GET BACK
Psalm 100
MATTHEW 9:35 – 10:8
JUNE 14, 2026
History books take us back in time … movies, television programs, and songs can bring back memories of our yesterdays and yes, even our dreams can take as into forays amongst what our lives once were. Dream can also suggest what might have been.
The humans we are today have come from the collective experiences of our past. The good and yes, the bad. Family members, friends, school days and work experiences blended with our small circles of the much bigger world … these are the building blocks of this lovely collective of humanity I am looking at this morning.
As you flip through the pages of your Bible … oh, you did remember to bring your Bibles with you this morning, right? This is another seminary Bible … one purchased at the bookstore at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC back in the day. Not quite sure what led me to make this purchase … a Wesley Study Bible focused on the teaching of John Wesley. Ah, those were special days … staying up most of the night to get ready for exams or noticing the lights on in different dorm rooms knowing my fellow pastors were still working on a paper that would be due the next day. Ah to get back … back to those days … it seemed like I belonged. None of us thought we were loners … we were a community of faith-filled men and women studying God’s Word connected in faith regardless of where we all came from. We left our homes for the grass along Massachusetts Avenue where John Wesley sits quietly on a horse facing out at traffic.
If your school days were like mine, they evoke memories … those first days of meeting individuals. There was Harold George … this church has prayed for him in his ongoing health challenges; he was again discharged from another hospital yesterday morning. Harold came from the hills … a real hillbilly with a drawl from West Virginia. Johnny White from Atlantic City … who despite his name was one of the blackest men I have ever known. Surprisingly I didn’t know him from the shore, but we became like brothers … Johnny’s with the Lord now. Yes, those classes at seminary were what the Muppets might have meant when they sang the Rainbow Connection.
I can hear Kermit singing away … “Rainbows are visions but only illusions and rainbows have nothing to hide. What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see? Someday we’ll find it … the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me.” Ah bringing all folks together … a rainbow collection of humanity where love prevails … where all are accepted sort of like God’s reality that doesn’t reject but instead calls everyone home with love … Jesus looking out at a diverse crowd of humanity … you do realize that when you look out at a crowd that it is diverse in experiences, in background, in personal connection … in that Scripture we all have heard Jesus said … “In my My Father’s House THERE IS ROOM TO SPARE … IF THAT WEREN’T the case I would have told you.”
Interesting ROOM to SPARE … open to ALL … the RAINBOW CONNECTION of humanity not just one race, not just one nationality, not one language or ethnicity, not just one sex or sexuality … a RAINBOW CONNECTION … don’t you wish you could get back to kindergarten back to where we once belonged with all the kids … because we didn’t judge others based on who they were we instead accepted each other as potential playmates and if you are lucky like me you found life long friends in those kindergarten classrooms … strangers who melded into your life as essential to your existence helping to build and create the story of who you are today.
You do know that Jesus travelled among all the cities and the villages. It says it right here in the Bible … Declan read that this morning. Jesus was busy teaching … announcing the good news of the kingdom … he didn’t restrict those gatherings just to dark skinned Middle Eastern types. He didn’t limit those moments to people who mirrored His disciples … oh wait, His disciples and His group of followers were a blend of unique folks … that grew and grew.
Jesus had compassion for the crowds … see you didn’t have to wear a special button or a one colored hat … you didn’t have to bow down to a golden statue or declare that Caesar needed to be obeyed regardless of the evil that he endorsed … to be with Jesus you just had to be part of that Rainbow connection … part of the crowd … like being back in kindergarten … and Matthew’s report could be written about today’s world except we seem to want to segregate to demean … to put down … to limit … to profile according to the color of our skin or related to those we love and care for don’t we.
Jesus saw that the crowds were troubled and helpless and Jesus had compassion for them. Did you hear Declan read what Jesus then said TO HIS DISCIPLES …
Do you consider yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ church? Not just a hearer of the word as Jesus’ brother James wrote but a DOER … a FAITH ACTIVIST … were you once? Do you wish you could get back to the moment when your faith was alive and burning deep in your soul to the level that you would do anything for God and Jesus Christ that could help bring God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven? GET BACK before you made the decision … to just not do much for the Creator …do you remember before you had God in your life … you do know that the Holy Spirit is still active .. still calling … and Jesus said to His disciples … “THE SIZE of the HARVEST is BIGGER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE but there are few workers.” What is interesting is that Jesus then told His disciples … His followers … His believers to “PLEAD with eh LORD of the HARVEST TO SEND OUT WORKERS …” PLEAD WITH THE LORD … WE NEED WORKERS … there are folks who have turned away from YOU … who can it be … and Jesus was truly asking is it you … is it me.
Jesus did not put restrictions … Jesus did not limit thee type of person the Kingdom welcomes nor the type of person who could do the work … Jesus ate with the outcasts, those rejected by society, prostitutes and tax collectors spread the good news … not just folks dressed up pretty who had money and political connections …after all it wasn’t the men who first announced the Good News of our faith that HE IS RISEN … <<He is Risen Indeed>> Women and Men … pick up this book and read the history of our faith … GET BACK to God’s Word where you once belonged … discover Deborah, Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Lydia, Anna, Euodia, and Syntyche and of course Mother Mary, Martha, and every Mary Magdalene whose reputation today would be scandalous.
I mention the women of faith intentionally this morning … because this week here in our nation the gathering of Southern Baptists looked out at some of their pastors … some of those called by God to be there when folks were hurting … to be there with the dying … folks led by the Holy Spirit to bring the Good News into the world because as Jesus declared “the harvest is bigger than you can imagine … but there are few workers.” I say this because the Southern Baptists seem focused on returning us to the bad old days … the days of segregation and Jim Crow laws … the days when if your skin color is dark you couldn’t even take a sip of water from the same fountain as me or stay in the same hotel as my family or eat at the same counter as me. They are a reflection of this nation where a prominent clergy person who is followed by some of our leaders has declared that women should not have the right to vote and it’s clear from the actions of our national leaders that many do not want folks of color to have that right.
But I want to celebrate the women of faith and going back to seminary I want to remember some of the names from my journey … Joyce and Sherry, the Jersey Girls; Joyce has even preached here when I was absent. Ginny and Geri from down at the shore; Ginny is now pastoring the church I attended before God called me into ministry. New Yorkers Carol and Cindy who were always together in class and in the hallways and Buffalo Jean who not only showed up at my 70th birthday party but she is pastor now of the church where my parents were married. They are amongst the thousands of women pastors in the United Methodist Church. This church remembers Pastor Val who led with energy and such strong faith.
Jesus told them … “go to the lost sheep and make this announcement, THE KINGDOM of HEAVEN HAS COME NEAR … remember the harvest is bigger than you can imagine … but there are few workers.”
Let’s go back in time just to celebrate the reality that the United Methodist Church shook off the demons of prejudice and bias and on May 4th 1956 bolted to make women eligible for full clergy rights. “A woman named Margaret Henrichson said in those moments, “Now it is up to us to prove in clear and keep witness to the whole church our consecration and our loyal devotion to the work of the Kingdom of God.”
We can easily look back to the impact Susanna Wesley had on her sons John and Charles Wesley whose work led to the Methodist movement. A woman of faith making her impact for God’s Kingdom. There were women like Sojourner Truth, a Methodist woman who fought slavery, and the Holiness Movement founder Phoebe Palmer whose leadership verified that God calls everyone to bring the good news.
Our neighbors in Pennsylvania were the first to celebrate the change in those male-dominated rules and they quickly gave full clergy rights to Reverend Maud Keister-Jensen, a long time missionary to Korea. And, almost immediately following the Methodist Church … in 1956 the Presbyterian church gave full clergy rights to women as well.
We can’t go back … but we can learn from history and move forward. This week the nation finally celebrates as a national holiday Juneteenth … a date that matters to so many but most of our schools hid the date from people like me because it wasn’t about people like me even though God’s love is equally strong for all folks. This month we celebrate Pride Month because we know that many of our neighbors are still subject to taunts and bullying because of who they love.
This church welcomes ALL … loves ALL … serves ALL who are hurting and we offer the GOOD NEWS to ALL!
I am thankful that someone along my path directed me towards God and Christ … I am thankful that God and Christ do not teach prejudice and bias but a total love for all folks regardless. I am going forward … and one day I will go home to God knowing that God has prepared a place for me equal to the places he has prepared for every other person in the world … we only have to believe with our heart, soul, and mind .. be changed … knowing we can’t go back to change the mistakes and sins we all have made but from this day forward we can live as God calls not as those opposed to God’s teaching in the world expect from us. AMEN