St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Luke 10:1–11, 16–20
Exodus 25:8–9
Genesis 2:7
This sermon was preached during the summer of 2025, when worship at St. John’s was held in the parish hall, Alfriend Hall, while the sanctuary ceiling was being cleaned.
Well good morning, St. John’s!
It is good to be back with y’all
after some quick vacation riding rollercoasters
followed by a way-less-fun week
recovering from sinus surgery.
And I have to say . . .
I love what you’ve done with the place!
Worshipping in Alfriend Hall for the whole summer
is not exactly what any of us
would have chosen to do,
but after hearing your reactions to last Sunday—
how great the music sounds,
how beautiful the mural looks,
how cool it is to see our collective “can-do” attitude
lugging chairs, making it work—
it all reminds me
just how surprising the Holy Spirit can be.
But it also calls to mind something older.
Us picking up our stuff,
carrying it elsewhere,
setting up camp,
and making our worship a “moveable feast”
all reminds me
of the Israelites in the wilderness.
You remember that?
How in the Old Testament,
the people of Israel wandered for forty years
through the dirt and the dust,
but they took God with them?
And everywhere they stopped,
they’d roll out the rugs,
set up the altar,
bring out the Ark,
and they would worship God anywhere
because they knew the Most High God
was not bound to a single
city, or mountain, or temple,
but instead traveled with them
through every patch of dust.
And look, I don’t want to overdo this.
We are not the people of ancient Israel.
We are not wandering through the wilderness.
We have temporarily moved our worship
one building over—
literally 150 feet altar-to-altar—
for just a few weeks.
But still . . . a summer like this
gives us a unique opportunity to ask,
“What does it mean
to meet God in a space like this?
Between folding chairs
and coke machines
and the ever-present rumble of the icemaker?
What does it mean
to discover the sacred in the ordinary?
That is what we’re going to explore this summer:
how God has never been
locked away in holy buildings,
but is right here
in the messy,
marvelous
middle of our lives.
Each week, I’ll bring an ordinary, simple object—
something you’d find
in your kitchen,
or your closet,
or your glovebox—
and we’ll let it be a doorway
to ordinary grace.
Because God has always chosen the ordinary:
a shepherd’s staff,
a handful of flour,
a manger,
a mother’s womb,
and yes—
even the dust of the earth.
Like the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once said,
“The world is charged
with the grandeur of God.”
Everything is holy because
God the Father made it,
God the Son redeemed it,
and God the Holy Spirit
is still breathing into it.
From the farthest galaxy,
to the swirling of the planets,
the motion of the ocean,
and the beating of our hearts
down to the very dust we carry on our shoes.
And that’s exactly what I’ve brought today.
A dirty, dusty, ordinary pair
of well worn shoes.
* * *
In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends seventy disciples out.
Two by two.
No bag.
No purse.
No sandals.
Just their feet and their faith.
Can you imagine?
Walking into a strange village—dusty and uncertain—
with nothing on you . . .
no script,
no security,
just the Name of Jesus on your lips
and the Gospel in your bones.
He tells them to bring peace.
To eat what they’re given.
To heal and proclaim the kingdom.
And—if they are not welcomed—
to shake the dust off their feet and move on.
Now, we often think of that whole
“shake the dust off your feet”
as a rebuke . . .
a curse,
a spiritual “whatever dude.”
But it’s more than that.
Because what’s implied
is that in the places you do find a welcome,
you don’t shake the dust.
You let it cling.
You let it stay.
For that, my friends, is the dust of grace.
Wherever we go
where peace is given welcome
and good news stands a chance,
the dust of those places is honored
and becomes a part of us.
Because if you’ve ever walked a hard road,
you know that dust sticks.
It gets on your shoes, in your socks, on your skin.
It clings to your body and tells the story
of where you’ve been.
But that’s not the only story
the dust of the earth has to tell.
Oh no.
Remember back to how it all began:
how in Genesis the Lord God
gathered up the dust of the earth
and with tender hands molded it into a man.
And how God leaned down close
and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.
Y’all, it was dust that God chose
to infuse with his image.
Talk about finding the sacred in the ordinary.
That is why
on every Ash Wednesday and at every funeral,
we remember that we are dust
and to dust shall we return.
It’s not a threat.
It’s a reminder of where we came from,
of what we are made of,
and of how much we are loved.
* * *
So look down at your shoes.
Really . . . look.
Maybe you have your church shoes on today.
Maybe they’re tennis shoes or sandals.
Maybe they’re old or new.
Maybe they pinch your toes or hurt your heel.
Maybe they carry the scent of summer sweat
or freshly mown grass.
But what I really want
is for you to look past the shoes
and look at the dust and the dirt
on them, in them, or under them.
For the ordinary dust we carry
is the residue,
the record,
the testimony
of our journey.
And yes, sometimes—
when the road is harsh,
or the welcome is cold—
both Jesus and Taylor Swift tell us to
“shake it off.”
You don’t have to carry it all forever.
But the very fact that you have dust
means you’ve traveled the way . . .
you’ve been somewhere . . .
you have a story . . .
and God has been with you every step of the way.
These are not just shoes.
These are altars with laces.
So today, tomorrow, and every day from now on,
when you look down at your shoes
I hope you see something sacred
in the scuffs, and stains, and dust that you find.
I hope you see the moments where God walked with you.
I hope you see the roads where you were not alone.
I hope you see the places where you were received with joy,
and the places where you had to move on,
heartbroken but free.
I hope you see the tents of the Israelites,
the journey of the disciples,
and the glory of Alfriend Hall.
Because friends,
the grace for us today is this:
God does not wait for you at the finish line.
God walks with you in the journey.
Through the heat of the summer and the cool of the day,
the waiting room and the grocery aisle,
the nursing home and the way to work,
and the loud laughter
and the quiet grief
and the long and dusty road.
So pick up your shoes,
dust and all.
Walk on, beloved dust.
Walk on, sacred soil,
molded by God’s own hands.
Because the One who formed you in the beginning
is still walking with you
toward a glory that ordinary dust alone
could never have imagined.
Amen.