More Than Enough

Mark 6:32-44, 2 Kings 4:42-44

We started this morning with Elisha. A man brings twenty loaves. A hundred people are hungry. The servant does the math. “It’s not enough.” And the prophet says, “Give it to the people.” He doesn’t argue with the numbers. He doesn’t deny the scarcity. He simply refuses to let scarcity have the last word. And they ate. And there was some left.

That story would have sounded familiar to anyone who knew the scriptures back in Jesus’ day. The pattern is unmistakable, like Elijah and the widow, or like the Israelites in the wilderness. A small amount of bread. A servant doing the math. A prophet insisting that the people be fed. And at the end, food left over.

When the Gospel writers tell the story of Jesus feeding the crowd beside the sea, they are echoing those stories on purpose. They want us to hear the resonance. The same God who fed a hundred through Elisha now feeds thousands through Jesus.

The scale has changed. Elisha feeds a hundred. Jesus feeds five thousand. Elisha begins with twenty loaves. Jesus begins with five. And where Elisha has some left over, Jesus ends with twelve baskets full, one for each tribe of Israel.

Now imagine the scene beside the sea. Thousands of people have followed Jesus into a remote place. The disciples do the math. They see the problem, the late hour, the empty stomachs, and they say what reasonable people say: “Send them away.” That is the reasonable solution. Let someone else handle it. Let them fend for themselves. We don’t have enough.

And Jesus says something completely unreasonable: “You give them something to eat.” Not, “Watch what I’m about to do.” Not, “Stand back.” You give them something.

And immediately the math starts again. Five thousand people, not including women and children. And all we have is five loaves and two fish. It is not enough.

Christians have wrestled with this story for a long time. Some read it as a supernatural multiplication. Bread appearing. Fish increasing. A sign that Christ has authority over creation itself.
Others read it as a miracle of sharing. The offering of what we have loosens something. People reach into their bags. Fear softens. Community forms. What looked like scarcity becomes enough.

How we interpret this miracle often reveals how we see God. Is God primarily an intervener, or an inspirer? A provider from above, or a transformer from within?
The theologian Karl Barth warns us about thinking of the miracle stories as puzzles to be solved. For Barth, the miracle stories in the gospels are signs, signs pointing to the identity of Jesus Christ and the presence of God’s kingdom. In other words, the story is not inviting us to solve a puzzle. It is inviting us to recognize who is standing in the midst of it all.
It’s not either-or. Because either way, something impossible happened. If bread materialized out of thin air, that’s a miracle. But if thousands of anxious, oppressed, scarcity-shaped people suddenly shared their food with strangers, that may be an even greater miracle.

What’s harder? To create bread? Or to transform fearful hearts?

Either way, the result is the same. All ate. All were filled. And there were leftovers. Twelve baskets. More at the end than at the beginning.

That detail matters. Because this story is not ultimately about bread. It is about scarcity.

Scarcity says there is not enough. Not enough food. Not enough money. Not enough volunteers. Not enough time. Not enough energy. Not enough hope.
Scarcity is loud in our world. And it is loud in the church. We count. We project. We brace ourselves.

And Jesus does not deny reality. He doesn’t say, “Oh, there’s secretly more than you think.” He says, “What do you have?” Go and see. Bring it here.
Five loaves. Two fish. It is small. It is insufficient. It is ordinary.

And then Jesus does something interesting. He doesn’t distribute it himself. He blesses. He breaks. He gives it to the disciples.

I hope those words sound familiar. Because later in the Gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus will take bread, bless it, break it, and give it again.

This story beside the sea is pointing both backward and forward. Back toward the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Elisha, and forward toward the Table.

Christ blesses the bread. The disciples distribute it. And the people are fed. They participate. The miracle, however, it happened, moved through their hands.

That’s the part we cannot skip. Because when Jesus says, “You give them something to eat,” he is not assigning them divine power. He is inviting them into divine work.

Jesus becomes the host of a wilderness banquet. Green grass instead of a banquet hall, almost like the green pastures of the shepherd’s psalm. Ordinary bread instead of a royal feast. Men, women, children, all seated. All welcomed. All fed.

It looks suspiciously like the Kingdom of God.

And the good news is not simply that Jesus feeds people. The good news is that in Christ’s presence there is enough. Enough compassion. Enough provision. Enough possibility.

And we are invited to trust that enough, and to become part of it.

The disciples wanted to send the crowd away. Jesus refused. The crowd may have shared. Or the bread may have multiplied. Or perhaps it was some mysterious mixture of both.
But here is what we know. Everyone ate. Everyone was filled. And there was more left at the end than when they began.

Which means the good news of this story is not simply that Jesus feeds people. The good news is that scarcity does not get the final word.
Scarcity says there is not enough. Jesus says bring what you have.

Five loaves. Two fish. Ordinary offerings placed into Christ’s hands. And somehow, in ways we cannot always explain, the impossible becomes possible.

Not because we are sufficient. But because Christ is present. And in Christ’s presence there is always more than enough.

May it be so in your life, in the life of your family, in the life of this congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church. Amen.

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Caring for Christ

Luke 7:36-50, Matthew 25:35-40

I did not invite him to honor him. Let’s be clear about that. I invited him because people were talking. You couldn’t walk through Capernaum without hearing his name. They said he healed a centurion’s servant, a Roman, and not even by touching him, just by speaking. Then word came from Nain that he raised a widow’s son from the dead, just like the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. Now, Galilee has always had its holy men. We have seen them before, men like Hanina ben Dosa or Honi the Circle-Drawer. Charismatic, prayerful, powerful miracle workers. People get excited, crowds gather, and eventually the excitement fades. So I invited him because I wanted to see for myself. Was he just another Galilean wonder-worker, or something else?

I had heard him in the synagogue. He spoke with confidence, boldly, perhaps too boldly, and he keeps the wrong company. Tax collectors, fishermen, women of questionable reputation, people who do not keep themselves clean, people who blur lines that protect our community. If he is a prophet, I thought, he should know better. Yes, I did not greet him with a kiss. I did not offer water for his feet. I did not pour oil on his head. Why should I? To show him honor would be to align myself with him, and I was not prepared to lose the respect of my colleagues for a man I was still evaluating.

My brothers of the cloth were there that evening, men who value the Law, men who guard Israel’s faith carefully. And then she walked in. No invitation, no shame. I had seen her around town. Everyone had. She does not keep the Law. She keeps company with men she is not married to. She does not live as a daughter of Israel should live. And she falls at his feet, weeping, touching him. If he were truly a prophet, he would know. He would know what kind of woman she is. He would recoil. He would protect his holiness. Instead, he lets her touch him, lets her wash his feet with her hair, lets her anoint him with ointment.

And then he speaks, not to her but to me. He tells a story about debt, about forgiveness, about gratitude, and before I can gather my thoughts, he has exposed them in my own house, in front of my friends. He names what I did not do: no water, no kiss, no oil. He says she loves much because she has been forgiven much. And then, this is what stunned us, he tells her that her sins are forgiven. Forgiven. Who does that? Only God forgives sins. What right does he have to say such a thing?

He was invited so that I could evaluate him. Instead, somehow, he measured me. I am still not certain whether I witnessed audacity or authority. But I know this: when she left that room, she walked out lighter, and when we remained behind, we were the ones burdened.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus tells us, “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” And then he says something startling: “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” You did it to me. That means Christ is not only the one receiving care in Luke 7. Christ is also the one standing at our door.

Every month, before most of the city is awake, people gather outside the doors of our church for bus passes. Some are unhoused. Some are burdened with addiction. Some have simply had bad luck. Some carry everything they own. Some smell like alcohol or tobacco. Some are deeply grateful. Some barely look us in the eye. But every one of them is welcomed. Every one of them is offered hospitality: a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, an empathetic ear, or just a place to sit and rest. No one is hurried out the door. No one is treated like a problem to manage.

It would be easy to say we are helping them, but according to Jesus, that is not the whole story. According to Jesus, we are caring for him. When we open the doors, Christ walks in. When we pour the coffee, we are pouring it for Christ. When we hand over a bus ticket, Christ receives it. That is the good news, not that we are generous, but that Christ is present.

Simon withheld hospitality because he was not sure he wanted to align himself with Jesus. The woman poured out her love because she had nothing left to protect. The good news in this second week of Lent is that great love for God always becomes great love for neighbor. When we care for Christ in the least, the last, and the lost, Christ is already there. That is the gift of grace in giving.

If you need a place to care for Christ, there is always room here at Grace. You can help with the bus ministry by waking up early one morning a month to pour coffee and hand out passes. You can serve with the Good Neighbor Ministry, repairing a fence, trimming a yard, fixing what someone cannot fix alone. You can partner with our Refugee Ministry by collecting household items, giving financially, or walking alongside families with the Wichita International Refugee Committee. You can stand with Justice Together, working not only for charity but for systemic change: affordable housing, support for those who are unhoused, and real efforts to reduce gun violence in our city.

Inside your Grace News, you will find a small card, an invitation to experience Christ’s presence this week by either helping others or allowing others to help you. I hope you will take the card with you as a reminder to be on the lookout for opportunities to open the door for Christ this week, because great love for God becomes great love for neighbor, and when we care for Christ in the least, the last, and the lost, Christ is present among us.

The Rev. Sarah Speed, a pastor in Kansas City, wrote a poem called If God Lived Next Door.

If God lived next door,
I would drop off a loaf of bread.
I would use my mom’s best recipe, wrap it in parchment and ribbon,
and place it on the front stoop.

If God lived next door,
I would leave a note with my phone number:
Call anytime you need anything.
I am always happy to help.

If God lived next door,
I would keep sugar on the shelf just in case she needed a cup.
I would put a picnic table in the front yard and begin taking my coffee there
so that whenever God passed by with their gaggle of rescue dogs, I could say,
“Want to sit for a moment? Want to rest your legs?”
I would keep a jar of dog treats and water by the mailbox
and change my doormat to one that says,
“All are welcome here.”

I would invite God over for dinner.
She would bring bread and juice.

I would host a block party so that everyone could meet her.

I would start a community garden
so that the kids could run between rows of squash and tomatoes
while we adults put our hands in the dirt.
We would share stories while we weeded
and eat harvest meals at the end of the season.

If God lived next door,
I would want to build something beautiful.

Then again, who says she does not?
Maybe God does live right outside our door.
And maybe caring for Christ begins with opening that door.

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Persistent Resistance

Persistent Resistance

Matthew 17:1-9, Ephesians 6:10-20

Think for a moment about a mountaintop experience in your own life. Maybe it really was on a mountain, standing at the summit after a long climb, the air thinner and the horizon wider than you imagined. Or maybe it was not a mountain at all. Maybe it was a moment of clarity, an event, an accomplishment, a birth, a calling, a reconciliation, a prayer that shifted something in you, a moment when everything came into focus and you knew deeply that God was present.

Scripture has many mountaintop moments. Moses climbs the mountain and receives the law, a revelation that shapes a people. Elijah stands on the mountain and encounters God not in wind or fire but in the sound of sheer silence. Mountaintops are places of unveiling, clarity, and encounter. In our Gospel lesson this morning Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain, and there for just a moment the veil is pulled back. His face shines like the sun. His clothes blaze with light. Moses and Elijah appear beside him, and a voice from above declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved… listen to him.” It is breathtaking, overwhelming, unmistakably holy. Peter says what any of us would say, “It is good for us to be here.” Of course it is. But no one lives on the mountaintop. We all have to come back down.

The mountaintop is not an escape from the world but an anchor for what awaits us in the valley. When the storm begins to blow, and it will, you do not fight the wind. You plant your feet, you remember what you saw, and you stand with persistent resistance. The disciples come down the mountain with the image of Christ’s glory still burning in their memory, but in the valley there is darkness, confusion, suffering, opposition, and the road to Jerusalem darkened by the shadow of empire. The mountain does not remove the storm. It prepares them for it.

That is how Paul concludes his letter to the church in Ephesus, this sweeping letter about grace and unity and new life in Christ. Paul knows the reality they face. They live under Roman rule. They worship in the shadow of the great Temple of Artemis. They are small and vulnerable, pressured from every side. The storm is real. So Paul does not say, “Charge.” He does not say, “Conquer.” He does not say, “Take control.” He says, “Be made strong in the Lord… and stand.” Stand against the forces that would distort the truth. Stand against the darkness that would divide the body. Stand against the fear that would shrink your love. The mountain gives revelation. The armor gives resilience.

At the end of his letter Paul says something that should stop us in our tracks, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” Not against people, neighbors, political opponents, or those who think differently, worship differently, vote differently, or frustrate us deeply. Paul names something larger, rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil. We do not need to imagine demons hiding behind every disagreement, but Paul is clear that evil is real and bigger than any one person. Evil twists good gifts into instruments of harm, turns difference into division, convinces us fear is safer than love, and whispers that power matters more than compassion. Evil is not a person, it is a force. If we get that wrong and turn flesh and blood into the enemy, we have already laid down the armor of God and picked up something else entirely. Once a person becomes the enemy, love becomes optional, and that is never the way of Christ. The struggle is against anything, outside us or inside us, that resists God’s persistent, reconciling love.

So when Paul tells the church to put on the whole armor of God we have to ask what kind of armor this is. Because if our struggle is not against flesh and blood, this is not gear for attacking people. Every piece Paul names has already appeared earlier in the letter. This is not new equipment. This is what being rooted in grace looks like under pressure.

The belt of truth means speaking the truth in love so the body might grow into Christ. Truth is not ammunition but integrity, refusing to let lies about God, ourselves, or one another tear the community apart.

The breastplate of righteousness is not self-righteousness or moral superiority but the new self-created according to the likeness of God, a life shaped not by ego but by grace.

Our shoes are fitted with the readiness to spread the gospel of peace, not boots for marching into battle but sandals ready to move toward reconciliation. The gospel mobilizes us for peace.

The shield of faith is not certainty but trust that God is at work even when the storm is loud, faith that extinguishes despair, shame, and fear.

The helmet of salvation is not something we achieve but something given, guarding the mind when anxiety takes control.

The sword of the Spirit, the word of God, is not for wounding others but for cutting away illusion, exposing falsehood, and freeing captives beginning with us. This armor does not help us conquer the world. It helps us remain faithful within it. The armor of God is not about aggression but transformation. It keeps us from being shaped by fear and allows us to stand rooted in grace.

Persistent resistance is not combative, it is standing firm even when it feels like we are in the midst of the storm, in the violence that fills headlines, the rancor that fills conversations, the division that fractures communities, the steady drip of outrage and fear, and the constant temptation to sort the world into us and them. Those are real storms, but the deeper danger is that the storms outside us seep inside us. Violence hardens the heart. Division grows into contempt. Hatred becomes resentment. Othering becomes self-righteousness. That is where sin does its quiet work. Sin is not just behavior but disconnection from God, from one another, and from the truth of who we are in Christ. The darkness Paul names is not only out there but any force resisting God’s reconciling love. The armor matters because it guards the heart and keeps the storm from rewriting who we are.

Paul encourages us to take up the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, not to slash at opponents but to cut through deception. The Word reminds us every human being bears God’s image, confronts injustice so we hunger for righteousness, exposes hypocrisy especially our own, names violence as sin even when it benefits us, and interrupts our self-justifying narratives. It tells the truth about the world and about us. Sometimes the most radical act of resistance is letting Scripture cut away whatever in us has been shaped more by the storm than by Christ. Scripture reshapes us by revealing Christ because we are not meant to stay on the mountaintop. Through the Word we are transformed for the descent.

The disciples saw Christ’s glory on the mountain and then they came down. They did not stay in the light. They carried it back into confusion, fear, and a world shaped by violence and misunderstanding. The mountain did not remove the storm. It revealed who stood with them in it. That is where we stand. We have seen Christ revealed in Scripture, at the Font and the Table, in the love we share for each other and for the least and the lost, and in grace that found us before we reached for it. We are rooted in grace, and because we are rooted we can stand with persistent resistance.

Persistent resistance stands firm. It refuses to let the storm dictate who we become, refuses to surrender truth to lies, peace to anger, compassion to fear, and hope to cynicism. It stands firm in love when love feels costly, prays when despair feels easier, speaks truth without contempt, and moves toward reconciliation when retreat would be simpler. If the world is going to have extremists, let the church be extremists of love. If the world is going to have people who stand firm, let us stand firm in grace. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood and our strength is not our own. We are being made strong in the Lord, anchored in Christ’s glory and standing firm in the storm. When the wind rises and the storms surge, we remember what we have seen and we stand together, persistent, resistant, rooted in grace.

May it be so in your life, in the life of your family, in the life of our congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church.

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Water, Work, and Wonder

John 2:1-11, Isaiah 25:1-8

We had already made the trip down to the well more times than I could count. Back and forth. Back and forth. The wedding had been going for days, with laughter, music, and dancing in the courtyard. Then the whisper started moving through the servants before anyone else knew. They were running out of wine. You could see it in the face of the host: tight jaw, short answers, no eye contact. A wedding without wine stays with a family for years. Not the way a marriage should begin.

We were already preparing for the quiet ending, guests drifting home early, musicians packing up, the celebration dissolving into polite smiles. Then the rabbi from Nazareth spoke. Not to the host. Not to the steward. To us. “Fill the jars with water.”

We looked at the six stone jars, each one the size of a child’s bath, meant for washing, not for wine. The party was ending. Nobody needed more water; they needed wine. But his mother was watching us, and the rabbi just stood there like he knew something we did not. So we carried the water up from the spring in the center of town. Fill a small jar. Walk it back uphill. Pour it in. Again. Again. Again. We complained under our breath. Why now? Why so much? Why to the brim?

When the last jar was full and sweat was running down our backs, we thought we were finally done. Then the rabbi said something even stranger. “Draw some out and take it to the steward.” Take wash water to the man in charge of the wine? We looked at each other, but we carried it anyway.

Then confusion. The steward called the host over and I overheard him say, “Everyone serves the good wine first and the cheap wine later. But you saved the best for last.” We stared into the ladle. It was water when we filled it. We were certain of it. But the celebration erupted again, louder than before. Relief flooded the courtyard. The host laughing again. The couple beaming. Music resuming. Across the room the rabbi was smiling, not surprised, almost as if this was the point all along. We never saw when it changed. Only that joy had returned.

John calls this a sign because it shows us how God works. Jesus could have created wine out of thin air, but he did not. He chose water, common, ordinary water, the same water drawn from the village spring every day. He involved servants, not hosts, not honored guests, not religious leaders. The miracle did not begin with power. It began with participation.

The servants did not understand. They did not see results. They could not predict the outcome. They simply brought what they had, and somewhere between their effort and Christ’s presence, water became wine. The prophet Isaiah imagined a day when God’s future would look like a great feast, abundance overflowing, joy restored, the best wine finally served. At Cana, Jesus did not talk about that promise. He quietly started it, not in a temple, not on a mountaintop, but at a village celebration that was about to fall apart.

This is the pattern of the kingdom of God. God does not wait for extraordinary materials. God transforms ordinary offerings. We bring the water. God makes the wine.
Once you see that pattern, you start noticing it everywhere. Every time ordinary faithfulness becomes unexpected joy. When we gather supplies and money for Placetas, Cuba, it looks small from here. A donation. A bag of medicine. A short flight. But in Placetas those ordinary gifts become healing, encouragement, and hope in the middle of scarcity and uncertainty. We carry water. God makes wine.

On Wednesday nights people come to church after work, tired, ordinary people, not professional musicians, and rehearse together again and again with the chancel choir, with the Carillonneurs bell choir, with our kakopħone praise band. On Sunday morning worship is filled with beauty larger than any individual voice. We carry water. God makes wine.
A simple youth dinner, food and conversation, becomes an invitation to belong. Students stay for worship, for Ash Wednesday, for mission trips, for friendships that form faith. We carry water. God makes wine.

In the preschool, children hear stories, sing songs, learn prayers, and discover they are loved by teachers, by this church, and by God long before they understand theology. We carry water. God makes wine.

Over and over again, the miracle does not appear dramatic while it is happening. It looks like cooking, rehearsing, giving, teaching, showing up. Only later do we realize joy has appeared where we could not have manufactured it ourselves.

This is how God has always worked. God does not wait for extraordinary materials. God begins with what people already carry every day. The servants bring what they have. Christ makes it what they cannot. Faith does not mean knowing the outcome. Faith is carrying the water.

Today we have a meeting after worship where we will discuss our budget for 2026. On paper, it looks like we might run low. Budgets do what budgets always do. They measure what exists today. They cannot measure what God is not finished doing.

Cana also had a spreadsheet moment. The numbers were correct. The wine was running out. The conclusion was logical. The celebration would end early. But the servants were not asked to solve the shortage. They were asked to carry water.

That matters for us. We are not called to manufacture the miracle. We are called to remain faithful in the work, to keep teaching children, to keep feeding neighbors, to keep praying, to keep singing, to keep showing up for one another, to keep loving this community God entrusted to us. The church has never lived by stored wine. The church lives by carrying water, the living water of Christ.

Sometimes the miracle is not visible while you are hauling buckets. Sometimes it only becomes clear when you see joy in someone else’s life. A child discovering belonging. A grieving family comforted. A hungry neighbor fed. A faith rekindled. That is when you realize that somewhere between the well and the table, God changed the water, making the ordinary extraordinary.
So even when it feels like the party might fade, even when the numbers look thin, we keep carrying water. Our hope has never been in the size of our reserves. Our hope is in the One who turns ordinary offerings into abundant life.

The servants left that night still servants, but they knew something no one else did. The celebration continued not because they had enough, but because Christ was present. So we bring what we have. We do the work given to us, trusting that Christ continues to make the ordinary extraordinary. We carry water. God makes wine.

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Seasoned to Shine

Seasoned to Shine

Matthew 5:13-16, Ephesians 4:1-16

In our first scripture lesson, when Jesus calls his followers the salt of the earth, we might hear it as faint praise. Today, when we describe someone as “salt of the earth,” we usually mean they are good, honest, dependable, down to earth people. It is a compliment, but not exactly a flashy one. Salt feels plain, ordinary, easy to overlook. But in the ancient world, salt was anything but ordinary.

Salt was valuable, so valuable that Roman soldiers were sometimes paid with it. In fact, the word salary comes from the Latin word sal, meaning salt. If a soldier was not doing their job well, their pay might be reduced, giving rise to the phrase “not worth their salt.” Salt was also used in religious rituals for purification, blessing, and protection. And unlike most things, salt never goes bad. So when Jesus looks at a gathered crowd of ordinary people and says, “You are the salt of the earth,” he is not calling them bland or forgettable. He is calling them precious, essential, enduring. He is saying that what God has placed in them matters, for the sake of the world.

That same movement, from identity to calling, is echoed in our reading from Ephesians. Paul begins not with instructions about programs or structure, but with a plea: “I beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Notice where Paul starts. He does not say, earn your calling. He does not say, prove your worth. He says, you already have a calling. Now live into it. And that calling, Paul says, is never a solo act. We are called to work collectively, to act as one body in Christ. There is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism. Unity, yes, but not uniformity.

Paul goes on to name the different ways that calling takes shape in the life of the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These are not job titles reserved for a few professionals. They are functions, ways the Spirit equips ordinary people to build up the body of Christ.

Apostles are pioneers and connectors. They are energized by starting things, building bridges, and imagining what the church could be beyond its walls. They see possibilities others miss and help turn vision into action. They connect the church to the wider world and help others step into their callings.

Prophets are truth tellers and discerners. They ask hard questions. They name what others sense but hesitate to say. Prophets help the church listen for God’s voice, especially when it is uncomfortable. They call us back to our values, name injustice, and help us notice where God may be nudging us next.

Evangelists are story sharers and welcomers. They love connecting with people and sharing why faith matters to them. Evangelists translate the good news into everyday language. They practice hospitality, build relationships, invite others in, and help people feel seen and included.

Pastors are shepherds and caregivers. They show up. They listen. They pray. They walk with people through grief, joy, illness, and uncertainty. Pastors help people feel known, supported, and cared for within the community.

Teachers are guides and interpreters. They love helping others make sense of faith. They ask “why” and “how.” Teachers invite curiosity, reflection, and growth, helping people see how scripture and belief shape daily life. Paul’s point is not that everyone must do all of these things. Paul’s point is that the church needs all of them.

All of these gifts are given “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” Saints. That is all of us. In our Bible studies this week and at the officer training yesterday, we spent time discerning which of these roles we felt most drawn to, most equipped for, or most comfortable as. I will be honest, it was not easy. It required reflection, honesty, and a willingness to name gifts without minimizing them or comparing them to others. But it is empowering, because we cannot walk in a manner worthy of our calling if we never stop to ask what that calling might look like in our own lives.

So I want to invite you to try that same practice now. In a moment, I am going to invite you to turn to someone nearby, preferably someone you do not know well, and introduce yourself. Share your name and one way you believe you help bring flavor or light to the life of this church. One way you serve, as an apostle who connects and builds, as a prophet who sees and speaks truth, as an evangelist who invites and welcomes, as a pastor who cares and shepherds, or as a teacher who guides and interprets. This is not about bragging. It is about bearing witness to grace. So take a moment, turn to a neighbor, introduce yourself, and claim the gifts that you have been given.

Friends, what you just did was not small talk. You practiced naming grace and gratitude for the gifts you have been given. Gifts are meant to be shared for the building up of the body, to do Christ’s work here in our congregation, in our community here in Wichita, with our sister congregation in Placetas, Cuba, and throughout the world. You reminded one another that the church shines not because everyone is the same, but because everyone brings what God has already given, walking in a manner worthy of our calling.
And that brings us back to Jesus’ sermon on the mount, when he told that group of ordinary people something extraordinary: “You are the light of the world.” Not you should be. Not someday you might be. You are the light of the world. Light is meant to be seen. Gifts are meant to be shared. Faith is meant to be lived out loud. So do not hide your light. Do not tuck your gifts away. Do not underestimate what God can do through the gifts the Spirit has already placed within you. You are seasoned to shine, for the building up of the body and for the blessing of the world. May it be so in your life, in the life of your family, in the life of our congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church. Amen.

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