"Saving Eutychus" (April 19, 2026 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Text: Acts 20:7-12

Someone really does fall asleep during a sermon in the Bible, and it’s not just a quirky story. We start with Eutychus in Acts 20 and sit with the uncomfortable truth behind it: many of us come to worship exhausted. We’re worn down by nonstop news, heavy schedules, and the pressure to carry more than feels possible. When we’re that tired, we don’t need louder words or longer explanations. We need grace that meets us in our actual bodies.

From there, we follow the image that won’t let go: Eutychus perched in a window, neither fully in nor fully out. That “window” becomes a spiritual map for modern church life, where people drift between belonging and isolation, faith and fatigue, attention and distraction. We ask what it would look like to become the kind of church that notices those at the margins and brings them to the center, not with guilt, but with warmth, welcome, and practices that engage all our senses.

Because embodied worship is not a buzzword, it’s how faith becomes real. We share sensory memories that shape discipleship, then celebrate the holy work of a church preschool where children learn “you are safe, you are loved, you belong” long before they can explain grace. If you’re a parent running on fumes, a tired believer, or someone who feels stuck in the window, this message is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with one way you’ve experienced grace with your whole self.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Enjoy celebrate presentation for line. I always heard the week of honey and reviews becoming like Jesus Christ all the way. Chapter 28, verses 7 for 11. On the first day of the week, the weekend is very discussion with the next day. Holy listen, holy worship.

Prayer And A Strange Bible Story

Tired Bodies Crave Real Grace

The Window Between Belonging And Isolation

Remembering Faith Through The Senses

Preschool Sunday And Holy Parenting Work

Planting Seeds Of Grace Together

Blessing The Wiggles And Saying Amen

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Thanks, beat again. All right, friends, let us pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Alright, so I may not be the best preacher in the world. But I can safely say that I have never literally bored anyone to death in a sermon. And as long as I'm your pastor, I'm going to keep on trying to extend that winning streak. But interestingly enough, that's more than the Apostle Paul can say. Today's text is proof. Everybody say Eudychus. Eutychus. My guess is that for most of us, the story of Eudychus is unfamiliar. You probably did not hear this story about a young man being bored to death, falling out of a window in vacation Bible school or Sunday school or in preschool chapel, would be my guess. And you've probably never heard of it in a sermon before. I must say I never did growing up. It is admittedly a bizarre story. But your pastor loves bizarre stories in the Bible because they give us a chance to see scripture in fresh and surprising ways. And this one has everything: a long-winded preacher, a sleepy young man, an open window, three stories up, and a moment that begins almost like comedy before turning suddenly serious. In other words, it is every preacher's worst nightmare. But it's also a story that has something important to teach us about worship, about attention, about bodies, and what it means for faith to be fully alive. Eudychus may have a name that strikes us as odd, but his character is one we all know well. He is every weary soul who has tried to pay attention when the body simply has other ideas. He is every student fighting sleep, every parent running on too little rest, every older saint whose energy is not what it once was. Eutychus is not strange. Eutychus is us. And we are tired. Tired of one absurd news cycle after another. Tired of schedules and responsibilities and bad news and hard conversations. Tired of being asked to carry more than seems bearable. Tired of living in a constant state of alert in a world that keeps hurling one relentless curveball after another. So when we gather, when we come together for worship, we come craving, I think, something embodied, something real, something more than words alone. We come needing good news, not just good news that we can hear during a sermon like this, but good news that we can taste and touch and see and smell. We come longing not merely to hear about grace, but to encounter it with our whole selves and our whole bodies. So I wonder if that's what Eudychus longed for that evening. An encounter with grace that engaged all of his senses. But that night only one sense was being fed, his sense of hearing. Now notice, church, if you look on the screen, where is he? Where is he? He's in a window, right? He's he's yeah, he's very precarious, yeah, but he's in a window. He's neither fully in nor is he fully out. He's in what we might call a liminal space, kind of teetering in between realities. From his window, Eudychus is caught between attention and distraction, between faith and fatigue, between belonging and isolation. And I think that if we are honest, that window is a place where many of us live. And so this story gives this preacher a few questions. But predominantly, how can we save Eudicus before he slips? What weary bodies has God placed in our midst who need not just a grace they can hear, but as I said, that they can touch and smell and taste and see. How can we, the church, become a place where those in the window are welcomes to the center rather than left unnoticed at the margins? And on a Sunday, when we are celebrating our church preschool, perhaps this bizarre story reminds us that the church is healthiest when it does not require stoic attentiveness, but makes room for whole human beings, wiggly, weary, wondering bodies and all. Because after all, children understand something that many of us grown-ups forget, and that's this that the body is not an obstacle to worship, but rather the body is where worship begins. I know this is true because when I think back on church as a child, I will admit I don't remember many sermons, but I do remember plenty of other things. I remember the coarse feeling of rope in my hands when our church's music director let me ring the bell in our steeple for all of Dalton, Georgia to hear. I remember the smell of bacon in the church kitchen when I would wake up early every Tuesday morning to help my father cook for the men's breakfast. I remember the clanging of cell doors as they shut when we would go to the local youth detention center to read scripture with other kids my age who had been forgotten by so much of society. I remember the flickering of candles on Christmas Eve when we sang Silent Night before I went home, crawled in my bed, and waited for the wonder of the next morning. And I remember the ground shaking beneath my feet at the booming Amen chords at the end of Vidor's Takata every Easter morning. I may not remember many of the words, but I remember how faith felt. I remember how worship sounded and smelled, and how worship literally shook the floor beneath my feet. I remember that long before I could ever explain grace, I had already begun to experience it. And one reason my faith still matters so deeply to me today is that my home church did not leave me in the window, so to speak, as Eudychus was. Yes, there will be moments of boredom in the occasional sermon, I will admit. There will be moments of boredom, just like in life, in every life of faith, but the church was never meant to be an empty exercise and sitting still and zoning out. It was meant to call forth the whole self, it was meant to engage all of our bodies, and maybe that's part of what this strange little story that I hope you all remember today is trying to show us. Because if we want to save Eudychus before he slips, then we must be the kind of church that refuses to leave wiggly, weary, wandering bodies at the window. We must be the kind of church that welcomes them to the center where grace can be heard, yes, but also touched and tasted and smelled and seen, lived and known. And friends, on this preschool celebration Sunday, I can't help but thank God for the holy work that our preschool does here. Long before the children among us could ever explain what grace is they've experienced here, they experience it in the love of our preschool teachers who I see every day at work, meeting the children at eyes level, wiping away tears, redirecting huge feelings, singing songs, reading stories, and telling these children again and again, you are safe, you are loved, and you belong. Trisha and I know this personally because as you know, Hazel, Grace, and Winnie have been blessed by Miss Becca, Miss Mary, Miss Michelle, Miss Heather, Miss Jen, Miss Sarah, Miss Carrie, Miss Beth, Miss Cassidy, Miss Jasmine, I'm probably forgetting others, I'm sorry, but so many wonderful educators who have shaped them into the wonderful young girls that they are becoming. And for that, these two tired parents are very grateful. And I know that there are other parents here today who are tired. Tired because parenting is holy work and exhausting work, tired because the world is heavy and you want so badly for your children, not just to grow up and get by, but to grow up with a living faith, a faith that makes them resilient and compassionate and to seek justice and to trust that the goodness of God is stronger than the fear that is out there. So hear this. When you bring children here, when you let them wiggle and wonder and sing and ask questions, when you place them in the care of this community and this preschool and this church, you're not wasting your time. You are planting seeds of grace. You are helping save Eutychus before he slips. Because every time we welcome a child, every time we make room for a young family, every time we bring somebody in from the window and remind them that they belong at the center of Jesus' love, we are doing the work of the gospel. Because Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and that's what we try to do here at Guilford Park. We make room, we open our arms, we bless the wiggles, we trust that Christ is at work in the bodies, the questions, the laughter, and the holy energy of the young disciples among us. In just a few moments, we're going to pray a prayer not only with our ears, but with all of our bodies, because that too is part of our witness that faith is something to be experienced. So thanks be to God for a church that does not leave Eutychus at the window. For thanks be to God for a preschool that keeps children at the center, and thanks be to God for Jesus Christ who gathers us up in grace, holds us close, and saves Eutychus again and again. And may all of us, God's beloved children, say Amen.