8/16/2026 - “Woven Together” - Rev. Anthony Spearhart

My soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me.

There are moments when faith feels less like certainty and more like clinging.

Holding tightly to the promise that God is still here, still speaking, still holding, still making a way through what we cannot yet make sense of.

And for many pastors across this country, this is one of those Sundays.

Pastors are stepping into pulpits, grasping tightly to the promise of a still speaking God, searching for strength, for comfort, because so many of us knew Reverend Derek Terry.

We worked together, we laughed together, we dreamed about what the church could become together.

We called him colleague, pastor, friend, holy troublemaker, co-conspirator, together trying to make the church look more like the affirming, colorful kingdom mosaic we knew that it could be.

I know not everyone here knew Reverend Derek the way many of us did, and you're not expected to carry this grief in the same way.

But maybe that is exactly where the church becomes something more beautifully complete.

We do not have to carry the same grief to help carry one another through it.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians, if one member suffers, all suffer together with it.

If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Paul does not say we all feel exactly the same pain or joy.

He says we are connected enough that somebody else's pain matters, and somebody else's joy matters too.

Your grief does not have to be my grief.

Your joy does not have to be my joy.

It matters because you matter.

And maybe that is one of the clearest pictures of the kingdom of God.

But the circle is even wider than that.

We belong within creation itself, the whole cosmos.

God has been breathing life into since before any of us had a name.

And sometimes when words fail us, creation reminds us we are still being held.

After I was told Reverend Derek had passed, I took my dogs to the dog park.

And I sat down on a bench and I cried.

Maui and Major were in completely different areas of the dog park doing whatever great Danes believe is terribly important at the dog park.

But both stopped.

They turned and looked at me and came running.

Not called, not coaxed.

They just knew something had changed.

And suddenly these two enormous dogs were beside me doing their famous great dane lean with such loving gusto that I was glad I was already sitting down.

They did not need words.

They just knew to stay close.

So you cannot tell me the spirit is only alive in human beings, that the sacred pulse of God stops at the edge of our species.

The spirit that moves within us is moving through creation too.

Sometimes divine closeness has four paws.

Sometimes comfort comes in a perfect evening sky, blue melting into pink, reminding us that even when our hearts are heavy, beauty is still present with us.

Sometimes the cosmos preaches before we ever find the words.

People of faith have wrestled with what it means to hurt and still trust God for a very long time.

One put it into a song.

In Psalms 30 it says, Weeping may linger for the nights, but joy comes with the morning.

Or as many of us learned it, joy cometh in the morning.

I love that promise.

But somewhere along the way I think the church started treating mourning like a deadline.

Anyone who has ever loved deeply knows grief does not work that way.

Sometimes the night is long.

Sometimes morning takes its sweet time.

Sometimes morning comes and the ache remains.

Because I do not think the psalmist is giving us a clock, maybe night is the space where we release what we have been carrying.

To weep, to ache, to stop trying to be strong, to rest inside the truth that something hurts.

And maybe there is grace even there.

Sometimes when we stop finding grief and rest in it, something within us recovers enough, just enough strength to rise again.

And then morning comes, not because grief disappeared, but because somewhere in the resting something has been restored.

Perhaps the joy that cometh in the morning is the quiet, holy strength to keep going, to say, even in my grief, I will let my joy shine.

Because I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow.

To trust that just one glimpse of the kingdom in glory will the toils of this life repay.

We rise again, not because grief has ended, but because grief is not the only truth that we carry.

And when some among us did not yet have the strength to rise, the community stays close until we do.

Different experiences, different seasons, different stories.

Still one people.

And that is church.

And a community like that cannot be sustained by one person carrying everything.

It needs many hands, many voices, many ways of seeing.

And many ways of serving.

Which is exactly how Paul describes the spirit moving through the church.

First Corinthians twelve says, Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirits, and there are a variety of services, but the same Lord.

There are a variety of activities, but is the same God who activates all of them in every one.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirits, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

All these are activated by one and the same spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the spirit chooses.

There are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit.

This is the same chapter where Paul describes the church as a body, many members, different functions, but one body.

And here is something the church has gotten dangerously wrong.

We have confused unity with sameness.

We have acted as though unity means everybody believes, worships, looks, loves, and lives alike.

But the body works because the members are different.

Difference is not a problem God has to overcome.

Difference is part of how God creates community.

To receive that gift and community, we have to get past our own self-righteousness.

The part of us so certain we are right that we stop listening.

Difference cannot build us if we only tolerate it long enough to explain why we are right.

Difference builds us when we are humble enough to ask, what can I see from here that I could not see from where I was standing?

Paul says, now I'm going to go into the Greek here for a little bit.

Paul says, to each one is given a phanorosis, a manifestation, a making visible of the spirits.

And it is given prosomferon for the good, for the for the common good, for what builds up, what serves what this moment needs.

And I do not hear Paul giving each one a spiritual gift and saying, This is yours, this is yours, now stay in your lane.

I hear one spirit moving through all of this, with different gifts becoming visible at different times because different moments need different things.

There may be gifts that come more naturally to each of us, yes, but the spirit is not limited to those.

Sometimes the moment needs wisdom, sometimes courage, sometimes healing, sometimes truth telling.

And sometimes the holiest gift is somebody willing to truly listen.

So maybe the question is not simply what is my spiritual gifts, but how is the Spirit asking to become visible through me right here?

Because each one has a call in the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 4 pushes it further.

He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

Some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

And somewhere along the way we decided the pastor was supposed to be all five, plus facilities manager, IT support, event planner, conflict mediator, and the person who knows why the copier is making that noise.

But Scripture says these ministries exist to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

The pastor is given a ministry, yes, but not the ministry.

The pastor equips the people for ministry because ministry belongs to the whole people of God.

The world loves ladders.

Who is above whom?

Who has the title?

Who has the power?

Empire builds hierarchy.

But the kingdom asks, what builds up the body?

Pastor is not higher than artist.

Preacher is not holier than caregiver.

Prophet is not more sacred than the one who notices somebody sitting alone and pulls up a chair.

The Spirit has never been interested in staying inside the boxes we build for God.

And first Peter gives us this beautiful phrase.

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

Manifold grace.

The Greek word here is poikiles, which means varied, many-sided, even multicolored.

If God's grace is truly multicolored, the question is not whether diversity belongs to the church, but whether the church is willing to be changed by it.

Because inclusion is not inviting another color into the tapestry and insisting it follows the pattern already there.

If the thread truly belongs, the pattern itself may have to change.

The kingdom cannot be built only out of people who agree with us.

The prophetic work is staying rooted in justice, love, and the gospel without confusing faithfulness with sameness.

And that is where intersectionality helps us name.

We do not move through the world one piece of ourselves at a time.

We arrive whole with our story, our identity, joy, grief, convictions, wounds, gifts, and hope.

And God says, Bring it all.

God is not asking us to fit into a finished pattern, because God is still creating the pattern.

The church cannot say, everybody is welcome and remain exactly as it was before everyone arrived.

Because if your presence matters, your voice should change the conversation, your gifts, the ministry, your questions, the way we think.

Because the Spirit is not weaving a museum piece.

The Spirit is weaving a living church.

And when someone has been woven deeply into our lives, death changes the pattern.

That is true for those of us grieving, Reverend Derek, but death does not get to pull every thread he touched out with him.

The courage remains, the love remains, the questions remain, the justice remains unfinished, which means it now belongs in part to us.

Church, that is where grief becomes calling.

Look at what is taking shape in front of us.

Some threads are bold, some are quiet, some disappear beneath another color only to emerge somewhere else.

Not one thread tells the whole story.

It is the crossing of them that makes the pattern.

And isn't that true of us too?

The grief is real, the joy is real, the night is real, and nothing.

And morning is still coming.

Not one replacing the other.

All of it woven into this life we are actually living.

Reverend Derek once wrote, Joy is how we survive.

Joy is how we resist.

Joy is how we keep loving one another when the world tells us not to.

Now that is joy with dirt under its fingernails.

Joy that has known grief and still chooses to build.

And that is where this weaving stops being simply something beautiful we made today.

It starts asking something of us.

Can somebody enter this community as their whole self and matter enough to change it?

Can we recognize the spirit in a color we would not have chosen?

A voice we did not expect, a conviction that unsettles us, a gift we did not know that we needed.

Because if the tread, the thread truly belongs, it gets to affect the pattern.

So bring your gifts, make room for somebody else's, use your voice, listen for another, stay close when somebody does not yet have the strength to rise.

And when grief and joy cross, when conviction and difference cross, when one story crosses another, pay attention.

Because that intersection may be where the spirit becomes visible, where the kingdom breaks through, where God creates something none of us could create alone.

Reverend Derrick once prayed, May resilience rise in us like breath, like fire, like dawn, reminding us that every life is sacred and every person is worthy of joy.

Like breath, like fire, like dawn, not because grief disappears, not because joy replaces sorrow, but because somehow by grace we learn to carry both and still keep moving toward life.

So Lakeview, may resilience rise in us, may every gift find room to breathe.

May every life know its sacred worth, may we have the courage to be changed by one another.

And may we keep working, keep watching, keep loving until the kingdom we preach becomes a little more visible among us.

Through grief and joy, through difference and conviction, through every gift, every story, every life.

May we be woven together into the living kingdom of God.

Amen and amen.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Go in peace.

Use your gifts, make room for one another, and help make the kingdom of God visible.

Amen.