Fairhaven UMC

United Methodist Church

2415 Saw Mill Run Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
Sunday 9:30am Worship

    • Announcements 6-28-2026

      Announcements 6-28-2026

      New Associate Pastor Appointment: 

      • Event: Welcoming new associate pastor Steve McElvain. 
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: Next Sunday 8:30 am July 5
      • Details: Join us for coffee, cake, and donuts to socialize and welcome Pastor Steve.

      Partnership Council Meeting:

      • Event: This meeting is a gathering of leaders from all three churches to share about the ministry we’re working on and everyone is always welcome.
      • Location: Spencer UMC
      • Time: 7/13 at 6pm

      Bulletin Board Message:

      Lettuce be kind

      Squash gossip

      Turnip for church

    • Fairhaven Sermon 6-28-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson explores one of the most unsettling narratives in Scripture: Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. Drawing parallels between Jesus’ teachings on the weight of intention and modern stories of broken trust, the Pastor reflects on how the threat of violence can be just as damaging as the act itself. He highlights that while the knife was ultimately stayed by an angel, the psychological impact on Isaac remains a profound wound, illustrating how much can be lost even when a tragedy is averted.

      Rev. Parson argues that God’s intervention was not a test of Abraham’s willingness to commit violence, but rather a confrontation with his history of cowardice and neglect regarding Hagar and Ishmael. The sermon concludes with a powerful call to move away from “spectacular” or destructive displays of faithfulness that justify the suffering of others. Instead, the Pastor challenges the congregation to embrace the much more difficult and ordinary work of being good neighbors and parents—to drop the “knife” of self-justification and begin the hard work of loving and healing what we have broken.

      They arrived, the book of Emesis tells us, at the place God described to him. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on top of it, and he tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to offer him to kill his son as a sacrifice. As I read one of the most disturbing stories in scripture this time, I found myself wondering, does it really matter what the rest of the chapter says before or after this? Because Abraham, the singular patriarch of Israel, the father of the nation of which we’ve become a part, our own father Abraham that we sing about on Sunday school. He’s murdered his son.

      Has he? You know, I think here of Jesus’ assertion in Matthew 5 of how sin works. Every man who looks at a woman lustfully, Jesus says, has already committed adultery in his heart. The desire to do it, Jesus tells us, which is a much lower threshold than the intention to do it is in some deep way as bad as the thing itself in the eyes of God, and especially in the eye of the one who would be the victim. And I think we know this instinctively. Suppose that you get home one day and you sit in front of your spouse to offer a confession and you say, you know, I have found my coworker incredibly attractive for a very long time. and finally I made plans to meet her. I booked the hotel room. I drove there. I took the room key. I opened the door. I went in. We shared a bottle of wine, but then I decided to leave the last minute. How do you think that would be received? Do you think that you’d get thanks and credit for being so loyal because you dropped the knife at the last minute?

      There’s a film that came out earlier this year called The Drama. We watched this a couple weeks ago, that deals with this question, right? There’s a couple named Emma and Charlie in the movie, played by Zendally and Robert Pattinson, the ultimate millennial actors here. And they’re perfectly suited for each other. It’s this whirlwind romance. They fall madly in love after they have this cute meeting in a cafe. They begin to plan their fairytale wedding. And while they’re having dinner, while they’re sampling food options for the reception alongside their best man and their maid of honor, the four of them decide to play a game that if they’re going to really know and trust each other, they’re going to confess to one another the very worst thing that they’ve ever done in their lives.

      And so Emma, the bride, goes last, and she follows after these really dark confessions. Her maid of honor confesses to having mercilessly bullied this mentally disabled boy, and she admits to something half a lifetime ago. And Emma says at this dinner table, whenever they’re all confessing these bad things, when she was 15, this lonely, this desperately isolated teenager, she had planned a school shooting. And everyone is just shocked for a minute as she’s joking. And she says, I never went through with it, obviously. My life changed completely in the aftermath. But she does say, I had every every intention of carrying it out until the moment that I didn’t do it. and the rest of the movie deals with the fallout of that act that never happened and so immediately her maid of honor her best friend turns against her their friendship turns to hatred and again even though nothing actually happened and the engagement continues it’s just in complete uh wreckage at this point um charlie the groom tries to reconcile this woman that he knows, who’s perfect, who’s kind, who’s gentle, with this confession of her past intent, and he finds it impossible to love her the way that he did previously. And the climax of this whole movie is Charlie feeling that he has license to actually cause harm to his fiance, which he rationalizes basically as retaliation for this evil act that she never committed and certainly didn’t commit against him.

      So imagine turning to Genesis, being Isaac, Abraham’s son, who walked down Mount Moriah with rope burn on his wrist. He felt the swoosh of his father’s sleeve on the back of his neck as he raised the knife over his head. If you’re Isaac, does it matter, really, that your father kill you. He’s shown you that he can. He’s shown you that he’s capable and willing to do it. And indeed, I think what’s important here further is that for Isaac and Abraham, it’s even worse than that, actually, because Abraham has already sacrificed a son. We don’t think about it that way, but he did.

      If we look towards the beginning of this chapter, the way God speaks to Abraham, It’s almost like God’s twisting the knife, so to speak, making Abraham remember what he did. God says to Abraham, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. But those of us who are familiar with Genesis, who know the story of Abraham, who even read the chapter just before, know, as Abraham does, that Isaac is not Abraham’s only son. His firstborn son is Ishmael, born to him by his slave girl, Hagar. And so in last Sunday’s Old Testament reading, we’ve been preaching on the Gospels, but you’ve been hearing it anyway. In last Sunday’s Genesis reading, we saw Abraham’s wife, Sarah, erupt in rage. Because Sarah sees Ishmael, who’s still a baby, he’s a toddler, just weaned. She sees this baby Ishmael laughing joyfully, playing. And Sarah explodes with jealousy about this kid. She demands that Abraham throw Hagar and Ishmael out of their household. She’s sick of the competition. She doesn’t want to be near Hagar. She hates this kid who’s not her son.

      And so Abraham does what she asks. He sends them into the wilderness with nothing but a flask of an water and a bit of bread. And they’re cast into this wilderness outside Beersheba. It reminds me of the scapegoat that we see elsewhere in Genesis. This goat that’s driven out into the wilderness to carry the people’s sins with it. Abraham thinks that the way that he’s not served and listened to God, the broken relationship with his wife, he sends these two out in the wilderness that should go away. And Abraham knows, as we do, that this is a certain death sentence for Hagar and for his firstborn, but he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to do it to keep peace with his wife, who, by the way, was the on who first proposed that Abraham use Hagar to produce an heir. It was her idea. He can tell himself that he’s just sending them away into the desert, but there’s nowhere for them to go.

      So, Abraham is not new to the child sacrifice game. What’s new for him is having to get his own hands dirty in the process. He has to put his own hands on the knife rather than just relying on the sun, on the jackals, the dry sand to handle it for him. And so I wonder, I don’t see how it’s possible that he’s not, if Abraham is thinking about Ishmael as he treks for three days to this faraway land of Moriah, where God says the sacrifice of your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, will take place. So Isaac is carrying his own wood pile. And Abraham is probably carrying the weight of baby Ishmael, right? This dead son that God knows he hasn’t forgotten about on his shoulders. And Ishmael is getting heavier and heavier this memory, as if he’s growing into the man that Abraham’s never going to meet.

      and finally Abraham and Isaac arrive at the peak of Mount Moriah and Isaac finally speaks out loud what you know he’s been thinking for the last three days here’s the fire and here’s the wood but where is the lamb and Abraham stumbles in his response and he says the lamb for the entirely burned offering he repeats Isaac here I wonder if he’s what he’s going to say. The lamb, what do I say? He says, God will see to it, my son. Or in other translations, he says, God will provide my son. But in Hebrew, there are no commas. There are no semicolons. And so, translators have guessed that one should be there. God will provide my son. But in writing, as in speech, Abraham could have just as easily said, God will provide my son.

      Soon, Abraham ties up Isaac. He places him on the woodpile, and he raises the cleaver. That’s the Hebrew word. It’s a meat cleaver. He raises it in his and to take it down over his neck. And the moment that he does that, this angel shouts, Abraham, Abraham. And Abraham’s response as he pauses is, again, completely neutral. This is the way he’s answered God the whole way through this chapter. He says, here I am. And the messenger from God orders him to stop and points instead to this ram that has shown up out of nowhere. This ram who’s caught in the brush by his horns. And this ram instead, this is going to be the sacrifice to God. Isaac is to be set free.

      And God grabs Abraham’s wrist, so to speak, and he stops the knife that he held over his innocent son’s head and explicitly says, do not do anything to him. And of course, this is not the enough time that God has stopped Abraham’s knife. You know, Abraham and Sarah, years before, were prepared to send Hagar and Ishmael to his death, but God stepped in there too. God, years before, intervened to save Ishmael. Ishmael’s not dead. God saved Ishmael, preventing the slow-motion murder that Abraham was ready to commit. He promises instead, he tells Abraham, you know, I’m going to make Ishmael into a great nation too. Even as he’s going to be orphaned by his father, I’m going to be with him too. And so as Hagar and her son withered from thirst in the desert out by themselves, God called out to Hagar. God gave them water. He provided for them as Ishmael grew up and indeed made him the father of another people. Ishmael grows to adulthood. He gets a wife from Egypt. He becomes this great archer. Abraham never knows that.

      But this time, this time on Mount Moriah, God has forced Abraham to face the consequences of his cowardice. You don’t get to have the desert do your dirty work and keep your hands clean for your whole life, Abraham. And there is this violent lesson that he receives. That the Lord does not work like you. The Lord does not work like me. Accepting and enabling the suffering of other people to alleviate our discomfort and pain. That’s what Abraham wanted. He was willing to sacrifice other people to keep peace for him. The Lord tells us, tells Abraham here, that the Lord’s never going to demand child sacrifices. And Abraham has repeatedly been ready to offer them, but God doesn’t want them. You know, they’ve made him sad every time, but he’s still been willing to do it.

      And there is one more thing here that Abraham acknowledges whenever he names Moriah after sacrificing his son. He names it Yahweh Yerah, which means that God sees or God will provide. because God sees, because God does provide. God doesn’t brush things under the rug or out into the desert. God sees. God addresses it head on. And so in this incredibly traumatic story, this is really one of the worst stories in Scripture, God reveals to Abraham that God is far more gracious, far more kind, far more tender towards Abraham’s own children than he is. although again notably there is $\text{no}$ evidence in Genesis at all that Abraham ever finds out conclusively what happens to Ishmael God says he’s going to take care of him and Abraham apparently leaves it at that so Abraham has to live with that guilt forever unless he’s just kind of pushed it down and if he feels that guilt maybe he deserves it this story brings out something different for me every time I preach it, every time it comes up. But my sense in reading this story today is that God’s point is not to test Abraham’s willingness to comply with his most extreme commands.

      I think the point might be to force Abraham to see what God has seen. The helplessness of his child. The injustice that he’s perpetrated on his sons. Not to mention Hagar. To make him look at it. Just as God sees, he makes Abraham see. And he makes very clear for everyone who is to follow, who is to read this story, that the God of Israel doesn’t demand this kind of service and sacrifice. All the other gods of that time, of that region, accepted child sacrifice gladly, not this one. And Abraham has completely misunderstood what it means to serve God. And as I read this, I am certain that God would have just preferred that Abraham be a good dad rather than sacrifice either one.

      But crucially, God has twice now swooped in to make right where Abraham has committed this unforgivable neglect. God has fixed it. And yet, you can’t fix it. God hasn’t made it happily ever after. Abraham and Isaac never speak again. From this moment, not just this chapter, from this moment, Isaac disappears from Abraham’s life the very moment that ram shows up. You can picture him getting untied and just tearing off. And as we push further, if we read a couple more verses into this chapter, into verse 19, it’s only Abraham and his servants who return to Beersheba. No mention of Isaac. Isaac is gone. So while Abraham didn’t actually kill him, Isaac’s now as good as dead to his family. He’s withdrawn from his him father for the rest of his life. And Abraham now has murdered his relationship with two sons without laying a hand on either one.

      God has saved their lives. He’s laid out a life before these two sons, but he has not cleaned up Abraham’s mess. It turns out that the most radical thing that God could have possibly asked of Abraham, that Abraham could not do wasn’t to raise a knife on his son to sacrifice him. It was much harder than that, but also much more ordinary than that. God just wanted him to be a good man. God wanted him to be a good father, which is surely what his sons wanted as well. Imagine Genesis 21 and 22 go a completely different way, where Abraham decides that he’s going to protect Hagar from the unfair treatment that his wife is giving her. Imagine if he decides to love Ishmael as his own rather than be exiled for daring to feel joy. Imagine if he stands up to Sarah’s rage, if he shields Isaac. Abraham thinks here that God wants a servant who is willing to just kind of outsource all of his morality and unquestionably do what he’s told. but maybe God just wanted a parent.

      And I’m reminded, maybe this is the anticipation of fatherhood talking here, of the observation that many people have made that a lot of men will express a willingness to kill or to die for their spouses, for their children, when what so many of our families actually need is some help in getting the laundry done or putting the baby down, or just a hug after a hard day. So how often do we misunderstand what it means, what is necessary to serve God and be God’s faithful people? How often do we think that faithfulness requires either these big, dramatic, sweeping gestures or to tolerate the suffering of other people, to harden our hearts, to participate in systems and practices that crush the innocent, all in the name of some high, great duty or wisdom.

      I think that God on Mount Moriah says that that’s not it. God is not served by victimizing the vulnerable. Indeed, both times he stepped in to make sure it didn’t happen. And so if our theology, if our understanding of God requires us to harm someone else or allow the suffering of our neighbors to prove our loyalty towards God, maybe we don’t know God very well. So whenever we leave worship today, the altar, right, we walk down a mountain, we return to our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, And God will show us the places, the times in our lives that we’ve been willing to make other people, those we know, those we don’t know, into sacrifices. You know, we can keep hunting for these opportunities to outsource the right thing to do, to build great altars, to look for spectacular ways to prove how right and faithful we are. Or we can just listen to the same voice that Abraham heard on Moriah to stop the blade. Don’t touch the young man. Don’t do anything to him. Here’s a different way. The ram is in the thicket. God shows us what fatherhood looks like.

      And so what’s left for us is to walk down the mountain, to drop the knife we thought we were going to need, and begin hard and ordinary work of loving, of healing the things that we have broken. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

    • Fairhaven Sermon 6-21-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman shared a poignant message marking her final sermon as the associate pastor of the South Hills Partnership before her retirement on June 30th. Reflecting on her transition to becoming a licensed lay pastor, she explained the necessity of stepping aside to allow for new leadership while expressing her desire to remain connected to the community through local haunts and seasonal traditions. She shared that after twelve years of ministry in this specific role, this moment represents both an end to certain pastoral duties and a new beginning in her journey of faith.

      Focusing on 1 Corinthians 13, Rev. Bowman explored the profound truth that the very nature of God is love. She emphasized that while spiritual gifts, teachings, and religious knowledge are valuable, they are secondary to a living relationship with Jesus and the practice of true, enduring love. By walking through Paul’s descriptions of patience, kindness, and humility, she encouraged the congregation to continue walking with God and clinging to the one thing that never fails: love. She concluded with a blessing rooted in the original meaning of “goodbye,” praying that God be with the congregation until they meet again.

      Well, first off, again, I want to say Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, fathers-to-be, and other father figures. Thank you for all that you do. And secondly, as mentioned earlier, this morning will be my last time preaching here, at least for a while. As many of you know, I am retiring as associate pastor of the South Hills Partnership effective June 30th, which means this is my last Sunday preaching here for a while.

      Earlier this month at the annual conference, I was made a licensed lay pastor, which means I am eligible to do pulpit supply throughout the conference, but not so much here, at least not for a while, because I need to make room for the person who will be taking my place. And I don’t know anything about that person at this point in time, but I just know that this is how things are done in the United Methodist Church, as in most major denominations, there are rules about how to pass the torch from one pastor to the next. And what that means is that for all of us, as of June 30th, all of my pastoral duties with the South Hills Partnership will come to an end, with the exception of a handful of visitations that I had to postpone because I got sick this week. So I’m going to be doing those probably, if not this coming week or the week after. Other than that, I will not preach, teach, lead groups, lead sacraments, anything like that for a while. And this may sound hard, but it really is for the best.

      And for those of you who’ve been here long enough to remember our previous pastors, it was the same way for them when I came on board or when Pastor Dylan came on board. It makes the transition to the new leadership as smooth as possible. That said, I want to assure you that we will always be friends, and I’m sure we will run into each other at Giant Eagle at some time, or maybe at the Carnegie Farmer’s Market or Carnegie Coffee Company. That tends to be where I hang out. And of course, in the winter, I will be singing Messiah at Calvary United Methodist on the north side, so I will still see you guys around. And please do keep me on my Christmas card lists. Okay, do that.

      So, for today’s final sermon, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13. And all of my years of preaching here—we say 12 years here, and how many years before that? Because I was preaching since seminary, right? So 15, 20 years of preaching—I have never preached on this passage. Why? Probably because of where it lands in the lectionary. It comes right in the middle of the epiphany, like right after Christmas, right around New Year’s as we’re starting to focus into Lent, and this just kind of gets lost in the holiday crush, and I’m like, this is not right. So not only is this the passage that I want to preach from, but it’s also a passage that the Wednesday Night Bible Study will be talking about sometime either this week or next week. So I hope this will fit in nicely with the discussions coming up, and I’m hoping to be at that last one this next Wednesday.

      So for the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what message I’d like to leave with you and asking myself, what hasn’t been said yet? So we covered a lot of ground in the past 10 years. We’ve read a lot of scripture. We’ve talked about a lot of people and a lot of issues and most importantly, what God calls us to be and to do. But the one thing I don’t remember preaching on is this 1 Corinthians 13, and Paul sums it up so nicely, what I wish for all of us. The God that we believe in, the God that we worship, the God of the Bible is love. Not that we worship love. We don’t. We worship God. But God is made of love. God’s nature is love. And God loves each one of us so much that even if we were the only person in the world, Jesus would still have come to earth for us and given his life for us.

      So I guess what I’m saying is I wish you Jesus now and forever. And when I say this, I’m not talking about a system of beliefs. I’m talking about a relationship with the one true and living God. The system of beliefs that we call Christianity is a collection of teachings that has been passed down to us through the centuries, through the millennia, from other believers, from other Jesus followers and from scholars and seminaries, all of whom gave their words and their teachings to us for our guidance. And I’m glad we have these spiritual riches. But the most important thing is not knowledge, it’s love. And our relationship with Jesus, with the God who is love. And as we keep on growing into God’s likeness, we keep on growing in the love that God has shared with us and has given us to share with others.

      And Paul starts out this passage by asking, do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? In the previous chapter, 1 Corinthians 12, Paul goes into some detail on the spiritual gifts, and Paul gives additional lists in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4, for those of who want to look up that spiritual gifts. But the answer to the question, do all possess all of these gifts, is of course no. We don’t all have all the gifts. We don’t all speak in tongues. We don’t all interpret. We each have different spiritual gifts. And then Paul asks us to take a step further. He says, don’t stop with the spiritual gifts. Keep on imitating the giver of the gifts, the God who is love. Paul says, without love, teaching is just noise. Without love, prophecy and knowledge and even faith are worth nothing. Without love, even the ultimate in generosity has no meaning.

      Now, when I was younger, I think I first read 1 Corinthians 13 when I was in eighth grade, I think maybe, I used to try to use Paul’s words to measure my progress in learning how to love. And I don’t know about you, when I was a teenager, one of the biggest questions in life was, what is love? What does the word really mean? I mean, this is the time of life when many of us have our first crush or our first boyfriend or girlfriend, when we start going to school dances and we start wondering about love and is what I’m feeling really love or is it just a crush? Is what he’s feeling towards me really love? Do these two people really love each other or are they just attracted to each other? And how can you tell the difference? And I remember as a teenager asking mom and dad what real love feels like and they said, when it happens, you’ll know. Not sure how helpful that was.

      Anyway, a person could do worse than to bring 1 Corinthians 13 into the conversation, because to be hog honest, there are a lot of things in this world that try to pass for love, and a lot of people in this world who claim to love who have no clue what they’re talking about. So Paul explains for all of us what love is like. Love is patient. Love takes time. Love knows that sometimes people don’t get things right the first time. Love is kind. Love doesn’t have anything to prove. Love doesn’t push people around. Love is not grouchy. And people who love don’t go around bragging on themselves or carping about how nobody appreciates them. Love gives freely. And love loves the truth. Because love knows that lies bring pain and far too often for innocent people.

      And here’s the really great thing. Real love never ends, never dies. Even for those of us who have many loved ones who are now with the Lord, real love never ends. That’s why it’s so hard when we can’t pick up the phone and talk to someone who’s not here with us on earth anymore. When we see something we know they would have loved and we just want to share it, love goes on. And there will be a reunion someday. If love exists at all, there must be.

      And then Paul gives us a list of all the things that will not last. And what an amazing list this is. Prophecy, tongues, knowledge itself, not because these things will vanish, but because they will be fulfilled, completed. Paul says, now we see in a mirror dimly, and then we will see face to face. All the questions will be answered. All the plans will either be completed or discarded. We will see the face of God and recognize who it is that we’re looking at, our Creator, our Redeemer, and our friend. As Paul says, we will know fully as we are fully known. And this won’t be the end, it’s just the beginning.

      So here at the South Hills Partnership, we have between us 12 years of history, 12 years of joys and sorrows and plans and accomplishments of working together to bring God’s truth and joy and love and caring into our world. And I am so grateful for these opportunities and these experiences. And I’m sure this is far from the end. This church and its people will continue to follow Jesus and work to bring his love and truth and compassion into our part of the world. And it’s highly likely we will see each other again on this side of eternity, but even if not, this still isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning. God has something in store for you and for me that we can only begin to imagine. So the love that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 13 belongs to you. First through God, who is the source of all love, the God who is love, and then through each other as you worship together and work together for the good of this community and beyond with patience and kindness and truth and hope.

      So keep on walking with God. Stay close to Jesus. Keep on loving. And I’ll do the same. And this isn’t goodbye, except maybe in the Old English meaning—leave it to the Brits to come up with something in Old English, right? The word goodbye was created by running together four words, “God be with you.” Right? It means until we meet again. So with love and with prayers, may God be with you until we meet again. Amen.

    • Announcements 6-21-2026

      Announcements 6-21-2026

      Pastor Peg’s last sermon at Fairhaven:

      • Event: Celebration of Pastor Peg’s retirement and 12 years of service
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: 6-21-2026 8:30 am

      Living Stones monthly dinner Ministry:

      • Event: Ministering to guests during a hot meal service
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: 6-28-2026, 4:30 p.m.
      • Details: Living Stones provides the food; volunteers are needed to minister to guests
      • Contact: Stormie

      Special Celebrations

      South Hills Partnership Baby Shower for Dylan and Stormie:

      • Event: Baby Shower
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: 8-02-2026, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
      • Details: RSVPs will be requested closer to the date
      • More information will be provided soon!

    • Fairhaven Sermon 6-14-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Scott Shaffer, a UMC pastor who currently serves as director of North Hills Community Outreach, explores the tension between a mindset of scarcity and a belief in God’s abundance. Using the cinematic imagery of Babette’s Feast and the biblical account of Jesus feeding the five thousand, Pastor Shaffer illustrates how humans often let doubt and limited imaginations prevent them from seeing the extraordinary things God can do through generosity and faith.

      Drawing from his personal experience leading North Hills Community Outreach during the recent SNAP benefit crisis, Pastor Shaffer shares a powerful testimony regarding the “mirant of multiplication” seen in the community’s response to food insecurity. He concludes with a call to action, inviting the congregation to move beyond fear and participate in God’s ongoing mission by sharing their time, talents, and resources to be part of the miracle of abundance.

      On the day that Babette showed up on the front doorsteps of spinster sisters Philippa and Martine, she was looking worn and ragged, carrying only a letter of reference from her former employer in France, saying these three words: “Babette can cook.” Babette had lost her husband and son during the French Civil War and she had fled for her life to Denmark. The sisters had no money to pay her, and as members of a strict Danish Lutheran sect, they felt dubious about employing a maid in the first place. They distrusted her cooking, for one thing. “Didn’t the French eat horses and frogs?” they said to each other. But reluctantly, the sisters opened their homes to a bet and they hired her as their cook, instructing her to only prepare their usual meal of boiled cod and gruel.

      So for the next 12 years, Babette cooked for the sisters. The first time that Martine showed her how to split a cod and cook the gruel, Babette’s eyebrows shot upward and her nose wrinkled a little, but she never once questioned her assignments. She fed the poor people in town and took over all of the housekeeping chores. Everyone had to agree that Babette had brought new life to this stagnant seaside community. Since Babette never referred to her previous life in France, it came as a great surprise to Martine and Philippa when one day, after 12 years, she received her very first letter in the post. Babette read it and looked up to the sisters staring at her, waiting to hear what was in the letter. And matter-of-factly, Babette announced that something wonderful had happened to her. Each year, a friend in Paris had renewed Babette’s number in the French lottery. This year, her ticket had won 10,000 francs. The sisters congratulated Babette, but inwardly their hearts sank. They knew that soon she would be leaving them.

      Well, as it happened, Babette’s winning of the French lottery coincided with the very time that the sisters were discussing the celebration of their father’s 100th anniversary, the 100th anniversary of his birth. Their father had passed away, but he had been the founding pastor of the Lutheran Church in this community. And so, Babette came to them with a request. She said, “In 12 years I’ve asked nothing from you.” And the sisters nodded in agreement. “And so now I have just one request. I would like to prepare the meal for the anniversary service. I would like to cook you a real French dinner.” And although the sisters had grave misgivings about this plan, the truth was that Babette had asked for nothing in 12 years. What choice had they but to agree?

      And so when the money arrived from France, Babette went away briefly to make arrangements for the dinner, and over the next few weeks after she returned, the villagers were entertained with one amazing sight after another as provisions were unloaded into Babette’s kitchen. Workmen pushed entire wheelbarrows loaded with crates of small birds, truffles, pheasants, even a live turtle with its head wagging back and forth. Cases of champagne and wine soon followed. Martine and Philippa, alarmed over this apparent witch’s brew, explained their predicament to the members of their strict Lutheran sect, and after some discussion, they agreed reluctantly that they and they would eat the French meal, but they would withhold any comments, lest Babette get the wrong idea. Tongues were meant for praise and thanksgiving, not for indulging in exotic tastes.

      And so finally, on the day of the dinner, Babette had somehow scrounged together enough china and crystal, and she had decorated the room with candles and evergreens. Her table looked beautiful. And although no one spoke of the food and drink at first, gradually the banquet began to work a magical effect on the guests. Their blood warmed, their tongues loosened, and eventually they could speak to each other of nothing but the meal. When the kitchen boy brought out the final dish, one of the guests, a general in the army, exclaimed that in his travels all across Europe, he had only seen such a dish in one place, the famous Café Anglais in Paris, the restaurant once renowned for its woman chef. 

      And so in the final scene of this 1987 Oscar-winning film, Babette’s Feast, it takes place in a wreck of a kitchen, piled high with unwashed dishes, greasy pots and pans, broken crates, vegetable trimmings, empty bottles, and Babette sits amidst the mess, looking as ragged as she did the night she arrived 12 years before. And suddenly the sisters realize that no one has spoken a wonderful word to Babette about the dinner. “It was quite a nice dinner, Babette,” Martine says tentatively. After a time, Babette says to them, “I was once the chef at the Café Anglais.” “We will all remember this evening whenever you’ve gone back to Paris,” Martine adds, and then Babette tells them that she’s not going back to Paris. All her friends and relatives there have been killed or imprisoned and of course it would be expensive to return to Paris. “But what about the 10,000 francs that she won in the lottery?” the sisters ask. And then Babette drops the bombshell. She has spent her winnings, every last franc of the 10,000 that she won on the fantastic feast that they have just devoured. “Don’t be shocked,” she tells them. “This is what a proper dinner for 12 costs at the Café Anglais.”

      What I love about this film, Babette’s Feast, in addition to just the beautiful story with all the twists and turns, is how Martine and Philippa repeatedly throughout the film are just awestruck at Babette, the way that she thinks, the way that she talks, and most importantly, the way that she cooks. They’ve grown up in poverty, and they simply cannot imagine the feast that Babette prepares for them. And their religious upbringing has trained them to shun extravagant things and to not believe that a dinner like this would be possible. In other words, Martine and Philippa are so focused on the world the way that it is that they cannot see the world as it could be.

      Well, I can’t help seeing many similarities between the story of Babette’s feast and the scripture reading of Jesus feeding the 5,000, not just in that both involve feeding food to a hungry crowd of people, but I think the similarities come earlier in the story when the people limit their imaginations and doubt that such an extravagant feast is even possible in the first place? Haven’t we all been guilty of doubting the extravagance that God is willing to give us? If we go just one chapter earlier in Mark chapter 5, we see that Jesus has performed miracle after miracle. He heals a man possessed by demons and he casts the demons into a herd of pigs, another one of those weird Bible stories, and the pigs go running down the hillside and they jump off a cliff into the sea. And right after performing this miracle, Jesus brings back to life the daughter of a religious leader named Jairus. 

      And throughout the gospel of Mark, over and over again, Jesus has performed signs and wonders demonstrating the power of God. But after performing all these miracles in chapter 5, we get to chapter 6, and Jesus is rejected in his own hometown of Nazareth. People say, “isn’t this the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary?” And they just cannot imagine someone performing miracles and teaching such wisdom who came from their hometown. And we’re told Jesus heals a few more of the sick in Nazareth, and yet he was amazed by their unbelief. Like, come on, guys, what do I have to do to help you to believe in the power of God?

      So, then Jesus takes a different approach. Rather than performing miracles himself, he sends the disciples out to proclaim the gospel and to perform miracles on his behalf, and he instructs them to take nothing on their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money on their belts and to go from town to town preaching and performing miracles in Jesus’ name. And so, they’re supposed to trust in the hospitality of others like the angels in the story from Genesis that we heard this morning who trusted in the hospitality of Abram and Sarah. And they’re supposed to believe in God’s abundance, that they’re not going to take food and money on their journey, but God will provide through the hospitality of others. There is enough food for everyone to eat. 

      So, the disciples get back from their journey, and Jesus invites them to go away to a deserted place, and yet the crowds begin to follow them. As often happens with Jesus, he’s kind of trying to run away, and yet the people are seeking him out. And the Bible says that this was no small crowd. There were 5,000 men, and when the Bible names the number of men, it’s a placeholder for all of the families. So, perhaps 20,000 people or more had followed Jesus. And so, Jesus gets into this conversation with his disciples. The disciples want him to send the crowds away to go get some food in nearby towns, pick up some McDonald’s, some Chick-fil-A, you know, whatever they need to satisfy themselves. And they even get sarcastic with Jesus about the cost. “Are we to go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” Now, remember, Jesus just sent them out on a mission with no bread and no money. So, they’re definitely not carrying around the equivalent of $20,000 cash to feed this hungry crowd. And this is when, once again, Jesus believes in the disciples when they don’t believe in themselves, and he sends them out to perform another miracle. Instruct the crowds to sit down on the grass in groups of hundreds and fifties, and then Jesus takes the five loaves and the and the two fish, and we all know what happens next. The food is multiplied, and the Bible says that all ate and were filled, not just a snack, not just a nibble. They were filled with an abundant meal that God had provided for them.

      You know, if I had been there at Babette’s feast, I would have been one of the doubters like Philippa and Martine. And if I was there with the disciples, I would have been sarcastic and skeptical just like them. “Do you really think we can feed all these people with five loaves and two fish.” And yes, I’m an ordained Methodist pastor, and so I have faith in what God can do, and I have seen God work powerfully in people’s lives. But I also serve as the executive director of a nonprofit, and we’re responsible for raising around $3.5 million every year to continue our mission to helping people in crisis, hardship, and poverty. And so, I’m a bit of a numbers person, and sometimes you have to admit that the math just ain’t mathin’. Five loaves, two fish, 20,000 people does not work.

      But this past fall at North Hills Community Outreach, I got to bear witness firsthand to the miracle of multiplication. Whenever the federal government entered in a shutdown in October, it was announced that if the shutdown continued to November that funding would be cut off for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP or food stamps. Nonprofit organizations like NHCO and SHIM reacted immediately to begin preparing for this impending crisis. But we knew that there was no way that the food banks and the food pantries would be enough to replace what community members were about to lose in SNAP benefits. 

      Let me explain by sharing some numbers. The SNAP program nationwide provides $8.3 billion of food every month to 41 million Americans, or roughly one in every eight households. In Pennsylvania, it’s $366 million a month to over 2 million people. And right here in Allegheny County, it is $30 million every month to 160,000 people, including over 50,000 children who rely upon food for their nutrition and growth. And so in the middle of October, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank reported in the news media that it was simply impossible for nonprofits to replace the food that was going to be lost in SNAP funding. In fact, the SNAP program provides nine times as much food every month as what the food bank could provide through its entire network of partners across the region. 

      And the number that really hits home for me is the impact on individual families’ budgets. The SNAP food benefits for a single individual range from $34 a month up to $298 a month, depending on their income, up to $546 for an elderly couple, like the ones that benefit from NHCO’s programs, $994 a month for a family of four with children, or over $1,000 a month for families with five or more individuals. I was on an advocacy phone call with one of our federal representatives during the SNAP crisis, and I was so proud of one of our staff members who quoted from memory the monthly budget of one of her older adult clients she had enough met with that afternoon. And she added up all the numbers: $600 for rent, $150 for utilities, $250 for food; every penny that this woman receives each month in Social Security and in SNAP benefits was spoken for. If she lost nearly $300 in SNAP benefits, she would have to choose between paying her rent and utilities on the one hand or going hungry. It was that simple. There was no extra money to go around. 

      And this was a common story. I spent a lot of time in line with our clients that month as our food pantries had over a 50% increase in attendance. And every person I talked to was terrified at what would happen if SNAP benefits were cut. And that’s when I got to witness the miracle. Day after day, week after week, people from every corner of northern Allegheny County showed up with food donations. Some donated money online. Others ordered off of our Amazon wish list. One of my proudest moments since being the executive director of NHCO is that we had an entire Amazon truck full of food come just to deliver to us. Never had a whole truck come just to deliver to one stop. 

      Another story that warmed my heart is that at our North Boroughs location in Bellevue, a woman who is herself one of our clients came and she had gone to the dollar store and she had picked up seven $1 items and brought them to the food pantry and said, “here, someone else needs this more than me.” Our Free Rides for Seniors program offers a shuttle on the Route 28 corridor to take people to their doctor’s appointments and to the grocery store. And they’ve popped up a little free pantry in the shuttle itself. And so many of our older adults said, “I don’t need this. Somebody else needs it more than me.” And we said, “no, your benefits are getting cut off and you do need this. This is here for you.” And it made a big difference. 

      If you come to our Allison Park location to our main food pantry, you’ll see a sign on the pantry that says Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry because we get to witness the miracle every day of God accomplishing more than we ever thought was possible. But, you know, perhaps the real miracle, the biggest miracle, wasn’t just that God provided through the generosity of our community, but that God also managed to work through our broken, divided, polarized government. People of faith stepped up to lobby the federal government, including our United Methodist Board of Church and Society. And finally, after one week of the SNAP benefits being paused, funding was eventually resumed. And so, the largest impact of the crisis was averted, and yet people still felt that fear, that uncertainty, that anxiety for over six weeks about what was going to happen. 

      And, you know, seeing ultimately that people were able to be fed was just a reminder that we do have sufficient resources in our country. We’re the wealthiest nation in the world, perhaps the wealthiest nation in human history, and we do have enough. We just have to ensure that the resources are shared because our God is a God of abundance. And so, the story of Babette’s feast and Jesus feeding the 5,000 and my experience of the SNAP food crisis, I think all have one thing in common, and that is that people have a not a natural fear of scarcity and a natural fear of the unknown. But we believe in a God of abundance. Did you hear me? We believe in a God of abundance, not a God of scarcity. 

      And so, I am so grateful for all of the volunteers who serve, whether it’s at one of the ministries of North Hills Community Outreach, whether it’s at South Hills Interfaith Movement, whether it’s through the little free pantry that I saw in the parking lot as I was walking in today, whether you’re donating food or volunteering your time, you get to be a part of God’s mission in the world. And remember, Jesus could have fed the multitudes himself. He could have snapped his fingers and provided food for the hungry crowd, and yet, he wanted the disciples to be a part of the miracle. And I think he did it because he wanted to strengthen their faith. Because if they themselves were a part of the miracle, then they would believe in what God had done.

      And I want you to know that Jesus wants you to be a part of the miracle. Whether you’re giving, whether you’re serving, whether you’re sharing a meal or a moment with somebody who’s lonely, Jesus wants you to be a part of God’s mission. So take whatever you have, a few boxes of food, some spare time, a couple extra dollars each month, and share it generously, abundantly, sacrificially with others. And just wait and see what God will do. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.