May 10th, 2026 - "Double Vision: Sharing Grace" - Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the sermon podcast for First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at fumcbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler (2): Thank

you all.

Thank you all.

Uh, that soprano soloist was Ariana Hernandez, who is new to our choir.

Appreciate that, Ariana

Well, I am so grateful to be sharing the message with you this morning.

So grateful that you all are here.

Our scripture lesson this morning comes from the prophet Isaiah, and I

invite you to listen for the Word of God contained in these holy scriptures.

This is Isaiah 58, starting with verse four.

"You fast only to quarrel and fight and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fasting that I choose, a day to humble yourself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast I choose: to loosen the bonds of injustice, to undo

the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless

poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not

to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your healing shall

spring up quickly." This is the Word of God for us, the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

I'd love it if you would pray with me this morning Holy God, thank you for

this morning to share your worship.

Break your word like bread for children, and may the words of my

mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your

sight, our strength and our redeemer.

Amen.

So the people of Israel have a problem.

They are frustrated because they are fasting and they're praying, and

they're following all of the religious rituals and festivals that they know,

and yet for them, God remains silent.

And they know something is wrong.

They know they're not in the right space to receive blessing from

God, but they can't tell why.

And they're kinda saying, "What's going on, God? We're following all

the rules. Why aren't you blessing us?" And the prophet Isaiah receives

a word from God, and in our scripture lesson today, we hear Isaiah's message.

And God tells the children of Israel what kind of fast God chooses, to loosen

the bonds of injustice, and to undo the straps of the yoke and let the oppressed

go free, and to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless

poor into your house, and to clothe the naked, and not to hide from your own kin.

And at first glance, this seems pretty straightforward.

Isaiah is telling the children of Israel it takes more than just showing

up to worship and warming a pew.

God is not interested in religious festivals if people are turning

their backs on the oppressed and ignoring the hungry in their midst.

And this is not the first time that God has spoken this message

to a prophet in the Book of Isaiah.

In the very first chapter, God speaks through Isaiah, and he says, "Your new

moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates. They have become a burden to me.

I am weary of them." And God continues his message even more graphically.

He says, "Your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves.

Make yourselves clean.

Learn to do good, to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend

the orphan, and plead for the widow." In other words, Israel, put

your actions where your worship is.

Take care of the vulnerable around you.

Love the people around you.

And this is not an easy message to hear But it's the obvious message

we can draw from these passages.

But beloved, I believe there's something deeper going on here,

something below the surface.

You see, I do not believe that God wanted the children of Israel to abandon worship

or to stop observing their rituals.

God had been very clear and very detailed when he gave instructions for worship.

A few years ago, as I started this journey, I thought, "I better

read through the whole Bible."

I had never read entirely through the Bible.

So I read the New Testament, and I kinda hesitated.

I didn't know if I wanted to read the Old Testament.

But I started right there at Genesis 1:1, and I read all the way

Genesis 1:1

through, kinda like a book, through the Old Testament, and there were

some beautiful passages in there.

I learned a lot.

But let me tell you, some of those books were a real slog.

I really had to soldier through those.

I remember thinking, "How many times is God gonna repeat the instructions

for constructing the tabernacle? How many cubits the length of the curtain

is gonna be, and how big the altar, what the size of the altar's gonna

be, and the exact way to sprinkle the blood on the altar, and the exact

way to perform the animal sacrifice?"

So I've only read straight through one time.

I don't know if I'll do that again, but I, I will certainly continue

to read the Hebrew scripture.

I just may not try to read it like a book from left to right.

So I don't think God wants the children of Israel to abandon worship or feast days.

I believe what God is telling them is their hearts are not in the right place.

They were going through the motions.

They were not deeply in love with God.

Because if they truly loved God, they would not only perform the ritual, they'd

do the rituals, but they would care for the vulnerable folks around them as well.

They would seek justice.

They would defend the orphan and plead for the widow.

Their worship in itself was not wrong.

Their hearts just needed to be transformed.

They needed to become more grateful to God for His love and

mercy, and from that gratitude, let their actions flow naturally.

Because the truth is this: if we set out to do righteous goods, righteous deeds,

and righteous good things without a right heart, those good deeds can become as

empty and as hollow as insincere worship

I think what is important for us today, at this time, is this: we

cannot allow all of the noise and the anger and the division and the hatred

in our world to harden our hearts.

We cannot let ourselves turn away from injustice and oppression or hunger because

of fear and anxiety and uncertainty.

Instead, we need to stay close to God, to continue to receive God's

grace and forgiveness, and then our good works begin to flow out of

our gratitude and our love for God.

We begin to see people the way God sees them.

Beloved, every person we meet bears the image and the likeness of a holy God

This past Friday, I, I had a real surprise.

I got a text from some friends that I had not seen in many, many years.

We'd been very close when I was in, uh, undergraduate at University of Oklahoma.

They were in the graduate program as a married couple, and, and

they texted me, said, "We're here.

We're in Bentonville, and let's meet for lunch." So Pam and I were driving

over there, and I was trying to describe these folks to them, and I said,

"Well, this is what they were like, but I haven't seen them in, I think

it's been about 30 years." So I know, you all, that my looks have changed

drastically over the last 30 years.

I'm not as young and handsome as I used to be.

And so after we kind of settled down and we got to know one another again,

I said, "I was really worried that you all wouldn't recognize me after

all this time." And one of them said, "Ray, I'd recognize you anywhere.

You still have the essence of Ray."

So I've been thinking about that phrase all weekend.

Maybe that's a good way to think about humanity itself.

No matter how different people may be from us, different backgrounds, different

beliefs, different politics, we all carry the essence of holy God in us.

And maybe practicing true religion begins when we stop othering people.

Maybe we begin with the assumption that people are doing the best they know how.

Now, you may not fully believe that all the time, but I think

it's a good place to start.

We may disagree religiously, but these people are worshiping

in the best way they know how.

We may disagree politically, but both of us probably want the best for our city and

our county and our state and our country.

Start with the assumption of good intention.

That may be one of the ways we can start sharing grace.

Another thing to remember is this: all of us, all of us are a little strange.

Every one of us has quirks and odd thoughts and funny behaviors.

This past week, I was reading a book review by Adam Begley on a new

novel by Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout,

and Begley wrote this: "Her characters aren't exotic, but they're quirky.

Some are cantankerous, some are bafflingly passive, but all are convincingly real.

Thinking about them, I keep coming back to the bedrock of her work,

what she called the singularity and mystery of each person.

She shows us how strange we all are and how similar." Pam and I have

a kind of running joke between us.

Every now and then, we will look at one another, and one of us will say,

"We are both so normal. How did we end up with such weird children?"

So maybe we ought to embrace the difference and the strangeness

of our fellow travelers.

Maybe that too is a part of sharing grace.

And I think we should also remember how much God's love and redemption

has meant in our own lives.

We share grace best when it flows from a thankful and a grateful heart.

God loves all of us, all our quirks, all our strangeness, and all our mystery.

God loves us in our singularity because that's how God created us

So how can we keep from sharing grace and love with all the

mysterious singularities around us?

I'd like to close this morning with one of my favorite poems.

It's by a 16th century Spanish nun and mystic, Teresa of Ávila, and the

poem is called Christ Has No Body.

I invite you to listen to these words: Christ has no body but yours, no

hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on the world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the

Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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Grace and peace.