Sermon: Telling Out Our Souls

Church of the Nativity Fayetteville, GA

November 16, 2025

23rd Sunday After Pentecost

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One of the great gifts of the spiritual life is that our stories don’t belong to us alone. Somewhere along the way, usually in a season we never would have chosen, God steps into the narrative, and something shifts. It’s not always that our circumstances change or even the outcome, but something in us does. And that moment becomes part of the story we carry forward, something we return to again and again because it reminds us who God is and who we are becoming.

I want to begin today by sharing a moment like that from my own life.

There was a season when I found myself doing absolutely everything I had been taught to do to encounter God, and yet the one thing I longed for most was the one thing that seemed unavailable to me: the felt presence of God. We had uprooted our family and moved 8,000 miles to Bangladesh because we were convinced we had heard God say, “Go.” I was, in every measurable way, someone who should have known how to find God in a difficult moment. But no matter what I tried, it felt like heaven was silent.

One day, sitting in our little flat in Dhaka, I was speaking to my spiritual director through the laptop camera, naming my anxiety about our plans to return to the U.S. with no plan and no certainty. She listened quietly and then asked if I had ever tried the Ignatian practice of Imaginative Prayer. I hadn’t, but at that point, I was willing to try anything. In short, Imaginative Prayer is a way of entering a biblical story with all your senses, trusting the Holy Spirit to meet you there and reveal what you most need to see.

She read the story of Blind Bartimaeus, and something softened just enough for me to slip inside the story. Instead of imagining myself in first-century Israel, though, I was surprised to find myself on the cracked, noisy sidewalks outside our building, among the monsoon puddles, the heat, the rickshaw bells, the smells of garlic and ginger frying. I saw myself sitting on the side of the street I’d lived on for two years in South Asia. And Jesus was there too, walking toward me. In that imaginative moment of prayer, I wasn’t observing anymore; I was Bartimaeus—the one who had lost sight, the one calling into the noise, the one who wasn’t sure anyone was listening.

Jesus knelt in front of me and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the only honest response that rose up was the one Bartimaeus himself gave:  “Lord… I want to see.” I didn’t want answers or a roadmap. I wanted to see Christ again, to know God was still in the middle of my unknowing. And I sensed Jesus place a hand on my shoulder and say, “I’m right here. Open your eyes. See me.”

When I opened them back in my bedroom, nothing around me had changed, and yet everything had. Because I saw that God had been with me all along, not in the places I was desperately trying to reach, but in the place I already was. I told my spiritual director I was surprised to find Jesus right there on my street. With tears on her cheeks that matched my own, she whispered, “Oh Nicole… where else would he be?”

That encounter changed me. When God shows up in our story—even through silence or surprise—it changes how we see. And once we see differently, we live differently. That day 6 years ago was a turning point for me, and one that eventually allowed my story to intersect with yours here at Nativity.

This morning, we are invited to consider our own stories, where God has shown up, where God is showing up still, and how God may be shaping what comes next.

Today is a Thanksgiving service, which is by nature a service of storytelling. We name the gifts we have around us, and we recall the goodness of God and how thankful we are for it. 

This year, we are giving thanks for 35 years of Nativity’s life - a milestone that invites us to turn around and look back at the long arc of God’s faithfulness in this place. I’ve only been here for a few months, but some of you have been here for every one of those thirty-five years of worship and service, of baptisms and funerals, of friendships formed, ministries begun, risks taken, and quiet faithfulness that no one but God ever fully sees.

This place holds the stories of people who believed God could build something here—something small, perhaps, but steady; something resilient; something beautiful.

And like every good story, there have been hard chapters. And yet, here you are. Still singing. Still gathering. Still tending to one another. Still showing up.

This is what Psalm 98 is reminding us this morning: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.” Not because everything has been easy. Not because the road has been smooth. You know better than that. You’ve navigated medical concerns and losses that have left real absences among us. You’ve weathered maintenance issues that tested patience, and budget hardships that required courage and creativity. These are not small things.

And yet—and yet—the song continues. Not in denial of the hard chapters, but in defiance of them. A community that keeps singing is a community that trusts God to keep writing the story. And when God shows up, whether in the middle of the psalmist’s story or in the middle of ours, it changes the way we tell our stories going forward.

The reading from 2 Thessalonians today is striking in this season because it speaks directly to communal life. Paul instructs the Thessalonians to keep away from idleness, to work quietly and diligently, and not grow weary in doing good. Paul isn’t scolding people for resting or for struggling; he is addressing a deeper issue—spiritual disengagement, a reluctance to participate in the life of the body, a kind of idleness that is not about inactivity but about withholding the gifts we have been given. 

Paul reminds the community that every person’s offering matters. Not because the church needs tasks completed, but because life together is sustained when each member invests themselves in the shared story.

His words, “Do not grow weary in doing what is right,” land with particular resonance here. Nativity is a church without a full-time priest, a church where the vestry carries extraordinary leadership, a church where the contributions of each person truly matter. 

And that brings us squarely into this season in our church’s life when we talk about stewardship. It’s about looking honestly at the gifts God has entrusted to us—our time, our financial resources, our abilities, our energy—and asking how we might offer them back for the sake of this community we love.

Paul gently calls the Thessalonians back to their center: “Keep going. Contribute what you’re able. Stay engaged with the life of the community. Don’t give up on the good you are capable of offering,” he guides them.

Here at Nativity, that need is real and immediate. In the coming year, we need more hands, more hearts, more people willing to step into leadership. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s meaningful. Because this community needs the gifts, the presence, and the commitments that only you can bring.

This, ultimately, is what the stewardship is about—not budgets or pledge cards, but the kind of gratitude that overflows because you have encountered grace. When you know God has supported you, strengthened you, held you, something in you wants to give back. It becomes less about obligation and more about gratitude, less about filling a slot and more about participating in a story much larger than yourself.I invite you to consider today: What part of the story of Nativity is mine to carry in the next year? What am I called to offer, so that this community remains a place of hope and welcome and faithful witness?

And today, we tell our story not only with words but with actions.

That is why the sowing seeds from earlier this year matter. You were asked to take just one dollar and see what it could grow into. It was a tiny invitation to pay attention, to look for the ways God was multiplying grace in your life. Today, as we bring back those seeds and the fruits that emerged from them, we are witnessing the truth that small acts of attention can become stories of transformation.

And the same is true of the Thanksgiving baskets we bring forward for eighteen families to be delivered this week. They are not just collections of food; they are chapters in Nativity’s story of care and generosity. When we bless them shortly, we are acknowledging that these simple offerings carry the love and hope of this community into homes where they are needed. They are testimony that you have not grown weary in doing what is right.

And so the question for this anniversary, this Thanksgiving, this moment in our life together is simple: What story will we tell with our lives?

We tell the story of God not just with our words, but with the ways we keep showing up. We express our gratitude in the ways we give of ourselves. 

So, tell your stories. During coffee hour today, at men’s dinners and women’s meetings, around the Thanksgiving table next week, I encourage you to share your own stories of the times God surprised you and showed up on your street. When did hope break through in an unexpected place, or clarity come when you were sure you were lost, or grace meet you in the middle of your ordinary life? When did God make a way when there seemed to be no way? When did this community show up as the hands and feet of Christ for you? Share your stories with each other and with others in your lives. 

Because these stories are means of grace. When we tell them, we remember the truth we are so quick to forget: that God is already present, already moving, and already preparing the ground for whatever comes next.

So today, as we gather in thanksgiving, may we remember the moments when God has shown up in our own lives. May we offer ourselves once again to this community’s unfolding story. And may we continue to “tell out our souls” with joy and courage, knowing that the God who has been faithful to us will be faithful still. Amen.