Sunday August 16th, 2026 Bulletin

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
August 16th, 2026

Reason to Celebrate: God’s Guest List

Luke 14:12-24

 

The tables were old, heavy folding tables creaky with age. Despite the weight of them, though, they were quickly picked up and moved into place, followed by a cacophony of squeaks and creaks as folding chairs were dragged into place alongside. Suddenly, an abundance of food appeared, passed hand to hand from kitchen to table – first baskets of broken bread, then platters of sandwiches and bowls of chips, fruit and cookies. At the center of it all, was my friend Maggie. As the clatter of moving furniture quieted, she smiled and looked around and said, “this is the great feast of the people of God.”

We were not at a luncheon but instead at worship, at the church Maggie served at the time, Mercy Community Church. It’s a congregation made up mostly of people experiencing homelessness, in midtown Atlanta – at the time, they met in the ground level of a tall-steeple Presbyterian Church on Ponce de Leon Avenue. They act as a day shelter, drop-in center, and a roving lunch program. During the week, they offer music and art workshops, haircuts, food and clothing, depending on what’s available and needed. And Sunday worship always ends with communion, clattering chairs and tables and a quick rearrangement of their sanctuary into a banquet hall, with the communion table at the center. Bread is broken and blessed, as the gathered community shares a meal together – food often donated or gleaned from nearby grocery stores, where it would’ve been thrown out. And the faces around the room – were people who would not have been likely to show up in Sunday morning worship of the Presbyterian Church where Mercy meets.

I don’t know if they still end every service with communion lunch, but goodness. That experience has stayed with me. That table, that meal, felt pulled out of this parable.

In this passage, Jesus is eating at the home of a Pharisee, a leader of the religious establishment. It’s the third time in Luke Jesus eats with Pharisees, even though he tends to be critical of them. The text doesn’t tell us why Jesus was invited to this meal – we can guess that he was popular, a rising star, but it doesn’t seem like this was a friendly invitation – the text tells us, the Pharisees were watching him closely. The host must have been wealthy – with a home big enough to hold a crowd, and staff to prepare and serve the meal. Remember that ancient Rome was governed by a strict social hierarchy, and feasts were an opportunity to show off power and status. Picture the guests seated in an atrium with a long table, with couches set in concentric circles going out to the edges of the room, with diners reclining on them. The closer a guest is to the center table, the more important they are, the higher up on the social food chain. That’s the room where Jesus tells this story!

The story is actually part of a larger series of prickly parables Jesus tells while dining with the Pharisees. He critiques their jockeying for position and status, proclaiming that the last shall be first in the kingdom of God. And then he tells this parable of the feast.

John Buchanan, preaching on this passage, says: “Matthew tells the same story. In his version, the host tells his servants “invite everyone, the good and the bad.” What an amazing idea that is. The banquet table is open. It is not reserved for those who have the correct beliefs about the food. It is not restricted to those who uphold particular moral standards. It certainly is not restricted to those who espouse a particular ideology or political philosophy. This table, Jesus said, is radically open. All are welcome here.
… The point is not to exclude but to include everyone, until God’s house is full.”

Parables have multiple layers of meaning – we can interpret it in different ways. Some read it as a critique of those who refused to believe Christ’s preaching about the kingdom of God. Or, as an indication that Jesus was a provocative, difficult dinner guest. But, how I’m reading it today is that we aren’t just called to gather at this table. Today I read it as a call to community engagement: we’re to go out into the highways and bi-ways, onto Loch Raven and down the Alameda, into the apartments and alleyways, to students and their families, to Good Sam and Morgan State – to listen and build relationships, to partner and serve, and in so doing, to share the good news of God’s love and justice with those who may never feel comfortable crossing the threshold of our sanctuary. And you know where that outreach leads us? Seems like lately it’s led us right back to a table – like it did for our Longest Table meal in June, where we gathered with neighbors and friends to celebrate the teens who were part of our cooking program with Nexus-Woodbourne Family Healing. Some fifty people sat at one long table – that stretched the length of Hyde Hall – and shared chicken with green beans and potatoes, got to know each other, and learned about the impact 8 weeks in the kitchen could have on 5 teenaged boys. Those of you who came can testify – it
was a powerful evening. I can’t help but wonder – what would happen if we met like that more often?

Priya Parker is a social scientist who studies conflict resolution and community building. Her first book, The Art of Gathering, she describes how to gather with intention, to create lasting and meaningful community connections. She uplifts the practice of a weekly meal with friends and neighbors – like the weekly red beans and rice convened by a guy in New Orleans named Pableaux Johnson. Every Monday night for 20 years, Pableaux made red beans and rice for a small group of friends and neighbors. They would gather at his kitchen table- which was originally his grandmother’s – and share the simple meal, with cornbread and sweet tea, with whiskey for dessert. The invitation was open, people would bring friends, and there would always be enough – he says, “one of the south Louisiana rules is that if too many people show up for the food that you
have, you can always make more rice. The rule is: “Make more rice. Make family eat last.” In this isolated, Instagram age, we can make gatherings too complicated, too intimidating – and it means we never actually meet. Parker observes the wisdom of Johnson’s weekly meal – keep it simple, and just host the gathering you want to be invited to.

 

 

Mark Adams and Miriam Maldonado are PCUSA mission coworkers on the US- Mexico border who for decades have sought to build community and serve their neighbors in the borderlands. Mark tells the story of an evening years ago when he and Miriam planned a dinner party for their friends. They cooked a delicious meal, cleaned their home, and got ready. But when it came time for the party to begin, one by one, their friends called to cancel. Things had come up. So they looked at their kitchen table, laden with more food than they could possibly eat – and decided to take it out to share it with whomever they found. Turns out, the US Border Patrol had just dropped off a bus full of people – migrants who found themselves suddenly returned to Mexico in an unfamiliar city, at night, with nowhere to go. They shared the meal with the people they met, and out of that experience, the Migrant Resource Center was born. The Center offers food, clothing, and a phone to people who need it – often people recently deported from the US – and documents human rights abuses by both border patrol and the coyotes who traffic people across the border.

I don’t know if this origin story is just Mark Adams’ parable based on this story from Luke, but it has sure stuck with me.

Sunday August 9th, 2026 Bulletin

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
August 9th, 2026

Perplexing Texts: Girls just wanna have FUNdamental Rights

Ephesians 5:22-6:9

 

When I was young, the church my family attended had three pastors: the head of staff, and two co-associate pastors, one of whom was a woman. She preached occasionally and offered pastoral care. Her name was Margaret, and she had a short haircut and she was a strong swimmer, and she had a tendency to be a bit dour but she cared about the congregation. It was not until I was in seminary, beginning to talk to other women about their sense of call, that I realized what a blessing it was to have grown up with Margaret as my pastor, with the example and knowledge that women could be ordained ministers. As I discerned my vocation and wrestled with whether or not I would go to seminary and pursue ministry as a profession, I worried and wondered about many things: would my faith be strong enough for this work? Could I balance the demands of preaching weekly with all the needs of the congregation and the community? Could I actually find a job, or would I be too liberal, too focused on social justice for a church to hire me? With all of those concerns – Not once did it occur to me that my gender could be an impediment to my ability to preach or to teach or administer the sacraments.

One of my housemates in seminary was a Catholic woman. She remembered feeling called to ministry even as a young person, but she didn’t know what to do with that feeling, because in her worldview and experience, there was no place for women in ordained ministry in the church; only men could be priests and in church leadership. She thought for a long time that she would have to be a nun. Then, she decided she would go to graduate school and study theology so she could eventually get her doctorate and teach – because women still can’t be ordained as clergy in most Catholic churches.

My best friend in seminary, Kathryn House, changed denominations, moving from the Southern Baptist church of her childhood to American Baptists who welcomed her with open arms, put her on the church council. After several years of study, they sat her down in a folding chair in front of their sanctuary one hot October afternoon, and every member of that scrappy little congregation on Centre street in Jamaica Plain laid hands on Kathryn and blessed her, one by one affirming her call to ministry by ordaining her as a pastor. We were in a pastoral cohort at the time and along with Kathryn we all wore black t-shirts from a women’s leadership conference that said: Nevertheless, She Preached. Her brother, who is also a pastor, changed denominations too – but he went to the PCA, which still doesn’t permit women’s ordination. There was stress at the Thanksgiving table for years over that one.

This is the 8th and final Sunday of our summer series on perplexing texts. We’ve grappled with bears mauling children, the witch of endor, Christian Nationalism, and confusing parables. All of those scripture passages were suggested by you all, but this one is from me: the preacher’s perplexing text. Because what do we progressive people do with Paul’s teachings about mutual submission in relationships – about wives submitting to their husbands, children to their parents, and slaves to their masters? This text pushes my buttons as a feminist, as a liberationist, as an anti-racist! It’s problematic not just for women, but for the LGBTQ community – because it presumes typical gender roles and describes marriage as being between one man and one woman. And it’s troublesome for anyone who is an abolitionist, because it presumes not just the existence of slavery but calls for obedience within that power structure!

Look – we don’t often talk about these texts. It’s one of the household code texts, which prescribe roles and relationships within families and in the church. There are several others, most notably in the letter to the Colossians and 1 Peter, but also in 1 Timothy and Titus. The revised common lectionary leaves them out, and so lectionary preachers like me say “thanks be to GOD” and move on. But there is a disturbing movement in our country, of those who want to roll back basic rights for women, lgbtq people, and people of color. There are – increasingly, it seems – Christians promoting narrow, “traditional” gender norms and hierarchies along with white supremacist racial hierarchies. There are evangelical leaders who would have been considered extremely right-wing fringe 10-15 years ago, but who have moved into the mainstream in our current era. They believe and affirm that there are only two genders. That the only acceptable marriage is between a man and a woman and that households and families should be led not in equal partnership but by the husband. Doug Wilson, pastor of self-proclaimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, advocates for the repeal of the 19th Amendment and a move instead to “household voting,” in which only the male heads-of-household could vote. Even within our own denomination, there is a new movement led by young, ultra-conservative white men who are seeking to infiltrate moderate or right-of-center congregations and “take them over,” to promote anti-gay, patriarchal, racist theologies and practice. They call themselves “Presbyterians for the Kingdom.” Look them up.

So I’ve begun to feel like it’s a disservice to you all, who I love and respect, to avoid these texts. Your identity as a church of true, full diversity and belonging drives our shared witness to God’s love and justice in this place. Maybe it’s good for us to occasionally wrestle with the parts of scripture that are used to justify dehumanizing theology and prop up heinous hierarchies.

So here we go!

First, remember that we can’t read scripture with only our 21 st century lenses, but also through what we know about the time and cultural forces at play when and where it was written. In this passage, Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, and he’s adding a Christian spin to categories that were commonly used to describe relationships and roles in the Greco-Roman world. Aristotle, for example, framed household management and the role of the Paterfamilias through these same categories: husband, wife, and children, and master/slave. In the wider world at that time, patriarchy ruled, and relationships were defined not by love but by power. Women, children, and the enslaved were the lesser, weaker, lower members of the household directed by the landholding male. Paul, however, wrote elsewhere that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, but all are equal in Christ. Earlier in the note to the Ephesians he claims that Christ has torn down the dividing wall between us, bringing near those who were far off, and making strangers and foreigners into family.

At a time when Christ followers were being persecuted in Roman culture for not adhering to the social norms or power structures that required worship of the emperor, when Paul himself acknowledges the radical restructuring that comes with discipleship – How can Christ believers practice their faith without inviting undue persecution? Model the selflessness of Christ in our relationships. Note that he calls people to mutual submission – not only wives to husbands but also husbands to their wives. To our 21st century ears, this might seem like propping up patriarchy, but Paul is actually giving women and children and the enslaved agency and status that they otherwise wouldn’t have had in Roman society.

We can also interpret scripture with scripture – pointing to the centrality of women disciples in the gospel: the Syrophoenician woman who challenged Jesus openly and changed his mind, the woman at the well who was the first to acknowledge Jesus as messiah, and the Marys who were the first to hear and proclaim the news of Resurrection! And don’t forget the leadership of women in the early church, to Dorcas and Lydia the purveyor of purple cloth who supported the apostles and hosted a congregation in her home.

And, we can affirm what my old college chaplain always said: God gives us brains and expects us to use them! This means we can also point to science and sociology that shows us that gender is shaped by a variety of variables, both internal and external. Falling not within a strict male/female binary, but across a wide spectrum that manifests beautifully in a diversity of ways.

And, we can celebrate our experience of women in leadership in this congregation since the 1960’s, and – my own experience of the Spirit’s hand in my life, resting on my head and moving through the voice of this congregation to affirm my call to ministry. Thanks be to God!

Sunday July 12th 2026 Bulletin

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
July 12th, 2026

Perplexing Texts: The Rich Man and Lazarus

Luke 16

 

You know that my family and I spent many years in the South, most recently in Birmingham, and though it’s strange to think about it now in the high heat of summer, but down there, snow is an unusual event. If even a dusting is predicted, people rush to the grocery for the essentials: milk, bread, toilet paper, and bourbon. Get there too late and the shelves will be empty, pandemic style. Much like here, people who have a safe place to go hunker down at home, the streets of downtown empty out, and the city gets quiet. But there are also a good number of people who don’t have a warm place to go because they are unhoused. So in Birmingham, they would open a shelter in Boutwell auditorium, to get anyone and everyone off the street. I think we did that here too, right, hosting a rotating cold weather shelter in Hyde Hall for a time? The guy in city hall who would orchestrate this feat was Don Lupo. Lupo wore aviator sunglasses and had a gold earring, and he was a mix between a magician and a saint. He would conjure up cots and blankets and volunteers to host hundreds of people; he’d recruit restauranteurs to provide meals, and he’d send buses out to bridges and underpasses and encampments around town to encourage people to come in, out of the cold.

The church I served there was downtown, with a good number of unhoused people living around the property. In particular, there was a Russian woman and her elderly mother who would often stay with their mountain of belongings in the bus shelter behind the church. I knew from talking with them that they were Jewish, and had spent time in Israel, but how they’d ended up in Birmingham was not clear. They wanted desperately to return to Russia, but according to the lawyers and social workers we consulted about their situation, problems with visas, statehood, and mental illness made it virtually impossible.

I can remember one evening when a big storm was predicted, and I was leaving church with Maddie – she was probably three or four at the time. Snow was already falling in earnest, so I can’t remember why we weren’t home already –maybe it was our Wednesday night program, or maybe we’d gone to drip the faucets, or something. But as we came out of the church building and made our way to the car, the women were still there, huddled in the bus shelter. I went to talk with them, to tell them that much more snow was coming and encourage them to go to Boutwell, but they refused. A van had been by already, and they didn’t want to go. As we pulled out of the parking lot and drove away, Maddie asked me, “Where is their home?” I explained they didn’t have one. “but won’t they be cold?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “they will.” And we went home.

Children have a way, don’t they? Of cutting through to the heart of things. No pretense. She was able to name the awful truth of that situation, this mother and daughter left out in the cold, as we returned to the warmth of our home, and the snow fell.

I can’t help but remember that moment when I re-read this challenging tale of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Challenging for us for a couple of reasons. We are much more likely to identify with the Rich Man in this story, who ends up roasting in Hades, begging for a drink of water. We can’t help but wonder, have we done enough? Or is this what might happen to us?

And the story is challenging because it contradicts what we profess to believe about the love and mercy of God, made known to us in Jesus. Do I not stand at the font each week and proclaim forgiveness, no matter what we’ve done or left undone? So why is the rich man condemned? And while we’re at it, do we really believe in hell?

This parable is found in Luke’s gospel, which is full of stories about wealth and what we are to do with it. It is the same gospel in which the rich young man is told that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. One new testament scholar suggests this story should be read as a morality tale, and not a treatise on the afterlife.¹ A hint can be found in context: Luke includes this story after Jesus tells a series of parables about lost items: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son – stories that demonstrate God’s grace, and relentless pursuit of all who are lost, that they might be brought back into the fold. And Jesus is speaking to both the disciples and the Pharisees, telling them that all they need to know about faithfulness, love of God, and love of neighbor can be found in the Jewish law and scriptures. You know, where it says to welcome the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. To care for the poor and vulnerable, and to seek the welfare of the city, for in its welfare we find our own.

Did you know that in all of the parables Jesus tells, in all four gospels, Lazarus is the only character who is given a name?! It means “God helps.” This poor man, weak and wounded and waiting at the gate – is the one favored by God, important enough to be named, Lazarus. Wealth is not evidence of God’s blessing. The name is.

There is foreshadowing, too, in the story’s conclusion. Jesus observes that the rich man’s family has all the teaching they need to know how to be faithful, so if they’re not caring for others yet, nothing will change their hearts. Not even a person returning from the dead. I can’t help but envision the ghost of Jacob Marley visiting Scrooge, bound and burdened by the chains he forged in life.

There’s a Christmas Carol call to action and sense of urgency here. Isn’t there? Maybe that’s why I thought of that story of the Russian women in the snow. Because we can’t hear this story without wondering, what about us? As rich Christians in an age of hunger, are we doing enough?

I’ve been out of town, in the mountains with my family, and not following the news closely. But I do know that ICE agents shot and killed an innocent man in Houston a couple of days ago. That the bombing continues in Syria and Lebanon and Iran, despite a ceasefire. That in Caracas, a little girl just about Gillian’s age has been living in a tent in a park for the past two weeks, after her home was destroyed by an earthquake.

There is a poem by a Russian American writer named Ilya Kaminsky called, “We lived happily during the war.” The poem similarly convicts the reader, so I want to share it with you, so you can hear it:

We Lived Happily During the War by Ilya Kaminsky

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house—

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

The peacemaker and poet Padraig O’Tuama includes this poem in his poetry podcast, and he observes that what Kaminsky is “doing is highlighting over and over again, in so many places of war, that while some people are wondering, “Will I survive the day?” somebody else is wondering what color to paint the kitchen or whether they should reupholster the chairs or what choice to make about holiday. There’s a brutality about that.” He says, “This poem isn’t, I think, trying to make us feel guilty about those things, but it is trying to say, “Are you doing enough?” Because the poem has the invitation to say, “we protested / but not enough, we opposed them but not / enough.” O’Tuama asks: “So what is the “enough” going to be?”

These days are difficult. It seems as if the systems that have shaped our society are crumbling, the values of justice, equity, and the common good that upheld those systems are eroding away. And our media feeds us a neverending stream of bad news. How can we be faithful in the face of the complexity of Ebola, and civil war in Myanmar, and Graham Platner, and on and on? How can we ever do enough?

The good news is that most days will offer another chance to respond to the Lazarus at our gates. And that as a community, we’ve committed to not just caring for Lazarus, but questioning the systems and inequities that led him to suffer in the first place. We don’t do it alone, we don’t go it alone; we are in this together. And our shared values mean we offer our hearts and hands and resources to build and be the beloved community right here, together. We don’t always get it right. And we’re not there yet… we aren’t magicians or saints. But we are a work in progress. It is normal to wonder, in the face of everything, to ask “am I doing enough?” But I hope you leave today also  remembering, that you ARE enough. We can’t do everything, or respond to everything, but we can do something, and we can do it together. Thanks be to God.

 

 

1 Boulton, Matthew Meyer

Sunday June 28th, 2026 Bulletin

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 28th, 2026

Perplexing Texts: What Makes a Faithful Nation

2 Chronicles 7:11-22

 

I was in third grade when the first Iraq War, Operation Desert Storm, ended. Desert Storm, you might remember, had lasted for about 6 months – and my hometown of Shreveport was across the river from Bossier City, home to Barksdale Air Force Base, so there were people from our community who were
deployed during that time. When Iraq withdrew from Kuwait and the ceasefire went into effect, the air squadrons began to return home. I don’t know whose
idea this was at my elementary school, but somehow they knew about when the planes might be flying overhead on their way back to Barksdale. So the whole
school gathered outside, on the field, waiting for the B-52 bombers to fly overhead. While we waited, someone thought it was a good idea for us to form a
peace sign with our little bodies, all standing together in the crabgrass and the clover, so we did. And you know, it took a while. We’re standing there, sun
beating down, all holding hands, and someone decides we can sing songs to pass the time. So we do, we sing all the patriotic songs we know. We start with the
national anthem, the star spangled banner, which I knew from baseball games. And we sing America the Beautiful, which I knew because Haley Mills wraps up in
a flag and sings it in Pollyanna. And then, my classmates broke out in a song I didn’t know: and I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free…
and I look around, and it seems like everyone knows this song, this God Bless the USA song. I’ve never heard it before, so I asked: what is this song, where’d you
learn it? In church! They replied.

And that was one of the first times I remember realizing that my experience in the Presbyterian church was different than what was happening in the Baptist and nondenominational Christian churches of my youth.

There is a branch of Christianity in this country that marries God and country. They believe that because many of our founders were Christian, that so-called “Christian values” should be protected by the law and upheld by military might. Those values, which it turns out are largely hetero-normative, misogynist, and white supremacist make no room for other religions, other identities, other cultures. And they see the prosperity that many enjoy in this country as evidence of God’s blessing. The passage we read from Second Chronicles is foundational for these Christian nationalists. So much so, that the white house shared a video of Trump reading this passage a couple of months ago, seated behind the resolute desk in the oval office. Steely eyed, he looks right at the camera and reads not from the bible open under his hands but from a teleprompter. It’s unsettling. The video was shared as part of an effort to show America reads scripture for a revival on the national mall last month.¹ It was called Rededicate 250 – part of
the wider celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence.

You all remember that we see the Bible not as a single, seamless document written by a divine hand, but like a messy filing cabinet, a whole library of testimonies from faithful people, sharing where and how they understand God to be active and present in the world. To read and understand scripture, we need to be curious about who was writing, when they wrote, and why. Those folks who draw a straight line from these words from Second Chronicles to the 21 st century United States, who seem to think that God is speaking not to the Hebrew people but to the U.S., they are missing the point. The author isn’t talking about completing a gilded ballroom or bunker, but rather the gilded temple: that is, THE temple, the Jerusalem temple, the dwelling place for God built ten centuries or so before Christ, where faithful Jews went to make sacrifices and to worship. The home for the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, built by Solomon – the son of David, so that God would have a place to live amongst the people.

In our bible, First and Second Chronicles are found in the middle of the Old Testament – and they are a re-telling of the events of First and Second Kings, a history of sorts of ancient Israel. But when it was written, scholars think it was meant to be the last book of the Hebrew scriptures, a reinterpretation of their history in light of the author’s present day. It was written, we think, about 200 years after Israel returned from the Babylonian exile.

Just a little refresher here: last week, we visited the stories about Samuel, and the downfall of Saul, whose rule gave way for David to become king? David’s son is Solomon, who builds the first temple – but his kingdom fractures, becomes divided into North and South, and within a few centuries falls to Babylon, forcing people into exile.

So the author of Second Chronicles is narrating the completion of the first temple, aware that it will be destroyed by the Babylonians and, eventually, some fifty years later, be rebuilt. Holding that destruction in mind, the author looks around and again sees that things aren’t going well. He is warning HIS people, that their ancestors failed to adhere to Jewish law and faced terrible consequences. He’s trying to make sense of the experience of exile, the suffering of the siege of Jerusalem where so many starved and many more were killed, carried off as the spoils of war and forced to live in captivity. He’s calling people to faithfulness so that they can have hope for the future. So he writes: If you do as I say, you’ll be blessed… if not, you’ll be punished.

And my God, if it were only that simple! We call this the prosperity gospel, and it has found a dangerous new home in American evangelicalism and Christian Nationalism! Prosperity gospel expert Kate Bowler sums it up like this: adherents believe that “God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith.”² It’s convenient, really, if you are white and wealthy – or want to be. It means you don’t have to think too hard about the complex realities of white privilege and white supremacy, the interplay of inherited wealth and institutional racism that allows some to believe that they’ve achieved the American dream through hard work, because they are more deserving than those who are under resourced or otherwise disadvantaged. This way of reading scripture tries to make sense of suffering by saying it is caused by God as punishment for a lack of faith. But it is wrong.

When I grapple with the problem of evil on a summer Sunday morning, I’m grateful for the life and witness of Jesus of Nazareth. When Jesus’s disciples saw a blind man by the side of the road and they asked – who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus said, neither, and healed him. When he found the Geresenian demoniac chained to a rock, alone with his madness, cast out the demons which plagued him and restored him to his right mind, in community. That is, every time Jesus encountered a barrier people put up to keep others out, he pushed back, he tore it down. He met suffering not with condemnation but with compassion, and offered healing. He showed us that God loves us not because we are good, but because God is good. And with his life and ministry, he proclaimed that the presence and reign of God is near to us, not confined to a building or hidden away, but out in the world, redeeming and reconciling and bringing new life right here, right now.

Kate Bowler says, “The prosperity gospel popularized a Christian explanation for why some people make it and some do not. They revolutionized prayer as an instrument for getting God always to say “yes.” It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God will reward you, heal you, restore you. … it swaps faith for a dreadful certainty.”³ And when things go awry, it gives you something to blame.

But the truth is, God does not promise us health or wealth. God promises only to be with us through whatever might come. Our bodies are fragile, susceptible to illness and the indignities of aging. Our democracy, celebrating its 250th birthday, seems a bit fragile too, susceptible to manipulation by those who want to use power for profit, and by a man who would like to be king.

And so in the midst of this mess, what do we do? We are called to be faithful. To follow in the footsteps of the one who loved the least, the lost, and the last. Whose blessing does not depend on the strength of your faith or an ascription of belief, not on your nation of origin, or your citizenship status, or the color of your skin, or your gender identity or your sexual orientation or your political persuasion. But rather, on the strength of your love and the power of your commitment to practice it. He invites all of us to sit at table together, siblings in the household of God. Because it is there, at that table, we will indeed find peace, and wholeness, and blessing.

 

1 Moore, Russell, “America needs a better gospel than Christian Nationalism,” Christianity Today, May 20, 2026,
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/05/america-christian-nationalism-rededicate-250-revival-washington-
dc/.

2 Bowler, Kate, “Death, the prosperity gospel, and me,” Opinion Section, The New York Times, 2/13/16,
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html

3 Ibid.

Bulletin for Sunday, June 21st, 2026

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 21st, 2026

Perplexing Texts: The Witch of Endor

1 Samuel 28:3-25

 

I saw a reel this week from a Glaswegian woman who claims to be a witch. She was advising her followers to capture the energy of the solstice – today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. She said, rise at dawn, and hold a piece of thread, or yarn, or twine. As the suns first rays hit your skin, tie a knot. A knot, she said, has ancient power to capture and hold energy. Since the solstice is the longest day in the year, when the sun pours more energy out into our world than any other day – power and energy are abundant. So, throughout the day, when you feel your energy rise, tie another knot. That little bit of spell work can help us to grasp it, she said, to save for a time when your energy is low. So in the future, when the weather is grey and damp, or your spirits are low – whenever you find need a boost, untie a knot, and the energy will be released.

WHO WOULDN’T WANT THAT??!

I can remember, for that matter, playing with a Ouija board, at my friend Virginia O’Donnell’s lake house on Lake Bistineau when we were about 10. It was a wooden cabin, up high on stilts, with a tin roof and a big screen porch, and a wide grassy lawn leading down to the lake that was filled with cypress trees, hung with Spanish moss. We must have stayed up late, because I remember it was dark – and she and I conjured a spirit, all right, the ghost of somebody’s great aunt, who claimed to predict when and how we would die. And I don’t know whether there was a ghost with us or not, I’m still haunted by what that Ouija board said.

Bobby Hall told me that the man who invented the Ouija board was a Baltimore native – there’s a plaque describing the event in the 7-11 across from his apartment. The board was named during a séance more than a century ago and hundreds of thousands continue to be sold each year. And I get it: who hasn’t longed to speak to the dead? Who hasn’t thought of a question they wish they could ask a dearly departed relative or friend? Who doesn’t have at least one question you didn’t think to ask your mom before she died – or can’t help but think of something you wish you could’ve said to your father? I can understand what drives people to seek any means of communication with those beyond the veil.

And for that matter, who hasn’t wished they could see the future? Every child who has held a magic eight ball knows the frustration of receiving the message: reply hazy, ask again later. Plenty of people would pay good money to know the outcome of the midterm elections, to know if the nominee will be the right one, the winnable ticket. No tourist destination is complete without a shop selling palm or tarot readings, a bookstore stocked with crystals and incense, promising glimpses of the future and energies balanced, harnessed for good health, for power, or for strength.

All of this to say: in this age of advanced technology and AI, of high tech ghost hunters with infrared cameras and ultra sensitive microphones – if even now people are still yearning for a way to harness energy and power, to discern the future, and commune with the dead… surely we should not be surprised to find a witch in scripture who claims to be able to summon the voices of the dead!

But I am surprised! I am surprised to find her here, conversing with Saul under the cover of night. I am surprised to see her raising the spectre of Samuel, as surprised as I am to read the verse “Saul had expelled all witches and wizards from the land,” as surprised as I am to find David, David who famously slew the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot – fighting on the side of the Philistines! What is going on here?

Samuel, remember, ruled over Israel as a judge and a prophet, but the people called for a king. So eventually, God anointed Saul to serve as king over Israel. And Saul was a good king – for a while. But he struggled with enemies without and within, and distrusted even his closest advisors. He pulled young David from his court and made him general over thousands of soldiers – casting out David, who had been a source of advice and divine insight, when he realized God favored David over him. Thus began a pattern where Saul, plagued by boughts of mania, chased and clashed with David’s armies. David spared Saul more than once, and still Saul pursued him. But Saul lost hope when he felt like God was no longer guiding him. And sought guidance anywhere he could find it: even through a medium at Endor. The spectre she raises predicts death and destruction, which indeed proves to be true. So what’s happening here?

Nothing more than humans being humans, I suspect.

That is, hoping that the border that lies between this life and whatever comes next is more like a permeable veil than a solid, impassable wall. We’ve all hoped for that, wondered about that at some point, haven’t we?

This passage also speaks to human longing – especially in times of crisis, for wisdom and encouragement from trusted mentors, even if that mentor has died. Most of us have wished we could ask for help from someone who isn’t around anymore, right? And the sense of profound loneliness and even abandonment that can come when life doesn’t work out the way we’d hoped it would; when we must deal with the ramifications of bad decisions or the consequences of greed or jealousy.

The presence of the witch, lurking here in the twisted saga of Samuel, Saul, and David, points to our human tendency to look every possible place for a sense of certainty as we make decisions and face the unknown. She’s not the only mystical, mythical presence in the biblical story – not by any means. Saul himself was chosen to be king by the casting of lots! It was common practice to discern God’s will using an ancient form of dice, cast to help make a decision. The high priest himself would’ve worn a golden  breastplate containing two objects known as the urim and the thummim, which were used in sacred discernment. That is why the garment was called the breastplate of judgment.

So it was common, then, to use tools to assist in the making of decisions, and to guide the practice of prayer.

Some in our Bible study this week guessed that the ghost of Samuel is nothing more than Saul’s own conscience, giving voice to his guilt over bad decisions, and naming what he fears will come true. What we all hear when we lie awake in the middle of the night, giving voice to our anxiety and fears.

Unhelpfully, in his commentary about this passage, Walter Bruggemann says that while it’s natural to be curious about the powers presented by the witch of Endor, we shouldn’t let our curiosity about the supernatural supercede the theological message of the passage- which is, be faithful to God in all things; ascribe to other, lesser powers at your peril.

And maybe we can relate to this warning, too – there certainly are plenty of powers that vie for our attention and loyalty. Plenty of distractions in this age of high tech AI that will lead us astray from the goodness we were created to do. And there is a great temptation to read cosmic, supernatural meaning into military defeat or violent conflict – as God’s punishment, or abandonment, instead of admitting human hubris, misjudgment, or folly.

Bulletin for Sunday, July 19th, 2026

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
July 19th, 2026

Perplexing Texts: The parable of the talents

Matthew 25:13-30

 

The girl was young, early 20’s, with a wide smile and a nervous affect. She was thin, like she hadn’t had a good meal in a long while. She was a stranger to me, so I was surprised when she showed up at my office door last week. She quickly explained, she’d seen the bulletin board outside and was curious – what kind of programs did we have? Did we have any assistance to help people who were in need? We stood in my office, the afternoon sun slanting through the window, as she told me a little of her story: that she’d been enrolled at Morgan, taking classes and working towards a degree – but then her mother died. In the midst of her shock and grief at the loss of her mom – she realized that the loss of income meant her financial aid package was messed up, too. So she withdrew from school, and was just trying to make ends meet now. Anyway – could we help?

Though we draw from hither and yon, Faith is a neighborhood church. We don’t get a lot of people seeking assistance on a regular basis, not like a tall-steeple downtown church would. But in the past couple of weeks, in addition to that young woman, we’ve gotten calls, another drop-in, and a former colleague – all asking for help, just a little  help to get by. Maybe this isn’t so surprising… the price of groceries has risen by 3-4% since last year. Gas prices are up, making it expensive to get to work if you can afford to drive a car. And the cost of electricity has increased dramatically, so much so that there were 115,000 gas and electric shutoffs in Maryland last year – 15,000 more than the previous year. As one advocate told the Baltimore Banner, “bills are becoming fundamentally unaffordable for families.” It’s easy to see, then, in this context, why this parable is perplexing.

Because Jesus, in this parable, seems to lift up the two servants who make money with what their master leaves with them. He seems to be extolling the virtues of investing, the benefit of compounding interest. And in so doing, he casts the poor, the struggling, the risk-averse – the servant who buries his cash — out into the cold where there is weeping, and gnashing of teeth. But is that really what Jesus is saying here?

This parable is perplexing because there are so many different ways to read it. It comes up often, in the lectionary, and elsewhere. The chapter in which it’s found is Matthew 25, a series of three stories that ignited the Matthew 25 movement within the PCUSA – a movement which has given energy and direction to the Presbyterian Mission Agency for the past 7-8 years. Inspired by these verses, our larger church has found congregational vitality in the work of dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty. We here, at Faith, are a Matthew 25 church. When the denomination was still in discernment about adopting Matthew 25, and debating the core pillars of dismantling racism and eradicating poverty – I remember a colleague challenging my interpretation of this text on the floor of Presbytery! He took issue with how I read this parable.

This is one of the last stories Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew, right before the last supper and all that comes after. He is preparing his disciples for life after his death. And there were a lot of faithful people at this time who believed the end of the world was imminent. Matthew’s community thought Christ would return in their lifetimes. So many read this story as an allegory explaining how are disciples are to act in the meantime, while they await Christ’s return. Are they going to be like the first two servants, taking risks to grow what has been entrusted to them? Or will they play it safe, keep their heads down, and bury their gifts like the third guy?

This traditional interpretation focuses on the word “talents.” In biblical times, a talent was a huge amount of money, some fifteen years of income – say $3 million dollars. But its hard to not to read “talent” as we think of it today – talent, God-given gifts, and abilities! If we understand “talent” to mean giftedness, we hear Jesus urging us to use our creativity, our abilities, to share the good news.

But the next story calls us to care for the “least of these” as if we were caring for Christ himself. Again and again, Jesus talks and tells stories about caring for the poor and vulnerable, critiquing systems that exclude and oppress. He often talks about wealth as an impediment to entering the kingdom of heaven. What if we were to understand this story not as an allegory, where God is the absent landowner, but rather as a critique of an unjust economic system, that privileges those who are already wealthy and  throws those who have nothing out into the cold? When we read the story in that way, we find Jesus not with the capitalists counting cash, but in the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. After all, in biblical times as it is today, it’s expensive to be poor. Those folks who have their power shut off don’t just have to pay their unpaid bills, they also have to pay also a reconnection fee to get things hooked up again.

Several years ago, a Nigerian-American author named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote an essay describing the dangers of a single story. As a student at an American university, she realized her roommate had absorbed just one story about Africa and Africans, a story that was dehumanizing and deluded. With a single story, the richness and complexity of a culture and people get reduced to stereotypes. But many stories have power, she says. The stories we tell can empower and impart dignity. What stories do we tell about ourselves and our neighbors? About our community, our city, our region? Here at Faith, in our learning and our worship, we cultivate a spirit of openness, curiosity, and intellectual rigor that enables us to hold many stories at once. There are many churches that offer a faith filled with devastating certainty. Preachers who give sermons filled with answers about how life should be lived and what we should believe. Each Sunday, a firm declaration of faith.

That’s not us.

Here, we ask a lot of questions. Curiosity and doubt are core values, because we are committed not to all believe and think the same thing, but rather to be on the journey of discovery together.

Accordingly, we can make space for multiple ways of reading and understanding scripture. What you read depends on who you are, the interpretive lens you bring to the text.

Jesus told stories – many different stories– to be provocative, to critique injustice in the world around him, and to challenge his disciples to live faithfully together in a broken world. So maybe this parable is challenging us to use our God-given gifts for the flourishing of the community. Or maybe it’s condemning the system that would cast out the servant who refused to follow the order of his master. Something is wrong with a world that gives more to those who have the most, and takes from those who have the least. After all, the last become first in the reign of God, right?

The good news for us, is that we aren’t stuck with a single story. We get to embrace the complexity and consider many different interpretations of perplexing texts. And look around! We don’t have to figure it out alone. What a blessing that we are part of a community intent on figuring it out together! Consider this a plug for the Wednesday Bible Study – but also our Adult Forum gatherings, and our burgeoning youth group, and maybe even the older adult gathering that’s just straining to be born.

Add your voice to the story.