Last Words

Rev. Debbie Cato
Jeremaih 29:10-14 and Luke 15:1-7 and Ephesians 3:14-21
Fairfield Community Church
March 30, 2025

Shepherding God, you look for us.  You search for us.  You turn every corner

and climb every mountain.  You call our name until your voice is hoarse.

When we lose our way, you never stop seeking us.  So once again we pray,

find us in this moment.  Look for us.  And then surround us with your

presence so that we might feel you near us. With hope we pray, with hope

we listen.  Amen.

 

Last Words

 

 

The Letter to the Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul to the churches in Ephesus, modern day Turkey, and the surrounding region in c. AD 62.  Paul wrote this letter while he was imprisoned in Rome.  He was in shackles in a dungeon, yet he cared so much for the churches he had started in Ephesus, he wanted to continue to teach them what it means to follow Christ.  Paul wrote about the unity of the church among diverse peoples.  Paul wrote to them about proper conduct in the church, the home, and the world.  But Paul didn’t stop there.  He wrote about the power they had through Christ, and he filled his letter with encouragement. 

Paul wrote:  ^19 “I pray that you may have the power to understand, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. Powerful words.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted my last words to you to be. What did I want you to remember about our ministry together? I admit I struggled.  I struggled until I thought about standing behind this pulpit and looking out at all of you whom I have come to love so much.

When I stand here (our sit!) and look out from this pulpit, I see so much love and grace and generosity in your faces.  I see how much you love one another.  You care deeply for people in this church and people in this community.  Your love is what caused me to say yes to God’s call to pastor here.  I see how much family means to each of you and how your family extends beyond your nuclear families.  I have personally experienced and been overwhelmed by your love and care.  When I look out from this pulpit, I see the love of Christ on your faces, I see that you are filled with the fullness of God.  I know you live it out.  I am a recipient.  As Paul so eloquently says, “¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”  Friends, I am confident that Christ dwells in your hearts through faith.

All the ways you have showed that Christ dwells in your hearts through faith in this community without ever preaching a word extends your witness throughout the community. Whether it is raking leaves and pulling weeds, or kennel corn on Flag Day, or the way you touch the children at Vacation Bible School, you are sharing the love and faith you have in Christ to everyone you come in contact with.  When we held the Gratitude Fiesta and invited the community to come share a meal with us the basement was filled with laughter and conversations and sharing good food.  That was an amazing night of service and community.  An amazing night of love for this community.

This memory is one of the last things I want to leave with you. I hope you will continue to do similar service in the community.  You are the hands and feet of Christ in Fairfield.  It is this work outside this building that brings life to this church.  I pray you will never forget this. 

I have preached about gratitude several times over the past few years. I’m sure I told you that during a very difficult time, I read an article about gratitude that changed my life.  I began keeping a “gratitude journal” and every night before I fell asleep I would write three things that I was grateful for that day.  Sometimes they were wonderful things like how great the girls did in their dance recital or that I got a much-needed raise at work or we had enough food for dinner.  But some days I had to search for something I was grateful for.  Things like I was grateful it didn’t rain that day.  What I learned was there is always, always something to be grateful for – even on the worst days. 

I want to leave this sense of gratitude with each of you.  I pray you will make a conscious effort to notice the things you are grateful for in your own life and in the life of this church and community.  Even on the hardest days, find three things to be grateful for.  They are there.  You just need to notice.  Gratitude was life changing for me and it will be for you too.  Gratitude keeps us aware of what is around us and the blessings in our life.  Gratitude gives you hope.  And during times of transition, hope is critical.

I would deeply regret it if I did not include in my last words to you the words of prophet Jeremiah.   Jeremiah was an Israelite priest who lived and worked in Jerusalem during the final decades of the kingdom of southern Judah. He was called as a prophet to warn Israel of the severe consequences of breaking their covenant with God through idolatry and injustice. He predicted that the empire of Babylon would come to destroy Jerusalem and carry them into exile. And sadly, his words became reality. He lived through the siege and destruction of the city and witnessed the exile that took place.[1]

In spite of the Israelites disobedience and the destruction of Jerusalem, God promises to not abandon his people.  He promises a covenant renewal through the coming Messiah.  These promises of God are clearly communicated in the passage I read from Jeremiah this morning.  And I know this is not new to you – I’ve been trying to hammer it into your memories.  Jeremiah tells the people under Babylon’s control that God says, “¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God makes three promises:  He has a future planned for you. It’s a future to prosper you.   It’s a future with hope.

That promise is for each one of us.  God has a good future planned for you and for me.  A future with hope.  We may not know what lies ahead or how it will come together.  But God does.  He promises it will be good for you, good for this church, and good for me.  The future for you, this church, and for me, is a future with hope. 

While we wait for this promised good, hopeful future to manifest, we must continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  We must continue to listen to Paul’s wise words ^{16b “}that God may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”   This is what will allow you to continue to care for one another, continue to care for this community, continue to serve, all while remembering that God promises you a future – a future with hope.

Finally, I know you already heard my message to the children. But that message is for you too.  Never, ever forget that YOU are God’s chosen child.  YOU are God’s beloved.  The dictionary says that beloved means greatly loved; dear to the heart.  Think about that – you are greatly loved by God.  You are dear to his heart.  Synonyms include darling, sweet, precious.  YOU are precious to God.  YOU.  Not just the you that the public sees.  The real you,  the broken, flawed you.  YOU are God’s beloved.  You are precious to Him.  These are my last words to you.  You are a beloved child of God.  Live into it.  Believe it.  Hold onto it.  You are a beloved child of God.  He dearly loves you.  You are precious in is sight.  And should you forget.  Should you get lost.  Jesus reminds us that He is our shepherd.  He will leave the flock just to find you. That’s how important you are to Him.  That is how much He loves you.

^“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

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[1] https://bibleproject.com/guides/book-of-jeremiah/

You Can't Go Home Again

Rev. Debbie Cato
Luke 4:21-30
Fairfield Community Church
February 2, 2025

God of all days holy, as a groundhog emerges from its winter dwelling

and assesses the light, may your Spirit emerge through our hearts to

understand your scripture. In hearing these words, regardless of the

accuracy of our interpretation or the length of winter’s frozen clutch,

may we be transformed by your loving presence and reminded that

we are your people. Amen

 

 

You Can’t Go Home Again

 

 

“You Can’t Go Home Again.”  That’s the title of a 20th century

American novel by Thomas Wolfe.  “You Can’t Go Home Again.” The

novel tells the story of George Webber, a fledgling author, who writes a

book that makes frequent references to his hometown of Libya Hill

which was actually Asheville, North Carolina. The book is a national

success but the residents of the town, being unhappy with what they

view as Webber's distorted depiction of them, send the author

menacing letters and death threats.

 

“You Can’t Go Home Again” is also an appropriate title for this week’s

Gospel story, a story in which Jesus returns to Nazareth, preaches in

His childhood synagogue, infuriates his old friends and relations, and

almost dies when they try to shove him over a cliff.  Apparently, it's

true: you can’t go home again.  Sometimes, the hometown boy won’t

make good.[1]  

 

Last week we read about Jesus’ return’ to Nazareth, his hometown.  He

read from the Prophet Isaiah. He was proclaiming what he was going to

be about.  He was starting as he intended to go on. Today we are

finishing that story.  We are at the end of the book so to speak.

 

The story Luke tells is a strange one, full of emotional twists and turns.

Within the space of ten verses, everything goes south.  Curiosity turns

into contempt.  Delight gives way to hatred.  Worship morphs into

violence.  Why?

 

What went wrong? After all, when we left Jesus last week, things were

looking pretty good.  He was center-stage amidst an admiring

congregation, reading a beautiful passage from the prophet Isaiah

about good news for the poor, freedom for the prisoner, sight for the

blind, and justice for the oppressed.[2] 

 

Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him, impressed by his gracious

words and his authoritative mannerisms.  Wasn’t this Joseph’s boy?

The carpenter’s kid with the iffy birth story?  Who would have thought

he’d grow up to become a healer!  A preacher!  A miracle worker!  Their

very own rising star.[3]

 

It’s not difficult to imagine our way into the townspeople’s point of

view.  Who knows how long they’d been waiting to welcome Jesus

home?  To see for themselves the wonders they’d heard about through

the grapevine?  The miracle of the heavens opened up in Jesus’s

presence.  The rumor that he turned water turned into wine.  The news

that diseases disappeared and demons scattered to oblivion.  Surely,

they must have thought, if their boy was willing to peddle miracles to

perfect strangers “out there,” he’d do a hundredfold back here at home.

He’d stay right here in Nazareth.  Among his own family.  His insiders.

His favorites. [4]  

 

But they were dead wrong. As far as I can tell, the story turns precisely

when Jesus refuses to go home in the ways that people expect him to. 

He refuses to be at home.  To stay at home. To allow his home to define

 him.  Everything goes wrong when Jesus essentially says, “I am not

yours.  I don’t belong to you.  I am not yours to claim or contain.”

 

He does this by citing God’s long history of prioritizing the outsider, the

foreigner, the stranger. Elijah was sent to care for the widow at

Zarephath, he reminds them.  He wasn't sent to the widows of Israel.

Elisha was instructed to heal Naaman the Syrian, not the numerous

lepers in Israel.  In other words, God has always been in the business of

working on the margins.  Of crossing borders.  Of doing new and

exciting things in remote and unlikely places.  Far from home.  Far

from the familiar and the comfortable.  Far from the centers of power

and piety.

 

The same thing happens today.  Preachers stand up and  preach the

Gospel.  Jesus’ Gospel.  A Gospel that hasn’t changed. A Gospel that

says we are to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for

the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed

free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[5]  A gospel full of mercy

and grace and compassion.  But, people get upset.  They get angry.

They say the preacher is being political when the preacher is really just

preaching the Gospel.  The Gospel that has not changed in the thousands of years since it was written.  The Old Testament which hasn’t changed in nearly three thousand years.

 

As I prayed about the Gospel reading this week, I realized that if Luke’s

account is accurate, then Jesus is the one who pushes his own people

away in this story. He is the one who rejects their version of welcome,

who refuses to abide by the tribalist claims of their hospitality. He is the

one who overturns their notions of home and of God’s place in it.  “You

can’t go home,” he basically tells them. “You can’t hunker down and

stay where you are, expecting God to hang out with you.  God is on the

 move.  God is doing a new thing.  God is speaking in places you don’t

recognize as sacred. Raising voices you are not interested in hearing.

Saying things that will make your ears burn.  Can we handle it?

     Can we hear the truth?[6]

 

What does this mean for us?  Maybe it means that if the Jesus we

worship never offends us, then it’s not really Jesus we worship.

Remember, the Jesus Luke describes pushed so hard against his

listeners’ cherished assumptions about faith, they nearly killed him.

They tried to push him off a cliff.  They turned fast.

 

When was the last time Jesus made you that angry?  When was the last

time he touched whatever it is you call holy — your conservatism, your

progressivism, your theology, your denomination, your Biblical literacy,

your prayer life, your politics, your awareness — and asked you to look

beyond it to find him?  To be faithful in a world filled with opposition.[7]

 

We — we the Church — are the modern day equivalent of Jesus’s

ancient townspeople. We’re the ones who think we know Jesus best.

We’re the ones most in danger of domesticating him.  We’re the ones

most likely to miss him when he shows up in faces we don’t recognize

or value.  What will it take to follow him into new and uncomfortable

territory?  To see him where we least desire to look?  To leave home?[8] 

 

Barbara Brown Taylor, an ordained Episcopal priest and author writes

that disillusionment, even though it stings, is essential to the Christian

life:  She says, "Disillusionment is, literally, the loss of an illusion —

about ourselves, about the world, about God — and while it is almost

always a painful thing, it is never a bad thing, to lose the lies we have

mistaken for the truth.”

 

 

Luke’s story this week calls us to disillusionment.  It calls us to leave

home and find Jesus.  To choose movement over stability, change over

security.

 

So I wonder: how do I refuse to let others in my life grow and change?

When do I box them into identities that are narrow and constricting?

 

Where in my life do I try to "kill" the new and the unfamiliar, instead of

leaning into newness with curiosity and delight?  Do I allow the people

I am close to, to become?  Do I allow myself to become?  Or do I cut

myself and others off with expectations that the world says we should

have.[9]  Do I believe things the world says I should believe or do I follow

Jesus?                                  

 

In this text, Jesus shows us that you can’t go home again.  You can’t stay.  Why?  Because God is on the move.  God is busy at the margins. God is doing new things.  And God invites us to join him on the journey.  Are you ready?  Are you afraid? Because that’s okay.  Are you willing to try, anyway?    That's good enough.  Let’s go.[10]  Amen.

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[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas.
[2]   https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas.
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas.
[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas
[5] Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18-19
[6] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas
[7] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas
[8] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas
[9] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas
[10] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2067-leaving-home. Published: 27 January 2019.  Debi Thomas

 

Start as You Mean to Go

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:14-21
Fairfield Community Church
January 26, 2025 

Loving God, may your Spirit be with us each, showing us your Word

and your Way. Amen.

Start as You Mean to Go On

 

 

“Start as you mean to go on.” Have you ever heard that phrase before?  Start as you mean to go on.  Starting as I intend to go on means the way I conduct myself in the beginning sets the groundwork for future actions — good or bad habits follow initial motive.  It’s about consistent character and qualities so engrained that we are barely aware of our behavior – our actions..

In our passage from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry as he means to go on — with the power of the Spirit. In these first few chapters of Luke, Jesus’ possession of the Spirit is mentioned three times.  In today’s reading, we learn it is the Spirit that moves Jesus to go to Galilee and begin his ministry.

After his baptism, just as John predicted, Jesus begins his public ministry “in the power of the Spirit”.  At his baptism, in the genealogy, and in the wilderness, it has been affirmed that Jesus is the Son of God. The 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness have demonstrated the kind of Son he is, his character, and how he will perform his ministry in relation to the temptations of unbridled power, authority, wealth, and risk.[1]

Jesus had already built a reputation for himself in his hometown and surrounding regions by the way he lived. To this point, everyone had only good things to say about him. He had not yet announced his ministry agenda. He had not yet leveled a critique in the synagogue against his own people. Jesus had attended synagogue on a regular basis, but perhaps in previous visits he only listened, watched, reflected, analyzed, and even read scripture, but had not yet provided a contemporary critique or deconstructed the scriptures.[2]

In Galilee, Jesus receives praise for his Spirit-filled teaching. But then he turns to Nazareth, his hometown, where he begins his ministry by reading from the Prophet Isaiah, connecting his work with the prophets who have gone before. Jesus is inaugurating his ministry. It is a beginning, but it is also a fulfillment of God’s redemptive work.[3]

What must it have been like I wonder, to be in that synagogue and hear Jesus say those words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”?

The Spirit anoints and commissions Jesus to announce good news about imminent physical and spiritual transformation: release from captivity, recovery of lost vision, freedom from oppression. The enslaved and oppressed cannot be absolutely free without a recovery of lost vision or a reimagining or envisioning of a life and mind free of physical and psychological chains. Perhaps bringing good news parallels proclamation of the Lord’s favor.[4]

Jesus starts as he means to go on — by declaring that he is with and for the poor, the blind, and the oppressed. He will bring good news.  He will ensure release and recovery. He comes to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And when will these wonderful things happen? Now. They happen even as the people of Nazareth hear those words, because Jesus is with them. Jesus is the fulfillment of those words.  And this is who Jesus was throughout his whole ministry.  He started as he meant to go on. He never strayed.[5] 

Just on the other side of this passage, which we will look at it next week - we learn that Jesus’ words are met with amazement — and suspicion. The people of Nazareth, his people, his hometown challenge Jesus and become enraged when he doubles-down on the truth of who and what he is. When he starts as he means to go.

Before I even arrived as your pastor, you wrote a mission statement for the church.  A statement to proclaim who and what Fairfield Community Church is and would be. It is printed on every bulletin.  Do you notice it? “Creating a welcoming community for all ages to love and serve God, each other, and our neighbors.”

A couple years ago, we talked about what our core values are and we chose four that match our mission statement:  We decided our values are community, children and youth, relationships, and being welcoming and accepting.  This is who we are, we said.  This is how we start as we mean to go on.

Making mission statements comes from the business world.  Businesses were making mission statements long before the Church started doing them. We like having a mission statement that sums up all that we believe about our mission in the world. It defines our values and why we exist as community of Christ followers.  It makes us feel as if we can take a deep sigh – we know who we are.  We have done our job.  But, sometimes we forget we must live it out.  A mission statement is meant to help us start as we mean to go on.

I wonder if this, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, is really the universal church’s mission statement. Jesus lays out, using texts from the prophet Isaiah, the need to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to help the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. We see Jesus living into this “mission statement” in his welcoming outcasts and sinners, helping the poor, and caring for those captive to their sin, their old ideas, and their material possessions. We see Jesus living out this mission statement in the ways he heals and continually proclaims God’s love.

It is a beautiful mission.  It’s Jesus mission.  It seems a little “too much,” a “little overwhelming.”  We could spend our whole lives trying to live into what Jesus proclaims he is all about. Of course, that’s the idea.  This is how we are to spend our lives.  But it can only be done; we can only work toward these goals, if we, too, are filled with the Holy Spirit. We can only hope to proclaim, release, recover, and free if we are so rooted in Jesus and the Spirit that we retain this focus. Perhaps the church’s mission statement is as big and as simple as loving our neighbor as ourselves. All neighbors.

Jesus gives us all a start to our particular ministries in these words from Luke’s Gospel. Yes, we should define what it means for our particular church communities. But let us also remember that Jesus states plainly what he brings to the world in his presence. Let these words, and the work of the Spirit, fill and guide us.  Let us use the priorities we agreed on to start as we mean to go as a church.  As members of the church. Let us continually ask ourselves how are we, Christ’s church, living out Jesus’ priorities? Let us start as we mean to go on.  Amen.

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[1] Working Preacher commentary.  January 26, 2025.
[2] Working Preacher commentary.  January 26, 2025.
[3] Tara Bulger@ Presbyterian Outlook.  Commentary for January 26, 2025.
[4] Working Preacher commentary.  January 26, 2025.
[5] Tara Bulger@ Presbyterian Outlook.  Commentary for January 26, 2025.