After 2,000 years of history, it’s become easy for the church to get complacent, to expect people to come to us, to prefer safety and the security of counting butts in pews and bucks in the offering plates. And then we count this as “following Jesus.”

Have you ever been scared? I mean really scared? Lock yourself behind closed doors kind of scared?

If you have done any traveling at all, you know that the local people can always—always—spot a foreigner. They look different, smell different, talk different, dress different, and think different. If you’re a foreigner, you’re going to stick out and stand out. There’s no hiding.

I was nearing the end of the race, just a couple of miles to go and my left leg cramped up. It felt like someone had shot me in the leg. The pain was excruciating and brought me to a standstill.

My paternal grandmother gave birth to 10 children, one of which died in infancy. She reared 9 children, plus two grandsons, in a two-bedroom, company house. What intrigues me is, how do you even get nine children with only two bedrooms? How is that possible? I think you know what I mean!

This is the 7th Sunday we have not been able to worship face to face. Life is anything but normal. And we can’t help but wonder if life will ever be normal again. It seems to me we are just kind of existing.

I was seated at the head table. Also seated at the head table was a woman who served as their maid of honor. I walked over to where she was sitting and introduced myself. She looked up at me and said, “I know who you are! Don’t you know me?” I looked at her and said, “Of course I do.” God forgive me, I lied through my teeth.

Touch is so very important to our well-being. In this time of social distancing, we have lost that gift. We crave that gift. But it is no longer safe to touch… to offer a handshake, a hand on a shoulder, a friendly embrace. When will this all end? When can we touch again?

Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Over the years, I have sat with, talked to, ministered to, prayed with, and walked with hundreds of Marys and Marthas: in hospital rooms, in hospice facilities, in private homes, and in funeral homes. It never gets any easier. It is a most difficult place to be.

I don’t care how well you think you know the Good Shepherd of Psalm Twenty-Three, you don’t know him until you’ve realized that he is a pursuer.

We know she is a woman… the first strike against her. We also know she is a Samaritan—we are told this not once, but four times in this text—the second strike against her. And we know she has had five husbands, and the man she lives with now is not her husband. Strike three, and she’s out, at least according to society!

As a young teenager, my paternal grandmother, Helen Kovar Shuluga, left her home, parents, siblings, and extended family and boarded a ship for the great United States of America. She had no money, no ticket, a small suitcase of clothing, and the clothes on her back. She hid on the ship as a stowaway and was discovered after they set sail. She was ordered to cook in the ship’s kitchen to earn her way here. She never looked back. She never saw her parents or most of her family again.

When I was a youngster, Sundays were very different than the other six days of the week. After church and Sunday School, the big meal was at 12:30, rather than supper time. We ate off the “good dishes” on Sunday. After dinner, we would all jump in the car for a leisurely afternoon drive. My father would just drive aimlessly through the country, admiring the scenery. Most often we would end up at my great-grandmother’s house where many of the extended family members gathered.

In today’s gospel reading, we have a blatant case of sharenting. It’s not enough for Jesus to have his shining moment with Moses and Elijah, but dear old Dad has to interrupt Jesus and his pals by bragging about his Son. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

It started very early in life… girls wear pink and boys wear blue. Baby dolls and strollers for girls and trucks and toy tools for boys. There were defined roles you were expected to play and fulfill. Young women would marry, have children, and stay at home. The man of the household was to be the bread winner and fix the car.

God is fed up with people who do the rituals, who go through the motions of their chosen religious faith, but who don’t let any of those ritual practices sink into their hearts and minds. They don’t let the rituals impact their lives.

The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting the bad news from Bosnia, and to say “God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon.” – Philip Simmons