Beneath the Steeple with Pastor Hans Becklin

Ever run out of gas? Deaconess Deborah has, and in this sermon, her last before she retires, she brings that experience to one of Jesus' more unsettling parables: ten bridesmaids waiting through the night for a delayed bridegroom, five with extra oil for their lamps and five without. Rather than a warning not to get left behind, she wonders what would happen if the ones who ran short simply stayed, and the ones who were ready stood beside them and shared their light. She asks what it means to wait together, why the waiting is when we most need grace, and how ordinary practices like worship, prayer, gathering with others, and serving people in need keep oil in the lamp. Whether you feel ready, running low, or simply curious, you are welcome to listen in.

Most of us know what it is to reach for the phone to call someone who is no longer there. On All Saints Sunday, Pastor Hans reflects on that ache and on a startling promise from the first letter of John: that we are God's children right now, and that when Christ is revealed, we will be like him. Along the way, he offers a surprising definition of a saint, one that has nothing to do with halos or being especially good, and describes how singing, praying, and sharing communion connect us with everyone Christ holds, the living and the dead. Whether you come with grief, with questions, or with plain curiosity, you are welcome to listen in.

Have you ever worked hard to make a picture turn out just right, then wondered why it mattered so much? Deaconess Deborah starts with a school photo and a shirt that never made it in front of the camera, then turns to a question put to Jesus in the last days before his death: is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? Looking at a Roman coin stamped with an emperor's face, Jesus changes the question to one about identity: whose image do you bear? Deaconess Deborah explores what it means to be made in the image of God, why the world's messages about our worth do not get the last word, and how that belonging holds when life gets hard. Whatever you are carrying today, you are welcome here.

What happens when you have to leave the place you love? For months, one congregation set aside its sanctuary for repairs and crowded into a much smaller room, wondering whether worship could ever feel the same there. In his last sermon in that room, Pastor Hans hears Isaiah sing of God as a shelter from the storm, listens again to the shepherd of Psalm 23 who makes us lie down, and follows Jesus' parable of a wedding banquet filled from the main streets. What he finds is a tent in the wilderness: not the destination, but a place where God has gone with us. Whatever storm you are standing in, you are welcome here.

Welcome. If you have ever wondered what it means to inherit something you did not build, or to tend something you will never see finished, this sermon is for you. Pastor Hans takes up one of Jesus' best-known stories: a hillside vineyard, an owner who has put years of work into it, tenants who refuse to hand over the harvest, and a son sent as heir. No church background is needed. Along the way, Pastor Hans explains why a vineyard was a long bet on the generations to come, why the owner's choices make no sense by ordinary standards, and where the harvest finally comes from.

Most of us know which son we'd rather be seen as: the one with good manners, who says the right thing at the right time. In this message on Jesus' parable of the two sons from Matthew 21, Pastor Hans asks the harder question of which son we actually are, and looks at how easily a heartfelt yes to God can become a place to stand still. It's an honest look at the gap between what we say and what we do, and at the grace that meets us there. Wherever you are on the road today, you're welcome here.

What do we owe someone who shows up at the very last hour? In this episode, Pastor Hans tells the story of baptizing a dying man in a hospital room — a man who, in the world's accounting, had worked only one hour of a whole life — and holds it up beside Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the last hired are paid exactly the same as the first. It's a challenge to anyone who has ever totaled up their own faithfulness and resented someone else's grace. Whether you've been counting Sundays for decades or you're just walking through the door, we're glad you're here.

What does it feel like to finally be seen? In this episode, Pastor Molly Haggerty of Common Ground Recovery Community shares stories of reconciliation, art, and simple human presence — the everyday moments where people carrying shame and brokenness start to feel loved again. Drawing on Jesus's teaching about making peace with one another before we can truly worship together, she reflects on what it means to build a community where everyone can come exactly as they are. We're glad you're joining us today.

There is a verse people reach for when the room is emptier than they hoped: where two or three are gathered, I am there among them. It gets said over half-filled chairs and coffee that outlasts the crowd, a kind of consolation prize. Pastor Hans reads the whole paragraph that sentence sits in — Matthew's account of a congregation with a real grievance inside it — and finds something far better than consolation there. Christ is not absent from the lake, or the ridge, or the back porch on a September morning; he fills all things. But presence is not the same as promise, and there are things that only ever get placed into your open hands. Whatever you believe, and whether or not you have ever belonged to a congregation, you are welcome to listen in.

Almost everyone has said the sentence Peter says in this passage. Sitting in a doctor's office, hearing a word you refuse to accept: God forbid it. This cannot go that way. Peter says it to Jesus quietly, with an arm around his shoulder, out of love — and Jesus answers him harder than he answers anyone. In this sermon, Pastor Hans follows what happens next: a man who has just been handed the keys and immediately tries to lock the door, who fails in a courtyard, who fails again years later in front of everyone, and who is never once replaced with somebody steadier. Along the way there is a word for anyone carrying a hurt no one ever answered for — that the deepest fear in suffering is not the pain, but that nobody saw it, and that God is neither neutral nor a spectator. Wherever you are coming from, and whether any of this is familiar to you or not, you are welcome here.