Isiah 65: 17-25 - Sunday, November 16, 2025

For a collection of writings written amidst decades of turmoil, there are times that the book of Isaiah paints a picture as stunning and evocative as the most beautiful of the Psalms.  Today’s reading from Isaiah 65 speaks not only of our dream but God’s dream, with words that evoke a solemn engagement of the now, and holy hope for a better horizon.  They speak profoundly of hopes for humanity, but even for renewal of earth itself.

Today’s sermon begins, then, with a second reading of a segment of today’s scripture lesson.  I invite you to sit comfortably in your pew, release your shoulders, quiet your mind and focus on your breathing: breathing in God’s love, breathing out anything in the way of embracing or believing that love.  As you enter into that rhythm, hear these words once more:

¹⁷ For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating….
²⁰ No more shall there be…an infant who lives but a few days
    or an old person who does not live out a lifetime,
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
    and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² They shall not build and another inhabit;
    they shall not plant and another eat,
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
    and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
²³ They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity,
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
    and their descendants as well.
²⁴ Before they call I will answer,
    while they are yet speaking I will hear.
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

What a beautiful presentation of God’s ways of shalom, unfettered by “former things”.  As a Christian, as the season of Advent approaches, these words align well with our hopes for the new realm, the Kin-dom of God, a new heaven and new earth of joyous abundance for all creation. Depending on where that fits within your personal belief framework, each of us lives, to an extent, aware of that invisible and barely imaginable horizon line – a divine reality unfolding now and culminating in the future, all of which is beyond our perception.  And in Isaiah’s glorious portrait of a promised new heaven and new earth, nobody dies young, nobody’s life is lived solely for the prosperity of someone else, and even the natural enmity between species is no more.

While this reading from Isaiah bears remarkable similarity to New Testament writings of Christ’s return at a date yet to be determined, this was not the original intent of Isaiah.  

The book of Isaiah was written over many decades, by a series of authors.  It is thought that chapters 56-66 are mainly addressed to people who had returned to Jerusalem following decades of Babylonian exile. They had been threatened, and conquered, and hauled away to exile; seventy years later set free from exile, and then when they returned to their homeland they found it desolate and decimated. They needed help, and hope, in the present tense. So these words from Isaiah 65, then, in their original setting were not intended as prose about what God has in mind for some undated future; they were words of imminent hope, declared to people who had already been to hell and back.  Note the way it begins, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” then it is referred to as something God “is creating.” These are words describing something about to start, soon.  

This was the canvas, then, on which Isaiah paints God’s masterpiece of unfolding hope, and perceiving this hope as something in process right now remains a helpful way for us to receive the words in our deeply messed up world in 2025.  Can we hear these words, not as far-away, not-in-our-lifetime events, but as expressions of God’s loving intention even now? 

When living in comfort, there is a tendency to tame scripture, to make it pleasant and general.  But for those living hard lives right now, there is an urgency to Isaiah’s words, for they are an indicator that God actually notices them and understands their plight.  So I’m going to briefly revisit these words a third time, one chunk at a time, and invite you to wonder with me who in the world right now, would hear these words as a lifeline of hope, aligning with their deepest needs.  And as you hear these words, I also invite you to notice if anything here really catches you, for I’ve got an interpretive framework to share a bit later that speaks to that. 

We begin with verse 20,

²⁰ No more shall there be…an infant who lives but a few days or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth.

The world we live in has huge differences in infant mortality rates, based on the prosperity and political stability of the nation in which the child is born.  So right now, the rate of infant mortality in Afghanistan, Somalia or the Central African Republic is twenty times higher than the rate in Canada, and more than fifty times higher than the rate in Slovenia, Singapore or Iceland.  That is not God’s dream; longevity for all, is God’s dream, along with education for all, opportunity for all, fresh air for all, healthcare for all, and every bit of it unhindered by income or nationality or ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation. We lift to God all the solvable factors that lead to such high rates of infant mortality in too much of the world, including the baffling rise in suspicion of vaccinations in parts of Canada, as we long with the God of universal love for a day when children live long and happy lives, everywhere.

We move on to verses 21 and 22, with their easily pictured yearnings:
²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat,

Living in a place of vineyard, orchards and ground crops, we can picture this! These words strike home for many of our children and grandchildren, who struggle to find pathways to affordable housing, and they reach out to many in the global south, where nutritious food crops were ploughed under decades ago to make room for cash crops.  We saw this firsthand in 1988 when we had the privilege of doing a United Church overseas summer internship in the Philippines: lands where fruits, vegetables and rice once grew were converted to the production of rubber, sugar cane, pineapple and other export-only crops. As we see so many people living rough in our towns and cities, as we bring to mind many First Nations across Canada that deal with substandard housing and decades-old boil water advisories, we are reminded that God’s vision is quite different, and we are allowed to long for the day when all, peasants and tenants and sharecroppers, shall build sturdy houses and inhabit them, plant gardens and orchards for their own use, enjoyment and benefit.

And finally we move to verse 23,

²³ They shall not labour in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well.

That is one very stark phrase, “children born for calamity”.  We think of children whose childhood is truncated by war and violence, and as we recall that these words of Isaiah were initially focused on people returning to Judah from a time of exile, we hold in our hearts the children of Gaza who are cornered by their life’s circumstances.  We think of child soldiers in Colombia, Mozambique, and Syria, and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo who mine cobalt so that our laptops, cell phones and cars can be easily recharged. We think of the 50 million people in the world today who are enslaved, either in forced labour or forced marriage.  We think of intergenerational trauma endured by descendants of Residential School survivors.  And as we think of all these who seem to be born for calamity we hear God say NO:  this is not my intent, you all of you, are beloved and blessed, no matter how strong the powers of empire may say otherwise.  And so, in an act of defiance, we, with God, yearn for a world where the cries for a world made new will upend the status quo.

In spite of all of the hopefulness that Isaiah brought from God to the returned exiles, I realize that the net impact of hearing all of this might sound helpless or hopeless.  But I have something to share that might help. Many years ago, I heard a talk by Bishop Thomas Garrott Benjamin, Jr, a legendary African American Pastor in Indianapolis.  Over a 42 year pastorate he oversaw huge changes in the shape, focus and physical location of the congregation and its ministry.  A few years before he spoke to us, the congregation decided to go all-in to be a place of safety, learning and empowerment for children in their reach.  When asked what advice he would have for other congregations wanting to find what God had in mind for them, he said this: find your passion.  More specifically: find your passion by “following the tracks of your tears.”  If it moves you to tears, then that may well be the calling God has for you.

As you have experienced these words from Isaiah this morning, or in your prayers from day to day, is there something in particular that moves you to tears, a deep yearning for you or perhaps even a calling you perceive for the next season of this congregation’s life?  Is there something calling our name, to continue something we are doing or initiate something new?  If you sense this, please share: be in touch: with me, with Shannon, with the people of the Transition Team/Joint Exploration Team.  For even as we acknowledge God’s role in the great and glorious unfolding of a new heaven and new earth, we also know that our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ is to bring love and hope in tangible, human, right-now ways.  We are called to be co-creators of the new realm, not yet here, but already in motion, to dream God’s dream with actions large and small.  

For millennia, the prophets of our Jewish forebears, and religious reformers and activists within our Christian story, have strived to bring God’s hopes into the lives of those most needing to know they are not alone in their struggles. So I end with Isaiah’s closing words of hope: ^24 “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord”.  May it be so, Amen.

References consulted:

https://disciples.org/people/dedicated-disciple-bishop-t-garrott-benjamin-jr/

https://www.facebook.com/uccphilippines/posts/behold-i-create-new-heavens-in-which-life-justice-and-peace-are-possible-for-all/892091046282420/

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/12/1158661

“What about the children?” a 1998 VHS resource of Light of the World Christian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/infant-mortality-rate-by-country

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Psalm 145: 1-4, 8-10. Remembrance Sunday, November 9, 2025

 

This morning I want to talk about three of the most important words in the Bible, in worship, in our families, and in the way we live in community.  And what might these words be? Something from the big four Advent words, hope, peace, joy and love? Kindness? Compassion? Courage? Accountability? Honesty? Equity or equality?

Those are all big, important words, but the three words I have in mind are way more common than any of those, and in many ways, words that can be dangerous if misused or misunderstood.  The words are WE, US and OUR.

At their best, these little words imply a sense of belonging.   We know how devastating it is when individuals do not have a sense of belonging, either because they feel so different from those around them that they could not even imagine being welcomed, or because it has been made abundantly clear to them, by their parents, culture, neighbourhood, or even government, that they are NOT welcome.  News reports are full of situations where someone described as a “loner” did unspeakable things, or where someone was adrift and found a sense of belonging for the first time in a cult, a gang, or a group of religious extremists.  Two of our adult children are trained social workers, with experience on the front lines, and we hear from them that so many of the clients they deal with had absolutely awful childhood experiences, devoid of love and stability but with the message that they weren’t good enough coming through loud and clear. Among other factors, that sense from their days of childhood of not belonging to a safe, loving “we” made for a really shaky foundation.

It is so important to have places you feel you belong.  In a small way, I think we saw some of that belonging when the Blue Jays were having their inspiring run toward the World Series, and Canada proudly claimed them as “OUR” team. In the early 1990s a sociologist named Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to describe a place beyond home and work, which he described as “a familiar public spot where you regularly connect with others known and unknown, over a shared interest or activity”. These are places of belonging, places, he wrote, for “people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly, and pleasurably; a ‘place on the corner,’ real life alternatives to television, easy escapes from the cabin fever of marriage and family life that do not necessitate getting into an automobile.”  He named pubs, doughnut shops, pool halls, bingo halls, lodges, and youth recreation centers as the kinds of places that would fit this role, and I would add that volunteering at places that serve a common need – like the Thrift Shop – also fits the bill.  And to state the obvious, a Church should be a place where people from a wide variety of ages and backgrounds feel that they really “belong.”

But what happens when the words WE, US and OUR are meant to build walls, when a sense of belonging is used by a town, or a Church, or by people of the dominant culture, not in an invitational way, but in a possessive, defensive, superior way, to define insiders and keep outsiders away?  When Shannon and I were on our “settlement charge” in eastern Saskatchewan in the late 1980s, I remember a village about 45 minutes south of us which had a gas station with a small convenience store and a couple of big round tables where the locals would sit and chat.  Once or twice we had the occasion to stop for gas and when I walked in the door to pay, the sense of “we” in that room clearly did not include me.  The message of non-belonging and un-welcome was clearly articulated by the sudden silence at the table and an intense glare that said “pay for your fuel, and hit the road”.  And that’s just on the small scale; imagine what it’s like in to live your life knowing that there is an approved WE or US, you need to think a certain way, believe a certain way, and be of an approved sexual orientation, citizenship status and ethnic background, “or else.”

The importance of having healthy connections where the words “we” “us” and “our” are broad, invitational words for the good of everyone was well known to Jesus.  When teaching his disciples how to pray (Matthew 6: 9-13), Jesus started with a word of togetherness and common connection, the word OUR: “Our Father, who art in heaven”. When asked which commandment was the greatest, Jesus answered not with one commandment, but two: one that made clear a sense of belonging with God, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind”; and a second one, calling on his followers to create a broad sense of belonging that goes beyond family and friends, “You must love your neighbour as yourself”. (Matthew 22: 37-39) Here, I recall the memorable teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault, who notes that Jesus is not directing us merely to love our neighbour as much as we love ourselves, but to love one’s neighbour AS “oneself”, to expand our whole sense of personhood so that your neighbour is considered an extension of you.  That is as strong a sense of “we”, “us” and “our” as one could possibly have.

When I first settled on the 145^th Psalm as the scripture that I’d be focusing on this morning, what drew me was that it was a song of praise, an outflowing our unreserved love for God.  Amidst the general bleakness of November, the solemnity of Remembrance Day, and the ongoing worries perpetuated by agents of Empire in our world, this scripture re-grounds us in the awesome glory of God.  Something we don’t see in our English translations of this Psalm, is that in its original Hebrew version, Psalm 145 takes the form of an alphabetical acrostic, where the first word of the first verse starts with the first Hebrew letter, alef, the first word of the second verse starts with the second Hebrew letter, bet, the first word of the third verse starts with the third Hebrew letter, gimel, and so on to the end of the alphabet.  Within this clever structure, the Psalmist basically finds as many nice things to say about God as there are letters in the alphabet, implying, in English terms, everything from A to Z is all about the goodness and glories of God.  We heard just a snippet of this Psalm but if we carry through the whole thing, God is described as great beyond understanding, glorious and majestic, kind and good and wonderful.  God is compassionate, loving, patient and faithful, God is glorious and eternal, the one who reigns for ever.  And in case all of these superlatives make God seem a bit distant, we also hear of God’s concern for those who are in trouble, those who have fallen, those who hunger, and all who sincerely call on God for help.

At times, I get so busy with small but pressing tasks, and weighed down with big worries about the world we live in, that I lose sight of these magnificent qualities of God, the author of all creativity and goodness. Psalm 145 speaks of God, the Holy One, the One who calls us together in service and in praise, the one who focuses our sense of WE, US and OUR in all people, all of creation being loved by this one, wonderful God.  And the United Church Creed begins with the words, “WE are not alone, WE live in God’s world” and concludes, “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with US. WE are not alone. Thanks be to God” which once more uses the words WE and US in ways that are broad and inviting.  “We” to me is everyone who, in any way, recognizes the power of God’s love in their lives, and the “us” is all of us who share this planet. God implores us to not get lured into a small sense of WE and a mean-spirited sense of US and OUR.  This Psalm is not only designed to praise every aspect of God’s goodness, but to name all the good qualities and potentials that God has placed in our hearts.  In this, Psalm 145 bridges those two parts of Christ’s great commandment, for when we love God wholeheartedly, we in turn find ourselves empowered to truly embrace our neighbours as self, and to take it personally when any are being targeted, demeaned, or made to feel unsafe.  Not just the neighbours that look familiar and sound familiar, not just those we’ve known forever and are comfortable with, but all the beloved ones of God with whom we share this planet. 

In all of this, I am well aware that none of this is as simple as words on a page.  Most of the Bible was written at a time when the author’s people were overrun by their militarized neighbours, Egypt or Assyria or Babylonia or Rome, and that would not be lost on the poet who wrote the 145^th Psalm.  The sharply divided world of today, defined by ideologies, ethnicities and religious differences, fuelled by the need to obliterate those who don’t fit the narrower definitions of WE, US and OUR is such a mess that it’s hard to even know where to start.  And as we prepare for Remembrance Day this Tuesday, honouring all aspects of peace-making as we wear red poppies of remembrance and white poppies of peace, we cannot help but recall the grim decision to take up arms that reshaped so many lives, and ended others.  Living as we do, in a broken world, creates dilemmas that have no good solutions.  And yet… and yet… we are called, in the midst of all that, to choose a life in which WE, US and OUR find their footing in a broad-based commitment to hope, and love, and peacemaking.  WE and US are words of reconciliation and harmony as OUR common goals. And knowing how hard it is to actually reach beyond our usual circles of comfort, we rely on God’s infinite grace, to help us learn how to be to the greatest benefit of all, as people who strive to love the God of all creation, and to love all manner of neighbours in this beautifully diverse world.

We are reminded this morning, of who we are and whose we are, in the biggest, broadest ways, children of the living God.  May our sense of WE and US continue to grow, may OUR yearnings be God’s yearnings, may we help to usher in a world of encouragement, compassion, lovingkindness, and peace.  Amen.

References cited and/or consulted:

Bartel, LeRoy. “Hymns of Praise.” https://www.facebook.com/groups/coffeewithlord/posts/24298862573058120/

Bourgeault,  Cynthia. The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 31-32.  Accessed via the 17 January 2019 daily email of  www.centerforactionandcontemplation.com

deClaisse-Walford, Nancy. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25/commentary-on-psalm-1451-8-4

Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-hebrew-alphabet-aleph-bet

McCormack, Gavin. https://www.montessori.org/what-happens-when-are-children-know-they-are-truly-loved/

McGowan, Emily. https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/third-place-community-spaces/

Project for Public Spaces, “Ray Oldenburg”. https://www.pps.org/article/roldenburg

 © 2025, Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Luke 19: 1-10 - All Souls Day, Sunday, November 2, 2025

Today’s sermon, even in the shadow of the Blue Jays' disappointment, pretty much needs to start with baseball. A two-time all star, winner of a silver slugger award as the top hitting catcher, Alejandro Kirk had a terrific season in 2025.  He’s a excellent defensive catcher, communicates well with the pitching staff, has terrific bat control and occasional home run power.

Thing is, in addition to all these baseball superlatives, he isn’t built like your average ballplayer. While the average MLB player is about 6’2” and 200 lbs., Alejandro is 5’8”, 245 lbs.  With that being the case, the mean-spirited world of social media says very little about what a great player he is (and that’s not going to get better after his making the final out of the World Series).  No, the armchair sports experts are more interested in body shaming, focusing on his height and weight and his slow running speed rather than the maximum effort and strong decision making he shows on the basepaths.

Over the years, I’ve been astonished at how much permission society gives to making fun of people who aren’t very tall.  My mom wasn’t real tall, neither was Shannon’s dad, and other than our son there’s not a lot of height in our family.   But beyond this, at staff meetings, public gatherings, or even at Church, how many times have we heard “no, stand up!” when a shorter person has stood to make a point, followed by laughter, and it’s only once in a blue moon that the room gets told how cheap and hurtful that is. 

Apparently, this denigration has a long history, for our scripture reading today is about a tax collector named Zacchaeus, whose most memorable attribute was that he wasn’t very tall.  Christian commentator Nancy Rockwell outlines his story and significance very well:

“’Zacchaeus was a wee little man’.  We sang that loud and proud in Sunday school when I was young.   We had no idea who Zacchaeus was, but we loved getting to sing a song that made fun of a short guy.  Jesus may have been his friend, but we still got to call him Shorty.

“We weren’t bullying anyone exactly, and we were children, so we were all short.  But the lesson, for those who didn’t grow tall and for the rest of us, was there.   Bullying, which is such a social problem in our time and in our schools, begins with something simple like that.  And gets taken to extremes by some who feed on the pleasure of putting someone else down.

“Zacchaeus must have been remarkably short, for Luke to have written down that detail about him.  It seems he was a first century scapegoat, the guy everyone got to pick on.   And that may be why he became a tax collector for the Roman Empire.  As Caesar’s tax collector, he finally got some respect, even if it was the grudging kind….So when Jesus came to Zacchaeus’ house for lunch that day [it was] hard for the townspeople to watch Jesus do [that].” 

In one way, this is an extraordinary story to be included in the Bible.  As Nancy Rockwell stated, Zacchaeus was very much a first century scapegoat, both for his lack of height and his collusion with the Roman oppressor, so for him to function as the central character in this story, to share table with Jesus and be welcomed into right relationship with Jesus, is most unusual. Zacchaeus, as a “wee little man” literally did not measure up to the leadership expectations of his day and, like it or not, that bias still exists. In his 2005 bestselling book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell noted that “in the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more striking, in the general American population, [just under 4 percent] of adult men are six foot two or taller. Among my CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller.” 

But Jesus isn’t hoodwinked by such things.  Jesus, sizing things up through the very eyes of God, sees not the height (nor the unsavoury occupation) of this potential disciple, but he most definitely sees the potential.   Jesus notices Zacchaeus up in the sycamore tree, hails him to come down, and insists on dining with him.  He ignores social convention, doesn’t worry that being friendly with “this kind of person” might lessen the number of people drawn to his religious renewal movement, and sees past the externals to understand who this person was at heart.  Zacchaeus is forthright in admitting his past misdeeds and specifically promises to clean up his act, and Jesus graciously accepts that at face value.  

In this story, Jesus did what God repeatedly does in our sacred text, the God who chose Moses with all his shortfalls to be the guide from bondage to freedom, the God who selected young David as King over his older siblings, the God who chose a not-quite-married teenager to be the mother of the Messiah; Jesus chose the least likely, and drew out the best they had to offer.  And to be perfectly honest, if we were to look around the table with Jesus, the inner circle of twelve disciples along with the other women and men who supported his mission, we are hardly looking at a who’s who of middle eastern elites.

On this weekend of All Hallows, All Saints and All Souls, we consider the God who calls even the least likely to discipleship, and we give thanks for those who have presented themselves for service.  At All Saints (yesterday) we remembered those canonized as Saints, and today, at All Souls, we remember the faithful departed, people from our life’s story and from the life story of this faith community whose lives of service exhibited an embodiment of the invitational, uplifting love of Jesus.  I particularly want to note the lives of those who followed in the pattern of Jesus in seeing and encouraging the gifts and callings of others, who recognized the divine spark in others and found ways to bring those embers to fuller flame, regardless of whatever limiting factors stood in the way.  In a world where opportunity is yet again getting withdrawn from those who were finally getting a fair chance, to be concentrated once more into the hands of those who have always held power, we celebrate the exact opposite of this, namely, God’s agenda of fair, powerful love. We give thanks for those who see beyond the limitations of the now, and live as encouragers in the name of Jesus.

And there is one more thing for us to consider in today’s gospel reading – something a bit dangerous, tiptoeing along the lines of being heretical, and, for those directly impacted, possibly a bit thrilling.  You may have noticed that there is some ambiguity in today’s gospel reading, which began in the Greek and was picked up in the old King James Version and persists in most translations.  In verses 2 and 3 (of the NRSV-UE) we read, “Zacchaeus…was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature”.  In our “wee little man” song and in the sermon thus far, we assume that the “he” who was short in stature was Zacchaeus, but the way the sentence is structured it could just as easily have been Jesus who wasn’t very tall.  Going up in a tree to see better makes sense for Zacchaeus if he was small but it also makes sense if Jesus was small, and hard to see through the crowd without getting a better vantage point.

At the end of the day, as I read through the story, I think it makes more sense for Zacchaeus to be the person who is short in stature, but Bible translators through the ages have conceded that there is an ambiguity here, and I for one am happy for its presence. For when we think of the message and character of Jesus, the way that he consistently lifts up and empowers those who have been judged and marginalized by society, the abuse he absorbed all the way to crucifixion, wouldn’t it be a powerful statement if he also knew what it was like to be casually mocked in his life, fully identifying with the type of unrelenting, wearying bullying that vertically challenged people have to put up with every single day of their lives.  For me, to think about Jesus rather than Zacchaeus being the short fella in this gospel is the opposite of sacrilegious; such thinking draws me even closer to Jesus, my Saviour, the person of the Trinity who fully understands all of the challenges of human life. 

Regardless of how we see ourselves, regardless of how others see us, Christ Jesus actually sees us and calls us.   On this day of communion we, like Zacchaeus, are invited to dine with Jesus.  On this All Souls Day, we recall those who overcame all manner of obstacles to come into contact with Jesus, and embrace Christ’s ways of love as their ways.  As Christians, as Canadians, we hear this story with a casual and unchallenged prejudice woven directly into its narrative, and seek awareness of all the little way that such thinking worms its way into our relationships.  And once again, we give thanks for the way that scripture, and our ongoing connection with the risen Christ, steps across the centuries to illumine our path today.  Amen.

References cited:

Adler, David. https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/aaron-judge-is-a-baseball-giant-but-how-does-he-compare-outside-mlb

Baseball Reference. “Kirk, Alejandro.” https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kirkal01.shtml

Gladwell, Malcolm, Blink (2005), accessed via Coles, Tammi L. https://globalnetwork.io/perspectives/2020/10/luck-bluff

Rockwell, Nancy. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/a-short-story-about-saints-and-bullies/

Wikipedia. “Zacchaeus” (song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacchaeus_(song)

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.