Getting Off My Horse

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
Acts 4:32-35, 5:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
Oct. 4, 2026

One of the marks of the privilege I bear is choosing how little I will eat.  So, when I find myself in my office at lunchtime, I usually have just a protein bar and a couple of handfuls of nuts.  Now, I understand this is not the healthiest lunch I could choose.  Ideally, I’d have some fruit and veggies with my protein, but typically I just eat what’s there in my desk drawer.  (Now, if you’re keeping score, I always get a salad when I meet someone for lunch and often have a salad for dinner.)  At least the protein bar and nuts are better for me than what I’d really like, which is a cheeseburger and fries.  As a person of privilege in this society, I can be picky about what I eat.  And I can have as much or as little as I like.

Privilege is on my mind today as we celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who died 800 years ago yesterday.  We think of Francis as the patron saint of animals and, really, of the whole earth; and his care for creation is why we bless pets near the feast of St. Francis.  But the significance of St. Francis speaks deeply to our human relationships, too, because of what Francis’ ministry truly lived out: Love, with a capital L, the very Love that is God.

The fact that his story took this trajectory is the last thing anyone in Assisi would have imagined, including Francis himself.¹  He was a product of the privilege of his day and age.  His father was a wealthy cloth merchant who’d imported a beautiful wife from France, too.  Their son, Francis, grew up with the best that 12^th-century Italy had to offer, and he was on a course toward becoming one of the bold and the beautiful himself.  As a young man, his passion was partying with his friends.  He imagined himself as a knight, and he went off to war against another Italian city-state, Perugia, to prove what he was made of.  Unfortunately, he was quickly captured and spent most of that conflict in a Perugian prison, waiting for his father to ransom him.  The fact that Francis was there for a year or so might say a lot about what his father thought of him.

Eventually, with the ransom paid, Francis came home, no longer dreaming of military glory.  Broken in body and spirit, he was ready for his conversion moment.  It came as he rode his horse outside Assisi and encountered a person with leprosy, an excruciating and highly contagious skin-wasting disease.  True to form, Francis passed wide of the leper until he heard God giving him a different command.  So, Francis went back, got off his horse, and embraced the leper, honoring him with Love that Francis himself hadn’t really known before.  He turned away from the bold and the beautiful and turned toward the sick and the forgotten instead.

This reorientation turned his heart toward God, too.  Praying in the local chapel, he heard God telling him, “Francis, rebuild my church.”  He took the Lord literally.  Selling off some of his father’s fine cloth without permission, he set out rebuilding the old chapel.  Francis’ father had had enough and took him before the local bishop, demanding that the bishop force Francis to pay him back.  Francis declined and put his life in the hands of a higher authority.  He took off his own fine clothes, threw them at his father’s feet, donned a rough brown robe, and left – without a plan, other than following where God would lead him and trusting God to provide what he’d need.

Now, we hear this story and see Francis like one of the guys who wander down Wornall Road, mumbling to themselves.  Instead, Francis spoke compellingly with everyone he met as he went from village to village, telling the story of a God who loved them enough to come, and share their suffering, and offer them life under God’s reign and rule instead.  Shockingly, people took him up on it.  They found his message so compelling that they, too, left their unfulfilling lives and followed Francis.

Eventually, enough people had come along that Francis found he had to organize them, and the Franciscan monastic order was born.  Rejecting the wealth and power that the Church had built up as it had wandered away from Jesus’ path, Francis and his followers renounced private property, following the model we heard in the reading from Acts today.  And even as his order grew, Francis refused ordination as a priest in order to stand against the clerical privilege that office would bring.

Instead, in word and action, he spent his life embodying the upside-down reign and rule of God, the way of life Jesus had lived and proclaimed.  Starting with the leper he embraced and continuing from village to village, Francis insisted that loving, self-giving relationship isn’t just a nice idea but actually the heart of God and the paradigm we’re called to follow.  For Francis, that was true about the good earth God has given us – that we’re in relationship with “brother sun,” and “sister moon,” and every living creature with whom we share the gift of life.  And, for Francis, that was also true about every person – especially “the least,” whom we easily forget but in whose steps Jesus walks the earth every day (Matthew 25:40).

So, 800 years later, what in the name of God are you and I supposed to do with the story of Francis of Assisi?

We might start by remembering whose creation this is, after all.  Francis looked at the life his father led, and the stark difference between that world and the world of the leper down the road, and Francis asked, “Is this what Jesus had in mind?” – a life founded on the principle that I have a right to everything I can get?  Jesus had told a different story with the parable we heard in today’s Gospel reading, this story of the person of great wealth whose long-term plan is to store up for himself as much as he can.  When our stories end, we hear God asking, “The things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20).  And, in fact, whose are they now, really?

Along with remembering that we’re actually not the owners of what God gives us to tend, I think Francis would ask us to remember just who that is walking down Wornall Road, mumbling to himself.  It’s not just some crazy guy.  It’s Jesus.

And that’s when the soul-searching really begins.  For each of us in the contexts of our lives, and for all of us in this parish of St. Andrew’s, this geographic area we serve – how do we embrace the leper in our midst?

I don’t know a quick-and-easy answer.  What I know instead is the struggle of discerning what faithfulness looks like.

As a parish, we faced this struggle directly a few months ago.  Over at HJ’s, six days a week, we served free coffee to anyone who came by – really good coffee, too, specialty drinks prepared by baristas.  For a long time, we were running a little inbreaking of the kingdom of God there at HJ’s Café, with parishioners, and young families, and neighbors from the Blue Goose, and homeless folks all enjoying their morning Joe.  It was great … until it wasn’t.  Over time, word spread among the folks on the street; so, as more of them came, we had to get more specific about rules of behavior at the Café and more direct in enforcing them.  That worked … until it didn’t.  Eventually, folks from the street were using drugs in the restrooms, spurring 911 calls; and violence began breaking out.  That wasn’t safe for the parishioners, and young families, and neighbors from the Blue Goose.  So, we’ve limited Café service to times when other things are happening at HJ’s, like the Friday-morning jam session and the Saturday Farmer’s Market.  It’s worked.  We still get a few street folks coming by, but not the acting out.

I find that story a little heartbreaking.  And … it was the right thing to do.  We still have a staff member who coordinates our outreach ministries and offers assistance to folks who come by looking for help.  But we’re neither a shelter nor a social-service agency, and we can’t pretend to be.

Still, when I drive up Wornall Road every morning from I-435, I see the lepers along the way.  Too often, as I exit the highway and pull up to the stoplight to turn onto Wornall, I would choose the lane farthest away from the guy standing there, asking for money.  Now, St. Francis would get off his horse and embrace this guy at the stoplight.  He’d probably give him what he had in his pouch, too.  So, what should I do?

I’ve taken to keeping a box of protein bars in my car.  Turns out, a couple of them make a good lunch.  And offering them makes me more likely to choose the lane next to the guy at the stoplight and even roll down my window to say hello.  

Now, I have no illusions that I’m solving anything by doing this.  Neither did Francis.  But he got off his horse anyway. 

1.       Francis’ story is taken from “About St. Francis.” The Catholic Center at the University of Georgia. Available at: https://ugacatholic.org/about-st-francis-of-assisi/. Accessed Feb. 2, 2026.

Is it Right for You to Be Angry?

Sermon for Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026
Jonah 3:10–4:11 

If today’s sermon were a movie, this would be the opening scene:  I’m taking my morning walk a little later than usual – so, not in the dark but, instead, as the sun is rising through the trees at the end of my street.  Above the trees, the towering clouds are backlit, complete with silver linings.  On the sidewalk coming toward me is couple, maybe my age or a few years older.  They’re out for their morning walk, holding hands, unconsciously in step.  Meanwhile, as the older couple comes near, a school bus passes me and stops at the driveway a few houses up the street, toward the sunrise.  Down the driveway comes the excited six-year-old, off to his third week of first grade.  He’s trailed by his toddling sister and their parents.  The boy steps onto the bus; the dad scoops up the toddler before she manages to get on, too; and they all wave goodbye.

OK.  Hold onto that scene, and we’ll come back to it later.

Now our movie shifts to today’s Old Testament reading from Jonah.  Of course, our Sunday-morning readings always come out of context, dropped into worship with no explanation.  But this reading seems especially context-free.  We know the name Jonah – the guy who got swallowed by the big fish, right?  Well, this is that Jonah; but there’s no fish in sight.  Instead, Jonah is sitting on a hill overlooking the city of Nineveh – a metropolis of its time at 120,000 people, three days’ walk from end to end (3:3).  Jonah is sitting there, looking down on the city and … whining at God’s generosity of heart for having spared the city from destruction.  Jonah’s whining prompts the sovereign of the universe to ask him patiently, like a long-suffering parent, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (4:4)  God reminds Jonah just how many idol-worshiping fools were saved in Nineveh because they listened to Jonah’s warning and turned to Yahweh instead.

And that’s it – the end of the reading and the end of the book.  Kind of a terrible ending, right?  Who’d go see that movie?

It might help to know how we got there.  This book has only four chapters, so, it won’t take long to add some context.  Consider this our movie’s extended flashback.

Jonah’s story begins with God calling him to be a prophet, one of God’s spokespersons.  Jonah is minding his own business in his seaside town of Joppa when God says to him, “Listen, you know Nineveh, right – that huge city 600 miles northeast of here?  They’re idolators, worshiping their own creations.  They aren’t bad people; they’re just uninformed.  So,” God says to Jonah, “I need you to go to Ninevah and speak for me.  Tell the king and his people that, if they turn from their idols and honor me instead, I won’t light ’em up after all.”

That’s a lot for our friend, Jonah, to process. He gives it maybe not as much thought as he should before deciding … to run away.  Jonah finds a ship headed for Spain – literally the western edge of the world for people in Jonah’s place and time.  To Jonah, the edge of the world seems like a safe distance away from the God who’s calling his name.

So, Jonah gets onboard the ship as the ultimate bad-luck charm.  Out to sea, the ship hits devastating storms, and the captain starts asking around to see which of the crew might have offended his or her deity.  Finally, the captain wakes up Jonah; and by casting lots, they realize he’s the problem, having made Yahweh more than a little upset.  So, Jonah volunteers to be thrown overboard to save the ship – and it works.

But, as Jonah is sinking into oblivion, God sends – you guessed it – the famous big fish.  The fish swallows Jonah in the middle of the Mediterranean, swims back to Joppa, and vomits Jonah onto the beach.  Now, how does Jonah stay alive in the belly of the beast for three days?  As I used to tell my literal-minded daughter, “Don’t worry; it’s a story.”  Anyway, Jonah cleans himself up; and, no surprise, he finds God tapping him on the shoulder again.  “Hey, Jonah,” God says. “Remember Nineveh?  I still need that job done.”

So, begrudgingly, Jonah travels to Nineveh, takes a deep breath, and does what God told him to do.  Now, he’s got no confidence that telling people what they don’t want to hear is going to accomplish anything.  To Jonah, this seems like the ultimate fool’s errand, but Jonah has only begun to live into his own foolishness.  Because, it turns out, Jonah is God’s best spokesperson ever.  He tells the Ninevites they have to stop worshiping idols and turn to the God of Israel instead … and the Ninevites do it.  The king leads his people in repenting, wearing sackcloth and wallowing in ashes to beg for God’s forgiveness.  And it works.

Then the scene shifts to Jonah.  Instead of celebrating his success as God’s most effective prophet, Jonah storms out of town, climbs a hill by himself, and sits down for a good sulk.  The way he’d scripted this story, the Ninevites were going to get what was coming to them, and he was looking forward to some justice of biblical proportions.  Because, really, nothing beats watching people you don’t like getting what’s coming to them.  Nothing beats justice … at least as long as the justice isn’t raining down on you.

So, Jonah is incensed that God’s project has worked.  And that’s where we find him in today’s reading, sitting on a hill in the blazing sun, pouting at God’s failure to give the Ninevites what they deserved.  “That’s not fair,” Jonah says.  “This gig as God’s spokesman wasn’t supposed to work.  I was just here to check a box and then watch God bring the hammer down.  Now, they all get off the hook.  And what do I get?”

So, God says to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (4:4).

“Yes,” Jonah whines.  “I’m angry enough to die.  If you aren’t going to bring down justice on the Ninevites, you might as well kill me instead.  I’m done.”

Well, while Jonah sits and pouts, God gives him a little object lesson in what really matters.  God causes a bush to spring up and shade Jonah from the beating sun, which Jonah appreciates.  But then God sends a worm to kill the bush just as quickly, and Jonah goes right back to seeing himself getting the short end of the stick.  “If I can’t at least sit here in the shade, I might as well die,” Jonah says – “because clearly, God, you don’t care about me at all.”

And the story ends with God giving Jonah a shake of the head and saying, “Jonah.  Come on.  You’re mad because you lost your shady bush to a hungry worm.  But you don’t give a hoot about those 120,000 people you helped to save in Nineveh … “and also many animals” (4:11).

And, scene.  Fade to black, and roll credits.

Well, there’s the whole story of Jonah.  But even with the whole story, it’s still a pretty unsatisfying ending.  I mean, what happens next?  Does Jonah ever grow up spiritually?  We never find out.  Instead, the story ends with a gentle lecture from the Most High telling Jonah to get over himself.  No wonder all that we remember about the Book of Jonah is the big fish.

So, what are we supposed to take away from this ancient short story?  Well, first, maybe this:  When God asks something of you, don’t sail to the edge of the earth to try to get out of it.  And second, when you see other people being blessed rather than you, choose to see it through a lens other than fairness.  Maybe try gratitude instead.  Jonah looks at God’s mercy to the Ninevites, and he demands to know what the Most High is thinking:  “Why are you blessing them, God, and not me?  It’s not fair.”  God, the ultimate grown-up, doesn’t take the bait.  But here’s what God could have said: “You think you deserve better than the Ninevites?  Last I checked, Jonah, you skedaddled off to the edge of the world to get out of a job I gave you.  With that fish, I saved you from the outcome your actions deserved, so you might want to think again before you demand that I be ‘fair’….”  Well, we don’t hear God saying that in the story.  Instead, our Most High parent is content simply to ask Jonah to think again:  “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Of course, this story isn’t just ancient theological reflection.  Unfortunately, we can be Jonah, too.  Or, at least, I can be.

Go back to that scene from my early-morning walk.  The sun is rising and gilding the clouds.  A young family greets the morning with joy, their next day of normal life as good as it gets.  Their love shines like the sunrise – just like the love of the older couple walking toward me.  Hand in hand, their steps unconsciously synchronized, they’ve taken a thousand walks together and they’ll take hundreds more.  They are effortlessly, blessedly at peace.

But what’s the lens I’m using to shoot this scene?  I do smile as I take it all in – the family’s joy, the couple’s peace, the sunrise of hope, the Love of God that empowers it all.  But my smile is strained, too, as Jonah’s voice rises in the back of my head, whining about the unfairness of it all.  Sometimes, blessing and affliction seem capricious at best.  Where’s my walking partner, and where are the grandkids we’d hoped for?  Walking alone is not exactly the ending I wanted.

It’s a good, good thing that God’s a better storyteller than I am.  In the story of Jonah, leaving the ending open gives Jonah the chance to change his point of view.  Will he keep seeing the saving of 120,000 people as evidence of God’s unfairness?  Or will he use a different lens, and see blessing instead, and give thanks for the fact that he had a part in making it happen?

In the story, the choice is Jonah’s.  In my story, the choice is mine.

St. Dolly of Appalachia

Sermon for Aug. 30, 2026
Romans 12:9-21

Like probably 80 or 90 percent of the rest of American preachers this morning, I want to reflect a little on the passing of Dolly Parton.  Now, I am only a marginal Dolly Parton fan; for years, I’ve admired and respected her artistic and philanthropic work, but I couldn’t name more than a handful of her songs.  But, like many of the rest of us, I did stop in my tracks on Tuesday as a staff member called out from his desk that Dolly had died.

          What’s really struck me this week has been the response to her passing.  It hasn’t been so much a surprise as a holy reassurance.  Across social media, we’ve seen post after post praising Dolly’s giftedness, her heart, and her faith.  People lauded her stunning artistic achievements, in quality and quantity – I can’t imagine writing more than 3,000 songs.  People praised her literacy initiative, the Imagination Library, which puts books in the hands of 3 million children each month.¹  People thanked her for giving away millions of dollars in other ways, too, including funding COVID research, AIDS research and awareness, and recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene – as well as supporting individuals who lost their homes in Tennessee wildfires.  People also witnessed to her unshakable faith and her commitment to living it out.  One post quoted Dolly saying, “We’re supposed to love one another and love our neighbors as ourselves. It doesn’t take much to be kind.”  Several posts named her as St. Dolly of Appalachia, complete with icons.  A post from the satirical Babylon Bee captured the moment nicely:  It read, “Apocalypse Draws Near as Last Remaining Universally Beloved Human Being Passes Away.”²

Of course, despite the way people have come together around Dolly’s passing, our world is still on fire, in a hundred ways.  Or, more precisely this week, it’s under water.  One day after Dolly Parton’s death came news of astonishing flooding and landslides in Tibet and Nepal.  The video takes your breath away as water, mud, and rocks roll over Himalayan villages, and people scatter like ants before the wave.  Initially, reports said an earthquake had triggered a melting glacier to give way.  Later, the U.S. government confirmed that, instead, the rush of water, mud, and rocks was so powerful as to mimic a 4.4-magnitude earthquake.³  As of this morning, about 800 are confirmed dead and 3,000 still are missing – mostly residents of the villages, as well as pilgrims and hikers from around the world.⁴  It’s devastation on a scale I can barely comprehend.

This isn’t really a why-bad-things-happen-to-good-people sermon, but I do think it’s worth saying this much:  The theological term that applies in situations like this is “theodicy.”  Interestingly, that word doesn’t mean, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  It means a defense of God, in a legal sense.  It’s less “why?” and more “how could you allow that?”  So, taking the presumptuous position of rising as God’s defense attorney, I’d just say this:  It wasn’t God who melted that glacier enough to collapse.

Of course, the world is burning in many other ways, too.  And we could burn a lot of time debating who’s to blame for this or that particular dumpster fire.  I think it’s more productive, and more holy, to turn instead toward how we might put them out.  

But solutions can’t come without first having the right orientation, the right relationship.  To put out the fires raging around us, we first have to turn and face them together.  And that tremendous change of orientation begins with an even bigger change of heart – deciding to see ourselves, first and foremost, as children of God called to love the other children of God around us … whether we like them or not.

The apostle Paul lays it out for us in today’s reading from Romans.  Now, remember, Paul is the guy who first committed his life to judging those who disagreed with him, literally locking them up, even stoning them.  Paul was the original true believer in the worst possible sense, the kind of person you want to stay as far away from as you can.  But in this soaring statement of just how far his heart had turned, Paul says to the believers in Rome:  Put Love first, and let it guide everything.

Of course that’s true about relating to other followers of Jesus.  “Let love be genuine,” Paul says to the Roman Christians.  “[L]ove one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor” (12:10).  Cool; we can get behind that.  It’s even true about those beyond the boundary of your faith:  “[E]xtend hospitality to strangers,” Paul adds (12:13).  OK, that’s fine.

But then comes the crazy talk.  “Bless those who persecute you” (12:14).  Wait, what?  No, really, Paul says; “Do not repay anyone evil for evil….  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” (12:17,19)  Want to see your enemies suffer?  Here’s how, Paul says:  “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing that you will heap burning coals on their heads” (12:20).  Paul’s point is this:  Don’t follow the world’s model by trying to destroy those who oppose you.  Instead, fight back with the strongest weapon there is, the weapon of Love.  “[O]vercome evil with good,” Paul says (12:21).

One of the things I really admire about Dolly Parton is the way she embodied this countercultural ethic St. Paul lays out.  Now, most of us don’t have $500 million to donate to the work of Love in the world, so how it looks for us to overcome evil with good probably won’t bring us internet sainthood when we die.  But we can each take inspiration from St. Dolly of Appalachia, as well as St. Paul of Tarsus, and look for ways to overcome evil with good in our own lives.

Maybe that’s through gifts of time.  Maybe it’s through gifts of talent.  Maybe it’s through gifts of treasure.  Or maybe it’s through another “T”: telling the truth.  And I don’t mean that in the sense of using your truth to bludgeon others.  I mean following the model of the Old Testament prophets: telling truth that points people toward a divine reality.  That’s the prophet’s calling, after all – to be the one to speak for God, the one with the guts to say, “Look, this path we’re on is leading to our destruction.  Let’s turn back.  Let’s go another way – God’s way.”

That’s what I hear St. Paul saying in today’s reading from Romans, too.  I imagine him grilling a witness for the world’s model of destroying those who oppose you, the old us-versus-them:  St. Paul asks, how’s retribution working out for you?  How effectively is vengeance solving your problems?  Just maybe there’s a better road.  How about this? “Live in harmony with one another; … do not claim to be wiser than you are….  [S]o far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:16,18)  And, for St. Paul, “all” incudes even them – whoever qualifies as “them” to you.  

It’s not just in Scripture that we find God’s prophets.  We find one in our saint of the week, Blessed Dolly of Appalachia.  Dolly Parton didn’t just have a great voice; she had a divine voice.  She refused to get drawn into us-versus-them debates; instead, she insisted on speaking and acting in love.  Doing that, St. Dolly spoke for God, the One who made her and redeemed her and sustained her.  That didn’t mean being a sweet Southern girl.  It meant shining light into the darkness we create for ourselves.

So, I want to give St. Dolly the last word this morning.  Now, I’d like to play a song for you; but last time I did that, the gods of the internet shut off our livestream.  So, I’ll just leave you with prophetic words from St. Dolly’s 2023 song, “World on Fire”:

Liar, liar, the world’s on fire,
Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?
Fire, fire burning higher,
Still got time to turn it all around. 

I ain’t one for speaking out much,
But that don’t mean I don’t stay in touch.
Everybody’s tripping over this or that –
What we gonna do when we all fall flat? …

Don’t get me started on politics.
How are we to live in a world like this?
Greedy politicians present and past –
They wouldn't know the truth if it bit ’em in the ass.

What is truth?  Have we all lost sight
Of common decency, of wrong and right?
How do we heal this great divide?
Do we care enough to try? …

Can we rise up? Can we show some love?
Do we just give up – or make a change?
We know all too well we’ve all been through hell.
Time to break the spell, in heaven’s name.⁵ 

1.        “The World’s Largest Study of Shared Book Reading Reaffirms: Early Literacy Begins at Birth.” Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Available at: https://imaginationlibrary.com/international-research/. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

2.        “Apocalypse Draws Near As Last Remaining Universally Beloved Human Being Passes Away.” The Babylon Bee. Available at: https://babylonbee.com/news/apocalypse-draws-near-as-last-remaining-universally-beloved-human-being-passes-away?fbclid=IwZnRzaAT9MEpwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNR_GGBjmd2CrthRFmLC72QcPVWDFmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7RIhOLk0U-IDY-8Zc-GdNO3RqW9S6H4YCZ4Qs2JMV4WireZy7NoOLzqBY2EA_aem_eRq-LBTHrbE-2ZcfGIwUtA. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

3.        “Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, after Nepal-Tibet flash flood kills at least 356.” The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/what-caused-nepal-flash-flood-glacial-collapse-tibet-border. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

4.        “Nepal flood death toll reaches 800, with more than 3,000 missing, as poor weather hampers rescues.” CBS News. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nepal-flash-flood-death-missing-americans-rescue/. Accessed Aug. 30, 2026.

5.        Parton, Dolly. “World on Fire.” Available at: https://tasteofcountry.com/dolly-parton-world-on-fire-lyrics/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

 

Bearing Heaven

Sermon for the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, transferred
Luke 1:46-55
Aug. 16, 2026

This morning, as we’re celebrating the feast of St. Mary the Virgin, which was yesterday, it seems like a good time to ask:  What does Mary have to do with me?   

Maybe, if you’re of a certain age, you might identify with Mary from the Beatles’ classic “Let It Be,” speaking words of wisdom in times of trouble.  For many Episcopalians, especially with Roman Catholic roots, we might know Mary as our intercessor, the one who understands our suffering and brings our needs before the throne of grace. 

For the past 2,000 years, the Church has been trying to figure out how to understand Mary – who she was, what happened to her when she died, and how to see her now.  In the 400s, early Christian theologians settled on calling her the theotokos, “the one who gave birth to God”¹ – a poetic way to capture the real point, which is that is that her son, Jesus, is both human and divine.  But giving Mary that title of God-bearer led the theologians to wonder about Mary’s role beyond Jesus’ life.  In the Roman Catholic tradition, there’s the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, the belief that she didn’t die but was taken physically into heavenly glory, like Elijah in the Old Testament.²  In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, there’s the doctrine of the Dormition of Mary, the belief that she did die but without human suffering, like falling asleep, and that she rose physically into heavenly glory after three days, like Jesus.³  And in heaven, however she got there, the Catholic and Orthodox traditions would say Mary is now ruling with her son, the queen mother of the sovereign Lord Christ. 

For us Episcopalians, this morning’s feast day isn’t named for the Assumption of Mary, or the Dormition of Mary; it’s just about Mary.  We don’t worry so much about the details of how she got to heaven or what she’s doing there,⁴ focusing more on her earthly story and what that says about us.

In Luke’s Gospel, we meet Mary as a teenaged peasant whose life is about to hit the wall.  She’s minding her own business in Nazareth one day when the angel Gabriel appears and says she’s been chosen to bear God’s Son, the one who will “be great” and rule over Israel, and “of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).  Mary, engaged to a nice older carpenter, has now just lost out on that engagement for having become pregnant – and she’s lost any hope for her future, since she’ll be an outcast in a society with no place for single mothers.  Yet, from the start, Mary shows herself to be anything but the meek and mild young woman in the nativity paintings.  Instead, she asks Gabriel some pointed questions about how she’ll come to be pregnant, and then she accepts God’s assignment:  “Here I am,” she says, “the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

Despite the debates across the centuries, pretty much all Christian theology agrees on what that word theotokos tries to capture: that Mary gave birth to the One who is both fully God and fully one of us.  So, what does that have to do with you and me today?

Well, of course, our situation is not at all the same as Mary’s, but I would say this:  We, too, are graced with the chance to bear the reality of heaven in our own lives.

Because God has a great sense of timing, on my early-morning walk this week, I was listening to the podcast Turning to the Mystics, featuring writer and teacher James Finley.  He was talking about Teresa of Avila, the 16^th-century Spanish mystic and author of The Interior Castle, among other things.  Teresa compares the spiritual journey to moving from room to room in God’s heavenly mansion.  Now, when I say, “heavenly mansion,” many of us probably imagine it being “up there” somewhere, the Father’s dwelling where Jesus promises to “prepare a place” for each of us (John 14:3).  Of course, we know “up there” is a metaphor when we talk about heaven, reflecting an ancient cosmology of a three-tiered universe.  Given that we’re on a ball spinning through space, “up” doesn’t really mean much once you’ve left the spinning ball.  But the point is that we usually think of heaven as being far removed from us – the distant land to which we travel, God willing, once this chapter of eternal life is done.

But Teresa of Avila, and probably all the mystics, and certainly Jim Finley, would encourage us to see heaven differently; and you hear that in the title of Teresa’s book: The Interior Castle.  The idea flows from Jesus, in the Gospels, telling his followers that “the kingdom of heaven is within you” (Luke 17:21).  The journey toward union with God is not about going somewhere beyond the world and the self we know; it’s about imagining our true self, the soul, to be “vast, spacious, and plentiful,” as Jim Finley puts it.⁵  The dwelling place of the divine, the place Jesus is preparing for us – it’s here and now as well as later, within each one of us in this frame of life, if we choose to seek it.

That has profound implications for us as we seek to live in the fullness of God’s love.  As Finley says, “We think of ‘heaven’ as a word we use [for] where God lives,” right?  Well, “if heaven is where God lives, and if God is living inside of your soul, your soul is God’s heaven.  So, your soul is heaven in miniature.”⁵

But wait, Finley says, there’s more. If it’s true that our souls are heaven in miniature – that our steps toward union with God take us through our own interior castle – then, Finley says, “this earthly embodiment of God’s heaven, which is my own soul, is vast, beyond what I can compare.”⁵  So, this process of growing in relationship with the Love that gives us life – it’s a journey we take now, day by day, seeking always to know just that much more vividly the heavenly Love that’s never farther from us than our own hearts.

Pretty good stuff, right?

So, what does all that have to do with Mary, the mother of God?  We don’t know anything about Mary’s spiritual life, neither as a Jewish teenager under Roman occupation nor as the mother of the One whom God sent to save us.  But we do know that, tapped into the Love that fueled her life, Mary wrote the poem we’re each still learning, the theme song of the true self that is our soul.

We hear Mary’s song, the Magnificat, in our Gospel reading today; but first, we need some more backstory.  This very young woman has done nothing special, nothing to earn God’s favor, other than simply being whom God created her to be.  I imagine she must have been a deeply authentic person, someone who knew herself well enough to stand before an angel and ask just how this divine pregnancy was going to work, anyway.  Her heart must have been open enough to imagine not just God’s saving love for humans in general but God’s deep love for her – this particular teenager in this particular backwater of the Roman Empire.

And that gift of knowing her own belovedness is too stunning to keep to herself.  So, Mary heads out to visit her aging, childless relative Elizabeth – whom, it turns out, God had also given a unique role in salvation history, being pregnant with the child who’d become John the Baptist.  Mary greets Elizabeth; and in their shared wonder and delight that Love has come to dwell in their own bodies, Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” – not just because God cares for the people of Israel in the abstract but because God “has looked with favor” on her.  God has “done great things for” her, and “shown strength” through her, and “lifted up the lowly” through her.  This teenaged nobody carries heaven itself.  And, empowered by God’s Love welling up inside her, she receives a foretaste of how Love lifts all the lowly, and fills the hungry, and sends the dominating powers packing.

The stunning thing is that God wants to give us that foretaste of heavenly Love, too.  This song of the true self, this song of the soul, is not just Mary’s but ours to claim, as well.  Pregnant with Jesus, Mary literally bears God within her.  But pregnant with Love, so do we.  Go back to the words of the writer Jim Finley:  Your soul is heaven in miniature, one of the millions of mansions in which God is pleased to dwell.  That’s what we’re made for – not just to be productive, not even just to be good, but to be vessels of heaven on earth.  In Jesus, God’s Love “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14); and that pattern continues in you and me.  Who am I to host heaven, you might ask?  Who am I to bear the Son of God, Mary definitely asked.  And God says, “You are worthy because I made you.  You are worthy because I love you.  You are worthy because I want nothing so much as for you to love me back.  The more you explore heaven within,” God says, “the more you’ll find my home is yours, as well.” 

Incarnation was no one-and-done magic trick.  God still comes seeking a dwelling place deep within the beloved.  The shock is, that beloved is you.  Your soul exists to hold heaven itself.  It just might be worth opening the door to that interior castle and spending some time going room to room.

1.       “Theotokos.” Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3^rd edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1997. 1607.

2.       Armentrout, Don S., and Robert Boak Slocum, eds. “Assumption of Mary.” An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church. Available at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/assumption-of-mary/. Accessed Aug. 15, 2026.

3.       “Dormition of the Mother of God.” Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormition_of_the_Mother_of_God. Accessed Aug. 15, 2026.

4.       Armentrout, Don S., and Robert Boak Slocum, eds. “Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Saint.” An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church. Available at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/mary-the-virgin-mother-of-our-lord-jesus-christ-saint/. Accessed Aug. 15, 2026.

5.       Finley, James, and Kirsten Oates. “Dialogue: The Second Mansion.” Season 2, episode 5 of Turning to the Mystics from the Center for Action and Contemplation. Available at https://cac.org/podcast/turning-to-the-mystics/. Accessed Aug. 15, 2026.

 

Parables: A Kingdom Collage

Sermon for July 26, 2026
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

This morning, I’d like to take you to my dining room – specifically, to one wall in my dining room.  On this wall hang 11 frames.  Because I have such little artistic imagination, those frames hang in greater symmetry than I really intended, reflecting a need for balance I can’t seem to shake.

But here’s what you see.  There’s a frame of three group shots of my wife, Ann; our kids; and either Ann’s mom or me.  There’s a photo from the last dinner we all shared, when the kids and their spouses were in town a couple of weeks before Ann’s last illness.  There’s a print of Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son.  There’s a shot of Ann holding Kathryn the day after Kathryn was born.  There’s a frame of nine snapshots taken over 20 years or so, images of Ann and me, or Ann and the kids, in special places we’d visited.  There’s a frame with three shots of the kids, Ann, and Ann’s mother, marking that multigenerational bond across the years.  There’s a snapshot at the beach when Kathryn and Dan were 6 and 4, grinning and running in step to escape the wave behind them.  There’s a shot of Ann looking back over her shoulder, caught in beautiful surprise.  There’s an impromptu portrait of Ann in a botanical garden, with flowers all around her.  There’s a painting by a parishioner imagining a heavenly garden.  And there’s a calligraphed verse of Scripture, from John’s Gospel:  “My peace I give unto you; therefore, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” 

Each of these images has a story and tells a story.  Any one of them would stand on its own that way.  But taken together, despite the overbearing symmetry, these images say something more.  They’re a collage – a collage of love.  Now, this collage doesn’t pretend to define love or capture its fullness.  But it certainly reveals love as my family knew it.

OK – why am I telling you this?  Because I think our Gospel reading today offers something very much like these images on my dining-room wall.  This reading is a collage of the kingdom of God.

You know, we throw around that term a lot – the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.  But God’s authority, God’s rule over all creation, isn’t like an earthly ruler lording it over his subjects.  In fact, God’s authority turns our expectations upside down … which, I think, is why Jesus doesn’t just give us one straightforward analogy to help us see the kingdom but, instead, one parable after another.  “The kingdom of heaven is like this” or “the kingdom of heaven is like that” – but no single one of them is enough to capture the reign and rule of God on its own.

So, following the two parables we heard over the last two Sundays, first about the sower and then about the weeds and the wheat, Jesus today gives us five rapid-fire parables, five more glimpses of the bigger picture.  Or, if you imagine yourself standing in an art gallery, it’s five more pieces on the kingdom’s wide canvas, five more fragments of the heavenly collage.

First is the parable of the mustard seed, which begins as “the smallest of all the seeds” but grows to offer safe haven where the birds can build their nests (Matthew 13:32).  Then comes the parable of the yeast: that the authority of God is like “yeast that a woman took and mixed in with [50 pounds] of flour until all of it was leavened” (Matthew 13:33).  In these two snapshots, the images are surprising.  God’s authority seems small and insignificant, like a tiny seed or a few pinches of yeast – not like the power kings usually wield.  But with time, the effect of God’s authority grows substantial.  Like the mustard seed, it gives us shelter from all that bears down on us.  Like a few pinches of yeast mixed into 50 pounds of flour, it changes everything, transforming life from run-of-the-mill to rich and remarkable. 

So, here’s what we know about God’s authority so far:  It starts out small; it surprises us with what it becomes; and it changes everything around it.

Then, we get two more parables.  First, Jesus says God’s reign and rule is like a “treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and then hid; then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44).  Then Jesus says a person in God’s kingdom is like “a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45). 

So, Jesus says, God’s authority is a treasure, something to be deeply desired.  Well, that seems odd.  I mean, our desires usually run along the lines of what we see on TV commercials – the freedom to sit on the beach with a cold beer in our hands or the power to whip out our Visa cards and buy whatever we want.  But Jesus says God’s authority is the real treasure.  And, he says, if we understood what a treasure it is, we’d risk everything to live under it.  Maybe that sounds crazy.  But remember the picture Jesus paints of God’s kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount – when the poor are fed, when the merciful are blessed, when the peacemakers win, when enemies reconcile, when people hear God’s word and live by it (Matthew 5:1-12).  Deep down, I think that is what we desire.  We want to live in relationship with God and each other; we want to be agents of reconciliation in the world; we want to see God’s righteousness become our way of life.  If that’s not treasure, I don’t know what is.

Then, finally, Jesus gives us the parable of the fishing net: that the rule of God is like “a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets and threw out the bad.  So it will be at the end of the age.” (Matthew 13:47-48)  This piece of the collage shows how God’s authority works on us – in a way that’s so subtle we may not even realize it’s there until it’s already gathered us in.  Now, I’ve never been a fish, so I don’t know; but I imagine a fish doesn’t have much of a sense of what’s happening to it until the net closes and it’s already caught.  I think being under God’s authority is like that:  It’s true regardless of whether we realize it.  Of course, for some people, a blinding light does knock them off their horses and make them change their lives.  But I think, for most of us, God sort of creeps up and draws us in before we really know what’s happening.  So that’s the final thing we learn from these five glimpses of the kingdom:  God’s reign and rule is subtle, catching us before we realize we’ve been caught.

OK, now imagine you’re an artist, and you’re making your own collage of the heavenly kingdom.  You’ve chosen images that speak to you about the mustard tree, the leavened loaf, the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price, and the great catch of fish.  Now your task is to arrange them, to form them into a collage that says more than the sum of its parts.  How might you put the pieces together?  What arrangement might you choose?  There’s always the shape of the cross – can’t go wrong there.  But maybe you make a circle.  Maybe you evoke a sunrise.  Maybe you float the images on the water of life.  Maybe there’s an open doorway, with these five images inviting you to step in and find what’s been calling your name forever.

Or, if you’re like me and you kind of stink at visual art, maybe you’d rather have another parable – a parable to make sense of the parables.  How about this:  The kingdom of God is like being in love.  Now, you can picture that in any context that works for you.  Maybe you’re in love with your partner; maybe with your child; maybe with your family; maybe with a soul friend.  But that love can help you picture the kingdom of heaven.  Like the mustard seed, love starts small; but it grows into something steady and solid, something that shelters and sustains us.  Like the yeast, love starts off almost unnoticed; but with time, it has its way with us and changes us into so much more than we were before.  Like the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price, love is the greatest prize we could ever hope for, despite the fact it’ll never make us rich or powerful.  Like the fishing net, love sneaks up on us and draws us in, binding our life to the life of our beloved before we even know we’re caught. 

And, like love, the reign and rule of God is something we ultimately have to choose.  Despite God’s awesome power and ultimate authority, God doesn’t lord it over us the way we’d expect a king to do.  Even at the end of the age, when the fishing net is finally hauled in, God doesn’t insist that we live under heaven’s authority.  We can always choose to live apart from God, following the world’s authority instead.  As St. Paul said, the kingdom of love “does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

But given the chance to dwell in heaven, would you really choose anything else?

Christian Americans: Do What's Hard

Sermon for Independence Day (transferred), July 5, 2026
Deuteronomy 10:17-21; Psalm 145:1-9; Hebrews 11:8-16; Matthew 5:43-48

Happy late Fourth of July, the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  I talked about the preamble to that amazing document in the sermon two weeks ago, for Juneteenth – specifically the national vision statement the Declaration gives us: that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”¹  I believe we’re tremendously blessed to have our national creed stated so clearly.

But, of course, a creed is there to be lived out.  In our Baptismal Covenant, we begin by stating the Apostles’ Creed – what we believe about the nature of God – and we flesh it out with five promises about how we’ll live our belief.  Well, we needed a guide for living out our national creed, too; and that’s the Constitution.  It’s far from a perfect document, as its 27 amendments make clear.  But it begins with words that will never be amended, our nation’s purpose statement – the Constitution’s preamble.  If, like me, you’re of a certain age, and you were blessed to watch Schoolhouse Rock along with your Saturday-morning cartoons, you might even carry our national purpose statement in your head, set to music.  I will resist the temptation to lead us in singing it, but here it is:  “We the People of the United States of America, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”²

Now, as we hear that national purpose statement, there’s one important detail that doesn’t come through, one that mattered to the people who wrote it.  That detail is the look of the words on the page.  I imagine you can see it in your mind’s eye.  When you picture the preamble of the Constitution, what stands out, of course, are the first three words: We the People, written five times bigger than the rest of the text.

Now, those three words didn’t come down on tablets from Mt. Sinai.  They were a choice, and they reasonably might have been different.  The Constitution could have begun, “We the delegates to this Constitutional Convention” or “We the States now United” or “We the victors of the late Revolution.”  But, instead, the Constitution begins, in giant letters, “We the People.”

And, it turns out, there’s a story behind that, something I learned from a newspaper column last week.  The column is about “The Founder … We Don’t Remember,” a man named James Wilson.³  James Wilson was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787; and, it turns out, he was one of the primary editors of that great document, so he has a place close to my heart.  He was on the five-person Committee of Detail, and he wrote the first draft, which compiled all the previously adopted resolutions and proposals.  And that first draft, in Wilson’s handwriting, began with, “We the People….”⁴

Like all of us, Mr. Wilson had a backstory, and his backstory makes those first three words all the more poignant.  In 1779, three years after Independence, Wilson was living in Philadelphia, a wealthy lawyer with one of the city’s finest homes.  Four years into a brutal revolution, with the economy a shambles, the regular folks of Philadelphia were not exactly impressed.  Wilson and his family were living in opulence when most people couldn’t afford what little food there was.  People also questioned Wilson’s allegiance because he had opposed the highly democratic state constitution proposed for Pennsylvania, and he’d defended loyalists being tried for treason.  So, one night in 1779, a drunken mob set out for Wilson’s beautiful home, looking to even the score.  The mob attacked.  In the firefight, seven people were killed and another 17 wounded.

Wilson escaped, but I can’t imagine how traumatized he must have been.  You could see how he might have broken with the movement at that point and hightailed it off to Canada.  Instead, Wilson remained because he could understand why the mob was so upset and looking for someone to blame.  Wilson had grown up poor in Scotland before his family emigrated to the colonies.  He knew what it was to be hungry and under the English thumb.

So, instead of nursing resentment toward the people who’d attacked, Wilson doubled down on democracy.  There in the Constitutional Convention, he pulled a copy of the Declaration of Independence from his coat pocket and read from it to the other delegates, reminding them that the people of the colonies had bound themselves together to advance their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  His point was that “the people are … ‘the legitimate source of all authority’”⁵ – despite the fact some of them had stormed his house and tried to kill him.  So, the first three words from Wilson’s Constitutional drafting committee are the ones that ring down to us today: “We the People … ordain and establish this Constitution.”

We find ourselves in a day when focusing on the well-being of those who aren’t part of your own tribe might seem naïve.  I imagine it seemed naïve back in the day, too.  Even more so than now, the Revolutionary period was a time of extremes.  You had leading citizens renouncing their national identities.  You had brother fighting against brother, our Civil War, Part One.  You had poor people literally rioting in the streets, shooting cannonballs into the homes of wealthy lawyers.  Common purpose must have seemed like a pipe dream.  Maybe it still does.

I think James Wilson might have said that what unifies us is choosing to be us.  We may not get it right in any given moment – in fact, you can read our history as one example after another of not getting it right.  But you can also read our history as call and response: the call to remember whom we aspire to be and the response of taking one more step to expand the boundaries of “We the People” balancing liberty and justice for all.

So, as we celebrate this feast of Independence Day, I hear our readings as a call to notice how the Good News and our national aspirations intersect, and then a call to remember whom we aspire to be, in both our spiritual and secular lives.  Maybe most fundamentally, I think the Good News and our national aspirations intersect by calling us to pursue not what is easy but what is hard – the “narrow door” through which Jesus calls us to step into God’s kingdom (Luke 13:24).

First, from Deuteronomy, we heard Moses, on the doorstep of the Promised Land, reminding his people to default toward humility despite being God’s chosen.  Yes, Moses says, God has blessed and is blessing you beyond measure.  But remember why: to live out the heart of the One who formed you.  “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger,” Moses says to these people about to occupy other people’s lands, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (10:17-19)  Once you’re in charge, Moses says, it’ll be easy to think you did this all on your own and then to serve your own interests.  But you’ve been chosen to show God’s ways and purposes to others.  So, follow God’s lead, Moses says, and do what’s hard instead.

Then, from the Psalms, the writer praises God’s “unsearchable” greatness (145:3), awesome majesty, and “wondrous works” (145:5).  And what do those wondrous works look like?  How does the creator and sovereign of the universe wield ultimate power?  “The Lord is gracious and merciful,” the psalmist says, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  The Lord is good to all and has compassion over all that he has made.” (145:8-9)  All … not just the blessed, not just the chosen, not just the familiar, but all.  Loving the good and the faithful would be easy.  But God does what’s hard instead.

Then, in the epistle, the writer reminds these Jewish followers of Jesus that their founding father, Abraham, was someone with no capacity for great things on his own.  Instead, what Abraham had was an immense capacity to trust that, even in what seems like endings, God is always working something new.  Abraham and Sarah stepped into their journey with God not in fear but in hope.  Their focus was the homeland not where they were but where they were going – “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:16).  Getting stuck in present fear and failure is easy.  But God calls us to do what’s hard, to help build what’s coming, instead.

And finally, in Matthew, Jesus tells his followers absolutely the last thing they want to hear.  In the Sermon on the Mount, the Torah version 2.0, Jesus says over and over not to ask, “What’s enough?” but to ask, “What is God’s heart?”  Don’t just not murder each other; reconcile with each other.  Don’t just not commit adultery; respect each other as equals, not objects.  Don’t just follow the rules in punishing evildoers; kill them with kindness to change their hearts.  Don’t just love the neighbors who love you back; love even your enemies and pray for your persecutors.  Following the law and reveling in self-righteousness – that’s easy.  But God calls us to do what’s hard, to expand the circle, instead.

Our nation’s 250^th birthday is certainly a time to celebrate, but it’s also a time to remember – to remember the deep complexity of what it means to live as a faithful follower of Jesus among “we the people” in 2026.  The easy way is Christian nationalism – to wrap the baby Jesus in the American flag and decide, in advance, that if the United States does something, it must be God’s will.  The more challenging path is to be not a Christian nationalist but a Christian American.  That means patterning my life on the vision and purpose of the Baptismal Covenant.  It means patterning my civic engagement on the vision and purpose of our nation’s founding documents.  And it means, every day, whether in the pew or in the public square, to choose to be part of “we the people” called by God to do what is hard.

1.       “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription.” National Archives. Available at: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript. Accessed July 3, 2026.

2.       “The Preamble.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Available at: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/preamble/. Accessed July 3, 2026.

3.       Wegman, Jesse. “The Founder We Need Is the One We Don’t Remember.” New York Times, June 26, 2026. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/opinion/declaration-independence-constitution-james-wilson.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share. Wilson’s story, as told here, comes from this article. See also Wegman’s book The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People’s Constitution.

4.       “Manuscript of the Committee of Detail Report, August, 3, 1787.” American Treasures: Documenting the Nation’s Founding. Available at: https://constitutioncenter.org/american-treasures/manuscript-of-the-committee-of-detail-report/kiosk. Accessed July 3, 2026.

5.       Quoted by Wegman and found in Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1937. Volume 1, Chapter 13, Document 18. Available at: https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s18.html. Accessed July 3, 2026.