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Advent 1: Be Prepared

Title slide with photos of Mayberry Church window decorated for Christmas and Bluemont Church outside decorated

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
November 30, 2025
Matthew 24:36-44

A crisis looms. The days grow shorter. Time is of the essence. There’s only four more weeks till Christmas. Sometime on Christmas Eve, if you haven’t gotten all your presents, the stores lock their doors—which for some stores is the only time the doors will be locked all year—and it will be too late. You’ll be left empty handed. 

A crisis looms. Sadly, for many people, Advent is about avoiding the crunch by shopping early. Of course, there are those of us who don’t shop early. We may be like Garrison Keillor’s family: “Sanctified Brethren” who didn’t shop early because they felt Christ’s return was imminent. It wouldn’t look right to have a bunch of presents around as if we weren’t expecting him to come so soon. 

Others of us don’t shop early for a myriad of reasons, but mainly procrastination. We get to spend Advent worrying about how to procure this year’s hot gifts for loved ones. 

Advent reminds us to be ready, but not for gifts. As Christmas focuses on Jesus’ first coming, we prepare ourselves for his return, whether in person or at the end of our lives. 

Before reading the scripture: 

For the next few months, I plan to preach from the Revised Common Lectionary. The gospel reading for today, the first Sunday of Advent, reminds us to be ready for Jesus’ coming. Four times in these verses from Matthew 24, we’re told that either the Son of Man or the Lord is coming. This passage warns us. Be prepared. But, this passage also reminds us of the futility of predicting his return. Instead, we’re to live with hope that while things may be rough, as Jesus outlined earlier in this chapter, it won’t last forever.[1]

Read Matthew 24:36-44

I love to be outside during the predawn hours of morning. All nature, at least all nature that’s not locked up in a house, anticipates dawn. In warmer months, birds sing while it’s still dark. If any of your neighbors have chickens, roosters crow. Deer and other animals make a last trip to their watering hole. Even in winter, when the air is the coldest in the predawn, you sense nature anticipating the dawning of a new day.

This is the end of the good fishing season along the coast of North Carolina. From early October through mid- December, fishing is at its best. Growing up there along the coast, we did a lot of camping on barrier islands during the fall. We’d fish late in the evening and then get up before sunrise. Crawling out of our sleeping bags, someone would light the lantern and stove. Soon, coffee perked as we pulled on clothes and waders. After quickly downing coffee and devouring a Little Debby’s oatmeal cookie or two, we gathered our rods and walked across the dunes to the edge of the surf.  

At first, the darkness required you to bait your hooks with a flashlight. Unable even to see your line, you casted blindly into the surf, set your line, and waited for a strike. Generally, it’d start slow. We watched the eastern sky grow brighter. One by one the stars disappeared. Sirius was the last to go, followed shortly by the planets Jupiter and Venus, if they happened to be in the morning sky. Slowly the eastern horizon became lighter, while we shivered. But we kept fishing. We knew the best time to catch a mess of fish was in those moments between night and day which Francis Scott Key labeled the “dawn’s early light.” We had to remain diligent. On mornings when bluefish or trout were running, your line would suddenly squeal, often occurring in the minutes right before the sun’s rays raced across the ocean.  

For some reason, the action slowed down as soon as the sun was fully up. Then it’d be all over and time to leisurely head back to camp for more coffee and to roast a fresh bluefish over the coals for breakfast.

The Apostle Paul said in his letter to Romans: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers. The night is far-gone. Day is near. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”[2] We need to be ready.  When fishing, if you weren’t ready, you’d miss the chance to catch the big one. The same is true with Christ’s return. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to be reunited with our Lord.

There are two things Jesus makes abundantly clear in this text. No one knows where he will return. When he does returns, many people will be so immersed in their own lives they’ll not be ready.

Jesus says his return will be like the days of Noah. People eat and drink and marry and so forth. In other words, they won’t pay attention to what’s happening around them until it’s too late. We might imagine all kinds of bad and evil things people were doing in Noah’s day. But that may not be the case. It sounds as if they just lived their lives. These things are not necessarily bad, unless it kept them from paying attention to God. 

Jesus doesn’t say the people in Noah’s day were any worse than they were during the first century or even today. Jesus isn’t referring to evil deeds here. The Bible doesn’t say we can’t or shouldn’t do these things. We must eat if we want to live. Scripture condemns gluttony but not eating. Drinking isn’t necessarily drunkenness, which is condemned. Marriage certainly isn’t adultery or lust, which is condemned.  

In this verse, Jesus parallels eating and drinking, marriage and giving in marriage in a way like how we might say fishing and hunting, or dining and dancing. He’s not saying they’re wrong. The exception is when people became so preoccupied with performing these tasks they’re not aware of what’s going on around them. They’re preoccupied with themselves! They are concerned for their own needs, their own lives and the lives of their families that they neglect their spiritual needs. They don’t prepare themselves for eternity.

Starting in verse forty, we have an image of two people in a field. One is taken; another left behind. Two women grind grain. One is taken; another left behind. Put this passage together with one from First Thessalonians and you can come up with a best-selling work of fiction, the Left Behind Series.[3] But instead of running off in that direction, we need to consider what Jesus is talking about here. 

The middle part of this passage, verses 40 to 42, is inserted between two short parables which serve as bookends. The first is about those in Noah’s day not being aware of what was happening. The second parable is about a homeowner who, if he knew when a thief was coming, would remain awake. Of course, you can’t stay awake all the time, so we prepare to stop the thief before he comes.  

This passage isn’t really about Jesus’ return. Hear me out. We’re given no foresight in these verses into how Jesus will show up. Instead, it’s a reminder of our need to prepare for his return. To put it in another context, we prepare to return home, for earth is not our true home. You know, we do a lot to prepare for the holidays. Baking, decorating, wrapping presents, and so forth. But what do we do to prepare ourselves for meeting our Creator?  What do we do to prepare ourselves for eternity? This passage reminds us that God has a claim on us. When we fail to take this claim seriously, we act foolish. For we don’t know when we must give an account of our lives. Jesus may return this today, or he may hold off another thousand years, we don’t know. As individuals, we may live to be a hundred or we may walk in front of a truck this afternoon, we don’t know. Therefore, it’s foolish to put off making things right with God.

Now let me address an issue that may arise in some of your minds. Just as this passage is more about preparing ourselves for meeting Jesus, whether he returns or when we die, likewise the passage isn’t about the hereafter. Don’t become, as the cliché goes, “so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly good.” This isn’t Jesus’ intention. 

Such ideas run counter to the Sermon on the Mount recorded earlier in Matthew’s gospel. “Do not worry about your life, what you’ll drink or eat or wear… Consider the lilies of the field…  Don’t worry about tomorrow…  Today’s trouble is enough for today.”[4]Jesus encourages us not to worry about those things we can’t control. Since we can’t control when Jesus returns, we certainly shouldn’t worry about it. Instead, be prudent. Be prepared.  

We should take inventory of our lives. Where are we not reflecting God’s glory. We’re to confess our sins, we’re to repent and change our ways. We’re to forgive one another and restore relationships with our brothers and sisters. And we’re to accept the love God shows us through Jesus and live as his disciple. If we live in such a manner, there is no reason to worry.  

Don’t put off the important stuff. If you need to reconcile with God, do it now. Don’t let important things slide. That’s the message of Advent! Amen.

[1] See Matthew 24:1-28.  Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28 (1990, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 522. 

[2] Romans 13:11-12.

[3] See 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. “Taken away for salvation” is a better interpretation of rapture. Bruner, 526. 

[4] Matthew 6:19ff

[5] As referred to by M. Craig Barnes in Searching for Home: Spirituality for Restless Souls (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 60.  See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Doberstein translator, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 26.

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Thankful for a childhood with plenty of room to wander

Title slide with a photo of the crown of longleaf pines

Happy Thanksgiving. Today I am thankful for a wonderful childhood.

Sheba, our English Setter, barked incessantly in the drainage ditch behind our house. Investigating, I found her moving around a pocket in the clay wall of the ditch. Draining water created these small caves which were common along the ditch bank. 

“What is it girl?” I asked. I rubbed the dog’s head and leaned down to peer inside the hole. A good-sized turtle appeared to be hiding inside. Its head barely stuck out of what seemed to be a black shell. “Good girl,” I said, grabbing a stick. I slid the stick underneath its shell and tried to drag the turtle out when all a sudden its head, fangs flashing, struck the stick just below my hand. Dropping the stick, I jumped back. The snake’s body recoiled. Sheba barked even more frantically. She knew danger lurked. 

I was ten years old and had come inches from being bitten by a water moccasin. Leaving the dog to guard the snake, I ran inside and told dad who came out, grabbing a hoe, and killed the snake. It was too dangerous for something that poisonous to be at the edge of our yard. A year or so later, a snake bit Sheba. Her snout swelling twice it’s normal size. The vet drained the poison and she convalesce a few days. Thankfully, she was soon back to normal. 

Longleaf forest. Photo taken in Carolina Beach State Park, about 8 miles from where the story took place
Longleaf Forest. This photo was taken in Carolina Beach State Forrest, about 8 miles from where my memoir is set. You can see wiregrass along with prickly pear cactus in bloom. I took this photo in May 2024.

We moved to into a neighborhood called Tanglewood in the Myrtle Grove Sound area when I was nine years old. This was before the big building boom in Wilmington, which started around 1970 and hasn’t yet let up. There were only seven houses on our street, each sitting on a half-acre. Ours was one of the few exceptions. My father brought two lots, not wanting to be “crowded in.” In addition to the woods behind the house, we could cross the street and ramble through more swamps and pine forest until we came to the headwaters of Whiskey Creek, which I thoroughly explored after I purchased my first canoe when I was sixteen. 

The woods across the street were the first to go. They built houses up and down the road. By the time I entered Roland Grice Junior High, all the lots had been sold I don’t remember just when the woods behind my parents succumbed to the great urban sprawl of the Southeast. My last trip exploring the bays and pine forest was during a break from college. A few years later, when visiting, I discovered the ditch filled in and houses standing where woods and bays once existed.

The drainage ditch behind our house was a wonderful place to play as a kid. When we first moved here, there was always water flowing. I didn’t realize this being an ominous sign as they were draining the swampy areas to the south of our house. As kids, we played in the ditch, hunting salamanders and turtles, and caught a few small, red-finned pike. 

Also exciting were the carnivorous plants, especially the Venus flytrap with trigger-hairs in its cupped hands which snapped shut, imprisoning an unlucky insect as it feasted on its decaying body. The ditch also served us as a trench for us to re-enact Civil War battles. Having moved here from Petersburg, Virginia, I knew trenches played a major role during the Civil War. We fought our battles with friends, unaware that just a mile or so away our ancestors skirmished with Union soldiers. This was early in 1865, in a last ditch effort to delay the fall of Wilmington. Lee’s troops, hunkered down in the trenches around Petersburg, needed the provisions blockade runners brought into the city. They held back the Union soldiers long enough for most of the stockpiles at the city’s wharfs to be transported north.

Behind the drainage ditch were several square miles of woods and swamps. These swamps, known as Carolina Bays, consisted of an oval shaped depression filled with peat moss. In all but extremely dry periods, water filled the mossy depressions. Ringing these oval depressions were thick undergrowth including live oaks bearded with Spanish moss, bay trees, and pond cypress. The rest of the land, which was only inches higher than the bays, consisted of white sandy soil in which grew long-leaf pines. Occasionally, one came upon a patch of winged sumac or blackjack oak. Wiregrass covered the ground.

In ages past, these pine forests of eastern North Carolina supported a thriving industry for naval stores and turpentine. Evidence remained of such industry. Slash marks on the trunks of mature trees indicated someone had drained sap from the tree. There were also mounds, which we at first thought were Indian burial grounds, only to later discover they had something to do with burning pines while extracting pitch. But that was all in the past. By the time I explored the woods and bay, they were waiting development. But for a few years, they made a great playground.

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Nicene Creed: Article 3, The Holy Spirit

Title slide with photo of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
John 14:15-31
November 23, 2025

Sermon recorded at Bluemont Church on Thursday, November 20, 2025

At the beginning of worship: 

Just before the battle of Palo Alto in the Mexican-American War, Captain Jack Hayes supposedly prayed:

      O Lord, we are about to join battle with vastly superior numbers of the enemy, and Heavenly Father, we would mightily like you to be on our side and help us.  But if you can’t do it, for Christ’s sake, don’t go over to the Mexicans, just lie low and keep in the dark, and you will see one the of the dangest fights you’ve ever seen on this earth. Amen.[1]

We should remember we’re called to be on God’s side, not to win God over to our side! And God is by our side (maybe not in the way Captain Hayes desired), but God is there as an advocate and friend. And God can remain on both sides.[2] The Almighty is larger than earthly conflicts.

Before reading the Scripture:

Today I’ll finish my series on the Nicene Creed. When the Council of Nicene broke up in 325 AD, the third article of the creed simply said, “We believe in the Holy Spirit.” As I have indicated, the primary conflict 1700 years ago centered around Jesus and if he was God. Future councils felt that just as Jesus Christ is God, so is the Spirit. They expanded the third article to indicate that the Spirit is also God. 

God’s Spirit gives us life. We see this in the garden when Adam was created. The spirit gives us the breath of life. It also provides life to the church. In line with this, the third article of the Creed addresses the church as well as our hope in the future. 

I have made a point through the sermons to highlight how the Creed serves as the unifying document of all Christianity: Protestants and Roman Catholics as well as Orthodox and Coptic Christians. However, there is one slight difference between those of us in the West (Protestant and Roman Catholics) and those in the East. It has to do with one line where we say that the Spirit descends from the Father and the Son. Eastern Churches say he only descends from the Father. 

This change occurred in a Council in Toledo in the 6th Century. Unlike the Council of Nicaea and Constantinople in the 4thCentury, this Council didn’t include all Christendom, which is why it’s not accepted by the Eastern Churches.[3]

Today, we’re following the passage from which I preached on two weeks ago, which if you remember took place around the table on the last night Jesus was with his disciples before the crucifixion. Here, Jesus builds on what he has already covered. Two weeks ago, we learned of Christ’s co-eternal existence with the Father. Last week, we focused on God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. In this week’s text, we see that Jesus sweetens the deal with the promise that he’ll also be with us, here, on earth 

This week, we’ll learn that the disciples (and this includes all of us) are to be incarnational witnesses to the world as we too are brought into this relationship. God, through the Spirit, comes from the Father at the request of the Son, and resides in believers. This incarnation—God being with us—allows us to be about the work of Christ.  

Finally, this passage that I’m about to read provides the underpinnings for the doctrine of the Trinity, with the teachings of the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son.[4] Within this passage, we’ll also hear the first two of five teachings from Jesus on the coming on the Spirit as told by John in his gospel.[5]This is an important promise, as John emphasizes by quoting Jesus in numerous places speaking about it. Without God’s Spirit, we’d be lost! 

Read John 14:15-31

A true friend is one who sticks with us, regardless of our hair-brained ideas. Most of us, at best, have only a few such friends. But thankfully, when others fail us, Jesus promises us his presence. The promise expands Jesus implies this mystical union in which God is with us, by us, and in us. This presence we’re promised is the kind of friend who will never abandon us. It is also the kind of presence which offers us advice if we are willing to ask and listen, which will hopefully keep us from participating in hair-brained ideas.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says. In the ancient world (and in many places today without government safety nets), to be orphaned is to be extremely vulnerable. Orphaned children in places like Southeast Asia often end up in horrific situations such as prostitution. To be orphaned is a scary proposition. This is why the Old Testament repeatedly demands the nation of Israel to care for the orphan, widow, and foreigner in their midst.[6] And when they don’t care for the orphan, they’re condemned.[7] To be orphan leaves you with no advocate. 

God insists his people watch out for those who are vulnerable. It is scary to be alone. Being an orphan isn’t just something experienced by children whose parents have died. Middle aged men who have lost their jobs as factories close and are too old to be retrained in a new field are like orphans. Those abandoned by their spouse or lover and left with young children are like orphans. The elderly, when their spouse dies and their children all live on the other side of the country or globe are like orphans.[8]

We identify with the pain of each situation. Thankfully, Jesus promises his presence. At the same time, we should befriend the orphans around us because we know what God has done for us!

Now let’s go to the beginning of our text today. Jesus starts out with a promise that if we keep his commandments, he will send us a companion. What commandment is he referring to, we might wonder? Is it the commandment to love? Or is it the Ten Commandments. Elsewhere in Scripture, the term translated as “to keep” or “to fulfill the commandments” is used for the Ten Commandments and the word here for commandment is plural, indicating there are more than one of them.[9]  

However, Jesus spent this evening encouraging the disciples to let themselves be loved by God. If you remember, before dinner, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet as a visual example of his devotion and love.[10] Because they are loved by God, they should love one another and to share that love with those who do not yet know the Father.[11] Jesus isn’t saying we must follow a bunch of rules. Instead, he invites us into a community of love.  

If we love Jesus, he promises the Father will send us an Advocate, a companion, a friend, someone to always be with us. The Greek word here, translated as the Advocate, literally means “the One Called Alongside.” Other translations use “the Helper,” the Counselor” or “the Comforter,” all which capture a part of the meaning. This one who comes alongside is like a true friend, who will be there in an emergency, who will help us and vouch for our character.[12]

In verse 17, Jesus identifies this companion as the “Spirit of Truth.” Earlier in this chapter, in verse 6, Jesus referred to himself as the “Truth.” This is an example of how this passage is referring to the interworking of the Trinity. The Father, the Son and the Spirit, works together in a unity beyond our comprehension. 

We see this line of thought continue in verse 18, which we’ve already looked at when I referred to us not being orphaned. Jesus promises to come back, but not in the way the disciples (and we) may desire. This isn’t a passage about the end times, but about the ongoing life of a Christ’s followers. Instead, Jesus continues in verse 19 to hint that the world may not see him, but those who love him and keep his commandments will. This will result in our knowing for sure that he and the Father exist in each other. In addition, and in an incarnational way, they also remain within the faithful. 

This is way too much for the good Judas… I wonder if he changed his name after the bad Judas betrayed Jesus? John distinguished the good Judas from Judas Iscariot. The latter had already left the table to arrange Jesus’ betrayal.[13] Understandably, this Judas doesn’t understand Jesus. Attempting to explain in detail, Jesus speaks of how we, through love, are brought into an intimate working relationship with God. God loves us and we receive such love by obeying Jesus and sharing his love.

We’re to be true to our Savior, to follow him. But let me go off a bit from our text and remind us that although we’re to obey Christ and to do Christ’s work in the world, we need to remember we’re not in charge of the world. If we forget this, we take on too much of a burden and will quickly burn ourselves out. Yes, we love the world, but we’re not here to save it. We’re here to follow Jesus and to show his love and be grateful. Saving the world is God’s business.

In The World is not Ours to Save, the author, who worked for nuclear disarmament, speaks about the time he heard God speak to him. He attended a major disarmament conference at a hotel in San Francisco. There was a lot going on and he stepped into a stairwell to escape, to think, and to catch his breath. There he heard God’s calming voice: “The world is not yours, not to save or to damn. Only serve the one whose it is.”[14] We, too, have such a calling.

Jesus closes our passage anxious about what will happen soon. He’s going to meet the “ruler of this world. And it’ll look like Jesus lost on Friday afternoon, but come resurrection Sunday, we learn of God’s true love for the world. Jesus’ words given on the night of his betrayal continue to provide us hope and encouragement. But more importantly, it’s through the promised Spirit, we experience God’s presence.  Amen. 

[1] This was from a speech by Marjorie Thompson as the Montreat Spirituality Conference, as retold by John Salmon of Portland, OR.  

[2] Abraham Lincoln made this point in his second inaugural address: “The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

[3] There is more behind this “filioque” clause. See Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023), 185f. 

[4] Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions, “The Nicene Creed” 1.3

[5] See John 15:26, 16:7-11 and 16:12-15.

[6] Examples:  Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18,  24:17-21, 27:19; Psalm 10:18, 82:3, 146:9; Isaiah 1:17, 1:23; Jeremiah 5:28, 7:6, 22:3; Ezekiel 22:7; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5

[7] See Isiaah 1:23, 102 and Jeremiah 7:6. 

[8]The expanded meaning of orphans came from a sermon by Less Griess, “Always With Us”  from Sermons On the Gospel Readings, Series II, Cycle A,  found at http://www.sermonsuite.com/freebk.php?i=788036753&key=shtqt1bmwEFq5zne in October 2014.

[9] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John XII-XXI (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 638.

[10] John 13:1-11

[11] Frederick Dale Bruner,  The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 836

[12] Bruner, 834.

[13] John 13:30

[14] Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, The World is Not Ours to Save: Finding the Freedom to Do Good (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2013), 18.

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God Incarnate: Nicene Creed Article 2, Part 2

Title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
November 16, 2025
Philippians 2:1-11
Nicene Creed, Article 2, Part B

Recorded at Mayberry on Thursday, November 13, 2025

At the beginning of worship:
As a Christian community, our faith is grounded in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without Christ, little that we do here makes sense. Jesus Christ serves as the glue which holds the church together. 

The membership requirements to be a part of the Presbyterian family, at least on the surface, are easily met. All you have to do is to realize your need of a Savior. In other words, admit your sinfulness. Then accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. 

That sounds simple until we dig into what it means and discover our primary allegiance belongs to Jesus alone: not to ourselves, our families, our bosses, a particular political party, our country, or even our favorite sports team. All those allegiances may have value, but they all take a seat behind Jesus. After all, earthly allegiances are fallible. In the end, only Jesus Christ is infallible and eternal. 

Finally, to join the church, we agree to part of a new family. We’re to pray and support one another and the church as we commit yourself to follow Christ and to study God’s word as you strive to apply it to your life.  

As I said, on paper, being a member of the church sounds easy, and I hope some of you who have not yet united with us in our faith journey will do so. But when we commit to join the church, it’s like joining the military. We sign our lives away. It no longer belongs to us, but to Jesus Christ. 

Before reading the Scripture:

Today, as we continue our celebration of the 1700 anniversary of the Nicene Creed, we’re looking at the second part of the second article. Last week, we looked at the first half where we learned that Jesus is co-eternal with the Father. Once that’s established, the Creed shifts and for the first time deals with us. But even here, it’s not about what we’re to do, it’s still about what God is doing on our behalf. Here, the creed explains our salvation. Jesus comes to save a floundering world. 

Martin Luther regarded the Creed “as a summary of the gospel, the saving word of God that gives us Christ—and in him gives us salvation—to be received by faith alone.”[1] Of course, once we receive salvation by faith, we’re to respond out of love. 

Out text this morning comes from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Much of this reading draws on a hymn which beautifully summarizes what we believe about our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Read Philippians 2:1-11

This passage is poetic and beautiful. The chapter begins with Paul making a personal plea for those in Philippi to live out their lives in the way of Christ. This would please Paul, who personally invested in establishing the church there. In a way, Paul has a personal stake in their wellbeing. 

Paul calls on his readers to live with agape love, a love which looks out for the wellbeing of others. It’s a life of humility and as Paul suggests, our example is Christ. 

There have been debate among scholars over the deeper meaning of these words beginning in the sixth verse. It’s widely accepted by scholars, at least going back to the 19th Century, this is an ancient Christian hymn on the incarnation.[2] When we speak of Jesus’ incarnation, we refer to how God embodied himself in a human life. In Jesus Christ, God became a person, just like you and me. It’s a mystery, yet an essential tenet of the Christian faith. 

Now, it’s not important whether Paul wrote this hymn or someone else wrote it. Perhaps Paul just incorporated into his letter like I might allude to a hymn or a popular song in one of my sermons. What’s important is the unique relationship of God through Jesus Christ to us. This is what the second article of the Nicene Creed emphasizes.

However, unlike the Creed, Paul’s main emphasis isn’t theology, its ethics. The Creed shows what God has done for us, not what is expected of us. I think Paul would agree with the Creed. After all, our salvation isn’t about what we do, but what God has done for us. Knowing this, Paul wants us to consider how we live as Christ-followers. “Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes. Or as the Message translates begins this passage, “Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.” Paul presents Christ as the ultimate model for moral action.”[3]

Christ, who is equal to God in that mysterious union of the Trinity, did not exploit his position of power, but became a servant, a slave, to reach and lift us up. If we are Christ-like, we, too, will be so humble.

Pride is a dangerous thing, and we see from this ancient hymn, Jesus shuns pride for obedience. He takes on the human condition yet remains without sin. But he doesn’t brag about his accomplishments, instead he’s crucified for them. Because of his obedience, God lifts him up, restores him back to his divine and glorious state so that at the end of history, all will bow before him in worship and in doing so we will be bringing glory to the Father.

Although this passage shows one of the keys tenets of our theology—that God became a man and lived among us—it also illustrates the truth Jesus taught throughout his ministry: the last shall be first[4] and those who want to be great must first become a slave or a servant of all.[5]

We worship an awesome God who encourages us to strive to be “Christ-like” which means we must serve others… And as important as theology is to get right, it is more important that we live by what we believe. Do we believe what Paul emphasizes in this letter to the Philippians? But a more important question is this. Do we live like we believe it? 

The late preacher Fred Craddock, commenting on this passage, summarizes these verses this way: “The hymn stands in the church’s Scripture not only to define lordship and discipleship, but also, as a judgment upon the kind of triumphalism that abandons the path of service and obedience.”[6] Humility should be a result of our faith, for we know what God has done for us.

As we see in this passage from Paul, Jesus Christ chose to come in the flesh. He could have stayed in heaven and avoided a lot of heartache, but then he couldn’t have shown us the way back to the Father.[7] So we worship a sovereign God who freely came to us. God now calls us through a Son to accept his forgiveness of our sins and then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, encourages us to live a godly life which honors the triune God and furthers God’s kingdom in the world. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the Christian life. It’s all about God and what God has done and can do in our lives. 

This passage, as well as the Creed, lays out what God has done for us. We should celebrate this grace. The question now remains in our hand. Will we accept this grace and follow the path set forth by Jesus? Amen.  

[1] Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023), 103-104.

[2] Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians: Word Biblical Commentary #43 (Waco: Word, 1983), 76.

[3] Hawthorne, 79

[4][4] Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31; and Luke 13:30

[5] Matthew 20:26, 23:11; Mark 10:43;  Luke 1:48; and John 12:26

[6] Fred B. Craddock, Philippians: Interpretations: A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 43.

[7] John 14:6.

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Moving to Virginia (the first time)

title slide with photo of the author with his brother in sister and a parent in 1962 and 1964

It may surprise some that I had lived in Virginia once before. I spent my first three years of school in Petersburg, Virginia. Between the third and fourth grade, I moved with my family to Wilmington, North Carolina, where I would live until I was 24. This memoir piece draws on my recollection of that first move. Most of these pictures I found last fall as my sister and I cleaned out my parent’s house.


The phone of the kitchen wall in the house on Doubs Chapel rang. Mom answered. She sounded excited. 

“We’re moving to Virginia,” she said with her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you want to talk to your dad?“

It may have been my first long distant phone call. In my five years, I hadn’t met anyone outside the local calling district. I placed the receiver to my ear and asked Dad if Virginia was another country.

Mom and us kids beside the house on Doubs Chapel Road
Mom and us kids at the house on Doubs Chapel (between Pinehurst and Carthage, NC) .


Dad had started a new job that summer. He spent six months in Baltimore, wherever that was, in training. He occasionally came home for a weekend. We picked him up at the train station in Southern Pines. When he returned, he took an overnight sleeper on Sunday evening, arriving back in Baltimore early on Monday morning. 

Once, when Mom wrote him a letter, which she often did, I decided to write one, too. The only words I knew how to write were the names of gas stations. We called them “filling stations,” back then. On a piece of paper, I wrote Esso, Shell, Sinclair, Gulf and Texaco. I even drew a dinosaur beside Sinclair. As the time to move got closer, Mom went up to Virginia with Dad and the three of us “youngins,” as we were called, stayed with my grandparents. I turned six then and my grandma threw a party for me and my older cousin Marie, who shared my birthday. Her dining room was cramped with cousins and friends from church.

That’s me at 6 years of age


We moved to Petersburg in late January 1963, just a week after my sixth birthday. I don’t remember much about the move, except for a long drive. Uncle Frank helped and all our stuff was loaded onto one of his farm trucks. I assume, since Dad had just started to work for the company for whom he’d work for the next 45 years, they didn’t provide expenses for the first move. When we’d move to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1966, we’d use professional movers.

It was after dark when we arrived at the rented cracker-box house on Montibello Street, overlooking toll booths along the Petersburg-Richmond Turnpike. A row of houses on the south side of the street, with our backyards dropping down to a small creek. Across the street was a chain-link fence which kept us from running out into all the traffic the moved between the Northeast and Southeast. Just south of town, I-85 and I-95 (although neither one was completed at this time) merged. If you headed north from New Orleans, Atlanta or Miami, you drove right by our house.

Being close to the freeway didn’t seem such a problem that January night as we moved in. But come spring, when we opened the windows, as there was no air conditioning, we heard a constant roar of trucks and cars. Those heading north braked for the toll booth while heading south accelerated as they continued their journeys into the night. That night, as we moved in, we heard the sound of music coming down the street. It was the ice cream man who also sold milk. We didn’t get any ice cream night, but would, in warmer months, look forward to his visits.

I have only snippets of memory about the house on Montibello Street. A gas floor heater in the hallway warmed the house. When heating, you could stand on the grate and watch the fire through a small window in the metal heater below. Shortly after moving in, it snowed. My sister placed her wet shoes on the heater and turned it up. When my mother discovered this, her shoes were well-done and curled. 

Out back, the yard slopped down and there, my father taught me how to ride a bike. He had installed training wheels on the bike and blocks of wood on the paddles so my feet could reach them. After I got to where I could keep it upright, he took the training wheels off and I’d ride it down the hill and then turn and try to make it back up but generally gave up and walked the steep hill back to the house.

My grandma gave me some seeds. Corn and peas if I remember correctly. That spring before I started school, I planted a small garden on the hillside. I was proud of the handful of peas that I harvested. I don’t remember if we got any corn.

Our next-door neighbors, to the west, were the O’Neils. Mom was always telling us to be quiet when we were outside and they were home. I didn’t understand. They seemed stuck-up as they never talked or waved. I assumed that was because they were Yankees from New York. I knew they had a boy a few years older than me, but I only saw him in the backyard once, laying in a lounge chair, sunning. Mom wouldn’t let us go out and meet him. 

Then, to my surprise, he died. We had to be especially quiet. Mom made pecan pies and took them over and afterwards they became good friends. About a year later, after we moved to Bishop Street, my brother and I was surprised to have a second Christmas several months after the holiday. There were all kinds of army stuff and an electric train in the living room one morning. The O’Neils had cleaned out his toys and given them to us. Years later, I learned he died of cancer.

On the other side of the O’Neil’s, at the last house on the street, lived a kid my age. His name was Robert and we became friends. His dad was in the Army and worked at Fort Lee. About the time school started, his family had a big party and Robert invited me, but my mother wouldn’t let me go because the adults were going to be drinking beer.

I should say something about church in Petersburg. Coming from Scottish Presbyterian stock, albeit over two hundred years since leaving the motherland, we first attended Second Presbyterian Church. Maybe we tried First Presbyterian, but I only remember the second one. There, in the sanctuary, someone took pleasure in showing us where a Yankee cannon ball crashed through the roof a mere 98 years earlier. The church had a big bell tower, but no steeple, the story being that the Yankees shot off the steeple during the Civil War. Afterwards, they rebuilt it only to be blown off by a tornado. They again rebuilt the steeple, but nine years earlier, in 1954, the winds of Hurricane Hazel once again removed it. I’ve always thought the church played by baseball rules and decided three strikes must mean God didn’t intend them to have a steeple. 

It surprised me in 2004, when I was in a meeting in Richmond and drove down for an afternoon to see the church had a steeple,. Looking up the church history, it appears they added the steeple in 1984. And the only part I remembered correctly of the steeple story was that Hazel blew one off. The first steeple fell during construction which was early in the Civil War, a few years before the siege of Petersburg.   

That September, I entered the first grade at Walnut Hill’s Elementary School. As there was a shortage of teachers and classrooms, so I was told, first graders only attended school half day. I pulled the morning shift and came home at lunch, passing by those going for the afternoon shift. Mostly, my parents took me to school and picked me up when it was time to come home. Once, I rode the city bus with Ellen. Mom had given me what she thought was the correct change, but I was a nickel short. I volunteered the nickel I had for milk, but the bus driver said I could pay him later. I never rode a bus again while we were in Petersburg. Well into adulthood I carried guilt with me for having cheated the bus company out of a nickel. I was in my 20s, when I told my mother about it and she assured me that she sent Ellen with the money I owed the next day. I’m not so sure, but it was a nice attempt to alleviate my guilt.

Once we moved to Bishop Street, we began attending St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. While my parents didn’t join, they did help out teaching Sunday School. The next church they joined was a Presbyterian one but that was after we moved. I assumed they knew we would not be longterm residents of Petersburg. The Methodist Church also had a Cub Scout program which I joined when I turned eight. I would earn my wolf and bear badges while being in a den where the den mother was a former Miss Virginia.

Ellen

We and the O’Neils moved about the same time. The next summer, when I was between the first and second grade, Ellen invited me to go with her to the city pool. She introduced me as her “boyfriend,” which made me a pretty proud kid having a girlfriend twice my age.



That fall, my parents brought a house on Bishop Street in Walnut Hills. At the time, it seemed large, but looking at photos, it wasn’t. Before moving in, Mom and Dad painted and fixed the house up. We were still in the process of moving the day my father picked me up at school. When we got home, Mom had the TV on, which had already been moved to the house, and was very upset. The President had just been shot. I will always associate our new house with Kennedy’s assassination.

family in fromt of a house
My dad with the three of us at the Bishop Street house, maybe Easter Sunday, 1964
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The Nicene Creed, Part 3

Title slide with photos of Bluemont and Mayberry Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Church
November 9, 2025
John 14:8-17

Sermon recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025 at Bluemont Church

Before the beginning of worship:
At the end of the summer, billboards started appearing around our area. They read: “Jesus is not God: Jesus did not preexist in heaven.” One was on Highway 52, just outside of Fancy Gap. 

This set off a firestorm, and many people became upset. Some complained to the county supervisors to have the signs removed. But the free speech amendment in the Constitution tied the \supervisors’ hands. A few became angry and resorted to vandalism. Some of the signs they spray painted out the “NOT,” so that the sign read, “Jesus is God,” with a black space in the middle. 

While I disagree with the sign, I don’t think we should resort to vandalism of those with whom we disagree. Instead, we should consider this as a challenge. Sometimes, being challenged by ideas with which we disagree helps us sharpen our own faith and understanding. This can be a time for us to dig a bit deeper into our own theology, which is what I hope to do as we continue our exploration of the Nicene Creed this morning. 

Before reading the Scriptures:
Today, in our tour through the Nicene Creek, we’ll begin our exploration of what Jesus the Son means. As I stated two weeks ago, the crisis which led to the Nicene Creed came from a movement within the church known as Arianism. Those who followed this path, led by Bishop Arius of Alexander in Egypt, held that Jesus had been created by God the Father before the foundations of the earth. This clearly put a hierarchy within the godhead. 

Those who disagreed with Arius, pointed out that as a creature, Jesus wouldn’t be very different from us.  The Council of Nicaea was called to work out this dispute, which led to this great creed of the church which established two mysteries, the Trinity and the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. 

As I pointed out last week, you can divide the creed nto three articles based on the Trinity. The short first article focused on God the Father, a topic which didn’t require much space as there was no controversy around the topic at this point in history. But the second article, which focuses on God the Son is longer because of the conflict over the nature of Christ. The Council insists that Jesus and God are the same. The Arian position was condemned as a heresy. 

For my text today, I am going to the Gospel of John. We already heard the opening of the Gospel in our call to worship. There, in John’s prologue, we learn that the Word, another name for Jesus who is God’s revelation, has been with God all along, from the very beginning. In the 14th Chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus claims to be eternal with the Father. 

It’s the night of the Last Supper. Jesus and his disciples gather for the final time before his crucifixion. Almost a quarter of John’s gospel focuses on this one night. Jesus begins by telling the disciples he’s leaving and will prepare a place for him. Thomas gets the first question concerning where Jesus is going and how can they go there if they don’t know where he’s going. 

Next, Philip picks up the questioning in relation to the Father which we’ll see in our reading. 

Read John 14:8-17
Over a period of several weeks, a minister listened to a parishioner tell the same fish story many times. Each time, the fisherman told the story, the fish took on a different dimension. Somethings he made the fish out to be a whale. Other times, the fish sounds like just a lively bass. Finally, the reverend felt he needed to confront this fisherman about his habitual lying. That next Sunday, after worship, he called the man aside. He told him about hearing the same story told in a variety of ways to different listeners. He encouraged him to be truthful. 

“Well, you see,” the fisherman explained. “I must be realistic. I never tell someone more than I think they’ll believe.”[1]

You know, we can only understand and comprehend so much. In our passage this morning from John’s gospel, we must wonder if Jesus overloaded his disciples. He attempts to teach them about the unique relationship between him and God the Father along with our relationship to the Holy Spirit. This is enough to cause our heads to spin. This morning, I want us to concentrate on Jesus’ relationship to the Father. From this passage we learn our knowledge of God comes from our knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is why it’s important to study and know him. From Jesus’ life, we can understand God. 

Our passage begins with Philp begging to see God the Father. “Jesus, that’s all we need. Then we’ll be satisfied.” “Show me,” Philip demands. Sounds like Philip’s descendants may have ended up as residents of Missouri, the “Show Me” state.

You know, in the first chapter of John’s gospel, Philip easily answers God’s call.[2] Perhaps now, after having been with Jesus for three years, Philip begun to wonder just what he got himself into. He desires a grand demonstration, perhaps an encounter like Moses experienced at the burning but not burning bush. Such presentations are rare and would not be forthcoming. 

But let us think about Philip’s question. “Show us the Father, and we’ll believe.” We all would like a bit more evidence. I mean, wouldn’t it be great to see God and that be all it took. Then everyone would believe, right? But it doesn’t work like that. Earlier in this chapter, in his questions and answers with Thomas, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through me.”[3] Faith involves trust and mystery, which is what the Creed is about as it teaches us about Jesus’ incarnation and the mystery of the Trinity. 

It sounds strange but after living with the Master for three years, the disciples still don’t understand the unique relationship between Jesus, the man, and God the Father. And we should be honest. It’s hard to grasp the idea that God and a man are one in the same, which is the mystery of the incarnation which is at the heart of the Creed. 

I think Jesus emphasizes this relationship on his last night with the disciples to prepare them for what’s ahead. They’re not to be abandoned, but God’s through the Spirit will be with them, guiding them and helping them to do even greater things that what Jesus did during his earthly ministry.  Jesus stuck with them for three years, and through the Spirit, in that unique relationship known as the Trinity, he’ll still be with them and us.

As we saw last week, the idea of God the Almighty Creator wasn’t in debate at Nicaea. But they did debate the relationship of Jesus to God and to us.  The first half of the 2nd Article of the Creed deals with the relationship between God and Jesus. Next week, we’ll look at the second half of the second article, which deals with Jesus’ relationship with us and our salvation. But before we get there, the Creed establishes Jesus as God. This is my argument against that billboard which appeared on roads around western Virginia back in the late summer. 

We’re told in the Creed that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Son of God. But the Creed doesn’t end there. The Creed continues by stating Jesus is eternally begotten. The two may seem similar but by insisting on “eternally begotten,” they imply Christ’s eternal nature with God. This was against the Arians who taught that Jesus was created by God, which would then mean that Jesus is a creature. And we’re not to worship creatures or Creation. We can appreciate creation, as it’s the work of God’s hands, but we only worship God, the Creator. 

Next, the Creed provides a list of parallel traits which may make us wonder. Jesus Christ is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God… each of these emphasize further the eternal nature of Christ. 

Next, we return to the beginning, where we are again reminded that Jesus Christ is begotten not made. Again, this implies Jesus is not a part of God’s creation. This line continues with Christ being of one being with the Father.

This part of the creed used a Greek word, homoousious, which combines the Greek “Homo” meaning “the same” with the word “ousia,” which stems from the word for means “to be.” The Creed emphasizes Jesus as the very essence of God.[4]

It seems those who wrote the Creed went a little overboard in their linking Jesus Christ and God. But this, like the doctrine of the Trinity, is a mystery. While we may not always understand, we accept by faith that Jesus came to show us the way to the Father and by seeing him, the disciples and first witnesses saw the Father. For this reason, Jesus is to be worshipped and adored.  

One of the great hymns of the church, which we’ll sing in a minute, begins, “Crown Him with Many Crowns, the Lamb upon his throne.”[5] This hymn draws upon the vision John has in the fifth chapter of Revelation. There, John glimpses the eternal glory of Christ, a passage I preached on in the summer.[6] But it also reminds us that Christ does more than teach us about how to live. Christ is to be worshipped. And we can do that because we only worship God. And Christ, in some mysterious way we can’t fully grasp, is God. Amen. 

[1] Snappy Steeple Stories, compiled by Oren Arnold, page 43. 

[2] John 1:43.

[3] John 14:6

[4] See Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexman Press, 2023 ), 77

[5] Matthew Bridges wrote the hymn in 1851. The music, Diademata, is by George Job Elvery, written in 1868. 

[6] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/03/the-slain-yet-victorious-lamb/

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Reading in October (and a puzzle)

Title slide with covers of both books I reviewed the story

Candice Millard, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search of the Nile

Cover of "River of Gods"

 (New York: Doubleday, 2022), 349 pages including notes, bibliography, and an index.  In addition are 16 pages of prints. 

It’s amazing that in the middle of the 19th Century, vast areas in places like Africa remained unknown, including the source of the Nile. . In comes Richard Burton, the English explorer, who put together a team to find the source. While he didn’t succeed, one of his assistants and nemesis, John Hanning Speke did discover and document the source of the Nile in a later trip. To put this in context of what was occurring in the world at the time, the first trip was when the Indian Mutiny occurred. Speke’s later expedition was during the American Civil War.

This book is filled with excitement and misadventures. One such event involved an attack attacked in what is now Somalia, which was just as dangerous then as now. In the attack, a spear pierced Burton’s cheeks, leaving him with a lifelong scar. 

I have had this book has been on my radar for several years, but I found myself questioning if it was worthy to read. the time in to read it. But having read the other three books by Candice Millard (The River of Doubt, Destiny of the Republic, and Hero of the Empire), all of which I enjoyed, I finally decided to give this book a try.  I’m glad I did.  

Millard provides biographical information not only of Speke and Burton, but also several others involved in the expedition. One of these, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, was most interesting. An African, his village was attacked when he was a child. Taken to India as a slave, upon the death of his master, he came back to Africa and helped with all the expeditions.  

Burton and Speke’s relationship was always tense. At the end of the expedition, Burton fell ill which delayed his returni to England. Speke, who went ahead of him, claimed credit for the expedition’s finding. The story of Burton and Speke ends tragically. The two were to have a debate, but hours beforehand, Speke died from a gunshot. Was it an accident (as he was a skilled and safe hunter) or did he do it on purpose? 

I found myself interested in Burton and may have to read more about his life. Burton mastered languages. As a non-Muslin (he was mostly agnostic), but with a master of Arabic and having studied the Koran, he traveled to Mecca and participated in the Hajj. Dressing the part, he passed himself off as Shaykh Abdullah. He lived to tell of his adventures which he published in a book. 

 Unlike Speke and most Britains, Burton preferred native dress. He also didn’t see himself as superior just because he was British but respected the people and their customs. However, some things he abhorred such as the Arab slave trade through Africa, which was still going on in the middle of the 19th Century.  However, his interest repulsed many in Victorian England such as translating the Karma Sutra into English. 

A side story in this book is the relationship between Burton and his young wife, Isabel Arundell. To the horror of her mother, Isabel fell for Burton when she was vyoung. They had a long relationship, but because of Burton’s travels and her family’s disapproval, they didn’t marry for some time. Not only was Burton not affluent, the Arundells were Catholic. Isabel had even considered becoming a nun if she couldn’t gain Burton’s interest. She was willing to travel with her husband on his journeys, but Burton was beginning to slow down by the time they married. She remained devoted to him and helped him with his writings. 

 This is an exciting book and, somewhat like the first book I read by Millard, River of Doubt. In River of Doubt, she explores a 1914 expedition by Teddy Roosevelt down one of the uncharted rivers in South America. Both books are good stories with lots of insight into the time and what those involved in the expeditions endured. 

James M. Dixon, Things I’ll Never Forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam, 

Cover photo of "Things I'll Never Forget"

Malcolm Hillgarter, narrator (2018, Brilliance Audio),9 hours and 36 minutes.

Graduating from high school in 1965, and not sure what he wants out of life, Dixon joins the Marines. Describing the dinner where he broke the news to his parents is well told. His mother drops her coffee cup and leaves crying. His father congratulated him, but then you learn the family are Quakers, even though his father had served in World War 2. Dixon had initially wanted to join the Army rangers with a friend. But they discovered he was slightly colorblindness and the Army refused to take him. Leaving, he and his friend talked to the Marine Corp recruiter, who promised all kinds of things which turned out not to be true. Unaware of the lies, the two signed up. 

The first part of the book tells of his experiences in boot camp at Parris Island. I didn’t realize they had shortened basic training and advance infantry training as the war begin to heat up. Humor fills training experience..  After completing these two courses, he heads to school in Camp Pendleton, California, to be trained as a MP (military police). From there, he travels by ship to Vietnam, with stops in Hawaii and Japan.  This was certainly no cruise with the overcrowded ship swaying in the high seas they first experienced leaving the West Coast.

Dixon’s first half of his Vietnam tour was as an MP, mostly guarding the Danang airbase. Then, as happened to many Marines MPs, the Corp transferred him to the grunts. This was much more dangerous as they ran missions into enemy held positions where they set ambushes (and at times found themselves ambushed). He tells the stories straightforward, without glamorizing or glorifying them. Some things he did and saw are hard to stomach. In one battle, he saw a VC dressed figure duck. He shot and then realized it was a boy without a weapon.

On another occasion, they dropped charges into a tunnel, thinking it was a VC hideout only to learn it contained a mother and children.  Once, on an extended mission, they captured two VCs. The Lieutenant had the interpreter to ask one about enemy position.  He refused to say anything, so the Lieutenant pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. The other captured soldier began to tell them everything. When they felt they had learned what they could, they let him go, only to shot him in the back as he fled.  

Dixon later became a radio operator. This was even more dangerous as radio operators were one of the three most likely positions to be shot by snipers (officers and corpsmen or medics were the other two). He didn’t like this position but when his platoon’s radio operator when down, he was nearby and ordered to pick up the radio. 

During his time in Vietnam, he lost a lot of friends and several of their deaths stick with him. One of the saddest involved two buddies who had spent their time together. One was killed and then booby trapped by the VC, so when the other found his deceased friend, he rolled his body over only to take the bast of a grenade that had been planted under the body.  

I am still not sure about this book. I can’t understand a Quaker who tells such stories without judgment. However, the book is well written. The author, after Vietnam, taught school for over 30 years. 

After a period of dryness, the end of October turned cool and rainy. And, with watching an incredible World Series, it was time to pull out a puzzle. This is “The World of Jane Austen,” and is the third such puzzle we’d done, the other two focusing on Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.

Puzzle,"The World of Jane Austen"
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Nicene Creed #2: God the Father

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
November 2, 2025
Genesis 1:1-5 and Job 38:1-7

At the beginning of worship: 
In her delightful book of essays titled, Things That Are, Amy Leach ponders God.

The people say the word repeatedly, and the more they repeat it, the less I can understand it: listening to words I do not understand is like swallowing stones. With each repetition of the word it is like I am given another stone to swallow… The word refers to someone no one has ever seen. Perhaps this is why people say it over and over, as if repetition of a word can make up for the absence of its referent.[1]

What can we know about God? This question takes us to the doctrine of revelation, which has little to do with the last book of the Bible. Theologically, revelation is how God chooses to be revealed. The ultimate revelation is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. But you know, God didn’t have to come. God could have stayed hidden. But God loves this world and goes great distances to connect to a fallen humanity. God calls Abraham and Moses. God sends Judges, anointed prophets and kings, and works through ordinary and broken people until finally coming to us as a Son. Jesus Christ reveals God in a way we can know and understand.  

God directs what is revealed and not revealed. There are times God may be silent, especially when we attempt to usurp God’s position. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and author, provides this explanation: 

Silence becomes God’s final defense against our idolatry. By limiting our speech, God gets some relief from our descriptive assaults. By hiding inside a veil of glory, God eludes our projects. God deflects our attempts at control by withdrawing into silence… When we run out of words, then and perhaps only then, can God be God.[2]

Barbara Brown Taylor and Amy Leach are on a similar page. When we expend a lot of words on God, we find ourselves out over our skis. With skiing, when you get ahead of yourself, just like when you think you know too much about God, you’ll liable to come tumbling down. We need to let God be God, have faith, and trust in God’s love for us. 

In this my second sermon on the Nicene Creed. We’ll explore the first article, on God the Father. 

Before reading the Scriptures: 
The Nicene Creed is divided into articles. There are at least two ways of doing this. One divides the creed up into 12 articles, where the first deals with God the Father, the second through the seventh deal with Jesus Christ the Son, and the remaining articles focus on the Holy Spirit and the work of the church.[3]  A simpler way divides the creed into three articles, which is what I plan to use as we look at the Creed. After all, I don’t have twelve weeks to devote to the Creed. This manner breaks the creed into the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit.

The first article for both divisions of the creed deal with God the Father. It’s short, just 21 words in the English translation which appears in our Book of Confessions. “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

God is the creator. There are things about God we, as mortal creatures, are unable to know as we’ll see in our scripture this morning. I want us to look at two different texts, the first from the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1 and the second and main text from chapter 38 of Job. 

Let me say a bit about Job. He was a righteous man who suffers greatly after a behind-the-scenes contest between God and Satan. Early in the book, Job loses everything: his family, his flocks and herds. He’s reduced to a sick and improvised man. At this point some friends visit him. They come with the best of intentions but a severe lack of social awareness. They try to comfort Job while insists he did something bad for all his suffering. Much of the book consist of a dialogue between Job and his so-called friends. They do a lot of God-talk. At the end, God corrects them all when he speaks out of whirlwind. Let’s see what we might learn about God the creator and the God who dresses down Job from the whirlwind:

Read Genesis 1:1-5 and Job 38:1-7

The first article of the Nicene Creed introduces us to God the Creator. It draws on both passages of scripture. God is “Father Almighty,” a term well known in the ancient world. In the epic poem Aeneid, this term referred to Jupiter, the great God within the Roman pantheon of gods. But the pagan gods of Rome were not Almighty, nor were they the creator of all.[4] So, the Creed reminded those in the 4th Century that the God it speaks of is much more powerful than the gods they worshipped. 

Furthermore, this God has created everything. Older English versions say “all things visible and invisible,” which reminds us that God’s creation includes things we can’t see or understand. This doesn’t refer to things only seen through a microscope or telescope, but things in different realms. 

We’re not privy into the world of heavenly beings, or even demons, those beings who have fallen from grace.[5] All things remind us that everything has been created by God.[6]

This opening article of the Creed, while setting up our understanding of God in opposition to the ancient gods, doesn’t spend much time with God the Father. This is because there was no conflict. Jews and Christians, of all different stripes, believed in one God, the Father Almighty. The conflict came in the understanding of the Son and Spirit, which we’ll look at over the next few weeks. 

When the Almighty speaks to Job and his friends out of the whirlwind, it becomes immediately clear that neither Job (who is later vindicated by God), nor his so-called friends know what they’re talking about. This is why I like the essay I quoted a portion of earlier by Amy Leach. The more we talk about God, the less sense we make.  We will never fully comprehend God and when we encounter the Holy One, we should stand in silent awe. “Be still and know that I am God,” the Psalmist tells us.[7]

God response starts at creation, reminding Job he wasn’t present when God laid out the earth’s foundation. Although God tells Job to be ready to answer, Job finds himself speechless at God’s questions. And we would be, too.

One of the beautiful things about this opening speech is the joy of creation. In verse seven, we’re told the morning stars, and the all the heavenly beings sing joyfully. They accept their position in creation and remain quite content. Imagine the stars singing like birds sing on a spring morning. But we humans tend to focus too much on ourselves. Wanting to be like God, we find it easy to break the Commandments. We’re like Adam and Eve in the garden, delighting in the forbidden fruit. 

“God is Great, God is Good,” the prayer many of us said at the table as children goes. But a great God cannot be controlled. A God in which we can fully understand would be a limited God, which is not God. By definition, God is greater than anything we can manage. There must be a mystery which we accept by faith. The creed calls us to accept this mystery, as we worship God who has creates everything, and as we’ll see next week, loves the world enough to send his only begotten Son to save it. 

A former professor of mine, Donald McCullough, wrote a powerful book titled The Trivialization of God. McCullough points out how we, as a society, tend to cheapen God. We do this because we want to control God. One of my favorite quotes attributed to Mark Twain is that God created us in his image and we return the favor. When it comes to God, we think we know more than we do which leads us into idolatry. McCullough has this to say about backing away from the trivial gods which we surrounded ourselves:

The most important step that could be taken toward removing trivial gods from the altar of devotion and renewing faith in the one true God, the Holy One, would be for the church to rediscover the Bible, to open itself anew to its creative and redeeming Word.[8]

We need to be like Job, speechless before the Lord in a whirlwind. We acknowledge we don’t know everything about God, but we trust that God is good and will work out all things to his glory and our well-being.  Amen. 

[1] Amy Leach, Things that Are: Essays (Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed, 2013), 99-100. 

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent 

[3] Kevin DeYong, The Nicene Creed (Wheaton, IL: Crossways, 2025), 25. 

[4] Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2023), 25. 

[5] Isaiah 14:12, Revelation 12:7-9.

[6] Cary, 29-30.

[7] Psalm 46:10

[8] Donald McCullough, The Trivialization of God 

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Funerals on the Comstock Lode

Funerals on the Comstock title slide with photos of the Combination Shaft and the Virginia City cemetery

Earlier I wrote about my presiding over the funeral of Emily Giggs in the play, “Our Town.” You can find that story by clicking here. In this article, I discuss the two funerals I conducted as a student pastor in Virginia City along with some historical funerals.

During the year I was in Virginia City, I had the unfortunate opportunity to officiate at funerals.  These, however, were not on a stage, at least not the one in the old high school. Both were for women who died of cancer.  We held the first funeral in the church, and it featured the best musical talent Virginia City had to offer. Rudi, a former opera singer who had done studio work for Pink Floyd, lifted our spirits with a stirring solo. At the end of the service, Red, an eighty-five-year-old banjo picker, who hung out at the Bucket of Blood, warmed our hearts with “Amazing Grace.”  

“Boot Hill” in Virginia City

In The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, Ferenc Morton Szasz suggests funerals were one occasion in which 19th century when Westerners sought out tradition. At the time of death, they sought the services of clergy. This kept ministers in the mining camps busy. David Henry Palmer officiated at five funerals in his first ten days in Nevada. Shortly after arriving in the territory, Palmer wrote his parents, saying he conducted three funerals in the past two days. “The first an awful drunkard, the second one of the greatest gamblers and the profanest man in the territory and the third was murdered.”

Palmer and William Mulford Martin, the first two Presbyterian ministers in Virginia City, officiated over several funerals for prominent residents who have become part of the city’s folklore. Ironic, but the deceased became legends while the ministers faded into oblivion. Palmer conducted the farewell service for John Jenkins, better known as Sugar-foot Jack.. Tom Peasley shot Jenkins. Peasley was well-known and a jury acquitted him of any wrongdoing without leaving their seats for deliberation. 

Two years later, Martin officiated over Peasley’s funeral. His death occurred after a gunfight in the Corner Bar in Carson City’s Ormsby House. Newspapers lamented Peasley’s demise. His funeral, held in front of the Fire Department, became one of the largest held on the Comstock. Mark Twain immortalized Tom Peasley by casting him as Buck Fanshaw in Roughing It.  According to Twain:

 He was a representative citizen. He had “killed his man”—not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defense of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmate whom he could have discarded without the formality of divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and had been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was a great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.

Mark Twain, who never wanted truth to get in the way of a good story, took some liberties with Peasley’s life and demise. Peasley did “kill his man” but, according to all accounts, it was not in the defense of others. Peasley was, however, involved in politics, owned a saloon and an opera house, and had served as a fire chief. Also, Peasley’s helpmate was Julia Bulette, a local prostitute. He certainly would not have needed a divorce to rid himself of her.

Twain continues Peasley’s story with the selection of Scotty Briggs to “fetch a parson” to “waltz” Buck Fanshaw into heaven. The encounter with between Scotty and the young bookish pastor “fresh from an eastern theological seminary” doesn’t sound like Martin, who officiated over Tom Peasley’s funeral. Martin was in his 50s and was a well-seasoned pastor before coming to Virginia City. However, Twain could have replace Martin with David Henry Palmer, who had graduated from Auburn Theological Seminary three months before arriving on the. Comstock. 

First Presbyterian Church of Virginia City. Photo taken my the author in 2018.

A year after Peasley’s funeral, Julia Bulette was murdered in her D Street crib. Having been made an honorary member of the Fire Department by her deceased lover, they also held her funeral was held at the fire department. Again, Martin officiated. It is hard for a minister to know what to say at such an occasion, but according to Alf Doten, the editor of the Gold Hill News who attended the funeral, Martin’s words were “comforting and appropriate. He must not have been too condemning or Doten, who frequently visited prostitutes, would have felt the heat.   

Virginia City from “Boot Hill”. 2018

Twain left Virginia City shortly after Tom Peasley’s funeral. He first stayed in California, then made his way to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). On his way back east, Twain, who by this time well known for his humorous writings, stopped in Virginia City. His first morning back coincided with execution of John Millian,. Millian had been convicted of Julia Bulette’s murder. The hanging occurred north of town and witnessed by a large crowd including Twain,. who found the spectacle troubling.   

While her murderer has been all but forgotten, Virginia City has immortalized Julia Bulette. Today, a bar on C Street that bears her name. Locals can point out what some say is her grave to tourist. Someone occasionally paints the wooden fence around the faux grave white, making it easily visible from town. Even though Julia died over a century and a half ago, it seems her heart and status keeps growing. Today, most any resident in town will tell you stories about her concern for the poor and the sick and how she could demand a thousand dollars a night for her services. Today, you can find many books portraying her in a saintly fashion. One must wonder if they are talking about a prostitute or Florence Nightingale.  

Folklore often twists history. A frequently told tale about Julia is that her funeral was held at the fire department and burial on Flowery Mountain because the Father Manogue, the Catholic priest, wouldn’t conduct the services for a prostitute. It’s not true. As we have already seen, a Presbyterian minister officiated at her funeral. Furthermore, Father Manogue officiated at funerals of others whose lives were a bit shady.

Her burial at the cemetery on Flowery Mountain raises questions about her wealth. Although she probably would not have not been allowed burial in the Catholic portion of the regular cemetery, she certainly could have been buried in another section. Even the fire department had a section reserved for their members. Burial at the Flowery Cemetery was reserved for those who were unable to afford a plot in the cemetery on the north end of town. Furthermore, the customer who killed her was a common miner and certainly would not have been able to pay more than a couple dollars for her service.

Sign in the Fireman’s Cemetery

The story of Julia Bulette’s burial is an example of how the church and clergy responded to the needs of those outside their religious community. I, too, found myself called on for such a task during my last month in town.

A well-known Comstock resident who was not a member of a church died. I was contacted early the morning of her death and asked to call upon the husband of the deceased . While I was given a phone number, I was also informed I would most likely find him at the Ponderosa Bar at the corner of C Street and Taylor. When the man didn’t answer the phone, I headed down C Street in search of him.  It was about 10 in the morning. Sure enough, he was sitting on a stool at one end of the bar, nursing a beer. I sat down beside him and ordered a cup of coffee.

He requested a simple graveside service. At ten o’clock, a couple mornings later, we all gathered on Boot Hill. I read a few Psalms and said prayers. After saying the words of committal, the husband stepped up the grave site with an urn containing his wife’s ashes. Bending over on loose dirt, he slipped into the hole. I tried to catch him and nearly slid into the hole beside him. I am sure the whole event provided for humor for the throngs of tourists who had gathered on the hill overlooking the graveyard and, for a moment, I felt as if I was on stage. Thankfully, a sheriff deputy held the crowds back until the service was over. Otherwise, those watching from a distance would probably have thought the service was staged like the shoot-outs which are occasionally staged on C Street.

The service ended with him pulling a pint out of his pocket. He took a swig and dropped the bottle in with his wife’s ashes. Then he a few other men filled in the grave with the dirt piled up beside the grave.

For more insight into the Twain’s story on Buck Fanshaw along with source notes, see Charles Jeffrey Garrison, “Of Humor, Death, and Minsters: The Comstock of Mark Twain, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly ,#38,3 (Fall 1005), 189-212.    

For information on how Julia Bulette became a popular hero, see Andria Daley Taylor, “Girls of the Golden West,” in Comstock Women: The Making of a Mining Community, Ronald M. James & C. Elizabeth Raymond, editors, (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1998), especially pages 274-278. 

More stories about my time on the Comstock:

Arriving in Virginia City 

David Henry Palmer arrives in Virginia City, 1863

Virginia City’s Muckers presents Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town”

Doug and Elvira

Matt and Virginia City

Driving West in ’88

Sunday afternoon drive to Gerlach 

Riding in the cab of a locomotive on the V&T

Christmas Eve

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published inAmerican Baptist Historical Society Quarterly, part of his revivals were in Virginia City in 1867)

Head frame for the Combination Shaft located on the south end of town. The Flowery Cemetery is a few hundred yards to the east of this structure.
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We Believe: Joshua 24

Title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches in the fall

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
October 26, 2025
Joshua 24:14-28

Sermon recorded at Bluemont Presbyterian Church on Friday, October 24, 2025

At the beginning of worship: 


Early in the fourth century, Constantine, the Roman emperor, legalized Christianity. Supposedly, going into battle significantly outmanned, he dreamed of a cross. He had crosses painted onto the shields of his soldiers and won the battle. In time, he embraced the faith and joined the church. 

I’m not sure it was like this for Constantine, but a lot of folks join the church and then discover it’s less than peaceful. A friend of mine wrote a novel about a man who lived his whole life alone in the wilds of the north woods. His parents moved to the wilderness and when they died, he stayed. It was all he knew. When a lost hunter comes to his cabin looking for help, he tells him about Jesus. The recluse wants to be a part of a church. He moves back to civilization, only to discover a church full of conflict and fighting between various factions.[1]

In Constantine’s time, two significant factions argued over the nature of Christ. One group believed Jesus was God and the other, the Arians, led by Bishop Arius of Alexander, taught that Jesus had been created by God before the creation of the earth. This debate over Jesus as a creature or as God hurt the mission of the church. Ironically, an Arian bishop brought Constantine into the faith. 

Not being a theologian himself, but a ruler, Constantine realized the problem. He called the bishops of the Church together in Nicaea, a town along the coast of what’s today Turkey. Essentially, he locked them in a room and told them to work it out. From the Council of Nicaea, held in 325 AD, comes the essence the Nicene Creed. That council was held 1700 years ago, this year. 

Between now and Advent, on the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea, I want us to spend some time with this creed. This is the most significant creed of the Church. Protestant, Catholics, Orthodox, and Coptic Christians accept the Creed. Even churches who claim to be non-creedal owe an allegiance to this document if they believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. This creed becomes the foundation of Christianity as we know it. 

Before reading the scripture:


Today, I want to link my sermon to the beginning of the Creed. It starts, “I believe” or “We believe.”  You can make a case for both. There is no official translation of the Nicene Creed into English. The Eastern Church mostly uses “We” and the Western Church (Protestants and Roman Catholics) mostly uses “I.”[2] However, the Presbyterian Church in our Confessions uses “We.” 

The “I” seems appropriate when one joins the church. The “We” seems more appropriate when we, as the church, proclaim in unison our faith. When we say the Creed or any of the confessions, we draw on a historical profession of faith by those before us who, like us, followed Jesus. 

Also notice, this creed doesn’t tell us what to do. Instead, it informs us as to the nature of the one we worship.[3] The creed summons us to worship God. Worship is the priority of the church. While everything we do is important—from sharing the gospel to helping those in need—worship always remain at the forefront of the Christian faith. God acts so that we might experience salvation. God acts and then calls us to do likewise, which is why we worship God first, then are sent out to serve God through our lives. The foundation of our discipleship comes from knowing God. 

Our text today will be from the last chapter of Joshua. While I talk about the text, you can be looking for it, as it’s toward the front of your Bibles. Israel now controls the Promise Land. In this chapter, Joshua calls the Hebrew people together at Shechem, a historically important site for the Jacob story in Genesis.[4]

The summons to Shechem brings the story of Joshua to a close. Joshua begins by recalling all that God has done for the Hebrew people, going back to Abraham. Joshua wants the people to know they didn’t conquer the land on their own. God led them to victory.

Next, we get to our text for this morning, which begins in verse 14. This is essentially a renewal covenant. The people in the Promised Land are to once again proclaim their loyalty to God. After this passage, the chapter ends with the death of Joshua. 

Read Joshua 24:14-28


We believe. When we say these words, with Christians throughout the ages, we proclaim the God we worship. We believe in a triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. As one author writing on the creed says, 

To confess the faith is to make what we believe into something shared, public, and recognizable, not just a fleeting thought in the heart. The baptismal confession makes us members of Christ’s army, and to this day there are places where this confession can get you killed. It is not just saying what is in our heart; it is joining a community and sharing its dangers and tasks as well as its blessings.[5]

In our morning text, the people of Israel are at a point in history that they must decide what they believe. It’s a dangerous decision, because they’re surrounded by people who believe differently. Furthermore, it appears some still hold on to other gods, even those gods beyond the Euphrates and the gods of Egypt. 

It’s hard to let go of what we believe as we see in Jacob’s story in Genesis. Jacob’s wife Rachel stole her father’s gods and brought them with her as they headed toward the land promised to Abraham.[6] In addition, the Hebrews were acquainted with the gods of Egypt. 

Furthermore, in the Wilderness, they built their own golden calf to worship. If these people are going to become the covenant people of God, they must put away that which they’ve trusted before and keep only God at the forefront of their lives. 

A covenant is an agreement between two parties. We make covenants all the time. Marriage is a covenant. In a way, a covenant is a contract where each party pledges to do something for the other. God made a promissory covenant with Abraham. He was promised descendants who would become a great nation and who would out-number the stars.[7]

Now, the rewards of Abraham’s covenant are being realized. His descendants have become many and are establishing a nation. Israel can now live out their covenant with God, so they essentially make a discipleship covenant.[8] God will be their God, and they will do God’s work in the world. 

As one commentator notes:

The call of Joshua to Israel is more than simply a narration of past history. It is a demand for discipleship, a call to hear and obey in faithfulness and loyalty the commands of God.[9]

Joshua expects the people to decide who they will serve. Will it be God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob? Or will it be some other god? The decision is up to them, but Joshua has made up his mind. He and his family will serve God. He’s not taking a poll. He’s not waiting around to see which way the winds blow. Joshua doesn’t desire to be a part of the “cool crowd.” Such desires leave us open to being misled.[10] Instead, Joshua sticks with the truth, with the God who has delivered the people from bondage in Egypt.  

The people immediately agree to stick with Joshua. “Not so fast,” Joshua said. Joshua doesn’t just want an emotional commitment which might change next week. He wants the people to truly make the right decision. Joshua pushes back. “You can do it,” he challenges. “And if you enter into this covenant and don’t keep your end of the bargain, God will be vengeful.” But the people continue to insist they’ll follow God. They are told that if they make this covenant and they break it, they’ll be on the hook and must answer to God. But the people insist they’re in it for God.

Only at this point, after being assured of the people’s commitment, does Joshua make the covenant between God and his people. He writes it down, so they’ll know what God expects. And he sets a stone under a large oak, designating the place as holy, kind of like a shrine or altar.  

As I said earlier, the book of Joshua ends with his death. But we’re told in verse 31 that they people remained faithful to the covenant for at least two generations—not only during Joshua’s life, but also during the lives of the elders who outlived Joshua. 

To be in a covenant with God has benefits and requirements. Jesus establishes with us a new covenant, one of grace. But we enter this covenant promising to further his ministry and mission. Like Jesus, we’re to be concern for the poor, the sick, the needy, even those who gotten into trouble and find themselves in prison.[11] Like Jesus, we’re to show compassion and empathy and agape love, which is the type of love which works for the best for others. 

We’re living in an unsettled time. The government shutdown means many are going without a paycheck. Some will look to food banks for help. And soon, many of our neighbors who depend on benefits like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) may find their budgets impacted.[12] As followers of Christ, of the God who we profess to believe in, we have our marching orders. We need to be generous and gracious and to do what we can to make the lives of others better.  

The Creed reminds us of what the God we proclaim has done for us. And as followers of this God, who strive to be godly, let’s do what we can to support food banks through our giving and volunteering to help the vulnerable among us.  

Let’s now stand and confess our faith with the Nicene Creed, a creed the church has said for 1700 years. 

[1] Robert Marshall,  On Rabbit Trails and Bear Hunts, (2007).

[2] Philip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023), 17.

[3] Cary, 12.

[4] See Genesis 33:18-34. There, after Jacob was reunited with his brother Esau, he built an altar to God. Then, tragically, Shechem raped his daughter Dinah, and his sons revenged her abuse. 

[5] Cary, 20. 

[6] See Genesis 31:34.

[7] See Genesis 12:1-2 and 15:5. 

[8] E. John Hamlin, International Theological Commentary: Joshua: Inheriting the Land (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 189-190.

[9]  Trent C. Butler, Word Biblical Commentary: Joshua (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983) 279.

[10] I’m indebted to Jennifer Erin Valent, a Christian Twitter for this insight. She posted on October 22, 2025: “When you never grow out of the desire to be a part of the “cool” crowd, you’re an easy mark for an unprincipled grifter.”

[11] Drawing upon Matthew 25:35-36 and 43-45. 

[12] It is still a question about how much and when the shutdown will impact such programs, but most agree that if it goes on too long, it will hurt. See https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5581354/federal-shutdown-snap-wic-food-aid-ebt-hunger and https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/14/wic-funding-uncertain-government-shutdown/86691522007/