What If The Miracle Is Changing Your Mind

That quiet thought that tells you to slow down, listen longer, and choose kinder words might not be “just you.” We’re in the season of Pentecost, and we’re asking a simple but life-changing question: how do we recognize the Holy Spirit’s voice, and how do we respond when it calls us into a bigger life?

We start with the fruit of the Spirit as a clear test for discernment, then speak a Pentecost blessing rooted in freedom, hope, and a love that outgrows tribe. From there, scripture and story meet in a way that feels personal: Sister Mabel’s witness of choosing praise, Mary’s consent to God’s impossible news, and a church community that helps us name what is truly Spirit-led. If you’ve ever carried grief, felt alone in your questions, or wondered if God is still moving, there’s room for you here.

Then we walk into Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus calls a tax collector and sits at a table crowded with the people everyone else labels “disreputable.” That scene becomes a masterclass in the kingdom of God: Jesus keeps widening the circle, confronting our inner Pharisee, and pressing this directive into our hearts, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” We follow the road from dinner to heartbreak, from a father’s loss to a woman’s long suffering, and watch how healing and belonging interrupt the noise of the crowd.

We close by reframing miracles through Pentecost power: sometimes the miracle is resurrection, and sometimes it’s metanoia, a real change of mind that makes peace, justice, and mercy possible. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these teachings. What’s one way you’re being invited into mercy this week?

Transcript

Pentecost and Hearing the Spirit

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Welcome to the First Love Church Podcast. This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, Florida. I greet you this morning in the season of Pentecost, the second Sunday of Pentecost. What a joy it is to mark time by when the Holy Spirit has been given to us. That all of us stand here. And I love what Thomas reminded us. We're invited in. We are invited into what God is co-creating. We're invited into this kingdom work right now. What Jesus came to show us and what we remember in this season of Pentecost, this half of the year, we talk about the story of Jesus giving to us the Holy Spirit and how we can find the sacred in the ordinary, how we find the Holy Spirit empowering us, gifting us life. We talked for a moment last week, and we talked about taking a pause and allowing the Holy Spirit to have the last word instead of us, allowing the practice of letting love have the last word. And there was a sister who came up after service, and she hasn't been here for a few weeks, and so she didn't know what we were talking about. And she said, I needed to tell you something. She said, A few months ago, I had a thought. And she said, the thought was, I need to stop talking so much. I need to give someone else a chance to talk, and I need to think about what I'm going to say before I just say it. And I said, Oh, that's a really good thought you had. And she goes, it turns out, based on your message this morning, that was not my thought. That was the Holy Spirit. And I said, You're absolutely right. And she goes, but I didn't recognize it as the voice of the Holy Spirit until you said it. And she goes, and now I recognize that was the Holy Spirit. And she said, The Holy Spirit's been telling me other things too. And I said, That's wonderful. And beloved, that is what church is. That's what community does for us. When we hear something that's good and encouraging, somebody says to us, that's the spirit. You're hearing the spirit, you are connecting to those good things, the things that will make you more kind and more loving. The scripture tells us we know what the fruit of the spirit is or the evidence of the Holy Spirit in someone's life is love, joy, peace, patience, long-side. You know them, kindness, self-control. And so this morning, I am grateful to be in the house of the Lord with you, to be sharing. And together, through our witness, may we all begin to hear the voice of the Spirit with clarity. And may we not only hear it, but may we respond to what the voice is calling us to do. May our hearts be toward that. And so this morning in the house of God, beloveds of God, you hear this morning, may the Holy Spirit, the holy breath that hovered over the waters of creation, the same spirit that descended upon Jesus after the immersion in the waters of baptism, the Ruach, who whispers in wilderness and garden, the living presence who raised Christ from the dead into life, rest upon you this morning and awaken your spirit. I speak now of this blessing in the lineage of the women who first proclaimed the resurrection, in the company of Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles, who carried the good news while other brothers doubted, in the company of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who pondered the mysteries in her heart and waited faithfully for the coming of the Holy Spirit, in the company of Junia, called Outstanding among the apostles, in the company of Priscilla, the teacher of wisdom and a companion in ministry, in the company of Tabitha, whose hands stitched mercy into the lives of the poor, in the company of Lydia, Phoebe, and the daughters who prophesied, and the countless unnamed women who carried the flame of faith from generation to generation, in their lineage and in their courage, I speak this blessing over you. May the Holy Spirit lead you into all truth, and may the Spirit reveal what is yet to come, opening your eyes to God's unfolding dream for the world. And may the Holy Spirit break open every place within you that has grown small through fear and widen your heart with divine compassion. May the Holy Spirit free you from every illusion of separation. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, freedom to love, freedom to forgive, freedom to welcome, freedom to become. And may the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace. And peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit, that you yourself would abound in hope. May your love grow larger than your tribe, may your table grow wider than your comfort, and may your understanding of family expand until you recognize Christ in friend and stranger alike. And may this congregation become a living Pentecost, people gathered together in unity, broken open in love and sent forward in compassion. And may the same spirit who gathered believers into one body gather us now into deeper communion with God and deeper communion with one another. And may the holy fire of divine love, may it burn brightly among us until all that remains is love. Amen. This

Sister Mabel and Choosing Hope

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morning it is my joy to read the scriptures with you and to ask the Holy Spirit to open our understanding. May you see this morning things that are in the sacred text that you have not seen before. And may you see with the eye of your heart, may you see with the inner eye beyond what you can see with the outer eye. I told this morning just a brief remembrance of Sister Mabel, who had been blind her whole life, and I met her when she was a very old woman in a nursing home. And she would stand by the window and allow the sun to be in her face and would ask me to sing, This is my story. This is my song. It was very impactful as a small child because I thought Sister Mabel could have a different story. And the story could be I have had a very dark life. But instead, she chose a story I've loved. This is my song. I praise my savior all the day long. This is my story. And I want to encourage you this morning, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to consent to the working of Christ in you, to the working of Spirit in you, and allow the Holy Spirit to rewrite or to offer to you a different perspective to bring the miracle, power of God into fruition, into the kingdom right now by your opening yourself and saying yes to the Holy Spirit. It is, in fact, Mary, the mother of Jesus, that shows us how to respond when God shows up with incredible news, also unbelievable news, and things that don't seem to be able to be possible in the natural. An angel shows up and says to Mary, God has a plan and would like to invite you to cooperate. And then the angel tells her that the son will be born through her. And Mary's reply is this be it unto me according to your word. And she offers consent to the Holy Spirit. And that is our posture. And this is the intention that we would also be open to miracles, that we would be open to things happening that we can't even imagine. Good things, beautiful things, miraculous things. And so this morning, as we go to the text, we also witness people in this exact same posture. And so this morning, I also want you to pay attention to some of the characters or the people that are representing you, that are representing me, that are representing the world around us, and also see how much grief is in the story. I want you to remember this morning that grieving is a part of being a whole human being, that sorrow is as much a part of our lives as joy is. And the Holy Spirit does not ask us to not feel those things, but to know that while we're feeling anything, we are not alone. And in this story, when we meet Jesus, Jesus is showing people, particularly Matthew, who gets called to be a follower, and he's showing him the world that he is interested in creating. And so this morning we're going to go to Matthew's gospel. As Jesus

Matthew Follow Me and The Table

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was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector's booth. This would have startled the people that were following Jesus or that believed that Jesus had anything to do with God, because this Matthew fellow, I mean, we consider him Saint Matthew now, and but this person was a traitor. This person worked for the empire. This person collected taxes. That's not how the job went. And Jesus walks along and says to Matthew, follow me and be my disciple. I think people around would have renegotiated and gone, well, I thought this was going to be something different. I thought we were going to usher in the kingdom of God, but not by including tax collectors. Jesus says, follow me. That is the same invitation that Jesus gives to all of us. Follow me. Get up from what you're doing and follow this way of living. Follow this path back to each other, back to God, back to the table. I was thinking about this in the past few weeks because we have practiced resurrection. What does it look like to practice resurrection, to be someone who practices resurrection? It's being loving toward someone who has not been loving toward you. It's looking at something and not declaring that it's over for you to be able to say, hey, it's possible that the dead things can come to life. It's possible that there is more life in this vine than I had any idea. And so this morning, as we go to this text, I invite you to put yourself right in the story. Follow me and be my disciple, Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. I hope that people say of you, when the Spirit called, when Jesus walked by and invited you to come and follow, that your response was getting up and following. Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. Apparently not the good sinners. These were the disreputes. I think it's very interesting they put that in. These are the bad ones. Like again, here we have this: there are those, and then there are those. And Jesus went right to those and said, Those are mine. I am theirs, they are mine, they are my beloved. But I want you to think about this: that every time Jesus invites us somewhere, it's always back to the table. In fact, on the road to Emmaeus, the people there have left the culture, have left the city, have left the tabernacle, have left that way of doing things. They're on the road, and Jesus appears to them, and Jesus takes them back to the table. Jesus, in fact, when the Holy Spirit is given at Pentecost, all the people are gathered around in the room, in the room, what room? In the room where we had the Last Supper, where we had gathered around the table, and this understanding that the Spirit was coming. So later, Matthew invites Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests. And they didn't check with everyone about who was on the guest list. This was a terrible thing. And I we get to laugh about it now, but you didn't want to be in a place where somebody else was of that disrepute because you will have been known among them. And over and over again, we see people who are offended with Jesus because of who Jesus eats with, who Jesus loves, who Jesus calls beloved, who Jesus includes. And beloved family, this morning I want to invite you to give permission to the Holy Spirit to expand your view of family, that we would see Christ in every person.

Mercy Not Sacrifice and Judgment

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And when the Pharisees saw this, I stand before you this morning as a recovering Pharisee myself. And I say that with all humbleness and truthfulness. The Pharisees are not the bad guys in the story. The Pharisees are people who have devoted their lives to following the rules that were given to them so they could please God. Very often we ourselves are Pharisees because what we are doing is following a set of rules that somebody told us that if we did this, then God would be pleased with us. And so before you say, those Pharisees, put yourself in the company of people who have tried to make the right decision, who have tried to follow the rules, and then be encouraged because the Pharisees are invited into something even bigger and more beautiful, and we all are. Again, you hear this language, and this would never be the language of God. This is not the language of the spirit. This is it only shows the projection of the people who are saying these words. Why does your teacher do this? And when Jesus heard that, now this question wasn't directed to Jesus. I love this about Jesus, overhearing and speaking. Sometimes they don't even say it, and he speaks directly to what they are saying in their heart. When Jesus heard this, he said, Healthy people do not need a doctor, sick people do. And then he added this. Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture. I want you to show mercy and not offer sacrifices. Jesus instructed people who were following to go and learn the meaning of this scripture. Mercy. The same mercy that triumphs over judgment. Mercy. The same mercy that shows us about who God is. The gospel, the good news is that Jesus shows us who God is. In the book of Lamentations, it says, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, for they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God. Mercy is who we meet when we meet God. And so the invitation here in this is that all of us would ponder, that we would ask ourselves the question: Am I more familiar with mercy or with judgment? And what do I want for my enemies? There's an ancient rabbinic prayer. I find so much hope in this. And it is, Lord, do for my enemies what you would do for my children. That's a hard prayer, but it is a truthful prayer. When we put ourselves as family with all people, there is an invitation into a new life. I want you to show mercy and not offer sacrifices. For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know that they are sinners. As Jesus was saying this, the leader of the synagogue came and knelt before him. So think about this just for a minute. This big dinner party. Jesus has been invited. Matthew invites him, and Matthew invites all kinds of people. Ill repute, the other scriptures tell us about who was there. The scum is what it says, and disreputable sinners. And so the invitation is you'd imagine in your head who you would say, I wouldn't eat with them. And they were there at the table with Jesus while they're eating this dinner, while the Pharisees are saying, Your teacher, you're following this one, this one who eats with people, who breaks the rules, who includes people, a leader of the synagogue came and knelt before him. We

Share Support and Subscribe

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pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today. If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org, reminding you to like, follow, and subscribe. The kneeling

Grief Healing and Practicing Resurrection

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before somebody is this place of humility. He's the leader of a synagogue, and he kneels before this teacher who is eating dinner with people that were of ill repute. And he says to him, My daughter has just died. I don't know. I think the dinner may have been exciting and fun. People were talking about there probably would have been a lot of noise. And this man with grief, the grief of a parent who has lost a child, comes and kneels before him and says, This is what I have. No power. This is what I have, only sorrow. I need you to do something. But you can bring her back to life again if you just come and lay your hand on her. And Jesus and his disciples got up and went with him. I liked this verse and in this way of telling the story because Jesus says to Matthew, Come and follow me, and Matthew gets up and follows him. And now the leader of the synagogue says to Jesus, I need you to come with me because my daughter is dead and you can do something about it. And Jesus gets up and follows him. And this invitation is into following. Who will we follow? Jesus follows the man who has a broken heart. Jesus follows those who are full of grief and says, I will do something about it. So Jesus and the disciples, and I bet other people from the party, I don't think they were excluded. I think there what happened was an unplanned parade. I think that we were all having a big dinner, and now this man, the leader of the synagogue, we would have all known him. His daughter has died. And we would have had questions. Let me tell you the kind of questions we would have had, because the scripture already tells us about them. There's a man who is blind, and Jesus and his disciples have passed, and Jesus, this man says, Have mercy on me. Again, Jesus said, I want you to go and find out what mercy is. And the man says, Have mercy on me. And the disciples said, Um, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he's born blind? This beloved is a masterclass in the wrong question. Why are we asking who sinned? Why are we asking who is in charge of this? Let's just ask Jesus to heal this man. And Jesus said, neither. And that would have just blown smoke out of their ears. What? We have to know who to blame. We have to know who is responsible for this hardship. Jesus says nothing of that. Heals the man. In the same way, we have this parade of people, and I'm sure there's talking at the back of the line anyway. He's the leader of the synagogue and his daughter dies. What hope do we have? I mean, this is a man who lives righteously, who does all the rules, and he also suffers? Jesus is coming. And I can imagine this father full of grief, but also with a glimmer of hope. He has heard that Jesus. Three resurrections are told in the scriptures about Jesus and what he does, the widow's son, this Jairus' daughter, and Lazarus. I don't know exactly how it happened first, but this man knew that there were stories of the dead being brought to life. And so he brings his grieving heart to Jesus and asks for mercy. Jesus gets up and goes and follows him. And Jesus is on the way with people to this man's house. And then a woman who suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding came up behind him. Jesus is on the way to heal someone. And a woman who is an outcast in their particular society, she would not have been allowed to be a part of anything because of a condition that she didn't choose. In fact, there's another gospel that tells us she suffered much of many physicians. She spent all her money trying to get this stopped, trying to belong. And she has also heard about Jesus. Jesus is on his way to the leader of the synagogue's house. And this woman comes up behind him, and it says she touches the fringe of his robe. In some translations, it says the hem of his garment. You would have known this from another translation. And she said, For if I can just touch his robe, I will be healed. And Jesus turns around, and when he saw her, daughter, be encouraged. When he saw her, he names her beloved and belonging. The woman who spent years trying to get back into the community, Jesus looks at her and says, Daughter, daughter, be encouraged. Your faith has made you well. And the woman was healed at that moment. Jesus looks, she has faith and she reaches out and she touches, and the woman was healed at that moment. And then the parade continues. Then we're still on the way to the synagogue, to the leader of the synagogue's house. And when Jesus arrives at the official's home, he saw the noisy crowd and he heard the funeral music. There would have been people there who were grieving this beautiful daughter. There would have been people there who supported this family as they grieved. Get out, he told them. She is only asleep. And the crowd laughed at him. We don't know how long they've been there. Maybe it's been hours. We know the difference between the dead and the sleeping. Do we? After the crowd was put outside, hang on to that place and look in the scriptures too. Be leery of crowds. It's the crowd that cries crucify. It's the crowd. It's the crowd. There's a difference between crowd and community, beloved. Pay attention to who you're following. If you're just following the crowd. Or if you're part of the community, or the dinner table, or the party where Jesus is invited. After the crowd was put outside, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand and she stood up. This gospel is reminding us. Now remember, Matthew just got called. He's decided to follow Jesus. They have this big party. Jesus is talking, people are criticizing. Jesus is talking to the criticizers, talking about what the kingdom is going to look like. Listen, the sick are the ones that I have come for, the ones who know that they are outside. I am coming for those. And in this particular time frame, women were considered less than. I know we can't imagine that. No, no, we can't imagine. A hierarchy. I don't know. Just think about it in your mind. If you could think that some people thought they were better than others, that's where we find the story. It's

Kingdom Now and Dignity For All

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essential for us as followers of Jesus to imagine a world where there are no longer hierarchies. In fact, Jesus talked about this. The apostles talked about this, and the Holy Spirit made evidence of this. This is the intention. Again, let's go back to the prophet Joel. In that day, the Lord says, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men and your young men. It begins to say, Are you separating old and young? Are you separating male and female? No, in the day when the spirit comes, no more separation, no more decision that one is better than the other. Jesus is instituting a new way of living. The kingdom is for right now, beloved, not when you die. When you die, you return to God, you return to the source of love. You don't need anything when you are with God. We need it here. And that's why Jesus said, pray and pray this way. Ask, your kingdom come, your will be done as it is in heaven. Do it here on the earth. Do it right now, right here. And we're invited, beloved, into the making of this new world. We're invited to be people who recognize what Jesus said, sons and daughters, the same. Again, if you want to go back all the way to the Genesis story, God said, I will make mankind in my image. Male and female, God created them. I remind you of this sacred order, that every person is an image, a variation of God. Every person is an expression of God. And we need to honor those expressions and learn how to put away our prejudice, our bigotry, our us and them, and find a place at the table that invites us to reimagine a world where Jesus said, everyone is beloved. Everyone is welcomed. Jesus went in, took the girl by the hand, and she stood up. And the report of this miracle swept through the countryside, as it should have. Beloved, I'm glad this kind of news traveled, but it absolutely did. There was a girl who was dead. We know for sure she was dead, and Jesus came, and now she lives. Beloved, that is all of our story. The report of this miracle swept through the entire countryside. There is an invitation for all of us to imagine this new world. These people are leaving with Jesus on this parade to go to this man's house, and they have witnessed the miraculous. Maybe they missed the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. But they couldn't miss the dead being brought to life. And the invitation for all of us is to allow the spirit to expand our imagination of what it could look like for every person to be given the dignity that they deserve because they are made in the image of God. Every person belonging, the table becoming wider and bigger and more beautiful, and every person recognizing their sovereignty.

Miracles Metanoia and Changed Minds

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One of the things that is so interesting about this story, and that we're called to remember this during the season of Pentecost, is that we are called to remember that the Holy Spirit is the miracle worker and the Holy Spirit has been given to us. We are not without comfort. We are not without companionship. We are not without the spirit of truth that guides us. And when we struggle, when we have questions, we ask the Holy Spirit to expand our perspective and our imagination, to change the way that we think. Beloved, somebody told me recently that they had not seen a miracle. And I ask them, could I reframe a miracle for them? Sometimes we have categories of miracles where we say, Well, I never saw the dead be brought to life, but have you ever seen someone change their mind? Then you have witnessed a miracle. Have you yourself ever changed your mind? Then you yourself have been given a miracle. Beloved, we are invited into the following of Jesus, and the following of Jesus means that we should change our minds. In fact, Jesus invites us, repent. It's this word metanoia, and it means to change your mind and actually change your mind, just not for one evil thought for another, but to have the mind of Christ, the illumination of the spirit, to let the truth of God open our imagination and say, how can we be a part of God and what God is working in the world today? The Holy Spirit has been given to you, and you have the Holy Spirit inside of you. So if you will take a moment and listen, and together when we read the stories, again, I was so blessed by my sister who last week said, I did not know that was the Holy Spirit. I do now. And then she was a little disturbed because the Holy Spirit was also telling her other things, probably harder than just keep your mouth shut, probably more generous and more loving. And every time we see the spirit, it is generous. The spirit comes upon people that we as a church, as a culture, this is such a part of who we are. We are people who are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know what being a part of a church is like, it is like people who recognize that the Holy Spirit is wild in the Holy Spirit. Again, many people call the Holy Spirit like the holy goose. Like we don't even know why. Wild goose. We don't even know why the spirit would go there. We see this with the original disciples, where they know how things are supposed to be done. We've seen Jesus, we've seen him resurrection, we're gonna go preach, and then they're gonna become like us. And turns out the Holy Spirit is not interested in them becoming like you, the Holy Spirit just pours out on the Gentiles. Well, that's disappointing because how are we gonna, we're what are we gonna hold over their heads now to get them into anything? They're not gonna want to be like us because they don't have to. They already have the spirit. And so the Holy Spirit starts just pouring itself out over all of creation. And I remind you, this is how the void and the chaos is changed. This is again the Genesis story that says, over the darkness, over the void, over the chaos, the spirit came. And she brooded over the waters of chaos. And from the word of the Lord came light, and light was. And so the same is true for you that Holy Spirit inside of you, brooding over the chaos in your life, brooding over the chaos in our world, saying, Let there be peace, let there be love, let there be hope, let there be, and Jesus shows us what we can expect that our enemies will be invited to the table with us. Disappointing if you wanted your enemies slaughtered. Ask Jesus to change your perspective. That

Wild Spirit Peace Justice Mercy

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is what Jesus called all of us. You are my friends. You imagine a new way of living. The prophet said one day you will no longer train your sons for war. Imagine a world where we didn't kill each other. That's the hope of Christ, beloved. And we have to hold that in our hearts, in our inner eye, that there will be peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. One day we will no longer take vengeance in our own hand. In fact, God told us, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. It's not your business. You give all of that to God and let God sort that out. Prophet Amos also says, This is what I want, says the Lord. I want justice. I want justice to flow down like a mighty river. Every time we see the Holy Spirit coming and being poured out upon people, the Holy Spirit upon Jairus' daughter, who is dead and now brought to life, the Holy Spirit upon Matthew, who once was okay with stealing from his own countrymen, with aiding the empire that was out to destroy them. Matthew gets up and follows Jesus, and Jesus is inviting us into the same way. Beloved, it is very much like in the story where the couple is on the road to Emmaus. They are leaving Jerusalem. Jesus shows up and tells them the stories that they knew in a way that they had never heard it. Maybe the Holy Spirit needs to tell you about your life in a way that you've never heard it. This is not pie in the sky, beloved. This is, in fact, what Cleophys and his wife say. Did not our hearts burn within us? You know when your heart has burned within you, when it feels right, when it feels hopeful, when it feels merciful, when it feels good. Beloved, you are full of the spirit. You have access to that divine power. You can stay in the realm of the spirit that will show you all things. How can you possibly be in relationship with that person who behaves like that? The Holy Spirit can show you how to do that. How you can stay in love, how you can stay in peace, how you can stay in mercy. And Jesus gave us a directive. I want you to go and figure out what this means. I desire mercy more than all of your rules. Mercy. Mercy over you, beloved, mercy over me. Mercy over our world. Mercy over the people who are hurting so much. Mercy. Mercy. May the Holy Spirit expand in us our ability and capacity to see mercy.

Closing and Visit Online

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We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon. If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org.