Fairhaven UMC

United Methodist Church

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

    • 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.

    • Announcements 6-14-2026

      Announcements 6-14-2026

      Summer Picnic:

      • Event: Summer picnic with hot dogs and drinks provided.
      • Location: Spencer UMC
      • Time: This Thursday, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
      • Details: Held in the parking lot or inside if it rains; free of charge. Bring something to share if you like.

      Pastor Peg’s Retirement Celebration:

      • Event: Farewell for Pastor Peg’s final Sunday before retirement.
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: June 21st, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
      • Details: Join us in the downstairs cafe to offer cards or well wishes.

    • Fairhaven Sermon 6-7-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman shares updates from the recent annual conference, including news regarding new mission statements, upcoming district reorganizations, and her personal milestone of becoming a licensed local pastor. She also reflects on the importance of community and prayerful connection through the exchange of “jars of dirt” representing the various churches in the connection.

      Drawing from the books of Genesis, Romans, and Matthew, Rev. Bowman explores the central theme that God has purposeful plans for every individual and for the church as a whole. Through the examples of Abraham’s journey of faith, Paul’s teaching on righteousness through belief rather than law, and Jesus’s compassionate calling of Matthew the tax collector, she emphasizes that we receive God’s promises by placing our trust in Christ, the healer who makes us clean.

      Before I head into the sermon, I wanted to share with you just a few notes from the annual conference, which ended yesterday around noon. The annual conference this year was moved to a new location, the campus formerly known as California University. It’s a lovely spot, and the folks at Cal U did a beautiful job of hosting us there. The sessions were informative. The worship was uplifting. Worship Band was from Swickley United Methodist Church, and if you’re ever out that way, I encourage you to go hear them. They’re quite good.

      I brought back some flyers from Global Ministries. They’re on the back table. You can take a look at those, along with a jar of dirt, which is now from a—we all were asked to bring jars of dirt from the properties of our churches. There was reference to that throughout the week. But at the end of the week, we all sort of exchange jars. So this is a jar of dirt from, I forget the name of the church now, sorry? Peter’s Chapel, which is up around 80? Is that right? Okay. It’s by Franklin. Up near Franklin. Okay, yeah. So they’re going to sort of be our, I guess, our dirt prayer partners. I’m not sure, but we’re going to kind of keep them in mind and in prayer. And I’m not sure who got our jar, but it was there. I also have on the back table a picture of our three jars from our partnership there.

      So let’s see, what else? The United Methodist Church has a new mission statement, to love boldly, to serve generously, and to lead courageously. And you’ll probably be seeing more of that in the months ahead. We celebrated what our ministries have accomplished, which included honors to Deaconess Katie Peterson at the Mission Barn, where we take all the cleaning supplies to make cleaning buckets. She does an amazing job of coordinating huge amounts of donations and getting them to where they’re needed in places of crisis.

      Both the conference and the camps, as Dylan mentioned at the meeting earlier, have of and course been significantly impacted by the loss of churches and members, and this will result in two things. Number one, reorganizing the conference in the districts, and then reassigning district supervisors. As you probably know, Fairhaven and Spencer, we are still in the Pittsburgh district until, actually formally until December, after which we become part of the Southwest District, which includes Allegheny and Washington counties. Quite honestly, I think that Allegheny, Washington just makes a whole lot more sense. That’s me. But we will be led at that point by D.S. Ross Pryor. The Camp’s task force asked for and received another year to work on their financial situation, which is a whole lot more complicated than what you and I have to do around here.

      So on the whole, everyone came to conference, I man think, very prepared. And I think that’s one of the reasons why there was so little comment or debate on the floor. I mean, votes passed easily. There were no, there’s no back and even. So, it was really, it went very, very smoothly. The bishop’s comments in her sermon were based on the passages from Romans, and she talked about the fact that Jesus came to quench thirst and bring new life, and also about the fact that we are the body of Christ. We are one body and one spirit. And she said there is still the condition of the soil, which is the human heart, still needs to be toiled, sorry, tilled a little bit, still needs to have some seeds cast yet. And this is one of the reasons why the bishop asked us to do the dirt and the exchanges of seeds and so forth. So, again, good message.

      Coming up in the 26-27 year, there will be a Pennsylvania racism bus tour. Other cities have had this. It’s finally coming here next year, where people get to tour some of the places where, like, the Underground Railroad was and that kind of thing, just taking a look at some of the historic spots. Dates for special Sundays have been set for next year. There are one or two new ones, and I did not make a whole list. I’ll have to go look at that.

      Personal notes, I had the chance to greet a number of our former pastors. Pastor Matt Price was there, who is now being moved up into the conference staff. He will no longer be leading a church at this point. Pastor Diane Randolph sends greetings. Also, Pastor Matt Grubbs. And I ran into Pastor Lola Turnbull. I’m not sure if you guys know her, but she’s an and old friend of my from like back in the 1980s. So, it was kind of cool to catch up with her. Retirees this year, that doesn’t apply to us. And I think that’s it for the staffing.

      And then last but not least, I am now officially a United Methodist licensed local pastor. Yay! Thank you. I’m glad it’s done, and that opens the door. Even though I’m retiring at the end of this month, it opens the door to things past retirement that I might be able to come and do. So that’s a good thing. So that’s the announcements. That’s

      Pray with me, please. Lord Jesus, thank you for this day and for this place and for each person here. Pray now as we come to your word that you would fill my mouth and your mind with your truth and with your $your$ love. And Lord, help us open us to your heart and to your wisdom as we come to your word. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

      Today is also Native American Sunday, and they said the day post-annual conference. And this is also the first Sunday of 2026 that is in what they call ordinary time. In other words, this Sunday is not part of Advent Lent, a holiday of any kind. It’s just a plain old Sunday for the first time this year.

      So straight up, here we go. Today is also the second to last time that I will be with you as your associate pastor. Having reached the ripe old age of 67 and a half, I have finally realized that my usual level of energy is a thing of the past, and I’m going to miss being here a lot. I’m really going to miss you guys. It has been such a privilege to have been your pastor over these past years, two years as pulpit supply and 10 years as staff. And I hope we’ll still at least, at the very least, exchange Christmas cards and stuff. I want to keep on hearing about what’s going on with y’all.

      But with retirement in mind, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like my final sermons to be, and today’s scriptures could not have been better chosen. I’m actually going to speak from all three readings for today. You only heard two. You heard Genesis and Matthew. There’s also, for this particular day, there’s a passage from Romans which fits in with the other two, so I’m going to quote all three and pull them together here.

      The main point of all three of these passages is this. God has plans for us. God has plans for each one of us. Each one individually and us as a church. Plans for good, plans for a future, and we receive these plans by faith. We may not know what those plans are just yet, at least not entirely, but we shouldn’t feel shy about asking God what God has in mind for us, because our God is a God of mercy and kindness. And this thought, this great thought that God has plans for us, is the backdrop and today’s readings are presented.

      So starting with Genesis, the story of Abram is a familiar story. Abram is the man God chose to be the founder of the nation and the people of Israel. Abram’s name means exalted father. But ironically and sadly, Abram and his wife Sarah had no children. When Abram first met God, God told Abram to pack up and move away from his home in the city of Ur in the south of Mesopotamia in what is today Iraq. And so Abram packed up his whole family, including his father and his nephew Lot, and they moved northwest to Haran in what is today southeastern Turkey. And they stopped there for a number of years. And while there, Abram became quite wealthy, lived as a herdsman, life was good, except they still didn’t have any children.

      And eventually, Abram’s father died, and then God visited again and said to Abram, move to the land of Canaan, which is where we picked up with the scriptures today. God said, move away from your country, move away from your father’s family and your father’s house. Go to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and I will make your name great. This was God’s first promise for Abram, that his name would be great. And here we are, 4,000 years later, still speaking his name. And then God made Abram two more promises. First, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And secondly, through you, all the families of the earth will be paved with blessings. And Abram’s answer was a response of faith. He did what God said to do.

      And this was not easy for a man who had built a life in Haran and who owned massive herds and employed many workers, but Abram didn’t ask questions and he didn’t try to bargain with God. He just went ahead and did what God asked. Now, stepping back from the story just for a moment, if God said to one of us, leave your country, which is exactly what God was saying to Abram, and by the way, I’m not suggesting that’s what God is saying to us, okay? But what if it was? I’m sure everyone here loves our country very much and loves our hometown very much. If God said go, would we go? Imagine for a moment what it was like standing in Abram’s shoes. Now, you know if it was me, I’d be tempted to ask God, can I choose which country? But Abram did not say that. Abram just started packing, and that is the response of faith.

      So imagine what’s going through his mind at this point. Abram is about 75 years old when he heard God’s call, left his hometown, his father’s house, packed up decades worth of things and hundreds of animals, began the journey south through Israel, following God’s lead until he arrived at Canaan. Abram said yes, because God had made him a promise that he would have descendants and wealth and fame and blessings. And Abram believed God. When Abram and all his family finally arrived in Canaan, they discovered the land was already occupied by Canaanites. And Abram probably turned to God and said, what’s up with this? God assured Abram that this land would belong to him and would belong to his descendants one day. But since the land was already occupied, Abram passed through and continued on to the far side where he and his family stopped. And Abram built an altar, and they worshiped there, and they settled there.

      And this is where today’s reading from Genesis basically leaves Abram. There is, of course, a lot more to Abram’s story, but that’s for another day. For now, it seems to me that this passage of Scripture challenges us to think what we might have done in a similar situation. If God asked us to, would we pack up the family and move to somewhere where we don’t speak the language and don’t know how long it’s going to take to get there and don’t know what we’re going to do once we’re there, but God has made us promises of an amazing future, would we do it? And I wonder if Abram ever wondered why God couldn’t just bless him right where he was? Why did he have to move to receive God’s blessing? Sometimes we don’t know the answers to questions like this, but God does.

      And Abram chose to do what was wise, to follow God’s direction and settle in the land that God pointed out. Abram also did not march up to the Canaanites and say, hey, God says you have to leave. Abram left everything in God’s hands, and when the time was right, God brought Abram and his family into Canaan. And as I reflect on this story and what it might mean to us, a number of questions come to mind. In what ways has God called us? Called us as a church? Called us as individuals? What gifts has God equipped us with? When we step out in faith, how do we deal with the unexpected? Abram sets an example for us. Trust God and follow, even when what God is promising sounds unlikely. The author of Genesis says the trust that Abram had and his family had in God was reckoned to them as righteousness, just the trust. Abram’s trust in God was the foundation, became the foundation of the Jewish faith and the Jewish people, and by extension, the foundation of our own faith, because Jesus was descended from Abram, just as Abram was called righteous because he believed in God. We are called righteous when we believe in Jesus. You see the connections there.

      All of this, all of this leads directly into Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 4, verses 13 to 25, which was the alternate reading for this morning. Here’s the passage I wanted to include, and this is Paul talking. He says, The promise that Abram would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the and the law, but through the righteousness of faith. If it’s the adherents of the law who are going to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation of the law. For this reason, it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of all of us. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. In the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, hoping against hope, Abram believed that he would become the father of many nations. According to what was said, so numerous shall your descendants be. He did not—Now, the words, it was reckoned to him were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

      That’s the Apostle Paul. He gets a little deep sometimes. But Paul here, he’s drawing a parallel between our faith in Jesus and Abram’s faith in God. Both our faith and Abram’s faith have the same source and the same destination. Abram came first, we follow in his footsteps. As Paul says, the promises of God do not come to us by following the law, that is the Ten Commandments, and everything else that was added to those commandments, but the promises of God come to us through faith. The commandments are given to us so that we can understand what God expects and what God honors, but our salvation rests on faith.

      And this is the catch, because not only back then, but also today, and in so many periods of and history, People keep trying to get to heaven by following the rules, and it doesn’t work that way. The Bible says it’s impossible for human beings to keep God’s law perfectly. But for some reason, people keep wanting to have lists of do this and don’t do that. People want to hang the Ten Commandments on every wall they can find because we want to know the rules, and we want to know who’s living up to them and who isn’t. But the Bible says the law brings God’s wrath. Why? Because we break it. We can’t live up to it. None of us can.

      But the good news is that God says where there is no law, there is no trespass. In other words, you can’t get ticketed for speeding if there’s no speed limit, right? If we approach God with faith and trust, this opens the door to mercy and forgiveness and life. By faith, Abram becomes the father of all of us who have received God’s promises by faith. And when we live by faith, we fulfill God’s promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations, not in the flesh, but children of faith. That’s what Paul has to say.

      And then we turn in our readings to the book of Matthew which we heard a moment ago in this passage Jesus takes mercy and faith one step further Jesus shows us how faith and mercy can change the life of a notorious sinner Matthew the tax collector who by the way is writing his own story here because this is from the book of Matthew. Tax collectors in ancient Israel were considered the worst of the worst. They worked for the Romans. They were collaborators. They worked for the occupying forces. Tax collectors were considered traitors to their own people, and what’s worse, they deliberately overcharged and then pocketed the difference, getting rich on their own people’s misfortune.

      Jesus, however, did not shun Matthew. Jesus saw something the others didn’t see. So he invited himself to Matthew’s house for dinner. And Matthew immediately got up, left his tax collecting, went home, made preparations. And of course, Matthew invites all of his tax collector buddies and other shady characters to come and meet Jesus, who has become something of a local celebrity at this point. And all these nasty characters gather to meet Jesus. Why? Because they had heard about Jesus and his compassion and his honesty and the way he healed people and the way he loved people. And who needs love more than the people outside proper society?

      Jesus went and sat at the same table with them, which was, by the way, against the law of Moses because righteous people weren’t supposed to eat with sinners. But where Jesus is involved, sinners can’t make him unclean. Jesus makes them clean. And this is exactly God’s plan. Meanwhile, the Pharisees, the experts in the law, see Jesus eating with sinners, but they don’t take Jesus aside. They take Jesus’ disciples aside and ask them what Jesus is up to, which is itself a violation of the law, because the law says if you have something against someone, you go to that person, not a third party. But Jesus answers anyway. He says, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. He says, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. for I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.

      This is Matthew’s salvation story. The day Matthew came to know and love Jesus, Matthew went from being a hated tax collector to the writer of one of the four gospels, all because Jesus gave him a chance. Jesus found Matthew in a tax booth. Can we remember where we were when Jesus found us? And what stories could we tell about being found by the Lord?

      Matthew’s story tells us that no one is disqualified for becoming a follower of Jesus by what is in their past. No one is marginalized. It doesn’t matter where we’ve been because Jesus is the healer, the teacher, the Savior. It rests on Jesus to make us into what God created us to be. And as this process happens, we become, by faith, children of Abraham. We become part of the fulfillment of God’s promise that Abraham would have many, many descendants. All we have to do as children of Abraham is keep on keeping the faith amen.

    • Announcements 6-7-2026

      Announcements 6-7-2026

      Spencer Community Picnic:

      • Event: Spencer UMC’s first community picnic.
      • Location: Spencer UMC
      • Time: Thursday, June 18th, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
      • Details: This event is free and includes grilling hot dogs and drinks. Guests are welcome to bring a dish to share. If it rains, the event will be held in their social hall.

      Pastor Peg Retirement & Farewell:

      • Event: Celebration and reception for retiring Pastor Peg.
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC (reception held there)
      • Time: Sunday, June 21st, reception begins at 8:30 AM
      • Details: This event precedes her last Sunday service at Fairhaven. All are encouraged to offer well wishes.

    • Fairhaven Sermon 5-31-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson explores the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity through the joyful metaphor of a wedding dance. Moving beyond confusing doctrines and historical debates, the sermon introduces the concept of *perichoresis*—the idea that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a dynamic, rhythmic relationship where each person makes space for the other. This “divine dance” serves as the ultimate model for community and perfect relationship.

      The message further connects this Trinitarian movement to the creation story in Genesis, where God’s collaborative nature is revealed from the very beginning. As humans created in the image of a relational God, we are called not to be mere spectators on the edge of the dance floor, but active participants in God’s work of love, care, and creation. Through the life and example of Jesus, we are invited to learn the “steps” of faith—learning to make room for others through service and grace—until we are finally united with Christ in the eternal celebration to come.

      If you’ve been to a wedding reception, which pretty much everybody has at some point in their lives, you know the moment when the energy of the thing shifts. The ceremony’s done, dinner’s over, you’ve managed to slog through all the trappings and traditions, you know, the cliched maid of honor speech, right? For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the bride’s sister, best for whatever. And then the sometimes moving dances with the bride and groom and their parents. Various other speeches, right? The cakes happened, probably. And then knowing that it’s time to shift gears, the DJ plays one perfectly targeted song to try to get everybody going. These days, maybe it’s the Cupid Shuffle or the Wobble, right? 20 years ago, it might have have been the electric slide. Changes generationally. But the evening with this song has moved into its final act, the one that everyone’s been waiting for patiently. The dance floor starts to fill up, which is the whole goal right here. People who hadn’t moved all night, who were starting to maybe drift off, get up out of their chairs. And there is this collective sense of joy and rhythm that takes over.

      There’s this collective flow, this shared movement of community. And now you might perceive me as graceful and elegant, which I appreciate, but I am not myself much of a dancer. Still, by this and the point in the reception, even people like me, with a glass or two of wedding champagne, can usually get into the flow of the wedding dancing, maybe the Macarena, right? But even if you are sitting on the perimeter of the room or you stay in your chair, there is something that’s really joyful, that really catches you about watching this crowded room swirl and step and laugh in alignment. You know, the line dances are cool to watch, even if people aren’t good at it.

      And this is an image that the early church used to describe one of the deepest mysteries of faith, and that’s the Holy Trinity. It’s Trinity Sunday. I don’t like Trinity Sunday because I don’t want to talk to you about doctrine for 20 minutes, but dance makes it a little bit different. The ancient Greek theologians used a specific word to describe the way all the persons of the Trinity related to each other, and that word was perichoresis. And if you break that word down literally, what that means is to make space around. There’s this idea that each person of the Trinity is active and dynamic, and each one of them moves to make room for the other one to move. And the word is related to choreo, you know, the root word of choreography, you know, planning a dance, right? And so whenever the early church theologians looked at God, they didn’t see an equation or something they had to write out as a proof. We get this image instead of this ballroom dance of flowing where everybody knows all the steps, everything just flows perfectly. Each footstep, each movement of the hands is organic and natural, but precise. And these early theologians argued that God existing as three in one, three equals who comprise one God, is perfect relationship. That’s what perfection and community looks and looks like.

      But if you’re like most Christians, if someone were to come up to you after church and ask you to explain the Holy Trinity, you would find yourself feeling very uncomfortable. And I think pretty much every pastor would tell you the same thing. I told you I dread Trinity Sunday. And whenever we get questions about the Trinity, you know, how is it that God can be both three and one? How could the Son have been there from the beginning when Jesus wasn’t born until 2,000 years ago. What exactly is the Holy Spirit? All that stuff. We start to sweat a little bit. And there’s a joke among preachers and theologians that Trinity Sunday or really any kind of discussion about Trinity in general, always dangerous because you’re always skirting the edges of accidentally saying something heretical by trying to make this mystery explainable. And the moment we try to break it down into a nice little analogy, you know, a children’s sermon kind of thing, we usually end up accidentally repeating some ancient heresy that a church council condemned over a thousand years ago, right? Oh, the Trinity is like ice, liquid water, and steam. Nope. Modalism, condemned by the Council of Rome in 382 AD. Not like that.

      And there has been so much wrestling and fighting about this throughout the history of the church with good reason. This is what’s important. Because is there a whole lot more important for faith than knowing who we’re worshiping? And the early church, recognizing that God had taken on flesh in Christ, and that God is one being in three persons, they had all these mind-blasting puzzles to try to get a handle on. And they hashed it out over the centuries, with dozens of bishops and theologians wrestling over it via letters, going back and forth across the Mediterranean. They’d have councils where the church leaders from across the whole world would gather to figure it out. And it took centuries to arrive at consensus, and a lot of the time this could get literally violent. There’s a famous story about Nicholas of Myra at the Council of Nicaea, who slapped a rival in the face for arguing that the son was created by the father. Nicholas of Myra, this guy who slapped him, was later made a saint, Saint Nicholas, who became known later as Santa Claus. So the story is literally that Santa Claus once literally punched a guy at a church business meeting over the doctrine of the Trinity.

      And later, the Roman Catholic Church’s addition of one little line in the Nicene Creed has been this key factor in keeping us out of communion with the Eastern churches for over a thousand years. And this notorious phrase known as the filioque, we heard it in one of our hymns earlier, but in the Western church, we say that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, proceeds from the Father and the Son. And in the Eastern church, they leave out that and the Son. And that’s been enough to keep the church split in half for a thousand years. That’s how important this is, because so much of what we understand and worship about God comes out of who God is, and especially in the way in which not just the Father, and also the Son and the Spirit are also God. And it can seem silly, but this is why they’ve spent thousands, hundreds of years hashing this out.

      But some of these minute details probably don’t feel all that immediately relevant to you, do they? To the Christian who’s not teaching and preaching, let alone to the Christian who is. And yet so many people, and so many people do wonder, so what on Trinity Sunday. Eyes glaze over. Why would a historical debate over a single Latin word ever possibly matter to your life? And the key is exactly what we see in Genesis 1. That the Trinity is not some external abstract concept, it’s God. It’s not a philosophical discussion, even as we get bogged down in the words of the creeds or defining what it is and what it isn’t. It’s a relationship, that old cliche, it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. Well, Trinity literally is. God is community. God is outpouring love.

      And today our scripture shows us that from the beginning of time, human beings were never just meant to stand on the edge of the dance floor and watch, right? We are products of God’s love. We were always created to be pulled into it. And so, to help us understand what that means today, we look at Genesis 1, this description of the very beginning of creation. And believe me, I racked my premium brain to try to figure out how to shorten it, but what was I going to do? Skip days two to four? But right from the opening, from the opening notes of the universe, this of love is already happening. In this chapter, God is referred to by the title Elohim, which in Hebrew is plural. Not singular, but plural. And we, always this we, God begins to create the heavens and the earth. And God’s wind, which is the same word as God’s spirit, sweeps across the dark waters. So we already see the Father and the Spirit here. And the words from God’s mouth, Let there be light are spoken, and there’s light. Creation starts.

      And there’s this sense of just collaboration here from these very first verses. All one God, all working together, and yet distinct. You know, you have the Spirit hovering over the water, the Word is spoken and is there, and the Father is the one speaking the Word. And over and over again, for seven days, we see this cycle. Elohim, God creates the sky and the waters, then the earth, then the plants, then the sun and the moon and the stars, then the birds and the fish and the sea monsters, and then land creatures, livestock, bugs, and then us, humanity. Listen to verse 26. God says, let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things of the earth. Humanity is created in this plural, in this diversity of all genders, races, kinds in God’s image, us, God says. And while the rest of creation is called good, when God finishes with people, God says it’s very good or supremely good, we just heard in the Common English Bible, which is pretty generous, if we’re honest.

      And so the persons of the Trinity, the three-in-one God, look at humankind, newborn, and see themselves in us. God turns to God’s self and smiles warmly at what God’s done, and we were created out of relationship for relationship, and then appointed to function as God’s servants. We’re this kind of bridge between creation and creator, ruling over creation with care. And we’re given this special position, and it’s special because it’s like God’s. We’re to create. We’re to take care of everything else. We’re to help cultivate in creation that same harmony that exists within God. And our job, too, is to make room, to make space. So from the beginning of the universe, we’re given this honorary place just below God. And from the beginning, we’re invited as creation to be part of creating, to pour out love on all the world, just as God has always done.

      And we know, across these next few chapters of Genesis, that a lot happens in these familiar stories. You know, humans decide they want to be the choreographers of their own life, right? We want to march to the beat of our own drum rather than dancing to God’s music. We give up our place in the Garden of Eden. We forfeit this supreme goodness that God has created us with. And we spend the next couple thousand pages of Scripture bouncing back and forth closer to God, further from God, one step forward, two steps back until Jesus is born. And now God is with us again, just like walking in the Garden of Eden. And now that dance for the first time is not just in heaven, but it’s on the mountaintops of Galilee, in the Jordan River, on dirt streets that are built with human hands.

      Jesus shows us what perichoresis, what this dance looks like in human flesh. And God makes room. Jesus makes room for outcasts, for healing the broken, liberating the oppressed and the possessed, pouring out love. He makes room for people. Jesus is crucified. He dies. He descends into hell and he brings the life of the Trinity even to the depths. And he lifts those who are trapped there to be set free. And on the third day, he rises, here’s the Spirit with the Son and the Father again. And then one spring day, Jesus ascends into heaven, body and all. I remember the first time I ever realized this, that whenever Jesus ascended into heaven, that means that there is a human being sitting next to God the Father in heaven, praying for us even now. Don’t miss that when you think about Jesus, fully divine, fully man, has gone to be with the Father before sending the Spirit with us. So we’re up there and God’s down here. And we’re incorporated into the Trinity, literally. And creation itself has been lifted up into God.

      John Wesley, the founder of our tradition, loved this concept of humanity being pulled into God. And he taught that God’s grace isn’t the kind that just looks down on us, kind of pities us, forgives us from a distance without really touching us. Instead, it transforms us. This love does something so that we can actually participate in what God is like. And that’s where we find ourselves now. That’s our role now. we’re being drawn into God until the glorious day when God is all.

      And that’s the promise that we get in our gospel reading this morning, a restatement of the Great Commission. Jesus pours out his authority on his disciples. He orders them to make disciples of all nations. He says, baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And he’s sending us out once more, just like we were on the sixth day, to be servants of God to creation, like we were created to be, calling everything back to God.

      So think about this whenever you think about the Trinity. Not philosophical questions, not some distant abstraction, but that you and I and all of God’s world are being embraced in love. That’s the point. And so through Jesus, you have the opportunity right now to draw nearer to God, offering yourself each day to be made more perfect, to fall more in love with the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sustainer. Christ came to us because God wants us to be part of this dance of perichoresis, not just to stand back and watch what God’s doing, but our primary task in this life is to learn the steps to invite others to join us in the movement.

      Again, I can’t claim to be a fine dancer, but it’s a good metaphor. A Christian life of sanctification, of moving closer to the heart of God, is like learning a dance. At the beginning, you know, I was in a lot of plays in high school. We had to do all kinds of dancing in elementary school. Awful. But at the beginning, you learn the steps to the point where you kind of have to like quietly say them to yourself while you do them, maybe slow down the music. But over time, it becomes pure muscle memory. I don’t have to think about the Macarena anymore. And at first, you’re clumsy. You know, you step on toes, you trip, you constantly look at your feet. You have to remind yourself, right? In faith, you’ve got to forgive, you’ve got to serve, you’ve got to love, you’ve got to make room for other people. You have to think about it. Think about the steps first. But the more you do it, the more natural it becomes. That is what Christian faith is like, Christian life is like.

      And there’s just such a good reason that the New Testament is littered with this wedding imagery from the Gospels all the way to Revelation. Because the day is coming at the reception when the champagne toast will be poured at the great wedding feast of Christ where the church and Jesus are finally fully united. And that Trinitarian dance floor will be open for everything, people, bugs, fish, birds, to swirl and step to know the dance together. And who knows, maybe the angelic choir there will sing the Macarena. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.