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Today, we had a special musical performance of Days of Elijah, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Introducing Vinh Giang: How to Communicate So People Actually Listen to You from On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Follow the show: On Purpose with Jay Shetty Communication expert Vinh Giang joins Jay to share practical tools from his first book, Before We Forget How to Connect, to help you become a more confident communicator and build deeper, more meaningful connections. Vinh explains how to become a better listener, avoid common communication mistakes, and speak so people actually pay attention. From sounding confident when you're nervous to speaking up in meetings, navigating difficult conversations, and making a great first impression, Vinh shares simple techniques to help you communicate more effectively and connect with people in every area of your life. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Instagram Teen Accounts: Built-in protections for teens. JAY'S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here: https://news.jayshetty.me/subscribe Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Introduction 00:25 Before We Forget How To Connect 01:52 The High-Low Buffalo Icebreaker 02:45 Sharing Personal Highs 05:15 Sharing Personal Lows 11:40 Sharing Personal Buffalos 13:40 Escaping Small Talk 16:10 Overcoming Self-Judgment 17:58 Sharing Wins Without Sounding Arrogant 19:50 Communication Beyond The Script 20:40 Gen Z's Communication Struggles 23:20 Last Word, Last Letter Game 27:20 The Four Modalities Of Listening 29:50 The Three Follow-Up Questions Rule 35:50 How Do You Make A Great First Impression? 40:10 Reading the Room, Not Formulas 44:10 Finding Your Unique Voice 49:00 Life As A Book: New Chapters 50:40 Building Executive Presence 53:20 Fix Your Resting Blank Face 58:30 Filming Yourself For Self-Awareness 01:02:20 When Your Mind Goes Blank 01:06:10 The Power Of The Pause 01:09:30 How Can You Sound Confident When You’re Nervous? 01:14:40 From Texting Chemistry to Real-Life Connection 01:18:40 How to Communicate Better During Arguments 01:20:20 Learning to Speak Up In Meetings 01:25:45 How to Join a Conversation Without Feeling Awkward 01:28:20 Leaving A Conversation Gracefully 01:31:4 Embracing Vulnerability Episode Resources: Book | https://vinhgiang.com/before-we-forget-how-to-connect Website | https://vinhgiang.com/ YouTube | https://youtube.com/@askvinh Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/share/1CCPX1ChrP/?mibextid=wwXIfr LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinhgiang Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices DISCLAIMER: Please note, this is an independent podcast episode not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in conjunction with the host podcast feed or any of its media entities. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the creators and guests. For any concerns, please reach out to [email protected].

Year A – All Saints Sunday – Stewardship Sunday, Week 4 – November 1, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Leviticus 19:9-10 Deuteronomy 24:19-21 Matthew 5:38-48   Grace and peace to you from God, who leaves room at the edges of every field, from the Holy Spirit, who gathers us into the communion of saints, and from Jesus Christ, who teaches us to love beyond what anyone deserves. Amen. *** Here is one of the strangest laws in the Bible. When you harvest your field… do not harvest all of it. Leave the edges. Leave the corners. If you drop a bundle of grain, do not go back for it. Do not pick your vineyard clean. Leave what is left… leave it for the poor… and the foreigner… and the widow and the orphan. Think about how odd that is. Every farmer knows that margin is money. Those corners are grain you planted, and watered, and waited for all season. And the law says… leave it standing. God does not say, "Be generous to those on the margins if you feel like it." …but instead, God's law builds generosity into the shape of the field itself. And Deuteronomy adds a promise to that law… a promise that to share your harvest is a blessing from God. In other words… the margin that you must leave behind is not a loss… but rather… the margin is an offering of thanksgiving for the blessing of the harvest. *** And notice who this law is addressing... This isn't a law for the poor… This law is for the owners… this law is for the people with margin. The ones who come to glean… the poor, the orphan, the foreigner… they do not have to prove they deserve it. There is no application. No interview. They simply walk into the field, and they pick up what has been left for them. And Deuteronomy tells us why in the very next line after our passage… verse 22… God says, I command you to do this… so you remember… that you were once slaves in Egypt. This isn't a command to feel guilty. …it's a command to remember. This generosity does not come from guilt. It comes from memory… from knowing what it is to have nothing left over. Think back to Pharaoh. Pharaoh's economy had no margin. Just more bricks. Higher quotas. Every last bit squeezed out. …That was the only economy these people had ever known. And now God asks… could you trust that there is enough? Could you trust that there is enough to leave something standing… to leave something for others? We have been walking this road for several weeks now. We learned to gather what we need for today… to bring what we already have as an offering… and to rest. And now God asks the hardest question yet. Can we trust that there is enough to leave some of it behind? *** So Jesus…  is preaching on this chapter, whether we hear it or not. Leviticus 19, where we find this gleaning law… is the same place God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And in Matthew's account of Jesus' sermon on the mount, Jesus quotes it. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" But… here's the thing... That second half… "hate your enemy"… is not in Leviticus. It is something people added. So, when Jesus says, "But I say to you, love your enemies," he is not throwing out the Torah. He is pulling it back to what it was always saying… and then pushing it further. Even "an eye for an eye" was originally a limit. Take no more than what was taken. Do not let revenge spiral out of control. And Jesus says… you can go beyond even that. And why? Because God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. That is the manna in the wilderness again. God does not check ID at the door. God lets the grain fall on everyone. So be whole, Jesus says. Be complete… the way God is complete. The word we sometimes translate as "perfect" …which is what we have in our translation… it also means complete… or whole. …it means, through God's perfect love, you are enough. *** And then Jesus gives three examples. …and the biblical scholar Walter Wink helped many of us hear them differently by framing them within the honor-shame society of ancient Roman culture. Wink argued that each one takes something that is forced on you… and turns it into something you freely choose. These actions are not passive submission or sanctified victimization… but instead… they are nonviolent strategies of active resistance. A slap on the right cheek was a backhand… the way someone with power put someone beneath them in their place. It was meant to humiliate. So… turning the other cheek forced the striker to use an open palm or a fist… It was daring them to treat you as an equal. If you were so poor that you had nothing left of value but your clothes, a creditor could take your shirt. …But your cloak, or your coat, the garment you slept in, was protected. So… handing over the coat as well exposed that creditor to the intense shame of having caused public nudity… and exposed the exploitative nature of the debt and legal system. And a Roman soldier could legally force you to carry his pack for one mile… but only one. Forcing someone to carry it past one mile was strictly illegal and carried severe disciplinary penalties for the soldier. So then… offering the second mile would throw the soldier into a panic… it turns forced coercion into a moment of empowerment. Each of these actions was a subversive way for the marginalized to strip away power from their oppressors… to assert their human dignity… and expose systemic injustice. Each action affirmed… that while you cannot control what is done to you, you can refuse to be made smaller by it. And let me be clear. None of this is telling anyone to stay where they are being hurt or abused. That is not the message here. So now… let's notice who is being spoken to in this passage... Remember… Leviticus is addressed to the people with margin… to those with some privilege and power. And here… Jesus is addressing people under pressure… pressure from the system… from society… from prejudice… from poverty And most of us… on different days… have been both. Some days we own the field. …Some days we are carrying someone else's pack. I do not know which one you are this morning. But I know that both of these lessons are for us all. *** And that brings us to today. All Saints Sunday. At the start of our worship this morning, we gave thanks for our baptism… and then we spoke the names of those we have lost this year. We do this because, in our tradition, a name is never a small thing. In baptism, God names us… claims us… and says, "You are mine." …And so… we began at the water… and spoke their names. Death does not undo baptism... death does not remove us from God's care… The same water that named them… still holds them. And we call them saints because for us, a saint is not a spiritual overachiever. A saint is a child of God, made holy… not by what they have done, but made holy because of what Christ has done. We are all of us… saint and sinner… at the very same time. So they are saints… even though their metaphorical fields of faith and love were not perfect. Neither is mine. But you do not need a perfect field to find grain worth gathering. And we name them on All Saints Day because the church has always said that remembering the saints strengthens our faith. We look at their lives, and we see how God's grace met them… and carried them. And then we gather what they left in the corners of their fields… and the sheaves that were left behind for us to collect. We are the gleaners to their lives of faith and love. We are all gleaners. We are nourished from fields that other people left standing for us. The faith traditions we were taught… The Bible stories we know by heart… The hymns we hum without thinking… And the assurance of our place at the communion table. Somebody left that for you. They did not have to. They could have harvested to the very edges… keeping their relationship with God as something private. Instead, they left grain standing… not only for those they loved, but also for people they would never meet. *** So this morning, we spoke their names. Each one a person who left something standing. I invite you to hold those names the way a gleaner holds a handful of grain… hold them… with thanks. And then I invite you to carry one question out the door with you. What are we leaving standing… for the people who come after us? Not because we have to… and not because of guilt. But because we remember. …and because there is enough. For now… may we give thanks for the saints who left the edges standing. And may we trust God enough to do the same. Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of Sing to the Lord, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Year A – Reformation Sunday – October 25, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 46     Grace and peace to you from God, who makes all things new, from the Holy Spirit, who writes on our hearts, and from Jesus Christ, who walks with us wherever the path leads. Amen. *** "Though the earth should change… though the mountains shake…" That is how our psalm begins this morning. We're taking a break from our stewardship series because today is Reformation Sunday… so we're back in the lectionary. And even though these are the same texts we hear every year on Reformation, this psalm struck me differently this time around… because lately, for a lot of us, it feels like the ground is shifting beneath our feet… In the world… in our country… and in our own lives. And in just over a week, our country will go to the polls. I know many of us are nervous… maybe a little anxious about what comes next. But despite all the predictions… none of us can see what's coming. Not one of us. So what do we do… when we cannot see what comes next? Well… today, on Reformation Sunday… on the day Andrew affirms his baptism… the prophet Jeremiah has something to say to that. *** Jeremiah spoke these words to people living in the wreckage of their Temple, or rather… in the shadow of it. The Temple… the monarchy… the land… the whole world they had trusted… was coming apart. And into that wreckage… Jeremiah proclaims, "The days are surely coming." Notice… he does not say, "Everything will be fixed by next Tuesday." He does not give them… or us… a date. He gives no timeline at all. Just a promise… that the days are surely coming… and that God is already at work. If you have ever walked a dark trail with a flashlight, you know how this works. The light never shows you the whole path. Just the next few steps. And somehow… that is just enough to keep walking. Sound familiar? We have just enough for today. We heard it in the wilderness, with the manna… and we hear it again here. God does not hand us the full-scale map. But God does walk with us… and lights the next few steps. God does not promise to put things back the way they were…. But instead, God promises a new covenant. God's relationship with us does not get stuck. It evolves… according to what we need. When the people needed God's law carved on tablets, that is where God wrote it. And when tablets were not enough, God said… I will write it on your hearts… I will give you… a new covenant. We should be careful with that word "new." …Jeremiah is not saying God is finished with the old… This promise is made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Same God. Same people. Same love. In Jeremiah, God even describes the first covenant as a marriage. So then… here… new means renewed… the way a relationship is renewed after a hard season. *** "I will write it on their hearts." In Jeremiah's day, the heart was not just where you felt things. The heart was where you thought… and decided… and discerned. The center of the whole person. So to write on the heart is to write on everything… your mind, your will, your conscience. And listen to who God says this is for. "From the least of them to the greatest." (x2) Remember… the leaders of Jeremiah's day had failed. The Temple authorities had grown corrupt. So… God went around them… No middleman… No gatekeeper… Just straight to the heart… of every person. That is also the Reformation that we celebrate today. The conviction that every baptized person stands before God directly… and that the church is never finished… We are always reforming… Not because we were wrong yesterday, but because God is still writing. So for those of us who teach… the relief is that we get to tell the story… and trust that God with the rest. And do not miss how the promise ends. "I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more." Before anyone does anything right… before anyone gets anything figured out… God forgives them. That promise… that assurance… is the solid ground that does not shift… the one thing that does not move when everything else does. We do not wrestle with our faith, or vote for leaders, or serve our neighbors so that we will be loved by God. We do these things because we already are loved. *** A few minutes ago, we handed out Bibles. A variety of ways to read God's word… I hope you take them home and open them. But hear what Jeremiah says in this new covenant. The Bible is like a doorway… a very important doorway, but it's not the full story... It is not where God's writing stops. God keeps writing… all around you, and on your heart. And I know… in the very same breath, Jeremiah says, "No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, 'Know the Lord.'" And yet, here we are. We teach. But when we teach about our faith, we are not actually trying to convince anyone that God is real. Ultimately, it's up to God's Holy Spirit to make God's presence known. Fundamentally, we are retelling stories… the stories of how God has met people, from the very beginning in Genesis… through the wilderness… through an empty tomb… all the way to our own lives, right here at Faith. We tell how God has found us. And then we let God do what only God can do. And we will keep telling each other those stories for as long as we live. Because Jeremiah's promise is both already… and not yet. The days are surely coming… and they are also, in part, already here. We live in the in-between… we live… in the liminal space. *** Which brings me to Andrew. Andrew, what I admire most about you is that you seemed to honestly wrestle with God's stories. I didn't get the sense that you were showing up just to fulfill a requirement, but that you really wanted to understand, and you got excited when things connected for you. You wanted to build a faithful understanding that was real. And I think you landed there… your faith is your own. While it has been shaped by what we have taught here at Faith, and certainly by the people in this congregation who love you… your faith is yours… and your relationship with God is uniquely yours. It is written on your heart. Our psalm calls God… "the God of Jacob." …Jacob was the one who wrestled with God all night, and for that wrestling, God renamed him… Israel. So the people God makes this covenant with… the Israelites… are named for wrestling with God. So when you wrestle with your faith… when you wrestle with your relationship with God, remember that you are not falling out of the covenant… You are standing right in the middle of it. And there will be days when you doubt. Hear this, but don't fear it… because it is true for all of us. Doubt does not mean you have left the way of Christ, and it does not mean Christ has left you. It just means you are finding your way… stumbling down the path with only enough light for the next few steps… just like the rest of us. *** I would be remiss, in a week like this, if I did not say one more thing. Faith written on the heart does not stay in the sanctuary. It sends us out. Our church… the ELCA… said this clearly last year, when we adopted a social statement called Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-being of All. And one of its articles puts it plainly… baptism includes a commitment to participate in civic life. And in a few moments, Andrew will be asked whether he intends to continue in the covenant God made with him in baptism… and one of the promises in that covenant is to serve all people, following the example of Jesus… and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. That is a promise for a week like this one. We do not take part in civic life because we know how things will turn out. We take part because we trust that God is at work… and because our neighbors need us… especially the ones with the least power. That same statement says there is no neighbor, no enemy, and… no politician for whom Christ did not die. And it reminds us that when we confess "Jesus is Lord," our deepest loyalty cannot belong to any government, or nation, or leader. So therefore… no election is the last word. Not this one… not the one in two years. Not any of them. For the days that are surely coming… are God's days. *** The earth may change. The mountains may shake. And still… "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." (Psalm 46:11) The days are surely coming, says the Lord… and God is already writing… Writing on your heart, Andrew… and on mine… God is writing on every heart… writing a message of love and forgiveness… writing so that we can be still… and know our God.  Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of Sing to the Lord, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Year A – Pentecost 21 – Stewardship Sunday, Week 3 – October 18, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Exodus 20:8-11; 23:10-13 Mark 2:23-3:6   Grace and peace to you from God, who blessed the seventh day and rested, from the Holy Spirit, who renews us, and from Jesus Christ, who is lord of the sabbath. Amen. *** Be honest with me for a moment. How many of us feel a little guilty when we rest? A midday nap… a slow Saturday… even the bone-deep exhaustion after a sleepless night… and we apologize for it. We say, "I'm sorry, I'm just being so lazy today." I freely admit... Rest is something I struggle with. I was raised to always be on the move, because there was always more to do… so naps were simply not allowed. And even now… even as I stand up here and preach the necessity of rest… I admit… I feel guilty when I take it. So I have started to wonder where that voice… that voice that tells me I'm lazy for resting… where does that voice come from? Because the first time the word "lazy" shows up in the book of Exodus, it comes from Pharaoh… back in chapter 5. Moses had asked for a few days off so the people could worship YHWH. Just a few days. And Pharaoh answered, "You are lazy… lazy." And then he made the work even harder. In our study on Exodus these last few weeks, I've referenced Pharaoh's math… and that right there is a prime example. If you stop, you are lazy. If you rest, someone falls behind on their quota. And I wonder how many of us are still hearing that voice… long after we left Egypt… in our calendars, and our inboxes, and in our own heads. *** We have been walking through the wilderness together, and did you notice… that rest has been there from the very beginning? Remember the manna? God gave a double portion on the sixth day, so that no one would have to gather on the seventh. God arranged the provision… so that rest would be possible. And now, in the commandments, God makes it explicit. "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy." And Exodus tells us why. Because in six days God made heaven and earth… and on the seventh day, God rested. Rest did not begin as a rule for people. It began with creation. It began with God. God… who does not get tired… rested anyway. So if you have ever felt guilty about taking a nap, I would just gently remind you that even God took the day off. *** But now, let's look at who the commandment is talking to. "You shall not do any work… you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns." This commandment is addressed to the head of the household. The one with the power to make everyone else keep working. And God says… that power… does not get to decide who has the right to rest. Everyone rests. Children. Servants. Animals. The immigrant living in your town. In chapter 23, God says it plainly… so that the ox and the donkey may rest, and so that the slave and the stranger "may be refreshed." Rest, in Exodus, is not a personal wellness plan. It is a justice issue. Which means… we cannot be too congratulatory of our ability to rest, if it depends on someone else picking up our slack. That is hard to hear, because so much of our rest quietly depends on someone else's work. The person who stocked the shelves… who cleaned the room… who delivered the package… who worked the shift so that the rest of us could have a weekend. I do not say that to make us feel guilty. We're trying to put down our guilt here… but I say it because God was building a world, here, where nobody's rest was purchased with somebody else's exhaustion. And God did not stop with people… even the land itself got a sabbath. Every seventh year, the fields lay fallow… and whatever grew on its own, the poor were free to eat. That is an act of trust, isn't it? Don't plant. Don't harvest. Trust that enough will grow. *** In our Gospel text, Jesus was walking through the grain fields on the sabbath, and his disciples were hungry. So they did what hungry people do. They plucked some grain… and ate. (Hold on to that grain field. We will be back in it next week.) Some of the people watching objected. And before we hear them as the villains of this story, let's be careful. These were people who loved God… and God's commandments… and they loved the sabbath. They were trying to protect it. This was a family argument about what the gift of the Sabbath was for. Jewish tradition itself teaches that saving a life overrides the sabbath. Jesus was not throwing the sabbath out. He was reminding them what it was for. "The sabbath was made for humankind," Jesus said, "and not humankind for the sabbath." If that sounds familiar, it should. It is Exodus 23 all over again. Rest was made for the ox and the donkey and the stranger… it was made for the ones who needed it most. And on that sabbath day, the ones who needed it were hungry. …and God still provides… even on the sabbath. *** Then, in the very next scene, Jesus went into the synagogue. And there was a man there with a withered hand. And everyone was watching to see what Jesus would do. Jesus said to the man, "Come forward." Stand here… in the middle… where everyone can see you. And then he asked a question that nobody could answer. Is it lawful, on the sabbath, "to save life or to kill?" Silence. Mark tells us that Jesus looked around at them with anger… and with grief. Grief at their hardness of heart. Not hatred. Grief. …The grief of someone who sees a person in need of relief… in a room full of people more concerned about the rule than about him. And Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And it was restored. Think about that man. The man could not simply decide to be relieved of his pain. Relief had to come to him… through someone else. That is what the sabbath is for. It's not only for the people who already have enough rest... It's also for the ones who cannot get it for themselves. And notice what giving that rest cost. Mark tells us that some of the very people who were watching went out and began to plot how to destroy Jesus. Giving rest to someone else… was dangerous. It cost him something. *** So where does that leave us… in a world that never stops… where we are afraid to be the first one to slow down? Because here is the truth. I think most of us need somebody to look at us and say… you are allowed to stop. That is what community is for. We cannot do sabbath alone. Rest requires other people… not just to cover for us… but to remind us… and to give us permission… and to make room. I find it wonderful that a movement has risen up against the very hustle culture that keeps us toiling… it's a movement that says rest is resistance. It was started by Tricia Hersey, a Black woman and theologian who founded The Nap Ministry. She roots it in Black liberation theology, and in the memory of people who were forced to work like machines, with no rest at all. Does that sound familiar? That is Pharaoh's brickyard. It is a lesson for all of us. We were not meant to toil nonstop. And sometimes we need to hold each other accountable for taking that God-ordained nap. So consider this an invitation… hold me accountable. And I will hold you. And that makes it a question for us as a church. Where is Faith Lutheran helping others find rest? How do the resources we share… our time, our offerings, our budget… make rest possible for someone else? It might be as simple as worship. One morning each week, set apart to be in God's presence… a time when we refill our spiritual cups together. And to those of you for whom rest feels impossible right now… please hear this. The sabbath was never meant to be a solo achievement. It is something we can give to each other. *** Because first, God created… and then God rested… and then… God made rest a gift for everyone else… the child and the servant… the ox and the stranger… the land… and the man with the withered hand. The sabbath was made for humankind. Not just for the ones who have earned it… but for all of us… together. So let's trust enough in God's abundance to stop for a day each week… and yes, I am preaching to myself… Because in God's economy… rest is not laziness. Rest is trust. And rest, in the end, is a promise… that there will be, and in fact, there already is… enough. Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of Heart for the Nations, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Year A – Pentecost 20 – Stewardship Sunday, Week 2 – October 11, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Exodus 35-36 Matthew 14:13-21   Grace and peace to you from God, who dwells among us, from the Holy Spirit, who sustains us, and from Jesus Christ, who looks at what we have and says... it is enough. Amen. *** Many of us think of the book of Exodus… as the story of liberation. The plagues... and Pharaoh... and the sea parting... and a whole people walking out of slavery on dry ground. And that is a great story. But what I really noticed this week is that… the liberation part of Exodus is over by chapter 15. That leaves twenty-five more chapters. So much of Exodus is not about getting out. It is about what happened next. They are free... so now what? How do people who were enslaved together… learn to be a people together? A holy people... with a special relationship to the God who brought them out? Last week, we watched God teach them to trust, one morning at a time. Each household gathered its own portion of manna... enough for that day. That was about surviving. This week, something has shifted. It's no longer just about what they need to get through the day… now it's about what they can build together. And the good news of this text... is that they already have what they need to build it. *** Dr. Michael Chan says that the tabernacle, which is the dwelling place the Israelites built for God in the wilderness, is... well, he put it this way... "If God had a Winnebago, it would look like this." And I really love that, so in my own notes, I started calling it God's Winnebago, and now I can't stop… because it fits! Because that is what it was… a portable sanctuary... built to travel with the people, wherever the wilderness took them. And the big theological question we ask when we read this story through the lens of the resurrected Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit is… if God is everywhere... why does God need an address? Why does God ask for a Winnebago? And in asking that, we have to remember… that while God is everywhere, God also promised to show up in particular places, and in particular ways. For us as Lutherans, we call some of those places sacraments... God in the waters of baptism... and God in the bread and wine at the communion table. And we also trust that God shows up when we worship... and in the word proclaimed... and in the songs we sing in praise... and… that God hears our prayers. We trust in this… because God promised it was so. So while God is everywhere, God tells the Israelites exactly why they are to build this holy Winnebago... God said it was, "…so that I may dwell among you." (x2) God didn't need a house… but God wanted to be near them, and wanted to give them a stable, dependable relationship... Because these were a people who had spent hundreds of years under rulers they could not trust. And so God asked them to build God a Winnebago… so that I may dwell among you… Not just within each of them. But among them. God asked for a dwelling place that could only exist if they built it together. *** And what does God ask them to bring? Certainly not something new. There are no stores in the wilderness. They have been wandering for a long time. So… when Moses calls for gold, silver, bronze... blue and purple and scarlet yarn... fine linen... goat hair... tanned skins... acacia wood... oil and spices and jewels... When Moses puts out the call for these materials… they have to go back into their tents… and dig through their trunks… they have to dust off whatever they have been carrying all this time... and bring it as an offering. And I don't know if you realize this, but... this is taking place soon after the unfortunate incident with the golden calf. You remember that story... the people got anxious and impatient while Moses was up on the mountain, and so they brought their gold, their earrings, and made something to worship… but it could not save them. Now they are bringing their gold again. This time it is not to build something that calms their fear. It is to build a place for God to dwell among them. It is their way of repenting... and recommitting themselves to the God who never left. Same gold. Different direction. *** And it wasn't only material things they brought, but they also offered their time and knowledge. Skilled women spun yarn, and artisans and weavers and woodworkers offered what they knew how to do. Their time... their talent... and their labor. Men and women. Young and old. Everyone had something to offer. This was a multigenerational undertaking... a whole people, building together. And nobody had a way to acquire anything they did not already have. It was only what was already in their tents... and it was more than enough. *** This story gets even more incredible after that… The people are so moved to give that the artisans go to Moses and say... they are bringing much more than enough. And Moses has to send word through the camp... no more offerings. Stop. The text says the people were restrained from bringing, "for what they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more." To be honest… my first thought was... really? Stop giving? Isn't there always more need? And yes, there is. There is always another need... But the people were restrained from bringing offerings for the new tabernacle… for God's Winnebago… so they wouldn't keep building for the sake of building... adding things that didn't make sense... as if the project could never be finished. And that changes how we think about enough. Pharaoh's economy would never have said, 'stop.' He always wanted more bricks… more monuments… more splendor... more… more… more. But in God's economy, enough has a shape. Enough is not some number we are chasing, but rather… enough… is what the work God has given us to do actually requires. And notice... nobody could have reached that point alone. It took the whole community's gifts, offered together, to be more than enough. *** That is what stewardship is, at its root. It is not only about what we are lacking. It is about what we already have... and what God can do when we bring our offerings together. Last week we blessed the quilts and the kits for Lutheran World Relief. And think about how they came to be. No one person provided all the materials or the labor to assemble them. Many people in the community provided what they could provide... and together, it was enough. And stewardship, for us, is still an act of worship. It is how we express our love for God with all that God has entrusted to our care. Our offerings are as much an act of worship for us today as they were for the Israelites thousands of years ago. Some of you will bring money… and some of you will bring time... or your skills and knowledge... or a quiet kind of showing up that isn't always counted, but is deeply needed. Some of you bring your children who have more to offer than we sometimes let them… but isn't it glorious when a child leads us in our worship? All of it counts. All of it is worship. *** So… this week, I am inviting us to ask a different question. Not... what are we missing here at Faith Lutheran Church, but... what is already in my tent? What do I have to offer this community? What could we build together? Because the God who rained bread on the wilderness... the God who asked for a Winnebago so that God could dwell among us... the God who took five loaves and two fish and fed a crowd of thousands... is the same God who is looking at what we have, right now, and saying... bring it… you already have enough among you... and when we bring it together, we will have what we need. Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of Pray for the People, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Year A – Pentecost 19 – Stewardship Sunday, Week 1 – October 4, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Exodus 16:2-15 John 6:24-35   Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, from the Holy Spirit, our Sustainer, and from Jesus Christ, the bread of life, who is teaching us, one day at a time, that there is enough. Amen. *** Before there was manna, there was Pharaoh. I want to start there this morning, because I don't think we can understand what's happening in the wilderness unless we remember where the Israelites just came from. For generations, they lived under a ruler who understood the world in exactly one way… scarcity. Pharaoh sees every neighbor as a threat, every difference as danger, every mouth to feed as a mouth that might someday rise up against him. So Pharaoh works people to exhaustion, hoards grain against imagined enemies, and rules through fear… because fear is what a scarcity mindset always produces. That is the only economy these people have ever known. And then God brings them out... out of slavery, out of Egypt, out through the sea... into the wilderness. That sounds like good news… and it is good news. But six weeks into it, with the miracle of the Red Sea barely behind them, they turn to Moses and Aaron and say… we should have just died in Egypt. At least there we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread. It is tempting to hear that and think… how quickly they forgot. How ungrateful. How stiff-necked. But I don't think that's what's happening. I think what we're observing is a trauma response. You do not spend hundreds of years under the whip and walk out the other side… trusting easily. No one moves quickly out of trauma. The Israelites aren't failing some test of gratitude. They're doing exactly what traumatized people do… they are reaching for the devil they knew… because at least it was predictable. *** So… God does something very particular. God does not give them a lecture… or a guilt trip… God gives them bread. "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you," God tells Moses, "…and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day." Not enough for the week… and not enough to stockpile against next month's fear. But gather just enough for today. And on the sixth day, enough for two days, so that the seventh day can be for rest instead of labor. Dr. Michael Chan describes this moment as… Israel caught between two monarchs. There's the Pharaoh, as the scarcity monarch, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as a monarch of abundance, grace, and generosity. And Dr. Chan notes that when scarcity and abundance come into contact, you don't get an easy transition. You get toxicity… and friction. You get grumbling in the wilderness. Because you cannot simply announce to traumatized people, "Hey, it's okay. You're safe now, stop being afraid," …You can't say that and expect it to land with them. Trust has to be rebuilt. It has to happen daily… and on purpose. It has to happen through practice, not decree. That is what the manna is actually doing. It is not primarily a food delivery system. It is a trust-building exercise, repeated morning after morning, teaching a frightened people that the God who brought them this far intends to keep showing up. Every single day. Without them earning it. *** I want to be honest about something, because I think this story can go sideways if we're not careful with it. It would be easy to stand up here and say, "See? God provides manna, so don't worry about money," as if that landed the same way for every person. I know it doesn't. Some of you are looking at bills and doing late-night math that doesn't quite add up. And others of you aren't. …I don't actually know, household by household, which is true for you unless you've shared that with me. As your pastor, I have specifically chosen not to know how much each family gives to this faith community because I believe God calls each of us to give according to what we have been given, and I trust that when we bring our gifts together, we will have enough. But I am also human, and I do not want to be influenced by individual numbers. What I think is true across the whole range, however… is that none of us is fully exempt from Pharaoh's logic. Even those of us who have enough can still carry his anxiety... the sense that enough isn't actually enough… and the idea that security is something to grab and guard… or that someone else's gain might come at our cost. For some of you, Pharaoh's math shows up as real, grinding hardship. For others, it shows up as a quieter, well-fed worry that never quite rests. Both are real… and both are exactly what God is inviting us out of. And at the very same time, we are being invited into a different kingdom, one running on entirely different math. Not instead of our real circumstances, but alongside them. That's the wilderness… that in-between space where Pharaoh's rules are still loud in our ears, but God is already laying bread on the ground, trying to teach us a new way to trust. *** Jesus picks up this exact thread centuries later, in John's gospel. A crowd chases him across the lake, and he names what they're really after… "You are looking for me... because you ate your fill of the loaves." They want more bread. More of what Rome's economy has never given them enough of… and Jesus doesn't shame their hunger… but he redirects it. "Do not work for the food that perishes," he says, "but for the food that endures for eternal life." And when they ask him for a sign, the way their ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, Jesus reminds them… it was never Moses who gave that bread. It was always God. He tells them, "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven... I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry." Rome ran on the same scarcity logic as Pharaoh… just with better roads. And Jesus is standing in the middle of that empire, telling a hungry crowd that there is a kingdom where no one goes hungry… and it is not the empire you are currently living inside of. *** So here we are now, centuries after Jesus' revelation… with glimpses here and there of that kingdom where no one goes hungry… we are living in the liminal space of the here and now, but also not yet. And even more specifically… we are at the beginning of our stewardship season... the first of five weeks we'll spend in the wilderness... I imagine some of you already know what stewardship season usually means… that it's time to talk about money… time to fill out a pledge card… and time to fund next year's budget. I'm not going to pretend we don't need to do that, because we do, and we'll be honest with you about our numbers before this season is through. But… I want us to start somewhere other than the spreadsheet. I want us to start in the wilderness… with our spiritual ancestors who were learning through one gathered portion at a time… that they are no longer measured by their output. They are learning that there is enough, and that the God who brought them out is not interested in what they can produce, but is only interested in building, day by day, a relationship they can actually trust. That is what stewardship means here… at its root. It is not about fundraising first, but instead… it is about trust. Trust in God, and trust in each other, in this specific community, practiced daily, the way the Israelites practiced gathering their portion morning after morning… until it became part of them. And we're not practicing that trust in the abstract. Right now, in this place, it looks like growing ministries for every age in this building, and not just the ones that are easiest to fund. It looks like stocking our micro-pantries, which some of our neighbors depend on every single week, because hunger in our community did not end when manna fell in the wilderness. It looks like becoming a hub for collaborative ministries… a place where our neighbors can gather, sharing our resources with them instead of keeping what we have behind our own doors. And it looks like sharing the way of Christ, every day and out loud, with our actual lives. *** None of this erases Pharaoh's math. The bills are still real. The anxiety is still real. But alongside all of that, bread is still falling, every morning, whether we've earned it or not. So may we gather what we need for today, trusting there will be more tomorrow. May we rest when rest is offered, instead of stockpiling against a fear that God has already addressed. And may this congregation become a place where a tired, scarcity-shaped world can taste, even briefly, what it's like to trust that there is, always, enough. Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Today, we had a special musical performance of This Is Amazing Grace, a performance of the Praise Team at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC

Year A – Pentecost 18; Lectionary 26 – September 27, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32   Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, from the Holy Spirit, our Sustainer, and from Jesus Christ, who has everything to say about the possibility of turning back toward God. Amen. *** Jesus is in the temple, and he has already turned the place upside down. Let me position us within the timeline. Jesus rode into Jerusalem the day before on a donkey, crowds shouting Hosanna, the whole city in an uproar. Then he walked straight into the temple and drove out the money changers. He healed the people who came looking for him there. He let little children shout that he was the Son of David, out loud, right in front of everyone. So now the chief priests and elders have come to confront him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" They're not asking because they're curious. …They are trying to trap him into a blasphemy charge. But Jesus doesn't take the bait. He answers their trap with a question of his own, about John's baptism, and it pins them so cleanly that they refuse to answer at all. "We do not know," they say… which everyone in the crowd knows is a lie. And then, still looking right at them, Jesus tells a story. *** A man has two sons. He tells the first, "Go work in the vineyard today." The son says nope. …But later, he changes his mind, and he goes to work in the vineyard. The man tells the second son the same thing. This one says, "Yes, sir, I will go." But he doesn't go. Jesus asks the authorities the obvious question: which one did what the father wanted? They answer correctly, because the answer is obvious: the first one. The one who said no, and then went anyway. And Jesus says to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you." That is not a gentle sentence. Jesus is telling the most religiously credentialed people in the room that the people they look down on... the people whose lives they consider disqualifying... are ahead of them in line. Not because the tax collectors and prostitutes were righteous. But because they were capable of turning. …they were capable of hearing something true and letting it change them. *** So I want to sit with that word "turning" for a moment, because I think it's the whole sermon, if we let it be. But before we get there, I want to be honest about something. When I read this text, what I can't help thinking about is not the first son, or even the second son. It's the people standing in the temple that day who are so sure of their own righteousness that they couldn't hear an invitation to turn… even when it was standing right in front of them, teaching in their temple. And I think about how much harm gets done by people who say yes, Lord, yes, …but they never go to the vineyard. I think about the harm caused by those who wear the language of faith like armor… instead of letting it change anything about how they treat people. We've all seen it. Some of us have lived it. Whole movements have built themselves on saying yes loudly. Purity culture promised protection and instead left a generation of young people, mostly young women, carrying shame about their own bodies that had nothing to do with the God who made those bodies and called them good. Prosperity gospel promised blessings of wealth and power… and instead told people in real poverty that their suffering was their fault… from a lack of faith. Real people have been hurt... turned away from church, turned away from God... by religion that said yes, Lord… but never went to the vineyard. Most of our ELCA churches have a sign out front somewhere that says, All Are Welcome. We have one… and I believe we mean it. But this text asks something harder than believing it. It asks: does our life, together, actually match what we say at the door? *** Here's the thing, though. I don't want to leave us standing in that indictment, because I don't think that's where Jesus leaves the authorities either… The door doesn't close on them… It stays open. That's the whole point of the parable... it's not who's disqualified, but who's still capable of turning. And that includes every one of us who has ever said yes… ever sang it in a hymn, or written it on a pledge card, or promised it at a baptismal font… it includes every one of us who has ever said yes, but then not gone to the vineyard that week. This is where Ezekiel is saying something beautiful, in a text I don't want us to rush past. The people of Israel had a proverb: "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." In other words: we're stuck with the sins that came before us. Nothing to be done. And God, through Ezekiel, rejects that proverb completely. Everyone belongs to me, God says. The soul that sins is the one who dies... not the child for the parent… and not the parent for the child. And then God says something that sounds less like judgment and more like pleading: "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone... Turn, then, and live." That is not the voice of a God building a case against us. That is the voice of a God who wants, more than anything, for us to turn around. *** So what does turning actually look like? Paul gives us a picture of it in Philippians, and it's worth noticing what he doesn't say. He doesn't say: turn around by feeling sufficiently guilty. …He says… "let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," who emptied himself, took the form of a servant, and humbled himself. Turning, in Paul's picture, isn't mainly about correcting your theology. Turning… is about where your life points. Whether it bends inward toward yourself… or outward, toward others. That's not an abstract concept either. I think of Colby Martin, a pastor who spent his first decade in evangelical ministry fully within a tradition that excluded LGBTQ+ people… the same tradition he'd been raised in. He said yes to that tradition for years. But… then he changed his mind... and it cost him his job at the church he'd been serving. He wrote about this turn in his book called UnClobber, which I've had on display at the prayer table. He intentionally worked back through the very passages that had been used to justify exclusion, and came out the other side convinced that Scripture, read honestly, calls the church toward a wider table, not a narrower one. I think, too, of Monte Mader, an online writer and social media person that, I think, Angie introduced me to. She's very open about growing up steeped in a very different kind of Christianity than the one we practice here... one tangled up with nationalism and control. She shares her journey about the slow, costly work of unlearning it… and leaning instead into what she understands as Jesus' actual invitation, which is love… not fear or control. It's always love. Neither of those turns were easy. They both came with incredible loss. But that's what it looks like to be the first son... to say no, or to have lived a kind of no for years… and then to go to the vineyard anyway. *** Here's the good news underneath all of this, though… the very same good news Ezekiel is practically begging us to hear… the door back to the vineyard has never closed. Not for the authorities in the temple. Not for the people harmed by religion that said yes and never showed up. Not for the ones who did the harming. And not for us… not for any among us who said yes years ago and hasn't gone yet to the vineyard. God has no pleasure in the death of anyone. Only in the turning. Only in the going. So may we be a people willing to turn... a people who are honest about where we've said yes, but then stayed home. May we be open to the same mind that was in Christ… a servant-shaped mind that is pointed outward. And may we trust that whenever we finally head for the vineyard… however late it may be, or however long we said no first, that God, who loves us, is not counting the hours. They're just glad we're going. Amen.

Today, we had a special musical performance of 10,000 Reasons, a performance of the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Published Under License From Essential Music Publishing, LLC