Christ the Gardener
We are sometimes blindsided by moments of complete and utter terror. I remember such a night over at our neighbor Jorie’s house where several of us junior high school kids had gathered to watch a new TV program, “The Sea Around Us” in living color. Her family had the only color TV in the neighborhood.
At one point, during an intermission, we broke for snacks that her mother had made. As we passed through the dining room some of the kids were looking out the sliding class door. “Look at that,” one exclaimed. They were all staring at a very large bullfrog out on the patio.
When I looked out the window all I saw was the pitch-black night. I was overcome by a terrifying sensation of being sucked into an empty void. I don’t ever think I have felt such fear since. The experience was one of overwhelming existential terror.
I wonder if that was the experience of those first arriving in the wee hours of dawn to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. When they peered into the gaping black hole of that tomb carved out of rock, what moments of terror seized their souls?
The gospels record no details about what had actually happened at that moment – the seconds when his body was there and when it wasn’t. There were no witnesses. The guards were all asleep.
The entire event, the most seminal happening for Jesus’ followers – and nobody was there. No reporter from NBC Nightly News. No Lester Holt at the anchor’s chair. No bright lights and cameras. No one there.
The first gospel narratives were written a generation or two after those events. Tales passed down from one to another, Mark’s version being the first iteration. John’s version most likely being narrated by his community of faith maybe five generations removed from that first Easter.
Christian writers, attempting to explain the inexplicable down through the centuries. The entirety of that Easter Event still alludes our capacity to understand.
John Cobb, the eminent process theologian in his work, Christ in a Pluralistic Age,[1] explains the astounding experience of that first Easter. That morning, the spiritual reality of who Jesus was, is now let loose into the created order.
Remember, Dr. Cobb would remind us, “Christ” was not Jesus’ last name. It denotes the spiritual reality of his life and message now transcending his death. The core of his being. A new, transforming power let loose in the world. Passed from one follower to another down through the hallowed halls of time by the faithful – a long procession of members of the Jesus Movement.
Christianity so understood, is not a set of dogmas, not a rule book, but a way of life. In the first years after his death, Jesus’ followers were known as “Followers of the Way.” Look out the door of our parish hall to that garden that feeds some 470 people a week — that’s what we believe. That’s how we roll here at St. Francis.
As such, it is a mature Spiritual understanding capacious enough to encompass
the gifts of all religious traditions rooted in the way of compassion and servanthood.
Here is one way in which an ecumenical “generous orthodoxy” works itself out. Let me tell you a story told of an interfaith gathering. Unfortunately, the host pastor preceding the featured speaker of the evening – this pastor who was to give opening remarks and welcome, was from a very conservative church. His agenda was not interfaith understanding. He used his brief moments of introduction to score religious points for Jesus.
He was there to prove the supremacy of his Christian faith. He was solely bent on demeaning the speaker’s faith, proving the superiority of his own, rather than entering into any interfaith dialogue. He cared not a whit about the sensitivities of those in the room who were not Christians.
He addressed the crowd reading from one of the most exclusivistic passages of the John’s gospel. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.”
What a jerk, many thought. Way to make our guest feel welcome!
Most in the audience were embarrassed by this lack of charity, by this lack of basic manners. Folks sat in their seats in stony silence, glued to their places as interfaith relations were possibly set back hundreds of years. As the guest speaker approached the podium, all wondered how he would respond.
The speaker stepped up and benevolently smiled at his audience. After a pause, he proclaimed, “The pastor is absolutely correct.”
“For, what is the way of Jesus, but the way of peace, humility, truth, gentleness and respect. That is the only way one can approach God, enter into the Holy.” No matter what his or her faith might be.
This Hindu man had seen in Jesus that which this pastor failed to register: the Inner Light of God. The speaker had seen the same spiritual luminosity that those Wise Sages saw in that baby’s eyes, lying in the poverty of a manger.
The same vibrancy those early witnesses experienced on that Easter Morning. John Cobb asserts that this is the spiritual reality let loose in creation that yet lives through the humanistic values and ethic of the Renaissance. Christ has infused the spirit of that age. In the work of Michelangelo, DaVinci and Fra Angelica. Artists who through their work testified to that God-spark they perceived in all human flesh and endeavor. Through the milieu of the Renaissance and later the Age of Science, that human capacity for invention and exploration of those men and women who understood the grandeur of the created order – through their lives that same Spirit yet lives. Just as it did among the first astounded followers that Easter Morning.
We will soon baptize Luther James Forney, calling upon the very same Spirit let loose that first Easter — the Holy Spirit, if you will – to give him the same discerning mind and generous spirit as we’ve known in the Risen Christ.
We call upon God to give him the same passion for justice and freedom as those intrepid souls who followed Harriet Tubman through the swamps of the South to new lives of dignity and promise in the North. Following the Drinking Gourd to freedom. Terrifying journeys often steps ahead of the trackers and baying dogs.
We call upon the Holy Spirit to give him the courage to stand for what is right – just as did those German farmers who hid Jews in their fields and barns. Never knowing when Gestapo agents might show up and kill everyone involved. Just as did that family in Amsterdam who for two years hid Anne Frank in their attic. Never knowing when some nosy neighbor might betray them and summon Hitler’s SS agents.
We ask for a discerning mind to speak truth to power as did Bishop Mariann Budde after witnessing our president desecrate one of her churches. Leading an entourage of cabinet officers across Lafayette Park to hold a Bible upside down in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op.
For it is in these inspired and intrepid souls that Christ is known today. These are true and trusted people of the Way, the ones of whom that Hindu teacher spoke. For the authentic Way of Jesus, the Risen Christ, is the face of all who daily live out that humble care for their fellows. Yes, even to the point of death, as did two ICE protesters in Minneapolis.
We pray that Luther James might have that same generosity of Spirit as did that Hindu speaker, a capacious understanding of divine purpose that transcends our limited sectarian boundaries. An openness to the magnificent depths of our common humanity and the marvels of this created world, honoring God’s presence in all persons.
Frederick Buechner, in his book The Faces of Jesus,[2] makes the point that we have no idea of what Jesus looked like. Despite all the glorious attempts of our noted artists down through the years. We have absolutely no idea.
Mary Magdalene thought he might have been the gardener. And why not? He is the face of even those who presently tend our St. Francis Garden of Hope. When it comes down to it, in the last reality, the face of the Risen Christ is your face. And mine. And the sweet face of this tiny child Luther James whom we will baptize into the family of the Jesus Movement. Luther James, you are the Easter face of the Risen Christ.
As we gather in thanksgiving and gratitude for his life, as we pour out our prayers, hopes and dreams for him – that he finds his own way as a blessing to our common life as a part of the Beloved Community – we raise the Easter Greeting. Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed.
Amen.
Christ the Gardener, Albrecht Dürer, c. 1511
April 5, 2026
Easter Sunday, 2026 – the Baptism of Luther James Forney
“Christ the Gardener”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24;
Philippians 2:5-11; John 20:1-18
[1] John B. Cobb, Jr., Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), 33.
[2] Frederick Buechner, The Faces of Jesus: a Life Story (Brester, MA: Paraclete Press, 1974).
This Night
In the Passover liturgy, the youngest son at the meal asks the seminal question, “Why is this night different from all others?”
The narrative of the Passover, the haste in being ready at a moment’s notice to leave Egypt, the hurried meal, so rushed that the dough for the bread has no time to rise. The night of death that hovers about the fleeing families as they hear the howls of anguish from those families touched by the Angel of Death. It must have been most terrifying to the young.
Even if they had no understanding of the danger and the dread of their parents as the readied for a journey into a terrifying unknown – they surely sensed the danger and the silent anxiety of their parents and neighbors as families gathered in bunches on the path outside their houses.
A night like none other.
This story has provided assurance for people fleeing oppression throughout the ages. It was a lamp for the feet of Harriett Tubman and those fleeing enslavement in the south. To hear the baying of the tracker dogs was surely no less frightening than the sound of clanking armor and pounding of horses’ hooves of Pharoah’s approaching army that perused the escaping Hebrews. That night of departure, a night like none other.
I’ve been listening to an oral history of the personages and events around the development of the atomic bomb. What struck me was the fraught moment of decision for many Jewish scientists as the Nazi storm clouds began to envelope Germany.
The recollection of those whose options were diminishing by the moment and the alarm forcing a decision. To leave or stay. I’m surprised by the number in denial, saying, chancellors come and chancellors go. Hitler probably won’t be any worse than the others.
And their other colleagues, university professors and doctors squeezed out of their professions and livelihoods, as options shrank – those intrepid souls who decided to get out while it was still possible. Before doom settled in.
Nights like no other, Krystallnacht, the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler’s Brown Shirts assassinatedmany of the intelligentsia, business and professional classes of Jews who remained behind.
Nights of terror. Nights like no other as Germany sank into a living hell.
Today, US Marines have been called up for duty in Iran. Their commanders have told them to prepare their equipment, steel their spine and make loved ones aware that some of them will not be coming back. Get your affairs in order. Final instructions ought to be given for families to carry on in the case they’re killed in battle are now in order.
Nights like no other as they hastily assemble and prepare to head out.
We all have premonitions of that last night or our last fleeting moments. The time when everything hangs in the balance. A time when we will no longer look forward to that aromatic cup of coffee. A time when we will see that last sunset. The time when we will no longer hear the voice of a loved one or feel their gentle caress. In a real sense, we all face a final night like no others.
As Jesus drew his friends around him, he knew that night would be a night like none other. For all of them. He knew that this would be his last meal with those companions over these last three or so years. Night was closing in. The end was in sight.
A night that would turn the world upside down. Caeser’s arms might momentarily hold sway, but a new, subversive order was in the borning. Not based on might, prestige or outward appearance, but based on humility.
As Jesus took a towel and basin and prepared to wash his disciples’ feet, a gesture so radical, they could not comprehend it. Nothing in their past experience had prepared any of them for this new way of being.
Yes, even at those last hours they still understood nothing. As Luke records the disciples’ bad behavior at that meal and the commandment to serve one another, “They understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them and they did not grasp what was said.”[1] They quarreled amongst themselves at that table. Who would be the greatest? And if they should fall to the Caesar’s sword, who among them might sit at their Lord’s right hand?
They understood nothing; nor do we comprehend this new thing God is doing before our very eyes. Time and again we mess it up. Yet here we are, assembled at this night out of sheer Grace at the Welcome Table..
As we come forward in obedience to Christ’s command to wash one another’s feet, to share in the Bread broken and the Cup of Sorrows poured out — in all humility let us remember and give thanks to that Man for Others who by his example has ushered in a new way of being. A night like no others as we prepare to venture out – not knowing where the Spirit leads, but on the road in faith.
As it has been through the eons of time, for generation after generation – it has ben that the choice is ours. Will we with humble and contrite hearts set our prerogatives aside and join our Lord in the creation of a New Creation – will we join Christ’s vision of a Beloved Community – united as brothers and sisters in venturing into a new way of being? Or will we drift along wherever the Kingdom of Caesar takes us? Lives of lesser purpose. Just a part of the food chain until our eyes are finally shut in sweet oblivion?
O Lord, in this moment, teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom. Lead us into that Life Abundant that we might truly live. Usher us toward a foretaste of Eternity. On This Night. Amen.
[1] Luke 18:34, RSV.
April 2, 2026, Maundy Thursday
“This Night”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17;
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Gospel: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Summons of the Via Dolorosa
Today, my issue of the Living Church arrived and on the front cover was a picture of the “Harrowing of Hell.” This image is from the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen, Germany, artist unknown.
In the Apostles Creed, one line reads, “he descended to the Underworld” – which we interpret to mean “to the dead” – or to “Hell.” This is taken from the verse in 1 Peter, 4:6. The Harrowing of Hell is commemorated on Holy Saturday.
I take this observance to mean that, ultimately, no one is beyond the saving grace of the Good News. Yes, even Judas.
When Jai and I were in Jerusalem, that city was so commercialized that It was difficult to get into the mind of the auspicious and seminal events of Holy Week. Among all the stalls offering everything from tourist trinkets to lentils, dates and melons, nothing seemed to have remained from the time of Jesus’ last days.
It wasn’t until we got to the Wailing Wall – the only remains of the second temple wall begun by Herod the Great — and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that I began to feel some of the ambiance of that ancient City of David. Yet I had no idea where the path of sorrow was which Jesus took from his trial to the Cross on Golgotha — the Via Dolorosa –I had no idea of how it might have wended its way through the city to that fateful end.
It is during this time of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, that even the non-believing world becomes aware of the Christian story. With the reenactment of the pageantry of the processions of the palms around the world, the world becomes acutely aware of that Man for Others. The one who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”[1]
In our milieu of hyper-partisan Christianity, many – especially our younger generations — are repulsed by the vulgar sensationalizing of the message by right-wing Christian Nationalists. Whatever their mental picture of Jesus, THIS IS NOT IT.
In his book, Evangelism in the Age of Despair,[2] Andrew Root makes the point that the substance of the Good News can mostly be conveyed by those who come to others as a servant, in humility, entering the suffering of this age.
The only Christ that neighbor might ever encounter is in that neighbor, friend, who becomes vulnerable to their pain, their great despair. Just as Christ descended to the dead with Good News – for in his or her despair, overwhelming grief, that friend was indeed dead to themselves and those around.
Dr. Root tells a prototypical story, drawn from a number of experiences of such a contemporary encounter.[3]
The story begins with Mary Ann, who had landed a job with a trucking company outside of San Diego, California. Her new boss, Bud, the owner, of this small operation, was most supportive, though a somewhat gruff personality.
As the company grew, Bud realized that he needed someone to manage personnel, a Human Resources manager. He offered the new position to Mary Ann, though she’d had no experience in such work. But Mary Ann was a quick learner even though she had no college background. By attending conferences, seminars and through reading, she was soon up to speed. The company was still small and the demands for the new HR position were not overwhelming.
It finally looked like everything in her life was clicking. She had two wonderful children, a home in a nice neighborhood and a great job she loved.
Until, out of the blue, her husband announced he wanted a divorce.
She might have seen this coming. She and her husband more and more frequently bickered over money and pretty much everything else. Mary Ann figured that more money from her increased salary would resolve the tension. Not so.
There she was, now on her own with two children under ten without a father. Grief, self-doubt and depression became the order of her days. The emotional pain shook her to her core. She could barely be there for her children or her job.
She poured herself into her job and that helped somewhat. But busyness could not take away the shame, the anxiety and the sorrow. The sorrow, more than anything else, settled about her as a dense fog. No sunshine to her days.
Mary Ann’s father, like many from the 60s counter culture had drifted to the West Coast. Some in Los Angeles, others to the Bay Area around San Francisco and Berkeley. Unlike her father, she didn’t hate the church, she just never gave it much thought.
Her father was a “tough-it-through” kind of guy. Never admit your hurt.
One day, a coworker, Valentina, who had been noticing Mary Ann’s slow decline into despair, approached her and asked her if she was okay. “I’ve noticing that you seem to be carrying a lot of weight on your shoulders – a pretty heavy load.”
Those words caused an emotional dam to burst in Mary Ann. She, for the first time, unloaded her burden. For two hours they talked. Mary Ann felt that she had been held in a way she never had before. Yes, she needed a friend.
Valentina, also, had known loss. Her son had been arrested and sentenced to jail for theft, which led to addiction. She told Mary Ann how the people of her church had come to the courtroom and sat with her during the trial. They fed her for three weeks afterward.
Because of that experience Valentina was walking a nearby horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina’s pastor was constantly telling the congregation that the followers of Jesus know sorrow. She saw that example through the depths of her own depression. Because of that, she was now out on this horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina may be the only image of Christ that Mary Ann would ever know. And that is sufficient. In that friendship was born the entire message of the Gospel. Now vibrantly alive in Mary Ann’s heart as well as she walked her own Via Dolorosa.
I never found out where that ancient trail of tears led through Jerusalem, but I am well acquainted with that Via Dolorosa in my own heart. And it has been a saving grace at needed times to have had trusted companions along that way.
Yes, together we navigate that path as it has wound its way through our lives, through the lives of friends and family for in faith we know it leads to an Easter Sunrise.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, for Christ in our friends will join us along the way to lift and to sustain. Just as Christ does three times a week on that horse-trail in the guise of Mary Ann’s dear friend. Amen.
[1] Philippians 2:8, NRSV.
[2] Andrew Root, Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic).
[3] Ibid, the story which follows is from pages 4-7.
March 29, 2026
Palm Sunday, 2026
“The Summons of the Via Dolorosa”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Liturgy of the Psalms: Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16;
Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-54
I Only Know That…
There’s an old song from the 80s by Boxcar Willie. Born as Lecil Travis Martin, one day sitting at a railroad crossing he saw a boxcar go by and in the door was a fellow who looked like his loading master in the Air Force. Willie Wilson became the inspiration for a second career as Boxcar Willie. And for many years during the Korean War, he had a full-time gig with the Air force, retiring as a Master Sargant.
One of his signature hits was “Hey Mister Can You Spare a Dime.” Like many of his songs, this one showed great empathy for the down-and-out – the hobos cast adrift.
During times of adversity and social dislocation, many families were splintered, often as the men went looking for work in far-away places, or sometimes out of guilt they felt their families would be better off without them. They didn’t want to be a burden, or were too ashamed to stick around. Or they became stuck in the bottle.
These days, it is often addiction that shreds families. Or mental illness. Sometimes, it’s losing or being priced out of housing. Or the loss of a job. Right now, so many Americans are living on the margin. One little unexpected expense throws many families into financial chaos.
In John’s gospel we encounter a barrage of dysfunction occasioned by the completely unexpected.
Jesus encounters a blind man on the side of the road. The disciples first instinct is to cast blame. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Who’s to blame? Often, it’s blame the victim. That’s how racism works.
When Jesus dismisses such scapegoating, he then proceeds to heal the man with spit and mud. Then tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
The man, to his astonishment, sees. The unexpected, the unexplained.
The man’s neighbors who had only known the fellow as a beggar, now begin to argue among themselves. The blind do NOT see. Their fellow villager could not possibly be now seeing. They refuse to accept what their own eyes see – this guy now seeing must have just looked like the beggar they had know at the side of the road.
When the man explained how it was that Jesus had healed him, he can’t rightly explain where that man presently was.
And since this was done on the Sabbath, the religious authorities are now involved in this community-wide imbroglio. This Jesus must be a sinner since he had done the deed on the Day of Rest, the Sabbath.
But no one who is a sinner, one group argued, could have done such a deed. Yet most of the pious folks cannot believe this man. They ask him to explain again and again what had actually happened.
They now call the man’s parents. Out of fear they mumble, ask our son. He is of age. Yes, even the man’s parents deny him.
When the formerly blind man is again hauled before the righteous religious leaders, they now tell the man to give Glory to God, not Jesus – for he is a sinner.
All the seeing man can say is, “I only know that … I only know that I once was blind but now I see.”
In the Gospel of John, this event was considered much more than a healing miracle. It is a sign – a sign that in Jesus and his work, God is in this place. It as a sign of the Divine Will for redemption and salvation. Indeed, God is working God’s purpose out step by step as our Lord trods the sacrificial path to Jerusalem. Step by step with wonders along the way.
And we, when the most astonishing things transpire, can only say… in open-mouthed amazement — can only say, “Thanks be to God.”
What exactly happened, and how it happened we cannot rightly say. As my Methodist friends would say, “My heart was strangely warmed.”
In response, we with warm hearts respond as best we can and thank God we have breath and life, and capacity to make some meaningful response.
My friend Dick came upon a fellow just by chance, or maybe not by chance. Who knows, he can only say that… he can only say that this man was a gift of God as he lay on his cot.
Over the months Dick got to know Tom and his little dog. Dick helped Tom find a living situation that would accept his little dog. When the shelter demanded that the dog be licensed and given his shots, Dick hit me up to help foot the bill. In that way I got to know Tom and his dog.
No, the dog was not blind but now sees. But he was licensed and vaccinated. And for Tom, that was miracle enough. Tom had been on his own, no known family but that little dog. And the people who rallied around the two to keep them safe, housed and fed. Miracle enough for Tom.
Did God direct Dick to Tom in that first shelter? I only know that… a mystery. And a blessing to all involved.
Ohers would have blamed him for his shabby circumstances. Or have run Tom out of their communities. Many of our communities would not have behaved any better towards Tom and the other homeless on our city streets than had that beggar’s village regarded him. Sweep them off the streets. They’re a big inconvenience. Bad for business.
But as debilitated as he was, Tom was doing the best he able to do with his mental health issues. In and through friends of the Jesus Movement healing happened in some small way for Tom and his dog.
Such healing, call them miracles if you will, is wrought through human agency and the real stuff of creation – even spit, mud and water. Through the solid voice of compassion and encouragement.
How often have you felt that gentle nudge, that silent voice propelling you as an agent of mystery, of compassion?
During the Great Depression on many nights my grandma who lived in Lodi, CA, would set some of the supper she had made for the family out on the back porch with a ladle and paper bowls. This was for the vagrants who came through her’s and grandpa’s back alley at night hunting for any sustenance, anything useful that might have been thrown away.
She was well aware, since her husband was the postmaster of Lodi, that they were going to be okay. Unlike the many who trod that back alley.
Her hands and bowls of supper on her back porch were signs that in some small way God was in this place. You may be down-and-out, but a kind, gentle woman has remembered you. Sacrament of God’s Remembrance. A sign that in some small way God was in this place.
Under the tyranny of the ruling religious leaders and the pressure of the Roman empire, we have the story of an entire community fractured – a family, a village, a faith community.
And the only fully functioning person in this melodrama is the beggar, the one considered of no account. He speaks the truth, “All I know is that…that I once was blind but now I see.” A sign of God’s will for the healing and restoration of all creation – into a community of love.
Amid all the chaos and incompetence, the horror of masked goons dragging Americans and others off the streets. Killing with impunity on our nation’s city streets, I cannot blame those who are totally bummed out and would rather withdraw in a warm cocoon. Thankfully, we have those amongst us who are opening the eyes of an electorate gone blind.
One of these healing persons is the United Methodist Bishop, Grant Hagiya. Bishop Hagiya, now retired, is presently the president of Claremont School of Theology – my alma mater. The bishop, in his episcopal letter, gives us sound instruction on how to survive the next three years. With our souls intact.
- Focus only on that which we have control over in our lives. We can’t personally stop this insane war. We can’t stop the predations of the grifters around this president. But we can support candidates we believe in. We can make sure our friends and family vote in November. Save the date – November 3rd.
- We can take our baptismal vows seriously. Resist evil, and when you fall into the sin of complacency and accommodation, repent. Rely on the One who empowers you to resist evil and oppression.
- Speak the truth to the erasure of our history by Trump. Have the moral courage to embrace the total American journey, its glorious people of all races and nationalities that have made their contributions. Have the courage to accept open-eyed the worst we have done and been. Speak that truth to those who would whitewash our errors.
- Take time to enjoy the ordinary activities of the day, whether washing dishes, playing cards with you kids or reading them a book. Take time to enjoy a lunch with a cherished friend or making dinner. Delight in these pieces of our lives.
The bishop’s letter draws on the wisdom of a Zen monk who counsels us to look at the day’s activities as a string of beads. Some large, some small. Some eye-catching, others dull. From the broad perspective of time, all beads are equally important. They’re all pieces of our lives. Rejoice and be glad that they are given to your hands and heart. The appropriate response here is, “Thanks be to God.”
This is clear-eyed wisdom for getting through the next three years with equanimity and graciousness. And your sanity.
The Serenity Prayer is a fitting close here.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
With this calming of mind, like that ancient beggar, we can rightly say, I only know that…that God is in this place. A sign indeed! Amen
March 15, 2026
Lent 4 – Mothering Sunday
“I Only Know That…”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
1Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23;
Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
The Invitation of Living Water
One of the most foreboding places on this earth is a scorching, dry desert.
I remember my first church off the 395 Highway in Randsburg, California. Randsburg in the 1890s had been a thriving gold mining community of over 6000. More gold was taken out of the Yellow Aster Mine on the outskirts of that town than from any other mine in California.
A number of citizens of that town had banded together to build a Methodist church and from stories of the old timers — those pews for some 80 persons were mostly filled on any given Sunday.
By the time I arrived as pastor, some 80 years later the town had dwindled down to some 200 souls and the remnant congregation was comprised of 4 persons. That’s right, just 4.
My assignment was to follow up on a major bequest that had been given the church, collect the money for the denomination and then close the church.
What I soon discovered was that my predecessor had been a rather cranky personality who alienated many in that community and the other adjacent communities of Red Mountain and Johannesburg. He also hated visiting folks. He was uniquely ill-at-ease with people.
I also discovered that if I spent a couple of days a week visiting around the three towns, all about a mile apart, there were a number of folks interested in having a vital alternative to the bars and TV.
Within weeks we had a little congregation of 10, then 20-some.
When I had first arrived, besides the minute congregation – the most depressing thing was that there was no water. The water had been shut off a couple of years ago to save money.
Out in that scorching desert without water – I desperately wanted it to flow for our little group. Another new member of the church and I did the repairs to the plumbing, paid the fees and got the water flowing. The next Sunday was a real celebration. Water was the sacramental sign that the Spirit was alive in this place.
We did a lot of other things in the six years I served there: Started a senior citizen’s lunch program in the community hall in Johannesburg, started a youth group, had a church breakfast before the Sunday services began. Even built the first indoor flush toilets. Previously it had been taking your chances with the black widow spiders in the outhouse.
But I always felt that getting the water running was the sign of the real beginning. The proof that there was life in that place. That small community of faith was Living Water for those three towns.
In our lectionary readings appointed for this Sunday we have two passages where water is front and center.
In Exodus we read of the grumbling of the parched Israelites as they travel the desert wilderness under the leadership of Moses. In fact, they are at the point of mutiny, about to stone Moses. Their complaint was about the lack of water to drink.
“But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’”
The upshot was that God instructed Moses to take some elders and go to the rock at Horeb. Strike it with the staff used to strike the Nile. Moses did as told and water flowed from that rock.
Water, the precious substance of life, was the sure sign, the answer to the people’s quarrel with the Lord, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
In our passage from John, this gift of water is also life itself. What Jesus provided at the well for that Samaritan woman was Living Water, the very substance of Eternity itself. In those few moments at that well Jesus reveals her to herself at the deepest level.
With amazement she leaves her water jug and runs back to her village, summoning one and all. “Come and see.” This Living Water is Jesus himself. “Come and see.” And all in that town made their way to him. She had come upon the very substance of Life Everlasting – and her life overflowed with it as well.
“Living Water” is a metaphor – a word-symbol that connotates multiple meanings. That is its richness.
When those words become sacramental – a physical substance revealing a spiritual reality – they are just that, real.
That woman at the well experienced a profound reality in the truth Jesus revealed about her life. And in his lack of judgement, he freed her. She became a living witness to his reality. In her being that soulful exuberance was Living Water.
In this passage from John’s gospel, he is not only speaking to that woman long ago, but he’s speaking to us. As we drink deeply of what Jesus is offering, we become “Living Water.”
We live in a parched land. Hate and division are the weeds of this desert landscape. Greed and racism the tumbleweeds that are blown by an ill wind. We have a politics that feeds on it all. And billionaire grifters that profit from it.
So, where in our deepest souls do we encounter that saving “Living Water.”
One theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, identified that essential life-giving substance as Truth.
When I immerse myself in my Book of Hours, prayerbook readings for traditional times of daily prayer for each day of the week, I find myself before a Centering Reality. There I find the redeeming truth that God loves me and all of creation – that you and I are persons of worth, persons who matter, bound up together in a life-affirming mutuality.
These prayers are a needed reminder that no matter my pitiful state of mind, that’s not the final story. Yes, God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them. End of story.
These passages from scripture are Living Water.
Yesterday, in my dialysis chair I had the opportunity to watch the funeral service for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The eulogies and singing – a huge gospel choir – they were a gusher of Living Water.
Remember his signature mantra. “Keep Hope Alive. Keep Hope Alive.”
As former president Obama cautioned, in our day, given the outrages of this current administration, that’s a difficult task.
Every day we are assaulted by new disasters, new incompetencies. Lies upon lies that give the “Father of all Lies” a run for his money.
We were not going to have anymore “Forever Wars” was the pledge, yet with no congressional approval we’ve committed American forces to a debacle that is now consuming the entire Middle East. Americans are being slaughtered in our city streets by ICE thugs right out of a Gestapo play book. The planet continues to heat up and the response of White House incompetents who seem to have never read a science book is, “Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.” And fire all the people at EPA who had previously monitored the increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses. Yeah, what’s that burning smell?
All this to avoid the fallout and consequences of the Jeffrey Epstein files? All to distract us from the testimony of an underage thirteen-year-old girl who had allegedly been sexually assaulted by Trump at an Epstein party? Any FBI investigation into her story? Nothing! All swept under the rug. Nothing to see here, folks. Just move on. Just move on.
Every day a new outrage. Yes, it’s difficult under such a barrage of sewage to Keep Hope Alive.
Yet, Jackson’s memorial service was a tonic for the soul. An overflowing fountain of Living Water. A river of Gospel Goodness straight from our Lord, running down through the centuries to that church auditorium yesterday.
President Obama laid out the challenge facing the community of faith these coming days. The temptation is just to keep our heads down and hope this would all go away or pass us by.
Rev. Al Sharpton, in the midst of this debilitating chaos, gave us our assignment. Much as Jesse Jackson would hand out assignments at his rallies. Our assignment is to be that Living Water, nourishing all we lift up, all we sustain by Holy Resistance, uniting not dividing. Rev. Al gave us our commission to Keep Hope Alive in whatever small ways we can. He buoyed up our faith that Hope might flow through us.
That service was a healing balm to the souls of all who witnessed it. You can catch the entire event on MSNOW YouTube.
And so the community is gathered in around this life-enhancing Word, a bountiful spring of Living Water. We share stories of family and of hardship. Stories of grandchildren. We share stories of adventure and joy. And the stories of such legends as Jesse Jackson.
And the garden just outside our parish hall that feeds 470 persons each week with nutritious vegetables and fruit – that also is Living Water for those who come to St. John’s Food Bank every Wednesday.
We are a community of Living Water that nourishes not only the soul but our real-life neighbors in need. Those veggies are Spirit made flesh.
Here is the Living Water we thirst for in this barren desert now called America. Our assignment is to pass along those stories, to be those stories of Living Water in word and deed.
I close with a favorite story from my dear friend Dick Bunce. A story flowing with pure Grace. Living Water.
Early in the last century, a minister boarded a train and went looking for a seat. The train was crowded and he felt fortunate to land a seat. He found himself sitting next to a young man who seemed disinterested in conversation. As the train got underway, the minister saw that the young man seemed burdened and preoccupied. The minister found a way to get a light conversation started, and this led to a question to the young man about the purpose of his trip.
Somehow, the youthful man sensed that this older fellow was trustworthy and genuinely interested. So he shared his story.
A couple of years prior, while in his late teens, he had become rebellious. He wanted more freedom and pursued it in a lot of the wrong ways. One evening, when confronted by his parents, he exploded with anger and shouted over his shoulder as he strutted out that he was leaving and would not be coming back.
He held to that for two years. He hitchhiked, took odd jobs, and made no attempt to reach out to his parents.
During his self-imposed exile, he matured. One day, at long last, he sat down to write a letter – perhaps the hardest letter he’d ever attempted to write. He stated that he been wrong and that he would like to see them again. He said he’d be on the 4:30 afternoon special and gave the date.
This was the train he was on as he talked to the minister. It happened to pass the backyard of his parent’s home. By simply looking out he’d be able to get a good view of the yard.
After writing the date and time, he said to his parents that if they wanted to see him, simply hang something white on the Sycamore tree. He was quick to add that he would understand if they preferred not to see him considering how rudely and irresponsibly he had behaved.
Eventually, the train neared his old neighborhood. The minister and young man fell silent as the train rounded a wide curve that would bring the yard into view. The yard appeared. And there was something white hanging from the tree.
Oh yes! White towels, sheets, blankets, pillow cases, you name it – a blizzard of white hanging from the tree, eaves of the house, even the telephone wires.
The minister watched as this young fellow stepped off the train at the station just a mile or so from the house. As soon as he was off the train, he ran.
He ran toward the open arms of his mother and dad.
Just as, at our end, when our journey’s over, we run into the open arms of our Lord Jesus Christ – Living Water for all who thirst for something of eternity.
Amen
March 8, 2026
Lent 3
“The Invitation of Living Water”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95;
Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
