Author: jgarrison

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Palm Sunday 2026

Title slide with photos of the two churches in late winter

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
March 29, 2026
Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on March 27, 2029. Note, the opening in the text was not included in this recorded sermon.

At the beginning of worship: 
In “Palm Sunday,” a poem by Malcolm Guite, begins: 

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The Saviour comes. But will I welcome him? 

It’s easy on Palm Sunday to make it about those who cheered Jesus on so many years ago. But for us the question remains personal, as Guite ends his poem. 

Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.[1]

Before reading the Scriptures:
For Holy Week, I’m taking a two-week break from our in-depth study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We’ll stay in the Gospel of Matthew but move toward the end of the gospel. Today, we’ll look at Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on the day we know as Palm Sunday. This is a story that you find in all four gospels. They may have slight differences, as you have four different people from different perspectives writing it down. But they agree on the main points. Jesus comes into Jerusalem and stirs things up. Next Sunday, Easter, we’ll look at the Resurrection.

Read Matthew 21:1-11
It’s an exciting spring day in the imperial city of Jerusalem. Pilgrims pour in; Jews living throughout the Mediterranean gather at their ancestral city to celebrate the Passover. What a wonderful day for a parade…

Jesus and gang are also heading to Jerusalem to celebrate. When only a few miles from town, Jesus sends his disciples into the next village to procure a donkey and colt for his entry… He tells them where to find these animals. He instructs his disciples to respond to anyone who challenges them with, “the Lord needs it and will return it.” The disciples find the animal; some bystanders question their taking the colt, but they seem satisfied with the answer. Did Jesus work this out in advance or is this a sign of his divinity? The text lets allows us to ponder, providing no clear indication if this Jesus’ humanity at work (he arranged for the colt in advance) or his divinity at work (he knew where to send the disciples).[2]  

The disciples, without being asked, placed their cloaks on the animals as a saddle. Now, how Jesus rode two animals, as Matthew seems to suggest, we’re not told. We might humorously image him, holding the reigns in his teeth, with a foot on each animal, like a circus rider taking a victory lap, but that’s probably not the case. Most likely, he sat on the donkey, sidesaddle, as was the custom for riding such beasts. The colt followed along, staying close to its mother.[3]

Quickly, as he and the disciples approach the city’s walls, excitement builds. Followers start placing their cloaks on the ground—in Sir Walter Raleigh’s fashion—as the procession begins. Someone brings in branches—we’re not told here they’re palms. That detail comes from John’s gospel.[4] These branches wave, like the “Terrible Towels” of the Pittsburgh Steelers, making the parade more festive. They welcome Jesus as a general or a king returning home victorious… They chant Hosanna, “Save us,” as they quote from Psalm 118:  

Hosanna to the Son of David! 
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven![5]

I image its mostly pilgrims making up the crowd. The people of Jerusalem have jobs, they’re busy providing hospitality to all the visitors. Many of these visitors would have been from the small towns and villages in Galilee, who’ve come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. 

This is Spring Break, 30 AD. Just like today, most everyone makes a trek south—but instead of Florida, they head to Jerusalem. For many of the pilgrims, this is the highlight of their life—being in Jerusalem for the holiday. It’s like us celebrating New Year’s Eve on Times’ Square, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or Christmas at Grandma Moses’ farm. A once in a lifetime chance. 

And as they come to Jerusalem, they recall God’s great acts of salvation in the past, of how God freed the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery and saved them from Pharaoh’s army. Reminiscing about God’s past activity opens them up to the possibility God will act again and restore Israel to her former glory. They gather in hope.

Many of them hope Jesus is the one they’ve waited for, for so long. The man God will use to shake off the Roman shackles and allow Israel to once again be free. Jesus, however, doesn’t fulfill their expectations. He offers another kind of freedom. One from our sin.

We’re left to wonder what our response would have been if we were there? Where would we be in this story? Would we have been in the crowds shouting “Hosanna?” And if so, would we’ve also been in the crowds shouting “Crucify?” For you see, it’s hard to separate the parade at the beginning of Holy Week, with the crucifixion which comes five days later. 

What is it about our nature which allows us to get excited when our religion seems to support our expectations? And then, back away when things seem to move in a direction with which we disagree? We often forget that God’s ways are not ours.

Jesus takes a risk with this parade. Here, with the parade, Jesus mocks politicians who enter Jerusalem with pomp and circumstance. As Jesus comes into Jerusalem, there were two other significant political figures either already in the city (or if not, they were soon to be there): Pilate, the Roman governor, and Herod, the Roman puppet king from up north. 

They, too, probably experienced a parade, one involving fancy horses and soldiers with shiny brass and perhaps even a band. Pilate and Herod display the power of Empire; Jesus, humbly riding on a donkey, displays the power of a mysterious kingdom, one not of this world. Who do we follow? Are we lured by the fancy horses and war chariots of the kings and politicians? Or do we follow the man on a donkey.    

This is political, and church always has difficulty with politics. We walk a line between being prophetic in calling government to a higher standard (which is appropriate) and playing the court jester. With the later, we sometimes divert people’s attention from what’s important and thereby providing support for the status quo. In a way, with the decline of the mainline churches, we no longer play the role we once did in politics and that’s probably good.

I’ve heard Miroslav Volf, a theologian and the founder of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, speak a couple of times. Having grown up in Eastern Europe, he knows something about the problems which exist between the faithful and government. On one occasion, when he was being interviewed by Neal Plantinga, who at the time was President of Calvin Seminary, Volf said: “Don’t look with nostalgia on the time when the church was in the center of everything, for then it was used and abused by those in power… instead, we must find the language and the confidence to cheerfully live our lives as followers of Jesus Christ.” The church can’t and shouldn’t depend on political power.[6] Jesus, riding on a humble donkey, demonstrates this. We depend on God’s power to carry out God’s purposes, and not on military or political might.

Many people think the reason the mainline church decline in influence is that we no longer reflect the values of the larger society. This may be so, but even if it is, we must remember we’re not called to reflect the values of society. We’re called to reflect the values of that man who rode into Jerusalem on a colt some 2000 years ago. And his values constantly challenge us as to who we are and to whom we belong. Do we conform to how others want us to be, or do we strive to conform ourselves to the example of our Savior Jesus Christ? Are we intoxicated by the crowds, or by a desire to stand by the one who is the way and the truth and the life?[7]

We should ponder what Jesus’ risked during Holy Week, and what we are willing to risk for the sake of the gospel. Here are some things we should consider. Do we only support our church when things go our way, or when we hear what we want to hear, or when the church does only the things we want to do? If that’s the case, are we taking risk? Are we being supportive? Are we being Christ-like, and are we being open to where God is calling? Or, to ask the question another way, if we only listen to what we want to hear from Jesus, are we really being faithful to him? It takes faith to stand alone when the crowds disappear; it takes faith to buck the trend. But look at Jesus. 

Granted, sometimes we, as individuals and as the church, are wrong, and when we are it takes faith to admit that we are wrong and to seek the new trail Jesus is blazing for us…

We hear the crowds… We’re drawn toward Jesus… Will we just hang around for the fun of the parade, or will we take a risk and continue to follow him as his journey moves toward the cross upon which we’ll be called to sacrifice our wills and desires for his? Amen

[1] Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter, (Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2014), 153.

[2] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28 (Grand Rapids: Eerdman, 2004), 353.

[3] For more on the two animals, see Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 238-239.

[4] John 12:13.

[5] Psalm 118:25-26.

[6] Interview of Miroslav Volf by Cornelius Plantiga, Calvin College, April 12, 2014

[7] John 14:6

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A Trip to the Low Country

Title slide with a photo from inside the church, kayak in the Okefenokee, and a train

Earlier this month I was able to get away for a week to attend the Theology Matters Conference at Providence Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head. In addition, I was able to spend a few days in the Okefenokee, watching trains, and catching up with a few former co-workers. I left home with temperatures just above freezing, worrying that the rain would begin to freeze. Thankfully, by the time I was down off the Blue Ridge, the temperature was much warmer with no chance of ice. As I continued to drive down, with a kayak lashed to the top of my car, I listened to Gilbert King’s,  Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, The Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. I’ll review the book early in April. 

On the way down, I met Deanie for lunch. During my tenure as pastor on Skidaway, she was an associate pastor and a delightful colleague. We had wonderful Mexican meal at a restaurant just outside of Savannah. We caught up on what’s going on in our lives, with our families, and with friends.  Then I turned east and drove to Hilton Head, passing the never-ending sprawl with countless stoplights which has become the South Carolina Low Country.  I checked into my hotel, then headed over to the church for a low country boil (shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes and seasoning). 

While at the conference I enjoyed catching up with old friends and making some new ones while listening to the speakers at the lecturers. The weather was wonderful, but like always, the island feels overcrowded. I didn’t even walk out to the beach! This year’s theme was “The Good Shepherd Lays Down his Life for the Sheep.” 

Providence Presbyterian Church Sanctuary. Rev. Dr. Raymond Hylton speaking

While I enjoyed all the speakers, especially the sermons by Raymon Hylton, Pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, the highlight was Andy Dearman. A retired Biblical scholar who did a marvelous job of weaving the Old and New Testament together around the conference’s themes. While I enjoyed the conference, I kept looking out those beautiful windows at the church. From my pew, I could se the tops of magolias, pines, live oaks decked out in Spanish moss, and sweet gum trees. My mind kept being drawn to the kayak on top of my car and what I’d be doing a few days later…

After the conference, I drove down to Skidaway and met with Jim, who is still the Administrator at Skidaway Community Church. This was my first time being back at the church since the January of 2022, when I was there to officiate at the funeral for a friend.  It was great seeing the improvements and hear of the plans for the church’s future. Since I lift, Jim has taken to writing, especially “flash fiction.”  He’s even had a couple of pieces published in a local magazine which often published my work when I was living there.

A good sized gator

I then drove down to the Okefenokee.  I spent two days in the swamp, but was unable to obtain camping reservations inside the park due to the busy season and the low water which cut off some of the canoe trails.  

The first night, I was able to stay in a caboose. Folkston is a great place to watch trains as just above the town two main lines merge which bring trains to and from Florida to the Northeast and Midwest. Especially during the night, the tracks seemed busy, often with two trains, one heading north and the other south, crossing at the same time. The caboose was comfortable for me, with a deck out back where I did some writing and reading as I watched trains. There were four bunks on one end of the caboose, a sitting area in the middle and a small kitchen and even smaller bathroom on the other end. 

Home for a night
My plate: Grilled chicken, chopped
barbecue, collards, and beans

 After spending the day in the refuge, and checking into the caboose and then walked over to Jalen’s Barbecue. Many people will probably pass it by as dump, but their chopped barbecue and roast chicken was wonderful. I just wish I had arrived in time to have had ribs, but they’d sold out. And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they had the best collards I’ve ever had. They were not mushy and were quite tasty.  Normally, I prefer turnip greens, but I’d go for collards if they were that good. 

It was weird paddling within the swamp as the water was a couple feet lower than any of my previous trips into the swamp. I mostly paddled Chesser and Mizell Prairies. In previous times, you could paddle across the prairies, but this time the water level kept me in the canals.  I was a little early for flower blooms. But as always, birds were plentiful. Egrets, ibis, sandhill cranes, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and so on. There were plenty of turtles and alligators sleeping along the banks. 

It’s been a while since I paddled my Phoenix Isene Kayak. Lately I’ve mostly paddled my big sea kayak, which is 18′ 6″ long. This boat is 14′ 9″ and weighs (empty) 28 pounds. It was good to be back in this boat.

Sandhill Crane

I spent my second night camping in my hammock at Okefenokee Pastimes, a campground and restaurant just outside the park. I had a Philly Che esesteak Sandwich and beer for dinner as I talked with the new owner of the campground. That night, I slept in my hammock. While it was good to camp, I ran around too much with flip-flops and my ankles were well-chewed by sand gnats!

On Sunday, I set my sights north, heading up 301 to Waycross, and then on US 1 up into South Carolina. Somewhere along the way, I finished listening to Devil in the Grove. It began to rain as I crossed into South Carolina, so I slipped over to the interstate and made it home shortly after dark. 

This wasn’t my first rodeo… Links to past events

Theology Matters, October 2021

Theology Matters, March 2023

Day 1 of a 5 Day Okefenokee Adventure

Days 2 & 3 of a 5 Day Okefenokee Adventure

Days 4 & 5 of a 5 Day Okefenokee Adventure

Another Okefenokee Adventure

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Turning the Other Cheek and Loving our Enemies

Title slide for sermon with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches
Matthew 5:37-48
March 22, 2026

Sermon taped at Bluemont on Thursday, February 19, 2026.

At the beginning of worship

A few years ago, there was a video making the rounds of two women in a grocery store parking lot. One carelessly opened her door into the car next to her. Shocked, the woman in that car asked if she was going to apologize. The first woman said a few harsh words to the other, about how she didn’t hurt the resale value of her car. Soon they both began banging their doors into each other’s car. Then they began drove around the parking lot in an improvised demolition derby. Those coming out of the store gathered along the sidewalk to watch. At one point, as one of the women backs her car into the other and the camera focuses on her bumper sticker. “War is not the answer.”[1]

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever done something that, if it were pointed out that you are Christian when doing it, would be embarrassing? (You don’t have to raise your hands; wait till the Prayer of Confession to make your confessions). Of course, you have. I have; we all have… If we have high values, it’s hard to live up to our standards. Thankfully, we live by grace and not the law.

If you want to see the video on Youtube, look up my sermon online. There’s a link to it. 

Before reading the Scripture:

Today we’ll finish up Jesus’ six commands in the Sermon on the Mount. These reinterpretations of the law seem more difficult to obey. As I said all along, Jesus raises the bar. It’s harder to know which reinterpreted commandment is the hardest, but I suggest it might be the last two. Turn the other cheek and love your enemies… Jesus forces us to look out for the best interest of our enemies. But we don’t like to do that, do we? 

Think about Cuba today. Supposedly the island is again our enemy, and we’ve put a blockade on them, cutting them off from fuel. The nation has gone dark as it struggles to maintain its power grid. Even hospitals have been forced to operate without power. Considering Jesus’ teachings, what kind of reception a politician would receive if he or she suggested we allow the island to receive enough oil to alleviate the suffering of the Cuban people? And consider what would Jesus do?

In these six reinterpretations of commandments from the Old Testament, Jesus mostly follows a similar pattern. He provides the original teaching with “You have heard it said.” Then he gives a new commandment, “But I say.” And he follows this with some suggestions of how we can follow his command.[2]

In today’s reading, Jesus comes out against revenge, challenging the command, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This law, which isn’t unique to the Hebrews as it was found in even older laws in the region, attempts to limit revenge. Instead of the “Sicilian justice” as seen in the Godfather, the law limits revenge.[3]

The second law we’ll look at concerns loving our neighbors. Of course, the Jewish people had this law in the Old Testament but tried to limit it to only those neighbors who lived adjacent to them. This is why the Parable of the Good Samaritan is so radical.[4] In that parable, Jesus extends the neighborhood to include the enemies living across the border. In his teaching here, Jesus does the same thing, expanding those we’re to love. 

The Sermon on the Mount takes us back into its beginning with the Beatitudes. Here, Jesus forces us to reconsider the seventh Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers.[5]

Read Matthew 5:38-48

“Turn the other cheek, love your enemies,” Jesus tells us. Do we? Do we truly love those who are different from us, who have different ideas about the world, different beliefs? Are we willing to give away what we own to maintain peace? Will we turn the other cheek? Will it work? What does these passages mean to us in a divide world? Do they apply with how we deal with Democrats and Republicans and MAGA and illegal immigrants. 

It seems those on the edges of the political spectrum really hate those who disagree with them. Does this passage apply here? You bet. It says essentially, “if you want to please your Savior, tone down your hateful rhetoric… Actually, it says, do away with such behavior.” And to push this further, what does our passage say about how we relate to Iran, Hezbollah, Cuba, Russia, China, or a New York Yankee fan? I’m sorry, none of us are going to leave today unscathed! 

Jesus begins this section of his sermon with rhetorical statements: “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ and ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” The eye for an eye part, along with the love for our neighbor are found in the Old Testament.[6] But not the hate for an enemy, unless Jesus summarizes an idea advanced in the Psalms of which a few seem to encourage us to love God so much that we hate the godless.[7]

Eugene Peterson in The Message, translates this verse in this manner: “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’” Somehow these two ideas have been married together, but Jesus divorces them by insisting his followers love not just their friends, but also their enemies.

Furthermore, this command doesn’t just apply to individuals. Jesus addresses the community here. Not only is this something I’m to do. We’re all to be doing this together. The early church, under Jewish and later Roman persecution, would have heard these words in a different context. Their enemies were real and a threat! They could have them stoned or fed to the lions. Yet they loved those who persecuted them and prayed for them! 

And just to clear up things, in case any of you are thinking—“Sure, I’ll pray for my enemies, I’ll pray for their demise.” That ain’t what Jesus means. We’re to pray for the wellbeing of those who hate and persecute us. Remember, as he was being nailed to the cross, Jesus prayed for his executioners.[8] Jesus practiced what he preached. 

Now why would we want to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors?  Wouldn’t it be easier to insist on an “eye for an eye”? As I have suggested through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus wants to create a new community of followers who live differently that the world. He suggests we maintain different standards, ones that works for peace and reconciliation. Jesus came to save his people from sin, an angel tells Joseph in Matthew 1.[9] Sin causes divisions. Freed of sin, we work to restore divisions.  

Our God is good to all creation—those who are gentle and kind and those who are mean and bullies. Everyone benefits from what the Lord provides. The rain falls upon the righteous and the unrighteous. So why would we want to take a risk and give our enemies more than they demand? Why would we want to take a risk and love our enemies? One reason. We want to be more like God. We want to be godly. After all, God took a risk on us. And God loved us before we loved or even knew God!

If we only love those who are like us, Jesus points out, we’re no different than anyone else. It’s easy to love your friends. But the church is different. We’re to be an alternative to the world! We’re to practice radical hospitality, and we’re to love those who, for many, aren’t considered loveable. “Love sought is good,” Lady Olivia says in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, “but giv’n unsought is better.”[10] As Christians, we’re to give love unsought! 

In the second century, there was a report made to the Roman Emperor Hadria about Christians. Remember, Christians back then were persecuted, but this is what the report said:

They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something they give freely to the man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home, and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don’t consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.[11]

It was this kind of love which drew the attention of others and helped the church grow even through persecution. At a time when Rome attempted to stamp the church out, the church was known for love… But what about today?

One of the common reasons given by people who no longer attend church is that they feel judged. One study found that 87 percent of Americans say that Christians are judgmental. 87%![12]I suppose the good news is that if 87 percent said we’re judgmental means even most of us Christians acknowledge the problem. Of course, Christians know there is a judgmental issue because we do it to one another. We’ve all been judged unfairly! We don’t take Jesus’ admonishment “Judge not” to heart.[13] Do we really want to be known as judgmental and by what we’re against instead of by what we’re for? 87% doesn’t sound as if we live up to that old song, “They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love”. But let’s strive for it. 

As believers, we acknowledge our brokenness and complete dependence upon God. This should make us more open to our enemies. 

Jesus ends this passage with a command to be perfect as is our heavenly Father. Although perfection is expected of us, we know that on our own, we won’t achieve it. Instead, as I said earlier, we’re driven back to the Beatitudes, back to the realization that we, too, are poor in spirit.  

Despite being poor in spirit, Jesus offers us some helpful ways to live in our faith. We don’t retaliate against our enemies. We are gracious to all people and pray for our enemies. You know, we live in a time when the world appears to be on the verge of exploding. It may sound to some as treasonous, but there’s no better time than now to begin praying for our enemies. Amen. 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EVxSCcKo8Y

[2] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12   (1990, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 246. I also covered this structure in my first sermon on the commandments. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/02/22/murder-and-anger/

[3] This law, known as the lex talionis (Law of the Tooth) was found in the Code of Hammurabi in the 18th Century BC. Bruner, 247. 

[4] Luke 10:29-37.

[5] Bruner, 266-7.  Matthew 5:9. 

[6] Leviticus 19:18

[7] Bruner, 267.  See Psalm 58, 109, 137:7-9 and 139:21-22.

[8] Luke 23:34

[9] Matthew 1:21

[10] William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 3.1.167.  Of course, Olivia was trying to make a play for someone and not speaking of universal love.

[11] “Aristides to Emperor Hadria” as quoted in God’s Virtues: An Inspirational Collection of Stories, Quotes, Hymns, Scriptures and Poems (Tulsa, OK:  Honor Books, 1995), 43.

[12] Thom & Joani Schultz, Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore (Loveland CO: Group Publishing, 2013), 23.

[13] Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37

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Making a Vow

Title slide

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
March 15, 2026
Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Friday, March 13, 2026.

Before reading the scripture:

A few weeks ago, as we slipped into heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I spoke about how Jesus takes a number of what we would call “Old Testament Commandments” and reinterprets them. I pointed out how scholars often refer to these six commands as antithesis, but that isn’t quite correct. Instead of offering an alternative, Jesus takes us deeper into the commandment’s meaning. I also spoke about how the six commands could be divided into two sets. The first three focusing more on our moral actions and the second three on our political or community actions.[1]

Today, we’re going to look at the first of the political or community commands. Unlike the others, here Jesus negates what had been taught in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament.  We’re talking about making vows. Jesus says don’t. The Epistle of James says the same thing. 

But we often make vows. We do it when we marry. We do it if we take a public office, or if we are called to testify in court, or join the military. I did it when ordained into ministry, as has all elders in our church. We even find those heroes of our faith in scripture, such as Paul, making a vow.[2]

In my study on this passage, I found myself torn. This is the most overlooked part of Jesus’ great sermon.[3] I had originally thought I would pair this passage with the next two passages about avoiding retribution and loving our enemies but began to feel it wouldn’t be fair to scripture. I knew I’d spend my time on the later and not on these four verses.

An example of this came from our men’s Bible Study on Wednesday. We look at the last three commands and spent almost all our time focusing on the last two commandments. 

In my study, I learned that for the first three centuries of church history, Christians mostly took this passage literally. They avoided making vows. Then comes Constantine who provided the church with legal standing within the Roman Empire. After Constantine, Christians ignored this passage and began to make vows.[4] We came up with excuses and work arounds. But is that right? 

However, there are some churches, even today, who discourage making an oath. Our Amish neighbors are one. Are they right?

The command against taking a vow concerns itself with politics. After all, such vows are often done for governmental reasons, whether it be in a court of law, or for marriage, or to serve within government. I’m not sure I have a clear-cut instructions for you today, but I encourage you to struggle with me about what Jesus’ command means and how we should apply it to our lives. 

Finally, regardless of what you decide to do about making a vow, I can say this with confidence. God wants us to be truthful, to honor our commitments, and to put God first among our allegiances.

Read Matthew 5:33-37 and James 5:12

While I was driving to and from the Theology Matters conference[5] I attended last week, I listened to Gilbert King’s, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. The book is about a supposedly rape of a young woman in Central Florida in 1949.[6] It was just after World War II, and returning African American soldiers were beginning to push back against segregation. They wanted a better life for themselves than working in near slave conditions in the citrus groves. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse such a crime. But there wasn’t any evidence produced that there had been a crime. 

However, that didn’t stop four young black men from being charged. Three were arrested and the fourth killed while being apprehended. Sheriff Willis McCall and his deputies used torture to extract confessions from two of the suspects. The three were found guilty and two sentenced to death. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial. 

Before the new trial could began, Sheriff McCall transported two of the men back to the county jail from state prison. Supposedly, he had a flat tire while driving, not on the highway, but a back road. While working on the tire, he supposedly was attacked by the cuffed man under his care. He said he shot them in self-defense. 

Only, one of the men didn’t die. The sheriff called the coroner who discovered him breathing. At this point, the FBI got involved. The second trial featured future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on the defense side. There were many problems with the prosecution, including the outright lies of the Sheriff and Deputies. They also withheld evidence including a doctor’s report raising questions on whether a rape occurred and the contention the woman had been attacked. 

While another all-white jury again convicted, the state of Florida eventually paroled and exonerated the defendants. Even the prosecutor in the case later had a change of heart and admitted his complicacy in the injustice carried out by the state. 

While the book illustrates the problem of racism and shows how change comes slowly, it also demonstrates the need for honesty, especially in court proceedings. Our legal system is built upon those involved within telling the truth. When the truth is concealed, justice will be denied. This is why taking an oath is so important. In the Ten Commandments, we’re told not to misuse the Lord’s name.[7] This would involve swearing by God’s name that something is true. If it’s not true, we have misused God’s name. 

Let me take off on a tangent for a bit. Personally, I have a moral problem with capital punishment. I know there are those who say Scripture allows for it. Yes, ancient Israel carried out such punishments. But those who want to use the Bible to support the death penalty never mentions one caveat. In the Old Testament, the crime for lying or falsifying evidence in court was so serious it carried the same sentence the accused party faced.[8]

Lying or falsifying evidence in court, according to Biblical standards, would mean the Sheriff, deputies, and prosecutor in the Groveland Boys trial could have been executed. Truth is required in court for a society to be fair.  

But let’s go back to Jesus’ teachings. Here, Jesus suggests we not even make a vow at all. Why?  I think Jesus wants to create a community of believers where one’s word is honest and doesn’t need other qualifications. Looking at the qualifications which Jesus cites in this passage (swearing by heaven, the earth, Jerusalem, or even one’s own head). 

It appears people in Jesus’ day may have tried to get around the 3rd Commandment by making vows to things other than God. Jesus won’t have any of it. Don’t make a vow at all but let your word be honest. 

Furthermore, as Jesus illustrates, all these other things people used to make a vow upon link back to God. Heaven contains God’s throne. The earth, as Isaiah also reminds us, is God’s footstool.[9] In Jerusalem resides God’s king.  And God, as Creator and Lord, has a claim even over us as individuals, as we’re humorously reminded that we cannot change the color of our hair. Of course, this was before hair could be dyed, but you get the point.  As the Psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all who live in it.”[10]

So instead of making a vow, Jesus suggests we just be honest. Of course, if everyone remained honest, there would be no need for a vow as an assurance of our truthfulness. The book of James reiterates Jesus’ teachings on this point. Truthfulness should be a hallmark of a believer. If people can’t believe our word, we have a problem. 

So, should you make a vow or take an oath? I will leave such decision with you. It was allowed in the Old Testament, but Jesus discourages it. As for me, I confess to having more problems with it than I had before this week. But I do know this. God’s will for us is to be truthful in our words and faithful in our commitments.[11]And, our allegiance belongs to God before anything here on earth. Whatever you do about making a vow, be truthful and faithful. Amen. 

[1] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/02/22/murder-and-anger/

[2] Acts 18:18. The Book of Numbers in the Old Testament goes into great detail about making vows. Especially see chapters 6, 15, and 21. 

[3] As an example, this passage is never singled out within the Revised Common Lectionary but paired with the verses before it and it appears only once every three years.

[4] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 234ff.  Bruner not only outlines the history behind the church’s interpretation of this text, but also admits his personal views changed between his first commentary on Matthew and his updated edition. 

[5] https://www.theologymatters.com/2026-conference/

[6] Gilbert King’s, Devil in the Grove, Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012, Audible 2013). 

[7] Exodus 20:7.

[8] Deuteronomy 19:17-19.

[9] Isaiah 66:1. 

[10] Psalm 24:1

[11] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 54. 

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Reading Reviews from February 2026

title slide with covers of the books I read in February and reviewed in this post.

I am on study leave this week. My next post, God willing, will be the sermon for March 15, 2026. I’ll catch up with folks then!

Cover photo for Memorial Days

(New York: Viking, 2025), 207 pages.

On Memorial Day, 2019, on the streets of Washington D.C., Geraldine Brooks’ husband, Tony Horwitz, died of a major heart attack. He was on a book tour promoting Spying on the South.  

I have read several of Horwitz’s books and have loved them all. However, by far, my favorite is Confederates in the Attic, which explores modern day Civil War reenactors. I read the book early in this century. I started it on a cross-country flight and laughed so hard that everyone in the plane around me wanted to know what I was reading. Several of them wrote down the title so they could look it up. Horwitz’s is a master of blending travel and history with humor. After recently reading his first book, One for the Road, I checked to see if he had written anything recent. That’s when I learned of his death and that his wife, also an author, wrote this book. 

This book flip-flops between a narrative on learning of her husband’s death and its aftermath, along with time on an island off Australia (Brooks is a native of Australia). We learn of everything she had to do starting with the time a hospital internist call. She wants to see her husband and immediately takes off for Washington, but that is hard to do because they lived on Martha Vineyard and it’s the height of tourist season. The flights off the island are booked. She catches a ferry to the mainland. She also must take care of their dogs and to call her sons and his mother.  Thankfully, she has caring neighbors.

Catching up with one of her sons is difficult because he was flying to Australia to see her sister. Unfortunately, as her son gets off the plane, the news arrives prematurely in a text from a friend expressing his condolences. The next few months is hectic with all she must do. She discovers she and her sons’ medical insurance is cancelled because it’s in her husband’s name. As a native Australian, she knows American medical insurance lacks compassion. And then, after spending the fall taking care of business and two memorial services, in Martha’s Vineyard and near Washington DC area) COVID hits. 

Her time away in 2023 to West Tisbury, a remote island off Australia, allows her to grieve and to recall her relationship with her husband. We learn how they met and some of their travels as foreign correspondents. We also learn that she left journalism to become a novelist at her husband’s encouragement.  We also learn about grief and death traditions, especially in Judaism as she had converted to her husband’s faith. 

I felt like I was reading about the death of friend as I read this book. I recommend it. And sadly, I only have a few more of Horwitz’s books to savor before I’ll have to start rereading. 

Ronald C. White, On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain 

cover for "On Great Fields"

(Audible, 2023), 14 hours and 23 minutes.

At the battle of Gettysburg, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s troops held back the Confederates at Little Roundtop. Late in the afternoon, as his troops ran out of ammunition, he ordered them to fix bayonets. They then changed down the hill, routing the exhausted Confederates. Had this not been successful, the South would have taken the hill, and the battle may have ended differently. But as White shows in this biography of the Maine intellectual, this was only a part of Chamberlain’s story. 

A native of Maine, Chamberlain lived most of his life in the state. He attended Bowdoin College and then Bangor Theological Seminary. He debates becoming a Congregational minister but finds himself drawn to academics. Chamberlain excelled in languages (he mastered 7 languages during his lifetime).  Teaching at Bowdoin, he married Fanny Adams, an adopted daughter of a Congregational minister, and they began a family. He enjoyed teaching and was offered an opportunity to spent two years studying in Europe, but the Civil War interrupted. He joined the war effort in 1862 and led the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  

At the beginning of the Petersburg Campaign in the summer of 1864, Chamberlain was wounded on the Jerusalem Road near “Fort Hell.” While the location probably doesn’t mean much for most people, this was in the Walnut Hills area where I lived as a kid from 1963 to 1966. (I should write more about Fort Hell in another post).  Chamberlain almost died. He survived but dealt with the wound for the rest of his life. Miraculously, he returned to the field in March 1865, near the end of the Petersburg Campaign. Again wounded, he remained on the field as Petersburg fell. At Appomattox, Grant gave Chamberlain the honor of receiving the Confederate arms and colors at the “official surrender,” three days after Grant and Lee signed the surrender documents.  

After the war, Chamberlain became governor of Maine, serving four one-year terms, as the state had yearly elections for governor. White hints at the fact Chamberlain and his wife had troubles during this time and she stayed away from the state capital.

After serving as governor, he returned to teaching and later became president of Bowdoin college.  He was also later called on to settle an election dispute over a new governor. While violence was a possibility, he was able to calm both sides and worked out an acceptable settlement. In 1883, he retired from academic. During this period, he worked as a lawyer in New York, as the port surveyor in Portland, Maine, and then involved himself in various businesses including land speculation in Florida. He continued to be interested in the Civil War. Chamberlain became friends with those who fought on both sides, often called to speak and to write articles. He also had to deal with his wife’s health as she became blind late in life.

Chamberlain died in 1914, at the age of 85, partly from an infection of the wound he received in Petersburg. 

White goes into detail as to Chamberlain’s religious and academic beliefs. A solid Calvinist during a time when Unitarianism and Transcendentalism were on the rise in New England, Chamberlain remained close to the church. As for academics, while classically trained, Chamberlain encouraged the school to embrace other disciplines, especially in science. He attempted to make room for such studies at Bowdoin. 

White’s biography of Chamberlain’s life during a time of great change in the United States is a worthy read (or listen) to those interested in such history.  The book is read by the author, who was the Dean at San Francisco Theological Seminary when I was doing my doctoral studies there.   White has published biographies of Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, and two books on Lincoln’s speeches. I also highly recommend Lincoln’s Greatest Speech, which is on the President’s second inaugural address. 

Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s 

Book cover for "An Unfinished Love Story"

(2024, Audible), 17 hours and 38 minutes. Read by the author with insert recordings of speeches.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential history. I once heard her lecture and have enjoyed reading some of her books and many of her articles. Her late husband, Dick Goodwin worked within the Kennedy and Johnson administration. After he had moved on, she worked for Johnson. The two of them met at Harvard in the early 1970s. After Dick’s first wife died, they married in 1975. Dick died in 2018. Before his death, Dick and Doris went through the 300 boxes of papers from Dick’s years working with Senator and later President Kennedy, President Johnson, as well as working on the Presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.  The two of their insights provides for a unique review of all that happened in the 60s. 

This was a unique book to hear. Doris Kearns Goodwin read most of the text. But as her husband primarily (but not exclusively) served as a speech writer for the two Kennedys and for Johnson, where speeches were quoted, the Audible book inserts the actual speech. Some of the Johnson speeches I have vague memories of, and it was interesting to hear him again. It was also interesting to hear her husband’s role with phrases like “The New Frontier” and “The Great Society.” 

The early LBJ years were so hopeful. Johnson articulated a vision of “The Great Society.” It promised hope for all Americans, especially the poor and those of African descent. Sadly, our current administration also uses “great” in their logo (Make America Great Again), but I never hear a vision of what a Great America entails. Instead of being forward looking, like LBJs vision, MAGA looks backwards to some mythical place and time which never existed. 

As Vietnam began to consume the Johnson Presidency, many of the President’s advisors bailed, including Goodwin. He left with hard feelings for the two men never talked again. Dick Goodwin went to work for Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 primaries. He told McCarthy that if Robert Kennedy (a friend) entered in the race, he would have to support him. So, after the early good showing by McCarthy and LBJ dropping out of the race, Goodwin moved over to support Kennedy. And after Kennedy’s assassination, he was back with McCarthy for the 1968 Democrat Convention. 

Doris came to work for LBJ late in his presidency. She was picked by Johnson to help him work on his memoirs and organizing his papers. She wanted to go back to teaching at Harvard. He finally agreed with a compromise, which her commutating back and forth between Texas and Boston. Her insight into Johnson was as a broken man whom she came to care deeply. In a way, Doris and Dick had differences with LBJ, which makes the book even more interesting. 

The book is also about the hope they both had in the 1960s. That’s the love story, but it’s also about their love story which didn’t begin until after the decade had ended. I appreciate Doris Kearns Goodwin’s writing. It’s easy to understand and she catches the reader up with the hope the decade began and the tragedy with how it ended. 

While the book is about the 1960s, it also contains wisdom which our world needs today. I recommend it. 

Amy Leach, The Salt of the Universe: Praise, Songs, and Improvisations 

title cover for "The Salt of the Universe"

(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), 221 pages. 

This is the second book I read by Amy Leach.  In 2013, I read her book, Things That Are. Then, in 2014, she was a presenter at the Calvin Festrival of Faith and Writing. As her first book focused on nature, I arranged her to make a presentation for Pierce Cedar Creek Institute on nature and literature. Having found her first book delightful, when I saw this book, I picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Leach creates wonderful essays by pulling dissimilar things and ideas and mixing them together.

Much of The Salt of the Universe comes from Leach’s background. She grew up in Texas as a member of the 7th Day Adventist Church. She attended 7th Day Adventist camps and college and have worked on their mission field. While she has moved away from the church’s teachings, she remains a vegetarian. This is not because of the teachings of Ellen White, who I learned in reading this book helped solidify the church’s position. Leach draws on scripture and especially Peter’s vision in Joppa to question the church’s fundamentalist view against eating meat.  She also challenges the church’s position on supporting the community over against the individual. Quoting a church president who said, “the individual is nothing,” Leach insists the opposite is true. “The institution is nothing; individual is everything.” 

Her writings encourage her readers to take notice of the world, its wonder and awe. She draws on all her interests to create these essays. As a classical trained musician, she pulls music into her stories. She is obviously well read, drawing on diverse authors from Shakespeare to Jim Harrison, from the Hindu poet Tagore to her favorite poet, Emily Dickerson, and dozens of others. She is also a keen observer of the natural world. Her weirdly mixed concepts that are often dissimilar create delightful essays. 

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Sermon on the Mount: Adultery and Lust

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
March 1, 2026
Matthew 5:27-32

Sermon recorded at Bluemont Church on Thursday, February 27, 2026

With the world events of the past few days, I am including the outline of my pastoral prayer after the sermon in the hope it might bring comfort to a situation few, if any, understand, and that no one knows what will happen next..

At the beginning of worship: 
“The Hammer of God” is one of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. Set in a church, one of the curates no longer prays on the floor with his fellow clergy and parishioners. Instead, he climbs one of the church’s spires for prayer. There, high above everyone else, he begins to fantasize about how he might deal out justice upon a sinful brother. All it would take from such height would be to drop a hammer. Father Brown realizes something is up and confronts the man as he comes down from on high. 

“I think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places, even to pray,” said Father Brown. “Heights were made to be looked at, not to look from.”

“Do you mean you think I might fall over?” the man asks.

“I mean that one’s soul may fall if one’s body doesn’t.” 

Father Brown told of another man. In time, the man preferred to pray in high and lonely places such as the belfry or the spire. Looking out upon the world from such heights, he began to imagine himself as God. He committed a terrible crime. For he saw himself as the judge of the world and struck down a sinner. He would have never had such thoughts had he stayed with others upon the floor.[1]

As Jesus reminds us, we’re not the judge and when dealing with the sin of others, we must be careful and graceful.[2]

Before reading the scripture:
Last week, we moved into the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and looked at the first commandment he deals with, “thou shalt not kill.” We saw how Jesus equates anger with murder. The second command Jesus deals with, adultery, parallels the first. In both cases, Jesus strives to get behind the commandment, to the root cause. While few of us have murdered anyone, we’ve all been guilty of letting our anger get the best of us, and we can see how harsh words spoken in anger can destroy another person. 

Last week I forgot to add into my sermon an old English proverb, but it can be applied to all these moral commands of Jesus.

He is a fool who cannot be angry; 
but he is wise who will not remain so.[3]

We all get angry, but what do we do with our anger?  Do we stew on it? Likewise, we are created with desire, so when we see someone who is attractive to us, how do we handle it?  Do we let our desire turn to lust and consume us or do we maintain appropriate boundaries? The link between anger and lust is that both objectify other people. 

If you recall from last week, in this section Jesus expands the teaching on six different commands. In the past, many scholars refer to these as antithesis, but I suggested that’s a wrong way to look at them. Instead of presenting an opposite view of the law, Jesus takes us deeper, to the intention of the law. 

Today, we’ll look at the second and the third commands of Jesus, that of adultery and divorce. Again, Jesus employs hyperbole, as he did last week, to emphasize the seriousness of our sin: plucking an eye or cutting off an arm. 

Read Matthew 5:27-32


In Greek mythology, Ares, the god of war, and Aphrodite, the god of love, were lovers. We might think of war and love, anger and lust as opposite emotions. The Greeks were wise. Hate and desire become united within our ego. When we indulge such emotions, we create in our minds an object out of the other person. In this manner, both emotions put the other person down, visualizing them as less than they are.[4]

Last week, we saw that Jesus strove to protect life. This week passage shows his intention to protect marriage.

As I have emphasized all along, Matthew focuses on Jesus’ goal to build a community which breaks through barriers of race and nationality. This also extends to sex. Paul sums up Jesus’ teaching when he says, 


There is no longer Jew or Greek; 

there is no longer slave or free; 
there is no longer male and female, 
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.[5]

This new community envisioned by Jesus, in which men and women are equal, requires a new and stricter self-discipline for men or the male sex.[6] No longer are men required to just keep their hands off women who are married, as adultery had been interpreted. For the peace of the community, men should no longer objectify women. 

Of course, the same goes for women but that may have been less of a problem in Jesus’ day. But today, we overly sexualized everything as we see in advertising—after all sex sells—we should dig at the heart of Jesus’ intention here. Jesus wants us to stop seeing other people as a means to our own pleasure. But it’s hard because we’re always surrounded with sexual images.

We’ve just gotten past the Superbowl. The half-time shows have become increasingly sexualized over the years. We’ve descended a long way since the first bowl in 1966, where a college marching band provided the entertainment. But the sexualization wasn’t really debated this year. Instead, the debate centered around a guy from Puerto Rico singing in his native language.  And then, there was the “family alternative” in which the headline act had, in his repertoire of songs, one praising pedophilia.[7] Is there no shame? We can’t get away from sexual thoughts and images.

Think about this. You go into a casino, and you’re served by scantly clad women. And the rich gather in places like Mar-o-logo with such women dangling from chandeliers. Modesty is out of favor. 

In Jesus day, modesty was still in favor in Galilee, but not in the rest of the Roman empire where pagan temples often featured prostitution. And the sex desires of men ran rampant. In Greek culture, it was common for men of means to take on an underage boy lover in addition to a wife. Realizing this, Jesus wants his followers to hold themselves to a higher standard and stand out from the rest of the world. 

We can only imagine what Jesus would say in our world. We might think our fantasies are harmless, but Jesus shows otherwise. Jesus wants us to need honor one another and men do this not only by avoiding the bedrooms of married women, but by not sexualizing others. We are to see all people—men and women—as having been created in God’s image. 

Next, Jesus addresses divorce. We now know this was a big debate among rabbis of Jesus day. The Mosaic laws provided for divorce. In a way, the law was civilizing for that era, as a man couldn’t just abandon his wife. He had to set her free and allow her to remarry.  One school, led by Rabbi Hillel, took a rather liberal view of this law. He saw anything a woman did to displease her husband as a reason for divorce. You burned dinner, you’re out. The other, led by Rabbi Shammai, took a more conservative view and only allowed divorce for adultery. Here, Jesus aligns with the second school.[8]

Matthew understands the seriousness of divorce. He records more about divorce than all the other gospels combined and almost as much as the entire New Testament.[9] In Chapter 19, Matthew records Jesus’ acknowledgment that God didn’t intend for us to divorce but only allows it because our hearts are hardened.[10]

It may be hard to hear Jesus’ teachings in our world today. Many of us, including me, have been divorced. I married in college and that ended a few years after graduation. 

One of the things Jesus does as he goes through the commandments in this section of the Sermon on the Mount is to make us all realize our guilt. And that’s one of the purposes of the law. 

The Second Helvetic Confession reminds us that we’re not given the law to be justified by keeping it. Instead, the law teaches us our “weakness, sin, and condemnation,” which leads us to grasp the grace offered by Christ.[11] As we accept this love and are freed of our sin, we must treat all people created by God with respect and honor. And that’s essentially what Jesus teaches in this part of the sermon, whether is about murder and anger, adultery and lust, or divorce. 

We should all ask ourselves, whenever angry or lustful thoughts invade our brains if what we think glorifies God and honors others. Furthermore, we should remember that we’re not the judge. Like Father Brown in the story I told earlier, we must show grace to everyone. After all, God has shown us such grace. Accept God’s grace and be thankful. Amen.  

[1] G. K. Chesterton, “The Hammer of God,” as told by Malcom Guite, The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter (Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2014), 17-18. 

[2] Matthew 7:1-5.

[3] Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 209.

[4] Bruner, 219. 

[5] Galatians 3:28.

[6] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 53. 

[7] See https://relevantmagazine.com/current/oped19/a-kid-rock-concert-is-airing-on-tbn-this-sunday-how-is-this-okay?

[8] Bruner, 226-227.

[9] Mark only deals with divorce where he repeats Matthew 19. See Mark 10:1-12.  Luke only has one reference to divorce 16:18). Paul, in First Corinthians (7:11-13) has three references to divorce, but only deals with those married to a non-believer and not divorce for any other reasons. 

[10] Matthew 19:1-12, especially verse 8.

[11] Presbyterian Church USA, The Book of Confessions, “The Second Helvetic Confession,” Chapter XII, 5.083.

A Pastoral Prayer outline for today in light of the recent world events

Almighty God, creator of all things and through your Son Jesus Christ, redeemer of our world, many of us woke yesterday to the reports of a distant war. As followers of Jesus, we don’t know what to make of it. We know Jesus said there will be wars and rumors of wars until history comes to an end, but we also know he especially blesses the peacemakers. Help us, O God, navigate these days, as we pray for those who are living through the nightmare in the Middle East. We especially pray for families of young girls killed at a school in Iran, and for all the civilians caught in this ongoing battle. We pray for the safety of our military who is engaged in the fighting.  And we long for all wars to cease, whether in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf and Asia, in Africa, or in Ukraine and Russia. 

You, O God, are our rock, give us the strength to stand faithfully with Jesus Christ. Help us to see his image in those who suffer in this world, whether from poverty, the fallout of war, or the trap of addictions. For we know you promise that we encounter Jesus with those struggling in life. Help us also to live our lives in a manner that will honor Jesus. May we be gracious as Jesus has been gracious to us. Give us the wisdom and the strength not to objectify other people, but to see your image in all people. 

O God, we pray for those in need in our midst. Remember those who grieve and those who need to experience healing…. 

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The Battle of Moores Creek 250 Years Later

title slide with photo of the bridge and the 250 anniversary logo
My dad paddling in Moores Creek in November 2018

This July, our nation will celebrate its 250th anniversary. But before signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4th, battles occurred between British loyalist and colonists. Most these battles occurred in the New England states, and in New York and New Jersey. But one small yet significant battle occurred in Eastern North Carolina. This Friday will mark the 250th anniversary of this skirmish.

To raise troops to suppress the rebellion, the British set their eyes on raising an army of 3,000 soldiers from the Scottish Highlanders who had settled in the Sandhills of the Upper Cape Fear River region of North Carolina. Many of these Highlanders moved to North Carolina following the failure of the Scottish Bonnie Prince Charlie to take the British throne in the Jacobite rebellion. After the Battle of Culloden in 1745, under the threat of death, many Scots confessed their loyalty to the British crown and left Scotland. Quite a few of them ended up in the Sandhills of North Carolina. Others, who had not participated in the Jacobite Rebellion also relocated on the promise of free land offered by the frown. 

Cypress knees and ice, February 2010

The British governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin suggested raising an army of Highland Scots from the Sandhills of North Carolina to help stabilize the Southern Colonies and give the British a base to quell the revolt. Martin hoped to raise an army upwards of 10,000, but his military commanders were only able to raise an army of approximately 1,600. 

In late February, the troops lead by Donald McDonald assembled at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville) to begin their march to the port in Wilmington. The plan was to unite with a larger British force coming to the colony by sea. They found the main road, on the south side of the Cape Fear River blocked at Rock Creek by Patriots led by Col. James Moore. Unwilling to fight as only about half of his new recruits had firearms, McDonald moved his force northeast, crossing the Cape Fear, and then south, along another road which paralleled the Black River. There were a few skirmishes along the way.

Reconstructed Moores Creek’s Bridge

On the night of February 26, the loyalist found a small contingent of patriots camped in from of what known as Widow Moores Creek bridge. They sent a Messager asking the colonist to surrender. They laughed the suggestion off. Thinking they vastly outnumbered the patriots, Mcleod, who assumed command on MacDonald’s illness, planned to attack. 

Two units of patriots had converged at Moores Creek, some twenty miles from Wilmington. The site was considered an ideal location to stop the Loyalists. The swamp around the creek would force the army to stay on the high ground. This allowed the patriots to create an effective field of fire. Col. Alexander Lillington and his unit of 150 men dug in along the eastern approach. These men were whom MacDonald’s scouts had observed on the 26th. What he didn’t know is that Col. Richard Caswell with 850 men from New Bern had dug in on the opposite bank. 

Reconstructed earthworks on the east side of the creek

Thinking there was only a small contingent of men guarding the bridge, Mcleod’s soldiers prepared to attack in the early morning hours on the 27th. After a six-mile night hike on a spooky road running through a swamp with trees draped with Spanish Moss, they prepared to assault Lillington’s forces in the early hours of the morning. Instead, they discovered his camp deserted, but the campfires coals remained warm. 

Col. Mcleod handpicked a contingent of men to cross the creek and to see where the enemy might be hiding. Dawn was just beginning to break, and a fog concealed the lowlands around the water. They carefully crossed the slippery timbers which had been greased with fat.

Road heading through the swamp

Coming off the bridge, they silently made their way through the fog and up the road out of the swamp. Maybe a twig snap. Suddenly, someone ahead shouted, “Who goes there?” “A Friend of the King,” was the response. At that point, knowing the enemy was just ahead, they drew sabers and charged up the road yelling “King George and Broadswords.” They were brave but foolish. But the patriots had dug in. It was a trap.

The patriots held their fire, hiding behind breastworks as the Scots came out of the fog. They charged like William Wallace reincarnated. When only 15 or 20 yards from the line, the patriots opened fire. In addition to their muskets, they were armed with two small canons loaded with grapeshot. With the road flanked on both sides by swamp, the Scots had nowhere to go. McLeod fell first, followed by fifty-some of his handpicked men. The rest of the Highlanders fled. The battle lasted only minutes. Over the next couple of days, they captured 800 or so of the Highlanders. They granted some pardons and went headed back to their farms. But many they banished to Nova Scotia, Florida or the West Indies.

It was a small engagement early in the war. But the battle discouraged the British from trying to conquer the Southern colonies. Their forces moved north where most of the fighting would occur for the next several years. The battle also helped the colonists in North Carolina by providing weapons and supplies. Interestingly, most of their Patriot weapons had been given to them by the British during the French and Indian Wars. That’s a lesson we still haven’t learned from history.

The battlefield is a National Park site. The earthworks are reconstructed. Numerous monuments have been erected, most given by the people of North Carolina in the great monument age (1890-1920). Two of the larger monuments are for Pvt. John Grady, the only death on the Patriot’s side, and for those Scots fighting as loyalists. After 120 years, old grudges died and the state (which after the Civil War entered a Scottish revival era) no longer harbored ill feelings for the losing side. 

In addition to the battlefield trail, there is a small museum with several period weapons. There is also a short “Tarheel” interpretive trail. This trail focuses on the role the longleaf pine played in the development of the “naval stores” industry. Interestingly, all the native longleaf pines have been cut. There are younger longleafs growing, but all the mature pines are loblollies. The battlefield trail takes you along a boardwalk into the swamp around Moores Creek, allowing up close views of a cypress swamp. The water is stained brown from the tannic acid of the cypress trees. These trees also have “knees” that protrude up from the muck. The Spanish moss gives the swamps an eerie feeling. In the summer, there’s a good possibility of encountering snakes and perhaps, if lucky, of seeing an alligator. 

I was last at Moore’s Creek in November 2018, with my father. We paddled up the creek from the Black River. 

Speaking at the Savannah St. Andrew’s Society in November 2019

In 2019, I spoke of this battle at the St. Andrews Society of Savannah annual St. Andrews banquet.  To read this speech, a part of which I used above, go to:  https://fromarockyhillside.com/2019/12/01/st-andrews-talk/

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Murder and Anger

title slide with photos of the two rock churches along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
February 22, 2026
Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Thursday, February 19, 2025

At the beginning of worship:

One Sunday morning, Charles Haddon Spurgeon climbed into his pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Surprised to find a note left for him, he opened it. Inside, was scribbled the word, “Fool.” Spurgeon thought about it for a second then showed the note to the congregation. “I have received many anonymous letters over the years complaining about my sermons and other things, “Spurgeon confessed. “But this is the first time I received a letter without a body, signed by the author.[1]

That’s tit for tat, isn’t it? After the sermon today, you can answer for yourself if Spurgeon broke Jesus’ command not to call anyone a fool.

Before reading the scripture

As we begin to dig into the meat of Jesus’ Great Sermon, we come to a part often labeled as as Jesus’ six antithesis. Each of these paragraphs begin with Jesus recalling a portion of the law. “You have heard it said,” Jesus says, then he adds a “but.” Jesus then deepens his understanding of the law, raising the bar. In a way, these statements are not an antithesis, but a deeper interpretation of the law. One commentator refers to them as an exegesis, a process in which Jesus takes the law and digs deeper into its meaning.[2]

Today, we’ll look at the first of these, which deal with anger and murder. The first three commands Jesus addresses deals with moral concerns. I plan to address the other two, adultery and divorce, next week. Then Jesus provides three additional political concerns dealing with making an oath, retaliation, and our need to love everyone.[3] Let’s turn to the gospel of Matthew and read from the fifth chapter, verses 21 to 26.

Read Matthew 5:21-26

I remember the first time I heard verse 22, where Jesus says to call someone a fool endangers us to the fires of hell. Unfortunately, I didn’t come by this passage in casual reading. I had the verse quoted to me. It was used as a weapon against me. I was shocked. I was about 10 or 11 years old and spending the night at my aunt and uncle’s farm. My brother and I, along with our cousins were supposed to be in bed. But we were wrestling or something with the lights out. For some long-forgotten reason, I called Terry, my older cousin, a fool. “You better watch out,” he retorted, “you’re heading for the fires of hell.” 

I didn’t know what he was talking about. He then quoted me this passage from scripture. Of all the passages in scripture, I have no idea why he memorized this one. Nor could I believe it was in the Bible. Terry didn’t have one handy to look it up. When I got back home, I looked it up and sure enough it was there in black and white. Taken back, I felt I’d committed an unforgivable sin at such an early age.   

Of course, I also found such knowledge beneficial and for several years thereafter, I quickly cited this verse to instill fear and guilt into anyone bold enough to call me a fool. Looking back on it all, Terry and I both probably misunderstood Jesus’ intentions.  

In the book of Proverbs, we find fools repeatedly condemned. Considered a grief to their fathers and bitterness to their mothers, silence is a fools only hope, as others may then consider them wise.[4] Proverbs warns us to avoid foolish behavior; it’s good advice. But Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, also warns us against calling another person a fool. Even though people do foolish stuff, as highlighted in Proverbs, we’re not to destroy their self-esteem with such language. 

Jesus knows words damage. Harsh words can scar a person for life. The old childhood saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me,” is ridiculous. Words have the capacity to destroy us, and it may take longer to recover from a word spoken in anger than it does from a broken bone. 

I just finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s. Both Doris and her husband Dick, who is older than her, worked for Lyndon Johnston, but at different times. They didn’t know each other then. Now, toward the end of her husband’s life, they organize his papers. Surprised to read accounts of cruel things said by LBJ which hurt her husband, she also realized he’d said things which hurt the President. Goodwin realized his bitterness remained raw over 50 years later. Words hurt.[5]

This is why Jesus suggests we consider what we say to other people and we think twice before we lash out with our tongues. 

Our passage begins with the 21st verse. The next five verses expand on the sixth commandment, “thou shalt not kill.” In discussing murder, Jesus brings in anger as a similar sin. Following this passage, he does the same for adultery and lust. Then he goes on to discuss divorce and compassion, the taking of an oath, retaliation, and finally loving our enemies.   

Calling these six items’ antitheses is incorrect for Jesus isn’t contradicting the law, nor does he say the law is wrong.[6]Instead, in each case, he ups the ante. What seems to be an easy commandment to keep becomes more difficult. After all, few people commit murder as defined by the law, but we’ve all probably violated Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law. 

Let’s now examine this passage and see what Jesus is saying. He parallels murder and the judgment for which one is liable with that of being angry with someone in the faith. The word brother is used here, and Jesus assumes his reader understands he’s referring both to brothers and sisters within the faith—not just one’s biological siblings. That’s why the New Revised Standard Version translates this as brother and sister. 

In other words, Jesus addresses our anger at those who make up the family of faith. To paraphrase and to try to get all of what Jesus means here, think about how if we take the life of another, the secular courts will judge and punish us. If we’re angry and insult another believer, we’re guilt of the same crime. It won’t be contested or tried in secular court, but it may be taken before the council (or the church governing board) to be judged. And furthermore, if we let our anger get the best of us, abusing others by calling them names like fools, then we’re in danger of divine judgment—the fires of hell.  

Jesus then links this instruction on anger to our relationship with God. He reminds those listening to the truth of Hosea 6:6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” says the Lord, “the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” We’ve been shown mercy from God; therefore, God wants us to show mercy to one another. This is why later in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer, he links together our forgiveness from God to our willingness to forgive one another.[7]  

Jesus’ advice of leaving one’s offering by the altar is interesting. On one level, it’s very practical. It’s something we can do; go make things right with your brothers or sisters before you come to worship. And notice, it may not even be something we’ve done. If someone else has something against us and we’re innocent, we’re still to try to restore the relationship.  

Furthermore, Jesus doesn’t say wait until they’re ready to forgive or only forgive if we’re the ones at fault. Of course, we know we’re never the ones at fault, right? Or if we’re partly at fault, the other person is guiltier than us. Or so we think. But we can’t use such excuses; instead, we should seek peace and forgiveness, regardless. Too often people think our religion is about keeping a bunch of laws. It’s not, at its core, it’s about relationships. 

However, on another level, leaving our offering at the altar seems impractical. After all, if we had a pigeon to offer, a common sacrifice in the first century, it’d fly away. If we left an unblemished lamb, someone else might be eating lamb chops for dinner. In fact, in all six antitheses, Jesus gives advice that pushes the limits of practicality. Cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye, advice that he offers later in this chapter, seem extreme.  

Jesus uses hyperbole to emphasize the seriousness of the action. In other words, our Savior does not necessarily want us to follow the letter of his sayings as much as he emphasizes the seriousness of sin. We need to do something to eradicate sinful thoughts and actions from our lives. Be creative, Jesus says, do something to make a positive change. Don’t go worshipping God, praying that God will be on your side and against your enemy, instead go make up with your enemy then you can worship God appropriately. 

Taking his advice on worship, we know God wants us to worship him, a truth Jesus doesn’t challenge. However, we need to remember that our lives as Christians aren’t just limited to a right relationship with God. Our lives also involve living in a right manner with others. In fact, we can’t have a right relationship with God without also making right our relationships to others. The Christian faith is about restoration of broken relations—both with the divine as well as with others, for even our enemies have been created by God and in God’s image.

Jesus then concludes this passage telling us to come quickly to terms with our accusers lest they take us to court. It’s often suggested that in the first example, at the temple, the broken relationships are with fellow believers.[8] Jesus then extends this to include those who are not part of the Christian family. Again, Jesus offers practical advice. Seek to come to terms early for if we wait till we’re in court, we might find ourselves in hot water. 

Jesus may have also had an ulterior motive here. If anger is bad for one person, it is bad for all. By quickly coming to terms with our accusers, we not only protect ourselves from more harm, but we also have the possibility of defusing the anger in them. If such anger is defused early, it’s not nearly as destructive. The urgency of Jesus’ tone underscores the need to move quickly to resolve anger, for anger if not dealt with will take on an ugly life of its own.

This passage is about our call as followers of Jesus to build up relationships. Anger and words hastily said are counter productive. They tear down; they don’t build up. Jesus’ advice is for us to be careful with our words. And we’re to be pro-active, taking the first steps to restore broken relationships. By your fruits you will be known, Jesus teaches. What kind of fruit do we nurture? Are we peacemakers or do we just throw gasoline on a fire? 

Jesus, by giving suggestions here of things we can do to address the problems created by anger wants us to be peacemakers. If you accept Jesus’ challenge, then do something. Take responsibility for your actions, be willing to forgive, reach out in genuine love. Or, at the very least, take time before responding when you feel hurt or attacked, and think about what you’re going to say. Amen.  

[1] I do not remember where or when I first heard this story, nor do I know if it’s true or apocryphal. 

[2] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 181.

[3] The breaking of the six commands into moral and political come from Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12, (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 206, 233.

[4] Proverbs 17:25, 28.

[5] Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024). 

[6] Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on his Literacy and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 83.

[7] Matthew 6:12

[8] See Bruner, 217.

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Remembering Ralph on his 100th Birthday

title slide with photo of Ralph in California Majove Desert and his truck near Hamilton, Nevada

bottle of scotch with a glass of scotch on ice

Last Thursday, February 12th, Lincoln’s birthday, was also the 100th birthday of a late friend of mine, Ralph Behrens. That evening, his son (Rob who lives in Northern Utah) and I each had a Scotch in memory of his dad. 

Ralph and I met at a potluck dinner for Boy Scouts Troop 360. It was late 1993 or early 1994,, shortly after I moved to Cedar City, Utah. Sometime that evening we started talking. Ralph learned of my interest in mining towns as I had written a few journal articles on the Comstock Lode. At the time, I was considering returning to school for another degree. My hope was to write a dissertation focusing on the role the church played in mining camps.

I learned that Ralph grew up in Goler Gulch, a mining community in the Mojave Desert of California. It was a rough place to live during the Depression. Ralph graduated from high school in 1944 and joined the Army Air Corp. He arrived in the South Pacific near the end of the war, but earn a combat ribbon because, as he was fond of say, “some General wanted another metal so they loaded up a bunch of bombs on a 100 airplanes and we flew and blew the hell out of a handful of Japanese on an island we didn’t deem important enough to invade.” 

Shortly after that potluck dinner, Ralph and I started taking regular trips out into the desert. I’m not sure exactly how many trips we made, but we did at least a dozen or so trips in Utah, Nevada, California, and along the Arizona Strip. I even helped Ralph cut and haul wood for several years to heat his house. One trip we didn’t get to make when I was in Utah, but had discussed, was to the Hole in a Wall. In 2006, a couple years after having left Utah, I flew back and the two of us set out to visit this spot. While not an overnight trip, this was the last big trip we took. The next few times I visited, Ralph’s health had declined to the point he could no longer able to travel in such a manner. Ralph died in 2010. 

Ralph, his dog, brother, and father around 1930 in Goler Gulch, CA
Ralph’s dad, Ralph with his dog, and his brother. Goler Gulch, CA, around 1930

The story below I wrote in 2006. I’ve edited it and republished it here. 

We arrive in Escalante around 11 AM. This must be one of the strangest towns in Utah. A few years ago, the Mormon influence remained so strong you had a hard time finding 3.2 beer. Interestingly the town isn’t named after a saint, but a Catholic priest. Father Escalante came through here a century before the Mormons settled this area. He searched of a faster way from Santa Fe to the California missions. At that time only a few small bands of Paiutes lived in this hostile environment, descendants of the Anasazi whose culture flourished here until abruptly disappearing around 700 years ago. As Escalante discovered, travel in canyon country is difficult. It’s easier today, but by modern standards is still difficult.

I hadn’t been in Escalante for five or six years. The town appears prosperous; almost negating the doom predictions of the naysayers who predicted President Clinton’s creation of the Grand Staircase National Monument would be a catastrophic event. The town now has sidewalks with classic streetlamps, several new businesses and a new high school. Ralph pulls up in front of the Golden Loop, a diner. The logo has a cowboy standing tall in the saddle, with the “golden loop” of his lasso falling over the neck of a calf. As it’s not quite time for lunch, we hit the Roan Pony Bookstore next door first. I know right away things have changed in Escalante. 

“Don’t sell too many books to locals, do you?” I quip sarcastically to the salesclerk.

“We sell a few children books,” she replies, “but not many to adults.”

“I bet not,” I say while reading through the titles of books critical of the Mormon faith. She has a couple copies of Fran Brodie’s, No Man Knows My History. It’s a good biography of Joseph Smith, the faith’s founding prophet, and written by a granddaughter of Brigham Young, the faith’s second prophet. It’s been over fifty years since this book came out. Its publication got Brodie excommunicated and the book placed on the church’s blacklist. There are other books critical of the Mormon Church including a few titles by people who have left the church, encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. In another section of the small store are the works by Michael Moore, Calvin Tillian, Al Franklen, and other liberal thinkers. Not only is this Mormon country, but this is also Republican country, and these titles won’t gain her any friends. 

The Roan Pony also features a section reserved for environmental writers, Abbey and McPee and a host of others. The only thing worse than a liberal in this country is an environmentalist. Pick-up trucks all sport bumper stickers critical of environmentalists and nature lovers. “Hungry: Eat an Environmentalist,” reads one. Not too far from here, over on US 89, more than one effigy of Robert Redford has dangled in a noose. It’s obvious the Roan Pony isn’t marketing itself to the locals, but there are now plenty of tourists now flocking in to see this rugged country. I admire the owner. She’s a brave soul. Just having this bookstore in Escalante is akin to Jeremiah of the Old Testament standing up and telling King Zedekiah and his court what they didn’t want to hear. Of course, Jeremiah got thrown into a well.


The Roan Pony advertises a 20% off sale. She’s preparing to close for winter in a few weeks. I pick up a book that’s been on my reading list, Paul Theroux Dark Star Safari, figuring with a 20% markdown, I can support the local economy.

After the bookstore, we enter the restaurant and sit at a table. It takes a few minutes for the waitress to get to us. I order a hamburger and iced tea. Ralph asks for chili and coffee. After a few minutes more she brings out drinks. Then the waiting really starts. After a good fifteen minutes, after I’ve finished my tea and he’s drunk his coffee, Ralph quips: “If they keep up at this pace, we can make it dinner.” Not very happy at the service, I nod in agreement, saying something about them having to catch a cow before they can butcher it. But then the meal comes and the burger is tasty. This isn’t any corn fattened cow, its range fed and you can taste the difference.


As we’re finishing up with lunch, Ralph tells me the problem he’s been having with the lights on the truck. He can’t remember if he got ‘em fixed. I’m sure there was a speck of horror on my face. Ralph doesn’t use this truck much anymore, but he’s always keeps it in good running order. Seeing that we’ve lost an hour between the bookstore and diner, and there is little chance we’ll get back before dark, I heartily agree that we should check the lights out before we leave town. They work!

Ralph then tosses me the key and asks me to drive, complaining of his shoulder. As I maneuver out into the street, I ask if we should top off the tank. He doesn’t think so since the truck has a full 18 gallons reserve tank. We have plenty of snacks and water, just in case. We leave the town and civilization behind.

Just out of Escalante, we take the graveled “Hole in a Rock Road,” which runs southeast. Its fifty-four miles from the point we leave the pavement until the trail dead-ends on an overlook at the Colorado River. In the 19th Century, Mormons used this road to migrate into the Arizona Territory. It was a long and punishing trip. Once they got to the “Hole in a Rock,” an opening in the mountains above the Colorado, they lowered their wagons with ropes down to the ford in the river. The ford is gone; the Glen Canyon dam has flooded this part of the river to create Lake Powell.

Imposing cliffs rise to the right of the road, with bands like chevrons of different colored sediment running nearly the fifty miles. To the left, the country drops off into canyons that lead down into the Escalante River. There are a few signs noting points of interest along the way. There are also a handful of mileage signs which aren’t consistent. After ten miles on the road, a sign says its 51 miles to the end. Then, after only a mile, another sign says its 42 miles, which is about what we expect. Yet just a few miles beyond that sign, another one says we got 46 more miles. 

“You driving backwards, Ralph asks? We don’t place any confidence into the signs.

Hole in the Wall Road, Utah

The first thirty miles of the road is good; or as good as gravel roads in this country get. This is high desert; as far as one can see there are pinion and juniper trees, yellow rabbit brush, and sage. Just off the road, to the west, are acres of unique rock formations known as the Devil’s Garden. Large beige columns of mushroom like sandstone cover the area.

Afterwards, the road continues to lose elevation, and fewer trees are seen until somewhere under 4500 feet, they become non-existent. However, there are flowers: Orange Mellow, Sego Lilies, Snakeweed. It’s a pleasant surprise to find so many flowers blooming this late in the season, but the area has recently had rain as evident by the muddy bottoms in the ravines. Yucca plants are also prevalent, their spring blooms long dried by the sun and wind. Cottonwoods grow in a few washes, an indication of water in this barren land.

at the beginning of the Hole in a Rock road

As we approach the end, the cliffs and the canyons draw closer and the road snakes down into washes, only to wind steeply out of them. Driving is a challenge. The truck has no power steering, and I fight with the wheel while constantly downshifts to keep from burning out the brakes. On a few occasions, I even double clutch the truck into low, to get enough power to climb a steep embankment. We’re swung around at every bend. Driving, I recall the chase seen across slickrock in Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang. But we’re not being chased by the Sheriff out of Moab, so I slow down.

It’s getting late in the afternoon, and we both begin to worry about getting back to the pavement before nightfall. Around 4 PM, after having covered maybe 2 miles in the past thirty minutes, we give up. We’re at least 4 miles from the “hole.” I was willing to continue, but I’d been there about 10 years earlier. Ralph had never been out this far. After swearing that it’s the worst road he’s ever been on (and he grew up in the desert Southwest), Ralph suggests we turn around.



Coming out goes faster than going in even though we’re driving into a north wind blowing sand down the road. Whenever we stop and get out, the sand stings my bear legs. As the sun drops closer to the Kaiparowits Plateau, we have one final adventure. I tell Ralph we’re low on fuel in the main tank and he instructs me on how to change tanks. I do and a minute or so later, the truck runs out of fuel. We stop to check things out. The switch has broken. 

“What are we to do now,” I ask? 

“Don’t worry,” Ralph says. “I’ve got my Oklahoma Gas Card,” as he pulls out a flexible tube from behind the seat. Although a toddler when his family left Kansas for the desert, Ralph somehow retained a prejudice against the southern neighbors of his infancy. 

Cliffs with pocket of water from recent rains

For the time being, I switched back over to the main tank and drove cautiously. The needle pegged empty as the sun slips below the mountains. I let out a sigh of relief when we turned back onto the blacktop of Utah Highway 12. A few minutes later, we’re back in Escalante and I pull in under the lights at a gas station. Filling up the main tank, I calculate we had less than half a gallon left in the tank. Had we continued on to the hole in a rock, we’d been out of gas and siphoning it from the other tank before we got back to civilization.

Once back on the highway, I watch the stars appear as we head west, arriving back at Ralph’s home in time for a late but wonderful dinner of short ribs, prepared by Pat, Ralph’s wife. Ralph fixes himself a martini and offers me a Scotch. 

Other stories of traveling with Ralph

Great Basin Mining Trip 

Camp Bangladesh (A humorous look at the two of us as summer camp Scoutmasters)

Goler Gulch (where Ralph grew up)

A 94 year old red head and the mother of Ralph’s childhood friend

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Salt and Light

Title slide with pictures of the two rock churches along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
February 15, 2026
Matthew 5:13-20

At the beginning of worship:
Did you hear about the guy pulled over by police? The officer asked if it was his car. He said yes. Then the officer had him step out of the car and put his hands on the hood. He handcuffed the man and hauled into the station on suspicion of stealing a car. Yet, the man kept insisting it was his car. The officer put him into the holding tank and, taking his license and registration, began to check out his story. 

Thirty minutes later, the officer released the man and apologized. “I couldn’t believe it was your car,” the officer said. “You have all those bumper stickers about loving Jesus and and following you to church. When I saw you give the finger and heard you shouting obscenities and lay on your horn at that poor driver who was obviously lost, I just assumed you stole the vehicle.” 

You know, actions speak louder than words. If we’re a follower of Jesus, we need to remember this. 

Before reading the scriptures:
The last two weeks, we looked at the beatitudes, which make up the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.[1]  I hope you read or watched those sermons on-line as we had to canceled in person worship due to ice and snow. Today, we’re heading into the middle portion of the Jesus’ sermon.  

Jesus begins with two emphatic statements directed at his audience. You are the salt and the light of the world. But these statements are not to be taken individually. The “You” used here is plural. If Jesus gave this sermon here, he’d say, “Y’all.” It’s all of us. Those who believe and accept Jesus, in other words, the church, are the salt and the light of the world.[2] We’ll look at what that means. Next, Jesus teaches about his relationship with Scripture and the Covenant. 

Let’s look at what Jesus has to say here.

Read Matthew 5:13-20

What does it mean to be the salt and the light of the world today? You know, salt is important. We tend to take it for granted, except for the past few weeks with ice everywhere, stores quickly sold out of salt. 

In the ancient world, salt was even more valuable and harder to come by than today during an ice storm. It preserved food and likewise, we’re to help preserve the world. When used sparingly in cooking, it helps enhance the flavor. We’re to flavor the world with Jesus’ grace. And, in a world without modern medicine, they applied salt to wounds to assist in healing. We’re to help heal the world.

Oddly, as a friend wrote on this passage, we’re the first generation to be paranoid about our use of salt.[3] Too much of it, we know, causes hypertension and other health problems. But we must have some, or we have other issues. Salt is the only mineral we take straight from the earth and consume. So, when Jesus said the church is the salt of the earth, he wants us to spice the world up, to help preserve the world, and to help heal it. 

In a way, light is like salt. Compared to light in the ancient world, it’s cheap. We have light everywhere. Sometimes we have so much light it becomes a determent of our ability to see things like the stars. Thankfully, we live where the skies are dark and the stars shine brightly, but that’s not the case if you live in an urban area. In a world without electricity and bright LEDs, when the sun wasn’t up or the moon down, you appreciated light. The only light came from campfires, or candles, or oil lamps. Each of these have a limit as to how far you could see before you slipped back into darkness. 

When I lived in Utah, I drove across central Nevada several times at night. I took highway 50, which Life Magazine claimed back in the 1950s to be the loneliest road in America. The other path was a combination of US 6 and Nevada 375, which is even a lonelier road, as you seldom saw a car at night.[4] 

Cutting across the state, you crossed many block-fault mountains which run north and south. Coming off the summits, you’d often see your next town, just a few lights clustered together, way off in the distance. The next sign of civilization, far away. If you needed gas, you’d hope that within the oasis of light a gas station remained open. Or if you didn’t need gas, you’d hope there was a place for coffee to keep you away. As for gas, I always tried to keep my tank above the halfway mark. 

As the church, we’re to be light helping guide the world. Maybe a better metaphor would be navigation lights which help boaters travel narrow waterways and inlets. In the daytime, you have buoys, but at night the buoys have colored lights on them. Remember the three R’s of navigation: red, right, returning. If you are coming into an inlet at night, you keep the red lights or buoys on your right or starboard side. The green ones go on your left or port side. As a church, as the light in the world, we guide people to Jesus, just as navigation lights guide people safely through an inlet. 

Both opening metaphors apply to how we live. Do we point the way to Jesus, or do we get so tied up in the world’s business and lose focus on what’s important? Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t tell us to become the salt or the light of the world. Nor does he tell us to become salter or shine brighter. Instead, he grants us these abilities. But there’s a warning here. If we squander these gifts, if we fail to use them for Jesus’ purposes, for God’s glory, we become worthless. Salt without flavor or a light hidden is of no use for the world. But if we use them properly, others can see through our efforts, God’s glory. 

Our next section deals with the purpose of Jesus’ ministry. Why did Jesus come? Was it to negate what God has been doing through Israel for the past 15 or 20 centuries? No, there’s still value in that work. 

When Jesus speaks of the Law and the Prophets, he’s referring to the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures or what we call the Old Testament. Some Christians may attempt to ignore the Old Testament, but that’s not Jesus’ way. He values scripture and regularly quotes or alludes to passages from the Psalms and other books of the Hebrew Bible, especially Genesis and Isaiah. 

By linking the Law and the Prophets together, Jesus refers to a new covenant. The first covenant of the Hebrew people was established with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and renewed with Moses and Joshua and the Hebrew people. But in the latter part of Isaiah, God through the prophet speaks of a new covenant, one where Israel is to be the light to the nations.[5] The old covenant has been fulfilled, this new covenant will extend beyond the ethnicity of the Jews to all people. 

As I have pointed out repeatedly as we’ve gone through the opening chapters of Matthew, this gospel is most concern with Jesus’ message going out into the world. We see that in the beginning with the foreign wisemen coming to Jesus and at the end of the gospel with Jesus sending the disciples out to all corners of the earth.

What might we learn from this passage? While much of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount deals with our interior lives as we saw with the Beatitudes and will observe in the weeks ahead, we also see the importance of living in a manner which honors God. Once Jesus ascended to heaven after the resurrection, he left behind a church to do his work. That’s us. We’re to live in such a manner that people will want to be like us. As the old spiritual goes, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”  Will they? Amen. 

[1] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/01/31/the-beatitudes-part-1-blessings-on-those-in-need/ and https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/02/07/the-beatitudes-part-2/

[2] Douglas R. A. Hare,Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: WJKP, 1993), 44; and Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004). 187-194.

[3] Scott Hoezee, https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2020-02-03/matthew-513-20-2/

[4] I wrote about one of these trips. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/09/25/nevada-375-and-rachel-nevada/

[5] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ), 166-167.  See also Isaiah 42:6.