Pittsburgh, watching another familiar area as the train ran along the Ohio River and then over the Allegheny and into the Steel City.  I noticed a bicyclist getting on the train at the stop in Pittsburgh. It was 4:30 AM. Soon, I was back asleep, but at breakfast I talked to the bicyclist who’d just completed the C&O Canal and the Great Allegheny Passage train, which brother and I had done last May. This was his fourth ride on the trail and now headed back to his home to Washington, DC. 

Breakfast became an interesting place to meet folks. There was an attorney who worked for the District Attorney in Austin, Texas. Another woman had spent the past six years taking care of her sister in Salt Lake City, Utah. She decided to buy a rail pass and was heading to Miami.  After a stop in Washington, I boarded the Southern Crescent for the last leg of my ride through the Virginia Countryside. Sitting next to me was a guy named Brandon, heading to Charlotte to see his brother who was in a traveling theater group. Brandon lives in Narobi, Kenya and works as an attorney for the United Nations.  I enjoyed our conversation.  I arrived back in Danville, from where I started a week earlier, a little after 11 PM.