Don't Reap the Fearer
Rejecting a dread-based life.
(This is a reasonable approximation of my candidacy sermon, shared in the round at the table on August 2, 2026 at Mountain Rise UCC, Fairport, NY.)
Earlier this Summer when I told my excellent spiritual director that I was submitting my ministerial profile to Mountain Rise UCC in hopes of returning to parish ministry after two years of delightful, profoundly challenging craft with The Haden Institute, she asked me one piercing question (she has a habit of doing so):
Does this choice grow from an attitude of scarcity or the Spirit of Call?
I thank my trusted soul friend for raising what might be the central question of this moment in time, not just for me, but for all. We are inundated with sales pitches, news flashes, pillory posts and god-awful theology. Continual hammering and yammering asserts that we lack what we need and will never be enough. We must resist this fear-mongering which endeavors to herd us into a dread-based life of FOMO, mindless consumption and religio-political manipulation.
1 An attitude of scarcity is miserly, insular and isolating. Those stuck in it ultimately fail to thrive.
The Spirit of Call rises through inner faith and intentional community, and those so grounded grow from strength to strength and share even their humblest bounty.
2 An attitude of scarcity defines limitations and never moves beyond them.
The Spirit of Call defies staid narratives, considers unexplored paths and renews trust in providence.
3 An attitude of scarcity dreads any potential misstep.
The Spirit of Call gains wisdom from each stumble along The Way.
4 An attitude of scarcity is ultimately rooted in fear of death.
The Spirit of Call grows in sacred symbiosis with all that lives.
A Miracle Story Rooted in the Trauma Response of a Very Human Jesus
Jesus said to them “There is no need to send them away. You feed them.”
– the loaves and fishes of Matthew 14
Chapter 14 is a pivot point in Matthew’s narrative. In the previous several chapters, Jesus has stepped up his public presence and met with rising negative attention from authorities within his own religion. He has sent out his disciples and very publicly healed and preached to growing crowds. In chapter 13 he has explained why he teaches in parables (enlightenment requires different thinking processes and harder work), and speaks of weeds, wheat, mustard seeds, buried treasure, pearls of great price and much else that is sacred and stirring internally in each and all. Then, after all this buildup of our human worth and worthiness, Chapter 14 brings it all crashing down with a shocking jolt: the vicious, almost flippant beheading of John the Baptist.
Jesus and John weren’t just like-minded colleagues, and they were beyond friends. They were cousins. Their mothers were close. John’s murder at the hands of the state was both profound personal loss and sudden existential threat.
Jesus is clearly traumatized. See how he heads for the hills, but he can’t shake the crowds. Although emotionally and spiritually spent himself, he sees to their wounds and speaks to their longings.
His assistants are no doubt shaken and suffering with the news of John, too. And their first impulse as the hour grows late is to send the throngs away to separately scrounge for food in the surrounding villages, every-man-for-himself style.
And that’s when Jesus brings the critical point home to them.
No. YOU feed them.
Has he not just told them that new thinking and harder work are required? Has he not just driven the point home that they are heading toward harvest and already carry within them tiny sacred seeds that will grow into shelter for all; that they contain within themselves pearls of great price and a buried treasure just waiting to be uncovered?
YOU feed them.
This isn’t just a teachable moment. This is the Cosmic Rabbi recognizing his own and his circle of friends’ potential impending martyrdom. He is desperately pushing his disciples to trust in themselves and each other to become what is needed… soul source in community.
The author of the Gospel of Matthew is likewise writing within a traumatized community sometime in the mid-to-late 1st Century CE. The so-called Pax Romana is bringing order through brutality. Many religious authorities are at the very least complicit, and quite often corrupt. These new People of The Way are suffering schism that is pushing them from the shelter of their ancient religion, and they fear a fate similar to John the Baptist’s draws near.
YOU.
And then there’s us.
We have been told we are less-than in an effort to sell us more. We have been told we are powerless in an effort to keep us from creating a more just and harmonious world. We are told to fear to keep us from playing with new ideas.
Yet great cosmic lovers ancient and contemporary have shown us time and time again that everything we need to shift the narrative and change the world is already present and longing to rise through us. We are sacred portals of Holy Creation. We just need to open ourselves.
Call it God. Call it Goddess. Call it Spirit. Call it Life-Force. Call it The Collective. Call it Fate. Call it Mystery. Call it whatever. Just CALL it! Let it move through us, change us, turn us from hesitant humble folks to energized conduits of new possibilities.
It is common these days for churches to focus on maintenance and growth. These are hard times for religious institutions. I respectfully suggest that this search for a solution to the problem of shrinking budgets and dwindling attendance IS the problem. Living the Gospel in 2026 means not focusing on how we might add to what we have, but how to best share what we’ve already got. May we concern ourselves not with what might happen to us, but what can happen through us.
You. Me. Us. Together, let’s face our fears and hardships. Together, let’s link arms in resistance to injustice toward any. Together, let’s not turn anyone away to fend for themselves.
Together, let’s reject a mindset of scarcity, and share all we’re worth in this communal Spirit of Call.
Corey is the freshly called pastor of Mountain Rise UCC in Fairport, New York. He is an active anam cara and dream worker in private practice, and the former executive director of the Haden Institute. He has led unique communities practicing radical hospitality for more than thirty years.
Mountain Rise is blessed to have you. They have no idea what to expect. You speak from the heart you speak with words of the Holy Spirit and you listen when asked you could’ve said the ministry. I did it for 28 years. I’m done, but God said your ministry is your calling is your work is what you can give out to the world one person at a time. Congratulations you are loved.
"Yet great cosmic lovers ancient and contemporary have shown us time and time again that everything we need to shift the narrative and change the world is already present and longing to rise through us. We are sacred portals of Holy Creation. We just need to open ourselves.
Call it God. Call it Goddess. Call it Spirit. Call it Life-Force. Call it The Collective. Call it Fate. Call it Mystery. Call it whatever. Just CALL it! Let it move through us, change us, turn us from hesitant humble folks to energized conduits of new possibilities."
Amen!
Your message also reminds me of 2Timothy 1:7, "God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled."(Common English Bible). When the "church--that is a small "c", intentionally meaning all those who accept the calling, of the Cosmic Risen Christ fully and embrace the mantle of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, then we can focus on becoming who we are to become so that we can do what it is we are called to do.
New and endless possibilities presented to us all the time.
Again, Amen.