…and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
~Matthew 10:42
 
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
~Thomas Jefferson
 
People in power are too comfortable with other people’s deaths.
~William Barber
 
This Sunday morning finds us encountering what the biblical scholar Phyllis Trible called a text of terror. The story of the Binding of Isaac is one that has captured generations of scholars and faithful ones alike in their attempts to engage this text and what it and our long tradition of faith says of our human predicament and the God we seek to understand and follow.
 
The dangers of a literal reading are exposed in such an uncompromising, challenging space of testing. And yet, if we have the courage not to turn away, we might be rewarded with a deeper and more robust notion of the faith we seek and the God who not only tests, but abides and saves.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Genesis 22:1-14 † Psalm 13 † Romans 6:12-23 † Matthew 10:40-42
 
About the Art: Koenig, Peter. Abraham's Sacrifice, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58481 [retrieved June 23, 2026]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.

So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
~Genesis 21:14
 
Hagar’s experience of being expelled from the security of Sarah’s tent to the  uncertainty and vulnerability of the wilderness exposes something deeply troubling in our shared human experience. Her story highlights the universal reality of conflict, suffering and injustice that we both experience in our own lives and, if honest with ourselves, are sometimes complicit in causing in the lives of others, especially those who seem to stand in the way of our own security and those whom society pushes to the margins.
 
Her story also compels us to wrestle with why God seemingly permits such injustices to occur. Likewise, Jesus does not promise his disciples safety from the unjust oppressive systems in which they find themselves but rather calls them to wield a sword of truth in confronting systemic injustices that will inevitably cause fractures but ultimately lead to freedom. Though we are not protected from conflict, we are protected by God in those wilderness places of our lives. Just as God opens Hagar’s eyes to see the provision of a hidden well, so too we are provided God’s living water that sustains life and empowers us to participate in God’s redemptive work in the world.
 
We welcome Rev. Erin McArdel to worship today.  Erin serves as the Palliative Care and Hospice Chaplain at the Seattle VA Medical Center in Seattle and is a colleague of our old friend, Linda Conyers. She strives to balance her chaplaincy ministry with her very important call as mother of 3 school aged boys. She and her husband are raising their family in Maple Valley. When not ushering kids around or at the bedside of seriously ill veterans, it is likely Erin is outside enjoying the beauty of God's creation!
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Genesis 21:8-21 † Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17 † Romans 6:1b-11 † Matthew 10:24-39
 
About the Art: Hagar in the Desert, from WikiArt. https://www.wikiart.org/en/marc-chagall/hagar-in-the-desert-1960 [retrieved June 8, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ravenna_Basilica_of_San_Vitale_mosaic2.jpg.

…and Sara your wife will have a son! Now Sara was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. And Avraham and Sara were old, advanced in days, the way of women had ceased for Sara. Sara laughed within herself, saying: After I have become worn, is there to be pleasure for me? And my lord is old!
~Genesis 18:10-12
Schocken Bible
 
Sara laughs. Twice, actually. She laughs again a few chapters later and, we presume, nine months later when Isaac, the Son of Laughter is born and an impossible promise is fulfilled.
 
What do we make of this laughter? How did it sound? What stories were carried in the amusement of this aged new mother? She has waited so long, endured so many tragedies and offenses, and even failed herself. And yet here she is confronted with such a remarkable hope for something more that has always been a part of her. And now, when her life should be over, it begins.
 
We can imagine all this in her laugh. Her laugh is our laugh. Her laugh has everything to do with what it means to be human—limited by nature, yet drawn to a mystery, a goodness, a sense of possibility and transcendence that finds its way through the ashes of our lives and somehow outshines our best and biggest hopes.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7) † Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 † Romans 5:1-8 † Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)
 
About the Art: Sarah and Abraham Offer Hospitality to the Visitors, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56993 [retrieved June 13, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ravenna_Basilica_of_San_Vitale_mosaic2.jpg.

And Abram [and Sarai] journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
~Genesis 12:9
 
Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 
~Matthew 9:20-22
 
We measure time in many ways. Journeys happen in stages, one choice is compounded on another until we have a lifetime to look back on. Sometimes things happen and decisions are made in an instance—a moment in time, a pinpoint of decision and action shaped by a decade or more of memories.
 
What are those moments of your life that define you, that capture the essence of who you are? What are the stages of your own journey? Of our corporate journey? As you look back on your life—as long as it is—what do you notice? How are you different? How do you believe now? What has changed?
 
In a brief nine verse narrative, Abram and Sarai twice build altars to mark holy encounters on the stages of their journey. At the crux of a healing within a healing in Matthew a desperate woman grasps for hope and the moment is caught for eternity.
 
What do we make of this? Where and how is God present? God calls Abram and Sarai to a new land, but the Canaanites were already there. Our ears more recently tuned to the scourge of colonization cannot not hear unsettling echoes of manifest destiny in the promise that is presented here. And that this woman has been shunned for much of her life. How do we undo the trauma she has literally and figuratively held in her body?
 
Yes, God calls. God blesses. God heals. But to reach our true home, to be made well—all of us, together—this invites a broad vision that takes all and each of us.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Genesis 12:1-9 † Psalm 33:1-12 † Romans 4:13-25 † Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
 
About the Art: Healing of a Woman with an Issue of Blood, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57961 [retrieved June 7, 2023]. Original source: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/2048/unknown-brother-philipp-the-healing-of-a-woman-with-an-issue-of-blood-german-about-1400-1410/.