Galloway Presbyterian Church

08/21/2026

On Sunday, August 23, 2026, we will worship with our friends and neighbors at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 222 Schoolhouse Lane, Columbus, OH 43228 10:30 a.m.

08/16/2026

08/16/2026

August 16, 2026

A simple question (Isaiah 56:1, 6–8 • Psalm 67 • Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32 • Matthew 15:10–28)

I am sure someone, or maybe more, is sitting there wondering, why in the world did we just sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing on August 16th? It’s a good question, a simple question. And there’s a simple answer – that Christmas carol, just like the hymn we usually sing at Thanksgiving, Now Thank We All Our God, resonate with our scripture readings today.
Our Scripture readings also ask us a simple question, a good question, this morning: which word gets the last word? Is it judgment? Or will it be mercy?
Isaiah is speaking to those who have returned from exile. They probably were expecting everything to be the same as it was before the people had left. But it isn’t. Some are working on rebuilding the Temple, while others try to figure out what community is like. Apparently, there were conversations about who belongs, who counts, who is part of God’s people.
Which shouldn’t surprise us. Every generation, every nation, every organization, even faith communities have such conversations. They never seem to disappear. There is always someone who wants to make the circle a little smaller, take away chairs from the table, develop standards for who is in, and who is not.
Most of us learned how to do that when we were children. Think about the playground at recess when two people were choosing sides for a game. Someone would point: “You’re on our team.” Someone else would point in another direction: “You’re with them.” And then there was always that moment when someone was left standing there, waiting to discover whether anyone would choose them.
We may have grown older, but we never completely outgrow the game. We simply become more sophisticated about drawing the lines. We have better reasons. More complicated explanations. We can make our exclusions sound almost reasonable. But the result can still be the same: you are in; you are out.
But then, Isaiah speaks for God: “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” Not just some. Not the elect, or a select few. Not folks who look alike, talk alike, dress alike, vote alike, worship in the same way. No. All people.
And then God offers a most remarkable, a beautiful promise: “I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.” To people just brought home from exile, God doesn’t brush off the divine hands, saying, “Whew! All done. Time for a nap.” No. God says, “I have a lot more folks to gather.”
In other words, the guest list is not done, the family circle is expanding, God is still adding branches to the family tree.
The writer of Psalm hears that promise, and like a good lyricist, turns it into a song – “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.” And in doing so, it becomes a remarkable prayer. The psalmist is not asking God to choose one nation over another, to bless one country instead of another. No, the writer asks God to bless one particular people so that every people may discover God’s ways.
You see, the psalmist knew that any blessing is never meant to stop with us. We are not to try to patent mercy, or trademark grace. Blessings are not meant to be put in safe deposit boxes but to be passed on to others, with no strings attached. Like sunlight, rain, or seeds carried by the wind. Simply shared with others. Shared so that all might know they belong to a wider community than just themselves.
That is part of what Paul is saying when he writes to the church in Rome, as well as to us. He was struggling with the mystery of belonging. An observant Jew, a persecutor of early Christians, and now the foremost evangelist, he struggles with a simple question. Considering what God has done in Jesus, how has that changed the relationship between God and his fellow Jews? In other words, who is inside now, who is outside. And perhaps more importantly, has God abandoned the Jews? Are the Gentiles now the new chosen people?
He wrestles with this issue of belonging in the part of the letter and concludes that is not so much theology as it is wide-eyed amazement: “God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that God may be merciful to all.”
Notice what Paul did with those words. He didn’t reduce the Jews to second-class citizenship. He didn’t elevate the Gentiles to superiority. He leveled the playing field. No one is number one. No one earns grace instead of others, no one deserves mercy more than another. The only thing we humans have in common is our need for that love we cannot create ourselves. And if everyone needs such grace, then no human gets to say who deserves it.
Which brings us face to face with one of the most unsettling stories about Jesus. He encounters a woman who needs him to listen. Her daughter is suffering. The mother is beyond desperation; needs something she cannot provide. And so, like so many others in the gospels, she cries out for help.
And Jesus doesn’t say a word. Not a single word. And as the silence stretches, the disciples step in with their impatience, “Send her away.” Three words which have echoed throughout human history.
Send them away. It is worth noticing how ordinary those words can sound. We may never actually say them out loud. Instead, we say things like, “That’s not really our responsibility.” Or “There are other people who can help.” Or “We have to think about our own needs first.” Or simply, “Someone needs to do something about them.”
Different words. Same instinct. Send them away.
The refugees. The immigrants. The homeless. The addicted. The ex-cons. The g**s. The transgender kids. The fill-in-the-blank in every generation, in every place. All those people who come with questions, with hope, for help which makes us uncomfortable. All those people who don’t fit into our well-planned, well-organized expectations of others. They are making too much noise. They want something. They take up too much space. Send them away.
That’s always the solution. Always the practical way of dealing with such folks. That is certainly what the disciples felt. After all, there are limits, there are expectations, there are traditions, there are the proper channels, proper ways of doing things. For goodness’ sake, there are boundaries.
But the Beloved Community of God has the annoying habit of ignoring the maps we draw, the lines we make, the rules we set.
The woman doesn’t care about such rules, lines, maps – she simply refuses to disappear. She kneels before Jesus and asks again. She instinctively trusts that compassion outweighs rejection. She believes that mercy has not spoken the final word.
And somehow, through this encounter on what has become holy ground, the disciples witness something larger than themselves.
This outsider, this woman, they had dismissively written off becomes the role model for faith. She becomes the teacher. The one everyone told to keep quiet becomes the person whose voice echoes down through the centuries. Maybe that is the quiet miracle in this story. God often sends us teachers we never intended to meet.
There is an old habit in us of deciding who can teach us before they ever open their mouths. We look at someone's age, their education, their clothes, their accent, their politics, their mistakes, their place in society—and before they have said a word, we have already decided whether they have anything to say to us.
And then, occasionally, someone slips past our defenses. A child says something at exactly the moment we needed to hear it. A stranger offers kindness when we expect indifference. Someone whose life seems completely different from ours tells us a story that suddenly sounds strangely like our own.
And we realize: I almost missed this.
Maybe that is what happened with the woman who came to Jesus. The disciples thought they knew who belonged. Jesus seemed willing to let the encounter unfold. And the person everyone else had dismissed became the teacher.
Sometimes the person we have placed at the edge of the circle is the very person God has placed there to teach us how to enlarge it. Sometimes they dress differently or talk in a strange accent. Maybe they do not support our candidates, maybe they have a past we cannot begin to imagine. Maybe they offer more questions than answers. Yet, if we pay careful attention, we will discover it is God speaking through them all this time.
God’s Beloved Community expands when we learn to listen, when we think we have every reason not to do so.
Isn’t that the way mercy has always worked?
We like the status quo, mercy surprises us.
We like symmetry, mercy offers generosity.
We like fairness, mercy pushes us toward compassion.
We like keeping score, mercy tears up the scorecard.
This doesn’t mean justice no longer matters. Not in the least. Mercy doesn’t ask us to pretend hurts never happen. Mercy is the means of healing. Justice tells the truth about our broken lives, ruined relationships, shattered dreams. While mercy will not let that brokenness become the final chapter in the story of our lives.
I wonder if that is why Jesus spent so much time around tables. For meals have a way of showing who we think belongs. Who is invited, and who is not.
Who is it that everyone cannot wait to see, and who is going to be merely tolerated. And perhaps most important, who sits where.
I remember seeing a table at a community meal where the chairs were not arranged in neat rows with certain people clustered together. They were simply mixed — old and young, people who knew one another and people who had never met, those who came to serve and those who came because they needed a meal. There was something almost theological about that ordinary arrangement of chairs. Because sometimes the first step toward belonging is simply having a place to sit.
A chair says: You don't have to stand outside. A place at the table says: We expected you. And an open seat says: There is room for you here.
So Jesus, being Jesus, kept rearranging the seating chart. Pulling out a place for tax collectors. Offering a seat for fishermen. Welcoming widows, children, religion experts, sinners. All those people burdened with regrets. All the ones full of questions. Folks who carried more shame than honor.
Time and again, Jesus kept setting more places at the table, turning it into a living parable of God’s great love for every person, for every people.
Imagine if God’s people saw themselves offering that table. Not because we are so perfect at hospitality, but because we have been offered it.
Every one of us has stories we are hesitant to tell, even to those that know us best.
Failures.
Disappointments.
Grief from long ago.
Those regrets which awaken us at 3 a.m.
None of us comes to the table with clean hands, but we can show up with open hands. Which is more than enough. Because grace doesn’t expect spotless lives, only open hearts.
You know as well as I do that our culture teaches us that our identity comes from drawing sharper lines.
But our gospel tells us that we discover who we are when we cross those lines.
We constantly are told there isn’t enough – love, compassion, resources, places where we can belong.
So we need to gate our communities, build higher walls.
Yet Jesus shows up with a different view of economics. An economy where forgiveness multiplies doesn’t diminish. Where compassion becomes ripples spreading through people’s lives. Where every blessing births more blessings. Where strangers are seen as neighbors and neighborhoods become communities.
Imagine what might happen in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our world, if people described places of worship as the place where mercy has the last word.
Not because truth is ignored or people avoid those difficult conversations.
But because after truth has been spoken, after all mistakes are confessed, after all the hurts are recognized, after every tear is gathered to form the waters of baptism, mercy still has something to say.
Perhaps you have watched children at the ocean.
They spend hours carving out roads in the sand, building castles, forming walls, digging moats, and daring the water to try to advance. The lines and walls and moats matter to the kids. But not to the tide.
It doesn’t argue with the children, it does not shame them. It does not laugh at their efforts or insult them.
The water just keeps coming.
Wave after wave.
Slow, patient, determined, steady, faithful.
By the time the tide turns and begins heading back out, every castle, road, moat, wall, line is gone.
Not because the water was angry, but because that is what the ocean does. It reaches farther than we imagined.
Maybe God’s mercy is like that.
We spend our lives drawing lines, building walls, putting up barriers both seen and unspoken. This person belongs, but not that one. Cousin Millie deserves grace, but no way does Uncle Joe. We will open the door to that neighbor, but the newcomer can wait outside.
While all the time, God’s mercy keeps coming. Slow, patient, determined, steady, faithful. Until that day, when we realize that all those walls, all those barriers, all those lines, all those standards, all those distinctions we thought were carved in stone, had been washed away.
Not by force, but by love.
And we find ourselves standing on the shore, on the edge of that crystal sea in God’s Beloved Community, realizing that what Isaiah promised, what the psalmist sang, what Paul wrote, and what Jesus reveals is true.
God is still gathering.
The table is still expanding.
The invitation is still being offered.
And mercy always has the final word.

08/09/2026

August 9th

‘between the boat and the water’ (1 Kings 19:9-18 • Psalm 85:8-13 • Romans 10:5-15 • Matthew 14:22-33)

We are taught early on to rely on stability. That’s why maps, even on a device, appeal to folks. We like guarantees, especially airtight ones. Most people want to know where they are heading and, like little kids in a car, how soon we will get there. People look for homes that promise strong foundations. We cling to traditions which help reassure us. And most of us want certainty far more than we do trust.
Yet Scripture tells us that God’s best work is rarely done when folks are standing on solid ground. In fact, it often happens when people are in that place called ‘in between.’ Between Egypt and the Promised Land. Between exile and home. Between Good Friday and Easter morning. Between the boat and the water.
Those are the places where we find ourselves in today’s readings. Not in comfortable armchairs. Not ‘you have reached your destination.’ But there between what has been and what God is doing.
Elijah knows that place. He has confronted those in power, he has gone toe to toe with other prophets, he has called down fire from heaven. He’s exhausted. After all, he has done everything God asked of him. But now he has had enough. He has had to flee for his life, trying to escape from those who want to punish him. He is fearful, he is convinced his ministry has failed, and that he has failed God.
We find him huddled in a cave, perhaps believing that if he gets quiet enough the world will forget all about him. We know that feeling, we have been in that cave, haven’t we? Maybe not one made from stone, but the one carved from disappointment. The cave hollowed out by grief? That hiding place we crawl into when we are exhausted? All those places where silence is louder than all the noise around us.
And there, in that cave, Elijah waits for God. A hurricane comes, sounding like a wail of banshees. But God isn’t there. Then an earthquake moves the ground, shakes rocks loose. But God isn’t there, either. Fire follows, racing across the mountains like those wildfires we see on the news these days. Still, God hasn’t shown up.
Then comes what Scripture describes as ‘the sound of sheer silence.’ Not because God has nothing to say to Elijah. But because in the pause after all the shouting has ended, love has a chance to be heard. Note that God didn’t answer any of Elijah’s questions. Nor does God explain why people are causing Elijah to suffer. And he doesn’t hand Elijah an action plan with bullet points.
God simply reminds Elijah that he is not alone. His story is not over, God will even provide those who will join Elijah in standing up to cruelty, hate, false worship, false living. Elijah longed for an ending, but God sent this weary soul back with a beginning.
That is what those weary souls on the Sea of Galilee were about to learn, as well. Jesus’ disciples do what Jesus tells them – they get into the boat, they push away from the shore, they point the boat toward the far shore. And then the wind becomes stronger than their confidence.
Isn’t that the way real life often works? Despite your faithful living, a devastating diagnosis comes. You work hard, only for the company to be sold and jobs are lost. Despite every effort, that relationship shatters like a broken mirror. The storms of life never ask if you are ready, they just show up.
Then, Matthew tells of Jesus walking across the water toward his friend. Jesus doesn’t immediately calm the storm. He doesn’t magically cause the boat to land on the safe shore. He simply shows up . . . in the middle of the storm. Perhaps the greatest miracle is not that God removes the storm, but that God refuses to let us sail into it alone.
But, like most of us, Peter just cannot help himself. “Lord, if it is you . . .” Can you hear that voice shaking with both courage and doubt? “. . . command me to come to you.”
And Jesus just says, ‘Come.’ No lecture, no explanation, no assurance that everything will be fine, no ‘don’t be afraid.’ Just. Come. One word changes everything. And so, Peter clambers over the edge. Now, we tend to focus too much on Peter sinking, but before that happens, he walks . . . on water. For one tantalizing moment, he does what everyone says is impossible. Not because of his incredible faith, but because extraordinary love calls ordinary people to step out of their fears.
I find it fascinating how much time and energy has been spent over time talking about why Peter sank. What is more fascinating is why everyone else stayed in the boat. Safe. Secure. Dry. Predictable. Comfortable. And perfectly fine with not experiencing what Peter did. Do we noticed that the safest place in the story is where no miracles happened?
Maybe that is why so many churches resemble boats. Either designed so by architects and designers or talked about as being like boats. Folks certainly can spend an amazing amount of energy trying to make sure they don’t sink.
We worry about buildings, budgets, numbers, programs, history, savings, how to govern, who should be let in, are we good seafarers, are we honoring what has been passed down to us? These things matter. Without boats, the disciples could never get to the other side. Without buildings, where would we gather. Without our traditions, we don’t know who we are. But when the boat becomes the destination, then we have a problem.
Because the boat was always a means of transportation, like cars or trains or planes. Jesus could care less about building better boats. He cared about inviting folks to get of the boat. He still is. He is not sitting safely inside our churches – dry, comfortable, secure, predictable. He is standing outside – waiting, calling, ‘come.’ He is so close to us, we can almost feel his breath.
Maybe that is why Paul makes that remarkable statement in his letter. “The word is near you.’ Not hidden from us. Not set aside for scholars. Not only for educated preachers. Not requiring fancy degrees. The word is as near to us as a breath. Close enough to feel, to touch, to speak, to hear, to live.
Maybe we have gotten it wrong over the years. Perhaps faith is not about moving high enough to get to heaven. It is the discovery that heaven has already come searching for us. God crossed every distance before simply calling us to take one hesitant step – ‘come.’ Step into that place where fear meets promise, where worry meets comfort, where hate meets love, where loneliness meets companionship.
Our psalmist can see a world where steadfast love and faithfulness meet, where righteousness and peace embrace as lovers do. What a beautiful image – justice and peace, truth and mercy, hope and grace. Not quarrelling, not competing – kissing, embracing, loving. Each completing the other. Each discovering the one they have been searching for.
Perhaps that is why Jesus invites Peter to step onto the water. For faith is never about personal courage, faith always moves towards reconciliation, toward healing broken relationships, toward becoming neighbors, towards where God’s future is unfolding.
Let’s be honest. It is a crucial moment to decide to step outside our comfort zones and into those places where storms and winds and waves assail us. It is far easier to remain comfortably inside the boat. But our calling is not to stay in the safe life, the safe boat, we have built, but to step into the lives of those beset by storms and winds, fears and worry, hate and cruelty. Because that is where Christ will be found.
But as scary as that sounds, it is the good news for us. Because as Peter begins to sink, Jesus doesn’t sigh in exasperation, he doesn’t shake his head in disappointment, he doesn’t mutter under his breath, ‘I knew he couldn’t do it.’
No. Jesus reaches out. Immediately. What a great word. Maybe the most important one in the story. Before we’ve learned the lessons, before we need to be corrected, before we can utter our explanation – grace is always faster than our failures. Christ always reaches out more quickly than our fears. God’s Beloved Community is not just to be a sturdy boat, but to be the outstretched hands of Christ.
Think what it would mean if folks talked about churches not as having a great choir, or a lot of small groups, or great potluck dinners. But someone saying, ‘when I lost hope, they walked with me’. Someone telling another, ‘I was drowning in grief, and they reached out to me.’ Or ‘when loneliness was my only friend, they became my family.’ That is what we are called to be. We are not supposed to be sailing on a luxurious yacht cruising through life, we are to be a rescue crew learning the waters of grace.
I bet everyone of us can see ourselves in this morning’s stories. Maybe we are hiding beside Elijah, straining to hear God’s whisper. Maybe we are frantically rowing into the face of the storm. Maybe we are not sure if we want to risk getting out of a safe boat. Maybe we have already decided to step outside the boat. And maybe we feel ourselves slowly sinking.
But friends, Christ is there in every one of these places. Caves, storms, silence, failure, fear, hope, life, love. Because there is never, never a place God refuses to go. And always with the same invitation – ‘Come.’
One step. One prayer. One act of forgiveness. One word of compassion. One moment of courage. One touch of peace. One embrace of justice. One hand reaching out to another who finds themselves between the boat and the water, saying, ‘Come. I won’t let you sink.’

08/02/2026

August 2, 2026

‘enough for everyone’ (Isiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21)

While it is not stated as such, there is a simple three-word sentence which echoes in all four of our scripture readings this morning:
There is enough.
The Bible doesn’t say this because we have enough. And it is not because the economy or the politicians say there is enough. And it isn’t due to our fears and worries disappearing.
No, it is because God is enough. Enough for everyone.
That is the difference between how the world looks at things and the imagination of the gospel. The world bases everything on the notion of scarcity. God operates on the idea of abundance.
Isaiah throws open the doors of grace with a stunning, almost reckless, invitation: "Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters." Not necessarily the folks who have earned it. Not just the people who can afford it. Not just for the 1% at the top. Everyone.
The folks up to their necks in debt. Our neighbors who have rented out a room to grief. Our friends who are carrying shame. Everyone with unanswered questions. Those whose months stretch longer than any calendar says. Those dreading a diagnosis. All who are burdened with regrets.
God doesn’t begin with qualifications; God offers an invitation – come. Which has always been the hardest thing for people to believe. Because we are experts at setting standards. Standards for success. Attendance statistics. Popularity polls. Someone’s productivity at work or school or training. We bring out our moral tape measure to see if someone deserves another chance. We question whether there is enough left for us.
And when we do, at some point, we begin to hold up God to the same standards. Because surely, grace is not limitless. Compassion has a use-by date, doesn’t it? Forgiveness has to be measured out one sin at a time, that is, if we are feeling generous.
But God is no mathematician. God simply says, ‘come.’ No photo ID required. No membership card stating we are in good standing. No upfront fees. No letter from a preacher declaring one to be pious. Just ‘come.’
Perhaps that explains the crowd which is always following Jesus. I wonder if it was made up of all those who had been told all their lives that somehow, they were not enough. And in Jesus, they heard the voice of someone simply saying ‘come.’
The gospel begins in grief. Jesus has just learned that his boyhood friend, his cousin, his prophet, his messenger has been put to death by a politician who was afraid of him. And like many of us in grief, Jesus needed some time away, a place of silence, space to grieve.
Yet, when he arrives at that place, there’s that crowd, waiting. Needy. Hungry. Lonely. Grieving. Afraid. Broken. I am amazed that Jesus didn’t look at them, say, ‘sorry, not today,’ and get back in the boat. I know I would have.
But Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw them, he looked at them with compassion. Now, we need to understand that this does not mean he felt sorry for them. Nor does it mean he was just being a kind person. The literal meaning of compassion means ‘to suffer with.’ In other words, to suffer together.
Jesus saw the needy, the hungry, the lonely, the fearful, the grieving, the broken – Jesus saw those folks, just as God sees us – and refused to stand aloof from their lives, but to walk into them, to carry them, to share their lives with them.
On one hand, the disciples look at the crowd and see a problem. Jesus sees people. The disciples count heads, but Jesus sees each person. The disciples take an inventory, while Jesus blesses. The disciples are ready to usher the people away, and Jesus says, ‘you give them something to eat.’
And we can almost see the stunned looks on his friends faces. Five loaves, two fish, thousands of people. Now, they are convinced, Jesus has finally lost it.
But perhaps Jesus was never asking them to feed five thousand people. Maybe he was simply asking them to have enough trust that God can do what we never can.
That’s the true miracle in this story. Not that bread multiplied the way it did, but that fear stopped multiplying. Because fear is that whisper in our ears that always says, ‘there isn’t enough.’ Not enough people, not enough energy, not enough cash, not enough hope, and never enough future. Fear keeps whispering and whispering that lie, until we believe it to be true.
But Jesus takes the scarcity out of the disciples’ hearts and places it into God’s hands. Only then does abundance appear. Which is how grace always, always seems to work.
We hoard what little we think we have, God opens our hands. We cling to our strength; God works through our weakness. We claim we must wait until we have more, and God says, ‘show me what you have.’ Isn't that how grace usually works? Five loaves? No problem. Two fish? Watch this. One willing heart, one listening community, one act of justice, one word of mercy, one table. Enough. More than enough. Enough for everyone.
That is Paul’s hope as he writes to the believers in Rome and to us. Like many in those days, he aches for his own people. And as he shares this grief, his words are almost too much to bear, they are so honest. His heart is broken because people he loves have yet to recognize God’s gift in Christ.
But just as it is today, back then faith was never about winning arguments. It is about loving others so deeply that their joys become ours, just as their sorrows become our own.
We often forget that truth. We become so obsessed with being right. But Paul is more concerned with being loving. Such a big difference. You see, our calling is not to defeat others, it is to bless them. Not to outshout them, but to out-love them. Which seems increasingly impossible in our time.
We live in a time when everything – politics, religion, weather, sports, even movies – become battlefields. Every device tempts us with outrage. Every news report challenges us to fear another person. And so, polarization becomes profitable, anger is entertainment, and empathy is touted as weakness.
Yet, in one of the paradoxes of our faith, we follow the One who fed enemies, not just friends. Who welcomed doubters, not just true believers. Who forgave those who put him to death. Who turned death into an empty tomb. Friends, if we cannot begin to imagine there is enough grace for those who disagree with us, we have not paid attention to the size of God’s table.
That’s the message of the psalm this morning: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." Did you catch those words? Not gracious only to those who deserve it. It simply says God is gracious. Full stop.
Because that is who God is, my friends. Grace is not some random act of kindness from God. It is the beating heart of our God. And every heartbeat of grace echoes through creation.
So where does all this lead, you might ask. It brings us to this Table. You see, in the arithmetic of the world, Communion makes absolutely no sense. A small piece of bread, a cup the size of a thimble? Really??
And yet, this is where love meets believers and doubters, enemies and friends, family and strangers. This is where grace meets a broken world. This is where peace meets those who cannot abide one another. This is where hope meets a groaning creation.
Age after age. Nation after nation. Language after language. Saint after sinner. Sinner after sinner. No one leaves with less because someone else shows up. That is the economy of our God. Because there is always room for one more person. Always enough forgiveness for another screw-up. Always enough hope for another dreaded tomorrow. Always enough bread for another hungry soul. Every communion table quietly resists the false narrative of the world.
The world shouts, ‘there isn’t enough for everybody!’ The Table proclaims, ‘there is enough.’ The world demands, ‘protect what is yours.’ The Table reminds us, ‘welcome what has always been the gifts of God.’ The world claims, ‘look out for number one.’ Jesus invites, ‘take, eat, drink.’ Not because we have earned them, but because love has prepared these gifts.
You see, we don’t need a miracle like bread falling like rain from heaven. We need hearts which trust abundance far more than scarcity. Hands which are open to others, not closed in fear. Communities which welcome the stranger, not exclude them. Churches which feed without asking for proof of hunger. Lives which always remember that God’s first word is always invitation.
Come.
Come to the waters.
Come to the feast.
Come to the grace which never runs dry.
Come to the Christ who still takes ordinary bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it away – until every hungry soul has tasted hope, and there are baskets full of grace left over.
Enough for everyone.