KGL+
Sermon
Trinity Church Boston
Year A Proper 8
June 28, 2026
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together always be acceptable in your sight, O God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
I want to share with you all today about the best sandwich I ever ate.
I know I’ve shared about this before in other settings, so if you get worried that I’ve run out of stories to use in sermons, and therefore am turning to recycled material, please put your concerns aside. Sometimes a sandwich is so good it needs a wider pulpit to be shared from.
I was attending a seminary in New York City that year, but in the ordination process here in Massachusetts—which meant that from time to time I would get into my Ford Escort station wagon, which I somehow street parked for almost nine months straight in Chelsea, a miracle of its own standing—and drive back to Boston for meetings or gatherings.
I was slated to meet with a member of the Commission on Ministry, and we made an appointment for Friday afternoon at 4 pm. I would leave the City after 11 am, following my final class of the week and meet her in at her house in Cambridge. GPS with timed arrivals was not a thing back then—so, printed Mapquest map in hand, I set off.
Those of you who have been in New England longer than about two days know that trying to get from New York City to Cambridge on a Friday afternoon by a set time is less a planned event and more of a truly misguided exercise in futility. But as I am an overtly hopeful and trusting human, and I had forgotten about the Northeast Corridor on May weekends. And as I sat on Rt. 84 in Connecticut, I watched the dash clock tick on. I called Commission on Ministry member on my tiny cell phone as I prayed for any available cell service, to let her know that I was in traffic and running late. And then called again and let her know that I would be later. And later.
This was not a social call, friends. This was part of a larger process of interviewing and engagement with the body who would framework my vocational future as I understood it then. I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of circumstances being completely outside of your control and watching the clock eat away at what was meant to be a professionally necessary meeting: but that was where my stomach was that afternoon.
I offered to reschedule for the following day, but she told me to come anyways. It might be a shorter meeting, but she said that it would be good for us to connect. I pulled up to her house sweaty and disheveled after 6pm. Completely embarrassed, creaky and cramped from the Gilligan’s Island three hour tour of the Mass Pike, and beelining it to the bathroom, I emerged to find that she had placed a sandwich and glass of lemonade on a table for me in her living room.
My instinct was to say ‘no thank you’ to any offer of kindness—I was already on my backfoot with my late arrival and was feeling so vulnerable and concerned about how this would appear as a reflection of my capacity for the priesthood. But it had been a day of no snacks in the car, and I took a bite of the sandwich.
Church—I can taste that sandwich to this day. She had put tomatoes on Iggy’s multigrain bread, and added mayo to one side of the bread, and hummus to the other. There may have been turkey involved or avocado. I had never eaten anything in that kind of combination before. And while I can still taste it, I promise you that I could not give you specific details of it. I do recall that it was cut into two triangles, the perfect shape, I will debate anyone, for easy sandwich consumption without getting one’s face messy. There was a folded napkin carefully tucked to the side of the plate.
I demolished the sandwich, while attempting to look like an adult human while doing it, a feat generally impossible when you are eating a tomato sandwich of any kind under any circumstances, nevermind stressful ones. She kept up a gentle small talk flow as I ate, which I practically appreciate now as allowing my blood sugar to re-establish itself and for my adrenaline to drop.
I do not recall the details of the conversation we had. I do recall powerfully that I felt like a new person when I left her house that evening. And nearly twenty years later, I’m telling you about how absolutely life changing that sandwich was.
We are at the 4th week of reading through the Gospel of Matthew’s tenth chapter. Jesus found and called Matthew, the tax collector, and ate with him and his coworkers to the shock of the Pharisees; he sent out his disciples telling them to cure and heal those they met, carrying nothing of backup. Jesus then warned his disciples about the challenges that await all disciples, and that a life of following him was not one which was easy. And in this fourth week of moving through this chapter on discipleship, Matthew doesn’t talk about how his disciples should welcome others; he instructs them on how to be welcomed themselves; how to be received. The longest teaching in Jesus’ ministry to date in the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t end with the exhortation to courage or persistence or bravery in face of danger: he ends it with an illustration about the disciples receiving a cup of water.
There is a reluctance in our transactional culture to accept hospitality and grace we believe we have neither earned nor have the capacity to reciprocate. Imagine showing up to social event after social event in people’s homes and eating their food without once bringing a host or hostess gift with you. If you felt a twinge of anxiety at all in imagining that scenario, a) you are not alone, and b) we can too easily intertwine thanksgiving for hospitality with a refusal to be vulnerable enough to be ministered to—believing that a bestowal of grace is a sneaky way of God getting the upper hand somehow on us.
And grace, for Jesus, is where the rubber hits the road—or the sandals hit the dirt, for the disciples. Discipleship isn’t about the grace we are empowered to give—but the grace we must be able to receive in order to fully align ourselves with a God who refused a transactional sacrifice, but poured Godself out without expectation of return on investment.
Week after week we practice this form of discipleship together: we hold our hands out at the altar rail or in our pews, surrounded by others doing so as well—and not one of us receives the bread or the wine or the prayer because we have been good enough, or because we deserve it, or because we are handing over a dollar in a pay to play scheme. Jesus’ injunctions to the disciples for these past weeks have ensured that we will know that we are found, and sent and warned—but also, that in order to share any Good News, we first have to be receivers of it; to offer grace, we are meant to experience how to receive it; in order to proclaim love, we must know how to recognize it as a gift without strings; strings of either our own or others’ knot tying.
We are always showing up to God’s presence late; sweaty; hungry and thirsty; anxious and tired; with no gift in hand. We tend to believe that in order to gain God’s love, we must have something in hand to present to God—to exchange; in order to receive favor. But what God wants most from God’s people, especially from God’s disciples, are open hands. Those who know what it is to open themselves and trust that grace will be forthcoming, which we cannot produce ourselves, but which relies inherently on another person sharing it with us. It might be the sacrament. It might be the best sandwich ever. It might be something which is only recognized in hindsight. I can confirm that it can never be predicted in advance or conveniently timed, and scripture will back me up on that one.
I have kept this sandwich in mind for twenty years. I have kept in mind that offer of grace. Not always willingly received, but transformed and transforming. My prayer is that we may all proffer our hands out in some way this week or in this season in your life—and just for a moment marvel at what has been placed in it— that you could not plan for or we could not create or manufacture ourselves. May God’s love for us, beginner disciples each one of us, appear as that small cup of water, gratefully received, and lovingly given away.
Amen.