Take me to mercy, take me to love (from 3.1.26)

 Luke 7:36-50 Woman anoints Jesus' feet at Simon's party

This week, our story involves a dinner party—quite possibly one that starts out just about perfect. Simon, a respected religious leader has hosted a dinner party and invited Jesus. I imagine Simon has put all the finishing touches on everything and has pulled out his best hospitality for this mysterious and likeable teacher. Simon is good at this sort of thing  and it’s all going just as planned. When it’s going good, it feels good: The right people, the right vibe,  the food is delicious, the conversation just what everyone needs, the optics are great. Until, in walks a woman identified as a sinner. 

Not only was she uninvited, she was complicated. She doesn’t fit the moment.  And then, as if her simple presence weren’t bad enough, things get awkward fast when she begins to weep. She pours oil on Jesus’ feet, kisses them and starts wiping them with her hair.  It’s so intimate, and startling and some probably even grumble inappropriate.  I imagine Simon shooting daggers with his eyes at whoever was standing at the door—who let her in! What is she doing! 

He speaks up, muttering to Jesus maybe under his breath: “do you know what kind of woman is touching you?” (v. 39)

Maybe he was wondering what this would do to Jesus reputation or, worse, what it would do to his reputation? What is it that keeps Simeon from open-heartedness and loving this woman in the honest and compassionate way Jesus does?

***********************

Have you ever walked into a room and quickly taken stock of who is where? We scan the people looking for where or how we fit: Who looks like me? Who doesn’t? Who is confident? who seems out of place? Who looks interesting to me? (Have you ever walked into a church and experienced this? I have!)

 We don’t thinking of it as judgement, after all we’re just trying to find our place in the scene, but--it’s a way of ranking people.   In our bible story, Simon, the religious leader, ranks the woman: Is she a religious teacher? (hardly). Respectable profession? (far from it). Respectable actions? (Oy). Simon judges the woman’s place in society before he considers her love for Jesus.  

Now, Simon is respected and has enough esteem and power that he can subtly look at folks as “better” or “worse” than him. His judgement masquerades as righteousness—or, the word that actually comes to mind is snobby.  From where Simon sits, not only are this woman’s actions way over the line, she does not belong. And morally, she’s beneath him.  I think that analysis is so loud that there is no space for the voice of mercy.  

But, just as Simon’s jaw is hitting the floor at what is unfolding before him, Jesus steps in and allows this woman to touch him. He honors her love and takes us to mercy.

***************************

Sometimes, I think we to pride ourselves on inclusion. In one sense, yes, we are very inclusive: I am not here to judge your cussing or your dancing or how many cigars you smoke on the golf course.  I’m not here to judge this woman’s very obvious sin whatever it was. 

But, if we were co-hosting with Simon that day, would we stand shoulder to shoulder with him and wonder--who let her in?  Would we quietly and firmly help her up and out of the room so we could get back to the dinner party? We might not judge people for vices so harshly but we sure do sort and rank people according to other standards. And the way we do this can suffocate love.  

I want to nudge us a tiny bit further today. Try this on: Last week, we brought in a new migrant family to be a part of our ministry here at church. I am so grateful to know this family and I’m so grateful for the generosity of you all and the mighty little team of leaders, and our church council.  I’m so grateful that everything aligned just so.

We share common ground with this family. They are parents, earning an honest living, hoping for the best for their kids just like many of us. 

And also, this family is very different from many of us here in the sense that their life experience as a family that has immigrated has been quite distinct from ours. However, we still extend this love to them whole-heartedly.  It’s the right thing to do.  In a sense, it’s easy because loving like this because it fits with our moral identity as “the good ones.”  We see ourselves as people who reach a hand out to vulnerable folks like this. 

Where love gets complicated for us is when we are asked to love folks who are, let’s say, outspokenly anti-immigrant.  Maybe we’d respond in an emergency, but over the long haul: would we befriend them and invite them to dinner, and stay in relationship with them? Would we do it even if they had views that felt threatening or morally gross?  Could we do it without making them into a project or arguing a point or forcing them to change but simply inviting them to dinner?  

In our gospel story, Simon is from a religiously serious people. His values are traditional and on point. But he assumes he stands in the right place he is “in the right with God.” This assumption blocks his love.  

Here’s what I mean: If you have the chance to get outside of the city on a clear night, or even better, far away from Chicago or any city, you will find that the sky is thick with stars.  The milky way, our galaxy, is a mystery up there and it stretches out softly across the dark night sky.  But, here in the city, we can’t see it. It’s not that the Milky Way has disappeared. No, it’s still there.  We can’t see it because there’s too much light surrounding us. There are vehicle headlights, and street lights, and skyscrapers all lit up. There are glaring buildings, screens glowing, and signs flashing. The dark is overrun with light pollution.  It’s both awful and ironic, this thing that helps us see—this brightness that backlights the words on this page—prevent us from seeing far away.  

What if something similar can happen deep down in our souls?  

Take Simon. His light is bright. He is certain and morally clear.  The way he looks at the world and ranks and sorts people into these orderly little groups helps him to get his bearings and know who belongs where.  It also blinds him to this radiant constellation of love that this woman is pouring out at Jesus’ feet.   It’s not Simon’s hatred that keeps him from love—no, that’s too harsh.  It’s the glare.  It’s the glare of having it all figured out.  The glare of being morally proud of himself. The glare of being right. 

In the dinner party scene, Jesus cuts through the glare. “Simon, I have something to say to you” (v. 41).  “Do you see this woman?” (v. 44), Jesus asks him? Not, “do you approve of her?” or “do you respect her?” Do you see her? 

Flooded with that glaring light. Simon can’t seem to get to mercy.   This glare, this moral glare (which Martin Luther might call is self-justification) keeps us from loving people.

I want to mention one other barrier that keeps us from loving our neighbors  because moral glare isn’t the only thing taking up space in Simon’s head. It’s also the noise.  

Let’s say that Simon is managing a lot in this moment as host. He is managing a dinner party, she’s weeping her heart out.  He’s stressed and amped about reputation or vibe or his honored guest, Jesus. She could care less.  He is running the room—something he usually does well. And time has stopped for her.

Sometimes, I think another thing that keeps us from love isn’t cruelty. It’s that we are so busy keeping all the duck walking in a row and quacking in harmony. We are so busy being competent. So busy being on the right side.  So optimized and efficient and running and around the well-lit house that our eyes--filled with that hurried glare--miss the person right in front of us.  It’s not that we set out to miss people, it’s just that some of us are moving so fast we speed right by them. 

**********************

We are called to great love of God and neighbor. I think this kind of love weaves itself into us and into our relationships, neighborhoods, and into our life together.  This kind of love enlivens and heals and connects and brings joy.  This is an anchor in our faith. It’s Good News. And yet, we are pulled by these counter weights away from this love.  We’re pulled by our busyness, certainty, and by that moral glare.  

In our story, Jesus question cuts through the noise: “Do you see her.”  Jesus cuts in with mercy for this woman; and also, mercy for Simon; and actually, with mercy for us.  

Because just as God sees her, God also sees us: striving, distracted, judgmental, trying our best. And mercifully, God calls us closer: closer to the people who are hard to love. Closer to humility. Closer to slowness.  Closer to God. 

Surprise me and take me to joy (2.22.26)

Wedding at Cana, John 2:1-11

Mustard Seed Matt 13:31-33

Last summer, we lost our pup Clio who we had had since we lived in Mexico. Clio was a special dog for many reasons but one of my favorites happened when she was about a year old.  Some of you have heard this story.  

We took Clio every where with us—to indigenous villages, coffee shops and it was in a shelter run by Quakers that one of the residents looked at her and told me, “your dog is too fat.” Tu perrita esta muy gorda. 

“No! I replied, who says that!? She’s not fat, I just had her at the vet and she’s a healthy size!”

“Si, esta gordita,” he told me, “She’s chubby. She’s pregnant.”

“Impossible!” I huffed, “she’s still a puppy and hasn’t gone into heat!” I spun around left.  

Clio got moodier and moodier and I began to fret. A nagging worry began to tap at me: what if she’s pregnant. We decided to take her to a small hole-in-the wall vet up the mountain for a check.  Thankfully, the vet was immediately reassuring:

“Your dog’s not pregnant” the vet told me, smiling warmly, “this is a psychological pregnancy!”  I looked at him with a desperately weak smile.

“She has developed sympathy placenta,” he explained confidently, “and she may actually birth it.” I felt like I was a kindergartner. I nodded, wide-eyed. “If this continues,” he patted my arm reassuringly, “bring her back a couple weeks, I’ll give her a special shot.”

I drove home dazed. Google later confirmed this was a true possibility and I relaxed into the reassuring knowledge that all was well.  In fact, I became something of an expert on psychological pregnancies, myself after that.

Several weeks later, Omar was boarding a plane to head home to the states for a week and I was getting ready to leave for the final day of a retreat I was leading. Clio was hunched over her bed in the living room and as I stood there, coffee in hand, studying her a small puppy slid out. We stared at each other. I almost dumped my coffee on the floor.

I called Omar on the phone and screamed—"it was real!!! The pregnancy was real! What do I do!?”

“I’m on the plane!” he hissed back, “we’re taxiing! Like on the runway!”

“What do I do!!” I wailed.

“TAKE TO VET!” and he hung up.

I went to a different vet this time.  The one in the fancy plaza with the store where they sold gluten-free bread.  

After shaking hands with the vet who had responded to my early morning emergency call, I smiled wildly, nervously, “just check her out,”  My ears were starting to hurt from all this  smiling. I paced the waiting room like a caged tiger.

After confirming the worst. This vet also patted my arm. He told me her labor was just beginning. I flinched.

“Take her home,” he explained to me sternly, “and to put her in a corner with some sheets. She’ll know what to do.”

He steered me kindly toward the door. On my way home, I called the young adults,  “It was real!” I wailed to them. We cancelled the final day of the retreat, they all came over, and we kept vigil for 23 hours…while Clio birthed 11 puppies. 

My first thought was “this can’t be happening.” Then it turned into “what am I going to do with 11 puppies!?”  (For the record, we were not supposed to have any dogs in our apartment and it was already tense trying to hide a hundred pound Rottweiler.)  Then there was the expense: what was this going to cost!?  What would people think of me!  To say this was an inconvenience was an understatement.   

I am a fairly steady person, but I was wildly all over the map in this moment.

**************************

A compass aligns itself with the strongest magnetic field around it. Usually, that’s the earth, but if you put a small magnet nearby, the needle starts to swing toward it.   

Worry is like that. It pulls our imagination towards worst-case scenarios and all of the sudden, we’re living inside these disasters that haven’t even happened. Cynicism pulls us too. It trains our imagination that hope hurts too much and that it’s better to expect disappointment than be surprised. 

Sometimes, it is logic or control—if I can’t map it, explain it, or diagram it, there’s no way I’m trusting it. (Hello, water into wine? Not possible.) And our imagination whittles down to just what we can manage. 

And if we’re not careful, as these magnets pull at us, our whole sense of what could be has atrophied and narrowed and the joy that God intends is held at bay.  

This cramped feeling of bracing for the worst is exactly the room Jesus walks into at Cana: The wine has run out, I imagine everyone running around, dishes flying, yelling, it was a disaster. Running out of wine at a wedding wasn’t just a bummer, it was socially humiliating. The family’s honor was at stake. 

The servants are pulled by fear—hide the problem! Gah, Fix it, now! save face!  Everyone is panicking. That is, everyone except Jesus and arguably Mary. She calls her son into the moment. He changes the barrels of water to fine wine and his ministry begins--not with 40 days in the desert in this version of the gospel--but with explosive, shocking joy. 

While everyone was managing shame and worry and bracing for the worst, Jesus quietly took everyone to joy.  

**************

What is it that keeps us from believing that God can surprise us and take us to joy?  

The same magnets that pull at us were pulling at them. Worry that something would crumble. Cynicism that forces us to adjust expectations.  Or control: an inability to logically map it out or believe it. 

There are more reasons that pull us from trusting that God can surprise us. But there’s a common thread tying these together. When it’s worry, it is our imagination that has gone off the negative deep end. When we’re cynical, it’s our imagination that is fiercely protective (don’t you dare disappoint me.)  When we’re rational, it’s imagination that’s too narrow, too controlling and restricted. 

Mystery is beyond all these categories.   

The good news is that even when these magnets of worry or cynicism or shame or fear are screaming loud and pulling at us, the good news is still louder.  

And it’s exactly in this moment of panic and despair that Jesus makes wine.  No one there at the wedding had the kind of faith that was going to move a mountain. Maybe they just a mustard seed’s worth of hope. Just enough to fill the jars when Jesus told them.

*****************

Several months before Clio had puppies, I had lost a pregnancy. It was awful.  Wouldn’t it just be perfect if I could say right now, that Clio had the puppies and then, suddenly, I became pregnant (yay!)  That didn’t happen.  After the loss, I was magnetized by worry, fear, grief, and so many things. I was used to protecting my heart, lowering expectations, and keeping my hopes narrow and controlled.  I was shocked (shocked) with what happened when Clio had those pups. It was so bizarre and delightful and we had 7-8 weeks of unmitigated joy and delight with those puppies in our house. My favorite puppy was the huge boss-queen pup that we named horchata.

Yes, it was chaotic and ridiculous and hilarious, but also awesome and shocking and healing.  Joy didn’t fix everything, it didn’t undo what we had lost, but it burst into the room and stayed there along with the grief. 

In Cana, the wine doesn’t appear because the hosts get their act together. The wine fills the barrels because Jesus steps into their panic. They are magnetized by shame and worry.  Jesus is magnetized by generosity and abundance. 

God moves towards us into rooms of panic and shame. Into worried rooms and cynical rooms and suspicious hearts. And God’s magnetic field is stronger. She quietly makes wine. 

In both my story and in the story of the wedding at Cana, we didn’t expect joy.  I was rolling with my grief and holding everything close. But joy showed up anyway. (11 times).  I couldn’t control it or explain it 

I could only laugh and receive it.  

Grace interrupts our boring, mundane little lives and, as time goes on, grace reshapes us. After that evening in Cana, the disciples are changed, and as the years go on they’re transformed. Their imagination of what is possible stretches.  

*******

That night at the wedding, the servants didn’t create the joy, the good news was that it came despite the fiasco of running out of wine.  The good news today is that joy comes to us, takes a seat at our table, steps into our panic and surprises our plans. At first, we shake our heads in disbelief that it happened, but then as that joy rumbles around inside of us, we learn to live as if it might happen again….  We learn that God surprises us. And we throw our hands up in the air and shake our heads in wonder at this living and holy mystery that will not let us go.

How do we live the love of God in public? (2.1.26)

Micah 6:1-8

The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman

In the beginning, God created the first two humans, Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden. In the center of the garden was a forbidden tree. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree, God tells the humans, explaining the limit.  You can do all these things in the garden but, stay away from that tree.  If they crossed the limit it would bring harm and rupture.  We know the story: They are drawn to the tree, they cross the boundary, and they eat the fruit.  

Shortly after, they hear the Lord God walking in the garden and they hide.  “Where are you?” God calls out?  Adam pokes his head out and says, “I heard you walking in the garden and I hid.” The Lord is quick to figure things out and says—did you eat the fruit? " 

Adam hedges. He deflects: “Not my fault. It was her!” He points. “Her fault. Eve gave it to me!”

God looks at Eve: "What happened?"

“Not my fault!” She says, taking a page out of Adam’s book. "It was the snake.  The snake made me do it!" The snake. Nice, Eve. The conversation God had with the snake was not recorded in the bible.

****

We do the same thing. We deflect. The fault might be in our circumstances, or the way we were brought up, or our genes.   We blame the systems or patterns of thinking. We blame the stars. When lines are crossed, God asks “where are you?” we answer, “It wasn’t my fault.” Rabbi John Sacks explores this story from this angle (1).

God made humans in his image, and gave them the gift of freedom.  But it’s a freedom with limits. In this case, the limit was the tree. Thou shalt not eat the fruit. They cross the line, they eat the fruit and they hide. Then, when the line is crossed, God asks, "where are you?"  Now what?

The biblical story unfolds from here. How we are to act?  What are the moral boundaries and limits? What does the “good society” look like?  

As we page through the stories of scripture, we hear of people wrestling with decisions, and of God’s action and judgement. All these people wrestling with problems and questions accross scripture help clarify how we're supposed to act. The stories sharpens the playing field into focus. 

A thousand years later after the story in the garden, maybe a million years after, God has a beef with the people, and stamps her holy foot, “I’ve had it!!! Get ye in here and plead your case wih the mountains as our witnesses, we have a problem! she says, “with all the wickedness.” 

There are evil landowners, abusive leaders, taking advantage of poor people, people talking the talk but failing to walk the walk and God won’t have it! 

There in the court room, God takes the stand, “Don’t you remember everything I’ve done for you!! she howls, ticking All The Things off on her fingers—to say nothing of the time I rescued you from slavery in Egypt!!” The people, are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  They backpedal, deflect—they don’t exactly point the finger elsewhere, but they try to buy God off, or to settle: “Ohhh, sorry about that, Lord, how about we give you a thousand rams for those mistakes? No? how about 10,000 rivers of olive oil?” (v. 7) God is not having it.  

“This is on you,” She says: “you know what the Lord requires of you, you know what the boundaries are: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.  You’re playing out of bounds and it is time to take responsibility.”

Pastor Walter Brueggman, writes that this verse of Micah 6:8 is like a blueprint for right living. (2) What does it mean to live a righteous, moral life?   What does the Lord require of us? To do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. These are the boundaries. These are the moral lines.  And when the people cross them, God issues a courtroom summons. A call to accountability. 

In the garden of Eden when lines are crossed, God asks a question of Eve and Adam that will echo throughout the rest of scripture: “where are you?”  In Micah, the question becomes this courtroom summons. And it doesn’t stop there. It summons us over and over throughout history. And this question is asked of us now.

There are a lot of problems in the world that demand our attention. And I want to take us, for a moment, to what is happening in Minneapolis. 

We are witnessing state power, our state that has crossed a moral boundary and picked the fruit in the garden.  There are communities where this kind of action is nothing new—think Black communities. What we are seeing echos a long history of violence, a long history of over-policing, unjust detentions, and then authorities who deflect responsibility.  It reflects a long pattern of being told that “what happened on the ground was necessary.” That those “violent actions were justified,” or authorities were “just misunderstood.” Still, looking at Minneapolis, this scale and the level of militarized enforcement is shocking—and new in its intensity and speed.  

Brittany Packet Cunningham was a teacher in St. Louis and an organizer at Furgeson and she has commented on the amplified level of tracking and scope of surveillance. Some of are newly disturbed. Some are not. These two understandings don’t compete, they are intersecting.  It’s the same machine that is wildly out of bounds, just from a different angle. And it’s amplified.

In our ancient scriptures, we don’t just find a library of old stories. We find familiar patterns of boundaries crossed, harm done and accountability brushed aside repeating across the generations. And—we also find that persistent question when moral boundaries are crossed, where are you?

“Where are you?” God asks, calling us into responsibility.

Minneapolis isn’t the only place where we are asking this question,  but it is one place where we can’t ignore it at the moment.  There are a lot of awful problems in the world that demand our attention.  And then, there are a lot of reasons we deflect or step back from responsibility. 

Here’s one reason that I wrestled with this last week: Things are unfolding faster than ever in our world right now. John Sacks explores the impact of speed on our lives. Around the turn of the 20th century, radio was invented. It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million users.  For computers? It took 16 years for computers to reach 50 million users.  For the internet: it took 4 years for the internet to reach 50 million years. Don’t even ask me about open platform AI.  

The speed with which we can now see things unfolding is breathtaking. The speed does not excuse moral failure. But the tsunami of information does make it tempting to look away or quietly hand responsibility elsewhere.  The speed and volume is not a bad thing, video footage can hold people accountable on the south side of Chicago, Minneapolis, or Kiev, Ukrainian a way we could not before. But, the velocity of it all is rattling and when God calls out because boundaries are crossed, “where are you?” we stammer…we deflect. And point: it’s the system! It’s too big! It’s this economic philosophy! It’s the state! Or it’s XYZ’s fault, (who can we scapegoat? Black folks? Latino Folks? Trans folks?)

***************

Sacks wrote that things are moving fast but we can handle a fast pace right now, as long as we know where we’re going.  As long as we’re clear about the guardrails, about the boundaries of ethical living: Justice, kindness, humility.  And then love of neighbor, love of enemy. Care for poor folks. All these things that point to that distant and hoped time when all will be well. Jesus teaches about this idea calling it the Kingdom of God.  All of these things point to a moral vision that’s woven into our humanity.  

I spoke about Lincoln last week, it was that moral vision that enabled him to say “with malice toward none and charity toward all.”   Or Nelson Mandela, it was this moral vision that helped him bring healing around the wounds of apartheid. Without the vision, the bible says, the people perish. (And, I might add, the people look to leaders that teach us to cope with uncertainty by blaming other groups—that story shows up in the bible too.)

How do we live the love of God in public right now? How do we live it between you and me, between one another? 

*******

When God asks “where are you?” we want to answer faithfully. And the faithful answer isn’t panic, or deflecting or pointing the finger.  The faithful answer is presence. And so we seep ourselves again and again in God’s word, not in the pundits or the posts or the panic but in the stories that have anchored us across the generations. And then, we also remember that we do not live this life alone. We live it in community. We live it with memory. We have folks in our midst who lived through ruptures in their own lives and in society before.  

As a child, Dieter’s hometown as bombed during world war II. And somehow he is still capable of tenderness and hope. There are others in the room too who hold wisdom for us on what keeps us steady, what keeps us rooted in God’s love, and what keeps God’s compassionate vision alive? What keeps us human? Because when God asks “where are you?” our faith doesn’t answer with panic, or deflection or blame.  It says here we are.

Here, rooted in the Word. Here, braided and bound together as community. Here, honoring and learning from the memory of the ancestors. And Here, as Howard Thurman reminds us Is the work that still remains:

To reach out and find the lost

To Heal the broken

To Feed the hungry

To Release the prisoner

To Rebuild the nations and bring peace

Here to make music in the heart. (4)

(1) Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores this bible story and the ethical question of "where are you?" that I come back to several times in this message in his book, "the Ethics of Responsibility" (2003)

(2) Pastor Walter Brueggeman "Introduction to the Old Testament" (2003)

(3) "We can do hard things" podcast, Jan 27, 2026. "How we all became Minnesota: Brittany Packnett Cunningham."

(4) The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman