05/05/2026
The manuscript for the prepared-message delivered at Fairfield Friends this past Sunday:
Good Morning Friends, It is good to see each and every-one of you here today on First Sunday. We are now in the fifth month and the trees are just showing off their brilliance every way we turn. This has been a good week for me - I have found myself believing that I live a blessed life.” I was down here at the meetinghouse last night - proofing the bread dough, writing this sermon, and practicing songs. It occurred to me, this is my labor, this is what I’ve been called to do, and I have to say, this millennial doesn’t know how good he has it sometimes. So, thank you for allowing me to serve here, alongside Phil, in the ministry. Please feel free to call on us for any pastoral needs - you can find our contact information on the bulletin and on the website.
Speaking of pastoral duties - it has been a while since we’ve had a pastoral pitch for giving. Friends, if this meetinghouse is helping to meet your needs, spiritual or otherwise, if you have never given to the meeting before, or perhaps you have been blessed financially, would you please consider either making a contribution to the meeting or increase your giving? We have heard a lot of good prophesying and hopeful petitions about future programs and ministries here. Wouldn’t a playground, a gazebo, or a community garden look lovely on these fair fields? If you would like to join in our community building you can do that in a great number of ways, but none are as straight forward and direct as making a financial contribution to the meeting.
[pause]
The starting thesis for this sermon was “If you take away all the food from the ministry of Jesus, you wouldn’t have much of anything to consider.” and I may have gotten a little off track, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
This sermon is a loaf of bread. I sat down to work on it three times, once after starting a batch of dough, once after proofing the dough, and the once after I set the bread to bake in the oven. This loaf of bread has been taste tested and modified based on the feedback - and by thinking about this writing as a loaf of bread - I am able to release my fears that I am heretic Hicksite Quaker who has wound up, rather, gladly as a hireling minister who prepares messages before meeting.
Over at the Plainfield Meetinghouse, there is the most beautiful Maple tree I’ve ever seen. It’s situated around a corner of the meetinghouse, and there are times I see it coming around the bend, when the wind is blowing ever so - it just restores my faith and confidence in the inherent Goodness of the World. Those dancing and fluttering leaves fill me to the brim with hope that we are heading in the right direction - despite every iota and point that we are not. In the words of George Fox - “rejoice, ye children of the light, for [God]is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt”. I hope and pray that each of you has a touch stone, throughout the week, such as the Maple tree, that provides a gentle and kind reminder that the world is still turning and imbued to the core with Spirit.
Well, I saw down to work on my sermon yesterday, I hadn’t started writing it yet - despite thinking of about 20 sermons I could write - and then I suddenly remembered, we were having a pitch in on Sunday and I hadn’t started making up the bread dough. I thought to myself, Alright, this is a no-brainer for me, I’d rather make bread then write this sermon, so I’ll set up the dough and get right back to this sermon writing business.
You know, it was my uncle’s husband David, (who I also claim as an uncle who taught me how to make bread) It feels like I’m back at home in Texas when I set up a loaf. And I have to tell you, before I started coming to Fairfield, I hadn’t made any bread for a couple of seasons. I had almost let the practice go. Let me tell you, thank you for allowing me so many opportunities to bake loaves of bread.
The strongest memories I have from my childhood are of going to church on Sundays and the suppers at my grandparents apartment there in Breathitt County in the little community of Vancleve, near Mt. Carmel. My grandfather, Seldon Short Jr. was the minister there at Wolverine United Methodist Church. It was a country church and it was full of good down-home folks. In those formative Sundays I learned to love singing. I can still hear my mother singing in her alto voice - and I remember the tears that would often run down my face as we sang together as a faith community - I did not know that these were tears of healing, relief, and happiness. When I was a child all I knew is that singing made me cry, and as a little boy in eastern Kentucky I was taught that crying was shameful and I tried to hide that part of myself. Well, I don’t feel that way anymore.
After church we would load up in the car, my mother and my two brothers, and we’d go over to Nana and Papa’s place, over there next to WMTC, the Christian Radio Station. The original name from WMTC was Winning Men to Christ, which was later changed to Winning Many to Christ, which tells me that inclusivity and equality work is possible anywhere, even in tiny Vancleve, KY. My grandparents had an apartment there at the station seeing as they managed the station and produced radio content not limited to farmer’s reports, children’s programming, and music. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s been close to 15 years since I’ve been back there. I am overcome with nostalgia and longing for the Sunday’s of my childhood when my family was still intact.
I wanted to share with you all today, when I was 17 years old I survived a house fire that killed my mother and my younger brother. I was the sole survivor of that event - and the guilt of surviving that used to be a big burden for me. I used to believe that God was punishing me and my family for our sins - that was the framework I was given as a child. Later, in seminary, in my New Testament course we dived into the gospels and I came to love this story of Jesus.
This reading comes from the Book of John chapter 9:
9 As [Jesus and his followers] went along, they saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
It’s very strange to me - how ineffective my early religious experience prepared me for grief and suffering. Here, in plain sight, in the gospels, was the antidote to my pain. It took me too long to find a balm in these words.
In my early attempts to manage my pain and suffering I wound up hurting a lot of people along the way. I tired to consume my way out of these negative feelings. I could never smoke enough w**d, or drink enough alcohol, or I could not have enough s*x or pleasure to numb and kill that sense of grief, guilt, and shame. Can I share with you the things that helped me come to bear? Spiritual community, silence, substance-use recovery communities, the unconditional love of my uncle and his husband, faith in God, travel, pottery and folk dancing, education and spiritual friendship. Where the distractions and physical thrills of sensual pleasure failed, community, Spirit, and love healed me and it is my deepest conviction that these things, and more, can heal others too. Recovery is always possible, in this I have faith.
At the Sunday suppers we would gather around the table and my grandfather would prayer. The folks there were always, my mother, Carolyn, my older brother Jeremy, my younger brother Jesse, my aunt Melody and my grandparents Janet and Seldon. Despite the constant teasing of my older brother, and the annoyances of my younger brother (Oh, the joys of being a middle child) this was my safe place, this was my happy place. Nothing could harm me here. Not my father’s alcoholism, not my abusive babysitter, not my bullies or the world. There, at my grandparents table I had all the security and wealth that the world could offer. To quote the poet Maurice Manning in his poem the Gone and the Going Away - the world I know is getting farther and farther away. I have talked to so many different families who have experienced this sense of loss. I hear, people tell stories about families losing the folks who were the glue in the family - the folks who always hosted and supported the others. Truly, truly, I tell you, this meetinghouse will be that glue for this community. We will, through loving care, support and encourage, and feed one another.
Yes, there has been a lot of grief in our lives and in the world. But without that grief, without the change of loss, and death, and transition, there is no hope for our communities and the world. In my heart, I will always miss my grandparents, my mother, and my biological father, and my little brother Jesse. We will likely never understand why tragedy happens, theologians are still wrestling with that angel - but, we can accept that these things happen. We have to name them - and we can still have faith that God is loving, and kind, and knows our experience. That is to be found in the life and ministry of Friend Jesus.
Friends, we will now begin to transition into our time of open waiting worship. If you feel spirit-led to share a message, please stand or raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. If you are on Zoom, please unmute yourself. Please allow for a brief pause in between messages. I will sing us into open worship:
[Sing Spirit of God for Intro to Open Worship]
Closing Word:
I would like to invite the folks on Zoom to turn their camera on - please wave to them as you exit the meeting room.
My grandfather sat me down once and taught me how to show love and care for others. He told me, “You feed them, that is the most simple and straight forward way to express love”.
Dear beloved Friends, as we leave this space and time, let us show our love and care for one another. Let us break bread together, and in doing so bind up our wounds, reconcile, and be healed. [Shake Hands]
