Shouldering Samosas with Joy (5th Lent C)

A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at All Saints' Episcopal Church, Tybee Island, GA, on Sunday, April 6, 2025, which is the Fifth Sunday in Lent (RCL Year C).

Primary Bible Reading

(Click on April 6, 2025, to see all of the Lectionary Texts)

Psalm 126

1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, *then were we like those who dream.

2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *and our tongue with shouts of joy.

3 Then they said among the nations, *"The Lord has done great things for them."

4 The Lord has done great things for us, *and we are glad indeed.

5 Restore our fortunes, O Lord, *like the watercourses of the Negev.

6 Those who sowed with tears *will reap with songs of joy.

7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, *will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

Shouldering Samosas with Joy

By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA

When I was a seminary student at Duke Divinity School, before we were married, Rev. Kelly and I both lived in big houses with a lot of people. The two houses had connections to our local parish, St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Durham, NC, and they were both within a mile of the church. The men’s house and women’s house would have dinners together a few times per week, and they were intentionally open house invitations to the neighborhood. So, we regularly had to help put together meals for 15-25 people. 

A few of the people in the two houses were out of school and working full time. A few of us (like Kelly and I) were graduate students who made next to no money. And a few of our housemates were folks who had recently been homeless and didn’t have any income at all. Because this dinner ministry was related to St. Joseph’s, we sometimes got donations from other members, but, more often than not, we had to scrap it all together ourselves. I can’t explain it, but somehow, we seemed to always have enough food. There weren’t often leftovers, but everyone managed to get fed.

Most of these dinners started after a service of Evening Prayer at the church or at one of the houses. Between St. Joe’s, the two houses, and the Divinity School, many of us regularly prayed those Daily Office prayers from the Book of Common Prayer: Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline. These prayers became huge parts of my spiritual life and growth. They are a big part of how I came to fall in love with the Episcopal Church. Seeing the direct connections between prayer, community, and service helped me imagine new ways of being the Church, the hands and feet of the Body of Christ.

Psalm 126 is one of the three suggested psalms included in the Daily Noonday Prayer service, which starts on page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer. I can’t read Psalm 126 without thinking about Noonday Prayer and my community at St. Joseph’s. I certainly never read these prayers every single day, but we did it often enough that we started to mostly memorize short psalms like this one (and Psalm 121 and Psalm 119:105-112). Their words bounced around our heads all the time and seemed to pop up in unexpected times and places and remind us that God was with us. 

Psalm 126 is a celebration of God’s goodness after a horrible tragedy. “The Lord restored the fortunes of Zion” because Zion had been most unfortunate (Psalm 126:1). It’s about how the people of Jerusalem were restored after famines, wars, and exile. The Lord had suddenly “done great things for them,” or rather “The Lord has done great things for us” (Psalm 126:3-4). God surprised the psalmist with steadfast love and faithfulness, with healing and restoration, with undeserved grace and unexpected provision. The final metaphor is about a harvest. When they planted their seeds, they weren’t sure if they would make it through the winter; they sowed their seeds with tears. But God provided and they rejoiced that they could bring home sheaves and sheaves of grain, enough to feed themselves and their neighbors for another year.

This psalm came alive for us one night because God provided for us and our community houses in a completely unexpected way. One night, Kelly and I were walking home from an evening class. We couldn’t afford to buy food on campus very often, so most of the time we just had peanut butter sandwiches and some fruit to hold us over on long days like those. As we walked, we noticed a sign advertising a social event by the Asian American Student Union. It seemed like they were wrapping up because people were streaming out. As we walked by, one of them called out to us, “Hey, we have extra food that we’re going to throw out. Do you want any?” You probably know me well enough at this point to know that I don’t turn away food very often. We did not hesitate to accept their invitation. We went into the emptying classroom and discovered that they were not kidding. They had trays of catered Indian and Pakistani food that was unfinished; some trays were even unopened. At the group’s bidding, we helped ourselves to a plate. (Mind you, Kelly and I bonded over an Indian buffet on one of our first dates, so this was an especially yummy treat for us.)

Then, as we chatted with the other students, they asked if we have any use for the unopened leftovers. We explained that we had these community meals at our church, and they didn’t even let us finish explaining before they insisted that we take two full trays of samosas. A few minutes later, I was walking from Duke’s campus to Kelly’s house (which was thankfully just a few short blocks) with the samosa trays on my shoulder. And because we are church nerds, our first thought was: The Lord has done great things for us! We are coming home with joy shouldering samosas! Those samosas went into the deep freezer, and they became back up food for community meals for the next couple of months. Many hungry mouths were fed from the harvest that night.

Psalm 126 had come to life for us. God’s surprising and abundant grace became real for us in a brand new way. God was generous to us through a completely secular student group who had never met us, but decided to shower us with blessings. God provided for hungry people over and over again in the years we lived in those houses. But this time, it kind of felt like God was showing off.

How can we celebrate the great things God is doing for us today? How can we rejoice at how God has restored us? Or maybe you aren’t in the mood for celebration. Maybe you are still sowing seeds mixed with tears, and you are barely clinging onto hope. Maybe you are crying out for healing and restoration, and it hasn’t come yet. Psalms like this are a reminder that God has been faithful, and God will be faithful again. God’s blessings show up when we least expect them. Have you ever been surprised by God’s grace and goodness? Pay attention, and you might end up shouldering those blessings and singing with joy all the way home.