That’s how it’s done in the kingdom of heaven. |
| I grew up the youngest of four, and while none of us doubted we were loved, we didn’t always feel treated equally. My siblings still swear I got away with murder compared to them. Now I’m a parent, I can see their point. Our firstborn still carries the weight of all our expectations. Our second had a little more leeway and a little less pressure. By the time Sean came along, we’d surrendered. As Fiona and Colleen often tell us: “It isn’t fair.” And they’re right. Life isn’t fair. The playing field isn’t level. Some are born with advantages over others. Some are richer. But some are poorer. Our kids get clean water and high-speed internet; while some other kids are hoping soldiers don’t raid their village while they’re out working the fields. The world isn’t fair. As we will see from our reading today, neither is God. And for that, we should all be grateful. | “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, . . . . he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, . . . .And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? . . . Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? .. . . . |
The story Jesus tells is deceptively simple.
A landowner needs some work done, so he hires a bunch of day laborers to do the job. Some are hired at dawn, some at 9, some at noon, some at 3, and some at the eleventh hour—just before quitting time.
Nothing unusual until it’s time to hand out the paychecks. And everybody gets paid the same.
Naturally, the one’s who sweated all day are pissed off. They rightfully complain, “We worked longer. We should get more.” That seems fair, right? But the landowner shrugs: “I honored our agreement. And what I do with my money is none of your business.”
This story sounds a like free-market capitalism where the one’s with the money get to make up the rules.
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about. His parable describes the kingdom of heaven which doesn’t follow the rules of supply and demand.
This story might make us a bit uncomfortable because it forces us to question our definition of fairness. Does it align with God? Is it about getting what you deserve? Or about unconditional love and grace?
God doesn’t care what you earn, only what you need. And this unmerited grace, Jesus says, is what God’s kingdom is all about.
Henri Nouwen said it like this, “God’s love is not something to earn. It is the unconditional gift of the One who loves first, last, and always.”
If you believe that doesn’t seem fair, you’re right. God isn’t fair simply because we’re not.
That’s the scandal of this parable: It isn’t the top 1%, or the CEO, or the best closer who benefits. We all do. We all get more than our fair share of God’s extravagance and generosity.
Jesus drives this point home in his parable. He wants us to notice who gets hired last in this story. It’s not the strongest or the best. It’s the ones no one else wanted. The ignored and overlooked.
It’s not like they’re unable to do the work, they’ve been trying all day, but no one will hire them for one reason or another. When the landowner sees them, rejected and ashamed, he feels compassion for them.
He knows the rules of business: if you don’t work you don’t get paid. So he invites these workers in; offering the same wage as everyone else. He doesn’t pity them, but treats them with dignity, honoring them, erasing their shame and sorrow.
That’s how it’s done in the kingdom of heaven. Where those who’ve been last will get a taste of what it’s like to be first.
Jesus doesn’t define fairness like we tend to do. He defines it like God does. Where love and generosity refuse to leave anyone out.
Let’s step back for a second. Like we learned a couple of weeks ago in the 8 sacred moves of creation, work is a form of worship. A way to participate with God to bring a foretaste of heaven to our earthly life.
But in our world, work often becomes exploitation. Some are overworked; others can’t find work at all. And far too many live in systems that pay too little, demand too much, and leave people feeling invisible.
Into that reality, Jesus says every worker has a place in God’s vineyard. Every life is worth a living wage—whether you harvested twelve hours or one.
God isn’t concerned about who’s first on the job or who’s last. God doesn’t care where the workers are from, or how many grapes they pick. God just wants to make sure their rent gets paid, their kids get fed, their needs are met.
Jesus not only gives us a glimpse of God but shows us who he calls his followers to be. Workers who usher in the kingdom of heaven.
That’s what makes this story both comforting and challenging to us. It invites us in and insists we do the sacred work of making sure the dignity of every person is met. And that everyone gets what they need and not just what they deserve.
God doesn’t love us because of what we’ve done or what we might one day do. God loves because that’s just who God is. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been sweating since sunrise or wandered in just before dusk— God’s grace is the same. So too is God’s mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and healing.
In God’s kingdom, timing and talent don’t set the terms. One’s disadvantage, be it skin color, education, accent, nationality, or legal status doesn’t get the final word. Only God does. Nothing in God’s kingdom works like a paycheck. Love isn’t earned. Grace isn’t managed. They’re gifts. Always faithful. Always generous.
That’s what the church is meant to be. A vineyard where love is the only wage, given freely. Where everyone has a place to tend and be tended. We don’t show up to prove our worth. We come to live in God’s love. And this is where it gets messy.
Most of us want to know where we stand. We want God’s love to be measured, like wages on a timesheet. We want to know that if we put in the hours, we’ll get more than the next guy. Then grace shows up. And fairness suddenly feels like a lousy bargain.
The truth is none of us have earned a damn thing from God. No one has room to complain—because what we receive isn’t the fruit of fairness. It’s the sacred gift of grace upon grace.
So here’s the challenge. Can we actually lived as if we trust Jesus when he says God’s love is already ours? Can we trust him enough to take that to mean we can love God, love others, and serve both, without deeming who’s deserving or not?
Imagine how our relationships might shift if we remembered that at the very heart of the gospel is love. The kind of love that that refuses to judge who’s worthy. The kind of love that doesn’t exclude. But crosses every boundary and welcomes every person.
When we trust the way of Jesus to live it out faithfully, we begin to build healing communities in the space between where God’s love is the great equalizer.
Because here’s the thing: God’s vineyard isn’t out there somewhere. It’s right here, exactly where you are right now. This is where God’s love is to be made visible. And where grace gets handed out to everyone, no matter how much you need.
Yes, life isn’t fair. Neither is God. But God is faithful. And Jesus invites us to be the same.
So instead of asking, “Is it fair?” Let’s start asking, “Is it love?” Let’s stop measuring who deserves it. And start noticing who need it.
Our job isn’t to keep score. It’s to keep loving, keep forgiving, and to keep working towards a common goal … of making the kingdom of heaven come alive
Because when payday comes, God won’t be asking us to balance the books. God will ask how well we broke them open with love.
Whenever love is the measure, there are no lasts and firsts; just neighbors in a vineyard, bound together by outrageous generosity. God’s vineyard doesn’t care who has the strongest hands or works the longest hours. It honors the heart that let itself be broken open by love.
And this is kind of labor that will always outlive résumés, outlast kingdoms, and remake the world in God’s image.
A landowner needs some work done, so he hires a bunch of day laborers to do the job. Some are hired at dawn, some at 9, some at noon, some at 3, and some at the eleventh hour—just before quitting time.
Nothing unusual until it’s time to hand out the paychecks. And everybody gets paid the same.
Naturally, the one’s who sweated all day are pissed off. They rightfully complain, “We worked longer. We should get more.” That seems fair, right? But the landowner shrugs: “I honored our agreement. And what I do with my money is none of your business.”
This story sounds a like free-market capitalism where the one’s with the money get to make up the rules.
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about. His parable describes the kingdom of heaven which doesn’t follow the rules of supply and demand.
This story might make us a bit uncomfortable because it forces us to question our definition of fairness. Does it align with God? Is it about getting what you deserve? Or about unconditional love and grace?
God doesn’t care what you earn, only what you need. And this unmerited grace, Jesus says, is what God’s kingdom is all about.
Henri Nouwen said it like this, “God’s love is not something to earn. It is the unconditional gift of the One who loves first, last, and always.”
If you believe that doesn’t seem fair, you’re right. God isn’t fair simply because we’re not.
That’s the scandal of this parable: It isn’t the top 1%, or the CEO, or the best closer who benefits. We all do. We all get more than our fair share of God’s extravagance and generosity.
Jesus drives this point home in his parable. He wants us to notice who gets hired last in this story. It’s not the strongest or the best. It’s the ones no one else wanted. The ignored and overlooked.
It’s not like they’re unable to do the work, they’ve been trying all day, but no one will hire them for one reason or another. When the landowner sees them, rejected and ashamed, he feels compassion for them.
He knows the rules of business: if you don’t work you don’t get paid. So he invites these workers in; offering the same wage as everyone else. He doesn’t pity them, but treats them with dignity, honoring them, erasing their shame and sorrow.
That’s how it’s done in the kingdom of heaven. Where those who’ve been last will get a taste of what it’s like to be first.
Jesus doesn’t define fairness like we tend to do. He defines it like God does. Where love and generosity refuse to leave anyone out.
Let’s step back for a second. Like we learned a couple of weeks ago in the 8 sacred moves of creation, work is a form of worship. A way to participate with God to bring a foretaste of heaven to our earthly life.
But in our world, work often becomes exploitation. Some are overworked; others can’t find work at all. And far too many live in systems that pay too little, demand too much, and leave people feeling invisible.
Into that reality, Jesus says every worker has a place in God’s vineyard. Every life is worth a living wage—whether you harvested twelve hours or one.
God isn’t concerned about who’s first on the job or who’s last. God doesn’t care where the workers are from, or how many grapes they pick. God just wants to make sure their rent gets paid, their kids get fed, their needs are met.
Jesus not only gives us a glimpse of God but shows us who he calls his followers to be. Workers who usher in the kingdom of heaven.
That’s what makes this story both comforting and challenging to us. It invites us in and insists we do the sacred work of making sure the dignity of every person is met. And that everyone gets what they need and not just what they deserve.
God doesn’t love us because of what we’ve done or what we might one day do. God loves because that’s just who God is. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been sweating since sunrise or wandered in just before dusk— God’s grace is the same. So too is God’s mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and healing.
In God’s kingdom, timing and talent don’t set the terms. One’s disadvantage, be it skin color, education, accent, nationality, or legal status doesn’t get the final word. Only God does. Nothing in God’s kingdom works like a paycheck. Love isn’t earned. Grace isn’t managed. They’re gifts. Always faithful. Always generous.
That’s what the church is meant to be. A vineyard where love is the only wage, given freely. Where everyone has a place to tend and be tended. We don’t show up to prove our worth. We come to live in God’s love. And this is where it gets messy.
Most of us want to know where we stand. We want God’s love to be measured, like wages on a timesheet. We want to know that if we put in the hours, we’ll get more than the next guy. Then grace shows up. And fairness suddenly feels like a lousy bargain.
The truth is none of us have earned a damn thing from God. No one has room to complain—because what we receive isn’t the fruit of fairness. It’s the sacred gift of grace upon grace.
So here’s the challenge. Can we actually lived as if we trust Jesus when he says God’s love is already ours? Can we trust him enough to take that to mean we can love God, love others, and serve both, without deeming who’s deserving or not?
Imagine how our relationships might shift if we remembered that at the very heart of the gospel is love. The kind of love that that refuses to judge who’s worthy. The kind of love that doesn’t exclude. But crosses every boundary and welcomes every person.
When we trust the way of Jesus to live it out faithfully, we begin to build healing communities in the space between where God’s love is the great equalizer.
Because here’s the thing: God’s vineyard isn’t out there somewhere. It’s right here, exactly where you are right now. This is where God’s love is to be made visible. And where grace gets handed out to everyone, no matter how much you need.
Yes, life isn’t fair. Neither is God. But God is faithful. And Jesus invites us to be the same.
So instead of asking, “Is it fair?” Let’s start asking, “Is it love?” Let’s stop measuring who deserves it. And start noticing who need it.
Our job isn’t to keep score. It’s to keep loving, keep forgiving, and to keep working towards a common goal … of making the kingdom of heaven come alive
Because when payday comes, God won’t be asking us to balance the books. God will ask how well we broke them open with love.
Whenever love is the measure, there are no lasts and firsts; just neighbors in a vineyard, bound together by outrageous generosity. God’s vineyard doesn’t care who has the strongest hands or works the longest hours. It honors the heart that let itself be broken open by love.
And this is kind of labor that will always outlive résumés, outlast kingdoms, and remake the world in God’s image.
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Today, I quietly celebrated my half birthday. Yes, you read that right. Me, a grown adult—with bills to pay, kids in college, and a Costco membership—celebrating his half birthday. And you know what? It was awesome.
There was no cake, no balloons, no fuss made on my behalf (though that would’ve been nice). Just me, quietly smiling at the absurdity of being 59-and-a-half. I felt like a kid proudly announcing they’re “six and three-quarters” because every fraction counts. And it does.
Sometimes we forget that life isn’t measured only by the big milestones—birthdays, graduations, weddings, retirements. Life happens every day, in the tiny half-steps and in-between moments that make up most of our days.
Henri Nouwen nudges us with this wisdom: “Celebrate your life. Celebrate it whole, including its sorrows and pains, because it is only in the full embrace of life that you can discover the God who is in you now.”
As you may know, Anamesa means “between,” as in the space between our coming and going where God shows up. Not just at the finish line with streamers and confetti, but in every fraction of the journey we’re on. That’s a reason to celebrate!
Remember, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). This day. Today. Not the someday when we finally have it all figured out, but now.
God isn’t waiting around for your “big days” to cheer you on. God has already snuck into your morning, awaken your heart, and whispered, “Happy you-day. You’re still here. You’re still mine.” Now, it’s up to you and me to whoop it up and commemorate.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to celebrate a half birthday. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”
Cake or no cake, balloons or no balloons, God’s already throwing the party. The least we can do is show up. And at my age, I’ll take whatever reason I can get—even half a reason—to crash it.
There was no cake, no balloons, no fuss made on my behalf (though that would’ve been nice). Just me, quietly smiling at the absurdity of being 59-and-a-half. I felt like a kid proudly announcing they’re “six and three-quarters” because every fraction counts. And it does.
Sometimes we forget that life isn’t measured only by the big milestones—birthdays, graduations, weddings, retirements. Life happens every day, in the tiny half-steps and in-between moments that make up most of our days.
Henri Nouwen nudges us with this wisdom: “Celebrate your life. Celebrate it whole, including its sorrows and pains, because it is only in the full embrace of life that you can discover the God who is in you now.”
As you may know, Anamesa means “between,” as in the space between our coming and going where God shows up. Not just at the finish line with streamers and confetti, but in every fraction of the journey we’re on. That’s a reason to celebrate!
Remember, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). This day. Today. Not the someday when we finally have it all figured out, but now.
God isn’t waiting around for your “big days” to cheer you on. God has already snuck into your morning, awaken your heart, and whispered, “Happy you-day. You’re still here. You’re still mine.” Now, it’s up to you and me to whoop it up and commemorate.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to celebrate a half birthday. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”
Cake or no cake, balloons or no balloons, God’s already throwing the party. The least we can do is show up. And at my age, I’ll take whatever reason I can get—even half a reason—to crash it.
 Gustave Doré, Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden, engraving, 1865 | That’s the pattern. Life. Death. New life. Over and over. Again, and again. The entire cosmos are woven into this pattern. We are all a part of it. Including all the mess we make.This 8 Moves summer sermon series is coming to an end. For the past seven weeks we’ve been walking through the sacred movements of creation one step at a time. We began with Light, God’s first word to help us see. Then came Water, the womb of creation carrying life in every drop. From there we stepped onto Land and discovered our footing. We learned about the rhythm of Time, Life, and Work. Which was followed up last week with Rest: that holy pause between our being and doing. |
Today, we come to the final movement: Rebirth. Which might feel like it doesn’t quite belong. The other seven moves seem to push us forward, and this one seems to be taking us backwards.
But if you’d been paying attention with what’s come before, you may have noticed the rhythm of creation is circular not linear. And right here—in the space between the verses—we catch a glimpse of how God works the same way.
But if you’d been paying attention with what’s come before, you may have noticed the rhythm of creation is circular not linear. And right here—in the space between the verses—we catch a glimpse of how God works the same way.
The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “See, the humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now they might reach out their hands and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever”--therefore the Lord God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken. He drove out the humans, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:20-24
Even if you've never step foot in a church or religious institution, there's a good chance you already know how the story goes. Snake. Fruit. Innocence lost. Ancestors shown the door. Behind them, the gates of paradise swing shut. Yet woven into their grief something is happening.
It's not an ending but a new beginning.
I’m sure that’s not what you were taught in this story. The typical Sunday school point of view is: two people eating in a garden doomed the whole human race. Well, that’s always been a hard sell for me. And maybe you too.
Does God really hate us that much? I believe the answer is a hard, "No." I think this is true because this story isn’t about us. It’s about God. It's always about God. And about what God can do—even with the stupid things we so often find ourselves doing.
I think that's exactly what's happening here. Right on the edge of exile, creation starts over. Humans don’t get the boot, but a reboot. The first of many gracious mulligans we are given. Notice what happened. God doesn’t condemn the two, striking them dead for their naughty behavior. No. Instead of killing them, God makes clothes for them and gives them a new purpose.
As St. Ephrem said, “Even when God closed the garden, God opened the womb of mercy.”
The Bible is considered in most religious circles as the Divine Revelation of God. It also seems very apparent that it's the story of a Creator who never gives up on creation. It’s one long tale of God re-planting, re-seeding, re-making things, over and over again.
The first action begins in a garden. And it culminates in a garden "where there is no need for sun and moon for the glory of God is its light" (Rev. 21:23).
From Genesis to Revelations, this resurrection pattern echoes throughout Scripture. Life out of loss. Beginnings hidden in endings. New life out of death. In the center of the story, is Jesus who was arrested in a garden, and after he was put to death, rises in another garden on Easter morning, where he’s mistaken—rightly—as the Gardener of a new creation.
The gates of Eden may have shut. But God makes it very clear that the future remains open.
So let’s not be too quick to assume exile is punishment from an angry God. It seems to me to be the doorway into the rest of the world. A gentle push into a new kind of life. With Christ as the centerpiece.
Yes, there will be thorns to navigate. Wild rivers to cross. And steep mountains to climb. Because struggle is part of creation’s blueprint. But so too is the circular rhythm of God’s mercy and grace.
This story clears the ground for new chances—to build, to grow, to find God in unexpected ways. Ways that stretch our faith, deepen our love, and sharpen our presence.
Sometimes the only way to find God, or ourself, is to be forced to start again.
We started this year with a horrific fire that reduced neighborhoods to ash. Left hillsides black and barren. And left thousands of people with nothing.
Eight months later, wildflowers are blooming. Homes are being rebuilt. Businesses up and running again. Rebirth. New life. New communities rising from the ashes.
I think this is what’s happening in Genesis 3. Out of the ashes of Eden, God plants the future. Out of exile, God is writing the story that points us towards eternity, toward the rhythm of God’s heart. Rebirth is not the erasing of the past. It’s God taking from our ashes to grow something new and everlasting.
In John’s gospel we meet a religious leader named Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus with questions about eternal life. Jesus tells him, “You must be reborn.” But Nicodemus can’t compute. “How can anyone be born when they’re old?”
Jesus isn’t talking biology. He’s talking baptism of the Spirit. A new birth not of the body, but of the heart. It’s not about squeezing back into our mother’s womb or polishing up the old self. It’s about being transformed from the inside out. Shedding old wounds and tired scripts. And stepping into a new identity rooted in God’s love, grace and hope.
Jesus basically tells him, “If you want to see heaven, let go of the things that keep you in hell.”
When a rich young ruler asks the same question, Jesus tells him, “Sell what you own. Give the money to the poor.” In other words: if you want new life, stop clinging to the old one that keeps you from being reborn.
Jesus understood this as losing his human ego and embracing his Christ self or Christ consciousness. The power of God making all things new. Paul says it plainly: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Christ is the catalyst throughout creation for rebirth. Which also leads me to believe resurrection isn’t limited to Jesus. It wasn't a one and done kind of event, but an ongoing process which Richard Rohr calls, “the shape of reality itself.” He argues, God built resurrection into the DNA of creation. We were made to be reborn. And so is everything God creates. I think even scientists agrees with this premise.
Biologists will tell you a tree never really dies. It decomposes, becomes the soil, to give birth to something new. Astrophysicists remind us that the cosmos began with a bang—stars exploding, and from their death came Earth, and life.
That’s the pattern. Life. Death. New life. Over and over. Again, and again. The entire cosmos are woven into this pattern. We are all a part of it. Including all the mess we make.
God turns our failures and losses, into compost for a new garden. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost.
This eighth movement returns us to the beginning as God’s Spirit breathes us back to life, restoring the first blessing planted the first garden created in each one of us. New light, new life, new purpose. That’s the power of God, who through Christ never gives up on us.
I know a guy who’s battled addiction most of his life. Every relapse was like another exile from Eden. The guilt and shame only caused him to use again. That was the cycle. Until grace showed up.
Through a recovery community of love, he discovered God wasn’t keeping score, but pulling him out of the grave he’d dug for himself. And each time, breathing life back in him. That’s rebirth. God sneaking new life into places we thought were dead, or closed for good.
I mention his story because rebirth isn’t just personal. It’s also communal. It’s a “takes a village” kind of action. Jesus doesn’t rise from the dead and take off for the hills. He goes straight to his friends. He speaks peace into their fear. Breathes the Spirit upon them. And then sends them out.
We are resurrection people, a community of rebirth. Sent to plant hope in scorched places. To breathe peace where there’s chaos. To keep reminding each other that God can make all things new.
Anamesa is a sign of what God can do. Two churches stitched together in the space between. Every week this spirit is reborn. Likewise, every day a do over, a new opportunity to re-enter the rhythm of God’s sacred love. And to carry that love forward to those hurt and broken places.
Every move we’ve explored has been pointing here. To love. God’s love for us. Our love for God. Our love for one another. Love that takes chaos and turns it into creation. Love that takes dust and turns it into humanity. Love that turns death into life.
Thus, love is never a solo act. It’s always happening, all around us and through us, in the space between. Between you and me, us and them. Between forgiving and forgiveness. Healing and being healed.
This is where love takes root. And the 8 Moves become the building blocks to a community of love—where together we become God’s Garden. God’s dwelling place. God’s sign of new creation in the world.
Yes, Genesis 3 may look like the end. But it’s the beginning of the story that finds its fullness in Christ.
From Eden to Easter to Anamesa and all the spaces in between, the rhythm is always the same: God’s great love makes all things new.
It's not an ending but a new beginning.
I’m sure that’s not what you were taught in this story. The typical Sunday school point of view is: two people eating in a garden doomed the whole human race. Well, that’s always been a hard sell for me. And maybe you too.
Does God really hate us that much? I believe the answer is a hard, "No." I think this is true because this story isn’t about us. It’s about God. It's always about God. And about what God can do—even with the stupid things we so often find ourselves doing.
I think that's exactly what's happening here. Right on the edge of exile, creation starts over. Humans don’t get the boot, but a reboot. The first of many gracious mulligans we are given. Notice what happened. God doesn’t condemn the two, striking them dead for their naughty behavior. No. Instead of killing them, God makes clothes for them and gives them a new purpose.
As St. Ephrem said, “Even when God closed the garden, God opened the womb of mercy.”
The Bible is considered in most religious circles as the Divine Revelation of God. It also seems very apparent that it's the story of a Creator who never gives up on creation. It’s one long tale of God re-planting, re-seeding, re-making things, over and over again.
The first action begins in a garden. And it culminates in a garden "where there is no need for sun and moon for the glory of God is its light" (Rev. 21:23).
From Genesis to Revelations, this resurrection pattern echoes throughout Scripture. Life out of loss. Beginnings hidden in endings. New life out of death. In the center of the story, is Jesus who was arrested in a garden, and after he was put to death, rises in another garden on Easter morning, where he’s mistaken—rightly—as the Gardener of a new creation.
The gates of Eden may have shut. But God makes it very clear that the future remains open.
So let’s not be too quick to assume exile is punishment from an angry God. It seems to me to be the doorway into the rest of the world. A gentle push into a new kind of life. With Christ as the centerpiece.
Yes, there will be thorns to navigate. Wild rivers to cross. And steep mountains to climb. Because struggle is part of creation’s blueprint. But so too is the circular rhythm of God’s mercy and grace.
This story clears the ground for new chances—to build, to grow, to find God in unexpected ways. Ways that stretch our faith, deepen our love, and sharpen our presence.
Sometimes the only way to find God, or ourself, is to be forced to start again.
We started this year with a horrific fire that reduced neighborhoods to ash. Left hillsides black and barren. And left thousands of people with nothing.
Eight months later, wildflowers are blooming. Homes are being rebuilt. Businesses up and running again. Rebirth. New life. New communities rising from the ashes.
I think this is what’s happening in Genesis 3. Out of the ashes of Eden, God plants the future. Out of exile, God is writing the story that points us towards eternity, toward the rhythm of God’s heart. Rebirth is not the erasing of the past. It’s God taking from our ashes to grow something new and everlasting.
In John’s gospel we meet a religious leader named Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus with questions about eternal life. Jesus tells him, “You must be reborn.” But Nicodemus can’t compute. “How can anyone be born when they’re old?”
Jesus isn’t talking biology. He’s talking baptism of the Spirit. A new birth not of the body, but of the heart. It’s not about squeezing back into our mother’s womb or polishing up the old self. It’s about being transformed from the inside out. Shedding old wounds and tired scripts. And stepping into a new identity rooted in God’s love, grace and hope.
Jesus basically tells him, “If you want to see heaven, let go of the things that keep you in hell.”
When a rich young ruler asks the same question, Jesus tells him, “Sell what you own. Give the money to the poor.” In other words: if you want new life, stop clinging to the old one that keeps you from being reborn.
Jesus understood this as losing his human ego and embracing his Christ self or Christ consciousness. The power of God making all things new. Paul says it plainly: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Christ is the catalyst throughout creation for rebirth. Which also leads me to believe resurrection isn’t limited to Jesus. It wasn't a one and done kind of event, but an ongoing process which Richard Rohr calls, “the shape of reality itself.” He argues, God built resurrection into the DNA of creation. We were made to be reborn. And so is everything God creates. I think even scientists agrees with this premise.
Biologists will tell you a tree never really dies. It decomposes, becomes the soil, to give birth to something new. Astrophysicists remind us that the cosmos began with a bang—stars exploding, and from their death came Earth, and life.
That’s the pattern. Life. Death. New life. Over and over. Again, and again. The entire cosmos are woven into this pattern. We are all a part of it. Including all the mess we make.
God turns our failures and losses, into compost for a new garden. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost.
This eighth movement returns us to the beginning as God’s Spirit breathes us back to life, restoring the first blessing planted the first garden created in each one of us. New light, new life, new purpose. That’s the power of God, who through Christ never gives up on us.
I know a guy who’s battled addiction most of his life. Every relapse was like another exile from Eden. The guilt and shame only caused him to use again. That was the cycle. Until grace showed up.
Through a recovery community of love, he discovered God wasn’t keeping score, but pulling him out of the grave he’d dug for himself. And each time, breathing life back in him. That’s rebirth. God sneaking new life into places we thought were dead, or closed for good.
I mention his story because rebirth isn’t just personal. It’s also communal. It’s a “takes a village” kind of action. Jesus doesn’t rise from the dead and take off for the hills. He goes straight to his friends. He speaks peace into their fear. Breathes the Spirit upon them. And then sends them out.
We are resurrection people, a community of rebirth. Sent to plant hope in scorched places. To breathe peace where there’s chaos. To keep reminding each other that God can make all things new.
Anamesa is a sign of what God can do. Two churches stitched together in the space between. Every week this spirit is reborn. Likewise, every day a do over, a new opportunity to re-enter the rhythm of God’s sacred love. And to carry that love forward to those hurt and broken places.
Every move we’ve explored has been pointing here. To love. God’s love for us. Our love for God. Our love for one another. Love that takes chaos and turns it into creation. Love that takes dust and turns it into humanity. Love that turns death into life.
Thus, love is never a solo act. It’s always happening, all around us and through us, in the space between. Between you and me, us and them. Between forgiving and forgiveness. Healing and being healed.
This is where love takes root. And the 8 Moves become the building blocks to a community of love—where together we become God’s Garden. God’s dwelling place. God’s sign of new creation in the world.
Yes, Genesis 3 may look like the end. But it’s the beginning of the story that finds its fullness in Christ.
From Eden to Easter to Anamesa and all the spaces in between, the rhythm is always the same: God’s great love makes all things new.
Jesus reminds us that Sabbath rest isn't meant to be a burden. It is a gift from God—woven into creation for our refreshment, renewal, and reconnection with the Divine. | I’d like to begin with a very quick survey. Do you think Sunday is the beginning of the week, or the end? I’m curious of what you think because last Sunday, after everyone went home, I settled onto the couch to upload my message to my blog. But the moment I sat down, my head found a pillow, and before I knew it, I was out cold. I wasn’t just tired—I was spent. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually drained. It was like my body staged a quiet mutiny, vetoing every plan I had made for the rest of the day. Was it the end of a long week that caused me to crash? That’s certainly possible. Or was my nap pointing to something else? |
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been walking through the 8 Sacred Moves of Creation. Light, Water, Land, Time, Life, and Work. Each one pulling us into God’s rhythm of love.
Today, we come to the seventh move: Rest. As we will see, rest isn’t something we stumble into at the end of a long week. It’s a spiritual practice woven into the very DNA of creation from the beginning. Here's what the story tells us:
Today, we come to the seventh move: Rest. As we will see, rest isn’t something we stumble into at the end of a long week. It’s a spiritual practice woven into the very DNA of creation from the beginning. Here's what the story tells us:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. On the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. Genesis 2:1-4 |
We all love a good lazy day. So why do we feel the need to pack every waking moment with busyness? Like I said a couple of weeks ago, humans are the only creatures that wake up with a to-do list.
I think even science would agree with scripture that says rest was built into creation. Trees drop their leaves for a season. Bears hibernate. Even the seas pause daily to recalibrate. Our human bodies know this rhythm. Our heart rest between beats, lungs between breaths. Yet we keep running until our bodies break and our souls fray.
Why is that? Why do we brag about being on call 24/7? Or admire those who are the first at work and the last to leave?
Americans suck at this work life balance thing. We choose to measure our worth by our productivity instead of our presence. Not only is that bad for our bodies it quickly wears down our minds and our spirits.
Ignore it long enough, and your body will take matters into its own hands, knocking you out right in the middle of your over planned agenda. But like Anne Lamott believes, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
As we see in our reading, true rest isn’t just taking a break. It’s a sacred rhythm for renewal. How we reconnect to God, not the grind. Genesis says God finished all the work and rested “blessing the seventh day and making it holy.”
The Hebrew word used here for rest is shavat—often translated as Sabbath. It’s a verb that doesn’t mean collapsing from exhaustion. It means wholeness, completion, perfection.
God steps back, delights in what has been made, and calls it whole. As Glen McWherter, the creator of the 8 Moves, points out, “Without rest, the work is incomplete.”
And so, Sabbath rest is the first thing Scripture calls “holy.” The day God personally blesses and sets aside for us to teach us the rhythm of life: creating and ceasing; doing and delighting.
This might explain to us why Sabbath makes it into God's Top Ten List of commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy...” (Ex. 20:8) But, again, how well are we doing to honor this? What would our day planner reveal?
It's probably a safe bet to say you've heard someone say, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself. I know my wife has never said it. She practices the power of sleeping in.
I like to think it's not because she's lazy (she's not) but because she knows this commandment isn’t saying rest is optional. Instead it's mandatory. It’s how we remain faithful to God’s covenant with us.
The fourth commandment acknowledges that time belongs to the One who created it. So how we manage it matters.
When critics challenged the disciples for plucking grain on the Sabbath, Jesus shot back, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
Here Jesus is reminding us that Sabbath rest isn't meant to be a burden. It is a gift from God—woven into creation for our refreshment, renewal, and reconnection with the Divine.
Again, Sabbath is about restoration, completion, wholeness. It’s why Jesus healed on the Sabbath…making people whole again, and communities complete.
The same fullness that God declared on the seventh day and called good Jesus offers to us wherever and whenever we need it.
He says, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). He knows the work of love asks a lot from us. That it requires us to withdraw and recharge if we’re going to practice the way of Jesus. Love is hard. Loving the kind of folks Jesus calls us to love is even harder.
Again, he says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… for your souls” (Matt. 11:28). This is Sabbath language. A deep, holy pause born from the heart of God.
Jesus' critics missed this point. Sabbath isn't a prohibition. It’s restoration offered to the weary and the overworked, to the anxious and the overburdened, to you and me. It's an invitation to dwell in the Divine stillness that quiets the body, clears the mind, and heals the soul so we can love God, love others and serve both.
We need physical rest because our bodies aren’t machines. Chronic busyness will wear us down. God even told Israel to let the land rest every seventh year to remind us life doesn’t hinge on our endless output. But on God’s loving grace.
We also need mental rest because our minds are overloaded. The noise is only getting louder, more distracting, and more divisive. How many things have already distracted you today that have drawn you away from the presence of God instead of closer to it? Sabbath quiets the noise, so we can be fully present to faithfully love and serve with clarity and joy.
Lastly, we need spiritual rest to help us remember who we are: A beloved creation made in the image of our great Creator. If God can rest, so can we.
So to everyone who wears their busyness like a badge of honor, I want you to imagine your cellphone for a moment. Think about how it works tirelessly—processing, connecting, entertaining. Yet, no matter how hard it works, how technologically advanced it is, it’s completely useless if the battery is dead.
The command to rest is God’s way of saying, “Plug yourself into me.” God not only recharges your battery. But redeems and renews your perspective, trust, wholeness.
So the way I see it, Sabbath rest isn’t a reward for a productive week. It’s the foundation for having one. And this holy reset is a foretaste of eternity God’s own rhythm doesn’t measure our worth by productivity, but by our heart’s presence.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which you can distance yourself from your own activities enough to see what God is doing.”
When we stop striving, we start seeing. We notice the tired eyes and the quiet ache in those we’ve rushed past all week. Rest turns down the noise so love can speak up.
Henri Nouwen said it like this: “We are called to rest not simply to recover, but to remember who we are: God’s beloved, called to make that love visible in the world.”
And that’s the point—not just to recharge, but to reconnect. To trust that in God’s economy, love is the only measurement of a faithful life well-lived. And to love is to be present together.
So let’s just slow down and reset our priorities. Let’s put the phone on the charger and step away from it, allowing our souls catch up to our bodies.
Let’s walk slowly through the noise. And re-engage with the rhythm of life built into our DNA.
Even if it’s only an hour, let that time be spent doing the most Sabbath thing you can—sharing presence with each other. Become the space where anyone can find rest and restoration in your presence.
Because when we rest together, we begin to remember together: who we are. And what we’re here for. We are God’s beloved, building a community of love together in the space between, where grace is the currency and love is the map to God’s holy heart.
So, let’s begin each week, not with an agenda but with rest.
As we reconnect with all of creation and find peace in the tender arms of God who sings:
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Work Cited
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 135.
Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (New York: Anchor Books, 1993), 225.
Paraphrase inspired by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World (New York: Crossroad, 1992).
Whether it’s in a hospital, warehouse, surf shop, classroom, office building or kitchen, let your work be your prayer. And let your prayer be love. Vincent Van Gogh, Ladies of Aries, 1888 | When Kathleen and I started dating, I decided to take a year off from work to experience retirement while I was young enough to enjoy it. I figured after 20 years paying taxes, sometimes working two or three jobs at a time, I’d earned the break. But I was raised with a strong work ethic. So, my retirement was more like a sabbatical. And barely even that. Before long, I found myself stuck in traffic, commuting to another office, to work another shift in the daily grind of life. |
Whether you love your job or not, there’s always work to be done. Somebody’s got to pick up the trash, open the grocery stores, fix the brakes, or write another ad to sell more stuff.
But before AI changes all that, let’s work our way through the 6th sacred move of creation, where we find ourselves in a garden. Once again, God speaks. And our efforts are given both purpose and eternal significance.
But before AI changes all that, let’s work our way through the 6th sacred move of creation, where we find ourselves in a garden. Once again, God speaks. And our efforts are given both purpose and eternal significance.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” Genesis 2:15-18 |
The story moves from God creating stuff, to us doing stuff. But let's not be too quick to write this off as a story about a guy named Adam. It’s way more than that. In the original Hebrew, ha’adam, which is translated as Adam, isn’t a proper name. It doesn’t even mean “man” as in male (that’s ish). It comes from the word adamah, meaning earth or soil. In the most literal sense, Adam (ha'adam) means earthling or a thing made from earth.
This should be a quick clue that God didn’t just employ some guy to do all the gardening. God hired all of us.
More importantly, this work we’re called to do—cultivating, tending, caring—isn’t just about productivity. It’s our identity. From the very beginning, it seems the goal and our main purpose in life is about caring and nurturing both the soil and all the things that come from it.
Each week, as we move through the sacred rhythms, we learned everything God created, God called good. In fact, the only thing that isn’t good is isolation. God said, “It’s not good for this earthling to be alone.”
So, God creates an ezer—a helper. This helper is named Eve, which means “life.” Now, don’t let the word “helper” fool you because ezer isn’t a subordinate or secretary. It’s the same word scripture uses to describe God. It means strength. Support. Rescue. Eve doesn’t work for Adam. She’s his strength, his savior. A co-equal partner.
In my advertising days, I always worked with someone. I was the writer; they were the art director. The reason behind this was simple. The best concepts happened through collaboration, building off one another’s ideas.
But when I started this house church, it was just me. I was working in a vacuum, with a limited perspective.
Everything changed when I partnered with Rev. Dawn and Rev. Bob. Practically, our merger cutout redundancy and saved us all time. But spiritually it increased our capacity to think above and beyond what we had been doing individually.
Today, we continue to work side-by-side for something greater than we could ever build on our own.
I think this is what the text is telling us. Not only are we made of the very stuff we’re asked to care for. But we are made to care for it together— in a holy and sacred partnership.
In his 8 Moves devotional, Glen McWherter illustrates this by pointing to honeybees. Some gather nectar, others build the honeycomb, or tend the young. Every task, big or small, helps the colony thrive. Your work may feel small or unseen, but when it serves a greater purpose, it becomes meaningful and lasting.
Jesus didn’t fly solo. He called others to join him. Fishermen. Tax collectors. Women with pasts. People with no pedigree, or anything to prove.
Then again, Jesus wasn’t building an empire and crowning himself king. He was building an enduring community … where everyone had a seat at the table—no matter who you were, where you were from, or how others saw you.
In Jesus, God isn’t some distant deity but a laborer among us. A carpenter, who doesn’t throw out the blueprint from Eden—but fulfills it. Jesus doesn’t dominate. But lowers himself to redeem and restore others. He serves, heals, protects, cultivates, and loves. More than a job description—it’s a way of life.
If that’s what Jesus does for a living, … shouldn’t that be what we do as well? Before you answer that question, remember this work doesn’t come with a fancy title. It comes with a towel to wash tired feet. And a cross to carry on our back.
This is both physical and spiritual labor. The quiet, unseen work of showing up with your heart wide open. Of being fully present even when you’re worn thin. Of offering help in spite of your own heart aching.
It’s the kind of work that doesn’t make headlines. It changes lives. The the kind of labor that turns strangers into neighbors, and neighbors into family.
This is a spiritual practice Henri Nouwen understood well. Nouwen left a tenured job at Harvard and moved into LA Arche, a community that cares for adults with disabilities. It wasn’t prestigious work like he was used to. But it was gospel.
Nouwen tended to God’s garden through a thousand small, faithful acts of love. Out of which his life, and the lives of countless others would be changed forever.
Which is exactly what Jesus employs us to do. Not every job he gives us will feel like a dream. Some days are painfully repetitive. Some roles will feel disconnected from your gifts. But even in those long, frustrating seasons, God is working, loving, and tending to each one of us—transforming you and me… from the inside out.
Because in the end, work is never just about what we produce. It’s about who we are becoming in the process.
Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century monk who was assigned to kitchen duty at the monastery—a job he deeply loathed. He spent his days scrubbing pots, stirring soup, cleaning up after his brothers. It was repetitive, tiresome work that left him bitter.
His anger and frustration caused him to question God’s presence in his life. And then, something changed.
One day, while washing the pots and pans, Brother Lawrence thought if God was really with him, then that meant God was in the kitchen too. In the sink, on the stove, in the middle of serving meals. Almost immediately, that space changed how he saw it.
The kitchen became a sanctuary. Chopping vegetables became hymns. Washing dishes became worship.
Brother Lawrence wrote, “the time of business does not differ from the time of prayer.” His work reminds us that whenever we do something with love, even the most ordinary task can become holy and sacred.
As our friend Glen, reminds us: “Let your work, however ordinary, reflect the extraordinary love of Christ…When you labor in love, you become part of something bigger than any job title or task list.”
Paul said like this: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Christ Jesus, giving thanks to God through him” (Colossians 3:17).
What does that say about the work you’re doing? Brother Lawrence peeled potatoes with God. Henri Nouwen changed diapers with Christ. Jesus built tables and bridges—between friends and foes.
Whether it’s in a hospital, warehouse, surf shop, classroom, office building or kitchen, let your work be your prayer. And let your prayer be love.
Let your life be the labor of Christ—a living reminder of God’s gracious glory among us.
Because when we show up wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we become part of something bigger than a paycheck. We become builders of a community of love in the space between. A people who dare to love God, love others and serve both.
This is the way of Jesus, who invites us to work alongside him… healing, caring, cultivating all of creation. You don’t have to be a professional to do this work. You just have to be present. Someone willing to show up for others, creating a safer space where love is practiced, not just preached.
This week, as you go to work, or look for work, let everything you do—however ordinary it may seem—be part of the extraordinary life that God has created. Let your labor sow seeds of grace in the lives of others. And trust: the harvest will come.
Because this is where God has placed us, and anointed us with the Holy Spirit, “to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives…to set the oppressed free…”
Let’s go into this space together, carrying the gospel in our very skin so our love can be made visible. And the world will know that God is here. In the kitchens and classrooms, offices and workshops, sidewalks and living rooms making the space between us holy and sacred as heaven and earth become a perfect garden once more.
This should be a quick clue that God didn’t just employ some guy to do all the gardening. God hired all of us.
More importantly, this work we’re called to do—cultivating, tending, caring—isn’t just about productivity. It’s our identity. From the very beginning, it seems the goal and our main purpose in life is about caring and nurturing both the soil and all the things that come from it.
Each week, as we move through the sacred rhythms, we learned everything God created, God called good. In fact, the only thing that isn’t good is isolation. God said, “It’s not good for this earthling to be alone.”
So, God creates an ezer—a helper. This helper is named Eve, which means “life.” Now, don’t let the word “helper” fool you because ezer isn’t a subordinate or secretary. It’s the same word scripture uses to describe God. It means strength. Support. Rescue. Eve doesn’t work for Adam. She’s his strength, his savior. A co-equal partner.
In my advertising days, I always worked with someone. I was the writer; they were the art director. The reason behind this was simple. The best concepts happened through collaboration, building off one another’s ideas.
But when I started this house church, it was just me. I was working in a vacuum, with a limited perspective.
Everything changed when I partnered with Rev. Dawn and Rev. Bob. Practically, our merger cutout redundancy and saved us all time. But spiritually it increased our capacity to think above and beyond what we had been doing individually.
Today, we continue to work side-by-side for something greater than we could ever build on our own.
I think this is what the text is telling us. Not only are we made of the very stuff we’re asked to care for. But we are made to care for it together— in a holy and sacred partnership.
In his 8 Moves devotional, Glen McWherter illustrates this by pointing to honeybees. Some gather nectar, others build the honeycomb, or tend the young. Every task, big or small, helps the colony thrive. Your work may feel small or unseen, but when it serves a greater purpose, it becomes meaningful and lasting.
Jesus didn’t fly solo. He called others to join him. Fishermen. Tax collectors. Women with pasts. People with no pedigree, or anything to prove.
Then again, Jesus wasn’t building an empire and crowning himself king. He was building an enduring community … where everyone had a seat at the table—no matter who you were, where you were from, or how others saw you.
In Jesus, God isn’t some distant deity but a laborer among us. A carpenter, who doesn’t throw out the blueprint from Eden—but fulfills it. Jesus doesn’t dominate. But lowers himself to redeem and restore others. He serves, heals, protects, cultivates, and loves. More than a job description—it’s a way of life.
If that’s what Jesus does for a living, … shouldn’t that be what we do as well? Before you answer that question, remember this work doesn’t come with a fancy title. It comes with a towel to wash tired feet. And a cross to carry on our back.
This is both physical and spiritual labor. The quiet, unseen work of showing up with your heart wide open. Of being fully present even when you’re worn thin. Of offering help in spite of your own heart aching.
It’s the kind of work that doesn’t make headlines. It changes lives. The the kind of labor that turns strangers into neighbors, and neighbors into family.
This is a spiritual practice Henri Nouwen understood well. Nouwen left a tenured job at Harvard and moved into LA Arche, a community that cares for adults with disabilities. It wasn’t prestigious work like he was used to. But it was gospel.
Nouwen tended to God’s garden through a thousand small, faithful acts of love. Out of which his life, and the lives of countless others would be changed forever.
Which is exactly what Jesus employs us to do. Not every job he gives us will feel like a dream. Some days are painfully repetitive. Some roles will feel disconnected from your gifts. But even in those long, frustrating seasons, God is working, loving, and tending to each one of us—transforming you and me… from the inside out.
Because in the end, work is never just about what we produce. It’s about who we are becoming in the process.
Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century monk who was assigned to kitchen duty at the monastery—a job he deeply loathed. He spent his days scrubbing pots, stirring soup, cleaning up after his brothers. It was repetitive, tiresome work that left him bitter.
His anger and frustration caused him to question God’s presence in his life. And then, something changed.
One day, while washing the pots and pans, Brother Lawrence thought if God was really with him, then that meant God was in the kitchen too. In the sink, on the stove, in the middle of serving meals. Almost immediately, that space changed how he saw it.
The kitchen became a sanctuary. Chopping vegetables became hymns. Washing dishes became worship.
Brother Lawrence wrote, “the time of business does not differ from the time of prayer.” His work reminds us that whenever we do something with love, even the most ordinary task can become holy and sacred.
As our friend Glen, reminds us: “Let your work, however ordinary, reflect the extraordinary love of Christ…When you labor in love, you become part of something bigger than any job title or task list.”
Paul said like this: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Christ Jesus, giving thanks to God through him” (Colossians 3:17).
What does that say about the work you’re doing? Brother Lawrence peeled potatoes with God. Henri Nouwen changed diapers with Christ. Jesus built tables and bridges—between friends and foes.
Whether it’s in a hospital, warehouse, surf shop, classroom, office building or kitchen, let your work be your prayer. And let your prayer be love.
Let your life be the labor of Christ—a living reminder of God’s gracious glory among us.
Because when we show up wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we become part of something bigger than a paycheck. We become builders of a community of love in the space between. A people who dare to love God, love others and serve both.
This is the way of Jesus, who invites us to work alongside him… healing, caring, cultivating all of creation. You don’t have to be a professional to do this work. You just have to be present. Someone willing to show up for others, creating a safer space where love is practiced, not just preached.
This week, as you go to work, or look for work, let everything you do—however ordinary it may seem—be part of the extraordinary life that God has created. Let your labor sow seeds of grace in the lives of others. And trust: the harvest will come.
Because this is where God has placed us, and anointed us with the Holy Spirit, “to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives…to set the oppressed free…”
Let’s go into this space together, carrying the gospel in our very skin so our love can be made visible. And the world will know that God is here. In the kitchens and classrooms, offices and workshops, sidewalks and living rooms making the space between us holy and sacred as heaven and earth become a perfect garden once more.
 | Every time we inhale, we breath in divine wisdom, spark holy imagination, and enter a rhythm of love that moves with the Spirit of God.As I was looking over the text for today, I thought of an old friend, Nick Spooner, my first partner in Adverting. Nick was an out of the box kind of thinker. But his most creative work wasn’t at the office, but in his garage, where he’d spend a lot of late nights sculpting these weird, playful characters out of plasticine. |
He had hundreds of them in some stage of completion. This was how Nick freed his imagination, and let his mind wonder and play—giving life to something that didn’t exist before.
If you’ve been journeying with us through the 8 Sacred Moves, you might see where this is going. In both creation stories, there’s a kind of divine playfulness at work—dust and breath, form and spirit.
I imagine God —like Nick in his studio—shaping and reshaping, smiling and loving creation into being. Including each and every one of us.
Now to recap, Genesis begins with God’s Spirit hovering over the chaos. Then God speaks and order appears. In the first three days, God shapes the space into land, seas, sky. And then on days four through six, God fills that space with stuff, like plants, animals, and us.
Which brings us to the fifth sacred movement of creation: Life as we know it.
If you’ve been journeying with us through the 8 Sacred Moves, you might see where this is going. In both creation stories, there’s a kind of divine playfulness at work—dust and breath, form and spirit.
I imagine God —like Nick in his studio—shaping and reshaping, smiling and loving creation into being. Including each and every one of us.
Now to recap, Genesis begins with God’s Spirit hovering over the chaos. Then God speaks and order appears. In the first three days, God shapes the space into land, seas, sky. And then on days four through six, God fills that space with stuff, like plants, animals, and us.
Which brings us to the fifth sacred movement of creation: Life as we know it.
. . . . then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:7-9 |
I want to begin with a quote from Origen, one of the early church fathers, who said, “When God breathed life into humanity, that breath became reason, wisdom, and the capacity to love.”
I like that. It reminds me of who we are and what we’re made of.
Science has calculated that humans take about 20,000 breaths a day. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. From a spiritual perspective, this is the rhythm of time God sets into motion. I bring this up because breathing happens naturally, so much so we rarely give it a second thought.
Which is both good and bad. Good because it means we’re alive, we have a pulse, a working heartbeat. But when we stop paying attention, we miss what’s holy about it. Every time we inhale, we breath in divine wisdom, spark holy imagination, and enter a rhythm of love that moves with the Spirit of God.
You might remember the Hebrew word for breath is ruach. It’s a word with multiple meanings: Spirit, wind, life-force. It’s the same ruach that hovered over the waters in Genesis.
The same wind that woke up the prophets and ignited the church! The same Spirit Jesus promised would never leave us. This is God’s first breath, still swirling and creating life out of chaos.
More than just oxygen—it’s God’s holy, silent presence that is always with us. Which is why we want to pay attention to our breathing.
As the poet Rumi wrote: “There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
That voice speaks in the sacred pause between inhale and exhale saying, “You are no longer stardust. You are my beloved creation.”
Every breath we take is a reminder that we too are sacred, made from love for love. So what we do with our life—from our first breath to our last—matters.
Which takes us to Jesus, who used his life to restore ours; bringing us back into the rhythm of breathing and belonging. When he says, “I came so you can have life, and have it abundantly,” (John 10:10) he’s inviting us back to the life God imagined: A life of presence, healing, and love. The gospels are filled with stories that show us this.
Take the story of an unnamed woman, who’s been bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:25-34). In that world, her condition meant more than physical suffering. She’s been labeled unclean. Untouchable. She can’t go to the market, show up to worship, be held, or experience intimacy. She’s a ghost in her own community.
When she hears Jesus is near, she’s so desperate to be healed that she breaks laws and traditions. Pushing through a crowd of men who have avoided her for years… just to touch the hem of his cloak. When she does—she’s healed.
Mark tells us that Jesus feels power leave him, and stops to look for the person everyone else tries not to see. When she comes forward, trembling, Jesus doesn’t use his breath to shame her. Instead, he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Jesus makes this public announcement, not to draw attention to himself. He does it to restore her identity and belonging. He lets the others know she has been healed so she’s no longer invisible and untouchable—and is welcomed home.
Because that’s what the Spirit of love does. It breathes outward—toward healing, toward connection, toward community.
Every time we exhale this Spirit, someone else is able to breathe it in. That’s the sacred rhythm of life that we often overlook. It’s not just about what God is doing, but what God is doing through us.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel said,“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”
Which makes me wonder if we’re living a life worthy of blessing and holiness. Are we seizing every chance to love, heal, restore?
Life is more than just breathing. It’s using each breath to love God, love others, and serve both.
Jesus doesn’t ask us to admire his life—but to follow it. To walk in his rhythm. To breathe like he breathed. To live our lives as gifts that give life to others. That’s the heartbeat of the gospel. The pulse of life.
Jesus awakens us so we can live abundantly, faithfully, and eternally. Which means doing more than inhaling and exhaling. Showing up for church is a great start, but Jesus calls us to be the church. This requires more than just doing the bare minimum.
Jesus says, “You know the rule, ‘You shall not murder,’ but I’m telling you to not get angry…don’t let your heart be hardened.”
He says, “Don’t just love your neighbor—love your enemies, and pray for those who hurt you.”
It’s not just rule keeping, for Jesus. It’s about embodying the Spirit of God and making love visible, real, and attainable to everyone who wants it. The goal isn’t to out-holy each other. It’s to out-love one another.
Because a life that inhales God’s breath will always exhale God’s mercy, grace, and peace. Like Glen McWherter writes in his 8Moves devotional, “Compassion reflects God’s heart…Breathing in God’s love, we exhale it into others’ lives.”
This is what I hope you remember today: When the breath we receive becomes the words we speak, the songs we sing, the kindness we offer—our life, and the life of those around us, begins to move in rhythm with Christ.
And this matters because the world still tries to steal this holy breath. Fear strangles us. Anxiety chokes out hope. Shame suffocates our very being. Our systems of oppression take people’s breath away—literally. We saw that when George Floyd was murdered. And when tear-gas is fired on peaceful protesters.
But Jesus doesn’t take life, he gives it. He doesn’t harm, he heals and saves. And he calls us to do the same for one another.
To quote Origen again, “Jesus is the wisdom of God put into practice.” As we continue to build a community of love together we’re not putting up walls and closing ourselves off. We’re building a life that looks like Jesus.
What my old friend Nick did with his hands—forming something beautiful and inspiring out of clay—Jesus invites us to do with our lives. To take the raw, ordinary stuff of our days and shape it into something holy and sacred. A community of breath knitted together by love; inhaling mercy and exhaling compassion so people can come alive again.
And this is where you come in—offering your breath, your voice, your heartbeat—as a gift of love that becomes the very air we all share.
Howard Thurman said it best: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
So let’s be those people. The kind who tune our attention to each breath we’re given, and use each gift to forgive generously, speak kindly, and preach the gospel with love and not just words.
Let’s exhale joy and peace—not as naïve optimism, but as sacred resistance to the hatred and anger that has infected our societies. Let’s not just live, but live abundantly. Embracing this gift we’ve been given to create joy and share love with one another.
Let’s take in the breath of God—and give it back as a sacred gift to the world.
Because the breath that stirred the dust in Genesis is still moving now.
Still whispering in the trees. Still filling lungs. Still animating hearts.
Still awakening love in the space between every breath we take in and release.
It’s in between those two unassuming, natural responses God whispers, “You are my beloved creation. And you are made good.”
Work Cited:
Paraphrased from Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), II.8.3; and Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), Homily I.5.
Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1995), 32.
Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time, ed. Walter Earl Fluker (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006), 18.
I like that. It reminds me of who we are and what we’re made of.
Science has calculated that humans take about 20,000 breaths a day. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. From a spiritual perspective, this is the rhythm of time God sets into motion. I bring this up because breathing happens naturally, so much so we rarely give it a second thought.
Which is both good and bad. Good because it means we’re alive, we have a pulse, a working heartbeat. But when we stop paying attention, we miss what’s holy about it. Every time we inhale, we breath in divine wisdom, spark holy imagination, and enter a rhythm of love that moves with the Spirit of God.
You might remember the Hebrew word for breath is ruach. It’s a word with multiple meanings: Spirit, wind, life-force. It’s the same ruach that hovered over the waters in Genesis.
The same wind that woke up the prophets and ignited the church! The same Spirit Jesus promised would never leave us. This is God’s first breath, still swirling and creating life out of chaos.
More than just oxygen—it’s God’s holy, silent presence that is always with us. Which is why we want to pay attention to our breathing.
As the poet Rumi wrote: “There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
That voice speaks in the sacred pause between inhale and exhale saying, “You are no longer stardust. You are my beloved creation.”
Every breath we take is a reminder that we too are sacred, made from love for love. So what we do with our life—from our first breath to our last—matters.
Which takes us to Jesus, who used his life to restore ours; bringing us back into the rhythm of breathing and belonging. When he says, “I came so you can have life, and have it abundantly,” (John 10:10) he’s inviting us back to the life God imagined: A life of presence, healing, and love. The gospels are filled with stories that show us this.
Take the story of an unnamed woman, who’s been bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:25-34). In that world, her condition meant more than physical suffering. She’s been labeled unclean. Untouchable. She can’t go to the market, show up to worship, be held, or experience intimacy. She’s a ghost in her own community.
When she hears Jesus is near, she’s so desperate to be healed that she breaks laws and traditions. Pushing through a crowd of men who have avoided her for years… just to touch the hem of his cloak. When she does—she’s healed.
Mark tells us that Jesus feels power leave him, and stops to look for the person everyone else tries not to see. When she comes forward, trembling, Jesus doesn’t use his breath to shame her. Instead, he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Jesus makes this public announcement, not to draw attention to himself. He does it to restore her identity and belonging. He lets the others know she has been healed so she’s no longer invisible and untouchable—and is welcomed home.
Because that’s what the Spirit of love does. It breathes outward—toward healing, toward connection, toward community.
Every time we exhale this Spirit, someone else is able to breathe it in. That’s the sacred rhythm of life that we often overlook. It’s not just about what God is doing, but what God is doing through us.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel said,“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”
Which makes me wonder if we’re living a life worthy of blessing and holiness. Are we seizing every chance to love, heal, restore?
Life is more than just breathing. It’s using each breath to love God, love others, and serve both.
Jesus doesn’t ask us to admire his life—but to follow it. To walk in his rhythm. To breathe like he breathed. To live our lives as gifts that give life to others. That’s the heartbeat of the gospel. The pulse of life.
Jesus awakens us so we can live abundantly, faithfully, and eternally. Which means doing more than inhaling and exhaling. Showing up for church is a great start, but Jesus calls us to be the church. This requires more than just doing the bare minimum.
Jesus says, “You know the rule, ‘You shall not murder,’ but I’m telling you to not get angry…don’t let your heart be hardened.”
He says, “Don’t just love your neighbor—love your enemies, and pray for those who hurt you.”
It’s not just rule keeping, for Jesus. It’s about embodying the Spirit of God and making love visible, real, and attainable to everyone who wants it. The goal isn’t to out-holy each other. It’s to out-love one another.
Because a life that inhales God’s breath will always exhale God’s mercy, grace, and peace. Like Glen McWherter writes in his 8Moves devotional, “Compassion reflects God’s heart…Breathing in God’s love, we exhale it into others’ lives.”
This is what I hope you remember today: When the breath we receive becomes the words we speak, the songs we sing, the kindness we offer—our life, and the life of those around us, begins to move in rhythm with Christ.
And this matters because the world still tries to steal this holy breath. Fear strangles us. Anxiety chokes out hope. Shame suffocates our very being. Our systems of oppression take people’s breath away—literally. We saw that when George Floyd was murdered. And when tear-gas is fired on peaceful protesters.
But Jesus doesn’t take life, he gives it. He doesn’t harm, he heals and saves. And he calls us to do the same for one another.
To quote Origen again, “Jesus is the wisdom of God put into practice.” As we continue to build a community of love together we’re not putting up walls and closing ourselves off. We’re building a life that looks like Jesus.
What my old friend Nick did with his hands—forming something beautiful and inspiring out of clay—Jesus invites us to do with our lives. To take the raw, ordinary stuff of our days and shape it into something holy and sacred. A community of breath knitted together by love; inhaling mercy and exhaling compassion so people can come alive again.
And this is where you come in—offering your breath, your voice, your heartbeat—as a gift of love that becomes the very air we all share.
Howard Thurman said it best: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
So let’s be those people. The kind who tune our attention to each breath we’re given, and use each gift to forgive generously, speak kindly, and preach the gospel with love and not just words.
Let’s exhale joy and peace—not as naïve optimism, but as sacred resistance to the hatred and anger that has infected our societies. Let’s not just live, but live abundantly. Embracing this gift we’ve been given to create joy and share love with one another.
Let’s take in the breath of God—and give it back as a sacred gift to the world.
Because the breath that stirred the dust in Genesis is still moving now.
Still whispering in the trees. Still filling lungs. Still animating hearts.
Still awakening love in the space between every breath we take in and release.
It’s in between those two unassuming, natural responses God whispers, “You are my beloved creation. And you are made good.”
Work Cited:
Paraphrased from Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), II.8.3; and Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), Homily I.5.
Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1995), 32.
Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time, ed. Walter Earl Fluker (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006), 18.
Not too long ago I asked ChatGPT to help me come up with a recipe using the random collection of ingredients in my fridge. My only prompt was give it a Mexican Asian twist.
In seconds, it gave me a clever way to turn ground chicken, ginger, and peppers into a well stuffed tortillas.
What a contrast to something that happened this week, when a new neighbor invited me over to learn how to make “real pizza dough.” And not just any old dough—it was his grandmother’s récipe from the old country. Not the kind written on paper in fading cursive. But one that had been passed down through hands and heart, like a sacred tradition.
Both moments fed me. One through the magic of digital guidance; the other through the inviting warmth of human connection.
In many ways, this is the strange and sacred rhythm of Anamesa. Some of us gather in person each week—sitting side by side, sharing communion, passing the peace. Others tune in from across the country (or even the world), connecting through screens, group chats, and open hearts. One carries the weight of tradition passed down through the ages; the other invites us into the unfolding future of the church. Both are holy. Both are sacred.
I think what makes us unique and yet the same is how we hold both with grace. We honor each space. We value the quick chats and shared prayers online, just as we treasure the slow, moments face-to-face. And we keep finding ways to blend the ingredients we’ve been given—technology, tradition, presence, and prayer—into something that nourishes our community of love that we are building in the space between one another.
In seconds, it gave me a clever way to turn ground chicken, ginger, and peppers into a well stuffed tortillas.
What a contrast to something that happened this week, when a new neighbor invited me over to learn how to make “real pizza dough.” And not just any old dough—it was his grandmother’s récipe from the old country. Not the kind written on paper in fading cursive. But one that had been passed down through hands and heart, like a sacred tradition.
Both moments fed me. One through the magic of digital guidance; the other through the inviting warmth of human connection.
In many ways, this is the strange and sacred rhythm of Anamesa. Some of us gather in person each week—sitting side by side, sharing communion, passing the peace. Others tune in from across the country (or even the world), connecting through screens, group chats, and open hearts. One carries the weight of tradition passed down through the ages; the other invites us into the unfolding future of the church. Both are holy. Both are sacred.
I think what makes us unique and yet the same is how we hold both with grace. We honor each space. We value the quick chats and shared prayers online, just as we treasure the slow, moments face-to-face. And we keep finding ways to blend the ingredients we’ve been given—technology, tradition, presence, and prayer—into something that nourishes our community of love that we are building in the space between one another.
Ian Macdonald
An ex-copywriter turned punk rock pastor and peacemaker who dedicates his life to making the world a better place for all humanity.
"that they all might be one" ~John 17:21
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“Prius vita quam doctrina.”
~ St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
~ St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
* “Life is more important than doctrine.”
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