Author: Maggie Gillespie

Isaiah 6:1-8 John 3:1-17 When I was a freshman in college, I answered a knock on my door one evening and met three young women I had never seen before. They lived a few flights up in my dorm and they were making the rounds on behalf of salvation. They smiled warmly and spoke in gentle voices and invited me to participate in a weekly bible study they were holding in their room. I didn’t even need to think about it; I said yes. It was like God had opened the door and said here you go. I went to the bible study, and at first it was very nice. These young women radiated warmth and love, and I appreciated the things I was learning. But then suddenly one day it changed. We were in our usual space, sitting on the floor together reading the scriptures and then the leader […]

John 15:9-17 In the musical, My Fair Lady, there is a young man who is hopelessly in love with Eliza Doolittle. He is trying to profess his love to her, then Eliza suddenly interrupts him, saying she is so sick of words, words, words. She says, “If you’re in love, show me!” Because words will only go so far in communicating something as big as love. In the Gospel of John, God’s love is a clear thread running through it – and the gospel only has words to show us this. Jesus uses an awful lot of words with his disciples to show them who he is and what kind of relationship he wants to have with them. In John’s gospel we have the “I am” passages, where Jesus uses words to show his disciples who he is for them. And in recent weeks we have dwelled on some of […]

John15:1-8 Several days before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he was spending some quality time with his disciples; the ones closest to him, those who had left behind lives full of work and people and purpose. They had dropped everything to go with Jesus – to be with him. And they stayed with him, wherever he went, whatever he went through. So during these days leading up to the end, an end he knew would be coming, he spoke a lot to these disciples about all the things that seemed most important for them to know. It was a very tender period in their lives together. One evening, he took a towel, filled a basin with water and knelt before these men to wash their feet. To their bewilderment and discomfort, he said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Later that same evening they all sat […]

1 John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36-48 I heard a funny story that, I think, actually happened, probably a few decades ago. A couple of girls go into a jewelry store, and they tell the saleswoman they want to buy cross necklaces. Crosses were very fashionable back in the 90’s, thanks to Madonna. The young saleswoman takes the girls to the glass counter where all the crosses are displayed, and she tells them, “There are different kinds. Do you want a plain one or do you want one with a little man on it?” I guess she didn’t know who the little man was. We do, don’t we? Even though Presbyterians do not have crosses with the little man on them, also known as a crucifix, we know who he is. And we know that Christ did not stay on the cross. He died on the cross, but he did not stay […]

Mark 16:1-7        Baptized at the age of two months, I guess you could say I have been a Christian my entire life. I have been swimming in these waters ever since I can remember. And so the first time I realized just how strange our gospel story is was when I read it with a Chinese college student. I was ministering to a college campus at the time. A young woman came to me. This was her first semester in the United States. Her English was pretty good, but she was eager to improve it – and she was also curious about Christianity. So we agreed to meet weekly in my office to read the gospel story together. As we worked through the passages, more than once she stopped and looked at me. She would scrunch up her face and say, “Huh. Why did he do that?” […]

John 12: 12-16 It was the time of the Passover Festival. As always, the Passover would bring great crowds of Jews into Jerusalem. This was a major event in the life of Israel. The Passover is the annual remembrance of how God freed the people of Israel from their centuries of enslavement in Egypt. The story of how God used Moses to lead the people out of bondage and into the land of promise. The directions God gave to Moses, if you recall, were surprisingly straightforward, and bold. To stand before the Pharaoh and say to him simply, “Let my people go.” Certainly no one thought that Pharaoh would just say, Okay. And he didn’t. So there was a series of plagues sent to afflict Egypt, to encourage them to let the Israelites go. The plague of turning the river to blood, the frogs, gnats, pestilence, boils, hail and fire, […]

John 12: 20-33 During my second year of seminary, I went on a cross-cultural trip with my class. This was something my seminary required of all students in the Master of Divinity program. Three weeks in another country, time spent immersed in the culture, learning about the Christian faith from a very different perspective. The destination varied from year to year. In my year, it was Cuba. This was in a time when internet and cell phone service were not universally available, so I was completely separated from Kim and our four children for three weeks. When we finally returned home, Kim and our two little boys met me at the airport. I can remember clearly how I felt. Elated, grateful, tears of joy. A classmate told me later, “The look on your face when you saw your family? That’s the way I think we will all look when we […]

John 3:14-21 In the 1970s there was a man named Rollen Stewart who started attending sports events and doing big gimmicky things to get in front of the camera. He said later he didn’t care at all about sports, but it was a way of getting a lot of attention, which he did care about. Then he became a “born-again” Christian and his purpose changed. Now he wanted to draw attention to the gospel. So he started carrying in sheets or banners with “John 3:16” printed on them in big bold print. A lot of people didn’t have any idea what that referred to, but it sparked their curiosity. It became a thing. And John 3:16, which Martin Luther, centuries ago, called the gospel in miniature, came to stand in for the whole of it. For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone […]

John 2: 13-22 When I was a campus minister, one year I had a couple of students who were planning to walk in the local Crop Walk. They had their registration forms, but they didn’t have any donations. Maybe they didn’t really know how to get them. Their pastor, however, was a seasoned veteran of asking people for money, so I put these young women in my car and I hustled them over to a church I knew well. It was after the worship service ended. We crashed their fellowship hour, and I challenge the good people of this church to lend a helping hand by opening their checkbooks. I knew they would respond. I took advantage of these Christian people and their sense of responsibility. Was it for a good cause? Of course. But did that make it right? I leave that to you. I was not the only […]

Mark 8:31-38 You don’t usually want to lead with the bad news.  When you’re reporting to your boss or a client about the big project you’re working on. When you’re giving a patient their test results. When you call your aunt, the one who assumes the worst every time the phone rings; who says “Hello. What’s wrong?” In general, I think it’s best to start with the good news. But not always. In the church we have a tendency to lead with the bad news most of the time, don’t we? You barely get settled in your seats on a Sunday morning and we say, “Let’s confess our sins.” It’s like we want to make sure you’re not too happy. When you think about it, it’s a wonder anyone sticks around. It’s amazing that people come back for more. Especially in the season of Lent, when we like to give […]